#summerofwhump21

[blackrosesandwhump]

Summer of Whump 21: Panic

This drabble features my oc Eli Ward, a former daredevil circus performer turned experiment subject after being sold to the doctor who saved his life. Eli is the main character in my series Experiment 13.

CW: human experimentation, fear, vaguely creepy whumper, needles, drugging, mild dehumanization

The silence of the empty laboratory rang in my ears, and I clenched my fists against the table, panicking. Any moment now, the silence would break with the doctor's footfall and cold voice. I had only a few seconds of peace, if it could be called peace. Peace usually doesn’t mean being strapped down to a table, waiting to be experimented on, but the momentary bliss of Steele’s absence was close enough.

“Experiment 13. Are you ready?”

His voice jolted me. I wanted to swear at him, protest, something, but any defiance on my part would only worsen what was about to happen.

He hovered over me, a smile playing on his lips. “We have a lot of work to do today.”

Goosebumps rose on my bare skin. His rubber-gloved fingers hovered over my exposed sternum as if deciding the best spot to cut it open. I tried to flinch away, straining against the straps holding me down, but Dr. Steele just laughed.

“You’ve got some fight in you still,” he observed, turning away to sort through a tray of tools. “I shouldn’t be surprised; I bought you because of that.” His expression changed abruptly and he leaned over me, his face inches from mine. “Don’t lose that fight, Thirteen. You’ll need it.”

A surge of panic rose in my throat. I couldn’t defy him, couldn’t escape, couldn’t even sit up. I was completely at his mercy, and I knew from experience that he didn’t show mercy to anyone, especially not to his experiments. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, I gritted my teeth as he tightened the strap around my chest. The intensified pressure forced air from my lungs, causing a pitiful hiss to escape my mouth.

And then I felt it: a sharp pinch in the crook of my elbow. A needle. As my mind fogged up and a dull ache started rising through my body, I couldn’t struggle against the panic anymore.

@whumping-out-of-time @forthetaintedsorrow-whump

[whumpinggrounds]

Panic - SOW

another @summer-of-whump prompt! had an idea and then didn’t get around to it until ELEVEN but managed to scribble something down so here goes. more angst for isabella :)

tagging @shapeshiftersandfire and @killtheprotagonist

CW: lady whump, pet whump, aftermath of conditioning, mentions of noncon touch, intimate whumper, migraines, panic attacks, amnesia

Days pass and Isabella wanders the apartment, examining every piece of Miss Mara’s clothing, staring at the photos on the wall until her eyes stream with tears. The memories come slowly, sporadically, and sometimes, not at all. Some mornings, Isabella wakes with the distinct feeling that she remembered something the night before that melted away in the morning light. Some days, Miss Mara gets irritated, and the boxgirl’s new resolve crumbles under the pressure to be good quiet obedient loving GOOD.

Hardly a week has passed and already, Isabella has made all the progress she thinks she can make. Shaking with adrenaline, she hesitates in front of the desk in the corner of Miss Mara’s apartment.

Isabella knows every inch of the apartment aside from Miss Mara’s desk drawers. Isabella has seen, soaped, and scrubbed every centimeter of wall, floor, and counter. She’s dusted the ceiling. She’s folded clothes and organized spices and sat and watched the empty walls until she thought she’d go cross-eyed. No matter how bored she’d gotten, Isabella had never dreamed of opening the desk drawers. During the first week of owning her, Miss Mara had declared the drawers off-limits.

Now, Isabella stands before them, not breathing.

This is the first rule she’s actually broken. The-the…what Miss Mara called a crush on Jamie – that hadn’t been a rule, just Box Babe programming that was supposed to be unshakable. This would be something else. This would be a direct violation of the owner that bought and paid and takes care of her. Miss Mara ordered Isabella to do one thing, and now Isabella plans to do something else. The idea of it terrifies her, makes her throat thick and her palms sweaty.

Deep down inside, where Isabella keeps her confusion and her questions and her anger, the idea of it makes her a little bit excited, too.

The first hour, Isabella just stands in front of the desk. She sits down, waits nervously for a moment in her owner’s chair, and then stands back up. Isabella isn’t allowed on the furniture without permission, not anymore. Miss Mara prefers her on her knees, looking up adoringly, or else perched on Miss Mara’s lap, where Miss Mara’s hands can move over any part of her pet’s body. Miss Mara would absolutely not want Isabella in her chair, hand trembling on the handle to her drawer. After almost three hours of practice, that’s where Isabella finds herself.

By the time she eases the top drawer open, Isabella’s head thrums with every beat of her heart. Her palms are slick with sweat, and she breathes fast and shallow, like her lungs have shrunk to a quarter of their former size. She’s been hyperventilating so long that her head feels empty and airy, her skin cold. When her arm draws back, bringing the drawer with it, Isabella can almost pretend it’s someone else’s fingers, attached to someone else’s hand.

After all this buildup, the contents of the drawer are underwhelming. Pens and pencils neatly aligned, a few sticky note pads lining the bottom. There’s a checkbook tucked in the corner, a roll of tape that hasn’t been opened yet. The clear order of the drawer soothes Isabella for a moment, relaxes her even as she has to slide the drawer shut again, quickly, quickly, so her absent owner can’t catch her.

The next drawer has paper in it, blank paper of three kinds. One has a grid of blue lines, and another is lined just one way, and the last sort is entirely blank. Looking at the empty pages, Isabella’s fingers twitch. An unspecified longing rises in her. If she put a pencil to paper, what could she do? Could she write? Could she draw? Back in training, Handler Collins broke her fingers for signing something forbidden, signing her old name. The bones creak, sometimes, the hand aches when Isabella works with water that’s too cold, or spends too long on her knees, scrubbing the floor.

Without realizing it, Isabella has taken her right hand in her left, is rubbing her thumb over the back of her hand as if she can heal the damaged bones that Handler Collins broke. If she pretends the problem is her hand, she doesn’t have to admit that the thing that would really keep her from writing is her broken fucking brain.

Slamming the drawer shut harder than she means to, Isabella rips the last one open with all the leftover adrenaline in her, heart slamming hard in her chest. There’s a headache singing in her head, nerves prickling in her fingers, and when the last drawer is packed full of files, the thought of all those pages full of writing makes Isabella want to give in entirely.

Instead, she reaches down tentatively, runs her fingers over the cascade of brown tabs. They didn’t break her of reading, not really. She’s grown so used to the migraines that the pain sparking behind her eyes hardly registers as she scans over the labels on the files.

There, right after Interviews – Handlers, is a tab that makes Isabella swallow hard. It’s her name, written in Miss Mara’s confident hand. Arm trembling so bad she’s afraid she’ll drop the thing altogether, Isabella reaches down and withdraws her file.

It’s thin. Almost empty. There are five documents inside – Isabella counts them before she tries to read a word. The first is a transfer of ownership. Though the words stretch on for one page, two pages, three pages, four, the purpose of the packet is outlined in the very first paragraph that Isabella scans.

It’s a document of sale. It transfers responsibility of Isabella from WRU to Ms. Mara Langford, MS. On the final page, Isabella traces her fingers over Miss Mara’s big, loopy signature, and feels her meager breakfast flip, deep in her stomach.

The next three documents are six pages each. They detail Isabella’s checkups – the questions asked and the answers given. They’re the same questions, over and over, and always, the same answers. In the very back of her mind, Isabella feels a flash of something like fleeting pride. There’s a sentence printed at the bottom of each transcript, a judgment meted out in emotionless capital letters.

MEMORY STATUS: SATISFACTORY

If the handlers knew what Isabella was doing now, she thinks, faintly hysterical, they wouldn’t think her status was satisfactory, no, no, not at all.

If Isabella had stopped there, her life might have turned out very, very differently. If the tidal wave of guilt had dragged her under, she might’ve gone on living as she did for a very long time. As it was, she came close, so incredibly close, to carefully replacing the papers, sliding the folder back in the drawer, and leaving her discontent for another day.

Before she can do that, though, Isabella catches a glimpse of the lone document left on the table. Her eyes catch at the title, the first paragraph, the last paragraph, the signature beneath. Each new realization hits her separately and hits her hard.

It’s an informal document, drafted by someone only relatively familiar with the law. It’s an agreement – a retraining agreement.

Isabella’s glad she’s sitting down, because if she wasn’t, she thinks she’d lose her legs.

On this paper, it says that Handler Collins has permission to retrain Isabella, and that he has permission to use whatever method he sees fit. In the last paragraph, right before the signatures, it says that this procedure may be repeated, whenever the owner deems necessary.

Beneath that, Miss Mara’s signature repeats, big and loopy and dark.

For what feels like an age, Isabella sits there, wanting to vomit, wanting to sob, wanting to cry. Miss Mara had petted her and soothed her and cooed over her, made sad faces over Handler Collins’ cruelty. The whole time, she’d been…she’d been admiring his work. She’d been thinking that if Isabella ever needed another tune up, it would be Handler Collins who would take care of that for them.

With excessive care, Isabella lines the papers up neatly. She places them inside the folder, lining up the edges. The folder slides back into the desk drawer, between Interviews – Handlers and the start of the J files. The drawer she shuts neatly. She stands from the desk, steps back, and slides the chair into place. Everything is aligned, in order, neatly in place. Satisfied with her precision, Isabella retreats numbly away from the desk, away from the drawers and the documents and the dark truths within.

There’s nowhere in the apartment that’s truly safe. There’s nowhere in the apartment that’s hers. The best Isabella can do is retreat into the closet next to the front door, curl up on the floor in the dark, quiet corner where no one ever comes but her.

Legs tucked up tight against her chest, Isabella wraps her arms around herself and sinks her head down between her knees. Finally, her icy numb calm starts to slip. Her breathing is the first to go – the hyperventilation that tightens her chest until it aches. Chills race over her skin, shaking that rattles her audibly against the back of the closet wall. The sobs are almost silent, but ring loud in Isabella’s ears, too loud, much too loud – she’s going to get hurt for that, hurt for this, hurt for anything, for everything –

Her breath comes shorter. Her eyes blur with tears. The sobs heave unevenly out of her, a collection of ragged, desperate, broken sounds. She wants to dig her nails into her arms, wants a grounding kind of pain, but she can’t do that. She’s not allowed to hurt, to touch, to damage. Her body is not her own.

Instead of perfect, soothing pain, Isabella falls apart in the closet, fist stuffed in her mouth so she won’t cry too loud. Her eyes swell and her throat closes and her chest aches – and then, when it’s all too much, when there’s too little air for her to go on gasping, then, thankfully, finally, the closet goes black, and Isabella passes out.

[sideblogformindtrash]

SUMMER OF WHUMP- DAY 21 - PANIC

CW: amputation, cruel whumper, pet whump, knife, skinning/flaying, blood, forced to watch torture, gore

... He happily jumped on the sofa, as Master cradles hands through their hair. He had said they'd watch a movie today. That sounded nice, it was something both he and owner could enjoy together, and it should be fun…Right?

Except… the movie master wanted to watch… wasn't a movie at all. Not the ones Pastel was used to, that they showed the pets to teach them good ideas, and not the ones that people watched on their homes.

It was a video that Master himself appeared in, he, and another pet. As Pastel frowned, Master smiled.

"This, Pastel, is Blue. My previous pet. I figured you'd like to know the consequences for disobeying me"

They gulped, watching as the other pet was tied up to a chair, on the video, Master whispering mocking words to it.

As Master caught a knife, Pastel tried to look away. This made Master grab his hair, pulling it back harshly, until Pastel whimpered.

"... you'll watch. I'll staple your eyelids if i have to"

Master let go. Pastel tried to control his breathing, but his whole body had gone cold, his stomach revolving.

Master wasn't just cutting blue with a knife. That would be bad enough. No, what he watched on that video was… flaying. He was skinning that pet alive, as blood poured on the floor, until white bone was exposed. Fuck, he did it to the hand, and not enough, he fucking cut the pets dick off. Pastel nearly vomited at this point, and as he cried and tried to look away… master held his head in place.

"Watch, darling. This won't happen to you if you behave" he chuckled.

Master was smiling. He was smiling in the video, as he disposed of the pet's limbs, and he was smiling right now, as he held Pastel, forcing him to watch.

...this… this was not a normal master. This man was cruel and sadistic beyond anything Pastel could have imagined.

He… wanted to leave. He needed to escape this place. Kick away at the creepy fucker that was holding him and just run. But at the same time… he now knew the consequences.

[actress4him]

Querencia 6 - HQ

(Prompt #21 for Summer of Whump)

Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @darthsutrich , @inky-whump

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Warnings: lady whumpee (no whumper), homelessness, panic attack, brief self harm

.

.

It’s not a long walk back to HQ from where the fight happened, but still, the new girl, Liliana, doesn’t say a single word the whole way. Nari tries her best to make up for it, though, chattering nonstop about the team and herself. At one point she seems to run out of things to say, glancing over at Quinn helplessly.

He eyes the young girl in his periphery, hands tucked beneath her arms and face pointed at the ground, and positions his hands out of her sight to sign, Are you sure she wants to be here?

Pressing her lips together, Nari turns a bit to the side to try to hide her own signing. She’s just scared. I think she’s been through a lot.

Yeah, he can tell that, too. People don’t end up living on the streets and jumping at their own shadow without going through a lot. And he wants to help her, really. He just doesn’t want to be forcing her into anything that’s gonna make her even more terrified.

“Okay, here we are! Home sweet home!”

Liliana looks up at Nari’s announcement, her brow creasing. He has to admit, HQ isn’t much to look at, not from the outside, at least. People who don’t know any better would walk right past it, thinking it’s just another abandoned warehouse. That’s the team’s goal, after all. Even the front room keeps up the ruse, just in case some curious soul happens to wander in.

But through a big metal door, where Quinn leans forward for a simultaneous facial recognition scan and handprint scan, the warehouse transforms into a clean, well-lit hallway. It still isn’t exactly warm and welcoming, just a lot of white, but it’s easier on the eyes than the dim concrete.

Or, at least...he always thought so. Now, when the metal door slams automatically shut, and Liliana makes her very first sound since leaving that alleyway and it’s a high-pitched keen, he’s reconsidering.

Both he and Nari spin around to find out what’s going on. Somehow he doesn’t expect the sight that greets them to hurt his heart so badly, though. Liliana has backed herself into the corner beside the door, shaking her head frantically, and her rapid breaths are loud in the empty space.

“No, no no, please, I can’t, no puedo volver a hacerlo!”

Nari takes a step forward, tentative. “Lili? Jagiya? What’s the matter?”

She shakes her head again, curls falling out of her ponytail and flying around her face, and wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t want to be here, por favor, just...I won’t hurt anyone, I promise, I won’t even use my powers anymore if that’s what you want! Just, please...déjame salir. I’ll be good. Te prometo.”

Nari glances at him over her shoulder, but he’s just as lost as she is. “Jagiya, no one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe here.”

Liliana’s only response is to sob and slide down the wall until she’s curled up in a tiny ball. Tears stream down her cheeks. She doesn’t seem to be fully aware that anyone is even speaking to her, just continues shaking her head and gasping out apologies and promises to ‘be good’ in a mixture of English and Spanish.

For someone who’s supposed to be a superhero, Quinn feels completely useless in this situation. He stands frozen in place, watching helplessly as Nari kneels down to be at Liliana’s level and continues cooing reassurances. It’s obvious that she’s at somewhat of a loss, too. Her hands twitch toward the crying girl from time to time, as if she really wants to hug and pet her, but doesn’t want to scare her more.

When Liliana’s nails start raking down her own arms, though, leaving angry red tracks in their wake, Nari forgets her hesitancy and lunges forward, snatching the hands up in her own. She screams in response, and both Quinn and Nari flinch.

“No, no, it’s okay, sweet girl, it’s okay, don’t hurt yourself, jagiya. Don’t do that.”

By now, the commotion has garnered the attention of both Alex and Jamil, who appear in the hallway with wide eyes. Quinn waves a hand in their direction, trying to slow them down before they add to the chaos - as they’re sometimes known to do.

Rather than exploding into a million questions like he expected, though, Alex takes in the scene with furrowed brows, and steps forward next to Quinn. “She’s having a panic attack.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Quinn frowns. “I don’t think either of us really know what to do about that, though.”

Alex’s sharp green eyes never leave her prone figure. “My little brother used to have them.” Walking forward, he drops down into a crouch just behind Nari’s shoulder and speaks softly. “Is holding her hands necessary?”

“She was hurting herself,” Nari whispers back.

“Okay.” He scoots in a little closer. “Hey, can you -”

Liliana lets out something that’s not quite a scream, more like a choked out sob, and tries to bury herself further into the corner. Immediately Alex moves away, focused and respectful in a way that Quinn only sees him when on a mission.

“Okay, so clearly she’s more comfortable with you, since she doesn’t know me. Nar, try to get her to copy your breathing. Slow and steady.”

Nodding, Nari turns all her attention on Liliana, murmuring the instructions quietly and starting to take big, overexaggerated breaths.

“So...who is she?”

Glancing over at Jamil, Quinn sighs. “Her name’s Liliana. We found her on the streets. She’s got healing powers.”

Jamil’s eyebrows shoot up and he takes her in with renewed interest. “Really?”

Quinn nods. “She used them on a civilian that got caught up in our fight with Dagger and crew.”

“And uh...what happened just now?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugs. “This started out of the blue as soon as we came in. She seems to think...she’s in trouble for using her powers? I’m not sure, some of it was in Spanish. She agreed to come with us, though.”

“We may never know what the trigger was,” Alex offers, approaching the two after having carefully slid away from the girls. “Could have been something about the atmosphere, a sound, a smell...a flashback to being led down some other hallway. She may not even know.”

Quinn lets his gaze drift back to the corner. She seems to be calming slightly, her hand now resting between Nari’s collarbones so that she can feel her breathing. Tears still spill over from time to time, and her breaths are shaky, but they’re slowing.

“You did good. I’m glad you knew how to help her.”

Alex shrugs with one arm. “Like I said, my little brother...I used to be the one who could calm him back down the best.”

For the next few minutes, the hall is filled with only the sound of steady breathing, some sniffling, and Nari’s encouraging words. Eventually Liliana is back to breathing normally and has pulled her hands back to herself. She looks positively exhausted. Still, she watches all of them warily, refusing to leave the haven of her corner quite yet.

Quinn figures it’s his turn, as the team’s leader, to speak up. “Hey,” he says softly, crouching down as Alex had, though a bit farther away. “So...this is the whole team. Me and Nari, and Alex and Jamil. And now you, of course, if you still want to. No one’s going to make you stay if you want to leave. If you choose to stay for now, we’ll put your biometrics into the system, and you’ll be free to come and go whenever you want to.

“This is our headquarters, and we all have our own rooms that we stay in here. There’s a kitchen where we take turns cooking meals, and a living room...it’s pretty nice, once you get further inside.” He tips his head in the direction they had been heading. “Like a big house. And we’re pretty much like a big - kinda dysfunctional sometimes, but happy, nonetheless - family.”

“He’s right,” Nari smiles. “And we’d love to have you join us. But that’s entirely up to you.”

They fall silent for a moment, letting Liliana process everything that’s just been said.

“So...can I show you where your room is?”

Liliana stares at her, draws in a deep, shuddering breath, and nods. He’s not so sure if she’s agreeing because she wants to or because she feels like she has to, despite their efforts to convince her otherwise, but it’s a start. Maybe if she stays, they’ll be able to show her what safety and family really look like.

.

.

Korean translation:

Jagiya - honey/sweetie

Spanish translations (as always, please let me know if I get anything wrong):

“no puedo volver a hacerlo” - I can’t do this again

“déjame salir” - let me leave

“Te prometo” - I promise

[getyourwhumphere]

Summer of Whump: Day 21-Hopelessness

By then, hopelessness was all they knew.

They had been trapped with Whumper for years, and they had accepted that nobody would come for them. It was a fate that they had become used to.

Sometimes they looked back on who they used to be, a determined, hopeful person who still thought they could escape. It was a bittersweet memory, but they didn’t want to think of going back to that state.

They remembered what happened the last time they tried to escape. They could still feel the bruises.

[cyhyr]

Summer of Whump Day 21: Hopelessness

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: G

WC: ~1200

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; Dissociation

Notes: A continuation from Day 17: Collared.

A/N: Look at me posting something on time. 

~

Iruka decides early on that he would determine a day to be the time between sleep. He can’t see the sun, can’t tell relative time based on the meals he’s brought, and really all he does is exist within the cell deep under Konoha. And so, he wakes, his body moves itself as base instincts require it, and then he sits in a chair at the table in the cell. Here, he’s brought his meals, spaced throughout the day; always some kind of fortified rice porridge with a glass of water. He can taste the vitamin additive.

Occasionally, he’s brought scrolls to unseal. Many of them have Sandaime’s personal seal on them, and he’s screaming at himself for doing this but he literally can’t help it. Some require him to have the scrolls for hours at a time to figure out the fūinjutsu and a way to release it; he can’t help but be appreciative to Danzō for giving him work to do in his imprisonment.

Because sometimes, there are days when he wakes, eats, sits, waits, and waits, and waits, and then his body stands on its own like every other and goes to lay back down to sleep. And he can’t because he’s-he’s… gods, he’s understimulated, but worse, he’s trapped in his own body, his own mind, and he can’t even fidget during the day. 

He tries to keep a tally of the number of days he’s here, and he does well for the first two weeks or so. Then Danzō stops sending as many scrolls down for him to unseal, and the days of sitting and waiting begin in earnest, and honestly… Iruka starts to drift.

It’s quiet, so quiet in the cell. The ANBU don’t talk to him. He can’t talk to himself. 

He recites poetry in his head, whatever he can remember.

One day, he decides to count. He falls asleep at 60,217.

He thinks. About. 

The cracks in the stone floor are filled with—what are they filled with, what could they be filled with, who was in this cell before him, were they trapped in their own mind too, or were they at least allowed to pace.

He figures out how to sleep sitting up at the table, waiting between meals. He just. Turns off. It’s pleasant. His eyes hurt when he wakes up; he doesn’t think he blinks enough when he does this. The pain is nice. It’s something he can do to himself to prove he exists.

The steel collar is heavy around his throat. It’s warm now; it used to chill him. He’s gotten used to it.

He’s not sure anyone’s looking anymore, if they ever were. He only sees the ANBU who brings him his meals. Who would be looking for him hasn’t he always been here—no—but what else is there besides sleeping and waiting and eating and waiting and sleeping and.

And.

There’s no more poetry, no more counting, no more observations of the cell. His body aches from inactivity and something deeper, something he craves but can’t put a name to.

And.

He’s not sure who he is anymore. He wears Danzō’s collar. He performs fūinjutsu for Danzō. He has no control over what he is or what he does.

...And?

He sleeps. 

What is a day.

~

Someone yells, “He’s here!” and the cell door opens. It’s not a meal time. He wants to scream, to ask this person who he is, but the collar refuses to let him do anything besides press his palms into the tabletop as he’s been doing since he woke up. He keeps his eyes forward because that’s what the collar says to do.

“Iruka?”

The man is wearing a black mask over the bottom half of his face. The wrong kind of mask. The wrong…?

“He’s not responding. Keep Naruto down the hall,” the man says.

Naruto.

He knows that name.

Laughter, bubbles, Fox, rage, love, family, ramen, student, love, for Naruto, for Naruto, for family, for love, Naruto Naruto—

Iruka. That’s him. That’s his name.

Something trails down his cheek.

“I don’t see a way to remove the collar.”

He can cry gods, why hadn’t he tried to cry before.

Distantly, he can hear a young boy shouting. The timbre is familiar. Familial. 

The tears fall heavier.

Someone else enters the room, he can’t tell any distinguishing characteristics through the haze of tears. The voice, as it comes, is deeper; masculine: “We thought this might be the case. You’ll have to overlay your seal on the collar. Look at it; they should meld well.”

“Until we can find a way to remove it.”

“Kakashi, don’t get your hopes up.”

“I can’t have him sealed to me with-with that around his neck.”

There’s silence in the room for a few seconds. The shouting down the hall stops. Iruka finds he misses it.

He also finds he likes having a name. He likes being able to cry. He doesn’t understand what these two men are talking about; they can’t remove his collar, the locking mechanism is on the inside and it’s sealed to him—he won’t know what he is without it.

“Sensei, I’m going to perform a few seals to try and counter the ones on this collar.”

The first man makes hand seals and then puts a hand on his neck and Silence, Blank, and Still fight in his head against new seals, Belong, Home, and Join. Own, Will, Control—these words remain, but the source is changed. His very soul is being torn in two, and he wishes he could scream.

“Kai.”

And his wish becomes real, his voice hoarse and weak and the sound raw and painful as he screams and makes noise for the first time in. In. How long…? 

He sits back into his chair, dipping his back for the first time ever and putting his forehead against the edge of the table. He squeezes his eyes shut and the tears slip out and he laughs because it feels so good to finally be in control of his own body again.

“Iruka-sensei, are you alright?”

He heaves a sigh, picks himself up, and looks at the two men in the room with him. “Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya-sama,” he nods to each of them. “Thank you.”

Jiraiya grins and walks out of the cell, waving down the hall.

Kakashi, on the other hand, puts a hand on his shoulder and says, sadly, “Don’t thank me yet. I had to put my own version of Danzō’s seal on you, to counter it. It’s… It’s a Hatake seal. A spousal seal. But it’s only on the collar, and as soon as we find a way to get it off of you—”

“Kakashi-sensei, please,” Iruka places his hand over Kakashi’s on his shoulder. His voice is still soft by necessity and he’s tired, so very tired, but he continues, “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

Naruto flies into the cell, crying for Iruka and flinging himself onto his lap like he were eight-years-old instead of twelve. Iruka can’t quite catch him; Kakashi steadies them. He holds Naruto as tight as he can and noses into his hair and remembers hope again.

[hale-13]

Dazed and Confused

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 21 - Panic (Thanks @spideyhoarder for the prompt!)

“I’ll be okay,” he croaks out hoarsely with weak smile. May gives him a look like she doesn’t believe him and Peter tries to make his expression even more earnest. He, actually, really doesn’t want her to go but he knows that they can’t afford her to miss this shift since she’s already used all her PTO on his Spider-Man related hospital stays. Things have been a little tight lately and, even though May is careful not to talk to Peter about money much, he knows that one shift could make or break them.

Words: 2301, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Helen Cho

TW: Vomiting, Fainting

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay baby,” May asked him for the fifth time, combing his wet bangs back from his forehead and surreptitiously checking his fever with the cool palm of her hand. Peter fights against the inclination to push his head further into her hand.

“I’ll be okay,” he croaks out hoarsely with weak smile. May gives him a look like she doesn’t believe him and Peter tries to make his expression even more earnest. He, actually, really doesn’t want her to go but he knows that they can’t afford her to miss this shift since she’s already used all her PTO on his Spider-Man related hospital stays. Things have been a little tight lately and, even though May is careful not to talk to Peter about money much, he knows that one shift could make or break them.

“Alright,” May says dubiously, looking torn and guilty about leaving him. “If you start feeling any worse I want you to have the desk page me okay? Promise me Peter.”

“I will,” Peter promised, crossing his fingers under his sheets. There was no way that he would pull her from work. Literally none.

“Okay,” May says still looking guilty and Peter hates it. Hates that its just the two of them now, hates that May overworks herself, hates that he makes her worry about him. She leans forward to pull him into a soft hug and Peter returns it, mindful of his strength and a little misty eyed – fevers always make him emotional. “I love you. Get some sleep; I left plenty of water and Gatorade on your nightstand and there’s soup in the crock pot for lunch. Eat some of it okay?”

“I will May,” Peter agrees, releasing her and pulling back even though he doesn’t want to. Even though all he wants is to cuddle up next to her on the couch and watch cartoons like he did when he was eight and sick and miserable. “You need to go or you’ll be late,” Peter says with a smile and May runs her hands through his hair one more time before standing from the bed.

“Love you,” she repeats as she leaves the room. He hears her grab her bag and then the sound of the door closing, her footsteps fading into the distance and Peter relaxes back against his bed with a sigh and glances at the alarm clock next to him.

Thirteen hours. He can make it thirteen hours.

———————————————

Peter can’t make it thirteen hours.

He gags again, leaning over the toilet to dry heave and feels tears of effort and frustration leak down his cheeks. God he feels so awful.

The fit subsides and Peter collapses back to lean against the tub. The cramped single bathroom in their Queens apartment smells like stale bile and Peter grimaces as it turns his stomach, grabbing his water bottle to rinse out his mouth. It’s only just after ten and Peter has no idea how he’s going to make it until nine in the evening, he can tell his fever is rising and he’s feeling so much worse. The Advil that he had taken that morning is doing absolutely nothing for him and Peter just wants to cry.

He should call May. He can’t call May.

He can call Mr. Stark.

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head vigorously to clear it and making his headache throb worse, the room spinning and leaving him dizzy. There’s no way he can ask Tony Stark, Iron Man, his hero since he was a kid to rub his back while he vomits and get him soup. It’s way too embarrassing.

“This is fine,” Peter says, pinching his eyes shut and swallowing convulsively against the rising nausea. “I’m fine,” he gags, leaning over again to dry heave.

Eleven more hours. He can do that.

———————————————

The subway is bright and loud and full of people. Peter sways with the movement and tries to remember how he got here.

He’s freezing, the thin hoodie jacket, sweats and beat up tennis shoes doing nothing to block out the October chill that’s seeping through the underground. He feels sweat beading the back of his neck and face, chilling him more and making him shiver weakly. The smartly dressed business woman sitting across from him is eyeing him with distaste and Peter hunches in on himself.

How did he get here? Where is he going?

May?

No. Not May. May’s working.

Then where…?

He lets his eyes slip closed. The swirling of his vision and the movement of the subway car are making him want to vomit again and he can’t do that. There’s nothing more pathetic than vomiting on the train.

Also it’ll probably get him kicked off. So.

He drifts.

Stark Tower looms over him and Peter sways, dizzy and confused. Why is he here? What is he doing?

The crowds of people walking on the sidewalk – on their way to lunch or meetings or whatever it is that business people do – swerve around him with irritation and Peter stumbles when one smacks him with their elbow.

Is it a lab day? What day is it? He’s so tired, he wants to sleep.

He has a bed in Mr. Stark’s penthouse Peter remembers. Mr. Stark got him a whole room once Peter started hanging around more often, surely the man won’t mind if he uses it for a quick nap?

The fluorescent lights of the elevator burn his retinas and Peter squints. When did he get here?

“Hello Peter,” FRIDAY’s disembodied voice echos through the elevator car. “You seem to have a temperature, do you want me to let Boss know you’re here?”

Does he want Mr. Stark to know he’s here? Yeah he does. He wants someone to take care of him – he’s so tired and he feels awful and he can’t do this alone what was he thinking?

“No,” his voice is quiet and broken from all the vomiting and from not drinking and it hurts to talk holy shit. He clears his throat once and winces, gripping tightly onto the rail that runs around the car and grimacing when he feels it warp. He didn’t mean to do that. He’ll fix it.

FRIDAY’s silence is telling and judge mental and Peter has things he wants to say about that, many things actually, but he doesn’t. He kinda feels like vomiting again so he needs to keep his mouth closed.

The elevator stops on the penthouse floor and Peter stumbles out, listing into the wall and panting as he exits. He’s got this – his room is just down the hall. He can make it.

The floor tilts threateningly in front of his eyes and he keeps both hands on the wall as he walks down the hallway. He’s so close. He can’t give up now. The door to his room is closed and it takes some doing but he gets the door open; the room is dark, the windows opaque and blotting out the weak morning sunlight. His bed is still in disarray from the last time he stayed over and it looks so inviting.

Peter lets go of the wall to walk in the room.

His vision tilts again and starts to grey and tunnel and he stops dead where he’s standing to sway in place.

Oh he’s definitely going to pass out.

“FRI…”

It’s all he gets out before the floor rushes up to meet him.

—————————————

“Penthouse FRI,” Tony says brusquely as he boards his private elevator, loosening his tie and popping the top button of his white dress shirt as he goes. There’s nothing he hates more than pointless budgeting meetings except for long pointless budgeting meetings that ruin his whole day.

The car starts to move and Tony goes to lean against the railing; the metal in his left hand is the smooth, burnished steel he is used to but the left side… He glances down and see the railing is warped and bent, clearly in the shape of a hand and he frowns.

“What happened here?” He asks himself, running his index finger over the blemish curiously. Oh well. He can easily ix it and he can look through the video footage later to see how it happened but his money is on the kid. The only problem with this theory is that if Peter did this he would have been falling all over himself to apologize and he’d be trying to fix it himself.

Strange.

The elevator opens to the penthouse and Tony steps out, pulling of his tie fully and allowing it to drape around his shoulders loosely. Something feels off and he can’t quite put his finger on what; whatever it is warrants further investigation but he wants to change first – his workshop jeans are calling his name.

The hallway is darkened as he makes his way to the room he shares with Pepper except for a square of light from Peter’s doorway. Tony frowns – he’s sure the door was closed this morning?

Quickening his pace, he approaches the door and peers in the room.

Peter’s laid out limp on the floor just inside the doorway, limbs sprawled out and face pale except his cheeks which are bright red with fever and his nose which is purpling and bloody from where he clearly hit it passing out.

“Shit!” Tony says, dropping to the floor next to the kid and rolling him onto his side in the recovery position. He’s positively burning, sweating through his clothes and matting his hair to his skull. “FRI how long’s the kid been here?” He asks as he checks Peter’s pulse (rapid and thready) and breathing (congested).

“Two hours,” she responds. “He didn’t want me to alert you he was here.”

“Update that protocol dear,” he snaps at her, moving Peter’s bangs out of his face. “And call down to Bruce and Helen in the MedBay to let them know the situation. Can I move him?”

“He should be safe to move”,” FRIDAY tells him, “Dr.’s Banner and Cho are preparing for you now.”

“This is going to be so bad for my back,” Tony grouses to the unconscious kid as he rolls Peter fully onto his back and slips one arm under his back and the other under his knees. He takes a deep breath and lifts, stumbling a little – the wiry and corded muscles Peter developed from the bite are heavy.

The elevator ride to the MedBay thankfully is quick and, soon, Tony is dropping Peter gently onto one of the beds and stepping back as Bruce and Helen converge on him, setting up monitors and sticking a thermometer under his tongue.

Bruce hisses at the thermometer readout when he pulls it from Peter’s slack jaw. “One hundred and four point one,” he declares, stripping Peter’s hoodie off and leaving the kid in just his sweats and a loose t-shirt. “We need to get him cooled down before he boils his brain.”

“How did he even get here?” Helen asks, confused, as she sets up an IV catheter and a bag of plasmalyte.

“Kid’s stubborn,.” Tony says sardonically as he scrolls through his phone for May Parker’s contact info – he’s willing to bet a few billion that she has no idea that he kid decided to go on a unapproved field trip today. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Probably the flu,” Helen says as she places the catheter and starts running the fluids. “It’s been going around and the strain is particularly awful this year.”

“Great,” Tony says, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I’ve got to call his aunt.”

Tony just hopes that the tentative rapport he’s built up with May over the past few months will prevent her from gutting him when she finds out her kid was under his roof for two hours without him noticing.

—————————————————

When Peter wakes up he feels loads better. The ache in his head is subsiding and everything feels more clear, sharper somehow. He takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh, the nausea’s gone.

“You awake kiddo?”A voice asks next to him and Peter’s eyes shoot open in panic and, oh shit, Mr. Stark is sitting on one of the uncomfortable MedBay chairs beside his bed with a tablet in his lap and his glasses low on his nose.

“Oh shit,” he says again, out loud this time and his mentor chuckles at him, setting the tablet aside.

“Yeah you’re not wrong,” he agrees with a grin. “Once you’re better you, May and I are having a discussion about self-care.” Peter groans and closes his eyes, throwing an arm across his eyes dramatically and hears Tony snort.

“Sorry,” Peter apologizes, coughing a little as talking irritates his throat and he swallows, trying to wet his throat. Mr. Stark passes him a cup of water and Peter takes it gratefully and sips it slowly, the coolness like ambrosia. “Uh… how did I get here?”

“You took the subway apparently,” Tony says with an eye roll. “Although I have no idea how you got here in one piece – your fever was over a hundred and four. Bruce and Helen say you ‘re lucky you have a healing factor or it could have been much worse. You have the flu by the way.”

“Great,” Peter mutters, picking at the tape covering the IV in his arm and letting out a yawn. He’s so tired.

“Go back to sleep,” Tony tells him, leaning forward to run his fingers through Peter’s hair and lower the bed some so that he’s more reclined. “May won’t be here for a few more hours.”

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” Peter breathes, letting his eyes close. He falls asleep to the even breathing of his mentor sitting vigil next to him.

[morgana-greenleaf]

Summer of Whump Day 21: panic/hopelessness

@summer-of-whump

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He hopes they’ve given up. Hopes they’ll let him die. They haven’t been torturing him as much recently, so maybe they’ve finally accepted that he won’t break.

Death will be a bliss.

He’s shaken from his thoughts by someone banging on the bars of his cell. He comes over, of course, chains trailing behind him, because the punishment for not coming when called just isn’t worth it. The man outside smirks at him, and then thrusts a crumpled piece of people at him. He takes it automatically, retreating to the back of his cell to read it in peace.

It’s yellowed, and faded, years and years old, but he can still read it easily:

A HERO’S DEATH: CAPTAIN AMERICA CRASHES PLANE INTO OCEAN

Steve…Steve is dead.

Something cracks inside him, and he didn’t realise just how much he was relying on Steve to come and save him again. But now, what hope does he have? He’s too weak to escape on his own, and there’s no one else who cares about him, who’ll search for him. And anyway, they’ll have been told he was dead.

Steve saw him fall, and Steve thought he was dead. Steve didn’t know to look for him. There was never any chance of Steve searching for him.

Why, then, does he feel so crushed? So broken?

When they return, they take the newspaper cutting, and use it to light a fire.

As they hold his feet in the fire, he knows they expect him to break.

Now that he knows Steve is dead, he has no hope of rescue or escape. But before he dies, he can do this one last thing – nothing. He will not do as they ask. He will not break.

[fletcherwilbury]

Summer of Whump Day 21: Panic

Warning: This story contains a panic attack and implies past instances of body shaming.

[blogger360ncislarules]

A woman finally innacts revenge on a foe.

@summer-of-whump

[caspia-writes]

Summer of Whump #21 — Panic

Summary: During a floundering coup, the leader finds himself trapped and surrounded in a cellar.

Content warnings: Death, gore, violence

Maybe Johannes was a bit old for this. If he wasn’t, then he was old enough to understand the futility of curling into a ball and hyperventilating when there were armed guards looking for him. Especially when he was cornered in a cellar, pressed against one of his supporters, with no way out except through a mob of said armed guards, no more bullets in his gun, and no way to call for help.

This was bad. This was very bad, and he knew it, and Rainer knew it too. The only difference now was how each man’s nerves were running thin.

A slap barely registered against Johannes’s numb, tear-stained cheek. “Would you stop that?” Rainer hissed. “You’re going to use up all the air! And that’s if they don’t hear you and kill us both first!”

As much as Johannes wanted to, he couldn’t stop. Trying to hold his breath was agonizing, and anything between hyperventilation and apnea was impossible. He couldn’t even manage to apologize. In lieu of an apology for dooming them both, Johannes cupped his hands over his mouth and shutting his eyes. It didn’t calm him any, but maybe it made him a little quieter.

Not that quiet was a problem much longer.

A deafening bang echoed through the darkness. Johannes still couldn’t see anything, but something warm and soft was splattered his face. He wiped it away, but there were shards too. Shards of... something. And it wasn’t hot enough to be grenade shrapnel.

“Rainer?” Johannes shoved the weight on his shoulder. It was Rainer’s weight, and he didn’t sit back up, not even after the second and third shoves. “Rainer! Wake up! You can’t leave me here alone like this!”

But Rainer had. Now Johannes was alone here, in the too-small cellar, with a corpse on his shoulder. There was nothing for him to do but wait for death. And death would come; it would only be a matter of time until whoever shot Rainer came down to make sure he’d finished the job and found Johannes too. This whole coup had been an abject failure. He was, in the eyes of his own Party, a traitor—and so he would get a traitor’s death.

The cellar began to spin as the static in his fingers and toes spread towards his core. If he could’ve, Johannes would have let out one last defiant scream at the death crawling up on him. But he couldn’t scream. All he could do was let his eyes roll back into his head as he slumped against Rainer’s still-warm shoulder.

[sideblogformindtrash]

SUMMER OF WHUMP- DAY 21 - HOPELESSNESS

Blue in training

@summer-of-whump

@whumpropaganda @whumpzone @lave-whump @freefallingup13 @fanmanga1357-blog @lightdrinker @as-a-matter-of-whump @tears-and-lilies @temporary-whump-sideblog @pinkraindropsfell

CW: pet whump, dehumanization, brainwashing, muzzle, conditioning, hand whump, legalized slavery, human trafficking

…The Pet was fading, slowly. He was… Very tired. He had a name. A name that only brought pain. A name that when he truly forgot… He would be better off. He would feel better, get treated better. He would get a nice Master that loved him and would take care of all his needs...

He screamed. There was a muzzle, but he screamed, even if his mouth was kept closed, and punched at the white tiled wall. His hands were hurting, already. He had done this… All day. Everyday. So many days. He wasn’t sure, he never knew, there was no way to tell time in that place. But the fact was…

His hands were bruised, and hurting so much he couldn’t properly open them anymore. He didn’t care about that pain. At least, it was one he had caused, he was in control. Unlike… everything else. His body ached, inside and out, and he felt like it wasn’t his anymore. Because it wasn’t. It was… property of someone, whoever purchased him eventually.

He grabbed at his hair, forcing the swollen fingers to move despite their protests, and pulled out big strands of brown hair, while he melted into tears, curling up on the white floor.

Property. Pet, Inhuman. How could that make sense? He had studied things in college. That’s… that’s right, he had gone to college. He couldn’t read anymore. He… never could read on his life because he was a Pet and Pet’s don’t read and when he tried the shock collar hurt him every single time...

But he was on college, or thought he was. And… there, he learned how did things reached this point. It shouldn’t be like that. Shouldn’t.

...No… No slavery, for anyone. The… same? Everyone? As a birth right. No torture, freedom to move, law, property, freedom of thought. And… They had signed that all away voluntarily. They had...

Given up on those rights? Rights that also were… Fundamental, inalienable, indivisible. That couldn’t be signed away.

And yet they were.

For him, for others. Because… Pet’s aren’t human.

How did that happen? At which point did things change so damn much for him, for society, for people… For… His… His head hurt. Pet couldn’t think too much, it wasn’t good for his brain. It hurt a damn lot.

He closed his eyes. Maybe if he could think a little better, a little longer, he could figure a way out of here. Or what parts of his memories were true, and which were lies. Or what day it was. Or who the fuck he was, what was the name - painful, painful meaning name - that started to slip off his mind?

Fading, fading. And when it faded completely, there would be no going back, would there? Who the fuck would he be, then? A good pet. A good, loved pet, that would have a nice life. It would be easier, when he left that place, to his new Master’s home. When he was ready. When he was… truly, gone.