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tennessoui · 3 months

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Kisses to distract for the playmaker au 🌌

omg from this prompt list, kisses to distract from the au where all the kisses are basically to deceive and to distract???? hell yes!!!

so i couldn't pick which kiss i wanted and then i remembered i made a playmaker post once about how vos is probably sent undercover/ends up at anakin's table and obi-wan freaks out and corners him and they're found and its so suspicious that they would be so close talking in a secret corner that before they're found, vos kisses obi-wan so that people will just think that they're horny only for vos to then die because That's Anakin's Little Mouse

so this is that....except a little different cause obi-wan's daddy issues are Daddying rn

(2.6k) (cw: a nonconsensual kiss. but also. like. murder???)

Obi-Wan can feel his heart beating. It’s so loud in his mind that he can barely hear what Vader is saying, and he’s sitting in the man’s lap, face tucked up beneath his chin.

He can’t remember a time he’s felt more exposed, not even the very first time Vader’s hands had found his waist and pulled him into his lap in front of half his highest ranking men.

In the intervening weeks, it’s even been—well. It’s become rather…comfortable. If he doesn’t think of all the reasons it isn’t.

Perched on Anakin’s thighs, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other held to his lap, he can press his face up against the man’s hair. He can close his eyes and commit himself wholly to listening to the men and women around him talk. Talk of shipments and delays, money owed, lives taken in payment. Obi-Wan can memorize everything and he can do it from the throne of the very mob his department has tasked him with bringing down. He can memorize it all and spend the moments in between pressing kisses to the tendons of Anakin’s neck, trailing his fingers along the in-seam of his suit pants, rubbing at the mob boss’ shoulder with the palm of his other hand.

Because—because that’s what the mission instructs that he do. He’s supposed to gather intel, gather evidence. And he’s supposed to do it without Anakin realizing that there’s a rat wrapped around his heart. The kisses—the kisses help. Distract him.

And it feels good. To kiss him.

To tease him into fucking him up against the wall the second they get somewhere private. To coax him into such violent need he dismisses his men and has Obi-Wan right where they’re sitting.

It feels good, to be so desired that it’s uncontrollable. To be so desired that the desire must be dealt with, must be whittled down simply by the act of having. Of taking.

Obi-Wan doesn’t feel guilty about how good it feels. It should feel good to be touched. It should be some sort of bonus to the undercover mission that it is sometimes him whose hands shake with the desire to be on Anakin’s skin. It is not something he needs to feel guilty about.

It is not something his father needs to know about either, the way that the son he raised turns into a slut the moment a criminal gets between his thighs.

And luckily enough, right now, Obi-Wan is the sole decider of what Qui-Gon Jinn gets to know. That’s the nature of being the only rat to have lived this long in the Skywalker mob. That’s the nature of being the only rat. Obi-Wan gets to decide what he tells his team and what he leaves out of their quick and hurried meetings when Obi-Wan’s supposed to be on a run.

But—but he was supposed to be the only rat.

He was not supposed to look across the long table laden with food that Anakin uses for his mob meetings and see a face he recognized.

Obi-Wan’s head is swimming, and his heart is pounding so loudly in his ears that Anakin must be able to hear it too. That must be why he adjusts his grip on him, dragging him further into his arms as if that will make him feel safer.

All it does is drag the hem of his shorts further up his thigh, exposing the lace end of the stockings he’s wearing. All it does is tug the droopy material of his shirt off his shoulder—revealing the strappy red lace of the bralette beneath.

It has happened before—hell, Obi-Wan has dressed like this in front of these men for the express purpose of this happening, of his outfit revealing what lies beneath while he can feign ignorance. Nothing gets Anakin’s hands on him faster than other men seeing what he thinks is only his.

What is only his.

He came tonight wearing the brightest colors of pretty things he owned in order for this to happen because it has been far too long since Anakin last snapped. He has been far too put together lately, far too...distant.

It makes Obi-Wan’s chest tight with anxiety. He has not yet been able to figure out what attracted the mob boss to him in the first place, and he’s spent the last several days wondering if it’s gone. If he’s about to be tossed to the side, ripped out of Anakin’s bed with the same ease he was granted entry.

Or—maybe worse, what if Anakin has made him as a rat? What if he’s to be killed?

What if his father knows that and he thought to send in Obi-Wan’s replacement before he can die? It would be less suspicious, wouldn’t it?

No. Obi-Wan is being paranoid. Too paranoid. Even if he were to lose Anakin’s attention, he has the twins wrapped around his thumb. Anakin cannot kill him, his children would not stand for it.

And—it would give him time to figure out what he did wrong, what made Anakin’s eyes stray. He could be better. Figure out how to do better, be what he needed.

For the sake of the mission.

And…there would be no way for his father to catch wind of the mob realizing there’s a rat before Obi-Wan knows.

So the fact that Quinlan Vos is sitting close to the foot of the table…that he’s here, in this room, as a ranking member of Anakin’s mob….

That must mean that his father does not trust him to be doing his job. That Obi-Wan’s performance has disappointed him somehow, that he hasn’t been enough. He has not given them the information that they need and so his father has found a replacement.

And now the man who used to help Obi-Wan sort his father’s highlighters by color and size is staring at him from down the table, looking at the lines of his lingerie as he sits on the lap of the most dangerous mob boss in the city.

“Well,” Anakin says, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate. “Let’s break so that they can clean up this mess. And then—to business, men.”

The words are met with the thud and scrape of twenty or thirty chairs pushing back from their seats as the owners vacate them obediently. Obi-Wan, just as obedient, stays still. Anakin’s hand has clasped around the back of his neck, keeping him in position.

“You’re shaking, little mouse,” the mob boss murmurs.

“It’s cold,” Obi-Wan replies automatically, turning his face into his neck. He presses the faintest of kisses there and thinks about ripping the man’s throat open with his teeth, ending all of his problems now.

“Aw, baby, but you look so pretty like this,” Anakin says, ghosting his hand up the outside of his thigh and resting it just beneath the hem of his shorts. Then, his tone changes, growing lower, darker. Vader. “The men couldn’t look away.”

Obi-Wan tries to draw a breath, but it stalls out in his chest. He stills, and then immediately tries to pretend that he hasn’t, that his thoughts have flown to Vos, who had been just as surprised to see him in Anakin’s lap as Obi-Wan had been to see him at Anakin’s table.

“Hm?” Vader continues, as if Obi-Wan has spoken.

“I didn’t notice,” Obi-Wan finally says, sitting back so he can look fully into Vader’s eyes. “All I was looking at was you.”

They’re different from Anakin’s, Vader’s eyes. He would include this in his reports if he could figure out a way to say it that doesn’t make him sound insane. It’s been a long-held theory, that Anakin Skywalker isn’t always just Anakin Skywalker, but no one’s ever been able to have irrefutable proof.

But looking into Vader’s eyes, Obi-Wan knows. Knows it’s Vader who is looking back. Anakin is a dangerous man all on his own, but Vader…Vader is another beast entirely.

One that Obi-Wan isn’t prepared to deal with right now. Not when he is so on edge. When Vos is here. At Anakin’s restaurant. At his table.

Does Obi-Wan’s father really think he has failed so entirely? Does he really think he needs to be replaced? Needs support?

“I need to stretch my legs,” Obi-Wan says, pushing away from Vader’s chest. “I heard you and Ahsoka talking over it, I know this meeting will be a long one.” “My, what big ears you have, little mouse,” Vader says silkily, even as he drops his hands and leans back in his chair. The dismissal is clear; Obi-Wan is being given what he wants.

He gets several steps away before he looks back at Anakin, hands tightening into fists and releasing.

The man is watching him go, wine glass raised in front of his lips. He hasn’t closed his legs yet, sprawling out on his chair like it’s a throne.

And Obi-Wan is—torn. He needs to track down Vos. He needs to find a place to talk with him.

But he needs—he needs to stay here, with Anakin. He needs to turn back around and press himself up against Anakin’s chest once more, spread himself over him and make him feel good. So good that Anakin will not kill him nor tell him to leave and kill him all the same.

The shame and guilt that come on the heels of that thought are strong enough to force him to look away, force him out of the room.

He doesn’t get far.

A hand wraps around his arm and pulls him aside almost as soon as he’s exited the wide main room of the second floor of Anakin’s restaurant.

Obi-Wan makes an automatic, furious sound, but the hold on his arm only tightens as he’s pulled further into a dark and quiet alcove, mostly shielded by a marbled statue.

“What the hell are you doing,” the man who has grabbed Obi-Wan whispers furiously, and Obi-Wan goes almost boneless with relief. Oh, thank God it’s Vos.

“Me? What are you doing—” he turns around to face him fully, as much as the tight space can allow. “Did my father send you?”

In the shadows of the alcove, Obi-Wan can barely see Vos roll his eyes. “Probably in his mind, yeah, he did. I got back from one undercover mission, got sent the contacts for another almost immediately, wound up here, where his precious son’s whor—”

“What does that mean—”

“And he should have, Jesus, Kenobi! They told me you were making nice with the mob, wait until they hear you’re grinding up on Vader during his business meetings, what the fuck—-”

“No!” Obi-Wan doesn’t mean to say it so loudly or so vehemently, but he can’t. Qui-Gon was never supposed to know, no one was supposed to know, and now they will, and maybe his father will pull him off the case, can he do that? Would he try? If he thought Obi-Wan was doing a bad enough job, he would. He would take him away, get Detective Secura to arrest him next time they meet for information, it wouldn’t blow his cover, but it would take him away from—

From Anakin.

Obi-Wan can’t let that happen.

He hears footsteps, pointed and loud, coming down the hallway toward them. The break must nearing over, it’ll be time to get back to the real meat of the meeting, the actual mob business now, and then Obi-Wan won’t see Vos again. No way Anakin would let him spend a moment alone with another man—it would look suspicious anyway, if Ben knew this random mobster. Two rats getting cozy under the same roof, it doesn’t look good.

Anakin can’t know. Obi-Wan can’t lose him. He can’t lose him.

He can’t.

I’m sorry, he thinks and he knows it’s not good enough but the guilt does not drown out the need burning in his chest. The desire that cannot be controlled.

In the next moment, he’s pushing Vos up against the wall of the alcove, forcing him back with a grunt that’s loud enough that the footsteps outside pause.

Turn.

Just as Obi-Wan presses his lips against Vos’, pulling his own shirt down to look dissheveled. Messy. Like someone has been running their hands over his clothes.

“Oh, now that’s something Vader will want to know about,” Ahsoka Tano says. Obi-Wan rips himself away almost as fast as he pushed himself into Vos’ space.

It isn’t an act when he rubs the back of his hand over his lips. He’d kissed Vos mid-word, gotten the man’s spit in his mouth. He doesn’t like the taste, wishes it was Anakin’s.

“Tano,” he says. “Just making friends.”

Tano’s eyebrows fly up further than Obi-Wan’s ever seen them. “You get all your friends killed, Ben?”

Vos moves to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and the guilt and shame slam into Obi-Wan so suddenly that he almost rocks back from the blow. Vos is eight years older than him; was just fresh from the academy when Obi-Wan was still just a kid left to twiddle his thumbs at the police station waiting for his father to take him home. He’d gotten him take-out before. Coffee. Water. Little games to play with.

And Obi-Wan has gotten him killed.

“A little kiss won’t kill me,” Vos says, clapping a hand to Obi-Wan’s shoulder. There’s a note of bravado in his voice.

“Not quickly,” Tano promises. She raises her hand, snaps it when Obi-Wan doesn’t exit as quickly as she wants. “Come on, Benny. Let’s get you back to daddy.”

“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan says, taking a shaking step forward. All he can think about suddenly is Vos, a decade younger and relegated to a shitty desk in the back of the station first year out of the academy, shoes up on his files, biology flashcards in his hands as he ran Obi-Wan through the questions.

What has he done?

“Please,” he finally says, stumbling out of the alcove, and when his voice wavers, he’s not faking it. What has he done? He has gotten Vos killed—and for what? Why had he kissed him? He could have—he could have talked to him, he could have begged. He could have explained the situation, why did he have to—

Because there is nothing Obi-Wan can say that will make Tano hold her tongue.

And there is nothing Obi-Wan can do to stay Anakin’s hands. He has murdered people for less. Perhaps this time he’ll murder Obi-Wan too, that way Obi-Wan will not have to live too long with the weight of this guilt.

“Ladies first,” Tano says as she opens the door back into the room. It’s buzzing with the sound of other people’s voices, the movement of them as they find their seats once more.

Obi-Wan walks forward and Anakin’s eyes snap to him immediately. They’re dark and narrowed, as if he already knows more than he likes.

The walk has never been longer to get to Anakin’s side once more.

He’s pulled to stand in between Anakin’s spread thighs, the man’s hands falling to his waist and pulling him in, splaying out across his hips.

“Mm,” the mobster murmurs, and Obi-Wan’s legs are so shaky that he has to clamber up onto his lap just to avoid falling apart then and there. What has he done. What has he done?

“You smell different, baby,” Anakin says. “What have you been doing?” Obi-Wan wonders suddenly, wildly, if he can smell his fear. If he could see it in his eyes as he approached.

“Making friends,” Tano reports as she drops into the chair next to them. “Tongue first.”

Anakin’s hands still and then tighten. When he speaks, his voice is low and deep and all Vader. “Is that right, little mouse?”

And Obi-Wan—there is nothing Obi-Wan can do save for letting the guilt kill him.

So Obi-Wan nods. He nods and raises Vader's chin with his hand, forcing him to look at him. "I told you I was cold," he said as if he'd been so cold he found another man's body to keep him warm in the minutes he was away from Anakin.

Anakin's eyes are like pieces of ice. There's no warmth in them, but there's a glowing light of something that looks a lot like hunger. Fascination.

It's the same way he looked at him when he first saw him. As if he were intrigued.

The expression makes something that has been wound tight these last few weeks dissolve into nothing. Anakin's eyes promise that there will be no more distance between them. That he has not grown so tired of him that he will be discarded with next week's recycling.

And despite the guilt, the worry, the shame that's burning Obi-Wan's insides to ash, that look in Anakin's eyes warms him to the core.

#asks #prompt fill #vaderwan #obikin #playmaker au #to be clear vos does very much die #and obi-wan knows he dies #and anakin knows he knows he dies #and anakin also knows he was obi-wan's friend before #or he learns through excruciating slow torture or something #this universe is dark think what you will #also he wasn't actually getting bored of obi-wan probably #he will always find obi-wan fascinating #he just also wanted to see what obi-wan would do #if he thought he was getting bored of him #he never thought he'd sentence another man to death by kissing him tho #that caught him off guard if we're being honest #but his little mouse is perfect #and unexpected

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hussyknee · 5 days

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Y'know, when the choice is between voting for one of two tyrannical war criminal genociders and overturning the government, the "lesser evil" is, in fact, overturning the government. That's the difficult but necessary choice, especially since your country is holding most of the world hostage to its interests. Libs just know that their own lives might be part of the collateral, and worse, that their comfort will definitely be. That's what this is all about. After decades on decades of sacrificing Black and brown people in exchange for the stability of their power structures, they've realized that it's finally their turn.

#vote blue #every vote blue liberal deserves to have their limbs blown off‚ burned to death‚ buried alive‚ tortured and starved the way palestinians are #they should experience every single iota of their suffering #and those of parents and children separated and caged at the border and black people brutalized by cops #watch their loved ones die and become disabled with covid #since lives are just a numbers game to you then you deserve to be among the numbers victimized. see whether that clears things up #i would rather deal with alt right trolls than this scum of the earth #at least they don't try to hide what they really are #genocide joe #fuck joe biden #us politics #free palestine #gaza genocide #fascism #knee of huss

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redstrewn · 6 months

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If leander "good" end is him dying (breaking free from his fucked up cycle), then imagining MC having to mourn and live on without him

#I LOVE PAIN!!!!!!!!!!#redstrewn talks #THATS THE PROBLEM WITH FLOWERS THEY DONT LAST LONG AAAUGGGGHHHHHHH #THE TIME WITH YOU MAY HAVE BEEN SHORT BUT IT WAS WELL WORTH IT #TRAGIC HERO CODED. HE MUST DIE.#hey what i love is forever unrequited love. bc i love torture #there are bad ends where you have each other but its like obviously not good. yeah it can be sexy but obviously the toxicity of the #immortal endless bad end “loveWillNeverEnd” still remains as a toxic kind of thing. yes sexy but still fucked up and “incomplete” feeling #you have each other but at what cost? something is missing #for completion to break out of the cycle. finality of death. freedom from the torment of eternity.#UNREQUITED LOVE HE MUST DIE #idk im talking out of my ass i just love pain #in the idea of “loveWillNeverEnd” you are TRAPPPED. TRAAAPPPED INA CYCLE.#neither of you are complete. you are both holding each other BACK. there is all this space for growth SCREAMING at you both that youve #locked yourselves from #I WANT TO CRY AND I WANT HIM CRYING #FOREVER SEPARATED BY A BARRIER OF SOMETHING MISSING OR DEATH.#Hes long overdue for death i think. Running away from it. Death is catching up. Death will find him. He must let go.#AAARGHHRBRH you must embrace loss or that youve lost #idk wtf im talking abt i just want his route to DESTROY me

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whump-in-the-closet · 1 year

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The Merry Whump of May

@themerrywhumpofmay

May 16th- “Take a Break.”

[Branding Iron | Cemetery | Moonlight]

***

(tw: branding, death threat, implied past torture, magical whump, a guy gets speared with ice)

Villain had given up on finding their Sidekick.

It had been two months. Two long, dragging, horrible months. Nothing.

Villain hoped Sidekick had decided to change their identity and beat it to another country. They hoped they had faked their death and were living somewhere far, far away. Hey, maybe there were even happy.

Maybe they had learned to smile again. Sidekick had stopped smiling years ago.

Maybe Sidekick had followed the call of the void. The l'appel du vide. To simply disappear. Vanish. Never to be seen again.

Villain walked with their head down and hands shoved deep in their pockets. Because their gloves were ripped and did little to keep out the cold.

They had been feeling the l'appel du vide recently. Maye they would take a vacation. Buy a car and drive and drive and drive until they reached dirt roads. Then they would keep driving until the roads disappeared entirely, taking them with it.

But not today. Today was Monday and their shift was almost done. They really should buy some new gloves. Their fingers were going to be numb by the time they got home.

They passed by a cemetery without noticing it-- memorial stones crooked and gaping like teeth in the moonlight.

Villain walked by it. Stopped. Walked backwards, hair lifting on the back of their arms.

The shadows behind the stones had shifted. A new light had appeared– the raw red of an open flame. In contrast to the watery moonlight and its cool touch, the fire seemed bright and garish. Wrong.

Villain didn't always think things through. They couldn't afford the time. They either acted, or they didn't.

They acted. They were over the gate in a heartbeat. Crouching low over the ground, Villain was hit with the smell of upturned dirt and rot. It brought to mind images of creeping worms and decaying skin.

Lovely. What joy.

Using the shadows and the towering stone memorials for cover, Villain crawled closer to the fire.

The darkness had distorted into four separate people around the pit. Three stood together, while the fourth stood over the pit, hands clasped behind him.

As Villain's eyes adapted to the firelight, they were able to make out that the group of three people was in fact two people holding someone between them.

The third figure had his hands tied behind his back and wild hair in his eyes.

The world tilted. Shit.

In the flickering shadows, Villain could see the terror whip across the prisoner's face. It rose and fell as he tried to mask it. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose where he could not wipe it away. Every so often, he’d desperately try to lick it off.

The defiance? Unmistakable. The fear? That was new.

Sidekick, apparently, had not escaped to another city.

The temperature dropped several degrees around Villain. A deep cold filled them. Not anger. Not horror. Just...empty. And so, so cold.

“--I told you to give it up,” said the man by the firepit in a voice barely louder than the snapping flames. “Did you listen? No. You had to keep on trying to escape, again and again and again.”

Villain hissed through clenched teeth. They did not like where this was headed. Not in the slightest. They had lost feeling in their hands and now the cold spread up their arms.

L'appel du vide.

Though they were a good distance away from the fire, they could feel it on their face— blistering and painful.

“There is no escape from us.” The man slipped on a pair of gloves and reached for a metal rod that had been resting in the firepit.

Muscles curled like wires inside Villain as they watched.

The rod was a branding iron. White-hot at the tip, curling to red. The pattern at the end was the insignia of the Agency.

The cold increased around Villain, breath freezing on their lips.

Sidekick struggled, biting and snarling, as the man approached, branding iron held like it was some lofty and sacred tool of higher purpose and not an instrument of torture.

“Please–” Sidekick's voice was nothing but a shattered whisper, hoarse from screaming. “Don’t– don’t do this.”

The man didn’t respond, merely nodding to his companions to rip the prisoner's shirt off. Which they did, with ruthless efficiency.

Enough.

Something inside Villain snapped. They stood, shadows falling off their skin like a discarded cloak to pool at their feet. The cold pooled out with the shadows. Unstoppable.

“Touch my Sidekick and I'll kill you." I will enjoy staring down at your lifeless corpse.

The man dismissed Villain with a laugh. "Stand down. This is official Agency business." The brand hovered only a moment–curling red over dark skin– before beginning its plunge.

"And that is my sidekick."

The cold erupted into splintering ice, spearing the man through his hand. Blue ice completely swallowed the two companions who’d held Sidekick.

In the flashing light, Villain caught sight of blood and splintering-white bone in the darkness. A scream.

The branding iron fell to the ground and burned the grass.

Sidekick lay gasping on the ground, eyes locked on the iron. It was a bit too close for comfort.

Villain did not stop with spearing the man. They sent another jagged edge of ice through him. And another. And yet another. Until all four limbs were transfixed to the ground with icicles.

If Villain hadn't been so empty, they would have laughed at the comedic value of it all.

They walked past the firepit and past the now-unconscious man. They crouched down in the rotting dirt by Sidekick, knocking away the branding iron.

“Hey.”

Wild eyes. Deer-in-headlights eyes.

“It's me.” They drew a knife and he flinched back. “Oh. Sorry. It’s for the ropes.”

The only answer was shaky breathing. Villain carefully cut away the ropes and Sidekick jerked his hands away, rubbing his blistered wrists.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Sidekick lunged forward, almost knocking Villain backwards. He hugged Villain. It took a minute for Villain to realise that Sidekick was crying.

The cold dissolved inside Villain. The void retreated into aching silence. They sheathed the knife and wrapped their arms around Sidekick in a hug.

Shaking sobs.

Villain was also crying.

"Missed you," managed Villain.

"They-- they said you weren't coming."

Villain exhaled sharply. They didn't answer at first. Then: "C'mon. Let's get you home. You're going to be taking a long break. In fact, let's call it a vacation."

Villain stood and half-supporting Sidekick, left the burning light of the cemetery behind and walked in the moonlight.

#themerrywhumpofmay #mwmday16 #cw branding #cw death threat #cw past torture #cw magical whump #cw spearing with ice #idk how to tag that #but the guy doesn’t die #whump writing #whump drabble #villain whump #sidekick whumpee #villain and sidekick

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and-stir-the-stars · 11 months

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@dire-kumori has an au where Scooped Mike gets time-travelled to before CC and Liz's deaths, and he's filled with such blind rage and self-loathing upon seeing his younger self that he kills young Mike over and over again in a time loop that young Mike barely even understands. Guess who wrote a one-shot for it? (I'm also tagging @serenefig and @cloudwhisper23 bc I feel like you'll be interested in reading)

word count: 3,715

“Have fun with your friends’, brats. Don’t even think about coming back until morning unless you want to spend the night outside, ‘cause I won’t bother unlocking the doors for you.”

Cold lines of metal pressed grooves into Mike’s back as he leaned against the front door threshold and waved his siblings goodbye. His voice resounded in sharp echoes across the tree line; he spoke a bit too loud considering that his little siblings were only a few feet away, but then again, that was the point.

You never knew what things were lurking in the shadows, listening and lying in wait for the moment they could get you alone. Sometimes, however, you could use that to your advantage.

Michael’s gaze roved over the tree line as his siblings turned their backs on him and walked down the driveway. The trees surrounded their entire house in a near-perfect circle; shadows crept beneath the trees’ gnarled, grasping finger-like branches. As the sun slumped further down in the sky, the shadows drew steadily closer and closer to the house like a tidal wave of darkness begging to be held back no longer.

The eldest Afton’s jaw clenched as he dug his teeth into his gum with even more ferocity. Slowly, he pulled his Foxy mask from the top of his head to cover his face.

He didn’t have to be afraid with the wicked smile and sharp teeth covering his face. It was an assurance that Michael could be strong and brave even when– no, especially when he was all on his own, just like the pirate fox he felt so much for.

If a monster wanted to chase him down, then so be it. But as long as Mike had his mask on, the monster wasn't the only dangerous thing around.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Electricity shot through every nerve ending in Michael’s body. The jolt of adrenaline made every hair stand on end, and heat roared through his veins like wildfire as Mike crouched behind the garage wall with his fingers white-knuckled and half-numb against the cool metal of his bright red bat.

Each breath passed his lips at a crawl. Everything around him seemed to blur and fade to gray as Mike focused his entire being on the harsh slam of rubber soles coming closer and closer.

A million ghostly aches, sharp and dull and stabbing and pressing aches of a million undeaths, all sparked to life with increasing intensity as the monster drew closer and closer, but Mike pushed away the memories of aches and pains assaulting his limbs.

He only needed to get one good shot in.

He smelled the bastard long before it got close. It was something like the curdled cup of milk that Mike had found in his room last week, the maggot-infested animal carcasses he and his friends would poke at when they found them on the side of the road, the stank of rotten eggs– all those putrid smells and more clinging to the bastard's skin in an eye-watering stench that made Michael’s stomach churn and his throat burn on principle.

Mike's heart hammered in his chest, almost to the same beat as the footfalls chasing him.

There was a flurry of movement as the sicko ran past Mike where he was crouched out of sight behind the wall.

The reaper's footfalls quickly slowed as though somehow aware that it had been duped, but Mike was already moving.

The decaying monster didn't even have time to turn around before Mike jumped forward and slammed his bat into the back of its head.

His years' worth of practice hitting baseballs did nothing to prepare him for the vibrations that rocketed painfully through his arms and shoulders and all the way down his back, nor for the sickening crack of a human skull shattering under his hands.

The monster went down, but Mike could only stand there even as a voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to run. Vomit burned his throat at the curdled blood and the dark red and purple slimy skin that clung to the metal of his bat before it fell to the ground with a wet plop beside the monster. Thick droplets of the creature’s ice-cold blood dribbled down Michael’s face and smeared against the teen’s lips as he stood there in shock.

Boney claws wrapped around Mike’s ankle. The sharp pain of bone digging underneath his skin jerked Michael’s mind back to awareness, and he brought his bat down on the thing's wrist just before it had time to yank him to the ground.

The fingers didn't let him go even after the impact of Mike’s bat ground the compact bones along the creature’s wrist into fine dust held together only by moldy stretches of tendon and skin.

Michael brought the bat down on the thing's arm again and again and again before its other hand finally snaked around and grabbed hold of the slippery dark red metal.

Michael yanked the bat closer, cursing himself for giving the reaper a chance to rip his weapon away. But the reaper didn’t; instead, it used the momentum of Michael’s action against him.

Mike's vision went red with pain as the handle of his bat flew back at him and slammed into his lips with enough force that Mike heard his plastic mask crack on his face.

Except Michael realized a split second later that it wasn’t just his mask that had cracked. Something sharp and coppery exploded in Mike's mouth and the teen choked on shards of his own teeth as the fractured remnants slid down the back of his throat.

The thing's fingers were still locked around his ankle, and the moldy strands of tendon and skin keeping its bony purple hand attached to the rest of the monster's body snapped apart as Michael stumbled backward with tears in his eyes and dark red blood dribbling down his chin. He was too stunned by pain to react even as the monster peeled itself off the ground with one arm; its other, handless appendage hung limply against its side in a mess of unnatural angles kept together only by thin layers of rotting skin.

Its neck snapped down to look at its obliterated arm, but somehow, the creature looked almost bored as its empty eye sockets focused on the mangled stretch of flesh and shattered bone attached to it. The monster’s remaining fingers latched around its broken arm before ripping the twisted limb from its shoulder with enough force that its entire body jerked at the motion.

The shattered lower part of the arm flopped to the ground in a pile of putrid skin, and the reaper's head snapped back up and its empty eyes focused directly on Michael with its fingers still grasping the remains of its upper arm.

"You're going to regret that,” it whispered in the grinding croak reminiscent of a bag of gravel and forks shoved down a garbage disposal.

"M-Make me."

Michael had wanted to sound stubborn and strong, but the words cracked in the air and passed his lips in nothing but a whimpering stammer as he tried not to gurgle on his own blood.

He should have ran the second he had gotten a hit in on this– this stupid son of a bitch. Things were– Everything was already going so wrong.

The creature lurched at him. Michael didn't have time to run or stumble away; he barely had time to raise his bat.

The reaper still had the upper part of its broken arm in hand, but Michael didn't notice the sharp end of broken bone protruding from the severed arm until the jagged point had already buried itself inside Mike’s shoulder.

Two pinpoints of light sparked to life in the monster’s eyes, and its gaping black eyes looked directly at him as Michael screamed.

The reaper ripped its broken arm out of Michael’s shoulder and aimed for the teen's heart.

Michael just managed to ram the end of his bat into the reaper's neck at the last second.

It was a weak blow. The monster’s close proximity didn’t give the teen enough room to maneuver the long bat and Mike's arms and wobbly legs trembled dangerously, worsening his ability to strike. But by some miracle, it was enough to make the monster stumble a few steps back, though it grabbed onto the teen's bat and ripped it from his hands as it stumbled.

Michael didn’t fight to get the bat back. He turned on his heel and ran.

The teen’s hands clawed at his own shoulder as the monster’s footfalls echoed behind him once more.

Tears stung Michael’s eyes as he remembered that bloody, grimy, disgusting bone piercing into him. God only knew what kind of germs that thing had put into his system– what if the wound got infected?

Not that an infected wound would matter if Mike didn’t keep himself alive and out of the creature’s way.

Michael forced the pain and panicked delirium away. He had to focus; this was the important part.

The reaper was just behind him, following at a pace closer to a walk than a run.

Somehow, that was so, so much worse. The monster didn't have to run to keep up with him, and it knew it. It would always catch him in the end, like a hunter casually strolling after the blood trail of a wounded deer. The creature would never tire nor stop chasing him, and it was just a matter of time before Mike got too tired to go on running from it.

‘No. No, no, no– not this time.’

The monster’s slower pace did make this more difficult, though. Michael couldn't move too fast. He needed to always be just out of the creature's reach, or he would risk the monster getting distracted or frustrated and trying to cut him off by going a different route.

This would have a way better chance of success if Mike could keep the monster right where he wanted it.

Michael dashed into the house from the garage and raced up and down hallways and from room to room. As he ran, he ducked and jumped periodically to avoid tripe wires, avoided stepping on any rugs, and danced around jagged pieces of metal and nails and blades that had been embedded into the hardwood floor.

He really couldn’t afford to mess up this part. Any wrong moves or missteps would have to be avoided at all costs. But with any luck, the monster hunting him wouldn’t be so careful.

As he raced up the steps, he made sure to skip the fifth step down. But as he reached the top, it slowly dawned on him that things had been unusually quiet. As far as Mike was aware, the monster never seemed to react much to pain, but there was a distinct lack of surprised grunts or infuriated yells, or whirring gears and mechanical parts snapping as traps were set off.

Chest heaving as he panted, Michael turned and looked down.

The reaper was standing right there at the bottom of the steps. It looked exactly the same as it had when Michael had fought it in the garage, like it hadn’t set off a single trap during the chaotic chase.

Its head was tilted back, staring at the kitchen knives and heavy hooks used to hang endoskeletons that Michael had stolen and hung from the ceiling over the steps. They were hung high enough that Mike could race up and down with no problem, but the taller monster should have gotten a nasty surprise as it came after him with that single-minded focus it always seemed to have.

Instead, the monster looked up at the trap with an annoyed expression before meeting Michael’s eye.

Keeping its head ducked low, the reaper placed its foot on the first step.

Michael’s heart leaped into his throat and he stumbled down the hallway, struggling to breathe properly through all the panting and the blood still flooding his mouth and throat.

How was that thing still walking?! Mike had set death traps up in every inch of this house; it just wasn’t possible that the reaper could have stumbled through the house without setting a single one off!

The thing on the steps was still way, way too quiet. Had it seen him skip the fifth step down?

Mike turned for a split second to see if the reaper had gotten to the top steps yet.

A sharp pain sliced through Michael’s throat.

That single second of distraction had been enough time to throw several hours of analyzing the layout of every trap he'd set up in this house out the window.

The sharp feeling wrapped around his entire throat as his own momentum forced him further into the trap. The wire tightened, and suddenly Mike’s feet left the floor entirely and he slammed against the ugly red wallpaper.

Hurricane was a small town. One where there wasn't much to do, especially when your father worked at the most interesting place in town and you had to spend nearly every day there for hours on end.

Michael and his friends had explored every nook and cranny and forgotten place there was to find in the town. Including the abandoned railroad tracks in the surrounding woods.

Those tracks were so old that the rusty spikes meant to hold them together could often be found lying on the ground around the tracks, ripe for the taking; even the ones still riveted inside the old tracks could mostly be removed with some determination, and the sharp, rusty, six-and-a-half inch long spikes were attractive prizes to a group of rowdy teens with nothing better to do.

Michael had stored a lot of them away in his closet over time.

Sticking the rivets through a slab of plywood and nailing the plywood plank into the wall upstairs with the sharp ends facing outward had been a lot of effort, just like a lot of the traps he had spent the entire day building, but Michael had deemed it a worthwhile venture because he had been certain those spikes would be able to do some damage.

And Michael had been right.

Michael had put six or seven of those spikes through the plywood, but when Mike slammed into the wall, he only felt one big blast of pain set his back on fire. He didn't even have time to scream before a gush of blood and vomit slid through his throat, staining his shattered teeth and turning his inhuman screech into a quiet gurgle.

The wire stayed wrapped around Mike's throat and cut deeper as his feet–- suspended by the railroad spikes and wire too high for the teen to reach the ground– thrashed wildly in the air.

Michael’s vision went black as the thrashing jostled the spikes, widening the holes in his back and sending the sharp, rusted rivets deeper into his flesh until some of them scraped against his ribcage.

Gasping, Michael sucked in one shaky breath after another and tried to ignore the desperate need to claw himself upward. His throat and lungs were filling with liquid, but he wasn't drowning in water. There was no surface he could rise above to make it all stop.

What a strange sensation it was to drown in your own hallway without a drop of water in sight.

Bloody fingers clawed at the wire around his throat, but he couldn't pull it away any more than he could clear his airway.

Salty tears leaked down Michael’s face in a futile attempt to clear away the blood still staining his chin. Between one blink and the next, the red wallpaper and family picture frames in front of the teen were replaced by two hollow black eyes and putrid purple flesh flecked with varying shades of green mold that peeked out of the crusty white bandages holding its splitting skin together

The monster cocked its head at him, and Michael finally got a good view of the damage he had dealt it earlier. The side of its head had caved in like deflated basketball or a sandcastle under an oncoming tide, and yellowish-white shards of bone jutted out from the jelly-like mixture of blood and decaying muscle dripping from the cracks in its head.

The white pinpoints of its eyes flashed up and down him curiously, watching the blood flow down Michael’s body and drip into an ever-widening pool under his feet. The thing's lips had long ago rotted away, but Michael realized as raspy, cracked laughter spilled between the thing's dried-out, wrinkled gums and bared yellow teeth that the monster was smiling at him.

"You bastard!" More blood dribbled down Michael’s chin and gurgled inside his throat. Mike tried to spit it all out like this was nothing more than his morning mouthwash routine. "You bastard!"

Floorboards moaned under the reaper's feet as it took another step closer. Michael flinched as it did so, and immediately bit back a cry at the white-hot pain of spikes shifting inside his back and scraping against bone and organs.

"That looks like it hurts," the reaper rasped.

Michael’s tears stung as they leaked into cuts on his face from his earlier fight with the monster. He had felt hot and sweaty before from all the running and fighting, but now his fingers were iceblocks against his neck as he struggled with the wire digging into his flesh. A frighteningly cold, bone-deep chill cut into Michael's form, and the child trembled as he struggled to breathe through the blood and the pain.

He couldn't run. Couldn't fight. The monster– the reaper– was going to kill him now.

At least the pain will stop, a voice whispered in the teen's head.

A quiet sob shook the young teen's core. He needed the pain to stop so fucking much, but he didn't want the pain to stop– he wanted to live.

But if he was going to die, at least it would be on his own terms.

"Go ahead," Michael growled. "Jus– Just g-get it over with."

The creature cocked its head at him again, like it had been too distracted watching the blood seeping from Michael's form to bother listening to what he had said.

"Just d-do it!" Michael sobbed. "K-kill me, you– you wrinkly, p-puss-filled ball-sack! Come on! Just– just– get i-it over with and kill me!"

The reaper took another step closer. "No."

Blood-shot eyes locked onto the reaper's gaping eye sockets. "Why?!"

Wasn't that the point?! Wasn't that what this– thing– had set out to do, over and over and over?!

The reaper's hand settled on Michael’s chest. Mike didn't have the energy left to flinch or be wary. He only met the reaper's eye in pained exhaustion.

But then the reaper pushed.

Michael screamed as his prized railroad spikes dug deeper into him until his bloody back was finally pressed flush against the wall.

One of the railroad spikes went all the way through Michael’s chest and stabbed into the reaper's palm, but the monster didn't seem to notice. It ripped its hand away before latching onto one of Michael’s wrists as the teen frantically tried pulling the reaper's arm away from him.

"You want to know why?" Its voice whipped against the air in a wild hiss.

The dull hallway light gleamed off the dark red liquid coating Michael’s skin as the reaper shoved the teen's blood-stained hand in front of his face before it snarled at him. "Because no matter how many ways you try to run or fight it, you will always bring this hell down on yourself with your own hands. You did this, Michael."

'You're insane,' the teen wanted to say, but there was too much blood in Mike's throat for him to talk, or even to breathe. He tried shaking his head at the thing, but the wire was starting to cut frighteningly deep inside his throat. Michael could only stare at the monster in front of him with wide-eyed horror and beg for it to just end this, like the bastard was supposed to do when it caught him.

The reaper released Michael’s wrist, and the teen's arm fell limply down to his side.

He should do something; he should fight. But his energy had been draining away with every second he spent hanging on his own death trap, and there was so little left inside him.

He couldn't even lean away as the reaper lifted its only hand, moved its fingers around the edge of his mask, and traced the curve of his head with an almost gentle touch.

The reaper's broken fingers paused on a string looping behind the teen's head. It latched onto the string and pulled, ripping the Foxy mask off of Michael’s head.

The reaper's teeth ground together as it glared down at the bloody mask before letting the plastic slip from between rotten fingers and fall to the bloody floor with a wet and heavy thunk. And without hesitation, the reaper slammed its foot down on the only thing that had ever made Michael feel strong.

Hearing the sharp crack of plastic as the monster decimated the mask and shattered Foxy's maw into pieces wrenched a hopeless sob out of the teenager's chest.

The reaper stayed still. It didn't move further away, nor did it move any closer.

It only watched as Michael struggled to free himself from the trap one last time before finally giving up.

Michael struggled to gulp down another shaky breath through his sobbing but was rewarded only with more blood in his lungs and pain searing every nerve ending until even the most minuscule movements lit every cell and nerve in his body on fire.

Through it all, the reaper stood back and watched with a smile.

Not wanting to see the monster's smug, rotten face or the blood staining his own body anymore, Michael could do nothing but close his eyes and wait for the moment when the last drop of blood would drip from his body and all the pain would finally end.

(Michael had the sinking feeling that death wouldn’t be that easy of an escape.)

#tw violence #tw blood #tw injury #tw child death #tw death #tw corpse #tw body horror #tw torture #anyway did you enjoy the parallels to the Bite of '83?#and the slight parallels to pizza sim?#and the motif of mike's foxy mask making mike feel brave and like he has a chance until the reaper rips #it from his face so mike can die ''like the coward he is'' (in reaper's mind)?#ik the theme of this au is the *reaper* killing mike but i really liked the idea of #mike setting off one of his own traps and r. mike leaving him to slowly die.#because he doesn't just want mike dead. he wants him to SUFFER. and it's poetic is it not?#mike bringing about (his own) death in more ways than one. you can't escape what you are.#also ''you wrinkly puss-filled ball-sack'' ajdfajksdfhsjfks michael you think you're SO FUNNY don't you #i haven't actually written a teenage mike who isn't subdued and traumatized by the Bite before #it was fun!#10/10 would do again. young mike is so stupid and arrogant. an absolute delight to write.#paradoxical reaper wip #paradoxical reaper au #michael afton #mike afton #scooped mike #foxy mask brother #foxy mask #kats scribbles

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jinxedruby · 2 months

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Febuwhump Day Nineteen: "Please don't"

Featuring Hyrule and Wild.

Heads up for major injury and some torture (nothing overly graphic).

AO3

First part | <- Previous part | Next part -> (we've skipped another day, gentlemen)

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

Hyrule’s breath ran ragged in his throat, boots pounding against the dirt. He risked a glance over his shoulder, letting out a breathless curse when he saw how close the moblins and dairas had gotten. He ducked behind a tree, whipped around a bush, did everything he could to try and throw them off his trail. Several lizalfos emerged from the woods before him, forcing him to change direction, leaves flying out from under his boots as they skid across the ground. He shoved off of a tree, legs and hands tingling with overexertion. There may have been a small army of monsters after him, but if nothing else, at least he’d led them all away from Wild. If he’d just realized that the gate had led them into his era, he never would have separated from the group and this could have been avoided.

Another group of dairas appeared before him, cutting him off. He slid to a stop, spinning about. Monsters surrounded him in all directions, blocking any escape. Panic built in his throat and he whipped his sword out, turning in a circle as he gasped for air. The monsters slowly closed in. There were just too many. He’d nearly drained his magic earlier when he and Wild first tried fighting. But the monsters had just kept coming with no end and they quickly realized a change in strategy was necessary. He reached for his magic, gauging how much he had left as he backed into a tree. He had a green potion somewhere in his pouch, but no time to search for and drink it. Frantically, he glanced up at the boughs stretching overhead. The lowest branch stood at least fifteen feet above him.

A moblin roared and he snapped his head back down in time to see it charge, spear lowered to skewer him. Hyrule bit his lip, sheathing his sword and crouching down. Then, using the last ounce of his magic, he Jumped. The moblin’s spear slammed into the tree, splitting the bark and sending splinters flying. Hyrule’s jump peaked just at the lowest branch and he hooked his arms around it. He hung for a moment, kicking as he curled upwards and wrapped his legs around the branch. With a grunt, he hauled himself up and around the bough so he lay on top of it. Monsters hollered beneath him as he scrambled to his feet, reaching out to steady himself on the trunk. An axe hurtled past him, just barely missing the tip of his ear. He leapt for the next branch above him, kicking off the trunk and pulling himself higher in the tree. The higher he climbed, the closer together the branches got, making the ascension faster as he went. He climbed until the monsters couldn’t reach him with any projectiles. When he finally stopped and looked down, the ground stood a dizzying fifty or so feet away, the monsters’ shrieks and cries fading slightly with the distance. He let out a sigh, sliding down to a seated position, back resting against the trunk. His head spun, mouth dry from the magic exhaustion. He abruptly remembered his green potion and plunged a hand into his pouch, digging around for it.

The monsters’ screeches quieted for a moment. Hyrule paused in his search, glancing down. A gap in the branches below let him see a small patch of ground. A daira and moblin remained below, glaring up at him, but the rest of the monsters had vanished. A sick feeling settled in Hyrule’s gut. Where did they go? Had they already figured out a way to reach him? He glanced around as he continued searching for his green potion, but the other treetops surrounding him that he could see stood empty. His fingers closed around a glass bottle and he let out a breath, pulling it out. He yanked the cork out with a pop and downed it as quick as he could. His magic roared to life once more, thrumming in his veins as he lowered the empty bottle with a satisfied sigh. He mentally went through his spells as he put the bottle away, trying to figure out the best course of action.

A horribly familiar yell brought his mind to a screeching halt.

Hands shaking, he slowly looked down. A moblin appeared below him, dragging something behind it. With a grunt, it threw its arm forward, tossing a long-haired hero in the middle of the clearing. Even from up high, Hyrule could see the fury etched into Wild’s features, the champion scrambling to get up the moment the moblin released him. A lizalfos and daira rushed in before he could get off his knees, grabbing his arms and twisting them. He yelped and struggled, but couldn’t free himself from their grasp. One grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, forcing him to look up. Wild’s expression of rage turned to one of shock, eyes going round.

“Traveler?”

The daira cuffed the back of his head and Hyrule jerked forward, gripping the branch beneath him tight enough to leave imprints on his hands. Wild lurched forward from the blow with a hiss before the daira grabbed his hair and wrenched his head back again.

“The longer it takes you to come down-” the moblin that had dragged Wild in called. It stepped into view, turning its ugly face up to address Hyrule. “-the worse it gets for him.”

Hyrule’s heart thudded rapidly in his chest as the moblin moved closer to Wild. The champion couldn’t move his head, but his eyes darted down to watch the moblin approach, scowling darkly. Then the moblin hefted its spear and drove it into Wild’s thigh. Hyrule cried out at the same time as Wild, the champion hunching over as best as he could. The moblin yanked the spear back out, sending Wild’s blood spattering onto the grass below him. Wild hissed, face scrunched in pain as blood soaked into his pants and hem of his tunic. The moblin glanced up at Hyrule and, when it saw the traveler hadn’t moved, stabbed the spear into Wild’s leg again, digging through the same wound as before. Wild let out a hoarse yell and Hyrule hunched lower on the branch, watching in horror. His head spun with ideas, desperately trying to figure out what he could do.

“Come down, Hero,” the moblin shouted, pacing around behind Wild. It plunged the bloody spearhead into Wild’s upper back and dragged it across his shoulders.

“Stop!” Hyrule cried, Wild’s scream almost drowning him out. The moblin craned its head back to look at him with an ugly grin.

“Come down and I will.” When Hyrule still didn’t move, the moblin reached for Wild. It grabbed his left arm, replacing the daira that had been holding him, giant hand swallowing his entire upper arm. Then it grabbed his forearm with its other hand and twisted. Hyrule could hear the sickening crack even from up in the tree, Wild’s scream grating on his ears. Before his scream even had the chance to die out, a daira approached with a harsh cackle. It placed the blade of its axe against Wild’s stomach then slashed across. Wild’s shriek hitched in his throat, turning into haggard gasps as blood poured down his middle, staining his tunic a deep purple. Tears burned in Hyrule’s eyes as he watched, helplessness bubbling beneath his ribs. The moblin laughed, grabbing Wild’s hair and tilting his head back, turning the champion’s white face up for Hyrule to see.

“Not sure how much more he can take,” the monster said, giving Wild’s head a shake. Wild attempted a weak snarl but it faltered, turning into an exhausted grimace.

“Traveler, d-don’t you… dare,” Wild called weakly.

Hyrule’s heart throbbed in his throat, a dull roar in his ears. His head spun and he had to tighten his grip on the branch to assure he didn’t tip sideways off of it. The monsters laughed below him, taunting as they moved in to score various cuts and gouges in Wild’s skin. Each one made Hyrule nauseous, but for each one, he held the branch just a little tighter. He couldn’t go down, he couldn’t. Not when going down meant the return of Ganon and the destruction of his era. Not when it meant thousands of people suffering and dying. But he couldn’t watch the monsters torture Wild. He couldn’t bear to watch Wild die. Some horrible, selfish part of him wanted to just stuff his fingers in his ears and screw his eyes shut. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything.

Blood pooled beneath Wild, the monsters tracking it about in the grass as they moved around him. The moblin yanked Wild’s head back again. Wild’s eyelids fluttered, face devoid of color, gaze loosely landing near Hyrule.

“Tr… Traveler,” he managed, just barely loud enough for Hyrule to hear. “Don… don’t.”

The moblin laughed and threw his head forward again. Wild didn’t even catch himself, slumping in the monsters’ holds. Hyrule’s breath shuddered in his chest. His magic pulsed through his veins, heightened by the adrenaline. He had no idea how many monsters lay in wait beneath the tree. If he jumped down and started attacking they’d kill Wild immediately. If he stayed up in the tree, Wild would bleed out. If he gave himself up, assuming the monsters didn’t kill Wild anyway, he would be killed and his blood used to resurrect Ganon. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, tight enough that black speckles fizzled in his vision when he reopened them. If he used Thunder, he could take out all of the monsters in one go. But if he used Thunder, it would undoubtedly hit Wild. There was a chance Wild would survive, but the chance was small. Infinitesimally small.

“Last chance, Hero,” the moblin called. It pulled Wild’s head back and pressed the tip of its spear to his throat. “Come down or he dies.”

Wild made some kind of sound in his throat, probably trying to tell Hyrule not to do it. Hyrule’s heart crashed against his ribs, blood screeching through his veins. His fingertips buzzed and a cry ripped from his throat as he pressed his forehead to the branch, frustrated and helpless and hopeless. Stay put and Wild dies. Go down and everyone dies. Use Thunder to kill the monsters and almost certainly kill Wild. The moblin began to count and Hyrule nearly screamed. His face burned, scalp prickling. A tear escaped from his eye. He slowly, slowly lifted a hand, limb trembling violently.

“Thunder.” The word escaped on a whisper.

Lightning cracked through his veins, exploding into the sky. It arced down the tree, ripping through the air. Blinding white flashed as it connected with the ground, searing Hyrule’s eyes. The following BOOM shook Hyrule to his core like never before. Monsters screeched and a horribly, despairingly human scream joined the chorus. The single moment stretched into an eternity.

Hyrule blinked the white streaks in the shape of lightning bolts from his eyes. His ears rang, skin buzzing with the aftereffects of the spell. The smell of burnt hair and flesh hit his nose and he gagged, stuffing his knuckles into his mouth. As the ringing began to fade, deafening silence took its place, pressing down on his ears like being a hundred feet underwater. He dragged his gaze downward. The moblin lay crumpled on the ground beneath him, the head of a daira and tail and foot of a lizalfos visible on the edges of the gap. A blond ponytail matted with blood and dirt and singed at the ends lay splayed out on the grass. Hyrule choked upon seeing it.

With trembling limbs, he lowered himself off the branch and to the next one below. He clambered back down the tree, the smell of singed hair and earth growing stronger the lower he went. He barely felt the pain in his ankles when he dropped from the last branch to the ground. He remained crouched there for a long moment, terrified to turn around. Nothing but silence met his ears. Glancing in his peripherals, he could see tens of monsters lying dead around him, unfocused gazes staring into the sky or horizon. Sucking in a breath that hitched in his throat, Hyrule turned around.

Wild lay motionless on his side, blood-stained tunic wrinkled and dirty, blackened in spots where the spell hit. Hyrule couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. He took one jittering step forward then another, trudging toward Wild. He collapsed to his knees beside the champion, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder and roll him onto his back. Wild’s eyes were shut, chapped lips parted slightly, face white. Hyrule numbly placed two fingers against Wild’s neck, already knowing what he would feel. One second. Two. Three. Hyrule’s face crumpled, tears spilling from his eyes.

Then the artery pulsed weakly under his fingers.

Hyrule screamed, broken and raspy. Adrenaline surged through his veins and he pressed his hands to Wild’s chest, flooding the Life spell into him. Hyrule didn’t bother checking how much magic he had left. It didn’t matter. Whatever he had, he pushed it into Wild. Soft light glowed from the countless wounds covering Wild’s body. The deep ones in his leg, stomach, and back shone the brightest. His mangled arm gradually righted itself, the split bones sealing together again. Hyrule felt himself flagging as his magic drained but he narrowed his eyes and pushed harder, forcing himself past his limit. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, Wild still lived and he needed to keep it that way. He wasn’t ready to live in a world where he killed one of his best friends. He wouldn’t be able to bear it. Saving the world be damned, he couldn’t bear it.

Wild dragged in a breath, thin and strained. Hyrule let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob, slumping forward. His vision grew dim and blurry but he could see Wild’s eyes crack open, gaze flicking around before landing on Hyrule.

“O…kay?” he croaked.

A wail leapt past Hyrule’s lips and he threw his arms around Wild’s shoulders, burying his face in the crook of the champion’s neck. “I’m sorry!” he sobbed, only crying harder when Wild’s shaky arms came up to wrap around him. “I cou- I c- I couldn’t think of anything else, I- I couldn’t- I’m- I’m sorry! I’m- I-“ Hyrule broke off into ragged gasps, continuing to stammer out apologies between breaths. Wild weakly squeezed him, chest shuddering beneath Hyrule as he breathed.

“Did wh… what you had to,” Wild breathed into Hyrule’s hair, voice hoarse. “Worked… didn’t it? St-still my… my brother. S-saved me.”

Hyrule could only hold Wild tighter as the world spun around him, blood roaring in his ears. His tears mixed with the blood and sweat on Wild’s neck, dripping down and soaking into the champion’s hair. He’d almost- almost- knowing what would have happened, yet he still- He shuddered and pressed his forehead harder against Wild’s neck, feeling its warmth, feeling Wild’s arms around his back. He’s alive, Hyrule told himself. He’s alive. For the moment, that would have to be enough.

#linked universe fic #linked universe fanfic #linked universe #ruby writes #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #lu hyrule #lu wild #tw torture #I briefly considered having wild actually die here #but I'm not a big fan of major character death so he conveniently lives haha

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lord-squiggletits · 1 month

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Something else that makes me sympathetic to Pharma's situation is like. Idk if there's an actual term for this or if someone smarter and more academic wrote it about some real life context that actually matters.

But, so we've already established among Pharma stans that the circumstances at Delphi were blackmail/torture with no real way out that wouldn't involve Pharma being responsible for people getting killed (either killing patients for the deal or having everyone die bc he failed his end of the deal).

And I feel like while "he's still in the wrong because he killed people" is part of it, another sort of implicit part is the idea that Pharma should've been willing to take more personal risk, maybe even risk dying? I mean, Ratchet does ask "why didn't you just detonate it near the DJD" (to which Pharma responds that he did try to get Sonic and Boom to do it, but they refused) so like

Idk I feel like we do have this social notion of martyrs as a very romantic ideal, people you can praise for being so brave and strong and righteous that they ended their own lives for their cause, while you can also coo about how sad and tragic it is that dying is what it took for them to do the right thing. But at the same time I feel like in reality, having an expectation that people become martyrs is kind of a toxic social norm bc like. It's very easy to demand that others sacrifice their lives for some Ultimate Moral Good when you yourself aren't experiencing the same hardships as they are. And ultimately it is kind of fucked up to tell someone "the moral thing you should've done was risk your life/kill yourself" because asking someone to pay their life to do the right thing is no small request. And sure, the typical response would be to call them a "coward" for caring more about saving their own skin instead of doing the right thing... but again, death is a really scary thing and self-preservation is a really strong instinct, so it kind of feels like having this binary view of "you're either a Brave Hero who sacrifices your life for everyone else or a Dirty Coward who's too scared of dying to do what's right" is kind of fucked up?

I guess the best way to describe it is that if someone willingly gives up their life as a sacrifice to others, it can be a noble thing because it's a choice they made willingly, but if it becomes a Moral Standard that in order to be a Good Person you have to be unafraid of throwing your life away and if you aren't willing to die you're a Cowardly Bad Person, that's when it becomes toxic.

Idk, I guess how this ties back to Pharma is that he was never in a position where he expected to make these kinds of moral decisions/ultimatums. He's a doctor who doesn't even get into combat, his job is to heal and not to kill, he's behind the front lines in a hospital that's supposed to be a safe, neutral place for him to heal people. So in the face of suddenly having a "murder people on behalf of me, or I murder everyone you swore to protect" ultimatum thrust upon him, I understand why Pharma wasn't """"""""""brave enough"""""""""" to "do the right thing" (whatever that would've been in the case of Delphi). You could argue that maybe a frontliner soldier accepted the burden of possibly dying for their cause and they've become used to it as someone who lives that reality every single day, but I feel like for Pharma, who's a doctor and a protected non-combatant (from what we can tell), that sort of risking of his life/living with the fact his life could be snuffed out any day isn't something he would've been prepared for at all.

And for me personally, from an outsider's perspective, it strikes me as kind of unethical to go "oh well he should've just detonated the bomb himself even if it killed him" bc again, there's a difference between witnessing a moral conundrum as a bystander versus being the person living with it and being under time pressure where it's do-or-die. Just as part of my personal standards, I feel like death is such a huge consequence/burden of someone's actions (literally you are no longer alive, any potential you had left is cut short, you cease to exist on this plane) that it feels rather callous to go "Well you should've just been willing to die for your beliefs if you really cared that much!!!"

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #this is only like tangentially related to pharma honestly #not to compare blorbos to real life but like. it reminds me of this phenomenon where privileged ppl in privileged countries #will tell ppl living in zones of war and strife 'oh well if you don't like your gov so bad just revolt against them'#like oh yes tell me how easy it is to stand up against the threats of torture and death #surely the only reason people would want to avoid that is bc they're cowards or don't want to stand up for their beliefs #contrary to what nationalism would have ppl believe. 'wanting to not die' isn't a moral position #everyone wants to live. no one wants to die. it doesnt make you a bad person to be scared of dying #esp (going back to blorbo's) in a situation like pharma's where every option he had ended in death #the death of his patients or the death of everyone at delphi or his death personally #on top of the fact he's a noncombatant who hasn't been desensitized to violence/risking his own life #and is dealing with a trained group of killers that he can't possibly match on physical terms #so yeah actually i don't blame pharma for what he did #he made shitty decisions in a shitty situation but was ultimately a victim #also if you want to view the blackmail deal from a framework of abuse #it is also fucked up to basically tell someone they werent brave enough to just kill their accuser or ask for help #isnt the entire point of such situations that the victim is both powerless to stop the abuse #and too afraid of asking for help/thinks they cant ask for help. and thats why they dont just get out #idk sometimes the best moral judgement is to forgive someone or view it as 'complicated'#sometimes regardless of the good or evilness of their actions the best choice is to not make a judgement #or to err in favor of a forgiving/'i cant speak for your experience' judgement #anyways the fact is that the rosy fantasy of being a brave noble soldier who sacrifices for the cause #rarely stands up to reality where youre just terrified and powerless and dont know what to do #and suddenly the rosy glow of The Noble Cause isnt comforting in the prospect of horrible torturous death

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