#burtlederp posts

[pretty-face-breaker]

post-torture cuddles? :3

CW. creepy comfort, masochism, unhealthy relationships

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Hayko watches the smattering of cast-off bloodstains on the sheets. Glossy, an hour ago, and now dried flat and dull to the cotton. There’s a ringing in his head, hurting with each pulse. He doesn’t respond - the words didn't quite make it through.  

Nick kneels behind him and kneads his shoulders, almost gently. It’s the feeling of his nose in his hair that jerks him out of the reverie. He tenses, sucks in a breath, and blinks away the sting in his eyes.

“Are you back with me again?”

“Partially,” Hayko says, throat raw. He can’t stop the whine when Nick cuts his wrists free from the ropes with a few sharp tugs of his folding knife. Realizes, immediately after, that he didn’t hear him pull it out.

A puff of laughter against his neck, then. “Back in your skin?” 

He’d be lying if he repeated himself. He was. When the pain was a punishing, pulsing thing. Now, with it gone, he’s untethered again. The light cascading in from the window is too bright, the carpet springy and rough. It’s too much. 

“Hey, now.” Nick taps him twice on his cheek, just on the edge of too rough. “I didn’t whip the wits out of you, did I?” 

 “Hardly.” In different circumstances, he might have laughed. “If you did, wouldn’t be much left of me, at this point.”

Nick’s smile comes sharp against his head, an eyetooth pressing into his scalp. He rubs away the chaffing on Hayko’s wrists, sitting limp on the mattress. It’s a mean thing. They’re bantering. Bantering after he just consented to being beat out of orbit for-

For his-

“Is there something you’d like?”

“Just-” His voice chips and self-loathing fills it. “Just stay for a few minutes. Just-”

Nick hushes him, so gently his eyes sting again. Hayko’s throat tightens as the ministrations move to his hair and Nick smooths out the snarls. A few beats of that and he’s pulling him back against his chest. Hayko lets himself fall and hisses, when his shirt catches on the welts. 

“Have I ever left you like this?” 

Hayko swallows, a fervid when haven't you? tucked behind his teeth. But he knows what Nick is referring to, and no, technically, he’s never left him after this. Something decidedly not safe or sane but asked for, all the same. 

He must drift for a minute because when he opens his eyes again, he’s draped over Nick’s chest on the bed, half-wrapped in a towel. He foggily registers a hand smoothing gel over his skin, the other playing along his ribs. 

“You’re running out of time, you know.” 

The hands stop. Nick’s heartbeat is steady beneath his ear, unyielding in a way that seems to disagree with that. Hayko stops himself from flinching when he speaks again.

“Don’t worry about me, dear.” 

He takes the press of lips to his scalp with little more than an aborted breath before Nick gives his ribs a squeeze. Presses into the welts hard enough to startle a full gasp out of him. He’s afraid he might not stop his probing, might just sink his claws clean through his back and into his lungs- 

“Oh. Please-...” 

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Nick’s voice is gnarled with a grin. 

His next breath whistles from his teeth. It fucking hurts. It hurts like nothing. It's so good. “Yes. Yes.” 

And then, nothing. His fingers are gone, leaving him panting and arching up. Bastard, he wants to say, as Nick pulls them through his hair, smearing blood through his curls. Within a second, he’s back to rubbing aloe cream on his back. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Nick says. “After they run out of time, it’ll just be us. No distractions, hm?”

-

@doveotions @heathenville @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome–hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp @redwingedwhump @nicolepascaline @ifbtnna @oh-so-skeletal @whumperfully​​ ​@brittaunfiltered09

[whumpering-heights]

Eureka!

I just realized that I can reblog the chapters in order, and simply put the text that's under the (broken) readmore link in my reblog!

The one downside is that my work would not show up in the tags. But I'd be able to preserve all the nice comments on the original posts, and retrace my steps in chronological order!

(if I can't find a chapter, i will repost it instead.)

This is going to take a while. But at least I have a plan for rebuilding this now!

(Tagging the taglist so that people know what the plan is. I will tag you guys one more time when I've rebuild the masterlist, and then it will just be for new updates again @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question @pumpkin-spice-whump @fanastyfinder @whumpy-arts-and-crafts @arsonfrogger @burtlederp @harri-00 @akito-fuckn-fear @potatoo-whump @jo-castle @mannerofwhump @meaculpameahugeculpa )

[yet-another-heathen]

Separation

1,483 words. Original Work: Liliholm & Page.

<< | previous | next | >>

Author's Note | This is the re-penned version of everyone's favorite Liliholm and Page chapter! Since originally writing this, Luca and Garcia have evolved so, so far into their own characters and their own story arcs, and I wanted to go back to have this chapter actually reflect that. I hope you enjoy getting your first glimpse at them, there's more to come soon!

Want to see the original version? You can still find it (and all the beloved comments and replies) here <3

Chapter Warning | interrogation, torture, stress position, suffocation, head trauma, loss of conciousness, dislocation, knives, blood, cursing

Tag List | @ink-and-salt @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whumpvp @redwingedwhump @lave-whump @castlehillwhump @sideblogformindtrash @burtlederp @fanastywhump

And special thanks to @whump-in-the-closet, who found this series the very day that the update was set to post <3 Hope you enjoy!

"I'm going to give you exactly one chance, Deimos," they said calmly, lifting his chin with the tip of their shoe. Wesley's entire body was trembling with strain and desperate agony, "What did you do with the files?"

He had been interrogated before. Tortured a handful of times, too—so came the risks of sticking his nose into places he knew he shouldn't. But this?

They tsked down at him.

This was brutal.

The ropes tightened again, and a groan of pain clawed its way out. It felt like every muscle in his chest was about to tear. It ended with an ugly, bitter laugh.

"You know, you'd be a lot more intimidating if you weren't all of five foot fucking nothing," he rasped, trying to relax into the oncoming waves of pain, "At least that brute is imposing, even if he's got all the brains of a meatloaf."

"Hm."

They let their shoe fall away, and Wes' head slumped. Out of the very corner of his eye he saw them nod to the other interrogator.

The mountain of a man who had been looming in the corner walked up behind him and pulled the restraints further up his arms, lifting them impossibly higher behind his back. He increased the pressure until his shoulders were on the verge of dislocating. His breaths came ragged and shallow through his nose, and he couldn't help but let out a gasp as he pressed his forehead against the ground.

And this time, the biting weight of a hard rubber sole pressed into the nape of his neck, tearing at the hairs. Luca's weight crushed his forehead down into the concrete as they ground their foot into the back of his skull.

Wes opened his mouth to gasp, but no air filled his lungs. Something about the angle had cut off his breathing, and the pressure just kept increasing and increasing—

"He thinks he's cute, doesn't he? Garcia, you think he's cute?"

Wes' diaphragm started seizing, stabbing pain jerking through his ribs when his lungs refused to expand.

"Maybe before you started making such a mess of him. Now? Not so much."

His consciousness slipped along the edges of their minds, searching for cracks, but it was like trying to hold onto a glass sphere covered in soap. All he could think about was his diaphragm, and the burning of air that wouldn’t come.

Darkness began encroaching on his vision. The figures above him exchanged something that he entirely missed, but the shoe and all Luca's weight still didn't move.

His body started jerking, fingers clawing into the empty air behind him as desperation finally took control of his movements.

He couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe—

The shoe slid down his spine, catching agonizingly on his skin until it threatened to rip. And with one final, tiny push, his shoulder left its socket. A lurching POP rent the air.

Darkness became white, and everything fizzled out into agony.

When the room came swimming back into focus he realized his teeth were vibrating with bitten-back sobs of pain. He dragged in wet, rasping breaths through his teeth. The fine grit covering the floor was sharp against his cheek.

Luca was a few feet away from him with their back turned, the dull echo of voices shifting under the void of his thoughts. Pain rang up his arm, down his back, and so deep into his chest it felt like something was trying to crush his heart.

Wes curled one lip and spat a mass of blood and spit on the floor, trying in vain to lift his weight off his injured arm.

Voices came back in slowly, muffled and too loud all at once.

"—like this."

They turned around, and Wes tilted his head back to see what they were holding in their hand.

A kitchen knife. A really fucking big one, glinting as it caught the harsh light from above.

...of course.

They handled it so casually, twirling it loosely by the hilt. "I've always appreciated the simplicity of household implements," they said to their coworker over his head.

"Almost poetic, in't it?" Garcia's deep, gravely voice replied, "After all, it's still all just gristle and meat."

Wes felt his heart pick up, pounding in his ears and throat. They knelt down beside him, looking him over with a hollow smirk.

"Make sure you hold his head up. I want to watch his face."

A huge, thick hand tangled in his hair and wrenched his head upward, exposing the bare curve of his throat. But it wasn't his neck they went for, they were leaning over him and—

His eyes went wide, only moments before the tip of the blade stabbed downward through his skin. He jerked and hissed, trying to lean away.

The knife dug slowly, so so so slowly, into the bent mass of his shoulder where the joint had been separated from its socket.

It took every single ounce of his resolve not to scream. The horrible, horrible pressure of the blade digging in between cartilage and bone made his face pale, nausea rising in his mouth.

He felt the grating echo through his entire body as the knife scraped along bone, inside him, like an ice pick wedging between his teeth.

The sound that left him was inhuman. Low and bitten back and so deep with agony that it scarcely counted as breathing.

"Hm. Tough crowd," the big one teased.

And it finally ripped a frantic cry out of him as the flat side of the blade tilted downward, prying the bones apart.

Nausea rose to an unbearable limit, and blackness overcame his mind.

When he came to he was slumped with almost all of his weight in Garcia's hand, neck bent backwards at a painful angle. Sticky heat was pouring down his chest and dripping to his thighs. It took him a long moment to realize that it was blood. A lot of blood.

His body was jolting with hiccupping little half-sobs, breaths coming so shallow that he wasn't truly breathing at all. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back against the unbearable pain that sent little floating wells of black across his vision.

Luca wiped the blade clean on Wes' trembling arm, squatting so close to him that it made him sick.

"Reconsidering your position yet?"

Wes recoiled, surprising himself when a little surge of anger split through the fog of pain. He gathered himself to spit a mouthful of blood at them. He stopped short only when the tip of the knife pressed against his lips.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," they said quietly.

Wes glared at the blur of them, entire body trembling with exhaustion and strain. The unspoken threat made his blood boil.

"Go fuck yourself," he snarled, ignoring the way the cutting edge tugged at his lower lip.

He reached for his powers, and threw everything he had at them. They almost dropped the knife when the sound hit, eyes flying wide with shock and pain as they gasped and covered their ears against the raging scream of noise only they could hear.

"Garcia!"

And Wesley's head was slammed into the concrete floor. His attack was immediately cut off, gold blooming behind his eyes from the ferocity of the blow. He felt his hair ripped upward, ready to slam him down again—

Luca barely stopped Garcia from simply cracking his skull open on the concrete. This time when they seized Wes by the chin, their nails dug in. Every ounce of amusement was gone from their eyes.

"You little shit," their voice was scathing, "The next time you pull that stunt, I'm going to peel off your face, piece by pitiful little piece, and feed it to you."

Wes wanted to snarl something clever at them, but his brain was having a difficult time staying any form of coherent. His ears rang. Everything was swimming, the walls seeming to zoom out around the edges of their silhouette.

That wasn't good. That really wasn't good.

It didn't stop him from spitting that dark spray of blood directly into their face. Red and clotted black splattered across pale skin.

No matter what they did to him for it, Wes decided then and there that the look of shock and disgust on their face was worth it.

They slowly wiped a hand down their cheek, a cold mask slipping over their expression. Then they sighed.

"Well, I did warn him."

They leaned forward again, knife breaking the skin just above Wes' other shoulder, only to stop at the sound of approaching footsteps and muffled words from the other side of the door.

"Ah, now the show's starting."

Despite so much blood, despite the arm loose from its socket, despite the fact that he was trembling from head to toe and very, very much in pain, Wes growled at them, "I'm not fucking scared of you."

He startled when both of his interrogators laughed. The door lock snapped in its casing, heavy hinges creaking as it was pushed open and the sallow light from the hallway poured in.

"Oh, I'm not the one you have to worry about."

They casually flicked the tip of their blade toward the thin, frail-looking old man that entered the doorway, wiping his hands clean.

"He is."

[whatiswhump]

@sentientpileofmoss @voidwhump @whump-it @professional-idiocy @ziptiesnfries @angrystudentgoopfire @jaxonjekkels @clubbem @simplygrimly @whole-and-apart-and-between @bumpthumpwhump @rosesareviolentlyread @whumpasaurus101 @hurting-fictional-people @burtlederp @crystalquartzwhump @sentientpileofmoss

Sorry everyone I’m pretty sure the tags didn’t work the first time I posted bc I tried to copy and paste. Enjoy!

Christmas 1957, Alfred Finch

A continuation of this series

Hi I’m back :) and this one’s LONG and I’m proud of it. Yay happy holidays

***

“Merry Christmas, Alfie,”

His head had just been shaved again, lice were making their way through the wards. It made his cheeks look so hollow despite the paper crown that had been clumsily placed on his head by a nurse.

Words didn’t come right away to Fie so he nodded back to Sean. He was aware today though, Sean could tell.

Turkey and mashed potatoes were unceremoniously still strewn across his tin tray. So much for a holiday meal. Sean wished he would eat it though.

“Th- that’s why I’m wearing this?” A wry smile snuck in as Fie nodded to his flimsy holiday accessory.

Sean felt an instant warmth that made his heart swell and he laughed a bit too loudly, “Yes it's what they call it holiday cheer, although I think Eddie took the square of chocolate you got with it.”

The wry twist of Fie’s mouth remained a bit longer signifying what would be a strong response these days.

Sean had read the charts this morning, Harris’s crony, Capshaw, hadn’t given up on the hydrotherapy yet. He had been scheduled in for it nearly every day this week.

He was surprised Fie was okay enough to even be in the cafeteria considering his typical response to the treatment.

“Hey how about you eat a few more bites of the Christmas feast for me, eh?”

Fie’s eyes trailed down at the sloppily served bits of meat in tepid gravy and potato. But despite his hesitation, he didn’t disobey, he lifted his fork and got to work. It twisted something in Sean to see how easily he followed requests... when everyone else in the institution ignored this and acted like he was feral, immediately going for force before bothering to request.

“Also Sophie says hello by the way,”

His patient paused mid attempt to skewer some meat with a confused expression.

“My wife, I think I’ve mentioned her, she and I got married a few months ago, yeah?” That had been during the no contact stage.

This did seem to jog his memory, he nodded but still seemed surprised. Sean spoke about him outside of work?

As if he read his mind, Sean continued, “Yeah, I tell her about you, especially your paintings. She’s an art history professor you know… Anyway, she asked me to wish you a merry Christmas.”

Alfie paused completely, clearly half here-half somewhere else, lost in thought, “...What year is it?”

“It’s 1957 'bout to be 1958, buddy.” Sean didn’t like thinking what that entailed for his friend, nearly four years in here now. Where had the time gone?

He was four years older than Delano now.

“Merry Christmas, Alfred.” 

Both young men jumped slightly at the arrival of Dr. Harris, how long had he been close by?

Alfie just stared back at him frozen, some of that old fear was returning as well.

Harris smiled, “I am glad the nurses are spreading some cheer,” and gestured to Alfie’s ridiculous hat, “And I am glad to hear that you’ve been trying harder to tolerate the hydrotherapy Alfred. That is brave of you as we all know how much it has frightened you in the past.”

Fie looked down at his plate ashamed. He remembered that. Over and over. A room full of people- him bare and being forced into water by so many hands. Harris watching…

“Dr. Harris, I hope that you’ve had a pleasant holiday?” Sean politely responded after a few beats of silence and an awkward cough.

“Thank you, Sean, yes. In fact I will be off soon, the wife and children are expecting me for Christmas dinner. Just like to stop in today every year. The holiday can set many of our patients off, I like to be assured that everything is under control.”

Sean agreed with that, many patients preemptively were given extra sedation today. It made him a bit sad but then he remembered the alternative- them suffering unnecessarily- missing family, memories, some even waiting for a visit from Santa Claus that would never come… It was cruel to them. Such a happy happy day turned cruel.

Dr. Harris gave Sean what was probably meant to be a polite smile, “Sean, would you give Alfie and I a minute? I’ll call you back over if you’re needed.”

An alarm bell went off in his head but he could only say, “Sure, Doctor,” And then glance to Alfie, who was still looking at his plate and walk to the perimeter of the room to join a few of the other orderlies.

“Alfred, please be polite and put your fork down and look at me.”

Fie dropped his fork almost robotically and wrapped his hand in the other in his lap.

“What else did I ask?”

He dragged his eyes up to the doctor standing up above him. He was wearing a red and green tie.

“You have children?” It came out before he even realized it, surprising both of them.

Harris smiled in amusement, “Yes, I generally keep my personal life separate, part of the profession I am afraid. Two boys and a girl. The eldest is sixteen.”

Harris could see the cogs turning in his patient’s head, new information about a man he knew surprisingly nothing about. He prided himself in being strictly a doctor to his patients, nothing else, no extraneous details. It was all about the patients after all.

He loved how painfully clear some of Alfie’s thoughts could be. And this was such a nice little Christmas gift dropped into his lap, especially since his initial plan was just to discuss water therapy again.

“I can tell you are surprised, what are you thinking about right now?”

“And stop picking at your hands.” He added with a touch of sterness.

Alfie’s worrying hands stilled instantly. His eyes looked bigger when they clumsily shaved his head like this. It was a shame they didn’t do a better job, he could have been a handsome young man. Even still.

“It’s just that you’re always here- I didn’t think- I didn’t know-” That he had children of his own? That he was someone's father…

It was natural that Alfred would see him as a father figure, it happened with a lot of patients, it was difficult to avoid. 

“I know you see me as a father, Alfred. I’ve helped you and taken care of you, it’s natural.”

Then Fie looked surprised again.

“This is why you still need so much more therapy, you’re a clever boy but you’re not making the most simple connections related to your psyche.”

Fie wilted a bit and after a brief moment nodded back to Harris. Sean had told him to agree when he could, he said it would help.

“Now Dr. Capshaw will restart hydrotherapy again today- only one day off. If you cooperate in our next session when I return tomorrow maybe we can consider reducing those sessions.”

Alfie looked back to him and nodded in understanding. He really would like that. He was getting better at hydrotherapy but afterwards he still cried every time. And really anything to see less of Capshaw.

“That’s a good boy. Now behave the rest of today, the nurses have enough to deal with, and you don't want to be sedated- or worse get a lump of coal, on Christmas do you?” He said with a smile and bent over and ruffled his hat partially crumpling it where it sat on his head.

“Merry Christmas Alfred, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Harris beamed in his good cheer and turned on his heels to leave the hospital for what Alfie imagined was a roasted goose with all of the trimmings and three smiling children. 

Maybe he was a good father? Maybe he played catch in the backyard and read stories alloud by the fire?

A shiver went through him as he was lost in this thought, only to jump again when he felt a hand on his back.

“Just me, bud,” Sean’s voice rumbled kindly.

Alfie deflated a little in his seat, “He said I have to have treatment today.”

Sean’s eyebrows were creased as he came into his vision, rounding the table, “On Christmas? What do they say? No rest for the wicked?”

“Is that me or them that's the Wicked?” Alfie replied dryly but lacking the smirk a joke would require.

Sean elected to ignore the dour comment and move forward, “I was watching you though, you did a good job, I saw you nodding- agreeing- just like we talked about. I know it isn’t easy.”

“You said that before- at one point… I used to fight it?”

It was Sean’s turn to smirk, “Like a tomcat, a force of nature,” He replied with a tone of distinctive pride, “You really stuck it to them.”

“Sometimes I feel like I still want to…”

Sean paused, sensing the dangerous territory, “Fie, listen, that’s not a bad thing but-”

“But then they’d erase me again… I know. So I won’t.”

He sighed, “It’s just not fair, Fie. You should be able to fight and I should help you-”

“But it isn’t fair no matter what and if you’re gone...”

Fie was frankly amazingly lucid today. It was reminding Sean of how painful it could be when he was.... as opposed to the other special kind of torture of when he was out of it- this way he was aware of the injustice, the cruelty.

“You’re right,” Sean breathed out, feeling decidedly un-cheery.

As if reading his mind in turn Alfie responded with a wry smile that didn’t match his eyes, “Merry Christmas to us then.”

Sean then smiled bigger than he should have, “I do have one thing that might tip the balances of today…”

Alfie actually looked mildly curious.

“If you’ll do me the honor of escorting me back to your quarters, there may or may not be a surprise waiting there…”

Fie tried to suppress a small smile and nodded. He almost got up but then looked apprehensively at his tray, reflexively ready to be told to eat more.

“Clean plate club as far as I’m concerned.” Sean shooed him up gently with a smile. 

Fie wobbled a bit and wasn’t fast by any stretch of the imagination but when they made it back to his cell Sean gestured inside like a prize show girl.

Fie raised his eyebrows when with a cursory look nothing was visible. 

“You think I’d let the nurses take it home for themselves? Look a little closer-”

Alfie stepped inside as he had hundreds of times before. The only thing in the white cell was an iron bed with white sheets and a gray scratchy wool blanket. 

He looked back at Sean, now really confused.

“Check the sheets” Sean smiled.

So Alfie did, tucked right within was a small bundle…

Alfie immediately sat on his bed with the green wrapped bundle on his lap and then just stopped, staring at it.

“You can open it anytime,” Sean reminded him in a teasing voice.

Fie looked up at him, almost surprised again that he was there, already so distracted by this new object.

But he nodded minutely and looked back down to the parcel.

It was wrapped with a thin red and white twine bow that he gingerly pulled loose. Before it fell away he rubbed it with his fingers, savoring the touch.

Gingerly, so gingerly he began on the paper. There was no tape so at his little tug it easily came away. First visible was a card.

“Merry Christmas! From the Cyril’s” read in cheery red script around a green snow covered tree with little yellow lights dotting it. Fie’s finger brushed slowly over the pressed inks. After a long moment, he opened up the card and something fluttered out.

Sean jumped over to retrieve it and embarrassedly spluttered as he handed it back, “Sophie wanted to give you a card but each one has our snapshot in it for family and friends out of town- it’s corny, i know...” his cheeks were red.

Fie just silently took the thick glossy cutout back and stared at it. It was Sean, that he recognized, but bizarrely out of uniform, in a knit button-up leisure shirt. And a woman beaming at the camera in his arms below him. She was so happy- beaming wasn’t enough of a word to describe it. Her hair was done stylishly in medium curls that swept off her face and her dress, even in the black and white, was obviously colorful and jubilant.

They were beautiful.

He looked at the writing in the card, “Dear Alfred, Merry Christmas from us. Good tidings and continued wishes for your improving health. With cheers and fond wishes, Soph and Sean.”

The script was decidedly ugly which unexpectedly made Fie laugh, scrawled with sharp points and careless dots and crossed t’s, somehow even that was amusing and warm.

“Oh her writing? I know!! Apparently the nuns used to use a ruler on her hands in grade school for it- she thinks she’s talented for it!” Sean laughed warmly.

Fie closed the card and smiled at Sean, “Thank you, Sean.” He couldn’t believe they would give him this, it was almost too kind.

“Well thats just the card! Look at the rest!” Sean replied giddily.

And sure enough, to his surprise, (as he had forgotten about the lumpiness of the parcel) there was more. First was a little pie, the size of a hand and absolutely delicious looking, then… a tiny notebook, again no larger than a hand with a little pencil fit into the spine. 

Fie picked up the notebook, dumbfounded. Green leather bound with tissue thin pages turned over and over in his hands.

“Mostly for drawing…. If you ever felt like it when i can’t take you to the art room but also I don’t know...” Sean rubbed the back of his neck, “For remembering things you don’t wanna forget- important things-”

Fie shifted the contents of his lap beside him to jump up and hug Sean but clumsily more fell into him than anything.

“Thank you-” He mumbled into the warm winter uniform sweater, “Thank you.”

Sean held him securely, “Merry Christmas bud, you probably deserve a helluva lot more than this.”

---

@cursedscribbles @voidwhump @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @aliceinwhumperland @whump-it @professional-idiocy @ziptiewhump @angrystudentgoopfire @jaxonjekkels @clubbem @simplygrimly @whole-and-apart-and-between @bumpthumpwhump @rosesareviolentlyread @whumpasaurus101 @hurting-fictional-people @burtlederp @thelittlegirlwithcurlyhair @crystalquartzwhump @rotfern @sentientpileofmoss

[burtlederp]

the problem with me coming back to tumblr and seeing all my friends and their ocs is that i inevitably end up wanting to draw those ocs with monster friends. not, like, pokemon, but like. give @whump-tr0pes's sam a bigass sphinx buddy. @ashintheairlikesnow's chris gets a hydra. YOU get a monster, YOU get a monster, EVERYBODY GETS MONSTERS

[burtlederp-incorporated]

help my brother is slowly replacing all the lightbulbs in our bathroom WITH FUCKING NEON PINK LIGHTBULBS

THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER

[comfy-whumpee]

Progress

Almost let the day go by without posting a Jax piece for @ashintheairlikesnow. Happy birthday, co-conspirator. (Izzy is her character.)

Dadjaxtaglist: @bloodybrambles, @wildfaewhump, @lektric-whump, @that-one-thespian, @raigash, @burtlederp, @rosesareviolentlyread, @eatyourdamnpears

“Hi, good to see you.” The young woman on the call has a professional, but genuinely warm smile. “Jax and Kieran?”

 “That’s us. I’m Kieran, that’s Jax.”

 “It’s great to meet you both. My name’s Mya, I don’t think we’ve spoken before. How are you today?”

 Kieran’s hand reaches out to hold his underneath the kitchen table. She can’t see it, but she can see that they’re sitting close, sharing the same space. “Good, yeah, thank you. It’s been a quiet day here, which is unusual.”

 She laughs along with the gentle joke. “A rare day in family life. How’s Izzy today?”

 She can see the cabinet over Kieran’s shoulder and the oven hood over Jax’s. She can probably see his scarf. She’ll have worked out straight away who was Izzy’s dad by birth. She’ll have known as soon as she saw their faces.

 “She’s good as well. She had a little wobble this morning about a test she has in maths, but we got through it. We’re still working on getting her to not mind about these little things.”

 “Of course,” Mya agrees, nodding. “I hope she comes home feeling okay about it, even if she’s not at the point where she feels proud yet. Tests like that are mostly for the teacher’s sake, so they can assess how well the class understands things. At Izzy’s age, they might be looking ahead to Year 6 sets, or maybe even SATs.”

 She has their address on file somewhere. Safeguarding, they said when they took it. He almost told them it made him feel less safe that they could follow her home. But then his dad had pointed out it also meant they could send someone to check on him, if Izzy ever said there was something wrong.

 “Yes, we found out they have sets for English and maths in Year 6. We haven’t told Izzy. We don’t want her to worry about it.”

 Mya’s expression shifts to compassionate understanding. “How has she been finding school recently?”

Kieran glances at him, but continues to answer. “Still hard,” he sighs. “She’s come a really long way, of course. She has some good friends now, a couple of close friends. And they’re looking after her there. She gets worried about her grades, but the school are careful not to pressure her as well.”

 “Mm,” Mya hums, a noise just to show she’s listening. She’s looking at their picture on the screen, not the camera, which helps. “Is she getting any support from school at the moment?”

 It’s been five minutes and she’s only asked questions so far. Is she preparing them for bad news? Jax drums his free hand on the chair underneath him, fingers tapping in a restless beat.

 “She has a pastoral chat thing. She gets to talk about her feelings with them, have hot chocolate and biscuits, that’s once a week for about half an hour. But there’s nothing special for her learning anymore. She had extra reading time when she was younger but she got caught up.”

 “I’m glad she’s getting some time for herself and she has an adult she can trust at school. How has she been finding the lessons with us?”

 Kieran takes a breath, thinking about the questions, the excitement, the doubts, the tears… “It’s been all about getting her into a routine, really. Some days she gets on with it happily, other days she…” He frowns, trying to find the words.

 Jax comes back to the present abruptly, a shock of cold air to the face, and creaks into motion. “She thinks it’s confirmation that she’s stupid,” he explains. “She likes to be able to do things on her own without help. She was told that she was stupid a lot growing up.”

 Mya holds a perfectly sad expression as she active-listens. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

 Jax ignores the platitude. “So the tutoring sometimes feels like we’re telling her she can’t do things. She doesn’t want to be a burden on us or make us worry. So she tries really hard to ace it, or she panics and gets overwhelmed by all the pressure she puts on herself.”

 “The thing you have to understand about Izzy,” Kieran adds, “is that she’s terrified of disappointing you. If she thinks she has, she takes that as a huge hit to her self-esteem. She expects you to be angry or hate her, or be tired of her. You have to win her trust.”

 Jax squeezes his hand. Kieran squeezes back. For a moment, they feel like a perfectly united front against the world.

 “That makes sense with what I can see,” Mya tells them. Her eyes flicker sideways to another screen. “Izzy has very high accuracy in her questions and gets most of them right, but she works slowly. It could be that she finds it hard to process things quickly, which you see sometimes when children have missed foundational knowledge, they need longer to fill in their gaps. But it sounds like for Izzy, a big part of it is that she doesn’t want to get anything wrong.”

 Jax nods firmly. “That’s definitely her.”

 “I’m glad that makes sense to you. You know her better than I ever could, and we always get children on their best behaviour.” Her eyes sparkle with humour, and Jax wonders how many times she’s used that line, and how many children it was less true for than Izzy. “That’s the big challenge for her right now, then. That fear of making mistakes.”

 Jax snorts quietly. Right now is an understatement. That’s been the challenge her whole life. The fear of… No, not mistakes. “She’s scared of not being enough. Her paediatric psych is working on it with her.”

 “But it takes a long time,” Kieran picks up the thought.

 Mya nods in understanding. “Of course. Are there any strategies you use at home that we can borrow? If there’s something that works for her…”

 They look at each other. Strategies are Kieran’s thing; Jax goes by instinct, and it hasn’t failed him yet. “Mostly…” Kieran thinks aloud, “we tell her that we love her. And that we’re proud of her, that she’s awesome, no matter what. Because of things she’s already done or other things she can do.”

 Mya listens gravely, her eyes still on the screen. She looks like she’s taking notes.

 “Jax does this thing,” Kieran looks at him with a fond smile, faint enough Mya doesn’t get to see, “where he tells her things that she’s good at. She likes being helpful, so he tells her she’s a good helper, and she’s a good dancer, and she’s fun to play with, and she is lovely. We want her to see herself as a rounded individual.”

 “We can definitely do that,” Mya offers. “To help her focus on her achievements and not just her challenges. We wouldn’t say that we’re proud, necessarily, because I feel that approval is best given by caregivers, but we can recognise her effort and praise it. We don’t focus on marks here anyway, that’s not what we do.”

 “That’s why we chose you,” Kieran agrees. “It’s not about tests and grades. She thinks it is, but it’s not. We just want what’s best for her.”

 “Of course. That’s what I want too. And that looks different for every child, and in every parent’s eyes, but I am so on board with what you want Izzy to develop in herself. I want us to come back in six months’ time for our next meeting and be able to look back at how confident she’s become.”

 The passion is audible in her voice. Jax feels his shoulders loosening. He’d had the final say on whether they went to a tutoring place. Izzy had been important, but she was still a kid. The place had to have the right vibe. If anything had come across off, he would’ve pulled her out so fast.

 But this reminded him of the teachers who had got his ADHD. The ones who had been able to get him to focus while keeping him on their side. It reminded him of his dad. Of Kieran. Somewhere that would try to understand who she was, not make her fit a mould.

 They hadn’t been easy customers. That one teacher who didn’t help her with her reading when she was struggling through it, they made sure he never had access to their little girl again. The perfectly nice woman with the blue eyes, who Kieran hadn’t realised the problem with until Jax got a look at her, she was on the blacklist as well. They’d sent strongly-worded emails about the occasional slip of mummy and daddy. And if the tutor changed short-notice, well… They would turn around and walk right back out again, damn the cost of the missed lesson.

 But after all his demanding standards for kindness and sensitivity, and all of Kieran’s exacting questions about safeguarding and wellbeing, they’d found a place that had passed muster. They had eyes on her progress, in more detail than school ever gave them. They had time for her learning that didn’t demand more of Kieran, with his work, and Jax, with the demons of his own. Space for her, without Jamie. Just Izzy and her tutor.

 Just Izzy. Not having to be anyone else. That was what he’d promised her when they went. If they don’t like you for just Izzy then they are no good. Because you are perfect.

 She’d been so scared. Her hand was bigger now, but still tiny, clutching his.

 Because what are you? Crouching down beside her before they went in, holding her wide eyes in his gaze.

 Her voice a whisper. I’m safe, daddy.

 That’s right. And I love you. So let’s be brave.

 “Be brave,” he says aloud. Kieran breaks off what he’s saying, something about comprehension or number bonds or whatever the fuck. “That’s what we say to her. To be brave together.”

 The manager doesn’t seem put off by him interrupting. She only smiles, and she seems approving, not dismissive. She seems to…trust him, about all things Izzy. “I love that. We can be part of that for her. To help Izzy be brave.”

 She’s already brave, his defensive instinct fires off before he can shove it. She’s perfect. Leave her alone. But that’s not what’s happening. No disparaging remarks, no rolling eyes and shouldn’t she know that by now? He’s fighting to protect her from threats that aren’t around anymore.

 Kieran’s hand squeezes his lightly. “That’s our goal. We’d be happy if nobody praised her for her grades or her good behaviour. She doesn’t know it, but it’s her personal development we’re here for.”

 The grades are just a distraction. Fuck school, it’s bullshit up until the end anyway. Fuck SATs and top set and grammar school applications and whatever else the fuck those kids are going through. He just wants her to be happy. That’s all he wants.

 If that means listening to this woman talk about times tables and exception words, Jax can do it. If it means letting her join them on a video call, letting her see his face and his scarf and his home, so be it. If it involves letting them know who he is and where he lives, even though that information will be fiercely guarded for the rest of his life, he’s already done it. He can give more for her. He can always give more, so one day, she has everything.

[burtlederp-incorporated]

Bare/Bear - You can lay something bare, but you can't lay a bear (well, you shouldn't, at least); something can be too much to bear, but sometimes an uncovered something can look too bare.

Too/To - Double o's mean excess, a single 'o' is a preposition. 'Too much' means more than you need, 'to go' is an action.

tricky words I always see misspelled in fics: a guide

Viscous/vicious – Viscous is generally used to describe the consistency of blood or other thick liquids. Vicious is used to describe something or someone who is violent. 

Piqued/Peaked/Peeked – To pique someone’s interest is to catch or tease their attention. When something peaks, it reaches its total height or intensity. To peek (at) something is to look briefly, or glance. 

Discrete/Discreet – this is a tough one. Discrete means to be separate, or distinct, i.e., two discrete theories. Conversely, when someone is discreet, they are being secretive or cautious to avoid attention. 

Segue/Segway – one is a transition between things, the other is a thing you can ride at the park and definitely fall off of.

Conscious/Conscience/Conscientious – to be conscious is to be awake, i.e., not unconscious, or to be aware of something. Your conscience is the little voice in your head telling you not to eat the entire pint of ice cream. Finally, to be conscientious is to be good, to do things thoroughly, to be ruled by an inner moral code. 

Hope this helped! Please add more if you think of them!

[burtlederp]

@redwingedwhump asked Hanguche some questions!

[burtlederp-incorporated]

tired: choosing just one team to cheer for

wired: cheering for both teams

[burtlederp]

NO. I REFUSE TO FUCKING CATEGORIZE THE QUALITY OF THIS YEAR BY THE EVENTS OF THE FIRST MONTH.

That's a slippery slope to set ALL of us on: a couple bad things happen and oh, the whole year's ruined?? Yeah, no, fuck that.

Hey, maybe you're right, maybe this year will be a less-worse version than 2020, or something like that--but even so, acknowledging it's bad isn't going to make the situation any better. You want a good year?? Then find good news and make THAT the news of the day. Refuse to let the bad days win this year. I, for one, am fucking DONE with resigning myself to the worst just because everyone else decided to stop trying and just labeled the whole year a failure IN THE FIRST MONTH.

Are Wednesdays just gonna be like this in 2021?

So far:

January 6th - The Capitol gets stormed during the Electoral College vote certification … and the idiot rioters liveblog it

January 13th - Trump gets impeached … for the 2nd time

January 20th - Biden is sworn in as the President … somehow the least interesting thing on this list

January 27th - A subreddit bankrupted a hedge fund by … buying all the GameStop stocks

What’s in store for us on February 3rd?

Tune in next week to find out!

[riflewounds]

= Norman Corey, the introduction =

So I might as well introduce my war criminal whumpee, Norman. He's been living in my head rent free since November 2014 and he's gone through a lot of changes through the years. Yeah he's my main whumpee, occasional caretaker, and rarely a whumper.

First, the basics. He's probably 30-something (allegedly 33). I say probably because he doesn't count his birthdays for trauma reasons. But yeah, his birthday 11th of March. Or 11th of May. He doesn't know and neither do I. The name Norman Corey is his actual name, though he did have an alias, initials VP. And he's worked really, really hard to bury that. Some still know what his alias was, but aside from a handful of shady government people, no one knows. I'm going to describe his appearance in detail later, because that's several paragraphs of information.

This post will go for a long, loooong time, so more under the cut.

Oh, and before we go any further, please keep in mind this post will contain the following: substance abuse (especially alcoholism), talk of suicide, mentions of self-harm, talk of a possible eating disorder, military talk, talk of brain damage.

Obligatory tag for @burtlederp, I finally have some Norman stuff.

Alright, welcome back. We will now resume the scheduled character introduction.

Appearance, yes. He's skinny, unhealthily skinny, weighing in at some 130 lbs. A smidge over 6 feet tall, but not by a lot, half an inch at most. His skin is pale and if you look close enough, you can see his veins. Speaking of veins, he has some broken capillaries around his nose, giving the area a permanent red tinge. Eye color could be called olive, but they're generally a shade of green. His hair is more often than not greasy and matted because this dumbass doesn't have the energy to drag his sorry ass to a shower. The hair reaches his shoulders and is of ashen brown color. He also has rather noticeable eye bags. Because he can't sleep half the time and he spends the other half drinking himself to oblivion. But I'll get to that later, alcoholism is like half of the character.

Continuing on with appearance. As you can see, he has quite a few prominent scars on his face. The most noticeable ones are the pair of gashes over the bridge of his nose, one gash on his left cheek, starting at the jaw and pointing roughly towards his eye. Then there's the scar across his right lip, and above his right brow. The brow scar is important, that's where the chunk of armor plating is. It's a long story, the Echo Incident. There's also a smaller scar on the left side of his chin. Another very important scar is the band around his neck. Yeah he tried to hang himself with a wire, but his luck is a bitch and the thing he attached the wire to broke off and down to the ground he went. As if the world didn't want him to die, I wonder why that is.

So anyway. His body is peppered with various bullet wounds, some nicely healed, others nasty and knotted and generally sensitive to touch. Out of these body scars, the two biggest ones lie on his right thigh. These are a bullet wound from the same shrapnel to face incident, but this one was caused by an actual bullet, not shrapnel. For the nerds, this particular bullet was a tracer round, 7.62x39mm, lodged itself between the femur and femoral artery, plus it's pressing against the big nerve next to the artery and if he sits wrong his leg goes numb. And right next to this scar is a very long, very nasty gash from the one time he tried to fish the bullet out with a knife as he lay in a bathtub. He passed out from blood loss, but once again, he woke up three days later, very sore and very tired. That seems to be a pattern, whenever he dies, he wakes up later, alive but hurting and having to deal with a less severe version of the injury that got him in the first place.

Personality. Well. He *appears* uninterested and apathetic, he's withdrawn, quiet, lazy, uncaring and generally bleak, but befriend him and he'll show his true colors. He may be all of the above, but that's mostly a way to drive others away so he doesn't hurt them through his actions. Anyway he cares a lot about people he considers to be friends, and is quite loyal to them. Though he's a bit of a death seeker, and he lacks almost any regard for his own life. Near-death situations somehow bring him peace. That, and he doesn't feel right unless he's in a fistfight or a firefight. He's quick to anger if you ask about his military career, and doing so will result in a fight (he's the one who escalates).

Oh yeah, I mentioned substance abuse in the content warnings. Well, dear reader, he is one hell of a mess. He used to have a pretty bad opiate addiction and his general tolerance for drugs is through the roof. It's Ozzy Osbourne level. Which is why the hospital he frequents has a 'patient is moving' tally in the OR. And it's all because of him. He's allegedly friends with the anesthesiologist, but who knows. I didn't get to that point yet. These days he drinks. A lot. He's a barely functional alcoholic. How dysfunctional, you ask? He's somehow worse than Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium. He started drinking when he was still in the military. The actual reasons are hazy, but something something war crimes and horrible leadership. He let it get worse and worse, trying to get himself articled, but the shrapnel to face incident happened first. Well anyway, he had to be sober for six months while he was recovering in Germany. Back then, he didn't cross the threshold of alcoholism, but he fit the criteria for alcohol abuse. But once he got out of the hospital and back to U.S., he got really, really into opiates. He started with pills, but later on moved to needles and shit. He still has old track marks in the crook of his left elbow, and a strip of scar tissue around his upper left arm because of how tight he applied the tourniquet every time. It was one of those scratchy rubber assholes from car first aid kits. Well anyway, at some point he started having issues sourcing the drugs, so he replaced one addiction with another and now instead of a habitual opiate user, we have a thoroughly dysfunctional dumpster fire of an alcoholic. Not only does he drink whiskey as if it was water, he tosses ketamine, haloperidol, and a bunch of other stuff into the mix. But he's usually smart enough to do that only when he's sober. Usually.

All of which leads me to his health, and how terrible it is. As you may already know, he got shot quite a few times. And the shard of armor plating in his face. That thing used to be a lot bigger, what he's left with now is a little over half of the entire shrapnel. It's lodged deep within his right frontal lobe, which gives him a number of issues, including, but not limited to: difficulty interpreting emotions and social cues, memory issues, impulse control issues, etc. He's doing what he can with it. The shrapnel is long enough to bump against his ocular nerve, but that happens extremely rarely. When it does happen, his right eye will act up, he'll see a bright flash and feel sharp, stabbing pain over half his face. Anyway that shrapnel is his weak point - hit his face at just the right angle, and you'll drop him in seconds. The effects are similar to a concussion, but a little different. He'll be disoriented and confused, but that goes away in about an hour. Also another important point - his lungs are fucked from asbestos and burn pits. And his liver, poor thing. That thing hurts like a motherfucker, if he's on too long of a bender, it *will* act up, it *will* hurt and he'll be left curled up into a ball, screaming in agony. Then it's ambulance time. Usually he goes sober for a while when this happens, but his sobriety rarely lasts longer than two weeks because one, delirium tremens is a bitch to deal with (starts 24 hours or less since last drink, and can last up to three days), two, he's anxious and antsy as fuck, jumpy, snapping at people, and three, he's hallucinating when he's sober. He has two recurring hallucinations: Jack and Jameson. More on them later. Other important health stuff, he's living on liquor, gummy vitamins, stale frozen pizza that takes him three days to eat. So yeah, he's malnourished and underweight. It... doesn't help that he forgets to eat, since he doesn't really feel hunger anymore. His fridge is always full of beer, and freezer is stuffed full of frozen pizza (margherita, sorry if I butchered the spelling), so even if he wanted to eat something different, he couldn't, since he has nothing else in the house. Maybe a box of cereal five years after its expiration date in a cupboard, or the two boxes of MREs in the basement, but he only eats those when he's travelling.

Norman is a pretty capable fighter, both at range and up close. His fighting style is very technical, relying on various maneuvers over brute strength. Despite his weak and frail appearance, he can hit surprisingly hard. At range, he's deadly up to 300m, and a fairly good shot at long ranges, provided he has the right rifle for the job. He's best used as a sniper or a marksman.

Uhhh what else. I don't know what else to tell you, there's just so much about this disaster of an alcoholic that I could talk about. Anyway if you desperately want to know more, please check out my Character Dump, page 5. Everything there is to know about that character is there.

Ohhh yeah, Jack and Jameson. I almost forgot about those two.

Jack and Jameson are Norman's two recurring hallucinations. They're personifications of parts of his personality. Jack, the asshole, is all of Norman's self-hatred, anger, and substance abuse comcentrated into a single antropomorphic form. Jack tends to show up only when Norman believes he's alone in a room and no one can hear/see him. It provokes him, points out every single mistake he's ever made (and not in a constructive way), drives him to do things he normally wouldn't do. And Jameson is the opposite, it's the concentrated form of whatever is left of Norman's self-preservation instinct. It's always in the shadows, and it acts sort of like his sixth sense. Neither of these two hallucinations are omniscient - they work with the information Norman already has.

Okay that's all. I genuinely don't know what else to talk about.

[whump-it]

Callum: Fever in Chains

TWs for sickfic, stress position, restraints and Hayden beyond horrid!

@haro-whumps @grizzlie70   @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @iaminamoodymoodtoday @burtlederp @my-whumpy-little-heart @pepperonyscience @faewhump @crowned-avery @whump-tr0pes @spookyboywhump @finder-of-rings @liliability @whumpfigure @girlwithacoolcat @tears-and-lilies @inpainandsuffering @whumpfigure @whumppsychology @ashintheairlikesnow @justabitofwhump

Follows on from this little piece!  https://whump-it.tumblr.com/post/614105812111065088/for-the-one-word-prompt-maybe-callum-with-a-fever

"You can lead a horse to water," Master Hayden said.  "But you can't make it drink.  Do you know what that means?  Or are you too stupid these days?"

Callum's eyes flickered open and closed.  They felt hot.  His eyeballs felt like they were burning.  He wanted to rub his head and check that the spot that always seemed to be bruised was still bruised.  When he moved his hand it was stopped almost instantly by the restraints around his wrists. His joints were aching and throbbing.

He choked on a sob.

"I'm sorry m...m...mmm...Master Hayden," he shivered, the tremor running from the top of his head right down to his toes.  He thought that he had been listening to a lullaby.  He thought that his hands were his today.  But they were stuck somewhere above his head.  He pulled again, pulled and got no more than an inch before they were stopped again.  He groaned and looked up, vision swimming a little.  His wrists were cuffed backed together again as they always were, the link between them jerking against a bar of the headboard, keeping them trapped up there. 

Hands in the air.  He sobbed again.  The lullaby came back.  Rock-a-bye.  He rocked his body back and for and cried with his hands shackled above his head. His mum would have sung that to him when he was ill. His mum would have cared.

His Master sighed, the noise loud and jarring as it pierced his feverish delirium.  Callum wanted the wash cloth back.  He wanted his Master to tell him that he liked him red and sweating with fever.  He wanted not to be called stupid.

He wanted to force his brain to remember what it meant when you led a horse to water.

He wanted his hands back.

“I’ll just go ahead and assume it’s your stupidity showing itself again,” Master Hayden said.  Callum groaned and rolled himself as far over as he could, trapped up by the headboard as he was, seeking the soft comfort of the mattress beneath him in place of the matted comfort of his teddy.  He wanted his teddy.

“I’m sorrry...” he muttered into the bedding.  “I’m sorry for being stupid but I don’t...I don’t...I...”

“I beg your pardon?”  The bed dipped and lurched and Callum felt seasick.  His brain told him that his body was going to tip.  He was certain that he was going to fall.  A bead of sweat rolled down from one shoulder blade to the other.

“I said I’m sorry Master Hayden,” Callum twisted back a little, forced his watering and hot eyes open to try to look at his Master.  “I said I’m...”

“You said ‘but’ you ungrateful little wretch,” Master Hayden grabbed a handful of Callum’s hair, and shook his head side to side roughly.  “But what exactly hmm?” 

Callum’s world lurched again with the violent to and fro of his head.  His brain felt like slurry, slopping uselessly against the inside of his skull.  He could barely think and he wanted his hands and his teddy and he knew that he was sorry but.  But.  There was definitely a but and the flame of fever across his skin and in his mind was working faster than his mouth could keep up with.  Words that should never see the light of day and could never be put back were pressing up against his teeth and his defences were coming down faster than he could prevent.

“But I try!”  The words burst out, a dam with weakened, crumbling walls.  “I TRY.  I try every day and I want to be better and do better but you never tell me how I should do it so that it’s right!” 

The silence from his Master was deafening.  The buzzing from his brain and his ears and his fever was louder.  It drowned everything out.  It drowned him.

“You won’t tell me!  You just hurt me and hurt me and hurt me...” a cough tore up his throat and Callum heaved over it, trying to get it out of the way so that it could stop choking him up.  “You don’t do anything to help me....”  He shrieked at the blow tht he hadn’t seen coming, the heavy handed thud across his right temple.  He pulled and pulled to bring his hands down so that he could protect himself but they remained stubbornly locked up around the headboard.  The effort of his pulling dragged him bodily up the bed, as he pushed himself up closer and closer to his hands.  He curled up as close to the headboard as he could while his Master beat him across the head.

“No!” he cried out, sobbing over the word, stretching its syllable out, multiplying them.

"No!?" Master Hayden threw his head down as though he was disgusted. As though Callum was disgusting. "Where on earth do you get the idea that you can say 'but' to me? That you can say 'no' to me? Me, who puts a roof over your head and food in your belly?"

Callum sobbed and hiccuped, ached and burned up with fever and pain, aches and stupidity. His hands were being moved. They weren't above his head. Hands in the air? No. Hands behind his back. Face pressed into the mattress. A knee in the small of his back as the cuffs were snapped together roughly before the pressure let up and he was dragged off the bed by the wrists. His shoulders lifted too high and the pain made him shriek and drop to his knees with weak knees and a fevered haze.

"Up." His Master's voice penetrated through the overloaded sensations but his limbs refused to work. His normally quick ability to move when restrained was dulled and sluggish. He tried. He screamed internally at himself to move but he wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep and to recover from whatever was raging through his system.

As he struggled to get back to his knees, his Master sighed. Another sigh. Another mark against him. Something else he'd done wrong. The ever familiar feeling of a hand twisting in his hair registered just a second before he was hauled across the floor. 

“You can walk on your knees you little wretch,” Master Hayden said as he pulled Callum along next to him.  “Ungrateful creature.  You go ahead and have the all out stupidity to get ill.  You take up my time with helping you.  You let me put you in my bed and cool you down and then you answer me back.  I have never been as insulted as I am right now.  Hmm?  You know that?  Insulted.”  With the final word, they reached the basement door, the latch being thrown hastily back and the door swung open.  “Down.  And if you take too long I’ll just kick you down there.”

Through his haze of pain and fever, Callum edged his way down the stairs, moaning softly to himself, working his way along on his knees and his side, using the occasional press of his foot here and there where he thought that he would get away with it.  The one dim light that perpetually lit his rules seemed over bright and foggy around the edges as he got closer to it.  As he approached the centre of the floor. 

“Stay on your knees until I’m ready,” he heard his Master say.  His mouth moved before his brain could tell it not to.

“But my knees hurt so much Mas...” he was cut off swiftly by a thudding blow to the side of his head. 

“Let’s keep that stupid bruise of yours around a little longer shall we?”  Master Hayden hissed at him.  “Idiot.”  Callum sobbed and swayed on his knees.  His bruised and no doubt bloody knees, barely registering the sounds of chains being moved around behind him.  His world felt too unstable to focus on anything for too long.  Like a song that plays from one speaker to another, the metallic clinking of chain shifted from one side of the room to the other.  In one ear and then in the next. 

Back and for.

He listened and rocked a little in time with it.

Back and for.

Lost as he was in the aching rythm, he yelped then whined when his Master suddenly appeared next to him, one hand around his throat and the other around his tummy. 

“Face down, stupid,” Master Hayden whispered it in his ear as he lowered Callum to the floor.  Somewhere in the back of his fevereed mind, Callum felt gratitude that he hadn’t been kicked to the floor without his hands to break the fall.  He felt gratitude that he had been helped.  He felt gratitude that his Master was being so kind after he had made himself so ashamed upstairs on the bed.

“Thank you Master Hayden,” he croaked out, his voice cracking with his increasingly sore throat.  He starined to hear anything through the muddle of his mind.  To hear a word from his Master.  He yearned to hear a word from his Master.  Anything that might take the razor edge of his shame from him.  Instead he heard footsteps and chains again.  He felt something around his wrists.  Cold.  It made his body shiver and twitch and he couldn’t stop it.

“You can stay like this until I think you can be trusted not to be so rude and ungrateful towards me,” 

A swift and tight pull jerked Callums arms up behind him and he screamed and sobbed at the pressure on his shoulders.  A click.  A loud snapping sound that echoed through his skull and hurt his head.  A padlock shutting with a register as loud as a gunshot.  Kepping him tightly in place.  Chains from the hooks in the walls wrapped around his wrists and pulled taut. 

Face down and bawling his eyes out.  Arms up behind him to an almost unbearably painful degree.  No soft teddy to lean against.

Hands in the air.  Rock-a-bye your bear.  Bear is now asleep.

He wanted his lullaby.  His bear.  He wanted his mum. 

He wanted anything but silence broken by his own screams and cries.  Anything but the sound of the basement door as it shut behind his Master and left him there.

[whimperwoods]

Arms of the Enemy - D&D Whump - 16

This is part 16! Still wild! I really thought I’d get to wound cleaning before this, and then I really thought I’d get through wound cleaning in one post, but nope! Neither! I reserve the right to change this to 16a and do a 16b instead of a 17, but I also might just go ahead and keep to 17 next. Unclear.

There is now a masterpost, which can be found here.

Castor is a warlock, in service to the Great Old One and the Dark Emperor, in that order. Ed is a fighter, a knight and battle master in the service of the True King of Lumenea. They have always been enemies. Away from it all, they might be able to become something else. Maybe even friends.

(This time: Wound cleaning, finally! Castor shares. Ed toughs it out.)

tw: aftermath of torture, tw: mind reading, tw: captivity, tw: forced to entertain captor, tw: wound cleaning, tw: medical, tw: burns, tw: whipping mention, tw: prodding wounds,

taglist: @redwingedwhump, @fanastywhump, @insanitywishes @bluebadgerwhump,@burtlederp, @newandfiguringitout, @kawhump , @extrabitterbrain, @kixngiggles​

***************

Castor’s heart thudded unevenly in his chest as he tried very hard not to think about the amulet he’d hidden in the healer’s kit in case he decided to - what, take Ed and run in nothing but his smallclothes and his bare feet? He hadn’t been able to resist slipping it into the bag, just in case, not with Ed’s despair still washing tangibly over him, but now that they were above ground and, what was more, squarely on the terrifying side of the river where the trees were too regular, it just felt like a dangerous betrayal of his word to the water woman.

Getting Ed arranged had been work enough to make Castor sweat, but now both the sweat and the river water made the light breeze feel like ice across his skin.

The woman was fascinated by his goosebumps, running her fingers lightly over the skin of his back. She prodded at one of the bruises along his back, and he tried not to flinch.

Deep breaths. He just needed to take deep breaths and focus on Ed while the woman was focused on him, for the moment.

<<I’m gonna hand you the soap>> he said, <<Wash your groin quick while she’s paying attention to me and then I’ll do the rest.>>

Ed blushed, but thanked him, and Castor pointedly did not look down until Ed put the small bar of soap back in his hand.

How he was going to get Ed bandaged without immediately ruining the bandages with water when they went back down to the cave was a question for later, and he tried not to think about that part as he carefully unwound the soaked bandages he’d managed to get around Ed’s chest before they had to run yesterday.

Nothing immediately seemed to be infected, which was a small miracle in itself, given everything, though he supposed the water here was cleaner than he’d ever seen it in his own plane. He put the soap aside and carefully washed away the blood around the knife cuts across Ed’s chest with just water, so he could get a better look at them. They looked clear, ugly and painful, but without any visible dirt or detritus stuck in them.

The burns stretching from Ed’s left flank up to his solar plexus were worse, but now that he was in full light instead of black-and-white dimness, Castor could see to properly clean the area.

“Sorry, Ed,” he whispered, softly enough that the water woman would have to listen hard to hear, would have to earn it. “This is gonna hurt.”

The moment his soapy hand brushed over Ed’s burn, even as he tried to be gentle, the knight let out a deep grunt of pain under Castor’s hands, sweat breaking over his forehead. There was a strain to his face as he tried not to cry out, a tight pinch between his eyes and a clenching to his jaw. But there was nothing to be done for that. Castor patted one of the less bruised parts of his right side gently, hoping it was comforting. “You’re doing great.”

******

The sting of the soap against Ed’s barely-healing burn was a brand new pain, like the original one, but different, and he grunted with pain a second time, his body clenching tightly even though he knew that made it worse. Every few times his breath hitched or he couldn’t fight back a grunt, Castor patted a clear patch of his side or ran a hand casually through his hair, but it didn’t help any, didn’t make it any better.

“Good job. Almost done.”

<<Are you trying to be>> Castor touched the burn again and Ed grunted, gathering himself for a moment before he could be coherent again, <<Cute? Is this the cute part? Because - >> “Ungh” <<If it is could you quit it? You can be cute for her later.>>

“I don’t like fire, either,” the woman commented casually, from where she was now leaning over Castor to look down at him, her torso pressed to Castor’s bruised back and her head propped on his shoulder. Ed had seen Castor wince when the woman first put her weight against his bruises, and that little flash of pain was the only thing that had kept Ed from snapping at him even more than he had already.

“Your back won’t be as bad,” Castor said. “I have - experience with patching people up after whippings. More than with burns, even. It’ll be bad, but I don’t think the open ones have anything stuck in them, and I don’t have to use the soap on the cuts themselves, just everything around.”

The sharpness of the woman’s sudden grin, looming over him, sent a spike of fear through his stomach and distracted him from Castor’s movements at just the wrong time, keeping him from the focus he needed to hold in the pain. He cried out, his voice cracking in the middle like he was a child, and his face warmed into a blush again.

Her smile only widened. “Oh, is that what it sounded like? The whipping?”

“It sounded like a lot of things,” he grunted out, hoping the words would sound cutting, but a little relieved, at the same time, that they didn’t, that they sounded tired and sad and probably wouldn’t make her angry.

“I’ll wash your other side, while we’re here, but it’s just bruises. Then we’ll have to rearrange so I can reach your back.” Ed wasn’t sure if Castor was trying to deflect from what he’d meant to be cutting or just to distract the woman in general, but even if it was the former, his hands were gentle against the bruises, never pressing hard enough to create more than discomfort.

Rearranging felt like hell, but at least it meant he didn’t have to look at the woman’s cold eyes and gleaming fangs. He was lying on his stomach on a damp blanket, usually not ideal, but at least he was fully out of the water, now, and Castor’s hands were still gentle, as much as they could be as he addressed Ed’s ragged back.

“Where did you - hnng - learn to patch up whip wounds?” he asked Castor, only feeling a little guilty for putting the woman’s attention back on the mage.

With his face hidden from the woman, he could bite his lip this time, as he tried, on principle, to stay quiet. If he could stay quiet, somehow she wouldn’t have won. If he could stay quiet, maybe he could convince Castor that he was well enough for them to run.

Castor hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t start talking until after another grunt of pain had escaped Ed’s throat in spite of his best efforts and he was about to reask the question psychically just to push the issue.

“I was on a ship,” Castor finally said, “A big, ocean-faring one, not like one that would sail a river. Have you seen those, ma’am?” Good. The story was for both of them. Ed could relax, at least enough to fully focus on staying quiet.

“Ooooh, do tell!” Ed could hear the smile in her tone, could see the sharp teeth behind his closed eyelids.

“From the time I was about 17 until I was 25,” he continued, his voice soft, reflective. “I never got beaten much. Too determined to please people, mostly, and good at my job quick, so I didn’t make too many mistakes. Took a handful of lashes the time I fell asleep on watch, but that was with my first captain, and he was a good man. Light hand. Didn’t take things out on us as much as some.”

He snorted, soft, almost amused. “Didn’t hurt that any time I got an impulse in my head there was somebody there to say whether to do it or not, before I got too far along. My master says that’s my problem, really. People not watching close enough to catch it when I get an idea. He won’t, though, ‘cause he thinks it’s funny.”

“Anyway, thing about being a goodie two-shoes, or so the rest of the crew said, is that if you’re only gonna do the kind of trouble where it’s everyone and it’s half rations for a week, you gotta make up for it helping them as gets into the kind you’re too chicken for. And they trusted me not to make it worse, ‘cause I didn’t usually have beef with folks. Cleaned up a lot of wounds, and a share of ‘em kind of my fault, where I had the idea and then somebody told me not to do it but it got into somebody else’s head and they did it instead of backing off. So I had to get good at it. Had to learn how to not make it worse than it has to be.”

Ed almost felt bad for the grunt that escaped him, just then, but Castor didn’t take it as anything, ran a hand gently across the back of his neck, as if to comfort him, and kept working.

All of a sudden, a second set of fingers joined Castor’s, pressing down hard on one of the welts and drawing a yelp from him. “I see,” she said, her voice barely disguising its glee. “It can be worse, can’t it?” She prodded at one of the open cuts and this time he was ready, held back everything but another grunt, this one louder than the others.

Then her whole hand pressed down across a set of overlapping welts, hard, and this time a full scream escaped him, albeit a strangled one.

“You must have a very deft touch, wizard man.” She sounded casual, cheerful, and Ed was gasping for breath against the pain in his back, both where she’d pressed down and radiating along the rest of the lash marks she’d touched, even away from where her palm had rested.

<<I hate her>> he said into Castor’s mind, too loud, even louder in his mind than his rough, panting breaths outside their heads, <<I hate her, Castor, I can’t. I can’t.>>

He’d thought he’d had all he could stand with the Emporer’s men, huge and angry and strong, but the joy in this woman’s voice, the casual amusement as he laid here like this, helpless and hurting, hurt in a whole different way, stinging and burning deep at his core, where he didn’t know how to handle it the way he knew how to handle anger, knew how to take the rage of another and turn it back on them, right up until he’d been bloody and smouldering and exhausted and he hadn’t known anything.

“Ma’am, please don’t hurt him,” Castor said, his voice even in spite of the hot anger Ed could feel leaking from his mind, “I’d rather not have to fix extra damage. And I’m trying to be quick so we can all go back underwater instead of having to stay on this creepy bank.”

******

<<Do you mean that for me?>> Ed asked, his voice as sharp and waspish as it had been when they first met. It was good that he’d started pulling himself together under the strange sunlight, maybe, except that every time Ed pulled together the energy to do something, it seemed to make the situation worse.

Castor breathed through his nose, forcing himself to stay calm. The woman was pouting. “Aww, that’s no fun. You do want to be fun, don’t you?”

<<Do you want me to let her hit you?>> he snapped back, a little shorter than he’d ideally like to be, <<Because that hadn’t been the plan, but if that’s what you want- >>

He felt Ed sag under his hands before he got an actual answer, and it was enough. He spoke even as Ed was starting to apologize in his mind. “I thought I was trying to be sweet, ma’am? I could be extra sweet and give him a break between this and cleaning his legs.”

<<Yes, please.>> Ed’s voice was quieter now, half cowed, and Castor regretted snapping at him. It wasn’t his fault he was hurt, or afraid. It wasn’t his fault they were here or the woman was cruel. If anything, it was Castor’s fault.

<<It’s alright,>> he said softly, <<I didn’t mean to snap. I want to get us out of here if it’s safe, but I just don’t think it is. I’m just trying to keep us safe, I swear.>>

There was a long pause before Ed’s answering <<I know,>> quiet and defeated.

It was a relief to finish cleaning Ed’s back, to bandage him thoroughly, and to pull him back into his arms. It was stupid, wanting to hold a near-stranger like this, except for the part that they didn’t feel like strangers at all, anymore. Ed wrapped his arms around Castor again, holding him back more thoroughly now that they were skin to skin and he couldn’t grab at Castor’s sweater.

He was going to wash Ed’s hair once all his wounds were handled, but for now, he leaned into the tangled mats one last time, pulling Ed close and letting the man tuck his head under his chin and rest there for a moment.

“Sweet,” the woman murmured, sounding satisfied, at least for the moment.

<<I’m sorry, Ed,>> he said, <<I’m doing my best.>>

<<I know that, too.>>

It was almost a whisper, but it was enough.

[burtlederp]

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[burtlederp-incorporated]

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