Billie Eilish X Fem!reader: But Now I'm Underwater

Billie Eilish x Fem!reader: But now I'm underwater

A/n: Because of tight deadlines at work, you're stressed out, critically sleep deprived and overly addicted to coffee. Billie suggests that you distract yourself by watching a horror film, and you agree good-naturedly, unable to refuse her. What you haven't considered is the fact that stress, coffee and imagination are a potent mix. Billie finds an ingenious way to calm you down and unload the thoughts from your head.

Inspired by "WHEN I WAS OLDER".

The coffee, to put it as honestly as possible, makes you sick and nauseous to the point of godlessness, but you bring your lips to the ceramic edge of the beige mug once again, gulping down this dark concoction, drenched in milk for salvation. Over the past three days, it's become frankly unclear what your goals are: to finish the unfortunate paperwork, where the stack of documents resembles the world-famous Tower of Pisa? Or to completely eradicate the countless red blood cells in your body by forcing your heart to pump not blood but tart caffeine through your arteries? Too complicated a question to answer honestly, especially considering the almost three days where you slept a maximum of four hours at most, if not less.

You rest your elbows on the surface of the desk, buried in a makeshift fan of papers, and put your palms against your weary face, as if hiding from the letters. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out... You try not to go crazy in this stream of meaningless bureaucracy, and the phone under the pile of papers so treacherously pinging and you instantly want to start sobbing. Is it really again this annoying bosses?.. With your hands as if you were wiping off the accumulated fatigue from your face, getting out from under the saving "curtain" of your own fingers, but it's a sincere self-deception: the circles under your eyes as blue, and continue to blue, approaching the shade of indigo, and your fingers shake a little when you fish the phone out of the snow-white ocean of ink letters. A relaxed exhale rolls through the office and you allow yourself a slight smile, the very corner of your lips. It's just Billie. Although, considering that she's lowered your anxiety level with just one message, it's silly to use such a crude phrase as "just" in reference to her. Except you've been a little tight lately under the weight of circumstances, so you're forgiven.

"Hey."

Just like that, in three letters and without much meaning. You snort with a chuckle, interlocking the bridge of your nose with your fingers. The best you can come up with is to mirror her own message:

"Hey."

The dots under her avatar bounce around, revealing a response so fast that you don't even have time to think about blissfully covering your work-weary eyes for a moment.

"Oh, you haven't died over that nonsense yet, my workaholic."

"I swear I'd slap you a couple times if you were here, Eilish..."

Three dots bounce harmlessly, and with the appearance of a gray text border, hit you squarely in the solar plexus:

"I hope you'll slap my ass, Mommy? :)"

You are confused in words and thoughts that replace each other in your head with the third cosmic speed. You squint hard to stare stupidly at the display. Have I mentioned yet that your relationship with Billie is a highly ambiguous thing? No? Well, don't be surprised that you often have to deftly balance on the sharp edge of under-friendship and under-relationship as a couple. It's all too confusing, and you two just don't have time to deal with it: Eilish is flying to the other side of the world, or you're swamped with paperwork and frequent business trips. But with all this chaos you feel a strange comfort, that's why you don't hurry to change something, even if your heart beats much faster in the presence of her, it's don't care. Why touch something that already works, albeit with a kind of "crutch"?

"Yes, exclusively the your delightful ass. So sorry you're not here, such a moment gone."

Underneath the blue frame of your message, little gray letters and one thin check mark instantly pop up: 'read'. Billie's status changes to offline, but the phone in the palm of your hand immediately announces itself by ringing loudly. The screen offers two buttons as standard and snidely glares with letters and a pink emoji: "talented runt🩷". Okay, this is something you really didn't expect. You squeeze the green icon and your heart is already doing backflips right in your sternum, hitting your trachea just as you take a breath and lick your momentarily parched lips.

"Come out, dumbass, I'm waiting." - Eilish shoots out the words confidently, with a smirk audible even on the wire.

"What do you mean?" - you get up from your chair instantly, either feeling some sudden surge of long-abandoned strength or obeying her words unknowingly. You walk over to the window, and with both hands clasping the phone between your ear and shoulder, you wrap both hands around the rope hanging from the side of the blinds. The wide, vertical strips of lamellae rustle to become sideways, revealing a view of your front patio, and you ooze in surprise. - "Are you serious?.."

"That's the only way with you," - you see Billie leave the cabin, palm running her hand over the dark side of her Dodge, warmed by the verdant sun. - "I'm taking you to my place for a few days, no refusals are accepted."

"Why so royal, O'Connell?" - Sticking your gaze to the window, you frown, running your palm through your hair and ruffling it. - "What are you, my asshole boss?"

"With the way you're about to die at that fucking desk of yours if you don't have at least one distraction a night." - Eilish gales of giggles into the tube and turns around on the heels exactly to the window from which you stare at her, a word from the watchtower. She waves her hand at you, catching your stare and you can't contain the smile that blossoms on your face. - "And I'm deeply offended that you're comparing me to that old turd, know that!"

"And how do I make it up to you?" - you squint slyly, and Billie tsks so theatrically that it looks like some kind of acting sin.

"Going to see a horror movie with me right now, naturally."

"I'll be fired if I don't turn in my report today, Eilish." - you sigh heavily, turning your head toward your desk: the paper tower is momentarily overtaken by a wave of doom hidden in your gaze.

"It's high time you got the fuck out of there, and we both know it." - the voice from the phone has a seductively truthful huskiness and wind noise. - "And I just... I genuinely hate it when you're not appreciated, Y/n."

You sigh again, it seemingly heavier by another seventy and a half ounces than before, shifting your gaze back and forth to the ginormous stack, then to the window. A silence hangs on the wire and neither of you two are in a hurry to break it, only the occasional breeze walking down the street. A new deep breath makes the tired gears in your head finally stop, giving birth to the long awaited answer.

"Give me a couple minutes, I'll put on some decent clothes."

"I don't mind if you come out completely naked to me." - The huskiness in her voice immediately became more draughty, like the sweetest and most desirable molasses.

"Shut up, O'Connell," - you jump with a laugh without malice, covering your eyes with your hand and your newly leaping heart with a silly joke. With Eilish, sometimes it's just impossible. In every sense of the word.

×××

The shark cuts through the murky ocean surface with its sharp fin as easily and effortlessly as a sharp pair of scissors cuts through paper. Because of its nimbleness, you can't tell at once that it is a multi-pound killing machine created by the most peace-loving Mother Nature. The guy on the screen staggers away from the edge of the shoreline, landing with a thud on the loose sand on his ass covered in red pants. He crawls farther and farther away from the water, his feet digging into the sand, and the shark snaps its two rows of sharp teeth several times, not so much to get the poor guy as to laugh at him. You cover your eyes for a second, thinking about the fact that the shark is still too big even for the category of a giant, and then you are immediately and imperceptibly pulled into the darkness of the stubborn waves of sleep. Waves... Just like on a big TV screen: dark blue, in their foamy restlessness.

"Well, that's just downright idiotic, isn't it?" - Eilish chuckles softly, mingling annoyance with irony, and you open your eyes lazily, once again slipping back into tired reality. Lying on her soft thighs with your head overdone is lulling. - "Why don't you just wait for the rescuers?"

"Because it's a second-rate movie, Eilish," - you cover your lips with the palm of your hand, nimbly catching a bursting yawn. - "And in mainstream movies like this, the characters are, properly, genre stupid."

"I was betting on high internet ratings." - Billie mutters resentfully, swinging both arms out to the sides in a way so amusing that you chuckle quietly. Your eyes inadvertently cling to the line of her jaw so perfect in its perfection, sliding down her neck and next - her collarbones mostly exposed because of her tank top. Shit...

"A collapse of hope?" - Your voice is uncharacteristically husky, causing Billie to tilt her head down, leisurely examining every feature of your face. Blue irises immediately draw in the blue light from the TV, hypnotizing you into darkness. It seems that another minute of this gaze and you will drown. In her seas, however, it's only honor and out-of-this-world joy.

"You're sleepy, hey," - Eilish smiles that warm, motherly tinged smile and strokes your cheekbone with her thumb. You give in closer, almost falling apart in a purring sound like a petted cat, but you immediately pull yourself back. It seems unnecessary. Billie seems to have read you by your body language, because the calm blue of her eyes is broken by a prehensile whitish light of excitement. - "Relax, I'm all for it."

You smile softly, inhaling, and Billie looks with a mute question directly at you, stopping the rhythmic stroking. You squint slyly, mirroring her same line, only now live:

"Relax, I'm all for it..."

You cover your eyes again, blissfully letting go of your inner handrail of total control and anxiety. Should you grasp it so tightly when you two are happy with everything right now? Absolutely not. Eilish, who had previously been exploring your face with her gaze, now traces your features with her fingers, as if reading you like a kind of Braille script. The tips of her fingers feel so weightless, so pleasantly warm.

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted to sleep?" - her fingers touch the thin skin beneath your eyes, and you snort to yourself barely audible: her fingertips 'waltzing' on your blueness, mentally estimating how many mugs of coffee are now inside you. Oh, you don't even doubt it. - "Four?"

"Five." - you challenge her guess, receiving a sensual poke in the shoulder. - "The mug was always half milk, don't get mad."

"Knock it off, dumbass." - she touches your cheeks with her palms and you open your eyes, feeling the dreamy velvet of her skin. - "Your heart's going to pop out."

"Afraid someone will pick it up faster than you, Eilish?"

Billie is silent at first, flashing her eyes somehow unreadable to you, and then also smirking with that cheeky stroke of hers, smearing over any perception of her true emotions, but it doesn't all feel cloying, just hidden beneath a thin smoky veil.

"I don't like to lose my treasures, you know that."

"So I won't get lost." - you gently catch her wrist, entwining your fingers in a unique mutual symmetry, and Eilish leans a little lower and her well-groomed dark hair falls down over her face, hiding you both. - "And... I didn't tell you because I really enjoy spending time with you, even when I look more like the semblance of a walking corpse."

Also because I'm slowly falling in love with you, but I can't admit it.

"Stupid, I love you, you know?" - a white twinkle flickers again in the water's surface, reminiscent of the light of a saving beacon in the midst of a silent abyss. It seems to you that Billie leans even a little closer, even though in the semi-darkness it can really be written off as a work-weary mind. - "Go to sleep, I can't watch you torture yourself for me."

"Not until after the lullaby, Mom," - you twist your voice deliberately, making it sound childish and quiet. You rest your head comfortably on her delightful hips and stare expectantly, caressed by the intimacy of her gaze and strands of soft hair: like a single boat in a vast ocean, guarded reverently by sea nymphs and noisy sea foam, you are hidden in the darkness of a starless night from everyone and everything. - "Please."

Billie only smiles and takes the first note quietly, stroking your head leisurely and lovingly.

"Hmm..."

×××

"I'm on my back again."

You slam your shoulder blades into the boardwalk of the flimsy raft, and you really don't know if it's the cracking of the tall strips of wood or your own weary bones. You squint hard, echoing the hissing of the waves, and they immediately pelt you from head to toe, tearing you down and showering you with dead, salty cold. Your clothes, soaked to the skin, have long ago stuck to your body like a second skin, giving you no chance of even one fahrenheit of warmth, but only echoing the angry, howling owl-like wind and the ravenous, dark murk of the ocean water. You surface, it seems, for the seventh time, and with trembling hands you grasp again the edge of the raft, like a poor priest in exile for the Bible: desperately, with the last grains of faith falling through your fingers.

"Dreaming of a time and place, where you and I remain the best of friends. Even after all this ends..."

The waves are raging, whipping at your eyes fiercely, wanting to blind you and to penetrate your throat with their scalding drops. You are paddling with your legs with all your might, struggling, pulling yourself up on your weakened arms, and still nothing comes out. A new clap and you're off completely, the merciless waves press you with their thickness, drowning you. You twitch, wanting to dive out, and with your hands and feet you push the dark sea maelstrom away, but something seems to pull you to the deepest bottom, closing around your waist.

"Can we pretend?" - her voice, melded with the sound of the water, fills your ears and for a second you feel the warmth and softness of her palm, which grips you lifesavingly, closing your fingers gently. Your lungs burn from the lack of oxygen and you scream silently, releasing bubbles glistening under the faint rays into the blue darkness: you want to just drown, die and to stop this exhausting uraboros forever. But not with her.

"I'm on my, I'm on my back again."

A new pop shoots into the air as you touch your back to the raft again with force, as if falling from somewhere in the frowning, impenetrable black cloud-covered sky. A ragged exhalation leaves your sea-worn body, making your lungs rattle and tear streaks run down your pale, thin skin. With each such fall, you become more and more like a ghost. And you hear her more and more clearly.

"It's seeming more and more like all we ever do is see how far it bends," - your cold-blue lips move, releasing a white cloud of vapor into the aspic space of the sky, the only thing still warm here besides Eilish's palms. - "Before it breaks in half and then..."

"We bend it back again," - her whisper rustles in the storm as the sea picks up your raft like a feather. Her whisper is the only thing keeping you here. - "You'd really like it in the limelight, you'd sympathize with all the bad guys?"

"I'm still a victim in my own right," - you grin with a grin at the menacing clouds, and hungry water crawls onto your murdered raft, heralding a new upheaval. Intuition alarms the back of your head, telling you it could be fatal. - "But I'm the villain in my own eyes, yeah."

Clap! And you're underwater again, staring helplessly at your ungodly pale palms, stretched upward by the pressure of the water, to its very surface. Eilish is no longer whispering, and you see no point in fighting, accepting your own bitter lot that you have been hiding. No, not from her. From yourself.

"I love you, Eilish," - your lips are ajar, releasing small bubbles as your lungs slowly fill with water, burning through your ribs from lack. You stare after the bubbles, watching mortally as they float upwards and then burst. It's the only thing you have left. Now you slam your back against the side again and everything will be started again.... But only this time an incomprehensible dark spot is coming towards you like a torpedo from a submarine, cutting through the infinity of space around you with its powerful body. You catch the glint of sharp teeth bared in two aligned rows and forcefully push the oxygen out of your chest, shaking the abyss in a scream that finally sounds.

×××

"Shark!" - You jump up startled from the couch, spinning the soft plaid over you in an awkward whirlwind. Your heel steps on the very edge of the fabric and you fall thunderously to the floor, driving your back on the gray armrest of the sofa, causing a lump of deja vu to stick in your throat, preventing you from breathing properly. It's almost like being on that damn raft. You hear something in the hallway quickly tsk in your direction and just stare, shivering in the imaginary cold. Have you lost your mind already?

A gray pit bull snorts, appearing in the doorway, expressing concern. His blue eyes stare at you unblinkingly before he runs up to you and sits his full weight on your legs. The dog whines, licking you on the line of your chin, his muzzle pulling higher and higher as if It's like he feels and wants to figure out what you're scared of. Just like his mistress. It's just Shark's goody-goody in front of you, which means it was just a dream. You take your first steady, almost relaxed breath.

"Thanks, buddy." - you gently stroke Shark's stately muzzle, to which he squints his eyes contentedly, snuggling closer and you feel warm. - "Don't worry, just a mine bad dream."

A new stomp disrupts your little idyll, making look into the doorway with not one, but two pairs of eyes anymore. You both know who it is, but you stare mesmerized anyway, until the inky head and piercing ocean blue of the gaze emerge from the darkness.

"Hey, are you okay?" - Billie crosses the space of the room so quickly, ending up next to you, that you have to blink in disbelief. She sits down next to you, leaning side by side, and burrows her fingers into the short gray fur on Shark's sturdy side, scratching. The pit bull grunts, summarizing contentment with the whole situation. - "I heard a shriek, and then this little brat ran toward you. Bad dream?"

"There is such a thing." - you smile, feeling the warmth around you crawl almost into your very heart, nesting there as a brightly colored bird. - "I guess you could say I dreamt about you."

"You gonna tell me?" - Billie spreads her legs a little to the side, bumping her knee against yours unobtrusively, but you sense something in that small movement, as you do in her attentive gaze.

You draw in a breath to start arranging your words properly in the air, and Eilish immediately puts her index finger to your lips.

"Wait, I have a weird idea." - her warm chuckle purrs pleasantly in the semi-darkness before drowning out in the rustle of clothes as Billie rises to her feet, giving you a hand. - "Take the plaid and come with me, please."

And now you are here - sitting together in the cabin of her car, wrapped in a home-made plaid, and through the open door looking at the quietly splashing ocean of a deserted night beach, while she embraces you from behind securely, firmly. Shark scurries along the sandy edge of the shore, trying to bite the playful sea foam with his teeth, but immediately sticks out his tongue in frustration: it's too salty. You chuckle as Billie remains philosophically silent, digesting your story. Indeed, she was right: the view of the calm seascape is soothing, even with your nightmare fresh in your mind. What can I say, Billie's embrace is the perfect lifeline.

"So... How did the sensation of my presence make you feel?" - her hot fingers nervously rub the edge of your voluminous T-shirt as if waiting for a command or a starting shot. - "Were you afraid of the sea?"

"I wanted to fight to the end, as long as I could hear you," - you smile, watching Shark stride toward you, awkwardly shaking her hind paws off the wet sand. - "Even though the sea was insanely cold."

You cover her palms with yours, deftly ducking under the hem of your t-shirt with her, deliberately slow, giving her a chance to pull back if she wants to. The skin-to-skin contract makes you both flinch (you can literally feel Eilish's anxiety in your backs), but Billie pauses for a second, then rises a little higher, reaching her palms to the center of your waist. Her palms, devoid of any of the silver bands of the rings now feel especially trembling, hot. You are both defenseless against each other.

"But why?" - Her husky voice excitement, tickles touching the curl of your ear.

"I just... realized something back there in the dream," - The dog flops to your feet, spinning playfully in the sand and you parenthetically groan. - "While I was underwater."

Eilish so deftly turns you around to face her, ignoring the height difference, and palms your face. In the white light of the salon, her blue eyes sparkle with intense blue luminescence, dissected by a white light of hope. Everything confusing instantly becomes so clear and readable when she finally allows you to peer into her soul straight through her captivating oceanic abysses.

"Nobody lonely like I'm lonely and I don't know whether," - the thumb of her right hand gently strokes the very corner of your lips as she clings to your soul with her eyes, as if afraid to let herself off the hook of her own conjecture into the wading cold waters of despair. - "But really, why? Tell me the truth."

"I could drown, but now I'm under the water of only your stupid and unforgettable beautiful eyes, Eilish. It's simply impossible to drown twice." - you hide your hands behind your back in embarrassment, but you don't take your eyes off her an inch. - "And I love you, it's just that simple."

Billie stares at you in silence, and then in one movement she touches your cold lips with her heated ones so leisurely and tastefully that you cover your eyes in pleasure, realizing that she is smiling right in the middle of a kiss. Her hands, having been on your cheeks all this time, slide slowly back to your waist, stroking your shoulders with pressure and very lightly, as if in counterbalance, your breasts. She bites your lip, asking for more and dropping a lot "I love you" with an excited gasp, like a precious sea pearl.

"Please let me be your personal sea for life, my brave sailor."

And you only manage to nod in agreement, tearing breaths before she pulls you into another kiss, knocking your pulse racing. Just like the sea. Your own private sea.

There's a hundred of you guys here, and it's pure insanity. In the summer I would never have thought I would have so many, because the fact that you like my intricate texts, which I write in my native language (Russian) and then painstakingly translate into English, is amazing, a kind of nonsense. Thank you all for reading. You are all amazing!

And yes, I realize that I started to post something rarely, due to the beginning of my studies at the institute, but know that I already write something. I always do.

Thanks again for everything and have a great day! 🩷🪷

dudee we miss your updates 🫶🫶

Oooh, touched to the core :>

Patience my dear friend, I want to create something really delicious for my second idea.

Have a nice day! 🫂❤️

Billie Eilish x Fem!reader: Three nine five six

A/n: Eilish plunges headfirst into the maelstrom of the downside of his popularity when a crazed fan kidnaps you.

Inspired by "THE DINER".

Warning: blood, kidnapping, moral suasion!

"Relax, Eilish, it's okay!" - is a kind of mantra that you say for nearly the hundredth time that day. Billie is frantic with worry, having been on alert all day, not realizing the truth of the reason herself, but her gut is churning and choking in panic attacks, causing you to repeat it again and again, scattering the letters in the air as many times as she needs.

"Really sure you don't need security? I still want to put some trustworthy guys on you."

Billie's voice twitches slightly on the other side of the tube, and you only let a slight, almost audible chuckle pass through your lips. Security? You're just her girlfriend, not a Hollywood celebrity like her or her brother, why would you want that? You hum to yourself and grip the steering wheel a little tighter with your hand, steering a little to the right along the highway markings.

"Is it just me, or did something happen?" - You glance in the rearview mirror, making sure there's no one behind you, and level off in the lane. Your eyes cling one last time to the red numbers on the dashboard before they stick to the windshield again. It's almost midnight. No wonder you're alone.

"No, it's just..." - Billie stumbles over the letters in confusion, hovering in silence for a couple seconds as you drive into the sprawling tunnel in front of you. - "Just some kind of bad feeling."

"Relax, Eilish," - you chant for the hundred and first time, which makes your phone exhaling heavily in your ear. You smile, imagining her rolling her blue skies slightly in a characteristic gesture. - "Yeah, yeah, I know I've been telling you that all day, honey."

"Where are you now?" - you hear the rustle of sheets in the background, which in the darkness of the tunnel seems very seductively intimate, making you want to cover your eyes in the moment and give in to your not-so-decent daydreams, but you can't. - "How much farther?"

"No, not much left," you reply, clasping the phone tighter in your left hand. - "About twelve and a half miles, I think."

"Call me as you pull up, I'll meet you," Billie purrs huskily, and pleasant goosebumps run up the back of your neck in a sly flock. - "And please be careful on the road."

You nod, but then you're immediately catching yourself, realizing she can't see you. You say yes with a warm tenderness under your heart, and then she's resets the call, leaving you alone with the silence of the salon car. You are too lazy to touch the media panel to let the music flow through the cabin, too well in the flow of your thoughts, from which you surface periodically, without losing sight of the rapid asphalt ribbon, located under the four wheels. And only a huge white SUV, suddenly appearing on your left side, makes you deafeningly confused, especially if you take into account the fact that it is stubbornly following you, not missing a single turn for ten minutes already. Maybe you're just getting yourself worked up for nothing. Is there any chance it's just Billie's mood transferring to you? You fumble for your cell phone in your jacket pocket, unmistakably dialing the numbers from memory: three one zero-eight zero seven-three nine five six. The green call button is like the final cherry on the creamy top of a cupcake of worry and suspicion.

You nod, but then you're immediately catching yourself, realizing she can't see you. You say yes with a warm tenderness under your heart, and then she's resets the call, leaving you alone with the silence of the salon car. You are too lazy to touch the media panel to let the music flow through the cabin, too well in the flow of your thoughts, from which you surface periodically, without losing sight of the rapid asphalt ribbon, located under the four wheels. And only a huge white SUV, suddenly appearing on your left side, makes you deafeningly confused, especially if you take into account the fact that it is stubbornly following you, not missing a single turn for ten minutes already. Maybe you're just getting yourself worked up for nothing. Is there any chance it's just Billie's mood transferring to you? You fumble for your cell phone in your jacket pocket, unmistakably dialing the numbers from memory: three one zero-eight zero seven-three nine five six. The green call button is like the final cherry on the creamy top of a cupcake of worry and suspicion.

"Wow, you're here already?" - Billie grins softly at you through the tube, and your heart, stuck in your very windpipe, settles a little, lulled by her voice. - "That was quick, I wasn't expecting that."

"I suspect I'm in a bind," you frown, running your eyes over the white metallic of the car in your rearview mirror again. Damn, you going to have to bother her after all. - "Your bad felling may have turned out to be extremely correct, Eilish."

Silence spreads through the tube like a spider cunningly weaving a beautiful web of webs. Eilish exhales raggedly and scowls seriously, like a proud eagle. You can't see her, but you're absolutely certain it is.

"What do you mean?"

"Some car has been following me for about ten minutes now," - you cling reflexively with your fingers to the metal knob of the lever from the gearbox, as if to fit all the experiences of three seconds in there. - "And he almost bumps his bumper into my ass from his own eagerness."

"Where are you now?" - you hear the stomping and rustling of fabric dissected by the seriousness of her voice. - "I'm on my way to meet you right now!"

"Chill out, Bils, this just might be you and I sharing a little paranoia," - you push the gas pedal a little harder, tilting it to the floor with the very tip of it. No one's going to ban you in an attempted breakaway, right? - "Just... memorize this asshole's number just in case, okay?"

And you dictate the number from the iron plate of the next car, and Billie obediently swallows digit after digit, drinking the rattling mixture with her own rushing excitement, which is like a hot geyser. She asks you to stay in touch and her voice is jarring, and she's not even going to hide it, because you're far more important than her own sense of cool and cool.

"I have something to tell you about, so don't you dare disappear now," - the chains around her neck jingle threateningly. - "Otherwise I'll go crazy."

You only have to open your lips in response, as everything blends into a continuous lump of actions, pictures and sounds: the engine of the Japanese SUV rumbles at the very exit of the tunnel, in a couple of seconds equal to you side by side, and you in one sharp movement find yourself as if between a hammer and anvil, when the car wiggles in your direction, clamping uncompromisingly your sedan between the concrete wall of the tunnel that knows no mercy and themself. By virtue of inertia, shards of left door glass fly loudly into the cabin, the word shrapnel, predatorily scratching your face and hands, and the body sags in an arc to the left. You smack the back of your head against the back of the seat and the world blurs a little, it is only nausea that comes from the very bowels to your throat. You feel the heat in your rib area and yelp, immediately placing your palm there.

"Y/n!" - Billie yells, wheezing with her marvelous vocal cords, and you squint, trying to piece together what happened. - "What happened? Don't be quiet!"

"Call the police," - you sluggishly move your tongue as the imaginary hoop closes around your head, manifesting as a throbbing pain. Your ears begin to buzz as if you were leaning expectantly against a shell, wanting to hear the sound of waves raging near the shore. Eilish is shouting something again uncontrollably, and you can't make it out behind the veil of sounds anymore. - "I'm sorry."

The light ahead of you cuts your eyes so hard that you cover your eyelids, exhaling, albeit with a dull ache, as blissfully as after confession. Your consciousness drifts somewhere through the darkness and the only thing you can make out in the cacophony of noise is the slamming of a Japanese car door.

×××

Billie is like a mentally ill person, shackled in a straitjacket. She sits in the back seat of one of the police cars, stiff and hunched over like an old woman, although inside she is tearing up and rushing, pulling out her own hair with her fingers. Maggie hugs her daughter as best she can because of the tension in her seatbelt, strokes her parentally on the shoulder, and Eilish sinks into the maelstrom of tics that has long since subsided in the last few years. She throws her head up, twitching as if she were a broken puppet in the hands of a puppeteer, her hands digging into her own knees: she wants to howl, like a devil rejected even by hell itself. From the understanding of her own guilt, tears flow stream after stream, outlining the salty "rivers" of tears that have just dried up and wiped away by the hurried hand again. She dials your number again, and in response only silent beeps and nothing more. Nothing that will calm her down even a little.

She'd noticed the tape recorder and note threateningly planted in the kitchen of her country house through the window a week ago and hadn't done a damn thing about it, writing you off as It's all up to chance. Without revealing anything so as not to scare you, she became extremely insistent on offering you a security escort, to which you responded with a clear refusal every time. She listened to you, believed like a foolish heretic your arguments about your relative obscurity to the public and is now paying the price. At that time the proceedings of an entire police force yielded no results and no answers, and now she's riding in that damned police car accompanied by three more.

"It's my fault, Mom," - her voice is hoarse and her gaze is like a solid blue abyss, so dead cold. - "It's my fault to her, so fucking guilty..."

Eilish babbled like a lunatic, but Maggie only snuggled closer to her, hugging her in a head-to-toe embrace. The seat belt has long since been sent to hell, and she frankly doesn't care when her child suffers. She says something comforting, and Billie doesn't hear much, because there's only one thing in her head, round and round, like expensive vinyl: "Relax, Eilish, it's okay."

"Relax, Eilish, it's okay," - the younger O'Connell sniffles, howling like a wolf cub, snuggling into her mother's neck and nose drawing out the pleasant scent of vintage floral perfume, as she used to do as a child. - "That's what she used to tell me, Mom."

When they arrive, Eilish's legs are shaky and she almost tends to collapse to the pavement like a downed bird in flight, if it weren't for her father's timely arrival. Maggie looks down at the side of the sedan and sighs, holding both her palms to her mouth, Finn's arms around her. The cops are quick and efficient in fencing off the car, stretching yellow ribbons around the perimeter, a color that makes Eilish grind her teeth, but they ask them to stay close, and the four of them walk on: Billie on her stiff legs, Meggie dropping tears quietly, and Finneas and Patrick, silent and as focused as they've ever been. The tall, like stern cane-wielding investigator asks for a statement, and Eilish notices the small specks of blood on the steering wheel, wanders with eyes maddened in their mute scream at the dents on the left side of the hull and wants to just disappear, to fall through the cold asphalt. Straight to where you are now, and she doesn't care what hell she's in. The man steps back and Billie - shaking hands in her pockets, an icy stare and not a hint of a smile. She doesn't cry anymore, just stares at the crumpled car for half an hour and waits. She has nothing else to do but berate herself every second, putting weights on her innocent heart, conscience and soul.

"She's alive, I can feel it." - Billie babbles as the small black van moves in their direction, and Finn throws the plaid over her fragile shoulders, and with it a new exorbitant weight that makes her heart nearly rip into scarlet shreds in her sternum from the excess weight.

The phone in her hand vibrates and hums a familiar tune that makes you forget how to breathe at all: your contact is flashing on the display. The officer standing next to the O'Connells immediately shouts loudly, summoning an equipment specialist before Eilish can even pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

×××

You close your eyelids over and over again, and the result is the same, no matter how much effort and faith you put into it - the coldness of the concrete walls of a small garage painted a hideous deep blue, the psychedelically blinding light from a light bulb hanging from above that lives only on a thin wire. Tied with a strong knot of rope, your hands become numb behind your back with the approach of time, which adds to the apathy of your position. You try one more time, shaking the possible nightmare from your tired eyes, but to no avail. This is reality.

"Fuck..." - You swallow tightly, kneading at least your shoulders as best you can. In other respects you're hindered by the chair you're also firmly tied to. It's just like the cliched, low-budget Hollywood movies you hate so much. - "Oh, shit."

The words in your head are still confused, while you are so mercilessly sick for the hundredth time. On the plus side, it's like your head hurts a little less, and you can finally hear something other than the maddening noise, and on the minus side, you can feel your rib flare off with every breath you take, sending swirls of pain through your body. You also hear footsteps clawing purposefully towards you. Fuck.

"Hey, you," - the wooden door slams shut, and you squeeze your eyes shut, unable to cover your ears with your palms. Immediately, however, you looking around full dazedly, feeling the guy roughly put your own cell phone to your ear. - "Say 'hi' to my girl!"

He smiles, and you frown your eyebrows, defensively hiding the burning fear burning through your insides behind the supposed steel in your gaze. He squeezes out that nasty grin, and you want to either spit in his face or laugh, babbling madly and throwing back your head as high as you can.

"Hello?" - you hear Eilish's infinitely nervous voice and all the steel falls to the floor, leaving you completely defenseless and helpless. - "Please tell me it's really you..."

"I'm sorry," it's so stupid and inappropriate, but you don't really know what else to say when silver rivers start to come to your eyes, stoically lodged in the very corners of your eyes. A frozen desperation that you will only show to her and no one else. - "I... yes, my dear, it's me."

And you are immediately struck on the cheek by a wiry palm, painful and whiplashing. You pull the steel mask back on, as if picking up the remnants of the metal from the floor with your hands. It doesn't matter if your palms trembling feverishly.

"Shut up! Don't call her that!" - A shout right in your face chips a spray of spit, and you frown your eyebrows again, remaining silent. The guy takes the phone back and the smile on his face returns, calm and dreamy enough to turn any notion of surrealism into sharp shards. You catch the rumbling notes of lingering madness in his eyes and you twitch. A chair leg creaks. - "I've done everything you asked, my love, now it's your turn."

"I'll be there, love." - Billie's voice echoes on the speakerphone, contributing to the illusion of your madness, which makes you almost jumping up in a chair, but all the fervor fades as soon as you catch the glint of a revolver across the room. - "I keep my promises, don't I, baby?"

"I saw you on the screens," the guy's hands lock on the massive grip, releasing the revolver from its holster, and you swallow your anxiety in barely cisterns. The smile on his smooth-shaven face is a schizophrenic spasm, a grimace of pure terror. - "I know we're meant to be, but please don't call the cops, they'll make me stop and I just wanna talk."

"Never." - Billie's voice is sweet and cloying enough that a other man would smell a catch a hundred thousand miles away, but your captor doesn't care so much, he's completely oblivious to it, stumbling into another raking wave of madness in his head. The pictures of events in your head add up, probing her idea: they take time to track the signal of your phone. - "Only if you promise not to do anything with my... toy, right?"

"You could be my wife..." - The skinny madman pulls the trigger, pacing back and forth from you, and you just stare, ducking your head to the floor like an innocent lamb. As long as you don't provoke him, you give police the time what it's needs. - "Could get into a fight I'll say you're right and you'll kiss me goodnight."

"Bet I could-"

The shot is an aggressive clapper bouncing off the walls with a pop. Billie fractures every unspoken letters and screams into the throat like a gargoyle offended by the fire of the Inquisition: nettlesome and hoarse, until his ligaments burst. Only then do you feel the heat in your knee, and the growing pain with every millisecond that paralyzes you almost entirely. You look down and gasp: a scarlet bud is blooming on your light-colored pant leg, spreading rapidly across the fabric. You sigh too loudly, biting your lower lip until it bleeds, and the pain irrodes copper-hot through your leg.

"Three nine five six." - The guy laughs gleefully, cranking the hot drum of his revolver with his thumb, and you howl wolfishly as you naively try to straighten your leg before everything turns back into a jumble of indistinct images: the door flies off its hinges, practically splintering into splinters, and like confetti for a show, reveals not a celebrity but a five-man SWAT team in full communication. One second, and your kidnapper is face-impressed into the floor to the measured murmur of men's voices. Another, and you realize that one of them is cutting the ropes knots restraining you with a knife.

"All clear, over."

×××

The paramedics carefully transfer you to the stretcher, and you only watch as space is blurred ahead by a swift, low figure. Eilish runs, no, practically flies, having previously sent any yells flying at her back far away.

"Alive, alive... My girl..." - And her arms wrapped gently around your shoulders are such hot, sensory-enhancing amulets.

And you cry, dropping silver snakes of fear on the sleeves of her voluminous sweater, bumping your nose with a howl of despair, but she only moves closer, giving you a breath puffed up in a hurry and hoarseness settled in the most secret place of your heart:

"Alive..."

Hey baby, I miss the polls like crazy to choose your next writing, when are you coming baack?

Literally a couple of hours later, I had almost finished this closest-to-my-heart textual goodie. And yes, I am so madly waiting for your wish, I remember about you don't worry.

All the best to you, you've made my writing heart happy!

🩷

baby when will we have another update??your last fic was heavenly 🙏🙏

Oooh, you flatter me, buddy :>

I've already started work on something special.

All the best for you!✌️