139. In These Arms

Warning: drug references, nudity, reader discretion advised...

Bridgeport, present day...

“She’ll be fine Syn,” J.D. assured her as they turned off the light and left Michaela’s room.

Krimsyn had given Michaela a valium and a glass of milk right after everyone left, and it had knocked her out within minutes. Normally she wouldn’t give Michaela such a strong drug, but she knew her daughter was exhausted from her nightmares about her hunt, she couldn’t sleep through the night, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything during the day.

“Do you think we should take her to therapy, let her talk to someone?” She asked her fiancé in their room.

Without paying much attention to his response, she stripped off her clothes, and went to the bathroom to take a shower. She was surprised when J.D. joined her.

He held her close, the water running rivulets on their bodies. They became aware of their loud sobs after a long while; they were both crying and clinging to each other, afraid to acknowledge they were in trouble, convinced if they did, they’d be admitting they were giving up.

"We are going to fix this,” J.D. insisted through his tears.

“How? You saw how we were today, in front of Cam. Maybe we should take a break. Take some time apart from each other.” Krimsyn suggested.

She was stunned when J.D.’s lips fell hard on hers, kissing her until she was begging him to stop, pushing against his chest.

“No one is taking a break! I love you and you love me. No time apart. No living in hotel rooms and no seeing other people while we supposedly figure things out. I didn’t spend a hundred years of my life with you only to give up now!” He growled against her lips.

“Okay,” she relented, the fight in her suddenly gone. He was right. They’d been through every imaginable hell and back, from him getting shot and almost dying in the line of duty, to her drug addiction and her rock bottom, there was no way she was going to let them go without a fight.

“Good. I’m glad we are on the same page,” J.D. smiled and scooped her in his arms. They almost fell when he slipped and stumbled on the tiles, but he regained his balance and grabbed a towel on their way out of the bathroom.

He laid her gently on the bed and began drying her. Within moments they were both in their PJs, lying over the covers.

They didn’t make love; instead, they nestled in each other’s arms and talked, openly and honestly, for a long time.

 J.D. admitted he missed being a part of S.W.A.T and he was intrigued by the VIA’s offer. Krimsyn explained her fears and insecurities and why she was petrified of him going back to law enforcement…

Being vampires didn’t mean they were immortal. They had found that out the hard way. Normally they could live forever if they took care of themselves and didn’t meet accidents. But J.D’s job as a SWAT agent had come with a lot of accidents and danger.

Two years before Michaela was conceived, J.D. was shot in the line of duty. If it wasn’t for his quick thinking partner, he would have bled out and died at the scene.

He made it out of surgery alive, but barely though. For two weeks he was in ICU, his life hanging in the balance. Doctors did everything to prepare her for the worst, but J.D. had surprised everyone and miraculously pulled through, and went on to make a remarkable recovery.

Those two weeks though, waiting to know his fate, were the hardest for her. When the doctors told her he wouldn’t make it she’d wanted to die too because facing a life without him wasn’t an option. She’d never understood the term “can’t live without someone” until then. He wasn’t just her lover or her boyfriend, he was her mate, the one fate had chosen for her. Without him, she didn’t want to exist.

For months after the incident, she was an emotional wreck, afraid of letting him out of her sight.  Her obsession turned ugly and irrational very quickly. She’d call him a hundred times a day and make unannounced visits at his office just to see him. Some days, when he let her, she’d drop him off and pick him up from work too. If she could, she would have made him spend every waking moment with her. And her drug addiction had started right about then.

Her clinginess got to a point of affecting his job negatively, and hers too. His bosses gave him an ultimatum: either he sorted out his house or he shipped out. J.D. didn’t want to lose his job or his mate so they went to couple’s therapy to work on their problems. Her abandonment issues had emerged from their therapy sessions, things about her past she’d had no clue had a bearing on her present came up, Margaret and her rapist father also came up.

As much as she’d hated therapy, it had helped her see her problems. She was afraid of losing people, more specifically Krisis and J.D; they were the only constant people in her life.

Soon after that though, J.D. left S.W.AT for her, because in the end she just couldn’t take it anymore. Like his bosses she gave him a choice, and he chose her. She left her career as a runway model and they moved to Bridgeport with Krisis and formed K-Infinity, making a quick mark in the music industry.

Exactly, a year after their first album, In the Shadows, was released, they found out they were expecting. Michaela was a shock, but a pleasant one. And they hadn’t looked back since. Until now…

It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy for him, because she was. It was just what the idea of him going back to SWAT or even the VIA represented for her. She was reminded about that dark period in her life, about the person she used to be back then when she came very close to losing him and her sanity. She hated being that paranoid, drug-dependent, obsessed girlfriend as much as she hated the thought of losing him and she’d vowed she’d never feel that way again, she’d never let her fears consume her.

“Where did you go?” J.D.’s voice brought her out of her reverie; she blinked, pushing back her memories.

“Remember how we met?” She asked, ignoring his question. She wanted to remember the good stuff too, and hang on to that.

“How could I forget? I thought you were the sexiest hooker I’d ever had the pleasure of arresting,” J.D. smiled to himself as they both revisited their first meeting.

He was an agent in the narcotics unit for CLS (Champs Les Sims) PD when they first met, and his team had raided Opium, her favorite haunt. She was caught with marijuana and cocaine, and JD had taken great pleasure in cuffing her.

“You knew who I was though. Everyone knew who I was in Champs Les Sims,” Krimsyn pointed out, remembering her heydays as a runway model.

“Yeah, but it didn’t mean you were above the law,” JD replied, and they both laughed at the irony; they now knew why her case had mysteriously disappeared.

For weeks he’d harassed her, convinced she’d bribed someone to make her file vanish.

If he wasn’t so cute, she would have reported his harassment, but she’d enjoyed the attention he’d paid her, and looking as good as he had in uniform, had done wonders for his sex appeal.

“You have to talk to him, Syn,” J.D. told her, the humor suddenly gone between them. He was referring to Thornton. She’d told him about the Vampire Council’s second in command the very same day Leigh learned the truth. J.D. had taken it surprisingly well, he was disappointed she didn’t confide in him immediately when she found out the truth, but he understood it was something she’d wanted to work out on her own.

“I know. But for now, I just want to be happy, with you, and just lie here and talk about our past and our future.”

And they did, till dawn, when they lazily made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms…

In Hollow Creek, in a tiny three bedroom room rundown house, Joshua awoke from his fitful sleep, the blinding pain more intense than it was over the past few days.

As he tried to sit up on the bed, he was convinced he was going insane or dying or both.

His body was on fire. He could hear Mrs. Stein’s voice four houses away as if she was right there in the room with him.

His sister’s heartbeat in the next room was unbearably loud, he wanted to silence it, he wanted peace and quiet and to flee from the voices and the sounds and the smells.

“Joey, you’re awake. You won’t believe how amazing Barnacle Bay was; you really should have come with us!” Ellen, walked in, a huge smile split her face in two. “Aunt Joyce really missed you. She said to tell you she’s expecting you for the December holidays.”

Joshua grunted something. What though, he didn’t know.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You look awful,” she moved closer to him to try and feel his temperature.

“Stay away from me!” Joshua growled in an oddly hollow voice.

“But Joey-” Ellen reached for him again, but he shoved her away with little effort.

He didn’t realize just how hard he’d pushed her though until he heard her body crash against the old black and white TV and slide down to the floor with a dull thud.

“Ugh!” Ellen groaned as she tried to sit up.

Joshua watched her rub the back of her head. Her soft gasp when she saw the bloodstain on her fingers thrilled him.

The smell of her blood awakened something dark and scary inside of him and he jumped for her, ready to tear her apart limb to limb, familial relations forgotten. At that moment he was more concerned with satisfying his burning thirst.

“What are you doing? Get away from me! MOM, JOSHUA is acting strange! HIS EYES ARE GLOWING!” Ellen screamed at the top of her lungs.

Their parents ran into the room just as Joshua showed his fangs.

“Oh God, he’s one of them now. My poor baby. Joey. I knew it would happen! The demon blood!” Mrs. Clarke cried, flailing her hands in every direction, her pale blue eyes glaring accusingly at her husband.

Mr. Clarke carefully approached his two spawns on the floor, but he didn’t make it very far. His son sent him soaring in the air; they all heard the wood splinter and collapse under his weight as the door came off its hinges.

“Joey, please, it’s me, Ellie. You don’t want to hurt me,” his sister pleaded.

Her tears shook him out of his bloodthirsty trance and he was instantly filled with remorse when his eyes refocused and saw the damage he’d done.

“No!” His loud anguished howl as he flung himself out of the window pierced the relatively peaceful morning air, leaving his family devastated beyond anything they’d ever felt…

________

Karima, Ellie is one of your sims, Cherie Blossom, I think. I just aged her down in CAS. She is so pretty. OMFG! I'll post some shots of soon. Thank you for her!