#waterboarding almost seems more preferable

[ddarker-dreams]

yan chrollo's most efficient punishment for when you've been misbehaving is to make you talk on the phone with customer service or something similarly dreadful. perhaps the bank if you've been particularly troublesome.

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Prompt #7

Robin is heretofore thought to be alone when he swings his katana behind him, almost catching the Adam's apple of his mother's new lover.

"Whoopsie!" Danny says, taking an agile step back, as if Robin's slice was a slip of the hand rather than a deliberate and likely fatal attack.

"What are you doing here," Robin demands, mask hiding the momentary widen of his eyes. No one sneaks up on the heir of Batman, least of all his mother's latest toy.

"I wanted to chat, just you and I," Danny says, as if they are standing on a sidewalk and not the rooftop of a forty floor building in the dead of night, Robin in full costume. "I know you were kinda caught off guard yesterday night."

"I was not caught off guard."

This is a lie. Yesterday night when Talia had appeared at the latest Wayne Charity Ball as the date of Daniel Fenton, an up-and-coming name in renewable energy, Father's dumbfounded look had been nothing less than genuine.

And even the Annoyance had choked on his non-alcoholic champagne when Talia had instructed Damian to greet his "new stepfather".

"Talia," Danny had said levelly, running a hand over hers placed delicately in the crook of his arm, "Remember how we were going to break this gently?"

"Darling, Al Ghuls do not require a gentle break," Talia had replied.

"What is happening," Tim had quietly muttered, squinting at the contents of his glass suspiciously. "What."

Tonight Danny is as calm as he was the previous night, looking amused if anything. Damian resists the urge to take another swing at him. Mother would probably not like that. Danny's affections towards her had seemed quite genuine, his eyes often on her with a light Damian reluctantly recognized from Grayson's many dalliances. And dare he say it, Mother had seemed to reciprocate.

"My mistake. Still," Danny says, "I was hoping to speak with you alone."

"I do not require another father," Damian says promptly. This is true. He already has a father, and a Grayson, and the other annoyances, and Alfred. "And you should not be speaking to a...minor...without their guardian present." He does not like saying this, as he is fully capable of being his own guardian, but Dick had been adamant once updated by Tim and Barbara that should Damian come in contact with Danny alone he was to say as such. He had extracted a promise from Damian after a high-pitched lecture via video call going on nigh an hour. Damian had been waterboarded, twice, and would have preferred a third time to one of Grayson's seminars on "stranger danger" and "parental custody". It had prevented him from going on patrol with Batman, who had left shortly after the gala, presumably to meet with his mother.

Batman had not succeeded, returning without a word. Red Hood, cackling, had pulled up behind him to congratulate Damian on his new "daddy" and loudly tell Oracle how Bruce had gotten an eyeful. An eyeful of what, Damian wasn't sure, and asking only made Jason laugh harder and Dick yell from the Batcomputer.

"Good thing I'm speaking to Robin, then," Danny says with a grin. Damian updates his mental file on the man to less of a goody two-shoes than previously thought. "And like I said last night, I'm not here to overstep."

"Then?" Robin asks crossing his arms.

"You and I are a lot alike, actually," Danny says. Despite the chill of the night, wind whipping at his hair, he seems very comfortable in his t-shirt and jeans.

Damian scoffs and Danny holds his hands up.

"Okay, I deserved that one. What I mean is, and bear with me here, I had a lot going on when I was your age, and my parents weren't always super...present. Their work kept them pretty distracted as we got older and more independent."

The background check they'd run indicated Danny's parents were scientists, his sister a therapist and women's self-defense instructor. The man himself had nothing remarkable on his record beyond a public intoxication charge in his early twenties, but that hardly meant anything. Talia Al Ghul's public record was nothing short of exemplary, one of the many facts that had made the judge reluctant to grant Bruce full custody.

"And listen, I know the way I was raised in the midwest is vastly different from your upbringing, and comparing the two would likely be condescending and a disservice to you, but I also know that while I liked my independence, I wish I had been able to talk to my parents more when things got tough."

"I fail to understand what you are saying," Damian says flatly. "Are you instructing me to speak to my parents as you believe I am having a hard time? And your basis for this incredibly incorrect hypothesis is you were once a teenager whose parents were neglectful? Also, this is certainly overstepping."

Danny's smile is sheepish. "It is, isn't it?"

Damian turns to leave.

"What I'm trying to say," Danny says loudly. "Is that I intend to stay in Gotham. I have some things I need to see to here so I'll be here a while.

"And this is important to me because--"

"Talia will be staying." When Damian continues to stare at him blankly, he clarifies: "With me. Here. I mean, we definitely will go on a honeymoon at some point, even though I'm not sure we're actually married no matter what Talia says about that ceremony--"

"Tt. Grandfather will never let Mother simply galavant around."

"You don't need to worry about Ra's any more," Danny says, straightening. His voice is firm and certain. "He won't be bothering you or your mother."

"That's impossible," Damian says sharply.

"You can ask Talia yourself." Danny pulls out a card. "This is the hotel we're staying at. Room 805. You are right that you definitely shouldn't come without your father's permission, but if he's alright with it please feel free."

Danny takes a step closer, and if Damian's quick grip on his katana bothers him he doesn't show it.

"I mean it Robin. I'm not saying Talia's going to petition for joint custody, and I'll make sure Batman knows that as well. I just want you to know she's here. If you ever want to...see her."

He holds out the card until Damian plucks it from his hand with a growl.

"And also, Damian?"

"What?" Damian snaps.

"Your mom talks about you all the time. I think she'd like to see you too."

"Tt." Damian says, eyes darting down to the card. When they flick back up, Danny is gone.

Damian pulls a quick 360, sword drawn, but the man is nowhere to be seen.

"Robin," Batman says in his comm. "Need you on the west docks."

His comm line was open the whole time, he realizes, but Oracle is uncharacteristically silent. A further investigation shows no time has passed since Danny arrived at the roof. Only the card clenched in his fist indicates he was ever there.

"On my way," Damian says, sheathing his weapon.

Hmph. Of course. His mother is no fool, least of all in her selection of lovers.

Upon arriving at the cave later that night, Damian exits the clock at the rear of the group.

"Father," he says as he clears the threshold. "I wish to spend time with Mother and Stepfather at their earliest convenience. Perhaps tomorrow after school."

Everyone stops still, turning to look back at him. Tim pauses mid-stretch, Steph's jaw drops, and Cassie smiles pleasantly at him. Even Alfred, a tray of freshly baked cookies in hand, blinks at him.

Bruce's mouth opens and closes, wordlessly.

"Absolutely not!" Dick Grayson screeches from the other end of the hallway, dufflebag in hand. Behind him Jason grasps the doorway, doubled over in laughter.

[pomniegranate]

🎲(tearfulribbons, if you don't mind?)

KISS MEME / Currently Accepting! *These are for fun only!

16. A kiss in the rain.

It was rare, it felt like, to see her look... so happy. This was a new record now for how long she's gone with her comedy mask untampered with. It was like a whole new Gangle was released from the confines of her cage, trapped inside for so long pent up that when being allowed the opportunity to fly, she'd rather soar. As if this would be her last opportunity to revel in this happiness before it was stripped from her as fast as she blinked.

It was like Caine to eavesdrop and at the slightest mention of an idea, he'd accommodate - it wasn't something asked for, just on a spur of conversation and as fast as a snap of his fingers, the sun and moon were gone and the skies littered with clouds as water jumped off their diving boards to grace the grounds with another thing familiar, yet a long time seen. It was nice, a refreshing change of pace and it almost seemed like everyone agreed. They'd prefer a small reform versus another adventure to participate in.

Everyone was in their own devices, reveling in a small guilty pleasure because who knew how long the ringleader would keep the showers dancing before it was gone again. Pomni noticed some crevices in the ground started to collect and pool up water and that's when she noticed Gangle. That's when she noticed her comedy mask hadn't tattered and a smile as bright as the sun was out on display for this dreary circus.

And that lit a fire inside her.

Her hands met anxiously together as she watched the ribbons jump and leap across and on the small body of water - then their eyes met; her pinwheels were captivated for a moment and hadn't realized she'd been staring all this time. But it didn't seem to have bothered Gangle one bit, even waving the jester over to come and join her. Most invitations here, she would've politely declined or had been forced into partaking against her will anyway.

It was nice for something to have been on her own accord in joining for once. Her footsteps led her closer as the rains painted the landscape, her body froze in place and watched as droplets fell seamlessly off her mask. Before Pomni realized it, her hand had been grabbed, slightly tugging her along to splash along with her. When did Gangle get closer to her? Why didn't she notice until it was too late? She couldn't help the smile that tugged at her thin lips.

It was memorable, to say the least, getting the chance to unleash their inner kids without fear of judgement. A warmth filled her belly and at her cheeks, soaking in the sounds of water and laughter mixed into their own song while a subtle scream in the distance occurred from Kinger caused by Jax using him as a waterboard. Though she paid it no mind, they'd be alright. Her gaze still held heavy on the other as they splashed. And in Pomni's clumsy footing, she slipped, accidentally pulling Gangle down with her in the process.

Her heart raced in her ears, eyes had blown up in size in both embarrassment and captivation. Normally Pomni would've been the one to apologize first but here's Gangle beating her to the punch while on top of her. The rain continued to sprinkle down on them and it was like the world around them vanished, her words didn't reach the jester's ears; but the movement of her mouth did.

She didn't realize what she'd done until it was too late. Pomni grabbed at the sides of her mask, that smile still there and she wanted nothing more than to kiss her silly, leaving the imprint of turned lips to always remain on her face.

Gloved hands pulled her face down towards her, her eyes closed as lips met. Though surprise was felt through her ribbon-laced body, Gangle eased in and seconds felt like lifetimes as rain continued to fall like roses around them after a successful encore.

[edithlovesyou]

SLASHER HEADCANNONS!!!

alright, so first off, i have NEVER don't this before lol i am trying my best with wording and i try to keep everything gender neutral lol (I fixed this up, older writing update- almost a year later)

THOMAS HEWITT

he tries his best to be gentle

he canonically has the emotions of a child so he probably has a lot of moments

he has Messy handwriting, barely legible

he Tries to give you gifts after being accepted into the family

He loves flowersss, I would like to think sunflowers in specific but change it if you feel different lol

He has a favorite chainsaw, he would never tell though because his family is full of a bunch of jerks

he has extreme attachment issues, his family taught him that family is all that matters. if you're family, you cant leave

JASON VORHEES

A very kind soul, i feel he would love animals. humans are a different story.

he Also loves flowers, possibly allergic tho? idk I just vibes from him that say no pollen near him.

he Loves to draw in a kiddish style, I feel like sometimes being a kid makes him feel a bit better about what happened

he Really likes collecting souvenirs from victims, like what he did with his mother in a way, just a memory

You hear the occasional waterboarded gurgling sound, he can still push water through and around his lungs I can imagine, so the sounds are basically his version of clearing his throat lol

DANNY JOHNSON (jed olson, dbd ghostface)

That camera is his life

he's Not really perverted, but sometimes says things and realizes it sounds dirty

Nasty gloves, never cleaned. Ever.

Weird southern accent but not really a southern accent??? idk Every fanart image I've seen of him he looks like one of those people you never know what they are saying or what their accent is or if it's even real

A crooked smile, again with the fanart, he looks like the type to be a bit more southern

A shit ton of acne probably, sweaty mask things

RZ!MICHEAL MYERS

he probably has Stretch marks, that is a BIG man. no way this man doesn't have them

he Loves all his masks and if he ever broke one you can expect a memorial, they are like his version of people

he probably Cringes around clowns because of the old mask, bad memories

he Prefers loose clothes, this isn't really shown but he seems like the type

he is a Nature lover, not to animals tho. just the scenery

He understands emotions he just doesn't care, like a cat

BO SINCLAIR

toothpick in his mouth for no reason, and I'm sure Lester has asked why

he Can go from laughing to pure evil in seconds, we've seen it

he HATES animals with a passion

He feels very safe in his work overalls, just comforting to be in his element

Just saying, he is probably old fashioned. he could probably pick up on modern things if people tried to teach him, will he care? no

LESTER SINCLAIR

he has a Crooked smile but thinks it fits him, again with the southern things, only this time he is self aware and like how he looks

he Finds comfort in the smell of dead animals, let's be real. that man goes to that pit because he knows nobody will try to find him.

he makes Crude jokes but in a good way? (If that makes sense??)- like he fully understands what he's saying but he knows how to word it and make it not as bad. you can still tell what he's saying tho

Eyebags to hell and back, stays up around the pit

he Loves old country, especially on his truck radio

Probably likes the game sorry for the popping sound, I see him as the type to like random sounds

VINCENT SINCLAIR

sculpting helps him when he's anxious about anything

he Loves the wax house dog more than anyone, since his brother isn't really comforting for him, why not a dog?

he tried many masks before settling on one face shape, too picky

he loves sweaters

piano music is his life

he might Make the occasional sound that startles people, other than that, no words from this man

ALRIGHT, hello i am edith! This is my first time writing but i plan on improving and taking requests for readers, i plan on doing any gender, body type, features people want added, anything! That's all <3- - - updated ver lol- I'm dallas or dahlia depending on the day, and I fixed this up! if others have seen it before and wonder why it's different, that's why lol I don't really have time to do fresh writing right now, so I'm doing this

[cynicalone94]

Waterboarding

Warning: Somewhat graphic scenes of torture in this chapter.

Read on AO3 here.

Jay stares up at the ceiling.

He remembers a time when even the lower quality mattress of his bunk on base had been enough to keep him from sleeping but as a Ranger he’s gotten used to sleeping on the ground.

But the last two weeks have been yet another adjustment.

The hole, deep in a tangled network of caves, that the ISIS soldiers who'd captured him had thrown him into when he’d first been brought her doesn’t even have the smooth areas that he’s usually able to seek out.

All he can do is search for the spot with the fewest lumps and sharp protruding rocks to lie on.

He knows that spot so well that he can easily find it, even in the pitch black of his cell.

But even with the many injuries, mostly bruises and fractures as far as he can tell, that his body has been forced to contend with, sleep has remained elusive.

Though not because of his body denies sleep but because every time he comes close loud music is blasted through his prison to force him back away from the edge and into wakefulness.

It’s impossible to tell the passage of time though he’s done the best that he can by assuming that food has been brought perhaps once a day.

Even then its hard to keep track because he can’t see the tallies he’s making on the floor of his cell.

But he’s pretty sure today is day fourteen.

And still… his team hasn’t come for him.

He knows they’re searching. Knows how deeply hidden an ISIS base such as the one he’s being held in is.

And therein lies a terrifying lack of hope.

If they haven’t found him by now then the trail has gone cold and they’ll be searching for intel that may not exist in an effort to find him.

In fact, just about his only chances of surviving this are if they try to make some kind of a hostage trade or if this base is attacked for reasons unrelated to rescuing him.

And he’s too tired to try to contemplate the likelihood of either of those things happening.

The stone over his cell is drug back and he sits up, blinking as light filters into the hole.

He doesn’t fight as they drag him out, preferring to save his strength for a more viable escape opportunity.

His hands are bound in front of him and then he’s pulled down the corridor.

The further they walk, the more his eyes adjust to the lighting and the more steady he starts to feel.

He’s still exhausted and in pain but being able to see gives something back to him, helping his brain focus and start to evaluate his surroundings.

There are people everywhere, none of them looking at him as they bustle about, focused on whatever their jobs are.

But the activity tapers off as they approach wherever it is they’re taking him.

He thinks its closer to the surface, closer to the possibility of escape but the way these tunnels are designed he could just as easily be much further away.

Their destination is a closed off room, only the one way in and out.

Two men immediately take up position covering that entrance as Jay is pushed to sit on a table.

He scans his surroundings, taking in the recording equipment, the flags, and the buckets.

He swallows hard.

“A smart American.” the man standing in front of him says coldly as Jay is slammed onto his back and straps secured across his torso and legs.

He closes his eyes as the table begins to tilt backward.

Cloth over his face. Wet cloth that obscures his airflow.

He tries to remember his training, to remember his SERE training and what they had taught him.

Tries to remember what he’d been told about how to breathe to give himself the best fighting chance once the water starts to flow.

It’s deathly silent, his terrified anticipation of that moment seeming to stretch the wait almost indefinitely.

And then he can’t breathe.

Water is flowing over his face, saturating the cloth and blocking the last of his oxygen.

He holds his breath but it doesn’t matter. The water flows freely in through his nose and there is nothing he can do to stop it from happening.

His brain immediately escalates into panic, sending commands to his body in an effort to clear his airways but none of it works.

His hands are trapped and unable to do anything to help him. And without them none of his body’s defense mechanisms can do what needs to be done.

Not well enough to save him from what’s happening.

And then its over.

The water has stopped flowing, leaving him free to gasp and choke, fighting to clear his airway and bring oxygen into tortured lungs.

But his reprieve doesn’t last.

All too soon the water is pounding relentlessly onto his face again and flooding his airways. He doesn’t even have the chance to try to hold his breath nor does he have any breath to hold.

And he slides under the panic all he can think is that the Army had never prepared him for this, had trained him only for the first fifteen seconds and done nothing to prepare him for the enemy that would repeat the process over and over again.

Will Halstead hates having a roommate.

Chase just wants to study when he wants to party and party when Will really needs to study.

Because as much as people associate him with partying, he is still a med student. He’s been subjected to a constant flow of information with regular tests to determine how well he’s absorbing that information.

And right now, all he can afford to think about is the exam he has first thing in the morning.

And Chase is watching some viral video on repeat.

It isn’t even something trite and lame that Will can just tune out. It’s an American soldier being tortured.

It had hit the internet sometime this morning, released by ISIS with a single message. That ISIS would release this soldier, end the hell that he’s being put through, if only the United States government would release some ISIS operative.

It had quickly spread to dozens of other sites across the internet, culled of everything but a ten second burst of the soldier writhing as water floods over his face.

And Will can’t bear to look at it because his brain can’t seem to stop finding similarities between the unknown soldier and his little brother.

A similar build, similar arms, similar hands… every time he looks at it he finds something new that reminds him of his little brother.

That reminds him of the little kid who’d followed him around when they were younger. The little kid that he used to wake up from nightmares about monsters and demons.

“Hey Will.” Chase calls, something strange about his voice. “Is that… isn’t that the bracelet that you always wear?”

Will freezes, unable to stop his brain as it processes the information and comes to a conclusion.

He can’t stop himself as he walks over, staring at the screen, staring at the bracelet that Chase had noticed, watching the unknown soldier that reminds him of his little brother be tortured.

Watching his little brother be tortured.

Because Chase is right. Right there, just below the harsh ropes binding his brother’s wrists and visible, clear as day, is a simple bracelet of braided black string.

A bracelet that he’d given his brother when he’d first learned that he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. A bracelet whose identical twin he wears every day without fail.

And then Will is crashing to his knees, hysterical sobs overtaking him.

Jay can’t even move as he’s dropped back into his pit.

Can’t breathe.

He just lies there, choking and gasping for air.

He’s not sure how he’s even still alive after that and sure that he won’t survive if they do it again.

He wants his mom.

Wants to lay on their old, ugly couch with his head in her lap while she ghosts her fingers through his hair, soothing him to sleep.

Wants to sit in the garage and watch his dad work on their old Ford truck.

To play a hockey scrimmage against Will.

Wants to go home.

Wants to not die in this godforsaken hole in the ground.

He’s so exhausted, so miserable that he somehow manages to fall asleep even as they blast their music.

Perhaps when he wakes up this will all have been an awful dream.

Jesse Carter hasn’t slept more than a few hours at a time in two and a half weeks.

Missions have gone wrong before but this one had been a special combination of bad intel, some of which he suspects was intentional.

Even he’d been caught off guard by the speed with which everything had gone sideways.

In fact, the only member of the team who had fully kept their head had been Jay Halstead.

The damn kid had kept everything together long enough to get the rest of the team to safety.

And he’d paid for it.

Jesse hasn’t slept a single moment in the two days since the video had dropped of his brother in arms being waterboarded, being brutally tortured.

Has spent every waking moment, spent every moment, watching and waiting for intel to come across that will lead them to where his little brother is being held.

Because his team will be on the front line for the rescue mission.

“Captain Carter. We’ve got a location.”

Explosions.

Screams.

Gunfire.

The sounds are worse than the music but instead of not being able to fall asleep, Jay can’t seem to wake up fully.

The sounds, while deafening, are also muted, traveling through miles of water to..

Water.

No. He can’t… he can’t be under water… he can’t.

The sounds are getting closer but it remains muffled and distorted.

He can breathe.

He can still breathe.

He… he can’t breathe.

A crash sounds directly above him and then light is streaming down on him.

He kicks his arms and legs, swimming toward the surface.

But he’s not moving.

Air doesn’t seem any closer.

And he’s drowning.

A hand is on his shoulder.

“-cky?”

Why are they pushing him down?

He needs to get out of the water. He needs to get to fresh air.

He needs to breathe.

“-ay!”

He struggles, kicking and fighting and then suddenly he’s being lifted, pulled upward. He stills.

Finally, they’re getting him out of the water.

But then he’s lying on something hard, moving forward not up and he still can’t breathe, still can only hear muffled and distorted sound.

Who are these people? And why won’t they get him out of the water?

Why can’t they understand that he needs to breathe?

He starts fighting again, trying to get away, trying to get to the air that he so desperately needs.

The motion stops and then something stabs into the side of his neck.

He screams, a strangled and distorted sound.

But he still can’t breathe and he can’t keep fighting any longer.

And so he slowly sinks into the comfort that darkness offers.

He can breathe when he wakes up.

There’s bright light all around him, the beeping of machines and the smell of anesthetic.

A hospital?

“Jay?”

He forces his eyes open, looking over to see his commanding officer sitting next to the bed.

“Sir?”

“Welcome back, kid.” JC says. “You were starting to worry us.”

“Us?” he croaks.

“You think for a second that the team has been able to think about anything besides you from the moment that you were captured?” JC asks, shaking his head. “Since that bone headed distraction you caused so we could escape.”

“It was the only play we had.” Jay says.

“Jay.” he starts but Jay waves him off.

“I would do it again.” he says firmly. “When am I getting out of here?”

“Not long.” Jesse says, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “You’ve been down for a couple of days. You had to be intubated before we could move you out of the compound; the medics said secondary drowning. It was a hell of a ride waiting to see if you were going to pull through. They almost airlifted you to Germany. But you stayed strong. You got off that damn ventilator and if you behave yourself and don’t mess with that canula you could be out of here in a couple of days.”

Jay nods and settles back against the pillows.

He can wait a couple of days to dive back into this.

[asperants]

alcrystallize

⌜ ✥。.:*: – despite the hostile beginning to their relationship, alcryst always admired - albeit not without reluctance - how hortensia can effortlessly command a room without as much as lifting a finger. the confidence she exuded seemed innate to her being, whereas it was another lost cause for the pitiful prince; nevertheless, it was from that respect for her disposition did he wish to emanate for himself. but it was apparent from the start that she was in control of the conversation, and he was more than willing to let her take the reins because - well, he would never confess to this (unless waterboarded or otherwise coerced), but she was intimidating.

"yes, princess -- i mean, yes, hortensia, i understand. my apologies for the formalities, given neither of us is within our respective jurisdictions." falling back on how he addressed prominent guests or others of elite status was a safety net for him, especially when he was nervous or uncertain of how to acknowledge someone - but it would seem that he would have to relent his official demeanor when speaking with hortensia over time. then, as if a switch was turned, her tone shifted toward him, causing him to quickly be on the defense until she spoke up again and clarified her intention. it was just another virtue of hers that not only was she confident but could strategically predict his next move - no wonder fighting her in the past was a tribulation to overcome.

"pardon? for tea? with me?" alcryst squeaked, pointing to himself as if she were speaking to multiple people at the same time. spending time alone with the princess was not a common endeavor of his, especially not for tea - but before he could hesitate and offer an alternative guest more worthy of her time, she proceeded onward with what she was talking about in the first place. whether he liked it or not, he suspected that she would not take 'no' for an answer. not again.

"over by the rose garden? sure, hortensia, but may i say that you are far too kind to offer me tea when accompaniment by me is one wasted on your time." he followed her lead, leaving his argument behind as he transfixed his attention from the bizarreness of their meeting here to her answer to his question in the first place. "it is refreshing to see so much greenery compared to back home, but a part of me misses the barrenness of the landscape in brodia. though, i feel that being here is a spot taken for another student of more strength or higher status that would be more beneficial to the academy. i hardly meet that standard, let alone as the prince back in elyos."

"It's tea time, after all," Hortensia declares with an air of finality (as far as she can tell any time outside of class and extracurriculars was tea time in Fodlan but technicalities!), trusting Alcryst to follow as he had been - excuses aside - this whole time.

Hmm... She knew they had quite a few blends in the dining hall. What type would the second prince of Brodia like? Something calming maybe.

"I can hardly decide if it's a waste of time if I've never done it," she points out, making her way over to a table already decorated with a teaset. "Ah, next time we should get scones or sandwiches. Which do you prefer?"

She's able to collect a few tea leaves from the pantry (hey, it was her turn on duty so who cared if she kept the key a little longer, she thought) and made a place for them with the speed and determination of a small pink tornado, listening to Alcryst mull over her words all the while.

"Here," she says, pushing a teacup toward him, "let the lavender steep for a bit." And then says almost despite herself, "is that what you're worried about? Classes? If you need help you could just ask." Hortensia certainly never minded tutoring others and there were plenty of resources in the library; hm, she should ask Alcryst if he'd been there much - it seemed like a place he might like. "Oh, I get being homesick though," Hortensia says, opening the top of the teapot and letting the scent of lavender waft out, "it's pretty here but the wildlife is different from home. The food too, though it is good."

Once she's decided the tea has sat enough she begins to pour, careful in her movements despite the many times she's practiced for parties back home and then here, in the privacy of her dorm room when she found out how important tea was at the academy. "My classes are going great, of course! The Golden Deer professors are really... diverse. Theirs a prince from another kingdom who teaches Authority and Axe skills, you know! And Professor Oberon doesn't act like any mage I know but he sure knows his stuff. Honestly, I don't know if you've seen the magic here but there's a lot to study up on." She stops for a moment and takes a sip of her tea, wondering if admitting a weakness like that even in such exuberant tones was a good thing. Well. She was trying to make friends here. "Hehe, Ivy and Rosado are more into wyvern riding than me! But I do plan on trying. Flying's another subject I want to learn all about, after all. What about you? Are you mostly sticking to archery then?" @alcrystallize

rose poems

[mariacallous]

As the new House Republican majority stumbles into power, with all the chaotic, embittered bumbling of a rich man’s son who can only seem to fail upwards, another, peculiar kind of political transition is taking place: Nancy Pelosi, 82, is leaving the House speakership, almost certainly for the last time.

Perhaps no individual has come to symbolize the Democrats more to the people who do not like the party. To Republicans, Pelosi has long taken on a kind of mythic malice. To the Fox-watching white male, Pelosi symbolizes liberal elitism, a vague but totalizing specter of corruption, and that particular kind of liberal decadence that can be evoked by the name of the city that makes up nearly all of her longtime congressional district: San Francisco. She’s a woman in power, and she’s long been supportive of gay rights, and she opposed the Iraq war. She’s been a reliable opponent of conservatives’ favorite culture war crusades: she supports gun control and opposes Confederate statues. In an association facilitated by misogyny, her very face is a shorthand for liberal extremism, a visual code that denotes secularism, taxation and frightening new pronouns.

Which was always a bit of a stretch, because the fact of the matter is that the American left tends to hate Pelosi, too. To them, her two terms as speaker – first from 2007 to 2011, and then again from 2019 until this coming January – were eras of strictly enforced centrism. Under Pelosi’s tenure, the congressional agenda was kept well to the right of the base’s preferences, and leftist stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were needlessly sidelined.

Pelosi has taken positions that frustrate and disappoint the Democratic rank and file. She allegedly knew about waterboarding during the war on terror, and she didn’t object to it; she has backed Israel even in its most flagrant violations of Palestinian rights. And for all the fear and hatred she provokes in Republicans, some Democrats found her insufficiently willing to attack them. Under her leadership, the House impeached Donald Trump twice. But the Rubicon of impeachment was crossed only belatedly, in the face of Pelosi’s long, obstinate resistance. Many Democrats felt that the impeachments – along with other congressional oversight efforts against the Trump administration – were too tepid, and came too late.

Neither of these understandings of Pelosi really capture the most striking aspect of her career – which has been characterized, above all, by an almost preternatural ability to discipline her caucus. Perhaps no speaker has been so successful at securing votes and cultivating the loyalties of her members; in interviews, Democratic House members speak of her with awe, like she’s something between a charismatic high school teacher and an emotionally withholding mom. This charisma is carefully cultivated: she famously tells no one her secrets, but has a long memory – both for past favors and past grievances. Some members seem to be eagerly seeking her approval. None seem willing to cross her. She has a natural’s instinct for politics, able to anticipate what will persuade someone to do what she wants them to do before they often know themselves.

Pelosi cultivated this talent from a young age. At the beginning of her political career, Pelosi painted herself as a mom and housewife, the devoted spouse to Paul, an obscenely wealthy financier, and the doting mother of five. But this pretended humility was always a rather flimsy facade. In reality, Pelosi is the scion of an influential Democratic political family from Maryland: her father was a congressman, and both her dad and brother served as mayors of Baltimore. Her job as speaker was one she had been training for since infancy, or at least since she attended her first presidential inauguration, at 12.

After she and her husband moved to San Francisco, Pelosi swiftly rose in the ranks of the California Democratic party, in part because Nancy, with her comfort among elites and the almost coercive power of her charm, was very good at raising money. She was elected to Congress in 1986, and never looked back; she quickly stood out as a charismatic voice in public and an aggressive negotiator in private. Pelosi became the leader of the House Democrats in 2003, and ascended to become the first – and so far, the only – woman to serve as speaker, in 2007.

Under Pelosi’s tenure, the House Democrats have achieved some herculean tasks of political maneuvering. Everything that the Democrats have accomplished legislatively since 2007, they have accomplished thanks to Pelosi’s control of her caucus. She forced through the Dodd-Frank campaign finance reform bill in the face of the kind of fearsome opposition that a politician of weaker will would have balked at. She managed to pass the massive Affordable Care Act, expanding healthcare coverage to millions, in a show of persuasion and strength that could terrify grown men, and did.

These are the kinds of bruising political battles that would end a different congressperson’s career, but Pelosi’s district is among the safest blue seats in the country. She has never faced a real challenger for her spot; during her election years, she doesn’t even engage in debates. Her re-election campaigns are little more than formalities: everyone, in San Francisco and elsewhere, knows that seat belongs to Nancy Pelosi for as long as she wants it. This safety is what allowed Pelosi to turn to her bigger, more national ambitions. Her real constituency has long been the whole country – or at least, the whole of the Democratic party.

But recent years have taken the shine off of Pelosi. She stood in the way when Democrats wanted to pass ethics reforms that would have forbidden members of Congress from trading individual stocks; this past summer, she made the dangerous choice to travel alone to Taiwan, in a show of defiance against Xi Jinping. And the constant attacks on her personally from the right have begun to take a grim toll. This fall, a crazed man, deluded by rightwing media, broke into her California home with a hammer, and attacked Pelosi’s elderly husband, fracturing his skull; the intruder was there looking for Pelosi.

Perhaps the quintessential moment of this part of Pelosi’s career came during the January 6 hearings, when footage of the speaker taken during the Capitol attack emerged. In the hidden location where the House members had been taken, she makes brisk phone calls, searching for a way to clear the Capitol. Her calm competence, contrasted with her extreme physical frailty, made for a portrait of integrity, endurance, courage. But even then, Pelosi seemed out of place. In the video, her institutionalism, and her faith in the legal process, shines through. You get the sense that she feels strongly that everything will be all right, if only she can make the right phone call. As the mob stormed the Capitol, and Trump orchestrated them on Twitter like a symphony conductor, Pelosi’s technocratic proceduralism could not have stood in starker contrast. She looked, perhaps for the first time, like a figure from a lost era.

[writefinch]

Eurydicean Coda (CN:  rape, ‘corrective’ rape, orientation-play, bondage, despair, mental conditioning, watersports, rimming, various degrading things)

The pain came in waves, but then, so did everything else. The nausea came in waves, the violence came in waves, the shocks, drugs and beatings came in waves, the men's hips clapped against her ass like a storm-waves against a crumbling sea barrier, Valerie was dragged under waves in a burning ocean, pulled further from the light as each one crashed over her.

"We don't let girls think around here," is what they told her on the first night and taught her every night and day thereafter. Thoughts mean abstraction and abstraction means distance and distance would be a reprieve and there would be no reprieve. On the first night they had nailed her into a wooden coffin to sleep, still hogtied, her joints on fire, eyes burning from the cum that the men had shot into them, with headphones taped over her ears blaring recordings they'd made with Lily. She suffered there in perfect darkness and the noise would peak and trough, her Lily's screams ear-splittingly loud, her Lily's cries rising and falling, her Lily's voice almost too quiet to hear. 

She didn't sleep that night, nor the next night, nor any night. They hurt her until she passed out, and if they deemed it prudent, they would wait some time before rousing her. Sometimes they choked her unconscious, other times they sedated her, but never, never sleep. Sleep was the first thing she'd really begged for, the first time she'd let the words slip from her lips to their ears, "I'll do anything."

"We know you'll do anything. You'll do anything for a warm glass of my piss," the man had said. Two days of no water later, he proved himself right.

They wanted to strip her to her soul, to erode all the defenses protecting her sense of self until it was bared to them like a quivering lump of jelly, and then they would re-shape it. Each fresh horror would be brought down upon her until she had no conscious defence other than to accept it as inevitable and retreat deeper into her mind, and then as it ebbed away a new torment would be brought forth to drag her back to the surface. The first time she had been roused by a cock filling her ring-gag and blasting a torrent of piss down her throat she'd almost drowned, and the sheer terror at it happening again had made her work to avoid passing out rather than seeking it out. Now it had been done so many times that it brought no terror, only pain and misery.

It was a similar tale with so many of their games. The bruising, the biting, the diet of piss and cum supplemented by bloating, cramping, nutrient-rich enemas, the viewing sessions of Lily's gang-rapes, the tattoos and piercings, the throat-fucking, ass-fucking, double-penetration and blowbangs, the stifling leather hoods, the strappados and Spanish donkeys, the taint of unwashed male musk that seeped into her skin every time a pair of sweaty balls was dragged over her face, the nightly quizzes of having a cock shoved between her lips and being asked which of Lily's holes it had just been inside, all of these things brought pain, disgust and despair, but the terror had faded. Even the sight of the dreaded cattle prod no longer made her heart skip a beat—though, its bite often did.

Now it was the pleasure that Valerie feared. At first it had looked like simple humiliation: feed the dumb dyke a bunch of viagra, MDMA and morphine, strap her over a frame, jam a souped-up Hitachi against her cunt and watch her cum her brains out while her owners laugh at her. That's what it had felt like, and it had felt that way the next time and the time after, and it hadn't seemed out of the ordinary when the men started groping her and stroking her—gentler than usual—just before she climaxed. When they edged her, teased her, brought her to the brink and held her back, and only finally let her cum with a man's cock eight inches deep inside her, there wasn't a thought left in her head.

When they gave her the choice, she knew something was wrong. "Hitachi or bath time?" they'd asked, and the choice had shocked her so much that she'd just mumbled she'd do whichever one they preferred. That got her a hard slap across the cheek, hard enough to make her teeth shake. She picked the Hitachi over being waterboarded, of course, but she knew it was a trap. She began to notice the withdrawal symptoms, the despair and bone-deep exhaustion that came from coming down off of the MDMA and morphine, and she noticed what went along with it: when she was coming down, she was left unfilled. The men refrained from fucking, plugging, or even touching her cunt. The first time they caught her trying to touch herself, they broke her index finger and fitted her with a chastity belt.

They'd stopped strapping her down, they alternated between cock and vibrator, fingers and vibrator, sometimes fingers and cock. They still made her peel back the foreskin of a thick, greasy, unwashed cock and lick it clean, but now this crude ritual of humiliation coincided with her pleasure sessions. They kept making her choose. "What will it be, Valerie? Hitachi, or drink piss until your stomach feels fit to burst? Hitachi, or have chili oil rubbed into your cunt and asshole? Hitachi, or lick our sweaty assholes while we gang-rape your pretty wife? Hitachi or cattle prod, or caning, or the confinement coffin? Hitachi or standing in place for the night in a dark room with a chastity belt and nothing but your own awful thoughts for company?" At the start of her captivity, she would have chosen the pain and taken pride in it. Now, it was the closest thing to a rest. How could she make any other choice, now that the tide had come in so far, and the water was above her neck?

They made her work for it. They made her go on top. They made her bounce up and down as she looked down at the face of her owner. They made her cum while she kissed the man who she'd watched rape her wife only hours ago. They made her do it again, and this time, she came without the vibrator at all, and she knew in her heart that soon they would make her cum without the drugs.

She felt nothing at this. She was still Valerie. It hadn't changed her any more than she'd already been changed, and hadn't broken anything that wasn't already broken. Her captors had disagreed, evidently, and seen fit to provide her with a reward: with their mouths gagged, their hands bound up in leather mittens, and their cunts locked away in steel belts, Valerie and Lily were allowed to spend a night together. They embraced each other atop a pile of rags, warming each other's cheeks with their tears. Perhaps they slept.

The methods changed. The pleasure sessions went away and the pain sessions returned. Valerie ached for the pleasure to return, to be filled, to be fucked, to be smeared across the mattress underneath a man a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than her. She knew that they wanted her to beg, to admit defeat, to show that she was broken. So, she begged. They laughed and spat in her face, but at least gave her a cock to nurse while they fisted her asshole.

Domestic work crept in amongst the punishments and perversion. Shackled, hooded, they made her sweep floors and wash dishes, only seeing her own work through tiny slits in the leather. They brought in other men to use her. They made her serve drinks, before and after she'd been fucked. They were not gentle, but gentler—they were more concerned with their own pleasure than her training—and like the pleasure had before it, servitude became ersatz sleep.

These new methods of training grew in intensity, and like the cruder ones before, they also came in waves. These waves did not torment Valerie as the previous ones did. The waves can not thrash you, after all, once you are deep beneath them.

[asstronauts]

quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

rating: t word count: 2.4k pairing: the homoeroticism of 200 amplified, aka jemily summary: a post-200 rewrite, in which jj spends some time in emily's arms and in the hospital instead of in a bar right after being tortured.

read on ao3, if you'd prefer

tw mention of jj's canon abduction and torture

---

A hundred feet.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the closest she'd come to death in this line of work, but now it was all that separated her dangling feet from the ground below.

She felt nothing besides Emily's arms and her heart thudding in her chest. JJ risked a glance downwards, turning her head ever so slightly to look.

Michael Hastings' body fallen. Dead.

It was over.

"You're here. It's you," JJ managed between ragged breaths as she was pulled back from the edge of the rooftop and onto solid ground. Her hands were still clinging desperately to Emily's biceps, her only lifeline while the world spun around.

“Emily,” JJ murmured, though it came out sounding more like a question. She needed to be sure. After hours of torture at the hands of Tivon Askari, and after the intense pursuit of Michael Hastings onto the rooftop, her friend’s comforting presence seemed almost unbelievable.

Emily inhaled sharply and reached out to move JJ's hair back. The blonde flinched instinctively, then slowly relaxed into Emily's touch. It was nothing like Askari's rough hands. It was tender — a soft brush across her cheekbone to wipe away a tear she hadn't even realized was there. The gentle caress grounded her, letting her know she was here and that somehow, against all odds, she was still alive, safely kneeling with Emily on this concrete rooftop a hundred feet high.

JJ could hardly bring herself to look around. She didn’t recognize the building he’d taken her to. It was in D.C, that much she could be sure of, but the air felt different now that she was free from Askari’s grasp. Fresher somehow. Below her, the city lights blinked on, unaware of the terrifying ordeal that had just happened. And in front of her, Emily.

Emily's hand was warm. Or perhaps JJ was just freezing. There was a chill in her bones that had remained since she'd seen Askari's face, a cold she couldn’t quite escape.

"You're here," JJ repeated, her voice steadier but still quiet. She shivered against the concrete, her shallow breaths visible in the cold night air.

"So are you." Their eyes met, and JJ found Emily's filled with concern, with relief, with love. They carefully searched JJ's face to make sure she was okay.

Emily's gaze landed on the blonde's unbuttoned shirt, and she furrowed her brow, the hard lines in her face deliberating a question she didn't want to ask.

JJ shook her head and drew back slightly. He didn't, she wanted to say.

He didn't, but she could still feel his hands on her, all over her. He didn't, but she could still hear his voice saying, "Maybe I can make you one. Another one." He didn't, but...

"It's okay," Emily murmured in a soothing voice. She noted the look on JJ’s face, but didn’t press further. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.” Her heart broke at the way the woman clenched her jaw and avoided Emily’s fixed stare.

JJ gave a stiff nod of permission as Emily reached out, gently beginning to button the shirt back up. JJ licked her lips and forced her fingers to relax their grip as she tried to speak again — to say something, anything.

"Cruz...is he-"

"He'll be fine."

"And everyone else?"

"Everyone's okay." Emily looked up as she finished with the shirt. “They’re waiting downstairs with the ambulances whenever you’re ready.”

“How did you find me?”

“We...we looked into everything from when you were in Afghanistan. Your backstop.” Emily tried to meet JJ’s eyes, but they were staring guiltily at the ground. “No more secrets please, JJ.”

“No more secrets,” she echoed back. “Only the truth from now on.”

JJ opened her mouth as if to say more, then shook her head and furrowed her brow.

Emily knew there were questions she was avoiding, trying to ask about the team to dismiss any concerns over her own wellbeing. Denial was ingrained in her nature — a habit she had perfected so well, she sometimes managed to fool herself.

The younger agent stood unsteadily and pretended to inspect her top as she took a moment to collect herself. "We should head down then," she mumbled, crossing her arms as another shiver ran up her body.

"You're allowed to take a moment, JJ," Emily said softly and rose to stand in front of her. "Take your time."

JJ bit her lip and shook her head ever so slightly. If she took even a breath to process all that had happened in the last 24 hours, the inevitable breakdown would come rushing over her, and she feared she'd never be able to stop.

"You're okay now," Emily said again, reaching her arms out and allowing JJ to collapse into them. The blonde buried her face in the crook of Emily's neck as gentle but strong arms wrapped around her body.

From the moment Hotch had called her about the news of JJ's disappearance, Emily's heart had been gripped by an intense fear over the other woman's safety. The thought of JJ in danger, of JJ hurt, of JJ on the brink of death had been too overwhelming to bear.

The panic had fueled her to find everything she could on Tivon Askari, to do everything she could to fight for JJ’s life. But the anxiety that had built up during Emily's flight over was only just now beginning to subside, as she reassured herself of JJ's safety.

"You're okay, you're okay," Emily whispered as she rubbed comforting circles on JJ's back.

She's okay.

---

45...46...47...48...

Emily concentrated hard on counting the hospital floor tiles, whatever she could to keep from thinking of her friend having just been tortured. She’d read the files on Askari, and she knew exactly what JJ had gone through. The drugs, the physical abuse, the waterboarding, the electrocution. It made her burn with uncharacteristic anger, made her wish this man had received a fate worse than death for hurting JJ. And from the look she’d seen on JJ’s face, there was far more to the story than just what Emily had read.

The situation had left the rest of the team a headache-inducing amount of paperwork, but Hotch had insisted that someone be present when JJ woke up. All eyes had landed on Emily, with Penelope demanding she be called immediately after, no matter the time of night.

It was late now, but Emily still felt restless. She picked furiously at her nails, counting and recounting the tiles over and over again until a voice broke her thoughts.

"Emily? She wants to see you."

Emily looked up and mouthed a silent thank you to the doctor, not quite trusting herself to speak aloud.

A wave of relief washed over her as she walked into the hospital room, and blue eyes turned to meet her.

"You're here."

Emily managed a sort of strangled sound in reply, a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

"I'm still here," she breathed, reaching out her hand to grasp JJ's. It was icy cold, but just warm enough to reassure Emily that JJ was alive.

"I wasn't sure...I've been seeing things," JJ mumbled. "I saw you, or I thought I did. Before I saw you, I mean."

JJ shook her head, trying to clear the cloud from her incoherent thoughts as Emily creased her eyebrows in confusion.

She exhaled and tried again. "It doesn't matter. But you...you really came all the way here for me."

"You'd do the same for me," Emily replied. "Hell, you already did the same for me."

Their eyes met.

Paris.

Emily remembered everything — the long nights that never seemed to end, the two of them exploring every street and shop, the night JJ had grabbed her hand and pulled her into an alleyway, and they'd stood unbelievably close, eyes shining in the moonlight with exhilaration...

She wondered if JJ remembered everything too.

"How long do you have here?" JJ asked.

Emily bit her lip. "A few hours." Not long enough.

"Do you have to go?" came JJ’s quiet voice. Emily had asked the same question that night in Paris.

They’d let the question hang unanswered then too, both too afraid to admit that they were running, not just leaving. Because staying would mean confronting the intensity of their feelings for one another, and that was somehow more terrifying than anything they’d ever faced in the field.

Besides, Emily's expression said more than her words could.

“How are you feeling?” Emily asked instead of answering.

“It hurts,” JJ said simply.

Emily’s grip around her hand tightened protectively. "I know," she whispered.

JJ began to trace delicate circles along Emily's knuckles with her thumb, eyes slightly unfocused. She could feel her mind already struggling, tendrils of flashbacks lurking beneath the surface. The pain in her side seemed to intensify, and her breath caught slightly.

"Hastings and Askari are dead." Her voice came out raw and louder than intended, as though she was still convincing herself of the fact.

JJ took a shuddering breath and shivered as a chill went up her spine.

Cold. Why was the room so cold?

She felt, rather than saw, everything around her shift as a sudden sense of dread overwhelmed her in the haze. Dark. Cold. Alone.

Alone, except for him. The shadow of Tivon Askari loomed in front of her, and a bolt of pain and panic wracked her body.

“Come back to me, JJ.”

She blinked.

“I wasn’t..I-It wasn’t a full flashback or anything,” JJ stuttered. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay, just breathe.”

JJ sat for a moment until the pounding in her chest subsided, painfully aware of the heart monitor’s rapid beeping. She focused her attention on Emily’s hand in hers.

“I’m fine,” JJ repeated quietly.

"I know it doesn't feel like it yet," Emily replied. "It takes time, but I promise one day, you’ll be okay. You’ll feel safe again."

Emily moved her free hand to touch JJ’s shoulder, capturing her full attention so that the blonde could read the sincerity in her eyes.

“What do I do till then?”

"You could get a tattoo. We could match," Emily said lightly.

"Blackbird," JJ mused with a tired smile.

She remembered the day that Emily had shown her the tattoo, how she had stared in amazement at the beautiful ink that somehow both covered and showed off Emily's scars from her encounter with Doyle. Even then, she had been slightly wary, but Emily had taken her hand and guided her fingers to graze the tattoo, showing her that scars weren’t something to be afraid of.

The bruises and lacerations would fade. The electrical burns would leave a mark. JJ could feel their sting now, marring her skin with ugly scars. Perhaps she could get a tattoo to cover them up, but there was only so much she could hide. Beneath it all, there’d still be a heavy burden, an invisible wound she’d have to carry day to day, case to case, for the rest of her life.

They sat, hand in hand again now, letting the presence of each other be enough. JJ's thumb was still tracing its way across the familiar landscape of Emily's hand, one that the blonde had long since memorized. In those moments, with Emily holding her hand, it felt like everything was okay. Yet there was a feeling of horrid anticipation, like the teetering at the top of a rollercoaster, where the burning in her stomach told her that the moment Emily let go and left for London, time would inevitably start again, and everything would fall quickly and suddenly, collapsing into a wild frenzy despite Emily’s words of comfort.

“I don’t want you to go. I need you here,” JJ murmured.

She wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the medication talking, but she hadn’t quite realized the truth behind the statement until she’d said it aloud. JJ tried it again, her voice barely a whisper. “I need you.”

The admission hung in the air unanswered for a moment, and JJ’s mind raced, wondering if she’d made a mistake.

Emily didn’t speak, staring hard at the hospital blankets as if they would tell her the meaning behind what JJ had said. Part of her wanted to scream with joy at the idea that JJ wanted her near. But the other part of her shrunk back in fear, wanting to flee across an entire ocean once again to run from her emotions. She was terrified of what she felt towards JJ — an affection more intense and overwhelming than anything she’d ever experienced before. Without it, she’d be lost. She couldn’t risk that; it was too fragile to be tampered with, too precious to even be acknowledged.

“I saw you,” JJ began rambling, unable to bear the silence. “When they were trying to get my codes, I thought I saw you. I guess my mind just needed something or someone to hold on to. You should’ve been a million miles away, but some part of me knew that you’d come. That I’d be okay because you were coming.”

“JJ-“

“I knew it’d be you. It’s always going to be you.”

“I can’t...” Emily began, but the fear choked her and kept her from finishing her sentence.

“I know you have to go.” JJ’s grip tightened as her voice broke. “Will you stay until I fall asleep? Say goodbye now so I don’t have to watch you leave.”

A lump rose in Emily’s throat. Tell me to stay again. Tell me to stay for you, and I’ll leave it all, she wanted to say. But her cowardice won in the end.

Instead, Emily nodded and sat next to the bed as JJ closed her eyes.

---

JJ awoke to an empty hospital room. The pain in her side flared, and tears sprung to her eyes as everything she had experienced hit her full force.

The fluorescent lights blinked back at her from above, and the only noises she could hear were the gentle beeping of a heart monitor and her own shallow breathing.

One hand lay across her torso, the other gripped the hospital bed sheets as though she’d been holding onto something, to someone. She could've sworn...

She’s not here.

No, Emily was in London, thousands of miles away. There was no way, right?

She wouldn’t have come and then left her, not again. JJ pulled her hand in and held it to her chest, as she bit back a cry.

It must have been another hallucination. It had to be.

Any other way would hurt too much.

[sola-whumping]

Umbran: The New Master

CW: pet whump, dehumanization, treating a whumpee as a nonperson, nonhuman whumpee, fae whump, heavily conditioned whumpee, nonsexual nudity (taking care of wounds)

Word count: 3,306

Nox woke slowly, his senses returning one by one. The first thing he was aware of was the soft surrounding him and the gentle hand running through his hair. The second thing he was aware of was the soft feminine humming, it was gentle and soothing like a summer breeze. He listened to the melody for a while, getting lost in the sound. He didn’t want to wake quite yet and fought the awareness that threatened to come for him. There would be pain waiting for him when he woke, he was sure of it. The last thing he was aware of was the tightness of the bandages around his chest and throat and the pain they caused him. He gave a small whine of discomfort. His bandages were not so tight that he couldn’t breathe, but not so loose that they were useless. Eventually, he was dragged to consciousness. 

“Good morning, Umbran, are you awake?” The humming had stopped in favor of speaking. Nox opened his eyes, remembering what had happened the day before. He had been sold again. 

“’M ‘wake.” He felt heavy, as if he’d been drugged. He vaguely remembered being bitten and recalled that this was the vampire, Evangeline. Gabrial had warned him about her. He tried to sit up, only to be eased back onto the bed. 

“You are hurt. You will answer my questions and rest. Once I am satisfied, you may have a bath and a meal.” The way she said it sounded a lot like mercy, though he knew there would be a catch. For the bath he expected ice water and to be held under. That’s what a bath had meant to Gabrial. The meal would surely be laced, if not outright poisoned. He was never fed that easily. Immediately suspicious but unable to do anything about it, he agreed. 

“What are your name and pronouns? I want to make sure I received the right creature.” Nox figured it was likely that she knew umbrans didn’t have any gender binary. Instead, they were physically non-binary, and while some leaned towards male or female (he leaned male), it was much more common that they were androgynous or didn’t fit the human stereotype at all. It was generally polite to ask an Umbrans pronouns or call them ‘they’ or ‘it’ instead of guessing. He also figured that Gabrial had promised her something better than him. 

“N-ox,” he croaked. His throat was dry and burned when he spoke. As soon as he made noise, the vampire lifted him and placed him in a sitting-up position. She put a cup of sweetened water to his lips, gently urging him to drink. 

He was grateful for the water. He hadn’t had any since before he was shipped. She turned cruel as soon as he tried to drink, only giving him a small bit of water at a time and then keeping the rest out of reach. Eventually, slowly, he drank the whole cup. He wanted more water. He was so dehydrated that he felt like he couldn’t get enough. He tried to ask for more, to plead if he had to, but his throat felt like fire, and when he made noise, he coughed weakly. 

His struggles were soon rewarded with another cup, filled with the same sugar water as the last. The only difference was that this one was a bit cooler and he was a bit less desperate. He still swallowed it down as quickly as he was allowed. 

The vampire gently reminded him of the question after the glass was stolen away once more. “Nox, m-ale pronouns,” he rasped. His throat felt a little better. He felt a little better. 

“Are you hungry, Nox?” He faintly realized he was desperate enough to not care if any food given to him was laced. Gabrial, his seller, had only ever fed him after he passed out and woke up again or in the days before shipping. He was more than hungry: he was starved. He gave a weak whine. He knew if she was asking that then she either intended to taunt and starve him or feed him, and he preferred the latter. 

She seemed to take the whine as his response, and in the next moment, there was a spoonful of something that smelled heavenly in his face. It was potato soup. He used to love potato soup. He was grateful to be allowed to eat something warm when he hadn’t done anything to earn it yet.. Something that wasn’t moldy bread was a treat in itself. 

He tried to rush and comply before she had a chance to change her mind about feeding him, trying to make it easier and maybe even feed himself. He failed. He was still heavy and weak and exhausted. All he managed to do was lean forward and open his mouth. His attempt was pathetic. 

“Good boy, that’s it. Easy, darling.”  She praised and cooed at him while he struggled for each bite. When the bowl was almost empty, she helped him drink bit more water before letting him finish the bowl. “Very good!” She ran her fingers through his hair and scratched his scalp. He was too weak to lean into the touch, but he felt a happy warmth in his chest. 

He hadn’t been called “good” or praised often, if at all, with Gabrial. It was no secret that the umbran hated him. He was often used as a plaything to beat around and hurt, rather than treated like the pets that were trained and sold. They got to find a forever home while he was rented for a party or a beating for a night or to someone who wasn’t sure if they wanted a Pet or not. He shivered at the memories and tried to focus on what was happening in the present. 

“Alright, sweetheart, it’s bath time. We need to clean those wounds and get you washed up.” Evangeline spoke to him as if he was a child. “Liam, darling, if you could.”

Suddenly, someone big and tall left the wall where they had been leaning and approached the bed Nox had been laying on. He hadn’t noticed them until they had moved and that worried him, he must be more out of it than he thought. He panicked slightly and keened in distress when he felt an arm slip under his knees and another tighten across his shoulders. He was lifted effortlessly- like he was weightless. Once he was picked up and stabilized, he could identify the figure as a tall human male- at least... he thought it was a male. Humans were supposed to have physical features that showed their preferred gender, but he could never tell. Gender was a human construct anyway. It was much better to learn the person rather than assuming. 

They spoke softly to him and he could feel their deep voice rumbling in their chest. “Hello, little birdy. My name is Liam.” Their arms felt strong around him and Nox almost felt… safe, being carried like this.

Nox gave a shy “Hello.” He liked Liam’s voice. They sounded calming and friendly even though their strength scared him. 

Nox was carried to another room. This one was painted a light blue. There was a big bathtub and shower. It was large enough that his wings wouldn’t be squished- if he still had them. He didn’t get to see the other half of the room until he was undressed and lowered into the already filled tub. There was a white foam on the top of the water that he considered beautiful. The water felt lovely. It was so warm that the heat immediately seeped into his bones. 

When he glanced up, something squeaked in his face, startling him badly and making him chirp in surprise. “Awww, Noxie, it’s just a rubber duck,” his master cooed at him, handing him a bright yellow toy. It was plastic and didn’t look at all like a duck. He squeezed it and startled himself again when it made a squeak sound.. He looked up to see her amused. 

He noticed some of the bubbles had clung to his arm when he moved. Curious, he licked it. It did not taste good at all despite how appealing it looked. His tongue stayed poked out as he recoiled. He heard his master laugh, and suddenly there was a dry towel wiping away the bubbles. 

“There, there, little darling, nothing to be distressed over.” She soothed. “Now we know that we can’t eat bubbles.” She sounded amused so Nox chirped at her, happy to have attention. 

He surveyed the water. If he was held under and waterboarded, it would be better than the cold water, right? Or would the bubbles compensate and make it worse. He couldn’t decide, so he figured he would have to wait and see. 

His master must have seen his expression because she spoke in a calm, soothing voice. “That’s Birdy bubble bath, made specifically not to hurt your feathers.” That hadn’t been what he had been worrying over- in fact, he hadn’t considered that the soap could hurt him at all-- but it was good to know. In response, he carefully lowered himself into the warm water, assuming that’s what she wanted him to do.  

Evangeline shielded his eyes and filled a cup with water before pouring it over him carefully to wet his hair. Then he felt something cold in the center of his hair. When he chirped a question, his master was kind enough to answer. 

“Just some shampoo, darling. I know I’m not supposed to use things like this on your hair, but I have to get the blood out somehow.” Her hands were gentle, not pulling or yanking even a little. He was fully expecting to be forced under, but- it hadn’t happened yet. The anticipation of waiting was almost as bad as the drowning itself. 

“Yes, ma’am.” He stayed still and quiet as the thing in his hair turned into more bubbles. They started white like the ones around him but soon turned a light pink. He was ordered to tip his head back, and upon complying, another cup of water was poured in his hair. 

This is it, this is where I get pushed under. He was in the perfect position; she could hold him under almost effortlessly like this. Not that he would fight at all. He was a good pet, and if she wanted to drown him, he’d stay under just like she wanted. 

“Sit up for me, treasure. I have to use conditioner, and then we will use the scrub brush and dry you up.” She led him up as he followed her guidance. As she had said, she put conditioner in his hair, carding her fingers through it as she went. 

Nox had to fight to stay still and not lean into the slight scratch of his scalp. He did adore being pet- not that he got the chance often. After she carded through his hair a bit, it became silky and smooth, though he knew it would be soft and fluffy once dried. 

She had him lean back again, shushing his little whimper as water got in his ears. He didn’t want to be drowned and this would be her best chance to do it. After this, she wouldn’t have to convince him back down into the water. He held his breath, but she only washed the conditioner gently from his hair. 

When he was let up again, he almost gasped out of shock. “Good job, little Birdy, you did very well for me. Now, I need you to stay still so I can clean your wounds. We don’t want them getting infected, now do we?” She hummed. 

Nox flinched. Cleaning wounds usually meant alcohol and painful healing and bandages wrapped so tight he couldn’t breathe. Getting an infection was usually kinder than the prevention methods. 

He flinched again when something gentle touched his back. His master placed a hand on his chest to stop him from moving away as she gently washed away the blood, cooing and soothing his whimpers when he started to get nervous. 

He was waiting for it to hurt, waiting for the salt and vinegar and alcohol to be poured. He wasn’t used to the gentle cloth wiping away his blood- not when he was still scared that the gentle touch would turn rough and rub his back raw. 

Nox took a breath to steady himself. Fear wouldn’t change the outcome. Whatever his master wanted to happen would happen and nothing he can do would change that. He took comfort in the helplessness. Nothing he could do would change anything, He repeated the words to himself, taking another deep breath and letting himself relax. Whatever will happen will happen. He focused on the hand on his chest and the cloth on his back, slowly cleaning the blood away. He took comfort in the helplessness. 

The water was a light pink now and some of his wounds had started bleeding again. His master pressed a cloth against the freshly reopened wounds to stem the bleeding and held it there until it had mostly stopped. 

When all the blood was gone, he was washed with something that smelled sweet and then taken out of the tub, only to be swiftly wrapped up in a warm towel. It was a dark color so the blood didn’t stain and could be washed out later. The towel was also strangely warm. His master had placed it on an odd sideways stand that radiated heat while he had been in the bath, presumably for that purpose. Regardless, he was grateful..

Nox was dried up and his hair was brushed before he even knew what was happening. He was a bit shocked going from the warm water to the cold air so quickly. He started to tremble from the cold. “Shh, we’ll get you warmed up, just hold on,” his master cooed, connecting an odd-looking piece of plastic to the wall. 

She turned it on, causing warm air to blow from it as if it was magic, creating wind effortlessly. He flinched when the warm air was suddenly on his face, then in his hair, then on the feathers trailing down the back of his neck. The magic wind felt lovely. It was nice and warm, chasing away the cold. After a few minutes he stopped trembling, his hair no longer wet. 

His master brushed it out and ran a hand through the now fluffy black mixed with brown. Now that he was clean, they could see the colors in his hair blended and mixed, like a molted feather pattern rather than anything human. His master hummed at him, thinking he looked adorable with his head tilted curiously at the blow dryer. 

“Can you walk, or should Liam carry you again?” She asked as she gently coaxed him into putting on a fluffy hoodie and some sweatpants. She would worry about decorum later, right now, her pet was in need of comfort. She had some rather strong words for his seller. She had ordered a pet, not a slave, and had expected him to have been treated with kindness rather than shoved in a box and strangled. She shook her head. It was practically animal cruelty, and the creature was so sweet that she didn’t think he could have done anything to deserve it. 

Nox had gone from gazing at the magic wind creator to backing in the warm blanket and the feeling of being clean, only to be snapped out of it with the question. “I-I can try, master.” He sounded terrified, but he did his best to suppress it. He hadn’t been hurt yet, and he didn’t think he’d be cleaned and dressed only to get all bloody again. Surely they wanted him for something else first- at least, he hoped. He tried not to be scared; vampires could smell fear, and being scared always made hurt time worse. They liked when he was afraid. Sometimes Gabrial said that the only good things about him were his pretty tears and his pleading. 

She almost cooed at him, the poor dear was so skittish. He sounded terrified of picking wrong. “That’s alright, darling, you just focus on resting. I’ll give you your rules tomorrow and I’ll write an email to that trainer of yours. They’ve been far too cruel to you.” 

Nox immediately tensed up when he heard email. That meant he was getting sent back. He didn’t even hear the rest of the sentence, too caught up in what he did wrong to warrant being sent back. Why would they clean him if they didn’t want him? Unless- unless he had answered wrong. Maybe they wanted him to be cute and helpless and need help with walking. Surely he was hurt before arriving for a reason. “I- I meant only if I was allowed, master- I didn’t want to assume- I’ve been so arrogant-“ he kept cutting himself off, too anxious to finish his sentence. “I’m s-sorry, plea-please don’t send me back” he pleaded. If nothing else, he begged well and cried beautifully for his masters. He hoped desperately that somehow he would be allowed to stay. He felt hot tears slip down his cheeks, sparkling with pastel colors. He truly was a pretty crier. 

The shine of light caught Evangeline’s eye. “Oh, sweetheart, what happened? What’s wrong, darling?” She tipped his head up by his chin and wiped away his tears, hushing the distressed umbran. “What’s got you so upset?” 

“You- you’re going to send me back,” he cried, distressed. He had been told if he was sent back before the first week, he’d be whipped again- it hadn’t even been a day. He couldn’t take it again so soon. He wouldn’t be able to stand it and the pain was unbearable. He was terrified of what would happen, less scared of Gabrial but rather the consequences that came with it. 

Evangeline was startled by his terror. “Oh darling, sweet treasure, you’re not being sent back, love.” She took his face in her hands and wiped away his tears. “Now that you’re mine, I wouldn’t let you go so easily.” It sounded like a comfort, but it wasn’t worded like one. Nox didn’t know how to feel until he felt a hand making its way  through his soft hair. Slowly, he let himself calm down. 

“Maybe a choice this soon is too much for you. Would you like me to pick for you?” She sounded like she was talking to an upset three year old- and Nox responded like one, nodding slightly and giving a small “mhm” as he was pet. 

“That’s alright, darling.” She cooed, turning to Liam. “Could you carry him? The poor thing is distressed.” Liam obeyed, moving to pick Nox up effortlessly. 

He carried Nox to his room. Liam set Nox down on his side in a little nest made of blankets rather than on his back. Then he stepped back so Evangeline could see Nox. she sat in a chair by his bed and spoke softly to calm him.

“It’s alright, sweetheart, you’re safe. No one will hurt you here. I’m sure you’re very tired, so I’ll make this quick, alright, darling?” She grabbed a great big blanket and draped it over him. 

Nox had started to relax with the soft voice. He felt safer under the blanket. It was cozy and warm and made him feel secure. When he looked up at his new master, he was greeted with a kind smile and a kiss on the forehead. She trailed a hand gently down his face so he would close his eyes. 

“Night night, Noxie.” And just like that, he was out.

✨Masterlist✨

Taglist: @haro-whumps @poisoned-by-royalty @sunset-avenuer @wide-awake-but-comatose @whumpsy-daisies @misspelledwitch @string-of-broken-hearts @captainseconds @lave-whump @whumping-out-of-time

[avengerscompound]

The Hamptons’ House: 2009 - 2

The Hamptons’ House:  A Iron Man Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a coffee with Ko-fi Word Count: 1803

Pairing:  Tony Stark x F!Reader

Warnings: Angst, mentions of torture, illness, and PTSD

Synopsis: When Tony goes missing for three months in Afghanistan you grieve his death.  His subsequent return and outing as Iron Man means your first time seeing him in the Hamptons carries a lot of emotion and questions.

2009: Part 2

Tony woke just as the sun began to rise and he crawled out from between the pocket that you and Kurt had made around him.  He was reluctant to get up.  It was nice to wake up cuddled up with other people and he really relished his time with you.  He’d like to just lie there until you both woke and then spend the morning finding other reasons to stay in bed, but he had a few things to take care of before you woke, and it would be nice to take the time to watch the sunrise over the ocean.  He wasn’t completely sure he’d get another chance to see it.

He went to the workbench in his room.  It hadn’t changed much since he’d installed JARVIS.  The only new thing on there was the device he had made to check his blood toxicity level.

He’d known when he’d first made the miniaturized arc reactor having it embedded in his chest would be dangerous.  Palladium was toxic, but the toxins would kill him much slower than the pieces of shrapnel floating around in his chest so he’d hoped that he’d be able to find some alternative to the palladium, preferably before it killed him.  In the meantime, he was trying to live a little healthier.  He’d been drinking chlorophyll smoothies to try and negate the poisoning.

He pricked his finger and watched as the display lit up.

Blood Toxicity 06%.

Not too bad - he could work with that.  He would need to figure out how to get that under control though because at the rate it was going up, he was barely going to clear his next birthday.

He put the device aside and looked out the window.  He could worry about that later.  Now he had to worry about how he was going to tell you what had happened to him and how it was still not over.

He hadn’t really told anyone what had happened.  Not all of it anyway.  Some people knew parts.  Everyone knew he had been in the cave and about inventing the arc.  No one knew about the waterboarding or how from months after he got home when he got in the shower and the water hit his face - he would flinch.  Pepper, Rhodey, and some of SHIELD knew about Obidiah - but no one else.  No one knew about the dance with Pepper or how he’d realized he was falling in love with her and he was fairly certain she felt the same way.

He wanted to tell you.  You of all people wouldn’t hold any of it against him or pressure him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with.  It wasn’t going to be easy though.

“Tony?”

You spoke at barely above a whisper and yet the sound startled him in the quiet room.  He jumped a little and spun around in his chair.  Kurt still slept soundly, but you were sitting up, looking at him.  You’d pulled the sheet up to cover yourself but your breast was exposed.  He could see the look of worry on your face and a wave of guilt hit him.  He hated how upset you’d been last night.  He’d wished he could have protected you from that fear, and he had been grateful that he’d never actually started dating you in the first place.  He could only imagine how panicked you’d be if it had just been the two of you.

Tony’s automatic reaction was to smile.  It wasn’t real and he knew you’d see through it.  He hated using that smile on you, but it had become so natural to wear it.  When he realized what he was doing he let the facade fall again.  “Hey,” he whispered.  “Go back to sleep.  It’s early.”

You climbed out of bed and moved to him.  When you reached him, he wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you close, resting his forehead on your bare chest.  “Why are you up?” You whispered.

“Guess I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted.  “Needed to get my thoughts in order.”

“Yeah?” You asked.  “Like what?”

He pulled back and looked up at you.  “Maybe we should go downstairs so we don’t wake, Kurt.”

You nodded and pulled away, going to your bag and pulling out a sleep shirt and a robe.  The two of you headed downstairs together.  The house was a hive of activity.  In the kitchen, the cooks were preparing breakfast-to-go for the party guests that were sleeping off the events of last night.  Tony paused just long enough to ask them to bring you something out to the patio before moving on.  There were maids and cleaners and Happy’s security team waking up people and moving them on as they cleaned up.  All over the living room and out on the deck people were blearily getting dressed and making their way to the buffet table that had been set up with tea, coffee, and juice and was being laden down with toast and breakfast sandwiches.

People called out happy birthday to him, but no one tried very hard to engage.  He was glad of that at least.  You followed him to the hammock and when he was comfortably lying in it, he pulled you down on top of him.

The sun was now a semi-circle on the horizon making the sky a mix of orange, pink, and purple.  You settled against him, resting your head on his shoulder, and staring out over the ocean with hooded eyes.  There was a pain in his chest where you were leaning against him.  He hurt most of the time since Afghanistan.  Having a hole carved out of your ribs and a battery shoved in where they used to be was bound to be painful.  Still, he took it.  Pain meant he was alive, and right now, that meant he was here with you.

“You gonna tell me everything?”  You asked quietly.

He rubbed your back and gave a small nod.  “Yeah,” he said.  “But I need you to promise me something, you can’t tell anyone.  Not Kurt.  Not some random friend you know who doesn’t know me.  Not Rhodey.  Especially not Rhodey.  He’ll just worry and get in my way and … I can’t do that to him.”

“You’re scaring me, Tony,” you said.

“Promise me, Cookie.  Promise me or I won’t tell you anything,” he said.

You took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  You looked up into his eyes and gave a small nod.  “I promise.  It stays between you and me.”

Tony kissed you softly and ran his palm up and down your back.  This was it.  He was going to unburden himself of everything and he hoped that you were the person he could do that with without regrets.

“I was making a sale in Afghanistan.  Obidiah had convinced me it was better if we did the demonstration on site.  I ate it up…”

Tony told you everything.  About how he’d been arguing with Rhodey before it happened.  How he’d been joking with the soldiers just before the explosion.  How he’d watched those soldiers die right in front of his eyes just before a bomb landed beside him with the Stark Industries’ logo on it and everything had gone black.

He told you about waking up with them making a recording for Obidiah (though he hadn’t known it at the time).  He told you about waking up again and how Yinsen had saved his life by putting a battery in his chest.  How he’d been asked to make more weapons and that when he refused they’d tortured him.  The fact that Yinsen kept trying to befriend him, and by the time Tony did trust the man, he’d already built the miniature arc reactor and had started making the metal suit.

He told you about fighting his way out.  Watching Yinsen die.  Blowing up as many of his own weapons as he could.  Rhodey finding him in the desert.  Deciding he was changing the direction of the company.  Of building a new arc reactor.  A new suit.  How Obidiah had been the one that ordered the hit.  How the man who had acted like his stand-in-father had stolen his heart right out of his chest and left him to die.  How Tony had ended up killing him with Pepper’s help and some secret government organization had covered it up.

He didn’t just tell you about the events that led him to become Iron Man though.  He’d also told you about the dance with Pepper and how he was definitely in love with her and that he was pretty sure she felt the same way but neither of them seemed to be willing to do anything about it.  He told you part of the reason why he wasn’t willing to move it forward was that the very device keeping him alive was also killing him and he didn’t have it in him to put her through losing him if they moved from being boss and employee to lovers.

He didn’t leave out one single thing.  The staff brought you both breakfast and left it on a table beside the hammock.  You both left it practically untouched as he spoke, just pausing to sip his chlorophyll smoothie or coffee briefly from time to time.  When he was done the house had cleared out and was almost completely clean, and the sun was up.  You were crying silently, tear tracks staining your cheeks.

“Oh, Tony,” you whispered.

“Please,” he said.  “I don’t want pity, okay?  I’m working on it.  You’re the only one I trust to tell all this to.”

“It’s so much, Tony,” you said.  “You need help.”

He sighed and pressed his lips to the top of your head.  “I promise, I can handle it.  And if it gets to the point that it’s too much, I’ll tell Rhodey.  But I invented this thing -” he tapped the casing on the arc, “- in a cave, under pressure, by myself.  I’m the best one to fix it.  If Rhodey and Pepper are worrying too much, it’ll just distract me.”

You frowned and nodded.  He tilted your chin up to face him.  “Now, you know,” he said.  “But the world out there isn’t part of what we have here.  Right?”

You nodded.  “Right.”

“So, we’re just going to do what we always do,” he said.  “Hang by the pool.  Relax.  Fuck.  Enjoy ourselves.  Right?”

“Right,” you agreed.  He smiled and leaned in and kissed you.  You hummed, wrapping your arms around his neck.

The sliding door opened and closed and he pulled back, looking over to see Kurt watching you both.

“Where’d you guys go?”  He asked.

Tony smirked and held out his hand.  “Why don’t you get over here and find out?”

// NEXT

[ceaseless-enemy]

The H.J. Canterbury Log (Page 2)

Content warnings: more torture, same shit different day tbh, uhhh, broken jaws that's new uhh- the tortures in this one are a bit more extreme than the previous one, deepest apologies, it only escalates

February 14th, 2015

It made me a little squeamish at first. I relished in the thought of doing it, but in the process of waterboarding, I almost stopped several times. That said, I think I succeeded in shaking him a little. He rambled a lot; barely stopped himself from giving some things away. If we keep this up, he may be incentivized to confess the Toppat’s crimes. I’d prefer it if these efforts weren’t wasted.

February 22nd, 2015

Last week from the 15th, we kept him in cramped confinement. There was a point around the 18th where I opened the box. I reminded him that if he gave us answers, things would be a lot more by-the-book. He told me the Toppats had stolen some gun. Not useful enough to justify this to the higher-ups, but it’s something new. That said, the lack of useful answers was immensely frustrating. I ended up punching him in the mouth.

February 24th, 2015

I didn’t want to get too repetitive with the waterboarding or the confinement and isolation related methods, so I put him in some stocks. I noticed this time around he wasn’t making much noise, to my frustration. It’s not like I expected any confessions with such a tame method, but I at least expected a grunt of acknowledgement. Or, you know. Anything at all. I think something’s wrong with him.

February 25th, 2015

Well, I figured out what was wrong with him. Jaw’s broken. At first I was confused; I made sure not to do anything that would make him unable to speak. Then I read through this log. I broke his jaw. Fuck.

April 4th, 2015

I’ve opted to phase out waterboarding. Verbal confessions aren’t an option anymore, so it wouldn’t achieve anything. I’ll have to figure out other extreme methods. For now, I’ll stick to more sensory interrogation techniques. I’m not sure how well they’ll work on their own.

Interrogations from April 12th to May 26th

Cramped Confinement - not many results gleaned. He’s more susceptible in positions of desperation, and being in a box isn’t threatening as much as it is unstimulating.

Sensory Deprivation - It’s the same as cramped confinement, just with more room. He seems about as bothered. Maybe less. I’m starting to think the sensory deprivation chamber would be better as his new cell.

Sensory Overload - more effective than most of the other sensory techniques. Might start hooding, for a more disorienting experience.

Pillory - better than the stocks. More uncomfortable since he has to stand and bend his wrists for it to work. It’s probably better with the public mockery and beating it’s supposed to be paired with. I had to make due.

Sensory Overload - this feels repetitive, but he confessed to everything he ever stole before he was in the Toppats. Still useless information. I punched him in the jaw again. It was already broken anyway, why not use it to my advantage?

May 27th, 2015

I informed him it was his one year anniversary with me, then I left him to his own devices in a nice room for an hour. I checked the security cameras set up around the place and saw something understandable but unexpected. He went absolutely ballistic. Honestly, it’s comparable to a child’s tantrum. He threw things around, screamed, cried, and whatnot. After that he tried to clean up after himself and cooked something with the utilities he was provided for the hour. Needless to say, he couldn’t actually eat it (I should probably get him a tube or something.)

[captain-cerrillo]

x

Eva swallowed his weak protest. Their mouths met, lips touching and hanging open, as she sank onto him slowly before settling herself comfortably with her knees on either side of him at the edge of their bed.

Some part of him registered the way her eyes fluttered before she forced them open to take in the way the feel of her body consumed him as they joined. His eyes stayed open, too desperate to dare to miss any part of her.

He managed to contain his noises until the heat of the fire inside of her combined with the wet sounds and the feel of her slick walls stretching around him ripped a helpless whine out of him and he strained to resist the urge to buck his hips up to meet her as she took her time easing down over his shaft. The shudder that ran through his body when she sheathed herself around him shook them both.

She gasped when he throbbed, his body protesting of its own accord, when they finally rested against each other without any rush for completion. She grinned and squeezed herself around him.

“Eva.”

She closed her eyes and smiled at the thick honey in his voice, but her hips kept moving. His fingers dug in and he called her name again.

“Eva. Eva, please.” He gasped at the loss of her wet heat when she raised up on her knees to thread her fingers through his hair, pressing herself into his chest as she stretched to kiss him, with only the tip of his impossibly hard cock still inside her.

He never ceased to be amazed at the fact that he preferred waterboarding to being so close and yet so far away from Eva Novakov when it came to torture methods. His moans said as much when she bit his lip and giggled, pulling away from his searching kiss to sink herself back onto him with a sigh.

“Yes, sir?”

“God.” He choked on another feral moan - a sound ripped straight from his chest when she worked her hips over him again. The sounds of her perfect ass clapping against his bare thighs as she bounced on his lap were almost enough to make him snap. Though, he had a sneaking suspicion that was intentional.

“That’s not fair,” he croaked out with his eyes squeezed shut. The weight of his hands increased as he tried to slow her eager riding. “Eva.” His hips bucked up to meet her every time she pulled away and every breath from his chest was shaky and jagged, peppering his pleading words. “Eva, baby. I can’t.”

“I missed you so fucking much, Isaac.” She gasped against his mouth, and he couldn’t help the way one of his hands threaded in her wet hair. They hadn’t gone anywhere that wasn’t together, but he understood exactly what she meant, and his dick throbbed in agreement. He closed his eyes so she wouldn’t see the way his eyes rolled back as the last of his control slipped through his tired fingers.

“I need you,” was all he could say.

“Come with me.” She moved her hips in slow circles and let her hands pull his hair for leverage. They watched each other, both straining and a heartbeat away from letting everything spill over, for a quick moment before their mouths crashed together.

Isaac finally demolished the last of the metaphorical levies that kept the more primal parts of his desire at bay and Eva squealed, mixed surprise and delight, as his hips lifted her, adjusting his feet against the floor to meet her hungry movements with his own.

“Oh goddess.” Her lithe body finally went lax in his lap. She leaned more of her weight against his chest to counterbalance the force of his desperate thrusts.

He let both of his hands cup her ass and shamelessly spread her, lifting just slightly to adjust their angles so that he could stroke against his favorite spot that made her shudder around him. It was nothing short of a miracle that he lasted until her slick walls gripped him. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she said only, “Inside,” with her cheek pressed tight against his flushed chest as he pounded into her from below.

They shared moans through their rippling orgasms and Isaac held Eva tight to his chest with his mouth buried into her loose hair until his body stopped pumping everything he had into her. He tried not to think about the thought of her pretty pussy with his seed spilling out. He failed and throbbed inside of her again, still hard.

She rubbed what she could reach of his crushing arms while they caught their breath until he released his iron hold with a shy, lopsided grin. “That was…”

“Incredible.” She stretched to kiss his smile. “Amazing.” He kissed her back and she continued picking adjectives. “Superb.” He laughed a low rumble that shook through them. “Life changing.”

Her smile was beaming and though she didn’t seem even remotely unsatisfied, he couldn’t avoid the fact that even with the basest of his desires out of the way, their bodies still had a lot to say. Her smile faltered as she took in the change in emotion written plainly on his face. “It’s okay,” he assured her, tilting his head to plant a tender kiss to the forearm of the hand still holding his shoulder. “Everything is better than okay. But we need to talk.”

Some part of him wondered if it was abnormal that his need for a serious moment did nothing to sap the eager desire of his flesh, still rigid inside of her. He adjusted his arms to wrap around her, lifting her easily to adjust both of their bodies so that he could settle over her in the middle of the bed. She gasped as their bodies parted and he ached at the sudden lack of her warmth, but it was momentary. She arched into him, rubbing her smooth calves over his outer thighs as he lined himself up to join her again.

He settled over her on his forearms, soaking in the way her beautiful blue eyes studied his face. “I understand this isn’t the most ideal timing, but I’ve been processing a lot and there are some things that I need to say. Things that I need you to hear.” He faltered and she smoothed a small hand over his furrowed brow. Her painted nails traced the defined wrinkles on his forehead, deeper as he considered his words. “I hope the sex part doesn’t diminish my intent.”

“Sex with you doesn’t diminish anything.” She pressed a kiss to his temple, and he leaned into it, hoping they could keep this magic forever.

“Eva.” He backed off only enough to hold her gaze. Careful brown met sparking blue. “Eva, I want you to know that I’m in love with you. I think I have been since I met you.” He paused, watching her carefully as he quickly considered his next words.

“This war can’t last forever, but I hope we do. And I just. I just need to be very clear about that.” He smiled, taking in the swirl of emotion in her eyes. She locked her legs around them. “My intentions with you, Ms. Novakov, are to be yours forever.”

[exhaustedfander]

Hideaway: Chapter Seven

 a03 link 

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / ?

word count: 2,249

It’s here! I’m sorry this chapter took so long, I’ve had a lot of school work and mental health shit. But gosh, the election results were such a releif, and I’m happy I was finally able to finish this chapter. I’d love to hear what you think of it! 

Panic still thrums wildly in Logan even hours – or what he suspects to be hours; the sun has risen and set several times over now – after the initial conclusion. Not usually someone to give in to something so illogical, he prays that Roman can’t see the trembling of his limbs, or hear the nervous, fluttering thoughts his mind continues to produce. He’s freaking out and he doesn’t know what to do.

It’s not as though Logan wasn’t aware that it was a possibility, he could someday feel strongly about one of his fellow sides. He’s seen how Janus and Patton behave around each other, even when they think they're hiding their relationship well (they aren’t). He’s seen the passing looks that Virgil and Remus give each other from time-to-time, expressions that bear a strange mix of resentment, anger, and longing. Logan has long since given up trying to understand what those glances really mean. These are things that Logan’s always been semi-aware of, but he never expected them to apply to himself, especially not something as drastic as love.

It doesn’t make any sense. Sure, he was aware of a certain fondness he felt for the creative side. He was even bold enough to label it an attraction, but love? Something so achingly raw, so disastrous and strong? He doesn’t understand how he can be capable of such an intense feeling and it’s quite possibly going to be the death of him (figuratively, of course, although he can’t be too sure. This certainly feels like it could be a cause of death).

The point is, Logan’s trying to ignore it. After breakfast, Roman insists that they should venture outside of the castle and that he has something he’d like to show him. Logan doesn’t like this idea. While The Imagination is undoubtedly beautiful and fantastical, it’s also something he has so little understanding of. It’s far beyond Logan’s realm of comprehension, so odd and he barely knows what to make of it.

He would’ve never agreed to come here, was it for Roman coming too. Even if he didn’t fully understand the reasoning then, he does now. It’s frightening, how far he’d go if Roman only asked. The lengths he would go to make that man smile are an issue he does not wish to dwell on, but he can’t help but do so. He remembers when it was easy to be stern to him, to say no. But now, in the state they’re in? Logan is helpless, and Roman doesn’t seem to be much better off.

“Come on, it’s just up ahead,” Roman says, taking Logan by the hand. They’re going uphill, towards whatever destination Roman’s decided on. Logan tries to ignore the way his body tingles from their joining hands all the way to his shoulder.

“Where are you leading me?” Logan asks teeth gritted. He can’t help it; he’s so goddamn jittery.

“It’s a surprise,” Roman sing-songs, “Oh, don’t give me that look. It’s a good surprise, I promise.”

“I don’t particularly like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one,” Roman says so surely, as though he knows it without a shadow of a doubt. That’s odd, considering how unsure of almost everything he’s seemed recently. Roman has been so unhappy with his creations as of late, so dissatisfied, that the fact that he’s actually excited to show Logan something is… interesting. It’s good, probably. Logan thinks it’s good.

Upon internally battling this love he’s apparently been harboring and trying to quell the anticipation of whatever Roman’s surprise must be, Logan hardly notices that they’ve stopped walking until Roman gives his hand a gentle squeeze.

“We’re here.”

Logan looks out at the clearing that Roman has brought them to, his eyes scanning over the picturesque scenery. And then he spots them, and his heart flutters.

Two unicorns stand in the grass, looking at him and Roman. They’re fur and manes are a pristine white, while their horns are a light bluish color. They don’t look startled by the sudden company, not in the least bit. In fact, they look curious, curious about Logan.

“Roman they’re – they’re beautiful,” Logan gasps, surprised by how taken aback he’s suddenly become. He doesn’t remember the last time he was so captivated – excluding, of course, every time he looks at Roman.

“Do you like them?” Roman asks, a smile gracing his lips that says he already knows the answer to the question.

“They’re magnificent,” Logan says softly, eyes fixed on the creatures. He tries to find it in himself to think this is ridiculous; Roman’s created these animals, there’s no such thing as unicorns. He’s logic, he shouldn’t be enamored by something so childish. And yet, he can’t help but be transfixed.

“You can pet them if you’d like.” The offer shouldn’t make him as happy as it does.

Logan turns to look at Roman, anticipation coursing through him.

“Are- are you certain? I don’t want to startle them…” Roman nods, smiling.

“Go on,” he encourages, gesturing to them. Slowly, Logan approaches one of them, a trembling hand reaching out.

“H-hello there,” Logan greets the creature, feeling a little silly. But then, the unicorn tilts its head and nuzzles against his hand. Logan melts.

“Oh. I think- I think they like me.”

“They love you,” Roman says, voice brimming with fondness. The other unicorn approaches and Logan’s smile widens even more so, his other arm outstretching to pet the animal’s mane.

Logan thinks not of the intensity of his feelings for Roman. He doesn’t dwell on the anxiety that has gripped his heart or wonder how long they’ve really been here – because he has been beginning to wonder.

No, for now, Logan simply takes the beautiful moment in.

“Thank you for this, Roman,” Logan says, the unicorns still very interested in him, nuzzling him and standing close.

“Anything for you, darling,” Roman says softly, and for once, Logan isn’t overwhelmed by the term of endearment. His mind is far too occupied.

=+=

Leaves crunch underfoot as they walk in uneasy silence – silence Virgil is sure will be broken any minute now. It’s only a matter of time.

"So, you think they’re fucking?” And, there it is.

“Can you not, for like, five seconds?” Virgil asks, exasperated.

They’ve been walking for a while now in Remus’s side of The Imagination, heading towards Roman. The castle that Remus is fairly sure they’re residing in isn’t in view yet, but Remus claims it should be soon.

“Can I not, what? Be insanely charming?” Remus asks, nudging Virgil who groans in response.

“Charming, right.”

“Oh c’mon, Virgey, admit it. You’ve missed me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Even as he says it, Virgil isn’t entirely confident with his statement. Of course, for a great deal of their time together, he was afraid of Remus. When they were younger the intrusive side was even more unpredictable, and Virgil had been going through so much at the time as it was. But it’s been a long time now since Virgil’s genuinely been afraid of Remus and his feelings are… well, they’re complicated. More complicated than he wants to admit.

“So, how much further is Roman’s side?” Virgil asks, hoping to change the subject. By the look in Remus’s eyes, though, he’s not getting out of it that easy.

“Not far now,” Remus says, a tinge of disgust in his voice, “I hate his frou-frou side. It’s so full of flowers, and rainbows, and unicorns. Bleh!” Virgil looks around at the fire-singed trees and strange creatures that surround them in Remus’s side.

“And yours is that much better?” He asks, gesturing to the decay. Remus smiles.

“Oh come on, Emo. I know you prefer this to Roman’s non-stop goody-two-shoes-ness. Admit it: he can be a bit much, can’t he?” Virgil bites his lip.

“Yeah, he can. But so can you,” Virgil says, “And, he’s never tried to set me on fire.” Remus smacks him on the arm.

“That was an accident and you know it!”

“Mm, do I, though?”

The tense silence that had previously enveloped them returns for a few minutes, Virgil’s mind drifting to Patton and Janus.

“Do you think Patton’s doing okay?” It feels stupid, asking Remus. The Duke and Patton have by no means been on the best of terms, and regardless, Remus knows as much as he does. But he can’t help from worrying, and he’s the only person around to ask.

“Oh no, I’m sure Janus is torturing him horribly as we speak,” Remus says, his tone teasing but Virgil really isn’t in the mood, “What do you think his preferred means of torture are? I’d go for waterboarding, or bone-breaking, myself. But Double-D’s a more clean-cut guy, so maybe he’ll go for blinding. Not something messy, I’m sure. But I –.”

“Knock it off!” Virgil interrupts, anger rising with each word out of his mouth. Remus stops in the middle of the path they’re walking on, forcing Virgil to do the same.

“You’re not worried about Thomas’s safety, are you? That’s not why you’re asking if Patton’s okay?” Remus doesn’t give him time to butt-in, “No, you’re worried about Janus. You’re worried about him and Patton being in charge together.”

“And what if I am?” Remus glares at him, exasperated.

“You’d think after all those years you spent with us, you’d have a little more trust.”

“What reason has Janus given me to trust him in – god, ages?” Virgil spits venomously, “Think of how often he lied to me, to both of us!”

“Yeah, he’s deceit. It’s kind of in the job description.” Virgil shakes his head.

“Not the way he acted.”

“So, what, you don’t trust him with Patton? Gee, Virgil, I thought that you were upset about him being overprotective of you. Looks like you’re turning the table on Pat.”

“I am not being overprotective!” Virgil says, but the waver in his voice indicates otherwise, “It’s just – he didn’t know Janus like we did back then. When we were the outcasts.”

“Oh, open your fucking eyes!” – Multiple sets of eyes suddenly appear around them, littering the sky and trees, before quickly disappearing – “We’re still the outcast. You and Jan have just gotten an upgrade. We’re still the ‘dark sides’, the ones that Thomas is most wary of. That’s never going to completely change, and you know it.”

“Remus, stop it.”

“Stop, what? Telling the truth? I thought you were sick of all the lying?”

“I said, stop it!” Virgil shouts, voice rising in volume.

“He loves Patton. He’s not going to do anything to hurt him, or Thomas, or anyone. The fact that you’re more concerned about Janus’s behavior than mine is ridiculous. I’m supposed to be the one who isn’t to be trusted.”

The prospect of Janus loving Patton, really loving him, and Patton feeling the same is one that Virgil does not know how to compute. Even still, despite his better judgment, he can’t help but dwell on the hurt in Remus’s voice. Why does he sound so wounded, as though he fully expects Virgil to still be terrified of him? And why does Virgil care in the first place?

“I – I never said I trusted you,” Virgil sputters, knowing it’s going to make things worse, but finding himself too overwhelmed not to dig himself in a deeper hole, “It’s just…”

“It’s just, what?” Remus asks, exasperation replacing his usual jovial tone, “Admit it: You don’t even know what you’re afraid of anymore. You don’t know what to expect of Janus because, newsflash, it’s been years since you’ve had a real conversation with him.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t about me.”

“Oh, it isn’t, is it?” Remus asks with a laugh, though the sound lacks humor, “You know… Double-D’s never stopped missing you.”

Virgil stifles a cough as the breath is knocked from his lungs. Tightness settles in his chest, constricting and terrible, and he begins walking again, picking up his previous pace.

“Where are you going? I’m not done talking to you!”

“We need to find your brother,” he says without looking back at Remus, walking even faster, “We don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t care!” Remus says, and Virgil isn’t sure which sentence he’s replying to, “We need to talk about this, Virgil. It’s gone on too fucking long.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything!”

“Yes, we do! Do you know how hurt that Janus was when you left us? Do you know how long he mourned you like you’d died?”

“Shut up! Just – just fucking shut up!” Virgil cries, nearly running now, from what, he can’t say. The pressure in his chest increases, the sound of Remus’s footfalls not far behind him sending ripples of panic through him.

“You left us, Virgil! You left us without so much as an explanation! He missed you for years; still misses you! And so do I!”

That sets a pit in Virgil’s stomach like so few things. He can feel the tension crackling in the air, can taste the regret forming on his tongue. Still, he continues forward, desperate not to look back and see the expression on Remus’s face, whatever it might be.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do!” Remus insists, his hand clamping down on Virgil’s shoulder as they breach the gap to Roman’s side of The Imagination.

And then, Remus and Virgil are plunged into darkness, as though the sun itself has been extinguished.

=+=

Uh oh, looks like someone shut out the lights. That can't be good!

Please, let me know if you’d like to be added to either taglist! 

Hideaway Taglist:

@tryingtobts

General Taglist:

@nadiestar

@unoriginalgayboyalex 

@bella-in-a-bag

@igonnatalknothing

@elizabutgayer

@wishthefish916

@reptilianwithscallions 

@justmeandmygayships

@arodynamic-enby 

@harper-mdn 

[queenjunoking]

Wolf Taming Pt 33

CW: Noncon - Shock Collar - Pain - Petplay - Drugs - Kidnapping  - Manipulation - Abuse - Spiders

Z

Rayne’s home couldn’t be more stereotypical. It was a huge gothic eyesore. I knew that Rayne and Flora were one of the more powerful, and rich, couples in the region. I couldn’t imagine they used most of the space inside. It was a flex. Only by the Society’s influence could a place like this remain hidden.

It took a minute to finish the trip up their driveway and park by their front door. It took a lot to unsettle me. This house was one of the things that did. I knew all about the things that happened here. I was under no illusion about what I was to Rayne. She looked at new members that she saw as having some kind of potential and tried to push them. I was vaguely aware of some of the other people she attempted to take under her wing.

Mercy, an ironic name if I had ever heard one. I had seen her work, she worked mostly as a private breaker that just pushed her victims little by little until they broke. I had seen some videos, the childish glee she had as she told her victims they could “take just a little more” over and over. A few more inches. A few more hits. One more notch up on the shock collar. Of course if they could take that Mercy was sure they could take one more. She was to take the phrase “it’s too big” as a challenge. She wanted her victim to say something wasn’t possible.

Melinoë was one of the few people who climbed the ranks from the bottom. She broke people using their phobias. She kept rooms of snakes, spiders, rats and other common phobias and introduced them to people she had rendered immobile. I had seen one of her victims covered head to toe in webs from a swarm of spiders she let into the cell. The light in their eyes had died quickly. Unfortunately not everyone's phobias are so easy to manifest. She was more than happy to keep people in cycles of suffocation or waterboard those that had those fears. She had a technique for almost everything.

Her newest was some newly inducted girl. Apparently she was some serial killer that had killed dozens of low ranked members over the last year. Rayne’s intervention probably saved her a long torturous life at the bottom of one of the Society’s special prisons. I remember Eos making a fuss that the girl had left Rayne’s mansion gone underground a few weeks ago and no one had tracked her down yet. Eos had been on the council deciding the girls fate and had been very vocal about having her imprisoned for life.

I hated them all, none of them had the respect that I had for the people I worked on. I avoided being on that list of people taken under Rayne’s wing by virtue of Eos interacting with me as often as she did. She still left her mark on me though, something I was unable to get rid of, her epithet.

I composed myself as the doors to the limo opened. The driver bowed and helped the both of us out of the car. Once she shut the doors behind us the went up to the front door and rang the doorbell. She waited to the side, her head bowed lest she incur Rayne’s wrath when the door opened.

Rayne

Everything was going… well perfect was a lie. Things never went perfectly. But with a minimum amount of punishments. I only had three other maids taken away while I waited for Z’s arrival. They’d make passable canvases.

I was growing irritated as the minutes slowly passed by. She was supposed to be here at four. It was now ten after four. Good driver’s were hard to come by, but I’d have to find a new one regardless. Perhaps she would make a good lawn ornament. If she wanted to go slow on the roads she may as well be stationary. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about winter for quite awhile.

Finally the doorbell rang, followed by some scattered screams throughout the mansion. The doorbell was wired to some random slaves. It gave them quite the nasty shock when it was pressed, it made sure we would always hear it ring. Our guests were here. Only fifteen minutes late. The two slaves I had left stationed by the front door saw me walk towards them and slowly opened the door.

The sight was… as to be expected. Z was dressed in what I was sure was the most expensive thing she owned. I was a bit upset to see Briar there. I hadn’t given Z a plus one. I’d have to figure out something for her to do, she was just going to make all my plans harder. I wanted Z, alone, without anyone to consult. Having Briar to talk to just made my goal harder.

"Good afternoon Z. I'm glad you could make it to this celebration." I gave her a smile. I tried to play the good host.

"Unfortunately, due to the last minute invitation, I was unable to bring Lady Flora a gift." She looked bored and it pissed me off. Its like she didn't care she didn't bring my darling Flora anything.

"That's alright Z, you're the gift. I'm sure Flora will enjoy meeting you. Follow me." We made our way through the mansion, heading towards the art room I knew my lovely lilac was busy in.

Maids stop and curtsied as we passed by. Flora and I would really have to converge on a design for them. She was in the midst of designing new outfits for them and had them wearing different prototypes. Some were clad in latex, others were dressed in what could only be generously called an outfit. Still others were in floor length outfits that only left their hands and faces uncovered. Different styles from English to French to Japanese. I didn't care much about which style she ultimately chose, I just wanted them to match.

We passed by many of Flora's projects on out walk. All stunningly beautiful. All works of genius. Yet Z looked bored and Briar looked away.

It pissed me off.

I stopped at the top of a staircase in front of a special wall Flora had installed. The renovations had cost a fortune but nothing was too expensive for my beloved buttercup.

"Perhaps you recognize this one, Z?"

Z

The walk through the mansion was what I expected. Battered maids, tortured slaves, and all kinds of horrible art created by Flora.

I looked up at the newest exhibit. It was a resin block that was placed into the wall. There was a woman inside, immobile. Naked and on display. It took a bit for me to see the tubes connected to her inside. Most likely to give her air, water and Ambrosia to keep her alive. She stared out blankly at the room, I doubt she was mentally there anymore.

"I'm afraid I don't." I didn't really care about whatever Rayne was trying to show me. I respected the situation in a certain way. I'm sure the inability to move with no space to take anything more than shallow breaths would break anyone fairly quickly.

It was the same principle I took with Bridget.

"Flora was devastated when you closed up shop. She bought up many of those you broke for her own projects. They're quite magnificent for many purposes. Sometimes its fun to listen to them scream while you work, but you created slaves that simply don't react anymore." She smiled at me as she talked. I hated every word coming out of her mouth. I did this to stop their suffering, not make it worse.

"And the significance of this piece?" I tried pushing the annoyance out of my voice.

"This was the last person you broke. She was sold as a sex slave and was used like that for awhile. But Flora wanted to preserve your last piece. It's been injected with a concoction that should help preserve its beauty. The side effects are quite painful and debilitating, but its encased in resin so it doesn't matter if its debilitating. We believe she'll live another decade in the-"

"I believe you wanted us to meet with Lady Flora?" Briar cut Rayne off. I wasn't sure if it was for my benefit or hers, but I'm glad she did.

Rayne’s fave slipped for just a moment. From a warm and welcoming one to one of sheer annoyance. It only took a moment for her to slip back though. "Yes, we're almost there." She turned and began walking down the hall. I had long lost track of where we were. The house seemed alive with activity no matter where we went. Slaves where everywhere, I couldn't begin to fathom how many she must have.

Rayne opened a door and we could hear someone inside talking. She motioned for us to wait as she slipped inside.

Rayne

"If I heard one more sob out of you I'll give you something to actually be sad about." I heard my gorgeous gardenia tell her canvas as she worked.

Flora's back was to me so I could see her canvas facing me. It was some small thing. It had short black hair, surprising as Flora preferred to claim slaves with long hair.

The canvas was covered in tattoos, new ones. Surprising designs. Flora loved to cover a few maids in tattoos, having some walking art around the mansions. Usually she didn't design tattoos so demonic though.

"What are you working on?" I asked her, giving her a bit of a start as I broke her concentration.

"Oh, raindrop. How many times do I have to tell you not to startle me when I'm working on a piece! I could have gotten a line out of place." She chided me playfully. If she had messed up she'd probably just dispose of it and get a new canvas, it was no big deal.

"My apologies, my sweet… saguaro." I stumbled, my mind was in other places.

She crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks, looking a bit cross. "A cactus?"

I walked over to her and tip her head up, giving her a kiss. "I apologize, I was taken in by your art."

She smiled, her pout already forgotten. "This canvas was some poor church girl that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I bought her with the intent of reselling her to The Pandemonium Club."

"Don't they give full body recoloring to all their imps? Won't that cover up your lovely art?" Servers at the club were modified to resemble imps. Horn mods were what their servers were known for. The size of their horns indicated their purpose. But they also underwent full body recoloring. Many were purple, blue, red or pink.

"Not at all. That guttersnipe that you brought in gave me one nice thing, a chemical added to this ink will make it glow under the body repainting. So she'll be purple with nice gold tattoos showing." She gave me a toothy grin.

I gave her another kiss. Longer. More passion. "You know I don't like you talking about her like that, she'll be giving us tons of fun to watch. But I'm glad she's helped you."

"Whatever you say. So, may I ask why you've come in? Just wanted to see my art?" Flora was beginning to catch on.

"Your birthday present finally arrived, Love." I smiled, knowing this would make her day.

"Oh?" She feigned an innocent look. "I had completely forgot. What did you get me?"

"I didn't find you a something to give you this year unfortunately." Her look turned sour and she stuck out her bottom lip. "But, I brought in someone you might enjoy meeting."

Nothing happened for a few seconds. I figured that had been an obvious enough of a clue.

"I brought in someone you might enjoy meeting!" I called a bit louder. This time Z and Briar entered the room.

"Z!" Her face lit up and she practically glided over the floor to her. She ignored Briar much as I had. "Its so lovely to have you visit. I am such a fan of your methods. Perhaps we can talk over dinner." I watched her look Z up and down. "And let's get you some nice clothes. Consider it my treat."

Z didn't get a moment to say anything before Flora pulled her out of the room. My present had gone over well so far. If things went my way I'd get rid of Z and make this the best birthday Flora's ever had.

[pomegranate-belle]

If you’re still doing it, MattFoggy kiss fics #11 (}I almost lost you kiss”), preferably after Matt almost lost Foggy, because I just imagine Matt being more desperate and panicky about that than Foggy.

I think Foggy could probably get pretty darn panicky in his own right, but he does have to deal with Matt being in danger more than Matt has to deal with him being in danger, so he’s probably built up some coping mechanisms (that don’t involve randomly smooching people).

Under a cut since this is a little, uh, emotionally fraught.

—

It’s Matt’s fault. Of course it is. Of course it fucking is because when is it not his fault? When did he ever protect the people close to him instead of leading them to their deaths?

Foggy had been taken, and Matt had found him, had left a whirlwind of fifteen men unconscious in his wake as he fought to reach Foggy’s wet gasps and watery coughing. But he’d been too late. Those harsh breaths had tapered off into nothing the moment Matt kicked open the final door separating them.

He can’t— He doesn’t, there isn’t—

Half of him is shaking with rage, trembling, a devil barely contained beneath a thin veneer of humanity. The other half of him is drained, empty, ice cold.

Matt’s not even sure what he does to the last two men, the ones who’d been waterboarding Foggy. They don’t get back up. That’s all Matt spares the attention to ensure. The rest of his attention is on...

Foggy. Foggy is... He’s...

Matt kneels next to the still body of his best friend. It’s still warm, like Dad’s was, and Matt sweeps a hand over Foggy’s throat as if he could still find—

A pulse.

Oh, Jesus. A pulse. Matt hadn’t heard it over the rush of blood in his own ears, but he can feel it against his fingers.

Foggy’s alive.

The breath rushes from Matt’s lungs in a wheeze. Foggy’s not breathing, but his heart is still beating. Still fighting valiantly. Matt just has to clear his airways. Has to get the water out, get him breathing again.

When Foggy coughs up a lungful of water, then sputters and gasps to bring more air back into his body, it’s the most beautiful sound Matt’s ever heard. It takes several minutes for Foggy to stop coughing, but once he does the first word out of his mouth is Matt’s name.

And he’s— he’s alive, and Matt could have lost him and— just, everything wells up in Matt’s heart until it overflows.

He crushes his mouth to Foggy’s. Kisses those cold, familiar lips desperately, fists clenched in the damp fabric of Foggy’s shirt.

“Foggy,” he murmurs, barely a whisper, when he has to pull back to breathe. “Foggy. Foggy, I.”

He can’t get the words out. They shudder, tremble on his tongue. But Foggy seems to know, the way he always does.

“I’m here, Matty,” he rasps. “I’m here. It’s ok.”

This time, it’s Foggy who initiates the kiss — their second ever — and it’s gentle and soothing instead of frantic. It’s Foggy showing Matt he’s here, right here, and isn’t going anywhere. Matt lets himself melt into it for two, three, four seconds. But then Foggy’s shivering is too pronounced to ignore. He’s wet and he’s cold and he almost died — Matt needs to get him to the hospital.

Everything else can wait.