#tw: near suicide
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FFXIVWrite2022 Prompt 3: Temper
Content Warning: Self-harm and mutilation, near suicide?, and A LOT of mental horror.
Charibert has the horrific realization that he has been tempered, and only gets further confirmation when he tells Zephirin.
Thanks to everyone who read this over and assured me that this wasn’t awful, especially @inkblood-mistrieu who helped with some of the words and to @beasthuntergalvus for checking to make sure I didn’t miss any possible triggers.
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"Everything you think about, everything you do, your entire being and spirit is dedicated to the primal who has branded you. Your will is no longer your own. If you are aware of it, you wouldn't be able to change anything. And that's if you're lucky enough to still know who you are. Most people I've seen have been branded so thoroughly they can no longer form any conscious thought of their own. They don't even question the will of the primal."
Charibert couldn't help but think about the explanation that Raven’s friend gave to his mother.
Tempering...what a horrific thing to do to someone. He may have done horrific things to his victims, but nothing that horrific. That's something not even he would stoop so low for. And these Paragons would use the beastmen for such means to summon primals that strip the summoner's will.
He couldn't help but wonder, though, what they were doing...was it-
The thought vanished before it could even finish itself and he stopped his daily readings.
"Can't even question..." He mused, idly thumbing the pages of his journal. He thought more about the explanation given and remembered something his mother said.
“Have you been having nightmares since you joined the Ward sweetheart?”
“No? Why do you ask?”
“You’ve been talking in your sleep. I don’t mean to check on you while you rest, part of me just...didn’t quite believe you were real. That you were home.” Auriella explained, getting a touch misty eyed. He frowned as she pulled him in for a brief hug, taking a second to ground herself. “Anyway, I asked because I thought I heard you talking in your sleep, as though you were lost in prayer. I thought you were in the middle of a nightmare and had tea prepared but when I got up the next day it was still there.”
He gave her a smile, she remembered all of his habits despite there being over a decade since she’d last seen him. “I’m alright Mother. In fact last night was one of the few times I’ve felt so rested.”
“I’m glad sweetheart.”
“Lost in prayer...wait a second.” He mumbled, a strange feeling of dread building in his gut. He couldn’t help but reflect on when he came home and found his brothers in arms asleep in the commons area, and while he didn’t think about it at first, they all seemed to be in the same state.
Lost in prayer, even the ones who ugly snore in their sleep seemed to mutter prayers between snores.
Everything you think about, everything you do, your entire being and spirit is dedicated to the primal who has branded you.
He felt his breath quicken and he struggled to keep his breath even.
When? How? Why??
They all left his mind the second he tried to think about them, his panic rising with each question.
Flames gathered in his hands and he quickly tossed his robe aside before he pressed his burning hands to his tattooed arms, the holy text burned into his skin and inked over began to glow.
He winced, trying to focus on the pain, the flames searing his flesh to attempt to burn the blight from his body, his soul.
“Merciful, blessed Halone.” Charibert gasped, biting his lip to keep the first of his screams from escaping his lips. It hurt so badly, he hated the pain, but any kind of pain was worth it if he could rid himself of this curse. “Forgive me of my sins, my wrongs. I beg You of Your Divine Grace. May this fool of a man repent and atone all the remainder of his days for the freedom from this curse of this false shepard.”
His tattoos burned and he bit his tongue. “Mercy! I beg of Your mercy. Please...”
Right as he was about to pass out the flames suddenly stopped. He gasped, what happened? He didn’t stop it, what...
Oh no...
His arms screamed from the pain. But his panic didn’t settle, if anything it only made it worse as he realized his fate, his and his friends.
They’ve been tempered.
Prisoners in their own bodies, only death can be their salvation.
Damn the man. Damn the man to the Pit of Ice where he belongs.
He needed to tell the others.
He barely realized someone was calling his name, when did he lay down? Everything hurts.
“...Charibert?”
Zephirin?
“Merciful Fury your arms...what did you do?” Zephirin asked, horrified no doubt by his self-mutilation, but he blinked and felt a wetness on his cheeks. “You wouldn’t do this to yourself without cause, let me help, or if nothing else let me get Haumeric, the burns-”
“I can do it myself.” Charibert groused as he tried to bring his hand to his marred flesh to heal the wounds, but even that was too painful. “...Damnit. Fine.” Blessed Fury I overdid it...
“You did this intentionally.” Zephirin states as he did his best to stop the bleeding and ease the pain, and Charibert realized that he said this out loud. There was no anger in his voice, only worry and...was that sadness in his voice?
Foolish bleeding heart.
“Why?”
Charibert took a breath with a sigh, before giving Zephirin a pained smile. “Do you really want that answer Archmandrite?”
That made Zephirin’s brow raise in confusion, and Charibert gave a bitter laugh, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or his own bitterness at the situation.
“Tell me darling, did your sweetheart ever explain what it means when a person is tempered?” He asked. He was being a bit of a shite, but he was in a lot of pain and it’s likely he’s about to drop a right nasty bombshell on the man’s head.
“She’s not- oh nevermind. Yes she has. Why?” Zephirin asked, though he could see him bite his lip in worry.
He really hoped he wouldn’t react as badly as he did.
The bitter smile remained on his face as he leaned to whisper in his ear, as though they weren’t the only ones in his living space.
“We’ve been tempered Zephirin. Tempered to the Archbishop’s will.”
Zephirin’s eyes went wide as he stared at Charibert, his face paler than usual in horror at the implication. His hands shook as he finished wrapping up his arms. They shouldn't hurt as much, due to his ability to recover quicker from burns.
"No...no that can't be...we-" He tried to deny, but then realized that Charibert wouldn't try what he did if it wasn't the case. Were he not already knelt he would've sank to his knees in despair. "Blessed Fury what have I done? I've...I've doomed you all. I..." He gasped, his voice normally deep and assuring was raspy and choked, like he struggled to breathe. He covered his open mouth with his hand. "I've-"
Charibert watched Zephirin suddenly stop, the fear and despair disappeared in his body and his eyes and he went eerily calm.
The cold despair that sunk into his bones was colder than the memory of the nights in the Brume, despite the lingering flames that heated the ink on his arms.
If there was ever any doubt before, there wasn't now.
#Charibert de Leusignac#Zephirin de Valhourdin#tw: self harm#tw: near suicide#tw: psychological horror#A dive into a mind of someone realizing they've been tempered#I need soft things after this#FFXIVWrite2022
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the dangers of being God
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(read left to right)
#saiki k#art tag#saiki k fanart#saiki kusuo#comic#this took me 14 hours i did not take breaks and i started actually crying near the end so uh. please enjoy it guys.#Ill be very sad if you dont#tw suicide implied#kinda#just to be safe tho
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What Went Wrong
AI-Less Whumptober 2023: 1. Poisoned, 8. Seizure, 14. Bleeding Through the Bandage, 21. Near-Death Experience, 30. Coma, Alt. Prompt: Bloody Knuckles
Fandom: DC, The Suicide Squad, Rick Flag, f!reader
Summary: After a mission goes spectacularly wrong, Rick is forced to relay what happened, no matter how painful it is for him to relive it.
Word Count: 5033
TW: Poison, Mentions of Death, Blood/Bleeding, Seizure, Hospital, Language, Rick is taller than Reader
Note: Written for @ailesswhumptober's event. Thank you to the anon who requested Bloody Knuckled with Rick! It was really a wonderful inspiration! And thank you to @loverhymeswith for all the support and beta reading for me! 💖
Colonel Rick Flag sat in the small break room—now a makeshift interrogation room—oblivious to the world around him. All he could do was stare blankly down at his busted, swollen knuckles and watch as his blood slowly reddened the gauze he couldn’t remember someone wrapping them in. Apparently, someone had also given him something for the pain, but it was doing little to stop the throbbing ache that seemed to intensify with every beat of his heart. Yet, he sort of liked it. It gave him something to focus on, to ground him, even as everything else around him lay in ruins.
Gritting his teeth, he balled his left hand into as much of a fist as the swelling and bandaging would allow, and almost blacked out as every nerve running from his hand up his arm screamed out in excruciating agony. Squeezing his eyes together tightly, he stifled a groan of pain as he forced himself to maintain the fist.
Focus on the physical pain. Just focus on the physical pain. Let everythin’ else slip away until there is nothin’ but this pain.
“Colonel Flag….Colonel….Sir—”
“Flag!”
Waller’s sharp tone cut through his fog and Rick’s fist instinctively uncurled, lessening the pain to a point where he once again became aware of his surroundings. Blinking, he looked up to stare at the pair in front of him in a slight daze. “W-what?”
Waller nodded at the other man who shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he cleared his throat and glanced down at the stack of papers in front of him. “Uh, yes, well, I understand this may be difficult for you but we need to get your official statement on what happened for the record.”
Rick sighed as he scratched at the gauze on his hand. “Do we really have to do this right now? I got better places to be.”
The man shot him an apologetic smile. “I understand that but the less time that passes between the event and the report, the more accurate it is. And considering there were numerous asset casualties, we need this to be as accurate as possible to avoid any liabilities.”
“Assets and liabilities,” Rick spat, the words like ash in his mouth. “That’s all any of them are to you, isn’t it? Numbers on a page to use how you want. But the members of Task Force X are people. Yeah, people who made some wrong choices or did horrible things, but that doesn’t mean they are just fodder you can throw at your problems.”
“It wasn’t so long ago that you too viewed your squad members as nothing more than that,” Waller said coldly, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes completely devoid of all emotion. “I wonder, did your view on them change before or after you started crawling into one of their beds?”
Rick leaped to his feet, his metal chair clanging loudly on the hard tile as it toppled over. The man jumped and cowered back in surprise, but Waller didn’t even flinch. Instead, she continued to stare Rick down, daring him to try and make a move against her. But they both knew what would happen if he did….
Recognizing he was in an impossible situation, Rick could only point at Waller and snarl, “You leave her out of this. Whatever relationship we might have didn’t affect what happened on the mission. And what I do on my own time is my own business.”
“Maybe, but you fucked her while she was my prisoner, which makes it my business.”
Before Rick could snap back, the man cleared his throat, his face bright red behind his glasses, and he reached for one of his papers. Scanning it, he asked, “Excuse me but are you confirming you had an intimate relationship with Belle Reve prisoner 0806?”
Rick turned his attention to the man, anger gleaming in his hazel eyes. This just proved his point. To them, you were nothing more than a faceless number, something to be used when convenient then tossed back into a cell like the other thousand inmates of Belle Reve.
“Yes,” Rick said through gritted teeth as the man began to write something on his papers. “After several assignments together, a connection developed and we became romantically then intimately involved.”
The man paused his scribbling and glanced up as Waller began slowly walking around to stand behind Rick. “‘Romantically’...so this relationship between you and this inmate was more than just physical?”
A thousand moments with you unwillingly flashed through Rick’s mind: your head resting on his shoulder as you slept on the flight home from a mission; the determined glare on your face as you fought off a swarm of enemies all by yourself; the way he didn't need to say a word for you to know exactly what he needed; the pure adoration in your eyes as he settled between your legs on your tiny prison cot. How could he not have fallen in love with you?
Rick once again tightened his hand into a loose fist as he growled, “Why the fuck does it matter right now? However you define it, it didn’t affect the mission at all.”
“Given how the evacuation team found you, sir, one might say differently.” Rick began to rise up out of his seat but the man put up his hands. “I’m sorry. I have to ask these kinds of questions so we can get the full picture of what went on in that lab. It’s in your best interest as well as ours if you can be as honest and detailed as possible so we have all the information when presenting our findings. Right now, the depth of your relationship with this inmate only matters to me if it caused some sort of misconduct during the mission that led to its failure. Otherwise, I don’t care what the two of you have been up to or how you feel about each other, I promise.”
Rick could feel Waller’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his head and he knew that she felt very differently. If she had her way, he would be court-martialed immediately. Not because he had been sleeping with you or because he loved you—no, he was certain she already knew about that. But now that it was public knowledge the head of her pride-and-joy task force was sleeping with one of its criminal assets presumedly right under her nose, it would put a black mark not only on the squad but on her as well. And that was not something Waller took lightly.
But for now, she wasn’t his main concern. He needed to get out of this room and upstairs as soon as possible. So, he nodded to the man and motioned for him to continue with his questions.
“Thank you.” The man gave Rick a small smile and looked back down at his papers. After scanning them for a minute, he looked at Rick and said, “Now then, Colonel, to the best of your recollection, can you tell us what happened? What went wrong?”
What went wrong….. It was the thought that had been plaguing Rick for the past twenty-four hours. He had replayed the entire mission over and over in his head trying to figure out what he could have done differently to save his team…..to save you.
It was supposed to be a textbook in-and-out mission with no foreseeable complications. An underground lab was developing a new weapon that could be catastrophic in the wrong hands—which included the scientists developing it. Though hidden, the lab didn’t appear to have more than the most basic levels of security and it seemed like a cakewalk for a small team to go in, destroy the research and weapon, and secure any scientists on site.
Because of this, it was determined this would be a good chance to break in the newest recruits to Task Force X and Rick found himself leading a team comprised almost entirely of untrained, terrified ex-criminals who wouldn’t shut up or fall into line. Before they even got off the plane, he was ready to detonate every last one of their nanite bombs.
Luckily, you had been allowed to tag along to help keep everyone under control….including Rick. Even if no one realized how deeply the connection between the two of you went, it was obvious that you had a way of calming him down and centering him even in the most dangerous or stressful of situations. Rick pretended to hate the idea that he needed someone to manage him but honestly, he didn’t mind as long as it meant he got to spend more time with you.
On your very first mission with Task Force X, Rick noticed you were special and unlike anyone he had met before. And by the third mission, he had you pressed against a wall in a dark alley as you shoved your tongue down his throat. Since then, he would do whatever he could to be near you, including bribing the guards to turn off the cameras in your cell for a few hours once or twice a month—and still it wasn’t enough. He was counting down the missions until you earned your freedom and he could have you in his bed every night without having to leave.
And this mission would bring that dream one step closer to a reality.
Once inside the building, Rick sent the rest of the Squad to destroy everything in the labs (he figured they could handle unbridled destruction without needing supervision) while you went with him to find the mainframe and extract any information you could before wiping it.
The plan seemed to be going perfectly until you and Rick finished your assignment and were heading back to the rendezvous point. Just as you reached the lab’s exit, there was a whirring sound and a pair of thick, metal doors slammed shut inches in front of Rick’s face. You spun around to try to rush back the way you came, but another door slid shut, blocking your retreat.
“Damn it!” Rick yelled as he slammed his fist against the thick metal door. Sighing, he picked up his radio to call into headquarters. Usually, they would all be on earpieces, but since it was supposed to be such a simple mission, they had forgone them this time. “Control, this is Flag. Do you copy?”
The radio crackled to life. “We copy, Flag. Did you complete your mission?”
“Affirmative, Harcourt. But on the way to the rendezvous, we got cut off. We are trapped between two metal doors and I can’t see a way out. Requestin’ an extraction team to come get us.”
“Launching extraction team now. ETA is approximately fifteen minutes. Stand by.”
“Copy.” Rick slipped the radio back into his cargo pocket and shrugged at you. “Well, I guess we just wait. At least we have a few minutes alone together until they show up.”
Looking around at the tight space you were now trapped in, you took a step closer, pressed your palms against Rick’s back, and leaned against him as you whispered, “Rick…I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Ah hell, darlin’,” Rick muttered. “Now why’d you have to say somethin’ like that?”
Suddenly, the sprinkler heads on the ceiling sprang to life, and a mysterious liquid sprayed down on you. It was clear like water but had an oily consistency and a bitter, acidic smell to it. Rick spun around, grabbed your arm, and pulled you tight against his chest trying to use his large form to shield you from as much of it as possible but it was of little use. Soon, you were both drenched from head to toe.
It lasted for less than a minute before the sprinklers turned off once again. Lifting your head from where you had buried it in Rick’s chest, you glanced around before muttering, “What the fuck was that about?”
“I don’t know. But I think we should get outta here before we find out.” Rick turned back to the metal door and began examining it for any sort of weak point or hidden switch.
From behind him, he heard you audibly shiver and he glanced back to see you rubbing your hands over your still dripping arms trying to warm yourself up. He wished he had something to give you but he doubted his soaked tact jacket would provide you any warmth. Either the extraction team needed to hurry up or he needed to get you both out of here as soon as possible.
However, just as he began to turn back to the door, there was a burst of static from above you, and a voice called out from a hidden speaker, “So, this must be the current iteration of Task Force X. Welcome!” You and Rick exchanged a nervous glance as the voice continued. “I had a feeling Waller would track me down eventually, and it looks like I was right. Good thing I took precautions.”
“Who the hell are you?” Rick called out as his eyes scanned the ceiling trying to locate where the voice was coming from.
“She didn’t tell you? She just sent you out on a mission without briefing you on what you were walking into?” The voice scoffed. “Why am I not surprised? Well, let me introduce myself. I used to be one of the head research and developers at ARGUS before Waller got everything she wanted from me and tried to have me arrested despite the fact everything I did was under her orders. You see, I’m the guy who developed the technology that made the nanite bombs possible, including that one currently residing in your girlfriend’s head.”
You gasped as your eyes grew wide and your hand flew to the side of your neck, your finger tracing the small bump just under your skin that Rick knew was there. His eyes met yours and he knew you were both thinking the same thing: If this maniac invented the bombs then chances were….
Rick glared up at the ceiling and roared, “Now listen here you bastard—”
“I can’t detonate it if that’s what you’re worried about,” the voice calmly interrupted. “Waller is smart enough to change the frequency for every mission which means I, unfortunately, can’t access them. However, I had a feeling she would kick me to the curb once she had my technology so I neglected to tell her about the one flaw in my design. The unintended way to weaponize them. The one I just set in motion.”
A chill ran down Rick’s spine. “What are you talkin’ about? What did you do!”
“Rick…” Your fingers dug into his arm as you reached for him, your shivering intensifying—but whether that was from cold or fear, Rick didn’t know.
“The bombs are not the only thing injected into the subjects,” the voice continued. “A small amount of a typically harmless chemical surrounds it to help the body not reject the foreign object or start breaking it down. I say ‘typically harmless’ because it only becomes toxic when mixed with another rare compound….the same compound that was just released from the sprinkler system moments ago.”
“What did you do to me?” you asked, addressing the voice directly for the first time. “What’s going to happen?”
“Oh, not just you, my dear. Those sprinklers went off all over the building so I’m sorry to say your entire team is about to suffer the same fate as you…except for the Colonel that is. Or did Waller implant a bomb into you as well? It wouldn’t surprise me if she did.”
“Shut the fuck up and just tell us how to stop this!”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I need Waller to pay for what she did to me and show her she was wrong for ever doubting my abilities. And the best way to do that is by eliminating part of her precious Task Force X. I am sorry you had to be a casualty of our war but just like any game of chess, pawns get sacrificed. I would hurry up and say your goodbyes if I were you. The toxin forming in her blood should begin to take effect any time now and her body will destroy itself before your backup arrives. But Colonel….tell Waller I said hello.”
The speaker crackled out, leaving the two of you standing in a horrified silence. Rick’s mind was spinning with everything he had just heard. What the voice said couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be. After all, Waller would have known about it.
“Rick?”
Waller was the one who came up with Task Force X and she oversaw every single detail as it came to fruition. She couldn’t have overlooked something like this….could she?
“Rick.”
But then again, what if she had? She wasn’t a scientist and wouldn’t understand all the uses of the different chemicals they were using with the technology. So what if the voice wasn’t lying and you only had a few minutes before—
“Rick!”
He whirled around to see you slumped against the far wall, your eyes wide as you wiped your fingers under your nose and watched them come away bloody, a bright smear still left on your face as more began to trickle out of your nose.
“No….”
He closed the distance between you in two long strides and took your face between his large hands. Your body was shaking slightly as you looked up at him with tears in your eyes and your voice broke as you said, “Rick, I can feel it. It’s already happening. Oh God—” you frantically grabbed onto his wrists as his hands still cupped your face “—I’m scared. I’m not ready to die. Not now. Not when I’ve found—” The rest of your words were lost as you broke down sobbing.
Rick pulled you into his chest and wrapped his arms around you tightly. Resting his chin on the top of your head and rubbing soothing circles across your back, he whispered, “It’s okay, darlin’. You’re gonna be okay. I’m gonna get you outta here and get you help, you hear me? I can’t lose you either so I need you to fight. Fight and just hold on, for as long as you can. We’re gonna get outta here…together.”
He felt you nod into his chest and gently moved you away to look at you. Red-tinted tears trailed down your cheeks and more blood was smeared under your nose. Rick glanced down and saw some of it had wiped off on his jacket, but it didn’t matter. He bent down and pressed his lips furiously against yours—trying to ignore the metallic taste of blood coating your lips— then turned back towards the exit door.
He had already searched every inch of it for some sort of switch but maybe he could pry it open. Rick tried to get his fingernails to dig into the seam where the two doors met, but the seal was just too strong. Maybe if he could find something to wedge between them….
As he quickly scanned the room for something—anything—he could use, he saw you clutch your chest as you began to cough. It started out small, like just clearing your throat. However, within what seemed like seconds, it had evolved into a wheezy, rattling hack that wracked your entire body. Rick watched helplessly as fresh blood sprayed across the floor as a particularly deep cough forced you to double over.
As it subsided and you looked up at him, he inhaled sharply as he saw blood now not only trickling from your nose but from your eyes and mouth too. You tried to say something—it seemed like his name—however, from your rasping gasps, it was clear you weren’t getting enough air to breathe properly, let alone speak.
“No…” Rick couldn’t believe he was being forced to stand here and watch you die with no way to save you. “No!”
Throwing his entire weight behind it, Rick smashed his fist into the metal door. Logically deep down he knew there was no way he would ever be able to punch his way through it, but right now, logic was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, he wound back and drove his other fist into the door.
Over and over again, he pounded at the metal, ignoring the pain as he felt his skin split and bones crack. The door was now smeared with the blood from his ruined knuckles but it was nothing compared to the blood that was spilling from you just behind him. Hearing you struggling and in pain yet knowing he was helpless to stop it was too much for him and he increased the strength of each blow.
It was only when he saw you collapse to the floor as your body began thrashing and convulsing that Rick abandoned his fruitless attempts at breaking through the door and he dropped to his knees beside you. Pulling your writhing body into his lap, he held you tightly against him and pressed his lips against your ear, muttering empty promises that everything was going to be alright.
As you continued to seize, blood began to flow more steadily from your eyes, nose, and mouth. Your eyes rolled back into your head as your back arched and your entire body went rigid. You seemed to hold that pose for a moment, the entire room suddenly dead silent. Then, slowly and with one extended exhale, your body relaxed against his and your head lolled to the side.
Ice spread through Rick’s veins as he stared at your motionless form. No. This couldn’t be happenin’. Not to you. Please God, not you.
He gently took your face between his hands and turned it so he could see you better. Several trails of blood streaked down your face and though your eyes were mostly closed, he could just make out the dulled, faded color beneath your lids. And though you were lying on his chest, all he felt was an unnatural stillness—no heartbeat, no intake of breath. You were gone.
Tears began to stream down Rick’s cheeks as he buried his face in the top of your head. And though he knew you couldn’t hear him, he softly whispered, “Please, darlin’, come back to me. I need you and I love you and I can’t do this without you. So, please….come back.”
And that’s how Waller’s extraction team found the two of you moments later: Colonel Rick Flag with tears in his eyes as he clung to the limp body of one of the Belle Reve inmates.
Since that moment, Rick had been going on some sort of autopilot, letting himself be shuffled from place to place and doing what he was told. But now that his official statement had been taken and he had been released, there was only one place he needed to be. So, taking the hospital elevator up to the third floor, he stepped out onto the intensive care unit and followed the signs towards his destination.
When he reached the end of the hall, Rick stared through the window into the hospital room, his forehead pressed against the glass as he struggled to maintain some sort of composure. He could barely see your face past the countless machines and equipment hooked up to you in an effort to keep you alive.
By the time Waller’s extraction team had shown up and somehow managed to revive you, the poison had done its job and destroyed or seriously damaged most of your internal organs. It was a miracle the doctors were able to keep you alive this long, even if machines now controlled every aspect of your life support. The rest of the Task Force who had been in a different area of the building hadn’t been so lucky. The two of you were the only survivors—if you could call it that.
The doctors had done everything they could to save you and now the rest was up to you. Rick had heard the full spectrum of possible prognoses ranging from you making a full recovery to you being incapable of cognitive thought or movement—and all of it was dependent on you waking up which was an uncertainty on its own.
But for now, you lay motionless in your hospital bed just as you had for the past twenty-four hours.
Fury boiled in his gut as Rick’s eyes landed on the pair of handcuffs chaining you to the bed. Did they seriously expect you to jump up and sneak out of the hospital? Your heart was struggling to beat without assistance and air was constantly having to be forced into your lungs yet they had to make sure you wouldn’t miraculously make a daring escape. It made Rick sick. As did the fact he wasn’t permitted to be in the room with you. All he wanted was to hold your hand or press a soft kiss to your forehead, but Waller made sure no one except for her and the doctors were allowed in. Just another one of her attempts to punish him.
As if summoned by the very thought of her name, footsteps echoed off the tiles behind him growing louder and louder until Waller stepped into Rick’s peripheral vision. He ignored her, instead keeping his gaze firmly locked on you, and Waller seemed to do the same.
For several minutes, they stood in complete silence, the sounds of your rasping breathing and the beeping of machines the only sound in the dim hallway. Finally, without turning, Rick asked, “Did you know?”
“I know a lot of things, Flag, but you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Did you know the chemicals in the nanites could be used like that?”
Waller was silent for a moment before she answered curtly, “No. We knew about the chemical surrounding the bombs of course, but we were not aware it could be turned into a weapon. Our lab is already researching alternatives.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure my team would be thrilled to hear that if they weren’t all currently down in the morgue.”
“Mistakes happen, people die. But that’s why we formed Task Force X. Nobody cares when those dying are criminals.” Waller’s eyes shifted slightly from the window to Rick and back again. “With a few exceptions.”
Rick clenched his fist at her words then immediately regretted it as a sharp bolt of pain ran up his arm from his busted knuckles. He wanted nothing more than to make Waller feel the pain he was feeling. For her to understand how much he cared about you. But he knew nothing he did would make a difference. If anything, it would only make it worse.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, he asked, “So…what happens now?”
Folding her arms over her chest, Waller said, “Despite my objections, the board determined you did nothing wrong on the mission. They said there was nothing you could have done differently to save your team and you are not responsible for their deaths and thus will not receive any formal reprimand or punishment. However–” Waller raised one eyebrow as she glared at Rick “–I have not forgotten your…indiscretion with her and it will not be overlooked.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t known about us since the very start. You’ve just been waitin’ for the moment it best suited your interests to bring it up,” Rick growled. “I don’t care what you do to me but when she’s better I want her released from Belle Reve. She only had thirty years left on her sentence—twenty after this mission. And this….this more than makes up for the rest of her time.”
“Possibly,” Waller said thoughtfully. “First, we have to wait and see if she even pulls through, then we can have that discussion. But until that happens, I expect you to do your job.” She slapped a file down on the ledge of the window. “Your next assignment. You leave tomorrow and you better be on the tarmac on time. Otherwise all of this–” she gestured to the hospital equipment surrounding them “–goes away. Do we understand each other?”
Rick clenched his jaw tightly as he just barely managed to hold back the slew of curses he wanted to direct at his boss but he knew that was exactly what she was hoping for. So instead, he gritted his teeth and in his most Southern twang said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
The “fuck you” was loud and clear in his tone but Waller thankfully ignored it. Shooting him one last glare, she turned sharply and began marching back down the hall. However, Rick called after her, “And I want those cuffs taken off of her. Now.”
Without turning or breaking her stride, Waller replied, “When are you going to learn, Flag? You don’t call the shots around here. I do.” Then she turned down another hall and disappeared from sight.
Sighing, Rick gazed back at your unconscious form. Pressing his hand against the glass, he whispered, “It’ll be alright, darlin’, I promise you that. You don’t worry about anythin’ except gettin’ better and wakin’ up. You do that, and I’ll take care of the rest. And no matter what happens or how bad things are when you do wake up, I’ll be right by your side for all of it, Waller be damned. ‘Cause I love you, now and forever.”
He waited, hoping beyond hope you had heard his words and they helped rouse you from your sleep. But this wasn’t some feel-good movie or romance novel where his bedside pleas would make everything better and you would wake up to fall into his arms once again. No, this was real life and in real life, people didn’t get their happily-ever-afters.
At least…..not yet. As long as your heart was still beating—artificially or not— there was hope. And for now, hope was going to have to be enough.
Tag List: @loverhymeswith, @green-socks, @yespolkadotkitty, @heresathreebee, @tavners, @merlehs, @sunshineflowerchild789, @mayhem24-7forever, @lovearne, @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy, @that-sarcastic-writer, @indig0nebula, @katjnordstrom96, @wildbornsiren, @princessmisery666, @writercole
#ailesswhumptober2023#whumptober#fic#rick flag#rick falg x reader#joel kinnaman#suicide squad#the suicide squad#f!reader#poisoned#seizures#bleeding through the bandage#near death experience#coma#bloody knuckles#hospital#poison tw#blood tw#hospital tw#coma tw#language tw
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hmmm not sure how i feel about this but i just counted and the only seasons that i could think of that didn't have either a dean death, very near death, or dean trying to find a way to kill himself were s4 and s8....
#in s7 i counted going to purgatory as a near death because technically he didn't die but he was thought to be dead for a year#s1 faith and s2 in my time of dying are near deaths#3 5 6 9 11 12 13 and 15 all had actual deaths#and s10 and s14 both had dean trying to find a way to die#so that just leaves s4 and s8 unless im forgetting something from those seasons too#this is one thing that makes me so mad about the ending they gave him. how are you going to take the dude who just spent 15 years either#dying or trying to die and then give him a “happy ending” where he dies???? it was honestly the least interesting ending they could have#given him#like jackles said when dean lives THAT will be good tv#cw dean's death#tw suicide
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What Went Wrong
AI-Less Whumptober 2023: 1. Poisoned, 8. Seizure, 14. Bleeding Through the Bandage, 21. Near-Death Experience, 30. Coma, Alt. Prompt: Bloody Knuckles
Fandom: DC, The Suicide Squad, Rick Flag, f!reader
Summary: After a mission goes spectacularly wrong, Rick is forced to relay what happened, no matter how painful it is for him to relive it.
Word Count: 5033
TW: Poison, Mentions of Death, Blood/Bleeding, Seizure, Hospital, Language, Rick is taller than Reader
Note: Written for @ailesswhumptober's event. Thank you to the anon who requested Bloody Knuckled with Rick! It was really a wonderful inspiration! And thank you to @loverhymeswith for all the support and beta reading for me! 💖
Colonel Rick Flag sat in the small break room—now a makeshift interrogation room—oblivious to the world around him. All he could do was stare blankly down at his busted, swollen knuckles and watch as his blood slowly reddened the gauze he couldn’t remember someone wrapping them in. Apparently, someone had also given him something for the pain, but it was doing little to stop the throbbing ache that seemed to intensify with every beat of his heart. Yet, he sort of liked it. It gave him something to focus on, to ground him, even as everything else around him lay in ruins.
Gritting his teeth, he balled his left hand into as much of a fist as the swelling and bandaging would allow, and almost blacked out as every nerve running from his hand up his arm screamed out in excruciating agony. Squeezing his eyes together tightly, he stifled a groan of pain as he forced himself to maintain the fist.
Focus on the physical pain. Just focus on the physical pain. Let everythin’ else slip away until there is nothin’ but this pain.
“Colonel Flag….Colonel….Sir—”
“Flag!”
Waller’s sharp tone cut through his fog and Rick’s fist instinctively uncurled, lessening the pain to a point where he once again became aware of his surroundings. Blinking, he looked up to stare at the pair in front of him in a slight daze. “W-what?”
Waller nodded at the other man who shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he cleared his throat and glanced down at the stack of papers in front of him. “Uh, yes, well, I understand this may be difficult for you but we need to get your official statement on what happened for the record.”
Rick sighed as he scratched at the gauze on his hand. “Do we really have to do this right now? I got better places to be.”
The man shot him an apologetic smile. “I understand that but the less time that passes between the event and the report, the more accurate it is. And considering there were numerous asset casualties, we need this to be as accurate as possible to avoid any liabilities.”
“Assets and liabilities,” Rick spat, the words like ash in his mouth. “That’s all any of them are to you, isn’t it? Numbers on a page to use how you want. But the members of Task Force X are people. Yeah, people who made some wrong choices or did horrible things, but that doesn’t mean they are just fodder you can throw at your problems.”
“It wasn’t so long ago that you too viewed your squad members as nothing more than that,” Waller said coldly, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes completely devoid of all emotion. “I wonder, did your view on them change before or after you started crawling into one of their beds?”
Rick leaped to his feet, his metal chair clanging loudly on the hard tile as it toppled over. The man jumped and cowered back in surprise, but Waller didn’t even flinch. Instead, she continued to stare Rick down, daring him to try and make a move against her. But they both knew what would happen if he did….
Recognizing he was in an impossible situation, Rick could only point at Waller and snarl, “You leave her out of this. Whatever relationship we might have didn’t affect what happened on the mission. And what I do on my own time is my own business.”
“Maybe, but you fucked her while she was my prisoner, which makes it my business.”
Before Rick could snap back, the man cleared his throat, his face bright red behind his glasses, and he reached for one of his papers. Scanning it, he asked, “Excuse me but are you confirming you had an intimate relationship with Belle Reve prisoner 0806?”
Rick turned his attention to the man, anger gleaming in his hazel eyes. This just proved his point. To them, you were nothing more than a faceless number, something to be used when convenient then tossed back into a cell like the other thousand inmates of Belle Reve.
“Yes,” Rick said through gritted teeth as the man began to write something on his papers. “After several assignments together, a connection developed and we became romantically then intimately involved.”
The man paused his scribbling and glanced up as Waller began slowly walking around to stand behind Rick. “‘Romantically’...so this relationship between you and this inmate was more than just physical?”
A thousand moments with you unwillingly flashed through Rick’s mind: your head resting on his shoulder as you slept on the flight home from a mission; the determined glare on your face as you fought off a swarm of enemies all by yourself; the way he didn't need to say a word for you to know exactly what he needed; the pure adoration in your eyes as he settled between your legs on your tiny prison cot. How could he not have fallen in love with you?
Rick once again tightened his hand into a loose fist as he growled, “Why the fuck does it matter right now? However you define it, it didn’t affect the mission at all.”
“Given how the evacuation team found you, sir, one might say differently.” Rick began to rise up out of his seat but the man put up his hands. “I’m sorry. I have to ask these kinds of questions so we can get the full picture of what went on in that lab. It’s in your best interest as well as ours if you can be as honest and detailed as possible so we have all the information when presenting our findings. Right now, the depth of your relationship with this inmate only matters to me if it caused some sort of misconduct during the mission that led to its failure. Otherwise, I don’t care what the two of you have been up to or how you feel about each other, I promise.”
Rick could feel Waller’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his head and he knew that she felt very differently. If she had her way, he would be court-martialed immediately. Not because he had been sleeping with you or because he loved you—no, he was certain she already knew about that. But now that it was public knowledge the head of her pride-and-joy task force was sleeping with one of its criminal assets presumedly right under her nose, it would put a black mark not only on the squad but on her as well. And that was not something Waller took lightly.
But for now, she wasn’t his main concern. He needed to get out of this room and upstairs as soon as possible. So, he nodded to the man and motioned for him to continue with his questions.
“Thank you.” The man gave Rick a small smile and looked back down at his papers. After scanning them for a minute, he looked at Rick and said, “Now then, Colonel, to the best of your recollection, can you tell us what happened? What went wrong?”
What went wrong….. It was the thought that had been plaguing Rick for the past twenty-four hours. He had replayed the entire mission over and over in his head trying to figure out what he could have done differently to save his team…..to save you.
It was supposed to be a textbook in-and-out mission with no foreseeable complications. An underground lab was developing a new weapon that could be catastrophic in the wrong hands—which included the scientists developing it. Though hidden, the lab didn’t appear to have more than the most basic levels of security and it seemed like a cakewalk for a small team to go in, destroy the research and weapon, and secure any scientists on site.
Because of this, it was determined this would be a good chance to break in the newest recruits to Task Force X and Rick found himself leading a team comprised almost entirely of untrained, terrified ex-criminals who wouldn’t shut up or fall into line. Before they even got off the plane, he was ready to detonate every last one of their nanite bombs.
Luckily, you had been allowed to tag along to help keep everyone under control….including Rick. Even if no one realized how deeply the connection between the two of you went, it was obvious that you had a way of calming him down and centering him even in the most dangerous or stressful of situations. Rick pretended to hate the idea that he needed someone to manage him but honestly, he didn’t mind as long as it meant he got to spend more time with you.
On your very first mission with Task Force X, Rick noticed you were special and unlike anyone he had met before. And by the third mission, he had you pressed against a wall in a dark alley as you shoved your tongue down his throat. Since then, he would do whatever he could to be near you, including bribing the guards to turn off the cameras in your cell for a few hours once or twice a month—and still it wasn’t enough. He was counting down the missions until you earned your freedom and he could have you in his bed every night without having to leave.
And this mission would bring that dream one step closer to a reality.
Once inside the building, Rick sent the rest of the Squad to destroy everything in the labs (he figured they could handle unbridled destruction without needing supervision) while you went with him to find the mainframe and extract any information you could before wiping it.
The plan seemed to be going perfectly until you and Rick finished your assignment and were heading back to the rendezvous point. Just as you reached the lab’s exit, there was a whirring sound and a pair of thick, metal doors slammed shut inches in front of Rick’s face. You spun around to try to rush back the way you came, but another door slid shut, blocking your retreat.
“Damn it!” Rick yelled as he slammed his fist against the thick metal door. Sighing, he picked up his radio to call into headquarters. Usually, they would all be on earpieces, but since it was supposed to be such a simple mission, they had forgone them this time. “Control, this is Flag. Do you copy?”
The radio crackled to life. “We copy, Flag. Did you complete your mission?”
“Affirmative, Harcourt. But on the way to the rendezvous, we got cut off. We are trapped between two metal doors and I can’t see a way out. Requestin’ an extraction team to come get us.”
“Launching extraction team now. ETA is approximately fifteen minutes. Stand by.”
“Copy.” Rick slipped the radio back into his cargo pocket and shrugged at you. “Well, I guess we just wait. At least we have a few minutes alone together until they show up.”
Looking around at the tight space you were now trapped in, you took a step closer, pressed your palms against Rick’s back, and leaned against him as you whispered, “Rick…I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Ah hell, darlin’,” Rick muttered. “Now why’d you have to say somethin’ like that?”
Suddenly, the sprinkler heads on the ceiling sprang to life, and a mysterious liquid sprayed down on you. It was clear like water but had an oily consistency and a bitter, acidic smell to it. Rick spun around, grabbed your arm, and pulled you tight against his chest trying to use his large form to shield you from as much of it as possible but it was of little use. Soon, you were both drenched from head to toe.
It lasted for less than a minute before the sprinklers turned off once again. Lifting your head from where you had buried it in Rick’s chest, you glanced around before muttering, “What the fuck was that about?”
“I don’t know. But I think we should get outta here before we find out.” Rick turned back to the metal door and began examining it for any sort of weak point or hidden switch.
From behind him, he heard you audibly shiver and he glanced back to see you rubbing your hands over your still dripping arms trying to warm yourself up. He wished he had something to give you but he doubted his soaked tact jacket would provide you any warmth. Either the extraction team needed to hurry up or he needed to get you both out of here as soon as possible.
However, just as he began to turn back to the door, there was a burst of static from above you, and a voice called out from a hidden speaker, “So, this must be the current iteration of Task Force X. Welcome!” You and Rick exchanged a nervous glance as the voice continued. “I had a feeling Waller would track me down eventually, and it looks like I was right. Good thing I took precautions.”
“Who the hell are you?” Rick called out as his eyes scanned the ceiling trying to locate where the voice was coming from.
“She didn’t tell you? She just sent you out on a mission without briefing you on what you were walking into?” The voice scoffed. “Why am I not surprised? Well, let me introduce myself. I used to be one of the head research and developers at ARGUS before Waller got everything she wanted from me and tried to have me arrested despite the fact everything I did was under her orders. You see, I’m the guy who developed the technology that made the nanite bombs possible, including that one currently residing in your girlfriend’s head.”
You gasped as your eyes grew wide and your hand flew to the side of your neck, your finger tracing the small bump just under your skin that Rick knew was there. His eyes met yours and he knew you were both thinking the same thing: If this maniac invented the bombs then chances were….
Rick glared up at the ceiling and roared, “Now listen here you bastard—”
“I can’t detonate it if that’s what you’re worried about,” the voice calmly interrupted. “Waller is smart enough to change the frequency for every mission which means I, unfortunately, can’t access them. However, I had a feeling she would kick me to the curb once she had my technology so I neglected to tell her about the one flaw in my design. The unintended way to weaponize them. The one I just set in motion.”
A chill ran down Rick’s spine. “What are you talkin’ about? What did you do!”
“Rick…” Your fingers dug into his arm as you reached for him, your shivering intensifying—but whether that was from cold or fear, Rick didn’t know.
“The bombs are not the only thing injected into the subjects,” the voice continued. “A small amount of a typically harmless chemical surrounds it to help the body not reject the foreign object or start breaking it down. I say ‘typically harmless’ because it only becomes toxic when mixed with another rare compound….the same compound that was just released from the sprinkler system moments ago.”
“What did you do to me?” you asked, addressing the voice directly for the first time. “What’s going to happen?”
“Oh, not just you, my dear. Those sprinklers went off all over the building so I’m sorry to say your entire team is about to suffer the same fate as you…except for the Colonel that is. Or did Waller implant a bomb into you as well? It wouldn’t surprise me if she did.”
“Shut the fuck up and just tell us how to stop this!”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I need Waller to pay for what she did to me and show her she was wrong for ever doubting my abilities. And the best way to do that is by eliminating part of her precious Task Force X. I am sorry you had to be a casualty of our war but just like any game of chess, pawns get sacrificed. I would hurry up and say your goodbyes if I were you. The toxin forming in her blood should begin to take effect any time now and her body will destroy itself before your backup arrives. But Colonel….tell Waller I said hello.”
The speaker crackled out, leaving the two of you standing in a horrified silence. Rick’s mind was spinning with everything he had just heard. What the voice said couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be. After all, Waller would have known about it.
“Rick?”
Waller was the one who came up with Task Force X and she oversaw every single detail as it came to fruition. She couldn’t have overlooked something like this….could she?
“Rick.”
But then again, what if she had? She wasn’t a scientist and wouldn’t understand all the uses of the different chemicals they were using with the technology. So what if the voice wasn’t lying and you only had a few minutes before—
“Rick!”
He whirled around to see you slumped against the far wall, your eyes wide as you wiped your fingers under your nose and watched them come away bloody, a bright smear still left on your face as more began to trickle out of your nose.
“No….”
He closed the distance between you in two long strides and took your face between his large hands. Your body was shaking slightly as you looked up at him with tears in your eyes and your voice broke as you said, “Rick, I can feel it. It’s already happening. Oh God—” you frantically grabbed onto his wrists as his hands still cupped your face “—I’m scared. I’m not ready to die. Not now. Not when I’ve found—” The rest of your words were lost as you broke down sobbing.
Rick pulled you into his chest and wrapped his arms around you tightly. Resting his chin on the top of your head and rubbing soothing circles across your back, he whispered, “It’s okay, darlin’. You’re gonna be okay. I’m gonna get you outta here and get you help, you hear me? I can’t lose you either so I need you to fight. Fight and just hold on, for as long as you can. We’re gonna get outta here…together.”
He felt you nod into his chest and gently moved you away to look at you. Red-tinted tears trailed down your cheeks and more blood was smeared under your nose. Rick glanced down and saw some of it had wiped off on his jacket, but it didn’t matter. He bent down and pressed his lips furiously against yours—trying to ignore the metallic taste of blood coating your lips— then turned back towards the exit door.
He had already searched every inch of it for some sort of switch but maybe he could pry it open. Rick tried to get his fingernails to dig into the seam where the two doors met, but the seal was just too strong. Maybe if he could find something to wedge between them….
As he quickly scanned the room for something—anything—he could use, he saw you clutch your chest as you began to cough. It started out small, like just clearing your throat. However, within what seemed like seconds, it had evolved into a wheezy, rattling hack that wracked your entire body. Rick watched helplessly as fresh blood sprayed across the floor as a particularly deep cough forced you to double over.
As it subsided and you looked up at him, he inhaled sharply as he saw blood now not only trickling from your nose but from your eyes and mouth too. You tried to say something—it seemed like his name—however, from your rasping gasps, it was clear you weren’t getting enough air to breathe properly, let alone speak.
“No…” Rick couldn’t believe he was being forced to stand here and watch you die with no way to save you. “No!”
Throwing his entire weight behind it, Rick smashed his fist into the metal door. Logically deep down he knew there was no way he would ever be able to punch his way through it, but right now, logic was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, he wound back and drove his other fist into the door.
Over and over again, he pounded at the metal, ignoring the pain as he felt his skin split and bones crack. The door was now smeared with the blood from his ruined knuckles but it was nothing compared to the blood that was spilling from you just behind him. Hearing you struggling and in pain yet knowing he was helpless to stop it was too much for him and he increased the strength of each blow.
It was only when he saw you collapse to the floor as your body began thrashing and convulsing that Rick abandoned his fruitless attempts at breaking through the door and he dropped to his knees beside you. Pulling your writhing body into his lap, he held you tightly against him and pressed his lips against your ear, muttering empty promises that everything was going to be alright.
As you continued to seize, blood began to flow more steadily from your eyes, nose, and mouth. Your eyes rolled back into your head as your back arched and your entire body went rigid. You seemed to hold that pose for a moment, the entire room suddenly dead silent. Then, slowly and with one extended exhale, your body relaxed against his and your head lolled to the side.
Ice spread through Rick’s veins as he stared at your motionless form. No. This couldn’t be happenin’. Not to you. Please God, not you.
He gently took your face between his hands and turned it so he could see you better. Several trails of blood streaked down your face and though your eyes were mostly closed, he could just make out the dulled, faded color beneath your lids. And though you were lying on his chest, all he felt was an unnatural stillness—no heartbeat, no intake of breath. You were gone.
Tears began to stream down Rick’s cheeks as he buried his face in the top of your head. And though he knew you couldn’t hear him, he softly whispered, “Please, darlin’, come back to me. I need you and I love you and I can’t do this without you. So, please….come back.”
And that’s how Waller’s extraction team found the two of you moments later: Colonel Rick Flag with tears in his eyes as he clung to the limp body of one of the Belle Reve inmates.
Since that moment, Rick had been going on some sort of autopilot, letting himself be shuffled from place to place and doing what he was told. But now that his official statement had been taken and he had been released, there was only one place he needed to be. So, taking the hospital elevator up to the third floor, he stepped out onto the intensive care unit and followed the signs towards his destination.
When he reached the end of the hall, Rick stared through the window into the hospital room, his forehead pressed against the glass as he struggled to maintain some sort of composure. He could barely see your face past the countless machines and equipment hooked up to you in an effort to keep you alive.
By the time Waller’s extraction team had shown up and somehow managed to revive you, the poison had done its job and destroyed or seriously damaged most of your internal organs. It was a miracle the doctors were able to keep you alive this long, even if machines now controlled every aspect of your life support. The rest of the Task Force who had been in a different area of the building hadn’t been so lucky. The two of you were the only survivors—if you could call it that.
The doctors had done everything they could to save you and now the rest was up to you. Rick had heard the full spectrum of possible prognoses ranging from you making a full recovery to you being incapable of cognitive thought or movement—and all of it was dependent on you waking up which was an uncertainty on its own.
But for now, you lay motionless in your hospital bed just as you had for the past twenty-four hours.
Fury boiled in his gut as Rick’s eyes landed on the pair of handcuffs chaining you to the bed. Did they seriously expect you to jump up and sneak out of the hospital? Your heart was struggling to beat without assistance and air was constantly having to be forced into your lungs yet they had to make sure you wouldn’t miraculously make a daring escape. It made Rick sick. As did the fact he wasn’t permitted to be in the room with you. All he wanted was to hold your hand or press a soft kiss to your forehead, but Waller made sure no one except for her and the doctors were allowed in. Just another one of her attempts to punish him.
As if summoned by the very thought of her name, footsteps echoed off the tiles behind him growing louder and louder until Waller stepped into Rick’s peripheral vision. He ignored her, instead keeping his gaze firmly locked on you, and Waller seemed to do the same.
For several minutes, they stood in complete silence, the sounds of your rasping breathing and the beeping of machines the only sound in the dim hallway. Finally, without turning, Rick asked, “Did you know?”
“I know a lot of things, Flag, but you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Did you know the chemicals in the nanites could be used like that?”
Waller was silent for a moment before she answered curtly, “No. We knew about the chemical surrounding the bombs of course, but we were not aware it could be turned into a weapon. Our lab is already researching alternatives.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure my team would be thrilled to hear that if they weren’t all currently down in the morgue.”
“Mistakes happen, people die. But that’s why we formed Task Force X. Nobody cares when those dying are criminals.” Waller’s eyes shifted slightly from the window to Rick and back again. “With a few exceptions.”
Rick clenched his fist at her words then immediately regretted it as a sharp bolt of pain ran up his arm from his busted knuckles. He wanted nothing more than to make Waller feel the pain he was feeling. For her to understand how much he cared about you. But he knew nothing he did would make a difference. If anything, it would only make it worse.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, he asked, “So…what happens now?”
Folding her arms over her chest, Waller said, “Despite my objections, the board determined you did nothing wrong on the mission. They said there was nothing you could have done differently to save your team and you are not responsible for their deaths and thus will not receive any formal reprimand or punishment. However–” Waller raised one eyebrow as she glared at Rick “–I have not forgotten your…indiscretion with her and it will not be overlooked.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t known about us since the very start. You’ve just been waitin’ for the moment it best suited your interests to bring it up,” Rick growled. “I don’t care what you do to me but when she’s better I want her released from Belle Reve. She only had thirty years left on her sentence—twenty after this mission. And this….this more than makes up for the rest of her time.”
“Possibly,” Waller said thoughtfully. “First, we have to wait and see if she even pulls through, then we can have that discussion. But until that happens, I expect you to do your job.” She slapped a file down on the ledge of the window. “Your next assignment. You leave tomorrow and you better be on the tarmac on time. Otherwise all of this–” she gestured to the hospital equipment surrounding them “–goes away. Do we understand each other?”
Rick clenched his jaw tightly as he just barely managed to hold back the slew of curses he wanted to direct at his boss but he knew that was exactly what she was hoping for. So instead, he gritted his teeth and in his most Southern twang said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
The “fuck you” was loud and clear in his tone but Waller thankfully ignored it. Shooting him one last glare, she turned sharply and began marching back down the hall. However, Rick called after her, “And I want those cuffs taken off of her. Now.”
Without turning or breaking her stride, Waller replied, “When are you going to learn, Flag? You don’t call the shots around here. I do.” Then she turned down another hall and disappeared from sight.
Sighing, Rick gazed back at your unconscious form. Pressing his hand against the glass, he whispered, “It’ll be alright, darlin’, I promise you that. You don’t worry about anythin’ except gettin’ better and wakin’ up. You do that, and I’ll take care of the rest. And no matter what happens or how bad things are when you do wake up, I’ll be right by your side for all of it, Waller be damned. ‘Cause I love you, now and forever.”
He waited, hoping beyond hope you had heard his words and they helped rouse you from your sleep. But this wasn’t some feel-good movie or romance novel where his bedside pleas would make everything better and you would wake up to fall into his arms once again. No, this was real life and in real life, people didn’t get their happily-ever-afters.
At least…..not yet. As long as your heart was still beating—artificially or not— there was hope. And for now, hope was going to have to be enough.
Tag List: @nik2blog, @zebralover, @dumb-fawkin-bitch, @shirley2996
#ailesswhumptober2023#whumptober#fic#rick flag#rick falg x reader#joel kinnaman#suicide squad#the suicide squad#f!reader#poisoned#seizures#bleeding through the bandage#near death experience#coma#bloody knuckles#hospital#poison tw#blood tw#hospital tw#coma tw#language tw
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ok so i wrote Percy as a reincarnation of Helena Ravenclaw right?
so ok so listen concept right? Bloody Baron is an old life of Marcus'
for people who don't like know a lot of the lore for the ghosties its because the Bloody Baron is the one who killed Helena because he was infatuated with her and she constantly rejected him and so when her mom sent him to fetch her when she left her family he killed her in a fit of rage when she didn't want to go back then ended his own life
Ok a couple minutes later and now all i can think of is both ghosts realizing this and just trying so hard to keep them apart like their in a room alone and all of a sudden the bloody baron is standing at the edge of the table like this glaring at Flint
#percy weasley#marcus flint#flintley#maybe it also plays into Marcus feeling like he has no right to be anywhere near Percy even though he's infatuated with him#reincarnation as a concept is so fun#tw: suicide mention
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How'd Augusta end up being radioactive? :o
A second chance.
// suicidal themes below
Augusta originally worked as a part time astronaut at a Star Depot, which collected star Fragments and sent them back to earth to be used as fuel similar to nuclear power.
Augusta wasn’t really in a good place at the time while working there. She never had any kind of big ambition in life and wanted to live life peacefully, but knew that “getting by” isn’t enough for her to survive. People around her kept expecting so much of her that she didn’t know what to tell them.
Working as an astronaut helps take her mind off things at first, but then she starts to feel worse. She doesn’t get invited out to things, but she doesn’t really make any effort to try, and relatives are asking how she’s doing and she doesn’t know what to tell them without it turning into a lecture. and over time it piles up
First she starts asking for more shifts handling and shipping the stars. Then she asks to do overtime. And finally one day she finds a tiny Fragment on the floor.
The thing about Fragments is that they change your body and can make you very sick if youre near them for too long.
Tomorrow would be a holiday and the building would be closed. The Shift manager, who promised to close up, left early for drinks with coworkers. So she was the only employee working.
So she picks up the star and swallows it expecting to die. But instead her hair turns pink and the dust around her floats, and when she breathes no air comes out. The Star fused to her body and latched to her heart.
Basically, her suicide attempt gave her her own way to live and pink hair as a bonus lol
Here’s what her hair looked like before and after The Incident <3
#sorry if it’s not very comprehensive but that’s basically what she’s got going on lol. I tried to make it as shortened down as possible but#I did share this at some point and managed to bring the chat to their knees wjfjggs. sorry if this version doesn’t have the same effect lol#besides turning radioactive she also has minor antigravity powers and doesn’t need to eat. basically somewhat immortal lol#is it a healthy way of solving your problems? probably not. but she’s much happier now#after this happens she steals a ship and just Explores space for a long ass time before Meeting and eventually marrying Anton#she can still interact with others but she needs to be wearing her spacesuit to dampen the radiation. it won’t kill you but you can feel#Sick or Tores After being near her for like a couple days straight. Not her whole Body either just the chest and Torsi since the Stars there#*tired#I should also mention I don’t know exactly everything about radiation but enough to build this. so if it doesn’t sound like how radiation#works don’t worry about it cause I literally would not know and it’s for fun OC purposes anyway#thank you so much for asking btw’!!!! I’ve been itching to dump this LOL#Augusta#oc lore#yapping#txt#doodles#// suicide#tw suicide#suicide ment
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Finished the Leon portion of Hilda’s event and I am so unwell I’m SO SICK this event opened the day I have to pack for college….. so I will be unable to make any Leon art until later tonight and maybe tomorrow…………. I feel stunned though like I can’t even do anything . The crazies will kick in soon enough and I will make 4,000 Leon art pieces probably ANYWAYS…
#leon dislyte#dislyte Leon#dislyte#tw I was right abt Leon being suicidal…#I feel like I just got gut punched#I was right or near right on most of my headcanons/theories for Leon’s backstory I LOVE THIS MAN TOO MUCH#autism to autism connection#I’m very unwell now guys pray for me#Leon’s actions leading to Joseph’s death…..
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Just thinking about the fact Sora died because of the poison she drink to save her kids, because she is gentle and kind. And her only son who the desesperate act work is as kind as her.
But the StrawHats don't know she did that, this is something he don't have the courage to tell. And they know even less that Sanji is ready to do the same.
He isn't pround of that, but he ends up discovering the poison she drink and even have the recipe of how to do it. Because the germa soldiers teached them this and others poisons.
And this little fact is like a silent threat, a thing that if the crew discovers this, would be attentive about anything he drinks until they're certainly he's not gonna do the same thing his mother did.
And when the StrawHats learn about this fact, the exactly thing he expected happens, he notice Chopper and Robin always near the kitchen with the excuse of how's there was calmer, Nami and Usopp start to do his drinks for him or always are looking him while he's doing it, the others does things too. And Sanji notices all of this.
It's needed months to calm the crew, but still after they stop, all of them always have this fear in the back of they're minds (Luffy even goes as far as asking Law to do a check up on Sanji the next time they meet), that he will do this, but they want to believe he will not. They really want to.
(Just a thought that come to my mind yesterday, and I wanted to share, y'know? Based on some headcanons)
Oh, damn. This honestly hits close to home and it's really interesting so I wanna talk about it. But, you know, it's a serious topic so:
TW // Suicide, poison, self-harm, depression, etc etc you know the drill about Sanji and his issues. I don't go deep, tho, so It's not THAT explicit but could be triggering.
I think that after WCI and Wano, they'd all be worried. Sanji has always been pretty self-sacrificing with everyone and he doesn't value his life in the slightest. He doesn't show signs at first of being actively suicidal but the way he treats his own life makes it clear that he gets into self-sabotaging situations to the point of it being considered self-harm or even passive suicidal behavior. He just- Doesn't care about dying because he puts others first all the time. He has been doing that forever and Skypiea is just one of the times he does that. But, y'know, they never notice that. At least not everyone. I think Zoro is the first to know because of Thriller Bark, honestly. That's one of the biggest signs imo. But then they're separated and it's not like they can talk about it. Then two years happen and uh, shit goes downhill after that because WCI is just utterly traumatizing for Sanji and Wano makes everything worse to the point of asking Zoro to kill him if he loses himself. And we always say that's really gay (because it is) but we ignore the whole point of Sanji genuinely asking somebody to kill him without any fucking hesitation. And he spends all of Wano having the biggest crisis of his life wondering if he's human enough or worthy of being in the crew and???? What the actual fuck. Anyway, I think the crew ends up finding out about everything and I don't believe Sanji is well mentally after all of this. I know they don't write it like this because things are happening and they have to go to Egghead, but I think Sanji would end up really fucked up after WCI and Wano to the point of being worrisome.
If they do find out about the poison thing and Sanj's suicidal thoughts (honestly, I don't know how they would even find out about it unless Reiju tells them or Sanji snaps and yells about that, but, y'know. The point is that they know and Sanji is getting worse) I think you're completely right and they'd be all over him. Because that's exactly what happens when somebody acts this way. They look after him to a suffocating extent and watch his steps. They take turns to watch him. They prepare his drinks. They even make up something so he doesn't have to be on night watch so he can sleep, because he's probably not sleeping either. Or eating well, for that matter, which is what makes them all worry even more in the first place.
And hear me out, because I think he would try to do it. Like- Commit, I mean. Not gonna get into the topic too deep but I think he'd try and I think it wouldn't work because somebody would help him right away and I think he'd try to play it off as a mistake and a misunderstanding, but everyone would know. And he'd just try to ignore their pep talks and interventions.
This is projecting from personal experience and everyone goes through these things differently, but God, I think he'd fucking hate it if they looked after him. Because he knows he won't do it again. At least he doesn't want to do it again. But everybody keeps looking after him like he's about to break at any moment and it's so damn annoying to not have any type of privacy because they think he's gonna off himself the second he's alone. And he gets why they're doing it and appreciates their efforts to look after him, but acting this way is not the answer to his problems. It's just asphyxiating and it isn't helping him get better. You know how the crew is, they're NOT subtle and careful with anything and they're just-- They have good intentions but it's suffocating and he can't handle it anymore.
And I think he'd snap. I actually want to write a fic about this if you let me use your idea (I will credit you, ofc) because I think it'd be great to make him snap at Nami, specifically, and then regret it completely.
Long story short because this is getting long: I think Brook and Robin would end up talking things out with him because they're the ones who understand him the most in this situation. He'd apologize to Nami but also everyone else would apologize too for acting this way, they were just worried and wanted to look after him. I think, after this, the only ones watching Sanji would be Brook and Robin and they'd do it carefully, supporting him and helping him get better. And the whole crew would be next to him along the way but doing it with less assertiveness and just gentler.
I think the concept of Sanji thinking about death so often is great because it adds depth to his character and it's not a crazy thought. I think it's pretty damn canon, actually. At least him being careless about his own life.
#so i never talk about these things here bc trauma but i've gone through shit like this and people don't let me go near medication alone#and it's been YEARS#and it's only stressful because they don't let you do anything on your own once shit like this happens and you lose all sense of privacy#like your whole identity and intimacy you could have fades away and i understand why sanji would snap at them#i think he'd regret it right away and he'd apologize and nami would understand perfectly but damn it hurts anyway#i could go deeper on this analysis but idk if it's a topic i should talk about on tumblr bc it's triggering for some#i think you understood what i wanted to say tho#he gets better dw#robin and brook are like- obviously the ones who have gone through shit like this ofc they'd understand him#anyway i always love to talk about sanji's mental health issues#he's very depressed has anxiety and probably bpd and an ed but that's a topic for another day#and he's also a sweetheart and deserves to be happy#we're all about positive thoughts here and i swear he gets better#one piece#black leg sanji#straw hat pirates#tw self destructive behavior#tw suicide#please be aware of the tags it's a really sensitive topic and i don't want any of you to be triggered :(
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We really went from "if you ever sent a death threat in your life you're an absolutely fucking loser" to "if i tell someone to kys and they talk how suicidal they are, it's actually THEIR fault and they're suibaiting me!!" huh
#txt#no i did not receive any death threats recently but i saw posts concerning other people and i'm fucking fuming#let me fucking tell you tho if you're mentally vulnerable#and you're getting shat on over and over again#then it doesn't matter how a remark was phrased#anything can be a trigger if it was shouted at you#so all this bullshit about 'it was not even violent'#or 'i didn't really mean it like that!!'#is not going to fucking matter#you're still a vile fucker and i don't want to be near you#tw suicide#harassment#but i know most of you know that#you're manipulative
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Whumptober Day 4: "You in there?"
This is a standalone story in my original Mind Games universe, a modern-day sci-fi/fantasy thriller setting about ordinary humans with superhuman abilities and the people who want to use or destroy them. Full description in my Whumptober masterpost, which is linked in my pinned post.
This story contains: defiant whumpee, torture, blood, electric shocks, near-drowning, guilt, car accident mentions, suicidal thoughts mentions, forced to watch, death whump
Words: 4100
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Without the rough rope binding him to the chair, Emory would have collapsed to the dirty concrete floor a long time ago. As it was, his chest ached with the effort of keeping himself upright. Or maybe it was the effort of keeping himself breathing.
Hot, thick blood spilled out from half a dozen different places, matting his pants to his legs as it dried, hardening on his bare chest and pulling at the skin. The smell of it made him gag every time he inhaled. One more reason it would be easier to just… stop.
But he didn’t have that option. His stubborn body, and his even more stubborn mind, were conspiring with his torturer to keep him alive through the pain no matter what.
The torturer leaned down. With two fingers, he tilted Emory’s chin up. Their eyes met. The torturer’s piercing blue gaze drilled all past his the pain of his body, all the way down into his soul.
“Are you still in there?” he asked, more like he was curious than anything else. “Is there anything left of you?”
in answer, Emory spat in the torturer’s face.
The torturer’s face darkened. He wiped the spit from his cheek with his sleeve. He dropped Emory’s chin and straightened. Emory’s chin fell heavily to his chest.
“More, then,” said the torturer, and stepped back. “Very well. I can keep going as long as I have to.”
What would it be this time? The knives? The lighter? The cattle prod? Emory’s whole body tensed in dread.
It would be so much easier if the torturer had any questions for him but that one.
He longed to give in. His exhausted body ached to give in. But he couldn’t do it, any more than he could force himself to stop breathing. What the torturer wanted from him was for his mind to give up, shut off, retreat. For him to be nothing but a shell, cracked and bleeding, with only blood and instincts inside.
That was something Emory couldn’t fake.
He was stronger than he had ever thought he was. He wished he weren’t.
He had never imagined he had this much defiance in him. He was a cliche of a weakling professor, all his strength in his mind and none in his body. He couldn’t even lift a grocery bag if it had more than a couple of cans in it. Adam used to tease him about it, about how he was perpetuating all the stereotypes about intellectuals by living up to them.
It wasn’t just his physical weakness. He was mild-mannered to a fault. Adam used to say that if someone walked up and punched Emory in the face, Emory would apologize for getting in the way of his attacker’s hand. Did all your suppressed rage go into your power? he had asked. Adam wasn’t Enhanced—he had no power of his own. He was endlessly curious about the genetic quirk that made Emory who was.
But that guess had been off the mark. Emory had no suppressed rage. If someone punched him in the face, he would probably not only apologize, but genuinely feel sorry. You should be angry about this, Adam had told him more than once—when he was passed over for a position that should have been his, when his sister never repaid the five-figure loan he had given her. You should learn to stand up for yourself.
But it wasn’t about being afraid to stand up for himself. Even when he knew he should feel angry, he just… didn’t. It wasn’t how he was built. He just wanted his relationships with everyone to run smoothly, even if that meant accepting the occasional injustice.
And yet here he was, spitting in his torturer’s face.
The torturer picked up the cattle prod. So that was what it would be, then.
Emory closed his eyes and pictured Adam. Adam telling him to be strong. Adam waiting for him to come home.
The thought of Adam was a blessing and a curse. If not for the way it bolstered him, maybe he would have given his torturer what he wanted by now.
The torturer jabbed the prongs into Emory’s exposed side. His muscles went rigid as the shock ripped through him. Emory didn’t think it should have been able to deliver a shock that strong. Maybe the man had modified it. Or maybe Emory had underestimated what an electric shock would feel like, to the extent that he had thought about it at all before waking up in this room.
The sound he made wasn’t even a proper scream. He had used all those up hours ago. It was a series of staccato moans. Even to his own ears, he barely sounded human.
The torturer withdrew the cattle prod. Emory gulped in the air as he sagged forward against the ropes. Breathing hurt. But his body persisted in doing it anyway.
His relief lasted less than two full breaths. Then the torturer touched the cattle prod to his other side, and his body convulsed against the ropes again. The scratchy rope dug into his chest, drawing blood.
Another moment of relief. Another few gasping breaths. Then another jab with the pod. And another. And another.
Until the small burn scars started overlapping with one another. Until he couldn’t open his lungs enough to draw a little breath. Until his muscles twitched uncontrollably even when the prongs weren’t touching him.
Sweat poured down his chest. He couldn’t lift his head. How long before his body hit the limit of what it could endure? How long before his mind was swallowed by the pain, obliterated like the torturer wanted?
Please, let it be soon.
The torturer set the cattle prod carefully down in the corner. Once more, he leaned down and grasped Emory’s chin between his fingers. Once more, their eyes met. “Are you still in there?”
Emory could tell from the disappointment in the torturer’s eyes that he already knew the answer.
He was still here.
Neither of them would get to end this yet.
“If you get what you want?” Emory gasped, “what use will I even be to you? You want me to work for you, don’t you? To join your little black ops project? I can’t take orders if there’s nothing left of me.”
“We don’t need your mind,” said the torturer. He tightened his grip on Emory’s chin. “We need your ability.”
“My mind controls my ability, dumbass.” Again, he marveled at himself as if from afar. Before this room, he didn’t think he had ever said the word dumbass in his life. Adam would have been proud of him.
“We’ve looked into the incident on file involving your power,” said the torturer. “Your intellect doesn’t control it. Your instincts do. That much was clear from the evidence.”
He closed his eyes at that. He didn’t like to think about what he had done before he knew what his power was, let alone how to control it. He still saw the faces of the dead in his mind almost every night before he went to sleep.
Adam was wrong about his suppressed rage. He didn’t have any of that. He truly didn’t. But fear… fear was another story. Emory was anxious, skittish, a walking stereotype in that way as well as all the others. Emory was, deep down, a giant coward.
All it had taken to trigger his power back then was a big enough shock, a rush of adrenaline into his system. A car rear-ending him from behind, shoving him sideways into the divider. A split second of panic, of I’m going to die—
He almost had. But not from the accident. It had taken a year of physical therapy to recover from the injuries his doctors had never been able to explain.
Five other people on the road that day had never gotten that chance.
He opened his eyes and held the torturer’s gaze. “If you read those files,” he said, “then you should know what happens if I don’t maintain extremely strict control.”
Control over his power. Control over his self. Fear didn’t master him anymore. He couldn’t afford it.
“I can’t choose what I take apart,” he continued. “Including myself.”
“That’s all right,” the torturer said, releasing his chin. “We only need to use you once.”
What target did they have in mind for him? Blowing up some military base on foreign soil? Assassinating some high-level government official? Whatever it was, the torturer’s casual tone told him he wouldn’t be coming back from it.
The torturer dragged something out of the corner and set it in front of the chair. It was a bucket full of oily-looking water. Emory stared into his own blood-streaked reflection and wished he hadn’t learned to keep such a tight grip on his own fear. Disappearing into a whirling storm of panic might have been a mercy.
The torturer tipped the chair forward. The man’s hands caught him halfway down, and lowered his head into the bucket.
Water filled his nose. It filled his mouth, tasting of mud and oil. The oil was smooth and bitter on his tongue. He coughed, and retched, and thrashed against the torturer’s grip. The rope and the torturer’s hands held him tight.
He imagined Adam’s hands holding him instead.
When his lungs spasmed and tried to draw in water, the torturer hauled him up and set the chair upright again. Emory vomited water and bile down his burned chest, and wished the torturer had left him under just one moment longer.
Again, the fingers under his chin, his head tilted up, the torturer’s voice. “Are you in there?”
He let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. A few last dribbles of water spilled out from his lips.
Yes, he was still here.
However much he wished he wasn’t.
“There’s nothing left for you but pain, you know.” The torturer’s voice was low, almost gentle. “What are you holding on for? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let it go?”
What was he holding on for? Sheer stubbornness, maybe—a stubbornness he hadn’t known he had in him, or the cursed strength of will that kept his power from spiraling out of control. He had learned that strength of will because the only alternative would have been to take his own life before he could take anyone else’s again. He had absorbed the lessons too deeply. He couldn’t relinquish that strength now.
But a different answer came to him as he choked and wept and tried to tug his chin free. It came in the form of a softly rounded face with hair hanging into his warm brown eyes.
It was Adam.
Of course it was. He hadn’t learned that strength of will alone.
At first, Adam had been just another face in the hospital support group during those first dark months. Then he had been the gentle voice on the phone, calling him up to make sure he was okay just because he had been quieter in the group that day than usual. He had been the pair of hands helping Emory down the stairs when his legs forgot months’ worth of progress from physical therapy and gave out on him.
And then, finally, he had been the first person Emory had confided in about what had really happened that night.
He hadn’t expected Adam to believe him. He hadn’t counted on Adam’s long-standing attraction to scientists and researchers and wimpy professor types. Adam had once dated someone who worked for some shadowy government organization that studied people like him. Maybe did more than study. Adam had left him the day he had gone into his files and read about the vivisections and secret breeding programs.
Adam was the one who had taught him the word Enhanced.
But Adam had given him something more important than a name for what he was. Adam had helped him forgive himself. And Adam had helped him learn control, so it would never happen again.
Adam was the answer to where he had found this maddening core of inner strength. Adam was out there waiting for him. He had to survive this, for Adam’s sake. And as long as Adam was out there, he had enough strength to endure.
“Adam,” he whispered, his voice rough from coughing up water.
The torturer released his chin.
Emory’s head drooped, but not before he saw the torturer give him a small, condescending smile. “Ah,” he said, like he had just been waiting to hear that name. “Are you ready to see him now?”
“What—” Emory began.
The torturer’s voice cut him off as he spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Bring him in.”
The door opened. Two guards marched in. Between them, they half-lead, half-dragged a spitting, snarling figure.
The figure’s face was bruised. His clothes were torn into many places to count, and blood leaked out from the torn places. His hair hung into his face, obscuring his features.
But Emory would have recognized the sound of Adam’s furious cursing anywhere.
Even as bruised and bleeding as Adam was, the guards still let out annoyed grunts at the effort it took to hold him. Adam wasn’t a wimpy intellectual stereotype himself. He just liked men who were. He was warm; he was gentle; but that wasn’t all he was.
Emory had no doubt he had given their captors a run for their money.
But here he was anyway, as helpless as Emory.
Adam looked up. Their eyes met.
When Adam saw him, he struggled against the guards with renewed strength. He let out another string of curses.
Emory just hung his head. “You don’t want him,” he said. “He’s not like me.”
“We know,” the torturer said. “We know everything about you, which means we know all about him. We know he was involved with one of our researchers a few years back. We know he’s the one who helped you recover from the incident.”
A pause. The torturer’s eyes glinted with cold light.
“And we know that when you have nothing left, he’s the one turn to. We’ve been saving him for this moment.”
“For what moment, you butchering bastards?” Adam spat, and Emory knew he was picturing the files he had seen on his ex’s computer.
“For the moment when Emory would have no resources of his own left to call on,” said the torturer. “For the moment when he would call out to you.” He turned back to Emory, stroking one finger down his wet and bloodstained cheek. “That means we’re finally making progress with you. I’ve peeled away the rest of your strength, little by little. Only one thing remains to take from you.”
Adam closed his eyes. “He means he’s going to kill me.” His voice was tight with anger, not the panic Emory would have felt in his position. “He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to make you watch.”
Even in the grip of the fear that clutched Emory then, he still maintained his control. The storm didn’t build inside him. Adam’s lessons had stuck that well.
“It won’t work.” His voice wasn’t fierce and furious like Adam’s. He sounded weak and defeated. Whatever impulse had led him to spit in the torturer’s face, it was long gone.
The torturer was right. There was finally nothing left to take from him.
Almost nothing.
“Keep him alive,” Emory said desperately. “Keep him alive, and I’ll do whatever you want. Isn’t that better for you? Wouldn’t you rather have full control of my power?”
“No,” Adam said, shaking his head desperately. “No, don’t you dare work for them, you know what they do…”
The torturer shook his head. “Too risky,” he said. “You could turn on us at any moment, if you’re left in full control of your faculties. Also, your power is at its strongest when your instincts take control.”
“I can learn to make it stronger without losing control.” Emory was begging now. So much for that well of inner strength he had resented when he had thought would never run dry. “And I won’t try anything. If I were going to do that, don’t you think I would have done it the second you stepped into this room?”
He had considered it. He could have taken the man apart molecule by molecule before he had said a word. But he hadn’t, because even though his fear didn’t master him, he was still a coward.
He had known that if he took the torturer apart, someone else would come, and someone else after that.
He hadn’t known how many he could take apart before they found a way to shut him down.
He hadn’t wanted to find out.
He had been afraid.
And so he had endured, and endured, and endured.
If he hadn’t, maybe Adam wouldn’t be standing in front of him right now, furious and bleeding and about to die. But he couldn’t change the choice he had made. He couldn’t change the kind of man he was.
“Please—” Emory said, and hated the whining in his voice. He hated it more than he had hated the strength that wouldn’t just let him give in.
Was the torturer right?
Was Adam really the only source of his strength? Had it never really been his at all?
Before he could finish the thought, before he could voice the rest of his plea, the torturer pulled out one of the knives he had used to draw long, slow lines of pain across Emory’s body. He thrust the blade into Adam’s chest.
Not through the heart. That would have been too quick. He slid it off to the side, into Adam’s left lung.
Emory should have known he would make it slow.
Adam jerked against the guards’ grip. He let out a wet, wheezing gasp. Blood trickled from his lips, down onto his torn clothes, and from there onto the dirty floor.
The torturer wiped the knife down with a cloth and tucked it away. He didn’t watch Adam, as if Adam’s slow death was beneath his notice. Instead, he focused intently on Emory’s face.
The guards, expressionless, held Adam’s dying body up.
“Adam—Adam, I’m sorry—” Emory cut himself off. His apologies were useless. What was there for him to say?
Adam shook his head. Telling Emory there was no need to apologize? Telling him his apologies were too little, too late? There was no way to know. Adam choked and gasped and gurgled, like he was trying to get a message out. But nothing intelligible came from his throat.
His eyes held Emory’s, like he was trying to silently impart that same message. But Emory didn’t know what he was trying to say.
All he saw was the warmth in Adam’s eyes slowly cooling, a dying fire, a dying man.
Emory didn’t know how long it took for Adam’s gasping breaths to quiet, for his twitches to still, for him to go limp in the guards’ arms. It felt like it took a hundred years. It felt like it happened in an instant.
The guards dropped Adam’s limp form onto the floor. Adam’s empty eyes stared up at the ceiling. There was no warmth left there anymore. There was nothing.
Emory’s throat was sore, like he had been pleading all that time, or screaming. He thought maybe he had been.
At last, the torturer stirred. He grasped Emory’s chin, and gently tilted his face away from Adam and up toward his eyes. “Are you still in there?” he asked again.
For the first time, Emory understood how the torturer might get what he wanted. He understood how the pain could be so bad that his mind would simply give up and slip away. All he wanted was to let his sorrow swallow him, to pull him under until he drowned.
But the torturer had been right about him. Without Adam, what was there holding him here? Without Adam, where was his strength?
Oblivion called to him. Before, he had longed to hear that call, but it had eluded him. Now he couldn’t imagine not answering. There was nothing holding him here. Not anymore.
And the longer he thought about Adam’s body, lying there empty at his feet, the more his fear grew. It wasn’t the fear he had grown used to living with. It wasn’t even the fear that kept him from attacking the torturer when he had first entered the room. This was the old panic. This was a hurricane sweeping the ground out from under him, battering him with its rains, twisting him in its winds.
Without Adam, he didn’t know which way was up. Without Adam, he didn’t know how to have control.
From the smile on the torturer’s face, he knew the torturer could see it.
He grasped for the last shreds of his control. The torturer must have been wrong. Adam couldn’t have been the only source of his strength. He wasn’t that weak.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
And found the eye of the hurricane.
He saw the storm, and felt it, like it was a physical force. The battering, blinding fear of a life without Adam there to guide him and ground him and warm him. A life in the hands of his captors, a life of only pain and more pain.
The strength of his fear had made him despair, once. It had made him think, in those first dark months, of ending his life before something like the accident could happen again.
The torturer had been right, but also wrong. Adam had never been the only source of his strength.
He had been strong before he had ever met Adam.
He had learned one form of control. He had mastered his fear, and mastered his power. He had learned to see them both through impenetrable glass. He had weakened them until he couldn’t feel the force of them battering at his walls anymore.
But there was another type of strength. Another type of control. He could see it now, from where he stood in the eye of the hurricane.
He had never considered using it. Had never considered exploring the depths of what his power could do. The risks were too great.
But now…
Now, as the torturer had said, he only needed to do it once.
Maybe the torturer was right. Maybe oblivion was inevitable.
But he would make it the oblivion of his choosing.
He began with the torturer. He found the spaces within the man’s cells, where one molecule joined to another. Fear slipped inside those places. Fear of a world without Adam in it. Fear of the cattle prod, and the knife, and the bucket of water. Fear of disappearing like the torturer wanted, and fear of continuing to exist.
The torturer opened his mouth to scream.
Then he blew away on a nonexistent wind, and was gone.
The guards ran for the door. They never made it.
Now that the fear was loose, Emory couldn’t call it back. The chain reaction demanded to spread. The last time he had felt this, he had tried with everything in him to hold it back, and it hadn’t been enough. He had barely survived. Five others hadn’t been as lucky as him.
This time, he sat back in the eye of the hurricane, and he let it do whatever it wanted.
It spread through the walls, dissolving the bright light above him, turning to the ropes holding him to a fine gray dust. It spread through Adam’s body, returning him to the earth in a matter of instants.
And it spread into him.
Last time, he had barely held it back enough to save his own life. Now, with the momentum it already had, it was impossible to keep it out of his own body.
But he didn’t want to.
He would embrace the oblivion the torturer had wanted so badly for him. As long as he could take this place down with him.
Maybe he had some rage in him after all.
“Ask your question now,” he spat. “While you’re at it, ask yourself the same question. Are you still in there?”
There was nothing left of the torturer to answer.
A second later, there was nothing left of Emory, either.
---
Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @gala1981
Ask to be added or removed from my Whumptober 2023 taglist.
#whumptober2023#no.4#“You in there?”#cattle prod#oc#fic#suicide tw#death whump#torture#electric torture#near-drowning#my writing#my writing: whumptober 2023#my writing: Mind Games
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You know, I read a theory that even makes sense that Kenjaku has an agreement with Geto and that Geto is conscious and knows what's going on, but I think Geto doesn't want to wake up because he has no motivation on earth, he lost his daughters and his Friend, I think he knows what's happening but he doesn't want to go back. What do you think of this theory? sorry for the text
Hi there, anon!!
Kenjaku having to enter a Binding Vow with a previous host (even if they manifest as no more than a lingering apparition in a form of muscle memory and whatnot) when changing bodies is quite an interesting suggestion! It somewhat ties neatly into the 'body vs. soul' discourse we've seen established in the manga. The two are repeatedly rendered inseperable within the story, two sides of the same coin, so whereas Kenjaku's Cursed Technique encompasses the physical body, something else may be needed to bind the soul. This would imply that Kenjaku's immortality is not entirely a product of their innate abilities, but a result of innovation and inventive application of those. How much experimentation did it require for them to figure out optimal conditions for that vow? That seems to be very much in Kenjaku's 'mess-around-and-find-out' fashion, if you ask me. And though I myself gravitate towards a different interpretation -- one that views this 'soul-binding' process as an organic, built-in effect of Kenjaku's CT -- since we don't know the exact mechanics of it, this theory has a right to exist!
Moving on to your next point, I strongly agree with your assessment that Geto has no motivation/desire to carry on with his life. Perhaps 'meaning' in this case would be a quite fitting word, too, because if he was to ever come back to life his resumed existence would lack, at least in his own view, that very thing -- meaning. Justifying past actions and past mistakes retroactively, trying to assign some greater meaning to what was rather an impulsive, emotionally driven reaction of someone who was struggling mentally for a long time with no one batting an eye, compartmentalizing complex reality into imaginary categories -- doing all that Geto essentially ran himself into a corner, a mental dead-end. In an attempt to validate himself and perhaps shut out the overwhelming sense of guilt that would otherwise eat him alive, Geto made delusional, twisted reasoning the core truth of his existence, a basis for his purpose.
What I find particularly interesting is that Geto, being himself the victim of the jujutsu society's dysfunctional system, clearly recognised its shortcomings, but attributed those to a factor only partially at fault. The telltale sign of that, as I see it, would be his confession that he never held any spite against those in Jujutsu High. This renders Geto's antagonism towards non-sorcerers misplaced. The system was put in place for a reason, it's true, but those in favour of whom that system was established should not be held accountable for its injustices. Instead of trying to improve the order, Geto opted for eliminating the reason it exists in the first place.
Where that leaves him is caught up in a struggle to achieve the impossible, breach that accursed gap between the ideal and reality. Even if Geto's goal wasn't impossible for anyone but one person alive, Gojo Satoru, his decade-long endeavour to wipe all non-sorcerers out of existence would still be in vain, meaningless. Because that simply would bear no fruit in regard to fixing the corrupt mentality that rules over the sorcerers' world.
And if it all was for nothing, just fumbling desperately for some solution, for some relief of the burden thrust upon his fellow sorcerers, futile in the end? What if what he put his life on the line for was never going to solve anything, what if he was not reaching anything with it? What if he was wrong all along? It is straight-up terrifying, to drown and erase yourself fully in pursuit of your goal and understand that all you've done, you've done in vain, misguided, wrong. And Geto couldn't undo what he'd done. He could not afford to look back, to slow down, to revaluate and reset, try to set things right. Acknowledging his fault would've been like staring into the sun. So he didn't. He kept pushing forward until he simply no more could. That's why, in my view, Geto's plan regarding the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons reads as low-key passively suicidal. He chose a meaningful way to end his life -- one that would entrust his legacy to his family, make his goals, his ideal, known to both sides. In that regard, his death is no different from Gojo's: he dies so that his dream could live on. Little did he know that this too, in fact, would be meaningless.
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#jjk manga spoilers#geto suguru#meta asks#i guess i can put this tag here?#thank you so much for the ask anon!#it gave me so much food for thought#and please don't apologize you have nothing be sorry for!#actually it's me who should be sorry for making this answer too long#it kinda got out of hand#i hope my rambling would be at least somewhere near to a satisfying answer to your questions#also i nearly brought myself to tears while writing that last paragraph so tread carefully#tw suicide mention
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turning 25 when you realistically should have been a pregnancy loss and have lost count of the times you've nearly died since you were born is just so strange
like im still here and im still breathing somehow despite everything that's tried to kill me (including myself)
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I am trying to keep vent posts off this blog, because I don't find it helpful to my psyche if you see me post something and then delete it later on do not perceive me but I just wanted to share a brief update on this blog.
I'm still working through processing a lot of things from 2023, tbh. Healing is not linear, much to my greatest annoyance and being in a new environment these past four months have brought about a lot of stresses and concerns for what I want to achieve for my future.
I've expressed this before on this blog, but back in 2019, I dealt with a lot of passive suicidal ideation. I was able to overcome that, but it still affects me from time to time. I want to make it clear that I have not ever actively sought out to take my own life (I ironically have a fear of death lol) and I have been in therapy for awhile now. But there has always been a small part of me that has not expected to make it this far in life--and that severely impacts how I occasionally view living and doing things.
All that to say, I do have a desire to engage in writing soon and I'm currently working on trying to establish better habits with my sleep and social media engagement. My spring semester is coming to an end soon, which will lessen some stress in my life for a short while before I take up summer classes.
#kat talks#suicidal ideation tw#me rereading posts from 2019: oh i really was dealing with full blown panic attacks and disassociation back then huh i forgor 🧍♂️#as much as my mental health hasnt been the greatest atm sometimes I have to look back and remember that I'm nowhere near my lowest low
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my chronic depression when I have to deal with any part of functioning as an adult human being which I never expected/planned to be: kill self? kill self now? finally kill self? visit fjords? walk into sea? take long walk off of short pier?
#intended as miette voice#depression#tw suicide#tw depression#miette#Monty python reference baby#it’s fun living near the sea now cos walk into traffic has been upgraded to walk into sea
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Can't not share Imani's spot-on take here. Listen to disabled people.
(Also: if you're struggling with being disabled and left behind, there are many covid conscious communities online. Please reach out and find community. It WILL help. I can personally connect you with some but you can also find them on popular social media sites just by searching.)
[image ID:
Screenshots of tweets from Imani Barbarin that read:
"TW: suicide By the way, you all fundamentally do not understand the stakes: people are not afraid of your threats of fascism because they feel that their greatest relief would not be Biden, but death. Have you been paying attention? Do you hear how people are talking about Suicide? People lament waking up and not dying in the sleep in the form of jokes. They see no advancement in their lives, they see themselves being worked endlessly until death.
People are hanging on by a fucking thread and you’re chomping at the bit to punish them for not Voting for Biden with fascism and concentration camps? They’ll kill themselves before that happens. They see no hope in the future you’re advertising (assuming you have any plan for the future to communicate to begin with). People can’t buy a home, they can’t afford it.
People can’t afford to have children. There is no job security, let alone any prospect to raising the minimum wage. People are dropping dead of COVID AND CARDIAC EVENTS AND CANCERS ASSOCIATED WITH COVID And the best anyone can promise for a “better future” is “not Trump.”
There isn’t much for people to grasp to for their future: not hope, not planning a family, not setting down roots, not having bodily autonomy, not being able to afford healthcare and not be abandoned in a medical crisis. Nothing. People are neither rooted in the successes of The past nor reaching towards any possible. Many people are not just done with democrats, they’re done trying. They see no promise in their lives and increasingly, they see death as their best chance of relief. “But Trump,” though.
TW: Suicide From December 31st. I genuinely was not being hyperbolic nor nihilistic. There is a real mental health crisis happening and to believe that it is not informed by nor will impact our political reality is completely out of touch." (imani links a screenshot from NBC news citing that More than 50,000 Americans died by suicide in 2023, more than any year on record)]
#disability#disability justice#covid#long covid#this is where we are at we are in the abyss we have no hope#but people think verbally abusing us is going to make us vote for this genocidal man who has thrown us in the trash#i know many people who are just barely hanging on and i am among them#where is our hope#tw suicide#additionally there is no help to seek with it as many dont have healthcare to begin with but alsoooo#finding a therapist that understands that covid is still a threat is near impossible#they are more likely to diagnose you with Covid Anxiety so truly there is nowhere to turn anymore but to community#if you're struggling pls reach out. there are covid safe communities and i can direct you there. lets stay strong.
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