Corrupt-a-Valentine: Bed of Roses
Wish: I wish Rick Flag would fill my apartment with roses.
Warnings: implied noncon and dubcon, threats of violence, stalking, implications of past abuse.
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❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
You sort through your cluttered keychain as your purse hangs from your elbow against the long paper bag with wire handles. Another long day in another very long year. You shove your key into the slot and twist it sharply as you fight the tarnished mechanism.
After more than a year, the place feels both new and old to you. A much-welcomed escape from your former life but a dull existence between the peeling walls. You can’t complain for the predictability, not after the turbulence of your past.
You feared being alone once. Feared being bored, or lost, or living the same day one after another. Now, it was enough. You had the little things to get you through the murky flow of time.
You jerk the door and it grinds against the doorframe before it gives. You sigh and step into the obscurity of the tiny apartment. You shut the door and slide the chain into place and turn the latch so the bar whines into the slot.
You set your bag down blindly and pull off your long wool jacket, hanging it from the rack shadowed in the dark. You plant a hand on the wall and lean as you wiggle off your boots. The February gloom hazes through the curtains, the nights slowly growing later. You bend and feel around until you catch the handles of the paper bag and continue through the dim into the compact kitchen.
You hit the switch with your palm and the light crackles on. You pause as your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. You can’t quite believe what you’re seeing. You must be imagining it.
You reach into the bag and ease out the bottle, placing the discount rose beside the round-bodied bottle of champagne waiting on your counter.
The low clink sinks into your chest as you let go of the neck, your reflection distorted in the gleaming wall of the wine glasses set out in anticipation. You don’t own crystal, you drink out of thrifted mugs and mismatched tumblers.
You back away, hitting the other counter clumsily and turning to look out the open doorway into your front room. The floor is carpeted with varying shades of red, pink, and white, petals at your feet as they lay deliberately littered around your apartment. You shake as you take a step back and spin in a panic.
You stop short as you face the ghost of your past. The man who drove you to live in obscurity. The man who stole your life, your name, your happiness. He stands coolly in the other doorway, the one which looks out on the front door, filling the frame with his formidable figure as he holds a heart-shaped box.
“Hey, angel,” Rick’s lips slant, “happy valentine’s, you miss me?”
“What are you– How–” you croak.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t find you, did you? That’s kinda my job,” he takes a step forward and you mimic him, stepping back through the doorway, “you remember,” he puts the box down on the counter as he comes closer, herding you out into the front room, “how you always hated when I was away for Valentine’s? Or Christmas? Or your birthday?”
“Rick, please,” you swallow as you hit your hip on the console table and feel your way past it, “please, go away–”
“You were right and I’m gonna make it up to you,” he follows you intently as you make your way around the couch, nearly stumbling as you don’t dare look away from him, “I’m here now and I’m ready to treat you right.”
“No, go,” you insist as your foot slips on the rose petals and you catch yourself against the narrow bookshelf beside your television, “please, it’s over. I told you–”
“What did you tell me?” he raises his voice and you flinch. You could never forget that tone, that horrid timbre that still haunted your dreams, his temper that chased you across the world. “You told me shit, angel, you–” he pauses and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded letter, “left me this bullshit and nothing else!”
He flicks the paper at you, the letter you left as a final courtesy, a goodbye you never owed him. You were always the one to take the higher road, to do the decent thing.
“Why are you doing this?” you plead as you round the end table and reach back to grasp the corner of the wall as you circle back, only feet from the front door, your only escape.
“Why did you leave? I love you,” he hisses as your heart pounds, your mind on the door.
“I had to, you know I had to–”
“No, you didn’t,” he snaps and lunges forward.
You spin and kick your legs out, slamming into the door as you struggle to untangle the chain. You barely get it free before he’s on you, before he has you in his grasp, before the world is turned upside down and you’re slung over his shoulder. You claw at the back of his green tee shirt and flail your legs wildly.
“Rick, please, I’m begging you, please, don’t do this,” you cry out, “please let me g–”
You squeal as he flings you onto your narrow mattress and your head rattles with the springy landing. You struggle to steady yourself and sit up as you watch him pace before you like a caged lion, his anger pulsing through the vein in his forehead as his thaw clenches and ticks.
“Do you know what it is to come home to an empty home?” he hollers, “do you know what it's like to have your heart kicked into the dirt? To work your ass off, put your neck on the line, and then your one thing, your person, the one you live for just runs off and why?”
“Rick, you know–”
“I don’t,” he snaps and grips his belt buckle, “but you know exactly what you did, don’t you, angel?”
He unhooks his belt and yanks it from the loops around his waist. You flinch and push yourself to the edge of the bed. He lashes the leather at you so you feel the bite in the air just before your cheek. You recoil and whimper as he pulls the belt taut between his hands.
“You earned this, angel, so take it like a big girl,” he growls as he folds it and grips it firmly, testing it against his calloused palm, “bend over for the colonel.”