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waywardsalt · 21 days

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so. i've had an idea for a warrior cats fanfiction story, and have spent the last few years hammering out characters, the clans, how they work, the story... a whole lot of stuff. i've tried writing it before, and right now i don't have a current draft of early chapters, but I did recently write out a scene from much later in the story, and i'm pretty happy with it, soooo... here! a warrior cats fic scene i wrote in like an hour a week ago

By the time she led ShadeClan to the Gathering site, Emberstar felt her anxieties lessen. Her foreleg ached from the effort of the journey, but she kept her head high. Beside her, Acornfall glanced back at their clan, then nodded over to Emberstar. He led the clan down into the Gathering hollow, and Emberstar padded over to the slope up to the leader’s perch. PineClan and CliffClan cats were already quietly milling about in the hollow, and up on the overhang she could see Lakestar and Wolfstar waiting. There was no MoorClan scent among the gathered cats.

Emberstar made her way up the slope she’d seen Gorsestar and Froststar before her traverse. It was a thin path, slowly becoming steeper and steeper as she slunk closer to the overhang, finally reaching the steep, gravelly slope that led up to the leaders’ perch. Down at the base of the cliff, she could see Acornfall joining the other deputies with a polite nod of his head, and Troutfoot was carefully weaving her way through the crowd to meet with the other healers. Emberstar twitched her whiskers when Lakestar and Wolfstar noticed her. She crouched and tensed her back legs and leapt up the slope.

It wasn’t enough to reach the top, but she reached out with her forepaw and sunk her claws into the loose gravel and dug her back paws into the ground to keep from slithering back down. She slowly inched forward, moving a kittenstep at a time, but she kept her eyes fixed on the other leaders, more determined than ashamed of herself. Emberstar forced herself up the slope, but her heart skipped a beat when the gravel under her paw proved too loose to get a good enough grip- so close to the top, too. What a shame she had no other forepaw to lash out and find a grip with.

Emberstar felt herself begin to slide back down the slope, but a pair of jaws grasped her by the scruff and hoisted her up onto the overhang. She clawed at the grass and stumbled a step when let go and turned to meet Wolfstar’s amused gaze. “Careful there, three-paw,” the CliffClan leader gruffly purred. “It’s bad luck to fall at your first Gathering as leader.” She brushed past Emberstar to sit back down next to Lakestar.

With a huff, Emberstar followed her with a shake of her pelt. “I appreciate your help, but I would have been fine on my own. I suppose I owe you now?”

Wolfstar’s whiskers twitched. “Are you saying ShadeClan is now in CliffClan’s debt?”

The young leaders stared at each other, then broke out into amused purrs. Lakestar rolled her eyes and wrapped her tail around her paws. “So, you are ShadeClan’s leader now, Emberstar? Or is it still Emberblaze?”

�� “It is Emberstar now. I visited the Moon Cavern for my lives only a few sunrises ago.”

“May StarClan light your path as leader, then.” Lakestar stiffly dipped her head. Despite the brusque words, there was genuine respect in her pale eyes.

Wolfstar’s own eyes were still bright with humor. “You’ll be great, I know it. What happened to Froststar, then?”

Emberstar narrowed her eyes and turned her gaze to the gathered cats. “I’ll explain that once the Gathering begins. MoorClan is late tonight.” She surveyed the crowd of cats, peering straight down at the huddled healers. Sitting with her back to her PineClan clanmates, Flarelight was sitting close to Troutfrost. After a moment, she gazed up at the overhang, and her eyes met Emberstar’s. Her eyes grew wide and she stared at her littermate for a long moment until another healer got her attention. Then, as if she’d seen nothing, Flarelight flicked her tail and joined the conversation. Her twitching tail-tip was the only hint that she was distracted. Emberstar blinked. She’d become leader so recently that not even the other healers knew, much less the other clans’ warriors. In the crowd of CliffClan cats, she spotted Sunscorch, sitting with his fur brushing Moonwhisper’s, his eyes wide and his body stiff while he stared at his sister up on the overhang.

Poor Sunscorch, so softhearted under those honed claws and strong limbs- he was likely to take the news of Froststar’s death the hardest. Emberstar held his gaze, blinked slowly, and turned her head to the sky. The moon was nearly overhead, and still MoorClan was absent.

“You ought to start the Gathering now,” Wolfstar growled to Lakestar. “It’s newleaf, after all, and if MoorClan’s late then they’re late.”

“We should wait,” Emberstar sharply mewed. “This is my first Gathering as leader, so it would be disrespectful to me as well as MoorClan if we begin without them. It may anger StarClan as well,” she finished in a murmur, flicking her tail-tip up at the sky. Wolfstar just bushed out her stormy gray fur and huffed.

Lakestar gazed up at the sky. Emberstar looked over at her. For so long, as an apprentice, as a warrior, as the deputy, she’d never dared to be so close to the cold PineClan leader. But now, she was barely a tail-length from the sleek silver tabby, and they sat as equals in standing. Lakestar was likely at less than nine lives and Emberstar was without a right foreleg, but they were equals nonetheless.

She was knocked from her thoughts by Wolfstar headbutting her. The larger cat nearly shoved her off-balance. “Glad to see that we’re both finally up here. I was waiting to see when you’d catch up, three-paw.”

Emberstar licked Wolfstar’s ear. “You know I must take things slower than you.”

“Who’d you pick as deputy?” Wolfstar leaned over the edge to inspect the group of deputies. “Hm- Acornfall?”

“He’s a good warrior. Older than me by four seasons, so I trust his advice and his skill.”

“I thought you would have picked Lavenderflash. Or maybe Darknose, you two always seemed close.”

Emberstar gazed down at Lavenderflash, spotting the pure-black molly quickly- she was almost certain there was obvious fondness in her eyes as she looked at her former apprentice. “Lavenderflash is… young and still training her first apprentice. She is a good, loyal warrior, but not fit to be deputy or eventual leader in my mind. And Darknose…” The tom was sitting at the edge of the crowd, alone. “He is a possibility, but he still mourns his brother even all these moons later, so I don’t know if he would be the best choice.”

Wolfstar made a sniff of approval, then her gaze snapped to the far hill. A yowl rang out, and the three leaders pricked their ears and the cats in the hollow turned to see MoorClan finally arrive, led by Applestar. Emberstar sat stiffly until she spotted Glowflame in the crowd, side-by-side with Orangeclaw. He joined the cats in the hollow with his clan while Applestar broke off to climb up to the overhang, and he seemed to murmur something to Orangeclaw before she angled her ears up at Emberstar. Glowflame looked up and spotted her, and his jaw dropped open. Emberstar couldn’t help but let out a purr of affection for her brother as he gaped in amazement at her.

Applestar greeted the other leaders when he finally joined them, nodding briefly at Emberstar, and hurriedly sat down next to Lakestar, his mottled fur standing up along his spine. The leaders gave the cats in the hollow a few moments to settle down. In that time, Emberstar saw her littermates make their ways through the crowd towards each other. By the time Lakestar threw back her head and yowled to signify the beginning of the Gathering, Flarelight, Sunscorch, and Glowflame sat huddled together with their eyes trained on their sister. Emberstar met their gazes for just a heartbeat and felt the final icicles of her anxiety melt away.

She then turned her head to watch Lakestar as she began to announce her clan’s news for the moon, and reminded herself of what she had to announce when it was her turn. She was ShadeClan’s leader, now. StarClan had approved of her. Emberstar lifted her chin and, with a deep breath, finally settled into her place at the head of her clan.

#woe warrior cats fanfiction be upon ye #my writing #fanfiction #warrior cats #hmmm...#waywardsalt's warrior cats #yeahhhh #anyways a few things abt this related specifically to whats in here #emberstar and wolfstar are not in any kind of relationship theyre just longtime friends n rivals tho at some point wolfstar had a crush #emberstar is meant to be aro/ace and otherwise has no interest in taking a mate at all but she loves her clanmates #glowflame and orangeclaw are mates and sunscorch and moonwhisper are mates idk if flarelight will be in a relationship #the map for this fic (clan territories and camp layouts and moon cavern/gathering spot) is based on a minecraft world i have its v helpful #i have a full alliances list for the living cats at the very beginning of the story but it lacks cats outside the clan bc uhhhh i dont #think there are too many that are present that early and also loners arent usually a big thing its mostly cats passing through #emberstar is mostly dark ginger and black flarelight is mostly just dark ginger sunscorch is gold/yellow and glowflame is yellow and white #all four of them have ice blue eyes and black ear tips i am getting funky with cat designs i do not care. they have teh most unique designs #calling med cats healers bc of. reasons you may know why. and she cats are mollies bc like. why not #emberstar is a tripod cat she is missing a foreleg and she is the primary primary protag she is the most frequent pov #so i have thought a lot abt how she would need to be trained and assessed differently and what she cannot do and how she does warrior dutie #ember flare sun and glow all grew up together but separated into the different clans for Reasons ember stayed in shadeclan bc she was deput #it was also for those Reasons but dw abt it. sunscorch is gay glowflame is bi flarelight is a lesbian #gorsestar and froststar (the previous shadeclan leaders emberstar thinks of) were both mollies and were mates. frost mentored emberstar #its a little bit of nepotism but ember was frost's like. third deputy so its whatever. i picked acornfall as deputy as a placeholder #and bc i couldnt fucking remember anyone else except nobodies in shadeclan but now that i think about it he's actually a good choice #aaaand emberstar is my oldest warrior cats rp character shes been with me a long time- second oldest is sunscorch #emberstar began as emberheart and sunscorch was an edgy murder rogue named sun i roleplayed them in a specific mc server

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autistic-katara · 1 month

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writing would fix me

#i just need to figure out how to do that #i have ideas but idk how to make them actually into fics #and one of them is one of those “how would they act in this situation” things except it did happen in canon just off screen #(nico coming out to hazel)#bcz idk normally i’d just look for fics of that happening but i’ve read fics and they feel so ooc #like u gotta find the right balance between “nice person who cares abt her brother and wouldn’t discriminate”#and “someone who went to catholic school in the 30s and 40s”#bcz i love hazel and she’d never call him a slur and say he’s going to hell or smthn #but like internal biases are a real thing and chances are he’s the first openly gay person she’s talked to #so like i gotta figure out how she’d react #and then i gotta consider what circumstance this is happening #like is this an “i wanna tell my sister i have a boyfriend” thing or just an “i wanna tell my sister im gay” or even the more angsty #“my sister said some shit and i accidentally blurted that im gay” or smthn like that #and yk how long am i gonna make it who else is gonna be in it god this is so complicated #writing #pjo #ryan shut the fuck up

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mariatesstruther · 4 months

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okay hear me out modern au where Tommy and Maria first meet in a club in their 20s and they bump into each other while dancing and just start dancing together and they just hit it off but in the end they both forget to give each other their numbers so both of them go back to the same club the next week to hopefully meet each other again (also Tess and Maria definitely go clubbing together because I love them as best friends)

cowboy!!!! yes yes YES i LOVE this. and u could extend this meet-cute into like a whole thing where tommy and maria keep trying to meet at the club and exchange information, but something gets in the way everytime!!!! kid emergency!!! bar fight!!! cocaine bear on the loose!!! zombie apocalypse—who knows????

im thinking the first time, tess drags maria to a bar she likes because she’s been trying to get the attention of this hot dilfy guy at the bar, but he’s always tailing along with his friend. by tess’s design, maria and tommy meet and and hit it off and dance (to maria maria by santana) the night away. they fall in love and decide they want to go home together, so maria goes to the bathroom—but joel randomly comes up and is like “tommy, hey sorry selena’s mom called, sarah had a nightmare and she wants us both to pick her up, we gotta go” and in true miller dad-uncle panic they BOLT. by the time maria comes back, tess is like “idk dude, mine got a call so they had to go. seemed like an emergency. bummer” and they assume thats that

on the flip side: everythings okay with sarah, but after tommy and joel tuck her in tommy’s suddenly just like “fuck—fuck!!!!!” and joels like “what? what???” and he’s like “i didn’t get her number :(:(:(:( fuck” and so joel’s like “it’s okay, i see her friend there all the time” and so tommy’s like “omg :D do you have her friends number?” “well… no” “joel… what the fuck man.” so they make a plan to go back next week with the hopes of at least seeing tess and getting maria’s number from there—tommy also wants to get tess’s number for joel, but he doesn’t need to know that

little do THEY know, tess and maria are already plotting for next weekend. they show up to that bar looking fine as FUCK—they quite literally turn heads walking through the door. of course the miller brothers are there, sitting in a booth all the way in the back and waiting, making eyes. tess and maria are not shy, so they start making their way over. unfortunately, some drunk asshole decides to try to get handsy with tess on her way there—which results in her punching him in the face, which results in him trying to punch her in the face. she dodges, of course, but it starts a full-on bar brawl that the miller boys jump into without hesitation (joel manages to tackle and land a few good ones on og drunk asshole too so. slay.). none of them get arrested or anything, but they definitely don’t get eachother numbers on account of joel and tommy having to duck the cops

so i guess they gotta keep trying ;)

#missed connections au #honestly idk how i would even end this i think its so fun to imagine scenarios where some shit goes down and the bar has to scatter 😭#tess calling joel her miller >#idk how joel turned into a shy type in this au but he did and i think itd be so cute #shameless flirt tess and shy nerdy dad joel who’s majorly oblivious?????? cmon #and then stuffy upcoming lawyer type maria who wants to be partner before shes 30 #meeting veteran tommy who spends his days taking care of his niece working with his brother and being a good mf man #he just wants to watch her be great and talk about her achievements and explain stuff to him #hes very complimentary to her yet insecure and one of these meetups she finds out hes a literal human calculator #like is crazy good at multiplication. she just spends all night giving him rando equations and checking them with her calculator #they are just sexy geniuses i love them #his ultimate goal is to take her on a proper date and maybe cook for her #it takes maybe 5 bar meetups for that to happen #one time is just gonna be them sitting and talking for so long that they just forget about numbers bc it feels like they have them already #i dont imagine maria having a son in this au tbh #this could def be a whole fic lmfao #tysm for this cowboy what a treat #sorry it took me long i wanted to edit typos!!!!#asked and answered #tlou #tlou au #the tipsy bison #tommy x maria #tess x joel

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svtskneecaps · 24 days

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literally it's 3am where i live and i'm on mobile but FUCK IT i haven't posted any actual writing in like a YEAR on this blog whose description include the words "I WRITE" and i can't tell if i'm even going anywhere with this so fuck it under the cut is the prospective absolute mess of the first chapter of the flipo family time loop fic. (for clarity, flipo family as in slime, mariana, and juanaflippa) this covers loop 0, aka the relevant parts of canon. words: 1630

parts of it i popped off with and other parts i hate; up to you to identify them. also the italics and other formatting got erased when i copy pasted and i'm re-adding all of it by hand so if i missed a spot, no i didn't. if i missed an accent on a letter in spanish that was a typo, if i missed a ¡ or ¿ that may have been on purpose.

oh and for obvious reasons, content warning for mentions and mild descriptions of child death and child murder. no blood, and most of it is a three word mention; i'd say the brief paragraph beginning "Tilín didn't scream" is most of the reason this warning exists.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

He’d been hoping for a bright, sunny day to start their vacation, but was sorely disappointed. The portal had apparently taken them pretty far, since they’d gone from noon to night time. Talk about jetlag. They hadn’t even been on a plane.

“What happened to the other guys?” he wondered aloud as he stepped onto the platform.

“Yeah no clue,” Phil said, scanning the empty station. “Thought they’d meet us here.”

“Guys!” one of the Spanish speakers--Vegetta, he’d said, when they’d all met up at the first station--called, from a lectern at the wall. “There is a book!”

They crowded around as he read the instructions aloud--something about pressure plates, Slime wasn’t paying that close of attention. He was a little more preoccupied with making sure it only felt like his brain was dripping out of his ears. That would be kind of embarrassing.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t enjoying the constant onslaught of people talking over each other using words he may or may not understand. In fact, it was the opposite; he was frankly thriving in the absolute chaos that kicked back up around him as a timer appeared in the wrist communicators they’d been provided along with their tickets.

“Como se dice ‘we are going to die now’?” He giggled, chasing Phil and Fit to one end of the station.

“¡Vamos a morir!” shouted Spiderman, echoed seconds later by the black bear in the collared shirt.

Giddy over the high of attempting to use his high school foreign language for the first time maybe ever, Slime absolutely didn’t contribute much to solving the puzzle, and before long the sound of the timer ticking down was accompanied by a loud buzzing alarm.

“It’s been an honor!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “It’s been an honor!”

The bear ran past them again, shouting, “I’m going to die!” in English this time.

“Adiós amigos!” Slime yelled.

The countdown ended.

And then his communicator buzzed, and there was a video playing on the screen, showing a cartoonish yellow duck in front of a blurry beach stock photo. He skimmed it absently--some generic welcoming message and another side quest for them--distracted by Maximus audibly losing his shit laughing across the station.

“Come on, I’m trying to take a vacation, I gotta work now?” Fit complained. “This is ridiculous.”

Slime wanted to jump on that bit, but the message cut off with coordinates marred by static and the noise of the emergency weather alert system and he lost his train of thought completely.

“I got the English book!” Spreen called, holding it with two fingers like it had personally offended him.

“English leader,” Vegetta said, seeming to find that amusing.

“English leader.” Spreen laughed and flicked the book away. Slime stepped back but somehow it still nailed him in the chest.

“Guess I’m reading then,” he said cheerfully.

“In Spanish?” Maximus said.

“Um.”

Vegetta called something, backing across the plaza with the book open in his hands. Phil backed up to the wall.

“Here,” Phil instructed, “we’ll read it here.”

“Okay okay.” He flicked it open. “So we have to get water wheel planks--”

Their peace lasted a grand total of thirty seconds as voices suddenly began shouting, overlapping in chaotic chorus.

“What is that?” Fit demanded.

“Is that coming from the other side?” Phil stared up at the top of the wall.

“This is the thinnest thick wall I’ve ever seen,” Slime said, giddy laughter bubbling out of him again. “Is this thing made out of pencil shavings? If I sneeze on it, is there gonna be a hole?”

“Nevermind, we’ll read it over here.” Phil dragged them away again, but the Spanish speakers were dispersing into the trees.

“Forget the book,” Fit said, “follow them!”

(In the end it was explosives that took the wall down, which in hindsight was a precursor to how a not insignificant portion of time on the island was spent. The first day, however, it was just funny, much like everything else.)

(That was to say, the first first day.)

The communicator had indicated that today there was something special planned, so he made an extra effort to wake up.

“Morning Jaiden!” he called to his upstairs neighbor.

“Hi Charlie!” He could hear her farming through the wall. “Glad you woke up on time!”

“Well you know, you know, El Backflipo couldn’t miss it,” he joked, sifting through his backpack. “Got any spare food? I’ll trade you uno backflipo.”

“I have so much toast, come here and get some, free of charge.”

With a quick backflip and some toast to start the day, he popped open the map.

“There’s a lot of people down the wall,” he noted, their green dots so clustered they formed one. “Wanna check it out?”

“Yeah sure.” Jaiden tossed some seeds into a chest. “Do you know what this event’s gonna be?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted cheerfully.

She laughed. “Yeah, me neither. I guess there’s an egg involved, but that’s all I know.”

He dug around in his backpack for a paraglider, nodding along. “Yeah, yeah, un huevo, I get you.” Shuffling the landmine from Vegetta to one side, he yanked out his glider and threw himself out her window. “Let’s go!”

(nothing like getting struck by lightning to wake a guy up in the morning)

Slime fiddled with the communicator as he waited for the line of people to get through the ticket machine; he already had his own, a nice B for Backflipo. The new live translations still boggled his mind. He had to fight the urge to chant weird shit under his breath, just to see what the bubbles would say.

He paid a little extra attention when Mariana walked up to the machine. That guy seemed cool. They’d done that pequeño dormir together on day one, and he had a good sense of humor. Egg parenting would probably be funny.

He was thrilled to see the B for Backflipo on the ticket Mariana stepped away with, even if Mariana was decidedly less so. This was gonna be good.

(it was, and it wasn’t)

So, Mariana wasn’t exactly the coparent of dreams. Then again, Slime was pretty sure Mariana could say the same about him. In fact he was pretty sure Mariana had said the same, but in Spanish, when he wasn’t checking the translation.

It was great. They thought they’d killed a child immediately and then decided to fake their own child’s death to get away with it, and then confessed their sins to a bilingual angel and built a farm and then he buried himself beneath an improvised cross and went into a coma until his sins were forgiven, or something, except his sins weren’t forgiven in time to save his own child’s life.

And then Juanaflippa was dead. Dead at Mariana’s hand.

His bitch wife killed their daughter.

(Everything went faster, after that.)

Slime wanted to kill him.

Slime wanted to kill him for killing their fucking daughter, but of course, Mariana couldn’t even be bothered to be around to take care of her alive, never mind to pay for his crimes when she died by his hand!

(in a better world, his rage started and ended there. in a better world, the anger fizzled out with the lack of a target.

this was not that world)

There couldn’t be an Egg Event with no eggs.

If he killed them all, it would bring her back.

(in a worse world, he succeeded. in a worse world, the Egg Event ended there.

this was not that world)

They held a trial.

If he won, it would bring her back.

(in another world, he didn’t convince them. in another world, they left his daughter in Hell.

this was not that world)

Tilín was still before she hit the ground.

Tilín didn’t scream. Maybe they didn’t have time. It happened so fast. He was sure it happened fast. Almost too fast. But everything went so fast, now, even though Flippa was back. Yet, time slowed down for this, like a rubberneck driving past a highway accident, watching him desperately trying to shock their heart back into motion.

“YOU KILL MY BEST FRIENDS,” Flippa wrote. He begged her to understand. She wrote, “i can’t believe it.”

She wrote, “I HATE YOU.”

(in a better world, the error would have been caught in April instead of July.

this was not that world)

His daughter fell to his bitch wife’s sword. The same way. The next day.

They’d only just gotten her back. And Mariana killed her again.

He only left eggxile for the funeral. She wouldn’t stay dead, but he had to be there.

Time went even faster after that. He was Gegg, or maybe Gegg was him, or maybe Gegg was Gegg, or maybe. . . ?

He went back to eggxile.

He wasn’t leaving without them. Tilín. Juanaflippa. He would do whatever was necessary. He would pray to any higher power. Lil J still owed him a goddamn favor, but the guy wouldn’t pick up his calls. Maybe if he put more shit in the shrine; angels liked shiny shit, didn’t they? He went back to the mine, where the gasses swirled in his head. He built the shrine. He mined. He built the shrine.

He went back to the mine.

“This is where I sit, this is where my bitch wife sits, and this is where my daughter sits, if I had one!”

He’d said that before. No he hadn’t. Yes he had.

No, he just needed to clear his head.

Charlie Slimecicle went back to the mine.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

#qsmp #qsmp fanfiction #qsmp slimecicle #qsmp juanaflippa #won't tag his partner since he didn't get to star much in this part #this idea is at its core a flipo FAMILY fic though it starts out with slime #just. the problem is getting to that point. bc beyond these words i have like 500 more lmao #for anyone curious for directors commentary in the tags:#pequeño dormir' is on purpose; i figured that would be a mistake slime would make at day 14 on the island #i also omitted the ¿ and ¡ from slime's spanish dialogue for the same reason; it's as close to an actual accent as i can get in text #(accent as in accented speech not accented letter; speaking spanish with an american accent)#slime's quote at the end about where people sit is taken verbatim from one of his streams #at time of posting it is available on his vods channel titled 'we won the war. (qsmp)'#a lot of the day 1 dialogue and flippa's dialogue from tilín's death is also verbatim #oh and the sequence from the 'we won the war' vod carries a lot of weight in the idea (wasn't the spark but it filled some gaps)#for me the cave gases are what drives every loop; time rolls back whenever slime inhales too much gas and 'forgets'#i don't have exact mechanics about it but suffice it to say if ANYONE were to spend too much time in this random ass cave #they would also loop back in time; slime's just the one who in this timeline Happened to discover it #shut up vic #block game brainrot #yea idk i just liked some of the dialogue tbh i think this gets super messy after they get flippa and then brings it back around at the mine #it's got some messy pacing in that middle bit but the foundation of a time loop story is its loop 0 #that's what every loop after it has to call back to; that's the beauty of a time loop story #how is this different from loop 0; how is it the same #we've come so far only to get nowhere at all yknow #i'm a fan of stories rhyming but ESPECIALLY time loops so this is the setup for a lot of that #dude i gotta send this i've been sitting on parts of this draft for a year #may someone besides me read these words 🙏 thank you and goodnight #if people say nice things maybe i'll finally wring more words out of my brain. idk.#long tags

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jaeyunverse · 1 year

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only 6 more days for 12th grade to officially finish and my exams to be over. perhaps jaeyunverse comeback with a long fic ????? 😳

#first order of business will be to finish that damn jeno fic #then i will work on one of the valentine’s event fics who’s masterlist i posted Last Year 💀#i will prob make a poll for that bc idk which one to write 😭 i have 4k for the heeseung one but i’m STUCK #i have 4k for the halloween special fic i started in 2021 ummmmm maybe i’ll buckle down on it too #THE ALICE IN BORDERLAND AU???? i have the entire plot but it is going to be So Long i just know it.#i hope i can finish my current wips before any other long fic ideas come to me 😭#i have to finish the stupid headcanon series too what was i thinking when i started it #IM TERRIBLE AT HEADCANONS #fffff i only have a few weeks of peace after boards 😭 i have to start grinding for my other exam in june once april starts #i hope i can be more active on this account and actually get some writing done bc ngl i have sm plans for the small vacation i’m getting #but i wanna be delusional too 🫡#also i have so many unfinished projects here sometimes i feel like abandoning this account completely #and this place is lowkey dead in terms of activity ngl 💀 i will have try to revive it #but then i remember that i put effort into building this blog so seeing it go to waste would be sad #plus i Really do not want to repost my fics for a third time ppl will call me crazy

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hailsatanacab · 2 years

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Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Danny Phantom, Batman - All Media Types Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Danny Fenton & Damian Wayne, Batfamily Members & Danny Fenton Characters: Danny Fenton, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth Additional Tags: Good Sibling Damian Wayne, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Danny Fenton and Damian Wayne are Twins, Danny Fenton Needs A Hug, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not Phantom Planet Compliant (Danny Phantom), Bad Parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, Gun Violence, Blood and Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Mugging, Medical Torture Summary:

“If you ever find yourself in danger, go to Bruce Wayne. He will help you.”

His mother had loved him, in her own way. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have helped him escape. If she hadn’t, she would have dragged him back to the League of Assassins, to Grandfather. If she hadn’t, he’d be dead.

She loved him, but she loved the League more.

Jack and Maddie Fenton loved him too, they did, but they loved their work more.

They loved their work more.

After his parents react poorly to his reveal, Danny escapes to the only person he thinks can help him - Bruce Wayne. He doesn't know what to expect when he gets there, but it has to be better than where he is, surely? He certainly doesn't expect to be reunited with his long lost twin brother Damian. It's funny how things work out that way.

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Chapter 2!! Chapter 2!! Chapter 2!!

110 notes · View notes

thetomorrowshow · 2 years

Text

the best you can hope for

It's been a while, I know.

But it's time for a trust au update.

At this link, you can find the masterlist for the entire series! It's also on ao3 under the same name.

Reminder that this fic features sausage, fwhip, and joey as villains--and an extra warning, they do some pretty nasty things this chapter. pay special attention to the content warnings.

and just for fun, in the rb i'll link the spotify playlist i've made for the au! i'm always open to song suggestions :)

cw: kidnapping, violence, torture, sleep deprivation, non-consensual drugging, vomit, hallucinations, blood, unreliable narrator, insects, paranoia

When Scott wakes, fighting the thick fog of sleep, his head hurts something terrible.

He reluctantly wrenches his eyes open, blinks around at his surroundings. He can’t see a thing.

This. . . .

This is not his bedroom.

His bedroom is usually significantly lighter than this when he wakes up.

He hasn’t the faintest idea of where he is.

The last place he remembers being at was . . . right, the royal wedding. But the suite he’s been staying in also has windows that shine directly on his bed. Nothing about this place now lines up with where he should be.

Then Scott shifts, lifts his pounding head from where his cheek is pressed up against stone, and realizes he’s on a cold floor in a damp-smelling room with no bed.

Now how on Aeor’s green earth has he ended up here?

He takes stock of himself. He’s wearing a suit—the new suit he’d worn to the wedding, but judging by the tears he can feel in the fabric it’ll have to be retired. Other than his aching head (which, judging by the tacky dried stuff he can feel in his hair has sustained some sort of injury), he doesn’t seem to be harmed more than a few bumps and bruises.

He eases himself into a sitting position, stretches out his legs, squints around. Elves have decent night vision, and now that his eyes are working better, he starts to take in the room.

It’s a cell. Plain and simple. Stone all around, low roof, bars on one side. Beyond the bars is a dark room with normal basement stuff, so he’s presumably underground. Otherwise, he’s got barely more information than he did before. He can’t even tell what empire this might be.

There’s no noise—there’s very little noise, he amends. There’s a dripping sound coming from somewhere in his cell. Very aesthetic, nice and dungeon-y.

Right, fWhip had smashed a potion over his head, he suddenly remembers. After . . . after threatening Jimmy.

There was . . . it was a meeting on the docks. Scott had gone out to it, met Sausage and Joey, and fWhip had come up behind. . . .

Well. That would explain his rather grim surroundings.

There’s no one else in the area, which hopefully means that the three rulers have remained true to their promise, but Scott knows better than to assume he’s in the only cell in the only dungeon.

He doesn’t call out. Nothing for it but letting his captors know he’s awake before he’s fully prepared to meet with them. Not to mention, calling out for help is below him.

(Being in a cell is below him.)

Scott sighs, rolls onto his hands and knees and pushes himself to his feet. His head still hurts, but now that he knows the injury isn’t serious it’s easier to ignore it. Most of the pain comes from the residual potion effects, which should fade within a couple of hours, if not less.

It’s been a long time since he was drugged, but he’s had sleeping potions while in the infirmary before and they never fail to leave him with the worst headache of his life when he wakes up. If this was a sleeping potion (administered, perhaps, in a different way than he’s accustomed to, but a sleeping potion all the same), he should recover soon.

He paces the length of the cell a couple of times before stretching out his entire body (his wings are a bit too big to properly stretch, but he does his best) then sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. If he’s going to be here for a while, he might as well preen.

He stretches his left wing around himself, starts picking between the feathers for dirt and realigning those that have been bent out of place since his kidnapping. Can it be called kidnapping if he technically agreed to it? Did he agree to it? All he agreed to do was come out to the docks to meet with Graceffa.

They won’t hurt him, will they?

Scott’s not sure where the thought comes from, but he’s a little bit nervous now that he’s thought it. He’s always held the upper hand when it came to these three, but rarely all at once, and usually when he has the promise of his entire empire behind him. He’s alone here, trapped in a dungeon—

He digs in his front pocket for a moment, then all of them. No communicator. Nothing, actually, nothing but a pebble Jimmy had pulled out of his pocket at one of the wedding events and Scott had slipped into his own when nobody was looking. He rubs his thumb along it for a moment, then returns to preening his feathers.

It’s not a long task—he’d cleaned them just before the wedding ceremony, so he doesn’t have much to show for this, but there’s still a handful of feathers and dirt and even two or three leaves. By the time he finishes, the headache has faded into a dull pulsing and he’s beginning to get bored. This is certainly the most undignified position he’s been in for the past decade, but he might as well sleep.

He’s only just laid down when there’s a clanking sound from beyond his cell, and then light flickers into view.

Scott stands again, leans casually against the wall while he watches through the bars. He blinks several times as he adjusts to the approaching light, until suddenly the entire room is lighting up and he has to raise a hand to cover his eyes.

“Awake, are we?”

It’s Joey, a clear smile in his voice, and Scott bites back a sigh, peeking through his fingers. Sausage is there as well, using a torch to light the bracketed fixtures lining the rest of the room.

“Now, Major—”

“I do believe that I agreed to a conversation on the docks,” Scott interrupts. “Not whatever this is.”

“Now, Major,” Joey repeats, leaning tantalizingly on the bars of his cell. “I’m sure you know my boyfriend, Xorny?”

“I’m familiar,” Scott says, dread washing over him. So this has to do with the demon. This can’t be good. “What do you want from me?”

“Oh, nothing bad!” Sausage has joined the conversation, wiggling his fingers in between the bars. “We’ll let you go, just as soon as you tell us where the End Portal is!”

That’s one thing Scott knows he can’t do. He hasn’t done much research on where the demon might be from, but he knows it’s got some connection with the End. Giving Sausage and Jimmy that link could be disastrous.

“No can do,” he tells them, straightening a bit. Joey huffs; Sausage only grins.

“C’mon Smajor, it’s just a couple of coordinates! We know you know them, so save yourself a lot of trouble and hand ‘em over!”

Scott doesn’t respond to that. He can’t give up the location of the portal. He’s been tortured before, he can survive whatever they choose to do to him.

For a moment it looks like a beating, Joey slamming on the bars suddenly enough that Scott jolts back. Sausage drags him away, whispering something in his ear. After a moment, they both turn to Scott, slow smiles spreading across their faces.

“Have fun in here, Scott,” Joey snickers, backing away. Sausage follows him, chortling. “You’ll be begging to give up that location soon enough.”

Then they’re gone, leaving the torches flickering in the dungeon.

Scott blinks. He feels like that should have been a longer conversation. He feels like they ought to have threatened him more, or hurt him in some way.

Then again, he is an emperor. Rivendell’s armies are well-trained and strong. Maybe they don’t want him to rain down retribution when he’s returned.

He snorts. If that’s their goal, it’s in vain. He can handle a little waiting until his advisors realize he’s gone, and when he gets back there’ll be nothing keeping Mythland or the Lost Empire safe. Or the Grimlands, to be fair.

Scott settles in for a long wait, his wings tucked around him, and after hours of running over all of his interactions with Jimmy this week (he needs to stop doing that, he can’t be in love with him, he has to move on), he begins to fall asleep.

He’s rudely interrupted what feels like moments after falling asleep by a guard banging on the bars of the cell. Scott blinks open his eyes to glare at him, curls up a bit tighter.

“Get up!” the guard shouts, smacking a halberd against the bars. The sound reverberates around the cell and in Scott’s ears, and he groans before sitting up. The guard raises the halberd threateningly and Scott stumbles to his feet, rolling his shoulders out.

“I’m up, jeez,” he mumbles, arms crossed over his chest. So they will be torturing him, will they? Maybe he can slip out of the cell while it’s open, then fly home and declare war. Screw the House Blossom Alliance, he’s held back long enough.

But the guard doesn’t unlock the cell. They just glare at Scott, then step away.

What?

After a couple of minutes, he slowly slides to the floor. Nothing. What on earth was the goal with that? He’s on edge for a good hour, waiting for Sausage or Joey to enter the room, taunt him in some way, but there’s nothing.

His head still feels jostled by the loud noise of the halberd, but he lays back down on the floor, head on his arms, and drifts off.

Once again, he’s woken immediately by the halberd against the bars. He scrambles up to sit against the wall, breathing heavily. The guard squints at him, sidles away.

The third time he falls asleep, he’s woken before he even gets past the dozing stage. Dread settles in as he realizes exactly what’s happening.

They’re not going to let him sleep.

Scott’s good at staying awake. He can skip a night or two in order to work on a project, or worry about Jimmy. It's not a big deal.

Hopefully he’s freed within a couple of days.

He’s tired, but not tired enough that he’ll doze off while standing, so Scott stands. He stands, pacing here and there, tapping his feet. At some point he starts singing, sings all the elven folk songs and nursery rhymes he can think of before repeating them. The guard yells at him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop until his voice cracks and his throat is raw. Hours, he thinks. Hours of singing.

When he can’t stand any longer, he kneels. He kneels and thinks, plans out an amendment to a marriage law that he’s been wanting to adjust for a while. He’s not sure when his thoughts slip away, not sure when his head dips to his chest.

All he knows is that suddenly there’s loud banging on his cell and he jerks awake, blinking rapidly. It hasn’t even been that long. He’s not sure how long it’s been, but it hasn’t been long.

He moves every couple of minutes, forcing himself to his aching feet, stretching out his wings, contorting himself into odd angles. The next time his head falls the person to bang on his cell is someone new, a guard with a beard and a stern face. It seems as though the next time he blinks it’s another guard, this one with hair that trails down to their knees.

He glares down at the floor. He’s stayed awake for longer than this before. What’s wrong with him?

But when he’s stayed awake in the past, he’s had books and fresh air and things to do. Now he’s in an empty cell that smells of mold with nothing but a rounded pebble to occupy himself with.

And it’s not like he came into this fresh. He’s been losing sleep for weeks, even more this past week what with the wedding. Scott’s been running himself into the ground for a while now, and in a cell with zero entertainment, he’s going to fall asleep.

He reaches a point where he can’t stop falling asleep. He begins to jerk himself awake before the guard can bang on the bars, the guard who is now permanently standing before him, halberd ready and waiting. He’s ready to cry when the routine changes and Sausage brings him food, a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water, and he thinks his throat might be bleeding from how dry it is so he takes the water eagerly and drinks it all in one breath.

He hadn’t noticed the hunger over the exhaustion, but now that there’s food in front of him he can’t help but feel his stomach twisting in on itself. He reaches for it with trembling hands, glares when Sausage laughs at him.

“Aw, wittle Scott want his porridge?” Sausage mocks, and it’s all Scott can do to not throw the oatmeal back at him. He needs this. Food will help wake him up. He needs to swallow his pride for a moment and just eat.

He manages to eat slowly, his grip on the spoon tight and white-knuckled. He’s not going to give Sausage the satisfaction of seeing him eat like a desperate man.

Sausage doesn’t stop grinning, though, takes the bowl and glass when Scott’s done, carries them away with a “Toodles!” thrown over his shoulder.

Scott clenches his fists, stares into the flame of a torch on the other side of the bars. Maybe he can count how long he’s been awake by mealtimes. That was something to eat, and breakfast-y, so maybe he’s been here for . . . how long did he sleep after first arriving? How long was he unconscious in this cell?

He was abducted close to midnight, probably. If he slept until morning . . . has he been awake an entire day and night? Did he sleep until midday? Was he out until nighttime, and he’s only been awake a couple of hours?

A rooster crows from somewhere, somewhere nearby, and Scott jerks from where he’s swaying to stare off in that direction. Dawn? Why was Sausage even awake before dawn, let alone bringing him food personally?

It crows again, closer. Scott rubs his eyes, stands on wobbly legs. The water and food has helped to replenish his energy a little bit, but he really just needs to sleep. He glances around past the bars of his cell, at the three guards—two of which are twins—and their weapons, at the various chests and torches and other basement stuff.

The rooster crows a third time, close enough that he should see it in the room, but there’s nothing there.

Then he’s waking up.

He’s in a bed in the infirmary of Rivendell, and he barely has a moment to take in the pale blue of the room before he’s pitching over the side of the bed to vomit.

His stomach hurts, burns, tears at itself until he’s crying, close to screaming. He bites his lip to keep it down, even as several elves hurry over to him, help him sit up.

“My lord, you’re all right,” one elf says, trying to wipe his mouth with a towel. “Bad case of food poisoning. You’ll be fine, your fever just broke.”

“Hurts,” Scott whimpers, before clamping his mouth shut to silence another scream. The elf wiping his mouth looks closer at him, frowns, snaps xyr fingers.

“Health potion,” xe says, holding out xyr hand. “My prince, your stomach is still trying to expel whatever was spoiled in your food. A health potion should help resolve that.”

Scott gags, but opens his mouth to let xem pour it down his throat. He nearly vomits it back up, hands shaking.

He’s about to ask after his family, but his father and brother are let into the room once the vomit is cleaned up. He can see in his brother’s eyes how scared they had been. It must have been touch-and-go for a while.

His brother steps closer to the bed, takes Scott’s hand. “It’s so good to see you awake,” he says, genuine and not at all like his brother.

Scott blinks at him, confused, and finds himself on his side, staring out of a cell.

The cell.

He sits up, rubbing away the chills on his arms. His senses are going haywire—where’s the infirmary? His father is dead, why was his father here? Where did his stomach pain vanish to so suddenly?

So many questions for an answer he has.

Maybe it’s just because the memory is so close to the forefront of his mind, but Scott knows instantly what happened.

He’s been drugged.

Something in the food—or the water—or—something is acting as a hallucinogen, bringing up old memories and twisting them because that isn’t how that had gone, nobody had visited him and when he’d finally gotten out of the infirmary and had been moved to his bedroom, when his family had come by his brother had sulked in the corner and not spoken to him at all.

He blinks when there are flowers sprouting from between the bricks of the dungeon, but he knows it’s not real. It can’t be real. A rooster crows and his head whips up (when had it fallen?) only to see nothing.

“It’s not real,” he mutters, then louder, “it’s not real!”

“Shut up,” someone says, and it echoes around the cell, whispering in his ears. Scott twitches his head, bends forward to escape the sound. It follows, staying in his ears as it fades.

Then it’s silent. Suddenly, utterly silent. Not even the pitch dripping from the torches is making sound. Scott rubs his ears. Nothing.

Where’d the sound go? Did the guards take the sound? Why can’t he hear anything?

He grabs at his ears again, just to make sure they’re there. He went from too much noise to nothing at all and his mind just can’t handle it.

Maybe the sound is hiding. Maybe he has to find it.

Scott crawls around the cell, ignoring the bugs skittering up the walls because they aren’t real, he’s hallucinating them, searching for where the sound might be. It’s not in the corners, it’s not anywhere above him, the sound is gone, maybe he needs to scare it out of hiding—

Scott shouts, short and quick, and the shout breaks through and comes out with noise. It all hits him at once, the pitch hitting the floor with a ground-shaking boom, the bugs creeping and crawling with rattles in their bodies, the guards whispering loud enough to be screams—

“Yeah, they’re making him hallucinate . . . just a little potion in the food . . . should wear off within a couple of hours, but he might be fun to mess with. . . .”

He groans, tries to cover his ears but the sound of his skin is too loud and he cries out, ducking his head away, shoving further and further into a corner but the noise keeps following until his head slams into the wall—and again—and again—

It doesn’t cure the sound, it doesn’t help anything, and it’s all Scott can do to not gouge his eyes out. He misses the silence, wants it to just be quiet again.

It’s the drugs, he knows it’s the drugs, but knowing it’s the drugs making him act irrationally does not mean that he’s not experiencing this. It’s sensory hell, and Scott’s not sure if his eyes are bleeding or if he’s crying but he wouldn’t be surprised about either.

There’s shadows standing in front of him, staring him down, and Scott grits his teeth and looks away. It’s not actually shadows. Right? It’s nothing.

The shadows grab him by his arms, though, drag him forward. One of them laughs, spits out “Sorry, your majesty,” and clamps something around his wrist.

It’s on his other wrist, too, then both arms are pulled up and held there. He shudders, tugs. His arms are restrained.

“Let me go,” he demands, pulling at them. He’s still in the cell, right? His surroundings are misty and unclear, the shadows fading into the background and leaving him alone. There’s still laughter, though, still laughter all around him.

His brother steps out of the mist, concern written all over his face. “Scott,” he says, kneeling down before him. “You look ill. Are you ill?”

“I’m—I’m not—” he shakes his head, sweat dripping down his temples, “you’re not here. You’re not real.”

His brother’s frown curves upward, and Scott stares as his lips pull back to reveal far too many teeth. “Aren’t I, brother?” he says, and Scott knows that echoing voice and it does not belong to his brother.

Does it?

“You’re not real,” Scott says again, and this time his head feels a little clearer. There were drugs in the food, or maybe the water. Everything is a hallucination. The only things real are the cell and the guards and the cell. And the guards. And the cell. “I’m real,” he remembers.

“Oh, good job, Smajor!”

He jerks his head up, eyes darting around. There’s someone here. He can’t see anyone. Even Xornoth is gone. “Not real,” he mutters, ducking his head. “Not real, not real, not real. I’m real. Stay away from me, you’re not real.”

“He’s really out of it, isn’t he? I wonder what he’s seeing. . . .”

“The guards told me he was hitting his head against the wall earlier!”

“That was an accident,” Scott grits out, pulling on whatever is keeping his hands above his head. “I was trying to make the sound stop again.”

Silence except for everything. The creaking of leather boots near-deafens Scott and he tries in vain to cover his ears.

“Smajor, look at me,” the first voice says, sounding as if it comes from all around. Scott checks the entire room—the room that’s just become clear as the cell he’s in—nothing.

A disbelieving laugh. “He can’t see me. How much of that stuff did you give him?”

“Just half the bottle!”

“Half the bottle? He must be tripping out of his mind right now. Sorry about that, Scott, it was only supposed to be about a quarter of the bottle.”

There’s no bottles. They aren’t real. He twitches his head. “Not real,” he mutters. He’s in the cell. There are hands on his wings.

He jolts forward, hisses when his shoulders strain from whatever is holding his arms up. “Don’t touch me!”

“Nobody’s touching you, birdbrain. Want some water? It should help it run through your system faster.”

Water.

No, no water. He can’t. “No water,” he rasps. “Can’t—something in it—”

A sigh, one that rattles Scott’s very bones. “I promise it isn’t drugged. Don’t fall asleep while I’m talking to you.”

A slap to the face and Scott’s eyes flash open. He doesn’t remember closing them. He doesn’t remember starting to fall asleep.

fWhip’s in front of him, the bars to the cell hanging open behind him. He’s wearing something fancy and red and detailed that Scott can’t quite comprehend (the wedding, something in the back of his mind tells him), a glass of water in his hand.

He wants it. He desperately wants to drink the water, and he would reach out for it if he could but he can’t—

There’s a water skimmer bug. Dancing at the top of the glass. And below that, in the glass, there’s a frog that Scott thinks must be dead because frogs aren’t supposed to be that bloated nor float upside-down.

His mouth clamps shut (he hadn’t even realized it had fallen open) and he turns his head away. Another long-suffering sigh.

“Smajor, I promise it’s not drugged. I’ll take a sip of it, see?”

And Scott can’t help but watch as fWhip swallows the dead frog whole.

Scott gags, his entire body seizing as bile rises to his throat and he throws up all down his front. fWhip leaps back, shouting in disgust.

Scott’s shaking. He’s been poisoned. The last time he threw up was because he was poisoned, and now he’s been hallucinating from something they fed him and it must have been poison. Forget the frog, Scott doesn’t just throw up.

“Not again,” he moans, “please not again. Please.”

And then everything is blessedly quiet. Scott blinks a few times. Still in a dimly-lit dungeon. He sniffs; the stench of vomit. His head hurts. There’s a guard outside his cell, maybe another that he can’t see. No one else. Nothing else.

No bugs, no Xornoth, no shadows moving toward him.

He must’ve lost time somewhere. Or maybe the drug wore off. Or maybe both. Whatever it is, he’s conscious of what’s happening and what’s real.

He feels almost like he has control of his own head again, and that’s what matters.

He’s not sure how long he's been awake, but he can’t keep it up.

The guard is no longer outside the cell. Instead he looms over Scott, halberd abandoned in favor of a whip. If Scott droops, if his eyes close for longer than a few seconds, the whip cracks across his skin until he wakes again.

The chains locking his wrists to the ceiling are gone, replaced with a bar on his shoulders that his arms are cuffed to, the bar itself held by two chains linked to the ceiling. Less chance of permanent damage that way, fWhip had cited.

fWhip had been in earlier, with more water that Scott couldn’t bring himself to drink. fWhip had had to pry his jaw open and hold it there to force the drink down his throat, repeating reassurances that it wasn’t drugged or poisoned in any way. Scott had still spat out as much of it as he could, water dribbling down his once-lovely silken shirt to join the vomit stains.

The vomit had been washed from him as well as possible, buckets of chilly water dumped over his head. The water had kept him awake for a short time, soaked and shivering as he was, but it doesn’t do anything to rouse him anymore. Now he’s so out of it that he can barely hold his own head up, only jerking up when the whip lashes across his calves.

“‘M awake,” he gasps out the most recent time, letting out a choked cry when the whip strikes again, across his wings. It burns, feathers pulled up the wrong directions, the delicate skin tearing. “I’m awake, I’m awake, stop—”

“Smajor, look at me.”

Scott looks up. fWhip. Again.

“I hate you,” he mumbles. fWhip grimaces.

“I know. Do you want to sleep?”

He very much wants to sleep, thank you. But he can’t. Every time he tries, the guard hurts him and he can’t handle that. He can’t sleep. He can’t let himself get hurt any more.

His feet sting with the crack of a whip and he blinks his eyes open, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I’m awake. . . .”

fWhip clucks his tongue. “The strong ruler of Rivendell, a blubbering mess at my feet. Tell me where the End Portal is, and I’ll let you sleep all you want.”

The End Portal. Why, it’s—

No no NO can’t think about it, can’t think about where it is because then fWhip will know and they CAN’T KNOW, can’t let the demon out—

“Hate you,” he says again, biting his cheek to keep back a micro-sleep. “You . . . you hurt Jimmy.”

“Where’s the End Portal, Scott.”

“He didn’t do anythin’, he just . . . why did you hurt him?”

“Are we playing twenty questions?”

Scott shrugs as well as he can with a bar pressed down on his shoulders. He doesn’t mind playing a game. Anything to keep him distracted. Anything to keep him awake. He can’t sleep. He can’t tell them where the portal is.

fWhip grins, sits cross-legged on the floor. “I love games! Okay, I won’t ask you anything about the portal, okay? This is just for fun. You first!”

“Um,” Scott tries to remember what he’d just asked. Something about the portal? Where is it? No, he already knows that. Jimmy. “Why’d you hurt Jimmy?”

“Because it was easy, and it was funny,” fWhip says, stretching out his arms. It’s a mockery of him, Scott just knows it. “My turn. You’ve been the emperor of Rivendell for like, my entire life. How old are you?”

He’s—he’s fifty-five.

No.

“One-hundred. And nine,” he says after a moment of thought, during which he surely slipped into a micro-sleep but he desperately hopes fWhip didn’t notice. He shakes himself. It’s his turn. His turn for a question. To be asked. To ask. He needs to ask a question. “How long?”

fWhip frowns. “How long . . . what? Have we been messing with Jimmy? How long have you been here?”

Scott’s not sure what he’d meant when he’d asked it. “Both,” he offers. fWhip chuckles.

“I’ll use it as your next question. We’ve been having fun with Jimmy for years, Smajor. Pretty much since he joined the alliance.”

Right, Scott knew that. Jimmy told him.

“How did you find out about our games? Us messing with Jimmy, I mean?”

Can he say this? What can’t he say? He can’t talk about the End Portal. He can tell fWhip this.

“His scars,” Scott says. “Saw ‘em once by accident. I didn’t know.”

fWhip nods. “To answer your earlier question, you’ve been awake for a little over three days—seventy-eight hours, I think.”

Seventy-eight hours. That’s nothing. Scott’s stayed awake that long on his own before. Just knowing the proper amount of time he’s been awake grounds him, bringing him back to proper awareness for the time being.

“My question,” says fWhip. “What does Rivendell’s defense lack?”

Scott snorts. There’s no way fWhip believes he’ll actually reveal that, no matter his condition. “Fat chance,” he spits out. “I’m not that out of it.”

fWhip chuckles. “Yeah, I figured. Are you really allied with Lizzie and Joel?”

“Yeah,” Scott nods, shifting his shoulders slightly to try and reduce the strain. “My turn. Er. Jeez. Did—did I scare you? When I caught you?”

“Oh yeah, you sure did,” fWhip laughs. “I was terrified. I was actually still scared of you until I saw you like this!”

He really doesn’t make for an imposing figure right now, does he? He wonders what he looks like. He wonders if his eyes are as dry as they feel. He spends a moment trying to touch his eye, test it, before remembering that his hands are restrained above him. Right. He’s out of it.

fWhip snaps in his face and Scott jolts from where he’s drooped. “Wake up, Smajor. It’s my turn to ask a question.”

He hadn’t even realized his eyes had closed. Only seventy-eight hours, he reminds himself.

Only seventy-eight hours. Out of what? How long until his advisors decide he’s been missing long enough? He’d told Ilphas that he was off on something demon-related. How long until he’s worth looking for?

No one else even knows he’s missing. He didn’t tell anyone else. Presumably, the three who had abducted him had returned to the celebrations, removing any suspicion from themselves. Presumably, Scott’s alone, and will be here until he breaks. He needs to sleep. He needs to take any opportunity to sleep.

“What’s your sudden obsession with Jimmy?” fWhip asks, and Scott blinks a couple of times. He can answer this, right?

Nobody can know. Nobody gets to know how he feels about Jimmy. He needs to lock that up in a scuffed little box in the back of his mind, right next to the location of the End Portal underwater near—

“I happen to be a decent person,” Scott manages. “Jimmy’s nice. He gives good hugs. Shoot.” He wasn’t supposed to say that last part.

fWhip raises an eyebrow. “Gives good hugs? What, do you have a crush on the guy?”

Scott doesn’t answer, but he can feel his face burn. He’s giving it away, he’s giving everything away, if his feelings for Jimmy got out of the box immediately who’s to say that the location of the End Portal won’t?

fWhip’s laughing, delighted and vicious. “Oh, you do! Oh, that’s just perfect! Does he feel the same?”

Scott shakes his head doggedly. “My turn, my question. Is—” he doesn’t want to ask this question, but he has to know— “is anyone looking for me?”

The smile fWhip fixes him with is gentle, almost patronizing. “No.”

Scott sags, ignoring the pain in his shoulders at the motion. He’s not going to survive. He can’t do this. He’s not going to make it. He can feel his lip quivering; makes a valiant effort to not cry. “I don’t . . . I don’t wanna play anymore.”

“How about this,” fWhip says, pushing with two fingers at Scott’s forehead until he props himself back up. “We finish the game. Just ten more questions. If you can finish the game, I’ll let you sleep for an hour. No strings attached, just an hour of glorious sleep. Sound good?”

Someone will come looking eventually, and that hour might make the difference between holding out and giving in. Not only that, but he’s so tired. He doesn’t care that it’s only been three days and three nights. He’s so out of his depth here, and it’s not like he started fresh, and he needs that hour of sleep.

He nods, two twitches of his head up and down. He’ll finish the game for the chance to sleep. It’s not that big of a deal.

“Great. My turn! Does Jimmy, The Codfather, like you? Like, like-like you?”

The tear that he’s been holding back finally drips from his eye, down his grimy cheek. Scott swallows, croaks, “No.”

fWhip grimaces. “Jeez, that’s awkward. Your turn.”

Scott doesn’t have another question. He casts around his overfull mind—anything will work, literally anything, it doesn’t have to do with this at all. . . . “Where’s Sausage?” he eventually comes up with.

fWhip shrugs, gesturing vaguely upward. “Doing something important, I guess. He and Joey have locked themselves up in a little meeting room. Who told you where the End Portal is?”

“No. No. No portal,” he says, rocking back and forth a bit. He can’t answer that. He can’t tell him that Lizzie showed him personally. He can’t mention Lizzie, because that’ll give it up.

“All right, no portal,” fWhip acquiesces. Then, with a sudden, conspicuous subject change: “Did you have a brother?”

He’s flying, he’s reveling in flight, he never gets to fly these days and he misses it, he’s just so busy—

There’s a hand on his wing, though, another on the other, and whoever is in the air with him (and he knows exactly who it is, there’s only one other person who set out to fly with him) yanks. He feels it, feels the delicate bones bend—

Both hands are on his left wing, a knee pressed into the bone—he’s falling now, right wing valiantly trying to glide—the hands pull against the knee and his wing snaps—

A shout is startled out of him as something heavy hits him in the stomach. He looks up—the guard is gone, has been gone ever since they started playing the game, and fWhip is holding his sword with the flat edge out. “Stay awake,” he says, voice tinged with something that makes all of Scott’s senses scream for him to run, hide, get away.

“Yes,” he gasps in answer to the question. “I-I had a brother. Why do you care?”

“Heard some rumors about a certain demon. What was your brother’s name?”

Scott doesn’t want to answer this, because he knows what it’s going to confirm. He bites his lip, looks away. Another blow from the flat edge of fWhip’s sword to the solar plexus sends Scott wheezing.

“Answer it,” growls fWhip. “Unless you wanna forfeit that hour of sleep.”

Scott breathes in, eyes fluttering closed. It’s only been seventy-eight hours. He needs an hour of sleep because his senses are already overloaded from the drugs and the sleep deprivation and he’s just so tired. “Xornoth,” he says finally, just as he hears fWhip pick up the whip from the floor of the dungeon. “My brother. His name.”

“Open your eyes.”

Scott does, as impossible as it feels. There are weights on his eyelids and every time he has to open them again, and again, and again, it gets harder. There are tears blurring his vision when he glares at fWhip.

“I hate you,” he croaks.

“I know. It’s your turn.”

Scott’s head dips a little, but he forces his eyes to stay open. There’s a question bearing down on his mind, one that’s been developing for weeks now, ever since he first heard what the demon’s name was.

“Is my brother the demon?”

A laugh bursts out of fWhip. He laughs a lot. He laughs at Scott far too much. “Scott, my good friend, I was about to ask you the same thing.” fWhip cracks the whip to the side; Scott flinches. “I would think he is. His voice sounds strangely similar to yours. What do you think? Is your brother the demon?”

His throat is dry. His lips are cracked. He needs water, but he can’t have water because it messes with his head. “I think,” he says, tongue heavy in his mouth. “I think he is.”

“Talk about family drama.”

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah. A few times, actually. Do you miss him?”

Does he miss him?

Sometimes, he thinks he does. Sometimes, he wakes up in the morning with no reason to get out of bed and he lies there with his eyes closed, pretends that at any moment, Xornoth will enter and throw a pillow at him, despite their parents’ disapproval of childish actions.

On the other hand, there’s literally everything else.

“Smajor.”

“I’m awake,” he mumbles.

“Answer the question.”

“What was it?”

fWhip sighs, longsuffering. “That’s strike two,” he warns. “Three strikes and you don’t get to sleep. I asked if you miss your brother.”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Scott says. “No,” he decides a moment later, then again, “I’m not sure.”

“Good job. Ask me a question.”

“What was the . . . um. The first strike?”

“It was earlier, when you fell asleep in the middle of answering.” fWhip reaches over, unlocks the chains that shackle Scott to the bar on his shoulders. “We’re all done, all twenty questions asked and answered. You can sleep for one hour.”

All thoughts fly from Scott’s head and he collapses as soon as he’s free, gone from the world in an instant.

“Wake up. Smajor. Wake up.”

Something hard cracks across his shoulders and Scott jerks up, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I am, I’m awake!”

It’s fWhip, holding a guard’s halberd. He discards it, pulls Scott up by his ruined shirt, reattaches the chains to his wrists that pull his aching arms around the pole.

Nothing’s changed about his cell. The torch beyond the open bars is still burning at the same level, the small pool of pitch below it no bigger than it had been. The guard standing outside is the same guard.

Something’s not right about this.

He blinks blearily at fWhip. “That . . . that wasn’t an hour, was it?”

fWhip goes still; grabs Scott’s chin, forces it up to look him in the eyes.

“Are you calling me a liar?” he asks, and his body is screaming danger, run, snake, but his voice is jovial, almost joking.

“I—”

“Because that’s a serious accusation to make when the person you’re accusing has the power to cripple you forever, Lord Smajor.” he kicks Scott hard in the knee and Scott screams as it stops supporting his weight, slipping down but he can’t slip because there’s a chain linking the pole on his shoulders to the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—you’re not lying, you’re not,” Scott insists, trying and failing to keep the tears gathered in his eyes from spilling out. “It was an hour, I swear it was an hour!”

fWhip backs off, picking up the halberd and hefting it over his shoulder. “I know that. But that was a rude thing to say, Scott. So I think I’m gonna head out, all right? Sausage and Joey aren’t going to be as nice as I was. They’re not going to play games. Don’t forget how nice I was.”

“I hate you,” Scott bites out, flexing his trembling fingers around the pole as he straightens, knee pulsing with pain. fWhip doesn’t reply, just sends him a cheeky wave and vanishes.

Scott doesn’t have the chance to get in a quick sleep, because as soon as fWhip is gone the guard is standing there, raising their weapon threateningly.

He can’t help but feel despair in the pit of his stomach.

When Joey and Sausage leave, Scott is shaking.

They’d made him hold himself up on his toes, they’d whipped the soles of his feet and made him walk the length of the cell, they’d taunted him with food that he couldn’t have.

He’s not sure he’s going to survive. He knows they want information, but it’s information that he doesn’t even think he has anymore. He can’t remember what they want. They scream it at him sometimes, they grip him by the collar and shove him up against a wall and demand it of him, but Scott doesn’t even know what they’re asking. He can’t understand anger.

“I’m awake,” he whispers near-constantly, intermingled with the occasional “I hate you” directed at his captors. Joey takes particular offense at that, shoves Scott’s face into a bowl of gruel (it’s drugged, he knows it’s drugged, he heard them say it’s drugged) and demands he eat. Scott refuses, takes the moment to slip into a micro-sleep. Joey always yanks him back by his wings to wake him.

“Just tell me,” fWhip whispers, well-rested and fresh. He rubs Scott’s cheek with his thumb. “Then you can sleep. Nobody’s coming for you, Scott. Nobody has any idea where you are.”

Scott sobs drily at that. Nobody’s coming. He’s all alone. Just him and fWhip and the guard and the shadows in the corner that are bundles of spindly spiders. He’s certain they move when he looks away from them.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he admits, voice barely-there. fWhip smiles, eerily wide, leans in closer.

“Tell me where the End Portal is,” fWhip says, perfectly reasonable. “That’s all you need to do.”

Scott’s head falls to his chest. He’s up again in moments with a hoarse cry as someone pulls a handful of feathers out of his wing.

“I’m awake, I’m awake! Please, please, I’m awake. . . .” fWhip sticks bloodied feathers into the pocket of his jacket. Scott watches, he thinks he watches, he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Where’s the End Portal?”

The End Portal.

The one—no. He’s not supposed to say anything. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know what’s happening, all he knows is fWhip and the unending pain and he can’t sleep, they won’t let him sleep!

“Please,” he moans. “Please let me sleep. . . .”

“You can sleep—after you tell me where the End Portal is.”

He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.

Scott shakes his head, little twitches from side-to-side. fWhip’s face darkens, and Scott just doesn’t have the self-preservation to try to escape. His senses have been in overload for what feels like years and everything is misfiring constantly. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He just wants to close his eyes for a few moments.

“Twenty questions,” he begs, though he’s not sure why. “Please. How old am I? I��m fifty-five. No. Wait. They’re dead. Eighty. I’m eighty-two. I’m alive. Where’s the End Portal? No. Can’t tell you. Ask me a question.”

fWhip shakes his head. He steps away. “I really hate to do this, Scott,” he sighs, reaching for—grabbing—one of those accursed halberds. Scott shudders, knocks his chin into his chest several times. “Gotta . . . I’m awake . . . please. . . .”

The staff of the halberd smacks into his side and Scott shouts, cuts himself off. They keep hurting him, he doesn’t know why, he’s not even asleep and they’re hurting him. . . .

The staff hits his legs, his cut up feet, the delicate bones of his wings (something’s broken in one of them, something isn’t right), his face—Scott’s barely conscious; the only thing keeping him from passing out is the threat looming over him that if he falls asleep, everything will be so much worse.

“End Portal, Scott! Where is it?”

“I—I can’t—”

Crack! Crack!

“Where’s the End Portal?”

“Please—”

Crack!

“Tell me where the End Portal is!”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“I can’t—Lizzie told me I can’t—”

Another hit, another terrible crack of wood against his bruised body. Then there’s nothing, and Scott squints through the haze of pain and beyond exhaustion to see fWhip leave.

He’s alone for the briefest of moments, during which his eyes fall closed and his chin hits his chest, but a rough kick to the stomach has him shooting back up.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” he croaks. He can’t feel his fingers. The stone walls are dripping. Melting. There are spiders in the corners. There’s a strange laugh coming from the corner of his mind. He’s falling apart.

He’s not sure how long he’s alone with the guard, their only interactions his head falling and their weapon falling upon him. He’s shivering, gasping for air that seems just out of reach. He’s so hungry his head is going to split in half. He’s so thirsty he’s going to shrivel up. But mostly, he needs sleep, so desperately that his body is periodically shutting down, despite his best efforts to stay awake without reminders.

There’s a series of sounds that Scott’s grown to dread. The door to the dungeon clunks open. The stairs creak.

He looks up. Nothing.

That’s right. That makes sense. He must��ve—that must’ve been from earlier, a sound that hadn’t quite caught up yet. That’s fine. “I’m awake,” he whispers, more to remind himself than the guard.

Then there’s a thunk, and the guard’s eyes roll up into the back of their head as they collapse.

And behind them, a sword raised in the air hilt-first in his hands, is Jimmy. Beautiful, glorious Jimmy.

“I’m awake,” Scott repeats, more to remind himself that what he’s seeing is as real as the guard on the floor and the spiders in the walls. His voice is almost entirely gone, and he cringes away, afraid of—of everything, but the way Jimmy’s face blazes with anger makes him feel safe. Jimmy’s here. Everything’s okay now.

“Scott,” Jimmy gasps, dropping the sword with a clatter that’s far too loud. Scott blinks for too long, and Jimmy’s in front of him, cradling his swollen and sticky face in his calloused hands.

“What have they done to you?” Jimmy mutters, before he appears to shake himself. “It’s all right, I’m here. I—I’ll get you home, yeah? Or—I’ll get you to my place, it’s quite a bit nearer—” Jimmy stands, and in moments the chain holding Scott to the bar releases and he crumples to the ground. He can’t even bring himself to lift his head.

“‘M awake,” he mumbles into the ground.

“Can you wa—oh, Scott. Your feet.”

They burn, the soles of his feet burn with open wounds but he tries to stand anyway. Jimmy stops him, holds him to the ground for a moment, before lifting Scott up and over his shoulder.

“I would carry you in my arms,” he grunts, standing, “but your wings are in rough shape. I can sort ‘em out, but anyone could come down here—regen on your feet, and—oh, your back—regen on open wounds, then if there’s anything I need to set I’ll do that and you can drink a health potion. . . .”

“Jimmy,” Scott breathes. Jimmy freezes where he’s about to begin climbing the stairs. “C’n I sleep?”

“Yes! Yes, of course, please do!”

Before Jimmy can say anything more, Scott is dead asleep.

Scott sits straight up when he wakes, crying out, “I’m awake! I’m awake, I’m awake!”

There’s no blow, though. Barely even pain, just some lingering aches. He looks around, blinking past the dryness of his eyes.

He’s in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. It’s quaint, paneled wood walls and a tie quilt over the mattress. Sunlight filters in through a window framed with floaty white curtains. The bedside table is roughly carved by hand, a glass of water sitting there.

Scott doesn’t drink it, his heavy head filled with memories of hallucinations and mean laughter. He swings his feet out of bed, winces when he puts weight on them. They’re bandaged, injuries pulling strangely and sharply on his skin when he stands. There are other bandages, he realizes—his wings are secured to his back in a way that isn’t quite right, one of his knees is braced, there’s bandages around both calves.

He’s hungry. By Aeor, he’s hungry, but he pushes it aside and instead focuses on the matter at hand—where he is, and what he’s doing here.

There’s noise. He’d thought it was silent, but from beyond the closed door comes the low murmur of hushed voices. He creeps toward it, body stiff and painful now that he’s walking. He rolls his shoulders experimentally, hisses at the swelling and the stinging pains present.

“—what I saw, and what I saw wasn’t a normal meeting!”

“Yes, but Jimmy—”

“No, you didn’t see him, you weren’t there—”

“Well, go get him! We want to talk to him—maybe he can explain!”

“He was being tortured, Lizzie. What else is there to explain?”

“You just tend to exaggerate, okay?”

Scott starts to push open the door, hoping to slip into the room relatively unnoticed. The door creaks loudly, though, and he freezes, door cracked in front of him, as the conversation halts.

There’s the padding of soft feet on wood, and then Jimmy’s there, easing the door open a bit more. And Jimmy, as always, is gorgeous.

“You’re awake,” he says, before Scott’s overworked brain can attempt to wax poetic, an adorable little crease between his brows.

“I’m awake,” Scott rasps reflexively, swallowing to try and ease the sting in his throat. It doesn’t work. Jimmy’s frown deepens and he gently pushes past Scott, to the glass of water on the table. Scott shies away when he brings it close, leaving Jimmy standing awkwardly.

“Is something wrong with it?”

Scott’s not sure how to express without a voice that he doesn’t know how long it’s been sitting there, how it could have been tainted by anyone while he was asleep. He points beyond the door. “Fresh?” he whispers. Jimmy nods, swaps which hand is holding the glass.

“Yeah, of course. Um, you’ve been asleep for around . . . fourteen hours? I think? You seemed pretty tired, though, so if you want to go back to bed. . . .”

Scott points again toward the door. “Lizzie?”

“And Joel. I didn’t tell them you were here—I didn’t want them bothering you—but they turned up a few minutes ago anyway and I started telling them what happened, but I don’t really . . . know. What happened. Do you feel okay—” Jimmy’s eyes flicker across Scott’s body— “seeing them?”

Scott looks down at himself, sees that his shirt is completely gone, replaced with bandages around his ribcage. His trousers have been cut away as well, creating fairly short shorts. He frowns at that, gestures to his legs with shaking hands. Jimmy sets down the glass, ducks into a closet Scott hadn’t noticed. He pulls out a long, green skirt, helps Scott step into it and pull it up to his hips when he finds that he can’t move his arms the way he wants to.

“I spread some regen on open wounds,” Jimmy explains as he assists, “but I needed you awake to drink the health potion, so I’m sorry if you’re feeling bad. I think there’s something broken in your wings, too, but it’s small and I don’t know how to fix it. And your shoulders are royally screwed up, but nothing that some time in an infirmary with healer magic won’t fix.”

Scott twitches his fingers, feels his shoulders pulse with angry heat. Yeah, that’s bad. What had Jimmy asked earlier? If he can see Lizzie and Joel.

He was kidnapped. Scott was kidnapped and he gave up information.

He needs to see them. Hungry, thirsty, tired, pained—it doesn’t matter. He needs to talk to them.

He points to the door again, flicks his wings. Jimmy’s right—something’s wrong with one of them, twinges of pain jerking down the left one. Jimmy understands, steps out in front of him and holds the door open.

Scott limps out, eyes on the floor. Twin gasps come from the living, a cut-off cry of his name. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to see Joel and Lizzie, face the shame of his appearance in the shock in their faces.

He carves a slow path to Jimmy’s sofa, sits gingerly on the edge of it. Jimmy appears at his side a moment later, presses a glass of water into his hands.

He can’t drink it. Old paranoia rears its head and he just knows the glass is contaminated, he knows there’s something in it that’ll mess with his head or make him deathly ill and he’d rather go thirsty than drink it and he’s so very thirsty he might cry—

“Scott?”

He looks up; Jimmy’s watching, gaze concerned. He hands the glass back. Jimmy takes it. “Is there—is it your shoulders? Can you not reach your mouth?”

Scott hadn’t even thought of that. He reaches his hand up to touch his mouth, finds it stiff and painful but not impossible. Jimmy tries to hand the glass back; Scott pushes it away.

Jimmy just filled it up. It’s untampered with. Still Scott knows that his anxieties won’t rest until he does it himself.

He reluctantly accepts the glass, stands with a groan, shuffles into the kitchen. From there, he grabs a different glass—one at random from Jimmy’s cabinet, one that no one would think to poison—and rinses it out several times before filling it up and returning to the sofa. Then he finally drinks, eyes fluttering closed as he relishes in the cool liquid reviving the desert of his throat.

The glass is half empty when he sets it down on the coffee table, stomach protesting even that small amount of water without any food. Then he wets his lips with his tongue, opens his mouth, and begins to speak.

“Jimmy—” he says, before being overwhelmed by a coughing fit. It tears at his still-raw throat, brings tears to his eyes. He blinks them away when he can finally breathe, takes another sip to soothe his throat, then continues hoarsely. “Thank you. For caring for me. As soon as possible, I will rid you of my presence and journey home.”

Jimmy starts to protest, but Scott cuts him off with a shake of his head. For the first time, he looks up at the silent Lizzie and Joel. They’re staring at him, almost horrified expressions painting their faces. Joel seems to take the eye contact as an invitation to speak.

“Smajor, you look terrible. Those bags under your eyes look big enough to carry my attachment issues.”

Scott can’t help a snort of laughter, rubs his face. It feels so good just to be able to move his arms again, ignoring the condition of his shoulders.

“Scott, what happened?”

He doesn’t answer Jimmy’s question. Instead he asks, slowly, “How long was I gone?”

Lizzie and Joel glance at each other uncertainly, but Jimmy immediately answers.

“Six days, about. You weren’t there the day after the wedding, and all your things were still in your suite, so . . . yeah, around six days.”

Six days. Six days awake, beaten and drugged and whipped. Six days of torture.

“Scott, what happened during those six days?”

Scott tries and fails to swallow back the lump in his throat, jerks his head a little. His skin is already itching with the feeling of being watched, someone making sure his eyes don’t close for longer than a few seconds.

“They wanted information,” he starts, and the lump in his throat swells bigger as a tear slips down his cheek. He can’t look anyone in the eyes when he chokes out, “And I gave it to them.”

#empires smp #esmp #empires smp fanfic #scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #mcyt #trust au #mas writes #this is so long #it's abt twice the length of the other trust parts #like. 9k some words??#we'll be back to regularly scheduled miscommunication angst next piece :)#idk i just haven't written a torture dungeon type thing in a long time #since like. 2019 i think #anybody remember mutually beneficial?#in my wip folder this fic is called 'ayo you wanna do shrooms'#this really should have been two parts i just could not for the life of me find somewhere to split it #anyways these fic titles come from the gambler by kenny rogers #and the line for this title doesn't matter as much as what it means with the following line #like alone it doesn't mean anything #but both lines together was too long of a title #anyways lmk what you think!#love you guys

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