#sigil whump | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inhurtandincomfort · 1 month ago

Text

CW: Minor whump (again, it's backstory) Child trafficking, sold into slavery, forced nonsexual nudity, mentions of alcoholism, drug use and self harm at the end along with mild references to disassociation and possible suicidal ideation if you read into how depressed he is.

Eldwin’s body does not belong to him.

That may not make sense to some people. “Ridiculous,” they say, “Whose else could it be?” But it was something made all too clear to Eldwin, as young as fourteen years old, from the moment the pact mark first appeared on his skin.

The moment his hand met the strangers, a sharp pain ran across the back of it and when he looked the mark was there, burned red already fading to black. This was the price he must pay, he knew. That didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the beginnings of regret nagging at the back of his mind as he stared at the intricate sigil, a permanent marker of what he was. Whose he was. When he looked up at the stranger, a handsome man flashing teeth that seemed a little too white, slightly too sharp, looking very pleased with an unnerving glint in his eyes, Eldwin wondered not for the last time whether he’d made the right choice.

It didn’t matter. What’s done is done; a contract was made, his fate is sealed. The demon walked away with a soul and a promise. Eldwin walked away with a fear and a life that would never be the same.

Then he was kidnapped, starving, cold, and desperate in the middle of December lured in by a wealthy-looking couple with a promise of work and instead taken captive, thrown in a basement somewhere in the city with a handful of other boys most his age or older, a couple of them younger.

“They’re gonna sell us,” One of them said, glumly resigned to his fate. He’d been there the longest and claimed to have heard them discussing their plans. “We’ll be sold off for labour and there’s nothin’ we can do about it.” Eldwin scowled, crossing his arms. Maybe there was nothing they could do, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t try. He voiced as much,when the auction day drew closer.

“You’re being stupid.” The first boy told him bluntly. “You think none of us ‘ave tried before?” But some of the newer faces still had some spirit and agreed to attempt an escape. They waited until late in the night. Eldwin quietly approached the basement door, lifting a gloved hand to the lock. It opened easily with a soft click letting the boys sneak out one by one, Eldwin in the lead. They managed to boost one of the boys over the fence before they were caught, a gun in their faces and several men roughly dragging them back where they were thrown forcefully into the basement where the ones who stayed jumped back in fear as the slaver appeared holding his walking cane.

“Who’s idea was this?” He barked, “Own up before I break everyone’s limbs!” The youngest squeaked and stuffed his filthy sleeve into his mouth. Most were crying or quivering with fear and Eldwin couldn’t help but wonder who would speak first? Well, he wouldn’t wait to find out. He wouldn't put that burden on them.

“It was me,” He said more confidently than he felt. “It was my idea. They didn’t want to, but I convinced them.” He held his head high, meeting the man's eyes even as he clenched his fist to stop it from trembling. He only hoped the boy who’d escaped would make it, that he’d tell the guards and put a stop to this before auction day.

“You little brat,” The man snarled, raising his hand. Eldwin was sent stumbling back, a stinging pain where the man backhanded him across the face. “Hold him,” The man ordered two of the stronger boys and they wordlessly stood either side of Eldwin, shoving him to his knees. Eldwin closed his eyes, bracing himself for what was to come. The wooden cane slammed into his back with such force he would have fallen over had the boys not been holding him in place. He couldn’t hold back a cry slipping past his lips as his vision blurred from tears as the cane hit its mark, over and over again. The youngest boy amongst them was shielding his face in the shirt of another trying to stifle his own cries. “How did you do it? How did you get out!?” The man dropped his cane to the floor and grabbed Eldwin by the collar, hauling him up nearly off the ground. Eldwin looked to the floor, biting the inside of his cheek. He wouldn't answer. No matter how much it hurt, what they did to him, he could not answer.

“He magicked it sir!” The boy who’d been here longest piped up, conviction in his tone. “We all saw ‘im. He didn't even touch it, the door unlocked just like that!"

A new fear flooded Eldwin's chest as the man slowly turned to look from the boy to Eldwin, a strange look coming across his face. “Is that right?” He dropped him to the floor, beckoning for a boy to pass him his cane. “You been holding out on us lad?”

Eldwin glared up at the man, not saying a word. He already had his answer. No one was going to lie for him; If they were asked if he did magic, each and every one of them would say yes.

“Show us,” The man commanded. When he didn’t comply the man slammed his cane hard to the floor with a loud bang that made them all flinch. “Show us!”

There was no point putting it off further. Shakily Eldwin cupped his hands in front of him and after a second a little ball of light appeared. It wasn’t the brightest and it flickered like a dying flame, dimming and brightening every few seconds. But it was all the proof the man needed.

“Well well well.” He looked up from the orb and a smile crept onto his face making Eldwin’s stomach churn, “Things are about to get much more interesting.”

The next few days blurred into one. Eldwin’s anxiety rose to new heights with their discovery hanging over his head like a weight ready to drop. None of the captors had said anything about it and he almost wished they would, he couldn’t take this constant trepidation. None of his fellow captives said anything either. They all stayed huddled at the wall with their heads hung low. No one would meet his eyes. They couldn’t even bear to look at him anymore. It was almost a relief when the big day came. That morning they were all brought upstairs, divided amongst the several bathrooms, stripped and forced in a bathtub where they were doused with cold water by one of the underlings. When they took his gloves from him this man -who looked to be only eighteen, nineteen- saw the sigil and disappeared from the room, coming back with The Mistress in tow. Her nails dug into his wrist as she yanked it harshly, staring at the pact mark with disdain. “Do you have any more secrets you’d like to share with us?” She asked flatly.

Eldwin kept his gaze firmly on the bathroom tiles, his face radiating heat despite his shivering as he tried to cover himself as best he could. She sighed, dropping his arm. “Proceed. I’ll talk to the client before the deal goes through.”

They were given clean clothes. Eldwin noticed his were different from the others - whereas they were given plain cloths barely more than rags, he had on a proper button-up white shirt and dark grey trousers, and black shoes which the others weren’t afforded the luxury of. Some of them had their hair cut unevenly where mats were cut off, others had their heads shorn entirely. Usually he’d appreciate being treated better, but now it made him all the more nervous. Maybe they just wanted to cover the bruises? His back still hurt whenever it stretched. That didn't explain the quality, though.

Then they were brought to another room with a chair by a fire and a couple of metal instruments nearby. Stood by the chair was a feminine figure, her face hidden by a mask. Another woman stood by a table in the corner with what seemed to be medical supplies. They all watched in horror as the first boy was held down in the chair, his head tilted as an iron rod was placed on the side of his neck. The boy yelled and squirmed, strong hands holding him still. It was over within a second, and he was shuffled along to a treatment table, quietly sobbing.

“I feel sick,” One boy said as they all stood lined up in the hallway waiting to be brought on stage, bandage wrapped around his neck, their hands tied in front of them with rope that was left long so they could be led around by it. They could hear the host welcoming the guests. Some boys muttered prayers to themselves, others seemed to be trying to forget they were there at all.

The Mistress entered the room, beckoning Eldwin to follow. “You, boy. With me.” She clicked her fingers, and one of her henchmen grabbed the rope attached to him and tugged him along, bringing him away from the auction to another room. She stopped them outside the door, smoothing his hair back and fixing him with a hard look. “This is a good opportunity for you. Don’t blow it.” Then she opened the door, and he was led inside.

A wealthy-looking man stood in front of the fireplace, turning to face them when the door opened. He was tall, towering over Eldwin when he came to greet them, brown hair neatly combed back and an expensive looking suit. The man grabbed his chin and tilted his head to the side, looking at him from various angles. “He doesn’t look like much. You’re sure he’s the one?” “Yes, sir. The boys all claim to have seen it and my husband can testify.” She gave Eldwin a nudge. “Go on boy, prove it.” “Prove what?” He meant it but must have sounded snarkier than intended because a palm connected with his cheek making his eyes water, her long nails leaving scratch marks.

“Don’t play dumb with me!” She snapped, rings glittering on her still raised fingers. Eldwin scowled, blinking to clear the tears.

“I don’t know what you want from me! No one told me anything! Why was I separated from the others? Why are we here in the first place, I don’t even know how long it’s been!”

Her face twisted with rage. “Why you little-” She looked like she was going to hit him again but the man raised his hand. “You’re a sorcerer, are you not? That’s what we want from you dear. Your magic.” He smiled, the sort of smile one would give to reassure a lost child. He reached up to cup Eldwin’s face, his thumb wiping away the blood left by the Mistress. “Can you do a little for me? Just to prove you can.”

Do these people understand how hard magic is when you’re overstressed, underfed and under-slept? Fine. He’d do a little magic.

He held out one hand palm up, feeling a gentle warmth run through him as all his aether concentrated. Sparks flew from his palm and the man watched in fascination before the sparks turned into flames, springing to life as if someone had thrown oil on to it, albeit on a very small scale. But it was enough to catch the man's sleeve aflame, making him leap back with a yelp, frantically patting himself down. The royal blue fabric was left charred black with a sizable hole. The Mistress offered profuse apologies, offering to cover the damages as Eldwin watched in veiled amusement, careful not to let it show on his face. He would pay for that no doubt, both in their punishment and with the exhaustion that came with using too much energy.

The momentary satisfaction was worth it.

The man dusted himself off, no longer smiling. He didn’t seem to be upset, though; deep blue eyes bore through him as he studied him intently. If anything, he looked pleased. “I’ll take him.”

Thus went his body, stolen by a crime lord who broke it down piece by piece, tore it apart only to build it back up, beat it, burned it, ripped it limb from limb just so he could put it back together leaving not even a scar, getting to live his life like it never happened. Eldwin didn’t have that luxury. Not everything left a visible mark, he couldn’t prove it, no one would ever believe him - but he knew. The Mind remembers what the Body forgets.

But his mind was a traitor.

It was hard to cope, trapped in a life he never asked for, made to do things he never wanted. He was violated, he was used and he was alone with only his own Mind to talk to. Oh, he hated the things his Mind says.

His hand shakes as he brings the bottle to his lips, whisky burning his throat in a way he’d grown to crave. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. The drink, the pills, the searing of cigarettes on skin - they’re only temporary, blocking out the pain, making him human for but a moment. Then come the whispers, the mocking laughter - Failure. Monster. Not even human. Other times it goes blank, leaving him numb and empty until he does something dangerous or cruel for that rush, a chance to feel.. His mind is an enemy that exists within him, controlling his every thought, every move. It was a foe he could not defeat, so it was all he could do to let something else take the reins, just for a little while.

He'd never be himself again. He was already corrupted, tainted, every aspect of him owned by another. Mind, body, and soul.

I hope you enjoyed! If you did please consider reblogging, it really helps the reach of the post for others to find and enjoy it :)

#he's having a great time #whump #minor whump #whumpblr #whump writing #whump fic #trafficking whump #branding #beating #cw self destruction #tw self harm #writeblr #oc #original fic #my ocs #eldwin

21 notes · View notes

revelisms · 8 months ago

Text

Antichrist Copia theory has overtaken me yall. I was not expecting to crank out a full thing on this, but, uh...if you're looking for one big indulgent braindump on Terzo trying to unpack his feelings on this while Copia gets possessed by a demon, look no further?

Quick context setting—I'm still working out these headcanons a bit, but what I'm generally tinkering with here:

Everyone tied to the Emeritus bloodline has some degree of magical abilities, which were formally "awakened" in an oath-taking ceremony at a point in the boys' childhood. This is the Sight mentioned here (i.e., whatever is up with the white eye), and each of the brothers have a slightly different angle for it: Primo can see into the minds of living things, Secondo can see into the past, Terzo can see into the future, and Copia can see into the realm that bridges life and death—and is somewhat a literal bridge, himself, between those planes of reality.

The Exaltation ceremony is a formal handoff from each Papa to the next heir, in which their Sight is tapped to its greatest potential in preparation for becoming head of the church. This typically involves a delivery of rites, a magical blessing, and an opening of the Gate between worlds (which, in this context, is technically Hell itself).

Basically: mayhem ensues.

here we lie

4k words | Rating: M | Terzo-Centric | Antichrist Copia | CWs: Ritual magic, dark imagery, near-death experience, blood, language, existentialism, doomed fate, whump, anger issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, hurt/comfort. Also on AO3

The exaltation ceremony goes wrong.

By all accounts, it shouldn't have.

As with any long-standing traditions of the church, the ritual had been perfected to the scrape of dust one was allowed to wear on their boots—and, as such, had been prepared with the expected flurry of pomp and circumstance.

The esteemed Monsignor Emeritus, firstborn, blessed with the Sight, had cleansed the air thrice with dishes of althea and frankincense and bistort: enhancements for protection and divination.

Sister Mariella, well-familiar with the customs, had laid down the sigils for the Gate flawlessly: shadowed by the slow-prowled growlings and page-turned rites of Secondo Emeritus, Archbishop of the Eternal Light.

The ceremony, as was custom, was set to be led by the head of the church: their Exalted, sheened in black from neck to toe, the points of his clawed gloves glinting in the lowlight—for whom the Sight of premonition had seemed both a blessing and a curse, and never more so than now.

He was distracted, perhaps. Dehydrated, maybe. Dreading the moment he would stand at the door to the realm beyond—a threshold of time and space untethered—that would soon devour the faceless flesh-form of a ghoul cast back to the shadow (his One, his All, his own); a door he himself, in time, would one day find himself crossing, with body and soul split, head and neck cleaved, heart and mind shattered.

From the moment he'd slopped a spoon through the breakfast his secretary had slid on his desk that morning, he'd known, instinctually, that this damned thing could turn so haywire, if only because he'd been the one shackled with it.

His jittery magic, his restless brain, and Copia—

Well.

Copia has been anything but normal, from the day Sister carted him up the chapel steps.

Terzo knew he had magic—the likes of which few could fathom, even from his sticky-fingered child days. The night the little rat had taken his oaths, the air had sung with it: a strange buzz of sensation that felt like the sun had tipped off-center.

And now—

Now, the Gate is laid open beneath Terzo's hands, the unseen ink of his spell-marks glowing a blood-lilac fuchsia, bright enough to glare violently through his clothes, and the void of Hell itself screaming in its glory—and Copia is not imbued with the Dark One's majesty, as he should be—is no man, is not living, has flames for eyes and claws for teeth and wings like the undead and is screaming—

"Close it," Secondo snarls at him, a blurred tower of shadow and piercing white—

—and Terzo knew this.

Knew this boy-man-beast-hellspawn of Christ-Shadow Beholden always was.

He'd looked him in the eye—kneeled there in the cat's cradle of a pentagram scraped in chalk, hands fidgeting at his cassock—and gave a crook of his head: murled, Ready? like a tease, though some part of him had meant it as, You'll be alright, eh?

But unblessed saints and demons below, Copia isn't.

What writhes before him now is a creature that terrifies him to the bone—one that may not abandon his brother completely, should he fail at this any farther than he already has.

"Terzo." Primo, now: an urgent hiss at his shoulder. "Close the gate—"

"I know." His magic burns at his fingertips, sears through his blood. "That—thing hasn't released him—"

A thing with claws cradling Copia's head like ceramic a hairline from shattering, spitting a pained growl through his teeth.

The sacrament in Mariella's hand shakes. "Papa, what's...?"

"I don't know." The flamelight flickers unnaturally against the domed walls: a great breath that lapses to darkness, sparks back again. "Shit, I—I don't know."

"Terzo—"

"Close the gate—"

"Hell Satan—will you all shut up?!"

There are horns in Copia's hair, slick-red-gold between his grappling fingers.

His stomach is in his head. His brain in his feet.

Mariella swallows. She's always been a strong soul—far more than him, now: level-headed in a storm, vibrant in a fog; a presence that guides as much as it grounds.

"How long can you hold it for?" she whispers, firm and calm.

He pulls dry air into his lungs. "As long as I need to."

He steps forward, spellwork singing in his veins, and lets his hands unfurl. The air whips at his vestments, wailing with the bone-deep unease of voices old as Creation straining to be heard.

Somewhere in there is Copia's own. He'll drag it out by hand, if he has to.

"You imbecile!" Secondo is shouting, muffled behind the blurred opalescence of the Veil: a wall that glows off the circle Terzo crosses, consumes him with the prickling unease of a limb losing its circulation. "You can't reason with it!"

The flames warp again. A shadow like death bends over the walls.

Terzo's no stranger to the taste. His dreams have been riddled with the stench of it, from the day the Sight was force-gifted upon him. And like he had, then—a child with battered elbows and bruised knees; a not-man with awkward limbs and disdain for the old orders of this world; a Cardinal with paint on his teeth and a straightjacket of woolen expectations—he repents.

"I call on the spirits of the Then and the Below." A twitch strings through his fingers: with it, a flare of violet light. "To the Beings of those Beyond, the Eternal, I speak now, and speak only—" The pitch of his voice mangles, ragged with the corded growl of a beast: the underbelly all their half-human souls peel clean, when drowned deep enough in this waste. "In my Blood, see my will. In my Sight, my path—"

"What is he saying?" Mariella asks, her voice muffled as though through glass.

Primo calls a sharp warning: "Don't cross it—"

The air whistles with a faint singing of metal—and splits. It grapples at his clothes, twisting his hair with a gravitational pull unseen.

He breathes in chalk dust, sighs out knives.

Beneath Copia's shivering limbs ripples the black expanse of the Gate: an aether so endless one couldn't capture its history in a millennia: a presence so indefinable that even Primo, with years of such history under his belt, can only stare through the blur, voiceless and rigid at the sight of it.

With twitching claws and lightless eyes and Hell beneath his feet, Terzo beckons.

"Bare yourself to me."

The room shivers. The walls shriek. The flames stagger, flutter, wheeze again—and snuff out, completely.

In the pitch, it is only the Eternal, and the glow within his veins, and the white of his eye, and Copia's beast-man-beast-man-fanged grin with a split lip—

A Being that takes the air of the room by the throat, and speaks in a voice that thunders.

"It is time."

Terzo feels its presence slithering up his legs. The weight of its All on his lungs.

He keeps his hands steady, his intent clear, even for the exertion that leaves his arms quivering.

"Not here," he grits back, a strange echo in the ringed light that encases them. "Not now."

A hand that is not Copia's, is scaled and rotted and red, slaps to the stones. "When?" The shriek hits his ears like a thunderstrike. A chill is crawling under his veins: a heaviness that isn't right, is this thing more than his own blood. "When?"

Primo's magic is wafting through the air—some swift-casted attempt at a ward around them, far too late now. The scent of it itches on Terzo's tongue: dragon's blood, rose-ash, frigid at his back. His own aura swats it off like a gnat, too distracted to let it in, to think.

Fuck, he needs to think.

A stage—

The Being wails.

His downfall—this one's own Ascension—

Ice knifes into his ankle.

A stage and heat and lights and purple-bleeding-black and blood on his throat—a syringe in his brother's own hands, a demon masqueraded—his Unnamed's voice gristling in his ear, Be still be still be still now—

Mariella squeezes a talisman in her palm, smoking sweetly with the taste of Secondo's own protection charm.

"Papa," she calls out: her voice a muddy, drowned thing.

His lashes flutter open, heavy as lead.

"Coward!" the Being retches. Hellfire blisters against its silhouette, a nebulic haze. "Tell them of your death. Of Our purpose. Where We were sewn. You know it—"

Mariella holds the stone out to him, guided through the surging current of Primo's ward. The air wrestles like a gale through her sleeve.

"You know it!"

His claws catch at her palm—not his gloves, but his own, thick and black as talons. The talisman burns a sunspot-bloom through his marrow, bright as a thousand stars.

"Thirteen months." His speech is one he doesn't recognize: child and entity and Bloodline infinite. "On a black dais, surrounded by your flock." The talisman melts like a balm into his skin: an unseen shield that ripples with half-lit iridescence. The chill biting into his skin flinches. "You will know it," Terzo grits on, "and now is not it."

He thinks he hears Copia's voice through the fray. He can't be sure.

"And then?" snarls the Being.

Not a being. Not a thing.

No—this is Lucifer-incarnate.

An orchestration.

"It won't be finished, then." The shell of magic around them snaps like embers in a flame, a jolt wrestling up his arm. So much time. So much weighed down—and he weighs it down, still, his breath shuddering. "You'll have years to go—"

"And then?"

Scraped nails, dead eyes, bloodied horns, Copia—

Secondo's gloved palm tears through the gleam, squeezes like a noose around his bicep. "I won't say it again, you fuck," he spits, the words warped and crackling. "You're going to get him killed—"

He can't shake him off quickly enough.

"Close it!"

Copia's eyes. Copia's soul, trapped in the All. Right there—

His magic flares like a supernova, spears through that gate and holds: a cosmic blast that shouts his throat raw, knocks Secondo nearly off his feet, leaves him lightheaded and with blood on his teeth—but he has him—

"Thirteen months' time," the Being roars, "and you'll be taken with it."

Terzo hisses, his claws scraping at his brother's skin.

"So is the Rule."

The Gate grapples at his silks.

Copia's gloved fingers shake, snatching desperately at his arms. His own voice breaks through the loom. "Terz—"

"I've got you," Terzo spats. Sweat sticks at his neck.

The fibers of his magic are fraying at the edges.

Red eyes glare up at him. "Do you accept it?"

The portal whines.

"To the day it is marked, you'll have it. As it is written." His claws slip on Copia's sleeve. "As it always was."

The Being grins. "And so it will be."

It spits his brother out.

His hold on the Gate snaps like a wire—and shatters the well of magic, with it. The howl torrents through the room with a cello's blare, and whips to a bee-winged nothingness.

With the loss of it, gravity lurches in his gut. He cracks to his knees, catches himself on the stones just enough—gloves still intact, not torn through, only clawed with gold—and heaves blood.

"Papa!"

And his brother. His damned demon brother: rubber-legged, staggering, Copia gasps like a man near-drowned.

Unscathed, somehow—Satan willing.

Primo is across the room, in an instant. "Copia. Unblessed beneath, are you alright?"

"Ye-Yes, yes, I—shit." Primo catches him, his gloves slipping at his sleeves. Unsteadily, he veers back on his feet. "What...what happened?"

It's too dark. Too quiet. Too loud.

Terzo swallows down bile; chokes on blood and phlegm. Mariella's habit swims in his vision.

"Papa," she hushes, clear as crystal now. "Papa, look at me."

Secondo, halfway between them: "Is it gone?"

Her fingers skim through the sweat-dripped mess of his paints: press cooly at his temple.

"Is it gone?"

"Yes," she breathes.

Hazily, lashes flicking, Terzo tips out of her touch. He chokes on his words, the first try; rasps them, the second. "Where's the rat?"

"He's here," Primo answers him. "He's fine."

There's a clumping of boots, a rustling of silks, Mariella scurrying from the floor.

"What in Hell's name were you thinking." Secondo's hand jerks at his sleeve, wrestles him half-blind back into his bones. "You could have doomed us all. We never—never—speak to the Unnamed without wards in place. You know that—"

"Brother," Copia croaks.

Secondo rips his head over his shoulder. "You shut your mouth. I haven't even gotten to you." With a firm grip, his hand slips under Terzo's arm, helps him slowly to his feet. "Get up," he huffs. "Come on. Are you alright?"

"I'm—fuck. Fine. I'm fine."

His elder brother scowls down at him. "Good. And you better stay that way, because I have half a goddamned mind to put a fist through your teeth—"

"Dino," Primo snarls, "This is helping nothing." Years of practice in such misguided events has left him rationed, calm: a quiet glance turned to the pale-faced attendant behind him, who stands shell-shocked, having seen unwantedly the darker veins of their Order—and ones their customs would soon have him forget. "Jean," Primo says, waiting for his eyes to drop. "We will need a medic. Say nothing to the All-Father."

Secondo scoffs. "Oh, yes—Nihil will have this one's ass, when he hears of this—"

"Saints—ignore him, young one. A medic, and Priestess Diana. Quick as you can."

The boy nods and takes off through the hall's doors, stumbling up the stairs in his haste.

In his absence, the room holds a collective breath, the eyes of the siblings still in attendance fixed like rabbits on the four men clustered in the center of the room.

"We're alright," Primo says to them all, in a tone that is more order than reassurance.

It couldn't be more of a reach.

Terzo wheezes a snarl, a laugh. "Alright." The stones sting beneath his feet: five paces that drive him out of Secondo's iron grip, steer him straight into the path of Copia's saucer-wide blinking: eyes blue and white and younger than they should ever seem, in a face that has grown so weathered, as all of them have.

And he knew.

He lifts a clawed finger, his breath too slow. "I knew."

Primo, sharp as steel: "Do not take this out on him—"

He couldn't give a shit.

He almost killed him.

The bastard wasn't living.

"What are you, mh?" Terzo licks his lips, tastes the bitter metal of blood. He lifts a shaky hand. "No, no—what did she make you?" He smears the leather against his mouth, the heat of his stare unwavering, a knife-edge sliced from shoes to frazzled fringe. "That—that Aether just within you, eh? Always that, under there?"

Copia shakes. "I didn't," he blunders.

"This is why she brought you, isn't it? Satan, of course—"

Secondo wrestles for his elbow, a steadying squeeze. "Terzo—"

"You saw it—!"

His brother's eyes simmer: one black in the lowlight, the other white as a moonbeam. "I saw you."

His bites his nails through his glove. Rattles in a breath.

"Calm down, the both of you," Primo says coldly, a hand still on Copia's shoulder. "It was reckless—but you managed. We are all still in one piece." He steps between them, pointedly, studying Terzo's face like a leech. "Your Sight will be strained for weeks, after that. You did not have the power to even attempt that on your own."

Terzo snuffs. "A good thing one of us sorry shits did."

Behind the sharp slope of Primo's shoulder, Copia shivers, eyes downturned. "I—"

"Don't." He drags a gloved hand through his hair. Shaking—still shaking? Outraged—always. Horrified, still. "You're good," he tells his brother, tells himself. "It is all good. You're alright. Okay."

Primo's eyes stare through him, see a bitten-lipped boy with a bandage on his cheek.

Terzo turns away. "Okay," he hushes again, and walks, past Secondo's stone-still glare, Mariella's worried frown, and walks, and walks, and walks—

"You are not running away, now—"

"Dino. Leave it. Copia, do not linger on that, alright? Don't listen to it. You know how he is. It is not your fault—"

"But what—what was that? What happened—?"

—up the gnarled stairwells, out the maze of lower halls, stumbling over the grasses, and sits like a stone on the side-entry's steps. Like a ghost.

Sits for an age.

He must—because, by then, the medics have come, and the stench of that room has been dragged open, and Mariella's whispers are drifting across the corridor's arches—after he's ripped off his gloves, dug his fingers through his hair, tried to breathe and not think—and he expects her.

He expects her fear, her pity.

Not Copia.

The fool's boots scuff on the stairs.

"Is it, eh..." His brother muddles over a breath. "Alright if I—?"

Terzo doesn't have the mind to fight it—not with sweat still cold at his back. He swats his palm, some attempt at allowance, kneading his other fingers over his brow.

Copia slumps down to the steps. Just stays there, in awkward, insufferable silence.

Finally: "Shit—it's chilly today, isn't it?"

Terzo leers through his fringe. "Going to talk about the birds, next?"

"I'm just saying."

"Just saying. Yes—and you'll be singing, after." He combs back the half-tamed waves of his hair, hangs his hand across his knee. "Old chamber smells like a cesspool."

Copia manages a smile, the thistles of his mustache wrinkling. "Bleh. Nasty place. I've always hated it, down there."

"All the more reason to, now, huh?" Terzo forces a sneer of his own, glaring away. He sniffs. Pits his tongue against his teeth.

For a beat, his brother says nothing. Then, his gloved fingers squeaking over each other: "I'm alright."

Terzo chuffs, furrowing his brows. "Barely."

He can feel the rat's eyes on him. It makes his skin crawl. "Primo...told me. What it—well." Copia frowns at his boots, at the graveled path beyond. "Did you mean it?" he hushes, lifting his eyes. "That you've...seen it, before?"

Terzo bites the inside of his lip. "Seen lots of things."

"But—that. It's—I've always thought...er...felt that, maybe, she'd..."

"Sister?"

"Mother, yes—"

"Your mother."

Copia's shoulders twitch.

"I—sorry," Terzo mumbles, shifting his fingers over his thumb. "I know it's not..."

His fault, his intention—his anything, right?

But it is. Isn't.

Should be.

He flexes his hand, pitters his fingertips together. Looks away. "Anyway."

A breeze rustles cooly through the shrubbery that flanks the stairs: a feathered hush along the pines that tower over the grounds.

"Anyway," Copia repeats, shifting his tongue around his mouth. "It's just...you, eh...you have seen it, before," he says again, watching the air ripple through the leaves, "haven't you?"

Terzo glances at him. Sister's sloped nose. A paintbrush-smattering of freckles. The white of his eye, fixed on the swaying branches. Lanky little thing, as he's always been. The mirror to his own placelessness, own purposelessness, own forced mantle he never asked to have thrown upon him—but craved, clawed for, claimed, nonetheless.

"Told you, little thing," he says, tipping his heel off the stones. "Seen lots of things."

"But I know. I've always...felt it, I just haven't—" Copia fumbles, lacing his fingers. "Had the words, I guess."

"Rare thing, for you."

"Shut up."

"Heh—even rarer for me, eh?"

"Ugh."

They breathe in unison, the air thick with it: hope, despair, magic, emptiness.

"When it...when that...thing took over me, did it...say anything to you?"

Terzo's mouth ticks.

Thirteen months. Poison in his neck. His body tossed through the gaping maws of the realm beyond.

He stares at the points of his boots, still speckled with his own spit and blood, and scuffs his thumb at it.

"Eh...not clearly. Hard to make out, in the muck of it."

"None of it came through?"

Terzo tilts his chin on his shoulder, fixing him with a narrowed look. "It wasn't you, Coppie," he says. "Just...forget what I said, before. Old temper of mine, rearing its shitting head again."

"But what if—"

"It wasn't." Terzo plants his palm on his brother's knee, chipped black on his nails, and squeezes. "It wasn't," he murmurs again.

Copia stutters. "Well, even if it wasn't—it—it felt like I was..."

"Delirious?" He perks one brow, fox-grinned in his usual reach for deflection, distraction. "Dead, even?"

"Whole."

The smile wanes.

For a breath, he tries to hunt for that beast beneath his brother's skin—the way he so often does in the steamed glass of his own mirrors, and so easily sees it in them: the spire-teeth, the winged limbs, the eyes half-living.

He finds only a quivery little boy, tucked in the cage of a man's body. The same one who spent years, against all odds—against his own stupid, spiteful jealousy—clinging like a barnacle to his side.

He slides his hand away. "The Sight does it to all of us, little rat. Strips away the Veil." He picks at his thumb, the gravel hazing to a fine blur, and swallows: white stone crisping to clarity, again. "Catch an Emeritus in the right light—even a clueless one can see the Fallen in them."

Copia frowns.

Maybe it's not a comfort. All the more proof that he isn't one of them, as he has so often feared.

The Other, above all else.

"But what if I am?" he says quietly. "Whatever that...thing was? Will, eh...will something happen, if that's true?"

Terzo lifts his eyes to the sky—grayish with cloud-cover, damp with the chilled humidity of a storm along the way, something to wash this whole mess clean—and lies through his teeth.

"Happen?" he snides. "What is this—Armageddon, itself? You worry worse than Nonna, Coppie." He wrinkles his brows at him, his smile thin, his paints half-smeared off his face. "And even if you were—would it be so bad? All of us are hardly human, eh? Perhaps you are just farther along the evolutionariness—the truest Creature of the Night, of us all." His eyes widen, teasingly. "I mean—psh! I will have my fangs, no? And the pincher, his wolf-pelt, and Primo will, eh...Hell, what would the old goat be?"

Copia rolls his eyes, leaning into the cradle of his elbows. "A zombie?"

"Feh—the Nihilist is the rotting corpse, surely."

His brother rolls into a snicker. "Sea creature?"

"Agh—not the lagoon man! We will insult the dear river's integrity, with such things—no, no." Terzo sniffs, feigns smearing away his paints instead of the heat itching at his eye, and smiles wryly again. "Let's be realistic, here—the old gardenia will be the enchanted plant that traps one's bones for the witches, yes?"

Copia wheezes on another laugh.

Saints, he hates that laugh. Godawful sound, a mimicry of his own: a snort and a tea kettle and a giggle all in one.

The brightest sunbeam of any.

"He has to be the, er—the witch, right?" Copia wonders, giving him a teasing glance.

Terzo flashes his teeth. "Now, if that is the category—I will rule above them all, no?"

And his brother laughs again.

Their little brother, little demon, little star. The highest heir of them all, doomed to a path he should have never been put on—as all of them are, in their own ways. Always have been; always will be.

Terzo ignores Primo's shadow in the corridor, flanked by Mariella's quiet eyes. Ignores the hawkish leer of Secondo's folded-armed scowling, waiting to deflect the plague that will no doubt burst into the halls, once news of it all has reached the ears of their Highest.

At least for this moment, he can pretend.

Flit away what is yet to come, like a bottle tossed to the sea—Nihil, Sister, this brother tressed in silks and jewels for a price he hadn't the slightest knowledge would be paid—and goad another laugh out of him, and another.

Relish in the denial that this is all that ever was. Ever could be.

Copia: blushing, teary-eyed but toothy, knocking his shoulder into his—unable to do anything but choke at the idiotic scenarios he conjures for the four of them, in all their monsterly glory. As distracted as he deserves to be, after that wretched thing. The memory of it all forgotten, if for a moment.

And that's enough, Terzo thinks, the cool tang of rain on the gales.

For now, maybe, that's enough.

55 notes · View notes

shywhumpauthor · 5 months ago

Note

Hey! I'm currently in desperate need of some inspo for magical torture whump? My whumpee is thought to have a corrupted soul and needs to be "healed", kinda exorcism vibes. Any ideas maybe? :)

Hey! I’m sorry this list is so short, I ran out of time but I wanted to give you something. I could follow up with some more ideas later if you’d like!

Anything with fire/burning. Hot iron rods, magic restraints that are always burning hot, being kept near/exposed to fire to “burn out the evil” or something

Branding / carving certain sigils into their skin, ones associated with healing / goodness, etc

Sensory deprivation with some sort of physical violence. Chain them up by their wrists, ankles chained to the floor, blindfolded, gagged, ears covered so they can’t hear. Then add something like caning, cutting, or just a general beating.

I feel like whipping in general would work to some extent, and that that is often associated with what you’re kind of going for.

On the opposite hand as earlier, freezing. Force them into a tub of ice water, shove their head under, dump buckets over them, cold is cleansing after all, right?

Poisons, harmful elixirs, stuff of that sort

#whump #whumpblr #whump community #its me coal #whump prompt #whump prompts

35 notes · View notes

onbearfeet · 7 months ago

Note

Whump Wheel request for our favorite werewolf!

✨ High fever ✨

but he's ambulatory somehow

"Sit your stupid ass down," Bucky snarled.

Jack shook his head, more slowly than usual. "I'm fine," he insisted, and it would even have been convincing if he'd managed to avoid slurring the second word.

"You are not fine," Elsa snapped from where she was fiddling with what she claimed was a ghoul gate but that Bucky could have sworn was a garden-variety pipe bomb with funny writing on it. "You're running a temperature of forty degrees, according to Barnes' arm sensors." She rolled her eyes. "A hundred and four in idiot units."

"Hey," Bucky warned her, then returned his attention to Jack, who had begun methodically pulling books off the shelves of the Newport mansion in which they'd gotten themselves trapped. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, stalking over to where his prey had managed to escape. "Do you wanna cook your brain or something?"

"I dunno, would it help?" Jack's eyes were glassy as he flipped pages without appearing to read. His cheeks and forehead were flushed with fever.

"What kinda stupid question is--hey!" Bucky grabbed Jack by his bicep and spun him in place so the werewolf had no choice but to face him. "Listen to me!"

"'m lissning," Jack slurred, staring at a point in space that seemed to be just off the end of Bucky's nose.

Bucky brought his metal palm up to press against Jack's cheek. Jack leaned into the cool touch with a barely suppressed moan.

"Hey," Bucky said, more gently this time. "You need to rest. You're sick."

"Don' get sick." Jack sounded offended at the very thought.

"He's right," Elsa put in. "Werewolves are immune to just about everything humans can catch." She paused. "Everything other humans can catch," she corrected.

"So what?" Bucky shot back. "Maybe he's got parvo or something!"

"Tha's racist," Jack informed him, swaying on his feet.

Bucky closed his eyes and silently counted to five thousand. Then he reopened then.

"Jack," he said, watching the werewolf's head wobble in response. "You want some water?"

Wobbly nod.

"Yeah, something to drink probably sounds good right about now. But you gotta sit down to drink your water, okay?"

Scowl. Wobble-nod.

"Good man." He gently guided the swaying man over to a chair near the cold fireplace. Jack didn't sit so much as collapse into it like his strings had been cut, but his head didn't hit anything on the way down, which was a win in Bucky's book.

"Try the drinks cabinet," Elsa suggested, still fiddling with her definitely-not-a-pipe-bomb.

Bucky grunted acknowledgment and headed for it. He'd give Jack alcohol if he had to--fluids were fluids, right?--but he wanted to find something low-proof if he could.

Good thing every rich evil bastard he'd ever net had kept the good stuff locked up and left the watered-down shit where guests and tippling servants could find it.

"Are you planning to blow us up with that thing?" he called to Elsa as he rummaged through the cabinet.

"If I can disable the sigils," she replied distractedly, "I can turn it from a ghoul gate into a perfectly ordinary explosive to use on the door."

The bottles were what he expected. Shit bourbon, shit scotch, fake cognac, real vodka... "Do you know how to disable the sigils?" he asked.

"Not as such, no."

Bucky paused, his metal fingers wrapped around a bottle of bitters. "Then should you be fucking with it?"

"Only if we don't want Jack to die."

The bottle shattered in his grip. He thought vaguely that he was going to have to clean the plates in his hand later.

"What?!" he yelped.

"Nobody gets a high fever in ten minutes flat," Elsa snarled. "It's a curse. Probably attached to this bloody gate. Jack knows more about most curses and sigils than I do, Barnes. He's had centuries to learn, and my education was rather more specialized. And now the curse is cooking his brain before he can break it!"

Bucky glanced over at Jack, who was slumped in his chair. "Fuck. I think he passed out."

"Bastards. Time for plan B." Elsa bit the fingertip of her left glove, tugged it off, and spat the glove aside. Then she bit the cuticle on her thumb, hard.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked, in a higher register than he'd intended.

"Duct tape for curses."

"What?"

"Duct tape fixes everything, right? Most curses break with either blood or true love's kiss. Do you see any true lovers in here?" She squeezed her index finger against the wound in her thumb and began smearing blood across the definitely-a-bomb-now. "Get Jack behind the davenport."

"The what?!"

"The couch, Barnes!"

The oh-shit-that's-just-a-bomb began to beep.

Bucky lunged for Jack, scooped his limp body up, and was up and over the dav--couch, it was a goddamn couch--in seconds.

Elsa landed beside them just as the beeping stopped and the world went white.

#monster mash #whump #jack russell #jack russell whump #werewolf by night #don't worry they're fine #jack woke up like 20 minutes later with no idea what had happened #bucky is going to have a heart attack over these idiots #ted is not here because he wouldn't fit through the door #elsa bloodstone #bucky barnes #side note i have a personal vendetta against the word davenport and i wanted to blow one up

25 notes · View notes

alpaca-clouds · 2 years ago

Text

Xenk's Aging

So, something with a lot of whump potential: Sasz Tamm took over the Thay 100 years ago, when Xenk was a kid. (Like maybe between 10 and 12 years old, I would say.) While he was fleeing the Beckoning Death, he got touched by it, giving him the sigils of Sasz Tamm. Which slowed his aging.

Going by Regé-Jean Page's age, he is physically 35 right now. So, he aged something between 23 and 25 years in a hundred years.

So... Was he a kid for like 20 years of that? Like, just imagine going to puberty that slowly. And also... being a kid without a home for that amount of time.

Like, wow. Give this man a hug.

#dungeons & dragons honor among thieves #dungeons & dragons #dndhat #dnd:hat #honor among thieves #xenk yendar #xenk #headcanons

167 notes · View notes

writing-in-spades · 2 months ago

Text

WHUMPTOBER 2024 DAY 001

|| public torture / public use || stress position

|| "If you cry, we'll go easy on you"

Contains:: magic whump, torture (from the prompt), mentions/implications of trafficking

Hissssssssssss

Whumpee bit down on the inside of her mask to stifle a pained cry. Her companion huffed, pressing the bronze glyph more forcefully into her stomach. "You're not supposed to make any noise, honey," Whumper said, tone low, words dripping with false remorse. "Now I have to start over."

Slowly, they pulled back. Whumpee silenced a sigh of relief.

She wasn't fully sure how she'd gotten to this point, though there were enough unknowns floating around in her memory that she could almost fit them together into a passable photo-negative. Whumper had been pacifying her with their magic, that much was clear. They'd brought her out of the dungeon with a blinding spell (not wanting her unconscious, of course, that would draw too many stares) — disoriented, but not enough to miss the acrid scent of fire and coal smoke, the rumbling under her feet. They'd boarded a train. Deep in her gut, she knew what that meant.

Whumper was tired of her. She was being relocated.

The metal touched Whumpee's upper arm, faux fire digging through her muscles and nerves. She flinched harshly, bracing her hands against the bar top in front of her, but managed to keep from making any sound. Whumper hummed thoughtfully, letting her go, and she collapsed forward with a sob.

"Very good," they said, "that's one." Whumpee chanced a look at their expression — they seemed to be calculating where to burn next.

(It didn't matter, of course. Magical fire couldn't scar, at least not on the surface, especially not when stored in runes or sigils. Nearly always harnessed cruelly, it bored straight to the mind, leaving you with only the weight of pain you couldn't prove. Whumpee knew Whumper was only stalling, trying to make her more anxious, more easily startled.)

(Though she'd never admit it, it was definitely working.)

Without warning, they put their hand rather gently on her shoulder. It didn't burn, so she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up a bit straighter. An older couple, arm in arm, were walking through from the previous compartment, presumably off to their room.

Whumpee had nearly forgotten that they weren't alone here, so used to being in a place completely cut off from the outside. She put on her best smile for the two — though she was certainly still crying, barely disguising her sharp breath as Whumper placed the glyph just below her wrist.

"It's okay," Whumper said softly, sickeningly sweet, moving their free hand from her shoulder to her face. "Everything will be just fine." The couple, of course, stopped next to them, and Whumpee closed her eyes, begging them to just move on.

"Is everything alright?" the woman asked, adjusting her mask to be better understood. Whumper made a show of attempting to fix their own without using either of their hands.

"These times certainly don't make anything easy," they said, putting on an impression of genuine grief. "We're going to see her brother. He's very ill. The family isn't sure he's going to recover."

(That part was true. It was one of the last things Whumpee heard from her parents, right before Whumper grabbed her, back when the plague ravaging the country was barely a rumor. She wasn't sure if he'd gotten back on his feet, or if he'd died some time ago. She didn't even really know how long it'd been.)

Whumper took the glyph away from her arm and pressed it to her face instead, using their other hand to properly adjust their mask. Somehow it felt worse — more degrading, perhaps, pain shredding what remained of her composure. Whumpee reflexively scrunched up, barely silencing a scream and instead nearly bursting into tears.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she desperately hoped the couple would recognize that this wasn't just part of the act, that they'd see the signs point to something else, something worse — subtle flinches every time Whumper spoke, the pained twitches in her eye. She hoped, irrationally, that they'd fight Whumper for her, take her away from them, let her go home.

"Oh, you poor dear. You know what," the woman wondered aloud, eyes bright, "I think I've got some spare wellness charms in my bag. I'll go get them for you."

Whumpee's heart shattered.

"You don't need to do that," Whumper said, though Whumpee knew they didn't mean it — they wanted them to come back. An unwilling, clueless audience must've been the point from the start, one final knife to her self-worth before passing her along. No one was going to help her, even those watching it happen.

"It's no problem," the other bystander, presumably the woman's husband, replied, looking intently at Whumpee. "Only if you believe it'll help."

Whumpee held her tongue until Whumper turned to stare at her, eyes cold. They pressed the burning metal further into her cheek, and she slowly managed to choke out, "I– Y-Yes, thank you—" before her voice broke. The two simply nodded, turning to walk away.

"It's the least I can do, dear," the woman said. Agonizingly slowly, she and her husband made their way through the door to the next compartment.

Once they were alone, Whumper sighed, finally taking the glyph away from Whumpee's face. "Too bad," he said, still with that same false emotion. "Seems I'll have to start over again."

7 notes · View notes

negative-speedforce · 5 months ago

Note

31, 33, and/or 50 for the superhero whump? Your choice of character :D

This is actually a great excuse for me to write that thing for Cassandra...

31: Loss Of Limb/Eye/Something That Won't Regenerate

Content warning: Sensory overload, amputation, near-death experience, mentioned minor character death

Morgan Stevens had died a year before Cassandra was born, choking on his own power as he tried to rewrite fate itself. She wasn't able to see her uncle die firsthand, but she'd heard the stories.

Every witch knew from the time they were old enough to understand that magic required two things- blood, and intent. Small spells would take less than a drop, and bigger spells would take more.

Since cutting yourself open wasn't exactly an option, especially in the 21st century, most witches used a spell to transmute their blood into magic- by crystalizing small amounts of their blood, and ergo sacrificing it in the same way the witches of old would use a knife for.

Unfortunately, this spell had consequences. Overuse of magic would cause a witch's entire body to crystallize, inevitably killing them. This is what had killed Morgan Stevens.

This experience, as Cassandra had just discovered, was extremely painful.

Cassandra looked down from where Director Hawke's broken body lay sprawled across her desk to her casting hand, which was where the transformation had started. Already, her fingers were gone, her hand having transmuted to violet glass-like crystal almost all the way up to her wrist.

So, this was how she was going to die.

She watched with morbid fascination as the crystal crept up her arm, accelerating with each breath she took. She didn't expect it to end like this, but if it meant that those metas that Hawke had taken and killed would get justice, it'd be worth it.

"Cass!" Jay rushed into the room, limping slightly, wrapping his arms around her. His wheelchair must have been damaged in the fight. She pitied him.

"Listen, Jay." Cassandra put her hand, the one she could still move, on Jay's shoulder. "I need you to call my dads. And my brother. Tell them I love them. Tell them I did what I had to, okay? Here. Give them this." Cassandra reached for her amulet, breaking the chain so it rested in her hand, glowing slightly. "They'll understand when they see this."

Jay twisted the pulse gauntlet he wore on his wrist, activating it. Cassandra looked around for enemies, but they were alone, except for Arya and an unconscious Ameerah.

Jay pressed his pulse gauntlet into the spot just above where the crystal was spreading. "Darling, I'm sorry."

With a sudden flash of light, Cassandra felt her arm go numb, the tingling pain of the transformation replaced by... nothing. She heard something crash to the ground, shattering into pieces like glass.

"Jason!" She heard Arya's voice, but she was still blinking back spots in her vision from the flash of Jay's gauntlet. "What the fuck did you do?"

Cassandra looked down at her arm- or at least, where it was supposed to be. On the floor next to her lay the fractured crystal pieces of what used to be her arm, which had been completely severed just below the shoulder.

"I had to, okay? I couldn't let you die."

"My..." Cassandra gripped the stump of what used to be her arm. The spot itself wasn't bleeding, however, her hand came back bloody when it was sliced open by razor-sharp fragments of crystal that stabbed out of the stump.

"I'm so sorry." Jay kissed Cassandra's forehead.

Cassandra choked back tears, forcing herself to be calm. "I want to go home. Please."

"Okay." Jay nodded. Cassandra reached to draw a teleportation sigil, but... nothing. Her casting hand was gone, and she'd never learned to cast with her left. All the sigils were reversed, and Cassandra didn't have the mental energy to figure it out.

"It's okay. I understand. I'll call a cab, okay?" Hailey, who'd entered the room at some point unnoticed by Cassandra, offered. Cassandra nodded.

"Thank you."

#ask revan #revan writes #oc shit #practically-an-x-man #Cassandra stevens

7 notes · View notes

spnfanficpond · 1 year ago

Text

Secret Santa 2022 Masterlist

Here’s the masterlist of all the story for our Secret Santa 2022

* Christmas Tradition by @cleighwrites

Characters: Sam x Dean x Cas

Summary: Sam, Dean, and Cas take some time off to celebrate the holiday.

Warnings: NSFW, past trauma (mentioned), m/m/m threesome, wing kink, anal sex

* 12 Days of Christmas Winchester Editon by @waywardnerd67

Summary: (Y/N) plans out an epic gift that spans over the 12 days before Christmas.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader/Sam Winchester x Reader/Dean Winchester x Reader x Sam Winchester

Warnings: Fluff/Smut

* Under The Mistletoe by @katbratsupernaturalwhore

Summary: Moving on is difficult and sometimes includes uprooting to a new state thousands of miles away. Just before Christmas.

Tags/warnings: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/Misha Collins (past), Christian Kane, Padalecki Family, Genvieve Cortese, Timothy Hutton, meet-cute, floof/fluff, schmoop, slight angst, loss, rom-com, Christmas, Alternate Universe

* Christmas Baking by @spnexploration

Summary: a short, fluffy fic for Secret Santa. Does include a touch of A/B/O dynamics.

* I’ll be home for Christmas by @little-diable

Summary: Dean and the reader have always hated one another, a natural instinct they've run with. Now, on Christmas Eve, both cross paths once again, forced to endure one another's closeness.

Warnings: 18+, smut, oral (m), enemies to lovers

Pairing: Dean Winchester x fem!reader

* Of Glitter and Paper by @thesassywallflower

Summary: The holidays are a ridiculously busy time so you have to take the time out for a little loving wherever and whenever you can.

Tags: Dean Winchester, Female!Reader, Dean x Female!Reader, Domestic!Dean, Dean Does NOT Die In That Stupid Barn, Basically porn with dash of plot, with teeniest, tiniest bit of angst, fluff

* Oblivious by @ambergoddess444

Summary: You and Dean haven’t always seen eye to eye, even when it came to celebrating a win on a case. A few drinks, a confession and a fun night lead to a little more.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: Fluff heavy, smidge of crack, angst and smut (oral sex) - fairly plot heavy

* Under the cover by @jld71

Summary: Sam and Dean find themselves sharing a bed and revealing their feelings for each other.

Pairings: Sam Winchester x Dean Winchester

Warnings: Wincest, Angst, one bed, Sharing a Bed, Longing, admission of feelings

* Shifted - The Plan by @mrswhozeewhatsis

Summary: The Winchesters are meeting your family for the first time when you all visit for Christmas. Things don’t go quite to plan

Pairings: Dean x Reader

Warning: So far, nothing. This will be updated as I go, though, if anything crops up. I’m posting as I write, for the first time EVER, so I can only say I hope this will be more fluff/crack than anything else.

* If we make it through December by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Summary: Donna is horrified to learn that the boys have never had a proper Christmas, so she invites them to her house for the holiday.

Pairing: Dean x Donna Hanscum

Warnings: explicit (eventually), fluff (? Idk), angst (? light), domestic (can’t get much more domestic)

* Cabin Comfort by @idreamofplaid

Summary: (No summary)

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Warnings: Sex is described here

* Secret Santa Exchange by @the-slythering-raven

Summary: (No Summary)

Pairings: Sam/Reader (platonic) (Reader uses she/her pronouns)

Warnings: There is whump, there is comfort.

*Christmas in Heaven by @outofnowhere82

Summary: Sam and Dean enjoy a Christmas in heaven.

Pairings: Sam/Dean

Warnings: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Secret Santa

* Tell it on the Mountain by @ladylilithprime

Summary: Castiel was able to protect himself and Dean when Dick Roman exploded, but it weakened him badly, as did getting Kevin away from Crowley and back to the safety of his mother. When angels show up under orders from Naomi to bring Castiel in by whatever means necessary, a banishing sigil is the most effective way to get rid of them. If only it didn't mean banishing a weakened Castiel too. If only Sam had not been dragged along for the ride.

Pairing: Castiel x Sam

Warning: Alternate Universe - Timeline Divergence, Accidental Wing Manifestation, Truth Compulsions, Frank Discussions of Sexuality and Intimacy, References to Sam Winchester's Hell Trauma, No Trips to Purgatory,

* Not Another Winchester Christmas by @kickingitwithkirk

Summary: (No summary)

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Warnings: cursing, a bit of angst, some TPE implied

* Ugly Sweater by @ilovedean-spn2

Summary: Reader buys ugly Christmas sweaters.

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Dean being put in his place lol, all the hunters being out in their place! Badass reader?

* My Padabear by @fandomoniumflurry

Summary: This Christmas with his best friend is different than all the others. But why?

Pairing: Jared Padalecki x Reader

Warnings: No warnings just Christmas fluff. Unbetad. Not my best work but hope you still like it. It's been a while since I've written anything. Posted on mobile so please be kind.

#spnfanficpond secret santa #spnfanficpond secret santa 2022 masterlist #writing challenge #pond admin #pond events

25 notes · View notes

auroragehenna · 28 days ago

Text

AI-less Whumptober

Day 21 - Alternate: Kidnapping

OC Leo(coril) and Lorién Castelet (and Toby) from Sinaheh. I'm obsessed with them and will do my best to portray them accurately. World setting and Kalceran from Perie (DM)

TW/CW: DnD setting, kidnapping (recapture), living weapon whumpee, dehumanization, angry whumper, conditioned whumpee, scared whumpee, Brief monk martial whump, no toby harmed in this piece at all, really brief "fight", implied past and future whump, attempted defiance, Word count: 1'001

It felt strangely familiar to go on a solo mission without the rest of the party. Well he wasn't completely alone. Toby was in his pocket, gingerly peeking out from time and squeaking at food on the street. Leo let his gaze drift in the direction that Toby squeaked and saw a market stand with cheese good and some fruits. His eyes found a box filled with apples and a memory shot into his head, sharp and unwanted. All these years ago, when he stole the apple, living on the streets before he was found by-No. I don't wanna. I don't want to think about him.

The old worn tension in his bones seemed to weigh more now, more tragic. But Leo pushed the flashback back, subconsciously he ran his hand over the tattoo on his neck. The impulsive idea that would definitely infuriate Lorién if he were to see it. The monk boy shook his head, the fear of Lorién had never really left ever since he ran away from the monestary but it's been a long time... He surely wouldn't find him anymore...It had gone good a long time...

A group of bards with their instruments passed Leo on the cobble stone and his body tensed up. He was very used to always beeing on edge, it was a safe way to live.

After reaching a crossroad he pulled out the map and letter Kal had given him, they were supposed to help him reach his destination. He stared at Kal's sigil on the letter and a smile twitched on his lips before he squinted to try and read the instructions again. As usual the letters seemed to merge together and make no sense but he got there. Left passageway then.

From this narrow street there were multiple side streets going back to the main street or other squares.

Suddenly from behind a hand landed heavy on his shoulder, making Leo jump out of his skin and spin around. He had taken a step back and gone into a defensive stance before even seeing who it was.

Then Leo finally saw who he was facing and his heart skipped multiple steps. His defensive stance fell away as he stumbled a few steps further away from the tall blone guy in front of him.

"There you are Leocoril. I've been looking everywhere for you.", he exclaimed, making another step towards the brown haired, smaller boy. "Time to come back now."

Even if Leo would know what to protest or dare to, he seemed to have lost his voice. Seemingly frozen to the spot. Lorién!! Here.

Lorién's face hardened in anger. "What are you waiting for?!"

Leo panicked, in a heartbeat he turned around and tried to run away. But in the next second he was already crashing to the ground hard.

Lorién had used the stick strapped to his back to beat the other's legs out under him before crouching down. Pressing his knees into Leo's back and threatening: "Stop making a scene and follow my orders or I will lock you in the spare room for two weeks!"

Leo chocked on air, his body pressed into the dirt he stopped struggling, the memory of that horrible day pulling him into a darkness years ago.

The blonde monk wasted no time pulling Leo up roughly and dragging him into a darker alley leading towards the outskirts of the town. Once they were far enough from most curious folk Lorién threw Leo against the wooden wall of a house. "Wanna explain to me where you've been!?", he asked, poorly hidden anger hardening his face, a fist clasped around his stick.

Leo groaned as he was thrown against the old wood but it was by far not the worst pain he ever experienced, he'd be fine. Aside from that he absolutely wouldn't. He couldn't go back to the monestary, back to Lorién. Not after having finally having found some joy. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a gentle voice came into his mind unprompted. Kalceran. He couldn't leave without telling Kal! With shaking hands Leo pulled the whisperer from his hip and clutched it at his side. „I can't..come back. I have a new place for myself now.", he protested even though his voice was shaking from fear.

Lorién's eyes widened further before he chuckled scornfully. "A new place for yourself, huh? And what place would that exactly be, hm? You are nothing more than a weapon, Loecoril. My weapon. To be honed."

"I-" He wasn't. He was more like that...Right?

"Say it!", Lorién ordered!

Leo's elf ears dropped in hopelessness but he still tried to resist the older monk. Holding onto the whisperer even harder he finally aimed it at his old "mentor". „I can't come with you. I am...I am more than your weapon.", he said, it came out mangled between protest and plea, way too quiet.

Lorién's eyes snapped to the Whisperer in Leo's hands, aimed at his body. Fury scorched him on the inside and ever so slowly he trailed his eyes back to Leo's. "So. And there's the other thing that thought it could just get away from me. Give. It. To. Me. Now, Leocoril and obey! I will ask exactly once or I will make you wish the room was the worst thing that ever happened to you!"

Leo's face showed pure terror at the other's behaviour and wordlessly he handed over the weapon.

"Now. Let's go, Weapon!"

"Can-Can I say goodbye to..to somebody before I go. Please I won't run or tell anything I just. want to say goodbye. Or at least leave a letter. Leo's blood turned to ice once again as he remembered the map and letter shoved into the folds of his clothing. They bore Kal's royal sigil! What Kal had told him about his half-brother-what Lorién did. If he finds the letter...!

"No! Let's go!", Lorién said mercilessly and grabbed Leo bruisingly by the arm, pushing him forward towards the general direction of the monestary.

Toby peeked out of the folds of Leo's clothing carefully. He was being very quiet, somehow knowing or remembering that this person was bad news. He just pulled back inside and pushed his tiny body against Leo's as comfortingly as he could.

Taglist: @ailesswhumptober, @yourlocalgaefae33, @princessofhe11, @greatkittencloud, @bisexuawolfsalt

@shattermind-8 @sinaheh

27 notes · View notes

whumpzone · 6 months ago

Note

hii so uhm i think a couple yrs back (when you'd just started linden n colton) you'd like reblogged another author's whump story, it had like an intimate whumper and a red-haired prince who'd been captured by a rival kingdom & they were hurting him in hopes that his twin could also feel the pain bcs they rlly needed his brother n not him. he had a magical sigil sewn into his back connected to a piece of cloth and it hurt him whenever his whumper touched it. could u link it if u can find it cause it was kinda fire,,,

hi im sorry this definitely wasn't me! ive never heard of a story like this

if anyone has please link it here 📣

#asks #anon

12 notes · View notes

em-writes-stuff · 1 year ago

Text

branding

day 9 of two weeks of whump @promptsforyourwhumpfic

578 words

villain, henchman

warnings: descriptions of past abuse, branding, guilt, ??

part one | part two | part three

---

Henchman tied off the trash bag with Villain’s old clothes in it and pulled it out of the trash can. She swung it over her shoulder and went outside to toss it in the dumpster. Taking a deep breath of the cold winter air, she collected herself. All the grief she’d been holding in since Villain’s funeral was somehow more now that he wasn’t dead.

She’s going to lose him all over again and it hurts even more because where was he these past three months? Three months where he was being hurt? Three months she could’ve been looking for him, but didn’t. All because she wanted to believe he was dead? Because anything other than that meant he was alone, scared and hurting?

It wasn’t an excuse.

She cleared her throat and shook her head, then continued on with tossing the trash bag into the dumpster. The lid slammed shut, pushing out a whiff of foul-smelling trash air right into Henchman's face. She coughed and pulled away from the dumpster.

Locking the door, she stared down the hallway at Villain’s closed door and noticed the light shining from under the door. Her head tilted and she walked down the hallway before tentatively knocking on the door, “Villain? Can I come in?”

Stuff shuffled on the other side of the door and he opened it for her, eyes red with tears. “Yeah?”

“Nothing, I just figured you’d be sleeping, I wanted to check on you.”

He scratched the side of his head and slumped against the wall, “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. I’m here, so better than I’ve been in a while.”

“Do you…want to talk about it?” She offered.

He exhaled heavily and nodded, but didn’t say anything. He traced the seam along his sweatpants and looked at the ground. “You know that old train station? The one that legally isn’t operational because of the mold? Yeah, well. Turns out it’s not blocked off.”

“The one two blocks from here?” she said. Two blocks? How was he only two blocks away from her this whole time?

He nodded and cleared his throat. “Hero has access to it, because of course he does. Well, the station has a jail-type room. And Hero made it into the perfect place for me. I had a radio and…nothing else. But it was fine, because I knew what was happening up here. And I always knew what day it was. And that was enough for me.”

He stopped and slid down the wall, his knees folded against his chest. Henchman did the same, her eyes locked on the folds of his clothes-there was a lot more loose fabric than before. He’d lost so much of his size.

“I got out once. But barely made it out of my room before he caught me. That’s when he did this-” Villain pulled the waistband of his sweatpants down just enough for Henchman to see bubbled skin in the shape of Hero’s sigil- “Yeah, he wasn’t playing around.”

Henchman’s eyes locked on the brand, even after he let go of the waistband, letting the fabric cover it once again.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “This is all-all my fault. I should’ve known it wasn’t you. I should’ve-”

“Stop,” Villain interrupted. “How could you have known? There was a body, and I was the only person there. You couldn’t have known.”

“But-”

“No.”

She tore her eyes away from the brand and looked at him, “Ok.”

#the last part btw #twow #two weeks of whump #whump #whump fic #whump writing #whumpee #villain whumpee #villain whump #branding whump #henchman caretaker #em writes #em writes stuff #my writing

34 notes · View notes

lancedoncrimsonwings · 7 months ago

Text

To Cage A Dream

Sandman (Netflix)

A little idea that popped into my head when watching the Sandman on Netflix. What if Desire and Despair sent someone... special to torment Dream whilst he was trapped in the glass cell?

I have a few ideas for the actual Whump, but this is a little "to set the scene"

When Roderick Burgess had died, Dream had silently wondered whether his son, Alex would finally free him.

That had proven an impossible fantasy when the price for freedom was too steep a cost to pay. For the murder of Dream's beloved Raven, Jessamy, Alex Burgess would pay- even if Dream had to languish in this cell for another hundered years before he could fulfil his vengeance.

It was seventy years into this second period of imprisonment, when Dream had a visitor. He appeared one day without warning, just hours after Alex Burgess had left to England for some trip or another. Dream did not know- nor did he care for the specifics.

This man though... he was new, and Dream was admittedly curious.

The man paused just inside the room, an inscrutable look upon his face. He was unassuming in stature, somewhat reminiscient of that same man who kept him hostage; albeit when Alex Burgess was in his younger years, which were now very much behind him. He had fair skin with dark blonde hair swept up into a long plait, all angular features that were it not for an unsettling air about the man would have looked almost attractive, nay, alluring. This strange man was dressed casually, clothing clean and fresh but cheap of cloth and clearly worn. Perhaps a simple gardener or stable hand.

The man strode forwards with the poise of one that did not match their humble clothing, clearly this was a man who had power and knew well how to command it. Crows feet crinkled at the corners of his hazel eyes as he drew closer. A closed smile tugged at his thin lips. Without a single word, the man paused a mere hair's breadth from the sigil on the ground then peered curiously through the glass, lingering over Dream's naked form.

Dream's curiosity quickly faded to unease. He could not say why for sure but he did not trust this man. There was something about him that he could not place, something... wretched. Every instinct in him told him to run. Dream ignored this instinct, misguided as it was. Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams did not run.

The man's calculating gaze slowly rose to meet his own, a studious look that Dream unflinchingly returned.

It was then that Dream saw it, the intent of this man as warped and wicked as Dream's own nightmares reflected in that cold, dark stare.

Imaged flashed through Dream's mind of this man's each and every twisted desire. He saw himself, once-Lord Morpheus, beaten and broken, bleeding and cowering, screaming and silent, all at the hands of this man. If one could even call this person a man. "Desire" was right, the man was surely one of *theirs*, sent to torture him for their delight, sent to drive him to the arms of their twin, Despair.

Oh the wicked games his siblings would play, when the King of Dreams was caged away. For the first time since he had been captured, Dream's eyes flashed with real fear.

He did not fear the pain that was to come.

No.

He feared how much he *wanted* it.

To feel anything at all, even pain, after over a century of nothingness... the very thought alone set his heart beating quickly in the cage of his chest.

This cell was colder than the icy fires of Hell, and no warmth had touched Dream's skin for longer than he could remember. No breeze crept over his flesh, no sun warmed him, no pain crippled him save that of his aching limbs, no pleasure sated his lustful desires. He had long since forgotten what it felt like not to hunger, long since forgotten the taste of water on his lips. Dream, such was his namesake could not die, not from mortal means like this; but with every unsatisfying breath in this sealed glass prison he ached of sensations that he had not felt in far too long.

Dream *craved* what he had been denied.

The machinations of his siblings may have been designed to break him, but Dream knew they could not, would not succeed. Not if he had not broken already. This new mortal man, Desire's apparent puppet, would be no more or less than what he had already endured.

Dream raised his head to the challenge, and the man smiled.

"Shall we begin?"

#whump #sandman #lord morpheus #dream #dream whump #sandman whump #the sandman #tom sturridge #caged #captured #restrained whumpee #captivity

7 notes · View notes

aurawhumplr · 8 days ago

Text

Mana Sickness

A small thing I wrote a bit ago and finally got around to editing. Content: Magic whump, captivity, Mana sickness, mentions of blood, loss of consciousness

“How exactly did you get stuck in that?”

Min was looking at Joshua, his best friend, his very smart friend, his friend who would never accidentally get stuck anywhere, who was currently stuck in a cage made of wood in the middle of a forest and simply sighed at his very reasonable question,

“There must have been a sigil on the ground I didn’t see. I’m sure the spell will wear off. Kobold spells aren’t normally designed to do more than scare the victim.”

“Can’t you just break the spell?”

Joshua narrowed his eyes at the cage,

“The cage has a Mana barrier. I can’t use magic while I’m in it. Whoever created this spell must be quite a skilled magician.”

Min decided to ignore him for a second to take a closer look at the spell,

“Well we should probably try to do something about this before those birds show up and rip us to shreds.”

This just seemed to confuse Joshua,

“Kobolds don’t kill intruders. That’s Harpies.”

“...Just shut up for a second.”

Min took a closer look at the Cage. The spell was coming from a sigil carved into a big wood knot. White Mana seemed to come from it and flow across the cage in a spiraling pattern that kinda made Min’s head hurt.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to stand inside it, but Joshua seemed to be having no problem with the spell. He was just leaning on the bars of the cage looking at something Min couldn’t see with slight interest.

Min returned his attention back to the sigil. His lockpicking skills were obviously not helpful in this situation. He had to somehow counter the sigil, meaning he’d need to use his own magic.

“It’s made out of wood, so using a fire sigil would probably work… I should probably combine it with some extra energy to get rid of the barrier…”

He only mumbled it, yet Joshua still looked up at him,

“That would probably wor- How do you know that?”

Instead of answering Min simply took a coal pencil out of his pocket and started drawing something on the back of his hand,

“Min, what are you doing?! What are you- Are you out of your mind?!”

Min simply placed his hands on the treeknot, took a deep breath and applied Mana to the sigil on his hand.

“MIN STOP!”

He let out a sharp hiss and shut his eyes. It didn’t help against the orange light that was glowing from both his eyes and hand. A throbbing headache started to develop behind his eyes, but he simply focussed on the task at hand.

The Mana streaming from the tree knot was strong and it didn’t seem to take kindly to being challenged by Mana that was, admittedly, a whole lot weaker.

Still, Min pushed against it. Trying to push it away from the sigil.

Away from the simple drawing that had turned the very energy of life into a force that was trapping his friend in that stupid wooden cage.

The Mana was pushing back against his feeble attempt of breaking the spell. Min took a deep breath and forced himself to put more of his energy into his own.

He ignored the feeling of blood slowly streaming out of his nose and over his mouth. He ignored the headache that was starting to get so bad it was making him sick.

He ignored the way that the glow made his eyes and hand feel like they were burning.

He needed to ignore these things. His best friend was trapped and he needed to free him!

And it worked.

He was able to push the Mana away from the sigil, the wooden cage slowly turning to ash. He finally stopped applying his own spell, dizzily looked at Joshua, who was simply staring at him with an emotion Min couldn’t quite make out and smiled, before falling to the side as the world went dark.

#whump #whumplr #whump writing #magic whump #magical whump #mana sickness #no whumper #OC Min #OC Joshua

2 notes · View notes

sseanettles · 2 months ago

Text

nothing grows in corpses (in the earth of me)

dream x hob gadling | mature | Finally cross-posting my take on the fandom classic of the show progresses as the comics do, even to The Wake. Until Death resurrects Morpheus and forces the choice of "redemption" upon him instead of suicide. It goes...horribly. No good. Very bad. Instead of learning the lesson, Morpheus (in his infinite wisdom) opts instead for a highly effective existence strike until one day Hob Gadling stumbles upon his ghastly handiwork and immediately decides that this just won't do. Man Who Refuses To Die vs. Man Who Refuses To Live: fight.

Dead Dove, Do Not Eat for the following: graphic depictions of starvation, illness, suicidal ideation, self-harm, blood and gore, loss of autonomy, etc. etc. This is some classic old world whump, folks! But I promise it's also supremely healing in the end.

CH. 18: the beating of her wings | 3.2 k | AO3 link | prev part | next part

(or: the one where Morpheus begins to figure out and accept how this all works; Hob tries to hold the line against Fawney Rig.)

Hob Gadling did not die. Hob Gadling never died. But the world did go dark and empty on a thunderous bang that he only heard for a fraction of a second. He did not feel the shattering of his face and skull nor the liquidation of his brain. He did not feel his lungs and heart stop with an absence of a mind to drive them, did not hear the way Alex threw up on the stones or his father scolded him for his weakness. He did not hear the distorted bang as Morpheus fell to his knees, pressed as close to the glass as he could get, staring at his remains in utterly numb helplessness: the dregs at the very bottom of despair that swallowed them both and damned them whole.

He did not hear in the Waking how Constantine tried to calm Gwen as his living heart stopped beating and his breaths stilled in the wake of a deafening bang neither of them heard, and Morpheus’ own sleeping pulse neared two hundred. He did not hear them struggle to find something to do, anything to do, and arrive at the only horrible truth there was.

Nothing.

There was only onward. Forward. And so Gadling went.

o\\__oOoOoOo__//o

“Impotent,” Burgess muttered as he watched the mighty Endless cave into himself like a child, rocking ever so slightly on his knees as the pulp of flesh and bone beside him twitched even now in senseless silence and the lungs spasmed in apnea. He moved to leave, handing the gun off to Alex as he did in favor of his cane, and wrinkled his nose at the bits of viscera that flecked his shoes and clothes. “Leave the blood,” he commanded and indicated the mess before the sphere. “Repaint the sigil over it once it’s dried.”

Morpheus’ stunned vigil closed, and he raised his setting glare to Burgess, his hatred and sworn oath hardening into a blade he would wield until death as the man paused on the first step and considered him.

“And give Endless a roommate.” Morpheus’ resolve faltered but did not break. Burgess held his ire without flinching, and his lips tugged in almost a smirk, almost disgust. “Perhaps the suffering of one other than yourself will break your will.”

Morpheus memorized the faces of every man who assisted in what came next, every man who helped melt the top of his imprisonment free, who helped lift away the glass pane without shattering it, who ensured the ladder did not ruin the sigils, who hefted Gadling’s remains up to the now-open top, spilling blood across the glass as they came. And he especially memorized the face of the one who did the final deed: heaving Gadling over the edge into his cell without any care for mercy and leaving him to land in a crunching splatter of flesh and bone. The glass settled once more above them and was welded back into place.

Despite the fresh air, Morpheus did not breathe.

His companion would need it more.

Robert Gadling knitted himself back together slowly, only to return to a life that was not life all at once with a horrible banshee wail of agony. At first, Morpheus had tried to comfort him, slipping to his side in the blood that stained his skin like an unyielding dye, but he came to the swift and dreadful realization that Hob was not yet aware of himself or the world. He cried out in the way that infants cried—where screaming was the only language known, the only means his body possessed to voice that something was deeply, terribly wrong. What followed was such a horrific cacophony of unnatural sounds and movements that eventually Morpheus had to turn away, to press himself to the furthest wall of the sphere that he could and stare into the basement’s gloom beyond with unblinking eyes that filled with tears he could not let fall. He flinched at every little jerk and noise, each amplified within their prison. His hands tried to grip and cling to cold shear as behind him Hob continued to make his inarticulate sounds of unknowable pain, his body spasming and seizing as his brain matter fully reformed. His lungs eventually closed, the buckshot purged from his tissues and bone in the way the skin pushed out a splinter. And as his skull began to grow back into place—his scalp following along the advancing edge, his hair growing with it, his facial bones finishing their restructuring—Hob’s inhuman noises coalesced into intelligence, and motor control returned.

He wept first. He wept with half-healed eyes and sobbed and went to claw at his agony-stricken face as his tissues and bones renewed. Hands were on his wrists in an instant, holding him down as he thrashed and fought.

“Gadling.”

Make it stop. Make it stop, it hurts, it itches, it hurts, make it stop—

His sobs and his Stranger’s voice echoed oddly. Gone were the stones beneath him, replaced instead with something cold and curved and smooth and…oh God.

He was in the damn fishbowl.

I fucked up. I fucked up, get me out of here. Get me out!

“CONSTANTINE!” he wailed with his fractured mouth, blinded still, and clawed in the dark for the exorcist. “Wake—wake me up! Wake me—”

Something moved him, something far stronger than he expected, and his split, blood-matted head pillowed against a bony shoulder, his back to their chest, as they gripped his wrists and locked their joined arms about his stomach. Their own chin, sharp and cool, dug into his collarbone where their head drooped over his blood-soaked shoulder, and feather soft hair brushed against his healing skin as their legs came up on either side to cradle him close.

“Gadling,” his Stranger whispered against his partially mangled ear, holding him tight, and echoed familiar words. “It will pass, my friend. It will all pass.”

…and it’ll all feel better. Promise.

And after a breath in which he processed the voice, the touch, the embrace and reassurance conjured forth from a December alley, Hob fell to uncontrolled tears, releasing to the safety of the arms around him as he drifted into a dissociated sort of shatter. In time, his tears improved from bloody to their usual clear, his sight gradually returning with it, and the agony faded to a migraine’s throb that he could handle any day of the week. And after an indeterminable length of time, he found himself whole once more.

His heart beat steadily on, as unending as it always had been and always would be. His ribs expanded and collapsed back into an evening rhythm he knew as well as the moon and the vanishing stars. His ever-treacherous stomach changed its tune from the nausea of unbridled pain to the nausea of hunger. But while his nerves processed the world once more with an appropriate amount of discomfort, while his eyes blinked and revealed with clear vision the doming iron and glass that imprisoned them and the darkness beyond the distorted reflections of their entangled bodies, Gadling neither moved nor spoke. He only allowed himself to be, to remember how to be again in far too short a window of time; he grounded himself in the comforting press of his Stranger’s arms around him, the dig of his own spine into the plane of his bare chest and gut, that softness that entangled into brutal strength locked away within the flimsy guise of humanity. He grounded himself in the chiseled line of Morpheus’ chin on his shoulder, in the softness of his hair to his filthied skin, the coolness of his skin against his jaw. He tried not to think about how his Stranger was naked behind him, and found it far easier than it would have been in any other circumstance to do so. He merely lay there in the cradle of Morpheus’ embrace and breathed and shivered and remembered how to be without agony and desperation and terror.

Beneath him, still, his guardian did not breathe. And all too soon, Hob understood the reason for such a sacrifice.

It started as a faint dizziness. Then, a vague sense of anxiety, of pressure within his chest and electricity inside his skin. Wrong…something was wrong, despite his calmed distress and reformed lungs, and he was beginning to suspect a culprit. He sat forward, pulling from Morpheus’ arms and patted at his chest as he braced on his hands and knees in his own tacky crimson. He frowned, coughed up a spat of old blood, and tried to breathe again. His head swam. His chest ached. His breath came quicker, deeper, emptier, and every noxious sensation worsened in turn.

“Can’t—breathe—” he gasped and nearly pitched sideways.

“I am sorry.”

Hob glanced back to Morpheus to see the man watching him with shining eyes before looking to the ceiling of their cage. He looked up with him and immediately grew so dizzy he slipped, rolling onto his back, and his chest heaved with full breaths that delivered nothing.

“I am sorry,” his Stranger repeated. “It is sealed.”

Suffocating. I’m suffocating. Fantastic.

“It’s fine,” Hob panted, lying through his teeth, and felt his hands and newly reshaped lips begin to tingle in warning. “Have had…worse…just today.” He gave a shaking, dizzy laugh and patted haphazardly for Morpheus, stopping only when he felt the man’s thigh. “Just…wake up.”

“I have tried,” Morpheus said, not meeting his eye, and tried to subtly draw away to give Hob as much space as he could manage as the claustrophobia of suffocation began. “I cannot.”

Hob groaned, loud and a little panicked, deep in his throat, and forced himself to roll over.

“Then—just have—to find—the way—out,” he panted and pushed himself back to his knees. The world spun so severely he could hardly see, and he caught himself on the glass wall. He needed to calm down. He needed to stop breathing so fast, he was just eating up what little air he had left.

“The way out does not come for decades,” Morpheus returned, the despair as heavy in him as lead, and as he spoke, Hob braced a hand to his swimming head.

Stop it. The air doesn’t matter. And why doesn’t it matter? Because….

“This isn’t real, Stranger.” Hob stopped and swallowed as his mouth began to dry under the adrenaline now hitting his system. His every muscle began to burn. “It’s just. A dream. Lots…lots of ways out. In a dream. Just have…to find it.”

Christ, but he was dizzy.

“There is none,” Morpheus was saying, shaking his head, and the despair deepened, the guilt suffocating Hob faster than the literal suffocation. “I have watched for decades, there is no way but to break the sigil—”

“STRANGER,” Hob slammed his fist against the wall as he pitched forward, the impact reverberating through their hellish snow globe, “THIS ISN’T REAL!”

Morpheus’ mouth snapped shut in a click of bone on bone, and Hob watched him through once more darkening eyes. In any other situation, he would have practiced some tact, some patience. But he had none left, not here, not after what he had just gone through, not staring down the barrel of decades of suffocation in a goddamn nightmare. He knew Morpheus was slipping between roles, confusing the now and the then, knew he could not keep tethered for long to either in Fawney Rig. He knew that.

The exertion of his silencing shout did him in, and Hob let out a huff of worthless air as he fell onto his back once more and stayed there, gazing at the spinning ceiling and struggling to remember how to string words together. The burn in his muscles neared a sear.

Morpheus might be fine for a few decades. Might. He, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of time.

“What’s…the lesson?” he pressed in a far kinder, far more reasonable wisp of a voice once he had recovered as much as was possible. “What did I change?”

Morpheus clamped his molars shut until his jaw trembled with it. His eyes glittered in sorrow and hatred and shame.

…And there came the sound of wings.

They were not Death’s wings, nor were they Matthew’s. These were wings of careful precision, of a bold loyalty native to a time long gone…the feathered equivalent of a loyal hound’s bay or the unmistakable gallop of a knight’s favored steed. And Hob watched as Morpheus’ attention drew against his will to the wall where Hob’s blood still stained the glass, and he watched something beyond it near with growing haunt.

“…Jessamy,” he murmured.

“Jessamy?”

Morpheus spoke now as if he were not truly aware, as if Hob were but a voice in his head, which he supposed in a manner he was. He rose to his feet and moved with slow care toward the stain and to the shadow that moved beyond it.

“My dearest companion…” Hob could see now that there was a raven outside, a beautiful bird with a white hood who watched Morpheus with furiously flapping wings as he came to meet her. She hovered there, waiting, and he pressed his hand to the filthied glass as she struck and pecked, trying with all her limited ability to pries him free. “…I am so sorry.”

Tears sprung once more to Hob’s eyes at the depth of heartbreak in her strikes, in the way his friend’s voice trembled and broke. He thought of Dream of the Endless morphing from a similar specimen of bird that had pulled him from Fawney Rig before with a mighty yank on the back of his jacket—of a loyal voice, a kind voice…strong and loving and sure.

“The bird,” he whispered, and Morpheus bowed his forehead to the glass as Jessamy continued to strike and fight with all her might.

“If I had just asked for help,” Morpheus breathed, his confession meant only for his fallen servant, “if I had sent you to him, if you had known of him…if I had asked my….” A set of tears slipped from his eyes, and he forced himself to behold his darling girl, to witness her. “…then, this would not have come to pass.”

Hob jumped, panic searing through him, as there came another echoing bang, louder and worse in the confines of the sphere, and the bird crushed in a fatal blow of buckshot. Her blood sprayed atop his own as her shredded remains collapsed to lie amid his stains on the floor. And as he stared at her lying in his own blood, something truly strange occurred. Hob felt himself shift, as if in one moment he just knew innately that something was no longer as it had been. He forced his swimming focus to narrow on the reflection of himself in the curving glass and blinked.

A young woman hardly more than a girl looked back at him with what was unmistakably a death mask: a young thing in strange, fantastical garb of a place and time far away. She wore a rogue’s black leathers with looping drapes of silken black and white that tucked into place beneath her broad corset belt and her gauntlets that had been engraved in the theme of a raven. Everything was decorated with baubles of found coins and leather strips and pretty ribbon all lovingly woven together and placed upon her lithe form. Beneath the span of her arms spread great black wings, and in her young hair ran a large swath of white pinned with feathers. Her face was caring, even in death, so strong and fierce…cut low.

Her chest was blown open, the ribs splayed, the wings shredded, and as Morpheus’ hands crept upon him, Hob looked back to see the same visage of the strange girl from his own vantage. His friend looked upon him in the girl’s form with such love and sorrow, his touch sacredly tender as he caressed Hob’s transformed face, his arms, as he touched his ruined wings and the fatal wound that finally felled him. And when Morpheus bowed over him to bury his face in his neck, slipping his hands beneath him to his shoulder blades and lifting him close, Hob found he no longer felt the urge to breathe.

“I loved you,” Morpheus whispered, “and I failed you.” He held him, held her, tighter for a moment longer, then returned them gently to the blood-stained glass. And Hob closed his eyes with a passing of tears as the once-King took his head in his hands, bowed over him, and pressed a long, tender kiss to his forehead.

“Please,” he murmured into the skin of his brow, with velvet soft lips and a voice as old and deep as royal tombs, “forgive me my pride.”

Hob gasped, and once he began to heave for air, he could not stop. Morpheus did not seem to notice as he moved to take his hands that were still not his own. Around them, the glass spidered with cracks that glowed and gleamed, as thin as thread but growing, multiplying like a mycelial network. It shone with stardust, with dreaming, and Hob felt their essence knitting the last of his deepest wounds back together, filling his lungs with reprieve as Morpheus guided him to stand—

Hob sucked in a breath of fresh air and collapsed to his knees with retching, gulping inhales. Stones. There were stones beneath his hands, and he looked sharply to the fissuring prison to watch as the girl in the reflection finished rising in his place. And as Jessamy reached to rest a silver-ringed hand along her Lord’s face, the threads glowed brighter until nothing could be seen beyond their shine.

Grief…Hob was filled with such grief, such pain, the echoes of such dreadful powerlessness, and it swallowed him whole as the sphere shattered in a cathartic release of energy and iron and glass. He dove before its ruthless onslaught, throwing his hands over his head and ducking for the stones as the eruption thundered in his ears like the bombs in the Blitz—

He landed face-first in dust and rubble and carpet, the weight of a house crushing him. For a moment, he thought Morpheus had brought Fawney Rig down on them, but as he came to, he heard a distant, chilling sound that to this day still stuck him with a knife of fear followed by heart-rending sorrow.

Air raid sirens.

He softly groaned and tried to lift his head from where he was pinned.

“H-Hob?” a shaking voice called, tearful and dazed and a little higher than he normally let it get.

He went cold.

No. No, no—

Through the collapse of their home’s two stories plowing down into the basement atop them, in the light of their cracked lanterns that flickered still and the spotlights trained skyward that whirled overhead in search of Germans, he saw a short, lithe man sprawled on his back. His strawberry blond curls were dusted with gray, his freckled face dotted further with grit and soot. And a splintered shard of the rafters stood tall from his gut, running him through and pinning him in place through the buckling floorboards to the earth below. He looked back at Hob across the ground with shining eyes.

“Jim?” Hob breathed.

They were no longer in Morpheus’ dreams.

They were in his.

#my girl jessamy finally gets her justice #my sweet sweet sweet girl so brave and so stupid and so loyal #nothing grows in corpses #dreamling fic #dreamling fanfic #dreamling #the sandman netflix

2 notes · View notes