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whumpy-wyrms · 2 months ago

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Blood Runs Cold #2: You Poor Thing

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content: captivity, cold whump, starvation, dehydration, begging, strangulation, mind control, blood drinking, non permanent death, defiant immortal whumpee, creepy vampire whumper

IT’S BACK!!! finally gonna start writing this series again, sorry for the long wait!!

—

Aspen slowly opened his eyes, and once again, the first thing he noticed was how cold he was. But unlike being trapped in a thin metal freezer, Aspen was laying on a small mattress.

He curled into himself, shivering violently. After realizing there were no blankets to keep him warm, he sat up, but immediately felt the dizziness hit him. He groaned in pain, his head pounding and his body aching from his last death. His last death.

Everything that had happened the last day came flooding back to him like a punch to the gut.

He died. Twice— no, three times, apparently, though he didn’t remember the first time—

And he came back.

It hurt to think about— what any of this could possibly mean. Nobody could just die and come back to life! …But here he was. Alive and well. Aspen almost thought it could all have been one bad dream, if not for the dull pain in his neck. He traced his fingers over his throat, and felt two small scars from where the vampire had drank from. The vampire.

That thing was what had killed him- bit into him- tore him apart. And it said it would do it again. Aspen had to get out of here. He couldn’t stand the thought of being around that monster again, he couldn’t.

He took a deep breath and decided to start looking around the room he found himself in, though that didn’t help much since all around him was complete darkness, not a window or flicker of light in sight. The mattress beneath him felt rough and grimey; it definitely hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Aspen put his hand to the wall to steady himself as he stood, feeling the chill and cracks of the cement on his fingertips.

He took a step, but heard a rattle of metal coming from the floor. He took another step, feeling a heavy weight and cold chill on his left ankle and he realized that he was chained to the wall. Shit.

Aspen tugged on the chain a bit, to no use. So he started walking anyway, wanting to see the furthest he could go. He walked around the room and held his hands out in front of him, trying to see if he could feel anything in the darkness. He eventually found a staircase, but could only get a few steps up until he reached the farthest the chain would allow him. He went around the other side of the room and felt a small drain in the concrete floor. Startled by the new texture under his bare feet, he jumped away, the chain pulling taut on his ankle and causing him to trip and scrape his knees on the concrete. He staggered up and collapsed back on the mattress in defeat.

And that was it. Nothing else in the room offered him much help, and he was stuck waiting in horrible anticipation. It was hopeless; there was no way out of here and he was going to be hurt by that vampire again.

He shook those thoughts away and decided to be smart about this. Sure, Aspen couldn’t actually die— for some reason— but vampires could. All he had to do was find… what was it? Silver? A wooden stake? Aspen never really had been too interested in vampires; he was more of a werewolf type of guy. And he didn’t even know they were real until now, whatever he’d heard about them in the past might not even be true. But nonetheless, he’d find a way to kill that bastard and reunite with Lyle again- wherever she was. He wouldn’t just give up.

. . .

Aspen didn’t know how long it had been since he’d woken up, or how long he had been waiting in the dark, laying curled up on that mattress. He realized soon enough that he was hungry; he hadn’t eaten in who knows how long, and definitely hadn’t drank any water. Oddly enough, he didn’t have to go to the bathroom. After all those deaths, he probably had nothing left in his system.

He also realized, after hours of laying on that mattress with nothing but his anxious thoughts, that the vampire hadn’t given him his glasses. It wasn’t like he needed them in this dark, but he still could hardly see normally without them. He also hadn’t given him his chest binder. He was just wearing his jeans and hoodie, not even a shirt underneath! That asshole. He didn’t know whether it was to humiliate him, give him less warmth, or both, or some other reason, but Aspen had never felt so vulnerable and defenseless.

The vampire had broken his phone, so he obviously couldn’t use that to call for help. Like the corpse that he was, he had nothing. Absolutely nothing that could help him. The only thing he could do was wait.

And after what felt like forever of waiting, stomach aching with unbearable hunger, Aspen heard the thud of footsteps coming from the ceiling above him. They walked slowly until they stopped by the stairs. The click of a lock echoed through the basement, and light finally flooded into the place.

Aspen sat up on the mattress, heart thumping rapidly through his chest as he stared ahead.

Finally, the vampire was back.

The vampire walked down the stairs, taking slow, deliberate steps that echoed in the silence. His wavy black hair fell down in his ghostly pale face. He wore a dark red dress shirt, the first few buttons undone, and a black suit coat hanging messily over his shoulders. Aspen gulped and hugged his knees to his chest, noticing the blood-red eyes peeking through the strands of hair and staring directly at him.

His captor reached the bottom of the stairs and stared down at Aspen, watching him tremble in fear.

“Hello, little corpse,” the vampire said, his voice sending a shiver down his spine.

Despite Aspen having so many things he wanted to say and ask— like let me go, I’m hungry, don’t hurt me— his words went dry in his throat. He felt acutely aware of his position; held captive, frozen in place under the vampire’s intense gaze, afraid that any movement or noise would cause the vampire to pounce and tear him apart again.

“What? Got nothing to say?” The vampire hummed, tilting his head.

Aspen swallowed and tore his eyes away from his captor, deciding to get a look around the now visible room.

The basement was not much larger than he had originally thought. Most of it was empty, but against the left far wall was a large metal table. It was hard to see without his glasses, but squinting his eyes, he could make out various dangerous looking tools and weapons hanging on the wall above it. The sharp blades were all covered in faded, dried blood. Higher on that wall, in the corner by the ceiling, was a small window, boarded up with wood that had looked like it’d been there for ages. Hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the room were various hooks and chains. Dried blood faintly painted the floor by the drain.

That was it. It looked like everything in this place was just made to cause pain, to hurt him.

He looked back at the tools. They were too far away to get to with the chain around his ankle, but if he could somehow get his hands on them, he could defend himself.

Unless… somebody else got his hands on them first.

His eyes flickered back to the vampire, who had been following his gaze to the wall. He smirked.

Aspen’s heart plummeted.

“I see you’ve noticed my—”

“Don’t hurt me!” Aspen said, body trembling. “Please let me go, I- I—”

“Begging already?” The vampire mused, and started walking closer. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

Yet?

“N-no, stay away from me,” Aspen said, backing up against the wall.

“Why would I do that?” His captor walked closer, boots thumping against the concrete. Aspen pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to hide as much of his body as he could, trying to make himself small. The vampire crouched down in front of Aspen and put a hand in his curly hair, gently scritching the top of his head as if he were nothing but a spooked animal. “You’re much cuter up close.”

Aspen trembled under the vampire’s touch, pulling away ever so slightly but being fully backed into the wall, there was nowhere to hide.

“How’re you doin’? You making yourself at home?”

Aspen just stared ahead, mouth agape, words caught in his throat.

“I asked you a question, Aspen,” the vampire hummed in a light tone, though his hand gripped tighter in his hair— a warning.

Aspen swallowed thickly, and said in a quiet, shaky voice, “I-I don’t wanna be here. Let me go.”

“Aw, is it really that bad? I even gave you a mattress and everything.”

Aspen frowned, shivering into his hoodie and wrapping his arms around himself. “It-it’s so- so cold down here. Just let me go.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” the vampire cooed, wiping Aspen’s tears with his thumb. He didn’t even realize he started crying. “I don’t care.”

Aspen sniffled. “I don’t even have my glasses.”

“Oh, of course. You need them to see?” The vampire’s voice was laced in mock sympathy.

Aspen nodded his head, looking up at him through his curls.

“Well, I kinda like it when you look all disoriented and confused. I might just keep you like this forever.”

Aspen’s heart dropped, his despair plastered all over his face. “Why are you doing this?”

“Aw, did you forget already? You exist only for me to drink that delectable blood of yours. You’re nothing but my food. You’re mine. I can do whatever I want to you.”

“B-but- but…” He was speechless. As he struggled to come up with something to say while his captor played with his hair, he saw the vampire’s eyes light up, smiling that horrible grin that showed his deathly sharp fangs.

“Oh, you’re going to be so much fun to break.”

“W-what?” He squeaked.

“We’re going to have so much fun together, Aspen. Just you and I. It’s been so long since I’ve had a human of my own, this place hasn’t had much use in ages, but not anymore. And since you can’t die permanently, I won’t ever have to hold back.”

The vampire’s gaze wandered back to the tools hanging from the wall and the chains hanging from the ceiling. Horrible visions racked Aspen’s mind. Visions of pain. Of agony. Torture. Death. It hadn’t happened to him yet, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He couldn’t do it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to stifle a sob. The vampire was too close. It and its fangs and claws were too close and it was touching him and he didn’t want to be here and why wouldn’t it just let him go?

“Open your eyes, Aspen,” the vampire said in a sing-song tone.

“Huh?” Aspen opened his eyes.

“I like to see the fear in my prey’s eyes as I feed. Makes the blood all the more intoxicating.”

“F-Feed?”

“Did I bash your skull in a little too hard last time?” Silas flicked Aspen’s head roughly with his finger. “Every night I am going to feed from you. And every morning, you will come back to life fully healed and regenerating more blood. The process will repeat itself. It’s simple. No more questions.”

“But I don’t- I don’t want this. I wanna go h-home.” He looked up at the vampire through his curly hair with tears in his wide, terrified eyes. His lips wobbled as he spoke so quietly that it was barely a whisper. “Please.”

“Oh, Aspen. You still think you have a choice. You’re so cute, it’s unbearable. It makes me just want to squeeze the life out of you.” The vampire thought to himself for a moment, before a mischievous grin crossed his face. “And I guess… I can do that, can’t I.” It was more of an observation to himself than a question.

“N-no.”

“Oh, I will.” The vampire broke out into a wide, maniacal grin, fangs looking sharper than ever. “Whenever the fuck I want to. How about now?”

Before Aspen could say anything, the vampire pounced. Inhumanly strong hands wrapped around his neck and shoved him against the wall. His nails dug into Aspen’s delicate skin, causing blood to drip down his throat.

“Ow!” Aspen gasped. “Stop- stop stop stop- please stop.”

The vampire suddenly squeezed his hands tighter around Aspen’s throat, crushing his windpipe. Aspen gasped for breath, but could no longer get any air.

“L-et g-o,” Aspen choked out, a whimper soon broken by his lack of oxygen.

He clawed at his neck, at the vampire’s hands tightening his grip on him, at the blood spilling from the small cuts, desperately doing all he could to get air. But his captor’s hands didn’t budge, they only pressed down harder on his throat.

Aspen’s mouth opened and closed, trying and failing to suck air back into his lungs. He tried to plead, to beg, but no sound came out. Dark spots filled his vision as his lungs screamed for air.

The vampire leaned in and started drinking the blood trickling down his skin. Aspen felt his hands squeezing tighter to get more to spill out, as if he were nothing but a living ketchup packet.

Tears fell down Aspen’s cheeks as he went limp in the vampire’s hold, finally losing strength. He struggled to keep his eyes open, to keep his head from lolling to the side and into the vampire’s grasp, to keep himself from slipping away into unconsciousness, into death.

The vampire squeezed his neck again, this time harder. A horrible crunching sound filled Aspen’s ears, and everything finally went black.

. . .

Aspen gasped awake, hands instinctively flying to his neck to get air- to stop the bleeding—

…That wasn’t there. There was no puncture wound, no blood, not even a scab. Just smooth scars over his skin from where the vampire had scratched him and drank from.

He took a deep, long breath, closing his eyes as sweet refreshing air filled his lungs. He breathed out, and in, and out again. A steady pace to calm his racing heart.

The room was dark again, and the vampire didn’t seem to be in there anymore. He must’ve left after Aspen… died. Maybe that was a good thing. Though, he was still incredibly hungry. And thirsty. And his captor was the only one who could give him that necessity.

He cringed thinking about the last thing he remembered, that moment with the vampire. He shouldn’t be so scared of him. He had to stand up for himself and fight back, that’s what Lyle would have told him if she were there.

He didn’t know what time it was or how long he waited for, but when the basement door opened again, Aspen swallowed his nerves and ran towards the stairs, wasting no time in going as far as the chain would allow him. He was standing on the second step and holding on to the railing, his left leg held out in the air a little bit due to the chain pulling on it.

“H-hey,” Aspen said, looking up at the vampire. “Let me out, I’m so hungry!” He pulled against the chain, not caring about the cold metal digging into his skin, and pushed his arms against the railing as if trying to heave himself up the stairs. “I can’t- can’t take it anymore! Let me go!”

The vampire was standing at the top of the stairs, his entire body cast in a haunting shadow from the light behind him, making him nothing but a looming silhouette. He took a silent step down the stairs, and another.

“Brave little corpse today, huh?” The vampire growled, his two red eyes glowing bright in the darkness. He seemed to be in a different mood today, one that sent a shiver down Aspen’s spine.

“I’m starving. I don’t care what you do to me, I just need food! Please!” Aspen cried.

He didn’t even see it coming.

The vampire pounced, leaping down the stairs and slamming his body straight into Aspen, sending both of them tumbling into the hard concrete floor. Aspen cried out in pain, his entire body hurting from the inhuman force pinning him to the ground. The vampire quickly stepped back and shoved Aspen into the wall by his mattress. After struggling to catch his breath, Aspen’s eyes went wide when he noticed the vampire walking towards him.

“W-Wait!” Aspen exclaimed. “Please don’t hurt me—” He squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating another blow to the head. When that didn’t come, he blinked and saw the vampire crouched down next to him, inspecting the chain around his ankle.

“This chain is much too long.” Before Aspen could do anything, the vampire wrenched it through what had it fastened to the wall, effectively shortening the length Aspen was allowed to walk, leaving the chain only a few feet long now. Aspen could only move around the mattress, and that was it. “Much better.”

He was about to curl into a ball, but he remembered his goal. He needed to stand up for himself. He needed to show him that he wasn’t weak. He blinked back his tears and stared at his captor. “L-let me go!” he demanded. “I’m hungry! Really really hungry. I need food. You can’t just keep me down here!”

“Aspen,” Silas growled, turning to face him. “Are you really making me repeat myself again? You’re mine. My food, to do with as I please.”

His mind raced, frantically trying to come up with anything at all that could change his mind. “If you’re going to- to keep me here, you need to feed me! You can’t just k-keep me starving forever! It hurts! Please!”

“You haven’t died from starvation yet, so why would I waste time and resources letting you eat if you don’t need to? Seems like a big fucking waste to me.”

Aspen looked up, pleading with his eyes that were filled with anger and confusion. his breath hitched in his throat. It was getting harder and harder to be brave. “You ca-can’t do this. You can’t!”

“I can do whatever I want to you.”

Tears fell down his cheeks. “P-please!” he sobbed. “I’m begging you, is that what you want? Please. I’m starving, I—”

“Stop screaming. Holy shit, you’re insufferable. Did you know that?” The vampire turned away from him and started walking towards the other side of the room. “I usually love hearing the horrified screams of my prey, but today isn’t one of those days.”

“Wh-where are you going? —Wait!”

In a flash, the vampire was back to kneeling in front of him, shoving a piece of cloth into his mouth and tying it around his head, effectively gagging him. Aspen reached up to pull it out, but winced when his captor grabbed his wrist and roughly twisted his arms behind his back. The vampire tied his hands together with rope, and pulled it tight. Aspen whimpered as it dug into his skin.

He screamed through the gag, and his captor slapped him roughly across the face, shutting him up. His head shot to the side, and he whimpered as his cheek stung in pain.

Cold, inhumanly strong hands grasped at his shoulders as the monster bit down into his neck, ripping and tearing the flesh away like a deranged animal. He cried out, but there was nothing he could do to stop this. It wasn’t long after that Aspen’s world went dark yet again.

. . .

Time seemed to stretch on in one big blur. The vampire came to the basement to feed, to kill, and throw any and all kinds of hurt or pain into the mix that he wanted. No matter how much Aspen pleaded for it to stop, that only seemed to fuel the vampire’s cruelty. He mocked him for being weak, for being unable to do anything against him. His captor would either kill him or leave him alone in the basement until he came back hours later, alive but in no way living.

It was always dark, and Aspen didn’t know how many days were spent down there. He thought that if the vampire fed once a day, he’d been in the basement for at least five. Five days without food or water. Five days trapped in a cold, dark room with nothing but his worried, anxious thoughts to distract him from the agonizing pain. Not to mention however long he’d been in the morgue before this, however long ago he’d died the first time.

But he could be wrong; he really didn’t know how long he’d been trapped here for. It could have been a few days or a few months and he’d have no way to tell. He wondered if anyone was looking for him, or where Lyle was, or if he’d ever be able to see the sun again. Surely, he’d be rescued in no time. He was going to get out of here, he just had to wait.

He laid his cheek against the rough mattress, arms still tied behind his back and gag stuck firmly in his mouth. Even though he tried to stay optimistic, sometimes, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was his life now. Cursed to be trapped starving in a basement and used as a vampire’s bloodbag for all of eternity— and killed, over and over, that too.

He found the actual death to be somewhat… peaceful, as grim as that sounded. It was the only escape he got from the pain before he was forced back into the cold cruelty of the basement— of his life. It was an unwelcome distraction, but it was at least something. He always hated having nothing to do, being bored out of his mind. At least now he got a break every now and again.

Then, for the first time in days, he heard something new. Aspen’s ears perked up, listening closely to the faint, muffled noises coming from above him. Voices. Multiple voices upstairs. He stood up, despite his weak and starved body begging him to rest, and stumbled towards however far the chain would let him.

He shook his head vigorously, rubbing his chin against his shoulder and finally, finally getting that disgusting gag out of his mouth.

And then, he screamed. His throat was sore and raspy, dry from the lack of water, but that didn’t stop him. He called for help as loud as he could, hoping to get the attention of whoever was up there.

The voices suddenly stopped as Aspen’s frantic pleas rang through the air. There was a loud sigh, and the snap of someone’s fingers. Eerie silence filled the air except for the all-too-familiar footsteps walking towards the basement.

The door swung open violently, and Aspen flinched back at the noise, chain rattling behind him.

“What do you want?” The vampire hissed, flicking the lightswitch on and slamming the door shut behind him. Aspen had never seen someone look so angry. He cowered away as primal terror flooded through his veins.

“I- I, th-the people! There are people up there! Help, help! HELP!”

The vampire did nothing but stand there silently, staring at him with that creepy smile on his face. “Keep screaming, Aspen. See where that gets you.”

“But there’s… What…what did you do to them?”

“Mind control. Their dumb little minds don’t belong to them right now, and they certainly won’t rescue you.”

“You can… control people’s minds?”

“Of course I can,” his captor hissed. “And the next time you try to ask other humans for help, I won’t be so merciful to them.”

“Were they looking for me?”

The vampire couldn’t help but laugh. “No, they weren’t looking for you. They were looking for directions.”

“Directions?”

“Yes. We are in the middle of fucking nowhere, by the way.” The vampire took a step down the stairs. “And nobody will come looking for you. You’re dead to the world, already buried six feet under. And scream all you want, there’s no civilization in miles. That gag was just there to keep you from annoying me all night and day with your incessant whining. I almost never see people out here unrelated to my business.”

“But when I do,“ the vampire continued, “oh, you have no idea how hard it is to resist feeding on them. I’m glad you’re awake now. I deserve a snack for having to deal with those insufferable morons.”

“And you,” the vampire drawled, walking closer and causing Aspen to flinch back in fear, stumbling onto the mattress behind him, “deserve a punishment for spitting that gag out and trying to call for help. You’re mine. You do not try to call for help. You are not getting out of this. Get that through your thick skull before I bash it in.”

Aspen breathed heavily. The vampire was standing a few feet from him, but was more menacing than ever before.

“Say it, little corpse. Tell me you’re mine. I wanna hear it from you.”

Tears pricked in Aspen’s eyes, cheeks going red. “I-I’m, I’m y-yours.”

“And you’ll never try calling for help again?”

“N-No,” he said, shaking his head and sniffling.

“Good. Now enough chit-chat. C’mere.”

Aspen let out a sob and crawled forward, palms and knees aching against the cold stone floor. He crumbled in despair as Silas leaned down to feed again. Sharp fangs sank into the same spot on his neck, blood started flowing out and into the mouth of his captor. He grew even more lightheaded, squeezing his eyes shut and silently begging for unconsciousness.

…Only, death didn’t come this time. The vampire pulled away early, licking his lips and stepping back with a sour expression.

Aspen dared to peek an eye open and look up at him. “W-wh-what are—”

“Your blood. It’s not as good as it was before. What happened?”

“I-I don’t- I don’t know.” When the vampire yanked a hand to his hair, Aspen sputtered frantically to get his words out, wracking his mind for what it could possibly be. “M-maybe it’s- maybe it’s because I haven’t- haven’t eaten anything?”

The vampire stared at him for a moment in consideration. Then, his hand let up, and he stepped away. “Hm. I guess that makes sense.”

“Y-yeah, p-please, I really need food. I need it.”

“…I don’t have any human food here. I’ll have to get some the next time I go to town.”

“...Oh,” Aspen said quietly. “B-but you’ll still feed me? Th-thank you.” He looked up at his captor with hope in his eyes for the first time, and finally let his body relax, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He’d finally get to be fed.

“Yeah. Holy shit, you’re pathetic.”

“C-can I at least ha-have a blanket in the meantime?”

“No. Can’t let you get too comfortable, can I? Or you’ll forget your place.” The vampire chuckled, patting his head in mock affection.

“But it- It’s so cold here…”

“If you’re suffering so much, why don’t I just kill you now and make the pain stop?”

“N-no, please don’t kill me,” Aspen whispered.

“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“W-wait!—”

But he had already put the gag in place, and tied it tightly around his head, more so than before. Aspen let out a muffled whimper as the vampire walked up the stairs and out of the basement. The light was turned out, the door slammed shut, leaving Aspen in suffocating darkness once again. All alone.

His stomach growled. The cold bit at his bare skin. His throat ached with thirst and the lingering pain of the bite.

Maybe he should’ve accepted the offer.

—

i’m not like super proud of this one but i think it’s as good as i’m gonna get it so here u go :3 future chapters will be better (and probably shorter), i’ve written a whoooole bunch of this recently and i’m realllyy gonna try to get regular updates now!! yayyyy

taglist: @inkwell-and-dagger @vidawhump @taterswhump @toyybox @andithewhumper

@creppersfunpalooza @bottlecapreader @whumpsday @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @kisa-writes

@mintflavouredwhump @fleur-a-whump @starfields08000

let me know if you want to be removed or added to the taglist!

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whumpslist · 9 months ago

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Zorro’s whumps’ list

(referred to main character Zorro / Diego de la Vega, portrayed by Miguel Bernardeau; *bonus: Enrique Monasterio, portrayed by Emiliano Zurita.]

Season 1

.01: brief scuffle and under swordpoint during a training session, received upsetting news about his father's death and tears in his eyes, grief, shot at and unpleasant confrontation, nightmare and rough awakening, upsetting news and conflicted, fought against multiple armed soldiers twice, rough sword fight, zorroed himself on his chest.

.02: red fresh Z sign on his chest from previous episode, into a hostage situation during a robbery and under gunpoint, pistol-whipped at his neck, under gunpoint, scuffle and almost shot, worried and defeated, conflicted, brief scuffles and sword fight.

.03: harsh confrontation and sort of shot at, various scuffles, gun pointed at his head, disappointed, lured into a trap and under gunpoint, under gunfire and captured, hands tied above his head and identity exposed, upsetting news and almost shot in the face.

.04: hands tied above his head from previous episode, stabbed and heavily breathing, collapsed and dragged by his arms, laying unable to move and heavily breathing, moaning, falling from the horse, taken care of, feverish, upset but unable to leave the bed, shirt stained with blood after an effort and fainted, helped laying on the bed and wound exposed and bleeding, moaning helped getting undressed, Z scar on his chest, pale, wound taken care of, hand pushed against the wound and groaning in pain, under arrow point, into a duel with swords.

.05: upset, blade at his throat twice, Z scar on his chest, brief scuffle against two armed men, under gunfire and brief scuffles, under gunpoint, disappointed.

.06: ackward conversation and uneasy, Z scar on his chest, upset, brief scuffle, under gunpoint, under gunpoint and chloroformed, passed out and kidnapped, slapped in the face and helped getting up, pointed the gun at his own head and pressed the trigger without consequences, chloroformed again and grabbed when collapsed, upset; *bonus Enrique Monasterio: shot with an arrow at his shoulder, bloody and taken care of.

.07: blackmailed, rough scuffle and pushed to the ground, blade at his throat and heavily panting, upset and heartbroken, difficult conversation and conflicted, annoyed.

.08: brief scuffle, threatened and upset, bitten, angry and argued, rough fight and stabbed, upset and crying.

.09: unpleasant conversation and identity exposed, massaging his injured leg, under gunpoint, sword fight, grieving his father and tears on his cheeks, upset and conflicted, indignant, stabbed in flank and shot at, fallen from the horse semi-unconscious and taken care of, groaning and heavily breathing, grunting in pain and passed out.

.10: holding his flank because of the injury from previous episode, received upsetting news and agitated, moaning during physical effort, harsh confrontation (on purpose), intense sword duel, harsh confrontation (for fake), under gunpoint, rough sword fight and cut at his thigh, stabbed in the back and collapsed on his knees, almost killed, grunting in pain while getting up, pale and sweating, upset, silently crying on his father's grave, rejected, emotional goodbye; *bonus Enrique Monasterio: intense sword duel, stabbed and collapsed (dead for fake), shot at then swordfights.

In the original book "The Mark of Zorro" (1919) by Johnston McCulley: brief scuffle, various chases, rejected, brief scuffle, fought and chased, sword duel without consequences, surrounded and rescued.

#Zorro #whumpslist #episode guide #Diego de la Vega #portrayed by Miguel Bernardeau #serie tv #tv series #tv shows #tv show #telefilm #whump #whumps #whump series

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chaotic-orphan · 4 months ago

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Intoxicating Fear (XVIII)

New Player on the board

Part one // Masterpost // Continued from here

This part is dedicated to @neongalaxiie for their comment that made me smile today, I hope you enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*

Ambrose got Kit into the car with relative simplicity. He was surprisingly lighter than before, which didn’t concern Ambrose. Not at all, it was just some information he stored in his head in case he needed it in future. Perhaps this time Ambrose can actually feed the hero properly…

Well, he could decide all that on the way. Right now he had to decide whether or not to throw the hero in the boot or in the backseat. He settled on the backseat, it was easier to keep an eye on the hero in case that red lightning guy came back.

Ambrose suppressed a shiver at the thought of that. That thing wasn’t Kit Mallory. Or, not the one Ambrose knew anyways. It did add to his curiosity about the boy, what kind of life he lived with Mentor. Ambrose set him in the backseat sitting up, hands cuffed in front of him with power dampeners just in case. He strapped the seatbelt over Kit and plugged it in before slamming the door shut and walking around to the driver’s side.

Ambrose didn’t exactly drive… under the radar. He was what his assistant would call a petrolhead, and it wasn’t a nickname he loathed. Ambrose had loved cars since he was five and his parents brought him to a vintage car show. He could still remember the first time he sat behind the wheel of a 1954 Bentley R-Type continental, he knew that he had to have one. A car that was, not a Bentley, he wasn’t some wedding chauffeur.

His obsession with cars only grew from there, from his first Volkswagen to now. His beast, his beauty, his pride and joy: a 2016 Rolls-Royce Wraith, with a monster 6.5 Litre Twin-Turbo V12 engine under the bonnet, custom painted black exterior. He had to get Tony to paint the door handles too (who almost cried when she saw it). Ambrose replaced the original wheels with forgiato wheels to add to the sleekness of the car. Original white, leather interior still as good as the day Ambrose bought it.

He loved it more than anything in the world.

And it was all his.

It represented everything that he wanted people to associate with him. Elegant, opulent, and functional, above all functional. The grace, style and status were just perks that came along with it.

It was late, close to ten when Ambrose got onto the main road. He could take the quick way through the backstreets to his house, but he hadn’t seen the city of like lights for what felt like a long, long time. He took the left into the city and drove along at a leisurely pace.

The radio was playing softly in the background, the Wraith’s purrs making up most of the background noise. Ambrose let out a soft sigh as he pulled up to a red light. He glanced in his rearview to see Kit still fast asleep. No red veins or blue ones, his head lolled against the window.

There was something so innocent about the gesture that made Ambrose look sharply away, eyes turning front again. He never had a little brother or sister, but in that moment, some small part of him — some delusional, sentimental part — wondered if this was what it was like. Checking the rearview to make sure that his brother was sleeping soundly, that he wasn’t showing any signs of pain or distress, or psychotic mania.

He wondered if he would be a good older brother in this hypothetical. Then he quickly disregarded the thought. Such a silly little thought experiment. Besides, of course he would be a good older brother. He would be the best, hands down, no doubt about it. Even if his passenger in the backseat would disagree.

His mind was wandering dangerously, simply because it was so quiet. It had to be because it was quiet, so Ambrose turned up the radio louder, but the song that was playing just ended. Instead a news reporter started speaking urgently.

Ambrose shook his head, tapping his fingers on the wheel when the light turned green just beside Hero plaza: well, Mentor’s memorial garden, more specifically.

“Stay out of the city tonight, there is a rogue Villain, perhaps Supervi—”

Ambrose didn’t get to hear the rest of the news report. When the light turned green he was already moving past the intersection, heading straight, driving through the Hero Plaza in the centre of the city.

His eyes were fixed forward so he didn’t see the hailstorm of debris from a shattered building coming from the right. He didn’t see the Supervillain levitating where Mentor’s statue should have been.

Ambrose didn’t see what was happening to his right. More like he heard it. A sudden onslaught of panicked thoughts that weren’t his raced through his mind and he panicked along with them.

What! They’re never this strong! Not unless— Ambrose glanced to his right and saw Villain levitating ten metres off the ground. As if meeting his gaze, the villain threw his hands forward and a hailstorm of debris went racing towards them.

Ambrose hit the gas, manoeuvring the gears quickly as he took off. The debris fell behind the Wraith, some stones clipping the tail end as he swerved a sharp corner, trying to cut off Villain’s eyesight from the car.

Of course, this was the same moment that Kit woke up. His head hit off the window of the car and he groaned, reaching his hands up to rub the bump. “Ambrose?”

Ambrose’s black eyes caught Kit’s in the rearview mirror. Something hard in them alerting Kit to the danger. “We have a problem.”

“A problem?”

Just as Ambrose was about to drive back into Villain’s sight line, debris like meteorites fell in front of them, tearing up the road ahead of the Wraith. Ambrose slammed his foot on the brakes and the pair jolted forwards in their seats.

“What’s going on?!” Kit demanded, searching the windows to try and see what the commotion was all about. Behind them Kit could see a pile up of cars, people screaming and sirens already blaring. “Ambrose!”

Ambrose’s grip on the wheel was white-knuckled, his face paler than usual as his chest heaved up and down. “There’s a Villain by Mentor’s memorial garden.”

“What?! Let me out!”

Ambrose didn’t reply. Kit went to unhook his seatbelt but Ambrose stopped him. “Kit! It looks like they have telekinesis,” Ambrose said through clenched teeth.

It felt as if the debris fell on Kit’s chest, crushing it from the inside out. A disbelieving what? fell from his lips. His vision seemed to narrow to a pinpoint, his lungs slowing his breaths. His voice raised a little hysterically: ��what do you mean they have telekinesis?”

“It’s just what I saw.”

“Well you saw wrong!” Kit argued, his eyes wide and desperate. “The chances of another telekinetic—”

“I know—”

“Do you hear what you’re saying?! There’s no way—”

“I KNOW!” Ambrose barked. His own emotions thrown through a loop at the information.

A long, choking silence passed between them, though they were both thinking the same thing: that Villain can’t be Mentor.

~*~*~*~

Four blocks away a new Supervillain was making their mark in front of the Hero plaza. He was levitating off the ground, bits of debris from Mentor’s memorial statue circling around him like moons of Saturn.

Superhero tried not to think about how much this Supervillain reminded him of Mentor. He really tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t stop himself. The likeness was uncanny, and it was rare for two people with the same abilities to emerge in the same city. It happened but it was rare.

Telekinesis. And not just that, a mastery of his ability, how effortless the destruction seemed to him. An unwillingness to yield.

This must be Supervillain, and if it was Superhero was hesitant to engage. Which sounded terrible as the leader of the Heroes but, even leader’s get scared.

Supervillain was fighting four seasoned Heroes and Superhero all at once — not to mention Tides who was the only new recruit there — without breaking a sweat. Superhero had tried to call Kit, but no luck. Supervillain’s face was covered by a mask and he wore civilian clothes, as if this was a casual affair for him. Like he just walked off the streets and decided, why not cause some chaos? Sirens and emergency services rushed to the scene of people in need, people who had been hit by the debris.

Thankfully, it looked to be a small amount of casualties due to how late it was, but still. Something was wrong with the scene, and Superhero needed to find out what. If that Supervillain… was actually Mentor or not.

And if so, how? How was he here? Why had he escaped and turned out like this? What was going on?! A Supervillain? Threatening the city? That wasn’t Mentor’s way… unless this was Omen’s plan all along, to destroy the legacy of a great man. To make the great man a monster and destroy it himself.

Supervillain inclined his head at Superhero, raising his hand palm up and flexing his fingers goading Superhero into a fight. Superhero lunged for him, bouncing from one building towards Supervillain. When he was in mid-air, Supervillain made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm and a hurricane of rocks and concrete hurtled towards Superhero.

He dodged between the initial wave, but he didn’t expect the second. Mentor’s stone arm caught him around the waist and the pair went flying into a building.

While Superhero was distracted, Supervillain turned his attention to Tides. He aimed for the water under her feet keeping her in the air, wiping it away with a sweep of his arm. Tides cried out as she started to fall, but Supervillain caught her, keeping her suspended in mid-air.

Superhero recovered quickly, and went soaring again, taking the wind in his wings with a grin. It felt so good to let them out again. His eyes zeroed in on Supervillain, hoping he would realise Superhero was behind him too late and they could all go home and sleep in their beds tonight.

At the last second, right before Superhero made contact with Supervillain, Supervillain turned their head to Superhero. Superhero’s eyes widened but it was too late, they had committed to the movement, already in mid air. With a sweep of his hand, Supervillain sent Superhero back two blocks, tumbling onto a rooftop. His wings wrapped around him cushioning his fall as he rolled.

Supervillain turned back to Tides who was struggling in his hold and shot towards her. He grabbed her by the neck, and threw her down onto a roof behind her. Tides almost passed out from the impact, her entire body arching as breath was stolen from her lungs. Her body bounced off the concrete, like she was a rag-doll being thrown before rolling to a stop, gasping in air. Supervillain followed her with easy steps, before kicking her onto her back and standing above her. He pressed his foot down on her chest.

“Where’s Malyn?” Supervillain asked, tilting his head. Tides cried out as Supervillain’s foot gathered telekinesis behind it and forced her down into the concrete, cracking the roof around her. A small crater Tides shaped now etched on the rooftop.

“I won’t tell you,” Tides said through gritted teeth. The pressure increased and Tides screamed, her hands flying to Supervillain’s ankle and clawing at it, trying to get it to budge. Supervillain put his hands in his trouser pockets, as if this were a casual conversation, like he wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

“Tell me or I’ll break every bone in your body, Tides.”

Tides abandoned trying to dislodge Supervillain’s foot, and instead gathered a canon of water behind him. She splayed her fingers and the canon blasted towards Supervillain before losing momentum as Tides let out a blood-curling scream.

Her wrist snapped like a twig, leaving her arm useless as she tried to summon water. The pain was blinding, but Supervillain didn’t let up for a second, moving his foot idly from her chest to her broken wrist.

“Where,” Supervillain asked again, leaning forward so more of his weight pressed on Tides’ wrist. “Is Malyn?”

“I don’t know,” Tides cried out, her mind going blank as the pain burned through her, tears blinding her. “I don’t know! I don’t!”

“Hmm,” Supervillain hummed above her. “I don’t believe you.”

Tides screwed her eyes shut and looked away, not wanting to see the final blow coming. She wasn’t masochistic enough for that, quite happy to live in blissful ignorance.

Then the pressure was suddenly off her with a thump of body meeting body and Tides' eyes flew open. Supervillain was gone, and Tides took to sobbing. She glanced at her mangled wrist and felt bile climbing her throat. Every breath was an effort as she tried to sit up and failed, opting to just lay on the roof, motionless and cry.

Superhero shot like a bullet, barreling into the new Supervillain and flying away from the city to the local park instead where there would be far less casualties. Superhero threw Villain down to the ground with a terrifying force and floated down after him.

~*~*~*~

Ambrose kicked the car into reverse just as Kit saw two figures flying over the night sky. “Ambrose! We have to go after them! That’s Superhero!”

Ambrose hooked his arm over the passenger seat, turning to look back out the window as they reversed.

“Do I look like I care?” Ambrose asked, meeting Kit’s glare. “Genuine question, Mallory. Do I look like I give a shit what happens to the number one fuck up in the city? Cause if I do, I need to fix that.”

“This isn’t some joke! Stop the car. Let me out! Let me go, Ambrose.”

“No.”

“That could be Mentor!” Kit yelled after Ambrose turned front again and manoeuvred around the debris in the road. Kit huffed out a breath through his nose reaching for his seatbelt.

“Don’t touch your seatbelt if you know what’s good for you, Kit, I swear to God. I will knock you out again.”

Desperation rose in Kit’s stomach as Ambrose took a backstreet shortcut to get out of the city. Kit could only watch as they passed the park. Superhero was hovering over the trees, throwing a body down into the grass when Ambrose sped past.

~*~*~*~

Supervillain rolled until he gained ground beneath his fingertips and got to his feet two metres away from Superhero.

“Who are you?!” Superhero demanded, voice livid.

Supervillain tilted his head but said nothing. Superhero’s lip curled back into a snarl and he shot off again, leaving a small crater where his feet were. Flying wasn’t exactly a great superpower, but it was what Superhero had and he learned to use it to his advantage in fights.

He flew at Supervillain, drawing his fist back with a roar and aimed for Supervillain’s cheek. Supervillain lifted his forearm, diverting the blow. He punched Superhero in the gut, a jab, then an uppercut. Superhero dodged back, pushing off his heels as his hands outstretched going for Supervillain’s porcelain mask.

Supervillain ducked, swiping Superhero’s legs out from under him. Superhero dropped, his back barely hitting the ground before he launched himself towards Supervillain.

Supervillain moved with speed and grace, as if he’d been fighting all his life, and he didn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat. Superhero, on the other hand, was tiring quickly, not used to the amount of power and focus he was using to try and land a hit on Supervillain.

Supervillain went to sweep his arm. Superhero caught it with a death grip, grinned and spun. Planting his left foot in the ground he pivoted and threw Supervillain as far as he could. Supervillain went flying backwards, getting caught in the leaves of a tree. The branches split and broke around him, a tear in the earth opening from where Supervillain had split the tree open to let himself down.

He wiped the leaves off his shoulders and Superhero grinned. Maybe he can be beaten. Superhero launched himself at Supervillain again, not giving him a chance to recover.

“Enough playtime.” Supervillain said.

Supervillain lifted a hand lazily and Superhero froze in mid-air, the air turned against him, freezing him in place. Superhero’s eyes widened. That’s not possible. There’s no way that he’s… that that’s Mentor, there’s…

Villain walked slowly towards Superhero, taking his sweet time about it. He stopped in front of Superhero, mask to face. “Don’t you recognise me, Superhero?”

Superhero flinched at the voice. It was disguised, which… no, there’s no way that was Mentor. Mentor was always transparent and never wore a mask. He wouldn’t.

But then again… that’s when Mentor was a hero, a symbol of peace and justice in the city.

Villain reached out and grabbed a fistful of Superhero’s hair, yanking his head back. Superhero grit his teeth but didn’t cry out. “Where’s Malyn?”

Superhero’s shock must have shown on his face. “What?”

Villain yanked their neck back farther and Superhero couldn’t contain the groan from the strain. “Malyn. I want him. Now. Where. Is. He?”

Superhero frowned. Surely Mentor would know where Kit lived? But then… no, he wouldn’t. Kit moved after Omen drove Mentor crazy.

“You won’t find him.” Superhero said, huffing a breath out through their nose. Supervillain hummed. He stepped back and clicked his fingers. Superhero’s body moved at an impossible speed, back snapping against the bark of a tree and Superhero cried out.

Supervillain didn’t stop. He was dragged back along the dirt by his ankle, as if being pulled by an invisible lasso. He blacked out from the blow, but his brain shot him back into consciousness as his back was dragged harshly over the terrain. Supervillain came into view again. Superhero’s body was forced up as if suspended from the air, hanging like a limp puppet.

“Malyn, Superhero. I don’t have the patience for this game of cat and mouse.”

“Why… why are you—” Superhero’s breath hitched as his body contorted against his will. “D-doing this?”

“I want the boy. If you don’t bring him to me in three days, I will destroy the rest of the city, and all of your pathetic heroes.”

Supervillain closed their hand into a fist and Superhero screamed. “Have him meet me at the Hero Academy, 10pm. Alone. Any funny business and I’ll make sure that Tides dies, do you understand?”

“T— Leave Tides alone! Take- take me!”

“Oh, I would,” Supervillain said, opening his fist again. Superhero fell to the ground, his head slapping off the dirt. Supervillain crouched down in front of him and with a gloved hand tilted Superhero’s chin up. “But you have the best chance of getting me what I want. The boy for Tides. Hero Academy. Three days. 10 O’clock, got it?”

Superhero let out a broken breath of air which Supervillain took to mean yes. Villain slapped Superhero’s cheek. “Good boy. At least you still know how to take orders.”

Villain disappeared after that, leaving Superhero shaking in the dirt.

~*~*~*~

Ambrose didn’t even bother to make Kit forget the way to his house. If he was honest, he was exhausted. This was not how tonight was supposed to go. They pulled up to Ambrose’s house, stopping in front of two giant gates. Ambrose pressed a button and the gates opened.

“What are you, Batman?” Kit asked as he took in the mansion they were driving into. Ambrose chuckled at the comment but didn’t reply. The gates closed behind them as they drove in. The driveway was long, like something out of a movie and had a fucking roundabout at the entrance to the house.

Ambrose opened the door and stepped out. He walked around to the passenger side and opened Kit’s door, pulling the seat forward. “You can get out now, child.”

“I’m not a child,” Kit grumbled, obeying the order.

“Yes, you are,” said Ambrose with a sigh. He slammed the door after Kit got out, locking the doors over his shoulder with a click of his keys and a flash of lights. “You don’t do anything without being told, and you push boundaries like a fucking toddler.”

“Yeah, your stupid enforced boundaries because you’re a fucking control freak, and everything has to go Ambrose’s way! Right?!”

Ambrose ignored him, unlocking the door to his house and holding it open from Kit to follow. Kit scoffed and walked inside.

“You know this whole silent brooding thing is really starting to piss me off!” Kit told him.

Ambrose shut the door and locked it. “Your irritation is duly noted. I’ll file it under I don’t give a fuck.”

Kit whirled on Ambrose again, about to tear him a new one but paused. Ambrose stood pinching the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, laboured sigh. Kit bit back his gripes.

“Tell you what,” Ambrose said eventually. His voice soft and so un-Ambrose like. Tired, Kit realised. It was as if all energy had been zapped from him after the drive, and maybe it was. Adrenaline had a habit of doing that to you. Ambrose took the key for the cuffs out of his pocket and tossed it. “You can sleep on all of the names you want to call me, and tell me over breakfast tomorrow.”

Kit caught the key, eyes wide with surprise as he unlocked the cuffs around his wrist. He glanced up at Ambrose, but Ambrose was already making for the stairs with tired movements. He lifted a hand without turning back to face Kit.

“Take whatever room you want. I honestly couldn’t care less.”

Kit stood shocked as he watched the villain ascend the staircase straight from the titanic to the second floor. Disbelief ebbed to his own wave of sleep that overtook him and he followed Ambrose up the stairs. He could think more tomorrow. Sleep would bring clarity. He could think logically in the morning.

Kit took the door closest to him and kicked off his shoes. He pulled his jacket off, unzipping his jeans, stepping out of them as he fell into— fuck this was probably the most comfortable bed he ever lay on.

That was his last thought before the blackness swallowed him, eyelids falling heavy over his eyes.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Orphanage roll-call (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @beatenbruisedandbloody @404lunar1216 @whumpyworld @nameless-beanie @andithewhumper @annablogsposts @whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl @n3rv0usn0v4 @whumpatize-me-captain @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath @theonewithallthefixations @acer-gaysimpstuff @m3rakii @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom @blood-enthusiast @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @andtheysaidspeaknoww @dutifullykrispyland @mononeigbour @tippytappytyping @stefaniesblogs @shinokoro @bedtimescenarios @whatwhump

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forwhump · 3 months ago

Text

Touch

a/n; touch starved human weapon who’s never known kindness gets a hug :’) & a bunch of other times he’s touched, mostly in a horrible fashion

for the anon that wanted silas to get a hug & the anon that wanted more of the unit !! two bingo squares crossover episode best of both worlds babeyyyy

tw/cw: grievous bodily harm, mutilation, guns, traumatic brain injuries, implied rape/noncon, references to graphic violence, medical torture

living weapon whumpee

The first touch Silas ever knows is that of the cold, gloved hands reaching into the opened cavity of his chest.

Their touch is not gentle. Their touch introduces Silas to pain. It’s a pain that he will very quickly become familiar with.

They open him from throat to groin. They peel skin away from meat, and meat away from muscle. They pry apart his ribcage and crush his ribs into splinters of bone. They pull out chunks of organ tissue and they hold him down, against the cold steel of the operating table, as they take the colder steel of a surgical scalpel of his hairline.

Silas’ very first memory is waking up to those cold, gloved hands fishing his small intestine from his opened gut.

The very first touch Silas ever knows is that of those hands.

Silas doesn’t like to be touched.

He learns this very quickly.

It’s an empty cell, carved from stone, not quite tall enough for Silas to stand in but that doesn’t matter because Silas can’t stand. He’s shackled to the floor by the iron closed around his throat, and he’s left there for days in the dark.

He’s alone. He’s alone a lot in the beginning.

The first person that he ever sees, outside of that operating room, is a soldier. Silas doesn’t recognize him but he spits, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, you ugly fuck,” and swings his fist into Silas’ face with as much force as a human being can manage.

His name is Point, Silas learns later, and his touch breaks his right eye socket into splinters of skull.

They manage to save his eye. Much later, however, Point puts three bullets in it, and Silas loses his right eye for good.

Silas learns very quickly that touch is something vile. It’s something to be shied away from, something that hurts. Touch is inhumane.

When Silas is touched, it hurts him.

When Silas touches, he hurts.

They chain his hands in front of him, and they shackle him at the ankles. He has to wear a bite bar because they don’t trust his teeth.

They’re right not to.

Because they remove the bite bar, the chains, the shackles, and there’s carnage.

When Silas touches, he hurts. When Silas touches, there’s carnage.

Silas usually does his field tests alone, but not always. They are a team, technically, him and the unit, and the district needs to be sure they work well together, or some shit equivalent.

Silas had spent a lot of time making a careful point not to let the unit see him the way the soldiers see him, as the horrible thing he really is, and introducing them into the field tests had made him edgy, and it had made him feel kind of sick.

It turned out to be a waste of emotion.

Even now, the soldier’s gun aimed into Hal’s face, Silas makes quick work of pulling his throat out through the back of his neck. He uses his teeth, and still, as Hal stands, he wipes blood from his eyes with his sleeve and looks up at Silas with a grin that’s nothing but relieved.

“Good looking out, man,” he says, and holds his fist out to Silas. Silas doesn’t know what to do with that, so he doesn’t do anything. Hal kinda gestures with his fist and says, “don’t leave me hanging, big guy. Bump me.”

Silas raises his eyebrows and Hal reacts like he hit him.

“You’ve never had a fist bump?” And he says it like it’s something heinous, like it’s even the most heinous thing Silas has done in the last three minutes. “Oh, man,” he says, but his grin is bordering on obnoxious. “I’m so glad I get to take your fist bump-ginity.”

“No,” Silas deadpans, because he doesn’t know what that is and he also doesn’t want to.

But Hal says, “yeah. Come on,” which isn’t all that convincing on its own, but he adds, “Wren will think you’re really cool if he finds out you do fist bumps,” and Silas squints. Hal grins again, wide and innocent, and holds his fist back out to Silas. “It’s easy. Just bump my fist with your fist. Fist bump.”

“Why?” Silas says.

“I don’t know,” Hal says. “Who cares? Just do it.”

Silas looks at Hal’s hand for a long time and decides the pros — Wren might be impressed he’s learned something — outweigh the cons — he just doesn’t want to. He relents and knocks his fist against Hal’s.

Hal, who throws both his arms up and his head back as he cheers.

June, after she left the service, was a hairdresser for a while.

Silas knows this, because she tells him, “after I left the service, I was a hairdresser for a while.”

Silas says, “okay.”

“So you can trust me,” she adds.

“No,” he says.

June tips her head back, dramatic, as she groans. She’s been wielding the hairbrush like a weapon. “Silas. Come on, dude. Stop being a bitch about it. Let me brush your hair.”

“No,” he repeats.

“Silas,” she repeats.

“No,” he says.

“Wren’ll like it,” she tries, and Silas narrows his eyes. She grins, and she has a very predatory grin. “You wanna look good for Wren, don’t you, big guy?”

He’s starting to suspect these people might be using Wren to manipulate him, and it’s unfortunate that it’s working. Silas sits on the floor, and June, with the added boost of the back of the couch, pulls a brush through his hair like she’s trying to rip all of it out.

He complains the whole time, mostly for the sake of complaining. “Ow,” he says again, and June groans at him.

“You’re too big to be this much of a pussy.”

“You’re hurting me,” he says. She isn’t.

“I don’t care,” June replies. “Stop moving.”

“I’m not moving,” he says.

“You’re flinching,” she says.

“You’re hurting me,” he reminds her.

“You should’ve started brushing your hair six months ago,” she bites back.

“How was I supposed to know?” Silas asks, and he’s won, because she quiets behind him, and her hands tug a little less violently at his hair.

“Sorry,” she says finally, and Silas tries not to smile but it tugs on his mouth at one side. He doesn’t think she’s looking at him, so he doesn’t try all that hard to hide it and so it makes him jump when he turns and she’s leaning over his shoulder to look him in the face. “Hey,” she accuses. “That’s not funny. I thought I hurt your feelings.”

He cracks a smile, despite his best attempts. “You couldn’t hurt my feelings.”

June grins widely, raising her eyebrows. “I’d love to try.”

Silas snorts, and she laughs as she pulls back over his shoulder to tug the brush through his hair again. She ties it up for him; a half knot, because, “I thought it would suit you. I was right.”

He tracks Wren down, just in case.

He has a pencil tucked behind his ear and Silas is strangely entranced by it. “Silas,” he says, and he says it with a smile. “You look so handsome.”

Silas doesn’t know what it means, but he’s flattered, anyway.

He’s on his back on the concrete, looking down the barrel of a gun.

It’s shaking. Point’s hand is trembling. “You stupid, disobedient fuck,” he spits, and Silas barely sees the bottom of his boot closing in on him before it’s cracking his cheekbone. “Bad. Dog.”

Both of Silas’ arms had been nearly amputated at different points, but he can still lift his left hand. Just barely, and it trembles with blood loss and severed tendons, but he manages to lift it from the wet concrete and fold almost all of his fingers down, save for the middle.

Point roars in frustration.

Silas knows the cold kiss of gunmetal, for only a second, and then an eruption of heat that’s white hot and electricity charged and Point empties his gun into Silas’ face.

Silas is reintroduced to the touch of surgeons, but this is nothing new.

He loses his eye.

They take Wren.

Silas couldn’t give less of a fuck about his eye. He’s got another one, he’ll be fine. What’s another disfiguring injury? But he gets back to the unit, and Robin finds him in Wren’s absence.

They’d taken Wren. Robin doesn’t know where.

His touch is a firm handshake that makes Silas’ skin crawl. But he accepts it, even if he didn’t need Robin to ask. Even if he would’ve raised hell, anyway.

He’d been really careful around Wren. He’d been so careful.

Wren’s different. He isn’t like any of the rest of them. He’s gentle in a way Silas thinks super soldiers just aren’t capable of. His skin is still soft. He’s still so human, and he looks at Silas, and he sees something in him that’s human, too.

But he’s wrong. Silas has known for a long time that he’s wrong, and whatever it is that Wren thinks he sees in him, it isn’t human.

He’d wanted so badly for it to be true, though. He’d wanted to believe Wren. He wanted there to be something human in him because he never wanted Wren to stop looking at him like that. He’d done his best not to let Wren see anything less, to not let him see him as any less human than a couple of fatal injuries.

He’d never let him see anything else. He’d been so careful.

But then he finds Wren, and he finds him with a group of soldiers.

Their touch is not kind.

He’s shackled to a bunk by an ankle to the bedpost, and Silas doesn’t even know what they’re doing to him but he knows it’s vile. The sounds make his skin crawl. Wren is begging for it to stop.

He’s crying, and it’s crying like nothing else Silas has ever heard. Wailing. He isn’t in complete control of himself after that.

The soldiers all react to him with flailing, frantic cowardice, shouting and clambering for guns, for knives, for weapons, and it’s embarrassing. Silas is embarrassed for them. Cowards, all of them — loud, cruel cowards. All so scared of Silas, every one of them, and they fuckin’ created him. What a fuckin’ joke.

He lets them scramble, looking at Wren through the blur of them. His mouth is swollen, face shiny with tears, and when he sobs, he sobs, “Silas.”

“Don’t look,” Silas says.

He doesn’t recognize any of the soldiers because their faces all blur.

Every one of them dies in that bunk, and they do not die gently. They die screaming and they die in pain.

Partway through suffocating a soldier with another’s small intestine, Silas lifts his head, and Wren is still there.

He reaches out and splinters the bedpost with one hand. He can’t look at Wren for too long — he doesn’t really wanna see the look on his face. “Run,” he says, and peels the jaw off a nearing soldier with one hand, without even looking at him.

Wren runs.

Silas is punished greatly for his disobedience.

Still, he isn’t looking forward to being back in the unit. The long walk back has his heart beating higher in his chest than he thinks it should. He only ever wants to be in the unit because he wants to be where Wren is — if Wren doesn’t want him there anymore, Silas will have to find a way to stay away, whatever he has to do.

He gets back to the unit and he’s expecting Wren to look at him in disgust if he looks at him at all. He isn’t expecting the way Wren pushes himself into Silas’ chest, arms so tight around his waist that Silas is surprised by the strength of him.

It doesn’t hurt, though, a very pleasant sort of vice, warm and Wren. “What are you doing?” He asks softly.

“A hug,” Wren says, face pressed into the spot just beneath Silas’ sternum and the pressure of him is nice.

“Why?” Silas asks, and Wren makes a sound that Silas can’t decipher as laughter or crying. It might be both.

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” he whispers into Silas’ crewneck.

It’s probably the stupidest thing Silas has ever heard him say. “I’d do anything for you,” he says, flat.

And it’s true. There isn’t anything in the world Silas wouldn’t do for him. Wren doesn’t even need to ask. Clinging a little tighter to Silas’ sweatshirt, he sobs.

Silas cradles the back of his head with one hand and lets himself be hugged.

The concrete of the common room floor is a cool touch against his cheek.

It’s the last thing Silas knows before his skull is crushed.

When Silas gets back to the unit, he has tremors in his hands and he doesn’t remember how to read.

When Silas gets back to the unit, it’s been months. He doesn’t know how many.

When Silas gets back to the unit, he’s surprised to immediately find his arms full of Hal.

“What?” Silas says, and then June is jumping onto his back, clinging to his neck, and Wren is at his side, small hands finding Silas’ skin beneath his sweatshirt and his touch is warm, impossibly soft. Silas cradles the back of his head with one hand. “What are you doing?”

Hal laughs from somewhere around his armpit as June laughs loudly into his shoulder. “We missed you, big guy!” She crows.

“We missed you!” Hal cries.

Wren laughs into his side and it’s a little wet. “We were so worried about you.”

Robin is lingering nearby and Silas points at him with his other hand. “Don’t come anywhere fuckin’ near me.”

His face doesn’t change, militant as he is, but his gaze flickers to Wren and back before he says, in the low, rumbling version of Wren’s accent, “welcome back.”

Silas lifts his chin, sort of a nod. He looks back down, at his shaky armfuls of the rest of them, and he can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth on one side.

They laugh and they cling to him and the touch of the pressure and the weight of them hurts, it makes his recently reconstructed bones groan in protest, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t but he’d also be full of shit if he said it bothered him at all.

Silas would consider himself pretty well versed in pain; this has to be his favourite.

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whumpystuffy · 1 year ago

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Whump list - Stargate Altlantis (2004-2009)

John Sheppard portrayed by Joe Flanigan. Plus some of the Ronan, McKay & Beckett whumps.

Trailer for the series.

Season 1

1x01-1x02 Tasered, grabbed by throat, slammed to table.

1x04 Alien stuck on neck, in pain, immobile, numb legs, grunting, heavy breathing. Defibrillated, no pulse, CPR, in med bed.

1x05 Under gunfire, shot with stun gun, unconscious. Sore, hit by explosion blast.

1x09 Gun point, captive, interrogated, betrayed.

1x10-1x11 (Plus major McKay whump)

1x12 Under gun fire, shot, bleeding arm wound, field medicine. Slams into invisible force field. Fight, slammed across field twice, cracked ribs.

1x19 Shot stunned.

Season 2

2x03 Shot, stunned, unconscious. Captive, tied up, gunpoint,

2x05 Ship crash, surrounded, outnumbered. Tied up, threatened. Fight, punched. (Plus Ronan whump)

2x07 Attacked, pinned down, bleeding arm wound.

2x08 Wound from previous episode, on stretcher, field medicine. Infected with mutating virus, angry. Shot stunned, coma, antidote.

2x10 Shot stunned, unconscious, captive, tied up. Forced to do OP, shot stunned, unconscious, captured. Forced to kneel by telekinesis.

2x11 Continuation from previous episode, interrogated, thrown into cell. Forced to kneel by telekinesis.

2x12 Attacked, thrown around multiple times, clawed on back, bleeding, bruised face. Field medicine, magically healed.

2x14 (Plus major McKay whump)

2x16 Shot, bloody shoulder. Shot stunned, unconscious, cuffed, dragged. (Plus Ronan whump)

2x17 Ambushed, gassed, unconscious. Tied up, needle injection in neck, gunpoint, captive.

Season 3

3x01 Captured, manhandled.

3x02 (Plus Beckett whump)

3x03 Sick, cold, coughing, sneezing.

3x04 Shot with tranquilizer, tied up, caged, manhandled. (Plus MAJOR Ronan whump)

3x07 Shot by grabbing-hooks in vest, slammed to the ground, captured. Failed escape, electrocuted, dragged, tied up. Tortured, life drained, weak, bleeding chest wound, punched.

3x12 Headache, bleeding from ears, eardrum blown, in med bed.

3x16 (Plus Ronan whump)

3x17 Training fight, punched, slammed to the ground, grunting in pain, ice pack on face.

3x19 Forced to kneel with telekinesis. (Plus Ronan whump)

Season 4

4x03 Shot stunned, unconscious, dragged. (Plus Ronan whump)

4x04 Fight with himself inside dream. Defibrillated, flatlines.

4x05 Captured, tied up, manhandled, blood test forcefully taken, interrogated, tortured, punched repeatedly, bloody bruised face. Failed escape, beaten, shot stunned.

4x06 Infected, sweating, forgetful, shot stunned, in med bed.

4x10 Hit during training, bleeding eyebrow cut.

4x11 Shot stunned, unconscious, tied up, interrogated.

4x12 Shot stunned unconscious. Captive, manhandled, forced to kneel with telekinesis.

4x15 Thrown across room, slammed against wall, strangled.

4x17 Attacked, air sucked from room, suffocating.

Season 5

5x01 Hallucinating, under collapsed building, in pain, object in abdomen, heavy breathing/bleeding. Field medicine, discharges himself, sweating.

5x02 Infected, restrained, seizure, flatlines, cpr. Impaled by vine, in med bed.

5x03 Ambushed, betrayed, punched, unconscious, dragged. Kicked, kneeling. (Plus MAJOR Ronan whump)

5x09 (Ronan & McKay whump)

5x11 Hit by explosion blast, ringing ears, glass shards in back, field medicine.

5x12 Gassed, unconscious, captive, manhandled, on trial.

5x14 Fight, strangled, punched repeatedly, bloody face bruise. (Plus Ronan whump)

5x15 Shot stunned, unconscious, tied up. Failed escape, interrogated, beaten up, punched, bloody face. Manhandled, hand cut off, in pain.

Man I really like Lt. Sheppard. His whumps were really great and so defiant! Not a lot of them but still some. Also a really watchable show in general. A gem I can recommend!

#stargate atlantis #john sheppard #Joe Flanigan #whump list #whumplist #whump #spoilers #series #whump episodes #whump series #McKay #Beckett #rodney mckay #Ronon Dex #carson beckett #lt sheppard #Sheppard

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whumpyourdamnpears · 6 months ago

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I’m bored, so I’ve decided to make a game for building your ideal whump series!

to start:

reblog for reach ❤️❤️

#whump #whumplr #whump series #whump poll #whump community #starting this off at one week but I might switch it to one day depending on how it goes

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all-the-gory-details · 3 months ago

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Vampire Whumpee Part 4

P1 P2 P3

TW: Blood, pain, torture, unconsciousness, dehumanization, captivity

The world spun as Cassian awoke, light and color blending as their eyes streamed.

Crying. They were crying. Why were they crying?

Then, the pain hit.

Somewhere above their head, there was red-hot agony. It took a few moments to figure out which body part that was screaming, and there was little to do once they did. Their wrists were still nailed to a tree, after all.

Their few moments of blessed oblivion had torn two gashes down their wrists, deep and wide, stopping only when the nail reached the intersection of their bones. The flesh was torn roughly, blood pouring from the gaping wounds, and Cassian could not breathe-

Their ankle had pain still, but it was drowned out for a few moments. As soon as the vampire managed to force air into their lungs, they screamed, as long and as loud as they could. Then, they gasped again and screamed once more.

Their tear filled eyes were all-but useless, vision blurred to the point where shapes bled as freely as their wrists, and so they did not notice the head Hunter coming towards them, hammer in hand. They did notice when he gripped their arms, holding them still against the tree as he worked the nail free.

Hurt hurt hurt hurt hurt

Suddenly, they were laying in a heap of bloody, trembling limbs on the forest floor, pine needles poking into their arms and cheek.

They had passed out. The nail had- oh fuck- ripped through their wrists - oh god

They sobbed into the floor, mind reeling as their body began to process the pain and, finally, blessedly started healing itself.

Slowly, slowly, the pain started to recede. Cassian didn't dare to move, didn't want to risk jostling something and starting the agony anew.

The choice was made for them soon enough, however, with a hand in their hair, pulling them upright and pushing their back to the bloody tree.

The Hunter had no sympathy in his eyes as he grabbed the vampire's wrists and examined the healing wounds. He nodded once in satisfaction.

"You heal fast, bloodsucker," he said simply, dropping their arms. "Some of the others take hours to knit themselves back together. You'll be more fun to play with, I reckon. Don't have to be as careful."

Cassian's stomach turned. They said nothing.

"What's your name, leech?" The Hunter demanded, giving their still-tender ankle a nudge.

They winced, pushing back into the tree. No escape. "Cassian."

He smiled. Nodded. "We're heading out at nightfall, Cass. I'd get some sleep if I was you. Won't be any time for rest once we start moving."

They nodded at the Hunter's words, pulling their legs close to themself. "W-what do you want with me?" They whimpered, barely loud enough to hear.

The Hunter shrugged. "Don't want to ruin the surprise, now do I? You'll find out soon enough, leech." With one last smug smile, he walked off, leaving Cassian to cry and bleed and heal on the forest floor.

Leaving them alone.

Leaving them unrestrained.

Cassian's eyes flew open, double checking what they already knew. No chains, no ropes...

A chance. They had a chance.

They swallowed hard, leaning against the tree and closing their eyes. Their focus now was on their wounds, particularly their ankle.

They just had to wait for it to heal, only a bit longer, and then they could run far, far away from these people, from this pain.

@will-o-the-wips @whumpsday @valravnthefrenchie @paperprinxe @unicornbeck

They would make it. They had to.

Next part

@hunterjumperhoe @scoundrelwithboba

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patchworkorphan · 6 months ago

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Heroic betrayal: part seven

“You must let me show you where you’ll be staying, Hero,” said Supervillain, releasing the chains on Hero’s cuffs and stepping back away from them. Hero narrowed their eyes into a glare, keeping their hands close to their chest as they blinked at Supervillain.

“What do you mean, where I’ll be staying?” They snapped. Supervillain tilted his head as he regarded Hero, a small smile on his lips.

He shrugged. A gesture that should have conveyed a casual thing, but Hero saw right through it. “You can stay in the cellar if you like, though I’d say a bed would be far more comfortable.”

“I’d rather you let me go, or keep our contact to a minimum,” Hero told him. What the hell was he talking about, keeping Hero here? Forcing them to stay? They couldn’t… their brain wouldn’t let them comprehend exactly what this meant. The words just kept repeating in their mind drowning out all sense and reason:

Where you’ll be staying…

Supervillain had planned this, every detail, and Hero didn’t notice. They didn’t know, they didn’t see. Supervillain didn’t let a hint slip about this! Taking Hero captive and not letting them go, and it – though Hero would never admit it – it terrified them.

What if they weren’t as good as a detective as they thought they were? What if… Hero’s eyes studied Supervillain’s face. What if they had only seen what Supervillain wanted them to see?

Supervillain hummed thoughtfully, hands going behind his back. “I’ll show you the room anyways. Give you the tour while we’re at it. We’ll see if you have a change of heart.”

Hero’s nostrils flared as Supervillain turned his back and opened the door Hero initially came through. Supervillain’s knowing smirk remained on his face as he glanced back at Hero. “Come along now, I’m not a patient man.”

“I’d rather stay right here,” Hero told him, voice low. A pathetic attempt at stubbornness. Supervillain inclined his head.

“You can walk out the door, Hero, or be dragged out. Either way, you won’t be staying here. Would you like to keep your dignity intact?” He asked, his tone light and charismatic, his words anything but. Hero hated the way he spoke as if everything was certain. As if he could control everything and it would all work out his way.

Though what Hero hated more was the fact that they knew it was better to comply than to rile him up, so they stood and walked through the door Supervillain held open. They turned their head, looking down the long hallway to their right, where Flynn and Villain were. The door at the end of the hall must be where the kitchen is, but beyond that Hero didn’t know.

Maybe it would be better to know the layout of the house, Hero mused, they could plan their escape more effectively if Supervillain was stupid enough to offer a tour. Supervillain, instead of turning towards the kitchen, went left, back the way Hero and Flynn came, back towards the cellar.

Hero followed Supervillain cautiously, one eye tracking his figure, the other careful to take note of the layout and the route back to the kitchen if they needed to flee on short notice.

Flee to who? To Flynn? A nasty voice mocked in their head.

At least I know what to expect with Flynn, Hero argued back.

Oh yeah… like how you knew he was a lying, backstabbing villain all this time right?

Hero bit the inside of their cheek instead of fighting with their smug, know-it-all side of their brain. At least when they tasted blood in their mouth, they could justify the pain. They could take their mind off of Flynn and the ache in their chest that they fought so hard to ignore.

Hero’s eyes zeroed in on the door to the basement as they stepped into another hallway. They were half expecting Supervillain to open it and shove them down the stairs before laughing like a cartoon villain and slamming the cellar door closed.

Instead, Supervillain walked past it, and Hero followed mutely, swallowing as they passed the cellar door. Now that it was so close, Hero really didn’t feel like going back there. Back to the cold and defenceless cot in a cell where any of them could come down and gloat.

Where Villain could come back and hurt them again and nobody would stop them.

Maybe a room would be better. At least Hero could barricade the door and break the window or something. They could have a better defensive position. Not be subject to their hosts moods when it takes them. Their nose throbbed at the thought of Villain coming down to their cell again and they shuddered.

Supervillain continued down the hall to another heavy door that looked solid and stiff. There was something strange about it, something Hero only noticed after Supervillain stopped in front of it and raised his hand to a keypad on the wall.

Hero stopped in their tracks. They didn’t want to swap one cell for another, and this one didn’t look as escapable as the cell in the basement. At least there Hero could see out all around them, except for the back wall, but a heavy metal door with an electronic lock would prove far more difficult.

There was a small beep ahead and Supervillain glanced back at Hero over his shoulder. A sly smirk graced his face when he noticed that Hero had stopped following altogether, probably standing six feet back.

“Oh Hero, that’s adorable. Are you frightened?”

“No,” Hero said a little too quickly. A denial. They both knew it. While Supervillain chuckled lightly, Hero wanted to punch themselves. “Where are we going?”

Supervillain’s smile was friendly and carnivorous all at once. “I told you; I’m giving you the tour of the house. Here,” Supervillain said, holding the door open for Hero and gesturing for Hero to walk in first. Hero’s throat went impossibly dry, as if Hero inhaled a pound of sawdust. They swallowed to try and restore some moisture in their mouth because what else could they do?

If they refused to comply, Supervillain would just drag them along anyway and there was no way they could fight back with their powers dampened and their hands cuffed in front of them. The weight of their blades on their back felt heavy in a way they never were before. They were right there… if only they could reach them.

Hero jutted their chin up, steeling their expression as they stormed forward and passed Supervillain, vowing that the moment they got free they would commission thigh braces for their daggers instead. That way they could never be in a humiliating situation like this again.

The room coming into focus drowned out Hero’s plans for new sheaths. Once inside the keypad locked room they stopped short and just stared. It was like the meeting room in the Hero headquarters, except, well… bigger. It was shaped like a hexagon with a domed ceiling that came to a point to let in some light through three skylight windows. The wall in front of Hero had two screens imbedded into it. One played the news on mute that was reporting some local event.

The two walls beside the back one had doors that led off to God knows where, but Hero’s gaze skimmed over them, and went instead to the corkboard on the wall to the left. Pictures of all the top ranked Heroes faces were pinned to the board; Superhero’s, Other Hero’s, and Hero’s were pinned to it. Tears pricked the back of Hero’s eyes when they saw Sidekick’s photo pinned to the wall too, a big red X painted over their face. Hero’s hands shook slightly at the sight… they should have never left Sidekick’s side. They should be at the hospital right now.

Instead, they were knee deep in enemy territory, on a tour of Supervillain’s house. Hero had to pull their gaze away from Sidekick’s face, to study the rest of the room, screwing their lips up tight to try and stop them from trembling.

Hero’s gaze dropped to a desk below the corkboard, where a hero scanner and comms sat, both of them were switched off for now. One Flynn must have stolen… been given. Hero’s hands tightened into fists at the sight. All this time… all this time Flynn was betraying them, betraying the Heroes and he had the nerve to be upset that Hero hated him?

Hero’s gaze flicked back up to Sidekick’s face again and they quickly turned away, looking instead to the giant circular table that dominated the middle of the room. A map of the city was printed on top of it. Hero recognised some of the marks that divided some of the city up. Territories that were occupied or controlled by different groups. Some good, some bad.

Hero stepped closer to the map table, noticing the chess pieces that were spread across it. There was a cluster of white on Hero HQ; the King, two knights, a bishop, a rook, but some other white pieces were dotted throughout the map. There were no black pieces, something Supervillain removed no doubt before Hero walked in. They couldn’t give away all their secrets.

Hero searched the table, making note of the pieces, trying to figure out who they were. A pawn was placed on top of central hospital which made Hero feel sick. They felt Supervillain step up beside them, but Hero didn’t bother to look at him.

“Should I take your silence as a good thing?”

“You can take my silence however you want,” Hero replied. Supervillain hummed beside them. He reached forward and plucked the pawn from the hospital and ran it between his fingers.

“Mmmm, does it have something to do with this?” Hero looked away from the map, lifting their head to stare at the news instead. Supervillain continued undeterred. “It is unfortunate what happened to Sidekick.”

“Don’t talk about them,” Hero snapped.

“What had to happen to them. They were interfering. Hot on Flynn’s scent, we had to dispose of—”

“Shut up,” Hero snarled, whipping their head to Supervillain, and stepping back away from him. “Stop fucking explaining everything you’re doing, or have done, to me like I want to hear your excuses!”

Supervillain cocked a brow at Hero’s outburst. He put the pawn back on top of the hospital, not taking his eyes off of Hero as he did. Hero searched Supervillain’s face, reading it for what he was thinking, and they didn’t like what they found. Realising their mistake too late they took a step back, trying to put some more space between them. Once they could put their weight on their back foot they could kick at Supervillain if he came at them.

Instead, Supervillain clasped his hands behind his back, chewing on words, looking for the best ones before he spoke. Everything was so measured. So controlled. It put Hero off, as if Supervillain was more machine than human.

His gaze wandered to the map, eyes running over everything with a critical eye. “Did you notice anything about the map?”

Hero frowned at the question, their attention turning back to the map as Supervillain walked around the table, stopping directly opposite Hero. They did a quick scan of it, their eyebrows knitting together. Did they miss something? No, they didn’t. The heroes know about the different territories. Maybe Supervillain giving away what heroes they thought were important with the chess pieces but other than that…

Hero’s eyes were drawn to the chess pieces, to the Hero HQ. King, two knights, a bishop, a rook. They saw the other rook and bishop somewhere else, but when they scanned the map again Hero realised what Supervillain was alluding to.

Hero hardened their gaze. “There’s no queen.”

“Very good,” Supervillain praised, and it felt like cockroaches crawled down the back of Hero’s neck. “The queen was far too meddlesome for my liking. Your perfect Sidekick you’ll note is still on the board, that was intentional.”

Hero raised their eyebrows at Supervillain in silent question and froze at his expression. There was no hint of anything human left in him, it was as Hero had imagined Supervillain to look like. Devoid of emotion and yet alive with a vibrant authority that made Hero want to hide away, to cower from — as if Hero was looking directly into the sun, eyes burning but they couldn’t look away.

“An incentive for you, Hero,” he said, his lips twitching up into a cold mockery of a smile. “A gift while you’re here, to make sure you follow the rules.”

Hero recoiled back a step, horror painting their features, as if Supervillain had killed a puppy in front of them and punched them at the same time instead of spoke.

“As long as you behave, well,” Supervillain continued, sea-green eyes drifting down to the pawn over central hospital. Hero’s heart thrummed in their chest and seemed to stop at Supervillain’s next words. “Let’s just say, Sidekick can remain on the board.”

Hero let out a shaky breath that was trapped in their chest, shaking their head. The chain between their cuffs rattled as their hands shook, tears pricking the back of their eyes as their gaze turned accusing and filled with a helpless-fuelled hatred.

“You— you’re threatening Sidekick’s life if I don’t do as you say?!” Hero demanded, voice teetering on the edge of hysterical.

Supervillain tilted his head, as if trying to understand Hero’s emotional response.

“I told you, Hero,” Supervillain began, walking around the table back towards Hero who was too focused on the pawn over the hospital. “We can be civil, this can be a beneficial relationship for us both. I can have you far away from the city, where I know you can’t interfere in the next stage of my plans, and you can rest easy knowing you’re saving Sidekick’s life.”

It was as if the world crumbled underneath Hero’s feet. They wanted nothing more than to collapse there and then, their body flooding with adrenaline as the weight of Supervillain’s words hit them.

It was all too much.

It all felt like too much.

Hero wanted to scream and cry, and punch something— no they wanted to punch Supervillain and Flynn because…

Hero flinched as a comforting hand came down on their shoulder, eyes widening slightly because when did Supervillain get that close.

“It’s a win-win, Hero.” Hero shrugged his hand off their shoulder and stepped back. Wet eyes filled with unshed tears met Supervillain’s sea-green eyes with a helpless kind of hatred. He smiled politely. “You’ll see,” he promised, “in time.”

Hero half expected Supervillain to gloat further, or press Hero on why they were nearly crying, maybe even be cruel and make fun of them. Supervillain walked passed Hero to the door that opened with a beep. Hero followed him with their eyes, biting the inside of their cheek and re-opening the wound.

“Let’s continue the tour, now that we have the unpleasantries out of the way.”

Hero stared at Supervillain, blinked and took a breath and started walking out the door without being prompted this time. They could feel Supervillain’s hungry gaze following them as they submitted compliantly, but what else was there to do? Now that he had threatened Sidekick, who was already in critical condition.

They wanted to be sick. After everything, Sidekick was only in hospital because Supervillain wanted to get to them. They wanted Flynn and Villain to capture Hero and bring them back here, where they— Hero swallowed the sob that threatened to climb their throat — where they would be… staying. Until Supervillain says otherwise.

It all felt so final, so formal, so decided when Hero didn’t make a decision. Supervillain was in control, that’s why he wanted to give Hero the “tour.” Not to show Hero around and let them see all the exits and escape routes, no. He wanted Hero to know that even if Hero knew the way out, even if they knew what doors would be locked and where the keys were, even if escape was within their reach — it didn’t matter.

They couldn’t leave.

If they left, Sidekick would be killed and it would be all their fault.

Again.

“Ah, Flynn,” Supervillain said behind Hero. Hero pulled themselves from their thoughts, raising their eyes to see Flynn standing at the corner between the cellar hall and hall that led to the dining room. He looked worried, his eyes not leaving Hero, who couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Perhaps you’d like to show Hero to their room?”

Hero felt Flynn’s eyes on them, searching their face, imploring them to look at Flynn but they couldn’t. Their stomach was flopping like a fish out of water, threatening to throw their dinner up any moment.

“Uh, yes. I will, thanks.”

“No problem,” Supervillain replied, mirthful as he strode past Hero and down the hall towards Flynn. He clapped a hand on Flynn’s shoulder as he passed and shot one last look over his shoulder at Hero. Hero met his gaze once, fleetingly, then turned their head away again.

Flynn was the first to move, walking closer to Hero who stood like a kicked puppy in the middle of the hall. When Supervillain turned the corner he smiled a satisfied smile to himself.

It was so easy to get Hero’s defence to crumble, and now that Hero wasn’t a threat to his plans, well… the city was about to change.

Whether it wanted to or not.

*~*~*~*~*

Orphanage roll-call: @princess-bubble-blossom @morning-star-whump @revrevrew-personal @altvaggie

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whump-since-2010 · 5 months ago

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Butterfly Whumpee - Caretaker

Caretaker never had anybody

Caretaker spent his life alone

Caretaker only knew how to take and give insults

Caretaker only ever knew how to fight back in a relationship

How to be just as bad if not worse than those he loved

How to return blows, hit back

Until he met Whumpee

She spoke like a musical instrument

She treated him like someone who didn't deserved to be stepped on

He appreciated that

Until he learned

She was only doing it because she was taught to be stepped on in his place

To endure pain but smile anyway

Caretaker and whumpee are birds of a feather.

Flaws were brought to the front and punished while any semblance of positivity of virtue was covered and buried

They try to sacrifice themselves for each other because neither think they are worth saving

Caretaker and Whumpee only have each other to live for.

Because when your life crumbles around you and you need to hold onto something

Barbed wire is still a wire

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jordanstrophe · 1 year ago

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Hallow Island, 2

[part 1] [Series Masterlist] [Part 3]

CW: Back-handed slap, gagged, bound, manhandled, controlling whumper, kidnapping/imprisoned, sliiight failed escape attempt if you squint

The strap around whumpees wrists and ankles were undone and they were tugged out of their airplane seat by an arm.

Immediately whumpee tried to rip the gag out of their mouth, but whumper took it as an opportunity to get their other arm.

"Easy! Easy now. I don't want to hurt you. Calm yourself." Whumper lulled. The words sickened whumpee to the core as they got one more burst of adrenaline and managed to rip an arm loose.

"HEY!" Whumper yelled, swiping to grab them but whumpee twisted free and bolted out the plane exit just as it opened.

The second their foot was out the door, they ran face first into two guards who seemed like they were waiting right there for them. They each grabbed an arm and pinned whumpee between them, neither budging their grip.

Whumper sniffed angrily and motioned for the guards to turn them around; before striking whumpee hard against the cheek. They whimpered as the side of their face hit the guards arm by force.

"I really tried being gentle with you... Try anything like that again and you'll lose that privilege." Whumper spat, grabbing whumpees face as they flinched.

"Nod if you understand." Whumper hissed.

Whumpees eyes flickered between defiance and fear, before giving a small angry nod. There was nothing they could do between the two guards aside from giving in.

"Splendid. Take them to the hollow. I want them clean and ready for tonight. And check their cheek before they go up for auction, I don't want to see a bruise. It's bad for business." Whumper fixed their sleeve and waved them off.

Whumpee felt weightless between the two guards. If they fought they got yanked so hard their feet went off the ground. The island was surrounded by a sandy beach, their toes left skid marks from where they struggled. They tried burying their heels but all they did was get sand in their shoes.

Despite it being an island, they could see massive glass buildings in the center beyond the palm trees. Up ahead there was a cave with a built in iron wall and door. Whumpee tried to plead with the guards, but all they could do was make sad muffled noises.

The guard on their left never looked at them once. The guard on their right occasionally glanced to make sure they weren't squeezing too tight, at least not enough to leave a mark.

Someone from the inside opened the door. The halls got dark quick and soon enough, whumpee was gently laid down in a cell where they sunk to the floor on their knees. That would be their chance to run if they had the energy; it took the plane nearly a day to get wherever they were and they spent the last energy in pitiful efforts.

"Someone will be by soon to look you over. Just try and get some rest, mmkay?" The last guard spoke, looking over their shoulder. Whumpee ripped the gag out of their mouth and shouted "PLEASE HELP ME!" Before the door slammed shut.

Whumpee let loose a broken cry they had been holding in since they shoved the gag in the first place.

To be continued- [Series Masterlist]

@enigmawritesstuff

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whumpback-wail · 11 months ago

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07 - Decrescendo

Trial by Fire (Wriothesley x Reader)

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: Reminder that this fanfic contains dark and mature themes. The TW/CW are in the masterlist and are constantly updated as I add each chapter. Please reread the warnings, proceed only after you reread the warnings. If you don't like/can't handle the topics mentioned in the TW/CW, please DO NOT read. This work is 100000% fictional and any similarities to real life people and events are purely coincidental, and none of the characters (especially the villains) are real. Again, please DO NOT read if you are not certain you can handle these topics or are in a bad place mentally. Minors are strictly forbidden. I only create content, and I am not responsible for your personal content preference and moderation. If you think you will not like this story, please just scroll away. You have been warned.

Wriothesley didn’t know how long he sat there watching her sleep, silent tears long since dried out. He couldn’t imagine the trauma that (y/n) must have gone through. She’s really strong, although he wished she didn’t need to be.

A knock sounded at the door, and Neuvilette stepped inside.Wriothesley turned his head around and nodded in greeting, not caring about how he looked with puffy red eyes and tear stains on his face.

“How is she?” The Iudex placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulders.

Wriothesley scoffed, rubbing his nose, “Terrible. We both are.”

Neuvilette nodded, understanding.

“Dougier spilled once we brought in Chlorinde.” At the mention of Dougier’s name, Wriothesley bristled, hands clenching on his thigh.

“She hasn’t even touched him. Wriothesley, we found Arderne’s location.”

“Where?” Wriothesley was on his feet in an instant.

Neuvilette hesitated.

“I… I only came here to tell you that, since you deserve to know the update, but in your current condition, I’m afraid you have to sit this one out.”

Wriothesley couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “What? Why?”

“I am doing this for your sake, Wriothesley. I know that look in your eyes right before you pounced on Dougier. You were going to kill him right there.”

Wriothesley grumbled. As much as he hated it, Neuvilette was right.

“I mean he’ll be dead once he gets sent back to Meropide.” The raven haired Duke sat back down, feeling defeated. He also knew he was acting rashly when he straight up decked Dougier, but that was as if his body moved on its own. That yet again proved Neuvilette’s point. Well fuck.

“But until then, we will have to follow Fontaine’s laws. You know that better than anyone.”

Sighing, he could only quietly agree with the Iudex. He kept his eyes on (y/n)’s sleeping form as Neuvilette excused himself and left.

Part of him was frustrated, he wanted to do something, anything, to help with the case, especially at such a vital moment. But he also knew he probably wouldn’t be able to hold back once he got his hands on Arderne. If he were alone, he would risk it and he wouldn’t care about serving another sentence in Meropide. But he has (y/n) now, and he didn’t want to leave her behind

Rubbing his nose, he got up to splash some water onto his face. He has to stay strong for her, for them.

Once all traces of tears were gone, he came back to her side, leaving a kiss on her forehead, a silent promise that he would still love and cherish her through thick and thin.

“I’ll be back, my love. I won’t be long.”

Wriothesley needed to clear his head, and he knew exactly what to do. He exited (y/n)’s room and thanked the two men guarding his fiancee, he took a mental note to give Navia a hefty reward to distribute among her men later. They have been a great and reliable help.

Going back down to Meropide, he went straight towards the pankration ring arena, where there are always some boxing targets for him to use. It has been quite a while since he last came here to let off some steam.

After a quick warm up, he let his mind go blank and proceeded to strike the targets. Each punch he threw using a hundred percent of his power, putting in as much body weight into it as possible to make the blows harder. Wriothesley was in a world of his own, head empty and mind solely focused on the target before him, not caring about the eyes of inmates who watched their Duke exercise.

• • •

“So… I heard that it shouldn’t be too painful?” Wriothesley rubbed (y/n)’s shoulders comfortingly. They are at the abortion center of the hospital, awaiting the doctor to prescribe (y/n) the medicine that she would have to take.

“Nope, since the pregnancy is under 5 weeks, we can do it by medication.”

(y/n) swallowed, and gave Wriothesley’s hand a little squeeze. “Will it… Will it hurt the foetus?” As much as she hated Dougier, the experiments, and everything she was forced to go through, the foetus growing inside her, no matter the source, is still innocent.

The doctor smiled and shook her head. “This pill was specially developed in Monstadt by the famous alchemist Albedo, and his assistant, Sucrose, who had used her anemo vision to enhance it even further. It will be completely painless for the foetus and the mother. Besides, the foetus has not developed to the stage where it can feel pain.”

(y/n) nodded, feeling more reassured.

“So now all (y/n) has to do is just take the pills twice a day for 3 days and it should be all good?”

“Yes, it should remove everything from inside her womb. She might feel a bit drowsy as a side effect, but it will not be painful.”

“I will. Thank you so much, doctor.”

• • •

“According to the judgement of the Oratrice Mecanique D’analyse Cardinale, Dougier and Arderne, you are deemed… Guilty.” Neuvilette’s voice seemed to echo through the Opera Epiclese, reverberating through the (y/n)’s chest.

It’s over.

“You have been sentenced to 60 years in the Fortress of Meropide, and you will have to fulfil your duties there, under the command of the Duke of Meropide, Wriothesley.

(y/n)’s eyes darted to Wriothesley, who stood under the balcony of the defendant, where she sat. She didn’t need to see his expression to know how satisfied he looked, it was reflected on the faces of Arderne and Dougier, the two main perpetrators of the facility. They stood on the balcony opposite her’s and their faces were pale as ghosts.

“B-but…” Arderne reasoned, wincing pitifully as his small movement jostled his broken leg, still wrapped in a cast. “But Iudex, surely we will be granted protection once we are back in Meropide-”

“I hate to break it to you,” Wriothesley stepped forward slowly, eyes flashing with a sadistic glint, “But the Fortress of Meropide is not under Fontaine’s Jurisdiction.” He has waited a long time for this.

Neuvilette nodded, repressing the urge to smile, “The Duke is right. The Fortress of Meropide has its own laws and systems, and anyone who has to serve a sentence there is not under the protection of Fontaine’s laws. I suggest you be on your best behaviour while you’re there serving… for the rest of your lives, it may seem.”

A giggle sounded from the back of the room. Furina, from her own balcony as the Archon, clapped her hands. “Bravo! Bravo! What a lovely finale to perhaps the most intense trial in the history of Fontaine! You two certainly broke the record for longest sentence ever given by the Oratrice. So in a way, congratulations!”

Neuvilette knocked his cane on the floor three times, “Lady Furina, if I may conclude the trial-”

“Oh let me do it!” Furina cleared her throat, and with an intonation almost perfectly mimicking Neuvilette, she said “And with that, this trial has concluded. Guards, take them away!”

It felt like a huge weight has lifted off (y/n’s) chest. She felt all the intense feelings she had just moments earlier melt away into misty grey numbness.

It’s over. Everything that happened could just be a bad memory now.

She took a shaky breath and looked downwards to seek her fiance, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Looking for someone?” His voice appeared from behind her, as hands snaked around her waist.

“Wriothesley,” (y/n) turned around and hugged him, letting him catch her full weight as her legs turned to jello and gave up. “It’s over. It’s really over huh?”

Wriothesley kissed her cheeks, damp with tears, “Yeah, sorry you had to revisit old wounds, I know you want to forget everything, and keep the things that happened to you to as few people as possible. I hope not opening the trial to the public helped.”

(y/n) shook her head, “honestly, not really. But it was necessary, I know.”

During the trial, (y/n) had to be escorted out of the room a few times as she was starting to hyperventilate. Her therapist was there, always right by her side. It was unfortunate that Wriothesley had to stand below her balcony, joining the rest of the witnesses to this case. She would have felt better to have him right beside her.

She sniffed, wiping the remnants of her tears from her face. “Can… Can we go home now?”

Smiling, Wriothesley swept her off her feet and into his arms in a princess carry. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Walking out of the Opera Epiclese, (y/n) held onto Wriothesley tightly, burying her face into his neck. “So…”

“So…?”

“So what now?”

Wriothesley hummed, and (y/n) could feel the vibrations from his chest, “I suppose you have another therapy session tomorrow, so I’ll take you back to the hospital. But hey, at least now that you’re discharged, you don’t have to sleep there anymore.”

(y/n) smiled, “Yeah, I’ll be sleeping in our home, with you.”

“And we’ll do our absolute best to make things go back to normal, well… As normal as it gets anyway.”

She looked up at her fiance, who has been by her side through the worst of times, and still stayed despite how she had pushed him away in fear. She felt another feeling replace the numbness in her heart. Love.

Lifting her hand, she caressed Wriothesley’s cheek, and gently turned his head to face her. His footsteps faltered and his eyes closed automatically the moment he felt her press her lips against his.

Once they broke apart, (y/n)’s world was filled by the brilliance of the grin that stretched across Wriothesley’s face, “Well that was our first kiss after a very long while.”

Embarrassed, (y/n) buried her face into his neck again. Her ears tinged red, giving away the flush that had bloomed across her cheeks. “I just felt like doing that.”

Wriothesley chuckled, and continued walking, but this time he changed directions and went to the side of the road. He sat (y/n) down on short the stone walls that fenced the clean brick roads, and picked a rainbow tulip nearby.

“(y/n), love, I know I’ve done this before, and you’ve already said yes, but I think I need to do this again.” He got on knee, and fished inside his jacket pocket, taking out a ring that matched the one on his finger.

“(y/n), we have been through a lot these past months. The road was rough and the skies were dark. But even so, we pulled through together. You were so strong having overcome everything, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. You voiced out your concerns at your lowest point, and I wanted to reassure you again to make sure you never have such thoughts ever again. I love you so much, and I never wish to be parted from you from this day on. (y/n full name), Will you marry me?”

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{{(＞＜)} ☆ ～('▽^人)

Well that de-escalated quickly, I honestly was stuck and didn't know what to write after the previous chapter because I wrote the entire fic only for chapter 5 and 6, it was pure self indulgence that somehow blew up here on Tumblr. After that usually the ‘scenario I play in my head to fall asleep’ ends and I’m already asleep. So I think the next chapter would be the epilogue, to wrap everything up neatly (and emotionally). I will also post the originally planned plot of Trial by Fire after that, because I think you guys deserve to know it (frankly I think it’s much better than this blurb, and much longer).

Though I think this chapter could be better, heck this fic could be better in general. If it were more detailed and longer with better descriptions and scenes to show (y/n)’s recovery from the incident. Something more show than tell. But since the beginning, I did tell myself I will keep it short, since writing does take a lot of time and energy, and with the amount of work I have as an illustrator, it looks almost impossible. So perhaps my next work would be one-shots or just 3 chapters max. It definitely won’t be as long (but will be as angsty with hurt/comfort heheheheheh)

Now I’m a little curious. How do you fall asleep? Do you think of all sorts of scenarios or keep your mind blank? Or just scroll on your phone until you fall asleep? For me, it’s usually angst and hurt/comfort scenarios with my favourite characters. Some could be self-inserted, others not really. Not sure why that works best for me, but if it works, it works.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story so far! If anyone wants to rewrite this to your own version, you can contact me, and please credit this fic when you publish yours. I’d love to read what you come up with!

Last but not least, thank you so much for reading! I hope you all stay safe and healthy, and I hope you have a wonderful year this 2024! Cheers!

Taglist: @almosteggs @quuela @tempest1art @yamanaka13-blog @arseneumbra @kimmeaahh @cottonfluffs @randomidk-123 @applejayee @keigo-hawks-takami-simp @mechanicalbeat1 @aribae14 @bforbiblio @supernerdycookietrashblrr @furblrwurblr @chifuyus-kitty @bunnibabe @the-real-fandom-person @idawnghoul @kitsunechan707

#wriothesley x reader #genshin impact x reader #wriothesley angst #wriothesley x reader angst #whump #whump writing #whump series #whump fanfic #whump fanfiction #genshin impact whump #genshin impact wriothesley #whump community #genshin character x reader #anime whump

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whumpy-wyrms · 4 months ago

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The Last Lab Rat #19: Eye Spy…

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content: lab whump, captivity, experimentation, nonsexual nudity, drugging, mind control, panic attack, sensory deprivation, fear of drowning, near death experience, sensory overload, angst, suicidal ideation, winged test subject whumpee, creepy scientist carewhumper

heed the warnings on this one folks… :)

—

Despite things happening to Dew that he was never thought possible, nothing was making being here a better experience. His body and mind were changing without his control, he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, and despite trying so hard not to, he missed his old life. But the scientist was more giddy than ever, seemingly too enraptured with the experiments to notice Dew’s obvious sinking despair.

That was all it was, now. The same routine. Torturous experiments that left him in pain, dulling and mind-numbing tests, the scientist’s voice describing it all in his tape recorders, and the small moments of peace and comfort he got inbetween it all.

Dew wondered what would happen next. What the next horrible modification to his body would be, how much it would change him, how much of himself would be left when it was over. He wondered how his clone was doing, if his friends even suspected anything. He wondered how long this would go on for, how long he could last, how long he even wanted to last.

The past couple of days, Anton had been working in the lab alone, on something that was unknown to Dew. He’d brought out a giant rectangular tank of some sort, and had been messing around with the strange liquid inside. He refused to elaborate on it, and Dew had no choice but to ignore it.

So he was stuck in his small room, unable to really do anything besides draw, but even that grew tiring. Sometimes Sasha would show up, but they’d barely talk to each other, neither of them really having anything interesting to say.

His eyes felt mostly back to normal by now, and he was content without wearing a blindfold all the time. His third eye felt natural to him, and he almost forgot about it if not for him accidentally zoning out and seeing through objects sometimes.

The scientist had let up on him too, and Dew was allowed to do things on his own again. He was behaving, after all, and Anton wanted to respect his privacy and space as much as he coul, as if Dew was still a person.

He was still a person. Sometimes it was hard to believe that anymore.

“Dew,” Anton said, though he sounded so, so far away. “Wake up.”

“Huh?” Dew sat up and stretched, wings flapping lightly in contentment. Just another morning.

“Here’s your food.”

“Thanks.”

“You experiencing any more changes with your eyes?” Anton asked as Dew ate his breakfast. The scientist was wearing his weird goggles again, today.

“Nope. Just darkness.” He stared off into space, watching Anton write that down in his clipboard. Then he saw the scientist’s heartbeat through his chest. He blinked, and focused on the blindfold. Darkness.

“Hmm, okay. We have a pretty important experiment today. I’m excited.”

“Aren’t they all important?”

“Well, yes, but this one is…” The scientist waved his hands excitedly. “It will change everything, if all goes right.”

“They all change everything…” Dew mumbled, looking to the ground.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Anyway, you can take off your blindfold, you won’t be needing it. I’ll turn the lights out when we get there. Oh, and don’t bother putting on the hospital gown. Unfortunately, clothes will just get in the way of this one.”

“Oh… alright.” So it would be something different this time, after all.

They walked into the lab, and Dew could see the giant glass tank that Anton had been working on for the past few days up close. Getting a better look, he noticed it was filled with nothing but a pitch black liquid. He wouldn’t have thought it was glass at first, but the edges of it were thick and clear, so it had to be. The liquid inside was so dark and opaque, and he couldn’t even see through it if he tried, as focusing all his concentration on it just made his head hurt. This was the first time he’d been completely unable to see through something with his new eyes.

There was a ladder leaning against the tank, and the top of it looked like it could be opened and closed. The tank itself was smaller than the giant glass tube filled with green liquid on the other side of the lab, the one that had always been there but to Dew’s understanding, went unused. This one was just a few feet taller than him, and wide enough to hold his arms straight out in all directions, but not much else. The thought of being stuck in there filled him with dread.

He thought it surely had to do with whatever the scientist was going to do to him today. But he’d stopped spying on Anton’s notes and plans after a while, not caring about what happened to him anymore as the tests on his eyes grew more and more mundane and repetitive. This one though, seemed different. Perhaps he should’ve snuck a peak.

“Ah, yes,” Anton began, turning to Dew with that familiar unhinged, giddy expression. “You’re probably wondering what this is, right?” He gestured to the giant tank while casually leaning a hand against it.

Dew faked a smile. “Yeah.” He found the scientist to be in a better mood when he pretended to care about what he was saying, when he pretended to be happy to be there.

“Of course you do,” Anton said theatrically. “This tank here can hold just about anything in it, it’s very strong, impossible to break through. It can’t be moved from this spot, but it can be lowered into the floor, where it’s usually stored and out of the way. But you don’t have to worry about that, I have another way of making whoever’s inside be enclosed in complete darkness.”

“W-wait, inside?”

“Yes! For this experiment, you’ll be going inside the tank. The stuff it’s filled with is what I’ve been working on. When you go inside of it, it will— well, it’d be more fun as a surprise I think. But it’s breathable. You won’t drown in it, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s perfectly safe.”

Well, shit. “W-what are you gonna do to me?” Dew asked miserably.

Anton adjusted the goggles on his face, making them glow a bright green. He smiled. “You’ll find out soon.”

The entire lab faded to complete darkness, but Dew’s eyes adjusted quickly. The scientist had his night vision goggles on, and was writing something down in his clipboard. Dew waited in agonizing silence until Anton snapped on some black rubber gloves and started preparing a syringe.

“Don’t worry, Dewey. Just two injections. They’ll be over quickly.” The first syringe was huge, almost the biggest one he’d used on him yet. It was filled with a glowing orange liquid, fizzy with bubbles. Anton flicked it hard a few times, and brought it towards him.

Dew was about to ask if he could wear his headphones during this, distract himself with loud music blasting through his ears, but Anton was quick to inject the syringe into Dew’s neck before he got a word out. Pure agony erupted in his veins, just for a moment, but then it was over.

Dew didn’t even have time to process what had happened before Anton was injecting something else into his arm, but a far more familiar and just a little less painful substance than the first. By now, Dew recognised it as something that’d probably make him feel weak and sleepy, a sedative of some sort.

“All done,” Anton said, putting the needles away and walking back to Dew. “Now, we have to wait a little bit for the stuff to set in. In the meantime, you can, uh, take off your shirt and pants. You won’t be needing them.”

“O-oh. Okay.” Dew did as he was asked, and Anton tossed his clothes to the side. “Now what?”

“We wait. Tell me if you start to feel anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Dew said. And they waited. Anton spun in his chair with a smile on his face while Dew stood there awkwardly in the dark, cold and exposed, waiting in agonizing anticipation for something to happen. It was almost numbing, thinking about it, wondering what was going to happen.

A few moments passed, and Dew started to feel strange. His face scrunched up in confusion, then a worried realization.

“H-hey um, Anton?” Dew whimpered, scratching at his arms. “I don’t… I don’t f-feel anything.”

“Good,” Anton mused. “You’re not supposed to feel anything.” He took Dew’s wrist and led him to the ladder.

“W-what?”

“It’ll be okay, just trust me. Now, climb into the tank, Dew.”

Dew stepped towards the ladder, taking apprehensive glances back at the scientist. He put a hand on it, but felt nothing against his palm. “I-I’m scared.”

“Just relax. Climb up the ladder.” Dew felt his body move automatically, the scientist in control of his every action. He watched his hands gripping the ladder and his legs climbing up it, but felt nothing. “Good, that’s it.”

The entire top of the tank was covered by a thick metal lid, with a latch on one side. Dew crawled on top of it, and sat opposite from the ladder. Now that he was free from Anton’s grasp, he realized he was losing more and more feeling in his body. “I can’t- I can’t breathe—”

“You can, you probably just don’t feel it. That’s okay. You’re gonna be okay, Dew.” The scientist climbed up the ladder after him, and Dew sat in place. Anton unlocked the latch, and slid the top half open. Dew could now see the inside clearly, the strange dark liquid only a few inches away from him. He knew where this was going. And he was unrestrained, he could still jump down or fly away from this. But of course, he couldn’t feel his wings either.

While Dew was staring into the darkness of the tank, he hadn’t noticed that Anton started to attach some wires to his skin, long, dangly things that attached to the tank and led to the machines and screens by his desk. Once he was all hooked up to whatever that was, the scientist placed his hands firmly on Dew’s sides, making his hair stand on end. “I’m going to lower you down now, alright? Stay nice and still for me, Dew. Everything will be fine.”

Dew tried to wiggle out of his grip, but he couldn’t seem to muster up the strength. “N-no, please, I don’t wanna do this,” He whimpered.

“It’s okay. This won’t hurt you.” Dew curled into himself as Anton lifted him up, and lowered him down.

Dew expected it to be cold, or warm, or to feel like something, but it felt like absolutely nothing. Half of his body was submerged, but he wouldn’t have even known that if he weren’t looking right at it. His body disappeared under the liquid completely, and the thought of his head being submerged made him want to cry. He grabbed onto Anton’s arms, silently begging him to stop or slow his descent. He tried to kick out, but he couldn’t feel or see if his legs were moving or not, or if they even could. He couldn’t touch the bottom, couldn’t kick his legs to swim, couldn’t keep his head above the surface if he were to be dropped inside.

“Anton, p-please. I- I don’t feel anything. I can’t- I-I can’t even feel my own heartbeat! That’s gotta be bad, right?” Dew let go of Anton’s arms and grabbed the ledge of the tank, scared that the scientist would let go and he’d have nothing to grab on to. “I-I feel like I’m gonna die— I don’t w-wanna die!”

The scientist let go and took a few steps down the ladder, reaching eye level with his test subject. He extended his hand towards Dew to ruffle his hair like he had done so many times before. He laughed maniacally. “Dew, if it was gonna kill you, it would have by now. I would never let anything bad happen to you. You’re completely safe.”

“P-please!” Dew held on for dear life. He couldn’t go under. He couldn’t. “I d-don’t wanna do th-this!”

“Shhh…” Anton said. And despite it all, he still seemed to have a hold on Dew’s brain, forcing him to relax deeper into himself. “Any minute now, you’ll start to get weaker. I recommend getting yourself comfortable in there before you succumb to the drugs.”

“And- and if I don’t?”

“You won’t be strong enough to keep holding yourself up like this. It’d be less distressing for you to go under on your own will. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter; you’ll go down either way.”

“But I…I can’t…”

His words were getting awfully sluggish, and it was becoming increasingly harder to hold on and keep himself upright.

“N-no…”

His eyelids were growing heavier and heavier, and it was taking a great deal of concentration to try and keep his one sense he had left.

“You’ll be okay, Dew. I promise.”

He looked up at Anton with wide, horrified eyes, as the scientist gently pried his fingers off of the ledge, and let go of his hands. Now that he was no longer holding onto anything, and had no feeling in his limbs, he began to sink deeper into the liquid. The last thing he saw before his head was submerged in that pitch dark fluid, was the scientist smiling down at him, the glow of his bright green goggles, and his hand slowly moving the lid closed.

Then, darkness. Complete and absolute darkness. Dew was fully submerged.

He couldn’t feel a thing. Not even the heavy beat of his own heart. He opened his mouth to scream but didn’t hear or feel a single sound come out. He tried to flail his arms, but he had no perception of moving anything at all. His vision was filled with a dark abyss of nothingness, and he definitely couldn’t taste the bile rising in his throat.

He tried desperately to bang on the glass, but with everything being pitch black and his sense of touch gone, it was impossible to know what he was actually doing with his body. He couldn’t tell whether this fluid affected his ability to see through the dark and objects, or whether his sense of sight was gone just like all his other senses.

Dew felt nothing. He felt as if he didn’t even have a body. If he was moving, if someone was talking to him, if he was even breathing— under this strange liquid— he wouldn't know. All he had was his mind, and his terrified racing thoughts to accompany him in this hellish limbo.

Dew felt like he was nothing but a brain in a jar. He felt like he was floating through space with no concept of human existence. No, he felt like he didn’t exist at all.

Wait.

Was he dead?

Is this what death was?

Dew never really thought about what happens when you die. He hoped there was a better place, and that it would be peaceful, but it didn’t matter in the end, because everyone died.

The concept of literally ceasing to exist always filled Dew with a strange feeling he couldn't describe. It was incomprehensible, but he wasn’t against the idea.

But this wasn’t that. Sure, he was floating in nothing but a black abyss, but he still existed. He could still think, and feel emotions, and wonder, and want so, so badly to know what was happening to him.

His life flashed before his eyes. His childhood with his family, his friends, his pets, his hobbies and his passions and hopes and dreams. He thought about happy days, sad days, sleepovers, being alone, camping trips, anxiety, coming out, failing, music, hurt feelings, school, loss, video games, grief, art, regret. He thought about everything Anton had given him, and everything he had taken away. He thought about the lab, his tomb.

Was this really all his short and pathetic life was for? To live, just to die? Just to die here, alone, by the hands of his tormentor during another horrible experiment on him? He never got to say goodbye to his friends or his pets or his parents. He never got to say goodbye.

It felt like an eternity, floating there, wherever he was, or wasn’t anymore.

Time passed on infinitely. He felt himself fading away.

Just as fast as this whole thing started, it ended. Dew opened his eyes— or maybe they were always open— and all five of his senses came back in a heavy, overwhelming wave.

No. He thought. He didn’t want to feel. He was supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be free.

“...ey? Dewey? Can you hear me? Wake up, Dew. Please wake up.”

Dew’s hands immediately flew up to cover his ears, and he squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a pained yelp.

He was out of that horrible tank, laying next to it on the hard and cold floor, and the scientist was looming over him.

And he could feel everything again.

His heartbeat pounded deep and heavy in his chest and echoed through his ears. His eyes were wide and everything was far too bright and intense but closing his eyes meant he’d be back in that dark abyss, and he- he couldn’t go back there again. He felt his wings and their primal, yearning desire to fly, and he flapped them rapidly, feathers slapping against the floor beneath him. It was all too much.

“Dew, Dew calm down.” Anton’s voice was frantic. “You’re okay. I-I fucked it up, but you’re okay. We’re done now, this- this obviously has much more work to be done to it.”

“You said you wouldn’t kill me!” Dew sobbed.

“Hey. Dew, listen to my voice. You’re okay, you’re— look at me,” Anton dimmed the lights in the lab and waited for Dew’s eyes to focus on him— all three of them. “I-I didn’t kill you. Not at all. You- you were just unconscious. You didn’t die, and you’re still alive. You’re alive.” The scientist was stumbling over his words. Dew had never seen him like this before.

“Get the fuck away from me! Let me go! Let me out of here!”

“Okay, okay. Please calm down.” Dew saw the sight of a syringe and began to sob harder, he was hysterical. Anton quickly injected him, though it was hard when he didn’t stop moving. Dew’s struggles started to die down and after a while, he slumped against the floor and stared teary eyed at Anton.

The scientist just kneeled there, at his side, staring at him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Dew slurred. “What the fuck- what the f…”

“Shhh, sh sh sh.” Anton said, and started messily carding a hand through his hair. “Relax, Dew. Calm down. You’re okay.”

“G-go to hell.”

“Shh. Let’s- let’s get you out of here.” Anton picked him up, holding onto him tighter than ever, and carried him to the couch by the kitchen. He laid him down and rested the side of his head to his chest, still clinging to him. Dew laid his head on the arm rest, and used the last of his strength to swat at the scientist with his wings.

Anton curled a hand through Dew’s hair, and wrapped his other hand around his torso. “Dew- Stop that, I’m just trying to make sure—”

“That I’m alive?”

“Yes.” Anton breathed heavily, closing his eyes and listening to Dew’s heart.

“How- how long?” Dew said quietly.

“What?”

“How long did you k-keep me in there?”

“Just, just a few hours, why?”

Tears fell from Dew’s cheeks. “It felt like forever. Like- an eternity. It felt like I was dead.”

Anton just held him tighter.

“I-I need to check your vitals,” Anton said suddenly, but it took him a while to finally move from that spot.

Dew laid there limply as Anton examined him. Sometimes he’d swat at him with his wings. Strange shadows kept consuming his vision and he tried to swat them away too. An icy chill went down Dew’s body as Anton put a stethoscope over his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut. It was all too much. It was all too much.

“Just a- just a bit elevated, but I supposed, that's to be expected.”

“A-Anton?” Dew squeaked.

“Yes?” The scientist turned all his attention to him, like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

“P-please don’t d-do that to me ag-again. Please.”

“No, yeah, I-I won’t. I won’t. Never again. I’m sorry. I-I’m so sorry.”

That was all Dew needed to hear when he broke down, grasping at the scientist’s sweater and sobbing into his chest. Anton hugged him back tightly, both of them clinging to one another as if their lives depended on it.

“Just let it out, buddy,” Anton said, rubbing Dew’s back and carding a hand through his hair. “That’s right. It’s okay, Dew. Shhh.”

They were like that for a while, neither of them knowing how long. Gradually, they both started to relax, heavy and rapid breathing turning calm and quiet.

Eventually, Dew fell asleep, and after a while of laying with him, Anton stood up. Running a trembling hand through his own disheveled hair, he went to clean up the mess he’d made. He stared at the scattered papers, spilled liquid, dropped pens and broken tape recorders that were littered around his desk, and grabbed a device. He pressed a button, and watched the giant glass tank lower back into the floor.

What a failure. A failure. But he could hardly think about that now. It’d been hours, it was well into the night; what they both needed was sleep. Tomorrow would be better.

After cleaning up the lab, Anton stood up, straightened his lab coat, and walked towards the couch. Dew was sleeping, body exhausted from the day’s events, but he was perfectly okay. He was breathing steady, blood pressure stable, brain active, healthy. Everything turned out okay. This experiment just needed some improvements, was all. They’d try again. …Or not, that was always okay too. Anton had more plans, better plans, than this stupid, reckless idea.

He picked his test subject up and carried him to his room. Anton lingered in his doorway for a little longer than usual, before saying goodnight, and heading out the door.

. . .

Dew woke up later that night. Everything was quiet, and dark, and cold, just like it had always been. He was lying on his back, blinking up at the ceiling, not able to muster up the energy to roll over and wrap his wings around himself and curl up into a ball and cry like he usually did. He just stared, alone and sad. He was glad he could at least see through the darkness, this time.

Dew moved his arms above his head, under his pillow. He felt the cool, sharp metal of his knife.

He could have used it. But he left it sitting abandoned in his pillowcase, day after day. It wouldn’t have been hard for the scientist to find it, or for Dew to get caught trying to stab him. But neither of them did. It existed, unused, as nothing more than something just to have hidden from the scientist.

Dew took out the knife. It stood out in this darkness, the shine glimmering off of his eyes as he turned it around in his hand. He wasn’t holding onto it very tight, he noticed. He was holding it in front of his face, laying down, staring up at the ceiling. If he dropped it, it would land on him. He’d have a scar on his face he wouldn’t be able to explain. Anton would take the knife away in the morning. Dew tightened his grip.

He closed his eyes. Nothing would get better here. Nothing. He was being good, he was doing everything Anton asked of him. He accepted his life here. He would never leave. This was it. This was it. All the pain and experimentation he had to endure every single day would be his life forever. Dew thought things might’ve gotten better if he just complied, but things got worse, he just fell deeper and deeper into his pit of despair. He’d never leave this place, he’d never see his friends again, and he’d never stop being used as a lab rat.

Dew sobbed quietly, squeezing the handle of the knife until his hand started to tremble. He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed the pain to stop.

But he— he couldn’t! Dew had never felt this way before! He didn’t want to die! He didn't!

But he thought… maybe… he’d get to finally escape this hell for good, and see his parents again.

His ears rang, which made it hard to tell if the humming above him was real or not.

No, there was absolutely somebody humming nearby. It was coming from the ceiling— in a corner by the door. Dew furrowed his brows and tried to listen deeper. It was a tune he recognised, but one he hadn’t heard in a long time. The voice sounded smooth and peaceful, and yet shaky and quiet, almost impossible to hear. But it sounded so real. It sounded nice. He must be hallucinating.

Dew thought that if he opened his eyes, he’d be all alone, and the pleasant, comforting sound would stop. But if he didn’t, he’d never know where that sound was coming from. What did he have to lose? Dew opened his eyes.

His heart all but stopped.

Up in the corner of his room was a person. A whole person, just… floating there, curled up in a ball while their dangly locks of hair floated all around them. Their skin was dark, and they wore a baggy yellow sweater, but it almost looked desaturated. In fact, their whole body looked like it was blending into the darkness, blurry and hard to focus on, but so very visible to him. They were humming to themself, quietly, rocking back and forth in the air as if they were floating in space, or in the middle of the ocean. Their eyes were squeezed shut— but it was hard to tell because their hair completely covered one of them— and they didn’t seem to notice that Dew was staring.

He had no idea what to do. He must be hallucinating. He couldn’t trust his mind anymore— or his eyes; they were all fucked up, changed beyond recognition. He could see through darkness and walls and objects, of course his brain would trick him into seeing things that weren’t there. Or even… see through into…

No. No. That wasn’t possible. This wasn’t real. Dew was being silly, and stupid. He should just put the knife down and go to sleep.

But he didn’t want to.

“Hey,” Dew said, sitting upright and pulling the blanket to his chest. He got no response. “H-Hey.” The person opened their one visible eye and looked at him with a blank, but pained expression.

“Wh-who are you?” Dew asked.

A beat. Their eye went unnaturally wide for a fraction of a moment. “You can… You can see me…?” They asked, and their voice sounded soft, yet pained, echoey, hollow, like floating in a cave deep underground, crystal clear water dripping down from the stalactites into a shallow pool, letting out a drop amidst the silence. When they spoke, it felt as if they were all around the room and yet nowhere all at once, it felt as if they were touching Dew’s mind and yet far, far away.

Dew brought his knees to his chest. “Y-yeah. Who are you?” He asked again, voice wavering. “What’s going on?”

They blinked, and it felt like their eye was piercing into his soul. A wave of hazy emotions flowed through Dew, a sense of longing and comfort and relief and horror and suffering and sadness all at once. It felt like an ache of dread deep in his chest that didn’t seem to ever go away. He felt deep underwater, drowning in the energy that emitted off the person in his room. Dew didn’t know how long the two of them stared at each other for; time seemed to have stopped completely. He felt like the two of them were the center of the universe, deep in an endless void, alone. And yet, it felt so comforting— and horrifying— when they finally spoke again.

“I’m Max…” The ghost said. “The last lab rat.”

—

(max’s pronouns are they/them)

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avvail-whumps · 9 months ago

Text

Royal Bought: Sampling #5

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content warnings: vampire whump, defiant whumpee, human auction house, captivity, manhandling, minor blood

The vampire’s grasp was unrelenting, but that was to be expected when Luke had done something as stupid as spit in his face.

He could still taste the sticky glob of blood between his teeth, pooling from his split lip, a numbing, throbbing sensation having replaced the aching pain by now. The tip of his boots clipped against the edge of the stairs as he was unceromiously hoisted up, his eyes watering.

Luke heard the clang of the door being pushed open, revealing a more modern interior as he was led — or better yet, dragged — down the corridor. It was buzzing with workers passing by, mostly vampires, but even then, Luke caught a glimpse of some of the blank faced humans working obediently.

It sent a shiver down his spine.

No one really paid attention to them, all except the occasional glance, no doubt due to Luke’s bloodied face and the way he was being manhandled down the corridor. Was it uncommon for humans to fight back? He didn’t think it was that, so much. They were merely glancing at him as if he was this wild, untamed dog with no manners.

The vampire eventually came to a stop in front of a door, pushing Luke inside the room with a hard shove. He staggered, the grip on his hair having been released, a cry of relief coming from his sore scalp. The door was shut behind him, and even though Luke wanted to wrench his head around and send a deadly glare towards the creature, he was more taken aback by one sat on a comfortable looking couch in front of him.

This vampire looked older, his lips pulled into a calming smile.

The room was strange to Luke. He had grown up in a camp in the middle of the wilderness, making use of anything they could around them to live. There were things in here that he had never seen before - more namely, the light source of the room. There were no windows here, and yet, the place was not shrouded in darkness.

Luke’s eyes wandered around in confusion.

“Welcome,” the older vampire hummed kindly, gesturing to the space in front of him. “Please, take a seat.”

There was a table with rectangular sheets of paper and what seemed to be some sort of small kit of tools. Luke’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, throwing a subtle glance over his shoulder. The previous creature had closed the door behind him, remaining in the room. He was looking at Luke with disdain etched into those hardened features.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the older vampire lulled, drawing Luke’s attention back to him like a magnet. He swallowed uneasily at the pleasant aura the vampire was exuding. His voice was soothing and calm. Why? Wasn’t he here to be sold off? “I know this all might be a little new and confusing for you. Let me introduce myself: my name is Silvan. And you must be Luke.”

Luke shifted uncomfortably at the knowledge of his name, uttered with such confidence. Silvan must have been quite an old vampire, considering the skin on his pale face was slightly weathered, and there were hundreds of years lingering in his eyes. He was wearing a tailored suit, black on dark raspberry sorbet, contrasted against his greying hair.

Silvan’s eyes were intense, even when Luke wasn’t looking at them, and it was like they were stripping every personal detail from him with ease. His voice was like smooth velvet when he spoke, low, dulcet tones coming from his tongue.

“You lived beyond the Collared Forest, am I correct?”

The first vampire moved silently behind him, as if his feet didn’t even touch the ground. When Luke glanced at him again, he had retreated from the door, boxing him in. Unlike Silvan, this was a clear warning to sit down and do as he was told.

Luke’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, the taste of copper still fresh on his tongue. Against his better judgement, his legs managed to gain some of their strength back, and he begrudgingly circled around the plush couch, sitting opposite the older vampire. The material was incredibly soft, and Luke wondered what it was made from, how it was shaped in such a peculiar way, and if everything here was this comfortable.

“Why do you care?” Luke gritted out, his narrowed eyes watching the older vampire like a hawk as he reached for some soft tissues out of a box, holding them out for him to take. He didn’t.

“Ah, I’ll take that as a yes then, I suppose,” he mused, brow cocked in amusement. His pointed eyes flitted over to the other vampire with a hum. “His blood?”

“He was misbehaving,” he sniffed codly, nose turned up. “He’s ill mannered and has a ridiculous temperment.”

Luke was almost offended. They were talking about him as if he couldn’t hear them.

“The scent will spread fast, Silas,” the older vampire sighed deeply, his head tilted and hands back in his lap. He didn’t look like he was even considering Luke’s blatant rudeness for ignoring the tissues handed to him.

“So do rumours,” Silas spoke smoothly. “It won’t matter in the end.”

Luke’s fingers twisted into his thighs. The older vampire’s gaze had almost softened for a brief moment when his eyes wandered back over to him, as if remembering that Luke was here and they had a job to do. Judging by the kit on the table and the way the other boy had informed him that humans were hoarded off for “sampling”, he figured this was exactly that. A sampling of his blood to determine if he was expensive produce, he didn’t doubt.

“The process can be pleasant if you just behave,” Silvan smiled warmly, speaking to him as though he would be inclined to take him up on that advice. “You’re very important to us. We don’t want to have to hurt you to keep you in line.”

He found that hilarious; vampires weren’t exactly a beacon of truth. The sticky blood on his face and the numbness of his lip was a reminder that they had no issue hurting their livestock if it meant keeping them in line.

“Bullshit,” Luke hissed, his nose wrinkling in disdain. “Important? You’re selling us off like cattle.”

“Cattle?” The older vampire mused. “You’re not cattle. We pride ourselves on taking care of our merchandise. We make sure you’re all healthy, fed well, given the proper care and attention when you need it.”

“You sell us,” Luke breathed, his voice almost breathless from even having to utter such horrifying words.

“What happens when you’re bought has nothing to do with us,” Silvan informed firmly, as if that justified the crowd of humans they had awaiting their horrible fate down below. “But here, Luke, you’re safe. If you don’t behave, then we, unfortuantly, have to take the necessary precautions to keep you in line.”

Luke licked his lip. The flesh flared with a raging intensity for a brief moment, and he could map out the distinct tear. Almost to make a point. Silvan noticed it, but he didn’t comment, head tilted in curiosity.

“Physical violence will, of course, be enforced if you don’t cooperate,” the older vampire hummed. “But as I’m sure you know, we have much better, and much tamer, methods. They can feel good.”

He made sure he wasn’t looking at Silvan’s eyes. He felt himself shivering at the memories of Justinian’s compulsion, not wanting his own bodily autonomy to be stripped away from him like that so easily.

“Feel good?” He echoed bitterly.

“Of course,” Silvan smiled. “Some things can be quite euphoric. Compulsion can relax the mind and the body. Even a feeding, if handled properly, can feel good for you, too.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Many humans quite enjoy it,” the older vampire chuckled softly. “They offer themselves up willingly. That’s the price of cooperation in this place. As a human who grew up beyond the Collared Forest, I don’t expect you to understand fully just yet.”

Luke’s chest bubbled with an irritated scoff. His leg was bouncing anxiously at a continuous pace.

“What does that have to do with anything?” He growled slowly, not missing the way Silvan gestured to Silas for a brief moment, who stepped around the table to collect the tissues the older vampire handed to him. Luke suddenly went tense on the couch when Silas turned to face him again.

“You are somewhat of delicacy,” Silvan hummed, treading carefully as if he was pondering on the words as he said them. “It’s rare for there to be humans who lived so far from our territory here. You’ll cause quite a stir in the markets once word spreads around. Especially if the scent of your blood is anything to go off.”

His fingers twitched, itching to reach for his necklace and squeeze it tight for any sort of stability. His heart began racing even faster than before, throwing him for a loop. His adrenaline surged as Silas stepped closer.

“Am I supposed to appreciate that? That I’m good money for you?” He hissed coldly, leaning away from the vampire as prowled closer. “Stay away from me.”

His demands were ignored.

“You want to sample this blood?” Silas asked, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the sight of Luke’s face. A hand closed around his forearm, yanking him back across the couch with a force that gave his shoulder an ache and his skull a wobble.

“No,” Silvan hummed, rising from the seat himself, and leaning down to collect something sharp from the tool kit in front of him. “I’d like it fresh from the vein. But, please. Wipe his face - and let him struggle.”

Maybe it was a cruel demonstration of how no matter how hard Luke fought against this, there was nothing he could do against them. No matter how many times he thrashed, ignored the throbbing pain from the tight holds, or retaliated with his own kicks and smacks, there was nothing he could do.

Silas had him easily pinned down on his back, one single hand locking his wrists together above his head. The vampire’s knee crushed into his ribs, pressing down uncomfortably onto his lungs, careless of Luke’s comfort as he wiped the blood from his face. Luke’s legs kicked out, breathing heavily between clenched teeth, screaming muffled curses and insults against the hand clamped over his mouth, tissues soaking up any fresh blood from his wound.

Silvan was hovering over him now, and Silas easily wrenched his head to the side, exposing the flesh of his neck. Goosebumps exploded across the expanse of skin, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

“It’ll sting only for a moment,” Silvan warned him calmly, the feeling of cold hands prodding against his neck making him squeal. He felt a sharp prick, his body seizing against his own will. The older vampire pressed something cold against the area, gave it a couple swipes, and then drew away. Silas’ disgruntled expression darkened for a second, letting Luke stew in the position for a moment, before finally letting go of him.

He slapped a hand to his neck, sitting up so fast he’d almost gone dizzy.

“What did you do?” He snapped, his voice still trembling from the hysterics he’d built himself up to. His heart was pounding hard against his ribs. Silvan pinched the small, blood coated needle with his fingers, opting to ignore Luke for a moment. He swiped the needle swiftly against his tongue, giving himself a moment to taste the blood. Silvan then hummed, folded the needle between a white napkin, and placed it down on the table.

“Interesting,” he merely commented, and Luke awkwardly rubbed the side of his neck. “Though, I am not suprised. It’s guaranteed his blood will attract many well-off vampires.”

Silas dumped the bloody tissues in the bin. He didn’t look pleased by the situation at all, his eyes darkened and his expression grim. He wasn’t fatigued by Luke’s struggle at all, having not even broken a sweat, it seemed, or put in hardly enough effort to even quicken his breathing compared to him, who was still trying to catch his breath.

“He’s rabid,” Silas sneered. “Doesn’t matter how attractive his blood is. No one will take him with such an imputent temperament. None that could match the price, certainly.”

Silvan took a seat once more, throwing one leg over the other languidly as he observed Luke with those gleaming eyes, as if calculating exactly what he had in store for him. He clenched his jaw, trying not to let any slither of fear pass over his face. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction if his fight caused them this much trouble. Luke wasn’t going to make himself easy to sell.

“We have plenty of time to prepare before the auction,” Silvan informed, though he seemed to be talking to Luke as well. He refused to catch his eye. “We’ll give you an opportunity to settle into your circumstances, Luke. I understand this is difficult for you, but there is no denying the inevitable.”

Bitter resentment, as well as this cold, crackling helplessness cut through him like a knife. His voice had almost lost its strength. “Fuck you…”

Silvan only smiled warmly.

“I’ll be sending you to Ileana, now,” he explained, his hands interlocked on his lap casually. “She will take care of everything from there. She’s be your handler, and believe me, our aim here is to take very good care of you. You’ll be provided quality food, clothes, and a room to stay.”

Luke bristled. “Lucky me, huh?”

Silas’ eyes narrowed an inch. “She will also be teaching you how to best accommodate your master, or mistress. It won’t be good for you to misbehave, Luke. We’re giving you the benefit of the doubt because of your…” He gave him a subtle once over. “...unique upbringing, but push your luck, and we will, unfortunately, have to risk completely stripping your mind.”

He remembered the humans he’d seen down the corridor. Lifeless eyes, blank faces, mindlessly following their orders. An empty shell to be used. A horrible shiver rolled down his spine at the thought, and he was sure Silvan caught on to the way his heartbeat quickened.

“You don’t want that, do you, Luke?”

“I don’t want any of this,” he croaked.

“Well,” Silvan hummed, unsympathetic. “That is something you will have to come to terms with.”

The older vampire suddenly straightened, glancing at a unique looking contraption on his wrist. Luke eyed it wearily.

“We need to press on and sample the rest of the humans,” Silvan smiled, his gaze flickering over to Silas with a beaming smile. “Please take him to Ileana and bring me the next one.”

Luke’s expression soured when Silas grasped his arm tightly, yanking him onto his feet. He gave a firm tug, but he wasn’t going to shake the vampire’s grip from him, not without a miracle. He could feel Silvan watching him go intently, his voice rising when he got to the door.

“Good luck, Luke,” the older vampire grinned, flashing his fangs. His voice went right through him, making his stomach twist. “Have a pleasant stay.”

tag list – @whumpatize-me-captain @whump-me-all-night-long @softvampirewhump @d-cs @obsessednerd505 @suspicious-whumping-egg @sapphirechao @sparrowsage @excessive-vampires

#royal bought #whump #whump writing #whump fic #whump series #whump snippet #whump scenario #whumpblr #whump community #vampire whump #human whumpees #non human whumper #whumper #whumpee #writing #my writing #avvail whumps #i can't wait for the collection of recurring instances where luke gets really confused by modern things #because imagine him using a functioning toilet for the first time 💀

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chaotic-orphan · 4 months ago

Text

Intoxicating Fear (XIX)

The blood of the Covenant

Part one // Masterpost // continued from here

It's a day late but listen I just discovered jujutsu kaisen and wowza - I have never related more to a character than Satoru Gojo and the forced self-awareness I now have to endure bc all the other characters are just constantly criticising him - for good reasons ofc but like, I don't need the personal attack? Anyways! ENJOY

~*~*~*~*~*~

The moment Kit’s eyes lazily fluttered open he wanted to shut them again. There was no haziness to the morning, no brief reprieve of waking where there are no thoughts and you exist in a limbo state: halfway between dreaming and consciousness.

No. Not even the incredibly comfortable bed could provide a respite from his mind.

Kit didn’t get any of that.

The first thing that greeted him when he opened his eyes was Ambrose telling him that there was a telekinetic Villain in the city. And the only telekinetic hero Kit knew of was Mentor. There was Sawyer with his shadows too, but that Villain wasn’t Sawyer. Kit knew the coldness of his shadows.

Not to mention the strange thing happening with his own powers around Ambrose. It seemed like all fucking roads just lead back to Ambrose.

Kit had to get out of bed. He had to go downstairs and face Ambrose. He had to watch the news and see the scale of Ment— Villain’s— destruction. He had to call Superhero and try to ignore the feeling in his gut that told him this Villain — whoever he was — was actually Supervillain making an appearance for the first time.

His stomach turned as his mind linked Supervillain and Mentor together, but he couldn’t stop the thought from forming. He couldn’t seem to stop anything lately.

Kit clenched his teeth as he pushed himself up and out of bed. His socked feet touched soft carpet like a cloud and tension seemed to leave his body at the feeling. Ambrose may be a rich, entitled prick, but if Kit could wake up to these carpets every morning maybe he would be too.

He stretched, his limbs cracking as he woke them up. The exhaustion from yesterday’s overused powers had dissipated overnight, leaving Kit a bit more refreshed than usual. Actually, no. Not refreshed. He felt great! Normal. Aside from a mild headache but there was no bone deep tiredness in his limbs.

It felt strange, but in a good way. He clicked his fingers and a small blue bolt formed between them. Before he could be relieved, the bolt sparked violently, red tongues of lightning forked out of the blue until Kit dropped the charge.

Shit.

Kit walked out of the room, and opened a few doors before he found a bathroom. Ignoring the luxury of the room, Kit froze in the doorway. A mirror hung above the sink and reflected Kit’s bright red eyes back at him.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Kit muttered, half-running to the mirror and pulling his eyelids down. “Stop it. Stop it. Snap out of it!”

Kit slapped himself in the face and checked again but nothing. He turned the tap on, maybe he just needed to splash some water in his face. Yeah. That was it.

The water was cool over his fingertips and refreshing as it splashed his face, but when he looked up again all he saw was red. Kit slammed his hand down on the edge of the sink, glaring at his own face in the mirror.

This was all Ambrose’s fault! Before him Kit’s powers were under control! Always under control, but now… this thing with his eyes it made him sick. His electricity was supposed to be blue not red.

“Fuck!” Kit cried, smashing his fist against the edge of the sink again. “Stupid!” Punch. “Fucking.” Punch. “GAAH!” Punch. Punch. Punch.

Ambrose paused with his mug halfway to his lips in the kitchen, hearing a slight commotion upstairs. Mallory must be awake. Then slow, heavy footsteps not even an elephant would make down the stairs.

Kit got to the end of the staircase and looked right and left. The two halls looked identical, both grand and leading different directions. Kit just wanted a coffee… he trudged to the left, trusting his instincts.

From his right, he heard Ambrose: “in here, Mallory.”

Kit was about to throw a tantrum like a toddler, but instead he walked past the staircase and town the hall to the right. On his left he saw a kitchen from some ostentatious show house, like something you’d see on TV, but he ignored it and focused on the Villain sitting at the kitchen island.

His black eyes glinting with amusement as Kit stormed in, going straight for the kettle. Or well, he would’ve gone straight for the kettle had his knees not hit the floor with an echoing thud.

Kit hissed. “What the fuck?”

Ambrose frowned where he sat and stood, walking around the counter to see the hero on his knees in just his boxer shorts and t-shirt, staring up at Ambrose with wide red eyes glowing.

“Morning.” Ambrose said, then a smile came to his lips which bubbled into a laugh at the hero’s confusion. “Oh, I completely forgot.”

“Forgot what?” Kit snapped, trying to move his legs back and stand but he couldn’t. His knees were glued to the floor as if all gravity had amassed in his kneecaps that now seemed to weigh ten tonnes.

“God it seems so faraway now,” Ambrose murmured, being the cryptic fuck that he was.

Small streaks of electricity cackled from Kit’s eyes. “Forgot what?” He asked through clenched teeth. “In case you didn’t know, Rosey, I’m not exactly a morning person, so if you could undo whatever the fuck you’ve done, I’d appreciate it.”

“But you look so good on your knees,” Ambrose told him, reaching a hand out and ruffling Kit’s hair until Kit slapped his hand away. “Like a good puppy.”

“Oh fuck off, dickhead! Let me up.”

Ambrose’s black eyes danced with amusement. “Only if you ask nicely.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Oh fuck off. I’m just going to fucking crawl I guess.”

“Ki—it,” Ambrose sing-songed, his voice moving like flute notes through his ears. He recognised the coldness of Ambrose’s powers pulling at his mind, the threat of what he could do.

Kit huffed out a breath. Crossing his arms over his chest. He didn’t look at Ambrose as he mumbled: “can I get up?”

“What was that?” Ambrose asked, putting his hand to his ear like a pre-school teacher. “I couldn’t hear you over the coffee brewing.”

Red eyes snapped to black. “Can I get up? Please?!”

“Of course you can get up Kit.”

This time when Kit moved his legs, his knees didn’t keep him rooted to the spot.

“Dick,” he muttered under his breath, forcing himself not to shoulder check the villain as he passed him on the way to the kettle. “Can you undo whatever that is?”

Ambrose hummed. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. It was a measure to teach you manners.”

Fuck off, Kit thought venomously. I just want a coffee. Kit didn’t answer as he zeroed in on the kettle, and plugged it in.

“Oh, I already made a pot of coffee,” Ambrose said. Kit glanced over his shoulder at Ambrose, stare hard. Ambrose gestured to the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen and Kit was about to throw a fit. He wanted to throw the kettle at the man’s head, but he knew he just needed a coffee and then he’d be fine. So he restrained himself and walked to the coffee pot.

The smell of the coffee went straight to his heart. “Is this… drip coffee?” He asked as he poured the black liquid into the cup that was set out for him.

Ambrose scoffed behind him. “I know you’re used to living in squalor, Mallory, but I don’t keep instant coffee in the house.”

“Wow. I’m not complaining,” Kit said, turning to the island and going to sit beside Ambrose. “I mean, I don’t live in squalor, but drip coffee would be nice every morning.”

Ambrose’s black eyes went to Kit’s face as he sat into the stool. Kit was too busy looking at his bare legs to notice. “I forgot my trousers,” he grumbled, feeling the tips of his ears going pink.

Ambrose waved the comment away. “I’m sure you had more pressing issues this morning?”

Kit raised his pained gaze to Ambrose. Black eyes searched Kit’s red ones with a mildly contained annoyance. “I was hoping there wouldn’t be any lingering effects of yesterday.”

“Lingering effects?” Kit repeated incredulously. “Lingering effects?! Oh I’m sorry if my overworked powers are inconveniencing you in any way, Ambrose. I’m so sorry—”

Ambrose waved him away. “Okay, you’re being dramatic.”

While Kit continued speaking over him, sarcasm dripping from every syllable: “so very, devastatingly, sorry that my powers are all out of whack because a fucking sadistic piece of shit just loves to push me until I can’t go further.”

“Apology accepted.”

Kit scoffed, shaking his head and took another gulp of his coffee. Fuck it tasted so good, it almost made him calm down. Almost.

“But the fact of the matter is we have more pressing issues.”

A sardonic smile slid its way onto Kit’s lips, resting his chin in the palm of his hand and gesturing between them. “What is this “we” you speak of?” He asked, red eyes alight with amusement.

“Mentor, Kit. I’m talking about Mentor.”

Kit’s face dropped as he straightened. “What is this we you speak of?” He repeated tightly.

“Mallory—”

“No,” Kit spat venomously, running a hand through his hair. “No, I am not talking about Mentor with the person who destroyed his mind for fun. No. We’re not doing this.”

“Kit— it’s important, we need—”

“STOP SAYING WE!” Kit roared, slamming his hands down on the table. Red sparks erupting around him as his anger grew. He wanted to smile at the look of fear that flashed across Ambrose’s face as the electricity spit and spewed around him, like a thousand hungry tongues hissing at the air around them.

“There is no we, Ambrose.” Kit continued, his voice echoing slightly with static as if he were speaking through an old radio. “There has never been a we. The only thing that joins you and me is Mentor, and that’s a very thin line because you didn’t know about our connection until what? This week?! You have no fucking right to speak to me about—”

“Mentor is my father.”

The silence would have been deafening if Kit’s electricity didn’t stutter and stop with a pathetic jolts like an old man’s fart. Kit’s mind screeched to a stop with a record scratch, before running ten miles a second because what the fuck did Ambrose just fucking say?!

Kit just stared as Ambrose clenched his hands into fists and loosened them again, repeating the gesture as if he were reaching for something he couldn’t quite touch. It felt as if Kit’s eyelids were torn with how wide they stared at the villain in front of him because this was some fucking sick joke, right?!

“It’s not a joke,” Ambrose said quietly, a wry smile on his face when Kit’s immediate thought was: get out of my head. “It’s not a joke, Kit. I wish it were.”

“You’re—” Kit began, but didn’t have enough breath in his lungs to finish the sentence, his eyes prickling with tears that he refused to let fall. “You… you’re lying. There’s no… you don’t even—”

Kit wasn’t making sense. They were all half formed thoughts spilling from lips as he wondered whether he should kill Ambrose where he stood now, or later.

“You don’t even share the same last name,” Kit settled on, his mind reeling. Ambrose met his eyes finally and Kit wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want to see the vulnerable humanity lingering in Ambrose’s black gaze, the hard tilt to his brows. The confession seemed to strip Ambrose of everything that him, well… Ambrose, and left a man, no a boy, not much older than Kit sitting before him. “You don’t even look alike! You’re not— you can’t be—”

Ambrose sucked in a breath through his nose, burying his face in his palms and rubbing his eyes. “I can show you my birth certificate if you’d like.”

Kit sprung to his feet because he didn’t know what else to do. His body was wired — no alive — with a restless energy that he couldn’t quell or control and the only way he could do something about it was somehow related to jumping off the stool.

“You— you! There’s— you can’t be Mentor’s son! Mentor didn’t— doesn’t have a family!”

Ambrose scoffed, running his hands down his face until they settled around his cup in front of him, his gaze distant. “He would say that.”

“You’re lying.”

Ambrose turned his head to face Kit, though he didn’t really look at him. More like through him. A wry smile pulled at the edges of his eyes.

“Believe it or not, Kit. The fact remains the same.” Ambrose took a sip of his coffee or tea or whatever, while Kit just stood uselessly staring at Ambrose and trying to logic a way to this being some joke, or ruse. “I wish it wasn’t true either.”

“You— you—” Kit stuttered, his hands balling into fists at his sides. Ambrose widened his eyes slightly, raising a placating hand towards Kit.

“Hey, Kit. Calm down.”

Don’t tell me to calm down, Kit wanted to say but he couldn’t get the words out. He couldn’t stop shaking, his entire body felt as if he just drank a vat full of caffeine and it wanted to go, go, go. It was as if someone had just jump-started every nerve in his body, every muscle contracting, every blood cell oxygenated and his body felt far too small as everything seemed to constrict inside of him and there wasn’t enough space and his veins felt ready to burst and—

“HEY! KIT!” Ambrose screamed from far, far below Kit. He wondered distantly what was happening, why Ambrose felt so far away. Why Kit felt like he couldn’t breathe and yet never felt more alive at the same time. “FUCK!”

KIT PLEASE! STOP! Ambrose cried in his mind, but there was no power behind his words. It wasn’t a command, which Kit recognised was strange. Ambrose wasn’t one for allowing free will and all.

Still, there was something wrong. Something very wrong with this picture and Kit couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Every time he tried to narrow it down, the thought ran like water through his fingers and he couldn’t really feel his own body anymore.

Kit crashed down to reality when his head cracked off the tile and he groaned. Ambrose was on the floor beside him, far enough away that the sparks didn’t reach him that were still spluttering from Kit’s body, but why was he on the floor?

“Kit? You with me?” Ambrose asked, black eyes wide with… that couldn’t be concern, not in Ambrose’s eyes. Kit must be hallucinating. Maybe this was all just a dream, a terrible bad dream and he would wake up and everything would be fine.

Instead, Kit groaned in pain, trying to push himself up. His muscles wouldn’t listen though and just shook uselessly beside him, not supporting his weight.

“Kit, talk to me, please.”

“Shut… up… dick.”

“You just thrashed my kitchen, Kit, I think I’m allowed to speak to you.”

Kit blinked, rolling onto his back. “I— what?”

Ambrose didn’t have to answer for Kit to see the scorch marks in the ceiling of his perfect kitchen, or the cracks in the shapes of lichtenberg figures in the walls. Kit winced, glancing at Ambrose who looked to be lost in concentration.

“Ambrose… I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“I know.”

“No,” Kit protested, raising his hands in front of his face. They sparked and hissed like Kit was in overdrive, hooked up to his own nuclear reactor, a steady stream of small bolts charging the air around his palms. “I’m not doing this.”

Ambrose nodded, tapping his temple with his index finger. “I know,” he said again, and got to his feet. “The best thing I can think to do is the power dampeners.”

Kit sat up with an effort, pressing his back against a counter in Ambrose’s ridiculously massive kitchen. “Did they work?”

“No, knocking you out, worked. Though I doubt you want to do that every time this happens.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Well, then. Power dampeners it is.” Ambrose said with a breath. “Does the circuit still close if you wear the two of them on one hand?”

Kit shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried it. Usually when you’re catching criminals you want their hands bound too.”

“Hmm, I assume it would work the same. Only one way to find out, right?”

Kit nodded, pushing himself to his feet. Only then did he see the real extent of the damage he did. The stools were scattered around the room, appliances ripped out of sockets. Half of the kettle was melded to the door of the microwave, the microwave itself looked like a crushed aluminium can.

Kit glanced down at his fingers, at the red lightning. Did he really do all this without realising?

His mind went back to his Academy days, when he had first arrived and was only learning how emotions tied to his abilities. It was Superhero who sat down with him and taught him that in order to master his gift, he had to cut off the link between his emotions and his abilities, or he wouldn’t get anywhere as a hero.

This red lightning, it seemed, burrowed all the way down to Kit’s emotions — his negative emotions — anger, rage, hatred, confusion. How could he stop something he could barely recognise the warning signs of?

“Don’t think too much about it, Mallory. Let’s just do one thing at a time. The power dampeners.”

Kit nodded. “Right. The power dampeners.” He repeated, glancing down at his bare legs. “And trousers.”

Ambrose smiled. “Yeah. Might be a good idea.”

Kit walked back out of the kitchen, when by the door Ambrose stopped him again. “Kit, if you want fresh clothes, feel free.”

Kit stopped in the door, glancing over his shoulder at Ambrose who looked mildly embarrassed at the offer. It was a strange thing to see on him. He didn’t quite meet Kit’s eye, his hand wound tight around the back of a chair, while the other brought the mug to his lips.

Kit could tease the villain about it. Usually he would, but he felt gross and shit, so he just nodded. “Cheers.”

Ambrose raised his head, meeting Kit’s eyes and nodded slightly. Then Kit took off down the hall and up the ridiculous stairs and into the first room he found last night. He wanted a shower, he decided when he picked his jacket off the ground, taking the power dampeners from his pocket and tossing them on the bed.

Something to relax his muscles and clear his head. That would be heavenly right about now. Kit grabbed his jeans and threw them on the bed too. He bunched a fistful of his shirt and brought it to his nose, and winced at the smell. Yep, okay. He needed a shower.

He turned in the room, taking it in for the first time. It was huge, as was everything in this stupid house. He walked to the wardrobe that was tucked into the corner of the room, opening the doors. He expected suits and tailored trousers, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw a couple of old hoodies hung up. One of them an old Harvard sweatshirt that had the initials O. Ambrose embroidered into the chest.

It felt like important information, but Kit didn’t really care. His mind racing with the fact that Ambrose was somehow related to Mentor. His son? Why wouldn’t he tell Kit that he had a son? Why weren’t there any pictures or mentions of him ever?

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

Kit sighed, closing the doors to the wardrobe and opening the long door beside it. Inside were shelves of t-shirts and sweatpants and jocks and socks.

Kit took what he needed and walked to the bathroom, searching for towels before he locked the door.

“Mallory,” Ambrose said from outside.

Kit walked over to the door to see Ambrose outside, two towels in his hand. “Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Kit grabbed them and closed the door, locking it and turning on the shower. He ignored the flash of red he saw in the mirror. He stripped and stepped into the shower, and almost gasped at the pressure of the water drumming down on his shoulders and head.

It was so good. Better than a hotel’s pressure good, better than Kit’s shitty apartment shower anyways. He let out a long, soft sigh of relief as he felt the rushing hot water unwind the knots and pressure in his muscles. He could die under the water and he would die happy.

He washed the memories of the last day away. God was it only a day? The stress from work and Superhero’s babying treatment of him after his illness, mixing with the pains of being with Ambrose for any amount of time.

Kit rubbed his neck and collarbone where Ambrose had choked him yesterday, still feeling a phantom tie wrapped around his throat like a weighted shadow. His gaze trailed down to his arms where the cuts Ambrose had forced him to make were glaring up at him. They had scabbed over at this point, almost healing. The scabs turned yellowish-green under the water, then a purple red beneath it.

All this pain, all this… abuse Ambrose had subjected him too. Was this the price for meeting Mentor? He knew it was too good to be true when Mentor chose him, out of everyone in his year, to personally apprentice under.

The man who little by little, wore down his walled defences while building his strength and magic and confidence. Who made sure he ate everyday, who taught him the value of nutrition and how to make a proper cup of tea…

Kit slammed his fist against the tiles of the shower, hot tears mixing with the water on his face. Ambrose was a monster. He couldn’t be related to Mentor. Mentor… Mentor was a saint. He saved the entire city!

He trusted Kit!

Why wouldn’t he tell him that he had a son? Why keep it secret?! Especially someone as powerful as Ambrose, you’d think he would scream it from the rooftops.

But… but… Mentor was alone when he chose Kit. No trace of a family anywhere in his house, no other heroes mentioned it. He was alone, like Kit, and they made a family together. With each other.

Kit knew it was true, that it was real. It was the only thing he had ever been sure of in his life, so why! Kit banged his fist against the tiles again. Why was there an ache in his chest as if his heart was poisoned?! Why was there a voice in the back of his head that sadly told him that Ambrose wasn’t lying?!

Why!

Why?!

Maybe Mentor was the villain from last night. Maybe Kit never really knew him at all. Maybe Mentor only trusted him with a very small part of his life.

Either way Ambrose had the answers. Kit needed to face them, no matter how painful they would no doubt be, to hear him out.

He scoffed, sniffing. “Listen to yourself,” he muttered to the tiles, his voice uncharacteristically empty. “Hearing Ambrose out? What’s wrong with you?”

Kit sniffed, wiping the snot from his face. “Pathetic.”

He glanced to the shelf in the shower and grabbed the shower gel, staring at the bottle. It wasn’t a 3in1. Kit raised his eyes again to see other bottles in the shower. Kit stared. His brain buffering as his hand reached out to grab another bottle.

Shampoo.

Fancy looking shampoo.

Ambrose just wasted his money on fucking everything didn’t he? Was his toilet paper sheet gold?

Kit shrugged, putting the shower gel back and squeezed out some shampoo onto his hand. It smelled good. It smelled fancy.

Kit quickly showered and dried himself, wrapping the towel around his waist as he walked out to his room. Kit changed into a new t-shirt he borrowed from Ambrose and pulled on his jeans and jacket and runners.

The power dampeners he fastened around his right wrist, feeling his powers immediately diminish. When he locked the second one around the same wrist he snapped his fingers on his left hand. Nothing.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

One problem down.

He pocketed the key and left the room. Ambrose was standing in his kitchen, also dressed, his hair wet from a shower. Ambrose wore a loose sweatshirt that looked soft and black cargo pants that tucked into his boots.

Kit held up his hand triumphantly as he fell to his knees. “The power dampeners worked.”

Ambrose raised his head from an iPad, one eyebrow quirked in amusement. “And you have pants.”

“Mission successful!” Kit beamed, not caring that he was still compelled to kneel in front of Ambrose like some servant to a king.

“Good.” Ambrose said with a nod, sliding the iPad across the counter top. “You can stand, Kit. I have some bad news.”

Kit groaned, pulling himself to his feet. “What now?”

The frustration died in his throat when he saw the headlines: Water Hero kidnapped by new Supervillain, Superhero reports.

“What?” Kit asked with a breath, looking at Ambrose. “What is this?”

Ambrose stood with his arms across his chest, a hand on his mouth as he shrugged with one shoulder. “That villain last night—”

“But why would he take her?” He said “he” instead of Mentor because his brain didn’t equate the two. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I don’t know.”

“There has to be a reason?” Kit demanded, scrolling through the article.

“I already checked,” Ambrose said with a shake of his head. He waited patiently until Kit fact checked that there was no mention of why the villain took her. Kit turned his sad eyes to Ambrose again, putting the iPad on the counter. “I think we need to go see Mentor.”

Kit deflated at the suggestion. He knew that this was coming. That eventually they’d have to go and see Mentor and check to see if he really is — if he could be…

Fuck.

Kit didn’t want to think about it.

He steeled his expression and his resolve. “Fine. You can explain everything on the way.”

Ambrose nodded stiffly, not fond of sharing his past with the Hero, but maybe, it was time to share everything, especially if that new supervillain is Mentor.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Orphanage roll-call (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @beatenbruisedandbloody @404lunar1216 @whumpyworld @nameless-beanie @andithewhumper @annablogsposts @whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer r @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl @n3rv0usn0v4 @whumpatize-me-captain @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath @theonewithallthefixations @acer-gaysimpstuff @m3rakii @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom @blood-enthusiast @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @andtheysaidspeaknoww @dutifullykrispyland @mononeigbour @tippytappytyping @stefaniesblogs @shinokoro @bedtimescenarios @whatwhump

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