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tryingtimi · 1 year

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13 & 29!

His Little Brother

Thank you so much for the numbers! 💙 Well, it was a lovely combination of two IQRUS song, Goodbye by Ramyes (from Arcane) and Doom by Imagine Music. So, since I already planned to write this scene in the near future, I've lived with the opportunity now. Context: The cult experimented on making a specimen of the mix of a human and a zaphrin (angel/lesser god-like creatures) that can erase other zaphrins. Adran happened to be the best candidate to this role, so they made him insane and turned him into an eldritch monster, then went to the Everocean to destroy Auva and kill Dane. It's almost the end of the book.

ADRAN COHREN | BODY, ELDRITCH HORROR | GORE | BLOOD | WC: 819

Adran’s jaw – that nauseating, deformed piece of his face where his sharp, shark-like teeth slumbered – clenched together with an ear-shattering crunch. His Evolved hand closed over Dane’s neck with ease. It seemed so tiny compared to his clawed arms that Dane tried to draw blood from with his weak fingers. To no avail, however. The scales that grew over Adran’s translucent, slithery skin could stop lasers from slicing them through. A mere scratch of a human being was not near to harming him.

Adran’s neck twitched as he saw his brother’s tears escaping from the side of his face.

“Ad…ran…” he forced out the letters with the air that rushed out from his lungs but couldn’t get back anymore. His face slowly turned into the purple of the sunset behind him. “Fight… it…”

ɪᴛ ɪs ᴛɪᴍᴇ, ɪɴsᴇᴄᴛ.

He watched Dane struggle, desperation and terror pooling into his ocean-blue eyes. No. ʏᴇs. His brother let out a gutwrenching cry as Adran’s claws tightened, his neck bruising visibly. No! NO!

ʏᴇs, ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴍɪɴᴇ. ɪᴛ ɪs ᴛɪᴍᴇ.

Electric shockwaves ran down across his skin, right into his bones, the little sparkles popping up here and there in the ooze that dripped from his whole body. His mind had been out of his reach, thick fog and froth washing Adran farther away from himself. Numbness sunken him deeper and deeper locking him into a dark corner of his existence. He’d seen his grotesque, eight feet tall self lifting Dane higher through an old screen, not his eyes. He was lost. He was doing what was best.

It was the best for Her. And so it could be the best for the world as well.

Adran saw what he was doing. Through a screen. Through… he saw his arms and a scar on the sensitive skin between two lines of scales.

A scar.

ɴᴏɴsᴇɴsɪᴄᴀʟ.

His scar.

ᴀsɪɴɪɴᴇ.

The scar he got when he saved Dane. From falling. From dying. He stirred in his numbness. Adran looked down at Dane’s remnant of his mechanic leg. He ripped it out of their fitting. He trashed in the shadows of his mind, trashed for air and freedom.

He was choking Dane. The one he saved and has scarred himself for. Dane lost his leg that day, the day he got his scar. When they were kids. He saved him. From falling. From dying. His Dane.

Adran looked at his gagging, deepening red face.

At his little brother.

NO!

Adran’s mind buzzed and whirled, it melted and bled as he screamed his throat raw when he finally forcefully took the control back over his body. He immediately let Dane go, then with his eyes jumping everywhere at an insane speed, he turned around to look at the source of this bone-crushing unease, this madness.

At Icharo Astin, The Golden Prophet.

He couldn’t describe the guttural loathing that his form presented under the golden robe, and he didn’t try to. With the thin thread he could grab of his sanity, Adran charged towards The Golden. The vessel’s floor thumped under his large, oily feet, the air around him resonating and tearing apart. The Golden did not move as if he was sculpted from stone-cold confidence. He stood there as the grand statue of lunatics. He was indestructible. Death couldn’t lay a hand on him.

Adran, however, was worse than death.

And so he broke through the invisible, yet crushing resistance that this man’s, this monster’s cosmic protection had lifted before him. There was a slight hint of surprise in The Golden’s unreadable, faceless expression when Adran soundlessly roared at him and began to rip him out of existence. He surprised a God, after all. ᴅᴇsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ. ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ᴅᴇsᴛʀᴏʏ. ʏᴏᴜʀsᴇʟꜰ. Adran felt an endless shock of pain in his core, in his bones, in his mind. He started bleeding from everywhere as he sucked the skin, the bone, the life out of The Golden before him.

What he was consuming, was a part of him already. And he couldn’t bear it. It was too much for his body.

Jarring gurgling exploded from The Golden’s mouth. Deafening agony resonated in the air, as both he and Adran shrieked.

Vibrant red and sparkling gold blood bled onto the floor, pooling under them.

Yet, Adran had only one thing stuck in his mind. One thing he was holding onto; that last thread of sanity. Golden-red blood oozed from his face as tears, when he looked at the terrified Dane from the corner of his eyes.

“Save them,” he… forced his mouth to form the words.

Then, with the thought of his little brother, Adran howled in sync with The Golden one last time, before he tore every part of him out of the worlds and destroyed himself in the process.

Completely and permanently.

#sc ifi #writeblr #writing community #IQRUS #Project IQRUS #IQRUS snippets #IQRUS snippet #Adran Cohren #Dane Cohren #Auva is not mentioned here because it's a quick scene #but she's there #and others too tbh #anyway #idk how canon this will be #i think it's pretty canon #but i'll probably will change some thing a bit #insecurity peeks out in the tags just ignore me

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hxllblazer · 3 months

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@defyxoblivion john and dane go on a trauma spree-- || sc!

It feels like a weight that’s licking over his very form… except he’s pretty sure the actual feeling thing has been tuning in and out since bouncing from London.

“F-fuuuck… an’ that’s what ye deal with?” It’s hard to tell if its specific proximity to the relic or if Dane’s been tuning with it or—well, anything really. Ancient shit always just seemed to leave a lingering touch on whoever’s been dabbling in his own experience.

Though John was pretty sure this lingering touch was about ready to smack him upside the head.

“Yer gonna owe me for fixing your shite, mate.” A bit of a grunt, mostly from pressing the cigarette he had out into his thumb. Not ideal, but at least the pain cut just enough to make the idea of losing last night’s dinner less appealing. “Big time.”

#defyxoblivion #prattling along «✦» ( in character #disaster con «✦» ( main #everyone comes out of this one worse than they went in

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alexbkrieger13 · 8 months

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Open and spot the Dane above the article 😂😂

https://fcbayern.com/frauen/de/news/vorberichte/2023/09/vorbericht-sc-freiburg-fc-bayern-frauen

😂 i love this game

try and spot Bean

#spot the dane

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askelectrochromic · 9 months

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AU Lore Spotlight: The Horus Rebellion

I've made vague and indirect reference to this event, so I figure as I try to get back into the swing of writing this world, I should do a mini lore-dive into my headcanons surrounding the infamous Horus Rebellion.

First, the canon and canon-adjacent information: The event was first (and only once) teased in canon in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. A GF Marine trooper posits idly in conversation that the Phazon Crisis might be worse than "the Horus Rebellion," which was the last time Admiral Dane had scrambled such an impressive number of fighter vessels. In unused scans, we have the name of a significant battle, "The Battle of Horus IV," but little other information. Notably this cut lore entry also mentions Aurora Unit 313's contribution to this battle (whether alongside or in place of Admiral Dane is unclear), and its penchant for violent behaviour. I think it's interesting that point was cut out, the foreknowledge that 313 had a bit of a mean streak could have added some nice context to its role near the end of Corruption. But I digress.

Now, my take. As mentioned in the first wikitroid article linked above, the "Horus Rebellion" is almost certainly a reference to the Warhammer 40,000 "Horus Heresy", a major event in the 40k canon. Now despite living with some Warhammer nerds and having watched a couple lore videos about the Horus Heresy, I could not tell you the first thing about it. So my take on this event will not be influenced by the obvious reference material. Sorry WH fans, it's just not my thang.

Instead, my version of this is more influenced by my Eclipse Phase experience, as is a lot of Electrochromic's AU lore. In EP, since it's a gritty-ish Cyberpunk setting, corporations rule the world(s) in various capacities. Corpos wield a huge amount of power and control a lot of settlements, including spaceborne habitats. This is the jumping-off point for my version of the Horus Rebellion.

In "Iron and Sulfur" I use the phrase "sovereign-corporate habitat" to describe Kypros. This is exactly what it sounds like; a habitat owned and operated by a corporation, considered a sovereign micro-state unto itself. These habs may be subject to the planetary law of the corporation's homeworld, but generally they exist outside any such government organizations (usually for slightly unscrupulous business reasons) and run under their own internal corporate system of law. Kind of like a "company town" on steroids, and in space. Before the Horus Rebellion, the Galactic Federation was relatively hands-off with regard to sovereign-corporate habs, trusting the local or planetary governments to maintain peace and equity.

Horus Star Corporation was a materials processing and weapons manufacturing corp that had claimed a corner of Federated space for itself. Horus SC was allowed to operate freely, as its business was a boon to the rapidly-developing Federation military at the time. When a newly-formed Federation colony began encroaching on territory that Horus SC claimed was theirs, the corporation went on the offensive and outright attacked the fledgling Federation colony. This of course meant the GF Marine Corps had to intervene.

Being a weapons manufacturing business, the Horus private troops were startlingly well-armed, and the attack on the GF colony was a massacre. However, the GFMC had the advantage of numbers, and the counterattack against the Horus forces was also a slaughter. The amount of military might leveled against Horus was staggering for a conflict of such relatively small scale. By necessity, as the corporate force was well-equipped and tenacious. But the cultural memory of the "Horus Rebellion" remains a dark and bloody one that echoes into the present of the AU's timeline.

This was the root of Samus's concern over accidentally drawing the Federation to Kypros. Since the Horus Rebellion, the Galactic Federation has taken a much tougher stance on sovereign-corporate habs, outlawing them altogether in territories close to Daiban and other centers of power. Company-funded habitats are required to have an (often strict) oversight board or supervisor that reports to the nearest branch of GF government, and all station security equipment is heavily regulated, if security is not provided directly by a GF military base nearby or on-site. Since Kypros is outside Federated space, they are not subject to such harsh scrutiny or regulation. But it would be easy for a sufficiently motivated officer to justify an attempt to "subdue" or shut down such a station if it proved an obstacle to military operations in the area.

Hence why Samus was so afraid of Fuja appearing at Kypros. She wasn't just afraid for her own or Adam's safety, but for the safety of the station as a whole; her old friend Ghor, and Helena and the Twins who she had newly come to know, along with the innocent mining staff who would have no idea why their station was suddenly under attack. Thankfully, as clarified in a previous ask, despite her temper, Fuja knew better than to engage here. Among other confounding factors, another instance of a Federation fleet stomping a corporate hab into paste would not look good. Although Admiral Dane remains a well-respected officer despite his participation, neither side of the Rebellion is remembered kindly by history, so many people - officers, freelancers, and corpos alike - err on the side of caution when faced with the potential for such conflicts.

#electrochromic #metroid #metroid series #electrochromic lore #sable's fic #iron and sulfur #warhammer 40k #eclipse phase

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bearcreekhq · 1 year

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MEET CARTER

Full Name → Carter Joseph Hudson

Age → 32

Birthday → July 7th, 1991

Order & Type → second, solo

Gender & Pronouns → cis man, he/him

Sexuality → heterosexual

Occupation → art teacher at Bearcreek Jr/Sr High School

THEIR STORY

(tw: military mention, death)

Being a military kid can be rough for most, growing up in a world where you never know when you’ll have to move to a whole new state, start over at a whole new school. And though he couldn’t quite explain it himself, Carter somehow made it look easy. Of course, he was a bit smoother in his younger days and making new friends just came naturally to him. It helped that he was also always easy to talk to and never judged anyone, always tried to lend a hand to peers needing some help and was never condescending about it. His parents had most definitely been raising him right.

Though he was born on a cold, snowy day and spent the first few years of his life in a state that got it’s fair share of chilly winters, Carter isn’t the biggest fan of the season. He was much more a fan of spring and summer, especially as he’d gotten into playing baseball - thanks to all the time he was actually able to spend with his dad. Though he handled the moving around pretty well, it was his dad being deployed that he struggled with. Especially if it was to an actively dangerous area.

When he was twelve years old, Carter’s worst nightmare came true. He’d come home from school and was getting ready to work on his homework, just like any other weekday, but as soon as he saw his mom’s face, he knew something was wrong. Carole had sat him and his siblings down in the living room to deliver the news that Christopher had died in an accident while deployed, and that was as much as he could remember from that day, other than the fact his eyes had hurt from crying so much. The following weeks leading up to them moving back to Bearcreek were all a blur.

It was no surprise that once he and his siblings were enrolled into what would now be their last new school, that Carole had arranged for them to all meet with the guidance counselor once a week, at least for the first few months. And it was within these meetings that Carter realized how much of a passion he had for drawing. He never really wanted to talk to the counselor during their sessions, so he’d only half-listen to her while he’d sit and doodle in his notebook. Which, eventually, this helped inspire his own idea for a comic - something similar to Calvin & Hobbes, that he called Joey & Topher. Joey, being based off of himself and Topher, a great dane, based off of his father.

Another thing that Carter started to use as a bit of a coping mechanism was humor. With him being a bit of an awkward teenager, still the same kind and friendly kid just…a little more on the clumsy side and very much a nervous wreck around a pretty girl, it was easy for him to poke fun at himself and make everything into a joke. In some ways it helped him even more with making friends, though on occasion there were some who just found him annoying. He didn’t let those people bother him though, it was their loss in his mind and he had the people around him that he needed.

When he was nearing graduation, Carter knew exactly what he wanted to go to school for. He knew he wanted to do something that would help young kids/teens, but he knew that the guidance counselor life wasn’t for him. What he did know, was that using art as his outlet was the best thing that could have helped him with his grief and so with a full ride scholarship to Penn State, thanks to his baseball skills, he majored in Art Education to become an art teacher. A couple of years after getting his degree, there was a full-time teaching position open at Bearcreek Jr/Sr High School, and he landed the job. He’s been teaching ever since. He spends his free time writing his comic series, though he’s never shown it to anyone and when he’s not drawing, he’s either taking his dog, a great dane named Scooby, out for walks or playing at the park.

#bearcreekhudson #death tw #military mention tw

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rajeshbarasara-blog · 1 year

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ઉપવાસ આંદોલન, उपवास आंदोलन, Fast and Demonstration against communalism, rowdy-ness and corruption, Morbi, Gujarat, India - 363641 at Collector office and SP Office, Morbi, Gujarat, India - 363641. These people are from lower strata of society (SC, ST). Why are they protesting? I took this photo the day after the completion of Kantilal Amrutiya's Shrimad Bhagavad Knowledge Week. The people are from village of Chanchapar, of which Jayasukh Odhavji Patel too is native. Jayashukh razed these peoples houses to ground, pushed them out from their own shanty thatched-roof homes to open ground - to grind his own personal axe. Today, small lake stood where once these people's dwelling dane stood. Money 🤑 💰 got siphoned off to Jayashukh's exchequer. His life now must be chequered. (at Morbi ( Gujrat )) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckce1rTptKX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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urs-raschle · 2 years

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Achtung - Geoengineering !

Achtung – Geoengineering !

Nicht nur “Elektrosmog” ist ein grosses Problem, sondern auch unsere verschmutzte Luft durch Wettermanipulation mit “Geoengineering. Sehe hierzu die zwei unten aufgeführten Filme – Geoegineeringwatch.org sowie einen Vortrag von Dr. sc. nat. Philipp Zeller (ETH) bei TTV Horizont. Dokumentarfilm (deutsch) von Dane Wigington von Geoengineeringwatch.org auf Odysee >> (klick) Original auf Englisch…

View On WordPress

#Elektrosmog #Geoengineering #Klima #Wettermanipulation

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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The Rescue, Part 2: Nate’s POV

Remember how I told you there were two parts to The Rescue? I lied. There’s actually three or four, because Nate got chatty. Whoops. In any case, here’s the second part of the Rescue and how Nate got Danny away from Bram. Follows directly on The Rescue, Part One (may want to read that one first for context if you haven’t yet

Tagging @special-spicy-chicken, @spiffythespook, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, and @whumpywhumper!

CW: The dog kennel makes a reappearance. Referenced/implied noncon, serious violence, blood, mention of dissociation/trauma

“I was m-mad,” Nate said flatly.

“Mad?” The detective raised an eyebrow, tapping her pencil on the yellow notepad laid out in front of her. “That’s it?”

“I was r-r-really mad.”

“Based on the drawing you made for us of what you keep referring to, it’s… clear what happened to Mr. Michaelson during the incident you say led you to plan an escape. So, I looked at the notes from the officer you initially spoke with… it says here that it wasn’t the first time.”

Nate ground his teeth together, fighting the surge of anger and picking up his mug of coffee instead, taking a slow drink, letting the scalding liquid burning the roof of his mouth distract him. All of this was helpful, he reminded himself. All of this was one step closer to getting Bram somewhere where he couldn’t hurt Danny anymore. “No,” he said, keeping the word quick and curt. “He m-made him wear it when h-h-he was angry with him. It was the th-thing he hated most. He’s… he was sc-scared of it.“

He was tired of answering questions, and Danny was all alone back in the breakroom, sitting in that stupid fucking folding chair with a blanket around his shoulders. Alone. He didn’t do well by himself. He didn’t like being alone - Bram had taken Nate on a supply run once and left Danny chained in the living room with enough food for a few days, told him they’d be gone for a weekend - and then stayed more than twice that long.

Danny had been desperate and terrified and so fucking grateful to Bram for coming back. Certain they’d left him in the living room to die, just like when Bram threw him in the cellar, in the dark. Then dragged Nate away to a small hunting shed down the road for a week, two weeks, a whole fucking month.

Returning to a Danny thirsty and starving, out of apples and water, willing to do anything - anything - if Bram promised not to leave again.

And somehow, Nate thought, Bram always seemed to know the exact day Danny ran out of food and water.

Nate’s bad hand tried to tighten into a fist and he winced at the spike of pain, the feeling of bones badly healed grinding against each other.

“I w-want to see R-… Danny,” Nate said, taking another sip of coffee, trying to calm down. Steady. You are rescued captives, not criminals, and they’ve already said Danny’s brother will be taking you back to sleep at his place. “We sh-… should talk to you t-t-together. In the same r-room.”

“I just want a few pieces of information to round out what we know,” The woman reassured him.

“Ma’am, I uh-understand that, but h-h-he’s scared. He d-d-doesn’t like being alone, it’s b-b-better if we t, talk together-”

“Listen, this is not an interrogation and we’re really not holding you. We only have you in here because the trauma expert we brought in has said it might be better for him not to overhear it, especially the bits involving…” She tapped her pen on the drawing Nate had made for her of the thing Abraham put on Danny’s face, then tapped her own cheek.

“But I h-h-have to hear m-me say it?” Nate sighed, and it felt good to sigh in a place where no one was going to mock him for how often he did it, or hit him, or cut the words STOP FUCKING SIGHING SO MUCH into his back.

Part of him ached with missing Bram’s presence, the hand that would have been on the back of his neck right now, telling him what to say without ever having to speak a word… but that part was too far gone, down a well of once you did this, it was too fucking late. “It’s n-n-not easier for me, you know.”

“Isn’t it? When we tried to speak to Mr. Michaelson, he shut down entirely.” The woman tapped her pen again, and Nate narrowed his eyes. That sound was getting really, really annoying. “I only want to learn a little bit more. You’re doing just fine, Mr. Vandrum.”

“I’m n-not worried about me.” Nate took a breath, gentled his voice. He tried even to gentle his expression, but it was hard by now to break the self-protective mask he wore, the one where bitterness and hostility fought for dominance, where he always looked bored and angry. It was a safer face than any other, and only with Danny did he find it easy to lose. “Even if it’s j-j-just a break,” He said quietly. “I want to s-s-see him. Soon.”

“Just a few more questions, Nate, and we’ll facilitate that. Once we’re done, we’ll take you back in. I’ve been told Mr. Michaelson’s brother has picked up a couple hotel rooms for you to stay in, and we can take this back up in the morning afterward. Is that acceptable?”

He thought about it, but they both knew it wasn’t really something he had a choice in. He at least was pretty used to not having choices. He wondered, idly, what had happened to Bram’s truck.

The body’s truck, not Bram’s.

(he’s not supposed to be back here for three months)

Not body. Victim.

(of course I’m going to kill him)

“Fine.” Nate sighed, again, and relished the sound and the way all the detective did was try to hide a small half-smile.

“Good. I just want to get through what you were thinking on Mr. Michaelson’s twenty-sixth birthday, when both of you have stated that the incident occurred that led to your escape, and then we’ll take a break. What made this different, if I might ask?”

Nate frowned. “Made w-w-what different?”

“You say this was done to him before, as… a form of punishment?” When Nate winced, her eyebrows furrowed in a moment of regret. “Ah, I’m sorry. I should have worded that differently. You say it happened more than once, at least. That it was not uncommon as a method of control. So what made this last time different, in your eyes? Prior to this, you had not been able to effect an escape. So why this time?”

Nate looked at her and thought of Daniel with the thing on his face, when the blue eyes were empty and gone, curled up in the back of the dog kennel in the cellar, whining in his throat like a kicked animal when Nate came close, looking at him and seeing Abraham Denner instead.

When those eyes stayed empty, stayed gone, for so long that until Nate had him in Bram’s truck (the body’s truck) he’d been perfectly and totally certain that it was too late, that Danny would never come back.

You’re a fucking fairy tale, Nate. Kissed the sleeping prince to wake him up. He had to fight back the bitter laughter, knowing that if he started laughing he might never stop. I didn’t exactly slay the dragon, though, did I? “He m-m-made me put it on h-him.”

“You had never done that before?”

He glared down into his coffee. “Not l-like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said no,” Nate snapped. “Because I f-fucking h-h-h… haaaah… I hated that thing. And sometimes he l-l-listened to me.” Sometimes he loved me enough to listen. Guilt blossomed, flowered inside of him, and he fought it back down. It was his fault Bram was sitting in a hospital room right now, handcuffed to the bed, would go to prison. His fault his fault his fault.

No. It wasn’t his fault.

If he hadn’t done that to Danny, everything would still be the same. Nate had understood, he’d learned all his lessons. He’d become exactly what Bram wanted and they’d been together for seven years, more time with Danny there than without him. After seven years of every attempt to find himself, to escape - to stand up for Danny - failing, Nate had been ready to live like that forever if he had to. Danny and his books, that was enough.

It would have to be enough.

But Bram had made the choice that nearly stole Danny from him for good, and if Danny was the only thing Bram had left him…

Danny was the only thing he wanted enough to kill for.

“But not on the day in question. On the day in question, he forced you to fasten this implement onto Mr. Michaelson’s face?”

Nate shook his head. "He wanted Red-… Danny to watch me b-be the one to d-d-do it.”

So that even I was a threat, the bad guy, someone who hurt him. That he couldn’t turn to me for help, because I was just as bad as Bram. Just like him, going to be just like him, just like them… so that he knew no one was safe, and I wanted to be safe for him.

That was all I wanted.

Bram took that away from me.

“So that was what made you start considering escape?”

“Not… n-not really. It made me th-think about it, but… what made me do something didn’t happen until September, when he b-brought him back into the cabin.”

“How long was that after going in? Two months, give or take? Okay, so what happened?”

“Two and a half. He went in on July 10th. He brought him back up right before October. If I answer, do I get to see him for a while?”

The woman went still, the slightest flare around her eyes the only thing betraying surprise. That’s right, Nate thought, I don’t always stammer. Sometimes I get pissed off instead, and the switch flips, and the words get back on the track to my mouth like they used to. She tilted her head, considered. “Yes. We’ll take a break, and you can see him, then. What happened in September?”

“He s-s-sent me down to get him,” Nate said softly. “G-Gave me the key.”

“H-Hey, Red, it’s m-m-me,” Nate had whispered, coming down the creaking wooden stairs, the cellar door thrown open to let as much light in as he could. “Where are y-y-you, Red? D-Danny?”

A low whine from the corner, behind the shelves that were empty now but would be full of pumpkins and apples in the winter, potatoes, too - all the food that they kept down here. Danny would make pumpkin pies and pumpkin pasta, black bean soup with pumpkin thrown in. Nate was fucking sick of beta carotene by spring.

He followed the sound of the whine, his heart dropping as he heard a soft metal scraping noise - rhythmic and horrifying, even when he didn’t know what it was.

He’d heard Danny trying to scream down here, when Bram went down to check on him. The whining sound like a kicked dog, ratcheted up to a horrible high pitch, followed by smacks and thumps and thuds and Bram’s laughter breaking it apart, shattering Danny’s fear and misery. Neither of them sounded human, down there, any longer.

That was when Nate had begun, piece by piece to realize that he didn’t feel quite the same when he looked Bram in the eyes as he used to.

Nate had moved around the corner of the shelf to find the large dog kennel shoved against the corner. It was nearly full-dark even with the cellar door open, this far back. Danny was curled up in the back, knees nearly to his chin, wide blue eyes staring sightlessly ahead.

Bare feet caked in dried dirt up to his ankles, streaks of old mud along his arms. The collar was cinched so tight that Danny breathed in shallow half-gasps. His red hair was dark, too dark, and Nate thought Bram must have been shoving him down into the dirt when he came down here, because Danny’s hair was clumped with mud.

Nate stared at Danny, and Danny stared back without seeing him, his whining turning to a low, frightened, inhuman whimper. He curled up even more tightly, and Nate realized what the metallic scraping was as Danny rubbed the side of the muzzle against the side of the kennel, trying to find the relieving, soothing pressure without touching the muzzle himself.

He couldn’t, after all - his hands were tied behind his back.

There was blood caked and dried on his chest, down his torso. A huge bruise he could see even in the semi-darkness on one hip.

“Oh h-h-holy fuck, no.”

Nate crouched down in front of the crate - feeling a twinge of pain in the knee Bram had damaged, once upon a time - and when he put the key into the lock to open it, Danny flinched away from him, tears leaking from his eyes, mixing with the blood on his face.

“C-C-Come on, Red, it’s t-t-time to c-come upstairs…”

Danny shook his head, whimpering again, turning his eyes away. Nate had to reach in and grab him by one arm, feeling like the lowest scum of the earth, and pull Danny whining and frightened forcibly out of the crate. Had to drag him up to his feet, which barely seemed able to hold him. Had to pull him up into sunshine he hadn’t seen in two and half months, leading him like a blind man when Danny whined and pushed his face into Nate’s shoulder at the pain of the light.

In the light, Nate could see what he’d missed in the dark.

He could see that some of what he’d thought was dirt on Danny’s arms and legs, his torso, along his spine… was blood.

And his face was still bleeding fresh, new bright red to cover over the dark dried brownish flakes on his cheeks under the grid.

And when he got him inside, Bram had looked up at them from his place sitting at the kitchen table, and smiled.

He’d taken pictures, with his phone, of the bloody wreckage where a man once had been.

And Nate had thought to himself, I’m going to kill you one day. And for the first time in seven years, he meant it.

In the present , Nate came back to himself, to the curious, patient stare of the detective. “I’m s-s-sorry, you had asked-”

“What was different about this instance?”

“Oh, um, time… He sp-spent two m-months in the… away f-f-from me, and when we g-g-got him back upstairs and c-clean-”

“How long had you gone without seeing him during the captivity prior to the event?”

“… I didn’t, n-not since Abraham took him. I s-s-saw him every single day until then, except w-w-when he took m-me on a supply run or t-two. We were… we were e-e-everything for each other.”

Still are. He’s everything, and no one’s going to take him away again.

“When he brought Mr. Michaelson back up from the cellar, you were still angry about what happened in July?”

Nate just nodded, this time, and took another drink of coffee. It was cooling rapidly in the little questioning room, and he frowned down at it. It was terrible coffee - Danny would hate it, he’d never stopped being a coffee snob even during the worst days, at the end, when he didn’t even get to drink the coffee he’d made, because…

“Bram wouldn’t take it off,” Nate said in a low voice. The anger was back, the fury that lived inside of him and flipped the switch inside his brain. The words suddenly came easily, all but fell out of his mouth, tumbled over each other in his eagerness for someone to understand what he’d done and why. “He wouldn’t take the fucking thing off of him, even after he brought him back up. Just to sh-shower, for eating. He made him… he’d worn it for…” He counted it up, the days and weeks of seeing Danny’s empty fucking eyes, and knew he’d done the right thing. “… he’d worn it for five goddamn months by the time I got him out.“

The woman sat back, watching him carefully, writing quickly on her notepad without ever taking her eyes off of his face. “Five months, Mr. Vandrum?”

"Five. Months. He didn’t get to take it off - other than to eat or for me to take care of his- his bleeding, to get his face cleaned up and bandaged-… for five months.”

“I understand,” She said, with that exaggerated but impersonal empathy that he fucking hated hearing in cop shows and definitely hated even more in real life. “Mr. Michaelson didn’t tell us it was that long.”

“He p-p-probably doesn’t r-remember. I was… I’d been m-mad before, but you kn-know, you g-g-get over being mad, in a relationship. You fight a-and you work it out, s-sometimes he hurt m-m-me until I stopped b-being angry, but…” One of the woman’s eyebrows twitched upwards, then just as quickly went back down. She said nothing. “But th-this… he knew, he knew he wouldn’t come b-back, this t-t-time, and he didn’t.”

“Come back? Can you explain-”

“D-Danny goes away in his head when it’s on h-him. He's…”

“Yes,” The detective said, thoughtfully. “The trauma expert told us he dissociates, and he does seem to struggle with understanding where he is, or when he is.”

“Wh-who he is,” Nate whispered.

My name is Red and I belong to Abraham Denner.

“Right. So you’re saying that the muzzle-” Nate flinched at the word, and the detective cleared her throat. “Apologies. You’re saying the implement is the cause of his dissociation, and he doesn’t come back until you take it off. That Mr. Denner purposefully kept it on, and kept him dissociated, for five months.”

“Y-Yes.”

“So when he chose to keep it on… this upset you further?” The woman asked, voice pitched lower and lower.

“Of c-course it did. He let me c-clean him up, and everything, but he m-m-made me p-put it back on afterwards. Over and oh-over, and… and over-” Nate’s voice broke, caught with the tears he hadn’t shed, not in a long time. The guilt might eat him alive. He’d let it go on for so long before he could pull everything off, before he could do what he had to do. This was on him, all of it. What had happened to Danny, what had been taken from him. How little was left. “He s-said it wasn’t coming off this time until he felt like he’d learned, th-that he’s not a p-person, just the f-f-fucking puppy.”

The detective swallowed. Her composure did not crack, not for a moment.

“He’s n-not. He’s not wh-what Bram always, always s-s-said he was, he’s not. He is a person!”

He’s my person.

Mine.

“I understand your frustration,” She said, carefully compassionate, still distant. Did she not like him, Nate wondered or was it just professional composure, not to crack under the weight of the story Nate was telling her? “This was the catalyst for the actions you undertook between October and December 10th?”

“Yes.”

Catalyst. Perfect word for it, wasn’t it? Nate smiled, the barest, faintest little smile. Yes, it had been the catalyst.

Daniel had come up from the cellar filthy, clinging to Nate with eyes that saw something else, that belonged to someone else. Bram had ordered Nate to get him into the shower and clean him up, and then put him back on his mat.

Every bit of dirty water down the drain, all the shaggy red hair he’d cut off when he couldn’t get the tangles to come apart no matter how long he combed at them… every new wound and scarring bit of skin and bruise he’d found… every time Danny whined at the feel of his hands, even though Nate took the thing off in the shower…

All of it was a little bit more of what tied Nate to Bram - the fear and the affection, the love and the pain, the power of his eyes - draining away.

Danny’s broken arm had healed even if more of the rest of him was hurt - Bram must have splinted it, while he was in the cellar, in the dog crate. Even with the thing off his face, Danny didn’t come back, not even for a second. He just sat there, empty, and allowed himself to be cleaned.

Once he was clean, the story of the past two months in the darkness became even more apparent. Nate could see new cuts, reddish and infected, layered over old mostly-healed ones. His body was littered with bruising, and when he took the collar off for the shower he could see that the skin was raw and blistered under there.

He fastened the collar back on, at Bram’s command, but at least he could make it looser for him, this time.

He could see the muzzle wounds dug so deeply into his face that Nate thought his jaw might never heal all the way that his nose would always look like that now dug in hard on the top. They kept leaking blood even after he bandaged them, thin blood vessels so close to the surface, so repeatedly forced into exposure with the air.

And he could see, in the empty blank blue eyes, the worst wound of all - the way Danny had retreated into his own mind to escape, and couldn’t find his way back out.

Once he was cleaned up, dried off, and dressed in a thin button-up and his cotton pajama pants, Danny sat quietly on his mat, staring at nothing, and no matter how Nate tried to get him back, he was gone.

Not even when Bram ordered him into the bed that night.

All Danny did was stare blankly at the two of them and do exactly what he was told. He fell asleep that night with his head resting on his shoulder, wavy red hair tickling at his ear, the metal grid of the muzzle pressing lightly against Nate’s neck.

Nate had held him until he fell asleep, and known he couldn’t keep going like this. The fury did not die under Bram’s eyes, this time.

He held on to that fury for as long as it took to do what he had to do to save him.

“This was in late September. We didn’t receive the call until… December 11th, it says, that you and Mr. Michaelson reported yourselves to a police station around 2 am. What happened?”

Nate swallowed.

I stopped loving Bram.

I learned how to love Danny more.

“I came up with a plan.”

“A plan, Mr. Vandrum?”

Nate looked her right in the eyes, and dared her to question what he had had to do. Dared her to say a goddamn word about his choices that night.

“Yes, m-ma’am.”

“And your plan was…”

“A m-m-murder.”

#whump #Daniel Michaelson's story #nate vandrum: a knight in soot-stained armor #defiant whumpee #broken whumpee #tw: muzzles #muzzling #restrained #tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: referenced/implied noncon (brief)#tw: abuse #intimate whumper #creepy whumper #violent whumper #dehumanization #pet whump

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