#tw: implied/referenced murder | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deadsetobsessions · 7 months ago

Text

Pt. 4

Sorry this took so long. In the hospital still. Out of the hospital now!

For @unadulteratedsoulsweets

——

It had been early in the morning when she’d stepped foot in the manor. It was closer to noon, now, that found the reincarnation attentively sitting in one of the (if she remembered correctly from the blue prints) three massive kitchens located in Wayne manor.

She sat atop one of the island stools Damian had ushered her into, spaced a comfortable distance from the man that was her biological father in this life. Her mask dangled at her hip, a comfort she indulged in after unpacking her things. In truth, she’s had cookies before, but it had been so long since she’s tasted it that she might as well have never tried it before. Damian and Alfred Pennyworth worked with maximum efficiency, measuring out flour and sugar and chocolate like there were no tasks more important than this.

Alfred Pennyworth also avoided a specific cabinet that smelled slightly of metal polish and gun powder. It was kept away from the perishables.

Perhaps the manor was smaller and much more homely than the palace, but the reincarnate could see the sense in and approved of the various well-hidden caches of weapons around. Meant for non-lethal take downs, of course, but anything can be lethal if you tried hard enough. Or, considering the vigilante filled manor she had agreed to vacation in, anything could be lethal if one did not try hard enough to keep it non lethal.

The scrape of a spoon drew her attention back to Damian, waving away the off topic musings her mind had wandered into now that a large portion of her brain power was freed from the duty of fear.

She tracked how Damian existed within this space he had so clearly made for himself. He was… happier. Kinder. More. More at ease, more settled into his skin instead of where he stretched it to fit the cast of the Demon’s Heir. Simply, more. He was more Damian than he had been in the league.

When Damian was locked within the walls of the palace, his shoulders were always held straight. There’d been a- not quite darkness- cruelty in his eyes and gait that their grandfather had eagerly nurtured. His chin had remained lifted, his actions closed and callous. She’d feared, for while, that Damian would follow their grandfather’s footsteps. Until the day she saw him sneak a bird into his room to heal, her heart had trembled and grieved to see someone she loved imitate the worst parts of her abuser. It didn’t change the fact that she loved him, but it changed how she taught him.

But experience is a better teacher than she will ever be, and Damian had little chance to experience true kindness in the pits of the league.

Here, Damian is light. Perhaps less aware than he normally would have been, on the look out for fatal attacks as she had trained him to be within the league, but here he is free and safe and relaxed. It feels like she’s sitting in a haze, the chirps of birds and the clouded noon sun casting everything into an unreal light.

“Ukhti, assistance is requested.” Her brother holds out a bowl of dough. Her heart hurt with how happy it was. She squished the dough between her fingers like a child rediscovering her childhood. In some ways, she was.

——

As she watched Damian, in turn the others observed her. Bruce sat beside her, cataloguing every minuscule expression of his child, the first and the eldest, in an attempt to make up for lost time. And truly, it was minuscule. For all Bruce trained in micro-expressions and movements, his eldest- god, he had another daughter, the eldest- daughter remained a mystery from which he gleaned little of. Her face never lifted from that trained neutrality, having resettled back into it after first bite of b’stilla. He cradled the mug of coffee in his hands, the tang of grief and guilt roiling in his stomach as his daughter hesitantly but skillfully rolled a ball of dough.

“Pennyworth has divulged his secrets to me.” Damian plucked the ball from his sister’s hand, who allowed it with traces of… bemusement, perhaps? His eldest daughter flicked her eyes up in question, perhaps mildly amused. Even if she had more than two decades worth of training, Bruce was frustrated that he could not read her. She was his daughter.

Already he fails her. For too long, he had failed her.

“He chills the dough for a chewier cookie. I, and some of the others with adequate taste, prefer this texture. But which would you find adequate?”

His daughter flickered through that sign language again, the one he had no knowledge of. Considering he knew multiple from each continent, that was saying a lot. He was catching a few repeated signs, but nothing concrete.

Alfred waited patiently as they had their conversation, paying sharp attention to their motions. Bruce… felt like he was sitting next to Cassandra. He supposed they were the same, except his eldest daughter hadn’t gotten free.

“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.” Damian grumbled, resting his hands on the counter, making sure to keep it away from his meticulously clean clothes. “We’ll cook them immediately.”

Bruce, in a fit of inspired parenting, offered a compromise.

“We could do two batches. One for right now and save a batch for later.”

Unspoken were the words ‘so she can try the cookies now.’ Despite the silent nature of his intent, Bruce thought that Alfred and Damian understood anyways.

“A fine suggestion, Master Bruce.”

“Thanks, Alfred.”

——

She sensed them before she saw them. Her father had slipped out after his suggestion, no doubt intercepting his flock of traumatized orphans before they could pile in.

Perhaps she had inherited something from Bruce Wayne after, considering how many of them she’d taken under her wing. She rolled the ball of dough between oiled fingers in a haze. Faint memories, impressions of a life long faded, guided her hands as she smooshed the cookies to her preference.

“Penny for your thoughts, Miss Al-Ghul?”Alfred Pennyworth asked her.

‘A Pennyworth for my thoughts?’ She swapped sign language, eyes slyly watching for Damian’s reaction.

Damian, right on cue, clicked his tongue, looking defeated. Alfred, on the other hand, smiled wider.

“A Pennyworth for your thoughts indeed.”

Her humor faded into something softer. Longing. Melancholy.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve made dessert for myself.’

She glanced at Damian, who was trying his best to pretend like he wasn’t paying attention to the conversation lest he caught another stray pun. ‘Or used it to inoculate poisons.’

“I see.” The butler patted his hands dry onto a towel, a sharp eye on Damian’s efforts at covering the dough meant for freezing. “I assure you that these cookies will remain poison free, have no worries about that. Now, would you like some tea?”

She shook her head. ‘I’ll make it myself later. Thank you.’

“Very well, Miss-”

“Hi, Alfred. Making cookies?”

Her hands continued to work on her tray, placing cookie dough on the tray with military precision. Damian remained relaxed, though watchful of her reaction.

“That’s correct, Master Tim.”

Tim shuffled over to her, and she turned. Ah, her partial benefactor.

“Little photographer.” She smiled, slightly. Her eyes, however, were warm. Alfred stilled for a brief second at her voice.

“Hi. It’s been a while.” Tim plopped down on the seat next to her. His whole body screamed of nostalgia. It’s odd to see the little scrawny Bristol boy grow into a full fledged vigilante. It seemed like yesterday she was keeping him from slipping on Gotham’s manifestations of its rot and plummeting down on its stone heart.

She hummed. ‘Not too long.’

“What is that supposed to mean? When had you met Drake, recently?”

She glanced at the little- not so little- photographer.

“She helped me bring B back.” Tim lied. She didn’t like how easily he lied to Damian… but on account of her fondness for him, she let it slide.

“Did you, Miss Al-Ghul?” Alfred wiped his hands on the hand towel he carried. “Then I suppose we owe you our sincere thanks.”

She blinked slowly.

‘I didn’t do much. I kept him alive just the once.��

“That is a harder task than one might think, Miss Al-Ghul. Master Tim has, arguably, the worst self preservation instincts out of the life risking vigilantes I have known.” And he has known many, Alfred seemed to imply.

She tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Hey! What is this? Gang up on Tim day?”

“I would participate in that even if it wasn’t,” Damian stated, packing the frozen cookies away in the corner. “Come and help, Drake. My ukht is about to have her first cookies and we will bake it to perfection. Bring the tray.”

Tim scoffed but slid the tray away from her, Alfred seamlessly dropping a napkin for her to wipe off the dough from her fingertips.

“Thanks, by the way. For saving Z and Owens.”

‘They were my assassins. Even if you did manage to sway them to your cause.’ She tapped the marble island, before opening her mouth. “Thank you. For destroying his pit options. It helped me kill Ra’s.”

In her peripherals, Damian settled back, disgruntled but willing to rest his curiosity as gratitude towards Tim’s part in her freedom overrode his need for answers.

Tim stilled. “…What are friends for, right?”

‘Of course, little photographer.’ She relaxed as her, arguably first, friend and now brother popped the tray into the oven.

“Anyways, they sent me in here to see if you’re ready to meet the rest of them.”

“And they said that?” Damian scoffed, coming around the island to stand beside her as she slipped off the stool.

“Nah, they actually wanted me to subtly vibe check her, but it’s not like she wouldn’t catch me doing it.”

“Ukhti’s ‘vibes’ are perfectly fine,” Damian said crabbily, crossing his arms defensively. She tapped the back of Damian’s neck and he relaxed.

‘Thank you for the… assessment of my character and general disposition.’ She signed dryly.

“Ugh, I should’ve made the connection. Your syntax is exactly like Damian’s.” Tim joked, dodging the punch Damian aimed at his nonexistent spleen.

The reincarnation huffed. ‘I spoke perhaps three words to you.’

“And how many people use disposition on a regular basis?”

“I do, Drake!”

“I know, Damian. That was the point, you little walking thesaurus.”

——

They left Alfred in the kitchen, the man all but shooing them away so he could get working on lunch, and made their way to a sitting room. The floor was covered in a plush blue carpet, a fact that made itself vividly present to the reincarnation when she placed her foot on it, the fabric brushing the back of her heels. She was too trained to allow the slip to visible, but for a microsecond, the memories of kneeling and choking clawed their way past her defenses. She made note of the trigger and moved on, compartmentalizing that fact for later.

“It’s you,” Nightwing breathed out, tensing. The others behind him freeze, even more alert than their regular state. Bruce whipped his head towards him, sharp and searching.

“Nightwing.” She greeted. She felt a kinship with this vigilante turned brother. She watched him soar and fall alongside the little photographer. She watched him grow new wings and watched them get tainted with blood and fear and grim hope. She lived vicariously through him, he who flew when she was chained. In some ways, she had ended up watching his back for a long time, both in yearning for the ease he was allowed at her father’s side and to protect the vulnerable back that knew not of its openness. Bruce inhaled deeply at her voice.

Dick stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. She does not disembowel him for it. Instead, she allowed the giant octopus hug her new oldest little brother gave her. There was no aggression in his countenance. Only relief and gratitude.

“You know Dick?” The little, ah, no, she doesn’t want to sound like Ra’s, Tim asked. Dick tensed, clearly unwilling to speak about it. She stepped in.

“I met him once. Eliminated a spider for him on a rooftop. I did not think he would remember.”

“Is that why you were so adamant on knowing who ukhti was?” Damian demanded, scowling. She immediately freed an arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. Damian ducked away with a rather petulant scowl. "Not because of my safety but because she crushed an arachnid for you?"

Dick nodded at him before looking up at her. “I really hated that spider. It was super scary. Thank you for getting rid of it.”

In lieu of an answer, she gently hugged him back.

“I get the feeling.” She said solemnly, voice coming out soft and borne of an implicit understanding. ‘Talk later,’ she signed to him.

“I was not aware you were afraid of spiders, ukht,” Damian muttered. “Though, Richard, I would believe.”

“Hey!”

Dick detached himself and pasted on a mostly genuine smile. “Oh! You should meet the others!”

He turned to the rest of Bruce Wayne’s wards and children to cheerfully point them out.

“This is Duke! He’s Alfred’s favorite grandkid, because he hasn’t burnt down the kitchen yet and reports when he’s injured.”

“Hey. Nice to meet you.” Duke Thomas raised a hand, smiling. “The bar was literally on the floor with you people. ‘Sides, Jason did just fine.”

The reincarnate nodded. Yes, she knew of him, though her memories were hazy. It had been over two decades, after all.

Dick steamrolled onwards. “This is Stephanie-”

“But you can call me Steph!” Stephanie Brown interjected, bouncing in her seat. Despite her bubbly demeanor, her gaze was sharp. Seeing. She liked that sharpness. It was tempered by the same rough and tumble kindness she’d seen in Grave- ah, Jason.

Spoiler, her memories reminded her. It was a soothing distraction from the anxious memories of the league. She found herself collecting little hints and information about this family. Her family, even if it were tentatively so. She caught Bruce staring at them intently, visibly anxious about this meeting.

‘A pleasure to meet you.’

“So… what do we call you?” Steph tilted her head. Hm. A tell Ra’s would have beaten out of her, had Stephanie had the misfortune of being in his presence for more than a day.

“Al Ghul will be adequate.” Damian cut in. The glance he threw her promised a discussion upon the topic of her name. Later, it promised.

“Wow. That’s kind of impersonal though.”

“Steph!”

“What?! I’m not wrong.”

“Anyways!” Dick loudly said over the two bickering kids. “That’s actually it for now.”

“The rest aren’t here as of this moment, but they’ll be around for dinner.”

A white lie. She studied Bruce for a moment before acquiescing. He meant no harm. Despite his capability to inflict harm, his willingness to do so, she could not read a single instance of ill will in him. Not, at least, towards her. She allowed the lie to slide.

‘I wish to see the grounds.’ She put a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He knew what it meant for her to retreat to the wilderness. Nature, where most things were free and where one does not often find Ra’s after he’d had a taste for luxury.

“We will go to the gardens. Ukhti wishes to explore.” Despite the rather curt way he pronounced it, Damian had stepped closer to her side in a gesture of concern. The pit inside of her stomach eased.

“Sounds good! Let’s go!” Steph bounced out of her seat.

“We could tell you stories,” Tim offered from behind her.

“Yeah, like that one time Dick face planted onto one of Poison Ivy’s flower beds because he was distracted by an ice cream truck.” Duke grinned, eyes crinkling.

“Hey! That ice cream truck was full of Scarecrow thugs!”

“And they weren’t worth an Ivy-lecture. I’m surprised she didn’t skin you and make a pot out of your bones, Dick.” Tim yawned.

“Ooo, we should tell her about the time I hit you in the face with a brick!”

“Literally what more is there to that story, Steph?” Tim grumbled.

“I would like to hear this tale,” Damian said, beginning to tug his ukht towards the garden. The rest of the group followed.

“Actually, why don’t we tell her about the time you tried getting Batcow to the barn and he just sat down? Didn’t you bargain with her for an hour, Damian?”

“Tt!”

Duke leaned back and took in the chaos he unfolded with a twinkling grin and Bruce’s sigh bolstering him. And if their newest and oldest addition to the family relaxed in his chaos, well, that was between him and her.

——

Cassandra found her in the gardens, the both of them weaving in between the foliage like light footed cats. Her contingent of Bats were behind them, watching the two former assassins approach each other.

Cassandra had frozen, mirroring the reincarnator’s stillness.

“Ukhti.” The word was torn out of Cass’ throat, filled with tears and relief.

“Cassandra,” she called, fond and kind and loving. Damian’s eyes darted between his sisters. They knew each other. How? She called his ukht, ukhti. A title he had assumed only he could use.

Cassandra scrambled and launched herself at her, silent sobs shaking her frame.

“Hello, Cass,” she caught the flying vigilante, crushing her first little sister into a tight hug. “Freedom suits you, habibti.”

Cass trembles in her arms, hands clutching at the fabric on her shoulder blades like Damian’s. Her eyes softened, and she rested her chin on Cass’s head.

“You know Cassandra too, ukhti?”

She nodded.

“Ukhti named me.” Cass said, voice wobbly. ‘Cass. Cassandra.’ Cass did her name sign. The one she had taught the slip of a girl back when Cass was stuck in a senseless prison and she was only free in terms of movement.

‘First word too.’ She smiled, proud of Cass and how far she’s come. Cassandra reads the pride in her language, the safety and kindness that she’d never forgotten even after traversing the world for years before arriving home, and she burrowed deeper into the hug.

“Oh. I see.”

“Two ukhts.” She smiled at Damian.

Cass shook her head, but before Damian could settle into his hurt at her supposed rejection, Cass explained her confusion. “Ukhti is your name? I’m Cass.”

“Ukhti means older sister.” Damian informed her.

Cass blinked and looked back at the reincarnation. Her shoulders relaxed and drew back, eyes softening and body loosened from its confusion. She smiled, bright as the sun, and deftly clambered around to perch on her older sister’s back.

“Two.” She declared. And truly, the reincarnation was weak to her younger siblings because that was that. Cass declared it so, and it shall be so. Damian grumbled but seemed like they agreed.

“How did you two meet?” Bruce piped up, intent and surprisingly considerate.

“Saved me,” Cass sighed, resting her chin on her ukht’s head. ‘From father and the league. Taught me to speak, a little. My name. Cass. Taught me..’ Cass paused. “Taught me I am not a weapon.”

The former assassin carrying Cass on a piggy back ride hummed in agreement.

“Oh.” The rest of the family glanced at each other. Dick had his shiny teary eyes on, the ones he got when Jason initiated a hang out.

“Not a weapon,” Cass repeated, pressing firmly on her ukht’s head.

A less sure hum. Cass scowled.

“No. Bad,” Cass scolded. “Not a weapon.”

An acquiescing hum, full of fondness and exasperation.

Cassandra Cain will take that answer. For now.

“You named Cass?” Duke asked. Bruce looked at them with gentle eyes.

“After a heroine I knew.” She replied, shifting. Cass hugged her tighter, intently listening. “She was strong. Lethal if need be. But… kind. She had an inherently kind heart. Full of love. Like Cass.”

“Oh, that’s really.. that’s really sweet.”

Cass hugged her ukht closer, touched. She had never known why she had been given the name, but finding out that it was after a heroine her sister looked up to made the day that much brighter. Hopeful. Honored.

“You have not told me this story,” Damian said.

‘I will. One day.’

——

Jason found her at the lunch table. Along with the rest of the brood. Except for, jarringly, an alien named Jarro.

“He’s our alien brother!” Duke said. He smiled, and it was a smile of unassuming harmlessness. A well crafted mask that she knew better than to be fooled by.

She offered three long blinks that had Cassandra, stuck like a limpet on the reincarnator’s back, muffling a laugh.

“Telling truth,” Cass whispered, sentences punctuated by giggles.

She hummed, shifting to more securely carry Cass on her back. Damian sighed and dutifully carried Cassandra’s pack. She smiled at her little brother, who straightened. Adorable. All of her siblings were adorable. She would kill for them. Ah, right. They frown upon murder here. So had she, once. Before Ra’s broke that part of her heart and forced her hands to commit evils that grew gnarled vines through her very soul.

“Oh.” She blinked.

“Hm?”

“Killing is… a choice.” The conversations around them fell silent. Cass’ arms tightened around her shoulders.

“We don’t have to do it, anymore,” Damian agreed. Yes, he understood what it was like, to be raised to kill and suddenly having the option not to.

“Did you not want to kill, before?” Bruce asked, suddenly a bit closer. Her mind was slipping, she realized. It felt… safe, to slip.

‘If I did not,’ she admitted, like throwing stones off of a lock-laden bridge. ‘Damian would bear the consequences.’

She sounded… young. Afraid. Two things she had always been and were never allowed to be.

Bruce Wayne looked at her like his heart was breaking, like he wished he could shoulder her pain on top of the weight of the world he willingly carried since his parents died. This, she is reminded, was why she swore Damian to secrecy regarding her existence. She wondered if he had ever taken the burden of more grief than he could bear.

‘And I could not say no, regardless,” she told them, absent and tired.

She wondered if she would be the one to break him, should she allow him a glimpse of the scars on her back.

“I could have taken it.” Damian grabbed her arm, clutching at her sleeve once more.

“No,” she whispered, haunted. ‘Not while I drew breath, habibi.’

“You don’t have to kill here. We’re all very good with no murder.” Tim reminded her firmly.

“Unless it’s the Joker.” Steph chimed in, bubbly smile gentled into something kinder.

“Unless it’s him.” Duke agreed. His eyes were more serious now.

“No,” Bruce replied, tired. Heavier, in a way that made sour tang of guilt scratch the back of her tongue. She hadn’t meant to give him the weight of knowledge, but she had inadvertently done so with the things she had and hadn’t said. He wasn’t the world’s- she glanced at Tim, who quirked a smile at her- second best detective for no reason.

“Yes, but you’re not ready for that conversation.” Dick snapped, lightheartedly.

Ah. That’s what was off.

They’re kind. They choose to be and they inherently are kind.

It showed. And she wasn’t used to that.

“Lunch.” Cassandra reminded them. She was a solid, grounding presence at the reincarnator’s back.

“Oh, Jason said he’s on the way.” Duke commented, nodding when she quickly did a subtle thank you sign.

“Why does he text you and not me?” Dick whined.

“Wow, man. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the emoji wall you send?”

“They’re nice! How else are you supposed to know what I’m feeling, right, Cass?”

Cass nodded and gave a thumbs up from her place on ukhti’s back.

“See?!”

“I love you Cass, but you also use a wall of understandable emojis. Dick just spams them.” Steph retorted.

The reincarnator turned to Damian, a silent question in her eyes. He sighed. “Yes, the imbeciles argue all of the time.”

She nodded and the group made their way to the green house for lunch, bickering all the while.

When they get there, Jason Todd, along with Alfred Pennyworth were already at the table.

“Grave.” She greeted as Cass slipped off her back.

“Ain’t no fucking way, Trainer?” Jason leapt to his feet. It was odd, seeing him in casual clothes. Ra’s had kept him in armor most of the time.

“You know each other?”

“At this point, who doesn’t ukht know would be an easier question.” Damian grumbled. She tapped him on the head twice, a light reprimand.

‘Grave was part of your guard,’ she told him. ‘He protected you well.’

“You’re the demon brat’s older sister? That makes so much fucking sense.”

She felt her eyes go cold, lifting to stare at Grave’s rapidly paling face. He visibly backtracks.

“Uh- I mean, you’re Damian’s older sister?”

She regarded him for a beat longer before blinking, ice melting away at the change. The nickname chafed at her neck, too close from a fate she gave everything to save Damian from.

Her head dipped into a small nod.

“Wild.” Jason sat back down. “So, uh, how are you handling the pit?”

‘I am not.’ She informed him, settling down in her seat. Damian claimed the spot next to her and Cass quickly took the other, much to Bruce’s chagrin. Tim plopped down to the seat next to Cass, eyes zeroing onto the chamomile tea Alfred had set out for him.

Duke smiled at Bruce before sitting next to Jason, Steph skipping over and sitting next Dick and Jason at the same time.

“Ukhti managed to get rid of the side effects,” Damian informed the table at large.

Her little bat had the worst ability to make sure attention focused on her, the reincarnation groused. She sighed.

“How?” Clearly, Grave had forgotten how much she beat him into the sparring mat because he leaned forward to glare at her. Well, she hadn’t wanted him too afraid of her.

‘Magic.’

His face fell at the assumed non answer, but Damian’s nod had the entire table once more expectant.

She sighed and began weaving her magic.

——

She stalked through the shadows of the manor, at ease. Bruce and the others had left on patrol, hours ago. She was clad in her sleeping clothes, one of her less favored clothes. Her hands would get dirty again tonight but she was long past the point of lingering on those regrets.

“Miss al-Ghul,” Alfred turned as she stepped towards him, having made sure she made adequate noise as a forewarning. “Having a good night?”

She tilted her head, eyes inquisitively peering at the spotless china display behind the butler.

“Ah, you must be curious about the fine ceramics we have currently displayed,” Alfred smiled. “Would you be so kind as to indulge an old butler on this topic?”

She had an idea about the kind of gift Alfred Pennyworth would appreciate.

——

“Uh, whatcha got there?”

She blinked, pulling bloodied hands away from her clothes where she had been inspecting them. The assassin that caused the damage on her clothes laid beneath her feet, still and lifeless. She blinked again.

Nightwing, Dick, stood in front of her, freshly showered from his patrol.

Some form of long forgotten instinct rose from the dry rotted fabric of her faded memories had her responding, ‘A smoothie.’

“…That’s… not a smoothie,” Dick said as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I’m pretty sure that’s an assassin?”

She shrugged. “He was after Damian. To force him into being the Demon’s head.” She paused. ‘I am tying up loose ends.’

Dick considered her. And the he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Right, okay. I’ll help you get rid of the evidence.”

She waved him off, clicking her fingers and looking over the room with critical eyes as the body and traces of the fight disappeared.

“Woah, handy.”

‘Very,’ she agreed. ‘Did you need something?’

He made a face. “That’s weird. It’s usually me asking that,” he muttered. “Uh, yeah. I just… wanted to thank you again. And uh, let you know that the others don’t know so if you could not tell them, that would be great?”

With a huff, she reached over and up to gently ruffle his hair. ‘Of course. Damian did not know either.’

“Right,” he breathed. “You get it.”

She gave him a knowing look. “Been avoiding thinking about it?”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

She looked at him, silent. Offering a space to listen, and a quiet promise to offer no judgement.

“I don’t- it- I could have stopped her,” he told her, guilt and shame and the lingering whispering voice Catalina burrowing into his ears and heart.

And when he started, it seemed to him like he couldn’t stop. Dick told her of the things he felt as she got on top of him, of how numb and far away things were. How, if it rained, he couldn’t be in the quiet because it made him relive it.

“But… but you stopped her so I shouldn’t even be like this!”

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She told him, the first thing she’s said since he’s started talking. ‘The only one at fault was her. You trusted her to stop. She did not. Her crimes were not yours to bear.’

She paused, taking in the refusal she could read on his face. “If someone beats another person, would you blame the person who was beaten?”

“No!”

‘Then you are kind. But you are so kind to others, why not yourself?’

Dick fell silent.

“I killed Ra’s,” she reminded him. “He allowed many others to partake in my body without my agreement.”

She leaned towards him, the admittance of something she had not even told Damian ringing painfully in her heart but made all the easier to say by the fact that one of her little brothers (the free, first Robin, the son who stood by Bruce’s side when she could not) needed her. “He himself partook in me. And yet,” she added, when Dick looked up. ‘It is difficult to forget. I am still afraid when I step onto the carpet on the sitting room.’

“The carpet? The rug? The fluffy one?” He asked, confused.

“It is like… your rain and silence,” she crossed her arms. ‘That and the sound of rustling silk reminds me of his chambers.’

“Oh.”

‘I killed him and it will not go away. Would you blame me for that?’

“No, that’s how healing is- oh.”

“Be kind, to yourself.”

His chin trembled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Ukhti.”

“Ukhti,” he parroted, aiming a watery and small smile her way.

She held out her arms and, with Dick’s tacit understanding, tucked him beneath her wings like she did with Damian. “Thank you for offering to get rid of the body, habibi. But I would not want you to get in trouble.”

“Eh, I’ve helped Jason deal with worse.”

‘Comforting.”

“I know, right?”

——

“Why the hell do you keep calling me Grave?” Jason asked her, grumbling as he tried to wire his new helmet after the last one got damaged.

She leaned back, basking in the sun on the new rugs. After their conversation, Dick had set fire to every fluffy rug in the house-

“What the hell, dude?!” Duke gaped as he watched Dick cheerfully toss an expensive rug into the impressive bonfire they had going on.

“Ukhti doesn’t like fluffy rugs,” Dick said with a straight face. Damian dragged another roll to the bonfire with a scowl. “Alfred Approved project, if you want to join~!”

Duke stared at him… and picked up a roll to toss into the fire.

- and bought new ones using Bruce’s credit cards.

“You got some of your memories back, in the league.” She hummed. “You liked reading. Poems.”

“What does that even have to do with Grave?”

“I remembered one. A line. Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep…”

Jason twisted around. “Are you kidding me?”

She continued. “Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.”

“But I did die.”

She shrugged. ‘People still remembered you. Gotham and Bruce cried at your loss. I saw it.’

She straightened and smiled a small smile at him. ‘Besides. You got better.’

Jason snorted. “You too, I guess.”

She hummed an agreement, eyes slipping closed in the warm light of the sun, relief after a long second life of cowering in the shadows of a man more like a demon than he was a grandfather.

#dc #Batman #apparently oc got inducted into the dc version of ROOT from Naruto #thanks bestie I hadn’t thought of that #oc gets isekaid and proceeds to have a shit of a time #oc in a discovery channel narrator voice: a Damian in his natural habitat is a relaxed creature #reincarnation #oc in dc #me: oc gets hugs.#my sister used to give me piggy back rides and I kinda miss it #when we were young #unfortunately she is now old as dirt and her back sounds like popping bubble wrap #oc: I would murder for cass if she’d let me #oc: wow I’m feeling guilty #also oc: *is holding back tears at genuine kindness*#they have a greenhouse bc I said so #also bc that’s where they keep Ivy’s plant samples on hand #and bc Alfred likes gardening and that was Bruce’s gift to him on Father’s Day #tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon #fuck you catalina flores #if she has no haters I’m dead #tw: talk of murder #tw: implied abuse #tw: sa #the specific grief of watching someone you raised/loved grow to be like the person who almost broke you

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into-the-michaelverse · 9 months ago

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bonus!

#fnaf #fnaf au #fnaf fanart #michael afton #michaelverse #killer michaelverse #bonus #literally only three people actually have the proper context for what event this is referencing #but at least there can be theories!#also i'm currently working on an animatic of collective and their au's jeremy #so i guess this is how i'll introduce more characters onto the blog bcuz i have TOO MUCH world building #i tried posting this three times already and tumblr broke every time so i'm hoping it works #tw blood #tw implied murder #tw implied child death

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riderofblackdragons · 3 months ago

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Walk To The Depths (of the world)

Day 7: Only For Emergencies | unconventional weapon | magic with a cost | "it's us or them"

As promised, the second fic for today! This one's dipping into PJO, with a new AU called Water Heals (water hides)!

Percy had always been decent at picking apart various types of plants. When he was a little child, his mother would sometimes take them to the local park, and he'd drag her around, happily naming all the plants and flowers and giving her a few uses for them.

Things that were correct, but, as Sally would find out when she'd looked it up online later, were incredibly old usages, and more often than not had been replaced with more modern things since. Still, Percy enjoyed it, and Sally wasn't one to stop her son from having fun.

He nursed a mini garden in his room, too, little ferns and flowers. Some pretty flowers that he didn't tell his mother the name of, just that he had to have them, and that he frequently made sure she didn't eat any. A bowl of water hyacinths by the window, although Percy always felt a sense of sadness whenever he'd looked at it. He didn't know why.

Once she'd married Smelly Gabe, he'd tried to make Percy get rid of his plants. He'd called them an "eyesore", and openly derived Percy spending so much time on such a "girly" hobby.

It wasn't the only thing he'd tried to make them get rid of, because he hadn't liked them. Sally had gotten rid of a few things, just to please him, but she outright refused to make her son give up his gardening. It was his favourite thing, and eve nif she'd married Gabe, she wasn't about to put him above her son's favourite thing to do.

The argument they'd had over it ended in the first time Gabe ever laid hands on Sally. Much as the Jacksons would have liked it to be otherwise, it wasn't the last.

It became normal for Percy to duck as he entered their apartment, lest Gabe decide to throw something at him again. (It had only happened once, but Percy wasn't willing to take chances. Gabe's punches had only been the once, in the beginning, but they'd still escalated).

And Percy kept being kicked out of schools, too. His options got smaller and smaller, and Gabe just got angrier and angrier, until Percy sported a darkly beautiful array of colours across his ribs. Not that his mother knew, but there was only so often that Percy could take it.

Gabe didn't hit Sally much, though. Percy could take being his punching bag, if only his mother wasn't hurt. And Gabe was always so apologetic about it, bringing Sally flowers and getting takeout for dinner whenever he did.

Or, Percy noticed, whenever Gabe hit where it was visible. If Percy could see it, Gabe would be apologising. He didn't know if Gabe hit his mother where Percy couldn't. He never saw Gabe hit Sally, but the bruises were obvious.

Until the day he did. Percy had kept up his gardening hobby, and kept growing his plant collection. Whenever Sally could, she'd give him another plant to look after, turning Percy's room into a beautiful jungle. It was one of the few things Gabe hadn't managed to take from them through the years, along with their blue food and their trips to Montauk in the summer.

But Percy watched Gabe as his fist landed on Sally's cheek, leaving a red mark that was clearly going to bruise. And he didn't even apologise like he usually did. So Percy knew that he needed to do something.

He had many flowers in his room. Gorgeous water hyacinth, stunning lilies… Bewitching aconite. Its purple-blue petals swayed with its stem as Percy put on his gloves, and handled it very carefully. Aconite was dangerous, after all. It had killed Aristotle, and Medea's children in the myths. Percy had to be careful not to get it on his hands, just in case.

Percy didn't have much. It'd only been for emergencies, after all. He hadn't set out to kill anyone when he'd gotten it, but with how far Gabe had gone… It was an emergency, now. Gabe was hurting Percy's mum without any remorse, now. He had to go, before Sally got too badly hurt.

A cup full of aconite petals, his face grim, Percy set out to sneak it into his stepfather's beers. It was an emergency, after all.

Tag List: @captain-effy @what-the-fuckis-happening

If anyone wants to be added lmk!

#percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #percy jackson #gabe ugliano #sally jackson #au - water heals (water hides)#whumptober2024 #no.7 #fic #only for emergencies #tw abuse #canon typical abuse #abuse #implied/referenced murder

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riahlynn101 · 3 months ago

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Whumptober 2024 - Day One: "Search Party."

Word count: 1,106

Trigger warnings: Implied kidnapping, referenced child death, heavily implied child neglect, feelings of guilt, and talk of depression.

Welcome, everyone, to year 2 of me writing FNAF whump for a month straight! I hope you all enjoy :D!!

Fandom: FNAF movie (pre-canon)

Mike wants to cry. He wants to sob into his mom’s shirt, while she holds him. But he’s too old for that, and his parents are needed by the police.

He wraps his arms around himself, listening as the police talked in hushed whispers to his grieving parents. The small amount of hope they had, had been whittled away by the constant media presence camped outside their home, and the calloused looks of people that ‘would have never let their children get taken.’

It had been like this for weeks, and Mike honestly didn’t know how much more he could endure. He knows he has to be strong, if not for himself, for his parents. His parents are already cracking at the seams.

His mom either sleeps too much or not at all. Mike sometimes hears her, from his place in his room, screaming Garrett’s name.

And his dad isn’t much better, though he somehow manages to keep going to work. He argues with his mom a lot, something that Mike wishes he would stop doing (there exists a fear in him that, if his dad keeps pushing, mom will crumble and break). And when he’s not arguing with mom, he’s drinking away their leftover money. Money that could be better used on finding Garrett.

His dad, in a way, seems convinced that Garrett is gone. That it’s a waste of resources trying to find him.

Mike feels hopeless and more hopeless still when, after the officers stop talking, his mom lets out the most heart-wrenching cry. He hasn’t heard her cry like that, ever. Not when Garrett disappeared. Not when dad screamed at her, begging her to stop looking. And not even when a reporter shoved a microphone in her face and asked if she thought this was her fault.

It pierces Mike’s soul, like an icepick. He feels it in his chest.

He places a pillow over his ears, trying and failing to block out the sound. It doesn’t work. His mom’s screams of anguish carry all the way down the hall.

Mike knows then, without being told, that his little brother is dead. That he’ll never get to play with him again or tell Garrett he loves him. All the maybes are shattered with the force of his mom’s cries.

Maybe if he hadn’t turned away-

Maybe if his mom hadn’t spilled the pop-

Maybe if his dad looked over his shoulder, just once-

Maybe if Mike had gotten chicken poxs like the rest of his seventh grade class-

And maybe if his dad hadn’t decided to remarry-

There are so many things that had to go right for everything to go so horribly wrong.

His dad had sunk into a depression after Charlie and momma’s deaths (his first mom, the one that abandoned them. The one that his dad told him to never talk about). And despite what his dad might say now, he had loved momma. Loved her enough for Mike to be shocked when he started dating his mom.

He had been young at the time, maybe four at the oldest, but he remembered feeling confused and a little angry. It felt like his dad tried to fill the gaping hole in his heart with a new family. A new wife and, later, a new son.

Mike found he didn’t have any vitriol for his new mom. She didn’t look at him with eyes full of sorrow, or brush him off whenever he needed a hug. She forced them to sit together as a family every night, and helped give life to Mike’s very best friend.

He hugged his pillow, nausea growing with every passing second. He knows that, at some point, his parents will need to talk to him about Garrett. Or maybe they won’t.

Maybe they’ll just forget to tell him, letting Mike stew in a hell of his own making. Reliving the moment he failed Garrett, over and over and over again.

He cries.

“Mike,” a familiar voice calls. Instantly, all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Part of him wants so badly to look up from the pillow he mashed over his face, but the other part of him fears what he may see.

Tiny footsteps come closer to his bed. They sound so loud, standing out even against his mom’s sobs. “Mike,” Garrett, his supposedly dead little brother, calls again. “Look at me.”

He shook his head. “Nuh, no. You’re not real. Go away.”

Hands, smaller than Mike’s own, grip his bicep. They’re cold, inhumanely so, and when they clamp down, shocking him enough to drop the pillow, he sees the partial decayed body of his brother.

He’s dressed the same as he had been that day. His skin is tinged gray and his eyes have a film over them. “Mike….”

He screams, thrashing around.

“Mike?” His brother says, hands wrapping around his wrists. “Mike, wake up.”

“Mike?”

He blinks open his eyes. His room is dark, only lit up by the hall light streaming in through the open door.

“What’s going on?” He asks, groggy and a little shaken up. His dad stands above him, imposing and unreadable as he’s always been.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Just a nightmare,” Mike says, feeling silly. His heart continues to race, though, unperturbed by stupid things like “reality.”

“Was it about him?”

Mike doesn’t need to ask for clarification. They both know who him is. It hurts to talk about him, and it hurts to say his name. So, they don’t. They talk in circles, pretending that he never existed.

“No,” he lies. “Just a monster.”

His dad hums, not convinced in the slightest. But he does what he always does, and ignores the problem until he can’t anymore. “Okay.” He ruffles Mike’s hair. “Try to get some sleep.”

And despite being fifteen now, a sudden urge to be held and comforted by his one semi-functioning parent courses through him. “Dad?” He calls out.

His dad pauses in the doorframe. “Yes?”

“Can you ho-”

A high-pitched cry echoes throughout the house, signaling Abby’s wakefulness. It was both a blessing and a curse having a new baby in the house. And one that he’s usually grateful for, but right now he just wants his dad.

“Duty calls,” his dad jokes, hurrying out of the room. He shuts Mike’s door behind him, leaving the room in pitch-black darkness.

“Hold me,” he finishes. He turns over, facing the wall. “Goodnight, dad,” he murmurs, already drifting off.

In the quiet of the room, unheard by the sole occupant, a tiny voice responds, “goodnight, brother.”

#whumptober2024 #no.1 #search party #fnaf #fnaf movie #fanfiction #tw implied kidnapping #tw referenced murder #tw childhood neglect #tw childhood trauma #tw crying #cross posted on ao3 #fnaf fanfic #queue

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runelocked · 1 year ago

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❝ you passed out, i carried you here. ❞ — vanessa @hazardess , but she’s bitter about it

FEVERISH MUTTERING HAD HAUNTED HIM ALL NIGHT, ALL DAY, AND THE LAST MEMORY HE HAS IS LEAVING THE PIZZERIA, still shivering uncontrollably in the heat of the sticky summer sun. Head aching, angrily waving off his daughter’s questions: I’m fine, he remembers snapping, more of a groan than anything else, I just need air. Don’t you even think about. . .

The rest is a sliding, slippery blur. Despite everything he’s done and the lengths he’s gone to, it seems he’s still just as human as ever.

That’s the really terrifying part.

He can barely even face lifting his head from the makeshift pillow Vanessa has propped under him, the whole world tilting precariously on an axis of its own bearing. But he does: persists in rising, his pale face ghostly and off - color. Even trying to keep his daughter in focus hurts. She blurs in front of him, fades in and out between the little girl he’d initially doted on and the young woman he knows logically that she is. Is this his fever - addled brain trying to offer him a reprieve from the disappointment he feels his daughter has become ? – Clumsily reaches out for her, words heavy and absent.

“ ‘S a good girl, Ness. Always so helpful. ” Her father’s right hand man, through and through. Remembers getting her to hold his tools as he’d painstakingly built that old Spring - Bonnie suit, his pride and joy; remembers more recently handing her his knife to wash. Clean that up for me. We’ve done well today. Both killers. Nobody suspects him, of course they don’t. Confident words and faux charming smile keeping him out of public scrutiny, the loss of his own son only years before at the hands of his daughter.

He smiles that same smile now, but it’s pathetic. Laden with the sudden realization he feels helpless for the first time in a long time. If she’d wanted to kill him, she could have. Ended it all. He wouldn’t have even known. Maybe that’s why he addresses her now, in an exhausted facsimile of love he’d once shown her as a young child. “ Help me stand. [...] How long ‘s it been ? ” How long has he been lying there, human, vulnerable ? How long has she been watching over him; how long has she served her duty to him loyally today ?

#(( I THINK I REMEMBER SEEING YOUR VANESSA USED TO HAVE A YOUNGER BROTHER SO I INCLUDED THAT !!! if it's wrong tho lmk :3 ))#(ii) man behind the slaughter — roleplay thread.#(ui) original: standard.#tw child death #tw child murder #tw mental instability #tw sickness #tw hallucinations #tw illness #tw child abuse #tw dysfunctional family #( most just referenced / implied ! )#a; hazardess #(oxo) rabbit in the headlights: william & vanessa.#(xi) ‘the owner was pretty sentimental i guess 🤭’: movie verse.

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alilobsessive · 20 days ago

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Dreaming of Teeth

When experiencing great trauma the human brain will do anything to keep itself functioning, even to the detriment of the other body parts. The harm to your body doesn’t matter, just that the brain feels safe. For every human this can function in many ways, over eating, under eating, over sleeping, daydreaming and in your case alcoholism. You aren’t unaware that your coping mechanisms are dangerous, especially in a city like Gotham. But you can’t bring yourself to care, you’ll take anything then the anger and sadness that courses through your brain when you have time to think. So you indulge in your vices, even if they will lead you to an early grave.

You have done a great job at it too, of course that is until coming home from a party you run into one of the many people you prayed you would never see again. One of your many, many siblings.

I just wanted to see a Batfam and Neglected! Reader fic we’re Reader had AWFUL coping mechanisms when dealing with their trauma.

Tw: Prominent OC usage, unreliable narrator but it’s not super obvious, Under aged drinking, Canon Typical Child Death (Jason), Canon Typical Child Undeath (Jason), Not Canon Typical Child Death (Unnamed Child OC), slight sexual content with unnamed character at the beginning, implied criminal activity, mention of organ harvesting, referenced underaged smoking, unspecified criminal activity, implied homelessness, references to drugs and sex but no actual drugs and sex, okay there is weed smoking, child abandonment, spousal abandonment, child neglect, spousal neglect, cheating, references to Red Hood typical murderers and the people who are usually his victims(rapist, traffickers you know the drill). Probably more things I haven’t realized count as tw or forgot to add. Idk I went into a fugue state at 10pm and when I came to it was 4am and I wrote a good chunk of this. Then spent like two weeks editing this, there might be some spelling and grammar errors, I am very dyslexic.

——————

Lights flashes around the room colorful and bright, your lips tangle with a strangers, back pressed against a wall. Arms wrapped around the neck of someone you have not met before today and someone who you will never see again after. Sitting next to you glancing over every few seconds is your roommate and while you would not call Phoebe your best she is your closest. The young woman isn’t as big of a fan of clubs and parties such as this one, but every night she dutifully comes. Just to make sure you’re safe in the dark Gotham streets. A sentiment you truly appreciate, a type of care and love you have never experienced before her.

You lightly moan as the stranger grinds against you, both your breaths smelling of alcohol. You’re brain muddled, only thinking about how good you feel. Dumb and giggling, not a worry to be had, just like you like it. But sadly before anything could go further, your phone's alarm went off, the most dreaded part of the night. A reminder that all this must be over, and responsibilities must come. With a wet pop as you separated from tonight’s partner and a whine of sorrow you reach into your jacket pocket for your phone, the drunken stranger takes this as an invitation to go for your neck. Leaving feather light kisses across it, with a small giggle you lightly push them back. They oblige with a whispered “aww come on baby” you feel nothing as they say this, but you desperately want to.

Turning off the alarm that normally is a loud blare, but with the mind numbing beat of the music, so loud you can feel it against the wall. With a pout and you whine out “I know” while looking up at them clearly disappointed. “I would love to stay with you longer” you would, you don’t want the buzz to go away. “But I have to go” reaching over next to yourself quietly, your roommate hands your glass over. It’s slightly warm from being lovingly guarded in her hands. You chug the rest of it down, the bitter sting as it goes down your throat a soothing balm to all your troubles, including leaving. “Aaw, at least call me later” they pout, with a drunken giggle and sweet voice “of course!” You say happily and once again press your lips against there’s. It’s a desperate thing, a reluctance to leave their grasp. But you pull away anyway, knowing that the second they put a hand back on your hips you’ll have to be pried off.

The alarm is a clear indication that that's not what sober you wanted. They wanted you out by 10, so you will be out by 10. Stumbling away and then turning back around to blow them another kiss, they wave back almost dreamily before being dragged away themselves by their own drunken friend. Neither of you have the other's phone number, let alone know each other’s name. Neither of you seem to notice or care. Phoebe is already at your side, quietly dragging you out of the club. Once you’re onto the sidewalk you slump onto her. “I wanted to spend more time there” you slur out with a pout, but she only rolls her eyes. The woman was definitely not dressed for clubbing of any kind. Clothing more like pajamas, not a speck of makeup on her face. Glasses perched against a crooked nose that never quite set right after something broke it. Despite Phoebe’s quiet and calm demeanor you can tell she’s anxious, just like you she has her own vices. Issues that she blocks away, but unlike you who drains your sorrows in booze, clubs and one night stands. The far more introverted women drains them in weed, blankets and porn.

“I know” she says softly ending it with your name and a sigh, “but we both have to be up by 6” responsibility, the thing you both hate. The two of you would rather be indulging, hiding from and blocking out the world. Doing nothing but having fun and pretending your issues don’t exist. But you can’t live without suffering, and suffer you must to keep a roof over your head’s, stomach’s full and wine flowing. She leads you to her car, a red mom van Phoebe’s had since before you became roommates two years ago.

But before you're even close enough to open it, you hear a voice, one you haven’t heard in years. He calls out the name of a dead man, almost surprised to see you. You turn to look at him, fear in your eyes at the name. The sight of him alone almost shocks you sober, if that’s even possible. Although it’s been several years since you saw him, you can instantly tell who you’re looking at. Phoebe looks at you confused, but says nothing, not recognizing the name, but understanding what your reaction means. Fear and dread curl up in your stomach, you want to cry, you want to scream. Why, why is one of them here, all you can do is stare at the man in front of you.

Your mother is a wealthy woman, married to an equally wealthy man. The Wayne family owned the biggest tech company in all of Gotham, making anything from cars to grappling hooks. Of course that’s not all they do, even before you were born they practically owned this city. Not just with there wealth, but with how many different types of pie’s they have there thumb in. Your mother loved your Father with all her heart, but Bruce Wayne didn’t love her back. It was well known he was a serial cheater, sleeping with and going out with as many other women as possible. He only married your mother because he needed to, it was to get the board of directors off his back. A wife was perfect to clean up his image, but that wasn’t what he desired. Instead of cleaning up his act and at least hiding his affairs he made them public. Your mother was left behind, neglected and humiliated every day. You were born a year into their marriage, how that even happened you don’t know, nor do you want to.

Neither of your parents loved you, even your mother, the person you were closest to, wanted as little to do with you as possible. The small sympathetic part of you thinks she might have had postpartum depression, but the rest of you doesn’t care why she treated you that way. What she did to you was inexcusable. In your eyes at least. One day when you were three, something inside her snapped. You don’t know exactly what happened, maybe she found out about his secret. She loved Bruce after all, not Batman, finding out that the man you love is nothing but a parsons. The real personality, completely different, both more willing to live in a cave than with you would break anyone. Why she would love Bruce at all given his treatment of her you will never know, never truly understand.

So, that cold winter day you watched as your mother put on her favorite fur coat. How she packed her leather suitcases and anything else she had that could be used as a storage container. She handed you a photo kept safe inside a frame, one that would lead you on a wild goose chase for the next 13 years. It was when you were a baby, just born and sitting inside an incubator, born 3 weeks too early and far too small. You’re Father, staring at you with eyes you have never seen on him before and never will, at least not directed at you. Eyes full of love and affection, a look you will chase for far too long. Then she gave you a pat on the head with her gloved hand, you would follow close behind as she carried her bags and suitcases outside, your small body sat right next to the door as it was too cold and you weren’t dressed for the weather. You watched as she got into a car

and dropped off the face of the fucking earth.

It was like she was retconned out of existence, no traces of where she might have gone was found. You bet Batman could have found her, if he tried. A part of you hates that he didn’t, that he let her pack up her things, take her money and vanish without a trace, took a week before she was declared missing. She’s still a hot topic in true crime podcasts even 20 years later. That woman left you all alone, with a Father you only saw in pictures and a butler that pitted you. There was never love in Alfreds eyes, only pity that you must exist. He looked at your mother with those same eyes, it’s a miracle she hadn’t left sooner. She left you to sit alone with a desperate desire for their affection, something they never gave to you, but so happily gave to others.

Why didn’t she take you? Why didn’t she bring you with her? WHY-

You were 5 when Dick was adopted and not long later became Robin. He didn’t know what to do with you, he spent the first 13 years of his life an only child. He didn’t know how to handle a random 5 year old coming up to him and asking him to play. Tie that in and all his grief and anger at losing his parents, he wasn’t able to be a big brother, he didn’t want to be a big brother. But Dick isn’t cruel, he was polite and kind, but as distant as they come. In a way that was even more cruel.

Bruce loves Dick, maybe not in the way of a Father, closer to that of a much younger brother that suddenly became your ward after the untimely death of your parents. But it is love nonetheless, he took him to gala’s that you would never catch a glimpse of. To patrols, and crime scenes and fights, teaching him the best he could. But Bruce could barely look at you at dinner, if he did it was through you, not at you. How his loving eyes in that photo turned so cold in just a few short months, maybe even days or hours, you don’t know.

That’s exactly the reason you hated Jason, the two of you are much closer in age. He was 14 and you were 11 when he was adopted. It was at a tumultuous time, Dick just left being Robin after a falling out with Bruce, and you had just learned that your Father and brother were Batman and Robin. At first you didn’t get why Dick hated Jason, Jason was the kindest boy you had ever met. No he was the kindest person you had ever met, dispute living an awful life and having to go through nicotine withdrawals when he first moved in he always had a smile on his face. He never let his trauma get him down, or at the very least he never showed it to you. In your eyes he was one of the strongest people you had ever met, you never looked up to Dick quite like how you looked up to Jason the first month he was there. He talked to you, he went along with your games and silly stories, even came to your figure skating competition, he was the closest thing to an older brother you ever had.

That all came crashing down, the day you finally got it, understood Dick’s hatred. For the first time all three of you were in the same room and Bruce gave Jason that look, the look you’ve been striving for your whole life. In hindsight it made sense, who wouldn’t love Jason? All smiles and playful banter and an unending desire to help. But in your little 11 year old brain it felt like the greatest betrayal. You wanted nothing to do with him from that point on, ignoring him no matter how desperately he tried to talk to you. It got so bad that one day, you yelled at him and threw the closet thing next to you at him. You couldn’t remember what you threw but it didn’t really matter, Jason caught it with ease, although he clearly wasn’t expecting it, and you ran. The two of you very rarely interact after that. From what you overheard Bruce talking to Alfred, Jason was getting more violent. Although you couldn’t see it yourself, Jason was just the same as usual, and that love never left Bruce's eyes. He should be happy, he got everything you ever wanted, he was happy, or so you thought.

Then one day he ran away, on some stupid quest to find his birth mother. Why would he even want that when he had people that loved him right here? So what if they weren’t his blood, they were still his family. What did that get him? Both him and his bio mom getting murdered that’s what. You were so angry at him, he wasn’t even there for a full year and he was already gone forever? Just like that? You didn’t even get to say goodbye! You hated Jason, and you miss him so much. To this day your greatest regret is that you couldn’t reconcile, not that you have the balls too. Not once in your several chances have you done so.

Tim was next, you never cared for Tim and he never cared for you. The boy showed up out of nowhere, he’s the same age as you. First going to Dick and begging him to be Robin again, Batman needs a Robin after all. Instead of asking you, he went straight to becoming Robin. Not that Bruce would let you become Robin, and not like you had the desire to become what killed your brother. Tim was technically not a part of the family, but he stayed around so often he practically was. It took a long time for Bruce to love Tim, but he grew on Bruce like a fungus. You didn’t care about Tim, you weren’t desperate for his approval. All you wanted was your Father’s love, that he so freely gave out to everyone else. The man who so freely hurt both you and your mother in the most humiliating of ways, not even acknowledging your relationship with him.

You met Cassandra after Gotham was safe to come back to, thankfully before No Man’s Land

your whole grade was on a week long field trip out of the city. Unthankfully the executive order to activate No Man’s Land came on the first day of the trip. No one could go back home after that, for months a whole high school class was stranded. Many of the school students were members of the elite so they were quickly brought back to their families when they fled. But yours didn’t, you struggled as one of the many Gotham refugees. But dispute this, for the first time in years you felt alive. Admittedly your 16 year old self didn’t make the best choices. You didn’t have a credit card, any identification outside of the school ID, no access to Wayne money. So you did whatever you could to get by. You made friends with people you shouldn’t have been friends with, very quickly falling into the mindset of doing anything to get a quick buck. But being completely cut off from your family for the first time. It made you realize how little you needed them. No, how little you needed him.

So coming back to Gotham after several months was strange.16 years old and suddenly seeing everything so differently, how much of a fool you were for wanting your father's approval and several bad habits you still haven’t beaten to this day. The fact that while you were gone, they had replaced you with Cassandra, pissed you the fuck off. Of course it did, who wouldn’t be angry! But not at her, not anymore, you were mad at Bruce. You hated everything about him, about being reminded of him. But you still loved him, still wanted him to look at you, tell you to your face that he didn’t want you instead of avoiding you and pretending you didn’t exist. Maybe then you could finally move on, or maybe not, you’ll never know. Cassandra was here, just like Dick she was polite but could care less about you. Just like everyone’s favorite hero Nightwing, puller of the Hero community! Who could do no wrong even when he did, all of this pissed you the fuck off

and made you so, so sad.

So you drank and went to parties full of people you barely knew, and drank some more. Getting a fake id in Gotham isn’t that hard, nore was finding clubs that wouldn’t look at it with more than a glance. The hard part was finding ones that also wouldn’t sell your organs. Buy that point you were barely at the manor, barely at school, only just passing most of your classes, sleeping in as many as possible for a variety of different reasons. No one at home cared, not Bruce, not Dick, not Alfred and his stupid pitying face. Every day he gave you that same fucking look, like he was sad for you. If he truly cared he would have tried to help ages ago before you were even born. You wanted to punch that old man in the face, but you didn’t because everyone loved Alfred. He was like a grandfather to everyone else in the maner, even a slightly threatening glare would set them off.

School was a different story altogether. People card there, but most only cared to look down on you or make fun of you. Thanks to your Father's past treatment of your mother and the fact that you're rarely seen in public with them. It’s clear to a lot of people you're not favored, that does mean you’re not kidnapped for ransom every other week like most of your classmates. But it also means all the high society types don’t like you that much, they ignore you at best, openly mock and belittle you at worst. But at this point, you didn’t give a shit, you had entered the dreaded, edgy 16 years old ‘I’m a lone wolf’ faze. Which you would be stuck in for an even more embarrassing amount of time.

Of course as the child of a ‘superhero’ the world's greatest detective, yada, yada, yada, life can never stay peaceful. Or as close to a form of peace Mr. Edgy Too-Cool-For-School 17 year old self could grasp onto. No, in fact there superherodum infected your everyday life, of course it did, there were villains left and right. Honestly your superseded Gotham isn’t a ghost town with how much shit goes down here. But an underrated part of being a superhero is how many times someone can be killed and then raised from the dead. To the point that every time a superhero dies you aren’t surprised when they come back from the dead anywhere from a few months to years later.

For the first time in a long time though, you were surprised. There was man you don’t recognize in the manor’s living room, sitting on the couch, gaze glued to the floor looking deep in thought. Tall, muscular, and covered in scars. He looked like someone you would have worked under during No Man’s Land. Right before you can turn heel and leave, he looks at you, you look back. Face morphing in a mix of shock and fear, his own going from neutrality to his signature sunny smile that’s burned into your brain. Jason calls out the name of a soon to be dead man, with the same glee he did all those years ago. His voice having changed so much over the years. Instead of going to the brother you so deeply missed, who you never stopped mourning, regretting, guilting over. You do what you always do, what you’ve been doing for years in fun different ways

You run

Just like your mother before you, on a cold winter’s day you put on a jacket. Pack as many bags as you can carry, take all the money you saved up and leave. Just like your mother before you, Batman, Bruce Wayne, the man you both desperately craved the love and affection of for so many years. Never comes looking for you, none of them do not even Jason. You’re a coward, same as your mother. You will always be a coward, you have come to accept that fact. That you will never be strong enough to confront them.

Yet you can’t leave this city, you don’t have the heart to.

In a place like Gotham, no one glances twice at a teenager carrying lots of bags in the cold. You don’t look twice at them either. As quickly as you can, you change your name. Not just your last name, your whole name, first, middle and last. With no remnants of your Father and mother left, the Wayne you once were is dead. You are now a new person entirely, at least in a legal sense. Now your name is just yours not there’s, if only you could change more on a deeper, visceral level.

Life was tough, but it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle, got help, made friends. Eventually finding your way into the shabby apartment you live in with your roommate, your closest friend. Now you’re living comfortably, compared to before at least. Of course someone had to fuck it up. We’re-we’re he- Jason, he stands right in front of you, okay not right, he’s a good 5 or so feet away, but it wouldn’t be hard for him to just walk closer. Fuck you haven’t seen anyone in that good forsaken family in person in 6 years! Now that you finally have everything together, finally have a decent life of your own. You’re biggest regret and shame stands right before you.

Phoebe takes a step in front of you trying to protect you from Jason. Like she can protect you from a muscular man twice her size, a former Robin no less, even if it was a short stint, even the most basic of training is fucking brutal. Jason looks amused at her reaction, clearly having the exact same thought. He calls that god damn name again, if you were sober, you would have probably pretended to not know who that is and say he got the wrong person. But you’re not, you’re drunk and scared, and that’s a recipe for disaster. “That’s not my name” you say quickly, but not steadily. “Wa-“ he looks at you confused, then he really looks at you, with the eyes not of an older brother running into their estranged sibling on the street. But as a trained detective, “are you drunk?” Jason asks in a mix of shock and concern. “That’s not-that’s none of your fucknn bugisiness” you slur out, definitely drunk but also panicking. Walking closer Jason continues to speak “I’m your older brother! You getting drunk and running around the dark streets of Gotham is definitely my business!” Instead of responding like a sane and rational person. You grab Phoebe by the arm and yell “GET IN THE CAR!” Then booking it to the car with your best efforts, Jason just stands there watching you, baffled.

Opening the door and shoving Phoebe in the front seat, she awkwardly crawls over to the driver’s side. You then slide in and slam the door closed, already aggressively shaking her saying “drive! drive! drive!” Increasingly panicked, before she can even properly get seated. She lightly shoo’s your hands away as she gets seated and pulls out her keys. Turning the car on and speeding away, both of you unaware that as she pulls away from the sidewalk Jason takes out his phone and takes a picture of her license plate. He put it back in his pocket with a sigh, now Jason was planning on letting you come back home on your own terms. He completely understands the desire to brood away from your family for several years because you’re mad at them. But after seeing that? Well it’s clear to Jason that if he doesn’t force you to come back you never will

and we can’t have that now can we?

Your appointment is small, two bedrooms both just big enough for a twin and a dresser. An open living room and kitchen, with a single cramped bathroom that can’t even hold a tub. The few windows all open to an alleyway with a fire escape that is barely up to code. One of the windows is boarded up, having been broken recently during a Batman chase sequence. The guys your landlord hired to fix it won’t be able to come for another week. Your couch looks like a possum had given birth in it, which might be true seeing as Phoebe stole it off the street with her old roommate before you came into the picture. The tv is so old it’s still a box and doesn’t get Netflix, not like either of you are subscribed to a streaming service. Pirating all the way! Compared to Wayne manor this place is a dump.

It’s perfect

Really most places would be considered a dump by Wayne manor standards. This has been the second nicest apartment you lived in since you moved out. And you don’t even feel like you’re mooching off the kindness of a sweet single mother and her 8 year old brat with this one! Currently your face is shoved into a pillow as you lay on the stolen possum nest. Phoebe stands by one of the windows, having opened it and leaning on the sill. You can hear a lighter being flipped on and off from we’re she’s standing. Then the smell of weed smoke fills your nose.

“So..” she begins “what the actual fuck was that” “I don’t want to talk about it” came your muffled reply. “No seriously what the fuck?” She said, you could hear her footsteps walking towards you. “Out the window!” You point behind your back to the general direction of the window. “Listen I’m all for ignoring your problems and keeping your dark past to yourself” she ignores your previous statement, her voice much closer than before. “But as your roommate I need to know the basics of what I’m working with here. That guy who looks like he works for The Penguin or some shit-“ “Penguin?!” You almost laugh out. “Ya! Like gang shit!” “I know but why The Penguin?” She sputters at that “I don’t fuckin know! He’s like on the top of my Gotham gang leader’s tier list!” “You have a tear list?? The Penguin is on the top of it??” You’re voice filled with a mix of amusement and confusion “We live in Gotham!” Is her defense “Of course I have a tier list!” Phoebe huffs.

You squirm onto your back, face still covered by the pillow. “Hold on, what level is Red Hood?” “He’s not on it, he’s a superhero.” She says it like it’s a fact, “he’s literally not though? He kills people” “please the only people he kills are rapists, abusers and human traffickers. Hero in my book- the point is I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not with the Joker-“ that sentence alone made you laugh for a minute straight. Phoebe stood there quietly smoking her cigarette as you cackled violently. Once calmed down you finally say “Jason would rather hunt him for sport then work for him. I can’t imagine any timeline where Jason works for the Joker. That would be so out of character for him.” She hums in acknowledgment. “So this guy- Jason- you’re brother- shows the fuck up out of nowhere, both of you shocked to see each other dead names you-“ “in his defense I changed my name after we cut contact” “right good on you Y/N” that statement made you lower the pillow from your face and onto yours chest. Staring at her from the other side of the couch like she’s crazy.

“Y/N?” You ask “ya, you know like, your name? Y/N” “no I get what you’re talking about” you cut her off. “But why the fuck did you just call me the name placement for an X Reader fic?” She shrugs and takes a drag of her cigarette. “Helped with calming you down, didn't it?” “What? Ugg” you put a hand up to your face, “your distracting me!” “And probing for answers!” She cheers out. “So what about him got you so freaked out, hmm girly pop?” You groan again, properly sitting up, feet on the floor, pillow in your lap. She slides into the now free spot next to you.

“It’s just- we have a super complicated relationship, and he’s the sibling I have the best relationship with, but with him still being in contact with the family… I don’t know, we… we got into a bad argument and before we could make up he… went missing for 5 years. Then he was suddenly found after being declared dead for so long- I… I panicked, ran… ended up here.” You look in the opposite direction of her almost shamefully. The both of you sit in silence for a bit, it’s quiet for a long time before with an almost defeated sigh she finally speaks. “When I graduated high school my grandparents went on a road trip to go to a family reunion in a different state.” She starts, and you turn to look at her “I stayed behind, my relationship with the family wasn’t the best to begin with and I didn’t want to spend several days in a cramped car with people I barely liked. My younger sister on the other hand went, the two of us had a pretty significant age gap, about 9 years. Just a day into the trip they got into a nasty car accident” She takes a stutery breath, and puts her cigarette back in her mouth, blowing on it. “Everyone else, my grandparents, aunts and cousins. They all lived, not her though, she was the only person in the car that wasn’t an adult, the others got serious injuries that needed surgery’s for. But her body was decimated, died instantly, and brutally mangled.” You just stare at her, horror clear on your face. Hers is almost completely blank, not even hear at the moment, mind far off and somewhere else.

“Why are you telling me this?” You ask her, she glances over to you before looking away. “You were telling me things you didn’t want to talk about, to remember. So I’m doing the same.” “but yours is way more detailed. I was being so vague! Now I feel bad” “don’t be, I was debating on if i should tell you this anyways. No pressure with going into more detail about your mysterious past.” with a sigh you look down at your feet. Not knowing what to say next, if you should even say something next. Finally after a bit of internal debate you say the first thing that comes to mind “this is not how I wanted the day to go”, Phoebe laughs “me neither”. “He probably won’t be an issue.” You continue fiddling with your hands, “the rest of my family never really cared about me, I was basically just a ghost in their house. Hell I don’t even know if my sister knows my name!” “Yeesh” “ya… he was the only one that really cared, so outside of him probably having already found where we live-“ “what” “we shouldn’t have to deal with the rest of my family” she opens her mouth to speak again. “Or worry about gangs” she closes it “most of my siblings work for are Dad’s tech company anyways. They have no reason to join a gang.” “A family business? In Gotham?” she chuckles “If it doesn’t have ties to some gang or isn’t like 3 generations old or both, I don’t see that place still standing.” now you laugh, if only she knew.

If only she knew.

——————

A/N time!

I have some more ideas for this AU but I admittedly don’t know much more of what to do with it. Like I have a lot of ideas for character relationships but not a lot of plot. I know at some point Reader is dragged back to the Wayne’s but I haven’t fully decided if it’s willing or not.

I do have a few ideas for what Reader’s name was before they became a Y/N L/N. But I didn’t want it to come off too much like the reader is an OC. I also don’t want to pick a name that someone reading this might have. Which is a slim but very there possibility, would be pretty fucking immersion, breaking if the character who canonically change their name to be yours/whatever OC you make already had yours/whatever OC you make is first name. So I’ll probably keep those ideas to myself.

Also if it isn’t clear, I have never once smoked in my life. I'm more of an edible girly myself, more powerful and you're not inhaling smoke! It’s a win win! Also I have no experience writing someone who is drunk or high, so there probably also written poorly. In fact I’ve never once gotten as drunk as the reader does in this. Admittedly I couldn’t figure out how to write the ending with them drunk.

Thinking about making the floor plan of the apartment in the sims, but idk it’s not going to be that important? If I do end up continuing this like I have planned. I’m already working on chapter two! Which expands on things mentioned here and hopefully shows even more how much of an unreliable narrator reader is. Idk I’ve only started the first few paragraphs.

I know not many X reader fics go into detail about the Reader is non from fandom relationships. Which makes sense, it’s called Batfam X Neglected Reader after all, not Reader and the OC gang. I honestly just felt like filling out the world with more non DC or other franchise characters. Don’t worry if I do continue this it won’t be a common trend, Phoebe will be the only commonly reoccurring named OC. If/when I add more they won’t be as prominent or fleshed out as her. She’s very important to the plot I’ve got cookin in my brain :).

Fun fact! Phoebe didn’t originally have a name! She was referred to solely as roommate up till the last minute!

#platonic batfam #batfam x reader #x gender neutral reader #x reader #Dreaming of teeth

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aftgficrec · 11 days ago

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Hi!!! You guys are seriously amazing. Do you know any good fics where Neil is essentially like a sugar daddy? Or just where he spends money for Andrew and likes to buy him things and stuff? Just Neil spending his money to make Andrew and the Foxes happy?

Hi, anon! When Neil is flush, he loves to spoil his man! - A

also see:

rich Neil spoils Andrew here

you may also like:

Mafia Cats by sirfatcat_mccatterson [Rated G, 4015 Words, Complete, Locked]

Andrew is canvassing an uptown neighbourhood for his mom's cat charity and rings on the latest of rich-shit houses doorbell. That house? The Wesninski residence.

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serickswrites · 6 months ago

Text

Whump One Shots VII

Whumpee injuring Whumper request--TW: captivity, torture, gag, restraints, non con, sexual assault, knife, stabbing, blood, failed escape attempt

You Deserved It--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, forced to watch, drowning, cpr, mcd, escape

Vacation ask--TW: captivity, torture, blood, wounds, injury, bruises, blood from the mouth, cruel whumper

Fill Someone Else's prompt--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, blood from the mouth, beating, forced to watch, broken bones, escape attempt

All They Could Do--TW: captivity, torture, injury, infection, delirium

Caretaker takes Whumpee's place request--TW: captivity, restraint, torture, electrocution, forced to watch, self sacrifice

In the Wings--TW: poisoning, collapse, unconsciousness

Get in the Water--TW: pursuit, captivity, escape, gun, gunshot, left for dead

Or Else--TW: restraints, captivity, torture, slap, physical violence, threat of violence, defiant whumpee

It's Over--TW: captivity, torture, blood, knife, stabbing, med whump, restraints, mcd, bleeding out, rescue, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hospital

Reprieve--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, physical violence, blood, bruises, cruel whumper

Whumpee forced to hurt others request--TW: referenced captivity, conditioning, trauma, shame

Tea--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, scalding, defiant whumpee

Victorian Vampire request--TW: blood, physical violence, withholding of basic needs, cruel whumper

I'm Here--TW: captivity, torture, stab wound, bleeding out, rescue, unclear character status

You're Not Going to Fight--TW: kidnapping, restraint, physical violence, defiant whumpee

I'll Have You Begging--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, physical violence, bruising, defiant whumpee, whipping, blood

Whumperless whump request--TW: car accident, fever, unconsciousness/fainting, hospital, sedation, illness

I Won't Let You--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, whipping, blood, yandere whumper (but not for whumpee)

Crunch--TW: attempted kidnapping, torture, restraints, broken bones, blood, rescue, hospital, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hurt/comfort, caretaker and whumpee

Lie Still--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, wounds, rescue, unconsciousness, bed side vigil, hospital, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hurt/comfort, caretaker and whumpee

Female Whumper request--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, muzzle, collar, strangulation, non con drugging, two whumpers, unconsciousness

Tentacle Whump request--TW: captivity, restraints, physical violence, bruises, inhuman whumper

Fragile Whumpee request--TW: captivity, dehumanization, drugging, cage, gilded cage

Saint Bernard--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, bruises, broken bones, loss of faith, lamentation, unseen caretaker

Gilded Cage request--TW: gilded cage, captivity, hopelessness, loneliness

Whumper drugs Whumpee and lets them go request--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, non con drugging, failed escape, cruel whumper

When In Rome--TW: capture, public humiliation, torture, restraints, whipping, blood, unconsciousness, bedside vigil, defiant whumpee

With a Price--TW: magical exhaustion, collapse, shaking, unconsciousness

Kneel--TW: capture, restraints, humiliation, future torture implied, cruel, sadistic whumper, physical violence, blood, broken bones, bloody nose, blood from the mouth

Do Better--TW: self sacrifice, burns, hurt/comfort, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, caretaker and whumpee

Ever Since You Shot--TW: betrayal, restraints, harpoon, blood, wounds, potential drowning, fade to black

In My Head--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, bleeding out, mcd, survivor's guilt, self destructive behavior, caretaker and whumpee, hurt/no comfort, grief

I Warned You--TW: lies, betrayal, manipulation, captivity, restraints

Crime--TW: betrayal, stabbing, blood, wounds, trust issues, fade to black, guns, mention of murder, knife

Crocodile--TW: threats, betrayal, video recording, implications of noncon, black mail

Death Will Do Us Part--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, wounds, electrocution, escape, unclear character status, unconsciousness

Faster--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, knife, forced to choose, forced to watch, self sacrifice

Just a Little Bit--TW: restraints, captivity, torture, physical violence, public humiliation, cruel whumper

No Trace--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, unconsciousness, rescue, blood, blood from the mouth, mcd, hurt/no comfort

Slurred--TW: concussion, head injury, migraine, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hurt/comfort, caretaker and whumpee

Answer Me--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, rescue, bruises, caretaker and whumpee

Video Killed the Radio Star--TW: captivity, gag, restraints, implied future torture, video recording, cruel whumper

Wake Me Up--TW: captivity, restraints, non con drugging, creepy/intimate whumper

Deflect--TW: implied captivity, implied torture, implied restraints, rescue, hospital, referenced temporary character death, hurt/aftermath, hurt/comfort, hurt/recovery

Why--TW: blood, explosions, wounds, conditioning, living weapon whumpee, blood loss, caretaker and whumpee

This is for Us--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, gag, blood, wounds, mcd, failed rescue, revenge

Ruined--TW: abandonment, heat stroke, lost

Watching--TW: stalking, illness

I See What's Mine--TW: black mail, trickery, bribery, cruel whumper

Give Me the Truth--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, truth serum, forced to watch, blood, wounds, stabbing, impalement, unconsciousness, unclear character status

Falling Stars--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, forced to watch, blood, wounds, infection, mcd

It Ends Here--TW: self sacrifice, exhaustion, magical exhaustion, unconsciousness

Voiceless--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, conditioning, brainwashing, creepy/intimate whumper

I'm Just Not Well--TW: rescue, captivity, torture, broken bones, blood, bruises, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hospital

Only Around You--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, referenced conditioning, relapse, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, caretaker and whumpee

First for Everything--TW: captivity, restraints, muzzle, torture, defiant whumpee, sensory deprivation

Spare--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, self sacrifice, forced to watch, drowning, mcd

For Good--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, medication, unconsciousness, passing out, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery

Whumpee drugged by Whumper request--TW: captivity, restraints, gag, non con drugging, creepy/intimate whumper

Whumpee refuses to move--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, physical violence, broken bones, bruises, blood, defiant whumpee

The Wheel Turns--TW: referenced death, referenced torture, referenced being burned alive, reincarnation, torture, restraints, drowning, revenge, hospital, unclear character status

Living Weapon in training--TW: conditioning, torture, threatening behavior, gun, gunshot, living weapon whumpee

Pretty Young Things--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, implied noncon, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hurt/comfort, caretaker and whumpee

Drugged Whumpee--TW: captivity, chemical restraint, noncon drugging, semi-conscious state

Whumpee asking Caretaker to leave them--TW: escape attempt, captivity, torture, broken bones, blood, wounds, blood from the mouth

Broken Things--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, caretaker and whumpee, hurt/aftermath, hurt/comfort, hurt/recovery

Deck the Halls--TW: gore, body modification, blood, corpse desecration, character death, mcd, captivity, restraints, gag

This Is Your Fault--TW: explosion, blood, unconsciousness, whipping, cruel whumper

Tell Me How--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, broken bones, rescue, hurt/aftermath

Black--TW: bruises, black eye, implied domestic violence

This Will Hurt--TW: broken bones, captivity, torture, field med, escape

You're Allowed to Fall Apart--TW: referenced captivity, referenced restraints, referenced torture, referenced failed rescue, gun, gunshot, wounds, blood, bleeding out, choking, mcd, grief, hurt/no comfort

Whip It--TW: restraints, blood, whipping, exposure, hypothermia, unconsciousness

Can't Help--TW: falling from a great height, fade to black, unclear character status

Crooked--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, broken bones

I Get Overwhelmed--TW: deserted, left for dead, head injury, bruises, sprain, hallucinations, dehydration

Panicked--TW: referenced captivity, referenced torture, PTSD, panic attack, hurt/aftermath

Greenery--TW: nausea, vomiting, poison

Cold whump request--TW: captivity, restraints, torture, forced to watch, hypothermia

Fear Itself--TW: captivity, implied torture, unclear character status, yandere

Forget Your Name--TW: captivity, torture, rescue, amnesia

Thrown--TW: physical violence, cuts, blood, wounds, hurt/aftermath

Comfort & Joy--TW: grief, death, mcd, referenced mcd

Frosty the Snowman--TW: explosion, head injury, blood, wounds, impalement, unconsciousness

Used to It--TW: emotional abuse, threat of violence, captivity of sorts

Advent Calendar--TW: kidnapping, restraints, drugging, manipulation, implied torture, cruel whumper

Under the Mistletoe--TW: threats, blackmail, referenced noncon, referenced videotaping

Let Me--TW: hurt/comfort, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, injury, broken bones

Sugar Plums Dancing in Their Heads--TW: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, temporary character death, nightmares, flashbacks, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery

Frightens--TW: manhandling, threats, kidnapping

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire--TW: captivity, restraints, gag, implied non con, creepy/intimate whumper

Everything Has a Price--TW: blood, impalement, stabbing, character death, self sacrifice, mcd

#serickswrites #not writing #writing organization #whump #whumpblr #whump community #whump writing

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hectorthedoggo · 8 months ago

Text

YES!!! WOOO!!

tws under cut

implied child abuse (this is fugue es we can't go 100 words without that one), panic attack, referenced murder

(@kani-miso eat up)

#milgram #milgram es #es milgram #fugue au #shidou kirisaki #muu kusunoki #haruka sakurai

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bloody-cupcakes · 5 months ago

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smacks this fic on the table

https://www.tumblr.com/bloody-cupcakes/753689763596353536/hello-can-i-request-something-with-jd-with-a?source=share

hihi hello hai

do u think u could write smth like this but w john…👁️👁️

Assuming you're meaning john bender from the breakfast club yes I can! I started writing something else but it ended up taking a mind of it's own and sort of spiraled out of control and away from the original prompt so if you're wondering why this has taken so long that's why 😭 I plan on posting the other one soon though if you're interested. Also I feel like this isn't very good?? Idk

Tw: yandere/dark content, gender neutral reader, yandere for yandere nonsense, both Bender and the reader are kind of crazy but the reader is a lot more obvious about it, swearing, mentions of underage smoking (weed and cigarettes), light stalking, implied/referenced abuse, mentions of violence/fights/implied murder

There were typically only two types of kids who ended up in detention: good, decent ones who made an honest mistake, and delinquents who either purposely got detention or didn't really give a shit. Bender was the second one, obviously.

When you first showed up in detention, he thought for a split second you might be the first type. That was until you looked over at him with eyes that were full of mischief and chaos, immediately giving you away.

"Hi," you greeted him like it was nothing. You were sitting at the desk in front of him, but you had turned around in your chair so you could stare at him like some kind of attention starved puppy.

He just looked at you for a second with a raised eyebrow, having no idea what to think. "Uh, hi." You were definitely cute, and you didn't seem to have a problem talking to him even though he was widely known throughout the school to be a criminal, but something about you was off, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It intrigued him.

"I really like your hair. It looks really soft." Being socially aware seemed to be something you clearly knew nothing about, because who starts a conversation like that? No one that was considered "normal" by that school's standards, he could tell you that much.

"Can I...?" You asked vaguely, trailing off while you reached your hand forward, as if you wanted to touch him. Part of him wanted to be annoyed, another part wanted to mess with you so badly, but eventually it was the third part of him that won out. As much as he tried to, he couldn't find it in him to care.

"Yeah, sure." He leaned forward and tilted his head down, allowing you to touch it. He heard you let out a gasp of delight before you moved your hand to rest on top of his head, gently stroking his hair.

The giggle you let out made him smile, even though he'd deny it if you ever asked. Once you were satisfied with touching his hair, you pulled your hand away and went back to staring at him.

Bender didn't think anything of it, thinking that maybe you were just kind of weird, which you definitely were, as it turned out, because you spent the entirety of detention bothering him. You were constantly asking what he was doing, and even when you weren't directly messing with him you still didn't leave him alone, choosing to just sort of stare in his direction. Other people might've been unnerved, but he didn't care too much.

He thought that once detention was over that'd be the last he'd see of you, but it turned out he was wrong when you started showing up in the school parking lot during lunch to get high with him and skipping class to join him with whatever random thing he was doing.

No matter what he did, you were there. He even caught you breaking into his locker a few times and trying to follow him home. The locker thing didn't bother him that much, since he knew you wouldn't snitch on him for having weed, but there was no way he was going to allow you at his house. It was hard having to tell you to leave him alone, but it was even harder having to imagine you littered with bruises and cuts because his dad had an off day.

That didn't mean you couldn't hold your own, however. He knew you could because he'd seen you yell at other students and even teachers for the snide comments they made about him. You were always so adorable whenever you threatened to get violent.

Despite that, he knew he'd never be able to forgive himself if you ended up getting hurt because of him. He'd already been in detention more than once for getting into fights with people who made fun of you for how "crazy" you were, something that he just didn't see. How could anyone not fall in love with that slightly unhinged look in your eyes?

One thing he never did have to worry about was spending detention alone, because unlike him you had no clue how to act natural whenever you were doing something you weren't supposed to. Whereas he could get away with certain things due to being clever enough, you couldn't because of how visibly insane you were. Sometimes you were given detention for no reason at all, it just seemed to be a precaution they were taking.

"I want you to tell me if they hurt you again," you suddenly demanded one Saturday while the two of you were hanging out in the library during said detention. "Your parents, I mean. Or Vernon, or anyone. You protect me, so I want to be able to protect you."

"I don't need you to protect me," Bender replied with a scoff as he lit up yet another cigarette. He didn't miss the glare in your eyes that formed at his words.

"I don't care if you need it or not," you practically snapped in reply. Other people would fear for their safety if they heard you use that tone directed towards them, but he was used to your temper flares by now. "I just- I want you to know that I care about you, y'know? And that I can keep you safe."

He paused upon hearing your words, thinking them over some before letting out a sigh. As much as he wanted to tell you to mind your own business, he knew you'd find out sooner or later. "The gym teacher threatened to break my nose for making him look ridiculous in front of the other kids," he muttered as he stared down, his cigarette momentarily forgotten.

Your gaze softened as you watched him, knowing how much it took for him to admit it. "I'm sorry that happened to you, John. I'll make sure to take care of it, okay?"

The way you said his name made his heart beat faster, an affectionate gleam in his eyes as he looked up at you. "I know you will. Just be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you, either."

Letting out a devious giggle, you gave him a twisted smile that would send other people running for the hills but only made the butterflies in his stomach get worse. "Believe me, I'm not the one you need to worry about."

A couple days later, said gym teacher ended up going missing. Several people were questioned by the police as they tried to find out what happened, including you two, but eventually they hit a dead end and were forced to file what happened under the cold cases.

You were right when you said you wanted to protect him, and unlike other people you made sure you followed through with it. I guess it didn't hurt to have someone that was considered crazy care about you.

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secret-gallavich · 1 year ago

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Shameless Whumptober Masterlist

just a list of all the shameless whump fics i wrote in october

Safety Net

tw suicidal thoughts

Mickey has always been there for Ian, even when he's in Mexico and Ian wants to jump off a bridge.

Solitary Confinement

tw mistreatment of mental illness

Ian’s meds were bound to get out of whack at some point in their prison stay.

Made To Watch

tw implied/referenced rape/non-con, implied/referenced child abuse

Ian and Mickey go to a couple’s therapist once a month.

Outnumbered

tw implied/referenced rape/non-con , implied/referenced underage sex , child abuse

Laura Milkovich is 19 years old when she gives birth to her third baby, Mikhailo. It’s the 10th of August in 1994, her husband is in jail and she’s a mother once again

You Said You'd Never Leave

tw suicidal thoughts

Ian comes home from the hospital and Mickey isn't there.

Insomnia

Mickey thought he was just having trouble adjusting to the new surroundings of living in the Westside. He’s not used to the quietness, he’s feeling homesick or the moon is too fucking bright.

Infection

Mickey’s never felt…normal when it comes to Ian. Ian makes him weird and do things he’d never normally do. Like get a tattoo of his name on his chest in prison.

Makeshift Bandages

Mickey hides an injury from Ian while working at the Kash 'N' Grab

Leave Me Alone

tw horror, mistreatment of mental illness, murder, dead dove: do not eat, paranormal, major character death

Ian's convinced something is haunting their apartment. Mickey realises he's telling the truth when it's too late.

Drugging

tw drugged, date rape drug

Mickey’s started going to the club with Ian just to make sure no one takes advantage of him. He lets Ian do his thing, give out lapdances, sweet talk them for some extra cash but he’s always stepping in when they go too far.

Floral Bouquet

tw major character death

Ian passes by a flower shop every day on his morning runs but can't bring himself to go inside.

You Will Regret Touching Them

tw implied/referenced child abuse

S03E06 but it goes differently.

Mickey feels like he’s going to throw up at any second.

He’s got a boy spending the night with him. Not just any boy, Ian. Ian is staying the night and he’s trying to play it casual but he can’t stop glancing over at the red head just to make sure he’s really there.

Don't Move

Mickey is allergic to bees and fucking hates spring

Who's There?

tw thriller, horror

Mickey is home alone and starts hearing noises outside the house.

Storm

tw implied/referenced rape, child abuse, internalised homophobia

Mickey's feeling post S03E06.

The hooker is still here, looking just as scared as he is and putting her purple dress back on under Terry’s watchful eyes. He throws her a bag of coke and she fumbles to catch it. Terry won’t stop glaring at her and Mickey takes it as his chance to look at Ian’s empty spot. He’d taken his clothes, wasn’t sure if Ian was allowed to get changed here or if he left in his boxers.

You Look Awful

tw gay bashing, hatecrime

Ian laughs next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and tugging him close and Mickey laughs back and turns his body into Ian’s. Adrenaline is running through his body and he feels so fucking good right now, it’s the best high he’s ever had.

Mickey's feelings post coming out

Bloody Knife

Ian wasn’t expecting their little trip back to the Southside to end up like this.

‘This’ being the emergency room because Mickey somehow got himself stabbed.

Borrowed Clothes

tw suicidal thoughts, psych ward

The first 24 hours are the hardest.

It’s full of regret on his own behalf, self-loathing and running thoughts of ‘what if’. What if he had been paying more attention, what if he wasn’t so focused on work, what if Mickey had been a good husband?

Body Modifications

tw implied/referenced child abuse

Mickey's always had a love hate relationship with his knuckle tattoos

#shameless #gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #whumptober #whump #fanfic

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riahlynn101 · 1 year ago

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Whumptober: Day Five - Alternative Prompt: "Broken."

Trigger warnings: implied/referenced kidnapping.

I just want to say, this story fought me. It's fairly short and I apologize if it doesn't make much sense. I might publish another story today just to make up for the low word count.

They say misery loves company.

Vanessa can’t disprove that. Not when she finds solace in Mike’s suffering.

It reminds Vanessa so much of her own.

The anguish of losing a sibling.

That burning, fiery feeling of self-loathing.

And the constant thought of, it’s all my fault.

Of course, logically, it wasn’t. Neither of them couldn’t have done anything differently. They were both kids.

Vanessa had been eleven at the time, and bedridden that particular day. Her brother was invited to a party. Technically, both of them were invited, but she had contracted a nasty stomach bug. So, her parents made Vanessa stay home.

The boy that invited them, Gabriel, also went missing.

Sometimes she thinks about how close she had been to sharing their fates. The what-ifs making her dizzy.

What if I didn’t get sick.

What if I went to the party?

What if Cassidy was the one that stayed home?

What if we both went missing?

What if…what if….what if….

Mike hasn’t shared much about his brother, or that day in general. It’s obvious even now, a decade-and-a-half later, it haunts him.

“That day….we went to a park. I can’t remember why…” Mike trails off, as if actually trying to recall ‘why’ his family went there.

“Mike,” Vanessa murmurs, trying to keep him on track. They don’t have a lot of time together. She got here late tonight, and her shift starts in an hour.

“Uh….sorry…um….we went to the park. Me and Garrett were so excited.” Mike smiles softly at the table, a faraway look in his big brown eyes. “We played pirates on the playscape, tag, and….”

“And?” Vanessa presses, quirking a brow.

Mike blinks, shifting in the chair. “And I was ‘it.’”

Vanessa listens patiently. Taking in his shuddering breaths and wet eyes.

“I…I was supposed to- supposed to find him, but I ... .uh ... .couldn't. I ran all the way to the parking lot. I thought maybe he hid under our car. He wasn’t allowed to, but since when do kids listen?” Mike chuckles a little at that, but his eyes remain fixated on the tabletop. “But when I got there I saw him in the backseat of someone else’s car, and they were driving away. I remember trying to chase after them, but I tripped. I think, maybe, I screamed. But I can’t remember very clearly after I tripped.”

Vanessa watches him closely. The words, ‘it’s not your fault,’ sit heavy on her tongue. But she knows from experience that he won’t believe her. Years of being told the same by therapists and counselors and every other adult didn’t make a dent in her self-blame.

“My brother,” she starts, watching Mike perk up at the change of topic, “and I were close. I told you once that I used to come to this place as a kid.”

He nods.

“Well, I came here a lot with my brother. Our parents couldn’t afford daycare and didn’t trust us enough to stay home alone, so they would just give us a few bucks and send us here.”

“Huh, very responsible of them.”

Vanessa makes a show of craning her neck to where Abby’s sleeping, curled up in the little fort Mike made.

He coughs. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“Anyways, so we spent a lot of time here.” It’s Vanessa’s turn to stare at the table. Memories rush back to her. The smell of pizza. Children cheering as the animatronics sang the same five songs over and over and over again. “Well, one day, my brother went to the pizzeria alone. It was a weekend, and we normally didn’t go on weekends. But my brother and I were invited to a birthday party. I….got sick. A stomach bug or the flu, I can’t remember now. So, I couldn’t go. My brother did though…” She bites her bottom lip to keep from crying. It had been years, almost as long as Mike’s brother’s been missing, and still, she can’t keep it together.

Mike lays a gentle hand on top of her’s. He doesn’t say a word, but the concerned look in his eyes says it all.

For once, Vanessa feels seen.

Misery loves the company of broken people. And Vanessa, the most broken of them all, staring at the only other person she’s ever met that could rival that, would be a fool to deny that.

#whumptober2023 #no.5 #alt prompt #“Broken.”#tw implied kidnapping #tw implied death #tw referenced murder #mike schmidt #vanessa shelly

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surfpent · 2 months ago

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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: Gen

Fandom: Dream SMP

Relationship: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit

Characters: TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF) Wilbur Soot

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical Horror Immortality Scientist Phil Watson | Philza Inspired by The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Implied/Referenced Suicide Blood and Gore Psychological Horror Post-World War II 70s Amsterdam along with various other locations and decades Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings Period Typical Attitudes Ambiguous/Open Ending Wilbur Soot is Not Okay Unreliable Narrator Specific TWs in Chapter Notes Supernatural Elements activates jonathan sims voice statement of thomas innes regarding his brother mcythalloween2024

Summary:

All he knows is that neither Wilbur nor he have aged since Autumn of 1943.

Or, well— it’s possible they are aging, just not on the surface. This is a hypothesis of Wilbur’s, also regarded whilst heavily intoxicated, which deters Tommy from giving it too much thought. His brother’s demeanor often contradicts said hypothesis anyway; he acts less like a man approaching his thirties and more so the role of the eighteen year old he’s supposedly trapped in.

“No point in being immortal if you can’t bend a few rules, eh?”

“I’m quite certain second degree murder is considered more than bending a few rules, Tommy.”

“In the eyes of the law, maybe.”

Wilbur coughs. “You see my point.”

“But what about God, Wilbur? What about His eyes? They’re all seeing ‘n shit.”

“I don’t think Big Man in the sky approves of it either.”

Tommy faces him with a blank stare. “Does that mean I’m going to Hell?”

@mcyt-halloween @swedisheek

#flor writes #c!tommy #c!wilbur

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thewhumperinwhite · 10 months ago

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WKW: Spine

Masterpost // Previous

@annablogsposts @whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @favwhumpstuff @the-monarch-whumperfly @iboopsstuff (also: i finally added a taglist to my main wkw doc, so please send me a message if you wanna be on that list)

TW for: back injury; burns; Magical Injury/painful healing; guilt; Injury To The Degree That It Is Kind Of Body Horror; potential/partial paralysis; referenced past abuse/murder; referenced noncon; nonsexual nudity (brief/implied).

----

Night has barely fallen when they bring the dying Prince to Feira’s salon. By the time she has stitched him together enough to leave him sleeping on her table, his face shadowed and aura flickering but death no longer crouching on his chest, the sun is streaming through the salon’s single window and directly into Feira’s eyes. She collapses back into the single chair that sits opposite her table, wiping sweat and stray strands of grey hair from her forehead with the least bloody part of her sleeve.

It should not have taken this long.

Spines are delicate things, and the care with which she knits one back together will mean the difference between a Prince who someday walks again and one who doesn’t; but she has studied the inner workings of the spine extensively, ever since she put the Prince’s back together from whole cloth after his botched execution. This was never going to be easy, but it should certainly be possible.

It takes her twenty long, harrowing minutes to identify the problem, as she has never encountered anything quite like it before. The iron manacle, clamped to the stump of the Prince’s wrist, is drinking in her magic. Sucking it up like a rag in a puddle. By the end of that first twenty minutes, she is sweating with effort, the Prince is still writhing with the effort of each breath, and when she happens to brush the manacle with the back of her hand, she draws back with a hiss. The metal is hot enough to burn her skin.

Feira is familiar with iron as an insulator against magical energy, of course. Magic-resistant armor is always made of iron; one of the earliest ways to recognize magical aptitude in a child is a rash-like reaction to the touch of iron. But she’s never seen anything like this before. She takes hold of the Prince’s wrist to examine the manacle—seeing, now, the way his skin is already reddening from the heat—and sees the unfamiliar rune welded into the metal. It can be no accident: it must be an intentional damper on the Prince’s magic.

There are—implications, there. About the fall of Fourshield House; about claims that the White Crane has made. None of which Feira has time to think about now, while the Prince is dying on her table, and she does not have the key to his cursed shackle.

It is—not an insurmountable obstacle. But it does mean that Feira must dig deeper into her Patron’s magical reserves than she ever has before, must strain her own aura to the point of pain and dig deeper into the Prince’s soul than she would ever have done given the choice—and must close her eyes to how the skin of his arm reddens and then blisters. The Prince slips in and out of awareness throughout the night; sometimes he is even awake enough to beg for mercy, though he never seems coherent enough to know who his torturer is, and Feira is shamefully grateful for that.

In the end, he still—has an arm, however useless it is without a hand attached. It is a horrible sun-scorched red up to the elbow; the place where the manacle once touched skin has burned down deep into the flesh beneath; in between the skin has bubbled and blistered in ways that make Feira have to stop in the middle and waste seconds she doesn't have gulping air and trying not to be sick. And even then—a spine is a finnicky thing. She may have twisted his arm beyond repair without even returning the use of his legs. She doesn’t know. Certainly he will be well within his rights to hate her to the end of his days, for these hours of torture if not for the years of neglect that preceded them.

But he does not die.

----

Thorne does not expect to fall asleep, not even when he gives up on pacing the hallway and sits down outside the Healer’s door with his forehead pressed to his knees and his eyes squeezed shut. Andry is not screaming as much, by then. Thorne doesn’t know if that means the pain has lessened, or the Prince’s throat has simply given out.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps; he doesn’t even know it's happened until he hears his Master’s voice—he knows it immediately, even in sleep, and is halfway to his feet before he is fully awake or his Master has finished the sentence—say, “What are you doing here?”

Thorne snaps to attention, though he has to grab the wall to keep from falling over while his vision clears. Morden is looking at him with blank surprise but no anger, thank the gods. Morden looks like he hasn't slept, either, and for some reason there is a smudge of blood near one corner of his jaw, like he has tried to wipe it away and not quite succeeded.

“Master,” Thorne says, his mind blessedly blank with relief. “I was—” Part of him knows he is not being careful enough, that he is too tired and wrung out to pay attention to what he says, that he must no better, by now, than to speak to his Master without thinking first.“Someone—I wanted to—they almost killed him, Master,” he blurts out. He sounds like a child to his own ears; high pitched and near tears.

Morden blinks at Thorne. Thorne cannot read his Master's face. That sends an immediate spike of panic into Thorne's guts that brings him halfway back into his body, thankfully. He pulls himself together, with a mighty effort, and bows his head properly, like he is giving an ordinary report, and his voice is almost steady, this time.

“There was an attempt on the Summer Prince’s life, Master,” Thorne says, without lifting his head. “I was—absent from my quarters at the time. I apologize for not taking more care with your gift.”

He should say more. He should tell Morden about the guards. Even if... they were enlisted men, not officers, but Morden might still notice their absence. Thorne didn’t even think to look around the Healer’s room' their bodies might be right inside the door for all he knows. He should tell Morden.

(The word "gift" shouldn't make his mouth fill up with bile, like he's going to gag on what his Master has given him. He should be anticipating his Masters needs and striving to meet them. He shouldn't be thinking about his Master's needs and feeling—feeling—)

(Morden, for his part, is afflicted with a strong desire to laugh. Thorne, his head still bowed, does not see this. Morden schools his features carefully before Thorne meets his eyes.)

“…I see,” Morden says. “And was that attempt successful?”

Thorne shakes his head.

“No, Master,” he says. “No, he—he’s alive. But—I—they—” The words do not want to come. But his Master is watching, so he makes them. “His back is broken, I think,” he says, though it comes out thin and whispery and wrong.

Morden raises his eyebrows. Thorne looks at the blood on his Master’s jaw. His Masters next words are muffled by the sudden buzzing in Thorne’s ears.

“I imagine he'll be fine,” Morden says, and brushes past him to open the Healer’s door.

----

Andry knows the ceiling of the Healer’s room as soon as he opens his eyes. It is decorated with vines and fruit and beehives, sculpted out of white plaster, cracked a little with age.

He feels cracked that way himself. He doesn’t try to move his arm, but even in stillness it feels

(like it is filled with crawling insects who are eating it from the inside like old wood like it is in a sleeve of struck matches like it has swollen so far that the skin has split like rotten meat left in the sun)

bad.

The door of the Healer’s room opens. Andry does not see who has entered, at first; he only sees Lady Feira, the old Court Healer, leap to her feet, placing herself bodily between him and the intruder.

“No,” Lady Feira says, in thickly-accented Leisevan. “No visitors. Get out.”

“Now is a bad time to be in my way, Madam Healer,” the Winter King says in a soft, gentle voice. His Craetan is very good, as always.

Andry feels his heart stutter painfully in his chest, but it has been a long, long night, and he is too tired to feel properly afraid.

Lady Feira is shaking her head. “No. It is enough. You have done enough, you will do no more, I will not—”

Andry takes hold of the Healer’s wrist with his good hand. She stills, though he can feel that she is trembling slightly.

“It’s alright, Feira,” he rasps.

Lady Feira turns to look down at him, over her shoulder. She looks—stricken in a way he has never seen her look before, even when his fever came back a few weeks after his back had begun to heal. He might feel sorry for her, in a few hours. He is too tired for it, just at the moment.

Lady Feira removes her spectacles and rubs her eyes, letting her shoulders sag and not looking at either Andry or Morden.

“Fine,” she says, after a moment, in Craetan. “Fine. Speak, Winter King; but do no more or you will waste the hours I have just spent keeping the Prince alive.”

Andry can see just enough of Morden over the Healer’s shoulder to see him cross his arms and raise his eyebrows at her expectantly. The Healer swears under her breath. She turns back to Andry.

“Don’t try to move,” she says curtly. Her expression seems more under control, though her eyes are still tight with misery. “I won’t go far.”

It’s—kind enough, as a sentiment. Andry knows she can do less than nothing against Morden, any more than he can. It’s nice that she's—thinking of him, he supposes.

Morden watches her leave. When she has closed the door behind her, he turns to look down at Andry, narrowing his black eyes.

Morden pulls up the Healer’s chair and sits down beside the sickbed. The Healer has draped a blanket across Andry's chest; it is the only thing between him and the Winter King. Andry tucks his ruined arm underneath it.

“Alright, Summer Prince," Morden says. "You've got my attention. Tell me about your sister.”

#the winter king's ward #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #broken bones #magical healing #painful healing #guilt #manipulative whumper #brainwashing and manipulation #<-it's not like Being Done in this chapter but thorne is. Feeling Some Cognitive Dissonance and he Doesn't Like It #back injury tw #burns tw #referenced noncon

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