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syncopein3d · 11 months ago

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Pain that can only be relieved by touch, pressure, weight. I don't mean sexually. I never mean that with whump, in fact. I mean, imagine a whumpee who has been worked so hard that every muscle is agony if they even think about moving. Massage is painful at first, but as the muscles warm and loosen the pain starts to gradually ease. Now they're desperate for it not to stop, where when it started they were gritting their teeth and stifling noises of pain.

Consider a space marine from Warhammer 40k's Deathwatch. (I know a lot of y'all whump friends prefer twinks to these inhuman genefreak monsters that I love, but imagine the marines as all drawn by the great Vezimira or tagedeszorns if that makes you see the vision.) The only way you can canonically get veterans from radically different chapters to work together seamlessly is to drive them to the point of collapse.

Space marines do not tire out easily, so we're talking days to weeks of training in armor without a pause, living off the recycling systems. By the time they're finally allowed to pause they practically have to carry each other back to quarters. A Salamander might have to literally carry an Ultramarine (Guilliman is a less physical guy as Primarchs go) or an OG Blood Angel (depending on where they are in their Red Thirst progression; they probably can't stop and slurp down a Serf Capri Sun during DW training). A Templar helps haul a literally unconscious Blackshield who's some kind of comparatively smaller purple-eyed albino from who knows what ancient chapter. He hates that, hates this weakness, but he will not shame his own chapter by letting the squad fail.

So at some point all of that is over, the tech-priests have taken the armor away to be serviced, and everyone has been slapped back to consciousness and been given a good talking to by the Templar veteran and a more surreptitious word of encouragement by the old Salamander. They all stumble through scrubbing down with scouring powder in the showers, and the Salamander, every scar of achievement twinging, can finally flop facedown onto the slab in his quarters. Maybe his branding priest or priestess is there, a trusted grandchild of a niece or nephew twice removed, not the first of his extended family to perform the office and already growing old in his service. He can hear them bustling around murmuring orders to the serfs. When the first pour of hot oil hits his back a heavy muscle twitches, startling the younger ones, but with a little encouragement they roll up their sleeves and dive in. Massaging ceremonial oil into an Astartes is no easy task, but now it is made easier by the limp exhaustion of the Son of Vulkan's muscles. At first they can see sinews pop out in his jaw and temple against the pain, because they've never had an unkind word from Milord the Astartes, and he's not about to start now. But as they go along his face slowly relaxes. The middle back between the shoulders proves a bit stubborn, and at a nod from the elderly branding priest, a bigger and younger serf climbs up to kneel on the Salamander's back so he can pound on it with his two fists bunched together. They all see the sigh of relief from the triple lungs, raising and lowering the young man in place.

On his night-black skin with its network of little red cracks, the older of the whorls of paler scarring are hard to read, faded with time. They'll have to be renewed one of these days, while the priest remembers what they were. But for now the space marine is at rest, breathing easier as a dozen little weights knead at his sore body.

The ones who serve the Templar veteran are probably going to need mallets, and if he thinks any one of them is trying to spare him he'll bat them across the room. They'll die, or they'll learn. The Blood Angel's serfs are pale and listless, and at least one definitely won't survive the night, but at least he'll be unfailingly gentle and courteous with the survivors. The son of Guilliman's serfs run like a well-oiled machine. He might mumble a mild reprimand if he notices anything isn't precisely according to routine, but he's not a harsh man, only a very meticulous one.

The Blackshield has no one who is particularly his servant. They serve the Deathwatch. They handle him carefully enough, aware of how temperamental some Astartes are, but not with any affection or reverence. He wouldn't be a Blackshield, chapterless, brotherless, if he was not dishonored in some way. In the end, there will be a pile of serfs sleeping on rugs around the base of the Salamander's slab. The Blackshield will be alone.

#whump #whumpblr #whumphammer #warhammer 40k whump #warhammer 40000 whump #exhaustion whump #military whump #syncopein3d future reference

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syncopein3d · 11 months ago

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I don't know if this 100% falls under whump, or if it's just asexual somnophilia, but I love various types of guards being nonlethally taken down by sneaky figures in black. I'm going to describe two scenarios, one male and one female, and the male one is first because I know some of you are uncomfortable with female whumpees.

A dude's just strolling through the museum, thinking about his midnight lunch break, when there's a sudden sting in the side of his neck and he grabs at it only to come away with a red-fletched metal dart in his hand.*

He makes some kind of confused remark ("The Hell - ?") and grabs for his radio, but it slips out of fingers that suddenly feel fat and uncooperative. An arm slides around his waist as his knees give, and then the blast of euphoria hits his brain and everything feels great. He gapes at a blurry figure above him, heavy-eyed, as he starts to float.

"Everything is all right," a gentle voice tells him. "You can go to sleep."

He doesn't remember why anything would be wrong with that. He doesn't even remember to fight it. He slides off into a warm, happy dream as his entire body goes limp.

Another guard is patrolling some warehouse full of crates whose contents she knows nothing about when something clatters off to her left. She spins toward it, drawing her weapon, only to realize there's a canister spewing white smoke rolling toward her feet. She holds her breath as she turns to try and get out of range, then twitches and gasps at another noise from directly in front of her. It's another canister, and she's just taken a deep breath of something that burns slightly and smells like chemical roses.

She janks right and runs between the tall shelves, but her entire body feels heavy and odd. She realizes she forgot to try and hold her breath again. She can see the roses now, hovering all around like a magic thicket. Something hits her right side, and she realizes it's the shelf. Where'd the weapon go? She must have lost it in the thicket. The smell of roses is so strong and she feels so tired, suddenly. Something bumps into her knee. It's the floor. She fumbles at the shelving, but it's like she's being pulled toward the center of the earth, like gravity is so much stronger than before.

She slides over sideways. A hand catches her so she doesn't bang her head, lowering her to the floor. There's something dark above her, but she can't see it clearly.

"Thanks," she mumbles.

"You're welcome, dear. Shh, now." A hand strokes her hair. It feels lovely, lights up her whole head and spine like a rainbow with soft, sleepy tingling. She stretches her legs and shivers involuntarily, overpowered by the feeling, and as it fades, she fades with it. She's never slept as well as she will on that concrete floor tonight.

*There are no human trank darts irl. There's no consistent way to administer a correct dosage, and basically no substances knock a person all the way out for long without paralyzing breathing. With animals this is less of a concern because they don't have to be unconscious, just too groggy to resist being tagged, medicated, loaded into a truck, etc. And real trank darts are a very specific design that looks like an awkwardly long syringe to accommodate the rocker membrane that does the injection on contact. But I am willing to suspend disbelief on the fake metal movie dart with the little red feathers, because I like it. I'm willing to just make up fantasy meds.

#noncon drugging #whump #guard whumpee #unconscious whumpee #syncopein3d future reference #hallucination whump #whump loss of consciousness #loss of consciousness whump #male whumpee #female whumpee

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syncopein3d · 1 month ago

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"Wow, this hurt/comfort story has ambiguous genders and a dysphoric approach to physicality and people passing out and any sexual connotations remains in subtext! Oh, I wrote it."

love rereading some of my writing like damn this person really knows how to write that appeals to all the things I personally love

#syncopein3d future reference

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syncopein3d · 10 months ago

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Left Alone 2: Discovery

Part 1: Abandoned

Tropes/content warnings: vampire whumpee, male whumpee, non-binary caretaker, morbidity or thoughts of death. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. Mostly we're talking about consent to be bitten, but being bitten in this universe varies from "mild discomfort" through "multiple climaxes" and I don't know where the story will end up yet, so I think it's important to be clear.

If you want to be put on or taken off my taglist for this series, feel free to tell me!

The stranger recoiled from the horror in front of them. For a moment the weak beam of light from upstairs transfixed them both, and Tolly jerked back, anticipating the pain. No pain came. It wasn’t sunlight. He cursed himself for a fool. He knew the basement door opened into a windowless hallway. And besides, he would have been brought low by exhaustion if it had been daylight up above.

He backed away until his back hit the far wall, arms reaching out to splay against the stones. Black talons gouged at the wall of his prison as he stared, milk-white eyes unblinking, teeth bared and showing the sharpness of his canines. He knew what he looked like. He could see the stranger breathing harder as they tried to make sense of a world in which this monster could exist.

He took in everything about them with the same fanatical, memorizing glance he had once turned on... who knew? A father, an uncle? Some relation, certainly. There were features in common: the big, dark eyes, the sharp little nose, the exquisite shape of the lips. His discoverer was wearing gray sweat pants and a baggy tee shirt that might have been black at one point. There was something under it that might be a brassiere or an undershirt or both. The checkered pattern on the slip-on shoes was so faded it was barely visible, another fashion rising again that had had time to get worn while Tolly was in this room. In ’04 the pants would have had open ankles. Now they were gathered to an elastic.

Blue flecks of paint dotted every garment and one cheek. The head of thin black hair was tied back in a sloppy tail from which about half had escaped. Sweat plastered their hair to their cheeks and forehead. Their face showed a faint shadow of beard where the makeup was running, and their eyeliner was running, too. Their deodorant was aggressively neutral, but it wasn’t strong enough to cover the smell of recent exertion in a male body even to Tolly’s currently weak nose. Or – at least they had probably been told it was a male body when they were born. That was a delicate matter, and it barely registered on him compared to the much more overt scent of life, life, life -

“You're not wearing the ring,” he rasped. It hurt to speak, dust scraping the inside of his throat and palate where the saliva had dried up long since.

The descendant of Nicholas turned and ran, stumbling back up the basement steps. The sound of the slamming door heralded the dying of the light. Tolly stood there without moving for a while, cursing himself again as he lurked in the dark.

They hadn’t closed the secret door panel. He could see out. He slid around the room, one hand on the wall, until he got back to the opening. He could see all of the basement now, he registered anew. He hadn’t seen anything outside the room for ten years. He knew it was mad to be excited about that, the more so with the acute torment that was the scent of living blood still stinging in his nostrils, but he was excited all the same. He pulled the chair over from the table and turned it around so he could straddle it, arms resting on the back and his withered chin resting on his arms. No need to hurry. The little mortal wouldn’t be back, sealing the upstairs door and forgetting the monster in the basement as quickly as possible, so he would have a lot of time to take in the view. He had never had hope, he told himself. He should not behave as though something had been taken away.

He started all the way to the right and began to look at all of it, bit by bit, taking in every new cobweb, every splinter on the steps. He argued with himself for a while about the definition of the word “splinter” as he looked at the steps, so that he would have it down in his mind before he started counting them. He finally settled on partially separated bits of wood longer than a sixteenth of an inch. In that case, there were three splinters within his view that had not been there the last time Nicholas opened the door to his cell. That made sense. No one had come into the basement during that time, so the stairs hadn’t had much wear. His eyes lingered over every scuffed footprint in the dust that the descendant had left. There were eight steps, and eight prints coming down, right-left, right-left, and they still partly showed where the scuffed scrambling of the return trip hadn’t wiped them out. A thumbprint in blue paint marked the wooden handrail near the top.

It wasn’t a large room, but it felt a little larger.

He spent the rest of that night in his quiet memorization of the basement. The tools on the heavy wood workbenches had not changed at all in position in ten years, but they were dustier now, and the rag pile between them showed signs of having been a mouse nest at some point. That was hopeful. It meant there might be mice again there at some point, who might eventually be lured into his cell. Tolly licked his dry lips with a tongue that felt like a strip of leather in his mouth. Animal blood would not restore his strength, his powers, but it would restore his body a little. That would be something.

If he was patient, and not greedy, he might be able to keep going a lot longer on the occasional mouse. Maybe it would be two hundred years before he fell into the long sleep. He wasn’t sure how long after that a vampire would turn into dust. Accounts varied. He was certain at least one had come back from a handful of burnt ashes, because he had seen it – five mortal lives had been sacrificed to accomplish it - but whether one could be reconstituted from ancient dust was unknown to him. No one would do that for him, of course. No one had come looking for him thus far. It wasn’t that he had a great many enemies. His circle of friendly acquaintances had been large. But the few close enough to wonder where he’d gone were also immortals, and therefore it would be a long time before it occurred to anyone to look for him. He had been alone with Nicholas for a decade before Nicholas went away, and no one had come, then or in the decade after.

His mind was wandering. He reproved himself sternly and returned to concentrating on the important matter at hand. The lighting fixture overhead was relatively recent, placed in the era after the wires had been brought in and the plaster laid down over them – no, more recent than that. Perhaps thirty years. He’d seen Nicholas replace the four bulbs and put back the half-sphere of frosted glass over them, opening the door to tease Tolly with his proximity as he worked. Now he imagined that, even if the bulbs had still worked, there was probably so much dust and so many dead insects inside that it might catch fire if it were turned on.

Chances were better with the flatscreen television mounted to the wall at right-angles to the workbenches, barely visible if he leaned as far forward as he physically could. The casing was sealed enough that it would be harder for creatures to get in. Nicholas had watched movies and television while he was doing projects, sometimes. Whatever the genre, he liked material whose attraction was subtle acting, and lots of attention to faces. He’d watched Nightcrawler a lot of times in the months before he went away. It had been a seeming end to his apparent obsession with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Tolly had an interesting couple of hours perusing the ceiling to see if there was anything alive up there. A fast-moving wolf spider was so fascinating that he watched the cupboard it had vanished behind for another hour, just in case it came out.

The big oval-shaped industrial rug was gray with accumulated dinge. He had not been here when Nicholas laid down the shiny dark red finish over the concrete floor. It had been much glossier the last time he’d seen it. His patience was again rewarded, however. Just as he was beginning to feel the heaviness in his limbs that mean dawn was breaking, a house centipede crept furtively from under one edge of the rug and ran for the workbenches, its many legs rippling around it with the urgency of its errand. Tolly struggled to stay awake as he followed its progress instead of moving to his rug. His head drooped over his arms. At last, his eyes grew too heavy to resist the pall of sleep, but not before the little beast had found cover.

His dreams were full of blood. He had thought time had freed him of that torment, resigned him to his fate, but Nicholas and his descendant died in his arms a hundred times before night fell. It was not entirely a relief when the giddy intensity of dreaming abruptly gave way to consciousness. Waking was not like waking had been when he was mortal. There was almost no space in between, and there was no confusion at all.

Tolly opened his eyes, looking around quickly. The door was still open. He could still see into the basement. He rose from the chair to go and scratch his day into the stone wall with his right thumb talon. How long until his nails would weaken? That thought sent him back to watch the old mouse nest with narrow-eyed intentness, but there was nothing living there now.

It was not a large room. Still, that night and the next passed more congenially. It would be a long time before the view of the basement lost its charms by comparison to the sealed chamber. Tolly could even read the labels on many of the spray bottles and tools and compare their fonts. He planned to save that for the winter, however, when the creatures would be less active. There was no need to be greedy.

Part 3: Bereft

@fleur-a-whump

#whump #whumpblr #syncopein3d future reference #vampire whumpee #non-binary caretaker #Black Tolly #Arden #Trifold Balance Universe

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syncopein3d · 3 months ago

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Part 18: Weight of Dawn

In this episode: Recovery tropes mostly, semiconsciousness

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know!

Part 17: Painmother

Masterpost

Tolly had his taloned hands on the silly little wheel of the Kia Soul. He was over there to Arden’s left in the dark, bars of light passing over him every now and again, making the whiteness of his flesh blinding. Aeolus’ voice was almost there, dim and far away, coldly angry, out of reach.

Sometimes Tolly said something, too. Sometimes he had a hand on Arden’s shoulder, cold, heavy, but better than just the constant all-over ache. He had such huge hands. Vampires were supposed to be fancy and thin, weren’t they?

“God, you shouldn’t be driving.” That sounded like Arden’s voice, except worse.

“One of us must, and you are in no condition. We can worry about renewing my license later.”

It was darker and darker and lighter. The rumble of traffic felt louder. Someone was moaning about the extra vibration, because it made the ache worse.

“I know. I’m sorry,” that was Tolly again. “We still have an hour to go, but no more, I promise.”

It probably was about that long. Probably. They hadn’t heard Aeolus in a while. Maybe he’d given up. There was kind of a ringing in their ears they hadn’t been able to hear earlier, so it must be quieter outside the car. They should probably open their eyes to check. It felt like a lot of effort.

Car door opening to their right. Cold arms gathering them up, like they weighed nothing.

“I have you. Just try to relax.”

“Tolly?”

“Yes, still. Shhh, now.” Air moved past them – was he running? There was a sizable THUD, like he’d run right into a wall, then a grind and screech of old machinery. Light and dark and light again passed behind Arden’s eyelids.

Sound came and went. At some point hands were pulling their shoes off, then, against their fuzzy protest, their pants and socks. It felt too cold, but a reassuring voice sent them sliding away from sounds again.

This time, they stayed gone longer. When they came back, the ache was still there, waiting. Arden groaned into something warm - pillow? They were lying on their side with their cheek on something that didn’t seem very soft. Arden squinted their gluey eyes open slowly. A gently glowing dial on a cord lay not far from their face: an electric blanket.

A few facts slowly began to show notifications on the lock screen of Arden’s brain. The room around them was mostly dark, lit by the glow of the blanket control and the screens of two phones that looked to be sitting about three feet away. They might be on a table. The dim shape of cords said they were plugged in. There was a faint smell of bleach and maybe dust. A nest of blankets and sheets surrounded them.

When they stirred slightly, something heavy around their shoulder became an arm, limp fingers brushing their chest. Arden’s eyes popped all the way open. They were lying on Tolly. Tolly’s shirt. They were in bed with Tolly and they had no pants on. They sat up hurriedly. The arm slid off with a slithering little thump and no seeming effect on the heavy body beside Arden otherwise. Tolly was not breathing. Arden’s heart jumped in their chest for a second until they remembered.

It must be daytime. Arden peered under the sheet suspiciously. Tolly had sweat pants and socks on, and a gray tee shirt. That was a small comfort in the cold light of the realization that Arden had only their dark red boxer briefs on, but it was something. They groped across Tolly to get their phone, trying not to elbow him in the chin. The undead didn’t move or react, eyes shut. Not ashes. Not dead, Arden reminded themselves.

Arden ducked all the way under the covers, hidden in a small warm world as they unlocked the phone. 2 p.m. on Saturday. Okay, they’d left the lodge Friday night, before –

A shudder ran through them. They remembered power running through them, hot and cold like sticking your finger in a light socket, burning as it went. They remembered Aeolus hissing instructions, demanding they use some spell they couldn’t make work, swearing at the one they did use – fuck. They’d torn someone apart. They’d torn someone apart. They remembered too clearly what it had felt like to intrude fingers of power into a living body and then just separate them from themselves. They were sure they’d killed another woman, too, not just the Painmother, but the image of what had happened to the second one was vaguer.

“I told you to disintegrate them, you thundering idiot. Now there are bodies.” That was an irritatingly familiar voice. He couldn’t see Aeolus currently, but the source seemed to be outside the blanket, muffled. Aeden received a fleeting impression of the man in the black suit standing at the end of the bed, leaning forward with his hands resting on it.

“Go fuck yourself, Aeolus,” Arden mumbled into the mattress. “We were lucky I could do anything at all. You’re the worst teacher in the universe.”

“Miserable, ungrateful little wretch. I saved your life!”

“No, you tortured me inside my own brain for three weeks. Tolly saved my life.”

“You’ll learn how real the outer world is soon enough,” Aeolus said, a sneer in his voice.

“Maybe. I know you weren’t doing that to Uncle Nick all the time. And I think you would’ve if you could’ve. So he stopped you. I can, too.”

“For that, you’d have to actually learn, whelp. And not these clumsy flailings and tearings. Control. Wisdom. Thought.”

Now that the connection was weaker, Arden’s body empty of power, the connection that bound them to Aeolus was a constant small irritation, easier to identify, harder to miss, like a splinter in their head. They could touch it, almost, if they shut their eyes. What would happen if they pulled?

It hurt. It hurt like someone pulling on the end of a severed muscle anchored into their soul. But it must have hurt Aeolus more, because his scream rattled on for long seconds after they let go.

STOP! He wasn’t able to simulate sound in Arden’s ears now. Pain twanged between them.

This hurts you more than me, Arden told him.

I don’t have to stay and give you power, Aeolus said sullenly. I can just leave. I can break the summoning bond and return to the place between.

Yes. But you don’t. Whatever being attached to me does for you, you want it bad, Arden said. Maybe you’re just waiting on another chance at possession, I don’t know. Right now, I don’t care. If you want to stay, you can teach me, but you’re not going to hurt me. Or I will hurt you back.

You MUST learn disintegration. For our safety.

Later. Arden crept out from under the covers, wincing. The movement seemed to tweak every muscle in their body, like they’d run a marathon and then been beaten with tire irons afterward. Tolly hadn’t moved, still a corpse for all intents and purposes. Arden shined their phone light around the room. There was the night stand where the phones had been, a door standing partway open into a walk-in closet, a door standing all the way open into a small bathroom with a standing shower, and a door that was closed.

They went to look out Door Number Three out of curiosity. The floor underfoot was hard and cold, and a glance down with the phone said it was hardwood or maybe pergo. The door opened into a room with a couch against one wall facing a flatscreen TV. The other half of the room was taken up by a kitchenette with all steel appliances. It was all empty and stark, a small print of the ocean above the couch just emphasizing how little else there was in the way of decoration. Nothing in it was personal, like – Arden’s mind ran back over the elaborate artistic designs Tolly had carved into the wall of his cell. This wasn’t a place he would live, just a place to hide.

They couldn’t see anything that looked like a front door. Maybe there was a secret lever somewhere or something. There was a sort of distant rumble all around, like maybe traffic, but it was too faint to tell. Arden went into the bathroom and shut the door, then turned the light on. It took a minute for their eyes to adjust. Then they remembered that they’d unlocked their phone, and their messages had shown a notification.

Arden opened the message app. It was a text from Tolly.

I’ve done my best to make the place presentable, but the weight of dawn is growing heavy again and I must sleep. Please don’t leave without me. Please wake up. Please read this.

They stood there reading and re-reading it for an embarrassingly long time. Then they set the phone down carefully on the steel sink and –

There was a little cupboard to one side of the sink that was made of wicker. A folded pile of Arden’s clothes sat on top of it. They hadn’t packed them nearly that neatly. Tolly had taken them out of the spinner and re-folded them right here so that Arden would find them.

They showered and dressed and brushed their teeth quickly, tied their hair back sloppily, and went to sit on the edge of the bed by Tolly, leaving the bathroom door open a little to see by. The indentation they made in the mattress didn’t shift the vampire’s larger weight. Arden picked up his cold hand and held it to their chest.

“I’m all right,” they told him. “You don’t need to worry.”

The deep-set eyes slitted open a very little under the heavy brows, the gleam of the light reflecting from the backs of them like it would from a deer or a cat. Arden heard him inhale. It felt loud.

“Arden,” Tolly whispered. The hand on their breast flexed slightly, pressing closer to their heart. They swallowed.

“Yeah. You can sleep, I just wanted you to know I’m okay.”

Tolly turned his fingers to clasp their hand, then withdrew back under the covers, shutting his eyes.

Part 19: Underground (Coming Soon!)

@fleur-a-whump, @valravnthefrenchie, @thewhumpcaretaker, @currentlyinthesprial, @jumpywhumpywriter

#Whump #whumpblr #syncopein3d future reference #Trifold Balance Universe #vampire #vampire angst #non-binary whumpee #non-binary caretaker vampire whumpee #vampire caretaker #Black Tolly #Arden #hurt/comfort

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syncopein3d · 1 year ago

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Got another one of those whump story ideas no one's going to write for me and debating if I'd ever finish it, but I'll never know if I never start!

The Warm One Part 1: Velvet

CW/relevant tropes (I'm a bit new to this format, so let me know if I miss any): living weapon, lady whump, magic whump, traumatic restraints, implied past injury, off-screen whumper, servant caretaker, other species caretaker (Orc)

A living weapon, but instead of a crying twink with his hair in his eyes chained to a wall it's an exhausted woman, always beautifully dressed and scrubbed raw and flawlessly groomed by her captors, frail and hollow-eyed inside her brocades and silks. A set of magical goads built into bracelets pierce her at all times, limiting her power and engendering punishment if her current minder says the word. She's been less cooperative of late, and she's starting to react less to the pain, so her owner has decided to let her pick her own toy as a treat.

She passes over every single one in the line of beautiful servants, barely looking at them. Instead she points to the big shaggy soft-bellied orc carrying firewood behind them. "That one."

Her current minder protests, but the weapon stands firm. She knows her value and she wants that one. She has never asked for anything. After some argument, her wish is granted. The door to her finely appointed chambers is unlocked, and the orc, now trimmed and dressed in velvet, is nudged inside at spear point.

They look at each other for a long moment. The weapon sits in her window seat, heavy-eyed, leaning wanly against the wall. The orc probably weighs three times what she does. His hands are rough from work, and a long scar trails past his right tusk.

"Why me?" He asks into the silence. "Milady."

"None of the others looked warm," she whispers hoarsely.

He considers that for a moment. "You're cold?"

"Always."

So the orc goes and gently picks her up and folds himself into the window seat - it creaks in protest. And the weapon settles herself with her cheek resting on his chest, the piercing cuffs curled in a fold of his tunic to warm them. As he pulls a velvet blanket over them both, he hears her sigh.

"Don't be afraid," she says weakly, held by hands that could snap her like a twig. "I won't hurt you."

Part 2

#whump #orcs #living weapon whumpee #female whumpee #syncopein3d future reference

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syncopein3d · 1 year ago

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This is excellent description but also, I hope you feel better soon!

I’m not usually a fan of sick Whump, but when Whumpee is running such a high fever that they’re shaking, taking uneven, shallow breaths, their skin chafing and burning against their clothes.

The moment Caretaker lays a palm on their forehead to check their fever and Whumpee sighs with relief because it’s so blessedly cold.

The moment Whumper cups Whumpee’s cheek with one hand and turns their head slightly, and Whumpee hates themself for leaning into it, but they just want the burning to stop.

#sick whump #syncopein3d future reference

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syncopein3d · 4 months ago

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Part 16: The First Lesson

M for mature themes overall. Tropes/content warnings: vampire whumpee/caretaker, male whumpee/caretaker, non-binary whumpee/caretaker, morbidity or thoughts of death. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. Mostly we're talking about consent to be bitten, but being bitten in this universe varies from "mild discomfort" through "multiple climaxes" and I don't know where the story will end up yet, so I think it's important to be clear.

In this episode: angst, unrequited thirst.

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know! I'm back after a long hiatus due to a death in the family, and I thank you all for your patience. I will link the last episode, but also the index post in case you are brand new and want to start from the first.

Part 15: Glass of Water

Masterpost

When Arden was out of the shower, Tolly wordlessly handed them a nutrition bar, white big hand sliding into view as they opened the bathroom door. Arden lay sitting against the headboard eating for a couple of minutes, silent. Tolly sat on the end of the other bed with a wool thread he had shamefacedly folded into the duffel bag, playing at cat’s cradle with it as he watched Arden sideways.

After a while, Arden said, “Aeolus says I don’t deserve my body.”

“Well, he deserves it far less,” Tolly said. “Can he hear me?”

“Yeah. I can see him sometimes, too.” Arden described the man in the black suit with his pointed beard. “To me it looks like he’s standing by the window, glaring at you. Now me.”

“Behave, spirit. Arden’s health is your own. No one else will have you, or you would not have come so quickly when called.”

“He doesn’t like that,” Arden reported, a little smugly.

“Good. If he wants to stay, he’d better earn his keep.”

“He says he can teach me something simple now, but it won’t be powerful because he used me up so easily. Should I, Tolly?”

“Yes,” Tolly said.

Arden was silent for a while, their eyes moving left and right as if reading. They held the wadded up foil wrapper on the flat of their hand, gradually refocusing on it. “Leyline, right,” they muttered.

Tollt sat up slightly straighter as he felt hairs stand up along his spine. The wrapper lifted gently from Arden’s hand into the air, hovered there for a few seconds, and then plonked back down. They exhaled as if they’d dropped something heavy.

“Great. If we get attacked by litter, we’ll be fine,” they said.

“Was that you, or him?” Tolly asked.

“Me. He says you’re doing the Soldier’s Bed wrong.”

“He would,” Tolly said, unperturbed. His fingers worked, hooking the string and shifting it to make the Candles.

After a long minute or so, Arden said, “Tolly, I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

“No,” Tolly said calmly, unwrapping the round of wool thread to coil it neatly. It smelled like his rug. That should not have been calming, but it was. “I will not allow it. This coven –“

“The Coven of the Black Rose, for all of Washington and part of Oregon within the intersection of the Rocky Mountain and the Columbia River lines,” they recited distantly.

“This Coven of the Black Rose tried to have you killed without knowing a thing about you except that you are related to Nicholas and might have his ring. That offends me. It’s crude, stupid behavior,” Tolly said. “They also had the effrontery to shoot me, which I also do not appreciate.”

Arden’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “And you like me, just a little,” they said.

“We hardly know each other, child. But I recognize a debt. No, I do, don’t laugh,” Tolly protested, leaning over to carefully stow the wool thread. “You have been remarkably kind to me. I expect that will change as you gain greater understanding, but you have a generous soul.”

“I’m not a child, Tolly.”

“I was born when your great-grandfather was not even an idea. You will never not be a child to me,” Tolly said. His tone was light, mildly amused. It wouldn’t help to say things like I have known lusts and corruptions that would whiten your hair and I think of you carnally even though I am immeasurably older.

Best to distract himself from that line of thought, too. The Arden whose ecstatic end he craved, teasing, insinuating creature, wasn’t real. It was the ghost of Nicholas. He had been thirstier than this voluntarily, and for longer, and he could hold his teeth in if he made an effort, Tolly told himself.

“I’m surprised you knew how to use the sink,” Arden said. “Do you need me to explain the lights, or did you just assume ghost magic?” Thank God for sarcasm, Tolly thought. It was a caustic blanket to wrap his sanity in, but it was better than nothing.

“Hilarious,” Tolly said. “I’ve been in a room for twenty years, not 600. Even Aeolus knows what electricity is.”

“He disappeared. I think he’s sulking.”

“Or he can only manifest for short periods,” Tolly said. “He wasn’t constantly distracting Nicholas.”

“That’s a relief, anyway.”

“Try to sleep,” Tolly said. “It’ll help you recover. We’ll keep on East tomorrow night.”

Part 17: Painmother

@fleur-a-whump, @bitchaknso, @valravnthefrenchie, @thewhumpcaretaker, @currentlyinthespiral

#whump #whumpblr #syncopein3d future reference #Trifold Balance Universe #vampire #vampire angst #non-binary whumpee #non-binary caretaker #vampire whumpee #vampire caretaker #Black Tolly #Arden #hurt/comfort

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syncopein3d · 10 months ago

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Left Alone 4: Smallest Consolation

Part 3: Bereft

Tropes/content warnings: vampire whumpee, male whumpee, non-binary caretaker, general morbidity. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. Mostly we're talking about consent to be bitten, but being bitten in this universe varies from "mild discomfort" through "multiple climaxes" and I don't know where the story will end up yet, so I think it's important to be clear.

Specific to this episode: grief, discussion of death and loss.

If you would like to be added to or removed from the tag list for this story, please let me know!

“Are – are you crying?” He caught the movement from the corner of his eye as they started forward. Tolly jerked around, stunned. Even as what he was now? Even looking at this, this horrid crackling mummy that he had become? God, he couldn’t. Even if they hadn’t been his only chance at escape, he couldn’t.

“Stop,” he snapped. The next words were a furious hiss. “For your life, do not cross that threshold!”

They froze, jerking their hand back. For a second, he thought he’d really done it now, that they would leave him again, but they stayed there, still looking at him in the light of the dusty plastic lantern. The dark eyes were liquid and huge. For a moment he looked back, shuddering from head to toe. It had been close. God, it had been close.

At last, he turned and paced closer to the door again, treading lightly, wary of himself. He wasn’t afraid of revolting them with the stench of decay. He wasn’t an ordinary corpse, or there would have been nothing left of him after so long. His dry flesh breathed forth the odor of incense, like frankincense mixed with amber.

“I said I would answer,” he said. “What's wrong with me is that I need blood. I have not had a drink in ten years and I am," he held up his hands, every tiniest sinew visible in the backs of them.

"This monstrosity without it. I don't breathe, I don't need food or water, but I must have blood. I could go on turning madder for years before I turn to dust, but in the end, to dust I will return."

He looked them up and down more closely, tongue passing over his teeth again behind his lip. Their eyes were dark and puffy under the thinnest layer of concealer. Oh, but he wanted so very badly to hold them in his arms just one time. There could only be one time, but it would be glorious, it would be a memory to last a thousand years. He craved them as he had always craved Nicholas. And now Nicholas was dead, dead, dead, the taste of him lost forever. There was only…

"What's your name?" he asked, struggling to wring some gentleness out of his horrible voice. He managed to be quieter, not much more.

“Arden,” they managed after a second. They were shaking, too, although unquestionably from very different causes than Black Tolly.

“Arden,” Tolly said, as softly as he could, feeling the long arch of the first syllable and the sharp tap of the second on his palate. He could make no exercise of his will against theirs, not in this state. He could exert no basilisk stare out of these dead eyes. To even try would simply give away too soon that he could. He was trying hard to think clearly, now. He had been momentarily blinded to the fact that he was looking at the ruination of a great hope. They couldn’t sell a house with a corpse in the basement. Their clothes weren’t fine enough or obviously branded enough to be expensive. They probably weren’t well-off, and the funds from this sale would have kept them for a long time. They needed him out as badly as he needed to be out.

Maybe there was hope after all. It was best not to think about that for too long. He didn’t dare.

“You mean you need a transfusion?” Arden was saying. “Or - ?”

“Very much ‘or,’ I’m afraid,” he said.

“I don’t have that around the house,” Arden said. “Unless you’re asking for mine.”

Tolly had to make a real effort to control his tone. The eyes across from him were a little frightened, but they were much more tired. He wasn’t sure they would even refuse if he insisted.

“No. You have no idea what you’re – no. Do not come in here. Isn’t there still a butcher in Great Chinook? They were an established family, the Carringtons. Surely after only ten years they’re still here.”

“Oh, Carrington Meats, yeah,” Arden said. “I’ve never been in there. It’s, uh. It looked expensive.”

“It is. I’ll wire you the money – you’d have to lend me a phone, if you’ve got one,” Tolly said. He realized he had no idea how common smartphones were at this point. He’d watched Nicholas go through several generations of them, but Nicholas had been wealthy.

“What do you mean, wire?” Arden asked cautiously.

“Doesn’t Western Union still exist?”

“I think so,” Arden said. “I don’t really know how that works.”

“My friend, if you are willing to learn it is worth - ” Here Tolly had to pause, rapidly trying to calculate what inflation must have been since the last time he had actually handled money. “What do you say to a hundred thousand dollars?”

Arden swallowed. The apple of their throat bobbed visibly. Tolly tried not to watch it too closely.

“I say that sounds like an insane amount of money for a couple gallons of pig’s blood,” Arden said.

“I’ve been trapped in this room for twenty years and alone for ten of them. I’ve just heard that my worst tormentor, my best friend, is dead. Would you be sane?” Tolly said. “Bring me a phone, I tell you. What do you have to lose by this? The worst that can happen is that they say no. I don’t think Nicholas ever had me declared dead, and there was no one else who had a reason to do so.”

“I can’t really afford to replace my phone,” Arden said. “If it got broken or anything.”

“Then I’ll dictate to you, and you can do it. Please, Arden.” He tried to keep the saw-edged whine out of his voice as he turned to place his hands on the chair back, talons sinking into the wood. He spoke over one shoulder. “Do you want me to beg, is that it?”

“What, no. Don’t do that. Fuck.”

He watched Arden pull out a phone very different in shape and size from the one Nicholas had had in 2014, a huge glowing rectangle. It was a tedious and incredibly surreal few minutes as he coached Arden through making a wire transfer over the phone between their bank accounts via an automated system. The descendant of Nicholas ran back upstairs to say their bank account number where they thought he wouldn’t hear it and then shamefacedly slunk back. Tolly was patient. Financial transactions were something he was certain had not changed quickly. In the end, this proved correct.

Arden flopped down to sit cross-legged in front of the doorway with a huff of expelled breath. They leaned one elbow on their knee as they looked at their phone with the other, thumb jerking around with surprising rapidity.

“It went through,” they said. “Jesus Christ. I’ve never had a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Try not to sound so surprised, child.”

“I’m not a child. I’m twenty-eight.”

“I apologize,” Tolly said. “To an old man, everyone looks very young.”

“I’ve never met anyone with a name like Bartholomaeus Bardulf.” The thumb was still going, but they sneaked a look at him through their strands of loose hair. He had not introduced himself directly, but the financial transaction had required the use of his full name.

“I’ve gone by any number of names over the years. Most often people I knew called me Tolly, or Bard,” he said.

“Uh. Pleased to meet you, Tolly,” Arden mumbled, looking back at their phone again. “I can’t go get blood until they open tomorrow, though. It’s only ten p.m. right now. Maybe - ” They rubbed the spot between their eyes, blinking hard.

“You’re tired, my friend. Go and rest,” Tolly said. He gestured indifferently at the room. “I’ll still be here tomorrow night.”

“How do you know I won’t just wire the rest of your money to myself and leave?” Arden asked.

“I don’t. We’ll find out together,” Tolly said. Arden gave him a look of mingled exasperation, fear, and fatigue and climbed to their feet to go back upstairs. They accelerated with every step, until they practically slammed the upstairs door. They had left the hand-cranked lantern on the floor near the threshold. It had run down some time ago, both of them going by the light of a smartphone, or an LG, or ‘this fucking thing,’ a relatable phrasing that had come down through generations of mortal people working with various mechanisms.

Part 5: Bearing Gifts

@fleur-a-whump

#syncopein3d future reference #whump #whumpblr #vampire whumpee #non binary caretaker #angst #Black Tolly #Arden #Trifold Balance Universe

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syncopein3d · 10 months ago

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Yesssss this is SO important

I require more use of armor and clothing in whump

I want bullet proof vests, clunky militaristic gear or thickly padded but oddly sleek uniforms. Caretaker needs to be clasping their palms down against firm materials, not knowing whether or not they're putting enough pressure on a gunshot wound. Caretaker needs to be violently ripping open heavy clothing in order to reach a wound. Whumpee who is hysterical after a deadly attack, reassuring a friend that they're armor saved their life.

Robotic suits to malfunction, trapping whumpee inside. Armor so heavy that when whumpee grows weak they are no longer able to carry themselve. Helmets that hide whumpee's identity from their enemies. Gas mask meant to protect whumpee becoming worn. Glass from a visor breaking across their face.

Things for a whumper to pull on. Whumpees being threatened by their collar, pulled into whumper's words physically by their tie. Caretaker taking off their scarf to wrap it around a wound, tying their bandana around whumpee's arm for whumpee to keep as a reminder.

Tight vests or dresses messing with whumpee's ability to breathe. Improper binders squeezing their chests. Caretaker loosening their equipment, listening to whumpee wheeze in a breath of full clean air. Caretaker giving their coat to whumpee to warm them up. Whumpee's clothing now baggy on them after they lost too much weight.

Just like-

Utilize clothing and armor in whump

#whump #whumpblr #syncopein3d future reference

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syncopein3d · 9 months ago

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Left Alone Part 15: Glass of Water

Tropes/content warnings: M for mature themes overall. Tropes/content warnings: vampire whumpee/caretaker, male whumpee/caretaker, non-binary whumpee/caretaker, morbidity or thoughts of death. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. Mostly we're talking about consent to be bitten, but being bitten in this universe varies from "mild discomfort" through "multiple climaxes" and I don't know where the story will end up yet, so I think it's important to be clear.

In this episode: mild bloody aftermath, bruises/soreness, angst, unrequited thirst. We’re switching to Arden’s POV for this one, let me know how you guys feel about that!

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know!

Part 14: His Eyes Have All the Seeming

Everything hurt, and the cold body pillow didn’t help like it usually did.

That wasn’t right. They didn’t have a body pillow any more. They’d been couch-surfing and living in the Soul, and it was too hard to take with them everywhere and answer awkward questions about. Mostly they just put up with the part of whatever was always wrong with them that caused everything to ache sometimes. This seemed worse than usual. Their nose felt all stuffy and weird and that hurt, too. They could hear themselves breathing through a swollen throat.

Somebody was in here with them, sulking in the back of their brain. It wasn’t like having nagging thoughts. Arden was very familiar with those. It was like having someone sitting across a dark room from you sighing to show they were disgusted. Arden had a vague mental image of him sitting on the end of one of the cabin’s beds, a dark-haired man whose clothes seemed to stutter and fluctuate between different histories: toga and tunic, scale armor, wool long shirt and some things like tights, big ruffled collar and puffy pants, big muttonchops and a very high-necked shirt, stiff blue suit with a fat tie, and finally settling into what looked like a black tailored suit with the top button of the shirt undone. He had the tiniest pointy chin beard. He was panting, red-faced, shoulders heaving like he’d just had to run and had absolutely hated it.

Aeolus was behaving himself now, but he wasn’t gone. Arden felt slightly better, knowing he was hurting worse than Arden was.

The cold body pillow moved slightly, and Arden realized there were arms around them. They weren’t very warm arms, but they were familiar. They relaxed their gradually stiffening body. “Tolly?” Their voice came out as a hoarse ‘gnehgh’ type noise on the first try and they had to say it twice.

The pillow inhaled. Tolly always had to breathe in before he could speak, but he didn’t breathe much the rest of the time, Arden had noticed.

“Thank God,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I could stand it.” He sounded so tired. Arden squinted crusty eyes open and found themselves in the bathtub, curtain still open. Tolly shifted slightly to slide them off to one side of him, so that now they lay facing one another. Arden was all the way awake now, grabbing at Tolly’s bloody shirt. The vampire was paler than before, his face thinner and hollower. His fangs were out all the way, big enough to push out his upper lip slightly on each side.

“Oh, no. Aeolus – I – I’m so sorry, Tolly. I would never - ” They were stammering nonsense in their whiny whisper of a voice.

“You didn’t,” Tolly said, one big hand catching at both of Arden’s and holding them to the middle of his chest. There was no comforting reassurance of a heart beating there, but they felt immediately calmer anyway. “And I’ve healed. I’ve told you, I don’t feel pain the way you do.” Arden, considering some noises Tolly had been making recently, was skeptical of this, but the follow-up distracted them. “How do you feel?”

Arden squinted. “Can you get a hangover in your entire body?”

“I think this may be what magic overuse feels like. I’ll get you some warm water.”

Arden opened their mouth to say “wait,” but Tolly was already gone, a puff of cold air left behind. They’d seen movies where vampires moved fast. They’d always assumed it would look silly without speed-ramping or slow motion. They’d never assumed it just wouldn’t be visible at all. Sometimes it was like Tolly just teleported.

There was a muttered oath from somewhere over by the sink, and an ongoing cool breeze suggested Tolly had remembered he was barefoot and covered in blood. Water ran. When Tolly came back, he was wearing black boxer briefs and a clean white tank top that stretched slightly across his shoulders because they hadn’t been muscular when he bought it. He wasn’t even a little self-conscious about it, in his current condition or any condition. He always looked like he belonged wherever he was.

He looked like what the guys Arden had hated in high school thought they looked like. Big heavy forehead, big jaw, big fists –scarred knuckles. It was hard to imagine someone who spoke the way Tolly did punching people for a living, but there were little marks around the deep sockets of his eyes, too. It must’ve been before he was a vampire. He didn’t seem to collect scars from what happened to him now. The cushiony pink lips kind of ruined the picture a little. Not for Arden, obviously, who definitely should stop staring right now. The important thing was that enough of him was showing to prove he WAS healed up. Arden’s blood still ran cold, remembering little wounds opening all over his body as Aeolus tried to kill him.

Tolly held a glass of water up to Arden’s lips, ignoring Arden’s attempt to push his hand away. They were shaky enough to be glad he was there while they were drinking it, so they didn’t tell him to stop. He wouldn’t have a choice but to do it, and that was unfair when he’d just saved Arden from being kicked out of his own body.

“You were scary,” they said, when they’d had a drink.

“That’s what I am, darling,” Tolly said. He didn’t talk like a chad meme. Sometimes that was funny, hearing a big buttery DARLING come out of that face. “I’ve been dead much longer than I was alive.”

“You know, I never ordered you not to lie to me,” Arden said. They held out their hand for the glass and then managed to hang onto it with both hands as they drank. It was good on their throat. It felt puffy from where Tolly’d been holding them up by it to scare Aeolus.

“I’ve noticed that, yes,” Tolly said. Of course he had. “Maybe you should.”

“Not unless I have to. Especially when you could’ve just eaten me, and you didn’t.”

“Maybe I was just bluffing Aeolus,” Tolly said. “You know that orders continue until they’re countermanded, or I wouldn’t have been trapped in that room for ten years after Nicholas left.”

“Nah. I ordered you not to hurt OR kill me, and holding me up by my neck hurt like hell,” Arden said smugly. “You could’ve had me, and you didn’t. You think Nicholas planned on that?” Somewhere in their head, Aeolus was leaning in the bathroom doorway now, staring at Tolly’s back.

Tolly considered that seriously, green eyes narrow. When he was thinking he didn’t really move. No fidgets, no tapping finger, nothing. It was when he looked the least alive except for when he was, for lack of a better word, asleep. Temporarily dead? Arden shelved that one.

“If Aeolus was his familiar, and Aeolus says he was, then Nicholas knew he’d try to possess you. He probably went through the same thing. I have to assume he regained control before Aeolus could successfully expel him from his body. He probably didn’t care if you fought him off yourself or if I threatened him into behaving.”

“But that’s still risking that you’d eat me,” Arden said. “I know you want to. You keep saying so.”

“Of course I do,” Tolly said. His eyes flickered to Arden’s throat and away again. “I think you might need to reevaluate how much your Uncle Nick actually cared about your well-being.”

Arden shrugged, their tee shirt rustling along the porcelain tub. “You think I didn’t know he was kind of an asshole? It got more obvious as I got older.” They drank again. “Part of the reason I wasn’t around when he died is that I’d quit talking to him. Sometimes I feel bad about that.”

“Don’t,” Tolly said, without hesitation. “Either you would’ve died with him, or he would have manipulated you into being trained to do exactly as he wished, so that he could make your powers useful to him.”

“I think he was trying to,” Arden said thoughtfully. “Hey, I’m not ordering you, but - ”

The glass vanished from their fingers and returned full of warm water, still sloshing slightly.

“Thank you. He kept offering me things to do weird shit. Fifty dollars to draw a circle on the floor with chalk, a new jacket to recite Poe backwards.” They waved a hand and almost dropped the glass and had to catch hold of it with both hands, trying not to see Tolly’s hand hovering.

“One time he spent a whole month to teach me to keep talking on the inhale so I could read out loud without stopping for like ten minutes. He got more and more pushy about it and wouldn’t explain why, and my parents kept deadnaming me on purpose, so finally I just gave away most of the things in my apartment and packed up and left town.”

They’d been talking for a long time. Arden had a bigger drink to cover that embarrassment and then choked, and had to sit up and sit there coughing for a second and wishing they were dead. Aeolus sneered from the doorway.

You don’t deserve this body, he said. You don’t have the faintest idea what to do with it, you clumsy idiot.

That whole spiral was interrupted by a cold hand on their back.

“Careful,” Tolly said. “Just breathe. It will be harder until your throat heals.” He said a lot of things in the same neutral-to-bored tone, like they were talking about wiring a stupid amount of money again, which apparently wasn’t a big deal to him. When he was talking directly to Arden, about Arden, it was… different. Like he might actually be worried. Like he might actually be able to be. And he would say or imply it was only to benefit himself, but then he’d go and do things like he’d done with Aeolus.

He was hurting now. Arden was starting to figure out that he was hurting when he couldn’t put the fangs away.

“You’re thirsty,” Arden said.

“Compared to what I have been? Not at all. It’s easier when you’re back in your head and I don’t have to try,” Tolly said. “So put it out of your mind.”

“I could order you to just take a little,” Arden said. That image kept reoccurring to their mind, what that might be like. It came up a lot while they were trying to sleep.

“It would still hurt you,” Tolly said impatiently. “The ring makes you immune to anything I could do to make it otherwise.”

“I don’t mind if it hurts - ”

“You can make me do what you wish, but my answer is no,” Tolly said. The words had a cutting edge.

“You don’t have to put it like that,” Arden said, sitting up straighter as they glared at him. “Have I ever treated you that way?”

“No,” Tolly said grudgingly. He looked away. “Forgive me.”

“Forget it. I’m going to take a shower. Would you mind dragging my bag in here?” They had Tolly’s blood on their clothes where they’d been lying on him, irregular splotches down the back of their shirt and jeans that they could feel sticking. It felt weird as hell thinking about him carrying them in here and laying them on top of himself back to front, like a blanket.

“I’ll get it. Drop your things on the rim and I’ll put them in the cold water with mine. Sometimes it comes out if you hurry,” Tolly said. He didn’t leave until Arden had managed to get all the way standing up without falling over. The curtain closed on the image of his retreating back, muscle white and stringy in his neck and shoulders.

Part 16: The First Lesson

@fleur-a-whump, @bitchaknso, @valravnthefrenchie, @thewhumpcaretaker

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syncopein3d · 9 months ago

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Left Alone 14: His Eyes Have All The Seeming

In this episode: possession by a spirit, bloody non-fatal injuries, vampire sun damage or sunburn, exhaustion, fainting/loss of consciousness from injuries, choking, threats of death, TW for Latin scholars who can tell how bad the translation is.

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know!

Part 13: Cabin

“Tolly. Tolly, hey.” Someone was shaking his shoulder, familiar heartbeat loud and excited in his ears. Tolly tried to ignore it for a while. His body felt made of lead, which meant it was still daylight. But the irritating voice did not stop, so at last he unzipped the sleeping bag and crept out from inside it and halfway out from under the covers.

“Arden, it is day. I trust this is important,” Tolly said. He leaned on his elbow as he regarded Arden, who now sat on the edge of his bed in the cabin instead of their own. Their hair was wildly disarranged, which he hoped meant they had at least gotten some sleep today. He couldn’t help noticing that even now they hadn’t said wake up, which would have compelled him to obey.

“It’s important. There’s letters carved around the ruby in Latin or something,” Arden said. “I can’t read them. Can you?”

They thrust their hand under his nose. Tolly caught at their wrist – warm, delectable, pulsing beneath his fingers – and looked at the ring, trying to focus on it. A faint burning on his face and shoulder drew his attention to the window. The room’s curtains were shut, but there was still a pale, painful glow around their edges. Even looking at it stung his eyes. He looked quickly back at the ring.

Around the edge of the ten-carat star ruby, words were incised, tiny and finely carved into the gold.

“Yes, it’s Latin,” Tolly said.

“What’s it say?” Arden said.

“Hold still. Hold still, Arden.” His entire upper body was starting to hurt. The sun could easily get through his cotton shirt. He could see the flesh of his own hand turning red as he read aloud. “Pactum faciam in nomine - ” He cut off abruptly, letting go of Arden as he jerked back under the covers and sheets into merciful darkness.

“Are you okay? I closed the curtains,” Arden said.

“It’s an instruction for forming a – hhh – a pact with a spirit,” Black Tolly said from the safety of shadow, trying to keep the pain out of his voice. Everything in contact with his upper body hurt. “But there’s no name to summon them by. Nicholas would have left a name.”

“Damn. Tolly? You looked - ”

“It doesn’t hurt. I’m already healing.” The pain in his skin was rapidly fading. He could feel his blood being spent on it, but he had fed well. It wasn’t a problem. It probably wouldn’t even grow his hair back out. But it still felt like trying to think through mud, like looking at the world through molasses. The blankets felt like iron weighing on his shoulders.

“We’ll talk of it tonight. The sun is too heavy, Arden.” He slumped, face in the crook of his arm, and not even Arden’s worried voice could keep him from black sleep now.

When he woke again, his mind was clear. Night had fallen. Something warm lay across his right wrist – familiar pulse – Arden’s hand. He lifted the covers and found Arden asleep, their breathing shallow and regular and extremely close because they were lying across his bed. Tolly regarded them as he lay on his side.

This is good. If they care for me, they will treat me better than he did.

I don’t deserve that. Nicholas understood me better than they do.

What choice do I have?

As he moved, they stirred, blinking in the dark. “Tolly? Are you back?”

“I’m back,” he said.

Arden fumbled for the lamp, giving Tolly enough warning to shield his eyes until they adjusted. “Are you all right? You scared me a little.”

“If I’m not ashed and scattered, I am not truly dead.” He slid out, eellike, as Arden sat up. “Worry about your own health, not your monster’s. Did you eat today?”

“I finished the Soylent and had another bar,” Arden said. “And I went and got a burger at the Lodge restaurant.”

Black Tolly warred with himself about whether to scold Arden for leaving without him or be glad they were at least eating. Finally, he settled on, “Good. Drink another Soylent, please, and we will discuss the ring.” He ran his hands over his head as he straightened away from the bed, standing in front of the treacherous curtains. His hair was still too short to be easily disarranged.

“You said it had a summoning ritual on it, but no name,” Arden said. “You don’t know the name of the spirit that Nicholas got power from?”

“No. He never said. So, he can’t have expected you to learn it from me,” Tolly said. “It must be somewhere else on the ring.” He considered. “He wouldn’t imperil your life by forcing you to remove it.”

The two of them stared closely at the ring for a while. Arden tilted it slowly to and fro in the lamplight.

“There’s something inside,” he said. “Something’s carved on the back of the stone inside the setting. Can you see it? It’s only visible if you tilt the ring just right.”

“Give me your hand again.” Tolly tipped the hand and ring very slowly, eye almost touching it, until the light hit just right in the red depths and he saw…

“Letters,” he said, letting go. “There is more than one language, but one is in Carolingian Miniscule. As few people who now exist understand a script used to write the Vulgate in only the earlier part of the thirteenth century, I have to assume it is meant for me. Of the others, one is in runes I can’t read, one is in a later Latin script, and one is in English. These preceding three are each marked with a small cross.”

“So what’s the final name?” Arden asked.

“Aeolus. Perhaps it is intended to summon the spirit.” He couldn’t keep doubt from his tone. Tolly was well aware of his ignorance in these matters, an ignorance cultivated by long centuries of carefully avoiding people he knew could end him, and Nicholas had very deliberately done nothing to dispel that.

“And it’ll teach me to cast spells? To defend myself?” Arden said.

“I don’t know,” Tolly said. “He must have thought so. Perhaps it is a familiar he has used himself.”

“It can’t hurt to try, right?” Arden said. “Worst case is that nothing happens.”

“I think we have little choice,” Tolly said. “The Silencer team were not able to cast violent spells. I’ve never had to face someone who could.”

“All right.” Arden sat up straighter, wiping at their eyes to get the cobwebs out. “Read me the Latin.”

“Pactum faciam in nominee illius qui hunc anulum non praecipere potest,” Black Tolly said. He paused every few words to let Arden repeat after him. Then, when he had come to the end, he said, “Now the name.”

“Aeolus?” Arden said.

The two of them sat looking at each other for a moment, Arden with one foot off the bed braced on the floor, Tolly standing opposite them.

“So what’s supposed to happen?” Arden asked. Before Tolly could answer, he saw them twitch, grabbing at the cheap headboard behind them. “The – the fuck is happening - ? Who are you?” They were staring at something, as if someone stood to Tolly’s right. When he turned his head, he saw nothing. There was no sound or scent of another person in the room.

“There’s no one else here,” Tolly said.

“He’s gone,” Arden said. “I don’t - ” They jerked violently, as if yanked by invisible strings. Tolly would have sworn they lifted completely from the bed for a second. “No, wait. You can’t - ” Their eyes rolled up into their skull, only white showing. Tolly dove in and grabbed at their arms to stop their head bouncing back against the wall. For a moment he thought they might be seizing.

“Arden? Arden, can you hear me?”

The tremors stopped. After a moment the eyes rolled back down, and Arden blinked up at him slowly.

“I’m not Arden.”

Tolly was violently yanked backwards and slammed into the floor. He was stunned to realize he couldn’t move. All of his great strength couldn’t lift one finger from the carpet. It was like being crushed by a giant fist. If he had needed to breathe, it would have been very difficult to do so. His bones creaked and the floorboards creaked under him.

A face hovered into his view. Now it was smiling, and not in the shy small way he had seen Arden smile. The wide, slightly distorted grin didn’t look right. It didn’t move the eyes, and the eyes didn’t blink.

“Well, that was more effortful than it should’ve been,” said the possessing spirit. The voice was forced into a lower pitch, rougher than Arden’s normal tone. A thin trickle of blood ran from one nostril.

“Let them go. The body isn’t yours, Aeolus,” Tolly said.

“Obviously it is,” said Aeolus, through Arden’s mouth. “It’s still weak, but I’ll soon see to that. Thinking he could fight me for it. Ha. Yes, idiot, I can hear you in there screaming THEY. I don’t care. The body’s mine now, and so are you, until I see fit to throw you Outside.”

Tolly, listening to this monologue, had never ceased straining against his bonds. He knew immediately when they started to weaken.

“Stop struggling,” Aeolus said immediately, head snapping around to look down at him there on the cabin floor. Tolly froze out of pure reflex. “That’s better. You’re a prisoner of Nicholas’ little toy, aren’t you?” He held up the ring to look at it, sniffing back more blood from Arden’s nose. “I watched everything he did, you know. That’s part of the pact. But why be a passenger when you can drive?”

He walked Arden’s body over to stand straddling Tolly, looking down.

“His eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,” said Aeolus. “Nicholas quoted that a great many times, looking at you. I see why.”

It was at this point that Tolly came off the floor so fast that his movement could not be tracked with the naked eye. His hand closed around Arden’s throat as he spun, and then he slammed Aeolus back into the wall by the door. Their feet – his feet – their feet barely touched the ground, scrabbling to keep him from being choked to death as Arden’s hands clawed at Tolly’s wrist.

“Let me go,” hissed Aeolus.

Tolly slapped him.

He was careful. He could’ve taken Arden’s head off. But he had been out of his prison for long enough to have rebalanced himself to his own strength, to the habit of lifetimes. Arden’s head rocked to the side, a red mark rising on their cheekbone.

“I take it you don’t truly hear the words of the invocation. You certainly didn’t stop to read the inscription yourself,” Tolly said. “Pactum faciam in nominee illius qui hunc anulum non praecipere potest. And you, Aeolus, cannot command this ring.”

“Let me GO,” Aeolus demanded again. Black Tolly slapped him back the other way.

“Let me go, or I’ll tear you to pieces!”

“Why don’t you, then?” Tolly asked. Aeolus’ eyes rolled upward again, and Tolly felt a sensation like knives cutting at his flesh, but now when he braced himself the bruising force could not pry his fingers from Arden’s throat. It was an exquisite agony, wounds opened all over his body as if slit by many little knives, but he remained. And blood gushed from Arden’s nose. The eyes came back down, furious, old eyes in a young face.

“Arden’s body isn’t accustomed to your power yet, is it?” Black Tolly said. “You’ve already spent what they can channel. And now you can’t stop me from drinking you dry.”

“He – they say you’ve been ordered not to kill them!”

“And so I have. But, as you’ve pointed out, you’re not Arden,” Black Tolly said. He leaned closer, grinning brightly so that Aeolus could see his fangs slide out of their sheaths in his gums, growing to a length unnatural in a living human being. “And I can do whatever I like to YOU, Aeolus. So, mark me well. You can remain where you are, and I will consume you. I’ve been desperately craving this blood from the instant I first scented it. I can barely contain myself. And now you’ve made me bleed.

“Or you can fall back to where you belong, and teach them and give them power in trade for sharing their senses. That is the pact. As long as Arden is in control, I can do no harm to this body I hold. I suggest you make your mind up very quickly. My thirst grows every second.”

Black Tolly leaned in very deliberately, ignoring the weak attempts to pull his fingers away, and ran his rough tongue over the blood that covered Arden’s lips and chin. Aeolus could see his eyes glaze with the intense pleasure it gave him, his grip starting to tighten as the giddy frisson rolled through every one of his senses. For that instant, he didn’t feel the pain of his wounds at all. For that instant, every single thing he had suffered over the last few seconds had been more than worth it.

“All right, all right! Stop!” Tolly came back to himself to find Aeolus suddenly limp in his grip, features slack, eyes half-open. He let go at once, jerking back in terror. Had he killed Arden after all?

But no, he could hear a pulse thundering in his ears when he had none. The body crumpled in a heap in front of him was alive.

Now he felt the pain.

Tolly swayed, looking down at himself. Blood soaked his clothes in oblong patches where his skin had been slit. He felt the sting where the open air touched the cuts in his face and hands. He bled slowly, and the narrow wounds were already trying to close, but he could feel the loss of strength where blood had been lost, where blood was being spent to heal. His mouth felt dry. He fought down panic at the memory of his shriveled flesh inside the secret room, at every swallow scraping his throat.

He bent to seize Arden and carry them to the bath, before he should bleed on the cabin’s carpet, and there he slumped into the tub with them lying against his chest. He could see blood running down the drain between his bare feet. Some of it soaked into one of Arden’s white socks with their worn-down heels.

The sensation of a living body draped over his dead one was intoxicating. He could feel every small pulse. And that pleasure would become more painful every instant that his thirst was not sated. His canines refused to draw back on their own.

“Wake up. Please, Arden,” he said, and now he could not keep the exhaustion from his voice. “I can’t – I can’t bear this. I need you here.”

Part 15: Glass of Water

@fleur-a-whump, @bitchaknso, @valravnthefrenchie, @thewhumpcaretaker

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syncopein3d · 9 months ago

Text

Left Alone 12: Drive

Tropes/content warnings: M for mature themes overall. Vampire whumpee/caretaker, male whumpee/caretaker, non-binary whumpee/caretaker, general morbidity.

In this episode: angst, injuries, dead bodies, discussion of death.

If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the tag list of this series, please let me know!

Part 11: Silencers 3

“Tolly?” Arden’s voice was creaky with suppressed panic. They didn’t appear immediately at the bottom of the stairs. “I heard – noises - ?”

“They had guns, and I’m afraid your kitchen is going to require more renovation than planned,” Tolly said.

“Had?”

“I’ve put the bodies into their van. You won’t see them.”

There was a longer pause. Even from the doorway, Tolly could hear Arden’s rapid heart.

“You sound different,” Arden said.

Tolly blinked. Did he? His voice didn’t sound changed to himself, and while he had regained his glamour, the Eye of Rule absolutely would prevent Arden from being affected by it. He would never appear as other than a reasonably attractive early-middle-aged man to Arden, just as with Nicholas. He would never sound like something other than an adult with a trained tenor.

“I might be a little different,” Tolly said. “Do you want me to come down? We really are short on time.”

Another pause. “No, I’ll come up.”

Tolly backed away from the basement door and a couple of steps down the hall to let Arden out. They turned the hallway light on as they shut the basement door, momentarily blinding Tolly. He heard their sharp intake of breath as he raised a hand to shade his eyes.

“How are you standing up? Oh, god, we have to get help. Hold still.” Hands grabbed urgently at his arm, at his other shoulder. Tolly swore silently as he realized he was frozen in place below the neck. Different wording would have left him unable to move even his lips and eyes.

“Arden, I’m fine,” he said. Even now, their hands feel warm. He could feel Arden’s breath brush his skin where his shirt had bullet holes in it. This close, their heartbeat was so beautiful. He could have listened for hours.

Enough, idiot. He’d been alone too long. Even feeding had not restored his faculties to normalcy, he realized with renewed anger and shame. The urge to take Arden’s life was less obtrusive, a nagging torment instead of a roaring agony, but now there were other little insanities clamoring for attention.

“I heal very quickly,” he said. “If you would please allow me to move - ?”

“If I would – oh, fuck, I gave an order. Yes, move, I’m sorry.” But they didn’t let go immediately, pulling his shirt away from his body to look at both sides of a scorched hole. “How many times were you shot? Why is your hair long again? Why do you look alive now?”

“In order: I wasn’t counting,” Tolly said, lowering his arm. “Each time I heal, my undead flesh tries to recreate the moment of my change. And because I’ve fed.”

“Did these hurt?” Tolly looked down into big, dark eyes, at Arden’s eyeliner already running, and lied without hesitation.

“No. I don’t feel much pain outside the Thirst. Arden, we have to go. More will come within a couple of hours. I don’t know if I can protect you from what Daniel called an Exalted and I don’t think we should risk it.”

“Daniel?”

“I questioned one of them. Few can refuse to answer me without the ring you wear. Listen, he didn’t suffer. You have to let go and go pack, Arden. Don’t you have a vehicle?”

“Yeah, there’s the Soul,” Arden said, shaking themselves as they dropped their hands. Tolly could see them trying to think, wiping their eyes and consequently smearing their makeup even worse.

“Then go, quickly.”

Arden ran for the stairs. Tolly took the other one so that the blast of his rapid passage wouldn’t knock them over. Most of his things were already in the duffel, bullets had hit his wallet but missed his phone – the cards, damn it. He couldn’t wait around for them to arrive. Well, at least now he had his phone. He could Venmo or Paypal money to Arden and have them buy him Visa gift cards now that he knew both those possibilities existed.

He tossed the wallet in the bathroom trash, then his shirt after it. He hurriedly cut his hair to #2 clippers length again – dull and amateurish, but they were short on time – and packed his toiletries into the plastic smaller case to go into the duffel, too. Down the hall he could hear Arden swearing, violently tossing things around, slamming drawers. The new shirt was dark red. He settled his black and brown flannel and his jacket over it.

In less than twenty minutes, he was back downstairs with the black canvas bag on his shoulder and the rolled mummy bag on top of that. He could still hear frantic rummaging from above, so he went to the kitchen. He collected all of the protein shakes into a reusable shopping bag and swept the cupboards for anything else nutritive for Arden. There were a couple of boxes of compressed bars, one unopened. He put them into a second bag. Aside from a glass jar of instant coffee (bag) and a lidded travel mug (BITCH PRINCESS, it said in pink rhinestone letters on a black backdrop; also, bag), the cupboards were bare.

He resisted the urge to call up to Arden to hurry. It wouldn’t help. And in any case, it was only a long five minutes before Arden came down the stairs hauling a big rolling bag and carrying an old brown knapsack covered in pins and patches. A wad of blankets was held to the top of the rolling bag with what looked like a couple of dollar-store plastic belts, and a dented metallic blue water bottle hung clipped onto the backpack.

“You don’t have a coat?” Tolly asked.

“I’m not cold,” Arden said. They were shivering.

“We’ll get you one later. Give me your keys.”

“You’ve been in a room for twenty years. You are NOT driving my car,” Arden said. They had wiped off their makeup and, to their credit, Tolly thought, not taken time to reapply it. They looked paler and their under-eyes were darker and baggier.

“Then at least let me load it while you lock up,” Tolly said. He stacked their things in the back of the Kia Soul. It was an odd little thing, not quite an SUV and taller than a car, a muted blue-gray color covered in chips and scratches. He never would have considered buying one.

The car skidded around the gravel drive and out onto the dirt road about fifty minutes from the moment the last body fell. Tolly sat in the front passenger seat, knees slightly cramped. It wasn’t a tiny car, but it wasn’t made for a large man, either.

“Where did you put the bodies? Did you say in that van?” Arden asked. Their hands on the wheel still trembled. They wiped at one cheek pointlessly, scratched the bridge of their nose.

“Yes. The windows are blacked out. But you shouldn’t worry about them, ch – Arden. The Witches will find the bodies first, and they’ll be eager to conceal that anything happened there. We all keep our secrets.”

“Right,” Arden muttered. “You just. Fuck!” They scrubbed at their cheek again. “You just snuffed four people in under five minutes.” They glanced over at him and back at the juddering shape of light made by the car’s headlamps, as if only just fully realizing that. “I guess you did get shot.”

“I’ll be less careless, and stronger,” Tolly said. “Now that I’m restored.”

“Yeah. You’re – you look alive,” Arden said. “Not so pale and veiny. Were your teeth longer before?”

“I can retract them,” Tolly said. “You should take Highway 9 to I-405, and from there to 90 East. We know there’s this Exalted in Bremerton, and I know a place near Snoqualmie Pass.”

“You think it’s still there?” Arden said.

“Or I could get on a plane and you could drive east,” Arden said, turning off the dirt road onto a paved one. “Since you’re apparently sticking around for some reason.” They shot him another look.

“Ownership changes, but the lodge was there eighty years. It probably still is.” He spread his hands. "Nicholas found all of my cars and resting places within over 100 miles of Great Chinook and sold them. You might be able to fly, but there are logistical problems for an undead. If we go east, and keep going east, we at least can make ourselves more inconvenient to find.”

“Simple. If I leave you, you will die, and I will then be forced to serve your killer,” Tolly said. “Who will most likely see me more as Nicholas did than as you do.”

“I don’t know how to see you,” Arden said. “Fuck. Four people, like it was nothing…”

“You must learn to use your gifts,” Tolly said, ignoring this. “Nicholas only left you the Eye of Rule, and me. I don’t know how to teach you spellcraft, so the ring must hold some further clue. You can look at it more carefully when we’re far enough away.”

“Fine, I guess.”

They drove in silence for some time. Arden made the turnoff to 9 without difficulty, and the exit onto I-405; but their shaking grew worse as they navigated through the multi-lane mess that was the approach to the 90-E exit. They hit the rumble strip twice and jerked back onto the road each time.

“Pull off at North Bend,” Tolly said, when they were safely clear of the exit. Traffic wasn’t bad at midnight.

“Why?”

“So I can drive.”

“I can drive just fine,” Arden said.

“No, you can’t. You’re unwell.”

“I’m not fucking unwell, Tolly. I’m scared, all right?” Their voice was high and strained. “I don’t want to be a witch or warlock or whatever you call it. I don’t want to think about the fact that I’m in the car with someone who killed four people and doesn’t know if he wants to kill me – “

“Be careful!” Tolly grabbed at the wheel as the car started to wander toward the guard rail, forcing it back into the lane. They were on an overpass. He would have survived, but Arden wouldn’t. Arden gasped, grabbing at the steering wheel.

They drove in tense silence for another hour. Arden held to the wheel with white-knuckled hands, stiff, gnawing their lip until the rich scent of blood wafted to Tolly’s nostrils. He turned away, lowering the window slightly to get fresher air. It helped only a little. It felt like an eternity before he saw the familiar brown and green sign far ahead.

“Turn off at the next exit,” he said. “It’s there.”

Part 13: Cabin

@fleur-a-whump, @bitchaknso, @valravnthefrenchie, @thewhumpcaretaker

#whump #whumpblr #angst #vampire angst #vampires #non-binary whumpee #vampire caretaker #narrowly-averted car crash #Black Tolly #Arden #Trifold Balance Universe #syncopein3d future reference

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