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obxsummer · 25 days ago

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good things fall apart // ghost of you

pairing: jj maybank x routledge!reader

summary: post-pogue reunion calls for campfire conversations, more walking, and PhDs in thiefology. jj asks you about your wishes and a near mercenary encounter has you on the run again (to no surprise ever).

warnings: usual obx drama, nothing too exciting

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“I think next time we take a trip, we should maybe plan ahead.”

John B’s obvious statement made you burst into laughter. The lot of you were crowding around the campfire that was still trucking along through the day and night, conversation flowing to pass the time as you tried to come up with a game plan on your next move.

You were settled against JJ’s chest, his legs caging you in on each side as you leaned into him. His arms hung loosely around your chest and his back pressed into a log that he and Pope had managed to roll up the dune and situate as a seating option for your temporary setup. Neither of you wanted to separate from the other for as long as you could, so you kept close.

“We can stay in a hotel next time,” Sarah offered, smiling brightly at the idea. “Preferably one with a shower.”

Kie’s face turned up in disgust. “Oh yeah, I smell awful.”

“I smelled myself today,” John B grimaced in reaction. It was no secret you guys needed fresh clothes and a hot shower for sure.

“You’re not the only one who smelled you,” Sarah added, pinching the boy in his side as the group laughed with her.

Rhythmically, JJ’s fingers moved back and forth on your arm, the motion lulling you to sleep. “Hey, uh, you know what’s a good name for a baby? JJ.”

You rolled your eyes at his words but didn’t stop the small smile forming on your face. “The last thing we need are two of you running around.”

“What baby?” Cleo asked, eyeing you particularly. You shook your head slightly, letting your eyes drift to Sarah as a hint.

The blonde girl was much more enthusiastic to share the news, having come to terms on her own with it. She reached out for John B, gripping his fingers with hers as realization fell across Pope’s face. “No freaking way.”

“A Poguelet?” Cleo asked with a huge smile on her face, sitting up in Pope’s arms as the couple descended into chaos.

“You?” Pope pointed at Sarah but he was staring at John B in shock. “You’re gonna be a freaking dad!”

Your brother’s arms went up in the air in celebration. “I’m gonna be a dad.”

“A little baby!” Cleo scrambled out of Pope’s embrace to press her ear against Sarah’s stomach dramatically, like she would be able to hear anything. Her lips continued to move as she spoke into Sarah’s dress, promising that she would be the favorite aunt if she had anything to do with it. You laughed at the sight, snuggling closer into JJ who was happy to tighten his hold on you.

“You’re so ill equipped for that!”

“I know, but it’s totally okay!”

“Congrats, holy shit!”

Your gaze moved slightly to the left where Rafe was lounging. It was hard to miss that he kept glancing over and it was even harder to admit that you kinda felt bad that he was finding out about Sarah’s pregnancy in this way.

You couldn’t imagine if John B found out you were pregnant from an overheard conversation and not you directly telling him. Which, sore subject and all, but your opinion still stood.

You sighed, biting your lip in consideration before shifting out of JJ’s warm grip. He looked up at you expectantly. “Be right back, okay?”

He nodded, accepting the small kiss you gave him before you stepped away from the group to sit in front of Rafe. Not too close, of course, but enough that only the two of you would hear. Your fingers tugged at your lip and you contemplated how to even begin the conversation.

There was a lot more to your “relationship” with Rafe than the two of you even noticed. Despite all of the hard feelings and trauma, you were both broken souls that were laid bare to the other at some point in time. Rafe didn’t realize it, but he’d spilled more of his deepest darkest thoughts to you when you were at their house. He found comfort in that. And whether you realized it or not, you’d been at your lowest in his presence, even if he was part of the cause.

“Um, thank you. For what you did earlier,” You started, your fingers picking at your shorts. “I’d probably be fish food if it wasn’t for you.”

Rafe glanced over at Sarah, a moment of silence passing before he answered. “Yeah, I uh, things might be different right now with me and Sarah but I didn’t want to stand by knowing I could’ve prevented that for someone else.”

The answer caught you off guard slightly. Rafe’s relationship with Sarah was not a good one, in any way, shape, or form. Maybe at one point it had been, but you’d yet to see it. It had only gotten worse since she’d returned with John B and when Rafe found out Ward had died, he’d been downright cruel to her.

Sarah had done her best to talk to him, especially when Rose declined all of her calls and Wheezie’s number was suddenly no longer available. She was rightfully scared of Rafe and his unpredictable anger, which had ended most of their conversations before they even happened.

“I can’t speak for her, but I think she would appreciate you trying to talk to her… in a calm manner,” You emphasized and looked at him pointedly.

Rafe rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. “Yeah, well she should’ve thought about that before she let Dad die. She chose John B, that was her decision, not mine.”

You didn’t say anything, knowing it wasn’t your place to explain what happened in El Dorado. It wasn’t like Rafe would understand anyway, since he didn’t seem to listen to anyone but himself. You were trying. Despite the screaming feeling in your chest that wanted you to run, you were trying. If you didn’t make peace with what happened, it would continue to have a hold on you. Not saying Rafe deserved (or would receive) any forgiveness, but acceptance was part of the grieving process and you owed yourself freedom from it all.

“Rafe, look at me.”

He nearly winced at the authority your tone held, the sound unfamiliar to him when it came from you. He looked up to see you staring at him with what he assumed was sympathy. You, sympathizing with him after all he’d done.

“Your dad is not here anymore, and I know that’s hard to deal with. Trust me. But his hold over you, the way he manipulated you, it left with him. You don’t have to do anything for him. In fact, everything you do now, is for yourself. Just… think about that, okay?”

You didn’t leave room for conversation after that and returned to JJ, feeling much lighter than you had in a long time.

Sometimes, it felt like all you guys did was walk. Or run, you were always running from something, too. And you know what, it was getting really annoying. Crossing the dunes of Morocco wasn’t on your bucket list at all, and the beating sun wasn’t helping in the slightest.

You were trying to keep a positive attitude, but man, today was not your day.

“Look, all is not lost. Like, we got a bead on Groff, and he can lead us to the crown. Happily ever after, right?” JJ theorized as the two of you walked hand in hand, your arms swinging slightly between you as the group followed in your footsteps.

You nearly laughed, “Oh, someone woke up on the right side of the bed today, huh?”

JJ rolled his eyes, playfully pushing into your side and nearly knocking you over before he pulled back on your hand to keep you upright. A shocked gasp left your mouth as you lost your footing before he stabilized you again, a laugh bubbling from his throat.

“Asshole,” You joked, bumping your hip with his.

“Hey,” He whined in faux annoyance. “You love me.”

You paused in your walk to face him. “You’re so lucky I do.” Shifting on your toes, you kissed him slowly, ignoring the complaints from your friends as JJ flipped them off in response. It was hard not to dismiss everything that had happened in the past 48 hours when you were all here, together and alive, safe and sound.

As long as everyone made it out of this, you could keep moving forward, one step at a time.

The walk across the dunes continued for what felt like hours (and likely was), before civilization came into view. Essaouira, Pope explained, was a major port city for Morocco. The landscape was a crowded one, with building after building stacked next to the other.

“What’s the plan here?” You asked, glancing back at your brother who was keeping Sarah close with her evident exhaustion. Everyone was dehydrated, sore, tired, and in need of a refresher.

“We locate the wharf and find Groff, yeah? That’s all we gotta do,” JJ said as you guys walked through the tunnel that opened into the bustling town, people flooding in all directions.

Your eyes widened at the surplus of individuals moving about and you turned to JJ to see his shocked expression. “That might be a little harder than we thought.”

Pope scoffed next to you, his expression unamused. “You think?”

JJ’s grip on your hand tightened before he took the step into the crowd and you reached your other hand back to grab ahold of Cleo’s, determined to keep the group together as you weaved your way through.

It was overwhelming as the voices blended together, people shouting at you for money or items, hands grabbing on to your clothing before Cleo smacked them away with a disgruntled disapproval.

“Babe, we gotta get out of here,” You huffed as someone else bumped into you causing you to stumble into JJ’s back.

Pope must’ve overheard because he was suddenly taking the lead, JJ following in step with him to get out of the chaos to somewhere quieter. It didn’t take long before you found yourself staring up at a large statue of a man with a menacing sword, the stone carved with delicate details.

“Yo, that Murat,” Pope explained as everyone came to a stop. “The Barbary pirate. That’s the guy Groff was telling us about.”

“Holy shit,” John B mumbled as he looked up at the statue. “That’s him, the one who made the map to find the crown.”

“Which might be closer than we think. Let’s go.” JJ started following the path again which unfortunately was taking you all back into another crowded space.

The heat was almost nauseating at this point and you hoped there would be a good opportunity to take a break here soon.

Apparently, Sarah was feeling the same way as John B eased her down on a nearby ledge. She was obviously pale and not feeling well. You separated from JJ as the group stopped walking and crouched next to the blonde girl. Your hands moved quickly to pull her hair off her neck and up into a bun, twisting a hair tie from your wrist to keep it out of her face.

“Nauseous?” You asked with a knowing feeling. Nobody had really eaten a sustainable meal since you left Poguelandia, just snacks and bits of cooked fish that you’d caught. It wasn’t a surprise she didn’t feel good.

She barely nodded, letting out a deep breath and resting her head on the stone wall behind her. “Really nauseous.”

You looked at John B and almost laughed at the stress on his face. “Bee, she’s fine. Just needs some food and water, okay?”

John B nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced.

“Everything okay?” Kie asked as she hovered over you.

“No-”

“I’m fine,” Sarah spoke over John B’s reply, her stubborn attitude peeking out as she made eye contact with you. You gave her a reassuring nod, hand resting on her shoulder as John B’s fingers brushed through her hair.

Turning, you looked up at JJ. “She needs something to eat and water.”

“Good luck with that, we don’t have any money,” Pope commented before Cleo glared at him and smacked his shoulder in reprimand.

“Don’t be so negative,” She hissed at him before addressing you again. “We can do it the old fashioned way.”

“A little five finger discount?” JJ followed her idea, his fingers waving teasingly. “I got my PhD in Thiefology.”

You shook your head at him, not necessarily pleased with the idea but realizing there really was no other option. “Guys, please be careful okay? We’re not in the States and-”

You were cut off by a $100 bill being shoved in your face.

Blinking in shock, you looked up to see Rafe holding out the crisp bill with an unamused look on his face. When you didn’t move to grab it, he gave you a pointed look and waved it slightly. “Baby steps?”

You nodded slightly, unsure what caused his sudden change but appreciating it nonetheless. Shock wearing off, your fingers pinched the money gently and he pulled back, resuming his uninterested appearance and stepping away from the group. Sarah looked at you, confused, to which you could only shrug.

You let out a deep breath and offered the money back to Pope. “Essentials, yeah? The more the better.”

Money in hand, Pope nodded and recruited JJ, Kie, and Cleo to come with him.

“Just hurry up with whatever dumb shit you guys do, alright?” Rafe called as your brother joined the group heading into the market, leaving you with Sarah. Apparently his momentarily kindness was spent as he yelled at them.

You gave him a sharp glare to which he raised his hands in surrender, walking away to entertain himself for the time being. With a sigh, you put your attention back on Sarah, who was already looking at you. “What?”

“Are you okay?” She asked with a knowing look on her face. “Talking to him?”

You shrugged. “It’s fine. It doesn’t help any of us if we’re tiptoeing around each other the whole time. So I tried to talk to him about it last night. Obviously, it didn't work fully but we’re getting there.”

“Baby steps?” She repeated his words and you nodded.

Shrugging off your backpack, you tried to find any snacks within the mess of first aid supplies and JJ’s obnoxiously long charger cord (not that he needed that anymore, considering his phone was at the bottom of the ocean). Your fingers caught hold of a water bottle and you cracked it open for Sarah to drink.

She sipped slowly and closed her eyes to rest against the wall, her body finally beginning to cool off from the hike and beating sun. It didn’t take long before your group was back together, various food and clothing bundled in their hands.

Pope took your backpack to fill with the remainder of the items after passing them out, including some to Rafe who took them with a grunt of thanks. You bit into the fresh fruit aggressively, nearly devouring it in record timing.

Once everyone had eaten, you were moving again, weaving through the throngs of people in the direction of what you hoped would lead you to the wharf.

“I think we lost Rafe,” Cleo commented as the group slowed and sure enough, the elder Cameron was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s fine, he’ll catch up,” Sarah dismissed with a wave of her hand, figuring if anything he left on his own with the intent of finding Groff without waiting on you all. “He probably has his passport, anyway. Better him than us.”

You nodded in agreement with her words, figuring Rafe would’ve prepared for this trip better than you all and considering he had a shit ton of money with him, he’d be fine. “Agree.”

“Where we going?” Kiara asked, her eyes falling on Cleo as she held the fresh clothes in her hands. She was itching to change and get the ruined fabric off her body. Plus, you all stood out like sore thumbs and switching outfits would help blend.

“Here.” John B waved you all over to an empty hut. “You guys go first, we’ll switch.”

You ducked inside with Cleo, Sarah, and Kie to change quickly before the boys swapped spots and you all continued on your journey to the wharf. The new attire was much more comfortable, and although still unfamiliar, you felt more in place than before.

Eventually, you found yourself staring across hundreds of boats all packed in the tiny marine area.

“Groff was on Hollis’s boat, so look for something fancy,” JJ offered as he scanned the vicinity for the familiar yacht. “I mean, it’s gotta be here. This is the only wharf in town.”

“I don’t know about no fancy boat, but that’s Terrance’s boat,” Cleo spoke up, her finger pointed across the way to one of the vessels that was docked.

Pope wasn’t so convinced. “Are you sure?”

Cleo turned to him, unamused. “I grew up on that boat, man. I’d know that boat anywhere.”

“If his boat’s here, the Corsairs are here,” You added and crossed your arms over your chest. “Which also means Groff’s here.”

“And the one who killed Captain T.” Cleo smirked at the idea, her fingers already tracing the handle of her knife on her side.

“No lights, no motion. My vote is we go, see if we can use anything,” Kie said with a shrug.

You nodded in agreement and JJ took a step forward to move on before rushed disagreements fell from the others.

“No, wait. Not you. They know what you two look like,” Pope pointed to you as JJ stopped in his tracks. “Somebody else needs to go.”

“They know what half of us look like,” You countered. “Which leaves-”

“I’ll do it.”

You turned with wide eyes to Sarah, who’d spoken up. “What?”

She shrugged, confused by everyone’s reactions. “I’ll do it,” She repeated and rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, I can do things.”

“I believe you,” John B was quick to agree, though his tone said otherwise.

“They don’t know what I look like. I’ll do it, I can do it.”

“I’m coming with you!” He called to the blonde girl before pointing at you as he started to walk. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

You chuckled as John B took off after her to catch up, mumbling to himself in the process. The rest of you quickly agreed to keep an eye out, you and JJ claiming the high ground (JJ copied Obi Wan, don’t you fret) which left Cleo, Pope, and Kie to monitor down below.

“Not quite our dream vacation, huh?” You joked as you followed JJ up the path so you could gain a better view.

JJ scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, babe. Warm weather, interesting views, an unfamiliar location. Sounds dreamy to me.”

You rolled your eyes at his wording. “Sure. Interesting views my ass. I love looking at stray animals and getting slammed into for trying to walk from Point A to Point B. And there’s no time for me and you.”

“Hey, rumour has it, if you find the Blue Crown, you get a wish,” He offered as you guys came to a stop up on a bridge.

You leaned against the stone to face him with a smirk. “Oh, is that what they say now?” You asked, feigning your obliviousness.

JJ shrugged, closing the gap between you with each step closer. “It’s the legend, after all,” He hummed, his thumb resting on your lip gently before he leaned down to kiss you. “I’ll wish for us to go on the best vacation ever, how ‘bout that? No interruptions… just me and my soon-to-be wife.”

The title made you shiver and you laughed quietly, eyes closing as you kissed him again with a satisfied hum. JJ’s fingers squeezed your sides gently as you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. Your back dug into the stone behind you, not that you were paying attention in the slightest to it.

“Let’s hear it, pretty girl. What’s your wish?” He asked quietly, his eyes staring into yours with interest.

You smiled at him and shook your head. “If I tell you, it’s not gonna come true.”

JJ forced a pout into his lip when you wouldn’t play along. “But I shared mine!”

Shaking your head, you kissed him again, nearly folding when he bit your lip gently. “You’d vote for a truck, babe. Suspension, LED, nice rims. All the bells and whistles.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter if you’re not going to be in the passenger seat.”

You tilted your head at him. “Who said my name won’t be stitched in the seat in the first place?”

The two of you were blissfully unaware of what was going on behind you until JJ’s eyes drifted for a split second and he caught sight of someone familiar. “Hey, that’s one of the Corsairs that kidnapped me and brought me on the ship.”

You frowned when you caught sight of the man he was referring to. JJ moved quickly, taking the spare pipe he’d found to bang on the cannon that was there for show, the noise echoing around you. Pope looked up, before knocking on the barrel with the ore Cleo had found for their use.

Their attempt at signaling John B and Sarah was interrupted by Arabic chanting across the space. Tilting your head in confusion, you looked over at JJ, who was clearly annoyed.

“It’s the call to prayer,” He answered your unspoken question.

It didn’t settle right in your chest that you had no way of alerting John B and Sarah of the man’s presence and you definitely needed to act quickly to fix it. Pope and Cleo stared back at you before you groaned to yourself. Kie, however, had different plans and explained something to the duo near her before giving you a thumbs up.

“What’s she doing?” You asked the rhetorical question, watching as the curly haired girl maneuvered her way through the crowd and purposefully bumped into the mercenary you were watching. When her hand landed on his arm, your jaw dropped. “Oh, shit.”

“Flirting with danger, nice move Kie,” JJ spoke quietly, keeping his head ducked down slightly so he was harder to see. You lounged above, trying to act as subtle as possible while keeping a close eye on your friend.

Noticing the call to prayer had ended, Pope grabbed the ore to bang against the empty barrel, the sound bouncing its way around the area and hopefully reaching John B and Sarah.

“There they are!” You said as you caught sight of the couple moving about on the boat. Kie started waving her arms wildly as the mercenary began to leave her, clearly not buying her distraction any longer. “Shit, J, let’s go!”

You darted down the path you’d taken up here, taking the turns as fast as you could to get to your brother faster. JJ apparently wasn’t satisfied with your speed and moved around you. “Be careful!”

“I know!”

You watched, horrified, as he grabbed another nearby ore and managed to collide with the mercenary, causing the gunshot to miss completely. JJ winced shortly after, his hand grabbing his side and you cursed yourself for not even thinking about fixing his injury when he’d showed up on the beach yesterday.

“Kie!” You called out for your friend as you ran over to JJ who was scooping the discarded gun off the ground. Pope was heading in the direction of Sarah and John B, but Cleo was nowhere to be found. Kiara accepted your hug instantly, her hands shaking with adrenaline as the two of you caught up to JJ.

The question of Cleo’s location was answered with a car horn as the girl came flying around the bend in an open air truck. You laughed at her timing, all of you meeting and practically falling into the car with zero coordination.

“How did you get this?” Pope asked as he flung into the seat next to her.

“I stole it!”

A scream almost slipped out as she took off and you nearly fell into Kiara completely, the two of you trying to balance with the sharp motion. JJ was on your other side, yelling at Cleo to floor it as if she wasn’t speeding already.

When you made it out of the crowded wharf area, you breathed a sigh of relief and moved forward to shove your head between your brother and Sarah. “You guys okay?” You asked, your hand squeezing the back of John B’s neck. You nearly gagged at the sweat on his skin and wiped your hand off on his shirt with a huff.

“We’re okay, we’re okay,” Sarah repeated as she tried to catch her own breath, her fingers tangled with John B’s on the seat between them.

Sliding back into your seat, you whistled at the events that just occurred. “This is only the beginning, y’all. Hope you’re ready.”

JJ laughed next to you, his arm coming to rest across your shoulders to pull you into his side so he could kiss your temple.

“Let’s do this shit.”

a/n: sorry she's a lil short but we're goin into the craziness 🥴

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ask me anything

#outer banks x reader #jj maybank x reader #goy series #jj maybank #outer banks #outer banks imagine #jj maybank imagine #john b routledge #jj outer banks x reader #jj x you #jj maybank fanfic #jj maybank x reader series #jj maybank x you #john b routledge x sister!reader #obx x routledge!reader #routledge!reader #jj maybank x routledge!reader

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 months ago

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Mint Plays Games: Changelings, Trauma & Gaming

Over the course of October and November, I returned to one of my favourite ttrpgs of all time with @thydungeongal and my girlfriend: Changeling the Lost. About once or twice a year, I get the itch to run the 1st edition of this lovely, lore-heavy game, and every year I come away from it thinking about its potential. This is meant to be a quick break-down of my latest Changeling session, as well as a reflection on the parts of Changeling that really touch my heart.

The Game.

This game happened over three sessions, involving a character creation session, and two sessions of play. We had one character who was a Darkling Gravewright - folks who dealt with the dead in their time in Faerie (and can also see ghosts), and another who was a Fairest Flamesiren, whose entire deal is about burning bright, but also burning out quickly.

I decided to give these girls a murder mystery, with a mortal body found just outside a gate to a Goblin Market, and a missing changeling to track down. We’d talked about themes of grief and addiction prior to my planning stage, so I figured dealing with both a death and a place that offers your wildest dreams (for a price) might be a good place to start.

I don’t like planning out specific plot beats in my games, so instead I tried designing the Market like an adventure location, with various vendors to tempt the players with their wares, while dotting the landscape with NPCs in various states of distress. I figured the Changelings would pick something that resonated with them, and we could go from there. This process also generated a few different villainous characters who could be responsible for the murder, which I’m glad I did, because as usual, what the players decide to do always falls outside the bounds of what the GM plans for.

The story ended up being about saving a kidnapped changeling from a hungry Fae, and bluffing through a group of Privateers (read: mercenaries) and bringing the victim to safety. However, they didn't escape completely unscathed - coming face to face with a True Fae caused a cascade of terrible memories coming back to visit one of our characters right after she thought she'd made it to safety.

Our session was an introduction to the world and lore of Changeling, and I feel like I did a pretty good job on that front. On the other hand, I felt like it was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things I think Changeling can be about.

The Potential

When it comes to the World of Darkness in general, I think Changeling: the Lost has a relatively sleek amount of lore regarding the various Courts, Seemings, and faerie characters. Each Changeling’s durance can be typified, but ultimately what they went through can be up to the player who designs them, and the Hedge is limitless in its weird and strange creatures, which gives the GM license to create all kinds of goblins and monsters to fit what they want their game to be about - and the players aren’t really expected to know what’s going on in there anyways. Most Freehold history exists in rumour, because talking too openly about it feels like you’re inviting the Fae to your front doorstep, and in the same way, the true nature of the Fae is left up to rumour and superstition, allowing your group to decide what they really are, or leave their nature forever a mystery.

That being said, the toys that you can play with are still more numerous than anything that you can fit into any one campaign, even if you’re playing that campaign for 4+ years. You can very easily play Changeling as a magical urban fantasy game (and I’ve done this fairly regularly with my group), but C:tL also has a lot of poignant themes that can delve into themes about trauma, addiction, and mental health.

Disclaimer: CtL is not always graceful in the way it represents mental health. There are antagonists presented in the books that come across as “madmen”, some pretty gross Merits you can take that can feel bad to play at most tables, and characters that have lost what makes them human, becoming threats to the players. However, I think that the Clarity system does have some interesting ideas in it that, if treated with care, can still provide some interesting depth to the game.

Clarity

Clarity is meant to be a measure of how well your character can tell truth from Fiction - a high enough Clarity score, and you can sniff out a Fae even if they’re trying to hide themselves; a low enough Clarity Score, and you have a hard time differentiating colour and smell, and might even start seeing an overlay of your Durance infiltrating your weekly grocery trip.

Your Changeling moves up in Clarity if they’re able to keep a stable life with elements that help you ground yourself and give you a sense of identity - and mechanically, once you spend Experience points. Your Changeling moves down in Clarity when they suffer “sins” - moments that disrupt that hard-won stability. This sins could be something we’d consider morally fraught, such as stealing, assaulting someone, or murder - but they could also be significant life changes, like losing your job, buying a house, losing a friend or getting married. You also always suffer a Clarity sin when you come in contact with a reminder of your durance - particularly a True Fae.

The higher your Clarity score is, the harder it is to keep yourself there. Smaller and smaller things can trigger a Breaking point, like going a day without human contact, starting a new college course, or using a Faerie token. Furthermore, the lower your Clarity score, the more difficult it is for you to tell truth from fiction - think of the scenes in Mockingjay where Peeta has to ask Katniss “real or not real” and try to trust her answers.

It doesn’t help that so many pieces of the Changeling experience after getting out of the Hedge seems designed to Fuck You Up - like the doppelgänger that’s been living your life ever since you left, or the fact that mortals can’t seem to notice the ways that Faerie has changed you: you can feel the horns on your head, but all they touch is a well-coiffed hairstyle. In many ways it feels like your whole experience with Faerie is invisible - and you’re fairly certain that even if you told a mortal the truth, they’d never believe you. If they did believe you, they would never treat you the same again.

I like this system because it doesn't really measure how "good" or "bad" your character is - instead it's a representation of how your lived experiences can often trigger symptoms even if others get lucky enough to survive those events with their mental health intact. I'm not a bit fan of derangements - but I think dropping in Clarity is an excellent time to ask characters about pieces of their time in Faerie that haunt them, and perhaps saddle them with Frailties instead - what personal rules do you have to follow in order to navigate the world when you have a hard time telling friend from foe?

Other Themes & Metaphors

The Fae themselves are also exquisite boogeymen, mercurial abusers without the familiar human emotions that we might feel more equipped to understand. They act on their whims and follow their appetites - and while real-life abusers often have very human reasons for being that way, we need not feel such compunctions from the Fae.

We might have to feel some compunctions about their right-hand Loyalists however, changelings who have agreed to work for their Fae Masters in exchange for some semblance of freedom. These are enablers: giving the Fae a step into the mortal realm and throwing mortals and other Lost under the bus, just so the True Fae won't turn their abuses back onto them.

Much of the ethos of the seasonal courts in the first edition has to do with different strategies for preventing a day where you find yourself back under your abuser’s control. Do you pretend that everything is fine, because they won’t recognize their victims if they’re happy? Make yourself physically stronger so you can tell yourself that you’ll win next time? Amass magic rituals in the hopes that learning just the right order of steps will keep you safe? Or do you make yourself as un-interesting as possible in the hopes that they give up on you for other prey? (Yes, I think the Winter Court could totally be all about grey-rocking).

On top of that, the Changelings that your characters embody (and interact with) are far from perfect. They have vices, fears and trauma responses that pull and push them into a dance of backstabbing, power-grabbing politics, full of seeking the upper hand and possibly even selling out their fellows in a gambit meant to keep the Fae focused on someone other than them. (A political game or LARP with these themes in mind feels so juicy to me.)

Next is the metaphors of power and/or addiction. The higher your Wyrd is, the more Glamour you can hold, and the more powerful your magic is. At the same time, the more Glamour you can hold, the more you need to hold it: what starts as a fun magical resource can grow into an addiction, if you lean into it hard enough. Sure, your Contracts become easier to activate and you can Incite Bedlam if you get powerful enough, but are you willing to chance withdrawal if you can’t get your daily fix of goblin fruit? How much are you willing to play with human emotions in order to get that sweet sweet taste of anger or grief?

Then there’s the seeming-specific traumas. Beasts struggle with wondering whether they can be human after giving in to animal instinct; Darklings fell into Faerie because they crossed an invisible or moral line and have had to make morally questionable decisions in order to survive. Elementals are used to being treated as part of the scenery, moulded to fit the whims of their captors; Fairest are constantly pressured to be the prettiest or the best with the threat of terrible terrible things should they fail. Ogres have undergone terrible physical hardships, including physical mistreatment and deprivation, while Wizened have been told time and time again that they are only worth something if they are useful. Stepping out of Faerie doesn’t magically “fix” any of these complexes, and as a result each Seeming has to wrestle with stereotypes even amongst their own: if you need someone murdered, go to a Darkling, If you need something made, go to a Wizened. If you need a hot piece of ass, a Fairest is sure to oblige - right?

Lastly, there's the Fetch: a copy of yourself that was made to replace you when the Fae took you away. This other-you is often so much better or so much worse than the person they used to be - they can act as a foil to your character, haunting you or making your life difficult, reminding you of who you used to be, or never letting others forget how badly you may have screwed up. In Changeling society, killing your Fetch is at the very least a regrettably convenient way of tying up loose ends, and at the most, a rite of passage. But it's also a surefire way to risk losing Clarity. Kind of a catch-22 situation, isn't it?

My Experience So Far

Past Changeling sessions I’ve run have included NPCs getting kidnapped by misguided friends, stumbling across characters who were at an all-time Clarity low, trying to save other Changelings from their Faerie kidnappers, cannibals, Fetches, and antagonists who are set out to betray one or more factions of the Freehold that is supposed to protect them. It’s always bits and pieces of what feels like a bigger picture.

On the one hand, I think that's to be expected. There's so much in this game, and I doubt that any campaign can really dig in to all of its systems and complexities. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I’ve been able to really dig into the themes of Changeling: the Lost in the way that I’d really love to be able to do.

The subject matter can be so close to real struggles, that I’m nervous about making those struggles too bare-faced at my local table. Gas-lighting, torture, hallucinations, drug abuse and cannibalism are so very easy to drop into a Changeling game, but are also so very easy to hit uncomfortable moments for someone who's unprepared.

At the same time, I think that playing a game like Changeling with a high-trust table that uses robust safety features has so many interesting stories that can give power to players, even if the setting is technically a horror one. I’ve been having conversations with @psychhound about a lot of the themes that folks try to explore in ttrpgs, especially in response to this post he commented on back in April. To summarize that conversation: TTRPGs are a great way for folks to tackle personal struggles and traumas from a safe place, in ways that can give them a cathartic experience or that can give them a fresh sense of identity. Changeling has been a significant part of those discussions.

I came to Changeling: the Lost as a fairly new GM the first time I picked it up, and the more I learn about Safety Tools and a culture of care, the closer I feel to getting to that game that lives in my head that lured me into TTRPGS in the first place. Every time I come back to It, I think I'm closer to pulling together a Changeling game that sinks its teeth into the themes I’m interested in and hit some of the grime beneath all that glitter. So every time I come back to it, I’m going to create funky little goblins and design weird Fae bars and take the characters’ memories and ask them why they hurt - figuring out how I can twist the knife just enough to peel back the glamour, without opening any wounds that we’re trying to keep closed.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #changeling the lost #mint plays games #mint speaks #world of darkness

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ghostheartfelt · 1 year ago

Text

*:･｡☆ warnings: heavy gore, torture, hurt/comfort, whump, s/a towards reader, men being gross, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blood and violence, branding (torture method), waterboarding (torture method), reader (thaye) is a badass, first kiss, dismemberment of fingers, eye trauma, protective!ghost, implications of smut/sex, aftermaths of torture. (there is probably a lot i missed, but idc lol all the other shit should b enough warning!!) 〔☆〕 desc: you and the 141 are deployed to austria with the intel of a drug boss known as rolmuth who is harboring romanian soldiers to the east coast to smuggle illegal mercenary personnel into america. what happens when a rapid snowstorm picks up and you (callsign 'thaye') are separated from the others then further captured and interrogated alongside your lieutenant?

—✩ PHANTOM TOUCH ✩—

word count —15.6k

a/n: sorry for my inactivity! the entire time i was workin on this shit... let me tell you.. this is 51 pages on google docs LMAO so i hope the length and word count makes this fat fucking hurt/comfort one shot worth it.

VIENNA, AUSTRIA.

“Move, move, move!” Price yells.

Snow fell and blanketed the ground beneath you, you were dressed in white camouflage tactical gear.

Your movements were slower as you trudged yourself through the snow, you turned in every direction searching for your captain.

Your lieutenant.

Anybody.

Rapid snowy winds smacked you in the face, nearly forcing your eyes shut as you traveled through the gusts.

“Soap?!” You shout, planting your feet below into the patches of snow,

Your arms raise to cover your face.

“Fuck!”

“Thaye!” A voice echoed through the snow that encased you in a blanket of long silence.

Snow nestled into the ground below—everything around you seems to just slow down.

You traipse yourself heavily through the thickness around you as you snap a clip into your M4 carbine, swinging it behind you like it had been previously.

Thump.

Your head droops down and you feel your heart drop into your stomach seeing the body of one of the men you were deployed with face up.

His head four inches deep in the snow and his right eye completely destroyed, his chest marred with several bullet wounds.

The root of his nose is fractured to the point where it’s flattened into what’s left of his skull.

You swallow the knot in your throat that might have also been barf trying to make its way out of you, kneeling down to peel the soldier’s dog tags off of his corpse.

Hudson “Scooter” Wheeler.

It makes you smile slightly, your thumb dragging over the metal tag to wipe off the thickness of blood that had coated the carving of his name.

“I’m sorry, Wheeler.”

The loss of fallen soldiers leave footprints and engravings on one’s heart that never allows them to be the same, again.

You wished sometimes you could just be without the worry about who you have to lose and who you have to save.

Restless nights followed by mornings and afternoons full of nothing but unpromised resolutions. You nearly felt as if insanity would be a better route than going through the pain of losing the people you stood side by side with, enduring the effects of grief, bloodshed, and war.

Although there were moments of bonding and camaraderie that were forced to turn into utter gore and distrust due to the change of the objective that deemed those to turn against one another in hopes of survival and success.

Pride; a fickle sense that could drive an individual to the depths of madness and create a staked claim to prove more power then they own or deserve.

You didn’t understand it. Nor did you want to.

You were left in a society where the drabness of gray ruled the world and pain of loss clenched to the soldier’s hearts almost desperately.

And yet that perpetual colour of gray; a colour so dull but so compelling, it still lights the depths of hell you lived in by merely a petite dose.

Your mouth had begun to feel tacky with your muscles stiffening as the weather conditions intensify by every fleeting moment.

Inside your combat boots, you feel your feet begin to grow numb; similar to the feeling of stepping on fresh-cut grass and grazing dull needles.

Now, you wonder what hypothermia would feel like. You weren’t used to this sort of weather.

Even under your white half-face balaclava, you felt your lips and their absence of moisture.

Still, you trekked forward, squinting eyes searching for any sign of life around you.

Your face lights up at the sight of a shadow-like movement through the blistering storm and rapid winds once you wipe off the frost lingering on your goggles.

They moved closer—it seemed to be one person.

There’s a tree to your left—your legs manage to jerk themselves through the snow until you're beside it.

You cautiously lower your body into the snowpack below you, clutching your rifle in your grip while your eyes fixate on the moving figure ahead of you.

Your finger grazes over the trigger of your carbine rifle.

A leg comes before the torso, then the face.

The skull mask.

Ghost.

Relief washes over you immediately—raising to your knees.

“Lieutenant!” You call.

His head immediately snaps in your direction, and the time spent staring at each other seemed everlasting, though in reality it was just a few seconds before his large hand was squeezing your shoulder and he was right in front of you.

“Thought we lost’ya,” Ghost rasps.

“What’s the sitrep?”

“Enemy force has ordnance on standby—Price ordered all units to the West Safehouse,” he says.

You nod softly.

“Why’d you hang back?”

His eyes widen under his balaclava and you open your mouth to speak—Ghost tugs you by your vest, pulling you to the side.

“Gh—“

There’s a person behind him.

Sounds muffle around you, complete silence surrounding you as Ghost’s head is slammed with the butt of a rifle.

Your hands reach down to pull your handgun from off of your hip, pointing it towards his attacker, squeezing on the trigger and unhesitantly dropping him to the ground before he can double back and finish him off.

No words leave your mouth as you turn in one quick jerk, the barrel of a L1A1 being aimed between your eyes.

Not even seconds later was the thick handle of a bowie knife met with the back of your head.

Immediately, your body meets with the snow, and you feel the coldness of the snow over your mask.

You struggle to pick up your head, pain surging in the back of your head enough to blur your vision.

Keeping your eyes open was a challenge—they constantly blink shut as you watch the enemy force yell at each other, manhandling Ghost by ripping his weapon sling off of him and dragging him by his fur-lined parka.

His body was dragged up into a Humvee and roughly thrown in before you were picked up by your ankles and wrists and tossed right on top of him.

Your head slumps against Ghost’s bicep as you're washed up by incapacity, your mind fogging against your will. Enervation holds you captive and sweeps you off your feet.

You’re met with blackness, next, yet the only thing you could think of was your failure to protect your superior.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

You awoke to the sounds of struggling—something teetering on the floor.

It takes a moment for you to come to your senses and stir from unconsciousness, eyes fluttering open to take in your surroundings.

The ever-present smell of waste and deteriorated flesh smacks you with reminiscence, the overbearing cold, the taste of grime, blood, and bile in your mouth.

When you go to move your hands, they’re immobile; binded by thick ropes that with your state of exhaustion and physical weakness, would be impossible to escape from.

Your heavy head manages to shift for oneself to observe the room—your gear was purloined, leaving you in your cargos and a tank-top.

Below you, the ground was concrete and stained with blood that led to the large metal door that had a closed hatch.

Vaguely, you recall in short and brief flashes why you were there, your eyes shutting for a few moments before opening once again.

Ghost.

Where was Ghost?

“Lieutenant,” you cough. “Ghost, wh—“

“‘M here, kid.” Ghost wheezes. “To’yr left.”

Your head turns, stopping at the sight of his mask on the concrete, blood smeared across the maw of the skull, over the eye socket.

“Ghost, are you injured?”

“No.”

Slowly, your eyes trace up the ground beneath you until Ghost’s boots are in view.

His soles skid against the ground as he attempts to drag the dentist chair he’s strapped in. “Fuck!”

You shift in your wooden seat in an attempt to reach your hand down to pull up the velcro flaps of your cargos. You couldn’t reach.

Ghost’s boots stop skidding against the floor as the metal door’s rusted hinges creak, the door being flung open to welcome a man inside—three other men were behind him holding military grade rifles with drum magazines.

The man inside the room raises his hand, offering departure in the Hindi language, to which his men shut the door behind him.

His arms were wrapped behind his back, the sound of his heavy boots echoing off of the thick stone walls.

He walks around the room for a while, allowing you to raise your head to take in who he was.

A European man that’s approximately 184 centimeters with long pushed back shaggy dark hair; his eyebrows arched, a bushy beard.

On his cheek, a nasty deep laceration scar that reaches the end of his eyebrow. Under his left eye, another scar reaches the bridge of his nose.

The man is inches from your face, now, a tilt in his head.

“We see how long it takes to break you, Sergeant.” His eyes crinkled as his lips upturned in a depraved smile.

He lifts himself from his bent position, grips the crest rail of the chair, and pulls you farther from Ghost.

“Who is your commanding officer?” He asks, feet spread apart as he looks down at you to assert his dominance.

“Fuck you.” You bite back.

The man’s hand roughly takes hold of your chin, tilting your head up towards the dangling ceiling light.

“I eat boys like you for breakfast.”

Ghost chuckles beside you.

His eyes narrow as he releases a choked scoff, his head swinging back before bursting into laughter.

“My drug ring reigns across the entire country—my men swarm all city.”

His accent is thick, though his English isn’t terrible.

“It is either you tell me now and you and friend die quick, or you die slow of bleeding until we find on our own.”

“Good fuckin’ luck,” Ghost grunts.

You swallow thickly, groaning as the man pulls your head back by the scalp of your hair.

You purse your lips as you collect saliva from the walls of your mouth, spitting just above the man’s eyebrow and watching as the gob runs down over his eye.

He snarls, dragging an open hand down his face. Using that same hand, the male flexes his hand into a fist and socks you in the jaw.

“Hey!” Ghost shouts.

You hear it pop and you immediately outstretch your neck and slam your forehead into the bridge of his nose, arms jerking in an attempt to escape your restraints. “You motherfucker!”

He lets out a groan, his head flinging back as blood streams down his nostrils, his hand trembling over his nose.

“Bitch! Madarchod! Bevakooph veshya…” He hisses through clenched teeth. “Broke my nose!”

His palm smacks you across the face so hard, a pinkish red hue starts blossoming across your cheek. He repeats it again, then again, and again.

You squeeze your eyes shut, bracing yourself as numbness circles inside the flesh of your cheek, a similar feeling to those static electricity globes that you’d get for your twelfth birthday and press all five of your fingertips against.

“Hey! This is between you an’ me, a’right?” Your lieutenant gives a sharp nod, trying to reason with the man.

He stares at Ghost for a few moments, squeezing his fingers in his fist before leaving the room, the door slamming loudly behind him.

You take the moment to actually look at Ghost, your eyes taking in his features entirely.

From his long and messy dirty blonde undercut, to his shade and stubble.

To his bruised and bloodied lips and the thick scar running from his top lip to the underside of his chin.

To his thick and beautiful eyebrows, the scar on the start of his left eyebrow, running down to the bridge of his nose.

To his deep and all familiar brown eyes—long and light eyelashes accompanying their shape.

To the scar that spread out from the right inner corner of his lip and across his cheek as if it was the engravings of a smile line.

There were several scars littered across the male’s face; each one of vast distinction from the other.

Once again, the door thrusts open and the man returns, cotton wads up his nostrils with another male by his side, pushing in a rolling mayo stand with different tools and items you assumed were torture devices.

“Hey! Hey! What’re y’doing?” Ghost jerks in his seat, his eyebrows furrowing as the man picks up a syringe, flicking the glass and squeezing out a droplet of the liquid inside. “What th’fuck is that?”

“You will have your answer soon enough,” he simply replies.

“Agarwal—blade.”

The second man grabs the rotary tool from off the tray, a saw blade in the other.

Your hands tug against their bindings enough to chafe your wrists, it feels as if your skin is being shredded with a cheese grater.

“Paip rinch, ab.” The taller man holds out his arm, to which the man who was now identified as Agarwal hands him a pipe wrench.

“English, asshole.” You grunt.

He slings it over his shoulder and slowly walks towards Ghost as he whistles.

Ghost’s eyes don’t avert from his gaze, even as the pipe wrench drops from off his shoulder to clatter on the floor, hanging from his wrist and dragging along the ground.

“Who…is…your…superior?” His voice is grim, each word coming out as he takes a step.

Using the hook jaw of the wrench, he lifts Ghost’s chin.

“Piss off,” the blonde huffs.

Not even seconds later does the man swing the wrench around and belt it into his stomach. Ghost lets out a wheeze, his body lurching over in reaction to the sudden pain coursing through him.

“No!” You yell.

“Who.” He asks again with spite in his tone—he was demanding, it no longer was a question in his favor.

“You’ll know who when he comes’a knockin’ ‘n blows lead thru th’lot of ya.” Ghost says with a slight raise in his head.

The wrench is swung back into his stomach, causing Ghost to hurl and expel vomit onto his boots.

“Leave him the fuck alone!” You kick yourself forward a bit using your boots. Agarwal’s hands grip the slat of the chair and pull you back towards the tray.

“No, no,” he nearly coos, yanking your head back by the thinner group of hairs on the nape of your neck.

You clench your jaw and subside, lifting yourself up with your hips to help avoid the pain.

His eye’s strain, beads of sweat rolling down the end strands of his hair regardless of how cold it was inside of the formidable room.

“Get me my player,” the bearded man says as he trails his 12” redwood handle knife across Ghost’s jawline.

Agarwal’s hand releases your hair to your relief and he leaves the room.

“Disgusting—“ the male snarls. “Making mess of my floor.”

Your eyes narrow as you watch a pool of blood start to form as he slashes Ghost’s cheek, a groan spilling from your lieutenant’s throat.

“Fuck you ‘n y’r floor,” Ghost coughs.

He drops the wrench to the floor, then uses a rag that was hanging out of his pocket to swipe off the blood from the knife’s blade.

Two men walk in, one pushing in a record player and the other holding a tactical vest and a book.

Your vest and your book.

His name patch reads “Gamble”, the one who throws your vest and the book onto the floor.

“Rolmuth, the woman—she has had access to our radio frequency and has been writing down our shipment codes and locations.”

Ghost’s head raises, his pupils shrunken as he takes in the sight of the morse code book.

The man holding the knife cracks his head in your direction before proceeding towards you.

“Thaye…” he susurrated.

You don’t flinch when his arms raise to swing the knife over towards your temple, a maniacal laugh escaping through the barriers of Rolmuth’s teeth.

The knife lowers to release one of your hands, though before you can reach for anything, he slams your arm backward against the back leg of the chair, the feeling of your bones snapping beneath your skin causes you to let out a sharp, excruciating cry as your now-broken arm falls limp to your side.

“Thaye!” Ghost shouts. “Fuckin’ bastard…”

“How?!” Rolmuth yelled through his teeth, lips drawn back in a snarl as he nearly foamed out of his mouth.

His fist meets with your cheek and your eyes squeeze together in grimace to the pain as he punches you again.

Ghost calls out your name and you can hear the metal of his chair scrape and grind against the ground.

You feel your cheek begin to swell, the tender flesh on your face blooming into purple and blue bruises.

He walks to the record player and takes a record out of its sleeve that was resting on the shelf of the small table the player was brought in on. It has wheels on it—similar to the mayo tray.

Rolmuth blows on the record, though the sleeve looks too clean to hold any dust, then places the record on the platter. After pressing play, he drops the tone arm down.

The record scratching sends chills up and down your spine before the music almost beautifully fills the room.

Why does the sun go on shining?

You watch Rolmuth pick up a pair of pliers.

Why does the sea rush to shore?

You wonder if he’s going to try to rip out your teeth.

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world,

He clasps them around one of your fingers on your broken arm.

Fuck.

The cold metal around your finger makes you nearly want to cry.

‘Cause you don’t love me anymore?

He was going to rip off your finger.

“Who is your captain?” His hand squeezes the pliers, applying pressure to your singular finger.

“Go…to hell—“

A scream rips itself from your throat as you feel your sinew and flesh tear, the pliers tearing your finger from off your bone.

“Tha’s enough!” Ghost jerks and flails in his seat, there’s a sip of panic in his voice. “Get th’fuck off of her!”

Why do the birds go on singing?

Rolmuth wriggled the rest of your finger off, your eyes daring to skim down to look at the bone sticking out from your knuckle.

Blood spews out of the gore, coating your entire hand and dripping from the crevices of your skin into your lap, staining your cargos, turning their white color into several distinct shades of red.

Rolmuth sets the finger—your finger down lightly on the standing metal tray besides you.

Why do the stars glow above?

A penetrating ringing fills your ears; one so loud it felt like it’d be the cause of your tears instead of the pain surging through the entire left side of your body.

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?

You’re in shock, unable to speak. Your jaw is locked, your teeth are clenched so hard it feels as if you might shatter your teeth.

It ended when I lost your love.

Ghost’s voice echoes in the back of your mind, when he calls out your name, you’re pulled out of your trance. You jerk your slumping head up.

You want to call out his name, but it seems like your throat is swallowing every little word that is being screamed inside of your head.

The room is spinning and you can’t feel your arm, you can’t feel the finger move that was just severed from your hand.

“Look at me, look at me, love…” your lieutenant simpers.

Your eyes search the room until they land on Ghost’s, he sounds far away. You feel your eyes widen as cold metal wraps around another finger once again.

Why does my heart go on beating?

Rolmuth’s lips close in near your ear as he tugs lightly at your middle finger.

“You don’ want to lose this finger, do you?” You feel the man’s hot breath run up the side of your face and brush past your ear.

“Who…is…your...captain?”

Why do these eyes of mine cry?

Every nerve in your body seized, your spine stiffening with every urge to kill the man standing beside you.

Ghost coughs up blood; internal bleeding.

“I’ll fu…cking…skin you…” you croak, your words finally becoming coherent.

He laughs. Rolmuth’s single arm raises in a humorous gesture of surrender.

Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?

Your eyes squeeze shut, though shoot open at the rush of heat, the pliers applying clutched pressure to your finger before Rolmuth started ripping off the second finger, wiggling it until it broke off skin and sinew.

It ended when you said “goodbye.”

“Look at me, Thaye.” Ghost’s voice sounds desperate, so you offer him a short glance as your jaw slacks and your body retracts.

Your strained eyes snapping to the bearded man as he places down your middle finger on top of your pointer finger.

A gag surfaces in your throat and your body twitches as you watch your finger fall and roll almost as if it’s the most natural thing.

Ghost yells your name again.

You finally focus on him, your eyes welling up, reddening and puffing against your will.

“Jus’ look at me, angel,” Ghost’s silked voice calms you, although in a manner you can’t hear him as well as you want to.

Every muscle and ligament inside of you feels tense and stuck.

Why does my heart go on beating?

You had three fingers on your left hand—three fingers.

Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring. Thumb, pinkie, ring.

“Y’ll kill her, she’s losin’ too much blood—she’s goddamn delirious!”

Gamble’s fist barrels into the side of Ghost’s head, you hear a feral groan leave his gullet.

At least I can still put a wedding ring on my left hand. You thought.

Those three fingers trembled and twitched, it was the only movement on the left side of your body besides for your left eye—is he going to take one of my eyes? Your head is swarming with thoughts.

“Ghost…” you slur, still locked onto the blonde’s eyes.

“I know, love,” he says as gently as he physically can. “So proud of’y…”

His speech comes out as a garble, but you’re still able to understand him.

“‘M gon’ get us outta here…alive, a’right?”

Your head slumps at the attempt of a nod.

“Save y’r energy, lovie.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Agarwal grips Ghost’s earlobe, pulling him closer. You’re not able to cognize his words, but you’re aware of the vexation in his countenance.

You flinch once Rolmuth drops the pliers on the metal tray. He removes his latex gloves that were blanketed in your gore and throws them onto your lap.

“Clean them up—she still is of use to me.” His voice grows more distant as he leaves the room.

Gamble injects Ghost with a syringe that was hanging off of his waist, casting him with drowsiness, his eyes struggling to keep open before he’s blacked out.

“What did you do—…what did y’do to him?” Your eyebrows stitch together. “What did you do?!”

They unstrap his arms from the chair, then his ankles.

“Answer me goddamnit...” You seethe, tears warping in your eyes.

“Shut the bitch up,” Gamble nudges Agarwal in the shoulder before he pushes Ghost further out of his restraints, his body still and unconscious allowing the scarred man to bind his wrists with zip ties.

Agarwal simply nods and paces toward you. The stock of his gun smashed into your jaw before you could react.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY TWO.

The woman in the doorway was bedraggled; tired eyes and shrunken tear-stained cheeks.

There’s a light illuminating from the pulled-back curtains—a light so bright it could dry the shining tears that spill out scarlet fluid over the eyes of the miserable.

You feel only patient while waiting for the morning sun to rise over the horizon line of the ocean side.

It’s deteriorating yet caliginous frame of murky grey stone and vast sorrow of an arched entrance sat in disposition from harrowing memories filled with bloodshed, grief, and war.

Your face relaxes at the distinctly ravishing but delicate overcasted ray of light shot down from the amidst along the ruins, the melancholy ambiance nearly sent chills down your spine.

Heavenly cries of forgotten mothers begging for forgiveness of their past sins, children's playful and beatific screams, although it was nothing unknown to you.

Screams were usually followed by split rib cages and bullet wounds—tears, blood, those screams and sweat, you went through it all just for it to lie unheard and forgotten.

You searched the odd and seemingly afterlife-like realm with your eyes, you could only wonder where you were, and why you were there.

Why the flowy white dress draped over your body oscillated with the wind in a gorgeous motion.

You're lifting your head out of the water now.

The taste of salt seems so thick, heavy. Like you could drown in it. Like you could get drunk off of it.

The waves crashing onto shore sound so loud atop the eerie silence, their white crests phasing through your body as if your presence was unknown to them.

You loved the ocean because as opposed to the ones who were supposed to; the ocean loved you and was never afraid to come too close, even at your worst.

As you move farther from shore, the water slowly travels up your body, submerging your frame.

You close your eyes as your head is the last thing the water consumes. You feel the water bubbles tickle your skin and elevate themselves up to the surface.

It doesn’t take long for that familiar burn inside your lungs and that familiar feeling of being gagged by the water to swarm your senses.

Your head jerks up and you let out a loud gasp as you fade into consciousness, slipping into colored imagery instead of just monochrome.

Waking up felt like hell; your mouth was dry and most of your limbs felt unresponsive.

Only when you see Ghost curled up on his side, laying on the floor in front of you, are you able to register where you are and what’s going on.

His knees bucked up into his abdomen with his hands zip tied behind his back and his face battered and bruised.

Specks of dried blood ran from his scalp down his face reaching his compression undershirt.

He was asleep.

There was a gentle rise and fall with his chest—you could still hear his labored breaths from where you were.

It felt colder.

Your eyes wander down to your left hand that was wrapped in bandages that were stained red, your two fingers missing and replaced with nubs that were uneven from each other.

If your arm wasn’t broken, you could use it to break the leg of the chair and wield it against the next person to walk through that large metal door that made you wonder if it was life or death upon you.

If your fingers weren’t missing, you could use them to untangle your restraints on your other hand.

You could barely move your wrist—the pain that swells your entire arm makes it nearly impossible.

Ghost stirs on the floor, his body curling into itself further before his legs straighten out.

“Lieutenant,” you mumble. “What did they do to you…?”

His eyes flicker to yours.

“‘M alive, aren’t I?” Ghost says.

His voice is so hoarse and weak—he sounds dehydrated.

“You are.”

Your eyes close a moment to allow yourself to breathe in the air around you.

The single door breaking up the dull room that held them hostage creaks open on rusted hinges allowing Rolmuth to enter.

Two different men from the day prior push in the same record player and the same rolling metal tray that was stained with your blood.

“Rise and shine,” one says, his boot meeting harshly with the lower section of Ghost’s back.

The blonde’s eyes stay intent on the movements of Rolmuth as he lifts up different record sleeves to read their names. He slides one out and places it on the platter.

That familiar sizzle fills the room before the gentle hum of the music begins.

A short gasp leaves your mouth as Rolmuth kicks down your chair by the back stile, your head immediately jerking forward before it slams down onto the cement floor.

He dismisses the two of his men.

Rolmuth’s hand levitates over the tray and he grasps an old tan hand towel, draping it over your face.

You can hear the buckle of Ghost’s pants tink lightly on the floor as he jerks himself. “Fuckin’ bastard!” He yells.

I don’t want to set the world on fire.

It was going to be okay, you told yourself. You trained for this. Truthfully, you were one of the best swimmers on the task force. You can hold your breath—but if that rag manages to cave in, you’ll most likely panic and lose focus.

I…just want to start a flame in your heart.

“Are you ready for talk, now?” Rolmuth arches over you.

In my heart, I have but one desire…

Your voice muffled, you call him something along the lines of an asshole and a prick, which is quickly silenced by the pressure of water that smacks you in the face.

And that one is you, no other will do…

Ghost watches the man pour a jerry can of water over your face. His breath hitching in his throat watching your body twist and turn trying to evade from the water.

I’ve lost all ambition for worldly acclaim

Your body arches up in protest, head jerking side to side as if it would make it any more easier on you.

I just want to be the one you love…

Focus on the music, you tell yourself. You can barely hear your own voice.

And with your admission…that you feel the same,

Rolmuth’s smile is ear to ear as he continues tipping the canister over your cloth-covered face.

I’ll have reached the goal I’m dreaming of, believe me…

You violently thrust your body, panic surging through you as you feel water invade and swallow your lungs.

I don’t want to set the world on fire…

Involuntarily you gasp and choke in more water, you feel your eyes roll to the back of your head.

I…just want to start…a flame in your heart.

Your throat was burning like scolding lava, your heart throbbing inside your chest threatening to rupture. You don’t dare to make noise.

You’re gagging, gasping, sputtering. That you can’t handle. But you don’t let yourself cry. Not like this.

I don’t want to set the world on fire, honey,

The music is starting to garble.

Why is it starting to sound so distorted? You ask yourself.

I…—you too—uch.

“Stop, y’ll fuckin’ kill her! Bloody tosser!” Ghost grits his teeth before spitting out words.

Now that you have the chance to think about it, that song reminds you of someone.

I just want to start…

Your grandfather—you’d sit on that circular crocheted rug and listen to that song as him and your grandmother baked apple fritter.

A great big flame…

He loved that woman more than life itself; when she’d started to get sick with bone cancer, he helped her bathe, he helped her eat, get dressed.

Down in your heart.

Your mother told you about how he had asked her doctor to keep the fact that she only had three weeks left to live just between them.

You see, way down inside me,

She was still happy. So happy. He wanted to spend those last three weeks with her. He retired from his job and took her to all the places she’d talked about visiting.

Darling, I have only one desire.

She passed away, and he spent every day doing all her favorite things. He watered her plants, he baked. He listened to her favorite songs.

And that one desire is you,

He adopted a puppy—a beautiful Australian Shepherd which he named after her. Your mom would say that your grandma’s being was reincarnated into that dog.

And I know nobody else ain’t going to do.

Would that happen to you too? Who would you want to belong to? What kind of dog would you be?

A deafening ringing fills your ears, you finally stop fighting. Breathing.

“She’s not movin—“ Ghost wheezes. “She’s not fuckin’ movin’!”

He was trained for this. He couldn’t break. He couldn’t.

“Enough!” The blonde yells again.

They could crack him, but they can’t break him. They wouldn’t kill her.

Rolmuth finally puts down the canister and removes the rag from off your face, his body bends over to lift your chair back up.

Your body twitching, struggling to release the water clogged in your gullet

“Wake up, bitch,” he snaps and his open palm cracks against your cheek. Your eyes shoot open.

Your mouth opens, your strained and bloodshot eyes widen with horror as you vomit out water, sputtering between your lips as you hack and gag.

The taste of bile is sickening to your empty stomach.

Ghost calls out your name, catching your attention as you stabilize from your state of stupor.

“So proud of’ya, Thaye,” he groans. “Y’r strong, ‘lright? We’ll kill these bastards, all of’em.”

You can hardly spare the man a small nod before your chin is grabbed by Rolmuth’s uncut nails—blood and dirt caked underneath them.

“You tell who you are work for, I consider sparing life.” Rolmuth runs a blade across your cheek, increasing the pressure slightly to slit your skin—a feeling similar to a paper cut. You moan in pain. “Your friend I can not speak for.”

Blood trickles down from the incise, slowly flaring through your cut and pushing from the barriers beneath your top layer of skin.

“F…uck…—“ your silenced by sudden metal on your tongue, scraping gently like a threat.

“I will carve out ur pretty little tongue, cut it in bits, and feed it to you.” Rolmuth coos. “Would you that, yes?”

“Y’sick fuck, get th’fuck away from ‘er!” Ghost attempts to jerk himself up, the bonding on his ankles not allowing him to, his bruised ribs protesting in pain as he lets out a sharp breath.

Your eyes burn into his, your neck flinching as he slowly pushes the blade farther down your throat, his hand prying your mouth open.

He chuckles lowly, small “ah’s” leaving him as he slowly opens your mouth farther to allow the tip of the knife farther down. You salivate, drool racing down your chin and over the creep’s knuckles.

Ghost’s eyes divert from your face to the man’s hands. Disgust laced in his features.

He swallowed thickly, he could feel his skin boiling. He wasn’t angry.

Pissed.

He was incensed.

More than that.

“G..host…” your slightly muffled voice trembles.

His gaze fixes back on yours, watching as your left eye twitches at each of Rolmuth’s motions.

“I know, love…J’s look at me, ‘lright? J’s look at me.”

It presses onto the skin of your tongue, it’s curved edge digging into the fragile skin and tissue causing the metallic taste of iron to taint your sense of taste.

You still bore into your lieutenant’s gaze.

Saliva and blood dribbles down your neck, the sight no doubtedly arousing the male in front of you—his tongue leapt out to slowly trace along his bottom lip.

You might drown in your own saliva at this rate.

Your lieutenant purses his dry and cracked lips, but he doesn’t look away.

He takes the blade out of your mouth, rubbing it against the cloth of his pants to clean it.

Rolmuth raises the knife and pierces your thigh, the feeling of cold metal hitting you first along with the shock, the sound of cloth tearing.

“I want names!” The man hollered, spit landing on your face just below your eyes.

Ghost watches your pupils shrink, his own eyes widening and slowly shifting to your thigh.

An intense tingling sensation swarms your entire leg, then a heat. A heat that felt unbearable.

Ghost searches for your eyes again, his mouth moving, though you can’t hear anything he says.

He broke through skin and sinew, twisting the knife inside of the laceration.

“Talk, bitch!” Rolmuth’s eyes darken.

It takes a few moments for the pain to surface, and when it does, it’s scorching. Your jaw slacks open as your eyebrows pinch together, a shrill whimper escaping you.

“Don’ look, don’t.” Ghost pleads with you. Even he was struggling not to look at your thigh.

It didn’t take eyes to tell there was blood bubbling from the wound and dripping down your pants and trembling leg.

A narrow vertical split across the midsection of the flesh of your thigh. Your eyes didn’t leave Ghost’s.

Was his hair bleached? It seemed like such an unnatural shade of blonde. Brunette underneath. He must bleach it himself.

Rolmuth gave it one more twist, releasing a thin, raw, scream from your throat.

Tears stung the corners of your eyes, but you wouldn’t let them get the satisfaction of that from you. Especially not you.

“They’ll b’ere soon, Thaye.” Your lieutenant says.

“You are weak,” Rolmuth spits. “You will break.”

He rolls his shoulders before gripping your pointer finger and holding a jab saw above it.

Your eyes flicker to Rolmuth’s and Ghost calls your name.

“I want a name!” Rolmuth’s scream makes your head spin.

“Fuck y—“ your voice is replaced with a high pitched cry followed by gasps and whimpers as Rolmuth’s new blade carved through sinew and bone. He lifts up your finger against the blade and with one swift movement, your finger falls onto the floor.

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you, y’bastard!” Ghost’s lips twitching in pain mixed in with a whole lot of anger.

Your body jumps up, an animalistic noise escaping your throat as you swing your head back and wince loudly, the pain in your thigh

“Name! Or I take another!” Rolmuth yells just inches from your face.

You couldn’t handle it—your vision is swarmed by black spots and your head is killing you. Your body is in so much pain you feel so much, but so little all at the same time.

When your eyes roll to the back of your head and lolls, you can faintly hear the man yell ‘shit’ before you’re unable to comprehend what is happening.

Everything fades into a subtle blackness, and the last thing you hear is Ghost yelling your name. Screaming your name.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY 4

You wake up to the sound of loud groaning and thumping.

It takes you a few moments to register that you’re awake and you can actually move.

So you do—you upheave your head and take in the light spilling in the room from between the iron barred vent.

It stings your eyes, blotchiness surrounding your peripheral before you’re able to adjust to the light.

Ghost is on the floor taking blunt forces into his lower abdomen—the blonde sputters out a cough as his entire body jerks at the contact.

The man grips the neckline of Ghost’s shirt, lifting his head from off the ground as thick red paste runs down his split and swollen lips.

His legs lift themselves up in an attempt to propel his body up and out of the man’s grasp, but he falls flat as his neck is slammed back onto the cement.

Before Ghost can gasp for air the moment his neck is released, a closed fist slams into his cheekbone, knocking the wind out of him.

“Stop,” you rasp. “Let’im go…”

Ghost is twitching on the floor, blood spilling from his mouth. His entire face is caked in red flakes and black and blue blemishes—the entire left side of his face is fattened with knots.

“No…” you snarl.

The man whirls his head and glares at you, an amused expression of disbelief stamped onto his face.

“No?” He says cockily.

The man paces towards you and cuts off your bindings, bundles your hair in his fist and drags you over towards Ghost, you whine and raise your unbroken arm to try and pry his hands off, but he only tugs harder.

He pulls your hair up until you're positioned on your knees, chin raised up and neck tilted.

You hear a click, it wasn’t a gun.

He unsheathed a pocket knife. It was a fairly decent size. You were tired of seeing knives.

Ghost watches the man’s hand lower to your abdomen, fingers pirouetting across your delicate skin, it sends a shivering fear throughout your entire body like electricity.

“Please…” you meekly whisper, attempting to pull yourself away, your body is so weak from lack of use. Your voice came out as a croak.

His other hand holds a knife that teases the neckline of your shirt.

Ghost thrashes against the floor attempting to wrestle out of his bindings. “I’ll skin you,” Ghost’s voice is hoarse.

“How would you feel If I just…” His fingers trace along the scars on your stomach. “Touch her, ever so lightly…Right in front of you?” The man snickers.

You yelp as his knife cuts a thin line down your blood-stained neckline until your cleavage is exposed.

Tears surface the corners of your eyes.

No, no, no, no…

“Keep y’r eyes on me,” Ghost whispers weakly. “That’s it, love.”

You feel your shirt tear entirely down the middle and fall down your arms, pooling around your wrists.

Your vision blurs and your mouth starts to feel dry, teeth chattering in unison with your trembling lips.

When the knife rests over the center gore of your bra, your breath hitches in your throat and tears bead down your cheeks.

The blade slices through the cloth and immediately your hand rises to cover your nude chest.

Ghost’s eyes stay locked with yours, one half-closed from being beaten beyond his control.

You feel his facial hair scrub raw against your skin, sipping in your fear and vulnerability.

“Team Delta en route for seaside, Corbin, what’s your report?”

His radio.

The man pauses and takes his hand off the midline of your ribcage to grab his radio.

“Delta, this is Pooch on standby—hostages are stable, the woman is awake.”

You release a choked sob, causing the man to release the talk button and bash it against the side of your face, sending you straight onto the floor.

“Thaye…” Ghost croons.

You clutch your chest with your one hand as you feel the right side of your face swell.

“It’ll ‘b over soon,” you tremble, releasing a shaken breath. “They’ll find..us…”

“Shut the fuck up,” his voice is slicked with spite. “Both of you.”

“Pooch, this is Delta, rog that. Don’t kill our intel—0-7, signing off.” It crackles.

You lift your head and turn it slightly, blinking causes the pain on your cheekbone to burn like acid.

“Go to h—“ the radio is bashed into your face again causing your vision to swim and make your head stumble.

The sound of blood trickling and hitting the floor fills your ears, your left palm flattens against the cold floor. Missing fingers wrapped to keep you alive, not because they care.

He punches the radio into your right eye. You keep your head down in submission.

“You wanna act tough? Get treated like you're tough!” He yells.

His hand tugs your head back—you can see your own blood splattered against the communicator before you’re met with the same fate.

Ghost watches as the man beats the right side of your face in with the butt of the radio until it’s practically unrecognizable—caked and blistered. Bruising and swelling so tender on your skin.

He can’t do anything.

He can only watch.

You whimper and cry, hissing through your tears while your jaw clenched, the radio mercilessly landing on the same spot allowing more blood to cascade from the wound.

The last hit is the hardest, sending your numbing cheek staggering back down onto the ground, you wheeze.

If Ghost’s hands weren’t tied behind his back, the man standing above the two of you would be a mangled corpse. He knew that.

Your breaths are shallow and rasped. It feels like hell to breathe—to move your face. Crimson just pools beneath you as Pooch flicks off your gore from his communicator.

He grunts in disgust as specks splatter onto the ‘cleaner’ side of your face. Like water spots on a windowpane or glass shower door.

When you hear the door slam behind you, it makes you flinch.

Your body has broken into tremors now, maybe it’s not tremors—but your spasming.

And your hand is still covering your scar-ridden chest, but you feel like you might pass out again.

Ghost’s own breaths are ragged—you wonder if lunderneath all the blood on your face if you’d look just like him.

“Sleep,” he rasps. “I’ll watch ya.”

You relax as much as you possibly can, your single eye twitching shut in favor of your other one.

All you’ve had these past four days was sleep, yet it didn’t replenish. It didn’t make you feel any less tired or exhausted.

With your bones feeling brittle and sore, it was hard to shift yourself into the mindset of falling asleep, but you tried.

You felt Ghost scoot himself towards you, possibly just to shield your unclad chest and give you a taste of comfort.

Your eyelids feel heavy with pain and fatigue, your body stilling as you allow yourself to sleep.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

DAY 5

Your hands are tied above your head, a gag set between your teeth which you gnaw at in an attempt to drag it down to hang around your neck.

Ghost is a few feet away from you—both of you hanging on metal piping with rope around your wrists.

Ghost’s boots were on the floor, he was too tall to hang like you, where you could swing your feet. Did they take your shoes?

You watch the steel poker ignite in the industrial furnace; the end of it glowing all shades of red, yellow, and orange.

It was two different tools Rolmuth was holding, now. They had two different symbols on each one that you were unfamiliar with. He was choosing.

Rolmuth spun the branding irons with his thumbs and pointers, chuckling dryly to himself as he approached Ghost, setting one of them back inside the boiler.

His boots were so loud, they echoed off the walls of the room they were in—It looked like some sort of boiler room, but you weren’t too sure.

You two must’ve been in a warehouse of some sort.

Rolmuth has to look up to look your lieutenant in the eyes.

When they’d woken you up, they threw you a gray tank top, so you weren’t as exposed as you were before.

The Hindi man pulls down Ghost’s gag.

“460 degrees of heat on metal…” he says as he lifts the hem of Ghost’s shirt. “You talk, I spare you more scar.”

“Go fuck y’self, y’manky twat…” the blonde snapped.

An open mouthed yell left Ghost’s throat as the metal is lanced firmly over the middle of his stomach, tugging at his flesh and skin.

Ghost’s eyes squeeze shut as loud whimpers escape from him, ragged winces.

“Stop!” you cry.

God, you’d never heard him in so much pain. You never thought you’d ever hear him scream in agony, in physical pain.

You're forced to watch the smoke trailing up the rod, Ghost’s back arching in tormentation.

“You piece of shit!” You twist and turn your body causing the rope to shred through layers of your skin.

His muscles tense and his knuckles go white from how hard he’s gripping the pipelines holding him up.

Rolmuth removes the metal from Ghost’s skin—it could be described as a flesh eating parasite; the way that his skin sticks to the rod as if it’s desperate for that contact.

A hitched gasp manages to make its way past his lips as he feels a tinge of relief, his body twitching and pained moans and hisses filling your ears.

You jerk your body weight down, kicking your bare feet until you feel the metal start to dent.

Rolmuth sets the iron back onto the furnace over a rack, he’s bending over to adjust the heat, the fire is roaring.

You tug your arms down and you let out a strained whine at the feeling of your wrists starting to bleed.

When the metal gives in above you, it creaks and drops you down.

You slide down the metal and Rolmuth’s body swings up from fidgeting with furnace levers and knobs.

His arms are immediately reaching for his gun while you lift your legs up and kick the heels of your feet into his shoulder blades, hard.

Rolmuth’s head slams back into the brick base of the furnace, he lets out a groan, his form dragging down and slumping against the floor.

Your body lands harshly on the ground, an excruciating response coming from the back of your head.

Black spots cloud your vision as you slowly try to regain your composure. Your vision is blurring, everything sounds far away and echoed.

The gun slides across the floor.

Your jaw clenches as you pick up your heavy head, your eye searching for the gun regardless of the pounding that distracted you.

When you spot the muzzle, you lurch yourself forward and reach, finger grazing the trigger guard before your pulled back by your hair, earning a yelp to leave you.

Your lungs refuse to cooperate in your chest as your scalp is nearly torn from your head.

Rolmuth growls with clenched teeth, pulling you away from the gun and towards him as he kneels himself over you.

This was the first time you were able to get a decent look at his face—if it weren’t for your messed up eye—but you only can see the rage dispersed over his face as his hands gather around your throat.

He slams your neck down, adding onto the pain thrusting through the back of your head.

“Bitch!” Rolmuth snarls.

You suck in your gag, causing panic and adrenaline to rush through your entire body as your binded hands thrash and attempt to push him off of you.

You duck yourself, bend your leg and kick it against his ankle to heave yourself up with all your weight upwards.

He exclaims in his native tongue, some of which you can only recognize as insults and swears.

Ghost calls your name weakly.

Rolmuth’s hands slip from your throat allowing you to breathe and sit yourself on top of him, you tug your body and maneuver yourself until you're behind the man, pulling the knot of your bindings against his throat and crossing them over.

His neck lifts to try and give himself access to air, though you tug and hold his waist steady between your knees.

You yell with your clenched teeth, the fabric between your lips making the muscles in your jaw ache.

Him wheezing beneath you, fingernails clawing at your split and abused hands before he shifts.

“Thaye!” Your lieutenant hollers.

Rolmuth’s hands reach down to his vest to pull another gun, aiming it at your foot and pulling the trigger causing you to let out an agonizing scream, pain racking your entire body.

The bullet shoots clean through, you knew that for sure. It was too close.

Your grip on his neck loosens so you can slap the gun out of his grip.

In three quick motions, Rolmuth’s back atop you with his hands grasping your hair again, dragging you towards the furnace until your face is close enough to feel the heat radiate onto your face.

You feel the thickness of gore engulf your foot and drip down your toes onto the floor.

Your grunting, muffled, and loud breaths make your head pound as the man squeezes your jaw and forces your neck towards the mouth of the forge.

“No…” you snarl with bared lips, kicking your legs regardless of the pain, throwing yourself towards him to keep yourself as far from the flames as you could.

Rolmuth laughs dryly accompanying his guttural breaths, his body stretching yet keeping a firm hold on your mandible as he takes hold of one of the branding rods.

“No!” Your eye widens and your hands reach up to push his face away from you.

“Fuck!” He growls, shaking his face to keep your hands off as he pulls the iron out of the furnace.

He wastes no time pressing it into your side regardless of the thin tank covering your skin, and the cloth does absolutely nothing in regards to the sudden gut wrenching sensation that makes it feel like your entire body was drenched in gasoline and set on fire with a blowtorch.

Your cry is deafening to the ears and the smell of burning charred flesh is quick to fill your nostrils. You feel and you hear your skin bubble up, sizzle, then pop, then stick to the metal and entangle itself around the start of the handle taking the appearance of something similar to chewed bubblegum.

Even trembling and shaking, you manage to find a way to position your hands so you can plant your thumbs into his eyes and use some of the only fingers you have left to press them into his eyes, causing the man to yell.

Still, your screams aren’t matchable as your fingernails gouge into his sockets and claw at his eyelids, shredding through flesh easily as blood began to dribble down his face and over his lips like tears. You still manage to scream louder in anger than the man can in pain.

Your fingers shove deeper into the grooves of his eye sockets, the organs are pushed so far back that blood sprays across your face and he finally releases the rod.

It clangs to the floor, and he starts sobbing in his native tongue, convulsing hands reaching up towards his red-painted face as you pull your gag out.

“Go to hell,” You seethe wobbly as you lift yourself and steer yourself behind him, taking Rolmuth by the nape of his neck and forcing himself inside the mouth, against the grills inside the furnace.

He shrieks and cries, moving erratically as his face is engulfed by the fire. Slowly, yet quickly, his skin is shredded by the blazes and the bottom rows of his teeth are exposed.

It takes him a while to stop making noise before you pull his head out and throw his twitching body onto the ground, then you finally allow yourself to lean against a boiler tank and take pressure off your injured foot.

You propel yourself off the tank by your palms and drag yourself regardless of your ankle to the edge of the furnace, turning yourself around to scrape the rope against the brick.

A gasp releases from your throat at the sudden relief around your wrists, the rope falling to the ground.

“Ghost?” You lift your head.

“‘M here.” He replies.

“I don’t know if I can get up.”

“I know you can,” Ghost urges. “Find…” he sputters up blistering coughs.

“…Fin’a knife, ‘n get me outta these binds, yea?” He huffs. “‘N I’ll do the rest.”

Your eye blinks as you grip the ankle of Rolmuth’s corpse, pulling him toward you to start flipping up his vest and pant pockets.

He didn’t have a knife on him.

Got to be fucking kidding me.

A door is swung open, a singular set of footsteps stepping into the room.

Your eye searches for a weapon—anything that can deal enough damage.

A metal fire poker is hanging off the wall to your right, so you swing your elbows back and lift yourself up by the palms of your hands.

As quick as you can, you hoist yourself up by using the support of a metal deaerator, your arm sliding against it as you limp and throw yourself towards the wall creating a subtle thud.

“What the fuck…?” A man’s voice murmurs.

You silently curse to yourself under your breath as you grab the fire poker off the nails that were being used to hold it up.

Using the heel of your injured foot, you shuffle against some shelving, looking between the gaps for the man inside the room.

He’s holding a Fennec, nothing you haven't dealt with before.

He’s twenty seconds to your left, carefully skimming along the floor with his eyes down the sights of his gun.

You pinch a metal screw off of one of the shelves and toss it into the corner closest to you to lead him your way.

“Fuck,” the younger male jumps slightly. He looked young and lanky, at least from his physique.

When you hear his boots start to rub against the floor, you lift your head slightly to watch him turn towards your direction.

Your fingers and nubs flex on the thin metal, it’s hard to gain a clear grip.

The man comes around the corner of the shelves, the sounds of his tactical gear shuffling alerting you when he gets closer until his helmet is in sight.

You immediately thrust the fire poker into the gap below his collarbone and into his scapula, dampening the fabric of his undershirt in that area as it rips.

Out of panic and shock, his finger grips the trigger and you have to jerk him away before any of his bullets are able to hit you.

“Please!” The boy pleads, gun dropping to hang around his neck as he grips the caps of your shoulders. You only glare at him before plunging the fire poker further into that same spot until it tears and mauls through his back, sticking out on the other end.

He’s gasping out, but it’s almost like no air is exhaling, mouth held agape as his grip on your shoulders releases.

You shout and cry out at every thrust until the hole carved into his skin is able to suck in the hooked tip.

The male’s head falls and you allow his body to slump down and forward, the metal rod holding his stilled body up.

You heave dryly and press a palm on the wall to support yourself, your foot is killing you—literally.

The blown out flesh and puckered skin walls made you want to barf. You could stick a finger through your foot and feel your pulsating muscles just hug around your finger.

You lean down and unclip the knife holster from the gun belt, unsheathing it then hobbling around the shelving towards Ghost who was still hanging from the pipes.

“Okay, okay…” you breathe sharply, struggling to lift yourself up onto the brick platform of the furnace, nearly stumbling off before you catch your footing.

“Keep still,” you say, arching your hand to start cutting at his bondings until he’s dropped onto the floor.

Ghost lets out a loud groan, his arms clutching his ribs. They’d broken one of his ribs, maybe multiple. You both were in bad shape.

It takes him a moment to get himself off the floor as you seat yourself and scoot off of the hearth.

He grabs both of the hand guns that had been dropped onto the floor, holding one out to you.

You unclip the magazine, then snap it back into the chamber at the sight of one missing bullet.

It was the same one that Rolmuth used to shoot your foot.

Ghost’s hand rests on your cheek, gently. “Y’did good, ‘lright?” He spoke with a lilt.

“Can y’walk?”

“A little.” You nod. “Fuckers took my shoes…”

He lets his hand fall to check his magazine, then he nods. “‘Don’t know if I can carry ya with m’ribs.”

“It’s okay, just don’t wait for me.” You reply.

His eyebrows furrow. “Bloody hell, Thaye, I ain’t leavin ya.”

“I know but—“

“No.”

Ghost’s half-lidded eyes glare at you, giving you all the warning to stop.

“Stay behind me.”

He starts walking towards the door, slowly peeking it before leaving with you behind him.

Walking hurt—even while you only applied pressure to the heel on your injured foot, the muscles contracted and the pain was torturous.

One man entered the hallway holding a box from another room, which Ghost took care of by shooting a single bullet between his eyes.

The box had opened and dropped glass equipment, alerting four others who had been lingering in the room he came from.

They yell and communicate in their native tongue, one sticking his head out of the door threshold to aim his rifle.

Ghost fires his pistol and the man swings his head back into the room, still opening fire into the hallway.

“Fuck!” You hiss, dodging the bullets and moving quickly behind a filing cabinet, lowering yourself down.

Ghost’s back presses against a door to your right, pulling himself out of cover to fire at the man.

Two bullets miss and the third causes his head to fling back and smear blood as his body arches and falls down to the floor.

You lift your head and aim your pistol, gasping when your throat is suddenly hooked back from behind you.

When the combatant turns you around and attempts to make a slash at your throat, you manage to extract yourself by gripping his wrist and snapping his elbow out of place, the sounds of bones snapping as he yells.

His knife drops from his hand and you scramble to pick it up from the floor.

You groan as his boot digs into your bandaged hand before you're able to pick it up, then his hand grips your neck to lift you up.

He wraps his arms around you and squeezes you, locking his wrists over each other at your back. You clench your teeth and jerk violently in his grasp.

Ghost is fighting four other men, locking them in the crook of his elbow and smashing their skulls between the doors.

The man holding you in position crushes you in his grasp even with his broken arm. He tries dragging you into another room.

“Let me the fuck go,” you gasp, causing the man to laugh.

“You will regret ever trying to leave your room,” he utters.

You breathe a moment, heart pounding through your chest as you swing your head into the side of his neck and sink your teeth into his skin with all the strength in your jaw.

Crimson liquid seeps into your mouth and down the front of your neck as you yank out the flesh of his throat. You spit out the skin and blood, wiping your mouth and tongue against the skin of your arm as the man’s grasp loosens

His shoulder blades and chest are glistening in red, gore spurting out of the torn spot in his throat as his body stumbles and he’s gargling on his own blood trying to speak.

“Fuck you…” You shutter weakly, eyes slowly skimming down to the knife lodged inside your waist.

Shit.

He must’ve stabbed you before lifting you up, your adrenaline pumping so fiercely you couldn’t feel it until now.

You stumble on your feet slightly, shaking hands lowering to wrap around the handle and pull it out of the slit.

The runnel of red paste turns into a thick stream down as it drenches your tank top.

You lift your head slowly and throw the knife overhead across the hallway, hitting a man who’s pointing a handgun at the back of Ghost’s head.

It’s blade spades into the back of his skull and makes his body wriggle down onto the floor.

“Ghost…!” You gasp and press your open palm over your soaking top and open laceration.

Ghost steps over both legs of a bloodied man before shooting him dead and advancing towards you.

“Shite…” He huffs, gently removing your hand and placing it back after gaining a clear inspection.

His hands grip the hem of his shirt and roughly tear at the fabric creating a long strip, then he moves your hand aside again to tightly secure it around your wound.

You hiss and groan, hand gripping his shoulder as he tugs and pulls at your body while tying the knot of the fabric.

“I’s ‘lright.” Ghost mollifies as he scoops his arm underneath your armpit.

It offers you some support as he guides you both out towards a staircase.

It wasn’t a warehouse—you and Ghost were just in a basement that was turned into a meth lab.

Boxes and boxes full of lab equipment scattered along the floors.

You’d never seen such a big basement, one with torture chambers and stonework rooms.

Hell, in the corner of the room with all the steel liquid tanks and chemical barrels.

A woman is in bright blue hazmat coveralls and a chemical mask standing on top of a metal stool.

Ghost raises his pistol and you lower it slightly with your palm, his eyes glaring at you with his head kept facing forward.

“You can’t miss, we don’t know what corrosives are in these tanks. Is it worth it?” You keep your voice low, personal between the two of you.

He doesn’t reply, instead he looks forward, then squeezes the trigger and picks the woman off by shooting her in the side of her neck.

You swallow thickly as her body spasms on the ground, the stool getting caught in her ankle as crimson fluid rises and bubbles inside of her mouth.

Ghost guides the two of you up the cobble stairs, one hand dragging up the wall and the other across your lieutenant’s wingspan.

Your eyes flash at the sudden two objects being thrown down the stairs, the sudden silence as they roll down step…after step…after step before Ghost is swinging you up into arms and yelling.

He’s breaching himself through the door, into open fire before the staircase you had come up from explodes into the emitting heat compressed air and blasts behind the two of you sending you both flying forward.

Smoke engulfs the room, giving both you and Ghost coverage to get behind cover.

You're pulled by the back of your shirt behind a deep freezer, bullets flying and hitting the metal.

“Fuckin’ pricks got us pinned!” His head lifts over to fire at three of the men who have ballistic shields covering those firing LMGs behind. “‘N I’ve got four left.”

You can’t see through the thick smoke—you can’t breathe while wheezing into the crook of your elbow. “Seven,” you inform him.

“Cover me,” Ghost grabs your arm for a moment, letting go and serving around the freezer.

You follow behind him with a raised pistol, shooting off at any glares you're able to see through the fumes.

Six…Five…

A man steps out from cover behind a wine cabinet, but before he can fire his rifle, you pop him in the eye.

Four…

Ghost quickly crouches down and shimmies the rifle out of the corpse’s grip, grabbing at a magazine and stuffing it into his vest he’d managed to keep.

You groan and push over a bookshelf behind Ghost once you’re both out of the smoke. He takes aim and opens fire at three men, blowing holes in their chests before he rams into the fourth with a loud yell and slams down the stock of his assault rifle into his face until his teeth and nose are finely pressed into the persian rug.

You finish off two more who try to walk through the threshold of the room, turning your head over your shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Two…

You jerk yourself away before you get slugged by a riot shield, ascending yourself and shoving your firearm past the barriers of his lips from behind. You pull the trigger and his head flings as the bullet rings out and creates a sizable hole in the back of his head.

One…

Before his body hits the tile, you take hold of his riot shield and deflect the hail of gunfire from the individual who came emerging from the threshold corner.

You walk forward until his clip is empty to drive the shield into his vest-covered chest, stunning him so you can push it aside and fire your last shot into the underside of his jaw.

Zero.

Bullets continue spraying throughout the entirety of the house while you make sure you don’t pass out from the amount of blood you’ve lost.

You grab the TAQ-V from off the floor and click a new magazine into it, shoving a spare into your back pocket before pushing into the same room as Ghost.

He’s piling bodies on the floor, wrestling for dominance over a knife.

You fastdraw another handgun you’d grabbed off of one of the bodies and shoot the man in his knee cap to allow Ghost to gain the upper hand and pierce the man’s temple with the weapon.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly.

You nod softly, inhaling sharply as you feel wet blood pool around your uninjured foot.

They took your shoes for no reason, like they had a use for them.

Maybe it allows you to move around more quietly, but it still disturbed you that they took the time to even peel off your socks.

“What intel did y’know that we didn’t?” His chest is against yours, head craning down to keep the conversation between the two of you.

“Lieutenant, we don’t…” You pause a moment, your head spinning.

Hunger, thirst, the cold, the blood loss. There was so much holding you hostage and you weren’t even able to comprehend how you were still standing—limping.

“Well, Seargant?” His voice is low, still holding the same husky British drawl.

“We don’t have the time for this, for now—“ Ghost shoves you aside before you can finish, raising the muzzle of his rifle to open fire on the men entering the room.

“Fuckin’ riot shields!” He pulls you behind a flipped over tattered blue couch that had already gone through its fair share of bullets.

A bullet flies and hits the side of the couch a hair’s breadth from your face.

“Goddammit,” he curses while replacing the magazine in his gun.

The men brandishing shields push further.

When one reaches close enough, you run in front of the shield and grab the sides before he crashes into you.

You turn him until his body is vulnerable to Ghost, your teeth ground into each other.

“Ghost!” You yell to catch his attention, head snapping in your direction to fire a single round into the back of his head.

You throw the body off of yourself and yank the riot shield to cover yourself, ducking your head as you recoil your fist and punch one of the men baring LMGs hard twice in the jaw.

You thrust the shield into the next, throwing it into his abdomen as he topples, finishing him off by shooting him down in the chest.

One turns with his M4 raised, but you turn your gun around and bash the stock into the base of his chest, then again into his cheek, swiping your leg across the floor and knocking him down then picking his head up and slamming it down on a thick shard of glass sticking upwards to finish him off.

Ghost drops the last body, finishing off a magazine into his vest and throwing the weapon aside. You toss him another one, which he catches with ease.

“We’ll force upstairs, look f’r our shit, ‘n leave.” He says as he picks up a frag grenade from off a vest.

“There should be Skimobiles somewhere around here, the ones they were using in the FFO,” you nod.

“A’right,” he groans while rolling his shoulders. “On my mark.”

He trudges past bodies until he’s at the threshold of the staircase, stepping up slowly with the grenade in one hand and his gun in his other.

You follow behind leisurely, eye down the scope of your rifle.

He pulls the clip and tosses it up, arm stretching behind to press his hand against your shoulder blade.

“Oh shit—grenade!” A man yells from upstairs before detonation.

“Go!” Ghost immediately backs up off the wall and skips over two steps into the corridor, prefiring as he loops around a wall.

There’s already bodies and limbs splayed across the room from the combatants who were hit by the frag.

Your back rubs against the wall as you lean to shoot down the hallway, whirring bullets firing past you.

After a few back and forths between staying flat against the wall and leaning to fire off your gun, bodies drop and you’re able to progress down the hall.

Ghost is somewhere on the opposite side of the house, you still hear heavy gunfire.

You pause at the sight of another man at the end of the hallway and you recognize him immediately.

The look in his eyes and the scruffiness of his face made your lips stretch in almost the most feral look.

Corbin, that was his name. Callsign ‘Pooch’.

Anger burns in the depths of your lungs and stomach as you grip the wall for support, lunging yourself forward to lift your feet over each body that was littered across the hallway floors.

Sweat ran down the sides of your face and splotched down around the neck of your shirt with the blood.

You watch his face twist into a wolfish grin as he slings his gun over his shoulder and walks towards you.

“Alright, sweetheart.” He purrs.

White noise fills your ears.

All you can see through the glossy shine of your eyes is the man who humiliated you in front of your superior.

All you can see through the blinding red rage is the man who beat Ghost and cracked his ribs, forcing you to watch him retract and twitch at every fleeting fist.

Even the hail of gunfire is silent in your ears as you drag your injured foot. Everything sounds underwater, everything feels dull.

His fist intersects and meets with your cheekbone causing your head to shift to the left and your body to stumble where you stand.

You grip his wrist and divert his second punch by lifting your arm and thrusting your knee roughly into his thigh to tamper his movements.

He groans, with grim chuckles following after. “I’m going to enjoy every last second of this,” he coos.

Your body shivers in disgust as you slide your fingers down to your waist, priming the knife stuffed beneath the hem of your shirt. “Go fuck yourself…” you hiss.

His eyes flicker down to your hand and his boot immediately connects with the middle of your torso, sending you across the floor with a loud thud.

Pooch steps between your legs and lifts your upper body by the neckline of your shirt, his knuckles slamming down to beat on your already swollen face.

Drool and blood pour from your mouth, a strangled gasp leaving you at every punch before he releases you harshly back down onto the floor.

Your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, the pressure and swelling in your face and head being all too much for you.

A boot is savagely kicked into the lower pit of your abdomen, making you gag on air.

“Get the fuck up.” Pooch spits.

You clutch your stomach and turn, slowly feeling for the knife, then quickly lifting the edge trimming of your tank top and grasping the handle, pulling it out and sweeping your leg around and behind his ankles to knock him off to the side.

He yells out swears as you level yourself over him, his legs kicking out to make your chest rest on the soles of his boots.

Both of your hands grasp the handle of the knife making it easier on your lack of fingers. His hands grip your forearms as you cry out and try forcing the knife down on him.

He kicks his legs up and backwards, upending you over him and sending the knife flying.

You hiss and give yourself no time to recover, flipping on your stomach and army crawling with your forearms to grab the knife.

He topples atop your body, planting a piercing slap across your face before reaching for the knife and propelling it downwards into you.

Before you’re able to block, the knife breaks through the skin in your stomach, your hand managing to grab his wrist before he’s able to gut you open.

You seethe and let out a sharp whine followed by a croaked cry, your other hand circling his wrist in an attempt to push him away.

Quickly, you roll your body off to the side and let go of him, causing the knife to pierce into the wood flooring as you grip a console table to succor yourself up.

Corbin abandons the knife and flings himself upwards, swinging his gun into his arms.

“I’m done playing games.”

You advance on him, grabbing the rifle and pushing it into his chest before he can aim it at you.

One of your hands grip the upper hand guard while the other grips the bolt and holds the muzzle up.

You yank his body over towards the window behind you, turning your body then grabbing the man by the back of his hair and smashing his head through the glass.

It shatters from contact and leaves cuts and shards in his skin, a loud yell clawing its way from his throat.

His finger grips the trigger and bullets roll out into the floor as you pull his head back.

You pull the rifle sling from off his shoulder, tossing it aside and disarming him from the X12 tucked into the back of his pants.

He growls at every tug of his scalp as you shoot him in the back of the leg and force him onto his knees.

A loud wail echoes the hallway from the man below you.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” you snap.

“You don’t get to scream.”

“You don’t get to cry and whine like a little bitch.”

There’s no remorse in your voice, no sense of mercy for the man being held on his knees and whimpering.

You smack the magazine onto the base of his nose, blood dripping it’s way down his nostrils as a struggling noise spills from his lips.

“You…fucking….” he chokes on his own words.

His entire body violently trembles at the tortured scream he releases as you squeeze the trigger again, shooting Pooch in his shoulder then proceeding to stick your thumb into the ravage wound harshly.

“Bitch! Fucking bitch!” He strains and pants like a dehydrated dog trying to jerk away from you.

You replace your finger with your foot, lowering his back against the floor as you press your toe into the bullet hole.

Another scream tears out of him as you blow another hole into the other side—his chest convulses.

Blood seeps from his mouth, you hold the grip of the handgun with both hands and sob out loud as you empty the entire magazine into his head until his face is unrecognizable to the amount of bullet holes.

You keep pulling the trigger, even as the gun starts to click announcing its out of ammunition.

The entire floor below you is covered in gore; flesh, messings of brains, blood, skin.

So much.

Your body snaps around as a hand abruptly drapes over your shoulder, your arm raising the gun ready to bash it into the skull of the next man to try and touch you.

“Thaye, Thaye—y’got him! Thaye, he’s dead!”

Someone calls your name trying to snap you of out haze.

Ghost—your eyes soften with glistening tears as he calmly disarms you after deflecting the hit with his forearm, tossing the handgun aside so he can push you into his chest by the back of your neck.

“‘S over, sweet girl.” Ghost says with intonation. “Can’t hurt ya anymore.”

Your eyes are wide with terror, hands bundling your lieutenant’s shirt as you exhale a shaky mewl.

It’s him who releases you first, handing you your custom rifle and radio.

His balaclava is back on his face, along with the skull mask.

“Y’r vest ‘n boots are in the room I came from,” Ghost jerks his head.

You nod softly and shamble towards the doorway in the direction he’d pointed out.

You pause.

A little boy walks out of the threshold—he’s holding a gun far bigger than his head.

Your eyes widen slightly. “Did these men take you from your family?”

You turn your head over your shoulder to call for Ghost, the sound of a bullet whirring filling your ears.

Ghost wastes no time pulling out his handgun and shooting the little boy in the head before running towards you.

Your right shoulder is screaming at you as time seems to slow down to a crawl. You hear Ghost yell behind you and the gunshot ringing as the little boy falls back and you do too, hitting the ground hard.

The masked man is on his knees in front of you within seconds, lifting your head into his lap.

“Thaye! Thaye, don’t y’fuckin’ die, not now…” He growls, applying pressure down onto your shoulder with both of his gloved hands.

Your lips slant in a tired manner, eyelids feeling heavy. His bloody hand kneads your cheek, smearing gore along your already dirtied skin.

“Fuck! Fuck!” he curses loudly. “Stay awake, love, please…”

God, he was hurting, it hurt to have your head against the burns on his stomach, but he wouldn’t let you die.

“Babygirl,” he says weakly.

All you can see is an uncleanable amount of red seep and cover your shirt.

Your lungs clutch together inside your chest, labored breaths escaping you with a strained noise.

“I know…I know—keep those gorgeous eyes on me, sweetheart.” He inhales a shaky breath, flipping up your blood-crusted hairs from sticking to your forehead.

You whisper an apology, catching his attention as you grip his waist. Ghost’s eyebrows furrow.

“Don’t. Don’t say sorry,” he says. “You did this, you saved our lives, love.”

“‘M just finishin’ the job, ‘lright?” His split and bloody lips find a place on your temple, planting a raw and long kiss to your throbbing skin.

“…’least I got to see your face before—“

Ghost holds you, squeezing your hand as a slight warning. “Don’t talk like that.”

It was a demand.

“That an—“ you spur into a coughing fit, blood spraying onto the man’s vest. “…Order, Lieutenant?”

“Spare y’r energy,” he huffs.

“Simon—“ you slur.

“Stop.” He snarls.

Your ragged breaths start to stray, causing panic to surge through the man above you.

“No,” he growls, squeezing your smaller hand in his a bit tighter than before. “Don’t, Thaye,” he says through clenched teeth.

Your body falls limp in his lap, the grasp loosening on his shirt making his heart pound through his chest, a painful pounding that felt similar to acid reflux.

“No!” Ghost yells, desperately palming at your tangled hair in panic. “Fuckin’ massacre,” he exhales shallowly.

One arm scoops beneath the back of your knees, the other across your shoulder blades with his hand holding your arm.

A loud strained groan claws it’s way from his gullet at the sudden pain inside his ribs as he lifts himself up and off the floor.

His muscles tighten inside his body, a burning sensation in his abdomen as he clutches you close to his chest, feeling your blood seep into his shirt.

☆════━━━┈┈┈┈━━━════☆

The gentle rhythmic beeping and steady flow of air through your nostrils was something that felt unreal and forced.

You slowly flutter your eyes open to light slipping in between the beige curtains. Your eyes are half-lidded and threatening to close against your will as your bandage wrapped hands rests atop the metal railing on either side of you.

It smells of strong floor cleaner and hand sanitizer, a scent that is slightly uneasy on you as you slowly slip back into consciousness.

Your muscles feel tight in your body; pain racking your shoulder and neck as you crane it to take a look around the room.

The walls are spinning and the ceiling above you is spiraling making you sick to your stomach.

On the bedside table to your left—closest to the window—there’s flowers. They’re too withered to try and recognize what kinds, shredding to flakes in your fingers when you caress them between your pinky and thumb.

Your hand drags up to pull nasal tubes out of your nostrils. It’s almost as if you’ve forgotten how to breathe air, throat tightening and lips so still from lack of moisture.

There’s a penetrating migraine in the back of your skull as you carefully swing your legs over the side of the bed, the thin baby pink and spotted hospital gown flowing down your sides leaving you slightly exposed in your thigh region.

Bare and bandaged feet slide along the smooth cold tile, sending chills up your body as you grip the IV stand with your trembling hand, the other holding onto the bed railing for support.

You groan and strain as you struggle to lift yourself up, propelling upwards with your palm and grip on the stand until your knees straighten and your standing up somewhat decently.

Where was Ghost? Is Ghost alive?

So many thoughts coursed through your head along with the punishing feeling of dehydration.

You guide yourself using the wheels on the IV stand towards a counter, your hands gripping the handle of the sink and pulling it upward.

A choked moan manages to break from you as you scoop the water in your hands and swill the rich liquid.

Water dribbles down your chin, which you wipe away before lifting your head to look into the medicine cabinet mirror.

Your hand rests on the wall in front of you as you heave.

They cut your hair shorter, not too short but enough so that it was comfortable. Your entire right side of your face being bandaged, stains of blood being a faint copper color.

Bandages wrapped around your neck and reached down your shoulder you’d been shot in.

Your hair had been taken care of neatly while you were in a coma, that was obvious.

Ghost. Where?

You grip the IV stand and hobble towards the door, turning the knob and gripping the threshold with your other hand as you step out.

A nurse pauses in her tracks, rushing to your side in an instant. “How are you up? Your injuries are critical,” she gasps, palm flattening against the small of your back.

“My lieutenant—…my lieutenant…” you say in an undertone.

“You need bed rest, you’ve only just woken up.” Her voice is gentle yet commanding.

“No,” you bark, shuffling out of her hold. “Please take me to him.”

The woman bites her lip before nodding hesitantly, hand against your back again to guide you towards his room.

It was only a few doors down from you—when the nurse opened the door, allowing you into the room.

You see the back of Ghost’s head facing in your direction, his hair tousled from the bandages wrapping around his head.

“Ghost,” you call.

His head turns from facing the window to facing you, you hear him murmur your name in reply.

“Y’minx,” he breathes. “Hell y’doin’ out ya bed?”

You carefully walk yourself towards him, the nurse holding her hands atop her chest nervously. The sound of the plastic wheels of the stand makes his breath hitch in his throat, the sound of reassurance that you were alive.

“You okay, big man?” Your voice is hoarse from lack of use, but he’s able to that you perfectly.

“D’ya ever worry ‘bout y’self, love?” Ghost asks with a tinge of humor.

Heavy casting was on his right leg, bandages and patches on practically every inch of his body—similar to you.

“Sometimes,” you smile softly and push strands of his hair out of his face, your heart slightly shatters in your chest at the sight of him flinching at your touch.

Ghost scoots himself over slightly, wincing at the sudden movement.

You seat yourself beside him on the large gatch bed and his hand pushes you down to lay beside him.

“Wait, Mr. Riley—“ the nurse takes a small step forward.

“I’ll ‘b fine,” he grunts.

Her eyes blink slightly as she takes a few steps back, her lips separating to speak though no words come out. She simply turns on her ankles and closes the door behind her.

Ghost secures an arm around your waist, pushing your back flush against his bandaged chest.

Your eyes trace his tattoos and the muscles of his arms, every scar and blemish.

“Where’s the force?” You ask quietly.

“Left recently,” he mumbles back tiredly, pressing his nose into your hair. “Y’smell like pomegranate—got y’self a damn spa crew while y’were out?”

You laugh dryly, breaking into a light fit of wheezes.

“Not too hard, Seargant.” Ghost’s finger tucks a loose strand of hair from your bangs behind your ear.

Your wet bandages on your hands rub against his knuckle as you hold onto his hand, he seems to pay no mind.

You turn your body slightly so you can get a better look at his face. “Odd seeing you without your eye black.” You quip.

His closed eyes open to look down at you. “Mm, might as well see m’down in me knickers then, eh?” He chuckles huskily.

“Very funny,” you roll your eyes lightheartedly.

You catch his small glances to your lips, his hand leaving your chest to run his thumb down your bottom lip until that same hand is cupping your cheek lovingly.

His eyes narrow, he’s sleepy, but you still catch yourself propping your body up with your elbow and closing the gap between the two of you.

Instantly, his head cranes and tilts to deepen the kiss, his fingers gently sliding down the side of your face to press his thumb into the underside of your jaw and drag his fingers along the nape of your neck.

Ghost breathes into your mouth, the taste of mint leaf and citrus enveloping your taste buds as his tongue laced over yours.

The kiss was passionate, you feel his eyebrows furrow showing his desperation as you both kissed softly at a gentle pace and motion.

Your eyes flutter open as you feel his warm lips leave yours with a quiet pop, both of you panting lightly with his forehead pressed against yours. Ghost’s eyes are unable to open for a few moments after you disconnect.

When they do open, your eyes bore into his brown orbs, the dark purple hue circling under his eyes showing his deprivation of sleep.

When he feels you buck gently back into his groin, he releases a small grunt, lips meeting yours again for a small chase kiss.

“Not like this,” he says quietly. “I’d take you on this bed right here, right now, but y’ve recently waken up ‘n we’re both still in r’covery.”

You hum in agreement, his hand finding it’s place on your chest once again with the knowledge of your lower abdomen injury.

“‘N to b’honest—‘can barely feel m’damned balls, feels like ‘ve got whiskey dick.” He grumbles, and you bite your lip to suppress a giggle.

“Simon!”

“Don’ you laugh at me, woman.” Ghost lowers his head into the crook of your neck, biting the skin gently

“My deepest condolences, Lieutenant,” you purr, catching his lips in another kiss when you jerk his head upward with your uninjured shoulder. He growls against your mouth in reaction.

There’s a long yet short line of silence as you turn towards his back again, your legs tangling with his as you hold your lips against his knuckles.

“Y’have no clue how strong you are.” He swallows the knot in his throat as he speaks. “God, Thaye, they…they told me there was a chance y’d never wake up.”

“Hey,” you hum. “Stop that, I’m here now.”

His eyes stare blankly at the wall ahead of you, maybe even the same wall you were staring at—if your eyes weren’t closed already.

“I just don’ know what I would’ve done if I made it outta there ‘n y’didn’t make it with me.” He says.

“Y’r the reason I made it out with you in the first place. If y’hadn’t pulled that barmy stunt—“ he pauses, and you feel the rise of his chest and the fall as he exhales deeply.

“Y’survived internal bleeding, trauma to the head ‘n eye, two broken ribs, second and third degree burns, asphyxiation, dismemberment, stab wounds and gunshot wounds..” Ghost squeezes his fist tighter against your chest.

“So did you, Si.” You coo softly.

“Christ…” he mutters.

His fingers interlock with yours best they can, regardless of the most of them being numbs on your knuckles, and it wasn't until your hand rested on his chest and rubbed over the raised scars, that he realized he hadn't been touched so gently in nearly eleven years. It wasn't a new feeling, but it was a feeling that he had craved desperately.

Never had fallen in love before, but he knew you had bad experiences with it—figuring out that your ex-fiancé had cheated on you while on deployment. Someone had to love you, and he was skeptical of it being him, but it was clear you loved him too and now he was scared you’d stop.

But hearing your gentle breathing as you slipped back into sleep hunched into his form led him somewhere he’d never been. You cleared his mind and cleared away his thoughts. For the first time, he doesn’t want to look away from what he has the ability to feel.

#simon ghost x reader #ghostheartfelt #ghostheartfelt writing #simon ghost riley #ghost #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #ghost mw2 hurt/comfort #ghost modern warfare #simon ghost x you #simon riley x y/n #simon riley imagine

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bitter-hibiscus · 3 months ago

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Characters I think you'll like based on your favorite Jason Todd characterization (from a JT stan)

"Struggling between his morals and his family, on a constant back-and-forth between being true to himself or having people who love him" -> Talia Al Ghul (especially pre-Damian)

"Hot-headed, brawns, angry but incredibly kind to children" + "Grew up in an abusive household and has to work on overcoming the trauma it brings" -> Guy Gardner/Green Lantern.3

"Child Prostitute Jason Todd" or "Struggles to find his place in his family and belives himself to be hard to love (gets proven wrong)" -> Mia Dearden/Speedy

"Good quips, mercenary-esque, uses humor to deflect his trauma, very passively suicidal" -> Cole Cash/Grifter

"Magical Jason Todd, selfish, very very depressed and struggling with loneliness + letting himself be open with people" -> John Constantine

"Crimelord with a heart of gold" -> Slade Wilson/Deathstroke

"Struggling to understand his morality and coming to terms with the fact he's hurt a lot of people and done really bad things" -> Hal Jordan/The Spectre ("oh but isn't Hal a green lanter-" GO READ THE SPECTRE 2001 NOW)

"guy with morals and kills people with guns and... cares?" -> Eddie Fyers

"DOESN'T kill, grew up in a physically abusive household, constantly undermined by others (especially Bruce)" -> Stephanie Brown/Spoiler/Batgirl

Other characters I think you'll like but couldn't tell you why:

Beatriz da Costa/Fire

Yara Flor

Barbara Gordon as Oracle PRE-NEW 52 (especially in BOP)

P.S: Don't be a dick to Jason fans in the tags/comments. This post is to get people into the greater DC canon and not to bash the character or his fanbase. Be nice to each other.

#ramble ramble ramble #jason todd #red hood #dc comics #batman #comic recs #batfamily

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sanctuaryandshopkeeper · 15 days ago

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So I drew in stars and time for the first time and I decided to draw a role swap au. Seriously though idk which one is my favorite roleswap group.

Either The worst/best Housemaiden ever Siffrin, Mirabrawl, Researcher Isabeau, Gorden Ramsey Odile, and Rabid Traveler Bonnie because vibes and craziness or Researcher Siffrin, Our Chef Godess Mira, Traveler Isabeau, Housemaiden Odile, and Fighter Bonnie for the drama.

Like Housemaiden Siffrin got the protagonist backstory and a lot of lore. The irony that the king and Siffrin come from the same country and the DRAMA. If a cat was a human you get Siffrin. Mirabelle knowing Siffrin earlier and being besties is amazing. Even without that she’s one hell of a fighter and I want to know more about her. Researcher Isabeau also used to be a defender like what made him change paths? Cook Odile used to be fighter but was forced into retirement but then getting dragged out of retirement to fight the king is kind of funny ngl. Question though what got Odile into cooking? Bonnie just running away from home and being a traveler makes me think Bonnie thought they were burdening their sister and that’s why they ran away. To let their sister live her life and to not be weighed down by them anymore (Bonnies’s thoughts not mine). Also Team chaos is fun.

@anxiousapplepie

Then for Team Drama well. Researcher Siffrin researching about the island North of Vaugarde and the remaining culture is really fascinating to me. Especially with the King in the corner freezing the country due to the trauma of amnesia. More interesting to me is that they know the language. Know the universe, know the stars, but does he know what the island is called? Also the drama in act 5 is fascinating for me. Also if they ran ahead of everyone when would Siffrin get the time to learn timecraft? Also how much was Researcher Siffrin’s life spent in isolation? Also does Researcher Siffrin have a diary because with how forgetful he is, they should just have one. I’ve been rambling about researcher Siffrin so Cook Mira. I love that she can just fight any day of the week just because’s a cook doesn’t mean she can’t kick the king’s butt. I want to know more about her like I know she went on a pilgrimage or something but LOREEEEE. I just want Mira backstory and cool scenes. This is what I have an Apple Pencil for I guess. Traveler Isabeau what was your life like before you got to this point to be as emotionally constipated as OG Siffrin concerns me. Also the show off that would stand off between the two. The DRAMA. Housemaiden Odile just being friends with Eurpharsie and just wanting to yell at her is kind of funny to me. I’d like to imagine as soon as they finish defeating the king Odile runs ahead to just lecture Euphrasie on why HER! Also Bonnie being a mercenary fighter being paid with snacks is amazing! Best kid in the playground.

@anxiousapplepie

#isat role!swap au #isat spoilers #in #in stars and time #isat fanart #isat au #isat siffrin #isat mirabelle #isat odile #isat bonnie #isat isabeau #isat euphrasie

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iamliquid · 15 days ago

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So I love Tim and Jason's relationship. Or well potential relationship. It can go literally so many ways.

We first have well normal sibling relationship sprinkled on with some joker truma bonding.

Because you cannot tell me that Tim and Jason would not convene at Tims apartment (Because its probably sound proof, has a lot of security measures and a crazy amount of traps and because Jason doesn't like people in his apartment.) Just to make strange and conventional ways of killing the Joker.

But then. We also have this other version that I read from another Tumblr post.

Where Tim just trauma dumps on Jason about all of the horrendous things that has happened to him and Jason just refuses to let Tim go back to the manor. Because Jason is fully convinced that Tim should stay with him for the betterment of his health and because he really cares about Tim and feels bad that he tried to kill him. (Tim is still salty about it)

But then lastly we have in my opinion the best one. (also inspired by a Tumblr post)

Where Tim and Jason have a mercenary gig together. Because they both wanted to prove to Bruce that they didn't need his money. And so, they came up with the genius plan of a mercenary gig. Where Tim is the brains and Jason is well the brawn or well the killer. The only reason I love this the most, is because it highlights the characters relationship so well and that it really shows that Tim and Jason may not be as close as maybe Tim is with Dick. But their close in their own werid and twisted way, they have their own way of bonding that can't be replicated with the others. And I love it.

#batkids #batfamily #batfam #red hood #red robin #tim drake #jason todd #dc universe #relationship #siblings

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a-killer-obsession · 7 months ago

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Shared Smiles [Heat x Reader]

🔞 MINORS DNI 🔞

Despite being forced on board against your will, you find yourself connecting with a commander, and finding solace in your shared traumas.

CW: wounds, off-screen amputation, loss of limb, comfort, trauma, mentions of mutilation, fingering, p in v sex, afab reader

WC: ~6k

Masterlist || AO3

The chains holding you creaked slightly as you swung back and forth, blood running down over your face and dripping to the floor below you as you hung upside down. Your ankles were bound together in metal cuffs, your hands tied to your torso with chains, and your body bare save for your panties and the many fresh wounds that littered your body. Two Supernovas of the Worst Generation stood in front of you, Eustass ‘Captain’ Kid and his first mate, Massacre Soldier Killer. The captain pressed his boot against your face again, letting back off and making your body swing, the ankle cuffs digging into your skin at the added pressure the movement created.

“Last chance,” the redheaded captain gloated, kneeling and grabbing a handful of your hair to force you to look at him. You could barely keep eye contact, not out of fear but, because you'd been upside down for so long that you were nearly unconscious. “I don't usually give out mercies like this, but your skills are useful to me, and my girls enjoyed your company before you fucked up”

Said fuck up was simply rejecting the large man of his sexual advances. You'd met some of his crew, a couple of girls named Hip, Hop, Quincy, Emma and Dive, at a bar nearby. You'd seen a lot on your travels as a for-hire mercenary, but female pirates were not common on the Grandline. They'd made you laugh, a rarity for you, and hadn't judged your unusual mask that hid your mouth and the end of your nose. Of course they hadn't, they were used to a first mate who covered the entirety of his face in white and blue stripes. They didn't even ask questions about it, which was a breath of fresh air for you, only commenting on how cool the sculpting that decorated it was - a relief of a open lion's jaw, with large, sharp teeth and a lolling tongue, trimmed by a nose and cheeks curled mid roar. The whole mask gave you the appearance of having a lion's snout, and along with the clawed gloves you wore during combat, was the guiding force for the moniker the marines had given you: ‘The Lioness, [Y/N]’.

Now, had your rejection perhaps been a little harsh? Maybe, by normal standards. A large, attractive man with such infamy as him was probably not rejected often, let alone with such sass. You knew you had a knack for being too brutally truthful, never filtering your words or pulling your verbal punches. It'd gotten you in trouble on more than one occasion, but you were a talented fighter, fast and agile, you didn't usually get caught in situations like this. When the Massacre Soldier snuck up on you in the alley outside though, you found you were no match for him, he had such a high bounty for a reason.

“How bout it little kitty?” Kid purred in faux sweetness, bringing you back to reality, blinking as you fought the pull of unconsciousness. “You can join my crew, or you can stay here and get tortured till you die. This is the last time I'll ask”

Did you want to be a pirate? No, you liked running solo, you liked having the freedom to go wherever you wanted and take whatever jobs were convenient. Having your life dictated by someone else was the last thing you wanted, and being around the same people every day would make it hard to avoid forming attachments. You had sworn to never get close to others again, after your last relationship resulted in the unforgivable reason you wore the mask. Making friends you'd never see again in bars was one thing, but you weren't looking for long term relationships, platonic or not. On the other hand, you liked being alive. You would not let a man be your death, not after everything you'd been through.

“Fine,” you spat. The single word was a struggle to push out, your head felt like it was in a vice and the rest of your body was going numb as a new droplet of blood rolled down your face and caught in your eyelashes.

“Wise choice,” the first mate noted from behind his unreadable mask. “One of our commanders is gonna love that pretty little smile of yours”

“Bite me,” you spat back, voice laced with venom.

“Tell the girls to clean her up and get her settled,” Kid addressed the first mate as he used his devil fruit to release your bindings, dropping you to the hard floor unceremoniously. He threw your mask at you, bouncing with an audible clunk off your already sore head, and you grabbed it greedily. Killer watched you with empathy as you desperately covered your mouth back up, he knew that feeling well and felt like an asshole for knowing what you hid underneath. You shot daggers up at him as the mask was settled in its rightful place, the room brightening for a moment as the door opened for the captain to leave before returning to its barely lit state.

As the months passed, you found yourself feeling surprisingly comfortable amongst the Kid Pirates. It'd taken you a while to heal and stop being so jumpy, but it came as no surprise to learn you were not the only crew member who had been hired via torture after pissing the short-fused captain off, and they all thought it was hilarious in retrospect. You hoped one day you'd find it funny too, but for now you still had aches from where new scars pulled taut on your skin as you moved. You found yourself at home among the other girls, and learned that Kid protected them with fierce loyalty. You had expected to have to reject more advances from him, but as it turned out, he treated the girls on his crew like sisters, and after months of getting past the violent way you were brought on the ship, you found yourself able to laugh in his presence. You never expected to enjoy the life of a pirate, but in truth it was nice to not have to fight for everything and take care of yourself, it was soothing to know someone had your back if you got into trouble. The girls had been diligent in tending to your wounds and nursing you back to health, and you'd gotten to know them well over the last few months. At first you thought about running every chance you got, but now you felt a pang of guilt whenever you thought of leaving the women you'd come to call friends, and ultimately pushed away the idea of leaving all together.

Much like the first mate though, you never removed your mask in front of the others. They'd allowed you to put up a curtain around your cot so you could sleep without it in privacy, you ate your meals in solitude sitting on the figurehead skull of the ship, and thankfully the showers were built as separate cubicles with doors. Nobody asked why you wore the mask, they respected your privacy the same way they respected Killer's, to ask what lay underneath would be a disrespect against both of you. As for the two that had seen, Kid and Killer kept your secret, even from the other commanders. Their word was gospel, so nobody pried, and it helped to make you feel safe here. You hadn't gone this long without someone asking about what the mask hid for months, the only questions you ever got from the crew were in regard to the mask itself. How was it made? Why a lion? Where did you get it? Is it annoying to wear? Curiosities that you couldn't fault, but always asked in a respectful manner.

This evening, like many other evenings, you found yourself drinking with the crew. It was a crew of around thirty, and although there were a few members held higher than the rest - the captain, first mate, and four commanders - it was clear the whole crew were friends, and there was no divide when they drank. You found yourself sitting next to Heat, a quiet, tall man with an almost grey skin tone, thick blue hair that fell in waves, and an almost perpetually sad expression. He was sweet, and easy to be around, and you often found yourself seeking his company. He didn't pry about your past as long as you didn't ask about his, and he was okay with a comfortable silence, making him one of your favourite people to spend time with, along with his best friend Wire, another commander who was similar in personality, though a lot more stoic, an a significant amount taller. Heat looked tough, but on a more personal level seemed far too soft to be a pirate. He didn't have a devil fruit, but he could breathe fire, and his long thorn-like tattoos fascinated you. He was an interesting man, someone you could see yourself opening up to in the past, if you hadn't sworn to close your heart from all men after the betrayal you experienced with the last one.

For obvious reasons, you didn't actually drink around the others, you just took part in the conversations. Unlike the Massacre Soldier, who could thread a straw through the holes in his mask, your mask was one solid form, the only holes being a mesh for ventilation hidden under the top row of sharp teeth, and the holes in the lion's nose where there the anatomy dictated, again so you could actually breathe. You enjoyed the company none-the-less though, and you'd never been one for drinking before the mask anyway so it was no loss. You didn't like the way alcohol made you feel, you preferred to keep your wits about you. That was another thing you enjoyed about Heat, he was your comrade in sober arms, also preferring not to drink. Apparently last time he got drunk he accidentally set fire to a bar, so he chose to stay sober for everyone's safety.

You laughed wholeheartedly as Quincy fell victim to a well planned truth or dare, admitting she'd had a raunchy sex dream about another crewmate, Bubblegum, the crew erupting in laughter as the two of them flushed bright red. The laughter died down and it was Quincy's turn to ask a question to the next victim, and your breath caught as you thought she was going to pick you, only to move one more over and pick Heat. You let out a sigh of relief.

“Truth or dare Heatie!” She coughed out, trying to quickly divert the crew's attention.

“Truth,” he replied calmly.

“Okay, mmmm,” she pressed a index finger to her mouth as she thought, “tell us who you have a crush on!”

A few of the crew went “ooooooh” as Heat turned bright red, and Kid sat up, his attention piqued.

“Look how red he is!” Kid barked, “there's definitely someone!”

“Tell us! Tell us!” Someone called out.

“It's… it's…[y/n]” he finally stuttered out, finally breaking, curling in on himself and trying to hide his flushed face from you. Your own face went pink at the admission, you hadn't expected it at all and there were butterflies in your chest. Heat quickly picked the next victim to move the attention, and you quietly excused yourself from the gathering.

“I didn't mean to offend you,” Heat said softly as he approached where you sat on the figurehead skull, facing the ocean. You quickly wiped your tears and sniffed, replacing your mask which you'd removed to keep it dry from your crying. “Were you crying? [Y/n] I'm so sorry, please forget I said anything, it's just a dumb game”

“It's not that, Heat,” you sniffed, “it just… brought up some not very nice memories is all. It's not your fault”

“Oh, well I'm sorry anyway,” he shifted awkwardly on his feet, “do you want to talk about it?”

“The last man I was with was not kind,” you tried to explain, “he… decided I was no longer worth the trouble, and he did this,” you pointed at the mask.

“Can I… see?” He asked shyly.

You looked out to the ocean, thinking hard about whether you were ready for that, ready to let someone past that heavily guarded wall. If anyone would understand, it was him. In truth, you didn't want to carry this burden alone anymore, and you knew he was more than willing to carry it with you. You looked around the deck for spying eyes, and seeing no other life you gave him a small nod and patted the figurehead next to you, inviting him to come sit. He climbed up and sat beside you, cross legged and patient. You sighed nervously as you unlatched the mask with shaky hands, turning to him anxiously.

“Oh,” he said softly.

Staring back at him, stretching from the corners of your mouth to the apex of your jaw, were the jagged scars of a Glasgow smile, just like his own. His heart stung when he saw it, he knew the pain you'd been through, physical and emotional, and the way you no doubt feel every time you look in the mirror. You turned away from him again, replacing the mask and looking back out to the ocean.

“Did you kill him?” He asked, shuffling a little closer so your shoulders touched, staring out to the sea with you.

“Yes,” you replied flatly.

“Good,” he huffed. “How long ago did it happen, if you don't mind me asking”

“Three years,” you idly picked at the cuticles on your fingers.

“The dysphoria will pass, in time,” he assured you, then pointed at his own scars, “rival gang, eight years ago. I wore a scarf over the scars for five years before I finally got comfortable with my own reflection. It'll pass, and nobody here will judge you when it finally does”

You nodded quietly and rested your head on his shoulder, and the two of you sat in comfortable silence till you started to fall asleep and decided to head to bed.

“MOVE, GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Heat shouted at the other crewmates that had crowded around your fallen form.

In a blink of an eye, everything had gone so very wrong. The crew had been raiding a marine base, rampaging through it as they always did, cutting down marines left and right. Nobody could have known the building you were fighting next to was structurally unsound, closed off from use years ago, scheduled to be demolished before it could collapse on someone's head. One small shake of the ground from a nearby explosion and the whole outer wall crumbled, burying you in heavy cement faster than you had a chance to register what was happening. The crew had been quick to dig you out, working together to move the large slab of concrete that was crushing you. Heat took in your seemingly lifeless body with baited breath, the limbs on your right side twisted in unnatural positions, deep purple bruises already forming on any skin that was visible, blood running from your nose and ears.

Your body moved just a little, and suddenly you were screaming. Awaking in absolute agony, everything was on fire, you could barely think through the pain. Only one coherent word escaped you, a shrill, desperate scream of his name, before the world went black again. Thankful that you were unconscious again so you didn't have to feel your injuries, Heat carefully lifted you, holding you close to his chest as he carried you back to the ship, tears silently rolling down his cheeks and neck as he tried his best to keep it together for you, to get you somewhere safe and start the long, hard process of healing.

For five days you slept in the infirmary of the Victoria Punk, and for those five days Heat never left your side, sleeping in an old metal chair next to you, his head against your arm and your good hand held gently in his, praying to whatever god that would listen that you'd wake up. His back ached from sleeping upright, he had deep, dark bags under his eyes, and he smelt as bad as he looked, still covered in the grime and blood from the battle, refusing to leave your side for long enough to shower. You needed him here, he needed to be here when you woke up, because you had to wake up, and he fought tooth and nail against anyone who dared to try and drag him away.

When you finally awoke, you did so with a small whimper, unable to remember what had happened, or understand why half your limbs weren't reacting the way you wanted them to. Heat had been asleep next to you, but was quickly at attention, standing over you and making sure you knew he was here before you had time to question whether you were all alone.

“Shh, don't try to move,” he said softly, stopping you from sitting up too fast with a firm but gentle hand against your chest, “you got hurt real bad, but you're safe now, you're gonna be okay”

Your hand flew to your mouth, feeling for your mask, looking up at him with wide shocked eyes when you found it was missing.

“Shh, shh, it's okay,” he took your hand back in his and removed it from your face, “only the doc saw, nobody else except Kid and Killer have come in here, and they said they'd already seen”

Your breathing calmed down again as you accepted his assurances, squeezing his hand and trying to sit up again. You wanted, no, needed to know how bad the damage was, you needed to see for yourself. You felt heavy, no doubt from painkillers, but you could still tell something was very wrong, your right arm and leg still not responsive. Heat saw your efforts and sighed, he knew there was no keeping you from it any longer.

“I'm gonna help you sit up okay?” He slid his arm around your shoulders and held the other against your chest, “But I need you to not panic. Your injuries were life threatening, Emma did everything in her power but she couldn't save everything”

You tried your best to stay calm but you couldn't help but start to hyperventilate as he sat you up and pulled the blanket that covered you aside, finally seeing the damage for yourself. Your right arm was in a cast, from your armpit to your hand, set in a bend. Your pinky and ring finger were missing, only stubs of them remained. You were wearing nothing but your underwear, your entire torso wrapped in bandages, healing graze marks and yellowing bruises peeking out from wherever the wrapping didn't cover. But the worst of the injuries was your right leg. Or rather, lack thereof, because from your mid thigh down was just empty space where your leg should have been, a bandage wrapped tightly around the short nub that remained.

Heat held you tight to his chest as you took in the damage and started to sob, your tears soaking into his corset shirt and rehydrating some of the blood and dirt on his chest. You weren't sure how long you cried for, at some point he climbed up on the bed and sat behind you, rocking you back and forth and cooing reassurances in your ear until you were able to settle your breathing and your sobs turned to teary-eyed hiccups.

“It's gonna be okay,” Heat assured, his arms around your torso as he pressed a kiss to your dirty hair, “Kid is already working on a prosthetic for you, Emma said the amount she was able to save is plenty to learn to walk again with one, it's gonna be okay, I'm gonna be here the whole time”

You nodded as you let yourself rest back against him, the weight of your emotional burden too much to bare alone anymore, letting him support your exhausted body and keep you afloat.

A few days had passed and Emma, as the ship's doctor, had cleared you to leave the infirmary. You couldn't walk given you would need two working arms for crutches, and with your dominant arm out of action you struggled at even the most basic tasks, so Heat insisted you stay with him. He'd pulled a spare mattress from the henchmen's quarters and was sleeping on the floor with it, leaving the entire queen size bed for you. As a commander he had his own room and a small humble bathroom, nothing compared to the grand rooms Kid and Killer had, but it was private and it was comfortable, and it kept you from embarrassing yourself in the middle of the night whenever you needed to go to the bathroom. He'd even rearranged his room for you, and made Kid install metal railings, all you needed to do was hop a few supported steps to make it to the toilet. If you had to travel any further he didn't hesitate to carry you, he didn't even need to be asked, all you had to do was look at him and he was moving.

The first thing you needed after leaving the infirmary was a good wash. Emma had done her best with Heat's assistance to sponge bath what they could to keep your wounds clean of the blood and debris you'd been covered in when Heat had carried you in, but you really needed a soak to wipe away the thick layer of grime. You couldn't wash yourself though, you needed to keep your casted arm out of the water, which meant a shower was out of the question - not that you'd be able to stand in one - and with only one hand there was no way you were washing your hair on your own. Even with the one working arm, your chest and side were still aching from the deep bruising you'd received as a result of being crushed, you were lucky you hadn't broken any ribs, but every movement hurt badly.

Emma had offered to wash you, but you'd surprised yourself and Heat by asking him instead. Somehow you felt more comfortable with the idea of him seeing you naked. Not that you had anything against Emma, you just felt safest with Heat. He'd carried you wordlessly to his room, wrapped in the infirmary blanket, and sat you on the closed toilet seat in his bathroom while he ran the water. Emma had given you the all clear to remove your bandages, though the one on your amputated leg would need to be replaced afterwards, so you worked on removing them while you waited. When the water was ready he helped you to your… foot… and held you steady while you used your good arm to manoeuvre your underwear past your hips, letting it fall to the floor at your ankles and leaving you entirely naked in front of him except for your cast.

He lifted you gently and lowered you into the water, your good arm around his neck for support. Using the old bandages he fashioned a sort of sling hanging from the curtain railing to keep your other arm out of the water, so you wouldn't have to worry about holding it up yourself the whole time. He was so careful and methodical as he washed you, a light dusting of pink on his cheeks the whole time, unable to look you in the eye for shame of how much he enjoyed seeing your naked body, how much he enjoyed touching you, when such horrible circumstances had led to this.

He avoided your genitals, letting you wash them yourself, and you sighed as his strong fingers worked shampoo into your scalp, washing away thick layers of grime that a sponge bath couldn't touch. It was quiet and intimate, the only words shared being him asking consent and you granting it as he worked on the different parts of your body, wiping away the blood and dirt. You whimpered as the cloth ran over your stump, burying your face in his chest for moral support as he diligently cleaned the old blood from it, the conditioner in your hair transfering to his skin.

Finally finished, he discarded the cloth and held you close while he knelt next to the tub, and you couldn't help but cry more at the awful state of your body. He didn't question your need to cry, he just held you while you got it all out till you took a deep breath and pushed yourself away from him, nodding that you were ready to move on. He rinsed the conditioner from your hair and drained the tub, wrapping you in a soft towel as he picked you back up and carried you to the bed. He held you in his lap as he dried you with an extra towel, patting dry your hair and wiping the dewdrops from your limbs. He held you firm to his chest, your arm around his neck, your head tucked under his chin as you listened to his rhythmic breathing. It was enough to lull you to sleep, so he carefully slipped an old baggy t-shirt over you, trying his best to not wake you, and tucked you into his bed, leaving you to rest.

It'd been close to six weeks since the accident. Your arm cast had been removed a week ago, so you were now able to get around on your own using crutches, though the distance you could go before tiring was limited. Kid had built you a beautiful prosthetic leg, even going so far as adding a lion's clawed paw for the foot to match your mask, and Emma had given the go ahead for you to try using it in a few more days. For now, your stump remained covered in a compression sock, to promote healing and make sure it was ready for the prosthetic to be fitted. Kid had become an unlikely ally in this battle, having lost a limb himself he understood how you were feeling, and had helped you through more than one dark episode while you mourned the loss of your leg.

Mostly though, it was Heat that was there for you. You were still staying in his room, even though you assured him you could manage on your own. He insisted you would be more comfortable here, and try as you might he refused to share the large bed with you to at least alleviate a little of your guilt, telling you over and over that he was more than comfortable on his mattress, even though it was clear to everyone that his back was hurting and his eyes had heavy bags. You could hear him toss and turn at night, his quality of sleep significantly diminished because of his chivalrous sacrifice, but he'd give up anything to make you even slightly more comfortable. You had to admit though, having the privacy to sleep without your mask without fear of peeping toms was a luxury in itself. You didn't wear the mask in the bedroom, more than comfortable without it in front of Heat. He still helped you bathe, but it'd become significantly less awkward, now a time for conversation and laughter. You no longer had a cast to keep dry, and you really didn't need help anymore other than getting in and out of the tub, but neither of you had said anything about it, so he happily continued to help you, and you graciously accepted the help and his company. Subconsciously, neither of you wanted to let go of that time alone together, and you secretly enjoyed the feel of his hands wandering over your body, and the way he silently scanned your curves, a quiet hunger in his eyes that never left no matter how many times he saw you naked.

On this night, the ship was on route to a winter island, the long reaching weather system already chilling the air significantly as Heat helped you into bed. He stole a chaste kiss on the top of your hair, as he often did these days, before excusing himself to his mattress on the floor.

Hours passed, and he woke as he often did, sighing to himself and twisting his torso to crack his sore back. He strolled in his sweatpants to the bathroom to get a glass of water, thankful that his natural abilities kept him well heated, so he didn't feel the chill of the snowy weather outside. You, however, were not a fire breather, and were very much feeling the cold. You were shivering in your sleep, hunched in on yourself to try and conserve any heat from escaping but failing miserably. He felt a pang of guilt at your shaking form, and opened a cupboard to get you another blanket, only to discover you were already using the extra one. What was he to do? His own blanket was barely anything, more of a thin fabric to cover him for comfort than for warmth, it wouldn't make any difference to put it over you. Should he go find you another blanket? Where from? Maybe he could wake Wire and see if he had a spare? Everyone else on the ship felt the cold the same as you though, they were no doubt all using their blankets.

Stressed that you would fall ill, he pulled at his hair, trying to find a solution, till a small whimper escaped you and the solution was abundantly clear. He lifted the blankets and slid in beside you, wrapping himself around your body, covering as much of your icy frame as he could with his hot skin. Your shivering quickly stopped, and a small smile formed on your face as you settled into a deeper sleep. He let go a sigh of relief and shuffled till he was comfortable, laying so close that his head was on the same pillow as yours. It felt like a violation of your personal space, but he couldn't bare to watch you shiver anymore, and he felt butterflies at being able to hold you so close in what was really his bed, even if it mostly smelt like you these days, not that he had complaints.

You were so warm when you woke up, wrapped in what felt like an army of hot water bottles, your skin sticky with sweat but you were too comfy to care. It took you an embarrassing long time to realise you weren't alone, a soft breath rustling your hair gently in a rhythmic pattern that matched the movement of the warm form next to you. Your eyes traced the thorn like tattoos that ran up and down the arm that was draped over you, a thick, muscular thigh trapped between yours, a pillow of pale blue hair intermingled with your own. You had wrapped yourself around him like a koala on a tree, seeking out his warmth in the night and clinging to it so it couldn't escape. You tilted your head up, your face now millimetres from his, inspecting fondly the scars on his face that matched your own. The dark eyeliner he liked to wear under his eyes was smudged, always too lazy to remove it before he slept, and his chin was covered in a fine layer of blue stubble. You blushed at how handsome he was, and how close said handsome face was to yours, his strong arms wrapped around you like he was just as unwilling to let go as you were.

His eyes fluttered open, his dark irises immediately focusing on you and his pupils blown wide in surprise as he realised the position he was in. He tried to pull away, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but you pulled him back to you, pressing your lips to his on instinct, in a desperate plea for him to stay. For a moment he didn't move, frozen in fear that this wasn't real, that you hadn't really kissed him, till he finally accepted the reality and kissed you back. His kiss was tender, full of devotion and longing, and you made a small moan as his tongue ran over your bottom lip and his hand wove into your hair. You opened your lips for him and his tongue dove inside, rutting against yours with his own quiet moan as you held him tight, pulling lightly on his hair to wordlessly beg for more.

He rolled you on to your back, pressing his thigh further up between your legs, and you whimpered into his mouth as you tried to roll your hips to rub against him, desperate for friction but unable to get it with your stupid useless stump. Understanding your frustration he ran his hand quickly down your front, threading it under the waistband of your pyjamas and your panties to slide between your wet folds. He pressed a thumb to your clit, circling it as his index finger toyed with your entrance, before sliding in and pumping you with slow, shallow movements that made you cry out. You hadn't realised how badly you needed him, how much you needed him inside you, filling you and sharing your breaths. He pulled away from the kiss and you could see your own feelings reflected in his eyes, all that longing and need and love. Love you didn't think was possible for you to even feel again, but it was there, without a doubt, and you knew he felt it too.

He watched your face carefully as he slid a second finger inside you, then a third, his pace quickening as your walls fluttered around his digits, his clothed erection rutting against the thigh of your good leg in his own desperate need for friction. He wanted to he inside you so badly, he wanted to feel your hot wet walls take him in and see your face contort as you came on his cock, the thought alone was almost enough to make him cum as he groaned and kissed you with fervour. He swallowed your moans as you clamped down on his fingers, your back arching off the bed as you came hard, shuddering underneath him.

As soon as your high had settled, you were sitting up and trying your best to claw away at his pants. You wanted him inside you so fucking bad, you'd already cum once but you ached with need. He pushed down his pants, his cock springing to attention, red and swollen with equal need, precum leaking from the tip. You eyed him hungrily, he was thick and longer than average, a set of three piercings running up the underside, you wanted to know how they would feel inside you. He helped you pull off your own clothes before settling between your legs, his tip prodding at your entrance but not yet inside, much to your frustration.

“Are you sure?” He asked nervously. You pulled him down by his neck and kissed him, forcing your tongue in his mouth before biting his bottom lip, pulling a groan from him.

“Please, Heat,” you begged, “I need you inside me, please”

He returned his lips to yours as he slid inside you, stretching you out, till the need to breathe was too much and you broke the kiss to pant, holding his shoulders tight as he sheathed himself inside you. You let out a stuttered moan, your breathing haggard as you rolled your hips to try and get him to move. He pumped you deep and agonisingly slow, just enjoying the pull of your walls on his length, till you wrapped your good leg around him and pressed your heel against his ass, moaning and clawing at his back as his pace finally picked up. He buried his face in your shoulder as he fucked you hard and fast, holding the headboard above you for support while his other hand held your hip tight, his fingers leaving bruises in your skin. You cried out a flurry of curses, mixed with his name and a string of yes yes yes as he groaned and panted in your ear, whispering sweet nothings and praising you for how well you were taking him.

His movements became erratic as you started to tighten around him again, your fingernails sinking into the skin on his back as you screamed his name and came hard, clamping around his cock and pulling him forcefully with you. His thrusts stuttered and stilled as he unloaded inside you, his hot thick load dripping out of you for lack of space as he shook and groaned. He collapsed to your side, pulling you with him, his softening cock still buried inside you as he held you to his chest. You draped your leg over his hip, kissing him softly, slowly, your tongues pressing together with more careful and tender movements, no longer driven by the carnal need for him to be inside you. You were full and content, comfortable despite his cock still buried in you, you felt like you could stay connected like this forever. He made you feel safe, and beautiful, despite your scars and mutilated body, as he pressed loving kisses over your Glasgow smile, and you returned the favour with kisses traced along his.

#heat my beloved 💙#one piece fanfiction #one piece smut #heat one piece #heat x reader #kid pirates

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cainhart · 5 months ago

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The symbolism of the snake embroidery on Vergil's clothes and my theories on how he might have acquired his outfit. (he's broke asf he didn't get it with money guys)

In the first Devil May Cry novel we learn that teenager Dante had his red jacket custom made. He is actually pissy about it when it gets ruined with bullet holes. He then wears a fuckass black jacket, which makes him look embarrassing.

Dante was drinking and using firearms when he was 15 or 16 years old; but he had a job (albeit his job being a MERCENARY. Also twins being European really shows because he was having drinking contests as a fucking 15 year old, god), so he had enough money to buy himself a custom made jacket. But the thing is, we don’t know how teenager Vergil got his outfit. It’s too well made to be bought in a normal store. Vergil probably had no money—though it is hinted that after Mundus' attack, young Vergil may have used public transportation (I also have a headcanon that he didn't know how to open a portal until he was at least 12 so that makes sense) and even bought himself food. These may have happened before or after the attack but let's say after the attack since Sparda, Eva, and the twins were living a secluded life. Still, being homeless and constantly on the run, his concept of the value of money is more like ‘money’ and ‘a LOT of money.’ He had no use for finance; what important was to get powerful and gain knowledge.

So, he probably didn’t get it with money. Vergil was never in one place long enough to earn money. I also don't see him as someone who would kill or hurt people to steal their money (he actually kinda did it in VoV,,, but that was different), so the idea of custom made clothing bought with human currency doesn't sit with me.

He might have used demonic magic to create his outfit. We see a demonstration of this in DMC5 with Trish, who uses her magic to literally recreate her entire outfit. This is very weird and left unexplained, which frustrates me because I need to rationalize things. Perhaps demons can do this because they can infuse anything with their demonic energy, and since the clothes they wear are made of organic material, they can recreate or even sew them back together. In Vergil's case, it's more like 'create a whole new outfit in mind's eye and boom now you have a ridiculous cravat.'

Another possibility is that he had it custom-made, but not with human currency. Demons, or at least a certain demonic/supernatural entity (the God of Time, aka the Divinity Statue), accept red orbs as a form of payment.

Vergil probably visited many places on his trauma blind journey of gaining power. I might overdo here, but what if he came across a strange tailor and they made a deal like, "You give me 70 thousand red orbs, and I give you a slutty vest, a ridiculous cravat, nice shoes and a cool coat with snake embroidery on it." and Vergil was like "Aight." Maybe he was intending to infuse his outfit with his magic anyway. It was a win-win situation.

It's funny to imagine Vergil designing his outfit, just being a teenager for once.

So, Vergil could have saved up red orbs to get a cool coat. Demonic establishments are kind of canon, so that’s a possibility. He was a teenager it’s only natural that he liked teenager things, even in his traumatized and hunted state. At a certain point in his life, he became strong enough to indulge in some of his likes.

Speaking of snake embroidery, Vergil has SO MUCH snake symbolism on him, and on his clothes too! Snakes were adored and respected throughout history before paganism started to get shitted on. Snakes represent wisdom, REBIRTH, healing, transformation, and knowledge. That’s why Satan, disguised as a snake, gave Eve the apple (knowledge) (also, knowledge of the occult was really given to women first). The snake detail on his clothes might even be magic, too. It's nearly an occult symbol on its own. Maybe a sigil? I know sigils aren't a thing in DMC but I don't care I'll go apeshit with my theories.

Whether the serpent detail was intentional or unintentional, it’s still a great detail considering his story and character. He goes through transformation (Nero Angelo), then rebirth (Vergil rebirth party in DMC5), and healing (basically the whole plot of Visions of V).

So, just teenager Vergil researching the occult and being fascinated with the symbolism of the serpent. OR he straight up stole it. :l This bitch split his demonic and human self apart and like 1 day after his human self came to existence he had to deal with money and his first thought was to steal it. Anyway, that's all. Have a good day!

#don't leave your shoes outside he might steal them too #devil may cry #dmc #vergil #dmc headcanons #dmc vergil

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fangdokja · 4 days ago

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i keep rereading your yan marine corps! x fem reader. what was reader's role that she had to follow the marine's... adventure?

"You’ll never escape me—not when I’m the only one keeping you alive."

❤︎ Synopsis. In a world where death is mercy and survival means suffering, he claims you as his, promising protection through fear, control, and a twisted love that will leave you questioning if escape was ever truly possible.

♡ Book. A Heart Devoured (AHD) : A Dark Yandere Anthology

♡ Pairing. Yandere! Marine Corps x Fem. Reader

♡ Oneshot. #2 - The Devil Who Saved You

♡ Word Count. 3,153

♡ TW. dom + top + older yandere, non-con, possessiveness, psychological manipulation and conditioning, suggestive themes, fear play, emotional manipulation and abuse, psychological and emotional trauma, isolation, monitoring, lack of boundaries, non-con kissing and touching, forced relationship, BDSM, manipulation of circumstances, threats, descriptions of gore and human suffering, themes of violence and dystopia

♡ Note. Due to Tumblr content guidelines involving minors, some plot details of the original story were changed to fit the platform. If you want the true original story, please look at the author's official website or Ao3.

♡ A/N. I'm glad you enjoyed it :)). I'm surprised you're rereading it a bunch. But, I guess people do technically reread anyway. Sorry, slipped out of my mind. It just makes me happy seeing underrated works get credit, whether fandom or other stories I've written. So, thank you. Anyways. Technically, this was an ask. But it's a nice idea, and I've already had it in my drafts since before. I was just postponing lore dump with Yandere! Marine Corps, due to other works. Anyways. All I knew before, in all honesty, is that it's war time. But, time to pull out the fantasy skills and world build! Wooh! And to be honest, I'm hungry to write some gore crumbs like my familiar writing style, ahh. So, here, I present to you lore backstory (well technically part of the backstory). Hope you all enjoy it (also, sorry I talk a lot in notes).

♡ Music. Levee & Brick (Down to This) by Graffiti Ghosts

The world had fallen into an abyss so deep it seemed there was no end to its descent. The wars that came before—those waged for borders, ideologies, or resources—were merely preludes to this ultimate collapse. What erupted now was not war; it was annihilation. A calamity that turned cities into craters and humanity into prey. Every shred of civility burned away in the endless fires of desperation. The air was thick with the ash of the old world, a grim veil that painted the skies an eternal gray.

You had lived a different life once, one of relative normalcy in the dwindling days before the collapse. Back then, you had a future, a purpose, something as simple and human as hope. But that had been stripped away when the world’s powers unleashed devastation so complete it birthed horrors no living creature could comprehend. Technology had become a weapon of eradication, bioweapons and nanotech turning survivors into deformed creatures of flesh and steel, feral and mindless, hunting whatever moved. Rogue factions—remnants of militaries, mercenaries, and scavengers—rose like carrion birds, preying on the remnants of humanity.

In this hellscape, survival was no longer a matter of luck but of submission. Submission to those strong enough to carve their will into the earth and impose their dominion. He was one of those few. A towering force of unyielding violence, a soldier molded by decades of carnage, by a war that had reshaped him from a man into something closer to a machine of flesh and blood. The United Corps, once a venerated military institution, had fractured into splinter groups, each operating like a self-contained warlord’s regime. He was among their best—a leader, an executioner, a strategist, and now your captor.

You were assigned to him by pure chance—or perhaps cruel design. In this new order, value wasn’t measured by money or power but by the usefulness of flesh and mind. And you had been marked as useful. Perhaps it was your background—your knowledge, your resilience, or simply the misfortune of catching his attention when your convoy was intercepted by his unit. The corps didn’t merely take prisoners; they assessed, dissected, and consumed whatever remnants of humanity they deemed salvageable.

And he deemed you salvageable.

There were no illusions about the nature of his claim over you. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t mercy. It was obsession, possessive and cruel, born of a warped sense of necessity. “You belong to me now,” he had told you in that deep, unrelenting tone, the heat of his breath warming your face even as the chill of his words froze your soul. “Out there, they’ll rip you apart for the scraps on your bones. With me, you’ll live—if you behave.”

The battlefield was safer than the no-man’s land outside his dominion. That was the most damning truth. To run from him was to dive into a living nightmare where survival wasn’t a goal but a punishment. Outside his protection, death was not granted quickly.

You’d seen it. You’d heard the screams echoing through the wastelands, watched the crude factories churn with suffering. He’d forced you to look once, pressing your face against the window of a blood processing plant as tears streaked down your cheeks. “This is what’s waiting for you if you run,” he had whispered, his voice devoid of sympathy. “With me, you’re mine. Out there, you’re theirs. Decide.”

────────────

The smell hit you first. It wasn’t just the copper tang of blood; it was the rancid stench of rotting flesh mixed with chemicals—formaldehyde, acid, and something sour that clawed at the back of your throat. You gagged, instinctively raising a trembling hand to cover your nose, but he was quicker. His large, calloused fingers wrapped around your wrist, dragging your arm back down with enough force to make you whimper.

“Don’t look away,” he growled, his voice low and gravelly, vibrating like a distant explosion. “You need to see this.”

You didn’t want to see. You didn’t! But he held you there, his unyielding grip on your wrist a silent command. He stood just behind you, close enough that his breath fanned across the back of your neck, hot and suffocating.

The factory loomed before you like the mouth of some great beast, its jagged, rusted metal teeth glinting in the dim light of the sulfur-stained sky. The air outside had been foul, but inside, it was worse—a miasma of decay and despair.

The conveyor belts stretched endlessly, carrying bodies in various states of disassembly. Some were intact, their limbs hanging limply as they were dragged by crude metal hooks. Others were barely recognizable—mangled flesh and shattered bone mashed together in a grotesque parody of humanity. You tried to look away, to focus on the machinery, but even that was a nightmare of grinding gears slick with gore.

A loud, wet squelch drew your attention to a nearby station. A corpse—a woman, or at least what remained of her—was hoisted onto a steel slab. Her eyes were still open, glassy and staring, as if frozen in the moment of her death. A mechanical arm descended, its blade glinting dully under the flickering industrial lights. It carved into her chest with a precision that was almost surgical, splitting her ribcage open to reveal the organs beneath.

You felt bile rise in your throat as another arm extended, pincers gripping her heart. It yanked the organ free with a sickening suction sound, sending a spray of blood across the walls and floor. The heart was deposited into a waiting vat, where it joined dozens of others, floating in a viscous, murky liquid.

“They don’t waste anything,” he said, his tone devoid of emotion, as if he were explaining the workings of a simple machine. “Every part has a purpose. The skin for leather. The bones for tools. The organs for… whatever the hell they need them for.”

Your knees buckled, but he caught you, his arm snaking around your waist to keep you upright. “No,” he hissed, his breath hot and sharp against your ear. “You don’t get to faint. You’re going to watch. You’re going to understand.”

A scream tore through the air, high-pitched and raw, and you realized with horror that some of them weren’t dead. Your eyes darted to the source of the sound, landing on a man thrashing against his restraints as he was dragged toward another station. His legs were gone, severed at the thighs, and the stumps had been crudely cauterized to keep him alive.

“Please,” the man sobbed, his voice hoarse and desperate. “Please, just kill me. Just—”

The blade came down before he could finish, cleaving his remaining arm from his body. His scream turned guttural, the sound of a soul breaking, before it was cut off entirely by a needle plunging into his neck. The liquid injected was thick and black, spreading through his veins like oil. His body convulsed violently for a moment before going still.

You turned your head, choking on a sob, but he gripped your chin and forced you to face the scene again. His fingers dug into your skin, bruising and relentless.

“This is what happens without me,” he said, his voice a low snarl. “You think you can survive out there? Think you can make it without my protection? Look at them!” He shook you slightly, as if to drive the point home. “This is what you are without me—meat.”

Tears streamed down your face, hot and shameful, as you stared at the conveyor belts and the countless bodies reduced to parts. You couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop the nausea that twisted your stomach into knots.

Another scream pierced the air, this one an elder's. Your head snapped toward the sound, and your heart plummeted. A thin figure, frail and sickly, was strapped to a table, his wide, terrified eyes fixed on the approaching machinery.

“No,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “No, no, no…”

The machine didn’t care. The blades descended, and you squeezed your eyes shut, the image burned into your mind even as you tried to block it out.

He didn’t let you escape even that. His hand tightened on your jaw, forcing your eyes open. “Don’t you dare look away,” he growled. “This is reality. This is what’s waiting for you if you run.”

You broke then, sobbing uncontrollably, your body wracked with shuddering breaths. He held you there, unyielding, until you were too weak to fight. Only then did he pull you close, his grip on you shifting from punishing to possessive.

“That’s right,” he murmured, his tone softening in a way that was somehow more terrifying. “You understand now, don’t you? You’re mine. And as long as you’re mine, this will never happen to you.”

His lips brushed against your temple, a mockery of comfort as he whispered, “But if you ever forget, I’ll bring you back here. And I’ll make you watch again.”

────────────

The battlefield stretched like a bleeding wound across the earth, jagged trenches carved into the mud and ash. The remnants of what had once been cities were nothing more than skeletal buildings clawing at the smog-choked sky. The air was thick with the acrid tang of burning fuel and the gut-wrenching stench of charred flesh. Bomb craters bubbled with viscous, oily water that gleamed under the pale, radioactive sun. It was a place where hope had been smothered, where humanity’s last breaths came in choking, gurgling gasps.

He stood before you, his shadow long and oppressive, a monolith of muscle and bloodied steel. His armor—if you could call the piecemeal, blood-streaked remains of his tactical gear armor—clung to him like a second skin, the fabric worn thin and blackened with soot. In his hand, a rifle dangled lazily, as though he didn’t need it. And he didn’t. He was a weapon unto himself, his body and mind honed by decades of violence, cruelty, and war.

“Do you remember this place?” His voice was a low rumble, scraping against your nerves like a blade dragged across bone. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, bore into you with a force that made your knees weak. “Where I found you?”

You nodded faintly, though you didn’t trust your voice enough to speak. Your silence wasn’t just fear—it was a learned response, a survival tactic you’d mastered in the years since he’d claimed you.

“Do you know what they were going to do to you?” He crouched, bringing his face level with yours. His presence was suffocating, his frame dwarfing your own. His voice dropped lower, almost tender, as though sharing a secret. “No, you don’t. You only saw what they let you see. Let me show you the rest.”

He yanked you forward, his grip on your wrist unyielding, and led you toward the edge of the battlefield. The ground squelched beneath your feet, a revolting mixture of mud, blood, and something viscous that you didn’t want to identify. In the distance, the ruins of an old hospital came into view. The building leaned at an unnatural angle, its walls crumbling but still intact enough to conceal the horrors within.

“You’ve seen death,” he said, his tone conversational, as though discussing the weather. “But you haven’t seen what people do when death isn’t enough. When they want to break you first.”

The interior of the hospital reeked of antiseptic and decay. The sterile smell of chemicals clashed with the unmistakable odor of rot. The walls were streaked with dark stains, their origins uncomfortably clear as you stepped over discarded limbs, the flesh marbled with gangrene and crude surgical scars.

In the first room, a soldier lay strapped to a gurney, his body contorted unnaturally. His chest had been split open, ribs wrenched apart like the wings of a grotesque bird. His heart was missing, the cavity where it had once beat filled with a tangled mess of wires and tubing. The machinery whirred softly, pumping fluids through his veins and forcing his lungs to expand and contract in shallow, mechanical breaths. His eyes were still open, rolling wildly in their sockets as they locked onto you.

“He’s alive,” the man behind you whispered, his voice a mix of mockery and menace. “Barely. They like to see how far they can push the human body before it gives out. Sometimes they even stitch people back together, just to see how much more they can take.”

You gagged, your stomach lurching violently, but he grabbed your chin, forcing you to face the horror. “Don’t look away,” he commanded, his tone sharp and unyielding. “You need to understand. This is what was waiting for you.”

He dragged you into another room, this one colder, darker. Rows of tanks filled the space, each containing a murky, greenish fluid that distorted the shapes inside. At first, you thought they were bodies, but as you moved closer, you realized they were something worse. Limbs were fused together in impossible configurations, heads sprouted from torsos without necks, and eyes blinked independently in faces twisted beyond recognition. The creatures floated listlessly, their expressions a grotesque mix of agony and confusion.

“Human experimentation,” he explained, almost lazily. “They weren’t trying to kill you. They were going to use you. Turn you into something like this. A weapon. Or worse—a resource.”

You stumbled backward, but he caught you, his arm curling around your waist with a possessive strength that left no room for escape. He pressed his lips to your ear, his voice a dark caress. “I killed them all for you. Do you see now why you belong to me? Why you owe me your life?”

He pushed you onward, through rooms filled with horrors you couldn’t have imagined in your darkest nightmares. A man impaled on a series of metal rods, his skin flayed back to expose muscle and bone, still breathing through a series of tubes jammed into his throat. A woman with her limbs replaced by crude prosthetics, her mouth sewn shut but her eyes screaming. People of all ages locked in cages, their bodies twisted and deformed, their cries muffled by gags soaked in blood.

“This is what humanity has become,” he said, his voice cold and detached. “This is what I saved you from. You were a prize to them. A rare find. They would’ve broken you in ways you can’t even imagine.”

You fell to your knees, the weight of it all crashing down on you. He crouched beside you, his bloodied hand gripping your chin and forcing you to look at him. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, were filled with something dark, something terrifyingly close to affection.

“Don’t forget this,” he murmured, his thumb brushing over your cheek. “Don’t ever forget who saved you. Who you belong to. Because without me…” His voice trailed off as he gestured toward the carnage around you. “This is all you’d ever know.”

You sobbed, the sound muffled against his chest as he pulled you into his arms. His embrace was as suffocating as it was unyielding, a cage that you could never escape. And yet, in that moment, you clung to him, because the alternative was too horrifying to bear.

────────────

So you stayed.

Not because you trusted him. Not because you wanted him. But because the alternative was infinitely worse. And yet, staying came with its own horrors, its own chains. His obsession didn’t shield you from his cruelty; it only redirected it. He was a man who didn’t just command obedience—he demanded submission. Every glance, every word, every trembling breath was a reminder of your place beneath him. When he touched you, it wasn’t with gentleness. His hands were calloused and bruising, gripping and claiming, leaving marks that would never fade.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he would say when your eyes filled with defiance or despair. “You’re still alive because I allow it.”

The world outside was dead, a barren wasteland of mutilation and starvation, yet with him, the torment was suffocatingly personal. He didn’t just want your compliance; he wanted your surrender. His words were a scalpel, cutting into your psyche with surgical precision. He would pull you close, his breath hot against your ear, his voice low and gravelly as he whispered promises of protection intertwined with threats so visceral they made your stomach churn.

“You’re mine,” he’d say, his hand resting possessively on your throat. “Every inch of you. Every thought. Every breath. Try to take that away from me, and I’ll show you what real pain feels like.”

There were moments when his control slipped, when the line between protector and predator blurred beyond recognition. He would keep you close, his body a cage of muscle and violence, his gaze piercing through your facade of composure. The way his hands roamed wasn’t tender—it was invasive, a reminder that he could take whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and there was nothing you could do to stop him.

And yet, you didn’t resist. Couldn’t. Resistance wasn’t a choice. Not here. Not with him.

The world outside was unlivable. The world with him was unbearable. Between the two, you chose to endure.

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General TAG LIST of “A Heart Devoured”: @definetlythinkimanalien , @floooring

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