#thread: round two

[jofabray]

Round Two...Fight!

Jo was bloody, mentally battered, and swaying on her feet.  But she’d made it to Layla and unlocked the sub to take her back to the Switch dorms, and one look at the scared girl had been enough to tell her that her night wasn’t done.  There were other subs out there, alone and frightened, and so Jo had no intention of crawling back to the Switch dorms to ask questions.  She needed another key.

Making her way back to dungeon, she was met with the same guard she’d told to fuck off when she staggered out of her car - and the sadistic smile on his face was enough to tell her that he remembered that moment well.  After confirming that she wanted another key, he led her outside to the back of the school building.

“Look up, honey,” he gestured upward with a grin.  “Key’s on the roof - on the ledge, on the other side.  Climb this here ladder, cross the roof, get the key.  Surely that’s simple enough for even you to figure out, right?”

Resisting the urge to curse at him again, Jo merely nodded.  This was stupid bordering on suicidal.  She barely had control of her extremities after the intense assault on her nerves, she couldn’t handle heights well at the best of times, and there was still blood slicking both of her hands.  There was every possibility she was going to swan dive to the ground and break every bone in her body.  But the subs...

Taking hold of the admittedly shaky ladder, she began to pull herself up a rung at a time, resting her arm on each one as she climbed.  Below her the guard gave it a firm shake and she screamed, clinging to it for dear life.  He laughed and she cursed him one more time, dragging herself up the ladder like a woman pulling herself through desert sand for a drink of water.  The closer she got to the top the harder the wind blew, pulling at her dress and making everything a million times harder.

Finally, with a sob of exhaustion, she crawled up onto the roof.  This part, at least in theory, was the simple part.  Crawl across the roof.  Hiking her dress past her knees, Jo crawled across the gravel and dirt wincing with every movement.  The wind whipped around her, the exhaustion of the night sapped at every part of her, and she trembled from head to toe as she reached the ledge.

Clambering onto it she burst into tears - and god above knew how many times that had been the case since the night started - and reached out, one hand still on the roof, grasping for the elusive key.  It was so close, so close...there!  Jo closed her hand around it and scrambled back onto the roof with a guttural scream.  All she had to do now was get down, and one more submissive’s nightmare would end.

Even if, she knew, her own would last a lifetime.

[agilbertslife]

Round two. \\ Elena + Alaric

allroundlostcause

Getting an invite to the new bat cave didn't turn out to be the chore Elena thought it would because Sam was an easy mark. There was a chore, though.

It's just Alaric. Someone she could always talk to, not scary. So why was it so hard for her to knock at his bedroom door? Maybe it was the fight. God she didn't wanna fight with him, she wanted to hug him and be happy to see somebody she cared about.

Maybe it was Damon. Because she was standing in front of Damon's bedroom, too. The thought lined her face for the briefest of moments. She was Elena Gilbert, vampire... and she could do this.

Elena hesitated only once more, then came the knock and the open door. Stiff upper lip, "You're wrong."