excuses
Summary - Attacked by a blister head and saved by Victor, Grace has her wounds fixed up by a monster more terrifying than the one which had attempted to simply kill her. (2.3k)
(tw for: canon typical violence, blood kink, hurt/comfort, manipulation, masturbation, mild voyeuism, perversion)
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It was only when the feral screeching reached a fever pitch that Grace realised the extent of her mistake as the frantic body of a recently-changed monster turned the corridor which she was quietly creeping along. Having long dubbed them ‘blister heads’ in her mind due to the terrifying growth which seemed to overtake their skulls at the moment when their undead bodies developed into the much more terrifying variants, its appearance was terrifying.
The beast spotted her in an instant, its snarling pitching into a scream as it froze for a moment before barrelling towards her with impressive speed. So shocked by its appearance, Grace stood dumbly as fear rooted her to the spot – her sudden understanding that she lacked of defensive items making her heart stop in her chest as she yelped and instinctively went to protect her face as the creature reached her.
Holding up her arms as she screamed in terror, pain immediately lanced across her exposed forearms when the creatures’ clawed fingers tore into her skin as though it were little more than paper. The pain flared like fire, her ripped skin quickly growing wet with shed blood as Grace mustered what little strength she had to push the blister head as roughly as she could manage.
The push had little effect outside of making the creature stumble back a few feet as a furious, bestial screech roared free of its mouth. Grace’s cries, of a similar volume but lacking the feral pitch, alternated between pained squeals and panicked sobs as she allowed the adrenaline coursing through her to power her frantic, flailing movements.
A shadow fell over the creature as it made to attack her once more and Grace inhaled sharply as the looming figure of Dr. Victor Gideon appeared, as though from nowhere, to stand behind the screaming blister head.
Her brain barely able to understand what she was seeing as Victor’s sudden presence was marked by the familiar swishing sound of his snakeskin duster, she remained pinned in place as Victor’s large hands snapped up to settle around the head of the creature. Its feral, bloodied teeth continued to snap at her, totally uncaring or perhaps unaware of the danger which it now found itself in.
The only warning Grace received was a slight huff of effort which slipped free of Victor’s unimpressed lips as he applied a sharp burst of pressure to the creatures’ trapped head. In that same instant, a scream ripped free of Grace's throat as the monster's skull imploded in a fresh splash of viscera which sprayed across her chest and face with enough pressure to force her to recoil where she stood.
A sickly thud rang through the corridor as the blister heads’ remains fell to the floor in an unceremonious heap, the legs folding under its body as it tilted off to the side. Blood covered everything, the wall, the floor, and the two people who now stood in silence, waiting for the next moment to occur.
Feeling something wet in her mouth as her blood roared in her ears was enough to push her over the edge and Grace dropped to her knees as her body reacted accordingly and she immediately threw up across the cheap carpet of the corridor. Her vomit, mostly bile due to her lack of recent meal, was tinged red and the sight of it forced a fresh roil of disgust as her shoulders tensed and her head dropped towards the floor once more.
Victor watched her passively, his golden gaze darting to take in her various injuries as he gave her the moment to finish her retching and compose herself enough to look up at him. Grace stared back at him after a moment, her mind whirling with the smart thing to do and the answer came to her as she tilted her mouth in a downward manner and widened her eyes.
"That thing hurt me."
The golden words. Her only manipulation when it came to the twisted dynamic which she had been forced to traverse with pinpoint precision as she danced around her monstrous partner. If there was one thing Victor prided himself on, it was his ability to protect her and to save her from the harm he perceived around them. He spoke often on his ability to keep her safe in a way that he had convinced himself was his destiny and his alone.
It was the promise he made when he first took her, the same one which he feverently whispered into her ear when he extracted fresh samples of her blood for his relentless testing. Even when they were intimate, his face or cock buried between her legs as he drove her to a mindless pleasure, he wrung those words out until they had almost lost their meaning.
“You let it hurt me.”
Grace followed up her initial statement with the accusation, knowing the result it would bring.
At her words, Victor dropped to one knee, his face visibly distressed by her declaration as the corners of his mouth twitched to showcase his own disappointment.
“Forgive me, Grace.” It wasn’t a question; it was a need. A boon which he knew would be provided given the thread of destiny which he knew bound them. He had let her down, but she would forgive him because she was his salvation. “And please, allow me to fix my mess.”
Grace squealed as Victor snatched her up, her weight as meaningless to him as those she were nothing more than a bag of sugar, and he slung her over his shoulder delicately, angling her body in such a way that her injured arms were left free to dangle over his back. The casualness in which he handled her ignited something irritable in her chest, his treatment of her maddening in its tactful sweetness.
However, as a courtesy for his actual intervention, she attempted to keep the blood from his duster as he walked her with a calm determination to the closest nurse’s station. Reaching the small room, Grace found herself dropped atop one of the chairs which littered the room and Victor made quick work of snatching a first aid kit free of the cupboards.
Setting up some antiseptic wipes and bandages, Victor spoke quietly as he set about picking up her arms to fix her fresh wounds, "Where was your hymolytic injector? You had been warned against exploring without it."
“I-I forgot it.” Grace stuttered out as she hissed at the sting of the antiseptic liquid cleaning her cuts. The admission was as much as surprise to her as it was to Victor, whose expression quirked at the words.
“You forgot it.” Victor repeated slowly and Grace could see him filing that information away before a soft smile spread across his lips, “Grace, if you feel safe enough to walk the halls of my clinic without your usual protections then I am sorry to have made you doubt that safety.” He placed the soiled wipes to the side, the white material stained thick with Grace’ blood as he set about applying tight bandages to her forearms.
His words only adding to the confused haze of her mind, Grace scraped her fingernails against her palms as her mind whirled with the unspoken implications of her subconscious choice. Victor’s hands were soft and careful, ensuring the highest level of care as he slowly twisted the bandage around her injuries with such attention that something unsettlingly warm settled in her stomach.
“Safe? Do I-I mean, no. But, yeah. I must have felt,” Grace finished a bit lamely, “safe.”
Flexing her fingers to find that the bandages were applied perfectly, leaving her fully flexible without discomfort, Grace felt a twinge of genuine appreciation which left her stuttering out a quiet thanks.
"Thank you, Victor."
His first name slipped free of her lips without much thought and as soon as it had, Grace realised what she had done when the single word made Victor's entire body stiffen in obvious delight at the obvious softness in her tone. His hands still filled with the materials he had used to clean off her wounds, Victor dropped to one knee before her once again - the choice putting him easily on her eye level as his slitted pupils dilated the moment Grace met his gaze with her own.
"I'm an old man. You need to be gentle with me."
The notion so absurd that Grace actually blinked in surprise, she caught herself quickly as she answered him.
"I didn't say it was your fault." She lied, easily pushing back her earlier claim.
"Sweet Grace," he breathed her name like a prayer, his scaled lips wrapping around the syllables to cradle it within his mouth, "you are too important to suffer from such a minor error."
A minor error.
That goddamn…thing…tried to rip her throat out and leave her to bleed to death on the floor of the care facility. If Victor has not intervened when he did then she would have suffered the hell of having its teeth and nails tear more chunks from her until there was nothing left.
But still, she was thankful.
Thankful enough that she pretended not to notice when Victor stood from her with an intimate brush of the back of his hand across her cheek before turning his body away from her and bringing her blood-soaked medical wipes to his mouth to swipe his tongue across them with the reverence of a practised sommelier testing a rare vintage.
Thankful enough that she bit down hard on her tongue when, rather than depositing the mess in the bin after his wicked taste, Victor instead slipped the collection of soiled wipes into the left pocket of his snakeskin duster.
“Come, some water and an early night to allow your wounds to begin healing.” Victor announced in a tone which brokered no argument. “I will deal with any interference we meet along the way so don’t worry about a thing.”
Feeling his hand against the small of her back burning through her thin shirt like a hot coal, Grace could only nod as she allowed herself to be led back towards her room.
“Okay, Dr. Gideon.”
x-x-x-x-x
With Grace soundly asleep in her quarters, a slight sedative having been slipped into her water to ensure a seamless evening, Victor watched her steady breathing through the irritatingly low-quality security feed. The camera dedicated to her most private space was one which he had installed personally, angled in such a way that any spectator was afforded an easy insight into her sleeping and grooming patterns as she alternated between the bed and the nearby vanity table.
Squinting at the sleeping figure, her hair a beautiful golden halo as it spread behind her head, Victor exhaled shakily as he shifted his huge body closer to the monitor - his back curved in such a way that he was hunched painfully as his elbow came to rest on the desk.
Lost in his obsessive fantasies, the hem of his snakeskin coat skimmed the floor as Victor focused on the shameful act at hand and the fiery arousal which burned a hollow pit in his gut. One hand holding half of the soiled, blood-stained wipes he had swiped from his earlier encounter with Grace to his mouth, the other hand had delicately wound the remaining half of the wipes between its thick fingers as he jerkily stroked them along his cock.
His ongoing and delightful relations with Grace having removed much of his need for self-relief, years of fantasy finally having an outlet in the object of their desire, it wasn't completely feasible to expect his sweet love to meet his every need. She would need time to adjust and he would give her that, knowing the inevitable would come as she accepted her true destiny.
He could have taken her in that corridor. Soaked in the blood of her attacker, he could have claimed what was his. But no, he did not want her to think him a monster; one who licked the blood from her wounds and ravaged her as she remained injured in his grasp.
No.
He would keep his restraint, as a gentleman should. Her wounds would be tended to as a doctor should. Her care his priority as he endeared herself to her - needing her to understand that her hesitations were only a minor inconvenience to a plan which time and destiny would overcome.
Still, he was only a man, and a man still had his needs.
Enraptured by the sensation of his hand firmly jerking along his cock as he marked himself with the remnants of Grace's dried blood, Victor pressed the wipes within his other hand closer to his mouth as he inhaled deeply. The scent of her overpowered him, her blood so sweet that it was almost cloying, and he couldn't help but press the fabric within his mouth in his desperation to feel more.
Victor's tongue immediately licked along the wipe, saliva dampening the blood as a vicious moan slipped free of his slackened mouth. She tasted as delicious as ever and he swore he could detect the faintest hint of her anxiety alongside the sweet blood - her fear-laced sweat no doubt having also been absorbed into the material.
As he suckled at the wipe, Victor allowed himself to indulge in the attention she had shown him. When he had first appeared, her instinctual fear had quickly dissolved into something which, even now, made his chest feel tight as he considered it.
Relief.
Grace Ashcroft, despite her poorly hidden anxieties surrounding him, had felt a moment of gratitude at his presence. She had been happy to see him and that genuine joy was a development which he had not anticipated this quickly into his courtship.
Truly, she was everything.
His masters’ perfect creation.
His salvation.
His.
