#WONDERFUL *CHEWS DRYWALL* YOU MADE HIM WORSE

[mouthpoisons]

[secretobsessionstuff]

Could I request a fic with your sweetest, softest male character? He has a really terrible stomach flu (fever, shivering, cramps, cant stop throwing up or retching even when he's empty) and is trying his best to hide it from his friends-- maybe afraid of being a bother. Bonus points for eventual comfort and lots of belly rubs.

Dude this is such a good request! I love when characters hide being sick!! thank you. This ended up being rather long, for me anyway, so I couldn’t add in everything you wanted. But I would be willing to write a second part to this fic if anyone was interested. 

---------------------------

Alexi felt disgusting, but he looked pretty darn good for someone running a 102.2F temperature. He didn’t have much choice; it was either admit to feeling like absolute garbage, thus ruining the whole day for his friends, or keep up the façade and pretend that his eyes weren’t melting inside their sockets.

So yes, Alexi looked perfectly normal…he hoped. Though his cheeks were flushed, the convention center was insanely hot and crowded for anyone to think something was wrong. He just pushed through the mass of people, knowing that in such tight quarters he was spreading his flu…well like the plague.

It felt like the plague anyhow. His head was throbbing, as if his brain were trying to escape through his ears; that unnatural chill that only came from a fever was causing goose bumps to pop up all over his arms and down his back; and his belly was roiling.

As Madix, Riley, and Micah were all waiting in line to get pictures with obscure, second choice and therefore affordable actors, Alexi snuck away to the bathroom for what felt like the billionth time that day. By noon, he was very aware of where every single bathroom was located in the building.

This trip to the toilet was like all the others. He locked himself in a stall and gave himself permission to express the pain he felt clear across his face. Hugging his aching stomach, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to take slow breaths through his mouth. Alexi had no way of knowing how high his temperature had gotten since that morning, but he could tell he was feeling worse. Breakfast was sitting heavily in his gut which he knew wasn’t going to be there for much longer.

The nausea was intense, so much so that he needed to brace himself against the stall walls to keep himself upright. This time he was lucky that there was no line to get into the bathroom, because he felt dangerously close to seeing partially digested waffles fill the toilet. Alexi’s Adam's apple was bobbing up and down like a buoy on the choppy ocean. He continuously swallowed down waves of saliva. As he shoved the bottom of his palms into his eyes, his knees gave up and he slumped to the tile flooring.

With his elbows on the dirty toilet seat, he spat sticky tendrils into the bowl. Deep and guttural burps echoed in the small space around him, and could probably be heard by every other person in that bathroom, but he couldn’t find the effort to care.

A gag suddenly took him, and he found himself leaning into the toilet, prepared to catch anything his stomach was going to send up. His jaw felt tingly and heavy, but still nothing came up but wet belches. One harsh heave interrupted the burps, but it was dry. The second heave came soon after and this one was much wetter. It brought up gush of thick pale vomit that made Alexi shiver as it rushed up his throat. Tears leaked from his eyes from his eyes and his arms felt weak as they supported his body. A deep groan was heard from his stall as Alexi flushed the toilet and left while rubbing his face. The few stares from the witnesses didn’t bother him, not while his stomach was bothering him so much more.

Alexi returned to the line after having cleaned himself up. He washed his hands, gargled water in his mouth, and splashed his face so that he didn’t look so ashen and sweaty. Of course, as he met back up with his friends, a new wave of sweat had broken out across his nose and a new chill shot down his back. He wrapped his arms around themselves, partly to stay warm and partly to hide the goose flesh that any sane person would question in this scorching room.

Alexi ducked under the rope and joined his friends halfway through the line. He plastered his happy-go-lucky smile on his face and said something random. That was one of the downsides of always being chatty and bright – it was so much more obvious when something was wrong.

His boyfriend seemed to relax slightly once Alexi had returned. Micah took Alexi’s hand and swung it against their legs. He gave Alexi a quick peck on the cheek, but he moved away rather slowly. The smallest trace of worry crept across Micah’s features, though it dissipated as soon as Madix changed the topic of conversation.

The lineup took ages. Thankfully, it gave Alexi time to rest. He wanted so badly to sit down but he knew that would draw attention to himself. So, he stayed standing, shifting his weight back and forth on his legs. Alexi soon rested his chin on Micah’s shoulder, hoping that it came across as boredom and not fatigue.

Micah gave him a strange look. Though before he could question it, Alexi excused himself to the bathroom once more. As he turned to leave, Micah grabbed his wrist.

“You just went, Lexi,” Micah remarked. “Besides it’s almost our turn.”

“I know, but I’ve been drinking a lot of water.” Alexi looked around nervously. “I’ll be quick I promise.”

Alexi wasn’t quick. In fact, he stayed in the bathroom even while the three other boys got their pictures, autographs, and merch. Micah was getting worried. As the three of them left the line, Micah’s eyes were darting in all direction, looking for his boyfriend. There weren’t even any bathrooms in sight.

“Micah, slow down,” Riley said as he struggled to keep up with his cousin. Madix was trailing behind as well.

Micah bit his lip worriedly. They were stopped in the middle of the room, with booths and people all around them. “We have to find Alexi. He won’t know where we are.”

Madix urged the group to the side of the room where the likelihood of being trampled was far less great. “He has been gone a long time. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.” Micah started to chew on his thumbnail. “I’m gonna go look for him, you guys stay here so we can meet back up.”  

Micah embarked on his mission. He pushed through slow walkers and squeezed past people in amazing yet impeding cosplay. The first bathroom he saw was his destination. He made a beeline for it, and just as he came upon the door, Alexi emerged. He hadn’t spotted Micah yet. Micah noticed the way his boyfriend held his stomach and the way he staggered slightly as he walked. He called out to him.

Alexi jumped, but quickly composed himself. Before the pair could head back into the madness of the con, Micah pulled Alexi to the wall.

“You were gone forever, Alexi.” Micah said, sounding a bit annoyed, though he changed his tone to something softer as he carried on. “What’s going on? Are you feeling alright?”

Alexi slumped his shoulder against the wall. Apparently, he wasn’t so good at hiding his pain. In that moment, he was sure that his face was sickly green and betrayed the truth of how he was feeling. The sour taste of vomit was fresh on his tongue, but he tried to ignore that while he spoke. Micah didn’t need to know that he was throwing up, because then he would surely make them all go home, and Alexi couldn’t do that. They’d all been waiting a year for this con. He could keep up the semblance of health.

Alexi’s face turned red. “My stomach was a little upset, but it’s better now.” That was lie…but Micah didn’t know that. In truth, Alexi’s stomach was killing him. He would have loved for Micah to take him home.

“You sure? It’s okay if you need more time, I was just worried before.”

“Yeah I’m sure, let’s go.”

“Okay…” Micah said hesitantly. He wasn’t entirely convinced, especially with the way Alexi was holding his belly, but he didn’t want to press the matter and make Alexi embarrassed.

It was easy enough to find Madix and Riley. They were pulled off to the side of the room, casually watching the cosplayers walk by and gawking at their favourite characters come to life.

When Alexi approached them, he looked less alive than he had seconds ago. His belly was still so upset, despite having just thrown up; apparently, he rushed himself a bit too much. He stumbled to the wall and caught himself, narrowly stopping his aching head from colliding with drywall.

“Whoa Alexi,” Riley said, reaching his hand out to grab his friend’s shoulder, “you look rough.”

Madix got closer as well, which Alexi wasn’t too thrilled about considering that he was pretty sure he was about to heave his stomach into his hands.

Madix looked back and forth between Alexi and Micah, wondering if Micah had noticed his boyfriend’s state. “Lex, you look like you’re about to pass out. Your face is grey.”

Micah wanted to jump in and relieve Alexi of everyone staring at him, but he really did look awful. Perhaps it was worse than what Alexi was letting on. “Babe, I thought you were feeling better. Tell us what’s wrong so we can help.”

As if he were drunk, Alexi’s vision darkened and he swayed where he stood. There was no denying it now, not when his friends were interrogating him like this. “I feel awful,” he admitted, while dragging his back down the wall and sitting on the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest and groaned.

At the same time, the three other boys all crouched down as well. When Alexi’s eyes focused, he found both Micah and Madix staring at him worriedly. But they were so close, too close. He only wanted Micah. Just Micah and no one else. He wanted to be away from all the noise, the people talking, the bright lights, the crowds.

He put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I tried to ignore it, but my stomach is a mess, I can’t stop throwing up, my head is killing me, my –”

Micah put his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “What! You threw up?”

Alexi nodded miserably.

“Oh Alexi,” Madix added, “you should have said something.” He gave a sympathetic look to the sick boy, seeing the way his nose dripped with sweat.

Madix instinctively reached his hand up to touch Alexi’s forehead, then paused with his hand hovering halfway in the air. “May I?”

Alexi nodded weakly, already aware of what Madix was going to find. His golden curls were brushed back by Madix’s cool hand that felt nice against his burning skin. He leaned into the touch, momentarily letting someone else support the weight of his head.

“Shit, man.” Madix pulled his hand away slowly. “You’re on fire. No wonder you feel like crap.”

Alexi moaned and curled in on himself. “I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“Yeah, we’re going home right now,” Micah said decidedly. “Lexi, can you stand?”

Alexi probably could not have stood up in that moment, but he didn’t need to try because it was then that his stomach decided to spasm again. He retched emptily at first, succeeding only in making his body lurch forward. Everyone took a step back out of shock, and everyone except Riley moved back to keep Alexi from falling forward.

The second heave burst from his chest, sending up a thick wave of vomit that covered his legs and dripped down his chin. Alexi choked out a sob and squeezed his eyes shut as a felt his stomach do another flip. By this point, Micah was rubbing his back and muttering something sweet he couldn’t hear. Blood was pulsing in his ears, making him dizzy and drowning out any attempt at comforting him.

God, he felt so sick. His stomach continued to contract painfully, even when he had nothing left to throw up. He clutched at his chest while he heaved dryly in the crowded room. Thankfully, Micah and Madix were partially covering him from view. This privacy, however, did nothing to lessen the gut churning sensation in felt in the pit of his stomach.

By the time he finished, his cheeks were streaked with tears, his chest was tight, and his hands were shaking. The worst part was that he still felt like hell.

Micah was soothingly brushing his hair away from his face. “Alright, take it easy, babe. Try to catch your breath.”

“I feel so sick,” he moaned while looking at the mess drying on his crotch. “I want to go home.”

“I know you do.” Micah said, still gently massaging Alexi’s head. “Madix and Riley went to find the car, so you don’t have to walk as far.”

Alexi wanted to thank his boyfriend. He wanted to apologize for being sick. He wanted to do so many things, but he couldn’t even keep his head from lolling around. He simply closed his eyes and wished for the day to be over. He wished to be lying in bed while Micah played with his hair. If it was any consolation, part of that wish came true. 

[richietozierluv]

it was final - (richie tozier) part 5 of 5

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Reader

Summary: Back to where it all began, the heart of the town, the infamous house.

Author’s Note: this took me forever to write and feel free to leave any angry complaints about any damage I've caused

Word Count: 2,455

Warnings: Swearing, ?Angst?

 In some ideal world, where clowns didn’t exist to torture children, and boys didn’t pull knives on their own fathers, perhaps there’d be an ending in which everybody could be happy. But, it is inevitable for things to go terribly wrong.

For the longest time, your only fear had been the shapes of the shadows in your bedroom late at night. You would lay awake hoping that the pile of clothes on your floor wouldn’t start moving, or that at least the monster underneath would be polite enough to introduce itself before devouring you whole. Not before long, you had gotten over this fear, and had planted a new one, in the boy that made your heart and your eyes flutter. From that, grew not the fear of him, but the fear of a life without.

So, when the words left your mouth, “Go fuck yourself Richie,” you felt as if you had taken another leap off of the Quarry, but this time, without his hand in yours; and you thought to yourself whether or not that was how he felt when he had said, “you’re a real bitch you know that?”

-

“What’s the plan?” Beverly stood up next to Bill, sparing Richie a pitiful glance, remembering all the times she had caught him with you in this exact place.

“We should find Y/n, right? She’s the reason we’re here in the first place,” Eddie said. They all looked at Richie, who was staring at the ground, with his hands pulling slightly at his hair. “Rich, do you know where she could’ve gone?”

“M-m-maybe she wuh-went t-to the barrens?” added Bill, now wringing his hands and staring left and right down the street, looking for something.

“No. I don’t think she- she wouldn’t go to the Barrens,” Richie stood up, “and I don’t think we should find her, yet.”

“W-w-what?”

“Just think about it,” he started to pace, while Eddie shared a worried look with Beverly, “this summer, the times we saw IT individually weren’t that bad, yeah?”

“Sp-sp-speak for y-yourself,”

“I just mean, that the real shit, the shit that almost killed us, only started happening when Mike finally joined. When it became the 8 of us,”

“Richie, that- that was just a coincidence,” Beverly shook her head.

“No! No it wasn’t! Bill- you know what I’m talking about,” Richie turned to him, and it was as if he were looking through Bill.

“B-but it’s j-j-just the fuh-five of us this t-time,”

“I don’t think that matters. Honestly, Derry probably couldn’t be happier,”

“So what are you saying?” Eddie finally stood up, now there was a sharp pain in his arm that he chose to ignore, “just let Y/n deal with this by herself? Are you kidding-“

“When we left Derry, something broke, didn’t it?” Beverly turned to Bill.

“Y/n’s s-still a p-part of D-Derry. Sh-she never left,” he held onto her hand, “I think- w-we’re okay, o-or at least a-alive for now, wuh-while we’re sp-split up,”

Richie sighed, a mixture of relief and guilt for having let you walk away, “Okay, so what do we-“

“E-except y-you Richie,”

“Sorry, what-?”

-

You barely noticed where you were going, too distracted by the look Richie had given you before you turned to walk away, and how that could possibly be the last time you saw him. It probably wouldn’t have hurt so much if he didn’t smile, or if he begged you to stay. And if you had known that he had broken down the moment you turned the street corner, maybe you would have run back, and maybe you wouldn’t be standing in front of the infamous house on Neibolt Street. But you didn’t know, and your feet had crossed the threshold as soon as you realised that this was your worst idea yet.

“I know you’re not dead,” you whispered, walking past the lower floors, and straight up the stairs. If you had taken the time to look around, you would have noticed that behind the decaying wallpaper, ‘missing person’ posters plastered the drywall, displaying the faces of everybody who now lived in Derry, and the faces of those who had come back to save you. “I’ve had enough of your shit okay?” you didn’t bother to speak above a whisper, “but please,” you started to sob despite not being able to cry, “don’t hurt them- d-don’t hurt them, p-p-please.” The door shut behind you as you stumbled over the uneven floor and into the bathroom, where six months ago, you came face to face with IT for the first time.

-

“Y-you’ve a-already gone and s-seen her. And if y-your theory is t-true, I d-don’t think-“

“No, no that’s not what I meant!” Richie looked around at the others, who were staring at the ground awkwardly, not meeting his eyes.

“Richie, s-stop, I mean, y-you can actually go help Y/n in-instead,”

“She doesn’t want my help, she doesn’t even wanna fucking see me,” he sat back down on the curb, his face in his heads, barely audible, “she’s better off without me,”

They stood there in silence, unsure of what to say, until Eddie sat down, putting an arm around Richie’s shoulders. “I hate to agree with him Rich, but- I think she’d take any help at this point. And look,” he chewed his lip nervously, “we know that blood on you isn’t just hers.”

Richie looked up at Eddie, lost for words, shaking under his friend’s arm, when Beverly had just noticed the familiar dark red stain on his shirt from what must’ve been months ago.

“How- Richie isn’t that from-?” she took a step closer, and gasped when she realised that the blood was fresh, and much worse than she could remember.

“It happened ages ago, when Henry had his knife to my stomach,” his breathing hitched as he laughed, “You remember that right? When I punched him?”

“So, why is it- what happened to you?” Beverly couldn’t bring herself to laugh along with the others.

“B-by seeing Y/n, I- I think he’s kind of, I dunno, a part- part of Derry again,” Bill felt Beverly tense up beside him. “And, the same- the same thing tha-that’s happening to her, i-is happening to R-Richie.”

“And the blood on my hands, I think- the scars from when Stan cut us, they’re opening up?”

Bill nodded, noticing the look on Eddie’s face, and how he clutched his arm.

“E-Eddie-“

“I know where she is,” Richie had interrupted Bill, and stood up, “I’ll catch up with you later, and if Y/n’s not dead yet, I might bring her too,”

Eddie glared at him, “Beep beep, Richie.”

-

You stared at the drain in the middle of the tiled room, then at the broken toilet in the corner, remembering Richie’s joke from six months ago, and smiling, despite being too terrified to move. Your friends’ voices could be heard as if they were standing right next to you, yelling at Beverly to just fucking shoot it, and from the corner of your eye, you could see Ben cowering in the bathtub, clutching at his bleeding stomach.

 As you turned to help him and yell at the others, wondering why they weren’t doing anything, your feet slipped in the blood that had been dry not even two seconds ago. Your nose caught most of the impact from the edge of the tub, bringing back the throbbing pain, and at the same time, Richie had tripped over the house’s front steps; you both swore in unison, “fucking hell-”

The cut in his stomach had only gotten deeper as he made his way from Bill to you, and now, along with the renewed bleeding in his hands, he could taste blood in his mouth. Before standing up, he had taken his shirt off and wrapped it around his waist in an attempt to stem the flow, and carefully made his way back up the stairs. He reluctantly walked into the house and through to the living room, where his throat had become devoid of any saliva, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up, accompanied by goose bumps.

There, sitting on the couch and gathered around the coffee table, were a dozen or so mannequins, with red balloons for heads. The most he could get out was a sob, before the balloon closest to him had popped, splattering blood onto the furniture, the floor, and himself. If it weren’t for Richie noticing that his face stared back at him on the wall, remembering how he had seen that exact poster during the summer, he would still be standing with his feet glued to the floorboards, and in the presence of Pennywise the clown.

-

Beverly, Bill, and Eddie found themselves in a moral predicament. On one hand, they knew that Richie wouldn’t be coming back, but whether or not that meant he’d be alive was a question they couldn’t answer. And if he were in trouble, who’s to say that by risking their own lives, that they wouldn’t be putting him in even more danger.

“I d-don’t think Richie will m-muh-make it with that c-c-cut, Eddie’s a-arm’s getting b-bad again and he ha-hasn’t sp-spoken to Y/n since he- he’s been in Derry,”

“And we don’t know what’s happened to her either,” Eddie breathed in sharply, “for all we know- shit, I don’t even wanna think about what she’s gone through,”

“But what do we do Bill? If we all get together, won’t it just- what if Richie’s theory is true?” Beverly looked up from where she sat, her hands shaking as she fumbled with her hair.

“We- we’ve survived b-before, right? And this t-t-time should be eh-easier; when we left IT six muh-months ago, we hurt IT p-p-pretty badly,”

-

He ran up the stairs, tripping over every other step and looking over his shoulder, making sure that nothing had followed him. But it wouldn’t have mattered if something was, as in all the commotion, Richie’s contacts had fallen out; he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a rotting house plant and a murderous clown. When he reached the second floor landing he had quickly got to his feet, narrowly sidestepping a dead rat, and held his hands out for the closest thing to hold on to. This had been an array of stacked wine bottles, and much to his luck, they toppled to the ground, glass cutting his shins, but disrupting the conversation in the bathroom.

-

You sat slumped against the bathtub, one hand on the edge trying to pull yourself up, and one hand pinching the top of your nose, trying to stop the bleeding. If you hadn’t felt so weak, you might have jumped when you noticed that your reflection in the mirror stood where you sat, staring at you with a blank expression.

“You alright Y/n? What happened? Are you hurt?” the ‘you’ in the mirror repeated the words your dad had said when he found you in the kitchen, a dead cat two feet from where you cried.

“What are you?-“

“Did you do this? Did you do this? Did you dothis? Did youdothis? Didyoudothis?” your reflection’s head spun around, repeating the question over and over again, now in your dad’s voice. You found yourself unable to tell what was real and what wasn’t; hitting your head had rendered your mind foggy, and no matter how hard you tried to scream “I didn’t!” all that came from your lips were a sob. All that lay between you and the other ‘you’ had been a screen of glass, and even in your state of mind you realised that there was nothing you could do. But as you sat there, your body hurting from all that had happened in the past three days, almost hopeful that this would be the end of it, the shatter of glass hadn’t come from the mirror, but from the hall outside the bathroom door.

-

There had been no time to think that the sound had come from anything but Richie, if the situation were different you’d laugh at his clumsiness. Your reflection had stopped spinning, its head turned to the door, then back to you, and as you both made eye contact you yelled, “Richie?!”, finally able to stand up. Hearing your voice, he waded through the dark, calling your name, following the sound as you called back; a twisted game of Marco Polo. The door wouldn’t budge, you tried to turn the handle as Richie kicked and elbowed the door from the other side, and with every sob, you could hear glass slowly cracking, and small pieces falling into the sink below.

“Richie! I’m so sorry,” you fell back from the door, nails digging into the palm of your hands, “it’s useless!” Trapped in this room, with the continued rhythm of Richie kicking the door, it would drive anyone insane. You watched, tears streaming down your face, as the mirror gradually became nothing but a hole in the wall; a window to a room just like this one.

-

All at once the kicking had stopped, and the door stood perfectly still, the only sound being the drip, drip, dripping of glass against porcelain. You backed away into the corner of the room, at a loss for what to do, but you didn’t dare call for Richie, more scared of the lack of answer than any at all.

“Stand back!”

“Beverly?!” the shock of hearing her voice had left you unprepared for what happened next, and as the wall came forward, so did the bathtub and the tiles around you. Bits and pieces cut into your already bruised arms and legs, but the pain meant nothing as you lowered your arms to see Richie running toward you through the smoke and dust of the explosion. He smelled of blood as he wrapped himself around you, and you couldn’t help but cry as you thought, why is he so damn cold?

Whether he even had the strength to let go, he didn’t, he held on to you as your entire body shook; your eyes burned as they strained to look through the smoke, for something that wasn’t entirely human like. Everything was quiet for a moment as you felt Richie shiver against you, ash falling onto his skin, but the only thing that emerged from the dust had been Bill, coughing and spluttering, unable to stop the tears falling down his face.

“B-Bill is everything okay?” the moment you had opened your mouth, you began to cough too.

“We f-f-f-fucking did it,” you’d forgotten what Bill looked like when he smiled.

-

But Richie had lost too much blood.

AN: im aware of the irony of leaving a piece of writing titled ‘it was final’ with an open ending, but for the most part it WAS final, and i suppose it’s pretty self explanatory to what happens to him ):

hopefully you enjoyed!!! again sorry it took me so long, between being in a depressive slump and writer’s block, i tried my best to write whenever i could, which mainly meant me staring at the laptop screen for a few hours

i could always write an epilogue??? but honestly its time for more things but of course if anyone would want that, id be happy to, and it’d probably be pretty short

tagged: @riverdalerebel @johnsonxstilinski @littlepaperaeroplanes @tn22220-blog @goshdarnitthatsalongname @griff1ndor @emmaamalie @longlivethetampon

[yeats-infection]

here is an evil, angst-laden prank story for kindly philanthropist, lovely @megisla. i am sorry, but also thank you, and thanks too to @ababelofprose for inspiring much of this. 

--

When he woke up he didn’t remember what had happened. It started hurting in waves like it normally did but then it kept coming. Eventually he realized something was wrong. When he tried to sit up, it became clear that the chief thing that was wrong was that he could not feel his hands, which looked as though they had been put through a thresher.

He wondered if he was dreaming. He was alone in the room and he wondered where they were. Perhaps they had gone for help. He tried to call out for them but it was as though he had swallowed something that had burned his entire mouth and throat and chest in the night.

It was the worst it had been in his memory. Eventually he could feel it hammering a red-hot stake down through the back of his neck just beside his spine blow by blow like a dull nail into solid drywall. And yet even in this state his bruised mind wrapped around this uncertainty like an oyster around a bit of sand and in so doing it began to harden and calcify: Something very bad had happened.

Pomfrey came scampering in after about nine thousand eternities of helpless suffering and knocked him out pretty much instantly with magic which dissolved the rough tearing fabric of reality into a soft velvet darkness in which untold evil things moved silently.

--

The next thing was, it was full dark again in the high window above his customary bed in the far back corner of the hospital wing, and James’s untamed hair was manifesting frizzily from the folds of his Invisibility Cloak. The curtains, which were equipped with powerful silencing charms, had been pulled tightly around the bed and so James was sitting cross-legged at the end of it. He looked as though he had not slept in days and had spent 90% of his waking time engaged in weeping out of anger. “Don’t try to talk,” he whispered before Remus could say anything. “When old girl was talking about your throat she said shredded.”

It took Remus a minute to disentangle his hands from the blankets. They were bound in a quantity of bandages that may have struck him as comical if they were on anyone else, and they felt like clubs.

“Don’t try to move your fingers either,” said James. “In fact it’s probably best if you just lie still and don’t do anything at all.”

Remus tried to point his nose toward the cup of water at the bedside, which Pomfrey had stuck a multicolor twirly straw in out of some charming motherly attempt to distract him from whatever would soon be obvious. James leaned over him and brought the cup close to his mouth and angled the straw so Remus could reach it. There was something in the water which soothed his throat. James smelled like something charred and his eyes were red and wet in the corners. What happened, Remus mouthed at him when he’d sat back down again.

“I hardly want — Jesus. Of course it bloody has to be me.”

So Sirius had done something. This, Remus thought, should have been altogether obvious from the beginning.

James took a deep breath and sighed dramatically.

In the same manner that the whole thing happened on November 1, 1981, Remus did not think it would be as bad as it was, and he had not even considered the actuality as something that might be remotely possible.

“He told,” James said. Then he stopped. He looked up into the window above the bed as though seeking strength. Remus painfully swatted him with the club hand he had freed from the blankets. “He told Snape,” said James.

Remus thought nothing at first. Then he thought, I am dreaming.

“Luckily he told me about it. So I went running after him but he’d got, you know, he’d got to the door. So.”

He tried a word. He wasn’t even sure what the word was but it felt like he’d swallowed a razor.

“Don’t try to talk,” James said again. “He saw. But I got him. It was all just fine.”

The razor had a sentence carved on it which was: I’M NOT ALL JUST FINE.

“The problem is,” James went on, pointedly looking at the headboard of the bed past Remus’s ear, “you — well, it. It got ideas. You know like, when a dog sees you’re eating food… and it just — ”

His stomach twisted and he pressed the club fist over his mouth. The acid was like about twenty more razors. James had leant over him again to clasp his shoulder manfully in some display of sympathy or shared strength. For a moment they attempted nonverbal communication which resulted in not much gained, except that James’s eyes had welled up a little again.

“They’ve talked to him,” James said, “to Snape. He won’t tell anyone.” A choking kind of breath escaped Remus’s mouth as a farce of laughter. “And Sirius has got detention for the rest of his life. The only reason he’s not expelled is because Dumbledore knows if they sent him home he’d probably be vivisected by his French cousins. Or worse, join them.”

Remus looked up past James into the high window where the waning moon cast an itchy silver light through the frosted glass. Perhaps it was good that he could not speak or write because if he could he might’ve said something extremely regrettable. Chiefly: I fucking hope he gets vivisected, and/or, your making bullshit excuses for him is potentially your tragic flaw.

James sat with him for a while and eventually fell asleep lying at the end of the bed like a dog with the invisibility cloak uncannily covering his entire body except for his head. Remus didn’t sleep again and at dawn he was obliged to wake James with his foot so that he would not be caught and subjected to detention with Sirius.

--

The man himself visited the evening following. He looked, as was customary under pressure, like some feral child mystic consulted for augury by the ancient Celtic tribes on the eve of battle with the Romans. He looked as though he had been running for hours and like perhaps he had thrown up very recently. Remus hated him with the heat of a thousand suns. A few hours previous Pomfrey had taken the bandages off his hands, because most of the bones had healed. A few others would take longer, and all the skin would take longest of all, because he had literally chewed it off. She had replaced the bandages with lighter ones and as such Remus folded his arms across his chest so that the damage was more visible. Go away, he mouthed.

“What?”

This was so powerfully stupid, completely ridiculous, and overwhelmingly Sirius that Remus was suddenly certain he had the faculties to get to his feet, forego magic entirely, and deliver a powerful right hook directly to the jaw. “Go,” he croaked instead, like an animate corpse through the blood-slaked wasteland of his throat, “away.”

“Jesus,” said Sirius. He sat down at the edge of the bed entirely uninvited and scrubbed a hand over his face. The invisibility cloak slipped over his shoulders to reveal he was in rumpled Muggle clothes, connoting the obvious reality that it had perhaps been days since he had gone to class or showered. “Jesus fuck,” Sirius went on.

“What in heaven’s name did you think would happen.”

“Stop bloody talking,” Sirius said, “you sound like death.” This of course made Remus want to scream at the top of his lungs until it woke up everyone in the castle. “I wasn’t really thinking, if you must know,” Sirius went on.

It was so obvious, and in fact so applicable to just about everything Sirius did, that Remus refused to address it.

“I would’ve been sentenced to death,” Remus told him.

“No you wouldn’t’ve.”

“Says you.”

“No, I looked it up. Azkaban, actually.”

“Worse then.”

“Yeah.” Sirius sighed. “Maybe different ‘cause you’re underage.”

This was a pretty lie. Remus coughed to clear something disgusting from his throat. Sirius watched him have a sip of the water at the bedside through the twisty straw. “It isn’t you,” Sirius said, “in my mind. That’s why.”

“What?”

“That thing. It isn’t you.”

He could feel his voice cut his throat. “It bloody well fucking is me!”

“Well I know that, like, I know that now,” Sirius said. “I just. Well I thought it would be funny.”

No one, Remus didn’t say, tried to say, couldn’t say, in fact would never say (because he himself was potentially one of the worst culprits), though he’d wanted to say it for years and would want to say it for many more years, no one ever did you the favor of telling you no. And what a fucking massive tragedy for us all. He lay back upon the ecstasy of fluffed pillows thinking if perhaps he ignored the rest of it from here on out Sirius might just go away.

“I didn’t mean for. Well I didn’t know you’d — ”

He was looking at the limp bloody mess of Remus’s left hand which appeared against the pristine white blankets like some terrible roadkill. At first Remus felt sort of vengeful about it but then it all faded into embarrassment and he tucked it around his side to hide it from view.

“I thought it might just scare him,” Sirius said. “Take him down a notch you know. So he might leave us alone.”

“Well he won’t now.”

“He said — ”

Sirius seemed to realize for the first time, somehow, that it didn’t quite matter what Severus had said. He scuffed a bare foot against the floor. “Have you been sleeping in the kitchens,” Remus asked him. This was what had happened last time Sirius and James had had a fight, though that time it had been about which of them would do the Arithmancy homework and which of them would copy it. In the end, of course, they had both copied Remus’s Arithmancy homework.

“The house elves kicked me out.”

“Wise. Wise creatures.”

“James will kill me if I go back there without you forgiving me.”

So this, unsurprisingly, was the crux of the motivation. “You want me to sign an excused absence note or something for you to give him?”

“A what?”

“A — they had them at Muggle school. An excused absence — never mind. Go up to the room of requirement then.”

“I tried. I think the old man’s done something. It was like a greenhouse full of yellow roses. I’ve gotten thorns all in the cloak.”

Sirius showed Remus one, which was embedded in the fine silvery fabric. It had scratched a mess of runic patterns beading blood at his elbow. Probably he had gone in the dorm when James wasn’t there to dig it out from wherever he was hiding it these days.

“What are you supposed to say when you hurt your friend,” Remus hinted after a while.

Sirius looked up like a dog having smelt something on the draught through the high window. “Oh — well I won’t do it again. I won’t do anything like it again. Like I said I know now, I know — ”

“But what — Jesus Christ. There’s a bloody word for it.”

Sirius was watching him now very closely and the silver in his eye was like the moon upon the floor. Remus had the feeling, which he customarily did in circumstances at all familiar, that he was doing himself some kind of disservice he could not yet name and that one day he would regret this and indeed this entire relationship with a consuming hellfire fierceness. Which of course was true. And that as such at the end of it more than a fraction of the complete endeavor would be his own fault. His father, a sometime criminal prosecutor who worked closely with the Wizengamot, was very fond of the idiom it takes two to tango. “Sorry,” Sirius said, “I’m sorry.”

He might’ve said, how could you. Never speak to me again. You spoiled evil brat. You equivalent monster. Or any number of similar invectives. He would’ve meant, he thought, all of them, to the core of his bones; of course he said nothing, or rather he said, “Go get me those flowers.”

“What?”

“Go get me like a bouquet of the bloody yellow roses.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Go on. And a treacle tart.”

Sirius got up and scrubbed a hand over his face again. Remus did not doubt that this was a fiction so as he might pretend to have been crying. As a kind of impulsive afterthought he leant over the bed and embraced Remus so tightly it hurt all the jostled pieces, and for some reason kissed his cheek. His hair was soft and smelled unwashed and like a cookfire. Why Remus returned this embrace he could not be sure. Or rather he thought later he could be sure and this was the worst part of it. Sirius pressed his face against Remus’s neck. His heartbeat was swift and shattering in the back of his shirt against Remus’s palm. Then he pulled away and covered himself with the cloak and disappeared.

Remus lay back in the bed against the pillows and tested one by one the functioning of the bending of his knees. He watched through the gap in the curtains the door to the hospital wing open and shut around nothing. Already he had begun as was customary to question everything that he had said. And already one of the several wounds had begun to fester, but he would not understand how badly for several years, by which point it would be too far gone to heal.

[antiriko-arc]

make this pain worth it. | p2

Nathaniel Wesninski was a very dangerous man. 

Raised with a blade in his hand and taught cruelty, he knew how to hurt someone. He knew which bits to cut open, how to make them scream and beg and plead for their life. He knew how to get what he wanted from someone. And then he didn't care. It wasn't his job to dispose of the bodies. Lola did that. Nathaniel didn't care what happened to the bodies. As long as Lola did her job, Nathaniel never had to think of it ever again. That's what life was like. You tortured, maimed, and then you killed. The bodies got burned or buried or whatever the fuck Lola did with them, and you moved on. Since he was born, he had lived through the same day over, and over again. Nathaniel was a born killer. 

He was a dangerous, unprotected man. “Nathaniel,” Nathan said, calling his son over. A single finger curled beneath Nathaniel's chin, forcing him to stare into each other's eyes. Nathaniel hated how cruel his father's eyes were, how cold and lifeless they were. He hated his own identical pair. “I have a present for you. Though this one is not for you to play with.” Nathaniel's brow furrowed, bottom lip jutting out for a mere second before he wiped his expression blank. He tensed, waiting for the sting of Nathan's hand across his cheeks. It never came. “I bought someone for you,” Nathan said, other fingers curling around Nathaniel's jaw, nails biting into his skin, small amounts of pain blossoming across his. If you moved, it got worse, until blood streamed down your skin and the pain didn’t stop. The pain never stopped. Ever. "His name is Andrew Minyard. He will be here soon. You will give him the Wesninski greeting, yes?” Nathan asked, the venom lacing his tone hardly distinguishable to Nathaniel’s trained ears. Nathaniel bowed his head, dropping his gaze from his father.

The nails digging into the skin let loose, and Nathaniel felt as if the weight on his shoulders had lessened, like he was able to stand on his feet once again. He wiped his hand over his skin, and looked at the smear of red over his skin. He had seen enough blood to not even flinch, but the sensitivity of the open wounds made Nathaniel grit his teeth. He had been hurt enough to learn that Nathan expected no reaction. If you moved, cried out, did anything to show how the pain had affected you, it only got worse. His scars had healed long ago, but Nathaniel could swear they ached.

The sound of feet brought Nathaniel’s eyes up, and in walked Lola. She had a bruise blooming at the base of her throat, light purple in stark contrast to her skin. She wore her smile, and Nathaniel saw a second figure following her.

He was short, face hidden in shadow, but Nathaniel could tell he had a shock of blonde hair that fell into his face. Lola stopped, waiting for the other to walk in front of her. Nathaniel stared at him, eyes narrowing at the sight of the stranger.

“Junior, I brought your present,” Lola said, cocking her head. Nathaniel bit back a scowl at the nickname, and merely nodded in her direction. Nathaniel assumed that the stranger was his new bodyguard.

Andrew Minyard.

He wasn’t much to look at, small and with a Cheshire Cat grin plastered on his face, so similar to Lola’s own. Nathaniel could assume that he was the one who put the bruise on Lola. A small smirk hitched itself onto his face at the thought.

“This is Andrew,” Nathaniel asked, and Lola nodded.

“He's a dangerous son of a bitch,” she said, hand pressing against the mark fleetingly. “He's highly medicated, but we'll be taking him off it.”

Nathaniel stepped forward, finger extended towards Andrew. “Touch me and I'll break your arm,” he said, voice calm. Nathaniel could hear the dangerous undertones.

Nathaniel did scowl now, which only seemed to widen Andrew’s grin. “Do you know what you are? You are my property. I will do with you what I please. Otherwise, I'll kill you.”

“Do it,” Andrew said. A challenge. He knew how it was going to end for him. It was just a matter or when. Nathaniel wanted to scream at him. He wanted to hit him and feel his body underneath his hands. He wanted to feel him being taken apart. Violence was the only thing that Nathaniel excelled at.

“How long until we take him off his meds?” he asked.

“When do you want him?” Lola replied easily.

“Now,” he said. He could feel his anger pulsing inside of him, hot and dark and deadly. He could barely feel the dull bite of his nails into the soft flesh of his palms. He stared at Andrew’s smile, and every moment that passed it felt like Andrew was taunting him. Nathaniel turned away from him, mouth twisting into his father’s smile.

He wanted to hurt someone.

Because the only way he knew how to deal with feelings: to bleed, to make someone feel as fucked as he did. There was a ragged hole inside of him, and nothing fixed it. No matter how many bodies lay at his feet, no matter how much blood coated his hands, nothing would ever make him feel better. Nathaniel was fundamentally broken.

He would never be fixed.

It was a sad existence, and it belonged to him.

“Just get him out of here,” Nathaniel hissed, waiting to hear the sound of receding footsteps. He wouldn’t let himself look back if Andrew was still there. He didn’t trust himself to not lash out at him.

“Right away, Junior,” Lola replied. Nathaniel stiffened, chewing at his lower lip in anger. He could taste blood on his tongue, could feel the dull ache in his mouth. But he kept gnawing at the skin until he heard them leave. And then he was all alone.

His first cry was pitiful. It called for sympathy, for someone to come and take him away from all of this. The next was fuelled with anger. It was spiteful, hateful. Nathaniel walked forward, and put his fist through the wall. And then another. He hit the wall until his hands were numb, until he couldn’t hear the sound of his labored breathing. The wall was a mess, drywall and dust littered the area, a gaping hole in the wall. Nathaniel examined his hands quickly, wiping the dust on his pants.

Nathan would hurt him for this, for the mess he made. Nathaniel couldn’t bring himself to care. He wondered if this was what his life would have been like if he wasn’t so scared of his father.

Nathaniel moved through the house, towards the room designated for Andrew. All the dogs lived there when they first entered the house. Lola waited outside, her smile wiped from her face, replaced with a scowl.

“He’s rabid, Junior. He’s high as a fucking kite and he tried to take my head off,” she spat, “so just imagine what he’ll be like sober.”

“Maybe you would be better without your head,” Nathaniel replied, twisting the doorknob.