ATTENTION ARTISTS OF TUMBLR

I love frank so much, BUT HE IS SUCH A COCKBLOCKER in this fic!!!

Fantastic chapter, Madani needs to get better Intel lol, great job Author!!

(Once Bitten) Twice Shy

Chapter Ten

Plot summary : Desperate to get away from your controlling family, you take a job in New York as a wealthy vampire's blood source. A million dollars awaits if you can make it through a year, but life with Billy Russo is not going to be as simple as you think.

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : R  Chapter Rating : R

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] Smutty behaviour in a public setting, use of toys. All chapters will contain mentions of blood. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story. 

Word Count : 5.6k

A/N : I'm sorry these keep ending up so long. Anyway, enjoy some smutty cuteness...

CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE | CHAPTER FOUR | CHAPTER FIVE | CHAPTER SIX | CHAPTER SEVEN | CHAPTER EIGHT | CHAPTER NINE

MASTER LIST

Chapter Ten

The second your eyes opened, you regretted it. 

Light streamed in through the windows and your head hurt - though you couldn’t tell if it was because of all the champagne you’d drunk the night before, or because you’d sobbed yourself to sleep. One look in the mirror had you grimacing. Even though you’d tried to remove your make-up before bed, you’d still ended up with dark mascara circles under your eyes.

As much as you wanted to crawl back into bed, you needed to wash your face properly, get something to drink, and see if you had any painkillers left to help with your pounding headache. A quick glance at your watch told you that it was almost noon.

Half-asleep, you pulled open your bedroom door, only to almost jump out of your skin at the sight of Billy, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, knees pulled to his chest and his head resting on his arms.

“Billy?” 

He looked up and your heart threatened to stop; his face was bruised and his lip was split and, though his injuries already looked like they were healing, you started to panic.

Before he could say a word, you were on your knees in front of him, cradling his face in your hands, looking over his wounds, while he tried not to make eye contact.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered softly, voice thick with exhaustion, “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never should’ve -” 

“Billy,” you spoke just as softly, “you didn’t hurt me.”

“I shouldn’t’ve started this. I never wanted to put you in danger.”

You shook your head. “Where is this coming from? You haven’t put me in danger.”

“I’m dangerous. Just being around me is dangerous.”

“No,” you told him firmly, still holding his face, forcing him to look at you. “I’m safe with you, Billy.”

“No, I -”

“Is that what your friend told you? That you’re dangerous? Because you’re not. You showed me last night that you’re not,” you continued. His eyes closed and he shook his head. Your heart ached at how broken and defeated he looked. “Please don’t push me away. They’re wrong about you. I know they are.”

Without any sort of hesitation, you wrapped your arms around him, holding him tight, pressing your face to his chest, trying to fight back tears.

“I heard you crying,” he said, sounding devastated, as if that one piece of information proved his point. It didn’t.

“Not because of you, Billy.”

“Then why?”

“Because I didn’t want last night to end. I wanted to stay with you, and they ruined it.”

Finally his arms moved, wrapping around you and pulling you closer. You let out a shuddered breath, a tired sigh of relief, glad that he finally seemed to believe you. He moved himself as he pulled you towards him until you were on his lap with your face pressed against his neck, enjoying the feel of his cold skin against you.

“I thought that...” He started but trailed off just as quickly.

He didn’t need to say it; you had a pretty good idea of what Billy thought and why. But it was wrong, and you weren’t going to let him hold onto that thought any longer.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you told him again, prepared to tell him as many times as you needed to in order to make him see sense. “Everything that happened last night happened because I wanted it to.”

Billy nodded but stayed quiet, his arms tightening around you. Minutes ticked by and you were content to stay like that, to hold and be held, to let him know that you were there and that there was nowhere else you’d rather be. 

After a while, he seemed to settle and relax, his hand softly rubbing your back, giving you comfort that you hadn’t realised you desperately needed. But there were things beyond comfort that you also needed; answers to questions you never wanted to ask but now couldn’t avoid.

“Last night,” you started quietly, “you said he fucked up your life... what happened?”

His chest shuddered and rose as he took a breath, but you kept your face against his neck, wanting to give him some sense of space without you looking at him.

“Frank’s the one who turned me,” Billy told you. “He’s the one who made me a vampire.”

The revelation had your blood running cold in your veins; his business partner, his friend, was the one who’d turned Billy into something he hated. You had a thousand different questions all at once but had no idea where to start. Fortunately, Billy didn’t wait for you to figure it out.

“We served together and, one day, we were selected for a special task force,” he sighed, his voice turning almost mechanical, like he was recounting the story on auto-pilot. “Things got fucked up and weird; we were seeing things that shouldn’t have existed, that didn’t seem real. I couldn’t handle it, I didn’t want to stay, so I got a transfer back to Force, but Frankie stayed.”

There was a pause, letting you absorb everything he’d told you, letting you make sense of the timeline. You already knew that he’d been turned a year or so before vampires were revealed to the public - was he saying that the military had known about them longer?

“After I left, they started... experimenting. Frank got turned but he managed to escape, he managed to get back to New York. They sent a team after him. My team. They were going to kill Frank and his family.” He paused again, seeming like he really didn’t want to continue, but he did regardless. “When I realised what was happening, I tried to save him and got shot in the back by one of my own men.”

You gripped him tighter, worry consuming you, even though you knew that Billy was alright.

“I would’ve died if he hadn’t turned me, but - but sometimes I wish I had. Sometimes I wish he’d just let me bleed out so I didn’t have to live like this,” he continued, his voice flat, betraying no emotion. “We had to hide out for a while but once vampires became public knowledge, we threatened to go public with everything we knew and they paid us off - that’s how I was able to start Anvil.”

Taking a deep breath, you pressed yourself closer to him, your mind racing. You didn’t say anything, you just kept hold of him, feeling completely useless for not knowing exactly the right thing to say.

The silence stretched on until it became unbearable.

“Please say something,” he prompted, his voice cracking and threatening to break.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to upset you.”

“Why would you upset me?” He asked.

Finally you forced yourself to look at him again. You tried desperately to keep yourself from frowning as you searched his face for some idea of what he was feeling.

“Because I want to say that I’m glad Frank turned you,” you told him and immediately felt him tense. “I’m glad you’re alive and that you’re like this because, otherwise, I never would’ve gotten to meet you.”

You weren’t sure if the look he gave was one of pain or sorrow, but it broke your heart either way.

“I’m sorry,” you continued, “I know it makes me awful and selfish, but I don’t want to think about a world where we didn’t meet and I didn’t feel this way...”

“You’re not selfish,” he told you, pressing his cold hand to your cheek. “I’m glad we met too.”

Words failed and the distance between you seemed to shrink, though you had no idea if it was you or Billy moving. Your lips met and you both sank into a sweet and tender kiss, his tongue slipping between your lips as he held you tight. The kiss helped settle your nerves and caused you to hope that Billy now understood what you were feeling.

When you finally pulled back, you looked at him, your fingers brushing over his bruised cheek.

“Did he do this?” 

“Yeah.”

“But why?” You asked. Why would his friend hurt him like that?

“Because he knows about my problem and, because he turned me, he’ll blame himself if I hurt you.”

You shook your head, not wanting to go over everything again, so you let it go, instead opting to get a good look at him. Aside from the bruising (that seemed to have healed even more in the time that you’d been talking), his jacket and shirt had both been torn at the shoulder and on the collar, there were blood splatters on the white shirt, and his hair was sticking up in every direction. But, more than anything, he just looked so tired.

“Do you want to lay down? We could -”

“No,” he interrupted sharply, almost causing you to jump. He took a breath and shook his head. “You can’t invite me into your room, okay?”

“But -”

“Please, hummingbird,” he begged. “It’s the only room in the penthouse that I can’t enter. It’s the only place you’ll be safe if anything happens.”

Part of you wanted to argue, to tell him again that you were safe with him, that he hadn’t hurt you and you didn’t think he ever would, but you recognised that this was one of those situations where Billy needed reassurance. He needed to know that you had a safe place, somewhere you could escape to.

“Okay,” you relented. “But you still need rest. You look exhausted.”

“So do you.”

“I need to go wash this mascara off my face and eat some breakfast,” you told him, smiling softly, not wanting him to worry about you any more than he already had.

You started to move, getting off his lap and to your feet before offering him your hand. After helping him to his feet, you found yourself struck by just how deep your feelings had started to run. You should have been ushering him off to bed, but you were desperate for just one more minute with him. And, Billy seemed equally reluctant to leave you.

“I -” he started but quickly second guessed himself.

“What?”

“Well, since the cat’s out of the bag, I -” he hesitated for a beat “- I don’t want to sneak around and hide this anymore. I want to take you out to dinner. Tonight.”

The corners of your lips started to tug upwards and before you knew it, you were grinning at him.

“Mr Russo,” you said, forcing a dramatic tone, “are you asking me out on a date?”

“Yes, little hummingbird, I am.”

“I suppose I could go to dinner with you, if I can find something to wear,” you teased, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“Is that your way of asking me for a new dress? Because I definitely wouldn’t say no to another handjob in the fitting rooms.” He retorted, grinning just as widely as you were, as if you’d finally managed to help lift some of the weight from his shoulders.

Laughing, you pressed your face to his chest again, telling yourself just one more minute again and again. 

“You could take me out for dinner every night for the rest of the year and I’d probably still not get through half of the outfits in my wardrobe. I’m sure there’s something suitable in there,” you conceded. 

“Be ready by sunset. I’ll book us a table somewhere nice,” he told you, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before pulling away from you.

“Don’t you have work tonight?”

“After last night, I don’t think Frank is going to want me around the office for a while,” he shrugged, heading for the door leading back out to the penthouse before you could think to question him further. “Get some rest and I’ll see you at sunset.”

And then he was gone, leaving you alone with the swarm of butterflies that had taken flight in your stomach. You couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop thinking about him and how things were going to change between you now that you weren’t hiding.

After eating, you took the world's longest and hottest shower, finally managing to get the last traces of mascara from your face. Then it was straight to the wardrobe to find something suitable to wear for dinner.

When you finally saw him again, he looked much better; rested, with only the faintest traces of bruising left beneath his eye. He stopped in his tracks, taking in the sight of you and the dark blue corset style dress you’d picked, while you admired the dark grey suit he’d opted to wear. Your cheeks warmed as his gaze lingered on your legs even as you stepped towards him to hand him his glass of blood.

“I see you found something to wear,” he remarked, fingers brushing yours as he took the glass. 

A moment later he started making his way towards the sofa, explaining that you had some time before you had to leave for the restaurant. You followed after, finally letting your gaze drift around the penthouse, noticing what an amazing job the cleaners had done. If you hadn’t been there, you never would have guessed that there had been almost two hundred people there the night before. 

It wasn’t until you sat that you noticed something on the coffee table; the necklace he had given you. He must have found it after everyone had left the party. Without thinking you reached for it, inspecting it, hoping it hadn’t been damaged.

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain what that meant,” Billy sighed. “It was shitty of me to put it on your neck without telling you. It wasn’t fair of me to claim you without asking first...”

“No, it wasn’t,” you told him with a sigh of your own. “You should’ve told me. I-I still would’ve worn it.”

“Really?” He asked, and you nodded. He hesitated for a beat before; “then would you wear it tonight?”

Your breath caught and, for a split-second it looked as if he was about to take the question back. Knowing what you knew about the necklace, about its meaning, the answer should have been obvious; you weren’t his and you didn’t want to belong to anyone.

Only, you weren’t sure that was entirely true.

“I think that depends on you,” you finally answered.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want me to belong to you?” The question left him looking more than a little confused. “I meant what I said last night; I like you, Billy. I don’t know what that means in the long run, but I’d like for it to mean something now.”

“And you’d be happy with that?” He asked after a moment of hesitation. “You’d be happy being mine?”

“Would you be happy being mine?”

You didn’t expect the reaction to be so visceral, for Billy to tense and almost curl in on himself. You’d hit a nerve but you didn’t know how. His knuckles turned white around the glass and his eyes fixed on the windows.

Suddenly you felt sick. You felt stupid. There you were offering yourself up to someone who had no intention of ever doing the same. He’d told you from the start that it would be like this, that he would never give you more than he already had. And you’d just ruined it because you were selfish, because you were greedy, because you wanted more than anything to possess him and be able to say that he was yours.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, getting to your feet and heading for the kitchen, getting a glass of water as an excuse to put some space between you.

Your heart anxiously pounded in your chest and, even when you had a drink, you didn’t turn back. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, to see the damage you’d done by wanting too much.

You took deep breath after deep breath, trying to ignore the way your cheeks were burning and your stomach was knotting. 

(Of course he didn’t want to be yours. Who would?)

“No one’s ever wanted me to be theirs before.” His voice cut through the silence and, when you finally turned, you realised he was standing a couple of feet behind you. “My own mother gave me up hours after I was born. Foster families always sent me back to the group home. The only person who’s ever stuck around is Frank...”

Oh. The realisation was painful.

“So, it’s not that I don’t want to be yours,” he continued, dropping his gaze, “it’s just...”

“I’ll leave you,” you finished the thought for him. A moment later, you were shaking your head. “You’re right, it was a stupid thing to say. I’m sorry.”

When your gaze dropped, you realised that the necklace was clutched in his hand. After taking a slow breath, you closed the distance between you and reached it and smiled.

“Will you put it on for me?” You asked.

For a moment, all he could do was stare at you, confused by the request. You were a little confused yourself, not because you were second guessing it, but because the urge to belong to him, to have him claim you, had come on so quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I want to feel like I belong somewhere, even if it’s only temporary,” you tried to explain.

Before Billy could say another word, you turned, lifting your hair out of the way so he could put the necklace around your neck. The feel of cold metal against your skin and the weight of the choker around your neck had you letting out a gentle sigh; he might not have been able to want you in the same way, but you could at least be happy that he wanted you.

Turning, you leaned to press a gentle kiss to his cheek before excusing yourself, telling him you needed to grab something from your room before you left.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the restaurant  and, when you arrived, you were rendered speechless by the opulence. Billy was clearly well known and the staff couldn’t do enough for him, taking your coats before leading you to a secluded table by the window with views of the Hudson. You were too distracted by the view to pay much attention to the conversation going on between Billy and the maître d' - it was something about a rare wine they’d been saving.

Once you were seated, you realised that there were no menus. Billy explained that they used a set menu and, honestly, you felt a little relieved that you wouldn’t have to try and choose for yourself when there was so much to distract you.

Within minutes you each had a drink; a deep, sweet red wine that you were told would pair excellently with the night's menu. Then came your entree. 

You frowned, comparing yours to Billy’s, wondering why they looked different.

“It’s blood,” Billy explained, noticing your confusion. “They cater to vampires and humans here.”

“Oh,” you remarked, not sure why the thought left you feeling uncomfortable.

“Does it bother you?” He asked. “Me having someone else’s blood in front of you?”

Yes, you wanted to say, but you knew you didn’t have the right. He wasn’t yours.

“No. I guess I always knew that you had other blood. It’s just -” you let out a huff, frustrated that you couldn’t find the words to explain it.

All the things he could taste when he drank your blood, now he was sitting across from you tasting those things in someone else. It felt almost like a betrayal, even though you knew that wasn’t what it was.

“It doesn’t compare to your blood. It doesn’t even come close,” Billy told you, and that settled you a little.

Taking a breath, your attention turned to your own food, knowing you couldn’t begrudge a vampire his blood. You wanted him to eat and enjoy the evening.

About twenty minutes in, you excused yourself to go to the bathroom and were annoyed to find a familiar face waiting for you as you washed your hands.

“Having a nice evening?” Madani asked with none of her usual concern.

“Very nice, thank you,” you answered pointedly. “What do you want?”

“I want you to realise how much danger you’re in.”

“I’m not in danger. Billy hasn’t hurt anyone. If you want to keep me safe, you should go find Krista, she’s the only one who’s tried to bite me,” you snapped, patience quickly running out.

“You’ve seen Krista Dumont?” Madani asked, surprised. You nodded. “When?”

“Last night. She crashed Billy’s party and tried to bite me.”

“She’s a vampire?”

“Yes, and before you ask, no it wasn’t Billy.” You finished drying your hands and stepped past her towards the door. “Please just leave me alone.”

Returning to the table, you decided not to mention anything to Billy, hoping it was the last you’d see of Madani. Now that she knew Krista was alive, surely she’d leave Billy alone.

You continued to eat and made small talk, keeping the conversation light, both avoiding the more serious topics you’d already covered at the penthouse. And, when the main course was put out in front of you, you decided to do something to make things a little more entertaining for the both of you.

“Do you have your phone?” You asked him, gaze shyly dropping to the table.

“Of course, why?”

“I figured we could have some fun again.”

He looked at you blankly for a few seconds, not understanding what you were trying to suggest. You bit your lip as your cheeks warmed and, finally, the penny dropped.

“You mean...?” he asked, lips pulling into a grin.

“Last night we couldn’t see each other, so I thought...” you tried to explain.

Billy didn’t have to say anything, you knew he could hear your racing heart. You were close enough that you could see his eyes get darker as his pupils dilated, and you heard the hitch in his breath. You held his gaze, barely breathing as he pulled his phone from his jacket and placed it on the table, watching as he unlocked it and opened the app that controlled the toy.

But, then, he hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

You nodded, running your teeth over your lower lip again, struggling to find the words.

“Last night was... fun. I liked knowing you were thinking about me as much as I was thinking about you. When I know you’re thinking about me I...” your words caught on the lump in your throat.

“You can tell me,” he prompted quietly.

“You make me feel brave. When I’m with you, when you look at me like that, I feel like I could do anything.” you admitted. 

There was so much more you wanted to say, so many things you wanted to tell him but, after your conversation back at the penthouse, it didn’t seem fair. He wasn’t yours, he never would be. And you would only temporarily be his.

You sat a little straighter when the vibrations started, thighs clenching together beneath the table. Sucking your lower lip, you forced yourself to look him in the eye and let him see what he was doing to you.

“Fuck,” he muttered, “you were right; it’s a lot more fun when I can see your face.”

His free hand reached across the table to hold yours while the other swiped at his phone, changing the intensity of the vibrations. Your fingers tensed against his and Billy smiled.

“How is everything this evening?” The waiter asked, stopping by to refill your glasses, oblivious to what was going on.

“It’s amazing,” you answered, barely tearing your eyes from Billy, who struggled to hold back a laugh.

The waiter said something about dessert and left you to finish your main course.

Billy continued making small talk as you ate, occasionally and very brazenly reaching for his phone mid-conversation to start or stop the toy, spending the rest of the night toying with you and trying to drive you crazy. A couple of times you came close to climax, but he knew you well enough to know just how to deny you. 

By the time you had to walk back to the car, your legs were trembling and you had to loop your arm through Billy’s for support.

“Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

“No, thank you, hummingbird.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek as you walked across the parking lot. “After last night, I didn’t think -”

“Let’s not talk about last night,” you decided. “Tonight has been perfect and I don’t want anything to ruin it.”

He stopped to open the passenger side door for you but, before you could get in, Billy kissed you. Time seemed to stop and you were more than happy to let it, not even stopping to let yourself think about how this was the first time he’d kissed out in the open where anyone might see. The tiniest of moans slipped from you and you immediately felt Billy’s lips pull into a smile against yours.

“What?” You asked, letting out a nervous laugh.

“I don’t know, you’re just so -” Billy gave a laugh of his own, “- cute.”

“You think I’m cute?” Your cheeks started to warm, not sure if it was meant as a compliment or not.

“Yeah,” he answered, cupping your cheek and running his thumb across your lips. “You’re cute and innocent and sweet. And I love that about you.”

Before you could respond he was kissing you softly and opening the car door for you. And, for a moment, you were willing to forget about anything but his lips on yours.

“Come on, it’s getting late,” he finally ushered you into the car and, less than a minute later, you were on your way back home.

For most of the drive home, you were quiet, eyes fixed on the world beyond the car window, taking in the sights of the city late at night. It seemed to you like New York really was the city that never slept. From time to time, you glanced at Billy, smiling when his gaze caught yours.

There was a feeling of dread in your chest when he finally pulled into his space in the underground parking lot and killed the engine. When he moved to get out of the car, you found yourself reaching for him. 

Billy looked at you, puzzled.

“I don’t want tonight to be over yet,” you told him.

He nodded as if he felt exactly the same way before leaning in to kiss you softly. His hand cupped your cheek but, soon enough, it was drifting down to your neck and, then, as the kiss continued, it started to sink lower. It came to rest over your racing heart, his fingers tenderly squeezing your breast through your dress.

You shifted closer, fingers tangling in his hair, turning the kiss a little more desperate. Your other hand slipped down the front of his shirt to his belt and clumsily started to undo it. As you fumbled, Billy helped, pulling open his belt before helping you with the button and zipper of his pants.

A moan slipped from his lips the second you reached in to pull his cock out, the kiss momentarily faltering when you started to stroke him. You moaned in return when you felt him grow hard in your grasp. You pulled back from the kiss to look at him, taking in the look of lust on his face before your gaze dropped to your hand as it wrung around his shaft. 

The glistening tip had you licking your lips, pulling your legs up onto your seat so you could lean over the centre console. Billy started to say something but quickly fell silent as your lips wrapped around the swollen tip of his cock, your tongue lapping up the pre-cum that had accumulated there in a way that betrayed that this was something you’d done before.

Billy swore, groaning your name as you slowly started to take him into your mouth, continuing to stroke him as you did. It wasn’t long before you felt his fingers tangling in your hair. Your lips sank lower and lower, taking more of him. Your movements slow, deliberate. In a way, you were showing off - this was something you knew how to do well.

“Fuck, little hummingbird,” he groaned when you lips reached far enough to meet your hand at the base of his cock.

You would have smiled if your mouth hadn’t been full. When you pulled back a little, you managed to look up at him through your eyelashes, the tip of his cock still in your mouth, just in time to see Billy reaching for his phone.

Fuck. Your whole body tensed as the toy started to vibrate and, for a second, you froze.

“Don’t stop,” it sounded like a breathless command and you had every intention of following it, quickly returning to what you’d been doing.

Billy didn’t mess around, didn’t waste time, he cranked the vibrations up to the highest setting and turned things into a race against time.

His moans got louder the more of him you took and you could feel him throbbing. You drew your cheeks in and sucked, letting you little moans of your own. Every time you sank down, you felt his hand gently pressing against the back of your head urging you to take even more. Your eyes started to water a little when he hit the back of your throat but you refused to stop. You pulled back and took a breath before sinking down the length of him again, relaxing yourself as he slid into your throat.

“That’s it,” he gasped, “your mouth feels so fucking good...”

Your cheeks felt like they were burning with the things that Billy was saying and the way he was moaning as you dragged your lips up and down his shaft, but there was something empowering about it too. You liked knowing that you could make him tremble. Your free hand moved to your neck, fingers brushing against the necklace, wanting nothing more than to belong to him in that moment, to be nothing but his.

You started to moan even louder, too overwhelmed to even think about holding back, trembling and tensing as you started to come.

“Fuck... I’m gonna come,” he warned. Pulling his hand from your hair so you could pull back if you wanted.

But you didn’t want to pull back, instead you doubled down, tracing the throbbing vein on the underside of his shaft with your tongue.

Billy swore and gave you one last grunt of warning before he started to pulse in your mouth and you felt him spill onto your tongue. You closed your eyes tight and swallowed everything, revelling in his desperate groans.

Once you were done, you pulled away slowly, letting him fall from your lips. Your cheeks burned as you turned away to wipe any traces of cum from around your mouth, not looking back again until his hand found yours.

“You okay? He asked softly. All you could do was nod. His hand cupped your cheek and you found that you could barely meet his gaze. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. You wanted to do that, right?”

“Yeah, I -” you started to answer but quickly trailing off, hating that you didn’t have the words to describe what you wanted.

Your whole face felt hot, trapped between how you felt and how you thought you were supposed to feel. Despite all the time you’d spent with him, the things you’d done since leaving home, the shame was hard to shake.

“It’s silly,” you shrugged. “I’ve never enjoyed doing that before. I was always told women weren’t supposed to enjoy it, but with you...”

The press of his hand on your cheek became a little firmer, ensuring that your eyes stayed on him.

“That’s bullshit. You’re allowed to enjoy it - you’re allowed to enjoy everything we do together. We’re equals in this. If there’s something you don’t like then you don’t have to do it,” he told you.

Before you could answer, he was leaning towards you, making a point of kissing you deeply - something no other guy had ever done after finishing in your mouth - and leaving you with no doubts.

You didn’t speak again until he pulled back and you caught him looking at you with an expression that fell somewhere between questioning and sympathetic. “What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged, “I just think I’m starting to understand you a little better.” You didn’t respond, you just gave him a questioning look until he continued. “No one had gone down on you before, but you’ve obviously given a blowjob before... that says a lot about the guys you’ve been with.”

Again, you didn’t respond - you didn’t know what you were supposed to say to something like that.

“Now, come on, it really is getting late,” he said a moment later.

You both got out of the car and it wasn’t long before Billy’s hand found yours, keeping hold of you until you arrived back in the penthouse, and only letting go because his phone was ringing.

He gave you a look before letting out a sigh, and you took that as your cue to head to bed. Pressing your lips to his cheek, you held him tight for a few seconds, before starting towards your rooms, closing the door just as Billy angrily answered his phone.

“What, Frank?”

End Note : Again, I got carried away with the cuteness and this ended up really long 😅 The next chapter is also going to be pretty long too and, as a heads up next chapter is going to be particularly smutty, but it's also going to contain some potentially triggering stuff, so please make sure you read the warning on next weeks chapter!!

As always, thanks so much for reading/liking/commenting/reblogging I really love how much you all seem to be genuinely enjoying this fic! Have a great weekend!!

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@ashy-kit

This is so heartbreaking omg! amazing chapter Leah, absolutely in my feels right now. Poor Reader....

I know Matt will be there when she wakes up but I'm still so sad 😢

The Sun Will Rise

Wake Up, Chapter 8

Series Masterlist           Next Chapter

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader 

summary: In an attempt to stop the advances of an unwanted suitor, Matt Murdock accidentally condemns you to being his fake girlfriend.

warnings: sexual assault themes and descriptions, if non-con themes trigger you please do not read. other warnings: swearing, misogynistic language, violence

This chapter is very intense. I tried to keep the S/A stuff as not graphic as possible to avoid triggering people but it is very much there and the violence is more present than any other chapter.

a/n: Today has been a fucking DAY yall. My new cat got sick (he’s ok he just ate too fast and then got sick on me and my bed which was gross), I am having issues with pay equity at work, and trying to deal with utility issues in my house. I am very sorry for the late update. PLEASE let me know how you feel about this chapter, your comments and reblogs literally make my day every week. 

w/c: ~4.5k

Four years ago, you’d been desperate for a change.  Despite spending thousands on a fancy degree, you had gotten nowhere in the legal field and your job waiting tables at a diner in Queens barely paid the bills, though you were grateful for the work. 

Pouring coffee and taking orders wasn’t the worst job you’d ever had and the majority of customers during your shifts were sweet. You played the role of “cute, friendly waitress” well, making even the grouchiest patrons appreciate your soft smile and quick response time. Maybe this persona you’d adopted in your efforts to avoid your crippling anxiety was the reason he started looking your way. Perhaps it was your obvious desperation to be liked. Whatever it was that drew his attention, it was your eventual disinterest that kept it. 

The first day you met James Lannister was a shitty one. You’d worked a double shift, meaning you had been less than perky towards the end of it, leading to stupid mistakes and screaming customers. Emotions were running high when he took a seat in your section, so his calm demeanor and attentive smile drew you in. 

He’d only made pleasant conversation with you the first few visits. Asking about your day, your week, your hobbies, your interests, your family, your aspirations. Anyone would’ve been eager to spill their guts to him, he was quite charming. The way that his green eyes pooled with fascination as you spoke was almost reverent. No man in your life had ever made you feel that way, like nothing else in the room mattered. 

Which is why the red flags zipped right by you without triggering your internal security system. Day after day, he’d visit your place of work after his own shift at the Pro Bono Association. He’d ask his questions and encourage you to ask your own, which led to a standing invitation to sit with him when there was a lull in traffic at the restaurant. Your shared interest in the legal system and his willingness to share a slice of that life with you compelled you to take him up on the offer. 

Next came the gifts. Little things, at first. Large tips, suggestions for weekend entertainment complete with a gift card or fully funded ticket, books to further your legal studies after work. It was strange, but the attention was divine. He wasn’t an ugly man, and you’d never felt noticed like this before. 

Eventually, he’d goaded you into joining him and his wife for dinner at their house. Mrs. Lannister was beautiful and cunning. On the surface, she was always polite, reassuring, more than willing to host you or have you join them in public, but there was an ominous undercurrent that you never could place. The way she looked at you when her husband turned his back was almost murderous, but you were so caught up in the idea of being wanted that you glossed over the tension between the two of you. 

You were lonely, sure, but you never wanted romance or…other things…from Lannister. To you, he was a mentor, an idol. Someone to live vicariously through while in a transition period in life. But after accepting all of his kindnesses, you’d unknowingly crossed a line. 

Before it all fell apart, it almost seemed like universal intervention. During a seemingly mundane conversation, Lannister clasped his hands over yours with a giddy expression. It seemed that there was an entry level position opening up at the PBA office in Queens and he thought you’d be perfect for it. Not only would it be a substantial pay raise from your current position, but there were opportunities for growth and he would be your boss. 

At the time, it felt like a miracle. Your ticket to the next stage of your life. And it was, but letting your guard down for that shark ended up being the biggest regret of your life. 

Transitioning into your new role wasn’t seamless, but you took it in stride. Your eagerness to take on complex projects and expand the mission of the organization impressed the more seasoned employees. Lannister began taking you to lunches, galas, drinks, anywhere that he could introduce you to his network of attorneys. It was thrilling to be thrown into the world you’d always dreamed of and received with such open arms. 

For a few months, it was pure bliss. Until the night you placed your first case. 

Placing the case itself was unproblematic, you were happy that you fit into the role so well—and you expressed such sentiments to Lannister who invited you over to his house to celebrate. Arriving with a bottle of your favorite wine, it was immediately clear that something had changed. The once cozy house was in absolute disarray, riddled with empty liquor bottles and boxes of feminine clothes. And, although Lannister had implied there would be others there, you found him alone. 

Lannister noticed your wandering eyes and explained that his wife had left him. He told you not to worry about that and to focus on your personal success. The two of you enjoyed some good food and cheap wine, the older man drifting closer by the glass. Eventually, you felt your eyes growing heavy and he insisted that you stay over given the late hour. 

That night, you dreamt of a large shadow, looking over you while you slept, warm touch dancing over your clothes. You tried to protect yourself, but your arms wouldn’t respond to the commands your brain sent. When you woke up, you found your skirt unzipped. 

It got blurry after that. Lannister’s very public divorce led to inopportune inebriation, massive hangovers in the office, lewd comments, and wandering hands. While you still accompanied him to events, he began claiming you in public in increasingly repulsive ways. Holding you by the waist, kissing your cheeks, stroking his fingers over your neck, using that disgusting pet name. My little Princess. 

You only tried expressing your discomfort once before it escalated. You’d approached him in his office after lunch, when he was likely to be more sober, and hesitantly asked if he would consider pulling back. You’d been met with the most terrifying display of anger you’d ever seen. You hazily recall books being thrown, hits landing along your arms and torso, insults being hurled at you. 

He had made you. You would be nothing without him. You were ungrateful and whoreish and conniving just like his wife. While the memories faded, the scars from your skin splitting over the hinges of his office door still shone in certain lights. 

After that his actions were deliberate. His lingering touches scalded you. Being alone with him meant sentencing yourself to torture. When he was angry, he’d call you into his office to “talk it through.” To your absolute horror, these talks often involved a locked door and drunk hands groping your trembling form. 

For weeks you endured his abrupt switches between calculated insults, physical abuse, emotional manipulation, and inappropriate contact. You were barely alive, going through the motions and slowly convincing yourself that you deserved it. You’d fallen out of contact with your friends, were so emotionally fragile that a stern look from a stranger could send you into a panic attack, and you found yourself so nauseous that the first few hours of each day were spent hugging a toilet. 

It was clear you needed help, but Lannister was your boss and his threats terrified you. He’d made it clear that if anyone found out about his behavior, it would cost you your livelihood. As an incredibly well-known attorney with an impeccable record, there was no way you’d win in court, he had too many friends on the force or the bench. Not to mention how new you were to the organization. Despite his growing alcoholism, your coworkers were as enamored with Lannister as you used to be, the chances of them believing you were minimal. 

So, you stayed, trapped in a nightmare of your own unintentional creation. Until a position opened up in Manhattan. 

Applying on a whim, you’d kept your application a secret, not expecting to even get an interview. But, apparently the managing attorney across the East River had heard your name through the grapevine because she reached out within the week to schedule a lunch with you. 

The heavy weight that hung over your shoulders like a shadow has lessened considerably in the days leading up to the lunch. The possibility of escaping the hell you were living in quickly appeared like the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Manhattan was beautiful and the employees of the PBA office in Midtown were ecstatic to meet you. It was the best day you’d had in months, until you got back to your own office. 

Realizing you’d forgotten an important file you needed for a clinic the next day, you walked briskly through the quiet building, hoping to get in and out without running into your supervisor. Unfortunately, the world was not that gracious. 

As you rummaged through your desk, the overhead lights turned on making you flinch. Your hands stilled over the file cabinet, your breath catching on your throat. 

“You little bitch.” Lannister was furious if the rage dripping from his tone was any indication. “Tell me, Princess, why did I receive a call from Midtown about how happy they were to have finally met my assistant?”

You couldn’t speak, your throat constricting as if wrapped with fabric. Frozen in place, you heard him approaching and you cowered. 

“Thought you could go behind my back? Leave me high and dry without a warning? You owe me, little princess. After all I’ve done for you…”

Whether from fear or something else entirely, your brain blocked out the rest of his actions that night. You came to shaking on the floor, bloody and partially undressed, but you weren’t alone. Lannister had disappeared, thankfully, but your coworker stepped into your office with a shaky inhale. 

Erica was a young attorney who’d started a few weeks before you. Your emotional state had made it difficult to grow close to anyone in the office, but she’d always seemed sweet. And, fortunately for you in the end, she’d heard the commotion your boss had caused before storming home. 

As your wonderful coworker helped you clean yourself up, you tearily confessed the secrets you’d worked so hard to hide. Disgusted, Erica had encouraged you to speak to HR and you’d submitted a complaint later that day with her assistance. 

You owed Erica a great debt. Over the period of the investigation, she’d become a fixture in your office, making sure to keep you at a distance from your abuser. Without your prompting, she’d offered the committee looking into the allegations her full testimony. You were quite certain that her statement is the reason Lannister was fired. 

In the weeks following his termination, you felt like a new woman. You’d moved to a cute little place in Hell’s Kitchen and begun your new work as a volunteer coordinator. While you still struggled with crowds of lawyers and the taste of alcohol, a good therapist and a decent amount of time had helped you heal a considerable amount. 

Enough to open yourself up for the possibility of a relationship, which you weren’t sure you’d ever want after everything you’d been through. Meeting Matt had changed that though, turning ‘never’ into a ‘not right now’. 

Sweet, considerate, adorable Matt who had brought you more comfort than you ever thought you deserved. Who was probably still furious with you for falling for him, but you couldn’t help but plead with the universe to send him anyway. Please, Matty, please come for me. 

As the muggy van rumbled over potholes and uneven roads, you pictured his beautiful face. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. How his brow furrowed with concern over the most minor harm that had befallen you. The beautiful way his lips melded with yours as a single kiss made you feel weightless. You regretted not kissing him one last time before ruining what you had. 

I’m sorry, darling. Please don’t let them take me from you. I’m not ready to let you go just yet. 

As Matt neared the 4th floor, a knawing pit of dread grew in his stomach. He could smell your tears, newer than those that had fallen after he’d left, but your heartbeat was nowhere to be found. Frantically pacing the hallway, he quickly noticed your suitcase abandoned a few feet from the door to your shared room. Crouching down, he tilted his head, evaluating the scene. The scent of your fear coated the floor, walls, and fabric of your bag. You must have been terrified for it to penetrate your surroundings to that degree. Underneath your pheromones, Matt shuddered with rage as the sickly saccharine fragrance of Beatrice Snyder’s reached his sensitive nose. Mingling with her perfume was a different smell, smoky and dark. 

You’d been cornered by Snyder and an unidentified man, he was sure of it. Fumbling to find the right end of his key card, he threw open the door and stripped out of his suit. Given that he’d intended to share the night with you, he’d intentionally left his body armor at home. A black long sleeve tee and scarf around his face would have to do tonight. 

Stepping back into the empty hallway, he fled to the stairs. While the scent of your fear only fueled his dark anger, it was strong enough to leave a trail down the stairs and out the back door into the cool night air. As inconspicuously as possible, Matt navigated through the building, dodging employees and guests successfully until he reached the loading dock behind the kitchen. Your scent stopped here, replaced by the smell of gasoline. 

No, no, no. Where are you, angel? What happened to you? 

Matt growled in frustration, spinning around desperately searching for any sign of you, he ripped his phone out of his pocket and pressed your speed dial, hoping that you could still reach your phone. 

Receiving nothing but your voicemail message in return, he felt his fists clench. “It’s going to be ok, my beautiful girl. I’m coming.” 

Replacing the phone in his pocket, he took off in the direction of the strong scent of auto fuel, praying to God that the most recent vehicle would lead him to you. 

The van jolted to an abrupt stop and you slid along the dirty carpet into a seat in front of you. Your back ached from the jostling you’d gotten on the ride to whatever destination you’d apparently arrived at, and you could feel the imprint of thousands of plastic carpet strands that had melded with the flesh on your cheek during the drive. The sound of car doors slamming and the heavy footfalls following made you strain against your binds one final time. 

A large, rough hand snatched your ankle, yanking you towards the night air at the tail end of the vehicle. Kicking your legs wildly, you flopped like a dying fish along the carpet as you were slowly pulled outside. The fingers at your ankle moved to wrap around your throat, forcing the airway to constrict. Struggling fiercely against your captor, you heard a familiar, rasping voice from behind you snarl, “Shut her up, you idiot!” 

Lannister’s goon pressed a sharp implement against the soft flesh of your stomach. “Keep movin’ and you’ll lose a lot more than your man, bitch.” 

As your squirming died down, reality set in and tears began flooding down your face. It was over. He’d won. All of the efforts that went into putting distance between the two of you were meaningless. He’d found you, and Snyder was going to take Matt from you because of it. 

You were roughly stood on your feet and forced to move in the trail of Lannister and his other goon. Eventually, you were forced into a cold metal chair, binds attached to the stiff bars of the furniture. Your blindfold was ripped off, though your gag remained. James Lannister’s ferocious grin appeared in your line of vision, making you flinch. “So glad we’ve been reunited, Princess. We’re gonna have some fun.” 

The group had taken you to what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. There were broken wooden palettes and scraps of steel scattered around the floor. Holes in the sheet metal walls allowed cold, winter air to blow crisp waves of wind through the space, raising the hairs on your neck. A gaping hole in the roof above you showers you in moonlight, illuminating a small s circle around you and Lannister. 

A knife glinted in your peripheral vision and you whimpered, squirming involuntarily. Lannister grabbed a fistful of your shirt, yanking you forward with a growl. “The more you squirm, the more damage I do, little princess. I’d hold still if I were you.” 

With that warning, he slashed a jagged cut in your top, nicking the skin along your collarbone. A hand ran over your hair, grasping the strands and tugging so that your face was turned towards your captor’s once again. “There’s my obedient little pet. Was wondering where she’d gone.” 

Bile rose in your throat as Lannister stroked his massive hands along your face, planting heated, bourbon-soaked kisses along your neck and down your chest. Prying away your torn clothes, he turned to face the goons. “Is it ready?” 

“Yes, sir.” One deep voice responded from the shadows of the warehouse beyond your visible surroundings. “Before I have my fun,” Lannister stepped aside, revealing a tall dark shape topped with a blinking red light. “I’d like to record a confession, dear. For my sanity, and for the board to know the truth.” 

Raising his barely slurred voice, he turned to the camera. 

“State your name, for the record.”

“Please don’t do this. I don’t—“ Your pleading morphed into a screech of pain as the point of the blade ripped a gash in the exposed skin of your shoulder. 

“Wrong answer, pet.” Lannister took a swig from a practically empty bottle of liquor that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. A trail of blood wormed its way to the cement floor, pooling at your feet. You stared at the river of red liquid for a moment before stammering out your name. 

“That’s a good pet. What’s your relation to me, my dear?” Chucking the now empty bottle aside, it shattered at your feet, spraying you with cheap alcohol and pieces of glass. 

“I worked with you. In Queens.” A smaller knife plunged into the meat of your thigh and you screamed in agony. The larger of the two goons shuffled into your wavering vision, smiling as he wiped your blood from his hands. 

“More specific, Princess.” Lannister spat at you. 

“You were my boss.” 

“That’s right. Now tell us, how did you get me fired?” 

You sobbed, “I didn’t, I wasn’t—“ Grasping the knife still planted in your leg, Lannister twisted it, grabbing your throat. 

“Yes you did, you miserable bitch. You ruined my fucking life. I lost my divorce settlement, my job, my house, my reputation. All because I took an ungrateful slut under my wing.” Ripping the blade from your body, he hurled you to the ground. 

“TELL THE TRUTH!” Lannister roared, sending a brutal kick into your chest and knocking the air from your lungs. “Tell them that you seduced me for months and then used me to land a promotion. TELL THEM THAT YOU TOOK MY ENTIRE LIFE FROM ME AFTER I’D GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING!”

Stomping over your body again, he stumbled backwards allowing you to cough out a response. “I—I took everything f-from you. I was un-ungrateful.” 

Lannister cackled, pulling you from the ground by your uninjured arm. “Turn the camera off. They won’t want to see this next part.” 

The goons stepped forward to follow your former boss’s orders, but a piercing sound from outside halted them in their tracks. A horrific shriek, the sound of metal grinding on metal, echoed through the warehouse. All three men froze, looking to each other as if expecting to find the cause of the noise at the hands of their fellow assholes. Dropping you hard onto your shoulder, Lannister turned towards the source of the creaking and your head lolled after him.

As the door to the warehouse slammed open, you cried in relief as your weak gaze made out the black clad figure against the night sky. Daredevil. Your devil. He came for you. Tears poured down your cheeks and your limbs tensed, Matt’s presence drawing you in like a magnet. 

Lannister huffs out a laugh. “The fuck do you want, shadow man? Don’t you have robberies to stop?” At his sides, the other men shuffled nervously, knives gripped firmly as they awaited their next command. 

Matt stalked forward into the warehouse, his body stiff as it held his rage back, visible tension like that of water building against a dam. Fists clenched, he prowled an arc around your three kidnappers. “Step the fuck away from her.” His deep timbre was pitched exceedingly low with pure fury and it sent ripples of goosebumps across your bare skin. 

Drawing the handgun from the back pocket of his slacks, Lannister stepped towards you once more. “Do your worst, Devil. She’s not leaving here alive.” The world slowed, as if the air around you was suddenly thick as molasses. Your eyes were processing as much as they could as dread settled in your stomach. The barrel of the gun moved across Lannister’s body and pointed at you as his meaty thumb cocked the weapon. 

Simultaneously, Matt’s athletic form rocketed forward, skillfully dodging the swings from both of your unnamed assailants and leaping at Lannister. A gunshot rang and you traced the bullet as it soared towards you. Suddenly, your vision went white as pain seared through your body following the pointed metal cylinder as it tore through your abdomen. Screaming in anguish, your ears rang with a high pitched tone, the flash of white across your sight fading to black. The only thing you could focus on was the burning agony as the puddle of your blood seeped into your torn clothes. Forcefully shutting your eyes, your inhales turned shallow, and you prayed to your beloved Matthew that he would get you out of here before you took your last breath. 

Matt’s skin was alight with rage as he maniacally tore through the three brutes to reach your collapsed form. The head captor’s words barely registered in his ears over the deafening sound of a gun being pulled. No. Do not let it be her, take me. The safety was undone as Matt ripped one man’s shoulder from its socket, using the falter in his steps to knock him unconscious. He needed to be faster. He had to reach you. Planting a hefty kick into the next guy’s stomach, he brought his billy club up to meet the force of the man’s own body weight bringing him down. A hollow thud of a body on cement meant there was one attacker left. And then came the gunshot. 

As the bullet escaped the barrel it was encased in, Matt roared, the devil inside him fully consuming his consciousness as tackled the shooter. Knuckles connected with a jawbone, then the softer cartilage of a nose, then the lumpy space of a rib cage. Matt poured every emotion he had into this criminal, each punch holding seeds of guilt and regret and desperation. 

The smell of your blood cascading over the dirty floor broke him from his trance. Dropping the battered body of your captor to the floor, he dove beside you, hands hovering over your body as he assessed the damage. 

Sobbing in relief, he cupped your face as gently as he could. “It’s ok, angel. You’re gonna be ok. They’re not gonna hurt you anymore. Just breathe with me, please sweetness, breathe.” 

Your shallow pants stuttered as your hand weakly grasped his shirt. “Ma-Matty?” 

“Yah sweetness, it’s me. I’m right here. Gonna get you out of here, ok? Just hold on.” Ripped a strip of fabric from his shirt, he pressed it over your largest wound, biting back a pained sound of his own when you hissed. “I know, I know, angel. I have to stop the bleeding.” 

The soft smell of salt melded with the metallic odor of your blood. You were crying, holding on to the fistful of his shirt like it was a lifeline. “Y-you came for me? I’m—I’m so-sorry” 

Stroking your face lightly before he dialed 911, he cooed. “Of course I came, lovely. I’ll always come for you. Always. Now you just focus on breathing. In and out, sweetness. Good girl, just like that.” 

At the operator’s greeting, he spit out a rough command for police and an ambulance, giving a brief description of the events that had happened. Next, he pleaded for their help. There was no way he alone could get you to a hospital in time. 

“They were holding her hostage. She’s been shot, stabbed too. Lost a lot of blood. She’s still alive but she needs medical attention, please hurry.” He spit out the approximate location, scrubbing tears from his face as he pocketed his phone. 

Pressing his forehead to yours delicately, he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my sweet girl. It’s going to be ok. I’m so sorry.” Your hand raised shakily to cradle his nape. 

“Matty,” Your voice was weak, but determined. “I—I need you to know—“ 

“Hey, this isn’t one of those moments, sweet girl. You can tell me later, when you’re healing. You focus on—“ 

“No, please.” You begged, he fought back a choked cry so that you could say your piece. 

“I love you. S-so much.” You heaved a breath.  “I’m sorry that I ruined—“

“Shh, you didn’t ruin anything.” Matt chided gently, tears slipping faster after you'd confirmed his previous mistake. “I love you too, my wonderful, sweet girl. I won’t let them take you from me. I won’t.” 

“I’m sorry.” You choked out, and then you fell out of consciousness. 

Matt collapsed against your chest, clinging to the sound of your weak pulse as his body trembled with sobs. He planted soft kisses to your hair and cheeks, stroking lightly over your skin as he willed God to save you. 

The distant sound of sirens forced Matt to pry his face from your pummeled body. As the sound of vehicles approached, he made sure to alert the paramedics to your presence before taking back to the shadows. Hearing the clamor of attendants around you, he made a promise. “I’ll be there when you wake, angel. I’m sorry.”

Taglist: @maladaptivedaydreamingbum @scoliobean @harperdoodle @mattkinsella @leikelle @sweetbee0108 @dark-night-sky-99 @fallen-angels2213 @will-delete-this-later-probably @cheshirecat484 @thornbushrose @vernon-dursley

STOP!! I'M COMPLETELY OBSESSED WITH THIS OMGGG!!

I adore the way you wrote Matt as a vampire, sometimes fanfiction writing can feel disconnected from the real characters, especially in AU's, but this is so perfect. The fact that Elektra is the one that made him a vampire is also incredibly perfect.

I NEED MORE ALREADY, this is genuinely my newest obsession omgg 😭

Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3! (Soon)

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps. 

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again. 

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable. 

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil. 

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature. 

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving. 

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one. 

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans. 

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist. 

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires! 

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak. 

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire. 

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen. 

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead. 

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real. 

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires. 

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear. 

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes. 

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges. 

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.  

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands. 

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market. 

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight. 

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself. 

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into? 

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man. 

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set. 

Yours sincerely,

M.

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure. 

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out. 

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t. 

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire. 

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him. 

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work? 

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you. 

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly? 

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay. 

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person. 

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June. 

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard. 

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there. 

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying. 

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them. 

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it. 

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought. 

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is. 

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire. 

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you. 

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell. 

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run. 

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl. 

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is. 

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous. 

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being. 

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.  

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground. 

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed. 

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin. 

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft. 

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful. 

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night. 

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself. 

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel. 

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs. 

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down. 

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out. 

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool. 

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out. 

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose. 

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless. 

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his. 

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died. 

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind. 

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says. 

“I was considering not to.” 

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter. 

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing. 

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste? 

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.” 

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap. 

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.” 

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe. 

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked. 

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to. 

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself. 

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate. 

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says. 

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice. 

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say. 

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop. 

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say. 

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away. 

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out. 

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask. 

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home. 

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass. 

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says. 

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth. 

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight. 

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–” 

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off. 

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?” 

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says. 

He’s amused. You’re amusing him. 

“Don’t call me that,” you growl. 

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself. 

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?” 

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body. 

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor. 

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out. 

“Published by Columbia University.” 

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.” 

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you. 

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?” 

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers. 

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew. 

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence. 

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep. 

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside. 

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier. 

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him. 

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says. 

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped. 

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down. 

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes. 

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you. 

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word. 

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch. 

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in. 

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says. 

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be. 

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall. 

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights. 

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth. 

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?” 

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal. 

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most. 

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture. 

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes. 

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away. 

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle. 

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want. 

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell. 

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home. 

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you. 

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough. 

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake. 

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his. 

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins. 

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal. 

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of. 

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat. 

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you. 

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch. 

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls. 

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go. 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you. 

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you. 

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure. 

“Matthew,” you moan. 

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all. 

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate. 

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come. 

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart. 

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang. 

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes. 

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that. 

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks. 

“Thinking about you,” you murmur. 

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop. 

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening. 

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you. 

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death. 

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that. 

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever. 

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you. 

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him. 

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once. 

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine. 

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight. 

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger. 

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him. 

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come. 

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days. 

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

This fic is so amazing, and I'm so excited to see an x Rosalie story!! Love the way you write her as well, author! Take Care <3

Bound | Chapter 3

Word Count: 4.2K Warnings: implied/reference SA, torture, murder, bodily harm

Summary: Rosalie always carried the resentment of not being able to fulfill the image of the perfect family she had in her head. But the universe had set out to grant her everything she could've hoped for in the most unconventional way and in the form of a witch. Can their love withstand the promise of forever, or will Rosalie and (Y/N) succumb to the grapples of time?

A/N: well, we continue with Rosalie's revenge. Still one more chapter to go for the murder I am sure we are all waiting for. The next chapter will also be from Rosalie's "POV" since I want to show the parallel time frames for both the reader and Rose, and there's a time frame when nothing important is happening for Reader, but it does for Rose. I literally made an entire timeline to make sure things add up. Anywho, hope y'all enjoy! Also, I want to say to any and all survivors of SA that you are not alone and what happened to you is not your fault, it never will be. I hope you have healed or are healing. And if you ever just need an ear to listen, I am here. 🤍

<- Previous

It was astounding how different two lives that were connected could look so different in the same time span. Whilst (Y/N) basked in the presence of her best friend, in their love and closeness, Rosalie was going back to the Cullen residence after taking the lives of two men, with no knowledge that the witch that would change her life was less than four hours away. Had life turned out any differently, that was the closest their souls would have been to meeting. So close, yet so far. 

Alas, neither knew of the existence of the other. Not yet, at least. 

The blonde was angsty with revenge. Her veins itched with the need to rid the earth of those demons, to make sure no other woman ever fell victim to their claws. Her entrails churned and tightened. She needed them gone in order to finally sit with her thoughts, to allow the weight of everything that had happened to her to sink down her body. 

“So you really killed them?” Edward’s voice broke through the silence of the room Carlisle had designated as hers days after the murders. “News is spreading about a psychotic killer that took the lives of the Hubert brothers. Essentially tortured them both without spilling a drop of blood. And apparently, some men have been receiving threatening letters from this killer.” 

“What do you want, Edward?” 

“Don’t you think it’ll serve you better just to move on? Killing those men will accomplish nothing in the long run,” he said. “Even if you think you’re ridding the world of these monsters, they will be replaced by three more. That’s the world we live in.” 

“Just because you can hear my thoughts doesn’t mean that you know me,” she spoke through gritted teeth. “If you’re here to stop me from going through with my plan, then I will save you time. Carlisle could not get me to desist, and you certainly would not be able to.” 

“I’m just saying, Rosalie. It won’t help you in the long run to take their lives. You’ll live with them in the back of your mind for eternity. It’s not an existence you’d want.” 

“This is already an existence I don’t want, Edward. And their faces are already embedded in my head because of what they did to me. They took everything I hold dear. They took everything from me! The least I can do is take their lives. And I certainly don’t need a morality course from you.” 

Edward’s words died in his throat at that moment, and Rosalie was thankful for that. The last thing she wanted was to listen to a man who thought he was better than everyone around him because he could hear their thoughts. It didn’t take long for her to figure him out. He believed he was above scrutiny. He was arrogant and entitled. And he made it all that easy to get over the fact that he did not find her attractive –not that she’d let him know. It was the thought that would protect everything she really felt.

“Well, then. If that is all, I will ask you to leave,” she smiled. “I have better things to do.” 

Rosalie had nothing to do, in reality. As she let fear fester in the other three men, she did not know what to do with her days. She couldn’t leave the house because she was meant to be missing. She felt no desire to do any of the things she loved. Not even work on the 1928 Series 341-A blue Cadillac Carlisle had bought her to fix up. The only thing she could do was grow the fear inside the surviving monsters. To make sure they were sleeping with one eye open as they awaited their reckoning. Once that was over, she truly did not know what she would do with her life after. 

What Rosalie did know was where Ulysses Levitt lived. 

The boy came from new money, but he thought he was larger than life. Everyone in town knew where his family’s money had come from, and it wasn’t through the most legal of methods. Still, they were untouchable. Their money and their reputation made sure of that. They were safe from humans. Safe from the law raining fire down on their house and their businesses. But it didn’t protect their child from an immortal beauty dressed in the finest clothes. It didn’t keep him from becoming the next name on her revenge list. 

It was still morning, but it was a cloudy day in Rochester, New York. The darkness in the sky cloaked the rains of the sun, allowing her to walk freely through the streets. Ulysses’ apartment was in the town center. And where it was usually bustling with people, barely a soul was walking the streets. The town was still reeling from the murdered Hubert brothers,  the case too important to fall into the pile of cases that littered the station. There was too much money and too much influence surrounding these murders, and they needed to be solved so the people of Rochester could sleep in peace at night. 

And they should have. But they did not know that the danger that lingered in their city was directed onto a very specific group of men –boys. Death had kissed the eyes of five men and had given Rosalie the power to execute Her will. If others got in her way… well, every war has its odd casualties. 

Ulysses was her prey, and she was ready to go hunting. 

In a sense, she pitied him. The boy had spent his entire life trying to belong. Old money mixed with new money like water and oil. It didn’t matter how much money his family had. It would never be enough to gain the same power the other families had. So, the boy –only a few years older than Rosalie– had done everything he could to fit in with the world around him. And when the events of that night were taking place, he had gone along with what his friends had told him to do. He had ravaged her body without her consent.  Still, the Levitt boy was the only one of the five who had not even been able to look her in the eyes when the deed was done. He was the quickest to finish and the first one to go. And she remembered that grain of mercy. 

But he had still done it. Ulysses Levitt was still the worst kind of monster. 

She would grant him the same amount of mercy when it came to his death, though. Rosalie would grant him a quick and clean death. Well, with a hint of taunting. What fun would it be to simply kill him? His death would be swift, but that had nothing to do with the foreplay. 

She wasn’t surprised when she found his apartment to be locked. An anxious Ulysses was talking to his father on the phone, asking if he had heard anything regarding the Hubert brothers’ killer. Telling the man that he was terrified about the threatening letters he had received and how he feared whoever had sent them would be true to their word.  Unbeknownst to him, she was standing right outside his door. Granted, they were looking for a him, and they were looking for a human. Two things she was not. 

Rosalie granted him the decency to end the phone call. For him to promise his father that he would call Mrs. Levitt later in the week. That he would go home on Friday for a family dinner. Things he would never get to do. But there were so many things she couldn’t do either. Not anymore. Because of him and his friends. 

Just like him and the Hubert boys, she would no longer be able to have dinner with her parents. She wouldn’t be able to take a stroll outside in the daytime, feel the sun warm her skin, or even breathe the fresh air. She wouldn’t be able to plant roots in any city she would live in. And she would never be able to have children or grow old –what she had wanted most in the world. Well, that and her beauty. The only thing she would have for eternity. 

But it was starting to taste bitter. Her beauty had gotten her everything, and her beauty had taken it all away. Still, she couldn’t dread on that just yet. Not until her job was done. 

When Ulysses hung up the phone, she knocked softly on his apartment door. The sound of the wood echoed deep inside her ears. She covered the peephole with her hand in case he decided to look through it and ruin the surprise. But a man like him had no fears. At least, not ones he knew of. 

“Hell… oh,” he choked. His eyes grew big, all the blood draining from his face. “Wha… how…?” 

He tried to close the door on her, but just by reaching her hand out, Rosalie stopped it. She wanted to laugh at how scared he looked. He tripped going backward, scrambling on the floor for something to defend himself with. “What’s wrong, Ulysses?” she smiled sweetly. “Cat got your tongue?” 

“Y-y-you were dead,” he stammered. “We… you were dead.” 

“And I still am,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’re not going crazy, nor do you see a ghost. I can confirm that I am very much here in your presence.” 

“B-but how? If you are dead, there’s no way you could be here. It’s not possible.” 

“There are so many unexplainable things in this world, Ulysses. My new and improved life is one of them,” she grinned, though the words tasted bitter in her mouth. She hadn’t improved. She didn’t even want that life. But, it gave her the upper hand. It gave her just enough power to end the ones that had given Doctor Cullen no other choice but to turn her into what she was –for her body not to be a waste. “But I won’t bore you with those details. We have other things to attend to… well, we is too many people. I have other things –people– to attend to.”

“You killed Andre and Buck,” he gasped silently. “It was you that murdered them that night. And the letters… oh my god, the letters were from you too.” 

“Guilty as charged,” Rosalie chuckled. “And after I am done with you, John and Royce will get what’s coming for them.”

Ulysses kept silent for a moment, his green eyes staring into the crimson red of hers. His heart had steadied, and his breathing was no longer sporadic. Somehow, being faced with inevitable death was calming him. “I deserve that,” he said. “So did the Huberts, and so do John and Royce. What we did to you was unforgivable, so I won’t stand here and apologize. I know what I took part in, and I know just how despicable my actions were. If someone had done that to my sister, I would have gone to the ends of the earth to make the ones who had done it pay. But, can I just ask for one thing?”  

“And what makes you think you are deserving of a last wish?” she questioned. “I surely did not receive that commodity.”  

“I know I am in no place to ask anything of you, nor do you have to grant me this request,”  Ulysses responded as silent tears fell down his cheeks. “But, my mother, she’s sick, and I know it will kill her to find me here. All I want is to write her a letter. Tell her I’ve left town too ashamed of where our family has made its money. When she calls tomorrow, and I don’t answer, she will surely come here and find the letter. Then, I ask that you hide my body where she will never find it.”  

“Why should I grant you this? What convolutes you into believing that you deserve that?” 

“I don’t.” 

His candor took Rosalie aback. All he wanted was to ease his mother’s pain because a runaway son was better than a dead one. And the look in his eyes, the way they pleaded without any more words, twisted something inside her. Maybe she was pitying the boy. Maybe she wished she could have done something like this for her own parents. Maybe it was the fact that he truly seemed to repent for his actions, unlike the empty apologies of Buck and Andre. 

“Alright,” she asserted. “I will grant you that request. For your mother’s sake.” 

With a sad smile, he scurried to his phone table. It took him maybe a minute or two to scribble down what he needed to say. Her eyes followed him as he packed away clothes and papers to make the lie even more believable. When he was done, it truly seemed like he was ready to journey out of New York rather than to the afterlife. 

“Okay,” he sighed, tears still streaming down his eyes. “I’m ready.” 

Rosalie stepped forward, closing the distance between them. She placed one hand on the back of his head and the other on his jaw. The coldness from her hands seemed to make him shiver, but other than that, he was as still as a statute. 

“May your god have mercy on your soul, Ulysses,” she whispered, her eyes trained intently into his. 

“Amen,” he seemed to say before the cracking of his neck filled the air. 

His body fell limp onto the floor, thudding against the wood. But it was done. His green eyes were now empty, and his chest no longer breathed. Wherever his soul was sent to, she wished it a safe voyage. 

The mere thought made her want to burst out in laughter. How she was wishing him a pleasant trip into the afterlife after what he had done. Even more, how she was fulfilling his last wish so that his mother could die with the hope that one day her son would come back. Those were the kinds of ironies the universe seemed to like to play. 

It wasn’t hard to disappear his body. Dirt in the cemetery had recently been overturned, and it was easy enough to lay his body to rest there. The name on top of the grave would not be his, but at least he had been buried. No family to sob over his corpse, no missing posters littering the town, no one to mourn over. It was clean. It was easy. And it was much more than he deserved. 

Rosalie discarded the suitcases in a garbage pile she walked by a week later on her way to the Cadillac Hotel, where John Harris was probably nursing a glass of whiskey in his room, packing his bags to head back home to Atlanta. Unfortunately, he would not return home to his money and family. He wanted to leave his mark in Rochester, and she would make sure it was a corporal statement. 

Getting into the hotel was easy. As the day transitioned into night, more and more people trickled into the bar, hoping to settle their nerves while a killer ran free in their city. Unknowingly, that same killer walked amongst them in a place they thought they were safe in. And they were, technically. There was only one man amongst them who should have been trembling in his shoes, terrified of all she could do –all she would do. 

She spotted him across the bar, trying his luck with a couple of girls not much older than her. And it irked her that he was not as scared for his life as he should have been. But they were paying him no mind. Thankfully, in there, they were safe. He was alone, and there were too many people around to reveal the monster that lay dormant beneath his skin. After they said no too many times and laughed in his face, he left his glass on the mahogany counter and headed for the elevators. 

Rosalie thought she would lose him, but his scent had already permeated her nostrils, and she could hear the gears of the elevator clanking to a stop on the third floor. She sped up the stairs, quick enough to see him sway into room 314 and hear him lock the door behind him. Not that it would help him in any way, but he would open the door willingly. 

The vampire ensured the coast was clear before she knocked on his door, standing just out of sight from the peephole. 

“Who is it?” he called from the other side. 

“It’s Clara,” she spoke in a higher pitch of voice. “Thought I would take you up on your offer after all.”

“I knew you’d change your mind,” he chuckled. “You girls always do.” 

“Well, I couldn’t give you the wrong impression of us Rochester girls.” 

“Sounds good, darling,” he said as the door clicked open. “Hel…” 

His voice died in his throat as Rosalie pushed him inside. She sped until his body slumped against the armchair, and the light could hit her face. “Hello, John.” 

“You’re… you’re… not…” 

“I’m not Clara,” she grinned deviously. “Luckily, she was able to escape your disgusting claws. You get me for the night instead.” 

“No, no, no!” John stammered. “You’re dead. I saw you… on the street. You were dead.” 

“I’m honestly getting tired of people saying that,” she laughed dryly. “I am dead –in a sense. My heart is not beating, my lungs are not breathing, and my appetite… well, let’s just say it’s out of this world.” 

“W-what do you w–want? I’ll give you anything,” he pleaded. Tears fell down his eyes, and it made her scoff.  “Please, I am a good man.” 

“It’s hard to say with all those clothes on,” she grinned. “How could you ever measure the caliber of a person with a simple look? Especially when your vision is shielded with so many pieces of clothing.” 

“I’m sorry I said that,” he cried. “I was drunk and off my head. I promise I have never done anything like that before.” 

“Somehow, I highly doubt that, John. See, you paint me as the type of man that takes what he wants when he wants it, regardless of who you hurt. You take, and you take until you are satiated and leave others to deal with the aftermath of your actions. You took everything you wanted from my body and left me there to rot on that street.” 

“And I know how wrong it was of us,” he rambled. “But we were drunk out of our minds, and we weren’t thinking straight. We should have come back for you. At the very least, we should have left you at the hospital.” 

“You shouldn’t have touched me in the first place,” Rosalie spat. “You should have let me go home to my family. You should have allowed my marriage to go through. You should have let me have the life that I deserved. Instead, you took everything from me.” 

“Then, tell me what to do to fix this. Please, I know I can fix this.” 

Rosalie smiled, unable to shed tears of anger. There was something he had to do, but it would not spare his life. No. It would only gift him with a few seconds more. “What you will do is pick up that phone,” she said, pointing at the ivory-white device. “You will call your pal, Royce. And you will warn him that someone is coming for him. That somehow, a man found out what you did to me and is picking you all off one by one. You will tell him that he should hide. To burrow himself in the deepest corner he can muster. And then, you will hang up.” 

“And after, will you spare me?” John questioned, a glimmer of hope shining in his eyes.

“Oh, John, of course not,” she laughed melodiously. “But I’m saving Royce for last, and I want his death to be delicious. At least make my death count for something.” 

“W-what if I called the police instead? They will tear down this door and stop you.” 

“I’d be long gone before they even had a chance to step foot into the hotel. And you’d still be dead as well as Royce. Because, thanks to your brutality, I have become faster and stronger than any human in existence. I am invincible, John. Something I wasn’t that night. So, pick up that phone and call your friend before I lose my patience and snap your neck earlier in the schedule.” 

With trembling hands, John lifted the receiver from the stand, rotating in the number she dictated. She could see the beads of sweat that were forming on his forehead; she could hear the way his heart beat frantically; she could almost feel the way his bones rattled inside his skin. It was an addictive feeling. The power she had over him, and she didn’t even have to move a muscle. All she required was the way she looked and the words she spoke. Maybe that was why they had done it. Simply because they could. 

“Oh, hello, Mrs. King,” John said as the other line picked up, panic deeply laced into his words. “Yes, it’s John. I just had some quick words to say to Royce… I did hear about the Huberts. Such a shame… I didn’t know that Ulysses ran away… Yes, maybe one day… Yeah, I don’t have much time. Is Royce there…? Of course. Thank you, Mrs. King.” 

Rosalie listened to every syllable he spoke, making sure he did not step out of script. She wanted to terrify Royce King with an invisible threat. She wanted him to feel like he was being watched –like he was being hunted. She wanted him to cower into despair, even if only for a few hours. She wanted him to feel weak. 

“Listen, Royce,” John’s voice spoke again. “I don’t have much time. But someone found out about Rosalie just like we thought… I don’t know how, but they are picking us off one by one… He tried to get me tonight, man… Listen, just… you have to hide, okay? Find someplace secluded and stay there until shit dies down… Ulysses didn’t leave, Royce. He’s dead… Just hide. Tonight!” 

The receiver hit the base with a loud pang, and John’s gaze fell back on Rosalie. The devilish smile she wore made his insides shiver; she could perceive that much. He looked frail and weak. Nothing like the monster that had ravaged her body without her consent. The creature that had used fangs and claws to take from her something that she was not giving. 

“Good,” she applauded. “It’s nice to see a man that can follow instructions. Now, John. This won’t be messy, but it will be rather slow. And I’ll tell you exactly how I’m going to do it.” 

“God, please, just spare me. Royce is the one that you want,” he begged, falling onto his knees before her. “He’s the one that should have protected you. Please, just let me go back home.” 

“Do you think I can go home, John? Did any of you spare me and grant me the mercy of going home?” she asked through gritted teeth. “You didn’t. No. You took my life into your hands and watched as, minute by minute, it drained and slipped from your fingers. And that’s exactly how you’re going to go, John. I will wrap my cold, dead hands around your throat and cut out your life source until there is nothing left. I will look into your eyes until your soul leaves your body. And I will make sure I am the last face you ever stare at on this earth.” 

John scrambled backward on the armchair. The piece of furniture clattered onto the ground as the man made a futile attempt to escape to his balcony. There was nowhere he could go. No one he could call.

“You can’t do this!” he wailed. “Not to me. You can’t do this to me!” 

“Don’t you get it? The time for clamoring is over, John. Now, say your goodbyes to the world.” 

In an instant, Rosalie stood before him. Her pale hands wrapped around his neck, just as she had described. He tried to claw at them, to hurt her enough to run. But his nails were met with stone-like skin –impenetrable. He could not even move his head at the grip she held him with. Only his arms and legs could reach for a desperate attempt at freedom. Something that would never come. 

She knew it hadn’t taken long. But time seemed to have slowed as she watched the colors change on the man’s face. Her fingers barely squeezed, but his skin turned an array of reds and purples until it finally paled. And she swore she could tell the second his soul finally left his body. His eyes turned lifeless right before her own. They had emptied themselves, confirming the void that had been created inside of his body. There were no more pleas, no more tears, no more anger. He was simply another body. And just like he had done to her, Rosalie left his body on the ground for someone else to find. 

He wasn’t the death that would satiate her. No. Royce was on his way to dig his own grave. He just didn’t know it yet.

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UGH MATT YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT!!! I'm losing my MIND!! Now poor reader is trouble that could have PROBABLY BEEN AVOIDED! Or at least Matt would know where she is smh.

Beautiful chapter, and I'm so excited to read more! Take Care author <3

Set Heaven on Fire

Wake Up, Chapter 7

Series Masterlist           Next Chapter

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader 

summary: In an attempt to stop the advances of an unwanted suitor, Matt Murdock accidentally condemns you to being his fake girlfriend.

warnings: implied non-con/sexual assault, misogynistic language, swearing, angst

a/n: I feel really unsure about this chapter so PLEASE like, comment, and/or reblog to tell me you like it! Some angst (before the hurt) before the fluff. 

w/c: 3.3k

A heather gray pea coat passed through your peripheral vision and the sight, combined with the wafts of that deep sticky cologne, made you catch your breath. 

Told you that I’d come for you, Princess. 

Eyes darting around wildly, you meekly shuffled forward in line, inching closer to the hotel employee who looked as frantic as you felt. Breathing as deeply as you could, you tried to calm your stuttering heart. Why did I ever agree to this?? What if he’s here?

You and Matt were currently checking in at the venue of the annual Criminal Law Conference. A conference that you normally wouldn’t attend—especially since you were approaching a year as volunteer coordinator and thus the anniversary of the internal investigation that had ended so poorly—but this event was a rather intimate affair and attendees were encouraged to bring their partners. Matt had practically begged you to come, and you were not immune to his signature puppy dog eyes. According to him and Foggy, there were educational sessions and discussion forums during the day, but prestigious networking events at night—similar to the gala you'd attended together so long ago. You couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of that dreadful night.  

Two strong arms wrapped around your waist, tugging you into a solid chest. With a small squeak, you allowed yourself to fall against the warm body behind you.

“Breathe, sweet girl.” The deep rumble spilled from Matthew Murdock’s lips, giving you a point of focus. You dutifully obeyed his instructions, inhaling a strong breath and letting it out slowly. 

“That’s my good girl,” Matt purred, warming your body with his subtle flirt. “What’s got you so worked up, angel?” You could feel the eyes of the other attorneys in line falling on the pair of you. 

“Dunno.” You murmured in response, shifting in his arms so you could bury your face in his neck to hide from the crowd’s collective gaze. “I just…thought I saw someone.” 

“Snyder?” Matt’s brow pinched as he took his focus off of you for a moment to search for any sign of the crone. 

“Uh, yah.” You whispered, but your heartbeat stumbled. Why were you lying? Who had you thought you’d seen? Was it just a cover because he was the one making you nervous? Oh god, he was totally making you nervous. 

“The line is moving again.” Your quiet, anxious voice cascaded over him once more and he decided to drop the inquiry, for now. You didn’t seem to be in a great headspace for an interrogation. 

“Thanks, angel. Guide me?” He gave a pronounced pout, coupled with his aforementioned puppy dog eyes, hoping the expression would lighten your mood. It seemed to work marginally as he heard the small smile in your sweet voice as you spoke again. 

“Always, love.” You carefully untangled yourself from his grasp, sliding his left hand to the crook of your right elbow. The two of you moved forward with the crowd, your place in line just shy of the front desk at this point. 

“412, 414, 416. We’re in this room here. Hold my bag for a second?” You waited for Matt’s nod before handing over your suitcase so that you could insert the key card in the door. 

Once inside, and away from the prying eyes of your colleagues, you felt the tension seep out of your body. Matt’s hand slipped from your arm, making you frown. He walked into the room ahead of you. 

“Sorry for all the PDA back there, everyone was looking so I…” His voice was soft, almost nervous. 

Sitting on the bed, he removed his glasses and nervously rubbed at his face. 

“That’s not what made me anxious, Matty. I promise.” You plopped down next to him, leaning onto his shoulder. With one hand on the small of his back, you nudged his chin with a single finger so that your foreheads could rest against each other.

“You’re sure?” The undercurrent of fear in his tone didn’t go unnoticed. Matt’s self-doubt didn’t rear its head often around you at the beginning of your pretend relationship, but, as he began to trust you implicitly, he couldn’t quite keep his personal demons at bay. Thankfully, you were more than willing to reassure him when his worries surfaced. 

“Absolutely certain, darling. You know that I get stressed in crowds. Besides, I could never complain about being held by the Matthew Murdock. Do you know how many women would kill for that opportunity?” You poked his cheek, making him smile. 

The lawyer blushed, ducking his head with a small grin. You grinned at him in return. “It’s true. They’re practically lining up just to catch a meager glance from you.” 

Matt snickered. “I don’t know about lining up…”

You looked at him, face softening. “I’m very lucky to have a fake boyfriend like you, darling. I think about that a lot.” Your heart rate picked up as Matt moved closer. 

“You think about me a lot?” Matt’s eyes were dancing with heated mirth and it sent a jolt straight to your core. 

Heat rose in your face as Matt pressed in closer to you, slowly pushing you onto your back and boxing you in with his huge arms. 

“So what if I do, Matty?” Biting your lip, you internally cringed at how wobbly your attempted flirt sounded. 

“Don’t get shy on me now, sweetness.” Matt rolled off of you, frowning, settling on his side next to you. Your heart fell as he distanced himself, as if you’d expected him to tear you apart right there on that bed. 

Recovering your dignity as well as you could, you nestled yourself against the pillows with a sigh. “Speaking of me being shy, could we, um, talk about something later? About us?” 

As if a switch had been flipped, Matt’s body stiffened next to you, his blank eyes growing wide and his demeanor becoming gruff. “Can it wait until after tonight?”

Your heart sank at his reaction. “Of-of course, Matty. How long until I have to put my game face on?”

“Well, there’s a social thing in a couple hours or so, but we do not need to stay long.” Matt’s voice was almost…stern?

Something about his new mood set you on edge. You’d been trying to be more physically affectionate with him in place of outright confessing your feelings. (Every time you thought about admitting how much you liked him, your throat felt like it was closing up, so you had avoided the topic until this moment.) 

Had you been making Matt uncomfortable? Since you’d gotten here, he just seemed…off. The brief flirting session had indicated to you that it was just nerves because of his peers, but now you weren’t so sure. You shuffled around on the bed uneasily, deciding on your next move. 

“Oh, ok. I’ll get ready then.” Your voice was timid as you slid off the bed. Padding into the pristine bathroom, you turned the shower on before letting your eyes fill with tears. He doesn’t want you. He never will. 

Matt’s chest clenched as he smelled salt on the stale air of the hotel room. You were crying in the bathroom, barely 10 feet away from him and yet he was entirely powerless. The sound of your heart rate rising as your body exuded anxiety taunted him relentlessly. 

After talking with Foggy and Karen a few weeks ago, he’d been trying to muster up the courage to ask you out properly. Until today, he’d even had hope that you’d be excited to be in a more legitimate relationship with him—clearly his friends were mistaken. His presence did nothing but drive your vitals through the roof but he wasn’t willing to let you go just yet. 

He’d tried to find the spark that had been there during your first kiss a few weeks ago, but the shakiness in your sweet little voice clearly signaled fear. You didn’t want to do this with him anymore. 

That was what you’d wanted to talk to him about, right? It had to be. “About us?” Your soft wavering voice had crushed him. He’d been waiting for this specific shoe to drop for weeks, but the waves of shock and hurt hit him like a bus anyway. 

Emotion welled up in his throat and he swallowed painfully, trying to hold back the roiling storm in his chest. It was cruel to keep you here with him if you didn’t want to be. Tonight, he’d set you free. 

Fidgeting with the strands of your wet hair, you let out a sigh. Your eyes were bloodshot to the point that you were concerned makeup wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that you’d been crying. An anxiety-inducing cherry on top of the shitty day you’d ended up having. 

A quiet knock on the door drew a small squeak out of you. “Yah?” 

“Hey, uh, you don’t need to come tonight, sweetness. You’ve done enough. Don’t want to force you.” 

Tilting your head in confusion, you peeled the door open to reveal a formally dressed Matt, glasses obscuring his stony gaze. 

“You…you don’t want me to come?” You whispered, throat closing up while your heart pounded. 

“It’s not that I don’t want you there, I just—“

“Did I do something wrong?” You desperately searched Matt’s face for any indicator that he was lying, his sweet self trying to spare you anxiety or something. 

“No, of course not, I didn’t mean—“ 

“Then what did you mean, Matt? I must’ve done something, you’re clearly upset!” You were almost angry now. After everything the two of you had been through and suddenly you having feelings was a deal breaker? Like you just couldn’t help yourself around him anymore?

“You just don’t need to be there, so I’m not going to force you—“

“Force me? Where is this coming from, Matt? Is this because of what I said earlier? About wanting to talk? Because we don’t have to, we can just—“

“Just what, keep pretending to be in love with each other? Kissing and holding hands and bantering like one of us isn’t going to get attached? That’s not fair to either of us.” Matt was yelling now, fists clenched. 

“I—I didn’t know you felt this way about someone getting attached. I wouldn’t have said anything, I—“

“Yeah because that would’ve solved everything, right? Just lying to my face until I didn’t need you anymore?” Jaw set with rage, you realized you weren’t looking at Matt Murdock, but the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

“Matt—“ You tried to reason with the raging force in front of you, but he was having none of it. 

“Go home,” Matt growled your name in a way that made you flinch. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. I’m sorry.” With one last angry murmur, he straightened his tie and disappeared through the room’s door, leaving you to crumble to the floor with a new flow of sobs. How had tonight unraveled so quickly? 

Breathing eventually falling into a controllable rhythm, you hastily wiped at your face and set off on wobbly legs to grab your suitcase. Shooting a text to Marci to let her know that you had tried to confess your feelings and it ended up being a huge mistake, you steeled yourself before turning your back on the room you’d planned on sharing with the man you had feelings for. 

Whipping open the door, you kept your head down and took a step toward the elevators, running head first into Beatrice Snyder. 

Matt’s jaw was painfully clenched by the time he reached the ballroom. He’d commit a litany of sins in his life, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would be damned for what he did to you tonight. While it was not your fault that you didn’t return his feelings, his hurt quickly turned to anger. 

Anger was familiar. Anger was safe. Rejection wasn’t. 

Stepping over to the bar, he failed to return the bartender’s smile and polite tone. “Whiskey, double.” 

Downing the glass the moment it was set in front of him, he slammed it back to the bar top. “Refill.” Then, remembering his manners, “Please.” 

Feeling a presence over his shoulder, he cursed his cruel God for letting Foggy find him before he was sufficiently wasted. 

“Going a little hard for a work event, eh Murdock?” Foggy’s chuckle was humorless and a bit nervous as he gave his friend a once-over. “Where’s your better half?” 

“Gone. Sent her home.” Matt downed the second glass of liquor, refusing to let down his guard again tonight. 

“And as obvious as it is that you’re having a great time on your own, why, pray tell, did you do that?” Foggy’s tone was level, but Matt could hear his frustration simmering beneath the surface. 

“She knows, Fog. I don’t know how but she knows that I like her. And she doesn’t feel the same way. So I didn’t see the point of fooling myself any longer. It wasn’t fair to her.” 

“Matt, bud—“ Foggy reached for Matt’s arm but he jerked away from the offered touch. 

“What, Fog? Can you honestly tell me that any of this has been kind to her? I know you expected this to become real at some point, but clearly that’s not going to happen. I think we both just need some time.” The thought of being apart from you was excruciating, but he’d dug this grave himself. 

“Did she say that? Matt, what on earth—“ Foggy was clearly about to chew him out, but someone else beat him to it. 

“Murdock, I have a bone to pick with you!” Marci’s voice was angry and loud, sending a spike of pain through Matt’s pounding eardrums. 

“Babe, maybe it’s best if we—“ Foggy placated, his hands raised in surrender and Marci stormed towards the bar. 

“Save it, Foggy Bear. Matthew Motherfucking Murdock what the fuck did you do?” A well-manicured hand shoved Matt’s chest and, while he would’ve been able to stop it, he took the punishment in stride. It was nowhere close to what he deserved. 

“You’re going to need to be more specific.” Matt remarked drily. 

“Oh, spare me your attitude. You seriously blew up on her because she likes you? How goddamn childish. After everything she’s done for you—“ 

“Wait, what?” Matt and Foggy spoke in unison, brows furrowing in tandem. 

“Let’s drop the innocent act, ok, it’s not a good look. If you didn’t feel the same way, you could have let her down easy instead of blowing up on her and leaving her alone.” Marci rolled her eyes, waving down the bartender. 

“I didn’t—“ Matt’s chest felt tight. It wasn’t possible, you’d seemed so nervous around him. You’d lied to him about the reason. 

“Marce, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Matt, care to shed some light on that?” Crossing his arms, Foggy turned back to his legal partner with a raised brow. 

“I—I thought she was tired of pretending. She said she wanted to talk and she’s been jumpy all day, I assumed she wanted to ‘break up’” Matt didn’t realize how pathetic that explanation was until saying it out loud. 

“Oh my god, you kicked her out and you didn’t even know what she wanted to talk about!? Murdock of all the idiots—“ Foggy was overtly upset now, anger bleeding into his words. 

“I know, Fog. I fucked up. Shit, I have to go find her.” Dread was washing over his body like sub zero water. What the fuck had he done. 

“Yah, man. You do. And I’d hurry.” 

Matt clasped Foggy’s shoulder, making a beeline for the exit. 

Beatrice Snyder smiled at you like a feral cat snarling at its prey. Your name rolled off her tongue like a drop of poison onto your skin. 

“So nice to see you again, dear. Where’s your handsome boyfriend?” 

“Do-downstairs.”

“And you’re leaving without him? Aw, you poor thing. What happened, did the two of you have a lover’s quarrel? Don’t tell me you broke up!” Her manicured hand fell over her heart in a gesture of mock horror. 

“No, he just—“ You started. 

“No need to explain yourself to me, dear,” The cruel woman  spat the term of endearment at you. “You've clearly been through enough already.” Her eyes hardened with judgement. 

A deep voice cleared their throat behind you and all of the hair on your neck stood up. 

Notes of tobacco and bourbon mingled poorly on the air around you, accelerating your nausea. Please do not let this be happening. Please, someone, anyone don’t let it be him. 

“Ah, yes. How rude of me. I should introduce you to the new associate attorney at HCB: James Lannister.” Snyder bared her fangs at you again, gesturing to a force behind you. 

You were going to be sick. The walls were closing in around you. Your body froze, petrified with horror as a gnarled hand crept over your shoulder. 

“It’s been too long, little Princess. You’ve looked better.” James Lannister strode around you, his piercing gray eyes lingering on your body, making your stomach churn. Your nightmares had immortalized him—with his greasy blond hair and broad, towering frame. His smile revealed inhumanly white teeth and a dangerous glint in his eyes. Your mouth felt like it was welded shut, your tongue a chunk of solid lead that was slowly choking you. “Nothing to say to me, huh? No apology?”

Fingers clenching around the handle of your suitcase, you took a step backwards in lieu of a response. Lannister’s wandering hands snatched your arm in a vice grip. “I think you and I need to have a little chat, Princess.” Snyder grinned as he began to drag you towards the stairwell, your suitcase falling to the carpet of the hallway with an inaudible thunk.

“Karma’s a bitch, dear. I’d better get downstairs, I’m sure Matthew would love to know what his sweet little thing is up to when he’s not around to keep her in line.” 

Tears welled up in your eyes again at the thought of poor Matt, who already hated you, being subjected to Snyder’s falsehoods. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want, just leave him alone!” Snyder ignored you as Lannister cackled. 

“Aw, the little whore found someone else she cares about, did she?” You were sobbing now, struggling against his humongous strength, weakly battering him with your fists as you tried to run after Snyder. “Shut up, you vile slut. She can’t help you. You’re my gift for joining the firm.” His rough fingertip traced a line over your jaw and you flinched backward as far as you could. 

Pulling your arm downwards as hard as you could, you broke free of his grip and stumbled back up the cement stairs, crying out as you rolled your ankle in your haste to escape. Throwing you down to the nearest landing, Lannister snarled. “That’s it, you little bitch.” Ripping a handgun from his back pocket, he pulled back the hammer and aimed at your pounding head. “Another peep out of you and you’ll never see him again. Get up.” 

The floor felt liquid beneath you as your unsteady legs found their way into a standing position. You raised your hands, terrified into submission once again. 

The pair of you made your way down to the ground level and out through a back door, where two other men dressed in suits were waiting. They grinned their sharp teeth at you, zip tying your hands together and stuffing a gag in your mouth. Hurling you into a waiting van, Lannister snickered. “Tonight I get pay back, Princess. It’ll be just like old times, you’ll see.” 

Taglist: @maladaptivedaydreamingbum @scoliobean @harperdoodle @mattkinsella @leikelle @sweetbee0108 @dark-night-sky-99 @fallen-angels2213 @will-delete-this-later-probably @cheshirecat484 @thornbushrose @vernon-dursley

i can't have beef with the power of friendship trope because if someone wanted to hang out with me i'd probably reconsider my stance on turning the city into the 10th circle of hell

i think a LOT of you with chronic conditions should learn this one magical phrase to get your hospital doctor to shit his entire pants, which is leaving the room and saying "im going to go discuss your behavior with the ethics committee, i think you might need a reminder of what your job is"

This would have been my dream as a kid, I love this so muchh

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