#that's what's coming up

[whumpwillow]

Demon’s Haven 9

I’m also working on Hazeshift I prommy but I’m just feeling this series again, though I’m a little rusty and tryna get back into these characters, so sorry if the writing or interactions feel a little stilted 

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masterlist

warnings: blood, past torture, description of wounds, basically just more comf but they are both sad and awkward about it 

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The demon seemed relieved when Haven finally finished washing the wounds on his chest, but it was a short-lived comfort. She moved behind him to start cleaning the blood from the wreckage of his back and knew the worst was yet to come. The demon had been doing well so far, wincing only slightly without uttering a whimper of pain as Haven had dabbed at the cuts and burns on his chest. Looking at his back, such a thing seemed unavoidable now.

She cringed at the sight. Sitting down in the chair behind him, Haven took stock of the damage. There was almost too much blood for her to even see where the wounds were. She couldn’t tell where one injury began and one ended, as if they all melded into his flesh so that there wasn’t a speck of unbroken skin. Long, ropy scars dragged from the tops of his shoulders and down his body, ending at the small of his back, crisscrossed over one another.

Haven sighed. This was not going to be pleasant. For either of them. 

The demon’s head turned slightly to the side, as if he meant to catch a glimpse of her, but his hair had fallen into his eyes so it was likely not a clear picture.

“Are you alright?” Haven asked.

She knew he wasn’t, but what else was she supposed to say? How did she comfort someone who had been through something as horrific as this?

The demon nodded lightly, ignoring what Haven could not. Red stripes gouged his back, stretching from his shoulders and moving downwards. Ropes of bloodied wounds overlayed on top of each other, some healed more than not, others fresh and weeping. A grotesque sight that made Haven want to gag, though she swallowed and contained herself.

She wanted to look away. She wanted to run from the room and forget this had ever happened. That this was something that could happen to someone.

But she was done with fearing for nothing—the demon had been hurt already, and there was nothing to undo that fact. Only to cleanse the wounds and bandage them would they disappear from her view.

“This might sting.”

It would do a whole lot more than that. The wounds that littered his skin…Haven didn’t want to believe they could be from a whip, but she didn’t know how else to describe them than as lashes.

The demon nodded again.

Haven touched the wet cloth to the back of the demon’s shoulder and instantly he flinched, drawing out a hiss. Haven drew her hand back.

“Sorry,” the both of them said at the same time.

A beat. Neither of them spoke, neither of them moved. The demon clenched and unclenched a fist.

“Silver,” he said.

Haven waited for him to explain, but as the seconds passed and turned into minutes, she realized he wasn’t going to. She touched the cloth to his shoulder again and ignored the flinch this time, as there was no way to avoid it. She brushed the cloth along a long red gash, trailing in between his shoulder blades and down to the small of his back. Again. And again.

“It’s the silver,” the demon said. “The angel liked the silver-lined whip because it leaves scars.”

Haven paused. Lifted her hand away from his skin. Blinked. She had no idea how to even respond to such a thing.

“That’s horrible.”

The only words she could manage, the only consolation to a man now forever marked by what had happened to him that no healing powers would ever be able to fix. The demon seemed to feel this knowledge as keenly as she did, for he trembled under her fingertips. His skin jumped as tiny tremors ran through him, muscles taut and unyielding.

Haven set her cloth in the bowl of water, already pink with blood. She moved from behind the demon and sat in the chair facing him, and saw that he was crying. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks and his breaths hitched, but he bit his tongue to keep himself from crying out.

“You don’t have to do that,” Haven said.

The demon tilted his face up to look at her, a few more tears escaping from those viridian eyes. He blinked at her. Droplets of water caught in his lashes like morning dew.

“Keep quiet, I mean,” Haven clarified. “Cry all you want. Scream, if you must. I don’t mind.”

The demon blinked a few times, his face pinched in confusion. “You would…like me to scream?”

Haven’s eyes widened. “No, no, that’s not what I meant!”

“I can, if you’d like me to. The angel said it was a pleasing sound, though she was rather more vicious than you.”

Haven exhaled, seconds away from pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “I meant, you don’t have to be quiet! You’ve been hurt, terribly and irrevocably, so you can react to it however you want to, and you needn’t feel ashamed or that you must soften your grief in front of me.”

“Oh.”

The only word that fell from the demon’s lips, plainly and without intonation. He stared at her, watching her again as if she were the only thing he had to keep him from falling into an endless abyss. Haven leaned in and wrapped her arms around him, making sure not to startle him as she enveloped him in a hug. She felt the demon lean into her and nuzzle his face into the crook of her neck, just as he’d done when she’d helped him from the cave she’d summoned him to. Some of the tension in his body dissolved, and while he still shook either with fear or with pain, Haven took it as an improvement that he could find some modicum of comfort with her.

After releasing each other, Haven found her hands red with blood. The demon opened his mouth, no doubt to apologize, but Haven shushed him before he could. She washed her hands with her cleaning cloth before dropping it back in the bowl of water.

“I could draw you a bath, if you’d like? It’d help you get clean faster than this, and it’d probably feel better too.”

The demon drew back from her as if she’d just told him she was going to waterboard him. The thought occurred to her that, given what had already happened to him, that wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility for him to believe.

Haven held her hands up, palms out, to reassure him she meant no harm. “Just a bath. Nothing to hurt. No holy water. Just cleaning.”

The demon hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “And you won’t…try to drown me?”

Haven really hated that her suspicions were correct.

“Of course not,” she said, offering him a tight smile.

She held out a hand to him, which he took shakily in his own. Haven wrapped his arm around her shoulders so that he could lean on her and they made their way up the stairs. It was a slow procession due to his broken ribs, and that every time he whimpered, Haven wanted to stop, but knew they had to keep going since it would do neither of them any good being stranded halfway up the stairwell.

Haven pushed open the door to her bedroom and wished she’d had the foresight to pick her things up off the floor beforehand. The demon didn’t seem to mind. His eyes had glazed over, hazy with pain and exhaustion. The night had been tough on him with the journey here. Being thrown from the front door by her protection ward she’d foolishly forgotten about and then being made to sit while Haven fruitlessly tried to scrub the blood off him with damp cloths from the kitchen had likely exhausted him beyond what he could reasonably stand.

“I’m sorry,” Haven found herself saying.

She wished she could convey just how sorry she was in those words, but didn’t know how else to say it. I’m sorry you were tortured. I’m sorry you were hurt so terribly. I’m sorry I didn’t help you when I first saw you, that I doubted you, that I don’t know how to help you, that you’ll have to live with these scars for the rest of your life and all the comfort you have is me when you deserve so much more—

The demon shook his head. “The cell I was held in was far dirtier than this, so pay it no mind.”

Haven found her cheeks reddening. She’d meant to apologize for not letting him rest as she’d wanted to get his wounds cleaned first, but huh. It seemed he had noticed the mess of her room after all.

Turning her gaze away from the wreck of her floor, she lead the demon into her bathroom en-suite. Sat him down on a little round stool she had by the door. Fetched some water for the bath and a few towels. Busied herself with getting everything ready, trying not to think about what she was doing and how she was likely breaking so many rules of what a good witch should not do.

Making a contract with a demon? Check. Letting a demon out of the summoning circle? Check. Bringing said demon not only into her home, but into her bedroom? Double check.

Oh well. She’d never particularly considered herself a stickler for the rules.

A quick spell, and the water was heated, good and steaming. Haven plucked a bottle from the windowsill next to the tub and dripped a bit of floral oil into the water, hoping the scent of lavender would soothe the demon enough that he wouldn’t panic at the thought of being left alone for however long it took for him to wash.

Haven looked back at him and saw his head lolled to the side, resting on the wall next to where he sat. His shoulders had lost their tension and his hands no longer fidgeted restlessly. No more tremors wracked his body, fraught with pain and terror. Haven stood motionless, not wanting to disturb him when he was clearly so exhausted, but it was as if he sensed the lack of energy where there previously had been an abundance of, and his eyes flickered open.

Blearily, his gaze found hers. He lifted his head from the wall and Haven made her way over to him with a towel.

“Here, for when you’re done,” she said, then placed it to the side of the stool he sat on.

The demon looked at it, then to her, then to the bath. Haven moved to help him up, then drew back when she was sure he wouldn’t fall without her support.

“Well, I’ll be waiting outside if you need me.”

Haven made to leave. She’d barely touched the doorknob when she heard the demon voice a single word, small and fearful.

“Stay.”

Haven whirled around. “I’m not going far.”

The demon squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his hands into fists. “Please,” he said, forcing the word from his lips like it pained him to do so. “Please just…” He opened his eyes and fixed them on hers. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He stood there, body rigid, barely holding himself upright without her help. Bruises painted his skin like he were abstract art and the holy water that had been drawn on him trailed lines across his chest and shoulders and even around his neck. Scars—thick bands around both of his wrists—were inflamed and red. Even more Haven couldn’t see lined his back, a permanent reminder.

Haven nodded. she could do at least that much.

“Okay. I’ll stay.”

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[roz-ani]

IS THIS YAOI DOOMED ENOUGH FOR YOU?! IS THIS WHAT YOU PEOPLE WANTED?! 😭

[marypsue]

Keep seeing that post where OP starts like 'Thinking about...grieving the undead' and then adds on about like. Real life situations where people have not died but have left your life and you would have reason to grieve them.

All respect, that's an important concept, but that is not what I am thinking about when I read 'grieving the undead'.

[sunbloomdew]

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push the heel of my palm into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[bruhstation]

you’re just like the rest of them

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[liquidstar]

Yes, Greece still exists, we didn't all die 2000 years ago. Yes, people speak Greek. You people are so fucking stupid for real. So many of you claim to love ancient shit but can't even acknowledge the actual living culture of the people whose mythology and classics you romanticize. You keep leaving annoying comments about how you just forget Greek people still exist, thinking you're being quirky because you love ancient stuff soooo much that you forgot about the people it came from. You think about it so little you don't even realize that an actual Greek person has to read this shit, making it clear how little you actually care about the culture beyond the romanticized (and westernized) mythology. Don't claim you love Greece, don't use our mythology anymore if you can't acknowledge that we're still around without making it about how little you think about us. It's mind boggling that you'd think a Greek person would read this and think you're anything but obnoxious. Explode.

[paintedcrows]

In my heart, Ford once went to an ice dimension and got Really Good at ice skating, and now he's absolutely insufferable about it.

[almondcroissantsandink]

they slayed at the sake of my sanity i'm afraid

[notsolonedesert]

Odypen oh odypen

This picture from pinterest inspired me :D

[lazylittledragon]

the real reason gale proposes so quickly

[notbecauseofvictories]

I don't know how strictly accurate this is, but one of the things I find shocking about watching historical dramas is how many people there are around all the time---according to Madame de... (1953) a well-off French household in the Belle Epoque maintains a workforce of at least 3, and the glittering opera has staff just to open doors. According to Shogun (2024) you can expect a deep bench just to mind your household, and again, people who exist to open doors.

Could people....not open doors in the past? Were doors tricky, before the standardization of hinges? Because otherwise, the wealthy used to pay a whole bunch of people to do it for them in multiple contexts, and I find myself baffled.

[cometblaster2070]

i'm making myself laugh thinking about this but I wholeheartedly believe madame morrible absolutely HATES the thought of glinda and elphaba being together like the mere mention of gelphie would probably send her into immediate cardiac arrest and it's not even because she's homophobic or anything I just fully believe she dislikes glinda so so much she's just like this is absolutely NOT happening in my house.

glinda and elphaba are having their gay ass moment and she's like "I sense a disturbance in the force; the wind is telling me those fucking lesbians are at it again."

like IK this woman hates to see glinda's fruity ass coming for several reasons but first and foremost I believe it's because she's so fucking ANNOYED by how much elphaba loves and cares for her, like this pink bitch is throwing a wrench in her plans just by EXISTING and being herself.

and she can't even really do anything to glinda because it'll make elphaba upset and she really can't have that so she just has to sit there and be like