#first juneofdoom prompt fill yay!!

[painonthebrain]

JuneofDoom Day 1 - On the run / fetal position

@juneofdoom

Reverb wakes up after a game of Buckshot and crashing at a hotel.

Content: Guns/gun use, blood, standard buckshot roulette things, demon whumper, demon-turned-human whumpee, emeto/vomit, drug mention, alcohol mention

Reverb woke with a start, breathing hard. He was laying on the covers of a hotel bed, curled into the fetal position, tense — he held fistfuls of the blanket’s material and the covers were dirty from his shoes, mud tracked into the fabric.

The room was dark and musty, coated in a film of grime and filth. The scent of cigarette smoke lingered in its very walls, the curtains, the blankets, everything.

Still taking in shallow breaths, he sat up, clutching his forehead. His head was fuzzy, filled with cotton — cotton soaked in acid, stinging everywhere and sending stabbing pains through his skull.

For a moment, he was disoriented, forgetting how the hell he ended up here.

Roulette. The pain in his skull and jaw.

The money. The gore.

… Of course.

He groaned.

His head throbbed, and he was sure it was from more than just being shot. How many beers had he had? It had to be… god, he couldn’t remember. He’d smoked and drank and… and he faintly remembered using drugs. After all, he had to have taken something in that demon cesspit.

Reverb felt his insides churn. A nasty feeling pressed at the back of his throat.

Forcing himself to breathe deeply, he clutched his stomach, waiting for it to pass.

His mouth watered and he swallowed.

The feeling wouldn’t leave.

Reverb slowly got out of bed, his legs shaking as he made his way to the bathroom, stumbling to the toilet.

He dropped to his knees and bent over it, emptying his guts until there was nothing left but tears in his eyes, saliva and vomit sticking to his chin. Some of it was caught in his hair.

He moaned, leaning back against the wall of the bathroom, sitting on the floor.

Never had he felt so lowly — or imagined things could be any worse than they were before. His throat was on fire and there was a sickly, wet feeling like a leaky pipe inside of his chest, drip drip dripping, slimy and cold and he was sure it was some human emotion he couldn’t identify. A weakness, a flaw he shouldn’t have.

Lilith liked that. She liked seeing the fear in his eyes when she realized he wasn’t really human.

That he used to be one of her kind.

A former demon playing a demon’s game of stakes was the finest form of entertainment there was for her and Reverb knew it.

He forced himself to his feet and wiped away the vomit on his mouth, then flushed the toilet, feeling disgusting.

He really needed a shower.

---

Once he’d returned to the bed, he laid back down on it, still not feeling well. Instinctively, he curled back into the fetal position.

The briefcase of money sat next to him. Laid out on the bed and wrinkling the covers, it was a reminder of who he was and what he’d done.

He stared at it, dread creeping up his spine. Something tightened in his abdomen.

With his heart beating faster, he unlatched the clasps and opened it, checking. The bills sat in there, pristine, save for splatters of blood here and there. They’d dried and begun to flake, dark and brown. Some of it was his own, dripped onto the case from gunshot wounds that should have been fatal.

The memory was fresh.

Lilith’s body had gone limp when he shot it. She’d crumpled to the ground, lifeless, empty looking.

He knew she wasn’t dead. Demons don’t die that easily.

But for a moment, he’d felt something dark claw at him, deep in his chest as he gazed into their eyes, foreboding and cold; he was coated in both of their blood and he still felt the recoil of the gunshot —

He slammed the thing closed, locking the clasps again. His hands trembled as he pulled them away.

If anyone knew— knew about buckshot, knew about the money—

Reverb’s brows furrowed, and he let out a breath through his teeth. It shook.

He stumbled out of bed and grabbed the briefcase with both hands, gripping the handle so tightly his knuckles were white.

He couldn’t stay here.