#syncopein3d future reference

[syncopein3d]

It's another Very Tired Day, so have some more Very Tired Tropes!

The moment when an exhausted character is finally out of sight of other people and can just collapse onto a couch for a minute.

The moment when someone who's been awake too long has to stop and rub the grit out of their eyes because they literally can't see for a second.

A character trying to fight through the kind of fatigue you get from blood loss, where your body feels heavy but your head feels light and floaty. They judge their balance wrong and stumble right into the person they've been trying to hide their injuries from.

The moment when someone just blanks out in the middle of a task, asleep on their feet, and has to struggle to remember what they were doing or saying.

There's a minute where it seems like they might actually get to rest, but no, here comes a cheerful demanding voice and it absolutely can't wait and they have to get up.

The way a body starts to just ache from moving around too long, and even relatively easy things become literally, physically hard to accomplish. Opening a door feels like trying to pull their own weight uphill. They stifle little grunts and groans when standing or sitting or bending because not only does it hurt, it's just so hard.

The loss of coordination where they just stumble into things, and another character tells them off for spilling or breaking something, only to look at them more closely and realize something is wrong.

The incredible relief of finally lying down. At first they can't even sleep because they've been awake and fighting it so long - as much as they'd like to just drift off, it can't happen that fast. The body has to be convinced that they won't have to jump right up again right away. It might take listening to white noise, it might even take meds to get everything to loosen up enough to finally. Fall. Asleep.

[syncopein3d]

Same, but of course especially the first one. Love someone being sedated so they can be medically treated because they just won't stop fighting the people trying to help them. And they just struggle so hard to stay awake, but they get more heavy and dizzy, and the drug always wins. Maybe there's a moment before they're out where they're high enough not to remember why they were fighting and they just relax. Maybe there's a moment where the person holding them down is now holding them to comfort and reassure them as they go under. Anesthesia caretaking is one of my favorite things.

obsessed with characters being saved against their will. being knocked unconscious and carried away from a danger they won't stop trying to fight. being shoved through a portal somewhere far away and safe right before it closes. trying to self-sacrifice only to have the exact person they're trying to save swap their places at the last second. getting the only cure to the disease or curse bc the person administering it loves them too much to give it to anyone else, including themselves. being thrown to safety right as they had accepted dying. someone else they thought had gotten to safety running back to drag them out of danger. it's so fucking tasty

[syncopein3d]

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.

[syncopein3d]

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.

[syncopein3d]

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

[syncopein3d]

Previous drabble.

CW: violence, gore, one uncertain fate and one very dead whumper.

The weapon rises from the orc's prone body, one hand trailing gently along his arm. It's almost the only part of him still unmarked by the tree-like lightning burns that blacken his flesh. But now the cuffs are broken. The needle-piercing enameled bracelets that keep her from using her power outside her Master's command are warped apart, wrenched by a strength that has always been tremendously greater than hers. He has always been so careful. And now, facing her Master across the ornate tent that is her traveling prison during war, she is well aware of how small and frail she still is, her body aching and bruised. And her orc may live, or he may not. Certainly, he will never be the same.

"Your life for the gods," the Master says, as if he can check her by sheer force of will. She's heard it so many times that it almost works. She stands there shaking, watching him walk closer. Even after a battle his beard is still perfectly manicured, his hair braided ornately above his chainmail. His tabard is silk. His boots gleam with polish only a little spotted with blood. He is certain of his rightness, as he has always been.

"My life," she stammers, the first half of the response he has always demanded. My life for gods and kingdom.

She looks down at the orc. Something inside her breaks open, wet and painful and shimmering, like the splitting of a cocoon.

There will be no contained incantations, no shaping words this time. The black brocaded robe splits over her chest as her ribs scream apart like a clawed hand opening. There are too many ribs, jointed like lengths of bamboo, and they continue down too far. The dripping crimson thing unfolding from inside her has no name, but it has eyes, and tendrils, and many, many little teeth. The Master is surprised, but he does not yet understand what he is seeing. She has always been restrained by the cuffs.

The monster looks up at the Master. The thing inside strikes like a nest of snakes.

"Your life," she says. "For our pain."

She hopes his screaming doesn't wake the orc, if he lives. She doesn't want him to see this, and she knows it will not stop until the Master is a small ugly memory of flesh and bone. She never looks away, feet braced against the weight of her true self. She wants to remember this forever.

What if a living weapon whumpee remained a weapon but in a reclamatory way. You made me into this, but now I will use it to fight against you. You made me into this, but now I will use it to protect those who are better to me than you were. You made me into this, but I decide what happens with it from here.

[syncopein3d]

Left Alone 1: Abandoned

Author's note: This originally came as a reply to this prompt, but I thought I'd give it its own beginning for easier linking on my masterpost page. I did a poll here to decide who finds Tolly, and it just wrapped up, so here we go!

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 going in. If there's more specific gore etc., I'll try to also do content notes as it comes up. “Stay in this room.”

It wasn't a large room. It was the width of the basement, but shallower, so that he could lie full length on the floor in one direction but not the other. He was six feet and a handspan tall. Six feet and a handspan long, if he didn't lift his arms. He would have needed a special coffin, or he must needs lie curled up inside it, not stretched regally in state. He would never have a coffin at all. That would have meant an end.

It wasn't a large room. It wasn't particularly well decorated. There was no silk paper on the walls down here, just bare stone encrusted with mold and damp. There was a rug. It was old when he was shut up inside, the dark green and gray colors faded, pipe dottle burns scorching several spots. He knew each one by heart, and had often speculated as to their respective age and how far apart they had happened back when this rug stood in front of the fireplace in the upstairs study. He had counted every single thread and every single strand of every single dull golden tassel. It only took him a couple of minutes, so he did it often. He had never been thwarted by throwing down a handful of seeds, not Bartholomaeus Bardulf. The debate as to whether he should stop counting the thread he had pulled from one side to play cat's cradle with raged on for some time. Eventually he had painstakingly weaved it back in, a tiny bit at a time, with his long nails, just to end the torment of uncertainty.

It wasn't a large room. There was no window, because that might have ended his suffering. Black Tolly only knew day from night by the dragging of his limbs, the need to lie down and cease for a while. He never fought it. It was time away from this place. Sometimes while he lay dead, he dreamed, and sometimes in his dreams he was outside. Every time he arose from lying on his back on the rug, hands neatly folded across his once-white shirt, he scratched a marking into the wall.

It wasn't a large room. Besides the rug, there was only a table in the corner and a single chair. They were plain furnishings, the sort of straight peg-and-groove stick construction you would want for something that needed to last a long time but didn't need to impress anyone. The chair was not for him. It was for his old friend Nicholas, who had left him down here for the last time three thousand, six hundred and twenty days ago. It was where Nicholas would sit when it was time for the needle and the vials.

Bartholomaeus Bardulf missed the needle and the vials. They had been an interruption of the monotony of his days. Sometimes, with new blood fresh in his mortal veins, the years crawling backward across his face, Nicholas would stay and talk to him. Tolly was polite. He had no power to be otherwise while the charm of Nicholas' voice held him in thrall, while Nicholas wore the old gold ring with the glittering ruby stone. He did not even resent this after the first six hundred days or so.

“Stay in this room,” he always said, when it was time to go. He never said “goodbye, Tolly.” Because they both knew he would be back. At least, Black Tolly had been sure of that. And then, three thousand, six hundred and twenty days ago, Nicholas had departed and never come back. And then Tolly had nothing, no meals of barely warm, half-congealed animal blood brought him in the same glass bottle, no moral debates as he paced the far wall and watched Nicholas grow younger, no pleading for his long eternity to end. Blood of cow and pig was not enough, not what Nicholas had promised him, and he gradually weakened on it, but it was better than nothing. On nothing at all he grew thin and withered and gray, his hair a few white strands clinging to his yellowed scalp, his canines permanently large and prominent with his thirst.

It wasn't a large room. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. Even for a creature like Bartholomaeus Bardulf, Black Tolly, Bardulf the Bastard, an old monster with the patience of the long dead, to keep sane you needed something. You needed anything at all. He made his marks on the wall. He counted his threads. He carved in the opposite wall with his talons, because those did not weaken as he began to dry up. Now there was an elaborate mural of curlicues and arabesques there, leering grotesques peering from the stylized vines and bushes of the forest of his mind. More than one of them had the face of Nicholas, beautiful, beloved, despised, hateful Nicholas.

And then, on the three thousand, six hundred and twenty-first day of his captivity, he heard noises from upstairs. Tolly threw himself at the secret door, screaming, pleading hoarsely, but the stone walls were too thick, and no one heard him. No one heard him scraping at the clean wall, ruining the smooth expanse of the moldering stones where he might have begun another mural in time. No one heard him pounding. His strength had waned with time, but still he paced, intent on every smallest sound.

When he heard the faintest echo of footsteps, detectable only to a creature with such exquisitely tuned hearing as the old monster, he threw himself against the secret door, milk-white eyes unblinking and intent on the smallest crack. He didn't really expect it to open. He was hoping for some scrap of scent, some sound of breath, some tantalizing agony to at least give him something to think about for the next hundred days. It utterly shocked him when it began to open. He darted backward into the far corner beyond the rug, crouched at the foot of his mural, and watched the door swing open.

“Stay in this room,” Nicholas had said. And he could not cross the threshold, could not even reach across it with his long, bony arms. But then the scent of fresh, living blood smote his nostrils, and he hurtled across his cell in a frenzy, desperate for it. And came up short just before the door, hissing in agony as every muscle in his body contorted in absolute refusal to move further.

For a second the stranger – exquisite, delicious creature, like Nicholas, savoring of life and health – was confronted with a gangly cadaver in a dusty once-white shirt and the tattered remains of a gray suit that had once been an expensive bit of tailoring, the narrow lapels immaculate, the trousers to bag at the knee just ever so. He never took the jacket off. The thirstier he was, the more he felt the cold in his dead bones. Part 2: Discovery

[syncopein3d]

Part 18: Weight of Dawn

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, but mostly biting.

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

[syncopein3d]

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

[syncopein3d]

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.

[syncopein3d]

Part 17: Painmother

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, but mostly biting.

In this episode: impalement, injuries, deaths (enemy), brief mind control, biting (noncon), dismemberment, blood, time dilation trauma.

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

Part 16: The First Lession

Masterpost

The day passed without incident, apparently, because Black Tolly knew nothing from crawling into his sleeping bag until sunset woke him. He found Arden asleep still. They were actually under the covers, head mostly under a pillow. He could just see the tip of their nose sticking out. They now exuded a faint hair-raising underscent of tin, a sign of growing arcana.

“Where is this place?”

“We are inside your mind, and mine. This was a coliseum where I fought once. Now, pay attention, young idiot. This is going to hurt.”

Rather than startle Arden, he went to rinse his mouth with water (awful), change his clothes, and pack. The bloodstains had mostly remained in both sets of clothes, but they were dry, and the next real retail center he knew of was Ellensburg over on the dry side, so until then, waste not, want not. He packed his bag and laid Arden’s at the end of their bed.

“Did… Did I die?”

“Of course. Nothing can survive disintegration. I want you to remember what that felt like, boy, because it’s important to remembering how to inflict it on another.”

“Stop calling me boy!”

“Ah. I see we’re a slow learner.”

There were packets of cookies by the lobby coffee machine, a more graceful offering than he would have expected. Tolly went to negotiate checkout with a different desk clerk than before. She was equally as dazzled, fortunately. He made sure there was no scent or sound of anyone else before he persuaded her to a little kiss and pet behind the desk.

It wasn’t so hard to spare someone who wasn’t Arden. He fought down the panicked urge to take it all, every drop, and was torn between shame and pride when he left her dozing with her head on her arms on the counter. She might be tired for a day or so, but she was alive, and he was at his full strength again.

“No. Not again. Let me go!”

“When you can stop me. No sooner.”

Tolly set the coffee and cookies on the night table. The sound wasn’t loud, but Arden jerked violently, clutching at the mattress. He stopped moving at once, hand resting on their shoulder. “Arden?”

”Tolly?” they said. “Is that you?” Their voice quavered in genuine distress, raw as if they had been screaming. They shoved the blankets away violently as they sat up, grabbing at his hand with both of theirs. The tinge of arcana was stronger now.

“Yes, I’m here,” Tolly said. Now was not, he sensed, the time to be arch. Arden practically climbed up his arm to get to him, so he sat down, submitting to a surprisingly violent embrace. He closed his arms around Arden very carefully. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“How long was I gone?” Arden asked, without raising their face from Tolly’s shirt. Their heart fluttered against his chest like the wings of a sparrow.

“You slept through the day while I was resting.”

“God. Not even twenty-four hours? For me it was three weeks. Maybe more. It got harder and harder to tell. Aeolus, he – I hate to call it training.” They shuddered in Tolly’s arms. “I did learn.”

“How is this possible?” Tolly asked.

“He said we don’t perceive time accurately when we sleep. He – he threatened to keep me for years if I didn’t get better,” Arden said.

“Did he hurt you?” Tolly asked.

“Yes. Over and over,” Arden said. Tolly stroked their back, careful of his talons.

“We have to find you another familiar,” Tolly said. He kept his tone quite calm. He didn’t want to upset Arden further. He just wanted Aeolus in another body. Within his reach, ideally.

“I don’t know how,” Arden whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know how to revoke the pact.”

“We’ll find a way. Eat, drink. You’ll feel better,” Tolly said. He squeezed Arden very carefully and then freed one arm to get the coffee. A whiff of it had Arden grabbing at the paper cup with both hands.

“Oh, fuck, yes, coffee. Thank you. Yes.” They took a hasty gulp, slightly sloppy, then tore into the cookie packet with one hand and their teeth as he handed that over, too. Tolly watched until he was sure they were busy. Then he went to cut his hair short again, leaving the bathroom door open. Arden staggered in past him as he went to load his own things into the car.

He lay on the bed reading as he waited after that. Arden eventually emerged from the bathroom with a clean shave and makeup and bustled around packing, a little shaky still, but on the move. Eventually, Tolly became aware of them standing at the end of the bed.

“Yes?” he said politely.

“That’s the Complete Sherlock Holmes,” Arden said.

“You did loan it to me,” Tolly said cautiously. He sat up as he closed the book.

“Did you pack the other books, too?” They sounded curious, not angry, though something in Tolly still cringed and snarled and feared they would make him give it up.

“They wouldn’t all fit,” Tolly said. “Do you want it back?”

“No,” Arden said. “I have it on Kindle.”

“What’s Kindle?”

“It’s an app. You can get it while we drive,” Arden said. “I’m glad to see you’re all better.”

Tolly took up the omnibus and went to open the back of the Kia Soul. As Arden followed him, dragging the spinner, they said cautiously,

“Did you kill someone?”

“No. She wasn’t you,” Tolly said. “The longer I know you, the easier it will become, because you are not Nicholas. In the meantime, the desk clerk will be tired for a couple of days. If we’re around people, I can stay at my peak quite easily.”

“You really wanted to kill him,” Arden said, as they climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Passionately,” Tolly said.

“But you still grieve that he’s gone?” Arden asked, reversing out of the parking space. Tolly turned to look back between the seats.

“Yes. I don’t claim that is sane, but both are true,” Tolly said. “He was the only living creature I saw from when he tricked me until you found me. I loved him. I hated him. I still can’t quite believe he’s gone.”

“Complicated,” Arden said. He watched a camper pull out going back toward Seattle, then turned out onto the highway going East.

“It always is. Did Aeolus teach you anything useful, or was that just for his entertainment?” Tolly asked.

“I think he did,” Arden said slowly. “When we’re stopped again I’ll try to –“

The car shook violently. Tolly grabbed at the dash to keep from having his face smashed into it – stupid, he’d forgotten the seatbelt. Arden swerved onto the shoulder, and then the view out the front window tilted as the Soul started to lift into the air. Tolly grabbed at the  door handle, but it snapped off in his hand without opening, and now they were fifteen feet up. He twisted to look back again. He could see a handful of dim shapes at the treeline, one with arms uplifted. The nearest Exalted is Painmother Nguyen, in Bremerton. How had they known where to set an ambush?

“Arden,” he said urgently. “She’ll drop us. A fall from this height won’t hurt me, but - ”

“Oh,” Arden said, eyes suddenly distant. Tolly could hear his pulse. It disquieted him that the sound of it wasn’t agitated. “I think I know what to do. When the door opens, jump.”

“I will not leave you.”

“I need you to stop the others,” Arden said. “You can buy me a chance. Go.”

The door snapped open. Tolly shot him one last agonized glance and jumped. It was a long fall, but no invisible hand snatched him from the air. Something tugged at his clothes, but then he hit the ground rolling and came up running at his fastest. He could hear them now. They had split, three moving toward three retreating cloud of leaves he had kicked up, two moving toward the car.

The car. Tolly scrambled up the trunk of a narrow fir with his talons until he could get to the lower branches, turning to hang by one arm with his feet braced against the bark. The Kia Soul was lowering slowly toward the ground, shaking and rattling as if in an earthquake. It dropped the last couple of feet as Arden dove from the driver’s side. A sudden cold wind whipped at Tolly’s hair. The three witches were spreading out, silent, no chatter. He shinned rapidly back down the tree to circle around the nearest. It was darker every second.

They must not have been sure of him, or they wouldn’t have attacked after dark. That was hopeful. This was confirmed as he whipped around another trunk and into view of a man in a dark coat. He jerked a hand up toward Tolly, hissing, “Seize.”

Tolly’s heart squeezed in his chest. It stopped him for a second, startled, looking down at himself. He looked up at the warlock. The man’s cold, tight expression said he believed he’d taken a life.

“Oops,” Tolly said softly, and moved. The man was probably still wondering why that hadn’t worked when cold hands snapped his neck. Tolly had chosen wisely not to drink; he barely darted away before white light almost blinded him. There was a stink of ozone as he sprinted around another tree. Lightning? The charge hadn’t traveled through the ground. Either magic could limit the reach of electricity, or the dead man had absorbed most of it.

The other two were back-to-back now, a man and a woman, both black-coated like the first. He glimpsed them through the trees as he kept running. Another bolt of lightning split a tree some feet behind him, not even close.

“Don’t start a fire,” he heard the woman say. “He can’t maintain that spell long. No one can.”

They thought he was using sorcery. That amused him. Neither would have time to realize their mistake. He dropped on them from another tree and flung the woman so hard that she smashed every bone in her body against a boulder. The man he seized by the throat to force eye contact.

“Sleep,” he said. The man put up more of a fight than Daniel had, but it wasn’t enough. Tolly watched as his eyes fluttered and shut.

The air tasted of metal. The wind still howled in Tolly’s ears as he hauled the unconscious man back toward the car. He saw Arden first. They stood leaning back with their arms up as if holding something heavy, and the air around them warped and rippled like water. Gravel struck trees and the grass behind them like a rain of bullets, embedding into trunks, striking sparks where stone hit stone. Where it hit the shield, it seemed to evaporate with little pings and hisses.

Exalted Painmother Nguyen stood yards away, facing them with one hand outflung. Through the distortion of her own powers, she looked to be an Asian lady of about the middle age, her hair in a neat roll and her coat black like the others. Her pulse sounded calmer than Arden’s now did. She knew she could outlast them, Tolly realized.

He did not at all expect her to perceive him as he charged. She didn’t question his speed or what he was. She didn’t even try to stop his heart. He was simply yanked into the air and hurled sideways. The world tumbled, and then pain ripped through his chest as his back slammed into something hard.

Tolly scrabbled for purchase with his boots and talons, unable to turn, expecting to fall. A tremendous pressure in his chest made him look down and see the blood-slicked length of rough fir bark emerging from just below his breastbone. He’d hit so hard in his impalement that smaller branches had snapped off all along its length. Some were still shaking down behind his back.

Blood oozed around the length of wood as he grabbed at it one-handed, sinking the talons of his other hand into the trunk by his hip to achieve a precarious balance with his braced boots. There was no numbness of shock, no disorientation of rushing endorphins as a failing body tried last-ditch efforts to save itself. He was keenly aware that his bottom four ribs were shattered and his heart and left lung were effectively obliterated. He could feel the branch grinding against his spine and his remaining ribs on that side with every slightest movement. Holding still didn’t ease the pain. Movement only made it worse.

Arden, where was Arden? Tolly looked around frantically as he realized he could only hear one pulse. The smell of blood was overwhelming, but it wasn’t blood that he knew, he realized with dawning relief.

Painmother Nguyen was in pieces. He could see one of her arms twitching in the grass nearby, and the back of her head not far off, yards from her torso in its black coat.

He couldn’t call out. Breathing was quite impossible –

“Oh, fuck, Tolly,” said a voice. Tolly rolled his head, but Arden must be somewhere below and to his right, where he couldn’t see. They sounded raspy and exhausted. “Hold still. I’ll get you down.”

It would have been easier if he could’ve blacked out as the invisible grip seized him and dragged him forward off the branch. He felt all of it, every tiniest roughness in the bark, every jagged edge of a broken twig stabbing into his wound on the way past. It seemed like it took forever. Then he was in air, and then, at last, his knees hit the ground. A shaking arm fumbled around his shoulder. Dark blood oozed slowly from the edges of the hole in his body as he looked down at it. It was trying to close, but slowly, burning through what he had saved.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Arden said. “Not both of us. But if you drink, you’ll heal, right?”

Tolly pulled himself around, grabbing at Arden’s shoulders to look them over. They were pale, bleeding vividly red from nose and eyes and ears. This close, he could at last scent it. The familiar torment was almost a comfort.

He laid a finger sharply over Arden’s mouth before they could speak again to give an order. Then he staggered to his feet and ran, doubled over and weaving, to find the warlock he had left alive earlier. He still lay sleeping in the pine needles under a tree where he’d been dropped.

He didn’t get time to wake up. Tolly gathered him up as gently as a lover and then latched onto his artery like a leech. He could hear Arden’s uncertain footsteps behind him as pleasure erased the pain in a gentle wave. When the pressure in the man’s carotid gave out, and the pulse in his ears died down, Black Tolly at last looked up to find Arden leaning on the tree trunk.

“So it does take a life,” Arden said hoarsely. Tolly inhaled. The lung held. He looked down at the smooth and undamaged expanse of his own chest.

“When the wound is dire,” Tolly said.

“I killed them,” Arden said. Their voice was the nervous one that Tolly knew and recognized, their pulse an irregular flutter. He stood up in one swift movement to catch them as they slumped forward.

“I have you, Arden. You’re all right,” he whispered as he gathered them up. They were light and limp in his arms, silent except for their heart.

He saw the fifth body as he carried Arden back to the car. The woman’s body lay twisted almost in half backwards. Arden’s powers must have thrown her into the protruding rear bumper of the black Sprinter van. It was all the way off the road, parked back from the shoulder under the darkness of the trees.

Tolly buckled Arden into the passenger seat, smoothing sweat-soaked hair back from their face. Their eye makeup had run again, black mingling with the bloody tears. They blinked a couple of times as he wiped it with his sleeve, but they couldn’t seem to hold their eyes open.

“Where’s the rest of your shirt?” they mumbled, head lolling into the seatbelt.

“I’ll get another one,” Tolly said. “How do you feel?”

“Everything hurts.”

“Hurts how?” Tolly asked.

“Throbs. It pulses, like… Another heartbeat. But bad.”

Tolly checked in his pocket. His phone had survived with a crack across the plastic outer case on the back. Eleven thirteen.

“Is this fatal?” he asked.

“Aeolus says… Probably not...” Tolly exhaled through his nostrils. He didn’t need to breathe. There was no reason for him to have been holding his breath. Arden’s early quixotry had been the result of confusion and the familiar self-destructive urges, not actual fact.

“Do you know how they found us?” he asked. He shook Arden slightly when there was no response, very careful, but insistent. “I’m sorry, child, but I must know. Ask the old man.”

Arden groaned. “Augury from the. Bodies. You can find the killer if you can scry within a couple of hours, Aeolus says. He – it’s – it’s hard for him to reach me now.”

“I see.” Tolly set his phone timer with great care. Then he bent to gently kiss Arden’s forehead. “Leave it to me, Arden. I’ll take care of it.”

He went around to the back of the car, stripping his ruined clothes as he went.

He had no idea if cars had passed them, but nobody had stopped. The Painmother and her presumed coreligionists had staged the whole thing back from the road. Headlights might catch the Soul in passing, but probably not the bodies. He wadded up the clothes into a plastic grocery bag rather than risk leaving them to law enforcement or witchery, not knowing if they could aid in this supposed augery. He hurriedly wiped himself down as best he could, then came up front to wipe Arden’s face with a clean body wipe, ignoring his groan of protest. In under five minutes he had rendered them presentable enough to pass for tired travelers, maybe ill in Arden’s case, but clean of blood. He coaxed Arden into taking a couple of naproxen sodium from Arden’s own luggage, washed down with a drink of water.

Then he started them to the East again, keeping politely within the speed limit. It was possible no one would find the bodies soon enough to perform divination, but he couldn’t depend on that. So in two hours, when their pursuers could no longer possibly tell from the bodies which way they were going, he would double back West. He was almost certain he could reach one of his surviving boltholes near Northgate before dawn.

Part 18: Weight of Dawn

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

[syncopein3d]

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

[syncopein3d]

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]

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

[syncopein3d]

Left Alone 14: His Eyes Have All The Seeming

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: 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

[syncopein3d]

@whumppromptoftheday This is from your prompt!

CW: badly injured whumpee, implied past violence, robbery, begging.

Broken World

1. Rescue

The Ripper stepped out of a violent tear in reality and into a dark hall. The rift in this universe annealed itself almost immediately, the maddening uncolors of the Other Place quickly vanishing. Then Ripper had to bend almost double for a moment, swallowing the taste of blood as they waited for the pain to stop. They didn’t make a noise. They’d learned not to do that a long time ago.

It was hard to get carnite. A lot of it had been mined out, and it was the source of one of only a few ways to permanently alter the function of metapowers without removing them. It was therefore tremendously valuable. The cache supposedly being kept here in Registered Metahuman Team 99B’s base was said to weigh five kilos and be worth about a billion dollars.

Ripper snorted back more blood inside the medical mask. Real costumes were for people who wanted to be on the news. Ripper was wearing gray sweats and a dingy white tank top with a black hoodie. Their mask was just a black N-95. They weren’t even wearing real shoes. They had tabi socks with lightly textured soles, almost noiseless on the institutional tile floor as they walked down the hall. Their gray backpack was the most expensive thing on them, metal-less, high-density ceramic zippers only.

All the lights were out because nobody was here. The Ninety-Nines were at a parade doing security for the mayor or someone. Ripper didn’t know who and didn’t have a reason to care. The important thing was that Silverant and Teledyne weren’t here, no annoyingly perky speedster, no super strong asshole who could break Ripper’s spine with a tiny finger-flick. None of the others were that dangerous to someone quiet and careful, Ripper told itself.

The ventilation hummed constantly, but the heat felt like it wasn’t doing much. The air was cold. The Ripper knew they were four stories below ground; they needed really precise imaging to get into somewhere they’d never been. It hadn’t been cheap, either. Not many people had been down here on the Vault level. The rooms on either side had little windows in their heavy steel doors. Ripper peeked in all of them until it found the one that looked like a biology lab more than a place to keep rocks: microscopes, fridges, centrifuges. A good look from the door was enough.

Ripper stepped back and reached into the world inside itself and tore it open, clawing at their chest. Their hands went from brown to light blue to flat black as they exhaled into a silent scream. Inside became outside, and now they were in the Other Place, grasping in front of them to tear at the membrane of something made of colors that weren’t real and didn’t make sense. They had to get out before they could focus on the idea that they weren’t real here, either, or it might stop existing before it could get through.

The membrane tore, burning and wet under their fingers, and they slid out into the glittering dark of the lab. They stifled a cough. There was no recording equipment this far down, but it felt so loud in the quiet.

They turned on the overhead lights and rifled all the cupboards. Nothing was locked, not a good sign. And while they were reading the labels on all the little shelves above the counter, someone made a noise.

Ripper froze.

It happened again. Someone had made a sort of whimpering moan that ended in a gasp, like maybe they’d breathed too deep and it hurt. It came from behind one of three doors in the back of the lab. These had bigger windows in them, laced with a diamond pattern of metal reinforcement, so it could see that two were empty. All of them were bolted shut.

In the third one, there was a man tied to a steel chair.

Ripper stood there staring, still swallowing blood inside the mask. That was normal. This wasn’t.

He was middle sized, dark haired, not as brown as the Ripper. He’d been in decent shape before someone beat him with… Ripper measured the size of their own fist with the bruises on his naked belly. The knuckle marks were bigger. Was that Teledyne, Ripper wondered, just pulling his punches? The man’s eyes were swollen, and there was a cut above one eye that had matted his eyebrow and blinded him with blood.

The blood looked sticky and half-crusted. Around his nose it was still red, in horrid congealed bits atop the black. It had taken longer to dry up. His eyes couldn’t be seen at all between the swelling and the dim overhead light. His cheeks were deeply hollow. Bands of muscle pulled tight and stringy across his ribs. A blow had left a mark there, black and blue and swollen. Ripper realized that some of the marks were yellow around it, and tried not to gag as they realized why, that someone had waited for the bruises to fade a little and then hit him there again. Cuts around his jaw showed someone had shaved him carelessly, and a deep shadow said it hadn’t been today. His light gray sweats were spotted with blood drips. His feet looked almost black. They had no toenails.

Hairs stood all the way up along Ripper’s spine. It almost cut and ran right then, but a billion was a lot, and maybe this man knew where it was kept. So instead they unbolted both bolts and opened the door. A thin slice of bright light seemed to hit him like a blow; he jerked back, turning his face away as he wheezed. Ripper heard him swear under his breath.

“I won’t hurt you,” Ripper said. “I’m not one of them.” Their voice sounded rough. It usually did. But it didn’t sound like anyone else’s voice. The man looked around, squinting at the bright light.

“For God’s sake, turn that off,” he said. The Ripper went to turn off the lab lights and came back.

“Tell me where the carnite is and I’ll take you with me,” Ripper said.

“Untie me and I’ll show you,” he said. It took him a couple of tries to get that all out.

The Ripper considered that, looking him over from under their hood. He wasn’t too big. Ripper was taller. And he was in bad, bad shape. Maybe he wouldn’t try anything dumb.

“Yeah, all right.” It walked around to look at the back of the chair. The man’s wrists were zip-tied to each other and the middle bar of the tall chair-back. He had pulled hard enough to make them bleed, but not too recently. The blood had dried all the way. The Ripper pulled at them slightly, getting them off his skin a tiny bit.

“Hold still.” The smallest tear between its fingertips, the smallest gate to the Other Place, separated the plastic like it had been cut. They did it again at the ankles, one by one. THAT didn’t hurt enough to matter. There was only a faint looming shadow for warning before the man crumpled forward. Ripper grabbed at his waist as his cheek smacked into Ripper’s shoulder.

“Hey, careful!”

“Stronger than you look,” the man mumbled, groping weakly at Ripper’s upper arms as he knelt there. He stank of old blood and sweat. “Tha’s good, cause you’re gon’ have to help me walk.”

“Yeah, fine. Come on.” Between the two of them, they managed to get him mostly upright, leaning on Ripper with his arm drawn across its shoulder. “Okay, where’s the carnite?”

“Can you really gemme out of here?” he asked.

“Sure. Organic bodies are easy enough. The Other Place doesn’t like metal, though. You have a pacemaker or anything? Fillings?” He didn’t seem to have any jewelry.

“Nah,” the man said. He wheezed every time he breathed.

“Then no problem. Where’s the carnite?”

“There’s’s secret panel,” the man said. “Kick th’ wall by the blood fridge. That one.” He pointed weakly at a chest-high fridge with a clear front and rows and rows of vials. The Ripper hauled him over there and kicked at the wall with a heel in the spot where there was a smudge. Something hissed, and the panel popped forward and to the side in one abrupt movement.

Inside was a niche with a couple of shelves. There was a green gemstone as big as the Ripper’s fist, a pair of vials of red and blue liquid, and a steel case with a couple of wire fasteners like an ammo box.

The Ripper lowered the man to sit on the floor and reached in to get the case.

“It doesn’t feel like five kilos,” the Ripper said.

“More like four and a half. They. They’b. Been powdering it,” the man said, leaning against the blood fridge with his swollen eyes mostly shut. “So they c’n inject me.”

“What’s your meta?” the Ripper asked, popping the case open. Crushed stone lay in a fat cottony lining. It was the color and sheen of gore. When they poked it, it felt like shards of rock all right, but it was disturbingly warm to the touch. Their stomach turned over. This was it.

“I heal fast. Blood makes other people heal fast, too,” he said. “They said, they.” He stopped to breathe as Ripper closed the case. It turned to look at him.

“They said what?” it asked, a little more gently. They didn’t stop the process of shoving the baggy lining full of carnite into their backpack and zipping it up. They put the empty metal case back.

“Said one more treatment and it won’t. Wear off. Please,” he said. His head swayed as he tried to find Ripper’s face in the shade under their hood. “Don’ leave me here. I can help you. You’re sick, right? Y’sound sick.”

Ripper wasn’t sure he was even telling the truth.

He’d told the truth about the carnite, though. Who cared if he could heal or not? They had what they’d come for. And it would probably piss the Ninety-Nines off not knowing where he’d gone AND losing their cache of the most valuable mineral on the planet.

“You know what, fuck the 99B’s,” Ripper said. “I need both my hands, so you have to hold onto me, all right? Hang on tight.” It grabbed the man’s hands and pulled them around its waist as it turned around, kneeling on the floor. They could feel him resting his face against the backpack, each breath still wheezy and labored.

“Are you a man or a woman?” he asked.

“No,” the Ripper said, and tore the world open.

Part 2 here