Goro Takemura x Reader

Forty-One

On their own will, your hand reached up to grab his face. You needed to make sure that he was real and not just a product of your own imagination.

Did you die already?

Or did fear simply make you go insane?

A thin smile flashed on his face but it quickly hardened again as he grabbed your hand to give it a squeeze. There was this familiar mix of cold cyberware and his warm human flesh again.

He felt like a saving grace.

"We have to go.", he said and wanted to pull you with him.

But your legs refused to function. You did manage to love your feet, pit weight on them as you would when walking. But as he was already up, you slipped and crashed back to the floor.

"(Y/N)!", Goro's arms wrapped around your body to keep you from sinking further.

Desperately, your nails dug into the sleeves of his black jacket, only for you to realise that it was damp and sticky. As you turned your hand you noticed red stains all over them.

"Are... are you hurt?", your eyes trembled as you looked at him.

How dark his eyes appeared in this moment.

It wasn't his blood. He didn't need to tell you. But he also didn't want you to look at him like he was some sort of monster. Because he was not.

He had dirtied his hands to get to you. And he'd do it again without thinking about it. You could read it in his eyes.

Somehow, that was both a flattering her frightening thing to know.

How did you manage to grow on him so quickly that he'd be willing to commit such violence in your name?

As the bodyguard of your father it obviously counted to his duties. But you were an entirely different topic. He wasn't obligated to protect you with his life. Sure, he'd suffer some consequences if you got hurt but none big enough to make him shiver.

He just chose to do so.

"You have to get up.", his voice was pressed, strained under the pressure of keeping it calm.

With gentle force he wrapped his fingers around your arms and pulled you up. Your legs twitched and wanted to follow him. But your joints were weak.

"G-Goro...", you said his name as if it were a spell of protection against all evil. "Gomen'nasai, Goro. I can't walk..."

A feeling grew in your knees, making it feel like one move too many would make the bones snap and paralysed you till the end of time.

His eyes flashed red. He seemed to scan you.

Then, without a word, his hands reached under your legs and picked you up. With surprising ease he turned on his heel and rushed out of the room into another.

Out of reflex, your arms wrapped around his neck for support. You could feel how muscles moved underneath his shirt. He felt firm and secure.

Your eyes jumped across the long hallway. Red light melted with the sound of sirens.

The beating of your heart did not calm down although it didn't make you suffer from a sharp pain no more. You knew where he intended to go.

Just down the isle and to the right was an escape route, some stairs. It was inhumane to ask of him to carry you up all the way, but your stupid body refused to cooperate and since the elevator was unavailable there was no other choice.

Cursing under your breath, you dug your nails into his neck in anger.

It made his eyebrows rise slightly. Just a small reaction to your feelings. A sign that he wasn't entirely indifferent to physical pain.

"You are experiencing a shock.", he said, stopped in his tracks and pressed his back against a wall as a row of doors appeared down the hallway. "You do not have cyberware to balance out the chemicals of your brain when it is experiencing fear. Your reaction is natural."

"Usseewa!", you hissed and tried to wiggle out of his grip. "I will not be a burden to you."

His grip tightened in such a way that his fingers left clear traces of where they had been as they loosened again once he had realised it might cause you pain.

His head tilted to the side and his eyes met your. There was no emotion on his face but the pure will to make his words impossible to misunderstand.

"(Y/N).", he said in his rough, slightly scratchy voice. "You could never be a burden to me."

Heat chased through your head. You must have looked surprised. Or maybe not because he never reacted to it. Not even as your fingers entangled in the fabric of his shirt and held onto it with such persistence that a few seams stretched under tension.

Your feet wiggled.

Goro did not release you.

"Goro...", you didn't dare speak his name louder than a whisper.

It drowned in the ocean of noise, sirens, screams and occasional gunshots, never to be heard or remembered again. In this very moment his name was lost to the chaos that Night City had placed upon you.

His legs twitched and he started to move again, slowly and more careful this time. It was only then that you realised that he wouldn't be able to fire a gun if he needed to carry you.

You would risk his life.

Gunshots sounded again. They were so loud and fast that it couldn't have been a simple pistol. The attackers had come with machine guns. Probably even heavier equipment than that.

He passed a door. The room behind it was empty. A thin layer of glass shut it off, making it hard to see inside. But there was a dark spot visible on the milky surface.

At the sight, you had to squeeze your eyes shut and take a deep breath.

This was a nightmare. A nightmare you had not asked for.

Everything inside of you wanted to disappear into thin air as the sound of screams approached.

More gunshots.

Then just sirens.

"Put me down.", you said after Goro managed to pass another door.

"I can't do that.", he just said.

"Goro.", you let go of his collar to grab his face instead. "If you don't let me down we will both die."

He didn't want to, you could see it in his eyes. But he also was a man of logic. And he knew you were right.