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grxmreaperx · 7 months

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See You in Hell Pt. 1

hey guys! this is the first part of the OC story i've been working on! not much of Mark in this one, mostly setup for the story, but he is in it! also still working on a title! hope you guys like it <3

Pairing: Mark Hoffman x Lana Walker (OC)

Word count: 2.3k

Warnings: canon violence (Jigsaw trap)

Summary: After exacting some long-awaited revenge, Lana Walker finds herself stuck in a Jigsaw trap. And the creators have taken a special interest in her.

“Hello, Lana. I’d like to play a game.”

Fuck.

My head spun as I opened my eyes. The bare lightbulb above my head illuminated the stone room. Cool metal pressed against my neck, the weight pulling my head down.

“Does revenge make you feel better, Lana? Did killing that man bring your friend back? Or do you just enjoy being cruel?”

I groaned, eyes lifting to meet the screen in front of me.

“You use sex and alcohol to fill the void your friend left, trying to prove to yourself that you have control. I am here to give you your life back, Lana. Around your neck is a device that is rigged with blades. After this tape is finished, you have two minutes to retrieve both keys needed to unlock the device. If you do not retrieve both keys, the device will constrict, slicing your throat.”

My heart beat faster, suddenly aware of the blades inches from my neck.

Jigsaw.

I had heard about him on the news, his fucked-up games meant to rehabilitate.

“One key you already have. You simply need to look inward.”

My hands scanned my body, pulling away quickly when I felt the blood soaking my side. Lifting my shirt, I ran a finger over the fresh stiches. Motherfucker.

“The second key will be slightly harder to get. There is a man, chained down in the corner of the room. I’m sure he looks familiar to you. He is in possession of the second key. And you will need him to unlock the second lock. How far are you willing to go to save yourself, Lana? Are you willing to work with a man whose death you have fantasized about? Live or die, Lana. Make your choice.”

That’s when I saw him. Slumped in the corner, leg chained to the wall. Unconscious. The judge.

The television clicked off. The timer began clicking down. Game on.

My hands roamed over my tools: a knife and a key, left to me for my game. Head clearing, eyes suddenly in focus, I jumped up. He had placed a mirror on the wall. You will need him to unlock the second lock.

I turned, examining the device around my neck. One lock laid on my chest. The other on my back, just out of reach. Goddamn it.

I quickly swooped down, grabbing the knife in one hand and the key in the other, before frantically trying to stuff the key into the first lock. Not a fit.

I took a breath, stalking towards the man in the corner. I slowly approached him, assessing to see if he was really unconscious. I landed a kick on his leg, startling him awake.

“Get the fuck up.”

“Where am I? Who are you?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask. And I’m the person you’re stuck in this sick game with. Now get the fuck up.”

He staggered to his feet, almost tripping over the chain binding him. Suddenly, he winced, grabbing his side. He lifted his shirt, stiffening as he saw the twin to my stiches. He looked at me, fear in his eyes. “What do we have to do?”

I steadied myself. 1:30 left.

I tore a piece of fabric from the bottom of my shirt, stuffing it in my mouth and biting down before lining the knife up with the fresh incision.

“What – what are you doing?” he stuttered, eyes wide and fixed on my exposed skin.

I pressed the knife into the wound, nails digging into my other palm. The sound of stiches snapping filled my ears, white spots filling my vision. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I forced a finger into the open wound, digging for the key. I screamed around my gag, biting down so hard I would’ve bit my tongue off if it weren’t for the piece of my shirt. My finger hit something hard, and I pulled, desperate to stop the pain. I heard metal clang onto the floor, the blood coated key lying at my feet. I crouched, gripping tightly to the key, and fixed it into the first lock.

I heard it pop open, falling to the floor. I spit the fabric out of my mouth my eyes fell onto the man. “Your turn.”

His head was down, eyes fixed on a piece of paper, scanning the words written for him. He looked up at me, his face shifting from afraid to determined. “Give me the key.”

0:59.

“No.”

He began palming around his back, before pulling a blade out of his waistband. “I said give me the key, you bitch.”

“You first,” I said, motioning to his side.

He tossed the paper aside before lunging at me, knife swinging through the air. “What the fuck!”

“It was you. He’ll let me out, he’ll let me out, I just have to do this. Come here!”

I jumped back, narrowly avoiding the tip of his blade. “Just relax, okay! I’ll give you your key if you just drop the knife.”

He was sobbing now, tears rolling down his face. “I can’t, I can’t! I have to do this!”

I grabbed his wrist as he swung at me again, spinning my back to him, and driving an elbow into his throat. He gagged, staggering backwards. I planted a foot on his chest, pushing him to the ground and kicking the knife away from his hand.

0:45. Fuck.

I kneeled over him, raising the knife above my head. “You wanna see how far I’ll fucking go, Jigsaw?” I screamed into the barren room, before plunging the blade into the judge’s side. He yelled, head falling back against the concrete as I dug my hand into his skin.

I pulled key number two out of his blood. The man was quickly fading, there was no way he would be able to unlock the collar.

0:30.

My eyes darted around the room, searching for anything I could use.

Until they landed on his hand. And the bloodied knife I gripped tightly.

I stuffed my second key into his hand, wrapping his fingers tightly around it. I lined the knife up with his wrist, forcing the blade down through skin and bone. I sawed at his appendage, placing all my weight onto the blade. Finally, his hand fell from his arm, the little remaining life in his eyes quickly fading.

I grabbed the hand, blood coating my own, and rushed to the mirror.

0:15.

I reached my arm behind me, quietly praying for the first time in my life that this plan would work, that I would be able to do this. My eyes were fixed on the mirror, turned just enough that I could see my arm straining towards the lock. I could almost feel the blades piercing my neck, severing my head from my body.

My muscles strained as I reached, trying to fit the key clasped in the dead man’s hand into the lock hanging on my back. For a moment, I thought it wouldn’t reach, I thought this would be the room I die in.

0:10.

The key locked into place.

The padlock clanged to the ground and the collar loosened. I tore the thing from my neck, throwing it towards the corner of the room. I watched in horror as the device constricted, blades forming a circle the size of a quarter.

I forced air into my lungs, collapsing to the ground.

That’s when I remembered his note. I crawled over to his body, grabbing the paper.

Hello, Judge Morrison. The woman before you is a killer. If you wish to make it out of this room alive, you must strike first.

Motherfucker.

My vision began to fade, and the thought hit me: what now?

Would someone come get me? Or is this some rigged game, Jigsaw watching me bleed out on the floor after beating his sadistic trial?

Just as I thought my fate was to rot here, a door opened on the far side of the room. A large figure loomed in the doorway, making its way over to me. I gripped the knife, one hand clutching my side.

“You fucking did this to me.” I raised the knife as best I could, determined to get out of this room alive.

“Wrong guy, sweetheart. You wanna meet the one that did this? I suggest you put that knife down.”

“Show me your hands. How do I know you’re not just going to finish me off?”

He raised his gloved hands, letting out a small laugh. “Because that’s not how he works.”

My grip tightened on the knife. “I’ll go with you. But I take the knife with me.”

“I think you’re forgetting you’re not the one in control here.”

My gaze fell to the floor, trying to weigh my options, heading spinning. I sighed, letting the knife fall from my hand.

“Good idea,” he said, before moving towards me. I tried to push myself to my feet until I felt his arm hook around my legs, roughly lifting me onto his shoulder. I tried to stifle a groan, my open side pressing against his jacket.

I screwed my eyes shut, the bright light a stark contrast as he carried me out of the dark room. My head pounded, burying my face in his jacket to keep the light from my eyes.

I heard a door open and suddenly I was thrown onto a table. I forced my eyes open, finding myself in a makeshift hospital room, my body lying on what looked like an operating table. I pressed myself up, sitting up on the table and taking in the figure in front of me.

He had removed his hood and his gloves, shedding his now blood-soaked jacket as well. He ran a hand through his dark hair, trying to fix the mess his hood had made. He was tall with broad shoulders. I tried to assess his build, his strength, trying to figure out what part to aim for if I needed to run.

“Get your shirt off.”

“Excuse me?” I swung my legs over the side of the table, trying to plant them on the ground before he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down.

“If you want that side stitched up, you’re gonna have to take your shirt off.”

I hesitated, assessing the man as he gathered a needle and thread from a first aid box.

He looked at me from the corner of his eye, full lips pulling into a smirk. “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. This is just part of my job.”

I slowly complied, pulling my ruined shirt over my head, and setting it beside me on the table. “Do I at least get a new shirt? Since you and your ‘boss’ ruined mine.”

“You look like you’re ready to pass out and you’re worried about a new shirt?”

“I asked a question.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, fine. I’ll get you a new shirt.” He made his way over to the table, placing himself next to my legs as he sterilized the needle. He examined the wound, placing a rough hand on the skin of my stomach. He let out a small noise, almost sounding impressed.

“Pretty clean. At least made it easy for me.” Without warning, he stuck the needle in my side, carefully sewing up the incision. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, feeling the sweat dripping down the back of my neck.

“Would you hurry the fuck up? Or do you just like seeing people in pain?”

“Do you want it done right or do you want it done quickly?”

“Both, would be preferable.”

He poked the needle into my side, above the wound, looking at me with a cocky smile. “Oops. Sorry, was trying to hurry it up.”

I wanted to take a fist to his nose, wiping that look off his face. Restraining myself, I grit my teeth until he was finished, wiping a cloth covered in alcohol over the stiches.

“There. Feel better?”

“Yeah, I feel fantastic. What do you think?”

He chuckled, grabbing my shirt off the table, and throwing it in a nearby trashcan before making his way to a duffle bag on the table next to mine. He unzipped the bag, digging around until he pulled out a button-down shirt and throwing it in my direction.

I stuck my arms into the large shirt, pulling it over my chest and buttoning it up.

“Better, your majesty?”

I gave him a stiff smile. “So, what now? I beat your fucking game. Can I go home now?”

“Not yet. Someone wants to meet you.”

“Do I get a choice in that?”

“No, but you get to choose if you’ll be good or if I need to tie you to a chair.”

“You’re hilarious, you know that? You’ve made this whole experience so much better.” I slowly stood, steadying myself as I glared at him.

“Does that mean I need to tie you down?”

“Fuck you.” After a moment of silence, I said, “Fine. Where is he? And if you try and tie me down, I’ll rip your hands off.”

He shook his head. “So angry, aren’t you? Follow me.” He nodded his head to another door at the far side of the room, stalking over to it as I followed behind.

“Are you going to tell me who you are?”

“We’ll see.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

We walked down a long hallway in silence. He pushed open the door at the end, leading me into a large workshop. It was filled with tools, blueprints, hunks of metal. More traps.

He pulled over a chair, motioning for me to sit. I kept my eyes locked on him as I settled into the chair.

My hands gripped the arm rests, weighing my options.

Before I could make a move to run, I heard a door open.

tag list: @bee-who-isnt-french, @enigmatic-blues, @kujofam, @aliengutzstuff, @mysunfishpeedinmyroom, @slut4hoffman, @schrodingersjigsaw, @hoffmansnightmare, @karmaswitch, @mrs-hotforhoffman, @returntodustsblog, @capan-deveraux2, @switchbabeeexo, @librababe99, @sweetsunflowerkisses

#saw #saw franchise #fanfic #mark hoffman #fanfiction #oc #mark hoffman x oc

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his4evernalways · 11 months

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This is a original story I wrote because I was bored ⚠️⚠️TW: g*n k*dnapping if you get triggers by these topics then place do not read

How long have I been trapped here? A couple of days, maybe a week? I’ve lost all concept of time here, and all I have to stare at are the four cement walls of a basement with no decor in sight. The man who kidnapped me comes in once a day to feed me, he gives me a singular piece of bread and a small cup of water. He has me chained to a chair only letting me out once a day so I can eat the food he sets out on the cement floor for me. I’ve tried to escape once, but it didn’t go so well. I snuck out of the basement and grabbed his gun that he oh so stupidly left on the dining room table. I picked up the gun and started my venture down the twists and turns down the hallways until I could see the front door. As I turned the corner to see the front door I looked over to the living room to see him asleep on a recliner with an expensive looking bottle of whiskey in hand. I tiptoed over towards the front door to hopefully not wake him up, but as it seems fate was not on my side. As I made it closer and closer to the front door I looked back to the living room to see him still asleep. After what seems like forever I finally made it to the front door checking one last time to make sure he was still there, he was. I finally started to open the front door, neglecting to notice the movement behind me. I was finally free or so I thought. As I was about to run out the door, hands grab my waist harshly and pull me back inside the house. I started thrashing around trying to get away from my kidnapper to no avail. I thrash more as tears begin to stream down my face as I begin to wonder how I got in this position. He closed the front door and I tried to take that as an opportunity to try to escape again to no avail. That's how I ended up here in the basement. I think that it has only been a couple of hours because he hasn't come down at all other than to throw me down here. Oh right, I forgot to tell you my name. My name is Ellianna Steele I'm 22 and my kidnapper..... My guy best friend Colton. We were walking to my dorm on the way back from our classes at Jackson University when he drugged me and took me here. If I'm being honest, I have no clue where we are. All I know is that it's a small cabin I think and it's surrounded by woods. I had begun to suspect Colton had feelings for me in the past but now.... I'm not so sure, unless it is true but to a really high extent like a yandere type level. Yes, I read the yandere stories on Wattpad.. I think they're interesting. As I finished my inner monologue Colton came down the stairs in a hoodie and sweatpants, his fluffy black hair peeking out of his pulled up hood, carrying something. I snap up hearing footsteps and the sound of dragging filling the basement. Colton sets down the object. It's big and white but I can't see clearly in the darkness enough to make out the object. Colton pulls down the string attached to the lightbulb and turns on the light. I look over at the object I seen. It's a bed! Maybe I was right and Colton is a yandere. Coltons forest green eyes look down at me staring at me curiously as if studying my appearance before looking over at the walls. " I know you've seen the bed already, I'm bringing down a sheet, blankets and pillows so you can stop sleeping in the chair." Colton says in the deep voice I used to love. Did i mention the fact I was in love with colton.. Probably not but oh well. Colton unchains me from the chair, breaking me out of my inner monologue. I look over to see the bed fully made waiting for me to sleep in it." Thanks" I mumble taking him by surprise as if he was expecting me to stay quiet. I start to walk over to the bed as Colton says " I made mac n cheese upstairs if you're hungry and you can take a shower as you clearly need it" he says gesturing up and down at me. 'Who the fuck does this guy think he is!?' I yell internally. Calmly I say thank you once more before starting my trek upstairs to the kitchen to get some food. I made it to the kitchen where a clean plate is waiting for me on the table waiting for me to fill it.

#original character #original work

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finaldestination-3 · 2 years

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"Probably about that time, right?"

"You would know better than I would." He looks from them to the clock on the wall. "But in this case yeah it is."

Kouta retreats into the kitchen to fetch the important items. As he picks up the bill bottle carefully and goes to unscrew the top, the medication rolls around a little inside and makes a very minute noise. There are plenty for a couple weeks but it'll need another refill before the month is up. Thankfully he's not worried about that at all and secures the cap again when he has one of the pills safely closed in one hand. A drink is the next item to grab so he fetches a mug from the drainboard, cleaned earlier in the day, and sets in on the table. Water is the most basic option but he feels like changing it up today and goes to open the fridge to review his other options.

There's a decent selection of cans of soda in the pull out drawer and he carefully considers each for a moment but ultimately decides against all of them. He knows that Shin won't mind whatever he brings them so he doesn't feel guilty about not asking what they'd prefer tonight. His gaze shifts to the inside of the door and spots something that gives him that lightbulb moment as soon as the soda drawer is closed. A recently purchased carton of eggnog from the premium brand. Immediately he knows that this is going to be it tonight and retrieves it from where it sits next to various sauces and condiments, bringing it over to pour in the mug he'd pulled out moments earlier.

"Sorry I'm taking so long." Kouta calls into the other room. Usually he's quicker about this but tonight his mind is a little scattered.

"No worries." Comes the relaxed replies. From their spot on the couch in the living room, Shin is fixated on the nature documentary that had been playing on tv for the last half hour. Truth be told Kouta would like to get back in and see more of it as well.

The carton is placed back into its spot in the fridge door, the fridge itself is closed again, and he takes both the drink and the medication into the other room to give them to his partner. As expected they were watching the same thing that had been on when he left the room but something else caught his eye when he looked at the couch. Another body had been curled up against Shin, watching with them, thankfully quietly. Kouta stopped in his tracks and went to say something harmless but found the words would not come out. An awkward feeling took hold in his hands following his inability to speak and he internally had to curse this terrible timing.

Shin, noticing out of the corner of their vision that their partner had stopped suddenly and wasn't moving again yet, turned to look at him and ask what was wrong. "Something the matter? Anything I can do to help?"

"Yep." Kouta manages to get out. "Please take these from me right now. Having a moment and I don't want to drop them."

"Gotcha. Let me know if there's anything else."

Dark green eyes keep focus on Kouta as they make to get up but the chain of events that unfolds is a little too quick for Shin and before they know it the cup falls out of Kouta's grip and plummets to the floor. Thankfully the other figure that had been loafing on the couch springs into action and makes a dive to catch the falling cup before it can hit the floor and break into so many pieces. The river otter Vega, one of the four summons that belonged to Shin, made it just in time and was now laid out on his back with the mug held high in the palms of his webbed paws. At least the messier object has been rescued. The same could not be said for the pill that also tumbled from Kouta's other hand when the phantom shift had run through him. It fell somewhere in the carpet and he let out a groan when he realized how much of a pain in the ass finding it again would be.

"Son of a bitch." Kouta manages to shake off the last of what had frozen him in place and resorts to cussing. "Sorry about that, hate when that shit happens."

"Can't be helped." Shin shrugs, completely unbothered. "What happened anyway? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Combination of animals on tv and otter on my couch just tripped a fucking Shift. Suddenly my hands felt like ferret hands and those aren't compatible with holding things."

Vega rolls over right side up just then, the mug safely resting on the carpet with minimal spillage when he lets go, and he looks up at Kouta with his unique yellow eyes. "Sounds like you're just bad at it."

The orange eyed man bends down to grab the fallen cup and sets the still mostly full thing down on the coffee table before addressing what the otter had said. "You try overlaying weasely hands on a human body. I know I don't actually have hands that look the way they feel and that's what trips me up."

"Quitter talk. You should try harder." And with that, the little mustelid hops back up on the couch and curls up.

"Probably ignore that." Despite everything, Shin laughs. "And when you find that pill I'll take it even if it's been on the floor for god knows how long."

"Not afraid of carpet essence?"

"Not in the least."

Orange eyes look into midnight green and Kouta allows himself to let go of the frustration. It helps more than he can describe to have a partner who doesn't get up in arms at small problems like this. So he gets down on his knees to look closer for the little red med and it only takes him a brief search before it turns up. Whatever it had touched on the carpet remained a mystery and didn't bother Shin anyway so Kouta handed it over to them promptly. Once it was down the hatch, chased with what was left of the eggnog in the mug, he finally joined them on the couch on the other side of where Vega was posted. The otter turned up his nose at the former Shinobi and simply enjoyed whatever the hell was going on on the screen at present. He had his master to pet him so nothing Kouta could say or do from then on was going to phase him.

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saltybaltic · 3 years

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Natasha Romanoff X Reader - FIVE FEET WORTH OF PROBLEMS

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow X Super Soldier Reader

Synopsis: Natasha isn’t the tallest member of the team which leads to her needing help sometimes (for clarity this is based on MCU Nat when she is just little and I’ve made the reader a super soldier simply to be more inclusive cause we’re not all 6 feet tall)

Warnings: language

Words: 1435

(1 ft)

One of the things you’d noticed about Natasha from the word go was her stubbornness. Especially when it came to asking for help. She was a firm believer that if something needed doing, there was no reason she couldn’t do it herself. Even so, you couldn’t help but laugh at some of the situations she tried to handle by herself.

For example when you walked into the kitchen one morning and saw Natasha straining to reach the ceiling from a set of step ladders, you couldn’t hold in a small chuckle as you went to pour a coffee.

“Need a boost?” you joked, grinning up at the other woman over the rim of your mug.

Natasha didn’t seem in the mood for your humour, shooting you a quick glare before continuing to try and reach upwards, “This damn lightbulb has been out for three days now and not one of you idiots has had the inclination to change it.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” you stated, taking a swig of your drink before placing it down and stepping closer so you were able to look up at the other woman, “You’re never going to reach.”

“Shut up.” shot back Natasha, huffing out a growl of frustration and standing as tall as she possibly could on her tip toes, “Why in the hell have we got the shortest step ladders in the world when the ceilings are this high?!”

You laughed, seeing Natasha’s frustration getting the better of her as you gestured for her to move, “Come on before you break your neck, let me do it.”

“If you were going to do it you would have done it by now!” snapped Natasha, “I can do it.”

“Okay but I mean, clearly you can’t.” you teased, not in the least bit put off by Natasha’s blatant irritation. Seeing she wasn’t going to move from the step ladders, you hopped up onto the kitchen counter beside her and stood up straight. The counter was about the same height as the ladders but you were still head and shoulders above the other woman as you reached up with ease and unscrewed the lightbulb.

The fact you had not only made it look so effortless but had also done it in a matter of seconds only seemed to annoy Natasha further, her jaw working as she narrowed her eyes in your direction, “And yet you still couldn’t be assed doing it three days ago?”

“Like I said,” you started, holding your hand out as Natasha begrudgingly slapped the spare bulb down into your palm so you could reach up and put it in place, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Sorry I didn’t realise you suffered from blindness.” grumbled Natasha sarcastically as she made her way down from the ladders, “My condolences.”

Even with the snappy attitude from the other woman, you had to grin back at her, “I think the words you’re looking for are, thank you for your help.”

“Kiss my ass.” muttered Natasha, folding up the ladders and making her way back out of the room.

Hopping down from the counter you shouted after her, “Any time.”

You just about caught the rude finger gesture she sent your way before she disappeared down the hallway.

(2 ft)

The next time you had to help Natasha you found her much more accepting of your assistance; seeing her in the gym one evening and staring between the punching bag on the ground and then back up at the hook on the ceiling with a frown.

You had to smile, seeing the other woman obviously trying to figure out a way to get the equipment where she needed it but unable to find a solution. “Seems I’m always in the right place at the right time these days.”

Turning to see who had joined her, Natasha folded her arms and tilted her head with a small smile, “I suppose you are, yes.”

You walked over to join her, bending down to grip the chain at the top of the punching bag before lifting it carefully towards the ceiling and clipping it into place. Natasha watched intently as you did so, her eyes drawn to the flex and strain of the muscles in your arm with the action. Instinctively she swallowed, feeling a small lump in her throat and a dryness to her mouth that she hadn’t been prepared for. Of course it was no secret that you were enhanced but she couldn’t deny it was impressive to see an example of your strength. Especially in such close proximity.

Turning back from the punching bag, you didn’t fail to notice the way Natasha’s eyes were focused on you and the slight flush to her skin. You broke out into a smirk, flashing the red head a wink for good measure as you gestured to one of the corners of the gym, “I’ll be just over there if you need help with anything else.”

(3 ft)

Getting a knock at your door one afternoon, you weren’t particularly surprised to see Natasha on the other side of it. Granted you weren’t the closest of friends but you felt like your relationship with the other woman had been improving over the last few weeks. There was a sort of ease that had settled over the pair of you, finding it almost effortless to be in one another’s company. Comfortable silences were becoming more common and playful, flirtatious banter had quickly replaced the usual indifference towards one another.

Despite not being surprised to see the other woman, you couldn’t help but be a little shocked by what came out of her mouth when you answered the door.

“Can you come and help me with something?”

Leaning against the door frame, you thought for a moment and shot the red head a playful smile, “Is there a please in there somewhere?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Please.”

“Lead the way.”

Following behind Natasha, you were even more surprised when she took you to her bedroom, having never seen the other side of her door before. The room was predictably nice and tidy, not to mention tastefully decorated.

Natasha didn’t give you much time to take in your surroundings, clearing her throat to get your attention, “I um ... I need this mirror hanging.”

You looked down to where the red head was pointing, seeing a large, tall mirror leaning against one of the walls, “And what? It’s too heavy?”

“I can’t reach.” admitted Natasha, her words quiet as if she didn’t want anyone to actually hear what she’d said as she motioned over to the far wall, “It’s like a six foot mirror and well ... that’s a little out of my reach. Plus, yeah, it’s really heavy so I didn’t exactly want to be stood on a ladder with it.”

Nodding your head in understanding, a small smirk made it’s way across your face, “So you, Natasha Romanoff, need my help?”

“Don’t be an ass about it, this is exactly why I didn’t want to ask one of the boys.” grumbled Natasha.

Laughing quietly, you gave her shoulder a small squeeze as you walked over towards the mirror and assessed what needed to be done, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

Natasha settled herself on the edge of the bed, neither one of you speaking as you worked silently at setting the brackets up on the wall and making sure everything was in place. You could feel her eyes on you the whole time, occasionally looking up from what you were doing and receiving a small smile in return.

When you were finally finishing up, you had to admit that Natasha wasn’t lying and the mirror was indeed very heavy. You huffed out a breath as you lifted it into place, straining slightly as you tried to get it level and hook it onto the brackets, “Jesus Nat, what’s it made of? Solid gold? This thing weighs a tonne.”

She chuckled at your comment, laying down on her side and resting her head on her hand as she watched you hang the mirror in place, “But you make it look so effortless.”

“Oh so that’s what this is,” you laughed, turning to face the other woman, “You just wanted to check me out.”

Natasha clutched a hand to her chest in mock horror, “Me? I would never.”

“Sure you wouldn’t.” you teased, bending down to scoop up the few tools you’d used and placing them on the bedside table next to Natasha. Giving the other woman a grin, you stepped close enough that you could gently pat the side of her cheek a couple of times, “Don’t worry though, I don’t mind checking you out too if that makes us even.”

For a moment it looked like she didn’t know what to say, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she was trying to work out if you were being sincere. By the time she spoke you had already stepped back and made your way towards the door.

“Not sure I have nearly as much to show off about.”

Turning back to face her for a moment, you let your eyes trail over her body slowly and purposefully before looking back at her with a smirk, “Oh I would have to disagree with that.”

(4 ft)

“What you making?”

Your words seemed to startle Natasha, the spoon she was stirring her food with dropping against the side of the pan with a clatter as she gasped and turned to glare at you, “It’s rude to sneak up on people!”

“Well I didn’t exactly sneak.” you chuckled, walking around the breakfast bar to stand beside the other woman and peer down at the stovetop, “So what is it?”

Natasha shrugged, “Just pasta.”

“How exciting.”

Pushing you in the arm playfully at your tone, Natasha gave you a mock scowl, “I was going to offer you some but now I’m not so sure.”

“Well how do I even know you’re a good cook, it might be awful.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, dipping the spoon into the sauce in the pan and scooping some of it up. She held her free hand underneath it so not to drop any as she moved the spoon towards your mouth and raised her eyebrows expectantly, “Open up then.”

Looking down at the food cautiously, you blew on it for good measure before opening your mouth and taking the sauce from the spoon. You swallowed, running your tongue over your lips as you assessed the taste before pulling a face, “Needs more salt.”

“I know.” sighed Natasha, stirring the sauce again with a defeated slump to her shoulders, “But it’s in the top cupboard.”

At her words you had to laugh, running your hand over her back comfortingly, “Aww can you not reach the salt?”

“Don’t be a dick.” scolded Natasha, hitting you gently in the stomach but not shying away from your touch on the small of her back.

Reaching up to the cupboard above her head, you pulled it open and looked inside to retrieve the salt, earning you a quiet thank you from Natasha in return. It didn’t pass either of you by that even as the pair of you had settled into silence and the red head busied herself with adding the salt to her food, your hand remained on Natasha’s back, your thumb occasionally brushing delicately over her shirt.

The fact she seemed to enjoy the contact, almost leaning back into you to get closer, made your next words fall easily from your lips.

“How about for dinner tomorrow, I take you out somewhere?”

Natasha paused her stirring of the pan for just a second, your question taking her a little by surprise. You both knew that things had been leading this way, with every day that went by you seemed to be getting closer. The flirting, subtle touches and lingering stares were common place now and it was no secret that you were both clearly attracted to one another. Natasha supposed she just hadn’t expected you to ask her so casually and boldly. Still, she couldn’t deny it was what she wanted.

“Okay. I’d like that.”

(5 ft)

“This was nice.” offered Natasha, her arm slipped in to link with yours as you walked through the doors and back into the compound.

You nodded, tilting your head to look at her with a smile, “It was.”

“Thank you for dinner.”

Walking the red head down the corridor towards her room, you shrugged nonchalantly, “Thank you for joining me.”

The rest of the walk was silent until you reached Natasha’s door, the other woman reluctantly removing her arm from yours and taking a step back, “Next one’s on me.”

“Next one?” you asked with a grin.

Natasha nodded her head, reaching forward to smooth her hand over the front of your shirt, “If you want there to be a next one.”

“I think I could handle that.” you joked, bringing your hand up to join Natasha’s and brushing your thumb over the top of it.

The two of you stood in silence for a few moments, a small smile on your face as you simply enjoyed being in one another’s company for a little while longer.

Natasha smile widened as she watched your line of sight drop for just a second to her lips, now certain enough that you were probably thinking the same thing that she was. Giving you a playful grin, she took a step closer, “You know I would kiss you but, you’re a bit out of my reach.”

With a small laugh, you nodded your head slowly and reached down to cup the side of her jaw with your hand, “How about I come down to your level for once?”

Allowing you to tug her closer, Natasha smiled into the kiss as you ducked your head and brought your lips together. Neither one of you felt the need to rush or deepen it, happy to move your lips slowly together as her hands came to rest around your waist and your fingers brushed the side of her cheek. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but when you pulled back you were pleased to see that Natasha looked just as happy as you felt. Giving her hand a final squeeze, you nodded to the door behind her, “Go on, get inside before I change my mind and don’t let you leave.”

Laughing at your comment, Natasha reached up to grip the back of your neck and pulled you back down to her level so that she was able to press a kiss to your cheek, “You know, I see a lot of leaning down in your future.”

“Honestly? I really don’t mind.”

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #black widow #marvel #Natasha Romanoff fanfiction

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whump-a-la-mode · 3 years

Note

Could you do a car or motorcycle chase where the hero is chasing villain on an icy road? Villain spirals off the road and gets into a bad accident. Hero cares for them and Villain wakes up in pain with hero as comfort

Oooh, I really like this one! I’ve never really written much with vehicles (and if my writing doesn’t make it obvious, I’ve never been on a motorcycle) so I hope this is good. Thank you for the prompt!

CW//Motorcycle crashes, hit by a car, broken legs, non con medication, strong language, pills

Tires spun against asphalt, struggling to grapple the slick road below. When at last the motorcycle gained enough friction, it lurched forth, beginning to screech down the street. The engine screamed with effort, but its throttle was pushed ever further.

Every vibration rattling the tires was funneled directly to the vehicle’s rider, threatening to shake them from their secure position in the saddle.

Villain gritted their teeth, twisting the throttle even as it growled in protest. On either side of the street, trees turned to blurs of color, unable to be distinguished from one another. But they were still not going fast enough.

They knew, as they could still hear the other engine behind them. The other machine was larger, bulkier, but altogether slower, giving Villain the advantage of speed.

But, at the moment, that was the only advantage they had.

The heist had been meant to go off without a hitch. They’d spent weeks planning it, weeks huddled away, bribing security guards and hackers alike, until they were certain that their prize was theirs.

The prize that the heroes had stolen from them. Their motherfucking staff. Locked away in a museum under more security than the president. An ‘artifact of villainy.’

Every variable had been accounted for. Every schedule tracked, every floorplan studied with ruthless intent. The plan had to be perfect, foolproof.

Villain had heard on the news exactly what the heroes planned to do to them if they were ever caught in the act again. They shivered at the thought.

They had been so sure. So sure that the scheme was impeccable.

But an unaccounted for tripwire, a lost intern, a clumsy drone, and they’d been thrown into a world of alarms and blaring red lights.

Now, they couldn’t care less about the staff, left behind where it was in its glass case. What mattered was saving their own hide.

With straining muscles and aching hands, Villain twisted the throttle, feeling the engine lurch before them as it coughed a cloud of exhaust.

The corner was wide-- even at their speed, they should have been able to make it without difficulty. Slowing down was too big of a risk. They hit it full speed.

Black ice.

Their motorcycle’s tires howled as they failed to grip asphalt, finding only air and ice in its wake. In desperation, Villain yanked the handlebars, struggling to turn-- but only managed to send their vehicle into a tailspin.

They held tight, bracing, bracing. But they were slowing, gaining control, gaining traction.

They were okay. They weren’t going to be captured!

Villain was so relieved that they didn’t notice the truck.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Villain jolted upwards, they screamed.

Even as their eyes snapped open, their mind refused to process any sensations. Any sensations other than pain. Electric, agonizing pain, overtaking every sense. Filling their ears, their eyes, their mouth.

Their lungs. They couldn’t stop gasping, even as more than enough air flooded their trachea.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Lay back down.”

The voice seemed to come from the aether-- a million miles away. It was not pain, and thus their mind deemed it insignificant. Villain hardly even felt the hands, pressing on their shoulders, forcing them onto their back. They struggled, jerking about frantically, but their stupid body wouldn’t reply.

“Down. You need to stay down.”

The voice disappeared a moment, leaving with the sound of footsteps, before returning with an even more urgent tone:

“This will help with the pain. Open your mouth.”

No! Pills... someone was trying to give them pills. Where were they? They shook their head violently, but only managed to increase their own agony. Who was this!

The heroes. They’d been captured and- this was torture. They’d hurt them already, shattered their body into a million pieces, and now they wanted to make it worse. Whatever those pills were, they weren’t going to help with anything.

If only they could see through the pain, see what horrible prison they’d been placed inside.

“You need these.” The voice insisted- it was familiar.

A shiver wracked their body.

“Hero...” Villain groaned. Yet, before they could close their mouth, a thumb had already jabbed between their teeth.

Shit.

They struggled to bite down, move their head, anything that would allow them to block the intruding finger from their lips, but it was no use. They could hardly even move. Maybe that’s what the pills were doing. Holding them down, forcing them still. Paralyzing them.

With their struggles in vain, there was nothing to prevent the chalky pills from being deposited onto their tongue. But they wouldn’t swallow, they wouldn’t. Hero couldn’t force them to.

A second object was forced to their lips-- the ring of a water bottle. Liquid flooded their mouth, and before they could spit, their jaw was forced close, their chin tipped upwards.

Villain whined, jerking as much as their weakened body would allow. The feeling of water in the back of their throat sent their gag reflex on overdrive, but the firm hand under their chin would not allow them to spit out the liquid. They lasted perhaps ten seconds before the discomfort became too much to bare. Shivering at the horrible taste, they swallowed.

The hand released its grip, retreating.

“I’m sorry.” Hero sighed. There was no mockery to it-- somehow, they’d managed to make their apology sound genuine. “But you’ll start feeling better, any second now.”

Better. Yeah, right.

Yet, after a few moments of pause, they felt it. The warm numbness, first reaching the tips of their digits, before flooding their chest, and, at last, their legs.

Their legs. That’s where the pain was coming from-- with it lessened, they could now pinpoint the source.

And, they could see.

“Fuck you.” Villain prefaced, before prying open their heavy eyelids. In all respects, they expected something extreme. Either the blinding sterile illumination of a hospital, or the dim, single lightbulb of a torture chamber.

But, there was neither. Instead, the room was bathed in a soft, warm yellow that paradoxically made them terribly tired.

Where were they?

They scanned the room, looking for whips, chains, scalpels, but found only...

Couches.

A few of them, backed up against beige walls, separated by nightstands rendered of white wood. Turning their head as much as they could manage, they looked back on themself.

Villain, too, was on a couch-- legs laid out on an ottoman before them. Both of them, wrapped in heavy, immovably plaster.

“Wh-” They parted their lips.

“You need to keep your voice down.” Hero spoke. Their voice was so... coaxing. Where was the malice? The venom? “They don’t know you’re here.”

“Where...”

“My house.” They admitted.

“Y...”

“We can talk about it later. Right now, what you need is rest.”

“No.” Villain’s voice came out as a snap, fatigued as they were. “I- I need to go. Let me go!”

“I have no intention of harming you.” Deep in their tone were laden seeds of pity. “You’re hurt. I can tell, you can hardly stay awake, now.”

Was it really that obvious?

“I’m fine. I need to go! Please, please, don’t hurt me.”

“No, no.” The seeds had sprouted into blooms of pitiful coaxing. “You got hit. A pick up. They said you’re incredibly lucky, that you didn’t hit your head. I don’t want to hurt you. But you need to sleep.”

“I’m not going to be your prisoner.”

“You’re not anyone’s prisoner. I’m just trying to help.” They sighed. “But if you want to make this difficult, then I have sleeping pills, too..”

“No! No.”

“You’ll go to sleep?”

“...Fine.”

“Good.”

“I’ll... I’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Mhm.”

“Will you be here?”

“Yeah. I’ll be just over there, okay?”

“Okay.”

As Villain allowed themself to fall into unconsciousness, the last words that slipped from their fatigued lips were:

“Fuck you.”

#ask #prompt #villain whumpee #whump prompt #hero villain whump #whumpblr #whump community

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darlingyanderes · 4 years

Text

Welcome home - Yandere!Tanjiro Kamado x fem!reader

Warnings: kidnapping, reader has panic attack

When she woke up, the first thing (Y/N) felt was a piercing headache.

The pain travelled down her spine, leaving her groaning in agony. When she moved her hand to clutch her head, she heard a strange clinking and dragging of metal. Instantly, a bad feeling nestled in her stomach. Slowly prying her eyes open, she saw the source of the sound.

Around her wrist were large metal cuffs attached to a short chain. They looked old and rusty, but the chain was secured tightly to the wall to prevent her from escaping.

The bad feeling grew into a panic as (Y/N) shot up and tried to pull on the chain with all her might, time and time again. Yet the metal didn’t back down. Tears of frustration filled her eyes as she stopped her feeble attempts at escape and looked around to find another way out. However, her surroundings only made her turn into a hyperventilating mess.

She was currently in a basement, with no windows letting in sunlight. There was a single lightbulb hanging from a string in the middle of the room. The only furniture to be spoken of was the old dirty matrass she was sitting on. The only way out was the dark door in front of her.

Thoughts began racing through (Y/N)’s mind. What if she was kidnapped by some serial killer? What if someone was going to go through that door and demand a kidney from her?

Panic completely took over as her mind went blank and she started crying uncontrollably. She slid herself over to a corner on the mattress and hid her face in her arms.

Click.

The familiar sound of a door opening.

(Y/N) didn’t dare to lift her head, afraid of what she might see. If she’d be killed right now, she’d rather not know how. Unable to stop shivering, she tried to crawl into herself further.

The person who opened the door was slowly approaching her with careful footsteps. Each step closer made (Y/N) dig her fingernails deeper into her arms. She expected a kick, a slap, a pull of her hair, but she was surprised to hear a soft soothing voice calling out to her.

“Hey there, (Y/N).”

(Y/N)’s eyes widened at the mention of her name. How did he know her name?

“I know that this is all very scary, waking up in a new place like this. I know you’re so scared that I’m going to hurt you, or do weird things to you, but I promise that I’m not going to do anything like that.”

If she were in a rational state of mind, she would’ve known that this was all nonsense. But somehow, his voice calmed her down. Her hands relaxed their grip on her arms and she dared to glance at her captor with tearful eyes.

She saw a young man with dark red eyes looking back at her with a gentle smile. His black hair was ruffled and he had a large scar on his forehead. He looked somehow familiar.

When he saw her investigating him, he let out a small chuckle.

“Hello, nice to meet you, I’m Tanjiro. I was the one that brought you here. I’m going to keep you with me and take care of you, okay?”

If (Y/N)’s face showed some kindness towards her captor before, it all turned into despair now.

Tanjiro immediately put up his hands to make her feel at ease and hastily added: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to hurt you! I just want to keep you safe. The outside world is too dangerous for someone as precious as you, so I took you with me to protect you. You understand that, don’t you?”

Realisation hit (Y/N) like a ton of bricks. He was Tanjiro Kamado, a Demon Slayer. She used to treat his wounds when he returned from missions, but she didn’t know more about him than his name. Why on Earth would he want to keep her safe? Just what was he going to do to her, how long would he be keeping her here? What about her friends, her family?

New tears were threatening to fall out, causing (Y/N) to hide her face in her arms once again. She couldn’t see him, but she heard him reach out to something and then scoot closer to her.

“(Y/N)? (Y/N), please don’t cry. Look, I have a little gift for you!”

Panic began to set in again as she feared it would be some sort of weapon. A hand ghosted above her right foot before gently landing on top of it, as if it was scared to touch her but wanted to reassure her nonetheless.

(Y/N) once again peeked out from her shelter, and saw a bright green frog plushie a few inches from her face.

“It’s a new friend! Her name is Lily.”

Tanjiro smiled as he wiggled the toy around, urging her to take it.

(Y/N) hesitated, but eventually decided it would be smart to play along with him. She didn’t want to see what an angry Demon Slayer was capable of. Cautiously, she reached out her hand to accept the gift.

Tanjiro’s smile grew even brighter as he saw (Y/N) holding the toy close to her. As his thumb stroked the top of her foot, he softly whispered: “Welcome home, (Y/N).”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere tanjiro #yandere tanjiro kamado #yandere fic #gentle yandere #tanjiro kamado #yandere demon slayer #yandere Kimetsu no Yaiba #yandere writing

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juliandev0rak · 3 years

Text

Into The Wild

Chapter 3: Goldenrod

✧ Into The Wild Series ✧ playlist ✧

Words: 3055

“Willa! She took my beads!”

“Willa, Lucio told us there are sharks in the lake, is that true?”

“Willa I got a paper cut!”

Willa takes a seat at the front of the arts and crafts cabin and takes a moment to breathe and re-center. She’s been at Camp Vesuvia for two weeks now, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t exhausted from being constantly on. Someone always needs something from her, and there's only so much coffee one person can drink to stay energetic and peppy through it all.

She gives herself thirty more seconds to wallow a bit, and then she’ll get back to the campers. Willa breathes in slowly as she watches the little hand on her watch tick out the seconds, and exhales. Thirty seconds are up.

“Ok campers, gather up!” Willa calls, her enthusiasm only slightly fabricated, her smile only slightly tired.

Thirty minutes later, the campers are happily working on their art projects and Willa has another chance for a break. She likes to give them free choice most of the time, they can do anything they want with the supplies in the cabin. Some of the campers are painting, others making bracelets, and one kid in the corner seems to be making a spaceship out of modeling clay. It's chaos, but Willa likes to think it's the organized kind, or at least the fun kind.

She steps outside to check on a group of campers making flower chains, humming as she walks. The hum gets stuck in her throat as Willa stops, looking around the empty clearing in confusion, and then panic. The kids she’d seen only five minutes before have vanished, and though it's not unusual for campers to wander off to some other activity, they’re supposed to tell her first.

Willa is about to call Nadia for help when she hears a camper’s voice say, “Is that a wolf!?”

The word “wolf” puts her on alert and Willa hurriedly follows the sound of the camper around the side of the arts and crafts cabin. She sighs in relief at the sight of the kids she’d been looking for. And sure enough, they’re busy petting a large black wolf.

Her first instinct is to pull the campers away, but the wolf looks up at her with kind eyes and Willa realizes that she knows this wolf. “Inanna! What are you doing here?” She scratches her behind the ears and Inanna sniffs at her hand happily. “Is Muriel around?”

Inanna stops licking her and turns towards the building next door, a storage shed with a door ajar, and Willa realizes that Inanna is giving her directions. She turns towards the campers first to give them a quick lecture on not approaching unfamiliar animals, especially wolves, and sends them back inside. Muriel steps out of the storage shed and nearly hits his head on the top of the door frame in his surprise as he sees Willa.

“Muriel! Over here!” she calls, waving him over. For a moment it looks like he’s going to walk away, but he finally turns towards her. He stops several feet away and Inanna trots over to his side.

“Can I help you with something?” Muriel asks.

“I was just wondering what you’re doing,” Willa smiles, leaning down to pick up a flower one of the campers had dropped on the path. It’s a dandelion, some people would call it a weed, but Willa has always liked those sorts of flowers best.

“I’m working.”

“What are you working on?”

Muriel looks at her warily. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“Yes, I’ve been told that before,” she laughs, her fingers busy twirling the stem of the flower.

“I help Nadia sometimes, around the camp. There was a light out in the shed,” Muriel explains, pointing back towards the small cabin he’d just exited.

“Oh, we’ve got a lightbulb out in the arts and crafts cabin too! I uh, couldn’t reach it and i couldn’t find a ladder or I would’ve changed it myself,” Willa turns towards the still open cabin door. She points to the back corner where a lightbulb flickers faintly. “If you’ve got a minute, could you replace it?”

Muriel regards her for a moment and then turns to walk away in the opposite direction. She watches him incredulously and walks back into the cabin with a huff, “How rude.”

A few minutes later, Willa is busy helping a camper with a tangled bracelet when Muriel enters the cabin. A few of the campers greet him as “Ranger Muriel” and Willa can’t help but smile at the way he greets the campers back. He knows a lot of their names and seems interested in the projects they’re working on.

“Where did you go?” Willa asks as he approaches her table.

“To get a lightbulb.” He holds it up to show her and crosses over to the left side of the room where the dead light is.

“Oh,” Willa says, feeling bad for assuming he was being rude. “Thank you.”

It takes him only a minute to change out the lightbulb, but when he’s done he doesn’t leave. Instead, he walks over to where Willa is sitting, awkwardly hovering for a minute before she notices him and looks up.

“What are you working on?” he asks. It takes him a minute to get all of the words out, as if the question took a lot of effort to ask.

“I’m making a friendship bracelet!” She holds it up to show him. It’s a design of her own making, a repeating pattern of different kinds of leaves all made in green thread. If a certain green-eyed park ranger was the inspiration for the color palette, she’ll never tell.

“It’s nice.”

“Thank you!” Willa says proudly, setting the bracelet back down carefully. “Would you like to make one?”

Muriel takes a step towards the door. “I should get back to the station.”

“Of course. Feel free to stop by any time!” she smiles. He gives her a nod as he leaves, and Willa’s attention is soon pulled away by campers.

Later that evening, Willa finds herself huddled over the fire pit mourning the loss of yet another marshmallow. She can’t seem to toast a marshmallow without catching it on fire. Asra comes over to watch as she tries again, and this time goes marginally better, she’s able to blow the fire out before her marshmallow burns to a crisp.

“I wouldn’t eat that,” Asra says, eyeing the charcoal colored marshmallow.

Willa adds a piece of chocolate and smushes it between two graham crackers without a care. She eats the s’more in one giant bite, wiping chocolate off of her chin as she chews. “Well, it’s a good thing that was my marshmallow then.”

“You’re bad at s’mores,” Asra frowns.

“There’s no wrong way to s’more, Asra, you’re a marshmallow snob!” Willa points the end of her metal marshmallow skewer at him and he backs up, holding his hands up defensively.

“I am not, I just prefer my s’mores to be edible.”

“Perhaps my tastebuds are more developed than yours,” Willa teases, “I can appreciate the delicate flavor of blackened marshmallow.”

“Sure, you just keep telling yourself that,” Asra laughs. He walks off to join the rest of the camp staff on the other side of the amphitheater, leaving Willa to her marshmallow pyromania.

“You’re too impatient, you have to cook it low and slow,” the now-familiar gruff voice comes from behind Willa, startling her.

She turns towards Muriel, her face pulling into a grin at the sight of him, “You came!”

Muriel’s lips pull up into the barest hint of a smile as he looks back at her, but his eyes quickly shift away. “You’re a fire hazard, I had to make sure you weren’t going to set the forest on fire.”

“It’s not my fault all the marshmallows spontaneously combust!”

“You’re too impatient,” Muriel repeats.

“I am not impatient!” Willa frowns and shoves another marshmallow onto her skewer, nearly stabbing her hand on the pointy end.

“Careful,” Muriel eyes her cautiously, keeping a safe distance away from the sharp end of her stick.

“Fine, if you’re so good at roasting marshmallows show me how to do it.” Willa holds the skewer out to him and he grabs it, their hands briefly touching as she passes it over. They both recoil as if they’ve been burned and Muriel clears his throat as he turns away from her and towards the fire.

“Hold it over a smaller piece of wood, away from the fire.” Muriel demonstrates, holding the marshmallow low over one of the smoldering logs instead of putting it directly into the fire as Willa does. She watches him intently, but she’s looking at his face rather than the marshmallow lesson. In the firelight, she traces the sharp line of his jaw with her eyes, marking the shape of his nose, his eyebrows, his lips.

“See?” Muriel hands her the skewer, breaking her out of her daze. Sure enough, the marshmallow is perfectly golden brown, not a burn mark in sight.

“You’re a wizard, this has to be witchcraft,” Willa marvels. But even magical marshmallows need to be eaten. She prepares a s’more and hands it to Muriel, who seems quite surprised to be handed the sweet treat.

“It’s not magic, it’s patience.” Muriel takes a bite of the s’more and Willa watches as his eyes close halfway and his lips pull into another rare smile at the taste. He must like sweets, Willa makes a note to remember that. Maybe she’ll bake him something. She notices a bit of chocolate on his cheek, next to his lips, and reaches up to brush it off without a thought.

“You had chocolate on your face,” she explains as Muriel pulls back in surprise. “Sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Muriel looks away, but the fire is just bright enough to illuminate his blushing face.

“Alright, I’m gonna try it,” Willa changes the subject, sparing them both the awkwardness. She prepares another marshmallow, gently rotating it over the log as she’d seen Muriel do.

Her marshmallow is not quite as perfect as Muriel’s was, but it still tastes great. Whether it's the amount of sugar she’s had or her proximity to Muriel, she feels more awake than she has all week, and bolder too. “I made you something.”

“You— what?” Muriel’s eyes widen as he looks at her.

“I made you a friendship bracelet.” Willa reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls the bracelet out. She doesn’t know when she decided to give it to him, but it feels like he should have it.

“A friendship bracelet?”

“Yes! We’re friends, aren’t we?” Willa holds it out to him and he takes it, holding it carefully as if it’s breakable.

“I guess.”

Willa laughs, shaking her head at his comment. “You saved me from a bear, that makes us friends.”

Muriel holds the bracelet in the palm of his hand, his eyes still glued to the green woven threads. “You don’t have to give me this, are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, I made it with you in mind,” Willa admits. “Here let me help you put it on, if you want.”

Muriel holds his wrist out, and when Willa’s hand rests on his arm they both freeze, looking at each other briefly before their eyes move away. She tries to focus on the task at hand and carefully ties the bracelet onto his wrist. His skin is so warm against hers, and his hand is calloused. Willa resists the urge to run her fingers along the lines of his palm, but she still lets her hands linger longer than they should.

“There. I think it suits you.” Willa takes a step back and sits down on the amphitheater bench, stretching her legs out in front of her. Muriel hesitates for a moment before taking a seat next to her, closer than she would’ve expected. They sit in companionable silence for a minute until two campers run up to ask Willa a question.

“You’re good with them,” Muriel comments after the kids have scampered off.

“The campers are sweet, most of the time,” Willa smiles, thinking of some of the more mischievous kids she’s met over the last few weeks. “I think it must be hard to be away from your family for so long, eight weeks is a long time for a child.”

“Mmm,” Muriel agrees. He busies himself with tracing the leaf pattern on his bracelet, his fingers working their way around the trail of leaves and back around again.

Willa leans back, tilting her head up towards the sky and the stars which are just starting to appear. “I was shy as a kid, and I pretty much only had my family since we lived in the middle of nowhere. I think a camp like this would’ve been good for me. I did go camping with my family a few times, but that’s not the same. Did you ever go to camp as a kid?”

“No.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“I never knew my family,” Muriel replies, looking vaguely uncomfortable at the admission.

She turns to look at him, but he keeps his gaze fixed to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

Muriel nods at her sympathetic comment and turns to look up at the sky. He shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and sighs, his voice a bit softer as he asks, “Do you have siblings?”

“I’ve got two brothers, one older and one younger,” Willa replies, her thoughts turning to the family she left behind to move to the city. It's been years since she last saw her brothers, and being in a place like this makes her miss them more than usual.

“Do you miss your family?” Muriel seems surprised at his own question, as if he didn’t mean to say it aloud.

“I miss my brothers, but my parents... well, I think we get along better from a distance,” she sighs. “Things are complicated.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.” For a moment Willa thinks about saying more. She wants to tell him everything, where she’s been, where she wants to go. She’s pretty sure that he’d listen. But Willa’s not ready for that yet, she doesn’t want to ruin the fragile friendship they have, so she changes the subject again.

“A few of us are going into town later since we have tomorrow off. There’s a little bar that does karaoke on Friday nights, Asra and Portia roped me into it. You could come with us if you want.” She has a feeling she already knows what his answer will be, but she doesn’t want to miss out on the slight chance of spending more time with him.

“I don’t sing.”

“Well, I must warn you, if you don’t go you’ll be missing out on Asra and I dueting every song in ABBA’s discography, complete with choreography,” she says. To her surprise Muriel laughs, the sound deep and gravely and somehow very comforting. Willa joins in with him, unable to stop the smile spreading across her face.

“I hope you have fun.”

“If I come back tomorrow with my voice gone, blame Asra,” she laughs, looking across the fire at her friend who is busy talking to Nadia.

A few moments pass in silence as Willa watches sparks fly from the fire, bright spots of gold standing out against the dark sky. Finally she looks up at Muriel, her breath catching a little in her throat as she tries to think of something to say. She wants to ask him to stay, to spend more time with her, but instead she says, “Thanks for showing me how to roast the perfect marshmallow.”

She playfully nudges his shoulder with hers and Muriel looks down at her. He stiffens a bit but doesn’t pull away as she lets her shoulder rest against his arm. Then suddenly Asra is standing in front of her and Willa pulls away from Muriel, trying to hide the way her face flushes.

“Willa, you ready to go?” Asra asks, giving her a teasing grin.

“Yep!” Her voice is a tad too loud and she winces at the squeakiness. She stands up and brushes dirt off of her jeans, turning back to look at Muriel again. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ll see you around, then.” Willa turns away, taking a step towards Asra.

“Willa, wait,” Muriel calls, and her heart leaps into her throat as she looks back at him.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for the bracelet. It’s nice,” he says, just loud enough for her to hear him.

“You’re welcome! We’re friends, that’s what friends do.” She gives him one last smile and turns to follow Asra and Portia out of the amphitheater.

“So, ‘friends’ huh?” Asra teases.

“Shut up or I’m not singing Mamma Mia with you,” Willa grumbles.

Asra puts his arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze. “You wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“I hate that you’re right.”

“I’m usually right. And am I also right in guessing that you have a crush on Muriel?”

“Oh please, that’s not a guess, that's just an obvious fact,” Portia adds. “Even the campers know about it.”

“They do!?” Willa’s eyes go wide, wondering how the whole camp could possibly know when she’s only just figuring it out herself.

“Yeah, earlier I heard a camper say that they ‘ship it’,” Asra laughs.

Willa puts her head in her hands, shaking her head in dismay. “Oh no.”

“So...you’re not denying it?” Asra asks. Willa’s car comes into view as they walk up the hill towards the front of camp and she tosses her keys at Asra.

“You can drive.”

“Answer the question,” Portia prods as she gets into the back seat of the car.

“I’m not denying it.” Both of her friends turn to look at her with mouths wide open in surprise and Willa flushes red, focusing her attention on buckling her seatbelt.

“So you admit it then, you have a crush on him?” Portia grins. “Oh, I definitely have a crush on him,” Willa sighs.

“And what are you going to do about it?” Asra asks.

“Honestly? I have no idea.”

✧

#c h a p t e r 3 !#this was so fun to write ahh i love them...#asra and portia are ideal best friends i feel like drunk karaoke with them would be hilarious #i almost went to the craft store to buy supplies for making friendship bracelets after this lol #i have also really been craving a s'more #willa wednesday #willa clary #apprentice willa #muriel the arcana #milla

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lesserbeans · 3 years

Text

Hurt

The garages seemed empty. The world seemed safe.

The cold midnight wind lightly swirled Ash’s fog as xe walked. Xe didn’t know where this late night walk would take them, but xe didn’t mind. Xe took those walks often since the day xe was allowed to break through the veil. Just the night, the wind, and xem. Those walks were healing, and healing is what they needed. After bringing Rabbit back to life they were tired. All of them were.

The watcher rounded yet another corner, around yet another garage. Thinking over what happened, what went wrong, what could be done better. Ash wasn’t sure if xe hid fast enough for the EMT’s not to spot xem, but xe hoped it wouldn’t be a problem.

Ash kept all of their eyes open, watching a street lamp flicker when xe passed it. The wind kept playing with xyr’s fog, sometimes touching their body.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. The world was asleep.

The garages seemed empty. The world seemed safe.

Sadly, things rarely are just as they seem.

Something else broke through the fog, making Ash yelp in pain and suprise.

Something covered the watcher’s head and pulled xem back, knocking xem off balance.

„I got it!” someone shouted right by them.

Ash stumbled backwards, xyr’s eyes unfocused and obscured. Some of them got a view of four people surrounding them, but the rest of them were spinning wildly, making the watcher dizzy and distracted.

„Go away!” -Ash cried out, lightly hitting the person in front of xem, trying to scare them away.

„Tame it! Now!” Yelled the person Ash hit. Their voice was harsh and angry.

Something wrapped around Ash’s body. It felt hot and cold at the same time.

Xe struggled and pulled at the bondage, trying to break free, but no dice. It only burned xyr’s hands, leaving nasty gashes over them. Silver was the only metal that could do that. The chains must be silver coated.

Ash kept trying to break free from the chains, but the people kept wrapping them around xem and tugging, and moving xem around making xem loose xyr’s balance over and over. Then, someone hit xem in the head. That was too much for the foggy creature to handle. Xyr’s world went dark.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was so dark Ash wasn’t sure if xyr’s eyes were open or not. It was really quiet too, quiet enough for xem to hear their own heartbeat. Something was stuffed inside xyr’s mouth. It tasted like fabric and slightly tickled them.

Their whole body pulsed with dull pain, especially the wrists and ankles. When xe tried to move, something rattled and the pain got worse. They were still chained in silver then.

The watcher laid fully back down on the cold, hard surface. Xe began wondering if it was metal or wood when something creaked, and some light fell into the room, blinding Ash for a small moment.

More light appeared, shining down on xem, and the person who walked in. It was a tall man with a pale face and brown eyes. He looked at Ash, furrowing his brows in annoyance. The watcher wondered what made the man so angry. Was it xem?

They tried to say hello, but it was hard to talk through the cloth in xyr’s mouth.

„Be quiet, demon.” said the man, „The easier you make it, the faster we will be done.” He put something down next to Ash with a quiet ‘thunk’. That thing stuck to their leg.

Demon. The man called xem a Demon. The watcher’s blood boiled with anger. Xe struggled against the chains, trying to cuss him out through the gag. Xe only manager to gurgle out something incomprehensible to both themselves and the man, when something hit xem. Xe was too weak to call on the fog, so it stung like all hell. Xe stopped in their tracks, taken aback by the pain.

The man wiped his open palm on his clothes, as if disgusted by the watcher’s touch.

„Ut tacet.” he comanded. ‘be silent’. He crouched down for a second. Ash could hear him unlatching something.

He really thought Latin could hold xem back. Laughable. Xe responded by making a throaty gurgling sound.

„Stop.” The man didn’t look up. Judging by the sounds he was putting something metal on the floor.

Ash focused all their eyes on the man’s back. He was dressed in something black and long, like a dress. The fabric shifted with the man’s movements.

Finally, he got up and started slowly walking towards xyr’s head.

„I must confess, I am very conflicted right now.” He tapped his palm with something. „I could kill you right this instant,”he pointed one end of the metal thing at xem, „I could purge the world of your existence in Lord’s name, ensuring that you are no longer a problem.” He waived the thing in front of Ash some more, letting xem see it was a knife. He stopped and raised it over where he thought xyr’s heart was.

Ash froze. They were awfully aware of the fact that angering the man could get xem killed faster.

The blade was slowly raised, the light glinting from the metal surface. It reflected gold eyes and purple skin on xyr’s body.

Then, the reflection was obscured by a fast movement of the man’s hand, bringing the knife down.

Ash looked away.

„Or.” The knife stopped about an inch from the watcher’s chest. „I could keep you alive. Get to know the enemy. Find out how to get rid of you faster and better, for God’s glory and the safety of the people. …hmmm…” he tapped his chin, „It is tempting. I could try…”

Oh no.

Ash tried to move again, rattling the chains. Xe yelped in pain at the silver rubbing their skin and hissed at the man trying to rip away the knowledge. He could not find out about all of them. He was not a case, or needed for one. He could not find out!

The man smirked. „Ah. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” He turned around and returned to the place at Ash’s feet. He bent down again and dropped the knife. He kept crouching and looking at something, then there came a sound of something closing. The man stood up and walked out of the room.

The watcher looked up at the two bare lightbulbs. They gave off warm, yellow light.

Ash concentrated on them and made the flicker. An easy trick, but it was enough to scare some people off.

The door slammed open, then closed. The man walked into the room again.

Ash made the lights flicker once more. They heard the man’s footsteps get faster, then a sound of metal on wood.

„The power of Christ compels you!” The man yelled.

Ah, a christian. Xe could’ve expected this. The light bulbs flickered more and more.

„The power of Christ compels you!” The man screamed again.

‘Does it tho?’ Ash smirked below the gag. The lights kept flickering.

The watcher was slowly losing xyr’s grip on the lightbulbs, as well as reality.

„The power of Christ compels you!!” There was fear in the man’s voice.

It was the last thing Ash heard before losing consciousness again.

The lights stopped flickering. Everything in the room was still, including Arthur Blythe. He stood still, slightly bent forward, with a crucifix held out like a shield.

The demon was laying down, perfectly still. It’s many eyes weren’t blinking.

Is it.. dead?

The priest stood up straight. After a couple more seconds he lowered the crucifix. Nothing happened.

He looked around the whole room, checking the corners and shadows, trying to see if anything was hiding in there. There was nothing. He did not like that.

Was it awake? Maybe it needed a little push?

Arthur brought the crucifix up again and stood in a more comfortable pose.

He breathed in.

„Hello?”

The only thing that answered him was silence.

Did he kill it?

He tapped the demon’s leg. It didn’t respond. He walked up to where it’s heart should be and checked it’s pulse. Somewhere deep down there was a heartbeat. Not dead then, just passed out.

That meant he could do tests easier, without the creature objecting.

He grabbed the measuring tape and got to work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ash woke up still chained down to the table. The room was dark again. The man was gone.

The watcher called on the fog, finally able to cut off the touch of wood against xyr’s body and moisturise the eyes.

The chains still bothered xem, but that’s something xe could power through.

They had no idea how much time had passed. Has it been hours? Days? Weeks?

Is Verdana okay?

Did anybody notice that xe’ s gone? Would anybody look for them?

So many questions, so little answers.

The watcher could only stare at the darkness and chew on the gag, knowing the somewhere up there was a ceiling, and a man who wanted to discover what he shouldn’t know.

Ash had no idea that said man was sitting in his desk, comparing xyr’s data to the data of the demons he’s seen before, getting more and more frustrated.

After a long time of looking into nothingness, the light turned on again blinding xem for a short amount of time. That amount of time was enough for the man to make his way over to Ash. He stopped mid-step, staring at the fog. He looked really funny to xem, with his mouth half open and the surprised look on his face. Xe couldn’t help but giggle.

„Hush.” the man barked. He walked towards xem, very slowly, bendt forward like a cat.

He looked around the room suspiciously.

„What are you planning? …” He asked quietly.

The watcher kept quiet, looking at him. What interested xem were his plans.

Humans can be very unpredictable.

The man kept walking, slowly rasing the metal cross in his hands. Ash tilted xyr’s head to see it better. It looked really weird, with something bumpy in the middle.

The man approached xem and held out his hand. It hovered over the fog, then he touched it.

It wrapped around his finger, cooling down immediately. He dropped the cross and it sticked to the fog, magnetized by xyr’s body.

The man hit them again. He hit an eye. Ash gave a muffled scream and moved the eye away, deeper into the fog.

The man stopped in his tracks again, looking at where the eye disappeared with a blank face. Then he smirked. He touched another eye, right in the iris. It hurt, so Ash hid that eye as well.

If xe could speak, they would tell him to stop. They still gave out a choked gurgle of defiance.

„Hush.” said the man. He wiped his fingers on his clothes. „Interesting….” he mumbled to himself.

He looked xem up and down, like a predator waiting to attack. Then he grabbed another eye and brought it closer to himself. His touch stung like a wasp.

The watcher started thrashing around, trying to get up and run. The man didn’t pay attention to them, still staring into the eye he was holding, observing.

The iris kept going wide and small over and over again, flashing like a broken lightbulb and moving around in the man’s hands. He poked it. Ash arched xyr’s back, screaming curses under the gag and choking on the fabric. Tears started coming out onto the guy’s hand. He looked taken aback, as if surprised that a creature can cry while in pain. Ash tugged at the eye, wanting to get it into the fog.

„Disgusting” the man dropped the eye, letting xem take it back. The watcher saw him look at the watch on his hand.

He turned around and walked out the door, turning off the light and leaving Ash blinded again.

Xe nursed the eyes the best xe could, hiding them all in the fog and quietly cried themselves to sleep.

Ash laid in the dark, xyr’s stomach slightly growling with hunger. They chewed on the fabric despite the awful taste. It helped, avery small amount, but helped nonetheless.

The light turned on again. The man walked into the room. He was wearing a button up shirt this time. He looked frustrated.

„I don’t get it.” He placed something by their feet again. „I have studied demons for years. I have worked my bones off to purge the world of your kind. But never before have I caught something like you.”

‘That’s because I’m not a demon, you dumb bum.’ Ash thought . Xe huffed through the nose in annoyance.

„Oh don’t you laugh at me.” He opened a zipper and took something out of a small bag.

He held it up above the watcher and pushed a button.

„Say cheese.” Light erupted from the small device, along with a sound. The man checked the camera.

„Uh-huh. So you do show up on camera. Very well.” He smiled.

He started taking more pictures of their whole body, including the face. Ash tried to cover xemselves, but the chains were too short.

„Stop squirming. The sooner you give up the sooner we’ll be done.” The man grabbed their eye and took a picture of it, momentarly blinding it.

Ash pushed themselves up on the elbows and tried to hit the attacker. He grabbed them by the neck and held xem down, still squeezing the eye in his palm.

„Stay down you devil!” he growled. The eye in his palm popped.

The watcher arched their back and screamed.

„Shut up!” The man raised his hand to hit them again, not realising what he’d done. But then, he saw the liquids dripping down his wrist. He scrunched his nose in disgust.

„… You’ve had enough.” He decided, turned around and walked out of the room, turning off the lights again.

The watcher kept screeching their lungs out, thrashing around in pain.

They didn’t stop even when the door slammed open and the man barged in.

„Would you shut up?! I’m trying to sleep.” He yelled.

Ash screameed in response.

„Oh, you want to scream? I’ll give you a reason to to scream then.” He hit the lights and stormed over to the table.

He grabbed an eye and squeezed until it popped. Then another. And another.

He popped the ones floating around as well as the ones on their body.

Blood and other liquids oozed all over the table, staining the sleeves of the man’s pajamas.

The watcher kept screaming until their voice gave out. Soul-tearing shrieks of pain and anguish cut through the air one by one, getting quieter and more coarse as time went by, but the pain didn’t stop. They just wanted it to stop. Somewhere along the way, xe passed out.

The man turned xem on xyr’s back and popped the eyes on there as well.

Finally, he left.

It took some time for Ash to wake up and notice xe was alone in the dark room. Their eyes stopped bleeding, the liquids drying up on xyr’s body. They didn’t know how much time passed, what day was it or if anybody was looking for xem, but they were sure they couldn’t stay with that man.

Xe called off the fog, gathering all the energy they had. It wasn’t enough to hop through the veil. Hell, it was barely enough to travel in one plane of existence. Still, xe had to try.

They pushed in with all their might and disappeared.

Xe couldn’t tell where they ended up. They just hoped someone would find xem.

There was one eye the man didn’t notice- a very small one, under xyr’s chin.

Right before they fell, it registered movement of something red in from of them. Before xe could concentrate on it, xyr’s consciousness plunged into the purple void, and their body fell to the floor.

Xe just hoped that someone would find xem.

@fazbear-ent-official

#kidnapping tw #gore tw #mild gore #religion tw #fazent

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that-winged-rat · 4 years

Text

Platonic Soulmates

*not my gif*

Summary: After a demon hunt gone wrong, you are victim to a sick game which might just cost you your life.

Pairing: Charlie Bradbury x reader!platonic

Characters: Y/N Y/L/N, Charlie Bradbury, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester.

Warnings: Angst, language, mentions/descriptions of torture, mentions/descriptions of blood, thought of death.

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Holy shit I literally wrote this whole fucking thing in one sitting. I legit just sat down and did not get distracted once, which is like a once in a blue moon thing so I hope it was worth it haha. Also I've been reading a bunch of whump tropes recently and this is the result. Anyhoo, feedback is always welcomed and encouraged. Enjoy :)

Your eyes shot open when the rattling of chains pulled you from your unconscious state. It took a good few minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and even when they did, you still couldn’t see much of your surroundings. But you didn’t need to see to know that you were on your knees and your hands were tied to the walls at either side of you. You tried to pull your hands close to your body but winced when something sharp dug into your wrist, blood dripped down your arm and splashed on the concrete ground.

“I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake up,” a voice called out from a corner in the room. You squinted your eyes, trying to see who it was, and could just about make out a figure, hunched over something on the floor. How you didn’t notice him before now, was beyond you. It wasn’t like he was trying to be quiet with whatever he was doing.

“Who are you?” You asked with a hoarse voice. He stopped what he was doing then, and turned to face you. He walked over to you and knelt down so he was eye-level with you.

“I’m the guy who’s gonna haunt your dreams, doll,” he said lowly.

“Doll? What is this, the 40′s?” You scoffed. He ignored your comment, got up and walked away. He walked to the other side of the room and flipped on the lights. Your eyes instinctively closed at the sudden brightness. When they opened, they immediately fell on what the man was standing over earlier.

“Charlie?” You asked, hoping that she would wake up. She was sitting up against the wall, her hands tied above her head with chain, which must have been what woke you up. She was sporting a couple of injuries on her face; a nasty looking bruise by her hairline, and a split lip. No doubt why she was out cold.

“Oh, she won’t be waking up anytime soon,” he said and walked back over to Charlie, tilting his head as he looked down upon her sleeping form as if he were admiring her.

“What did you do to her?” You demanded, your voice laced with venom and disgust. You pulled against your restraints again and looked over when it cut into you for the second time. You furrowed your brows when you saw you weren’t being held by chains like Charlie, but barbed wire, hence the pain.

He spun around with what you would call urgency. “Oh, no, no, no, she’ll–she’ll be fine. I just gave her an extra little konk on the head; she might be out a little longer than you,” he explained.

“What are you?” You asked as he turned back to Charlie. “Demon? Shifter? Demigod?”

He chuckled a bit. “No, I’m all human, baby.” You groaned at the nickname. “But... there is a demon who has a lot of beef with you.” He pulled out a knife from the back of his jeans and pointed it at you as he started pacing in front of you.

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, great,” you muttered. “And let me guess, he said he'd give you anything you could ever wish for?”

“Bingo.” He walked back over to you and crouched down again, this time slightly to the side of you. His arms were resting on his knees and his head turned to look at Charlie. “She looks so... delicate when she’s asleep,” he whispered with a chuckle. Although he wasn’t facing you, you could tell he was smirking as his eyes gazed over your best friend.

You leaned towards him, ignoring the metal spikes digging into your skin. “Fuck you,” you spat.

“Shhh.” The man put a finger up to his lips. “You wouldn’t want to wake her up, now would you? Not when she’s so peaceful.” A grin broke out on his face. A grin that filled your stomach with dread. You had seen it enough times to know that nothing good ever followed.

He took in a sharp intake of breath and you could practically see the lightbulb above his head. You warily watched his hands as he played with his knife, flipping it over in his palm. “I have a little game for us to play,” he whispered and brought the knife up to your cheek, caressing it with the cold metal without doing any damage. You pulled your head back, but he just followed.

“You wake her up–” he jerked his head back towards Charlie who was still unconscious– “and she’s dead.” You clenched your jaw and clamped your eyes shut when he put pressure on the knife and it sliced through your cheek with ease. “Actually...let me change that. You speak words, she gets a slice. You scream, and cupcake over there gets something more permanent.”

You closed your eyes and accepted your fate. Sure you had been kidnapped and tortured before, but you were allowed to express your pain through screams. Now, you weren’t only not allowed to scream, but Charlie’s life was on the line here. You slip up and that’s it for her.

You sighed, knowing that only one of you was going to make it out alive. And you were going to do everything in your power to make sure that person was Charlie. She has so much more to live for; friends, passions, hobbies. All you had was Charlie.

The torture continued for days; punching, slicing, kicking, slapping, hell, sometimes even whipping. You were actually proud that you hadn’t screamed yet; not that you didn’t want to. The insides of your lips had been destroyed by how hard you had been biting down on them in successful attempts to silence yourself.

Throughout your stay, Charlie had stirred awake a couple of times. But each time, the man would come through and knock her out again before she could reach full consciousness. You figured he probably had a camera somewhere in the room, where the sick fucker could watch your every move.

You were in pain 24/7. You could feel yourself slipping from the land of the living. If you weren’t going to die from the injuries, it would be blood loss; there was a steady flow of blood dripping from your wrists because of your captors choice of restraint, and of course, the other wounds that covered your body.

You were going to die here.

---

Dean stepped out of the Impala and stared up at the building that towered before him. A few seconds later, Sam joined his brother, stopping next to Dean with a duffel bag, slung over his shoulder. They went over the plan they had both agreed on and marched inside, guns at the ready.

They scoured the building, looking for their nerdy friend, eventually coming across a room with a wall of monitors, showing surveillance footage from all over the old factory. If the whole building was rigged up, the son of a bitch that did this, was probably long gone. They observed each screen before finding what they were looking for.

After a few minutes of looking, the brothers found Charlie, tied up in a corner, her face littered with bruises. Sam was the first one to run to her, then Dean a few seconds later, neither noticing you, strung up in the middle of the room.

“Charlie?” Sam called out, shaking her shoulders gently. Dean pulled out his lock-picking kit and worked on the chains. “C’mon, you gotta wake up. Charlie.” He shook her again, this time getting a response. She groaned and rolled her head to the side, gradually coming to her senses before opening her eyes. Dean muttered a celebratory ‘yes’ when he managed to get her hands free.

She groaned again, rubbing her wrists before her hands went to her forehead to feel her wounds. A few tears made their way down her face.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re alright,” Dean assured her, helping her to her feet. She froze when she looked past the brothers, her eyes catching your mutilated form. Upon noticing her distress, Dean turned around, having the same reaction as Charlie. “Holy crap.”

He passed Charlie over to Sam before running to you. His eyes and hands hovered over you, not sure where to start or what to do. Charlie convinced Sam that she was okay and begged him to go check on you.

“Sam, help me get her down,” Dean urged. The two brothers took out a knife and cut the barbed wire, causing you to instantly fall to the ground and cry out in pain.

“Dean... we need to get her to a hospital. Like now.” Sam looked over your wounds, putting pressure on the major ones to stop the bleeding. Charlie pulled herself up off the ground, using the wall for assistance. She stumbled over to you, gasping when she saw the state you were in.

Sam and Dean were careful as they tried to lift you up off of the ground; both of them acting as crutches under your arms. They got you a couple of inches up before you cried out in pain.

“Stop,” you choked out. They delicately placed you back down on the ground. Charlie ran to your side and fell to her knees, grabbing your face in her hands. You winced at the contact but she didn’t pull back.

“Hey, it’s just me,” she said, a reassuring smile on her face, keeping up a strong façade for you. “Listen, I know this is going to hurt like a bitch but we need to get you help–we need to get you to a hospital.”

Charlie was safe. That’s all that mattered to you. You wouldn’t mind dying right there, because you knew that she would be safe. But if you did die, she wouldn’t be okay. Safe, sure. But not okay.

You nodded and scrunched up your face, bracing yourself for the coming pain. And it did come. The second Sam scooped you up, it washed over your entire being. You gritted your teeth and groaned in pain for the first time in nearly a week.

There was a shooting pain constantly travelling up both of your knees, presumably from the position you were held in, throbbing even more whenever Sam took a long stride. Not to mention the searing pain surrounding each and every one of your injuries.

Dean helped his brother lower you into the backseat when they reached the black muscle car. Charlie climbed into the back next to you, and the brothers into their designated seats in the front.

The half-an-hour drive to the hospital consisted of you slipping in and out of consciousness and Charlie reassuring you that everything was going to be okay and begging you to keep your eyes open. It got kind of annoying after the first five minutes, but she was just being there for you, she was being the good friend she’s always been.

You passed out again, just before Dean pulled into the hospital.

---

“Charlie, what exactly happened?” Sam asked when they were sat in the waiting room an hour later. Once they had brought you in, you had been taken into surgery to fix you as best as they could.

“I don’t–I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “She called for my help on a demon hunt. We, uh, we tracked it down to the warehouse you found us in and then... lights out.”

“When did this happen?”

“Uh, we went to the warehouse on the 9th, so, six days ago,” Charlie said. Just then, a doctor walked down the hallway, stopping before the three of them.

They confirmed that they were the people who were with you and listened to the doctor as she went over your injuries; broken ribs, dislocated knees, lacerations, internal bleeding, blood loss, a slight concussion, and a bunch of other shit.

“When can we see her?” Charlie asked.

“She’s just getting settled into a room upstairs so sometime within the next half hour,” the doctor said with a polite smile. “I’ll let you know when you can see her.”

Sam nodded. “Thank you.” The doctor smiled again and left. Sam, Dean and Charlie sat back in their seats.

“This reminds me of my parents,” Charlie started, prompting Sam and Dean to look up at her. “You know, the waiting, the awkward doctor smile, the fancy words. Except this time, I actually know what some of the words mean.”

Dean threw an arm over Charlie’s shoulder and gently coaxed her into a hug. “She’ll be okay, Charlie. I’ve never met her before, but from what I’ve heard from her best friend, she’s strong and stubborn. She’s gonna pull through.”

She looked up at him and smiled before leaning back into his hold.

---

“Y/N/N, what actually happened?” Charlie asked a while after you woke up, deciding to give you time before you relived whatever you went through. “I mean, I get knocked out and wake up six days later and you’re half dead.”

You cleared your throat. “Um, yeah, so you probably remember going into the warehouse, right?” You looked up and Charlie nodded. “He, uh, got me too. I woke up in that room; on my knees, and my hands were tied to the walls with barbed wire. He said...” you trailed off, wondering if you should tell Charlie what actually happened. You knew that she would blame herself, and you didn’t want that.

“He said what?” Charlie pushed.

“He said... that there was a demon that wanted to see me suffer,” you lied. “He was just a man. A man who was too greedy for his own good.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to look at you. “Friends shouldn’t lie to each other.” You opened your mouth to speak but Charlie beat you to it. “You have a tell.” She shrugged.

You dropped your head in defeat. “He said that if I spoke, he’d cut you and if I screamed...”

“...He’d kill me,” Charlie completed when you, yet again trailed off. You nodded your head slowly as you numbly stared at the bottom of your bed. Your gaze was brought up to hers as she grabbed your hand. “You are frickin’ amazing, you know that?”

“What?”

“I mean it. Most people wouldn’t go through all of that pain just so their friend would be okay. And for six days!”

“Because we’re not just friends, Charlie... we’re platonic soulmates,” you said. The two of you laughing before your laugh turned into a pained grunt.

When the two of you met a few years back, you clicked instantly. It was like something you only see in movies. Within the first day of knowing each other, you already had a bunch of inside jokes. One of them being that the two of you got along so well because you were platonic soulmates.

“How could I forget? Platonic soulmates,” she repeated, a wide and genuine smile reaching her eyes.

You gladly returned the smile. “You are frickin’ amazing too, nerd,” you smiled. She playfully shoved you, being careful of your injuries.

Sure you were in agonising pain, but now you knew that Charlie was safe and okay. And you would take sore and happy over dead and... well, dead, any day. You had your platonic soulmate and you knew that she would be there every step of the way on your who-know-how-long road to recovery.

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madasthesea · 5 years

Text

Trope: Peter calling Tony “Dad”

Peter wakes up to being roughly dropped on a cold, concrete floor.

He lays still, listening. There are five heartbeats in the room, one person breathing fast.

“Touch my son again and I’ll kill you.”

Tony. Tony’s here and... he just called Peter his son. Which is confusing.

Someone scoffs. “You’re tied up. What can you do?”

“That’s my son,” Tony growls, voice dangerous. A shiver goes up Peter’s spine, but not out of fear. Awe, maybe. Tony is every inch the superhero Peter has always wanted to be. “Touch him again and I’ll kill you.”

Another voice chuckles, low and gravelly. There are steps, and the scent of old cigarette smoke wafting toward Peter.

There’s a brief silence, and Peter wants to open his eyes and see what’s happening but he doesn’t want to give himself away.

“Alright, Stark,” someone says. It’s the smoker, Peter can tell from his voice, and probably the leader of this little kidnapping. “We won’t hurt him. As long as you promise not to try to escape.”

Voice calm, as if negotiating a simple business transaction, Tony clarifies, “You don’t touch him, and I promise nothing but good behavior. Though I don’t suppose I’ll get time off for that.”

“No,” the same man agrees, sounding eager for whatever he has in store for Tony. “You won’t.”

A key scrapes, chains clatter to the floor.

“Go get the kid,” an even crueler voice instructs.

Peter forces himself not to jump when he feels warm hands turn him over.

“Peter. Up and at ‘em, buddy,” Tony murmurs near his ear. Peter makes a bit of a show of blinking himself into consciousness, squinting around at the gathered men in alarm.

“Dad?” he asks, pitching his voice to sound scared. If they’re playing the ‘ordinary kid’ angle, Peter’s going to do his part.

Tony’s hand squeezes his shoulder once in relief at Peter following his lead.

“Wha’ happened?”

“Come on, kiddo. On your feet.” Tony hauls him up without answering, keeping an anchoring hand on Peter’s arm as they get led out of the small room.

They jostle Tony along, but no one lays a hand on Peter, as promised. The hall they walk down is narrow, a single high window showing a glimpse of night sky.

They’re shoved into a room with a single cot, metal toilet and sink, and a bare lightbulb in the corner. It looks like a prison cell.

The door slams behind them and they’re alone. Neither speaks for a moment, looking around at their surroundings. There was one thing Peter had missed: a security camera, the red light blinking steadily at them.

Tony sends Peter a look, letting him know he saw it too.

“You ok, Pete?” he asks, and immediately the camera pivots toward them, following the direction of Tony’s voice. It had sound as well, then. Good to know. They’ll have to keep up the charade even when alone.

“I’m fine, Dad,” Peter mutters. Tony’s hand slips up to Peter’s neck, gently squeezing the back. Then he walks over to the cot and sits down, leaning against the wall. He sends a sideways glance at the camera, then Peter, then pats the spot next to him. Peter sits as well, pulling his knees up to his chest. Tony slings an arm over his shoulders, gathering Peter into his side.

“That camera has night vision,” he observes mildly. “You can tell by the lens color.”

Peter hums. They sit for a few minutes in silence, Peter’s head on Tony’s shoulder as he contemplates their situation, before Tony stands again, walking to the other side of the cell.

“It’s probably late,” he says, and the camera pans over to him. Peter raises an eyebrow and gets a small smile in return. Test the mic, Tony is telling him without words.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Peter replies, quieter. The camera turns to him.

“There’s only one bed.” Even lower. The camera still turns.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Peter offers, whispering. Nothing.

“You’re going to have to speak up, Pete,” Tony says, winking. They found the threshold for the microphone. As long as their conversation is quieter than a whisper, they can talk normally, without hiding their plans and without the complication of pretending to be father and son.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Peter says again, standing. It is late, and they do need sleep for whatever is going to happen tomorrow.

“Don’t pretend you’re too old to share a bed with your dad,” Tony teases. “I remember what happened when we watched Woman in Black on Halloween.”

Peter scoffs. Falling asleep in Tony’s room that night had been unintentional, thank you very much. Rolling his eyes, Peter steps back over to the narrow cot.

“You take by the wall.”

Peter wrinkles his nose, but does as he’s told. He knows Tony wants to be between him and the door, should someone come in while they’re sleeping.

The bunk is so narrow they can’t lay on their backs at the same time, so Peter turns onto his side and faces Tony.

With the light off, it’s pitch black. Peter’s heightened eyesight can barely make out the shape of Tony’s face, turned towards him.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers after a moment. “They only grabbed you cause you were with me.”

“I don’t care,” Peter responds, barely breathing the words. “I only care that they’re going to torture you, Tony. And I’m just supposed to sit here and play the scared kid?”

“If I break my side of the deal, they’ll torture you, too. I can’t live with that.”

The cot squeaks as Tony shifts, his hand tracing Peter’s throat in the darkness until he finds his cheek.

“And I can?”

“You’ll have to.”

“No,” Peter hisses. “Screw that.”

“Kid, if they find out I tried to trick them, they will kill you. Probably slowly and definitely in front of me.” Tony’s voice shakes.

Peter squeezes his eyes closed, then turns his back to Tony. He’s angry. Really angry. And scared.

“Peter,” Tony breathes. He puts the hand Peter had shaken off onto his back, rubbing his thumb against Peter’s shoulder blade.

“How’d you even know that would work?” Peter asks the wall.

“The leader had a picture of a little boy as his phone background,” Tony explains. “I could tell... he knows what a father would do to protect his child.”

There’s a lump in Peter’s throat. He’s been trying to avoid thinking too much about the implications of acting like Tony’s son. About Tony claiming him as his son.

What a father would do to protect his child. What Tony would do—did—for him.

Swallowing down the tears, Peter turns over again and pulls himself closer to Tony, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder.

Tony wraps his arms around Peter, one hand cradling Peter’s head. When he sighs, it ruffles Peter’s hair.

“I’ll be ok as long as you’re ok,” Tony whispers.

They come for Tony early the next morning, according to Peter’s probably-not-very-accurate internal clock. Peter’s spider sense wakes him up and he wakes Tony with a quick nudge before the door flies open.

Tony stands, cooperating.

“Where are you taking him?” Peter asks. One of the men looks down at him and laughs. “What are you going to do?”

“Don’t worry, little Stark. He’ll get the best care available,” another man jeers, shoving Tony between the shoulder blades.

“Dad!” Peter shouts, standing, his hands balled into fists. Tony looks over his shoulder and meets his eye.

“It’s ok, Petey. I’ll see you soon, ok?”

And then they’re gone, leaving Peter in silence, his heartbeat ringing in his ears.

That night, when they bring Tony back, after Peter had spent hours upon hours pacing the cell—measuring it, looking for weaknesses, and alternating between trying desperately to hear anything from outside and praying he didn’t—Peter carefully walks him to the cot and sits him down. He’s bloody and bruised, but he’s conscious and moving and talking and that’s more than Peter had hoped for.

“Dad,” Peter says, kneeling in front of him. It’s surprisingly easy, having that word come out of his mouth instead of ‘Mr. Stark.’

Tony offers him a tired smile, but it makes his split lip start bleeding again and he stops. “Hey, Pete. Have fun while I was gone?”

Peter growls, shaking his head, and concentrates on feeding Tony the half of the dinner he’d saved—canned soup and a rather stale roll.

That night, when they lay down to go to sleep, Peter is once again next to the wall.

“Do you have a plan on how to get us out of here? I measured the cell and based on the layout of the hallway that I remember—” Peter starts rambling in a breathy whisper.

“Pete,” Tony interrupts. He turns onto his side and winces slightly. “We just have to wait it out.”

“Why? To protect me?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Tony breathes, tugging Peter closer. He sounds like he wants to sleep rather than argue, but this is the only time they can really talk and Peter has a whole day’s worth of words built up in his head.

“It is a bad thing if protecting me is hurting you.”

“We’re not doing this again, Peter,” Tony sighs. His voice is a little above a whisper, and the camera whirs as it turns toward them.

“Dad,” Peter grits out.

Tony cuts him off by twisting Peter’s chin towards him and kissing his cheek.

“Go to sleep.”

Peter, very aware of the camera trained on them and Tony’s chest pressing against his back with each breath, lays awake for a long time.

They take Tony again. Peter yells and curses and Tony just smiles at him and says with false confidence, “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be fine.”

Again, Peter is left with nothing to do, nothing to think about except half-formed plans that Tony won’t try anyway and the way Tony had called him baby.

When they bring him back, Tony crumples to his knees and looks at Peter through two black eyes. His nose has been at least dislocated, if not broken, and dried blood coats his goatee.

Peter helps him to his feet and cleans him off with the hem of his shirt and lays him down. Then he crawls over him so he’s next to the wall like Tony insists on.

There’s quiet for a long time. He thinks Tony might have fallen asleep when the man turns his head and whispers into his ear.

“I gave you the harder part, huh? Easier to be tortured.”

Peter sighs. “Maybe. But being tortured and watching you be tortured would be worse.”

“Is that gratitude I hear?” Tony wheezes, his lungs crackling.

Peter flinches. “Barely. Waning every minute.”

Tony chuckles. He’s laying flat on his back to help keep pressure off his ribs, so Peter curls into him.

He’s almost asleep when Tony speaks again.

“I knew we could pull it off,” he murmurs. “Playing father and son. No one would even question.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

Starvation and dehydration make Peter’s spider sense slower. They don’t wake up the next morning until someone is dragging Tony by the ankle off the cot.

It takes Peter a second to remember himself and shout “Dad!” instead of Tony.

He jumps up as fast as he can and someone grabs his arm, twisting it behind him.

Tony’s still trying to get to his feet, hands fisting cruelly in his shirt, his hair.

“Don’t you—” Tony gasps, then cuts off as someone kicks his knee when he tries to stand.

“Dad!”

In a flash, Tony grabs someone’s ankle, bringing him crashing to the ground, then he’s on his feet, swaying only slightly as he grabs the other man in a choke hold.

“I said don’t touch him,” Tony snarls.

There’s a beat, Tony staring hard at the man holding Peter, while Peter pants, his adrenaline kicking up.

Peter’s arm is let go and Tony immediately releases his hostage, holding up his hands to show that he’s sticking to his bargain.

“You good, Pete?” Tony asks tersely.

“I-I’m fine,” he assures Tony.

Then he’s being dragged away. To another day of torture that Tony won’t even hint at, even when Peter asks.

“Stop!” Peter screams. “Dad! Don’t hurt him!”

“Peter,” Tony calls, though his teeth are gritted in pain. “It’s ok.”

“No!” Peter follows him to the doorway, though one of the men stays behind and makes sure he doesn’t leave.

“I love you, Pete,” Tony says. And then he’s gone.

Peter paces. And paces and paces and paces. And eyes the pipes lining the cement ceiling above him.

When they bring Tony back, he isn’t walking. Peter catches him on his knees.

“Dad? Dad, come on, look at me.”

Peter ducks his head and presses his cheek to Tony’s forehead. He’s clammy and shaking.

“Dad.”

“Pete,” Tony pants. Then he goes limp.

It takes Peter a long time to drag Tony over to the cot. He probably makes himself seem even weaker than a normal teenage boy, but he’d rather that than seem too strong.

He levers Tony onto the bed carefully, slowly. Then he gently pushes him over toward the wall and lays down next to him, between Tony and the door.

The things they say at night, whispered between them, are just for them. Not a pretense, not for their captors, just them.

“Dad,” Peter breathes.

The next morning, when they come to take Tony, Peter’s waiting for them.

#Irondad and Spiderson #Tony Stark #Peter Parker #MCU #brotp: speaking of loyalty #my writing #fic #Irondad Bingo

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 4 years

Text

Too Good To Be True (part four)

A/N: Your meeting with the director of the restoration board doesn’t go according to plan, causing you to question everything- your job, your judgement...even your relationship. Can Benjamin convince you that you don’t have anything to worry about?

Word Count: 4,522

Sorry, no nerd content this time.

Standing in the restoration room behind closed doors at the british Museum, shaking hands with Julia Day, you tried to recover quickly, but felt your eyes go wide and your mouth drop open. What the… Your heart leapt into your throat and you tried to force it back down into place so that you could speak. She’s the… no. Letting go of your hand, she fixed you with a smile that was almost predatory, like a cat that had finally caught a bird and was watching it flap in pain before devouring it whole. “Something wrong?” she asked finally, an air of victory in her tone that made you flinch internally. “You seem confused. You knew we were meeting today, did you not?”

Clearing your throat, you managed a smile and hope it didn’t look as forced as it felt. “No, nothing’s wrong.” That’s a lie. “I just didn’t know it was you I’d be meeting with.” She let out a small laugh and raised her eyebrows, as though she hadn’t cryptically kept her identity from you through the application and hiring process. “Did I miss a joke?” You kept the smile even though it was making you nauseous to do so.

She shrugged. “I’m just surprised that you didn’t know, is all.” How would I know? You refused to reveal your name. She dropped her arms, hands clapping her thighs and eyebrows jumping from one rung of her wrinkled forehead to the next. You kept your lips pressed tightly together as you watched her walk up to the long table in the center of your work space. “Surprised no one told you.” Told me..? Her fingers trailed along the flat surface, skirting around your tools and little glass pots of cleaner and polish and sealant. “You all seem so…” All? Your heart was pounding between your ears, dizzying your brain. What is this? She brought her eyes up to yours, narrowing them just enough to ignite a small spark of spite. “Close.” She finished her sentence with a tilt of her head as she picked up one of the sconces you’d been working on earlier. Don’t touch those. You took an instinctive step towards the table, hand jutting out in front of you as though you were going to snatch the piece away from her like a protective pitbull for handling it without gloves. “These are really something, aren’t they?” Setting the piece back down on the cloth where she found it, the woman flattened her hands on the table and leaned over them.

You cleared your throat, determined not to let your confusion or unease come through your tone. “Ms. Day,” You shook your head and spread your hands before stepping up to the table opposite where she stood. Placing your own palms across from hers, you sighed. “I’m not sure what you’re implying. The only person I was in contact with for this job before today was someone called Steven Burns from the museum’s department of donor relations.” You narrowed your own eyes and gave a curt laugh, despite the way that your insides were starting to churn. “And he and I are decidedly not close as you put it.” I can play games, too. “So I’m not sure who you’re referring to.”

Julia frowned, the glow of your work lamp casting shadows under her sunken eyelids. “Come now, dear, I’ve seen your resume.” She dropped her voice lower. “You’re smarter than that.” Turning, she continued walking around the table until she’d come back to your side. You clenched your teeth and crossed your arms over your chest, focusing on breathing steadily through your nose. “You know who I’m talking about.” No. She’s… he would have told me. You didn’t respond quickly enough so she let a short burst of air out as she shook her head. Pushing a tangled tendril of frizzy curls back, she continued. “I know my son isn’t very forthcoming with information,” she bit the words and you could taste their bitterness on your own tongue. “But I thought surely Benjamin would have told you.” You couldn’t help the twitch of your lips at the sound of her voice speaking his name, and you knew Julia caught it, her own lips curving upwards in a small but satisfied grin. “Thought it would have come up.” She paused, temporarily returning her attention to the items on the table behind her. “Unless he was worried about how you’d take it. You know,” she gestured with a twirl of her wrist, then looked over at you. “Or maybe you don’t yet, but Benjamin? He’s not to be taken at face value. There’s a lot he doesn’t share.”

You were stunned, seething and feeling small beneath the boot of the woman who stood before you, but you wouldn’t let that stop you from standing up for the man that you loved. Even if he did know… You pushed that thought away as quickly as it came. He didn’t, though. He doesn’t. You narrowed your eyes and stuck your chin out in a show of defiance. “You’re right, Ms. Day. He’s not to be taken at face value.” She nodded, then, that look of satisfaction growing on her cheshire cat face, which you were only too happy to erase with your next words. “He’s much more than that. But surely you must have figured that out by now.” Your heart was thudding uncontrollably with nervous rage. Am I about to be fired on the spot? If you were, you could think of a few more choice words to share.

Julia flinched, wrinkles gathering near her pursed lips only for a split second before she tossed her hair over her shoulder and focused her wild eyes on you. “You think you know him?” She scoffed. “You weren’t married to him. You can’t possibly know him like I do, and-”

“Ms. Day?” You refused to humanize her by using her first name, recalling what Benjamin had told you about how she’d never even taken his name after the wedding- not even adding a hyphen. Still chained to your first ex- husband too, I see. “I understand that we both know the same man.” You watched mild disappointment change the set of her brow as she realized that you were going to put up more of a fight than she thought you would. “I fail to see what Benjamin has to do with the job that I was hired for though. Now, if you’d like to go over my portfolio, or ask me anything about-”

She took a step forward then that was almost a lunge, barking out her words like a rabid animal. “I’ve seen your resume, seen your portfolio, like I told you. I know you can do this job, just like I know there is a stack of other portfolios in Steven’s office that represents dozens of others who could be here instead of you.” She came closer, a more controlled motion this time. “I don’t need to ask you a thing about this job. You’re here for one reason and one reason only-”

“To point out that you forgot to detail the corrosion on piece S-327?” You cocked your head to the side and swallowed the emotions you were feeling, letting them fall into your stomach to dissolve into the roiling acid Julia had churned up. “You know, Benjamin mentioned that you were a conservator once.” It was finally her turn to be completely caught off guard. He tells me things, you crazy old bat. “I know it was,” you raised one arm and gestured in a circular motion, “Years ago,” her nostrils flared and though you were still reeling from this entire confrontation, you were glad that you’d gotten to her. “But I would have thought that even back then you’d have been required to include corrosion and other such damage in your notations. You did do the notations that were sent to me, didn’t you?” Her face dropped completely and you knew you’d won this hand. “Unless, and this would be...wildly unprofessional for someone in your position, but I can’t see how you could have made that mistake, unless you were hoping I’d miss it, too and that I’d somehow boggle the restoration.” You dug for the strength to smile at her. “But the thing is, Ms. Day, restorers? We’re all conservators, too. So your notes and your pictures,” shoddily prepared as they were, “They don’t scratch the surface of what I do. But the surface of that sconce that you neglected to note? I caught it. I caught it before it was too late to save the piece, or the person’s job whose responsibility it was to document.”

You watched as the well-worn scowl retreated and her lips came together in a thin line. For a few agonizingly long moments all you could hear was the buzz of the lightbulbs overhead and the far off sounds of conversation from another office. You felt yourself tense up, coiling like a cornered viper, waiting to see how she’d respond to your counter. Just when you started to wonder if she was going to speak again at all, she addressed you using your last name in a quiet hiss that sent a chill slithering down your spine. “This is a six week assignment.” A measure of time that once felt like it would pass impossibly quickly now felt like a lengthy punishment. You recalled your words to Benjamin when he worried about how his memories with Julia in the museum might taint your experience. Don’t let her ruin this. But here she was in the flesh, trying her hardest to ruin not only your time here, but also, it seemed, your relationship with him. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.” Do I? Before you could even reprimand yourself for giving her another inch of space in your mind, she was striding passed you, stopping at the door to spin back and deliver one last blow. “I’ll see you Wednesday for a status update.”

You didn’t move or breathe until you heard the door to the hallway open and shut, echoing in the nearly empty wing of offices. Once you were sure that she was gone and you were alone, you let a rush of air free from your lungs in a shuddering gasp. The whole confrontation - meeting, it was supposed to be a meeting, not- left you dizzy. This isn’t… this was the farthest thing from… Six weeks of that? Six weeks of her and… You inhaled shakily. He didn’t know. There’s no way. He’d have told me. But the seed had already taken root in the fertile soil of your brain, and you knew that even though you didn’t believe her, you had to ask Benjamin. Wincing, you imagined the look on his face when you brought it up, and though you hated the idea of needing verbal confirmation from him, you knew it was the only way to weed out the venomous thing she’d planted. I don’t doubt you, B, I just need to hear you say it.

You felt the hot sting of unwelcome tears burning in the corners of your eyes as the rest of what the woman had said sunk in. She only picked me so she could… this isn’t about my qualifications, this is… I’m not here because I deserve to be. I’m here because she… Squeezing your eyelids shut you refused to let yourself cry until you were out of the building. Glancing at the clock you saw that it was after 6pm which was the latest you were required to stay as per the terms of your contract. You’d planned to stay later, wanting to get as much time in on your first day as you could. But the realization that this accomplishment was a sham felt like a kick to the stomach, and you suddenly needed to be anywhere but where you stood. You quickly closed up jars, rinsed off brushes and organized your tools, slipping them into their case with a sad sigh. Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you wiped at your eyes to remove any stray wetness before interacting with security. Looking back at the room as your hand hovered over the light switch, you couldn’t help but feel as lost as the treasures before you. Flicking it off, you plunged the room and your thoughts into darkness and hurried for the anonymity of the bustling sidewalk to let the dam break and your emotions flow.

.. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Perfect. He smiled as he adjusted the loose bouquet of tulips in the glass vase he’d borrowed from the hotel. Bright pink, peach and yellow bell shaped blossoms fell naturally atop long green leaves and stems. Her favorite. The woman at the desk had been only too happy to lend the receptacle when she caught him trying to press the button to call a lift, balancing the bouquet, a bottle of champagne, and a grocery bag full of berries and chocolates. He’d explained to her that it was a big day as she helped him reconfigure the items in his arms while he waited for the elevator to arrive. “What’s the occasion?” She’d asked, handing the wrapped bouquet back to him.

He beamed. “The woman of my dreams landed the job of hers and she started today.” And I can’t wait to see her face light up when she tells me about it.

The hotel employee mirrored his grin, letting out a long “Aw,” and promised to send up a lovely vase for the flowers and a full ice bucket for the champagne. She passed her congratulations to you through Benjamin, and wished the two of you a wonderful evening. It will be. He thanked her for her help and continued on up to get the room ready.

It was nearing 6:30 when he finally finished. Having accepted the vase and bucket from the room service attendant, he arranged everything on the dresser, including the tray of sweets and fruit. Standing back, he smiled again, imagining your reaction. “Benjamin, you didn’t need to do all of this!” You’d laugh, cheeks turning a shade that would rival the blossoms and berries as you wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Of course I did, love,” he’d say, scooping you up only to dump you on the bed a moment later. “And that’s just the beginning.”

For so long before he met you, Benjamin felt like he’d been running. From the past, from the future, from the inevitability that nothing gold can stay. But lately he’d been overwhelmed with the feeling of beginnings, even though you were coming up on your first anniversary together. He’d accepted that he was done with beginnings, done with good things outside of academia. But then you came along and changed everything. Suddenly every day became the start of something new, and suddenly that didn’t terrify him. Because we’re in it together. He plucked a raspberry from the tray and sampled it, daydreaming about your next new beginning.

The mechanical whir of the lock followed by the slip of your card key being retracted from the slot caught him off guard. Huh, thought she would have called to let me know she was on her way. Because neither of you had conventional work hours and never knew when you’d be done for the day, you’d formed the habit of calling or sending a message to let the other know when to expect you back. He chalked it up to excitement making you forget, and turned toward the door, still chewing the berry he’d popped into his mouth a moment ago.

“Hey,” he took a step towards you, eyes narrowed and forehead furrowed. What’s this? The excitement he felt as he readied the room for your return vanished in a cold rush as a pit started forming in his gut the second he saw the salty streaks on your face, cutting through the bronze dust coating your cheeks. Why is she..? You closed the door, wordlessly flipping the lock as he took another step. This isn’t how I... “Hey,” he said again, adding your name as he raised his right arm and reached for you. Despite having been together for just shy of a year, Benjamin had only ever seen you this upset once or twice. He couldn’t fathom why today of all days would end up being one of those times. His hand closed gently around your arm, fingers sliding up your bicep as his thumb tucked into the crook of your elbow. Looking up, your red rimmed and puffy eyes met his and his heart clenched at the sadness he saw there. What’s happening?

You still hadn’t said a word, and as you slipped your arms around his waist, Benjamin realized you hadn’t even made a sound. Not a whimper, not a sniff, not a shuddering intake of breath. Something’s wrong, something… this is… He tripped over his thoughts as he wrapped you up and pulled you into his body. This was supposed to be her dream. One hand came up to stroke your hair, but before his palm made contact he felt your chin move against his chest and he froze as you spoke. “Tell me you didn’t know.” Your voice was quiet and thin, a tinge of defeat in your tone that he’d never heard before only worrying him further.

What is she talking about? His head spun as he tried and failed to answer that question. Throat dry from the absolute shock of seeing you in the exact opposite state he expected you to be in, he swallowed and let the hand that was headed for your hair fall to your shoulder. I saw her a few hours ago and she was fine...happy...I… With a soft push he peeled you away from himself so that he could look at you; so that you could look at him and see the truth in his eyes. He shook his head. “Didn’t know what, love? What’s happened?” You winced, squeezing your eyes tightly shut as you tried to bury your face in his shirt again, but he stopped you. “Hey, no, come on,” he brought his hand up to tilt your face towards him before leaning in to kiss the crest of your cheek. “Please,” he whispered against your skin, “please tell me what happened.”

You opened your eyes then and fresh tears rolled down the tracks that had been laid by those that came before. “I’m sorry, Benjamin, I… She said that you…” What? Why is she apologizing… wait...who said… “She said that you knew, but I should have known she was lying, I…” Oh, no. No, no, no. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but that pit that started forming in his stomach tore wide open, filling with acidic venom that could only come from one source. Julia. “It’s her, Benjamin...she’s...she’s the one that…”

She’s the director. His heart sank as he ran through the implications of that realization, looking down at you. And she wanted it to look like I was keeping that a secret. “I swear I didn’t know,” He promised, pushing away the initial hurt of your momentary disbelief. It’s not her fault. He knew how well-versed in guilt and manipulation his ex-wife was, knew that she was trying to create a rift between the two of you. Instinctively he tightened the arm that was still around your body. I won’t let her do that. Letting you tuck your face against his chest again, he rested his chin atop your head, the smell of paint thinner and polish mixing with your almond scented shampoo as he inhaled.

“I know. I knew she was lying but I,” you took a shaky breath that made him ache.

“Shh,” Replacing his chin with his lips he laid a soft kiss to your hair. “It’s alright, you knew she was lying.” You trust me, I know you do. “She’s… she’s good at tricking people.” He winced. She had me fooled. “Good at hurting people.” The fact that she’d hurt you was unacceptable though, and right next to the ache he felt from seeing you this way, a swelling anger was taking up residence. She won’t get away with this.

“She…” You pulled back, wiping your eyes and looking up at him. “Benjamin, she only picked me for this job to get to you.” You shook your head and he saw your eyes go dim, the defeat in your tone making its way into them. “I didn’t earn it, I don’t deserve-”

“Don’t do that.” He cut you off, not willing to let you go down that road. He shook his head and locked his gaze with yours, shifting his hands to your arms. Taking a few steps backwards, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled you down next to him. Leaning in, he brushed a strand of hair that had escaped your bandana back and out of the way, fingertips lingering on your skin. “Don’t do that to yourself. You deserve this. You have every right to be there.” He saw you take a breath as though you were about to start a long string of protest, but he stopped you again. “I know you think that...that the only reason you were chosen for this is because of what Julia told you today.”

You shrugged and nodded. “It is the only reason.”

No. “She may have suggested you to the board,” he let his hands slide down your arms until they met yours, and pulled your palms into his lap. “But they had to review your portfolio. They had to pass it on to the Museum director.” Julia likes to think she’s more important than she is. “There’s no way this decision was made solely by her.” He let go of one of your hands and used it to tilt your chin so that you had to focus on his next words. “She doesn’t matter that much. It’s not some tiny exhibit on display in a broom cupboard.” He felt some relief as he saw some light come back to your eyes. “This is one of the most important historical finds of the decade, at one of the largest, most prestigious institutions in the world. There’s no way you’d have gotten this job if you didn’t deserve it.” No matter how much money she throws at it, she can’t buy that much power.

You sighed as his fingers left your face, and you leaned your body into his. Benjamin instantly wound his arm around you. “I guess.”

“You guess?” He squeezed his hand where it rested near your hip before tugging you down to lay on the mattress with him, both of your legs still bent and hanging over the side of the bed. A small gasp of surprise left your lips in the form of his name, and despite everything he was feeling, the sound lightened his heart the slightest bit. “Well, that’s fine that you guess, but I know.” You turned your face towards his and he closed the distance, kissing you softly. “I know no one deserves this more than you. I know you’re the best for this job.” I know I’m going to have some words for Julia… He touched his forehead to yours and brought his hand up to untie the knot in your bandana, letting your hair tumble free. Tossing the green fabric aside, he pulled you even closer, until you were resting your head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry that she’s doing this to you.” That she’s doing this to us. “This is your dream, and she’s not going to ruin it for you.” He shook his head even though you couldn’t see. “Don’t give her that power. Nothing she said has any truth to it at all, she’s just…” he sighed and felt you adjust your position, turning on your hip and laying a hand on his abdomen. “She’s jealous and... vindictive.” His top lip curled on the last word. “She’s the complete opposite of you, and she knows that. She knows she could never measure up to you.” Not in a single sense.

Your tears had subsided, no longer soaking into his shirt or staining your face, but he knew he hadn’t completely turned the tide, knew that it would take some time for you to process everything he’d told you, everything she’d told you, and how you were feeling about it all. He knew it would mean a few rocky weeks, and while he hated that, he knew that as long as you kept trusting him and as long as he kept reinforcing that trust, that you both would be alright. I’ve never had that before, this is… he looked down at you. This is it. Benjamin knew that someday this would be behind the two of you, and that there would be bright new beginnings on the horizon. He held you until the sky turned a deep indigo outside the windows, the room silent aside from the occasional clink of the ice in the champagne chiller melting and shifting. He would have stayed there with you all night, intermittently leaving kisses or whispering assurances against your skin, but eventually you spoke, breaking the silence. “You got me flowers…”

He’d nearly forgotten, entirely focused on soothing you and swallowing down the hurt and anger he’d felt at first. “Oh...yeah, I…”

“Tulips are my favorite.” I know. You sat up, leaning on your elbows and glancing first at the flowers and then back at him. Even in the state you were in you were gorgeous. She puts those flowers to shame. “They’re beautiful, Benjamin, thank you.”

He sat up too, twisting to his side to face you. “This is all going to work out, you know that, right?”

You nodded, lips pressed together to keep from crying again, but this time the hopeless defeat was gone from your eyes. “Yeah,” you said, lifting one hands to trace the top of his ear with your fingers. “I know it will.” Leaning in, you brought your lips to his, his hands going to your waist as you kissed him. “It will.” It wasn’t a fix all. He knew that you were still upset, still hurt and disappointed by how this new beginning was shaping up, but he knew that as long as you were a team, there was nothing you couldn’t overcome. And I’ll always be on your team. “I love you,” you whispered against his lips, slipping your shoes from your feet and curling back down over top of him.

“So much,” he responded, holding you once more. So, so much. Tomorrow he’d figure out what to do about Julia; how to respond, how to protect you from her wrath. But tonight would be this- not the champagne, celebration and laughter he’d imagined, but something deeper, something more long lasting. Something good, even on the bad days.

@something-tofightfor @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @suchatinyinfinity @thesumofmychoices @gollyderek @malionnes @becs-bunker @warriorqueenofnarnia @elanor-of-imladris @traeumerinwitzhelden @songtoyou @michellemybelles-world @obscurilicious @breanime @octosapiens

please let me know if you would like to be added or removed! (and if you’ve already let me know and i didn’t make it happen…oops! i’m sorry and disorganized.)

#too good to be true #TGTBT #benjamin greene #benjamin greene gold digger #gold digger fanfiction #benjamin greene x you #benjamin greene x reader #julia day #leo day #yo julia you barked up the wrong tree ma'am #this is going to get ugly #fucking yikes

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spoon-writes · 4 years

Text

Ends of the Earth | Chapter 14

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Mando x OC

Read on FFN or AO3

Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse and soon they travel across the galaxy, looking for her missing husband.

Chapter index

Chapter 14 - Cages

One day later Sinead was back at the arena, this time dressed in a servant’s robe she had stolen from the arena’s laundry. The flimsy thing reminded her too much of the ridiculous outfit she had to wear on Sriluur, all sheer fabric that clung to her body, soft and itchy at the same time and offering about as much protection as wet tissue paper.

The servants' door was hidden behind a fence and an old watch house. It was flanked by two guards who stared blankly out into the air. As she neared, she relaxed her shoulders and tried to look like she truly belonged there, that she'd gone through this entrance many times and just wanted to do her job in peace. Her hand found its way into her pocket and touched the comlink to reassure her that it was still there.

She passed the guards, ignoring them as much as they ignored her, and was inside the arena which seemed unnaturally quiet in comparison to the day before. Her robe rustled as she moved down along the curved corridor. Once she was sure she was alone, she fished the comlink out.

"Hey. I'm inside."

"Any problems?" Mando sounded slightly warbled through the comlink. There was a tight quality to his voice, and she could see him in her mind’s eye pacing back and forth in the Crest.

"Nope. The guards didn't even give me a second glance."

"Good. Remember, you're there to find out where they keep the record, then get out."

“Uh-huh.” She glanced down the corridor, making sure she was alone. “Next time you get to sneak in while I wait in safety."

"The robes wouldn't fit."

Sinead grinned at the comlink. "Was that a joke?"

"Mhm. Stay on guard."

"Right. It looked like they didn’t allow any access to the top level, might as well start there. Keep you posted.” She dropped the comlink back in her pocket.

It was clear that this was a part of the arena the average guest wasn't supposed to see; the stone walls were bare and the only light came from flickering lightbulbs hanging from the low ceiling. It smelled vaguely of dust and metal and she could hear the muffled sound of people talking somewhere nearby. Occasionally a servant would hurry past, not paying attention to Sinead. The beige robe seemed to make her invisible to everyone.

Through an archway, she found a large staircase that wound from below and disappeared above her in a dizzying circle. In the middle, there was a small platform and a pulley-system to hoist heavy crates up to the upper levels. Three boxes filled with bottles were in the middle of being raised and the glass tinkled whenever the platform shook.

It didn't take long getting to the top floor. The only servant she met on the way was too busy arranging delicate glasses on a tray to give Sinead a second look.

The entrance to the staircase was hidden by a metal panel which swung out when she gave it the lightest push. Behind it was a wide corridor, like the ones on the lower levels, except this one was so richly furnished that for a moment Sinead thought she was back on Sriluur; a thick red carpet ran from wall to wall and gold tablets decorated the walls, one of which served to hide the servant stairs. Narrow tables had been pushed against the wall, carrying elaborate flower arrangements that had certainly not come from the fetid wasteland surrounding Strako. All in all, it was about the ugliest place she had ever seen.

Instead of open arches that led to the stands, there were gilded doors inlaid with rubies and a keypad was set into the wall beside every single one.

"Mando ..." she whispered into the comlink.

"What is it?" His tinny voice sounded worried.

"I'm on the top floor and there are doors here, but they're all locked with a keypad. If I were to hide records of all the people that went through here, it'd definitely be behind one of these. I'll look around after the code."

"Anyone spotted you?"

"Relax. Nobody ever notices a servant, not even the other servants.”

“Don't take any unnecessary risks."

"Aw, you know me, when have I ever taken unnecessary-"

The door to her right suddenly opened, and she nearly dropped the comlink when she saw who it was: Duiy Rundu and a human woman came out into the hall, deep in conversation. Two Wookiees, one of them Rundu's bodyguard, trailed behind.

Her body tensed, ready to bolt until rational thought overrode instinct and she bowed deeply as they approached, praying that her hair, worn down instead of in a braid, was enough to hide her face.

Nundu and the human woman continued their conversation as they passed her, neither ever noticing she was there. Between strands of hair, Sinead saw Rundu's Wookiee stop for a split second and sniff the air. Her knees went weak with fear. The Wookiee huffed and then went to follow the others down the hall.

As soon as they were out of sight she sprinted to the hidden staircase and jumped through the opening. When she was sure there was no one nearby, she fumbled the comlink out of her pocket. "Mando, I'm here."

"Haar'chak at haran! What happened?!" Mando's voice exploded from the small device.

"Saw our mutual friend but he didn't recognize me."

"Where're you now?"

"On the servant stairs. There's a basement I wanna check out before I leave."

"Even if Rundu didn't spot you the first time, doesn't mean he won't if he sees you again. Do not push your luck."

She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "He doesn't seem the type to hang out in the cellar, but I'll be careful."

"Good."

“You’re not used to sitting on the sideline, are you?”

He grunted, "Get going."

Sinead rolled her eyes as she stuffed the comlink away, trying to ignore her still racing heart.

After she had made it underground, a wide door on the first landing slammed open and two servants bustled past her carrying an overflowing fruit platter between them. As the door swung shut, Sinead got a glimpse of a kitchen, the walls dark with soot and a pillar of steam rising from one of the giant cauldrons that hung over an open flame.

She walked on. The temperature dropped as she made it further down and a harsh pungent smell permeated the air, making her eyes water. Shouts and strange noises drifted up from below. It was clear that the care with which the arena had been built didn't extend to the underground level, where the wall was made of rough-hewn stone that shone with moisture.

She reached the end, the wooden stair giving way for an uneven stone floor that radiated cold. The smell was even stronger down here and she coughed, taking care to only breathe through her mouth. Keeping close to the wall, she peered around a corner and accidentally sucked in a deep breath.

A giant chamber stretched out in front of her, directly underneath the arena. Dark-clothed figures ran back and forth between giant cages, hauling buckets of feed or heavy chains. Nearly every cage was occupied by a creature whose scream, howl, snarl, or roar filled the air. She saw Akk dogs, Nexus, Acklays, and even a Rancor that was in the middle of being wrestled into a cage by eleven workers. Sinead's stomach turned when she saw one of them bring an electro-whip down on the creature's back. There were a handful of guards down here, who all stared blankly into the air, probably just waiting for their shift to end.

The ceiling was a mess of cables and platforms that could be worked from a massive control panel on the opposite side of the room. So that was how they sent the fighters up on the stage above. Next to the console, a holoprojector threw an image up of the arena which was empty at the moment.

It looked like there were three ways out of there: the stairs, an open tunnel close to the control panel, or a small door set into the wall a few meters from her. She waited until no one was looking her way, then quickly stole across the ground. The door had been left ajar, throwing a pale line of light across the floor.

She nudged the door with her foot and stuck her head inside, glancing around the empty room. It looked like a mix between an armory and an office if the desk loaded with datapads and flimsi was anything to go by. Underneath the stink of animal, the room smelled of sweat and bitter caf. A big map of the arena hung on the wall behind it, showing every level of the place with colored arrows going back and forth.

“Mando,” she whispered into the comlink as she approached the map. “I think I’ve found the … the security office or something like that. There’s a complete map of the arena, guard rotations, everything.”

“Anything useful?”

“Hold on.” She looked at the top floor. “There’s a room marked as the ‘repository’. If there’s a record, it’s got to be in there.”

“We still don’t have a way in.”

“You don’t have to be so negative. I’m working on it.” She turned to the desk and rifled through a stack of flimsi.

"What are you looking for?"

"Maybe whoever is in charge of security wrote the codes down somewhere."

"Are you serious?"

"This office is a mess, someone left the door open, and I haven't been discovered yet. Clearly, security isn't their strong suit. Aha!" She pulled a scrap of flimsi out from under a cracked datapad. "The codes for every single keypad in the building." She didn't even try to keep the smugness out of her voice.

"You're ... you're serious?"

"It's like they're asking to be robbed." She took a moment to memorize the code for the repository. “Okay, I got it. Meet you outside.”

“Be careful.”

“When am I not? Wait- hold on …” she carefully tucked a datapad out from under a mountain of flimsi. “That’s interesting …”

“What is?”

“I found the guard roster. Says here there are only two guards on duty on the top-level during fights. I guess they’re short-staffed.”

“That’s very careless.”

“Lucky break for us.”

“Mhm.”

“I think that was everything. Going now.” She replaced the comlink in her pocket and snuck out of the office when the coast was clear, leaving the door ajar behind her. The workers had managed to get the Rancor into a cage where it walked around a tight circle, snarling at whoever came too close.

The staircase towards the surface was in sight when a bloodcurdling scream cut through the noise of the beasts. Sinead froze and looked around, but it was clear that it hadn't come from any of the workers, who hadn’t faltered.

It had come from the tunnel, she was sure of that. Without even realizing, she had begun creeping around the room, keeping close to the wall and behind cover whenever possible.

The tunnel turned out to be only a few meters deep and ended in a turn. She peeked around the corner and the sight that met her turned her blood to ice;

Rows and rows of cages filled most of the chamber, packed tightly with sentients dressed in grey rags. The air was heavy with the stink of sewage and misery and the only source of light came from flickering lanterns hanging from the low ceiling. She watched wide-eyed as two guards dragged an unconscious human across the floor and threw her into an overflowing cage. Her whimpering when she hit the ground made Sinead’s stomach turn and unbidden memories flooded to the surface.

So slavery wasn’t as forbidden as Rundu wanted her to think.

She crept forwards, keeping close to the ground.

A male Togruta who sat slumped in one corner looked up with a start and their eyes met. For one second, Sinead thought he was about to call for the guards when he stuck a filthy hand out through the bars and motioned for her to come closer. She did so, slowly and silently.

"I’ve never seen you lot down in the undercroft,” the Togruta whispered, his eyes taking in her now dirty robe. “You aren’t a servant, are you?”

"Will you call the guards if I say no?" Sinead whispered back. The others watched her out of the corner of their eyes.

The Togruta spat on the ground. "If you're not a servant, who are you?"

"That's not important right now." She looked over the huddled slaves. "Are you ... are you fighters?"

The Togruta scoffed. "Most of us can barely walk. They had us work in a refinery until it exploded. Don’t know where they’re sending us.”

"When?"

The Togruta gave her a look. "Why do you want to know?"

"I wanna help you."

"Why?"

Sinead grit her teeth. "Let's just say I have no love for slavers."

"I overheard one of the guards saying they'll move us tomorrow after the fight."

Shit. That complicated matters.

"Tomorrow. I can work with that."

The Togruta pressed against the bars, giving her an unconvinced look. "How are you gonna take out the guards? They're not gonna just let us walk out of here."

"I'll figure something out. Besides-" she stopped when a guard went past on the other side of the cage. "I'm not alone."

"Hope you have an army, otherwise it won't do you any good."

"Just ... see if you can get the word out, find out who's able to fight. I'll handle the rest."

The Togruta huffed out a laugh. "Sure thing. Looking forward to sharing a cage with you."

She ignored him. “I’m looking for someone who might’ve come through here, maybe some years ago, his name is Kyen Beck.”

“Doesn’t ring any bells.”

She gritted her teeth. “Ask around, okay? See if anyone has heard of him, knows what happened.

“All right.” He bent his head down as another guard passed. "If you keep going, you'll get to the old sewer system and that'll take you all the way through the city. That's how they got us here without anyone knowing."

Sinead eyed the surrounding room; it looked like it was built the same time as the rest of the arena, but support pillars of durasteel kept the sagging ceiling from caving in. "I take it this isn't standard procedure?"

"Have you seen Strako? They never hid what they did, not until the New Republic came along. The politicians are so busy pretending to have the moral high ground that they don't bother checking that their laws are being followed. They don't care. Before, at least the rest of the galaxy knew what kind of place this really is."

"I promise you we're gonna change that. What's your name?"

The Togruta studied her for a long moment. "I'm Belan."

"Just hang tight, Belan. Okay?"

He bared his sharp teeth in a grin. "Whatever you say."

The darkness worked in Sinead's favor as she scurried from cover to cover, hiding behind durasteel boxes or an overfilled caged. The slaves watched her with dull eyes and none of them alerted the guards to her presence. They were quiet except for the odd whispered conversation that cut off as soon as she neared. The silence unnerved her; Sriluur had been hell, but sometimes when she ate dinner with one of the families or snuck off with Kyen it had felt almost ... normal. It was like these souls had been zapped of all energy and were now just waiting like banthas to the slaughter.

The entrance to the sewer had been blocked with a badly fitted grate and there was just enough room for Sinead to wriggle through a gap, though not without leaving slimy streaks across her robe. The sewer was dry, but years of use had left an inch-thick coating of sludge that squelched as she moved through the semi-darkness. She nearly gagged at the harsh smell. Smaller pipes led away from the main one but none of them were big enough for a human to crawl through. A rodent skittered across the ground just a few meters from her.

She passed an abandoned droid head that had somehow found its way down here and came to an intersection, where a small arrow had been carved into the stone at eye height, and she followed it through what soon turned out to be a labyrinth of tunnels that spanned the entire city.

Her hand brushed the comlink in her pocket and she pulled it out.

"Mando?" she said, making sure to breathe through her mouth as she passed a truly pungent pile of sodden fabric that blocked one of the smaller pipes.

"Finally! Where are you? You should've been out by now!"

"I'm in the sewers."

She could sense his confusion through the comlink. "Why are you in the sewers?"

"It's a long story. Tell you later.”

Mando sighed. "Fine. We’ll talk at the ship."

Rounding a corner, she spotted pale sunlight ahead, and emerged, breathing weakly and covered in sludge, at the bottom of a dried-out canal, the wall too high and slippery to scale. The light felt like needles in her eyes and her robe had been reduced to a filthy, tattered mess.

She walked until she came to a rusty ladder bolted into the wall, the metal groaning when she grabbed hold of the first rung, leaving muddy spots behind as she slowly made her way up into the city.

<- Previous chapter - Next chapter ->

#the mandalorian #din djarin #the mandalorian x oc #mando x oc #din x oc #din djarin x oc #fanfiction #ends of the earth #oc: sinead

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p-artsypants · 5 years

Text

Longest Night (24) Shocking

And Marinette had thought Highschool had been hard. Right now, in this moment, she'd give anything to go back to those petty arguments and gossip fueled drama. But she couldn't. Instead, she and Adrien were trapped here, being punished, humiliated, tortured, for being heroes, all broadcasted for the world to see. At least she and her kitty were in this together. For now. Whump!Fic

Ao3 | FF.net

Just as a pleasant reminder: this story will have a happy ending, one that is better than ‘they both died and were free from their suffering’. I wouldn’t do that to you guys.

This chapter, we go back to Marinette and Adrien. There is gross misuse of a needle and thread (Trigger warning), and some shocking revelations (pun intended).

—

A small room. Concrete walls, ceiling and floor. A single metal door, with a cold metal table and chair. Illuminated with single flickering lightbulb, casting a sickly yellow light around the surfaces. This kind of room most people would avoid. It offered no comfort, no safety. It held secrets, and no mercy.

To Marinette, it felt like home.

Silence had been a constant companion this last month. Where as Marinette had gotten used to Tikki’s constant presence before, now she was startled by noise. Any noise. She could hear from this dank, secluded room, the sound of water running. Most likely someone else getting a shower.

And the light. There was only an old bulb to illuminate the room, but it was still much too bright for her eyes. So she rested her head in her arms on the table top. The icy water from her power washing still clung to her body, the hospital gown hanging on her turning damp. There was no warmth from the table or chair. Only cold, hard, unforgiving silence.

All there was to do was wait. All there ever was now.

Wait for death.

Something heinous happened in the dark. Every minute of every day, she stewed in fear, in anger, in injustice. The cold bony hand of wrath squeezed her heart, crushing compassion, mercy, and care from her very soul.

No one was coming.

Then she could let them all go. If they were watching, then they could all suffer with guilt.

Sure, she was Ladybug, but she was also a kid. Didn’t that mean anything to anyone? Or were they all expecting her to save herself?

But they had abandoned her. With whatever had happened back at school. The facts were blurry at this point, but she remembered everyone shunning her.

So why would her being Ladybug change anything?

But Adrien…

Her heart softened. He didn’t deserve whatever fate had befallen him. He had fought so hard, so valiantly, there was no blame on him.

He was the only person she could forgive.

But he was gone. And now she alone.

Alone in the silence.

So now the question remained: Dare she save herself?

What kind of life awaited her outside, anyway? What kinds of things were they saying about her?

Ladybug, the failure. The little girl that fooled the whole city. The disgusting pig.

There’d be hell to pay. She’d show Salo what revenge really looked like.

They thought Ladybug was red? She’d give them red.

Marinette sat up slightly, her bangs shielding the light from her eyes. She looked down at her hands.

Bony, dry, callus, and bruised. The hands of a corpse. That’s what she felt like at least. This was some sort of limbo she lived in. Half aware, plotting and calculating her revenge…the other half…twisted. The hallucinations in the cell were so vivid, so real. It was hard to tell the difference between them and what was real.

I’ve gone insane. She insisted in her mind. Normal people didn’t think like this. Normal people didn’t daydream about strangling people with their intestines.

This room was too big. She wanted back in the closet.

The door opened again, Salo and one of her henchmen escorting another prisoner onto the bleak room. They had them by the arm, and all but shoved them into the room before slamming the door shut behind them.

Then suddenly, Marinette wasn’t alone in the silence anymore.

A young man, tall, pale. He was just a skeleton with skin stretched over him. He was incredibly bruised, and his legs were stained with filth. His blonde hair was drenched and also looked stringy and dull.

Did she look like that too? She wondered.

The young man toddled into the room, using the wall for balance.

Then he looked up, and met her eyes.

An impossible green. A green that haunted her for days. The green that accompanied the last echoes of his voice.

My Lady! My Lady!

It was Adrien.

And she hadn’t recognized him.

Marinette bolted from her chair and staggered over to him.

“Kitty?” She whispered, ever so gently.

Tears gathered in his eyes as he reached his one working arm out to caress her face. “My lady?” His whisper was even softer, his voice was gone, and he only spoke with the air in his lungs.

“What have they done to you?” One hand held his cheek, as the other rested on his chest. She could feel his ribs, and the dent in his sternum she had caused with her crowbar.

He didn’t answer, his lips pulling into a thin line.

Adrien leaned down, pressing a soft kiss on her lips. Then he rested his forehead against hers. There was a purr deep down in his chest, a remnant of being the Black Cat for so long. He still only spoke with a breath. “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I may have been forced to say that, but I take my vows seriously.”

“Kitty…” She cried, resting her hand on the back of his neck. “I love you so much. I thought…I thought they had killed you by now.”

“They gave it a good shot.” He nuzzled against her. “But as long as I know you’re still with me, I’ll keep fighting.”

Her fingers curled into his skin, her voice dripping with ferocity. “I will never leave you.”

The door opened again, much too soon for both of them, and they clung tighter together.

“Together again for five minutes and you just can’t keep your hands off of each other. Young love…what a joke.” Salo’s voice pierced through their bubble.

Adrien didn’t look up, didn’t give her any attention. His lady was back in his arms, and that’s all that mattered.

“So selfish.” She scoffed. “You two aren’t even interested in the guest I’ve brought?”

Marinette shook her head. She didn’t want to see anyone from outside. They all abandoned her, abandoned them, why should she care?

But Salo had never given them a choice, and so they were dragged back into that big room where evil persisted.

The lights were blinding, and they both had to hide their faces in their arms.

Then they were being chained up, and there was nothing to do but clench their eyes shut and wait until they adjusted.

“What’re the stats, Harken?” Salo asked a corner of the room.

“Over 2 million online. We have some from Japan and Australia tuned in this time too.”

“My my, this is becoming a very big deal.”

Marinette, squinting heavily, peered up and looked around. The room was still pretty bare, save for a wooden chair that sat between her and Adrien.

“You two missed out on so much while you were sleeping. You remember my Eddy, right?”

Neither of them answered, but it was a given. The arrest of Edward Savauge is what had gotten them here in the first place.

“Well, looks like he’s been released on lack of evidence. No witnesses. Sure is interesting, don’t you think?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. It really wasn’t the surprising. It just sucked that their effort of bagging him had gone to waste. “So?” Marinette asked. “There’s no reason to keep us anymore.”

“On the contrary, Miss Bug. Now there’s no possible way I can let you leave. Not even if you pinky promise that you won’t say a word.”

“I figured as much.” She drawled.

“Now, don’t you want to know what’s being said about you out there?”

“Not particularly.”

“Come on, aren’t you just the tiniest bit curious?”

“If you’re trying to egg me on, I’m assuming it can’t be good.”

Salo laughed. “Boy, you are so full of spite! I love it!” She called over her shoulder. “Pasolini, I think you can bring our guest in.”

Marinette looked over to Adrien, who’s eyes were downcast. Seemed he was just as unenthused about their guest as she was.

A young woman was ushered in. She had a bag over her head.

But Marinette recognized the orange sweater immediately.

The girl was shoved into the chair before Salo ripped the bag off of her head.

Adrien and Marinette shared looks of disgust.

Salo grinned. “Glad you could join us, Miss Rossi. I’m Salo, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Lila, for all the acting that she had performed, was downright terrified. “Please, let me go! I didn’t do anything! Please!”

Salo looked to her prisoners, finding them stone faced. “Why Marinette, aren’t you happy to see your best friend? And Adrien, I know you must feel guilty for cheating on her with Marinette, but you must be happy to see your girlfriend, right?”

Adrien scowled at them both, not saying anything with his mouth, but volumes with his eyes.

“Hmm, there seems to be some misunderstandings here. Let’s see if we can find that interview.”

The tv behind Salo lit up, Lila’s face on it with a news ticker underneath. She was teary-eyed and delicately dabbed her cheek with a napkin. “It sickens me. Adrien isn’t actually Chat Noir, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng isn’t Ladybug. You see, Adrien and I…well, I see no point in keeping it a secret anymore, we were dating. Under the radar, of course, he’s not allowed to date. And then he told me that he came up with this idea of a performance piece and asked if I wanted to play the role of Ladybug. I said no, absolutely not, and so he broke up with me. I think the whole wedding bit was really just a ploy to make me jealous and have me crawl back to him. But now I know that he’s just sick and wants attention. Marinette has been that way since I met her. She’s always tried to get attention and lied to do so. I think we should all stop giving it to them and turn off the stream.”

Lila turned pale and shrank in her seat at the absolute rage on Marinette’s face, as she turned her gaze to stare at Lila.

Salo shrugged. “Well Marinette, looks like we’ve been found out. Now everyone knows about our performance piece. And Adrien…your relationship isn’t so secret anymore, I’m afraid.”

Adrien trembled in his anger, before an inhuman sound ripped from his throat. The sound of a caged animal breaking.

Salo just laughed at him. “Mm, interesting. I wonder…who’s lying?” Sang Salo. “Ladybug always wants justice, right?” She leaned on Lila’s shoulder, a spool of thread with a needle in her hand. “Then will you snitch? Knowing that snitches get stitches?”

Lila sobbed. “Marinette, I’m sorry! You know me—Always good for a j-joke!”

“Ah ah ah, I wasn’t talking to you Miss Rossi.”

Marinette saw the needle and thread for what it was. Another torture device. Maybe the old Marinette would have taken the easy way out. ‘Taken the high road’ so to speak, and let things unfold by themselves. She would give Lila this lie, setting her free, and saving herself from unnecessary pain.

But this Marinette was ready to hit where it hurt, no matter the sacrifice. And Salo was giving her the platform to do so.

“A joke.” Marinette repeated. “I’m a joke to you.”

“No! That’s not—! What I mean is—“

“My suffering has always been a joke to you.” Marinette interrupted. “When you got me expelled for something I didn’t do. When you tricked everyone into thinking I was some sort of creep. When you endangered me as Ladybug by taking Chat Noir out of the fight with a lie.”

“But—no! I was—I was just trying to make friends and get Adrien to like me! None of that stuff was on purpose!”

Marinette scoffed, and turned her head away. Even here, after all this, Lila was still lying. Arguing with her was not worth it.

Salo was the one to poke the bear. “So you hate her, Marinette? Having her here angers you?”

Marinette considered this. Then answered coldly. “No. She is annoying. Irritating. If you had asked me when I first came here how I felt, I would have said yes, I hated her. But now, after all I’ve felt, all I’ve learned…what I feel for her is not nearly what I feel for you, Salo.”

“Oh!” Salo rested a hand on her chest. “Aww, Marinette, I feel the same for you! Would you…be my enemy?”

Marinette glared at her. “I hope you choke.”

Salo laughed. “She’s so sassy! I love this new Ladybug! What about you, kitty cat? How do you feel about all of this?”

They looked to Adrien, who was staring at the floor. He looked like he wasn’t paying attention.

Salo snapped in front of his face. “Hey, I asked you a question, Pussy Cat.”

He looked up at Salo, then at Lila, and then back down to the floor.

Salo whistled lowly, “man, isolation was not good for you.”

Adrien didn’t respond to that, and kept his gaze on the floor.

To the outside, he looked resigned and obedient, but in his head, dark thoughts of revenge circled. Violent, unnatural, evil thoughts.

“Well,” said Salo, patting Lila’s head. “If having her here isn’t that big of a deal, I might as well get rid of her.” Her hand went to her hip.

Lila started crying. “Marinette! Please help me! Tell her to let me go! Please! I beg you!”

Marinette let out a dark laugh. “You think I can do anything? You think if I had any power, I wouldn’t have saved myself by now?”

Salo withdrew the gun, pointing it between Lila’s eyes.

“Please Marinette!”

Salo smiled. “My goodness! Ladybug, savior of Paris, would allow a civilian to get hurt?”

“Lila isn’t a civilian.” Marinette corrected, her voice deep. “She’s a parasite. A liar and a manipulator. She hurts everyone around her, and only causes trouble. Her disappearance would only be a good thing.”

The barrel rested between Lila’s eyebrows. “So I can dispose of her? You don’t mind?”

Marinette shrugged, her face blank. “Blow her brains out.”

Lila sobbed. “I lied!” She screamed. “I lied about everything! This is real! There’s no performance going on! I never dated Adrien and Marinette never lied! Marinette never took any pictures of Adrien! She never stole anything! She didn’t cheat on her test! She didn’t push me down the stairs! I never met any celebrities! And I hate Ladybug!”

Salo looked at her with surprise. “What? Is this a confessional?”

“I told the truth! Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”

Salo barked a laugh. “You think this is about you?! You’re such a stupid bitch! I can’t believe you actually thought you had anything to do with this!”

“…then…why was I here?” She asked, trembling.

“You were the one broadcasting yourself all over the news! You know, I thought you did have some connection to them, but you actually lied and put yourself in trouble! You’re such an idiot. Why did you think this was a good idea? You’re so desperate for attention that you painted a giant target on your back.” She laughed again, being amused by the whole thing. “You have the gall to believe that you’re important in any capacity? My revenge is against Ladybug and Chat Noir! If you have nothing to do with them, then you’re useless to me!”

“Marinette!” Lila screamed. “Help me! Please!”

Marinette glared at her. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

Lila cried out, bawling her eyes out, pleading with everyone.

Then the barrel of the gun pulled away. And Salo started laughing. “Wow, harsh. And I thought I went through petty high school drama.” She clicked the gun back into the holster. “But I can’t let Marinette have to satisfaction of you being killed. Warren?” She nodded to a man in the back of the room. “Take her out to some park and leave her. They’ll find her.”

“Yes ma’am,” said the brute.

“But before you go…I want Miss Rossi to witness this.” She held up the spool and needle, holding it in the light. “Pasolini, if you would be so kind?”

Marinette didn’t show any outside signs of panic or fear, but tightened her hands into fists.

Pasolini came from behind, resting one hand on her shoulder, and the other other throat, tilting her chin up.

“You’re not going to fight?” Asked Salo. “No screaming? No kicking?”

“Why? Is it not as fun for you if I behave?” Marinette bit back.

Salo grinned, snapping a rubber glove onto her hand. “You got me there. Still going to sew your mouth shut though.”

Marinette looked to all the world calm and collected, as Salo used a sharpie to mark the inside and outside of her lips, creating the guide.

She took hold of her bottom lip and pulled it forward.

Marinette’s eyebrows drew together as the needle pierced her skin, going in the bottom and out the top. There was no numbing, no relief, only stinging sharp pain. Even when the needle was through, the cotton thread ripped through the puncture. Then Salo moved to the top lip, puncturing through the bottom to the top, and then back down again.

Under and over, a basic stitch pattern. Marinette didn’t make a peep, but the tears still rolled down her cheeks. Blood oozed from the piercings, smearing around and turning Marinette’s mouth red.

Finally, Salo made one last stitch, eight in total, and made sure it was pulled tight. Then she tied it off and snipped the access. “I’m not much of a seamstress, but I think I did pretty good!”

She brought a mirror over so Marinette could see her new look. The way she had done it forced her lips into a pout, and right around the edges there were little black lines were the thread was visible. Testing the strength, Marinette found she could very slightly open her mouth, enough to maybe drink some water, before it hurt.

“Ah, much better! Now I don’t have to listen to your god awful annoying voice anymore!” Salo cheered.

Marinette tore her gaze away from her reflection, to glare at Salo. There was a threat in her eyes, but it would continue to be unvoiced.

“What do you think, Adrien?” asked Salo, turning to him. “You’ve been awfully quiet this evening.”

Adrien whipped his head up, his face full of rage, eyes burning, and hissed at her.

Salo grimaced. “Yikes. Nothing worse than a poorly behaved kitty. Well, we’ll just have to train that out of you.” She waved at a man in the shadows, gesturing him forward. “Warren, you can escort Miss Rossi out now. I don’t particularly care for keeping her around.”

The room went into motion. Lila was bagged again and dragged out of the room, while other devices were brought forward.

For Adrien, it was a large metal rack, with straps for the arms and legs, and a link for the collar around his neck. It almost looked like a cross. He was strapped in, both arms, and his feet were splayed apart.

Then they attached pads with wires to his palms, the pads of his feet, the underside of his arms by his armpits, and the area right below his bellybutton.

Marinette watched all of this with a careful eye, not able to ask questions, but extremely wary. She could have sworn she had seen those pads in a movie or something.

Next, the men moved two metal hoops on stands on either side of her. They weren’t too big. Large enough to comfortably fit her arms through. At it seemed exactly what they wanted her to do.

Then finally, Salo brought over two buckets and a pitcher of water. “Well, don’t you look just absolutely curious?”

Marinette flicked her eyes over all the components in the room, an answer to her question starting to form.

“Now this is a fairly simple device of my own design. You’ll be putting your hands through these hoops, and holding up these buckets of water. As time goes on, I’ll add a little water at a time. All you have to do is hold them still. If you touch the hoop…well…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Salo rested a wooden dowel on the edge of the ring, just touching it ever so briefly.

A spark flew off of it, and Adrien’s whole body seized up for a second. He let out a grunt of pain.

“The longer you touch the ring, the longer the shock. But you can handle this, right? Ladybug is so strong!”

But Marinette wasn’t about to tell her that it was only because of the earrings that she had such heightened strength. It’s not like she could, anyways.

Two goons took hold of her arms and fed them through the hoops. They placed the handles of the buckets in her hands, and then taped her fist closed, so she couldn’t drop them. With the buckets in place, it was impossible to pull her hands back through the hoops.

Even with a few inches of clearance on all sides, she still could feel the static around her wrists. It didn’t help that she was still pretty wet and she was holding metal buckets.

“One last thing,” Salo snickered, placing a bag over Marinette’s head. “Can’t have you knowing where the ring is, right?”

Despite the tape, Marinette clenched the bucket tighter. If that spark was any indication, she’d be shocked too, and a shock could contract her muscles and freeze her in place.

Then water started to pour into the buckets. Just about a cup on each side. But Marinette had lost a lot of muscle in isolation.

“15 minutes, and then you can go back in your little cage.” Salo giggled, the chair Lila had sat in scrapping across the floor. “Oh, and by the way, if you touch the ring for too long, you could kill Adrien. Those bolts will cross the body, passing by his heart. I know his heart stops when you walk into the room, but let’s not get too literal, huh?”

Maybe it would be a mercy to kill him. Surely it would be painful the whole time, but…no. No, she couldn’t do that. It was just her twisted brain obsessed with death.

Five minutes in, and she was already struggling. Her shoulders, biceps, and even her neck hurt. She hadn’t hit the hoop yet, but it was only a matter of time. Salo added a little more water.

At seven minutes, her arms lowered the tiniest amount too much and she touched the bottom of the ring, sending out a bolt of pain up her arm for a millisecond.

Somewhere in front of her, Adrien barked in pain.

Shortly after, the pain had mostly disappeared, only leaving a slight tingle behind instead.

Another minute passed, and Marinette sank again, the touch lasting a little longer this time. She yelped in pain, pulling at her stitches.

“Uh oh, are we giving up already?”

Marinette was sweating, her muscles trembling. Her elbows felt like they were hyper extended and her wrists ached. The metal handle dug into the crease of her fingers.

Another round of tears cleaned streaks on her dirty face.

Another touch, longer this time. And when she over corrected, she touched the top too, her whole arm convulsing and violently jerking.

Adrien wasn’t fairing much better. He closed his eyes, unable to watch, and waited for the inevitable pain to come.

The first was short, and it also didn’t even hurt. It just caused all of his muscles to contract. The wires in the paddles left a tingling sensation behind.

The next one was worse. There was really no way to describe the sensation except for painful. Excruciatingly painful. A flash of white behind his eyes, every muscle in his body contracting, tightening, and feeling like he was tearing apart. The bolts burned his skin, heat zipping across his flesh and into his bones.

Each touch, even the most gentle, brought agonizing pain to every inch of his body.

He knew he was screaming, but it was unbidden. Happening without his consent.

Once the shock had ended, and the pain had just about subsided, another shock would be inflicted.

Marinette felt like her arms were going to rip off. There couldn’t be more than a liter in either bucket, but they were just so heavy.

She trembled as she tried to hang on. But finally, at the 14 minute mark, her arms gave out, and she collapsed, bringing the rings down with her to the floor.

Sparks flew everywhere, not just burning her arms, but the rest of her as well.

Adrien’s screams sounded like a garbage disposal in the sink. His voice had been destroyed in isolation, and all that was left was gurgling and yowling.

Then it all stopped.

Marinette laid on the floor, her arms itching from burns. She was exhausted, and couldn’t find the strength to do anything but breathe.

“Is that it?” Someone asked.

“Johnson, Check for a pulse.”

Marinette felt someone holding her wrist. “She’s still got one.” Then she waited on bated breath. “He’s got one too.”

Salo pulled the hood off of her head as men ripped the tape off her fingers. “Wow! What a shocking development!”

Marinette opened her mouth to protest, finding the thread looser, but not undone. She also tasted a lot of blood.

Salo plucked one end of the thread and pulled it tight again. “Hmm, that might just leave a scar.”

Marinette pushed up on one arm so she could look at Adrien.

He hung lifelessly by the wrists. His skin was blackened in some areas, in bolt shaped lines. His hair had fluffed up from the static.

Salo snapped in front of his face, but there was no response. “Ugh, guess we’re done. Can hurt someone who’s unconscious, right?”

They were lead back to the first set of cells they had been kept in. She wobbled, but walked on her own, while Adrien was dragged by his working arm.

The tiny cell was almost comforting. Being in the cold, quiet dark. Tucked into a small corner of the world.

She couldn’t speak, but she moaned, making noise to get Adrien’s attention.

He didn’t answer.

Not that she really expected him to.

With a sigh, she slid down to sit, resting her feet against the door.

It groaned in response.

That’s right, these cells were just old ductwork that had been repurposed. The metal wasn’t very thick, like sheets of steel, but it was sharp.

An idea started to roll around in her head. Risky, but plausible. If they were desperate enough.

She was certainly angry enough. But the truth of the matter was that she wasn’t doing anything without Adrien.

So she waited.

Her body demanded rest, but she knew she couldn’t indulge. Not yet. Her arms throbbed from holding up the buckets, and her legs ached from standing after sitting for so long.

But enough wallowing in pain. Now was time for action.

She reached under the door towards Adrien’s cell, her arm fitting a lot easier than when they were first inducted. Perhaps her wasting would be beneficial.

She stood back up, and ran her hands all over the inside of the cell, finding a small camera. She twisted it so it faced away from the door. Then she knelt and got to work.

Very slowly and quietly, she pushed on the bottom of the door, easing it away from her. No sudden movements, or the metal would rattle loudly.

Only a few minutes passed before Adrien groaned from his cell, and shifted, the metal groaning. “My Lady?” He whispered.

She grunted back.

He reached his arm under his door towards her.

For assurance, she patted his hand, but went back to work.

Soon enough, the metal had bent far enough that she could fit her shoulders through. She had to be careful, or else she’d cut herself.

As her feet cleared the threshold, her heart began to pick up in anxiety. She was out. But they weren’t free yet, so she knelt in front of Adrien’s door, and began pulling.

Adrien caught on quickly, and moved the camera just like she had.

This was it. Marinette was banking on the idea that Salo and her men had gotten cocky, and had lowered security for the night.

If not, they were in for a world of pain.

Finally, Adrien was able to crawl out of the little space they had created. He met her eyes in the dim light and smiled at her.

Phase one complete.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #chat noir #ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #fanfiction #longest night #torture #tw needles #adrienette #adrinette #ladynoir

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maychorian · 5 years

Note

Could I request 6 and 24 with Tim and Damian (or Jason).

I’ve already written 6 with Tim and Jason (and there’s another prompt in my inbox for 6, too; you guys really liked that one). So here’s Tim and Damian in a nebulous period where Damian is still being a total jerk to Tim on a regular basis but they do actually care about each other.

24. “I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe.”

Drake had been missing for three days. When he missed checking in the first day, no one thought much of it. Drake often got caught up in his work post-patrol and fell asleep before making a report, verbally or electronically. He would catch up the next day, sometimes with an apology, sometimes without. Father and Pennyworth scolded him, but that didn’t stop it from happening again.

When he didn’t check in the second evening, though, and hadn’t sent any reports about the first night either, an alarm was raised. Father contacted Wayne Enterprises and found that he hadn’t been at work, either. Oracle began searching all of the video feeds and reaching out to their network of contacts. Father’s teeth gritted, his eyes narrowed, and every movement was sharp and focused. Damian was sure that Drake would not remain missing for long.

On the third day, Grayson came back from Bludhaven to help with the search. The Birds of Prey dropped the case they’d been working on to assist. Even Red Hood was called upon, and even worse, he responded.

Damian wasn’t worried, though. Of course not. Drake was too annoying to die. He’d probably just fallen asleep in a subway tunnel or something, and his persistent exhaustion was such that he had yet to wake up. Yes, that was a reasonable explanation.

But when Oracle came through with a lead, Damian moved in with everyone else. It was a warehouse, abandoned since the quake years ago, with known ties to Two-Face and his gang, though as far as anyone knew it was not currently in use. Drake had made a note on his personal computer about checking old known villain hideouts for boobytraps and caches, and it had taken this long for Oracle to break his encryption. The area was so out of the way and abandoned that there weren’t any working video feeds.

Nightwing and Batman took the front entrance, Red Hood went in the skylight, and Robin found a back entrance with a single guard. He reported the presence of the guard, hissing through his teeth, because it was proof that the warehouse was not currently abandoned after all. Batman acknowledged the report, and then the others closed in. In moments, Robin could hear fighting over the comm.

He took out the back guard with a batarang and secured his wrists, then picked the lock and slipped inside. He heard the fighting more clearly now, echoing through the dusty halls and rusted vents. Only a few lightbulbs were lit in the back hallways he traveled through. He stuck to the shadows, his head swiveling back and forth as he watched for enemies.

It didn’t take him long to find another guarded door, this one with two men. They were tense, guns out and down by their sides, but their attention was aimed away from Robin. The sounds of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Hood fighting whoever else was in the warehouse was acting as a good distraction.

Robin swung up to the pipes on the ceiling with careful stealth, carried himself a few feet closer hand-over-hand, then dropped on them from above. A couple of kicks disabled their gun-carrying hands, causing the guns to skitter off into the shadows, and blows to the temple took the guards down the rest of the way. They tried to fight him, but their blows were uncoordinated, and they never landed a hit on him.

Robin secured these guards, too, with zip ties around their wrists and knees, then turned toward the door. He didn’t know what they were guarding, but he could tell it was important. It could be Drake, could be goods or valuables, even Two-Face himself. The door was both locked and barred, thick metal with no window or any other features. He removed the bar and made short work of the padlock and chain with his lockpicks once again, then stepped inside.

“Red Robin? Are you here?”

The room was dark, and his feet shuffled through a layer of dirt and dust on the floor. There was a dank smell, unpleasant and pervasive. Mildew, rot, broken wood, concrete dust…vomit.

Now that the sounds of fighting were muffled, or perhaps coming to an end, Robin could hear breathing in the room with him. It was harsh and low, but Robin was about eighty percent sure that he recognized it.

He couldn’t help but gloat. “I knew I’d be the first to find you, Red Robin. What’s wrong, couldn’t rescue yourself? I thought even you would be able to overcome such pathetic thugs, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that your skills would not be up to the challenge.”

Drake coughed, the sound broken and choked. “Da—Robin, please…. Shut up.”

The words were barely audible, as if forced out through a stranglehold. Damian frowned. He looked around for a lightswitch or pull string, but when he found a switch, nothing happened. He flipped his lenses to night vision instead.

Drake was sitting in the corner of the room, propped against both walls. His hands and feet were both bound with thick chains, and he was badly beaten, his suit torn in places, head drooping. More worrying, now that Damian was paying attention, was the way he was breathing. It sounded like something was wrong with his lungs.

Damian closed his lips and moved forward. He had to maneuver around several broken crates and a puddle of sickness on the floor, his nose wrinkling up. He knelt by Drake’s side, ignoring his start of surprise at the sudden closeness, and started working on removing the restraints from his arms.

“Report on your condition,” Robin said grimly.

Red Robin sighed, but it cut off in the middle, interrupted by a coughing fit. He leaned away from Robin, trying to muffle himself on his shoulder and not spray him with germs. His body seemed to spasm in the throes of it, and Robin had to back off until it stopped, unable to work on the cuffs while it continued.

Drake finally finished coughing and slumped against the wall with something close to a sob. “I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe.”

“I’m working on it,” Damian said, turning back to the cuffs. His voice was surprisingly gentle to his own ears. “Are you sick?”

Stupid question. The answer was obviously yes.

Drake laughed almost soundlessly, trying not to let his chest move. He held his hands as still as he could for Damian to work on. “It was…was just a minor head cold three days ago. Prob'ly pneumonia now.”

“You should have stayed in if you had a cold, you idiot. The rest of us can take care of Gotham without you.”

“Probably. I honestly thought this place was abandoned, though. It was just gonna…just gonna be a routine check. You know Joker left behind…an armed nuke in one of his old hideouts?” He had to keep pausing for breath.

Damian frowned and worked harder. For some reason this lock was much more tricky than the two doors he had just picked. Maybe because his hands were trembling. Or maybe that was Drake. “Stop talking. You’ll make your lungs worse.”

“Don’t think that’s…possible.”

But Drake fell silent, letting him work. The lock finally opened with a muffled clink, and Damian pulled the chains away, unwrapping them from his brother’s arms. Drake flexed his hands, trying to encourage circulation.

Damian turned to the chains on his feet. The sounds in the rest of the warehouse had ceased, so he activated his comm now that he wouldn’t distract the others in a crucial moment. “Batman, Nightwing, I’ve found Red Robin. Requesting transport. I don’t think he should walk, and I can’t carry him on my own.”

“I can walk,” Drake protested.

Batman was already answering, his voice sharp with worry. “Is he injured?”

“Ill. Possibly pneumonia. His respiration is labored and uneven.”

“On our way.”

Damian finished the other lock and pulled those chains away, too. Drake’s trembling seemed even more pronounced, perhaps a reaction to finally being rescued after days of lonely vigilance, enduring both mistreatment from enemies and the betrayal of his own body. As soon as he was free, he tried to push himself to his feet, shoving along the wall. As Damian expected, though, his knees buckled almost immediately.

Damian shoved in closer with a growl and got his shoulder under Drake’s armpit, pulling his hand around his neck. “Lean on me. We can at least get out in the hall. Then we’re waiting for assistance, do you hear me?”

“Yeah, okay,” Drake said faintly. He leaned on Damian and let him lead the way, weaving around the crates, the puddle of vomit.

In the hallway, Drake did not object to being lowered down to sit against the wall. His eyes were dilated in the dim light, mouth open as he panted. When Damian switched his lenses to normal mode, he could see how pale and clammy his skin was, translucent where it wasn’t bruised.

His breathing did seem slightly easier, though, away from the awful smell of that tight little room. Damian considered, then chose to sit next to him against the wall while they waited. Drake shivered, then leaned against him, just a little. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Damian said stiffly. He did not point out, again, how pathetic Drake was to have needed rescue, and how stupid he was not to have taken care of himself, for allowing his illness to progress to this point. It was as close as he could get to being kind and comforting.

If he was Grayson, he would say something else. “You’ll be okay,” maybe. Or, “I will always come for you, of course.” He’d call Drake by a pet name and make him feel comfortable and safe and loved.

But all he could do was sit there. He could be strong as Drake leaned against him and not lean away.

“Father’s coming,” he said, and Drake nodded limply on his shoulder.

It could have been worse.

#askbox #batfam #tim drake #damian wayne #fanfiction #my stuff #hurt comfort #sickfic #Anonymous

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eliyah-de-dark · 4 years

Text

It’s been rough for me as a writer these past few months. Between work uncertainties, moving, and general mental health, I haven’t been able to write anything -fanfic or original - in what feels like forever. Then out of the blue this morning, I had an idea that managed to make it onto the screen. I want to write so much more for this, so bear with me.

Word count: 2618

Genre: Sci-fi, I suppose.

Pops always said revolutions are simple. Enough good people stand up, and the bad ones don’t have a prayer. His words repeat in my mind as the small town car rolls further down the dirt road. Dark smoke travels in plumes across the sky, painting it like a rainless storm across the prairie. They trail back to Broken Hill Correctional Facility. The cement and steel giant dominates the skyline as soon as it’s in view, its smoke stacks pumping out the acrid smog at high speeds.

The first time I came here, the cabbie told me Broken Hill used to be a town. You can see the skeleton of it behind tall barbed wire fences. I watch as prisoners are dragged about by their chains from the collapsing houses and pulled into the main building. My eyes search each person’s face, but I don’t see him. He must already be in the factory. The closer we get to the gates, the more guards appear on their patrols like ants on parade.

Like everything in Broken Hill, the gates to enter the grounds are large woven steel. Two guards stand on either side of it, their gas masks reflecting the light from the car as we park in front of them. Seems no matter how many times I’ve been here, a pit opens in my stomach as they approach.

I put on my mask just before the window comes down, but the smell of burning flesh makes its way through the cracks in the seal. My body’s reaction is instant coughing, desperate to keep the poisoned air out of my lungs. “You alright, miss?” The guard at my window asks. I can’t see his face due to the tinted glass of his mask, but I can hear the concern in his voice.

I nod, forcing another painful cough down. The effort makes my chest hurt. “Yes, thank you,” I manage to say. My fingers fish into my pocket and pull out a small card. “My ID, sir.” His thick black gloved hand plucks it out of my grasp and brings it close to the glass piece of his mask.

“You cut your hair?” He asks.

“Yessir.”

He looks at me, his eyes leaving a chill that shoots through my spine. “Welcome back, Ms. Esmeray.” I bite my tongue as he says that name. He hands the card back, and I smile as I take it. The gate opens with the horrid screech of metal on stone. The car rolls forward onto the long tarmac that leads to the prison’s entrance.

The warden waits with a small group of guards at the end of the road. He stands out for a number of reasons. Sure, his uniform has more accolades attached to it, but the poor stitches strain to fit around the rotund man. I look at the buttons and wonder which one will break first.

At a nod from him, two guards approach the car. They open the door and help me out. I murmur my thanks to them before approaching the man of the hour. “Warden Beale, how nice to see you again,” I say with a smile. He straightens up, almost like a dog getting praise.

The guards behind me return to their spots in the warden’s little parade. “Can you believe it’s been 6 months already? My my, how time flies!” Warden Beale sniggers as he waddles closer. He grabs my hand and shakes it, ignoring the stiffness of my joints and the vice-like grip I give.

“How is he?”

Warden Beale huffs. “Relax, he ain’t going nowhere. You’ll have plenty of time to visit with him.” He snaps his fingers and the guards advance. My heart beats so hard it hurts as they surround me. “It’s a long drive from Stardust City, why don’t you get some grub from the lounge? Show her the way, boys.” The amused tone of his voice makes entering the prison so much worse. Like a clown inviting you into a haunted house.

I keep pace with the guards as they escort me through the dingy halls. Seems like they get darker and darker every time I come here. Once we are far enough away from the doors, I slide my gas mask off. The guards keep theirs on. They guide me through halls I’ve tried to memorise for months. We walk onto a catwalk that gives a view of the prison’s factory floor. The heat blazing from the open hearth furnaces passes through the glass and turns my coat into a sauna. How can the guards stand wearing heavy wool in here? Down on the floor, I can see legions of prisoners shovelling stones into the maw of the furnaces. I can’t make out any faces from here. The heat distorts the exact features, and distance makes them unfocused. Is he down there? Is that why I can’t see him yet?

The guards direct me on, gently nudging me off the catwalk and onto a series of cleaner, better lit halls. Here guards mill about without their masks, talking and laughing amongst each other. Their uniforms are identical to my guides, but they lack the silver six sided stars and black peaked caps that marked the upper echelon. As we pass, we are stared at, whispered about, pointed and gestured to. Our steps silence conversations and make way for awkward silence. It follows us into the lounge. The room is lavish compared to the rest of the facility. Old worn out couches with faded patterns, plastic tables with cracks in their poles, cold unidentifiable food with flies all around. Only the best apparently, I think, sarcasm dripping like the leak in the corner. I skip the food and go take a seat on the couch.

A speaker in the corner of the cramped room plays soft music, until it fades out and an electronic voice cuts in. “This music was brought to you by Diamontronics. Get the best for you and your loved ones with Diamontronics’ extensive selection of technology and services.” I roll my eyes. At the very least, it’s not another Stardust Enterprise ad. I’ve managed to drown those out back in the city.

A guard flops onto the seat beside me. I scoot closer to the edge, and they look at me through their heavily tinted gas mask before I hear them chuckling. “Sorry, guess I spooked ya.” He takes off his mask and peaked cap to show dark skin and tight black dreadlocks that spilled into his eyes. “Name’s Taher.”

“Celia.”

He chuckles. “I know, warden’s been talking about you all day.” That isn’t disconcerting to hear. I adjust my sleeve and focus on the toe of my boot. “So Stardust, huh? Good city?”

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

He clicks his tongue, which I guess means he agrees. After that is just more silence. I fiddle with the hem of my shirt. “You from around here?” I glance at him from the corner of my eye.

He shrugs. “Grew up on a Lyfoods farm. It was alright, but I chose to move up in the world, yanno?” A small, genuine smile grows on my lips.

We listen to the music now, the only aggravation coming from ad breaks. Taher taps his foot along to the melodies and hums. His voice is nice. When I tell him so, he blushes. “Think it’s good enough for Stardust City?” He chuckles.

I tap my finger on my lips and pretend to think. “Maybe, if the right rep hears you.” I hold back a laugh as I see his face light up.

“You really mean it?”

My nod leaves him grinning ear to ear. He is about to say something when the speaker crackles and the warden’s voice comes through. “Bring Ms. Esmeray to Visitation, Room 228.” It’s like someone flipped a switch in Taher. He stands up immediately, sliding his mask and hat back on, and offers his hand to me. I let him help me up and follow him and another guard who had been waiting at the door.

Visitation is nearby, I remember it from other trips. Third story, just above the factory floor. Prevents prison escapes, I’d guess. These hallways are like the ones near the entrance, poorly lit and rarely cleaned. We walk in silence, except for the rhythmic thump of the machinery below. Room 228 looks identical to the rooms around it, lit by one lightbulb in the center of the room which shines down on a steel table and two chairs, all welded to the floor.

Pops sits facing the door. His face, his hands, his clothes, everything is covered in soot. Rage strikes my heart as I see his hands, blistered and bloody, cuffed to the table so tightly he can’t move them. The only real sign of life is in his eyes. They almost seem to grow brighter as he looks at me. “Celia.” His voice is rough, like sandpaper on the ears. There’s a faint tone of the melodious voice I grew up with, one that sang and told stories and comforted a sad little girl, but it’s almost gone.

I rush in and kneel at his side, ignoring Taher and his companion as they close the door. “Are you alright, Pops?” My hands cup his face as tears begin streaming down his face. I pull my hand away and search my pockets until I find a crumpled up napkin. As gently as I can, I wipe at his face to reveal the pale skin beneath. Or what should be pale skin. His face is varying shades of red, a sign of working the furnaces all day.

I place a kiss on his forehead. “I’ll bring some burn ointment next time,” I whisper as softly as I can.

He gives the smallest shake of his head. “Don’t risk it, it won’t do you any good if you get caught.” His fingers twitch. I go to hold his hand, but the blood and puss give me pause. Touching will hurt, I think. I grab the hem of my shirt and pull, ripping the fabric in uneven strips. “Celia, what are you -” His chastisement is interrupted by hisses of pain as I wrap the wounds. I know this won’t help long term, but when I put my hand in his now, he flinches less. “Just like your grandmother. Ya don’t think these things through.” He tries to sound serious, but soon we’re laughing.

Seeing him smile does nothing for the anger I feel. Seeing him in this condition, it makes me want to go out and throw Beale in the very furnaces that make this room a sweltering nightmare. I don’t mention this to Pops. He wouldn’t approve. Didn’t the last time, anyway. His eyes twinkle in the dismal light. “So how’s life in Stardust City going?”

I shake my head and make my way to the chair opposite him. “I hate it.” No need to beat around the bush. “I wish I were back with you and Abuelita on that little farm outside Oubliette Pass.” Saying it outloud conjures images of the looming mountains, the green fields, the little blue creek that ran through the corner of the property, Abuelita cooking dinner while Pops and I play chess in the front room. I’m not surprised to have tears running down my face.

Pops squeezes my hand. I imagine the pressure like a hug, the smell of soot replaced with cherry campfire smoke and tobacco. “I miss it too, kiddo.” He tries to smile, but I can tell the memories are just as painful to him. “At least you’re taken care of, for now. How are the others?”

My eyes drift away from his face to anywhere else in the room. Even the corner is better. I don’t want to see his face when I say, “I don’t know. No one’s reached out.” The disappointed hum he makes is just as bad as seeing the light dim in his eyes. “They must all be pretty happy.”

He scoffs, his grip tightening for a second. “They’re as happy as their consciences will allow.” Those old failing eyes scan the room, and I join him. A camera sits in the corner closest to the door, a bright diamond emblem on it. Once we both acknowledge it, he leans in closer and whispers, “Has anyone sent a message for me?”

My head shakes, and he leans back and sighs. “Tell me about your life since our last visit. I want to know everything.” Like a button had been pressed, he went from tired and sad to upbeat and excited, hands squeezing mine and eyes shining.

I tell him about school, about the “friends” that I have, the clubs I’m a part of, and anything else that’s relatively normal. Despite his prodding, I avoid the topics of home life. He doesn’t deserve to suffer that knowledge. Let him think my life is all unicorns and rainbows, if it helps him make it day to day. He becomes intrigued when I mention an internship. “An internship? With Stardust Enterprises? That’s very impressive, Celia!” He sounds like any other grandfather in that moment, all pride and happiness.

I can’t help but smile. “Mr. Esmeray told me about it, and said I would be his first choice if I accept.” My excitement drops through the pit in my stomach that the heat around us reminds me of. “Maybe I could use it to help you.”

It was meant to be a murmur, but the change in Pops’ expression tells me it wasn’t. His leathery face turns hard. “Listen to me, Celia Reyes,” The use of my real last name sends a chill across my body, “You need to focus on your life. I failed in my attempts to change the world, so it’s up to you kids to find a better way.” His face remains still as the door swings open.

One of the guards breaks my grip on Pops while the other lifts me out of the seat. “No, wait! Five more minutes, please! Pops!” I scream as they drag me out of the room.

The last things I hear Pops say for the next six months are the words “I love you, Celia,” before the door gets slammed on him.

The guards try to get me to walk, but sobs shake my body so violently I can’t stand. I crumble to the floor and bury my hands in my face. One puts their hand on my shoulder, and I hear Taher speak to me. “I’m sorry,” He says, he doesn’t mean to whisper, but the mask dampens his voice, “I wish I could help.” He nods to his companion. The pair lift me to my feet and carry me down the halls.

Warden Beale meets us just outside of the Visitation wing. He grins when he looks at the tear tracks on my face. “A very heartwarming visit, I’m sure,” He sneers. “Have a good trip back to Stardust City.” He tips his hat to me before gesturing to Taher, a cue I know means get her out of here.

We remain still until Warden Beale leaves. Taher speaks again, “Can you walk?” I nod, and he relaxes his grip on me. It takes a second for the other guard to do the same. The pair march me out of the prison and back to the idling town car.

As I climb in, Taher calls out to me. “I’ll see you if I ever make it to Stardust City!”

I give him one last smile and a wave. “No you won’t,” I whisper once the door closes.

---

Would anyone be interested in reading more of this? Got any critiques or spell check errors you see? Let me know!

#original work #sci fi i guess #writing #writeblr #stardust enterprises #diamontronics #celia (reyes) esmeray

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