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meraki24601 · 10 months

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Blindfolded

It's hard to keep track of time in a cell.

Whumpee learned early on that feeding times were… inconsistent. That was when food actually came. When they did eat, it was usually just enough to remind them how hungry they were.

Eventually, Whumpee learned to estimate time based on how much they had healed and which person was in charge of torturing them. 7 different people would rotate in. Whumpee figured their ability to heal had slowed dramatically since they were first kidnapped from their and Caretaker's bed, but combined, the methods held up in Whumpee's mind, keeping them sane.

7 months and 2 days was their best guess.

Caretaker was on a mission when Whumpee had been taken. How long did it take them to realize Whumpee was missing? Did anyone actually know? Caretaker could have been hurt or killed on their mission. The government might have assumed Whumpee ran after losing Caretaker. Was anyone even looking for them? They missed Caretaker's kisses. One on the forehead, one on the nose, then one loving kiss on their lips.

7 months and 19 days in, they started attacking Whumpee's senses. A blindfold they couldn't remove. They filled Whumpee's cell with different scents, including Caretaker's favorite perfume. They drugged Whumpee so they couldn't feel anything from the neck down. Still, Whumpee refused to break. They would die before they gave the enemy what they wanted.

The sensory deprivation became part of the rotation, helping Whumpee count the minutes.

It happened during a blind week.

Whumpee estimated maybe one more blind day before they would be shoved in the bright room and drugged so they couldn't move. It was Whumpee's least favorite Whumper's turn before they were taken away. Whumpee never knew what to expect from them. Knives, hallucinogens, fists, maybe they'll bring in a group of people again and let them choose what to do with them. The first time they had done that was the closest Whumpee had come to breaking.

The door opened and Whumpee heard them. Five sets of footsteps entered their cell. They could hear each one pause in the doorway, presumably to look at Whumpee, before entering with slow, quiet steps. Whumpee just loved being right about these things. They wished they still had voice enough to scream their burning hate to Whumper. It would have to be enough to fight against the hands trying to grab them.

Fighting with their hands tied behind their back is not easy. It doesn't help they hadn't been given water in the past 2ish days. Maybe if they stopped fighting Whumper would end the streak. Of course, they wouldn’t give up like that, but it was a nice thought. A thought they couldn’t hold on to for long. Trying to dodge some of the grabbing hands, Whumpee lost their balance and their head slammed into the wall.

Blind, disoriented, and in pain, Whumpee collapsed. They continued to struggle, though weakly, and couldn’t help but flinch as Caretaker’s scent filled their nose. Whumper had tried this before. They even played a recording of Caretaker’s voice to calm Whumpee down and convince them they had been rescued. If they were playing the recording now, it wouldn’t really matter as the ringing in their ears drowned all other noise out. Whumpee couldn’t help a small laugh at the irony.

Hands held them down. Surprisingly gentle fingers fiddled with their blindfold enough to trigger the shock collar. The hands holding Whumpee down released them quickly in response to the intense electrocution. The moment it ended the hands were back. Gentle and dangerous, they adjusted Whumpee’s body so they were a little more comfortable on the cold floor. They even freed Whumpee’s hands from the ropes tying them behind their back.

This was worse. This was so much worse. Whumpee didn’t know when or where the pain was going to come from. The ringing in their ears was slowly going away, but they hadn’t heard if they had been asked any questions. After triggering the shock collar, Whumpee barely had the strength left to shiver.

The hands noticed. All hands but two disappeared. One at a time always lasted so much longer than when they all got their fill at once. They lifted Whumpee’s helpless body into their arms. The smell of Caretaker flooded over Whumpee and they relaxed slightly despite themselves. The person holding them kissed them. One on the forehead, one on the nose, then one loving kiss on their lips.

“Caretaker.”

The darkness thickened and Whumpee drifted. It was them. They were safe.

Finally.

Part 2

#whump #whump fic #whump scenario #whumpee #caretaker #rescue #whump writing #whump ideas #whump tropes #whumper #whump drabble #not graphic torture #sensory deprivation

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storeecbrcod · 2 months

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Whump Drabble/fic where Soap suffers realistic trauma from MWIII (though we’ll put a bandaid over his ultimate fate lol).

TW: explicit medical injuries and treatments, angst with a bittersweet ending, will likely be inaccurate in some way seeing as I’m not a medical professional nor a trauma doctor/nurse (I’m just a girl fr), Ghoap✨

Ghost had been wrangling with this worm of guilt that chewed at his heart, something that he thought he had grown accustom to over his life but was now back with a vengeance. When he wasn’t clawing his skin from his bone to try and find the fucker, he was with Johnny.

He had thought the hardest part of this would be overcoming that guilt, but he quickly realised the coma was much worse.

He’d followed soldiers after they’d suffered significant GSW trauma before, of course he had. He’d caused many himself, knew how to engineer one that would guarantee a kill, knew how impossible it seemed yet possible it was to survive a shot to the temple, nearly point blank. He knew what recovery entailed.

Yet, he didn’t know what recovery entailed when it made the soft birdsong in his life silent and still.

He was a sniper and a stealth operative, he was used to sitting in one place during recon, unmoving and hyperaware for hours on end, days or weeks or even months at a time.

Yet, he wasn’t used to searching for a heartbeat and willing it to keep going rather than aiming to stop it.

He’d never felt so restless in his life, cataloguing every detail of the man on the bed in front of him every day. He watched as bandages turned red, watched as the side of his head swelled and bruised and went so black it was like staring into space. He read the words ‘Pressure relief DO NOT TOUCH’ scribbled on the vacuum-sealed, open wound on the back of a window in his skull over and over and over until swelling bowed the dressing and the words didn’t make sense.

He watched air be pumped through tubes down his throat when his brain couldn’t do it for him, and saw urine pool in a bag next to the bed. He watched nurses exercise his body, watched the shut door as they cleaned him up with sponge baths. He’d watched the codes be called and watched from outside the room as ribs were broken in the frail, pale body that was a fifth of the size it used to be and void of the usual tan.

He watched it all. He watched everything.

Just watched.

He knew people in comas could often hear what’s going on around them, he’d learnt that when he rushed Tommy to the hospital after a particularly bad overdose. But it was like his lips were fused together, vocal cords totally lax and frozen. He couldn’t speak, wouldn’t speak, scared of what would tumble from his tongue and leave in the open when Johnny couldn’t even respond.

Spontaneity was a common tactic on the field, as much as they tried to negate it. It wasn’t very often a plan went totally right. Damage control and problem solving were heavily exercised skills that Ghost possessed.

But he couldn’t solve this. He could wish death on Makarov as much as he did before, he could research the best trauma surgeons and doctors and nurses and therapists in the UK, he could monitor Johnny’s condition obsessively all he wants, but he can’t fix it. He can’t heal the snapped neurons, he can’t dig into Johnny’s veins and fish out the blood clots that continued to threaten his life or limbs. He couldn’t crawl into John’s skin and nest there in his warmth, protect him and feel protected. He couldn’t.

Helplessness wasn’t something he’d felt in a long time, but he’d much rather be clawing out of his own grave as ravens cawed again than have to put John in one, still and unable to dig to join Simon.

So when Soap eventually does wake, it felt like an endless tunnel came to an abrupt end with blinding lights and trees, waiting for birds to call their greeting.

He made his own greeting, his imposing yet solid presence next to the bed as tubes were removed and the body was propped up and assurances were given. He was eager, after 4 months of pure silence about to be filled with music again.

But it was off key.

“Where am I?”

“Hospital, Johnny.”

A furrowed brow.

“Who th’ fuck ah you?”

Simon thought that the worst part of all this was the coma, the silence, but he was wrong. It was the recovery.

Simon had learnt that the temple was the perfect place to locate the parts of the brain responsible to speech, decision making and rationalisation, and memory. He’d learnt how irritating it could be re-explaining the same thing over and over every few minutes could be, he learnt of the shame that followed the irritation knowing that Soap couldn’t help it. He learnt how much it hurt to be escorted out of the room for routine check-ups because the once unrelenting trust between him and Johnny had relented to the shadow of unknown.

He had learnt that nothing is permanent.

His visits became less and less. Unsurprisingly, John (not Johnny; only his family calls him that) didn’t want a mountain of a man, full of angst and anger and sadness, haunting the corners of his hospital room. He only wanted his ma and pa, and as much as it hurt Ghost, he respected his wishes.

For months, Ghost isolated himself, got lost in his work. For months, John worked at recovery, regaining his smart mouth and witty remarks, slowly relearning his impulse control that wasn’t really as much control as it was pure will power to restrain himself.

For months, Ghost sought birdcall in the gurgles of his enemies’ throats, revelling in the garbled melodies that never matched the one he remembered, but breaking off just the same.

Beware the mockingbird, Johnny would say.

Yet here he was, searching for a blue jay’s song among the mouths of the unknown and wicked.

He got so used to the warped record that he often found himself forgetting what the original chords sounded like when they reverberated through his chest, right to his heart. Was it sweet, like the pull of a blade through supple skin? Was it explosive, like the crack of body armour in the gap between Kevlar plates? Was it deafening, like the rounds discharged that aimed for his heart?

Was it quiet, like an unmonitored heartbeat over nighttime?

Was it gentle, like the lingering touches left on his waist that still burned his skin months later?

Was it still there?

“Simon.”

Ghost blinked, looking up to Price. He hadn’t realised that he’d let his gaze wander, his mind even further.

“You need to go see him.”

There’s a cry of a broken-winged dove in his ears, overshadowed by the croon of a raven. Stability and chaos, broken and mended in one.

It hurt his head.

“He asked me to leave,” Ghost reasoned.

“When he first woke up, yes,” Price conceded. “Back when you honoured your callsign very proficiently, mind you.”

A scoff erupted from Ghost’s chest, under his crossed arms.

“Look, Simon,” Price sighed, leaning back against his desk, blue eyes of cobalt melting the sulphurous gleam of Ghost’s brown ones. “He remembers, now. Remembered Gaz in a matter of moments, recognised me soon after.”

There was a pause, pregnant and heavy as Ghost kept his mouth shut, luring Price to continue. Daring him to try and push past the raven’s sharp talons to help the dove.

A hand reaches towards the nest.

“It might be time for you to try again.”

The raven hesitates.

“The hospital staff spoke to us about how helping Soap’s brain reconnect the broken neural pathways from the trauma could help him recover faster.”

The dove coos.

“Please, Simon.”

Outstretched fingers.

“Fuck, I can’t watch two of my men crumble at the same time.”

A flurry of feathers, the screeching of breath through gravel, rubber on road, nails on chalkboard. It’s overwhelming, sending his heart into overdrive and rationality to the wind.

“Fuck you, Price.”

Yeah, the recovery hurt the most.

Looking in the mirror during recovery, specifically, hurt like a bitch. Scars that pulled over once unmarred skin, hollow cheeks where laughter and smiles once grew, gnarled soul and memories where purity reigned. It was all thrown back at you, as insistent as a murder of crows at your doorstep.

He could see the way John, not Johnny, sifted through his memory like a locked filing cabinet while trying to place Ghost, desperately searching through the unlocked drawers over and over for the file he needed, all while the closed drawers taunted him with kept knowledge. It was all right there, yet he couldn’t access it.

“Ghost, aye?”

It’s met with a grunt. Silence stretches out, black feathers shielding the delicate white ones.

“And ye were my… lieutenant?”

He was going off of information fed to him, his brow furrowed in concentration, still trying to place Ghost. He couldn’t tell where the darkness around him ended and Ghost started, obscured by inky blackness.

He doesn’t sound right. It’s not the same teasing, playful lilt that danced in the air. It’s not pronounced the same, not said the same, it’s not the same.

It’s some… imposter. Something that looks the same and smells the same and tastes the fucking same, but it’s different.

A cuckoo’s egg in a nest.

“Price ‘nd Kyle were telling me some stories about ye,” John noted with a small smile. “You’re quite the stunner out field, ‘pparently.”

It’s an olive branch, a bridge built half way. An offering to meet in the middle, to talk and revere and remember.

But Ghost didn’t remember, and neither did John.

Recovery never ends, you know. It goes on and on and on, haunting your nerves and your wits for the rest of your life. You’ll always have some sort of ache or pain, a reminder of what happened to you.

John never ended up recovering fully. He was medically discharged, left to nurse a broken cage and a silent heart. He did well, considering; it wasn’t hard when you didn’t remember the song that beat with the rhythm of your heart.

He still joined the team on outings sometimes, staying in a local hotel when everyone was back at base. They’d have a meal, or go to a pub, catch up. Re-establish connections once lost.

Ghost rarely joined them, to save his own torment.

But of course, he had to honour the dove occasionally. Just as he was now, sitting across the table from the lively Scot and with his two other teammates, Gaz and Price. Beers had been served, a single glass of warm whiskey for cold hands. The table was lively, fun, rambunctious in all the best ways.

The cuckoo had hatched in earnest, Ghost found.

It was easy to see the progress John had made, loud and bright and cheeky like he used to be. Demanding of attention, hungry for every scrap of past he could swallow to try and heal old wounds. Listening to stories about himself and his old crew when they were all together, as if it was another version of him. The right version of him.

And by god, were the scraps from Simon the most nourishing of all.

John’s mouth felt desert dry, cactus dust caking his tongue as he bit desperately into every glimpse of Ghost’s bare face, lips wrapped around glass and breath smelling of potent, liquid gold with every word. It hurt, it tasted awful, and it was impossible to rid himself from. It hurt so good, feeling his heart pull and swell in ways he didn’t understand anymore.

He felt like glass, he felt like the air, he felt like expensive liquor, he felt like it was meant to be him in their places, held and touched and breathed and consumed. It was overwhelming, leaving him starstruck and staring, a flutter in his chest reawakened.

Ghost’s own nest was erupting with displaced wind, white wings desperate to spread and carry it away, escape the raven’s hold. Right now, meeting Johnny’s eyes, he realised that the time spent captive in the nest had only lent to the dove’s healing. It was stronger now, bigger and fiercer and so, so hopeful.

The cuckoo cackled, loud and leering. Mockingbirds whistled and cawed, off key and haunting. The raven keened, shaken and damning.

The white dove flew.

The blue jay sang above the bramble.

And the two nested together, among the dappled branches of a birchwood tree, cool and calm and surrounded by colour year round. Above the bramble of the past.

Ghost had learnt one thing over everything else; a lesson that was recurrent in his life, stubborn and overwhelming. It swallowed him in waves, crashing him into the sand bank below.

Nothing is ever, ever permanent.

Admittedly, his retirement had gone well. The down payment was easy, the renovations smooth, moving in a sigh of relief. They’d have their harder days, where getting out of bed and walking without aid was difficult for Johnny, but they’d have their good days, too. They’d have their days where they’d go for walks across the countryside, watch as their service dog bounced around through tall grass, tongue lolling from her mouth.

They’d have quiet days, relaxing days. They’d have loud days, rough days.

But they were all days where the sun would rise and then set.

They were all days when the blue jay sang.

Simon had forgotten silence. His life was filled with sound, and love, and content.

Maybe… maybe the worst part of it all was loss.

Maybe the worst part of it all was the unmoving body, still warm.

Maybe the worst part of it all was the frantic screams that drowned out the silence.

Maybe the worst part of it all was the silence.

Silence.

A/N: bandaids don’t last forever

Idk if this is coherent or cohesive or any other co-words meaning readable and enjoyable. Maybe I’ll rewrite it, who knows. Probably not, I can’t post consistently as it is lmao

#tw mcd #tw medical procedures #tw violence #tw graphic #idk what this is #enjoy #I hope #there’s so much symbolism/metaphor in here it’s crazy #it probably doesn’t make sense #call of duty #cod mw ghost #call of duty modern warfare #cod fanfic #ghoap #ghost x soap #ghostsoap #angst #whump

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adrift-in-thyme · 8 months

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Whumptober Day 3: "Make it stop"

Read it on Ao3

- Wild & the Chain

- Summary: When Wild is captured by the Yiga Clan, Master Kohga decides to get his revenge

CW for graphic depictions of violence, torture, blood and injury, vomiting, and a character briefly wishing for death

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“Get up!”

Wild pries open his eyes just as a boot connects with his side. He jerks away with a hiss of pain.

Of all the horrible ways to wake up…

The face of a Yiga assassin comes into view as his vision clears and he groans.

Even better.

“I said, get up!”

Another kick that takes Wild’s breath away.

“Yeah that’s not the best way to get me off the floor,” he remarks, dragging himself into a seated position.

That earns him a sharp smack across the face. Wincing, he watches as the assassin bends down, unlocking his chains. They fall to the floor with a clatter. But Wild hardly has time to breathe a sigh of relief, or rub his wrists, or even to plan a quick escape. Almost immediately, the Yiga yanks his hands behind his back, then ties them tightly with a thick rope.

The coarse material rubs at his already raw wrists. It only adds to the cacophony of aches that have begun to arise now that he’s conscious. Wild blows out an annoyed sigh. As if he could forget how sorely he had lost his last fight.

Rough hands haul him to his feet and he stumbles. His surroundings go fuzzy and dim and for a moment he is certain he’s going to faint. But then it passes. And not a moment too soon. The Yiga shoves him forward and wrenches open the cell door.

The same one they’d thrown Barta into, Wild realizes dazedly. The thought doesn’t make him feel any more comfortable.

“Walk,” comes the sharp order, accompanied by another, hearty push. Stumbling on achingly numb legs, Wild starts forward.

He falls more than walks down the stairs. Between the Yiga’s forceful movements and the haze he has yet to pull himself out of, he can hardly keep himself upright. Even the journey across the main room is difficult.

Especially once he realizes where they’re headed.

“Master Kohga will be so pleased to see you,” his captor hisses, no doubt noticing the sudden increased tension in Wild’s shoulders.

“Didn’t I kill him?” Wild asks, with a forced chuckle. Maybe if he feigns nonchalance it will mask the thundering of his heart. He sends a furtive glance around the space, looking for anything that could possibly allow for a quick escape. But there is nothing.

…and no one. Save for the few assassins who leer at him from beneath their masks.

He swallows, hard. “I think I remember dropping his own weapon onto his head.”

That garners him a swift kick to the shins. He trips, only saved from face planting by the Yiga’s tight grip.

“You are a fool to think our master is so easily defeated. You on the other hand…”

The hallway narrows, then widens into a familiar room. He forces himself to take a deep breath.

“…you will meet your end today.”

Wild lifts his head as he walks through the doorway, heart situated painfully in his throat. Master Kohga sits before him, looking very much alive.

“You,” he snarls as soon as he lays eyes on the champion. “You cocky, undying little punk! You thought you had seen the end of the Great Master Kohga, didn’t you?”

Wild shrugs, a slight smirk on his lips. “I did drop a boulder on your head.”

The Yiga restraining him kicks his legs out from under him. He hits the ground with an “oof.”

“That-that is inconsequential!” Kohga replies, huffily. “I am more powerful than death! But for the pain you caused my beloved, loyal followers” – He rises now, stomping his foot along with every word– “You. Are. Going. To. Die!”

His captor’s grip tightens and he yanks on Wild’s hands. Wild falls back, head bumping against the assassin's hip.

“Shall I take him outside, Master Kohga?” A sadistic sort of excitement colors his voice. It makes Wild’s blood run cold.

Kohga nods. “Yes, take him. I do not wish to ruin my furniture with his blood.”

Again, Wild is hauled upward, though this time a vicious sickle finds its way into his back. It bites into his flesh and he fights not to let out a hiss of pain.

“Move,” the Yiga snaps and Wild stumbles out into the sun.

Kohga sits cross-legged over the crater Wild had been so certain he had plummeted into, hovering serenely just above it.

“Come forward, hero,” he sneers as Wild is shoved toward the gaping hole. “You will be pleased to find that I have perfected my art more than ever!”

With a snap of his fingers, a massive boulder appears above his head. Dozens of tiny spikes protrude from its smooth surface. Wild’s blood runs cold. Abandoning his more measured, methodical tugs of before, he begins yanking ferociously at his bonds.

But then, the Yiga drives his sickle into the back of his leg and all thoughts of an escape vanish. He chokes on a cry. His vision bleeds white. It’s all he can do not to pass out.

One, swift movement and the weapon is out of him, tearing through his flesh as easily as fingers through tissue paper. This time he screams.

He hardly registers it when the Yiga backs away, barely realizes that a large, stone door is sliding over the opening behind him, blocking any exit.

But Kohga’s shrill laughter pierces his ears like knives and he drags his head up to look at him.

“If I were you I would run,” he says, voice nearly brimming with excitement. “Because the time for vengeance has come!”

He begins to swing the boulder over his head. With each trip around it gains momentum, growing closer and closer to the moment when it will break free and careen straight at Wild.

Come on, get up. You’ve got to move.

Gritting his teeth, Wild forces himself to his feet. Pain shoots through his leg anew, like a thousand tiny shards of glass have entered his wound. A scream breaks through his parched lips. His lungs burn, breath coming too fast, heart beating erratically. Stars explode before his eyes.

And still the boulder spins. The motion makes him dizzy.

On trembling limbs he stumbles forward, bile rising in his throat. But each step is sheer agony and he’s slow.

…much too slow.

When the boulder flies free, he can’t evade it. It collides with his body and he goes flying. Pain erupts within him. It steals his breath, propels forth a shout of shock and agony, makes his extremities go numb. He can hear his bones cracking even over the rushing in his ears. His vision goes blindingly white, then spotty, then dangerously dark.

He hits the ground, crying out at the agony of the impact. And the boulder comes down with him, crushing his prone body.

Somewhere, Kohga is laughing. The boulder disappears, retreating back to its owner to prepare for another round. Wild knows he should get up, knows he should at least attempt to run. But all he can do is lie there, trying to breathe. Trying to stay awake.

Blood gurgles in his throat and he pitches sideways, gagging on it. Against the blurred sand, the liquid looks far darker than usual. Almost black.

Like the blood of the Shadow, he thinks dazedly.

He doesn’t get much farther than that thought. Because once more the boulder shoots forward. This time it rolls into him more than flies, shoving him against the far wall and pinning him there.

He doesn’t have the strength to scream, even as the spikes tear out chunks of his flesh and his shattered bones protest this newest assault. He yearns for oblivion that refuses to come.

“So, hero, how do you like it?”

It hits him again, smashing him against the cool stone. He gags on blood once more. It drips into his eyes, runs in rivulets down his face, pools in the gashes that run along his body.

“Painful, isn’t it? Well, that is what you did to me!”

Wild teeters on the edge. Of death or unconsciousness, though, he isn’t sure. Death, he hopes.

(Though at the same time, he doesn’t, because that means he has lost the battle again, failed everyone again, but sweet Hylia he just wants this to stop. Please make this stop.)

And it’s clear now that there will be no other escape.

Your brothers aren’t coming for you. Even if they are, they’ll be too late.

It’s already too late.

“But the mighty Master Kogha prevails over pain and death! You, however, are weak! Weak, weak, weak!”

The boulder retracts and Wild watches it dimly. One more hit is all it will take. He is certain.

So much for coming back to life.

He can see bone, he realizes, shining gorily from his left arm. It is at a strange angle too.

Must be broken.

It certainly isn’t the only thing. But somehow, that hardly seems important at the moment.

His eyes slip closed. Everything hurts. The only other time he felt like this was when he collapsed on Blatchery Plain.

I’m sorry, Zelda, for putting you through this again.

I’m sorry…

“Champion!”

A shout rings out across the space, protectively furious and wonderfully familiar. There’s a scream and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. But the blow he expects doesn’t fall on him.

Instead, gentle hands lift his head, cradling it. He blinks open swollen eyes to see the blurred face of Twilight hovering just above him. Legend and Sky appear over his shoulder, seconds later.

“Twi.”

Clumsily, he tries to reach out with his less injured arm, eager to touch him, to prove that he is real. But his body refuses to follow his commands. He doesn’t have to worry, though. The rancher’s hand easily finds its way into his.

“I’ve got you, Wild,” he says, and there is pure fire in his tone. “You’re safe now.”

A head of familiar pink hair leans over him. Gentle, trembling hands nudge his chin upward.

“Here, you’ve gotta drink this.”

Potion is poured down his throat, lukewarm and burning. But the magic of it begins its work immediately, zipping purposefully toward the worst of his wounds.

Wild swallows it with an effort. Then, he drags his eyes back up to meet Twilight’s. “Kohga?”

It is hardly a whisper, yet they hear it anyway.

“Dead.” He thinks it’s Sky who answers, though his voice doesn’t quite have its usual tone. It is a brittle thing. Dangerous. “For good this time.”

Wild tries to grin, but finds he isn’t quite up to it. “Good,” he mumbles instead. “Tired of his dumb belly.”

Twilight’s lips quirk the slightest bit. Gently, he brushes aside Wild’s bangs, wet with blood and sweat.

“Well, he’s never gonna touch you again.”

“Now, rest up,” Legend says, shakily. “We’ve got this handled. You focus on not dying.”

Any other time Wild would laugh and tease the vet about his blatant caring. But all he can focus on is the pleasantly numb feeling that has begun to spread throughout his body, and how warm Twilight’s embrace is as he scoops him carefully off of the ground. His eyes slip closed of their own accord. Before he even realizes what is happening, the darkness swallows him and he is gone.

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i-can-even-burn-salad · 5 months

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Still looking for a wholesome gift? Well, this is not it, but you can download it anyway.

Find it here

The book is available for free, as pdf or epub. As always, the epub contains image descriptions for the illustrations, the pdf does not.

Detailed Content Warnings | WIP Masterpost

#wip: till death #sometimes I amuse myself and roleplay as an author who actually advertises shit #recreational graphic design #whump #whump writing #writeblr

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entry35 · 20 days

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i see a lot of people draw jay with sh scars which is a total win!! but what i NEVER see is tim with them!! which is strange bc that man is mentally fucked and he absolutely wouldve when he was younger i feel. what do you think??

-🌸

see the thing is i always forget them — i forgot them on one of my latests along w his body hair which is straight up heresy. brother and i talk regularly about his s/h habits... i think they've lasted as a coping mechanism/symptom of psychosis bc lack of control is severely distressing for him. esp as an epileptic victim of the psychiatric system. s/h elicits an endorphin high that calms a lot of chronic cutters down.

brother also wrote this absolutely deranged fic following his hospital visit for that goddamn knee. the slender sickness... it's slender sicknessing... paranoia = trying to carve out whatever the fuck they put inside him during surgery (answer: nothing). orthopedic trauma is a hell of a drug.

details are he gets chronic infections and keeps peeling himself open during episodes until he like. oh god the art wip i haven't touched in like a month. self-amputation. it's literally just non-stop whump out here. the duality of man.

long story short i'm always out of it bc there are two people behind the wheel and i keep forgetting to draw my own headcanons.

#tw mental health #tw whump #tw graphic #tw g0re #man idek what to tag this #sorry 🌸 if we look like lunatics (we are)#tw injury #tw s3lf harm #tw sh destructive behaviour #tower of babble #asks

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occasionallyprosie · 4 months

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A Thousand Ways

Chapter 1: "Sometimes you shouldn't just keep your head down"

Event Masterlist | Next>>

On a night in Legend's era, safe within the boundaries of an unnamed town, the veteran finds himself unstable but unable to sleep. He intended to just sleep off the concussion at best, or take a potion the next morning when they restocked on them at worse. He probably shouldn't have gone outside where he was easily seen while not at his best and without basically any of his items.

Febuwhump 2024 | Prompt 1: Helpless

Read on AO3

Warnings: torture

Legend had decided back on his first quest that he hated concussions. Over ten years later and on his... variably numbered quest (it could be the seventh if he combined the Oracles into a single one, it could be the sixth if he ignored Koholint too, or it could be the ninth if he individualized and counted every single vaguely adventure-like thing that happened), he still hated concussions.

Nonetheless, he powered through. It was a mild one anyways, he would be fine by morning probably, and if he wasn't then he'd buy an extra potion to drink.

They just arrived at a town in Legend's own era and kingdom, it was late and they had already decided to get supplies the next day after a good night's sleep in the inn. Legend didn't go to sleep though, despite the rather mild--he wasn't even nauseous really--concussion, he slipped out of the inn and found himself sitting out on a bench outside, watching the innkeepers wife's--Leanne's, he had visited the town before-- garden of flowers sway in the wind.

"Hey," someone sneered, "what's a brat like you doing out this late?"

He was literally an adult, but before he raised his head he saw armored boots.

A knight.

"Just getting some fresh air," he said, keeping his head down. "I don’t mean to bother."

Please don’t--

The boot swung up and he had plenty of time to dodge it, except he was trying not to be recognized so he took it. The steel boot hit his forehead and he let himself gasp, dropping his head lower.

"Look at me when I speak to you, brat!" They spat.

Legend grit his teeth, not responding in favor of keeping his head down. Maybe he should've dodged and just ran, that kick made his concussion much, much worse if only briefly. He couldn't think and suddenly, that nausea that hadn't been so bad, was very bad.

Instincts kicked in when the guard went in for another kick. Legend avoided it and quickly stood.

"You'll learn some resp--" the guard visibly recognized him when Legend met his eyes, forcing back the dizziness.

"You could've just walked away," Legend said coldly. "You just had to pick a fight with someone who you thought was a kid."

"You! Criminal!"

The outraged cry drew the attention of a nearby patrol of guards. Legend cursed, especially the fact that he'd left most of his items inside the inn. Four guards converged toward him, yelling and waking up the townsfolk while Legend bolted.

He didn't want nor should kill them, they needed a reality check sure, but death wasn't the answer here and he only had his medallions as an offense. No regular person would survive them, so instead Legend just ran.

To everyone's surprise, when he swerved into an alleyway unhindered, a patrol of guards were on the other side and startled when the patrol chasing him roared behind him. They quickly blocked off his escape, and with his head spinning, stomach lurching, and eyes refusing to focus--

A shield was slammed into his face and he was out cold.

Legend woke up in a painful daze, his whole body was sore, arms especially so, wrists in genuine pain and not just sore. His head felt like it was filled with cotton, yet simultaneously it felt empty with how his brain seemed to rattle in his skull. His magic was practically gone--

His magic was gone. He didn't feel the familiar weight of his medallions and pendants. He wasn't even wearing all his clothes! His red mail was gone, and his boots, leaving him just in his dark green under-tunic. His cap was gone as well and his hair was loose.

After assessing his own condition, Legend drew in enough focus despite the physical pain and magical exhaustion, and he tried to determine his situation.

He was in a cell, water audibly dripping down from the ceiling and down the walls. The ground was damp if anything. Stone lined the walls and floor, mortar on the walls but dirt in the floor. He was chained to the wall opposite of the (probably) iron cell door, the cuffs around his wrists had runes etched into it... the source of his magical exhaustion no doubt.

Metal clinked as he tugged the cuffs around his wrists, he didn't have a single inch of give, being cuffed directly to the wall itself. His magic was cut off, and his head spinning and throbbing and requiring far too much concentration to focus, Legend took far too long to come to a conclusion about his situation.

He had been captured, by knights no less, and he was completely trapped. He had no items, he'd never had the strength to even escape, and his magic had been drained before he could even try the... two things he'd been able to do in extremely extenuating circumstances to escape.

The cell door slammed open, Legend glared daggers at the knight who entered.

"Link, seems we finally caught you," they said, scowling and approaching him.

"I wa'--I was par-pardoned years ago," Legend snapped, his words attempting to slur, leading him to repeat himself clearly. "You have-- You have... no grounds for this arrest."

The knight drew closer. "Just because you tricked the queen doesn't mean you’re innocent. You'll pay for kidnapping her, and for the murder of dozens of good soldiers, especially Sergeant Alphon."

He snapped. He swung his leg up and nailed them in the face. Despite the height they had on him, his legs were just long enough and he was flexible enough to kick them.

"Get his name out of your mouth you bastard!" Legend fought against his chains, ignoring the pain and fuzziness. How dare this knight try and use his uncle against him?! How dare he?!

"Oh, you'll pay for that."

The knight punched his face, the back of his skull slammed against the iron panel behind him, a loud clang echoing through the room simultaneously followed by a hissed curse. His skull reverberated, pain exploding and seizing. A stabbing pain tore through his mind.

A second punch to his lower ribs had his legs giving out and his stomach to empty itself on the ground.

"Not so high and mighty now," the knight sneered. "You'll die in this cell, hero. Nice and slow, another day, another hour, another pain for all the men you killed."

Legend inhaled shakily, lips wet as he raised his head to glare.

"Do your worst," he growled. "I've survived worse."

He survived death itself, and returned with new items, new artifacts, new memories. He survived Ganon four times over, a lightning strike to the head, the near-death of his ancestor borderline erasing him from history.

Even if Legend did die here, it was the first... second time he could trust that someone else would finish the job. The other heroes would finish this quest and he didn't need to worry. He could die without regrets.

Turns out, dying slowly with a glimmer of hope to escape is far worse than being struck by lightning and drowning in a storm on the ocean.

The other heroes should've been able to find him, he'd gone with Twilight, or Wolfie, to track down the Traveler and Champion dozens of times, never through towns though. Yet they hadn't and Legend had determined not to rely on anyone, even the other heroes.

Though... it was hard not to cling to the hope of hearing blades clashing, or even just the creak of the door as one of them sneaks in. Not as his body refused to do the most simple of things, not while he could barely lift his head, not while he felt the cuffs that drained his magic very slowly chip away at his soul, eliminating any replenishment of his magic before it even formed. It was hard not to cling to any glimmer of hope of someone else saving him for once when his skin was torn, cut open, and his blood soaked the floors more than the water that dripped from above did. He told himself that he had to save himself, just like every other time he'd been pushed to the brink. He had a job to do and even if the other heroes could do it themselves, it was still his job to at least help. Yet as he hung from bleeding wrists, legs not strong enough to support him, he knew that even if he wasn't chained up, even if the cell door was wide open, he wasn't going to be able to walk out.

When the knights returned, jeering and joking with one another with the familiarity of brothers, Link drew in another breath.

He wasn't escaping. He survived death once, thanks to an ocean deity, but he was certain that he wasn't going to escape its hold a second time. Not as the knights pulled out something new--every day, it had been something new, or maybe every hour, he wasn't sure how long it had been--and discussed who got to use it first.

It was a flail, a handle of leather likely around wood but maybe steel, and multiple long ropes of frayed leather.

Link--Legend(they were still there, he wasn't alone again, the quest was still ongoing even if he died here) didn't have the energy to cry out as the cat o' nine tails was whipped across his face, tearing his lip, the bridge of his nose, his brow and cheek, his eyes sealed shut from the pain. He did flinch, he did whimper and gasp, but nothing more.

He didn't have the strength for more. Frayed leather struck across his chest, catching his collarbone and cutting a scabbed wound open. His throat was raw, had been for a while now with stomach acid burning the irritation of his screams. Even as he tried to scream, nothing more than a wheeze fell from bloodied lips.

He hoped they wouldn't be too upset with him leaving them to finish the fight. He almost wanted to laugh, it was a bit ironic... Of course he, the helpless bunny, would be killed in captivity. He, the veteran, would die on an adventure. He, the collector, would be left item-less at the end, after all you can't take anything to the afterlife.

It was ironic, because the adventuring veteran who collected items from across four countries, three worlds, and had killed Ganon four times... was still just a helpless bunny who couldn't defend himself when it mattered.

Soon enough, as his vision faded out, Legend fell.

Though with his magical stores empty and his soul having just been drained... he didn't even notice that his fall had been in the physical sense. Cuffs didn't matter when the goddess herself took matters into her own hands to displace her hero through time.

Next>>

#febuwhump 2024 #linked universe #lu legend #everyone else will show up in later chapters but they aren't featured here #legend linked universe #linked universe fanfic #whump #angst #torture #graphic violence #legend lu #ao3 fanfic #prosie writes #a thousand ways au

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3-2-whump · 26 days

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Okay I'm back!

(But you had hardly left!)

Whatever! Here's the next chapter and the conclusion of this

TW/CW: creepy whumper, jealous whumper, manipulative whumper (I guess?), nsfwhump (not graphically described), noncon (at the very end, not graphically described, and honestly you could end the chapter just before it happens and it would still make sense)

A rhythmic series of knocks reverberated through the door of the office at half past eleven, just as Thomas had planned. He scooted closer towards his desk and minimized the windows he had opened on his desktop PC. “Come in,” he replied.

The door cracked open. The kid –Nico, my nephew, Michael once told him–stepped hesitantly inside, shoulders to ears, brows drawn tensely. “Y-you wanted to see me, Boss?”

“I did.” He gestured to a chair in front of the desk. Nico approached it stiffly, visibly uncomfortable being so close to the Don of the Costa Family. “Oh come on, sit down, I don’t bite, you know!” he chuckled.

Nico briefly looked around the room, eyes bright and alert. “Wait, where’s Khaled?” he asked, blinking at the empty space behind the Boss’ chair.

“On a coffee run,” Thomas answered simply. He suppressed an eye roll as Nico looked down, squinting at the bottom of the desk as if he could see through it if he stared hard enough. He cleared his throat, and Nico snapped his gaze back up. “I could ask him to get you something before he leaves the café, if you’d like?”

Nico shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience him like that,” he insisted. The young man drew back the chair and took his seat across from the Don, and waited in questioning silence.

No matter how many times he had rehearsed this meeting in his head, nor how many arrangements he had to make over the past couple days to lead the boy to this point, Thomas still couldn’t help the nerves that feathered into the edges of his composure. Keep it cool, keep your tone calm, never betray how you truly feel, stay in control, a familiar voice once told him.

“So, how’s school?” An innocuous line, and as good an opener as any.

“Great, it’s been great.” Nico huffed an awkward little laugh as he hung his signature smile. “Which reminds me, thank you so much for allowing me this job in the first place, sir! I never got to thank you properly, or in person before-”

Thomas stopped him with one raised palm. “Hey, hey, that wasn’t all me. Let’s give a little credit to your Uncle Mike, too, right?” Nico conceded with another awkward laugh. “I understand it that this job helps you pay for your schooling, is that correct?”

“I mean, yeah,” Nico began to answer. “I don’t know how much college was back in your day, let alone law school-”

I never went to college, Thomas remembered, trailing off into his own thoughts as Nico kept nervously rambling. That was never really my scene. Never really had the brains for it, or the personability, according to my teachers. My brother, the Golden Child, on the other hand…

He redirected his thoughts at the right time where Nico started to complain about the most important part. “Wait, can you say that again?” he requested.

“My last tuition payment didn’t go through,” Nico repeated, an edge of desperation in his voice. “And if I don’t scrounge up enough money within the next two months, I won’t be able to afford my next semester’s worth of classes!”

Thomas gave a sympathetic expression of concern, even though he knew about this all along. After all, he was the one who delayed the payment to the college. “Is that so?” he asked with feigned interest.

The door cracked open again, though this time a familiar young intern entered. He cradled a cup of coffee in one hand and carried a takeout bag in the other. The guard whipped his head around, nearly bolting from his chair in shock. “Khaled?”

“Nico?” The boy approached, dumbfounded as he wordlessly set the spoils of his errand onto the Boss’ desk.

“You actually were out?” This time, Thomas rolled his eyes. Was it so hard to believe he used his fuck toy for honest work sometimes? (He supposed maybe yes, considering how much Nico had probably inadvertently witnessed over the past three years.)

Khaled’s well-timed entry provided a natural transition to the second half of his plan. “Speaking of which, I would like to thank you for looking out for Khaled this last weekend,” Thomas said. His boy silently took up post behind the desk, standing up straight with eyes slightly downcast, as he had trained him. “You’re a good kid for that. Most guys, they probably would’ve taken liberties, but not you.” Thomas craned his neck to look over his office chair. “Isn’t he a good kid?”

“Yes, sir,” Khaled readily agreed.

“Oh, no, please, I’d have done that for anybody! He’s my friend.” Thomas noticed how Nico cast a furtive glance at the boy behind him.

Friend, my ass. The very thought of how ‘friendly’ those two might have gotten had he not intervened that night made him seethe in possessive jealousy, though he maintained that icy façade of control.

“Of course, even if Khaled doesn’t remember it, you and I both know he was a wreck, wasn’t he?” The boy had sworn up and down and sideways that he didn’t remember what he had told his friend that night, no matter how much he’d tried to beat a confession out of him. Thomas leaned over the desk, dropping the volume of his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Since Khaled still had no idea what he had told Nico, the next best course of action was to discredit his words entirely. “He was saying some pretty crazy things, wasn’t he? Things that you and I both know not to take too seriously?”

“Well… I don’t know” Nico began, “don’t they say ‘in vino veritas?’”

“Don’t they also say ‘God don’t pay tuition?’”

You’re being too blunt again, a familiar voice in his memory chastised. Yet he couldn’t help but smile as he saw understanding dawn on the young man’s face. “Well, go on,” he coaxed the young man standing behind him. “Tell him.”

Khaled bristled uncomfortably before hanging his head low. “He’s right,” he agreed somberly. “I may not remember what I said, but, it was probably not true. You should just forget it.”

“But, Khaled-” Nico began to protest.

“You heard him yourself, kid,” Thomas cut in. “Now, you’re gonna forget whatever it was he said when he was wasted, and just keep studying hard, alright?”

Nico attempted to make meaningful eye contact beyond the boss’ shoulder, but Thomas didn’t have to turn around to know Khaled would keep his eyes firmly fixed to the floor. The young guard let out a defeated sigh as he slumped back in the chair and offered a small, reluctant nod. “Yes, sir. Like it never even happened,” he muttered.

Check mate.

“Good boy.” Thomas leaned back in his chair, his hands folding on the top of the desk as his mouth curled into a small smirk of victory. “Now, try contacting Student Financial Services again. I have a feeling your tuition payment might’ve been resolved after all.” He waved him off with a final self-satisfied smile. “You may go.”

The kid looked green around the gills as he pushed himself up from the chair and excused himself from the room. As soon as he left, Thomas swiveled around to face the boy behind him. Khaled ventured a resentful, hopeless glare into his owner’s eyes before looking once again to the floor. “Well?” he goaded. Khaled did not rise to the bait.

Thomas pushed away from the desk, motioning to the familiar darkness underneath the hardwood like he was commanding a dog to lie. “Go on.” He took a sip of the slightly cooled coffee as he watched his intern crouch and fold himself into the space with stiff reluctance. “You know what to do, and you know how hard you need to work to get back in my good graces,” he sneered. “Now, put that tongue of yours to a better use.” He pushed himself back in and trapped the young man underneath the desk.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344

#whump writing #creepy whumper #jealous whumper #manipulative whumper #nsfwhump #tw implied noncon #not graphically described but its there

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quillsparkle · 8 months

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AKA Deaton and Argent caring for a wounded Scott in 4x06

#whump tropes #teen wolf #father figure #4x06 #scott mccall #chris argent #alan deaton #gifset #boredom #graphic illustration #sort of #whumptober

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surplus-of-sarcasm · 9 months

Text

Number 30

TW: Blood, to some extent: gore, somewhat detailed description of injury, murder, angst, smoking, hero is a minor, knife usage, bruises, restraints, (I promise this is [hopefully] not as bad as it sounds)

Notes: No, I have not died. Apparently, I do not die easily. Enjoy tho < 3

Word count: 3.9 k

Today had been uncharacteristically dull for the villain so far. He wondered if he'd described it properly, though, because it had been like that for the entirety of a week. And sure, he wanted the fearsome reputation and days where no one was around to irritate him, but if total, action-free normalcy was his desire, he could have easily stuck with an average, brilliantly staid, white collar job.

And sure enough, fate had heard his pleas, and he found his lip involuntarily curling upwards into a lopsided smirk as he felt someone attempt to sneak up on him.

With his usual deadly efficiency, the criminal had grabbed their arm attempting to twist it backwards, almost successful until the figure broke out of his vice-like grip. They were much smaller than he was; a little short and somewhat scrawny, but the villain knew better than to underestimate someone simply because of size. However, his opponent wasn't just small, they were young. From the attempt to make the grunt sound a lot rougher than it actually was, he realised he was fighting a teenage boy.

Not being the sentimental type; the hero's age hadn't sparked a sudden pang of sympathy in the villain, but it was a little disconcerting fighting someone he practically saw as a child. Functionally though, that simply meant that the fight would end a lot faster than he'd anticipated.

The villain aimed a kick to the teenage hero's shins, only for him to dodge narrowly and counter with a kick of his own. It was barely strong enough, only slightly irritating against the older man's leg. The criminal simply slammed his fist into his adversary's face, leaving a trail of dull, purple bruises lining the cheekbone, more to assuage his pride than anything else. And the villain was no sadist, but it was just slightly amusing listening to the little hero grumble a filthy curse under his breath.

"Better watch your tongue," he mock-chastised, as he punched the kid's nose.

"Bloody hilarious," the teen answered dryly, having the audacity to roll his eyes, ignoring the sting in them as he maneuvered his body away from the villain's reach, managing to aim a harsh punch to his lip, and when the villain's fingers reflexively trailed down his lip, they came away stained with crimson.

For a brief, almost imperceptible moment, the hero's own shock matched the villain's, but while the little bastard's expression turned ever so slightly more smug as one of his eyebrows arched subtly, the muscles in the villain's face worked to pull it into a dark scowl.

His arms snaked around the younger's neck in a relentless death grip, the hero kicking and flailing uselessly in his grasp. "Playtime's over, short stack. Whose sidekick are you? Wouldn't want to break some hero's little toy," he growled, his hold still rough on the teen, but loosening only slightly so that he could speak.

"No one's. . .sidekick," he barely managed to breathe out as he gasped for air, taking in greedy breaths.

"Don't play martyr," he snapped, tugging slightly at the hero's hair, not meant to be awfully painful, rather just enough to pull him out of whatever foolish trance he was attempting to immerse himself in.

"I'm. . .not, I just st-started out as a hero. Sixteen's the youngest age."

"Like hell you're sixteen," the villain scoffed, even though to him that age seemed absurdly young to be anywhere that wasn't high school. He knew for a fact the hero wasn't lying because knowing the agency, they were just that desperate.

Or more accurately, just that scummy.

He let him go, the hero practically stumbling and slamming into the building behind him, wheezing and gasping for air, and yet there was a fiery look of absolute loathing burning in the grass green eyes as he held the villain's gaze for a few moments before storming away.

Maybe he wasn't feeling insanely surly, but a quick shower and being back home had lightened his mood just slightly. But for the most part, the villain wasn't sure what to make of the interaction. He wasn't so weak-willed that the hero's little lucky moment of bravado had intimidated him, letting out a cocky snort as he dabbed at his lip with a piece of cotton soaked in antiseptic, the familiar burn crawling across his skin still slightly irritating.

And sure, he wasn't exactly elated at having practically beaten up a kid, but maybe not every fight had to be rewarding. Then again, wasn't like most criminals would actually bat an eye over his age. If anything, he was doing him a favour showing him exactly what he was up against. The villain assumed that this was another minor irritation that would melt away as he pushed himself through rudimentary tasks and then slept through it.

And as the sky darkened into an inky black and stars littered the dark canvas, and he pushed himself into his sheets and let his exhausted mind finally rest, he'd proved his own theory correct once again. Even more so as the start of the next day went by as normally as it would for well. . .a villain.

But most theories had to be tested time and time again till they either persevered or shattered into a million shards like glass, and unfortunately for Villain, the latter was the punishment he was condemned to. Sure, he wasn't particularly appreciative of yet another slow day, but his daily dose of sanity-preserving action really didn't need to be teenage hero shaped.

Taking in a long drag from his cigarette and letting out phantom shapes of smoke in an impossibly slow exhale, an inconspicuous side-eye was the only acknowledgement he showed of the little bastard's presence.

And of course, as he predicted, the young menace didn't seem to appreciate the blatant trampling on his ego that the older man was handing to him, inching closer till he was practically in the villain's face.

"What? Got lost looking for your babysitter? I'm not even asking for trouble now," he drawled coolly as he breathed in the tobacco smoke, the familiar burnt taste numbing the inside of his mouth again, not that he cared much.

"You wouldn't be dressed like this if you weren't asking for trouble," the hero snapped back, raising a half-skeptical, half-annoyed eyebrow and gesturing to the villain's costume.

The snort the man let out was genuine. Sure, the kid was an absolute pain, but in all honesty, he had a point. He quickly sobered up from the mildly amused expression just to remind him he wasn't here to screw around. "What I mean is, I'm not really interested in playing with children. So in the nicest way possible, piss off, kid."

"Why'd you let me go yesterday?" the hero asked, aiming a punch to to the villain's stomach that he effortlessly countered, throwing his cigarette in the snow and crushing it under his boot.

"Because I felt like it? What would I gain from decking a goddamn kid? I've got better crap to do. The real question here, is why did you come back to try and fight me, Superbrat?" he countered flippantly, aiming a kick to the hero's shins.

The kid's eyes narrowed and he grit his teeth in such a manner that anyone would assume it physically pained him to answer. "Because you actually took me seriously."

At this, the criminal outright cackled. "You call that taking you seriously? Have you ever been in a fight before?" he scoffed, aiming a particularly harsh kick to his abdomen, knocking him to the ground. "This is taking you seriously. Don't like it much?"

Instead of the petulant remark he expected, all he received was a heavy wheeze as the hero tried and failed to lift his form up. And just before he could sneer at him, his vision was met with a violent spurt of crimson from a nasty gash across the boy's form, staining the snow a deep red as it seeped out across torn flesh, shredded layers of angry skin and muscle clumsily sutured to cause more harm than good, probably the kid's handiwork.

"I didn't do this to you," the villain half-whispered, unable to completely mask the horror in his tone.

"W-whatever," the hero wheezed out as he let out a weak, shuddering breath, biting down harshly on his bottom lip to stop himself from howling out in agony, still letting out a sharp hiss.

As if on instinct, the villain scooped his form up, surprised at how little he weighed in his arms. He himself had been on the skinnier side at that age, but he reckoned he wasn't this light. He tried his hardest to staunch the bleeding with one hand, muttering curses under his breath as his feet worked mechanically to get him home.

"Happy?" the hero breathed out, smirking almost cruelly at him as his head lolled back and forth, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

"No," he wanted to scream, but all that came out was a frustrated snarl from the back of his throat, desperate and almost animalistic in nature. He had no bloody idea what he was doing. But he didn't think of that. The hows and the whys were pushed to the back of his mind, far away from the conscious parts of it, his actions all purely reflexive.

If he wasn't so frantic, maybe the villain would have been irritated at the blood seeping into his leather couch, but right now, his attention was fixated on the still unconscious teenager as he cleaned out his wound as thoroughly as he could and started stitching him up.

And of course, mid-stitch, he just had to wake up again, his eyelashes fluttering gently as his eyes cracked open, and he let out a sharp gasp and the villain had to force his shoulder down as he tried to jerk away. "Stay down," he barked, like it made a difference.

But to his luck, the hero's gaze flitted down to his abdomen noticing the needle and while he hadn't completely relaxed, at least he'd stopped squirming. If he was being honest, he was surprised the kid was still holding out through the process, trying his hardest to release the tension in his muscles so as not to mess up the process. His jaw was clenched, his face set in a sombre expression that made him look years older than he really was. But his eyes held a look of fear and mistrust that mirrored the villain's younger self to disturbing degrees.

Still, he kept his attention on the wound and after what felt like eons he was finally done. He backed away, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, looking the wound over before cleaning up and washing his hands in the kitchen.

When he walked back in, he was met with the hero's stern expression. "What the hell?" he attested, raising a confused eyebrow.

"So manners weren't included in your agency training?" The villain raised an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest.

The hero let out a laboured breath in response, his eyes practically boring into the floor before turning towards the villain. "Why'd you help me?" he questioned, rubbing his left temple and part of his forehead.

"I'm not entirely opposed to killing, but I need a good reason to get my hands dirty. You aren't one. And you know damn well why a hospital is too big of a risk," he replied evenly.

"Don't you think helping a hero would soil your reputation? They'll think you're going soft." An involuntary shiver racked the hero's form, his current lack of a shirt being the culprit as he continued trying to melt his headache away with his fingers.

"And you'll go telling? You really think I got here without knowing how to hide my dirty laundry? If I kiss up to the soulless bastards, the others will think I'm disgusting for murdering some child. If you can't play by your own rules, you might as well already decide what you want on your gravestone. God, why am I still talking to you?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut.

The kid said nothing, shivering again and staring at the floor. Manipulative little bastard. The villain tossed him a blanket draped on an arm chair as flippantly as he could before walking out.

Soft. He didn't like that word, didn't like its implications. He didn't like how the hero, with all his childish naivety, was still sharper than he expected. Sure, he was a kid, a bloody injured kid technically at his mercy, but the magnitudes of his trust in the hero and that of the ridiculous distance he could throw him had an awfully large difference between them. If he could spare this kid once and then nurse him back to health, what was to guarantee that with enough time he would melt into something unbearably weak and malleable? He tugged at the roots of his hair in frustration, wishing his mind could shut up for even a moment.

It looked like the kid had even managed to ruin a steamy shower for him.

"Where are your parents?" He asked, walking in, now in fresh clothes, not bothering with a mask since the hero practically knew where he lived now.

His head snapped up sharply, his shoulders tensing in apprehension underneath the blanket. "I don't know. We've never met," the boy answered with perfect emotionlessness, and the villain despised how well it mirrored his own attitude. The hero felt more like a pseudo-adult than a kid.

"Okay." He wasn't going to pry any further, and it seriously didn't matter to him if the hero was lying. But he imagined he wasn't. The kid didn't have the slightest idea what a sense of self-preservation was. But was it really the villain's job to give him one? To do any of this?

He found himself in the balcony again, his elbows resting on the railing, another cigarette between his lips. He was twenty-five, not intending on having any kids now, if ever, and here he was. "Just a merciful mood," he thought. That was all it was. The hero would recover, they would go on their separate ways and hopefully never encounter each other again.

Right now, however, he realised he was going to have to grit his teeth and play pretend parent for the little brat. "Go clean up. Upstairs, bathroom on the left. If you pop your stitches, I'm not bloody redoing them again, don't care how much you bleed out," he bit out tersely.

He was lucky he still had enough food left over from yesterday because even though he normally didn't mind cooking, he was in no mood for it today.

It wasn't so long before the hero was done showering, and in some of the villain's clothes, comically loose on his frame. "I swear if you ask me some dumb question about the food being poisoned, I just might do it for real," he warned, something entirely feral in his eyes. And if the hero had known the man better, he would've known the gesture was purely theatrical.

"Some place you've got," the hero attested, breaking the tense silence between them.

The villain couldn't help as his lip curled into a lopsided smirk. "I'd love to tell you that I'm in this field purely for my moral stance, or lack thereof, but the pay is just too sweet to ignore."

"Alright. No henchmen or servants to do your bidding?" He raised an eyebrow at him inquisitively.

"Nah. If you work alone, no one can stab you in the back or slack on the job and screw everything up for you."

The hero let out something between a tired sigh and a laugh, and the tension in the atmosphere resurfaced again, thick and uncomfortable but not at all unfamiliar.

The rest of the evening they'd spent in total avoidance of each other until the villain had practically thrown himself into his own bed, after giving the hero a room to sleep in. He'd tossed and turned so many times he'd lost count, the dark corners of his mind tormenting him with disturbing ideas of the consequences of his decision. He'd known he was paranoid, but was it really this severe?

His tired, red-rimmed eyes had cracked open only a little after sunrise, the jolt of waking up with a start infuriating to him. Grumbling under his breath, he threw a robe on his form, too lethargic to even put a shirt on, and almost instinctively he slowly made his way upstairs. . .

. . .to find the hero's room empty, his clothes on the bed, and just like he'd suspected as he went downstairs, the dirty suit missing along with its owner.

Well, the kid was out of his hair now, left to face the consequences of his own pathetically foolish decision. Any lingering feelings of disappointment in him had simply and efficiently been ignored as he went on with his day, completely teen hero-free.

"Just a merciful mood," he'd reminded himself every time he'd wondered if the hero would randomly show up and attempt to fight him again. And the day turned into weeks and then into almost a month or two, he wasn't counting, and the hero no longer disturbed the peace of his thoughts.

Until he didn't. . .

All it took was an inconspicuous text notification he wouldn't have even noticed if the phone wasn't in close proximity of him. Other Villain was at it again with trying to piss him off, subtle threats, trying to ruin his plans, all sorts of stupid garbage in a series of pathetic attempts to get back at him.

Well, he would give him exactly what he wanted, as a last wish of course. Kindness was a virtue.

The drive there felt longer than it actually was, but everything felt slow when he was pissed anyway. But there wasn't any reason to care about speed, was there?

He must've thought he was so clever, like Villain hadn't bypassed his fortress's crappy security a million times before, as he was doing right now. And he'd finally found the room where the prick was cowering away, kicking the door in effortlessly.

"It's playtime bast-"

His words were immediately cut off and caught in his throat as his gaze flitted over from Other Villain's sick, smiling face to Hero's diminished figure. If he'd believed the hero looked terrible before, there was a whole new level of hell written all over him, bruises on every inch of skin that his tattered suit exposed, tried blood caked over his lips and matted hair, the golden blond now a dishwater gray with filth. He was bound in ropes, and still through it all, his jaw was set, the muscles of his face tensed perfectly in place just not to show emotion.

And yet his eyes betrayed him as he looked at the villain apologetically, doing everything in his power to stop himself from breaking down in tears.

"Listen, whatever the hell you want, leave the kid out of it," the villain growled.

Other Villain merely let out a soft, genuinely amused chuckle. "So you do care for him. Well, you'll be happy to know that even after all this," he tugged on the hero's hair harshly, and the villain wondered if he could grit his teeth any harder, "he blatantly refused to give me your location. I'd almost thought you'd kill him, but when I saw you take him, and then he was back alive and well, I figured it out."

Of course. He was nothing, if not a cowardly rat. He couldn't possibly let Villain know he was being followed, rather deciding to drag him right here in his territory.

"Close your eyes, kid."

"Bu-"

"Close your goddamn eyes," he snarled, and the hero obliged.

He knew the kid could still hear everything, but it was better than nothing, no matter how much he hated it.

Once again, everything the villain was doing was reflexive, but this time, an inexplicable rage took over his limbs, spreading like wildfire all over his body, something akin to poison in his bloodstream.

He mercilessly kicked the other man down, and once he'd gotten up, the villain's switchblade was in his thigh, twisting it through the skin and flesh and tearing through it with reckless abandon, blood spurting everywhere.

He couldn't even hear Other Villain scream, seeing only red both literally and figuratively, as he pulled his knife out and pushed it back in so many times he lost count, till he finally pulled away from the other criminal's mangled corpse, bone and blood vessels sticking out grotesquely in some places, his breathing laboured and his shoulders tensed as though he were no more than a wild animal.

He wasted no time cutting through Hero's restraints. "Didn't I tell you not to bloody play martyr?" he choked out, pulling the kid into his arms as the knife clattered to the ground.

"Why'd you do it?" he said softly.

The hero had stiffened at first at the contact, but now he was practically leaning into the villain with all his weight, barely able to hold himself up as he shook like a leaf in the older man's arms, slowly reciprocating. "You c-could've let me d-die," he breathed out, tone uneven and shaky as the villain felt the fabric of his costume get progressively damper. "You didn't. Yeah, I ran away, I freaked. I can barely trust. . .people I'm supposed to trust, let alone a villain, and I'm sorry, didn't mean to screw you over."

"It's okay," he replied carefully, tears streaming down his own face silently, awkwardly patting the hero's hair. He was still fairly new to the whole affection thing. "Let's go home." The villain waited till the hero pulled away before gesturing for him to follow.

One year later. . .

"I take it your date went well seeing as you're back this late?" the kid, now seventeen, and a considerable few centimetres taller asked, sprawled out lazily on the couch, practically his now as much as it was the villain's.

"Was a bloody disaster actually," he said through a snort, sliding his jacket off on a chair, a bit too lazy to change right away.

The teen let out an amused hum, gesturing for him to explain further.

"She tried to poison my drink. Shame she was pretty cute, though." He sat himself down next to the vigilante (he still fought crime, but he selectively ignored what the villain was up to. . .), letting out a tired sigh.

"And you just. . .called it a day?"

"I told her if she led me to her employer, I wouldn't shoot her. never go anywhere unarmed if you can. See, I spilled my drink on the floor. And it turns out she works for a bastard, and well. . .hungry dogs aren't loyal. So he's dead, and I'm even with my sugar-sweet date."

The hero couldn't help it as his smile turned into a laugh, the villain soon following suit. Instinctively, the villain wrapped his arm around the younger's shoulders, mirroring the kid's grin.

Whatever that was between them may have been far from perfect. Sometimes, there were days when they'd accidentally aggravated each other's older wounds, days when they just didn't have the right words and days where they didn't fully understand. But maybe they didn't have to all the time, maybe they just had to try. They still had time, much to learn and a lot to figure out. But at least they knew for a fact you can find a family in people you can choose.

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