#but now that i actually got to it

[whumble-beeee]

Whumptember 2023, Day 8 

“Don’t come back”

Kicked out | Saying goodbye for the last time | Lashing out 

The Bee’s Whumptember Masterlist

~1030 words

CW: bad caretaker (pretty much a whumper tbh), killing mention, suffocation, shooting people with bows mention

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

“Out,” Caretaker growled, eyes fiery, muscles tensed, arm pointed straight out toward the door. Vigilante stopped short and stared at Caretaker, suddenly not so concerned with screaming and pleading with them to fork over their compound bow.

“I–... What?”

“Out.” Caretaker elaborated. “Get out. Go away, hasta la vista, I’m pointing at the door, go to it and use it to go away and never come back.”

“There’s no need to be so… rude…” Vigilante trailed off, realizing this probably wasn't the best time to be snarky. Even though Caretaker didn’t really seem to get that memo. 

Caretaker couldn’t really be saying… could they? “Never come back?... Caretaker, you're overreacting, lets just–"

"NO, VIGIL!" Caretaker yelled, throwing their hands down and storming over to Vigilante, practically backing them up against the wall as they scrambled to get away from their enraged, superpowered friend. “You don’t tell me that I’m overreacting, you do NOT get to tell me that I’m overreacting!”

They whirled around suddenly, stumbling over their words as they tried to form a coherent sentence, before giving up and letting out a loud angry curse to the heavens. They stamped their foot on the ground like a toddler having a temper tantrum and left a cracking dent in the lacquered wood floor.

Vigilante felt the color drain from their face as they stared wide-eyed at the dent. Caretaker whirled around again with a new righteous fury and Vigilante stumbled back into the wall, breath hitching. They couldn’t take their eyes off Caretaker, but they so badly wanted to just look down in submission. To apologize for what they’d done.

“Vigil, we had a deal,” Caretaker growled. Their voice was dangerously calm as Vigilante shook and cowered against the wall. “You apologize to all the people you hurt, the families of the people you killed with that damn bow.” Caretaker took a step toward them with gritted teeth and thundery eyes. “And you’d never use that thing again. You promised me. You promised them.”

Vigilante let out a small squeak as their throat struggled to work up a response. “I-I-I didn’t me-ean to–”

“I let you stay here because you promised that. You promised me.” Caretaker's voice broke, tears sparkly faintly on the edges of their eyes. “I wanted to be the person I needed when I was at my lowest, for you, because I didn’t have anyone like that.”

Vigilante tensely held their hands in front of their chest, wet eyes wide and unblinking. “Ca-aretaker, I’m so-o-rry-y.”

Caretaker stared at them for a long time before their face slowly morphed back into the mask of unbridled fury. “No, you’re fucking not.” They whispered through gritted teeth. Their eyes narrowed, their muscles practically shaking. “You’re just scared of me.”

Caretaker surged forward, grabbing Vigilante’s lapels and shoving them upward into the wall. Vigilante gasped at the sudden pressure shoving painfully into their chest as they grasped at Caretaker's wrists, struggling for any way to get them off, shaking wildly from the pure voracity of it, deafening white noise filling their entire being as their feet searched desperately for the ground. Their head swam as their breathing stuttered against the crushing pin.

Caretaker pressed even further in response, tightening the collar of Vigilante's shirt suffocatingly around their neck. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it again.” They could feel Caretaker’s hot breath misting uncomfortably onto their cheeks. “You wouldn’t sneak out over and over again, you wouldn’t break into the safe and steal the bow back, you wouldn’t go out and get someone killed again and again and again. Over and over and over!”

Caretaker jolted Vigilante and they saw stars. They blinked rapidly, desperately trying to fight off the black slowly consuming their vision. It didn’t work. Their head filled with cotton as it raced away from them at a thousand miles an hour. Was Caretaker actually going to kill them?

“Caretaker–” Vigilante wheezed pleadingly, head lolling backward as they weakly squeezed caretaker’s wrists. “Can’t– I– I ca-an’t–...”

Caretaker dropped Vigilante’s shirt and they collapsed to the floor at Caretaker’s feet, half unconscious and hacking violently into themself. Shivers wracked their body as one hand curled protectively around their throat. 

Caretaker just stared down at them with narrowed eyes. Finally, when Vigilante was just barely hyperventilating and sobbing into the floor, Caretaker spoke again. “You’re out of chances, Vigil. Get out. Don’t come back.”

Vigilante nodded meekly, watching tears slowly drip down and splash onto the hard dark surface they were curled up on. “I’l-l– I’ll le-e-eav-v-ve.”

Caretaker nudged Vigilante toward the door, not quite hard enough to be a kick. Vigilante tipped over onto their side with a small thump, and Caretaker rolled their eyes with a sigh, pinching at the bridge of their nose.

“If I ever see you again, Vigilante, I’ll kill you.” 

Not a threat, just a promise. Vigilante nodded quickly, not meeting Caretaker’s eyes, and Caretaker curtly turned around and walked away deeper into the home. Probably to Vigilante’s room to throw all their stuff out. Or destroy it.

Vigilante laid on the floor, taking deep breaths and willing with all their might for their heart to stop racing, taking in deep gulps of air and rubbing the wet tear tracks from their face. They knew they deserved this. They knew it every time they stole their bow back, every time they saw the arrow buried into the chest of an unsuspecting target, every time they hit the wrong person, every time Caretaker found out and lectured them, saying they knew Vigilante could be better if they just tried, how they would never stop helping until Vigilante could actually, truly help people. And Vigilante would smile up at them with sad tears in their eyes, thankful they had a person who would believe in them when even they couldn't believe in themself.

They would smile because they knew Caretaker would never give up on them.

Now, they just sobbed.

Slowly, Vigilante built up the strength to finally stand up and stumble toward the door. They wrenched it open with a cry, and walked away without looking back

@whumptember

[wishfulsketching]

Girl dad Silco is a source of endless entertainment for me

Extra doodles:

Someone save Sevika, she is in hell

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[kendyroy]

Seeing Logan in the TVA makes me laugh so hard for some reason? Like I know he’s lived to see technology evolve and stuff, but there’s something so funny about a guy from the 1800s standing in some kind of retro-futuristic timey wimey agency to me. Man is confused as hell.

like what da hell is a polar bear doin in arlington texas

[nicecrumbart]

Keep thinking about that one scene in secret life

[cymk8]

lady of sorrows

[gongyussy]

"we know how to move our bodies, but i didn't know how to manage my heart, so you need help for this"

hi we need to talk more about judo gold medallist christa deguchi.

[windwenn]

UHURA!!!

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[egophiliac]

2025 is the year of the DRAGON SLIPPERS

[aphel1on]

AuDHD is so funny sometimes like what do you mean my hyperfixations/special interests will last for years on end or possibly forever but they will cycle out every month or two with absolutely no transitional period or warning. like i will think about the same topic every day obsessively for 46 days in a row and on the 47th day with no visible cause adhd brain goes "ok! bored of that now" and autism brain goes "dw i got something queued up for ya" and i blast into full blown obsession on some other topic whose mental file folders haven't opened in 9 months. brain's out here treating hyperfixations like a crop rotation. once the dopamine runs out it cycles in another one but once something's in the rotation it never ever leaves. last summer we brought in one from when i was 11. it's so funny to me but frustrating too bc like. i cannot stress enough my inability to predict or control this. or how completely abrupt and random it can be

[cozylittleartblog]

not that we didn't already Know belos was full of shit, but it's even funnier knowing the titan was still alive the whole time and probably judging him

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Scott Cawthon’s version of FNAF Burntrap..

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

i think everyone who's ever had migraines should be financially compensated forever btw

[ewwww-what]

Ugh. Literally just let her go home???