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nurse-buckley · 7 months

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Whumptober Day 7

Title:

Prompt: Written for anon but I changed it up a little. Maybe Buck and Eddie go out for drinks and when they leave, heading to their cars, they find reader in the alleyway next to the bar. Possibly mugged and not fully conscious. They start to come around and kind of cower away at first but then realizes they’re helping and clings to them like a lifeline. They go to the hospital and get a better introduction after they’ve been treated and are more alert.

Word Count: 1,489

Characters: Evan Buckley, Eddie Diaz, Reader.

Pairing: Eddie Diaz and Evan Buckley x Reader (platonic)

Warnings: mugging, attacks and violence.

Summary: Your night off with Buck and Eddie turns to disaster when you're attacked at a bar. Written for day seven of @whumptober for the prompt "alleyway" but it also fits in with "can you hear me?"

Tags: @firemedicdiaz @winterreader-nowwriter @iamasimpingh0e @dayrin085 @hauntedmilkshakeghost @floralbuckleys @alexxavicry @cm1031sr

Authors notes: beta'd by the fabulous @firemedicdiaz thank you so much love! Again, I said this yesterday but I really don't make a habit of writing anon requests. Please if you have something you want to request but don't want to be known message me and I can just omit your blog name when I post.

After a long shift, you, Buck and Eddie had decided to head out to the bar. You were all looking forward to a night off to unwind and play a few rounds of pool or darts with a couple of drinks and some good music.

As the night wore on you began to feel a little overwhelmed by the noise and crowds of the bar, excusing yourself to get some air. The quiet and cool night atmosphere was welcoming as you walked away from the crowded bar.

Little did you know, the night was about to take a terrifying turn. You had just passed the dimly lit alleyway that ran alongside the bar when two figures emerged from the shadows. Before you could react, the pair lunged forward and dragged you backwards into the alley. Your muffled shout for help was drowned out by the music and commotion from the bar.

Panic surged through you as they roughly shoved you against the wall. One of the men leaned forward and slammed your hand into the wall to get you to release your phone before he tossed it to his accomplice. The same man then tore the bag from your shoulder, rooting through it to find anything of value.

You thought their attack would end there, once they realized you didn’t have much to hand over, but unfortunately it didn’t. The attackers, obviously not satisfied with their gains, continued their attack as they took their aggression out on you. Your cries echoed through the night, being drowned out by the sound of the LA nightlife that left the rest of the world oblivious to the attack.

Your vision blurred as your body was roughly slammed into the wall once more, causing your head to crack against brick with a sickening thud. Your two attackers watched as your body slumped to the pavement, leaving your body bruised and battered, unconscious on the cold ground of the alleyway as they fled the scene.

Inside the bar, Buck and Eddie grew concerned at your prolonged absence. “Shouldn’t they be back by now?” Buck asked.

Eddie pulled out his phone, not noticing any new notifications from you informing him that you’d decided to call it a night. Eddie chewed on his lip with anxiety, “yeah…let’s go.”

The pair threw a couple of bills down on the bar and abandoned their drinks to begin their search for you. They were walking along the street away from the bar when they heard the sounds of a struggle. As they walked nearer to the alley, they just about made out the figures of two men running away. When they rounded the corner, their hearts almost stopped as they saw a body slumped on the ground.

There laid your unconscious and beaten body. Eddie skidded to his knees as he knelt beside you, his heart pounding as he pressed two fingers to your neck to feel for a pulse. The pair held their breath until Eddie uttered the words Buck had hoped to hear, “I've got a pulse.”

The pair shared a sigh of relief at his discovery.

“Y/N? Y/N, can you hear me?” A voice cut through the haze as you felt pressure on your neck causing your eyes to flutter open.

As you became more aware of your surroundings, you caught sight of two figures standing over you and in your disorientated state you thought the men had come back for you. Fear overtook you as you started to lash out, swatting the hand from your neck away as you sat up, trying to back up against the wall in your attempt to get away.

Rough hands caught yours causing your panic to rise further until you heard a familiar voice. “No, Y/N. It’s us. It’s Buck and Eddie,” Eddie’s voice was urgent but gentle.

“We’ve got you. You’re safe now,” Buck added.

Tears welled up in your eyes as you realized you were safe and despite your injuries you threw yourself forward, clinging onto Eddie. “I thought they’d come back,” you sobbed into his shoulder.

He could feel your body trembling with fear as he held you close. Buck’s hand came to rest on your back and with the two of them there you felt yourself begin to calm. Buck and Eddie continued to hold you, providing words of comfort and warmth, grounding you as you began to process what had just happened.

When he felt your breathing even out and sensed that you had calmed some, Eddie finally pulled away to get a closer look at your injuries. He handed Buck his phone, instructing him to hold the flashlight over you as he began his assessment.

The bright light illuminated your face, revealing your swollen features and the extensive bruising that had begun to form from the attack.

“I’m just going to have a feel of your neck and back, let me know if there’s any pain,” he informed as he expertly ran his hands down the back of your head.

You hissed as he pressed on a particularly tender spot. He pulled away, his concern only growing when his fingers came away sticky with blood.

“Sorry,” he apologized with a tight lipped smile, “I’m just going to have a look here as well,” he said as he picked up your hands, inspecting the grazes from where you’d fallen.

“Have you got any other pain? Any pain in your chest or stomach?”

You took a deep breath, pausing when a sharp pain ripped through your torso, “yeah, it hurts when I breathe,” you admitted with a wince.

He looked at Buck, the pair exchanging a concerned look before he turned back to you, “Y/N, I’m going to call an ambulance for you.”

“No!” Your panic began to rise once more, “I-I don’t want to go to the hospital. I don’t want to involve the police. I just want to go home. P-please just take me home,” you begged the pair, tears streaming down your face.

“I know you don’t want to, but your injuries are serious and we need to get you checked out.”

“Please, can we just go home? You can check me over there,” you continued, trying to convince him.

Buck stepped in, “I know it’s scary and it's the last thing you want but we need to make sure you’re okay and an ambulance is the best way to do that. We won’t leave you, promise.”

You hesitated for a moment, torn between just wanting to go home and letting them call the ambulance for you. Deep down you knew it was the best option so you finally nodded, your voice barely a whisper as you agreed, “okay…call them.”

“Thank you,” Eddie squeezed your hand as he nodded for Buck to call for help.

Buck dialed the number and explained the situation, requesting the help you so desperately needed. After he’d finished with 911 he hung up and called Bobby and Athena, informing them of what happened and knowing you’d be more comfortable with Athena than a police officer you didn’t know.

The wailing of sirens approached in the distance, signaling the arrival of the paramedics who were quickly at your side. You could feel your anxiety begin to grow as you saw them approach.

Eddie and Buck remained nearby as the paramedics began their assessment, carefully examining your injuries and stabilizing your condition. As they prepared to move you, you reached out your hand for the pair, your voice trembling.

“Don’t leave me,” you whispered.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he promised.

The medics allowed them to travel with you, recognising them from another rescue and understanding your reluctance to be alone.

Buck and Eddie walked beside you, never leaving your side as you were loaded onboard and began your journey towards the hospital and towards healing.

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whumpshots · 7 months

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Whumptober #7

Trope of the day: “Can you hear me?”

The words in their head are getting louder and louder, nothing seems to stop them. It takes whumpee another few minutes to finally fully regain their consciousness, the voice getting louder. It sounds familiar, but they can't make out whose it is ... not yet.

“Can you hear me?”

Finally, crystal clear words as whumpee cracks one eye open, a sillhouette in front of them.

"Kid, it's me," the voice continues as they try to blink and grunt because of the sudden pain.

"Good, open your eyes, don't fall unconscious on me again, buddy." Whumpee finally realises it's caretaker and their body relaxes a bit at the sudden realisation.

“Can you hear me?”, they repeat and whumpee manages to move their had a little, a nod indicating that they finally do. "Great news ... this will hurt a little, but you have to stay awake, okay?"

#whumptober 2023 #whumptober2023 #whumptober #trope of the day #“Can you hear me?”#no.7 #whumpee #caretaker #injured whumpee #unconscious whumpee #fighting unconsciousness #dizziness #whumpshots

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what-the-whump · 7 months

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Whumptober 2023 | No.7

Alleyway - Radio Silence - "Can you hear me?"

Connor Temple in Primeval - 3x10 - The Chase Continues

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #“Can you hear me?”#Primeval #GIF #Connor Temple #3x10 #hurt #unconscious #worry #blood #pain #support #weak

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sephyathredon-writing · 7 months

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Whumptober #7: Can You Hear Me Now?

Summary: After the Knighting Ceremony, Diego pulls Ambrosius aside and shows him the proof that he needs to know that Ballister is innocent. He goes off in search of Ballister but by the time he finds him, it's too late.

An entry for Whumptober under the prompt "Can you hear me?"

Heed the warnings for this one. If you are not okay with reading a scene where Ballister dies and Ambrosius is really upset about it, this fic is not for you.

----

Ambrosius stood in the wreckage of the Glorodome, eyes glued to the tunnel entrance that Ballister had just escaped down. He was frozen, his mind swimming with questions. The adrenaline high from the whole incident still kept him on edge as he fought with his heart which was telling him to go after Ballister.

What he didn’t notice was a lone man making his way through the wreckage, not until the man touched his shoulder and jolted him out of his trance-like state.

“Uh, Sir Goldenloin… s-sir.” The voice was familiar and when Ambrosius’ eyes finally snapped from the tunnel entrance to look at the man, his suspicions were confirmed.

It was the Squire, Diego.

“I have something that I need to show you. Please, it’s important. Nothing in my life has ever been so important” He pleaded.

Around them was chaos. The director was organizing squadrons of knights to find Ballister, the queen’s body was being taken away by the paramedics. There was no saving her, but the kingdom had to try. Todd was barking orders, not over the director, but to Blanche and Chad, the cadets that were loyal to him.

They never got knighted, Ambrosius realized.

Ambrosius couldn’t look into the Squire’s eyes and just say ‘no’. He hoped it wasn’t just an autograph that he needed or a picture that he needed to take with him, it had to be something truly important.

“Sure, let’s go somewhere private, how about the locker rooms?”

The squire nodded and began to head across the field to the entrance they had come out from at the beginning of the ceremony. Ambrosius could feel the Director’s eyes on the back of his head as he left, but she didn’t say anything. He’d hoped that he could just slip away without her noticing.

Either way, he ended up in the locker room, sitting on one of the benches. It felt good to just sit after a terrible situation like that. He was still visibly shaking from it.

Diego sat next to him, leaving a good amount of space next to him. He took out his phone and pressed the play button.

“Look.”

Ambrosius watched, curiously showing on his face. The video showed a close up of the Squire, the background Ambrosius recognized as the same locker room they were in now.

[“Check it out, I’m in the locker room, and you are looking at history in the making. Ballister’s armor. It’s speaking. It’s saying, ‘Respect me. Protect me. Put me on. No one’s watching.”]

Ambrosius felt the heavy weight of disappointment settle in his chest. This was what the Squire was itching to show him?

He stood up and started to walk away.

“No, No wait. Sir Goldenloin, please.” He was clearly panicking, reaching out and grabbing Ambrosius’ arm, “This isn’t it, I promise.”

He looked back at the Squire and sat back down, watching as he fast forwarded the video. He watched more of the squire’s antics go by quickly before he looked back, seeing something that made him panic and climb back into the locker, standing stock still like Ballister’s suit of armor usually was.

Ambrosius’ breath hitched as he watched a woman in a white cloak come into frame. She looked around cautiously, revealing her identity.

“No way… the Director?” Ambrosius whispered.

He watched as she swapped Ballister’s sword with the one she had with her. It was undeniable proof that she had set him up.

“I don’t understand… why would she do that to him?” Ambrosius asked Diego as if he had any answers.

“I don’t know, I only know what I saw.” He replied.

Then a realization hit Ambrosius hard.

Ballister is innocent, and he’s out there bleeding, left to treat the wound for an amputated arm by himself.

“I’ve gotta go find Bal.” He jolted from his seat and had to mentally restrain himself from taking off immediately. Instead he took a moment to look at Diego, “Thank you. I don’t know why she did that, but it took a lot of courage to come forth with this video.”

Diego nodded, “I’ll upload it to The Crier, make sure everyone sees it, even if it ruins my reputation.” He looked down at his feet, unwilling to look Ambrosius in the eyes, “Ballister has been like a role model to me. I look up to him. Please, make sure he’s okay.”

Ambrosius nodded, “I will.”

He didn’t say it aloud, but he mentally added ‘because I love him.’

Without another word, Ambrosius took off.

It didn’t take him long to realize that Ballister wouldn’t be anywhere within the city. The whole place was crawling with knights and guards.

So he searched in the forest, but the thing about the Kingdom was that there was still a lot of forest. It took Ambrosius close to an hour to finally found where Ballister was hiding out, and that’s only because he saw the tower peeking out above the treeline. There was a trail of blood leading up to the door.

He slammed it open.

“Ballister!” His voice was worried, not angry.

The smell that greeted him made him want to throw up. It smelled like burnt flesh. Clearly Ballister had attempted to cauterize the wound.

It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but he saw Ballister lying on the ground. Without a second thought, he ran over to the other, scooping him up in his arms. Any signs of life in him were miniscule.

“Bal! Ballister!” He shouted, the panic clear in his voice. He saw that the arm that he’d cut off was still bleeding, despite an attempt at closing the wound clearly being visible by the scorch marks around the edges.

Ballister’s eyes opened and the fear he saw there broke Ambrosius’ heart.

“No, no Bal… It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I… I promise I just want to fix what I did.” Ambrosius sobbed, tears rolling down his cheeks, “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.” His voice held desperation in it.

Maybe Ballister could still be saved.

Ballister’s gaze softened and his good hand went up to caress Ambrosius’ face.

“I’m afraid you’re too late, love…”

Ambrosius placed a hand over Ballister’s pressing it into his cheek. He turned his head, leaving tender kisses on the only hand his lover had left.

“No… there must be something I can do… There must be something… I refuse to let this mistake kill you.”

A light laugh rang out, echoing off the walls of the tower, making goosebumps appear on Ambrosius’ skin, under his armor, “I’m afraid not…”

“No…” He took his hand off of Ballister’s to move to his severed arm, pressing hard in an attempt to stifle the blood flow.

Ballister grunted, “Trust me, I would love to stay, but It’s just not possible. I can feel myself slipping.”

“No… no… Ballister. Please.” He could feel Ballister’s grip on his cheek fading, leaving a streak of blood behind, “The Director framed you, it was all a misunderstanding. The squire captured proof, and it’s going to go live soon and the whole kingdom will know that you’re innocent. We can go back to the way things were…”

There was no answer from Ballister.

“Please… I love you.” Ambrosius begged.

Still no answer.

“Please… please… Ballister…” Ambrosius held him tightly, heart racing, mind spinning, “I can’t go on without you. You’ve been by my side since I was a child. You… you’ve been my everything… Bal… please wake up… please wake up.”

Slowly, the realization sunk in. Bal was gone. He wasn’t coming back, would never be the Knight that he wanted to be, would never be the first in a long line of knights with commoner blood.

Ambrosius broke, all his emotions flooding out in tears and sobs and screams and he held Bal’s body tightly and buried his head into the other’s shoulder.

He couldn’t help but stew in his thoughts as he sat there sobbing.

This was his fault.

And then he remembered the squire and the video he showed him. Putting aside the idea that Ballister might have lived if he had not stopped to watch the video in the first place, he focused mostly on what the video meant.

When he finally had the strength to lift his head, his expression was one of anger.

It was still his fault.

But it was also the Director’s fault, maybe even the fault of the whole institute.

His expression flickered back to one of sadness as he put Ballister down and gave him a light kiss to the cheek, trying not to tear up again and he realized it would be his last.

“I’m sorry, Bal. I can’t bring you back, but I can make them pay for what they did to you… and they will pay.”

By the time he left the tower, he was a new man, a man on a mission. He walked toward the institute, anger showing clearly on his face.

When he got to the city, crowds parted for him, as the people around him could clearly see that he was not in the mood to talk.

It was dark, he didn’t expect the director to still be out ordering the knights around for patrols, it was more likely that she was in her office.

He stopped and fixed the Gloreth statue in front of him with a cold glare, before turning his gaze up to the institute building in the background looming above it.

He walked with purpose. Anger so apparent in his steps. Blood still streaked his face and covered his right hand, painting a pretty grim picture. Even parts of his armor where Ballister had bled onto him were dyed red. If he felt anything other than anger at the moment, he might have stopped and realized the irony behind his golden armor, the biggest symbol of his descent from Gloreth, being stained with Ballister’s blood.

But as it stood, the only thing he felt was boiling white hot rage.

---

I can barely hear a sound, it's faded

All the words you used to say

Tried to keep me down, I'm elevated

No more rain on this parade

---

He threw open the doors to the front of the institute, startling everyone inside. They looked at him with confused expressions, but he didn’t pay attention to them and they didn’t approach. One of them called security, Ambrosius did see that. He expected Knights to be on him any second now.

---

I went deep inside, where monsters hide

To free my mind, and come out alive

Tell me when you kicked me did you ever think that I would get up

---

The part of Ambrosius’ mind that was still lucid as he drew his sword and began to fight the knights descending on him wondered if this was where monsters came from. Had he turned into one? Had he become the very thing he had sworn to fight?

He pushed that thought away and focused on his mission. If it was for Ballister’s sake, he would become a monster. Even despite the haze of anger, he made sure not to hurt the Knights too badly. There was only one other person that had to die tonight.

He forced his way up many flights of stairs, until he got to the hall that led to the Director’s office. By that time, he’d knocked out the knights tailing him and approached her doors alone, slamming them open.

---

Tried to find the light between your shadows, but it always seemed to fade

It took some time for me to learn to let go

But I grew stronger from the pain

---

The director was sitting at her desk and when she looked up, she could see the anger in his eyes.

“What is the meaning of this, Ambrosius?” She stood, glancing from him to the small scepter on a stand on her desk.

“You know.” There was venom in his voice as he spoke, “Queen killer.” He snapped.

“I don’t know what you mean. I would never-” She sounded offended, grabbing the scepter and taking a few steps back. She placed a couple of fingers to her ear, activating some sort of communication device “Security.”

“Oh, I don’t think security is going to save you.” Ambrosius spat at her.

“No, but this might.” She held out her scepter and the diamond on it opened in a very familiar way, with a very familiar green glow.

Any doubts Ambrosius might have had that the Director was guilty, vanished into thin air.

“Ballister is dead because of you!” He roared, vaulting over the desk just as the laser went off. It bore into his side, and it hurt…

…but he kept going, footsteps even and purposeful. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

The director turned to flee, pushing aside the double doors out into the balcony. That was her biggest mistake. Ambrosius had her cornered and the wound hadn’t seemed to slow him down in any significant way.

---

Can you hear me now so loudly?

I'm screaming at the top of my lungs

Can you see me now so proudly?

Looking up at what I've become

---

A hand shot up and wrapped around her throat, the same one coated with Ballister’s blood. Another hand soon joined the first and Ambrosius took a few steps forward, until the director was dangling over the edge of the balcony.

She locked eyes with his, nothing but fury showing in hers.

“Monster” She spat, “Go back to the shadows from whence you came.”

Ambrosius laughed, “If I’m a monster, then that marks the end of Gloreth’s bloodline, doesn’t it? After all, a monster and a hero can’t be the same person, can they?”

Ambrosius saw something else in her expression, fear.

“Killing me will change nothing.” She reasoned.

“Ha, we’ll see about that” Ambrosius could hear the sounds of Knights behind them, they’d entered the office. He had to do it soon.

If he had to become a murderer to avenge Ballister’s death, so be it.

---

Tell me when you kicked me did you ever think that I would get up?

---

Ambrosius let go.

The Director plummeted to her death.

Nobody knows what happened to Ambrosius after that night. There was a fresh grave at the hideout by morning, but nobody saw heads or tails of him. The only thing that was recovered was his armor, somewhere near the wall. Legend says he went over.

Some people say that once a year, on the day Ambrosius disappeared, fresh flowers could be seen on Ballister’s grave. Dandelions that symbolize resilience. Black roses that symbolize death and mourning. Pink camellias that symbolize longing. Sprigs of heliotrope to symbolize eternal love and devotion, and sprigs of rosemary to symbolize remembrance.

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #“can you hear me?”#nimona 2023 #fic #blood tw #death tw #dismemberment tw #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister boldheart #goldenheart

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evillittlebirdie · 7 months

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Refuge: Tav/Rolan

Lia and Cal deserved better.

One day, they would have it. Lia and Cal could have stability and the resources to pursue if Rolan could provide for them. Most importantly, Rolan needed to protect them. And not let some flitting hero come in to save the day. Instead of Rolan, Tav was the one to save his siblings from Moonrise Towers. Tav even saved Rolan when he went out on his own. How he hated that sweet, clueless look on her face when he lashed out at her. That damn, lovable, dashing rogue did what Rolan couldn't do and she did it without breaking a sweat.

And if Rolan needed to go through Lorroakan's education to ensure his competency, then he would.

***

"Wrong."

But Rolan knew he was right.

"Master, I do not mean to disagree with you, but-"

Lorroakan raised his hand, and a sudden gust of wind left his hand. Rolan lost his footing and fell on the floor. His head hit the wood, causing a sudden ache. Lorroakan walked over to him, standing over the tiefling. "Now, I'll ask you again. What can disable an animated armor?"

"Sussar Bloom," Rolan replied breathlessly. Even if Tav hadn't regaled her story of exploring the Underdark, he would have known sussar bloom was the correct answer.

"Wrong," Lorroakan repeated. Lorroakan delivered a vile, physical kick to Rolan's ribs. He could feel the trauma spreading along his side. Rolan let out a cry before scrambling to his knees. That was a foolish move.

Once Rolan moved to his hands and knees, Lorroakan stepped on Rolan's left hand. Rolan hissed in response. Each move to pull his hand away caused Lorroakan to dig deeper into the extremity.

"If you scratch my floor with your claws, I will personally rip every one of them out," Lorroakan threatened darkly. Rolan stopped moving, keeping as still as a statue.

"I am your Master. And I am always correct. If I say the sky is purple, then it is purple. If I say that you are a pathetic tiefling, then you are not fit to lick my boots," Lorroakan pontificated, twisting his heel more and more into Rolan's hand.

"Master," Rolan struggled to speak despite his aching head, bruised ribs, and trapped hand. "I only just-"

Lorroakan interrupted him, "I don't recall asking you a question. I merely reiterated the reality of your situation. If you have an issue with my teaching methods, you can leave. You can hawk cheap magical items and whore out cantrips like the pathetic performers in the street. I'm very sure that you'll support your family that way."

The facetiousness of Lorroakan's words dripped like venom from a snake. Lorroakan moved his boot from Rolan's hand. Instantly, Rolan stretched out his fingers and wrist. He could barely move. The pain shot from his dorsal up to his elbow.

"You're welcome to resign if you don't want to be my apprentice. And you'll be just another refugee in this city taking up space," Lorroakan said, stepping back from Rolan. He gestured toward the study's door, "There is the exit. Go, and you'll be free. And I'll see to it no other wizard on the Sword Coast will take you on. You'll be lucky to find a job sorting scrolls in a library. However, if you decide to stop being a brat, you can get started on reading and memorizing the fifth volume of Fringe Philosophy."

Rolan's eyes darted to the door and then to Lorroakan. The wizard had walked away, leaving Rolan on the ground. He walked to his desk and sat down. There was no further direction.

Lorroakan didn't need him. There was a line of eager apprentices willing to subject themselves to his methods. Rolan was replacable. And Lorroakan knew that. Rolan swallowed bile and his pride. He stood up on his feet and ignored the stars in his peripheral vision. He walked over to the bookshelf to pull out the book and started reading.

***

Rolan should have met Cal and Lia for dinner hours ago. The night was pitch black and most shops were closed for the day. Rolan had been in Baldur's Gate long enough to know his way through the streets. The alleyways were dangerous, but private. He didn't have to hear the words of anyone passing by. He could lean his body against the stone wall and concentrate on the throbbing sensation on his belly. His fingers ran down his side, wincing as even the featherlight touch grazed the spot where Lorroakan kicked him.

Lia and Cal were worried about him. And yet Rolan could not bring himself to face them.

The drunks were stumbling on their way home. The barkeepers were hollering, "Last call!". Sex workers had claimed their clients. Thieves had successfully stolen their quota from witless victims.

Rolan traveled through the streets, subconsciously rubbing his wounded hand with his healthy one. He couldn't face his siblings. Yet he could not return to the tower.

"There you are!"

Rolan pulled his staff off his back, putting himself in a battle-ready stance. Anyone who approached him in the middle of the night in an alleyway was looking for trouble. But instead, he came face to face with Tav's cheerful, pleased expression. Rolan could not control his reaction. He jumped back from Tav's body, almost knocking himself back into the alleyway. "Must you always sneak up on people?" Rolan asked, stilling his rapidly beating heart. He returned his staff to his back.

"I was worried you'd run off or something. You don't exactly like me," Tav stated bluntly, looking over the man.

Rolan swallowed uncomfortably. It wasn't that he didn't...like Tav. He just wished she would mind her own business. And stop showing him up. Otherwise, she was lovely.

Now, where did that adjective come from?

"Cal and Lia asked me to find you. You were supposed to have dinner with them about eight hours ago," Tav pointed out, shifting on her feet.

"Well, you can tell them I am fine. I just...I was busy," Rolan gave a poor excuse, knowing that Lia and Cal would give him an earful when they finally got him alone in a room.

"Ah, yes, busy hanging out in alleyways. Not even a nice alleyway. This one smells like piss. Don't tell me you're searching for ingredients for potions or whatever magic crap you wizards do," Tav rambled on, her eyes still on Rolan.

That would have been a much better excuse.

"Can't a man walk around a city? It's not like I was in any danger," Rolan commented, lashing out in self-defense.

"No, we just have a serial killer roaming the streets. Other than that, Baldur's Gate is as safe as a garden meadow," Tav replied sarcastically. But her sarcasm was not biting. It was in jest. She gave Rolan a small smile, "Look, I know you can take care of yourself-"

"You must not. Given your rescue mission in the Shadowlands," Rolan pointed out.

"Noted. The next time we find ourselves surrounded by shadows, I will wait patiently until you ask for my help," Tav stated, rolling her eyes playfully. She was still smiling. How could she still be smiling? "I'll just relay to your siblings that I found you and you're okay. And I'll leave you to..." She looked around the alleyway before setting her hands on her hips, "Whatever...sulking...wizard...male...tiefling shit you are busying yourself with." She avoided eye contact with Rolan before she commented, "You know...if you ever wanted company on these...brooding outings, I'm free."

Thoroughly insulted, Rolan responded bitingly, "I don't need a bodyguard."

Tav huffed frustratedly, "Not as a bodyguard, you ass. As a friend, a companion. Maybe someone who would guide you away from the alleyway and to a restaurant instead. At least the smell of piss comes from the beer. For an intelligent man, you are an idiot."

Rolan quite had it with being humiliated. "I don't have to stand here and listen to you berate me. Maybe that's why I want to be on my own," Rolan snapped before walking by Tav, leaving her behind in the alleyway. As he took a few steps, he mulled over what she said to him. 'away from an alleyway and to a restaurant instead'. He frowned, bemused, before turning back to Tav.

Rolan smiled, amused, at the sight of Tav already beginning to climb the walls of the alleyway. She was taking her leave.

"What did you mean exactly, by taking me to a restaurant?" Rolan inquired.

Tav paused her hand on the shingle of the nearby roof. She stared down at Rolan, her smile now returning to her face. "You know...you and I haven't had a proper conversation. I thought forever that you hated me."

Rolan could feel his cheeks warm, "I...I don't hate you."

"Well, I know that now. Your siblings made that clear."

Rolan fully blushed now. Cal and Lia teased him mercilessly. Whenever Rolan muttered about Tav, they giggled. They called it 'schoolboy love'.

"That's why I suggested a restaurant. We could have a proper conversation. And if you don't like me, then at least you get a meal out of it. My treat," Tav offered, now swinging her body back and forth on the edge of the roof. There had to be a story behind Tav's comfort with Baldur's Gate.

"Well, I suppose that we could..."

"I'll take that as a yes!" Tav called out, her voice loud with excitement. "It's a date. I'll pick you up from the tower tomorrow. No backing out. It's a date," She beamed before hopping up on the roof. And within seconds she disappeared into the night.

Between the events of the day and night, Rolan was swimming with emotions. Maybe it was some rational part of him that allowed him to smile. He rubbed his hand again. The pain had lessened. He would be able to write with it soon. Rolan could only hope to please Lorroakan and be free by the time Tav arrived for their date.

Wait...

What...

"...A date?"

#whumptober 2023 #no.7 #“I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”#radio silence #alleyway #“can you hear me?”#bg3 #rolan/tav #abuse tw #fanfiction #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 rolan

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ashintheairlikesnow · 7 months

Text

Won't You Go My Way?

CW: Drugged whumpee, nonhuman whumpee/monster whump with dehumanizing language, magical branding, creepy whumper, nonsexual nudity (although gilly gets a lil gross about it), magical whump, captivity

Atabei knelt beside the siren on the cool stone floor of Guilford’s bedroom, carefully moving the poor creature into position.

They’d dragged him from the bathroom laid out on top of a blanket, a sort of makeshift sled that left him thumping over the bumps where the doorways were inlaid imperfectly into the floor, groaning but unable to react in any other way. The drugged fish had done its work, and if he could have any idea that he were no longer bound and gagged, well, he didn’t show it.

He lay limp even now, jaw slack after so many days forced open. His eyelids were cracked just a little, showing a glimmer of pupil and iris, each dark enough to be interchangeable. He turned to look in her direction, but she thought he didn't see her at all - or if he did, he was so far gone he couldn't begin to understand just what he was looking at anyway. The curls of his lovely black hair had dried and gone from stuck against his skin with damp to a salt-crusted, springy bounce she could wrap around one finger and watch it snap back when she let go. Little flakes of sea salt found their way onto the floor when she did.

"Can you hear me?" She asked in a soft voice, snapping her fingers just before his face, close enough to nearly graze the tip of his slightly aquiline nose.

He didn't even blink, or twitch. Just moaned, low and miserable, mouth opening just enough to show a hint of a slightly-rough tongue.

She smiled, a gentle expression at odds with what she soon would do. “Good,” She whispered. “Feel as little as possible before the worst begins, you poor dear. This will hurt you so very, very much."

He whimpered, and she wondered if it was only because he hated the dizzy lull of the poison in his veins, or because he understood her.

She patted his shoulder as if in comfort, then looked back over her shoulder to where Guilford was pacing nervously in what passed for his kitchen. His hands worried at each other in front of him. He’d taken off his shirt, baring a chest and back marked with the occasional scarring from life at sea, shoulders hunched, his nose scrunched up to show his nerves in an expression she knew as well as her own face in the mirror.

It had been sweet, when he was a little boy. It just looked silly on a grown man.

He looked like a man with a wife bearing a child who was scared of the birth. In truth, what he wanted borne to him would be far more than a son or a legacy, but power. She could give it to him, and she would, but she thought one day he would regret it.

"He is ready to be placed," She called, voice low. "And painted. Bring me my supplies."

Guilford stopped. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he nodded, grabbing the large black bag off the kitchen table. He moved into the dim, windowless bedroom, closing the door behind him and even blocking the space between the bottom and the floor with a rolled-up towel. They were left only with the light from the candles set on every available surface. It flickered along the walls like a fire in some ancient cave.

It felt… right, to do magic here, in a space like this, even if she did not like the magic she was about to do. She had learned the darker work, but rarely performed it. Eliza's husband's lungs had been her only casualty since girlhood. But this...

This was to put something old and awe-inspiring in chains that the siren could never, ever break. Still... Guilford had asked, and it was just the same as if her own blood-brother had needed her. Not that she had a brother. Even if she had, she would probably have loved Guilford better.

She leaned forward in a rustle of skirt and petticoat, moving the siren's left wrist above his head, the blue tint of veins just visible beneath the thinnest skin marred by raw wounds rubbed by wet rope until they bled, again and again. Now swollen and inflamed as his body fought oncoming infection. His right wrist was the same. Placed next to each other with palms facing the ceiling, the backs of his knuckles just brushed each other just above his saltwater-crusted curls, a sort of makeshift halo.

His arms were strong, but the muscle was lean, barely visible until he was stretched like this. Sirens were rare - they bred so little no one had ever seen their young, and male sirens were even less common. She and Guilford, Atabei thought, were likely one of less than a thousand humans who had ever seen a siren without dying shortly after.

She let her own forefinger gently graze the line of his jaw, softened in this artificial sleep. She could see the edges of his perfect straight white teeth. The corners of his mouth were raw, too, looking almost as if his mouth had been cut wider but then healed. A terrible rictus smile that would make, indeed. At least when this was done, Guilford would have no further need to gag him.

Purple bruises on one cheekbone and smears of darkness beneath his eyes, the ring of finger-shaped marks around his neck and welts layered in red across his chest… it all told quite a vicious story of Guilford’s awful cruel impatience with him.

"When we were children," Atabei said slowly, finger drawing nonsense shapes on the siren's neck as she followed the story of his wounds, watching the creature shift just slightly under her touch with a plaintive whine, “You found once a little burrow of quenk babies. Do you remember this? The little piglets all alone while the herd's sows had gone off to forage? We watched them for what felt like hours…”

"Hm? No, I don't remember that." Guilford crouched on the other side of the siren, helping Atabei to spread the creature’s long legs apart as well, with the feet turned out to show the inner ankle, the back of the knee, the insides of his thighs. If Guilford's gaze and hands lingered too long and with intention where those thighs met hips and an anatomy Atabei had no interest in herself, Atabei chose not to see it.

Maybe he was simply jealous of the creature's endowment.

Maybe that was all.

"Your father wanted to kill them all,” She whispered, tracing little circles around the creature’s stomach, realizing he had no true navel, only the faintest indentation where an umbilical cord would have connected him to his mother. Did sirens even have umbilical cords? How did they grow their young? She’d never even considered the answer to such a question. “He wanted to smoke the babies from their burrow, drown them in a sack, and then have you pick the sows off one by one when they returned to the burrow. He wanted to teach you to shoot that way. You cried and begged him not to, you wept for them. You don't remember this?"

"Sorry, Beibei, I don't." Guilford frowned, thoughtful, as if wracking his mind for an event that he simply hadn't found remarkable. "Did it work?"

"I suppose it did. You were so noisy that the piglets fled deeper into the burrow, and the sows came back for their squealing piglets and chased you away." Atabei pressed two fingers under the siren's jaw. His pulse beat, steady and strong.

Good.

He would need his strength to survive the spell.

"Your father could not make you fire on the defenseless and frightened, then. And you did not let him kill what had done him no harm." She felt herself smile at the memory of her friend as a child with his permanent squint and muddied hands and knees, the absolute grief he caused the servants tasked with keeping him clean. Before, of course, there had been no more servants. Before there had been no more money.

Before Guilford’s father had lost it all, and his lordship besides.

"I'll bet he was furious. He always called me soft." Guilford sat back on his heels, watching the siren's chest rise and fall with deep, even breathing. "What made you think of that?"

"You would not do harm to the helpless, then." Atabei sighed and stood, moving to open her bag of supplies on a side table. “I suppose I only wonder what changed.”

Each of her twelve brushes she laid on a small towel carefully by order of their use, from the thinnest with only a few hairs for fine line work, each brush slightly larger than the last. The wooden handles were intricately carved, and their notches and swirls warmed to her fingers, recognizing their master. Then the tiny ceramic pigment bowls. Each of them appeared to have black pigment within, but Atabei’s experienced eye knew their differences, and which she needed most right now.

She chose one, which hummed a little when her fingers lingered on it, and moved it to one side, mixing it with a little water from a pitcher.

Finally, she set out a squat-bottomed bottle of shimmery black setting powder. It looked like mica that had been crushed finer than sand. It came only from beaches near certain volcanoes able to birth whole islands each year. Magic, like the seeds of certain trees, could only be brought to life through heat and flame.

“I don’t think all that much changed,” Guilford said, a little defensively. “I still wouldn’t hurt quenk piglets off in a burrow minding their own business, and I’d still happily tell my father to go to hell. My mother, too, if you’d like.”

“Your father is already there,” Atabei murmured, and smiled at Guilford’s laughter behind her. “And I imagine your mother is not far behind, if this works.”

“My mother,” Guilford said with perfect innocence, “will almost certainly bash her way into heaven simply to get as far away from my father as possible. And I imagine she will die, quite tragically, of... let's say tuberculosis. If you're amenable, of course."

"Guilord!" That made Atabei laugh, too, shaking her head as she finished mixing the first paint and picked up one of the finer brushes, moving back to the poor unconscious siren, kneeling down. She could feel the magic pulling towards the creature as she looked him over, deciding where to begin.

Finally, she shifted close to his right shoulder, looking over the mottled bruising on the side of his neck. “He must be still,” She said, voice low. “If he so much as twitches, if the brushstroke is pulled the wrong way or breaks the line, the magic will run wild and it may turn on us, or it may simply not work at all and this will be all for nothing. He must be still. Are you quite certain the poison you put in the fish will keep him that way?”

“I am,” Guilford said, but his voice wavered a little. He knew well enough to respect magic - they had still lived near to each other when she had begun taking lessons as a child, and he’d seen some of her early spellwork attempts go wrong. There was a dead tree likely still standing in the backyard of her old home to prove it, and the bones of a creature she had tried to create all by herself and failed spectacularly at. “He’ll be still, Beibei. I promise. I-I mean, it will be still.”

Atabei’s eyebrow raised, just a little, but she let it go. Guilford was insistent on pretending he was not asking her to mark a different kind of humanlike man, as though that would somehow deny the evil of this.

She dipped her brush into the paint and felt, more than heard, the way the two created a sort of harmony when they met, certain in their purpose.

“Last chance to stop,” She whispered. “Magic has a price, Guilford. It will cost you a man’s lifetime and force on you a siren’s. He isn’t very old - it could be a thousand years for you or more.“

"I don’t care,” Guilford whispered. His eyes were avid, overbright. “I want it.”

“You don’t… I promise you that you don’t.”

“I do!”

Atabei nodded. “So be it. You cannot abandon him once you have what you want. He will be always with you, and you will be always responsible for his life in order to keep your own. You will not be able to set him aside. Ever. The cost is high, Guilford. Just tell me not to do this and I will put my things away.”

She raised her eyes without raising her chin, looking at his face from beneath her eyelashes. He stared back at her, solid and unmoving, then looked down at the finely formed, handsome face of the siren, that slack mouth with red at the edges and the creature’s long lashes laying now against his cheeks.

“I want it. I want you to do this,” Guilford said, nodding to himself. She could see him pushing past his own doubts. “I need this power, it’s going to fix everything, give me everything I deserve, everything I should have had… I’ll be like a king… no, better, I’ll be a god.”

“Maybe aim lower than divinity,” Atabei murmured.

She carefully pulled the paint out, working with an aching slowness to draw the first symbols. Her brush buzzed against her fingertips as it began to do its work. The magic moved into her hand, up her arm, took hold of her mind and heart. The shimmer of candlelight all around them became a hazy, distorted nothingness. She was no longer aware of the bed in the corner, the side table, the washbasin or even the mirror hung over it.

Atabei was the magic, and it was her, working through her, working Guilford’s will into the skin of the siren he had stolen from the feral power of the ocean.

The first symbol had to be set against a place where the siren’s heartbeat or pulse could be felt, to make it strong. It bound their lives together, Guilford and his captive, and gave the magic the foundation of control she needed to do the rest. It was a kind of brand. Once the paint was set, the siren would be possessed, wholly, all that it was would belong to Guilford Wentworth, for as long as they lived.

"I'm sorry," She whispered, barely moving her lips and not even breathing real sound. Guilford was distracted watching and didn't hear her.

She worked the outline of the symbols, leaving the centers for the larger brushes she would use later on. For now, the outline was enough to get her started, and filling the magic in too heavily too soon risked her letting it escape her grasp, and who knew what wild magic could do when connected to a wild man?

Time passed in a fog, a haze. Her hand ached and she switched to the other one, thankful that the difference between the two had never meant much to her. Symbols moved down his neck and along his shoulder, down his right arm all the way to the inside of his wrist, where she set the first symbol again, cementing it, going back to fill in the interiors. It must have taken hours.

Guilford came and went - he must have gone to eat, or to relieve himself - but she didn’t notice. The magic ensured her body had no such needs until the work was done. And what work it was - the beauty of it, the intricacy, the incredible cruelty of each symbol’s meaning.

Belonging. Possession. Obedience. Submission.

Fear.

Magic did not dry like normal paint, and so the liquid stayed fresh and shimmered like new no matter how long it took her to work. Only the siren’s fingers ever twitched in reaction when she took her paint to his palm - otherwise, he stayed so perfectly still he might have been dead or carved from stone. His throat moved when he swallowed, his chest shifted when breath hitched into a whine or a pathetic whimper.

He must feel the magic, and know he should fight it and yet... and yet he could do nothing.

She could have done anything.

She took a breath, stretching her back, and then moved down to his right foot and began again. The outlines she painted from heel up to toe, over the top of his foot and along his ankle, up his calf and to the back of one knee and then over the front, up his thighs where the muscle shifted minutely beneath, along hip and pelvis, would ensure he could go in no ocean - no water - without his master’s command and consent. The siren’s own home would be barred to him forever, unless Guilford allowed it.

And only for as long as Guilford allowed it.

Guilt prickled at Atabei’s conscience, but she simply set it aside. Guilford meant far more to her than any magical being could, and this was what he wanted.

She paused to wipe away from sweat and felt a hand on her arm.

She jerked backwards in surprise as she was thrown out of her haze and back into reality, blinking rapidly as Gulford leaned in close. “Guilford William Wentworth, are you mad?! I told you not to interrupt me! What if I’ve-” She looked down, and let out a gasp of relief. “Oh, thank the gods, I was not touching him still.”

“I-I know,” Guildford said, but he looked a little ashamed of himself, which was gratifying. “I waited until you were done with that bit there. I wanted to-… to ask…” He trailed off. His face was red, and she blinked, her vision wavering as she tried to focus on him and discern why.

“What? What did you want to ask?”

Guilford’s mouth opened and closed a few times, rather like a fish out of water, and Atabei had to fight back a slight smile at how utterly ridiculous he looked doing it. There was a pause, and then he leaned over, just like when they told each other secrets as children they didn’t want the adults to hear. “Are you going to mark up its, ah…” He reddened even further, blotchy all the way to his neck and shoulders. “Its… reproductive…” He trailed off, and finally just… pointed.

Atabei followed his eyes, and then rolled her own, sitting back over the creature’s prone form. “His manhood? You want me to spell his manhood? To do what, exactly?”

Guilford swallowed, hard. He was sweating, his face shiny and hair sticking to his neck and forehead. “… anything I want.”

For the first time in their lives together as friends closer than brother and sister, Atabei felt... disgusted by him. "Guilford…”

“I won’t,” He said rapidly. "It's so it can happen with others, not me."

She knew the look she had seen on his face. She knew it for what it was. Her stomach turned. “You lie, Guilford. You are a liar, to me. To my face!"

“No! No, no, I’m being honest as the grave! I promise, Beibei, I am. But just… you know, if it helps me get what I want in the future, I need to control everything, right?”

She hesitated. “You tell me he is not a man, and in the next breath you ask me to make it so he can be made to bed you-"

“No,” He interrupted. “Not me. But I just, in case I need it to seduce someone else, is what I mean. I want to be able to command it to do so, right? That’s all. That’s all I want, nothing any more untoward than that, Beibei, I swear. I swear. You don’t think I would really… do that with some sort of monster?”

Yes, she thought. I begin to understand that you will, if that monster cannot fight you. That what you want is the need to fight without the ability to, that is where your excitement lies.

She swallowed back the words before they could be spoken and picked up the finest of her brushes, with its few bristles, and dipped it into the pot of paint. The creature’s skin was soft, with the unique texture this place had on human men, too. She tried to touch it as little as she could. Its whines took in a higher pitch, then, and she shook her head, murmuring apologies she dared not speak aloud.

She had to work more slowly than ever to keep from making a mistake. Over the soft length of it, down to mark even the bollocks beneath - she made a face, wondering how men managed with those clumsy things always in the way between their legs - and finally she connected the pattern to the marks that already climbed his leg and over his hips.

The creature shuddered when the connection was made, a sign that he had felt the power settle into place, too.

Once he was fully marked - his right arm and leg coated in the spellwork, as well as all of his chest, his manhood, his stomach, and hips - she stood to get the small bottle of setting powder.

“Get behind me and prepare yourself,” She said, voice low. She kept thinking about the strange greed in Guilford's face, the thick note to his pleading that made the hairs on her arms stand up, as if feeling the eyes of a mountain lion watching her move through the dark. She was giving him far more than a simple siren’s song to get some money, she understood that now.

For the first time, she wondered just what damage he could do with the power he was about to hold in his hands, because of her help. But it was too late to stop, or to turn back.

She had to seal the magic, or all three of them would die when it broke the barrier and turned on them all.

“Prepare myself for... what?” Guilford was back to looking like his normal self, curious and hopeful. The strange blend of greed and some kind of soul-deep need had gone, and she could almost forget she had ever even seen it. He moved around and crouched behind her.

She poured a handful of the setting powder into the palm of her hand, watching it sparkle and shine in the movement of the candlelight. “For the way he is about to wake,” She said, voice low, and then leaned over, spreading the setting powder from his foot all the way up to the mark on his neck, from pulse point to the tips of his toes, up and down again, three times. "It will not be... pleasant."

There is always an added power in threes, and she needed all the power she could draw from the great well of it she had been granted the slightest sliver of access to.

His toe twitched, first.

She held her breath, watching, tensed.

This was the moment they would learn if it had worked, if she had truly made each mark perfect. If there were any mistakes, the whole spell would be broken, and the poor captive creature would make short work of murdering them both before the magic murdered him as well.

They would probably deserve it.

Those dark eyes flew open, so wide the whites showed all around them, nearly bulging from his face as the siren hitched in a gasping breath. The powder seemed to sink into the markings, adding a new shimmer to them as well, and then the creature shook violently. His back arched, every muscle so tense he shook, a hair breadth from snapping his own bones beneath his skin.

Then, his head tipped back, his hands slapping down against the floor, and he began to scream.

It was a deafening shriek, something far beyond a human's agony, and it seemed to hang in the air as if it would never, ever end.

Atabei clapped her hands over her ears, closing her eyes tightly as if that would somehow help her drown out the roar of the siren’s unimaginable pain. The simple paint turned to buried ink, painting becoming a sort of permanent tattoo.

Deeper than could be seen, it settled into the siren’s blood and bones. His very nerve endings were reworked, the siren’s marrow hollowed out and reformed in a burst that had him writhing, screaming, clawing at himself until there were deep gouges on his arms bubbling up blood - and yet the marks were unmarred beneath. The spellwork, once set with the powder, could no longer be broken. The creature dragged nails over its neck where the symbol branded him as Guilford's, wailing, shaking its head violently and then rolling onto its side.

It was shrieking a word, over and over, but there was so much pain she couldn't even begin to understand what the word was. She had to guess, from the terror and edge of his voice, that he was saying no.

A word he could say all he wanted, but it meant nothing, now, to his body.

The siren curled up into a ball, desperately trying to escape pain that came from within, not without. His very body was his cage. He rolled onto his hands and knees, pushing himself up with difficulty, and the first tears finally fell, dripping onto the floor. A terrible wracking sob came from him, a sound that nearly set Atabei to weeping with him. He went to kneeling, clawing at his own stomach now as if he could rip out his own organs, whimpering in helpless fear and confusion. He kept repeating that strange word, a sound that rang oddly in Atabei's own ears.

Then he raised his eyes to see Atabei and Guilford staring at him.

She watched him see the brush in her hand, the little tub of her paint, and even if he didn’t know how she had done it… he knew it was her, that she had done this to him - she and the man who hurt him, over and over again, and kept him here on dry land where he didn’t belong.

The illusion of humanity dropped all at once, and she saw the sacred monster beneath.

He bared his teeth in a terrible snarl, and what had been flat and white, she saw now was row upon row of yellowed razor-sharp fangs designed to rip and tear apart his victims after their ships were broken apart on the rocks. That mouth opened too wide, too large. His previously perfectly normal human hands were tipped in deadly claws, marked already with his own blood. He was webbed between his fingers and toes.

He seemed, only then, to realize that he did not have a gag. That he was not bound, that he could raise those claws and swipe, open that jaw and end the lives of his captors at once. He jerked forward, reaching for her-

And stopped.

His claws were six inches away from her - if even that. She barely dared to breathe. “Guilford,” Atabei whispered. “Tell him you are his master, and say his name.”

Guilford was breathing just as rapidly behind her, one hand clenched so tightly on her arm that it hurt, not that she could feel much with her ears still ringing with the creature’s musical cries. He had a knife in the other - had he had one tucked in his boot the whole time? - and held it out, brandishing the only weapon they had between them, ready to pull Atabei back and protect her. He swallowed, and nodded, whispering, “C-Creature, I… I am your… master. Your n-name is… Areyto. Beibei, did it work?”

“I don’t know. If it did-”

The siren lunged towards them again, and Atabei flinched, eyes closed, absolutely certain she had messed up her spellwork for the first time since she was fourteen years old, and her life would be forfeit to some tiny mistake.

Guilford yelled, “Stop that at once, Areyto! Stay there!”

There was silence.

Nothing tore her apart.

But the siren made a sound of horrified confusion.

Atabei cracked her eyes open and discovered the siren had frozen on the spot. His eyes were no longer wide with the rage of a freed wild thing, but with the fear of one who had only just seen the bars of his cage and begun to know how small it really was. His mouth opened, air forced out with an audible hiss, but without any other sound. He tried again and again.

Nothing happened.

Atabei allowed herself to relax. “It worked. He's trying to sing and he can't. It-... it worked. You are his master now, and he can’t work their power on you.”

“What about you?” Guilford asked, with real worry, although he let go of her arm now and looked the siren over, walking slowly around him while the creature watched him, frightened and confused by how he was both unbound and yet utterly unable to act. The siren's hands trembled with the urge to attack, his knees shook. “Can it hurt you?”

“Only if you command him to. Which I certainly hope you will not do.”

“God forbid! You’re the only person on God’s green earth I’d never harm a single hair on!”

She believed him. Gods help her… she believed him. Or… hoped she did, anyway.

Atabei nodded, slowly easing back and away from the siren, but every single sign she could see suggested the spell had taken hold. “He can use his song only when and how you tell him to. He’ll learn our tongue more rapidly now, and with time forget his own. He cannot harm you or anyone you care for the safety of. He can and will harm anyone he is told to harm… by you only. His very nerves are yours to command. You may cause him pain with a word, or pleasure. Congratulations, Guilford.” She swallowed, and found herself unwilling to look the siren in the eyes any longer. “You have for yourself the full breadth of a siren’s power and lifespan, and it is yours to use as you see fit.”

Guilford nodded, but where her expression had gone grave and serious, his own was brightening into a pleased, proud smile. “Beibei, thank you. Thank you. You’ve no idea how grateful I am, I can’t even begin to express-”

“I know. I know. I know you are. Now…” Atabei sighed. She felt a strange unease, something that touched the edges of self-hatred but didn’t quite cross into it. She had ruined a beautiful wild ocean thing, but the look on Guilford’s face… “The work is half done. Command him to lay still on his belly, bare his back, and not move at all.”

“What?” Guilford looked like his ears might be ringing still. He stuck a finger in one and rubbed, then blinked at her, leaning close. “Lay down on his back?”

“No, no. Lay on his stomach. Set him up just how we began, but the other side, so his back faces us.” Atabei looked at the tears running from the corners of the siren’s eyes, how he was still frozen from Guilford’s command, his claws twitching constantly as he fought against the compulsion to obey. He looked at her with a pleading terror, and she turned her gaze away.

“Fine." Guilford licked his lips, as if savoring a delicious meal. "Areyto, lie down.”

The siren bared his teeth again - but then looked down at himself in surprise as he discovered himself already obeying the command. He made sounds of alarm, speaking rapidly in a language only he knew here, but his body no longer listened to him… it listened to Guilford.

Entirely.

Utterly.

The siren laid down on his belly on the ground, panting with fear. His eyes met hers, fearful and pleading. “No,” Atabei whispered. “You will have no help from me.”

When Guilford moved the siren’s hands above his head, the creature whined and spoke more, words that Atabei didn’t know but a tone she absolutely did. Stop. Please. Don’t do this. Why is this happening to me?

Once the siren was back in position, legs spread wide and the backs of his hands facing the ceiling, Guilford nodded. “Good,” He whispered, and Atabei shuddered at the tone of his voice, slightly thickened, oddly heavy. His eyes lit up as he began to truly enjoy and understand the way the siren would do whatever he told it to do. She had given him too much power over another being, but it was too late for regrets. “Now you may breathe, but stay still. Don’t move any other muscle.”

Guilford took his time tracing fingertips along the bottom of the siren’s left foot, unmarked as it was, watching the creature’s toes twitch. The poor thing couldn’t even begin to do anything about the unwanted touch, as it slid up his ankle, tickled the back of one knee. The siren wept against the ground, back shaking minutely with sobs that couldn’t be entirely repressed even by a magical command to stillness. Guilford, thankfully, lifted his hand before it went any higher. “Beibei…”

“What?” She cracked her knuckles, stretched her back and legs, shook the hours upon hours of stillness out of her body. For a horrified moment, she wondered if he would ask her to leave the room right here and now.

But he only gave her a look of slightly embarrassed, good-natured puzzlement she had seen on him a thousand times before. “Um. Why did we roll him over, exactly?”

“Oh. I told you already.” She settled back on her knees, and set the paintbrush back into the little dish, wetting the bristles. “You don’t know why?”

“Well, I just… oh. I guess I”ve been… distracted, haven’t I?”

When she looked up at him, his face shone with excitement, and it made something in her stomach flip in uncertain, hesitant disgust - a feeling she refused to name. A promise of torment the siren would experience that she would not let herself admit to. “Yes. You have been.”

“Apologies. It’s just… is it because we have to do the back, too?”

“Yes.” She laid the first stroke of the paint, starting at the siren’s nape, a long curving line down. “Yes, Guilford. This will need redone every ten years for the spell to hold, and it must be on both sides for the control you have to be truly complete. Once we finish this… you will have your tool to gain riches and power. You will have your false divinity."

If he heard the condemnation in her tone, he didn't show it. His smile was wide and adoring, and gods help her, she adored him in return. She would have worked this evil for no one else.

He clasped her free hand in his, clammy and sweaty, and she pulled herself free so it wouldn't mar her work. His voice was low and soft but sincere and earnest. “Beibei, again, I just, thank you so much for doing this for me. I am grateful, I will repay you a thousand times over for what you’ve done, you'll be so rich you can't even imagine the wealth, the influence, just… thank you.”

The haze of magic began to settle over her once more, but she kept herself together long enough to say what was on her mind, halting and slow. “I have done this for you, Guildford, and not for wealth or influence. You asked, and I gave. What we do here may before our deaths cost you your soul and me my peace.”

She listened to the siren’s pitiful weeping and laid a hand in his hair as some thin comfort as her other hand worked the spell. Soon enough, the poor thing would be screaming again.

She set her jaw against the racing of her own heart, and added, “Just… please, my friend… please don’t thank me for what I have done."

Taglist: @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10

Look at me keeping up with including @whumptober prompts!

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one-piece-aus · 7 months

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Whumptober Day 7

Uta

"Uta." Luffy popped his head in the treehouse, smiling when he saw his friend there sitting against the bark. "Uta!" He climbed onto the platform, going over to her. "You won't believe the treasure we got today-" Luffy paused, seeing the girl has made no reaction. He pouted and began poking her cheek. "Uta... Uta... Can you hear me?"

"What are you whining about now, crybaby?" Ace grunted as he climbed into the treehouse, followed by Sabo.

"Uta sleeping so I can't tell her about the treasure we got," Luffy huffed, sitting in front of her with his arms and legs crossed.

"Just wake her up dumbie."

"I can't, she's a heavy sleeper."

"Eh? Seriously?" Sabo looked surprised. "But she always wakes up if we move too much in our sleep." He scratched his head looking at their sister.

"That's different," Luffy stated.

"How?" Sabo asked, only to receive a shrug from Luffy in response. Sabo deadpanned.

"Just yell in her ear like we do to each other." Ace went over to Uta.

"Wait, Ace don't-" Luffy tried to warn Ace but he already moved Uta's headphones.

"AHH!" Uta jumped awake, fearful eyes darting everywhere.

"Uta, Uta, calm down, you're just with us." Luffy reassured her while Ace rubbed his ears.

"Luffy?" The girl focused her gaze on him, slowly her heart rate return to a regular pace. She placed her hands over her ears, frowning when nothing were covering them. "Who took my headphones." All eyes fell on Ace who is currently finding that catapiller climbing the wall to be very interesting.

"Ace..." Sabo's tone hinted that the ravenette should probably apologize.

"Okay, I did it." Ace held out the headphones. "I didn't think anything bad would happen."

He took a step forward, creaking a floorboard. Instantly, Uta hissed in pain as a thousand needles stung her ears. Using one hand to snatch the headphones as the other attempted to ease her ears, she hastily snapped the device back over her ears, sighing in relief.

"Don't do that again," Uta said, glaring at Ace.

"Why are they so important anyways?" Ace asked.

"Her ears hurt from all the noises everywhere if she's not wearing them," Luffy bluntly states pointing at her. Uta was about to protest but shut her mouth when Luffy technically explained it. The strawhat boy then turned the singer. "Can I tell you about the treasure we snagged today now?"

Uta nodded and Luffy cheered, leaving the other two brothers with more inquiries about their sister.

Tag: @roseoftrafalgar @bookandyarndragon

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whumpneto · 7 months

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Whumptober 2023 - No. 7: “ “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.” Alleyway | Radio Silence | “Can you hear me?”

Nicholas Hoult as J. D. Salinger in Rebel in the Rye (2017)

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #“Can you hear me?”#gifs #ptsd #war #catatonic #my gifs #rebel in the rye #nicholas hoult #queue

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pigmentedrat · 7 months

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Whumptober, Day 7

idk what this us but its something so-

Words: 236

Caretaker leaned forward, practically holding their breath as they stared at Whumpee's still face. It was like Caretaker was pretending they were in the scene in a movie where the comatose character woke up.

But this isn't a movie, and Whumpee isn't waking up. The doctors say they should wake up soon. Yet Caretaker knew how much they had been through with Whumper, and even if they woke up, they would have so much trauma to work through. It'd be difficult, but Caretaker would always stay by Whumpee's

Cataker gently held Whumpee's hand in theirs. They rubbed small circles into the back of Whumpee's hand with their thumb. Caretaker turned Whumpee's hand over, tracing the lines of Whumpee's palm.

They remembered a night long before. Where Caretaker had held Whumpee's hand with a palm reading website open on their laptop. Staring scrutinizingly at the lines on Whumpee's hand and saying ridiculous fortunes. It was all to hear Whumpee's laugh, light, and the most beautiful sound Caretaker ever heard.

The steady beep of the heart monitor brought Caretaker back to the present. A present where they weren’t happy, they knew Whumper and Whumpee was still just lying there.

“Whumpee?” Caretaker felt imaginably stupid talking to someone in a coma but they went on, “Can you hear me?”

No response. They knew there would be no response and yet it still hurt.

#whumptober2023 #no.3 #“can you hear me?”#original content #writing #whump #whumpee #caretaker #whump writing #no beta we die like men #pigmentedrat

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catsandgoodbooks · 7 months

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No. 7: “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”

Alleyway | Radio Silence | “Can you hear me?”

TW/CWs: None

The October 8th drabble is a continuation of this one

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You think you’ll be done soon?” Punz asked, holding their communicator up to their ear with one hand and jumping from block to block over the lava running through the Nether. When they stopped, they idly checked their inventory, eyes running over the Nether wart and redstone dust and netherite nuggets and glowstone and spider’s eyes and blaze powder and ghast tears and gunpowder stored within. Their visit away from the Overworld had turned out to be pretty successful when it came to raw materials, which is what they wanted in the first place. Potions (particularly healing and regen) were in high demand right now, for both the server and themself (and Dream), and not everyone had the time (or ability) to go deep into the Nether to get the needed ingredients.

“Yep,” the voice on the other end of the line, no longer crackling and staticky, responded. “I’ll stop by your tower once I’m good.”

“Cool,” Punz replied. They stepped onto the solid ground (or at least as solid netherrack could get) of the Nether wastes and kept walking, keeping the knowledge that their portal wasn’t far off in the back of their mind. They just had to get a little bit farther and then they could be out of this place (and maybe not alone, if they were lucky). “I’m just about to leave the Nether, Dream, so we should be able to meet up.”

“Great.” Punz could hear the smile in his voice. It was infectious, and a corner of their mouth tugged upward. “How’d it go?”

“Pretty well, I’d say. I don’t think we’d have to worry about running out of ingredients for a while,” they told him, a hint of humor creeping into their voice.

Dream laughed, and Punz grinned. “That’s great, Punz. Gotta have that stuff, right?”

“Of course,” Punz agreed. Their eyes ran over the landscape in front of them, spotting a patch of darkness within the red red red of the Nether. That’d be their portal. “How you’re doing?”

“Fine. Just had to take care of a couple things, and I’m mostly done anyways,” Dream answered. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“If you’re sure,” Punz responded, shrugging even though they knew he couldn’t see them. They stepped through the Nether portal, immediately being hit in the face by a cool breeze. They sighed, taking a moment to appreciate the cold, fresh air and dark, star-scattered sky. It felt amazing after an afternoon spent in the oppressive heat. “Just left the Nether, Dream.”

“Nice! I’m heading to your place right now,” Dream informed them.

“Want to race?” Punz asked, a wide smile creeping onto their face. (It felt…normal, and Punz had been looking for that sense of normality for a long time. They were euphoric at the fact that they finally found it, even if it was just for a moment)

“Sure, but–” Dream’s voice cut out for a moment, and Punz’s heart dropped. “Punz? Punz, I have to–” Dream was cut off by something that they couldn’t hear, and everything fell silent.

“Dream? Dream?” Punz asked urgently, their voice involuntarily raising, becoming higher and higher the more panicked they got. “Dream, can you hear me?”

There was no response. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Dream wouldn’t just be ignoring them. They glanced down at their communicator.

[Call Ended]

Dream wouldn’t just hang up on Punz like that. They knew that. Something must of happened. Something must of happened.

Punz pulled up a map of the server on their communicator, watching the colors bloom onto the screen and tiny, moving pins appear. They’d made sure to attach most everyone’s user IDs to the map, an arduous task but one necessary to track where the server members were if needed, and they’d already had more than enough time on their hands in the past (before Dream escaped and they just had to wait and wait and wait and hope that it would get better, it would happen soon, nothing had gone wrong and it was just taking a while). Their whole job was to gather information, right?

All their eyes were looking for was a bright green dot, not too far off from where they were but no longer moving. Ringed by other dots.

Well, fuck. Punz had to get moving.

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #radio silence #“can you hear me?”#dsmp #fic #c!dream #c!punz #staged duo #my writing

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crimsonlyinglilly · 7 months

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No. 7: “ “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”

Alleyway | Radio Silence | “Can you hear me?”

a little late but here's day 7

Sage because the girl deserves more and Sage/Finn because they didn’t get nearly enough in canon and Finn needs something to make up for all I’m, by that I mean Dahlia, is going to put him through this month.

Oh and Henrik lives in this AU.

—--

Sage always tends to meet Mikaelsons in alleyways.

It starts with the youngest when they were all still human before the creation of the monsters to be, when a young boy with still healing scars attempted to hide from the stares and was followed into the small gap between two buildings by a predator of a human sort.

Sage followed, and the man who had planned to prey on the boy never left. They were found by one of the boy’s older brothers, the other dark haired one, Kol who gave her an appraising look after he saw the body but thanked her after introducing himself and left with the younger boy under his arm.

A little over two years later she’s bleeding out in an alleyway not far from the first, choking on her breath as she regretted not checking for a weapon, alone as the man had fled when he realised he wouldn’t get his fun with her dying.

“Can you hear me?” a voice called, she blinked, the world coming into focus to find the second Mikaelson boy, Kol looking down at her.

She glared up at him, not sure why he was bothering in her last moments.

“Sorry,” he shrugged, crouching down to her, “See i have an idea but i need a test subject, if this works take it as repaying you for saving Henrik. If it doesn’t, you're dead, sorry.”

Before she could muster the strength to question him he pushed his wrist to her mouth and held her head there.

She died with a taste of iron in her mouth from blood that wasn’t hers. She wakes later to his grinning face.

An experiment he had explained, it was a moment of chance that he had smelt her blood and recognized her while he had escaped his family to muse on his lost magic. He had the chance to explain the basics of what she had become and left her a ring to allow her into the daylight before he and the rest of his siblings fled to europe.

She only met Klaus because Henrik had recognized her.

“Sage?” the voice called her from Alice, the young sister who had snuck out of the convert to see her. For a moment she had just stared, after two and a half centuries her human life seemed more like a dream than reality sometimes, until the mind caught up.

“Henrik, you look well.” she smiled at the boy, shifting Alice to rest against her shoulder, leaving the barley conscious woman to mouth at her neck, where she had already cut.

“How-?” He asked stepping further into the alley, before she could answer him a nd pulled him back.

“Henrik, mind introducing you friend?” Klaus asked, an undercurrent of threat in his words while around Henrik,, she wondered if he knew how much like his father when he spoke like that.

“This is Sage, she saved me back when we were human, Sage this is my brother Klaus.” Henrik replies, apparently not noticing the threat as he tried to step closer.

“Sage?” he asked with a charming smile even as he held Henrik back, if she was another woman it might have worked but his charm was far too much like the men she had grown up with.

“Just Sage.” she smiled, her father may have freed her from thralldom but she had no interest in keeping him or his name alive.

“And how-” Klaus attempted to take another step in front of Henrik only to be nearly pushed over by him.

“How are you still alive?” Henrik interrupted and Sage smothered her amusement at the look of indignation Klaus sent his way.

“Didn’t your brother tell you?” she asked but the look of confusion on Henrik’s and irritated realistion on Klaus’s faces answered that question for her, “Kol found me before you left, he said he wanted to experiment and as i was ready dying.” she shrugged, it not quite a grand beginning of a new life but she enjoyed her new life far better than she would have the Hall’s her father’s gods offered.

“Kol!” Klaus snarled, she may have jumped at the sudden aggression but with Alice still plastered to her front she hid it.

She had been paying attention to the rumours about the Original family and it was a well known fact that either the two oldest brothers were at each other’s throats or tearing through villages together.

“Niklaus I'm positive he had a reason for not telling us.” Henrik tried to calm the now livid, Klaus gave her a look before turning away stalking away, forcing the younger to follow.

“Yes, his own bloody amusement” Klaus snapped but slowed enough for the shorter to catch up. “I'm going to ring his neck.”

She was relieved when the ranting faded, it had been a long time since she had felt threatened by anyone and Klaus Mikaelson brought back far too many memories of her human life.

She took Alice home and in the morning offered her a choice of freedom from her vow and made a note to herself to avoid Klaus in all future opportunities.

Finn was special, even if it’s a few centuries before she finds out he and his siblings were Mikealsons. It’s a few years after her meeting with Klaus and Alice had left her side to enjoy the world on her own.

She first finds him in an underground bar and watches him, she can taste the power but under the cold, impassive charm that has both men and women staring, she knows the look of someone haunted, far too like the pretty young wives with controlling husbands waiting at home.

Moreover she notices while he only leaves with men he watches the women with more interest, with a longing, so when she notices him watching her more than a few times she decides to get answers on the fifth night and gets him to follow her to the alleyway just outside one of the exits.

“What do you want?” he asks before she has a chance, she smiles at the clear clipped accent that is far older than those around them, his next words relieving he knew what she was made him even more interesting. “I'm not someone you can feed on.”

“You know most of the girls you’ve been watching would have to have a chance at you.” she tells him instead drawing closer, she didn’t get involved with witches much, but she could almost taste the power he had from across the room, she wanted to see how it felt to touch him.

“I can’t risk it.” He offers as she sets a hand on his chest, the honesty clear in his eyes and the steady heartbeat under her hand, even with her close enough to bite he was unafraid, instead he looks at her with curiosity and something else.

“A child.” There's a story there, but she decides to leave it for now after nearly a week of watching him. It had worked up a hunger in her that wasn’t fading the closer she got to him. He was looking at her in a way she was unfamiliar with even after centuries alive she wanted more.

“But how about me?” the words slip from her before she had really thought them through.

“What?” his mouth hangs over a little in shock and she doesn’t think she’s wanted to kiss another as much before but still she waits.

“I know you’ve been watching me and you know what I am, you don’t need to worry about that with me.” she smirks gently backing him up against the wall but giving him room to escape if he wanted. Instead he meets her as she leans forward. At first it was gentle but it quickly grew heated until she front her feet lifted from the floor and her back against the wall.

Kissing Finn, being with him even in the quiet moments just listening to his breathing, to his heartbeat, his eyes watching her. It was like finding a part of herself that was missing, some romantic part of her wondered if this, he, was the reason she woke up in that alleyway two centuries before.

She meets the real him in the alleyway behind the bar and didn’t realise she gave her heart to him until another alleyway a century later. He admits his deepest thoughts to her even those he doesn’t place on his siblings and she confesses hers, the ones she had kept to herself since she was alive, and yet none of it ever changes how they look at each other.

Finn tells her his first tattoo was of a Dahlia flower because he had still be concerned she would harm his brother of marking something of hers and had hoped a flower of her namesake would prevent that, in the centuries while he sleeps, and coloured inks become more popular Sage thinks of one day taking Finn to get the Dahlia coloured in golds and red, as far from the black hearted woman that keeps him.

Rebekah finds her while he and Finn are in the middle of convincing a young man to invite them back to his home where his wife was waiting, she does reduces the amount she kills during her time with Finn, it’s not much of a hardship since their time is precious, instead to uses the time to introduce him to as much as she can.

To give him something to dream of while he’s trapped with the witch.

However that does mean she has little patience for any intrusions

“Sage.” The tone is cold and she can hear the superior attitude that had always grated her nerves.

“Rebekah.” she returned with a far more pleasant tone, she had Finn she wasn’t going to let a spoiled little girl ruin her night.

She isn’t that surprised to be recognized, Klaus had insisted she sit for him when it had come to his attention she was in town, Rebekah likely had seen the portrait. Sage had sat for hours while Klaus sketched and painted while staring at one of the Mikaelson family, Rebakah sitting in the centre of her brothers.

“You really are as much a Harlot as I remember.” Rebekah spat and Sage wanted to laugh, as if rumours from people centuries dead and forgotten, just because the Mikaelson were still haunted by their past didn’t mean she was, she had leant to leave it behind in the alleyway she had died in.

She moves from Harold’s neck to kissing the frown from Finn’s mouth at the words. While her white knight could likely bring an Original down with little effort it would be temporary and all that would do was bring her brothers after them.

“Harry here is taking home to meet his wife,” she called back, carefully shifting them all upright to walk away. “Not all of us are so reserved, perhaps you try to branch out,” she advised, as Finn slipped an arm around both of them, leaving slightly dazed and confused Harold in the middle of them and the walked away from the Original “just because we’re centuries old doesn't mean one has to stay so old fashioned.” she turned to wave back.

She chuckles to herself at the memory of Rebekah’s expression every time afterwards.

Sage had lived a long time to know a trap when she saw one, so the young lady walking alone on dark streets far too close to the worst part of town with pretty petticoats that screamed wealth catches her eye, she’s played that game. Not one to interrupt another’s game she watches as the lone wandered gained three followers and ‘took a wrong turn’ into a dead end.

She arrives at the tail end of the fight to three downed men and the lady flipping a knife she had clearly taken from one of the attackers, the lady sighed, one that spoke heavily of disappointment.

“I had expected better.” The words were spoken in an upper class accent but she has to give a second glance when she registers the voice, deeper than a woman’s by far. “Oh pardon, i didn’t see you there.” he looked at her for a moment. “Were you hunting them? you're free to feed on them now.”

It was only then that Sage realised there were only two heartbeats in the alleyway, and the power she could feel from man was only slightly lesser than Finn’s.

“I was only looking for a good fight, perhaps I should have thought better than dressing like this. I should have known it would only lure out the cowards.” The man ended his statement by flicking the knife from his hand into the remaining living man’s throat, who died quickly choking on his own blood.

“Have a good evening.” the person bid her as they slipped away, it was spoken softly and if she hadn’t just seen and heard everything, she would have been fooled, with the veil replaced they once again seemed nothing more than a lost young lady.

When she confessed the strange tale to Finn later, her love simply groaned and laid his face onto her shoulder. “You met Elijah love, I had hoped to give you a proper introduction.”

They never do get around to a proper introduction, Elijah leaves town that night and by the time they meet it’s been centuries since that night.

“Good evening?“ Elijah smirks, his voice oddly soft, Sage laughs and Finn’s eyes are bright with joy.

—-

Freya she doesn’t meet in an alleyway, Freya she meets in the middle of the Mikaelson’s home, Dahlia dead and her love freed.

“I’m glad to meet you sister.” Freya grinned when she had Finn finally loosen their hold on each other, and pulled her into a hug.

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whump-me · 7 months

Text

Whumptober Day 7: Radio Silence

This is a standalone story in my original Mind Games universe, a modern-day sci-fi/fantasy thriller setting about ordinary humans with superhuman abilities and the people who want to use or destroy them. Full description in my Whumptober masterpost, which is linked in my pinned post.

This story contains: twins, lab whump, emotional whump, brain damage

Words: 2700

---

Angie woke screaming in a dirty motel room. She couldn’t remember what state she had crossed into before she saw the neon sign that promised a place to pass out. She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten dinner yesterday—or breakfast, for that matter. But the dream that had woken her was clearer than memory, clearer than the peeling wallpaper of the room. She had dreamed of being strapped to a chair, in a room with white walls and white lights, surrounded by men in white lab coats. One had been shaving her head. The other had been readying his scalpel.

It hadn’t been a dream. It had been Isabel.

I’m coming, she thought along the connection with her twin. I’m on my way.

Isabel couldn’t form words through her panic. But a wave of relief washed through the connection at the sound of Angie’s mental voice. Isabel still believed in her. Isabel was counting on her.

Which meant Angie had to get a move on.

It was a good thing she hadn’t changed out of her clothes the night before. That meant a few minutes she didn’t have to spend on getting dressed. She visited the grimy motel bathroom for a quick piss, and gave her teeth a halfhearted scrub with her finger. As she hoisted her backpack over her shoulders, she lit up a cigarette. It was a no-smoking room—said so right on the door—but she was never coming back here anyway.

The nicotine was the only thing she knew of that could dim the connection a little. Aside from a strong drink, and she wasn’t about to get behind the wheel drunk. She took a long drag, and the panic eased, just a little. The white room in her inner vision turned dim and blurry.

Shutting her twin out when Isabel needed her the most. Some twin she was. But she couldn’t keep her head on straight with Isabel’s panic swimming around in her bloodstream. Her own was hard enough to manage.

She tossed her backpack in the passenger seat and peeled out of the parking lot.

She paid no attention to the road signs. She did what she had done since she had started this road trip from hell five days ago: she followed the inner compass that told her which direction to go to find Isabel. The two of them had always been able to do that, just like they could pass words and images silently between them no matter how much physical distance lay between them. Came with the territory when you were a twin and both of you were telepaths.

She tossed the spent cigarette out the window. The tug in her gut led her south. She swerved onto the highway at the last moment.

As she merged, a crawling sensation on her scalp made her bring up a hand absentmindedly to scratch. But it wasn’t her scalp that was the problem. In her inner vision, one of the men was drawing with a marker on the back of her—of Isabel’s—head, like he was marking where to cut.

She hit the gas.

A minivan in front of her was crawling along at the speed limit. She leaned on her horn. The minivan didn’t speed up.

A bite of pain, like an insect sting just above the back of her neck. She brought up her hand on instinct to swat it. A fresh wave of panic—not her own—flooded her.

Not an insect bite. The bite of a scalpel.

Hang in there, she thought as hard as she could. I’m coming. I’m close—I can feel it. A couple hours at most.

She lit another cigarette.

The nicotine couldn’t kick in fast enough. The pain spread. It bit deeper. They were cutting her apart, they were cutting Isabel apart…

She swerved around the minivan, drawing a chorus of honks from the cars around her.

She could make it in time. She could make it. She was so close.

It wasn’t by chance that she and Isabel were what they were. That they were twins; that they were telepaths. They hadn’t known the truth until a woman in a dark suit came knocking one evening, while Isabel was filling out college applications and Angie was getting ready to sneak out with some boy whose name she couldn’t remember anymore. It was lucky they had both been home, or their lives might have gone very differently from that point on.

They both knew why the woman was there the second she rang the doorbell. Can’t hide anything from a telepath. She was there to take her experiments back. Identical twins dosed with experimental drugs in utero, then allowed to develop naturally out of the lab—which implied others who had grown up in a lab somewhere.

The woman and the people she worked for—the Psi Enhancement Research Initiative, the woman’s thoughts supplied—had lied to the twins’ parents about who they were and what they were doing. They had said they were trialing an experimental IVF procedure. They hadn’t said they would be keeping tabs on the twins’ medical and educational records, and sending observers to watch them in secret—something the twins also hadn’t known until that moment.

And they hadn’t said they would be coming back for the twins once their experiment was ready for its next phase.

They hadn’t needed to say a word to each other. They had raced downstairs to warn their parents, because they had both heard in the woman’s thoughts that she wasn’t there to ask permission. But they weren’t fast enough to save their parents.

They were only fast enough to save themselves.

They had been on their own since then. It had been Angie who had gotten them both out the bedroom window—she was no stranger to sneaking out, after all. And Angie had gotten them both fake IDs, another thing she knew too much about. But Isabel had led her across the country, even though she didn’t know where to go any more than Angie did. Isabel had gotten a job to take care of them both, and hadn’t said a word about the scholarships she would never get a chance at now. Isabel had made sure they both ate healthy, and had tossed out Angie’s beer and cigarettes whenever she tried to sneak them into the apartment.

It took PERI two years to track them down. Angie still didn’t know how they had done it. They took Isabel while she was out working like a responsible adult. They could easily have gotten Angie at the same time, while she was sleeping late, clutching her empty contraband beer bottle from last night to her chest like it was a teddy bear. But they had waited too long. Isabel’s inner scream had woken her. She watched the whole thing happen while coming awake, like it was a bad dream.

Isabel’s fear and pain had bought Angie enough time to run.

In the five days since, Angie had experienced all of it alongside Isabel. They had wanted to test her abilities. She hadn’t wanted to cooperate. It had taken them the better part of a day to convince her. Angie could still feel the burn of the electric shocks in her bones.

Then the days of testing—gauging her range, her ability to project her own thoughts, her skill at picking up visual images and abstract concepts from another person’s mind as well as words. The test hadn’t been so bad. While they were testing her, Angie could concentrate well enough to drive without a cigarette.

Unlike when they started asking her how to find Angie.

Apparently they’d gone back for her. They hadn’t even been worried when they hadn’t found her at the apartment. They had trusted their ability to track her down. Until they came up empty.

It seemed like they hadn’t considered the possibility that Angie might be hurtling straight toward them.

Isabel knew, of course. She could have told them. She didn’t. No matter what they did to her—and they had done a lot. There were times Angie had pulled over to look down at herself, certain she was bleeding from Isabel’s wounds.

Angie had thought that was the worst it could get.

But now their testing was done, and they were cutting into Isabel’s brain.

A wave of sick nausea came through the connection. It wasn’t pain. But it was worse than pain, somehow. A bone-deep sensation of wrongness. Even through the nicotine, it was strong enough to make Angie clap a hand over her mouth, afraid she would vomit all over the car.

I’m on my way, she promised Isabel. Not because Isabel didn’t already know, but because she didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t say It’s okay when it wasn’t. She had never been much of a liar.

Angie… Isabel’s inner voice was a weak thread of a whisper. The rest of her sister’s message came through as a mumble. Angie couldn’t make out the words, or even the meaning behind them.

Angie stepped on the gas again. She honked at the eighteen-wheeler in front of her.

Angie… don’t…

Angie sped around the truck. The driver honked at her, long and low.

As she was sliding back into her own lane, her vision went black. Only for a second, but when it came back, the car was skidding sideways across the road, and people were madly swerving around her, honking their horns, gesturing angrily.

She swerved and slid into the nearest empty lane, barely paying attention to the road. Isabel!

Another wave of swimming nausea made her vision blur and her stomach lurch. Angie… don’t come after me. It’s too late. Turn around. Don’t let them do this to you too.

Like hell, Angie thought at her as fiercely as she could, and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.

Then something in Angie’s brain went dark. Like an arm going numb; like a foot being sliced from her body. That was the only way she knew how to think of it. The nausea was gone, and the wrongness, and the crawly feeling on her scalp. Even the panic.

Just… gone.

The sense of Isabel, which she had never been without since before the day they were born… gone.

But the inner compass was still there. That had to mean something, right? Isabel couldn’t be completely gone, as long as Angie could still sense her presence.

Unless it was just some kind of residual trace, like a trail of smoke in the air. Did it feel different? Fainter?

Angie wouldn’t analyze it. She couldn’t afford to go there.

The inner compass gave a lurch, tugging her to the right. She swerved onto the exit ramp, drawing another chorus of honks.

A small, shabby downtown greeted her. None of the roads went the right way. She took a right turn, a left turn, another right, while her inner compass tugged insistently straight ahead.

Was the tug weaker? It was, wasn’t it? It felt loose, like a rubber band suddenly gone slack.

Nope. Angie wouldn’t go there. She couldn’t. Not yet. She could think about that after she found Isabel. Alive.

At last, she found a road that took her in the same direction that her sense of Isabel was tugging her. The tug was fainter now, too much so to ignore. A thin and breakable thread where a thick braid of rope used to be.

The thread snapped just as she pulled into the parking lot of a bland, anonymous business complex.

The sign outside promised a dentist’s office, a therapist, and something called Scientific Industries, Inc. She made an educated guess. She shoved her way inside and barged through the inner door that said Scientific Industries, Inc. on an anonymous metal plaque.

The lobby was small and discreet—two chairs and a gray-haired woman behind the desk. The receptionist motioned her toward one of the chairs, no doubt assuming she was supposed to be there.

She didn’t sit. She pulled out the gun Isabel had come home with the day they’d signed their fake names to the lease on their new apartment. Isabel hadn’t said where she had gotten it. Angie hadn’t asked.

She aimed the gun at the wide-eyed receptionist’s chest and ordered, “Take me to the lab.”

The receptionist didn’t bother with denials. She led Angie down a narrow hallway covered in thin, ugly carpet, like every doctor’s office Angie had ever been in. A white-coated man turned a corner toward them. At the sight of the gun, his eyes went as wide as the receptionist’s.

Angie recognized his face. She had seen it in her dreams that hadn’t been dreams.

With the hand holding the gun, she motioned him toward the receptionist. He fell into line.

He kept sneaking glances at her. He recognized her, too. Of course he did—she and Isabel were identical.

But he didn’t say a word. Smart of him. If he had, Angie might have shot him right then and there.

The trembling receptionist. opened the door at the end of the hall. There it was—the white room with its bright white light. And there she was. Isabel. The chair was like a dentist’s chair, and Isabel lay limp, her head slumped to one side.

The back of her head was covered in white gauze. Her face was pale, bloodless. Her eyes were closed.

Angie couldn’t sense her. She was right here, and Angie couldn’t sense her.

Isabel, she shouted. Isabel, I’m here.

Nothing.

It took her a few seconds to notice the other white-coated man in the room. He was using a stylus to scribble notes on a tablet. When he saw her little parade, he raised his hands. The tablet fell to the floor and shattered.

He looked from her to Isabel, and must have known who she was, because he didn’t bother asking who she was or why she was here. He babbled something. Something like, Don’t shoot. Something like, I’m sorry. Something like, I don’t know what went wrong.

He had blood smeared down the front of his white coat.

Angie shot him.

She shot the other white-coated man before he could run. She leveled the gun at the trembling receptionist. “Get out of here,” she ordered. “Before I decide you’re responsible for this too.”

The receptionist ran.

There would be more people coming, drawn by the sound of the gunshots. They would probably have guns of their own. Angie wasn’t sure she cared.

I’m sorry, she whispered to the dead space what Isabel had been. She lifted the limp body of her sister into her arms. I’m sorry they took you and not me. You could have gotten there in time. I’ve always been the fuckup.

Isabel’s eyes fluttered open.

“Angie?” she whispered.

Isabel, Angie whispered, in wonder and in joy. But the space that had always been Isabel was still empty.

“Isabel?” Her voice was hesitant. She couldn’t remember the last time she had used her voice to speak to her sister. Not since their parents were alive, and they’d had to do it purely for show.

Isabel’s face crumpled. “I can’t… in my head. I can’t feel you.”

There would be time later, Angie knew, to grieve what they had lost. But not yet. Because Isabel was alive. Angie had gotten there in time after all.

For once, she hadn’t fucked it up.

It’s okay, she said, and then stopped herself. “It’s okay,” she said, starting towards the door with her sister in her arms. “I’m going to get you out of here. And then I’m going to take care of you.”

Whatever it took.

Even if it meant she had to learn to be the responsible one.

“Told you… not to come,” Isabel mumbled, her eyes already fluttering shut again.

“Yeah, well,” said Angie, shifting Isabel’s weight against her chest, “I’ve never been good at doing what I’m supposed to do.”

She didn’t sense Isabel’s emotion like she was used to. But she felt Isabel’s mouth curve into a smile as Isabel let her head rest against Angie’s chest. Like Angie was a solid place for her to rest.

---

Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @gala1981

Ask to be added or removed from my Whumptober 2023 taglist.

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #radio silence #“Can you hear me?”#oc #fic #lab whump #twin whump #brain damage

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mrmustachious · 7 months

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I haven't slept in days but who's counting?

Summary: After several exhausting weeks at work, Carlos is ready to spend a relaxing weekend off with his husband, but the universe has other ideas.

Day(s): 1, 2, 7, 12, 22, 26

Prompt(s): Swooning, “How many fingers am I holding up?”, Delirium, “Can you hear me?”, “I haven't slept in days but who's counting?”, Vehicular Accident, “Sometimes I get so tired; I don’t even know myself.”, Seeing Double, Working To Exhaustion

Carlos could barely keep his eyes open as he filled in the last of his report. He blinked frantically to stop them from drooping shut, as the words on the screen in front of him started to all blur into one.

He went to take a swig of the coffee on his desk, but it was only when the mug met his lips did he realise it was all gone. He groaned and placed the cup back onto the desk, and rubbed his hands over his eyes to try and wake himself up.

He debated making himself another drink, but he knew he was nearly done and his shift was close to being over. He could power through these last few minutes until he could go home.

He stretched and focused back on the screen, and realised that his last few sentences made absolutely no sense. With a sigh, he deleted the mistakes and rewrote it all again, but he could feel his eyes start to slip shut again only a few moments later.

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slytherinlesbians · 7 months

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Whumptober 2023, Day 7: "Can you hear me?"

fandom: criminal minds | characters: spencer reid (centric), emily prentiss, jennifer jareau, derek morgan, penelope garica | ship: past spencer reid/maeve donovan | trigger warnings: mentions of drugs/drug use, depression | content: post 8x12 'zugzwang,' spencer's isolation, team as a family | word count: 1k.

Spencer has this vivid memory from when he was eleven years old. All of his memories are vivid, to be fair, but this one stands out in particularly stark contrast to others. His mother has been suffering from a bad episode and hadn’t spoken to him for several days, no matter how hard he’d tried to get her attention. So he’d gone about his days as he always did: alone. One of the first lucid moves Diana had made all week was to come out into the kitchen as Spencer was pouring himself a bowl of cereal on Saturday morning. She sat down across from him, taking his hands in hers. He waited patiently for her to speak, eyes searching hers for reassurance she was alright. After a moment, she sighed.

“It’s so dark in here, Spencer,” was all she’d said, voice quivering. “It hurts.”

At the time, he hadn’t been sure what she’d meant. Throughout his life, there had been moments of darkness: his mother’s episodes that were growing in frequency, his father leaving, the way the kids at school - all so much older - treated him. However, it wasn’t until he was trapped in a shack in Georgia, the smell of burning fish and blood and sweat and fear and drugs, that he really thought he understood what his mother had meant when she referenced inner darkness.

And yet, if Spencer had the option of being back in that shack over being stuck in his house now, unable to move or eat or sleep or exist for paralyzing grief, he’d take the shack in a heartbeat. This pain, he’s sure, is what his mother had been referring to. He’s never hurt so badly in his life.

Maeve.

Even thinking her name makes him feel like he’s suffocating. Thinking about how he was too late. If he’d been quicker, smarter, more believable - she’d still be here. They’d be together. He’d be happy.

Instead, he’s alone. He’s dying. He clings to The Narrative of John Smith, switching between crying so hard he forgets how to breathe to being so numb he can’t feel a thing. He doesn’t know what day it is, what time it is, how long it’s been. He definitely ate something, but then he threw it up. His mouth tastes terrible and his lips are so chapped and dry they’re starting to bleed. The headache that started up the moment Maeve had been taken from him gets worse by the hour. Sleep isn’t even a relief because each time he closes his eyes, the sickening shot rings out and images of her body haunt him.

So he sits.

And hurts.

And hates it more than anything.

“Spence,” JJ’s voice is outside the door. She sounds far away, much further away than the one wall that’s between them. He heard her coming up the stairs, speaking in a low voice to Morgan. He’s sitting near the door. She knocks gently. “Spence, can you hear me?”

He can’t summon the energy to reply.

“Kid,” Morgan says, voice softer than he’s ever heard it. “Can you just - say something,” he begs. “Please. Just tell us you’re safe.”

Spencer exhales shakily and summons every inch of his being, raises a hand, and taps twice in quick succession.

“Thank you,” JJ says quietly, and after a moment, they leave. Spencer listens to their footsteps fade away and feels tears start to fall down his cheeks. Alone again.

After that, someone comes by everyday to check on him - to ask him for some sort of signal he’s alive. He knows they’re worried he’s overdosed or something, but frankly, he doesn’t even have the energy to go get any dilaudid, let alone take it - no matter how bad he wants some. Penelope always comes by, no matter what. She leaves food outside, and sometimes he gets it after she leaves if he’s feeling particularly brave. It all tastes like cardboard and he can never manage more than a few bites, but he does it - for them. For the others. He imagines the breaks between other people coming by are when they’re on cases. He wishes he could help. He wishes for the most gruesome, awful, horrible murders out there to be true, if it meant he could be there with his team and not feeling any semblance of the pain he’s drowning in right now.

He jumps, his phone buzzing him out of the stupor he’s in, moments after Penelope’s left another huge gift basket outside his doorway. He’s prepared to let it ring out, as he has spent the last however long doing, but something gets the better of him. Something feels… different. He sighs, gathers himself from where he sits by the door, and ambles slowly over to the couch, feeling every ache in his muscles tenfold.

‘Emily - work number’ is calling him.

Emily is calling him.

He considers not picking up for a moment, but curiosity gets the better of him. What if she’s in trouble? What if she needs him?

“Emily,” he says, voice sore and scratchy from lack of use.

“Spencer,” she breathes, voice soft. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How - I - I mean-,” she stumbles, and Spencer braces himself for what’s coming. Someone told her what happened. He clenches his teeth and blinks back tears. “I’m so sorry,” she eventually settles on, and Spencer sighs shakily. He wants to tell her it doesn’t help, he wants to scream that no matter how many sorrys he gets, it won’t bring Maeve back. But taking in Emily’s voice stops him. He remembers going through these exact motions two years ago, when he thought she was the one who was dead.

“I miss you,” he says finally, and his voice cracks.

“I miss you too,” she says, and her voice sounds wet with tears. “I wish I could be there for you right now.”

“This - is enough,” he chokes. “Thank you for calling.”

“Of course,” she says. “Of course.”

It is still dark in his apartment. The curtains are still drawn.

But maybe everything hurts just a tiny bit less.

#whumtober2023 #no.7 #“can you hear me?”#criminal minds #mentions of drugs tw #spencer reid #maeve donovan #emily prentiss #the bau

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susiequaz12 · 7 months

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Whumptober 7

No. 7: " “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”

Alleyway | Radio Silence | “Can you hear me?”

Day 7! Some aftermath of what happened in days 5 and 6. CW: vampire caretaker, nonbinary whumpee, talk of death, blood, mild gore, mostly just some angsty caretaking in this one.

- - -

Solomon pulled his cloak tighter around his body, double checking to make sure his gloves were secure, the shawl around his face as well. He would not take any risks. If he came back burned, it was sure to raise questions.

Sneaking out of the encampment wasn’t too difficult. The camp grew quiet as the sun came up and the vampires went dormant. The only ones still active were those keeping watch over the live humans, and those posted at a few of the exits. Sol was able to sneak out without much of a fuss.

It didn’t take long to find the pile that they had discarded. Solomon could smell it as soon as he had stepped outside. He followed the stench towards a small alleyway in between two of the larger tents. One was immediately recognized as housing the arena where this all began.

He was grateful for the covering over his face, for the thick black cloaks that wrapped around him as the sun peered over the treetops. It made it easier to mask his tears with the sweat that dripped from his forehead.

Lo was lying right there. Right on the top of the pile of bodies and remains, completely discarded like they never were alive to begin with. Like they didn’t even deserve to-

Solomon had to stop thinking.

If he thought too much his feelings would get the better of him, and that wouldn’t do anyone good. He needed to act.

First things first, get Lo’s body away from the rest of them, and somewhere safe. Even if they weren’t alive, Solomon was determined to give them a proper burial like the living, breathing, being they once were.

He carefully wrapped his arms underneath Lo’s torso, cradling their head in the nook of his arm. They were so light- a few of their limbs had been torn off, discarded or devoured, so even though the human was relatively small to begin with, they were practically light as a feather now.

Solomon pulled the body closer to his shoulder, wrapping an arm around their back, securing their hold on the human. He peered around the alleyway, careful to make sure no one was coming, squinting through the thick fabric of his mask.

The coast was clear, and so Solomon headed back to the camp, to the same entrance he had snuck out of.

It was a storage room, it appeared to be out of use, full of old, outdated weapons and records that the camp seemed to no longer need. It was so old that the lock on the front of the door had rusted to the point where Solomon could easily snap it in two.

He entered back through the tarp entrance, pulling the fabric closed behind him, pushing the crate back over to keep it from blowing open, trapping the sunlight out as well.

Solomon squinted as his eyes adjusted back to the dim lighting, before he approached an empty corner tucked away in the back of the room. It should be out of sight if anyone were to come through the door.

Holding Lo up with one arm wrapped around them, Sol quickly removed the shawl from his face, using the other to unfasten his cloak. He carefully maneuvered it out from underneath Lo and away from his shoulders, wrapping it quickly around Lo’s body.

He positioned himself in the corner, placing Lo gently on his lap with the cloak wrapped around them, only leaving their head and face exposed. He wanted just a moment. Just a moment with the human before he retrieved the shovel and chose their final resting place.

Solomon brushed a strand of hair away from their forehead, the dark curls framing their face, looking so peaceful-

Lo’s skin was warm.

Solomon stopped, his hand hovering above the human’s eyeline, before tearing off his glove with his teeth, pressing the back of his hand to their forehead.

Lo was warm.

Not just sunkissed from lying outside, the sun had barely come out.

But the kind of warmth that only came from a human. From blood flowing through veins, from that lifeforce.

It was then that Solomon felt his cloak begin to dampen as well.

He carefully pried away the cloak with shaking hands, glancing at Lo’s battered body.

There were faint scars across their torso from where wounds and teeth marks would have been. But down towards their hip, where their leg was torn from their body, Lo was slowly oozing blood, staining into the thick lining of his cloak.

That meant their heart was beating.

Lo was healing.

Solomon could’ve wept with joy. They wanted to shout- but could not blow their cover. Not with over a hundred bloodthirsty vampires sleeping in the encampment.

They pressed their fingers lightly to the side of Lo’s neck, trying to feel a pulse, and then checked again.

It was faint, but it was there. Lo’s heart was beating as Solomon gently felt against their chest, and then felt for breath, and then checked everything all over again just to be sure that Lo was actually alive.

Solomon didn’t realize that tears were coming down his face, until a drop landed softly on Lo’s cheek, and their face twitched.

Solomon took in a gasp, their hand resting gently on the side of Lo’s face, softly brushing away the matted and dirt caked hair.

“Lo- Marlowe, are you- are you with me?”

Their face twitched briefly once more, the muscles shifting in their cheeks, as if learning how to move their face again.

“Lo, can you hear me?”

The human’s eyes fluttered open, scanning briefly around the area, squinting slightly before landing on the Vampire’s face.

A sense of peace washed over the human as a shaky breath escaped from their lips. Lo’s mouth moved, as if trying to form words-

“Don’t- don’t try and speak, your throat it- it hasn’t quite healed yet.” Solomon kept their eyes away from Lo’s neck, the torn strands of flesh that were still trying to knit themselves back together. “Here, blink once for yes, twice for no. Can you, can you hear me?”

Lo’s eyes darted around again, trying to take in their surroundings, before they settled back on Solomon’s face. They blinked once.

“Good, that’s good. I’m, I’m sorry for what happened to you. That was cruel, and unnecessary of them. Are you- are you in any pain?”

Marlowe’s eyes went straight to the vampire, blinkling solidly- a resounding “yes.”

“Alright, that was probably a dumb question, calm down.”

Marlowe almost seem to roll their eyes before a rush of pain wracked through their body, Solomon instantly felt their muscles tense beneath his cloak, instinctively he gripped them just a little tighter. Lo closed their eyes as a soft moan escaped form their lips- no sound coming through, just a shaky wheeze of breath. Their eyes flittered back open, scanning across Solomon’s face once more, flittering down to his mouth- back up to his eyes.

Solomon sighed, clearly understanding what Lo was asking for.

“Venom?”

They blinked once.

Solomon nodded, feeling across the fangs in their mouth with their tongue.

“You can’t swallow, can you?”

Two blinks.

Solomon shook his head. Lo’s throat was still healing, the skin not quite closed over the open wound. He would have to enter it into their bloodstream.

“I’m going to have to bite you if you can’t swallow. Is that okay?”

One blink.

Solomon gently held Lo’s head, gripping them by the back of the neck, and lowered his face towards their shoulder. Instantly the scent of blood from their wounds seeped into his nostrils- his heart pounding.

As gently as he could, Solomon let his fangs enter into Lo’s shoulder, right above their collarbone. He pumped the venom through his fangs, into Lo’s bloodstream, feeling almost instantly as the human’s muscles relaxed, their body going limp in his arms.

Solomon pulled away, wiping the spit from his mouth, and saw Lo’s eyes gently closed. They looked peaceful.

Solomon carefully picked his next steps- he tore a strip from his cloak, wrapping it tightly around Lo’s bleeding wounds, repeating the step a few times until all the blood was soaked up. Hopefully it would stop the bleeding, and hide the scent of blood from anyone wandering by.

If anything were best to mask the scent of human blood, it was another vampire. The signals tended to get mixed, so Sol’s cloak would do a good job of that.

He laid Lo down gently in the corner, loopy and drugged off of the venom, but hopefully in less pain. At least until it worked its way through their system. Solomon would probably have to come back in a bit to give them a higher dose. He didn’t any screaming or crying to alert anyone else, so keeping them sedated was probably the best way to go.

He brushed another strand of hair away from Lo’s face before he stood up, rearranging the crates and bags to keep them hidden in the corner.

“You’ll be alright.” He whispered.

- - -

Tag List: @imagination1reality0 @whumpsday @thecyrulik @no-terms-and-conditions-apply @spectral-whumpy-writer @raddyscoops @whumptober-archive

#whumptober2023 #no.7 #“can you hear me?”#ocs #whump writing #vampire whumper #immortal whumpee #blood #nonbinary whumpee #marlowe the immortal

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