#brkmans

[ delivered      —      care      bare ]      im at home

[ delivered      —      care      bare ]     no im not okay

     𝐇𝐄𝐑      𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄      𝐈𝐒      𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃,                      set    to    the    side.    the    night    had    just    been    one      cluster      fuck,      and    she    was    tired    of    it.    barry    made    her      laugh       and      smile           -           something    she      needed      right    then.    she    had    called    him    for    a      reason.      now    it    was    just    the      waiting      game      until    he    got    there.

                flashes of war and pain and suffering, behind eyelids. eyes that haven’t seen light for 24 hours open slowly, burn against the bulbs above the bed. everything is white. why is barry so cold when it’s so warm in the room, underneath thin blankets, on top of stark white sheets? the beep, beep, beep of the heart rate monitor sounded incredibly loud in his ears, and he couldn’t move. everything ached, or burned. breathing would be enough to make him gag, if his throat weren’t clogged with dried blood and dangerous choices. oh, he’s in a hospital. the one place he shouldn’t be, besides perhaps a police station. close enough to authority for barry to know that he was in deep shit. if fuches found out… he moves his fingers, his toes. involuntary and low groan escapes his throat, almost gets stuck, when he slowly, stiffly, turns his head. neck cracks, but he swears he sees someone standing to his right. panic! fuches! panic! another detective! panic! no. barry blinks away the haze in his eyes. ‘hey,’ hoarse, whispered, breaks a bit. barely knows why he hurts so much, but doesn’t expect anyone to be there when he woke up (no one was ever there, when he woke up) ‘what… did you… bring me here?’

he’s played it over in his mind:  what he’d ask barry when he woke up. a wide variety of questions cropped up within that first initial hour.   who did this to you?   what the hell were you thinking?   what do you need me to do?   so on and so forth.   more concerning was making up his own mind on what he was going to do about the situation. how was he going to explain this to a doctor   —   was he going to file a report? or if he was going to use his own pull, badge and all, to keep it classified.

at the time, there was no waiting. he didn’t question how barry managed to make it to his apartment without bleeding out either. the only thing that made sense was getting him to a hospital. because lee rawlins wasn’t about to let someone else die;  he couldn’t afford that weight right now. whether or not barry would appreciate it   —   well. they’d cross that path eventually. for now, things were taken care of. for now, lee kept it as private as he could. until he got the go-ahead from an alive and conscious barry block.

                ☽                      there’s  a  large  envelope  of  cash  in  her  bag;  once  she’d  decided  what  needed  to  happen,  she’d  worked  herself  to  the  bone,  saving  up  what  she  assumed  would  be  an  acceptable  amount.  what  if  it  wasn’t?  she  feels  sick,  sitting  there.  coffee  untouched,  cold,  sits  in  front  of  her  and  her  normally  tanned  skin  is  almost  sickly  pale.  despite  her  nerves,  her  fear...  she  knew  this  was  the  right  decision.  after  everything  her  ex  had  done  to  her,  escaping  hadn’t  set  her  free. 

the  door  to  the  coffee  shop  opens  and  she  jumps,  widened  doe  eyes  follow  the  steps  of  the  new  patron,  but  they  move  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  establishment  and  she  slumps  in  her  seat.  what  if  he  doesn’t  show?  constant  paranoia  and  fear  for  her  life  is  slowly  tearing  her  apart.  she  needs  this.  katherine  doesn’t  remember  what  it  feels  like  to  be  free  anymore,  can’t  remember  what  it  felt  like  to  suck  in  a  deep  breath  of  clean  air  and  be  able  to  enjoy  it.

     it was their first night together since he’d handed barry his rather expensive fee, and there was still a side of him that didn’t feel entirely secure.  the scp foundation wasn’t well known to the average person, but on the inside, their security had ways of handling those who didn’t want to follow the rules.  people didn’t retire from the scp foundation, they didn’t just hand in their two weeks notice.  it was why he’d run, why he still had his badge, access cards, what have you in his duffel bag.  he’d left his apartment, even rehomed his cat, whatever it took  --  he didn’t want to die.  he was scared, he was fucking terrified.  and it was why it was four am, and there they were in the night’s safehouse, and neither of them were asleep. jakob fucking hated this, the paranoia, being terrified of every small noise.  part of him wanted to ask if they could sit together, but they didn’t know each other like that.  at least not yet.  he just wanted to feel safe.  he hadn’t even asked his name when he hired him.

     “ so  ...  how  long  have  you  been  doing  this ? ”

he’s still new enough that sally is trying to find his limit, but not new enough that she thinks he’ll tell her manager. that he’ll call, because he tends to avoid that from what she’s noticed. she looks. she watches. she takes notes, stores them in a box inside her head, and only brings them out again when it’s necessary. it is necessary now;  sally trapped indoors for the day, because there’s a supposed threat that she thinks is bullshit anyway. but barry’s a bit more on edge; jumpy in a way that she hasn’t seen him before.    wasn’t he meant to be the calm one?    she doesn’t care,  and as she’s walking over her own furniture, sock-clad feet pressing into the soft velvet of her couch as she moves to where he’s sitting.   sitting.   like he belongs. like he’s a guest.    she wonders if she’ll miss him when he leaves. she does, sometimes. doesn’t ever admit it to even herself as her chest is tight and she’s sat in bed staring at the ceiling.    she almost wants to press a foot into his side to make him stand up - but, no. she wouldn’t actually dare to.     “get up,”     she’s stating, rather than asking, instead. a bunch of papers in her hand.    confidential!   scrawled across them all. she smiles down at him, sweet as can be.     “i need someone to rehearse with, and if you’re not letting me see gene, then it’ll have to be you, bar,”     a nickname she’d put onto him. barry had frowned the first time, but not said a word. sally hadn’t stopped using it since.     “or production will have to go back a day to that i can learn - and then the producers will freak because they’re on a tight schedule and the director wants me on his next film, so i can’t afford to mess up, and when they ask me why, i’ll tell them that  that silent, handsome, brooding man that stands outside my trailer like a stalker?  that’s why!”     she talks like she doesn’t need air. knows what it takes to get what she wants.     “it’s two scenes. c’mon, bar. it’ll be fun.”

it’s a favor to a friend. jo, just come in one day, talk to my class. they’re really good, you’ll love them. that’s the only reason she’s here  ---  she’s no teacher by any means, but whatever, a few extra bucks in her pocket between shoots wasn’t anything to sneeze at. 

and besides, even if jo didn’t consider herself an acting teacher by any stretch of the imagination she still liked seeing fresh faces, meeting hopefuls who hadn’t yet been jaded by shitty sets and directors who didn’t know what they were doing. she remembers being like that, and even if some of them  ( like the guy she’s talking to now )  are a few years older than her she still feels a little bit like a proud mama duck chatting with them after the class ends.

@brkmans​ asked:  “Did someone spike the punch?”

“What are you? Twelve? Yeah. Dude. I did.”