Story Notes:
If you're thinking, 'Where have all the reviews gone!? WTF happened?' well it was due to an error, you see when the change over happened from the old AGNPH to the new one happened, I had to add my Co-authors back on, seeing as it took them off for some unknown reason. Anyway, when that happened, 2 copies of this story were made. I tried to delete the one without co-authors but when I did, it also deleted the other one, leaving me with no copies of blood and love, so yeah, have to re-upload. This is a pain in the ass but I heard that there was a problem with the text in all the older stories that made the text all glitchy, so maybe it was for the best that I re-uploaded it. Fortunatly, 'Blood and love' over at FanFiction isn't fucked up so that should make things easier. Also I've now noticed theres a duplicate 'Blood and love' story floating around, why this has happened I have no idea but I'm gonna try get it deleted. Oh, hears the stats for the story before it got wiped out.Views: 26,000Rating: 4.5Reviews: 59Oh, disclaimer. Yeah, Pokemon, I don't own it and I don't intend to make a profit out of it. This was done just for fun.
"I love you."
Richard let out a small growl of pain as he clutched the right side of his chest, the man that shot him fell backwards and lay in the snow, motionless.
"Richard! Are you hurt!" Tera said frantically.
"I'm fine, are you okay?" Richard responded
"... Yes." Tera's eyes sparkled, she was holding back the tears, she thought she had lost him.
"Tera... are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine... I just... I thought y-you-" Tera just couldn't finish her sentence, but Richard still knew what she was trying to say. "It's fine now, we're both safe." Richard said to comfort her as he grabbed his radio. "Ethan, get to Weller street, a group of men just tried to kill me and Tera."
A voice crackled into the radio, Ethan's voice. "I'll be right there." Another voice crackled into the radio. "Me too." It sounded like Cleaves.
Richard turned to the downed man that attacked Tera, and grabbed him by the neck. "Why the fuck did you try to kill us?" Richard tried his best not to beat the shit out of the man that attacked Tera.
"Fuck you pig!" Was the man's response. Richard hated this man, the thought that he could have killed Tera just made Richard want to tear his throat out. Richard took his hand off the man's neck, if he kept in there another second then the temptation to choke him to death would have been to great. "You tried to kill my friend. Why?" Richard's anger was clear in his voice.
"I don't know, we just didn't like your fuckin' faces." The man angrily replied.
Richard could easily imagine himself stomping on the downed man's face. "You pathetic piece of shit."
"Not as pathetic as I'm going to make you look when I cut you up." The man said back to him.
Tera wanted to hit him for saying that to Richard, but she stayed calm. Richard ignored his lame threats and walked over to Tera.
The man laughed on the ground. "I'm going to get better, and when I do, I'm going to gut your little friend and make you watch."
After hearing those words, Richard just snapped into a burning rage. He no longer cared if he lost his job, he was going to give that man a beating. He turned to the man and kicked his wound and punched him in the face before kicking him repeatedly in the ribs, this was Richard containing himself. He crouched down to the man who now began coughing up blood and grabbed him by the neck again. "If you ever fucking touch her, I'll rip your fucking teeth out and make you choke on your own blood. You fucking hear me!" Richard punched the man's bleeding wound. "I said do you fucking hear me!"
The man was now cowering, he realized that this was no normal cop. "Yes." the man answered.
"Not good enough." Richard gave the man another punch to the face, this time it knocked him out. Richard got up and turned to Tera. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but he deserved it."
Tera didn't mind him beating that man up, she was just a little shocked at how angry he became, she had never seen him angry before. "It's fine, I wanted to do the same."
Richard checked the other men, the one that attacked him was still conscious, just barely. He walked over to the man that shot him, he noticed that the man never dropped his gun, Richard took out his gun once more, just in case. Richard walked over and put his gun away after he saw that the man's eye was missing and there was a pool of blood red snow behind his head. Tera heard sirens and soon saw a police car rushing down the street with an ambulance following closely behind it. The police car skidded to a halt and out came Ethan, Cleaves, Stripes and the Zangoose.
Ethan was holding his pistol in his hands as he walked over to Richard and Tera, his eyes went over the men on the ground. "You both okay?"
"Richard got shot." Tera said, hoping that somebody would take a look at him.
"It's fine, I'm wearing my vest under my uniform. I don't think I have any broken ribs." The shot hurt him but it was nothing serious, although he was guessing it was going to leave a really big bruise.
Ethan looked over the men on the ground, as far as he could tell two of them were still alive. "How did this happen?"
Richard and Tera explained everything, even why Richard has blood on his knuckles.
"Do you need one of the paramedics to take a look at you Richard?" Ethan asked.
"No thanks, I'm fine." Richard responded.
"Alright. Cleaves, go with those scumbags to the hospital."
Cleaves gave Ethan a confused look. "Why? Cant we just leave them to freeze?"
Ethan knew Cleaves wasn't going to like it, he didn't like it either. "I know, it sucks that we have to keep them alive but lets not forget that these people are going to be behind bars for a very long time."
Cleaves gave a reluctant sigh. "Fine."
Ethan then looked over to Richard and Tera and said, "Richard, Tera, you can both take the day off. I'll give you two a ride back to my place."
They both nodded and followed Ethan to the car. The adrenaline had now left both Richard's and Tera's bodies and were now both feeling a little weak.
5 minutes later.
Richard and Tera were now in the house, Ethan went back to the police station just in case something else happened. Tera sat by the fireplace as Richard got a fire going. "Alright, Tera, I'm just going to get changed. You stay here by the fire and get warm."
"Okay." Tera said as she watched Richard walk upstairs. She moved a little closer to the fire to get warmer, she watched the flames glow. Tera couldn't stop thinking about what happened, Richard almost got himself killed by trying to protect her. She remembered the pain in her heart when she saw Richard clutching his chest and the relief she felt when she saw he was fine. Tera knew now that not only would Richard protect her, he would die for her. She then thought back to when he punched and kicked the man that attacked her, she noticed that he didn't attack him until the man threatened to hurt her. She knew that Richard liked her... But did he love her? The attack made her realize that they both might not have long to live, she loved Richard but she feared that he might not feel the same way. After all, she is a Lucario and he's a human, but although they were different on the outside they still seemed so alike. She began daydreaming, thinking about telling Richard those three big words. "I love you."
Richard sat on the bed while taking off his uniform and body armor, there was now a big dark purple bruise on the right side of his chest. It still hurt but he knew that it could have been much worse, that's when the questions started again. 'If I died, what would Tera do? If I died, how much would I regret not telling Tera how I really feel about her?' Both questions hurt him more than when he got shot, it felt like swallowing his own heart and getting punched in the stomach only this time the pain was emotional. He began seriously thinking about telling Tera how he felt, but how would he do that? "Ah shit, I'm over thinking things again." Richard said quietly to himself. He began thinking back to his days as a mercenary, he remembered what Carter told him when he said that he kept asking himself questions. "There's no point in asking 'what if', what's done is done. If you have one weakness, it's that you over think things. A lot of men think about things that they thought about doing at the time but never did, and end up regretting for the rest of their lives. Sometimes its not enough to think, you just have to do it." Richard remembered that little speech from Carter because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, like he was talking from personal experience. He then remembered asking him what if 'just doing it' turns out to be the wrong decision, he replied "Well, at least you gave it a shot." Richard put on some different clothes, blue jeans, green shirt and walked downstairs.
Richard saw Tera besides the fireplace, she was still wearing his jacket and scarf, she was staring into the fire, it looked like she was thinking about something. Richard slowly walked up to the fireplace and sat down besides Tera, she was still staring into the fire, and it felt like she didn't even notice him. "Are you okay Tera?" He asked.
Tera snapped out of her little daydream when she realized that Richard was back, "Oh, yes, I'm fine. What about you?"
"Well I have a big bruise on my chest and I still feel cold but other than that, I'm feeling good." He replied.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked.
"Yeah, but now it's more like a dull ache." He said.
"Let me take a look at it." she said, getting up quickly.
Richard knew that she had been worried about him since he got shot, maybe she thought there was some internal damage or something. He decided to let her take a look to ease her mind. "Alright then." Richard said as he unbuttoned his shirt to show her the right side of his chest.
Tera gasped slightly at the sight of the big bruise on his chest, although she thought that it would be worse. She noticed a vertical scar about 3 inches long on the left side of his chest. "I... I'm sorry." She said.
"What for?" Richard's voice had asked in a clearly confused tone.
"For putting you in danger. If I had been a little more alert I-" Tera was cut off by Richard interrupting.
"Stop, you have nothing to be sorry for. You were fighting a man that was trying to kill you; it's hard to be aware of your surroundings. You didn't put me in danger, I did, and it was my choice. You once said that I was too hard on myself, I am, but so are you."
There was a two second pause before Tera responded, "Your right."
"I know I am." Richard said.
Tera glanced over to Richard who had a smile on his face, it made her smile too. "Thanks for making me feel better." She stated.
"You're welcome." Richard said, he didn't know why but he got a sort of déjà vu feeling.
5 minutes later.
Richard and Tera are still sitting by the fireplace, talking.
"How did you get that scar on your chest? Was it a mission?" Tera asked curiously.
Richard knew that she was going to ask about it sooner or later. "Yeah, I got it from the only mission that I was involved with that failed. Have you heard of a man called Silas?"
Tera knew that name from the news, nearly everybody knew that name. "Is he the warlord?"
"Yes, warlord, smuggler, slaver. The mission was to kill him and any of his bodyguards." He said.
"But how? He practically has his own army." She asked with an amazed face on.
Richard could see that she was really interested. "He does but this was one of the rare occasions where he was out of his base of operations, he must have been conducting a business deal or something. The mission was carried out by three teams of six men, we were quite well equipped, decent guns, there was one man in each team that carried a rocket launcher."
"What were they used for?" Tera asked.
"To take out any vehicles, we really didn't want him escaping. Anyway, we moved in, took out the vehicles, killed lots of guards and we thought we had secured the area."
"But he's still alive, how did he escape?" Tera asked a second question.
"We thought we had secured it, everybody soon realized that he wasn't among the dead, there were about six of us left and there were three small wooden cabins, we split up into teams of 2 and went for the cabins." Richard said.
"We kicked down the door and checked the room, nothing there but two windows, a desk and a computer. My team mate checked the computer but there was nothing of interest, everything that could have helped us understand what he was doing there or what his next move was going to be was gone." Richard continued.
"I heard something above me, that's when I saw him... He was on the rafters of the cabin. When he knew that I saw him he jumped down, he had a knife in one hand and a revolver in the other. I jumped back but the knife still managed to carve a line down my chest, I fell back and he turned around and shot my team mate three times in the stomach and chest." Richard said.
"I pulled out my pistol and shot him twice in the arm, he dropped his revolver and sprinted towards the window, and then he jumped through it and got away. Carter heard the gunshots and found me on the floor, holding my chest and bleeding on the floor. Luckily some of the equipment we were carrying was basic medical supplies." He finished.
Tera hated to imagine Richard hurt so badly. "What happened next?" Tera asked.
"I got fixed up and sent out on another mission." Richard replied. Tera gave him a shocked face.
"You were badly injured and they just sent you out on another mission?" Tera asked. She couldn't believe it, even if the mercenary company only cared about money it didn't sound like a good idea to send a injured man out to fight.
"Yes, but I was one of their best, they knew that it wouldn't stop me." Richard stated.
"Did you agree to take the mission?" Tera asked.
"Yes." He said.
"But, why?" Tera asked.
"It was a rescue mission; even if I died it would be worth it if I save even just one life."
Tera knew Richard was selfless, that's one of the things she loves about him.
10 minutes later.
Richard and Tera were both still sat by the fireplace, they were both warm but they just didn't feel like getting up. Richard was thinking, 'Is now the right time to tell her?'
That's when a voice rang in his head. 'Do it' Richard decided to tell her, no more waiting around, if he doesn't tell her now then he may regret it later. He was about to speak, but Tera asked him a question first.
"Richard, why did you risk your life to save me?" she asked.
Richard was surprised she asked, but he guessed now would be a good time to tell her. "Because I couldn't live without you."
"R-really?" Tera was surprised, that showed in her voice.
Richard took a deep breath before continuing. "Yes, you're the only thing that's kept me going since that night, when we first met each other." The feeling of something hard going down Richard's throat stopped him from continuing, he knew there was no turning back now.
The one thought repeated through his mind like a song that wouldn't stop playing and playing in his head. Except for the fact that it was only a few words.
"Do you really mean that Richard?" Tera said, her eyes widened.
Richard swallowed a lot of his saliva, trying to suck in every inch of his nerve that he could muster.
"Yes, y-you're the best thing that's ever happened to me." Richard's voice weakened, thoughts of doubt flooded his mind, he was afraid that she would walk away if he told her, but he pressed on. "Tera... I think I've fallen in love with you." He said weakly.
"Richard! Are you hurt!" Tera said frantically.
"I'm fine, are you okay?" Richard responded
"... Yes." Tera's eyes sparkled, she was holding back the tears, she thought she had lost him.
"Tera... are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine... I just... I thought y-you-" Tera just couldn't finish her sentence, but Richard still knew what she was trying to say. "It's fine now, we're both safe." Richard said to comfort her as he grabbed his radio. "Ethan, get to Weller street, a group of men just tried to kill me and Tera."
A voice crackled into the radio, Ethan's voice. "I'll be right there." Another voice crackled into the radio. "Me too." It sounded like Cleaves.
Richard turned to the downed man that attacked Tera, and grabbed him by the neck. "Why the fuck did you try to kill us?" Richard tried his best not to beat the shit out of the man that attacked Tera.
"Fuck you pig!" Was the man's response. Richard hated this man, the thought that he could have killed Tera just made Richard want to tear his throat out. Richard took his hand off the man's neck, if he kept in there another second then the temptation to choke him to death would have been to great. "You tried to kill my friend. Why?" Richard's anger was clear in his voice.
"I don't know, we just didn't like your fuckin' faces." The man angrily replied.
Richard could easily imagine himself stomping on the downed man's face. "You pathetic piece of shit."
"Not as pathetic as I'm going to make you look when I cut you up." The man said back to him.
Tera wanted to hit him for saying that to Richard, but she stayed calm. Richard ignored his lame threats and walked over to Tera.
The man laughed on the ground. "I'm going to get better, and when I do, I'm going to gut your little friend and make you watch."
After hearing those words, Richard just snapped into a burning rage. He no longer cared if he lost his job, he was going to give that man a beating. He turned to the man and kicked his wound and punched him in the face before kicking him repeatedly in the ribs, this was Richard containing himself. He crouched down to the man who now began coughing up blood and grabbed him by the neck again. "If you ever fucking touch her, I'll rip your fucking teeth out and make you choke on your own blood. You fucking hear me!" Richard punched the man's bleeding wound. "I said do you fucking hear me!"
The man was now cowering, he realized that this was no normal cop. "Yes." the man answered.
"Not good enough." Richard gave the man another punch to the face, this time it knocked him out. Richard got up and turned to Tera. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but he deserved it."
Tera didn't mind him beating that man up, she was just a little shocked at how angry he became, she had never seen him angry before. "It's fine, I wanted to do the same."
Richard checked the other men, the one that attacked him was still conscious, just barely. He walked over to the man that shot him, he noticed that the man never dropped his gun, Richard took out his gun once more, just in case. Richard walked over and put his gun away after he saw that the man's eye was missing and there was a pool of blood red snow behind his head. Tera heard sirens and soon saw a police car rushing down the street with an ambulance following closely behind it. The police car skidded to a halt and out came Ethan, Cleaves, Stripes and the Zangoose.
Ethan was holding his pistol in his hands as he walked over to Richard and Tera, his eyes went over the men on the ground. "You both okay?"
"Richard got shot." Tera said, hoping that somebody would take a look at him.
"It's fine, I'm wearing my vest under my uniform. I don't think I have any broken ribs." The shot hurt him but it was nothing serious, although he was guessing it was going to leave a really big bruise.
Ethan looked over the men on the ground, as far as he could tell two of them were still alive. "How did this happen?"
Richard and Tera explained everything, even why Richard has blood on his knuckles.
"Do you need one of the paramedics to take a look at you Richard?" Ethan asked.
"No thanks, I'm fine." Richard responded.
"Alright. Cleaves, go with those scumbags to the hospital."
Cleaves gave Ethan a confused look. "Why? Cant we just leave them to freeze?"
Ethan knew Cleaves wasn't going to like it, he didn't like it either. "I know, it sucks that we have to keep them alive but lets not forget that these people are going to be behind bars for a very long time."
Cleaves gave a reluctant sigh. "Fine."
Ethan then looked over to Richard and Tera and said, "Richard, Tera, you can both take the day off. I'll give you two a ride back to my place."
They both nodded and followed Ethan to the car. The adrenaline had now left both Richard's and Tera's bodies and were now both feeling a little weak.
5 minutes later.
Richard and Tera were now in the house, Ethan went back to the police station just in case something else happened. Tera sat by the fireplace as Richard got a fire going. "Alright, Tera, I'm just going to get changed. You stay here by the fire and get warm."
"Okay." Tera said as she watched Richard walk upstairs. She moved a little closer to the fire to get warmer, she watched the flames glow. Tera couldn't stop thinking about what happened, Richard almost got himself killed by trying to protect her. She remembered the pain in her heart when she saw Richard clutching his chest and the relief she felt when she saw he was fine. Tera knew now that not only would Richard protect her, he would die for her. She then thought back to when he punched and kicked the man that attacked her, she noticed that he didn't attack him until the man threatened to hurt her. She knew that Richard liked her... But did he love her? The attack made her realize that they both might not have long to live, she loved Richard but she feared that he might not feel the same way. After all, she is a Lucario and he's a human, but although they were different on the outside they still seemed so alike. She began daydreaming, thinking about telling Richard those three big words. "I love you."
Richard sat on the bed while taking off his uniform and body armor, there was now a big dark purple bruise on the right side of his chest. It still hurt but he knew that it could have been much worse, that's when the questions started again. 'If I died, what would Tera do? If I died, how much would I regret not telling Tera how I really feel about her?' Both questions hurt him more than when he got shot, it felt like swallowing his own heart and getting punched in the stomach only this time the pain was emotional. He began seriously thinking about telling Tera how he felt, but how would he do that? "Ah shit, I'm over thinking things again." Richard said quietly to himself. He began thinking back to his days as a mercenary, he remembered what Carter told him when he said that he kept asking himself questions. "There's no point in asking 'what if', what's done is done. If you have one weakness, it's that you over think things. A lot of men think about things that they thought about doing at the time but never did, and end up regretting for the rest of their lives. Sometimes its not enough to think, you just have to do it." Richard remembered that little speech from Carter because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, like he was talking from personal experience. He then remembered asking him what if 'just doing it' turns out to be the wrong decision, he replied "Well, at least you gave it a shot." Richard put on some different clothes, blue jeans, green shirt and walked downstairs.
Richard saw Tera besides the fireplace, she was still wearing his jacket and scarf, she was staring into the fire, it looked like she was thinking about something. Richard slowly walked up to the fireplace and sat down besides Tera, she was still staring into the fire, and it felt like she didn't even notice him. "Are you okay Tera?" He asked.
Tera snapped out of her little daydream when she realized that Richard was back, "Oh, yes, I'm fine. What about you?"
"Well I have a big bruise on my chest and I still feel cold but other than that, I'm feeling good." He replied.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked.
"Yeah, but now it's more like a dull ache." He said.
"Let me take a look at it." she said, getting up quickly.
Richard knew that she had been worried about him since he got shot, maybe she thought there was some internal damage or something. He decided to let her take a look to ease her mind. "Alright then." Richard said as he unbuttoned his shirt to show her the right side of his chest.
Tera gasped slightly at the sight of the big bruise on his chest, although she thought that it would be worse. She noticed a vertical scar about 3 inches long on the left side of his chest. "I... I'm sorry." She said.
"What for?" Richard's voice had asked in a clearly confused tone.
"For putting you in danger. If I had been a little more alert I-" Tera was cut off by Richard interrupting.
"Stop, you have nothing to be sorry for. You were fighting a man that was trying to kill you; it's hard to be aware of your surroundings. You didn't put me in danger, I did, and it was my choice. You once said that I was too hard on myself, I am, but so are you."
There was a two second pause before Tera responded, "Your right."
"I know I am." Richard said.
Tera glanced over to Richard who had a smile on his face, it made her smile too. "Thanks for making me feel better." She stated.
"You're welcome." Richard said, he didn't know why but he got a sort of déjà vu feeling.
5 minutes later.
Richard and Tera are still sitting by the fireplace, talking.
"How did you get that scar on your chest? Was it a mission?" Tera asked curiously.
Richard knew that she was going to ask about it sooner or later. "Yeah, I got it from the only mission that I was involved with that failed. Have you heard of a man called Silas?"
Tera knew that name from the news, nearly everybody knew that name. "Is he the warlord?"
"Yes, warlord, smuggler, slaver. The mission was to kill him and any of his bodyguards." He said.
"But how? He practically has his own army." She asked with an amazed face on.
Richard could see that she was really interested. "He does but this was one of the rare occasions where he was out of his base of operations, he must have been conducting a business deal or something. The mission was carried out by three teams of six men, we were quite well equipped, decent guns, there was one man in each team that carried a rocket launcher."
"What were they used for?" Tera asked.
"To take out any vehicles, we really didn't want him escaping. Anyway, we moved in, took out the vehicles, killed lots of guards and we thought we had secured the area."
"But he's still alive, how did he escape?" Tera asked a second question.
"We thought we had secured it, everybody soon realized that he wasn't among the dead, there were about six of us left and there were three small wooden cabins, we split up into teams of 2 and went for the cabins." Richard said.
"We kicked down the door and checked the room, nothing there but two windows, a desk and a computer. My team mate checked the computer but there was nothing of interest, everything that could have helped us understand what he was doing there or what his next move was going to be was gone." Richard continued.
"I heard something above me, that's when I saw him... He was on the rafters of the cabin. When he knew that I saw him he jumped down, he had a knife in one hand and a revolver in the other. I jumped back but the knife still managed to carve a line down my chest, I fell back and he turned around and shot my team mate three times in the stomach and chest." Richard said.
"I pulled out my pistol and shot him twice in the arm, he dropped his revolver and sprinted towards the window, and then he jumped through it and got away. Carter heard the gunshots and found me on the floor, holding my chest and bleeding on the floor. Luckily some of the equipment we were carrying was basic medical supplies." He finished.
Tera hated to imagine Richard hurt so badly. "What happened next?" Tera asked.
"I got fixed up and sent out on another mission." Richard replied. Tera gave him a shocked face.
"You were badly injured and they just sent you out on another mission?" Tera asked. She couldn't believe it, even if the mercenary company only cared about money it didn't sound like a good idea to send a injured man out to fight.
"Yes, but I was one of their best, they knew that it wouldn't stop me." Richard stated.
"Did you agree to take the mission?" Tera asked.
"Yes." He said.
"But, why?" Tera asked.
"It was a rescue mission; even if I died it would be worth it if I save even just one life."
Tera knew Richard was selfless, that's one of the things she loves about him.
10 minutes later.
Richard and Tera were both still sat by the fireplace, they were both warm but they just didn't feel like getting up. Richard was thinking, 'Is now the right time to tell her?'
That's when a voice rang in his head. 'Do it' Richard decided to tell her, no more waiting around, if he doesn't tell her now then he may regret it later. He was about to speak, but Tera asked him a question first.
"Richard, why did you risk your life to save me?" she asked.
Richard was surprised she asked, but he guessed now would be a good time to tell her. "Because I couldn't live without you."
"R-really?" Tera was surprised, that showed in her voice.
Richard took a deep breath before continuing. "Yes, you're the only thing that's kept me going since that night, when we first met each other." The feeling of something hard going down Richard's throat stopped him from continuing, he knew there was no turning back now.
The one thought repeated through his mind like a song that wouldn't stop playing and playing in his head. Except for the fact that it was only a few words.
"Do you really mean that Richard?" Tera said, her eyes widened.
Richard swallowed a lot of his saliva, trying to suck in every inch of his nerve that he could muster.
"Yes, y-you're the best thing that's ever happened to me." Richard's voice weakened, thoughts of doubt flooded his mind, he was afraid that she would walk away if he told her, but he pressed on. "Tera... I think I've fallen in love with you." He said weakly.