×͜× ACT ALIVE!! PART ONE ‘ not dead. yet.’ -> Gator Tillman x Reader
This is HEAVILY inspired by the book "Not Quite Dead Yet" By Holly Jackson who is my FAVORITE author! If you like this pls check out her work I am BEGGING YOU.
This may be a multi part series? Depends on how well this one does and if anyone asks for another part idk.
-> if you want another part pls TELL ME
WC: 2.2K
Warnings: Gore, mentions of death, murder, reader's head has literally been beaten in with a hammer. Hospital setting.
Summary: You're supposed to be dead. The plan was for you to be dead. But some things actually do work out in your favor. You're alive but barely. Alive for now. After a brutal attack you're rushed to the hospital where you're told you have a week left to live. You're questioned about your own murder. The whole thing is surreal and weird but the weirdest thing about it isn't the whole you cheating death thing. It's the Gator Tillman trying to flirt with you thing. That's the strangest thing about this whole "not dead yet" situation.
Crunch.
What an awful sound.
Unless it was the sound that your mouth made when it was chomping on a cookie, which it had been. The moment everything went down. There was a moment you couldn’t even tell what was the sound of a crunching cookie and what was the sound of shattering bone.
Ugh, even the thought of it made your head hurt. Not just like a mild headache, no I mean hurt. A throbbing red hot pain that started at the back of your skull and snaked it’s way around your head like a crack of thunder. It made your vision blur, your stomach churn.
Everything about this sucked.
Except the whole not dying. Yet. That wasn’t too bad.
Currently that was your only positive about your situation.
At least you weren’t dead.
Yet.
The injuries from the blow to the back of your head would eventually kill you, though.
Now, that did really suck.
More than anything.
There was so much you still had to do with your life and to think a blow to the back of the head would be what would take you out.
Well, blows, actually.
Whoever it was who had tried to kill you hadn’t just hit you once. Or twice. Or even thrice.
The police report had said whoever attacked you had hit you multiple times. That was the official answer, but the Sheriff himself had told you it looked like it was about eight hits too the back of your head.
Ow.
There it was again, that painful bolt of lightning coursing through your head. Just the thought of the hits… ugh. Yep this definitely sucked.
“Any idea who might want you dead?” The sheriff asked.
You looked up at him with haunted tired eyes.
“No.” You replied. “If I did I would have told you already.”
You were tired. Tired from questioning. Tired of sad little looks from your family every time someone brought up the fact that you weren’t quite dead yet.
You were going to die but so was everyone else… someday.
You didn’t understand why they had to make such a big deal about it.
“Did you see them coming?”
This voice didn’t belong to the Sheriff.
This was someone else. Someone closer to your age. You knew of him, only vaguely though. Gator was a prominent town figure and not in a good way.
“That boy’s pure trouble” Your mom had said at one point when Gator was in the paper for supposedly tampering with evidence at the Sheriff’s office. Again. “I’m so glad you never associated with him when you were in school.” She had added. “Mom, I was a loser in school. I had two friends and we were all obsessed with the same sailor moon manga. I didn’t associate with him because I wasn’t allowed to.” you had replied to which your mother would smile. “Quality over quantity. You were always such a good judge of character.”
Those words had been spoken so long ago. Your mother didn’t look at you with the same eyes she did then. Now every time she saw you she looked like she was about to cry.
Damn.
Did you really look that bad?
You looked back to Gator. The boy you had always heard of but never talked to. Not until now. Took you almost dying to bring you two together. But you weren’t dead.
Not yet.
“Did I see them coming?” You asked and gestured to the bandages that covered the sloppy mess of what was left of the rest of your head. The stitches and metal clamps that kept your brains from spilling back out.
“They hit be from behind, Deputy, what do you think?”
He looked defeated. Well damn, you hadn’t meant to be a bitch but his question made it too easy. You frowned. Bit your lip. Maybe that would keep you from making some kind of bitchy remark.
“So you have no idea who could have done this?”
You sighed.
“Sheriff, the story hasn’t changed.” You said slowly.
You had to be careful, thinking too hard could actually kill you now. Your brain throbbed from it’s casing inside your patched up skull.
“I came home from work. I put my keys on the hook by the door. My roommate had made cookies for Easter. I took a bite of a cookie just as someone hit me in the back of the head with a…”
What had it been again? The murder weapon.
Ew, it felt weird to think of it like that.
But it would be a murder. Once you finally succumbed to your injuries.
“Hammer.” Gator replied, giving you a nod.
“A hammer.” You nodded back. “Yeah.”
“Do you own any hammers?”
“I live in an apartment with three other girls. What do you think?”
“Any fights between you girls?”
“No.” You shook your head and then immediately regretted it. “We hardly see each other. Everyone was a different work schedule or they’re all spending the night with their boyfriends.”
“You have a boyfriend.”
“No.” You replied. “No romantic interests whatsoever so you can cross that off your list. I know the partner is usually the first person you people look at well don’t even bother with me. There’s nothing there to see.”
Gator sniffed.
Was that a grin?
Was he mocking you?
That fucker.
Here you were, literally dying, and he was laughing at the fact that you had no boyfriend.
What a dick.
“Someone’s been watching their dateline.” The sheriff said.
“What about stalkers? Anyone want to date ya that ya wouldn’t let?” Gator asked and you narrowed your eyes.
“No. I just told you there was nothing in that part of my life. How about you ask something thats actually helpful? In case you haven’t noticed I’m literally dying so I don’t have all day for you to solve my murder with your thumbs up your asses.”
Gator’s expression darkened. Roy clucked his tongue.
“I’d watch your tone, little lady. We’re only trying to help you.” He scolded you.
Seriously?
Now was not the time for that. You were dying. Literally.
“Sorry if I have a bit of an attitude. I have the world’s worst headache and the most intense feeling of fomo imaginable.”
“Fomo?” Roy asked.
“Fear of missing out.” Gator replied and Roy nodded.
“I’m sure this has all been a rough week for you.”
“A rough week?” You laughed. “Yes, my murder has made this a bit of a rough week for me. Thanks for clarifying.”
“We’re going to find who did this to you.” Roy assured you.
Someone knocked on the door. A nurse.
“Sorry to interrupt.” She said. “But It’s actually time for a bandage change.” She announced. “You can stay while I change out her bandages if you’d like.” She stepped over to you.
She was the only one who walked close enough to you to see you. Everyone else just looked at you like you were going to melt. She began to unwrap the bandages that held the bits and pieces of your head together and a gross squelching sound filled the air as the gummy bloody unwrappings of your head were exposed.
Gator gagged.
He stepped out of the room.
The Sheriff’s face went white but he didn’t make a mad dash out of the room like his son did.
“We’ll find the son of a bitch who did this to you.” The Sheriff promised, adding your name to the end of his promise. He probably thought that made it sound more sincere.
It didn’t.
It made it sound like a threat.
“That’s what we do.” He added before he gave you a nod and left to join his queasy son.
Bandages replaced and pain meds reapplied made you feel much better.
Not perfect, oh no, you’d probably never feel perfect again.
You’d certainly never feel whole again.
Not with half your skull shattered. Bits and pieces gone.
Was all of your brain still even in there?
Was that what was going to kill you?
Having half a brain?
No.
It would be the unavoidable aneurysm that was going to take you out at any moment, remember?
Come on. Do better than that. We aren’t quite dead, yet, so don’t give up now.
That had been a side effect the doctor had told you about when you first came too.
The brain damage would lead to bad memory. That was just one bad thing among countless others.
Someone stepped into your room and it threw off your whole train of thought. It trudged past your mind straight out the hole in the back of your head.
You looked up at the man in your room. Maybe it was the brain damage but you just couldn’t understand why he was in here.
“Deputy.” You croaked.
“Does it hurt?” He asked. You tried not to laugh.
“Does what hurt?”
“You serious?” He deadpanned.
You did laugh this time. You shook your head and regretted it.
“No. I know what you’re asking. What do you think?”
“I bet it hurts like hell.”
“hurts like hell times ten.” You replied.
“Damn.” He grunted. “How exactly did you survive? Dad says it should have killed you.”
What an odd thing to say. You noted to yourself.
“Well obviously it didn’t.” You said. “Doctor says the timing of it all was just in my favor. I was found soon enough after the attack that there was enough time to save my life. Or well… to save what was left of it.”
“You’re really gonna die?”
You gave one nod.
“Doctor says I’ve got less than a week left. There’s some piece of my skull that’s been lodged into my brain. It’s gonna make a blood clot that will eventually kill me.”
“They can’t just remove it?”
“If they try to remove it there’s a ninety nine percent chance I’ll die on the operating table.”
“Fuck.”
You laughed at that too.
“Keep saying that a couple hundred times and maybe you’ll be where I am now.” You told him.
He looked at you.
Really looked at you.
You’d never really looked at Gator Tillman before.
Never really had the chance or the desire too but now that he looked at you, well, you looked right back at him and man did he have the prettiest brown eyes that you ever did see. He frowned at you and something about his face and his eyes reminded you of a sad little puppy dog.
Fuck.
You couldn’t be feeling like this now. Not when you were dying in less than a week.
Stupid fucking aneurysm.
Stupid fucking murderer.
“I’m sorry this happened to you.” He said which actually shocked you. You didn’t know much about Gator but he didn’t seem to be the sympathetic type.
“Gotta be like one of the worst ways to go. You die, come back with one hell of a headache, only to die again like a week later. What’s an aneurysm feel like? That gonna hurt too?”
“The doctor said it would feel like the worse headache of my life.”
“Damn. You really don’t get to catch a break do you?”
You laughed at this. You weren’t laughing at Gator and his attempt at sympathy. You were laughing at the painfully irony of his words.
“It would seem that my life right now really does suck.” You replied. “If you think you’re having a bad day, I can assure you, mine is worse.”
“I dunno, I stubbed my toe real bad this mornin’. Shit still hurts.”
You laughed. And so did he.
This was not what you were expecting.
At all.
Surviving your own murder aside, making cute small talk with Gator Tillman was more shocking than living through what you had.
Maybe Gator wasn’t so bad after all. He could be doing anything right now and he chose to make the dying girl laugh. Perhaps you had misjudged him. Perhaps all of Lehigh had misjudged him.
“Deputy?” You called and he stepped closer to you, hesitantly, like he was scared you might break and you would.
Just not yet.
Not today.
It was still too early for that.
“Solve my murder?”
He tried not to grin. The whole thing was morbid and above all else, it was plain weird. But he couldn’t help it. He grinned.
“Sure.” He replied. “You’re just gonna have to stay alive long enough for me to do it.”
“I’ll do my best.” You promised.
“And maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe once it’s solved…”
“Deputy?”
“hm?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe once it’s solved I can get a little sugar for working so hard.”
You laughed.
“Are you hitting on me? Deputy Tillman I’ll be a dead girl in a week.”
“Gotta shoot my shot while you’re still breathin’ darlin’ otherwise I’ll be too late and at that point it’ll just be weird.”
You laughed again.
“Solve my murder first.” You told him. “Then we’ll see about your sugar. If I’m still alive at that point.”
Gator winced.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Why not?”
“Makes it sound morbid.”
“I am morbid. Half my head is missing.”
He gagged. You laughed.
“Just stay alive. Give me a week.”
“I can give you a week. Not sure my aneurysm will.”
“Can you tell it to wait?”
“No, Gator, I cannot just tell the blood clot growing in my brain to wait for you to solve my case so you can get laid.”
“Well damn. It was worth a shot.”
You rolled your eyes.
“Go solve my murder, Gator.”
“Only if you’ll stay alive.”
“I’ll certainly try.”
Masterlist
PART TWO->
