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#you may be wondering ''nemi what possessed you to cut off erebus's arm like him specifically''
brutal-nemesis · 3 years
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E&T: The Armputation
Yeah. Yeah it’s time bitches :) you read it right we’re chopping that shit off
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Ingredients: amputation (omg wow), noncon surgery/body mod, body horror, slight gore
Erebus had sensed something was off when Neteri failed to bring him dinner one night, and when the guards appeared at his door the next morning instead of her, he knew what it meant.
It was time for another procedure.
He understood why she didn’t tell him it was coming, but having hardly any time to process that something was going to be drastically different about his body within the next hour wasn’t the best feeling. Before he knew it, he was on the table again, this time with his shirt off, that silly little rat drawing on the ceiling staring down at his restrained form. Maybe he should give it a name? That was something to focus on, and it’s not like he could see what Neteri was up to at her workbench with his head strapped down. After debating a bit, he settled on Zander, after a big black dog he’d played with sometimes as a kid. He missed seeing dogs. And cats. And birds and the sky and trees and flowers-
“Morning, Erebus!” Neteri seemed far too chipper for someone who was about to…do whatever she was going to do. “How are you feeling?”
“Not...great. Because I’m here. I don’t want to be here.” Even though I deserve to be.
“Yeah that’s expected. But nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Do I get out of this if I say yes?” She laughed and stroked his face.
“You’re fine.” He felt himself grow more and more nervous with anticipation as she rubbed something cold all over his right shoulder. Right there, she was going to cut him open and, and...what was she getting from her workbench? When she came back into view and he saw what she had, he felt his stomach drop. The knife she was holding was the most horrific looking instrument he’d ever seen. It was large and curved, and the fact that she was going to use it on him made it that much worse. 
“What,” he gulped, “what are you going to do to me?”
“Well...do you promise not to freak out?”
“Uh...no. You do realize that makes me more worried, right?”
“Oh, yeah I guess so. It’ll probably be better that you know the full plan beforehand anyway. So,” she put down the knife and clasped her hands, “I’m going to be replacing your arm.”
“Replacing my...with what, exactly?” 
“Another arm, of course. This one, to be exact.” She motioned to a box on the counter. “It’s from a lust demon.”
“Wait, you’re going to cut off my arm?!” Neteri nodded matter-of-factly as Erebus’s heart rate skyrocketed. He didn’t deserve that...did he?!
“I thought that was implied in the ‘replacing’ part, but yeah. Off with your right arm, on with this one.”
“You can’t just do that! That’s-you can’t just amputate my arm!”
“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d freak out.”
“Of-of course I’m freaking out! You want to cut off one of my limbs, for Drottkia’s sake!”
“I mean, yeah, but I’m going to give you a new one right away. So at the end of the day you’ll have the same number of arms you started with. It’s honestly not worth getting that worked up about.”
“Yes it is! You’re going to just-just attach someone else’s arm to my body! What in the world makes you think that’s not-” his voice cracked, and he realized there were tears streaming from his eyes. He didn’t want this, he was so, so afraid, and no matter how much he struggled and pleaded it was inevitable. 
“Shh, shh. That’s enough now, you’ll be alright,” Neteri said as she wiped away his tears. He hated the way she comforted him, as if she wasn’t the source of all his problems. She reached for something out of his line of sight, and he didn’t manage to get a good look before she shoved it in his mouth. It was just a wad of cloth, but it silenced all of his further protests. He struggled uselessly against the tight leather straps, but he could hardly move at all. There was nothing he could do as she picked up the knife again. There was nothing he could do as he felt the cold blade touch his skin. 
There was nothing he could do but wiggle the fingers of his right hand one last time while he still could. 
The knife sliced through the flesh of his arm in one swift stroke, pain exploding out from it so quickly that Erebus could hardly register it. He barely had time to scream before he felt her place another tool on the wreck of his arm. And when it started moving, he knew exactly what it was. That was a saw, that was a saw, she was sawing through his bone, the vibrations shaking him to the very core. All of a sudden, there was a quiet thud and the sawing stopped, causing a suffocating panic to descend over Erebus, threatening to crush him.
It was gone it was gone his arm was gone the arm he’d used to write and eat and draw and plant flowers and hug his mother one last time and hold his father’s hand as he died was gone and the horrific new one couldn’t replace that, not at all, not at all, but it was too late because it was gone. He heard her pick it up and take it away, leaving a gaping hole next to him on the table, a space that had always been filled before by his arm, but his arm was gone and there was nothing there, nothing at all.
But when he felt her set something else down in that empty space, and his stomach twisted. It was the arm, the one that wasn’t his, the one that was going to be attached to his body, that was going to be his. After fiddling with it a bit, she pressed it up against the stump, the cold demon flesh meeting that of a warm human. She started to stitch them together, and Erebus couldn’t help but whine at both the sting of the needle and the horror of what was happening to him. But once the stitching stopped, the healing magic started, and that was far, far more painful.
Erebus screamed into the gag as he was assaulted by waves of relentless agony, ebbing and flowing as each nerve and blood vessel was joined together. It felt like every pain sensor in the arm was lighting up all at once as the connections were forged, every imaginable anguish being played out in a single moment. And when the bones started to fuse, oh he could hardly breathe, it was like fiery splinters were stabbing up into his shoulder, as many pinpricks of agony as there were stars in the sky, and there was nothing, nothing in the world besides that stabbing pain and the hum of screams in his throat. But all at once, the intensity of the pain evaporated as Neteri’s magic ceased flowing. 
Erebus cautiously opened his eyes, looking at Zander the rat for a moment before turning his gaze to Neteri as much as the strap over his forehead would allow. He was shocked to see that she was clutching the edge of the table for support, breathing heavy as blood dripped steadily from her nose and ears. With a shaking hand, she pulled the gag from his mouth, her unfocused eyes meeting his tear-filled ones.
“Are you...okay?” she gasped between breaths. Erebus paused. He was absolutely, positively, nowhere near okay, but he knew what sort of answer she wanted.
“I’m...it still hurts, but not as much as before you, uh, started...connecting it.” Erebus replied, his voice painfully raspy from screaming. 
“Can you...can you move your fingers?” He hesitantly complied, and was relieved to feel the unfamiliar digits wiggling, even if it felt a little off. She nodded, looking between his hand and the place where she’d attached the arm. “Okay. Hang in there just a bit more.” She took a deep breath and placed her hands on the wound again. Her magic sparked to life, and Erebus could see it was hurting her, too, before he was consumed by his own pain. But it wasn’t long before the magic sputtered out again. Neteri nearly collapsed on top of him, catching herself at the last moment.
“I think...it’ll be good...good enough for now. I’m sure it’s not perfect...I promise I’ll fix it later but I...I need to stop or I’ll...” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry if...hurts...I know that...really painful...and you shouldn’t...more than necessary.” Opening her eyes, she pulled something out of her pocket before moving out of view. A few seconds later, the pair of guards from before came into the lab, shock flashing on their faces for a moment as they took in the bloodstained scene before them. Neteri came around the table, clutching something small and blue in one of her fists, seemingly a little more steady on her feet. She stood between Erebus and the guards, looking one of them dead in the eye.
“Take him back and give him something to take care of the attachment site, but I don’t want anyone else touching him, is that clear?” She jabbed a finger up at his face, her other hand clutching Erebus’s left arm tightly, either for support or out of possessiveness. “He is mine, and he can care for himself until I’m better.” She turned to the other guard. “I’ll probably need your help with a few things…”
Erebus let the guard take him back without a fuss after he was freed from the table. Trying to escape in this condition would just be dumb, and it’s not like there was much point in running with that spell on the brand. He was left alone in the cell with a roll of bandages and something to help fight off infection. But before he took care of the new wound, Erebus needed to wash off the blood that practically coated the right side of his body. There was so much of it on the arm...no, it was his right arm, that the skin looked completely red. 
But as the blood was washed away by the little rainstorm, Erebus realized that that really was its color. Honestly, with the bright red skin, pitch black nails, and the prominent stitches attaching it to his body, the arm made him look like some sort of...monster which is what he was inside, wasn’t he? He watched in horrified fascination as the limb he didn’t recognize as his own moved as he wanted it to. Well, for the most part. It was sort of shaky, and he couldn’t make a fist or straighten it out all the way, but that was hopefully something Neteri could fix...
And despite everything, a small part of him couldn’t help but hope that, for her sake, Neteri was okay.
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