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sunny-sidee-upp · 10 months

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People Pleaser

Fandom: Rick and Morty

Ship: Rick Sanchez x f!Reader (2nd Person POV)

Summary: You’re about to graduate high school and decide to throw a party to celebrate. You invite the entire senior class, including your crush, Rick Sanchez, who you’ve realized has begun to take interest in you.

Warnings: Smut, angst, whump

With only a few days left before you graduated high school, you decided to not let your time go to waste and finally confess to your crush.

You stood in front of your locker, mentally hyping yourself up as you waited for the start of your fifth and last period of the day. Your plan was simple: "Accidentally" bump into your locker neighbor Rick on his way to class, drop your books, and out would spill your advanced calculus, physics, and astronomy homework. Instead of directly telling your classmate you wanted to go out with him, you would slowly and carefully convince him that you were the coolest person he had ever met.

As you shuffled through your locker to get your plan ready, Rick approached and unlocked his locker. As he closed his, so did you, and your intricately planned fall commenced. As Rick turned to you, you pretended to head in the opposite direction as him, walking out in front of him and slamming into him. To others, you appeared to not see him, but you meticulously threw out your books and feigned a fall, the tall eighteen-year-old falling on top of you. What you hadn't planned on was hitting your chin roughly on the ground, and now you had a small gash that dripped onto the floor.

"Jesus Christ, (l/n), watch where you're going!" Rick propped himself up and sat back on his butt, noticing your blood pooling on your spilled schoolwork. "Oh, shit, are you okay?" You pushed yourself up by your elbows and gently touched your chin, wincing at the plan. "Uh..." Rick gently placed one hand on your back and the other on your hand, helping you stand up. "Thank you, I'm sorry about that." The two of you began to pick up your papers and books as you held your shirt up to soak up your blood. Rick looked over your papers and handed them back to you, saying, "Number 15 on your Physics homework is wrong."

He handed you the paper and you barely glanced at the question before saying, "Thank you."

"Stop saying that, I literally made you bust your face open. You've got nothing to be thankful for." You and Rick both eyed the last book on the ground, an Astronomy workbook, and bent down to pick it up at the same time. Your hands grazed each other, but Rick quickly snatched the book to hand it to you. He stared at your stained chin and asked, "Do you need help cleaning that up?" Despite having full ability to treat the wound yourself, you said "yes", and Rick grabbed you by the sleeve and dragged you to the men's bathroom.

"Hey, wait, I can't go in here!"

"Don't care. Sit on the counter." He let go of your sleeve and you did as you were told, setting your books beside you. A freshman was using a urinal and seemed not to notice you until he turned around, freezing and blushing. Rick glared at him and asked, "What are you looking at?" The teen gulped and pulled up his pants, running out of the bathroom without washing his hands.

Rick reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a mini first-aid kit, equipped with tweezers, gauze, alcohol wipes, and gauze tape - everything he needed for you. First, he cleaned the tweezers with a wipe and used them to pull out a piece of fuzz and a small splinter of tile that had lodged itself in your skin. As he stood between your legs and breathed so close to your face, you couldn't help but blush and feel your heart beat faster than it already had been.

Once Rick pulled out the debris, he cleaned off your chin with another wipe, causing you to wince slightly, then taped the gauze to your skin. He stared into your wide eyes for a moment before he stepped back and cleared his throat, saying, "That should do it. Don't let it happen again, you made me late for class." And so, the teen rushed off to class, leaving you to place a hand on your heart and try to calm your breathing. This isn't at all what you intended, yet, it was so much better.

The next day in your sixth-period class (Your schedule ran 1-5 on A days and 6-10 on B days), you sat at Rick's table as usual in AP Calculus, right across from him. He looked up and asked, "How's your chin?"

"Huh? Oh, it's doing better. It was sore for a bit, but that's gone now."

"Cool." The rest of the class, the two of you were silent, working on your last project of the year. The only thing you had left to do for calculus was to finish your missing work, one assignment of which was especially difficult. You spent the entire class working on this assignment, and twenty minutes before the bell rang, you were stuck on the last question. Rick noticed as you stared down at the page and crossed out half an hours worth of work. You drummed your pencil on your desk and bounced your leg, hoping that maybe pattern recognition would save you. And it did, just not your own.

Rick took his folder out of his school back and flipped through it, removing a packet and sliding it towards you. Before you could say "thank you", he said, "Shut up and take it." Although he had interrupted you, you couldn't help but overthink a bit about what he said. His tone was aggressive but also friendly. As you checked your work with his, you started fantasizing about what Rick had just said to you. "Shut up and take it" was such a rude phrase, but it sounded vaguely sexual to you. "Stop it," you told yourself. "Your plan hasn't succeeded yet, you don't know what he's thinking about you."

When you were finished, you passed the packet back to Rick, but you realized that while you were daydreaming, you accidentally doodled a small heart on his work. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice it, and the both of you turned in their packets as you left the class and parted ways. Your next class was art, and your group was finishing watching the second half of the first Home Alone movie.

As you sat at your desk, your teacher announced that another class would be joining you because their teacher was proctoring a test and all of the substitutes were busy watching other classes. Soon, a group of fifteen students came into the room. The last student to enter was none other than Rick Sanchez, and the only empty seat in the room was right next to you. He sat beside you and pretended not to notice as you scrawled in your sketchbook. You had been drawing since you were very young, and despite pretending that your best subjects were science and math to get Rick's attention, art truly was your calling.

After doodling for a bit, you started to work on a realistic drawing of the actor that played Kevin in Home Alone, Macauley Culkin. Your neighbor watched you silently as you looked back and forth between the projector and your sketchbook. You finished the drawing about ten minutes before class ended, and Rick cleared his throat, saying, "You're really talented." Not having noticed that he was watching you draw, you were a bit startled by his sudden compliment. You blushed hard, but thankfully the lights were off in the room so he couldn't see.

"Thank's again," you told him. "I know you get mad at me for saying that, but I mean it." Rick scoffed and said, "I don't get mad, just frustrated."

"Why's that?"

"Because you don't recognize your own worth." He looked away from you, but your eyes couldn't help but linger. He thought you were worth more than you thought you were? That had to mean something, right? And you were right. In Rick's mind, all he could think about was how embarrassed he was. "Doesn't recognize her own worth"? Of course she did, she had to. She was probably the smartest person in the school besides him, not to mention how skilled she was at art and how beautiful she was.

"God, her beauty." That's all he could think about for months on end. Sometimes he would walk the long way home from school to see you run with the track team. He would think about how great you looked in your track uniform and how long and fast you could run without losing your balance or breath. He admired your stamina.

Suddenly, the bell rang for your eighth period and the two of you had to split ways. Rick helped pack up your things because you had lost track of time and all of your art supplies were scattered across your desk. You quickly thanked him and the two of you left the room, finding yourselves walking in the same direction. The walk together was silent and slightly awkward, so you dipped around a corner to find a bathroom and once again calm your racing heart.

After a moment, you collected yourself and sped off to your class. The next day was an A day again, and you had second period, dual-credit astronomy, with Rick. You sat on opposite ends of the classroom, but every once in a while, you caught him staring at you. You hadn't done anything to progress your original plan, but something told you he had already fallen in deep.

After class, you approached Rick as he put up his stuff, and said, "Hey, so... since it's the last day of senior year, I don't think I'm gonna get to see you again." He looked up at you with sparkling eyes, and trying to pretend he wasn't interested in talking to you, he said, "So?" You shifted uncomfortably between your feet and said, "Well, um... I'm throwing a party tomorrow night at my place 'cause my parents are going on a road trip up to the Rockies for a week. Can I hope to see you there?"

"Will there be alcohol?"

"Yes, and weed."

"What time?"

"6:00 - midnight."

"I'll think about it." Rick left to go to his last class of the day, and you grinned wildly at yourself. You knew he would show up, the partying Rick you knew would never turn down drugs and alcohol.

And so, the next day arrived in a flash, and the confetti left over from senior prank day was quickly repurposed for use in your family's large house. You had saved up enough cash to get yourself a fake ID and buy enough alcohol to kill seven Irishmen. You had also contacted your plug and baked three dozen edible brownies with strawberry icing and ordered 20 pizzas. From the gas station, you grabbed a bag of every other chip available and finally brought everything back to your house to set up. On your Instagram story, you temporarily blocked your parents and their alternative accounts from view and posted a photo of your snack, drug, and alcohol haul with the text, "Party at XXXXX Santa Maria BLVD house number XXX, 6-12, post up." Before the party, you ripped off your gauze bandages from your chin and smiled because the cut on your skin had grown much smaller and had barely bruised. Cleaning it off one more time, you waited for people to arrive at your house.

It didn't take long for the message to spread around, and soon, almost half of the juniors and all of the seniors were at your doorstep, waiting to get their hands on what you had to offer. Everyone was let in, with only two rules: Don't break anything, and don't try to enter locked rooms. The locked rooms were your bedroom, your parent's room, your parent's office, and the study. Students and their graduated siblings crowded the living room, kitchen, backyard, game room, pool, and any other place they could sit or stand, but the only face you were looking for was Rick's.

Soon, you heard a familiar voice chatting with one of the annoying popular seniors, and jealous that she had his attention, you poured two shots of vodka and brought one to him, taking one down as you approached. "Hey, Sadie, I see you've met my friend, Rick?" The blonde girl blushed and said, "Ah... yes, I've met him. He's very charming!" She giggled a bit and you unconsciously leaned a bit closer to Rick, saying, "Yeah, well, he's not for you," and downed the other shot in your hand. You burped and Sadie gawked at you with her creepy, wide, blue eyes. You burped and said, "What are you still here for? Didn't I just say he's not for you?"

Sadie scoffed and scowled, grabbing a brownie on her way out of the house and slamming the door behind her. You laughed and said, "I hope no one told her what was in those, she's got drug testing for the wrestling team tomorrow morning." Rick turned to you with a weird look on his face that make it seem like he was trying to conceal a smile and asked, "So, who's am I?"

"Huh?"

"You just said I wasn't for her. Who's am I then?" You started to blush and lied,"I- I just meant you don't belong to anyone and she should stop trying to flirt with you." You laughed and said, "I mean, come out, you're way out of her league!" Rick took a step closer to you and stared down at your dilated eyes. "Oh yeah? And who would be in my league." He let himself smile now, and you had to admit that he was devilishly handsome in the washed-out, red LED lights. You couldn't get a word out as he reached for the shot glasses in your hands and placed them in his. "I'm gonna grab a few more of these," he said, then leaning close to your ear and whispering, "We don't have to stay out here. The super-seniors will make sure no one breaks your rules."

At this point, your heart was racing beyond your control, and you could feel an unfamiliar warmness build up in your throat, stomach, and between your legs. There was absolutely no doubt about it: Rick wanted you - and you desperately needed him. And so, you sat on your couch and waited for him to return, balancing three shots between the fingers in his right hand. He handed one to you which you immediately threw back, then he took his own and placed the empty glasses on the side table. He reached put his left hand to you and asked, "Mind showing me where your bedroom is?"

You gave him a goofy smile and took his hand, leading him to the quiet upstairs of the house where all the locked doors were. You guided him down the hallways and took your room key from your pocket, twisting it into your door lock and pulling him in. The lights were off, but starlight from the window and red lights from beneath the crack under the door gave a bit of ambiance that was certainly appreciated at this moment. As soon as you released Rick's hand and turned around to lock the door, he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you into his hips. He leaned into your neck and gently moved a piece of hair from your ear, asking, "You're okay with this, right?"

As an answer, you leaned your head back and kissed him roughly on the lips, moving your hands up his arms as they wrapped around you and dragged you to your queen-sized bed. He turned you around and pushed you onto your back, gently climbing on top of you and cupping your face in his palms. You removed a strand of your hair from his lips and he leaned in to kiss you passionately. At first, he kissed you delicately, as if he couldn't believe that you were here with him in this moment. But you didn't want delicate.

You wrapped your arms around his waist and pulled him into you, feeling his dick push up against your jeans. He didn't like to be controlled, however, so he grabbed your hands and pinned them above your head, biting down into your neck. A soft moan escaped you as Rick's lips brushed your skin, prequeling his next bite. Each one was rougher than the next, and you were sure he was leaving marks. He shifted to hold up both of your hands with one of his, using the left to run down your waist and pin up your shirt.

He let go of you temporarily to pull off your shirt and unclip your bra, then glid his hands along your soft exposed skin. You ran your hands through his hair and breathed shakily as he left a trail of kisses down your stomach. Was this really happening? Was the man of your dreams really about to go down on you?

Rick leaned upwards to take off his own shirt, then gently fell back to whisper into your ear, "I've waited for this for so long, (y/n)." You felt your heart stop at his words. "You... have?"

"Yeah... for months I couldn't help but stare at you from across the class and... now I have you all to myself." Rick looked down at you and grinned widely, but was interrupted by a loud knocking on the door. He quickly slapped a hand over your mouth and turned his head to face the door, watching the shadow beneath the red light walk away. Before he could turn back to refocus his attention on you, you wrapped your legs around his waist and flipped him over so you could be on top.

He saw you as more beautiful than a goddess while you sat upon him, rubbing your thighs and you breathed heavily. "Wow," he said. "I didn't know you had that in you~." You leaned in to kiss Rick and your hands trailed down to his belt buckle. "I think," you said, "There's a lot about me you don't know yet."

"Yet?" He seemed intrigued by this notion and happily watched as you shifted down and undid his belt, shakily inhaling and you pulled down his brown cargo pants and ran your hand along his underwear, and pulled them down, revealing his large dick. You thought for a moment, "Is that gonna fit?" And then, you remembered you weren't a virgin, and thought, "Nevermind, I don't care, I welcome this pain." You pushed yourself back up and pulled your own black jeans and panties off, positioning yourself comfortably above the blue-haired man. You ran your hands along his chest and kissed his neck softly, his chin lifting in satisfaction.

You used your left hand to carefully place Rick's hard cock in below your pussy, gently leaning into it and gasping a bit at its size. You bent forward to wrap your arms around the man, and he placed his hands on your hips, slowly moving you up and down so as not to hurt you. Soon, the two of you began to move faster, but it wasn't enough for him. He grabbed your waist and used his leg to flip you over underneath him, putting one of your legs over his shoulder and leaving forward to give him more space to violently thrust into you. You moaned into his mouth as he kissed you roughly, breathing into you as he took what was his.

After a bit of this position though, you told him that it was hurting your hips, so he turned you on your stomach and placed your legs on either side of him, thrusting into you from behind as the two of you moaned loudly. He pressed his chest against your back and hit your cervix with great force, but not enough to make it hurt. As his ear was positioned by your mouth, you whispered, "Harder."

"Are you sure you want that?" You nodded and Rick smiled, stopping momentarily to remove himself and pull you by the legs to the side of the bed. You yelped at this and put your feet on the floor, bent over the side of the bed as he reinserted himself and thrust even harder than before. This time, he hit your sweet spot and covered your mouth as you moaned loudly. He lightly whimpered in your ear as you muttered, "Oh, fuck," into his rough hand.

Rick pulled you a bit further off the bed to use his free hand to reach around and rub your clit in circles, the overstimulation bringing you to reach an early climax."Fuck, I'm gonna come," you whispered, and even when you had begun constricting and shaking beneath him, he didn't stop. He continued to caress you in circles and push into you, your nails clawing the sheets on your bed as you tried not to scream. Rick removed his hand from your mouth and instead pushed your head into the sheets, slightly asphyxiating you but in a good way.

Right as you felt like you were going to climax again, Rick pulled out and came on your ass, continuing to rub your clit until you did the same. Once you were left breathless on the side of the bed, he grabbed a tissue from your bedside table and wiped himself and your ass clean. He then picked you up by the waist and placed you gently on the bed, spreading apart your legs and grabbing a couple more tissues to clean you off. You thanked him for doing so and he responded with a kiss, throwing out the tissues under your desk and returning to lay next to you on the bed. He pulled you in for a tight hug and held your head into his neck as you wrapped your bare legs around his waist. "I guess this answers my question from earlier," he said.

"What question?"

"I've been yours all along."

~~~~~

Words: 3735

#ao3 #fanfic #rick sanchez #rick and morty #x Reader #2nd person pov #rick sanchez x reader

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violetmina · 1 year

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Chokehold - Ch. 10

Chokehold Masterlist

Accepting taglist requests!

Taglist: @roundroald @i-wished-upon-a-star-one-night @sexytholland @scraftsku35 @avastrasposts @missihart23 @ladyvillainous @elementress44 @haibara-ai-tsii @123passwort @sanscas @lulzbrokenbyfantasy @icantevenchoose @marksassybanana @a-rogue-tiddy-bot @itsyellow @lmarina2000 @d3adite666 @casualfansoul @missrandomheart @cvstle

Pairing: Billy Butcher x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5,067

Warning: Swearing, adult themes, mentions of bodily harm, blood, and good ol’ Butcher himself.

A/N: Honestly, this chapter is basically a whole lot of whump and comfort. And despite my best efforts, Butcher might be a bit OOC for it. Nonetheless, I hope you guys enjoy.

"Jesus, Butcher!"

With a flurry of fingers you snatch your phone from the floor before you can step on it, discarding it on the counter to approach the bloody man. You turn on the faucet after seizing a washcloth from one of the drawers, your stomach clenching at the sight of so much red swirling down the drain. It's then you finally notice your first aid kit on the other side of the sink, already half gutted by your unexpected visitor.

He's awake and something akin to alert. But you can tell that Butcher isn't processing on all cylinders. It's not until you wring out the cloth and turn to him that he catches your intent. He bats at your hand when you reach to wipe at the left side of his face. "Nah, nah. Stop. Stop! I don' need fuckin' motherin'!"

"No, but you could use a hand," you quip with strained patience.

"I told ya, I got it!"

Both of you swear when he reaches for the first aid and his bloody hand slips on the edge of the basin, nearly sending him into the mirror. You grab his belt and begin to gently tug him back towards the toilet. "C'mon, Billy. Sit down, just for a min-"

"Fuck off! I can-!"

"Sit!"

He glares at you through his seeping war paint. He grunts when you give a good yank on his belt, causing him to totter before he begrudgingly slumps onto the toilet lid. The glare grows into a full-on man pout, and in any other circumstance you might have laughed. Instead, you nudge one of his boots to the side with your foot and stand between his knees. You begin cleaning at his temple, making quick but gentle work of trying to find the source of blood.

"I'd have done it me self just fine," he grumbles when you clear around his eye. "Wasn't expecting you home this early anyway."

"Early? Butcher it's late. It's been nearly twenty-four hours since you left the office."

The pout gives way to confusion. "Has it really?," he asks, more to himself than you. He smears blood from the face of his watch and squints at the time. "Christ. S'pose you're right."

"What happened, Billy? How'd you end up in my bathroom like this?"

"Well I let myself in."

The groggy smirk he gives you is a double-edged sword. You're not certain if it's an indication that he's fairly ok, or if he's using humor to deflect. You take a slow, deep breath before replying, "I can see that. What happened after you left the hospital last night?"

"What'd MM tell ya?"

"He told me about the girl. No one has seen you since then. I'm asking you."

The biting edge of worry begins to gnaw at your guts as you rinse the cloth and try to clean his cheeks, what you can dab out of his beard. What if his head injury is worse than you thought? How impaired might his memory be?

A look of concentration flits in his eyes before he finally speaks. "Tracked down the club she told us about. Paid their security a little visit. Was waiting to be led back to their surveillance room when I got ambushed."

"By whom? Vought?"

"Not Vought," he winces when you swipe into his hairline. "Couldn't've gotten there ahead of me like that. I think Walsh used Vought's squawker to stay ahead of the company lackeys when they went snooping. But now he's gonna know somebody else is digging up his side hustle. Bastards he hired looked like third party thugs."

You rinse the cloth again and begin gingerly sweeping through his hair, his wince your first clue of where his wound may be. Your free hand works at parting the thick, sodden strands. "You mean he's hired people not part of Vought, to cover his tracks, right?"

"Believe so. They didn't act like the usual company muppets. Fuckin' hell, love!" He hisses before sending you an annoyed glance. "Don't mind a hair-pulling kink but you're fucking scalping me here!"

"I'm sorry. You're clotting so bad it's matting. I need you to move to sit on the edge of the tub."

"What? Why?"

"Please don't make this any harder," you sigh, gripping his belt again to help him shuffle over to the lip of the bath. Once he's seated and balanced to your liking, you unhook the shower head and start a slow warm flow. "I have to get some of the blood out of your hair. I can't see your scalp."

"Should probably clean this one first," Butcher grits as he starts fiddling with his shirt.

You turn from the water with a frown. "Clean what one f-? Oh my god!"

A knot of nausea squeezes your belly at the sight that appears when he slips off the left side of his shirt. The rivers of blood trace from his fingertips up to just under the end of his clavicle. There in front of the socket is a lumpy, pocket-like wound just under the skin from which the blood oozes, a long gouge trailing back from it towards his sternum like a thin, shallow comet tail. As his fingers begin to prod about the lump you realize that it is a pocket, and in it-.

"You didn't tell me you were shot!" You drop the shower head and reach for some of the clean gauze still left in the first aid kit. When you turn back, it's just in time to watch him squeeze the pocket with gritted teeth and watch the bullet slip out. He fumbles with a pant of relief as it drops into his slick palm. Before you can even process, he gives it a feeble toss over your shoulder. It clatters in the sink.

"Least it wasn't a hollow point," he mumbles. "Woulda been real messy."

"No. Nuh-uh," you stammer finally. "I'm taking you-."

"Nowhere." Butcher manages a steely look in your direction. "Can't go to the hospital. They'll be looking for me."

"Ok. Maybe if I call MM then-"

"Not doing that either. We split at the ER for a reason." Then almost under his breath, "Shouldn't have even come here."

You dart forward, cursing as you press the gauze against the wound firmly. He manages to sneak his right hand under yours to take over. "Calm down, it was more of a graze. Superficial. Hardly needs packing."

"Calm down? Any deeper and this-!" You cut off at the realization; if it had entered a mere inch or so further back it likely would have torn through the top of his lungs, his lower windpipe. Not wanting to dwell on it, you glare at his reckless face before ripping through your kit for packing, a sterile q-tip and an ampoule of sterile water. You pry his fingers and gauze back long enough to clean around the shallow pocket, trying to rinse without saturating. Then follow suit on the graze. "Don't know how the hell you got so lucky," you spit as you place the miniscule amount of packing needed into the bullet hole once the bleeding had been staunched. "Didn't even know this was possible."

"Nah. Seen weirder in my bootneck days," he says with a lopsided shrug, holding the left side still as you apply a dry dressing.

"I don't wanna know." Again, you rinse the cloth, which now is tinted a stubborn pink and set to cleaning off his arm. When he tries to take it from you, you snatch it back. "You're going to let me finish. Now what did you mean? Why did you come here?"

"I shoulda gone to my place," he admits quietly, eyeing the cloth in a way that tells you he is not going to fully cooperate. "Just couldn't quite get there on foot."

His skin finally loses its sanguinous sheen and you abandon the cloth in the sink for a fresh clean one. Setting it aside on the edge, you reach back down into the tub and retrieve the shower head. He attempts to slip it from your fingers but you manage to evade. "I'm almost done, Billy. How about you chill for five minutes of your life?"

"I think I can manage washing myself," he snaps.

"Didn't say you couldn't. You need to mind your shoulder though." You maneuver back between his knees. "If it doesn't make you too dizzy, you need to tilt your head back. Let's see if I can keep from soaking your new dressing. I can't speak for your shirt."

"Oh God forbid you get me bloodstained shirt a little wet." Butcher slips the right side off with a shrug and dangles the shirt between you with his good arm and a bit of exasperation. He tosses it onto the floor, next to his jacket in the corner you realize, before trying yet again to snatch the shower head. He nearly falls off the edge of the tub in the process and you bite back an expletive when you help right him again with your free hand on the back of his neck.

"Please, Billy." It comes out soft, almost tired.

He scowls at you for a moment. You almost wonder if he had heard your plea over the water. Then finally he grips the edge of the tub and slowly tilts his head back.

You dive in before he can change his mind, moving your hand from his neck to his hairline to block water from running into his face. In mere seconds your bath resembles your sink, bloody water dripping in little streams from the back of his skull. There had been many times over the past couple months your fingers had itched with want to run through Butcher's unruly locks. But you never pictured it being like this, easing and crumbling clots from his hair, fingertips only ghosting the roots for fear of pulling at the injured scalp beneath.

Briefly there had been a moment where you thought he might be coming around. But you still catch glimpses of it in his eyes, the brain fog that rolls in and out like a tide. When he begins to lean too far back and blindly reaches out to catch at your waist instead of the tub, you don't comment. But your worry grows in the sound of the running water, then doubles in size at a sudden thought.

"Please tell me I'm not about to find a bullet here, too."

The corner of his mouth curls and the brain fog ebbs out of his eyes. Mischief replaces it. "Don't be daft. I'm not a zombie out for your brains. Those twats were piss-poor shots anyway."

"Your spanking new dressings say otherwise," you deadpan. A second after and you finally find it. A long jagged gash arcing just behind his left temple and back, stopping a couple inches before his ear. You lower the shower head into the tub again to inspect further. "Definitely not a bullet wound. What made this?"

"Dunno," Butcher replies. "One threw something, didn't see what. Clocked me right as I rounded a corner."

"Threw it at you?"

"Pretty sure his gun jammed just before. Fucking amateur," he says smugly.

You shake your head. "Whatever it was, it got you good. Luckily it's not too deep. Just made you bleed like a stuffed pig. And I suspect a slight concussion. Those steri-strip things would be best but I don't think they'll stay with all your hair. I should have some liquid bandage stuff in the kit though."

You pick up the clean cloth and start dabbing at the broken skin, trying to be gentle. Once it's a bit more dry, you slip back just far enough to turn and dip into your kit. After a bit of rummaging you find the little tube you're looking for. With the faintest tapping on the back of his skull, you signal for him to ease his head to forward. You start applying the gel on the wound, working from the back towards his temple.

If he notices the sting that usually comes with liquid stitches, he says nothing. As a matter of fact, he's rather quiet as the minutes pass. Enough to unsettle you again as you reach the end of the gash. Satisfied with your work, you discard the tube with a toss back into the kit before carefully dipping both hands into his hair. When he arches a brow at you, you reply, "Just checking for any other wounds. And making sure the rest of your skull is still intact."

Still he says nothing and allows you to examine him further. He's already got a hell of a knot forming around the gash. But as you tread your fingertips along his scalp, you find no further injury. When your fingers reach far enough to touch, lacing round the back of his head, he makes a small hum in his throat. You glance at his face, finding his eyes flitting just a bit, more foggy than before.

When you snap your hands back to hold his face, he comes straight back to alert. "Wha-?"

"Look straight ahead. Need to see your eyes."

He stares back at you, brow arching again. "The hell you doing now?," he asks dryly.

"I'm checking for nystagmus."

"Plain English, Nurse Ratched."

"Involuntary eye movements. Like when you look at something but your eyes keep ticking away then right back. Thought I saw it a second ago."

He surprises you with a chuckle, and it manages to smooth out some of your concern. "I think I'll live if I have a lazy eye for a minute, darlin'."

"Not a lazy eye. Nystagmus often happens if there's neurological issues. Surgical sedation can cause it. Or, you know, someone or something trying to bust your head open like a damn pinata. If you have it, I'm calling MM."

His hands on your waist tighten slightly. "No, you're fucking not. I'm fine."

"Shut up and keep your eyes open, William."

Both brows shoot to his hairline for a moment. But they settle and you continue looking into his pupils, waiting for any rhythmic twitching, or any indication of stroke. Long seconds pass and you sigh with relief. No sign of nystagmus. He's got issues for days but at least for tonight it's not brain damage.

"That was a first."

You blink at him, noticing his pupils dilate slightly. "What's a first?"

"You called me William." A smirk starts to form on his face, and your eyes linger a little too long on his lips. "Wasn't that serious, was it?"

"Oh." Caught off guard, you suddenly realize your position. Up close with a shirtless and damp Butcher, cradling his face. You go to drop your hands to his shoulders but remember the bullet wound, and they stutter to an awkward stop on his neck instead. "I was…"

Butcher cuts off your train of thought when he pulls on your hips and leans forward, bringing your foreheads together. "Relax, love," he breathes, still smirking as he flips the roles on you - now he's studying your eyes. "M'alright. Been in way worse shape than this."

"Billy…"

"That's better."

And his lips press against yours without hesitation. It's short, perhaps teasing. But there's that underlying note of tenderness again, and it pulls a smile and a small sound of contentment out of you. Prior doubt slithering away like the water down the drain.

His response to your smile is quick, eyes flashing before his mouth captures yours again, but much firmer. Warm, borderlining hot. When you sigh one of his hands slides up from your waist to cradle the back of your neck. Butcher's mouth moves slow but unyielding against yours, wiping your mind clean of any thought and leaving only awareness of this. A tug on your bottom lip between his teeth morphs your next sigh into a tiny gasp. But it's all he needs to dip his tongue just within, testing, just tasting.

His hand on your hip glides to the small of your back, pulling you till you're almost flushed with him. You give no resistance.

It's not until your shins hit the tub that you realize too late you probably should have. The next second you're both fumbling to catch your fall with a yell. Butcher manages to get one hand on the lip of the tub, and you wrap one arm around his shoulders. Your other hand shoots out to slam against the wall, stopping your awkward, tangled crash. But not before Butcher's head thuds against the faucet.

"Aw fuck me!"

"Shit! Hold on!"

It's a mess, but with a bit more cursing you both strain to an upright position again. Butcher's eyes screw shut with a hiss as he holds the edge with a death grip. "Well if I wasn't concussed before I sure as shit am now!"

Before you can reply a knock sounds from your front door. "Shit! I forgot about the pizza! Don't move, okay? I'll be right back."

"Hold on a tic-"

"Don't. Fucking. Move!," you hiss before darting out the bathroom.

You scramble about till you find a little cash, just enough for a tip. Despite your best efforts, you still managed to get a little blood on the hem of your shirt, tiny specks of it drying on your palms from cleaning up the reckless mess in your bathroom. If the delivery guy notices when you answer the door, he says nothing. Just gives you a bored look and equally flat "have a nice night" as you exchange him for the food, then leaves.

You secure the door and move quickly into the kitchen to drop the pizza on the counter. You snatch a glass and fill it with water then turn back to head to the bathroom for tylenol. Instead you find Butcher filling your bedroom doorway, rubbing the back of his head.

"Damn it! I said don't move!"

"I heard ya. And I'm starving. Gotta do something for this bloody headache." He shuffles to the counter as you slink past him.

"Hold on, just getting you some medicine right now. Give me a sec and I'll see if I can find you some food," you call back.

"It's right here, innit?"

You pop two pills into your palm, then remember you have yet to finish the graze on his chest. Washing your hands and grabbing a packet of ointment, you head back to the kitchen. "Yes, but that's probably one of the worst things for a con-" You let out a sigh at the sight of Butcher already happily halfway through his first slice. "Nevermind. Here."

"Much obliged." He takes the tylenol greedily between bites and washes it down with the whole glass and a wince. Once he takes the last bite of food you rip open the packet and approach him. He shakes his head when you raise a hand towards the graze. "Now hold on-"

"Your hands aren't clean. So hush." When he rolls his eyes you pause in applying to give him a pointed look. "Not going to let you undo all my hard work by getting an infection via pizza grease."

You make quick work of it, focusing on applying just the right amount of ointment to hold off the thoughts of his mouth on yours moments before, or the fact he's standing in your apartment still shirtless. It's hard to ignore, though, what with the planes of his long torso before you, and his broad chest under your hands. But you manage.

With a nod, you step back. "There. Done. I'm going to grab your shirt, maybe I can still save it with a wash."

"Don't bother, love," he replies, seizing another slice from the box. "A wash ain't gonna fix the bullet hole."

Oh no. You're not doing this to me.

"Fair enough. Umm. I might have something then? Give me a minute."

You turn back to your bedroom again, making a beeline for your closet. For several minutes you rife through your clothes and your thoughts. You have no complaints of the kissing, aside from the embarrassing tumble. But you do feel a twinge of guilt. He's not completely well, and you certainly don't want to make things worse. You finally find an old, oversized t-shirt. A dark blue, ragged unisex thing you had kept for housework and "just in case" situations like this, it's hem riddled with holes. It may just fit him.

When you return you find him on your couch, eyes closed, right arm draped lazily across the back.You can't help looking him over. You're not sure what you had expected under those tacky shirts all this time but it wasn't this. He's not chiseled, which you're actually glad for, pleased by the hint of lean muscle under his skin. He's built for useful strength, not showboating. The urge to map his large ribcage and where he's soft or firm with your hands makes your fingers twitch. And the lines of hips you'd only peeked before are now on full display, framing a thin dark trail under his navel, and sloping sharp into his jeans. You'd heard a couple different names for hips like his, Apollo's belt being one. The other was Aphrodite's saddle.

Fuck Aphrodite! That one is mine!

The man has been shot! Can we fucking NOT?!, you snap at the little voice.

You call his name softly and he opens his eyes. A good sign, all things considered. You toss him the shirt before stepping back to get some pizza yourself. "Full already?"

"Nah, just pausing before thirds," Butcher quips as he stiffly tugs on the shirt. Thankfully it's not too snug.

You give him a look when you sit down beside him with your plate. "You got nauseous, didn't you?" He shrugs dismissively but you know better. Not a good sign. After a hesitant bite you decide to switch back to the other pressing matter. "So this lead at the club is a deadend then?"

"Fraid so," he nods solemnly. "Even if one of the others goes back for it, that footage is good as gone now. There'll be another person like that girl, you can count on it. Just have to wait."

"She got lucky," you frown between bites. "We don't know how many others there have been that weren't."

"We can't do anything bout that. We'd be chasing our tails if we tried digging that hard, and Neuman will wonder why our other cases have slowed down all the sudden. Too risky."

You finish your first slice and sigh. Now your appetite is compromised. "So now what?"

Butcher's all too familiar smirk returns. "We do our day jobs as usual, and prep for that gala like we planned. But right now?" He shifts in his seat, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you into him. He hooks one of your thighs despite your protest and manages to pull you into his lap to face him. "I recall telling you last night that we ain't done."

"Seriously?" You scoff with a wry smile. "Even now?"

"Well no better time than the present, now is there?," he grins. When he leans up to kiss you, you press your fingers against his lips and the other hand on his good shoulder, and push him back. He gives an indignant look.

"As a matter of fact, there is a better time than the present." When he frowns you shake your head and continue. "Billy, you have a goddamn bullet hole under your collarbone. And you're concussed. Almost twice. You need rest, and the less stimulation the better. Not TV, not music, and definitely not getting to know you carnally."

"Stimulation sounds much more fun," he grumbles, still teasing.

"I'm not kicking you out. You can stay. As a matter of fact, I insist."

"Well I'm glad the lady insists."

"But," you press, darting around his flirtatious tone, "It's late. I'm tired. And more importantly, you are tired. Don't lie, I can see it."

"What? Don't fancy me bedroom eyes?"

"You need to heal, Billy," you intone, low but emphatic. "And that requires a quiet place and restful sleep."

He gives a bit of a pout, looking you over as his thumbs rub circles on your thighs. "No pizza, no TV, no sex. Fucking hell, you really are Nurse Ratched."

"You should be supervised for at least forty-eight hours. But you and I both know damn well you're not going to let that happen. Just let me keep an eye on you tonight and I'll quit being your nurse by morning. Okay?"

"No dice. You best have a better deal than that."

"Butcher-"

"How about…I pick some boring drivel on the telly, keep it real low…" His palms smooth warmly over your thighs. "...And you keep more on me than an eye, eh?"

"I keep both eyes on you then," you counter. "And I pick what's on the TV. Final offer. Otherwise, I'll cut the TV cord, kick you to bed and nap here on this couch-"

"You're not kicking yourself outta your own damn bed," he says with a bristling glare. The flirtatious tone returns after a beat. "And I ain't going near it unless you're in it."

"Well look at that, you being a gentleman," you tease. "So? Final offer?"

He stares at you, summing up the options. He's not pleased, obviously. But you can see the fatigue in his face, and you're determined that he makes it through the night without complications. His eyes narrow.

"...What you thinkin' of picking?"

"Something mild, kinda monotonous," you shrug. "Maybe one of those David Attenborough nature docs."

"Oh come off it!," he groans. "Bloody concussion won't kill me but you will bore me to death! I might as well just go to Bo-peep!"

"That's the point," you faux whisper.

He lets out a heavy sigh, minutely shaking his head. "Fuck me…Where's your remote?"

"Thank you," you beam before hopping off his lap. You snatch the remote before he gets any ideas, and set everything up, volume down to just audible. You grab one more slice of pizza from the kitchen, putting the rest away in the fridge, then turning off the lights. You set up an alarm on your phone for the end of the show, then a couple more about two hours apart to check on him through the night. The last would be your usual morning wakeup call.

You pad back to the couch where Butcher promptly pulls you down to tuck into his side. He throws an annoyed look at your triumphant expression, before finally easing back into the cushions, his eyes already heavy. You make quick work of your second slice as you feel his breath start to become rhythmic, ready to begin your watch…

It's not till the sound of the first alarm goes off that you realize you, too, had been lulled to sleep. You jolt, scrambling for your phone to quickly silence the alarm. You're disoriented to find that you're still tucked into Butcher but not as before. At some point you must have dozed a little heavier than him, allowing him to shift you both onto his good side. His left arm is draped over your hips, and when you reach for the remote to turn off the TV, it wraps a little closer.

"Billy?," you call softly over your shoulder. He stirs, giving a small grunt in response. Groggy but responsive, so far so good. You start to shift to get up. "I'm going to get you a blanket."

"No," he grunts into your shoulder. His arm pulls you back flush with him. You feel him wince at irritating his wound with the movement, then mumbles, "Don't need it."

Within moments his breathing becomes warm and steady on the back of your neck again, and his grip slowly softens as he slips back into sleep. You consider trying to sneak out. But honestly…this is more than you could've asked for. If anyone had told you not too long ago that you'd be cuddled by big, bad Billy Butcher, you would have told them to get their head checked. After all these chaotic, frustrating, dirty months this is the nicest thing you've experienced since joining the Boys. Then immediately after realize that this must be an even more rare moment of peace and comfort for him.

Smiling, you check to make sure the alarms are still ready on your phone, then set it aside on the coffee table. You let your eyes drift shut, determined not to take this for granted, soaking in the warmth, the silence…

^^^

Your eyes snap open, the room still dark. You sigh, waiting to hear your alarm. It doesn't sound. It's silent and you glance about, confused, why are you awake? It takes only a moment, the tingle of hairs standing on end, and you find your answer. The feeling is back. The feeling of something wrong.

You slowly raise on one arm, peering around. Only then do you notice something missing, warmth and weight. You turn your head and find Butcher sitting upright on the couch, your legs in his lap. You realize he must feel it, too. His face is turned from you, looking towards the windows.

"Billy?"

He turns his head at your whisper, his face a mix of brooding and alertness, all muddled with fatigue. The second you recognize it, the moment you realize it's the feeling of being watched again, it dissipates. His brow furrows.

"Billy, wh-?"

"Nothin'," he mumbles with a faint shake of his head. "Go back to sleep." He slides lazily back up the couch to reclaim his spot. You're on the verge of asking again but he hooks a finger under your chin. "Hey, what'd I say? I'm fine. It's nothin'."

He pulls you back in again, the solid weight of him behind you and the briefest press of lips upon the back of your neck both bring the tide of sleep over you, slowly but surely. You silence the alarm just before you close your eyes. When the next one wakes you, he's the one to shut it off.

You can't help but notice that his grip softens less in his sleep this time.

#billy butcher x reader #billy butcher #the boys fanfic

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katyawriteswhump · 7 months

Text

the power of love, part 11 (steddie, steve whump fic, stobin)

Alternate ending S4: Steve has a habit of surviving near death experiences then getting sick for no reason. And Eddie and those fatal bat bites? After an impossible feat of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Steve, he’s mysteriously fixed. So, Eddie’s back to being banished, this time with Steve and Robin in tow. Eddie’s healing, but Steve isn’t… and life gets even more confusing, when Eddie develops feelings for Steve, which aren’t entirely unrequited.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 12 Part 13

(also on AO3 here and as part of my steve whump fic series)

Steve POV

1978—Lover’s Lake

Steve sinks, pulls upward with all he’s got left. He bursts through the surface, screaming: “Dad! Mom! Dad? I’m… lost… Heeeelp!”

The dark waters close seamlessly above his head.

His panic dies quickly, along with the burning pressure in his chest. He sees a swimmer approaching across the depths, like a light rippling through gloom. Their face is kind and strange—he can’t tell if they’re young or really old, or a guy or girl.

“Not yet,” they say. Their arms fold around him, and he’s calm and he isn’t cold.

Until he is.

A thousand icy needles jab at his skin, and he whimpers at the sensation of being dragged, carried. Voices shout in harsh, frightening tones, and then…

Apart from in his dreams, he doesn’t see THEM again for another seven years.

“Who do you work for?” demands that Soviet son-of-a-bitch, for the billionth time.

Steve is tied up, bloodied, not sure if he’s laughing or crying. He’s sure as heck losing his mind, and… wtf?

The other Soviet bastard raises his hand.

“Oh, come on! No, no, no, seriously?”

Steve doesn’t see the blow coming. Pain flashes up and darkness slams down—the darkness of blood, a rising, relentless tide. It washes him back into that calm place, and all his panic and pain float away.

He sees THEM again, in the fearless dark.

“Still not yet,” they whisper.

The echoes hook him back. It’s Robin: “Help, heeeeelp!”

Oh yeah, they’ve been captured by the Soviets.

“My ears are ringing,” he tells her, “I can’t properly breathe, and I feel like my eyes’s about to pop out of my skull. Apart from that, I’m doing pretty good.”

He shouldn’t be, though. If there wasn’t so much else to be shitting himself about, he’d be yelling it loud enough to deafen them both. After that mauling from Hargrove, the doctor’s warning had been brutal. Any more head trauma, and he might have a stroke, a brain bleed, go blind, deaf, lose his memory, go mad. He could even die. He should be dead now, right?

Then it all gets even whackier.

A blue tide rushes through the Soviet base. He yells for Robin, but everything’s already obliterated. The waters carry him along, limbs flailing free, no longer hurting, not even so scared. He knows it’s THEM, although this tsunami isn’t gentle. It’s Niagara levels of powerful and near as water can get to fire and fury.

“You’ll know,” they tell him. “You’ll know when it’s time to come home.”

Then he’s back in the present, slowly waking up.

He figures he’s been dreaming. Yeah, about those evil Soviets, and about… stuff that didn’t happen. Where the hell did that flood and fire crap come from?

“You’ll know when it’s time to come home.”

It’s deeply freaky, and he hates it. And Jesus Christ, why is his shoulder a screaming mess of pain? He opens his eyes.

“Robin?” She’s in her usual spot, sitting on the edge of his bunk.

“Steve? Oh, thank God!”

“What happened this time? I’m so sick of…” He raises his head, flops it back again. There’s a bone-deep ache through his neck and both his arms. His wrists feel mangled. “Shit! Somebody was coming! Did they… Where’s Eddie?”

She puffs through her nostrils. “It’s okay. It was Hopper and El.”

Yeah, that makes some sorta sense. Hopper and Eleven were on the run too, after all. “Where’s Eddie? Is he all right?”

“Don’t ask me. Not spoken to him since he left you unconscious, hanging by one wrist. What was he even thinking?”

Blood rushes to Steve’s face. “That wasn’t entirely his fault. Honestly, I… uh…”

“I don’t care if you begged him on one knee! It was utterly moronic.”

“Listen, I was a moron too—it was matching moronic-ness. We were fooling around, and… Look, I passed out after he left to warn you. Before that, I basically forced him to go.”

“Forced him while roped up? You get yet another pass, Dingus. It’s gonna take a short-to-medium-length Ice Age for him to earn the same.”

Steve sighs hard. He’ll talk her around when he’s gotten the energy.

“Steve, can I ask you something?” She picks at the last flakes of that nail polish..

“If I said ‘no,’ would it make any difference?”

“Do you know anything about the fantastically random rainstorm last night?”

“About the whut?”

His mind starts racing, in sync with his pulse. Trouble is, he’s beginning to get it. He knows that they—that thing in Lover’s Lake—saved his life. More than once. He still hasn’t got a clue about the rain. Or has he?

You freaked out last night, and thunder clouds hijacked your brain.

“Steve? You okay?”

“Jesus, I’m…” Nope, still not great. He slowly sits up. Under the blanket, he’s shirtless. He catches his left arm with his right, cradling it.

“Does your shoulder hurt bad?”

“No, Robin. It’s just randomly gone purple. Gonna be pitching for the Hoosiers this weekend for sure.” He notices one of his wrists is bandaged. “Got any of those left? Guess I’ll need a sling or something.”

“Yeah, I tried the lake water trick. Not much happened this time. On the other hand, Hopper said it was a miracle you didn’t dislocate it, so… I’ll, uh, go get him. He’s got a ton of fresh supplies."

She goes, and Steve painfully eases his way into a clean shirt. It turns out to be another Hellfire Club one, which Eddie brought back from his meet at Skull Rock. Oh genius, Henderson, just brilliant! Get Eddie and me walking around with targets painted on our chests, why don’t you? Worse, I’m gonna look like a nerd. With TERRIBLE HAIR. The effort of getting his sweater on over it all, literally brings tears to his eyes.

Then he sits up straight, on the edge of the bunk. He supports his bad arm, while forcing his features into his best ‘don’t-give-a-damn’ mask.

When Hopper stoops under the door of the bunkroom, Steve’s jaw drops anyhow. He barely recognises the guy. Uh… wow? He’s not wearing a police uniform, but he still looks in goddamn charge, with an Indiana-Jones style hat that screams authority. He’s even gotten his hands on what looks like a police-issue firearm, in a halter at his side.

“Hey,” says Hopper. “You got yourself pretty beat up again, huh?”

“My shoulder hurts,” he whispers. It comes out so humiliatingly shakily, that when Hopper takes off his hat and sits down beside him, Steve looks away sharply. Oh, for Christ’s sake! He sniffs, dabs his eyes, pulls himself together. “It’s not so bad,” he mumbles.

“Yeah? You got tough joints, kid.”

Steve bites his lip to the point of pain.

Hopper’s brought a first-aid kit, and he fashions a sling for him. As he does, he fills Steve in on a few more details of how the hell he came back from the dead. Also, about what’s been going on in Hawkins, which is basically under military occupation. He ties the sling behind Steve’s neck, squeezes his good shoulder. “You take it easy. Sun’s up and we’ll be off in a few minutes.”

Hopper heads out. Steve scowls at his back.

He ought to be relieved Hopper’s here. Admittedly, he’s been a total flop at taking care of himself and the others. Which only makes him more pissed with Hopper. How could somebody go through that in a Soviet gulag, win a wrestling match with demo-gorgons, and still come out alive, swinging, and the toughest dude in the state?

He gets his sneakers on and staggers as far as the door. Robin is loading the remnants of their supplies into an armoured Humvee, painted in military khaki and spattered with mud. Hopper’s fiddling under the hood, and Eleven hovers nearby. She gives Steve a sort-of smile, which he returns, while seething,

That sick son-of-a-bitch Brenner took her hair again?

“Where’s Eddie?” he asks, stepping further out, while fighting a wave of dizziness.

“Skulking,” calls Eddie, sloping out from some hiding spot. Robin folds her arms and stomps away. Steve squelches across the sticky ground toward Eddie. He looks so forlorn—hair flattened like a soggy puppy’s—that Steve can’t help grinning.

“Sorry,” mouths Steve. “Sucky timing, huh?”

Eddie pulls a silly face, which doesn’t reach his pink eyes. Steve edges closer. Eddie shuffles back, looking genuinely spooked, which sends Steve’s mood into free-fall.

He sits down heavily on Eddie’s empty beer-crate and nods at the Humvee. “You guys stole that baby?”

“Had to get around the roadblocks somehow,” says Hopper. “That rain churned up a ton of mud. It’s gonna slow them down, but it’s gonna slow us down too. We gotta move.”

“We? Why are we all going?” Steve hates this idea. Even more than he hates how he’s defaulting to surly teenager mode. He wonders—not for the first time though not for the billionth—if his actual parents have given him up for dead. “Don’t wanna seem ungrateful, Chief, but I really don’t feel like a road trip.”

“O’Sullivan has torn Hawkins apart, searching for El. Next, he’s gonna have the army sweep this whole area. You won’t stand a chance.”

“Can’t we go back to those caves?” Steve mumbles toward his mud-flecked sneakers.

“When they find you,” says Hopper, “best-case scenario—they hand Munson here over the police, or the cronies who count for it these days. Worst case-scenario? O’Sullivan keeps hold of him, as well as you.”

“Why the heck would some army guy be interested in me?”

He senses Hopper close in. “You signed the NDAs, Steve. They know YOU know about Eleven. They’ve interrogated Joyce and Jonathan, but there’s only so much they can do with people they can’t easily ‘disappear.’ If they think you’ve got intel as to her whereabouts… You get where I’m going with this?”

“So what?” Steve can’t look up. Like before, he can’t let Hopper see. “W-won’t be the first time I’ve been tortured.”

“Yeah, and I’m sorry, kid. But tough talk ain’t gonna save you.”

“They kill people,” says Eleven. “I didn’t want to run, to leave Mike. To leave Max.” She sounds so very sad. “We had no choice.”

“I honestly don’t think we have much choice either, Steve,” says Robin, emerging from the cabin behind with the blankets. “Hop’s got more bottled water from Lover’s Lake in the truck. If you get sick or hurt, it could help.”

On being reminded of all that shit, Steve rubs his face, groans.

“We gonna talk about that now?” asks Eddie. “You know, the ginormous, soggy elephant spouting water out of its trunk? The one giving Steve buffed-to-the-max powers?”

“Powers?” Steve’s forced laugh comes out way too loud. “El can throw cars around with her mind, rip holes in dimensions. I can heal stuff. A bit. Then I pass out for half a day. It’s pointless.”

“Neeeewsflash,” sings Eddie. “You brought me back from the dead. Not pointless, I hope.”

Steve laughs again, totally hollow. What Eddie says feels fake, somehow. Was that even really him, or… Ugh, his head is too muddled.

“Using my powers tires me out too,” adds Eleven.

“Uh, hello? Can we please discuss the super-magical weather?” Having flung the bedding in the Humvee, Robin flings her arms toward the skies. “Twice, we were in danger. Twice, Steve rearranged the heavens to cover our sorry asses.”

Steve huffs: “Robin, I have no control over—"

“You have to learn control,” says Eleven.

“We can talk about this on the journey.” Hopper takes Steve by the elbow. He urges him to his feet, finally forcing Steve to slam him with a full-on glare. “C’mon, get in.”

Part 12

tags: @estrellami-1 @kal-ology @finntheehumaneater (thank you, thank you, thank you!) If anybody else would like to be tagged on this fic or any of my writing, please let me know :) Reblogs, comments and likes also very much appreciated :) Thank you for reading so far :)

(also part of my steve whump fic series on AO3)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 12 Part 13

#steve x eddie #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #steve harrington whump #steddie fanfic #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson #stobin fanfic #platonic stobin #stobin #stobin fic #stobin friendship #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington hurt/comfort

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conjectureand-gloom · 8 months

Text

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ welcome! ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

important information ⬎

alex

they/he/xe/it

non binary 💛🤍💜🖤

lesbian ❤️🧡🤍🩷💜

youreverydaydemikid -> conjectureand-gloom (15/01/24)

minor (february 8th)

multifandom

fanfiction writer

GMT +10:30

INFP-T

2w1

lyn lapid fan blog @tlit21c

i stand with palestine 🇵🇸

my new main account is @holesofmy-sweater

links ⬎

my ao3

my spotify

my pinterest

my instagram (that i’m barely active on)

hamilton fanfic recommendations

2023 reflection post

fandom list, fanfiction request masterlist, written works, wips, asks, tags and mutuals under the cut

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ fandom list ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

hamilton (feel free to request for any hamilton ship, i love them all so much, alexander is the absolute DREAM for a multishipper. alexander is my main target for angst! this is my main fandom)

jesus christ superstar (jesus/judas or jesus/judas/mary mainly for jcs, but feel free to ask for any other ships and i’ll consider it!! and no, i am not religious. i have been raised christian, but just ended up with religious trauma)

a good girls guide to murder (pipravi fluff and angst :) but i’ll so gladly write fics about sal and andie, or becca. ravi is my comfort character, and i just torture pip relentlessly)

nevermoor (personally i’m more of a cadence/morrigan girly, but fics for nevermoor will mainly be gen! i love found family, so jupiter & mog fluff or angst is my favourite)

in the heights (canon ships mainly, but feel free to ask for other ships! i’m not in the ITH fandom much, so these are going to be much more inaccurate)

newsies (again, more gen fics, but i do ship dave/jack. also i love angsty crutchie fics. this is one of my smaller fandoms, so these will be super inaccurate)

keeper of the lost cities (preferably marella/linh or tam/keefe! but again, feel free to ask for any ship!!)

hunger games (gen, preferably. but i’m team peeta in case anyone was wondering. fuck gale.)

maze runner (okay i haven’t read or seen TMR in ages but newt/thomas)

divergent (canon ships only. and no, christina/tobias is not canon.)

six (gen all the way. found family. also i love katherine howard angst over any other queen)

the song of achilles (achilles/patroclus? literally what other ship is there????? this is my favourite book)

wednesday (wednesday/enid. i feel like this requires no explanation. also. angst fics. i almost exclusively write angsty wednesday fics, rather than enid. i love the whole of the addams family, and i love familial hurt/comfort)

marauders (i’m not in the marauders fandom much at all, like i really only know the actual hp canon marauders. so.)

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ fanfic request rules ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

i’ll write for any fandom listed above, i love them all! however i am much more active in hamilton, agggtm, jcs, nevermoor and kotlc, so those fics will be much better than the other fandoms’ would be

i’ll write any genre other than smut, and angst/whump is my absolute favourite. any AUs you could think of, literally anything, i’m not picky!

i won’t write romanticised abuse, non/con, or anything like that. that’s not to say that my fics can’t have dark aspects, but i won’t romanticise any of that.

on that, i’m not going to write any non/con, romanticised or not

also, i won’t write omegaverse, nor will i write y/n or self insert fics. nothing wrong with those genres, i just don’t write them!

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ written works ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

It’s Only A Matter Of Time - A Hamilton Watches Hamilton Fic

i wish i could say that was the last time

call me son one more time

when they surround our troops

then a hurricane came

take a break

and his right hand man…

she was holding me

the great war

we got traffic on the west side

steal into my affections

the fact that you’re alive is a miracle

fools who run their mouths off wind up dead

my father wasn’t around

philip, you would like it uptown

i may not live to see our glory…

an outrageous demand

stay alive

my dear, angelica

to convince you that i love you

but this situation’s helpless

like mother, like daughter (agggtm)

“but now this room is spinning…”

“i’ll call out your name but you won’t call back”

“like crying out in empty rooms, with no one there except the moon”

me in your sweater, you said it looked better on me than it did you (gifted to @holes-in-my-false-confidence)

baby it’s cold outside

the entire exposé (inspired entirely off of @jittyjames’ fanfiction series ‘the price of his war’)

my world is burning (yet another fic based off of jami’s series ‘the price of his war’)

i’m sorry if any of these links are incorrect, i spent over an hour on just this section

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ wips ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

achilles, come down (last two works in series still need to be written)

je m’appelle… lafayette? (one chapter to go)

lams (taylor’s version) (a few chapters to go, unsure if it will be finished)

you’re the one who disappears (agggtm, unsure if it will be finished, or when)

judas’ death (jcs angst fanfiction)

untitled (hamil-gang liminal spaces au longfic thing idk)

febuwhump drabbles (possibly)

be my valentine challenge

so big/so small (so big/so small from deh but hamilton and his ma)

bloom like rose thorns (a longfic that may or may not ever be finished)

rewrite of ‘i wish i could say that was the last time’ and ‘call me son one more time’

baby don’t cut (lams angst based off of a song with the same name)

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ collaborations ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

fem!hamilton au with @jittyjames and @firebalda

if anybody is interested in collabing at all, please hit me up!! i love writing with other people!!!!

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ asks ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

please send me any asks at all!!! and also please put fic requests in my ask box, i did say that i would have your request out in 6 months, but i have had one sitting in there for over a year (sorry jami.) but um. i promise im trying to get better at that

also, feel free to ask for fic recommendations!!!! i’ve linked a post earlier in this post with a huge list, but it’s not fully updated with some more recent fics :)

‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ tags ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

asks- all the asks ive answered, these are also tagged with the url of the blog, or with anon dearest if it was an anon ask

akeyla ml- posts about/with my incredible incredible partner @holes-in-my-false-confidence who i love so much ❤❤❤❤❤❤

tag games- self explanatory, tag games :)

sleep is overrated- me trying to fix my sleep schedule in 2024

personal- personal vent posts. please block this tag, i have had someone unfollow me before because of these posts :)

₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧ mooties ‎‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

@jittyjames

@like-the-stars-i-shine (irl friend for 5 years now)

@holes-in-my-false-confidence (my partner, irl <33333)

@felizusnavidad

@weeping-in-the-willows

@swiftieannah

@the1laff

@anixknowsnothin

@purpleblobfrompluto

@starduckys

@now-thats-his-bride

@kwilooo

@evilteapot (irl friend)

@my-dear-gal

@idontwanttobeabuzzkill

@mynightsoutofsight

@cc-horan28

i have more mutuals, but this is everybody who i interact with more often and i actually consider to be my friend. if anybody wants to ever message me or actually become friends with me, please do!!!! i love talking to you guys, please message me, i promise im not scary <333

#intro post #hamilton #hamilton musical #fanfics #fanfiction #ao3 #fanfiction writer #writers #akeyla ml #yes i have told yall my birthday bc yall cant do absolutely anything with knowing my birthdate #just dont ask me for the year pls #im a teenager thats all yall need to know

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wordywarriorwrites · 4 months

Text

Pedro Scout Status

I've decided to keep a master post of my Scout activities for @pedroscouts!

Check out my status updates below the cut!

Took the Pledge: Took the pledge and became a Pedro Scout!

Joel Miller: I read @undercoverpena-fics Midnight Bedsheets. I gasped. I swooned. I experienced THE FEELS!

Fluff + Smut: For a story I wrote called Assignation.

Blocked a Porn Bot: I know we all have done had to do this...

I Set Sail on the Friendship: I asked @atinylittlepain for a go-to Pedro gif, and their choice did NOT disappoint. 🤣

Enemies to Lovers: So, I'm not sure if this is breaking the rules, but I'm going old school with @frannyzooey Listen fic, because DAY-UM. 🥵🥵

Played a Tag Game: I have played MANY tag games on Tumblr. Hahah

Friends to Lovers: I Like The Way You... by @undercoverpena is a damn fine example of this trope. Absolutely loved it from start to finish. 🥰🥰

Ezra Fic: I've been reading Adversity by @the-ginger-hedge-witch. Can't wait to see what happens next on their adventure!

Hurt/Comfort: Walls of Glass by @sixhours. So beautifully written. An emotional rollercoaster that you feel with every word.

Frankie Morales: Of course, we've got @frannyzooey out here, showing us how it's done with Drive-In. Oh, lawd!!

Giflet: The entire giflet masterlist by @morallyinept is epic, but I particularly enjoyed The Wolf & The Lamb.

AskNado: Completed!

One Bed: This isn't a "traditional" one-bed trope, but Squirming by @frannyzooey definitely has the same vibe because of the whole "share one sleeping bag" thing it has going on.

Jack "Whiskey" Daniels: Omg, I've read Palomino so many times. @fuckyeahdindjarin wrote such an epic romance that I just... ::: sigh:::

Fan Art: I've for sure loved and shared a lot of great fan art.

Slow Burn: I read Death and An Angel by @littlemisspascal and was hooked from chapter one. Binge-read the entire thing in one sitting, and was completely invested from start to finish. Such a beautiful and creative love story!

Crack/Dieter: I got a hilarious two-for-the-price-of-one with Low Hanging Gruit by @covetyou. This was another recommendation that definitely made me laugh out loud. Googled a Term: I can't tell you how often I've had to Google something fic-related. I'm old. I can't keep up with the "cool kids" anymore...

Got Silly in the Tags: It is rare for me to get really silly in the tags. I like to use my tags for organizing (type A much?) and I mostly get silly in the reblog with comments/gifs.

Marcus Moreno: Throwing it back to @frannyzooey and The Secret series, which was my fic intro to Marcus. Deliciously written. Chefs kiss (per usual).

Song Fic: It's not a "traditional" song fic, but I Hear a Symphony by @projectionistwrites is all centered around Joel's rediscovering his love for music.

Coffee Shop AU: Again, it's not 100% traditional, but Hot Coffee by @omgreally was a treat of a one-shot that gave me the jitters!

Rom-Com: Grays by @fuckyeahdindjarin made me laugh from the get-go. By fan-fic standards, it's probably considered an "oldie," but it's definitely a goodie.

Awakened a Kink: I have no children. I also have no desire to have children. But breeding kink fics sometimes makes my brain go "brrr." Especially if it's mixed with competency and the reader is taken care of/protected.

Forced Proximity: @goodwithcheese recently penned Girl Next Door and when I say I am UNWORTHY... I mean... Jesus H. Christ...

Dark Fic & Max Phillips: Blood & Tinsel by @morallyinept is a dark(ish), spicy, smutty mix that pulls you in from the first sentence!

Javi G: Care for a Little Golden Hour by @all-the-way-down-here is a Javi G. x Male Reader fic full of spice and care.

Sent a Horny Anon: I've sent them anon and not anon. LOL

Whump: Omg... Tonight You Belong To Me by @intheorangebedroom is the whumpiest-whump that ever whumped. If you're into angst and being all up in your feels, this is a fic for you!

Din Djarin: An oldie, but a goodie from @charnelhouse called In the Dark. It's the "we almost died" smut story we all know and love.

Soulmate: Again, Death and An Angel by @littlemisspascal was an amazing fic. A totally different take on the soulmate trope that had me hooked from chapter one. I absolutely loved it!

Fluff: Let Me by @polaroidpascal is a very gentle fic about taking care of your partner and giving them a bit of extra love - especially when they need it most.

Bookshop AU: The Book of Love by @undercoverpena is still one of my favorite Bookshop AU fics to read. Full of all the feels and fluff and flirting.

Mortifying Typo: I think we've all done this before. LOL

Marcus Pike: All the Time in the World by @whataperfectwasteoftime was a beautiful one-shot about a couple's first time together. Very romantic and full of emotion and so very, very gentle. I loved it!

Angst: Emergency Contact by @javiscigarette definitely hit me right in the feels. So much emotion packed into a one-shot!

Western: There are two that stick out in my head: Palomino and Adversity. Both are so amazing!

Dave York: Just read Second Sight by @goodwithcheese and literally had to dig my own grave because I perished. PERISHED, I tell you.

Booped: Oh, you know I booped. I booped my way to the top. lmfao

Oberyn Martell: Dancing Phantoms on the Terrace by @janaispunk didn't have to come for my throat like it did... :::ugly crying:::

#wordywarriorwrites #pedro scouts #pedro scouts masterlist

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writereleaserepeat · 1 year

Text

Hear No Evil - Chapter 4

Previous // Next

CW: bbu, bbu-adjacent, pet whump, institutionalized slavery, dehumanization, dehumanizing intent by using it/its pronouns, ableism, food mention, starvation

[A/N at the end of the chatper]

Rowan spent fifteen minutes pacing in his hallway before he settled on who he would call. A lump lodged in his throat every time he passed by the box the boy arrived in - what was he even supposed to do with it now? - and his heart fluttered whenever his finger hovered over his chosen contact.

“How are you supposed to help this victim recover if you can’t even make a phone call, you idiot?” Rowan chastised himself as he rubbed his palm against his brow. Rationally, making a call was the best way to get himself and his new houseguest some help. Rationally, Rowan knew that this had to happen sooner or later. But rationality hadn’t exactly been governing Rowan’s choices over the past two days.

It took another two minutes of anxious pacing before he sat at the kitchen table, hit the call button, and heard the phone ring once, twice, three times and-

“Hey there, Rowan,” the familiar and ever-cheerful voice said, and it hit Rowan like a ray of golden sun. “What’s up, man? You doing alright after the liquidation event yesterday? I know those are hard on you.”

Rowan paused, took a breath, and closed his eyes. Now or never.

“Listen, Grey, I might have done something a little impulsive when I was there.” The entirety of his admission wasn’t quite ready to come to Rowan’s lips. All of a sudden his throat was dry, and his knee bounced beneath the table.

“Please don’t tell me they clocked you,” Greyson groaned. Greyson - just Grey to Rowan - was the current Vice President of the Pet Liberation Front, North American Division. Greyson also happened to be Rowan’s best friend. They’d known each other since they onboarded at PLF together more than a decade ago, and although their paths had diverged, a common mission still united them. Grey had taken on pet liberation as his full-time job, and Rowan had stuck with the weekend volunteer gigs.

“No, nothing like that,” Rowan said hastily. “No cops, no drama, no one suspected a thing. I even got all the footage you asked for. But I uh… I saw a victim there. He was just different, okay? I can’t tell you what it was, not exactly, but there was something about him that I’ve never seen before. I looked at him and I just- I couldn’t say no, so I- I rescued him. Cash upfront for a lifetime contract, signed on the warehouse floor, delivered this morning. He’s in my spare bedroom right now.”

“Jesus Christ,” Grey muttered, and Rowan could picture his exasperated face from hundreds of miles away. The other man only continued after releasing a deep sigh. “You aren’t trained as a rescuer, you haven’t been assigned a rehabilitator, and there’s no way we can get him in for a medical work-up on such short notice. You're in way over your head with this.”

“I know, I know.” Rowan could concede that he fucked up, just a little, or maybe more than a little. But the boy was alive in that spare room rather than being burned to ash in the industrial cremator. That had to count for something, right?

“What’s wrong with him, huh?” Grey asked this over the sound of distant keystrokes, the frustration in his voice already dissipating. “You purchased him at a liquidation event, which means there's something they determined was defective, so this isn’t even a standard rescue case. Give me some details and I can try to connect you to a rehabilitator for emergency intervention. If you send me scans of the purchase papers - they should be in his box with the instruction manual - I can also open a rescue file in our system for him.”

Rowan let out a soft breath of relief. Grey had shifted into his rescue-oriented mindset, which meant that if he intended to continue scolding Rowan, it would at least come at a later time.

“I- I don’t know why he was sent for liquidation. He’s only been here for a few hours, and I’ve been too focused on not making a mess of things to figure it out. The WRU agent said that he had stopped listening to direct commands, but that’s all the information I got. He hasn’t reacted to a single thing I’ve said this whole time. Physically, he seems to be in decent shape. Walking, kneeling, any kind of movement, he had no problem. There’s the usual scarring and some fresh wounds around his cheeks, ears, and neck, but that’s it.” Rowan thought back to the deep wounds gouged into the boy's head, and again wondered what sort of torment would cause such persistent injuries. A shiver crept up his spine, but Grey cut in before Rowan's imagination could get the best of him.

“Hmm. Alright. It looks like our roster has one volunteer rehabilitator about five miles from your address, an Allison Herrera. She’s been with the PLF for four years now, and she’s assisted in more than ten successful rehabilitations with different rescuers in your area. I’ve sent her your contact information, and she doesn’t have any other cases at the moment, so you should expect to hear from her soon.”

“You are a miracle worker, Grey.” Unlike just a few minutes ago, Rowan was no longer in this alone. Help was on its way. Of course, as the rescuer, he knew he would have to do most of the work. The most a rehabilitator could offer him was guidance, advice, assessment. But by god, Rowan was going to take it.

Grey gave a soft, strained chuckle.

“No, you’re the miracle worker today. You gave that boy a second chance at life, and that’s worth more than all the money in the world. I wouldn’t ever recommend doing what you’ve just done, but I know you did it with a good heart and good intentions.”

“Yeah. I just… I couldn’t let him go. Not this one, not this time.”

Grey sighed again, and Rowan liked to imagine that he was smiling.

“Now get back there and try to settle your new houseguest in. Remember, it's firm suggestions, not commands, are the best to begin the transition process. Conversational tone, soft voices, lots of praise. Read through the PLF rescue manual, and then read it again. Allison will tell you more when you end up connecting.”

“Alright, I’ll do my best. Thank you, really. I promise I’ll try to call you at some point when I’m not in crisis mode.”

“Not holding my breath, bud. You just take care and keep me updated.” And with that, the line went dead, and Rowan was back on his own.

---

Pet almost let one tear fall down its face as it soaked in the newness of everything around it. Kneeling was hard after so many hours in the box, but that was okay. Pet had done things that were so much harder. These floors weren’t even cement, so it thought maybe it could even kneel all day without its knees bruising.

The food Master left was still just out of reach, and Pet's stomach was filled with the daggers of hunger, but Pet remembered Master’s words with gospel-like reverence. Don’t eat. So it didn’t. If this was Pet's first test in its new home, it would prove itself to Master, it would show just how obedient it could be.

Usually it was easy for Pet’s mind to grow empty, for it to submit to the nothingness, to surrender wholly to a place without pain. It wasn’t meant to think, it was trained not to. But today, Pet was struggling not to think. There was too much new. It was more frustrated than ever that it couldn't quite hear its new Master’s voice. It couldn’t tell if it was a scratchy voice, or if it was a soft one, or if it was a warm, deep roar. All Pet knew was that there were distant, muted words that floated beyond its grasp.

If Pet was going to be good, it had to learn fast. Even if it didn’t have the exact words, it had to learn what Master wanted, and what Master expected of it. The better Pet anticipated its Master's needs, the less it got punished. A reliable pet was a good pet.

Even when it got hard to hear its old Master’s commands, Pet knew him well. Pet knew what time breakfast was to be prepared, how Master liked his floors cleaned, and which tools to offer up for punishment when Master was angry. It was routine, predictable, and even if it couldn’t hear every exact command, it was comforting to Pet. Every day was the same. There were no guesses, no surprises. Days and pain all bled into one another as the silence grew. Every day was the same, every ache anticipated.

That was, until it was dropped back off at the facility for re-training. Discarded.

Not all of this new was bad. New Master smelled like no other Master that Pet had ever had - he smelled almost like bread fresh from the oven. The house had soft wooden floors, not cold tile, and the light came from soft, yellow bulbs. It was warm here, and the space was snug with narrow halls and close walls. It wasn’t particularly clean, at least not as clean as its old Master would have expected, but Pet didn’t mind.

And since it hadn’t heard its new Master yell, then Pet thought that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t suffer much more pain today. The idea of punishment made its heart flutter uncomfortably in its chest.

Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t flinch. Don’t think. Calm down. You belong to Master. Master can do with you as he pleases. You are Master’s property. Your only concern is to listen to Master, please Master, obey Master’s every command.

Before Pet could try to escape to blissful nothingness once more, Master’s feet appeared in the doorway. They sidestepped the plate - still untouched - and came closer to Pet. It braced its muscles as subtly as possible, preparing for the inevitable strike. There was another mumbling of words, just as indistinct as before.

Pet stopped breathing when a hand touched its chin, ever so gently, and titled its face upwards.

---

A/N: Wow! Thank you all so much for the outpouring of love I have received for this story. I must admit I abandoned it back in October as my life got busy, but I have a total of fifteen chapters currently written, with more on the way. So yes, this work is continuing!

Reading the kind tags and comments so many folks have left genuinely brought tears to my eyes. Your kindness has been overwhelming in the best possible way. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy!

I think I got everyone who asked to be tagged for this, but please ask if you would like to be added! Please let me know if you have been added in error, and you will be promptly removed.

Taglist: @honey-is-mesi @aswallowimprisoned @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @honeycollectswhump @rekiroyalstraightprincemaru @tragedyinblue @clairelsonao3 @octopus-reactivated @maracujatangerine @peachy-panic

#bbu #whump #pet whump #whump community #whumplr #whump writing #tw dehumanization #hear no evil #chapter 4

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a-crumb-of-whump · 2 years

Text

A New Beginning #1: Silly Little Dreams

Content: Rescue, vampire whumpee, vampire feeding, human caretaker, pet whump, starvation, [mentioned] muzzles, [mentioned] beatings, neglect, [implied] sleep deprivation, [implied] slavery.

The beginning of Carlos' story <3

Carlos knew his masters had been planning on getting rid of him for a while now. After twenty years of serving them, it was only natural that they’d get sick of him at some point, he thought. He tried being extra well behaved; doing chores and cleaning without being asked, spending hours at a time in his pet bed that sat in the corner of the living room just so he wasn’t in their way constantly, among plenty of other things. However, none of it seemed to do anything in his favour.

They were gonna give him away, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He was most surprised to hear that it was in fact their 23 year old son, Ryker, who had agreed to take him on. The human had been extremely kind to him over the years, even as a kid, but it was now coming on fives years since his last visit. Carlos struggled to even recognise him when he first saw him again, he’d changed so much.

The vampire spent most of his last day there locked up in his masters’ bedroom while they waited for their son to arrive. The majority of things inside were theirs, but he had a pet bed all to himself that he curled up in, only bothering to emerge again when he heard a knock at the bedroom door late in the evening. That had to be Ryker. Never in the twenty years that he’d been living here had his current owners ever knocked before entering.

“Carlos?” the human quietly called into the darkness. He poked his head inside for a moment and smiled; something kind and friendly, instead of the deceiving smiles Carlos often received right before something bad was about to happen to him.

He swallowed uncomfortably. This already felt weird.

Ryker’s heart practically broke for Carlos the moment he saw the condition he was in. He knew things were bad when he left nearly five years ago; the vampire was severely malnourished, and his parents had him sleeping on a hand-me-down pet bed that was far too broken and dirty to be comfortable. By the looks of things, not much had changed between then and now either, besides the fact that Carlos was now significantly skinnier.

He was suddenly so grateful he had the chance to bring the poor guy home and give him a life worth living.

“Long time no see, huh?”

Carlos nodded mutely, half-lidded eyes watching as Ryker tentatively stepped inside and shut the door behind him to give them both some privacy. He thought he saw the vampire tense up a little, but if he did, he knew how to hide it well. It was just so fucking sad, seeing him all broken and miserable, and it only got worse when he lit the room up a little using the knob beside the door. The guy looked like fucking shit. He had burn marks and scars all over his skin, some fresher than others. What was left of his hair was severely matted and/or actively falling out due to how malnourished he was. Even kneeling in the position he was in took far more effort than it needed to, and the sight just about shattered the human’s heart all over again.

“Jesus christ,” he muttered dumbfoundedly under his breath, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair as he examined the creature in front of him. “The hell’ve they been doing to you? Are you- are you okay?” It was a stupid thing to ask – he knew that before the question had even slipped his lips. Look at him, you idiot. Of course he isn’t fucking okay.

However, despite all the obvious fear and pain he was in, the vampire gave another tiny nod, his head tilted down as a sign of obedience. He was clearly exhausted and in need of a rest. Ryker wondered how long it had been since he’d last had a sleep.

“Carlos… fuck, man. I’m… I’m so, so sorry you’ve been living like this.” He truly couldn’t tell which feeling was more intense; the unbridled rage and resentment he was feeling towards his parents for doing something like this, or the heartache he held for the creature kneeling miserably in front of him. What saddened him more than anything was that Carlos didn’t seem to understand the problem. The second his apology came out, the vampire’s eyebrows drew inwards and he subtly tilted his head to the side, eyes that never dared to meet the human’s clouded with innocent confusion.

Instead of working himself up even more, Ryker forced himself to take a deep breath – the muscles in his shoulders and arms instinctively relaxing as he did so. “We can’t leave until tonight,” he began quietly. “So, uhm… do you just want to sit ‘n’ talk for a bit? Here—” He paused to push his sleeve up a little; putting his left arm on display for the hungry vampire. “—You can feed if you want, too? I can’t, uhm… I can’t offer much in the way of comfort until we get home, but I have more than enough blood to share, and my partner contributed some too.”

That caught the vampire’s attention. For a moment Ryker thought he even went to say something, but whatever it was seemed to become caught in his throat, and he closed his mouth once more.

“Can I sit down?” the human asked softly, hand slowly motioning to the space between Carlos and the bed. The last thing he wanted was to startle him before they’d even gotten home. Thankfully it seemed to work. Though he was confused, he slowly nodded and shuffled over, making more than enough room for the man to sit down with him. So he did so, and immediately held out the closest arm to him once more.

“You were serious?” Carlos finally spoke, his voice quiet out of pure disbelief. “I can feed?”

Ryker didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Take as much as you need. I’ll let you know if I need you to stop. If you’re still hungry after that, I have another bag of blood in here,” he assured him, petting the backpack he’d brought on the trip. He offered a reassuring smile and motioned once more to his arm, encouraging the malnourished creature to sate his hunger. “It’s okay. You're not gonna get into trouble or anything, if that's what you're worried about."

“You’re not gonna get into trouble or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

That was exactly what he was worried about. After years of being forced to wear muzzles and punished for lunging at people out of sheer desperation, it was one of his biggest worries. All he wanted was to be good. Though Ryker had given him permission to feed, which meant that it had to be okay, right? A part of Carlos wondered if he’d be able to contain himself once he had started. What if he took too much? What if he couldn’t stop? What if he hurt his new owner in the process? So many anxiety-ridden thoughts flashed one by one in his mind, causing the idea of blood to become less and less appetising by the minute.

However, Ryker was clearly expecting him to obey, and the last thing he wanted was to upset the person taking him home. So instead of declining, he shakily pushed himself closer to the human and sunk his fangs into his arm as carefully as he possibly could, his entire body slumping out of pure, unbridled relief. It was so, so much better than he ever could have imagined.

Instead of pushing him away like Carlos had been half-expecting him to, Ryker casually leaned back against the wooden leg of the bed and crossed his legs beneath him, letting the vampire drink as much as he needed to feel full. It was a lot. By the time Carlos was finally able to think coherently enough to pull fangs out, Ryker seemed a little lightheaded; his eyes slipping shut for a moment, presumably to rest, and a loopy smile playing on his face.

“I took too much?”

“A little,” his new owner nodded. As soon as Carlos’ eyes widened with concern, he reached out to squeeze his shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay, though. I’ll survive. You feel better?”

Slowly, the timid creature nodded. Right answer, he praised himself when he saw the smile on Ryker’s face grow.

“Good. That’s good. Let me know if you need anymore, yeah? Until then, I brought us a few board games to play together.” Carlos watched curiously as the man reached into his backpack and indeed brought out two board games that were very familiar to him. “Do you remember Snakes ‘n’ Ladders? I think I remember teaching you how to play it when I was a kid.”

Carlos nodded again. It had been one of his most enjoyed activities to play with him. The kid always let him pick the red character, even though it was his favourite colour and sometimes when he thought the vampire was having a bad day, he’d deliberately let him win. Carlos always thought it best to not tell him that he knew – it seemed to make the kid happy, and that was what was important.

“The one with the different coloured snakes that swallow you and the ladders that you can climb up?”

“That’s the one.” Carlos found it a little amusing to see that he still had the same mischievous smile on his face from fifteen years ago as he opened up the board and placed it down in between them. Sometimes it meant different things, but he liked to believe that right now it meant he was happy. Even if it was just another one of his silly little dreams… he dared to hope, just this once, that someone was happy to have him around—

—because sometimes silly little dreams were all he had.

Ryker couldn’t have been more eager to get out of that house. The moment he deemed it dark enough for Carlos to leave the house without the sun getting in the way, he was packing up and helping the vampire to his feet. The poor guy could barely walk anymore due to his muscles being so weak. In the end, the human carefully scooped him off his feet and began the journey down the stairs, his backpack loosely slung over his shoulder. He hoped more than anything that it was just the severe malnourishment that kept his muscles from healing. He wasn’t very educated on vampires’ healing process, despite the hours upon hours of research he did. He hadn’t realised just how bad Carlos’ condition was.

Despite his parents offering to have him for dinner, Ryker was quick to step out the door and head down the driveway, checking one last time to make sure he had everything he needed before carefully placing the creature down in the passenger’s seat of the car.

“Comfortable?” he asked, crouching down for a moment to be at eye level with him. “It’s gonna be a long drive I’m afraid, but we can take breaks and stretch our legs as needed, yeah?”

“Wait.” Carlos’ voice was soft but firm, and it immediately gained Ryker’s attention. It was the most confident he’d sounded all day. “I, uhm- I left my backpack in there. It only has one thing in it b-but I would really like to take it home with me.” Then his voice fell shy again. “If- if you don’t mind, of course… I can, uhm- I can go without it, I just… I care about it a lot…”

As if on cue, Ryker’s mother appeared at the door with the backpack in question in her hand. It looked virtually empty, so whatever Carlos had in there was obviously small. He practically scowled at her as he took the bag from her hand.

He only had one thing to say to her as he walked away again. His voice was practically seeping with malice, and it took every bit of self-restraint that he had to talk quietly instead of yelling every word loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear. Just thinking about the things they must have done to him over the years was enough to cause a small lump to form in the back of his throat.

“You disgust me.”

#whump #whump stuff #whump thoughts #whump things #whump scenarios #whumpee #caretaker #whumper #multiple whumpers #vampire whump #vampire whumpee

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comfy-whumpee · 2 years

Text

Mistake

CN: BBU, head injury, hand injury, forced skimpy outfit, Tyler has certain repressed feelings about Roman.

BIrdhouse Taglist:@neuro-whump, @rosesareviolentlyread, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @whumpsday

“You useless fucking idiot!”

Roman didn’t have time to even look up from the misfiled receipt before he was being slapped hard enough to send him to the carpet, body thumping down and knocking all air from his lunge. He stared in shock at the fuzzy static swimming in front of his eyes, buzzing grey like when the old TV in the treehouse had lost its signal—

“Joel! What the shit?”

Where was he? He didn’t know. Something hard slammed into his ribs and the air exploded out of his mouth again and he whined, scared, hurt, not remembering how to put his feelings to words. The handler was speaking. That’s it, stop trying to talk back. He was sneering. You don’t get to ask for things anymore.

Oh no, he didn’t want that thought. He wanted to keep that thought locked away far from where he was, he wasn’t supposed to think those thoughts unless he was breaking training, and he couldn’t break training, Handler put thoughts there to punish him if—

Mr Harden kicked him again and Roman felt a low cry emerge from his mouth, the closest he could get to begging for it to stop, but it didn’t stop, never stopped.

Better. You don’t show pain, no matter what they do to you. Nobody will care.

Nobody had cared.

“Leave him alone, for Christ’s sake,” someone snapped, someone real. Someone in the office, his office, his home.

“Stupid piece of shit fucked one of our invoices,” Joel replied, and he was angry, so angry he hurt Roman again, thumping a fist down into his stomach as he crouched to collect the piece of paper. He brandished it to the others. “We have to refund the Elm account. They were overcharged.”

There was silence but for Roman’s breath, a thin and strained wheeze.

“Jesus, Roman,” someone said, and tears filled Roman’s eyes because he knew that meant it was okay to hurt him, that he’d deserved it.

“There goes our fucking weekend,” someone else muttered. “I’ll make the call.”

“No, don’t call yet. We need a timeframe. And an excuse.”

“Well, here’s a sorry one,” someone joked without humour, and he couldn’t place the voices while his head was ringing, and a different foot kicked the back of Roman’s head.

If they wanted brains, they would have hired a person. Why do you think they chose you? Everyone gets trained for pain, 993948. Why do you think that is?

On his side on the floor, blood dripping from somewhere on his body, Roman shifted on one elbow and managed to bring up the arm that had been trapped underneath him. He forced it up against an aching shoulder to grab onto his collar and hold it tight.

Trick question. You don’t think either. Stop that pathetic whine.

They chose him. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why they couldn’t have spent the money on someone trained, someone to hire, an intern, a secretary. He doesn’t know why they picked him from the catalogue.

But they chose him. They brought him here, showed him around, introduced themselves, and they gave him this collar. The leather was cracked in places but the buckle was secure. He had never touched the buckle, but he tugged the band sometimes, and he tugged it now to make sure.

Real. Firm. He belonged to them.

No matter how angry they got, no matter how badly he made mistakes, no matter if they hurt him, he belonged to them.

You can’t make mistakes. Help at Home pets don’t make mistakes. You have to be perfect, or don’t you want to be bought?

“P-Please,” Roman echoed, remembering what he had said back then. “Please, I’m s-sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to fucking cut it, dumbshit.” Feet walked away from him, and then came back again a moment later, stopping right beside his prone form.

“Joel…” someone said warningly. Mr Charlie? Maybe he was trying to help, trying to save Roman. He turned blurry eyes to the figure. Not being able to make him out clearly, he just closed his eyes.

“He deserves worse. That’s a few thousand out of the account because of his little fucking oopsie. I told you I didn’t want him near important shit, Charlie. You fucking ignored me.”

“Mistakes happen.”

You have to be perfect.

“You don’t give a pet rock control of the stock market and then say mistakes happen when it crashes.”

A hand fists in his hair, near the skull rather than down the length of it. If he was sent back, he’d be remade into nothing. He’d become a punching bag, a prototype, some kind of experiment. Or worse, he’d become nothing at all.

Mr Harden grabbed his hand by the wrist and yanked it up, and something clunked, and Roman’s mouth opened in an unvoiced scream as the staple embedded itself into the back of his hand.

Silence, but for the ringing in his ears, and the shuddered breaths he gasped until he heard himself, and stopped breathing altogether.

Someone sighed, disappointed or disgusted, he couldn’t tell. They walked away.

Wide, blue-and-brown eyes tracked blindly across the ceiling before Roman found a face pressing into his field of vision, huge and unsympathetic. Mr Harden’s lip was curled, his hand still tight around Roman’s wrist where the wound throbbed sharply in time with Roman’s frantic pulse.

Roman clutched his collar so hard it hurt his hand, and didn’t breathe. He knew he’d be too noisy if he did.

“Stay the fuck away from my paperwork, you piece of shit,” Mr Harden said, and he was still furious.

Roman nodded, then nodded faster, unable to breathe or think or talk.

With a scoff, Mr Harden threw his hand to the ground, and went back to his desk, slamming down on his chair.

The hand in Roman’s hair released too, and Roman slid to lie prone, doing nothing but covering his injury with a loosely-closed fist, as if he could hide from the thing embedded in it.

It hadn’t felt like this at first, making mistakes. Before, punishments would have been private and small, a curse or an insult thrown his way. Half the time he’d get a pat on the head and told to go make drinks while the real people got it sorted. But as the accounts grew, and the business developed, things got bigger and busier. Everyone was getting more serious. Mr Charlie didn’t step in anymore to stop them from hurting him too much. He was the one who did it most, and not even usually for things Roman did.

They were his only friends in the world, but if they were angry, he took the fall. He had to be perfect.

When he peeked through his hair to check where everyone was, he found himself lying alone in the middle of the carpet, as everyone sat down to work. Mr Dillon had earphones in. Mr Charlie was in his office, door closed. Phil was on the phone. Tyler was typing fast.

Mr Harden was hunched over his paperwork like a living storm cloud.

Roman held his breath so he wouldn’t sob. He didn’t want any of them to be disturbed, hear him, and remember that he was bad. He didn’t want any of them to remember they were angry.

He rose onto tiptoe and edged out of the room to hide in the kitchen and cry.

It was only when he had recovered, decided to clean, and put his hands in the soapy water for washing up that he realised the staple was still in his hand, a line of silver grating his skin.

His stomach oozed up his throat and he tried not to think about it. He was okay, he wasn’t hurt. He could feel the pain and, underneath that, stronger than that, he could feel the panic buzzing, but nothing was happening to him anymore. He just had to take the—

No, no, he couldn’t do this.

He just had to take the staple out of his hand—

No, no, no, no, he couldn’t, but he couldn’t wash up either, and he would need to go to the bathroom eventually, and someone might notice, and what if it went bad, and what if it dug deeper, and and and—

In the bullpen, Tyler lifted his head from its position inches from his screen. He could hear Roman hyperventilating in the kitchen, little high-pitched wheezes that were pretty much the only sound he ever made.

Poor fucker. It wasn’t his fault he was dumber than the dumbest sexy secretary. Pissing off Joel was a death sentence.

Returning his gaze to his screen, Tyler finished his sentence. Every ten seconds or so, he caught the hiss of another breath. His desk was closest to the kitchen, and – he glanced over his shoulder – Dillon had earphones in, so he was no help. Phil was tied up on a call. Charlie’s door was shut and Joel was the cause of the whole fucking shebang.

He pushed his chair back from his desk, picked up his mug as an excuse, and headed through.

Ah, shit. It was worse than he’d imagined. Roman was in a pile of limbs on the floor by the sink, holding his injured hand away from his body with his eyes squeezed shut. He was as white as his shirt and shivering like a leaf. When Tyler put the mug down on the side, his eyes flew open, and fixed with teary need on the potential saviour.

Tyler scratched the back of his head. He crouched down, feeling like he was trying to befriend his sister’s skittish cat. He lowered his voice to what he hoped was a soothing volume. “Hey, Ro. Your hand hurt?”

Roman nodded immediately, begging with his miserable stare. He was so goddamn cute like this, and the thought made Tyler feel vaguely slimy.

“I’ll help you out. But you gotta do something for me after, yeah?”

Nod, nod. Anything.

“Yeah. Alright.” Tyler took Roman’s hand, feeling his stomach flip. He told himself it was at the sight of the staple. His fingers pressed along the edge of the metal, feeling where its teeth were sank into Roman’s hand.

Roman stopped breathing, looking away, tense as a board.

“Joel really is a savage sometimes,” Tyler muttered. He fit a nail under the edge of the staple and, figuring it was better to get this over with, flicked it out. He felt it catch before it came free, and Roman gulped down air like he was about to choke, but then the staple pinged against a cupboard door and landed.

“There you go,” Tyler said gently, feeling like a douche. “You did good, Ro. You’re a good boy.”

This, if anything, made the pet cry harder. He probably felt like shit after screwing up so badly, but hey. Everyone screwed up sometimes, even designer pets, right?

It was pretty embarrassing seeing a guy his age crying like a baby, but whatever. Nobody else was here watching Tyler coddle him, but he didn’t want to linger. He’d never live it down. It was time to put this whole thing behind them. The sooner they moved on, the sooner Ro would feel better. They’d all cheer up then, and Joel would stop being such a fucking monster.

“Okay, you gotta do something for me now,” Tyler said, reasserting control. “You ready?”

Roman nodded, keeping his eyes on Tyler, and not on the bleeding hand still kept safe by Tyler’s grip.

“Good boy,” Tyler said, just to see the stars in Roman’s eyes as he heard it again. So cute. Better already. “You’re gonna cheer up the others, yeah? Remember that bunny outfit you got last Halloween?”

Something cracked in Roman’s eager little smile, but Tyler told himself he didn’t notice. He’d be fine.

“I want you to come out in that. It’s still in the coat cupboard. We need some eye candy. You’ll lift everyone’s spirits, yeah?”

It wasn’t for the others, really. Joel would find it annoying and Charlie would probably act high and mighty about it. But Tyler thought the pink leotard and tutu were…compelling. He’d never seen Roman show so much skin before last Halloween.

And anyway, it was just a joke. Something dumb to remind everyone he was just a pet, and they didn’t need to get so worked up about him. They didn’t need to hurt him.

Roman got up willingly enough, swaying slightly. He wasn’t really bleeding, but for some reason even the slightest pinprick of his own blood knocked him flat. He wasn’t looking at his hand.

Tyler got up with a strained smile and left him to get changed. Returning to the floor, he was motioned over by Dillon. “How’s our favourite blond?” he asked with a grin.

Dillon was weird with Roman. Tyler didn’t want to know what went on when Roman went home with him.

“Yeah, he’s all better,” he said casually. “And he’s gonna show how bad he feels by cheering us all up.”

Dillon’s eyes glimmered with the light of interest. Tyler thought a lion probably got eyes like that when it spotted a gazelle with an injured leg. “Yeah?”

Mustering a grin, Tyler waltzed back to his desk, throwing over his shoulder, “You’ll see.”

Dillon did, two minutes later, when Roman stepped out of the coat cupboard wearing the ridiculous fucking bunny costume. He was still pale white and swollen around the eyes, but there were two adorable ears rising from his head, so nobody seemed to mind.

Phil wolf-whistled. He’d finished his call. “Trick or treat!”

Tyler glanced over to see Dillon looking flustered, almost disapproving. Like he wanted to tell Roman to cover up. He turned his eyes back to his computer screen and pretended not to feel smug.

Working for Charlie’s company was brilliant in a lot of ways, but spending five days a week with the Hawaiian-shirted, goateed jackass from your Brand Building and Awareness class was not one of them.

Dillon cooed only once before Roman was kneeling at his feet, getting his hair petted right between the bunny ears. Dillon had a way with Roman, despite being a creep, or maybe because of it. He could always bring a smile to the pet’s face.

Tyler looked back again at the screen. He needed to put something out on the website. He’d forgotten what it was.

“We all know you’ve got no brains, Blondie. It’s in your nature to fuck things up. But we got you.”

Dillon’s fingers combed through Roman’s pale blond locks, and Tyler clenched his teeth.

“Even if you get kicked out, I’ll take you home,” Dillon continued, quietly enough that he must think Tyler couldn’t hear. “You like it best at home, don’t you?”

Tyler couldn’t tell if Roman nodded himself, or if Dillon’s hand on the back of his neck was making him. But it didn’t really matter in the end.

"Yeah. Just relax. Punishment’s over. Good boy." Dillon’s fingers curved through Roman’s hair over and over. "Good boy, Blondie. Good boy."

It had been a stupid fucking idea. The outfit. What was he thinking? It had seemed funny at Halloween, or maybe he’d been drunk. Had Dillon always talked to him like that? Why was he so worked up about it? Joel had put a goddamn staple in his hand and he was more upset about Dillon saying something Tyler had told him literal minutes ago.

He huffed, and looked back to his screens. The copy he’d written seemed fake and shallow. He wanted to start over.

He opened Reddit instead.

#sequel tomorrow!#bbu #whump #pet whump #box boy universe #punishment #hand injury #concussion #roman #tyler #dillon #joel #charlie #and i guess phil is here too #phil #haven't figured out what phil gets up to yet #i'll get you eventually phil #the birdhouse #my fic

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heytheredeann · 1 year

Note

Congrats again on 100 TMFU fics! I spun the whump wheel and got... *drumroll*

Stranded/Lost (napollya, please, like I need to tell you 😉)

Hiii, thank you! Sorry for answering this so late, I wrote down a first draft and then my brain promptly refused to edit it (or do much writing at all tbh) for like two weeks looool But here it at long last! Just Illya and Napoleon stranded on a deserted island with literally no context whatsoever loool they are suffering but it actually came out pretty lighthearted I think? Enjoy!

“Jesus Christ, somebody kill me now,” Napoleon pants, finally letting himself fall over once he has reached his destination, the protection of the shade a blessed feeling on his skin. He can’t say that it makes the temperature comfortable, but at least the sun isn’t roasting him alive anymore. He’ll take sweating buckets in the shade, rather than limping around under the sun, thank you very much.

On the plus side, since every inch of his body is in literal flames, the burning pain in his leg is less noticeable. Yay for him.

“Still alive over here?” he asks, out of breath, pulling up the shirt that he placed on Illya’s face. It was damp, but of course, given the heat, it dried up way more quickly than Napoleon would have liked.

Illya blinks dazedly at him, squinting at the sudden light, and hums affirmatively—or maybe he’s just confused and he’s giving him some sign of life as an answer to whatever Napoleon said that he couldn’t understand.

His skin is still clammy, and a quick check reveals a worryingly fast-paced pulse. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much that he can do, at the moment, beyond trying to cool him down as much as he reasonably can under the circumstances.

“Here you go, nice and cool,” he says, placing his damp shirt over Illya’s face and drawing some consolation out of the way his shoulders sag a little in relief.

At least all these trips under the sun are helping somewhat.

[More on Ao3]

#napollya #napollya fic #tmfu fic #illya x napoleon #napoleon x illya #the man from uncle #tmfu #not spn #doing prompts #my fanfic #cha-melodius

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huffle-dork · 2 years

Note

College drabbles sound good!

(AN: I spent forever trying to find the initial ask for this but I’m pretty sure this was for a whump thing SO COLLEGE WHUMP IT IS!

Also btws! I’m slowly working through olddd requests so if you’ve sent one recently hang on! I’m trying to get to them as soon as I can!)

Jackie and Zara are sprawled out on the couch of Jackie’s flat, watching a cheesy movie they can half watch while they enjoy each others’ company.

Zara hums from where she’s laying on Jackie’s stomach. “Do you think he’s gonna win the competition?”

“Babe Imma be real honest- I have been dozing on and off for at least half the movie.” Jackie replies with a yawn, then shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“What?? But it’s a sequel to a movie from when we were kids! You suggested it!” Zara laughs, playfully hitting him.

Jackie snorts and grumbles, “t’was more fun when we were kids… now it has college pressure on it! it’s too real!”

“In the fictional animated movie about monsters-“

“In college like us, yeah!” Jackie says, thrusting his hand at the screen. “I love animated movies but don’t make me live my current pressure! I watch these for fun, Damnit!”

Zara laughs more before crawling up to press up on Jackie’s chest. She rests her chin on his collarbone and tiptoes her fingers up towards his cheek then boops his nose. “Well… I have other ideas on how to have some fun~!”

Jackie blinks owlishly but then grins, setting their snacks on the floor and then gripping Zara tight around the waist. He presses his forehead to hers and practically purrs, “Thank god Marvin is out for the night, huh?”

The raven haired girl giggles then pulls Jackie in for a kiss. Feels weird to be snogging during a children’s movie but hey- they weren’t really watching it anymore anyways.

Then, there’s a bang against the door that has the couple springing apart.

“What was that?” Zara asks.

“Dunno… Marvin said he’d be gone all night I thought-“ Jackie mumbles.

“…think it’s some of the boys asking for a late night rugby game?”

“Nah- pretty sure most are spending the nights with their girls too.” Jackie responds, untangling his legs from Zara’s and setting his feet down to go answer the door.

The doorknob starts to jangle and Jackie feels dread pool in his gut as he holds out a hand to protect Zara. He locked the door right?

The door unlocks and then slams open.

Marvin is leaning against it, pale in the dimly lit night behind him. He’s heaving like he’s having trouble breathing and his legs are shaking wildly. He looks up at the frightened couple, narrows his eyes at Zara and then pitches forward- collapsing to the floor with a dull thud.

“M-Marv!” Jackie cries as he hurries to his friend’s side and helps to lean him up against him. “The fuck did you do this time??”

Marvin coughs, looking sickly with how pale he is. Green and blue and hints of purple glowed in his veins and faintly in his eyes. He laughs weakly, grinning at Jackie. “New spells… w-was a good night for casting but I… I overdid it…”

Zara looked confused, “spells? I-Is he like… Wiccan?”

Jackie looks down and glares slightly at Marvin, raising a slight eyebrow. Marvin waves a lazy hand at him. “Half of campus thinks I’m a witch- I’m leaning into it now…”

He suddenly winces and grabs at his shoulder and when Marvin pulls away his hand, it’s covered in blood.

Jackie startles, “J-Jesus Christ Marvin! What did you do?”

“I miscalculated,” The magician grumbled, holding his shoulder. “I was too eager on my first try… g-got it eventually though!”

“H-Here! I’ll go get the first aid kit!” Zara calls out, rushing down the hall to the bathroom.

“Thanks, love!” Jackie calls back. Then he looks down at Marvin and huffs out. “Marv… you said you were gonna join like… a coven or magic circle for these advanced spells! There’s a reason magicians tend to work in teams… you can’t do everything by yourself.”

“Don’t lecture me on magic, Jackie.” Marvin snaps, trying to push himself up. “I’m the one who’s magic- not you.”

“And yet I research and learn! Because you’re too stubborn to actually get outside your own head! There’s all this stuff set in place for a purpose Marvin! I may not be magic but I-it makes sense! You have support if there’s a backfire- resources and spell ingredients and people who actually know what they’re doing who can-!”

“I know what I’m doing!” Marvin bites back, pushing into Jackie’s face. “I don’t need old crones stuck in their ways teaching me about my birthright! I don’t need condescending assholes like my fucking father critiquing me on my form or pronouncation-! All I need is me! I have all the knowledge I need- all the power I need!”

He grabs Jackie’s hand and grips it tight, green building back up in his eyes as he grins. “See I’ll- I’ll show you! What I learned tonight… teleportation! Solo! No fucking giant circles of judging eyes needed!”

Jackie’s eyes widen, “wait that’s how you got hurt? M-Marvin please wait, you need to rest-!”

Marvin rolls his eyes, “c’mon Jackie! Where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t tell me you’re getting soft on me! It’ll be a quick zip and back then you can go back to snogging your girlfriend.”

Jackie’s face turns bright red, “w-we were not!”

Marvin laughs and then smiles warmly at his friend, “just focus on me. You know I wouldn’t hurt you, right?”

“…not on purpose-“

“Accidents don’t count, shush.”

Marvin builds up sparks of green and purple around their interlocked hands and he breathes slowly, closing his eyes. He still needed a bit of help so he chants the spell's words under his breath, flashes of runes vibrating around his hands. Jackie watches nervously-

Until Zara runs back in, holding the first aid kit. “G-Got it! And a couple other things I didn’t know what we were dealing with-“ She blinks at the magic vibrating around their closed hands and she screams and drops the supplies.

“H-Holy fucking shit!”

Jackie and Marvin both startle and Jackie tries to explain, “Zara it’s okay he’s just-!”

Then, Marvin spits out the last word, sending spears of hate towards Zara with his glowing eyes. He expected to take him and Jackie away in a flash of light- but instead…

Marvin disappears into light- and Jackie cries out, his back stiffening as his eyes fill up with purple light. Then, he collapses to the ground.

Zara feels frozen for a second- trying to understand what just happened. Then, she frantically runs towards Jackie and tries to lift up his face from the ground. “Oh my god! Jackie? J-Jackie wake up! Please love- what is going on?!”

Jackie is still for a second before he slowly blinks open his eyes. But… they’re wrong. They’re glowing green.

His eyes spring open and then he slaps Zara away and scrambles back, eyes wide and magic zipping around him. “D-Don’t touch me!” He spits. It still sounds like Jackie but… Jackie wouldn’t say that- not to Zara.

Zara’s face falls and she holds her hands to her chest. “What…? Jackie I… I don’t understand- what happened? Are you okay? Where’s Marvin?”

Jackie is massaging his head and then snaps out at Zara, “What are you talking about? Are you blind? I’m right here-“

Jackie’s eyes slowly widen as he goes to look down at himself and then he seems to pale.

“….oh my god- I- I’m in Jackie’s body-“

“You’re what?!” Zara shouts out.

Jackie scrambles to his feet and snaps, bursts of magic zipping out and Marvin sighs in slight relief. “Okay still have magic- okay… okay-“ He tries to reason with himself. He seems to be looking at his hands, twisting and turning them over like he’s studying them. Stretching his fingers like he’s getting used to them.

Zara climbs to her feet too, “hello?? Marvin? Do you mind explaining what the hell is happening? Or am I just supposed to be okay with you possessing my boyfriend like some kind of evil ghost-!”

“Would you be quiet?!” Marvin suddenly booms, eyes turning pure purple. Zara backs away- slight fear in her eyes.

Marvin’s face drops and the power dies down before he shakes out his head and looks away. “Sorry I… I just can’t concentrate- I’m trying to fix this! I didn’t do this on purpose I- I was trying to show him a teleportation spell! And I need to figure out why this happened so I don’t accidentally do it again! Cuz believe it or not- I don’t want to randomly possess people!”

Zara is quiet for a second before nodding. “…okay… just… is he okay? Jackie…? I’m sorry I… I don’t understand what’s going on… I didn’t know magic was even real until… 5 minutes ago-“

Marvin sighs and pushes back his hair. It’s weird to see. Jackie doesn’t usually do that gesture to fix his hair. It was like running a PlayStation game on a wii. Similar but… not compatible.

“…Jackie’s fine. Just… startled. Confused too. He… he trusts me though. I just… need you to trust me too. Just for a second.” Marvin meets Zara’s eyes and the girl slowly nods.

She always found Marvin a bit creepy and off-putting. But only cuz he was such a social recluse… and was hard to talk to. She didn’t hate him… but maybe she was judging him too harshly through all of this.

“Be on standby though to… catch him. I have no idea how this is gonna play out…” The magician mumbles.

He closes his eyes and flares out his fingers at the side, reciting more magic words under his breath. Magic zips around him as the power builds. Zara inches away, watching in awe.

Finally, the magic seems to spilt the image of Jackie in two- and then a blast of green shoots out across the living room and crashes into the wall. Jackie’s body starts to crumble back towards the ground and Zara is quick to catch him. She then looks back towards the wall.

With Legs in the air and back on the floor lays Marvin, dazedly looking up at the ceiling as the world dips and spins around him.

“A-Are you okay??” Zara calls out. Marvin shakily gives her a thumbs up.

She sighs in relief and then rolls over Jackie and lightly taps his cheek. It takes a second but slowly Jackie’s eyes flutter back open, his light blue eyes back to normal. He dazedly looks up at Zara. She smiles at him.

“Welcome back, love.”

“…did I go somewhere? Marvin’s spell worked…?” Jackie mumbles in confusion. Zara sighs and then rubs Jackie’s cheek.

“…I think we have a lot to talk about… why don’t we go patch up Marvin and then settle in for the night?”

“…mkay…”

#swapboys #SwapBoys requests #college flashback #swap magnificent #jackie mann #Zara Caley #body swap #body possession #trying to flesh out how magic works here #but Marvin is stubborn and likes to do stuff himself so jfgfh #feels weird to write Mag as Marvin cuz he hates that name now XD #super fun to write tho and more insight to how Marvin is just a lil bit fucked up hfgf #readswapboys

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katyawriteswhump · 6 months

Text

the power of love, part 14

Sorry about Sunday's empty post ☹️ I must've accidentally put a draft template in my queue because I am basically tired and rubbish and life isn’t the greatest right now. Anyhow.... Whoops and really sorry again!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 15

(also on AO3 here and as part of my steve whump fic series)

Eddie POV

When neither Steve nor Robin show up after ten minutes, Eddie begins to freak out.

He, Hopper and El are still waiting for the car, out of sight among some ferns. Hopper’s getting antsy, muttering beneath his breath, while Eddie’s wriggling like he’s got ants in his pants. Which he genuinely might have, though that’s not what’s bugging him:

“Uuuuh, shall I see what’s taking them so long?”

“You do that,” says Hopper. “What’s going on with that guy? He could barely stand! How the hell could he…”

Eddie tunes out, retracing their journey into the trees, calling Robin’s name then Steve’s. Maybe Steve passed out, and Robin got lost searching? Somehow, he doesn’t buy it. A heaviness slows his feet, and his guts twist sourly.

They wouldn’t just ditch him. Surely? Surely!?!

Fifteen minutes later, he winds up where he started: “They’re not back?”

“What do you reckon?” Hopper’s breathing hard and red in the face. Evidently, he’s been running in circles like Eddie has.

“This is for you.” El nudges Eddie and presses a scrap of paper into his hand. “I think Steve left it.”

“What? Where?” Eddie’s stomach clamps tight again.

Her eyes stretch very wide. “Fell out of your pack.”

Turning the note over in his hands, his fingers stiffen, as if shrinking from the task, bracing for… something. In the event, he gets a literal slap around the face.

“You make me sick,” Steve wrote.

Eddie’s skin burns with the blow. Wow! This is why I never have and never freakin’ will write love songs.

“What does he say?” demands Hopper.

Eddie scans the note one more time, scrunches it in his fist. “I’d hazard a guess he’s gone back to Hawkins.”

“Goddammit! Robin’s gone with him?”

“I think that’s a safe bet.” A wobble in the back of Eddie’s throat finds its way into his voice. Because, boy, is he still processing.

You make me sick.

What does that even mean? To be fair, Eddie did make Steve sick. More than once. But why the heck write… that. Would suck less to be dumped without a word.

Thanks for the overkill, man.

“Don’t you even think about scooting off,” growls Hopper. “Your uncle would never forgive me.”

Oh yeah. Wayne. The only person who ever actually cared about him.

Eddie plonks his butt down on the ground and waits for the car.

…

Steve POV

“C’mon, giddy up,” says Steve. He and Robin make their way along the muddy bank of the stream towards home.

“Is this some kind of race?” she asks. “While I’d forgotten your former life as a douchebag jock, you’re doing a stunning job of reminding me, and… Uuuuugh!”

“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong this time?” He spirals about, plants his hands on his hips—he’d ditched the sling a while ago.

She scrubs madly at her lips. “I swallowed a bug! Ugh, ugh, ugh, mega-gross. Eeeeurgh!”

“Maybe if you weren’t complaining, like, constantly, there’d be less opportunities for bugs to get in.”

“You shut up, shit-bird! I could die of malaria.” She spits into the stream. “Ew! EEEEEEEW!”

“Ssssh! Hop said the military will be crawling everywhere soon, or—”

“Eddie might hear?” His heart heaves a loaded thud. She looks back sharply, purses her lips. “You know, he could be lost in the wilderness, all alone. Being hunted by evil army thugs. Or bears! Did you think of that when you sauntered off?”

“I did, yeah. I left him a message saying not to follow.” He shades his face from the afternoon sunlight, which shafts between the trees. Also, he can’t look her straight on and say this: “It was kinda brutal, I guess. It was for his own good, right?”

“Oh. Riiiight.”

“You done spewing insects?” he snaps.

“Still heavily grossed-out here. Gimme a minute, ’kay?” She plonks herself on a rock, crumpling forward.

He mops his brow, strips his sweater, and takes the opportunity to check in on his bat bites. They’re still sore, the bandages a bit bloody. Nothing too fresh, though. For the billionth time, his thoughts fly back to Eddie. He hopes Eddie doesn’t get hurt and need healing while they’re apart, and… Holy shit, will he ever see him again? He ties his sweater around his hips, trying to make fumbling hands look casual.

“Steve? You okay?”

“Other than the fact I’m modelling a ‘shoot-me-now-why don’t-you?’ Hellfire Club t-shirt,”—and that I want to punch myself in the face about that moronic note—“I’m good, Robin.”

“You know what? I don’t doubt it.” She brushes her flyaway hair from suspicious eyes. “You’ve gone from death’s door to super-human speed in, oh, I don’t know—feels to me that we’ve been marching for a week. I think it’s been barely an hour.”

“Yeah? We got a long way to go then.” He starts off along the stream’s edge, forcibly slowing his pace. He senses her puffing, panting, then following on his heels.

“Look, Steve, this water goddess who’s pulling you back, whispering in your ear—”

“I can’t actually tell if they’re male or female. Does that matter?”

“Not in the slightest. So, your water… deity. Have they, by any chance, enlightened you as to some kind of divine plan? Or told you exactly where you’re heading?”

“I got an idea where I’m going, yeah.” To the second place he died, swept away on that blood-red tide—even now, he sees it in his head, like a few frames of a horror VHS stuck on eternal repeat. “Where’s the best place for army generals with dodgy agendas to hang out in Hawkins? There’s never been an army base, apart from—”

“You’re kidding me?” She grabs his elbow, jerking him back. “The Soviet tunnels?” He nods, and her obvious dread has her dropping him like a stone. “No way! I don’t think I can go anywhere near without a major panic attack."

“I’m not gonna march straight in.” He’s already wandering on. Trouble is, now he’s said the idea out loud, it’s become real and terrible. And he’s gotta pretend like his blood’s not congealing to ice. “I don’t know how I’m gonna get in anyhow. I mean, the Starcourt lift is buried under a ton of rubble. I think Hop might’ve know other ways—”

“Oooh, I got a great idea. Let’s go back and ask him.”

“Yeah, real subtle.”

“Steve!” She seizes him again, twisting him around with a furious force. “I know you want to help El, but what can you ACTUALLY DO?” He shrugs before he can stop himself. “Rain? Lightning? How does that benefit us—especially in underground tunnels? Plus you’ve had literally zero time for practice. If we don’t slow down and come up with a decent plan, this is tantamount to suicide.”

“We? Seriously, Robin, I…” His teeth clamp his lower lip. Any moment now, he’ll tell her how terrified he is, how he really, really doesn’t want to get tortured again, let alone die; how the idea of anything bad happening to her is as frightening as any of it. “I don’t think I have much choice.”

“Steve,” she says, gentler now, though her grip gouges into his flesh. “It’s screamingly obvious you’re not thinking straight. You’ve been ill for days and now you’re in a funk, beating yourself up over Eddie.”

He yanks himself free, glares. “That doesn’t make any dif—"

“Bullshit! Trust me, however ‘mean boy’ your literary masterpiece got, Eddie won’t want you to do anything this dumb. Oh, and your resident gender-fluid angel saved your life. They’re not gonna want you to sacrifice it pointlessly.”

He opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it again. He laughs—not a particularly happy laugh, but not totally miserable either. “You win,” he says, kinda sagging with relief. “You got a plan, smarty-pants?”

She laughs with him, equally edgy. “I say we go to Lover’s Lake, wait till it’s dark. If that’s too dangerous, we find some hidden pool where you can practise whatever badass moves you think you got. Hopefully without the puking. It’ll be a bit like Band Camp. But for Magic. Magic Camp. Okay?”

“You really aren’t gonna be happy until I’m a bigger nerd that any of… Shit!”

He’s been considering hugging her. Instead, he seizes her sleeve, dragging her down into a deep, wet gully. They land with a splash, crouching low, close. She doesn’t complain, because she’s heard what he has.

The distant sound of barking dogs. Likely, army search dogs.

“Dog barks travel for miles, huh?” he whispers.

“Possibly.” She sucks in a scared breath. “One thing for sure—those sniffy wet snouts can pick up a human scent from the next county.”

“We’re in a stream, Robin. They can’t pick up our scent here, right?”

She crinkles her nose, dubious. “Dogs’ sense of smell is pretty amazing.”

“Yeah? Let’s hope this bunch caught colds or something.”

He’s now the one clutching her way too tight, and he half-wishes he’d ditched her with a bitchy note too. Though, not quite. She smart; he needs her, and she’s really has gotten him thinking clearer:

“We head for Lover’s Lake. C’mon.”

…

Eddie POV

When the sound of the car engine finally reaches his hearing, Eddie feels almost nothing.

“Don’t move.” Hopper pitches Eddie a forbidding look and grabs El, keeping them low behind the ferns.

An owl hoots. Despite the hollowness in his chest, Eddie silently cracks up. Seriously? Top secret government goons can’t think of a better signal than me and Robin?

Hopper’s grip slides to the firearm at his side. He rises slowly. “Over here.”

Peeping between the foliage, Eddie can make out a limo-style saloon with blacked-out windows. A severe-faced woman in lethal stilettos climbs out. “Chief Hopper, I presume? I apologise for the delay. O’Sullivan’s got men everywhere. We must leave right away.”

Hopper, nevertheless, remains stood well off the road with Eleven, not rushing for the car. And Eddie?

You make me sick.

Steve’s made it simple for him. He should cut his losses and take this chance of escape. Wayne would want him to. Apart from… Eddie literally can’t. What was it that Steve said? Oh yeah. That he was being stretched in the wrong direction. Or something along those lines.

Yeah, I’m feelin’ it, Stevie.

Nothing supernatural, nothing hinky. You kill me that bad, Babe—even after you turned meanie-King-Steve and dumped me. Oh, and went back to goddamn Mordor without me!

Gonna trust you had your reasons, and I’m coming anyway.

He turns on his dirt-clotted heels and flees as fast as he can.

Part 15

...

(also part of my steve whump fic series on AO3)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 15

#steddie #steve harrington #steddie fic #steve x eddie #steve harrington whump #steddie fanfic #eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie fanfiction #stobin #platonic stobin #stobin friendship

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petrolstationflowers · 4 years

Note

Happy Storyteller Saturday! Which of your characters has the whump/tragic Backstory that you're most proud of writing?

@justahufflepuffnerd

Ooooh this is a fun one. Just gonna signal post that there is mention of mental health struggles, sectioning, suicide attempts, and suicide in this one.

I mean it’s Trin. Because it’s always Trin. Merin comes in close second but Trin gets a shitty hand dealt to him in pretty much every work I do for him. To specify, this is Fates AU Trin, but canon Trin don’t get it much better.

Trin grew up in a very isolated part of Northern Permacier which is essentially a tundra. It’s very difficult to grow stuff there so the village he lived in was made up of fisherfolk who solely make their living this way, selling their catch, harvesting sea plants that have medicinal properties or cold-climate plants you can’t get elsewhere, stuff like that. The problem is that this little spit of land unfortunately marries up to fey territory. And they want it. Like now.

The head of the village refused, and that got the faeries mad, so they poisoned the land and corrupted the sea, sweeping the entire place with a plague they had no idea how to cure. It killed pretty much everyone; by the time the mainland were notified and sent help, Trin’s mother, older brother, twin sister, and two younger sisters had all died in front of him. When help finally came, his father sent Trin to go and get food, and hung himself, which Trin then came home and found.

(I’m sorry you DID ask for tragic backstory)

After that it goes from bad to worse, because there are only like ten survivors of this massacre and they can’t take him in, so Trin gets shipped off to Novasco State Orphanage, which is hundreds of miles from anything familiar, and has an entirely different fucking language. The monks don’t speak Ancient Permacien, they shave his head, and they change his name and fucking hell they meant well but OH MY GOD could they make this any worse on a traumatised 11 year old. Thank god for Ena’s benevolent interference.

Trin’s mental health continues to go south, with anxiety manifesting as extreme outbursts of anger and high energy, which basically means a hyperactive feral child who has no qualms about getting into fights and doing reckless shit. His default response is to lash out when he’s frightened, and the monks do nothing apart from lock him in a room or tie him to a bed and let him scream it out. No wonder the poor kid tried suicide twice before he was 17. Ena eventually adopts him and Sil and takes them West, since Trin’s attempted getting into the military to enroll as a witch and support them all. And, y'know, get him much needed mental health treatment.

This culminates in a perfect storm of Trin being afraid to let everyone down and his steadfast refusal to go to therapy because THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM and screaming matches between him and Ena about it. And Trinity does what Trinity does best and lashes out, and breaks Ena’s arm by accident (Ena was trying to restrain him and his arm got yanked the wrong way). So while Sil is hauling Ena off to get his arm set and to lie very convincingly to social services and “yes officer I’m definitely a 20 year old adult who fell down the stairs,” Trin gets it into his head to try and kill himself again, and this time very nearly succeeds. Which winds up getting him sectioned.

This does turn out to be the best thing for him, though, after he’s stopped throwing chairs at the psychiatrists. He’s hospitalised for about a year and once he’s had a fuck ton of counselling, the right medication, actually being able to grieve his murdered family, and stability for the first time in his life, he improves dramatically and is actually able to cope and be given back control of his life. He still has scars all the way up to his elbows on both his arms. He still takes the day off work and hides in bed on the anniversary, but y’know what, he doesn’t smash all the plates in the house because he doesn’t understand the Vilandran in the textbook he’s reading or shout at Sil for being home late because that’s thrown him into a panic of losing someone else. He’s allowed to hurt, he’s allowed to be sad, he’s allowed to speak his native fucking language.

I am so incredibly proud of Trin. And yet another post where I want to throttle the monks.

#viki writes #fates above #jesus christ you asked for whump and you got whump #I WARNED YOU #storyteller saturday #fuck it time isn't real #tw suicide #tw self harm #Trin

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just-horrible-things · 2 years

Text

Credit to co-author @whump-sprite AU: Chewtoy – Revelation [Prev | Next]

Ariadne unfastens her own seat belt, but she doesn’t even reach for the car door. Connor does it for her, and takes her arms to help her out. She won’t look at his face.

Her legs fold almost as soon as her feet touch the floor, and Connor catches her awkwardly against his body.

His blood is boiling. He'd like to see Riven try to whip him like this.

“What’s wrong with your legs?” he asks Ari. “What else did he do to you?” “Mmhh,” she groans into his shirt. “Sorry. Jus’... jus’ sore, I got, got electrocuted last week…” “What?” “S’complicated.” None of this makes sense. Connor should have taken her to medical. “Okay,” he sighs, “okay, you can explain later.”

She’s here now.

He picks her up like a child, ignoring her breathless squeak of protest, and carries her inside. She doesn’t weigh enough. She used to weigh more than this, and Connor can feel too many of her bones.

He sets her down on his couch, pushes a couple of pillows aside, and grabs one to put under her head and shoulders. Ariadne still won’t look at him, tucking her chin against her shoulder to avoid Connor’s gaze.

She looks sick. Connor thought the harsh light of the interrogation room wasn’t doing her any favors, but even under the warmer and more forgiving light of his front room her color is off and the hollows under her eyes are dark enough to be painted on.

“Sit tight,” he tells her, “I’ll be right back.”

The first aid kit is well stocked, and he sets it on the floor by the couch to unpack it. “When’s the… last time I saw you?” It must have been two or three years, now? They fell out of touch after Caleb was killed. “Dunno,” mumbles Ariadne. “Ages ago…” She stopped answering his texts, Connor thinks. But it was long enough ago that he’s not sure he wasn’t equally to blame. She was grieving, maybe he should have tried harder.

“I gotta clean you up,” he tells her. “Gonna fucking hurt.” Her unhappy little half-voiced exhalation isn’t quite assent, but it isn’t quite a protest either.

Connor peels back her blood-soaked turtleneck to expose her back.

“Fuck.”

He should have taken a better look back in the facility. This isn’t the only time she’s been whipped to shreds. Her back is all scars and scabs and open wounds. And she’s so thin.

He shoots Ariadne another disbelieving look, but she’s staring straight ahead. Her jaw is tight and she looks almost like she might cry. Connor exhales slowly.

He wets a clean bit of cotton wool with antiseptic, sits on the floor beside the couch, and starts working on her back.

Ariadne twitches and shudders under the touch. Connor knows how bad it stings, so he doesn’t hold her little gasps and whimpers against her. But when she starts outright sobbing he stops what he's doing, alarmed.

"Srry," she mumbles miserably into the pillow. "M'srry." "Okay, okay,” Connor tells her, perturbed. “I'll quit touching it for now. You don't have to cry." "M'srry." The Ariadne Connor knew wouldn’t be caught dead sobbing like that.

He sits back on his heels and waits for the crying to stop.

Eventually Ariadne sniffles her way into silence. She keeps her face down, hiding it in the pillow.

Connor clears his throat. "You gonna tell me what the hell is actually going on?" "I…" she starts, muffled by the pillow, "... dunno what t'say." "Who the fuck is torturing you, say that. Don't give me this bull about discipline." Ariadne lifts her head just enough to look sidelong at Connor. "It's Riven," she says.

Connor is speechless. It can't be Riven, he'd never get away with this. The man is an asshole but this goes so far beyond–

"That's not… Have you… I'm gonna report this, I…" "Tried that," Ari interjects sulkily. "Jesus fucking Christ. You should leave. It's not worth it. – Nothing is."

Ariadne abruptly tries to sit up. She doesn't get far, wincing with bared teeth, but she manages to get her elbows under her. She looks around as if she's never seen Connor's front room before – which he supposes she hasn't. He did move last year.

"Where… where are we?" "My house, Ariadne." "Oh fuck." She's wide-eyed. "They let you just–" Cold dread settles in Connor's gut. "Let me what?" Ariadne hesitates. "They… don't let me walk out," she confesses, breathless. "Excuse me?" "Security don't let me out," she repeats. Her eyes flicker to the front door.

Connor found her on the floor in an interrogation room. He thought she was a prisoner. Riven isn't disciplining her, he's torturing her. Interrogating her.

"Fuck," Connor breathes.

"What aren't you telling me?" he demands, suddenly cold. "What did you do?" "I-I –" Ariadne flinches. She looks terrified. She looks guilty. "I don't know, nothing, I-I-I'm just – not good e-enough."

Connor still has his work belt on. He takes the handcuffs off the back, and closes one cuff around Ariadne's nearest wrist.

"Don't take me back, Connor," she pleads as he feels under the couch for something he can secure her to. "Please don't take me back." He locks the other cuff closed around the leg of the couch, and stands up. "I'm on goddamn camera taking you out of there," he tells her. "What did you do?" "Nothing, I don't know, I don't know what you want–" "What am I gonna find if I look up your file?" "I-I don't know, sir, I'm sorry."

Asking her is pointless. Connor pulls out his laptop. While he waits for the database connection, he watches Ariadne bury her face in the pillow. Her shoulders shake.

He’s ready to see access denied, but her file comes up without warnings.

She looks healthy and confident in her photo.

Ariadne Milonas, special agent.

Same enrollment date as Connor, same end-of-training. At first glance her record looks normal.

She’s still listed as Active Service.

But looking closer, there are discrepancies. She doesn’t seem to have any clearances. The field is just empty. Connor wouldn't expect to be able to see everything, but he should be able to see the entries that match his – the basics for a special agent, and for Site 17 personnel.

He scrolls down to her service history and finds that weird too. The first year and a half looks normal – a few disciplinary notes, a few successes, a few scathing comments from Riven.

Then the entries get less frequent, and soon there’s just… nothing. No commendations, no discipline, no comments.

Something happened about three, three and a half years ago. But… no, that can’t be right. Connor could swear she was at a New Year’s party two years ago.

He clicks on every disciplinary infraction he can see. A few of them ended in corporal punishment, but never more than ten or fifteen strokes with the rope. Connor remembers most of them. Ariadne never let it get to her.

There’s no mention of the whip anywhere.

Connor gets up. Ariadne’s shoulders tighten as he gets near. He takes a close look at her back, focused on the area he’s already cleaned. Ariadne shudders as he touches a finger to a pale, raised scar.

It has to be years old.

There’s another one next to it that’s still reddish, maybe a few months healed.

He glances back at her file still open on his computer.

If her… treason, it'd have to be treason to warrant this – if it was classified under a clearance Connor doesn't have, is this strange, sparse file what he’d see? Or…

“You expect me to believe,” he says aloud, “that Riven is keeping you prisoner in there and torturing you because… he thinks you’re not good enough. And everyone just lets him?” Ariadne turns her head to look up at him, fearful and suspicious. Her mouth twitches, but she doesn’t seem to have an answer.

She’s still wearing half her uniform. Why would she still be in uniform if she was a traitor and a prisoner?

“Can I just… clean you up,” Connor sighs, “and then we’ll figure out what to do.” “Okay,” she says in a small voice. She barely sounds like the Ariadne he knows.

He sits down beside her once again. He’s as careful as he can be, but she still makes muffled, pitiful noises into the pillow as he applies more antiseptic. The handcuffs click against the leg of the couch as she twitches and shudders.

Connor frees her wrist. It’s not as if he couldn’t overpower her.

Then he presses down over one spot and Ariadne jerks away from his hand with a loud, choked “Gghh–!” Connor pulls back at once. “Fuck, sorry,” he exclaims. “What’s –” “Think, th’rib’s broken,” Ariadne manages through gritted teeth. “He broke your fucking bones? Where else?” “S’fine,” she mumbles. “Jus’... just don’t press too hard?” “No,” Connor tells her. “I need you to tell me what else is broken.” She flinches, and mumbles “srry.” It’s an obvious effort to free her arm from under her body, but she indicates another spot further down her ribcage. “S’mostly healed,” she claims. Connor makes a note to be careful.

After that, he mostly works in silence. He doesn’t stop when she starts crying again. He can hear her trying to keep it quiet, and it seems kinder to pretend that he doesn’t notice.

It still doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Connor turns the pieces around in his mind and gets nowhere.

[Next]

#my writing #au: chewtoy #chewtoy!ariadne #connor thompson

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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years

Note

“You could always beat him with a stick.” “I bet he’d be into that.” someone saying this about Jameson? Maybe even Allyn as a gentle joke? :3 I just saw this in an ask game and I know you didn't reblog it but it fits Jameson to perfectly not to send this anyway <3 -theo-

CW: Pet whump, dehumanization, forced to eat off the floor, forced starvation/malnutrition resulting in stealing food, restraints, vague noncon

"Goddamnit." Brute dumps the empty bag in the trash, crinkling plastic and the soft swishing sound as he forces it further in on top of a bag that's already alarmingly full and starting to smell.

"What?" Brute's friend says - the pet thinks his name might be Louie, or something. It doesn't matter, he doesn't give a fuck what their names are, what matters is that they need to bathe more often before they fuck him.

"I think the goddamn slut's been stealing food again."

The two men turn to look at the pet, currently sitting in the corner of the kitchen with his back against the wall, his leg braces clicking a little as his legs keep trying - and failing - to straighten. His wrists are handcuffed, a longish chain between them at least allowing him to crawl to move when he needs to. He looks right back at them, refusing to lower his gaze.

He wasn't made for any of them, and he's not their slut, anyway.

"Well? Did you steal Brute's food, little buddy?" Louie asks, crossing his arms in front of himself. The pet only raises his eyebrows. He rarely speaks - there's no point to it. Then he shrugs. "Yeah, you're probably right. Don't you lock him in a room when you're not here?"

"Sure, but I need my fuckin' sleep. He must be getting into shit when I'm watching TV."

The pet almost snorts, but manages to catch himself. Brute "watching TV" just means Brute falling asleep in an armchair while some dumbshit show drones on and on, Brute's snoring drowning out the words. He should probably get that sleep apnea checked, but the pet's not going to be the one to tell him about it.

How does he know what sleep apnea is, anyway?

My dad used to snore so loud he'd wake us up down the hall, me and Hank-

He winces, putting his hands up to cover his eyes as a headache hits like a thunderclap. When it rolls away, moves on, he can't remember what he was thinking about. It was a bad thought, anyway. He doesn't try to grab it again.

Maybe one of these nights Brute will stop breathing for long enough to just fucking die.

"This isn't your food," Brute says, and suddenly he's right in front of the pet, grabbing him by the chin, shaking his head by it to get his attention. "You got that, whore?"

The pet glares at him, then spits right in his open fucking mouth.

Brute coughs, stumbling backwards from sheer surprise, turning to spit into the sink, drink a handful of water, spit again. "Jesus Christ! The fucking slut spit at me!"

Louie starts to laugh, a loud braying donkey sound that has the pet's teeth grinding together.

Brute turns to look at the pet with murder in his eyes.

Go ahead, the pet thinks, lifting his chin. Try to kill me. He doesn't know where his death wish came from, but it keeps beating in the back of his mind like his heart, alongside the pain inside his skull.

I don't deserve to live, anyway, after walking away from Hank-

He welcomes the headache, this time, because it washes away the way his chest tightens with a feeling he can't name, one he's terrified of. A feeling that seems infinitely huge, like it could drown him in an ocean of itself. A worse way to die than Brute just beating him to death.

"If you d-don't want me to steal food," The pet says, voice gravelly and hoarse from all the screaming he does here, "then give me something to fucking eat."

Louie hums, drinking from a bottle of beer, nearly as clear as water and the pet figures it probably mostly tastes like water, too. "He's got a point, there. He's dropped some weight since you got him and he didn't have much to lose then, either."

"Like I give a fuck." Brute frowns, going through the cabinets again. He keeps coughing, like he thinks the pet spit all the way down to his lungs. "Shit. I guess it's been a while since I got some food over here, too. You know, I don't like to spend too much, I don't want Ellen asking me about it."

"What, you don't want her to know you keep a house for poker night and slut-fucking?" Louie brays laughter again, and the pet winces, following Brute with his eyes as he takes down two cans of beef vegetable soup, opening them with a shitty dull can opener and pouring them into a saucepan to heat up on the stove. The can opener won't do any good - he probably couldn't cut his own skin with it, let alone do anything to Brute.

"Yeah, imagine her face! She thinks I quit poker." Brute laughs, and Louie laughs, and the pet wishes he could slam their heads together until their brains fall out on the sticky, disgusting unwashed kitchen tiles.

"I don't think the poker'd be the thing she was maddest about," Louie points out. The two men chat, finish their beers and open new ones, and the scent of salt and meat wafts through the air. The pet's stomach grumbles, rolls and tightens around nothing, until he presses his hands down over it.

The two men dish out bowls of soup for themselves, heaping right up to the top. Brute turns around too fast and soup sloshes out of his, a chunk of cooked beef, a faded overcooked carrot, two peas, and a splash of the hot broth landing on the dirty floor.

Brute glances over at the pet. "Well? Fucking deal with it, if you want to eat so badly."

The pet's cheeks burn.

"He's a little shit, isn't he? You could try smacking him around."

"We do that anyway."

"I don't know. Hit him with a fucking stick."

"He'd probably fucking like it." Brute laughs, chuckling. "Come on, pet. Lick it up."

Nanda would never have made him do this.

Nanda's fucking dead, so stop thinking useless shit and stay alive, he thinks to himself, and rolls forward onto his hands and knees. He moves in an awkward shuffle, as fast as he can, worried Brute will change his mind and take it back.

He drops his head and picks the chunk of beef up with his teeth, the carrot and the peas, licks the broth off the floor even though he can taste ancient cleaning products, once upon a time used to keep things clean here. Probably before Brute bought the place.

"Aw, look at him go," Louie says. The chairs creak alarmingly under the two men - those came with the house, too - and they eat with relish, loudly chewing. The pet would think it was to taunt him, except that they always eat like this.

Louie drops another bite of beef, laughing as the pet lunges forward and picks that one up too. It's not much - just a burst of flavor and texture until it's gone - but it's something.

Brute drops a heavy hand onto his head, patting roughly. His hands are gross, and some of the pet's hair sticks to his fingers a little. "There you go, buddy. I feed you, don't I?"

The pet bites the curse back behind his teeth. He wants to lick those bowls clean, and if he says what he's thinking he won't get anything more.

He sits next to Brute, playing the loyal dog, and he's rewarded when the last half-cup of soup is poured into one of their bowls and laid down on the floor for him.

He eats everything left, even though it's thick and a little gritty and there's almost no flavor but salt. It swamps his system, floods him with fat and some faint warmth. It's not enough, but it's something, and he's too desperate to care what he has to do to get fed.

"Good boy," Brute says, taking the bowl away and dropping both dishes into the sink. He looks down at the pet, with soup remnants smeared around his mouth and the end of his nose, and grins. "Look at you. Disgusting little slut. Come on, clean that up so I can put that mouth to better use."

He wets down a paper towel and drops it in front of the pet, who scrambles to clean his nose and mouth off. Brute and Louie walk back into the living room, and the pet listens as the TV starts up, the two of them arguing good-naturedly over what they're going to watch.

He inches slowly closer and closer to the cabinet under the sink, head cocked just in case. The volume rises - Brute's going deaf in one ear. It's enough to cover the sound of him slowly opening the cabinet, digging behind the cleaning supplies, and finding what he's looking for.

Behind the gallon jug of bleach, below the pipes that come out from beneath the sink, is a small bag of protein bars. Brute brought them for a snack, the pet hid them, Brute complained for a while but he's forgotten he ever had them.

The pet eats one in three bites, swallowing half-chewed lumps of chalky chocolate taste as fast as he can. It sits like a brick in his stomach and it's not enough, but it's more than a few bites of soup, at least.

He closes the cabinet door back up and hides the wrapper beneath some of the trash in the trash can, sitting back on his knees so he can reach.

Just as he finishes, Brute calls from the living room, "Get your fucking face out of my trash and get in here! Asshole stealing food again, Louie, I swear to God."

"What's he gonna do, lick the wrapper?"

The pet shifts back to hands and knees and crawls, the clicking of his leg braces is going to drive him fucking crazy one day. He hopes Brute is here when it does.

He takes a moment to stop and look up at the knife block up on the countertop. He can't reach it... but once he can...

When he gets into the living room, Brute points to the floor between Louie's legs. His friend is already spreading his knees apart and working his hands at his zipper.

The pet's stomach flips, but he can't lose what little food he's gotten today. He can't.

He swallows, looking up at Brute, unconsciously pleading to be told he doesn't have to, not tonight.

All Brute says is, "Go on. Guest first, then me. Get moving."

The pet takes a deep breath, and crawls across the room, closing his eyes as he is fed salt and heat and sweat he can't escape, as his head is gripped like a vice with hands that twist hard enough into his hair to yank some of it out by the roots, as Louie forces himself down the pet's throat until it's raw and the pain is a screaming constant.

Then, bitter taste on his tongue, he turns to have it done to him all over again by Brute.

Hate and fury burn bright in him, brighter than anything else he's ever felt. It's the hate that keeps his heart beating, it's the anger that keeps him breathing through his nose even as unwilling tears stream from his eyes, unwilling whines and whimpers find their muffled way out of the corners of his mouth.

When he's done, Brute throws him by the hair onto the floor. Neither of them so much as looks at him as he crawls back to his room, curling up on the bare mattress on the floor with his filthy blanket, watching the glimpse of stars he can see through the bars on his window.

He's still hungry.

But it doesn't matter. He's going to survive this - one day he's going to walk out of this place and not look back.

Just as soon as he can get his hands on that knife.

Then he'll see the stars for real.

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @also-finder-of-rings @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @whump-tr0pes @orchidscript @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @thefancydoughnut @whumptywhumpdump @downriver914 @outofangband @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @thehopelessopus @newandfiguringitout @oops-its-whump @yet-another-heathen @whumpiary @nonsensical-whump @cubeswhump @burtlederp @hackles-up @mylifeisonthebookshelf @thecyrulik @wingedwhump @writingbackwards @wildfaewhump @endless-whump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

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peachy-panic · 3 years

Text

Some Light Conspiring

Part of Do No Harm. And the official introduction/teaser to what I am calling The Resistance Arc. :)

Follows/refers to this encounter with The Nurse.

Part 2 hopefully coming tomorrow :)

WARNINGS: Hospital setting, BBU/BBU-adjacent, brief discussions of past medical whump

Sebastian finds her in the break room upstairs.

It’s been a couple of weeks since their paths last crossed, and he had been starting to wonder if the night nurse was dodging him on purpose. Ever since the morphine incident, he has been finding excuses to work late, pick up extra shifts, anything just to get a second alone to talk. The cryptic tidbits of information (or lack thereof) she had left him with have wormed their way inside his head and they won’t let go of him.

He needs to know more, even if he’s a little afraid of what he might find.

The darker part of him—the one that has only begun to see the insidious underbelly of this operation—had been starting to worry for her safety. What if someone saw what she did for Jaime? What if she was caught doing it for someone else? He doesn’t know what other rules she is finding around here to break, but he knows that if he caught her out, he won’t be the last or most dangerous person to do so.

All that considered, he is surprised but nearly euphoric with relief when he goes upstairs to make a cup of coffee on Friday and finds her at the counter.

“There you are,” he says, crossing to her probably a little too quickly.

She looks up from where she is swirling a tea bag around in her cup. The sapphire-blue piercing in her eyebrow lifts as she spots him. “Here I am?” she says.

“Where have you been?” he asks quietly, casting a sideways glance to the couple of handlers at the table. She takes a step back from him, giving an incredulous look, which—yeah, fair, he might be coming at this a little aggressively.

“Bit of a broad question,” she says. “To which the answer is none of your business.”

“You disappeared.”

She turns her attention back to her tea. “I hardly disappeared just because you didn’t see me here,” she says. “Some of us have lives outside of this job.”

He bristles. “Sorry, I just I find it a little strange that you go missing after our first and only encounter involved—”

Her eyes sharpen suddenly, cutting him off. He can’t help but smirk at his small victory. Now he’s got her attention. He follows her gaze to the table of handlers, then she takes a subtle step closer, lowering her voice. “Jesus Christ,” she hisses. “Not here.”

Before he can respond, she brushes past him and walks out the door. Sebastian takes that as a possibly misguided cue to follow. So he does. He shadows her all the way back to the clinic, where she uses her badge to scan into an empty exam room. She holds it open for him with an impatient sweep of her arm. The door shuts behind them, the mechanical lock whirring automatically.

Sebastian crosses his arms, leaning one hip against the exam table as she approaches the counter on the opposite wall. He tilts his head, watching as she begins removing lids from the glass jars of cotton swabs and alcohol wipes.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“If someone comes in here,” she says, taking out a handful of packets and spreading them on the countertop before she starts dropping them one-by-one back in the same jar, “at least one of us should look like we’re doing something other than some light conspiring.”

“Okay.” Sebastian blinks. “Um. It’s Aria, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“Great. I’m Sebastian. Listen,” he starts, unsure of where he’s really going now that he’s finally got her in front of him. “I’ve been thinking a lot about… well, about a lot of things, but specifically what happened that night in the ward.” It’s subtle, and she quickly recovers, but he sees it; the slight twitch in her hand as she slides a bundle of cotton swabs into the next jar. “What you did for my patient that night…The way you tried to help him…”

“Am I supposed to be hearing a question here?”

Sebastian breathes out through his nose. “‘You don’t get inside this system without crossing some lines.’ I believe those were your exact words, last time we spoke,” he says. “That there are ‘some things you can’t reach from the outside?’ Ring a bell?”

She turns around suddenly, crossing her arms in front of her. “Are you accusing me of something, Dr. Tate?”

“Accusing? What? No—”

“Why did you bring me down here?”

He leans slightly to one side. “Technically you brought me down here.” Her face tells him she is not amused by his attempt at lightening the situation. He clears his throat. “This isn’t a condemnation of any sort, I swear.” He pauses, swallowing. He can’t help but lower his voice again when he says, “You gave that boy morphine when he was in pain. You risked your job, and probably more, to do it.”

“Blackmail, then?” she baits again.

Sebastian pinches his eyes shut, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Can you just… actually listen to me? For one second, please? I don’t know how to prove it to you, but I’m not fucking with you here.”

Her narrow chin tilts down, fixing him in place with a stare. “That’s sounds exactly like what someone who is fucking with me would say.”

“I understand that you don’t trust me,” Sebastian says slowly. “And that’s probably a safe bet in order to get away with what you did, or… or what you are doing, I have a feeling—and this is not an accusation—that what happened that night was not an isolated incident. Am I right?”

Her silence tells him he just might be.

“I don’t know what all this means,” he continues. “But whatever it is, I can tell you I’m on your side. I don’t know exactly what side that is because, as it turns out, you are an extraordinarily difficult person to communicate with. But if my options are between the person sneaking medicine to patients and the ones facilitating their abuse, it’s really not a difficult choice.”

Maybe his exasperation is showing through, or maybe there was something in his speech trustworthy enough to lower her guard just a little, because after a moment she shifts her weight back, leaning against the lip of the counter.

“Fine,” she says. “If you aren’t here to turn me in, what do you want?”

Now, that is the question Sebastian has been waiting to answer from the moment he stepped through these doors.

“I want to help.”

Continue here

***

TAG LIST: @whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @melancholy-in-the-morning @also-finder-of-rings @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup

#Vive la résistance!#look the mystery nurse has a name!#aria lyle #Do No Harm: Jaime & Sebastian #hospital setting #BBU #like bbu adjacent?#whumplr #i am truly so excited to get into the next part #which again #hopefully comes tomorrow #it's mostly written now

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