choco !! 🍫

reader gets cold and desperate enough to try some stupid shit and it gets crazy due to a little “help” from a certain fox (he isn’t too involved tho don’t be fooled)

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that night was a blur. almost unconscious, half crawling- half being dragged up those stairs, aggravating the bruises, holes, cuts, and every other wound. feeling the wood and dust against them, and yet, she was at the top. the claws had been digging into her rib cage and were gone as suddenly as they arrived.

there were flashing lights outside, drawing her attention. orange hair tinged greenish sickly blue in the nighttime shadows as the fox ran off. and where was strade? she didn’t move, couldn’t move. the pain was too much.

she’d been taken again, this time by several paramedics with officers in tow. heavy boots, jostling of machinery and rustling of clothes. shouts she couldn’t decipher, buzzing and static of the portable radios.

that was really all she could recall. small vignettes.

“what else can you remember?”

she didn’t reply. she didn’t want to remember. someone, she couldn’t even remember who, had told her that strade was facing life in prison. it should have relieved her. instead, she felt sick. she hadn’t eaten since that revelation, even though she knew it was coming. she knew he’d either be imprisoned or she’d be told he was dead. what ren had done to him was a mystery to her. she felt regretful, anxious, grief stricken almost as if she were mourning a lover instead of the freedom of the man who had abducted and tortured her to the brink of death multiple times. it had been worse than death, sometimes, at least as far as someone who had never died before could imagine.

“i don’t want to press charges.”

there was a pause and a perhaps unprofessional laugh.

“this goes beyond you.”

she said nothing, only glanced back up at the ugly white drop ceiling with its fluorescent lights.

she wondered how strade looked in orange. her heart accelerated. she felt nauseous, the same panic rising within her that she felt when he had first forced her into the trunk of his car. loss of control, helplessness, only this time in sort of the opposite direction.

what a mess. she wondered if he’d off himself in prison. she knew that being restrained wouldn’t sit well with him. would he go that far to avoid it? what would he do if he couldn’t resort to his usual ways?

“please leave my room.”

“i hope you’ll come around.”

yet, he left, and she focused on the shallowness of her breaths, the way she could feel her pulse in her frail chest. her pain now was full and throbbing instead of sharp like it had once been. she didn’t know what to do with it. healing didn’t feel so natural any more. help felt obstructive. time went by so slowly here.

she missed him, so much. missed his cruelty, what he’d do to her in that basement and even twice in his bed, a few times other places upstairs. missed the way his eyes would light up with excitement whenever he discovered a new way to inflict horrific pain onto her. he would always get so pleased with himself. she missed the phases afterwards when he’d show what seemed to be a little humanity, tending to her brutal wounds and talking her through it, praising her for her resilience and entertainment value. she’d lean into his touches until they’d escalate, and she missed that too. thinking like that didn’t help her now. in fact, it made her start to softly cry. she didn’t have the dignity left to care even as a nurse entered the room for a routine check.

“can i call him?”

the nurse, who seemed rather young but maybe a little older, looked earnestly into her tearful face.

“who? a relative? friend?” the staff knew of her situation, but even she knew that this well intentioned nurse probably wouldn’t assume the correct answer upon first guessing.

“strade.”

the nurse wasn’t sure what to do with that other than give her a tight smile with sad eyes, maybe feeling slightly perturbed by the situation her patient was putting her in.

“no, hun. did you need anything else?”

“no.”

“can i get you to eat anything?”

“no.”

“you positive?”

“yes.”

“okay. just hit your call light if you change your mind, or if you need anything. don’t be afraid to, you won’t bother us.”

“okay. thank you.”

her gaze went back up to the ceiling. she heard the nurse’s quiet little exhale before her non slip shoes squeaked on the linoleum tiles, the sound of her leaving the room.

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