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

[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

[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

[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

[siren-of-agony]

Still not over that awesome possessive whumper piece of yours so here's another one . A whumper has let their whumpee be free for some time for whatever reason , but oh no they aren't able to reach them . They barge into whumpee's house and no sign of whumpee. Did another whumper take them perhaps 👀👀👀

Hi! It’s been 2 years since I got this request and I have now accepted that I will never actually write it-write it. But I need you to know that back when I got this ask, I spent multiple hours being incredibly unhinged w my love @for-the-love-of-angst and outlined this whole thing. So I‘m very sorry you’ll never get the full thing, here is what we had planned, a bit cleaned up

There are honestly no warnings because this is a literal Hallmark movie. Well, maybe pet whump if you squint very hard?

A Christmas Reunion

Establishing shot. A McMansion, absolutely decked out in kitsch christmas decoration. Snow is drifting lazily in front of a big window we zoom in toward. Through it, we enter a large living room, warm and cozy, with large couches in a u-formation. On the sides sit people of every age, including some children. On the middle couch, an old couple, maybe in their seventies, close together, holding hands, smiling at their family. At their feet, a person not much younger, their hands and ankles bound in what looks like Christmas wreaths. They seem annoyed. Child 1: Grandpa, Grandpa, will you tell us the story again? Of how Cinnamon saved Christmas and this family?

Grandpa Henry: Oh but I’ve told that every year, isn’t it getting boring?

Grandma Violet: I was there and I still want to hear it again! It’s a great story, Henry, love, let's not break tradition!

GH: All right, fine, fine. There was a time when my Violet and I didn’t get along quite as well as we do now-adays. We had been married for a few years, but we were fighting so often. We had made the decision to maybe spend some time apart, but couldn’t quite agree who our lovely Cinnamon would spend their time with.

We focus on GH free hand, reaching towards the hair of the person sitting in front of him. We see Cinnamon’s hair being pet, the annoyed expression on their face. A dreamlike rippling filter across the picture. We are entering a

FLASHBACK Another, slightly smaller McMansion. Movers are carrying boxes and furniture outside. A car drives up, parks haphazardly, and a Young Henry gets out, in a business suit, with a business bag, business hair. We understand: YH works too much and is never home. He is important in the field of business.

He runs towards the house and stops one of the movers.

YH: What are you doing in my house? With my furniture?

Mover: Your ex-wife gave us the official court documents. You should have gotten them, too. Didn’t your lawyer contact you to inform you we’d come over today?

YH curses. His lawyer had tried to call him, but he’d been too busy doing business.

YH enters his house. He ignores his stuff being carried out, making his way directly to a door with a small window, but he starts to unlock it without looking through. With a start, he realizes the door is unlocked already. He steps through the door. We see a nice room, cozily decorated. The big window has no unlocking mechanism. From the inside, the door has no handle, only a keyhole. YH looks around frantically. The room is empty. He unlocks his phone and calls somebody.

YH: Violet, you bitch! Where’s Cinnamon?

YV: Don’t talk to me like that! What do you mean?

YH: Where. Is. Cinnamon. I bought you another house, I gave you money, I gave you all my furniture. I get to keep Cinnamon! The court agreed! 

YV: But I didn’t agree! And anyway, I don’t have Cinnamon! Are you telling me you already lost our precious darling? I told you you spent too much time at work to care for them!

YH: If you don’t have them, where are they? Their room is empty! 

YV: You’re useless. I’m coming over. Search through Cinnamons room, maybe they’re just hiding. They must have gotten scared with all these changes.

YV hangs up. YH starts checking behind the curtains, under furniture. On the bed, almost covered by a pillow, he finds a note. He reads it out, as if he knows he’s in a movie and people might not be watching the screen

YH: ‘You’ve ruined my business deal with your smart business decisions and your wife’s gossiping revealing my affair. From the published court proceedings I know what you fought most about and I’ve decided to take it and destroy it, just how you destroyed my life. Getting them in that box wasn’t easy, but carrying it out, dressed as a mover. I will fit right in. You will never see your precious Cinnamon again.’

YH curses again, running to the door, where he sees YV already running towards him

[Here we enter the part I had never fully planned out, but imagine a full on heist movie with this divorced couple trying to rescue their pet from a sadistic Whumper and falling in love with each other all over again.]

They stand back in their McMansion, empty except for the twig of mistletoe above them, a young Cinnamon still bound and gagged and slightly bloody sitting on the floor between them. They kiss passionately. The camera pans down to YC’s face. We recognize the annoyed expression. Ripple effect - FLASHBACK ENDS

We’re back in the living room from the first scene

GH: And that’s how we saved Cinnamon and Cinnamon saved us!

Old Cinnamon: I hate you all.

GV: It did break our heart, of course, when we told Cinnamon they could wish for anything they wanted for surviving such an ordeal, and instead of maybe a cozier couch, they wanted a bit more freedom, but who are we to go back on our word.

OC: I told you I wanted you to leave me the fuck alone.

GH: And we do, almost always, do we not! We understand that even family spends some time apart, but the holidays are a time to get together! 

OC: You really don’t need to abduct me every year, though. Do you know how embarrassing it is if someone asks you to come over for Christmas and you have to be like “Nah, I’m going to get abducted again.”

Everyone laughs heartily. Cinnamon is struggling against their bonds.

OC: Also, how often do I have to tell you that I go by Monroe now?

GV: Oh sweetheart, you'll always be our little Cinnamon. Now stop struggling against, you'll just hurt yourself again, and you'll have to cut the roast later!

OC: I’ll cut you.

GV: Cinnamon, Christmas is the holiday of LOVE!

OC: That’s Valentine’s day, you dumb fuck.

The camera starts moving back, through the window we first entered through. We exit the McMansion, still shining in warm light, vague Christmas conversation audio going on. The snow falls heavier. The last shot is a person from behind, we see their gray hair and recognize the sadistic Whumpers favourite Christmas sweater. In their hand, a knife

~FIN~

[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 :)

[sunshiline-writes]

The Rainbringer #3: A Canvas Is What You Are

previous | Masterlist | Next

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!

[thornbushrose]

Um.. so, I'm writing a Daredevil fanfiction and I need some help. A beta reader would be great. It's a Matt/OC slow burn romance rewrite of Season 3. Lots of whump, lots of banter (I could write banter for days with these two) and some action scenes later on.

Teaser - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Birdie Garrett is a social worker at St. Agnes' Home for Boys. Compassion is her job, even when it turns out that the mysterious guest in the infirmary isn't what he seems.

Fortunately, Birdie isn't what she seems to be, either.

Excerpt - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Are you ready for lunch, Mr. Murdock?” Birdie called out as she entered Patient X’s room. She went to the table by his bed and set down the tray.

The man in the bed had probably been handsome when he was well, but weeks in bed had made him pale and hollow-looking, like a plant in a closet. Whatever had happened to him, his chest was crossed by scars, bandages and stitched wounds. His eyes were half open and corpselike. He didn’t move a muscle to greet her.

Birdie said, “Mr. Murdock? Are you awake? I can’t tell.”

“I sleep with my eyes closed,” he said, faintly. “Just like sighted people.”

“Well, for your information,” Birdie said, in the same tone she used with curious children, “Some sighted people sleep with their eyes partially open.” She crossed the room and opened the cupboard there. “I’m Birdie Garrett. I’m a social worker with the orphanage.”

“Birdie? Like, tweet tweet?”

“Yep.” She opened the cabinet on the wall by his bed.

“Your parents hate you?”

“Yep, that’s why they named me Roberta.” Birdie checked the shelves on the far wall. “I’ve been Birdie since I was six.”

He waited while she looked through the laundry basket next to the cabinet. “You’re not a nun.”

“And you’re not a little boy, so I guess we both got a surprise today.”

Murdock stirred, shifting to face her slightly. “The chocolate’s a bit much.”

Birdie bent down to look under his bed and frowned. “What chocolate? Oh wait.” She sniffed her hands. “Yeah, this new lotion I bought wants everyone to know it has cocoa butter.”

His voice was weak but deep, gravelly. “Why are you under my bed?”

“I’m looking for your backrest pillow. You don’t know where they keep it, do you?”

He waved vaguely at his face. “Haven’t seen it.”

“Har har,” Birdie said. “I’ll be right back.” She went out of the room and searched the linen closet, but of course those backrest pillows were only to be found when you didn’t want one. Eventually, she found one in another room and came back to her patient. “Got it.”

She set the pillow on the bed near his feet and pulled his sheet back. “I’m going to lift you and scoot you up the bed so you can sit. Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

She hooked her hands under his arms, set her legs, and pulled him up into an awkward hug. He was heavier than he looked; he must have had some muscle still in there. She prepared herself to haul him toward the head of the bed, but he did it himself with his arms. He had his lips pressed together, his face tightened against the pain, but a small moan came through anyway. Then they were done, and Birdie put the backrest pillow behind him and helped him settle back.

He obviously was used to keeping himself fit, she thought, and to have such reduced mobility must be hard for him. In addition to being unable to see, he’d injured his spine and broken a hip. It was probably too early to know if he was going to get his legs back. So she turned away from him to allow him to catch his breath while she fussed over his blankets.

Slowly, she became aware that something was bothering her. It was like a beam of hot sunlight on bare skin, like a hair tickling her back under her clothes. Like voices engaged in a fierce conversation, just barely heard through a wall. She swiped at her ear, her shoulder, her elbow, but there was nothing there. She turned back to Murdock, who was facing away from her, catching his breath, and she felt the heat on her face. It was him. More properly, it was his heart.

Birdie could sense hearts. She called it reading them, but it was much more than that. If she focused, she could perceive what was inside someone. It was what made her so good at matching orphans to would-be parents. Hearts opened to her in a panorama of temperature, sight and sound. It was hard to interpret and sometimes traumatic. She had learned to block it out when she was a teenager, but some people projected. There was no way to ignore this man’s heart, so Birdie took a deep breath and opened up to it.

Matthew Murdock didn’t have a heart so much as a huge pile of rubble, pulsing faintly and screaming in pain.

He was in so much pain.

Not bodily pain. There was plenty of that, but it was muted by medications. Somehow, though, what had happened to him was a lot worse than a spinal injury and a broken hip. He’d lost something – or someone – he loved, and worse. Something that had been the cornerstone of his entire identity. The writhing pile of broken cement and glass that had been his heart was crisscrossed with confusion, fuzzy and green like mold that burned rage-red around the edges. He didn’t understand what had happened to him, and he was furious about it.

He could be a ticking time bomb, she realized. Or he could overcome this and be stronger than before. It would depend on a lot of things.

“You okay?” he said.

Birdie returned to reality with a jolt. Murdock’s sightless features appeared to be focused on her. She was glad he couldn’t see the expression she quickly blinked off her face. “No, I’m… I’m fine. Just distracted by something.”

Her heart pounding, she uncovered his tray and set it in his lap. What would happen if the fury she sensed in him exploded? Would he turn violent? Would he harm himself? Was she safe, being alone with him?

He turned his face toward the tray. “Chicken noodle. Smells like my childhood.”

“Mine, too,” Birdie said. She placed his hands on the cup of soup and the spoon. It was hard to imagine him becoming violent. This poor, pale, neglected houseplant. “You grew up here, didn’t you? In the orphanage?”

“Yeah.” Very gingerly, he took a tiny amount of soup in the spoon and brought it to his lips.

“Were you adopted eventually?”

“No. There was one guy.” His voice turned hollow. “But it didn’t work. I aged out.”

Birdie nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “That must have been tough.”

He didn’t answer, savoring his soup. Or maybe brooding over it. If he were anyone else, she would have been able to sense the difference. But not him. The screaming was too loud.

“Do you mind if I ask how you were injured?” Birdie asked.

“Yes. I mind.” Murdock set the soup down in his lap and groped on the tray. Birdie put the cup of water into his hand. He took a sip and changed the subject. “You said you work for the orphanage?”

“I’m a social worker. I represent the kids, make sure their needs are being met, facilitate adoptions, etc.”

“Does that work?”

“I’m the best baby-seller this side of the Hudson. Legally, anyway.”

Murdock set his cup down. He was starting to sound tired. “I meant, adoption. People just take home a random kid and they’re a family?”

Birdie pursed her lips. “Well, it takes work. All families take work.” She watched him eat pensively. “It worked for me, anyway.”

Murdock paused, mid-slurp. “You’re adopted?”

“My birth mother abandoned me as an infant. I joined my real family when I was two.”

“Does that make you mad?”

She sighed and brushed his arm with a napkin. “It used to. I mean, I had my angsty teenage years like everyone else.” She shrugged. “The people I work with now—sometimes they’re in ugly situations too. Maybe leaving me in a safebox at the fire department was the best she could do.”

Murdock took the napkin and wiped his chin. “That’s very magnanimous of you.” All of his movements were slow, shaky.

“Yeah, well. Two summers at anger management camp is all it took.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. “Teenage angst?”

“I never do anything halfway.”

He snorted and turned back to his soup. Birdie decided to let him eat in peace.

She hadn’t actually spent two summers at anger management camp, but it was easier than explaining the truth. The swanky upstate private school had taught her how to control her empathy as well as her anger. They’d have taught her a lot more stuff too, if she’d agreed to their terms. She didn’t mind letting them study her, to a certain point. But she didn’t want to play their little war games.

A few minutes later, the cup was empty, and Birdie got up to clear away the trash. “Do you need help to lie down again?”

“I’d like to stay up,” he said. “Unless you need to return this pillow.”

“Pillow?” Birdie said, with a deliberately confused expression. “What pillow, Sister? Did you look in the linen closet?”

Something that had probably been a smile in a previous life brushed by his lips without reaching his eyes. “Thanks for that. No one else propped me up before.”

Birdie stopped in the act of lifting the tray. “What? How have you been eating?”

“On my back. They fed me with a spoon.”

Birdie frowned. “They can’t do that. I’ll talk to someone.” She carried the tray to the door. “I have to say, though, this was a very poor showing, Mr. Murdock. I was told you’d hurt my feelings.”

“Matt. And I tried my best,” he said. “You aren’t scared of me.”

“I’m not a nun. I am not intimidated by half-naked men.”

“Didn’t they tell you I’m the Devil?”

Birdie paused for a moment, choosing her next words carefully. “If the Devil himself had been through what you have, Matthew Murdock, he’d be a gibbering heap on the floor.” Murdock turned his face away from her, blinking hard. Birdie carried the tray out and closed the door behind her.

==============================

If you like it, please comment or message me. I really need some writing buddies.

[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!

[ailec-12]

I posted 818 times in 2022

129 posts created (16%)

689 posts reblogged (84%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@napo-con-fritas

@i-will-write

@togetherkru

@evilbeanghost

@meibruges

I tagged 814 of my posts in 2022

#art - 294 posts

#* - 129 posts

#hp - 122 posts

#encanto - 83 posts

#bnha - 83 posts

#severus snape - 75 posts

#quotes - 69 posts

#ask ail - 61 posts

#yagi toshinori - 53 posts

#ask meme - 53 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#once i told someone 'i get why you want to drop this story; that's okay' and they replied very strongly that they were not going to drop it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

A new chapter is out!

Some very intense moments between James and Sev take place. I hope you'll like it and let me know what you think.

30 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

#4

Prooooompt!! When Sev gets bullied by a group of kids, James is forced to look back and confront his own past behaviour. --- I'd love it if Sirius and Remus are there, too, and I'd love for Lily to get angry at some point. I kind of see this happening during the time where Sev and James' relationship is not so good (which is a very ample period of time, lol), but feel free to modify the idea as you want.

Thanks so much for this prompt, I really loved it! Wish I could've managed to include everything, but I'm delighted you still liked it so much.

Also, shout-out to @evilbeanghost for reading it beforehand and helping me see I was fretting over nothing, hahaha. Thanks, dear.

Also on AO3.

Looking in the Mirror

I. First Warning

It happens during his first week at school and Severus is paralysed by terror as he waits by the headmaster’s door. His fears are confirmed when not only Lily but James, too, turn the corner. He is in big trouble. For starters, he had no idea they would call any parents after just one fight. In addition, he has thrown the first punch, so the bruise blossoming on his own cheek had been written off as self-defence and he is the only one facing serious consequences.

He wants to cry. He wants to run. Instead, he digs his trembling fingers in the wooden bench. As soon as Lily is close enough, she crouches down. Her fingers brush against his unscathed cheek.

“Oh, Sev, what happened?”

“I reckon it’s pretty obvious,” James snaps coldly, stopping just behind her.

See the full post

31 notes - Posted January 9, 2022

#3

I saw this picrew on my dash earlier today and thought it was really cute.

Tagging @hklnvgl, @napo-con-fritas and anyone else who wants to try it out.

42 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

#2

Fic Rec Friday (BNHA edition)

Endeavor-centric

Just Watch Me, by WhiteWinterDragon (WIP, 13k). Rei disappears and Endeavor must take care of their four children.

Splitting Rocks, by iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid (one shot, 22k). Endeavor gets trapped in a time loop.

Aizawa-centric

All Might's pen pal, by xweapon (complete, 27k). Erasermight. Aizawa sends a drunk email to All Might as he falls for Toshinori.

Gold, the colour of fear, by RedResin (one shot, 2k). Aizawa comforts Eri after a nightmare.

All Might-centric

Been Seen, by siriusfan13 (one shot, 1k). Pre-canon. "Being seen and being noticed are not the same thing. Yagi Toshinori knows this well."

Learning to Trust, by siriusfan13 (WIP, 86k). Gen, whump and hidden identity —not much else I could ask for. All Might wants to get to know the UA staff before revealing his identity to them. Lots of Aizawa and Present Mic as well.

The Torrid Affair of All Might and Yagi Toshinori, by speedwagons-glorious-mane (WIP, 3k). More All Might trying desperately to hide his identity.

misconceptions, by h1lo (one shot, 631). Nana's first impressions of Yagi Toshinori.

When Baby Birds Try to Fly, by pillowspace (one shot, 4k). Nana & Toshi, before she gives him OFA.

Let Them Eat Cake, by academiccockroach (one shot, 13k). Orphan Toshi bites (a lot) as he meets Nana and Gran Torino for the first time.

Breaking Down, by FloFlow (WIP, 13k). Nana deals with her own demons after abandoning Kotaro when Toshinori gets sick.

56 notes - Posted October 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Two truths, one lie

Tagged by @supermarketcrayons, thank you!

My favourite sport is football.

I've never been in New York.

I have a green thumb.

Feel free to guess!

84 notes - Posted July 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[chaotic-orphan]

Dec. 8th prompt: Freezing (Whump)

Orion’s Army

Okay so this started off as part of a prompt calendar challenge but! It actually created a story, I saw Whump and just ran with it completely forgetting about the freezer? like who knew naming your characters made you love them more? And gave them more character? And personality?

Crazy. Every author should do it. But I digress…

I hope you Enjoy, Orion’s army!!! I loved writing it

There will be more soon don’t even worry

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~

“Jack?”

His name was whispered in the darkness of the room. Jack stared at the bunk above him, only barely seeing the lats.

“Jack?” Whispered again, more urgently this time. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Jack whispered back, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t want to fight tomorrow.”

“Me either.”

“But you’re good at fighting,” Cadan insisted.

“Yeah,” Jack said drawing the blanket closer to him,“I know.”

“Do you think Orion will pair us together?”

Maybe if we did I’d be able to not sleep in silence, Jack thought then immediately regretted it. For a second a horrible though crossed the boy’s mind,

Instead he let out a sigh, “I don’t know Cadan.”

“You’ll probably be fine,” another voice piped up. Fallon. She was tough too, like Jack, but even Jack didn’t want to be paired with her tomorrow. Jack could hold back when he had to, Fallon was lethal. “Just go for the eyes, Cade.”

“Or the legs,” Jack offered.

“Or the shield if you’re Malachai-“

“That was one time,” a sleepy voice mumbled in the corner and the room was full of quiet giggles.

Then someone said, “I miss my mom,” and the room went silent again until morning.

—————————————————————

“Good morning children!” A bellowing voice pulled Jack from his slumber, but there wasn’t time to be groggy. Jack was on his feet, his bed made, standing in line with the rest of the kids in a matter of seconds.

“Jack,” Orion purred, sauntering over towards him. For his age, Jack was small. Smaller than Fallon who he stood beside, and she was only two years older. But even to Fallon Orion was a giant. “Sloppy wake up call, did you have a good rest?”

Jack didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes sir.”

“Good.” Orion rose to full height again, walking to the middle to greet the other kids with his snide remarks. Jack didn’t really care at this point what he said or did. To him, Orion was equally horrible to everyone who had the misfortune of knowing him. So Jack only had to listen once to get the general idea of what other nasty things he was saying.

One time he made Cadan cry. Jack stopped listening after that.

Jack tuned back in when Orion clapped his hands, an awful glint in his eyes.

“I’m sure you’re all dying to know who’s paired with who today, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.” The response was immediate and it made Orion’s smile grow so wide you could see his pointed animal like teeth. Like a shark’s smile, dead behind the eyes- so sharp it could cut you with only words.

“Well usually I leave it fairly balanced. But today we have visitors-“ that got everyone’s attention. Jack swallowed hard, steeling himself for further shock. Even if his hands trembled behind his back, what Orion couldn’t see wouldn’t hurt him.

“Yes, visitors. And they want to see you all perform to your best of your abilities. So we will have a little tournament, so to speak.”

Jack’s heart dropped to the bottom of his chest. That meant everyone was fighting today. It didn’t matter if Cadan wanted to or not. Or if Fallon’s knuckles were still bloody from being the last fighter yesterday. It didn’t matter that you were a kid, not to Orion. All he saw were soldiers.

“Sir, what if we lose?” Jack closed his eyes. Of course Cadan would ask such a stupid question.

“Why would you ask such a stupid question, Cadan.”

“I just meant-“

The sound of a slap resounded around the dead silent room. Jack opened his eyes, staring ahead. Steel. Steel. Steel. Steel.

“Again. With less attitude, or I just might make you the appetiser to Caolan and Atticus.”

Always with the wolves. Orion only threatened Cadan with the wolves because he was bit by one before and has been terrified ever since.

“I’m sorry sir. I meant no disrespect.”

“Go on,” Orion said.

“The tournament sir, is it knockout?”

Orion’s grin turned the sharpest Jack had ever seen.

“Quite literally boy.”

———————————————

They were getting ready in the pit. Jack throwing his armour on haphazardly. Not wanting to do this. Again.

He was tired of winning. Tired of hurting the little kids. Hearing them cry. Tired of Fallon’s flash of fear. Tired of Cadan’s pleas for mercy.

It made him feel like a monster.

That’s what Orion had made him into. It wasn’t his fault that the others couldn’t get better than him. Orion only ever let them train alone, so the same mistakes got repeated in fight after fight.

Jack just had to steel himself. He would be fine. It was everyone else he was worried about.

Across the way he saw Valerie and Seth trying to hold the weight of the sparring sword in one hand. Seth’s arms were skinny, and he was tiny. No higher than Jack’s waist, and Valerie was younger and smaller. She could hold the sword in one hand, and the shield in the other, meeting Jack’s eyes from across the way.

If Jack could look in the mirror he thinks he’d see the same grim determination set in them.

The thought scared him too much to think about for too long.

A slap on the back had him pulled into a side hug from Malachai. “I’m gonna beat you today, Jack. I can feel it.”

“Do you want me to go shieldless?”

“Ah you’re just being mean. Fallon talks big-“

“She hits harder,” Jack agreed. Malachai laughed putting his hand in Jack’s hair and tussling it.

“How would you know hot shot?” Jack smiled ready for another retort when he caught Orion’s eyes behind Malachai. They were not pleased.

“Jack. A word.” That was all he said before turning on his heel and walking away from the pit. Jack followed him, half running to keep pace.

“Sir?” Jack asked.

“These visitors Jack, they are very important to us. To you. They provide us with the necessary resources to feed us and clothe us and keep us all safe and warm.”

Orion paused for effect. Jack wasn’t supposed to speak, so he didn’t.

“I told them about you Jack. How good you are, and one of them challenged my faith in you.”

Jack frowned. A pit forming in the hollow of his stomach. He never ate before fights. This was why. Orion always had to do something that would set him on edge before hand.

“Sir?” was all he said.

“He saw the pit and everyone getting ready and asked me to point you out. So I did. And do you know what he said, Jack?”

Jack remained silent.

“He said sure I could fight too if I had that heavy leather armour on me.”

There it was. The caveat of the tournament. Jack had barely registered what Orion had said before he was grabbing Jack’s sword and shield, putting them on the bench beside them and waiting for Jack to pull the armour off.

Jack hesitated for just a second. “Am I being punished sir?”

“Punished? No! No my boy. You are my greatest achievement. My crowning jewel. You need to wow this crowd once and then we’ll all be in your corner hmm?”

Jack grabbed the armour to stop his hands from shaking and pulled it over his head, and into the waiting arms of Orion. He bent to pick up his shield and sword, but Orion tsked and Jack paled.

“The- sir the vambraces-“

“Oh no, don’t worry about them dear boy. I don’t want you crippled no.” Jack could cry with relief. “Just the shield.”

“Sir-“

“You are my favourite Jack but right now you are getting on my last nerves. Shield. Now.”

Jack was moving before Orion even finished his sentence. Just like a perfect little soldier. Perfect little robot. Perfect little lethal weapon.

His stomach turned as he stood. Naked with only his sword and bracers.

“Thatta boy, Jack . Now go on, wow them. You’re first up.”

So Jack did that.

He walked out from the pit into the small arena. The sun was low in the pale winter sky and Jack breathed in a breath of fresh air and smiled, gripping the sword tightly.

One day, he’d be free.

Then he saw his opponent.

———————

Cadan faced with pure terror on his face, it stopped Jack in his tracks.

“Jack? Ah Jesus, are ya serious? Why aren’t you in armour? Where’s your shield?”

Jack just shook his head. “Be quiet Cadan,” he said, a desperate plea as could be heard from Jack. “We need to put on a show.”

“A show? You’re not even dressed? How is this fair?”

Before Cadan could mewl another unfairity of their life Jack lunged swiping at Cadan’s feet who jumped back just in time.

Jack advanced, speaking quietly with Cadan throughout the fight.

“Just make it look real,” Jack pleaded. “Make it look real and then when I hit you stay down.”

Cadan didn’t have to be told twice. They sparred some more. Jack trying to manoeuvre around Cadan’s sloppy swings without a shield nearly took his eye out a couple of times until he got a bash of Cadan’s shield to the chest taking all the wind out of him.

“Jack! Shit-” Cadan said.

Shit was right. Cadan had never actually hit Jack before. In the stands he could see Orion smiling, as another man whispered in his ear.

A show. That’s all he wanted. To see Jack fail, and then come back from it.

Fine.

When Cadan reached down to help Jack up, Jack grabbed his arm pulling Cadan down with him and rolling on top of him.

“Okay. Dead.” Jack said, as he lifted Cadan’s head and slammed it down against the sand. Or made it look like he did anyway.

A round of applause sounded from the stands and Jack stood, hoisting Cadan up under his armpits and dragging him back into the pit.

“Jack why aren’t you wearing armour?”

“That was a bit rough mate…”

“How did he even get a hit on you?”

When they got through the doors, Jack dropped Cadan who let out a squeak.

“Orion wants a show. He told me himself. That’s why I’m not in armour. He wants me hurt. So do your worst. Hurt me as much as you can. Try get me out. Whatever it is Orion’s planning- I don’t care about it.”

“Jack-“ it was Fallon’s voice protesting, but Jack shook his head.

“He’s right,” said Valerie. Her voice high but determined. She looked at Jack. “When I’m up against you I won’t go easy.”

Jack actually smiled at that. “Thanks Val.”

She nodded in response.

Then her and Seth’s name was called and she grabbed Seth’s hand in one of hers and walked out.

Seth couldn’t carry a shield, so Valerie didn’t either. Not for this fight. Which only lasted a couple seconds. Malachai came in with Seth’s body followed by a despondent Valerie.

No one said anything. There was nothing to say.

“If any of you go easy on me for being younger, I’ll leave you with scars,” she warned.

Fallon and another girl fought next. Fallon the Victor, carrying her victim into the pit. Jack was surprised when they crossed the doors that Carla opened her eyes. Grinning up at Jack. Her arms were bloodied but only with shallow cuts. Jack smiled back at them.

“The show must go on,” Carla said dramatically, going to sit beside Seth and Cadan.

Okay this was good. The weak ones were getting knocked out leaving only the strong.

Malachai, Fallon, Jack and Valerie were left, and at this rate Jack would rather take Fallon than Valerie.

But it was fine because Orion wanted a show. So he grouped Malachai and Jack and Valerie and Fallon.

Valerie and Fallon were up first and Jack couldn’t watch it. Instead he turned to Malachai who had that same confident smile as if everything was going to be fine.

“You alright, little brother?” Only Malachai called him little brother. Malachai was the oldest, so everyone was little brother or sister to him. Which was fine because no one else did, and even after he told Malachai to stop he kept doing it anyway. Cadan had tried once and got a punch to the arm.

“You’re getting your wish,” Jack said with a wry smile. “I’m shieldless.”

“Shieldless and still strong as steel, I know what you’re trying to do,” Malachai hummed, watching the fight. “Make me drop my guard, it’s not happening Jackaboy. No sir. This time,” Malachai turned to face Jack then, crouching so Jack could see his mismatched eyes and their gleam of mischief.

“I’ll win.”

Malachai’s grin was infectious so Jack returned it. A hand on the back of his neck was comforting. “You’re good, Jack. You’re a good kid. Y’know I remember being a kid, outside I mean. You’re even good compared to them.”

“Do you think he’ll ever let us go?” Jack dared to ask. His voice coming out so quiet it barely brushed his lips.

“I think he will. One day. He doesn’t have us training for nothing. I’ve seen stranger- oh shit!”

Jack turned, following Malachai’s eyes to see Fallon on the ground. Unmoving. Valerie on top of her, shield gone, blood on her hands and running her sword.

Malachai was out the door in a flash, leaving Jack stupefied behind. Fallon didn’t even look like her chest was moving. Malachai scooped her up into his arms and brought her back in, Valerie in tow. Baffled just as much as Jack was.

When she met Jack’s eyes hers welled up, “I didn’t meant to hurt her that bad. But she was going easy on me, she tried not to hurt me. I should’ve-“

Jack grabbed Valerie and brought her in for a hug sword clattering to the ground as her sobs filled the pit.

“It’s okay Val,” Jack said. “You had to do it.” Over Valerie’s head, Jack could see everyone crowded around Fallon, making sure she was still breathing.

Malachai looked up at him from across the way, his eyes trailing to the girl in his arms, and something almost hateful crossed his face. Jack couldn’t say, because the moment he blinked the expression was gone.

—————————

“Now the boys!”

As they walked out Jack tried to catch Malachai’s eye, but he stared resolutely ahead, a sword in each hand. He never liked shields, thought they were too slow. But with Malachai’s strength he didn’t need them, and this was the one fight Jack was actually worried about.

“Malachai, she had to do it. She didn’t mean it, she’s just a kid,” Jack whispered desperately, but that look was in Malachai’s eyes. That cold fury burning behind his pupil.

“I know.”

“BEGIN!”

Malachai’s twin blades came down hard on Jack’s, who had swung his up in the knick of time, using his other hand to push against Malachai’s weight.

“But Fallon doesn’t deserve that,” Malachai said, barely breaking a sweat.

“Either does Valerie,” Jack said through gritted teeth. His heels dug into the sand of the arena, and he knew this was a lost cause, so with one massive shove he threw his weight against Malachai’s swords which didn’t do much except give Jack enough time to roll free of their locked blades.

He was getting to his feet when he got a boot to the face, and it threw him off course. His hands flying out behind him ready to push up if Malachai hadn’t hooked his leg with his own and topple Jack onto his back again.

Jack brought his sword up in defence. Malachai didn’t advance further just stood above him, like a shadow of vengeance. He slipped his blade back along his arms, manoeuvring the hilt so he had a good grip on and Jack’s eyes went wide.

“Malachai he just wants a show,” Jack hissed, kicking at Malachai’s shins, but that didn’t deter Malachai so Jack aimed his leg higher and aimed for his stomach.

Malachai caught Jack’s leg and Jack swung out with his sword, hitting Malachai’s vambraces.

“Come on little brother, just play dead.”

“Then promise you won’t hurt Valerie.”

“She asked us not to go easy on her.”

“Fallon will be fine!” Malachai’s eyes flashed at that.

“So will Valerie.”

Malachai swung the blunt hilt down towards Jack’s head, and Jack followed the motion back evading it getting his other leg under Malachai’s stomach and using his motion to throw him over Jack’s shoulder.

Malachai went rolling, and Jack sprung to his feet, rolling his shoulders and bouncing on his heels. He gripped the sword tight in his hands, chancing a glance at the stalls to see Orion sitting with his legs spread, head in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. Something entirely too eager and captivating in his view.

Then Orion’s eyes flicked and Jack brought his arm up, blocking Malachai’s barrage, not dropping eye contact. Jack got an elbow to the nose for his arrogance and he stumbled back, eyes watering as Malachai advanced anger in his stride.

Jack threw his sword up but Malachai punched him in the face again, grabbing his arm with one hand and twisting his wrist until he dropped the sword. Jack cried out as Malachai pulled his arm forward, slicing his chest with his sword.

Without getting a breath Malachai fixed his boot over the wound and kicked. Jack went down the wind being knocked out of him, and he didn’t have time to blink before Malachai was on him, arms on his wrists pinning him with his weight.

Despite his predicament Jack let out a small wheeze of laughter, “You’ve been holding back you prick.”

Malachai flashed a smile, “I’m sorry little brother. I’m pissed and you never know when to quit.”

“But you’re not pissed at me,” Jack said and Malachai frowned and loosened his grip.

“Punch me make it look real.”

He had barely finished his sentence before Jack was wrestling out of his grip punching him across the cheek. Jack didn’t flinch, but Malachai finally grit his teeth securing Jack’s wrist against the sand.

“Good. Keep struggling and talk.”

“We can go for Orion.”

“Do I need to hit you again?”

“We can!” Jack insisted. “This way neither of us have to fight Valerie okay?”

“It’s still about Valerie?” Malachai asked, holding Jack’s wrists with one hand and reaching back for a discarded sword.

“Yes!”

“Why! Why are you protecting her over Fallon?”

“Because…”

Malachai shook his head. “Forget it,” he said softly. “I’m with you, whatever you have planned.”

“Okay, just follow my lead.”

Malachai nodded, and got off him. Handing Jack his sword and picking up both of his. Orion stood immediately, eyes flashing and Jack’s heart pounded in his ears.

Orion looked furious, already seeing where this was going.

“Did I say stop?” Orion asked, his hands curling into fists by his side.

“No,” said Jack. “I did. We’re not fighting. The tournaments over.”

“Oh dear boy-” Orion tsked, shaking his head slowly. The doors to the pit opened behind them and Cadan was there, sword and shield in hand coming to the rescue when bars slid down over the door locking them outside the arena. More pressing locking Jack and Malachai inside the arena.

Jack was distinctly aware of his lack of armour but he had started now. No point in running and hiding. He was sick of doing what Orion wanted of him.

“Resume the fight, now. Or I’ll unleash the hounds.”

“I’m not afraid of the dogs, Orion,” Jack said, fighting the flinch of saying his name out loud instead of sir. His back growing warm from the lashes of the belt Orion had inflicted on him to make him learn his place. Learn that Orion was only to be addressed as sir.

Jack could even feel Malachai look at him from the corner of his eye, readjusting his hands on his blades.

“I’m with you little brother,” he whispered and Jack’s heart slammed again, this time with courage.

Orion smiled, his eyes cruel. “I didn’t say I’d release the hounds on you, boy.”

Jack’s eyes went wide, turning just in time to heat Cadan scream. Jack ran to the bars, Malachai on his heels, trying to see over Cadan’s shoulder to see the dogs blocking the exit to the pit and all the kids locked inside. Valerie standing in front of them all, her shield up. The dogs were too strong and tall for her, she’d be ripped apart.

“Orion, call them off!” Malachai yelled over his shoulder, but Orion sat back down, content.

“You can call them off, boys. Resume your fight.”

“Cadan, listen to me,” Malachai began softly. “They’re just dogs okay, bash them with your shield.”

“I- I c- can’t. Kai, I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You can, listen, you can do this Cadan.”

“One of them will get me.”

“You must, Cadan,” Jack said. “Valerie’s too small, they’ll kill her if they get a bite at her. You have to do this. You can do it, otherwise everyone in there. Fallon. Seth. They’re going to be attacked too. Like you were-”

Cadan was shaking as one of the dogs rammed Valerie’s shield and she stumbled back, getting closer to the bars.

“We can’t help you, Cade. You can do this,” Malachai encouraged, putting a hand through the bars and on Cadan’s shoulder squeezing it.

Valerie’s shield clattered to the ground then and was swinging her sword wildly.

“Jack!” Valerie screamed.

“We-” Jack began licking his lips, but he was cut off by Malachai saying

“No, we’re not. You’re right. Cade can do this. No more giving Orion what he wants.”

One of the dogs yelped as Carla stepped in, kicking the dog closest to Valerie in the snout. Then Atticus the bigger of the two dogs turned on Carla. She raised her shield just as Atticus jumped at her.

“Anytime, Cadan!” Carla ground out, pushing her weight against the wolf dog.

“See? You just need to help Valerie, Cadan.”

“Now, Cadan!” Jack yelled, pushing him forward and Cadan slammed his shield down in front of Valerie pushing her back.

“FUCK!” Cadan screamed as Caolan barrelled into his shield.

“Your ankles! Protect your ankles!” Jack screamed.

Malachai grunted beside Jack and Jack hadn’t registered the noise until he was yanked backwards by someone behind him. Jack threw an elbow back, but a hand hooked around the crook of his elbow and yanked his arm behind his back.

Jack threw his head back then and heard a grunt when it made contact with a chest. He grinned. The hands on him turned him around to face Orion, and all blood dropped from his face as he saw Orion with Malachai at his feet being held with a sword at his neck.

Orion tugged Malachai’s head up higher, pressing the sword in until it drew blood.

“Stop!” Jack snapped, struggling harder against his captor.

Orion tsked. “I thought I taught you better, Jack. And Malachai, look what you’ve done to him. My pride and joy. My first success. You turn on me the moment a boy says boo?”

“Go fuck yourself,” said Malachai, which earned him a punch to the face. Orion sighed drawing his fist back, and repositioning the blade under Malachai’s throat.

“Right. Re-breaking in it is. Knock the boy out, he’ll cause trouble if he’s conscious.”

That only made Jack struggle harder, until he got a whack to the side of his head and the world grew dark and muddy.

[mirasmirages]

Scars (part 4)

first previous masterlist next

Has: library setting

James and his family belongs to @starliight-whump

~

"Ready?"

James sat in the passenger seat of Julia's car outside of the library, nerves building. He had planned this meeting out with his therapist, but right now, he couldn't remember a thing they'd talked about.

"Yeah."

It was James who had chosen where they should meet. The library seemed like a good choice since Henry would be there already. If it went badly, James could leave without feeling guilty about making him go out of his way for nothing.

Julia linked her arm with James's as they walked up the stairs to the front doors. "You'll be fine," she assured him.

Henry was by the counter when they entered, talking to another librarian. James shuffled his feet until Henry saw them and came to meet them.

"Hey," Henry said. He was dressed in his librarian clothes again, this time with a little butterfly hanging from his ear.

"Hey," James mumbled. His heart was beating hard, and he clung to Julia's arm.

She squeezed him and let go. "I'm gonna go look for some books for Oliver," she said. "Henry, you'll keep my brother company for me, won't you?"

"Sure thing," Henry said.

Julia gave James an encouraging look. "Scream if you need me," she said, and left.

-

"Do you like books?" Henry asked, leading James into the library.

"Yeah, I guess," James said. "I haven't read anything lately though."

"Maybe we can find you something," Henry suggested. "What do you like?"

James followed him through the shelves. "Fantasy, maybe?" This felt normal enough. Talking to a librarian about books, finding something to read. He could still feel his heart beating too hard in his chest, but he wasn't spiraling yet.

"Yeah? Like Lord of the Rings?"

"I haven't read them since high school, but yeah, I like them."

"You wanna know a secret?" Henry grinned. "I haven't read them yet, only watched the movies. Don't tell my colleagues."

"Would that be bad if they found out?"

"I'd get fired," Henry said, mock seriousness in his voice.

James laughed, surprising himself. "Your secret is safe with me."

They had reached the fantasy section, and Henry pulled down the first book in the series and held it out. "What do you think? An old favorite? Or do you want something new?"

James reached for the book without thinking, with his right hand, and when Henry let go, it fell to the floor.

"Sorry, I'm sorry--" James started, panic rising in him. Fuck. He couldn't even hold a book. He should get Julia and leave.

"No, it's fine," Henry said and picked up the book, as if he hadn't noticed anything was wrong. "Books aren't that fragile, they can handle a fall."

He held the book out again, and James hesitated before taking it again, with both hands this time. He held it against his body. "Thanks."

"Happy to help."

For a moment they stood there, neither knowing what to say. There was an elephant in the room, and when Henry was about to speak again, James realized he didn't want him to bring it up.

"What's storytime today?" James asked, cutting Henry off before he could.

"Hm? Oh," Henry said, and turned his head so James could see the little rainbow butterfly charm. "It's called 'The Brave Butterfly'."

"I haven't heard of that one," James said. "Is it good?"

"The kids love it," Henry said, and started walking toward the children's section. "I do too. There weren't a lot of queer children's books when I was a kid, and it's nice to see that change."

James nodded. He wasn't as up to date on children's literature as Henry, obviously, but there was a big difference between the books he grew up with and some of the ones his nephew asked him to read. "Oliver has a book about gay penguins," he said. "Do you know it?"

"Most likely," Henry said. "Penguins are a popular subject, so it could be several books." He flipped through a box of children's books and picked up one with two little penguins in rainbow bow ties on the cover. "Is it this one?"

It wasn't, and Henry tried three more books about gay penguins before he found the right one. It wasn't important, since Oliver already had the book and they could just ask Julia if they really wanted to know the title, but it gave them something easy to talk about. It gave James a chance to watch Henry acting completely different from what Harrison ever did, until his pulse calmed down and his muscles relaxed, and for once, he almost didn't feel afraid.

They were still talking when Julia came to find them, carrying a few picture books for Oliver.

"I think I found some good books," she said. "Are you ready to go or do you want to stay a bit longer?"

James looked at Henry. This was nice, but he was starting to feel really tired.

Henry seemed to take the hint. "I need to get back to work soon anyway," he said, standing up. "Here, I'll check out your books."

He took their books from them, and James added the first penguin book to the pile too. Henry went ahead to the register, giving James and Julia a moment alone.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"I'm … good, actually," James said, a little surprised by how true that was. "I like him. He's nice."

Julia grinned. "I thought you might. He's handsome, too, don't you think?"

"That's not--I mean--" James protested. Not that Henry wasn't handsome, but that wasn't what James had been thinking about. He glanced over at where Henry was scanning their books, writing something down from the looks of it. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I guess."

To his relief, Julia didn't push it, just hooked her arm through his and went to pick up their books at the counter.

-

That night, James went to bed early. Today had been good, but any social interactions still took a lot of him. He picked up the book he had borrowed from the nightstand. Maybe reading would help distract him from the nightmares he knew he was about to have.

He opened the book, and on the first page was a yellow post-it note. It read, I had fun today. In case you want to talk again: and a phone number.

James ran his fingers over the numbers. A bit presumptuous, perhaps, but not unwelcome. He took his phone out and opened an empty text message.

I had fun too. Thank you for meeting me today. It helped.

Even such a short message took time to write when James's hands trembled as badly as they did, and he almost gave up on typing the number when he hit the wrong digit for the fifth time, but he gritted his teeth and kept going until he could hit send.

It only took a minute for Henry to reply.

Anytime :-) Are you enjoying the book?

James smiled, and typed out a reply.

Don't know yet, just started.

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