#salt in wounds

[crimsonlyinglilly]

Day 15: salt in wounds / phobia / revenge

Still days behind but here’s day 15 for @augustofwhump. Would help if i stuck to my plan outlines but youtube fed me Saving Hope clip and this was born.

Also thanks to @theotherworld97 for listening to me ramble about this.

Spoiler for season 3 finale Saving Hope.

Saving Elijah - as a working title, after having his memory wiped instead of going to France, Elijah ends up becoming a surgeon in Toronto.

That was going great until something forced him to remember everything, leaving him missing his years without the weight of centuries crushing him.

—--

He had been happy, he had been good, a dick but good; saving people, helping, making things better.

He was human.

He had almost had a family, there was a little boy he should have gotten to raise, a woman he loved.

It was everything he wanted.

Dying had been quick, sudden, boom! and he was gone, far quicker than father’s blade in his heart or that damn thorn.

Waking up is worse.

His body regrowing because few things could kill him, but there was no escaping the damage that had been done.

He couldn’t scream or move, no air in his lungs or working vocal cords and his muscles were shredded.

Shrapnel was a bitch.

So he was awake as he slowly remembered why he wasn’t dead.

What he was.

Who he was.

Remembering is salt in the wounds.

And giving his complete body is a wound, raw and charred, that was saying something.

Because Joel Goran had died years ago, a stupid accident ending a life that should have brought hope to people, a bar fight ending in a knife to the heart.

Like his first time.

He didn’t appreciate the irony.

And Amalia, the brilliant loyal friend she was, who had been keeping something from him, a witch because magic and the supernatural were a thing apparently.

It had to be through luck that she just happened to find a vampire who looked like him, her lost friend and decided to use them, to give her friend another chance.

Why not? A Dr was better than a bloodsucker, helping people instead feeding and killing them, an improvement.

She hadn’t expected her victim to volunteer.

But what else was the amnesiac vampire going to do, after months of not knowing who he was, struggling with hunger and an ache in his chest he didn’t understand. If he couldn’t remember who he was, he’d take being someone else, someone better, who clearly had someone to miss him.

Elijah remembered now.

Everything.

He wasn’t truly Joel Goran, just given all his memories and skills, or maybe he was, for her to be able to interfere with him, an Original Vampire tainted by a piece of the Hollow. She was an exceptional witch, who's to say she hadn't brought her dead friend's soul back and placed it in the basically empty body, because that's what he had been. 

No memories, no desires, just a name that had meant nothing.

Now he was both Joel and Elijah and Elijah Mikaelson.

He would prefer the nothing back now than Elijah Mikealson. Nothing instead of the craving to check on his sibling knowing he couldn’t, instead of the hatred in Marcel’s eyes and the fear in Hayley’s.

He wanted just to be Joel again, with Alex’s love, his friendships in the hospital and a future.

All Elijah had was the loneliness and the crushing weight of his past.

Joel who felt worry for every life placed in his hands, who was haunted by the death that happened to him.

Elijah who felt nothing, nothing but self loathing and guilt, who killed as easily as breathing.

---

He’s not sure how long he had been trapped silent in his body as he healed-regrew but it was poor timing that it was after he heard the door open that he felt his muscles start to twitch.

He had enough thought to pray the person would leave before it spread, they hadn’t.

He couldn’t have stopped the noise but he managed to stifle it to a choking wheeze instead of the full scream.

He’s not sure how long he had been trapped silent in his body as he healed-regrew but it was poor timing that it was after he heard the door open that he felt his muscles start to twitch.

He had enough thought to pray the person would leave before it spread, they hadn’t

He couldn’t have stopped the noise but he managed to stifle it to a choking wheeze instead of the full scream.

There was a muffled swear as the person jumped and realised where the sound had come from, he focused on the sound of them coming closer to try to ignore the feeling of his muscles twitching as they woke up.

The cover- body bag because of course he was in a body bag, he pitted whoever was the one to gather him up, was unzipped and he found blue eyes staring down at him in shock.

What the hell! He should be with Alex and the baby. He thought in anger before he reminded himself that out of everyone Charlie Harris was perhaps the best person to find him.

Joel-Elijah used his twitching muscles to sit up getting a glimpse of his still healing skin, he shivered despite himself and hand caught his shoulders gently before he slumped back.

He had been blow up before- no Elijah had blow himself up to get at Finn, he had managed before, walking to find Cami and Hope, in the cold night ignoring the stinging pain of the too sensitive-all new skin.

He could manage now.

“How??” Charlie asked, looking shocked but not as shocked as most people would be, but then there had been something off about him since he woke from the coma some of the rumours had said.

He looked up at the older man- no he was a thousand years old, unable to even think of how to explain, wincing as he felt the skin of his cheeks heal, nerves suddenly awake to the cold of the room.

Charlie’s hands tightened on his shoulder digging into regrowing nerves that he couldn’t stop the groan of pain, causing Charlie to let go and Joel-Elijah fell from the table to hit the floor, body bag following to present what little dignity he had.

He wheezed a muffled whine as everything in his body struggled to adjust, various areas of his body fighting for the attention. He had been human for years, this level of pain and awareness wasn’t natural and the centuries as a vampire were reacting too slow.

He didn’t want to become used to it again, he wanted to remain human. 

“Shit! Joel?” Charlie swore, crouching down in front of him.

“Give me a minute.” he managed to gasp, before Charlie could touch him again, sounding much like the corpse he still pretty much was.

He stayed there for a moment ignoring the others’ eyes on him as he thought.

He was hungry, he needed blood considering how much he had healed.

He needed to know how he had been human.

How he hadn't needed blood for the last few years, how he had managed to walk under the sun without a daylight ring.

He had his one in a box back at his place, the only thing he had kept from the nothing Amalia had met and remade-

He needed Amalia, she could fix this, return him to just Joel, wipe away his rather more public death this time, he’d again start elsewhere.

Safer for Alex and the baby to be away from him. It would have to be Charlie’s anyway since he couldn’t have- 

He was human, somehow, no hunger for blood, no weakness to sunlight, slow healing, scarring. It could be, he could have had a child after a thousand years, thankfully Dahlia was gone but that would mean they would be in danger, if his blood was ever discovered.

He really needed Amalia.

“Phone.” he demanded, not sounding as gruesome, but the effect was likely ruined as he was still laying on the floor.

“Are you going to explain how this is happening?” Charlie asked, still sounding far too calm.

“After I make a phone call, ” he said, “and blood.” he added. For a brief moment he thought about explaining and compelling it away afterwards but if the child was his then Charlie would need to know everything to protect them better.

“Blood?” Charlie cocked an eyebrow at him, annoyingly unflappable, Joel wanted to be annoyed but the sight was helpfully calming, Charlie, like Alex, Maggie and Zach was Joel’s not anything to do with Elijah.

‘You're a thousand year old vampire, you shouldn’t need a human to calm you down.’ half his mind snapped at him

‘I don’t want to be.’ he snapped back

“Bag of it and my phone- from my locker.” he explained, ignoring how pitable he likely looked, staring up at Charlie from his position laying on the fall. 

—

By the time Charlie returned most of his skin had healed leaving him feeling raw and over sensitive, but he had managed to sit himself up leaving him curled on the floor with the body bag wrapped around him as he set the remains of the bomb that had been embedded in him to the side.

He returned with the asked for blood and phone as well as a set of blue scrubs.

Elijah-Joel had never been more happy at the sight of them, nine thousand dollar suits could burn for all he cared.

He had lived without the need for that armour, he preferred his jeans, shirts and scrubs.

[between-myself-and-me]

boygenius - Salt in the wound / Pukkelpop, Belgium / August 18, 2023 / source : mattyhealysmellss tiktok

[jacksnotmyname]

“I’ll save you the pain of watching your demon b die”

Lute thinks it is a mercy to die rather than see the one you care for most die.

Vaggie let Lute live.

Lute saw Adam die.

[formulanni]

Daniel Ricciardo as Judgement:

The Judgement tarot card symbolizes the arrival of absolution and the culmination of a significant undertaking, often related to past and life lessons.

Judgement indicates the cusp of rebirth.

In order to achieve that, you must look back upon your deeds and come to an honest evaluation of yourself. This leads to the awakening that signals a new way of life.

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls

[daddiesdrarryy]

Draco: I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted. I got a manor. I got a closet full of expensive robes. I got my parents who love me and my ginormous inheritance!

Pansy: Haven’t got Potter yet

Draco: I’m trying, Pansy!

[scalpho]

you'd think fabian would catch a break after bill's death but the second bill clocks out of giving fabian intense ominous speeches (sometimes borderline threats) embedded between "my darling boy"s and "i love you"s, hallariel comes out of 16 years of perpetual drunkenness into sobriety to clock IN to doing the exact same thing. first time we see her sober she threatens to duel fabian to the death. AND gilear is his stepdad. just L after L on the parental front for fabian aramais

[milktea-grn]

mom im tired

[painsandconfusion]

Squick-worthy things to do with skin

(tw: idk how to tw for prompt lists besides just re-stating the list but there's a lot of skin ripping, twisting, burning, and subdermal things, so I wanted to mention it)

Sandpaper. Rub.

Peel it back a little bit at a time. See how big of pieces you can get.

Cheese grater. Get some longggg strips. Like noodles.

Rub ground glass into it.

Put out cigarettes in open cuts.

Shove a prong under it.

Toothpicks. Let the splinters catch on flesh as they shove under, parallel to the surface.

Burn it until it melts and warps and drips away.

Superglue it to other parts of the body, a wall, the floor, etc. It’ll tear off.

Inject salt water under it.

Stitch cuts shut after shoving things inside. Razors, broken glass, screws, etc.

Melt hot tar onto it and rip it away. See how much skin comes up with it.

Carve the face away from the skull. Tan the skin into a mask.

De-gloving.

Tattoo gun. Acid. Make the scar pretty.

Liquid nitrogen burns.

Add suspension piercings. (Hook slipping under the skin of the back and whumpee hanging by that alone)

Piers. Pinch tight and twist until that spot rips away.

Thread a sharp wire under the skin and send electricity through it. (this one courtesy of wormwriting)

Carving whumpee’s tattoos out to make them ‘perfect’ again.

Cut parallel stripes, filet them away from the flesh underneath (still attached on both sides), then crochet it into a pretty braid straight up like it’s an early 2000’s ripped tshirt.

Visuals:

(tags: @prisonerwhump @whumpawink @mabledonut @happy-little-sadist @paleassprince @distinctlywhumpthing @wibbly-wobbly-whump @batfacedliar-yetagain @suspicious-whumping-egg @meowsikbox @villainsvictim @throwawaywhumper @wild-selenite-caffine @whumpasaurus101 @thecitythatdoesntsleep @whumpworld @michaeltalks @pinkieglitterheart @whumpberry-cookie @rainbows-and-whumperflies @astralrunic @cursedscribbles @shywhumpauthor @cyberneticwhump @bumpwhump @hold-back-on-the-comfort @veyroswin @whumping-seven-days-a-week @whumpingisfun)

As always, lmk if you want to be added or removed from any tag lists!

[crimsonlyinglilly]

Day 18: came back wrong / unavoidable / muzzle

Day 18 for @augustofwhump.

Saving Elijah - still a working title, after having his memory wiped instead of going to France, Elijah ends up becoming a surgeon in Toronto.

Charlie went to the mortuary for closure, he got something else.

—----

Charlie had come down here for closure, after Zach had returned to the hospital in shock and with a tale he shouldn’t have been surprised by, because of course that that reckless fool would manage to get himself killed. 

At first he had waited expecting Joel to come by and say something; a goodbye, a threat to look after Alex and Luke but nothing.

Nothing but watching Alex’s heartbreak on what should be one of the happiest days of her life and the tiny perfect baby who had no idea what he had lost.

Charlie hadn’t really thought it would happen, that it would just be him. Some part of his mind he had thought they would just keep going on the way it had been, him and Joel both there for Alex, no matter who she chose in the end, and the baby.

Luke.

Joel was meant to be showering the baby in gifts and showing off how much more prepared he was.

Raising a child took work, accidents happened all the time they all knew that, more parents couldn’t hurt, and yet there Joel went proving it by getting blown up before he ever got to meet his-their son.

The mortuary is just as empty of a shouting Joel, he hadn’t thought Joel would just move on without a final word, it didn’t seem like him. 

Yet here he was alone with a bodybag.

He had tried not to look at it too much, he was familiar with death, it came with medicine even before his coma but this was different, Joel was too loud and annoyingly there, to be left in pieces in a bag.

Maybe if he had looked more he would have noticed something different instead of having a near heart attack as the bag jolted suddenly letting out a gasping scream.

After a moment of hesitation he had moved and unzipped the bag to meet wide pain filled dark eyes, but awake, a somehow alive Joel Goran.

“How??” he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking as Joel sat up, wincing as he could see muscles move though the absence of skin, and then realising Joel could be just as much in the dark as him. 

He had thought for a brief moment this was Joel’s ghost but he had reached out and met bare skin- not skin, most of his body still showed signs of the explosion-  but the shoulders under him were warm and alive somehow, his tightening grip then pulled a noise of pain making him let go.

And watched as Joel toppled off the table, still tangled in the body bag.

“Shit! Joel?”

He would like to say he has grown to be accepting since his coma but this may have been toeing his line, apparently moving past ghosts and onto zombies, but he followed Joel down to crouch in front of him.

Within brain-eating reach, a little voice warned him but he ignored it, because somehow Joel wasn’t dead, Alex didn’t need to be in tears upstairs and their son had a chance of having Joel in his life.

Three parents are better than two, he hadn’t been this fixated on this idea before Joel had died but now he was.

“Give me a minute.” the not-dead groaned, pushing the chance of being a zombie down and Charlie had watched as the man or whatever just breathed as his skin and more slowly regrew.

Because he had been blown up, it just seemed whatever he was didn’t die that way. 

“Phone.” Joel demanded after some time apparently having grown more himself even while still missing much of his skin and hair.

“Are you going to explain how this is happening?” he asked as he realised Joel wasn’t freaking out as much as he should, meaning he knew at least something.

“After I make a phone call, ” Joel replied, adding more before he could argue, “and blood.”

“Blood?” he asked as he stood up, not a zombie then but vampire? Oh he hoped not he wasn’t getting into whether any of the fictional vampires were real, he was fine with just ghosts and the afterlife.

“Bag of it and my phone- from my locker.” Joel explained looking up at him.

Joel had never looked small but curled in the body bag looking up at Charlie, lost, in pain, he looked so young.

He had died, been blown up recklessly saving someone else, trying to do good and almost lost out of the best things in his life, Charlie had left before he let himself think too much more of that.

Joel wouldn’t appreciate the pity.

It took him about twenty minutes; going to get the phone, refusing to think about it when he collected a bag of blood and picking up a pair of scrubs on his way back. The sooner Joel was out of the bodybag the sooner Charlie could stop thinking about how he died.

Then he was hoping Joel had a way of dealing with the fact everyone knew he had been blown up, this was far more complicated than waking up from a coma, this was regenerating from brunt and bloody pieces.

When he returned Joel looked almost normal, right down to his hair, if not for the wide eyes shock which had quickly narrowed as he caught sight of the blood bag, he tossed it to him without another thought and watched as his face changed.

Blood red eyes, dark veins spreading from them and a parted mouth that revealed fangs before he sunk them into the blood bag.

Vampire, Charlie thought as he blinked down, as Joel drained the blood bag within moments, Joel Goran was a vampire, because they were real now.

Joel looked up at him as dark veins faded and dark brown replaced the inhuman red eyes that had been there for a moment, he pulled the empty bag away giving it a glance of distaste as he put down and held his hand up for the phone.

Right this was his new life now, at least he wasn’t alone and Joel seemed to have some idea what was going on.

“So you're a vampire?” he asked, withholding the phone and dropping the scrubs on him. “Get dressed first then you can have the phone.”

“I’d rather not.” Joel told him, making him blink as he noticed a complete shift in his accent.

“Why not?” 

“My skin’s still sensitive and i’m feeling things like a human.”Joel confessed,

“Like a human,” he raised an eyebrow, “How long haven’t you been?”

“That’s the complicated part and the reason I want the phone.” he punctuated the sentence with his hand returning for the phone, normal accent back. “I need to make a call to see if she can fix this.”

“One answer and you get the phone, this isn’t new to you?” he gestured to Joel.

“Still not simple, but no this isn’t new to me,” Joel sighed, taking his hand back to straighten the creases in the body bag covering his waist, barely a trace of New Zealand in words, “A thousand ago my mother cast a spell and my father stabbed me in the heart. Then four years ago after having my memory wiped, for my family’s safety from me, I was found by a grieving witch who somehow made me human and Joel Goran, but today I blew up and woke up remembering everything.”

Charlie stared, looking between the phone in his hand and Joel- or not Joel, and placed the fact Witches were a thing to worry about now somewhere to think about later, after bringing Alex in on this.

“So you're not Joel?” he said, refusing to touch anything else.

“I am,” the vampire snapped, as Charlie watched him twitch, “that's why I want the phone, fix this, go back to what i was.”

“And the thousand years of memories before the last four?” he asked out of pure curiosity.

“Better off gone,” Joel snapped, “I was helping people as Joel.”

“And it got you blown up.” he countered, unsure why he was arguing besides the fact Joel looked far more himself half glaring at him than lost and confused.

“At least I didn’t blow myself up this time.” Joel said bitterly.

“You’ve blown yourself up before?” he repeated incredulously.

“I was trying to kill my older brother, he was trying to kill our niece.” Joel explained “Is it any wonder I'd prefer those memories gone?”

Charlie just looked at him there wasn’t anything to say to that, besides it sounded like something from a gothic novel so maybe vampire fit, even if it didn’t with the Joel he knew.

“And the person you are from them?” he questioned after a pause, only to be met with a wide smile.

“Trust me, I prefer the womanising bastard over the ruthless monster that destroyed everyone around him.” Joel shrugged.

He passed the phone and watched, he could almost see the flicker between centuries old vampire, all stiff sharp movements and Joel, loose limbed and nervous as he looked through the phone for whoever he needed.

Charlie decided then that it wasn’t a hard choice, in the end Joel was Joel, a few changes could be expected after being blown up.

Whether it was centuries of memories or just coming back wrong and trauma, he’d take what he could get.

[thewisestdino]

rootspring with 30 hehe🥲

(for that spotify challenge)

They say the hearts and minds are on your side

They say the finish line is in your sights

What they don't say is what's on the other side

[keepin-it-on-the-d-l]

Is now a good time to post these drawings of them that I did literal months ago or

[shakespearean-simp]

exboyfriend!mattheo watching f!reader clean up her new boyfriend instead of him

when mattheo beat him up after hearing him say to his friends that he was using her and that she was a slut

m: *why doesn't she look at me like that anymore? he doesn't deserve her. i love her. i love her? i love her. i miss her. please come back. i need her. yeah i need her. why does she look at him the way she used to look at me? she deserves someone better. like me. he should eat shit. he looks like shit too. good job mattheo.*

[strawberriesinmoominvalley]

like yeah maybe logan wasn't the second coming of christ but he wasn't that bad. bloody hell

[swagglessmoth]

Just read this

It only has two chapters rn but it’s looking good

Ty for the food @ohai-there 🙏🫡 good luck with uni 💪

[amazingmsme]

Finally getting around to the Ody, Telemachus & Athena fic & I promise it won’t all be this angsty, but I just had to share this lil snippet

It felt... strange, watching the two of them interact. Watching his Telemachus spar with Athena stirred old memories that brought a bittersweet smile to his face. Oh, what could have been.

Telemachus had told him that Athena once called him her friend, on the day they first met. She didn't say his name, but he now knows she was referring to his father. Odysseus just wished she would've admitted that back then.

They both acted differently in each other's company; unlike they ever were with him.

Telemachus adored Athena. He looked forward to her visits, lighting up the moment she entered a room before running off for his next lesson. He was never so eager when Odysseus trained with him, questioning his methods and suggesting what Athena would do. He tried not to let it get under his skin, but he'd be lying if he said it didn't sting a little.

Athena might as well be a completely different person with Telemachus. She was patient and understanding, gently correcting him when he made a mistake. Odysseus seemed to remember her harsh tone and judging words when he was to screw up. It felt hypocritical, and it left a sour taste in his mouth.

[aashiqeddiediaz]

do you ever think about how much it hurts eddie when chris expresses how much of his mother he's beginning to lose. because we know that he does his best to keep her memory alive, that they go to her grave and they talk openly about her. but there are things that eddie will never be able to replicate for him - her voice, the way she smelled, the way she'd walk towards him, how she felt when she held him close, etc - and chris will continue to lose those details even if eddie talked about shannon 24/7 for the rest of his life.

that is a sort of helplessness that i don't think anyone talks about enough, and that makes eddie's expression when he overhears chris talking to buck all the more wounded