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✨🐟TUNA-TOBER FIC DETECTED 🐟✨
✨🐟CALCULATING... CALCULATING... 🐟✨
✨🐟PROMPTS FILLED: “Shh, I’ve got you now. I’m here.”🐟✨
✨🐟Find the rest of the Tuna-Tober prompts here, and remember to follow to see what other prompt fics these writers might drop this October!🐟 ✨
Time for Day Six of the Tuna-Tober prompt challenge! I chose the angst prompt, "Shh, I've got you now. I'm here." with Michael Kinsella! I originally planned to use all three prompts (the above plus 'love bites' and 'spread your legs for me') but this one just sorta worked beautifully focusing on the angst prompt alone, despite my plan. May come back and do a sequel with the other two prompts eventually. You can see the rest of the prompts I've chosen here if you'd like to know what's coming this month from me. Also, if you'd like notifications when I post a new story, drabble, or chapter, you can follow my sideblog @pastaxandria and set it for notifications! And off we go!
Ship: Michael Kinsella x F!Reader
Wordcount: 1.1k
Warnings for this chapter: angst, blood, injury care, mention of reader briefly held hostage, language, mention of domestic violence, some shouting and breaking things (Michael is very angry here, just not at you).
His hands shaking, Michael cleaned you up in the bathroom.
You weren’t sure if that tremor was due to fear, or… or exhaustion, maybe. He probably hadn’t gotten much sleep the past two nights while you’d been missing, held captive in an abandoned building by a group of men who’d been looking to blackmail the Kinsella family. It hadn’t worked out well for them based on the dead bodies you’d seen when Michael had grimly carried you out past his brothers, his hands stained heavily with blood and smelling of fresh gunpowder.
It was those hands—the very same hands that had so recently dealt out death and destruction—that now tended gently to your wounds. With barely a word save a soothing murmur whenever you winced, he washed away the crusted grime and dried blood from your body in the shower before settling you down on the side of the porcelain tub. Once you were comfortable, he set about cleaning out and bandaging the bloody cuts on your hands and face, the torn skin on your wrists left by the handcuffs, and the burns along your forearm from the cigarettes one man had decided to put out against your skin when you’d spat in his face.
With every injury Michael cared for, however, the more his hands shook, his breathing growing sharper, hissing out from between his clenched teeth.
No. This wasn’t fear or exhaustion making his hands shake, you realized. This was…
He rose from where he’d been kneeling in front of you. He stared down at you for a moment with those dark eyes of his, taking all of you in for the first time since bringing you back home—taking in every last swollen bruise and vicious cut, every bandage and mark of pain left behind by those who had wanted to harm his family by using you against him.
…This was rage.
He snatched up the first aid kit, turned, and hurled it with a furious scream. It shattered against the wall in the hall, its impact leaving a crumbling hole in the drywall. Gauze and ointment, bottles of pills and splinters of plastic scattered left and right.
“Michael,” you said weakly. “I’m ok now.”
It was as if he hadn’t even heard you. “I’m goin’ ta find the rest of ‘em and kill 'em for this!” he snarled savagely, his accent even thicker in his fury. Gone was the gentle lilt, the familiar softness he always seemed to gain in his voice when he spoke to you or about you. Now he was every inch the dangerous Kinsella that so many feared, though not you. Never you. Even now you weren’t afraid, despite the way he whirled and paced wildly in front of you, as if looking for the very same ones who’d so recently hurt you. This was rage in your defense, and that made all the difference.
“Michael—”
“They think I can’t find ‘em?” he spat. “They really think I can’t? I’ll hunt down every last fuckin’ one’a them filthy little cunts fer puttin’ their hands on ya! By the time I’m done wit’ em, there won’t be enough’a their fuckin’ bodies left for their mams to bloody bury!”
This time it was the drinking glass on the counter that paid the price. It flew out into the hall to shatter violently against the wall just beside the mark left by the first aid kit. Glittering shards of glass, some pieces still damp, joined the rest of the debris on the floor.
“Michael.” You heaved yourself upright on shaky legs, wobbly as a newborn fawn. And it hurt, it hurt to move, cuts tugging, body aching. You tried to blink the dampness away in your eyes, not now, come on. “It’s alright—” “Don’t tell me it’s alright when they hurt ya!” he roared. But the moment he swung back around to face you and saw you on your feet, he spat out a curse. He stormed across the bathroom before you could take more than a step. “Daft woman, sit your arse back down before ya fall over!”
One hand still braced against the wall, you lifted your other arm quickly towards him. He lurched to a stop before he could touch you, an expression of horror twisting across his face, all furrowed brow and parted lips. Only then did you realize what that must have looked like to him—your arm held up to fend him off, trying to stop him from coming towards you, tears in your eyes as if you were… as if you were terrified of him and what he had been doing.
Gone in a breath was the rage, the fury, replaced by a gutted, heartbroken grief. If you hadn’t known any better, you’d have said he was about to cry, too. “Ya didn’t think I was goin’ to…” he whispered, swallowing hard and taking a cautious step back. “I… I swear, pet, I would never—”
“God, no, Mikey. I know you weren’t going to hit me,” you croaked, trying to put your arm out again in a more welcoming way, and if your breath started to hitch, tears now beginning to roll down your cheeks despite your best efforts, well, surely you were entitled to that, because it had been a horrible few days and the longer you stood here, the more you began to shiver and hurt. It had only been a few minutes since you’d been in his arms, but your body clearly wasn’t ready yet for even that much separation. Emotion welled up inside you like a dark wave, endless, bottomless. You were terrified you’d drown beneath it without him to help you keep your head above water. “I was trying to… could you come over here and… and hold me? I just need…”
He caught you just as the first choked sob tore its way out of your throat, the strength of the sound so violent, so raw it almost frightened you. One of his arms quickly wound around your waist, pulling you in against the comforting, familiar warmth and strength of his chest. His other hand rose to gently cradle the back of your head, bringing your head down so you could bury it against his neck. He rumbled low, soothing notes into your ear, tender words of comfort as you desperately tried to breathe in the scent of whiskey and leather, gun oil and rain between your heaving breaths and broken sobs.
“There ya go. Shh, I’ve got ya now, pet,” he whispered, laying his cheek against your hair. He shifted the two of you carefully across the floor until he could ease himself down on top of the toilet seat, pulling you slowly into his lap. You went without a fight, clinging to him, the fabric of his shirt held tight between your fists as if it were your lifeline. “I’ve got ya now. Let it all out. I’m here, darlin’. Yer safe with me.”
“Don’t let go,” you choked out, “Please.” “Never. I promise.”