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whump-tr0pes · 3 months ago

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Relief

Many thanks to @newbornwhumperfly for being so generous in letting me put their boy Morja in Situations, and many apologies to them as well for holding onto this story for so many months while waiting for me to finish it.

My masterlist

Morja is a diathésimos, one of a class of indentured servants owned by society’s elite - though some would call them slaves. He has been tasked with a mission of critical importance by his anóteros: to infiltrate a dangerous family that has taken refuge in the north, and kill the criminal that they are harboring: Gavin Stormbeck.

“It is your part to kill me, mine to die without flinching.”

— Epictetus, from Discourses (Translated by Robert Dobbin)

Contents: nightmare, [captivity, beating, gaslighting, forced to hurt someone, torture, flaying, so much blood, begging, death] all in a nightmare, collared whumpee, conditioned whumpee, past murder, PTSD, emeto, comfort, flashbacks, permanent injury, chronic pain, misunderstanding whump, recovery

Morja instantly knew where he was; the peeling paint on the walls, the barred door, and the cold blue lights overhead told him everywhere he needed to know. He was back in his cell room, back in Crayton. He was back where he belonged.

There was an addition to the room, and the room seemed to have grown to accommodate it: a large metal table with leather cuffs at the top and bottom. Morja shuddered as he looked at it. He knew exactly what it was for. He had been on one himself, more than once. He wondered if his anóteros meant for him to climb onto it.

Before the lack of answer could worry him, there was a sound behind him. Boots. A voice.

“Hello, my diathésimos,” his owner benefactor said. A steady hand slid up the back of his neck, over his collar, and knotted in his hair. He dropped to his knees in an instant.

“Anóteros,” he said, his lips trembling. His hands settled in his lap and he tilted his head back, baring his throat. He was where he belonged at last - but his eyes burned, and his mouth was dry. He couldn’t explain it. He belonged at his anóteros’ feet, did he not? He had never known another home than this.

No, there was another place, where he had a bed, not a cot - where there were no bars on the door, and there were windows that opened to the outside–

A blow snapped his head to the side. He accepted it without a gasp. His right ear rang.

“Where did you just go, Morja?” the mayor said, his voice low and smooth. Morja knew better, though - he could hear the threat beneath the words.

He answered honestly. He must always be honest.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and waited for the correction.

Another blow whipped across his face, splitting his lip. Blood began to trickle down his chin. It itched. He did not lift his hand to wipe it. When it dripped on his wrists, then the floor, he knew he would need to clean it after this.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been anywhere but this,” his anóteros said conversationally. “Other than when you are serving me on my missions, of course.”

An image flashed behind Morja’s closed eyes: a breakfast table, laden with eggs, bacon, toast.

“Yes, anóteros,” he breathed.

“Open your eyes, Morja,” the mayor said.

Morja obeyed.

He barely caught his gasp when he realized there was someone lying on the table now: Sam, the youngest of the family that was harboring Gavin Uriah Stormbeck. He remembered where that room was now: in that family’s house.

Their wrists and ankles were strapped down to the table. With the table at eye level, he could see how tightly the restraints were buckled, the leather digging into their flesh. They trembled and stared back at him in terror, their mouth open but silent.

Morja’s owner benefactor drew the knife from his belt and held it out in front of Morja’s face. Morja held perfectly still, prepared for the knife to carve into his own cheek - but the knife hovered there, the blade between him and Sam. He could see himself reflected in the wickedly sharp steel.

“This one was captured harboring Gavin Stormbeck,” the mayor said coldly. “It is your job to punish them for this crime.”

Morja’s throat tightened as he swallowed. His hands shook and he forced him to be still against his thighs. “Punish them… sir?” he croaked.

“Yes,” his anóteros said. “Gavin Stormbeck is a scourge upon this world, and they have actively worked to prolong his reign of terror. There must be punishment for this. You will deliver it.” The mayor flipped the knife so he was holding the blade, gesturing with the grip toward Sam. “Now, diathésimos,” he hissed.

Morja’s legs shook under him as he pushed himself to his feet. Sam met his eyes, and their eyes went wider as Morja took the knife from the mayor. His anóteros stepped behind him as he moved forward, as if in a trance, until his legs pressed against the table. The knife trembled in his grip.

He forced his mind to go cold and blank - like it so often did before the kill - as he brought the knife to Sam Vasterling’s sleeve. He made quick work of slashing it away from their arm until it was bare, the thin muscles rippling and tugging beneath the skin as they struggled to free themself. Then, as he blew out a slow breath through his lips, he brought the knife to their forearm.

“Morja, please,” Sam begged.

The knife froze over Sam’s skin. Morja met their eyes. They looked so frightened, so young, strapped down to the table and pleading for their life.

But Morja had killed younger people than them. And he had never spared anyone just because they begged him to. He forced down the bile that clawed up his throat, and slid the knife into Sam’s forearm down to the muscle.

Sam screamed. They made no effort to bite it back. Tears welled in their eyes and streamed back over their temples. Morja carved into their arm again, staying within the first few layers of skin, fat, and muscle - avoiding the arteries. He could see the play of their muscles in the gash as they fought the restraints. Again, he cut, and veins stood out in their neck as they screamed.

He had seen his anóteros hurt people like this. He knew, now, how very effective it was.

After he had sliced their arm to ribbons, he cut away the rest of their shirt. He avoided touching their skin as much as he could, as if one touch would burn him. They looked at him, trying to meet his eyes, desperate, writhing against the leather cuffs. He looked away.

“Please, no, no, no!” Sam shrieked as Morja sliced through the thin skin over their breastbone. They shuddered and writhed, tears streaming, wrists twisting in the restraints. Morja’s shirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands shook as he gripped the knife. He cut again, and again, and again. Blood pooled in the hollows of Sam’s body. It rolled down their sides and onto the table, then dripped onto the floor. The entire room smelled thick with blood.

And behind him, his anóteros stood silent as a sentinel. He chewed his lip and continued cutting Sam to pieces. They screamed and sobbed. The handle of the knife was slippery with sweat.

“Isaac!” Sam screamed, finally squeezing their eyes shut and turning their face away from Morja. “Isaac, h-help me!”

Morja shuddered. The knife froze above Sam, dripping blood onto their skin.

Sam whimpered and cringed away from Morja. “I-Isaac,” they sobbed. “Please…”

“Continue,” Morja’s anóteros hissed from behind him. A chill feathered down Morja’s spine as he squeezed his eyes shut.

His hand tightened around the knife. The smell of blood was making him sick. Sam was barely more than a child, and Morja felt - he felt, he knew - they had nothing to do with the evil his owner benefactor was claiming. But if he could make them scream loud enough that Isaac heard them…

If Isaac Moore came, he could force Morja to stop this.

He brought the knife to patch of unbroken skin over Sam’s stomach and dug the blade in. Sam screamed anew.

He fileted them open, carving into them with a cruelty he had only seen his anóteros reserve for the most depraved traitors of the North. He flayed them alive until his hands were soaked with their blood. They screamed and screamed until their voice went raw and began to fade. Still, he cut. Still, he carved. He slipped on the blood pooling on the floor. Everything was red. He was drowning in it. And still, Isaac Moore did not come and rip the knife from his hands, strike him down, shoot him dead.

Still, he carved.

Sam Vasterling screamed.

“Keep going, diathésimos,” the mayor said. “Remember, this is the fate that awaits all who harbor traitors to the North. They are guilty. They deserve this.”

The small body on the table juddered and bled and screamed. They barely looked human anymore. Still, they did not die. More blood had come out of them than Morja had ever seen in his life. Still they did not die. They only screamed and bled.

Morja’s shirt was soaked with sweat. He stared down into Sam’s chest, at their beating heart. He had carved away everything else. Still, they lived, and cried, and bled.

“Isaac,” they rasped. “Isaac, please…”

Bile seared the back of his throat.

They raised their eyes to his. Their eyes were bloodshot, red from crying, but they were brown, he noticed. They looked so frightened. “Morja,” they breathed. “Help me.”

Morja stared back at them for an eternal moment. Tears streamed from their eyes.

He raised the knife and plunged it into their exposed heart. They shuddered once, then their head fell back. Their eyes were blank, their mouth open. They were - finally, mercifully - dead.

Morja braced for the correction.

His anóteros said nothing for a breath. Then, the mayor said, “No matter. You still have the rest of that family to get through.”

Morja opened his eyes.

His room was pitch black, and the sheets on his bed were soaked through with cold sweat. He could still smell blood thick in his nostrils.

He staggered out of bed and fumbled for the doorknob. When he found it, he wrenched the door open and dashed down the dimly-lit hall and into the kitchen. He threw open the sliding door to the backyard and made it a few shaky steps before he fell to his hands and knees, retching into the grass. When he was done, he slumped over and sobbed weakly.

He still felt the youngest one’s blood on his hands, tacky and warm. He still smelled it. He still heard their screams. He still felt his anóteros’ hand on the back of his neck.

“Morja?” a small voice called out behind him.

He gasped and spun around. Sam Vasterling stood in the sliding door, silhouetted by the light in the kitchen. The golden light illuminated their curls like a halo. They took a halting step out of the house. Their hand was extended towards him. “Are… you alright?”

Morja blinked. In the fraction of a second that his eyes were closed, he saw them - bound to the table, coated in blood, flayed and screaming and begging for mercy. His stomach heaved again. He bowed his head in shame and horror.

Sam drew closer. They were so young, but they showed no fear as they went to their knees and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Morja wasn’t sure if they didn’t know that he could break their neck with just his hands, could drag them inside and cut their throat with a kitchen knife… or if they knew, and chose to master the fear. He trembled, but held still as their hand rubbed up and down on his arm. The touch was gentle, so unlike–

He flinched at the memory - it was just a dream, but he had so many real memories of it, too - of his anóteros’ hand whipping across his face. Sam’s hand paused on his shoulder. “Is this… is it okay that I’m doing this?” they whispered.

A chasm opened inside Morja’s chest. His face crumpled and he began to weep.

He leaned against Sam, bending his head so low that it rested in their lap. Their hand rested on his shoulder again. He reached out, his own hand shaking badly, and covered their hand with his own. His broad hand swallowed theirs.

“Shhh,” Sam soothed. “I’m sorry, was it… a nightmare?”

Morja shuddered with shame. He pressed his head against their knee and nodded.

Sam pushed out a slow breath. “Gotcha. I… I get them too, sometimes.”

Morja blinked and tightened his hand over theirs. The thought of them waking, cold and shuddering, from a nightmare, made his chest ache. He rolled his shoulder to ease the old twinge there.

“I get them less now,” Sam said, stroking their thumb along his arm. “But they still happen from time to time. About… our time in Colleen Stormbeck’s house. I… I get a lot of nightmares about getting shot.”

Morja’s eyes went wide, and he sat up. His eyes darted over Sam, looking for a scar - and his eyes finally settled on their right hand, the one they always held curled against their stomach.

Sam followed their gaze and nodded. “Yeah,” they murmured. “It was a few years ago now. I was shot by a Stormbeck guard as we were escaping Colleen.” They smiled. “Finn saved my life.”

“Does it hurt?” Morja asked, before he could stop himself. He looked at his hands and bowed his head for his impertinence.

Sam didn’t deliver a correction, though; they said, “Sometimes. Well… pretty often, yeah. It twinges. Sometimes I need to wear a sling.” They shrugged. “But it’s gotten better as time has gone on.”

Morja’s own shoulder twinged again, and he rolled it in its socket.

Sam inclined their head. “You hurt, too?”

Morja’s mouth went dry. “I… no. Nothing so bad as… no.”

Sam looked at him for a long time. Then they said, “Gray says comparing things doesn’t do anyone any good.” They glanced out into the night.

Morja stared down at his hands. His mind churned as he tried to decipher the meaning in Sam’s words. Slowly, he said, “My… shoulder. It hurts. Often.” He pointed to it stiffly.

“Don’t complain, diathésimos, or I will teach you the true meaning of pain. Back up on your knees, or I’ll string you up by your collar. Five more lashes for your impertinence.”

He shuddered and waited for the correction, or the promise of one.

Sam nodded. “Yeah,” they said. They looked toward the house. “I’ll be right back.” They pushed themself to their feet and made their way inside to fetch a cane, or perhaps a whip, to punish Morja for the complaint.

His head dipped low and his stomach churned with guilt and shame - and a flash of something else, something he could not allow himself to name. Something that felt dangerous to feel. Something that rankled for having been guided right into that trap.

Still, he should have known better. He had a lifetime of pain, telling him that he should have known better. His hands curled into fists as he waited for Sam to return. When he heard their footsteps at the back door, and then the swoosh of their feet through the grass, he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth together. He must be silent when accepting this correction. He must not wake anyone in the sleeping house with a gasp or a cry.

He had earned Sam’s disgust with his weakness. He must not make a sound, now.

Sam went to their knees beside him, and he held perfectly still - save for his hands, which he slid together, palm to palm, so they could tie him.

“Here,” they said softly.

He held back a whimper. Perhaps they had not returned with a cane at all, but something worse - like a knife. He forced his eyes open. Their hand was moving toward his shoulder - the bad one. He froze. He braced.

Something warm pressed against the knot that always lived in the flesh there. He flinched and uttered a shocked sound.

“Sorry,” Sam muttered. “Is it too hot still?”

Morja turned his eyes to theirs. Their eyebrows were tugged together, holding something out to him - a warm compress. They had another one, balanced on their injured hand. “Here,” they said, holding one out to him. “The heat… it helps, sometimes. With me. Maybe it might with you, too.”

Morja stared at the compress with wide eyes. Sam held it a little higher, and he finally took it. Heat soaked into his finger tips. Sam took their own compress in their good hand and pressed it to their injured arm, over their bicep. They took a deep, shivering breath and let their eyes fall shut.

Morja’s back ached in thwarted anticipation of the cane. He glanced at the compress in his hand, then back to Sam; their face wasn’t twisted in disgust - not at him, nor at anything else that he could see. They were smiling lightly. And they were using the compress. Haltingly, hesitantly, he pressed it to his own shoulder like Sam had done for him.

Heat bloomed in the knotted muscles and he let out a trapped breath. His eyes burned with unshed tears. He slumped a little to the side - a little closer to Sam. They opened their eyes and smiled at him.

“Nice, huh?” they said.

Morja’s throat tightened. His head hung low. A dry sob shivered in his chest.

Sam raised their curled hand and rested it on his shoulder. They slid it across his back, over the healed scars. Morja’s head dipped lower, lower still, until he was folded in half over his knees. He cried softly as Sam rubbed his back, not saying anything at all.

Continued here

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sapphireginger · 1 year ago

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Paw Patrol: Chapter #12

Summary:

“I never knew my family. My pride was wiped out when I was barely a year old. I was just a cub when I lost everything. It’s not the same but, like Cora, I had an uncle take me in. He was a stern man, cold to most, but then he took me in, and he softened up. No one knew a cub had survived from that pride and so no one came looking for me. I was safe with my Uncle Dubeaux. “For sixteen years, I knew nothing but safety though I was still haunted by nightmares and my matka’s death meant that her magic was passed down to me. It ignited one day by pure instinct. It was the day I met my future wife and mate. Her name was Naomi. Her eyes were like emeralds, her hair black like the feathers of a raven and her smile just stole my breath away. She was it for me.”

AO3 Link

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: Fantastic Racism (Speciesism)

Peter felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but he stood frozen, getting more anxious the longer Stiles was silent. Just as the wolf went to open his mouth and say something, though he had no idea what that something would be, Stiles spoke up.

“For sixteen years, I knew nothing but safety though I was still haunted by nightmares and my matka’s death meant that her magic was passed down to me. It ignited one day by pure instinct. It was the day I met my future wife and mate. Her name was Naomi. Her eyes were like emeralds, her hair black like the feathers of a raven and her smile just stole my breath away. She was it for me.”

Stiles swallowed thickly and pushed on as they kept walking, though their pace was much slower now. “I-I called her Nomi. She was everything I had ever wanted, and we bonded instantly. Her pride had been targeted too and she was rescued by my uncle’s sister’s pack. She and I were the only two felines though. Strange I guess but true, nonetheless.

“When we turned nineteen, after receiving the blessings of the alpha’s, we began courting and then at the age of twenty, we mated. I never knew such happiness existed. Of course, I had the pack, but she was mine. She was my family and together we began planning our future.

“It wasn’t easy of course, very few things worth having come easily but we fought for what we wanted and in time by the age of twenty-two, we were ready. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to my uncle and his sister, but it was time. Wolves remain in their packs but tigers? Well, we don’t. We’re much more exclusive and particular, very rarely seeking out those who are not like us.

“There was a beautiful preserve, a three day journey from our former home and we made the trek together. Once we arrived, we started building our home from the ground up. After that we built our den. It was a close call that winter as we almost didn’t have it ready in time but when she began to nest…” Stiles trailed off, the scent of joy sharply cut with grief engulfing Peter’s senses.

“Nomi told me she was expecting our first cub. We only learned upon hearing a second heartbeat that we were expecting twins. We would lie awake at night, stargazing while discussing names. She had always loved The Chronicles of Narnia and wanted to name a boy Caspian. She admired my cleverness and chose Reynard should we have more than one boy since Reynard means fox.

“I loved both names, only adding in a suggestion that we use Noah for a middle name should we have a boy and use Claudia for a middle name if we had a girl. Both names were ones she loved as well, and she of course knew what they meant to me. I still remember the scents of my mother and father.”

Stiles closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. “My mother’s scent was a mixture of violets, lavender, cinnamon and petrichor. My father’s scent was earthy like the ground after a storm, sweet like honeysuckle and burning birch wood and had an overwhelming layer of strawberries. I’ll never forget their scents. It’s comforting to me even after all these years.”

For a moment Stiles seemed to sway as though he may fall but Peter caught his elbow to steady him, and Stiles gave a whispered thanks, guiding them to a smooth rock, overlooking the waterfall at the river’s end. This next part was the hardest.

“When the twins were born it was the happiest day of my life and I knew my wife felt the same.” He fiddled with a chain around his neck on which sat three rings, but Peter couldn’t tell what they looked like as Stiles clutched them tightly as if to give him strength to keep going.

“We named our son Reynard Noah Stilinski and named our daughter Caspiana Claudia Stilinski. Nomi was in love with them from the moment she knew she was expecting but she fell even more in love with them when she held them for the first time. We brought them to see their uncle and aunt when they were six months old.

“My Uncle Dubeaux was smitten with little Cas and though she was usually shy and a total daddy’s girl, she loved him. Reyn was more outgoing, and his sister followed his lead. We spent the full moon with them and then made the trek back, promising to visit again after the winter passed.”

Stiles pulled his knees to his chest resting his chin on them and continued, his voice softer and full of barely disguised emotion before he shut that part off. If he let himself feel, he would never get through it.

“We never returned. A few weeks later we learned that the two packs had been slaughtered by rogue hunters and caught wind of them heading further north. We thought we were safe further south, but we weren’t. Nomi had insisted the twins needed bonding time with their daddy and she would gladly take over the hunt. I never should’ve let her go but when Nomi made up her mind about something well, she was even more stubborn than me. It was one of the things I loved about her, that she could go toe to toe with me.

“One moment I was watching my cubs learn to roll over and start to crawl and the next I let out a roar full of grief as I felt my mating bond snap. I knew at that moment Nomi was gone. It was like I died too in a way when our bond was severed. Time stood still and then I smelled smoke. I was heartbroken but the cubs were whimpering, and I had to keep them safe. I scooped them up by their scruffs and darted into the underground den just in time. I hushed them, using some magic to make them sleep as I watched the men, the men who murdered my mate, stalk into our clearing.

“I could smell her blood on their hands, could smell the poison and had to lie there listening to them brag about their successful hunt. It was sick to hear them gloat, but the worst part was seeing a teenager at the center of attention. They killed my mate for a coming of age ritual and celebrated long into the night. I heard it all, every cheer, every laugh, every bigot and speciest slur. All the while I was tending to my one year old cubs in a secluded den that would never again bear witness to the most beautiful soul to ever live.”

Stiles shuddered, ignoring the tears on his cheeks as he subtly dug one shifted claw into his arm to ground himself. “W-We couldn’t stay there, and I had to leave everything behind. The only thing I couldn’t part with was our rings and the two small quilts Nomi had sewn for the twins.

“Once more it was me against the world but this time, I had the cubs to think about. I had once heard of a haven and tried to make my way there. I was a day away at most when I smelled smoke and heard gunfire. I froze and I would’ve died if not for another were and his mate.” Stiles smiled slightly. “You met one of the two at the bar. Theo was at their den, but Jackson found me and urged me into hiding.”

Peter was slack jawed at the information. Letting an unknown shifter into your den was serious and he didn’t know whether to think this Jackson person foolish or very brave.

Stiles seemed to guess his train of thought. “He wasn’t suicidal, but I sure thought him insane. There I was, a fully shifted tiger and he didn’t bat an eye or hesitate to offer me refuge. We stayed with him and Theo until the twins were five years old and then we reached the haven and were offered sanctuary here in Beacon City. It’s where I’ve been ever since.”

For a moment, Peter was silent, both men absorbing everything the other had shared and then the wolf asked, “She was killed with poison wasn’t she.”

It was less of a question really and Stiles could only nod once. “Yes. It was a cocktail mix of wolfsbane, foxglove and catnip. They didn’t care to know exactly what being they were going after; they just wanted the beast dead. So, when you offered me the very thing that killed my mate, I was terrified, angry and so hurt. I loved you and wanted desperately to accept your court, having been waiting for it but then…” he trailed off.

Peter nodded, swallowing the words he wanted to say, the questions he wanted to ask and softly voiced only one. “Loved?”

Stiles flicked his gaze to meet the wolf’s intense but open expression. “Love.”

“Love as in present tense?”

A subtle nod was Stiles’s response as he subconsciously turned his body to face Peter. “Yes.”

Slowly Peter leaned closer to rest their foreheads together and shuddered. “Oh, Stiles,” he whispered.

Stiles too shuddered, his heart in his throat. “I know but I’m broken, Peter Wolf. I’m damaged and broken and a fucked up mess, sometimes failing as a father. I can’t burden you with that.”

Shaking his head Peter cupped the amber eyed man’s face and gave him a serious look. “As am I. Does that make me undesirable?”

“No,” Stiles negated softly. “As odd as it may sound, it makes you more desirable to me.” He huffed a bitter laugh. “We’re both hot messes, aren’t we?”

Peter echoed the huff of laughter and shrugged, placing a kiss on Stiles’s forehead. “Maybe but who better to love and call our own than someone who knows us down to our very soul and loves us regardless. We may be broken and bear both grief and darkness in our pasts, but we understand each other better than anyone else ever could.”

“Are you sure this is what you want, that I-I’m what you want?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Are you sure?”

Stiles exhaled heavily and nodded. “Yes, but I-I need—I can’t just—I know it’s a lot to ask but please can we go slow?”

Peter nodded and felt relieved. “Yes. I would prefer we go slow. I don’t want to rush this when it feels like fate.”

“Fate?”

“Mhm. You love her and I will never ask you not to, but I’d like to think I can make you happy and love you too if your heart has room for me and for Nia.”

“It does. Can you love my cubs too?”

Peter smiled. “Already love them as much as my own.”

“As do I. Nia is such a sweetheart.”

“Your kids are as well.”

Stiles smiled and met Peter’s gaze. “For two messed up, broken people we have been good daddies, haven’t we?”

Peter nodded, returning Stiles’s smile with one of his own. “The best.”

“Thank you for opening up to me.”

“Thank you for being vulnerable.”

“You’re welcome,” they said simultaneously, laughing softly and then slowly they brushed their lips together.

It was soft, barely a grazing of their lips but it was enough, and it was a promise.

They remained close to each other as the sun continued its journey across the sky until it began to set, and they knew they had to return home. When they reached their cars, they paused and held each other's hand for a moment longer. Peter squeezed Stiles’s hand and mouthed, ‘I love you.’

Stiles blushed and smiled softly as he mouthed back, ‘And I love you.’

The two hopeful mates left their meeting place and went to see their kids. Both needed time to think things over before moving forward and both needed to talk to their kids. Despite the heaviness of the day and the tension they had felt, both Stiles and Peter felt lighter, and they knew this was just the beginning.

#bad things happen bingo #bad things happen #square filled: fantastic racism (speciesism)#steter #steter mini bang 2023 #steter bang 2023 #stiles stilinski #peter hale #past character death #past murder #death of a mate #injury #poison

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savebatsfromscratch · 8 months ago

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We beat a hasty retreat from his lair. (Curtains fanfiction.)

Summary:

Harv gets accused of killing Jessica, but the information provided seemed to point to a different villain in the room.

Notes:

Yeah yeah, this is the basic thing to do. The detective is the villain!!!1! How cringe!1!! I get him though. Also these designs don’t look like the “official” actors, don’t worry about it. This possessed me. I was trying to write Pokemon fic and this happened. (Song title from Unpack Your Adjectives, Schoolhouse Rock.) Cws: Canon typical disrespect of dead people, Different Killer, Police Corruption, Past Murder, Murder Investigation, Homophobia, swearing Words: 2,039

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54855373

Harv peaked into the door, watching as Cioffi sorted through papers at the desk that had been set up for him at the start of his investigation. The large man, his hair a wild mane of brown that did not fit his distinguished title, had been all but buried in the new proof that Niki had scrounged up for him. Harv, still not noticed, frowned. He couldn't help but think that Cioffi's behavior around Niki was somewhat suspicious, and even if he hadn't already thought that thought, the bored look in the detective's eyes would have been enough for him.

Despite calling Harv down to be questioned, Cioffi was paying absolutely zero attention to him. He had been called down rather personally, mind you, for whatever reason the questioning downstairs with the other officer, Harv had forgotten her name, had not done the trick. But if it was the case that he had been suspicious for whatever reason, why was Cioffi so unfocused on the world around him? He seemed all but entirely unbothered by the violence that he was currently standing knee deep in.

If Harv was a detective, he might have found that suspicious.

Harv knocked quietly on the open door, causing Cioffi to jump in surprise and frantically reach towards his holster. He quickly spotted Harv, but not before the actor was half convinced that he was already shot.

“Oh my apologies my dear boy!” Cioffi called, his face having snapped back to troubled detective mode, “I got wrapped up in these letters, I can't quite seem to decipher them, please do come in!”

Harv nervously slid into the room, so lost in a sudden rush of terror that he was almost wishing that Randy was there with him. Being an actor, Harv was usually good at hiding his fear, but this time seemed to be shaping out to be an exception. His hands were shaking, thin fingers twitching like twigs in the breeze, and it was all he could do to hope that Cioffi hadn't been paying too much attention.

“Uh,” he said, slowly sitting down in a chair across from Cioffi's desk when the detective motioned for him to do so. (He made sure to hide his hands at his sides.) “Why was I called down here, detective? Just out of pure curiosity,”

He didn't want to say the words on the tip of his tongue. Did Cioffi think that he did it? Harv was pretty sure he was sweating bullets (ironic, considering the circumstances). He couldn't have!

“Well, Harv,” said Cioffi, sighing like this was more disappointing that it was important, “I've uncovered significant evidence that you were off the stage for a portion of Jessica's final moments... in the spotlight, shall I say,“

Harv had no clue how that could be important, wasn't the fact that they had all been on stage what made them suspects? He held tightly to the seat of his hair, stabilizing his shaking hands to the best of his ability.

But if that did point to his guilt, he had no way to refute it, had HAD been off the stage during bows, right as Jessica had collapsed. He had been ordered to throw a bouquet to her, missing his chance to get himself credit for his performance in favor of the actress's already inflated ego. Did that make him a larger suspect than most?

”I notice you've been quiet Harv,“ Cioffi said, his voice a deadly calm that was completely unlike the theater nerd that Harv had seen the man present himself as, ”do you have anything to say to that information?“ He clicked a pen in a way that was almost threatening, and Harv felt a shiver run the entire length of his body. He wondered if he looked pathetic.

”No,“ Harv quickly said, voice shaking like he had just gotten through with a painful run of Thattaway, ”I was just wondering why that was important,“ Cioffi raised an eyebrow and Harv quickly corrected, ”you told us that only someone on stage could have killed Jessica, right?“

Cioffi just stared at him, as if contemplating the best way to lie.

Harv swallowed. ”...right?“

A few more seconds ticked past, neither man moving. (Though Harv was pretty sure that he was the only one struggling to read his opponent.) Somehow, in this office, Cioffi seemed much more threatening.

”Well Harv,“ said Cioffi, placing his pen down onto his documents, ”I have gained sufficient evidence that the murdered may have been someplace in the crowd, and with your history I'm sure that you can see why that makes you a suspect,“

Terror thrown out the window, that comment was mildly offensive, considering Harv had never even contemplated making Jessica late to rehearsal by popping her tires or spilling a drink on her dress or anything like that. Okay. Maybe he had contemplated that, a little bit, but sure never as far as murder!

And besides, where had Cioffi even gotten his evidence? Harv glanced down at the papers, but they were the exact same death threats he had been reading on stage the other day, surely nothing new could have been gained from that!

“What history?” Harv whispered, almost numb, "I promise that I didn't kill her, I swear it,” -before they were even out of his mouth, Harv was already regretting his next words, but somehow they slipped out anyway- “on my life,”

Cioffi chuckled, and the barrel of his gun shone in the light of the office. “That's a heavy statement in a situation like this, do you really mean it?”

“I didn't kill her,”

“Oh?” Cioffi leaned a little closer on the desk, his teeth sparkling like a wild animal's as he stared into Harv's eyes. “I've heard lots of stories about you, you're rather untrustworthy, if they are to be believed,”

Harv felt frozen in his chair as Cioffi leaned back and smiled. Who had said he was untrustworthy?

“Are you wondering who gave me that little tidbit of information?” Cioffi asked, back to smiling calmly, as if this was all some sort of show to him, “I bet I would be if I was in your shoes,”

Harv bit his lip in some sort of effort to suppress a whine or terror. (It didn't work, of course.) He did wonder, but what he really wanted to know was why Cioffi was so convinced he had killed a girl that he could hardly care less about. It wasn't that he wanted this show to keep going, and Cioffi knew that, so why would he kill the problem with it?

“Or maybe you're wondering what other evidence I have against you,” Cioffi said, his cheerful smile twisting into an awful smirk when he saw the look on Harv's face. (How had he read his mind so perfectly?) “You are, aren't you,”

It wasn't a question, but Harv answered anyway.

Or, at least his face did, anyway.

”Well,” Cioffi began, getting the same look in his eye that Aaron used to when he thought of a good way to push the plot along (if Harv had been the detective, he might have thought that was suspicious), “Everyone in this show has reason to have killed Jessica, and you are no exception,”

Harv had already known that, so he let Cioffi continue, even if the detective had paused as if waiting for a retort. ...or applause.

“However...” he continued, sounding almost offended for a split second, “in the light of recent information, there are questions to be asked about people off the stage-,” he still refused to specify what the proof could possibly have been, “-and as far as we know, you were the only member of the cast who was off of the stage during bows,”

Harv sank down slightly, thin arms now shaking just as his hands had been. He had never felt this direct of a feeling of terror before, but he didn't even try to move. He knew that if he left, he might as well have killed Jessica and every other murder in the past month.

“And before you ask about Sasha and his musicians, none of them could have done it because they were actually doing something important at the time of Jessica's collapse,” Cioffi said, sounding pleased with himself again.

Harv bristled, the wavy hair that had flopped into his eyes shaken out of place when he said up straight again. He didn't want to throw people under the bus, but if Cioffi was going to start it, there were lots of other people who had also been absent from the stage at that moment. ”What about Jenny?“ he pointed out, ”I'm not saying she did it, but she had complete control of the stage, and she wasn't there either!“

”The stage manager?“ Cioffi paused as if to think about it, but the pause was short lived, “ I don't think so, she knows too much, she would have found a different time to do if it had been her,”

Harv couldn't help but think that Cioffi sounded oddly like he was making all of this up as he went along. As if he knew much more than he was actually letting on, even more than a detective should know.

“What else then,” Harv managed, throat dry, “what makes me more likely than her?”

“Like I said,” Cioffi said, grinning, “you're untrustworthy,”

Harv stared at him. What was he talking about?

Cioffi frowned, thinking. “Though I guess I got that from someone untrustworthy as well,” he shrugged, now talking fully to himself, ”maybe they're both good suspects then,“

Again, Harv couldn't help but think that Cioffi was acting awfully calm if he really thought that Harv had killed someone. And what did he mean by someone untrustworthy? His informant had been untrustworthy? Why had he listened if he didn't trust them?

This last question ended up voice itself, much to both of their surprise.

”I don't trust you gays,“ Cioffi said, waving his hand like this was completely normal to say, ”Always planning something,“

”Excuse me?!“ Harv started, terror both masked and kicked up to eleven, ”What did you say to me?!“

”Don't bother hiding it,“ Cioffi said, looking surprised, almost as if he thought Harv was offended by being called gay instead of by what he really was reacting to, ”That I have absolute proof of,“

Harv stared at him, vision tinged red with a sudden rage. What kind of thing was that to say to someone? What did that have to do with a murder investigation? How had Cioffi even found out about that?

Cioffi smiled at him, calm, but now visibly hateful, ”You probably don't need my help figuring out who told me you were untrustworthy, then,“ he sneered, ”unless there's multiple people you've been picking from, that would check out,“

Harv's mouth fell open. His hands stopped shaking.

He couldn't believe he was hearing this.

What the fuck?

But despite the mess that his mind was quickly turning into, he had heard Cioffi's words. And he had been right on one thing, he didn't need the detective's help.

Harv felt mildly ill.

Surely Randy hadn't actually/thought Harv would have killed Jessica?

They sat in utter silence for a few seconds, but soon Cioffi's sneer had faded back into a cheerful smile. ”However,“ he said, drawing Harv's attention back to him, ”I am willing to make a deal with you, a deal to keep all of this private,“

Harv stared in numb silence, and Cioffi's smile twisted wider, almost reaching the brown mane of hair that framed his face.

“As long as you don't mess up this show, I'll let you go,”

Harv was in too much shock to register how corrupt of a statement that had been if Cioffi really believed he was the killer. If he had been in any mind to think, he would have even thought it was a little suspicious.

“And you are dismissed Mr. Fremont,”

It was a command.

And Harv listened.

He stood stiffly, swept out of his chair, and walked shakily towards the door.

It was only once he was outside of the office that he began running.

Notes:

Come ON guys. Cioffi is the PERFECT murder! He killed the person who was getting his favorite show bad reviews, and framed the person who was actually giving those reviews! The cast already doesn’t like him, so they wouldn’t question it! He killed Jenny the stage manager because she knew too much, and he was able to tell that the It’s A Business lady killed her husband because he certainly didn’t do that part! Doesn’t anyone hear me???? Also, if anyone knows what show I saw, you do NOT.

#harv fremont #frank cioffi #curtains #Canon typical disrespect of dead people #Different Killer #Police Corruption #Past Murder #Murder Investigation #Homophobia #swearing #my writing #actual post #Randy Dexter #Niki Harris #Jessica Cranshaw

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casscainmainly · 3 months ago

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Jason and Cass' opposing views on murder is so interesting. Their conflict is not purely moralistic - that is to say, it's not purely that Jason thinks murder is okay, and Cass doesn't. It's their identities, their original and most fundamental worldview. Jason is a murder victim and Cass is a murderer. Yes, Jason kills people as Red Hood, and yes, Cass dies multiple times, but this never truly erases how they see themselves. Jason will always have been murdered, and Cass will always be a murderer. They are unable to fully extricate themselves from those roles, and thus will never approach life or death the same way.

#cassandra cain #jason todd #so i may have spent thirty minutes reading jason meta #cass will always be my fav but damn if jason meta doesn't hit on a spiritual level #that boy is messed up #idk if this post makes any sense?? jason experts feel free to correct me #it's interesting too how so much of their trajectory is trying to change that identity as victim or villain #jason becoming red hood is creating the autonomy being a victim denied him #cass becoming batgirl is creating the autonomy being a (forced) murderer denied her #yet they both are unable to truly let go of what the world made them #thus both being perpetually haunted by their past selves #meta

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ghoulinfuschia · 3 months ago

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"Rise and Shine Ms. Doorman"

#i copy pasted this quote #I dont go here #KSHSJSJ #idk who this man is this was a comm #honeybee doodles #Murder Drones #Half Life #Uzi Doorman #G-Man

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regonold · 4 months ago

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Danny x ra's but their a fresh from a nasty breakup and danny is just going through the breakup motions watch your favourites eat ice cream cry all that jazz but in gotham why?

Because i want the bat's to come across this guy crying on a roof eat ice cream and comforing him trying to get him off the roof and when they ask what his boyfriends name is he juat says ra's fucking al ghul

"It's not fair" he whines "why are tge hot ones always the leaders of some murder cult"

I just want the bat's trying to wrap their head around the fact that this twink was sumhow dating ra's and presumably dumped him because he was the head of a murder cult and HOW IS HE STILL ALIVE

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny has been dating ra's for years thanks to clockwork #he sent him vack in time to do something that took a couple years and during it he met ra's a dated him because well he was lonly #the next time clockwork sent him to a time past that ras should have been old and decrepit but instead he still had his young self #and he was just a bit to hot so danny went duck it o got an imortal boyfriend who's a hippie #but now he finds out hes a murder head guy #come one why's the hot ones always crazy

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wardingshout · 11 months ago

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Zelda goes mushroom girl

#tloz #a link to the past #zelda #link #my art #I was happy with that first one but for some reason decided it still needed a companion piece so I spent way too long on that second one...#I don't think there was any time during the progress where I was happy with it but hfduhdfu at least I got to Attempt drawing moss hell yea #I also at some point sat in Pyu's art stream and said I enjoy drawing legs As I was being murdered by the infamously impossibe (imo) squat.#it's ok I had fun !! but I need to learn how to let doodles be doodles or I'll never finish stuff at this rate dfsuhfd #if everything in my tloz tag looks like it was drawn by different people uuuh 2023 was art crisis year ngl......#I'm falling back into my old ways rn though #anyway I think about these two a lot I think they're both stone faced and awkward ppl in different ways but they try rly hard to be friends #like I like to think it starts out so incredibly awkward and a bit sad bc they keep stepping over each other's toes accidentally the harder #they try but idk they find comfy middle ground idk in my brain they have a very interesting friendship I wanna get around to drawing it #in a proper way that might make sense....#if I don't write 200 tags I will die maybe it's bc I grew up on dA or smth #and yes I know how to find 1 (one) type of mushroom /I/ am not mushroom girl unfortunately smh

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puppetmaster13u · 8 months ago

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Prompt 271

“Grandmother is visiting,” Damian suddenly said with no warning and with his usual not-quite demanding tone.

“Who?” Tim wasn’t the only one to startle, seeing as Bruce had practically froze, a downturn to his lips in a silent show of confusion.

Damian scowled. “Are you deaf Drake? Grandmother is coming to Gotham to, quote, make sure I am being properly cared for.” None of them had known that Ras was with anyone actually. At least Tim was pretty sure that would have been in the files.

“Oh?” Dick didn’t quite crouch to Damian’s height but it was a near thing. “She-” “He,” Damian corrected, interrupting him. They all exchanged a glance before Dick continued.

“Is he coming to the Manor or…”

Damian scoffed again, a tiny bit of a flush against his face. “No, Grandmother will most likely be staying with Akhi-”

Now wait one moment-

“YOU HAVE ANOTHER BROTHER?!”

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Prompts #Deadly Decisions #Danny & Ras are the homoerotic rivals that no one knows if they’re flirting or attempting a murder #It’s actually both they’re just also both Immortal #Danny to Jason: You can become a crime lord if you finish college- you’ve said you wanted to get a degree this is ur chance #Dusan (nodding): Mother has made all of us finish at least our basic education nephew #Why yes this does mean that RH has just made the heads in a duffel bag debut & the bats have no clue it’s Jason #Normally Danny wanders the universe but RAS (affectionately derogatory) HOW DARE U TRY TO HIDE THE GRANDCHILDREN #Morally Gray Danny #He’s well over 300 and that has an affect lol #Also has some fun fae vibes thx to his ghost half & human half finally balancing out #Let Jason & Damian be brothers #Tiny Damian: Akhi look I found a frog :>#Jason (newly not brain damaged & has no clue who this small child is): …. That’s great #Tiny Damian: *GASP* Akhi you can talk now :D #Fuck it- all the Al Ghuls deserve fangs from ecto contamination #Is Danny actually Dusan & Talia’s mother? No one knows and no one wants to ask the probably immortal fae being okay #Danny brought Damian a ghost hound puppy & Jason an original signed Pride & Prejudice book #How come Bruce wasn’t aware of Danyal? Talia forgot to inform him that the mother she was speaking of is in fact still alive #He disappears for a decade sometimes longer she was using past terms how was he supposed to know

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bloodyfries · 2 months ago

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Sqq definitely has the most vile insults to man. He's been an avid internet hater, of course he is.

Though you have to understand that he is an internet hater in a xianxia world, with knowledge about a lot of people, information that he shouldn't know (but does because of reading pidw)

It would be absolute chaos l

Ransom heckler that just so happens to have been important in a wife plot: You're disguising, marrying a demon of all things!

Sqq: Listen here you mouth breathing, paste eating, pointless cannon fodder. Your existence would be more useful as a stain on bed sheets. You are so pathetic that you shouldn't have the right to speak, let alone talk about my marriage. This nonsensical spew that comes from your mouth is why you can't hold a meaningful relationship with you daughter. You dare even speak about my marriage when you can't even keep one for more then a year.

Binghe who was just going to murder the guy:

#shen qingqiu #shen yuan #svsss #sqq #bingqiu #luo binghe #headcanon #lbh #scum villian self saving system #The guy def cried after #Sy being brutal #Sqq browsed r/rareinsults in his past life #Lbh was smitten after watching his husband do the murder instead

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whump-tr0pes · 6 months ago

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Honor Bound 6 - 31 (Headache/Migraine) - @badthingshappenbingo

Red X for posted, white X for requested! Send in your requests! If you don’t see a prompt here that you already requested, please send it again!

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, Honor Bound 3, Honor Bound 4, Honor Bound 5, and the prequel Vera.

AO3

Masterlist

Contents: sick fic, past captivity, unsure of reality, past forced confession, past offscreen murder of a child, self-hatred, past hallucinations, past murder, fear of taking pills, so much angst

The cloying sensation of pain reached Gavin through heavy waves of nausea and exhaustion. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced as the pain sharpened to a hot, pulsing point behind his left eye. A chill shuddered over his shoulders, down his spine, back up into the tight muscles of his neck. His own clammy fingers pressed against his forehead in a feeble attempt to relieve the pain.

There was no relief, down here in the basement.

He was a little warm, at least, under the three blankets he had earned with his confessions. They hadn’t been wild and desperate, like the confessions pried out of him by the drugs or the razor-sharp edge of Schiester’s knife. Each one had been deliberate. He had known the bargain he was making with each one.

“My coming back was my fault. Not theirs. I… I sh-should have died. It wasn’t their fault.”

“I… I shot Gray. In the chest. Back when I was… when I was still fighting them. I shot them in the chest and left them to die.”

“Wh-when I was sixteen, my mother offered me a child… I see it was a test, I see that now, but at the time I just saw a plaything that I knew I should – that I knew how to hurt. I… I killed her. Quickly. I—”

Schiester had backhanded him across the mouth before he could finish the sentence.

Each confession had been worth it. Each one had come with a beating that had left Gavin screaming in pain, but each was worth it. He had confessed his crimes to someone who would punish him for them, and properly, not with easy forgiveness. And what was more – each confession earned him a blanket that held off the cold. Still, despite the blankets over him, he shivered with cold sweat.

He didn’t try to raise his head or look around. He simply lay still, frozen in place with the pain, trying and failing to cease to exist. Terror was a steady thrum alongside his heartbeat, as he knew at any moment his tormentor would return and use this agony against him. There was nothing he could do to stop that now. He could no sooner stop the pain than he could stop the sluggish beat of his own heart, matching the dull thud within his own head. Each breath whooshed softly into his nose, huffed softly out of his mouth. His body was a heap of mechanical processes that carried on, even as his every reason for living had abandoned him here. His life was simply a serious of moments extended by the sadistic whims of the man still keeping him alive. Schiester made his commands, and his body obeyed. Nothing would stop the pain. There was no such thing as relief in this basement. There was no ice, no rizatriptan, no mercy.

Isaac had stopped looking—

“Gavin.”

Gavin cried out and flung himself upright. Isaac stood at the side of the bed, one hand outstretched and almost touching him. Gavin quaked with each panting breath as his arms shook under him and finally collapsed. Pain seared behind his eyes as he stared up at Isaac, who was starting to blur with tears.

“Are you alright?” Isaac murmured.

“You… g-got me out,” Gavin croaked. His mouth was so dry. His left eye felt like it was starting to melt out of his head.

Isaac sat carefully on the side of the bed, hand still outstretched. His fingers gently brushed through Gavin’s hair – Gavin realized then that it was soaked with sweat. “Yes,” Isaac said heavily. “I… I got you out, Gavin. Bad dream? Or…?”

“Migraine,” Gavin said, and pressed his face against the pillow. “Isaac, I—” He shoved a hand against his own mouth and dry heaved.

“Gray brought your rizatriptan,” Isaac said, rising again. Gavin groaned as the bed jostled. “Let me go get you some.”

“A-and water,” Gavin said weakly. “Please.”

“Sure,” Isaac said as he left the room.

Gavin trembled and clutched at the pillow beneath his head. As much as it pained him, he forced himself to look around, to take in the sight of the room – the peeling paint on the walls, the curtains lit by the sun slanting into the windows, the warmth of the light, the size of the room. It looked nothing like the cold, dark basement that had been his prison for what had felt like months. It felt nothing like the cramped, cruel cell where he had been kept. When Isaac entered the room again with a glass of water and a pill pinched between his fingers, the tears in Gavin’s eyes spilled over.

“N-not fucking going back,” he rasped. He dropped his head and muffled a sob against his pillow as Isaac sat beside him once more.

“No way,” Isaac said, every word sounding strained. He held the pill to Gavin’s lips, and Gavin took it, willingly.

Schiester could have drugged me this way.

The thought was a brick in Gavin’s stomach. He could have put it in my food. He didn’t have to fucking… inject it. But… An entirely different thought crossed his mind that brought a chill to his heart. This could all still be a hallucination. This could just be how he’s keeping me drugged.

As Isaac tipped the glass of water to Gavin’s lips, Gavin hesitated. Isaac froze with the glass still held out. “You alright?” Isaac rasped.

Gavin trembled as he raised his gaze to Isaac. Isaac’s eyes were brown, not blue. And he hadn’t hurt Gavin at all. Not yet. But Schiester could be playing the long game. After all, he’d been playing the long game by letting Gavin think he had escaped to the north safely back in May. This could all just be another fucking joke to him, like faking the hanging after he murdered Lucy and Topher.

Isaac swallowed hard. “Gavin?” he said softly. “Is… What—”

Gavin raised a shaking hand and dug the pill out of his mouth. It was already beginning to disintegrate and leave a gritty residue on his tongue. He stared at it between his fingers, then looked back to Isaac again.

Isaac’s eyebrows pulled together. “Gavin, what are you—”

“What happens to me if I don’t take this?” Gavin breathed. Light pulsed on the left side of his vision.

Isaac’s eyes widened. “What happens…? Nothing, Gavin, nothing happens to you. Except maybe your migraine doesn’t get much better. I don’t…” He reached out to gently stroke Gavin’s cheek.

Gavin flinched at the contact. Isaac jerked his hand back like Gavin had bitten him.

“Gavin,” Isaac said, realization crossing his face. “No. This isn’t… come on, Gavin, this is—”

“Prove it, then.” The words barely made a sound as they passed Gavin’s lips. He reached over to the nightstand and rolled his fingers together until the sticky pill dropped onto the wood. He nearly threw up then, just from the effort of holding himself up with his head pounding so ferociously. Shaking, he returned his gaze to Isaac – or the specter that could be wearing Isaac’s form. He braced for the collapse of the illusion: the sneer of contempt, the flash of violence in Isaac’s eyes, the snap of his fingers as he ordered the guards who must be currently outside of Gavin’s vision to step into the cell with him and hold him down and hurt him—

Instead, a horrible, guilty brokenness crawled across Isaac’s face. The lines around his eyes deepened, and a terrible sadness tugged at his mouth. He held his hands out, at his sides, empty and harmless. His eyes swam with helpless tears.

“I… w-won’t make you take anything you don’t want to, Gavin,” he said weakly. “I was just trying to help.”

Gavin’s throat tightened, and he could feel nothing but heat and pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and grasped at the relief of the momentary darkness. Then, he blinked his eyes open and reached for Isaac. Isaac’s shoulders fell, and he let Gavin take his hand.

“P-please,” Gavin whispered. “Please, I just…” He sobbed weakly and whimpered when that only ratcheted up the pain in his head.

“Here,” Isaac said, tears falling down his own cheeks. He guided Gavin to lay down again and stretched out beside him. “No… no pills. Just… I can just be with you. And hold you. Would that be… would that… help?”

“Yeah,” Gavin croaked, his throat still tight. He could barely see out of his left eye, and every heartbeat was agony. Still, Isaac was here. Isaac had his hands on him, and was pulling him close, and was holding him. He buried his face in Isaac’s chest and let out another broken sob.

Even as he shivered and twisted in Isaac’s arms from the pain, his heartrate slowed. The Isaac holding him was solid and real, even nothing else in the world was.

Something prickled in the back of Gavin’s mind. He swallowed hard, swallowed back the terror and pain that quivered beneath his skin; the Isaac holding him was real, because Daniel Schiester would never, ever have allowed Gavin Uriah to say no to him. The pill lay on the nightstand beside the bed still, beside the untouched water glass.

Continued here

@womping-grounds , @free-2bmee , @quirkykayleetam , @walkingchemicalfire , @inpainandsuffering , @redwingedwhump , @burtlederp , @castielamigos-whump-side-blog , @whatwhumpcomments , @whumpywhumper , @stxck-fxck , @whumps-the-word , @justplainwhump , @finder-of-rings , @inky-whump , @orchidscript , @inkyinsanity , @this-mightaswell-happen , @newandfiguringitout , @whumpkitty , @pretty-face-breaker , @pebbledriscoll , @im-just-here-for-the-whump , @endless-whump , @grizzlie70 , @oops-its-whump , @kixngiggles, @1phoenixfeather , @butwhatifyouwrite , @carnagecardinal , @whumpifi , @squishablesunbeam

#honor bound 6 #bad things happen bingo #headache/migraine #whump #hurt/comfort #angst #Isaac/Gavin #unreality #forced confession #past captivity #child death tw #self hatred #past hallucinations #past murder

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 6 months ago

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Tis but a flesh wound!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #jin guangyao #lan xichen #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #JGY's little shawl waits for him at the front entrance. It's for him to wear in the cloud recesses because he gets cold easy.#Lan Xichen personally hand knit it for him. This is canon within this universe now.#JGY is failing his little chess game so bad in this scene. He walks up and cutely pouts at LXC to pwease help him in his schemes #And when LXC rightly points out the holes in his reasoning he gets his back up!#But *dude* how the hell are you going to explain how WWX has been doing all these crazy things when the guy was Passed Out.#LXC can even attest to it. Back to JGY holding the idiot ball here; why make a point to press about WWX staying at CR #And not take into account the fact the lan brothers have an incredibly tight bond?#Why was he even *attempting* to drive a wedge between them?#Honestly I know we love to call JGY a schemer but he was so sloppy at so many points. Everything post secret room reveal-#has been a messy scramble to cover up his past transgressions. He is struggling to keep things under control!#He currently is staying in the public favour solely on the quality of his melancholic wet eyes.#You dare accuse jin guangyao of murder? When he's so sopping wet? When he whimpers and whines without a little treat?#To bad he's shown his teeth! Sorry you aren't old enough for dentures and can't put those teeth right back in your mouth.

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andhumanslovedstories · 20 days ago

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I am not closely following the election results tonight, but I am occasionally seeing flashes of them out of the corner of my eye. The most obvious sign that things aren’t going well right now is the complete lack of celebrating on my dash. I know what tumblr looks like when it’s happy. Maybe I’ll go to bed tonight and see something different in the morning. I hope to god that is the case. But I’m thinking about the way I’m thinking right now, and I want to get some stuff down before the future kicks in.

In 2016 I was in a period of my life I affectionately refer to as as my fuckup era. I wasn’t even fucking up really. More just chilling out and falling short of the vague expectations I’d had about what I was supposed to be doing after I graduated college. While my friends from college rented apartments in the city and got jobs that didn’t supply you with a uniform shirt, I lived at home and worked as a barista at a fancy movie theater. That’s a real job you can do for almost five years. I didn’t have a clue what the back half of my twenties should look like. The only long term plan I had in my life was moving out west with my best friend, and my plan for finding a job once I was out there was basically to cross my fingers and hope.

Those days weren’t bad on the whole, but it felt like I was not actually living a life so much as I was goofing off in the waiting room. Sometimes that felt embarrassing, sometimes it felt fun, and sometimes it felt like I was completely pointless to the world.

On 2016’s Election Day, I went to bed early. After watching the votes come in, I needed the night to be over. I woke in a world that felt different than it had been the night before—not just in the actuality of who would be president but down to its foundations. I realized for the first time how much hope I’d had in human nature because now I didn’t feel it anymore. It’s almost silly when I think about it—so many horrible things had already happened that year, people had done horrible things as long as there have been people, and I didn’t think I was naive to that—but something clicked into place that morning.

It felt the same way my world had changed a year earlier, in 2015 during my last semester of college. My college victory lap felt like a prolonged downward spiral. Very early in the morning on a Monday, after pulling an all-nighter and overwhelmed by self-loathing that I could not just motivate myself to work on a paper that had been my only thought all weekend, I self-harmed for the first time in a way that was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Earlier that weekend, I’d tried staving off the urges drawing or writing on my arm, something that did (and does) usually work. I’d written this quote in silver sharpie on my forearm: “Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”

I picked that quote from the Ms. Marvel comics and liked the words so much, I thought that I wouldn’t be willing to purposefully mess it up by hurting myself there. Didn’t work. They just made me feel more ashamed of myself as I did it.

That was the worst I had ever felt. Then, on the Friday of that week, a friend of mine was senselessly, brutally murdered.

It doesn’t feel now like there was ever a time before her death. My memoir class is now where I wrote about her. My favorite professor is now the one who held me as I cried. My final thesis, the culmination of my history degree, never got finished and certainly never got polished. I turned it what I had and got an A minus. Sometimes I think of rereading that paper to see if that’s the grade it actually deserved. We hadn’t been the closest friends, but my name was still on the email admin sent to professors, listing students who might be emotionally affected by this tragic event. Grace’s murder hangs over every memory I have with her and everything she ever touched. It feels like its own type of obliteration to leave her reduced to her death.

Grace wanted to be a lawyer because she believed in justice and also liked arguing. She could be rude when she wasn’t interested in what you were saying. When you caught her attention, you felt like the most fascinating person in the room. She was so proud of being Jewish. I watched her become proud of being gay. She was so universally friendly that it took me a year to realize that she actually liked specifically me. She had a somewhat silly laugh and an astonishingly luminous smile.

I thought less of the world and the people in it because of how she died. Trump’s election in 2016 felt like that.

After he won, I left stasis. From November through December, I thought harder about my future than I ever had before. Who did I want to be? What did I most value? What did I think was worth protecting? What work wouldn’t kill me to do? At one point, in presumably a fit of madness, I thought, “what if I got into politics.” Epiphany eventually hit me. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, I was already enrolled at community college, getting my pre-reqs for nursing school.

Now it’s election night again, eight years later. I live on the west coast with my best friend, in a house that we bought together. I work as a nurse in a hospital in a city where there are homeless encampments off every highway and someone begging for change on every corner. Meanwhile, there’s Palestine. Meanwhile there’s Sudan. Meanwhile refugees drown in the sea and border patrol shoots jugs of water. Even hurricanes have human cruelty now.

I don’t think people are inherently good or the universe inherently kind. But I am very good at tricking myself into thinking it for a little while, and when I do, I can remember the a specific feeling from Friday of my senior year, from that morning in November— how fucking hard the disappointment hit me because I had expected people to be better than this. It makes me want to be better than that.

I believe, and hope that I always will, that we can make a better world. I don’t know what it looks like, but I think I will see it in my lifetime. Those of us who can believe such things owe a bit of that naïveté to the world—not to excuse atrocities or think them impossible but to believe that we can stop them at all. You have to have a couple people sprinkled around who are genuinely shocked when people do bad things. It’s not that the pessimists are wrong, but you need the occasional counterbalance. I want to be a reasonable cynic’s pleasant surprise.

Every shift, I interact with people at their lowest and worst. I see the direct pipeline from pain to anger to violence, and how fragile that pipeline can be. So many situations can be changed by things as small as a warm blanket or a kind word. Violence can be quite easy to avert. Crises can be quite simply to resolve. Even when I know that whatever I do that shift will not change the circumstances of a person’s life, I think that what I do that shift still matters.

I’m lying in bed, writing this post instead of looking at the news. I wonder how tonight will change me. Been thinking about what I’ll do if Trump wins. Been thinking about how whatever I think I need to do under Trump will still need to be done if Harris clutches out a victory. I guess this is a pessimist’s optimism: to a degree the election doesn’t matter. Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do. Our better world will always take a lot of work.

But please god please, why can’t it be just a little easier to do it?

#b.#this is about the election and also some past self harm and a murder #nursing tag

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ew-selfish-art · 1 year ago

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Dp x Dc AU: Jason and Jazz have been dating for a while and... Danny presumes that because he knows about Jason being Red Hood that Jason knows about Phantom.

Danny got a text randomly in the afternoon from Jazz’s boyfriend. Which was inherently a strange experience considering Jason was typically dead asleep in the afternoon from all his ‘evening shifts’ and Jazz was in class. Stranger, the message just asked if Danny would be free to meet up today for a short chat. Jason doesn’t reply to Danny’s response of “Anything for my sister’s BOO <3.”

Normally, Jason would start launching into a rant about Danny’s coffee choice being too like his little brother’s when they met at cafes- right now Jason looks deadly serious.

“Look. I’ll cut to the chase of it all. I want to ask Jazz to marry me and well, your folks are shitty but it feels weird to not ask for permission.”

“...Okay?”

“So do I have permission?” Jason asks, a bit of a glare and Danny can see the RedHood’s famous attitude peeking out with the abundance of anxiety Jason must be feeling.

“I mean, Yeah! She loves you and I know she’s been subliminally messaging you to find your balls and ask her already.” Danny rolls his eyes and laughs. His brother-in-law to be sure was a strange guy, but he liked him all the more because of it.

Jason sighs in relief and his normal literature nerd, easy going and plucky ‘cool guy’ attitude comes back. They start chatting about the ring he bought for her, how they’re probably going to have to do a small wedding with his family members to appease his grandpa figure. Its all very cute and optimistic.

“Love it! She mentioned your grandpa’s rose garden before and that’ll be perfect for human family events before the big ceremony.”

“Big Ceremony?” Jason sounds unsure of where the conversation is going.

“Yeah, you know. Plus now that I’m thinking about it, it’s probably for the best that you asked me, the observants would totally turn this into like, an interdimensional faux pa or something if I don’t give them a heads up.” Danny laughs at the idea of it causing an incident, but he can see Jason straighten his shoulders and his eyes attempt to pierce through him.

“Danny. What the fuck are you talking about?” Jason looks more pissed than he looks concerned, and Danny is just confused.

“Cause... You Know.”

“If you don’t give me a real answer I’m going to-” At least Jason was taking deep breaths.

“Hey man, chill out! I guess Jazz keeps it on the DL but my night shift has-”

“Night shift? You’re an engineer.” Jason cuts him off and the fact sounds accusatory.

“And I’m the Ghost King? You knew this?” Danny relents, he hated saying it out loud cause it sounded lame, but he’s not sure why Jason is so up in arms all of a sudden. Jason looked like he might have an aneurysm and Danny knows his expression is declaring Jason is the biggest Dumbass in the world.

“Danny ...what the fuck are you trying to say to me right now?”

“That you and Jazz have to have a royal wedding in the Infinite Realms or my counsel and advisors will throw an absolute fit.”

Jason doesn’t reply so Danny decides to add “You know, ‘cause my title translates to the Family’s royal lineage and if you marry Jazz you’ll become a Prince. I guess you don’t technically have to have a big wedding but if you don’t it’ll just mean shit loads of paperwork and a huge fucking headache on my end. Which I can survive but... I’m sensing that you’re frustrated. Let’s call Jazz.”

“Let’s do that.” Jason sounds like he’s being strangled. Danny thinks it’s a bit dramatic but is excited to help Jazz wedding plan.

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