Daisy Johnson» Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3.14 “Watchdogs”

blake kathryn
One Nice Bug Per Day
YOU ARE THE REASON
wallacepolsom
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
we're not kids anymore.
Three Goblin Art
occasionally subtle
Sade Olutola
Monterey Bay Aquarium

Andulka
Xuebing Du
i don't do bad sauce passes

tannertan36
No title available
AnasAbdin

@theartofmadeline

Love Begins

Janaina Medeiros
Mike Driver

seen from Malaysia
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seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from France

seen from Singapore

seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from Hong Kong SAR China

seen from United States

seen from China

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seen from United Arab Emirates

seen from Romania
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seen from Malaysia
@clem-priddy
Daisy Johnson» Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3.14 “Watchdogs”
Why have you been ignoring everyone lately? Cat got your tongue?
Speaking of cats, you might want to be a bit fuckin' careful where that nose of yours goes; you know what they say about curiousity.
Heard you've been in hospital. What's up?
And who exactly told you that, huh?
I'll let you use that little brain of yours to work out what it is that people go t'hospitals for; I'm sure you can work it out.
Favorite holiday tradition?
Honestly? I enjoy the socially acceptable reason to get absolutely pissed and be able t'sing Christmas songs at the top of me lungs for no good reason. What other traditions are there? I ain't one to give out many presents.
Except that one present I make sure to give out every year.
[ 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 ] ― Shosh traces her fingertips over Clem's body AND/OR [ 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑 ] ― Shosh traces a scar on Clem’s body
Fingertips ghosted skin, warm and gentle.
They were pressed together, an arm draped over Shosh's shoulder as Clem held her close, tucked into each other softly and basking in afterglow.
The scar potted at Clem's flesh, structured and succinct in their carvings. Each healed welt too gentle of an abrasion for Shosh to pull away from, tracing the feel of it beneath her touch; instead her fingertips played against the skin on Clem’s forearm, gentle melodies forming beneath them.
“I was seven. Got bit by my neighbour's dog. Mam found out and was fuming about it, obviously. Nearly beat the shit out of the guy. But I hated them for years—" Clem said absently, stroking at Sho's hair and twirling a strand absently around her finger, "still kind of do. They just make me uneasy is all. Some of 'em are alright, I know they ain't all horrible, but they still, you know..."
Shosh's brows creased. She tilted her head to look at Clem and tried to read her expression; something caught in a distant thought but small and vulnerable, similar to the one she saw in the Quidditch tents just months ago. Her eyes fixed on the small bruise cradled at the crease of Clem's neck and shoulder, dotted teeth marks puprle on olive skin.
"Oh shit, Clem," she said, shifting to sit up on her knees and hesitating to place a hand on against the bruise, "I'm sorry, I didn't know, otherwise I would've—"
Clem grasped Shosh's wrist, stopping her. "Hey," she said, titling her head to catch her eyeline, "if it was a problem, I would've said, yeah?"
"But—" Shosh tried to protest, before feeling a finger beneath her chin as it guided her to face the brunette, wide eyes meeting soft with creases at the corners.
“The lady doth protest too much,” Clem uttered, the tension at Shosh’s brows dispersing as she gave a small, shy smirk. “It’s different, trust me. And I’m gonna be real honest with you, Sho; I fuckin’ love when it comes from you.”
“Oh?”
Clem simply nodded.
“You’re into it?”
"Yeah," the Hufflepuff almost scoffed.
"Good," Shosh said firmly, taking the hand at her chin and threading their fingers together, before pressing it against the bed and climbing over Clem. "Because I'm so into you," Shosh smirked, before pressing a firm kiss to Clem's smiling mouth.
What updates are you putting in your Christmas card this year?
[The only thing attached is a selfie of Clem giving the middle finger, clearly in a hospital bed -- her black nail polish is chipped, she looks like pure shit, and the entire right side of her jaw and neck is covered in a bandage that descends beneath a hospital gown.]
[Beneath the image reads the caption:] "Still alive, fuckers."
Daisy Johnson » Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4.05 “Lockup”
monsters // clem & shosh
Werecat.
The word stung a ringing in her ears.
She was already agitated — pacing the room back and forth in want of an answer — but it was this that stopped her in her tracks, frozen.
The air between her and the Healer was thick and chokingly foul with the truth. He hesitated, but pressed onwards. “It goes without saying that it’s clear from extent of your injuries, your encounter with this individual would have caused some severe damage… and we can say with near-certainty that you’ve been turn—“
“Shut up,” Clem spat with a raised hand, voice strained and hollow. She swallowed hard, the tightness from the mess torn into her neck and jaw making it difficult to speak, even with the work of the Healers at the clinic.
“Miss. Priddy—“
Her skin flared hot, insides roiling. His calm persistence of the situation irked her, tugging on a spot of irritation in the back of her head that nosedived into anger. Of course he was calm; he wasn’t the one who had been attacked, torn into like some kind of prey to slaughter. Instead it was her; deep pink scars down her jaw and neck, her shoulder and back coated in the same shredded skin that had been so desperately woven back together with magic. Even with the healing the injuries still stung, each frantic heartbeat throwing a low drum of pain across her, an ever-present pressure over her shoulder.
The outstretched hand she held had clasped to a tight fist, a desperate attempt to calm the heat in her stomach and temper the pain in her body, “I said… to shut the fuck up, pal.”
“I’m just giving you the information you need to know before we—“
“Before you what? Wrap me up and send me on my merry fucking way? You drop this on me before you discharge me and expect me to just go about my life like nothing happened?”
“It’s normal for you to react negatively in a situation like this—“
“NORMAL?!” Clem bounded towards him, the Healer reflexively taking a step backwards as she rounded on him, “Nothing about this is fucking normal. Being attacked like this is not normal. Surviving like this is not normal. Being told that you’ve got foul blood in you is not normal.”
Everything about Clem sounded hoarse and strained, but the rage of which she spoke carried her voice from deep in her chest, inevitably dragging the attention of Healers keeping watch outside.
Tears bit at Clem’s eyes.
“Get out.”
The Healer nodded, clearly shaken, “I think it’s best I give you some time—“
“NOW!” she roared, grabbing the small chair at the side of the bed and throwing it against the wall, narrowly missing the Healer. It shattered, splintering wood clinking to the floor as the man frantically hurried out the door.
Clem screamed in frustration, letting the rage rip through her and escape in a wail. She was desperate for release despite being still frozen in place, tears streaming down her cheeks.
But the reality continued to press down on her. Despite not wanting to hear it, the Healer was right; she should have died, and this just so happened to be her caveat to being alive. It tugged on something in the pit of her stomach — guilt, maybe, but more likely loss than anything else — and the truth crept in as her brain ticked over. Because in partnership of the work of the Healers, the only way she had survived was because she’d been Turned.
Her chest felt hollow, like something had been torn away from her; that thing that grounded her, whatever it was, was gone. She felt a creeping sensation pressing against her from all sides, like the walls were inching closer and the air was becoming compacted.
Her back suddenly hit the wall and she slid to the floor, choked sobs making it difficult to catch her breath. Clem pulled her knees to her chest, pressed her head into her hands and squeezed her eyes firmly shut, gasping for air as she tried desperately to control her breathing and find that part of her that kept her grounded.
It scared her that she couldn’t find it, enraged her that she didn’t know where it had gone. The boiling rage in her stomach wanted to simmer over, but the mess of it spat her in such different directions that she couldn’t choose. So she sat still. Tucked into the corner of the room with knees pressed against her chest, useless and pathetic and scared and angry. But stationary. Because stillness meant nothing changed, and that was safe. Safer than the alternative.
@virtuoshosh
CHLOE BENNET AS DAISY JOHNSON IN AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. SEASON THREE
Daisy Johnson » Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4.04 “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire”
@clem-priddy
As she counted Clem’s breaths, listened to each one grow wetter and shallower, Shosh was unable to properly marvel at the sight of Dani materializing through a solid stone wall and kneeling before her.
She blinked wide-eyed at Dani in the glittering dawn, her tear-soaked lips trembling, not understanding. “N-name?” Shosh repeated, and then followed the urgency of Dani’s eyeline to Clem’s body, clutched in Shosh’s arms. “C-Clem—her name’s Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy.”
Shosh had no idea what sort of strange magic Dani was performing, and she didn’t try to follow it; she kept her gaze fixed on Clem’s mouth, her split lip, the thin stream of air that went in and out, in and out—and Shosh never once allowed her bloodstained hands to break contact with Clem, cradling beneath her ravaged body tenderly.
She nodded when Dani said they needed to move, but then tensed in terror when she was asked to let Dani carry Clem. The only thing that Shosh knew with absolute clarity in this moment was that she could not—no, she would not let go of the woman in her arms.
“No!” Shosh snapped with a snarl, pulling Clem closer to her chest—harsh, perhaps, given Dani was only trying to help her, here. But the piano player was in shock, and the only thought that penetrated the delirium was how fiercely, how desperately she needed to keep hold of the other.
But somehow, mercifully, Dani seemed to understand, without Shosh having to stumble through half-conscious apologies. Together, they stood and gently lifted Clem, holding underneath her arms so that the two musicians carried the Hufflepuff’s weight between them.
And then Dani began ripping into the very fabric of reality, and Shoshana readied herself to move with her into the void.
@faeroyce @clem-priddy
...
Dani hissed softly, the rush of power and knowledge that came with knowing a name. It wasn't quite the same amount of energy it might have been if Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy had offered to her herself, but it was more than enough. Dani closed her eyes for a second, fleeing a flutter of magic around her, around the name, spoken with a knife of love stabbed into the vowels and consonants. Even the way Shosh had said the name - like a desperate offering. It was tooth aching.
Dani was always happy with her abilities to hide rather than fight, to provide passage, and to duck into pockets of space only she could navigate.
She was, after all, a self-professed coward. Her Maman said there was no shame in it, in staying alive and safe, in keeping your loved ones alive and safe. Fighting back was good, but as Maman said, it was better to leave a thievery gone wrong than follow a sinking ship to the gallows or, worse, the depths.
But she could admire someone who fought back, as the tears and scraps on Celmentine Mei-Ling Priddy's body professed to them both. The panicked, terrified way that Shosh guarded the body told a story of love and desperation that Dani found a new respect for in her bandmate.
But love, desperation, and fear had no place when someone's life was on the line. Shosh surely couldn't handle her weight nor the speed at which Dani needed them to move, her head aching with pressure to keep the magical corridor open.
"Ya better hold tight to her then, an' don't fucking' scream either; I'm takin' ya both myself."
Dani crouched and pushed Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy's body into Shosh's lap, hurriedly arranging them like a babe carrying a kitten, and with a soft grunt, she lifted them both. Her frame didn't quake, nor did it bend, but she trembled with the combined strength of not dropping two bodies and keeping a bloody portal open. Shosh was sputtering and moving, but Dani growled, low and short in her throat.
"Hold still goddamn ya!"
Dani tossed her head back and ran straight through the corridor, thighs burning with the excess, blood dripping down her neck like beads of pink sweat. It was a short ten steps, but the moment each foot left the ground, it closed behind her with enough magical force to not just splinch Dani but send her flying through space and land in all manner of realms and places in the world. Two bodies hefted in her thin arms while her fingernails turned claws to keep a grip on Shosh's clothes and stop her from falling, which would inevitably kill all three in a gruesome manner that Dani would not think about.
Then she cleared the corridor, feet scraping to slow her momentum, and nearly rammed all three into the Clinic Door like a bad children's cartoon.
"DELILAH!" Dani hollered, voices pitched high, and a bit of blood dripped into her eye, "OLLIE! HELP!" Windows up the street slammed open; Dani's voice usually meant Aurors and people were made to run at her bellows. But instead of Val's little bird or the comforting face of Ollie, she came face to face with the She-Bitch herself, "Major Grey," Dani instantly recoiled, her least favorite person in the Den, a denizen part-time, a Healer always, an Auror with enough badges and kills and arrests and ambition to lead the Department. Not quite enemy number 1, but Dani harbored the same fear of Aurors for all of them, non-discriminatory.
"Healer Grey," came the correction with an exhausted huff. With a wave of the Auror-Healer's hand, weight was lifted from Dani's arms as Shosh was plucked like a squalling babe midair and pulled into the Clinic.
Dani began to babble, fear bubbling in her chest as Grey's med-coat flapped open and an Auror badge gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, "It's real serious-- I had to rush them here; it looks worse than those riots two summers ago--"
Grey's pale eyes snapped to Dani, who clammed shut. "Sit down and get some water—Delilah!" Val's bird poked from a room. "Use that silly little persuasion power you've got to calm the uninjured one down and get the other into the bed. I know you can manage levitation charms. She isn't bleeding out. We have a few moments before I begin. Now Royce, explain to me everything."
Dani whimpered under the eyes of an Auror, mouth snapping shut. Grey narrowed her eyes, "Don't you fuckin' dare Roy—" Dani sunk back into the wall and nearly wailed as Grey reached to grab her half-corporeal form. The Auror glared at the newly emptied space, except for a set of eyes glaring at her from a freshly made crack in the brick.
Grey stood there a minute examining the clinic room. Dani was sticky with blood and corraled quite literally into the wall. Shosh was a mess in Delilah's arms, cooing and snapping with her honeyed tongue in equal measure. Clementine Mei-Ling Priddy lay on an operation table, breathing a miserable hymn of blood in her lungs for an instrument. With the most pathetic sigh, Beatrice Grey pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and wished desperately for her own bed.
"This is the last time I decide to run Ollie's little pet project so he can take a blasted vacation. This is a mummer's farce, this entire settlement. Stay in your wall, Dani; you're of no help. Delilah, for fucks sake, shut her up and get in here. I need your hands. They're steady. So help me, Morgana. If this is cause you got into a spat with Aurors and dragged these two into it, I'm taking you in Danika Adeline Royce, see that I fuckin' won't."
Grey strode into the operation room, magic swirling around her right hand as she raised her wand, eyebrows knitting together at the collection of wounds. "Now, what in the fuck mauled you?"
But Dani knew, she could taste it on her blood and mixed with her magic - cat, big fucking magic cat, big magical fuckin' werecat. The scent soaked into Dani's jacket, shoes, pants, and boots, the curse already mixed with their blood. No stopping time, no magic could fix this. Permenant.
"I sure hope she ain't allergic to herself."
@clem-priddy @virtuoshosh
Paint the Town Red // Clem, Shosh & Dani
The absence of presence was not something Clementine was familiar with. To her, Presence meant that everything had always needed to be loud and apparent; it had always been the thing that bound her, kept her together — wrapped firm and tight and constant — that it stopped her from crumbling. Without it, it was suddenly clear she didn't know what to do.
It was the ensuing silence that had caused the realisation to dawn on her. She had expected something — anything — in the air after her reactive spellcasting, but there was nothing. No pounding of her heart, no ringing in her ears. Silence peppered with a fizz of arcane energy in the air.
Instead it was a warmth at her neck that set in; so pleasant and soft that it made her feel light. But it was different to the cool evening air she'd become used to in this southern climate, and it felt wrong.
Her senses sank back into her body, eyes fixed on the rigid, frozen body of the animal before her as her brain wracked to identify what sort of creature it might be.
The sudden need for air pressed at her lungs as she released the breath she'd been holding. It fell from her, damp and abrupt, and she tried to pull another breath inward before it near choked her, wetness catching.
Then began the moment her body started to tremble, the rapid pounding in her chest jerking a hand to the sensation at her neck, where the touch burned so hot and sharp and wet that it fused still in shock. The rest of her felt like it was about to be dragged down - swallowed whole into the earth with nothing to stop the fall. Clem pressed her wand hand against the bark of a nearby tree, nails digging deep into skin and wood as she braced herself and clung to something solid. Another gasp for air dragged clarity closer, eyes darting ahead of her in the evening twilight in the hopes someone - anyone - might be nearby.
But she was alone.
Deserted in the wilds of nowhere, isolated with herself and this… big fucking animal ahead of her, unsure if it was dead or temporarily paralysed. Whatever it was, was vast in size and resembled some kind of dark feline, and the more she tried to focus, the more her vision hazed.
A pressing voice in the back of her head told her she needed to leave. It screamed at her, piercing through the full-bodied fog, and barreled her flight response to the forefront of her mind.
It just so happened that the usual pressure of apparition was no longer familiar either. Pain burned white hot at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her and pull focus. But Clem insisted, determination set on the first place she could think of.
Clarity of a familiar world threw itself back into her vision — deep in the early morning corners Liverpool — and a brief relief seeped into her when she spotted the familiar manhole entrance.
But she struggled to stand, all balance off-kilter.
Why couldn’t she stand?
Her back hit a wall and knees buckled, body sliding to the floor. The pressure at her back poured a fresh and searing pain over her.
Right, Clem thought, Back is bad. Grabbed me from behind.
“Shit,” Clem hissed.
In a desperate effort to try and inspect the other damage, she battled to prise the remaining hand at her jaw and saw deep red; sticky, damp and warm.
Bad.
A reactive breath dragged wetness to her throat once more and she coughed, blood spluttering from her mouth and between the shreds of flesh that were left at her cheek. She pushed her hand back to her neck as firmly as could, but the pressure slipped amongst the wetness of everything.
Fuck.
The honest realisation of injury came at the cost of a thread of consciousness. Blind pain had began to seep away with each frantic pound of her heart, a weightlessness coming to her in waves.
But she really needed to move. The street was quiet and abandoned, no sign of aid around her. The metal cover on the ground ahead was her target for help, beckoning her to it.
Clem tried to stand again but stumbled.
With vision blurred at the edges, she tried a further bodily check to determine why she couldn’t hold her weight. A glance to her leg held deep red tears gashed across her jeans and into her thigh that hadn’t been there before… right?
Right.
Splinched.
So it was bad. Catastrophically fucking bad.
Things continued to slip.
Her vision shadowed as each breath demanded more focus.
No.
No.
She needed to get to the Den.
The entrance was there — right there — within reach if she could just move.
That defiance she always held inside her threw her forward, faltering steps landing on the entrance and the familiar sensation of being transported downward.
The landing threw her to the ground, impacting the concrete with a thud.
A fresh searing pain pulled a cry from Clem’s throat, wet and strained. Tears tracked her cheeks.
Fuck.
Everything hurt. Everything hurt and ached with the weight of pain. She had done what she needed, but now it was overwhelming.
The relief of safety made her nerves burn at her. It made not difference how she moved, it all hurt; so she pushed herself to sitting, slumped against the nearest wall. She couldn’t hear anything but ringing in her ears, and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to offset the pain but it still seared through her.
She couldn’t hear the sound approach from behind her — footsteps on the hard ground — but saw the body pass her eyeline as she opened them, letting out a forced, pained and wet laugh.
Of course. One last final, patronising punishment.
"Surprise," she let out weakly, defeated and losing grip.
@virtuoshosh
It was a rare thing indeed to ever find yourself with a moment of peace and quiet within the Den of Magic.
As Shosh had spent more time here over the past months and learned more about the culture of the people who dwelled here, she’d learned that air of raucousness was a small part of the Den’s appeal; the endless labyrinth of caverns always echoing with laughter and life, always teeming with some organic, ever-shifting, palpable energy that was alive and beckoning just around every corner.
But there were fleeting moments, few and far between, when everything stilled. Like now, in the brief window of time between after-hours reveling and the breaking of dawn, when the damp cave air was hushed and heavy and waiting—like a bead of morning dew waiting to drop.
It was into this tenuous stillness, the precarious ether between night and morn, that Shoshana walked; the towering heels of her boots thumped a beat against the stone that pulsed into the cavern around her and reverberated back, like an echo of the thunderous bass music she’d been moving her body to at Plasma since the sun had gone down, hours ago. She was the sort of satiated tired that belied a night of fun well had, and Shosh would have gone home to tumble into bed until noon, had she not realized she’d left the keys to her flat at the studio.
But even the trek from Plasma to White Witch didn’t dim Shosh’s good mood; in fact, she found herself humming into the treasured quiet, her voice soaring over the stillness with ethereal ease—
She rounded a bend, and the melody choked out in her throat. Because there in the shadows was a familiar figure—one that Shosh had last seen slouched in another alleyway. Familiar broad, proud shoulders shrouded in a familiar dark leather jacket.
And just like then, Shosh knew Clem’s brooding in the shadows was a meticulously crafted aesthetic, meant to intimidate and poised to strike. And though Shosh knew she had precious little left within her for Clem to take, she took a moment to allow the roiling in her stomach to settle, to hold her head up high and stride without wavering toward the other.
Shosh had almost closed the distance between them and still had not thought of a single cool, cutting thing to say when yet another sickeningly familiar sensation overtook her senses. She didn’t need to have a vampire’s senses to be hit headlong like a wayward bludger by the metallic stench of blood in the air.
A lot of fucking blood.
Immediately, Shosh’s mind emptied of every emotion besides gut-wrenching dread and she shattered the stillness of the air as she screamed, “Clem—!” She dove to the ground before Clem, snagging her stockings and the flesh of her knees beneath on loose stone. She shook her head, eyes wide with horror as she took in every leaking gash, the ashen pallor of the other’s skin…
Clem slumped woozily to one side and it was instinct for Shosh to reach out and steady her before she fell to the ground. Her fingers, which were adorned with delicate black lace gloves, were trembling as warm blood soaked through the flimsy fabric, coating the creases of her hands but holding firm despite the way Clem’s hiss of pain made her flinch with distress. Shosh searched the Hufflepuff’s gaze as Clem struggled to maintain focus, the fight she was so accustomed to seeing there looking damn near defeat. “Clem, hey—look at me, okay? Stay with me…what happened?”
@clem-priddy
She couldn’t bring herself to focus on Shosh’s eyes despite the her attempt to lean into Clem’s field of view, her own eyelids heavy with the weight of exhaustion. “I was— C-Costa Rica,” Clem spluttered, wet in her throat and blood in her mouth. She squeezed her eyes firmly shut, trying to focus on finishing her words. “Cat. Big cat. Big cat. Not… I dunno. Caught me off-guard. Barely saw it.”
But this time Clem demanded her eyes open, desperate to see her; to see Shosh. Because Shosh was here. Sho. Sho. Wide-eyed and worried in front of her, but in front of her nonetheless… right? Her brows creased in thought, uncertain at the sight in front of her as ambient light dizzied across her view.
By Merlin, had Clem fucked up.
She realised that now. She had been so angry. She was so tired. Was she always this tired? Where did she ever find the energy to be so angry in the first place? She really should've told her.
Clem pressed a damp, stained hand to Shosh’s cheek and gave a weak smile, a sense of warmth underneath her hand despite every inch of her body weak with an increasing weightlessness. Real. She was so thankful that Shosh had found her; that she could see those eyes — those that had a corner of them just for her, but always uncertain whether or not Shosh knew about it. It was okay if she didn’t; she could rest there for now. It was that clarity and comfort that allowed her relax, the reassurance of safety letting her calm finally as darkness pressed into the edges of her sight.
She was so tired, but maybe now it was okay to rest. "'m sorry," she pressed out as broadly and wholly as she could, giving a weak smile in the hopes it was reassuring. With eyes focused shakily on Shosh, everything around her pressed black.
@virtuoshosh
Paint the Town Red // Clem, Shosh & Dani
The absence of presence was not something Clementine was familiar with. To her, Presence meant that everything had always needed to be loud and apparent; it had always been the thing that bound her, kept her together — wrapped firm and tight and constant — that it stopped her from crumbling. Without it, it was suddenly clear she didn't know what to do.
It was the ensuing silence that had caused the realisation to dawn on her. She had expected something — anything — in the air after her reactive spellcasting, but there was nothing. No pounding of her heart, no ringing in her ears. Silence peppered with a fizz of arcane energy in the air.
Instead it was a warmth at her neck that set in; so pleasant and soft that it made her feel light. But it was different to the cool evening air she'd become used to in this southern climate, and it felt wrong.
Her senses sank back into her body, eyes fixed on the rigid, frozen body of the animal before her as her brain wracked to identify what sort of creature it might be.
The sudden need for air pressed at her lungs as she released the breath she'd been holding. It fell from her, damp and abrupt, and she tried to pull another breath inward before it near choked her, wetness catching.
Then began the moment her body started to tremble, the rapid pounding in her chest jerking a hand to the sensation at her neck, where the touch burned so hot and sharp and wet that it fused still in shock. The rest of her felt like it was about to be dragged down - swallowed whole into the earth with nothing to stop the fall. Clem pressed her wand hand against the bark of a nearby tree, nails digging deep into skin and wood as she braced herself and clung to something solid. Another gasp for air dragged clarity closer, eyes darting ahead of her in the evening twilight in the hopes someone - anyone - might be nearby.
But she was alone.
Deserted in the wilds of nowhere, isolated with herself and this… big fucking animal ahead of her, unsure if it was dead or temporarily paralysed. Whatever it was, was vast in size and resembled some kind of dark feline, and the more she tried to focus, the more her vision hazed.
A pressing voice in the back of her head told her she needed to leave. It screamed at her, piercing through the full-bodied fog, and barreled her flight response to the forefront of her mind.
It just so happened that the usual pressure of apparition was no longer familiar either. Pain burned white hot at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her and pull focus. But Clem insisted, determination set on the first place she could think of.
Clarity of a familiar world threw itself back into her vision — deep in the early morning corners Liverpool — and a brief relief seeped into her when she spotted the familiar manhole entrance.
But she struggled to stand, all balance off-kilter.
Why couldn’t she stand?
Her back hit a wall and knees buckled, body sliding to the floor. The pressure at her back poured a fresh and searing pain over her.
Right, Clem thought, Back is bad. Grabbed me from behind.
“Shit,” Clem hissed.
In a desperate effort to try and inspect the other damage, she battled to prise the remaining hand at her jaw and saw deep red; sticky, damp and warm.
Bad.
A reactive breath dragged wetness to her throat once more and she coughed, blood spluttering from her mouth and between the shreds of flesh that were left at her cheek. She pushed her hand back to her neck as firmly as could, but the pressure slipped amongst the wetness of everything.
Fuck.
The honest realisation of injury came at the cost of a thread of consciousness. Blind pain had began to seep away with each frantic pound of her heart, a weightlessness coming to her in waves.
But she really needed to move. The street was quiet and abandoned, no sign of aid around her. The metal cover on the ground ahead was her target for help, beckoning her to it.
Clem tried to stand again but stumbled.
With vision blurred at the edges, she tried a further bodily check to determine why she couldn’t hold her weight. A glance to her leg held deep red tears gashed across her jeans and into her thigh that hadn’t been there before… right?
Right.
Splinched.
So it was bad. Catastrophically fucking bad.
Things continued to slip.
Her vision shadowed as each breath demanded more focus.
No.
No.
She needed to get to the Den.
The entrance was there — right there — within reach if she could just move.
That defiance she always held inside her threw her forward, faltering steps landing on the entrance and the familiar sensation of being transported downward.
The landing threw her to the ground, impacting the concrete with a thud.
A fresh searing pain pulled a cry from Clem’s throat, wet and strained. Tears tracked her cheeks.
Fuck.
Everything hurt. Everything hurt and ached with the weight of pain. She had done what she needed, but now it was overwhelming.
The relief of safety made her nerves burn at her. It made not difference how she moved, it all hurt; so she pushed herself to sitting, slumped against the nearest wall. She couldn’t hear anything but ringing in her ears, and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to offset the pain but it still seared through her.
She couldn’t hear the sound approach from behind her — footsteps on the hard ground — but saw the body pass her eyeline as she opened them, letting out a forced, pained and wet laugh.
Of course. One last final, patronising punishment.
"Surprise," she let out weakly, defeated and losing grip.
@virtuoshosh
What are you doing with your life?
"Getting absolutely blindo across the Americas. Got a problem with that?"
Maybe you should become a vampire to get Shosh interested in you?
"What makes you think I want her to give me any interest whatsoever?"