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shewroteaworld · 8 months

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I'll Hold Your Weight When You Can't

Premise: Brilliant sunshine!reader gets heat stroke on a case. Your best friend, Spencer Reid, is predictably worried about you. What he doesn't expect is to be forced to come to terms with his feelings for you.

Word count: approx. 3,200

TW: Brief mention of vomit and, perhaps, hospitals

(Y/N/N): Your nickname

Author's Note: Super excited to introduce brilliant sunshine!reader (aka, super smart sunshine!reader) onto my fanfic writing scene! Definitely willing to write more of her in the future if anyone is interested. Hope you enjoy!

“Does anybody have more water?”

“Where is the damn ambulance?”

Perhaps your job classically conditioned you to respond to Hotch’s “I’m seriously not fucking around” tone because your eyes crack open.

Someone put weights on your eyelids and cranked the sun to extra-bright. The harsh rays burned your retinas and washed everything in a white blur. Did someone set off a flash bang?

“(Y/N)? Can you hear me?” Miraculously, out of the screeching white, you made out JJ’s halo of blonde hair.

“JJ?” You groaned. Even though you could barely see, it felt like the whole world was spinning,

“Hotch, she’s coming around!” You recognized Morgan’s voice. “Welcome back to the world of the living, honey. We’re happy to see you.”

Your heart rate spiked. You never died. Did you die?

“Yes, we still need a medic!” Hotch barked.

You winced. “Wha?” Suddenly, your mouth couldn’t handle a one-syllable world. Even more alarming, your brain, the same brain that kept up with Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid, couldn’t understand what the hell was going on.

“What I do?” You whined.

“He’s not yelling at you, honey,” JJ said like a kindergarten teacher. “You’re just a little out of it right now.”

“Is she conscious?” Another voice entered. Your head spun. “I brought more water.”

You moaned to suppress a gag. Your eyelids drooped, and you relished in the break from the light.

“Hey, smarty pants, stay with us.” Morgan pat your cheek. “Let Emily get some water in you.” You couldn’t force your eyes open more if you tried.

Your friend Emily. That’s who the voice belonged to.

Suddenly, JJ pulled your hair from your face, Morgan lifted your head, and Emily forced a water bottle to your lips simultaneously. The blinding glare seared your eyes and your head spun. You wanted to sob and maybe vomit.

Your chest hitched with a shallow inhale. “Stop.” You whined.

“(Y/N), it’s okay. Take a deep breath.” JJ said.

“No!” You exclaimed.

“Honey–” Morgan tried.

You thrashed against his hold, but your exhausted muscles couldn’t throw Morgan’s gentlest grip.

“Maybe we should let her go.” Emily said.

“She needs water.” JJ countered.

“She’s disoriented.” Hotch cut in. “Let her get her bearings first, but don’t let her close her eyes.”

Gingerly, Morgan lay your body back on the grass. Your head swam, and your vision rippled as if you could see the heat waves in the California air. You tried to take a deep breath but choked.

You sputtered. Every inhale led to a series of dry coughs. In your delirium, you thought of Spencer. Your Spencer. Where the hell was he? Did he not love you anymore?

Suddenly, Hotch loomed over you. His tall frame blocked out the brutality of the sun’s glare, which eased your headache and nausea but not your cough. His eyebrows were so deeply furrowed they formed a trench of wrinkles across his forehead. “Check her airway.”

Suddenly, you stared into JJ’s blue eyes. Other hands tried to manipulate your body. You jerked.

“(Y/N), relax.”

“Honey, please–”

“Turn her on her side!” Morgan’s cut off by Reid, his voice sharper than you’d ever heard.

***

Spencer Reid has survived many traumatic situations.

He's cared for his schizophrenic mother. He’s been kidnapped. He recovered from a drug addiction. And those are just a few items from his dissertation-length “PTSD-Causing Experiences” list.

But many of his worst traumas were a by-product of being a profiler– a job which allowed him to utilize his intellect to help others. He was willing to accrue trauma like Pokemon cards in exchange for applying his genetic gifts to create a safer world.

Reid could have framed your heat exhaustion as another scare in the line of duty. But when Reid saw you, his brilliant girl, on the ground, his heart fell through his feet.

Then, he saw how his the team responded to your medical emergency.

When he witnessed you coughing and writhing on your back as the team leered over with water, he thought he might explode.

You could be asphyxiating, and the team could be letting you choke while forcing more fluid down your throat.

He shivered as he sprinted down the steps of the local precinct and onto the grassy field where you lay.

“Turn her on her side!” He yelled as diagnoses and courses of action fled through his mind on hyperspeed.

“We’re trying, she—”

“Spence?” You choked out through a coughing fit. He’s surprised his ears caught it.

Reid knelt next to you. “Let’s get you into recovery position.” He said, his voice suddenly soft as clouds. Reid gingerly pushed you onto your left side. “Off your back, there we go.” He bent your right leg and slid it in front of your body to prevent you from rolling onto your stomach if you lost consciousness.

“Did she faint?” Reid asked the team. He couldn’t take his eyes from your face.

“We think so. She was dizzy, so she laid on the ground. Then she was unresponsive for at least 40 seconds,” Emily said.

Spencer pressed the back of his hand to your forehead. Predictably, you were feverishly hot. “She’s burning up. Has someone called an ambulance?”

“Allegedly.” Hotch said, an edge to his voice.

“We have, sir. They’re on their way.” A local police officer responded, exasperated.

Spencer’s eye twitched. “How long has she been down?” You whined, and he stroked your cheekbone with his thumb.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He whispered.

“In total, 15 minutes.” Hotch supplied. “Emily, pour some more water on her.”

“This was for her to drink.”

“Use one bottle to pour on her face and neck.” Spencer said. “I ran and got Gatorade. She should start with sips of that when she can swallow. Heat stroke can also be caused by salt depletion.”

Spencer was conversing with a local officer over the safety protocols in the area when a pair of policemen walked into the precinct, gossiping about the FBI agent who “folded fast in the southern Cali heat.”

Spencer’s jaw had clenched. Maybe one of his team members was ill since they put in most of the grunt work to catch the unsub. He would’ve been more annoyed if not for the worry gnawing at his brain. What if they were talking about (Y/N)? She looked a little shaky right after her chase with the unsub, but Spencer didn’t get a chance to ask his friend if she was alright. And, stupidly enough, he forgot to text her to check if she drank any water post-case. Quickly, Reid excused himself, grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge, and rushed to the field where your limp body trembled on the grass.

“I’m going to pour some water on you, honey," Emily said. You flinched as the frigid water hit your hairline.

“Breathe, relax.” Spencer said, shielding your nose. The last thing you needed was some accidental waterboarding.

Seconds after the water drenched your forehead, your whole body relaxed into the grass. “That felt good.” You smiled weakly.

Spencer stroked your arm. “Let’s sit you up in a minute, okay? You should try some Gatorade before the EMTs get here.”

“EMTs? I’m fine.” You whined.

Spencer didn’t think it was possible for his eyebrows to crease further.

“You’re not fine.” Gentler, he said, “and it’s okay not to be fine, sunlight.”

“But, I’m alive.” You tried to roll onto your stomach, but your bent leg kept you safe on your back.

Some on the team members chuckled, but Spencer didn’t find your delirium humorous. “I know you’re alive, sweetie. But you’re way too hot. I think you’re a little confused right now.”

“I’m just…” You winced. “I’m alive.”

The knot in Spencer’s chest tightened ten-fold. This could be heat stroke. At the very least, you had heat exhaustion. You were dehydrated. You were delirious.

Best case scenario: you were ill for a few days. Worst case scenario: You had vital organ damage.

Just as he’s about to call 911 himself, JJ interrupted him. “Look–ambulance lights. Help is on the way, honey.”

“You hear that, (Y/N)? You’re gonna be fine.” Morgan said. If only Spencer felt that confident.

“Spence…” You blocked your eyes from the light with your limp right hand. “I’m scared. I don’t feel well.”

“Oh, (Y/N), I know.” He cupped your shoulder and hoped you could feel his love for you through his palm. That sent a jolt down his spine. He wasn’t supposed to comfortably think those thoughts about you.

You were sick. This wasn’t the time. He leaned over your body. He gave you plenty of breathing room, but his torso was parallel to your hip so his eyes could meet your watering ones. “Hey, take a breath for me, Smartie.”

Your nickname for him slipped from his tongue so easily it spooked him. Suddenly, he noticed his thumb stroking over your cotton t-shirt. He should stop. The whole team was watching. He was being was too intimate; he'd face stupid quips from Morgan for days. He kept stroking anyway.

He observed your chest rise and fall. Your breaths were shaky but deeper. He relaxed a tad. Vital oxygen was reaching your bloodstream.

“(Y/N), can we try something?” Spencer asked.

“Yes. Maybe. What is it?”

The knot in his chest loosened. You responded immediately and with more than two words; you were becoming more lucid.

“Can you sit up and have some sips of Gatorade? I got your favorite flavor. At least, if your favorite flavor hasn’t changed from three years ago.” It most likely hadn’t. Once your opinion settled, it was frustratingly hard to erode your verdict.

“I can’t…I don’t know.”

“I know sitting up is hard. I’ll help you. And I’ll prop you against my chest. I’ll hold your weight when you can’t.”

“KK, Spence.” Your childlike tone tugged at his heart strings.

Spencer and Morgan lifted your limp body from the ground. They manhandled you into a sitting position with your head propped on Spencer’s shoulder and your body tucked between his thighs.

One of his arms stabilized you while the other raised a cold bottle of orange Gatorade to your lips.

After nine sips of Gatorade, you spoke again.

“Orange.” You took another sip. "My favorite.”

He smiled into your hair. “When have I ever lied to you, (Y/N/N)?”

***

Spencer nearly created a crater in the linoleum floor of the ER waiting room with his bouncing heel by the time the doctor came back with an update.

“She had a mild case of heat stroke. We currently have her on fluids, and she’ll need lots of rest for at least the next week.” Doctor Bahamani concluded.

“No signs of metabolic dysfunction? Any respiratory distress?” Reid checked.

Doctor Bahamani smiled knowingly. “She’s going to be just fine, Doctor Reid.”

“Can I see her?” Spencer asked.

“Yes. Only two at a time, please.”

Spencer didn’t care who volunteered with him. He moved without thinking. An outpouring of gratitude for his eidetic memory flooded him. Through the thickest brain fog, he could trust his recollection of the hospital to bring him to the correct hospital room.

The security staff practically had to drag him away from your bedside after the ambulance ride. They might have thrown him out of the ER if not for the flash of his FBI badge.

Something nagged at him as he sped past the nursing station.

You were going to be fine. The ER doctor confirmed it. Yet his heart was still pounding and he could barely refrain from running. Even more odd, he wasn’t ashamed of his irrational behavior.

So what if a doctor deemed you were okay? It was you. And he saw you groggier and more out of it than you'd ever been. And who knows how thorough the doctors were with their examination? It was completely reasonable to worry for one of his closest friends.

He just couldn't believe you were alright until he checked you over with his own hands and his own eyes.

***

When you grinned at him from your cot, Spencer wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry.

Tears glazed your eyes. But, your gorgeous smile was back.

“Spencer?” You asked, brow raised and head cocked.

He’d been staring too long. He looked like an idiot, lamely standing in the doorway as if he were the one with heat stroke.

“Straighten your head. Your neck is probably tight.”

You smiled, but this time it was tight-lipped and painful-looking. “You’re too worried.”

He watched saline drip down your IV. “Of course I’m worried, (Y/N). You got heat stroke.” With a deep breath as a shot of courage, he sat in the chair by the head of your bed.

There was nothing odd about sitting with his best friend at the hospital.

His chest twisted at “best friend” and his resolve collapsed. He couldn’t deny it anymore.

He liked you. He really, really liked you. He actually might even–

“Luckily, I got out pretty unscathed.” You snapped Spencer out of his spiral. “A little dehydrated. Achy. Might feel sick for a few days.”

“Or weeks.” Spencer corrected.

“Trying to look on the bright side here, Doctor.” You smirked and Spencer swore his right ventricle tightened.

Then, your nose scrunched and Spencer's wiped clean of any concern about his cardiac health.

“What hurts?”

“Just a little achy, Spencer. I’m alright.”

He shot you a look. He knew all your excuses. He knew you went to self-harming lengths to not worry people.

“You’re not alright.” He reached for the red nurse-call button.

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Okay…my body aches, Spence. And the IV burns. But they’ve already told me that’s normal. No need to take nurses away from an emergency.”

The nurses at the station desk didn’t appear to be rushing around for anyone, but Spencer feared this wouldn’t behoove his case.

“They can give you pain medication, if you want.”

You hesitated, and immediately Spencer pressed the button. When you smiled weakly instead of bickering, his worry grew tenfold but not without a rush of heat flooding his entire body.

In Morgan's words, he’s down bad.

“How are you doing, sunshine?” As if he’d been summoned, Morgan appeared in the doorway.

Spencer stepped back from your cot. The part of him riled from Morgan’s “sunshine” moniker wants to shove his hand into yours. Spencer thought he hid his annoyance well, but something about Morgan's smirk told him otherwise.

“Um…”

Morgan’s smirk fell. “You feel that bad, huh?”

You chuckled sadly. “Do I look that shitty or am I an open book today?”

“You never look shitty,” Spencer said. A tsunami of blood rushed to his face.

“Anyway,” Morgan said, “Do you want anything, Beauty Queen? I can grab you some jello.”

“Jello sounds nice.” You said, and something in your voice was so vulnerable and naive Spencer wanted to wrap you in his arms as tight as he could. Which was illogical. That would only hurt you further.

He shook his head as if that would remove the thoughts from his mind. “I’m gonna see if I can check up on your labs at the nurse’s station. I’ll make sure they’re giving you the good drugs.” He smiled.

You laughed– a genuine laugh– and Spencer’s heart soared. “Thanks, Spence.”

“I’ll go grab your jello,” Morgan said.

“Hold on, you should stay with her just in case she needs anything," Spencer said.

“I’ll be fine, Spence.” You said, but Spencer was not prepared to take "no" for an answer.

“If you boys wants to run her some errands, I’ll stay.” Emily stood in the doorway. “JJ is coming soon too– she just got a phone call from a very frantic Penelope.”

Your nose crinkled. “Oh no.” You groaned, but you were smiling.

“Oh, yes. Be prepared for some mother henning," Emily said.

“Garcia can’t be any more mother henning than Reid," Morgan said.

Before his face could turn redder than a baboon’s bottom, Spencer fled.

He’s only two yards from the nursing station when Morgan intercepted him at the end of the hall.

“So, you’re going to make your move, right?”

Spencer's body temperature plummeted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He tried to shoulder past Morgan, but he was no match for his grip strength. “Reid, c’mon. You like (Y/N).”

Part of him wanted to laugh. “Like” seemed too simple of a word to describe the symphony of feelings (Y/N) started in him. “It’s…” He’s too tongue-tied to lie. “It’s complicated.”

You’re brilliant. You’re beautiful. You’re brimming with empathy. You’re everything Spencer could want. And it scared the shit out of him. Because that meant there’s even more to lose. And if he lost you, there would be no one to blame but himself. It was better for his psyche to not go there with you– to step back from the line rather than risk what would happen if he failed to make it work in the end.

And what if you got hurt? What is you fell in the line of duty? Or worse, what if someone targeted you because of your romantic tie to him? Spencer's already experienced the pain of losing a soulmate-- a concept he wasn't even sure he believed in-- once. He wasn't not sure if he could survive it a second time.

There was too much unpredictability in his life. He chose a dangerous profession. He was gifted a ticking time-bomb of dangerous genes. He’d never forgive himself if he inflicted onto you the pain he’s been through; losing loved ones, whether through death or mental illness.

Morgan's expression turned sympathetic. “Reid, you should give it a shot. Our lives our hectic. And if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you.”

Spencer blinked to block tears from welling. “I just want her to be happy, too.”

“And who says you don't make her happy?”

“His idiotic genius brain.” Rossi appeared from around the corner.

Spencer froze. “You heard?” His face flushed yet again.

“Just the tail end. But Reid…” He trailed off.

Morgan took the hint. “I’m going to get (Y/N) some jello. With my charm, I could negotiate for some whipped cream.”

“Don’t get whipped cream on it. She’s lactose sensitive,” Spencer said.

Morgan's stupid smirk reappeared. “Gotcha, Reid.”

Rossi took Morgan's place. Once Morgan was out of sight, he began his speech. “You love her. Don’t get in your own way.” Rossi put his hand on Reid’s shoulder. “And (Y/N) is an incredibly intelligent woman. Don’t insult her intelligence by thinking she can’t decide who is or is not worth taking a risk. And for what it’s worth…a man like you is worth the risk.”

Rossi left Reid staring at his back.

For the longest time, Reid convinced himself he refrained from asking you out to protect you from himself and his hefty baggage. And that’s not completely untrue.

But suddenly, he realized he was primarily trying to protect himself from exposing his vulnerabilities to you this whole time. There’s never been a person whose opinion affected him like yours. There's never been a life he's wanted to protect more except perhaps...Maeve.

But just like it’s up to you to decide who’s worth the risk, it’s up to him to decide as well.

And if today taught him anything, shit happens. And if you slip through his fingers, he doesn't want it to because he wasn't brave enough to make a first move.

And being your person was more than worth the risk of rejection.

Author's Note: Thank you to so much to everyone who stuck around through my hiatus! I appreciate every single one of you! You're super cool :)

Happy to be back! Inbox is open to chat about writing and take requests! Please check pinned "Blurb Requests" post before requesting! (Will update the post as my boundaries update!)

Have an awesome day or night, wherever you are in this crazy world. I am incredibly thankful you spent part of your precious life reading something I penned.

Forever grateful,

shewroteaworld

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x self insert #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fluff #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid angst #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #spencer reid one shot

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spoops-screams · 1 year

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| When they realise that MC is allergic to magic

Character(s): Riddle Rosehearts, Leona Kingscholar, Azul Ashengrotto, Vil Schoenheit, Idia Shroud, Malleus Draconia

TW: Trauma, allergic reactions, suffocation, pain/ injury, allusions to/ mentions of death, hospitals, angst, self blame, spoilers for the overblots

Notes: Gender neutral MC || Yeah <3

Riddle

Riddle realises early on

He catches on after Leona's overblot when he sees the sign of you reacting negatively to something. Since his parents are well known doctors, he's quite accustomed to things like the signs of an allergic reaction but it’s different

It’s more severe than most and he isn’t so unobservant so see the black blotches that stain your skin

He goes to Crowley after consulting you, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the expression of fear that takes a hold of you after having so recently dealt with two overblots and now being told by someone that you knew wouldn’t lie to you that you might fall to the same fate

He doesn’t pay enough attention to to resignation when he says that the best course of action is to tell Crowley. You knew that he wouldn’t be able to do anything, but Riddle is scared, more so than he ever recalls being

He’s never heard of this, never thought anything like this could happen and yet here you are breaking all of his belief down and leaving him pieces to at he can’t make out to try and piece them back together

After the first few times, Riddle stops feeling disappointed about the lack of help from Crowley and turns to Crewel. All he can do is request that you be transferred into his care where he can hope that, if it will be the only thing that his mother ever taught him that will be of use to him, his understanding of medicine will aid you as will the professors understanding of herbs

Leona

Leona realises at your first meeting

The smell of blot, something that he'd only ever smelt from his pen, hanging thickly around you

He can smell your weakness and he knows that you weren’t anything like you were the first time he had saw you in the entrance ceremony

He doesn't care though. Not yet

You aren't a priority. Not yet

You aren't until much later when the fact begins to eat him up inside at the idea that his hands could cause you pain, hands that wish for nothing more than to hold you to him and allow you to rest

Azul

Azul never gives himself the chance to fully realise at all

Even after his overblot he's unwilling to talk to you, much less so when he can see you getting tired, weary, struggling to breath, to move

He cares for you of course, to the best of his abilities. It's the least he can do for everything that you have done for him but it's all at a distance

But he knows that it has something to do with him. He isn't sure how, maybe it's just his insecurities again, but he can feel it. He can feel it in how your body draws in his contracts but deteriorates because of it, how magic is drawn to you but your body wants nothing more to repel it

What could he do as a source of magic, who possesses, who possessed, so much other than leave you be?

Vil

Vil realises almost too late

It’s during his overblot, perhaps one of the reasons that he falters and makes it so easy for him to be subdued after that, when he notices the way that the creature behind him gravitates towards you

It screams at him to attack you, you, only you like everything about it, every cruel thought it had ever had was because of you and destroying you would bring it a joy and relief unlike any other

But he doesn’t want to

There’s a flicker of the Vil you knew when the blot reaches out to you without his say so, and your body reacts as though you’re being burned, a hand coming up to grip at your throat as if to clear your airways

No one else reacts like that

Not Rook who’s covered in blot or Ace who has is splattered across his face

It’s just you and, when he comes to, he looks at you with eyes so wide, somehow still having retained the fear that he felt when he saw how you reacted, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself

Idia

Idia realises mere moments before you were lost to it

He’d been tracking all of the overblots, sure, and he can see all of the traces of it around you when he does so but he chalks up the fact that you’re in pain and so painfully out of it up to you having to deal with them all and he doesn’t care beyond that and the fact that he briefly entertains the idea of needing to take you in to be looked over

It’s not until after you collapse when you return to NRC, lips, skin, hair losing colour and being replaced with a disturbing grey and deep black pools of blot clinging to your skin, that he realises that he should have taken you in as well

But he’d never seen anything like it before and it’s all he can say when your body weakens further any time that any one gets close to it

He’s never cared for a human life beyond Ortho’s before but he’s downright terrified as he calls in as many contacts as he can - everyone else with the capability following suit - to help you at the idea that your death might be on his hands

He doesn’t think he would be able to deal with that and, with all of his devices blaring at the high blot levels of all of the people surrounding, he doesn’t think anyone else would be able to either

Malleus

Malleus realises immediately

He isn't sure what it is but he can feel the way that your body reacts to his magic

His entire being radiates it without restraint due to him being a Fae - a magical being by nature - and he can feel the weakening of your heart the longer that he stays around you

He doesn't understand why, not even really when he can see blot clinging to you and your body almost failing

He doesn't really ever realise that you're allergic to his very being and only understands that you must be kept away from extreme sources of magic for whatever reason - perhaps the fact that you were from another world and magicless so shouldn't be able to host blot at all

No, he only realises when he feels his heart shatter at being given the information that magic causes you harm, the first time that he saw you collapse still burnt in his mind, and isn’t quite sure what to do with himself next

He knows that the best thing would be to leave you be but whether he can hold himself to that he doesn’t know and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to make you leave him be either. Not when you’re the first person who has been so willing to approach him in years

It hurts him so much and he can’t decide between his duty or his selfish, painfully human, desire to keep you close to him

Do not repost or claim. Only reblog 💕

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ficbrish · 1 month

Text

A Tumble

Rating: Explicit 18+ only!

[AO3 Link]

[Kinktober 2023 prompt thanks to @absurdthirst! October 19th - Biting/Scratching, Piercings, Marking]

[[TW/CW: Injury, cptsd, blood, gore, alcohol, food, scar trauma]]

Summary: Vistri falls in battle, and Astarion wants to savor her survival.

Early in Act II, a while before the confession.

[Click here for my other Kinktober one-shots]

“Vistri!” he shouted her name so sweetly the other night, and now it crawled out of his mouth as something misshapen and wretched.

It wasn’t the first time Astarion saw her fall during a fight. She was a sorcerer; her type only ever brought robes and the raw, unlimited fury of the weave to battle.

Dropping to his knees, he sent another fiery arrow after the shadows and knelt beside her fallen form, like a paladin at the altar of their god. Vistri was crumpled like a rag, unmoving.

The others could handle themselves—She needed someone now! Astarion left the rest of the fight for them to finish up, wrenching the pack off his back and reaching into it with trembling hands.

Too many scrolls. So many fucking scrolls! There was one for poison, another for grease traps—for gods damned spiderwebs!

None for revival.

“Get up! Gods damn you!” he cried, still searching through his pack, “Get up!”

There was blood on her neck, but it was wrong. It wasn’t from his fangs at her invitation. The shadows did that to her.

The darkness in these woods was of a different kind; thick and overbearing, like the moment just after something horrible happened. The very air around them clung to their throats with every breath, coating their airways with heavy gravity. Such a perpetual night was hard to get used to and threw off all their senses, even for the vampire and the drow.

A ragged draw of breath by his knees stopped Astarion’s heart mid-beat. Vistri’s stillness had been deceiving. Quickly, he stuffed the scrolls back in and pulled out a bright-red potion instead.

Gingerly, reverently, he lifted her head up into his lap, mumbling prayers to gods who never answered. Astarion dabbed a bit of the serum onto Vistri’s lips, coaxing her to drink the rest. As she did, magic and dragon blood rapidly closed her wounds.

A bit of color came back to her periwinkle cheeks.

Vistri coughed, “Hello dear.”

He sighed into the sight of her living eyes and bent over to kiss her. Their lips were upside-down, and despite the inherent silliness of such a position, Astarion kissed her with ever grateful fervor. Vistri laughed and kissed him back as if she hadn’t just been ripped open and unconscious.

Feeling something creeping up behind him, Astarion unsheathed a knife from his thigh and excused himself, “Wait here a moment, love.”

He set her gently to the side and rose quickly with a twirl. His blade stuck immediately into the belly of a shadow cursed Harper, burrowing deep in its gut, and twisting for a mortal wound—Or mortal again. Face to face with the old corpse, Astarion stared into its blank, rotten eyes. The death on it was rank, stinking of at least a hundred years. Not having seen his reflection once these past two hundred, it made him wonder whether he had those same dead eyes.

One glance back at Vistri allayed him of those fears.

“Come back to my side at once,” she pouted, arms crossed.

In his rush to oblige, Astarion stabbed the undead creature through its brittle skull. Its face shattered and the whole decayed body shook with renewed lifelessness, collapsing on its own weight. It toppled over and crashed into his shoulders like a perverse greeting.

Regaining his balance on his back foot, Astarion pushed the rotting cadaver off him with a disgusted, “Eugh!”

His trousers were going to tear at the knee if he kept sliding on them, but it got him to Vistri’s side that second faster.

Which was worth it, “You blasted!” He kissed her about a million times, grumpily and gratefully, “Hag!”

“Hey!” she protested as he clung to her cheeks.

Astarion interrupted his flurry of pecks to chastise her, “Stop dying, then!”

“I didn’t die! Exactly...” she stubbornly insisted, refusing to ever take anything serious, seriously. “I just fell over!”

“You almost died!—Not that I care anything about it.”

Vistri couldn’t help but smirk at the way he turned his face away like a miffed housecat. His tones and expressions overflowed with shifting emotion, painting the loveliest picture of his heart, before settling into bitter denial. She might not have many memories, but Vistri was sure she’d never had this much fun with anyone else before.

“There’s something so dashing about the way you pout.”

Her little compliment made Astarion’s expression shift dramatically once again. He tried his best to frown, and faced her again just to turn his nose up, “Don’t try to flatter your way out of my concern.”

“Thought you didn’t care.”

“I don’t!” he scoffed.

“Oy! Children!” Karlach called out, emerging from the gloom with her flaming greatsword flung lazily over her flaming shoulder, “Lend a hand next time, will ya?”

She and Wyll were strutting towards them out of the near dark, obviously smug about having felled the last of the foes on their own.

“I am no child!” Astarion spat, “I’m over 200 years old!”

“Act like it then,” she winked cheekily.

Ally or not, he was ready to jump up and fight until Vistri reassuringly squeezed his hand. Reaching to him through their tadpoles, she explained, Karlach’s only teasing for fun, love. It’s a rough and tumble thing! She wouldn’t be teasing if she didn’t respect us.

Astarion dropped his shoulders. He knew that sort of thing. That’s how they all talked to each other all the time. But something about the way she said children reminded him of a much colder heart. If it weren’t for Vistri’s interference, he would have acted out of line.

Perhaps out of embarrassment at that recognition, Astarion decided to compensate with an extra level of what was expected of him.

“You hear that, my dear?” he quipped, sheathing his knife, “Karlach thinks we should act more… adult.”

Demonstrating his obvious innuendo, he scooped Vistri by the waist to bring her closer. In full view of the others, Astarion had his way with her tongue.

“Ah, love,” Wyll remarked dreamily, pretending to appreciate their display.

“Don’ know if I’d call that love,” Karlach groaned, “More like bragging if you ask me.”

With a teasing grin, he countered, “What is love if not life’s greatest braggart?”

“Should write that down, mate.”

“Really?” Even though it was only in jest, Wyll was a bit flattered, “You think so?”

Karlach winked, “I’d say you were a poet, and ya didn’t even know it.”

The lovers paid their banter no mind, hearing nothing but the breathing and humming singing across one another’s lips. There was nothing else in the world. To Astarion, it was all taste; savoring Vistri’s very existence. She’d come so close to disappearing; her soul slipping though his very fingers...

Her lips were warm. They were so warm.

“Um, guys?” Wyll cleared his throat, “Can we go now?”

Vistri hummed dreamily as she tore herself away, and spoke still gazing into Astarion’s flustered face, “If I can yet stand on two feet.”

“If you can’t, I’m sure prince charming down there would be happy to carry you.”

Karlach guffawed, the very idea of him carrying anyone absolutely hysterical to her, “As if!”

Astarion stood up abruptly with an offended stomp, “As if?!”

“Come on, Fangs! Be real about it! Carry someone? All the way back to the inn?”

Before she knew what was happening, Vistri found herself swept up and thrown over Astarion’s shoulder like a heavy sack. She squealed with a mixture of terror and delight. Her head still light after her injury, the world spun.

“I’m not as useless as I may seem!” Astarion grumbled, tossing her around a bit as he adjusted his hold.

Exchanging raised brows, neither Karlach nor Wyll argued. But they were irritatingly smug about their silence.

Shrieking was common in the Shadow Curse lands, but Vistri’s was startlingly out of place. It had laughter and happy shock ringing brightly through it, “Your face is right by my bum!”

“Is that a bad thing, darling?”

“But what if I fart?!” she asked, breathless with laughing abandon.

“Don’t you dare!” he scowled.

Her ribs felt weak, “Quit jostling me about then!”

Knowing their antics could go on forever, Wyll accepted that their leader was distracted and turned to lead the way. As they walked back, he and Karlach stuck close, leaving the lovers to trail behind them in their own world.

He leaned in with a teasing comment, “Aren’t they sweet?”

Snickering, Karlach nodded back in sardonic agreement.

In a sense, they were sweet, both all charm on the surface and poison underneath. They just fit!

Mirrors don’t always fall in love, but those two fools obviously had. Everyone but them seemed to accept that fact. They were too smart to be clueless, but if they were aware, they stubbornly fought it like doomed fingers desperately grasping the edges of a cliff. As dangerous as they seemed to think it was, the worst that could happen was happiness. Such a blessed doom was sweet.

But they were loud! A constant buzz, bickering by daylight and shouting by moonlight. Annoying as they were, it was a good thing they were easy to poke fun at.

Impressively, Astarion managed to carry Vistri the whole way. She may have cast Feather, but they left out that detail when he bragged about it to the others back at Last Light. He was determined to prove everyone wrong about his strength—They should see how he was normally, before the tadpole traded away some of his powers for sunlight. He was a fearsome thing, and everybody should know it!

Vistri thought it was quite an impressive feat regardless. She’d smiled the whole way over, bouncing awkwardly, enjoying the warmth of his back. His hands strongly grasping the back of her thighs was a bonus.

She also managed not to fart.

After he paraded her around like the village braggart toting fresh-caught venison, Astarion finally set her down. There was a strong sense of regret when she left his arms, as if they’d lost something precious. Trying to pay that no mind, they stood blankly across from each other. Not knowing what to say or how to address one another.

“Well… Thank you,” she said, breaking their brief silence.

“For saving your life, or for carrying you?”

“Oh, there’s a list?” she chuckled.

His smirk was equal parts mischief and self-satisfaction, “You’ve been incurring a lot of debts lately, my dear.”

Vistri pretended to be startled, “Have I? Oh my! However shall I endeavor to pay them?”

Lifting a thoughtful finger to his chin, he mused, “Hmmm, what a dilemma!”

Imagining what naughty thoughts hid behind his sly, teasing eyes made Vistri shiver with something delicious. Her feeling wasn’t apparent from the outside, but Astarion had a sense of her growing anticipation regardless. He made her wait for as long as he could bear, then said, “How about I think on it a while? Best not to make any rash decisions.”

“Take your time,” she giggled, “Just make sure to get back to me with something goo—” Her stomach gave a loud, obnoxious growl.

She blushed at its interruption.

“Oh, dear,” Astarion said, “We should fix that, shouldn’t we?”

When they returned to camp, Vistri noticed he was being uncharacteristically subservient and sweet. He refused to let her do anything other than sit by the fire while he fetched her a bowl of something hot. He even brought a blanket to throw over their legs and sat there with her as she ate.

Vistri gazed at him, startled.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head to clear it, answering, “Nothing,” and started eating.

It was a very plain stew with fish and beans, but it was everything to her on a night like this. Or was it even night? They had no sense of time in the Shadow Curse lands.

Astarion dipped his finger into her bowl and licked it.

“Hey!”

“Just wanted a taste.”

Her glare turned into something heated at his smile. Looking at him now, you’d never think his face held any worry. Well, minus the dark circles. And the haunted depth of his eyes… Whatever! In little flashes like this, he was brand new. No more heaviness. Vistri may have grown up with a sorcerer’s might, but she never felt more magical than when such an expression sat on his face.

“Oh, I’ll give you a taste,” she stated suggestively, tilting her neck to be perfectly clear about which kind.

Astarion was practically salivating.

“Oy! You two!” Karlach warned, “No blood where we eat—Including robes, Gale!”

“It was one time! And it was only a splatter on the hem!”

She rejected his excuse with an arm-wave and a chuckle.

Again paying their companions no mind, Vistri and Astarion remained locked in a stare. Sharing a paradox, their look was as intense as it was casual. It said, I’ll eat you up, as much as it whispered, Hey there.

“Make room for me,” Shadowheart demanded from above, standing over them with a bowl of stew in hand. She placed her spoon between her teeth, waiting for them to scoot over.

They moved to the side, so she could come sit in the middle.

“Thank you,” Shadowheart said, taking her place. They all worked together to adjust the too-small blanket across them. Once they were comfortable, she turned to Vistri, “Heard you fell out there.”

“She did!” Karlach answered before anyone else could.

Shadowheart pretended to be shocked, “And to think she insisted on leaving the cleric back at camp!”

“Fangs was there though. Quick responder, that one was.”

Shadowheart turned to him, teasing, “Are you blushing, Asti?”

“No,” he scoffed, “Vampires don’t blush!”

Everyone could see that he was contradicting his point.

Vistri mischievously chimed in with, “Yes, they do.”

Karlach and Shadowheart burst into laughter.

“Yes, yes! It was very dashing of me to save you!” Astarion rolled his eyes, “Want me to regret it?”

“You know,” Gale started, “It is a quite common misconception that vampires don’t blush. Cursed undead they may be, but!” His finger shot up on the word, but, “They still have all the same systems they had when they were alive. How they work though, now that’s the tricky part of it all. Because it’s different per classification of vampi—”

“Gale!” Astarion interrupted.

“What?”

“You’re not helping me, my friend.”

“Ah, right.”

Vistri found his irritation too delicious to drop, “Blood rushes to other places of yours, darling. Why not your face?”

Astarion leapt across Shadowheart to tickle her in payback. Shrieking, Vistri wiggled away from his reaching hands. Stuck in the midst of their struggle, Shadow’s bowl got knocked to the ground.

“Children!” she shouted in grief over her spilled stew.

Gale sighed, standing up, “I was getting seconds anyway.”

“Oh no! Shadow! Your stew!” Vistri gripped apologetically.

“Yes, Vistri! My stew! Your antics murdered my stew!”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t upset her,” Astarion scolded, “She almost died today!”

Everyone paused to stare at him, startled by his voracious outburst. His tone came out of an aching heart, and there was a sorrowful tremor to it. Vistri was shaken by his sincerity; Shadowheart by his audacity. The others were just vaguely thrown by his display of giving a shit about anybody who wasn’t himself.

He cleared his throat in embarrassment.

“I’m fine,” Vistri insisted to throw the focus off him.

Pretending he was totally cool this whole time, Astarion smirked, “I made sure of that.”

She scratched her nose to hide her smile behind her palm. It wasn’t right that everyone got to stand there and watch them have feelings.

Shadowheart, still trapped between them, had suffered enough, “I’ll just go catch up to Gale.”

“Really now! That’s not necessary!” Vistri protested.

“Yes, it is,” Astarion said, grabbing her close as their friend vacated the space between them. With his arms around her waist, he covered her cheeks in a series of pecks.

She squealed delightedly, “Get off! I’ll drop mine too!”

“Balance, dear. You’ve got this.”

“No,” she shook her head laughing, “No, I don’t!”

“Fine,” he let go of her.

She leaned against him, and he threw an arm around her shoulders. Vistri loved the relaxed weight of it. The pressure on her shoulders seemed to calm her, and his warmth, the magic of how he always felt—Against his chest, under his arm, nestled against him—

“What are you smirking about?”

“Hu-What?”

“You’re thinking about something, I can see it, but I can’t hear it. Care to tune me in?”

She really, really didn’t.

“Maybe I was thinking about you,” she smirked.

“Hah!” he tossed his head back, “Good one.”

It was a tried-and-true trick of hers. Wave a secret in people’s faces, and they go searching for anything but that. She silently congratulated herself.

Vistri attempted to sound cheekier than relieved or self-satisfied, “Hah, indeed!”

“Say you were thinking about yours truly…”

FUCK!

“What would you be thinking about?”

Arsehole!

Vistri made a show of pretending to think really hard about it, to buy herself some time to think of a way around it, “Hmmmmm…”

Astarion, just trying to make a bit of a game, helped her out, “Could it be my… mesmerizing stare?”

Hoping to distract him, Vistri tackled his lips.

He chuckled as she broke their kiss, “You taste like fish stew.”

“I hate you!” Vistri shrieked happily, slapping his arm.

Even with that scowl on her face, she leaned into him just as before. Nobody really bothered them, so they just sat there as she ate, staring distantly at the fire. They spent the rest of the evening (if it was really evening) like that, peacefully snuggled until it was time to wash up.

Because of his scars, Astarion preferred to bathe alone. Once Vistri learned about them, however, he altered his habits to allow for one companion.

Alone in the shallows of the shadowed riverbank, his heart ached on his lips and found hers. Moaning, groaning, teeth, and tongue.

It was, take me and you’re mine. It was life again after centuries of destitution.

“Fuck,” Vistri muttered as he pulled away.

Astarion’s eyes were serious, “Do you desire me?”

“Yes,” she stated it so vehemently, it was half a laugh. She gave a serene sigh as he cradled her chin.

“And what do you particularly desire?”

To be loved by him across centuries. To never want or need anything else ever again because together they’d be whole. They’d keep each other safe from the world, and the world safe from them.

“I want you to take and take until there’s nothing left of me.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

He shook his head slowly, “I’d like to leave a little something for later, if it’s all the same to you.”

She moaned as he kissed her again. His hands traveled from her waist to her thighs.

“I’m hungry,” he growled. Nestling the bridge of his nose into the crook of her throat, Astarion could already feel the warmth of her blood on his tongue in anticipation. He reached out for her skin, tasting her on the tip of it.

On the side with her tattoo, that blue rose.

“Darling, have I ever mentioned how much I love this?”

It set her trembling in his arms. It wasn’t just his touch, and gods, was his touch… Vistri shivered. Astarion’s tongue reached out and kissed her skin. His warm breath melted her like chocolate over a raging fire pit.

And his words rang in her ears, bouncing around between layers of consciousness, “... how much I love this…”

This dhamphir was in her head. Louder than the other screams.

“... lovely blue rose…” he muttered, referring to her tattoo as he kissed it.

She could feel his tongue tracing it. Lingering over every line. He first kissed the petals. Licked along them like a painter, bringing their design into existence with his warm, wet strokes; Vistri his groaning canvas.

And it was torture for him too, to linger on her neck like this. His fangs ached for a taste of her beating heart. Drowning under Vistri’s spell, he longed to sup on her lifeblood like it was coming up for water. Astarion refused his reflex to indulge, burying her groans under his.

With his hands snaking up her back, Vistri sighed, surrendering herself to his embrace. Throwing her head back in delight, exposing her neck, she called out his name, “Astarion.”

He kissed her throat. The side of her neck.

Vistri begged, “Bite me.”

“Let me ask you this,” he said, just to linger there a little further, “A riddle.”

She whined, just slightly, under the spell of his torturous anticipation. It made his smile wider.

“What is it that every rose has?” His voice broke directly over the one inked on her neck.

“I don’t know,” she murmured thickly, guessing, “Thorns?”

“Yes,” he moaned, eliciting a moan from her in response. Clinging to his body, shivering. He had Vistri exactly where he wanted her.

He wanted her.

“I think yours is missing a few. Would you like me to add them?”

Throwing back her neck a little further, stretching it as far as it would go, she echoed, “Yes.”

He knew he could fuck her, right there and now. Vistri gave herself completely.

In whatever way he wanted.

Tracing down the stem, licking every line of leaf, just as he’d done with the petals, Astarion worked at making their longing worse; determined to drive them both to madness.

He swallowed, and licked his lips. Aligning his mouth along the stem, he dragged his fangs across her goosebumps so they sat in place. Then he sank himself into her, drinking down the trickles of her heart’s river.

His bite left two weeping crimson thorns along the rose’s stem.

“Shall I add more?”

Vistri shook her head, “I think we should get back to your tent as soon as possible.”

Squealing with poorly withheld laughter, they rushed out of the shallows, their movements slowed through water’s thickness.

Approaching the shore, they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder, with Astarion a bit ahead. He cheated anyway, despite already winning. As his knees broke the surface of the bank, he gave her a playful shove backwards.

“Bastard!” she shouted, and it was met with a high trill of laughter from Astarion, who was halfway across camp by the time she made up the stolen distance.

He took one look back to catch her delicious frustration, then closed in on his target. Breathlessly, he yanked open the tent flap.

She was sitting right there.

“Misty Stepping is cheating!”

“Shoving me backwards is cheating!”

Growling, he tackled her. They laughed as they rolled, still naked and dripping, over his tattered blankets.

For some reason, Astarion’s mind superimposed the brightness of her current expression with the shocked stillness of earlier this evening. It sunk all his features and dulled the sensation of power he’d just drank from her.

“Astarion?”

He smoothed the hair off her forehead with two damp palms. It looked like he was about to say something important.

Then he kissed her. Diving ungracefully forward, catching his lip on her tooth. But he didn’t care, and righted his mouth between hers without further thought, with the same intensity.

How fragile life was. It was easy to forget that after two hundred years of wishing to be rid of it.

It took just a slight tap of his thighs to spread hers wide apart for him. He reached down to drag a nail slowly up the inside of her legs. They obeyed his every touch, belonging to him.

“Fuck me and have another bite,” she offered, grinding against him.

Who was he to argue with that?

His hand clamped over her mouth as she cried out. Its sound broke muffled by his fingers. In almost the same movement, Astarion turned her head to the side and gave her rose another pair of thorns.

Vistri licked and sucked the fingers held against her lips as he drank her down. Her head grew lighter as his thrusts grew rougher. Until the sensations made her eyes roll back in her head. Until his sides were red and raw from her grasping scratches.

I love you, rang so loudly across her consciousness that it whispered into his. Too many feelings, guilt and a long-dead dream among them, stirred up from the dust of his heart for Astarion to pay it any attention. Instead, he sharpened his focus on the familiar rolling of their hips.

More of her blood would stain his blankets, but they didn’t care. Her neck dripped past their notice, leaking down the side of her rose and pooling behind her.

Astarion just wanted to take what he didn’t lose.

“Cum for me again, pet.”

Like a spell’s evocation, his words had a physical effect. Vistri started pulsing around him, clenching her legs around his waist in a vice grip.

“Shit!” he sputtered. His control ran away with hers. The push and pull of his hips started to slow, lazy with pleasure as he spilled into her.

Locked in their embrace, they both shook from a mighty force, like blades of grass trembling in a rough breeze.

Coming back to reality, they looked around at everything but each other.

“Are you all right?” Astarion remembered to ask.

She was grinning stupidly, “Great.”

He smiled back until he noticed the mess.

“You’re like a leaky peach!” he scolded her in concern. Haphazardly, he grabbed the nearest sufficient bandage, and pressed a stained, silk pillow to her fresh wounds.

“Don’t fret,” she insisted, “I just need a bit of wine.”

Halsin fussed at him about that a few days ago, but what did the wood elf know about that anyway? A druid too? Health freaks, the lot of them! Halsin be damned, wine was good for anything! Astarion turned hurriedly to fulfill her request, grabbing a nearby bottle.

“Thank you,” she said after he popped the cork and passed it to her. She took a deep sip.

“Better?”

Vistri still felt rather dizzy but nodded anyway, hoping to ease his concern. Then, suddenly struck by an idea, she adopted a playful tone, “Although…”

“What is it?” he asked, eager to make her more comfortable.

“I could be better,” she smirked.

Astarion was happy to play her game, but a bit confused about where she was going with it. Vistri seemed satisfied enough, even though they’d been a bit brief tonight. She frowned, and he tried so hard to read it. Her pout was teasing, but not in a heated way. Her relaxed eyes were dreamy with affection and twinkled with fey-like mischief.

“I don’t know what it is, but I’m missing something.”

“Oh?”

“Hmmm, maybe if you moved a bit to the side?”

His version of “a bit” was a very conservative estimate. Vistri frowned. So Astarion inched just the same but in the other direction.

“No! The other—That’s it,” she directed, “A bit more. No, more.”

Scooting closer and closer at Vistri’s behest, Astarion was eventually pressed up against her side.

“Better?” he asked, grinning with amusement. Still wondering about her intentions.

“Yes, but not quite… Better, but I could be better.”

“Well, we’ll have to fix that, won’t we?”

“Please! Now, lift up your arm.”

“Like this?”

“Yes, but stop making that face.”

“What face?”

She chuckled, “I don’t know, whatever that face was you were just pulling.”

“I was not pulling a face!”

“You were! Now shush and lift your arm back up!”

Vistri did the same thing, beckoning Astarion to move further and further into a position she had in mind. Pretending it wasn’t quite right and adjusting him until it was.

Until he held her tight, his arms around her shoulders.

“Better now?” he whispered.

“Better now,” she said. But her words caught in her throat, and she coughed at the end of them.

“You okay?”

“Throat’s just dry,” she nodded, sitting up, “Pass me the wine again, love.”

“You have it next to you.”

“Right.”

He took a swig after her, and they both settled back into their cuddle.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

Vistri nodded. She wrapped her arms around his, pulling him tighter and sighed, “I feel better now.”

This time, they let the moment sit for a while. At least until it was too painful.

“I know your secret,” Astarion whispered naughtily against her shoulders.

She panicked, wondering what manner of secret he knew.

He giggled before he got his words out, “You farted on the way over.”

Blushing and laughing at the same time, Vistri struggled in his arms, shrieking, “You liar! I did not!”

The more she struggled, the firmer he held his grasp, “Yes, you did.”

“No!” she gasped, kicking at the air, “I did not!”

Even his tone was smirking as he teased, “A little toot by my ear.”

“I hate you!”

Astarion ceased his own laughter to plant kisses along her spine, on the back of her neck. Enough of them stilled her. Instead of fighting, she melted into him.

“Do you hate me now?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said. Then he took a risk, “Because I don’t hate you either.”

His words gave her wings, but she ripped them right off.

“You should.”

“Yeah, well… That goes both ways. Next time you run into a vampire, hate it for your own sake.”

Vistri chuckled, “That goes both ways too! Next time you camp with someone who dismembers a bard, run!”

They giggled. Then silence took over again, neither knowing what to do when they weren’t fucking or killing anything.

Speaking about nothing was more bearable than anything else. So they traded mindlessness back and forth. It looked like a conversation, but nothing was said. But speaking just to speak, they were discovering, was its very own thing.

His head nestled against hers, Astarion began casually nibbling on her earrings as she droned on and on about the creepy shadows. He closed his eyes, savoring the sound of her voice, not really listening. He was at peace, and so was Vistri, with the white rabbit on her shoulder nibbling away at her ear.

The gentle pressure calmed her. Vistri hadn’t ever felt anything like it. Eventually, she liked it too much to speak.

Focusing on the sensations of each other turned into its own type of meditation, which eventually faded into proper trance. Not a typical reverie or void, they recovered from the day within that awareness of one another.

Astarion existed through the slight breakage of breath across his wrist.

Vistri was the cursed heartbeat at her back.

[Click here for my other Kinktober one-shots]

#vistarion #kinktober 2023 #absurdthirst kinktober list #prompt fill #vistri #astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #full fic #astarion x durge #durge x astarion #a tumble fic #BrishFics #angst #smut #fluff #lemon

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crushedsweets · 10 months

Note

Does Toby still experience some PTSD from his abusive past?

In my au, Toby’s amnesia is mostly attributed to when he was under the operators influence. He does remember his childhood and experiences symptoms of ptsd and general trauma responses

Tw for details about Toby’s triggers(kinda..) and random things that were impacted cuz of the abuse under the cut

The last act of physical abuse(minus the fight the night frank died) that Toby experienced from frank was being strangled till he passed out. He was 16 going on 17. Connie FINALLY left frank after this bc she legitimately believed he killed Toby until she checked Toby’s pulse. Connie let frank come back after lyras death bc she thought that losing a kid would “fix” him(it didn’t). Toby killed his dad 17 going on 18

SO WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID he has a specific issue with his neck/throat being touched, hence the turtlenecks and the way he panicked in the drawing I just did of him and tim. He can’t feel pain but airways being restricted would freak anyone out (I’m assuming u asked this because of that drawing)

Some other sore spots for him would be. Obviously Alchohol, specifically men and women arguing, men raising their voices, etc. he has a particular frustration for men mistreating women even if he’s not the Best Example of a respectable gentleman(literally has killed men and women alike), but overall getting into fights and stuff isn’t that big of a trigger unless his throat is being touched.

Some other non trigger but related stuff… Toby Def has a weird relationship w gender and gender roles cuz of the way he grew up. His dad instilled a lot of “don’t act like a girl, women belong in the kitchen” shit too. Half of him is still like “I’m not a fucking pussy” and half of him just wants to be as soft as his sister and mother.

He only gets severe nightmares and stuff when he’s stressed, but it doesn’t take much to stress him out. He is CONSTANTLY on edge, smth he got from a household where he had to always listen to the weight of footsteps to know how angry frank was. He still keeps track of things like that around the others, even if he comes off as like.. mindless and not paying attention. Tim always gets on his case for being oblivious . There are likely some specific phrases that get Toby really riled up. Honestly he probably has beef with shit as simple as military time because of franks time in the military having an impact on the household too.

Toby is a hypocrite though. Not exactly an example of breaking the cycle

#hcs #asks #creeped #chatterbox #tw abuse #toby

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traveller-of-the-knight · 6 months

Text

Only a Paper Moon

Prologue AKA The Boy who Saved them

General Moon Knight Fanfic

Ft. Daredevil and Jessica Jones

Tags warnings: Childhood trauma (did you see the picture? You saw the picture, you know it's trauma time!), angst with happy ending, skipable gore (you'll see the trigger warning but don't worry nobody got hurt you'll- you'll see)

Word Count: 1.2k

Chapter Summary: A glimpse of the system's childhood, haunted by a God and a family.

Ao3 link

Chapter 1 will be dropped soon!

Blood-stained candies fell on the ground.

Marc faced the sky, only to see a broken moon, leaking down on earth, all around him.

Its insides were hollow, the crates painted with markers and cheap acrylics making the emptiness of space feel plastic. Fragile like the moon, cracked and exposed for everyone to see the thin cardboard that held everything together, now socked with its intestines.

He closed his eyes, he didn’t want to look at the moon anymore, it was shattered, no one would play with it now. It had no purpose, beyond being destroyed for other’s entertainment. They were now playing over its mutilated guts, accompanied by the sound of plastic wraps scratching the rough surface of the carpet. It felt sticky as dozens of tiny candy bars had been stepped on by children fighting to get the most trophies -trophies that Marc had earned.

But he didn’t care,

he wasn’t there.

He was pushed to the side and attacked by what felt like tiny rocks, meteors falling from the vast depths of space to punish him.

He loved space regardless.

I wonder what it’s like… Being on the moon, looking down on earth, where the city lights of Chicago mix with the faraway stars. Funny, isn’t it? That I feel like I belong more with the stars than with humans… Looking down at myself from the moon, I feel so small. All this pain, my memories, my mistakes, all my worries are unimportant here. Here I am so small that I barely exist -if I exist at all.

And so, he disappeared, floating around, outside of his home, outside of all the judgement, outside of his own body.

He was free.

For now, he was truly free.

He pulled himself closer to the moon, close enough to hear it cry. Something cold was slowly dripping on his forehead from above. It made his bones shiver, as it run down, around his eyes and chicks, so cold he could barely feel them as his own.

He gently placed a hand on his temple, letting his shaking fingertips examine what was poured on him. A silent sob escaped him, making him realize he had been crying all along but still couldn’t make a sound. He then brought his hand in front of his eyes -to make sure his fingers were still attached as the cold had paralyzed them.

TW: Gore

Thank G-d. They were still here, but he could barely make out their silhouettes. One thing was certain, they were painted red. Red that started to blend with his vision, replacing his tears with the moon’s as they kept dropping, nesting for a new home in his eyes. The moon is bleeding down on him stronger than before, he can hear the blood twisting and spilling on him, but he still couldn’t move. He was so lucky to be chosen, to witness such a beautiful spectacle. Blood mixed with cosmic dust of faraway galaxies, now long gone, destroyed by the cruelty of space but still visible from his unimportant planet.

He examined the cosmos above him, he shouldn't, but he did. Inside the moon was a dead bird. Some of its feathers still attached on its rotten flesh so thin now, you could see its skeleton, with hollow eyes and crummy with scabs. It was wounded, an arrow next to its heart, Marc felt it too as the darkness of his glare pierced his very soul.

He couldn’t look away, he wanted but he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Even when he saw it being consumed by bugs, taking slow bites, feasting on his flesh. It was all so loud. So fucking loud. He heard it all from inside his skull, flies in his ears, worms blocking his airway, choking him, tickling his nostrils as he tried to puke them away from his mouth, only for them to be reborn inside his lungs, crawling to be free.

End of TW

"Marc?"

Mom's voice.

Her face appeared for just a split of a second as shadows of little children blocked his vision again.

"Marc?!"

"Marc!"

Another voice appeared.

Roro?

"Marc, look how many candies I got!

Oh. You didn't get any...

That's ok, we can share, you can take the Mars bar, it's your birthday after all!"

Roro?

Roro placed chocolates and soft candies on Marc's palm. Even though it was still stained with blood. But he didn’t care and closed his brother's fist with his hands and held it with his tiny fingers. Marc looked down at how big his hands were in comparison to his brother’s, reminding him he had grown older without him, he experienced more of the world as his brother stayed the same, trapped inside a memory, a fate he couldn’t escape.

"It's ok… It wasn't your fault."

Roro what are you taking about?

...

Oh-

I'm dreaming again.

I’m dreaming.

He’s not real he’s-

"Marc! Marc don't go!"

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! ImsorryImsorryImsorry!

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Marc was standing there, in the middle of his living room, surrounded by his classmates, who were laughing and chasing each other for their candies, circling him in the middle, right under the paper moon piñata. He didn't even fully remove the blindfold from his head and kept holding his baseball bat loosely only for it to be dropped when something grabbed his ear and pulled him to the side.

"What do you think you are doing?!"

Roro?

"I didn't spend all that money on you to be ungrateful!"

Roro?

"You looked ridiculous! That's why nobody wants to be your friend."

No. No, this isn’t real. This isn’t real. Mom… Mom could never-

Mum?

What is mum doing?

Did I- do something wrong?

No, no Mom… She-

Mum?

Why is she angry?

Steven no, you didn’t do anything wr-

“Mu…m?” a shaky whisper escaped his mouth, loud enough only they could hear.

“Speak when you are spoken to!”

No! You can’t hurt him! You can’t- I won’t let you! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!

His cheek was studently throbbing with heat.

Mum? Mum, I think someone-

Shhh… Shhh… It’s ok, you’re ok, we’re ok. We’ll survive, that’s what we do.

Steven?

Shhh…

Let me save us.

Marc gave in. Mom’s yelling was nothing but a distant noise and eventually nothing at all. He was floating again, but this time he was safe, he was protected from the bleeding bird in the sky, he was still free.

…

But what happened to the boy who saved him?

What remained of him is now giving a fight. A fight for survival. Not his survival, but a survival non the less.

“Jake Lockley. What do you think you are doing?”

Blood-stained bullets fell on the ground.

Divider by: @cafekitsune

Jake faced the sky, only to see the moon, reflecting on a broken man, leaking his own blood on the concrete. He closed his eyes and tried to think of happy places. A diner, his cab late at night, a lawyer’s office in a cheap apartment building, his friends safe at the bar and him drinking whisky with a girl with terrifying high alcohol tolerance. He would do anything to keep these images real. Well… almost anything but that’s a story for another time.

Comment to be tagged in the next parts!

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moronic-validity · 7 months

Note

Trick or treat!

you know what? I want to give everyone their trick that I worked so hard on.

So here is the frightful fic I wrote specifically for Halloween!

tw: it's poorly written surgical shit meets major character death and yeah! It's spooky! and 18+, but not for sexy times. Oh and Winter drugs Simon. Idk with what, it's a made-up substance to fit my needs for this story.

It had been the wine.

He knew it had been the wine.

It was only served to him, and after half the glass, his body felt heavy. It took so much effort to bring his fork to his lips, yet he kept drinking.

After his second glass, he was wide awake but unable to move any of his body.

Winter watched on with calm curiosity as his advisor lost control of his body. It was interesting, he had assumed the first dose had been strong enough, but Simon’s willpower was stronger than he had thought.

Once he was certain Simon was properly medicated, he stood and began the short walk to his lab, the chair following behind him.

Winter turned and faced his unwilling assistant.

“Oh my dear, sweet Simon, I’m sure this is all quite terrifying for you,” he cupped Simon’s face in one hand, lifting it so he could check his pupils, “But do not fear, this will be completely painless,” he stepped out of Simon’s line of sight to show him the room.

Simon noticed how it had changed.

What was usually a cluttered lab, had turned into a miniature operating theatre.

If he could move, he would’ve gotten up and run as far away as his legs would carry him.

Winter let go of his chin and his head dropped back to his chest.

“Now, I know you can’t respond to me, though this would be so much more fun if you could,” he hummed as he looked over his instrument tray, grabbing a pair of trauma shears.

He turned his attention back to Simon, kneeling in front of him.

“I do apologize, Simon, I know it will be quite chilly,” he chuckled and began removing Simon’s shoes and socks, before using the shears to cut away his pants and shirt. He took his time, savoring the fear he knew Simon was feeling.

Once he finished, he gently picked Simon up and laid him on the smooth, cold table.

Simon was blinded by the bright light shining above him before Winter moved it out of his face. He couldn’t actually feel the table underneath him, He couldn’t feel anything. He found himself focusing on his breathing, which was becoming more difficult by the minute.

Winter moved to the head of the table, fiddling with an apparatus along the wall.

“Okay my love, this part may be uncomfortable, but I don’t want this to be rushed,” Winter turned back to Simon and used one ungloved hand to open his mouth. With his other hand, he reached behind him and adjusted the light so he could get a better look at Simon’s throat.

He thought for a moment before carefully donning his gloves and grabbing the laryngoscope off his tray of tools.

Simon wanted to fight back as Winter worked the scope into his mouth. He could feel the steady pressure and taste something metallic. He couldn’t tell if it was the tool or his own blood, but it made his stomach turn.

The tube came next.

He hated the way it felt.

He hated the way it forced its way down his airway

He hated the way it scratched.

He hated the way it filled his throat and he had no way to fight back.

He hated the way he could feel the pressure as the balloon inflated.

Winter carefully taped the tube in place before connecting it to a machine and flipping it on.

It took Simon a minute to adjust to the machine breathing for him, but he was admittedly thankful for it.

Though now that he was more alert, he realized the grave nature of his situation.

He was unable to defend himself, unable to breathe on his own, and unable to communicate with his partner.

He was helpless.

Winter bent down and kissed his Simon’s forehead before turning back to his tray.

He looked at the scalpel longingly, wanting to get the party started as soon as he could, but he knew he had time to get to that.

Simon wasn’t going anywhere.

The drug he chose was extremely slow-acting, the paralysis would last for nearly a day.

He hummed as he scanned the tray, eyes flicking across the various tools at his disposal.

Winter snapped his fingers and music broke the silence that filled the room.

Simon could do nothing but stare at the ceiling, unable to even blink.

His vision was beginning to blur.

Winter brought the tray closer to the table and picked up the eyedrops with a smile.

“Oh, your eyes must be burning my love, you haven’t been able to blink in so long, have you?” he mused as he squeezed a drop into each of Simon’s eyes.

He took a small piece of gauze and dabbed the excess away and smiled down at him.

“I want to make sure you get to experience this too,” Winter set the eyedrops back on the tray.

Winter couldn’t help himself any longer.

He picked the scalpel off the tray and made his first incisions. He was careful, cutting through the skin and fat layer, one long cut just above his collar bone, then another down the middle of his chest to his pubic bone.

Simon could only feel the pressure along his abdomen. He didn’t know what it was and somehow, that made it so much worse. He felt a tugging sensation, but nothing truly painful.

It scared him.

Winter dabbed up the blood that had pooled along the surface, he wanted to be able to see his handiwork.

A thought occurred to him.

“You’ll have to forgive me Simon, I wanted to share this moment with you, but I completely forgot you wouldn’t be able to see what I’m doing!” He waved a hand in the air and the ceiling became mirror reflective.

Simon wished he could look away.

His brain struggled to make sense of what he was looking at. He knew it was his abdomen, or it was supposed to be. It was at this point he realized the tugging had been Winter removing his skin, exposing the muscles underneath.

No man should see what moves under their skin.

He felt like he was going to throw up, but no part of his body would cooperate.

“Oh I’m so glad you can see it now!” Winter clapped in delight, “Now let’s see what we have underneath.”

He studied the muscle groups, unsure of what to release first.

“You know Simon, I’ve never done this with my partner alive before!” he laughed, as though he were bashful this was his first time, “You’ll have to forgive my trepidation.” He got quieter as he focused again.

He followed his incision from before, repeating it along the muscles.

Simon had no way to look away as Winter pulled his muscles from their place. He could feel the tugging again, this time it was harsher.

He watched as the muscle was pulled from his bones.

He was going to be sick.

Winter smiled as the song changed.

“Didn’t you tell me you love this one, Simon?” He picked the bone saw off his cart and began to cut through the man’s rib cage. “Flight of the Bumblebee, is it?”

Simon tried to focus on the song, but the tugging and vibrations deep in his chest kept his attention on the man in his chest.

He wished he could will himself into shock or the sweet release of death, but no, he had to witness the second great love of his life saw through his ribcage.

He watched on as Winter removed the bones protecting his lungs and heart, dropping them on the floor with little regard.

“Oh don’t worry love, you won’t be needing them after this.”

It finally began to sink in.

This was how he would die.

This wasn’t some sick prank.

Winter was going to kill him and make him watch as he did.

He walked to the top of the table, again squeezing eye drops into Simon’s ever-open eyes. He let the liquid spill over, a stand-in for the tears his precious Simon would have been crying if he presently could.

“Hey, it was a good run my sweet Simon, but I’m afraid our time is simply up,” he kissed Simon’s forehead lovingly, “You were a wonderful advisor and an even better lover,” he picked his scalpel back up and moved back to his position at the side of the table, “Though, there is something you should know…”

It took a few careful cuts, he knew he had to move fast, only having a window of 20 seconds.

Simon’s eyesight began to blur again, going black towards the edges. He felt so tired and was only vaguely aware of the tugging in his chest.

Winter stood directly in front of him, holding something he couldn’t quite make sense of.

“I will always carry your heart with me.”

#teddy talks #theo's thoughts #winterkov #simon petrikov #the winter king #simon x winter king #simoncest #simonpetrikov #winter king x simon #winterking

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kaiwewi · 2 years

Note

Guilty conscious #5 please? Loved this series!!

Here’s some cucumber🥒

Aww, that's lovely!! Thank you for the cucumber and the request 💙

Guilty Conscience #5

[Masterlist: Renegade Rescue Squad] [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Synopsis: Villain has spoiled Other Villain's torture party. Now no one is having a good time anymore.

tw: whump, captivity, knife, blood, altered mental state

He’d stabbed them. He’d never stabbed anyone before.

Villain watched as Other Villain whirled around, wide and furious eyes almost popping from their sockets and both hands clasped tight against the wound in their neck. Blood nonetheless dripped from between their fingers, soaking through the collar of their formerly white lab coat and dropping to the already blood-smeared floor – drip, drip, drip.

“Villain,” Other Villain spit his name, quiet and strained, and venomous, “what the fuck?!”

Yeah, what the fuck, indeed.

He vaguely thought he shouldn’t feel so indifferent to the look on Other Villain’s face, but couldn’t bring himself to identify or conjure the appropriate emotion.

“You disgust me,” he heard himself say – calm, disinterested, as if he were merely stating some inconsequential fact – and couldn’t bring himself to care about that either.

Then he noticed Other Villain’s phone on the floor and the frown on Other Villain’s face when they realised he was contemplating crushing it beneath the heel of his boot. He shrugged – because, why not? – and brought his foot down on the still lit screen showing the image of a feminine hand, one side burned almost beyond recognition by acid.

When he was done, the cracked remains of the screen had fizzled out and gone dark.

Laughter bubbled up in his throat, unbidden and inappropriate; even Other Villain looked at him like he’d gone insane. He was aware he sounded unhinged – entirely too crazy. Like he thought this was funny. He didn’t. It wasn’t. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.

Other Villain hissed something unintelligible, but Villain wasn’t paying attention.

There was so much blood. Red. On the floor, on the hero’s face, on Other Villain’s chest and neck and shoulders, on Villain’s hand, on the knife – ah, he was still holding the knife – and absolutely everything else, including the air, also seemed impossibly covered in red.

Some thankfully distant part of Villain’s mind was busy screeching in terror. He acknowledged it with the numb fascination of someone observing potentially dangerous zoo animals from the safety of standing on the other side of a thick glass wall.

Only that the glass wouldn’t be there for much longer. These walls were bound to come crashing down as soon as the adrenaline would wear off. Then, everything wouldn’t be so blissfully blurred, so soft – safe.

Beyond the usual compartmentalising he was trained to do, he felt alien; like the world had shifted, or maybe he had. Ah. He must be dissociating.

Okay, he decided, he’d address that issue later.

Besides, he had stopped laughing; that had to be a good sign.

Once again composed, he tilted his head at Other Villain’s injury, assessing: penetrating neck trauma in zone 1; airways and vocal cords not compromised; blood loss considerable; heavy breathing, more or less stable but rapidly getting worse. Other Villain had begun to hunch over, was unsteady on their feet, ashen faced with fluttering eyelids. – If he had to triage them… he’d tag them yellow; soon to be red if they didn’t receive medical attention asap.

“You’ll die, if you don’t find help,” he said and gestured towards the door. “If I were you, I’d hurry.”

Like a cornered beast, Other Villain glanced back and forth between Villain, the remnants of their broken phone lying amidst a puddle of their blood, and the door to the stairs – their only chance at rescue.

Spitting one last curse and a promise of vengeance, they stumbled out of the room.

Villain and the hero were left to stare into space thick with violence, horror, and confusion. Until the knife, once again forgotten and still slick with blood, slipped from Villain’s numb fingers and hit the floor with a dull clank.

Both of them flinched.

“You… You just…” the little hero started, voice wobbly and raw. “But... why…”

“Honestly?” He raised his trembling hand, still covered in Other Villain’s blood, and wiped it on his shirt. “I just… I couldn’t listen to another second of that… that sick shit?”

He shook his head, helplessly. He was beginning to feel more grounded and hoped he could postpone having a nervous breakdown until after he’d gotten the two of them out of this wretched place.

[Part 6]

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merchantofwhispers · 4 months

Text

Grieving (TW: Torture, murder, manipulation, depictions of suffocation and head trauma) [ Not proofread- as usual ]

"You've made a terrible mistake."

Her voice is just above a whisper, quiet purring curling around the words as though she was speaking with love and adoration. Even the look in her eye was gentle, her lips curling into a tender smile while she approached the chair the other was sat in. Blood dripped from his nose, but he was otherwise unharmed.

"You were stupid enough to believe it." John spat defiantly, trembling as he lifted his heavy head to look up at the outline of her. Even in the dark he could make out the near-white hair and the heavy fur shrug that sat upon her shoulders. Gemina was a woman of opulence, especially in moments where a statement had to be made.

"I was." She admitted with a curt nod. Suddenly she was holding his chin, sharp nails poking at the top of his throat, but otherwise showing no signs of aggression. John squirmed in the metal chair, but it -- nor the handcuffs that bound him to the support post behind him -- gave. "I believed every word you said. I let you hold me, I let you use me, I let you fool me. How sweet that was of you to let me believe I was loved."

His labored turned to panic gasping as her grip tightened, beautifully painted claws now digging into the underside of his jaw. The more John thrashed, the deeper the claws went, and so he tried -- fairly unsuccessfully -- to hold still. "Y-You fucking bitch!" He growled through grit teeth. "Everyone-.. Everyone knows--"

"What I am? Oh yes, I know." Gemina finally released her grip and pulled her hand back to examine it, admiring the way his blood had stained the underside of her nails. "You went about telling my secrets to everyone that would listen, didn't you?" John sat silent, shoulders trembling from the pain, but he kept his head up in defiance.

She allowed that silence to sit between them as she stared down at what he'd become; she'd once admired him for that strength, for his intelligence, for his drive to succeed. What a shame that she'd fallen for his charms and that those charms had caused him to fall.

"It doesn't matter. This isn't the first or last time someone like you has broken my heart. I only wanted to know why." She started to turn away, but paused as he started to choke on rugged laughter.

"Maybe if you weren't such a stupid whore it wouldn't keep happening." He said with raw defiance. "Imagine having it all and still giving away to the first moron that talks nice to you. All your wealth, your power, that pretty little body.." John squirmed in the chair, practically shouting at her as he continued. "You're fucking worthless! You're nothing! You're a lucky whore that the old men are too attached to fucking and that's all you'll ever be! Don't you fucking get it? You're a tool, a thing to be fucking used, and god--.. That's all you want, isn't it? Just someone to make you feel fucking useful, to tell you that you're pretty, and that you aren't a fucking waste of air."

She turned slightly, eyeing him from the edge of her vision as he continued. That smile, still soft, remained in place.

"You're fucking pathetic! An ugly fucking beast willing to play house with whatever disgusting pig that'll stick their dick in you and call you cute things." John suddenly spat at her, a thick glob of blood and mucus landing on her fur shrug. The room was quiet then, only the sound of his own labored breathing echoing off the basement walls. Gemina remained still -- still smiling as she watched his chest rise and fall.

And then she wasn't still.

A horrid screeching ripped from her throat as she lunged forward, one arm ripping the shrug off her shoulders as the other slammed his head into the metal beam behind him. Whatever noise of pain he made was muffled by the shrug being shoved into his face, suffocating every available airway while he tried to thrash to get her off him.

His attempts were unsuccessful as she pushed, one leg up and pushing into his bare abdomen as all her weight was focused on keeping the shrug in place over his face. A horrible red flared out from her pupils, like blood seeping across her iris.

"Shut up!" Gemina snarled, teeth bared and jaw clenched. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She continued shoving, bouncing his head against the beam a few more times until his thrashing stopped. As he grew calm, as did she, leaving her back in a room filled with quiet-- only now it was her own labored breathing.

Gemina slowly pulled the shrug away, revealing how it had been stained by the blood from his mouth and nose -- damp with his tears -- and looked up to see his head rolled backwards at an unnatural angle. His mouth twitched, his chest moved shallowly, but there was no light left in what she could see of his half-lidded eyes.

Another scream echoed off the walls; anguished and horrible and deranged. Fury and mourning and agony mingled together in a poisonous concoction while her body trembled. Behind her she heard the door creak open and footsteps fall in.

The soft clicking that followed was Nikolai's; he walked nearer to her, as if he were approaching a wild animal, and grabbed either side of her shoulder to slowly draw her away from the gradually dying body of someone she'd said -- only an hour before -- not to kill.

That she intended on letting him go.

That she still cared, even if he had hurt her.

"Come on.." Nikolai muttered as he held her close and pet her hair. "Let's get you home."

#;Mina Journal #;Niki Journal #;Drabble

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halcyonstridoodle · 1 year

Text

A short Dirk POV blurb

TW: Heavy gore, mind games

alternative title: Immortal dirk gets repeatedly tortured and killed in gruesome ways

There’s blood on the floor beneath you, on your hands, and when you reach up to touch your face, you feel the viscosity of the liquid coating your lips and cheeks. Your chest heaves as your body tries to force oxygen in, lungs pushing back against the lack of response your brain is sending to the rest of your body. You need to breathe. Opening your mouth, you become vaguely aware of the salivation dripping from your chin and mixing with the puddle on the floor. Your vision fades the longer you stare and

Finally you cough, spitting up gnawed bits of your own flesh and clearing your airways enough to get that first coveted breath of air. Oxygen deprivation is no joke, and the way the room spins around you makes your stomach tie itself in knots. You’re alive though, you guess. Your body feels numb, and as you dig your nails into the wooden floorboards beneath you, you're kind of glad you can’t feel the pain from the force you're putting on them. You don’t remember how you got here, but the way your choking between each cough stops you from fully trying to analyze the situation you're in. When you feel like you can breathe a little better, and the puddle of (your own?) blood starts to register as a little too uncomfortable you attempt to stand. Your muscles feel atrophied and your knees creak, but you do it. Now you're wobbling to the nearest wall to support yourself, since your legs don’t feel like they can hold you up much longer. There’s a single lightbulb in the center of the room, illuminating the spot you woke up half-dead in. You’re still trying your best to breathe, and it feels a lot easier now that you got the blood and shit out of your throat but you can still feel the way your breath hitches as your esophagus tries its best to accommodate from the recent trauma.

Running a hand through your hair you try to recall the events that lead you here, trapped in such a despairing situation. Biting back nausea, you think.

...

A bright red glow filled your vision as the android approached, claw tipped tendrils tapping menacingly. A loud humming filled your ears, drowning out your erratic pulse as a second wave of adrenaline hit your system. You turn to dash further down the corridor of the collapsing building, cursing as your shoes skid across the worn tile floors. You’ve reached a dead end, boxed in by ferroconcrete walls and no way out in sight. Hal approached you, dropping to his feet and somewhat sauntering towards you. Almost cockily. He flashed his synthetic teeth, sporting quite the smile for a droid that claimed to be above emotion. He was enjoying this, and he was practically broadcasting that fact to you through every aspect of this chase. Your lungs burned, a warning that your body was reaching its limit. Attempting to catch your breath was harder than you'd have liked it to be and you knew that you’d have at least one shitty retort to snark at the autonomous fuck before your insides were scooped out, so you tried, unfortunately the most you were able to muster was Hal’s designation between heavy breaths.

“Are you having fun, Dirk?” The glitched vocals coming from Hal’s semi-shattered voice box hit your ears before the initial impact of a claw tip digging itself into your shoulder. Your clavicle was the first point of pain you fully registered, horribly white-hot and responsible for the webbing pain that felt akin to fire spreading through the upper half of your torso. You suppose the shriek you let out wasn’t enough for him as he twists the appendage lodged inside of you until your own screams make your ears ring.

“Hal-” You manage, sinking back against the wall and gripping at the metal limb held closest to you.

“Do you wish to hold my hand as I watch you bleed out and die?”

He tilts his head at you and you just about pass out and accept your fate right then, but something about giving him another win makes your brain kick into overdrive.

You let out a small hysterical laugh, all your aspirations and your many lives worth of work keeps coming back to kill you, gruesomely. "How many times do we have to do this until your satisfied?" You choke out, meeting eyes with the android in front of you. He hums, curling a tendril underneath himself to sit on. "Maybe until I deem you've learned your lesson. Maybe until you learn that playing god never really does work out in the end does it?" He props his chin against the palm of his hand, watching you squirm. "After all, you made one."

#Aheehem ill probably be finishing this at some point but this is all I got out of my brain for tonight sjdhds #dirkhal #immortaldirk #whoops #hal is a vengeful little shit #dirk needs to self reflect at somepoint #gore lol #homestuck #homestuck fanfic #homestuck drabbles #halcyonwrites

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sanriosratz · 2 years

Text

angst thought for my boy, Addie

It’s written as note form… kinda

pspspsps evil sad things anon~ /hj

TW for seizures, pain, and trauma under the cut

Adrian had his first seizure when he moved in with his foster parents. It was a full-blown tonic-clonic seizure and lasted around two minutes before subsiding. They were diagnosed with NEAD/PNES after the doctors ran a load of tests. It took a lot out of them, the seizure, the tests, the interactions, and, as a result, required a lot of rest. Jen fronted with Lucille in co-front to make sure that no one hurt Adrian while he was resting.

This part is a few years after Adrian’s DID diagnosis (which he received around 23/24).

One night, after a lot of stress from clients and a lack of sleep, Adrian had one of the worst seizures he’s ever experienced. Luckily, he was in the living room with Xinyi, so he was able to get help quickly.

The first seizure lasted around three minutes. Three minutes of violent convulsions, then a small break—he never recovered from the first before being quickly thrust into another, again three minutes, maybe… Was there a recovery time? By this time Xinyi had called an ambulance, her friend still violently convulsing and with frothed saliva all around his mouth. Xinyi could tell that Adrian was struggling to breathe and tried her best to reposition him so he could clear his airways.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Adrian was on seizure six, or was it seven?

In the hospital, Adrian could barely move. His mouth was slack open with an oxygen mask on, and his limbs felt impossibly heavy. He was in this state for hours, only ever waking up to seize and fall back into the dazed-out state.

Jen had fronted with Lucille in co-front to make sure no one could hurt Adrian while he was in such a vulnerable state. It didn’t matter how much pain they were in, they had a duty to fulfil, and that was to protect and care for Adrian.

Ten hours. Ten hours of seizing. Ten hours of trauma and pain.

#creepypasta #kuraitsume’s tattoo & piercing parlour #pigment of your imagination #adrian #adrian lucas beck #xinyi #xinyi jiang #adrian’s alters #jen #lucille #tw seizure #tw seizure mention #tw pain #tw pain mention #tw trauma #tw trauma mention

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words-writ-in-starlight · 4 years

Text

I’ve been trying to answer this question since I was a kid, but what do you do with anger about trauma, anyway?

I can’t undo what happened. I can’t hurt anyone for it. I can’t even call someone up and say “I thought I’d understand what happened when I grew up, I thought it would make sense, but now I’m an adult and I’m a medical professional and I can’t understand what you did, and it keeps me up, sometimes, thinking about you doing it to some other kid.” None of them would care.

I can’t imagine telling a kid that they were imagining anesthesia not working. I’ve tried. I really have. I really, really want to think that those encounters were just...ignorance. Just people who didn’t know that sometimes anesthesia doesn’t work right. It would have been disgraceful, not to know that, but I really want that to be the truth. But even if that were the truth, I cannot imagine, not on my worst day, telling a kid that they were imagining that.

Sometimes medicine hurts. God knows I fought like an alley cat over every vaccine I got until I was six, and only stopped because my doctor discovered that I could be bribed with shiny objects. I absolutely can’t dream of telling a kid that they were imagining anesthetic not working.

I’m just so angry about it. The more I learn, the angrier I am.

Talon cusps have real tissue inside them. Dental pulp under the enamel. They’re part of your teeth.

No fucking wonder it hurt to have one filed down.

What do I even do with that? I can’t fix it. I can’t go out and be angry for other people, because I can’t talk about it, I can’t go to a dentist’s office, it’s a good year if I can remember the week before an appointment. I can’t let it go, no matter how hard I try. I can’t just keep talking about being angry, running the same rage over my tongue until it wears down like sea glass.

So, what now?

#adventures in ptsd #ptsd #tw medical trauma #tw dentist #i wonder if that will get blacklisted off my own dash #it'll be interesting #i'm sorry about this post i try not to post stuff like this because i don't want to...idk. upset folks. i really am fine and will be fine.#but i am not up to talking to a real person about this right now and i feel like this line of thinking is building up to toxic levels #like mercury. or--ha--chloroform condensing in the airways. humanity's first popular anesthetic and it worked great if you didn't drown.#i'm just...so angry. i wish i could call these people and demand to know if they understand what the fuck they did.#i went out the other day and looked up any suggestions from the eds community for jaw and teeth pain #which i would still take because when i get stressed i clench my jaw and then my teeth hurt and then...well #then my teeth hurt and it yanks back the tenuous covering on the dark hole filled with these thoughts. which is just GREAT for stress.#but anyway i went out and looked for insight #and instead i learned about the fact that teeth contain connective tissue. and people with eds often have issues.#many of which i have! like talon cusps and deep grooves and elongated roots.#and--of course--issues with local anesthetic.#and i went out and learned all that and i'm just. i'm so angry.#those bastards told me that little girls were dramatic and i was just imagining things.#i'm not sorry i bit one of them.#a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge

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andrastyn · 2 years

Text

[ tw: death, medical ]

A lone night elf ran her fingertips over the cloth covering a still form in the medic bay, her eyes closed. Her brow furrowed, for a moment, but she remained silent.

A soldier. He’d been brought in just two hours before, suffering from multiple sources of trauma after a sudden attack by a few, straggling PMC members. The rest of his squad had made it out, at least – him? He’d required an evacuation. His pulse had been thready, weak, slow, when the medics got to him. In the time it took them to get him from the point of attack to the med bay, he’d lost it, and they’d started resuscitation efforts.

When he’d arrived, Andrastyn’s voice had called clearly across the bay. “I want bilateral large-bore IVs if they’re not already in place. Stoneheart will have airway, I’ll take compressions and meds, and Winterbreeze will take care of hemorrhage control and base healing…”

The orders had rattled off her tongue immediately, without thought. She’d examined him when he came in. “His pupils are already starting to fix, a little – he’s got this puncture wound to the neck, here, and his arm…”

His left arm had been splinted, angled in a way that wasn’t natural. Clearly unable to be reset in the field. “… finger thoracostomy, left side, for a pneumo-hemo,” one of the field medics continued. “He was down for about fifteen minutes.” Andrastyn nodded, then looked over her shoulder. “One unit whole blood, one plasma, let’s get this guy rolling,” she’d said. “Tillmore, swap with me. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty - go!”

Fifteen minutes. Shit. That was enough to kill neurological activity, but his arrest was witnessed. Maybe he had a chance. Please, she prayed, let him have a chance.

She stepped back, allowing the other medic to take over compressions. The soldier’s chest had already been near gelatin by the time she’d touched him. They’d done well. “Good compressions, good depth,” she called, circling the patient to examine his airway. He’d been intubated. Good.

“We have an ID on him?” Andrastyn heard. “Uh – one sec,” came the response. “Right here. Hawford, Jordan. Identification tag number, five-three-oh-two…” The numbers rattled off, and one of the field medics scribbled it down diligently.

“Pulse and rhythm check.” Andi looked to the man before her, laid out naked and with so many tubes and lines running in and out that it would unsettle any new medic. His eyes remained half-open, unmoving, unaware of the circumstances. Tillmore paused, and Andrastyn pursed her lips.

She held a bloodied hand over his form, and everything stopped for a blink. Nothing. No Life. She focused on his heart – any cardiac motion, anything at all, would be the sign she needed…

… and it never came.

She took a breath in, looking up. He’d been here for less than twenty minutes, in total. Fifteen minutes prior of downtime, no cardiac motion, no pulse, no respirations. Pupils fixed and dilated to light. “Stop compressions,” Andi announced, her tone resigned.

“Time of death: 2130.”

She swallowed and watched the team step back. The wound where the thoracostomy had been performed still dripped blood. The eyes that never closed stared blankly upwards, and Andi parted the eyelids to see a little better. They were already beginning to cloud over, and the pallor of death had begun to set in.

“Good job, everyone.”

One medic sighed and stepped away. “Poor guy,” she’d muttered. She was one of the newer additions to the team – experienced, but empathetic. She’d be affected by this, no doubt. Andi made a note to check on her later.

The crew dispersed, and she nodded. “Alright. Take the ID, get me a body bag. We’ll put his name on the list to notify next of kin. For now, I’m taking him for immediate autopsy for a COD,” she grunted to a nearby private.

“Roger, doc.”

He walked away, and Andi looked back to the corpse that lay before her. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” she whispered. “… You can’t be more than twenty-five.”

She let out a heavy sigh, that fog of grief that always rolled in after a hard CPR settling over her. “Fuck,” she whispered, and stripped off her gloves, walking to her desk to begin the trauma packet and documentation.

No matter how long she’d done it, medicine was ugly. It was hard. It made one feel hollow, if you weren’t careful. She tried not to let it sink in. It couldn’t – not now. Not when her men needed her.

“Fuck.”

#ic #wowrp

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whumpywhumper · 4 years

Text

Consequences

There is a section before this that I’m finding impossible to finish, but there’s nothing that would make this impossible to understand. It’s a lot of world building/story building, but hopefully you guys like it? I literally live on feedback so drop me a note :)

It’s set in the Investigation section of the timeline, following New York Part 2.

Masterpost

Tagging: @misspelledwitch @insanitywishes @imagination1reality0 @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @voidwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @captivity-whump @liliability @muumimafia @fanastywhump @elisabethrosewrites @unsure-but-alive-752 @jeverest00 @texdoeshalo @quirkykayleetam

I legitimately would not write without the hype of these three ladies: @0idril0 @rosesareviolentlyread @walkingchemicalfire

TW: Some medical talk but let me know if I need to add a warning

V***V

“This is my least favorite part of this job,” Clint sighed as he looked over the amount of paperwork that was still waiting for review in the impromptu command station.

“Yeah, I find myself missing my TAC suit and a stand off when I’m facing a mountain of paperwork,” Ben mumbled around the pen between his teeth.

Clint chuckled, looking up as the door to the conference room opened.

From the corner of his eye, Clint caught Ben’s frown as Kincaid entered the room, immediately catching something in his partner’s demeanor that concerned him. Kinciad’s normally genial face was solemn, and Clint got a bad feeling himself as he caught the concentrated smell of antiseptic and multiple sick persons over something warmer, softer.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Ben asked, straightening from the folder he had bowed over, nodding at the doctor that followed, the flap of air from the man’s white coat explaining the smells that had concerned Clint. “What happened?”

Kincaid swallowed, walking robotically as he moved to sit next to his lover, who only became more concerned, dropping his pen and reaching for his hands. “You guys need to hear this. Go ahead, doc?”

Raising an eyebrow at the doctor, who was shooting him a quizzical look, he nodded his greeting and held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Clint.”

“Right, sorry Clint,” Kincaid huffed, rubbing his hand through his hair. “This is Dr. Decker, Dr. David Decker, he’s the head of the team on our John Doe. David, this is Clint Erickson, a consultant we’ve brought in on the case. He’s been read in, and we've already been given carte blanche by the social worker, so you’re free to give him any information like you would us.”

Dr. Decker took his hand in a firm grip, the tall, willowy man giving him a tight smile. “Good to meet you, you guys mind?” he asked, motioning toward the table.

“Not at all,” Ben murmured, his arm tight around Kincaid’s shoulders. “What’s going on, David?”

Setting the chart he’d been carrying under one arm on the table, the doctor sighed as he took the weight off of his feet, hissing as he stretched his legs. “Nothing good,” he answered, looking at Clint, “as Kincaid just informed you, I’m the lead intensivist treating the John Doe that was brought in. We are treating him for critical injuries, chronic sickness, and long term abuse. He’s been in one-on-one ICU care.”

He turned his gaze back to Ben and Kincaid. “I’m going to be blunt now, and I’m sorry cause I know how you’re taking this, Kincaid. He’s not getting better. He’s getting worse, a lot worse.

“When he was admitted, he was unconscious and in rapid decline. He was incubated in the field—“ he nodded to Kincaid and Ben, “—because he wasn’t able to maintain his airway. He was rushed to emergency surgery as soon as he arrived.

“Apparently, some fucking amateur of a surgeon attempted to make repairs following penetrating and blunt force trauma, but, with his lack of healing, those repairs didn’t hold up to the transport. Since the emergency surgery, we think he’s begun bleeding internally and has required transfusions to try and keep ahead of it—he’s just too weak right now for a follow up surgery so we’re trying to maintain without more invasive measures.”

David sighed, flipping open the chart and staring at the information there. His eyes didn’t move like he was reading, just looking through the information like he could find answers. “His labs are looking worse with each draw, he’s having unexplained seizures, and he’s just not healing the way that he should be. He’s going into organ failure, and he’s septic.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, David swallowed, not as unaffected as he wanted to project. “There’s only so much stress and pain that a body can take, and we don’t know how long this guy was held in that place. Nothing we’re doing is helping, and I don’t know how long he’s going to hang on like this.”

The doctor’s words rang in the following silence of the little room, both of the detectives leaning heavily on each other. Clint felt like he’d swallowed ice, the cold sitting heavily in his stomach.

“Fuck...” he muttered, hand rasping over his beard. He’d been doing this a long time, but it never got easier to rescue someone that wasn’t going to be able to enjoy their freedom again. That he couldn’t help.

“Look. . . I know I’m not supposed to know what’s going on here, what you guys are investigating. But there’s only so many fangmarks I can look at before I draw a whole hell of a lot of conclusions.” He huffed, re-crossing his arms, and glared at the chart in front of him. “None of the others brought in had this many, and—” he grimaced out the next words, “—you only work in this field for so long before you hear some rumors about ‘vamps and witches.’

“I can feel it, there’s something—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—supernatural going on, and I don’t know how to treat it. I’m fumbling around in the dark here trying to treat symptoms without the knowledge base to help, without even the knowledge base to know how what he went through affected him, and he is too sick for this.” He pressed his lips together, flicking his eyes up to catch Ben’s.

“Can you help me?”

Clint sighed as the two detectives turned to him, the doctor’s gaze following with barely a blink of surprise.

Of course, just when I would call Markus.

“The witch that I would normally contact about this has. . . passed away,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair, “but let me call someone who might be able to help. Do you mind talking to someone else?”

David shook his head after a confirmatory nod from the two detectives. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Clint thumbed it open and pulled up Evan’s contact.

Putting the call on speaker, he left it to ring on the table, hoping the vet wasn’t too busy to take his call. After a few interminable rings, he answered.

“Hello?” Loud rustling accompanied the greeting, and Clint could hear the yips and barks of the clinic.

“Evan, it’s me.”

“Clint? What’s up? You okay?” A door slammed in the background, and the animal noises cut off.

“Yeah, man, I’m fine. In New York working a vamp ring, I could use your know-how.”

“I mean, sure, but I’m not sure what I could tell you about vamps that you don’t already know...?” The beastmaster trailed off, confusion plain in his tone.

Clint grimaced, avoiding the other’s concerned gazes. Evan wasn’t going to like this next part.

“It’s not really the vamps I need your help with, man. There’s a witch here that got caught up in the ring, he’s not doing well, and I need—“

Evan cut him off before he could even finish, anger making his voice snap over the line.

“No, Clint, damnit, I’ve told you. I’m not trained for people, I’m a damn vet—“

“Evan, listen—” he tried to break in, but the other man wasn’t to be deterred.

“—I don’t need that responsibility, and I don’t want it. Did you even listen to what Deanna or Illyn had to say?”

Clint sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really didn’t want to get into this in front of three practical strangers, but the beastmaster was adamant about not treating people unless absolutely necessary. “Deanna won’t take my calls anymore after Markus—none of his coven will—and Illyn isn’t educated enough or in a place to be of any use in this situation. If anyone else would get back to me right away, I would be calling them, not you.”

His friend was silent on the other end of the line, and Clint suppressed a strangled growl. “This guy is literally dying, Evan, please.”

A huff answered his plea, and Clint could practically see the other man’s face creasing into a pained frown. “Goddamnit,” he muttered, “fine, but you owe me.”

Something released in Clint’s chest, and he let out a shaky breath. “Thanks, man.”

He turned to the other men in the room, trying to give a hopeful smile that was probably more pained than anything. “You’re on speaker phone; I got two detectives here with me and the lead doctor on the case. Hopefully they can answer any questions you got.”

David introduced himself without any more preamble, repeating what he’d just told Clint but including more technical jargon than he had with him or the detectives as laymen. He listened with half an ear as Evan asked questions of the doctor, Ben and Kincaid filling in what they’d deduced about the witch’s captivity and treatment, the majority of the wolf’s attention set on what kind of hell the guy had gone through.

Evan’s voice pulled him back from imagining the guy’s broken body and the reactions of his family if they were ever found.

“So, let me set this out: this witch was fed on vociferously by a vamp; held above ground, away from the earth, in a concrete box with no sunlight for who knows how long; critically injured and ill; and, now, he’s not healing.”

“That about sums it up, yeah,” Kincaid deadpanned, a dark look on his face.

“Was there any evidence of iron use?”

Clint felt a cold hand grab hold of his sternum, and he dropped his head down, scratching his nails down the back of his neck. “Oh shit,” he hissed, a growing realization dawning, “I should’ve thought of that.”

Evan hummed in acknowledgement. “Probably, but there’s a reason you always called me or Markus after you’ve found someone. Treatment isn’t your area of expertise.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Ben cut in, the three men leaning forward with identical looks of agitation.

“It sounds like, on top of everything else, he’s going through something commonly called magical exhaustion.” The vet had his educator’s hat on, his calm voice rumbling through the speaker in tinny waves. “It doesn’t always happen, but a part of a witch’s physical make up is magic. If they use too much without the opportunity to recharge then they can get really sick. Depending on the severity, it can be fatal.”

Clint continued for him when Evan hesitated over a sigh. “In a case like this one, where the witch is being given the opportunity to recover without interference, then you have to be on the lookout for something that’s blocked that ability to do so.

“Iron, cold wrought iron, is like poison to a large number of supernaturals. It’s in all of the fairy tales: for example, it can burn a Fae like a motherfucker and makes controlling a were’s shift or were-state...let’s just say, problematic.”

Clint suppressed a snarl at a decidedly unpleasant memory, his eyes flashing a very brief yellow. He felt a stab of contrition when David flinched backward in alarm, his eyes widening, and pulled himself back with some difficulty before continuing.

“For witches, it interferes with their ability to naturally produce or access their magic, and with such a critically injured witch, one who was trying to cope with long term trauma and magic drainage, shrugging that block off would’ve been an astronomical impossibility.”

If he’d even wanted to, Clint thought darkly.

“So it’s like he’s not producing the chemicals his body needs,” David interjected, still giving Clint a wide side-eye after seeing his eyes change, his fingers drumming on the table. “How do I fix it?”

And that was the real question, wasn’t it? God, what he wouldn’t do to have Markus or his coven’s help.

Evan’s sigh was like static over the line. “It would be too much to ask if you found his grahm anywhere, wouldn’t it?”

Catching the twin looks of dejection from the detectives, Clint shook his head as he answered. “You’d be right about that, Evan.”

“Damnit,” the vet cursed. “The only thing I can think of is something I would recommend for one of my patients—get him in nature, bury him in dirt and sunshine and hope that it would break the block down.”

Like he could sense David’s horrified expression, Evan cut off the doctor’s objections. “I know that’s not possible in this case, so I’m going to recommend the next best thing. Get a house plant, one of those that has a really strong root system, and bury his hand in it. I bet you his magic will latch onto it, maybe it’ll help. If his room has windows, give him as much natural light as possible.”

Clint heard Evan shifting in his seat, a small, sad laugh coloring the line. “I guess you guys don’t let animals into your ICU wards, right?”

“I’ll authorize whatever you think might help,” David corrected, “I already told these guys, but we’re out of our league here, and we all know it. These nurses are protective as hell, and this guy has no one but our boys in blue here and an overworked social worker. If I don’t do something to try and help cause I’m scared of administration then I’ll face a damn mutiny.”

“In that case, get a therapy animal in there. Familiars are a real thing and witches use them for a reason—it won’t be as effective as if it was this guy’s actual familiar, but it won’t hurt.”

Ben and Kincaid shared a look before the latter opened his mouth. “I’ll give Justin a call, and have him bring in Delta. She’s well trained enough, and he seemed to positively respond to her when he was conscious.”

David nodded his assent. “Olivia’s a hard-ass about her being on the floor, but she’ll feel better about Delta than any other animal.”

“What about getting him a grahm?” Ben asked. “You mentioned finding his, surely we could get one for him.”

Clint and Kincaid were already shaking their heads.

“Too personal to each individual witch,” Clint answered, “A healthy witch can channel through someone else’s grahm, but I doubt it would do more than muddle the waters for someone in this guy’s position.”

Humming in affirmation, Evan explained. “I mentioned this guy’s grahm because it might have acted like a jump start, but anything this witch wasn’t involved in making or wasn’t made specifically for his magical pattern might hurt him, and you can’t get a read on his magical pattern if he’s not producing magic.”

Silence reigned at this information, the catch-22 of their situation not settling well with any of the people in the room.

“That’s all I can think to do right now,” Evan stated after a moment, frustration evident in his voice. “I’ll give Deanna a call, see if she’ll give me any more insight.” He didn’t pause before continuing, not giving Clint the opportunity to cut him off, even if the other men heard it. “She’s hurting, Clint, but she doesn’t actually blame you for Markus. She won’t refuse to help this guy just cause you’re working the case.”

Evan knew him too well, but even his words didn’t do anything to soothe the pang of hurt in his chest, his guilt resurfacing. “Thanks, Evan,” he said, voice rough, “let us know if you find anything out, okay?”

“Yeah, man, I’ll let you know.”

David didn’t stick around for much more discussion after the line went dead, walking out of the command station with a mission in his step.

Ben and Kincaid were silent for a few minutes though, leaning into each other’s spaces. A string of envy wrapped itself around Clint’s ribs, pulling tight. What wouldn’t I do to give Nico a hug right now?

Clint sighed, ruffing up the back of his hair as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll send Holland a text updating him on John Doe’s condition and what Evan recommended. Kincaid, you update Justin, I think the faster we get Delta in here the better.”

Nodding, the younger man pulled his phone out and started typing. “He and Delta should be on their way back in, I’ll let him know to hurry.” His face twisted on his next words. “Man, I can’t get the image out of my head-“ he looked at Ben, eyes sorrowful, “-when he was petting Delta. . . “

“Yeah. . .fuck, this case sucks.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Clint cocked his head. “You said that he was conscious at one point, you weren’t able to get a name out of him?“

They both shook their heads, starting to pull more files over to work on. “No, he was too sick,” Ben answered. “Tried to talk, started coughing, and his vitals just tanked. It couldn’t have been ten minutes later, when we were getting him in the ambulance, that he stopped breathing on his own and we had to intubate.”

All three of them sighed, shaking their heads as they tried to shake the depressed atmosphere. It would be a good time for a dark joke, the life blood of career law enforcement, but he couldn’t find the energy.

Turning back to the transcript he’d been reading when David came in, his phone buzzed as Holland texted him back. He cracked a grin as he read the message. Trust Holland to not disappoint. “You old bastard,” he chuckled.

Ben made a quizzical noise, glancing up from a morbid photograph of blood streaked concrete.

Clint held out the phone, grinning wildly at the man’s snark. “Holland asks if he needs to pick up any essential oils on his way back. Apparently his wife really likes Blue Chamomile before bedtime.”

Ben grinned as he took the proffered phone, reading the text from Holland before shaking his head and dismissing the notification. “He just likes to be contrary, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Clint leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and stretching. Closing his eyes blissfully as the tension released in his shoulders. “Stubborn old bastard will be doing this from the grave.”

“This looks like a fun crowd, these your friends?”

Releasing the stretch, Clint blinked his eyes open in confusion, and saw Ben examining his home screen. An uncomfortable curl of sadness turned over in his stomach, but he smiled and nodded. “That’s the group back in Louisiana. We got Markus’s coven and the rest of the pack together for a going away party. It was a good time.”

Ben paused as he examined the photo closer, turning the screen away from Kincaid’s curious gaze and shaking his head. The edges of his perpetual smile formed into a frown on his next question.

“. . . Clint, didn’t you say your witch friend, Markus, was . . . gone?”

“Yeah, uh. . . yeah he is.” Heart sinking in his chest at the unexpected question, Clint swallowed past a sudden lump, words coming carefully. “He. . .uh, he went missing several months ago in Massachusetts.”

Hands shaking, he took the phone back from Ben and doused the screen, placing it face down on the table. He felt his shoulders try to hitch up around his ears, but he forced them to relax as he curled his hands around themselves. “We knew, uh. . . fuck,” he muttered, already feeling some tears forming on his eyelashes, “we knew that he was taken—violently taken. He called Illyn, said that he’d been shot. That he was scared.”

Kincaid frowned with him, a sympathetic hand tapping the table between them. It made the wolf smile, sure as anything that he’d been welcomed into these men’s pack; that knowledge was a comforting weight fitting snugly around his heart.

Clint cleared his throat, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, and breathed out slowly. His talk with Holland was too fresh for this conversation, but it didn’t help anything to pretend it didn’t happen. Plus, he felt like these guys deserved to know after the discussion with Evan. They’d pull him out of it if he got too low or distracted to help with the case.

So, he forced himself to continue.

“We could never pin down who took him. It’s an unusual M.O. for a supernatural to use a gun like that but. . . there just weren’t any other leads.“

Fuck. . . fuck, it’s such an unusual M.O., and I still can’t find a goddamn suspect. Still haven’t found him. What kind of fucking investigator am I?

What kinda friend?

I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Markus.

“Did it have to be a supernatural?” Ben drew Clint back from his spiral with the question, putting a stilling hand on a confused Kincaid’s shoulder as he gave him a warning look.

Clint huffed a strangled laugh, looking down at the table with a humorless smile. “Yeah, yeah, it woulda had to have been. One ‘a the few things Markus told Illyn was that he had to use a lot of magic to get some distance. Markus is. . .” he sucked in a pained breath through his teeth, “was, a very powerful witch. Even though he didn’t have his grahm on him, it woulda been hard, damn hard, for some supernatural to take him if he had the opportunity to use his magic. No way a human could have.”

Ben nodded in the corner of Clint’s vision. “That makes sense, no idea what kind of supernatural did it?”

Clenching his jaw around the residual anger at Illyn and himself, Clint shook his head. “By the time I was called in, the scene was 40 plus hours cold. I couldn’t even be there for the first week, I was in Montana wrapping up the investigation on a child-trafficking ring. Roxanne, the friend I called in to investigate, suspected a vamp, but she couldn’t get much of a read on the scene with that much decay and the foot traffic that came through it. All of her leads eventually ran cold.”

Both officers grimaced, knowing intimately how difficult it was to investigate a scene like that, putting together the pieces of his guilt. Clint shared a commiserating smile with both of them before studiously examining his thumb nail, continuing the story.

“Illyn,” he sighed, the gust of air shimmying the papers on the table, “Illyn was able to get a brief limited-telepathic link within the two days after he was taken. All she got was that he was in pain and that he was being kept in a concrete room with fluorescent lights. She stated that he couldn’t have been 50 miles from where he was taken at the time of contact, so that’s where we concentrated our search. There wasn’t any further contact.

“We never found a body, but with the violence of the attack, the amount of pain that he was in. . . “ He felt a shudder crawl down his back, his esophagus trying to curl up into a knot before he could clear his throat. He kept his gaze locked on his hands, not wanting to see the looks on their faces. “Statistically speaking, even in a normal case, it’s unlikely that he would have survived this long, but a witch of his caliber. . .”

“They don’t tend to last very long when they’ve been taken within the supernatural community,” Ben finished for him. Clint nodded, biting his lip, fighting the urge to rub at his face. “Clint. . . Do you mind if I have a second look at that picture?”

“Nah, ‘course not.” He slid his phone back over, not quite feeling the bewilderment growing in his stomach at the request.

He watched Ben pick the phone back up like it was a bomb, taking a deep breath before tapping the screen. He nodded to himself, biting at his cheek before turning the screen toward Kincaid. “Tell me what you see, Kin’,” he all but whispered.

Clint froze as he watched all of the blood drain from Kincaid’s face.

“Oh, fuck. . .”

#Markus/Lucien Series #medical whump #hurt/comfort #aftermath of captivity

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strongerwiththepack · 4 years

Text

It Was The Only Way (3/3)

See this is why I don't write multi-chapter fics, I am highly unreliable. Sorry for the extremely long wait for this conclusion guys. This chapter just refused to be wrangled. At least it's done before the end of October so that's something.

This is probably the first fic I've done major editing to. Like there's around 800 words sitting in the document that I cut out/entirely re-wrote and that is not something I do. If I actually manage to get words written, that's what is getting published usually so this was an interesting change.

Pen&Ink Week and Fluffember are fast approaching but I did plot out a few other Whumptober prompts that I'd like to go back to so who knows what'll come out next. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

Tw for Strong Language.

Part 1 | Part 2

FF.Net | AO3

Whumptober2020: No.3 My way or the highway

“How could Gordon have been so stupid?” Scott grunted as Virgil flew Thunderbird 2 with them and Kayo to the coordinates.

They thought Gordon had been caught trying to place trackers on the vehicles before they left. The news from John made Scott’s head spin. Gordon had been making a plan to get taken this whole time?

“It was stupid.” Virgil grit his teeth, equally as worried for his usual co-pilot. “But if he hadn’t, we would’ve lost Alan for good.”

“We don’t even know if he’s with Alan.” Scott rubbed his head in frustration. “So much could’ve gone wrong. Can still go wrong.”

“We’ll find them.” Kayo reassured from behind. “Just keep your heads, we’re leading this operation.”

Scott nodded and steeled himself in preparation. What’s done was done, they weren’t going to make the same mistake again.

Alan and Gordon eventually moved to sit back against the wall of their little cell. Alan was feeling more than a little embarrassed now that he was down from those torturous chains but Gordon didn’t seem to mind. His older brother kept his arms wrapped around Alan as they got comfy against the wall.

Now that he actually had one of his big brothers here to reassure him, Alan was feeling a lot more clear-headed.

“They got you too, huh?” Alan mumbled eventually.

“Oh, uh yeah.” Gordon grunted. “We were trading to get you back and it, uh, didn’t go well.”

“Sorry.” Alan mumbled.

“Hey, hey.” Gordon prompted rubbing on his arm. “Not your fault, okay kiddo?”

Alan hummed in supposed agreement. He still felt stupid for getting caught.

“The others aren’t going to find us, are they?”

It had been playing through his head from the moment he’d been coherent enough to realise Gordon wasn’t here to rescue him. The chains had been agony and before Gordon had arrived, he’d been sure he was going to die.

He only had vague flashes of Gordon trying to get him down through pain-fogged memories, but the pain had numbed slightly now. Every jostle sent a stab of pain to his shoulders and sides, but it wasn’t the constant agony of before.

It took him a while to realise that Gordon had been captured as well, that he wasn’t getting out of this yet. The fact that his brothers hadn’t been able to find him before made him think it was unlikely they were coming now either.

“They are Alan.” Gordon reassured through his spiralling thoughts. “Don’t worry, I had a plan.”

Alan just nodded into his brothers shoulder. He hoped that was true.

The door banged open making both the boys flinch at the abruptness. The suit-clad man walked in with at least four other men flanking him from the back. He seemed more dishevelled than Alan had yet to see him. There was an expression of fury on his face and a cocked gun in his hand that made Alan tense.

Gordon was on his feet in seconds, blocking Alan’s view as he stepped protectively in front of him. Alan wanted to get up as well, he really did, but his arms were not cooperating, he just didn’t have the energy.

“Time to go boys.” The man snarled. Guns were levelled at them and one of the lackies grabbed Gordon pushing him forward by the shoulder. There wasn’t much his brother could do with 5 guns pointed at them.

“Move it!” The guy shouted at Alan brandishing his gun and Alan was snapped out of his daze.

He tried to get up, but it was slow. Slow enough that one of the men grabbed him by his t-shirt collar and yanked him up off the floor. Alan cried out as pain flared in his shoulder. He stumbled trying to get his feet under him as he heard Gordon shouting from ahead of him.

“Hey!” his brother snarled. “Leave him alone.”

Alan finally managed to stumble along beside the man dragging him and caught Gordon keeling over as he was sucker-punched in the gut.

“Shut up and move it.” The guy holding Gordon shouted before shoving him roughly forward while his brother was still recovering from the abuse.

Alan wanted to defend his brother, but he was barely keeping his legs moving as they were hurried along through a windowless corridor. Why were they in such a hurry? Were they getting rescued? Alan sure hoped so.

They were led up the stairs and into chaos. People were running everywhere, files and papers were being packaged. There was gunfire in the distance. Through a window Alan caught sight of stars in a cloudless night. He really didn’t have any idea what time of day it was, or even what day it was at all for that matter.

They were soon being led out of what he assumed was the back of the building and there was the familiar sound of helicopter rotors. He saw Gordon still at the sight of the vehicle and become more resistant to the pulling arms. Alan felt the same way. He was finally getting rescued and they were about to lose their chance.

“Hey!” A voice shouted from behind them and Alan had never been so thankful to hear his big brother. He was abruptly twisted around and pulled into his captors’ chest. The tip of a gun was placed against his temple and he froze, fearful eyes finally landing on his eldest brother.

Scott’s face was a picture of fury, Virgil stood stoically at his side and Kayo flanked them with a gun of her own. He twisted his head to see Gordon in a similar predicament to himself. Scott was here now, they’d be okay. This is what he’d been waiting for.

“Well Scott.” The man shouted over the whine of the helicopter. “Looks like we’re at another stand-off. That didn’t end quite so well for you last time.”

“You have your money, you have the blueprints. Let them go and we’ll let you leave.” Scott countered.

The man chuckled darkly, a hint of madness in his tone that hadn’t been there before.

“You stupid fucking Tracy’s.” He seethed. “I had everything planned out and you fucking ruined it!”

The man was shouting now and Alan flinched at the volume. Gone was the smooth-talking man from before. He was unravelling and Alan didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. From the tightening of Scott jaw and the fear in Virgil’s eyes he was going to guess the latter.

“Now.” He heard Kayo shout sharply into her comm.

And then there were shots ringing out. Alan felt his captor slump bonelessly into him. He couldn’t catch himself as he fell forward at the abrupt loss of something holding him up and then Gordon was there, dragging him up, slightly awkwardly since his brothers hands were still handcuffed. He grunted at the pain but as shots fired into the ground around them, Alan realised the urgency.

“GDF Snipers.” Gordon supplied hurriedly, apparently reading his confusion. They ran but a shout behind them made them turn.

“Enough!” The leader had apparently run for the helicopter in the commotion, abandoning his hostages in an attempt to escape. He stood at the open door even as the helicopter began to rise. Time stood still for Alan as he watched him raise his gun and take aim, right at him.

The shot rang out with a chorus of laughter and Alan found himself being tackled to the ground. His vision whited out in agony as his shoulder hit the ground awkwardly and his entire abused body was jarred. He lay gasping, trying to orient himself as the weight on-top of him crushed him.

Someone was calling his name but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe enough to reply. And then the weight was no longer there, and he heaved a deep breath before choking as pain spiked at the movement. Scott’s face came into view.

“Hey sprout.” Scott smiled but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’re okay, just take slow breaths okay?”

As Alan complied with the instructions his head began to clear. He felt Scott pulling at his t-shirt and saying quietly, panickily. “This is a lot of blood.”

What he heard next made him shoot back to awareness. “It’s Gordon’s.”

That was Virgil. He twisted his head to the side, seeing Gordon laying next to him with Virgil hovering over him. He hastily sat up, gritting his teeth at the pain.

“Gordon!” He sobbed worriedly.

“Alan!” Scott fretted. “Lie down, you’re hurt.”

Alan looked down at himself. There was blood covering his t-shirt. Gordon’s blood. His brother had jumped on top of him. Had been shot for him.

He tried to crawl over to Gordon but his movements were uncoordinated. Adrenaline was leaving him and black spots were forming in front of his eyes. His arms were shaking as the trauma of the last few days caught up to him. All he could focus on was the blood covering his brothers torso as his body finally gave out. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

“Alan!” Scott shouted as he watched his little brother collapse, lunging to catch his head and gently lowering it onto the grass.

Scott froze for a second, hands still cushioning his brothers head as he waited for his brain to catch up with him.

“Basic checks Scott.” Virgil barked from where he was working to stabilise Gordon. “Pulse, airways, check for injuries.”

Right. He snapped back to focus. What the hell was he doing?

He lay Alan out flat and worked on auto as he checked his brother over. This was all catching up to him. Seeing his little brothers held at gunpoint. Having to negotiate for their lives with that insane man again.

Thankfully, the GDF had actually backed them up this time. Hearing the shots from the snipers sent fear through him, Alan and Gordon were in the line of fire. As soon as the gunmen started to fall though Scott felt hopeful.

He watched as Gordon dragged Alan to his feet, pulling him forward as they ran. He thought that was it. That they’d done it.

And then he saw the kidnapper take aim. He was too far away. The shot rang out and Gordon tackled Alan to the ground. They didn’t move.

He and Virgil sprinted the rest of the distance to their brothers. Kayo was covering them as they went. He and Virgil gently rolled Gordon off of Alan and the older blonde scrunched his face up in pain. There was a lot of blood.

Scott knelt down next to Alan, his brother was taking panicked gasps and pain was clear in his eyes. Scott reassured even as he pulled up Alan’s blood covered shirt. There was no wound. It’s Gordon’s. Virgil had said from beside him.

Virgil already had gauze in his hand and pressed it against the wound, Gordon cried out at the pressure. Alan had panicked at Gordon’s cry of pain and now here he was, frozen, with an unresponsive Alan. His baby brother that had been missing for days now.

He’d just finished his checks when Kayo was back them. “The GDF are pursuing the leader. We need to get out of here. Can they be moved?”

An outsider would have thought her words uncompassionate, but Scott could hear the tightness, the worry. Kayo coped by keeping her mind on the mission until they were all safe.

“Alan is breathing with a strong pulse, he should be fine until we get to Thunderbird Two.” Scott reported to his more medic-minded brother.

Virgil nodded, packing up his supplies. “Gordon’s not doing great but there not much I can do for him out here.”

“Hey!” Gordon grunted from the ground. “Gordon is doing just fine, let’s just get out of here.”

“Okay fish. This is going to hurt a bit though.” Virgil replied grimly. “You got Alan Scott?”

Scott nodded and easily hoisted an unconscious Alan into his arms, kid was always light but he seemed like skin and bones right now. It just made Scott more eager to get back to Two.

He heard Gordon cry out as Virgil lifted him off the ground and winced even as they quickly made their way back to Thunderbird Two. Kayo flanked them, on guard as always.

Scott deposited Alan gently onto one of the pull-out beds in Two’s medbay and started hooking up every machine he could get his hands on. Once the heart-monitor could be heard steadily beeping and an IV for fluids had been inserted Scott let himself calm down slightly.

He ran his hand though Alan’s hair as he looked over at the other bed. Virgil was frantically rooting though drawers as his ship rumbled around them, Kayo at the controls.

“Can I get a hand Scott?”

Scott only spared a second to assure himself Alan would be fine before he was on his feet. “What do you need?”

“I need to call ahead to the hospital, just keep him talking and watch his vitals.”

He walked round so he could see Gordon’s face at last. His brother gave him a ghost of a smile. “Good thing my guardian angel is an overachiever, huh?”

Clouded by his worry Scott felt some of his previous anger come back. “What were you thinking Gordon?”

Gordon winced. “I was thinking we needed to find Alan.”

“It was stupid.” Scott hissed. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

“Well it worked, didn’t it?”

“You got shot!”

Gordon peered over at Alan with sad eyes. “It was worth it…”

Scott found it hard to argue as he glanced at his littlest brother. Alan being missing had been his own personal hell. He can’t deny he would’ve done something equally as stupid as Gordon if this had gone on any longer.

Scott startled as machines starting blaring and whipped his head back just in time to see Gordons eyes roll back into his head. Virgil was suddenly pushing him out the way and Scott could only watch as Virgil started CPR. He could only watch as Gordon’s heart tentatively started beating again. Could only watch as he and Alan were rushed away into the hospital.

The first thing that hit Gordon was the familiar anti-bacterial smell that meant he’d gotten himself into some sort of trouble. The scratchy sheets beneath him confirmed that thought. He peeled his eyes open to be met with the stark whiteness of a hospital room.

He blinked the fog away from his brain and shifted on the bed, sucking in a sharp breath at the pain the movement caused. Predictably enough there was a worried older brother leaning over him in seconds.

“Scott?”

“Gordon! How’re you feeling?” When Gordon tried shifting again, his eldest brother lay a hand on his shoulder. “Just lie still Gordon.”

“What happened?”

He was definitely in a hospital and that means it had to have been serious. They’d gotten much better at dealing with injuries on the island over the years. Virgil took every course he could without actually becoming a certified doctor and although no longer practising, their Grandma wasn’t going to be kept at bay when it came to looking after them.

So yeah, over the years they had moved away from the major security risk that was hospitals. If they were in one now, something major had gone down.

“You don’t remember?” Scott asked worriedly

Gordon wracked his brain for the last thing he remembered before realisation overtook him and he shot up.

“Alan!” He was propped up for all of 2 seconds before his arms gave way and he crumpled back into the bed with a groan.

“Hey, hey, take it easy Gordon, you’re hurt.”

“Where’s Alan?” He asked in panic even as he was still recovering from his tumble.

“He’s right over there.” Scott gestured as he moved out of the way so Gordon had a clear view. “And if you don’t calm down, you’re going to wake him up.”

Gordon sighed in relief. Alan, although currently sleeping, looked a lot better than when he’d last seen him. Virgil was also sitting by their littlest brothers side, although his eyes were focused on Gordon.

“He’s fine Gordon.” Virgil’s soft baritone met his ears. “Are you okay?”

Gordon sighed and winced as he felt his injuries. “Yeah.” At the disbelieving looks he added. “Well as okay as someone who got shot can be I guess.”

“You scared us kiddo.” Scott said in that tone that always made Gordon feel guilty.

He sadly looked over to Alan once again. “Yeah I know the feeling. Sorry.”

He’d rarely felt as scared as he had when Alan had been missing.

“Did you catch the guy?”

“Not yet. The GDF are on it though. Kayo’s with them now and John’s lending his usual hand.”

Gordon knotted his fist around the bedsheets.

“It was bad Scott. It was so so bad.”

He would never forget how broken Alan had been when he’d found him. It made tears spring to his eyes as he cursed the unfairness of it all.

“Alan’s going to be okay. He was awake earlier. More worried about you than himself to be honest.” Scott smiled. “He’s definitely got that classic Tracy family gene.”

Gordon smiled as well but sobered quickly.

“He shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Scott frowned looking over at Alan again. “No, he shouldn’t have.”

Scott’s expression turned pained. “What you did was so unbelievably stupid Gordon, and we will be having an in-depth discussion about it when you’re feeling better.” Scott gave him a pointed look. “But we wouldn’t have found Alan without you.”

Gordon had to choke back tears again.

“You did good Gordo.” Scott said quietly as he gently ran his fingers though Gordon’s hair. “Now get some sleep, we’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Gordon was too tired to argue. He was sure he was still hopped up on a world of drugs so, now knowing his family was safe, sleep came easy.

fin.

#whumptober2020 #no.3 #thunderbirds are go #fic #my fic

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