#anyways i did it be proud of me i finished a second piece for whumptober

[rootbeermilktm]

Whumptober no.16

Necrosis

The thing about being undead is that you don’t come back with the body you died in. Where there were once sapling boughs there are now biceps the size of Bristol families’ Christmas hams. Your stomach, once bloated from three years of gorging after thirteen of near starvation, breaks knuckles when punched. Now your pecs look like they could be milked and your thighs crush watermelons. You don’t have to tilt your head up to look your dad in the face anymore. This body is stronger, faster, bigger than the one you had, and it’s not yours.

Another thing is that the new body fixes itself differently than your old one. You don’t heal so much as you regenerate. Your flesh dies as it is want to do, and then Lazarus brings it back. It sags and blackens and reeks. But then a green light across the bay lures it out of the lake of fire and towards the liveliness that a resurrected body cannot truly attain. Dying aches in a way that feels right, and resurrection cradles in a way that feels very wrong. Cells seem sour as they decompose on the corpse you live in. They twinge with the sensation of death. And then once they’ve withered, they’re dragged back through death’s door clawing at the frame. They dig their nails into the realm they’re meant for until a cruel mockery of life forces itself upon them. It’s relentless and efficient. It certainly expedites recovery. Jason could almost call himself meta at this point, the way it’s faster to let himself rot than heal. He could clean a stab wound, stitch himself up and let his skin grow itself back together over the course of a few weeks. Or he could stay the bleeding just enough to keep conscious and let the tissue die from blood loss, infection, whatever. It’ll be back within a few days.

So Jason keeps killing this new body he’s in. It’s not going anywhere.

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 6

Today’s fic is definitely a dark one, though it does have a happy ending. Allura gets a moment to shine, and Hunk gets several. Make sure to check the warnings and let me know if I missed any!

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Day 6 - “Get it out”/“Stop, please”

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: restraints, non-consensual body modification, fantastic racism, blood, vomit, gore, graphic descriptions of brain surgery

“You can’t do this!”

Keith yanked at the restraints that held his wrists against the table. It was fruitless, he knew, he had been trying ever since they strapped him down several minutes ago, but that didn’t stop him from trying again. If he could just get his hands free, he could get up and knock these psychotic racists off their feet. 

“They’ll stop you. Voltron will stop you!”

He couldn’t see any of the people looming over him, not with his face forced down into a hole in the table so that the back of his head was excruciatingly exposed. That didn’t mean he couldn’t feel their presence. They didn’t even speak, didn’t acknowledge his protests and threats. To them, he was already just an object lying there, nothing to concern themselves with other than to prep him for their procedure. He kept pulling on the straps, almost as if determined to prove them wrong. 

A buzzing sound that he would recognize anywhere started up and made his stomach turn a somersault. Suddenly what was about to happen to him was very, very real, and Keith was very afraid. Arching his neck back as best he could, he shouted at the top of his lungs. “No! No, stop! Don’t...don’t do this!”

“Hold him.”

Briefly a lab coat appeared in front of him, then a pair of hands braced themselves on either side of his head and shoved down hard. There was no fighting against Altean strength, especially not from that position. The buzzing drew closer. Keith flinched violently at the first contact of the blade, though it only swept gently down the back of his scalp, taking large clumps of hair with it. He gritted his teeth to hold back a sob.

A minute later and that part of the job was done. A wet cloth swept over the newly shaven area, cleaning off small bits of hair left behind. Every touch made a shudder run through Keith’s body.

“He’s prepped.”

“Thank you, Noraja.”

More hands on his head, this time poking and prodding. “Alright, making the first incision now.”

Keith’s whole body tensed. This was it, his last chance to fight. “Stop, please! You don’t understand, I’m not like them! I’m a Paladin of Voltron, I help people! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Make sure you keep him still.”

“Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got him.”

Then there was something slicing into the bared skin, and it hurt just as much as he knew it was going to, but even worse than the pain was the knowledge that it was not in the least the worst part of all of this. Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked rapidly to banish them. He wouldn’t beg anymore. He wouldn’t. It did no good, anyway. His team was clearly not going to be able to save him, regardless of his boasts. The best that he could do was live his last free moments with as much dignity as possible.

The pain in his head intensified. The Altean surgeon had made at least two cuts by then, though Keith lost track of what was happening after that through the pain and the feeling of blood pouring out and being methodically blotted away. 

There was another whirring sound, and if the razor had scared him, this froze him with absolute terror. 

“Ready to drill.”

It didn’t really hurt. Somehow, there was no new pain, but Keith screamed, anyway. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t actually feel the drill going in, the vibration of his entire skull and the knowledge of what was happening was enough to send him over the edge. 

He was gonna pass out. He couldn’t pass out. If he passed out, he would wake up and they would be done and he would have missed his last chance to actually live, however horrendous this life now was. 

So instead, his stomach heaved and emptied itself onto the floor beneath him. The person holding his head didn’t even seem to flinch. His vision faded in and out as the horrible drilling continued, but he held on until it finally, mercifully stopped. 

“Alright, the hard part is done.”

“Looks good, Doctor.”

“We’re ready now for the hoktril.”

The hoktril. The thing that all of this madness was about. The metal device that these alternate-universe Alteans were so proud of, that they were about to implant in his brain through the holes they had just drilled through his skull, that would sap all of his free will and leave him as a mindless slave. All because Commander Hira found out that he was half Galra, and Allura and the others hadn’t been able to stop them from overpowering him and dragging him away.

“Please,” he choked. His earlier determination not to beg was forgotten in the midst of the panic that seized his chest. “Please!” 

For most of his life, Keith had been prepared to die. Particularly now, when he faced death every other day. Dying didn’t scare him. But this...this was much worse than death. This fate terrified him.

The metal went in with a sickening squelch, cold against his cut open skin. 

“It’s a perfect fit.”

Tears overflowed despite his best efforts, rolling just onto his cheekbones before succumbing to gravity and dropping to the floor. Any second. Any second now they would complete the process, turn it on or whatever it was they had to do, and Keith would be no more. How aware would he actually be? Did the hoktril actually delete free will as they claimed, leaving him neutral and complacent, or would he be trapped inside his own body for the rest of eternity, screaming where no one could hear? He’d find out any second now. And then it would be too late.

“Alright, now pass me the -”

“Stop right there! No one move!”

Keith gasped in a shaky breath. He knew that voice!

"E-Empress So?"

He let out a sob of relief. Allura was here. Allura was here, and she sounded mad.

“Everyone take your hands off the black paladin and back away slowly.” That was Lance. He had on his business voice, and they must have had their bayards out, too, because miraculously, every hand lifted until it was only the straps holding him there. 

“Empress, I apologize, but there must be some kind of misunderstanding. You see, our orders come from Commander Hira, and -”

“And I outrank Commander Hira, do I not? Everyone out, now.”

“But the procedure is not finished, he’s still a danger-”

“Now!”

Allura’s tone brooked no argument. There was a shuffling of chairs and feet, and Keith felt the presences that had hovered over him all this time retreat. A door clicked shut, and the team exploded.

“Oh my stars, Keith!”

“Holy quiznak.”

“Dude, I���m so sorry -”

“Guys, I can’t, I can’t I can’t, I’m gonna…”

This was followed by the unmistakable sound of Hunk losing his lunch somewhere across the room, but Keith’s attention was on the others who had approached him. A gentle hand rested on his back, and he couldn’t help but tense. 

“I’m so sorry, Keith,” Allura began from above him. “We tried to get here as fast as we could, but Hira had us detained for ‘obstruction of justice’, and -” Her breath hitched. “I’m so, so sorry. Thank the stars we didn’t arrive any later.”

Keith couldn’t reply. He was so incredibly, undeniably relieved to have them there, but he still couldn’t stop shaking and crying. As Allura and Pidge began murmuring together about scientific things, a pair of armored knees appeared in his vision, followed by a round, slightly pale but still smiling face. 

“Hey buddy,” Hunk greeted him softly. “Give me a sec, I’m just gonna…” Fetching a towel from somewhere nearby, he threw it over the puddle of sick so that he could scoot in closer, hunching over so that he could be almost directly below Keith. It had to have been uncomfortable, but seeing a familiar face eased just a bit of the lingering fear.

“Hey, you’re okay now. Those bad guys are gone, and nobody’s gonna hurt you anymore, I promise.”

“Get it out.” It started as a whisper, but quickly grew to a frantic near-shout. “Get it out, get it out, please…”

“Yeah, yeah, we will! Okay? Shh, just...just try to take some deep breaths…”

The tears wouldn’t stop coming. “Please. I just want it out.”

Pidge suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision, squatting down to see him. “We’re gonna work on that, okay? The good news is, they only made it through putting in the metal base piece. None of the actual important pieces were inserted. So it’s just a matter of removing the base and getting you back to the Castle to heal.”

As she vanished again, Hunk smiled at him. “Hear that? It’ll be gone before you know it. Just hang in there, bud.”

Lance’s voice came through the table. “Hey Keith, I’m just gonna put my hand on your head, okay?” He did so without waiting for a response, and Keith immediately panicked.

“No! No!” Kicking out against the restraints, he fought against the hand holding his head down with all his remaining energy.

“Whoa, whoa! It’s okay!” 

He barely registered the hand disappearing, but he did hear Lance speak again, closer to his ear this time. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, man, I shouldn’t have...I won’t touch it again, okay? Promise. I just wanted to help you stay still while they were getting it out.”

Keith stopped struggling, though his body trembled anew. “I’ll keep it still,” he managed. “I swear.”

“I know you will,” Hunk replied, still keeping up his perky demeanor. “Hey Lance, unhook that hand for me, will ya?” 

The red paladin obliged, releasing Keith’s right hand from the strap and helping him maneuver it up toward his head. Hunk grasped it in both of his own.

“I’m right here for ya, okay? Feel free to squeeze as much as you need to.”

Keith gave a shaky nod. “‘Kay.”

The sound of the metal coming out was almost worse than going in, but it was more than worth it to feel that foreign pressure disappear. Keith shut his eyes with a long sigh, letting the last of his tears slip out. Hunk, to his credit, only turned slightly green, and kept on holding his hand and uttering reassurances the whole time. The other three worked quickly to tape on plenty of gauze, then helped him sit up very slowly with lots of support.

“Your beautiful mullet,” Lance groaned dramatically. “I can’t believe it’s ruined.”

Somehow Keith was able to huff a quiet laugh. “It’s only hair, Lance. It’ll grow back.”

Allura came around in front of him and clutched both his hands. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. We need to get you back as soon as possible.” She looked around at the rest of the team. “Getting out of here may not be easy, but let’s make it quick, alright? For Keith.”

“I volunteer for Keith-carrying duty!” Hunk announced.

Keith ducked his head. “Nobody needs to -”

“Nuh-uh, I don’t want to hear it.” Before he could say another word, Hunk had scooped him up off the table. “I promised you no one else would hurt you, and I’m gonna personally make sure that promise is kept.”

[an-ace-phoenix]

Whumptober Day 2

Explosion.

"Hey Mr Stark!" Peter said bouncing into the Avengers compound. He had spent the day at school and - although he was exhausted - he was excited to go to work in the lab and spend time with the Avengers.

He loved lab days.

"How many times do I have to tell you. Call me Tony."

"Ok." Peter paused a moment before adding with a shit eating grin, "Mr Stark."

Tony had no reply to that, just a deep, loud sigh.

Peter laughed as he walked further into the lab and grabbed the project he was working on, he was planning to finish it today but he knew the likelihood was that he wouldn't.

"Hey Peter." Natasha said walking into the lab followed by all the other Avengers, "how was your day?"

Before Peter could reply, Tony cut him off "shoo shoo, it's my time with Peter."

"But it's always your time with Peter!" Clint complained from behind Natasha.

"I'm here all evening guys, I'll come and watch a movie once I've finished this." Peter said, it still got him every time he remembered that the Avengers wanted to spend time with him.

"See! Peter likes me more than you guys!" Tony laughed triumphant.

"At least he calls us by our first names." Steve fired back, earning him multiple laughs and a glare from Tony.

With a sigh, everyone trailed back out if the room, going back to whatever they normally did around the compound while Peter continued his project. He had just finished the welding when he heard a crash and a swear.

"You ok Mr Stark?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I just can't reach."

Peter spun around and saw what Tony meant. He had dropped a spanner and now that spanner was under one of the many machines, just visible from where Peter was across the room. Clearly Tony wouldn't be able to fit his arm under there.

"Let me try." Peter said as he walked over. His arm was smaller and thinner than Tony's. He was sure he would be able to reach it.

Tony nodded as he shuffled backwards, allowing Peter space to reach under.

His arm fitted perfectly, however it blocked his view so he was stuck with reaching around blindly.

"Here it is!" He said just as he closed his hand around the skrewdriver. He later realised that it was the worst thing he could have done.

Human reaction times are - on average - about half a second. Thanks to Peter being young - and of course his spider powers - his reaction times are slightly quicker than that, on average about a fifth of a second.

As soon as that fraction if a second had gone by, Peter realised he had messed up. He had messed up badly. To make matters worse, he couldn't have changed it. There was nothing he could have done.

After a second, ⅘ of a second after he had fully registered what was about to happen, there was a loud noise and Peter's vision went white.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tony groaned as feeling slowly returned to all parts of his body. He mentally checked himself over, trying to ignore the pain. Once he was sure everything was there, he was just a bit battered, he slowly sat up to tried and get his bearings.

As soon as he was sitting, a shocked gasp escaped him. The entire lab was in ruins. There was rubble all over the floor and machine pieces from multiple machines lying around.

It was only when Tony's eyes landed on a completely obliterated machine - the machine he had dropped his spanner beneath - that he started to panic.

"Peter!" He yelled, trying to stagger to his feet, "PETER!"

There was no response from Peter to his yelling. What there was however, was a stampede of footsteps appearing at the lab.

"What happened!" Thor gasped as he looked around the now trashed lab.

Tony didn't even answer him, just started yelling, "we need to find Peter!"

No one needed telling twice. Instantly, all the Avengers started looking around the ruined lab, hoping that Peter would be fine. They wanted to just tear the place apart, but the room was unstable and they couldn't risk it collapsing.

"FRIDAY?" Bucky said experimentally, but there was no reply, the explosion had broken her sensors in the lab.

"PETER!" everyone yelled at the top of their lungs, desperate to find the young spider.

"PETER!"

"PETER!"

"Here!" Steve yelled, pulling a piece of rubble out of the way to reveal a Peter shaped foot.

Tony wanted to run forwards, he wanted to sprint over and pull the rubble off his kid, but he knew it must weigh more than he could lift. He had to leave it to the superhumans. 

"Hurry, please." He muttered under his breath as he watched Steve and Bucky pulled the rubble off Peter, and Bruce run over. "Please be ok."

"He's breathing, but we have to get him to the med bay right now." Bruce said as Steve picked up Peter and started towards the lift, "Nat, Clint, Thor, look after Tony."

The mentioned Avengers nodded as they gently guided Tony out of the lab and towards the sitting room. Normally they would take him to the med bay, but they couldn't risk him getting in the way of Peter and help.

"Come on." Natasha whispered soothingly as they sat Tony down and checked his injuries.

"Please be ok." Tony muttered under his breath again and again, "please be ok."

"What happened?" Clint asked carefully, "we just heard a large bang and the lab was like that."

Tony looked into the middle distance "I dropped a spanner, Peter went to grab it for me because it was under a machine. I guess there was a live wire or something, anyway it caused an explosion." Tony took a deep breath as heavy sobs started wracking his body "this is all my fault."

"It's not." Thor said gently - or as gently as a god of thunder could manage anyway.

"He'll be ok. I'm sure of it" Bucky said walking into the room "this is Peter, he's been through and survived so much worse than an exploding machine."

Clint, Nat and Thor nodded in agreement.

"He's strong. He'll make it through."

As soon as Nat cleared him as able to move around, Tony was outside the medbay, sitting on one of their uncomfortable seats and waiting for someone to tell him he could go see his kid.

"Go on." Bruce said tiredly, emerging from the room Peter was in, "you can go see him."

"Thank you Bruce." Tony said with more energy then he felt he had, as he stood up and all but bolted into the room with Peter.

He felt his breath catch as he walked in. Peter looked so small on the bed, multiple pillows cushioning his head and more wires than Tony could count. It hurt to see his kid like that. Alot.

"We're lucky he's Spiderman." Bruce said quietly, "he wouldn't have survived otherwise."

Tony audibly gulped. He almost lost his spiderkid. Again!

"Don't worry. He'll be ok. It'll just take him a couple of days." Bruce said gently, "don't forget to look after yourself."

Tony nodded, but he wasn't really listening. He wasn't going to leave Peter's side until he knew his kid was ok.

Bruce sighed, he knew Tony wasn't going to look after himself, but he also knew there was nothing he could say to change that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"You've got to wake up Pete, you've got to."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Please Peter. You need to be ok."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Please Peter."

"Mr Stark?" A weak voice came from the bed next to him. Peter had been out for about 4 days by now and any hope Tony bad originally had, had been slowly evaporating over the days.

But now his spider kid was back.

"Peter!" He said quietly, not quite believing his eyes, "you're awake."

"Yea." Peter replied wincing as he tried to sit up. "What happened, the last thing I can remember is…. Oh. There was a live wire below the machine."

Tony nodded, feeling the tears start to well up "I'm so sorry Peter. This is all my fault."

"No." Peter said with more force than could be expected from the fact he was lying in a hospital bed. "this wasn't your fault. It was an accident."

Tony nodded, he wasn't going to argue with Peter. Even lying in hospital he was a force to be reckoned with.

Tony smiled. He knew that whatever life tried to throw at Peter, Peter would get through it. He was just strong like that, and he was proud to count him as family.

He quickly bundled Peter up into his arms. If he could feel him, he was real, if he was real, he wasn’t dead.