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crash-bump-bring-the-whump · 10 hours

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Whumpril 2024 - Alternate 2 - Brain Fog

Just a little short something!! Just a Mariano POV on the smoothie incident from last whumpril! Also I haven't forgotten about day 25 I PROMISE you just know how it is sometimes

TWs: drugging, poisoning, collapse

The starting gunshot sounded miles away. Sweat was already pouring down Mariano's face, his heart already rabbiting in his chest as he kicked off a second too late. The others were already ahead of him by two paces, and his legs burned as he pushed himself to move faster.

Everything smeared around him, his shots of magic only connecting with the targets because of all the training they did. He didn't know why he felt so awful. He'd had enough sleep, seven and a half hours of solid rest. He'd had breakfast, and then Dimitri even made him a smoothie.

It had been so sweet of him, and now he was going to waste the good-will he'd finally earned by messing up the drill. They'd even gone easy on him. There had been no prank.

The others must've really wanted to impress the people watching.

He didn't remember climbing the wall, only hitting the ground. His wrists smarted as he kicked off again. A harsh, rasping static filled Mariano's ears, filled his mask, snaked in around the metal conductive bit between his teeth and slipped down his throat. He couldn't breathe. His heart skipped every other beat, every three beats. It couldn't make up its mind.

He couldn't breathe.

His chest was tearing itself apart.

They barrelled into the warehouse. They took out the targets. Mariano's knees almost gave out.

He couldn't ruin this.

Down the stairs. The metal pitched under him and it was impossible to keep his footing. He had to keep going. The world kept tilting.

Mariano's eyes rolled back as his legs finally gave out. Chaos roared around him as he finally stopped moving, stopped running, everything drowned out by soothing darkness that rolled over him. Someone touched him. Others were shouting.

Mariano didn't know what was going on. His limbs felt like lead. Someone had their fingers against his wrist. His mask was pulled away from his face. He couldn't get his eyes open. Mariano thought his lungs were going to burst.

He was going to die here.

He hoped the others wouldn't be angry.

He hoped Luis wouldn't be angry.

Everything gently fell away as he was swallowed up by warm silence, like water slipping over his face in a hot bath after a long day.

Mariano couldn't even be afraid.

@whump-captain @whumpr @whumperofworlds @lektricwhump @cyberwhumper

@bxtterflystxtches @inscrutable-shadow @honeybees-125 @i-eat-worlds

#whumpril2024 #whumprilalt2 #alternate 2 #brain fog #collapse #poisoning #drugging #mage of violence #dimitri #manuel #laredo #izan #the leader #just for consistency with last year's thing c:

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inscrutable-shadow · 3 months

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take my hand on the shore of my suffering

new banner new series! tumblr has compressed my poor image to shit and i weep

adapted from an rp by @crash-bump-bring-the-whump and me. Thanatos finds himself in the water again, but this time, he's not alone.

contains: near-drowning, adorable gays, thanatos-typical self-loathing

also on ao3!

He knew better than this.

Thanatos wasn't a child. Putting on a performance to impress a boy was frankly beneath him, and it was especially ridiculous to do so for Mariano, who loved him the same way no matter what he did. The mage didn't need to be impressed in the slightest, which somehow made Thanatos want to try twice as hard. Inevitably, his idiotic "damsel-in-distress" act had gotten him in over his head, literally. It didn't even take an evil person to become so fed up with Thanatos as to toss him off the pier. It was his own damned fault he couldn't control his tongue. All it took for him to act out was his mage taking his eyes off of him for five seconds.

He knew better than to flail. As a child of Athens, it would have been ridiculous for him not to know how to swim. If he would stop thrashing about for ten seconds, he'd float to the surface and be fine, but he couldn't do that. He could barely think over the chorus of nonononono from his panicked brain, the pleases and the idon'twanttodies and the helpmes. Every time his head slipped under the dark water for a moment, he was back in that lake from so long ago, when he couldn't do anything to save himself and was forced to drown over and over and over and over—

The self-pity train had barely left the station when Thanatos felt more than he saw a dark shape impact the water beside him. Mariano, his brain supplied before returning to the panic, and that was confirmed by the snatches of his mage's voice he could hear over his own splashing: "Than… deep breath... hold it!" Take a deep breath and hold it. It was sound advice. If he was focused on holding a breath, not only would he be less frantic to keep his head above water, but it would be more difficult for him to keep flailing. He tried to follow it, he really did, but he just couldn't catch a breath deep enough to convince his body he had enough air.

You don't need to breathe, idiot, his Shadow grumbled, tired of his cowardice, no doubt. Thanatos knew that. He knew better than anyone exactly how long his body could go without gas exchange with the air. Eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds. He'd counted it. Over and over again. Not a single one of those eleven minutes mattered, because every muscle in his body was convinced that if he stopped breathing now, he never would again.

Mariano must have realized Thanatos couldn't comply, because he threw his arm around the vampire's neck in an attempt to gain a bit of control. This sent Thanatos into a fresh panic. He knew Mariano wouldn't have wasted his time saving him all those other times just to drag him under now, but his instincts screamed that he was dying and the old paranoia reared its head again. What if something he'd said, something he'd done, had tipped the mage over the edge? What if he'd decided it was the last straw, that if Thanatos died here, he could claim to have tried to save him, and no one would be the wiser? Mariano could be rid of him, right here and now, and do the whole universe a favor.

No. That was incredibly uncharitable to think about a man who had never once lied to him. The person who kissed the back of his neck when he cooked, who held him when he had nightmares, who laughed at his jokes, wouldn't betray him like that. Mariano would never try to kill him. Thanatos's newfound conviction was shaken by the wave that broke over his and Mariano's heads, pushing them under. A gout of bubbles burst from his mouth and he swallowed water. This is it. I should just let myself die, at least Mariano will pull me back to shore. There was no point in fighting anymore, he was only hurting himself. So what if he died a few times? He had three and a half thousand years of memories to lose. Odds were, whatever he lost wouldn't be important.

Just as he'd given up on tasting air again before he passed out, his momentum suddenly shifted, strong draconic arms hauling him and Mariano skyward. Bastian, taking his mage and his vampire back from the ocean's grasp. Relief crashed through Thanatos like the same waves that broke over his back on the way to the shore, and as it ebbed, as he coughed and vomited seawater and collapsed onto the sand, it left behind heaving sobs. Oh, thank the gods, he could breathe again. He could breathe and he wasn't drowning and he was soaking wet but he hadn't died.

Bastian's arm pulled him close, and Thanatos pressed himself against the dragon's side as if it could stop something vital from leaking out of him. "Hey. Hey, Than, we have you. We have you. You're all right." He was. He was okay. He hadn't been alone this time.

It took him a while before he could do anything but cry. It was as if every tear he'd been too exhausted to release after Tenebrus had left him at the lakeside, every sob he'd held back after waking up from an aquatic nightmare, all came out of him at once. Eventually, when the emotional catharsis left him hollow, he was able to speak. "Thank you, by the gods, thank you. I thought—"

Thanatos didn't finish the sentence. Mariano hugged him tightly, holding him as if a rogue wave would come onto the shore and drag him away again. "I'll always come for you. Always."

He did know that. He did. Every single time he'd needed Mariano, the mage had been there, with Bastian not far behind. Even when he manufactured minor troubles to be rescued from, he did it secure in the knowledge that Mariano would never consider him "the boy who cried wolf." He would show up every time. Thanatos buried his face in his mage's shoulder. "I know. Even if I doubt for a moment, I always know you're coming."

Clawed fingers tucked wayward strands of wet hair behind Thanatos's ear, and he relaxed into Bastian's touch as the dragon pressed a tender kiss to his temple. Being held by both of them like this... He couldn't really say he hadn't fallen apart already, but they were holding him together. "Mariano, you have to give me more warning before you jump into water like that—" Thanatos smiled a bit. Now that they were safe, Bastian could find time to complain.

"That's what the pact is for." Mariano's voice was quiet, but it resonated through Thanatos's chest because of the proximity. That complete, unconditional trust was the foundation of their relationship, and Thanatos envied it. He was a creature of doubt. Whatever his heart believed, his mind always had a contingency plan, always prepared for the worst possible outcome. The only person standing in the way of what he wanted was himself.

The whole thing had been his fault to begin with. If he'd made a single intelligent choice since waking up this morning, none of this would have happened. "I'm sorry I nearly drowned him," he choked, though that wasn't really what he was apologizing for. "I just… I can't… When the water comes—" It wipes out his senses, starts him running entirely on instinct.

"Hush. He's in trouble, not you." Bastian squeezed the two of them tighter, stalling the rest of Thanatos's stammering on his tongue. "Breathe, Than. You're gonna be okay." Yes. Eventually.

But when? That lake had been twenty years ago. He'd been friendly with the water before that, and now he couldn't even bathe by himself. How long until the memories that had left this seemingly indelible mark on his psyche faded and let him rest? "Incredible how one incident could have so much more of a lasting effect on me than months of torture," he muttered bitterly, then sighed. He shouldn't dwell on such things. "Just... Thank you both. I don't know where I'd be without you." Still half-feral with paranoia, most likely.

Mariano shook his head. "I have things that scare me just as badly. You know you're no less for it, don't you?"

He didn't know it, but Mariano always said nice things like that. Thanatos supposed he should do the mage the honor of believing him. Someday. "You're always so kind to me, Mariano." He shivered as the water dried off of him, leaving him cold and salty.

"I think anyone who almost drowns deserves some understanding," Mariano answered, and rubbed Thanatos's arms to warm him up. He hadn't almost drowned, technically. He would have been fine if he'd just stopped being stupid. "And to be held," he added, tipping Than's face up to meet his eyes. Thanatos blushed and looked away.

"I won't deny that I benefit from physical reassurance, though I think I draw on that particular resource of yours a bit too heavily." He was so used to being borderline unclean, unwanted, universally hated. It was no wonder that he took everything he could get when it was made available. Selfish, leech, all you do is take—

Bastian snorted. "Nah, he needs that anyway. You're fine."

Thanatos was feeling enough like himself now to be a bit dramatic. "Ah, but I've stretched the necklines of most of his shirts by now. Surely he tires of my garment-destroying behavior." A little laugh, an eyebrow raise, asking the audience to engage with him once again. Performing. Hiding.

And Mariano sees through him. The mage holds him even tighter, as if to compress the self-loathing out of him. "I'd rather have you and shirts that need mending over pristine shirts and no you."

The words lanced through to the core of Thanatos's being, penetrating all the layers of theatrics and intimidation he used to hide from his loneliness. They told him, in no uncertain terms, you belong here. I want you.

Thanatos laughed and buried his face in his mage's shoulder once more. "Shut up, or I'll start crying again."

taglist: @athenswrites

#original fiction #my writing #writeblr #coy writes #wip: rwtv #rwtv: anchors arc #kingslayer arc #wip: ieiunusverse #thanatos iuventus #mage of violence #dragon of diamond #chapter 2 later maybe who knows #than just wanted me to traumatize him ig

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thegnomelord · 8 months

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PLEASEEEEE UR IDEA WITH MAGE M!READER AND MONSTER!COD MEN I'D LOVE THAT SO FICKING MUCH AND YES I AGREE THERE IS A LACK OF ALL THE VIOLENCE

Pov of how the world sees the reader Vs how TF141 reader :D. I'm in the middle of writing the first chapter of a fic with this idea, but guess who contracted TB like some coal miner 😞, me! So here's a sneak peak for the sort of vibe I'm going for while I'm trying to recover:

P.S: Ya'll are free to suggest/requests with this idea cause!

P.S.S: Check out bluegiragi who came up with this AU and give her some love!

Mages and Monsters

Mages are strange creatures.

In a world so full of monstrous hybrids and mythical creatures, mages sit on the proverbial line separating man from monster, stuck in both worlds without any hope of fitting in either one.

Because outwardly, they're average. No different from the billions of other humans. They're not born with the marks of monsterdom; they don't possess horns or leathery scales to shrug off small caliber bullets like dragons do, nor the claws and bone crushing jaws of werewolves, not feathered wings and razor sharp talons of harpies, nor the wraiths ghostly ability to become immaterial.

Outwardly, they're average. Ordinary. Mundane. Human...

Almost.

Because Price and Ghost are experienced enough to see the thing laying beneath the paper thin veneer of normality, are seasoned enough to quickly notice the one thing that puts an 'in' before a mage's 'human' description — Magic. Not the smoke and mirror kind magicians or charlatans use to swindle tourists out of money, but real magic.

The ancient kind, the capricious kind, slumbering like a beast inside the hollowed out cavern of a heart until it awakens with a terrible bloodlust. Each of them can attest to this; Price sports gnarled patched of scar tissue on the scaleless parts of his arm from ice burns, his draconic breath having saved him from frostbite that had devoured more than a few good men. Though Ghost doesn't show much skin, one can sometimes catch sight of branching fern patterns on his neck where lightning magic had shot through him. Gaz's back is peppered with hundreds of little cuts where a glass mage's summoned elegant ornaments had shattered into millions of shards, aiming to take out his wings.

And now Soap sports a mark of his own, his side tender red and blistered with a second degree burn. It could have been much worse, your flames were hot enough to melt steel, the only thing having kept him from an early cremation being the two solid concrete walls your magic had had to travel through to hit him and the enhanced regeneration of his thick hide.

But such power demands a cost — one paid in blood. For magic is as fickle and capricious as a rabid dog, just as eager to lunge for your throat as it will at the enemies, leaving lasting wounds for all to see; rough and calloused palms, skin blackened from blazing heat and freezing cold or marked with fern patterns of electricity, fingers stiff and marred with cuts from thorns and crystals and rock and glass, bone deep cuts where the liquid mana had burst out from the skin, leaving faintly glowing scars that never heal right.

All mages are born with this grievous gift, though one never knows whether it will present itself with a pitiful flicker of embers in a man's dying breath, or with a maelstrom of an infant's first hiccup. That's why most mages are sealed, by choice or force, a process which puts chains on the magic, making it and the mage docile.

But you are unsealed. And you flaunt that fact readily by melting the tail of their APC helicopter with one spell, not even waiting for them to crash before flooding the terrain with suffocating ash, the lenses of their gas masks already fogging up from the heat as they get out of the cloud of heavy sediment before it bursts to flames.

Sometimes the magic becomes unsatisfied with the weakness of the body, demanding more than just its pound of flesh and molding the body like clay to better suit it— Mage Marks, they're called — the subtle glow of magic in your eyes, the mana visibly pulsing inside your chest, the skin of your arms slipping away like wet paper before growing anew, this time mimicking the surface of magma, or the rocky barnacle encrusted reef, the gnarled bark of a tree, the crystalline inside of a geode, the ice spiked ground of tundra, or any other form that suits the magic in your veins.

The process is excruciating, the mana burrowing and gnawing on every nerve like a parasite that replaces what it eats with itself. But to you, that's an acceptable loss, because marked mages far surpass their unmarked fellows, your magic stronger and wilder, feral and viscous like the primordial force of nature.

So it becomes concerning when you're laying on the floor, captured, battered and bruised and calm.

Ghost had been waterboarding you for a while now, your body tied to a chair that had been tipped back so you were parallel with the ground. With water pooling around your head, your top half would have been soaked to the bone had your magic not been simmering in your veins, the magic suppression momentarily reducing the raging inferno in your chest to a meager flicker of flames.

They can't kill you, but limiting your magic for even a second is death in and of itself.

Your breathing is harsh as Ghost pulls away the cloth over your mouth, asking you a question as steam rises from your skin. Most would give in long before this point, but you just grin, eyes glowing with a burning glow, and make a comment about how good his arse looks from your viewpoint.

You manage only one small note of laughter, pitiful embers sparking at the corners of your lip, before Ghost drops the rag back over your face and begins anew.

Price watches all of this, sharp draconic eyes noting how the mana glows in your chest, pulsing like a second heart (assuming you had one to begin with), noticing how the water turns to steam a little faster when it splashes over your skin.

And Price knows.

You... You are going to be trouble.

#trinkets from the hoard #male reader #cod mw2 #modern warfare #john price #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #gaz mw2 #monster au #mage reader #violence #reader is not a good guy #reader is a feral gremlin #monster 141 au #captain john price #reader x cod mw #x reader #centerpieces of the hoard

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uwemagain · 2 years

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And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand,

And touched the face of God

Vegas & Pete | Kinnporsche The Series : La Forte

#i don't know if this has been done before #but i couldn't get it out of my head #the absolute REVERENCE with which they touch one another?#even while still knowing that it couldn't possibly work #and that this person is wrong and bad #Bible and build were magnificent #kinnporsche #kinnporche the series #thai bl #kinnporsche spoilers #build jakapan #bible wichapas #biblebuild #vegaspete #my gifs #tw violence #poetry #john magee jr.#my literary brain goes woo woo

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jolyfis · 8 months

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listen, i don't control when this happens. sometimes someone makes a really good post or the kickstarter updates and i black out for several hours and wake up with a feverish partially-complete procreate file in front of me.

#griddleharks original flavor FUCK you #rowdy redhead sword enthusiast attached like a himbo barnacle to a foul-tempered deathwizard who craves violence #8 bit theater #black mage evilwizardington #fighter mcwarrior #jolydraws

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lavleyart · 1 year

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Commission Info

I wasn’t sure whether to tag this as mature content or not but it seems like its hidden from everyone with filter soooooo I will just add trigger warning tags I guess.

#vaati #legend of zelda vaati #vaati the wind mage #loz vaati #the legend of zelda #minish cap #tw: blood #tw: violence #tw weapon

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magic-is-something-we-create · 1 month

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getting emotional thinking about dawn millennium saga. again.

she thought it was just a toothache. she got dizzy and feverish and her parents were bringing her to a healer and she was enchanted looking at the fireflies. she thought it was a toothache. when the canoe capsized she bit the monster doing it. the water was dark like wine even though the thing she bit bled gold ambrosia. she thought it was a toothache. she forgot her own name, swallowed live frogs, sipped the yolk from dragon eggs while the dragon mothers watched too scared to intervene. she thought it was a toothache. she didnt even remember she was alive until she crawled out of the swamp and onto the piers of tal'ren. she didnt even remember her name. she thought it was a toothache. she still doesn't remember her family's names. she remembers how they tasted but she doesnt remember their names. she thought it was a toothache. now her blood burns her from the inside because its filled with light when even the flicker of a candle can give her a sunburn. now she can never kiss her loved ones or close her mouth without wounding herself or risk being anywhere near her menstruating partners because their blood might trigger a frenzy.

she thought it was a toothache.

#braindumps.txt #cannibalism #violence #death mention #blood #blood mention #dawn. light mage. vampire. *child* when it happened.#god #i havent thought about how tragic she is in a hot minute #now my ass is obsessing over her arc and SHE DOESNT APPEAR IN GODDESS TOUCHED.#NOT ONCE.#SHES ON ANOTHER CONTINENT.#PROBABLY HAVING AN AWFUL MONTHS-LONG EPISODE BECAUSE OF ALL THE BLOOD IN THE WATER.#UGH #can it be arc 2 yet. can it. please please please please ple

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badlydrawnfe · 10 months

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fight.

#fe 9 #fe 10 #radiant dawn #path of radiance #fire emblem #soren fe #tloz #minish cap #loz vaati #wind mage on wind mage violence is seconds away from happening in this picture.#also surprise guest from hyrule on the blog! he's the one zelda blorbo i have.#i think they would get into a warrior cats-esque fight if they met.

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v-arbellanaris · 10 months

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To be clear, I'm sending this ask not to start an argument but because talking about S/amson's morality as a subject interests me. This is all intended politely, though I am bad at tone. While my personal thoughts on S/amson's stuff in act 3 are a little complicated (shit of him to do, and they have him be excited about the annulment on the templar route, the latter of which I do have to wonder if they did simply bc the writers hate addicts (they do) or not. Still it did happen and it IS odd when people try to act like he had less part in the attempted genocide of the gallows than C/ullen, who was way more hesitant than S/amson), how did you come to the conclusion that he was purposefully throwing mages at slavers? He says pretty explicitly that he didn't know and was trying to get mages out of Kirkwall, are you assuming he's lying or is there some extra information I'm missing? I guess I could see why he might lie here if that was his intention, but I don't… really think he is? there's nothing to point to it? I see "he gave mages to a slaver" as a point a lot in the S/amson discourse, but I don't know how people are coming to the conclusion that he wasn't genuinely doing the best with the no resources he had at that moment, and the smuggler he was using ended up being a slaver without his knowledge. This being said, the fandom posing him as super good compared to C/ullen is really weird, and while I understand why it happens, it is frustrating seeing people ignore his blatent flaws.

do i think he deliberately gave mages over to slavers? no, i don't think that. i also don't think a lack of deliberateness absolves him of blame. k/irkwall is notorious for slavers - how many do we kill in game? we find a bunch just hanging out in lowtown, and the docks, and near the wounded coast. but the guy who lives on the edge of the docks never suspects that the man taking runaways for free is a slaver?

with regards to f/eynriel, s/amson is very explicit about how he didn't help f/eynriel as much as possible because he didn't have money. instead, he directs f/eynriel to a ship captain he knows. he knew the slaver, and he sent both o/livia and f/eynriel to him. when h/awke says "of course your friend's a kidnapper", s/amson quickly says r/einer's not a friend, but someone who "isn't scared to try out this business". but what business is he referring to? f/eynriel doesn't have coin, that's the entire reason s/amson turned him away. what other reason does a ship captain in kirkwall HAVE to take people on for free? s/amson deliberately sends f/eynriel to someone else to deal with. and when he heard rumours that person was selling people, what did he do? nothing, until h/awke comes looking.

#asks #i think he wants to think he's a good person who is trying his best to do good and be good #and so that's how he defends himself and the harm that comes as a result of his actions #and in THAT way he parallels c/ullen actually #but. even as far back as act one. his ambient dialogue already indicates that he's mostly extremely bitter abt being kicked out of the orde #he has dialogue that's like 'people wouldn't treat me like this if i was still in the order'. the nerve of saying this to a FERELDAN REFUGE #and keran exists RIGHT THERE as a counter-example for the quest in act 3. s/amson straight up BETRAYS THE MAGES TO THE TEMPLARS #keran fucking LEAVES THE ORDER bc he refuses to be part of that kind of violence anymore. samson betrays the mages and then will GO BACK #if you advocate for him.#he likes to think he's a good person. that doesn't mean he is one.#i think he THINKS he's very sympathetic to the mages. but then you get that line in act 3 that's like 'but at the end of the day they have #options we don't' which is yknow. an insane take. to go from 'mages deserve to be free and live unafraid'#to 'maybe i WILL rejoin the police state currently trying to g*nocide them'. like that's a HUGE LEAP that doesn't come out of nowhere.#anti chantry #fandom critical #samson critical

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woohooincoffin · 11 months

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#this was so pretty #the light the balcony the mountains #how he says my heart when we go talk to him #fr me when 😭😭😭#the little foreshadowing hints are so good #certain expressions the way he looks at her in some cutscenes things he says that perk my ears #overtly his instinct to want to kill the mages at the exalted plains #for a man that claims and acts like he hates unneeded violence it was surprising #his ability to predict and explain what the villain is feeling or might do and why #ok sir do you have personal experience with that you wanna share…#dai spoilers #dai gp #xyz

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ask-vio-the-purple-link · 1 year

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Vio are you done avoiding Vaati now?

Vio hesitates thinking on what to say. " ..."

"Honestly I'm still scared..." He turns hearing the bushes rustle nearby. "But HE has Blue... And I'm not okay with that because Blue is- !"

Suddenly Vio is yanked backwards by the hair with a shout of pain.

Holding Vio close Vaati grins pinning him using Blue's copy of the four sword against his neck. Terrified Vio looks as the mage speaks with malice and amusement. "Well, well, well…Looks like you were able to find my letter Violet~. How very fortunate for you that you got here now. คς ɿ'ɱ ૦υ੮ ૦Բ ƿค੮ɿ૯Ո८૯ ԲՐ૦ɱ ωคɿ੮ɿՈ૭ ς૦ Ն૦Ո૭"

#Vio link #Vaati #four swords #legend of zelda #vio #vaati the wind mage #Blue's missing saga #my art/ fanart #vaati has chosen violence #talasdoodles #Vaati appears #tw abuse #fsa #four swords manga #look a background #Is this an absurd way to say I'm changing vio's design again? maybe

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inscrutable-shadow · 1 year

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Mediwhump May Day 2 - Stitches

@mediwhumpmay Guest stars today are @crash-bump-bring-the-whump's Mariano and Bastian! The Doc just wants a normal day at the clinic but there's always someone scary ringing the doorbell...

The ticking of the wall clock was the only sound in the room. The Doctor certainly was not making any noise: they dare not, with their every move under intense scrutiny. Their patient couldn’t watch them, lying on his stomach as he was in order to give them access to his back. It was the piercing silver eyes of the man in the corner that were drilling through their very soul and making them wary to even take a breath. They thanked whatever blood-soaked god watched over them that their custom surgical sutures made no sound when cut.

The Doctor didn’t scare easily. They’d met all sorts of people: humans, metahumans, and nonhumans alike of varying levels of criminality, and seen all sorts of things that would turn the stomachs of hardened military men. Their baseline idea of horrifying was so skewed they found it nearly impossible to carry on ordinary conversation. But this? Felt like staring down the barrel of a gun. Something about this man extended beyond his body, made him feel enormous, as if the room could barely hold him. Well. Some of that was material reality: he was at least seven feet tall and the clinic’s ceiling sagged in the corner near the door where the (perpetually clogged) gutter was, but still. Was he human? He looked human enough, but that was no indicator.

The patient sighed, breaking the silence, and the Doctor’s hands paused in their stitch work to wait for him to stop moving, lest they do something to irritate the man in the corner. “You’re scaring the doctor, Bastian.”

“Good. Let them be scared. They’ll be more careful.” He looked amused. Indignation flared in the Doctor’s chest for a moment but was quashed by another wave of fear.

The patient turns his head to look at them. “Sorry about him, he’s… protective.” They only stared back, swallowing hard, as if it could resolve the dryness in their throat.

Bastian snorted in a not-entirely-human-sounding way. “Taking you to a shady doctor who might not even have a license? You could have died, Mariano. Damn right, I’m protective. Stop getting yourself torn to shit and maybe I won’t have to be.”

It was true that the young man’s injuries were rather severe, lacerations they’d had to pick glass out of, deep gouges and slashes with some sort of foreign organic material, and a GSW just to top it off. The only mercy was that they weren’t as deep on the upper back, likely because of his clothing. If they had to guess, it had probably been an encounter with some sort of animal shifter, lycanthrope or otherwise. They dared not ask. None of their business. He doesn’t flinch, though, not when they pull a particularly long glass shard from a cut and not when they apply antiseptic to the gouges. From the state of the rest of his skin, it looked like he was used to simply cauterising wounds that bled too much. If he could have reached his own back, he likely would not be here at all.

The Doctor’s stitchwork was as meticulous and precise as ever, although they couldn’t muster up the enjoyment for their work that kept their hands rock steady. It took longer than usual, and they momentarily stopped breathing when they had to pick a suture out and start over. The patient didn’t seem to notice or care, and the looming shadow in the corner didn’t address it. It wasn’t even as if he had done something to deliberately intimidate them; it was just his raw presence that had overtaken the room and the Doctor’s own forceful personality. Truly the most stressful routine procedure they had ever undertaken.

Relief crashed through them as they cleaned up and stripped their gloves. “Er, a-all finished, I suppose.”

Mariano sat up slowly, trying not to flex against the stitches. “Thanks, doctor. What do we owe you?” “N-no, it’s fine…” They really just wanted the interaction to be over. “Don’t be silly, doctor. You shouldn’t work for free.” He smiled reassuringly, and the Doctor suddenly realized that he was just as terrifying as Bastian was. “F-forty, then…” Bastian held out a pair of crumpled bills as Mariano put his shirt back on, grimacing at the damage. “Er… just… avoid tight clothing for at least a week, a-and…” they cleared their throat, steeling themselves, “no moisture for the first day, clean gently with a damp cloth the second, you are free to shower on the third. When the skin seems to have recovered in about ten days, use this to dissolve the stitching.” They handed over a small vial of blue liquid. “It is specially formulated for my surgical thread and ensures you do not need to return. If there are signs of infection, however, I do recommend you seek further medical care.”

“Of course,” said Mariano, in a tone that indicated he had no intent to do so. “Thanks again, doctor.” And the pair were gone, but not before Bastian threw another look over his shoulder that made the Doctor feel as if they were about to be eaten. They were going to need so much coffee after this… Taglist: @i-eat-worlds

#whump #my writing #original fiction #mediwhumpmay #whumpblr #mage of violence #mariano #dragon of diamond #bastian #the doctor five card draw #back alley au #fun fact: the doc will swear up and down that they have no magical ability but actually #they resonate with and amplify other people's abilities especially telepathy #so when there's a lot of magic in a room they can be a bit empathic which in incredibly annoying for someone who claims not to have feeling #they're absolutely pissing their pants here and i'm living for it #coy writes

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