Phoenix's Fics

Eyes On You - PDA exposes one of Connor's kinks (Connor x reader x Murphy, smut)

A Nightmare On Elm Street

The Hollow Folk - Dying in the dream world means the nightmares never end, but even fear can't last forever. (Freddy x Nancy, smut)

The Boondock Saints

Getting Mouthy - Murphy isn't the only one in trouble when he runs his mouth (Murphy x reader, smut adjacent)

The Grocery List - In which Connor learns not to snoop (Connor x reader, smut adjacent)

Just Being Neighborly - a locked door, a broken elevator, and the beginning of a night they’ll barely remember (Connor x Renata x Murphy)

Last Rites - the Saints’ final mission (angst, MCD)

Starving - Connor and Murphy loving on their lady (Connor x reader x Murphy, smut)

Two Saints and an Archer - Connor and Murphy MacManus were vigilantes on a mission from God before the zombie outbreak, now God only knows how they ended up with Daryl Dixon, reclusive redneck and crossbow extraordinaire. There’s no doubt the three of them can survive the apocalypse, but can they survive each other? (gen fic, crack, crossover)

Warrior Shepherds - They were called to destroy evil, but crossing paths with a wayward soul meant compromise. And in compromising, the MacManus brothers get more than they bargained for. (Connor x Renata x Murphy)

The Phantom of the Opera

Another Alternate Ending - didn't the Persian give Raoul a gun? (gen fic, crack)

Supernatural

A Dangerous Game - Ten years. No more and no less. Now the clock has run out and it’s time to negotiate a new deal with the King of Hell. (Crowley x OFC/reader)

A Work Of Art - after sealing the rift and trapping himself in an alternate dimension, Crowley gets the chance to observe humanity (Crowley x plus-size reader, fluff)

The Familiar Winchester - a spell of Rowena’s has unexpected results (gen crack, Sam and Dean)

The Fast Lane - After Rowena’s magic brought her back from the dead, Charlie still can’t find any peace. On the open road, with the witch as her reluctant companion, there’s no telling where she’ll find it. (gen hurt/comfort, Charlie and Rowena)

Friction - Friction: 1.) the clashing between two persons or parties of opposing views, 2.) the force that resists motion between two bodies in contact (Crowley x Gemma, smut)

Geek Squad - It's a quiet afternoon in the bunker until disaster strikes. (gen humor, Sam and Dean)

Going Up - "One aspect of humanity it was taking time to get used to was how bloody slowly they had to move." (Dean x Crowley, smut adjacent)

Graceless - After his release from the Winchesters’ dungeon, Crowley’s hold on the throne of Hell is more vulnerable than ever. Determined to strengthen his claim, he seeks to produce an heir with his mistress, young Annabel Allan, a human with no family and a powerful secret she doesn’t know she keeps. (Crowley x Annabel)

Heir Of Nothing In Particular - On the edge of another apocalypse, Cas and Crowley contemplate life, emotion, and all things human. (gen fic, Cas and Crowley)

Hell And Apathy - “Sam and Dean, but not her Sam and Dean…she trusted her friends with her life, and whatever the hell was going on with them right now…they were far from the men she knew.” (demon!Dean x reader x soulless!Sam, smut)

Howling - “The court was nearly returned to normal…as normal as Hell can get, at least…” (gen, Crowley and demon!Dean)

If You Need Anything - when everything starts getting to you, your friend Cas is there to help you keep going (Castiel x reader, hurt/comfort)

Knock First - no one ever said hunting was glamorous, especially not when working with a demon who loves pushing people's buttons (Crowley x reader, humor)

Original Prankster - Your favorite fictional hunter turns up in your kitchen, and your boyfriend knows more about it than he’s letting on (Gabriel x reader, crack)

Pie and Produce - kitchen fluff (Dean x Tara, fluff)

Ridiculous And Needy - “You really need to lock your doors. Anybody could sneak into your room and leave a few surprises in your closet.” (Crowley x reader, smut adjacent)

Roadside Assistance - “…when Crowley got the text from the bunker’s other resident, he didn’t think anything of it…” (Crowley x reader, FicFacers 2020)

She’s Buying A Stairway To Heaven - “His grip felt a lot more reassuring than any stranger’s had her entire life, but she supposed being menaced by a girl who committed suicide fifty years prior had a way of making things like that a little less odd.” (gen casefic, Dean and OFC)

Something You Don’t Know - a few mishaps on a hunt leads to a few confessions (Sam Winchester x reader, fluff)

Topeka Calling - Cas has caller ID. That hunter from Topeka has an itch. Dean just wants a refill. (gen humor, Cas and Dean)

Welcoming Committee - A tragedy prompts a new start for Sam and his son Jack (fluff AU, Sam and Charlie)

Why Can't There Be A Santa? - "There's no point in wasting that, because there's no bearded guy in a red suit coming to drink it." (gen fluff, Weechesters)

With The Touch Of A Button - One last End Of All Things, one last solution (gen crack, Team Free Will 2.0)

The Walking Dead

Bad Influence - “Her warmth was sinking under his skin until it felt like a little fire flickering through him…her voice soft and her words so full of that hope he was starting to think nothing could destroy…” (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

Blue Into Black - Beth was a good girl, but something about Daryl Dixon made her want to be bad. Sequel to "I Don't Mind" (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

Can't Tell Her No - Beth found something in her cell, and she can't wait to try them out (Beth x Daryl, smut)

Caught Staring - Beth goes for a walk in the prison yard (Summer of Bethyl 2018)

Entertaining - Beth is expecting two certain someones for dinner, and nothing could possibly go wrong (AU, Brickyl Week 2018)

Get Bit - Maybe if he’d just left that damn door closed… (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

I Don't Mind - He’d never done anything like this before, never had an ongoing thing with someone. Whatever this “thing” was, cause damned if he knew. He’d never wanted to hold someone’s hand before, and he’d damn sure never wanted to kiss someone…not before Beth. (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

Keep Singing - Daryl in Alexandria (Beth x Daryl, angst)

One More Song - The war is over and peace has been a long time coming, and it comes with someone Daryl thought he’d never see again (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

The Parting Glass - a long night with memories and regrets (Negan x Lucille, angst)

Robin and Marian - They called him Robin Hood… (AU, Beth x Daryl)

Rushing, Racing, Running - They always had to be ready to run (Summer of Bethyl 2018)

Take Care Of It - Beth has been thinking about Daryl, and she’s kept it to herself so far. Now, though, she might let him hear about it. (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

Talk Like That - You don’t talk back to him like that and get away with it. (Negan x reader, smut)

Trade You - “He needed somewhere to cool off, somewhere with a decent breeze that wasn’t crowded with people seeking his attention…” (Negan x Wendy)

Wake Up, Dollface - Negan visits after a shared glance (Negan x OFC, smut)

While You're Awake - Daryl can't sleep, and Beth doesn't want to. (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

Why Ain't I Running - They never built a wall that high/Or made a chain that strong/And God ain’t never made a place/I felt like I belong (Bethyl Smut Week 2018)

At the moment, though, the boys weren’t thinking about dinner. The apparent leader, a bleach-blond clad head to toe in black, surveyed the masses for likely entertainment. In his wake, a young man with long, glossy dark hair many a girl would kill for, eyed the rides and the games, most of the latter being rigged and all of the former much less exciting than the ride it took to get to the boardwalk in the first place. At his shoulder, the last two boys—one with a sandy lion’s mane and the other with gold ringlets—pointed out the more attractive onlookers to each other and gave many a sly grin and cheeky wink.

“Well,” David finally said over his shoulder to Dwayne, “what do you think?”

Dwayne pulled a face. “Seems dead right now,” he answered. “Maybe give it an hour or so and then—”

All four boys exchanged looks, then David shrugged and led the way forward.

He fell silent as a commotion ahead reached them. Raised voices further up the boardwalk—no, just one raised voice—rose above the music and the games and the rides with a fervor bordering on mania.

The movement of the crowd slowed to a trickle as a knot of people gathered around the lone speaker. Judging by the intensity of his cadence and the expressions on the faces of his audience, he was either delivering a dramatic monologue or giving a fire-and-brimstone sermon. And the way a handful of onlookers were nodding along and even chorusing “amen,” the sermon was looking more likely.

The boys broke to the front of the crowd and Paul laughed. “It’s so cute when they leave the pulpit and mingle with the flock.”

“There is a disease among us, friends,” the speaker insisted. He was a well-groomed, middle aged man, clean shaven and going gray at the temples and dressed like any moderately successful red-blooded American male.

”Someone tell Max this guy broke into his wardrobe,” Marko joked, and the other three laughed at the suggestion.

The final, most important detail, and the only thing that set the speaker apart from his audience, was the bible clutched in his hand and the gold cross pinned to his lapel, set just above an enamel American flag.

“A disease,” the sidewalk prophet went on, “and the afflicted walk among the vulnerable and unsuspecting. Satan himself is at work in Santa Carla, claiming our sons and daughters for his army! These devil’s minions, they feed on our children and turn them from God’s light!”

Dwayne nudged Paul and Marko grinned at David before interjecting, just loud enough to be overheard, “Oh no! That’s awful!”

The preacher latched onto it like a hound chasing after a fox. “It’s terrible, indeed. These people, they can’t abide in holiness, and so they prey on others to sustain themselves, on good people just like—”

His eyes finally fell on the four boys, all watching him with knowing smirks, and he faltered. A murmur that was more feeling than sound rippled through the crowd, and a few abandoned the throng altogether now that the new masters had come to claim the captive audience’s attention.

“People just like…just like you, young man,” the preacher went on, trying to pick up the dangling threads of his sermon. “They belong to the devil, and they infect the unwary with their disease.”

Paul put a hand over his mouth in mock horror.

“But sir,” Marko asked, putting on an innocent, angelic expression that clashed horribly with the boys’ grins, “isn’t there anything we can do to keep safe from these people?”

The preacher swallowed hard and clutched absently at his bible. “Cling—” He cleared his throat and tried again, “Cling to the Lord and his works, young man. Turn your back on vice and sin. These devils roam the dark and chaos, in places like this very boardwalk, where they hunt in plain sight.”

“Sounds like you’re in danger out here right now, Father,” David pointed out, his smile never faltering.

Sweat glistened on the preacher’s brow. He swiped a hand absently across his forehead and held the bible aloft. “He sent me, son, to cast a light to those in need. I go where he sends me.”

Dwayne tapped David on the shoulder and nodded his head across the way. At the outermost edge of the crowd, boardwalk security had arrived to see what the commotion was. David nodded and motioned to the other two, and all four boys moved along, Marko with a wave to the preacher and Paul blowing him a kiss.

“I wonder what that could have been about,” David mused as they strolled away.

“He sounded pretty sure of himself,” Paul commented lightly.

“Sure of what, exactly?” Marko asked, still so innocent.

“Maybe we ought to ask him and find out,” Dwayne suggested.

“Maybe so,” David agreed. He quirked an eyebrow and gave a half-smile. “Maybe later?”

The other three shared a laugh and a grin, and they all melted away into the crowd.

***

The Santa Carla boardwalk was deserted. The lights were turned out, and the stars owned the sky again. The rides were still and quiet, sleeping giants beside the ocean. The only sound that remained now that humanity had surrendered the boardwalk was the crash of the surf and the sigh of the wind.

The preacher had stayed until the last of the crowd, the very last person who could possibly hear his message, vanished for the night. And it had been a long night, indeed. Security moved him along from his chosen pulpit twice when the crush around him got too unruly. He was dismissed, ignored, and ridiculed more often than he was taken seriously. His voice was hoarse from speaking and his feet and back were sore from standing for hours on end. It was a small price to pay, though. If his message got through to even one of the folks out on the boardwalk, then it was all worth it. Every soul he steered out of the clutches of evil was a soul saved.

He heaved a sigh that turned into a yawn and kept walking to his car. It had been a long night, but it was time well spent. He nodded to himself as the thought occurred to him and cast his eyes to the sky in a silent prayer of thanks.

There was time to register four dark figures swooping down like avenging angels before something seized him in a grip of steel and pulled him into the air so fast it never crossed his mind to scream. The rush of the wind in his ears wasn’t enough to drown out the cheers and laughter from the…were they angels?

His eyes adjusted to the deepened darkness and he let out a cry of horror.

Their faces were all jutting bones and harsh shadows. Their eyes burned with malice and hellfire. And their teeth…oh sweet Lord, their teeth…

“Evening, Father,” one of them said with a grin that made the preacher’s blood run cold. “What brings you out here so late?”

“It’s not safe out here, Father,” another one added. “There are all sorts of devils on the boardwalk.”

They all laughed again and the preacher recognized them. They were the teenagers he had spoken to earlier that night, the ones that seemed to repel you even as they lured you in despite your best instincts. And there was no way they were even human.

David had snatched the preacher from the ground and hauled him into the air, but now that the surprise of their appearance had worn off, the man screamed and fought to free himself. With a sharp whistle to the others, David let go and their prey tumbled through space before Paul caught him, then flung him to Dwayne, who tossed him to Marko, who dangled him upside down by one leg. The rest of the boys closed in and the preacher looked from one face to the next with renewed terror.

“Interesting sermon, Padre,” Paul remarked. “I really liked the part about those minions of the devil who feed on God’s children.”

“What are you people?” the preacher demanded frantically.

“You sure you don't already know?” Dwayne asked by way of answer.

“You seemed to know an awful lot,” Marko added. “All about people like us, hunting in plain sight and infecting the unwary with our disease…”

The preacher stammered unintelligibly in response and David lunged closer to seize him by the shirtfront. Marko let go and the preacher twisted and dropped, latching both hands onto David’s arm and looking fearfully at the ground so far away.

“What else do you know about people like us?” David asked.

“I don’t think he was expecting the joyride,” Paul replied.

“I don’t think he’s even seen one of us before,” Dwayne pointed out. “Look at him! He’s pissed himself!”

“I don’t even know what you people are!” the preacher burst out.

“Vampires, Father,” Marko told him with a smile that was a lot less angelic with his true face on display. “Roaming the boardwalk in search of sons and daughters to feed on.”

“It’s kinda like grocery shopping,” Paul added helpfully.

“Vampires?” the preacher repeated.

“Well, yeah,” David said. “You seem surprised to see us, for someone who knows so much about our kind.”

The preacher burst into tears. “I wasn’t talking about you! I swear! I didn’t even know you were real, I swear it, oh God, please—”

“Not talking about us?” Marko said thoughtfully. “Huh. Interesting.”

“So, who were you warning your adoring public about?” Paul asked.

“The-The degenerates,” the preacher sobbed. “Homosexuals and sodomites! They turn honest folk against nature and now they’re spreading their plague into our communities!”

The boys floated in silence for a moment, listening to the preacher’s wails.

Then David spoke. “Degenerates? Sodomites? You hear that, boys? I think the good reverend just called us faggots.”

Paul shook his head and tutted in disapproval. Marko closed his eyes and put a hand over his heart as if wounded. “That’s a really hateful thing to say, Father,” Dwayne chided.

“Pretty mean,” David agreed.

“So rude,” Paul chimed in.

“I thought you preachers were supposed to be all ‘love thy neighbor,’” Marko sighed. “I don’t feel very loved right now…”

“I'm sorry,” the preacher said in a terrified whisper, looking more panicked than ever. “I'm sorry, I take it all back, just don’t hurt me and I’ll never say a word about it again—”

“Nah, I don’t think ‘sorry’ is going to cut it, Father,” David said. “See, now you’ve hurt Marko’s feelings.”

“And nobody hurts Marko’s feelings,” Paul added.

The preacher glanced over at Marko, who smiled at him, elegant and deadly teeth on full display.

If you happened to be on the beach that night and you happened to look up, you might have seen several dark shapes high up in the sky. They were the wrong size and shape for birds, but you still might have called them that with no other reason to argue otherwise. They passed something back and forth between them, like strange gulls who found an interesting piece of trash on the shore and decided to play catch with it for a while. They seemed to grow bored with it after a moment or two and let it fall back to earth with a disturbingly loud thud, then vanished deeper into the sky.

Of course, if you knew a few particular things about Santa Carla, you would know better than to be on the beach after dark. And you certainly wouldn’t go investigating any strange shapes in the sky, or what they left behind them in the sand below.

She turned to the man who had spoken. It felt safe to assume he was a doctor, given the pristine white coat, and he watched her with an air of studied patience and expectancy with a clipboard balanced on his knee. "Have you been having strange dreams again?"

"How did I get here?" she demanded. "How long have I been here?"

"Quite some time, I'm afraid," he replied. "As for how, you had a pretty serious breakdown after all the…" There was a brief pause while he searched for words, then he sighed and spread his hands. "The tragedy."

Nancy's mouth felt dry, and it nearly hurt to push the word out. "Tragedy?"

"Your friends' deaths and your mother's sudden passing." He gave her a shrewd look that pierced her to the marrow of her bones. "Don't you remember?"

She shot to her feet so fast her head spun with the movement, exacerbated by her pivot toward the door. She didn't stop to steady herself, but hurried to leave the room.

"Where are you going, Nancy?" the doctor asked, the professional tone undercut by a note of malicious glee.

She ignored him, seized the handle, and gave it a frantic twist. The door remained closed.

"You can't leave, Nancy," he added, and though she had her back to him, his voice signaled his slow approach.

"The hell I can't!" she raged, banging her fist against the unyielding steel. "Let me out of here!"

A shadow fell upon the door over her shoulder of a thin man, and she froze at the sight of the clear outline of a hat on his head.

"You'd better finish the session," he told her as he set a hand on her shoulder, a hand wearing an old leather glove ending in four long knives attached to the fingers. "Doctor's orders."

Fear sheathed daggers into her chest and Nancy let out a gasp as she tried to twist away. Krueger moved faster, though, and her gasp became a scream as he yanked her away from the door and next thing she knew, she was falling backwards through empty air, further and further…

It's just a dream…it's a dream, and I can wake up any time I want…

She set her mind to consciousness, and with a titanic effort, she pulled herself upright—

She sat up on the couch and looked around. No locked doors, no hospital, just her mother's living room.

It was all just a dream.

Nancy heaved a sigh and fell back onto the pillow still propped against the arm of the couch. Nothing to worry about, just some stupid dream. She had fallen asleep downstairs again. She might as well go up to her own room.

Stifling a yawn, she climbed the carpeted stairs and decided to look in on her mother before she went to bed. It wasn't like her to leave Nancy on the couch without trying to rouse her…

She laid her hand on the doorknob and a vision pressed itself into her mind like a branding iron—her mother, body charred and burnt, hand reaching out helplessly before she sank into her bed and vanished.

Nancy's blood ran cold. No, no, that was just another terrible dream so vivid it had only seemed real, even after all these years—

Years?

She clutched the doorknob to anchor herself as she untangled the malaise of sleep, dreams and reality twisting into knots. Yes, there had been years of bad dreams, all through college and certainly when she started working at the hospital. She had always been at war with her dreams, ever since…

Her heart skipped and then raced, and she flung open the bedroom door in defiance of reality itself—

The hellish glow of a nearby furnace cast long and flickering shadows everywhere, and instead of carpet, there was the hard and unyielding steel of a catwalk beneath her feet. Not her mother's bedroom in the house she grew up in. This was his boiler room.

"A dream," she repeated out loud. "I'm going to wake up now." Yet the rust corroding the metal railing felt unavoidably real against her hands, as did the pain that lanced through her with the very next step she took.

A low, coarse chuckle floated on the air, followed by the ear-splitting screech of metal scraping across metal.

"Fuck you, Krueger!" she shouted. "I'm not scared of you!"

The chuckle grew into a cackle and she clapped her hands over her ears to block out the sound of his knives grating over the pipes that lined the walls. Don't be afraid, she told herself. Don't give him that power.

"Naaancyyy…" The hoarse drawl echoed to her and his shadow fell on the floor as he stepped in front of the boiler, his figure darkened by the fire behind him but his silhouette unmistakable. He raised his gloved hand and waggled his fingers so the blades slithered across each other. "You awake yet?"

She closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. "I'm going to count down," she told herself, "and then I'm going to wake up."

Krueger laughed again, even louder than before. She ignored him and concentrated. "Five…four…three…two…one…" She opened her eyes, and she still stood in the boiler room. Krueger, however, had disappeared.

Panic coiled tightly in her gut and she whirled around in search of him while still willing herself to wake up. Why wasn't she waking up?

"Hey, Nancy."

She screamed at the sudden voice in her ear and tried to run, stumbling in her haste and crashing to the floor. She threw a glance over her shoulder and there he was, a sly grin on his ruined face as he stared down at her. "You're forgetting something," he taunted as he brandished his knives, and in the glow of the furnace, she could see blood dripping from the steel.

Another wave of pain rocked through her as she tried to stand, so great it sent her back to the floor. Terrified of what she would find, Nancy put her hand to her stomach. Her sweater felt damp, the yarn mangled as if torn… She looked down, slowly lifting the garment to expose her midriff, and let out a cry of anguish and disgust.

Four identical stab wounds in her belly ran with far too much blood, blood that was slowly drying into a thick, dark crust on her skin. Even worse, the wounds themselves teemed with maggots that crawled and wriggled over each other to feast on her.

She frantically swatted at the maggots to clear the wounds and apply pressure to slow the bleeding but they were everywhere, multiplying as fast as she could get them away, and then it wasn't just maggots but worms and beetles and dirt mounding on top of her… She tried to breathe, but the weight of it on her chest wouldn't allow it, and when she opened her mouth to scream, she choked on the vermin and loose earth that rushed in.

It's a dream, goddammit! It's not real! He's not real!

Yet as it was, bloody and wounded and buried alive with Krueger's gleeful laughter still echoing in her ears, Nancy struggled to make herself believe it. The pain in her gut, the smell of the grave, the building pressure in her chest as her lungs shrieked for air were too tangible and immediate…she had to get free before her terror got the best of her despite herself.

She gathered enough strength to move her limbs through the soil, arms reaching above her head and legs maneuvering to push herself to the surface. She kept her eyes shut tight and her progress felt agonizingly slow…her hands pulled while her feet pushed…it seemed like a midpoint between climbing and swimming…then less of a climb as she found her rhythm and moved more fluidly…

Her chest was ready to burst open and she opened her mouth to breathe before she could stop herself. Water flooded in and mixed with the dirt she had already swallowed and she gagged on the mud as she broke the surface. She splashed and thrashed in search of something to grab onto, coughing and gasping as she finally dragged air into her lungs.

It was too dark to see, but she could hear everything: the dull crash of the waves, the eerie hiss of the wind, and just beneath that, the persistent whisper of overlapping voices calling her name.

Nancy…Nancy…Nancy…

Something bumped her shoulder and she grabbed onto it to float while she struggled to see around her. He had to be out here somewhere. He needed her to be afraid, but she could outlast him…she could hold on until the dream was over…

"Nancy…"

She let out a startled scream. It wasn't some random bit of flotsam she held. It was a body. "Nancy," it murmured again, more insistently as it reached its hands out of the water to clutch at her, and she flailed backwards out of its grasp.

"Nancy, it's me," it said, and her eyes finally made out the face.

"Tina?"

The short blonde hair hung limp and sparse, the features were sunken and hollow, and the skin was pallid and waxy, but the body floating next to Nancy was her best friend's. Nancy's heart still raced with shock, but her relief was palpable. Tina was dead, slashed in her sleep by Fred Krueger, and it wasn't the first time her corpse had visited Nancy's dreams. This isn't real…

"Nancy," Tina said, her eyes glassy and her hands still reaching, "why didn't you stop him? He killed me, Nancy, and you didn't stop him…"

"I did!" Keeping her legs kicking to stay afloat, Nancy took Tina's hand and found it cold and slippery. "I got him, Tina! I brought him out of a dream and I killed the son of a bitch!"

"Not soon enough."

Nancy twisted around at the sound of the new voice. Rod floated nearby, a bedsheet rope still wound around his neck and accusations in his lifeless eyes. "We're still dead meat, aren't we? A lot of fucking good you did us."

"Rod, I'm sorry—"

"You're sorry?"

Nancy's heart sank. She didn't have to see him to know the sound of his voice, but she turned to face Glen anyway. He was drenched in what she could only assume was his own blood, and his voice was cold and hard. "My mother found me, Nancy, whatever there was left of me to find. And you just sat across the street and let it happen."

"No! That's not true, I tried, I–" Nancy broke off with a shriek of frustration. "God, this isn't real! I want to wake up!"

One last corpse appeared floating in the water with the rest of her tormentors, her friends, and it spoke softly, almost kindly. "You're not going to wake up, Nancy."

Nancy let out a sob and stilled her limbs for a moment, too stricken to keep herself afloat. Marge Thompson was nearly unrecognizable. Her face was a horror of charred skin and livid blisters. Her hair was burned away, as was her nose. One of her eyes had melted in the socket and left a trail of fluid running down her blackened cheek. She lifted a hand to stroke her daughter's face, and Nancy could imagine the streak of ash her touch left behind.

"You're not dreaming, baby," she said, her tone regretful but firm. "You're dead."

Nancy screamed and struck out wildly to push them all away. "No! It's just a dream! It's not real, it's just a dream!"

Someone grabbed her wrist in a painful grip and she heard that terrible voice again. "Oh, it's real, Nancy."

She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to see or to relinquish her dying hope as her mother and friends faded away and a new figure materialized in the water with her. Yet there was no mistaking the stroke of a blade across her cheek where her mother had touched her moments before, the edge honed so sharp she felt the blood flow before the sting of the cut itself.

He released her wrist and seized her by the throat, then yanked her close enough to lick the blood from her face with one long, agonizingly slow movement of his tongue. She gave a cry of revulsion and he snarled into her ear, "You're mine now, bitch."

And he shoved her down under the water.

Too many hands to count grabbed her and dragged her further under, their faces indistinct in the darkness, and Nancy couldn't begin to fight them. Couldn't even try. The weight of reality crushing in on her stole her breath and stilled her heartbeat, heavier than the water bearing down on her. But how could she have ever thought it was water, with the stink of it in her nose and the metallic bite of it on her tongue? She was sinking into a sea of blood, while the wound in her belly seared with fresh agony as if it was brand new…

As if he was killing her all over again…

She tried to scream but no sound came out as her mouth and lungs flooded with blood. She descended faster and faster, and the hands pulling her down hardly had to touch her to speed her along. The pain of the knife wounds escalated until she thought she was splitting in half. And the fear was everywhere…filling, surrounding, tearing, drowning, crushing, suffocating—

She fell to her bedroom floor with a painful thump, banging her head against the nightstand and biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Sweat drenched her skin, and her pajamas were nearly soaked through with it. She froze for an instant, then frantically put her hands to her wounds to find none at all. She was whole and undamaged.

She heaved a sigh and lay still for a moment as she tried to get her bearings, one hand over her heart while it raced out of control. A nightmare, that was all it was. A bad one, for sure, but nothing more. Her head hurt and she trembled with the echoes of her fear, but at least she was awake now.

When she felt steady enough to get to her feet, she picked herself off the floor and gingerly pressed her fingers to the knot on her head left from her collision with the nightstand. She should probably get some ice on it, and take some aspirin while she was at it.

She turned to her bedroom door to head for the kitchen—

The room tilted and she slammed to the floor, then slid under the bed. The world shifted around her until it had turned entirely on its axis and once again, her bedroom was gone. The cool darkness yielded to flickering shadows, the silence exploded into creaking metal and hissing steam, and the carpeting gave way to steel catwalks as she half slid, half fell, to strike the railing alongside.

Bones cracked on impact but she had no breath to scream her pain, the wind knocked from her lungs by the landing. Gravity threatened to pull her topsy turvy and she clung to the rail with every last ounce of strength as she looked down. The impossible angle of the boiler room had her dangling above an enormous furnace, the door thrown wide on the ferocious blaze within.

The catwalk shook beneath Nancy's hands and footsteps echoed nearby. She tore her eyes away from the fire to see Krueger approach again, unaffected by the twisted physics of the place and stalking along the catwalk with a wicked grin. He reached her and tapped his knives against the rail next to her hands as if drumming his fingers. "Well, isn't this a treat?" he said as he stared down at her. "So good of you to drop in, Nancy."

Her grip faltered a moment as her strength waned. Her racing heart almost stopped and she clutched the rail tighter. The heat of the fire was unbearable—she could almost feel her skin blistering, and the fabric of her clothes was so hot it was like they were already burning.

He leaned forward with his elbows on the rail, arms folded so he could keep teasing her with the knives. "Still think you're dreaming?" he asked, and he ran the tip of a blade across the backs of her fingers. She flinched at the cuts and he examined the blood left on the gleaming steel. "What do you think happens when you die dreaming?"

"Fuck you!" she shouted, though it came out panicked rather than defiant. Her arms shook and her shoulders ached and the fire below her was so hot and oh God, please, she couldn't fall—

He licked the blood from the knife and answered, "You don't fucking wake up."

She slipped from the rail and his laughter reverberated with her scream as she plummeted through the air into the fire.

Her first foolish thought was It's not even that hot. The flames licking at her skin were nothing more than a warm breeze enveloping her and tugging at her hair and clothes. When the pain came, though, there was no more room for thought. It seared, then it stung, with the stink of scorched hair and cooking meat heavy enough to taste. She felt her eyes dry in the heat before they burst with an awful pop. She screamed and screamed until the flames reached her throat and she couldn't scream at all. It was a small mercy that it wasn't long before everything felt cold, much in the way freezing to death begins to feel hot. It was the knowledge that she was burning that undid her. Krueger had killed her in the dream world already, and whether she was afraid or not didn't matter anymore. The nightmare would go on and on and on and—

The ringing of an alarm clock pierced the roar of the furnace, and Nancy was no longer burning. The boiler room was gone, and she was back in her bed once more.

No, this couldn't be right…he was playing with her again…

Certain she was tempting fate but unsure what else to do, she asked, voice quivering, hardly daring to breathe, "Hello?"

There was no answer at first and then came the harsh reply, "Right here, bitch."

He seized her by the arm and yanked her backward onto the bed, raising his glove to strike. Nancy caught his wrist with both hands to keep him at arm's length as he brought the blades down, but he was stronger than she was and she was already shaking with the effort of holding him off.

Krueger leaned in, his weight on top of her slowly pushing his knives closer and closer. "Keep fighting, Nance," he told her, and the hoarse growl of his voice reminded her of what it felt like to burn. "Fight as long as you like, 'cause you and I got nothing…but…time…"

He stabbed her through the chest, and all she could do was wait for the nightmare to begin again.

***

Time didn't mean anything anymore, and so Nancy had no idea of how long the cycle of torment continued. He burned her, buried her, cut her, stabbed her, drowned her, slashed her, and when he got bored of that he started getting creative. She was an unwilling toy in his carnival of horrors, and he gorged on her anguish.

How long was it until she grew numb to everything he did to her? There were only so many times he could kill her before it started to lose its impact. And once she was over the shock and despair of her situation, rage at the injustice of it began to set in. She didn't deserve to spend eternity trapped in limbo, but especially not with the bastard who put her there! The longer she dwelled on it, the angrier she got, and the more time she spent as Krueger's plaything, the more she wanted to take that glove and shove it up his—

He slashed at her for what had to be the thousandth time, though who would have been keeping count anyway—but the blades came up short.

They both froze in surprise, and Nancy didn't have to question the confusion on his face. They had been through this scenario so many times before: he stalked her through the boiler room (why did she still bother to run anymore?) and trapped her in a dead end corridor (she could have jumped from the catwalk to the floor below and prolonged the chase, but what was the point of it anyway?). He taunted her with his knives as usual, and while the screech and scrape as he dragged them over the walls used to terrify her, now she was just annoyed with the racket. When he finally closed in mere inches from her and brushed the backs of the blades across her skin as if deciding where to cut her first, hate extinguished whatever embers of fear still burned inside her and, fed up with the entire pantomime, she finally snapped, "Enough with the foreplay, Krueger. Stick me and get it over with already."

The jab, unexpected as it was, provoked the slash that should have—and had in the past—sliced through both of her eyes, and its failure to land stopped them in their tracks.

She glanced at the glove, then back at him. He hadn't missed. There was no way he could have, close as he was, yet those razors never touched her. Why? "Getting shy after all this time?" she asked. "Or getting bored and trying to make it interesting?"

"I'll give you 'interesting,' little shit," he sneered, and he swung at her again. And yet again, the blow didn't connect. Nancy saw the knives heading towards her one moment before momentum carried them away without so much as grazing her in the next.

How was this happening? "You sure about that?" she egged him on, and she stepped even closer in a taunt of her own. "Are you even trying anymore? Come on, Krueger, not even one little scratch?"

He let out a growl of frustration as he lunged and she made no attempt to dodge, but it didn't matter. There was no cut, no stab, no injury of any kind. She grabbed his arm before he could try again. "Here, let me help you out," she said, and she swiped her palm across one of the blades. Blood flowed from the cut in an instant and she held her hand up as evidence. "See? It's not that hard. I think you're losing your touch."

"Bitch! How the fuck are you—" He swung and clawed, but the only blood drawn remained what Nancy drew herself. His every attempt missed her, or passed through her altogether…just like things do in a dream…

It was so simple. The nightmare would go on forever, but what was a nightmare if not just another dream? He couldn't do anything more to her than what he already had, so there was nothing else to be afraid of. The only way he could hurt her was if she allowed it.

It was her dream, after all.

"Pathetic!" she burst out in victory, shoving him in the chest and forcing him back several steps. "Big bad child killer Freddy Krueger can't land a hit in his own domain? I thought this was your whole thing, asshole! Running out of steam already? Can't keep it up anymore?"

"You fucking cunt!" he shouted back with a few more futile slashes with his glove. "I'll hang you by your entrails and feed you your own shit! You'll fucking beg for—"

"For what? For what, fucker? What can you do that you haven't already? You're a fucking joke!"

He gave up on the glove and seized her by the arms while the boiler room shifted around them; the open furnace roared hungrily next to them, and he moved to throw her inside. She clutched at his sweater and pulled him in with her, but before the fire could touch them the room changed again, dissolving into darkness before it resolved into Nancy's bedroom.

They landed together on the bed, each grappling to pin the other while the room flickered around them, bedroom to boiler room and back again. He held her down and raised his glove, and the heat and grime of his lair surrounded them; she threw him off and rolled to switch their positions, and the cool and dark of her room returned.

"I can do this all day, you bastard," she swore as she glared down at him. Fury and adrenaline fused together to leave her heart racing and her hands shaking, and she couldn't tell if the greater rush was the fight itself or that she could finally fight back. She had let herself be afraid for so long, she had forgotten they had only ever been in a clash of wills. And hers had always been stronger.

"Did you forget you're in my world?" he shot back and the light from the furnace glowed menacingly as he tried to shove her away.

She straddled him and pressed him into the bed, hands pinning his arms as she leaned forward. The firelight died and her voice was sharp with conviction. "No, you forgot you're in my dream."

Goddamn, but it was exhilarating to have the upper hand. Animal triumph merged with her anger, carried through her with every breath until she felt electrified with it, and she laughed for the first time in ages. "Not so funny when you're the one getting fucked with, is it?"

He spat out a mouthful of unintelligible profanity and twisted beneath her to roll her onto her back; she tightened her hold on him and threw her weight into sustaining their momentum until she was on top again. "Or maybe that's it," she taunted. "The knives, the posturing, it's all compensating for something, right? You had to kill me because you couldn't fuck me, is that it?"

"You smartass little—"

"Ha! That's it, isn't it? What's the matter, Fred? Can't get it up?" She shifted and swayed to grind on his cock, and the thrill she felt wasn't entirely physical. "Is this doing anything for you, or do you prefer kids?"

"Stupid slut! You wait 'til I'm done with you!”

"You can't do shit, and we both know it."

He reached for her throat with both hands but she caught him and slammed his wrists down at either side of his head. She wanted to keep rocking herself against him until that whisper of pleasure still echoing through her turned into a scream, but she held still. Her heart was still racing and her breath still came up short, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath her as proof their struggle had taken something out of him as well.

Or maybe it was something else… He was hard, or at least well on the way, and she didn't doubt that he got off on the violence. And yet something about being the one in power after being at his mercy for so long left her hungry in a way she had all but forgotten. No, hungry didn't quite cut it. She was starving, after so much fear and pain, for anything else. And at the moment, she didn't even care that the only food to be had was Fred Krueger.

"So tell me, Freddy," she said, voice thick with reckless lust she didn't bother to question, "what can you do?"

Without a second thought, she released him. And after only a second's hesitation, he reached up and seized a handful of her hair to yank her down and press his mouth to hers.

Disgust joined her rage and desperation. His mouth was as burnt and blistered as the rest of him, and he kissed her with enough force to break a few of those blisters open, leaving their lips hot and sticky. He tasted so much like ashes and gasoline it nearly choked her, and the way he shoved his tongue all but down her throat was almost a violation in itself.

She could have guessed he would make this as violent and unpleasant as he could. Part of her wanted to push him away and run, maybe write this whole thing off as a judgment lapse made in the heat of the moment. The rest was hell bent on giving as good as she got. She bit down hard on his tongue and he flinched back to break away with a sound of pain and surprise. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he demanded.

She spit a mouthful of his own blood into his face and answered, "Shut up."

He gave a slow smile that spread into a devilish grin. "Just when I thought you weren't gonna be any fun anymore…"

"I said, shut. Up." She covered his mouth with her hand and straightened again. She closed her eyes and began to rock and grind, her breath hitching and tiny jolts of pleasure rocketing through her when the friction hit her just right. Once she got the rhythm going, it wouldn't take long to finish—

"Ow!"

He bit her hand and she faltered. Her eyes flew open and she looked down at him just as he snatched her wrist and pressed down on the cut on her palm. She gasped at the pain, and fresh blood welled up in dark red beads.

"You thought I'd let you forget who you're fucking?" he asked, then licked the blood from her hand, using enough pressure to make her tense. The interludes of pain only made the pleasure that much sweeter, a realization he seemed to read on her face judging by his renewed smugness. "You keep your eyes open while I'm getting you off," he warned her, "or you're not getting off at all."

"You think I need your help for that?" she scoffed. "I can take care of myself just fine, Krueger."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Play with yourself all you like, Nancy, but I've know what's inside your pretty little head for a real long time, now. And you're so curious… you want to know what good ol' Freddy can do for you, doncha?" He gave a sudden thrust against her for good measure and laughed at her stifled curse.

She hated him even more for being right, not that she would ever tell him that. "Eat me."

"Aw, Nance, all you had to do was ask."

Before she could make another sound, he grabbed her ass and slid further underneath her until his face was between her legs, and before she could wonder where her pants and underwear had suddenly vanished to, he was eating her pussy.

She clenched her teeth to keep from moaning aloud. He worked her open with shockingly little effort and after a few long strokes of his tongue, as if to sample her first— "Well, well, you are a sweet girl, aren't you?" —he devoured her in earnest, sucking and slurping with obscene abandon. He moved back and forth between circling her clit with his tongue and sucking it, breaking away every now and then to nip at her inner thighs with his teeth. Faster, then slower, then faster again in a pace she herself had set so many times before with her own fingers, a thought that sent chills racing up and down her spine. He wasn't bluffing…he knew what would wind her up, what would make her squirm, what would push her over the edge…

He put his right hand on her leg so the blades rested against her skin. Her heart skipped a few beats and she curled her hand into a fist, fingernails digging into the gash across her palm. The sting coincided with a flick of his tongue, and she bit her lip to hold in a whimper. He caressed her thigh with the flats of the knives, then ran the tip of a single blade along the flesh, leaving a shallow cut that filled quickly with new blood. A trickle ran down the inside of her leg, and he turned his head to catch it in its descent and lap at the cut before burying his face in her pussy again.

She finally let out a long, low moan and felt him chuckle beneath her, then he echoed her moan into her folds and cut her again. She loved it, and he knew it, damn him. He knew everything she had ever been too afraid to ask for, and he wouldn't hesitate to do any of it to her.

A frightening thought…but also thrilling…she had been wet before, but now she was soaked.

He moved his hand to her back and dragged the blades down her spine, slicing through her sweater and marking her flesh with more cuts. She arched her back and gave a cry of agonized ecstasy as her hips rocked in time with the waves building inside her. His mouth abandoned her clit and before she could say a word about it, he thrust his tongue in and out of her in rhythm with her own movement, and god, it sounded so sloppy and so filthy and she loved it all the more for it. She pressed her hand to her face and felt it sticky with blood from her palm, the scent of it so strong she could taste it, and she smeared it across her face before twisting her fingers into her hair and tightening her grip until the pressure brought tears to her eyes.

Krueger pulled away and laughed. "Go on, pull harder," he goaded as he slid his fingers into her body, pumping in and out with his thumb going back to work on her clit. "Feels good when it hurts, don't it?" As if to further prove his point, he turned his face and bit the inside of her thigh where he had already cut her, and raked his glove down her back again. The blood flowing from the wounds felt little different from the wetness at her cunt, and the release of agony against the building climax made a delicious counterpoint. She pulled even harder at her hair— “Remind me to take a crack at that later,” Krueger said— and paid no notice to whatever words spilled out of her as she rode his fingers. Oh shit, oh god, holy fuck that's it, oh fuck oh god nearly there yeah come on nearly there nearly—

“No!”

The outburst ended in a sob. At the exact moment Nancy felt herself tilting over the edge, Krueger, bastard that he was, snatched his hand away and Nancy's body carried on without her, walls contracting around nothing and giving her no release. She curled her hands into fists and screamed, “Fuck!”

Krueger let out a cackle. “You don't like that? Sorry. Better luck next time.”

“Goddamn it, you motherfucker!”

“Manners, Nancy. You wanna come, you gotta ask politely.”

She growled in rage and frustration and glared daggers down at him. “I'm not asking you for shit.” Then she shoved his face back between her legs.

Sensitive as she was, it didn't take much grinding on him to wind her up again. For all his threats, he seemed more enthusiastic than ever, wrapping his arms around her legs and his blades nicking her again in the process. The sting of pain and the rush of endorphins made her head spin, and if she moved just right his nose hit her clit just right, and she curled forward before her spine arched backward as she got closer and closer. Her breath shortened into staccato bursts and her muscles burned with exertion until finally, finally, it rolled through her like waves breaking on rocks. She threw her head back and her eyes fell shut, and she didn't even realize she was screaming until she heard the echo in her ears.

Aftershock still tingled through her body when she finally dropped to the bed, limbs useless and eyes staring into space. Her chest rose and fell as she slowly caught her breath, the only movement she was capable of. Her ears rang. The slashes across her body began to ache in a much less pleasurable way and she felt the bed clothes sticking to her as she continued to bleed.

I'm going to have to throw these sheets away.

She laughed at the thought, and it stuck in her throat.

“Not the response I'm used to, but I'll take it.”

Fuck. She had almost managed to forget Krueger. She had almost managed to forget everything.

She still had one leg sprawled over him. He pushed her off unceremoniously, an action at odds with the salacious way he sucked clean the fingers he had had inside her. “Goddamn, Nance,” he said. “I think I just fell in love with you.”

Her face grew hot and she reluctantly looked at him. He wore the biggest shit-eating grin she had ever seen, and his burns were glistening with combined slick and saliva. He saw her looking and winked. “That as good for you as it was for me?”

She groaned in sudden misery and covered her face with both hands. What had she done?

“Oh, don't be like that,” he said. “Post nut clarity is a bitch, but you know you liked it.”

She had never felt more wretched and ashamed. What could she have been thinking? How could she have let Fred Krueger touch her? Her skin crawled and her stomach turned. The lump in her throat and the stinging in her eyes warned of tears, but she would not cry in front of him.

“I am impressed, though,” he went on, propping himself up on one elbow. “I thought for sure you'd be a dry little prude who'd turn to dust if she even heard the word ‘pussy,’ but you took me for a ride like you knew exactly what you were doing! How much practice did you get with your little boyfriend before I painted the walls with his insides?”

“God, just shut up!” she burst out. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Well, we found one way that works, if you wanna hop back on—”

Nancy lunged across the bed and reached for his throat with both hands. He had a moment to look briefly shocked before the force of her attack sent them spilling off the bed and landing in a twisted heap that knocked the wind out of both of them.

Finally! Silence!

There was another tussle on the floor as she did her best to strangle him and he was too busy fending her off to taunt her. The tattered remnants of her sweater fell from her shoulders to tangle in their flailing arms and she was too angry to care about it. It wasn't until their struggling left him on top and she felt the scrape of metal against her back that she realized they were back in the boiler room.

Krueger used her distraction to seize hold of her wrists and pin her hands above her head. His eyes wandered down her body to stop at her exposed breasts and he let out a low whistle. “You've filled out since I was in your bathtub.”

“You fucking creep!” she yelled, straining against his hold on her. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Oh, give it a rest already, would ya? You were rubbing your cunt all over me five minutes ago. Don't try to pull the good girl act now.”

“Fuck you!”

He burst out laughing in that manic cackle she loathed so much. “Nancy, that's exactly what you want!” he crowed. “And that's what's really got you bent out of shape, ain't it? You want to fuck me, and you're so goddamn mad about it!”

“No! You lying piece of shit!”

“Only one liar here, girlie. I'm in your head and you can't hide anything from me. You can't fucking stand me, but you still want my dick in you any way you can get it. Just own up to it, Nance. You'll feel better, I promise.”

The grate floor of the catwalk against the cuts across her back was a new form of agony as she struggled to throw him off, and the pain fueled her fury as much as his accusations did. “If you fucking touch me, I swear to God, I'll—”

“You'll what?” he interrupted. He leaned down until they were nearly nose to nose and he smiled. “You'll fucking what, Nancy? Pull your hair at me? Sit on my face again? Moan and scream like a fucking whore?”

“You fucking son of a—”

He stood and the world tilted as he yanked her to her feet along with him, then flung her into the railing. She slammed against it, bent nearly double over the bars and winded at the impact, and before she could catch her breath he was at her back. He put his gloved hand around her throat and pulled her flush against his body while his other hand went between her legs, and she was so slick with blood and arousal that his fingers slipped inside her with no effort.

His amused laughter in her ear sent chills down her spine even as she squirmed to get him at her clit. “I won't even have to work to get it in.”

Her own whine drowned out his laughter. No matter how she moved, he avoided touching her in any way that would give her any pleasure. She grabbed his wrist and tried to steer him along, but he was strong enough to resist her efforts. “Stop,” she demanded.

“Stop what?” he asked. “Stop teasing you? Or stop fucking you?” He added another finger, stretching her a little more and thrusting hard and fast enough her entire body rocked, and the word burst from her as if forced out. “Stop!”

“You stop lying to yourself. I can't do anything to you you don't already want me to.” He slashed across her throat in illustration but the blades passed through her with no damage. “So if I'm still doing this,” another thrust from his hand that would have pushed her back into him if he wasn't already so close, “it's because you don't want me to stop.”

Her frustration turned to anger. Trapped between knives that couldn't hurt her and hands that wouldn't satisfy her, not unless she allowed it. She would rather let him fuck her any way he wanted rather than admit he was right, but there was no point in such an empty gesture when they both knew the truth of it.

“Oh no,” he told her, responding to her thoughts. “No no no. You don't get off that easy.” He paused to laugh at his own joke, then added, “You either say out loud what we both already know, or I'm outta here, and we can think about each other when we're rubbing one out. And I know you don't want that, do ya?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck yourself if you don't want to answer me. You have to the count of three to spit it out or swallow. One—”

Goddamn him.

“Two—”

Goddamn him.

“Thr—”

“Fine! I hate you so much even the thought of you makes me want to blow my brains out, but goddammit, I want to fuck you until I forget how much I hate myself for it!”

He gave a hum of approval and turned his face to smell her hair before saying, “You tell yourself whatever you have to, babe.” He took his hands from her and moved back a step, and she heard the chink of his belt and the sound of a zipper as he fumbled with his pants. “Where do you want it?” he asked. “Should I take you back to your place so we can ruin your sheets a little more? Or maybe just bend you over right here?”

“Like it matters,” she snapped, her throat closing around the words.

He laughed and pushed her so far forward she had to grab the rail to keep from tumbling over it. “Like I said,” he gloated, shoving her legs apart and putting her further off balance, “any way you can get it.” One harsh thrust of his hips, and he was inside her.

She gasped at the suddenness, the angle, the feel of him all at once. He had one hand on her hip and the other next to hers on the rail for leverage as he set an unforgiving pace, nearly lifting her off her feet with every stroke. He pressed her so tightly against the rail she could barely take a proper breath, and the effort it took to push back against him just to get air in her lungs had its reward in letting him go deeper.

And he still wouldn't shut up.

“Why so tense, Nance? Just relax, let your old pal Freddy take care of you. I'll get you nice and loose in no time, don't you worry. You can go back to hating my guts later.”

“I still hate you,” she retorted, punctuated by the occasional, tiny whimper.

“Yeah, I bet you do.” He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her back against his chest, and she let out a long, loud moan at the sting of pain and the new position. “But you love that, ain't that right?”

“Oh, fuck…”

“Yeah, thought so. Wanna tell me how much you love it?”

“Why can't you just fuck me and leave me alone?”

“Aw, don't be selfish. I'm working so hard to be your good little slut, and you can't even tell me you're having fun?"

"I hate you. So much."

"Not what I asked, is it?"

She rolled her eyes and angled her hips back, and he let out a groan she felt deep in her chest. "Fuck, keep doing that…"

"What, this?" she asked, rocking deliberately out of time with his thrusts, and he tightened his grip on her until she struggled in his hands against the pressure. "That's good for you, yeah?"

"Watch out," he warned her, "you sound like you're enjoying yourself."

"You're disgusting."

"How long have you wanted to fuck me, Nance?"

"Why?"

"Trying to figure out how disgusting you are."

She let out an annoyed huff. "This isn't about you, you evil fucking bastard. You're just convenient."

"That so?" He pulled away so quickly she lost her balance and almost fell to the floor, and would have if not for the grip he had around her arm. He wrapped a hand around her throat and slammed her back against the nearest wall before he came in for another bruising kiss and a shiver rolled through her as she tasted herself on his tongue.

The hand on her throat tightened and the other closed around her wrist. He shoved their hands between her legs and bit down hard on her lower lip before tearing his mouth away from hers. "Fuck yourself. Now."

Her head spun from lack of oxygen as she worked her fingers over her clit, and he barely allowed her one breath and two strokes before he steered her hand over her wet cunt, her arousal mixing with the blood on her palm. She closed her eyes for one brief moment before the hand on her throat squeezed even tighter, and she opened them again to see him staring her down. "Eyes open," he ordered.

She hated that it had to be him doing this to her, making her this wet and needy. She couldn't breathe, couldn't look away, yet couldn't help but rut against her hand while he watched. The pressure built again, her nerve endings lighting up like fire over gasoline, and before she could come again he twisted her hand away from her cunt. "Not your turn," he said as he guided her slickened fingers to his cock. "This is for me."

Fuck, she hated the heat that spread through her skin the moment her hand closed around him. He was as hard as she was wet—at least until he steered her hand up and down his shaft, jerking himself off with her slick to ease the friction. That had her nearly dissolving with lust, and she didn't even notice right away when he released her hand to let her keep working him on her own.

He planted his hands at either side of her head and leered down at her, eyes dark with arousal but gaze as sharp as his knives. "Tell me how much you hate this," he said, pressing close and rocking his hips with her motions. "You hate it, doncha, Nance? C'mon, Nancy, tell me."

She squeezed harder and jerked faster, feeling a savage satisfaction at his groan in response. "I can't stand you," she answered breathlessly.

The rhythm of his thrusts grew more erratic and he growled, "Goddamn, you're good…"

"I know."

His hand moved from the wall to her cunt again and he slid his fingers in deep. "So tight already…you're gonna come again, aren't ya?"

"Yes…fuck…"

"Fuckin A right you are. And it was ole Freddy who did it for you, ain't that right?"

"Yes!"

He took his hands away, yanked her from the wall, and lowered her to the floor. She watched as he tugged his tattered sweater over his head and shoved his pants down to his ankles, her eyes lingering on his swollen cock while her hand wandered back to her clit. She was so fucking close…

"Ah ah ah," he chided, then knocked her hand aside and slapped her cunt for good measure. She inhaled sharply through her teeth at the sudden sting and he told her, "I'm the one who's gonna make you come, and that ain't happening again without my dick inside you."

She didn't recognize her own voice, the moan that escaped her was so raw and hungry. He dropped to the floor with her and shoved her legs flat against her chest, then thrust home again before setting back to his earlier rhythm.

Nancy kicked and pushed against him until she freed her legs to drape them over his shoulders. Between his choking her moments before and the compression of their bodies now, she was dizzy and breathless and every sensation firing through her was like glass and sand in her skin. She let her eyes roll back in her head as she gave herself over to it, but he grabbed her face with his gloved hand, sweater still dangling from his arm and the smell of blood and oil clinging to the old leather until she could taste it.

"Look at me," he growled, and his eyes burned with the same furious lust that had driven her on every step of this encounter. He hated her just as much as she hated him, and yet he was every bit as caught up in this, whatever the fuck this was, as she was. He had made himself the axis on which her world turned, placing himself at the center of her nightmares and defining her life and death through his torment…but in turn, she had been the focus of his own existence ever since their paths first crossed. Even now, she could look into his eyes and see only herself.

"Scream for me, Nancy," he urged, his words clipped and tense. "I know you love it…lemme hear how good it is…"

Closer and closer…her mouth fell open, a low whine building in her chest as her climax approached…

"Now, Nancy…"

It's my dream…

Another thrust and she was gone, ecstasy that felt like more than her body could contain sweeping through her and this time she let it wash over her, but not in the wild display he demanded. Instead, she took one long, gasping breath after another that sent pleasure along every current into the total completion she desired. She felt larger, stronger, more her than she had since she found herself here, and that made the rest worth it; she felt him ride out his own orgasm inside her without giving him more than a passing thought. He didn't matter. She got what she wanted, what she needed, the knowledge alone almost as intoxicating as the feeling itself.

She came back to herself as he rolled off of her, letting out a dramatic and obscene groan. "Ah, fuck, Nance, I needed that," he said. "I can't remember the last time I had a lay that good."

She ignored him and sat with herself for a moment, reveling in the afterglow. It wasn't the sex that left her feeling better than she had in longer than she could remember—well, not just the sex. She had been broken and powerless for so long, but after this? Never again.

Krueger reached out and clapped a hand on her thigh. "Well, that sure was fun, but I hope you're not one of those types who wants to cuddle afterwards."

"No," she said, pushing his hand off her leg.

"Good, cuz ya know it would break my heart to disappoint you after all that—"

"Actually," she said as she began to smile, "I think it's time for you to go."

She wasn't looking at him to see his reaction, but there was a static feeling in the air as if time itself had frozen in surprise. "Say that again?" he replied.

"It's time for you to go," she repeated calmly. She got to her feet, only a bit unsteady, and smoothed her hair back out of her face. "We did what we meant to," she went on, "and now I want to be alone. You can leave now."

It was too warm in the boiler room… As soon as the thought occurred to her, the heat and the fires abated, and with a little nudge from her it faded away entirely until she was back in her own bedroom. The cuts from Krueger's knives stung as they began to scab over, but she could deal with those on her own. She picked up her bathrobe from its place draped over the desk chair and slipped it on, tying it closed with a sigh of relief.

She turned to Krueger and saw him without the aura of terror he had maintained for so long. He crouched on her bedroom floor, having barely stirred as she took charge of their surroundings, and it was even easier to see him as he truly was outside of his own constructed reality. He was just a man. His scarred, naked flesh held less horror without the hellish light of the furnaces, and his glove was more ridiculous than threatening when paired with his ratty old sweater hanging pathetically off his arm. She shook her head in dismissal. He was nothing worthy of her fear anymore.

"You think you can just get rid of me that easily?" he asked as he got to his feet. He stood at his full height and she could see him try to reclaim some of that old aura, clothes back in place with his hat cocked dangerously and blades gleaming. "You get your rocks off, and now you think you're calling the shots? Nothing's changed, Nancy. You're still dead, and you're never leaving here. Time don't mean anything here, and I've got you for all of it."

Nancy stifled a yawn.

Krueger stared at her for a moment as if taken aback that she wasn't as intimidated as he thought she should be, but he recovered quickly. "Haven't you noticed it's just you and me? That ain't no accident. I'm the only one on earth who can do what I do. Nobody else moves through dreams, and that's all you've got. If I'm not here, you're alone for real."

She shook her head again. "I don't believe that. There's more to dreams than what you know of them."

"You think so?" He gave a snort of derision. "Then who else have you seen here lately? Anyone you could talk to? Anyone real? You still haven't figured it out, princess, but there ain't nothing here that's real. Nothing but you and me." He moved towards her like a cat stalking its prey, she stood her ground, and soon enough they were inches apart again. He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger and gave a sharp tug before she slapped his hand away. "You can't send me away, Nancy," he went on. "You don't have anyone else."

"And I don't want you," she shot back.

"You will. You'll get tired of dreaming, and you'll want someone, anyone, to make you feel a little less empty inside. And you better hope I'm in the mood to keep you company."

"I won't say it again, Krueger. You're not in charge anymore. Leave."

The word seemed to echo through the stillness as she put the strength of her will behind it, but Krueger appeared to have lost interest in fighting her. He brushed the back of his gloved hand over her cheek one more time and promised her again, "You'll go out of your mind alone, Nancy, and you'll beg me to come back to you. It won't matter how much you hate me, you'll still want me."

She turned away but she didn't have to see to know the moment he disappeared. The air itself seemed less oppressive from one breath to the next, and finally, he was gone.

Nancy sat down on her bed, though she wasn't even remotely tired. It seemed a strange idea, to be forever dreaming and yet never sleeping, and without Krueger around, it felt a little less like purgatory. For the first time since it happened, she had the freedom to contemplate this fantastical place she was to spend eternity in.

If Krueger was right, all she had left to her were illusions. She would never admit it to him, but she knew he wasn't lying about how lonely it would get. She knew better than to think she could be content alone with her dreams forever, and if all she had to look forward to was the dubious companionship of the man who killed her, then she might as well go crazy right now.

But she knew he was wrong about one thing. He wasn't the only one who could walk through dreams. She had died protecting extraordinary children with the most wonderful gifts, and she had devoted years of her life to learning all she could about dreams. There was nothing stopping her from learning to do what he did. She could already steer her dreams to her desire, so why shouldn't she go even further? Why not—her heart raced with the thought—why not be the light to his darkness? Why not follow him through this world, and where he sowed nightmares, nurture good dreams?

She smiled and relaxed back against the pillows. He thought she would get lonely enough to want him? Ha. She would show him. With her new plan to keep her occupied, she wouldn't even think of him.

She closed her eyes and let the stillness wash over her…ignoring the fever dream thoughts of pleasure and pain intertwining in a tangle of flesh and blood, and paying no mind to the near-silent whispers echoing in the empty air.

Naaancyyy…

Aaaaaaaaaaand now it's time for a nap.

"Oh, lists, is it?" Connor teased, sliding into the booth beside her with two cups of coffee. "What kinda lists, then, ta make ye so skittish?"

"I'm not skittish," she argued. "You just startled me in the middle of a thought."

"Musta been a hell of a thought."

She turned to give him an annoyed look and he stared back, blue eyes mischievous as he sipped his coffee. He remained silent through breakfast, though as they left the diner, he asked, "I s'pose it's a grocery list, an ye have shoppin ta do later?"

"Yeah," she agreed distractedly, "yeah, sure…"

"Lyin's a sin, love. Don't make me take ye to confession."

"I'm not lying!"

"Then let me see this list."

"Why do you want to know so--"

With the speed of a diving hawk, he reached into her unfastened purse and snatched out the notebook. She whirled on him and tried to take it back, but he danced out of reach with an ever-widening grin. "A grocery list, ye say?" he asked. "Is it so secret, then?"

"Okay, fine," she huffed, still reaching for the notebook, "it's not a list, now give it back--"

"Yer diary, is it?"

"No. Connor, just hand it here--"

"Do ye write poetry, love? Short stories?" He flipped the book open and skimmed the page where she stopped writing. "Ah, stories it is, then."

"Okay, fine, now you've seen," she said, making a grab for the notebook. "Now give it back and let's move on--"

"Nah, c'mon, lemme see--"

"Connor middle-name MacManus, if you don't hand that--"

His eyebrows shot skyward as he read the pencilled scribbles and he let out a soft whistle. "Might have ta take ye ta confession after all, sweetheart…"

Her face felt so warm, she half expected her head to combust. "For the love of God, Connor…"

"For the love a something. What is this? Blindfolds? Restraints?" He squinted to read where the pencil had smudged, then burst out, "A bottle of lube at the ready?"

She heaved a sigh, then folded her arms across her chest and glared as she waited for him to either give her back the notebook, or get to the really good part…

His eyes widened as he reached the bottom of the page and he stood staring down at the paper for a minute or two before he slowly raised his head to look at her. "Well," he began, then cleared his throat and went on, "well, lass, that was...that wasn't what I expected…"

She lifted one eyebrow. "You think? Maybe next time, you'll respect someone's privacy and take this as a learning experience?"

"Aye, it was that," he agreed vaguely. He closed the notebook and handed it back to her, then waited until it was safely stowed in her purse before he took her hand and led her up the sidewalk. "C'mon, sweetheart, we're off for home."

"Why?" she asked as she followed along. "It's still early."

"Exactly. Means we have all fuckin day ta read yer stories, maybe work em out in real time, so they're nice and accurate...might even start a few new ones…"

She raised both eyebrows but didn't complain. And she would have even less reason to do so once they got home and Connor made good on his suggestion.

"Ye cleaned up just fine, love," Connor assured her on Murphy's other side. He winked at her as he tapped ash off the end of his cigarette and leaned against the bar. "Ye know ye always look lovely ta us. Now, this fucker, on the other hand…" He jabbed an elbow into Murphy's ribs, and Murphy smacked him over the back of the head in retaliation.

"Just fine," the dark-haired twin scoffed. "Fuckin jackass. Ye're a lot more than 'just fine.' Ye're the finest fuckin thing I've clapped eyes on, an that's a fact."

"How drunk are you, Murph?" she asked with a smile.

"Not even close." He finished off his beer and Doc replaced it without a word, but he hardly noticed, focused as he was on the woman beside him. "So...fuckin...beautiful," he said, and he leaned forward to bury his fingers in her hair and pull her close for a long kiss. She melted into it with a sigh before he drew away again and added, "If we weren't at this fuckin bar, I'd already have ye outta those clothes an beggin me ta fuck ye."

"Murphy!" The admonishment was in a sharp whisper, but her pleased smile belied her reprimand.

"Aye," he went on, "it's true. Been hard for ye since ye walked in here."

"Ssh!" She glanced at Doc, the closest potential eavesdropper, but he had already moved down the bar. "What if someone hears you talking like that?"

"Fuck em. What if we sneak off ta the bathroom an lock the door, an I eat yer pussy til ye're moanin my name? Ye think they'll hear us then?"

She made frantic shushing gestures with her hands, her expression caught between scandalized and aroused.

Murphy edged his barstool closer to hers and wrapped an arm around her, and she was tempted to take him up on his offer by the way he bent his head to her neck and kissed, bit, and sucked at her skin. "Christ, love," he murmured, "the things I wanna do to ye…"

"Lord's name, Murphy," she reminded him. She glanced over at Connor, watching them from his place on Murphy's other side, and he merely shrugged at her with a look that said he'd be in his twin's place already if Murphy hadn't beaten him to it.

"Not ta worry, lass, there's always confession." Murphy's hand slid under her shirt, palm warm against her soft skin as he moved to the small of her back and drew her closer. "An speakin a which," he added softly, "I need ta confess…" His mouth moved up along her neck until he could whisper directly into her ear, "I haven't stopped thinkin about how fuckin good it feels when ye come on my cock since the last time I had ye."

"Murph, that was last night."

"Aye, an I've been thinkin about it ever since."

"You need a hobby."

"Shaggin the livin daylights outta ye is my hobby."

"You need another hobby."

He had all but pulled her into his lap, and she braced with a hand against the bar as he leaned in for a kiss, lips and tongue still tasting of Guinness. "If no one was watchin…" he murmured.

"They are," she reminded him, though she couldn't say if she really cared anymore.

"I'd strip ye bare a little at a time," he went on, "and taste every inch of ye as I did, until I could get ta that beautiful pussy…"

She felt dizzy just listening to him and imagining him doing everything he was saying, or maybe Connor as well, because he still hadn't taken his eyes off her and Murphy.

"I'd tease ye open with my tongue," Murphy continued, pausing to kiss her again and run the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips, "then I'd get a proper taste of ye, an ye'd be so sweet I couldn't help but devour ye."

Her breath caught in her throat, and she shifted slightly on the barstool. God, she was wet…

"I'd suck yer clit until ye squirmed, and fuck ye with my fingers, but I wouldn't let ye come right away."

"Why not?" she asked. She probably knew the answer, but the way he was talking, he might as well say that, too.

"I'd get ye close," he answered, lifting his hand to trace her mouth with the tip of his thumb. "As close as I dared, over an over again until ye're ready ta rip me fuckin lungs out for teasing ye."

She nodded and bit her lip as she tried to ignore the needy ache in her cunt. "Yeah?"

"Aye. An just when ye couldn't take anymore, ye know what I'd do?"

He was killing her… "What would you do?"

He leaned in closer, his eyes piercing into her. "I'd get the fuck outta my clothes as fast as I fuckin could, an I'd ask ye…"

"Yeah?"

That gaze was so intense…

"I'd ask ye, between me an Connor, who do ye think has the bigger cock?"

Connor burst out laughing.

She stared at Murphy, rattled by the conversation and blindsided by the sudden turn, then she turned back to the bar. "Doc!" she called. "Murphy needs to close his tab!"

"What?" Murphy asked, brow furrowed. "What the fuck for?"

"Because," she answered as she looked him over, "you and I are going to get out of here and go home, and I'm going to wind you up and drive you batshit fucking crazy, then leave you hanging until you've had a taste of your own medicine."

"I've warned ye, Murph," Connor chimed in from the stool next door, "ye keep teasing the lass the way ye do, it'll bite ye in the arse."

Murphy glanced between his brother and their lover, his stunned expression nearly comical.

She leaned in and combed her fingers into his hair to pull him close enough to whisper in his ear, "You still want a taste of my pussy, right?"

He swallowed audibly, and she could have laughed at how quickly the tables had turned. "Aye," he answered, "I do."

"Well, then." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and slowly walked away. "You better come get it."

"Do you mean to fight a duel?" he asked.

"It will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight," the Persian answered. He checked the priming of both guns and handed one to Raoul. "Take this, monsieur, and be ready for anything that may come. Hold it ready to fire, but don't do so until my signal."

He stored his own pistol in his pocket and went to the mirror along the wall, the mirror Raoul had watched Christine vanish through the night of the masked ball. He ran his hands over the glass and frame as if in search of something, though Raoul couldn't guess what that may be. He muttered softly to himself, "Of course, he may have disabled it and blocked it off entirely, in which case we shall have to find another way. But this would be so much faster!"

"What are you looking for, monsieur?" Raoul inquired.

"The button that opens the passage behind the mirror. It's an old trick he used to use in Persia, and he knows I know of it, so he might have tampered with it to hinder our progress. Ah, I have it now!"

He pressed a spot in the wallpaper just above the mirror and beckoned to Raoul. "This way," he said, "and be ready to fire." Seconds later, the mirror shifted and there was a blast of cold air as it moved aside and revealed a dark tunnel behind. The Persian lit a dark lantern and, instructing Raoul once more to keep his pistol hand at the level of his eyes, set off into the tunnel. Raoul followed, and everything went dark around them as the mirror moved back into place.

"Keep close," the Persian whispered. "It's easy enough to get lost in these passages."

"How well you know the Opera!"

"Not as well as he does," came the modest reply. "Now try to be as silent as you can."

Raoul followed the lantern down the passage as the Persian led him through the cellar. His only thought was for Christine, and rescuing her as soon as possible. He had to get to her before that monster harmed her; he would never be able to forgive himself for not running when they had the chance if something happened to her!

He lowered the pistol slightly and massaged his arm with his free hand. It was tiring to hold it up, but he didn't question the Persian's instruction. The foreigner had had enough experience with Erik's tricks, he ought to know what he was about.

After what felt like an eternity of silence, the Persian gestured to Raoul to stop. He whispered so softly the vicomte almost missed the words, "We're nearly under the stage. I have to put out the light now, so be sure to stay right behind me. Keep your hand up, as if you were aiming."

Raoul hastily raised the pistol again as the Persian shuttered his lantern, and they continued on their way. There was noise above their heads as the management and authorities conducted their investigation into the night's disaster, but the Persian was perfectly soundless in the dark. In fact, Raoul was no longer sure he was following the Persian at all...

"Monsieur?" he murmured. "Are you there?"

There was no reply.

Raoul cursed his luck. There had been that moment he had hesitated at that turning, unsure which direction his guide had gone, and he seemed to have gone the wrong way after all. Now what was he going to do?

Well, Christine had spoken of a lake, so he had to try to get there somehow. He steadied his arm and carried on.

###

Erik stared down at Christine as she looked up at him with frightened, tear-filled eyes. Her fear marred the effect, but she was a vision in the wedding gown he had chosen for her. The vicomte was a fool if he thought he could steal her away now. She was Erik’s muse, Erik’s Christine, and soon enough she would be Erik’s wife.

He thrust a bouquet in her hands and rearranged the veil on her head. Was she speaking to him? He wasn't paying attention. What was that about having a distorted soul? What did his soul have to do with anything? It was his face that had driven her away, like it had everyone else since the day he was born. She could learn to see past his face one day, and maybe then she could talk about his soul.

There were footsteps outside, and he looked past her to the figure on the other side of the portcullis. Ah...perfect...

"Wait," he said. "I think, my dear, we have a guest!"

A fiendish cackle escaped him as Christine cried out. Erik ignored her and addressed him with a mocking bow. "Sir, this is indeed an unparalleled delight! I was hoping you might arrive in time for the wedding, and now here you are! How fate rewards the faithful!”

"Free her!" Raoul called. "Let her go, for God's sake!”

"Your lover makes a passionate plea," Erik remarked to Christine without the slightest concern. Let the fool whimper and plead until Judgement Day, if he thought it would do him any good. Erik could listen to it for hours yet. He waved gleefully and leered at the boy, then caught sight of Christine rushing to the portcullis and reaching desperately through the bars and his joviality turned sour. Of course, he shouldn't have been surprised. As long as the boy lived, Christine would let her old fondness for him rule her. Her future with Erik would be forever shadowed by her childhood attachment…unless Erik freed her…

"Let me see her!" Raoul pleaded.

"Be my guest, sir," Erik replied in a low snarl. He raised the portcullis and Raoul darted beneath it. He was a pitiful sight, dirty and ragged and drenched to the skin, but he went straight to Christine and paid no mind to the madman standing only a few feet away.

Let his foolishness be his undoing.

"Monsieur, I bid you welcome," Erik greeted. The couple turned to leave, but he had already closed the portcullis again and cut them off. "Did you think that I would harm her?" He approached Raoul like a leopard stalking a young gazelle, drawing a lasso from his sleeve and readying it. "Why should I make her pay for the sins which are—"

BANG.

Everyone froze in place, staring transfixed at the gun in Raoul's hand. He had sensed someone creeping up behind him, drawn the pistol the Persian had given him, and fired. He had meant to shoot the beast in the heart, but missed in his haste and the bullet had lodged itself in Erik's shoulder.

The last echo of the shot faded, and with it died the last of the shocked silence between the three of them.

"Son of a bitch!" Erik yelled as a fiery pain ripped through his arm. The rope fell from his hands and he staggered backwards. "What the hell? You just fucking shot me!"

"Raoul, where did that gun come from?" Christine demanded.

"The Persian gave it to me," Raoul replied. He seemed as stunned as anyone else by what had happened. He still held his pistol arm high, as if about to fire again.

Erik made a mental note to make himself a new lasso of the daroga’s intestines the next time he saw that double-crossing do-gooder. "Oh my God, it hurts!"

Christine took a tentative step forward. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Christ, woman, do I look all right?" he shouted. He collapsed back into his throne, his hand pressed to the wound in his shoulder. "Are you really that twitter-pated? I mean, come on! I just got shot! No, I'm perfectly all right! In fact, I'm just peachy!"

She hesitated, then took another step towards him.

"Stay the hell away from me, before your watchdog shoots again!"

She turned to Raoul reproachfully. "Did you have to shoot him?" she asked. "What were you thinking?"

Raoul gave her an incredulous look. "Did you see that rope in his hand? He was about to strangle me! Would you rather I let him string me up and use me as a bargaining chip to force you to do his bidding?"

"Well...no..."

"Then what are you complaining about?"

She thought it over, then shrugged. She turned to Erik and said, “We're leaving now. I love Raoul, and I don't want to marry you.”

He waved her off in disgust. "Beat it. Get lost. I'm sure this won't add fuel to the fire of my obsession and insanity. And I probably won't come hunting after you again once I'm all healed up, assuming I don't bleed to death first. You know, obsession never dies, or something like that."

They both stood there, puzzled by the outburst. "Is he always this dramatic?" Raoul inquired softly.

Christine shook her head. “Sometimes he's worse.”

Dramatic? The audacity! "What are you still standing there for?" Erik snapped. "Get the hell out of here!"

"Can you...open the door? We can't go anywhere.”

Details! He opened the portcullis and they vanished into the darkness, singing their stupid love duet. Why was he singing, anyway? He was a rich, noble, pretty boy, not a brilliant, brooding, scary yet seductive, tortured musical genius! It made no stinking sense, for crying out loud!

There was a chink of cymbals and the music box at his feet began to tinkle out its melody. He glared and gave it a swift kick that sent it flying across the lair.

Hours later, the Persian had finally made his way to the lair to find the vicomte had already left with Christine Daaé and that Erik had gotten himself shot, the damn fool. The daroga had set about patching him up, but Erik was a bad patient at the best of times and already in a foul mood, so it was a slow process.

"Jesus Christ, you hit a nerve!" Erik yelled.

The daroga heaved a sigh and withdrew the forceps from the wound. "You know, if you would hold still, I could have finished ages ago," he said.

"Well, I'm sorry I was almost blown away, then," Erik jeered. "If only he would have killed me, so you wouldn't be so inconvenienced! I could shove that hat of yours so far up your ass, you spit it out!"

"In my defense, I didn't think he would actually use that gun."

"You're the one who gave it to him! What the fuck did you think he was going to do with it?"

The daroga mumbled something about keeping his hand at the level of his eyes.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Erik snapped. "Why didn't you just say that to start with and forget about the gun?"

"Now, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," the daroga fired back. "'Excuse me, vicomte, but I want you to hold your arm up in the air for no apparent reason at all, because I don't feel like explaining the dangers of the Punjab lasso right now.'"

"Then why didn't you explain the dangers of the Punjab lasso? Good God, man, you're supposed to have all the common sense around here!"

That earned him another jab with the forceps and Erik spat out a mouthful of curses. "Damn it, daroga, I ought to skin you alive!"