#for a bit of context his wounds got really infected and he has a VERY high fever and this is the first time he's been truly conscious in a | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scifimedic · 6 months ago

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PART 2: FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS

Hi! Thanks for making the post about sepsis :D Unfortunately, though, I overestimated the resources my stabbed guy has and oops, turns out he would, in fact, die. :(

So I was wondering, if he managed to avoid the sepsis scenario, could he end up with "just" an infection? That would be survivable with a basic first aid kit and in the middle of nowhere?

To add some context, the stab wound is fairly shallow and around the lower half of his abdomen (more to the side though). The object was thin and made from steel. It would be cool if a part of it stayed inside, but not if the chances of him dying would get too high as a result lol.

I really appreciate the work you put into your posts :D thanks!

RIP :(

Let’s expand on what we already covered in the post above, starting at Scenario 2:

In as few as 12 hours after the injury happened, signs of a local infection start showing up:

Swelling at the site of the wound

Redness around the edges

Exhaustion

Warmpth around the site

Chills

Mild fever

At first, he may only notice tenderness and swelling, then after another 12 hours, (24 total post-injury) the exhaustion and mild (100ish) fever set in.

Here’s what he’s gonna need to do to survive this mild infection:

1: Get to a place where he can rest. Running around the woods is gonna make it really easy for the infection to spread, and harder to keep it clean. A camp should include a place to rest comfortably away from the elements, and a water source- the colder the better. While a food source is nice, if he’s fairly healthy and has good fat reserves, he’ll be fine.

Once he’s settles, he should figure out what’s in the kit and ration it. He’ll need:

Gauze, ideally big enough to cover the whole stab wound with room to tape it down securely.

Tape. Waterproof.

Antibiotics of some kind. Could be actual pills, but most likely a tube of antibiotic cream. Comes standard in every first aid kit I’ve ever seen.

A way to filter water

If you’d like to make him more comfortable, add:

“Pop” ice and heat packs

Warm blanket

Numbing gel

Snacks

Acetaminophen, for the pain and fever

Antinausea meds, like Zofran, or Pepto Bismol

Electrolyte packages

Elastic wrap/Coban

If he’s got the bare minimum, he’ll survive but will need to be rescued eventually. He’ll be very weak and have lost a lot of weight from fighting the infection. Add in food and electrolytes, he’ll be able to get himself out.

2: Clean the wound. Rinse it out thoroughly with clean water, then slather it in antibiotic cream. If there’s something still embedded in the wound, under no circumstances should it be removed. Removing it can cause even more damage and introduce more bacteria than leaving it in place. A lot of the time, any small bits of metal or dirt will work themselves out of the skin in a few months. It’s also important to note that he won’t be able to see the wound well. If he tries to bend over and get a good look at it, it will compress and hurt like hell.

3: Bandage it up. Notice I didn’t say stitch it up? Yeah, under no circumstances should this wound be closed. Take some of that clean gauze and tuck it in the wound, you can soak it in clean water first to make it more comfortable to do so. Then, use that waterproof tape to hold it down. If he’s sweaty or otherwise wet (and he remembered to pack the good first aid kit) you can wrap the whole thing in some coban to keep it more securely on there.

4: Wait it out. I’d expect the worst of the symptoms to be setting in at around 36 hours. The wound will be very tender, swollen and red. It will also weep clear or slightly yellow fluids, which will stink. He’ll also have that wonderful fever, and feel exhausted and nauseous. Controlling the pain will help with the nausea, if he’s unmedicated and dealing with pain and fever, he’ll probably be throwing up.

If he’s got the bare minimum, all he can really do is stay hydrated and rest. If he’s got more supplies however, he can take a low dose of Tylenol to manage the fever, and some antinause meds of your choice to help with the queasiness. He needs to change the bandages at least every 8 hours, more if they become soiled with blood, dirt, or fluids from the wound.

If the fever gets above 102- or if he’s becoming disoriented- then it’s time to start lowering the fever using that cold water source. Soak a shirt or rag in cold water and do a little sponge bath, being careful not to get water in the wound.

5: Cap it at 7 days. If the infection has not made progress by day 7, he’s probably near death. I would hope for the fever to break and the nausea to ease off by day three or so if he’s unmedicated, any more than that we’re in the danger zone. The wound may still look red and inflamed, but I would wait for it to stop oozing before considering breaking camp, that should hopefully be happening around 3-4 days with the antibiotic cream being copiously applied.

Hope this helps and happy writing!

Hi! I just found your blog and noticed you have some posts where you explain how to write certain medical conditions, and I was wondering - could you perhaps do a post on blood poisoning, please? I am struggling with it a little lol.

I have a character that got stabbed, and I don't know what are the odds they could get blood poisoning and if yes, how fast and generally how it progresses.

If you don’t have time or something, don't sweat it, it's just a silly idea I got lol :D

Episode 4 of SciFiMedic Explains: How do I write sepsis?

Hi Anon!

So, your character got themselves stabbed, huh? Before we get to the nuts and bolts of how this is going to progress, we have to clear up a little choice of words here.

The term blood poisoning is not the medically correct term for an infection inside the blood- we call it sepsis. Unless you meant literal poison from the weapon (which I can do a follow-up post on, if that’s the case) I’m going to guess that we’re talking about a severe, system-wide infection of the blood.

Let’s walk through a few options:

Scenario 1:

Your character is stabbed in an area with lots of big blood vessels (highlighted red in diagram), and while everyone does all they can, the poor guy quickly dies of blood loss. There’s no time for infection to set in.

Scenario 2:

Your character is stabbed in a non-lethal area, like the arms, legs, or shallowly on the gut (highlighted green in diagram) They’re able to bandage themselves up, or maybe someone helps them out and they manage to get the bleeding stopped.

Unfortunately, 12 hours later, they notice red streaking coming from around the wound. They also:

Feel freezing cold, but have a high temperature

Are dizzy

Are shivering

Can’t quite catch their breath and feel the need to pant

Throw up

Look pale

These are all signs of the injury going septic, which is when the infection spreads away from the site of the wound and into the bloodstream. It happens fast. From the onset of these symptoms, they can be dead within only 12 hours.

Here’s what needs to happen for them to survive:

1: Hospital. No buts, no delay. If you want them to survive, they need advanced medical treatment, detailed below. (I will allow for a field hospital, or a makeshift hospital with a trained professional and plenty of supplies.)

2: Blood and wound cultures. This means taking a small tube of blood from the arm, rubbing a cotton swab in the wound, and then sending both samples to the lab for study. They will smear the sample on a slide, put it in a warm, wet environment, and wait for it to grow out. Then, they’ll pop it under a microscope and run chemical tests on it to find out what the infection is. This process can take up to 4 days. The good news? The more pathogens that’s in the sample, the faster it will grow out. If you have blood that is severely infected, it could take as little as 12 hours to see results. (I know this from personal experience.)

If you’re in a field hospital, unfortunately this is a luxury you don’t have. See next step.

3: IV antibiotics immediately. Since you don’t know the bacteria causing the sepsis, you don’t know which antibiotic to give. Good news, people a lot smarter than I have created a plan for this.

3a: According to this study done by the National Library of Medicine, 67.9% of people presenting outside a hospital setting had their wounds infected with either Staphylococcus aureus or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. 3b. Thankfully, we have two very strong antibiotics- Vancomycin and Ciprofloxacin- that can each treat these pathogens. Unfortunately, each antibiotic is effective against only one of these pathogens, and nearly useless (or has developed resistance) against the other one! 3c. Good news, these antibiotics can be safely run together. Boom, you’ve just slammed (and it’s a slam- these drugs are horrible for you long term) 67.9% of patients with the right antibiotics to start treating their sepsis. 3d. What about the other 32.1% you may be asking? Good news, they’re not doomed. Just because a given antibiotic isn’t the best choice against a certain pathogen, it doesn't mean it will be completely ineffective. You may be buying them more time for the cultures to come back. You can also take your next best guess, and switch the antibiotics after a few hours if they aren’t having any effect.

4. Fluids. IV time! The biggest tell that someone has sepsis is that their blood pressure plummets to dangerous levels (which is what will eventually kill them, but we’ll get to that.) In order to prevent that drop, we need to raise the blood pressure by adding more volume to the blood through fluids. They might also need a blood transfusion, depending on how much blood they lost from the initial stab wound.

It’s important to note that it may not be possible to gain IV access, because when the blood pressure is that low, the veins tend to shrivel up and disappear (not literally.) In that case, your next best option is an IO, which is a needle drilled into the center of the upper arm bone, or lower leg bone. Yes, it hurts.

5. Vasopressors. Fancy name for medications that force the blood pressure to come up. There are four main pressors:

Norepinephrine

Epinephrine

Phenylephrine

Vasopressin

They should be added in that order, although this article admits there isn’t too much hard evidence to back this up.

It’s important to note that this is ICU level care, and unless we’re in the middle of the woods, we will have transferred there.

How do you know if it’s time to add another pressor? You’re not getting the results you need- AKA the blood pressure is continuing to stay or fall too low. In the ICU, we use a different measure of blood pressure that most people aren’t as familiar with, called a MAP score. It’s easy, I promise.

We use this method because it’s more representative of the amount of blood actually getting to the organs- though that is debated quite a bit in various circles. In America however, that’s the way most ICUs do it.

The ultimate goal for a sepsis case is to have a MAP above 65 mmHg. You can use this calculator to play around with the numbers and see if the blood pressure you’re thinking is within those parameters. If it’s not, time for another pressor.

At this point, your character is passed out most of the time. They’ve got a high fever, rapid heart beat, and are covered in sweat. They might also have a seizure from the fever and general stress on their body- at the very least they’ll be shaking from the chills. Their skin will be very, very pale, and might look kinda blue or gray in places- kinda like spots.

6. Hold your breath. No, not literally. But at this point, you’ve done all you can and you have to wait for them to either get better, or get worse.

If they get better, they’ll slowly start to maintain their own blood pressure, the fever will come down, and they’ll be able to string a coherent sentence together again. Recovery from sepsis can take a long, long time- as many as two to four months in the hospital. It totally depends on the person and how strong they are. The fittest, luckiest patient I’ve seen recover from sepsis was with us in the ICU for three weeks, then spent another month in a step down unit doing various therapies to regain strength.

However… if we’re looking at failure… well, then it’s time to move onto scenario 3.

Scenario 3:

After completing all of the above steps, they end up getting worse. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault- sepsis is fickle and kills fast. At this point, their kidneys are starting to fail from the inadequate blood pressure- you’ll need dialysis for that. They might stop breathing, or be unable to oxygenate their blood properly, then they’ll need a ventilator. At this point, they’re not stable enough to go into surgery anymore, so there’s no hope there. Eventually, the high fever will cause seizures, which will lead very quickly to brain death. As little as 12 hours after the initial dizziness and red streaks, their heart stops and they’re pronounced dead.

Summary:

The odds of your character developing sepsis from a non-fatal stab wound without immediate medical care are high- 90%

If they’re rushed to a hospital, their odds are better- 50%

If they do develop sepsis inside a hospital, they’re likley to survive- only 10.55% of people die of this kind of wound infection.

If they develop sepsis outside a hospital, then it’s almost certain they will die- 99%

Disclaimer: Although I’m in school to become a medical professional, I’m not one yet. All mistakes are mine, and I’m always open to discussion.

Anon, this was a fun prompt! If this isn’t quite what you were looking for, feel free to submit another ask with more follow up questions!

Everyone else, also feel free to send me an ask, or reblog this (or any SciFiMedicExplains Episode) with a scene you’d like me to help you write!

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considermeharmless · 3 years ago

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The Labyrinth Games - Part 2

Hello, hello, you wonderful people! The new day enfolds and it has quite a few surprises. Hold on to your seats! Status of the previous day, then today’s simulation right below the cut. OvO

Night 1

Now, how will some of these new characters act in the darkness of the night...

Hah! Don’t we all! XD

Hmm... Can’t say much about it. On one hand, it seems like a good strategy to avoid getting attacked by surprise, but he also runs the risk of being less focused on the next day! If he survives this long, that is.

Uuuuuhhhh okaaaayyyy? That’s an interesting pairing XD

Wounds? What wounds? Up to this point, he got fishing gear and a hatchet but nothing really happened to him that we kno-... Wait. Could it be? I’m pretty sure he must have some fishing skills and knowledge but... Could he have messed up with the fishing hook and got his own skin hooked or something? XD That or he really had no idea how a hatchet worked x)

Awww :’c Is it because his little hunting gang (The Night Terror, Leticia, Ventis and himself) got dissolved at some point?

sHe aLrEaDy HaVe sOmE tHrOwiNG KniVeS!!! And she didn’t even need those to begin with!

HAHAHAHA!! Oh the irony! X’D But also... Kinda sad... I dunno, am I the only one to have some weird pity for TNT? Anyway, this coincidence in the wording is outstanding. 10/10.

Good for her to have found some food!

Sweet dreams. u3u

Always a lady with smarts!

Again... What infection? XD He slept through the day before! Infected with good rest??

Ah welp, that’s a shame ^^’ So far, he has had more killing/scary skills than survival ones XD

That’s... pretty impressive for sure. Although, very little surprises me to what this man can do x) But why in this context would you spare such a big threat after you defeated him, Michael?!

NOOOO VEN!! D: Was that really necessary, Chaos, hm?? You already scared Bradley man away and killed Donald! Calm down! And yikes, a molotov?! Who else are you gonna destroy in cold blood!

Cool! Remember to stay hydrated, kids and adults :D

There it is, people! The fried-chicken-feather-duster is no more!

You can now put down your pitchforks XD Oh and slow-clap for Sarah dying by trying to arm a bomb =v=

Day 2

Oh noooooo those 3 are too good at their jobs and too similar. This will probably either go terribly or beautifully.

Yeah, I bet defeating Bigby in a fight the night before must have left at least some little cuts or bruises that need medical attention TvT

What a bunch of peaceful events for Oswald today. He slept well during the night and now spends the day getting fruits!

NDUZHOJDNHOAJNSJND. Good on Mickey for getting away! Not good for the Night Terror though XD It has proven itself to be much deadlier.

Oh no! XD Chaos and Mayhem?? Working together?! And poor Michael has done nothing but try to hunt for others with no success and cry since the beginning c’:

Oof. Wonder how this came to happen... The running away from Amish, I mean. Not the sprain XD

O.O

But why..? And how? But mostly wHY???

No idea where this trident came from but good for her if it gets her a meal!

Labyrinth Event

Oooo, Arena Events! Or Labyrinth Events, really. They’re always fun, wonder what this one will b--

CARNIVOROUS. SQUIRRELS.

Yep. You read it right. I know this, because I triple checked! XD Oh dear stars and planets the absolute madness... But anyway uhhhh sorry still reeling in the craziness of this meeeeean Michael for playing dirty! But a kill is still a kill TvT

OvO

Again... Madness... And also, what? “Separate”? You mean they were sticking together up until now? XD But alas, the Chaotic Lads from yesterday are no more...

Good for them! And impressive since “carnivorous squirrels” seems like a strangely catastrophic threat now.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

What-- what is this?? And why did you have to word it like that, simulation? “In agony”, I... QnQ But, but what if she had survived the attack, huh? D:

“there are too many”... So she died from the attack?! OnO

“Beware of the creature with four mouths”, “Don’t trust Sarah Songbird”, “Don’t follow the voices inside”, HAH! The squirrels are the real enemies in the Labyrinth, now!

The God of Chaos too??? What are these rodents made of?!

... Well. Both Holly and her version of a different reality/universe, dead in the same manner. How fitting and tragic. TvT

Nice. At least some of them got away from the rats of doom...

Soooo, they were beside each other up until then? :’D Mugsy... You’re a sweetheart, but in these simulation and a bit in story too, you’re a taaad scary XD Still sad to see them both go though! And he had some explosives too...

*weak yay for the both of them after this tragically devastating rollercoaster*

The Fallen characters

So... so many... And such powerful ones too! The Night Terror, Sarah, Chaos, Mayhem, Luka... And the other ones as well! All so much more deadly than rodents or so I thought.

... Maybe Mickey... survived because... y’know what? I’m gonna shush XD

Status of the day

What can I say? With how murderous the squirrels were, I’m not fazed by the little amount of kills the characters had between each others! Still, I’ll keep an eye on team 10... See ya tomorrow!

#The Labyrinth Games #part 2 #the inky mystery

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paper-cloud · 4 years ago

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i. the crushing weight of what happens next

part of "(there will be a) tomorrow"

fandom: prospect (2018) characters: ezra, cee rating: T words count: ~3K context: post-canon general warnings/tags: see series masterlist warnings/tags for this chapter: ezra's pov. angst. not graphic descriptions of wounds, blood and amputated limbs. mentions of minor characters' death. (probably very) inaccurate but anyways vague descriptions of medical treatments and post-anesthesia symptoms. taglist: @ravensmutty @buttercup--bee @thegreenkid (again, thank you all for your interest and encouragement! :3) @krissology @ezrasarm @bonktime (please forgive my nerve, i won't tag you in the next chapters unless you'll explicitly ask me to! just thought about someone else who might be interested and you guys are AMAZINGLY talented and inspiring "prospect"/ezra writers. it's not my intention to waste precious moments of your time! 🤡

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He'd have thought it was almost ironic – opening his eyes to the light only to see nothing. To feel pain.

He'd have laughed about it, most likely. A bit later, he'd have acknowledged it was a reasonably fair compromise; for him and any other wretch that'd ever dared play dice with darkness and miraculously made it out alive.

And in the very end he'd come to laugh at himself, too.

He knows the drill. Someone who trades their own life with the contract of the highest bidder doesn't see the universe in black and white, let alone is in a position to draw the hypothetical line between the two of them.

Must be an even more wicked universe than he's ever cared about, then.

At least, that's where the struggle of opening his eyes made him stumble upon; when a blade of light thrust through that hint of a gap he'd pushed himself to create in the middle, resonating through the dark coils of unconsciousness like a harsh, unforgiving bell.

A skilled mariner over silky rivers of natural redundancy and rapids of professional edges, Ezra is a man who can appreciate a sharp wit when he recognizes one.

That was too much even for him.

Floundering in between a blinding whiteness and a black hole that wasn't even completely black, but permeated by a thick, suffocating haze that filled every ghost haunting his mind with its stench. With the color of diabolically lush leaves.

Forest— spores— poison— death.

It hadn't been enough to let him dangle in apnea above a roaring vortex of lifeless emerald; take him away from the grey flow whose elusiveness he'd come to appreciate more than he'd ever hated to endure its chaos— from the bubble built on the routine series of one last jobs that, in the end, never really were.

There'd been a moment when, from the higher parts of the room, his pupils tumbled down, tripping over a patch of green discreetly lurking in a corner.

He almost threw up.

It had taken him a while to clear out the misty grit clotted in his corneas— focus on white walls, light wood paneling... a harmless seedling in a pot.

He'd breathed heavily, deeply. He sure hadn't got much relief from it. Still, he'd been able to hear its sound, louder than he'd ever heard it before, the musical, cooling mesh of oxygen particles in and out of his lungs almost begging his fingers to be touched.

Oxygen.

Fresh air.

Had he been less sore – less convinced it was just the residual effects of anesthesia pulling pranks on him –, he would have burst out laughing. Even more so if some poor soul of the medical staff nearby would have called for reinforcements from the other side of the space station before storming into his room.

He'd be laughing now, too. The best he can manage is sitting on his bed, leaning his back on the headboard – which is what he's struggling to do right now— and well, sometimes the room lighting still slightly bothers him. Of course, with all the painkillers and antibiotics they've given him, he wouldn't feel like the wound on his stomach is swallowing the entire arsenal of stitches and bandages.

He just wouldn't like her to get the wrong idea.

He blinks several times, like a man who no longer trusts his eyes. How can he, when they're burning like that, in such a different fire from the one from days before – damp and flickering? For reasons he can imagine, she seems to be faltering. Totally beyond his comprehension, he could swear she's smiling at him. Something inside his ribcage creaks oddly, while the curve of his chest arches upward.

"Birdie."

It's just a huff of breath, weak and hoarse, yet scratches his throat all the same, in a way that its walls feel studded with rock spurs. Actually, Ezra doesn't remember talking since they left the Green behind – which, being him, is saying something – and it's like an eternity has passed since their pod docked up there.

The nurse who let her into his room has just left and Cee sinks her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. She's still smiling— just the faded shadow of a smile, now that he takes a better look at her.

"How's your wound?"

It sounds a lot less plain than he expected.

She hasn't moved towards him any further, and for now she's not showing any hints at wanting to. In her irises, Ezra recognizes thumping stars and cerulean clouds, all clustered in the black circle cut by the large porthole next to his bed. All before catching the thin mist veiling them. As if she did want to reach those stars, let herself get carried away by those streams of bluish dust, but she had no idea how or what to do there.

He looks down, the borders of the bandages over his abdomen slightly raised under his black short-sleeved tee. He clears his throat.

"S'healin' nicely", he says, with a deliberate lightheartedness that costs him a sharp, bizarre inflection in his voice. He closes his eyes soon after, tilting his head condescendingly. "That's how the nurse feels about it, anyway... S'not like I can feel much more right now."

This reminds him of those vacuous moments between brief, chaotic waking states and delirious dreams. When he'd managed to reconnect some essential key points scattered around in the talks of surgeons and nurses; the weariness he felt from simply gathering he was on a space station due to enter the orbit of Mesos in three cycles and something standard hours. All while his only solid reference point – the only indisputable proof he was still alive – was the sequence of beeps chirped by the medical monitor perched nearby. Constant, not monotonous. Friendly, even. Sometimes, he actually comes to miss it.

"A trust fall to the extreme, I'd guess", he snorts, a sly laugh as weak and heavy as the words trudging out of his mouth. As the whole rest of him.

Whatever answer she's considering, Cee freezes it in a quick purse of her lips – maybe a nod, but for his own good he'd rather be doubtful. Then she starts looking around.

There's a chair under the board firmly anchored to the opposite wall – probably a desk or something he's never needed to test, whatsoever. She grabs it and puts it next to his bed. She sits down, bringing her legs to her chest, squeezing them in her arms.

Waiting for what, Ezra has no idea, and he's afraid she doesn't have any, either.

He doesn't speak, though, nor does he encourage her to do the same. Her pearly gaze roams steadily but unhurriedly from him to somewhere beyond him, her nose buried in the gap between her knees. He studies her carefully, two purple crescents above her cheeks, a few hair strands swinging down her face without her wiping them out. The nights she's slept through haven't been any more peaceful than his.

Trust, he recalls in the meantime.

It sure brings an odd taste to his mouth. Something close to sweaty spacesuits, grimy paths and gone-off ration bars. A single word for two human beings forced to share the same air filter for days; that, and the image of a dead body left to rot miles behind and the desperate commitment not to end up in the same way.

His gaze just happens to trip over his right side, taking in the deflated sleeve over the emptiness that saved his life. When he lifts it back to the girl, meeting her eyes just before they can flutter away, he realizes they were both looking at the same spot. And he realizes something else— something he's already understood, yet not quite.

There is no tube binding them now.

"Why d'you do it?", he mumbles a split second later, almost like somehow the thread of his question has immediately knotted to the one of his previous thought.

He huffs. He shouldn't even have asked her, in all honesty. Seeing her like this, at least he should have put it in another way, danced around it, it's not like he’s never been good at stalling, after all—

"Comin' back", Ezra says instead, and when he swallows, he mainly does it to send his heart back down his throat. If he'd died without being given the last chance to be this straightforward on this matter, he would have probably kicked his ass all the way to the other side.

This time, Cee doesn't avoid his gaze. He shouldn't be surprised by how collected she looks, given the calmness she handled his infected arm with and then told him about when she used to slip into Jata Bhalu carcasses. But he can't help it when he thinks she can't be much older now than what she was then.

He watches her breathing in, wobbling her pupils here and there, seemingly considering his words. She's not afraid, not any more than what she seemed to be when she walked into his room. Maybe she's just better than him at playing pretend – but this, he can't tell whether it's more of a good than a bad thing. Especially for her.

One thing he can tell is that she's not the same girl who pointed a trembling gun at him before running away into the woods. He knows she's not afraid.

He knows...

So is it the hunter's instinct he has to blame if he feels she is?

"Guess I've seen too much death on that forsaken moon to just... turn my back on one I can help– one I can do something about."

If he was standing in front of an entire mountain crumbling down into the ocean, he wouldn't hear its sound. ‘Wouldn't even be the worst he deserves. She did hesitate before adding the last few words, but Ezra refuses to believe she did that because she was afraid of hurting him. He may be a wretch, but not a fool.

Kevva, for a man who's always managed to untwist himself from far tougher situations with the tangles of his tongue alone, he's sure having a deal of trouble – and he wishes he could put all the blame on his current physical condition.

There is no word he doesn't have to weigh carefully now, to prevent it from taking too sharp edges once out of his lips. He may float around it forever. But once he's let her go without saying anything, he'll hardly find the courage to look within himself again, more than after any other job that hardened his hands with calluses and tarnished his eyes with blood.

He doesn't know for sure. In fact, everything he was sure to know – about the turning direction of the universe and the one of the wheels in his head – has already collapsed in front of him, tracing a flaming tail. An unforgiving meteor following a trajectory far beyond his grasp.

He just knows silence scares him, in a way that a wrong word will never do again. It terrifies him. More than as a talkative person, as a castaway on a hostile moon for too many cycles to keep their count – with the only company of a mute. Silence is green; the green of the most poisonous pollen, lethal in his brain just like toxic spores enveloped in his lungs. The green of snake scales ready to stand and scratch his flesh until liquid crimson pours out of it.

And at the end of the day, this is the only fucking thing he can tell himself to know without having his guts churning and chest heaving a beat later.

"Stop looking at me like that."

It's more of an exhausted prayer than an annoyed remark. Ezra blinks, stunned by the sudden return from the shapeless stream of his thoughts.

"Like what?"

"Like you're looking for the words to thank me", Cee settles back into her chair and this time she lets one leg touch the floor, "Tell me you owe me, and you– you're sorry about what you did."

Ezra sniffles. "Would it be bad?"

"No, it—". She closes her eyes for a moment, clenching her jaw. "Just no good", she breathes out, calmer.

And the discordant note in those words conjures up ghosts not yet vague enough for Ezra to be able to tolerate them without something twinging inside him— like a violent flutter of wings. Voices groping their way up ravels of compromises. Damon, deep in the forest. Himself, with the mercenaries in the Queen's Lair. Cee, days before that. After he—

She's right— those words she hasn't said yet, but whose shadow he feels looming every time he catches her wetting her lips.

Some things just can't be split evenly.

"This is not the Green", she states, suddenly more confident but no less exhausted. "If you're going to hang around just because you need to, once we reach Mesos¹ you'd better be on your way."

Ezra doesn't interrupt her. A faded echo starts making its way into his ears. A former prospecting partner, many years ago. An easy job on a forgettable Fringe moon.

Gems don't have an expiration date. Deals do. Strike 'em if you need to, get rid of them as soon as you can. Unless you care to dig a quicker way to your grave.

He didn't pay attention to it, then. He'd thought it was just the empty rhetoric prospectors drop absentmindedly to fill the time between an unrewarding digging and the next. All the more so under the rickety advice of a couple too many.

His eyes still wide open, hands shaky, he merely reciprocated the awkward bottle lift of his partner, whom he didn't know more than the meanders of that quarry. A toast to a faceless future – a nothingness still more reassuring than what was all around and behind them. Not to the darkness of the cave, basically unbreakable if only for the red halo thrown by the twinkles of sharp, sinister Prystines². Not even to the two poor bastards that had set out with them, ending up skewered a few hundred paces behind – one by mistake, the other to return the favor of saving him from the clutches of a furious Aiu³.

Like an idiot.

Several contracts later preventing him from missing a beat in front of similar hiccups, the logic of that statement no longer sounds so absurd to Ezra. Luckily for him, Cee understood it long before him.

"I was just lookin' for the words to tell ya you'll be better off without me—"

Half a truth. Half a heartbeat. After all, she isn't the only one of them who knows how to sell it.

He leans his head back against the headboard, eyes half-closed, a sly grin baring a couple of his upper teeth. It would almost be intimidating, except that the glint hitting them doesn't quite match the dying one in his eyes.

"—But you beat me to it", he finishes, and he sounds like he's about to fall asleep.

He slowly turns his head away, looks through the porthole. His gaze clutches to the passing asteroids outside, distant nebulae spraying the sidereal black with hues of purple, blue, red— then green, again. A climbing plant squeezing him from the inside, discomfort starts creeping on him an inch of his body – what's left of it – at a time.

He doesn't want her to think he's angry at her, and it's the only concrete foothold emerging from the fluid, magmatic chaos in his mind.

How could he be, when she came back to get him?

She didn't have to.

She doesn't have to be here, either...

"I'm sorry", she suddenly blurts out.

He meets her eyes again, a mix of bewilderment and disapproval shading his own. He shakes his head.

"Don't."

"I just—". She starts fiddling with the extra fabric created by the folds of her sweatpants. Then she sighs deeply. "I have no idea what I'm gonna do now."

He snorts. "Not that it's s'pposed to make you feel any better, but... neither do I."

He doesn't have a hazy helmet choking the glimmer in his eyes, an air filter breaking some frequencies in his voice— maybe just those making him sound sincere, while saving those trapping him into the swamp of self-loathing.

He was nothing but honest when he told her the rules of the game on the Green. When he openly admitted he was a killer, and when he assured her he wouldn't trade her for the Sater's Aurelac. And she's always seemed to believe him, maybe for that kind of desperate inertia that washes over people when they need something to cling to. Whatever the case, Ezra can only hope she wants to believe him now. But she doesn't speak, and for a moment his fear of not saying enough overcomes that of crossing her boundaries.

"But w—", he immediately bites his tongue, "—you still have three cycles to figure things out. Someone up here will be able to help you. Even so, please know you'll always have my most sincere gratitude."

The effort of lining up all those words and so few pauses to catch his breath casts a thick fog over his ears. His eyes suddenly hurt again and he finds himself squinting.

What happens next, he just records it, hardly managing to follow each cause-effect relationship. A series of events softly raining on him without making a noise, while he can quite imagine them to be way more prolonged in time. Cee leaning towards the lighting panel on the wall, sliding her finger counterclockwise, and the white coating the walls turning less painfully bright; her getting up, walking away, dwelling just before the door. "I'll come to check on you tomorrow", she says, sniffling.

She tilts her head, holding his gaze in her watery one for an agonizingly slow while – Please, don't ask me why.

He blinks once – Of course.

Then, the automatic door is once again engulfed by the wall, closing behind her with a metallic rustle.

Tomorrow.

His heart is taken by a spiraling jolt that leaves an empty cave behind. When it falls back into place, Ezra finds something has tripped in there, shapeless and quivering like the nucleus of a newborn star.

Hope, terror and everything that lies in between.

___________________

NOTES:

1) Mesos — Invented planet. Its only raison d'être is that "mésos" in Greek means "middle" and my intent was to frame this story in a moment of transition (after those of movies) for both Ezra and Cee. 2) Prystines — Invented kind of crystals. They're implied to be huge, red and very sharp, thus endangering the path through the cave. 3) Aiu — Invented predator, ideally a big feline.

A/N:

Yeah, uhm... at this point, if someone was ever to give me any kind of feedback, constructive criticism or random thought, I think I'd just melt into a puddle for the attention alone. And to all those who came all the way down here, your bravery shall not be forgotten. ♥️✨

In my defense, it's (almost) all P**** P*****'s fault & of his habit of taking orphans under his wing from one planet to another.

I know people in the fandom generally tend to make Ezra and Cee go along straight away after the movie, so this will be a slightly different take on things, I guess... But even if I don't know if I'll keep this series going atm (life & maturity exam suck), a final reconciliation is definitely on the way. ;)

Oh, and any beta reader that should feel like helping me out for when I'll have the next chapters ready is warmly welcomed! My DMs are always open and I swear I don't bite! :3

#prospect (2018)#prospect movie #ezra (prospect)#cee (prospect)#pedro pascal #sophie thatcher #my writing ☁️#geez what tf did i write this so long for?#it's all sadness and insecurities and introspections #hopefully i'll fit more dialogues in for the next ones...#which means kevva help me when i'll have to put my hands on that verbose space rascal's dialogues #i already know i'll ruin him but i really don't want to but he's so fucking intimidating but—#*goes hiding in her cave*

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undignifiend · 4 years ago

Text

Been thinking about my oc Warden again. Might play with his design a little more, too, we’ll see. In the meantime, here’s some notes on him:

Warning for vague naughtiness and safe vore mentions below the cut. ;)

+++++

+Excuse me, officer, that’s my Emotional Support Creeper

+The chillest, chonkiest, and most well-adjusted of all my Trollhunters ocs by a long shot.

+For those new to him, he’s a changeling who runs a lucrative side-business where he uses his big troll form as a “one-of-a-kind lifelike animatronic run by cutting-edge AI tech” for “simulated” experiences with human clients. Proceeds go to the Janus Order, but he keeps a cut to keep his cover smooth and occasionally indulge in luxuries. He meets all kinds of people, and enjoys interacting with them in contexts where they aren’t frightened (or truly frightened). Gives amazing aftercare and massages (whether anything spicy happened or not, if that’s what a client wants. It’s not all spicy, but he does enjoy indulging such whims, within his own limits).

+He’s got strict rules to keep people safe in these instances (repeat customers mean more money and connections). He can get rough if they want, but he has his own limits as to how rough he’ll go. Will pin people (not enough to crush them) and make them recite The Rules (discussed later) if they try to ignore them because “he’s a machine, he’s not real”. That’s his first warning. Any subsequent violations terminate the session. No refunds.

+Disaster Bi/Pan. Very romantic and enjoys making clients (and partners outside work) feel thoroughly cared for. Doesn’t get attached as easily as he seems to, but when he falls, he falls hard.

+Has a weakness for stories about superheroes with secret identities. Will occasionally do vigilante work, and covers his tracks carefully.

+Diligent about his hygiene. On one hand, he sees it as respectful to his Familiar to keep his human form clean and good looking. (Though this sometimes looks like vanity to those who don’t know any better. He really is quite vain about his troll form, though.) And on the other, humans tend to be far pickier (even if less sensitive) than trolls about smell, and his side-business model relies on reassuring them that they’re in a safe, clean, relaxing environment.

+In his human form, he plays one of the bartenders and bouncers for a hotel near the wilderness that is classier and more successful than anyone paying attention to it would suspect, given its somewhat remote location. It sees just enough traffic (including private events and conventions) to maybe justify it, and he contributes some of his earnings to helping the place thrive. It’s his cover, where his clients meet him face-to-(human)-face, so he’s invested in keeping it respectable, which also helps encourage clients to come back for more. He also drives his clients to the even more remote caves (warded by enchantments that disguise signals to give false reports of where they actually are to any tracking devices or scrying attempts) where the scenarios take place, and drives them back to the hotel afterward. Before a session, his human form takes the client(s) to the room where the session will occur, and he “leaves to monitor the AI” through an off-limits passage that loops through a fake “control room” to another, bigger passage for his troll form to enter from.

+The humans working at the hotel have an understanding with him, though they don’t know what he is. He occasionally departs to see to this “side business”, and so long as nobody questions or talks about it, or puts a tracker on his car, or any shenanigans like that, he contributes a cut of his pay to the hotel. It also helps that he’s a dependable and amiable co-worker, and no one around him has suspiciously vanished yet.

+Still, some employees feel like it’s a deal with a devil. He’s been there long enough that it’s starting to become apparent that he either uses a damn good moisturizer, or he doesn’t age. That, and he’s preternaturally strong and fast. On the rare occasions that fights break out, he ends them quickly, and his injuries recover fast despite his avoidance of hospitals. He’s getting to the point where he’s going to have to start fresh elsewhere soon.

+More relaxed in his troll form, but for different reasons than Dezoka. He sees his human form as borrowing his familiar’s image, prefers to treat it with dignity, and doesn’t take disrespect to it lightly.

+Before his current business model, he used to rob banks as an outlaw. Proceeds also went to the Janus Order to help fund their operations.

+Primarily relies on his size, strength, and situational awareness in (and before) combat. He’s not an especially skilled fighter compared to Dezoka, Ulvek, or Zahnn, (he’s a bit out of practice since his outlaw days, and it’s been a long, long time since he’s had to contend with the Darklands) but he’s resilient, observant, and hits hard.

+Loves to eat people (in all the fun ways). His stomach can double as a portable high-security safe holding cell. Not a big fan of keeping prisoners that way. He’ll bitch and grumble, but he’ll still do it if he thinks he has to. Prefers willing participants. He’s kinda spoiled on them, and the idea of someone trusting him enough for it makes him really happy, and is his favorite indulgence.

+Where that particular bit of physiology is concerned, I’ve been thinking of designing a group of trolls with this trait and figuring out how his particular safe vore shenanigans might work. Warden’s stomach lining is peppered with many thousands of specialized, regenerating cellular nodes that exchange O2 and CO2 gases from his own bloodstream for his “guest’s” benefit, so suffocation isn’t an issue for anyone inside so long as Warden can keep breathing. His stomach also contains a mild acid that won’t do much more than gently exfoliate and disinfect open wounds (it’s got a pH of about 4 or 5, which I think is typically alright for skin anyway). The acidity ramps up in cases where a high amount of necrotic tissue is detected, to digest it before it rots further, and to kill any infection that might in turn infect him. This can also damage any living tissue still attached to the dead stuff, which will hurt for anyone still alive (so it’s not a good treatment for seriously injured folks), but after the dead tissue is eaten away, the pH will return to a more neutral zone - but remain acidic enough to keep open wounds disinfected as a guest’s body recovers. His stomach can also mildly aid recovery through gentle contractions to massage a guest and improve circulation while they’re curled up in there. But he will use his hands a lot, too. He loves being full and holding people this way.

+‘The Rules’ (including safe words) are customizable and negotiated before a session is even paid for, both for clarity’s sake, and “for programming adjustments”. All involved decide what they want and what their boundaries are. A client can change their mind if they decide they don’t actually want to do something, but Warden will not agree to any last minute additions that involve a safety/trauma risk. For example, if a client decided that they want him to swallow them whole, they can change their mind mid-session if they’re too nervous to go through with it (and can change their mind back again if they decide that they actually feel ready). But if they ask him to do it during a session where that was not planned, he will decline. Reluctantly. Even if it's safe, he understands it can also be really terrifying for those who aren’t ready, and he prefers to err on the side of caution where that’s concerned. Fearplay is great, and he loves playing up the role of a wicked, cruel predator - but that's the sort of thing that has to be discussed first so the client knows they have the power to stop it if it gets too intense.

+How to convince him that you’re Evil Incarnate: He has a sweet tooth and a serious weakness for foodplay and stuffing. It’s the most effective way to tease the daylights out of him, so he always gets a bit nervous when this comes up in establishing a session’s Rules. Doesn’t fluster easily, but just thinking about this will do it. Especially loves it as a prelude to vore. Will also do this without vore, but it’s kind of a struggle to hide just how wildly hungry and desperate that leaves him. He’ll be a professional about it, and he won’t violate The Rules or try to pressure a client/partner no matter how desperate he gets. Stuffing himself silly doesn’t fix it, either, it just leaves him delirious and aching for live, warm squirming in his stomach. Belly rubs and mouthplay are the cruelest little cherries on top. If he thinks his client/partner knows what they’re doing to him, he’ll be ticked off, but also impressed and intimidated. Either way, he won’t be able to stop thinking about them and wanting to take them somewhere nice and hold their hand and move in together and sappy stuff like that. And eat them, of course. He’ll lose a lot of sleep over just how badly he wants to eat them.

#safe vore #changeling oc #vague naughtiness #character notes #roleplay notes

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mallowstep · 3 years ago

Note

for the meta asks! 2, 4, 7 !

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

oh man there's always a lot i'm looking forward to writing...but i also tend to just...write what i'm looking forward to.

that SAID right now, right at this moment, i'm still on "i really want to write lynxpaw and her half siblings."

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

hm...i always pick these from wips because it's easier to go thru them, so you're not going to have much context, but,

oh this is proving hard bc i want it to actually work on its own but like i tend to like moments that i build up to hold on hold on i'll make it worth your time

He lets out a harsh laugh as a sudden realization hits him. He was always going to die tonight. Even if he’d ever lay a claw on the apprentices — and he’d sooner tear his own heart out — he would die. Tigerstar would claim no cat who killed apprentices could be trusted. Clearly, he’d say, Stonefur is violent and unstable.

i don't get to put this moment into words very much but i love stonefur

He crouches on the riverbank. Not more than a pawful of tail lengths behind him, Stonefur’s blood stains the ground. No one else seems bothered by it, but Fireheart can’t ignore it, not if he looks. All he can see is Stonefur’s blood spilling out and, and, and.

can we tell i'm in a mood lately. but uhhh fireheart depression hours.

Whitepaw leans most of her weight on him, and Bramblebloom nods to the others as they set out. Whitepaw’s breathing is labored, and she’s uncharacteristically quiet, all of her energy spent just on putting her paws in front of one another. He can smell her wound from here, the infection staining her white fur and leaving angry welts on her flank.

more description moments i enjoy.

“I want to make one thing very clear,” Blackstar says. “The only reason I am not killing you is because I don’t want to deal with your corpse.”

HAH i had fun with this one. man says "it's too much of a pain to kill you"

He has always been easy with affection, at least to those he loved. Before her death, he was devoted to Leopardfoot, and when he courted her, it was with precise charm, winning over Lionheart, Rosetail, and even Bluestar. Goldenflower had been in no rush to take a mate — a thought that feels bitter, now — and he visited her in the nursery with her first litter, friendly with Lynxkit and Swiftkit, but not overstepping.

and last but not least, i like this bit about goldenflower/tigerstar

okay that was more than the question asked for but that's because my ACTUAL proudest lines (from wips) are really hard to dig out of their context, so i just...got some where it's obvious why i like them. yes i've been in a very tpb mood lately.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

in terms of fic, heavy usage of dialogue and empty space, so to speak. as well as the () i do.

um a bit more specifically, i lean on dialogue to convey the emotions of characters, often with very little surrounding it. which is part of why it's so hard to find good moments that stand on their own: one thing i'd like to think i do well is forcing a reader to synthesize ideas.

there's a lot of small stylistic things i do, yeah.

i think my writing tends to vary on the surface quite a lot, because i'm always shooting to convey an emotional state, and i want to get that across in the best way possible. so i do whatever i need to do to make that work.

if my goal is discomfort, i might focus on the physicality of something, dip deeply into that. or if i want fluff, maybe it's mostly the gentle teasing and acts of affection.

anyway i feel like people would agree? yeah.

#mine #ask #ask game #katiek101

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lolathepeacocklord · 3 years ago

Text

Chapter 3 – Helping Hand

“It’s not safe to be walking around all by yourself. There’s a lot out here that can and probably will try to kill you.” The new stranger took Smith’s hand and started to pull him away down the alley. He progressed down to a dead end and opened up a door to the left, which led to a very dark room inside the building. The place was relatively large, at least compared to other buildings in town. It probably had three floors. Smith was very hesitant on walking into the pitch black room. That guy seemed to just disappear into the abyss.

Why was he even following him? It could be some loony that was gonna kill and eat him. It’s been a damn long time since he’s met anybody nice out here. And the fact he talked normally like him was also a bit confusing. Were sane people more common then he thought they were?

He grunted and inhaled sharply- tightening his grip over to bleeding wound. Oh yeah, he just remembered why the guy dragged him here in the first place.

The smoker gained the courage to take a step into the house, and hissed when he got a light shined in his face for a split second.

“Sorry, sorry!” The man said, a little bit panicked. “We… Don’t have electricity here really. There’s a backup generator in the basement. It’s out of gas though.” He twisted the flashlight a bit and made it’s spotlight larger so the room could be seen better. Now that more of the place was visible this place looked like a run down motel. Well it was the literal apocalypse, so of course things are gonna be trashed, but he still assumed the highest rating this place ever got was three stars. Even that felt a bit generous.

The man had gone off to get both that flashlight and seemingly a medkit. “Could you sit down please? I’d like to take care of that sooner rather then later.”

“Yeah me too.” Smith murmured and sat down. At least the guy seemed to know what he was doing. He started to help clean around the wound which hurt like fucking hell. Smith still felt on the cautious side with this man, just because he met him about seven minutes ago. He didn’t even know the guy’s name.

“I’m Alex by the way.” He had a gentle little smile on his face. “Sorry for grabbing you off the street so suddenly. I just didn’t want you to be out in the open too long. Especially if you have an open wound.”

“Smith. Thanks for the help.” Well at least they were getting to know each other. He would have done this mini surgery by himself, but… This was a bullet. He’s dealt with slashes and cuts and stuff, so there was a tiny bit of experience there with stitches. But he’s never taken a literal bullet out of himself before. Or anyone else.

“Are you… Sure you know what you’re doing?” The smoker asked nervously.

“Yeah! I’ve been having a little practice recently. I got a friend who is a bit reckless. He’s… Been shot more then once definitely.” Alex rummaged through the medkit and eventually pulled out some pliers. They didn’t look… Too rusty. “Just letting you know, this is about to hurt. A lot. So just keep yourself braced.”

Smith tried to force himself to look away from this, but would continue to glance back a lot. The wound for some reason looked bigger then it did earlier. Wider. At least it gave a little more room for Alex to insert the tweezers, and it hurt like hell. Alex needed to grip his wrist just so he didn’t rip his arm away from him. The little bullet was deep in there, and blood continued to pour from the wound again. The smoker grunted slightly and clenched his teeth hard, resting his chin in the palm of his other hand. After several agonizing minutes the little piece of metal clinked onto the tabletop and rolled around in a tiny circle. Alex and Smith both sighed with relief. “Worst part’s over. Good job!” Alex gave a thumbs up and cleaned the wound the rest of the way now. There was a mediocre set of a needle and thread, so he continued to carefully stitch up the wound again. He knew what he was doing… Mostly. The apocalypse has really been helping him learn a thing or two in the medical field. At least enough to treat multiple bullet wounds and occasionally the claw marks and gashes from melee weapons.

Alex looked up at Smith every once in a while to just kind of... Get a look at this guy. He stared at the hole in the wall nervously, having green catlike eyes. And the schlera was a bright yellow that almost seemed like it glowed. Or maybe it just reflected light well or something, he wasn't sure. His hair went all the way down the back of his neck and curled a bit at the end. The right side of his head was shaved and he had several piercings on his ears, and one on his remaining eyebrow. He had a tiny little scar more on the right side of his lips. He seemed like he was a Hispanic American mix. Definitely an interesting looking guy.

“There we go, good as new!” Alex said happily, closing the kit again as Smith examined the work with the bandages. Nothing felt loose, and most of the bleeding seemed to be stopping. "Thanks, um... Alex." Smith said, returning a tiny smile. The guy sure seemed optimistic, especially since it was, oh you know, the end of the world. Suddenly Smith felt incredibly awkward.

"So um... Are you just, like, some tumor guy?" He asked, getting a confused look from Alex. "What do you mean?"

"Well you're clearly not a survivor. Or well, an immune survivor. And you got the whole tumor mess going on there." Smith put his elbow on the table, resting his head in his palm. "Wish I was as lucky as you. Not single tentacle hanging out as far as I see."

Alex continued to stare, looking just as awkward and confused as Smith felt right now. "I'm... Not a smoker. Have you- never seen a boomer before?"

Smith blinked. "A what now?"

Alex took in a deep breathe and sighed gently. The flashlight on the table began flickering. He grabbed it and smacked it against his palm a few times before getting the regular shine back. “There we go. You should really keep batteries anytime you find them. Big, small, medium- you never know what they’d come in handy for!”

“… Right, uh… I kinda wanted to know what a boomer was? And you keep talking about these other people. Who exactly- what- I’m a little lost right now.”

“Right right, sorry.” Alex quickly put the light back and began to tell the smoker everything he knew.

“I saw some guy behind a building throwing up everywhere, really violently. I went to see if he was alright. He had these growths starting to grow on his arms and face, and I asked him if I needed to call an ambulance. And then he just… Without any warning at all-” He looked like he might throw up as well. “Dear god, the guy just blew up like a balloon- blood and shit going everywhere. P-People thought I committed a murder, and there was a security camera nearby thank god. I was let off the hook just because people had no idea what happened there. The investigation didn’t last long because, well… Heh. Ahem- I started to get really sick and well, look where I am now. Yeah.”

Smith felt bad for bringing up such a touchy subject. The guy seemed genuinely ashamed he had become this monstrosity, so that made him feel even worse. He tried to change the subject somewhat and said “How are your other friends doing? They doing… Well?”

The two were quite for several minutes, just staring at each other. Alex eventually grabbed the flashlight and rose from his seat. “Come with me, I’ll introduce you to the others.”

Smith became increasingly more worried as he was given a tour around the motel. A lot of the walls and doorways were outright demolished, and at this point he was a little scared to ask who and what would have caused that. Alex’s low-context answer somehow made it feel worse.

“For the type of infected Brutus is, he’s actually a bit smaller compared to other infected. Doesn’t mean he can’t cause a ton of destruction.” He said, sounding like he was just talking to himself, because this was not giving Smith the answer he wanted regarding the destruction. At least he made it sound like it was their friend? Whatever this Brutus thing was. Alex eventually turned over to one room and gently knocked on the door before slowly opening it. “… Hello, you awake?”

There was another destroyed wall (lovely) inside the room, so that was… Something. The room itself was more interesting. Whoever lived here seemed to horde a lot of blankets and pillow, and a big mattress too. It looked a bit squished though, and there was a big blanket that was clearly made by sewing together a bunch of other blankets. More off to the corner of the room was a huge pile of pillows and blanket. The uneasy part was was the fact a hand was sticking out from the pile. A hand with very, very long claws.

“She doesn’t like super bright lights. So if you wanna wake her up ever, just… Don’t do that.” Alex turned off the flashlight and walked over to speak to the pile of pillows. Smith looked around nervously at the dark building and checked again to see if a hallway lamp was working. The answer was no, and he sighed softly. He suddenly felt a tingling in his throat and put his hand over his mouth, coughing repeatedly. He was doing his best to keep it down, so he tried moving down the hall a bit. Alex then came out and waved at him. “Blance is up! Just- whenever you’re done doing you.”

Smith forced down the coughing fit surprisingly, and watched a woman walk out the doorway, mumbling something to herself. The claws were really intimidating, and she kind of seemed to have a resting bitch face. That or she always looked angry when she got woken up to meet random strangers. She wore a baggy keyhole sweater that was a bit of a tan color, a dark gray denim skirt, and some pantyhose that were pretty raggedy and torn up. She didn’t wear any kind of shoes. Or at least not at the moment? Yeah, who went to bed with shoes on. And unless you were there to witness it and had a sharp memory, you probably wouldn’t be able to find anything in that room.

“So you’re the new guy?” She asked, looking at Smith with slight distaste. She looked a couple inches shorter then Alex and had long dirty blonde hair that covered most of the right side of her face. She brushed it out of the way to squint at Smith, and Alex turned the flashlight back on by now. She cringed at the sight of him having even more tumors then her friend right next to her. “You smell awful, god.” Well, she clearly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Smith was glad to see she still had both of her eyes in their sockets, unharmed and everything. She let the hair fall back over her face and Alex asked “Where did Brutus go Blance? I’m sorry to interrupt you starting a nap, I just haven’t heard him.”

“Heard him?” Smith asked.

“Yeah, you can definitely hear him walking around. I’ll show you why in a minute.” Alex said. “But this is Blance! Blance, this is Smith. He is a smoker, and Smith, she is something called a witch-”

“I can already tell why he has that name. Just his voice says it all.” She murmured, and didn’t give Smith time to react to that comment. “Also I’ve been… Asleep. For a while now. I thought you would know where he was.”

Alex stared blankly at her. “No… I said I was gonna check the building next door, see if it had anything there. You were supposed to keep an eye on Brutus. He does seem to hang around you more anyways.”

Smith watched the two go back and forth, just trying to figure out who the hell had been looking after this Brutus guy. He was starting to get the impression he was some sort of child, but how could a child destroy a building like this? Not like throwing things off shelves and breaking vases- actually destroying the place. He just wanted to know what the fuck was going on with these new infected her was meeting. Was that really so much for him to ask?

And that’s when things really started to go down.

Alex literally screamed like a girl when they all heard a huge crash outside. Not directly outside, but really damn close. Maybe just behind the building near them. Immediately after the crash a car alarm was going off like crazy. And then they heard the sound of a horde coming over.

“We might’ve just found him.” Blance said, and started running away, and out through a hole in the building, Alex stammered a bunch and tried to stop her before running off in a different direction of the building to get something.

“What the hell’s happening!?” Smith yelled.

“Sorry, I-I’m so sorry. I haven’t been telling you anything about that, I just- Thought it’d be better to introduce you first.” Alex had gone over to a closet where there were a ton of guns stored. “Jesus, where did you get all these?” Smith asked, staring in awe.

“This city has really dangerous litter nowadays. Here-” Alex just shoved a gun into Smith’s arms. He gave him this heavy baggy too, and when he opened it up he saw why. It had a ton of magazines for the gun. Alex grabbed himself a shotgun and shoved a bunch of shells into his pockets before he shut the door. He started to run off in the same path he saw Blance go, but stopped in his tracks for a minute.

“You don’t have to come you know! Just keep that on you in case you need to defend yourself.” Alex told Smith, who was keeping close behind him.

“No no no, I wanna come with you. Just so I can know what the hell is happening around here.” Smith said. “You guys may need extra protection, and I’m glad to provide it!

Alex smiled at him, still seeming very panicked. “I’ll explain all of this later, don’t worry.” He said and patted the smoker’s shoulder. “Just brace yourself- you’re going to see a lot of weird things from here on out.”

Smith didn’t take in how right those words were going to mean in the next several minutes. Alex didn’t even know what was gonna be in store. All they knew was that the witch ran away, there was a horde, something happened with a car, and they just needed to go on from there. So the two kept their guns in their arms, waited for an opening so they weren’t just running directly through a horde, and just followed the zombies over to the noise.

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patrickstargang · 4 years ago

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To Heal (Shadow of Kyoshi fic)

Chapter 1: The Other Side of Peace

Chapter 2: Master and Student

Chapter 3: A Cause for Celebration

Chapter 4: Taking Off The Mask

Chapter 5: Call to Action

Epilogue

Kirima found herself bending the water coming out of the cracks of the ceiling, trying to add new drops to the shape she was precariously creating. It was a way to pass the time while everyone waited for Hei-ran to show up. Wong tried copying Kirima by collecting floating dust, which was plentiful at the estate’s entrance. It was one of the bigger rooms in the entire complex, which would be more lively with the usual maids doing their work but now appeared like dead space.

Kyoshi was off to the side of the room, her anxiousness stood out among the other bored members of the Flying Opera Company. Out of all of them, she was the one waiting for Hei-ran’s arrival with the most anticipation. Though it didn’t feel like anticipation, more like dread. Dread at having to talk to Hei-ran again but also dread for what Atuat’s diagnosis would be once she finally sat down with Rangi. Kyoshi already took her back to the infirmary since they would be showing up soon, but time kept making the tension of the wait more palpable. The thoughts came running back into her head, so she tried to create a distraction for herself.

Kyoshi saw a puddle created from the rain and tried to bend it. It began to move up in the air for a few moments but limply came back down to the ground. She attempted to move it again but it only yielded the same results. Her fingers began to strain. Something was wrong. She should have easily bent a puddle of this size like it was nothing. Why was it refusing to bend now?

Kirima continued to gather water droplets, oblivious to Kyoshi’s struggle. “So when is the old grouch showing up, we’ve been waiting for hours.”

Wong shrugged, his dust pile along with him. “Maybe they got caught in…..boat traffic?”

Kirima carelessly let the water formation out of the air, splashing into the ground. She pushed her hair back and let out an air of frustration. “Well, I guess its no harm waiting for another few hours,” she spoke sarcastically, more than what was usual for her. “Who knows, maybe she’ll show up busting through those doors right no-”

Before she could finish her sentence, the doors busted open. Everyone in the room flinched in surprise, Wong accidentally flinging his floating dust pile right into his face. At the open doorway stood an ominous silhouette, with a smaller less intimidating silhouette standing behind it. The silhouettes revealed themselves to be Hei-ran and Ataut, both drenched from the rain. Hei-ran looked like she was possessed by the spirit of fear and anger, revealed by her strained stance and a face that could instill terror into the strongest warrior. Atuat smiled and waved at everyone.

Hei-ran looked as though she were about to speak, a very terrifying concept for everyone in the room. Instead, she quickly got out her chalkboard and began writing furiously. After only a few seconds she turned the board around for everyone to see.

“WHERE IS SHE!?”

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Kyoshi could hear part of the one-way argument outside the infirmary. It was hard to hear what was going on since Hei-ran’s scribbling sometimes got louder than Rangi. She barely heard any of what was said except for one key thing: “It wasn’t her fault.”

Her heart sinks. There could be a lot of implications to that, even with context. Kyoshi slumped down on one of the nearby benches, a feeling of defeat across her face. She knew she was done for. Kyoshi promised to protect her daughter with everything she had, and even then she slipped up. She anticipated the berating, being called a menace to her daughter that only puts her in danger.

As those thoughts began arising, she noticed another nearby puddle. She breathed in, reached her hand out, and tried again. The water wouldn’t even budge this time. It felt like hitting a liquid wall, it was impossible and yet it was happening. Her frustration got the better of her as she slammed her fist into the other side of the wooden bench, leaving a massive hole. It took a moment for her to realize what she did. She grimaced while trying to flatten the fragments of the wooden plank back into place. Then she heard the infirmary door open.

Hei-ran appeared from around the corner. She took a look at Kyoshi, then the other side of the bench. She decided standing was fine. They both sat (or in Hei-ran’s case, stood) in silence for many moments.

Kyoshi tried to speak before Hei-ran sped through an entire piece of chalk.

“Before you say anything, Rangi told me the whole story. Including the part where you saved her.”

Kyoshi slowly glanced down at the bottom of the chalkboard.

“And I’m sorry about Yun, you did the right thing.”

That name still opened up wounds for Kyoshi. Even now it was hard for her to accept everything that had happened, that it was now all in the past. Her friend was gone. He was gone a long time ago.

She felt a pat from Hei-ran on her shoulder. She seemed to understand the pain Kyoshi was feeling now, since Yun was also her student. Hei-ran wasn’t one for emotions so something like this meant she was serious. For the years that Kyoshi has known Rangi’s mother, this felt like the most sincere gesture she’s given to her.

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

Kyoshi decided to go back to her work as Atuat was starting her checkup on Rangi. When she returned to her workspace, she found Jinpa had left her a pile of letters. Most of them were from diplomats across the Four Nations inviting her to visit their towns and villages. Most of them she would have to decline since her main priority was the situation with Fire Lord Zoryu.

But her mind kept drifting back to Rangi. She was reading the notes but not processing them. Her focus was off, her mind was on other worrying things.

Jinpa came into the room, carrying another sack full of letters and invitations. Kyoshi broke her waning attention on her work, only to grimace at the approaching pile. “Where are all these letters coming from?”

“Well, most of these were from the hideout in Ba Sing Se. We’re just finally getting them sent back here. Sorry if it's a bit…..excessive.”

Kyoshi let out a long sigh as she put down the paper she was holding. “It’s probably for the best, I needed to get this all sorted out anyways. How much more is there?”

“Oh, only five.”

“Five more letters?”

“Oh, no…..five more crates of letters.”

Kyoshi gave Jinpa a piercing stare, one that showed little emotion except for slight annoyance. Jinpa awkwardly smiled tip-toeing backward out of the room.

“I-I’ll be back,” Jinpa pointed his thumb down the hall. “With more…..” He finally exited the doorway.

Kyoshi breathed through her nose and looked back down at the table. She noticed that it was covered in a blanket of documents and invitations. And this wasn’t all of what she had to look through today.

She decided to take a break. Kyoshi began walking down the halls of the estate, heading to the infirmary. While Zoryu was her top priority as the Avatar, Rangi’s health became her top personal priority.

Kyoshi passed by Hei-ran, who was sleeping on the bench that she put a hole through. She was sleeping, but in reality, it looked more like a stiffly adjusted power nap. It must have been the equivalent of sleeping for a military official. She quietly snuck her past the terrifying woman, making it to the infirmary doors before Atuat opened them up.

Kyoshi stopped in her tracks, moving out of the way so Atuat could get some space. She quietly closed the doors and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow.

Kyoshi slightly raised her hand. “So how is sh-”

Atuat put a finger against her lips, signaling for Kyoshi to lower her voice. Kyoshi hunched down and grimaced, not realizing how loud she said that.

“Sorry” she whispered.

“It’s alright kiddo. She's sleeping right now but should be back up in about an hour.”

“I’m surprised how quick it was.”

“Well, when ya know what your doing the process is pretty simple.” She grinned with the same kind of arrogant flair that Rangi would give off.

But that only reminded Kyoshi about the most pressing question. She struggled to come up with the words. She lowered her head, she couldn’t stand to see the sympathetic looks if her worst suspicions come true.

“....Sifu Atuat.” Her voice was shaking before she could even ask.

“Yes sweetie?”

“There's just one more question I have. About her injury. When I first healed her, I wasn’t sure if there was any permanent internal damage. Later on, I had a suspicion that it might be more serious than that, because of how deep the spear had gone in and the chance of infection. Sifu Atuat…..is she going to die?”

The brief period of silence made the wait worse. Kyoshi closed her eyes, her hands turning into fists waiting for the dreadful reply. She had to prepare herself for her worst nightmare to become her reality.

“Nope.”

Kyoshi’s eye shot open. She unbowed her head, her face frozen with confusion.

Atuat could read her confusion as clearly as Hei-ran’s chalkboard. “Oh believe me, I was shocked too. Considering how you described the injury, I thought it would be much more serious. But I made a thorough check and there wasn’t a single puncture to any of her vital organs, or any organs really. To be honest, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

The wind was knocked out of Kyoshi. She had been expecting the worst for quite some time, so she didn’t really know how to react when something went right for once.

Atuat pointed at Kyoshi, her voice was quick and direct. “Did you do the extraction technique every day, like we talked about in training.”

Kyoshi’s face was still frozen, so she replied with a nod. Atuat stroked her chin, trying to assess the possibilities. The seriousness didn’t last long as she jokingly nudged Kyoshi on the side.

“Maybe the spirits blessed you with some kind of special healing powers.”

The tension broke from Kyoshi’s face, letting out a light chuckle. Atuat joined in.

“But seriously, I don’t know what you did, but it worked. She’s in good health now. The only thing she's got from it is a scar on her back.” Her eyes measured Kyoshi up and down, then she chuckled again. “You know, it looks like you’ve made a fine water healer of yourself.”

Kyoshi breathed a sigh of relief, a relief that was impossible to describe. She didn’t know it then, but she was smiling. It wasn’t like the fake smiles that she had to put on before. She bowed, her hand connecting to her fist. “Thank you, Sifu.”

Atuat ruffled Kyoshi’s hair while she was still bowed. “Oh come on, you don’t always have to call me Sifu.”

It was strange to her, having a Sifu who was more of a friend than a teacher. But at the same time, what she did teach Kyoshi became invaluable when the moment needed it.

She unbowed herself, letting her hair stay ruffled. Atuat darted her eyes at the infirmary doors.

“Come now, I know there's someone you want to see.”

#avatar #atla #the rise of kyoshi #the shadow of kyoshi #kyoshi #rangi #hei-ran #kirima #wong #atuat #jinpa #trok #tsok #fan fic #to heal part 2 #to heal chapter 2

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lookforanewangle · 4 years ago

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i thought of another one for you >:3c prompt 48, bruce & dick, you choose the context😌

ha... hahaha...this is just titled as “i’m sorry” in my google docs lmaoooo time to kick off the bad things happen bingo!! :’D i really am sorry

i’ll stick with you || dick & bruce || 1.1k

angst prompt 48: sometimes I wonder why you stay with me || ao3

WARNINGS: blood, fatal injuries, major character death...x2, emotional hurt/comfort, hurt no comfort, angst, no happy ending, (this is very much not a happy story so take care of yourselves)

happy nano! :)

The end of the world starts and goes as it always does, with threats and explosions and battles raging across continents.

But the tide doesn't turn in their favor this time, doesn't allow them a moment of respite as the universe throws everything it has at them, and even the greatest heroes have crumbled. Too many have fallen, too many of their own have fallen— countless names, with family among them (Jay, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Cassandra, Kate, Duke, Alfred holding down the fort, their cave, their safe refuge, their home until the end)—

And all that's left are Bruce and Dick against the world. It's like it was at the beginning, just the two of them back to back, watching each other's six, and doing what they could to stay alive. Batman and Robin, the great Dynamic Duo.

But it wasn't enough.

It never came close.

There's too much left unsaid between them as they lay buried in rubble, shrapnel and rebar littered across the ground and strewn through their bodies. Bruce can't let their issues, their messiness, lie, can't let the words sit and fester like infected wounds, ruining the last vestiges of their strained relationship. He's missed his son, his boy, his first baby, all of these years, and as they both lay dying with no one coming for them, he lets the words free from his ribcage where he's held them hostage all these years.

"Sometimes I wonder why you stayed with me," Bruce wonders aloud, “Why you stay.” His voice is so quiet Dick isn't entirely sure if Bruce even spoke, or if he was imagining it through the pain induced haze clouding his thoughts.

But he's been around long enough to know differently, has trained his hearing well enough to know otherwise.

"After everything I've put you through...Dick, I— Every time. Every time you came back. I wouldn't have ever blamed you if you stayed away. You'd grown up and gotten out, and yet...you're still here. You're here."

Dick shifts, wincing as pain ignites his nerves on fire. "Of course ‘m here," he rasps, heel scraping weakly across the ground as he shifts to try and relieve any bit of agony. "And if...if you think f'r a single secon'... that I didn't know exactly what I was doin', tha’ I didn't want to be out there— out there with you...doin' the things we do, then you don' know me at all, B."

Bruce huffs in amusement, a sound that borders on a sob. Dick peeks at him through a squinted gaze, the light above them like dull ice picks to the brain, but he keeps them open, taking in the sights. There are tears at the corners of Bruce's eyes; there are burns up the sides of Bruce's face and Dick knows he's bleeding out somewhere he can't see while help is— while help isn't speeding towards them, because there's no one left to come, but he doesn't think that's why Bruce is so close to breaking.

Dick's chest hurts, and from more than the rebar poking through his ribs.

"B…" he wheezes, fingers twitching against gravel. Strong, trembling fingers respond, squeezing in whatever small bit of comfort his adopted father can provide as they careen towards the end of them both. Help is impossible at this point, doesn't exist anymore and they both know it. Tears sting Dick's eyes too, in fear and sadness and anger and love and pain and everything in between. "B—"

"I'm here," Bruce whispers back. "I'm here, chum. And I-- I'm sorry I wasn't there for you before."

"You were, you were there in some of the most important moments," Dick whispers, "'specially at the beginning. You were always there. I'm sorry I pushed you away so much."

"I am too," he answers, squeezing Dick's fingers again. A tear slips down Dick's cheek. They're silent for a moment as the end of the world rages on in the distance, beyond what they can hear. A curtain flutters in the wind somewhere above them through a shattered window. Dick swallows past a lump in his throat and continues.

"I stayed," he breathes, so quiet he's not sure Bruce will hear. But Bruce will hear every word, just as he trained Dick to. With that certainty: "I stayed because you understood me, because you did try, in your own ways. Because I believe in your mission, but knew you'd dig yourself into your own grave on your own.

"We had our moments, and… we’ve both fucked up in— in a lot of ways," he says. It's getting harder to pull in air and he pants, his chest tight. The tears make it harder; he pushes through anyway, as they always have. "But B…" he sucks in what air he can, breath hitching on the words. "You're the best dad I could have asked for," he sobs weakly, "and I love you, for better or worse.

"You gave me a home, a purpose. You helped me so much, Dad, and I like to think I helped you too."

"You did," Bruce reassures him immediately. He rolls onto his side with a heave, teeth creaking as he grits them against his own pain. Dick's fingers are still clutched tightly in his own and pulled close to his chest, his other hand burying his fingers in Dick's tangled hair and combing through the blood-soaked strands. He leans as best as he can over his son, and presses a kiss to Dick's temple, squeezing his eyes shut as tears stream down his cheeks. "You did help, sweetheart, and I wouldn't have made it this far without you. Thank you, son."

Dick's face crumples, and Bruce shushes him quietly, gently pressing his forehead to Dick's. Blood is still pooling rapidly beneath them both, and Bruce knows they're both almost out of time. He wants to tug Dick into his arms and hold him close, comfort him in Dick's preferred tactile way, but moving him is out of the question. So he clutches his fingers, presses their foreheads together, and hums, sings the songs he used to sing when Dick was a boy to comfort him after nightmares, sings the songs his mother used to sing to Bruce as a child when the dark got to be too much, even then.

Sometime later, Dick chokes on his air, squeezes Bruce's fingers in a deathtrap and heaves out with all the strength he has left: "I—I love you, B," and Bruce breaks.

"I love you, too."

Neither of them survive the night.

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filthysweetie · 5 years ago

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Dear Diary Pt III - 00Q fic

Part I — Part II

Day 26! No prompt used this time, just a continuation of this drabble ‘verse i’ve got going!

————

Q walks into his session with Dr. Yen and immediately hands her his journal/diary/whatever without prompting—making his way over to the array of teas she has with purpose, turning his back to her. Even though he knows he’s writing for an audience and he doesn’t write anything in there that he wouldn’t want her to read, it still feels odd to see her flip through the pages, touch the stickers on the cover that have no context for her. It’s…reductive. God, if Q hadn’t taken that one literary analysis class in Uni he wouldn’t be forced into analyzing the underlying meaning of her prim outfit and perfectly manicured nails against the scraped corner of the book and it’s feathered pen.

“I think we’re all done with this.” Dr. Yen says. Q doesn’t turn around until he’s done mixing a bit of sugar into the ginger-green blend he chose but when he does it’s to Dr. Yen sitting as she ever is, alert and attentive, but instead of his book in her delicate hands it’s on the glass table in between her seat and his, looking out of place and discarded.

“All done?” Q mimics. It does not fill him with the vindication or euphoria he expected.

Dr. Yen nods as Q takes his seat, “journalling helps may people deal with complex emotions and life experiences. But I don’t believe it’s helped you?” She does that thing—that thing where she ends it in a question and Q is obliged to respond.

He looks don’t at the diary, “I don’t think it’s been unhelpful.” He hedges, feeling defensive all of the sudden.

Dr. Yen smiles, “Oh well that’s good to hear,” she recrosses her legs, “but I don’t think I need to read it anymore.” She reaches for her own tea, “I think we can talk about whatever it is you’d like to discuss.”

Q stops himself from taking the diary into his lap, “So we don’t have to talk about…it anymore?” He hates how he hesitated.

Dr. Yen gives an elegant version of a shrug, “I’m sure it will come up; it is one of your life experiences—but there are other things we can discuss as well.”

This is not what he was expecting at all. Q feels thrown off script and is wrestling to get control back; “We can discuss it. I’m fine with discussing it.”

“Very well,” Dr. Yen inclines her head and waits.

Q squirms under her patient but expectant gaze, he panics, a little bit; “I think I’ve lost my sense of safety, even if I have the ability to save myself.”

Dr. Yen nods, like she expected this, somehow, “that’s a common occurrence for people who have had their autonomy violated.” He does not like her use of the word violated. He does not like the word violated at all, he thinks; “Many people use a touchstone, something they can touch or center their thoughts on that brings them a sense of comfort and helps rebuild that confidence that can be damaged. Do you have a touchstone?”

James flashes in his minds eye; his silhouette backlight on his crappy couch, his voice through to com lines, obliquely confirming Q’s safety.

Q swallows air.

“No.” ——— Dear Diary,

I think my psychiatrist tricked me into being open. Which was a dirty trick. She said I didn’t have to do this anymore. But I don’t know. I won’t say I like it, but there’s something about writing longhand that’s novel. Maybe I should get a pen pal. Although it would be a very boring letter once everything that needed to be was redacted.

Regardless, I can’t get rid of the thing, my people are collecting stickers to add to it and it’s a moral boost or something of the sort. It would be bad for the team to disregard it so carelessly.

{Q takes a moment to star at the page, at the blank space that was waiting to be filled. Would be really be the only one to read it now?}

My feet are healing nice enough. They still feel tender, but I can stand at my desk again without feeling like I’m going to reopen the wound.

{He hesitates on the banal for a moment longer before claiming the space between the covers wholly his}

I can’t look at them. I go to medical to get them cleaned—it makes sense, its an easy part of the body to get infected and its hard to re-dress yourself—but that’s not why I do it. It’s because I can’t look at the forming scar tissue without feeling ill. The fact that they’re somewhere hard to see is a twisted blessing, I guess.

How does James deal with all his scars? Does he see them as badges of survival? Why can’t I?

#00q #00q fanfiction #james bond #q #quartermaster #drabble on #i fancy myself a writer

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just-horrible-things · 5 years ago

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[Continued from here, part one here.]

He sits where he is put, on the cot that the Meek have assigned him. He is too distraught for sleep. He wouldn’t dare to move from the spot even if he had reason to. So he sits, and hugs his knees, and rocks, and tries to pretend that he is home in his cell and that the last few days have been nothing but nightmare.

There’s enough distance and enough doors between him and the hall that he can’t hear the Interrogator screaming any more. But he can still hear her inside his head. Exhausted. In agony. Breaking like only he is meant to break. The sobs bubble up from the well of horror inside his ribcage, and they will not stop.

The atmosphere is chokingly familiar. Everywhere, he senses the touch of the Dark Powers on what should be reality. He Sees the roiling Warp whether his eyes are open or closed. The weight of it should crush the air from his lungs and leave him nauseated. But the corruption in his soul answers the ambient, and it is not unpleasant. The self-loathing does not make it easier to stem the flow of tears.

The names of the Gods buzz inside his head. He has not spoken them in... five years? Ten? He tries not to even think them, when he does not have to for his function. But now they press at the inside of his lips, craving freedom. They mock him for ever imagining that he could escape their grip. They demand that he speak them, renew his fealty. At the same time laughing with the knowledge that such hollow oaths have never mattered. The Gods claim their own. And is that not what he is? Occultist. Daemonologist. Sorcerer. He is more kin to their captors than he is to the Interrogator.

If he still prayed to any power, he would pray that it stays that way. Her conviction is beyond shattering, surely. It has to be. If she cannot keep faith, what hope is there?

The tears have slowed and the shuddering has dwindled to a subtle tremor by the time the door opens. It is Vereda. He bows his head in respect, feeling his gut clench and his heart ache with fear. He doesn’t know what to expect from her yet. At this point, it could easily be execution. He doesn’t want to die.

“How are you feeling?” she asks. Her tone is gentle. But he knows her kind. Always friendly, while the rot spreads beneath the surface. A gentle hand to soothe infection into the skin while the patient gasps in agony and delirium. “I, um. A, a b-bit better, sir. I, I’m sorry. I’m sorry sir.” “Why are you sorry?” She sits down on the cot beside him. The training that tells him to stay still wins out over the desire to inch away. “I, I d-don’t know, sir. I made a, a scene, I was loud, I... I’m sorry. W-whatever I did, I’m sorry.” He snivels wretchedly. “It’s alright,” she tells him gently. “You got overwhelmed, isn’t that right?” He nods gratefully, wiping his eyes with the back of his borrowed sleeve. That is definitely a true statement. “Rex was out of line. I’m sorry for his behaviour.” “Th-thank you, sir.” She has the sound of sincerity down perfectly. Her voice is full of regret. But the words ring hollow, after listening to her sneer and preen and mock while she shot helpless men and women. After watching her inflict torture, and take satisfaction in it. “Would you like a bit more time to calm down?” “I... I p-probably w-won’t. C-c-calm down, I mean. I’m s-sorry sir.” “I can give you time if you like.” “It, it’s ok-kay.” He’d rather get this over with, in the hope that it isn’t his death warrant, than sit here and stew in terror. “Alright.”

Vereda takes a moment to gather her thoughts. 068 wonders if she is genuinely trying to be gentle with him, or if she is coldly calculating behind that facade. “I want to talk about your relationship with the Inquisition woman,” she begins. Fear is cold. He watches her carefully. “You’ve told me that she tortured you, and forced you to serve against your will. But you do not seem to take satisfaction in seeing her suffer in turn.” He forces himself to breathe steadily. He wishes she would speak harshly to him. At least then he could be confident that the knife edge he senses behind her words is real. But no, he doesn’t wish that. If she snapped at him, it would be impossible to think past the fear. “You are something of an enigma, my young sorcerer,” she continues. “Tell me what you are thinking.” The tone is that of a suggestion, but he knows that it is an order.

He breathes deeply. To lie, and tangle himself in guesswork falsehoods aimed at her unknown desires, or to venture the dangerous, shameful truth? Somewhere in between, probably. Isn’t that always his answer to the world? Somewhere in between? Pathetic. He just doesn’t know how to ever make the right choice.

“I... I d-don’t know, entirely, w-what I feel, sir. Uhm. I hate her -” and he’s surprised by the feeling he’s able to put into that “- b-but, I, it’s c-complicated...” He is grateful that she waits quietly, and lets him try to articulate what he feels - or something related to what he feels, at least. “She, uh. Without, without w-what she d-d-did to me, I’d never have, I w-wouldn’t have d-drawn the at-ttention of the Dark Prince -” no, this is no time to be shy about it “- of Slaanesh.” There, I said it. Are you happy yet? Of course not. They are never sated. “You enjoyed it?” “No! N-n-no sir, I, I d-d-don’t h-have th-that blessing, or, or skill...” Or insanity. Not quite. “It, it was, it, you c-c-can see w-what it d-did to me, b-but... uh. I. Uh.” “You are grateful?” “I... I... y-yes, m-maybe. I, I d-don’t... I just... she, she’s r-responsible, in a way. And, and she enjoyed it, h-hurting me. She m-made me sing my, my pain to the Warp and, and she d-doesn’t know that it f-, that it honours the Prince b-but she d-did it all the same...” He runs out of words, shivering, struggling to breathe evenly. She waits. He can find nothing more to say.

“You care for her,” Vereda suggests after a while. “Yes,” he admits miserably, wondering if it condemns him to share her fate. “I, I h-hate her too, but, but I d-do. She... she’s a-all I’ve had, for a l-long t-time. It’s n-not right, I know, b-but.... b-but she’s important to me.” He can’t take his eyes off hers. It’s too much eye contact, he knows. But looking away is forbidden. Disrespectful. He’s too afraid. “She is the enemy,” Vereda reminds him gently. “She d-doesn’t have to be,” he pleads desperately. “She, she a-already p-pleases Slaanesh, w-without knowing...” For the first time, Vereda cuts him off. It’s not with words, but with laughter. She has a rich, throaty laugh. In another context it might be pleasing. 068 falls silent, cringing. “It would certainly be an accomplishment, to corrupt my prize. I will not stop you trying, darling. But forgive me if I do not expect much. And until she turns her coat, she remains my enemy... and yours.” He snivels and nods, not trusting his voice. He does not know what he could say to sway her. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. “Don’t fret, little sorcerer. I will still let you bring her comfort and tend her wounds. I have no intention of letting her die.” “Thank you, sir.” He means it. What she has not said hurts - that she will continue to torture her. It will keep breaking his heart. But it is still better to think that his Interrogator will survive, and that he will get the chance to be with her. And that he will not be punished for having muddled feelings and mixed-up loyalties. Not overtly, at least. He’s very grateful for that.

In the silence that follows, he starts anxiously replaying the conversation so far. The weight of what he has said hits him all at once, like a blow to the stomach. He would try to corrupt her faith, to save her life? He sickens himself. Does he have no standards? No lines he will not cross? Oh, he is a detestable creature.

Vereda is watching him, and he tries to swallow down the wave of self-loathing. It’s okay, he tries to reassure himself, you’re okay. It is not as if it is out of character, for him to cringe with suddenly renewed misery and fear, for no reason in particular. If she asks, he will claim that his guilt is over feeling even a little loyalty to an agent of the hated Imperium. But that isn’t what she asks.

“Your Interrogator, she has a name.” It’s a question, not an observation. “Yes sir. It, it’s Ariadne M-Milonas. As, as f-far as I know.” It’s easier than usual to think of her by name. But it still feels like a betrayal. Even though he knows that Vereda already knows who she is. “You must see a lot of her work.” “N-not much, sir. I, I l-live in a c-cell m-mostly...” He is shaking again. How much will she want to know? What will she do if he does not, or cannot answer? “I, I c-can t-tell you w-what I d-do know, w-what do you w-want to know, sir?”

His eagerness is pitiful. Is he really willing to tell her everything he knows? He is so scared of the consequences of holding back. But he can’t, he can’t betray the Inquisition, the Holy Ordos of the God Emperor’s divine will. But... but they know he’s untrustworthy, that’s why they keep him in the dark. Surely they don’t let him know anything important... But even if he does share, will it satisfy her? His breath comes as quick, frantic huffs. He can’t focus, focus! Pay attention, scum!

“Are you still with me?” Vereda is asking. He forces himself to focus on her face. “S-sorry,” he gasps, “S-s-sorry sir, I, I’m h-here, I’m f-f-foc-cused.” “Easy. This isn’t an interrogation.” That is a lie, he knows. But he wouldn’t dare disagree. “Take all the time you need. Let’s start simple. Do you know where you’re kept?” He nods jerkily. “Uh. S-sort of, sir. A-ab-board a voidship, b-but, I d-d-don’t know its name, sir,” he lies. “ I, I have a cell, it, it’s, they d-don’t t-tell me th-things...” “That’s alright, that’s good. How long have you been kept there?”

In the end, he answers all her questions. How could a broken thing like him do anything else?

[Continued here.]

#my writing #my ocs #tacitus #ariadne and tacitus captured by chaos #tw interrogation #tw mental illness #tw past trauma #tw mention of torture #tw mention of murder #hmmm #I don't know if this is any good #but I've written it now #so there you go

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genaleah · 5 years ago

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I can give the full context! It's going under a cut though because there's a lot to it 👍

So here we go....

TMA!AU

Aka AU², the Nightmare Boogaloo!

So right off the bat, this an AU-within-an-AU of the Wildcards becoming living embodiments of fear ala The Magnus Archives podcast. Here's a list of the Entities on the wiki, though obvious warning for spoilers. (Granted, I've only just started season 4!)

In this AU offshoot, each character becomes a monster tied to a different entity of fear. Nelson with The Eye, Guybrush with The Spiral, Eddie with The Desolation, Manny with The End, and Sam and Max with The Hunt.

Guybrush gets hit first + worst. It starts off very slowly, at first he just feels a little confused/dissociated, but then he starts to have increasing difficulty figuring out when he's asleep or awake, and whether he's in reality or the mindscape. Doorways that exist in reality will suddenly lead him into his dreams with no way out, and then suddenly he's back in reality with no warning. Eventually this crescendos to a point in which he can't find his way OUT of his mind at all, and it all starts warping more and more into something unrecognizable. What feels like months of sleepless, ceaseless wandering is only a single day that he's gone missing. This slip through reality is also what ends up transforming his own body, he changes himself into a reflection of his own state of mind.

When he comes back out, he unwittingly transforms the Motherlobe into another maze. Not everyone experiences this or even realizes that anything is wrong. The victims who get trapped in it become fellow reflections of The Spiral, albeit with their own fears/nightmares influencing how they turn out. The Psychonauts as a whole is being purposefully targeted as a breeding ground of fear & new avatars for the Spiral, and Guybrush was chosen as its architect against his will. He just had the right combination of powers and pain to create a smooth, seamless transition.

Simultaneously, other agents who don't encounter this are being changed by other Fears who don't want to lose their share of influence in the world. Psychics are PRIME fodder.

Manny and Eddie get infected by their respective Fears while they're away from the Motherlobe, just out and about doing their own things.

Manny doesn't even engage with his directly to begin with, other people start becoming increasingly fearful of him until the change in role suddenly overtakes him. People try to make bids for their own immortality, and whoop, suddenly he's got the dice or playing cards or what-have-you, and he always knows that he's going to win in the end. The losers die immediately in front of him. Sometimes he can be more of a direct reaper and make the offer first, but he's not totally comfortable doing that unless he REALLY thinks someone/something deserves it.

Eddie has probably the worst situation. If he touches anybody they will die a painful burning death. A single touch can cause 2nd or 3rd degree burns, prolonged contact will set the victim in flames. But worse than that is the fact that his alignment with the Desolation makes him want to destroy things and people of worth- so that he creates an acute fear of loss and pain to those who would miss them. He’s the most physically dangerous to be around, so he’s taken to wearing a full-body motorcycle get up so that no one can touch him accidentally. He's safe to the touch now, technically, but it doesn't stop him from being ultra careful. He’s trying to abide by some ghost-rider morals here and primarily target bad people or other monsters, but there’s always going to be some collateral damage.

As for Sam & Max... They take a while to really notice the shift happening, but their final stage can best be described as this: Imagine if Noir Sam enjoyed it. That's basically how both of them would behave. They've always loved hunting down perps, but now their chases are a little more... intense. Frantic. If they've had a good one they're satiated for a while, but going too long without it makes them more antsy and violent. The hunting is fun and fulfilling for them!

Sometimes it can ramp up into killing, but considering that the whole gang is out looking for answers, that means a lot of capture and kidnapping instead, with the intent of interrogation (thanks to Nelson). And some monster hunting on the side!

Nelson is one of the last to change, but he gets caught up in the shenanigans pretty early on after first finding Guybrush in his noodley eldritch state. He starts trying to figure out some way to undo all of their conditions and bring them back to normal. Well, "normal".

But slowly he shifts from "I need to know how to help my friends" to "I need to understand what's happening" to "I NEED to know as many deep dark secrets as possible in order to live". With the change in his behavior, he basically becomes a textbook supernatural Man in Black entity, and his clothing starts reflecting that. His eyes become bloodshot and light-sensitive, so he takes to wearing shades while trying to appear normal.

Which also brings me to the next character! @zeroodd came up with a great story for Elaine, so I will c/p it here :

What if her and Nelson had teamed up in the beginning for a solution.

Just one night they're both working hard on it and Nelson starts asking about what they've found so far

but then he

keeps asking questions

and Elaine looks over and he's just got a tape recorder right up to her face

"Do you know he's gone for good?"

Course he'd try to backtrack and apologize but Elaine has to face facts that Nelson is as much of a threat as any of them now.

She leaves the group for a while in order to study this fear stuff on her own, and comes to the conclusion that she needs to willingly get in on it if she wants any hope of surviving this increasingly dangerous world. She eventually joins The Web. She starts out feeling nervous about things being out of her control and scary, which suddenly shifts to her wanting to control more things and oh cool, these spiders help me do that! By the time she rejoins with the group everyone is full-blown monster mash so there’s very little to hide from anyone. (Manny still HATES bugs though, and would like the spiders far far away from him, por favor.)

So, how do they all go back to normal? Well... They don't. After hitting dead end after dead end, realizing they're definitely not human anymore, and learning the true nature of the fears as a whole, they're forced to accept it and try to maintain themselves as best they can.

The thing that would make the changes so insidious is that it would all gel with who they are as people. By the time they're at that final point, it would feel like fate that they wound up that way, like it's everything they're supposed to be.

The power of friendship possibly even added to this, because rather than struggling alone and possibly fighting back against it, they understood and cared for each other through the worst of it, which made accepting their new selves a lot easier.

BUT WAIT! There are a few more links left in this story:

How did all of this start, really? Well, consider the fact that in the normal Wildcard AU (???), LeChuck is responsible for a lot of trauma in Guybrush’s past that make his hold on reality a little rough. Add to that his ability to create very life-like illusions, and the poor pirate becomes the perfect conduit for the Spiral to take hold. In this AU, LeChuck was the one who got the ball rolling on his transformation out of hopes that he could control the Spiral itself by making his brother the primary avatar, and then bringing about a new world of madness in which he is the sole, sane ruler. Guybrush hasn’t lost his sense of self yet, but as more and more chaos and fear builds throughout the world as a whole, he’s losing track of himself more often.

After all of his work and research, Nelson decides to try and bargain with the Fears directly. Dealing with supernatural forces hands-on has worked so far! (I'm not sure if he would have to find other fear avatars to work this out with, or if he could try to ritualistically communicate with the fear entity as a whole, but he figures something out.) His bargain is this:

He offers to lessen the burden of the Spiral off of Guybrush a bit. In exchange for LeChuck being removed as a threat, Nelson will let go of the last vestiges of humanity, and become a full-on fear entity to work for both The Eye AND The Spiral. The Spiral gets all of the knowledge he collects as a watcher for the Eye, The Eye gets to know that someone reasonable is helping to keep the Spiral in check a bit. Diplomacy!

The deal works out, Lechuck gets trapped in the PUZZLE ZONE and Guybrush gets to reclaim a bit of his sanity/sense of self again. In the aftermath, Nelson's got a permanent tape-recorder effect to his voice, but on actual recordings he sounds as clear as if he were right there, with little or no effect where it should be. The pupil of his left eye has become a spiral, while Guybrush's solidified into a round one. Nelson's blending of roles works even better as a MIB: He creates the uncanny feeling of being monitored, and you get the sense that he's always lying about his motives.

This new situation works out even better than expected, and he tries it again in order to help Eddie. Not that he could possibly take on a third fear responsibility, but at least he's living proof that giving the avatars of fear what they want can work out for the best, and make them more effective at being monsters!

Essentially: Give👏us👏work👏benefits👏

The deal between the Desolation and The End gives these boons: Manny can sometimes take a human form (better for targeting victims), and Eddie gets a lot more control over the heat and can turn it down to a low simmer. They get to work in tandem to create a NEW kind of fear, the burning loss of everything you've ever cared about, and the knowledge that at the end of all that suffering is an infinite, inescapable end.

Now the gang lives on a haunted ship (Philadelphia Experiment??) that they use to travel around the world and hunt down worse monsters / evil humans. And maybe save the world if need be? But mostly they just terrorize people and feed off their fear.

In summary: everybody's awful monsters but it worked out fine in the end. For some reason the Magnus Archives made me go "But what if this was a found family story and they unionized and lived on a boat??" I can't do aus normally anymore, maybe I never could.

#wildcards au #tma!au #final pam voice: GOD FORGIVE ME

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

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Joining the Game Late: S5E5 “Kill the Boy”

Synopsis

Missandei channels Edward Cull - oh wait, Grey Worm is wounded, it’s cool. Dany enacts fiery justice again before devising a more creative alternative. Aemon does his old mentor thing. Jon is more persuasive with Tormund than he was with Mance for reasons that are undoubtedly totally heterosexual and only coincidentally involve bondage. Speaking of, Ramsey and his girlfriend still like it rough, but she’s jealous over Sansa and introduces her to Reek. Stannis is still a stickler for grammar. Sansa’s stuck between small offers of help and the most awkward dinner scene this season, while Ramsey’s still working through his familial insecurities. Stannis marches after picking the local lore nerd for information. Jorah and Tyrion sail through old Valyria where they see Drogon and get attacked by Stone Men. One of them infects Jorah, because they’re dragon-flavored zombies I guess.

Commentary

Props to GoT for what is possibly the first episode to keep me invested despite it completely ignoring events in King’s Landing. Most of that comes down to the Winterfell group, but not all. Even as bland as he’s been it’s really hard not to enjoy Jon navigating his current predicament as he follows Aemon’s advice to “kill the boy” not Olly but that will come later and brokers a deal with Tormund via rational argument and smoldering glances. The fallout is sufficiently messy, and it pleases me to say that at this point my interest in the Night’s Watch story may actually survive Stannis leaving Castle Black - for a while at least. There’s also Dany’s marriage proposal to, uh *looks up* Hizdahr zo Loraq, no wonder I never remembered his name, which I was genuinely not expecting after it looked like she was going to fix her civil unrest problem with her usual incineration method.

Those Boltons, though - Ramsey’s already proven his mettle as a sadistic asshole, but the more screentime he gets the more he becomes a character who’s just fun to hate. His father’s monologue about how he raped his mother and then almost killed Ramsey as an infant is as callous as anything you’d expect of Westeros’s numerous terrible fathers, but it’s the knowledge that Ramsey has taken his chronic insecurities with his place in the family and turned them into motivation for some of the most heinous cruelties in the series that pushes him past sympathetic villain status all the way into enjoyable monster. His power play with Sansa and “Reek” over the supposedly dead younger Starks was as brilliant as it was intentionally awkward, even as at the same time it comes across as yet another bid for his father’s attention. I know too what becomes of Roose and his new wife and son, so Ramsey’s jealousy (and, furthermore, his hypocrisy in warning his girlfriend of the same) is going to keep appearing in a big way. Speaking of Myranda, I believe she was invented for the show and I’ve already said my piece on this attempt at dampening the homoeroticism between Ramsey and Theon/Reek - seriously, Ramsey has Reek on his knees in front of him, that’s not even a bit subtle - but in light of his engagement to Sansa and what becomes of that it also reads as a broader indication that all of Ramsey’s relationships are messed up by his insecurities and his taking the Bolton reputation entirely too far.

Ramsey deserves further praise for somewhat destabilizing the undercurrent of rebellion Sansa’s presence in Winterfell is stirring up, as he uses the same phrase uttered by her supporters in a wholly different context. Myranda accomplishes something similar when she catches Sansa staring up at the window from which Bran fell in the first episode and goads her into thinking about her mother before leading her into the kennels to meet Reek. It’s all very deliberately unsettling which excellently undercuts the welcoming feeling of a Stark homecoming from the last episode, and of course it’s only going to get worse from here. It’s as strange for Sansa as it is for the audience that she finds herself unsettled more when Littlefinger is not around, but that’s how he engineered the situation.

#Game of Thrones #GoT

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violetsmoak · 5 years ago

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Philtatos [2/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47630773

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire--for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there's more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #gods in disguise

First Chapter

_______________________________________________________________

Predictably, Jason is the first to respond to that.

“Bullshit.”

Tim sighs and rolls his eyes because he’s sure the reaction is more Jason being oppositional than actual doubt. They’re staring at a guy that until a few minutes ago had giant black wings sprouting from his shoulders, who’s been collecting suggestive art and carving a swath of hedonism across the city. They’ve dealt with stranger things and less plausible explanations.

“God of Love?” he inquires. “You mean, like Cupid?”

“Gaia, I hate that name. Stupid little Valentine’s Day mascot. I blame the Romans. The Hellenistic was great, except for that.” He waves a dismissive hand. “I mostly go by Steve these days. Cuts down on the explanation time.”

Which just…what?

“Steve, the God of Love,” Jason deadpans. “Because that doesn’t sound like a cringy mascot at all…”

“Why are you in Gotham?” Tim asks, more direct this time.

“And what the hell are you dosing people with that they’re all down to fuck without remembering it? I don’t know how it works wherever you came from, but here that’s assault.”

“I’ve never assaulted anyone!” Eros protests, all wounded integrity. “If anything, I’ve been the one people keep jumping ever since my bow and arrows got stolen.”

“Your bow and arrows? That’s seriously the defense you’re going with?”

“How does one steal from a god?”

“You wait until he’s stoned out of his mind in an Amsterdam coffee shop and knock him out,” Eros grouses. “It’s either brilliance or suicidal madness. I’ll decide which one after I track down the bastard that did it and give them a reminder that I’m Ares’ son as much as Aphrodite’s.”

“Right,” Tim says, raising an eyebrow. “On that note, if you’ve got all these divine connections, why don’t you just get new weapons made?”

“If it were that simple you think I’d have dragged myself to this armpit of the universe? The bow and arrows act as a constant diviner for my abilities. It focusses them or controls them if you will. Otherwise, my powers veer wildly out of control.”

“What powers?” Jason snorts. “If you had anything beyond your feathers, you wouldn’t have been so useless with those mob assholes and made us do all the heavy lifting.”

Eros’ eyes turn hard and his lips pull into a cold smile. He reaches for Jason’s face and wriggles his fingers threateningly. “Would you care to find out?”

Not wanting to give Jason a time to respond by breaking the digits in his face, Tim places himself in front of him.

“Both of you, knock it off—”

His move manages to divert the Olympian from losing fingers, but it also puts him straight in his path. Impossibly soft finger pads graze his jaw, and it is as if a current of electricity has been passed through his spine.

Tim seizes up, his brain going cloudy and his stomach suddenly hot and trembling. Sight and sound vanish or rather sharpen to a single point, the figure in front of him, and a visceral want edges out every other thought and impulse.

He is dimly aware of moving, of being rivetted at the individual motions that bring him into Eros’ personal space, and which have him fixing his upon the other man’s shoulders. Then he’s dragging him forward and crushing their mouths together.

The taste and smell of pomegranate and ozone overwhelm him, and he doesn’t wait for reciprocation before he’s shoving his tongue into the Olympian’s mouth, harshly trying to chase the unique flavor. All other intent vanishes in the single-minded pursuit of that goal, and he wonders if it’s not just his mouth that tastes like this, if the rest of him—

“What the fuck?!” Hands grab him roughly and he’s being jerked backward, stumbling into an unyielding armored chest. “What the hell did you do to him?”

Tim whines at the loss. “No—I need— he—”

Words aren’t really a workable thing right now, not in the face of the fact the world suddenly seems colder.

There’s a clicking sound, and then Tim’s world tilts as if he just stood up too fast. When his wits return, he realizes that Jason is holding him up with one arm, practically lining them up from ankle to armpit. His other hand is elevated, semi-automatic pointed at Eros’ forehead, glaring him down as if daring him to get closer.

The Olympian raises in slow surrender.

“Just making a point,” he tells them with a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression that could do Dick proud. His voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.

“Try it again. See how it works out without a head.”

Every passing second brings reality back into sharp relief, and with it a mounting sense of dread.

“I…please tell me I didn’t just do that,” Tim says, mortified and still punch drunk. He was never even that forward with Steph.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a flash of irritation flicker across Jason’s face, and then the older vigilante fixes Eros with a look of utter loathing that Tim’s only ever seen when he goes up against one of the crazier rogues. Black Mask or Scarecrow, maybe. That usually precedes extreme violence, which they don’t need right now. They need detachment, to look at this clinically.

(And he needs to focus on something else to erase the fact he just tongue-kissed the God of Love in front of his childhood crush.)

“What was that?”

“I project a field across the surface of my skin that causes instant sexual arousal and frenzy in any living creature. The longer you’re exposed to it, the stronger and longer-lasting the effects—and the more the out of control you get.”

“So basically, you’re a walking Viagra date-rape drug,” Jason sneers.

“It’s not supposed to be like that…”

“Again, I call bullshit. I remember all the stories. Whenever you’re involved, someone ends up falling for someone else without having a choice and bad shit happens. Helen of Troy ringing any bells?”

Eros crosses his arms, resembling Damian at his most petulant; meanwhile, Tim stares at Jason, who notices and scowls back. “What?”

“How do you know that?”

“I have depths,” he replies, tone mildly defensive.

“The stories get so much wrong. Blame primitive writers and centuries of telephone for that,” Eros mutters. “Here’s the deal—my mother, she’s got the make-people-fall-in-love juju. The overwhelming, powerful, love-at-first-sight thing that basically causes the honeymoon period of a relationship. You know, that point where you only see the good qualities in a person?”

Tim exchanges a perplexed look with Jason; he’s never been in a relationship with anyone where he saw only their good qualities, and judging by the older vigilante’s blank expression, neither has he.

“Right, forgot who I’m talking to. You cape types aren’t exactly the hallmark of romance, are you?”

“Yeah, well, you deity types aren’t exactly the hallmark of not getting punched.”

“We’ve already established why that would be a bad idea,” Tim mutters, his ears burning.

“I’m wearing gauntlets.”

“In a healthy relationship,” Eros goes on, ignoring the byplay, “sure, you spend a bit of time totally enamored with your boo. They’re your world. But after a while, that starts to fade. Some people, okay, they’ve stuck together for the getting-to-know-you period and decide to keep going. But others—they get a very real sense of buyer’s remorse.”

“Like Helen did. Or Phaedra or Atalanta,” Jason suggests, and Tim frowns; he only recognizes one of those names.

“Exactly. They realized they’d compromised themselves and ruined their lives for some petty asshole without even knowing it. And they couldn’t exactly do anything about it—in the old days, you were stuck with the guy and you had to make the best of it since, you know, no divorce. Nowadays, it’s not so bad—those whirlwind romances don’t last, but it’s not the end of the world. Celebrities are famous for them. Literally.”

“I don’t understand what all this has to do with you being here and now,” Tim says.

“I’m getting there. I was giving you guys context, geez! Anyway, with me, it’s a little different. It’s more than just that love-at-first-sight, quick and dirty thing. It’s about desire. That bone-deep connection, all need and hunger and slow-burning.” His face relaxes, mouth easing into a fond smile. “It was a deeper thrall than anything Mom had the patience for. With my tools, I could awaken that—in a controlled fashion—and focus it. But now—well, you saw what I can do with just a touch.”

Tim’s cheeks flame.

“The longer I don’t have my tools to temper me, my abilities will become more unstable. You ever see people literally fuck each other to death?” Eros challenges. “Trust me, you don’t want to. And it’s not just sex people desire. This one guy pissed me off once and I made him develop an unhealthy desire for corned beef—”

“If you know your power is about to go Chernobyl, why the hell are you running around town robbing people? You’d think you have more important things to worry about.”

“It’s because I’m losing control that I’ve been doing that.”

Tim narrows his eyes, even if no one can see it. “Explain.”

“Over time, artists pour their souls and creative desires into their work—into the canvas, the clay, the paint, whatever. There’s a magic in the creative act that turns a medium into a vessel. I’ve been having to bleed off my power into these vessels so I can get out and search for my diviners without causing riots. The process takes hours, though, and people generally don’t like me standing in a museum touching the merchandise.”

“So you steal it.”

“It eventually finds its way back. And their original owners usually find that the pieces seem somehow more—magnetic—once I’m done with them.”

“I don’t know how you made that sound dirty, but you did,” Jason grumbles.

“Are you kidding? I created innuendo. And the double entendre.” Eros makes a dismissive gesture. “Anyhow, it’s all moot. I won’t be capable of bleeding off my powers for much longer. As you just saw, my control is slipping. So, you two are going to have to find my bow and arrow for me.”

Tim blinks at the sudden turn of the conversation. “What?”

“Right. Because we don’t have enough of our own shit to deal with, we’re going to go on a scavenger hunt for some entitled godling? That’s not how we operate.”

“You won’t have much of a choice,” Eros replies, and there’s a cruel edge to his smile now. “Not if you want to save your life.”

“That a threat, buddy?”

“Oh, I’ve no need for threats. It’s already done.” Eros points at the still bleeding wound on Jason’s shoulder. “When you saved bird-boy here, you got tagged by the same bullet I did; my blood’s in your veins now. And unless it’s because of the horizontal tango, there are some really nasty side-effects when Olympian blood gets in your frail systems.” His smile remains cold and cruel. “Mine’s particularly nasty.”

Jason crosses his arms, radiating skepticism. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been poisoned. Probably won’t be the last.”

“It’s not poison, per se,” Eros muses. “More like a virus that manifests as an intense, increasingly growing desire that will turn you mad and cook your brain unless you find a way to stop it. And the only cure, I’m afraid, is to be, heh, pricked by one of my arrows.”

“And who the hell am I supposed to be desiring? Because if it’s you, I’m going to claw my eyes out now and get it over with.”

“Thankfully that’s not the case. While I’m sure you would look amazing splayed out in my bed, that doesn’t exactly give your friend here any incentive to help me.” He considers Tim a moment, and his smile turns knowing. “Or perhaps it would.”

“Why me?” Tim asks, trying to keep his voice level. A sudden spike or worry shoots through him at one possibility. “Anyone else could do this.”

“Uh, you’re the first person Helmet Head set eyes on after being infected? Honestly, it’s right there in the myths.”

“I was never into the classics,” Tim mutters, breathing a sigh of relief; none of this has anything to do with his ill-advised crush, which means Jason doesn’t have to know about it. “If it’s just me being around him, I can stay away from him. It’s not like it’s hard.”

I wish that weren’t true.

Jason is staring at him oddly and Tim’s stomach jumps at his inability to interpret anything through the lenses of his mask.

“Okay, princess, let me know how that goes,” Eros chuckles.

Tim swallows.

He knows that Olympians have power—that their relics do, as well; how could he not, considering he’s known Cassie and Diana for so long?

Still, it’s laughable that Jason could ever desire him.

(There’s only a little pain and bitterness in that knowledge.)

Jason appears to be on the same wavelength.

“I call bullshit. I’m not in the habit of lusting after people I’ve tried to kill. Bit counterproductive, you know?”

“You might resist it for a little while,” Eros allows. “Looks aside, you capes have a lot of restraint. And it’s not like I was feeding you my blood or anything, so it might take a little longer still. But even that will fade as the infection spreads.”

For the first time since Eros’ threat, Jason shifts uneasily.

“Now,” the Olympian says, rubbing his hands together, “while watching you two get down and dirty in front of me would be good entertainment—” he leers at them both in a way that makes Jason tense like he’s going to punch him again and Tim consider letting him, “—I don’t have the time. I need the two of you on your game as much as possible if you’re going to help me.”

“Who says we’re going to help you? We could just hand you over to Wonder Woman and have her deal with this. Gods and mythological relics are more her areas of expertise.”

“Ah, but my dear cousin won’t have the same…motivation that you do, darlin’. Unless you want Prince Charming over here to get to the point of losing his mind over you?” Eros tilts his head toward Jason. “I mean, I guess that’s your choice. He is a bit of a douche—”

“I will rip off those wings of yours and stuff them up your—”

Tim grabs Jason and pulls him back a few feet so he can speak to him quietly, but keep an eye on Eros. Almost instantly Jason shoves him off as if he’s just been burned, and Tim raises his hands in surrender.

“Arguing with him obviously isn’t going to do anything,” he informs him.

“He’s obviously lying—trying to mess with us to do his bidding.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Until we know if this is truth or a bluff, we need to put him in a safe location. He needs to be tried for the thefts, regardless of his reasons. And since he has abilities, we’ll need a facility that can cancel-out meta powers.”

“Just keep him the fuck out of Belle Reve,” Jason grumbles. “We don’t need him ending up as one of Waller’s not-so-secret projects.”

“And in the meantime, we monitor your condition,” Tim goes on. “Back at the Cave, B has—”

“I’m not going to the damn Cave.”

“J—Hood, if he’s telling even part of the truth, you could be in trouble.”

“Because I’m going to lose my mind over your scrawny ass? I don’t think so.” He turns away. “Screw this, I’m out. You can figure this out. Gods are above my paygrade.”

He has his grapple gun out and an instant later vanishes into the night. And it’s like any other patrol; barely an acknowledgment of their team-up or thanks or farewell.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Eros says, shaking his head. “Bad things happen when you repress your desires. It comes out in ugly ways.”

Irritation sparks in Tim.

“That bullet that went through your wing—has it healed yet?” he asks tersely, rummaging in his utility belt as he approaches the Olympian. “I can’t see since they…disappeared.”

“It’s not gushing blood anymore, but there’s still a dirty great hole there. Why?”

Without warning, Tim turns around and sticks a syringe into his neck, careful not to brush any skin accidentally as he pushes down the plunger.

“What the fu—” Eros’ words cut off with a gurgle.

“Just need to know how much time I have before the sedative wears off,” Tim replies. It was designed with Wonder Woman in mind, so he really hopes it’s strong enough.

The Olympian pitches forward. Tim catches him, and curses at the weight he hadn’t expected; wherever those wings are, they still contribute to the body’s overall mass, it seems.

⁂

Jason makes a beeline for his safe house on the Upper West Side; the events of the night have been such a disappointment that he figures he deserves to crash at one of his more comfortable properties. Somewhere with good heating and decent water pressure and a few of his favorite books tucked away.

“Not the leftover pizza I was looking forward to, but it’ll do,” he murmurs to himself. To be honest, his appetite’s all but disappeared in the wake of tonight’s revelations.

Not that Jason is concerned about whatever Eros or Steve or whatever-his-name-is told them. Some guy calls himself the god of love and informs Jason he’s been infected with an unholy desire that’s going to drive him mad and kill him?

“Been there. Done that. And for Drake of all people? Pfft. Please.”

The Condiment King had more credibility.

Besides, even if it was a believable threat, it’s not as if he’s going to just accept it. Jason’s always had issues with other people telling him what to do, and he’s been on the wrong end of Poison Ivy’s concoctions far too often for that. If there’s a chance something’s going to impact or impair his control over his own actions, he’s got a problem with that.

And it’s just…it’s Tim Drake.

Jason has been carefully trying to reconfigure his mental categorization of the guy for years, from ‘Replacement—Must Beat To Death On Sight’, to ‘Timbers—Ally-Possibly-Friend-Kinda-Brother-Sort Of?’. It’s still a work-in-progress figuring out which category he fits in, and Jason doesn’t need to add more complications, such as those that will no doubt ensue if he considers adding any other relationship dimensions.

Not like the kid’s a terrible catch or anything. Jason saw that long before he figured out he isn’t one hundred percent straight. But that was his own discovery, born of conscious choice. Not from someone telling him in plain English that he’s got no choice but to develop a thing for a workaholic pretty-boy Bat with self-esteem issues.

Which means on principle, Jason’s damn well going to fight that. It doesn’t matter that Tim’s intelligent, sarcastic and the right kind of risky, or that he isn’t repulsive or even unattractive—

Jason adamantly cuts off that line of thinking when he realizes where it’s going, touching down on the roof of his building a little harder than necessary.

“Nope. Not going there.”

Talk about a mind-fuck. Asshole Steve got me thinking about it, and now I won’t be able to not think about it whenever I run into the kid.

And isn’t that a keen bit of psychological manipulation?

Luckily, Jason’s been trained by more than one master in the art of avoidance. He forces his attention onto the routine of checking the perimeter and disabling his security system, then slipping into his apartment through the roof-access.

“Hello, safe house,” he mutters out of habit, heading for his bathroom. Once inside, he methodically checks himself for injuries, which are overall minor. The bullet wound in his shoulder is scabbing over already.

He tries to ignore the uneasy clench in his stomach at that and the prevalent thought of that is not a good sign.

He heads for the shower and turns the water on as hot as he can stand, letting it distract him, unwinding the knots and tension holding him together. Once he’s out, he throws on a pair of boxer briefs and settles in the center of his bed to meditate. It takes longer tonight to get his brain and still-racing heartrate to ease, to remember his All-Caste training and seek acceptance in the darkest part of his soul, and the possibility that that will be enough to counteract whatever real or imagined threat was made by the so-called god of love.

Dawn is peeking over Gotham’s horizon when he finally manages to calm himself down and pass out. For once, he sleeps; for once he doesn’t dream of Glasgow smiles and green sludge.

When he wakes up, it’s with odd energy that borders on manic. He powers through his morning workout at full intensity and still has energy left over, which he uses to cook breakfast and a few advance meals that he can stick in the freezer for the next time he holes up here. All his safe houses include have decent food storage since he never knows when lying low is going to translate as ‘disappear completely off the grid for a while.

When he’s still buzzing and raring to go, he decides he can’t put it off any longer. He’s not stupid—has been in the game long enough to know it’s pointless to ignore something completely until you’ve investigated the hell out of it.

Which is how he finds himself down in his would-be-Batcave beneath One Police Plaza running a full set of blood panels and other diagnostics to see if there’s an actual sign of contamination from the tainted bullet. And when everything comes back negative, he even checks in with Doc Thompkins for her two cents worth that nothing is the matter with him.

“I’m not sure what you want me to tell you, Jason, everything’s coming up normal,” Thompkins tells him. “The only thing I can recommend is the same thing I always do—stop smoking.”

“But then I wouldn’t have an excuse to come see you so you can scold me,” he grins at her, earning an arch look above the rim of her glasses.

Still, he remains antsy even after leaving the clinic and decides he needs to calm his nerves.

There’s a coffee shop on Winchester he’s taken to because they do tea as close to Alfred’s as possible, at least what he’s found in Gotham. The teenaged girl at the counter blushes and laughs nervously at him when he smiles and flirts a bit, and he makes sure to tip well because kids in the service industry are paid nothing for being treated like crap.

Still, it’s hard to stop himself from drumming his fingers against the counter, his innate impatience ratcheted up today. He knows the place is busy and they can only go as fast as they’re going, but—

“An Americano, please. Double shot.”

Jason’s looking before he even realizes it, and for a split second he expects to see Tim there, sleep-deprived and sheepish, but only finds a blond skater kid and he’s—

Not disappointed.

He’s not.

That’s all he needs, is someone in the Family finding out where he goes to get his tea. That might encourage them to try to hang out with him. Especially Dick.

So, no. Not disappointed. Relieved. He’s relieved.

(He avoids wondering when he memorized Tim Drake’s coffee preferences.)

Jason doesn’t stick around the shop like he originally planned, and the tea isn’t as calming as he intended after he practically chugs it and heads out. He spends the day running around town, checking in with his informants in the shadier parts of the city and restocking the medical supplies in his safe houses.

He’s coming out of the one near Robinson Park when he hears a kid shouting— “Mama, look at the baby bird!”—and his head whips around so fast his muscles scream in protest, and what the hell?

Jason turns in the opposite direction and takes the subway.

He’s tense and angry as he returns to the base beneath the police station and spends longer than usual letting out his feelings on the punching bag in his gym. Halfway through, his phone rings and Roy’s face blinks up from the screen.

“Please tell me you have a job,” Jason says in lieu of a greeting.

“What? No. I’m still on vacation.”

“Your life is a vacation.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s so great.”

That’s said with a bitter twist to his mouth.

“What do you want?”

“I’m working on camouflage field projector, but missing a key component that happens to be in Gotham.” Jason closes his eyes, somehow knowing what’s coming next. “And I figure, you’ve got an in—any chance you put in a good word for me with your little brother? The pretty one on all the TV commercials.”

“Ask him yourself, I’m not a fucking messenger,” Jason growls. “And he’s not my brother.”

He hangs up and glares at his phone, contemplating whether throwing it at the wall will make him feel better.

This is not happening…

The punching bag no longer cutting it, he throws on his gear and heads out for patrol, hoping that will quell the sensation of fire in his blood. Throws himself into it with brutal abandon, the only goal being to take his mind off everything. Violence is the best way to bring him back to the very basest mind frame, where he is focussed only on the thrill of the fight.

It works, for a while.

He hauls a few johns to the curb when they get too rough with the girls, gives a bunch of teens robbing a bodega in his neighborhood something to think about, puts an end to a bar fight when a customer gets handsy with a waitress, stumbles into a domestic dispute with a guy smacking around his kid—

Jason relishes in the sound of broken bones and the reminders of the fact he’s the one in control. It almost seems like he’s getting back to himself by the end of the evening. He feels more himself, less uneasy; there's still something buzzing beneath his skin, but it’s negligible.

See? It was total bull. God of love my ass, he was just messing with my head.

He takes a moment to rest, gazing out across the skyline and digging for a cigarette. One more loop around the neighborhood, and he’ll head home. He’s just turning his back against the wind so he can light the cigarette when he finds himself face to face with Tim Drake.

Or rather, a giant billboard with his face on it, advertising the Neon Knights initiative.

The cigarette drops from his hands.

“This is not happening,” he murmurs, and he’s said that at least once today already, hasn’t he?

But it’s getting ridiculous. Like he’s being shadowed wherever he goes by the specter of Tim, and all because someone else decided to play mind games with him.

Well, screw that. My head’s been messed with enough.

He takes a running leap off the roof, deciding to forgo anymore patrolling. It might be an idea to get out of Gotham for a few days if only to take a break.

But no, he’s not being chased out of his own damn city. No one chases the Red Hood out of Gotham, except on occasion Batman, and that’s not chasing so much as Jason telling Bruce to fuck off and making a pointed exit. And Steve is no Batman.

I’m going to take off a few days. Been wound up the past few weeks anyway, it’s getting to me. Things will go back to normal as soon as I—

His shoulders tense as he recognizes the sensation of eyes on him.

Someone’s following him.

It’s reflex to melt into the shadows of the next building, slipping around so that he can get a good vantage point. If someone’s planning an ambush, he’s more than happy to turn it around on them. And the mood he’s in tonight if it’s someone that can give him an actual fight—

There’s a sound of someone landing on the rooftop, and the whirring of a grapple line retracting. And then Jason zeroes in on the familiar figure in black and red. That strange knot of anxiety he’s been carrying around the whole day lets go as he recognizes him, and in its place, something else springs up, almost like…relief?

Which, no, he should not be relieved to see Red Robin. The only time he should ever be relieved to see the Tim is if he’s in the middle of a duel to the death with the Joker and needs back-up from someone capable of thinking a dozen steps ahead.

Relief is replaced with anger, and Jason lies in wait until Tim alights on the same roof, and then slips forward to grab hold of him. He neatly dodges the other vigilante’s attempts to free himself from the hold and drags him over to the edge of the roof.

“Jason? What the hell—?”

He ignores him and dangles him over the edge, forcing Tim to grasp at his wrist and hold on tight.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t drop you for not following the rules—you remember, the ‘no bats in my territory’ rule? I get that it’s unofficial and all, but it’s still there,” he snarls.

“I—I wanted to check on you!” Tim grunts. “It’s been twenty-four hours, and—”

“And what? Wanted to check if I was ready to jump your malnourished bones yet? Wouldn’t looking for me be a monumentally stupid thing to do if that were the case?” Jason yanks Tim back over the edge and tosses him back onto the roof, gratified to see him stumble as he tries to regain his balance. “I don’t need you pretending you give a shit to ease a guilty conscience of because you think checking up on me is something B would want you to do. Go back to California, Replacement. If I need help, I’ll ask. And chances are, I won’t be asking you.”

Tim’s fists clench, and he’s tense like he’s priming to argue, but after a beat, his shoulders droop and he huffs.

“Fine,” he says in a neutral voice. “Just as long as you ask someone.”

And then he’s grappling off without another word, and it isn’t as cathartic to see the back of him as Jason figured it would be.

Like he has any right to sound concerned…

He should feel better, now that he’s gotten his message across, but he doesn’t. The foul mood continues for the rest of his patrol, which he ends up cutting short because his head is just not in it tonight.

He is deliberate in choosing his safe house in Coventry, figuring he’s less likely to run into Red Robin on patrol there or in general. It’s nowhere near his usual patrol route, or the apartment he owns on Park Row—and fuck him for making Jason want to avoid his own stomping grounds!

It’s just for one night. Until I calm down and can be trusted not to shoot the kid.

But the nervous, frustrated ball of discomfort in his gut doesn’t go away as he settles in for the night. He doesn’t bother with a shower or cigarette, or—well, his normal way to wind down when feeling like this, because he doesn’t trust himself not to let his mind wander to places it shouldn’t while his hand is on his dick.

It’s more difficult to meditate tonight, and he remains aggravated and angry as he drifts off to sleep.

It should be no surprise that that night, he dreams of Tim for the first time.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

#jaytimweek2019 #jaytimweek #jaytim #jaytimbingo2019 #fanfic #jaytim fic #batfic #tim drake #jason todd #eros (new earth)#mythology #gods in disguise #violet writes #drama #angst #introspection

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touchmycoat · 5 years ago

Text

kinktober: day 28

day 28: writing on the body

this wasn’t meant to be sickfic, much less incomplete sickfic, but here we are. I’ll finish, clean, and post to AO3 later.

The rendezvous was on a summer island once more, the air so superheated this time that even Ace wanted to run around fully nude. He couldn’t feel excessively hot or anything, what with literally being fire and all—it was just the atmosphere the whole island brought about. It made him want to sweat and run for a dunk in a freshwater lake or wrestle someone for an icy shower.

Others didn’t have it so easy. Thatch’s hair had gone fully limp since day zeroth, whatever he used to keep up the ‘do melting and dripping off his forehead in nasty milky trails. Marco was okay, though little licks of blue fire keep getting spotted on his exposed skin, healing the sunburns he swore he didn’t get.

Sabo, when he got to the island, promptly took off all his clothes.

“Don’t,” he ordered, dunking his hands into the tub of water that had gone tepid in a matter of minutes after Ace prepared it, “touch me, ‘cause I won’t be held responsible for what I’ll do.”

“Aw, babe, I’ve missed you too,” Ace replied, tone as dry as Sabo’s hair was wet, now that he’s gone and sank his entire head into the water. “Aren’t Revolutionaries supposed to be hardier? You’re gonna let a little heat wave get you down?”

“I may also be running a little fever,” was Sabo’s admission. Ace scanned him in alarm, and now noticed an unnatural pink flush under his skin. “Everything is unpleasant and I’m dying.”

“I’m assuming that’s hyperbole.”

“Well I don’t keep sucking a doctor’s dick for no reason—where the fuck is Marco?”

Exploring, was the answer to that, and Sabo looked as impressed with it as Ace expected him to—which is to say, not at all.

“The one time I need him,” Sabo cursed in blatant mistruth. “That’ll teach me to ever trust again. There’s no way around it then—Ace, we have to go old school.”

“Unless you’ve brought your own eel’s blood, I can’t help you there,” Ace answered warily.

“I meant—”

“Nor do I have ginger root and all the necessary needles.”

With a sigh of frustration, Ace approached and hovered his hand about Sabo’s forehead, taking heed of Sabo’s warning against physical contact and hoping, sometime in the past five minutes, his fruit has given him some miraculous sensitivity to temperature in air convection. It hasn’t, but Sabo heaved a sigh of his own, and sullenly leaned his head into Ace’s hand.

“...Yikes.” It took a moment for Ace to translate the sensation on his hand to a normal human context. “You’re really burning.”

“If you truly love me,” Sabo muttered, peeling his head away with a grunt, “you’d go hunt an eel.”

“If I truly love you,” Ace corrected, pulling a den den mushi out of his bag, “I’d call Marco.”

One of Marco’s division members picked up.

“Hey Commander!” was Aoi’s cheery greeting. “Gimme a sec, our Commander’s left us a bit behind.”

“Just put me on the loudest volume,” Ace advised. As soon as she did, Ace yelled into the sparse canopy of trees in the broadcast, “hey Marco! Sabo’s dying!”

A beat. A burst of blue flames. A familiar face emerging with a frown.

“I’m assuming that’s hyperbole, yoi.”

“How would you know?” Sabo complained, not even looking at the den den mushi, so bleary-eyed he was and swaying on the spot. “You’re not here to anally probe me with a thermometer or anything.”

Giggling, and a cough. “Thanks, Aoi, I’ll take it from here.” Marco took his den den mushi and walked off down a more secluded path, waving his exploration team ahead. He wove between thick purple tree trunks until finally settling against one, staring into his side of the projection with overt concern. “Are you feverish? What symptoms are there yoi, and when did they start?”

This time, when Sabo opened his mouth to speak, a pallor suddenly washed across his face. He ended up tossing his head back in determined swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing as the tendons in his throat stood out in stark relief.

“Well,” Ace took over in dismay, “I think it’s safe to say he’s experiencing nausea. No coughing or sniffling so far. He just came in with a fever and didn’t want me to touch him.”

“Oh?” Marco took in the sight of Sabo standing completely nude, presumably assessing the cause. “Sabo, is it just general sensitivity, or does contact with your skin actually hurt?”

“Hurt is relative,” Sabo said, because even halfway to incoherent he needed to be difficult, “but I’m guessing you’re not telling me to compare it to being burned alive by actual fire.”

“Good guess yoi, I’m not telling you to do that,” was Marco’s flat reply. “Just compare being touched right now to, oh, your regular old knife wound.”

“Then sure, it hurts.”

“Okay any wounds, potential infections? Insect bites?”

“Not that I can see,” Ace reported, after an inspecting circle around Sabo. “Do you think he was poisoned then?”

“I mean, maybe?” Neither Sabo nor Ace had a response to Marco’s bewilderment. “But if he’s not saying anything about being poisoned yoi, we should just assume it’s a regular cold.”

Ace frowned. “How do you mean?”

“How do you mean, how do I mean?” Marco asked slowly.

“Well someone must’ve done this to him,” Ace argued logically. “How else could he contract an illness?”

“He could be immunocompromised for any number of reasons, and just—germs, viruses yoi. I don’t—” At Ace’s unyielding moue of incomprehension, Marco scratched frustratedly at the back of his head. “Honestly, if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, then that actually makes the possibility of Sabo being poisoned higher. How about it, Sabo? Any possibilities?”

“Yes.” Sabo blinked, and almost actually collapsed, knees buckling for just a tiny moment. Ace darted out to catch him, but refrained at the last moment from actual contact when Sabo managed to stay upright. “Okay I confess, I wasn’t listening to anything you guys were saying.”

“Lie down, for goodness sake,” Marco hissed, more out of worried sympathy than anger.

“It’ll hurt.”

“It’ll hurt a lot worse when you fall on your face, and I gotta carry you over to the bed,” Ace pointed out. He waved his arms about to herd Sabo in the direction of the mattress. “Just—lie flat on your back, and don’t move.”

“Breathing hurts too,” was Sabo’s whimpering complaint. But he did shy away from Ace’s hands and start moving toward the bed. His movements were stiff and obviously pained, and when one knee sunk into the mattress, Sabo made a sound of such utter distress that Marco flinched, all the way on the other end of the line.

“Okay yoi, I’m on my way back. But in the meantime Ace, grab the first aid kit I brought.” The tree trunks started to blur behind Marco as he jogged, then sprinted down the mountainside. “There should be a jar in the top right corner full of thick dark red paste.”

The first aid kit was a sizable buckle-up box that Marco brought onto every island landing. Every doctor and nurse practitioner in his division carried one.

“Looks like chili? Yup, got it.” The jar was larger than Ace’s fist and densely packed. He popped the top and sniffed it, expecting a punch of spice. What he got instead was an herbal sweetness, not overwhelming at all.

“Water down the paste a little bit, but leave it thick enough to paint with. There should be a pretty big brush in the kit as well yoi.”

When Ace found the brush and wielded it up in the air, Sabo’s eyes widened.

“You better not be planning on touching me with that thing.”

“At this point,” Ace commented with a side-eye look at Sabo’s awkward positioning, three limbs braced on the bed with the fourth still pending pain, “would it be worse?”

“Hopefully it’ll relieve the discomfort.” Marco made an unhappy noise, aimed at himself. “I gotta hang up—I’ll get there faster if I fly. But yes Ace, paint the liquid on any surface of the skin that’s in pain. It should be absorbed pretty quickly, and it’s fine if you paint over the same spots yoi. If it hurts worse, stop, and we’ll figure it out when I get back.”

“Got it.” Ace offered Marco a little smile meant to reassure. “We’ll see you soon then.”

Marco hung up with a rush of blue flames, and Sabo let out the most agonized groan yet, settling fully back onto the mattress. He’d tossed the pillow on the floor, and now held himself so rigidly against the soft sheets. Ace busied himself with the preparation of the water and paste in the basin he had given first to Sabo, but could barely take his eyes off of Sabo’s expression, eyes screwed shut and lips pressed into two pale, bloodless lines.

“Sabo,” Ace said lowly, in comfort, “the medicine’s ready. We’ll start with a small spot, okay? Where does it hurt worse?”

Sabo’s hands couldn’t even clench into fists—they were flexed tightly, like even touching himself was out of the question.

“Chest,” he bit out through teeth gritted so hard, Ace was genuinely keeping an eye out for blood spots along the gums. “Over my heart.”

The paste that Ace has mixed up looked like Thatch’s signature berry reduction, dripped with the consistency of that same dessert topping. With just one corner of the flat brush (the kind used for painting planks of wood and walls), Ace soothed a spot of it on Sabo’s left pectoral, watching in fascination as the color immediately soaked into the skin, drying until it sat like a tattoo.

“Can’t feel a thing,” came Sabo’s grudging admission. “You might need more.”

“Alright,” Ace agreed, soaking the entire width of the brush bristles. They were soft-ended and flexible, as if Marco prepared it for this very purpose in mind—minimizing pain in hypersensitive skin. “Here we go.”

Sabo’s breath came ragged and harsh when Ace stroked the brush more fully down his chest. The moment the paste started soaking into the skin however, a keening cry of relief left Sabo’s throat.

“That,” he demanded. “That. Just—everywhere.”

#kinktober 2019 #marcoacesabo #i know i said i'd finish the sounding fic but i also #was captured by this idea #alskjdflsd i can already see this continuing into sex pollen #'the only way to get this out of your system is orgasms yoi'#'you don't sound like a very trustworthy doctor marco ngl'

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