#is this what the children of today call a 'whump'

[oceanremnants]

dark cyan pearl - the first of logs from a troubled doctor over his disturbing dreams

---

i think it was dark, which is always a great start to dreams, obviously.

it was impossible to see the walls, or anywhere at all past where my hand could reach. but, there were enough clues of context to tell me i was in a puppet room.

relics was there, for one.

his face was blurry, obviously considering i, haven't actually seen it yet. he was green, though. green and white, and everything around him felt... warm.

xey opened xeir arms, and i practically fell into them. even in my dreams i forget how voiddamn tired i can get, i, guess..

after a while of warmth, and silence, i looked up at xem, and xey looked down at me. xey were expecting something, although xey didn't mind if i couldn't give it,

but i could, and i wanted to, so,

i smiled, as much as i could make myself smile, more than i have for ages, actually, even in my dreams, and i tried to sign,

the second i started, though, i felt spikes along my back. poking into it, even.

cold. blue and black and gold sprang to mind, for some reason. dreams can be pretty funny.

they were confused at my hesitancy, and pulled away a bit. i knew that they were just trying to be respectful, but i was

i begged them to let me try again, in a way significantly more pathetic than it was in reality. in return, they just nodded, smiling again,

with each finger i moved the spikes just got closer to puncturing my skin. then they punctured, and got closer to stopping each one of my hearts. and then

i did manage to sign it,

"i love you!"

but the spikes decided it would be better to go for my head, instead,

i think that,

i felt my eye had been forced out of its socket, and i saw it had become squished into

uselessness, i think, considering even with all the wires connecting it to my head i couldn't see

out of it specifically, at least, and my voicebox was completely ruptured, and my mouth had been stabbed from the inside-out,

and everything was blood, for the most part. actually, the backdrop of this dream turned from a solid black to a deep red, getting lighter. maybe that was just me, though, since all relics did was smile

and

i don't think that writing this helped at all.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Through Night Shade Peering

Bones in the Ocean Masterlist

CW: Nonhuman whumpee, captivity, magical whump, vague noncon (not exactly implied but not super explicit either), blood, biting, sadistic whumper

-

Fifty-three years after Guilford Wentworth found a siren

-

They spent a month by the sea.

Neandra Wentworth’s lungs were failing her - the siren could hear the crackling when she breathed, as if each inhale pulled in water from the air around her but could not force it back out. Each time she was taken with a fit of coughing, it seemed to last longer and longer, leaving her wheezing and with blue-tinged fingertips pressing her slip of a handkerchief to her mouth to hide the drops of red that the siren could smell, even so. 

She hadn’t left the upstairs bedroom in the past week. 

Guilford Wentworth had expressed certainty that the sea air would revive her, packed up their worried children and the servants and moved them to this grand white home on a hill overlooking the ocean, with a view of the merchant ships that came and went from a nearby bay. 

The siren doubted Neandra would ever leave this house alive.

He also knew that his captor did not care.

The siren avoided the humans in the home. Every day before sunrise, long before any of the Wentworths were awake, he found his way down to the shore, picking along the rocks and stiff, strong beach grasses that waved in the sea salt stinging breeze. Today, he ignored the set of steps made from stone that someone had placed long ago, and turned his eyes away from the unnatural scar they seemed to slice through the hill. 

The humans ruined the world everywhere they touched it. 

They built stone buildings over beautiful meadows and chipped faces into rocks, they sailed on big ships that tore through waters they had never been meant to see. They stole the creatures who lived wild and made them playthings and puppets and put them in zoos, locked behind bars for their sticky-fingered children to point out and exclaim over. 

They kept the wild things. They broke their wildness and then pretended to sorrow over the loss. They called them pets. 

His captor called a pet, sometimes. His captor called him so many things.

Areyto shuddered. He kept ihs eyes on the waves, pausing in his slow approach to watch them break against the shore. The air here held a chill that he loathed, nothing like the island he has been born on, it was still the ocean. He could still see the tide that came in and went out, the white-capped waves in the distance, dark clouds with the promise of rain.

Areyto’s feet had gone soft, trapped inside his captor’s homes, walking on wood and rugs. They ached now when the sharper points of the rocks pressed along the underside. The siren only ground his teeth against the pain and kept moving, pulling the silk of his robe more tightly around himself to guard against the whipping wind.

He could just see the white sails of a ship, far in the distance.

His hate boiled up inside of him at the sight of it. A ship like that had stolen him from the waters and kept him tied up and locked away in darkness, seeing no sun until his captor had had him marked for obedience and been the thief of his entire life. 

Areyto’s eyes scanned the horizon, watching the dark smear move, knowing what was likely on it. More human men, maybe women, too. Maybe captive animals or sea serpents, wild creatures being sent to fates worse than death for the pleasure of humans. Maybe the storm would break over their heads, and captives and captors alike could become meals to be torn asunder and dragged down to the depths, gifts for the ocean to feed her children. 

“Kill them,” he whispered, a prayer to the moon that hid behind the daylight and the clouds, a prayer to the ocean itself. “Kill the humans, all of them, and set me free.”

There was no answer.

There was never any answer.

His curse made sure the moon never saw him any longer, could not hear his voice even when he cried for her. Only his captor heard him, and his captor called the screams a song. 

Marked as he was, spelled to give his immortality and his obedience to his captor, he was just another tamed wild animal. He felt it more than ever today, with the painted symbols all down his left side newly relaid and throbbing with the echo of two days of endless agonies. 

His captor had found a new magician to come by each decade to repaint them. The new one always had a smile twisting her face too wide, one that dug under Areyto’s skin. Areyto had found himself missing Atabei, who had at least looked guilty, who had offered him small pieces of mercy. No, he did not miss her. 

It was all her fault, in the end.

She’d been the one to begin it all. 

He did not pity her her fate, her last days alone and locked up surrounded by stone, with men called doctors declaring her mad.

He did not think of the conversations they had had, some nights, when Atabei could not sleep and came searching for him. He did not allow himself to recall the graying silver that was more visible in her hair with every passing year, the wrinkles that began to show at her eyes when she smiled. He did not remember the warmth of a kind touch, a hand through his dark hair just before she began the ritual that would leave him screaming, the soft whispered praise when he survived it, as he always did, because Guilford Wentworth would never allow him to die. He would not think of the way she came more and more often in the dark of the night to sit beside him, as time stretched on.

He did not think of the way she had called herself his friend, and how at some point he had stopped denying it. Whatever she called herself, though, she still wrote his curse in ink anew every time it began to fade. However many regrets she had, she still hurt him, again and again. Her low-pitched, husky alto song harmonizing with his was simply painting over the truth of the pain. 

He did not remember her hand in his, asking him to forgive her after the first wife died but before his captor had sent Atabei herself to die in an asylum. He could not even now feel the warmth of her touch. 

She had been the reason for his captivity, even if she was a captive, too.

He did not miss her.

He did not miss her.

The water ran just up to his toes, and Areyto closed his eyes, lifting his chin. He let the breeze lick around his neck like a lover might, if he’d ever had one. He felt the sand give way beneath his feet, felt himself sink deeper and deeper, bit by bit. His toes wriggled, spreading as wide as they could. 

Finally, he sank to his knees. Sand ground against them, stuck to the palms of his hands as he reached out and ran his fingertips over the curve of a white shell just peeking up above the grains. The water came in, washing his hands clean, and he dug the shell out. He watched the saltwater fill the hole left behind, sand swirling in until it vanished.

Just like the shell, he thought, his place in the world disappeared as soon as he was taken from it. If he laid here, unmoving, would he eventually become buried, too? Would the saltwater toss and turn his bones, break them down to sand to be washed up on a beach across the far waters? 

His lips twitched, the shadow of a smile.

It might be nice, to be nothing.

“Look at you,” His captor’s voice rang out, and Areyto’s breath caught. Despair threatened to push him under, and he thought - for just one moment - that he wished he were able to drown. He would have thrown himself to the ocean’s mercy if he could. Instead, he made himself perfectly still, and waited. .

Behind him, Guilford Wentworth made his slow way down the hideous, ugly step-scars. Areyto could hear his heavy breathing, the crunch of his boots against rock and then the scrape when he found sand. He came up behind Areyto and stood too close, leaning over to slide a hand along his spine and watch him shiver. 

“All dark skin and hair and white silk,” His captor said, voice low, pitched not to carry any further than his prisoner’s ears. “You look like a ghost, a spirit of some dead maiden.”

“I am a ghost,,” Areyto replied, voice flat, barely moving his own mouth. He refused to flinch from Wentworth’s touch, even when those fingertips burned against the nape of his neck, tracing the painted marks that peeked out from the neckline of his robe. Heavy hands wearing many rings twisted into his dark hair, pulling at it just a little, never letting him forget who held his leash. “What I was is dead.”

“You were a monster,” Guilford countered. “You still are. Monsters need to be tamed. To be kept.” He chuckled, voice low, and pulled harder, steadily forcing Areyto to lift his chin. Areyto’s hands closed slowly into fists around sand and shell, until the edge of the shell cut deeply in, the pain keeping his mind clear. There was no point in the disgust he felt at Wentworth’s touch, so why couldn’t he stop?

Wentworth cleared his throat, straightening back up and forcing Areyto backwards using the hand in his hair, until he was standing on his knees, spine straight. His markings ached, his skin boiled with the need to tear his captor apart. “My wife is dying.”

“That is what your wives seem crafted to do.” He couldn’t quite keep the edge from his voice. When Wentworth’s heavy hand began to pet through his hair like a man might pet a dog, he let his eyes close against the burn he refused to admit had nothing to do with the salty ocean air. 

His stomach dipped, and all his markings burned like new. He couldn’t do anything but obey. The magic bound him like a fisherman’s net. 

Wentworth sighed, reading the distress Areyto tried not to show. His fingers kept catching in tangled curls, jerking Areyto’s head this way and that. “Wives do die, in their time. In any case, I thought the air here would help her-”

“No, you didn’t.”

“What?” Wentworth jerked him backwards, throwing Areyto until he landed on his back in the soft sand, staring up at his captor. Wentworth’s face was shadowed by the weak sun fighting through the threatening clouds. The tide surged up to Areyto’s thighs, soaking the hem of his silk robe and leaving him half-bared to that horrible heavy gaze. “What did you say?”

Areyto set his jaw, and stared past Wentworth at the waters that had once been home. “You knew the air here would be cold and damp.You knew it would make her worse. You are done with this wife and ready for a new one. Why bother to lie to me? It’s me who you will have sing the new one into your bed soon enough-”

“Be quiet.” Wentworth’s hiss sent a sparking of pain along the painted marks of his curse, and Areyto bit down on his lower lip. Wentworth’s eyes moved from left to right, taking in the empty sands on either side of them, the house far enough away that you couldn’t see it from here. Or be seen by anyone inside it, even if any of them were awake.

His captor’s smile stretched as wide as a slick of oil still spilling from deep earth as he unbuttoned his own shirt without taking it off, shifting down onto his knees to straddle his captive siren, weighing him down.

It felt like a stone tied to his ankle, dragging Areyto into the dark.

One of Wentworth’s hands went around his throat, thumb pressing against the thrum of Areyto’s pulse just under his jaw. The other went into his hair, pulling hard. 

“Open your mouth,” Wentworth commanded.

Areyto’s body, as always, obeyed.

The water surged again, as if the ocean tried to pull him back home. It lapped along his legs, caressed his calves as it pulled back away, just brushed the bottoms of his feet. The sand beneath him was soaked and he sank into it as his head was forced back, as his throat was filled and he had to breathe in quick gasps whenever Wentworth pulled back, and relaxed his hand enough to allow it.

Areyto added his own saltwater tears to what soaked the sand beneath his body, a dizzy lack of air making the world seem to spin, as if his misery were the center of the earth.

“Why aren’t you making any noises?” Wentworth asked, his voice a series of harsh grunts as his hips moved, snapping too far forward, pulling too far back. Areyto’s jaw ached, his neck hurt from being bent strangely to accommodate Wentworth’s will. Sand dried and itched and stuck to him. The waves kept breaking just a little higher each time, until they teased at Areyto’s hips, his waist. 

He kept the shell closed tightly in one hand.

“Oh. Right.” Each word was a thrust, and Areyto wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t breathe. His eyes opened now, black and white spots dancing around the edges and finally into the middle. Wentworth stared back down at him. Their eyes met, and for all that Areyto knew his burned with hate, Wentworth’s sparkled with a perfect joy. “I gave you an order, didn’t I? Well, I take it back. Make all the noise your body wants, Areyto. Make as much noise as you can.”

This order was worse than the silence.

Now, he couldn’t stop himself - the siren whined, whimpered at the pain as his throat was bruised, gasped and cried out only for the winds to whip the sound away faster than he could even hear himself making it. He begged, maybe - he couldn’t have said.

Things had gotten so far away, in his mind. 

Too far away to be sure any longer.

Wentworth pulled back, all at once, but it was only a second before he grabbed the siren by one shoulder and threw him onto his stomach, hand pressing hard into his back while his knees kicked the siren’s legs apart. He shoved the sodden silk robe up to bare Areyto to his heavy, wanting gaze. Water rushed in, and Areyto's forehead pressed into the sand as he hitched in a sob.

Why did he still bother to weep?

“Beg,” Wentworth commanded, leaning down to press a kiss against Areyto’s hair. The siren’s stomach threatened to heave itself empty at the mockery of intimacy. “Beg me not to do this now, beg me not to bed you right here next to the water. Beg me not to.”

“Please,” Areyto gasped, voice hoarse and broken. He wanted to stay silent out of spite, but the markings were perfect and fresh and instead obedience was pulled from him faster than he could even think to defy him. “Please, not like this-... don’t do this-... not here-”

Wentworth bit down, flat human teeth burying themselves into Areyto’s shoulder as he forced himself inside, inch by inch. The siren threw his head back and screamed, a broken sound that only seemed to make Wentworth’s own desire rise higher.

Blood ran to soak the sand beneath the siren’s shoulder and between his legs. 

One of Wentworth’s hands found his hair again, holding tight to keep Areyto’s head pressed to his shoulder. The other reached out over the top of Areyto’s hand, closing fingers around his and pressing him more deeply into the sand. The siren’s back was forced to arch as his captor ground skin between teeth until it tore. He licked at Areyto’s blood and groaned with satisfaction as his hips rocked, the way made slick by blood and his lust fed by the pain of his imprisoned monster. 

Areyto’s eyes were wide and sightless - he could not see or feel or think past the way he was torn apart, in too many places. His free hand held tight to the shell he had found, as if it could save him. 

At some point his grip was so strong it broke the skin, and he bled there, too.

The tide surged, and added salt to the fresh wounds. He screamed again, and Wentworth’s voice was in his ear telling him to move, and so he did, and it made the pain rise ever higher. The sounds the siren made bounced off the hills ahead of them, they were stolen by the breeze to be blown out to the sea. 

The tide soaked the blood into the sand, pulled it back to the waters. It dissolved in spirals and tendrils that came together and broke apart, until it faded away into the enormity of the waters. Until all there was was the sand, and the pain, and Guilford Wentworth buried inside him giving commands in a whisper that he had to obey.

“Mine,” His captor groaned as he finished inside him, went still, a heavy weight that pressed the air from the siren’s lungs. “Forever. Say it.”

Areyto stared at a bit of sea grass fighting its way through the suffocation of sand, surviving where no other plants did. 

“Yours,” He whispered. Wentworth pulled away. “Forever.”

“Forever…?” Wentworth was doing up his buttons again, even though his own clothes were soaked through. The siren didn’t look up. He kept his eyes on the grass. “You know what to say, don’t you?”

The siren swallowed back the screaming hatred that threatened to burn him up from inside, and only whispered, “Yours forever… master.”

Wentworth chuckled again. He turned and walked away, making his painstaking, clumsy way up those stupid rock stairs.

The tide rushed in, all the way up to the siren’s mid-back now, moving further and further up towards his shoulders. He didn’t move - it felt like a bath, like the gentle lapping of a mother cat to a kitten. It felt like the ocean was trying to clean him of the filth that Wentworth had left on him, inside of him. 

“Kill him,” The siren prayed. “Kill him and set me free. Please, please… kill him. Just... kill us both.”

As always...

No one answered.

-

Taglist: @grizzlie70 @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump @shrimpwritings @there-will-always-be-blood @latenightcupsofcoffee @angelsproject @starsick1979

[inevitably-johnlocked]

so, saw your post about John's attraction to Lestrade, and it reminded me of 1) how hot Lestrade is ;) and 2) the chemistry between him and Sherlock. in my opinion, they have great chemistry and I'm actually surprised there aren't more Lestrade/Sherlock fics out there.

i wonder if you know of any Johnlock fics where Sherlock had a thing for Lestrade in the past? i would love to see John's reaction when learning about it :D

(re: this post here)

Hey Lovely!!!

YESSSSSS Greg is GORGEOUS, Rupert has always been a fine mess to look at, LOL. He's such a silver fox now, UGH.

Personally, I don't have any recs for Sherstrade since I genuinely see him more as a father figure and friend for Sherlock than anything else, but OF COURSE that's my preference! I know a lot of people love Sherstrade and also see the chemistry (I see the platonic chemistry, not romantic, LOL) I know that @gaylilsherlock has written a few Sherstrade fics, so LipstickDaddy is a good AO3 Account to check out.

Other than that, here are some fics that are tagged on my MFL list:

The Words We Say by SociallyIneptDork (G, 2,565 w., 1 Ch. || Sherstrade || Hurt/Comfort, Angst With Happy Ending, Paternal Lestrade, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Sherlock Whump, POV Sherlock, Ambiguous Relationship, Sherlock’s Called ‘Freak’) – Greg says what he shouldn't have, and he has to fix what he did. Story has Sherlock's past woven in to show what made him who he is today, so that he could finally begin healing.

Romantic Entanglement by LipstickDaddy (G, 12,025 w., 10 Ch. || Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Established Sherstrade, Love Triangles, Love Confessions, Eventual Mystrade, One Night Stands, Fluff, Miscommunication, Eventual Johnlock) – Everything else is transport… until it isn’t.

This Time Tomorrow (Where Will We Be?) by LipstickDaddy (T, 19,383 w., 11 Ch. || Sherstrade || Pre-Canon / Canon Rewrite, Graphic Violence, Friends to Lovers, POV Greg, Protective Greg, Cuddling and Snuggling, Drinking, Talking, Implied/Referenced Drug Use & Self-Harm, Developing Friendships, BAMF Greg, Bed Sharing, Rape/Non-Con, Flashbacks, Friendship / Love, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Friends with Benefits) – Greg Lestrade has known Sherlock Holmes longer than anyone else in the detective’s life; and he’s spent those years on a knife’s edge, keeping him out of harm’s way until the day he can’t. What happens now, Detective Inspector?

Following the (Silver) Fox by Jobooksandcoffee (E, 54,355 w., 15 Ch. || S3 Fix It Fic, Sherstrade, John/Mary, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Pining Sherlock, Resentful John, Regretful John, Domestic Life, Drug Use, Happy Ending, Greg’s Children, Friendship, Unrequited Love) – After two lonely and painful years away eliminating the threads of Moriarty’s web, Sherlock comes home to find John living with Mary. John is also hurt and resentful, determined to not allow Sherlock to undermine his relationship with his new fiancée. Greg, who always thought Sherlock and John belonged together, becomes a closer friend to Sherlock. He gives the Consulting Detective a place to stay, a friend to have dinner with, someone who will listen to him. He tries to keep all interfering feelings at bay. As Sherlock notices his friendship with Greg becomes stronger, he begins to accept that maybe he can be alright even with John not living at Baker Street any more. He and Lestrade can work at the Yard, and talk about cases. Greg is good at rescuing Sherlock when John and Mary’s wedding preparations get intense. They are friends. This is enough for Sherlock. Right?

=====

If anyone has something that they want to suggest to Charlie, let us know!!

[3-2-whump]

Khaled’s Backstory, Part 3: Betrayal

<prev

Thanks again @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for beta reading the third and final part of Khaled's backstory. This particular incident takes place a handful of months before the beginning of the Eternal Story

Breaking out the fun tags again!

TW/CW: kidnapping, noncon drugging (injection), forced to hurt another, reluctant whumper, minor whump, multiple whumpees, slave whump, captivity whump

His mother raised one skeptical eyebrow as she watched her eldest son burst out of the bedroom, rush into the bathroom, and emerge into the kitchen with high spirits. “Good morning, Khaled,” she greeted, tone laced with suspicion.

“Good morning, Ammi,” Khaled yawned back.

She passed him a plate of reheated khagina with roti and a glass of milk. “Early start today?” she asked. It was unusual for her eldest to rise any time before 11:00, and here he was, practically vibrating with energy at 10:00.

Khaled nodded as he stuffed his face full of food. What had once been a one-time favor was now the third photoshoot he’d be doing. Turns out, Shazia’s agent and photographer asked him to come back for another photoshoot after the first time. The photographer said he ‘liked the kid’s energy,’ and Shazia’s agent said ‘he has a face that could sell’ (whatever that meant). All he knew is that he got to wear new clothes and shoes and pose with a football in the middle of a grassy pitch while some middle-aged guy with a camera snapped pictures. So, he came back for another, and planned to go back for another this morning.

He caught the judgmental look in his mother’s eyes. “Ammi, it’s fine,” he reassured her through a mouthful of food. “Look at the pay, huh? I make in one morning what I make after a week of work!”

“The money’s not important, you know I don’t like it!” Ammi emphasized. Khaled ignored her as he threw back the glass of milk all in one gulp. “You know this is how children like you go missing!” she warned him.

“Yet I’m still here,” Khaled shrugged, setting down his plate and glass before going to the entrance to retrieve his key and his shoes. He turned back to say his goodbyes before he left. “See you tonight!”

“Be careful, beta!” She called out as he ran out the door.

-

Something was different today. No, not different, something was wrong. Shazia met him at the football pitch in the park all by herself, with swollen red eyes and a runny nose as if she’d been crying. She cast him a wobbly smile and waved to him as he approached. “Khaled!”

He ran closer to her to bridge the distance between them sooner. “Shazia, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He looked around, noticing that she was on her own, then back at her. “Where is your agent?”

“He’ll be here soon, it’s just-” she hiccupped on a suppressed sob. Khaled didn’t wait for permission as he gathered her in his arms and hugged her. He rubbed her back as she cried, whispering small reassurances like he would when he calmed his little sisters down from nightmares. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something behind her ear. It was a tattoo, kind of like a barcode.

A sharp, pricking pain jabbed him in the side of his neck, making him jolt in his friend’s arms. He lightly struggled, trying to pull away from her as she hugged him closer, whispering an “I’m sorry” into his ear. His confused thoughts started to muddle, then they cleared until there was nothing much in his head at all besides sensations. His limbs suddenly felt heavier. His struggles lessened and slowed down to a few involuntary twitches. His tongue felt thick and uncooperative within his mouth as he tried to ask what she had done to him and all that came out were a few stuttered noises. Everything was so heavy as he leaned into her with his whole weight. He felt tired, so tired, why was he so tired? It sounded like someone was yelling, but distantly and unintelligibly, as if he were under water. As Shazia brought a hand up to his head to encourage Khaled to lean onto her shoulder, her dupatta slipped, revealing two faint, prong-like scars on the side of her neck. Those strange scars were the last thing he saw before his eyelids shuttered closed. Tried as he might to stay awake for whatever came next, Khaled couldn’t help but give in to the blissful unconsciousness tugging him into the void.

-

He reawaked what seemed like hours later, though it was hard to tell in the dimly lit … Where am I?  Khaled thought, coming back into his body. He was laying on his side on a stiff cot. He blinked his eyes to adjust them to the darkness of the tiny unfamiliar room. There were bars where a door should’ve been, and four more kids dispersed throughout the small cell-like room. Panic surged within him, but the heaviness of slumber and whatever he’d been injected with weighed him down onto the cot. The realization that he could hardly move made his heart race even more, as he never felt so vulnerable before in his life. Distantly, he could hear whispers and crying all around him, though he could not pinpoint where it was coming from. The sounds only added to his panic. His head throbbed, and it felt as if the room was swaying. Why can’t I move? Where am I? What’s going on? Is Shazia okay? He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. Even thinking hurt too much. So, with nothing else to do, he opened his eyes again and observed his cellmates.

A girl sat slumped against the wall next to Khaled’s cot, curled over with her head between her knees, and a boy around his little brother’s age sat next to the bars of the cell door, listlessly staring out of it. Another boy and girl were huddled in the far corner of the cell, the girl crying softly into the boy’s shoulder and the boy trying not to cry for her sake. They were about the same age as Ayesha and Yusuf. “What’s going to happen to us?” she sobbed. The idea of his younger siblings ending up in a place like this made him feel sick. “Will our family ever know?” He willed himself to sit up on the makeshift bed, with nothing on his mind but to comfort these kids that reminded him of his siblings. “Will they ever find us?”

Khaled swayed off the bed and staggered toward them. His head swam with the aftereffects of the sedative. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on both of their shoulders. The girl sniffled as she tried to regain composure.

The boy answered for her. “She got you too, didn’t she?” he asked bitterly.

Khaled furrowed his brows. “Who?”

“Girl with the blue eyes? Great hair?” he clarified.

A magenta pink kurta flashed in Khaled’s mind. “Shazia?”

The girl next to him perked up at her name. “She told me her name was Layla.”

The other girl slumped against the wall looked up from her lap. “That’s what she told me, too.”

The other boy at the cell bars turned around to face them. “It doesn’t matter what false name she assumed! The point is, that girl tricked us!” he spat.

Khaled shook his head, despite the throbbing sensations that wracked in his skull from doing so. “What? No, that can’t be,” he denied. The dreary setting that he now found himself in contradicted him. “She’s a nice girl, this must be a mistake!” he defended, despite the fuzzy memories of her sticking him with something sharp.

A clanging noise sounded from somewhere to their right, followed a creaking sound of metal on metal. A sharp beam of light preceded a shadow stepping into their prison, revealing more prison-cell arrangements across from them within the strange room they inhabited. The light was extinguished once more as the metal door clanged shut. Stopping in front of their cell door was a familiar girl in pink, holding a lantern, looking grimly at her victims. Her dupatta was gone, revealing a series of disfiguring, prong-like scars around the circumference of her neck.

The other four cellmates merely glared at her. The boy who was sitting by the door quickly backed away. Khaled however abandoned any sense of pride he had to throw himself at the bars of the cell door. “Shazia! There you are, you’re safe!” he cried with relief. “Please, tell them it’s not true, tell them that it’s a mistake, that you’re not the reason we’re trapped down here!”

She lowered her blue eyes in guilt, her silence answering for her. In the faint glow of the lantern, her pink kurta appeared blood red.

Something in Khaled’s chest panged, as if he could feel his heart break in real time. “Shazia?” he whispered.

“I’m sorry.” Her sad blue eyes glanced at all of them, then went back to Khaled. “I had no choice.” Khaled’s eyes flitted to her scars. “I never would’ve deceived you all if I could’ve avoided it.”

The girl who had curled up in the corner now stood up and raised her hand accusatorily. “Well, an apology isn’t going to free us, is it, bitch?!”

“Hey! None of that!” Khaled snapped.

Shazia visibly flinched at the words, but she held her ground. “I’m not even supposed to be here, but I came to apologize, and to warn you. You five, as well as the groups we picked up in Mumbai and Bangkok, are going to be sold. I don’t know where, I don’t know when. My masters don’t tell me these things. Just, when they come for you, do what you’re told and it’ll hurt less” she advised.

A series of questions erupted over the five captives, each question overlapping over the other.

“What do you mean ‘they’? Who are ‘they’?”

“Why did you trick us?”

“Are you coming back?”

“Why us? What’s so special about us?”

“What did they do to you?” Khaled asked.

Shazia did not respond. She turned her back on them and retreated towards the exit, taking the glowing lantern with her. The intense ray of light that came when she opened the door to leave was the last shred of light the captives would see for a long while as they were left in the darkness with their unanswered questions.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz

@bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

@defire @phoenixpromptsandstuff @scumashling

[melpomenelamusa]

Dollplay - Chimeras

~Original story~

Previous

CW: Lady whumpee, lady whumper, pet whump, institutionalized slavery, possessive whumper, non-consensual drug use.

"Little snake, have you ever played with dolls?"

Madame Lavenza never had real conversations with Fidi. She would just ask her "yes and no" questions, give her orders, or make a few comments like someone trying to chat with their pet, but never really expecting an answer from it.

Asking about the girl's opinion was a rare event, and it was even more unusual to ask about her past. Usually, the woman acted as if the snake girl had always been an object of her property, so Fidi was surprised when, during breakfast that day, her so-called "owner" surprised her with that question.

"Yes, when I was little," the girl answered.

Her parents were not in the habit of buying many toys for their children. Fidi remembered that she had a plastic doll once, which she got as a birthday present. She liked to create different dresses for her doll with scraps of fabric that her grandmother threw away, even with almond leaves and folded paper. Sometimes she pretended that the doll was her friend and talked to her. She took good care of her, brushing her hair every day and keeping her clean. Fidi loved her doll very much. Until one day one of her siblings beheaded her. Her parents didn't want to buy her another one.

“I feel like playing with dolls today,” said Madame Lavenza. “I have some new make-up packages that were sent to me, and since I am going to have dinner with my parents today, I thought it would be an excellent idea to take advantage of the occasion. I´ve been wanting to play for a long time.”

She pointed at Fidi with her fork.

“You will be my pretty little doll and you will accompany me.”

It wasn't a question. Fidi didn't feel like answering. She didn't want to imagine what Madame Lavenza meant specifically by being a "doll," but she knew that, as much as she wanted to, she didn't have the chance to refuse either. She nodded.

The woman smiled with satisfaction.

"In that case, get ready and do everything you have to do. Once the game starts, you won't be able to move or speak, because dolls don't move nor speak.”

Fidi returned to her room. The idea of ​​Madame Lavenza's game had her increasingly nervous. Was it something like a photo shoot, like pet shows? Anxiety wouldn't leave her alone.

Around noon, one of the servants knocked on her door.

"Madame Lavenza says the game is about to begin. Come out when you're ready.”

Fidi gathered her courage. She made sure she was wearing comfortable, presentable clothes, the golden collar around her neck, and went out into the hallway. She hadn't gone two meters since she left her room when an arm closed around her torso, pinning her arms to the sides of her body and immobilizing her.

“What?!”

Fidi kicked, trying to get free. Something sharp was suddenly stuck in her neck and the girl could feel an unknown substance entering her body through the thin needle.

The servant let go of her and Fidi felt herself losing her balance. From one moment to the next her vision became blurred and she felt dizzy and heavy. She barely took a step forward and collapsed on the floor, with her legs and arms asleep.

She felt the servant grab her leg and begin to drag her to an unknown place. Fidi couldn't see where, as unconsciousness took over her mind at that moment.

Fidi woke up feeling her whole body asleep. She slowly opened her eyelids. She was sitting with her legs stretched out on a large, soft mattress. Her back was leaning against the back of an elegant bed. There was only one place in the entire mansion that had such furniture: Madame Lavenza's room. Fidi tried to get up, but found that she couldn't move her body.

She lowered her head, frightened, but there was nothing tying or immobilizing her limbs; however, no matter how hard she tried, she still couldn't move, as if her brain had suddenly disconnected from the rest of her body. A sound of panic tried to escape her throat, but only a silent whimper came out. There was a piece of tape over her lips.

Suddenly Madame Lavenza appeared. She sat on the edge of the mattress and reached out to caress the side of Fidi's face.

“It's impressive, isn't it?," The woman said, sliding her gloved hand over the skin and pearly scales of the girl's arms. "It's a drug I was able to get my hands on for this one activity. It paralyzes the body, but allows the victim to feel eeeverything."

She drew out the vowel, as she dug her fingers around the snake girl's wrist. The girl let out a muted groan, instinctively trying to break free of the grip. It was obvious she couldn't.

Madame Lavenza giggled.

"Don't you remember what I told you? You're going to be a doll today, and dolls don't talk or move."

Fidi felt a wave of terror drown her. Her heart was beating frantically inside her chest. She felt herself starting to have trouble breathing.

Madame Lavenza took her by the arm and began to pull her towards a leather chair, located in front of a huge dressing table, on one side of the room. The girl, with her body paralyzed, fell off the mattress and found herself dragged along the floor as if she were a rag doll, unable to hold herself up, until she was placed in front of the mirror.

The woman took out the makeup: boxes with infinite shades of eye shadows, lipsticks, blushes, mascaras and skin powders, all from exclusive and luxurious brands. She spent hours applying and removing makeup to the snake girl, making her various hairstyles that she then undid again, and even cutting the ends of her hair and bangs with inexpert movements, as if she were a little girl playing with scissors. Fidi could do nothing but watch, like a static mannequin, the strands of fine black hair falling to the floor and into her lap.

Madame Lavenza changed Fidi´s clothes, putting her in a pink dress with a flowing skirt, white socks and red ballerina flats. On her head she put a huge silk bow. Around her wrists she placed golden bracelets that matched the collar on her neck. She painted shadows and blushes on her, which stood out against her pale skin in a cartoonish way, and on the adhesive tape stuck to her lips she drew a small heart-shaped smile with lipstick.

"You are so pretty," said Madame Lavenza. "All my belongings must always look beautiful. Image is everything in this world. Status and money too. That's why I can have a pretty little doll like you."

The woman pressed the girl's head against her chest, hugging her. That gesture, which could have been affectionate, was oppressive and possessive. There was not a shred of affection in it.

Meanwhile, Fidi focused her concentration on trying to breathe calmly through her nose and prevent the tears that were welling up in her eyes from falling on her face, ruining her eyeliner. She also tried not to see herself in the giant illuminated mirror in front of her, because if she did, she would only be able to notice the desperation and emptiness in her own gaze, contrasting with the fake smile painted on her face with lipstick.

“I'm going to get ready for dinner.”

Madame Lavenza put Fidi back on the floor, positioned so that she could only look straight at a wall, while the woman dressed and got ready on the other side of the room. Fidi's neck hurt because of her uncomfortable position. Her body still didn't respond. How long did the effect of that drug last? How much longer would it be before this nightmarish game ended?

They left the mansion at about six in the evening. A servant picked Fidi up from the ground and carried her to the car, where he placed her in the back seat, on Madame Lavenza's lap. By now, the girl was hungry, thirsty, and had a dry throat; but a voice in her head told her, almost with certainty, that she would not be able to eat a single morsel at this dinner. 

Madame Lavenza's parents were wealthy people, both successful in their own businesses. They had booked a private room for themselves, their two children, and their pets, in a luxurious restaurant. Fidi preferred private events, as she was embarrassed to have people see her.

"She's beautiful," said Madame's mother, looking at Fidi. The girl had been laid down on an elegant sofa, arranged like those girls in Renaissance paintings. "She looks like a porcelain doll! Only her eyes are a bit strange."

"What's the point of having pets if you're just going to leave them there still as an ornament?" said a man with cruel blue eyes. If Fidi wasn't mistaken, he was Madame's older brother.

The snake girl had never seen him more than a couple of times in all these years. He was accompanied by his own pet, a chimera boy with dog ears and a tail, whose real name Fidi didn't know. The other chimera child was sitting on his knees, next to his owner's chair. A thick spiked collar surrounded his neck and he always wore a muzzle that covered half of his face.

While the rich guys ate meat, drank wine, and chatted about trivial matters, Fidi took the opportunity to rest for a bit. The smell of food made her hungry, so she tried to distract herself by focusing her mind on other things. Although her position on the sofa was uncomfortable, it had soft cushions. She closed her eyelids and imagined she was anywhere but there, perhaps in a beautiful bamboo forest or next to a waterfall, listening to the soothing sound of water falling and hitting the stones below.

She became so lost in her thoughts that she fell asleep. She woke up when she felt someone pulling her hair hard.

“Mnh!”

"Remember when I used to tear out your dolls' hair?" The man with cruel blue eyes shook Fidi's head violently, as if he really intended to tear out her hair. "You would cry for hours and throw a loud tantrum."

"Yes, and then I would get my revenge by melting your plastic soldiers in the kitchen," Madame Lavenza replied, with an equally cruel smile. "Now let go of my little doll. I don't tell you how to treat your pets, do I?"

The man dropped Fidi's head in disdain. He began to walk over to where the other chimera child was, still motionless and sitting on his knees on the floor, and kicked him in the stomach. The boy fell back, clutching his abdomen, while his eyelids clenched shut and silent groans of pain escaped from behind the muzzle.

"I guess you're right. I have my own toys to amuse myself with," the man said, before launching a second kick.

"Don't be so harsh," said the mother to her son. "What did the poor little animal do to you?"

"Leave him alone," said the father, scolding his wife. "Graus can do whatever he wants with his belongings."

Dinner was over and they finally returned to the mansion. By this time, Fidi had already begun to regain some mobility in her fingers. A servant carried her to her room and dropped her onto her bed rather unkindly.

“Goodnight, little snake,” Madame Lavenza said goodbye, before closing the door. The sound of the deadbolt was heard, locking the door on the other side.

Once Fidi was able to flex her fingers and arm, she sat up and ripped the tape off her mouth, finally being able to take a deep breath and fill her lungs. Her body felt numb and sore, and her stomach growled for nourishment that she wouldn’t be able to get until the next morning at breakfast.

She stood up and walked to the bathroom, where she first drank water from the tap and then set about removing the layers and layers of makeup from her face. She took off the silk bow, the bracelets, collar, ballerina flats, socks, and dress. She put on her pajamas and threw herself into her bed. She hugged a pillow and felt the tears return to her eyes.

“This is better than the black market, this is better than living on the streets, this is better than…” She repeated the words to herself until the guilt sank deep within her heart and she fell asleep.

Next

Taglist: @scoundrelwithboba @morning-star-whump @lancedoncrimsonwings

I feel a little bad for Fidi, but I admit that it's a lot of fun to make her suffer. The best (or worst) part is that this is just getting started. Oh, my poor girl… Thanks for reading! Here's a little star for you⭐

[mirasmirages]

Scars (part 2)

previous masterlist next

Has: library setting, kid characters

James and his family belongs to @starliight-whump

~

"Uncle James!"

Oliver crashed into James's legs and hugged his arms around them. It wouldn't be long until he was big enough to knock James over if he kept doing that.

"Hi, Oliver," James smiled, ruffling the four-year-old's hair. "Did you bring your mom?"

Julia was already standing in the door, car keys dangling from her fingers. Today was storytime at the library, and she had bullied James into coming with them, after he had announced that he was giving up on life and never leaving his bed again. She was losing her patience for his dramatics, and on a good day, he could admit that it helped.

The library was a ten minute car ride away, and once inside, Oliver ran ahead to the children's section. James and Julia followed at a slower pace, trusting him not to get lost.

"Henry!" he called from out of sight, and a voice answered, "Hey, buddy!"

James nudged Julia, slightly teasing. "Is that how he greets everyone now?"

"Only the ones he likes," she grinned back.

It was then that someone came around the corner, carrying Oliver on his hip. A someone about James's height, with broad shoulders dressed in a golden beige cable-knit sweater and just as many piercing as he had a week ago.

The moment their eyes met, James could see recognition on his face, confirming it was the same man.

"Who's that with your mom?" the man, who must be Henry, asked Oliver as he walked to them.

"That's Uncle James!" Oliver told him.

"Ah," Henry said. He was close enough that James could see the tiger charm hanging from his ear piercings. "You must be … Julia's brother?"

James nodded, but couldn't find his voice. His heart was beating too hard, and he had the thought that Henry was stalking him, which he knew was ridiculous, because Henry had already been here when they arrived. He stuffed his hands deep in his jacket pockets.

"This is James," Julia said, and took Oliver from Henry's arms when he reached for her. "He's visiting our parents for a while, and he likes stories, so Oliver and I decided to bring him to storytime, right, Oliver?"

Oliver nodded his agreement. Julia had managed to make it sound so normal, like there wasn't anything wrong with him at all, and James was grateful for that.

"That's cool," Henry said. James traced the braided pattern on his sweater with his eyes. "We have a fun one today, it'll be great!"

Ten minutes later, James and Julia sat in the chairs set up for the adults, while a group of about fifteen kids crowded around Henry in the middle of the room.

"Are you ready for a story?" Henry asked.

"Yes!" came from some of the kids, and Oliver nodded so hard it shook his body.

"Awesome! I wonder what today's story will be about!" He turned his head exaggeratedly, giving the kids a good look at his tiger charm. The piercings weren't something James would have expected from someone who worked with kids - or in a library - but Henry made it work for him.

"A tiger!" A girl's voice squeed louder than the other kids who had also figured it out.

"That's right!" Henry exclaimed. "You guys are amazing guessers! Today we are reading the story of Tamara the Tiger!"

Julia reached out to take James's hand, and James held hers as they listened to the story of a tiger cub looking for her mom. Henry did voices and paused after every page so the kids could look at the pictures, and James found he was able to enjoy himself for a while.

next

[jedi-lothwolf]

Whump: The Musical Day 7: The Last Five Years (I will not lose because you can not win.")

Fandom: The Batch Batch

Warning: Cannon typical violence

Summary: When Hemlock invades Pabu, the batch has to fight for their lives as well as the lives of the citizens of the peaceful Island.

Ao3 link

  Today was supposed to be an ordinary day. When Hunter had woken up, he was dragged down to the beach by Omega and Deke. They wanted to show him that they had learned how to surf. Even if he wouldn't admit it, Hunter was proud of the clones for learning how to be children.

    Wrecker had forced Crosshair down to the beach as well. The warm sand and pleasant smell should help him to relax the man thought. So the three brothers sat on a red towel and started to talk. It wasn't much, but it was somewhere to start.

    Mox and Stak joined them shortly and started to work on a sand castle. Some clouds covered the sunny sky. But when Hunter looked up, they weren't clouds. Imperial vessels blocked the sun.

    This couldn't be happening. Pabu was supposed to be safe. It wasn't meant for invasions. So many of the people spent too long running just to have to up their whole lives again. Hunter looked back down.

    Looking at Crosshair, he spoke. "Get Omega and the boys to the ship. Be ready to leave. Call Echo and tell him we need help, immediately."

    In truth, Hunter knew why he chose Crosshair. With his hand, even if he hadn't told them yet, he knew that he'd be the one whose help they need the least. Now if he could still hit any mark, that could have been a different story.

    But there was more to that. Wrecker had a history with Pabu. He would protect it fiercely. The island was his home, the people were his family.

    As Deke rode a wave in, Hunter stood. The father ran out to two of his youngest that were in the water. "Go over to Crosshair" he told them. They nodded before Hunter went to Mox and Stak and pulled them up from the sand.

    "What's going on?" Mox asked. Nervousness was written all over his face.

    "The empire-"

    "We could tell" Stak interrupted.

    "Go with your siblings." It was the first time he had outright called their siblings to their faces. If it had been any other time, Hunter would have said more. For now, it would have to wait."

    As Hunter walked the other two over with the rest of the group, Omega started to talk. "We can help!"

    "I know, but it's you they want and the boys haven't finished their training. It's safer this way."

    "And someone needs to watch Cross." Wrecker tried to add some humor to the situation.

    Phee joined them on the beach, knowing that it was Clone Force 99 who had unfortunately brought the Empire to Pabu. Hunter walked over to her before she met the rest of the group. "Make sure Omega gets out of here. They want her and we wouldn't let her get taken again."

    "Okay." She looked past the Sargent, "come on kids, let's get you to safety!"

    Sighing, Crosshair grabbed Omega and picked her up. "Come on."

    "Put me down!" Omega fought Crosshair all the way up the beach.

    "Now what?" Wrecker asked.

    "We fight."

    At the Mauradur, Crosshair was quick to make the decision to leave. Batcher awoke from her nap and laid with Omega to help keep her calm. The boys mostly sat with her or talked to Crosshair as they left the atmosphere and headed to Coruscant to meet with Echo.

    As the days passed, the battle of Pabu seemed to be more and more helpless. Civilians were dying, some who had fought and some who had not.    

    When the bad batch had settled on Pabu, they taught Shep how to shoot. The mayor had agreed to ease their minds, never thinking he would need to use this new skill. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time. Lyana stayed near her father when she could. Mostly she was hidden with other children.

    When the invasion began, Hunter had suddenly become a Sargent again. It had been a long time since he played that role. Civilians who had fought in wars, civil or intergalactical, had taken up their old military rank. It was strange.

    The invasion had lasted days. Hemlock wouldn't give up until he found Omega, unaware she had been taken off world. Pabu was being torn apart, lives crumbled to the ground and while some knew why the empire had attacked, most didn't. For the people who did, they couldn't and wouldn't be mad at Clone Force 99 for trying to live peaceful lives and for trying to protect their daughter and little girl.

    It had been four days into the fighting when Hemlock showed his face. When Hunter met Hemlock for the second time, injured and tired, he knew meeting the scientist twice was three times too many.

    "Hello CT-9901, or should I say Hunter?" Hemlock spoke.

    Startled and out of breath, Hunter didn't answer. It had been so long since he heard his CT number, he had almost forgotten it. Still, he knew the malice behind it.

"This can all end, just give me the girl."

"Never." Hunter moved behind a counter. He sank to the floor for a moment.

"I figured as much. I truly am impressed that you are capable of forming such a bond with her. A parental role appears to come so easily to you."

The words made Hunter's skin crawl. Why would he be unable to form a bond with her? Omega was his daughter, nothing could change that. Was it because he was a clone? Was that why he was deemed unable to love a child, to have children he felt were his own?

"The safest option for your men and the civilians of this island, is to stop the fighting. You cannot win this battle, Sargent."

"I will not lose because you can not win."

Silents filled the room. They stood in a ruined kitchen. The checkered floors were stained with blood and glass. The cabinets had been torn open by both the empire and the citizens of Pabu. They needed food and they needed wood. The empire hadn't taken their time to bring out flame throwers to scorch the island and its people.

"You, won't win this." Hunter reinforced the idea. "You can't. I won't let you. " Pulling his knife from its sheath, he tried to find a clear shot at Hemlock.

The scientist couldn't win. In the end, he would round up every single citizen and kill them off. With Wrecker taking part in the fight, he needed his to be okay. With everything Tech had sacrificed to save them, they couldn't die here. Crosshair and his kids would be alone. It hurt knowing that Omega would blame herself for the slaughter of the people of Pabu. Echo would wish he arrived earlier and would blame himself for not being there to save them.

They needed saving. They couldn't do it alone. The Sargent only had one shot at killing Hemlock. Blood pooled under Hunter from his injuries. With broken ribs, multiple deep lacerations on his legs as well as his arms and one close to his neck, a few broken toes, and a large amount of bruising, the man was unsure how he had stayed alive this long. He could feel blood on the side of his face but he wasn't sure if it came from his left ear (since he couldn't hear from it) or from his head.

The vibro-knife shook in his hand. It almost felt foreign. Standing slowly, yet staying out of view, Hunter grabbed a piece of glass from behind the mahogany counter. Looking at it for a moment, he sighed. They couldn't afford to lose. Not anymore. Losing meant dying and for the first time in so long, Hunter had something to live for. His brothers and children and family he had made on Padu and his pets (Gonky included) all meant the world to him. No one else needed to die.

However, If he had to give all of that up to save them, to win the battle of Pabu, the battle for his family, he would.

Throwing the glass, Hunter hoped that it would distract Hemlock and his guards. When it did, the man stood fully and threw his knife. As soon as he saw it plunge deep into his skull, he felt a weight be lifted off of his chest. The weight was replaced with a bullet.

The tile cracked when he fell. There wasn't much Hunter could think about. The sound of ships overhead relieved Hunter. It had to be Echo. If not, the empire would take the island in a matter of hours.

Hunter's entire body hurt. The warm feeling of blood tangled with his hair. The glass had cut any exposed skin. The guards grabbed Hemlock's body and went to leave. Hunter listened to the footsteps as they faded. His mind was so foggy that evening and nothing made his sense. But Hemlock was dead. If that was Echo, which it had to be, Pabu would rebuild. The coppery smell of blood filled Hunter's nose.

Dying, Hunter tried to reach for his comm. Hitting it, the world started to fade. His hand rested on the communication device long enough for Echo to notice the soft noise of fire and gunshots that played over his headset. Then his hand slipped off the button and the comm channel went silent.

The man had never expected to wake up again. But when he saw a white roof, he knew something was different. Everything hurt too damn much for him to be dead. There was a steady, high pitched beeping that hurt his ears; or at least the one he could still hear out of.

Had they won? Was everyone safe? Where was his family, his kids?

"Hunter!" Omega yelled, answering one of his questions. "He's awake" she shook Echo awake.

"Hunter?" Echo grounded as he sat up. Then he pinched himself.

"You actually woke up." Crosshair stood up. "It's been a week."

"Leave him alone. He needed his beauty rest" Wrecker joked. The boys and Batcher sat in the corner of the room, still half asleep.

"Is everyone, okay?" Hunter finally said, struggling to speak.

"We're okay."

"Pa-Pabu."

"In shambles. We were about to leave to help with the rebuilding and attend a few funerals. We'll send you regards. They people were rooting for you." Echo told him.

"We're lucky you came in when you did. You saved us." Nudging Echo, Wrecker walked over to wake up the boys.

"Where-"

"Alderaan. Rex has some allies here. We couldn't help you on our own, the damage done to you, it was too extensive." Walking beside Hunter, Echo stood next to him.

"Dad!" Deke yelled, excited. He ran over to him and just about toppled Echo.

"You're actually alive" Stak added.

"Hey." Mox was the last to stand as he was trying to not disturb Batcher.

Hemlock's words about his parental instincts ran through Hunter's head. However, that didn't matter. He was their father. Just because he was a clone didn't mean he didn't form bonds with people he cared dearly for.

"We can stay for a little but Hunter needs to rest, we need to get back to Pabu." Walking to the door, Echo went to tell the nurses that Hunter had woken up.

Omega clung to Hunter's arm, determined to never let go. Crosshair and Wrecker sat at the end of the bed. Wrecker looked rough but that was to be expected.

"Tell me everything later" the Sargent whispered.

"We will." After a few hours, Echo decided it was time to go. Omega and Batcher stayed with Hunter while the rest left for Pabu. Knowing that Hemlock couldn't hurt her, made breathing just a little bit easier. So did knowing that most everyone he cared about was safe; though by now someone would have told him if Phee, Shep, or Lyana had died.

Everything would be okay. It had to be. Now that Hemlock was out of the way, maybe the batch could live a peaceful life. Even if Hunter knew they would end up in the fight, it was a nice thought. But the clone knew his place was fighting for peace. After all, if he wanted Omega and his boys to be safe, he needed to make a safer galaxy. And that was okay with him. If he needed to fight he would. For his children.

@whumpthemusical

[sunshiline-writes]

The Rainbringer #3: A Canvas Is What You Are

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Kyler has a conversation with his partner before meeting with Claire. (Comfort). Claire decides that blood makes for good decoration and a good lesson to be learned. (So much whump) CW: GORE GORE GORE, Lady Whumper, mentions of past torture, knife whump, Claire being super freaking creepy, knife whump, stabbing, lots of blood. let me know If I missed anything.

The morning air was crisp and clear. His tea was warm and tasted soft. Chamomile to help him relax. It was supposed to help. Sleeping through the night was hard. Claire's words rummaged through his brain all night. Bring a knife tomorrow, I want to try something. Whatever it was, it better not ruin his clothing. He’d be pissed if he had to make a new shirt. Otherwise, he knew she could heal him, so he wouldn’t die. That at least was a very subtle comfort. Perhaps he should be a little more bothered by it, but he was surprisingly calm about this situation. If he wasn’t calm, he just thought about the rain. 

He heard the cane hit the floor behind him. “You’re up early Ky,” said Irvington, walking next to him on the porch. “I thought you were going to try and go back to sleep.” 

Kyler shrugged slightly and sipped his tea. “Couldn’t fall asleep.” 

“Nightmares?” 

“Not quite.” 

He couldn’t bear to look at Irvington’s face, their brow furrowed in concern. They were always concerned about his well being for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom. The two of them had been a pair for longer than he could remember. Kyler was 36 now, and Irvington 38. They’d been friends since they were young children, so the friendship had been going on a good thirty or so years. People always assumed they were more than that. Maybe they were, honestly, Kyler wasn’t too keen on being in a real labeled relationship, and Irvington had never complained about this lack of want. Irvington was good like that. Never really complaining about him until Kyler did something that could be considered ‘detrimental to his well being’. 

“Well.. if you’re alright,” they said, sighing slightly. An ache in Kyler’s heart hit him suddenly. Why? Why did Irvington have to be so good. 

“I swear I'm fine, Irv. Just one bad night. I promise, okay?” 

“Pinkie swear,” Irvington said, holding out their left pinky, staring him down. Kyler hooked their pinkies together and mustered up a small smile. “You should take a day off from prayer today, join me at the market. They always ask for you. Everyone is amazed at your paintings. Always pay the highest price.” 

Kyler blushed slightly at the praise. “I wish I could. But.. its, it’s important to me. The Temple. The Prayer. It’s working you see? The rain came.” 

“You can’t think that’s because you’ve been going to the Temple everyday can you?” 

A frown lined Kylers features and he turned to Irvington, “I can, and I do.” It was frustrating that Irvington didn’t believe him. They were always the cynic and a skeptic. Kyler was always a believer, an optimist. 

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry,” they said, raising a hand in surrender. The other hand was in a knuckle white grip on their cane. “I just miss you going to market with me. You’re always there, you go early, come home late. I just miss you.” 

There was a tightness in his throat as he tried to come up with an answer. But he was at a loss for words. 

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I understand. I do. I’ve got to go set up the market,” they said as they turned to walk back into the house. 

“Irvington,” Kyler called out, and Irvington paused, hand on the door to go inside. “I miss you too. I’m sorry.” They turned to face Kyler again, sad smile lining their features. He hated to see Irvington sad. “We can go into town tonight. When I get back. It’ll be like a date.” 

“A date?” Irvington chuckled, “I like the sound of that. Now get dressed. You’ll be late to your prayers.” 

*** 

Claire was getting impatient with Kyler. The man was late today. She’d had enough of his disrespect. Of his nonchalance and calm demeanor. Mostly things had been tame with their meetings. Simple things. Beatings, choking, humiliation, making him beg. But nothing like what she planned to do today. No no, she had yet to hear him scream. She’d made him squirm, cry, and beg, but now she was itching for something more. A morbid curiosity. She wanted to know how loud he could scream, how long she could keep him for before he started to beg to be let go. Hearing him beg was the best part about this agreement. It made a pleasure pool in her stomach and radiate through her body. The other gods had always said she had a bit of a sadistic streak. Well, they were right. But now she finally had someone she could actually act it out upon. He was perfect. He had blue eyes like hers, brown skin, and long hair that was usually pulled back into a low ponytail. She hated his long hair. But she let it slide for now. Claire had decided it was fun to run her hands through it. At any rate, she’d cut it herself if she found it too distracting. 

She was sitting on top of the altar when Kyler finally walked in, looking as he always did. Perfectly calm. 

“You’re late today Kyler. I expect you to be on time.” 

“I had things to take care of at home,” he said plainly, letting the door close behind him. 

She decided to ignore his insolence. “Did you bring what I asked?” She took notice of the pause before he spoke next 

“Yes.” 

“Bring it here then,” Claire said, holding out a hand, waiting for him to bring it to her. Kyler did so, walking slowly up to her, not meeting her eyes as he placed the small kitchen knife into her hand. Handle in her palm. She closed her palm around it, examining it, she could see her own reflection in it. Clean, perfectly so. Claire expected nothing less from the man. 

“Take off your shirt,” she ordered, kicking her feet as they hung off the altar. The man stepped back and frowned. He shook his head, body tense. A smile graced her lips. “Please make me ask again,” she said sweetly, not taking her eyes off the knife as she twirled it in her hands. 

“Why?” He asked finally, staring at her in horror. Oh it was that face that made him so delectable to control. The way he stuttered and faltered at everything she did. Claire was feeding off his fear. 

“I don’t want you to ruin such a nice shirt. It would be a shame if you got blood all over it.” 

Kyler whimpered slightly, looking around, perhaps for an escape? She didn’t like that. Hopping off the altar, she strode toward him, no longer smiling. 

“Shirt. Off. Now.” she ordered again, less of a mocking tone now. 

The man slowly reached toward the edges of his shirt, thinking. One day, she would make sure he would never hesitate at a word she said. He wouldn’t think when an order came. Kyler Lluvia would be a good little boy and kneel when told. 

“I don’t want to.” Kyler said stubbornly. 

“Oh I was hoping you’d say that,” and with that phrase she moved, the knife sliding into his stomach far too easily. Kyler gasped, his blood was warm on her fingers. “I’m going to paint this temple with your blood, and when you’re about to run out, I’ll heal you. Then do it again,” Claire twisted the knife and Kyler screamed, raw and hoarse as he fell to his knees. Claire stood over him and twisted again, pulling out another scream from the man. “And again, and again.” Pulling out the knife and letting Kyler fall to the floor, gasping for breath, trying to crawl and scramble away from her. 

“You’re my canvas today Kyler. And oh what beautiful art I'll make with you.” 

TAGLIST: @for-the-love-of-angst @devourerofcheesecake @robinbugbanned @whumpinthepot

Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed!

[the-slythering-raven]

Since I have more than 2 fics on ao3, I think it’s time for a master post?

1) Maybe..things will be alright (3030 words, complete)

Summary: Larry James finds a heartbroken Cordell Walker sobbing over the dead body of his wife and helps him home after dropping her body off for the autopsy. The children are shocked on hearing the news, and Stella yells at her father and wishes him death in front of everyone in a fit of grief induced rage. Would things ever be alright again?

2) Only alone i will cry out loud (You'll never see what's hiding out) (3523 words, 2 chapters, WIP)

Summary: When a case hits Cordell too close to home, he's already on edge of a breakdown, and a little inconvenience becomes the straw that breaks the Camel's back. Larry James thinks he will have a good time catching up with Cordell, only to find him having a breakdown. What happens next? (Note: This one has WHUMP)

3) Closure (776 words, Complete)

Summary: Emily’s murderer and the mastermind behind it had both been arrested. So why was Cordell feeling so numb instead of being elated?

4) In the world of the stars||Now we shall meet, my friend (2050 words, Complete)

Summary: Aka the first time Cassie Perez meets Emily Walker (or her grave)

5) Hold my hair, Wipe my face (2009 words, 2 chapters, WIP)

Summary: Cassie Perez really really should have stayed home today. She even had all her medical leaves intact because she never got sick. Until now, that is..

6) Heat Waves (888 words, Complete)

Summary: It was the middle of June and and Cordell Walker and Cassie Perez had been deployed again to deliver evidence from the Austin HQ to all the way to the Bailey County Courthouse, and they had been instructed to be back “by eight hours at any cost”, and also been warned against any peeking into the evidence, or they’d lose their jobs.

7) Sleep. Tomorrow will be better. (3212 words, 2 chapters, Complete)

Collab with @ispeakmorelanguagesthanyou

Summary: India loses the World Cup final, and the team takes it hard. It's upto Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to ensure their team is looked after.

Lots of fluff and comfort, exactly what we need after that final

8) Tere Bina (1773 words, Complete)

Summary: A delirious Shubman with very high fever calls Ishan when the team is in Delhi for their match against Afghanistan and babbles in punjabi thinking it to be his didi on the line

9) Raat ke baad hi to sawera hota hai (8594 words, 7 chapters, WIP) (Wattpad)

Summary: Yashasvi may be new to the team and the youngest player on the squad, but he noticed things. So when Shubman starts acting strangely he sets out to investigate what's wrong with his roommate and newly acquired Bhai. With a little extra help from a best friend on the other side of the country, Yash sets out to improve his Shubman bhai's mood ...

10) Of headaches and heartaches (2240 words, 3 chapters, Complete) (Wattpad)

Summary: A migraine causes Shubman to be distracted off the field, causing him to miss a couple of important catches and get out early in the decider match of the India vs Australia ODI series. Rohit Sharma is NOT pleased.

Happy reading, and hope y'all like these :3

New fics will simply be updated to this list :)

[cutebutalsostabby]

12, 25, 27?

12) favourite character to write about this year.

Hmmm probably Hyrule, surprisingly. "Surprisingly" in that thinking it through, I didn't actually write much from his perspective? I did think about it a lot though, and he'll have a few special moments (teehee) coming up in the chapters I'll hopefully get to sometime soon.

I love both halves of the Downfall Duo (plus Wild as the bonus third half, as a treat), but the extra fun thing about the version of Hyrule that lives in my head is that the more I delve into his personality, the more Problems(tm) he develops. Like: yeah he's pretty well-adjusted, hmmm he's a little traumatised actually, oops he's reeeeal bad at processing difficult emotions, wow maybe that clinginess is liiittle bit unhealthy -

I wanna pick him up and shake him /pos

25) a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read.

Hmm... I read a bunch of fics this year, but for the purpose of recommendations I'll start with "What Hero?" by AimeeLouWrites on the basis that if you like my fics you will probably also like this one:

It's a Linked Universe "chain meets Wild' fic where the premise is Wild evading the quest through committing to a bunch of ridiculous lies about how the hero doesn't exist. Lots of light-hearted fun plus a few gentle servings of angst. Slightly heavier angst in a similar work by the same author called "Child's Play". But yeah I would feel pretty confident that anyone who a) enjoyed my fic "In Which Wild Avoids Meeting the Gang", and b) either doesn't mind or actually enjoys seeing the same/similar trope repeated (and imo that's the literary comfort food I go to AO3 for) would enjoy reading this.

As for other recs... if you like whumpy hurt/comfort, I've been rereading some of CluelessMoose's fics recently:

And a fic I started reading a few years ago (Undertale fandom) updated earlier today so I'm going to go ahead and link that one too. It's a long ongoing fic about Sans and Papyrus growing up in the aftermath of the war between humans and monsters. Has some tasty angst, more based on their situation than the existence of an antagonist, and plenty of cute moments. Read if you like fics about children being clever and independent; avoid if the lack of adult carers or scenes of harm/risk to children may be triggering. Content warning also for malnutrition/starvation; it's not super extreme, but it's there.

27) favourite fanfic author for the year.

Going to go with CluelessMoose, linked above. See my favourite thing to do with whump fics is to go back to particular scenes I remember and like and reread them as a bedtime story. Hell yeah, put those characters in situations!!

[meandmyechoes]

Kingohger ep33

i'm so normal in case Racules shows up in today's preview. so normal

i'm also so normal about this episode too. just a casual outfit dance. cool untransformed action. cool robot. rita-sama manspreading. with that cute red bruise on their forehead. completely normal.

OOOOOH NO OP this is gonna be good (they're saving it for the ED!!)

crying children… so classic toku…

oh no…not the ep21 gag coming back to punch my tearducts 😭

okay don't be that obvious by cueing Suzume 😅

phew glad we got the cute rita interaction out of the way first

this is so. not. Kingohger (neutral)

:D Erica showing off her piano

eh Earth Yanma Gira bickering looks even more like normal BL

plot is everything expected

absolutely giving the shiono fans everything they want (cool action, calm mentor, whump)

"amy-san is important to me" please don't be their son please don't be their son

"Nice to meet you, I am the evil king" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂❤️❤️

SUUUUUUZUUUUUUUMEEEEEEEEEE MY QUEEEEEEEEEEEN

sorry there's no way either Ian or Himeno is straight

Jeramie spinning with his mantle flying like a magical girl 💕💕💕

"My lady? I am my own" SLAY HIMENO-SAMA

*30-second heart attack from Rita-sama's "Back down. I will protect you"

Since when Watanabe Aoto became the fanservice guy??? (right from the beginning)

Uh. Congratulations I guess. Love wins. Jeramie will be very happy to officiate another suit-human wedding.

(later: *checks PN* ohhh so I didn't mis-recgonized. Nossan's sister was someone familiar (Deka Yellow))

What 😂😂. What are you guys doing why are you roll calling 😂😂😂😂 so unlike them but

好型呀呀呀呀呀呀呀呀 我嘅戰隊魂呀呀!!!!!!!!!

Hachisuka-san's split?!!?!?!!!!!!!!

gee Rita how come you get all the girls?

"Kiryu Daigorou" *sigh* that's a cute blue black moment i guess better luck finding parents with a better naming sense next time

Thank god he didn't follow them home

get out of my way end credits

"Shugo Kamen" (Masked Guardian🤔): my longest yeah boy ever

I have not used my brain ONCE this episode and I am satisfied

p.s. preview: this is the fourth time you've recreated ep1 kings' march (good keep it coming)

[lyranova]

50, 44, 43, and 14?

Hiya anon! Of course 🥰!

14 how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

Hmm, sometimes I feel what the characters feel, depending on the situation 🤔. Usually if it’s an argument, anger, fear, worry, or something like that, then I feel what they feel. But if it’s something like a break up or something I’ve never felt before then I just go based off what I’ve seen, read, or heard 😅.

Hmm, sometimes I draw from personal experience, sometimes I don’t. It depends on what I’m writing 😅. Like if it has something to do with anxiety, depression, or something personal like that I will ocassionally draw from personal experience, but not too much, y’know?

43 Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

Ooof…I think the first one 😆! Cause sometimes it’s just…fun to put characters in sad and angsty positions! Like I’ve put William, Yamichar, Greyche, through sooo much angst over the past couple of years and even though it’s rare, I always enjoy it in a weird/sadistic way 😆!

44 What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?

I keep forgetting words 😭! Now I don’t have a beta, but i will straight up notice (when I read a fic) that I will have completely forgotten to add a word in a sentence. Now when I read it, or when I’m typing, I will *think* I’ve added the word, but I actually haven’t 😅. I do it even when texting, dming, and talking to people normally! It freaking sucks 😭!

50 How long is your longest fic?

Sooo I think my longest *posted* fic is actually the “Touch Me Like You Do” YuNeva fic that’ll be posted today! The SFW version is only 3k words, but the NSFW version is at 6.4k words!

My longest *unposted* fic is called “Fractured Diamond X” and it is at 7.2k words!

My longest series so far is “Children of the Future” which is 104k words long!

[defire]

Dance of Death Chapter 5:

She Said What

Content warnings for this chapter: Discussion of child abuse, fantasy racism, mild horror

[There's more whump in the next chapter... I didn't know people liked whump when I was writing this so I was trying to ease people into it.]

Saturday was the first clear day after a week of rain and wind storms. Nife went up the carpeted stairs in one of the Wry's small hosting rooms, called the Fireplace Room. Every Saturday, Nife and her friends gathered here to taste artisan teas and relax away from their houses. Black wooden pillars throughout supported the vaulted ceilings, giving just enough reverb to make their laughter sound more full. They often pulled up chairs near the small fireplace near the middle of the room. Their bright eyes reflected the blaze, shades of orange and red, with a couple blue-eyed Bane oddities lingering around the edges of the group.

Often the so-called "relaxing" turned into a wild release of the pent-up energy the teenagers had been stuffing down all week, as they tried to behave for their parents and teachers. However, most of the group was actually sitting in the chairs instead of standing on them or daring each other to climb on stacks of them.

Nife noticed the minute she came in that Greeviss wasn’t there.

"She said what?" Starren was demanding as she entered, standing up as Nife quietly entered the tea gathering in the Fireplace Room.

Kit, who was bent forward on one of the couches, speaking to Starren, looked up as Nife came in. He made a small head-bow in Nife's direction with a slightly awkward smile.

"Nife," Starren said, looking shocked. "Did you try to convince Lord Amlee not to... sternly discuss things... with Greeviss?"

Nife's smile twitched.

"If that's your idea of a 'stern discussion', I'd hate to see your definition of 'shouting'." Nife said, finding her fingers fluttering at her hip, itching to play with her daggers.

"Did you?" Starren insisted.

"Direct today, aren't you?"

"I'm always direct." Starren flipped her voluminous mane behind her with an overt side-eye at Nife. She hated how underhanded Nife was, and Nife enjoyed the blazes out of that.

"I know." Nife smirked.

She meandered to the table with a sample-sized bag of tea. The others crowded around, but it was not for the new tea. They were looking at her sideways, as if they didn't want to speak, but wanted to hear her answer. Finally she relented, sighing.

"I walked in on him abusing Greeviss," Nife paused, looking around for him. He wasn't there. "Do you expect me to walk by when someone's getting hurt?"

The others didn't move or speak for a minute. For a group of teenagers, that was very strange.

"From what I heard, all he did was slap him," Kit said gently. "Can you really call that abuse?"

Nife turned to him, slowly, jaw dropping.

"Wow, really, Kit..." She said. "Can I really call that abuse? Really?"

She shook her head, looking around to see if the others agreed. Maybe it wasn't abuse for herself, but for anybody else, well... She'd been raised with the understanding that all people are equal, and they should all be treated the same, with allowances for their physical and mental capabilities. Of course, she didn't really have a place in society, but the others here were all very important to Nife.

"Nife, it seems you don't understand what you've put your foot in," Starren said. "That's not considered abusive. You can't really 'abuse' someone who has no legal rights. Trying to go against that is useless. Everyone's against you."

“Did you say no legal rights?” Nife said, amused smile faltering.

“Yeah. My mother rubs it in my face every chance she gets.” Starren rolled her eyes. “You have no allies if you’re going to stand against the adults.”

"What about us?" Nife said, looking around at the others, who mostly took positions around them softly, sipping tea and looking uncomfortable. 

"Us?" Kit snorted. "Don't you understand? We're children. There's nothing we can do."

"I mean what do you call this?" Nife said with a mild shrug. "We're here making contacts. Planning our futures. Not like they're doing anything different."

"They just let us go to get us out of their way." Starren said bitterly. "We're barely even people to them."

Nife flipped a stirring stick in her hands a few times thoughtfully. Her parents made her feel unimportant, but not… barely a person, like Starren suggested. She was beginning to get a very bad opinion of Starren’s mother.

"I mean how different are we from them, really?" Kit said. "We have the same thoughts, feelings, the same souls."

"They're in control, that's what's different." Starren spat.

Nife watched the older girl grind her teeth. Something was definitely off with her as well.

"Well, nothing will change unless we change it." Nife said. "Look at us, children of the most powerful nobles in Gapp, complaining that we have no power. We all have souls, same as them. We have essentially the same amount of power as any other soul does. Why don't we draft some laws? Get Grip to propose them, since he's the only actual lord we've got with us." She nodded at him. "Call ourselves the Souls. What do you think?"

Nife had been flipping the stirring stick while she talked. The room had gradually become more quiet, and as she waited for a response, there was a full lull in even the minor conversations that left the reverberant room uncharacteristically quiet.

For a while, no one answered. He was just one lord out of about a hundred minor lords. They'd need a major lord on their side to have any chance at serious political footing. And Nife knew that Raizden was out of the question.

"I mean, maybe our parents are right." Caboodle said quietly. When he got glares, he swallowed nervously and began to prepare a flask of tea with the new kind Nife had brought, but his hands trembled nervously. "I mean," He added. "They say 'Prepare them for the harshness of the world.' Outside these walls the war is still going on; maybe... maybe we'll have to fight."

"I do not believe this." Nife shook her head, leaning back on the couch to process.

"Nife!" Starren barked so loud, several people jumped. Nife's eyes snapped coolly to her. "Stop this now before someone gets hurt. You may have nothing to lose, but we still have to go home to our parents every night!"

Nife frowned, wondering why Starren made it sound so serious. She now noticed that several of them had minor injuries--before, she'd assumed they were accidents, but Starren had a round burn mark under her ear, and Kit had a bruise on the inside of his arm that he kept unconsciously rubbing.

"Wait..." Nife looked around at her friends. Starren, Kit, Caboodle, almost everyone except Flower–another Druid–shared a pained, foreboding look in one way or another.

"No." She stared. "Are you telling me it's not just Greeviss?"

Nobody said anything.

"Kit?" She said.

Kit flushed and looked down, swirling the tea in his flask, as if to mix in the honey. 

She heard a snap and looked down in her hand. The stirring-stick had broken in her fingers. She clenched her teeth, staring at the snapped bamboo.

"I see." She said, trying to pretend to be calm even as she flushed with anger. "Someone has to stop this."

The others looked at each other like they'd already thought of that, and it hadn't worked.

Nife glared.

"Someone has to."

After the meeting, Nife, Kit and Caboodle walked briskly toward their homes together, to try to get more time together before the curfew forced them to separate. Cozy shadows cloaked the city. Nife's boots clanged on the catwalks of 10th street, reverberating off the piping and struts in every direction around them. Gas lamps at every street corner glowed softly through the mist, hampering Nife's nightsight a little.

This street was far above the poisonous miasma reeking up from the bottom. In case they did have to walk on the dangerous lower levels, they wore masks that were enchanted to protect their lungs. 

"I don't know how you're always so sure about what to do." Kit said to Nife.

"She's just pretending." Caboodle said. 

"I would never," Nife lied. "You read me just like you read entrails."

"I don't... read entrails." Caboodle frowned.

"Exactly." Nife said, ruffling his hair.

"Stop." Caboodle said. He took out a pocket comb and combed it down to the correct shape. He even carefully whisked the ends up to the sides in a way that looked like the wind had blown it there or something.

Nife snatched the comb out of his hand just before he put it back in his pocket.

"Hey!" He lunged for it. She laughed, spinning it between her fingers. 

"Just try it." She tossed it, caught it in the other hand, and made it dance again.

He narrowed his eyes and swiped at it again. This time she let him grab it out of her hands, making it look like a mistake. He panted, shoving it back into his pocket, grinning victoriously at her. But suddenly he startled back from the edge, looking scared.

They were standing on a street about eight levels up from the bottom of the city. Above and below, catwalks, stairs, sidewalks, and covered tunnels clogged the alleys and gaps between the buildings.

"What?" Kit said.

"I saw something." Caboodle said faintly.

"What, a shadow?" Nife teased.

"...Eyes. He whispered.

Nife looked at Kit. He looked scared, and he was sixteen, so she should probably be scared as well.

"Let's get out of here." He said, pushing Caboodle forward ahead of him. 

Nife felt out into the darkness using her "nightsight", which was what Druids called their heat vision. She felt underneath the street they were now hurrying down, to feel if she could sense any creatures below. There was no one down there, not even a rodent.

"I think it's alright." Nife said. 

"How would you even know?" Kit said, looking back to make sure she was keeping up with them. 

They were going at an unpleasantly fast speed; Nife hurried to keep up with them, panting. 

"Wait!" Caboodle whispered, sounding horrified. He was staring straight ahead of them out at the road. "It's--I saw it again."

"Eyes?" Nife said, sighing. "Come on, Caboodle..."

She stopped, when she realized she could see a sort of shadow in the path ahead of them. 

"No..." Caboodle said softly, pointing at it. "That."

She squinted at the thing. There was something utterly wrong about it--something she couldn't put her finger on for a moment. And then she realized what it was. It was cold--cold as the air around it. It had no body heat at all.

It was horrifyingly featureless. It was already too dark outside to make out much of each others' faces, but the creature must have been wearing a long, open cloak, because it was nothing but a black silhouette. There were no eyes visible, though, which was a good thing, because they would've had to have been glowing to make out in this light.

"Come on." Nife stepped back like she was going to run. They were both faster than her. The moment they moved ahead of her, she turned around to face the thing, drawing her daggers.

She'd already seen that it could at least climb as fast as any Druid, and it would probably outrun them. Its crouch matched that of a humanoid preparing to pounce--it was hunting them. She refused to let it catch them from behind.

"Nife, don't!" Kit said. 

He went so far as to pull at her arm, which was highly inappropriate in Bane society. She pushed his hand off her arm. Nife knew that when you run, you panic. Facing the beast was the best option.

The thing started moving toward her. It jogged toward them, cape flouncing at its dark heels, in an almost silly way that only made it that much more terrifying. Her stomach dropped. She imagined it getting close, opening a black maw and sucking her soul into its greedy stomach, then pouncing on her, tearing her apart neck-first. 

"Nife!" Kit repeated, retreating from the creature. His voice was breaking. "Nife, please, run with us." 

"I can't run as fast as you can." Nife said over her shoulder. "You guys go ahead, I'll catch up."

Yeah, like she'd catch up with this thing on her, she thought.

She swallowed, staring the thing down, and blinked, forcing the mental image of her dagger targets back home onto it. It's not a monster, it's just a target, she told herself. 

Okay, maybe it's both.

It flopped closer, something blue glinting momentarily under its hat as it approached. She almost thought she'd seen a hungry grin.

Seeing the way it moved, she flipped her right hand dagger, the silver moth stiletto from Warren. If it lunged, she'd need to have something short range in her off hand. 

Then she threw her left-hand dagger.

It lunged unpredictably at the same time, making a crazed bob in her direction, but as the dagger clacked and bounced on the cement just past where it had been a moment ago, it froze.

"That was a warning." She glared at it, voice trembling slightly.

Now that it was closer, she could see that it wore a tall hat, a cloak, and tattered clothes. She realized she was now nervously flipping a third left-hand dagger the way she'd been flipping Caboodle's comb. It danced between her fingers almost mindlessly, giving her just enough presence of mind to realize she should be backing away, without the ability to actually do it.

Feet rooted to the spot, she raised her next throwing dagger threateningly. It flinched and twisted its head slightly. Again, there was a glint from under its hat. Then it leapt to its right, clinging onto the wall of a building nearby, and skidded and slipped down it to the catwalks below like a squirrel rushing down a tree. She heard it rattling away toward the bottom of the city. The dagger in her hand slipped through her fingers and clattered on the ground.

She sank to her knees and stared ahead at her where the dagger she'd thrown lay on the pavement, right next to where its defiled feet had stood a moment ago. Suddenly she realized she was able to breathe again, and shuddered.

"You scared it off!" Caboodle was saying. "I can't believe you scared it off."

Nife looked back, realizing Kit was frozen with his hands on the rail, staring past her where the thing had been.

She got up slowly, trembling. His eyes moved to her.

"Oh Nife." He said. "Please, never do that again."

"Oh, don't worry, I wasn't even scared," She said. "I'm a fighting Druid. We know how to handle this kind of thing."

"Wait, you knew what that was?" Kit said.

"Well, it was a shadowy ghost creature." Nife said. "You couldn't tell?"

"I've never heard of this kind of thing." Kit said.

Nife fell silent as they got closer to Kit and Caboodle's house. She was glad they were going to get home first.

"Will you be alright?" Kit said. "I'm concerned that the shadowy ghost creature might come back."

"I'll kick its ass if it comes back." Nife shrugged.

Yeah, more like pass out, she thought.

They waved goodbye, and the shadowy ghost creature didn't reappear on Nife's way home.

First chapter: Next chapter:

Taglist: @tildeathiwillwrite @mimostic @fleur-a-whump @a-n-j-a-maria

Per Tumblr's content policy, this is the non-nsfw version of Dance of Death.

For anyone following along on this story that wants the canon NSFW version of the story for free, I’m posting this story on ao3 as well, part by part. You can get the full book right away on amazon for $0.99, but I just want to make it possible for anyone to access.

If you like this book, it would mean so much to me if you leave a review of Dance of Death on Amazon.

[estevesia-whump]

hell's right hand (1.2): from the shadows

CW/TW: not much

note: this one is a bit of a filler that provides context for character background and future events; if you're only here for the whump feel free to skip!

-

Aurelie drives quickly, but the way she stops and accelerates isn't jerky, so Liexia's quite comfortable on the car roof.

"You're gonna call your mom, right?" Evander asks as they drive over a bridge. "You said--"

"Yeah, I'm calling her."

She turns down the brightness of her screen to match the dark of the night before dialing her mom's number. It rings twice, and then her mom is on the line.

"What do you need, Liexia?"

She's disappointed. Whatever.

"I've got an injured guy with me. We're heading to one of Yanglun-shu's* motels, the one south of Heilonsk. It's probably an hour from where you are right now?"

"Liexia, this is the third time you've asked me to--"

"He's been... he's been raped, Ma. Please?"

A long sigh. "What's the address?"

*note: "shu", or "shushu" is an honorific used to address an older male that is around your parents' age

-

It only takes another half an hour to get to the motel. Most of the kids have already fallen asleep, and Kyre has as well, so Evander and Aurelie carry them one by one into the motel as Liexia checks in. The receptionist looks just about asleep, probably not quite registering the metallic smell of blood. Liexia takes her gloves off as the keys are handed over and goes to the rooms she booked.

"You only booked two?" Evander whispers, gently placing one of the children on the first bed.

"Four beds total. 3 kids per bed. You can sleep next to Kyre on the last bed if you want. Aurie and I need to get in contact with their parents as soon as we can, so we're not gonna sleep tonight."

"Did you guys plan this out already?"

"Yeah. It's fine. You've done basically all the heavy lifting today. You need to rest."

Evander snorts softly. "Ironic coming from you."

"Shut up and get the kids in here. My mom'll be here in half an hour to check on Kyre."

-

"Nothing looks infected so far. It looks worse than it really is. That is one lucky boy. I'll have to take a urine sample to test for other things once he wakes up, so keep him hydrated, okay? Did you book a room for me as well?" Liexia's mom asks.

"I can if you want."

"No need."

It's silent in the hallway, and her mom looks away. "Liexia, I really don't think this is the path for you. Even if you want to go the... mercenary route, at least work under your father. Whatever you're doing right now is dangerous, and you're involving Evander and Aurelie at a time where your peers are starting to consider university."

"But I don't need university, Ma. I make enough money already."

"It's not about the money. I'm worried about your safety. Evander and Aurelie's safety. And the people you're hurting..."

"They deserved it," Liexia hisses, biting her tongue before she can say more. "And who'll protect the innocent, if not me?"

"What you're doing is not protecting the innocent, Liexia. You need to let the authorities deal with the things you are taking into your own hands."

"But they don't do anything! If I had let the authorities get there before me today, everyone would've walked free. You don't get it."

Eyebrows furrowed, her mother can only look away. "I can't tell you what to do anymore, Liexia, but just know that your father has positions open for you if you ever want to rejoin the organization. I'm going to book myself a room and get some sleep. Wake me up once the boy wakes up."

"Yeah. G'night."

Liexia turns around to enter the room where six of the children are sleeping soundly and Aurelie is waiting.

"Any ways of contacting their parents?" Liexia asks, lowering her voice as soon as the door is locked behind her.

Aurelie scratches her neck. "I tried all the phone numbers the kids gave me earlier. They don't... they don't exist anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I tried looking up the kids' names on the government-- point is, someone erased them, or something. Legally, they don't exist... honestly, I'm really confused right now. I've never seen this before."

Liexia sighs. "If you're confused, I'm more confused. Let me see the laptop."

"Wait, I also found a USB," Aurelie says, plugging it in.

Liexia flips through the files, but the USB only contains videos, no documents. "Where'd you get this again? The USB?"

"It was in the security part of the building. You killed the guard, remember? So I went in to look for anything important after you kept going, but this USB was all they had plugged in to the computer. That's it."

"Ah. Have you watched any of the videos yet?"

Aurelie shakes her head. "I don't think I want to see, or I won't forget, ever. Literally."

"I know. We don't have time to watch every single one of them, either. I'll just--wait, is that?"

The mouse hovers over the thumbnail of all the children, Kyre included, gathered in one room. Without properly thinking it through, Liexia clicks on it.

[besttropeveershowdown]

Since the bracket screenshots are very hard to read, here's a list of all the matchups for round 1!

Side A

Found Family vs. Soulmates

Foil vs. Mirror Character

Decon-Recon Switch vs. Our Trolls Are Different

Rousseau Was Right vs. Historical Badass Upgrade

Science Is Good vs. The Artful Dodger

I Owe You My Life vs. Bait-and-Switch Tyrant

Badass Pacifist vs. Battle in the Center of the Mind

Gambit Pileup vs. Buffy Speak

You Did Everything You Could vs. The Team

Moral Dilemma vs. "Not So Different" Remark

But They Stayed In the Car vs. Self-Sacrifice Scheme

Starfish Aliens vs. Outlaw Couple

Dream Sequence vs. Silly Rabbit, Cynicism is for Losers!

Drunk Hookup-> Hilarious Morning After vs. Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?

Storyboarding the Apocalypse vs. Break The Cutie

Murdered Cousin vs. In Medias Res

Fire-Forged Friends vs. First Contact

Time Travel vs. Self-Inflicted Hell

Ragtag Bunch of Misfits vs. Your Days Are Numbered

Time Loop vs. Unreliable Narrator

Friends to Lovers vs. Everyone Is Bi

Important Haircut vs. Came Back Wrong

The Anti-Nihilist vs. Mono No Aware

Shadow Archetype vs. Hurt/Comfort or Whump

Knight of Cerebus vs. Prophetical Semantics

True Companions vs. The Trickster

Locked in a Room vs. Magnificent Bastard

Beethoven Was an Alien Spy vs. Genre Savvy

Evil Twin vs. Minor Injury Overreaction

Grey-and-Gray Morality vs. Body Swap

Enemies to Lovers vs. Accidental Parental Figure

From Zero to Hero vs. Horny Scientist

Side B

Berserk Button vs. Caper Crew

Flock of Wolves vs. Team Pet

Five Man Band vs. Disguised as Male

Shapeshifting Trickster vs. Anthropomorphic Personification

Dramatic Irony vs. You Can't Go Home Again

Subverted Kids' Show vs. Badass Bookworm

Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass vs. Isekai/Genre Refugee

Wham Shot vs. Unseen Evil

Little Miss Con Artist vs. Punch-Clock Villain

Mama Bear vs. Internal Reveal

Sleight of Tongue vs. Enemy Mine

Guile Hero vs. Tsundere

Memory Gambit vs. Recursive Crossdressing

Disguised Horror Story vs. Wham Line

Secret Identity vs. Terror Hero

Students' Secret Society vs. Mugged for Disguise

Road Trip Plot vs. Fantastic Fauna Counterpart

Opposites Attract vs. Amnesia

Heel-Face Turn vs. Rewriting Reality

Bavarian Fire Drill vs. Butterfly Effect

Morality Pet vs. Cloning Blues

Tragic Villain vs. Clipboard of Authority

The Con vs. Battle Couple

Beware the Nice Ones vs. Animal Motif

Hitman with a Heart vs. Big Damn Heroes

Friends to Enemies vs. Hurricane of Puns

Affably Evil vs. My God, What Have I Done

Swamp Monster vs. Chekhov's Gunman

Fake Dating vs. Gentle Giant

Stupid Sexy Flanders vs. Non-Human Head

Sea Serpents vs. Furry Reminder

Children's Covert Coterie vs. The Creon

Side C

Arrested for Heroism vs. The Dragon

Unreliable Expositor vs. Well-Intentioned Extremist

Friends to Enemies to Lovers vs. Undying Loyalty

Precision F-Strike vs. Powerful, Fucked-Up Family

Pragmatic Villainy vs. Big, Screwed-Up Family

Ape Shall Never Kill Ape vs. Tragic Bromance

Just You and Me and my GUARDS vs. Tomato in the Mirror

Lovable Rogue vs. Refusal of the Call

Second Law My Ass vs. Batman Gambit

Not Quite Dead vs. Sapient House

Call A Human a Meatbag vs. Faux Affably Evil

Nice Job Fixing It Villain vs. Conversation of Ninjutsu

Beach Episode vs. The Gadfly

Beware the Silly Ones vs. Jedi Mind Trick

You Are Better Than You Think You Are vs. Superpowered Evil Side

Murder Is The Best Solution vs. Comedic Sociopathy

The Power of Language vs. The Power of Friendship

Face Death With Dignity vs. Prolonged Pining

Too Dumb to Live vs. Central Theme

Suspiciously Specific Denial vs. Deadpan Snarker

Blessed with Suck vs. Setting as a Character

Cast Full of Gay vs. Heel-Face Revolving Door

Aliens Speaking English vs. Stumbling Upon the Lost Wizard

For the Evulz vs. Spare to the Throne

My Powers are Gone vs. Reformed But Not Tamed

King and Lionheart vs. Marriage of Convenience

Even Evil Has Standards vs. Then Let Me Be Evil

Delirious Misidentification vs. Big Beautiful Man

Playing Nice for Now vs. Teeth-Clenched Teamwork

Intimate Haircut vs. Arranged Marriage

Dating Catwoman vs. Incurable Cough of Death

Ambiguous Gender vs. Kill the Gods

Brackets for BTES

Brackets are out, everyone! (that was quicker than expected)

We have 192 submissions, so the plan is to have 3 sides of 64 tropes each, the champions of which will make up the final three! Polls for side A will be released sometime this weekend, with side B and side C coming shortly after.

Side A:

Side B:

Side C:

[beananacake]

Family Matters

A Savior one-shot

Ikaris x fem!guardian angel!reader

Summary: Ikaris has felt a hum for millennia and he's never questioned it, until he found the source.

One-shot Summary: You didn’t want to see her like this—never wanted to see any of them in any sort of pain—and you knew you would do everything you could to make her feel better.

Word Count: ~6k words

Warnings: whump! Parent!Ikaris, mentions of diseases and medical procedures (nothing too explicit), some profanity, medical jargon (is that a warning?)

A/N: Hello, hello! A few weeks back, I mentioned missing Angel and Ikaris and I also did say we have a certain mind controller who's coming to guest-star in a one-shot. Druig would have to wait, because it's Sprite's time to shine. So this takes place about a year after the Emergence and I made Sprite age 12 here, just in case there is any confusion. Like always, this isn't beta'd so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. Reviews, comments, suggestions, requests (and reblogs) are super welcome! Please enjoy Family Matters!

Catch Ikaris and Angel's origin story here! (SAVIOR)

Main Masterlist

There was something wrong with Sprite, you knew.

Usually, she would tell you and Ikaris of how frustrating it was to deal with children—which was ironic because she was the same physical age as they were and everyone else considered her a child—and she would vent out how much she wanted to just go out and do all the things she wasn’t able to do when she was still stuck in the Eternally young body Arishem chose to put her in. Instead, when she got home, she looked a lot sicklier than before. You had half a mind to not to send her to school earlier today, worried about how she changed from bad to worse in less than twelve hours. At breakfast, she was already complaining of a mild tummy ache but now, you watched as she doubled over her dinnerplate and knew it was nothing mild anymore.

Yep. There was definitely something wrong with Sprite.

“Sprite?” you called softly as you approached her. You touched her shoulder and recoiled at the heat that emanated from her. It was far too hot to be her normal body temperature. “Sprite, why didn’t you tell me you’re feverish?”

She only groaned in response, still hunched over her dinner. “Didn’t-didn’t want to w-worry you,” she told you slowly before groaning again.

You frowned, knowing that it was impossible to not worry for any of the other Eternals and her, and crouched to meet her face. “How long have you been feverish? You weren’t this warm when you left for school today.”

She scrunched her face again as another wave of pain took over her. “It only got worse at school.”

“With the stomach ache too?”

She nodded.

“What’s wrong with Sprite?”

You looked up to see your boyfriend as he entered the kitchen. Ikaris was frowning in concern as he watched his former-fellow-Eternal-now-turned-foster-kid. Even when he wasn’t showy of it, you knew he cared for her too.

“She’s feverish,” you told him, placing your hand on her back and rubbing soothing circles at it. You turned your attention back to her. “Do you think you can finish your dinner before you go to bed?”

She shook her head. “C-can’t. I don’t have the appetite for it.”

Something’s wrong-wrong, you thought to yourself worriedly. You cooked her favorite food tonight and even when she was full from having an after-school snack, she always made room to eat it. She never had no appetite for it. Except now, when she looked really, really sick.

But you kept your worry to yourself, not wanting to alarm the both of them.

“Do you want soup?” you asked instead.

“No.”

“Well, you need to eat anything. Do you think you can down a bottle of Gatorade?”

“Maybe. I j-just wanna lie down.”

“Okay. I’ll bring you some upstairs.”

You watched worriedly as she slowly made her way back to her room, arm still around her middle and hunched in pain as she ascended the stairs. Ikaris watched her the same way you did.

“I don’t know much about humans and diseases, Angel,” Ikaris told you, tone hopeless. “Is there any way I can help Sprite?”

“I don’t know, my love. The best I can do is bring her fever down.” You told him with a helpless shrug. You took her plate from the table and started to throw her uneaten food if it wasn’t for Ikaris taking it from your hands and doing it himself. “Can you bring a basin of water and a hand towel to her room?”

“Okay. Do you need anything else?”

“No. Just that.” You took the bottle of energy drink from the fridge and made your way to Sprite’s room.

You knocked gently, pushing the door open. Sprite was on her bed, lying in a fetal position on her side, covers up to her ears. There was still that pained strain about her face and your heart went out to her. You let some of your calming powers to your fingertips and you touched the side of her face. The relief was instant on her and her breathing became deeper and even.

“Hey.” You said quietly. “I have your drink. I just need you to take a couple of sips.”

She rose from her bed slowly. You handed her the uncapped energy drink and watched as she took tentative sips before passing it back to you.

“You need to drink some more,” you urged.

“No—” She lurched forward, a loud heaving noise coming from her before she groaned. “I’m so nauseous. I don’t want to eat or drink anything.”

Your brows knitted together in concern as you help her upright. She grabbed her abdomen again, and tears now sprung at the corner of her eyes.

“It hurts, Y/N.” she whimpered.

Your heart ached at the pain in her voice. Sprite was never one to complain about any body ailments and this was the first time you heard her whimper.

“What hurts, honey?” you asked, holding her face gently and suffusing your calming powers over her. “Where does it hurt?”

“My right side. It hurts really bad.”

The door to her room opened and you turned to see Ikaris bring over the basin to you. He set it down and watched from the foot of Sprite’s bed, not knowing what to do. You didn’t even want to tell him that Sprite refused to drink more of the Gatorade. Ikaris would just worry and then you would worry and you would have done nothing because you would be busy worrying.

“Ikaris, can you try calling Phastos? My phone is on the dresser in our bedroom.” You were hugging Sprite now, rubbing her back, trying your best to soothe her as you waited for Ikaris to get hold of Phastos.

“I d-don’t even know what happened, Y/N.” Sprite told you. “I thought it was the-the flu but it didn’t g-go away after today.”

“Shh. It’s okay, Sprite. We’ll know once we ask Phastos.” You wiped the sweat from her forehead, pitying your friend for the pain she was going through. You didn’t want to see her like this—never wanted to see any of them in any sort of pain—and you knew you would do everything you could to make her feel better.

Sprite was human now and that meant she was more fragile than both you and Ikaris. And she was a little girl, not a grown adult like your late husband Jack had been. When he was sick, you only nursed him back to health by wiping his brow with cool water and feeding him a bowl of chicken soup. But what he had was different; he had only been feverish and it went away after a day and it was nothing close to what Sprite had, who was heaving and nauseous and obviously in more pain than he had been.

Ikaris entered the room, your phone ringing in his hand. “Didn’t he say they’re going on a vacation?” he asked you.

Oh, right. “Well, we’ll try, okay? Maybe he’ll pick it up when he sees it’s from me.”

Only, Phastos didn’t and you were still left with an in-obvious-pain tween, whose complaints were increasing by the minute.

“I think we should get you to the hospital, Sprite.” You told her gently, wiping the sweat that dotted her forehead.

She shook her head vehemently at that, groaning. “No. No. I don’t want them to stick me with needles.”

“We don’t know what’s wrong with you,” you said. “You’re human now, Sprite, and I think other humans would know what’s going on inside you.”

“B-but…”

“Please? You didn’t even eat dinner and you couldn’t even down half of the Gatorade. I’m starting to worry. At least in the hospital, they’ll take a look at you and know what’s wrong." You took her hand in yours and infused it with your power, knowing it was the only thing you could do for her for now.

"Y/N has a point, Sprite.” Ikaris said from behind you. “Maybe all they’ll do is give you painkillers when we get there.”

Sprite’s nod was small and feeble. You turned to Ikaris and nodded at him. “Get the car ready, my love. We’ll be downstairs.”

You pushed her covers aside and helped her rise slowly. She took one step but she doubled over and clutched her right side again, tears now falling from her eyes.

“It hurts so much,” you cried. “I can’t walk, Y/N.”

“I can carry you down if you’d let me.”

When she nodded, you swung her gently into your arms and brought her down to the car. You deposited her on the back seat and secured the seatbelt across her body. You took the front seat beside Ikaris and inputted the address to the hospital on the GPS. Taking a look at Sprite through the rear-view mirror, you only hoped that what she was experiencing was a nasty stomach bug that should go away in a day or two.

“Sprite, tell me everything that’s happened since you got this sick so I can tell it to the doctor.” You said to her.

She recounted everything: from the first moment she started feeling sick to the moment she couldn’t even stomach the smell of food because it made her nauseous. She told you of how difficult it was for her to go up the stairs and how the pain was always on her right and that it radiated outward with every jostle and step and even jump during her P.E. classes. You memorized every single thing she said just in time for you to arrive at the hospital.

You took her in your arms again and rushed to the E.R. when her groans and cries were growing concerning. The nurse took one look at Sprite and immediately asked for a stretcher. Once she was laid across it, the nurse whisked you away for the paperwork while a porter brought her to one of the observation cubicles.

“May I know what’s wrong with the patient?” the nurse asked as she handed you a clipboard with paperwork.

You told her everything Sprite had told you in the car while you answered the paperwork. Ikaris arrived a few minutes after, looking everywhere for any sign of Sprite.

“Where is she, Angel?” he asked you.

“Can someone get my mom?” you heard Sprite in one of the makeshift rooms of the E.R. “Please.”

You passed the pen to Ikaris, shooting an apologetic glance at the nurse. “My boyfriend will fill in the other details, ma’am. I need to get to my daughter.” To Ikaris, you said: “Can you finish this for me? Put in Phastos’s number for the other emergency contact. I just need to get to Sprite.”

You found Sprite in one of the curtain cubicles, hugging herself in a fetal position in bed, with an IV line stuck on her hand. Your heart called out to her as you sat beside her and took her hand in yours, softly brushing the hair on her forehead.

“Hey. I see they already got the needle in. Do you know if they took any blood samples?” you asked gently. You let your power to your fingertips and let them out with every stroke of her hair.

Sprite nodded and huddled closer to you. You let your head rest against the bed, forehead touching hers.

“You’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promised all of you, didn’t I?” you murmured. “Maybe I’ll let something happen to Ikaris once in a while because he deserves it.” You saw the impish smile on her face despite the pain she was in. “But I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“If this is what it takes to be human, I don’t want it.” she whispered.

“Getting sick is part of it, Sprite. My Jack went through something like this too and I panicked so hard because the hospitals weren’t as sophisticated as they are today. He lived through it without the medical intervention. We’re at the hospital now and you’re in a far better position than he had been. I’m sure you would get through this, too. You have the heart of a fighter.” You tucked her titian hair behind her ear.

“That’s you,” she said before hunching again. You tightened your hold on her hand.

“As my fake daughter,” you whispered, “I can say I passed on my fighter heart to you, too.”

She smiled again at that.

“Now, don’t worry about anything else. Right now, just rest and relax. Ikaris and I will talk to the doctors before they’ll talk to you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied meekly.

“Are you hungry now? Do you want me to ask if I could get you something to eat?”

She shook her head. “I’m still nauseous.”

“Okay. Just rest and relax. I’m here. Ikaris is here.”

The night went by agonizingly slow. Ikaris finished the paperwork and found the two of you huddled close together. He sat opposite from you, patting Sprite’s shoulder from time to time to soothe her. Your fingertips had started to heat up from your constant usage of your powers but you didn’t complain, even happily letting more of your calm out to help your friend. Sprite, however, had calmed considerably but she still groaned and whined from time to time. Despite whatever it was in the IV that they put for pain relief, the pain in her abdomen didn’t let. You only grew more worried after every complaint.

The curtains parted. “Sprite?”

You looked up at the sound of Sprite’s name, to the doctor who held a chart in his hand and was looking at the three of you expectantly. “Sprite?”

You let go of Sprite’s hand and stood. “Yes, that’s my daughter’s name. I’m Y/N, her mother.”

“I’m Dr. Samuels. Her blood test results came back and—”

“Can we speak of this out of her earshot? I don’t want her to worry.” You asked.

“Of course. This way, please.” He parted the curtains for you.

“Do you mind if her dad would come along?”

“Not at all. Please, come this way.”

You nodded at Ikaris to follow the doctor and returned to Sprite, touching her face gently. “We’re just going to talk with the doctor and we’ll get back to you. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay.”

You joined the two men outside of Sprite’s curtain cubicle. Dr. Samuels was showing Ikaris something on the clipboard when you stepped up to them.

“Her blood results all came back normal. So far, there is nothing wrong with Sprite.” The doctor told you. He pointed at some tests and told you that they were all within normal levels and that there shouldn’t be anything wrong with her.

“No. That’s not possible. She wouldn’t be in this amount of pain if everything else is showing up as normal.” You told them, frowning at the doctor.

“Unfortunately, the labs don’t lie. If I ask them to rerun the tests, it would show up the same thing.” He closed the chart with a click. “Have you maybe considered that she is just doing this to get out of school? Children sometimes tend to feign an illness to get out of going to school.”

You shook your head at him, offended he would even suggest something like that when she was undoubtedly in pain. “No. My daughter won’t do that. She’s not a crier but the way she cried in pain today told me something’s wrong with her.”

“The lab tests say otherwise.”

“Maybe there’s something you’ve overlooked?” Ikaris said. He had stood beside you and pulled you to him and was rubbing your arm in an attempt to relax you. Nothing could relax you, especially since this doctor was insistent nothing’s wrong with Sprite when there obviously was. “Did you run all the necessary tests for someone her age and the way she’s in pain?”

“Yes, I have but—”

“Doctor. I know my daughter. I know she’s in an inordinate amount of pain right now and every second I’m trying to convince you of that is another second of her in agony. She’s been in pain for nearly the whole day now. She can’t even sit up straight without clutching her right side. She can’t even take a step because her abdomen’s in too much pain. I’m pretty sure she’s not faking it.”

Dr. Samuels frowned at you and opened the chart once more. “Would you mind if I have a look at your daughter again, ma’am?”

“Please.” You parted the curtains yourself and stepped aside. “Be my guest.”

“Sprite, my name is Dr. Samuels.” The doctor said as he donned his examination gloves.

You and Ikaris stood the side opposite of the doctor and Sprite was looking at the both of you with fearful eyes. You only shook your head at her, assuring her by holding her hand.

“I’m going to do a bit of a physical exam on you. I’m going to be pressing on your abdomen. It shouldn’t hurt but if it does, you have to tell me when and where.”

At Sprite’s nod, the doctor began his exam. He pushed and prodded around her abdomen, checking for something you had no idea about but nodding his head when she didn’t react to any of it. Only when it came to her right side and he pressed down, she yelped and told them that that was where it hurt the most and had been hurting for the last few hours. Dr. Samuels excused himself and left in a hurry.

“Is something wrong, Y/N?” Sprite asked and you noted the fear in her voice.

You only shook your head at her, gripping her hand in yours tightly. “I’m sure that’s nothing. How are you feeling now?”

“It still hurts.” She groaned again and curled in on herself.

Dr. Samuels returned and introduced his companion—an ultrasound technician—to the three of you. The distressed look on Sprite’s face was almost funny if it weren’t for the circumstances.

“We’re going to take a look on the inside of your right side, okay, Sprite? You’ll feel a bit of pressure when she presses down on you but it should be over quick.” Dr. Samuels said.

You all kept your eyes on the grainy gray screen the doctor was looking, knowing that the three of you had no idea of whatever it was showing. The doctor and the technician spoke in hushed voices, pointing at the blurry figure on the screen. You fished out a couple of words like ‘swollen’ and ‘acute’ and ‘ready’ but that was the extent of what you heard. They were too quiet and they only spoke to each other in a language only they understood.

“Can I please talk to you outside while the tech finishes up the scan?” the doctor asked you and Ikaris.

You three stepped out once more but this time, there was an urgency to the doctor’s face. You swallowed the fear that came up to you and stood close to Ikaris.

“You’re right that there is something wrong with Sprite. Unfortunately, what she has is acute appendicitis. What happens is that her appendix is inflamed and that is what’s causing her pain. Unfortunately also, we cannot just diagnose appendicitis with blood work. When you told me she’s been having pain on her right side, that was what urged me to go check on her.”

You nodded dazedly. Acute appendicitis didn’t sound good to your ears. It didn’t sound nice to Ikaris too.

“What happens now? Will she just be given a bit of medication and she’ll be fine in the morning?” Ikaris asked the question you wanted to ask.

“No. We need to take her appendix out before it could burst. We wouldn’t want her to get peritonitis, which is far more serious than the appendicitis she has now. It could be life threatening.”

You looked at Ikaris, who in turn looked back at you with intense worry. You had never seen him like this before, but then again, he and his family were Eternals and none of them ever get sick. Ever.

“Appendectomy requires generalized anesthesia so she would be asleep for the whole procedure. She won’t feel a thing while it’s happening but she would feel the stitches when she wakes. Of course, as with any other invasive procedure, there are risks but with appendectomy, they’re only the usual possible risk of infection. It happens rarely but we’ll make sure it won’t happen to her. The operation is relatively safe with a 99% success rate, and frankly, it is the best option for her case.

“While normally we would want you to think about the operation, I don’t think we have the luxury of time now. Sprite’s appendix is close to bursting. The good thing is there is an emergency surgeon present who can operate on her at this moment. We can take it out now before any other complications could arise.”

“Of course,” you told him as you nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“I’ll go tell the surgeon now. We would need to keep her under observation after the operation so I suggest you have her admitted.” With that, Dr. Samuels left.

“Angel,” Ikaris said as he turned to you. You heard the hesitation in his voice and you understood perfectly. None of the Eternals had the need to undergo any medical procedure because none of them ever got sick. Sprite was the first in the family to be sick and of course, Ikaris worrying was perfectly normal. But you refused to be sucked in the worry-spiral, even if you were worrying so much for her.

You swallowed and gave him a wan smile, putting on a brave face. “We’ll worry later, okay? Sprite is our priority. We have to make her comfortable first.”

“Is this really the best thing to do? Do they have to operate on her? She’s just a kid.”

You touched the side of his face, watching as his tense shoulders relax at the contact of your power against his cheek. “Yes, my love. They studied these for years. Sprite’s in capable hands.”

“I don’t like it.”

“We don’t have to like it but it’s the best option.”

He sighed, relenting, knowing you were right. “Okay, Angel.”

“Thank you, my love. Do you think you can start her admission? Or you can stay with her while I do that?”

“You stay with her. I’ll take care of the other things.”

You brushed your lips lightly against his and pulled away to watch him leave. You took a deep breath, clearing your throat and practiced a smile before you entered Sprite’s makeshift mini room.

“Is it bad?” she asked you, still teary eyed.

You shook your head. “No. It’s nothing bad but what they’ll do is put you to sleep and when you wake up, you’ll be back to your normal self.”

“Y/N…”

“I promise.”

“I may look like a kid but you can speak to me as an adult, you know,” she reminded you.

Sometimes, you did forget you and Sprite were the same age.

You gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

She groaned. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be surly. I’m just in so much pain.”

“The doctors will take care of it. They know what to do. You’ll be good as new tomorrow.”

She was quiet for a while and reached for your hand. “I’m scared.”

You didn’t want to admit to her that you were, too, so you only smiled an assuring smile at her and squeezed her hand. A porter came a few minutes after, explaining to the both of you that the operating theater was ready for her.

“Can my mom come?” Sprite asked the man.

“I’m sorry, Sprite, but she and your dad would have to stay out of the O.R.” he told her, readying to wheel her bed. “They can wait for you outside or in the room they’ll get you.”

You gave her a small smile, nodding encouragingly. “Remember, heart of a fighter.”

“Heart of a fighter,” she said back and let herself be wheeled away.

Ikaris secured a room for her but you both waited outside of the operating room where they put her in. You took it upon yourself to inform the rest of the family about what happened to Sprite and the procedure they’d do on her, giving them updates whenever you received some. You only watched as Ikaris paced the length of the waiting room, looking angry and anxious and, frankly, exhausted.

“My love,” you called to him. “If you keep pacing like that, you’ll make a hole on the floor. You’ve already worn out the carpet.”

Ikaris looked down on his feet, frowning to see if he did indeed do that before leaning against the wall, crossing his arms tightly against his chest. “I failed Sprite. I should’ve asked her if she was feeling okay when I picked her up from school.”

“Hey, hey, don’t blame yourself.” You went to him and pried his arms apart, holding on to his hands and looking up his eyes. “She’s Sprite; she hides things from us. It’s her schtick, much like you being a pain in my ass is.” You attempted to joke but it fell flat to the both of you. And it didn’t assuage whatever it was he was feeling.

“You’re right, it’s Sprite. That’s why I thought she was playing a prank on me.”

“Ikaris.”

“I should have been more attentive. We promised everyone you and I would look out after her and now she has whatever she has and I just think I didn’t do enough for her.”

“Don’t think that.”

“They’re cutting her open, Angel.”

“I know.”

“All because I didn’t ask her if she was okay.”

“They’d cut her open either way because that’s the only thing to do with acute appendicitis.”

“Angel,” he grumbled.

“What? You know I’m saying the truth. If you asked her earlier, it still won’t change the fact that she has acute appendicitis, which, by the way, isn’t any of our fault.”

“But—”

“No buts. No ifs. Stop blaming yourself for something you can’t control.”

He sighed, resigned. “I’m not good at this protector thing, am I?” he asked suddenly and a surprised chuckle bubbled out of you.

“No, you’re not,” you agreed, “And that’s fine because if you were, you’d put me out of business.”

He pulled you into his embrace and placed his chin on top of your head. You wrapped your arms around his waist and snaked your hands up and down his back.

“I was kidding when I agreed you’re not a good protector, my love,” you told him, voice muffled against his sweater. “You’re the best one there is. Just a few nights ago, you went and investigated the loud noise and the thing that’s been ransacking our garbage. I don’t think I’d be able to face that big and scary coyote by myself.”

He snorted and you were sure he was smiling.

“And the other week, you jumped in front of me when that golden retriever started sniffing me too much.”

“Angel…”

“Or that time when—”

“I get it, I get it.”

“The point is,” you said as you looked up at him, resting your chin against his chest. “Your instinct is to protect and that’s what you’ve been doing with me and Sprite. You’re protecting us. And you’ve protected her from more harm when you brought her to the hospital.”

“It was your idea.”

“I don’t want to take all the credit,” you teased.

Both sides of his lips lifted a little.

“But you get my point, right? You’ve always been this protector—this savior—and just because you didn’t see the danger the first time doesn’t make you a failure at it. It’s what you are deep inside.”

“Y/N.” he said with a sigh, not fully convinced at your words.

“Now shut it and relax. I remember seeing a vending machine a few hallways back. Get yourself a Snickers bar. You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

He chuckled at that and lightly kissed your forehead. “No. I think I’ll stay here and wait.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

You remained in his arms for a while, just reveling the feel of them around you. You refused to give in to your worry, knowing full well it won’t do anything to the problem. And besides, you had said it yourself, Sprite was in capable hands. The doctors would make sure she would be fine by the end of the operation. You trusted them fully because they knew what they were doing.

You rested your cheek against your boyfriend’s chest, waiting quietly for the doctor to emerge from the O.R. to tell you how Sprite was doing. Ikaris seemed to have calmed down; his fingers now traced the outline of where your wings were once connected to you, engrossed in the mindless activity. It was better this way, after all. You didn’t want him panicking and doubting himself, especially when the memory of the Emergence was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

A nurse came out from the double doors and to you, taking off her mask as she approached. “Mr. and Mrs. Harris? Sprite’s operation is a success. We’ll be wheeling her to the PACU to monitor her recovery and once she’s awake, we’ll be bringing her to her room.”

“Thank you,” Ikaris replied stiffly but you saw how his throat worked and you knew he was holding back tears.

You pulled from your boyfriend and smiled gratefully at the woman. You did not correct her when she called you Ikaris’s wife, knowing it was unimportant compared to the good news she just shared. You took her hands in yours and thanked her profusely. “Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you and your team did.”

“You’re very welcome, Mrs. Harris.” She smiled at the both of you before returning to the O.R.

You sagged against Ikaris, finally allowing the tears that you were holding in to come out and come flowing down your face. You’ve never known such fear in your whole seven-thousand-year existence, never thought you would be this shaken just because someone in your family was close to dying. Never again, you told yourself. If Sprite would ever think of you as a helicopter mom as soon as she leaves the hospital, so be it. You vowed to keep her safe and you would do so, whatever it took.

.

Ikaris brought down the newspaper he was reading when he heard movement coming from Sprite’s general direction. It had been hours since they wheeled her in; the nurses assured him and you that Sprite had woken up since her operation and that she had some… choice words about it. He only told them that she was a somniloquist like her mother and to not mind what was said.

He stayed behind while you went and talked to the nurses about Sprite’s dietary restrictions post-operation, as well as a handful of other things that you had researched when you recovered from your small breakdown. Ikaris could only watch in awe at how you managed to do everything like it was second nature to you, even going as far as researching for a new bed so she would be comfortable in her bedrest at home. He stopped you there, knowing what you were doing was an overreaction but he knew he would have done the same.

“Whoever said sleeping was the same thing as resting was one real asshole,” Sprite said with a groan.

His mouth quirked to one side, amused and relieved that she was fine and certainly back to normal. “It wasn’t a restful sleep?” he asked, setting the paper aside.

“Not one bit.” She turned to him, squinting her eyes at the bright light that shone on her. He stood and turned down the lights. “I think they took all my intestines and scrambled the rest of my insides.”

“Not all,” he told her and she gave him a flat look. He smiled slightly. “Just the small useless part of it that’s been causing you pain.”

“Glad that’s over. Now I’m in a different kind of pain.”

“Is it as painful as before?”

“No but it still hurts like a bitch.” She looked around, clearly searching for something. “Where’s Y/N?”

Ikaris saw the change in demeanor in her. Gone was the impish Sprite and in its place was a kind of fear that he knew well. He saw the apprehension in her eyes, at the uncertainty of wanting to know the answer to her question. Sprite had abandonment issues that he and you actively worked on. You both showered her with enough attention when she called for it and left her on her own when she wanted it but you both never ever abandoned her. And with you gone when she awoke, Ikaris knew Sprite feared for the worst.

“She’s just talking to the doctor about the antibiotics you would need when they’ll discharge you.” He watched her closely. “You know she won’t leave us.”

She snorted, even though he knew she was relieved with his reply. “I’m not worried she’ll do that—”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Sprite.” he said. “I know she didn’t show it to you but she was afraid. She was trying not to show everyone she was panicking but I felt it. If you think she’d still leave, you’re mistaken. No one would be this worried then just leave when they want to, especially not Angel.”

She sighed. “I just thought she’d run at the first sign of trouble. That’s what Kingo did when he left me in Macedonia.”

“She’s not Kingo.” he said flatly.

“Clearly,” she said sarcastically. “But you know what I mean.”

Unfortunately, he did. He sat on the chair beside her bed, looking down his hands, not knowing how to put it carefully. Mincing words was never his forte, it was yours… sometimes.

“Sprite, I promise you, Y/N and I are never going to abandon you. We didn’t let you deal with this on your own. We three did it together and we plan on keeping it that way. We’re a family and families stick together.”

“Yeah, the last thousand years are a testament to that,” she grumbled sardonically but he knew he made his point across.

“It was our mistake to break apart but we’re making amends for it now.” He sighed. “I know I may not be the most stellar of father figures out there but I am trying, for Angel, for you. Y/N made me promise we all will stay together and we will. I’ll make sure of it.”

She sighed. “You’re right about you being a pretty shit father figure. You definitely need to work on that. Though I have to admit, Y/N makes a good mom.”

He smiled, nodding, agreeing, ignoring her jibe at him. “I know.”

Just then, you entered holding a small paper bag with the pharmacy’s name emblazoned on the front. When your eyes clapped on Sprite, you beamed widely and rushed to her.

“You’re awake! Do you want anything to eat? The doctors said you can eat whatever you want, just in moderation. I also have your meds here. They gave you a lot to ward off infection and some stuff for the pain—are you in pain right now? I’m sure I have something here for you…”

Amidst all of your ramblings and Sprite’s overwhelmed reaction at it, he locked eyes with his former-fellow-Eternal-now-turned-foster-kid and smiled. She did as well, knowing there was only one thing going on in their minds.

You, him, and Sprite were a family.