#misery and pain and torture but ill just keep drawing to get through it

[minhmynchi]

loop doodles today at work yay

[senju-sekhmet]

The Leash (Part 8)

Summary: Your rescue was supposed to be as smooth as these missions can be. However very quickly, Tobirama faces off against an enemy that has no form, color or smell - and time is running short, very fast. Unless he figures out what truly holds you hostage, your life will be lost. Warnings (for the finished work): Blood, illness, descriptions of heavy injuries and graphic violence, torture (both depicted and implied), needles, morally grey territory, human experimentation, panic attacks, character death, angst with a happy ending ~6200 words (this chapter, finished work: 80.000) Previous: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7 Read on AO3!   Disclaimer below the cut! Updated again, yAAAY!!

DISCLAIMER! Next part of the split! a bit longer. and not as soon as I hoped, gosh dangerit. But! Hopefully I’ll get the next one out a lot quicker. This chapter is a little bit special as I tried to incorporate something of a real intensive care take into what is happening as well as my own... ideas about how they'd deal with it all. Let me know what you think! Other than that: enjoy my very self indulgent work, filled with my own headcanons and angst galore. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!!!! ______ It took him a moment to get his bearings again. Hashirama’s back was turned towards him, he was sitting in a chair by your side. The setting sun’s red light illuminated the room in warm hues Tobirama might have appreciated were it not for the sheer sense of dread he felt budding inside of him. The dreary exhaustion was swept away as he stepped closer slowly. Peripherally he picked up a weak pulse of chakra with sensor skills - nothing uncommon for him if he came close enough to a source. Usually he had to actively tap into his sensory skills in order to pick anything up, but if the signal was strong enough, it almost forced itself upon him. Right now, it most likely was your body. As Tobirama rounded the bed he saw your face: pale - paler than before, he was sure - and sweaty. You were taking shallow, hushed breaths while the odd whimper escaped your lips every now and then. Truth be told, Tobirama only remembered you trashing and writhing the last time the withdrawal had set in - now, you simply squirmed, sometimes.

Your expression was far from peaceful though. It was a grimace of sheer pain. Jaw taut, a frown etched onto your forehead and the eyes so tightly, your skin was in wrinkles.

Hashirama was holding your hand, his eyes were closed. An epitome of calmness next to your misery. Tobirama didn’t want to disturb his concentration lest he’d cause you even more torment so for a moment, he stood by the other side of the bed, helplessly witnessing your suffering. The dread had become the painfully familiar constriction of his chest again, every beat of his heart stabbed as he could only let his shoulders hang low.

It was wrong. He should never have agreed to let you suffer like this. The promise you had him make was a hollow echo in his ears. You probably wouldn’t want him to berate himself like this. But how couldn’t he? How couldn't he, when this was the result of the decision? Of course, the cruel logic behind this was clear to him - painfully so.

But if these past few days had been anything but logical every so often.

Hashirama cleared his throat, slowly. “Tobirama,” he greeted, quietly. He didn’t open his eyes.

Tobirama jumped at the opportunity. “How is she?”, he demanded swiftly, keeping his voice low but making no effort to stow back on the urgency.

Hashirama didn’t respond directly, which only served to irritate Tobirama slightly. “It’s difficult,” he began finally, “Initially we were able to stave off the brunt of the withdrawal by sealing her chakra away,” Tobirama’s blood near froze in his veins, his eyes widened slightly, “But it’s been picking up since. Her blood pressure has been dropping and I’ve been noticing signs of inflammation primarily along her blood vessels but also the heart and lungs." He paused momentarily, uttering a hum of ponder. "The reaction overall is similar to sepsis at this point. Likely the body trying to clear out the leash physically now that her chakra can't interact with it anymore.”

Tobirama couldn’t help himself now. He had to know - to see - with a fine tremor in his hand and a raspy breath he took a step closer to grasp the blanket that covered you and pull it lower, very slowly. As lightly as he could. You stirred as the cloth moved, a feeble shudder of your weak body, but no more. On your chest he could already make out the ink markings of the chakra seal on your bare chest. The sight stole alone his breath momentarily. He violently swallowed down the lump in his throat.

He had believed seeing you weak, tortured, a shadow of your former self - that was one of the worst parts about all of this - he had been wrong.

This. This was worse. It all painted a new horrible picture for what it implied.

There were more seals on your glistening skin - both of your arms and your heart, each of them with a parchment in their center that had been soaked in herbs whose smell each he knew well. Tobirama recognized these: one was stabilising your cardiovascular system both through the seal’s effect itself but also by letting the herbal agent be applied transdermally. The fact you already bore it - the Ione on your heart to make it pump stronger - was a grim sign. The other two were strong pain and sedation medications. Were anyone other than his brother here, he’d probably have refused to wait any longer with the next dose.

He pulled the blanket back up again and crossed his arms in front of his chest as if that helped to reinforce his broken, guilty resolve about all this. “Tell me more,” he requested firmly, eyes never leaving your gaunt face now. This is the only way, he kept telling himself.

“Mito and I drew the chakra seal. It is temporary and can be opened and closed, I’ll show you later. When Y/n gets the next dose and is in her lucid phase, we can open it again for her comfort,” Hashirama consoled quickly. Whether or not he had taken note of what Tobirama had done, he didn’t care right now. It was a slight relief. Maybe you hadn’t felt any of it. Maybe.

“She’s rather still, anija,” Tobirama whispered, now with more worry and firmness. "You sedated her?"

His brother hummed affirmatively. “We … were forced to, indeed.” The hesitance was clear in his tone.

“I see.” Tobirama’s in turn was grave. His next question he blurted out before he was even sure whether he wanted to know the answer. Who was he kidding? Of course he did. “I surmise otherwise, she wouldn’t be still enough to be monitored like this,” to put it lightly. He didn’t have the stomach right now to utter: Otherwise you’d be screaming from the top of your lungs and writhing like you were on fire.

Just like the last time you had been in withdrawal.

Just like the prisoners had explained.

Hashirama appeared to be grateful for Tobirama’s rare show of more neutral words. “You are correct.” The admission didn’t hurt any less for it.

“What about the other seals?” Tobirama demanded then, though of course Hashirama would know that Tobirama was aware of what they did. What he really wanted to know was how bad off you were. For all Tobirama knew, you might be carrying more of those already.

“I was forced to draw these a bit ago as the physical symptoms started to kick in worse again,” he replied evenly. “I first tried oral medication, but the effect was too weak. And administering it was ineffective.”

By ineffective, he meant impossible. You probably quite violently refused anything. Tobirama’s eyes widened slightly at the implication though. It meant your condition was worse enough that without these seals - the seal on your heart to support your cardiovascular system, really - you’d most likely be teetering on the brink of death than life. His hands bunched the fabric of his black shirt. “Exactly how much support does she need right now?” he demanded now, still not daring to step closer.

Hashirama gave a low sigh, but still did not open his eyes nor move his hand from yours. “It’s bearable. Due to the seal, the disruption is impairing her dormant chakra only, but it is not fighting back of course. The symptoms are being caused by her body’s physical reaction which we’re controlling with the medication and the other seals, for now. I’m simply monitoring. It’s just the three seals, Tobirama.”

He was not calmed down at all. “Still, you’ve already been forced to draw this to improve her cardiovascular situation.” Tobirama stated flatly, the neutral kindness gone. He started to paint a pretty dismal picture of your situation without even having examined you already.

Hashirama noticed, too. “And we can still increase the support of these seals. The fever is being kept in check, and while I admit her body is reacting physically, for now it is mostly symptomatic of the withdrawal rather than an actual damaging inflammatory reaction. I’d wager we even have a little bit more time before we have to give her the next dose of the leash.”

It should have served to put him at ease. And yet - “As if that should be our only concern,” Tobirama shot back, voice suddenly caustic. Your pained grimace was testament to the fact you were walking through hell once more and here he was, deliberating how long he could prolong it.

His stomach roiled as his breathing became jittery again. He had to close his eyes lest his brother witnessed his possibly glistening eyes; or at the very least the obvious pain in his glance. It wasn't as though he wanted to hide it - he just needed to be alone with it.

Hashirama was a very understanding person, after all.

And because of that he picked up on it nonetheless. “Y/n wanted this, brother.” It was all he said. Tobirama didn’t want to hear anything, anyway. There was nothing anyone could say about all of this.

Another concern hit him then, distancing himself quickly from the biting cynicism that rose up inside of him. “What about the amount of chakra overload? The seals will aggravate that,” he subconsciously stepped closer, more and more wishing to just see for himself how you really fared. Nonetheless his tone was demanding again.

“That is correct,” Hashirama agreed quickly, but calmly. “And I won’t lie, we are pushing the limit here. But given our options, it is the safest route. It is manageable right now however.”

Tobirama frowned and wondered if he truly did agree with that statement. Following blindly - even his brother’s no doubt superior medical expertise - just wasn’t in him. Especially when it concerned you. “Overload symptoms would be similar to what she is experiencing now, though," he countered tersely.

Hashirama inhaled deeply. “Which is why we’ll need to continue to watch carefully, even after she gets the dose. It’s not a perfect solution, but so far it’s working. If it happens to become too intense, then we know to cut the interval shorter again to lessen the needed seals.”

The words caused a sudden surge of ire through his dismal demeanor. All of this sounded more like experimentation rather than a real course of action. Not that his brother could know any better, but it still didn’t make him appreciate it any more. He forcibly took deep breaths in order to not snap again, but the ire was a welcome distraction from the utter despair that had taken over.

Hashirama opened his eyes then finally and his dark eyes gave him a warm glance. Tobirama instantly frowned, concerned it may hamper with his focus - but before he could speak, his brother did. “Take a seat, look for yourself. I know you want to.”

He didn’t have to say it twice. Tobirama grabbed one of the chairs swiftly and placed it on the other side of your bed, taking a seat then. Gingerly, he took your hand in his and closed his eyes to let his chakra meet your network and begin to examine you.

It was a mess. The first thing he noticed was the complete absence of a chakra flow - it was frozen in its tracks. And while before there certainly had been the many injuries you had yet to properly recover from, now there was a war raging in your body. Manageable. That was the word Hashirama had used. Tobirama himself would not go beyond that, if even. There was hardly a part of yourself not affected by all this; anywhere he looked he found signs of inflammation, microscopic injury in the tissue that was attacked, torn down and at the same time, rebuilt. The picture was similar to sepsis, as his brother had said indeed: your own body’s reaction to the leash was, ultimately, killing you. The leash itself seemed to cause damage on its own, but it was minor compared to the damages your own body was doing to yourself by trying to fend it off. At this point it was just a matter of time until that got too bad. After all, it already had begun to cause a capillary leak on a scale that required outward support to keep your blood pressure up. Your heart rate was elevated for compensation, and your organs each showed signs of damage due to said leak as well as the inflammation itself.

His focus needed to be extremely sharp to even make out traces of the leash in the rush of your frantically beating heart - intense scrutiny that surely wouldn’t go unnoticed by you. He withdrew quickly. Tobirama knew the leash would be latched - branded, almost - to your blood at this point. That easily explained why no part of your body was spared - just like in a real sepsis. Though he noticed the heart and lungs seemed to be affected more, too, as Hashirama had mentioned - examining them closer, he found the reaction here was particularly bad. Your lungs, as the extremely thin tissue of the alveoles were extremely affected by this - again, just like in sepsis. It was a matter of time until breathing problems would ensure. Your heart, as it strained to fight for a stable blood pressure while being inadequately perfused, suffering tissue damage on a microscopic scale, for now. At the very least, this might affect you immediately - but Tobirama found none of these damages couldn’t be healed, either.

Just not now.

Frankly, he hadn’t expected to feel better after this, exactly. However to witness the battle that was going on inside of you - one you were losing, ultimately, always - it added a new dimension to the sorrow and heartache he was feeling. Even though right now he felt the hum of the seals that had been painted on you and their effects - strengthening you - he felt nothing but helplessness to bear witness to your suffer firsthand and do nothing but to figure out how to prolong it. It didn’t just hurt his heart - it wrenched it around, tore at it. He didn’t want to do this.

Promise me.

He had promised you.

With a broken sigh, he withdrew and slumped back in the chair, eyes on your gaunt, pained face. His vision was blurry.

“Tobirama,” Hashirama’s voice startled him. With this dismal sight and the lingering extortion from his shadow clone stunt, which his body certainly had not forgotten, concentration was becoming touch and go as his thoughts circled in dark places. “The sedative will begin to wear off, soon. For the next dose, I’d rather she be more awake to ensure she can swallow it properly.”

Tobirama closed his eyes and already knew how this would go down. Another one for the list of things he’ll have a hard time forgiving himself. But he had to. He had to. Slowly, he rubbed a palm over his face. “Very well,” he replied, seeing reason in this too, of course.

They sat in silence for another two hours, almost. During the time, your writhing had picked up slowly - from a flex of your legs’ or arms’ muscles to weak movement. Slowly but surely sounds were picking up too - huffs or grunts at first, but later on there were quiet groans and incoherent mumbles mixed in. You never opened your eyes. Hashirama ended up increasing the heart’s seal’s intensity somewhat, all of which Tobirama watched while he monitored you diligently. He felt absolutely crushed in every sense - physically, emotionally, mentally. But sleep never came to his mind. The least he could do was be here with you, even if you might not notice it. But if anything were to happen - he’d be here. He’d sleep when you did. A little. And then continue to work once his condition allowed it again.

“It’s time,” Hashirama announced finally. “Her blood pressure has been sinking continuously and the damage that is caused by the withdrawal ultimately is becoming too intense now. I don’t want to push her beyond this.”

What a relief. Tobirama already had procured the next dose of the leash previously. Administering it now wouldn’t be as simple as the last times, however. With a heavy sigh, he rose to his feet, as did Hashirama.

“Y/n,” Tobirama spoke softly, placing a hand on your shoulder. “Can you hear me?” It was worth a try. Though he had little hope for it.

And he was right. Your reaction was lackluster, only a low groan as your head trashed to the other side.

“I’ll open her jaw,” Tobirama instructed his brother, numb now. Devoid of any emotion but to simply do this swiftly. “Hold her head.” Hashirama nodded and already seized each side of it with his hands, which you responded to by uttering yet another tormented moan.

Tobirama’s heart was hammering in his chest again - at this point he had just waited for that to happen, and his breathing was nearly as raspy as yours when he took another step closer to seize your jaw in the dreadfully familiar way again. Once more utter horror overcame him for having to do this to you. It grew worse when he felt how you were trying to trash your head to the side, but your movement was pitiful at best. “It’ll be better soon, Y/n, I promise,” he whispered brokenly, though he knew you couldn’t hear him.

Tobirama was tormented by how easy, compared to last time, the pressure behind your mandibular bone made it protrude, enabling him to shift the grip slightly to force your mouth more open with his thumb on your chin. A shiver ran down his spine. The hand that held the vial containing the leash shook slightly. You protested louder in what definitely was an even more painful groan, a sweaty, trembling hand reaching for Tobirama’s on your jaw. “Don’t,” he pleaded instantly, desperately.

Don’t make it worse.

Swiftly, he poured the leash into your mouth and shut it quickly before you had a chance to cough it back up. With pressure on your cricoid, the constriction of your airway was forcing you to swallow it before the breathing trouble became too uncomfortable. It was brutal, Tobirama knew. But it was the safest way to ensure you really drank all of this. Immediately, he and Hashirama withdrew from you.

You stilled completely.

Time for the next act of this nightmare, whose end was approaching way too fast and yet not fast enough.

_______

As per usual, Tobirama ensured you’d sleep for the terrible psychotropic effects of the drug. However Hashirama noted it was better to use a sedative this time, as they needed to avoid any use of chakra on your strained body for now. He agreed reluctantly - by this point he knew it couldn’t interfere with the leash’s effect, in any way. Besides, Hashirama also stated he needed to monitor you further - especially watch for signs of chakra overload as well as controlling the seals. Likely, your cardiovascular situation will improve enough to be stable on your own.

Tobirama nearly shouted at his brother when he used the word ‘likely’. If he thought it was just likely then they had gone too far. And just as likely Tobirama felt like smacking his brother for sheer stupidity right then. He didn’t of course, ultimately and begrudgingly yielded to his brother's expertise. However it didn't stop him from sternly reminding him about how fragile and susceptible your mind was due to every sensation heightened -

"Be careful," he warned, rather, threatened. "Do not agonize her unnecessarily."

Hashirama rolled his eyes. "I'm doing what I have to. No more and no less, brother." Despite everything, he remained calm.

It provided little comfort, but he saw no option but to add it to the list of necessary things they had to do to you. Tobirama’s frustration was palpable at this point.

Nonetheless, all of this just showed it was time to rest, as much as he hated it. Sleep was inconvenient, but needed alas. And once more he found himself at your shared home, alone. Luckily enough, the exhaustion was great enough to claim him quickly after he had laid down, but the forlorn feeling was seeping through every crack. With every passing day, this house felt colder and lonelier. The burden he carried strained him to a point where numbness was spreading inside of him. He felt spent, at the end of his wits. His sleep was dead, dreamless.

And a little longer than he wanted it to be. He woke again with a startle - his gaze sought out the clock mounted on the wall right away. It was somewhat past midnight. Damn. You should be awake by now. He rubbed a hand over his face to wipe away the last traces of sleep before he washed himself, got dressed and teleported to your room right away.

_______

The withdrawal was one of the worst things you had ever gone through. It easily was on par with some of the torture you had suffered.

It had begun as you remembered it - you became weaker with each passing minute. Then came the dizziness. Your consciousness slipped in and out. An ache settled into your bones, your muscles, your nerves, that was all too familiar - dim, at first, but it increased more and more. It wasn’t long before it felt like molten lava rolled through your veins, alongside your nerves, through your lungs with every breath you took - you were being burned out from the inside slowly, cruelly. Split apart and yet not dying.

You wanted to scream. You wanted to writhe away, shake it off, rip your skin off, do anything - but you couldn’t. Something held you suspended in darkness with proverbial chains winding around you tightly, everything else was black nothingness. Nobody to hear your screams, nobody aware of your agony - all by yourself in a hell that wasn’t ending. At first, you were trying to tell yourself this was what you wanted: you had to give Tobirama - yourself - more time. Otherwise they’d run out of this damn murder drug before they could recreate it. But this? This wasn’t worth living, was it?

Had the chains around you not seized your throat, you’d have begged for someone to kill you. End your misery.

I’m sorry, Tobirama.

Forgive me.

You circled around these two sentences over and over again while the torture wasn’t ending.

Peripherally, you had been aware - at first, when the withdrawal had begun to set in - of someone’s chakra inside of you - Hashirama, you realised, dimly. It had made sense. Tobirama would need to work. Try as much as you wanted to, but you couldn’t work around the dizziness and the pain that had been roaring through your systems at that point already. And just as lightly you realised something was done to you - but no more you could distinguish what it was. It eased the pain, somewhat. Briefly. You wanted to thank him yet couldn’t form words; either it was exhaustion or another side effect of the withdrawal. Were it not for your dreary state you knew you’d be overrun by panic due to the helplessness. You simply had to trust those around you.

But that had gone out of the window piece by piece as the symptoms became worse and worse. You felt your grip on yourself losing as pain became your only reality.

Suddenly though, it was all over. The pain was gone as though it had never existed. You nearly screamed in joy.

And another terribly familiar sensation kicked in.

The nightmares.

They had given you the next dose of the leash - you had lived, you dimly realised. Part of you wanted to cheer, but of course you wouldn’t get to do that. With all you had just gone through, this time around, the bizarre horror trips you suffered from during the first phase of the leash would gladly take inspiration from now.

But the usually crystal clear scenarios were muddled images at best - red hot iron being pressed into your flesh agonisingly slowly. Darkness, loneliness. It still was frightening - but not as precise as it usually was. Perhaps the leash had done permanent damage to your brain. Who knew. In a twisted, grotesque way you were thankful.

Your perception of pain had become extremely skewed.

Someone else was lingering, though. A presence. They were watching you - you knew - and you didn’t like it. Nothing came from them, but you knew better than that. Presences like this greatly unnerved you. It couldn’t mean anything good.

Soon, you, the nightmares, everything - faded into dull sensations only. After that, a warm nothingness overtook you and you finally were allowed to sleep.

When you opened your eyes again, the room was dimly lit by the nightstand’s lamp. Someone was touching your hand - you turned your head slightly to find Hashirama next to you. Still, you had blink several times before you truly recognized him; truth be told you felt like a giant rock had rolled over you. Distantly you were aware of the fact he was monitoring you - his chakra was but a shadow in your system, so light, almost unnoticeable. Something else was bothering you though - but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Missing - something was missing. Quickly, you realised what it was: your chakra. You couldn’t feel your chakra at all - the sluggish, tardy sensation it had become was gone.

Instantly, panic settled in and your breathing picked up. “I- I can’t,” you began, voice raspy. Moving your jaw was as though you had to force it through jelly or something equally gooey, the muscle wouldn’t quite obey you. But that didn’t matter. Your chakra - where was your chakra? You wanted to get up, but your arms wouldn’t obey you - your pulse picked up rapidly and breathing was getting difficult again.

Hashirama shook his head, “We had to seal it off, don’t worry,” he explained swiftly, already pulling the blanket down with his free hand. In utter horror you noticed there were seals drawn not just on your chest but your arms as well. Your heartbeat was through the roof by now as your panicked gaze kept looking everywhere. He put his thumb, index and middle finger right on your sternum where the center of what you recognized belatedly was a rather complex chakra seal was located. His fingertips glowed for a moment, then he twisted his wrist.

A second later, your beloved, useless chakra was back.

You gulped and swallowed past the lump in your throat, trying to even out your breaths again. He put the blanket back over you again and regarded you with a smile, though you could easily tell his warm gaze was burdened with worry. Unlike Tobirama, Hashirama wore his moods on his sleeve. “How are you feeling?”

You blinked a couple times again, still reeling from the sudden burst of panic. Then, after a deep breath, “I’ve… been better.” To put it lightly.

He frowned sympathetically. “No doubt about it.”

You didn’t want to wait any longer. “How long… how long did we gain?”, you desperately hoped this exercise had been worth something. At all.

His smile became more mirthful. “Six hours.”

Your eyes widened slightly. Frankly, you were unsure if you should be happy or horrified by that. To you, it had felt like an eternity. And yet six hours was a huge gain on what the interval had been before. A good result. The suffering - had been worth something. Your gaze wandered to the ceiling, nodding to yourself slowly. Trying to convince yourself of this at least.

“Y/n,” Hashirama began again, now more somberly. “I won’t lie to you. I don’t know how long we can keep this up. It took a toll on you, which I am sure you are feeling right now.”

“You can say that again,” you croaked weakly, yet again testing the movement in your legs. Your toes wiggled a little. It was an achievement. Then you sighed and in what pretty much was a snap decision, you spoke up again. “Promise not to tell Tobirama,” you muttered, already feeling guilt taking a stab at your heart.

Hashirama’s frown deepened. “Promise.”

“The withdrawal is… All of this - it’s about one of the worst things I’ve ever gone through.” you shared, no more than a mere, haunted whisper. You couldn’t look at Hashirama. “And by now, I think I’ve experienced a lot.”

Hashirama hummed deeply.

“I don’t want Tobirama to know that. He will refuse to keep stretching the interval, b-but-”

“You wanted to say it.” Hashirama finished your sentence before your voice broke. “It’s alright.” He squeezed your hand lightly. “I’d wager he knows, truth be told.”

A sob broke past your tightly squeezed lips, but you nodded. Of course he’d know. You couldn’t imagine him not checking in while all of it had happened. Most likely some of your plight had gone through to the outside. And the first withdrawal had been a harrowing experience for all of them.

“You’re stable, though,” he spoke up again in a less grieved tone. “It’s no surprise you’re feeling rather weak right now. The withdrawal is quite… violent towards the body.”

“So long as it’s worth… as it’s worth all this,” you gulped, nodding. To yourself, mostly.

Hashirama smiled warmly again. “The time gained is invaluable. I’m afraid we can’t do much to heal you, yet, though.”

Just as you wanted to reply you witnessed a flicker in the shadows near the door. That had stopped startling you a long time ago - well, when you weren’t in the middle of a breakdown, that is. You couldn’t help but smile with how Tobirama lurched over instantly. His white hair was tousled, glistening even - he must've fallen out of bed into the bathroom and then teleported right over. A quaint sight - the man was punctual, sharp and kept in perfect shape.

Hashirama regarded him with raised eyebrows as he stood by the other side of your bed, mustering you through narrowly-lidded eyes with a distressed expression. He already took a breath to speak up, but you beat him to it with a quip that’d surely answer his question. “That’s fine Hashirama, I won’t be able to get up either way and Tobirama won’t need to lecture me about moving too much anymore.”

Tobirama shut his mouth immediately and scrunched his face like he had just been forced to drink some extremely bitter tea and regarded you with a look as if you had been the one to make said tea. Already, he crossed his arms. For a hot second, you worried you had gone too far - doing this in a high stress situation like this always carried a risk. But Tobirama knew you. And you knew him.

“You’re doing better.” He simply stated then, unimpressed, just raising an eyebrow.

Hashirama raised his arm to hide his face with his sleeve slightly as a chuckle shook him.

Tobirama’s hawk-like stare shot to his brother briefly before it settled back on you. “Enlighten me with some context, maybe?”, he then demanded, only slightly exasperated. He was holding back, you knew.

“I just explained the toll the withdrawal has taken on Y/n to her,” Hashirama supplied, having regained his composure again.

Tobirama regarded him with a concerned look then instantly, dropping the unnerved demeanour. “Toll?”

“Exhaustion mostly, Tobirama,” you decided to intervene before he worked himself up more. The way he gripped his black shirt again was telltale. “I can’t do more than wiggle my toes. And my fingers, maybe.” You tentatively tried it out - they stretched just fine. “What a relief,” you murmured ironically.

Tobirama’s frown grew softer again as he watched you test your limits and the corners of his mouth turned down slightly. “Y/n,” he whispered, and you could feel how much more he wanted to say.

Hashirama cleared his throat again. “We’ve painted four seals on you, in total,” he spoke up again, catching your attention immediately as he then explained how they strengthened your heart and blood pressure. “Now that you’re awake again I’ve brought down the support from them to a very low level because you’re doing so well. The exhaustion is from the immediate reaction mostly. I won’t deny, you did suffer damages there - but none of them great enough to warrant additional concern.” His gaze wandered to his brother while he spoke, well aware he was listening just as intently. If not more. Tobirama’s frown had deepened again.

You nodded. Medical jutsu were really not your forte, but you did know quite a handful of seals and could already guess as to how these worked. Which also told you they had been scraping the proverbial barrel here: normally, these things would be easily managed using chakra based methods, normally. “I surmise you’re using seals because I’m constantly teetering on the edge of chakra overload still with how I keep getting additional… problems…”

Tobirama snorted. “Some of which you wouldn’t have if you rested.” Hashirama chuckled again, this time at your expense. You took it in stride. Tobirama continued then. “You’re right though. We must avoid it as much as possible.” Hashirama nodded to that.

“Ultimately, should your condition worsen during withdrawal, we’ll have to overstep that boundary. But I’m very much trying to avoid it. It’s additional stress you don’t need right now.” He did sound quite serious about it. You gulped. Chakra overload was nothing to sneeze at.

But then again you felt like you had just about dipped into every kind of torment available as of now. What’s one more?

Hashirama ended his monitoring then and gently slipped away, both inwardly and outwardly. “I’ll get some rest now. You’re stable. And while I know Tobirama is very, ah, adamant about this-”

“Anija,” the growl came instantly.

“-you really need to get as much rest as you can. We’ll see to support you more using any non-chakra based means which is going to entail some medications. I’ll… see you soon again,” he finished with a sorrowful smile that managed to soothe you and at the same time filled you with dread.

You swallowed. “Thank you, Hashirama.”

He nodded and left the room quietly.

Tobirama sat down on the side of your bed as soon as he had shut the door, taking your hand in his and stroking your skin gently with his thumb. “How are you really doing, Y/n?”, he inquired, the timbre of his voice gentle enough to let his concern truly show.

You gave him a brave smile. “I’ll manage, Tobi,” that, you knew. You knew you had to. Though you felt like breaking into tears when you said it.

You didn’t fool him for one second. His breath caught momentarily; his grip became firmer and you felt his chakra graze over your network, covering it warmly. You couldn’t help but sigh contently when he did; the sensation never failed to comfort you. But his expression remained distraught, to say the least. He knew you well enough - what your avoidant answer meant. It was kindness not to inquire further. And maybe protection, too. You didn’t want to speak more about this. Or think of it.

It’d come around again soon enough.

“You’re not taking good care of yourself,” you chided then softly. “I’d ruffle your obviously wet hair, but I can’t right now.” You cracked a weak smile.

He clicked his tongue. “It’s been a pretty intense day, Y/n,” he countered evenly.

“I think I can count the days you left the house in such a hurry on one hand, Tobi,” you replied, not bothering to keep the sorrow down any longer. It saddened you to see how all this took its toll on him - your problems, your condition. Of course you’d do the same for him in a heartbeat - and just as well, you were aware what your sight made him feel. But it just hurt.

His eyebrow arched up again slowly. “When I’ve got such urgent business to tend to, I will run the risk of being seen with wet hair, but I’ll face it bravely,” he countered sarcastically, eliciting a little chuckle from you. There was no changing his mind anyway. His lips drew into a lopsided smile of his own, too.

Finally, you sighed quietly. “Don’t let me keep you, then.” You dreaded being alone. But it couldn’t be helped.

His smile faded and his eyebrows furrowed again. “I can stay, Y/n.”

“No, you can’t,” you replied with more resolve, “Because then all the time we gained won’t matter. Soon. Just a bit longer.” You weren’t sure if you were telling him or yourself that.

He must’ve picked up on it, because his other hand grasped your arm too and stroked over your skin gently while his gaze had turned decidedly sorrowful. “I’ll be back soon to check on you,” he promised quietly, but you could guess on the fierceness behind that. It eased your budding sense of dread, somewhat.

“Thank you,” you whispered, “Can you…,” you swallowed, blinking. The request made you feel so silly - shameful, even. But you couldn’t help it.

He tilted his head when you didn’t finish your sentence. “Yes…?”

“Can you please leave the light on? And… don’t close the curtains,” you finally whimpered meekly, avoiding eye-contact now. This alone was a confession to what you could only perceive as weakness due to your recent trauma, but you couldn’t deny how much you needed it right now.

Tobirama’s mien turned more sorrowful, but he nodded. “Of course, Y/n.” He sat on the side of the bed a moment longer and simply shared your connection - a gesture you were immeasurably grateful for. It was you who ultimately nodded and decided it was time he left - despite the ungodly hour.

“C’mon, then.” You tried another brave smile. _____ author’s notes: Some explanations: 'cardiovascular' means pertaining to the heart and the blood vessels, i.e. blood pressure and essentially keeping the body's organs supplied with nutrients, and more immediately important, oxygen. 'sepsis' is a real thing! it's when the body's own immune system causes such a strong reaction in the whole body to an infection it starts to damage its own organs. since reader isn't infected, it's 'like' sepsis. there are also real life complications of different diseases that can, in fact, cause a sepsis-like condition! 'capillary leak' is something that ties in directly to sepsis. because of the body's immune response, the blood vessels start to 'leak' fluids into surrounding tissue. every had an infected  body part? splinter in your toe, hand? got red, big, swollen? well, that's the same thing. it's not good when the body does it everywhere! but it does make sense because by 'opening' the capillaries, the white blood cells can get out and do their job in the tissue. hooo boy, that was a lot more than i ever thought i'd explain, oopz. thank you so much for reading as always!!!

[goldeneyedgirl]

TwiFicMas20 Christmas Eve: All These Broken Things

... Is it really the end of FicMas if I haven’t posted something from All These Broken Things? I think not. The first sections can be found here and here. This is the fic where Alice travelled with James and doesn’t meet the Cullens until that baseball game. 

It's very strange finally being with the family she was always destined to be with, when she thought she had lost them so long ago.

She finds great satisfaction just watching them - Emmett yelling at the sports on the television; Edward perched at the piano, Rosalie working on her cars. She hovers, like a little ghost, folded into corners and against doorframes, vanishing the second they might acknowledge her.

Esme seems to like her company, as she goes about day-to-day things, chatting away to the silent girl with the enormous, sad black eyes, who trails after her like a stray.

She stays away from Carlisle, trying to avoid the moment he declares her to be cast out, too far gone for them to redeem.

And she stays away from Jasper, because it hurts too much. She doesn't tell Jasper what she knows, what they were meant to be to one another. The past is gone, and she has been broken into too many pieces. He watches her like a hawk, and without words, she knows he will be the one to destroy her if she steps out of line. His hands will crack her limbs apart and he will not flinch or feel any loss.

She wonders if she should tell him that if he was the to destroy her, she would not fight it. She would part in his hands like a paper doll, and hold no ill will to him for such an act.

Sometimes, she lets herself remember the old visions, the ones where they were everything to one another. Only when Edward's away, though; she doesn't like him rifling around in her head. No one deserves being forced to see some of those things.

And it hurts, a raw wound in her heart, that she was meant for something else, for happiness and peace and love, instead of what she was dealt in life. One of her greatest unanswered questions is why? What unforgivable thing did she do in her forgotten human past that earned such a punishment?

Then she remembers what she has done at James’ side for so many decades, at the faces and the screams and the suffering, and somehow she lived her crimes and her penance at the same time.

So she continues to pretend she doesn’t notice that Edward keeps Bella away from the house; that Emmett or Jasper hover in the background as she trails after Esme, as she watches Rose. That she can only go hunting when Jasper and Emmett can go along too; the ones strong enough and fast enough to restrain her.

When Edward does bring Bella back to the house at Esme’s insistence, she sits on the opposite side of the room, and listens to the conversation, keeping still and silent.

When Carlisle arrives home from work, she focuses on the magazine or book she has found, pretending to be absorbed by the glossy pictures, still and silent, to not notice as he studies her with patience she isn’t sure is genuine.

When Jasper joins Emmett for something noisy and angry on the television, their gazes occasionally sliding towards her, she is frozen in place, her gaze out the window.

She’s played this game before. Be good and quiet and still. The blow will come, eventually, but at least she can prepare herself for it, brace herself for the inevitable fall. They don’t trust her.

She doesn’t trust her, either.

Six.

They settle into a sort of routine.

She’s allowed to hunt with Esme and Rosalie now, though she’s careful to keep her distance, to trek a little further into the forest, to reassure them. She usually waits until they call her back.

She is always carefully supervised during their hunts, and finally, finally, the cracks James left across her nose and cheeks have finally faded away. They hunt too often for her, and when she forces herself to finish the animal, she vomits everywhere. She says nothing, but she feels safer a little hungry, her eyes black rather than a strange gold-orange.

Edward lets her sit beside him when he plays the piano, tells her about each of the pieces of music. He tries to teach her once, attempts to guide her hands into position, but she panics and jerks away, and he doesn’t offer again.

Emmett is nice to her. He seems to understand not to come up behind her without warning, not to touch. Sometimes she perches on the end of the couch and watches the television with him. She doesn’t stay very long, but he always gives her a big smile when she leaves, as if he’s had a wonderful time.

She doesn’t understand Emmett, but she thinks she could like him.

Rosalie can’t seem to decide whom she dislikes more – her or Bella - and she’s sure that Rose is going to get whiplash from changing her mind about both of them so many times. But Rose addresses her and is reasonably civil, mostly out of some kind of misguided caution that she is some kind of threat, and that is some kind of progress.

She and Bella have few words to say to each other. ‘Sorry I helped someone attempt to torture and exsanguinate you’ isn’t something she can work out how to say out-loud and have it sound genuine. Mostly because the truth is closer to, ‘I’m sorry you found yourself in this situation, but I don’t regret my choices. The consequences for me would have been much, much worse than you can ever comprehend. Your fragile mortality would have spared you of the worst of it. I’d make the same decision one hundred times in a row without a second thought.’

She’s certain that would upset everyone.

Bella seems rather reluctant to spent time in her presence, and she does wonder if that’s because she’s the side of the coin that isn’t beauty-wealth-love. She’s the side of suffering, of pain and of misery, murder and regret. Bella wants perfection, wants the glamour and magic of the Cullens, and none of the honest truth of being a vampire.

But it’s probably the murder attempt.

Then there are things that haven’t changed since she arrived. She’s not allowed to be alone, or to leave the house aside from hunting – even then, she has to be accompanied.

But every single day, James is still gone and she is still here. And there will never be a time when that knowledge is not sweet.

//

Her wardrobe is limited - a few old t shirts that once belonged to Esme and are too big, her worn jeans and the filthy, stained cardigan that she had when they found her. Her thin knees have long since torn through her pants, and the cardigan's sleeves are frayed and holey, but she is clean and free.

And then she is deemed in control enough to go shopping. Esme approaches her with the idea, with glossy magazines and gentle suggestions. It is an idea that has even intrigues Rosalie enough for her to join them.

They clearly still think she is a risk, though, because it is a family outing, with looks of such boredom and long-suffering on the faces of the male Cullens when it is decided, that she laughs softly behind her hand.

The building they take her to is huge and full of people. It is like a blow to the face, of blood and scent, and she visibly recoils from it at first, unsure and on edge. And they are patient, escorting her in, with encouraging words.

Eventually, though, they show her the clothes and the sight of the racks is enough to distract her from the heady scent. It is overwhelming, the colours and fabrics and styles, and she simply stares, with Emmett laughing at her stunned expression.

Esme is so kind, guiding her gently through the racks, telling her to choose anything she likes. She is careful, though, picking new jeans, a new cardigan, soft and clean and sunshine yellow. Esme helps her pick shoes out - the first pair she's had in decades. Soft brown winter boots, black sneakers, gold and black flats that make her feel like a princess. At her childlike delight with her fancy shoes, Esme buys her a black sundress with ties at the back and bows on the straps, that will bare her arms and triangles of flesh on her back.

Underwear is a strange concept. It's nothing that she has ever bothered with before. She is useless in the wake of so many choices, and let's Esme and Rosalie choose what she needs, dress her like a doll, whilst she amuses herself with how clearly uncomfortable both Jasper and Edward are in such a department.

She almost feels pretty – even desirable - in the plain cotton that make her skinny frame look almost womanly. She’s too embarrassed to even try on the satin and lace sets Rosalie has chosen. They aren’t for girls like her – girls that wear those things are more than she will ever be – prettier, sweeter, bolder. They are too much, and when she refuses, she doesn’t understand the look Rosalie and Esme exchange, Rosalie looking sly and Esme with an expression of warning.

Afterwards, they look for other things. The books hold little interest for her, as do the endless electronics. She doesn’t mean to wander off, but a demonstration by the art supplies store catches her eye, and she stands a little away from the crowd, watching the man draw. It is Esme and Jasper who find her, both looking alarmed, but she pretends she doesn’t see them, her gaze focused on the pencil that so carefully makes its way across the page.

“Alice,” Esme is at her side. “You scared us.” Her smile is bright, but her eyes worried – what would the Cullens do if she attacked in a place like this, with so many eyes? She doesn’t get to ponder that thought much longer, as Jasper’s hand closes over her shoulder and she is guided away.

For the rest of the afternoon, Jasper is her ominous shadow, as she dutifully trails after them.

She doesn't have her own room, but she doesn’t truly need one. Until now, she hasn’t had any possessions to store, and she doesn’t require the privacy a mated couple does. But, she has found she likes the attic. Full of things that need repairs or to be stored, it is a mad tea party of furniture and items.

There’s an old grey chair is missing a leg, and has an ugly stain that not even Esme could draw out that she likes. She folds herself into it, and she feels safe in that little corner, with the narrow window that overlooks the forest and spills in afternoon light. There's an old dresser up there, too, so that's where she arranges her new things, carefully folding and smoothing them into each drawer, precisely and lovingly.

Rosalie brings her some cosmetics and half a glass bottle of perfume – the bottle is shaped like an egg and etched with tiny flowers and curlicues and it is so delicate and beautiful, she is frightened to hold it. Rosalie watches as she sprays the scent into the air, the delighted look at the scent of flowers. She is nervous at Rosalie’s gesture, but grateful. Grateful enough that she allows Rosalie to cut the matted ends of her hair off into a neat, shorter style.

It makes her look more delicate, younger, maybe sweeter, she thinks as she strokes the strands in the mirror. And less like a roving maniac, at least according to the shiny-haired Rosalie, who watches her with satisfaction in her eyes.

She should be offended, but there’s this tiny hope that maybe, just maybe, Rosalie is turning her into something new. Something good and better.

Something like a sister.

//

It’s Esme’s idea to invite Bella around the evening of her birthday. Just a family gathering, with a few simple gifts. Everyone sort of agrees, and try to work out what to give the sullen girl.

She manages a portrait of Bella and Edward seated together at the piano that Esme gushes over, and has framed.

There have been some hints, from Carlisle and Edward that she will have to attend school eventually. She doesn’t understand that, but is just waiting for them all to graduate. They’ll leave when they’ve graduated and she won’t have to worry about school again.

She arranges peonies on the piano for Bella, upon Esme’s request, and is reminded of her old, fragmented vision of blood and glass. But nothing comes to her; the future is clear and her mind has decided to play tricks on her again.

Or perhaps her mind is the best part of her, the gentle warning she ignored becoming obvious as soon as Bella’s finger slips against the wrapping paper. Jasper’s eyes blacken as soon as Bella’s flesh parts and the blood beads, and suddenly he is lunging. She sees it in an instant, Bella’s crumpled body in his grip and Edward’s howls and the house of the Cullens irreversibly fallen. She sees an endless parade of James’ victims, broken and dead in Bella’s blank eyes.

She sees the horror and the guilt in Jasper’s eyes, sees the vastness of Mexico and the rise of a monster born of regret and impulse.

It is over before he even moves, decision made, and she has to stop this.

The shriek startles them all, coming from her mouth as she darts in front of him.

In another life, the flavour of her desperation and fear would be enough for him to pause, to grasp wildly at his resistance. Instead, he throws her aside, her body crashing through the front windows in a rain of wood and glass, leaving an imprint of her body in the flowerbed outside.

She picks herself up out of the flower bed as Emmett and Rosalie drag Jasper bodily from the house, Esme close behind them. Their eyes are all pitch black; a harmless paper cut did not cause this reaction.

“She cut open her arm,” is Emmett’s grim explanation as Jasper’s struggles slow, his eyes firmly on the door of the house.

“It was an accident,” Esme adds, shame in every line of her stance.

“Alice seemed to know,” Rosalie murmurs, her eyes still on Jasper.

She will never understand Rosalie, why she always needs to assign blame, to identify the victim and the antagonist. She ignores the statement, even as they all swing to look at her, as she examines her shoulder. Jasper didn’t hit her hard enough for cracks to form, but it doesn’t look like it’s properly aligned.

When she does look up again, she can see it in all their eyes – did she let this happen on purpose? Does she hold some ugly vendetta against poor, sweet Bella?

She did help James …

She’s surprised – she thought it would be Edward that came after her, later, to criticise and punish her for the limitations on her faulty gift. He still might – he hasn’t decided properly, too focused on patching up Bella.

But it’s Jasper, wrenching out of Rosalie and Emmett’s grasp, with murder in his eyes and the target on her.

He doesn’t yell, but his words are poisonous, nasty and accusing. She flinches, Esme gasps and even Emmett tries to get him to stop. Some of them, she knows, aren’t meant for her. They are frustration, humiliation and disappointment directed at himself, at his own weakness.

But when she instinctively backs away, and he grabs her wrist, and she lets out a tiny cry of fear; it is Rosalie who comes to her rescue, who snarls and yells and pries his iron grip from her.

“I don’t care how pissed you are, you don’t touch her like that.”

The words seem to echo, and Carlisle, Edward and Bella are watching from the front door.

Her apology is stammered, weak in the sudden silence, her insistence that she didn’t know sounding bewildered and feeble as she darts away, into the forest to pick glass and wood out of her hair and wonder just how many other warnings she’s missed.

//

[yakumtsaki]

I taste just like ice cream, bitch I am so icy, heart cold like an ice queen, that's why they don't like me 🎵

-What the hell was that.

Traditionally I start Union updates with semi-relevant song lyrics.

-Why did you start an update at all.

Because it’s time, Shajar! I took a holy oath in my 2020 simming goals post to update Unions once a month, and I’m already a month late.

-But nothing interesting is happening. 

That’s never stopped me before. Now listen to Rico Nasty, cry some more about Sophie blowing you off, and shut up.

-Ugh please, I couldn’t be more over Sonia if I tried. I hardly ever texted her links to wedding pinterest boards and quizzes to determine if our parenting styles are compatible. 

Did she ever reply? 

-She did once and said ‘who dis’. Of course the letters unscrambled spell out ‘do wish’, meaning she did wish me to keep messaging her. I just don’t know where it all went wrong. 

-Hey there, 17 year old girl, maybe you’ve had enough neat whiskey for the night? We’re actually running out of bottles. 

-Beat it, ponytail, I need to dull my pain. I’ve just been stabbed right in the gut by the love of my life. Just like my style idol and general role model, space opera fascist Kylo Ren.

Shaj I really hate seeing you like this, and not just because the red neon light is super unflattering on your complexion.

-You can fuck right off too, I was perfectly happy with my dads who hate me and my imbecile sister and my brother who might as well not exist, noogie-ing people all day AND night long, but you had to be all ‘OMG IT’S SOPHIE MIGUEL SHAJAR GO TALK TO HER’. Life-ruining-moron. 

But I was totally right about you two hitting it off, I mean look how sad you are now that she dumped- yea never mind, that’s not a good argument.

-Look what I can do even though I’ve had 46 whiskeys!! How you like me now, Sophie???

-You’re paying for all these broken glasses, I’m going to need your name and a credit card.

-Yes, fair enough, my name is Cyneswith Union-

-I LOOK GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT

Yea, you really should eat something to soak up all the alcohol. And not to kick you when you’re down, but you should also disregard all those cliches about ~a smile being the most beautiful thing you can wear~ because MAN. Watch out Joaquin, there’s a new Joker on the prowl. 

-So.. 20 lobsters thermidor and our most expensive appetizers?

-Aha.

-Would you mind settling your bill now?

-Of course not! My name is Cyneswith Union and this is the credit card my parents got me when I was 6 because we’re super duper best friends! I love my parents! They don’t care about their other daughter at all, even when their other daughter is going through a really hard time because she got the emotional equivalent of a lightsaber wound in the gut. You know what, let me also get 20 bottles of your most overpriced champagne to go with the lobsters.

Feeling better?

-Well it’s hard to feel bad when you’re spending your parents’ money recklessly and with malice aforethought.

It sure is. Alright well, the sun is coming up, maybe we should head home.

-What’s the rush? What is going to happen if I don’t go home, my parents will get worried? LOL

God your life sucks. Ok let’s hit a couple more places.

-Greetings. Welcome to our establishment. I am a human employee from this planet.

Great, nice to meet you.

-I just want there to be no doubt that I am indeed an earthling, born and raised under the earth’s exosphere and not above it.

Leave us alone.

-And I’m the resident community lot sim with that one face template you hate! There must be one of us on every lot you visit!

-And I am here in my revealing outfit to use the dance sphere and make everyone uncomfortable!

You’re actually pretty, I need to keep you in mind for after Don Oates takes a wrecking ball to our genetics, but yea, let’s bounce, Shajar.

Time to visit the happiest place on earth, Deh'Javu Modern Art Museum, home to my favorite piece of art in any medium, The Toilet of Fire. Shove that Fountain up your ass, Duchamp. How we feeling, Shaj?

-This trash can reminds of Sophie :( She used to go around town throwing money she stole from charities in trash cans and then send them riddles for where to find them :(

Enough with Sophie, we’ll find you someone better! Like..

..your aunt! Get the hell out of here Brit Brit, you’re taking up townie space. 

-I won’t be long, Gunther’s amazing close-up portrait of my hair was rejected by the museum so I’m here to set this shithole on fire. 

In other words Gunther just painted a canvas black and called it a day?

-His art doesn’t cater to plebs. Yes, offense.

Our old friend Ugly Teen Townie is here so finally we can have some fun. Shajar had gone almost 12 hours(!) without noogieing someone and I was starting to worry for her health.

-Yes, yes, I’m starting to feel like myself again..

Good for you, Shaj!

-Hope you’ve made peace with your God, Ugly Teen Townie, this water balloon is filled with horse feces! 

-WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET HORSE SHIT

-I ordered it from some guy named Leod McGreggor.

-How about a another joke, MuRRAY?

-What?!

-Now you say, ‘no, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes’. Say it!

-No, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes.

-What do you get when you cross a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? Now you say ‘call the police, Gene!’

-Call the police, Gene!

-I'll tell you what you get..

-YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE. HAHA oh man! Good stuff. 

Alright I’m starting to feel bad for Ugly Teen Townie, first he had to come to all the toddler birthday parties during the Victoria/Komei era and now this, he has suffered enough at this family’s hands. Time to go home, Shaj.

-Not so fast!

Wow, the Countess and Mrs. Crumplebottom on the same lot, top 10 anime crossovers.

-I have been sent here by the Limp Dick Vamps United organization to recruit Shajar Union.

Ugh you people are still around? Haven’t heard of you losers since the Count wouldn’t let Victoria bang him, which I’m still annoyed about. 

-Indeed we are, and it’s clear Shajar is ready to join us, dedicating her life to evil deeds without romantic distractions. I have no idea what Crumplebottom is doing here.

-I’m here to recruit Shajar to my own organization, Bitter Sims Worldwide Alliance. We’re always on the lookout for new members who want to spread their misery to their fellow Sim. 

It sounds like it’d be more effective if you guys just merged your organizations.

-I will NEVER merge my organization with someone who displays her bosom like a common whore. 

-Eat a dick, Crumplebottom!

-MAKE ME, FANGTOOTH

-Alright here I am, what the fuck do you want?

-Shajar, it is a pleasure to meet you! Ardent admirer of your work.

-What work, freakshow?

-Torturing everyone around you, what else!

-What? I don’t torture people around me, if anything they torture me.

-Why don’t you talk to me about it?

-I’d rather not, you look like a bejeweled snowman.

-Look deep into my eyes, Shajar..

-And now look deep into my razor sharp teeth..

-Ugh fine, let’s talk. 

-Is that Victoria and Komei’s teen granddaughter hanging out with a vampire?

Yes it is Kennedy, keep it moving.

-God, wtf is wrong with this family. 

Nothing now that you’ve been removed from our social circle, go away! Just kidding, you’re an icon and I’m marrying you in at some point. 

-Hard pass. 

Your loss, hombre. 

-It definitely isn’t.

-If I had known your turn on was vampires I would had set you two up!

STOP SETTING UP TEENS WITH ADULTS, LAKSHMI. And Shajar’s turn ons isn’t vampires, it’s fitness/fatness. Body positive queen. 

-Well, Shajar, you alphabetically listing all the people who have wronged you while I was trying to kill Crumplebottom telepathically has made for a very productive conversation. We’ll be in touch. 

-Thanks, Countess, it’s been real.

Shajar!!! Who cares about Sophie when you might bag a hot, rich vamp??

-Meh.

I’m gonna need you to be more excited about this prospect because a vampire spouse might just be enough of a draw to beat the comedic factor of fucking Don Oates turning us into an unintentional uglacy and I’m doing whatever I can to avoid my fate.

Ugh.

UGH

UGHHHHHHH

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO VICTORIA

-GET FUCKED, BROKEN FACED WEIRDO

God I miss you Vic 💔

-Donnie-bear, not to be not-nice, but mopping your pee off my front lawn is not exactly what I pictured doing during this date.

This guy won’t even mop up his own piss, what a catch.

Wow, manipulative much?? You are a piss piece of work, Donaldo.

-Don’t think we forgot about you, you 10-nice-point disgrace!

-VICTOR NO

-GET THAT MOP READY

-Finally, some peace and quiet.. Just me, alone with my broken heart, pondering my hopeless, loveless future..

-💗💗💗OMG SIS THERE YOU ARE. DONNIE AND I MADE OUT!!! ���💗💗 But then grandma’s ghost scared him into soiling himself. 

-Good for grandma, hopefully next time she gives him a stroke. Now shut up and let’s eat in silence while I ponder my hopeless, loveless future.

-Okie dokie! 💗💗💗

-Um, I think mine has vomit in it.

-Yea I did that, but it’s just whiskey and lobster, if anything it increased in value. 

-Awww thanks sis! 💗💗💗

-Stop patronizing me, you little bitch. God I want to poke your eye out with this chopstick so badly.

-I love you too Shaj! 💗💗💗

And I hate both of you. Where’s your brother, I haven’t paid attention to him in 3 days. 

-He went upstairs, I think he’s pusshurt we forgot his birthday LOL

IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY????

-Don’t feel bad, I forgot it too! 💗💗💗

GODDAMMIT. WULF! WULF WHERE ARE YOU

-I’m here, I just grew up and dare I say it could not have gone better! 

Really?? Finally some good news! Let me look upon you-

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

WULF WHAT THE FUCK

-I was Mozart musical genius boy but now I’m a sk8ter boi! Character development!

Ok this is the most iconic birthday look since Gunther grew up in the pirate costume, we’re obviously keeping it. 

-Great! And as if the fact I’m a Wyatt face template with 0 Jojo genes wasn’t enough to make me unelectable, I also rolled family! :D I’m doing everything I can to ensure I live that sweet motherlode spare life! 

Honestly you should had picked another outfit cause now that you’re dressed like this I unironically want you to win. Hoisted with your own petard.

[clean-bands-dirty-stories]

Pulled Together ~ Part 4

A/n: lol I already messed up the one part a day thing. I haven't totally burned out yet though, so there's that. At the pace I'm going with the stopry though, this miht take longer than I origonally thought. Predictable, right? Lol at least I'm consistent.

Word Count: 4300+

MASTERLIST

Her eyes landed on him and she felt like she’d won something. Jai was on her side. How much easier would that make it to win him over too?

“Cal Kestis,” she greeted. “How predictable.” His face contorted and she grinned despite herself, her teeth pressing together. It wasn’t a happy grin. It was the look someone doned when they had fought and fought and fought so much it had driven them insane, and now they could finally see victory just within their reach. It was the twisted smile of someone who was about to get one over on someone else, and it shone like a fire pit that had a victim seconds from falling into it.

“Oh yes, I know your name,” the Second Sister continued. “Your past…” That she knew not only from the tidbits Jai had given her, but also the same story that every Jedi had after Order 66 hit. “All about Cordova.” She walked a little after she said it, her words dragging on, listing all the things she held over his head. “And of course, about your little friend from Bracca.”

Cal’s reaction to that was so violent she felt it in the Force itself, even as she turned her back to him. Her grin turned into just as nasty a smirk. “You killed Jai?” His voice shook, full of rage. The Second Sister was delighted to hear it

“Killed?” She thought about that and then shook her head. “I wouldn’t say killed… However, that’s not what’s really important here, is it?” She looked at the rock, loving how she could drag this out. If only Jai had been here. If only she could rub her real victory in his face. “Cordova, though… Tell me, where did he hide the Holocron?” The sound of a lightsaber activating behind her made the Second Sister’s excitement spike dramatically. “Outstanding.”

Unfortunately, the fight was far too brief, ending in Cal and the Second Sister on opposite sides of an energy field. As the barrier went up, a third person appeared on the edge of the room, moving in shadows. They’d come at the Second Sister’s call, but was now hesitating at the sight of Cal. Unnoticing, the Second Sister tested the barrier with her saber a few times, internally making a note to herself. “You’re learning.” It was almost a compliment, but Cal wasn’t worried about that. He just wanted to be as far away from her as possible. Her opinion of him was the very last thing ever that mattered. Her next words made him pause. “Not quite as gifted as Cere’s last apprentice, but not bad.”

The way she talked about Cere pissed Cal off. “You’ve been keeping count.” Did she really remember such things? What did she have with Cere that made the older woman so special? Surely the Second Sister didn’t remember all of her victims.

“I’m surprised she didn’t tell you,” the Second Sister shot back as she began pacing back and forth in front of the barrier. “She was never good at keeping secrets.” Cal stayed in his place across from her, watching her carefully.

His curiosity kept him from leaving. “And you know her so well, huh?”

The Second Sister made a humming sound that turned into a sort of laugh, so amused by that statement, though Cal couldn’t see why. “She was weak.” She paused in front of Cal to say this then continued her short back and forth path. “Cracked in an imperial torture chair. Surrendered the location of her naive Padawan.” She stopped in front of Cal again. “They would never have found me-” She reached up, pulling off her helmet. “If it wasn’t for her.” The two looked eye to eye now. “She betrayed me.”

Cal, confused, heart racing, stepped toward the Second Sister. “You’re Trilla.”

“In the flesh.” Trilla relished the moment and the look on his face as she said it.

“And who’s that?”

Turning around, Trilla smiled at just the person she so wanted to be here to make this moment all the more better. Jai had moved a little too far out of the shadows, revealing themself to Cal. “Ah yes, our new Inquisitor. Come here.” Jai did as they were told, eyes trained on Cal. They hadn’t seen him since… They suddenly felt terrible. “Take off your mask.”

Their hair was a little longer. They’d had it at their chin last Cal saw them- now it was to their shoulders, pulled back and out of their face. They looked up at Trilla, begging that she not do this, but there was no mercy in her gaze. So Jai did as they were told. They reached up, tapping the sides of their mask and removing it.

Cal stumbled back, eyes wide and full of hurt. Jai thought it was betrayal until it became quickly clear that he solely blamed himself for what was in front of him. There was a small noise and Jai’s eyes moved to see a very small robot move closer to Cal, seeming to be halfway between comforting and protecting- neither thing it could do here, now, in this situation. It was too small and Cal was feeling too many things to be comforted.

“No,” he whispered. He turned around, eyes blinked desperately to get a hold of himself. He had to- he had to- he had to focus. There was something else going on here. Maybe that wasn’t Jai. Maybe it was. It didn’t matter. This was all so the Second Sister could do one thing and one thing only. “You’re not going to manipulate me.” He could save Jai later. Right now, he was completely useless.

“So sure are you?” Trilla followed up. “When faced with the choice to protect herself or her Padawan, she chose self-interest.” That wasn’t fair. Jai KNEW how unfair that was. Torture was… horrible. Jai was sure whoever they were talking about had had it even worse than they had- after all, people they usually messed with had far more information then Jai had. Jai could easily imagine what others went through, and it made them ill. They didn’t say anything though. They’d be punished if they did. “She’ll sell you out too.”

Suddenly Jai was not on the side of whoever they were talking about.

“Well-” Cal turned around, his eyes focused on Trilla evenly. Jai felt even worse at being so pointedly ignored. “I can handle myself.”

Trilla scoffed. “Can you afford to take that chance?” She began to walk again, moving behind Jai, running her hand under Jai’s chin. Jai didn’t even flinch. They were used to being used for some purpose or another, and this wasn’t even close to the worst way it had been done. Trilla turned her attention back to Cal, who’s eyes slid from Jai as he tried to hide the agony in his eyes. He couldn’t face Trilla. He wasn’t strong enough. All he would do by running in now would be to get himself killed- or worse: turned along with Jai. “Your new master harbors great darkness.” Her words gave Cal something to focus on. He tried to keep his mind clear. “The look on her face when she saw what they had done to me.” A pause. “She turned.” Cal’s lips parted, his face scrunching a little. He wanted to not believe her so badly, but she’d held the same expression through the whole conversation. There was a dark pain about it that spoke the truth. Trilla hadn’t lied once this whole time. Jai was starting to like this Cere person less and less. “Exposing her true nature,” Trilla continued mercilessly. “She used the Dark Side.” She said the words with emphasis, and Jai was struck again with how even Trilla seemed to know that was a bad thing… or that at least she knew Cal thought that and the revelation would have impact.

“She cut herself off from the Force,” Cal immediately defended.

“Oh?” Trilla retorted without even a pause. “How long before she cracks and betrays you too? Is that who you want beside you when you find the Holocoron?” She stepped away from Jai completely, drawing Cal’s total attention far away from them. “What would Jaro Tapal say?”

Cal was immediately mad, stepping even closer, his words full of anger as he nearly spit, “You have no right to speak his name.”

“I wonder.” Again there was no pause. Trilla had buried a knife and was twisting without even a hint of hesitation and Jai was inclined to fight back. She could do anything to anyone, and in the last few missions, Jai had sat back and watched and let it happen as they always did. Waiting for a moment or something that made sense. Now… Jai refused to sit back and watch her beat on Cal. Not Cal. “What would he think if he could see his Padawan now?”

Instantly, all of the fight left Jai’s body. Trilla turned as Jai gasped, eyes wide and lip trembling.Trilla was still grinning wickedly. Cal looked over much slower, his eyes closed at first in regret. This could have happened so many other ways. Should have happened- any other way.

When Cal met Jai’s eyes, all he saw was betrayal.

“Impossible.” Jai said the word like it was a curse word. “You- you can’t be- You’re not-”

“A Jedi?” Trilla finished. “Those people you think are pathetic and idiotic? The ones you’ve been rolling your eyes at for weeks now? Yes, Jai, your precious Cal Kestis was in training to be a Jedi. He still wants to be. He’s looking for a Holocron with a list of Force sensitive kids on it. He wants to train them.”

“NO!” Jai screamed, stepping away from Cal and Trilla both.

Cal wanted to reach out, but he couldn’t. “Jai, I-”

“How could you ever put a child through what you’re going through?” Jai demanded. “Jedi and Sith and Inquisitors alike- all you do is bring death and misery and you spread like a disease. It’s all bad Cal, how could you ever dream of-”

It was Cal’s turn to be betrayed. “Jedi aren’t the bad guys here, Jai. You’re the one working with people like these-” he motioned to Trilla. “Who enjoys watching people suffer. Look at her! She’s loving this!” And indeed, she was. “We have to stop them! And we can’t do it alone.”

“You’re wrong,” Jai managed. “You’re so wrong, about so many things…” They shook their head. Jai hated Jedi for this exact reason. It was incredibly selfish what Cal was doing. He was going to forever take away the ability to grow and become their own person from a huge chunk of a whole generation in favor of one day maybe taking down the Empire. How many would die trying? All of them? How many would be caught and turned into Inquisitors, being broken and tortured like Jai and Trilla were?

The worst part was: the Empire would always live while there were Sith, and there would always be Sith while there were Jedi. There had to be. The world requires a balance. The Force required it, and the Force would make sure there was. No matter what anyone believed, there would always be some on one side if there was even one on the other. The only way to get rid of Sith would be to abolish the Jedi. Didn’t he see that? Didn’t anyone see that this whole thing was ridiculous and would lead to both sides losing if either failed? Trilla’s saber was suddenly flying through the air, into Jai’s hand. The red glow lit up their features, contorted in anger. Cal felt the air knock out of him completely and he found himself stumbling back again, far more than he had before. If seeing Jai as an Inquisitor was bad, seeing Jai use the force - seeing them summon a red saber like that - was so, SO much worse. “I will stop you. I will if it’s the last thing I do.” Trilla smiled, pleased at Jai’s words.

Cal felt so many emotions, but overall he felt weak. He shook his head, eyes watering. “I- I won’t let you. If you stop me from having them, all that means is that the Empire gets it. And you know what happens then? Every single child dies.” Jai went pale and Cal felt some hope. They weren’t lost after all. They just… hated… Jedi. Hated him. He had to stay focused. “No one’s going to touch them. I won’t let them.”

Jai moved closer, face stony. “Not even you?”

It was a question Cal couldn’t handle. He turned away, and this time he didn’t stop walking. “Careful,” Trilla called. “Everyone thinks they can protect the people they care about… until they fail. Just like Cere. Just like me. It always fails.” As he disappeared around a corner, Trilla announced even louder, “Come Jai. We have work to do.”

Salt in the wound.

Alas, once again, Trilla DID have a point. Jai followed her because at least on one thing, she was right. Cal would fail protecting those children. This is what Jai had to do. They had to keep it out of both hands. They had to protect those children from death and ruin both. Nothing would stop them from doing it. Not Trilla. Not the Empire. Not the Jedi.

Not even Cal Kestis.

Cal practically falls face first into the Mantis, unsure of how he’s managed to get this far with how shaken and lost he feels in this moment. Cere is ordering a take off as soon as possible and then moving to Cal immediately, her face full of worry. “Cal? Cal, what happened? Are you okay?”

“They- they got Jai.” His chest is tight and he’s blinking his eyes fast and hard in an effort to not cry. He refuses to cry. Not in front of Cere. Not now, knowing everything he knows. He looked Cere in the eye. She’s fallen silent. “I told you to let me go back for them.”

Cere swallowed. “They probably would have already been gone by the time we got back, Cal. She probably went hunting for any of your remaining friends the second we were gone. We wouldn’t have gotten there in time to do anything than probably die after seeing an empty house.” She reached out for him but he jerked away. “Cal-”

“You lied to me,” Cal snapped. “This whole time-” He swallowed, trying to get a grasp of his words. “Trilla was there, by the way. I was left reeling from loads of new and very upsetting information- including that you’ve been lying to me because Trilla isn’t dead. You betrayed her to the Empire and now she’s an Inquisitor and she’s gone and dragged Jai down with her now!”

Cere deflated. “Jai means a lot to you, huh?”

“Everything,” Cal grunted.

He was in so much pain, and Cere had no idea how to even begin to ease it. “Cal, you have to understand… what they do to you in those chairs-”

“Save it.” His words were cold and hard. He was blinded by anger and fear. He couldn’t make a coherent thought, let alone have a calm conversation. Cere let him leave when he turned around and moved away. He needed to cool off.

Cal’s room is quiet. Relaxing. He sits on his bed, sorting through every bit of information he’d just recieved. Trilla had turned into an Inquisitor. So had Jai. A former Jedi padawan and the single kindest person alive. Jai might have been one to flaunt and act all tough, but they were a huge softie underneath it all, who above all else put the people they cared about first. It was so rare to find nowadays. Had the Empire taken that now too? Were they just a murderer now too?

What kind of torture would break two people who should have been proudly on the light side? Not just a padawan, but a Jedi master like Cere? What had Jai been through? How much had they suffered?

All because they were close to Cal Kestis.

How many people would die or suffer because of him? Prauf. Jai. He couldn’t really remember what happened to his Master that night so long ago, but he was dead too. Where had Cal failed back then? Could he have done more for all of them?

“Calm down.”

He looked up, expecting Cere and instead seeing… no one. There was a familiar feeling in his chest, though. A presence. No one he could see, but someone he could very much feel. Someone who was very much there.

It was the same person who’d been there in his childhood. Back then he’d thought he’d imagined it. He didn’t have any friends and rarely spent any time with kids his age or doing something fun rather than being on a mission or fulfilling some important duty. He’d been forced to grow up very quickly and he’d fought every second of it until the night that ended it all. After that night, they’d disappeared. He no longer had use for childhood fantasies that temporarily satisfied his loneliness. Then he’d suddenly seen them again, guiding him. He’d been in a pinch, getting turned around while on the run from a huge group of troopers he didn’t have time to waste on. They’d taken him in the right direction as he’d been meaning to go the very much wrong way.

Now they were back again.

“No offense,” Cal began. His voice was still thick with bitterness and sarcasm. “But get lost. I’m not in the mood, and I don’t need your help.”

Hesitance. He could sense it. “Your level of anger and anxiety says otherwise.” Cal turned away. They weren’t wrong. He couldn’t help being more irritated by the voice though. They sounded familiar, but the sound was a little warped and off, like he was hearing it from opposite ends of a long tunnel or through an old com. He couldn’t place why the voice drove him to think he knew it. It was younger in his childhood. A little higher and lighter. It didn’t remind him of back then, and he had nothing but kindness from it now. So why was it grating on his nerves?

“I’m sorry,” Cal sighed, raising a hand to rub his face. “Are you gonna be showing up every time I’m upset now? Cause you might not be allowed to go, if that’s the case.”

There was a sense that the figure was smiling. It made Cal smile too, if weakly. “I wouldn’t mind that.” Suddenly, nervousness. “Wanna talk about it?”

Cal crossed his arms, lips pursed. “Who are you?”

A long bout of silence. “A friend.”

“Okay, but- I mean, can’t I at least know your name? Friends usually know at least that, don’t they? And, why help me? Where have you been all these years? Where are you now? Do you do this for other people?” Suddenly he was drowning in questions. “What do you do when you leave?”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” the figure chuckled. Cal was hit with a sense of familiarity again. He had a foggy memory of the laugh from his childhood. He felt a weight lift off of his chest. It felt briefly like he was a kid again, safe and learning to be a Jedi, preparing for a world where he was sure he was entering a battle he’d win with all of his friends at his side. His master at his side. “First of all, yes, I do help other people. I do it because I like to. I don’t know why, but you show up the most, so I help you the most. People usually only show up once or twice… honestly until recently I thought they were all fake. Figments of my imagination.”

“I know the feeling.” Cal leaned up against the wall, his shoulders relaxing. He focused his gaze on a part of the wall so that he had something to look at. It was hard to have nothing around to see when they spoke. It was easy to talk to this person he remembered but didn’t really know. Something from his childhood that had come back in a pleasant way. Something still good that he could hold onto.

The figure hummed and nodded, amused but also seeming a second from sighing. They seemed a little amused. A little overwhelmed. “I’m new to the Force. I was apparently sensitive to it all my life. I’m not particularly good at wielding it, but I can’t think of any other reason this is happening. People are out there needing help, and for some reason… I'm suddenly there to help them.”

Cal started. “You did this as a kid too?”

“Less so. Mostly just with you. As I get older it happens more often, even at inconvenient times. I never know where or who they are, but I tried ignoring them once and watched a child die.” The mood suddenly dropped, getting darker. “I saw where she had to go. There was this little nook that her murderers never found. Never even looked at. I could have told her, but I was supposed to be learning a trade. People were around and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by talking to her. Chancing that she’d fight me or deny me and risking that the people around me would think I was insane.” A soft sigh, heavy with regret and relief. “The connection doesn’t break until they’re either helped, or dead. I was with her while life left her. I was there every second. I let her know I was there, in the end. I was at least able to bring her that comfort.”

Cal shook his head. “That’s horrible. How old were you?”

“Twelve.” The figure pinched their nose. “She was ten.” Their voice became heavy with emotion and Cal wished he could hug them. “You know, if you ever need anything, I’ll try to be there. Really. Knowing you’re real is actually much more of a relief than I thought it would be. I won’t let you die if I can help it.”

There was a moment when Cal almost felt a hand on his shoulder. There was no weight to it, just a warmth. A weird feeling just on top, filling the fabric against his skin with energy. “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself- don’t worry so much.” He reached up, placing his own hand on top of theirs. “Especially with you watching my back, I’ll be totally fine.”

“Of course you will, I’m awesome.” Cal’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. His heart was racing, his brain working overtime. There was something haunting about how familiar this person was. He was going to lose his mind if he didn’t know soon. “Since friends know each other’s names, as you say, you give me yours and I’ll give you mine.”

Cal shook his head. His mind was muddled and this was calming him down. He needed to let it. “I’m Cal. Kestis. And, uh, you?”

Cal was suddenly knocked breathless. There was shock and anger and confusion and irritation. There was happiness and sorrow, heavy and all consuming. A longing. Lots of emotions- most of them heavy, pushing and dragging him down with a force he almost couldn’t resist. Then there was nothing. He gasped in air, clutching his chest, and blinked his eyes as he looked around.

The presence was gone.

Why did Cal get the feeling that something terrible had just happened?

Jai was crying before they could stop themself.

Why did it have to be Cal? They finally had something they could just have, without it meaning anything. They’d realized that they were capable of really helping people, even as they watched people die and could do nothing about it because they were on the wrong side. The only side they could be free to fight against the Jedi and have resources to keep up with them, but still the wrong side.

They had something separate from Jedi and Sith. Something that wasn’t Trilla or the Ninth Sister. Something that was just them. Something unique and innocent and good. Even then, those idiots had found a way to ruin it. A way to invade and infest and destroy the little peace Jai had. And apparently, Cal Kestis had been doing so since they were both children.

How was it that the only friend Jai had ever had ended up being the same person they fell in love with, only to end up on the opposing side of? How was Cal everywhere Jai looked? Every step they took. Every thought they had. Every single damn thing they did- Cal Kestis was right there, on their heels. Always in the wrong place, wrong time. And when things started to go right, the two were ripped apart again and put in different places, at different times, and it was all wrong. Again.

“Inquisitor Jai, the Second Sister has requested an audience with you.”

Jai pulled themself together. They bottled up those emotions, closing their eyes and taking a deep breath. They focused that emotion, calming themself. There was no good in losing control. They’d seen it in Jedi and Inquisitors and Sith- all, bad. Turning around, their eyes leveled on a Trooper. The poor lad took a step back, obviously nervous at the livid expression on Jai’s face, even as he attempted to keep control of himself. Jai pulled out their mask, putting it on.

They’d been right before, about masks. They’d made the comment before mostly to take a stab at Trilla, but masks really did make things easier. Jai could let a little emotion show. They could be weak, just a little bit. They could hide. It was a protective barrier between them and the rest of the world, allowing them to relax just the tiniest bit. Using that slight relief, they straightened. “Take me to her then.”

[kldubois]

Lessons in Looking 16/?

title: A Kind Touch

words: 1289

TW: violence towards women, needles, branding, torture, conditioning

Her name is Iris and Evie likes her. Today Iris has her strapped into a chair, but Evie doesn’t mind. Iris looks out for her, treats her injuries, makes sure that the guards don’t tie the bindings too tight when she sees to the cuts and burns. For all of this, the lights are turned on, too bright at first but Iris makes them turn them down.

Evie recognizes the equipment Iris pulls out but it’s new to the routine. She’s never taken blood before. She’s injected things into her, medicines as Iris explained. The explanation is always quick and simple. Evie likes that because she can’t focus like she used to. Her thoughts flee quickly or she can’t fully grasp what she’s thinking. At first, it unsettled her, but Iris said it was a side effect.

“This’ll be quick and easy,” Iris says cheerfully as she sets up the equipment. Evie thinks the elastic band is too tight, but it must mean to be that way. Iris wouldn’t hurt her. Iris wipes a clean spot in the crook of her elbow even though her whole arm has already been cleaned thoroughly. Then she pulls out a needle that looks bigger than necessary. As the needle inches closer to her skin, she reminds herself that Iris wouldn’t hurt her. She repeats the single sentence, trying to calm herself as she forces herself to breathe steadily. It doesn’t work and the second she feels the too large needle pierce her arm, she bucks against the restraints. Her arm burns as the needle rests just a little in her arm.

Iris calls for help and Evie finds herself tied tighter and with more straps to secure her. A couple more across her chest, tightened enough to make breathing difficult and then another on each limb and one around her neck. It makes moving near impossible and seems a little excessive, but Iris knows what she’s doing. The needle starts moving again and she can feel it; it burns in her vein. When she tries to scream, to make a noise out of her bruised throat, she’s quickly gagged.

“We can’t have you disturbing others,” Iris says with a slight smile. “You’ll get used to it soon enough. Everyone does.”

Evie swallows, tasting the dirt and staleness of the gag. She nods, understanding Iris’ concern. The needle stops moving and while the site still hurts, she finds she can manage it. It’s not the worst she’s had and Iris wouldn’t do anything to hurt her like he does. When Evie looks at her arm next, the tubing is attached blood is flowing out. Evie doesn’t know how long she sits there with blood draining away from her, but the effort starts taxing her. Her head begins to ache, dull at first behind her eye but then it grows and with it nausea and lightheadedness. She tries to signal to Iris that she’s not feeling good. Iris will know what to do, how to make her feel better.

“It’s normal,” Iris says, smiling brightly. She runs a hand through Evie’s greasy hair, the feeling is comforting, but it doesn’t stop the growing ill feeling. She starts pulling against the bindings. She wants out of this chair and to go back to her spot on the floor where she can lie down and curl up. Then maybe this will go away. Maybe she’ll start feeling better.

Her arm flashes with pain as she feels the needle move and she stops fighting, breathing hard as the pain slowly fades.

“You can’t move while that’s in there,” Iris says, moving from her side to kneel in front of her. “You’re hurting yourself. Understand?” The placating tone makes her voice soft and warm.

Evie nods, wincing at the pain the movement ignites in her head. She understands Iris but she is steadily feeling worse. Her vision is darkening and her stomach rolls. She wants to throw up but works to keep it in because the gag is in place and she knows they won’t remove it until they’re done. Hearing is the last to go, the little bit that she can hear from the one ear.

She wakes in dazed, fuzzy spurts. Her head still aches and in her brief waking moments, she wonders when Iris left and what happened after she passed out. When she passes out when he’s around, he waits until she comes too again to hurt her worse. That’s never happened with Iris, but then she’s never passed out with Iris. Evie guesses that she doesn’t like it because she’s been left with her legs bound and one arm, the one that they took blood from, chained to the wall such that Evie can’t move off her side without pulling the arm from its socket and she knows that dislocations are not as fun as TV and movies portray them. There’s a bandage taped around her arm and bruising that peeks out from the edges. It’s colorful and she imagines that from the pain radiating from the site, the bruising under the bandage is worse.

Feeling her headache increasing and nausea return, she closes her eyes, hoping that with a little more sleep she might feel better. The lighting is back to normal when she does wake again. She’s a little more with it but the headache and nausea are still there. She’s used to them now though and she can put them aside. Chuck tried to teach her that but it never worked. He called it compartmentalization. Fancy name for a simple thing, she thinks. She wonders if he’d be proud of her. She hasn’t spilled a single secret but then they haven’t asked anything. Iris is the only one who speaks to her. No one else says anything in earshot of her.

She twists unconsciously, trying to turn on her back but the movement pulls on her chained arm and ignites the draw site again. With a groan, she pushes herself upright and collapses back on the floor, coughing and dry heaving as nausea and lightheadedness overtake her. Her arm burns and she feels something wet trickle down.

In the middle of this misery, of her vision graying, the dry heaving, and her head pounding like a jackhammer, he bursts in the door and the lights shine so bright she is momentarily blinded. He blindfolds and gags her before picking her up by her neck, his favorite way of handling her lately. The chained arm is quickly freed and then she’s roughly shoved to the floor where he plants a knee and shin firmly on her abdomen. The rest of her is pinned to the floor by other people with her injured arm pulled out roughly and the bandage ripped off.

She squirms as she feels the heat of a familiar device drawing near: his branding iron. His leg lifts briefly, enough so that he can slam it back on her, knocking the air out of her and as she’s trying to recover, the burning is already taking place.

She doesn’t know what it looks like exactly but she can feel the pattern and she hates the idea of wearing his mark for life. Every time he uses it feels like it’ll never end and she wonders how much more she can take. Then it’s done and as quickly as they came, they’re gone, taking the blindfold and gag, leaving her to curl on her side around the burning arm as she can’t bend it with the burn on the crook of her elbow, wondering if anyone is even looking for her because she’d like to leave or at least have another visit from Iris. She’d like to see someone nice.

[canyouhearthelight]

Lydia Woke Up

So, I have decided to post the short horror story that I originally submitted to Haha Ohno.  While I did not get very many responses on the poll I posted, the likes, reblogs, and DMs that I received were all from people whose opinions matter very intensely to me.  Additionally, no one actually discouraged me from posting, so... “Audacity. Always audacity”

As a thank you for your support, this story is dedicated to:

@parisconstantine @baelpenrose @charlylimph-blog @terrastone3 (yes, I see you liking all my stories and reblogging as much as possible. Thank you.)

Content warnings: mild body horror, hospital setting, doctors, nurses, restraints used in a medical setting.  If I missed one and it triggers you, please let me know and I’ll add that tag so you can avoid the post in the future.  I’ll even tell you the ending if you don’t make it that far (I promise, it will possibly help with the triggering).

Lydia woke up.

The room was dark. And cold. Lydia tried to sit up, but found she was bound to the – bed? – she was on with a strap around her chest.  When she reached up to remove it, her wrists were bound as well.

What is going on? She thought, her pulse racing.  A door cracked open with a groan, a sliver of light blinding her right eye. “What is going on?” she asked in a panic. “Who are you?” Her questions went ignored as someone approached her bed.  She felt a wiggling sensation on the back of her hand before her arm was suddenly on fire. BURNING, BURNING…. The fire crept up to her shoulder before spreading to her neck and chest.  It crept with fingers like lava toward her heart as she screamed her throat raw, each breath more and more painful.

Just let me die… she thought as she blacked out.

**************************************

Lydia woke up.

The room was dark. And cold. Lydia tried to sit up, but found she was bound to the – bed? – she was on with a strap around her chest.  When she reached up to remove it, her wrists were bound as well.

“WHAT IS GOING ON!?” She screamed. Her arm didn’t burn anymore, but she still felt a numb pain in it as she struggled against the restraints.  As soon as she heard the doorknob twitch, she screwed her eyes shut and screamed, over and over asking what was happening to her. Again, she was ignored.  She braced herself against the expected pain in her arm, only to startle at the sound of – a drill? A saw? – before blinding pain bit into her head.  Howling and the smell of blood were the last things she remembered.

**************************************

Lydia woke up.

The room was dark. And cold. Lydia tried to sit up, but found she was bound to the bed she lay on, with a strap around her chest.  When she reached up to remove it, her wrists were bound as well.

“STOP THIS!!!!” she shrieked before dissolving into sobs. Her arm ached coldly, like a long-healed injury, and her head was pounding.  It was still far below the white-hot pain she remembered before blacking out, and neither sensation made sense.  Neither injury felt like the type that should subside so quickly.  She was confused, in pain, and afraid.

This time, she shut her eyes tightly as soon as she woke up, and kept them closed as she heard footsteps approach her.  She didn’t bother to beg answers of the person in the room.  Whoever it was, if they could ignore screams and pleading, she didn’t know that she wanted the answers.  The sensation of wiggling in the back of her hand repeated itself, but there was no burning as the footsteps receded. As soon as the door closed, her skin felt tight and swollen.

It didn’t stop there. As she lay there, she felt her body stretch and ache.  Joints locked and twisted. She felt feverish and… distended, like nothing was in place and everything that should be inside her body was beyond the limits of her skin. It was hard to tell how much time passed, but she realized that she was having difficulty breathing.  First, she had to think about it, then it was a labor to draw each breath. As she slowly lost the energy to pull air into her lungs, she could only think on the additional misery of waiting for this to end.

**************************************

Lydia woke up.

Dark, cold room. Restrained. She gasped in with the newfound ease of each breath, brushed the cool pillow with her cheek.  Everything fit inside her body again, and she was too caught up in the sensation to pay attention to her arm or her head.  Her eyes lay blissfully closed as light danced across her eyelids at the creak of the door.  Pain shot through her head anew as she opened her eyes wide at the sound of the tool from before.  This time, instead of the expected pain in her head, it lanced down her left leg. She screamed and screamed in agony, begging the person to stop. Eventually, she tasted copper in her mouth as she tried to keep shouting, only hearing a hoarse grunt leave her throat. “No more,” she croaked. “Please just let me die.”

**************************************

Lydia woke up.

She had both legs, now. They – whoever They were – burned her alive under strange lamps, no doubt watching gleefully – or maybe worse, clinically, as her skin crisped and her hair fell away.

Lydia woke up.

Whole and aching, cool to the touch. She spent agonizing hours with the sensation of something crawling under her skin until it crawled into her brain.

Lydia woke up.

They hacked away at her. Toes first. Then fingers. Her eyesight went dodgy until they scooped out those, too. Finally, she felt them sawing at her chest and pawing at her heart as she struggled to breathe again.

Lydia woke up.

Again. And again. Over and over, no matter how many humiliations she endured, no matter how much they sawed and cut and burned her. She woke up over and over, to find fresh torture.

Finally, blessedly, Lydia didn’t wake up.

   **************************************

 “Doctor Sturgess,” the nurse shook him gently. “There’s something wrong.  We need you to come down to the lab.”

“Mmmm,” Doctor Sturgess muttered. “Why do they need me down there?”

“Well, the tests failed, sir.”

“All the tests?” He snapped to alertness. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Well, Johannsen said – “

“I don’t care what Johannsen said,” he interrupted, part anger and part panic. “It’s a computer. It shouldn’t be able to run out of tests.”

“He said something about the combinations of illnesses,” the nurse pleaded. “Please, just come straighten it out?”

“Fine,” Doctor Sturgess grunted.

[cat-at-dawn]

IN DEFENSE OF THE DEATH OF  ████████ , AND AN ARGUMENT AGAINST SUICIDE

This one’s for the manga readers! Post-volume 19 meta, spoilers aplenty! read at your own risk

Though the literal iteration of the death of Ash Lynx can be viewed as a purposeful shuffle from this mortal coil, a specific decision made with weight to return to the New york Public Library to live out his last moments dwelling on Eiji’s letter only to intentionally fade away, here stands a lonely argument; out of the entire cast, no one person deserves death in the same capacity more than Ash Lynx does, and his death is not a suicide. Let’s break it down.

Out of all of the MANY problematic elements of Banana Fish, not even trying to hazard which offense is worse than the next, we can all simultaneously agree that one of the most heartbreaking twists of the series comes at the end of volume 19, when after receiving Eiji’s goodbye letter, which essentially amounts to an incredibly pure love declaration, Ash allows himself to be mentally distracted long enough for Sing’s brother Lao to deliver a killing stab to his intestines. Though Lao dies shortly after Ash’s retaliation, Ash continues to linger in a liminal place. The question hangs in the mind of the reader, if Ash approached a happy ending, why would he not seek hospitalization? Why would he allow himself to bleed out? The manga strikes back hard at the reader with a quite prolonged death sequence, in which Ash retreats to his favorite place to be alone, the New York Public Library, where, with a smile on his face, he falls into a peaceful sleep and dies at a reading table while clutching Eiji’s now bloody love letter. What is the nature of his mindset which dictates this course of action? Why, with Eiji hale and hearty, would Ash choose death instead of medical treatment and a possibly much happier ending to this tale of woe? At this point, I can only wonder if we, the readership, have read the same story. The ending of Banana Fish is hotly debated, and even though as a queer storyteller myself I fundamentally have trouble with gay death as a narrative element, I can’t help but question why people can’t empathize more with Ash’s decision. When judging the manga as a standing piece, I can’t think of a more satisfying, or simply more correct turn of events.

Directly out of the gate, Ash’s death is foreshadowed in the title of the series. A Perfect Day For Banana Fish is a short story by J.D. Salinger which follows the last day in the life of mentally ill World War 2 veteran Seymour Glass, who befriends a little girl while on vacation at the beach. He invites her to catch bananafish with him, and explains that the greedy fish enter holes to gorge themselves on bananas, but become too large to escape again and instead perish in the hole. Later, Seymour returns to his room where his wife is sleeping, and he kills himself. Salinger relates this as a metaphor for his own personal experience in the war, specifically to his time at the Battle of the Bulge and in Nazi concentration camps. He is quoted saying Seymour is an iteration of himself, and has gone so far as to say that he “found it impossible to fit into a society that ignored the truth that he now knew.”  The point of the story has always been to examine the irreversible damage done to the human psyche by war. The Perfect Day referenced in the title is exactly that; the quest of a broken man lacking the power to overcome his trauma to find exactly the perfect day to die. So it also is with Ash, we understand from the very beginning that making this direct analogy to Salinger means the manga will be the slow disclosure of someone who is irrevocably damaged by their circumstance as they come to terms with the moment of their own death. From the very first panel you see him, Ash’s death is already fated, and truly the most heart-rending struggle of the series is watching him grapple with this identity, up to nearly the very last second. As a reader, we continuously keep hoping and praying that he might, against all odds, find salvation despite literally every piece of contrary evidence suggesting otherwise. We have violent affection for Ash as a hero, and we want him so badly to live on, to make it to the other side. He both finds salvation and doesn’t find it, because like everything else about this manga, Ash operates thematically on contradictory levels all the way through the story and on to the bitter end. Let’s break it down even further, by considering exactly just how fucked Ash really is.

Ash is born Aslan Jade Callenrese, and then quickly discarded. He briefly experiences a short period of normalcy with the love of his brother and distant father before Griffin is drafted. Almost immediately after, Ash is raped by the Bluebeard of Cape Cod and then blamed for it, and from then on, his life is a progression of non-stop horror. He is kidnapped by Marvin who repeatedly rapes him over a period of years. He is sold into sexual servitude at Club Cod. He somehow  manages to avoid getting addicted to the opioids that all the child prostitutes were fed to keep them tame, and when Ash escapes, it is only because he is instead personally taken under Papa Dino’s wing, who specifically sexually abuses him while simultaneously not knowing or caring that Marvin continues to rape Ash, among presumably a handful of other people. Blanca is a small, bright focal point for Ash at age 13 when Ash lets himself briefly believe he has autonomy, and he is released to start his own gang. Ash’s fundamental humanity and inherent leadership magnetically draw people to him, and for the first time in his life, Ash briefly entertains the idea of having a private romantic relationship of his own. He is attracted to a girl he likes very much, but she is murdered almost immediately due to her association with him. He afterward throws himself into the business of his gang without ever fully extracting himself from Papa Dino’s hold. It is only with the discovery of the capsule containing Banana Fish that Ash for the first time in his short life discovers a bit of real leverage he can actually use against Dino. The subsequent drug war sees him beaten, sent to jail, raped many more times, and sent on a cross-country mission on the lam from the law, as well as from Dino’s goons, both Corsican and Chinese. Yut-Lung proves to be a worthy adversary in LA, and his teaming up with Arthur sees Ash murdering his best friend Shorter in cold blood who is forcibly high on banana fish in order to save Eiji from an especially savage disembowelment. Ash is later declared legally dead, sent to a private insane asylum to be experimented on, tortured with the mangled bits of Shorter’s brain, and then after escaping yet again, still forced into a corner when Dino tricks and threatens him into becoming officially adopted, once more in order to prevent Eiji’s death. Ash is drugged, literally blinded, beaten, and emotionally and physically torn down. He nearly dies from intentionally wasting away, and is hospitalized. When he eventually once again manages to escape, it is only to regroup long enough to prepare to engage with his men in actual guerrilla warfare. The mercenary Foxx kills nearly all of Ash’s remaining gang, and once AGAIN, Ash is raped.  Ash is ultimately deprived of his revenge when he then has to witness Papa Dino’s death by the hand of someone other than himself. These are the major plot points, and don’t even touch on the myriad of lesser cruelties Ash has dealt with over the course of his short life, of which there are many, many more.  (See: The death of most of his friends, that fucklord Arthur, everything about Cape Cod, the pain of using his sexual wiles as a weapon, the pain of knowing if he opens up to others that the lives of his friends will be in danger, the pain of being unable to give his loved ones proper burials, his one hundred issues with classism, his complete inability to trust others with important tasks, the list goes on.)

Around volume 10, I started, in a serious way, feeling like Ash deserved death. Not in the way that a dog is put out of it’s misery when it is sick, but more in the way that when the path is this hard, the reward at the end should be equivalent to the struggle. Being a CSA survivor all on its own demands a certain level of understanding, especially when approaching volatile, sensitive subjects like suicide. The act of taking one’s own life is so deeply personal and hotly debated that there is no true narrative argument legitimate enough to address it’s purpose. All of it is too subjective. However, in the case of Ash Lynx as the thematic hero, the case stands that he never, except for perhaps the small corridor between the ages of 0-7, lived a life anywhere remotely near average, so his many brushes with near-suicide are chillingly understandable. At one point, when forced to either shoot himself in the head or watch Eiji die, Ash even goes so far as to grab the gun and immediately try to blow his brains out. When the gun is proven empty, instead of breathing a secret sigh of relief, Ash only demands that Yut Lung give him a bullet. 

Though this emphasizes Ash’s near fanatical devotion to protecting Eiji, whose innocence he both disdains and canonizes, it also represents his constant readiness to die. This flirtation with the reaper is emphasized over and over in the official art, where a sexual element is often present in his interactions with death. Ash wishes for death to embrace him, he literally desires it. This is mostly on a subtextual level, but other times his desire is stiflingly surface-level.

 The extent of Ash’s damage is so severe and was inflicted on him so early that his ability to live a normal life was only ever subject to his situation. An argument can be made that his unusually high IQ kept him from the brink of emotional destruction for the majority of his life, but in spite of his incredible virility and strength of character, Ash’s prospects as he aged were always bleak at best. Ash the adult is almost unfathomable. He was literally never allowed to be a child during a key developmental period, and even the manga infers that Eiji’s presence as a romantic element is strongly tied to Ash’s desire to return to a time of innocence. Ash is permanently trapped in a never-neverland of sorts, sexually defiled to the point where his own sexual awakening has been completely obscured beyond his own recognition. His relationship with Eiji is painfully asexual, one, because literally everything about Banana Fish is painful, but also because it is unclear if Ash may have been naturally asexual in the first place or if he was made into an asexual as the result of his childhood trauma. Either way, he certainly doesn’t have a lot of choice about the way that he is, and that way is, fundamentally, morally, and spiritually exhausted. It is only his tenacious spark, his survivors grip to life, and his affection for others in his life whom he loves that are weaker than him, that keeps him stubbornly clung to his own mortal vessel until the very end.

Eiji’s presence as a guiding light is, in THE definitively heartbreaking turn, the permission Ash needs to allow himself to finally die. He has always known that he would die, probably even thought that he should have already died, many, many times over. He is permanently and irreversibly damaged by the course of his life, and though we scream and cry and pray in the hope that Ash can make it, that he can still pull through and come out on the other side living and thriving in love, he was ultimately just never meant to make it that far. Even when Eiji tries to convince Ash that he is not the leopard, that he can come back down from the mountain, we are distantly still aware that this is not true, despite how difficult it is to accept. This difference of character is most clearly seen in Ash’s foil with Yut-Lung; both boys are the savant products of rape-and-murder-riddled childhoods. However, where Yut-Lung lacked anyone to give him acceptance and affection as he grew, Ash ended his time knowing love. Where Yut-Lung survives to the end and goes on to an even higher position of strength, he still has an emotional arc to complete. Yut Lung must discover for himself the value of human life. Ash already knew this value from the beginning, because his moral compass, which sometimes admittedly became scrambled, more or less always pointed true by the end of things.

The argument can be made that as the embodiment of the concept of Salinger’s short story, Ash is fated to die. Eiji, who in many ways is the window through which we experience this world, refuses to bend to fate. He insists in innocence again and again that Ash can change his fate, and for a moment, when Ash finds the plane ticket to Japan in Eiji’s letter, we really, really want to believe him. So, of course, because this manga is singularly cruel, it is here that Ash is stabbed. Of ffffucking course, after everything, death comes for Ash in a fashion which is completely mundane against the grandiose, bombastic scale of the story. An old grudge settled by someone Ash didn’t even have the time to hate in the first place. Ash let himself believe in a real life with Eiji for a single moment, and that proved to be his downfall. When he let his guard down, he let death in. He realizes his destiny immediately, because he is not stupid. His death is not a suicide, it is an understanding. 

 According to Akimi Yoshida, fate always wins out, but what the manga adds to this sad experience is this; despite everything, unlike Salinger’s broken Seymour, Ash’s heart in the end is full of love. His perfect day to die is the day he reads Eiji’s letter, the letter that declares them permanently bonded. Falling in love allows Ash to let go of himself gently, instead of the infinitely more brutal end he would have met at a villain’s hand otherwise, if he hadn’t fought tooth and nail for his very last scrap of autonomy up until that moment. Eiji’s love as an act of compassion is most perfectly realized; because Ash’s Perfect Day is one of is own making. All the circumstances together form a perfect conclusion. He didn’t see the knife coming, and he didn’t need to. After Papa Dino’s death, after Eiji is gone, Ash can finally stop. He can accept that his trauma is greater than even him. In a life spent being forced back and forth according to the violent winds of his circumstance, he chooses to, (and that’s important, he chooses to,) retreat like a cat to a quiet place of safety to live out his last moments. In this way, Ash’s death is merely a setting down of something unbearably heavy. Because he is loved, because Eiji is safe and far away, Ash is at last released from the prison of his life.

Other Banana Fish Meta: CAPE COD AS PURGATORY AND ASH’S BREAK FROM INNOCENCE

[veneataur]

Whumpmas day 16

Fandom: original work

Prompt: passing out while giving blood

Title: A Kind Touch

A/N: I hope that this one is good. It fought me for a few days as I was wrangling the plot in order and it took a direction I wasn’t planning. Let me know if I need to start warning these more; I don’t want to surprise anyone with tropes that are triggering.

Warnings: needles, conditioning, torture

Her name is Iris and Evie likes her. Today Iris has her strapped into a chair, but Evie doesn’t mind. Iris looks out for her, treats her injuries, makes sure that the guards don’t tie the bindings too tight when she sees to the cuts and burns. For all of this, the lights are turned on, too bright at first but Iris makes them turn them down.

Evie recognizes the equipment Iris pulls out but it’s new to the routine. She’s never taken blood before. She’s injected things into her, medicines as Iris explained. The explanation is always quick and simple. Evie likes that because she can’t focus like she used to. Her thoughts flee quickly or she can’t fully grasp what she’s thinking. At first, it unsettled her, but Iris said it was a side effect.

“This’ll be quick and easy,” Iris says cheerfully as she sets up the equipment. Evie thinks the elastic band is too tight, but it must mean to be that way. Iris wouldn’t hurt her. Iris wipes a clean spot in the crook of her elbow even though her whole arm has already been cleaned thoroughly. Then she pulls out a needle that looks bigger than necessary. As the needle inches closer to her skin, she reminds herself that Iris wouldn’t hurt her. She repeats the single sentence, trying to calm herself as she forces herself to breathe steadily. It doesn’t work and the second she feels the too large needle pierce her arm, she bucks against the restraints. Her arm burns as the needle rests just a little in her arm.

Iris calls for help and Evie finds herself tied tighter and with more straps to secure her. A couple more across her chest, tightened enough to make breathing difficult and then another on each limb and one around her neck. It makes moving near impossible and seems a little excessive, but Iris knows what she’s doing. The needle starts moving again and she can feel it; it burns in her vein. When she tries to scream, to make a noise out of her bruised throat, she’s quickly gagged.

“We can’t have you disturbing others,” Iris says with a slight smile. “You’ll get used to it soon enough. Everyone does.”

Evie swallows, tasting the dirt and staleness of the gag. She nods, understanding Iris’ concern. The needle stops moving and while the site still hurts, she finds she can manage it. It’s not the worst she’s had and Iris wouldn’t do anything to hurt her like he does. When Evie looks at her arm next, the tubing is attached blood is flowing out. Evie doesn’t know how long she sits there with blood draining away from her, but the effort starts taxing her. Her head begins to ache, dull at first behind her eye but then it grows and with it nausea and lightheadedness. She tries to signal to Iris that she’s not feeling good. Iris will know what to do, how to make her feel better.

“It’s normal,” Iris says, smiling brightly. She runs a hand through Evie’s greasy hair, the feeling is comforting, but it doesn’t stop the growing ill feeling. She starts pulling against the bindings. She wants out of this chair and to go back to her spot on the floor where she can lie down and curl up. Then maybe this will go away. Maybe she’ll start feeling better.

Her arm flashes with pain as she feels the needle move and she stops fighting, breathing hard as the pain slowly fades.

“You can’t move while that’s in there,” Iris says, moving from her side to kneel in front of her. “You’re hurting yourself. Understand?” The placating tone makes her voice soft and warm.

Evie nods, wincing at the pain the movement ignites in her head. She understands Iris but she is steadily feeling worse. Her vision is darkening and her stomach rolls. She wants to throw up but works to keep it in because the gag is in place and she knows they won’t remove it until they’re done. Hearing is the last to go, the little bit that she can hear from the one ear.

She wakes in dazed, fuzzy spurts. Her head still aches and in her brief waking moments, she wonders when Iris left and what happened after she passed out. When she passes out when he’s around, he waits until she comes too again to hurt her worse. That’s never happened with Iris, but then she’s never passed out with Iris. Evie guesses that she doesn’t like it because she’s been left with her legs bound and one arm, the one that they took blood from, chained to the wall such that Evie can’t move off her side without pulling the arm from its socket and she knows that dislocations are not as fun as TV and movies portray them. There’s a bandage taped around her arm and bruising that peeks out from the edges. It’s colorful and she imagines that from the pain radiating from the site, the bruising under the bandage is worse.

Feeling her headache increasing and nausea return, she closes her eyes, hoping that with a little more sleep she might feel better. The lighting is back to normal when she does wake again. She’s a little more with it but the headache and nausea are still there. She’s used to them now though and she can put them aside. Chuck tried to teach her that but it never worked. He called it compartmentalization. Fancy name for a simple thing, she thinks. She wonders if he’d be proud of her. She hasn’t spilled a single secret but then they haven’t asked anything. Iris is the only one who speaks to her. No one else says anything in earshot of her.

She twists unconsciously, trying to turn on her back but the movement pulls on her chained arm and ignites the draw site again. With a groan, she pushes herself upright and collapses back on the floor, coughing and dry heaving as nausea and lightheadedness overtake her. Her arm burns and she feels something wet trickle down.

In the middle of this misery, of her vision graying, the dry heaving, and her head pounding like a jackhammer, he bursts in the door and the lights shine so bright she is momentarily blinded. He blindfolds and gags her before picking her up by her neck, his favorite way of handling her lately. The chained arm is quickly freed and then she’s roughly shoved to the floor where he plants a knee and shin firmly on her abdomen. The rest of her is pinned to the floor by other people with her injured arm pulled out roughly and the bandage ripped off.

She squirms as she feels the heat of a familiar device drawing near: his branding iron. His leg lifts briefly, enough so that he can slam it back on her, knocking the air out of her and as she’s trying to recover, the burning is already taking place.

She doesn’t know what it looks like exactly but she can feel the pattern and she hates the idea of wearing his mark for life. Every time he uses it feels like it’ll never end and she wonders how much more she can take. Then it’s done and as quickly as they came, they’re gone, taking the blindfold and gag, leaving her to curl on her side around the burning arm as she can’t bend it with the burn on the crook of her elbow, wondering if anyone is even looking for her because she’d like to leave or at least have another visit from Iris. She’d like to see someone nice.

[thatishogwash]

L is for Lynx

@audriel89 asked for Lynx+KuroAka so here it is! (With a load of angst thrown in!)

Warning: Childhood abuse.

AO3

Akaashi attempted to center his breathing as he laid wide awake next to his slumpering Lynx.  Most nights Akaashi dared not allow Kuroo to sleep so close, especially not in the same bed as him but his father was out of town and once Kuroo slunk his way up onto the bed, Akaashi didn’t have the heart to push him away.  Especially knowing what he had to do the next day.  It would be his only opportunity to save Kuroo.

Akaashi tried not to think about that and concentrated instead on the Lynx next to him.  He was purring softly in his sleep, he weighed around 25 kilograms so he wasn’t all that large and his stubby tail and pointed ears made him more adorable than threatening.  His sharp teeth and claws were no laughing matter, though Kuroo was much too lazy to use either.  Akaashi had no idea why any magical creature, let alone one like Kuroo would willingly choose Akaashi as their master.

Kuroo curled himself tighter against Akaashi’s chest.  He was like Akaashi’s own personal heater and he would miss that.  He would miss Kuroo’s obnoxious laugh and dry sense of humor.  He would miss how easily Kuroo gave affection and accepted it in return.  Akaashi had grown so use to light touches turning into something painful he had forgotten what it was to simply be hugged without worrying a hit would come afterwards.

Light streamed in through the shades and Akaashi knew he had to get up.  Everything had already been prepared and he had do this while his father was out of town.  If he was close by he would be able to sense the magic Akaashi would need to gather to make the spell work.  He would still sense it out of town but he’d be too far away to do anything.  Akaashi would be severely punished for that but it wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t already experienced before.

Punishment on his own body Akaashi could handle but what his father was planning to do to Kuroo?  Akaashi would never recover from it.

“Wake up Kuroo.”  Akaashi shook the overgrown cat, who attempted to slink away from his touch and bury himself under the covers.  Akaashi sighed, a put upon noise that did very little to hide his actual fondness for the creature sharing his bed.  He pulled the covers away and was only slightly surprised to see a very human looking man staring back at him.

“Too early.”  Kuroo complained, hands reaching out for Akaashi.  He allowed himself to be pulled closer, allowed Kuroo to nuzzle his face into Akaashi’s chest as a deep purr vibrated from his chest.  Akaashi closed his eyes and curled his fingers into Kuroo’s thick head of hair.  He always worried he was too rough in his own affection though Kuroo never complained.  Akaashi wasn’t used to the gentle and soft touches Kuroo gave away so easily.  It had made Akaashi highly uncomfortable at first but not because he didn’t want them.  No, he was uncomfortable because of how badly he craved those touches.  He was afraid he would grow addicted to the feeling and then suddenly they would stop.

Akaashi had allowed himself hope when he knew better.

“Get up, there’s something I have to do.”  Akaashi patted Kuroo’s head before pulling away.  Kuroo grumbled unhappily but followed along like he always did.

Akaashi had wondered why his father had allowed him to form a contract with a familiar.  He had done everything in his power up that point to completely isolate Akaashi from the outside world.  He had very little contact with anyone who wasn’t his father and his father always made sure to keep Akaashi ignorant of most magic.  Akaashi was a wellspring for his father to use and that was it.  Until he had taught Akaashi the summoning circle for a familiar.  Akaashi had been too thrilled, too eager to please his father to question it fully.

Now Akaashi knew the truth and this was the only way he could think of to save Kuroo.

“Where are we going?”  Kuroo asked, once again back in his Lynx form as he trotted beside Akaashi out into the woods.  Akaashi father didn’t bother to lock his son up any longer, he knew he had successfully clipped his wings and he would never leave.  He wasn’t strong enough to save himself but Kuroo?  Akaashi would give up everything to save Kuroo.

Akaashi didn’t answer because he couldn’t.  His throat felt thick and his limbs felt heavy.  He was scared.  He had never directly disobeyed his father in any way, shape, or form and he knew the punishment would be severe.  Akaashi had spent his whole life trying to please his father, to get some form of love or acknowledgement out of him and this would only anger him.  Akaashi was terrified but he wouldn’t let that stop him.

He knew he wasn’t strong enough to fight his father.  No in physical strength or magically or mentally.  Kuroo would try and help Akaashi, he already had so many times and it would only end up with him hurt.  Akaashi was used to pain and he would take a thousand beatings to save Kuroo from just one.

“Keiji?”  Kuroo questioned him as Akaashi stopped in a clearing and started to make a circle.  His hand was shaking and he was having difficulty breathing.  He didn’t want to be alone again but he wouldn’t allow himself to be that selfish.

The power gained from a shared bond with a familiar, magical or otherwise, was exponential.  More power was added the further the bond developed.  Akaashi had only known Kuroo a few short months but he knew their bond was strong and ran deep within both of them.  Kuroo would never leave on his own so Akaashi would have to force his hand.  It helped that the circle to summon a familiar was the same one used to dismiss one.

Killing a familiar was strictly forbidden.  Akaashi’s father studied all forms of Dark Arts and Akaashi had assisted in much of it.  The power Akaashi’s father could pull from his own son when he hurt him, when he bled him was significant.  The power his father could pull from Akaashi when he forced his son to kill his own familiar would be infinite.  Akaashi would be the one blamed for the killing since it would be by his own hand and most likely they would strip him of his magic and throw him away.  Akaashi partially wished for it, to be taken away from his father and to have this cursed power taken away from him sounded perfect to him.  But he wouldn’t let it happen at the cost of Kuroo’s life.

Akaashi wasn’t strong enough to stand up to his father and refuse to complete the ritual but he could make sure that there was no familiar to kill once his father returned.  Breaking a bond would leave a mark on Akaashi, no other familiar would ever come to his call again and therefor his father could not force him to summon another.

Akaashi pressed a hand against his mouth, feeling ill as he surveyed his work, the chalk he had used to draw the circle slipping from his suddenly numb fingers.

“Keiji what are you doing?”  Kuroo asked though he must know what the circle was.

“Come here.”  Akaashi said weakly.  Kuroo took a step back, now in his human-guise once more and shook his head.

“Please don’t do this, whatever it is we can work it out together.”  Kuroo pleaded and Akaashi saw panic on his face, saw hurt in his eyes.

“Come here.”  Akaashi said in a stronger tone, pressing magic into it to make sure Kuroo couldn’t disobey.  Kuroo stumbled into the circle looking as if Akaashi had slapped him.  Akaashi felt bile rise in his throat.

“Please Keiji, you don’t understand what this will do to me.”  Kuroo tried once more, his eyes brimming with tears.  “I can do better.”  A broken sob worked its way out of Akaashi. The words were so familiar to him, things he had said to his own father time and time again.

“He wants me to sacrifice you.”  Akaashi said, tried to get Kuroo to see that this was the only way.

“We can fight him together or we can run away, anything but this.  Don’t make me go, please.”  Kuroo reached out for Akaashi but he pulled on his power, imagined the bond inside of him connecting him to Kuroo.  Kuroo fell to his knees with a cry as Akaashi ripped it apart.

Bright light flooded the area and Akaashi shut his eyes against it.  The power that had been brought up with the circle slowly dissipated and then disappeared completely.

Akaashi opened his eyes and stared at the empty woods around him, Kuroo nowhere in sight.

Akaashi took a couple steps back to the house before his legs gave out on him.  He collapsed onto the cold, hard ground and curled in on himself.  He tried to press a hand over his mouth, to contain the ugly sobs breaking out of him but it was no use.  He hadn’t raised a hand to Kuroo but he had still betrayed him, still hurt him just as much.  Akaashi would have given anything to run away with Kuroo, to start anew someplace just the two of them but he couldn’t.

Kuroo would never understand that.  The weakness inside of Akaashi that just wanted his father to accept him.  He was terrified that weakness would talk Akaashi into hurting Kuroo, torture him the same way his father tortured Akaashi.  He knew Kuroo would see it as the betrayal it was, that Akaashi was picking his abusive father over his loving familiar and that’s why Akaashi needed to let Kuroo go.

Kuroo deserved someone better, someone stronger.  Not someone damaged beyond repair at the age of 16.

Akaashi curled more into himself, let himself cry like he hadn’t since he was a child.  Tears only infuriated his father more, made the beatings last longer and Akaashi had long since shut that beaten child away inside himself.  But he allowed himself this small moment of complete misery for what he had lost and the painful future he had to face.

Akaashi had saved Kuroo and that was all that mattered, even if he had damned himself.

[thereins]

Hope in God

Now, ere this feeble heart beneath youth’s spell, To its illusions bids a last farewell, I fain would keep the old philosophy Which makes Epicurus divinity. I fain would live and love, and learn mankind, In quest of joy, small profit hope to find, And do what men can do, be what they are, Gaze upward to the sky nor feel one care.

I cannot; me the infinite torments, Fearless to dwell thereon hope consents; Heedless of men’s words, reason is dismayed To comprehend it not, though clear displayed. What is the world, what are we doing here, If we, in peace, must veil the skies in fear, To move like sheep, eyes fixed upon the ground, Deny the rest, can that be pleasure found? It is no man to be, degrade the soul. Chance made no part in the created whole; Or happy, or unhappy, woman born, I cannot flee away from men in scorn.

What shall we do? Seek joy, command the wise, Rejoice and die; the gods to sleep advise.

Hope only, answers our firm Christian faith, Heaven watches thee. Thou canst not die, it saith. Between two roads I, wavering, stop and stay, Aloof, would follow easier, gentler way. Not one exists, so speaks a secret voice, Believe, deny, there is the heaven-given choice. And such my thought; for souls with torture burn; Make mere excuses, this, or that, in turn. But the indifferents are an atheist's rout. They could not sleep had they one day of doubt. I yield me then and since the thought has bred, Deep in my heart desire and anxious dread, My knees shall bend, with hope I will believe. What fate is mine, what would high heaven receive?

Held in the hand of God, more dread, I go, Than all the ills combined here below. Alone, a wanderer, frail, wretched man, My deeds that witness eye must ever scan. He watches, follows. Let heart beat too high It might His great divinity defy. A gulf is 'neath my feet. If I fall in, Eternity will expiate my sin. My hangman, judge, with victim plays his game, For me is all a snare, all changing name; Love is a sin, and happiness a crime, Temptation all that work of seven days' time. Of human nature naught can I retain, Virtue for me is dead, remorse they feign. The recompense I wait, the pain I shun, My guide is fear, toward death, my mask, I run.

And still, they tell me, waits unbounded joy The elect. And when those blest without alloy, If you deceive me, will you life deny? If you speak to me, so can you ope the sky? That land of beauty of the prophet’s cry, If it exists above, must be a desert dry. The blest you make you wish them all too pure,

Though joy may come, the suffering more sure. I am a man no more, would not be less, Nor try for more. What shall I then confess? Since I believe no promises of priest, Shall I then go consult the indifferent beast?

And if by haunting visions thus bent, My heart the real seeks some joy to get, With each vain pleasure summoned to my aid, Disgust and gloomy death my sense invade. The very days when impious is my thought, When ending doubt denial full has brought, Should I attain whatever in this life Each man can seek with vast desire and strife, Both power, and health and riches freely give, And love itself, the good for which we live, Let fair Astarte, idol of ancient Greece, Outspread her arms from azure lands of peace, Could I explore the bosom of the earth, To win the secret elemental birth, Transform enlivening matter to my will, Make matchless beauty my desire to still; Should Horace, Epicurus old, Me at their side a happy mortal hold, Should they, in love with nature’s ancient code, Loud sing of joy and contempt of God, My words would come "Whatever we may be done, I suffer on, the world is older grown. Hope fills the earth with infinite surmise, In our despite toward heaven we lift our eyes!"

What then remains? Reason revolts, breaks out, Tries to believe, in vain, the heart to doubt. The Christian frightens, but the atheist creed Despite the senses, shall not hear nor heed. To truly pious men impious seem, Me, the indifferent, merely crazy deem. To whom shall I resort, what voice’s sound Shall soothe this heart when doubt inflicts its wound?

There is, they say, one philosophic creed Which can without a revelation read, Can guide us safely through our existence, Betwixt religion and indifference. I acquiesce. But where are they who frame Systems of truth nor wish the faith to name, Sophistic impotents, believing but themselves, What are the arguments, their reason delves? One shows me here two principles at war, Which, both defeated, both immortal are; Another finds far off within some heaven lone, A useless god who asks no altar stone. I see the dreams of Plato, Aristotle see; I listen, praise and walk my pathway free. Under the monarch find a despot God. To-day he gives a democratic nod. Pythagoras, Leibnitz both me transform. Descartes abandons me in vortex storm. Montaigne, self-student, nothing learns and sees. Pascal, a-tremble, his own vision flees. Pyrrho my sight, and Zeno senses, takes, Whatever stands, Voltaire casts down and breaks. Trying th’ impossible with wearied air, Spinosa finds his God is everywhere. The English sophist cries, Man's a machine, And in the fog a German rhetor's seen, Who of philosophism, ruin wrought, Declares our heaven void, concludes with naught.

So human science then becomes a wreck! Five thousand years of doubt are at our beck, Five thousand years of persevering fag With doubt, as final word, perplexed we lag. Ah! poor distracted, paltry human brains, How intricate your key that all explains; To mount above, no wings upon your back,

Desire you have, but faith alone you lack. I pity pride, that racks your wounded soul. You feel the torments round my heart that roll. You understand it, all that bitter sight Which makes man shudder at the Infinite. Pray we! Forswear the miserable toil Of childish reckonings, petty futile moil. Now that your bodies have returned to dust, Fall on my knees beside your tombs, I must. Ye pagan rhetors, first in knowledge, come, Departed Christians, dreamers here at home: Believe me, prayer is hope’s expectant voice! That God, man answer; speak to Him, rejoice, For God is just and good to pardon send. Your sufferings great, the rest to Him commend. If bare is heaven, to none offense we make; One, if he hears, shall on us pity take.

Oh! Thou whom none has ever known, Nor being false, can e'er deny Who gave me life, 'twas Thou alone, And who, to-morrow makes me die!

By faith alone, art understood. If faith be ours, why doubts of Thee? Why give not faith in measure good, That none may say Thou canst not be?

As soon as man lifts up his head, To that great temple in the skies, He sees a vast creation spread, A glorious temple in his eyes.

When now descends into his heart, He finds Thee there; thou livest in him. He can not weep or love apart, 'Tis God alone, wills every whim.

The highest aim of human thought, The grandest rôle as played by man, To prove Thou dost exist, be taught Thy name, O everlasting One.

Whatever name Thou mayest be called, Jesus, or Jupiter, Brahma, Or Truth Eternal, thus extolled, Toward Thee all arms are stretched, Allah!

The latest of the sons of earth Will give thee thanks, from grateful heart, When misery is turned to mirth, And happiness appears in part.

The whole world gives Thee glory, praise. The bird sings sweetly on its nest; To Thee, for rain of rainy days, A thousand anthems are addressed.

Thy every act astounds our gaze, Nor ray of love divine is lost, No soul so vile, Thou canst not raise, For this we kneel upon the dust.

Why, then, O Master, so supreme, Hast Thou created evil great? That reason, virtue, in its gleam, On seeing it, affrighted wait!

When all the splendid things of earth Proclaim Thy attributes divine, Bear witness to a father’s worth, Love, strength and goodness will combine.

Then how in view of heaven’s sight, Are acts so full of hideous hate, That prayer will die, unhappy plight! On lips of the unfortunate?

Why, in Thy heavenly work of love, Should discord draw unhappy breath? What is it crime and pest may prove? Just God! Why should we suffer death?

Thy pity must have been profound When, with its blessings and its ills, This world with love and horror crowned, Came forth from chaos! Sadness fills

My heart, to think Thou didst submit Thy sons to torture! Can Thy sight Find pleasure in the burning pit? Thy power for good is infinite.

Why shall the misery of earth Conceive of, and divine, a God? Doubt has despoiled our heavenly birth. In place of Thee, we feel the rod.

If these, Thy creatures, are so base, Unworthy of approaching Thee, In nature Thou shouldst leave no trace By which Thou might discovered be.

Thy power would remain no less, And we still feel its heavy blow; But rest and ignorance, we confess, Would make our ills more mild, we,know.

If suffering, and prayer, and praise, Move not thy glorious majesty, Preserve Thy grandeur from our gaze; In Space’s dread immensity.

But if our mortal anguish touch Thy heart with pity, if Thine ear Amid the heavenly songs, be such As can our direst moaning hear,

Shatter that canopy of space That hides our eager quest of Theee. Tear down the veil that mars thy grace, And show thyself, most amiably.

Then wilt Thou see on earth a flame Of firmest faith and burning love. All earth will then adore Thy name, As do the heavenly hosts above.

The years which have exhausted it, The burning tears that dimmed its eyes, Like dew beneath the sun shall flit, And earth will be one paradise.

Then Thou will hear hosannas sung In concerts of celestial joy, Like heavenly music heard among The courts of heaven, which saints enjoy.

Our chants would sound o'er land and sea, And Pain and Hate would howling fly, And Doubt and Blasphemy would flee, And Death itself, at last, would die.

[doloresourladyofpain-blog]

Let’s get the maudlin out of the way.

Part One of How I Got To Be This Way

I grew up in a very religious, insular community. I was kept socially sequestered from the secular world, religious schools and summer camps and after school programs. I was in all-girls schools until I was 15. I was luckier than some girls I knew though, because I was allowed some books, music, and internet access. I never believed in God, maybe a result in an early onset of depression and anxiety (somewhere around nine or ten years old) that hasn’t relented. Since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to follow the strict path religion had set out for me, I’ve been pretty agnostic about my personal morals ever since. I cannot be good and do right, it isn’t in me. And if this is so, then there seems, still, to be nothing quite stopping me from doing exactly as I please. My teenage years were marked with elaborate suicidal fantasies. I never planned to reach adulthood or if I did, I assumed I would have to become a different person to do it. I was trying to keep myself on ice, in stasis, so the daily miseries of adolescence in a world I didn’t belong wouldn’t reach me. During the daylight, I listened to bad music and ignored boys altogether. By night, I read dark novels and fanfiction where the heroes all get seduced and thoroughly fucked by the villains. I touched myself every night, with distinct visions in my head of sexual torture. I wanted to be taken away by some dark, older man who would force me into objectification. He would subject my body and mind to unimaginable horror. I would enjoy it, sublimate myself in it, eventually lose myself entirely. My earliest sexual fantasies involved being killed and eaten. 

Then there was the cutting. Like many teenagers of my generation, I struggled with this habit for a few years. There are a thousand reasons why we would get into this, but for me it was the way the pain made me stop thinking. Thinking is half a torture for me, always. I have no discipline and too many thoughts. My mind runs in a thousand different directions and loses reason quickly. I could keep it in some order for school, but anything else was a struggle, until I started cutting. Since I was interested only in this pain and was terrified of discovery, I would use a safety pin, making about one shallow, ragged cut per session by dragging it over once spot, over and over, carving a little rut into my skin. The pain would slowly build, starting as a little sting, washing over me in increasing waves of white and red, building to a dark, velvety pulse. Afterwards, I would get into bed, masturbate, and fall asleep. Though it’s nearly entirely faded, in the right light, I can still read the white scar of words “I’m so sorry,” where I cut them on to my upper thigh.

The first time I was properly flogged, the man who did it would keep this exact pattern. The slow build up, the steady rhythm across my skin, over and over. The darkness washing over me until all I was and all I had was the pain. The slap of leather was a kindness greater than any I had previously known.

But that was a few years in the future yet. First, I had to leave the community in which I grew up and get to college, far away from my family and living on campus. That was when I met Jennifer.

I think of Jenn and it is still just like Plath said, “I think I made you up inside my head.” It was dreamlike, to find her, someone so perfect, so perfectly like myself it was almost a horror. As if I was looking into a mirror, as if I could open my mouth, and she would speak instead. We looked nearly identical, with dark eyes and golden brown hair down past our hips. We came from the same religious group, wished desperately to please parents who couldn’t be pleased. We each dressed a little ridiculously, trying to be goths, princesses, warriors, fairies, whores, and ordinary teenagers all at once. We were both 17 and twisted as sin itself. 

As soon as we met, we could not be separated. Day and night we shared our favorite books, music, films, our strangest thoughts and darkest desires and found them reflected in each other, down to the cutting scars. The difference, I suppose, was that Jenn was wilder than I was and more vulnerable. More prone to making bad decisions, but they were the bad decisions I had always wished I could make. I was committed immediately to join her in this, to come along for the ride. To talk to the strangers that she met on the internet, to wear skirts that flashed our pussies when we sat down in psych lectures (both of us hated to wear underwear), to play imagination games like we were children again, where she was the serial killer and I was the victim. (”Aw, kitten,” I can still hear her giggle, “Do you like my knife?”)

Jenn, had in the two weeks since we started college, met Ian. Ian was terrible, just fucking terrible. He had bad skin and wouldn’t wear enough deodorant and considered himself a black hat hacker in a group he met on 4chan. But he was tall, with cheek bones like knives and eyes like ice, and a cock that still makes me weep to think of it. Jenn was fucking Ian, and she had to share that with me too. This was my first kiss. We established immediately how this would work: we would all date each other, girlfriend and girlfriend and boyfriend. Jenn and I would be Ian’s subs, his slaves. This was all perfectly natural, exactly as it ought to be. Our friends were all weirdos, impossibly nerdy and strange, so none of them really questioned it.

(Well, alright, the boys would question it, breathlessly, eyes wide. And I would go into details, just to watch the sweat bead on their face, their pupils dilate. to hear them stutter through their next question. This kind of power, unlike most others, tastes sweet to me, rich and warm and sweet. Why do you think I’m writing this blog?)

This began the best months of my life. Under Jenn and Ian’s tutelage, I grew into myself rapidly. My grades were near perfect, I made friends easily. I went out on the weekends, I joined student groups and took on new responsibilities. It was the sessions in Ian’s dorm room, I believe, that facilitated all this.

I had trouble losing my virginity. My hymen was very difficult o . Ian and I would try weekly, to immense amounts of blood and pain and little success. He would pass me to Jenn, watch her soothe me, pet my hair and kiss my forehead and then dip her fingers into my bloody pussy. She was fearless and bold, rubbing and pushing, and getting me wet all over, staining me red from my thighs to my stomach. We would turn back to Ian, to his hard, heavy cock. We were small and he was large and he could accommodate both us kneeling between his spread legs. We would lose ourselves in this animal exploration of his cock with our mouths. Like kittens, licking and sucking, running up and down from the slit to the balls. Our tongues would meet at the head to swirl together, dripping drool everywhere. I learned the savage triumph of feeling the blood surge up inside a cock under my lips. 

I belonged there, right there. I was exactly where I was meant to be. Jenn guiding me into worshipping Ian. Her hand gentle at my side, his hand hard at my throat. He had me kneel on the floor and watch him fuck her, bend her over and pound her from behind while she purred and keened.

Jenn and I, we pushed this to its limits. We brought new toys into play nearly daily, now candle wax, now ropes, now ice. Our favorite was knives. She had one of those rainbow finish titanium knives that you can buy for cheap at a Renaissance Faire pre-dulled. An amateur’s knife. We loved it. She used it on me just like I used to use the safety pin. She’d saw the edge back and forth on my thighs until the tip of the knife would catch on something and then she’d push it deeper, widen the cut, bring up the blood. She carved Ian’s name on my back.

Once when I lay my head in her lap, she read to me the following passage from one of my favorite books, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla:

“Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”

I felt all my insides turn to liquid, melt like her wicked candle wax. I looked up at her and she smiled at me, so kind and young, so ancient and cruel. I thought I had passed into another world with her, a dark home that had been waiting for us all our lives. A door had been unlocked when we first kissed to this new, better place.

She held me on her lap while we read about gruesome sexual murder cases. We shopped for panties and candy. We took positions together on the boards of campus associations, studied and aced our classes together. God, I have never been with someone that way, before or since. We were one soul in two bodies and once we were reunited there was nothing we couldn’t do. She was my first and I regret always how I squandered her. How was I to know how rare it was to find someone like that? We had fallen into each other. I was innocent and I was stupid. I didn’t know that people spend their whole live searching for what we had.

Ian and I spent time by ourselves, certainly, under a very different dynamic, nearly combative. Never had two people been so ill suited in personality and so wildly attracted to each other. Once, he tied me to his bed to stop me from going to a student group meeting. I used the rough edges of my front teeth to saw the through the binding, while he watched, wondering if I would be able to do it. When I did, he pinned me all over again and tied me tighter. I wanted to give myself over entirely to his rule. He took me into his control without asking, like I was his by right. He gave me instructions and commands so casually. I was his before I knew what had happened.

He finally fucked me properly nearly three months after we began trying. It was finals, I had been up all night, and in the early dawn, he pushed himself into me, fully and entirely. While I am not of those romantics who believe that there’s necessarily significance to one’s first time, this was something special. Not for who it was with, but because of who I am. I’m a cock whore and this was the first time I’d taken a cock in me. He didn’t use condoms and I learned what it was like to be owned from the inside out. Ian was too big for me and I cried from the pain, but I’d never been wetter in my life. I’m sure the noises I made were loud enough to wake half his building. I writhed and kicked and shuddered. I screamed, called him Master, swore I’d do anything for him, called for God, begged for more. It was beginning of an obsession. For all the darkness I had in me, this is where it really began. Because it turns out that I’m a slut, really and truly. I love to get fucked by a good hard cock - I want it nearly all the time, whether I’m consciously thinking about it or not.

Ian awakened this in me, saw it immediately for what it was. I was lost, from there on in. He, the nasty boy, knew it and used this shamelessly to his advantage. He could subjugate me without words, without even trying. If I knew he’d fuck me, I’d let him do anything else to get there. It was then that he introduced me to his own obsession: the steel boned corset. I bought one for myself because I have deep love for Victorian novels and period romances. And of course, because he asked me to. The first night he laced me into it, he immediately fucked me. He told me he wanted me in it every time he saw me. I went one further - started wearing it for 6 hours daily, to train my waist. I couldn’t eat with it on and I began to develop acid reflux, but every time he saw me in it he’s bend me over his bed and fill me with that huge cock from behind. While he pounded into me, he’d spank my ass over and over, pull at my hair, make me beg him for it, then reach around and finger my clit until I came screaming. This before saying hello to me. By the time I had reduced my waist to close the corset entirely, he had instilled a Pavlovian response. To this day, when I lace into a corset, my pussy throbs with need. When I’m laced into one, I'm immediately halfway to subspace, regardless of what’s happening around me.

Subspace: that infinite, floating space in my mind, better than any high. It is the emptiness that waits to be filled with infinite patience. It lends me the resilience to endure anything asked of me. I am stone and water in that place, ocean and mountain. There is so much power there I feel as like a God when I remember that I contain that. It’s mystical to me, that another can awaken in me the exact qualities I need to be theirs. I daydream about the quiet of it.

Ian liked Emily and I to be as sluttish as possible. It says everything about his level of sophistication. Here he has to elegant young ladies as his own and when they ask him how they should dress to please him, he insists that we go as truck stop hookers. I know that this has its own function, the humiliation of wearing something like that. I can’t say I don’t still get off thinking of the shame of the things he had me wear. But he wasn’t thinking that far ahead. To him, this was the height of attractive clothing for women: a tank that showed half my tits, a corset, a miniskirt, no underwear, a pair of heels. He had the two of us walking in broad daylight like that, constantly. He had no class, but I was a good girl, and I was a perfect whore for him. And when the two of us were out in our Ian’s Whores outfits, with our long hair, sweet smiles, and our asses and tits nearly out of our clothes, the reactions we received were priceless. Our reputations on campus were legendary - let alone what happened when he took us to parties. He liked to give us quotas - when had to dance with a certain number of men, make out with another number of them, all while wearing his matching collars.

This was perfect to me: bent to another’s will, embodying his fantasy, I was more free and powerful, more myself, than I ever dreamed I could be. And while all this fell apart under our the pressures of our various neuroses (as it inevitably would), it has set the tone for me since.