#tw whumpee recaptured by whumper

[whumble-beeee]

Just Relax (It's Not That Serious)

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 13

Content: drugging, noncon undressing, dissociation, (fear of) needles, disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, flashbacks (ptsd), tied up/handcuffs, past captivity references, begging, fear, light unreality? (related to the ptsd)

* * * * * * * *

Excerpt from: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping; a self-help guide for villains and bounty-hunters

[The first 72 hours after a hero’s capture is also massively critical to you, villain, as your hero’s keeper! When planning on long-term hero-keeping, use this time to lie low, keep your hero firmly in your grasp, and really set the mood for the rest of their stay. Set non-negotiable expectations. Show your patience. For as much as your hero may fight you, curse and jeer and scorn and defy you, they will still be only human (with select power exceptions, of course). They will still need food, water, shelter. All of which must be obtained from you, their captor! You are the one ultimately in control, no matter how much the hero may scream otherwise. 

So why are these first 72 hours so important? Well, how long do experts generally agree that a person can survive without food or water? How long can they ignore you? How long before they have to rely on you for their every need?

72 hours.

Be patient.

Make them count.]

* * * * * * * *

“Finally, Christ,” Deeby muttered under his breath as Stan finished forcing the bar down his throat. It had taken him longer than he'd meant, what with the dehydration and the not wanting to be drugged and the weary pain that seeped into his every bone and the spinning of the room and the not wanting to be drugged. It was a surprisingly difficult task to knowingly poison himself. Who’d've thunk?

“Happy?” Stan finally spat with a heaving breath. There was the slightest taste of salt and battery acid twinging the back of his mouth. It made him nauseous.

Deeby absent-mindedly grabbed the used protein bar wrapper and tossed it into his plastic bag. “Yeah. Not done yet, though.”

 Stan whined. It was all he could do to not start crying on the spot. “Why can't you just let me fall into unconsciousness in peace? I ate your stupid protein bar! It's-it's never-ending with you!”

“Well, it feels less gross to have you undress now than when you're high off your ass.”

Stan blinked. It was like the world had been overlaid with TV static for a moment. But he was back. Violently. Because what? “Ah– Co-come again?” 

“Your uh– fuckin’... What's it called, your tank top? The transgender tank top, the one that squishes your ribs. Your… ‘tranksgender’ top.”

“My binder?”

Deeby snapped his fingers in triumph. “That's the bitch! We're taking that off now.”

“WHAT?!”

“I can help if you want. I don’t know how long it's gonna take the drug to start affecting you, considering you haven’t eaten in two days, so it might not–”

“I’m not taking my binder off!” Stan yelled, startling back from yet another all-consuming dip into the static. The worst part was, it wasn't even unpleasant. He almost would have enjoyed it, save for the predator six feet away stalking at him as if he were a wounded antelope, one hand resting on the ornate knife holstered right next to his gun. His eyes sparkled with that ever-dangerous red excitement that Stan had become painfully acquainted with again and again and again over the past two days, though there was something more serious underneath the child-like sadism. Tired eyes, deep breaths... 

“I know you're not supposed to wear it for this long, runt.” The mercenary brushed the still bright-red gash on his cheek from where Stan had whacked him with the handcuffs. “And besides, I still need to get you back for this. Please make me do it the hard way.”

Stan’s breath caught between a groan and a cry and his vision swam around him, only grounded by the sudden noxious pit in his stomach. “Dee-deeby…” he panted. “Stay away from me.”

Deeby continued to stalk closer, voice taking that dangerous low twang, the light bass growl snaking through the room and slithering around Stan’s throat, suffocating him more than a literal yank by his damn collar would. “Aw…” he tutted. “That's no fun, is it chiquito? I think you just need–”

“OKAY, OKAY!” Stan skittered back, pressing himself into the wall with racing heart and rabbit-fast breath. “I'll-I'll do it, I'll do it! You don't– You–... I'll take off my binder…”

That did, in fact, stop Deeby dead in his tracks. Stan swayed. Deeby looked at him expectantly. Stan stared into the distance. Deeby raised an eyebrow and made an impatient circular motion at Stan with his hands: get moving.

The static.

“Runt, if you don’t–”

“I– jus– ju-just-just don't touch me–”

“Stan–” Deeby warned, taking a single step toward him. All the air sucked out of the room. “I'm done giving you chances. Off. Now, or I'll do it.”

Stan grit his teeth with an almost mewling whine. His cheeks burned a bright red embarrassment under near-invisible blue freckles, and his very lungs stuttered as they tried to figure out if he wanted to scream or just cry. He started to pulled the shirt over his head, slowly, as if he could go slow enough that the bounty hunter would just get bored and give up entirely.

Ha.

Then he lost his way. He searched. More fabric. Where did the holes go? Where was he? He was lost! He tangled his arms around, searching, growling with frustration as he unsuccessfully tried to free himself, genuinely trapped as time simultaneously moved way too fast and excruciatingly slow. Then a whoosh, and his cotton-polyester prison disappeared, pulled off over his head to reveal a very amused Deeby glinting back at him, eyes sparkling as always. 

It was so cold in here.

Stan shoved him away, thankfully braced against the wall or else he might have fallen over himself. The world was so… tilted.

“Turn-turn around,” Stan ordered, blinking hard to keep himself present.

“What, no ‘thank you?’”

“Turn around!”

“Not turning around, bud.”

“Please, I don-don’t– don’t want you to-to see– to–...Turn around!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Please! Deeby, I’m begging!”

“Not happenin’,” he sang, deadpan as ever.

“I thought you-you-you-ou said you weren't gugh-guh-gon-gonna–...” Stan shivered and took a deep breath. This stutter was driving him insane. “Tha-at you weren't a perv!”

“I'm not. I'm not gonna do anything except make sure you're not trying to pull some shit.”

“I won’t! I'm drugged! I-I can’t even take my shirt off!”

“All the more reason–”

“Declan!” Stan pleaded, pupils blown out and wide, tension at the top of his mouth so tight he was sure he was about to start bawling. “I care. I care-are-re. I don’t wan-want you–... Please…”

His voice turned high and quiet, tears burning to fall, pressure building up behind his eyes and ready to burst.

“Plea-ease…”

Declan closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose. Another tired deep breath.

“Turn yourself around if you care so much,” he muttered. The knife appeared in his hands, point pressed into the taut fabric on Stan's chest. “I'm done playing games. Stop stalling. Now.”

“I’m no-ot–”

The mercenary grabbed the strap of Stan’s binder and yanked him forward, barely pulling the knife out of the way in time for Stan to not fall on top of it and instead sending him hurtling into the man’s chest with a blood-curdling screech, then flailing and shoving off of the captor as hard as humanly possible. The push mixed with a sudden heavy fog bank engulfing his mind mixed with a painful misstep on his bad leg caused him to all but crumble to the freezing concrete floor in a heap, chin banged and bleeding and dripping and staining on the ground as his face pressing into scratchy dirt particles, as he laid there confused and scared and scrambling, just trying to figure out how to silence the roaring confusion of his mind as it blindly panicked in the pressing, buzzing fog that surrounded it. Threatened to swallow him whole.

Then a force grasped him by the back of his neck. Then a knee planted into the base of his spine. The full body weight of a man at least twice his size ground into his lower vertebrates, seemingly trying to press them straight through the soft flesh of his stomach into the unforgiving floor.

Stan screamed.

Was Deeby going back on his promise not to–

GET OFF!!

His binder, he couldn't let Declan take it off.

OWOWOWOWOW– NO NONONO–

The fog the fog the fog the fog the fog the fog buzzing buzzing buzzing buzzing BZZZZZZZZZZ–

A gloved hand pressed him into the floor by the back of his neck. Others in scratchy black tactical gear held his flailing limbs down. He strained. He cried. He screamed. He screamed so loud. So loud his throat was sore. They didn’t let up.

He wanted his mom. His dad. His sister. COME HELP!! Where were they? He cried out for them, heaving sobs. Unheeded.

“DEEBY!” He screeched, feet kicking out as if they could somehow free himself if he just kicked hard enough. “Get off! GET OFF! You're not taking my binder off–!”

“Mhm, yeah, sure bud,” Deeby mumbled as Stan continued his tantrum. His fingers squeezed slightly at either side of Stan’s neck. Warning. Patient. Waiting. He was waiting him out. Stan's head spun as if filled with angry bees, cries becoming weaker, fighting more and more sluggish as Deeby just sat on top of him.

Where was his sister? Where was Chloe?! CHLOE!! He needed to protect her! That was his only task! Protect her! He’d failed, he’d failed, he needed to save her, save them, get away. Every time he raged and strained and screamed another hand just came to pin him to the dusty ground. He was an animal thrashing around in a cage, a trap that only tightened around his throat the more he struggled.

“DEEBY– Deeby… Declan, Deeb– please get off, please, I need to save her, I don't– I just– can't–... ple-ee-ea-ease…” 

Deeby didn't say anything. Was it the drug that made him feel like he was floating on air as a pressure chamber simultaneously caged in his skull, teasing it to shatter? Or maybe the hyperventilating as he realized there was no escape. Or maybe the gutting hunger, or the throat squeezing thirst, or the burning panic, or the bone-deep exhaustion, or the pain, the pain, make it stop, all-encompassing, never-ending, or the violent shaking from lack of oxygen, or any number of the many other things that were wrong with him. Maybe all of them. His limbs lay stiff, as if held down by lead weights. His protests devolved into barely a whimpering whisper. He couldn't breathe. Not with the bounty hunter on top of him pressing his stomach into the floor, not with the probably broken ribs, not with the binder pressing into the swelling of his ribs and making every intake of air a monumentally agonizing feat achieved less and less each time…

“God, shut her up, I’m not dealing with this in the transport.”

“Really? It’s just a kid.”

“Unless you’d rather I shut her up myself.”

NO NO NO ESCAPE ESCAPE HE NEEDED TO FIND HIS FAMILY–

A tiny little prick on his upper arm. He screamed. Screamed until he couldn’t anymore, screamed because he couldn’t do anything else, screamed until one of the gloved hands slapped over his mouth and stayed there until he quieted, and then he couldn’t even scream. It stayed there until tears soaked through the course fabric. The edges of his vision started to go dark. 

“That’s it kid, shut up, go to sleep. Don’t struggle. It’ll be easier if you just relax.”

His head fell limp against the dirty ground.

He was gonna die here, wasn't he?

Yeah.

Made sense. 

He let his head lie down on the floor.

He lurched with silent sobs.

He couldn't do this anymore.

He couldn't.

This was all pointless.

He was done.

And he went limp.

“There ya go. Attaboy.”

Deeby's voice came from above him. Slow, comforting, praising, as if he were speaking from a thousand miles away.

“Attagirl…” The last voice he heard. The last time he saw his childhood home. The last time he saw his parents. The end of his first fight for his life. Failed. 

The black consumed him. 

Stan let out something between a whine and a sob. The mercenary took just a moment to readjust, legs now caging him in and pushing inward on either side of Stan's hips. “Yeah okay, whatever runt. Let’s just get this done.” 

Deeby's fingers probed under the binder for a moment, causing Stan to squirm anew purely on instinct. Until he hit a particularly nasty bruise. An electrical storm webbed through his ribcage. A flash of white. Stan yelped a cut-off, strangled squeal, a sound he prayed he’d never have to hear again.

“Sorry…” muttered above him. His binder flipped upward and over itself, a brief squeeze, the fabric pulling lightly at his skin, his arms, his hair, then pressure relieved.

Breathe in…

Holy fuck, he was alive!

Stan gulped in the first deep breath he'd taken in what felt like years, gasping and desperate and a full, deep breath. His senses sharpened. Kinda. He still sat pinned within a sea of cotton, the static that blanketed the clouds, limbs heavy, mind slow. But he could breathe! He almost remembered that he only felt like this because Deeby forcibly stripped him. That bitch.

“Holy shit,” the bounty hunter whispered quietly, amazed, almost inaudible. A moment of breath-taking clarity as adrenaline shot through Stan’s system for one last, final hurrah. Holy shit?

“Wh-what, what–?” He tried unsuccessfully to turn around and see. He even managed to convince himself that he didn't care that his tits were basically out, right before he flopped face-first into the ground again. This drug worked miracles.

Declan paused for a moment. Then: “Ah… Nothing, nothing, just, your ribs are much worse off than I thought. Bruised to shit…”

Stan laughed. Really? Bruised to shit? Who could have guessed? The burning anger and hatred and desperation he expected to feel, that he'd been fighting nonstop for two or three or however-the-hell many days straight? It was now buried under layers of static and sand and that lovely familiar darkness which pressed everything that made him himself to somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of his brain, unnoticed in the rolling fog. Though the knot in his throat that made him want to burst out crying still persisted. That was weird. What did he have to cry about? “Yeah… maybe you should… not… Aheh, uh, throw me… to–... walls anymore…” he giggled. He was pretty sure at least. That’s what his voice sounded like, right?

His limbs were so heavy. He might not be able to move them if he tried. Not that he wanted to. What if he just went to sleep right here?

Ah shit, he didn't have a shirt on still.

But like, who even cared anymore? The mercenary would take what he wanted, including Stan’s shirt, including his binder. He could take everything from him. Take his freedom, take his personhood, take any slight chance at happiness or have a normal family that wasn’t shattered to pieces. Shoot him with that pretty old gun, take his life entirely. Come back again and again just to make sure Stan never saw the light of day again. Who even cared if he saw Stan’s chest? Who even cared if this was one of the most humiliating things to ever happen to him? He shouldn’t fight so hard. He wouldn't be pinned face down to the floor and chained up and drugged if he just stopped fighting. This was fine. He felt fine. He liked this.

Keep fighting, rage, rage, escape.

Oh, shut up.

He felt the white overly large shirt being pulled back on over his head a million miles away, something with Eeby-Deeby getting frustrated again and his arms getting roughly shoved through the armholes before Stan could even try to lift his leaden limbs.

Chill out, man. It's fine. It's not that serious.

The way the world swirled around him was almost a comfort now. He was drugged. He knew it, it was just a fact now. The fog and the static and the way he could barely think and the way it was kinda hard to move and the way it took a second to move even if he did actually want to move… That wasn’t really Stan. That was some other guy. He was just drugged. Drugged Stan.

It was nice. Normal Stan was always so wound up about everything. Normal Stan fought so hard to change what couldn’t be changed, made everything so much worse for himself. And for what? He’d always be captured again, always chained up, always poked and prodded and beholden to the will of others, always treated like a petulant, whiny animal that needs to be tamed. Normal Stan couldn’t seem to get that. Normal Stan was those bad thoughts at the edges of his mind, the ones that kept him screaming, running, fighting even when Deeby got up off of him and gave him water which he desperately needed, sweet, sweet, water that relieved the pain and carried all his troubles away like a gently rushing river, cooled his insides of the burning heat and anger. GOD, he forgot how nice water tasted.

It was weird. Eeber-Deeber was almost thoughtful, in his own special way. When you looked past the violence. Stan should be nicer to him, make him not have to violence so much. Maybe then Stan go home! No fight, just go home and see his family… he didn’t really have a home, did he? No… But that was okay, because he still had Marcus and Chloe! He could see them again! That would be nice. Marcus, Chloe. He loved them so much. He needed to protect them. Why was he still here? His Mom and Dad couldn’t protect them, it was his job because they were…

Dead?

Dead.

It was for the best that they were.

It was fine though. It wasn’t that serious. 

…

He missed them.

* * * * * * * *

Next

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy | @pirefyrelight | @cakeinthevoid | @painsandconfusion | @books-are-everything

@paperprinxe | @tippytappytyping | @chaotic-orphan | @notactuallyluska | @thebestieyoureinlovewith

(If you'd like to be added or subtracted from the taglist, don't be afraid to ask!)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

okay Ash but older nanda and Jameson comf? If he'd lived? Pleeease? Just a snippet. A headcanon. A crömb. -theo-

@boxboysandotherwhump I totally forgot you had asked for me to do this AU so so long ago. Found this old ask abandoned in my inbox and you were PROPHETIC.

Continuing the AU, the last chapter (plus a link to the first) is right here.

-

CW: Intimate whump, some derogatory language, dubcon, some, uh, choking

For a long time, there is only the sound of each of them breathing. Jameson is ragged, rasping at the edge of a sob as he pulls himself back into control, his fingernails digging into the soft leather of the reclined passenger seat. His heart pounds, blood rushing past his ears.

Nanda's breath is nearly silent, far more even. His chest is warm against Jameson's bare back. Even through his expensive fucking shirt, though, Jameson can feel his heart pounding, too.

"What..." Nanda trails off. Jameson has never heard him sound so stunned. Nanda always plans for every angle.

But he didn't plan for this one.

"... what do you mean, someone else?" His mouth moves against Jameson's hair, sending a shiver down his spine. "Are you fucking the woman you live with, pet?"

My name is Jameson. I just told you that.

He bites the words back before they can make it out.

"N-no, not her. Fuck no. No. Absolutely... Absolutely not." He shifts, managing to get his shirt off the rest of the way, stop it from keeping his wrists tangled. It gives him an excuse for how his voice shakes - just from the effort. Only that. "Someone else. Different house. Someone... Someone else."

Nanda is quiet again. He's quiet for far too long. Then, he shifts back inside the tiny space. "Roll over. I want to see your eyes."

Jameson swallows, obeying the easy command with a little curl of warmth. He tips his head back against the headrest, looking up at Nanda, his beard and the line of his jaw beneath the silver and gray. The way the muscles in his arms seem written even more in stone. Nanda eases himself back down, and his weight feels reassuring and terribly final at once.

"Who is it?" His voice is mild. Spoonful of sugar tinted pink, sweetness and salt on Jameson's tongue. He could drown in the taste of Nanda's voice. Used to feel like he did drown, under voice and hands, tied up in ropes and brought to the good kind of screaming.

"... They're called A-Allyn. They, they ran away like I did. Well, not the-... Their owner died, too. They... They understood that I missed you..."

He reaches a hand up, hesitantly, trying to touch Nanda's face. The older man's big hand snaps up to close painfully tight around his wrist, forcing it back down.

"I wasn't dead," Nanda says mildly.

"I already told you, I didn't exactly goddamn know that-"

"No, you were dumb as rocks the one time I could have used the brains we both knew you had." Nanda's voice stays mild, but the insult stings regardless.

"I'm-... not-"

"Oh, you're not? You didn't know how to check a fucking pulse, but you're not dumb, huh? You ran off instead of waiting or calling for help but you still love me, right? Hell, you fuck someone else, but you're not a slut anymore. Isn't that what you're saying?"

Jameson's wrist feels like it creaks as Nanda tightens his grip further and further. The man's other hand drops down to unbutton and unzip his own pants in quick jerky motions. They're down low off his hips in seconds.

Jameson grits his teeth against the pain, refuses to be seduced by it. Or by the way Nanda punctuates the accusations by rolling his hips, the low warmth remaining stoked back into a flame.

God, he feels so hot.

They're both burning.

"If you were d-dead-... Ah! I would have lost you when they took you out of my head, I already s-said that-Jesus that's fucking good-"

His other wrist is grabbed now. He tries to pull it away, but they both know he isn't trying very hard. Nanda's mouth drops to graze against his. To catch him in a kiss, brutal and firm, until he's whimpering and rocking his hips like some mindless fucking idiot, like he used to do.

Nanda chuckles bitterly, pulls back and listens to Jameson's angry hiss at the sudden loss of connection. "If there's someone else, why did you get in my car when I came for you?"

He swallows, closing his eyes. Nanda's burn too much for him to take. Those hips roll against his again and he meets them with his own, arches his back, lets legs shift apart to welcome Nanda between his thighs. He could come from this, if it goes on long enough. "I don't-... I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No! Fuck you, no I don't know! You were dead and now you're here and I, I forgot who I am for a second, but I'm-... I'm not that anymore, and I want-... I want to-..." God, he feels it so much, his skin is all raw nerves and sensation. "... I want-"

"You want me."

Nanda had let go of his wrist at some point. He only realizes it when that heavy hot hand closes around his neck.

His breath stutters, gets lost trying to find his lungs. His head spins as the hand tightens, he feels his Adam's apple move against Nanda's palm. "Wait-"

" I spent all these years trying to find you, pet-"

"Jameson," He rasps, barely able to force the word out in a whisper. "Use... Use m'fucking name-"

"Fine. Jameson." God, it sounds so good in Nanda's voice, his own name tastes perfect in his tongue when Nanda is the one to say it. His eyes nearly flutter shut at the simple pleasure. "I have been searching for you-"

"Doing a shit j-job of it, could've used your help a couple y-years ago when I was in some asshole's dog cage-"

"Let. Me. Finish." The grip on his throat tightens even more. There is so little room for him to breathe, chest heaving. He never moves his hands to try and push or fight, though. He knows this tone, the look on Nanda's face. "However you feel about someone else... I looked for you. And I found you. I searched every goddamn corner of California trying to figure out where you fucked off to, and I find you all fucked up for someone else, another pet, huh?"

"I... I loved you... I still-" His voice catches, his throat clicks when he swallows. His eyes are wide, and he sees the anger in Nanda's and wonders why it used to thrill so much more to see it than it does now. "But I-... grieved-... Rebuilt, built n-new... life... I, I fucking deserve to l-live-"

Nanda's lip curls. But he doesn't say anything while Jameson fights for enough air to speak again. They're both still hard, still moving together, and the pleasure mixes with the pain in his throat and the dizzy lack of air, crossing all his wires and leaving him squirming in helpless unwanted arousal beneath Nanda's familiar perfect weight.

"I... deserve s-someone... who l-loves me... back-"

He expects mockery, black spots flashing bright like camera lights around Nanda's face as his vision starts to go, tunneling in on those eyes.

He sees, in the center of the closing tunnel, the whites of Nanda's eyes.

"Please-... If you e-ever... loved m-me-... Please, fuck, please s-say-... it..."

Nanda's thumb pushes against his windpipe as he kisses Jameson. Their mouths open to each other, and Jameson's arms move, finally, only to grip onto Nanda's shoulders. An anchor as he drowns on land, fighting for air.

Then the grip loosens.

Jameson's head pounds as he groans, his throat aches as he gulps air desperately. He'll be marked, bruised. He's been bruised there before. "N, Nanda-"

Nanda's head drops to Jameson's shoulder.

"... Nanda?"

A pause.

"You stupid thing. Why would I have looked so long for you if I didn't?"

[shes-some-other-where]

“Rot in hell.”

Contains: restraints, arrest, recapture, police/soldiers, taunting, physical violence

He felt her fiancé’s eyes on him, although one side of his face was crushed against the cold cellar floor and all he could see was a sea of polished boots.

“Thought you could run forever, huh?” a soldier asked. “Cocky idiot.”

Nearly, he thought. Would have. Could have.

“Planned to rob the house, did you?” The soldier aimed a kick into his side.

“Bastard,” her fiancé crowed, smug. “Not that smart, though, were you, in the end?”

Sudden rage burned his tongue. “Rot in hell,” he spat through gritted teeth.

A kick to the head turned his vision pitch-dark.

suggested reading order | MWM event masterlist

<<< previous | next >>>

All my writing is original. Feel welcome to interact/comment/reblog. Pls don’t steal or repost.

[jordanstrophe]

CW: Blood loss, cold whump, collapse, open ending capture 

Whumpee gritted their teeth as they collapsed their shoulder against a tree. They huffed a breath of fridge air and looked down at the bloodstain on their shirt. It had grown since they last looked at it, blood was running down and tacking in the snow around their feet. 

They bit down on their folded sleeve and tried to stop the bleeding, hoping the pain and pressure was worth it. They had lost so much blood already... 

Before they could catch themselves, they slid down the tree and collapsed into the snow. They could barely feel the cold, it was only a sting crawling up their skin. 

Suddenly, a hand came from around the tree and clamped over their mouth before they could shout.  

"There you are. Snow really brings out your blood trail."

[freefallingup13]

Hello! What is your not-so-guilty pleasure in whump? Something you could happily write about a hundred times - be it a scene, a setting, a relationship dynamic, a weapon, or anything else that compels you! -victimeyez, @ me in your response!

Ooh hell yeah @victimeyez I’m glad you bring this up

One kind of scene/trope/dynamic I keep coming back to is “I love you, but I don’t want to accept it. I have to hurt you more to prove to myself that I do not care as much as I do.”

Looooots of my whump scenarios for any stories have involved just a super fucked up relationship where the whumper eventually realizes they…. Care for whumpee? They…. Like the way that whumpee depends on them and even cares if something bad happens to whumper. It’s…. Genuine. It’s new.

It’s scary.

And that evolves into whumper treating whumpee tentatively nicely, pushing whumpee away (much to the distress of whumpee) or, for pure heartbreak, doubling down on their abuse of whumpee. All to ignore the feelings in their heart.

This aaaaaalways ends up with whumper not getting whumpee. Whumpee finds somebody who cares for them as much as they care about them, and their life turns out happy.

But, whumper… whumper has to live with what they’ve done to the person that they loved, that at one point, may have even loved them back. And whumper just crumbles every time they see whumpee, if whumper is even around to see them. They had it. They had everything.

And they fucked it up.

There’s sometimes a period in time where recapture is a thing and whumper tries to treat whumpee like an actual partner, but is just… still SO fucked up that the torture continues. But this time, completely out of some sort of twisted, fucking love.

But I always need that happy ending where whumpee gets away. I’ve not felt happy yet with a story where whumper feels fulfilled and at peace. Just isn’t what I’m looking for.

[em-writes-stuff]

“get away from me”

@whumpril day 12

778 words

caretaker, whumpee, whumper

warnings: drugging, bad caretaker

---

Caretaker stared absentmindedly at Whumpee, knees pulled up to his chest on the couch, she sighed and shook her head to clear her mind. “Hey, Whumpee? I always forget, do you like honey in your tea?” 

He looked over the couch at her and shook his head, “I’m allergic. I’d take some sugar though.” 

She smiled and nodded, reaching for the sugar container. He settled back into the couch and searched through the tv guide for something that might not put him to sleep within the first ten minutes and eventually settled on a documentary about the evolution of dolphins. 

Caretaker handed him a steaming mug and sat down next to him, her legs hanging off the end of the couch and her head propped against his legs. He cupped the mug in his hands and sighed contentedly. 

The tea was bitter and Whumpee nearly spat it out. He stuck his tongue out and coughed, but Caretaker didn’t seem to notice. She stared at the screen, fully entranced by the documentary. He cleared his throat and took another sip of the tea, forcing it down his throat. He suffered through the rest of the mug and set it on the floor so he could have the bitter smell away from his face and try to enjoy the movie. 

About half way through the documentary, Caretaker stared up at him with wide eyes and he frowned down at her, “What’s up?” 

“Did you drink all of the tea already?” she asked. 

He nodded and sighed, “It was pretty good, a little bitter but I liked it. What was in it?” 

She hummed and nodded, “I tried something new, it's called passionflower. It's a little bitter but I must’ve put too much in it, sorry.” 

“It was good.” he yawned and screwed his eyes shut for a second, “Is it supposed to make me so tired?” 

“Yeah, yeah, it was supposed to put you out a few minutes ago actually. Whumper’s gonna be here soon and I don’t know if you’ll be asleep for it or not.” Caretaker said, sitting up and stretching. 

Whumpee pulled away from her, his brow furrowing in confusion, “What?” 

“Yeah,” she said, “She found you and contacted me. Said you were her’s first. I thought it was fair to get you back to her.” 

He fell off the couch and scrambled backward, eyes darting around the room. Caretaker stood up and rolled her eyes, “The thing about passionflower? It makes it so hard for your body to do what you tell it to do. With how much I gave you, I’d expect the room to start spinning…oh there it is. Just sit tight until Whumper gets here, alright?” 

She took a step toward him and he kicked at her, legs flailing around wildly. “Get away from me!” he shouted, “The the fuck away from me!” 

She held her hands up in mock surrender and, rolling her eyes, took another step forward, and another, and another, until she was right in front of him. She squatted in front of him and grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him to his feet. 

Lights flashed onto the walls from outside, Caretaker smiled and wrapped an arm around Whumpee’s waist. She pressed her nose to his ear and smiled, “That must be her.” 

Whumpee panted and struggled against her, head getting fuzzier by the second. The car outside turned off. 

Whumpee stared at Caretaker, eyes wide and pleading, “Don’t…don’t let her take me. Please. I can’t-” 

The front door opens. 

Caretaker tsked at him and turned them both toward the door. Whumper stood in the doorway, raindrops reflecting off her coat. “Oh,” she said, smiling, “There’s my boy.” 

She advanced toward them, arms wide for an embrace. Caretaker pulled away from Whumpee, letting him fall forward into Whumper’s arms. 

She wrapped her arms around him, her coat swallowing him in its enormity. She looked over his head and held a hand out to Caretaker, “Thank you so much for keeping him safe. I don’t know what I’d have done if anything happened to him. Here’s your money. I gave you a little tip too, I know how difficult he can be.” 

Caretaker smiled and put the wad of cash on the side table, “It was worth it to see this reunion. What I gave him should wear off by morning. Just keep an eye on him and make sure his heart doesn’t stop. He drank a lot more than I was expecting him to.” 

Whumper lifted him in her arms and nodded her thanks, turning back to the door. She buckled Whumpee in the passenger seat and drove away.

[justwhumptypethings]

tw: captivity, recapture, mental breakdown, self harm

recapture.

whumpee is getting better. they’re speaking out, and asking for help, and they manage a smile here and there. they’re eating more, and managing to talk a little bit, and gaining back fat and muscle mass. they still wake up from nightmares, and they can’t really handle much, but they can manage to smile.

and then whumper comes back.

whumpee wakes up back in their old prison. they keep pinching themself, trying to do all the things they have to wake themselves up from nightmares. but they can’t, and they won’t.

(caretaker who’s freaking out. much worse than they did the last time. if whumper can recapture whumpee this time, then what’s stopping them from never stopping trying? caretaker who runs themselves into the ground, because now they’ve seen in vivid detail all the damage whumper is able to do. caretaker who doesn’t take a shower for weeks, and stays up for 72 hours over and over again with about four hours nightmare ridden sleep in between, to the point where they start hallucinating.

caretaker who’s teammates are begging them to just rest, who’s ruining their interpersonal relationships just trying to find them because they’re being hurt and caretaker can’t do anything. whumpee is alone, and it’s caretaker’s fault.)

whumpee who goes full mental breakdown after they realize they’re back.

whumpee who doesn’t show much interest in anything anymore. they start scratching at themselves and pulling at their hair, and when whumper isn’t there they just stare off, laying down.

when whumper is there, whumpee is doing the bare minimum to not be punished. they don’t react in pain to anything anymore, their eyes glazed and distant- disassociated.

whumper is getting bored. whumpee isn’t entertaining them, and if they’re too broken to be worth it, they’ll just get rid of whumpee. But they’d rather not because they’ve put a lot of effort into this specific whumpee.

whumpee’s life turns into a performance. They’d prefer whumper to kill them, but something basic and instinctual inside whumpee hasn’t given up yet. they try to put a good show for whumper, reassure them that they aren’t broken.

[whumpshaped]

prev @a-side-helping-of-whump

tw recapture, mind control, losing an object

Whumpee kept their head low and their hands in their pockets as they walked down the street. They were completely covered despite the warm weather; it helped to ease their paranoia about being touched and being manipulated. If Whumper turned up, they’d have enough time to flee.

It was stupid. They’d been free for years now. If Whumper wanted to get them again, they would’ve done so by now.

Still… It was safer like this.

They stepped up onto the bridge, admiring the river below. This was the best part about being free. They hadn’t seen it for so long before breaking out, but now they could stare at it all they wanted, with no one to tell them otherwise.

They pulled out their phone from their pocket, deciding to take a picture. Why not? They didn’t have anywhere else to be, not anymore.

They couldn’t pull away fast enough when someone reached out and put a hand on theirs, making them shiver and drop their phone. The poor thing bounced off the railing and fell right into the water, and all Whumpee could do was watch.

“How clumsy,” Whumper purred. “Or did I startle you?”

Whumpee slowly turned to look at them, never really making a move to take their hand out of Whumper’s grasp. They didn’t struggle when their hat was removed, their cardigan unzipped and gently slid down their shoulders. Whumper dragged their fingers down their now exposed skin as they took away all of their safety measures, smiling sweetly.

“It’s been a while… But I see you haven’t forgotten me.”

“I… I was out,” Whumpee whispered. “I was out…”

“Yes, isn’t it sad?” Whumper started messing with their hair, pretending to simply fix it now that the hat was off, all the while using it as an excuse to gently pet them. “You really thought you could get away from me. Silly thing. You should stop setting yourself up for failure.”

[auroragehenna]

AI-less Whumptober

Day 21 - Alternate: Kidnapping

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Say it!", Lorién ordered!

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

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

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

"Now. Let's go, Weapon!"

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

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

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

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

@shattermind-8 @sinaheh

[whumble-beeee]

Yur Gonna Get Murdalated, Rookie

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 15.5

Content: adult character perceived as a minor, kidnapping/captivity, noncon drugging, guns, recreational drug use, disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, past captivity references

* * * * * * * *

Excerpt from: The Law Enforcement Policy Handbook, Chapter X: Superhumans

[Officers of the law have the right to ask any civilian to show their upper right arm to verify whether or not the civilian bears the ‘General Super Brand’. If the civilian does possess such a marking, they are superhuman; the officer has the right to use whatever superhuman training they may possess. 

If the brand indicates that the superhuman is also a ‘Latent Supervillain,’ ‘Supervillain,’ or Test Subject,’ the officer is also compelled to check the superhuman’s upper right shoulder blade for the ‘Hazardous Super Brand,’ colloquially known as ‘The Villain Brand.’ Depending on the contents of the brand, the officer may be required to arrest or otherwise subdue the superhuman. They are advised to use their best judgment to subdue the superhuman or hide and call for backup.]

* * * * * * * *

The night was peaceful. Boring, even. The type of night where you’d wanna just sit back and smoke a cigar in the amber-dusking twilight that spilled through the half-closed blinds of your office. It’s filled to bursting with old bookshelves sworn by the tests of time, a single chair for you to sit in as you work, and a sprawling, book-laden red oak wood desk, surrounded on all sides by stacks and stacks of notes, files, crucial evidence about your latest case. The scent of cigars burns your nose. You’re so close to a breakthrough, you could just about taste it on the tip of your tongue, You would find it, you always did, and you could feel it now, edging ever closer after a tirelessly rewarding and sleepless night.

And yet here Officer Kalis Brooks sat instead, bored out of her skull watching some dinky ass highway that was lucky if a car graced its beaten roads once every twenty minutes. 

If only she were a film noir detective. Truly an unfair life she led.

It was a suspicious sort of fellow she finally spotted slowly making his way down the highway. A scoundrel who wore a bandana over the lower half of his face.

A person with something to hide.

Of course, she pulled him over. Simply her duty as an officer of the law.

She approached the truck and rapped lightly on the driver’s side window, and it rolled down with a gentle whirr. She shined her flashlight into the vehicle, and the view to greet her was almost something of a–

Holy shit.

The driver sat there, lazily gripping the steering wheel, looking like some sort of modernized pseudo-cowboy with a buncha scary lookin’ gadgets. A burn scar ran all the way up the side of his face, down his neck, and reappeared on his arm where his leather jacket rolled up to his elbows. His eyes were dilated, every movement markedly relaxed. Disjointed. Uncanny even. 

He was definitely high. But at least he’d had the forethought to take off that bandana concealing his identity. That was a good thing, right?

Then her jaw nearly dropped when she registered the passenger. He didn’t even look at her, his gaze stiff and unseeing. Very obviously also high on some sort of drug, though Kalis reckoned this high was less than consensual. Not to mention the super-power suppression collar wrapped around his neck. 

He was a super. 

She wasn’t trained to handle cases like this. Was this a super kidnapping in progress?! Something more?

Shit, no time for film noir roleplay bullshit, this is serious.

This is a villain.

Her gaze snapped back to the driver, just as her hand unclipped the gun holstered at her hip.

“Sir, please step out of the car slowly with your hands up. You’re being detained under suspicion of committing an in-progress felony.”

The driver’s gaze immediately shot to his passenger. “Officer, there uh… seems to be a misunderstanding–”

“Step out of the car or I’ll have you arrested for disobeying an officer of the law.”

That got his attention. The driver blew his bangs out of his face with a slow, deep sigh, and equally slowly reached down to open the door. The metallic creak of the door swinging open was almost deafening in the moonlit night. 

“I should mention I have a gun holstered on my belt,” he drawled inattentively, boots crunching the sparse gravel scattered across the shoulder of the highway. His arms stayed firmly raised, thankfully. “A revolver. Left side.” 

“Thank you for informing me,” Officer Brooks said quickly. This man seemed to be an easy-going fella, thankfully, but air around him stank of danger, like the haze of the walking dead. She slipped the ornately decorated gun out of its holster and slapped all the bullets to the roadway with 6 distinctly clean clinks. Then triple-checked that the safety was on. Then a fourth time. The matching knife too, for good measure. 

“I’d like to ask you some questions,” she stated, barely halting her transatlantic accent from slipping through. Stop it with the film noir. “Show me your upper right arm, please.”

He sighed, then nodded, then struggled to push up the leather sleeves of his jacket enough to show her the clear absence of a super brand. 

Good, one less thing to worry about. Not a supervillain.

“Alright then, what’s going on with that boy in the truck, friend?”

“Nothin’ much. That’s Stan. He’s my ward.”

“Your ward?”

“Yuh. I have custody over him. He’s a test subject.”

“Really?” She said, voice full of faux intrigue.

“Really.”

“And who are you, exactly?”

“Handler, of sorts. A bounty hunter. I work with the police sometimes, actually, we have an arrangement.”

“Oh? An arrangement?” she asked, as if daring him to tell her all the illegal dealings he held in his hidden hand of cards.

He just shrugged.

Ugh, she hated these types.

 “Fine. You have any proof?”

“Think I left my bounty huntin’ papers in my other pants,” he quipped. “Check the kid's villain brand, call in my ID, talk to your boss. Should be proof enough.”

That was absolutely not how that worked. Though she did feel a slight vindication in her chest that she would actually probably arrest this man.

“You have your ID on you?”

“Mhm.” 

He flicked out his ID between forefinger and middle to the officer, seemingly plucking it from thin air before she snatched it out of his hand, noting every piece of identifying information, checking for signs of a fake. Nothing seemed to be out of order… Had he really just handed her his real ID?

“And you said something about the boy having a villain brand?”

The man– Declan Cansano, so said the ID– nodded. Then rolled his damn eyes.

“Oh, I'm sorry, am I boring you?” She smiled sarcastically. “Need I make it obvious that you are suspected of kidnapping?” 

“I just have somewhere to be. It’s late. If you’d call in to ask about–”

“Are you telling me how to do my job?”

“No ma'am, I'm sayin’ you'd save yourself a lot–”

“Well stop ‘sayin'’ or I'll be ‘sayin’’ that you resisted arrest when I’m writing up your arrest report. This way.” 

She had to keep from grabbing his arm and yanking him as she led him over to her cruiser and deposited him near the passenger side door. Only after ordering him to turn around so she could cuff him behind his back of course.

“Stay here until I come back,” she ordered. “And remember that running from a uniformed officer is a criminal offense.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he lulled back, almost sing-songy while leaning nonchalantly against the car. “Keep an eye on the kid, he's the type you’d have to worry about.”

Because you kidnapped him? God, she couldn't wait to throw the book at that man. 

Kalis pressed the talk button on the radio clipped to her shoulder. “Officer Brooks reporting, I have a man pulled over here named Declan Cansano, roughly 6 and a half feet tall, blond, possibly… Latino? I have him detained for suspected kidnapping of the boy he has with him, a white brown-haired male, very battered and bruised and likely drugged who looks to be about… sixteen-ish? The man claims the boy is a super with villain status, and that he has jurisdiction over him as a ‘handler’ or ‘bounty hunter’ or something. Can you look him up for me?”

There was a moment of silence, then the radio crackled to life. “Report received, I'll look into a ‘Declan Cansano’ for you real quick. Do you have a name for the white male I can look into as well?”

“Not yet, I’m going to check that out now and get back to you shortly.”

“Wait,” A third voice interupted, familiar in just the right way to make Kalis’ heart flutter in her chest. Officer Frida Galleta. Her mentor, her favorite person on the force, one of the people she trusted most in this world. And… well, it didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes as well. “Brooks, did I hear you right? You said last name Cansano?”

Just as fast as it had soared, her heart dropped like a stone in a vacuum. She’d never heard that tone from Frida before. “I– I– Uh... yes. Why?”

“Oh god, I… Brooks, don’t engage with him– Look, I’m gonna call you on your personal cell–”

“Wait, Frida, what do you mean ‘don’t engage with him?’ I have him detained, I can’t not engage with him.”

“Officers, please keep small talk to a minimum over the radio,” Dispatch interrupted. “Officer Brooks, I couldn’t find anything on a ‘Declan Cansano’ anywhere, not the super or villain database, the criminal database, the employee database. But uh… to Officer Galleta’s point, if he said he’s a bounty hunter... Well, let’s just say you might wanna follow up with the chief about that before you make any decisions. They might have some sort of arrangement, so to speak.”

Arrangement…? Like a… Like…

Officer Brooks smelled the stinking injustice of a rat.

“Co–... Come again, dispatch?” she breathed into the radio.

“No!” Officer Galleta’s voice interrupted. “Dispatch, I’l’-I’lll handle this, no need to get the higher-ups involved. Please.” 

Then her phone rang. Officer Galleta’s beautiful profile photo graced her periphery as she pulled out the phone and promptly sent the call straight to voicemail, eyes straight ahead and staring into the pitch-black night. At the car that a captive was waiting for her in.

“Kalis, please answer your phone,” Galleta pleaded.

Officer Brooks silenced her radio, that wretched squeal, and started toward crime scene in the making.

It was a pig-filled world out there. She wouldn’t stand idly by as they made the entire world their mud pit.

Her phone rang again.

A single deep breath to steel her razor-sharp wit, then slammed open the passenger side door, preparing for the occupant to do anything from attacking like a spit-fire to running for the hills to grasping onto her and holding her close as the first friendly face this boy had seen in years.

Somehow, she didn’t expect the boy inside to startle and struggle, legs scrambling and weakly kicking at her to put distance between them. He leaned precariously back on the console of the car, shaking as if he were in hell when it finally froze over, and only then did she realize his hands were restrained behind his back.

Now that she wasn’t looking at him over the angry presence of a kidnapper, she could see clearly now that her first impression of him was so very wrong; He was so much worse off than she could have imagined. Deep-set dark circles under his eyes, so many bruises lining his skin, specks of dried blood flakes dotting his body, cuts caked with disgusting oozing brown, eyes dilated and bloodshot, angry red welts peaking out from under the power-suppressing collar that only could have been from being yanked around or choked, and dried blood-stains that drip-drip-dripped down the front of his oversized white t-shirt.

Her face went ashen at the ghastly scene. What had that man done?

Her phone rang once more. She muted it. It still buzzed in her pocket.

“Hi,” she started slowly. Her voice cracked slightly. “My name is Officer Brooks, or Kalis. I'm here to help you. What's your name?”

He simply returned her a wide-eyed stare. Then glanced over to her cruiser. At the man leaning on it. Then at her badge. Then down to his lap, not a single word uttered.

The phone buzzed with another call.

“It's alright,” she soothed, like a mother beckoning a lost child home. “He can't hurt you right now. I'm here to help you, but I need you to talk to me or else I can't help you. I need to know your name. It’s Stan, right? Stan? That’s what I heard from him.”

He looked up, staring into her as if she wasn't even there again, eyes so wide, so dilated. No words. He frowned, considering for a moment. Then a vindictive determination spread across his features and he moved his gaze right back to his lap.

“Alright, that's uh… that's alright.” She felt like a kindergarten teacher with the way she was talking. Her phone buzzed with yet another call. “Can I… can I at least see the super brand on your back? Can you do that for me, Stan?”

He jolted back. “No.”

More phone buzzing. Adrenaline surged in her chest. “Stan, please. I can't get you back to your family if I can't find out who you are.”

“... fam–... family?...” His eyes widened, pupils somehow blown even wider, unfocused into the middle distance.

“Yes, Stan.” She very carefully reached for the collar of his shirt, ready to pull back at any time. The boy didn’t react. “I just want to get you back to your family.”

Kalis pulled the shirt down just enough to reveal that awful blue of the villain brand. The blue that signified a test subject.

Shit, the bounty hunter had been telling the truth.

The phone buzzed once more. Kalis snatched it out of her pocket. Turning around swiftly so Stan wouldn’t think what was about to happen next was directed at him.

“What do you want?” She hissed. “I’m trying to talk to a kidnapping victim.”

“Oh thank god, you’re alright,” Frida's tinny voice came through the speaker.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I– Look, Kalis, I know this sounds bad, but I need you to let the bounty hunter go. Now.”

Officer Brooks grit her teeth. This was exactly what she was afraid of. “Why.”

“He’s… look, alright, I’m surprised no one told you before, but the police have a sort of… deal… with certain criminals and organizations. Mr. Cansano is one of them–”

“So you’re a dirty cop, then?” Kalis interrupted, voice strained, chest tight. “And– and you’re trying to bring me down with you, now? Frida, I–...  You should see what he’s done to this captive. I can't let him go.”

"I’m not a dirty cop! Not the way you’re thinking at least, I– just trust me, I can't even say over the phone but I'm on my way and I’ll tell you when I get there, I swear. Please don't do anything, for both our sakes.I know him, he's–”

“You know him?!”

“Yes, he’s–”

“How do you know him?!”

“Kalis. Listen to me.” Her voice turned deathly serious. “He's got ties everywhere. Hell, he does jobs for the police sometimes, they won't protect you if you get in trouble. He might try to kill you, and even if he doesn't and you get him arrested, now you have a target on your back from both the mob AND the corrupt police. If you try to arrest him, you're going to die. Please just leave him alone. Please."

She grit her teeth. “So that means he doesn't have any… official paperwork to prove he has authority over the super?”

“I– uh… probably not? They don't work within the law, that's why you need to let him go.”

Well then…

That’s all she needed to hear.

“I’m arresting him.”

“No! No, Khalis, I'm on my way, I'll-I’ll be two minutes, just wait–”

She slammed her phone down and turned back around to Stan, only then realizing that the poor boy probably heard everything she just said–

Nope, he was off in his own little world again.

“Stan?...”

No response.

She waved her hand in front of his face. “Stan!”

He startled back to himself, terrified, scrambling to get away from her just like the first time she'd walked up to him.

She didn't have time for this.

“Stan, honey, I'm going to arrest the man who hurt you alright? He won't hurt you anymore. I have to leave now, but one of my friends will be here very soon. She'll help you out, alright? Everything will be alright. Just please stay here. Hopefully I'll see you soon.”

Officer Brooks closed the door of the truck before she could catch a reaction, hoping that ditching Stan to be found by Officer Galleta was the best choice here.

It had to be, it was the only choice.

She steeled herself, resting her hand on her gun once more, and walked back over through the oppressive black night and into the spotlighting brights of her police car. 

To face down the bounty hunter.

“Mr. Cansano, you're–...” 

Then all of her built-up courage suddenly burst. What the hell was–...

She gaped.

Then scoffed.

Really?

“Are–… are you… smoking a blunt right now?”

The bounty hunter’s hand withdrew from his mouth, followed by a puff of dark white smoke. His gaze never once broke from the bright dot of red-yellow ash that oh-so-subtly lit his face. “Yup.”

She just stared at him for a moment. Then shook her head out. Whatever.

“Mr. Cansano, you're under arrest for suspected kidnapping of a super and illegal bounty hunting.” He didn’t so much as blink. “You have the right to remain silent, as anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you.” Crickets chirped somewhere in the forest sidelining them. “Do you understand these rights as I’ve spoken them to you?”

He didn’t move in the slightest through her whole spiel. He almost seemed to have paused time around him, actually, a frozen snapshot.

A pause as Kalis stood ready to arrest a few feet away, yet unable to move closer as the air turned sticky with his low chuckle.

A pause because, only then, did Kalis realize that when she last left the man, she'd left him in handcuffs.

The bounty hunter shoved the burning tip of the blunt into the metal siding of her cruiser, instantly extinguishing the bright ember. “You talked to your boss?”

She clutched her gun. “I've been made aware of the situation.”

“Brave one, you are.”

He pushed up out of his lean. She whipped out her gun and aimed it squarely at his chest. “Freeze.”

He stopped, staring at her gun hand, eyes narrowed, hands shooting up to show he wasn’t a threat.

Yeah right.

Police sirens in the distance. Couldn’t be anyone but Frida.

“Put your hands on the car. Slowly.”

He looked her up and down. It was funny, his eyes almost looked red, with the way the headlights shined off his eyes.

“Hands on the car.”

The hunter almost seemed to think about it for a moment. Then he laughed, pulled his bandana up over his face, and took a step forward. 

Her vision tunneled, heart pounding in her ears. All she had to do was pull the trigger.

“Shame,” he drawled. Now he had… a string? A metal string, the type used to cut clay. Held taut between his hands. “I’ll try not to make this hurt, youu seem lie one of the good ones.”

Kalis’s gun hand shook. She should shoot him. She’d never shot anyone before. Shoot him. Shoot him. In the chest, in the leg, somewhere, shoot him, shoot him, you’re going to die shoot him shoot him do it fucking SHOOT HIM–

Her finger squeezed the trigger as he lunged forward, a flash of light, everything bright white and hot and blinding as a loud CRACK split through her eardrums, her very skull. Her gun arm knocked to the side, the gun flew from her hands. Her only chance at defending herself disappeared somewhere into the inky black night.

Suddenly she was staring right into his dark brown eyes that seemed to gleam red. His hands slammed just short on either side of her neck, the wire held gingerly between them pressing into the hard muscle of her larynx.

Just the two of them. 

The crickets, the trees.

The stars, shining above so sweetly.

Her last witnesses.

She was going to die here.

“Sorry about this,” he whispered, a low grumble that reverberated her entire soul. She couldn’t look away from those blood-red eyes. Would her blood be added to that as well?

A deafening screech of tires.

His brow furrowed, gaze stuttering elsewhere. A new set of headlights spotlighted them like startled deer, two omens of death and justice heading straight for them, night turned into a shining white day. 

 Brighter, brighter.

“Holy shit,” the bounty hunter yelled. Low engine revs turned into deafening roars that wholly swallowed any screams that ripped from Kalis’ or Declan’s throats, right before a hand yanked off her feet, just barely heaved over the hood of the car and tumbling jarringonto the ground next to the man who had apparently saved them both as a giant mass of immoveable flashing red and blue and black and white metal screeched past them as it attempted to grind to a stuttering halt before flying into the ditch that sidelined the highway.

Kalis slammed into the ground.

The world spun around her.

Frida.

Frida.

Ow, FUCK–

What’s–

It was Frida!

She was saved!

Or wait, was Frida trying to kill her now?

Why had the bounty hunter saved her, were they on the same side now?

What was happening?!

The door of the cop car flew open before the car even fully screeched to a halt, and there she stood in all of her gorgeous, life-saving, terrified and anger-filled glory, pointing her gun over the top of her cop car right at the man in the cowboy hat sprawled dazed on the ground next to her.

“DECLAN CANSANO, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

* * * * * * * *

Next

Also linking this rq for anyone who didn't see bc I think I'm hilarious

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy | @pirefyrelight | @cakeinthevoid | @painsandconfusion | @books-are-everything

@paperprinxe | @tippytappytyping | @chaotic-orphan | @notactuallyluska | @lumpofsand

@watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees | @whumpwhittler | @thelazywitchphotographer

(If you'd like to be added or subtracted from the taglist, don't be afraid to ask!)

[whump-tr0pes]

Nanda made sure Jameson knew every moment that he was in total control, made sure he never felt truly safe, made sure he was always a little afraid... of course he kept something small for himself. My heart is breaking 😭

How will Nanda react to this news??? Ahhhh Jameson finally stands up for himself and says no and says the things he never got to say... ahhh.... I cry...

so... how about that jameson au though

(Anon is referencing an AU where Nanda turns up alive, I wrote a short piece on the concept here)

CW: Whumpee returned to whumper, captor bonding, dubcon (mostly implied? mostly), grief

Nanda's thumb and finger rub along the back of Jameson's neck, and he closes his eyes, tipping his chin forward to bare the skin more fully to the familiar touch. The leather seat beneath him feels impossibly soft. The car is new, but the scent of it isn't.

"What do they call you now?" Nanda asks, carefully casual, steering into a turn without signaling. His car, sleek and silver and looking somehow incredibly futuristic and oddly sexual, glides along the road. "In this house I found you in?"

Jameson doesn't look up. He can feel his skin prickling, the hair on his arms standing up. At the same time, he's shivery, feels a warmth pulsing through him. "Jameson," He says. His voice is hoarse. It's always hoarse now. For so long...

"Jameson?" Nanda's voice sounds curious, only curious. His fingernail scrapes lightly along Jameson's nape, edging the softest baby hairs there. Jameson's breath catches. "Like the whiskey?"

He swallows. Custard and blood, a voice he thought he'd never taste again. Vanilla and copper, somehow swimming together. It's not a good taste, but it's one his life revolved around once. A taste he loved, sometimes hated, sometimes both in equal measure. "Yeah." He drops to a whisper. "I was kept in a... a house for a while. I could see these bottles... he'd empty the bottles, and line them up. Jamison Whiskey, always. I thought it-... it sounded like a good name."

Nanda pauses. "... you read the bottles?"

Oh, right. Nanda never knew.

Jameson hitches in a breath. They're still slipping through the city like an eel through ocean, winding around neighborhoods as if avoiding beds of green plants waving in the water. The lights are purple in some spots and bright in others. Jameson wonders if Nanda's taking him-

... what used to be home.

"I read the bottles," He whispers. "I could-... I could always read."

Another long pause. Nanda glances behind him, then pulls over - still without using his turn signal, and that sure hasn't changed. The car's tires crunch along the gravel beside the road, then settle into a rumbling smoothness as they move into grass. Nanda cuts the lights, and leaves he and Jameson sitting in total darkness, without even a streetlight to see by. Only the dim hint of moonlight and stars.

"You weren't supposed to be able to read."

"I... I know. But I can."

"You never told me you could." Nanda's palm is heavy and hot on his neck, now. Jameson twists his fingers into his sweatpants to keep his hands from shaking as Nanda's voice drops low, too. "You lied to me."

"I was-... scared to tell you."

"You should have told me anything. Everything. There shouldn't have been anything I didn't know."

"No, I know, but... fuck. What if you had them take it away?" He looks, now. He finds the courage to raise his head, to turn and look Nanda right in his eyes. They're just a gleam in the night. "I needed it. I, I'm alive because I can read. If I couldn't, and you died, I wouldn't have... been able to read, to, to know-"

"You lied." No anger. Just calm certainty. "To me."

"... yes. I lied." He jerks away from Nanda's hand finally, raking a hand back through his hair, hating it again. It used to be thick, and kind of pretty actually. Used to look good. Even this long after escaping Robert, it still grows in unevenly, different lengths. And some places never grew back at all, so he has to grow it out to cover the bald spots up, but then the uneven bits are obvious, and... "I fucking lied, okay?! I had to protect myself. I had to, to keep safe."

"From me?" Nanda's voice is empty of emotion. It's worse than anger could ever be. "You had to protect yourself from me?"

"More than anyone, you fucking asshole!"

He's going to cry again. He forces the heat of the tears back, lets them turn into a twist of acid anger in his chest alongside his racing heart. He doesn't lower his gaze. He looks Nanda right in the face.

He thought he'd never see this face again.

"You-" His voice cracks, and he fights to get it back. Not to go silent now, when he has to say this, the thing he's always held inside. There's never been a grave he could cry at, there's never been a body to bare his heart to. Not since-

"You could have killed me yourself, and I'd have let you do it." The words come out too quickly, they run together and he's breathless at the end of the sentence. He grabs at Nanda's hand with both of his, holding so tightly he can feel Nanda's bones move, can hear the slightest hiss of breath as he winces. "And you might have. Even if all you did was send me back, they'd wipe it all away again. I'd lose too much, I'd lose you, you shit, and I didn't want to lose you. When you died, I thought-"

"I wasn't dead-"

"I didn't fucking know that!" He can't scream anymore, not like he used to. His voice only turns to wind, the rasp of an oncoming storm. Nanda is a rumble of thunder, and Jameson the leaves shivering on branches about to blow down and die. "If they found me, they'd blame me, and they'd send me back, for being defective, for being a fucking reject, for-... they'd take you away. They'd take you away from me, from my head."

He pulls Nanda's hand to him, leans forward, his forehead resting against the warmth of Nanda's palm, those fingers curved slightly over the top of his head. Like a god giving benediction, maybe. Like he could be lifted up or shoved off a cliff with just one motion.

"I couldn't lose you, not because I wasn't right. I couldn't fucking lose you. If you knew I could read, if you sent me back-... if they sent me back after you died-... they'd take you. I couldn't, I couldn't lose you. I couldn't. You're mine, god damn it, you were mine!"

"Pet-"

"I had to keep you mine." He drops his grip on Nanda's hand, but it doesn't move away, and neither does he. "I had to keep you in my head, because-... because if you were gone, and I didn't know you, then why was I ever here?"

He's talking about Nanda, and he isn't. There's some other face beneath it, another voice, another taste. A smile he'd known from his first memories, a loss he couldn't recall because it had been a loss too great to bear losing.

He doesn't let that other face surface. Some part of him knows the name but he holds it deep, deep down. "I'm what I am because I thought it was okay to lose, to forget, but when you were gone, I, I couldn't, I couldn't lose again. I couldn't forget you again. Don't you fucking understand that?"

Nanda stares at him, slightly wide-eyed, an expression Jameson has never seen before in his handsome, angular face. There's so much more silver in his beard now than there used to be. But they both look so much older, so much different, now.

The silence draws out, between them, and Jameson twists. Lightning threatens. There's no rumble of thunder, only the weight of something about to break overhead and if it does, he'll drown.

"Well?" His voice shakes, but he covers it up with rage. He always covers up his fear with anger. It's the only way he's lived this long. It's safe and easy. "Lost your fucking voice now, all of a sudden? Huh? You gonna fucking say something to me, you piece of shit, you were dead and how goddamn dare you come back and take me like nothing ever happened, like I didn't-... like I didn't have to live without you, for so long without, like I-"

He never finishes the sentence.

"Shut up," Nanda snaps. It's a growl, a snarl, and Jameson thrills to the sound of his voice. His hands are there, they shove Jameson to the side and then back. Nanda hits something along the side of his seat and the back drops flat. Jameson gasps as his head bounces back against the headrest, and then Nanda is on top of him again, yanking his shirt up with a ferocity that feels like the cloth burns along his scarred skin as it goes. His wrists are tangled in the cotton and Nanda grunts, irritated, and leaves it there as he works at Jameson's sweatpants, yanking them down off his hips until he's nearly naked, on his back in the passenger seat of a car, on the side of the road.

"Nanda-"

"I said shut the fuck up-"

Nanda's hand claps over his mouth, and his protests are muffled at first. Then they aren't protests at all, as Nanda's lips are hot against his neck, and then his teeth dig and his tongue works against the reddening skin he's just bitten.

Nanda's hand closes around him, between his legs, and Jameson cries out, all but levitating off the seat into scorching touch. He's dizzy, with the way all his blood suddenly shifts to meet that hand. He can barely think. Nanda's strokes are rough and fast, and Jameson rolls into them, again and again. All his thoughts are washed away by the lust that floods him.

Somewhere under that, though...

He's still afraid.

It could end any second.

It could all have been a dream.

This might have been the wrong choice.

Or it wasn't a choice at all.

Nanda yanks his hand back and Jameson whimpers at the loss, whines like an animal in heat, only to have Nanda grab him and roughly turn him over, throwing him back down. They're closed in this car, the space too small for it. His elbow bangs on something, his feet are pressing up against the rough carpet under the dashboard. But that hand is off his mouth, then. He can breathe, and he can make a sound that isn't entirely human as Nanda's mouth is back on his neck, the heat of his chest against Jameson's shoulder blades, the hardness of him pressed just where Jameson wants it, always wanted it

Didn't always want it-

"Nanda... please-... just wait-"

"I don't wait for you," Nanda whispers against his ear, nips at the shell. He can't stop himself from moaning at the feeling, as broken as that sound is now from his ruined throat. "You wait for me, when I say. You don't tell me when."

Jameson's eyes open, then. He's staring into an expanse of stars through the back windshield, and the sky is so goddamn empty between them, isn't it? Between the tiniest points of light, dead suns, and maybe their planets still revolve around them in the darkness.

"... I was learning," He whispers.

Nanda pauses. His breath is deafening against Jameson's ear. "What?"

"... I was learning how to say when."

He's a planet orbiting a dead star.

"Pet-"

"... I loved you."

"Loved?"

He's crying again. Goddamnit, he's crying again, and his shoulders shake with the sobs he can't hold back any longer. Nanda exhales and drops, weight against him, reassuring and real, alive. "I still love you, but I love-... I love-... I loved that I learned to be-... to b-be Jameson, fuck, stop it stop it stop crying, you shit, you fucking, just stop fucking crying!"

"Sssshhhhh. It's okay." Nanda's voice is a rumble, and the world shakes a little, gentle as a shower of rain. But he can't taste the rain here, not so far away from Allyn.

He can't taste the rain, only copper and sweet.

The stars blur into nothing, they're lost to the darkness when he tries to look through the tears. Even if his vision clears, it isn't even the stars he'd be seeing.

"Nanda... there's someone else."

He only sees the memory of what's already been lost.

[shes-some-other-where]

“Nowhere to run, crook.”

Prompt: “Take me.”

Contains: betrayal, ambush, surrender, recapture, arrest, police/soldiers, physical violence, restraints

Her fiancé’s face. Not hers. That was what he saw when the cellar door opened.

A face full of triumph. Radiant with glee. Brimming with spite.

“Nowhere to run, crook.”

Furious shouts echoed outside.

Soldiers.

Her fiancé stood aside, and armed men poured in.

The fugitive—the prisoner—sank to his knees.

“Take me, then,” he said, resting his hands on his head. He wondered: would she ever know what had happened while she was away? Would she resent him for never saying goodbye?

“On the floor!” a soldier barked. Kicking him down. Shackling his wrists.

Just like that, it was over.

suggested reading order | MWM event masterlist

<<< previous | next >>>

All my writing is original. Feel welcome to interact/comment/reblog. Pls don’t steal or repost.

[3-2-whump]

(Re)Living a Nightmare, part 2

<prev next>

You're still here? Okay, it's not gonna get any better for our poor boy. Do read and heed the tags/CW.

Basic Summary if You Decide to Skip

Also please skim this chapter and this chapter if you haven't already, because they will be referenced heavily in the story coming up

TW/CW: rape/noncon, bound and gagged and blindfolded whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, knife play, neither safe nor sane nor consensual, blood (lots of blood), victim blaming, internalized victim blaming, whumpee and whumper unknowingly triggering each other, blunt force trauma to the head (face), panic

NOTE: The inner thoughts and opinions expressed within do not align with those of the author, who themself has never and would never condone such thoughts and opinions in real life. Reader Discretion is advised.

All Thomas asked of him was to change into clothes he wouldn’t mind replacing, which usually meant that whatever Khaled wore would be torn/burned/ stained so irreparably that it’d just be thrown away after. Already based on that request, Khaled could guess he was in for a rough night. He had no idea how much worse it could get until he was blindfolded, bound, gagged, and carried out the apartment and down to the cold garage, where the hard foot-well of the back seat waited for him. The car revved to life, and his restrained body lurched forward as Thomas pulled out of the garage and drove them to fuck knows where.

Eventually they came to a stop, Thomas exchanged some words with the night-shift guard at the old house, and then they kept going until they parked. Khaled slowly started to put the pieces together. They were back at the old house, which probably meant Thomas wanted to take him downstairs, which meant whatever he wanted to do to him would be too messy or too specialized to do back at the apartment. What is he planning? Khaled wondered. He’s asked me to wear my most expendable clothes, he’s tied me up like I used to be when I was recaptured, he’s thrown me into the back like when I was recaptured-

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the car door opening. He blindly tilted his head toward the chill of the night and the distant sound of frogs singing. A pair of calloused hands hauled him up from the foot-well of the back seat and slung him over a broad shoulder. “Thought you could escape me this time, did you?” his master’s voice purred in his ear.

A pit of dread competed with the chill of the early spring night in his bones as Khaled realized what all this preparation had meant. Master wants to roleplay my escape attempts. He began shivering, though not just because of the cold. A warm hand rested on his buttocks to steady him as he felt himself being carried inside, through the hallway, and to the front of a very familiar door. Reliving his failed escape attempts but with an added sexual element was one of Khaled’s recurring nightmares. What cruel irony was this, that he had begged so enthusiastically no more than half an hour ago for this man to make his nightmare come true?

The familiar creak of a door opening preceded the dusty, dried-blood smell coming from the stairs leading down into the cellar. Khaled pleaded through the rag stuffed in his mouth and the tape sealed over his lips as they descended the stairs step by concrete step. He tugged at the zip ties binding his wrists and ankles, but all that did was dig the hard plastic further into his flesh.

The cellar in the basement was the only room in Luciano Antonio Costa’s old house that didn’t get renovated when they converted the rest of it into an office space. Mainly because its purpose as a room for torture and interrogation never went obsolete. Khaled didn’t have to see it; he’d been down in the T&I cellar enough times to have the layout committed to memory. Dusty, red bricked walls arched into a curved ceiling where two overhead lamps hung by thick chains, illuminating the large expanse below. A fireplace and all its accompanying iron tools sat to the left, and a rack lined with various instruments of torture was positioned to the right. In the middle was one large table with scratch marks furrowed into its edges, and many other types of equipment were either shoved in a corner or hanging from the ceiling, suspended by heavy chains and hooks like morbid chandeliers. Partitioning a back portion of the room was a large iron gate leading to a small offshoot of the basement, much like a door to a prison cell. Not much lay beyond the iron gate besides a hard-worn bench and several opaque plastic storage tubs full of mysterious items.

Khaled squirmed as he was lowered onto his stomach on top of the familiar table. “What were you thinking,” scolded the nightmare looming above him. A faint swish of a pocket knife and cold steel next to his skin made Khaled pause his struggles as his master cut away the zip ties. “Escaping in this cold weather without so much as a scrap of clothing on you –did you even have a plan?” he taunted. “I don’t know what your plan was, or even if you had a plan, but was it really worth freezing yourself to death?”

Khaled enjoyed the freedom of his unbound limbs for only a moment until his wrists were snatched into a tight grip and gathered in front of him. A coarse and scratchy material –rope, most likely –began entangling around and in between his wrists as his master continued talking. “We have a tracking chip installed inside of you, remember? You can never escape me; I will always find you.” With a forceful tug, Khaled’s hands were pulled in front of him, then he couldn’t move his hands at all. The other end of the rope must have been tied off to the ring attachment at the edge of the table.

His ankles remained free, if only to make it easier to take his pants off.

There were some light shuffling noises before the wooden table groaned under a newfound weight. Khaled felt the body heat of another person leaning over him. The cologne Thomas wore quickly overpowered his senses as the man hovered close. Khaled could feel his master’s breath on his ear and something hard and stiff against his backside. “The last time you tried to run away, a friend of mine advised me to cut your tendons,” Thomas sultrily whispered.

Oh god no. By now, Khaled knew which escape attempt they were reenacting, and, coincidentally, it was the one he had nightmares about the most.

“I don’t want to permanently cripple you though,” Thomas sighed, “mostly because it would be even more of a hassle to care for you, but I will cripple you temporarily, at the very least...”

He could already hear the hiss of the iron.

His panicked cries took on a new pitch of desperation. Without warning, his master’s fingers pinched at the edge of the duct tape on Khaled’s mouth and pulled, making him scream in pain. The rag was quickly removed, only for his tormentor to shove his index and middle fingers past the boy’s teeth to depress his tongue. “Suck,” he growled, “because this is the only lube you’re going to get.”

“Please, no, not this one, please, please no, not this, not this,” Khaled begged around the fingers in his mouth.

The fingers quickly withdrew before Khaled’s head was yanked back by the hair and then smashed onto the table. Stars danced across his blindfold, and a faint trickle of something warm and wet escaped from his nose.

“Let’s try this again.” Thomas shoved his fingers back into the boy’s mouth, burying them to the knuckle and making the boy gag. “Suck.”

Khaled shakily worked his head up and down the length of the fingers as his tongue lapped at each digit. He started to cry. As soon as the fingers withdrew, his pleas picked up again in earnest. “Please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me-”

“Would you relax?! I’m not going to burn you!” Thomas shouted above him. “What about any of this looks like I’m gonna burn you?!” Khaled heard a frustrated huff above him as his master yanked down his pants and underwear, exposing his bare ass and legs to the cold. The shed clothing was discarded, landing with a soft whump somewhere behind them. The two digits that were in his mouth forcefully entered him below, all pretense of play forgotten as they began roughly working him open. “Besides which, weren’t you the one who wanted to do this? You asked for this, you wanted this! You said you would be good for me!”

And he was right, he did say he wanted this. He asked for this to happen. So, with a defeated sniffle, Khaled went quiet and limp.

“So, are you going to be good for me now?”

Khaled’s bruised forehead scraped against the table as he nodded.

“Thank fuck,” Thomas grumbled.

I asked for this, Khaled told himself. The darkness around his eyes became damp as the blindfold caught his tears. I asked for this, I wanted this. He repeated it like a mantra as the man on top of him replaced his fingers with his cock and steadily screwed him against the table. I asked for this, I wanted this. Something tore down there as an unmistakable thin, warm, and sticky fluid trickled past the cock pummeling his hole. I wanted this. I wanted this…

I didn’t want this.

I never wanted this. Any of this.

I don’t want this. Slowly, the new mantra gained strength, and he let the words slip between his lips with every shuddering breath. “I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this-”

“Tough shit,” his master grunted.

Khaled pulled against the rope restraining his hands as he struggled against the body pressing into his. “I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I-” Again, Khaled’s face was smashed against the table. He heard a faint crunch as a new river of blood flowed out of his nose.

“You can scream all you want, nobody’s going to hear you,” Thomas growled, “but for fucks sakes, can you please scream something less annoying?!”

Khaled kept repeating it between every sniffle, like a sad broken record. “I don’t want this,” he sobbed. “I don’t want this… I don’t want this…”

His begging finally outwore Thomas’ need to finish. “Fuck,” his master huffed, unsticking his sweaty torso from Khaled’s clothed back as he pulled out of him. Khaled collected his heaving breaths. It would be too naïve of him to believe his bitchy whining finally got through, but he would appreciate this moment while he could.

He suppressed his sobs and tilted his head to follow the footsteps and shuffling sounds Thomas was making as he tried to guess what would happen to him next. Khaled heard the faint schwing of a different knife being unsheathed. It cut through the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt as his master finally completely undressed him, tearing away the scraps of cotton the knife didn’t excise from his body. “You said you would be good for me, but you have been anything but!” A twisted strip of cloth was wedged between his teeth and hastily tied off at the back of his head. His master’s hand pinned him down by the back of the neck, crushing him against the table with the weight behind it. “You said you missed me, but you’ve only fought against me this whole time!” Khaled screamed into the gag as the tip of the knife sank in between his shoulder blades. Its blade dragged tortuously and deliberately through his skin as his tormentor continued griping above him. “You’re a fucking liar, you know that?” The knife mercifully lifted from the trough it had carved, only to be plunged into a new area of Khaled’s back. “Do you know what I do to liars, boy? I make them pay!” The raw wounds on his back wept with blood as the knife kept slicing, spilling over his sides and pooling underneath his stomach and the table below. It was hard to cry with a gag in his mouth and a broken nose full of blood. He gasped for breaths between sobs, never quite getting a satisfying breath before the pain of the knife would make him scream again. His tears slipped past the saturated blindfold and tracked down his cheeks to join the pinkish smear of saliva, snot, and blood he could feel covering the lower half of his face. “This is for Callahan!” The knife drove down and sliced another line through his skin for each name the monster dropped. “This is for Trémeaux! And Robinson, and Martinez, and Kruger, and Kościelsky, and this-” The knife dug deeper this time. Khaled bit into the gag as his nerves screamed in agony, the steel scraping something hard as it dragged against his back. “-this is for my brother; he is never coming back! Tony is never coming back, and it’s all because of you!” the monster above him roared.

It was in that moment, between the terror and the pain, that Khaled realized with a fascinated horror that his master was reliving a nightmare, too. I need to snap him out of it if I’m getting out of this cellar alive, he realized. So, he set his own trauma and pain aside and began doing what got him into this mess in the first place. The twisted cloth had loosened just enough. He pushed it out of his mouth with his tongue and started begging as if his life depended on it, because this time, it really did.

“I didn’t kill him!” he cried.  “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him!” Khaled screamed well past the point his throat hurt. “Master, please, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill any of them! I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him, Master, I didn’t kill him…” If the knife had stopped cutting into him and the rope around his wrists had been untied, Khaled was too far gone in his panic induced catatonia to notice. “I didn’t kill him… I didn’t kill him…” he rasped through a throat torn raw from screaming.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood

[watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees]

I'm on a roll guys! Here's my entry for my own game @watermelons-whump-game this is my first try writing unnamed characters, it was interesting

Careless Whisper

betrayal - last night together - blinding lights

TW: recapture, betrayal, traumatised whumpee

"We have to leave now" Caretaker had to repeat himself a few times, before Whumpee managed to make sense of the words. They'd been dancing for hours, the music was so loud they'd felt the beat thrum in their chest, finally something that overpowered the constant screams that still rang in their head months after the ordeal.

Caretaker wasn't happy about the parties, but forced himself to go every weekend. His head hurt from the bright blues and reds that illuminated the living room, generously appointed as the dance floor. He still stayed to watch, to make sure Whumpee was okay.

They knew Caretaker wasn't big on parties, and told him countless times he didn't have to accompany them every single time, but he was adamant. So Whumpee never minded that he was on his phone all night, tucked away in some corner of the room, waiting for them to get too tired or drunk to go on.

Being on the phone was nothing new. Getting dragged away after a couple of hours wasn't either. The face of absolute horror on Caretakers face was. There was some other emotion Whumpee couldn't exactly place written all over his place as he pleaded for them to leave. Whumpee took a last look around the dancing crowd.

They headed towards the room, a messy office space, where they tossed their coats and bags on the ground upon arrival.

"What's this about?" they asked Caretaker, finally closing the door behind themselves and the music faded. Only then did Whumpee notice just how much they needed fresh air to replace the living rooms sweaty dampness they were sure coated their lungs by then.

"Listen, I'm so so sorry, I was careless, someone must have heard me talk-" he rambled, as he gathered both of their jackets in his hand.

"What are you talking about?" Whumpee interrupted.

"Whumper." Their face dropped, all sobered up their expression mirrored Caretaker's horror. The window was open in the office, they started feeling cold.

"No. He- you can't have-"

"Just listen to me, okay? If we're fast enough-" Caretaker rounded the table, as he looked for Whumpee's bag.

"We will never be fast enough to run from him" they muttered. They felt stuck, the walls of the room felt closer than the bodies pressed up against their skin on the dance floor.

"Listen, baby, I already packed, if we go now-"

"What do you mean packed?" They locked eyes, and Whumpee knew what the other mysterious emotion had been pulling at the corners of Caretaker's mouth. Regret.

"You told him!" they stared in disbelief "You told him where I was? You sold me out, for what?"

"Let's just go now, we can sort this out later in the car" Caretaker finally pulled their bag out from under a pile of clothes.

"He offered you money, didn't he? How much?"

"I- no. I-" He tried to protest.

"HOW MUCH?" Whumpee yelled and at they both jumped at the same time, when the party's noise reached them as the door opened at the right moment.

"Am I interrupting something?" Whumper asked, after his eyes got used to the darkness of the room and he made sure the only people in there were the ones he was looking for, a cocky grin crept on his face. He was dressed in all black, looked taller and more fit then Whumpee remembered. Fear coiled in their stomach at the sight of the familiar figure.

"No, we were just leaving" caretaker tried, a pitiful attempt to make himself appear to be in control of the situation. He wished Whumpee was standing next to him behind the table, a safe distance apart from Whumper.

"Leaving?" he pouted "But I just got here... I even brought the 50 grand you asked me for" he reached into his jacket, and pulled out two rolls of coiled up banknotes.

The air seemed to freeze between Whumpee and Caretaker.

"Is that all im worth to you?" they asked, tears already running down their face. He didn't love them. He never cared. It was a lie. All of it.

Whumper walked closer, placing the two rolls of money on the table between them. Whumpee watched as Caretakers eyes flickered down at them.

"No, Whumpee, you know I'd never-"

"Cut the bullshit!" They started raising their voice, but caught themself, glancing over at Whumper. He didn't like it when they yelled. "Don't fucking lie to my face-"

"I HAD A PLAN OKAY?" Caretaker retorted just a second too late for it to sound sincere.

"Don't lie to me- please, I can't-"

"You heard them! Cut the bullshit, you leapt at the idea, and accepted the first offer I made" Whumper chimed in, closing in on Whumpee protectively posessively

To his biggest surprise they turned around and cried into his chest.

"Hey, what-"

"Whumpee, get away from him, im getting you out-" Caretaker rounded the table, he stood broader and taller than Whumper, who simply wrapped his arms around Whumpees shaking figure.

"Fuck you" they sobbed into Whumper's familiar scented cashmere turtleneck "Get your fucking money and go!"

"Whumpee, please let me help you" he reached a hand out to touch Whumpee's shoulder, with Whumper's piercing gaze following the gesture, they pulled away from his touch, pushing themself stronger against Whumper's chest, who just grinned triumphantly.

"You heard them, get the money and go!" he mocked.

"I'll find you, Whumpee, if it's the last thing I'll ever do"

"Don't" was the only word they managed to push out between their sobs.

"It's so good to have you back, Darling" Whumper kissed the top of their head.

[auroragehenna]

AI-less Whumptober

Day 13 - Surprise Sunday (Whumpee using themself as bait, defiance, “Take me instead.”)

TW/CW: Team whump, spy whump, recapture, kidnapping, knife whump, knife to throat, manipulative bastard whumper, cheerful whumper, arrogant too, scared whumpee, forced to kneel, forced to beg Word count: 1'094

Usually they didn't cover such offensive missions. They were more trained for undercover and spy work. Yet when their team was a teammate down Whumpee didn't hesitate to agree to the mission. Now they were parcouring over the roofs of the city and camped behind chimnees, always on the lookout for their target. So far it was going smoothly, unnervingly smoothly to be precise. There hadn't even been a sign of their target yet even though they had recieved very clear intel that they would be here, perfect to be engaged. Whumpees usually so perfect focus wasn't so perfect tonight, not anymore. The un-explainable tension in the air made them itchy and the scar across their palm hurt. Tucked behind the wall of a flat roof they rubbed over it, their emotions momentarily taking over and that's when they heard the sound. A strangled yelp. Ice shot across their entire spine as they pulled out their knife and spun around.

Then nearly dropped their knife. They were staring into the grinning face of Whumper. Holding a blade to their teammates neck.

Whumpee dared to exchange one look with their teammate, all as frozen up as they were even if significantly less terrified. Shit, shit, shit!! Whumper hadn't even been their target tonight!

"Teamname, how delightful to see all of you this lovely night. I have been itching for a rematch after our last interaction. Now just on who had you been so focused on that you let your guard down, hm? Anybody?", they asked near cheerfully. Murderous bloodlust just barely hidden underneath the surface. They started to look from person to person, expecting an answer.

"Go to hell! And let Teammate go, you son of a bitch.", Leared roared, even with their volume composed.

Whumper tutted. "Naww, that's really no way to talk to the person holding the adventage in this situation, is it?" They pressed the blade deeper against Teammates neck, the skin underneath already reddened. Whumper's gaze wandered again from Teammate to teammate. Excruciatingly slowly.

Please don't look at me, please don't look at me, please don't look at me! Whumpee was experiencing the beginning of a panic attack most likely. Every nerve in their body screamed at them to RUN. Fast and away as soon as possible. They couldn't-they couldn't. But the sight of the knife being pressed harder against Medic-Teammates throat kept them from attempting to flee. They couldn't leave their friend with that monster. So they stayed, standing and shaking as Whumpers gaze finally found them. Whumpee could see how their eyes went wide in surprise and then narrowed again in sadistic glee.

"Well, well, well. Look who we have here. What happened to you little stray kitty. Did you change carreer paths after our time together?", each of their words was laced with malice.

Whumpee flinched heavily at the nickname but tried to fight their words off. Tried to act like it didn't bother them at all. Trying to convince themselves. "Let Medic go, now, and nobody needs to get hurt."

Whumper smiled predatory "Oh but where's the fun in that? Come on, kitty, you know that I quite enjoy it when somebody get's hurt. Don't you? Or have you forgotten our time together?", they ask innocently while simultenously nicking Teammates neck. A drop of blood dribbling down from the blade.

Leader made a heated step towards Whumper but that one simply sent him a warning glare and movement of the blade. "Easy tiger, woulnd't want to lose yet another teammate, right? Besides I'm holding a conversation. Its awfully rude, really." They shifted their gaze back to Whumpee.

Whumpee could also feel the gaze of Leader and their temporary teammates way on them, and they squirmed uncomfortably in their stance. "Let Medic go.", they repeated.

"No."

"Yes."

Whumper laughed. "Why should I?", they asked arrogantly.

Whumpee stared at Whumper. Hopeless. They had no advantage and Whumper would have absolutely no problem killing Medic and the rest of their team. They had no choice, they pressed their eyes closed before looking back at their old torturer. "Take me instead."

The other teammates sucked in a breath in unison. Murmured protests raising.

"Well this is interesting. You would return to me by choice?", they pressed on mockingly.

"Y-yes.", Whumpee confirmed, cursing the shake in their voice. "If you let Medic go right now without causing them or the team any further harm of any kind."

"My, my, little kitty. I admire your cleverness yet...Who exactly told you that you could simply..demand things from me in such a manner? I'm sure you can feel how wrong that is too."

Whumpee paled, their knees buckling worse than before but they tried to hold their ground. "That doesn't matter now. Do we have a deal or not?"

Whumper's hole demeanor shifted to a much more serious one."Oh it very much does matter. See I might consider letting your little friend here live and run but not if you pathetic. little. wet cat. think you can demand things of me." "So, if..you can convince me to take you-damaged goods instead I will consider it."

Whumpee held eye contract with their opponent for as long as they could but then their gaze fell to the floor. With their weak legs it wasn't hard for them to fall to their knees. The gravel digging into their skin. They dropped their head too, having more trouble grinding their newfound and hard-eared defiance into the dirt for what they needed to do. "Please. Whumper, I'm begging you. Let the team go unharmed and take me instead. Please."

Whumper suddenly moved towards the kneeling figure, dragging the trapped Medic with them. When they were in front of Whumpee they purposely kicked dirt and gravel into their face. They flinched but didn't budge. "Very well then.", Whumper decided cheerfully and in the blink of an eye the knife had changed necks.

Whumpee whimpered at the faimilar cold bite of the blade on their throat. They couldn't feel the relief about Medic's safety over their own terror.

"Now then, we shall be taking our leave now. Pleasure doing buisness with you." They nodded politely. "Leader." Before dissapearing fast as they came with the kidnapped Whumpee. They would have fun driving that defiance out of them again.

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

@shattermind-8

[whumble-beeee]

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 14

Content: kidnapping/captivity, noncon drugging, recreational drug use, disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, past captivity references

* * * * * * * *

Excerpt from: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping; a self-help guide for villains and bounty-hunters

[It’s a tale as old as time. You see it so very often in movies, books, YA love stories; The phenomenon known as Stockholm Syndrome, where a captive starts to develop positive feelings for their captor. However, Stockholm Syndrome is not a thing to be feared! Humans are very social creatures, after all, and control over another’s emotions is one of the most powerful thing’s a person can possess, super or not!

This is why you, villain, need to beware it’s the lesser-known counterpart: Lima Syndrome, where the captor becomes sympathetic or develops feelings for their captive. These disorders often develop side-by-side, so be wary and be vigilant! Developing Lima Syndrome may lead you to make rash decisions about your captured hero, cloud your judgment, allow your hero to take advantage of you, or even allow them to escape! Do not let your captured hero control you like you control them. You are jailor and prisoner. Nothing more.]

* * * * * * * *

Declan gawked at the Villain Brand tattoo staining Stan's back. The one he could finally see unimpeded now that he'd literally pinned the guy down and stripped him. The one Stan had fought so hard to hide.

“Holy shit…”

The ID number. He knew that number from so long ago. And Level 4 super. Manipulator power type. Social Designation Black.

Supervillain: Incarcerated for power-related crimes.

… and blue.

Test subject.

He fucking knew it.

He knew it.

It was that girl. That one from the raid that happened, what… ten years ago now? Longer? The one he’d found hiding with the toddler. One he saved, one he couldn’t. Fuck, man, he’d risked everything for that toddler. A little sister. A moment of weakness, or what some would call a moment of strength.

Stan had a little sister. Chloe. That was her name. That was the toddler’s name too.

She was still safe. She was still alive.

Thank fuck. 

Declan hadn't even realized at first because, well, the guy was a dude now. And an adult. There were no records on him, period, so he couldn’t go back to look before now, and his superiors certainly never deigned to tell him anything. Thanks Lana, fuck you Vaughn.

Though he’d been suspicious for a while. It all just clicked into place with that last piece of the puzzle: why Stan had no records, why he didn’t legally exist, the way he fought back no matter how impossible the odds were, that nagging feeling that he knew this kid from somewhere, the similarities between his and the girl’s powers, not to mention those weird looks he kept catching out of the corner of his eye, the way Stan has said something about protecting ‘her’ in his fit earlier, the concealment of his transness, the recognition in Stan’s eyes since the start–...

Oh.

Declan smiled.

Oh, Stan already knew. 

He knew, and he kept it to himself.

On purpose.

That conniving little fucker.

 “What? What holy shit?” Stan squirmed weakly under Declan, demanding his attention back as always, stuttering like he did always did whenever he got scared or angry. He even tried briefly to twist around to look at the man seated on top of him, only before immediately giving up and laying his head back down on the floor.

Declan rolled his eyes and held back a chuckle at the poor little guy as he tossed out some half-assed excuse he didn't even bother remembering, then grabbed his phone to take a picture of the brand. He’d definitely have to bring the uh… dishonesty up. But later. Stan was much too high for any of that right now. 

Though it did feel a little bit gross to take a picture of Stan like this while he was drugged, especially with how much he’d fought Declan about the brand earlier and especially after Declan had forcefully stripped the guy. But Declan needed proof.

None of it even mattered in the long run, anyway. Declan still had a job to do.

“Yeah… maybe you should…” Stan retorted loosely into the floor. “Not… Aheh, uh, throw me… to–... walls anymore…” 

Declan nearly burst out laughing.

Yeah. Maybe.

Maybe Stan should consider that next time he's being a little shit.

He pulled the white shirt back over Stan's head with some large amount of difficulty, and probably much more swearing than necessary since Stan may as well have been a floppy fish weakly squirming against the floor at this point. Then picked him up with one arm under the stomach, tugged the oversized white shirt down over his skinny little twink body, and then, with a sigh, let him drop unceremoniously back onto the floor and went to retrieve a plastic water bottle from his little plastic grocery bag, patting himself on the back for a job well done. He’d successfully de-bindered Stan without seeing the kid’s stupid man tits. Hooray! All that work to specifically pin him down on his stomach so they'd be hidden from Declan’s gaze, all because of Stan’s incessant fighting about it before. The things I do for my captures, he thought.

He was not looking forward to the indefinite amount of time he’d have to keep doing this.

“We don’t know how long, love,” Lana had said over the phone, “That fiancé of his doesn’t believe he’s dead, and you better believe he'll raise hell about it, the poor man. There’s probably going to be some extra ‘convincing’, paperwork, you know how it is. He can’t be here. Just hold onto the little guy until we get everything cleared up.”

So that was that. No argument. Just indefinite babysitting of a very unwilling baby.

Declan walked back over to hold the bottle out to Stan before he even fully agonized himself back up off his stomach, and yet somehow, miraculously, he still managed to do that skitter backward that he always did when Declan got even remotely close to him

He crouched down and shoved the bottle into Stan’s hands. “Drink,” he ordered. “Not too fast though.”

Stan looked in bewilderment at the bottle. Almost like he couldn't believe something so sacred could just be thrust within his grasp like that. Then his brow furrowed. He popped open the cap and sniffed it, then glared angrily at both the container of liquid and the person who’d given it to him. “Don’ want your stupid–”

“It’s not drugged. You haven’t drank water in almost three days, you’re gonna die. Drink it, NOT–!”

Half the water already disappeared, drained down Stan’s throat. Declan scrambled and snatched the water out of his grasp. “Not too fast! Christ, you’re gonna throw up!”

“But– But…” He smacked his lips, shook himself off like a dog from the water that spilled on him from Declan’s snatch, then gaped for a moment around the room as he once again seemed to remember the concrete and the chains that held him prisoner. “Fine. Who cares? Protein bar’sss-ssstupid anyway.”

Eh. Fair enough. To be honest, after the like, eight protein bars Declan’d had over the past few days, he was also pretty sick of them. He’d get them both some actual food later. 

With that task half-done, he stashed the half-empty bottle in his back pocket. “You can have the rest in a bit,” he told the wet cat of a human he was still inexplicably in charge of. Stan’s shoulders drooped. He just nodded, eyes affixed to one specific spot on the empty opposing wall.

Declan looked around at the mess of torture implements strewn about the room. Anything else he needed to do before they left?

Oh… 

Yeah, right.

“You need to go to the bathroom, runt?”

Stan's eyes shot up to his captor, then settled there for just a moment. Then drifted away into the middle distance for a longer moment. Narrowed his eyes slightly. Declan just about took that as a signal that he needed to save Stan from an apparant stroke when his head shook a slow and conspiratorial ‘no’. 

Declan rolled his eyes, already producing a hairpin out of his hair to click open Stan's ankle fetter, then pulled him to unsteady feet and guided him out the door to the dinky little bathroom at the end of the hallway. Stan didn't even struggle as Declan held him up, too busy ogling at the apparent novelty of being out in the hallway without running for his life.

“Five minutes,” he told Stan, depositing the vacant-stared man in the bathroom. Then he shut the door, started the count somewhere in the back of his mind, and went back to the torture room to clean up so they could finally head home.

God, he felt like shit.

Almost as bad as the kid looked, actually, which was saying something because little Stanny looked pretty fucked.

He was just tired. They both were, actually, that's why Stan had to be drugged. Sure, Declan enjoyed putting him in his place, but after the fifth time, after nearly three days of this, after almost two nights of no sleep, another prospective sleepless night of driving, double the usual amount of G to compensate for that, probably not enough food or water himself, and Stan still testing his patience at every turn… yeah, Stan needed to stop. For both their sakes. Mostly his own, if he valued still having at least one working knee.

Declan meandered over to Stan’s shredded former grey button-down and swooped it up off the ground, inspecting the damage Vaughn caused with those shiny steel surgical scissors of his. The shirt couldn’t even be recognised as a shirt anymore. Just a mess of crumpled fabric lying miserably on the floor, kinda like Stan had done for most of time he’d been here.

Vaughn was gonna rip that poor kid apart.

It wouldn’t be neat and clean like the persona that creep worked so hard to maintain, either. He usually waited until at least the drop-off before shining his true colors as a giant fucking creep in the safety of his creep-ass torture lab. Never directly in front of Declan, and certainly not outside of his jurisdiction like this. Sure, Declan was a piece of shit, but that man’s shittiness truly defied all modern interpretations of physics.

Although…

Declan pulled out his phone to stare at the picture of the hero brand again. Proof of his suspicions. Proof of identity. Proof of both their past misfortunes. Proof that also happened to contain evidence of the brand new abuse Declan had caused over any old scars that had long since faded. With Stan’s now bare back sporting a very mottled score of blacks and dark, painful blues and tender purples and even some fading greens and yellows and reds of all kinds: dark, smeared, and caked burgundy blood, or the bright, raised welts. Definitely a couple of broken ribs in there too. Not to mention all the distress peeking out from under that damn collar, the probably several concussions, the emotional turmoil, the mental distress that danced across his face every time Declan so much as stepped in his direction.

All of that was his doing, huh? Not Vaughn’s, save the missing shirt and the single clean slash running along his jawline. 

Declan.

He twirled his gun around his middle finger, relishing the way it fell so cleanly back into his grasp, the thump of the wooden grip against his hand and the shining, perfectly balanced metal.

Oh well.

Those were just their roles;

Hero and villain. 

Predator and prey.

Bounty hunter and captive.

Stan knew the rules of the game. He'd been given a choice to comply every time. Every time. And every time, he chose to fight. 

So Declan didn’t feel all that bad about it.

Four minutes gone by.

He needed to get back.

He did one last check over of the room, put the chain away, placed the chair back, got all the rope and weapons and even Stan’s crapped-up shirt, and put it all in his plastic bag. Then he went ahead and put on his hat and bandana again, because he’d be damned if he broke any more of the rules that kept him alive in this business for ten years and counting. Then headed back down the hall to the bathroom.

And to a not-at-all-surprising Stan who was agonizingly slowly and painfully and single-mindedly mading his way down the hall. Step by wall-assisted, unstable, limping step.

Did he even go to the bathroom?

Declan wasn’t going to check that. Stan could suffer if he didn’t.

“Stan! Really, runt?” he called out, tromping over to the captive. Stan jolted violently and loosely spun around with a loud squeak, except his feet forgot to move along with the rest of him and sent him crashing and clawing into the wall for any semblance of support. A look of pure unadulterated fear cascaded down his features. No defiance. No anger. Just wide-eyed, breath-taking, heart-pounding, fist-clenching fear.

Declan didn't even say anything. Stan stumbled backward as Declan got closer and landed wrong on his bad leg, enough to cause a cry of pain that almost unbelievably slowly turned into a battle with gravity that ended with Stan crumpled on the floor. Stan groaned and yelled in frustration. Then slapped his hands over his mouth, eyes wide, shaking. For a moment, Declan could only see the lurching of his body as he curled in on himself, then the shaking turned more into heaving, shallow, impossibly quick breaths, and as Declan got closer, it became very clear that it wasn’t just crying or whatever, but laughing, quietly cackling while clutching at his bad knee, whispering “ow, ow” to himself in between giggling heaves.

Declan took a deep breath. He didn’t have the heart to punish him about the escape attempt, if you could even call it that. Or the energy. Pick one.

Stan’s gaze shot up to him, straining against the stupid collar that rendered the admittedly very powerful super helpless. Tears shone in his red and dilated eyes, sparkling in the fluorescent light, a smile stretched and cracking across his face like a long-rotted jack-o-lantern still left out three weeks after Halloween.

Then dropped completely.

“Please don't hurt me,” he whispered, shuddering.

No.

No, he begged.

Like something out of a horror movie.

Some weird sense of subdued panic and revulsion wove through Declan’s chest, a feeling he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. Then just a sense of overwhelming weariness at the pitiful sight.

They both needed a break, didn't they?

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he conceded softly, pulling the half-empty water bottle back out of his pocket and placing it into Stan’s shaking hands. “Not now, anyway. Drink the rest of this, yeah?”

Stan simply clutched it, never once moving his unfocused and bloodshot gaze from his jailor. Declan sighed, grabbed the bottle and carefully twisted the cap off, and even more carefully lifted Stan’s death grip up to his lips so he could drink. The whole ordeal reminded him of taking care of a drunk friend, way back when. Except they weren’t friends. 

After a tentative pause and an immensely encouraging and monotone “it’s not poisoned, don’t drink too fast,” from Declan, he swallowed the first tentative sip. 

His entire body untensed, practically melting into the wall. He drank until the entire bottle disappeared in his shaking hands, head lolling all the way back to let gravity gift him those last few drops as it crushed to practically nothing

“Ya done?” Declan asked languidly. 

Stan nodded.

“Good. I’m gonna tie your hands behind your back now, and then we’re goin’ out to my car, and we're leaving.” He explained slowly. “If you can behave yourself, you can sit in the passenger seat. Otherwise, you’re goin’ in the trunk. Agreed?”

“B-but-but–”

“Agreed, chiquito?”

Stan looked around the room as if desperately searching for the answer. Then nodded.

“Great. Also, that's what she said,” he chuckled

Oh, he was definitely delirious.

Stan didn’t even fight him this time as he yanked the man up and turned him around to cuff him. He barely even stood, practically limp, swaying on his feet, with the only thing keeping him standing being his single locked knee and Declan’s occasional shoves that kept him from leaning too far in any one direction.

Declan didn’t like drugged Stan. Even if it was funnier, easier. He'd rather Stan fight him, because that'd at least show he's able.

Though the real Stan would be back in another 12 hours or so, and by then he’d probably be missing drugged Stan just as much.

He pressed the captive into his side for support without even checking if he could walk on his own, because he obviously couldn’t, then made a mental note to get Stan a temporary cane later. He felt so small, so… nonconcrete, pressed into Declan’s side, forced to rely him to do something as simple as walking. 

So squishy. Fragile. Breakable. He almost couldn’t believe that the person giggling and drooling into his precious leather jacket was the very same as the one he’d spent night and day staking out to find the perfect way to capture, making sure he accounted for every detail, everything that could possibly go wrong, because in every scenario if things didn’t go exactly according to plan, Stan would absolutely crush Declan into a fine paste before he let him get anywhere near him.

He couldn’t dwell on those differences now. He couldn’t mourn the fates of all the people he captured. It broke the rules, the rules that kept Declan alive, and it wouldn’t be fair to all the supers that came before Stan; Those who never had anyone to mourn them, and those forced to continue living in a special type of hell even as their loved ones mourned their deaths, accepted it, and moved on. Even as their own selves died, and yet their bodies kept on living anyway.

He couldnt dwell on it unless he wanted to become one of them himself. Metaphorically. Literally. Who even cared anymore? He was too tired for this. Not thinking sounded like a great idea right about now.

Declan shoved Stan into the passenger seat of his truck, practically threw him, actually, then rummaged through the glovebox until he found the little baggie filled with those special little white pills and popped one in his mouth

Wonderful. Great.

He buckled Stan’s seatbelt for him after a brief confusion when Declan told him to, but he realized he couldn’t and got very upset and scared and started shaking again before Declan just went ahead and did it for him.

Declan slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition, relishing the rumbling sound of the motor reverberating through his chest as it roared to life. His head already felt clearer. The world a little brighter, despite the bright crisp orange of the setting sun dyeing the sky an ever-darkening, gorgeous mixture of hot pinks and burnt oranges and burning reds, spanning unimpeded except by whisping grey clouds breaking the harmony of the dusk-washed light. Then the stars, near invisible speckles, sparse at first, teasing even, until they slowly and inevitably beckoned forth the darker violets and deep indigos and what looked to be the purest of blacks broken up by the sprinkling of the purest white stars, soon to be a cavalcade too numerous to ever count.

So big, all-encompassing. 

Light years away, unencumbered by the existence of humanity.

Even Stan couldn’t help but stare in the silence.

Deeby let out a deep breath.

“Alright, bud. Let’s head home.”

* * * * * * * *

Next

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy | @pirefyrelight | @cakeinthevoid | @painsandconfusion | @books-are-everything

@paperprinxe | @tippytappytyping | @chaotic-orphan | @notactuallyluska | @lumpofsand

@watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees | @whumpwhittler | @thelazywitchphotographer

(A special thank you and welcome to all the new people who joined the taglist! Y'all are genuinely so wonderful :D If you'd like to be added or subtracted from the taglist, don't be afraid to ask!)