#tw: phantom limb pain

[chess-blackmyre]

Captain’s Orders

Summary: His eyes were of the blue of forget-me-not, and of profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. --JM Barrie, Peter Pan

“Release me at once, human!”

“I think you’re confused, little crocodile,” she tipped up his chin with the curve of her hook, savoring the fear in his eyes. “On my ship, I’m the one who gives the orders.”

[c0ntr0lledchaos]

Febuwhump day 7: Suffering in Silence

 The winds howled outside as Elio frantically checked their machines around the house. They hastily checked off everything on their list as they did, not wanting to miss a single thing and risk everything failing. The quantum computer hummed softly as it warmed up, contrasting the violent winds outside, a matching hum coming from the stabilizers at each corner of the building. Elio threw on their coat, pulling the hood up over their black hair as they headed out the front door to check the outside.

 The weather looked just as bad as it sounded. The wind felt as if it would knock them over as they stepped off the porch and the rain pelted them relentlessly. It was cold. To cold for this time of year. The crops had been doing bad for awhile now, struggling to survive in the cold weather. Still, no one believed them when they said something was wrong.

 They made their way around the side of the house, looking for any damages that the wind had cause in the last thirty minutes since they last checked. Luckily, the work Elio had done to the outside of the small house had held up in the weather. Elio felt a bit of relief as they made it back around to the front of the house without finding any damages.

 They walked back inside and were about to shut the door when they heard the sound of wood being ripped apart and screaming coming from behind them. They spun around and gaped as they watched their parents house, their childhood home, being ripped apart and sucked up into the storm on the other side of the field. It reminded Elio of a tornado but, larger than any Elio had ever seen before. It was huge, spanning miles across and looking like a wall of swirling clouds.

 Screaming broke through the whirling winds and Elio could only watch as their siblings were swept up into the storm as they tried to escape the house. Tears started to fall as they watched. They wanted to scream. To run. To try to save them or join them, but they found their feet cemented to the spot.

 As the storm consumed the entire house, Elio noticed two figures standing at the edge of the field, watching the storm. Elio opened their mouth to yell at their parents to stop, to come with them, but nothing made it above the winds. Their mom and dad didn’t even look back as they stepped forward into the storm.

 Elio’s chest felt tight as they took a step back, watching as the storm drew closer. Even the ground seemed to be sucked up into the sky, destroying everything in its path. Elio swallowed thickly as they turned to the control panel next to the door, pressing a few buttons before pulling the lever.

 As soon as the lever was pulled, they heard a shout and looked out the front door. Their eyes widened as they saw their youngest sibling, their little sister running across the field towards them. The wind wiped her red hair around her face and nearly knocked her over as ran but she kept going. Elio braced their shoulder against the door frame as the wind picked up and threatened to suck them out the door.

 The machines hummed louder as their sister got closer, mixing with the wind and becoming almost deafening. Lighting struck somewhere in the distance. Elio reached out, shouting for their sister to take their hand. She had just touched the first step to the porch when a blinding light encompassed Elio, filling their world with pain.

 Elio woke up quietly, a stark difference to the chaos of their dream. It took a moment for their mind to catch up with them. Their chest ached and they found it hard to breathe as they attempted to sit up. Their arm felt like it was on fire and they struggled to free themselves from their blankets enough to see what was wrong.

 Tears spilled down their cheeks as they sat up, gasping quietly from the pain in their arm and their chest. They tried to lift their hurt arm up so they could get a better look, but found it not responding the way it should. They grabbed blindly at their arm but found nothing there. They blinked the tears away, struggling to pull enough air into their lungs to think clearly.

 They could hear movement outside their bedroom door. Elio strained their ears to listen and could make out the sounds of pots and pans moving. Celta’s laughter echoed down the hallway and Elio put their hand over their mouth to stifle their sobs.

 After a moment they were able to get some air in their lungs and threw the blankets off. They shakily stood up, tears still streaming down their face as they pulled their shirt off, the material damp from sweat. They stumbled over to their dresser, turning their lamp on as they looked at themselves in the mirror.

 Elio looked like a mess. Tears continued to stream down their face, mixing with the sweat. They had dark circles under their eyes and their pale skin was red and blotchy from crying. Their white hair was oily and sticking to their forehead, making them feel more disgusting than they did already. In the back of their head they calculated the chance of getting to the bathroom without anyone seeing them.

 Without their shirt they could see their residual limb, a stump that stopped just barely past the shoulder. In the dimly lit room it almost looked like it was still bleeding, but when Elio wiped the tears away from their eyes the blood disappeared.

 They had a what they simply call ed a connector for their prosthetic implanted in their shoulder, allowing the robotic arm to connect to Elio’s nervous system and to move like a normal arm. The skin around the metal was scared and ugly. Their hand had not been the steadiest when they had implanted the connector, but they had been doing surgery on themselves with one hand, it was better than they were expecting.

 Elio reached up, hand shaking like it was back then. They gently touched their shoulder, forcing back a hiccup as their phantom pain flared up again. Gently they started to massage the muscles, slowly moving closer to the end of their stump as they tried to convince their brain that their arm was not there anymore.

 The smell of breakfast cooking wafted into the room. Someone would be coming to get them for breakfast soon. Part of Elio longed to the days when they lived alone. They could sleep for as long as they want and eat whenever they wanted, even if that meant going days without doing either. Another part of them knew it wasn’t good for them.

 Elio sighed and leaned forward on the counter. The phantom pain had dulled to a barely there ache, unlike the memories resurfacing in their mind. They looked up at their reflection again, taking a deep shaky breath as they started putting themselves back together again.

Characters from my WIP: Dimension Traveling and Other Mistakes

[kin-nik]

do you ever get any phantom sensations?

I do! Frequently. Mostly related to timelines where I had other, nonhuman limbs. I occasionally get Phantom Pains related to my death in several timelines (at different moments of course! I've never experienced more than one of these at one time thankfully). Mostly, I get the sensation of having a tail and ears (like from my timeline as a Khajiit from Elder Scrolls V for example)!

I almost always have some phantom sensation of limbs or another, so it's kind of normal for me honestly.

Thanks for the Ask! :)

[rainrot4me]

Take It

Summary: Nightmarish visions drive you to seek out their sender, constant paranoia driving you mad. But when you find out he intends to make you work for him, he realizes you can’t be broken like the others. So he must take a more… intensive approach.

Characters: Slenderman x Male Reader

SMUT WARNING MINORS DNI

TW: Mental torture, hallucinations, phantom touch, description of organs and blood, tentacles, eating out, overstimulation, mind-breaking, forced submission, dub-con, painful pleasure, masochism, gagging, choking, blood, tentacles, anal, stomach bulge, tearing, size-difference, suffocation, forcing, clawing, manipulation, kinda stockholm syndrome at the end

Words: 6.5k

A/N: This was my first time writing for a male pov! I hope it wasn’t too unrealistic lolol

It had been nonstop for weeks.

Visions. These crazy, nightmare-induced images continuously haunted your thoughts and dreams, leaving you nauseous every time you closed your eyes. Seeing dead family members, imagining noises and people that weren’t there, even feeling physical pain with no explanation. Sleep was nonexistent at this point, brain on high alert and checking every corner of every dark room you entered. You had no idea what was setting them off, sleep medications doing absolutely nothing for your new insomnia that kept you up into the late hours of the morning until you watched the sunrise. Quitting your job came next. Unable to stay awake and alert through a shift caused you a bad reputation, paranoia driving you to leave after imagining seeing a dead body in the garbage can. 

No matter what you tried: medicine, sleep, meditation, nothing calmed the pounding in your head. However, one thing was constant, a recurring entity that seemed to be the center of every hallucination—this grotesquely long-limbed figure with stark white skin. He was giant, towering over you and making you feel so tiny and weak, thriving from the fear it gave you. But the worst part of it, despite his rather nice suit and tie, was the complete lack of a face. His head was smoothed over, skin warping almost to resemble expressions but wrinkling and stretching against the muscles of his face buried underneath. Despite the horror, he was so intriguing, mind-wrapping around the concept of him. This figure always showed up in the corners of your vision, in the dark areas of a room or behind tall objects, like he was truly there watching you.

But you had to convince yourself it was just a trick in your mind, closing your eyes and breathing deep to center yourself back. Sometimes it was hard, body and mind under so much stress you felt like you were genuinely dying, but you always came back eventually. You were just never sure if that time would be your last. 

Dropping your groceries onto the counter, you pulled the fridge open, grabbing a bottle of water. You were scrounging now, desperate to use your money wisely to buy the things you needed now without a job. It was rough, losing a lot of the things you once took for granted due to your own mental decay. Having friends was out of the question now, your hallucinations creeping onto them as well and ruining any social ability you once had. For lack of a better term, your life was falling apart before your eyes. And there was nothing you could do about it.

Turning back to your groceries, you gripped the paper bags, dragging them to the edge of the marble counter, reaching your hand in. At first, you were confused, wet sludge touching your hand and pulling out quickly. Nervously you peered into the bag, eyes widening and throat constricting as you jerked back, gagging. 

The paper bag was filled with organs, thick blood coating the goopy tangle of insides as the sack tipped over, contents spilling onto your counter and hardwood floors. You retched, gripping the counter behind you as you forced yourself to look away, a lung landing near your foot. It wasn’t long before you were sobbing, the retched smell filling your nose and sending you hunching over, gagging as you clenched your stomach. It was everywhere, blood staining the floors as livers and kidneys slid from the marble and fell onto the ground with a wet slap. 

This couldn’t be real, this wasn’t. You closed your eyes, breathing deeply and trying your hardest to silence the screaming panic inside your body. The sounds and smells sent you reeling, sobbing into your hands as you tried to calm down, praying to whatever would listen to take your hysteria away.

As the smell dissipated, you peeked from behind your hands, stomach nervous at the sight you might find. However, apples and cans of food spread on the ground, rolling under counters and resting beside your feet. Breathing deep, you crouched down, sobbing into your hands as you tried to clean up the mess you had caused. Your mental strength was deteriorating, morale so low you couldn’t even bring yourself to care for your well-being anymore.

Googling the creature’s appearance was enough to get at least some information. This thing was called ‘Slenderman’, a well-known cryptic being around the area that was a big folklore agent. Most of the blogs you found circled a weird fan base, cultish intrigue following the lengthy being wherever it appeared. It was cringy, hysterical almost, but at least it gave you some sense of what you were working with. 

This creature was haunting you, torturing you, and you had to do something about it before it killed you.

-

The woods were dark even with a flashlight, dense trees blocking the view of the full moon overhead. Why you were out here, you weren’t sure, but it felt like a good place to start. Considering your visions, most of them took place in the forest, the tall creature always cradled amongst the branches and leaves and just barely out of view until he decided otherwise. So as you pressed through bushes and overgrown grass, it just felt right to be here, eyes scanning eagerly with every step.

You know you should’ve been scared, should’ve been consulting a therapist or a priest for these sorts of things, but your mind just wouldn’t let you rest. He was terrifying, sure, but your intrigue overruled any hesitation you might’ve had, beckoning you towards him. Maybe it was all a part of his game, luring you into a false sense of curiosity just to take advantage. But, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. You never feared a little game of cat and mouse. If this thing wanted your mind, he was gonna have to work for it. 

But your mental strength reflected poorly as you shook in your skin, heart pounding at every rustle of leaves or snap of a twig. There were no telltale signs that you were going in the right direction, having no clue if he would even be in these woods in the first place, but something in your gut told you he already knew you were here. It was like this weight holding your mind, a claw gripped tightly around your consciousness until it was suffocating you, dragging you down into the worst parts of yourself. So, if that bastard could do that, he could very well buck up and face you if he really wanted to. Taking a deep breath, you stopped, for no particular reason other than your pants becoming too loud and your body becoming too eager.

“I know you’re watching.” You stated calmly, but just loud enough for it to echo throughout the trees. There was no immediate response, just the subtle breeze wafting through the limbs and noises echoing back to you. It was unsettling, but you could feel something building, sliding through you unnaturally. It was calm at first, an irritating chill pushing up your spine and to the back of your head, throbbing gently. A normal person could have passed it by as the start of a headache, but you knew better, irritation growing.

“You’re real good at that, y'know? Hiding and teasing. What, you get off on it? Pain and all that?” You chuckled through grit teeth, flicking your flashlight off and tossing it to the ground, crossing your arms. The tension pulsed, making you flinch as you felt phantom claws curl against your insides, quickening your heartbeat. You hissed, holding your ground and examining the trees, searching for that familiar energy you had seen too much of. “Why don’t you come say hi?” You growled, digging your nails into your arms to stop you from gagging. The feeling was nauseating, mind tensing and swirling until you felt dizzy, cold energy running through you. He was here, it was evident now, but he hid behind your mind, nestled just between the corners of your consciousness just where you couldn’t reach him, couldn’t flush him out. It was torturous, but in some sadistic way, it felt good. 

Your mind tensed, neck craning as you rolled your eyes shut, pushing back against the grip. “Or are you too scared?” You smiled, shuddering as the tension pressed against your skin, faint phantom claws pressing against your back. Now it really felt good, teeth grit as you tried not to groan, back arching slightly as they slid up to your shoulders and gripped to your neck. Gasping, you open your eyes, dizzy against the dual sensations as your mind whispers a secret to yourself, begging to find the creature somewhere out here instead of just in your thoughts. “Please…”

Like a prayer, your eyes stopped, the sensation against your neck dissipating as you found that familiar stark white skin nestled just perfectly into the shadows. There was no difference between what lay before you and the image that showed in your mind, that familiar suit and energy radiating all the same. However, your idea of his height was skewed, his head almost reaching the top of the branches on the pine he stood behind. He was… huge. Towering almost an entire other person over you, your head barely coming up to his waistline as you watched him, your heart pounding against your chest as the tension in your mind gripped harder, making you groan.

He was several yards away, just visible enough to see his jaw twitch as he watched through a blank expression. You wanted to move, to press towards him and interrogate, but your mind was so numb, so mushy you couldn’t think of how to take another step. 

“Bastard…” You hissed, palms clenching as you glared, fighting against the nauseating feeling. Maybe it was the intensity of it all, the pressure and chilling sensation that crept all over your body, but you couldn’t stop your stomach from fluttering gently, thighs clenching together. Slenderman tilted his head in amusement, curiously watching as you felt the pressure creep from your skull down your chest, finally settling into the pit of your stomach. You hunched over, clenching your gut as you gasped, staring through heavy eyes at the lanky being finding amusement in your uncomfortable position. “Such a bitch… hiding…” You gasped out, stomach-lurching as you let yourself fall to your knees, jeans digging into the wet grass as you groaned, tugging at your clothes. You couldn’t compare the sensation. Almost like someone was digging their fingers into your gut, teasing and prodding at your insides until you were squirming and whining for relief. The one thing you could describe, however, was the irritable way your cock began to twitch in your boxers, curiously flinching to life. You tried to press your hands down, covering yourself as your bulge grew and pressed against your pants. 

Now Slenderman was really interested, taking a calm step out of the shadows and slowly towards you, clasping his long claws behind his back as he watched you squirm, desperate to push your aching cock back down. There was so no fucking way you were getting excited from this feeling. You were closer to throwing up than you were to cumming, but for some reason, it lit a fire under you, turning you on in some nauseating way. But as his dress shoes crunched against the wet grass closer to you, you couldn’t help but moan under your breath, gripping your jeans tightly as he stood in front of you, towering over you so tall you had to lean back to see his face.

He was bent at the waist, chest tensing against his suit as he breathed slowly as he leaned down closer to you, the weight in your gut growing the closer he got. “Fuck… Fuck you…” You whined, tears pricking on your waterline as he finally stopped, hot breath blowing against your face that seemingly came from nowhere.

“Interesting.” Slenderman chuckled, his voice smooth and low, every word laced with the undertone of a darker grumble, like two voices were speaking at once, overlapping each other subtly. You flinched, him speaking with the lack of a jaw movement making you uneasy, body beginning to tremble under him. “You have such a strong resolve. It’ll be satisfying to crumble it.” He stood back up, readjusting his tie around his neck as his bony stature swallowed yours. You wanted to snap something back, but your mind was cut short, swallowed by pain as phantom claws dug into your skull, piercing your mind with the nauseating noise of chalk scratching. You groaned out, gripping your head as you rolled your eyes deeply, whining against the feeling as your stomach rolled. The pain should’ve pushed your arousal down, should’ve scared you, but all your cock could do was strain, twitching with excitement the deeper it felt like the claws sunk. What the hell was wrong with you?

A crippled moan rolled from your lips, thighs tensing together as your knees dug into the ground, palming at your jeans for some sort of relief from the strain on your mind. Slenderman was watching, amusement gauging his features as he poked and prodded at you, infesting your senses. “So sensitive.” He cooed, putting pressure against your chest and stalling your breathing, forcing your lungs smaller than they wanted to be. It was exhausting, heart and mind running a mile a minute as you wheezed, staring straight into his expressionless face. “So fickle.”

“Why-” You managed to push out between coughs, head dizzy and congested with nausea. Slender pushed forward, reaching his claw out to wrap around your face, thin fingers enveloping your entire jaw in one firm grip, squeezing your cheeks close together. “You’re going to work for me. Your strength, your abilities, they’re all admirable. They would make a great asset to the little group I have,” He smiled behind the stretch of pale flesh, skin pinching into a strained grin. “I just have to crack that determination you so desperately hold onto.” 

He squeezed down tighter, claws digging into the sides of your head and making you whine, your skull feeling like it could crack under the pressure. All the while keeping your eyes trained on his smug face, flesh hot under his touch, cock twitching as you relished in the feeling of being overpowered, fear mixing with arousal uncontrollably. Your jeans pressed way too tight, sensation overloading you to the point of it hurting, begging to be touched as your sadistic brain ran rampant.

Slender took notice too, peeking past his arm and down towards your groin, spotting the obviously large bulge nestled between your legs. “Hmm…” He inquired, easing the phantom pains that pressed into your head and dragging them achingly slow down towards your legs, making your eyes widen and breath quicken. You tried to push back, reaching your hands to claw against his arm, tugging at his jacket sleeve and whining desperately. The lanky creature snickered, deep voice holding you irritable as the touch stretched down to your cock, putting heavy pressure against it. 

Groaning deep into the palm of Slender’s claw, you wrapped your hands around his arm, holding yourself steady as the phantom touch pushed down teasingly against your clothed cock. You nearly choked out a sob, pushing your hips up eagerly to create friction as your cheeks grew dark, embarrassment being lost in the relief of being touched. Slender watched eagerly, brows tensing as he hummed, mentally pushing and rubbing down onto your bulge. 

It was heavenly, eyes rolling and soft gasps muffling out, eagerly chasing the touch as it began to retreat back off of you completely. You whined, clawing at his thin arm until he let go of your face, standing back up straight. 

You had been so skewed by your hazy mind that you hadn’t realized the absolute presence of the creature before you. He was terrifying, sure, and powerful too. But you couldn’t act like you didn’t notice how powerful he felt, how easily he could mutilate or destroy you, but just how easily he could command and dominate you. It turned you on in the worst kind of way. You wanted to be angry, to tear him to shreds for the insanity he’s caused you. But as he looked down, crossing his long arms across his chest and tapping a claw onto his suit sleeve, nothing could stop your cock from aching.

“Stop looking at me like that, bastard.” You growled, sniffling your tears back at the strain against your jeans, clenching your thighs closely together for at least some friction, but more so out of embarrassment. “Quiet. I’m trying to figure out what to do with you, boy.” He snapped back, tension growing in his face. You wanted to growl, but more desperately you wanted to beg. Beg for whatever that sensation was to come back, to give you more. “Hm, I know,” He grinned, unbuttoning his suit and sliding it off of his shoulders, his white collared dress shirt sitting snug against his bony figure. “You can’t be broken like the others, it seems. You’re… in need of special treatment. Something that’ll break you in ways pain can’t.” His voice was low and husky, eagerness lacing his echoing voice as he rolled up his sleeves, tucking them up to his elbows in that hot way older men did. You were writhing, caught in the middle of terror and excitement, mind unsure of which one to pick.

But it seemed Slender was going to pick for you. As you leaned back onto your haunches, body straining, you stared wide-eyed as dark, slimy tentacles began to push out from his back, the lanky creature breathing deep as they caged around him, several veins pushing towards you slowly. To you, they blended in with the tree branches around, thick limbs curving and jagged like the wood of a tree, perfect for camouflage, you realized. But as they began to slink around you, cold warmth snaking across your arms and into the sleeves of your shirt, you couldn’t help but gasp, leaning into the feeling. It was so odd, unlike anything you could compare it to as they gripped around your legs too, pushing themselves under you and lifting slowly, stretching your body off of the ground as you tried not to panic. They held you tight, pushing your shirt up and into your pant legs, odd slime spreading across your chilled skin until you were moaning.

They worked quickly to tug your shirt over your head, Slender clasping his hands behind his back again as he watched, controlling the tendons to tug open your jeans and slide them down your legs as well, bulge embarrassingly evident against your thin boxers. “Wait… Woah…” You mewled, straining your arms to push the tentacles away but they wrapped around your wrists, holding them clasped together as they fully undressed you, finally slipping your boxers down and hooking off of your ankles. The night air was so cold, body tensing and shaking as you held suspended in the air, gasping as the slime slid scarcely close to your ass. “Where to start…” Slender crept, neck craning to examine every inch of your nude body as he pulled you closer, a large claw wrapping around your waist and smothering your hips entirely. He held your thighs, neck, arms, pale claws wrapping around them completely, easily holding your limbs in one grasp. But turning you around, suspending you higher in the air, your head dropped quickly, tentacles turning you upside down as Slender palmed at your ass, blood rushing to your face as he tugged your cheeks apart. “Here seems right.”

Wrapping his claws around your waist, he pulled you snugly against him, back pressed to his lower abdomen as tentacles repositioned, angling better to hold you in the right position. Your arms strained, grasping onto his suit for balance as you teetered upside down, bangs falling from your face and head already beginning to feel dizzy. Your heart thudded, cock hanging lazily down against your abdomen, bobbing in the air as you felt claws spread your thighs apart, asshole puckering from the cold. There was nothing you could do, no fight you could put up that wouldn’t result without you dropped on your head or thrown for distance. No matter how much your brain screamed at you to fight, you were forced to settle, forced to hold onto his clothes and beg your determination would hold out against whatever plans he had. Whines slipped as your head pounded against the pressure building between your ears, your face growing deep red as you hung.

Then came the cracking, the ear-straining tears that sounded from above you. Fear pushed you to look up, neck straining as you watched with intrigue as Slenderman’s expressionless face began to change, skin stretching right about where his mouth would be. He was creating a mouth, or better yet, exposing the one he already had. Shreds of skin tore open, pale flesh cracking to form a mouth as his jaw craned open, tugging the skin apart. That’s when you saw the teeth, rows and rows of jagged nestled inside of his wide mouth, a long tongue slipping out between the razors and lulling above you, already soaked in saliva. How was he able to conceal an entire mouth? How was he able to conceal that tongue? It was long, the muscle curling and flicking like his tentacles, wet and dark and pointed at the tip. You wanted to whine, to tug away and run. But as he slid his head down, wrapping his claws tighter around your hips, you moaned, cock twitching as he slid his tongue between your cheeks. It was cold, saliva spreading between your plump cheeks and pressing against your hole, tip teasing before continuing to wet the rest of the area. You were groaning loudly, hands gripping tight as pushing your hips back, aching for the feeling but oh so nervous as well. 

“It’s going to taste so good when you submit. When I break that willpower to resist inside of you.” Slender chuckled between laps, growling as he licked up your thighs, teeth knicking against your skin. You tensed as he finally settled between your cheeks, claws tugging your ass apart to give him clear access as he began to shove his tongue against your tight rim, giving you no time to adjust before he was shoving further. You were howling, back arching uncomfortably as Slender disregarded your body’s restraint, forcing the thick muscle deeper until it felt like you were going to tear, lower body screaming. “Oh my god-” You snapped out, teeth clenching as you forced your eyes shut, body straining against the thickness slipping inside of you. It was uncomfortable, pain snapping at your muscles but only feeding your cock to ache more, pulsing against your stomach eagerly as Slender growled against you, brows knotting. Your jaw hung lazily as he bottomed his tongue out inside of you, thick muscle straining against your tight walls as your rim stretched too wide. You were dizzy, being upside down made you nauseous now, brain pulsing between your ears. 

Slender was quick now, tugging his tongue out just enough to push it back in fast, clawing your hips back against his mouth, Lazily fucking you up onto his tongue, you moaned out loud, the wet schlick of his tongue moving inside of you echoing against the trees. You tried to resist, tried to hold your mouth shut and muffle your moans to not satisfy the cryptid, but it only irritated him, moving faster. His tongue curled inside of you, nudging against your tight walls and pressing down hard against your prostate, enveloping the bud wholly. “Oh, fuck-” You whined, hands clenching tight around his pant legs as his tentacles roamed, slithering against your hot skin and prodding at any sensitive spots you revealed. Behind your ears, curling onto your nipples, even wrapping tight around your ribs, anything to get you to make a noise. You tried to push back, to withstand, but as you clenched your eyes shut, the tentacles moved down, curiously sliding around your thighs. Tensing, you tried to clench your thighs together, Slender’s thick claws holding them wide and still, tongue continuing to milk your ass as you whined. 

You flinched when the tentacles slid around your aching cock, slithering around the girth and holding tight, slime covering the length and poking at your tip. Your back arched into the feeling, Slender grunting as he followed your hips, pushing his head forward back between your legs. The tentacles began to stroke your cock slowly, going only half the pace that the cryptid’s tongue was, gripping tight and pulling hard to milk precum from your tip already. You babbled, grinding your hips in time with Slender’s movements but failing as he read your body, speeding himself up. His goal was the break you, so he couldn’t let you become comfortable, needing to push your body further than it wanted to go. 

So a large tentacle pressed to your face, sliding against your jaw and shoving itself between your lips, filling your mouth quickly. You tried to relax, tried to take the tendon easily, but it forced itself in, shoving its way down your throat until you were gagging, throat straining against the size. If hanging upside down wasn’t bad enough, having your breathing cut by a large slimy tentacle made it all the more intense. Your lungs screamed, begging for air as the tentacle matched the pace of Slender’s tongue, tugging itself out of your throat just to shove itself back in, filling your senses with gags and slobber. Eyes rolling, slobber running out of your mouth, and body falling apart, you were already losing, already having to strain not to slip into some lost headspace. But even with the lack of eyes, you could feel his gaze burning into you, feel as he beckoned unfamiliar sensations and noises from your body. 

Your whines began to sound cracked, your voice high and pitchy as it gagged around the tentacle, vibrating around the intrusion. You tried to push, tried to pull your arms loose of the grip wrapped around your body, bucking your hips the deeper Slender probed his tongue, trying to escape. Every drag of his tongue, his tentacles, even his claws was becoming painful, overstimulation scratching at your brain as you cried, sensations becoming filled with nothing but him. It hurt so bad, the suffocation and the strain, so you couldn’t explain why a knot was growing in your gut, cock leaking desperately as it was tugged and swallowed in thick warm slime. It just hurt so good. Slender could read it too, pulling the tongue out as far as he could before slamming it back inside, curling it onto itself to stretch your hole wider, crying out as you felt your rim tear, blood pooling against the muscle. The sting sent you, body convulsing into itself as you came hard, strings of hot seed shooting down and onto your chest, eyes rolling into the back of your head as the tentacle stopped deep into your throat, nearly making you puke. Slender’s tongue rode you through your orgasm, relishing in the way your walls clenched as your cock fell flaccid, sensitive in his grasp. He slowly tugged his tongue out, groaning at the taste of blood soaking in until he was completely out, slurping up the taste vulgarly. 

He still had his tentacle pressed into your throat, your hands slamming down against him as you cried for air, slobber and obnoxious choking sounds getting so loud he almost feared you’d throw up. But maybe that would be good…

Deciding against it, he tugged the tentacle out, your lungs gasping for air as your eyes clenched shut and your face returned to a normal shade. The tendons slithered, repositioning to turn you upright, flinging your body off of Slender’s warmth and into the air, dropping you hard against the ground. You groaned, hunching into yourself as your body slammed into the cold grass, bare body wrecked by the cryptid. You were still gasping, chest heaving as you tried to wipe the cum from your chest, wiping the sweat from your brow. Slender seemed unimpressed, slipping his tongue between his teeth as he readjusted his button-up, refolding the sleeves back up to his elbows as he knelt down at your feet. “You can take more.” He stated cooly, standing back up and shooting a tentacle out, wrapping tight around your ankle and dragging you back up again.

You clawed desperately at the grass, pleading some unheard begs to stop as he slid another tentacle around your chest, pulling your eye level with his chest. You watched through heavy, tired eyes as Slender tugged another tentacle down towards his slacks, unbuttoning them as he slid his claws around your chest, pulling you closer to him. “I can’t…” You gasped, head spinning as the tentacle shoved his pants down, tugging his cock out. You watched in horror as Slender placed his length on top of you, nestling it beside your own weak cock and resting it on your stomach. It easily reached right below your chest, almost tripping your length when hard. It wasn’t normal thought, the texture and curvature more like another tentacle, but the rosy head already leaking told you it wasn’t just another tendon. Slender smiled rabidly, length twitching and pulsing on top of you as more tentacles wrapped your body, pressing and poking against all those obnoxious spaces again. “You will, boy. You’ll take it.” He snarled, tendons pushing you back as a separate one wrapped around his length, stroking himself as he crossed his arms again, watching you eagerly. 

You thought his tongue was bad. But as you watched his cock line up with your ass, you nearly screamed, heart pounding in your ears. You were so terrified, cock twitching back to life involuntarily as you watched his claws snag around your hips again, tugging you close as his head pressed against your asshole. He was going to tear you in half.

Slender groaned at your little panicked sounds when he finally began to push through, watching you as tears filled your eyes and your voice cracked with pleas of how it wouldn’t fit, how it’d kill you. He smiled, teeth glimmering as you began to stretch, rim catching impossibly tight the deeper he pushed, your body thrashing as a tentacle wrapped around your throat, clenching to alleviate your tension, but also to silence your mindless protests. Slender wanted to forfeit all restraint and tear you up, caring less if you ruptured something. But there was a science to this, a cool calculated way to make you fall apart, to make you want it more than he did. “Don’t fight it, yeah?” He growled, stopping his press when you began to gasp for air, sliding his tentacle across your cheeks and nipples to take your mind off of the sickeningly wide stretch your ass was experiencing. “Just give in already.”

Slender snapped his hips shallowly, just barely pressing an inch in more, but it was enough to make you scream, fists clenching and throat sobbing as you arched, the fullness making your head light. You tried to hold your eyes open, tried to fight against the pain and the stretch and keep your head right, but you just couldn’t. So, eyes heavy, you let your head fall, jaw unhinging as you went boneless in his grasp, cock snapping against your abdomen. Slender took the opportunity, pushing deeper until he caught on your rim again, growling at the tightness holding him still. But as he looked down, he smiled, a wicked chuckle echoing in your dizzy head as you peeked at him, and then down to what he was seeing.

Your stomach bulged, the tip of Slender’s cock pushing against your abdomen and making a clear outline for you to gawk at, eyes watering as you felt your body shake with excitement. You watched carefully as Slender slid a claw over top of the bulge, pressing down and making you gasp, tension building in your gut already. “You think I can get deeper?” You shook your head quickly, begging desperately for him not to as your body already felt like it was going to fall apart, overstimulation overtaking you wholly now. “I think I’m gonna try anyways.” You could’ve puked.

Slender tugged his hips back, replacing his claw back onto your hip and giving you a clear shot as the bulge disappeared, eyes wide as you watched him steady himself, tentacle clenching down hard around your throat as he grinned. He snapped back in quickly, length making it halfway inside of you before pushing against your walls, the bulge reappearing and making him stop. You cried out, back snapping as you cried, clawing against your own skin as your brain tensed, pain rocking you. You cock bobbed in the air, body straining as Slender hunched over you, curling his body to engulf you as he snapped again, pushing his cock in and out roughly. The cryptid didn’t seem to know the word gentle, claws already digging into your hips and drawing intensive amounts of blood, pale fingers coated in deep red. But the sight of the bulge pressing and retreating in your gut made you dizzy, throat tensing to scream as the tentacle found its way back to your mouth, shoving itself back inside as you gagged again.

Slenderman knew this was a torture method, a technique catered just to you to break your mind, making it easier for him to use you; as a proxy or otherwise. But as you cried out, cock twitching with every thrust of his thin hips, the cryptid found it hard to restrain himself, failing to hold his composure the deeper he pressed. He was supposed to be the one in charge here, supposed to break you and go from there, using you however he needed. But you just felt so good. The way you clenched around him, the way you fought but failed to disguise your secret want for the pain he was giving you, and especially how you resisted. He liked the way you tried to act hard but fell apart the moment he pushed himself onto you. It was addicting. 

Slender was panting, hot breath pushing from his mouth and brushing against your face, his nonexistent eyes baring into you at the sight of his tentacle choking you, slobber dripping down your chin as you cried. You were stunning, in the worst kind of way. 

Thrusting faster, you wanted to scream, wanted to keep yourself from tearing in half as he pounded against your walls, half words and babbles falling from your full lips. Slender groaned, pushing his phantom touch onto you and pinching your skin, prodding at your mind and body, sending you further into hysteria. “Break. Break for me, boy.” He snapped, trying his best to push more of his length into your tight ass but failing miserably as you went dumb, body hanging limp as twitching and aching at every hard thrust. You had no choice, nothing left in your body to push back with as you came, cock pulsing between your legs and cum shooting across your stomach. It was nauseating as your ass clenched, letting even less of Slender’s length enter until he was snapping his teeth, growling as he dug into your hips, rutting like an animal into you. “You wanted this, you want, you wanted thi-” Slender gripped as his tongue slipped from his teeth, hanging as saliva dripped onto your face, running down your dark cheeks. He couldn’t stop himself, fully aware that you were already beyond pliable, but his own chase for pleasure making him stay. If this was bad, then why did it feel so good? Why did he need to come so deep inside of your ass you’d be feeling it for hours?  He didn’t know, didn’t want to know, all he knew was to keep thrusting, keep digging into your hips until his own cock pulsed, tension building in his gut.

Slender growled low and heavy as he came inside of you, milking his cock with your tight ass as the bulge pushed hard against your stomach, a tentacle quick to wrap around and press down, making the two of you holler out. “Fuckin- Take it.” He snapped through moans, tongue slipping down across your face and lapping at your tears, teeth shining as they nipped at your hot skin. The cryptid stayed there for a minute, relishing in the feeling of you falling apart on him, fully submitted as his hot cum began to leak from your rim, speckling down your cheeks. You could barely breathe, tentacle retreating from your mouth and sliding against your stomach, mixing your cum against your skin. But when he pulled out, rim stinging at the tug, you whined, holding onto his claws as he pulled you off of him, letting his cock fall between his legs. “Boy…” Slender cooed, watching as his cum spilt from your puckered hole, the muscle tensing and untensing as you leaked, whining at the feeling. 

You couldn’t remember much after that, Slender’s tentacles laying you to the ground gently as he redressed himself, letting your cold body numbly shiver as your mind went blank, watching the leaves rustle above you. It wasn’t long before you felt his tentacles circle you again, scooping you off of the ground and covering you with his suit jacket, the fabric covering your entire body and keeping you warm against the night air. You wanted to push away, to forget this ever happened, but more than that, you wanted to sleep. 

-

You truly had no clue how you had gotten into an unfamiliar bed, let alone one in a mansion. The place was huge, with old architecture and a weathered feel surrounding you as you tried to move, sore body preventing you from doing so much as rolling over. But it didn’t take long until you were recovered, Slender appearing every so often to give you mystery food and water before disappearing again. You soon learned of the ‘others’, the proxies that were manipulated, much differently than you, but broken all the same.

You soon learned the purpose of your visions and the reasons behind the horrors you were experiencing. Slender wanted you, and he got you, traditionally or not. You worked for him now, mind pushed well past reason and compliant to his every command with the help of that pesky phantom touch. He used it well, touching you just enough to get you stirred and motivated, eager to please him. 

However, instead of horrific visions of organs and torture, you were met with vibrant flashbacks of that night in the woods, the reason you were even here. It was teasing, almost, like an invitation to sneak away to Slender’s office where the others didn’t dare go, where only you spent the quiet parts of the night. 

So, as you sat on his lap, tentacles twirling around your body and pushing into your lips, you couldn’t be happier.

This was an anonymous request!

Comments and reblogs are appreciated!

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Rotting Divinity.

Pairing: Yandere!Scaramouche x Reader (Genshin).

Word Count: 2.9k.

TW: Reader Is Referred To As A Shrine Maiden But Gender Neutral, Set A Few Years After Dottore Starts Experimenting On Scaramouche, Unhealthy Relationships, Obsessive Behavior, Kidnapping, Themes of Chronic Illness, and Mentions of Human Experimentation.

Scaramouche opened his eyes as the sun set, casting the sky a dull pinkish blue. You were standing above him, a straw basket on your hip and a frown tugging on the corners of your lips.

He let a groan as he hauled himself into a more dignified position, palms planted in the raw dirt and dried grass caught in his hair. One glance was spared to establish that he was no longer in the Doctor’s cramped observation room, all cold stone walls and porcelain tables with leather straps stapled into each corner, before his attention settled on you. “Mortal,” he barked, speaking loudly enough to hear himself over the pain still buzzing in his skull. “Which island is this?”

“Yashiori, near Serpent’s Head,” you muttered, disappointment heavy in your tone. When he clicked his tongue, you went on, your frown deepening. “You ruined my herb garden.”

Had he? He couldn’t remember anything after the Doctor worked those long, tapered needles underneath the skin of his forearms; after an iron mask was forced over his mouth and nose and he began to think his body may tear itself apart before that sadist had the chance to. He wasn’t supposed to be in Serpent’s Head. He wasn’t supposed to be on Yashiro at all. He hadn’t meant to be here, and yet, he’d be thrown in a cage of iron bars and subjected to another round of testing as soon as he trudged back to that dungeon of a facility. Thinking about the feeling of thick, pulsing electricity coursing through his hollow limbs was enough to send a familiar bolt of agony down the length of his spine. It was little more than a phantom, a shadow of the torture it would take to unlock his truepotential, but it was enough to leave him curling into himself involuntarily, glaring at the soil with a hollow type of malice.

He would’ve recovered in a second – less than a second, a moment, a breath – if you hadn’t fallen to your knees at his side, cooing as you pressed the back of your hand into his forehead. “Are you hurt?” If he’d tried to answer, his response would’ve been lost to your fussing, the way you hummed and shook your head as you hauled him to his feet. “Body aches? Migraines? Whatever it is—” An arm was drawn over your shoulders, his weight forcibly rested on you. “—I’m sure I have something for it inside. A place for you to rest, too – however you got here, the journey had to be burdensome.”

He considered protesting. Even in the state he’d been reduced to, it would’ve taken nothing to pry himself away from you, to shatter your ankles underneath his heel and leave you begging for the mercy of the creature you’d tried to pity. He could’ve penned a letter to the Doctor as you bled out in the soil of your own garden, recovered his strength as he took your body apart and fed your remains, piece by piece, to whatever scavengers would have you. He could’ve, if he’d wanted to. He could’ve, but then, he saw what you were wearing.

The sleeves of your kosode were rolled neatly to the elbow, the hems of your pleaded hakama dusted with dirt and grass stains. Unlike the maidens of Watatsumi and the Grand Narukami Shrine, you wore neither red nor blue, but white. Pure, never-ending white.

Scaramouche went limp in your hold, his eyes falling shut as you let out a surprised laugh, doing your best to accommodate his now-dead weight. He could kill you tomorrow, he figured. It was already dusk, and while he didn’t mind traveling at night, he knew the Doctor wouldn’t begin to wonder where he was until the sun rose tomorrow morning. He wasn’t a dog, eager to crawl home and prove his obedience. He could wait until he was called for.

At least, by then, your worrying might’ve done something to dull the burn of the electricity underneath his skin.

~

“So, you’re telling me that this is a waste of time.”

You ignored him with a light hum, a quick movement of your tasseled gohei. Normally, daily rites were something to be performed quickly and efficiently before the unlucky shrine maiden responsible for carrying them out returned to scrubbing floorboards and disturbing fortunes, but in a life as slow as yours, with so little to occupy the many hours of your countless days, even repetitive tasks such as this were given an unnecessarily artistic flourish. Scaramouche might’ve called it indulgent, if he ever decided to be so kind to you.

Currently, you were dancing in front of a dilapidated shrine at the base of the snake’s skull; the paint mostly chipped away and the wood close to rotting. You’d explained, four days after he first allowed you to haul him into your ancient cabin, that you would be responsible for rebuilding it once it inevitably collapsed, an honor only bestowed upon caretakers every few centuries, and he’d told you that you ought to save yourself a few decades and tear it down that day, but you’d only laughed. Most things he said made you laugh.

He'd noticed early on that you were of a weak constitution. Dark bags circled under your eyes despite how often and how deeply you slept, and you seemed unable to carry anything heavier than what could fit in one of your woven baskets. There should’ve been another shrine keeper, if not several. And, if there could only be one, then it shouldn’t have been you.

Still, Scaramouche was glad that you had been chosen, even if you were a bad fit for the position. If it’d been anyone else, he would’ve had to get rid of them days ago, and he was thankful to be spared the effort.

“It’s not,” you said, consciously clipping his choice of words. You finished your rite with a deep bow, then turned to Scaramouche. “Shows of dedication make him happy.”

“He being…” His gaze drifted upward, to the fanged skull. Orobashi no Mikoto – the beast’s name provided by some nameless well of knowledge that seemed to linger in the space between the back of his throat and the pit of his chest. Consciously, the only title Scaramouche had ever thought to put to the serpent was that of ‘festering remains’. “…the fucking corpse?”

Right. It was too easy to forget that there was a pretense to his time with you; that he was supposed to be some wayward, ailing traveler with a mysterious condition your charms and cures could only keep at bay. He wasn’t lying to you. All he did was lie back and let you fuss over his nonexistent pulse, the bloodless pallor of his skin, the way his temperature never seemed to rise above that of damp clay. He wasn’t like the Doctor – scheming and underhanded, prone to leading his victims in circles before gifting them with the mercy of a slow death – or the priestess he could only vaguely remember from his first days, all dark eyes and whispers of a merciful end. You liked doting on him, and he didn’t mind keeping his mouth shut.

“If you keep using that kind of language, you might have to start sleeping outside.” You took up the basket of lavender melons you’d (admittedly, unwisely) left in his care, snatching it away before he could add to the small pile of black seeds stacked on his opposite side. Your hastiness left one of the rounder melons toppling over the well-worn edge, though, and he caught it with a single hand, grinning as he dug his teeth into the ripe flesh and claimed it for himself. You rolled your eyes, but quickly occupied yourself with clearing away yesterday’s fruit from the shrine. “It’s not complicated. We keep him happy, hold our rites and make our sacrifices, and he ensures that my crops grow quickly and the village prospers.” A pause, a smile thrown carelessly over your shoulder. You smiled as easily as you laughed, something that irritated Scaramouche to no end. “If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be recovering half as quickly as you are.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit.” He dug his teeth into the lavender melon as you gathered your things, sugary juice turning his lips tacky as he went on. “I’ve always been hard to kill.”

You came to stand above him, your smile small and eyes vaguely narrowed. “If you’re feeling that strong,” you started, holding your now-emptied basket in front of you. “Then you shouldn’t mind weeding the garden and fetching water, this afternoon.”

It only took him a moment to think to protest, but you were already gone, stumbling down the mountainside as he hastily pushed himself to his feet. He called your name, but he could already hear your voice – rising above his in one of your obnoxiously repetitive hymns and drowning him out as he chased after you.

~

The villagers welcomed you as sheep welcomed field dogs; from a distance.

Scaramouche trailed behind you as you plodded through the humble village, humming and clutching your basket close to your chest, fiddling nervously with the pure-white material of your sleeves. The crowd parted around you, twin walls of watchful eyes and hushed voices forming well-ahead of your path and collapsing as you strode past them, either unable or unwilling to acknowledge the thick silence that seemed to hang over you like a shroud. Occasionally, you’d stop at a stall or a doorway, handing off bundles of wrapped herbs to gloved and trembling hands, and less often, you’d send him a smile over your shoulder, your tired eyes wrinkling at the corners, as if apologizing that he had to come along for such a dull errand. That was how you described it, when he asked where you went off to every few days. ‘Just a quick trip to the market,’ you’d said, as you tried to convince him to stay behind yet again. When he cited your poor health and his growing concern that he’d find you dead in that garden of yours one day, you didn’t waver. ‘You’ll only be bored if you come. The villagers aren’t very friendly.’

Scaramouche decided, mostly on a whim, that he would burn down this village before he returned to the Doctor. If he had time.

He moved to rush forward, to place himself at your side, but a hand shot out of a narrow alleyway and caught him by the wrist. It was a middle-aged blacksmith, judging by the ash smeared across his cheeks, the thick apron hanging from his neck. Scaramouche was quick to pull out of his filthy grasp, but he spoke regardless, his voice low and rough. “Mind your distance, boy.” A glance towards you, a deep sneer. “Don’t you know who that is?”

Scaramouche glanced over him, fighting the urge to scoff. “Why is no one speaking to the healer?”

“That’s no healer, that’s the shrine maiden.” He said it as if he’d caught Scaramouche attempting to throw himself into a rifthound’s mouth. “They cultivate the serpent’s remains. You’ll be dead in a week if you—”

This time, Scaramouche was the one to reach out, his hand wrapping around the blacksmith’s neck. By instinct, a bolt of pure, searing electro shot from his palm into the man’s neck, leaving him limp and convulsing in Scaramouche’s hold. Scaramouche released him as the last of the aftershocks faded, watching him collapse to the ground before planting his heel on the man’s diaphragm, prepared to shift his weight and crush whatever laid below his foot should the blacksmith say something to displease him.

“I’ll ask again,” he said, slowly, ozone thick in the air. “Why is no one speaking to the healer?”

~

Scaramouche returned to your cabin closer to sunrise than sunset. Somewhere, back in the village that he would see reduced to embers if it was his last act on the face of Teyvat, the charred remains of a blacksmith smoldered at the bottom of a stone well, and he opened the door to your ramshackle home with enough force to tear the rotted piece of wood from its hinges.

You were kneeling beside your work table, grinding dried lavender petals into a fine powder. He closed the space between you in a breath, knocked the pestle from your hand in another, then collapsed beside you. “You’re going to die?”

You eyed the spilled lavender wearily. “Even the archons will fall, eventually.”

He let out a ragged sob, burying his face in the dip of your shoulder. You allowed him to, your arms coming up to wrap loosely around him. You’d always been weak, but now, you seemed as feeble as a morning gale.

He was unable to speak, so you took up the mantle, tracing idle patterns into the base of his spine as you went on. “I know what they tell newcomers, about dead gods and their rot, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. He gifts us with herbs to cure our sick and soothe our elders and in return, someone sacrifices a few years. The villagers might not be able to linger, but they make sure I’m taken care of.” He felt you smile, heard you laugh. “So long as I get to help people, I don’t mind making sacrifices.”

“Other people don’t matter.” It took him longer than he cared to admit to pry himself away from you, to straighten his back and drag a deep breath into his aching lungs. He was thankful, not for the first time, that he couldn’t cry. You would only think him irrational if he fell apart so visibly. “How long do you have?”

Your head lulled to the side, your attention drifting to some indistinguishable point on the far wall. “Only the gods can say what fate has—”

“How long?”

“…another year.” Your tone carried a sort of detached acceptance, as if you couldn’t summon the energy to care. “Maybe two. The last caretaker was very fortunate – he survived half a decade in his position.”

He tried to speak, to scream at you for not telling him sooner, but his voice caught in his throat and you reached up, cupping his face in both hands. Slowly, with a dry chuckle, you leaned forward, resting your forehead against his. The cool porcelain of his skin sapped the warmth from yours, but for once, you didn’t seem to mind his unusual anatomy. “I hope I’ll be able to cure you, before I’m gone.” You were mumbling, now, speaking barely above your breath. “Do you think you’ll be able to stay for a little longer?”

He tried to answer, but you’d fallen asleep on top of him by the time he opened his mouth.

~

He left the next morning, while you were still tucked underneath a small pile of furs and quilts. A letter was penned and sent to the Doctor’s base, a caddy of wildflower seeds purchased from a young girl peddling wares by the side of the road, and he returned to your cabin just as your sleep turned restless. When you rose an hour past noon, he pestered you into taking him to the groove near the shoreline. By the time you returned, chiding him for distracting you from your responsibilities and pointedly ignoring the basket full of fruit at your hip, the sun was low in the sky and masked soldiers had stamped your garden into the ground. Your cabin was in flames and your shrine had been reduced to little more than a pillar of smoke in the distance.

Whatever concern you might’ve held for him was immediately forgotten. Dropping your basket, you moved to run towards the embers of your home, but Scaramouche caught you – one hand on your shoulder, another on your waist. Careful not to break what couldn’t be repaired, he forced you onto your knees, letting you scratch at his wrists as you screamed, the noise anguished and ragged. Masked soldiers gathered in the outskirts of his vision, but he bared his teeth, keeping them at a distance as you thrashed in his steadfast hold. Once he took you somewhere else, somewhere better, you’d be able to calm down.

Once he got you away from your rotting god and your unthankful village, you’d be able to worship something worth your time.

A moment passed, then another. Finally, the Doctor emerged from the crowd, his white coat unmarred by the ash in the air. He regarded you with a grin, then looked to Scaramouche. “This is the filthy toy you’d like to take home?”

It was a foolish question, undeserving of an answer. Scaramouche countered with one of his own. “Can you fix them?”

“Can I save a human being who’s been brought to the brink of death and infected thoroughly with the rot of divine remains?” The Doctor hummed, clicked his tongue. “That depends, little puppet. How much time are you willing to spend on my vivisection table?”

Scaramouche glowered, but he didn’t protest. Rather, he pulled you close – your crying softer, now, your struggling impossibly weak – and held you against his chest as he responded. “Do what you have to. They’ll be staying in my chambers, and you won’t lay a hand on them without my permission, doctor.”

“I do wish you could call me Dottore.” He sighed, shaking his head. His acquiescence was communicated with a dismissive roll of his wrist, a silent order communicated to his lackeys. His soldiers moved to take you up, but he kept you in his arms as he pushed himself back to his feet, letting you cling to and beat against his chest in tandem.

Your voice was hoarse, your shoulders trembling. Tears streamed freely from your eyes, and he allowed himself to wonder how poorly you would take it if he ran his tongue over your cheeks. “You— You monster. Hundreds of people will—"

“You said you wanted to stay with me, right?” His smile wasn’t as soft as yours, as comforting, but he did what he could. You let out another agonized sob, crumbling against him as he let his lips ghost over your forehead, speaking against your skin and above your wordless cries.

“Now, there’ll be nothing in the world capable of taking you away from me.”

[tangledfate]

There’s a warmth to Asmodeus that is soothing; it doesn’t completely take away the pain–he’s fairly certain nothing can–but it makes it bearable. Cuddling closer and sighing at the modicum of relief after spending the whole day in bed.

He wants to roll over but doesn’t have the means. More or less at Ozzie’s mercy in a way that would be arousing–if not for the bones deep ache in limbs that were no longer there.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t make it out of bed today…and I think I might’ve broken one of the prosthetics when I threw it…”

Ozzie had been busy, getting finishing up with a few work things early so he could spend the morning with Fizzie. He had gotten a few texts from Fizzie earlier in the day asking when he'd come to bed, though he his "finishing things up" had taken a little longer than what he thought.

By the time he had gotten to bed, he noticed the limbs on the floor before noticing the boyfriend-shaped ball, smiling softly to himself before quietly making his way into the room. "Froggie." He said, voice low, soothing as he reached out, a large rubbing at his side before helping him to remove the last prosthetic.

Once it was off and tossed to the side, he moved to crawl into the bed with him, pulling the other's small body into him as he wrapped his entire body around him, holding him close as he pressed soft kisses to his head.

[str8rat]

In Stars And Time - Fear and Hunger AU

ALSO WARNING, loss of limbs

remember kids, an unspoken rule of the artists; when they've got no twinkles in their eyes, you know they've had it bad.

WOOO ISA'S THE NEXT CHARACTER I DECIDED TO TRAUMATIZE!!!!! YAY!!!!

Mirabelle will be next <3

~ ~ ~

Isabeau; Ophthalmophobia ( fear of being stared at )

Effects; Lost his right arm

Info;

TW!!! DISMEMBERMENT IG aka backstory to how Isa lost his arm

A retired Defender of Jouvente. He capital-C-Changed his body, hoping to become someone that others wouldn't be ashamed of knowing. Lost his right arm months before the party reached Dormont, protecting Mirabelle from a fatal strike coming from a powerful Sadness.

Despite his loss, his bubbly and highly supportive personality remains, always caring for his companions. And even though he does mourn the fact of him most likely never being able to become a clothing designer with just one arm, he does not regret his decision one bit. He's just a stupid Defender, afterall, and Mirabelle is the Chosen one, the one blessed by the Change God, to defeat the King. She is more important than some puny guy that likes bad jokes.

Gets phantom pains quite often. He desperately tries to be the strong, optimistic member of the party, keeping up their morales and spirits, never wanting to let them down. Always hoping that his laughter will light up the room and help everyone forget about everything, if only for a little bit. He also lost his left earring in one of the battles against Sadnesses. Generally he is the person constantly getting hurt for his party, despite the scolding he gets for it regularely.

Due to his phobia, he dislikes crowds and the public, always feeling like he has eyes at the back of his neck. He hates it, and always tries to avoid eye contact while talking to someone. With the party's help though, he's been making progress! The feeling of eyes looking over his body reminds him of all his imperfections, and it makes him spiral, wondering if he is being stared at due to the flaws in his crafted body. It makes him want to Change into someone else.

And yet, he still silently hopes that maybe, just maybe, in an unspecified time in the future, he could make up for the missing earring, and put a bonding one in it's place, if he'd ever dare to confess to Siffrin. He cannot bring himself to do it though, thinking that maybe, even after everything, he may still not be good enough and worthy of being loved. All in all, he still remains just a coward.

~ ~ ~

Sooo yeah. I in all honesty could not find a better phobia for Isa. I've thought about the phobia of love ( his inability to confess ) or maybe the phobia of failure ( failing his friends ) but in the end I settled on a phobia that has him feeling like he is constantly stared at, so much so that he decided to Change his body. Honestly a terrifying phobia. And a very self-destructive one.

Anyways, that's all! see you tomorrow! we're ruining Mirabelle next <3

[vicsy]

maxiel demon hunter au | 4.3 k | M happy halloween! I'm excited to share this little titbit with you. I hope to make this into an entire fic one day (have a title picked out already!) and crafting this universe brings me so much joy. I was really looking to sharing something spooky with all of you. <3 tw for mild body horror | set in the same universe as this fic

This time, they take Daniel's eyes.

It's the sounds that catch up to Daniel first, like whiplash. Dulled squelching, then wet splattering — one, two, three; splat, splat, splat. Daniel is weirdly comforted by counting. It serves as a fitting substitute to the vacuum that eats up the screams, the stuttering gasps of air riddled with desperation. Missing one eye, Daniel watches himself scream inaudibly, blood pouring down his face, his neck, soaking his torn and tattered clothes.

He is but a mere spectator to a leading man in his own torture chamber.

The hard flooring digs into his knees but the ache in them is phantom. Daniel's here and there, tormented and helpless, driven to the brink of passing out and forced to endure a twisted spectacle. A hand, cold as ice, cradles his bloodied cheek, tender. Tilts his head up from where he's kneeling, shackled to the floor, his wrists rubber raw. Here, tenderness is a perpetual deceit. The figure standing by the other him is indistinguishable, a moving black ink stain with many arms and sharp angles. Daniel knows him. It's why he doesn't hold his breath for what comes next.

Pressure on his face, no, not his but it is Daniel. One finger pulls down his eyelid, the other digs into the corner of his eye like a fish hook. Daniel imagines a scoop treating him as a tub of ice cream. It's hysterical. He must still be screaming. His brain must be shutting down. Pain does that, eventually.

It takes time, the remaining eye. Pressure builds in agonizing waves; his vision blanks out but Daniel is watching from afar, out of body, bound and motionless, drenched in animalistic fear. Pulled out of the socket, meticulously and with a caricature of care, Daniel follows the optic nerve still attached to his eye stretching up, up, further up until it snaps like a string. He must be screaming louder. He must be dying. But Daniel hangs on.

In the hollow spaces where his most prolific weapon used to be, blood pools and then overflows, a crimson waterfall marring his flesh. The floor beneath him is slippery, sticky; Daniel feels the blood on his hands but when he glances down, they're clean. It's not right. None of this is. They took his eyes.

He won't know an enemy from a friend; a clean soul from a wretched one.

Laughter. It fills out the void. Fingernails scratching the chalkboard, that laughter. Daniel knows who it belongs to, that distortion of joy. Shadowy figure standing above him raises four of its hands. Some miss fingers, one looks like a scythe. All of those limbs are covered in Daniel's blood. It glistens, taunting.

Daniel's throat closes up. His eye, held in between bloodied fingers, becomes the sole focus of his attention. He blinks; the other him can't do such a thing anymore. He thrashes in place instead, spitting curses that fall dead on Daniel's ears but he recognizes the shape of them leaving his own lips. That figure — the monster, the demon, the death itself — raises one of its arms, studying Daniel's eye under the yellow light coming off the ceiling. Why is there light?

He can't save himself. He needs to save himself.

They took his eyes. He ripped Daniel's only defense to shreds.

The figure moves again, wobbling and buzzing, then it parts at the top where its head supposedly is. Daniel can't make out its features but he knows. Doesn't he? He knows him well. There's teeth now, startlingly white. Black, viscous saliva drips off the tips. A droplet lands on Daniel's cheek; one of him flinches without moving, the other has his skin melting, sizzling, exposing the bone. Fear becomes a creature of its own. And it wants to escape.

Daniel watches, then, consumed by the opulence of fright, as the being made of shadows and everything unholy pops his eye into its gaping maw and snaps it shut.

In the seconds that stretch into an eternity, Daniel's body gets squeezed and lifted off the floor. All the teeth, the open maw, his own eye staring back at him from the inside, unblinking – brown with a tinge of red. There is a roar and a screech; Daniel faces his disfigured state. Then all is ribs crack under pressure and he breathes in at once.

It consumes him.

When Daniel's eyes fly open, as abruptly as a flock of birds spooked by a stray dog driven by nothing but hunger, Max is the first thing he sees. He leans against the doorframe of Daniel's bedroom, already dressed for the day.

"Why are you on the floor?" Max asks matter-of-factly. He sounds like himself, maybe a bit croaky. Daniel's gotten used to him like this. And it's not the first time Max drops by his room unannounced.

"Uh. Morning yoga?" Lame answer to the shitty start of the day. Is it still morning? Daniel's back doesn't waste any time reminding him of the comfortable mattress he seemingly fell off of during the night. Not like he has that much control over the horrors clinging to him like an ex that can't take a hint. "Shit. Give me five and I'll be good to go. We gotta pop by Alex's first thing, though."

His legs are tangled awkwardly in a thin blanket. Half of it is still draped over his bed. Daniel rubs at his eyes, keeping himself upright. The soft prickle of eyelashes on his fingertips, the spots dancing in his vision — kind of stupid to need reassurance. This shouldn't be that big of a deal. Fighting off a wendigo and getting to keep all your limbs, now that is fucking terrifying. Nightmares are practically in his job description, a walk in the park. But this kind–

"Of course," Max says. He sounds closer than he was moments before. Daniel looks up and spots a helping hand. Ah, his poor dignity.

"Mate, did you sleep in the freezer? Your hands are cold as fuck," Daniel mumbles while Max hauls him up to his feet without much trouble. Huh. Maybe Daniel's just running hotter than usual. Shouldn't be a surprise considering his nighttime adventures.

"It was very tempting to spend the night in there," oof, bitchy. Now that's his Max. He huffs, annoyed and lets go of Daniel. "I had a Red Bull with all the ice we had. We need to buy more on the way back. It's a fucking desert outside."

No fucking wonder.

Daniel sways on his feet a bit, admittedly shaken. Looks down at himself and spots a new stain on a faded Bills t-shirt he slept in. He must be sweaty and gross after a night he had but there's a foreign tackiness, too. Remnants of the horrors conjured in the depths of his subconscious stick to his skin like molasses. Daniel's getting the urge to scrub himself clean with bleach, wiggle out of this weird state. At least for Max's sake.

"Fucking peachy," scratching the back of his head, Daniel pads to the adjoining bathroom. "I'll be out in a tick."

Max's response reaches him as he shuts the door.

"I'll wait in the car, Daniel."

He always does.

Splashing cold water onto his face rewards Daniel with a handful of miraculous minutes where he isn't trapped in the suffocating heat of the summer. A shower would have been ideal but he's running late. Alex would bitch about him not being on time again for the next month or so. Looking himself over in the mirror, Daniel assesses the need to shave sometime soon. It can wait. Sporting a beard isn't all bad. He stares his reflection in the eyes longer than necessary — two normal eyeballs, both intact, same color to them. Brown tinged slightly with red. People barely notice but those who know what to look for are always the ones asking Daniel to remove sunglasses he wears most of the time.

Funnily enough, it's the one thing he forgets in haste on the way out. Daniel never leaves the house without his hunting knife, strapped securely onto his lower back under a billowy t-shirt so nobody calls the cops on him for carrying a scary looking weapon. But, fuck, his shades. The sun shining mercilessly in the cloudless sky will give him a headache soon enough. Daniel curses himself, shielding his eyes from the sunlight with a palm of his hand.

His neighbour walks by on the sidewalk, a tiny dog trotting next to her. Daniel stops just short of the driveway to give her a nod and a slight wave; a cursory motion. She beams back at him and her dog decides to join the interaction by yapping uncontrollably, pulling on the leash. Daniel tells himself to be cool about it but he still tilts his vision sideways out of sheer habit. His eyelids twitch, reacting to the sun blasting from above. Daniel keeps his smile cheerful and his gaze trained on his neighbour. A translucent glow enveloping her shoulders and chest greets Daniel as it did numerous times before. She's perfectly human. The dog, on the other hand… he can't vouch for that creature.

Finally making it to the car, Daniel opens the door and climbs into the driver's seat. It's cool inside. The aircon is doing its magic just fine but the wheel feels like lava to the touch. Thank fuck Max had the car running before Daniel dragged himself outside. He can do with a little less worry, today of all days.

When he turns his head in the direction of the passenger seat, Max looks like he's seeing an army of ghosts.

"Max?" Daniel waits for the other shoe to drop. It's been weeks. His hand finds the hilt of his knife on pure instinct ingrained into his bones. Max remains unmoving, staring ahead through the windshield. His mouth falls open, his lovely lips look chapped. "You alright there, buddy?"

Daniel counts the seconds of uninterrupted silence. Studies the side of Max's face, the sharp line of his jaw. Counts his steadily increasing heartbeat, too, waiting. Max's lips continue to move without a  hint of sound. Daniel's grip on the knife tightens.

Every scrap of thought in his brain comes to a screeching halt. His vision feels like burning. Max slumps forward, his back bowed. That nightmare Daniel went through flares up at the back of his mind, alive and vivid. His breath catches and a lump lodges itself in his throat like a rotten bone.

He can't be out of time. And Max–

Max snaps out of it. With a full body jolt, he reels back and his body hits the side of the door. He's facing Daniel now, chest heaving. Daniel lets go of the knife and pulls his hand forward, almost placating. It's not fear rattling his bones; it's something worse. His eyes twitch involuntarily. Once, twice. Max seemingly deflates.

"No, I felt like– felt like remembering. But no luck," he swipes a palm down the side of his neck, then the back of it. Daniel holds his breath and only allows himself to breathe evenly when Max shrugs, like nothing happened at all, and nods at him, squinting. "Too bright for you today, no?"

"Sure," Daniel responds flatly. Begrudgingly, he makes a show of reaching for a pair of shades he remembers stashing in the glove compartment and Max thoughtfully moves his bare knees out of the away. He's always wearing the shortest of shorts and Daniel really can't blame him. Swampy summer hellscape in the middle of July is drastically different from where Max is originally from. There is irony in that fact, as far as Daniel knows. "Eyes are kinda itchy today."

Light sensitivity, he explained to Max back when they first got to know each other. Truth wrapped in a crisp, white lie. That, and an occasional migraine or two was a small price to pay for the ability to tell souls apart. Daniel had seen some that shone righter than the sun itself; he'd also seen those darker than a thousand nights. The latter taught him the most valuable lessons. Otherwise Daniel wouldn't be still alive and kicking.

They drive through the morning rush and the cacophony of a small town dealing with the worst possible heatwave in the last decade or so. Daniel blasts the aircon heedlessly, secretly asking whatever powers that may be for his engine not to kick the bucket. Max is looking out the window. Daniel steals a couple of glances at him, rightfully concerned, and only catches the back of his head. He almost reaches to smooth Max's hair sticking out from the humidity but thinks better of it and keeps both hands firmly on the wheel. His gaze darts down to Max's pale thigh instead, his fingers drumming a rhythm on it that Daniel can't place. And it bothers him.

"What do we need from Alex?" Max enquires.

We.

"He caught wind of some shady business. Possible sighting near the place where they're repairing the highway. You know, by that one dodgy looking exit?" pure lies. Daniel clears his throat. "Might check it out tonight."

Max hums. They ride the rest of the way in silence. Daniel tries to keep the dread at bay.

For people like Daniel, Alex's coffee and tea shop is a convenient front. For those who live in the blissful ignorance of the supernatural, it's another pleasant establishment to spend your hard-earned money at. Either way, for the last couple of years Daniel's made the best out of his friendship with Alex ever since stumbling to the shop after closing hours, bleeding out and poisoned. Alex kindly saved his life – for free since Daniel was a new customer – and the rest is rapidly evolving history.

Daniel parks in the free spot right by the entrance and kills the engine.

"Wanna head in with me? We could grab a bite after," to his offer, Max makes a noncommittal sound. Daniel's nerves ease up, strangely.

"Not hungry. I'll just walk around," Max fishes his phone out of his pocket, wiggles it in front of Daniel's face, sounding pleased. "I'll keep myself busy."

He promptly exits the car and stops to watch several cars drive by. Daniel follows Max suit. It's easier, if he's being honest with himself, to make these visits by his lonesome. Daniel catches himself missing Max's company from time to time but not this instance. He eyes the broad line of Max's shoulders, the back of his neck. Then convinces himself not to let his gaze slide down and maneuvers between people passing him by.

Walking inside the coffee shop, Daniel's senses gets hit with an amalgamation of enticing smells and monotonous pre-lunch hubbub. The guy behind the main counter is new. Super young and super into flirting with a couple of customers who are way out of his league if Daniel was to judge. He should not pry so publicly but does so anyway, briefly lifting the shades up. The glimmer of the new guy's soul is patchy, purplish but mostly light blue. All clean across the board. Daniel covers his eyes again, then turns on his heels and walks towards the opposite side of the cafe. There, stashed in an artisanal looking corner with a myriad of meticulously stacked wooden shelves, Alex has his hands folded across his chest and his hip propped against the sturdy looking counter. He's giving Daniel a pointed look.

"That's your new guy?" Daniel asks instead of a greeting, pointing back at the counter with his thumb. "Is he–"

"Witchy?" Alex interjects. His smile seems twitchy and he blinks a bit maniacally. "Absolutely. You saw yourself, didn't you? Franco has a long way to go but I can work with that. Though, checking out my recent hires is not why you're here, Daniel. We both know it, so let's get to it."

Daniel places his elbows on the mahogany table separating him and Alex, then slips his shades to the tip of his nose and stares in faux indignation.

"Oh my, Alexander, so forward," he drawls. "No special treatment for little old me?"

Alex levels with him, lips drawn into a thin line.

"Uh-huh," he eyes Daniel with utmost suspicion. "Are you done playing house with a demon?"

Yeah. That.

"Alex, c'mon–"

"You yourself told our good friend Charles not to beat around the bush and deal with a hitchhiker in Pierre's soul with your fancy demon knife," Daniel unglues himself from the counter, turning his back on Alex, exhaling audibly on purpose. Anger is an old friend paying him a new visit but Daniel's hospitality appears lacking. When he turns back around, Alex places his hands in his hips and continues on with his tirade. "You know, the knife? One that, wait, let me remember this correctly. Hm. Right! One that famously sends demons back to the luscious green pastures of hell."

"I don't think they're green," Daniel tries. His attempt at a joke lands limply between the cracks. Alex is not having it.

"Daniel."

He rolls his eyes and cranes his head to beg the painted ceiling for mercy.

"God, you're so testy today."

"I'm just looking out for you," Alex exclaims and then lowers his voice. "You think I wouldn't prefer less funerals?"

Daniel clamps his mouth shut. He looks outside the panoramic window by the entrance and, by design, spots a familiar figure. Max is leaning against his car, bathed in the afternoon sun, tapping on his phone. Next to him, a cat sits on the hood of Daniel's car, languidly swaying its tail around. From where Daniel stands, the cat seems to watch Max keenly.

They made him take an oath, back in the day, official as hell. Daniel swore on some dusty ass book and got a hunter's coin in return. Thing is, folks don't become demon hunters on a sudden whim or because they're craving to spice up their life. Nobody gets dropped into this life willingly. Daniel has learned that lesson the hard way.  

Daniel did a couple of hunts with a guy named Carlos, who came from a long generation of demon hunters. He was a peculiar fella but so damn good at his job. Daniel made sure to stay in touch with him, just in case. Making connections is part of the whole family shebang. Carlos spoke of hunting like it was written in his destiny or whatever, like it was a testament to his skills and his family's legacy. Daniel, on the other hand, felt a gap in that connection. He was just born with funky vision. Otherwise, perfectly mundane.

As long as Daniel had his eyes, he was a valuable asset, a diamond cherry on top. Without his vision, well. Demon hunting doesn't have a pension plan.

He took that oath just for the hell of it. Apart from being outdated and unnecessarily convoluted, it has one golden rule that every hunter, young and old, should follow unequivocally. Daniel abided by it without much thought, up until the ever-present oath came in butting heads with his own set of morals and his gut feeling screaming at him to abandon it at all cost.

"Yeah. I know," Daniel murmurs, switching his attention back to Alex. "Look, I'm taking care of it. It's not all bad, ya know? Just a little more time before I can do my thing. And save a life."

Save himself.

Alex regards him with something akin to pity. Daniel slips his shades off and pockets them away. He can't bring himself to find any solace in the azure hue engulfing Alex from head to toe. And he could do without lectures surrounding his fuck ups.

"I'll be right back," Alex says, finally. He disappears behind the door next to the shelves that have medicinal herbs written on them in intricate cursive.

Daniel lets his eyes rest, shutting them softly.

Then, he remembers.

A summoning circle laid out with bones. Markings older than time itself etched into the stones on the ground soaked in rain. Bile rising up his throat as the smell of sulfur hanging thick in the air hits Daniel and his knees buckle. Eviscerated bodies, dozens of them, their faces burned off; an assortment of limbs strewn all over the circle. And blood. Rivers of it feeding the soil beneath.

He remembers, again — shaking, gripping his knife until his hand went numb. Rain pouring into his eyes. Silence ringing loud, louder than the screams Daniel heard from afar. In the middle of the summoning circle, curled in on himself, a naked body of a man. Pale as death. Daniel's legs leading him forward, his instincts going off like a siren. Kneeling on the ground and ignoring the squelch upon making impact with the ground; rolling a cold and limp but breathing body onto its back. And then immediately going half-blind.

He broke the oath that night.

The door creaks. Daniel opens his eyes.

"Don't forget," Alex says as he pushes a piece of what looks like parchment paper across the table. Daniel stares at the scribbles written all over. They wouldn't make sense to him, ever, but Alex is a master of his craft. "Skin to skin, then the activation word. Don't mess it up. Took me a week to draw this seal properly. I already feel the build up effect of all the previous ones diminishing. Rapidly. There is only so much my seals can do."

Daniel folds the paper and carefully slides it into the back pocket of the jean shorts he's wearing. He shouldn't delay activating the seal.

"My thanks to you, Alexander, the great seal master," he tries to sound cheerful. Beams with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, then end up dropping the act. Daniel studies the cracks in the table before he manages enough courage to look up at Alex again. "Hey. Can you do me a solid?"

"I'm still in the middle of doing a rather big one for you but sure," Alex sighs, overdramatic. "I'll just add it to your tab."

Daniel chews the inside of his cheek, ruminating. He breathes in, then, lowering the pitch of his voice.

"What's the color of Max's eyes?"

"Max's eyes? Why–" Alex catches himself momentarily. Daniel sees when the full weight of realization sinks into his mind. His eyes soften and he gives Daniel a tight-lipped smile, rolls back his shoulders. He looks aside, to the panoramic window, then back at Daniel. He's talked to Max before, and seen him up close. Daniel knows he's stalling. Solemnly, Alex says: "Blue. Rather pretty."

It fits the picture Daniel had painted in his head. During some sleepless night, it was all he could think about.

"Pretty, huh?" he repeats. Then raps his knuckles on the table, bidding Alex a goodbye. "Thanks, mate. I really owe you one."

"Use protection!" Alex yells loudly after him. Daniel cringes, his shoulder lifting up to his ears. Motherfucker. He catches Alex following up, though more quietly: "And don't die."

That's the plan. Easy on paper, impossible in the long run. Daniel could really use the odds being stacked in his favor.

Outside, the air feels thick. Daniel tries to will his lungs to expand but it's a hopeless ordeal. He puts his shades back on, shrinking in on himself in defeat. The paper seal stashed in his pocket feels like it's going to leave a burn mark on his ass. Maybe Alex did something to it on purpose. Daniel could really use a laugh now.

Instead, he thinks of how he's going to covertly press a new seal onto the designated spot on the back of Max's neck, same place he'd placed many that came before. There ought to be some scarring. Daniel thinks of adding another shackle to the gaps in Max's memory and the other things sealed away by Alex's magic, things way beyond Daniel's comprehension.

He thinks of the time running out; of his own selfishness and want. Thinks he might never find it in himself to let go.

"We can go now?" Max asks without missing a beat as he pushes his body off the car. Daniel's head darts up, his train of thought tearing itself away from the plague of possibilities. "I found a woman who agreed to talk to us. Maybe she knows me."

Daniel's stomach churns.

"Great," he steps in front of Max and digs around in his front pocket. "Wanna drive for a bit?"

He offers up the keys and Max swiftly swipes them from Daniel's hand. Even with a brief contact, there is a hint of cold to the touch.

He knows his way around Max by now. Knows how unintentionally funny he is at times and how picky he's with food. Daniel has gotten used to having Max in his space, keeping him all to himself; driving around the city and looking for answers Daniel already knows but he's too fucking selfish and self-righteous.

For the first time today, Daniel has enough guts to really looks at Max.

There is darkness he cannot escape; eyes he cannot hide from. At times Daniel considers his gift of vision nothing but a fatal curse. With Max, he avoids using it as much as he can allow. Look everywhere but directly into his face. Yet every single time Daniel dares to hope the outcome would be different, dares to hope the seals worked their magic, he's proved painfully wrong. His shades are of no use; Daniel doesn't need to tilt his vision sideways either. Not for Max.

As if filled out with pitch black ink, the eyes darker than the cavernous void always stare back at him.

Daniel blinks and his heart gives a devastating tug.

Shadowy arms, familiar in their wretchedness, caress Max's head, his cheek and his shoulders; wrap around his waist, slide down his thighs and envelop him whole. Some hands miss fingers and one looks like a scythe. Those limbs, they are not covered in blood. Not anymore; not yet. Daniel knows it's temporary.

It always ends in blood. And, for Max, Daniel is willing to spill rivers of it.

[cy-cyborg]

Writing amputees: Phantom limb sensation/Phantom Limb pain

This was something I got asked about a lot whenever I made videos about amputee representation, so let's talk about Phantom Limb Sensation (PLS) and Phantom Limb Pain (PLP).

TW: Description of surgical amputation process. section with this content can be skipped and the start/end will be clearly marked.

What is it and what causes it?

Phantom Limb Sensation is when you can feel a limb, even after it's been amputated. This phantom limb is a VERY common side effect of amputation, one that almost every amputee experiences at some point. Depending on how the limb was amputated, how old the person was at the time and the condition of the limb before amputation, it can last for as little as a year to being a life-long condition.

it's caused by the part of your brain responsible for proprioception - the sense of where your body is in space. Your brain has an internal map of your body and specifically your nervous system, and it uses this to determine where certain body parts are in space, even without input from your 5 main senses, meaning you don't need to look to know where, say, your leg or hand is (usually, though other disabilities like autism and ADHD can affect this and make it less accurate). Usually, the brain senses where your body parts are using a combination of this map and input from nerves. But if something happens to your body part, that internal map can have a lot of trouble updating, and when the internal map and the nerve inputs don't match, it can cause your brain to panic and fill in the gaps from the missing input signals, creating the sensation that a lost body part, usually a limb, is still there. For some, the limb light be locked in place, other might have the sensation of the limb "growing back" (though as I understand it, this typically only happens to very young children) and others feel as though the limb is perfectly fine and moving along with the rest of the body normally.

This sensation isn't unique to people who have lost limbs mind you: some trans people who have had top or bottom surgery, people who've had mastectomies, and even people who have had growths or tumours removed often report a similar sensation of their removed parts still being present, though it's not usually as intense and fades after a few months to a few years on its own with minimal intervention, leading to it being categorized as a separate phenomenon to Phantom Limbs in these cases.

Phantom Limb Pain is an extension of phantom limb sensation, caused by the body's more extreme reaction to the same phenomenon. The exact reason why it occurs isn't known, but in many people, instead of feeling a persistent pressance of a limb that's no longer there, they will feel discomfort or pain radiating from the lost limb. For some people, it might be an itch on the phantom limb they can't scratch, for others, the pain can feel like intense "pins and needles" all over the lost limb, others feel an electric "zap" running through the non-existent nerves, live they've grabbed a low-voltage electic fence, some people feel a dull, pounding pain, like the lost limb is being crushed or pushed into positions it shouldn't be able to go into (e.g. someone who had their knee amputated might feel the joint bending in the wrong direction). Some people experience all of these, some only experience one. Everyone will be different.

How is it treated?

Like with many things in life, prevention is better than a cure. certain measures can be taken to lessen the intensity of PLP and PLS before it can even start.

Gore TW: description of the process of surgical amputations, skip to the "----" divider to avoid.

People who have had amputations in the last 10 years will go through a slightly different procedure than those who had amputations before then. Historically, the limb would be amputated by cutting directly through the limb and either sewn shut or by having a skin graft where tissue is used to create a "cap" at the end of the stump. These methods worked, but left nothing for the nerves to connect to once everything was healed, leading the brain to think the reason for the lack of signal from the limb is that the limb was simply broken. Not only can this cause added intensity to the nerve pain, and increase the risk of something called a neuroma, where the nerves attempt to mend the "break" and continue to grow until they hit the surface of the skin, causing them to bundle up and get tangled, creating a feed back loop and amplifying any signal from the area to unbearable levels (including phantom sensations).

Today though, when conditions allow, amputations are done by cutting through the limb as before, then once the skin layers are reached on the other side, surgeons cut downward, creating a long tab of skin which is pulled over the bottom of the stump and reattached to the front. This allows the major nerve pathways in the limb to connect with each other during the healing process, creating a loop in the nerves and tricking the brain into thinking it's still receiving signals from the amputated limb.

Those who had their amputations prior to this change in the procedure can have a similar operation done to achieve a similar effect, though in both cases, it doesn't always work and can lead to the brain producing very very strange phantom limb sensations. In my personal case, it creates a sensation that I can feel my own skin in the region as though it was something separate from the rest of the body, almost like I'm wearing a sock. Very odd, and honestly kind of cursed lol.

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If prevention isn't an option though, different treatments exist.

One popular method is through compression. what's left of the amputated limb (called the stump) will be either wrapped in very strong compression bandages or the person can wear a fitted compression sock on the stump. This is usually done for the first 6-12 weeks after the amputation, though it can be done for longer under the supervision of a rehab specialist in some circumstances. After 6 weeks, 6-12 weeks, the stump will have healed enough for a prosthetic to be fitted. After this point, the person is encouraged to wear the prosthetic or at least the liner, usually made from silicone in modern prosthetics instead of a compression sock/bandage. The liners of the prosthetic offer milder compression, as does the socket of the prosthetic itself, and the "snug" feeling can, for some, make the phantom pain more bearable and the phantom sensation less frequent (though some people experience the opposite and will have increased PLP/PLS while adjusting to the prosthetic, though it usually subsides eventually).

For leg amputees specifically, they are encouraged to walk on their new prosthetics as much as possible, as the action of walking with the prosthetic will often trigger the phantom limb to start moving in time with the rest of the leg, and the sensation of walking can essentially trick the brain into using the phantom limb sensation to help the person walk more naturally and feel less unstable.

Another treatment is called Mirror Therapy, though this only works for single-limb amputees or arm and leg amputees who's amputations were on the same side (e.g. both left leg and left arm). The person puts their full remaining limb in front of a mirror and their amputated limb behind the mirror, then angles themselves so it appears that their full limb being reflected in the mirror is replacing the lost limb. If the person is experiencing an itch on their lost limb, they can scratch the full one, and look into the mirror. Eventually, your brain will feel the scratching sensation on the phantom limb instead.

If none of these options work, nerve pain medications such as gabapentin can be prescribed, though this is usually a last resort as these medications can have serious side effects and can prevent people from being able to do certain jobs or even drive depending on the dosage. As an absolute last resort, an injection can be given to the person to numb the stump. This does not stop the pain completely, but it does subdue it, though many doctors warn against this as it often means the person will not be able to feel if their stump is injured and can result in infected, untreated wounds.

Unfortunately, there is no "cure" yet, and many amputees just learn to live with PLP and PLS.

What things make you more or less likely to experience PLP/PLS?

There are some things that can make you more or less likely to experience PLP and PLS, and that can effect how intensely you experience them.

Your age when you lost the limb

People who are born without the limb almost never experience PLP and PLS, as their brain's internal map already knows the limb isn't there. Likewise, children who lost their limb very early in life don't usually experience PLS very intensely, or for very long, and are less likely to experience PLP at all. This is because when you are young, your brain is already updating that internal map because you're growing, so it has an easier time understanding the fact the limb isn't there anymore. Young brains are also constantly changing and growing, making them more adaptable in general to acquiring major disabilities. On the flip-side someone who lost their limb late in life is more likely to experience PLP and PLS for the rest of their lives. It can be managed, but it will likely always be pressant. Thier brains have not really needed to make any major updates to that map, often for decades, and are not really built to be able to do that, meaning PLP and PLS will likely take longer to go away, if they ever go away at all.

How you lost it and the condition of the limb before it was amputated.

If you lost your limb due to trauma, meaning events like accidents or major injury, the phantom sensation you experience will likely be much more painful, and could even feel like the injury or accident is happening over and over again. For example, someone who lost their arm to a shark attack might feel the sensation of the shark's teeth biting into it as well as the sensations described in the first section.

Alternatively, someone who had their limb amputated due to a pre-existing condition might continue to feel that condition even after the limb is gone. As a personal example, I've had multiple amputations throughout my life, but my most recent was due to a bone infection that formed at the bottom of my stump from a previous amputation. Now, when I experience phantom limb sensation, I can still feel where the infection reached the surface (where the nerves began to feel something was wrong). I had that leg amputated through the ankle as a young child, and when it was re-amputated higher up due to the infection, I didn't feel the whole leg, just the pre-existing stump.

Post Amputation Care

If a person does not receive proper medical care immediately after an amputation, their phantom sensation and pain will be significantly worse. My great Grandfather for example, lost part of his hand during WW2, but due to the situation, was not able to receive adequate medical care once he was established due to the medics being preoccupied with the actively dying. As a result of this and the traumatic nature of how he lost it in the first place, he experienced very intense phantom pain for the majority of his life. This is also important to keep in mind if your story takes place before the modern age, as it wasn't really understood how important post-amputation care was until recently, and many folks were left to just figure it out themselves.

Time

As with all things, phantom pain and phantom sensation fade with time. They may not ever go away entirely, but they do fade in intensity at least a little. This is especially important to keep in mind for characters with beyond-human lifespans. Your elderly grandmother character might not live long enough for their phantom pain to fade entirely, but your immortal vampire who's been alive for a millennia and lost their arm when they were human probably will.

Closing things to keep in mind

Wow, that was longer than I was expecting but I hope you found this all helpful. One last thing to keep in mind is that oftentimes, amputees who do experience PLS/PLP get pretty good at managing it, so you don't have to worry about it too much unless the amputation happens during the story itself or you want to make it a focus, this is just an explanation of what you can include if you like. Personally, though, I feel like it's an aspect of being an amputee that a lot of media rep overlooks, so it would be nice to see some more representation at least mention it. It doesn't have to be constant, but some brief comments or something of the like will go a long way.

[rewrittenwrongs]

Whumptober day 6: Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms / Healed Wrong

Read on Ao3 (registered users only) | day 5 | day 7 coming soon | Whumptober masterpost

Inspired by @brucewaynehater101’s Wingless Wing AU | Chapter 2 of 3 | chapter 1 | chapter 3 coming soon

TW: beginnings of a panic attack, phantom pain, chronic pain, mentioned mutilation and organ trafficking, implied child abuse

Ngl I think I’m pushing it a little with this prompt, but I did my best to fit it in with the plot I have in mind. I actually didn’t add the unhealthy coping mechanisms on purpose, I realised it fit as I uploaded this.

Honestly I think I went a bit far with the hybrid instincts and chirping stuff, but I really liked exploring what the in-world relations between different hybrids might look like, and I’m happy enough with this. Though, if I had the time and energy I might’ve edited the ending to be less awkward…

Tim paced while Jason looked around. The Nest looked surprisingly lived in, at least the area they were in: a cozy living room with a half-made pillow fort in the floor, like a 1970’s conversation pit owned by someone with an affinity for soft things. It reminded Jason of the other nest, the one he’s been in before, that was an actual nest.

He ‘busied’ himself with staring at the TV and subsequent collection of games and DVDs. He wanted Tim to talk but also didn’t want to rush him. How was he supposed to start a conversation like this? It was hard to think conversation starters with the memories replaying in the back of his mind. They were one’s he’d really rather avoid thinking about. One of them, he almost couldn’t wait for Tim to disprove.

Jason accepted he couldn’t take any more around the five minute mark, and cleared his throat pointedly. Tim winced and faltered in his back-and-forth pacing.

Tim swallowed. He was pale and shaking. “Um.”

“You… know, the owner of the wings,” Jason prompted softly, hoping ‘know’ was more accurate than ‘are’.

Tim ducked his head. His fists squeezed a few times, before he quietly whispered the last thing Jason wanted to hear: “They’re mine.”

“No.” He was wrong. He had to be wrong. He couldn’t—Tim was a human, he didn’t even have dormant blood, he was as regular as they come. He certainly wasn’t a flier like the rest of them—he didn’t lose his wings, he never had any! “You’re not—they’re not—no, that’s wrong.”

…Right?

Jason didn’t notice when his legs buckled, but he felt the carpet impacting his knees, and felt his wings hit the floor like dead weight. He could still feel them against his back, flexing below his shoulders, feathers flaring, shivering, but he could’ve sworn he was watching Joker examine them with a twisted smile and a satisfied gleam in his eye. Lifting up one limb and then the other, spreading one manually as blood waterfalled onto the ground, before handing it off to a henchman so he could use them to send Batman a message.

He could hear him laughing as he carved away muscles and feathers, hacking at bone; “It’s not the first time I’ve grounded a flier, but I can admit it’s just as satisfying the second time around. Maybe more!”

Jason shuddered all over. He was going to vomit. He was—he was going to cut off Joker’s legs, and fingers, too, see how he enjoyed being on the receiving end because he deserved it for cutting off Jason’s wings but removing Tim’s too?

Suddenly all the short, longing glances he remembered catching glimpses of when he took to the skies made sense. The odd look of fascination and envy when he explained the Pit grew back his wings somehow. His insistence on styling his new gliders after dragons—because he was one.

If Tim did have wings—how long ago were they taken? How could he survive with the pain? How had he ever worked up the physical strength to swing on grapple lines? Did Bruce know? Dick? His parents?

“How can you even stand?” Jason demanded hoarsely, and noticed for the first time Tim was a whole lot closer than he last remembered. He was crouching in front of him, posture small and non-threatening but his eyes blazing with… something. Jason didn’t recognise that emotion.

Tim’s face flickered to a grimace. “I’ve had a long time to practice.”

Jason’s hyperventilating got worse. He hadn’t even noticed he was struggling to breathe. “How long?”

Tim pressed his lips together.

“How long have you been dealing with this alone?”

Something in his gaze shifted. Like he was surprised, almost. “I… Young Justice helps. But I’ve—they’ve been missing since before I was Robin.”

Tim became Robin when he was thirteen.

“What the fuck,” Jason managed, then choked on his next breath.

Tim reached out and placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder. He understood, now, why he flinched when Jason tried to do the same earlier. There were so many muscles and bones connected to the wings, to have them all hacked off…

Jason whined a low, mournful coo, a whisper of I’m-so-sorry and I-can’t-imagine and I-want-to-make-it-better. He leaned into Tim and he adjusted easily, arms curling tightly around him. Jason wrapped his arms around his lower back and moved to hug with his wings as well, only to freeze. If his wings were cut off any sort of pressure there…

Tim huffed and pressed a hand against Jason’s wing, lightly, gently tugging it closer. “You can touch my back. I’m… better, at that stuff, now. Young Justice helped.”

Jason licked his lips and tried to steady his breathing. “Does it hurt?”

Tim stayed silent. That was telling enough.

Jason pulled back his wings. Tim sighed. “It always hurts,” he said, aggrieved. “Light pressure doesn’t make it worse anymore. It even helps, sometimes.” He sighed again, then started getting to his feet, gently tugging Jason along. “Come on. I’m not having this conversation without hot chocolate.”

To his immense surprise, Tim half-guided-half-dragged him toward the nest-adjacent conversation pit. Did dragon hybrids make nests? Jason’s pretty sure they did. He hesitated at the edge of the sunken arrangement of pillows and blankets and cushions, eyeing it—he had a feeling this nest wasn’t exactly communal.

Tim eyed him. He stayed on the outside edge of the nest. “You can come in. Unless you’d rather chill on the floor?”

Declining a direct invitation into someone’s nest was practically sacrilegious.

Jason slid inside, a wing spreading automatically as he slid down the cushioned sides. He landed half on top of a giant pillow and a fluffy black blanket and immediately froze. Jason… had very little experience being invited into private nests. He really hoped he hadn’t already shifted something important, or stepped in the wrong place. He looked to Tim to gauge his reaction.

His expression was complicated. Tired, mostly, from the nature of this interaction, but also quietly pleased in an anxious way. “You okay if I go make drinks?” he asked softly.

Jason hesitated, then nodded jerkily. His limbs were too large and his wings were in the way—and aching—and his breath was still fast, and he was half convinced he’d spiral into a full blown panic attack if Tim was gone for more than five minutes. But it didn’t take kettles that long to boil, right? Not when you were rich, certainly.

He just hoped he was making it from powder, and not with milk and chocolate over the stove the way Alfred did.

Tim nodded. “Yell if you need me.” Then he slid out of his crouch, and now that he was looking for it Jason could see the subtle movement his shoulders did, like wings trying to counterbalance the shifting of weight, and the almost unnoticeable stumble once he was on his feet. He left the room without looking back, and there wasn’t anything noticeably odd about his gait. Maybe a stiffness in his shoulders. Huh, now his tendency to borrow/steal shirts from people bigger than him made even more sense.

Jason wondered if he was using one of those fabled enchanted objects to disguise himself—if he had wings he almost certainly had a tail, too. And dragons usually had hollow bones; unless he’d managed to convince them to keep quiet, Leslie and Bruce and Alfred would know the first time he broke a bone, or did a blood test. Either way they almost certainly knew, they’d have seen the scars the second Tim got a back injury. Unless the enchantments hid scars too?

It was a nice nest. Carefully arranged, but in an organic way, like things had been shifted over time by people finding the comfiest spots. There were shirts from Dick and Bruce and Steph, all of them, and some that were probably from his Titan’s team, arranged in a seemingly random but carefully chosen pattern. A lot of the blankets were fluffy, but none of the pillows. There was a weighted blanket draped over the far edge. Jason folded his wings and tried to find a comfortable position without moving much. Then he remembered he was still wearing shoes, and hurriedly took them off, placing them on the floor outside the nest. At least he’d already changed into civvies.

It was a struggle to stop himself from counting the seconds. He tracked his breath instead, going through the breathing exercises Bruce taught him, not even summoning much annoyance when he realised where he learned them. They helped him feel less lightheaded. His wings still shook lightly, stayed puffed up in agitation. He let himself lean into the pillow, even press his face into the fluffy blanket for a second, enjoying the texture. If he wasn’t careful he could fall asleep like this.

Tim came back less than five minutes later, thankfully, and carried with him two mugs of hot chocolate. They weren’t quite full to the brim. Jason accepted his, leaning up so Tim didn’t have to bend as far, arranged his wings so any spills would land on them rather than the nest, and gently blew on it before taking a sip. It was nice, that perfect level of warmth that made him unable to take more than a sip at a time, with notes of cinnamon and maybe cloves, and the perfect amount of sweetness. How’d he know he liked his hot chocolates with cinnamon?

Tim set his own drink on the ground before toeing off his shoes and sliding into his nest, about a cushion’s length away. He took a slow sip, eyes closing, before leaning his head back and sighing. He opened one eye and stared at Jason. “So. What do you want to know?”

A lot. So much. Everything.

“Who else knows?”

Tim’s lips twitched. “Cass, Kon, Bart, Cassie, Greta, Cissie and Anita. And my parents knew, obviously. And the person that removed them.”

Jason took another sip to fight how dry his throat felt. “How’d you hide it from Bruce? Or Leslie?”

Tim took another sip. He reached for his neck and slipped a short necklace out from beneath his shirt, the one he always wore, even on patrol: thin gold chain and looping, golden pendant with a ruby and two tiny pink diamonds, which Jason always thought looked like eyes. It felt obvious in retrospect. “I think you’ve heard about these?”

“Ah.” Jason abruptly remembered all the times he got too talky, usually when tired or distracted, and rambled to the others, including Tim, of all the cool things about dragon hybrids. He’d been rambling about dragons to a dragon. Is this how fans feel after embarrassing themselves in front of their celebrity idol?

“It’s an illusion, then?” Jason said, taking another sip like that would hide the blush trying to creep up his cheeks.

“Hm, not really. It’s basically shapeshifting. All my dragon features only show up in one form, can only be seen or felt when I’m not wearing this. When I’m injured I can’t do it, I’m stuck in whatever form I was injured in. Scars carry over, and hair growth and aging and all that.”

Jason nodded slowly. “You—you still have the scars on your back, then…?”

Tim grimaced. “Yep. And the chronic pain, for some reason that always carries over. I’m just glad it doesn’t count as an injury.”

It was a struggle not to stare at his back. “How’d you hide them from Bruce?”

His wince deepened. “Did my best not to get injured on my back, and when I did, I hid it. Sometimes I’d have to put on a mask and pay a nurse to do stitches under the counter. Cass clocked me pretty quickly, she helped with injuries once we chatted about it. And once Young Justice learned I started going to them, too.”

Jason nodded slowly and tried not to feel horrified. He took another slow sip of his drink. He just—he just hid it? Bruce was literally called the world’s greatest detective, surely it was much harder and complicated than Tim made it seem, or he had to have seen something.

“And Bruce just—didn’t notice?” Jason asked, letting his incredulity seep into his voice.

Tim’s expression was wry and somewhat pained. “He was grieving you, Jay. I forced him to make me Robin. He hated me for months, he barely noticed when I broke bones half the time.”

Jason… would be bringing that up again later. Maybe with Bruce, to yell at him, because what the fuck? Seriously? If Tim was trying to ease his anxiety he had a very skewed perception of the world. “…Alfred?”

“He patched me up.” Tim shrugged. Jason wondered how much it hurt. “But like I said, I avoided injuring my back, and when I did get injured I hid it. Unless it’s an area he can treat without seeing the scars, or taking off my shirt, I would say I wasn’t injured. I just hid it.”

“‘Just hid it’? You just hid all your back injuries.”

“Yup.”

“From the world’s greatest detective and a war veteran butler.”

“Yup.”

Jason’s brows pinched in worry, in sympathy and concern. “Your pain tolerance must be through the roof, even more than mine.”

Tim inclined his head and averted his eyes. “Probably.” He took a somewhat surreptitious sip of his chocolate.

Jason took a sip too. It really was delicious. “…Can dragons actually see in the dark?”

Tim grinned. “A lot of us, yes. And we’re fireproof, too.”

Jason tried not to perk up or be too visibly excited. “Really?”

“Yup. Only in my dragon form, though, like this I’m just as flammable as you.”

“Can lead burn you?”

Tim’s expression went purposefully still. “Yes. In my dragon form. That’s what my wings were cut off with.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“That too, but mostly I’m sorry I didn’t cut off Joker’s legs when I first had the chance.”

Tim froze, mug halfway to his lips. His eyes bore into Jason’s soul. “…How’d you know it was the Joker?”

Jason winced, looking down at his lap. He had to rest his drink against his wings in fear of spilling any from how hard he was shaking. “You just confirmed it. He… when he did it to mine, he made a comment about this being his second time. I always kind of figured he’d been responsible for severing the dragon wings.”

He heard Tim sigh, then the tiny noise of him setting his mug against the carpet floor.

They stayed silent for a long moment, grief palpable in the air.

“Are… are they still in good shape? Do you know?”

Jason looked up, and tried not to notice how close to tears Tim looked. “Yes. Almost a dozen of my men are tasked with keeping track of them. Um. Actually, there’s an auction for them tomorrow.”

Tim’s head snapped towards him. “What?”

“Someone from the Court of Owls has had them for the last seven or so months, they’re setting up an auction tomorrow night with half the crime lords in Gotham. Even some dudes from Blüdhaven are invited.”

Tim’s whole body started shaking.

Jason swallowed. “Is. Is the myth of dragons reattaching their wings real?”

Tim blinked back to the present, and hesitated, grimacing. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it happen. Neither has my mother, but she was adamant it happened to her father. They’ve found loads of carvings telling stories of wings being returned after dismemberment. They were… very attached to the idea of finding mine. For the last year or so before mom’s death, hope seriously dwindled, and dad only brought it up twice after he woke up.”

Jason felt his irritation at the Drake’s swell.

Huh. He just realised how on the nose their last name was. That had to be on purpose.

“I.” Tim hesitated, then steeled himself. “I don’t know how much of it was phantom sensations—“ oh god, phantom pain, Jason hadn’t even considered that—“but sometimes I can swear I feel them pulling me somewhere. I… haven’t felt it in a while.”

Jason saw the anxiety seeping into his expression. “They’re both in one piece, I can assure you. I have some of my best men keeping track of them, if there was any hint of an idea of a plan to destroy or alter them, I’d know, and I would’ve stolen them immediately.”

“Why are you so attached to them? You didn’t even know they were mine half an hour ago.”

“I know what it feels like to have them taken away. Sort of, at least. I’ve always had respect for dragon hybrids. I wanted to give them a proper funeral, and. They hadn’t properly surfaced yet, but there were rumours about them when I first set up shop as Red Hood. They were described as belonging to a kid.”

Tim closed his eyes and visibly took a moment to steady himself. Jason let him, remembered his hot chocolate, and took a long drink. Not quite as warm as he’d want anymore.

Tim bowed his head. “I want to get them back.”

“So do I.”

“Even if reattaching them doesn’t work.”

“Okay. We can do that. Or maybe I can do that. I could go in as Red Hood, claim I wanted to take a look at them and see what all the fuss was about, and either before the auction or before they’re sent off I can steal them.”

Tim opened his eyes. “You’ll need backup.”

“I can call in Roy. Or Huntress, she owes me a favour.”

Tim bit his lip. “I probably won’t be in any condition to help.”

“That’s not true, you can be my tech support.”

“Oracle will want to know what we’re doing.”

“We’ll call it reconnaissance.”

A tense, but not wholly unpleasant silence followed, both of them sipping from their drinks.

“Can I stay over for the night?” Jason asked at last. It was about 3 AM when he swung by the cave. He was feeling the aches and pains from patrol now, of both bruises and excursion. He became annoyingly aware of how heavy his eyelids were.

“Sure.” Tim finished off the last of his drink, then blinked at the ceiling like he’d downed a shot rather than hot chocolate. “Do you want to sleep in here?”

“If you’re okay with that, then yes.” It was a very comfortable nest.

Tim nodded.

“Um. Do you have a tail?” Jason asked, after being unable to think up a decent segue. He really wanted to know, okay?

Tim grinned almost wistfully. “Yes. And horns, too.”

Jason exhaled and tried to imagine what that would look like. Would his tail be red and iridescent like the wings? How long was it? Did he have scales anywhere else? What colour were his horns? Did his eyes change? His hair? His teeth? Were his bones hollow in that form?

Tim huffed a laugh. “Your face looks ridiculous right now.”

Jason scrunched up his nose. “Sorry.”

Tim shook his head. “No, no, you’re alright, I’d be curious too.” He put down his mug and reached for his necklace.

Jason startled. “Wait, you don’t have to—“

Tim beat him to the punch. Even before he set it down, as soon as he opened the necklace’s clasp there was something different about him, an afterimage like the leftovers of a light show or the wavering air caused by heat. Then the necklace left his fingers, pooling against the edge of the floor, and all of a sudden he could actually see the differences, and oh boy was he different.

Tim’s nails were sharper and tinted purple, his ears were pointed, his grin showed off fangs, his eyes had slit pupils and were an unnatural, startling blue like the sky was a metal someone had melted white-hot and trapped inside his irises. There were grey horns protruding from either side of his head, near his temples, several inches long with ends almost pointing to the sky. And. There was now a tail curled around him, tip settled in his lap. Between four and five feet long. Small spikes or ridges following his spine. Dark red, crimson, the largest of the scales smaller than the nail of his pinkie, with purple undertones and a subtle, shimmering golden iridescence.

Jason gaped. It took until Tim hunched forward his shoulders for him to notice his expression was now one of pain. “Tim?”

Tim let out a low sound, inhuman, one of pain and fear and sorrow. But instead of his instincts flaring with protectiveness like he expected, Jason felt his entire nervous system light up in FEAR-DANGER-THREAT-PREDATOR-RUN-FLEE-RUN-AWAY.

Jason had already scrambled almost to the other side of the nest before he noticed he was moving. His wings were shaking too much to fly, but all his instincts screamed DANGER! DANGER! RUN FLY HIDE GET AWAY!! It took every ounce of willpower he had not to bolt for the door. He managed to root himself in place, shivering, wings doing their best imitation of puffballs, but couldn’t even contemplate moving closer.

Tim’s head was facing the floor, hands pressing into the cushions either side of him, hair curtaining his face. His shoulders were hunched and quivering. His tail flexed and shifted. His frame shuddered violently.

Jason’s mind ached with concern, while the rest of him yelled RUN NOW GET OUT WHILE HE’S DISTRACTED. He managed to spare a bit of worry for his hot chocolate. He was almost done, but he’d dropped it in his mad dash. Had he stained his brother’s nest?

Tim let out another low sound, this one much more familiar and less predator. A call for family-flock-brother-concern-where?

Jason had to swallow twice before mustering up the courage for an answering call. He tried to go for brother’s-here-safety-will-protect, but it came out more like fear-desperation-please-don’t-eat-me?

Tim paused, then looked up, and as soon as he caught sight of Jason his pupils thinned and the spines on his tail sat up, and his mouth dropped open with lips bared to show off his teeth in a distinctly threatening and hungry way, all of it making Jason yelp and dart another few feet away, pressing into the nest’s walls. But then Tim’s brow furrowed in both confusion and concern. He closed his mouth and curled the tip of his tail around his leg. He made a quiet rumble of safety-family-safe-no-harm-will-come.

It only minutely lessened Jason’s physical fear. Logically, he knew Tim wasn’t purposefully threatening him. Logically, he knew if either of them should be afraid of the other, Tim should be fearing him. Logically, he knew it was an evolutionary response, to what he perceived as a predator and what Tim perceived as prey. Unfortunately his body was not nearly as logical as the rest of him.

Jason managed to squeak out a hesitant, shaky call of mercy?

Tim’s answering call wasn’t quite like anything he’s heard before. It wasn’t much deeper than Tim’s normal voice but it felt like it was, like it took up the whole room. It rolled off his tongue smoothly and almost like a song, but Tim hesitated before making the sounds, mouth forming the vowels before speaking them. It was… almost scratchy? Definitely not the sounds of a bird hybrid, but kind of adjacent. To Jason’s brain it sounded nice, to his body it sounded like a predator. And to think he was usually the threat in equations like this.

It took Jason a second or two to parse what the warbling call meant, but he’s pretty sure it was mercy-mercy-safety-protection-no-threats-not-with-me.

Some of Jason’s tenseness left, but he still wasn’t able to do anything more than lean forward. Tim let out another call: safety-protection-promise-no-threat-no-danger-you-are-safe-with-me.

Finally, that was enough for Jason’s hindbrain to give him a chance. He scooted forward maybe a foot or so, movements jerky and tense. He tried to move further but his body would pull back at the last second.

Another call: please-I-promise-safety-I-will-protect-you-if-you-let-me.

Jason moved forward a cushion and a half, slowing down the closer he got, finally stopping with a whine of please-mercy-are-you-certain-no-harm?

Tim’s answering rumble was distinctly protective. It screamed there-are-no-threats-with-me-around, I-will-never-hurt-you, I-trust-you-in-return. Jason shuddered and some of his tenseness lessened. Tim quietly chirped, may-I-approach?

Jason squeaked. He was not proud of the sound, but he managed to twist it into something affirmative. His eyes snapped shut when Tim started moving, entire body tensing for the attack he knew wasn’t going to come.

He felt the pillows in front of him dip with weight, then a tail was wrapping around his waist and arms were curling around his shoulders. He whimpered instinctively at feeling a threat so close to his weakest point, head ducking as if to protect his neck, but then he heard—felt—a coo-ing rumble nearby and Tim curled all around him, a little strangely, accomodating for wings that weren’t there. The rumble-hum wasn’t quite a purr and wasn’t quite a growl. It felt like a promise of safety, of protection and warmth and love, but a lot of Jason’s instincts were still screaming THREAT!!

Slowly, the contact combined with the noise calmed him down a bit. Enough that he was able to force himself into relaxing, that he allowed Tim to gently manhandle him onto his side, let a soft, warm blanket be pulled over them both. Tim always had at least one arm around his middle, and his tail stayed in contact with him the entire time. It was strangely comforting. A nice weight, grounding.

Then Tim started lying down beside him only to jerk away and let out a bark of pain! the second his shoulder met the pillows.

Jason frowned. It was still a little hard to think with his instincts so in his face. He saw no reason for pain. He forced out a small coo of threat?

Tim started up the rumble sound again, conveying no-threat-only-safety-we-are-safe-this-pain-cannot-be-helped.

Jason let out a questioning noise. Tim kept up his reassuring purr, but when he finally lay down for real it became strained, laced with barely hidden pain-sorrow-fear-agony.

Jason made a confused distressed noise. He mentioned earlier… phantom pain? Shit.

Tim kept laying on his reassurances of no-threat-no-pain-I-will-stay-I-will-stay.

Jason had to swallow a couple times before he managed to make a chirp of I’m-sorry-you’re-hurt-how-can-I-make-it-better?

The purring paused. Tim’s grip on him tightened, punctuated by a low hum of you-can’t-I’m-sorry-thank-you.

Jason tentatively laid a wing, still half puffed in agitation, over Tim’s side. Tim tensed for a split second before leaning into him, mumbling thank-you-appreciation.

Jason relaxed a bit more. He made a coo of warmth-safety-sleep-no-pain rumble through his throat. Tim’s answering purr matched the sentiment.

Jason became abruptly very aware of how many cushions and pillows they were lying on and how soft the blanket over them was, how warm and soft and tired he felt, and promptly passed out.

[angelitaby]

future!leonardo x reader. tw; descriptions of gore, death and peepaw leo angst :3 does this count as a one-shot?

𝐋𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐎 is awake tonight, his arm draped over his forehead. he is completely alone. exception to the low glow of a lamp on his face. complex emotions are unfolding unbidden.

he can hear thumps and cracks from outside the room, familiar to the strong workings and sharp pains of his heart. the ash still rustles, patters, and sighs. it’s a taunting echo of your footfall, every light step a second he won’t get back. leo’s chest pounds louder. the ash storm buffets, his breath colliding rhythmically with the booming of his migraine. it's loud. like an agitated heart. pains and aches everywhere. he hears a snort of laughter. it's not real. it's not... real.

"you're getting old..."

a man filled with delirium from lack of sleep can't help but dream of his lost lover. his vision is blurry, but in the corner of his eye stands a figure, leaning against the frame of the doorway. it's not you. it's not you.

"you haven't been sleeping again, i see."

he doesn't answer, and the blurry figure moves in front of him, ghosting it's fingertips over his jaw like how you used to. cradling his face, running a thumb over his lips.

"what happened to needing your beauty sleep, leo?"

you are long dead, he should not be able to feel these sensations, but his body intimately remembers your touch like a phantom wound. he closes his eyes. and even if he was talking to himself, he couldn't help but respond this time. his voice is broken, it's so sad.

"i'm so sorry..."

"it's okay, leo. you're okay."

it's okay. it's... okay. he's—his eyes open wide, and he jolts up as if he had just been shot. your figure vanishes away like a wisp. and leo is once again forced back into reality. the reality that he will never be able to feel your true touch, and he will never wake up beside your forgiving gaze again. the feeling of you in his arms is something on the list of many things he will never have again. you're dead. and you're gone. it's not real. he has to remind himself. and his mind flashes to the night where he couldn't save you. against his will it replays in his head. flashbacks of you falling granted by some unknown force as an unholy gift.

a fate which made you beg for death. after feeling pressured by the eyes of a true monster peering through you and festering underneath your skin, writhing like worms through your sinews, rippling through your veins and kissing at each inch of the intricate maze under your skin until it threatened to break and face the sun. overcoming you to a madness. it laid itself where it could. your organs. behind your eyes, in your brain. in the deep layers. pulling your limbs apart with the power of a village, gnawing at your flesh to take as its own. with a smell that had made you want to vomit. it was dizzy. you wanted to scratch at your skin until it escaped.

eventually, you were unable to feel it after a sharp stab through your chest. your last heartbeat, your last breath. you began to see hallucinations. unable to see the world for how it really was. you lived in a blissful hallucination for a few moments. living in a distant dream, where none of this happened. a little world where you got to start a family, make a home. where you were safe. safe, because he was there. safe, he always was, leo. it didn't hurt, this dream. you knew it wasn't real, and perhaps it was selfish to feel so... so accepting of death, but fuck, did it feel nice. for once, you weren't in pain. were you smiling?

it was bitter sweet. it was beautiful. your skin split open, blooming outward like petals. blood sparkling like rain as it returned to the dirt. to be consumed by fungi that would continue the decomposition cycle with your marrow in its veins. eyes that were carefully embedded into your skin screaming as leo's ōdachi went right through your heart like cupid's arrow. they all looked at him. taunting. so, so taunting. it was like the kraang was laughing right at his face as it ripped you away from him.... you. you were gone. he felt his limbs go numb, he couldn't breath, he couldn't breath. he—oh, God. he couldn't fucking breath. donatello had to drag him away, but he was yelling the whole time.

and donatello, in an attempt to comfort his brother, he called your death something strange.

he called it... mercy.

[star-keepr]

hi here's a reminder for writers

‼️MEDICAL ACCURACY IN WRITING IS VERY IMPORTANT‼️

here's a few small reminders for anyone who needs them (tw for blood and medical tools)

I am in no way a medical professional, please fact check me if any of this is incorrect; I'm just speaking from my experience and research :)

- if you get stabbed and pull the object out, you will bleed

- if you don't tend to a wound or foreign objects, it will get infected

- tourniquets should not be made from loose material unless nothing else is available‼️

- don't leave tourniquets in for hours; you will most likely cut circulation entirely and have to amputate

- hypothermia immobilizes you!! cold numbs you!!

- hyperthermia also immobilizes you!! you will want to throw up!! you will want to pass out!! you won't be able to focus on anything!!

- if you're stabbed in an important enough place (neck, heart, etc) you can bleed out in ~5 minutes

- medical issues aren't 'hot' or 'pretty', they're usually messy, unwanted, and embarrassing

- pain can make people unnecessarily short, snappy, impatient, angry, and overall just warp their personality whether they mean it or not (they normally don't)

- adrenaline can make you superhuman, but it cannot make you invincible!! if you're bleeding out, adrenaline won't magically make that go away

- a mild fever is 38°C/100.4°F. it is not severe, pain meds and a day or two of (proper) rest can fix that.

- most medical issues/emergencies can't just be "walked off" or "braved out"

- DO NOT rip the IV out of your body when you wake up!! it's in your body for a reason!!

- same goes for any other medical things attached to you. do not remove them without the help of a doctor

- needles cannot and should not be reused. the tip gets blunt and covered in all sorts of body fluids from a single injection, which is why they're usually discarded after a single use. you can get infections and screw up your blood vessels

- people who have lost limbs experience something called "phantom pain", where they feel random pain in their nonexistent limb

- losing an important body part (eye, leg, hand) takes time to adjust to!! you can't aim properly if you're not used to aiming with one eye!!

- getting punched in the nose will activate your tear ducts even if you don't mean to cry

- breaking your nose will give you black eyes in both eyes even if they were not punched

thank you for coming to my ted talk <3

[itslouisan]

Some Revivebur headcanons!:

Btw some of these only exist due to @syndicatedsystem design on my man so...yep

Also shootout to @utahlive because some of these headcannons also came from some of the posts in there and @tntduopolls for answering some of my questions but also ✨ headcannon material✨

(Art by: zirzipper on twitter!! )

• Transmasc!! Either we agree C!Wilbur in general is transmasc or demiboy ot transfem, and that's it. Also bi

• This man totally tried dying his hair back to complete brown only to find out the streaks are always coming back white no matter what he did

• He started smoking on teenager years, considering how I hc Wilbur roughly as a 40 year old max (and C! Quackity as a 36 year old max) he lived through the time where smoking was seen as something "mature" and "cool" and socially even to this day many adults use smoking as a way to cope with pressure but also fit in the society and create connections in the work space, which Wilbur probably understood, picking up the habit of smoking for said reasons

• That being said, he's autistic, end of story, bye. He's also probably REALLY good at masking

• Because of tntduopolls I came to a conclusion: either Wilbur's style fluctuates between classy, rustic, OR JUST RANDOM BS FROM THRIFT STORES HE BOUGHT FOR 1.99 FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES

• Wilbur is anemic as fuuuuck, also lacks vitamin D

• His coat has a intense smell of cigarettes, whiskey, dry blood, gun powder and wet dirt, that's because he always had a problem with washing clothing, to the point he felt if he washed it, it didn't fit in his skin anymore and felt wrong, when Tommy took it, it was already completely destroyed and there was nothing he could do to repair, it was as if a mark of Wilbur was in that coat even after death

• This mf will enter in your house/office or whatever and steal anything he finds fitting, no, he won't apologize, yes, he will gaslight you to believing you just lost the item and is crazy blaming him, yes he keeps a collection of said items

• His favorite items to steal? Gold, keys, dice, cards, coins, lighters, rings, necklaces, sketchbooks (these he might give back if you draw him), history books and gems

• Quackity had to create a "code Wilbur" during Las Nevadas from how constantly that bitch forced his way into the office to steal some shit or just sit in Quackity's chair and play the president

• He did have an affair with Quackity before dying, it was secret though and both of them took it to the grave, literally

• He is rotting inside, like, he doesn't have warmth in his body, but it's not JUST that, other things that show that he's dead is the fact Wilbur has to constantly stitch himself together otherwise his limbs may stop responding and fall apart, also he feels phantom pain in the chest sometimes at night if he doesn't go to bed for far too long, but, inside his skeleton, his bones are rotting slowly, his voice is slowly becoming raspier and raspier because his vocal chords are hurting each other, maybe one day he'll end up mute and it doesn't help the fact that he smokes so much, and his teeth are permanently yellow. Not to mention the rotten and fucked up nails

• He actually has a tattoo with the L'Manberg flag on his left wrist

Tw: some of these can include the topic of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, body scars, body dysphoria

• He always HATED that he is an avian, often using unsafe binding methods on his wings, the result? He can't fly anymore, and due to death, his wings are rotting, falling apart, you can even see some of the bones in it already, birds also tend to pluck out feathers when stressed, so just like Phil, he took away multiple of his feathers from the wings, arms, armpits, neck and chest. He also clipped his wings.

• Wilbur DID self-harm when he came back to life, not because of depression this time though since in Pogtopia he used to sh from mental illness, in here, he feels ALIVE when he cuts himself, it's a reminder that he isn't just a husk, an empty cold corpse, that he feels pain again, that he isn't going to wake up in that train station again.

• In his limbo he did think of jumping in the train line a couple of times, but because the train never came he'd just be suffering in the bottom without a way to go back up

• Wilbur unsafe binding also extended to his chest, in which resulted to permanent scars in his chest and ribs, as well as breathing problems, all due to the fact he didn't want to ask for help of others for his gender but didn't want to live not feeling manly enough

• Wilbur has a massive issue with bed rotting sometimes spending half a day only in bed, and that extends to his apartment, dirty and messy and his own appearance

• In pogtopia, knowing that he'd die, every night he'd wrote song lyrics to burn them in candle light, letters saying what he wished he had the courage to say to people he cared about in person, and burnt himself with cigarettes only to feel alive (yes, yes it is a reference to Noel's lament, I'm sorry Wilbur is so Noel codded--)

• Sometimes by walking near places with water he sees the ghost of sally....he hates water now

[ink-au-askblog]

Tea Time With An Eldritch

In which there is neither tea nor time, but there is definitely an Eldritch and a child who is one, yet not quite.

TW: Eye, Character Death, Betrayal, Injury

It hurts.

Sans peers coldly through the metal railings as gravity drags you down, down, down. Your chest aches. Aches from the surprise and confusion. Aches from the betrayal of someone you thought to be your friend. Aches from the realization that it is your fault, that you have been hurting him all along, that this so-called friendship and happiness is nothing but a delusion made up by your own selfishness.

It hurts.

Lava burns through your skin, through your bones, through your very core. You scream, but you no longer have a mouth to do so. You cry, but the tears you shed have been swallowed by the scorching heat.

And then-

And then, darkness.

It hurts.

Darkness. Pain. Darkness. The shadow digs its claws into your flesh and rips. You cannot think. You cannot speak. You cannot breathe. Every fiber, every atom of your entire being is torn apart, scattered, rearranged, and then torn apart again. Over and over and over.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts ithurtsithurtsithurts-

You wake up. You never expected to.

Your body trembles with phantom pains. If you close your eyes, you may even feel that unrelenting, encompassing darkness again. But you don't. You won't. You can't.

(It hurts.)

It takes an embarrassing amount of time for you to realize that you are not as alone as you think.

An eye, wide and unblinking and all-seeing, cradled by gigantic hands that seem less like human limbs and more like the messy drawings of a toddler etched into reality. Distantly, you wonder if you can fit the whole Underground into that majestic pupil, but the thought is drowned out by a panic so deep and intensified that the breath shatters inside your lungs, a handful of glass shards cutting and clawing at your inside.

Funny. You would have believed that your fear had run out.

Before you can- Can what? Fight? Act? Flee? What can you even do against such an unfathomable and incomprehensible creature?- said unfathomable and incomprehensible creature has beaten you to the punch.

OH! It beams, and its voice is the stray idea of someone else, the rumbling change of revolution, the gentle melody of a flute, the ceaseless whispers of a thousand stories, everything and nothing all at once. HELLO, LITTLE ONE <CREATION-OF-MINE, MORTAL CHILD, BEAUTIFUL-AND-FLAWED-AND-PERFECT>! HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

"I," the answer slips out before it can register in your mind, tainted with terror and awe and a strange sort of instinctive reverence. "I think I'm lost."

BUT OF COURSE YOU ARE! AFTER ALL, WHO WOULD WILLINGLY WALK INTO THE VOID <GREAT MOTHER, THE-END-OF-ALL-AND-THE-BEGINNING-OF-NONE>? Yellow tickles at the back of your throat, the echo of a giggle that is not your own. YOUR WEAK, FRAGILE MORTAL MIND WOULD SIMPLY BE TORN TO SHREDS. AH, EXCEPT YOUR MIND ISN'T QUITE SHREDS YET, IS IT?

Its pupil constricts, something peering through the cracks of that endless depth. Something that looks almost like curiosity. Or glee, even.

You feel as if you were Atlas, straining to bear the weight of the world beneath your tiny, brittle shoulders. You feel as if this was the heat death of the universe and you were staring straight into the sun as its flameS consumed you wholly and completely.

(It hurts. But it doesn't. But it does. And you want to weep because you have never been so happy so fearful so small.)

TELL ME, LITTLE ONE <NOT MORTAL CHILD, FASCINATING ONE, YOU-WHO-ARE-LOST-AND-FORGOTTEN>, WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

Once again, you open your mouth before you can realize it- the mere idea of not answering has not even crossed your mind- and yet, the words linger upon the tip of your tongue.

The name you used to carry, does it really belong to you now? That name had died the moment Sans's palms touched your back and pushed, the moment your entire body was burnt by molten lava, the moment you died and reborn and died and reborn and died and reborn in the realm between space and time.

No. That name does not belong to you anymore.

So you gently lay it down, as slow and careful as one would lay down a casket, tucked deep beneath the crust of your heart like a gaping wound. With a heavy weight that almost resembles grief, you reply.

"Core Frisk." The words drape over your shoulders like a new coat, clumsy and unfamiliar. "I'm Core Frisk."

HELLO, CORE FRISK <VOID-TOUCHED, VOID-MADE, A-GOD-BUT-NOT-QUITE, SO-GLAD-TO-MEET-YOU>. I'M CALAMITY <VOID-BORN, GUARDIAN OF THE MULTIVERSE, OUTER GOD OF CREATION>. BUT PLEASE, CALL ME INK.

[sweetmascherari]

In Regard to Earthly Corporations

This was my Valentine's gift for Paaminty on the @goodomensafterdark subreddit. They asked for hurt/comfort, Top Crowley and I was more than happy to write it!

CW/TW: Mention of blood, minor blood kink

Seems they're a bit delicate.

Aziraphale finds himself a bit injured. Luckily he has a demon nearby to help make it better.

Excerpt:

Aziraphale hissed slightly with a shake of his head. “It’s nothing, my dear.” “Nothing?” Crowley moved to his feet and placed himself at Aziraphale’s side on the sofa, “Bollocks to that, ‘nothing’. You’re bleeding.” “Well, it would seem so.” The angel answered thoughtfully, “My, it smarts. I forget how discomforting pain feels.” “Oh, this is nothing.” Crowley smirked, “I lost three toes on my left foot once.” Aziraphale’s brows shot up as he looked over to Crowley while cradling his delicate wound, “I’m sorry, you what?” “Mnh, yeah.” The demon mused as he leaned back a bit, “Not too long before I ran into you in West Essex. Dropped my sword right across the top of it. I was just trying to get it out of the way, really. Slipped right out of the scabbard before I could even put on a single bit of plating. Lopped ‘em right off. Blood all over the stone floor.” “Dear me, Crowley. That sounds horribly excruciating.” “Oh yeah.” The reply came in a high-pitched acknowledgment. “Definitely not an experience I’m especially keen to relive anytime soon.” “No. I would think not.” Aziraphale agreed with a soft click of his tongue. There was a moment where he considered what it would feel like to lose toes. He had heard about the phenomenon of “phantom limb” before and wondered if that would have applied. He shook his head of the thought and breathed a light sigh before raising a hand. Crowley leaned across him, reaching to still it with his own. “Let me. I can make it better.” He shifted, placing his free hand gently onto the aching culprit.  “Tish tosh, dear boy.” The angel hissed again at the looming touch, punctuating it with a tisk, “No need to be so concerned. A small miracle will make quick work of it.” “Shut up, Angel.” He edged closer, “Just trust me.”

Continue reading on Ao3

[the-void-writes]

Freaks of Preston - Late Night Comfort

Summary: After the stress of their lives finally piles up, Jason starts getting frequent panic attacks. Luckily, his godson is always there to pull him out of it with love and warm food.

WC: 1.2K

TW: descriptions of a panic attack

Jason always tried to be strong. His patients depended on him for training and wisdom and overall care. He couldn’t afford to show weakness around them, especially whenever Vesely decided to rear his ugly head into their training for some asinine test. If he wasn’t at the top of his game, Jason was certain he would lose someone that he held dear.

He buried his fears as best as he could. His stare was cold but calm, his movements were slow and calculated, and his voice never betrayed his fear to his employees. No one would ever notice his true feelings towards Vesely and his company.

There were days, though, when Jason could no longer hide. He would wear through his mask and succumb to the thoughts that had threatened to seize his mind all week. Memories of the accident still haunted him— the events may have been staged, but the loss of his leg was more than real. Years later, he could feel the phantom shocks of pain in his limb, as though the wound were fresh.

But the sting of missing flesh was nothing in comparison to the numb grief that had swallowed him whole. Losing the closest thing he had to a son nearly paralyzed him. Even after getting him back, there was the countless testing, the secret experiments, all the mutations and procedures that chewed up his poor boy and spat him back out. Those memories burned themselves into the darkness behind Jason’s eyes.

Fear, fury, and crippling guilt reduced him to a silent, shivering wreck of a man. He couldn’t speak, or move, or breathe, or do anything other than think— think of the children that depended on him, of the madman that threatened their safety, of the town that was just as vile to people like himself, and of the deteriorating condition of his son.

Then, like the flip of a switch, the voices were silenced. Someone entered Jason’s office— someone who Jason could never hide from, even if he wanted to. They knew each other far too well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The office lights had been dimmed— that was the first sign that Jason was having an episode. The second sign was his hands gripping the armrests of his chair, pushing him back into the seat. The third was the distant, glossy look in his eyes, an expression that broke Will’s heart.

“Jason?”

He didn’t expect to get a response, but he always liked to call for him, just in case. When Jason hadn’t moved for a few seconds, Will carefully approached his desk.

“It’s getting late,” he said softly. “Are you ready to come home?”

Will glanced at the monitor on the desk— a plain blue desktop bathed Jason’s face in light. If he had been working on anything before his episode, it was most certainly finished.

“I tried to make dinner. It’s probably bad, but I figured I’d save you the cooking time.”

He held out his hand and waited patiently. Whenever possible, he tried to avoid simply grabbing Jason and bringing him back to the apartment. In these states, he was prone to panicking— he nearly threw Rio into the floor the last time he tried to help him up. Will would wait for as long as he needed to ensure that Jason heard him, and that he was ready to leave.

Eventually, Jason clasped his shaking hand in Will’s. The boy helped his godfather stand and walk out of the office. A quiet elevator ride led them to their humble little apartment, which felt empty without Henry. The soldiers had special training to complete over the week. Just an excuse for busy work, Will knew, a desperate plan from a petty old man who refused to accept that Jason didn’t love him. That spot in his heart was reserved for his family, for the people who loved him the way he deserved.

Will helped him sit down at the table and handed him a bowl filled to the brim with the pasta dish that Colin had taught him to make. Jason loved it even more when it came from Will because he always added extra peppers. He didn’t understand how anyone could tolerate so much spice, but he was more than happy to keep making it. His chest buzzed with pride each time his skills were complimented.

Jason ate slowly, but it was a miracle he was eating at all. A soft smile worked its way onto his face.

“Good?” Will asked.

“Thank you,” Jason said. His voice was small, barely a wisp of wind, but Will was grateful to hear him speak so soon.

“How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

“You should rest after dinner.”

“I still need to—”

“I sent out your last reports already.” Will gestured to the computer. “It was easier to scan them than mail them. I also emptied the trash and pulled your sheets out of the dryer, so your bed’s all warm for you. Everything’s done, so you can just relax.”

Jason looked as though he was seconds away from shattering. He rose from his seat, shuffled over to Will’s chair, and held him by the shoulders. A small tear fell from his face to the floor.

“Have I told you how lucky I am to have you in my life?”

Will smiled. “It’s nothing, really.”

“No— I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t have to.” Will hugged him as best as he could. “I’m always happy to help you.”

Jason hugged him back, and then sat back down with his food. A bit of color had returned to his face after eating, but he still looked miserable. He was in need of a distraction, or a good laugh.

“Hey,” Will said, getting Jason to look at him. “Did you hear about the king who was dethroned by his subjects?”

“What?”

“Kicking him out was easy, but the execution was a pain in the neck.”

Jason slapped his hand over his mouth, but once he started laughing, he couldn’t stop. His emotional dam finally broke as he gripped the edge of the table, shoulders shaking as he broke down in hysterics.

“Okay, it wasn’t that funny,” Will said, though he was laughing along with him. It always made him happy to get such a huge reaction from his godfather.

“Quite the contrary,” Jason said once he had caught his breath. “I dare say you’re the funniest one here.”

“Don’t let Henry hear that.”

Will stood up and took their empty dishes, but not before Jason took his hand and pulled him into another hug.

“Thank you, Will. I really needed this.”

“Glad I could help,” Will said.

After washing out the dishes, the two of them spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching game shows and cooking competitions, anything that they could laugh at and get invested in. By the end of the night, Jason’s panic attack was nothing more than a memory or bad dream. He couldn’t be consumed by darkness when the boy beside him was constantly sharing his light. As long as he was there, being patient and kind, and making Jason laugh so hard that his chest ached, then nothing could truly hurt him.