(contains: lady whump, restraints, muzzle, branding, captivity, light dehumanization flavors(?), character with mutated limbs and dysmorphia about them, hurt with a little comfort at the end)

    Eugenia woke to a harsh tug on her arm– the left one, the horrible, unnatural one that was too sensitive and too numb, too thin and too lumpy and too thick where it had no reason to be, in swollen sinew and fleshy bulbs. Someone’s heavily gloved hand dug into the space between two bones that hardly had any feeling and their thumb pressed into the edge of a lump that now felt like it was searing in the heart of a forge.

    There was a funny thing that the cursed arm did. Instead of feeling pain in one part of it, keeping it to just the one bulbous lump of flesh, every sensitive point on the whole arm reacted at once. The bits around where her wrist and elbow used to be erupted in a similar burning pain, and the five tendrils at the end of it writhed as what remained of the joints jerked in the crushing grip.

    “Wh’s–” stumbled out of her mouth, followed immediately by a wordless cry as the grip shifted, pushing in harder against the sensitive spot on the upper arm.

    Getting her leg and the cursed leg underneath her was an ordeal lately, even when she was alone; if she had thought that being held up by someone else would help, she was being proven wrong presently. While it felt like strength and coordination were lagging behind the movement of her right leg, the thing on the left was moving a bit too much and a bit too harshly, throwing her off balance enough that the only thing holding her up was the too-tight grip.

    “–seems to be convulsing again,” a vaguely familiar voice was saying.

    Eugenia’s left eye could see them, but the right wasn’t open yet, which explained why she was only seeing in shapes of temperature. The light pierced into it like a fine, narrow sword aimed right through her skull.

    “Wh’t’re you d–” she started to ask, knowing it would be fruitless. Especially fruitless this time, because whoever this was jerked her harshly by the shoulder before she could finish, sending scalding shivers up the length of the arm and down her spine.

    Another voice reached her faintly through the grogginess, much farther away than she had grown used to. The distance picked up her heart rate as she craned her head to look, squinting her right eye open to see, though watery through tears.

    “…Genie, Eugenia! Genie can you hear– Get your hands off my patient!” Diana was far away, at the other end of a room, behind a door? Eugenia couldn’t make sense of it through how everything was spinning and blurring. Before she could blink anything away and try again, another pair of thickly-gloved hands took hold of her right arm.

    “Knew they shouldn’t’ve let the doc stay in specimen containment,” a low, slightly familiar voice muttered above Eugenia’s head. “The curse’s getting into her.”

    “I can hear you,” Diana’s voice would be comforting, she sounded furious and protective, but she was too far away.

    “Dia,” Eugenia gasped out, “Dia what’s, wh, what’s–”

    “Quiet,” snapped the low voice. There was some new, unfamiliar apparatus, something like the examination table but different.

    “Oh, let her get it out while she can,” said the other. Eugenia was pressed against a cold surface, angled up, one of the hands that gripped her right arm letting go to push against her back and keep her there.

    “Let her go,” Diana snarled, “before we find out how bendable these bars are. We know exactlyhowbreakableyour–”

    An involuntary cry from Eugenia drowned out the rest of that. Straps were tightening around the thing on her left where her arm used to be, keeping it in place even as it writhed out of her control. Its convulsions pressed the soft, sensitive bits into the cold metal surface and chafed at the skin under the restraints, and she hated it with such force that she was able to wrench her right arm back to herself.

    If she could just loosen one of the straps–

    This brief struggle only lasted a second before the hand on her back pushed hard enough to crush the air out of her lungs in a high, sharp gasp, pinning her right arm under her chest.

    “Please–” she wheezed out as she felt three points of contact on her shoulder, elbow, and one worming under to get to her wrist.

    “This will go quicker if you cooperate,” said the more neutral voice just before the pressure eased up from her back slightly.

    Eugenia’s still-free hand darted across for where the restraint on her left shoulder ought to be, but wasn’t quite fast enough.

    “–filthy rat bastards can’t you see she’s not in any state for this–”

    “Admin really knows how to pick ‘em,” the low voice grunted as two sets of hands wrestled Eugenia’s right arm into restraints. (She put up more of a fight than she could have a few days before, but was still at a thorough disadvantage.)

    The final strap was tightened around her right wrist, and the process was repeated with her legs. The thing on the left kept jerking reflexively, throwing off her coordination for any attempts she could have made to kick with her right, not that it could do much good barefoot and with poor leverage.

    “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing,” Diana didn’t sound calmer, but like she was pulling back to assess before another attack. “If Isido thinks–”

    “We’re not here for Admin Isido. There’s more than one of them, you know, and this–” there was a lighter thump on Eugenia’s back, but even the slight jostling from it made the left arm pinch and burn, made her tear up and bite down on her lip, “–project is shared, if you remember.”

    Diana didn’t answer verbally, just with a low growl. (It was possible that she had been emitting a low growl the whole time…)

    “But– but what are, what are you, what’s,” Eugenia caught herself mumbling, pulling against the straps on her right arm to no avail. When one of her tugs caused an echoing movement in the left one, she tried to bite back a whimper and stopped moving.

    There was the sound of something being picked up, with a metallic clink, and Eugenia’s head was being turned so that the right side pressed against the table. A hand lingered on her neck as another one clumsily pushed her hair to the side. (It was still in the long braid Diana had helped her put it into the night before, after another sterilizing potion bath left her skin stinging.)

    A loud crash and the sound of claws scraping against metal came with a loud snarl from Diana.

    “Get that away from her! Don’t muzzle my patient!”

    Muzzle?

    “You had to tell her, now she’s struggling again,” grumbled the low voice. The grip on her neck tightened as Eugenia tried to turn her head and dislodge it. She could hear her breaths, high and fast and shallow, tinged with pathetic whines.

    For a few seconds, the only sounds Eugenia could hear was that of her own hitching breath, of blood rushing and pounding in her head over the pressure on her neck, and of Diana’s claws scratching and scrambling against metal, against bars if she had heard right.

    Something leather closed around her throat, a strap trailed up the back of her head, and there was a pause as they tried to lift her face off of the metal.

    “No no no nono please don’t please you don’t have to I can, I won’t, I swear you don’t have to please–nnh–!” Something pinched what remained of her left ear and she flinched reflexively, gasping, whole body shuddering and trying to curl inwards.

    Before she could process it, more thick straps had been brought around the sides of her face, a leather mouthpiece was between her teeth, her jaw was locked shut, and her head had been immobilized against the table. Keening, gasping sounds were muffled by the gag, loud enough in the deformed ear that she could barely hear Diana now.

    “Quiet, now,” the neutral voice came with one hand resting on top of Eugenia’s head for a moment. “If you could move for this, it would be worse.”

    The thick, curse-resistant gloves these people wore did not leave them much dexterity, so Eugenia had plenty of time to figure out what they were trying to do when she felt tugs on her chemise-thing and light, accidental touches against the skin high up on her back. Where the loose gown tied shut, where they were now trying to untie it. More mumbled pleas were muffled and garbled by the gag as she felt cool air touch her exposed back. They stopped at the top set of ties, not moving to the middle or lower ones, and secured belts over her midsection and lower ribs, leaving her utterly immobilized.   

    Eugenia had hoped that these examinations would stop now that she had Diana, who still needed to do examinations but was so kind about it. Diana hadn’t once tried to tie her down to something, and talked her through what she was doing, and while she had to touch the mutated things for it, she at least listened when Eugenia told her how horrible they felt.

    Something wet and unnaturally cold swiped over an area between her right shoulder blade and the base of her neck, shivers setting off the pinchingsearing spots of pain under the restraints on her left side. (That had probably been to clean it; cleaning came before injections and extractions, but those were always done in the arms or legs or occasionally neck, so why was this one on her back?)

    “You’re better at this part,” she heard before something metal and oddly shaped was pressed against the cleaned spot. As the moisture dried, her skin started to sting. The metal thing felt ring-shaped, maybe, but there was more on the inside. A pattern? Some kind of device?

    “What are you doing,tell me what you’re doing, step asideandlet me see what you have–” Diana’s orders were not followed, Eugenia shouldn’t have hoped.

    The metal was lifted, something was uncorked, something gave a chemical hiss, and when she felt it again, it came with a wet sound and a tacky feeling. Something bright and hot flared to life in the corner of the left eye’s vision, making Eugenia squirm as much as she was able, for about half a second, before the chafingandpinching became too much. There was warmth at her back, comforting if not for the question of what it wasandwhat they were doing with it.

    “Breathe in and bite down,” ordered the neutral one, leaving barely any time to question or follow their directions before

    burning

    burning searing blinding white red hot deafening writhing burning burning burning

    Metal crunched, bent, and snapped.

    The source of the burning left her skin, but its imprint remained, but she couldn’t stop straining, but her limbs were thrashing, but she couldn’t scream loud enough to drown it out, but–

    Eugenia’s muffled cries weren’t the only things she could hear– there was Diana’s roar, an answering shout, blows exchanged and things clattering, thick fabric tearing, something pained (something hot and thick and red sprayed onto her side), the heavy door of the containment area slammed shut.

    Then nothing but the two of them panting heavily, one with rage and exertion, the other with pain and burning and more pain and more burning and more–

    Then, as if everything had caught up all at once, piling on and becoming too much to bear any longer, there was just… nothing.

.

.

.   

    “…Genie?”

    Her head was being tilted, buckles gently undone. Once the muzzle was off, she couldn’t do more than whimper and lean it against the metal again.

    “Eugenia, can you hear me?”

    Her braid was pulled to the other side, and her head turned so that the misshapen side was against the metal. The right half of her face was stuck in a grimace, lips trembling, tears flowing down her cheek one after the other. She could see Diana behind her now.

    “Okay, okay,” Diana sucked in a breath, her hand resting at the spot between Eugenia’s jaw and neck for a moment. “We’re going to start with your legs, yeah? Nod if you understand.”

    Nodding was easy enough, even while every movement seemed to set off something else, to keep her breaths unsteady and her tears falling.

    “Right, now your left arm. The right one needs to be still until we can get you down.”

    Another nod. She worked from the wrist in, meaning that the tendrils at the end of it tried to latch onto her continuously, but by now she was an expert at dealing with them. Diana’s careful touch sent uncomfortable buzzing sensations through the arm, but nothing as painful as the manhandling before, and she let go after guiding it to stay curled against Eugenia’s chest.

    “Can you support yourself? The skin is damaged here, I need you to keep yourself upright until we have this one stable, too.”

    She could stand, so she nodded, and the process for this one went about the same as for the left one. Right up until Diana started to guide her into moving it, the skin stretching and burning enough that she might have thought her whole arm had been set on fire.

    “Genie, breathe, remember to–”

    “…if they get any credit it’s for the treatment supplies, not that those clunky gloves would let them do any of this well–”

   She was on the examination table, the top half of her chemise peeled away, her torso propped up by one of Diana’s hands. There was a cool, gooey feeling over the burn, and gauze being wrapped around it.

   “Genie?”

   The wrapping paused just for a moment. Diana’s face came into view, her free hand patting Eugenia’s cheek. Once she had a moment of sustained eye contact (which had Eugenia tearing up again), she got back to it.

   “Hold still, you fainted– I’m just finishing up treating the burn. We can put your gown back after I look at that chafing.”

   There was a form on the ground, completely still, in one of the curse-resistant protective suits. It was torn open, blood leaking from it into a puddle on the floor. Some flecks of it still stained both of their clothes. Diana’s hands were perfectly clean.

((Continuation of day 2))

The last thing Hailey remembered clearly was choking, and seeing light fly into the distance as her lifeline of a phone call was snatched away.

There had been something after that, less clear, where she was pretty sure she’d tried to make a break for it, but had been slammed into something and… knocked out again? She hadn’t been able to fly away, or she had but someone had stopped her, or she had been too disoriented and smacked herself directly into a wall (she would hope it wasn’t that last one just for dignity’s sake).

When she came to now, the first things she registered were the headache and the general discomfort in her whole body. She was propped up against a wall, arms at her sides, legs splayed out, head hanging forwards. That explained the strain in her neck.

Trying to take a deep breath in, she realized that there was something solid wrapped like a harness around her upper chest and shoulders. Her chin was resting on it. It felt like concrete, which was weird because concrete didn’t normally come in that kind of shape, but then she remembered the woman with the stonelike manipulation power from the night before.

Was it the night before?

How long had she been out?

A soft groan escaped her when she picked her head up, feeling like it was full of lead, and rested it on the wall behind her. (It was probably also concrete, but she wasn’t proficient in identifying materials only by putting the back of her head on them.) There was some kind of light on the other side of her closed eyelids. There was also the sound of a door closing and some voices starting up. It took her a second to catch what any of them were saying.

“…hold out for that long?” That was a raspy voice, not one she had caught before.

“Are you doubting my stoneworking?” That was Concrete Woman from before, and ‘stoneworking’ sounded like it may be shorthand for her superpower.

Hailey noticed a weird ache in her arms, up on the deltoid on her left but closer to the tricep on the right. It could be the aftermath of something from the fight or from the failed escape attempt, but it felt a lot more weirdly specific in its familiarity. Not just normal scrapes, cuts, bruises, or mild stabs.

“Are you saying you’ve used it to hold down a superhero before,” came another voice. Deeper, slightly familiar, as if she had heard it for a second but didn’t remember when or what it had been saying.

“I’m saying it worked on her legs yesterday.”

So that had been the night before. Or, wait, it had been after midnight when all that happened, so was that a “few hours ago” yesterday or a “over twenty four hours ago” yesterday?

“And I’m alsosaying–”

There was a skin-on-cloth slap, like someone hit someone else’s arm to get their attention.

“She’s waking up,” came the raspy one. There was the sound of several people turning in seats, probably to look at Hailey. She probably couldn’t put her head back down and pretend to be unconscious to keep listening in now, she should have thought of that before picking it up.

“Itold you the doses were fine–”

“Shut it and flank.” Concrete Woman sounded like the leader so far.

Hailey opened her eyes to look up at Concrete Woman, who was, as she had demanded, being flanked by two of the taller people from the truck. No new faces, so they were probably still just the smaller group, hadn’t handed her off to anyone else yet, and may not have met up with whoever they were delivering to yet. Or they had finished that trade while she was unconscious (for less than twenty four hours, hopefully), and were now just dealing with her…

“So I’m guessing I can’t, like, pay you to let me stand up,” she said after a second of eye contact and a breath in. The solid binds around her chest were just loose enough to let her breathe in most of the way, but got uncomfortable when she tried to fill her lungs too far. There was something holding her arms down, too, her hands feeling borderline numb against the probably-also-concrete floor.

That actually got a laugh out of Concrete Woman, one single bark of it.

“She thinks she’s funny,” she said to her goons, as if she hadn’t literally just laughed at Hailey’s very funny opening line.

The room they were in looked like a partially-constructed house’s sparsely furnished basement or some kind of empty storage room. Details were blurry past a certain distance, which she hoped was just a temporary just-woke-up kind of thing and not some kind of long-lasting side effect.

“Tough crowd, huh? You must hate stand-up night.” Hailey rolled her eyes up and closed them again. Talking was making her head hurt worse but she didn’t want to let them know that. “I’m going back to bed, wake me up when you’re laying out your whole evil plan in extreme detail.”

That one got a light chuckle out of probably the raspy-voiced one, which stopped after another sound of a skin-on-clothed-arm slap.

“We ain’t the supervillains from newspaper comics, kid,” the raspy-voiced person sounded like they had just started to laugh and then been reprimanded via slap and were trying to get some dignity back by defending their group’s honor. “We know how to keep our mouths shut around nosy hero types.”

“Got a lot of practice with that?” Hailey was about to go on, but when she cracked one eye back open for a Look, she saw that Concrete Woman was stepping in closer to her space, crouching down closer to eye level. “H-hey, personal space, girl,” she said, but wasn’t able to keep it casual enough to cover up her nerves, or hide the fact that she reflexively attempted to shift backwards.

“We moved past personal space, girl, when you decided not to mind your own business,” Concrete Woman said with a malicious smile. Hailey couldn’t decide if the smiling was worse or better than if she had said that exact same thing with a serious face. She watched with barely contained alarm as Concrete Woman reached for her neck–

Oh, actually just the restraints.

Testing them? It sounded like they weren’t all completely sure it would hold up for long, which would be great for Hailey. But, then again, she was a fairly well known superhero, and they seemed to know about her so they might just be concerned that she could energy-blast her way out of this. Probably better not to let them know she was stuck without that ability at the moment, if she could avoid it…

“If we’ve moved past minding our own business, too,” she said to distract from how she started to get tense when Concrete Woman’s inspection moved to the stuff around her arms and hands, “y’know I’ve gotta ask what exactly the plan is, here.”

Catching movement, she glanced up and saw Raspy shifting their weight and rolling their eyes, opening their mouth to presumably restate the thing about not being newspaper comic supervillains.

“I mean,” Hailey plowed ahead, “congratulations, you managed to kidnap a superhero, not exactly easy to do, but that’s also not a normal kind of crime, like, what are you gonna do now? Do you know what the protocol for this stuff is?”

“Sounds like something you could fill us in on, doesn’t it?” Apparently satisfied with whatever she was checking on, Concrete Woman sat back, still a little too close for comfort but no longer completely up in Hailey’s personal space.

“Ha, no, sorry, that’s a little bitsecret.”

“So I’m guessing we can’t, like, pay you to talk about it.” And that phrasing was definitely an imitation of her, not helped by the grin or by the un-reprimanded chuckles from the goons.

“It’s only not funny when I say it?” Hailey managed to put on an air of offense, and when she noted that nobody was looking, dared a second to strain her forearms upwards and find no give. “I’m starting to think you guys have some double standards in here.”

No give on her arms, her hands were starting to shake again, barely helped when she subtly clenched them into fists, flying wasn’t going to help if she couldn’t get out of these restraints, and she wasn’t sure she could rely on it not holding out.

“You really do think you’re funny, huh,” Concrete Woman said in a tone that made Hailey think that perhaps she did not, in fact, like it when the note of humor was gone. This was doubly confirmed when, a second later, she seized a handful of Hailey’s hair and forced her head back against the wall.

“Yeah–” she hissed through her teeth, blinking back spots that were a little concerning because the force of that should not have been strong enough to make spots show up in her vision.

“It’s ‘cause I am funny, keep up.” Even though she was trying to keep up the banter, there was no hiding the pain in her voice now. Better to let them know she experienced pain than to let them know she was presently experiencing a rising panic.

“Keep telling yourself that. It’s a good question, though.” The grip in her hair tightened and pulled her head to one side. “What are we gonna do with you, huh? Like you said, you’re not exactly a normal hostage.” Hostage? That had some more connotations than just captive or kidnapee, with some pros and some cons attached to those connotations. “Wonder what they’d do to get you back with all your limbs attached.”

“Sure you want to find that out?” Hailey did not regret the fact that this one got her head bonked back against the wall again.

“She said they have protocols,” said the deep voiced probably-man. “It might be a risk to contact them.”

“What? No, it’s actually a great idea,” Hailey assured. Another tug on her hair and another crack to the back of her head, a little harder this time. Self preservation should dictate that she stop talking now to avoid getting a concussion or something, but also if she didn’t say anything, she may not be able to manipulate (mansplain malewife–) her way around these guys.

“No suggestions from the peanut gallery,” Concrete Woman said, sounding amused.

There was a second or two where nobody talked. Hailey was starting to wonder how hard the next head bang would be, weighing it against how funny it would be if she timed another quip just right after an extended awkward silence.

“What about Spherica?” Raspy suggested after a second. Hailey’s eyes darted to them, widening for a second, then back to Concrete Woman for a second as she prepared to cover that up by shooting a Look around as if judging all of them. This Look was made a little more difficult by the fact that Concrete Woman had started contemplatively pulling her hair again to make her head tilt the other way. This was all getting very uncomfortable.

“Is that Heatwave’s… mmmanager?” asked Deep Voice. (His confusion was understandable, because nobody was entirely sure what was up with Heatwave and Spherica’s business relationship, probably not even them.)

“More importantly…” Concrete Woman brought her other hand in to push up on Hailey’s jaw for a second or two, both making it harder for her to talk and presumably framing her face for the others. (Yeah, yeah, she and her sister were identical, everyone been knew.) “Comet’s twin sister.”

“I bet she’d like a family visit,” Raspy’s statement was heavy with implications.

(They weren’t exactly wrong.)

It was a nice night out. She preferred the cooler air, although it didn’t do much to help her stinging skin. And this was California, so it was only ‘cool’ compared to how hot it had been a few hours before. (Not that she’d been outside a few hours before, or very much at all in the last few days.) She would probably have been fine in just the threadbare clothes she’d been wearing during most of her latest infiltration, but the scarf and jacket she’d stolen (violently) on her way out was a welcome addition. It concealed most of her exposed injuries and some of the blood stained on her shirt, leaving anyone who saw her only able to wonder about what was up with the top half of her face.

A pretty normal sight, all things considered, to any experienced night guard at the building she was approaching now. The two at her preferred entrance melted out of the shadows as she approached, having definitely seen her coming from a distance.

“Excuse me, ma’am, what is your business at this…” one of them started, trailing off when she pulled the scarf down. She would like to think that it was just because they recognized her and not because the bruising had gotten that much worse since the last time she saw her reflection.

“Friendly afternoon visit,” she said with a winning smile, ignoring how stretching those facial muscles made her want to wince.

“…Can you tell us the date, ma’am?” the other one asked after a second of staring.

“November 3rd, 1923,” she said, still smiling, without skipping a beat.

“Past midnight it’s November 4th, ma’am.” The second one said evenly.

“Of course, the late hour must be getting to me.”

This passed quickly, like two actors going over their thoroughly memorized lines. After an exchanged glance and a pause that would have made anyone else start to doubt their delivery, the first guard nodded, pressed something on their communicator, and stepped back to get the door for her.

Not bothering to pull the scarf back up now, she walked confidently into the dimly lit back entrance area, making a beeline for where she knew the elevator was. There was a special code in here, too, to make it to the penthouse, but she had that one memorized as well.

Leaning back against the support bar for a minute was nice, though she had to position herself carefully so as not to let it dig into her back or side in a bad position. Closing her eyes on the ride up, she hummed slightly in appreciation of how smooth the elevators were here. No jittering to worry about, just a soft whirring and the slight feeling of vertigo as it came to a stop many storeys up in the air.

The more steps she took to get into one of the most well-defended areas of this place, putting a set of barriers between her and anyone who might have been in pursuit, the more tension bled out of her shoulders.

As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she was met by the familiar face of the butler, who had evidently seen her coming and had already known that it was her, rather than the one other person who was allowed in that elevator with any regularity.

“Hey, Ash,” she said casually before they could get through a more formal greeting, raising one hand in a lazy wave and holding back a wince as it reminded her of a hit she’d taken to the shoulder earlier.

“Good evening.” They sounded as proper and English as ever, and she didn’t miss their perceptive eyes zeroing in on every unusual detail about her current appearance, not only the injuries but definitely also the ill-fitting clothes and hair in desperate need of a wash.

(She’d been lucky no one had decided an impromptu haircut was in the cards. She wouldn’t have been able to stop them without breaking cover, but that would have been a little more awkward to explain to her sisters than the usual aftermath of a prolonged fight.)

“…Victor won’t be in for another week, I’m afraid, but the room is open to you as always,” they said with the air of someone who was giving the usual pleasantries only as a precursor to a more serious subject change, and was not trying to hide it. “Are you alright?” And there was the serious part.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, rolled her shoulders, and this time could not stop a wince. She merged it smoothly into a more joking sort of smile-grimace. “It’s just from the job I’ve been on, there were a couple of “complications,” you know how it is. No death traps in the kitchen tonight?”

The attempt at changing the subject again was not successful, as Ashton followed her into the kitchen and shooed her away to wait on a barstool while they got her a glass of water with exactly one cube of ice. Or, a sphere of ice, because the fridge here was massive and fancy and had both a cube and a sphere option for how the ice could come out.

The water was wonderful to her parched throat, and she held the glass up longer than necessary to let the ice rest against the split in her lip for a few seconds. It was always nice to spend a few minutes after one in the morning sipping water with a tall British person in a suit and pencil skirt hovering over her every move.

“Need something?” she asked with a look over the lip of the glass.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Ms Roxanne? You don’t need… medical attention?” Right, yeah, they were a highly skilled government agent before they became a butler. Definitely had some good first aid training from all that.

“Just some bandaids and a full night’s sleep… And, again, you can call me Roxy.”

Ashton did not look convinced, and then they turned to where she knew the painkillers and general medications of varying strengths were stored. There was no stopping them from this now, but she could try anyway for the principle of the thing.

“I’ve done this before, Ashton, it’s not that bad.”

“To put it lightly, Ms Roxanne, you look as though you tried to fight a team of superheroes. Or, if I were inclined to be generous, won a fight against an entire street gang.” Maintaining stern eye contact, they set down a couple of pills and a cookie.

“Not as wrong as you could be.” Roxy picked up the cookie first, searching both sides with suspicion. It was the imported kind that was labeled ‘biscuit’ instead of ‘cookie’ and which everyone knew she secretly liked but pretended to be suspicious of anyway. Because they were in the US, so being suspicious of England was funny. “What’s this, weird, British thing– trying to poison me?”

“Would you like me to put the biscuit away and let you have an upset stomach? Please pardon me for assuming you haven’t eaten in the last hour.”

Not feeling up to a prolonged bit at the moment, Roxy caved and ate the ‘biscuit’. After swallowing the painkillers with the second half of her water, she let the ice sit for a moment again. It turned out talking too much made the split lip hurt worse, who could’ve guessed?

“I notice you snuck some melatonin in there,” she observed.

“To help you sleep. Pardon me again for assuming you may have some trouble, otherwise,” they paused and looked her up and down again, “considering.”

“Fair,” she admitted.

They sat in silence as she finished off the water one sip at a time. She debated waiting for the ice to melt enough that she could take another tiny sip every several minutes, just to see how Ashton would react, then decided against it and crunched what remained of the ice sphere.

Getting to bed wasn’t too much of a hassle. Ashton followed her to the master bathroom, because of course they did, but left her to go inside by herself. She only heard them step in once she was in the middle of showering, presumably to put some things on the counter and whisk away her dirty and one hundred percent stolen clothing.

Hot water would be nice and she happened to know for a fact that it was literally unlimited here, but she kept it to a mild, lukewarm temperature as she carefully cleaned everything she could currently reach without wincing, and let soap and water wash down her back unassisted to at least get the worst of it off back there. Drying off was a little bit of an ordeal, but the towels were very soft and she didn’t have any head wounds to stop her from wrapping up her hair. Everything she couldn’t get for the risk of aggravating some injury or another could just air dry while she went looking for first aid supplies to use on her face.

When she turned around to see how her back looked, she let out a low whistle. Who knew whips could do that when you weren’t being nice and responsible with them? (Probably every single person who’d ever been remotely involved with the “market” that her latest job had had her infiltrating.)

There were two options here. One, she could put on the silky robe Ashton had left hanging up for her and go to bed without dealing with all that yet, and probably wake up really sore and maybe with some kind of infection. Two, she could get some help tending to it and go to bed with some level of reassurance that it was fine, but at the cost of Ashton knowing exactly how bad it looked.

With a towel around her waist, she cracked the door and summoned them. Their face remained carefully neutral even after they saw, which definitely meant that they thought it was incredibly bad but knew that Roxy would not be taking constructive criticism on the choices she made that led up to it. That, or, they just didn’t want to get into it right now, in favor of getting her into a bed at some point during that melatonin’s window of greatest effect.

There was a lot more stinging disinfectant and a lot more bandaging going on back there than Roxy would have thought necessary, herself, but she wasn’t going to complain. Anything touching the whip marks directly was incredibly Bad with a capital B, but she had to admit to feeling a lot better once they were all cleaned and wrapped up.

The one joke she cracked about how it wasn’t as bad as it could be because she didn’t have any broken bones did not seem to go over well, so she conceded and didn’t say much until they were done. Ashton helped her into the robe and left her to get some pajama pants on by herself, continuing to hover and help until she was safely tucked in between Victor’s silk sheets.

It was still uncomfortable to lie down in most positions she tried, but, then again, that melatonin really was having a window of greatest effect.

- - -

Predictably, Roxy woke up sore. The painkillers had worn off at some point, so she got the full experience of throbbing and stinging and every attempted movement making her limbs want to go on strike. They had not yet managed to achieve independence from the rest of her, however, so when she decided it was time for them to get her standing up, they obeyed. The blackout curtains did their job well, so she had to pull one back slightly if she wanted to see by anything other than the soft, slightly futuristic floor lights on the edges of the room.

Taking stock, she determined that this was actually better than a couple of the times she’d come out of a mission injured. When her hair fell into her face for want of a headband, it was soft and light from being cleaned with incredibly expensive, high quality rich-people products, and she knew her back would have been a lot worse without Ashton’s help.

Speaking of Ashton, they seemed to have woken up before her, because she could smell something cooking. Possibly more than one something, which would make sense if they still felt like hovering but hadn’t come in to wake her up yet. There was the almost-imperceptible sound of voices, as if they were talking to themself or perhaps playing a video. Cooking tutorial, maybe.

The stolen clothing from the night before was nowhere to be seen; either it was waiting to be washed or Ashton had burned it. Roxy wasn’t worried about what happened to most of it, but it would be nice if the bloodstained parts had been saved in case she felt like getting them tested for genes.

Leaving the robe on the bed, she stretched her arms as much as they dared as she made her way to steal one of Victor’s shirts. They were long enough that she had gone around the penthouse in one with no pants before (but she would rather get stabbed again than get out of these soft pajama pants before eating something). There were no headbands to steal in Victor’s bedroom, and she didn’t feel like scavenging the bathroom for elastics, clips, or pins. So, with her hair loose, wearing no more than pajama pants, bandages, and an oversized button-up shirt, she pushed her hair back and stepped out.

Ashton was, indeed, doing their thing in the kitchen, wearing pants today along with an apron that looked a little too professional for someone making relatively normal breakfast in a non-restaurant kitchen. More curtains kept the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main area from letting in too much light, but from the angle and brightness she could still estimate that it must be later than she usually woke up. And from a glance at the clock, she could confirm that it was almost nine in the morning. She had reallyoverslept.

As she nosed her way into the cooking space, she found them carefully transferring what looked like small fried pies out of a skillet. Uncooked ones waited their turn on a plate nearby.

“You need a little more oil,” she observed, her voice coming out a little more thick and sleepy than she would have liked. Actually wait, hold on, she hadn’t seen anyone making these since the last time she visited family. “You can make spanakopita?” The question came out sounding like an accusation.

“I can make anything, given a good recipe, Ms Roxanne.” So that probably had been a cooking video she’d heard before. Ashton removed the last one from the pan and reached for more oil, but refrained from putting any new ones in until they had turned to shoo her away from the barstools. “I would invite you to wait in the living area,” was their way of banishing her, possibly to avoid having their cooking process nitpicked again. Possibly also to keep her from seeing them pull up a tutorial to nitpick their own cooking process with.

When she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, she was reminded of her shoulders’ present desire to complain about everything but especially movement. Sitting down in a chair that had a soft back would be pretty nice…

The living area was surrounded by sliding walls that could be used to keep it more or less separate from the adjacent sometimes-areas sometimes-rooms. At the moment, it had a wide doorway on one side, a deployed wall opposite the full length windows, and a view into Victor’s office area and the back of his tall spinny chair. Were she feeling inclined to snoop, Roxy would have looked into there, but was distracted easily by the setup surrounding one of the lounge chairs. A side table held a full glass of water with exactly one sphere of ice, a small pitcher with more water and no ice, and a tall mug of steeping tea. The matching table on the other side held a very inviting plate of buttered toast, with a fried egg sitting on top of one piece. 

For a second, she thought about draping herself over a couch instead of taking the obviously intended seat, just to see how Ash reacted. But her desire for water and toast outweighed her desire for mischief at this time, so she sank down into the black leather and took a second to close her eyes and breathe in and will her strained muscles to relax. It wasn’t like the guys she’d been spying on could make it up here, even if they had somehow tracked her all the way to the building. And her next information rendezvous wasn’t until that evening, so she could take a minute to chill.

When her eyes opened, it was to the realization that her current seat was centered perfectly behind Victor’s chair, brought to her by the realization that said chair was slowly turning around.

Of the two supervillains that she was familiar with, she knew that one of them participated in dramatics mostly because it helped with the stress of the job, and partly because it was fun. Victor Stirling, on the other hand, having inherited quite a few things from his supervillain parents including a general style of mannerisms, was probably not doing the chair spin reveal thing ironically.

Before he came to a stop, facing her head-on, Roxy put together that Ashton must have called him about her condition either while she was in the shower or after she had fallen asleep last night. If he hadn’t meant to come back for another week, very few other things could have summoned him on such short notice.

She prepared a smirk and a tease about him being predictable, but both died before making it out when she met his eyes.

“So I’m not known for cutting business meetings short.” Starting off strong with a non sequitur, classic. Roxy’s smile started to edge back on as she watched Victor stand up from his seat.

“Catch you in the middle of one?” she asked, then remembered her voice wasn’t great at the moment and she would be partaking of some water before saying anything else.

“No, I was just starting the day in Spain, actually,” he answered while watching as if worried that she might have trouble drinking water, of all things. And without waiting for another response, he launched right back into… Ooh, he was monologuing.

“Allow me to paint a picture of it for you. It was past ten in the morning, I had completed much of my less savory business the night before, and had the entire afternoon ahead of me booked with meetings on the more savory side of things, when suddenly I find I’m receiving a call from my good, trusted friend Ashton, whom you may be aware I’ve expressly told to call me only in the circumstances of an emergency.

“And, upon answering this call, what should I hear them say, but that my girlfriend arrived at a late hour and is much worse for wear.

“Now, I know that my dear, competent, intelligent partner is experienced and knows how to handle herself in her work, so if Ashton is calling my emergency line, the situation she finds herself in must be truly dire, no? Certainly not the usual bouts of combat –which I am well aware you can normally teleport out of the moment they become too much– and certainly not gained from your usual heists and espionage, no, I was told that you seem to have been whipped?”

The worry in his voice was clear, and would have been clear even to someone who didn’t know him well enough to read him. As he drew closer, having apparently vented enough of his feelings for the moment to move to the next stage of his presentation, Roxy saw that his suit was rumpled and was probably, in fact, the same suit he had put on before 10 AM in Madrid. Had he slept at all? Maybe on the couch she had been eyeballing a second before this began. If anyone had gone into his bedroom while she was asleep, she probably wouldn’t have stayed asleep for very long.

“And I don’t mean to put down your skills, it would be foolish for anyone in my position to suggest that you aren’t a professional, or chose your mission poorly. But your present state is…” He broke eye contact to look down at the gauze covering her torso through the gap in the stolen shirt. He probably knew that it was there for everything on her back, but he wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if it was also hiding any bruises over her ribs or stomach area. She knew there was a pretty bad one peeking out by her collarbone.

“Roxanne. Roxy. I know that in our… business relationship, I tend to be the one who calls on you for assistance in these underground affairs, but you must know that you can call on me when something is… of a caliber where you may want my assistance.” He stopped a couple of steps in front of her, giving another up and down look. “You mentioned you were going into something undercover.”

“Deep undercover,” she confirmed. When he kept looking expectant, she continued, leaning forward to get to business, “It wasn’t in the cards to go in on the same level as the higher-ups, and we needed to confirm how exactly they get the victims and transport them. So I posed as one.”

Victor was quiet for a moment, his crossed arms rising, then falling as he took a breath and let it out.

“You remained just long enough to get the necessary information,” he assumed, and she nodded. Letting out another breath, he closed the distance and half-knelt in front of her in one smooth motion, reaching up to put a hand gently under her chin, moving it to cup the side of her face. “Then I hope you’ll be able to tell me,” his voice was softer now, not that that in any way concealed the dangerous undertone as his eyes lingered on her split lip, black eye, the faint bruise left from a harsh slap, “who did this to you?”

The superhero Comet was the best flier in the city, the only one who didn’t need support items to get or stay in the air and wasn’t a villain. Even with her other power of energy beams …not available to her at the moment (her hands were still so cold) she was capable enough to get by, focusing on rescues and playing support in fights.

The thing about being a superhero was that there wasn’t always someone to fire energy blasts at, but there was always someone who could use the help of someone who could fly. She hadn’t even risen… that much concern or suspicion, probably, since the second power had been taken. Just a look or two when she kept wearing gloves even outside of costume and a couple of comments about how her hands kept shaking. It was fine, anyway, when she was in costume and in her headquarters’ jurisdiction and could rely on backup at any second.

The superhero Comet was not in costume and was not within her headquarters’ jurisdiction. Hailey Park was outside her city’s limits entirely, all of her armored Comet costume was at HQ, and the backup set was in her apartment where her boyfriend had been waiting for their date that night.

She was going to be a little late.

Mildly suspicious activity wasn’t enough to make a call on, but she’d gotten a feeling on the way home, when she saw the truck being loaded across the street. Suspicious truck loading plus a feeling of pure instinct still wasn’t enough to call headquarters or the regular police, and she had told herself she would only follow for a minute to see if they did anything outright illegal or went somewhere completely innocuous and she could call to sheepishly explain that she’d been held up on the date by her own baseless paranoia.

Flying made it easy to move quietly and keep up, and to find the truck again after losing its tail once or twice. (Even though it felt weird to be doing this in sneakers and her boyfriend’s affectionately stolen jacket, without any extra eye protection. At least she knew to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn’t swallow any bugs.)

She’d been following for more than a minute, they had left the city, the sun was going down, and she still couldn’t shake that feeling that something was wrong here. Something familiar about the boxes they’d loaded… she couldn’t get close enough to verify that without being seen herself. Once they were out of city limits, they got moving too fast for her to get a good moment and shoot off a text with more elaboration, she had to keep her eyes on them and stay moving constantly to keep up. (Which sucked, because she was starting to think that the quick [Checking something out, won’t take too long <3] sent an hour ago wasn’t going to cut it at this point.)

They were in another town. She hadn’t caught the name. The truck had pulled into an area that wasn’t quite a parking lot, but also wasn’t small enough for Hailey to want to call an alleyway. Sheltered by buildings on all sides, nowhere high profile enough to have a night guard, just workplaces whose occupants had all gone home by now.

It was behind one of these buildings that Hailey had touched down and leaned as close to the corner as she dared, peeking out through a shadowed area.

The truck’s occupants didn’t seem to be unloading yet, almost as if they were waiting for something. They all seemed pretty distracted talking to each other, and their conversation wasn’t damning outright but it also wasn’t reassuring her. They spoke roughly, though only one of them looked rough enough to match. Whatever was in the boxes was important, somehow, but she couldn’t tell whether they were trading them to someone else, waiting for some kind of signal, or just stopping for the night. It was getting a little late, but they hadn’t been driving for that long since loading up…

“Did you ding up my truck?” rang out louder than everything else, coming from a shorter but muscular woman who had just walked around to the passenger side, where Hailey couldn’t see from her current vantage. The others swarmed to look, several of them taunting the one who seemed second tallest out of the group.

Hailey didn’t like not being able to see them all clearly, but the bonus here was that they couldn’t see her either so she could lean out a little more to get a better look at the boxes, finally catching a glimpse of the symbol on the side of one–

Eyes widening, she heard herself gasp, then drew back immediately and would have scolded herself if it wouldn’t definitely give away her position.

Someone needed to know about this, now.

After a few seconds of holding still, with her heart racing in her ears, it… didn’t sound like anyone had raised an alarm.

Not wanting to risk being heard moving, she floated herself a few steps farther back before taking out her phone, gripping it tightly so her shaking hands wouldn’t drop it again.

Had it not been silenced that whole time? (It was on vibrate, sure, so it wouldn’t be blasting pop lyrics unexpectedly, but she took an extra second to make sure its sound was completely off, and turn down the brightness for good measure.)

The first thing she saw was the last text window, now with several increasingly concerned follow-ups from her boyfriend. Her index finger hovered over the quick call button, but… she couldn’t risk it right now. She’d just hide its light against her shirt, float back to make sure she could still hear a casual conversation, there wasn’t a need to fly straight up and hit the panic switch. She could hide again and start to type, quickly not even fixing the mistakes caused by shaking or by fingertips being a little too cold for the touch screen to read immediately.

(A tiny smile couldn’t help forming when she saw [Hot HotBaby <3 is typing…] pop up on his side of the texts just a few seconds after she started. It was also a relief to know there would be a quick response.)

He knew about her… situation, with her power being “confiscated” and how it had happened, so he would know the urgency of getting this news out just as soon as she could tap out something at least slightly intelligible–

There was a face reflecting behind hers in the darkened glass.

With the phone against her chest again, she jumped forward, turning midair just in time to see something crash down in the space she’d just been occupying.

“Caught a little birdie over here~!” Called out the muscular woman from before, who was perched in a windowsill on the building Hailey had been using for shelter. How had she gotten there so quietly?

The thing that had crashed looked like it was made of the same concrete as this exterior wall. Some kind of material manipulation power? Specifically stone-like materials, or–

Whatever it was, Hailey was getting out of there immediately.

Two things happened before she could get more than an inch or so off the ground: Something heavy slammed into her from behind, and something solid caught around her ankles, trapping them in place. She was able to use the leverage from being stuck to keep from getting completely bowled over, but that would’ve been easier to recover from if she weren’t being held down and kept from getting any altitude. Arms came around and she realized the weight was a person (and that there were now several more people in the alley than there’d been a second ago).

This may have just gone from a situation to a Situation.

Fortunately, she had finely honed reflexes for just this sort of unexpected combat situation. Unfortunately, those reflexes relied on a power that she did not currently have.

Instead of a blast of cyan energy weakening the concrete bonds or making her assailant rethink their current course of action, what she got was a sudden icy numbness shooting from her fingers and palm up through her entire arm as her hand’s shaking intensified. That made it harder to try to wrestle them off manually, especially since she was still reserving one whole arm for protecting her phone and trying to hit the call button without looking.

Things were escalating a little too quickly. She managed to clumsily grab, twist, and throw them off before bending down to pull at the things wrapped around her legs, willing her fingers to keep working through the feeling of being frozen from the inside. (The phone was kept hugged to her chest– the less attention she drew to the light it let out and the attempts she was making to call for backup, the more likely it would be to do something.)

“Think you can break concrete? Good luck with that.”

There was a snort, then someone’s hand in her hair. They got her head pulled back before she could duck to the side and bring her forearm up to knock them away. All but one of the people from the truck was now clustered around her, as casual as if looking at a cool bug someone had found instead of a person who’d just caught them transporting–

“Hey hey wait is that Comet. You got heroes on our tail?”

“No way, Comet would’ve blasted–” The hand was back in her hair and the only reason she hadn’t lost her balance and fallen was that she was technically still flying right now. At least now she was wearing more of a glare than a look of wide-eyed panic. “Holy–”

For the first time, Hailey had a moment of second-guessing her decision to be a more publically open hero.

“Back off or I will start blasting,” she said, straightening up suddenly, and with enough force that there was actually a pause as wary eyes went to her hands… 

And just enough quiet that the pre-call dialing sound could be heard from her phone.

“Shut her up.” Concrete Woman snapped and the group jumped into action.

It wasn’t the most choreographed assault Hailey had ever witnessed or been the target of, but it was still difficult to fight off four people with one arm that refused to respond consistently or register when it was touching something, while stuck to the ground. Before the dialing could finish, she found her arms being wrenched out of her control and someone behind her again with a forearm pressing sharply against her neck. She could get out of this hold if she had both hands free, but she refused to let go of the phone yet, she wasn’t confident enough that she could get out of this without any backup.

When she heard it pick up, the only sound she could get out was a –literally– strangled gasp, to which she felt that chokehold tightening further. None of the others spoke. Through wavering vision, she caught a couple of nods and jerking of heads in lieu of verbal communication.

‘Hailey?’ came the sound of her boyfriend’s worried voice, sparking off a fresh round of struggle as she turned her head and yanked her hand back, trying to get a less dangerous angle in the chokehold so she could get out one word, and trying to keep any of them from hanging up on him before he could hear it.

For her troubles, a hand pressed in over her mouth and nose and someone twisted her arm painfully, digging their nails into her skin, until the phone clattered to the ground.

Some of her muffled cries must have been heard, because she could hear her name being repeated more urgently, then breaking off into something she couldn’t quite catch because either he’d gotten quieter or there was a little too much blood rushing in her head.

Her eyes had been squeezed shut with effort, but even when she opened them everything was getting a lot darker than it really should be, and she was having trouble making sense of what she saw. Having gone still for a second, the hold stopped getting tighter and she was able to make out the rectangular glow, someone had picked it up, then another glow like it was being surrounded by some kind of energy… The form of someone drawing back to throw at maximum strength.

With whatever breath she had left, she screamed against the hand as loudly as she could, cut off after less than a second when it felt like her neck was suddenly crushed.

Voices picked up again as the spot of light sped into the distance and disappeared, but everything was already going black.

For@whumpawoman Angstpril; prompts are Whumper-Run-In,Panic Attack, and maybe even Revenge.

This arc is a collaboration with @for-the-love-of-nsfwhump​ , Damiel is hers and in this universe, they’re married to Ira. Also - this is a piece of writing I’m very proud of, and I hope that you like it.

Cw panic attack, referenced captivity, referenced lady whump, referenced death of a loved one. Not much whump, yet big on the angst.

Emma is pulling at Isaac’s hand, and he almost has to jog to keep up with her short legs. “Your uncle is an old man, Emmy,” he says, half joking. He’s not old, but he can’t walk fast. Not since he’s had a bullet lodged in his hip, in the night that cost him everything. 

“But I can see the playground already! Can I go? Please?" 

He can see it, too. A big wooden pirate ship, some swings, a handful of other adults and kids wrapped into warm clothes on this sunny day in late fall. It’s just some meters, he tells himself. It’s safe. Still, it takes him some seconds to force his fingers to open and let his niece’s gloved hand slip out of his, as she races off. There’s something to the way she runs. Despite the childish joy to her movements, the somewhat clumsy way she sets her feet, he still thinks of Sophie. Sophie, who can’t be here, who has never met her niece, and whose laugh he misses every single day. The last thing he’s seen her do was run. Run by his side, to safety, to freedom. It had been so close. They could’ve been together. They should be.

They aren’t. He’s alone.

On the playground, Emma has reached the pirate ship and is already climbing up, gloves dropped on the ground, hands and booted feet steady on the small climbing grips. Sophie and him have always wanted kids. They’d talked about it often enough, before they went to bed. Two, at least, one boy and one girl, maybe. He wonders, if they’d ended up with the light brown curls Emma shares with him, or maybe more of the straight black hair from Sophie’s side. 

He’ll never know.

There’s another kid going up the wooden wall next to Emma now, a black girl her age with a cloud of curls around her and purple earmuffs. He’s still out of earshot, but he sees them talking, racing each other to the captain’s stand on top. The other girl’s parent is standing close, arms folded, attentive. They’re tall, at least six feet, lean and muscular, and something about them makes Isaac’s stomach clench. They look like them. Like the figure from his nightmares, the one he sees in every crowd, the reason why he can’t ride the subway or go to crowded pubs, or do anything outside. Like the tall, lean monster, the one who took Sophie away from him, when he’d ran away with her, when she’d finally seen him, and believed him, and she’d looked at him and told him she loved him. The monster has hunted them down without remorse, they’ve grabbed her and hurt her and dragged her away. Isaac still remembers her screams, her panic, her fear, and the cold, brutal efficiency of the hunter.

His steps have slowed involuntarily. Usually, he’d just turn around and leave. The park is big, he can go somewhere else, somewhere he doesn’t have to be around his memories, but his with Emmy, and the tall figure is right next to her. 

It’s not them, he thinks. It’s not them, they are far away, they are somewhere in the woods hunting their next victim, they aren’t the folk to hang around on playgrounds, they wouldn’t care about Emma. 

His shirt is soaked with cold sweat, as he forces himself to step closer. "Emmy,” he calls. His voice is trembling, broken almost. “Emmy, baby, come here, we’re leaving.”

She doesn’t hear him, or pretends not to, as she jumps onto the slide down.

The tall one has heard him, though, head snapped back, taking in the whole situation, the playground, the other parents, and Isaac, frozen in place. Long braids are falling from underneath their woolen hat, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together into a thin line. 

It’s them. It’s not their shadow, not a memory from the past, it’s them, the hunter, it’s the one who shattered everything Isaac had ever dreamt of to pieces in a single night.

“No,” Isaac whispers tonelessly. “No, no, no.” He wants to step back, but his legs are rubber, there’s the edge of the sandbox behind him, and he falls, to his knees, shivering, panting. His hands claw into the sand, like they did into the forest ground six years ago, but he can’t feel, there’s nothing, only emptiness. 

“Sir,” they call, and he thinks he remembers their voice. They’ve called someone else Sir that night, too, in a voice rougher than today, but he recognizes it anyway. “Are you okay?”

He’s not. He’s not, he will never be, he can’t ever be okay, and it’s because of them, and they don’t even seem to know. He stares at them blankly from where he’s kneeling on the ground, at them and the white-haired young woman suddenly by their side. He wants to warn her, to warn Emmy, anyone, but his voice has left him, and he’s helpless to watch. The woman is holding a toddler, and she hands him off, to them, and Isaac’s vision narrows, gets black around the edges. He can’t breathe. He hears them talk, French, he thinks, and that it’s odd that he can still find a coherent thought, and then a soft hand is laying on his arm and the woman is talking to him. “Breathe, Sir, breathe with me, alright?” Her voice is quiet and smooth, and he wonders if he’s actually breathing, maybe he’s not, maybe he’s just dying, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. 

“In through the nose,” the woman says, and he feels her hand gently pressing his to give him a rhythm. “Out through the mouth.”

Shakily, he nods, follows her lead. He doesn’t look up, just stares at their hands, hers over his, in the dirty sand of the sandbox. In through the nose. Her hand is small, a little red because of the cold, and there are some scars, crisscrossing lines in her tan skin. Out through the mouth. Her nails are clipped short, a little dirt underneath them, and her fingers are calloused, as if she works a lot with her hands. In through the nose. There’s a broad black band tattooed around her wrist, and he sees some colorful patterns emerge over it, vanishing under her sleeve. Out through-

“Cherie,” the hunter says.

His breath hitches. His eyes are glued to the wedding band. 

“Pas maintenant,” she mumbles. 

Isaac sees their feet show up in his vision, clad in bright yellow winter boots. They were wearing boots back then, too, but those were black. Do they know who he is? Do they know, what they did to him? He doesn’t dare looking up.

“Tu lui fais peur,” she says. “J'arrive. Cinq minutes, Dami?”

Dami.

Dami. Damiel.

Isaac gags. He remembers the name. He always will. It’s them. The person who just steps back. The person with the purple woolen hat and the bright winter jacket, a happy parent on a playground, a protective spouse. 

A beautiful wife. Two kids. A boy and a girl.

They retreat, while their wife goes on counting, and Isaac nods. In and out. Yes. He’s breathing. His heart rate is slowing down, his vision is starting to clear. 

Damiel.

Damiel, the monster, who took the world from Isaac, gained everything Isaac himself lost forever.

“Are you better?”, the woman asks. 

Isaac looks up, into her dark eyes, clouded with worry. She’s not as pretty as Sophie was, but there’s something to her. Something that made Damiel love her. To choose her, as mother to their kids, to build a family with.

There have been moments, many of them, in sleepless nights, when Isaac thought about revenge. About what he’d do, should he ever encounter the monster again. Death couldn’t be enough. Torture couldn’t be enough. Hollow and empty, nothing compared to what they did to him.

He knows, now.

“Yeah,” he whispers, and allows her to help him back to his feet. “Yes, thank you. I will be.”

gottawhump:

Ruined

932

CW/TW: depression, self-esteem issues after violence, lady whump, pet whump, BBU/WRU. Some wandering tenses, sorry. For @whumpawoman’s Day 8: Bad News.

Ruined.

Did any other words matter after that one?

It hurts worse than the broken bones in her face.

Oh, Maxim ruined you, koshechka. Such casual disappointment.

Master liked his things perfect. Sir liked beautiful things. She was neither now. She was ruined. They discarded ruined things.

She might be sold, to someone who doesn’t care if she isn’t pretty anymore. She might be refurbished, repurposed into a Platonic or Domestic-only. White walls and pain and babygirl.Oh, please not that. She might be put down.

The not-knowing roils her mind and her stomach, and she has to get up to vomit.

“Madeline, hello!” She hears Sir says on the phone, “I have to ask for a favor.’

Ruined.

Taglist:@canniboylism@simplygrimly@justplainwhump@painful-pooch@whumpinggrounds

sableflynn:

Happy International Women’s Day! Celebrate by whumping a woman today

In Irons 13 - Forced to Hurt

(Day 11 of Angstpril 2022)

Taglist:@darthsutrich,@a-series-of-whumpy-events , @ladydani101 , @thingsthatgowhumpinthenight

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Warnings: lady whumpee, blood, death mention, stabbing

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Less than a hour later, Adelaide’s boots are planted on the deck of Virginia’s Daughter, sword clutched in a sweat-slick hand, fear coursing through her veins. The good news for her is that this isn’t one of the vessels full of families, so she doesn’t have to worry about traumatizing children.

The bad news is that instead, it’s full of men with swords.

Or, it was full of men with swords. Some of them are still fighting with the pirate crew, some have been cornered and their weapons confiscated. Others now lie bleeding on the deck.

So far Adelaide has done nothing but stay out of the way, staring wide-eyed, wishing she’d stayed behind. She’s never had the chance to try out her sword fighting skills on anyone but Marshall, didn’t expect to really have to use them today, and certainly doesn’t want to actually hurt any of these innocent people.

But if she continues to just stand here she’ll be in trouble. Never mind the necklace, the Captain is likely to be angry enough with her to punish her again, too.

Even if she could convince herself that it won’t happen, it ends up that she doesn’t get a choice in the matter. Suddenly there’s a sword coming at her, and she parries automatically. The man on the other end’s eyebrows shoot up as he seems to realize that he’s attacked a woman, but it doesn’t stop him. He pulls back and swings again, and again, Adelaide blocking him each time. Her mind is fully occupied with keeping him at bay now, no time to worry about what’s going on around her or how this fight might end.

Until another two-man fight swerves near them, throwing off her focus for just long enough that she allows his sword to slide past hers, embedding itself in her left shoulder. She sucks in a sharp breath that sticks in her throat. The full force of the pain hits an instant later, nearly making her knees buckle.

The man yanks the sword back, ripping through her skin, and she stumbles forward with a cry. Immediately warm blood soaks her shirt. It burns, white hot pain dissecting her shoulder, and she tucks her arm tightly against her side, trying not to move it.

He isn’t satisfied, though. She’s still standing, and in his eyes, she’s a pirate trying to take over his ship. Technically she supposes that’s exactly what she is. She doesn’t blame him for wanting to eliminate her.

But that unfortunately means she has to keep fighting him. Keep swinging her sword with one arm while the other bleeds and feels like it might fall off at any moment. Keep risking hurting him, who doesn’t deserve it, even though the alternative seems more and more likely to be her own grievous injury or death.

She’s not really sure at this point which outcome she dreads more.

The longer the fight goes on, the harder it is to focus. Adelaide stumbles over her own feet, vision wavering, shoulder pulsing with pain, but she doesn’t give up. And somehow, thanks to the hours of training, she’s able to see the opening when it comes, using all her remaining strength to lunge forward and slash a deep line across the man’s torso.

He falls back with a cry, sword clattering to the ground. Gasping for breath, she stares in dazed horror after him, only distantly aware of the fights continuing around her, of someone scooping up his sword as he crumples to the deck, bleeding.

She won the fight. But in doing so, she’d seriously injured a man who just wanted to protect his ship, his belongings, his comrades. Her stomach churns with guilt.

A new commotion breaks out as fights end and the crew of pirates begins herding their defeated opponents to one side of the ship, while others plunge below decks to look for loot. Adelaide loses sight of the man she wounded. She herself is somehow corralled into an opposite corner, where she sheaths her sword and finally is able to press the heel of her hand into the stab wound. Her head spins at the new jolt of pain it causes. As the minutes stretch on, she finds herself sliding down without consciously deciding to sit, blinking furiously to chase away the spots that keep trying to take over her vision.

She’s…she’s very tired. That fight was more intense than anything she’s ever experienced, seems to have drained all of her energy away.

She blinks again, and everyone on deck suddenly changes to new positions. The ones from below are back, lugging crates up the stairs and across the planks back to The Dark Storm. Marshall is directing them. She should talk to him. She needs to tell him that she won her first real fight, but that she’s not sure she’s happy about that fact.

Luckily he notices her a moment later. His face creases in what could be construed as worry, and he quickly crosses to her, dodging the flow of traffic.

“Miss Gray. You’re injured.” He crouches next to her, examining her shoulder.

“I think…did I…kill him?” She never wanted to kill anyone. Didn’t want to hurt anyone at all. “He…he was bleeding. What if I killed him?”

Marshall doesn’t say anything to begin with, just stands and walks around to her other side before bending back down and grabbing her good arm to drape over his shoulders. “You did well, Miss Gray. Let’s get you back to the ship and take care of that injury.”

She thinks she makes some kind of noise when he pulls her upright. It’s hard to tell for sure when all light and sound completely cut off for a moment. But she presses her lips together after that, refusing to swoon or show pain in any way as they hobble their way off Virginia’s Daughter. She won’t give Captain Payne the satisfaction.

Obsession 8 - Threats

(Day 22 of Angstpril 2022)

Taglist:@justplainwhump,@whump-ventures

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Warnings: lady whumpee with male whumper, brief mild gore, referenced past torture, creepy/intimate whumper, stalking, mentioned panic attack

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Unknown:

How’s your hand?

She hasn’t added the number into her contacts. She can’t risk his name coming up on the screen where someone can see it. And there’s something strange, something wrong about giving him a fake name on her phone when his real name is carved into her skin.

Unknown:

Attachment: 1 image

She never wants to look. But she can’t delete the photos without seeing them. Or maybe it’s just some kind of morbid curiosity, or some hope that maybe one time it won’t be a picture of herself being tortured.

It always is.

Unknown:

I miss you.

She’s a bit surprised that she hasn’t gotten in trouble yet for not answering the texts.

Unknown:

Your hair looks really nice today. Imagine that I’m running my fingers through it, smelling your cherry blossom shampoo.

After having a panic attack in the bus stop, she goes immediately home and throws out anything cherry blossom she owns.

Unknown:

I ordered something for you today. A special surprise for the next time we get to have a longer visit. I’m so excited to see it on you, I can’t wait.

That one haunts her every waking hour for days. A longer visit - meaning he’s planning on taking her again, overnight at least. And what could he have ordered that he’ll be putting on her? It could be clothing, another muzzle, another blindfold, more restraints… Whatever it is, she’s dreading it so hard that she can’t eat.

Unknown:

Attachment: 1 image

Surely he’s almost out of photos from that night by now.

Unknown:

Do you think that staying at home all the time keeps me from getting to you anytime I want? You’re so adorable.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rings.

Obsession 7 - Run-In

(Day 21 of Angstpril 2022)

Taglist:@justplainwhump,@whump-ventures

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Warnings: lady whumpee with male whumper, selective mutism, stalking, creepy/intimate whumper, choking, broken ribs, burns

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It’s been a week since Devin’s birthday party. Six days since she received the texted photo from Oliver. She hasn’t gotten anything else from him, but she’s barely been able to touch her phone all week for fear that she would.

It took her a couple of days before she could speak at all, and even now the ability comes and goes seemingly at random. Today, the very first day that she’s ventured out of the house since the party, she managed to force out enough words to order her favorite mocha at the coffee shop where she does a large portion of her illustrating. Now she stands close to the pick-up counter, carefully angled where she can see the door without looking like she’s staring at everyone who walks in.

“Caddy!” The baristas here are about fifty/fifty on getting the pronunciation of her name right, but she doesn’t ever correct them. She waits until they’ve walked away from the counter before sliding in and picking up her drink, then weaves through the tables to one of her usual spots in the back corner.

It takes her a while to be able to focus on the sketches on her tablet. She keeps glancing up every few seconds, watching the door, checking all the tables to make sure she hasn’t missed anyone new coming in and that everyone is involved in their own work and conversations rather than paying attention to her.

Eventually, though, an idea sparks, and she lets the soothing rhythm of drawing pull her in. Her stylus strokes out black lines, and for a moment, she doesn’t have to think. She can just be.

“Cadence!”

Her hand jerks across the screen, leaving a bold streak behind it, as her whole body seizes up. It’s not you it’s not you it’s not you it’s not you. Her old name is unusual, yes, but she’s not the only one in the world who has it. It takes every bit of will she can muster to not turn around and see who is picking up the drink, forcing herself instead to tap the ‘undo’ button and erase her mistake.

“Oliver!”

All of the sounds of the café become muted around her. She can’t breathe. It’s like he’s already here, his hand clamped around her throat.

There’s no way those two names, that close together, are a coincidence.

She knows it, but that doesn’t mean she quite believes her eyes when he slides onto the bench across from her, a pleasant smile on his face as if meeting an old friend, and sets one cup in front of her while taking a sip from the other.

“Toasted White Chocolate Mocha. I thought yours might be running low by now.”

He can’t be here. He can’t be here. This is her spot, her safe place.

But he is.

“Personally I prefer a little less sweet, but it doesn’t surprise me that you’re the type who doesn’t like to taste the coffee in their coffee.” He takes another drink, grey-blue eyes always boring into her.

She’s not sure whether her stylus is still in her hand or not. Everything feels both far away and too close at the same time.

Are people staring at them? She feels like everyone in the room should be noticing that something is extremely, terribly wrong at the little booth in the corner, but logically she knows that they just look like two ordinary people, catching up over coffee. There’s no way of telling that one is a sadistic maniac and the other, his victim.

“You’ve been hiding this week. I almost thought I was going to have to find a way to coax you out of the house.” He leans forward a little, eyes finally dropping from her face to glance at her tablet. “Been busy with the McIntyre project, I see.”

The fact that he knows not only the name of her client, but also recognizes the work she’s doing for them, doesn’t even surprise her at this point. She accepted long ago, the first time he had her, that he knew every detail about her life, and the past weekend made it pretty clear that he still does.

What do you want? she longs to scream, but even in a public space he’ll find some way to punish her for speaking. All she can do is sit, frozen, eyes drying out from not blinking enough, waiting for what he’s going to do to torment her next.

“I’ve missed you.”

His voice makes her want to shake apart into a million pieces.

“You know, it’s a little warm in here. Don’t you want to take off that scarf?” His smile grows wider, as if he’s made a hilarious joke.

It feels like it’s choking her all of a sudden. The bruises underneath have faded significantly, but there are still yellow and green streaks standing out from her skin. She assumes he’s being sarcastic, pointing out that he knows the reason she’s wearing it, but then he shifts positions and something touches her knee, making her jolt. It’s his shoe, and he’s applying pressure, crushing her knee back into the bench.

It takes her a second to figure out what he wants. Once she does, she quickly reaches up with numb fingers and loosens the scarf, tugging at the knot until it opens up and exposes her throat. He leans in with a little hum, studying it.

“Beautiful.” His shoe finally relents from her knee, the bones protesting as they relax back into place. That will likely be sore tomorrow. Another reminder of him she can wear on her body.

Leaning back again, he twists his cup on the table. “You’re not drinking your mocha.”

Immediately she picks it up and takes a sip. Despite being fresher and hotter than the last, it tastes like ash in her mouth.

What do you want? She knows the answer already. He wants to torment her, to make sure she knows that he still owns her, even in her daily routine. As if she could ever forget.

“Pack up your tablet and go to the restroom.”

It takes the words a moment to compute, but she obeys quickly, sliding the tablet into its case with trembling hands, tucking it back into her shoulder bag, then standing on weak legs. She leaves both coffee cups sitting there, only intent on getting to the restroom as ordered.

There are no stalls, only a single room, so she slips inside and tentatively locks the door behind her. She isn’t sure if she’s supposed to or not. She has no idea what his plan is, but she knows he has one. Every single inch of her body is alert, waiting, moments from panicking, her breaths coming far too quickly and her heart pounding. Is she supposed to be actually using the bathroom? She can’t make herself do it. Instead she just stands, stuck, in the middle of the small room, unable to figure out what to do next.

The minutes that she waits feel like hours. Eventually, there’s a knock on the door, sharp and demanding. She knows it’s him. She prays it’s not.

She unlocks the door and he immediately pushes it open, making her stumble backwards, and walks in carrying a single coffee cup, which he sets on the counter. Then he turns to face her, looking her up and down. Burning her with just his gaze. A hand comes out toward her, and she flinches. He slaps her across the face for it with the other hand, the first removing her bag from her shoulder and dropping it carelessly to the floor.

“These need refreshing.” It’s the only warning she gets before his hand is around her throat, for real this time. He backs her into the wall before beginning to slowly, steadily cut off more of her air.

It starts hurting quicker this time. Her already abused windpipe groans underneath the pressure of his hand, and tears automatically prick her eyes. He smiles when he sees them.

Just as she starts to get too dizzy to see anything, he releases just enough that she can suck in a painful gulp of air. He watches her struggle and choke for a moment, thumb stroking across her throat.

“Lift your shirt.”

It takes her a second longer than it should to comprehend the order, her mind still swirling from the lack of oxygen. She fumbles for the hem of her shirt and quickly pulls it up past his brand, knowing that’s what he wants to see.

Without letting go of her throat, he rips off the gauze that she’d taped over it, dropping them to the floor and running his fingers across the marks. “Mm. It’s healing well.” His hand slides over a bit, icy trails following it. “This still looks painful, though.”

The hand on her throat begins to tighten again as the one on her broken rib presses in. Pain shoots through her chest, but she can’t gasp or even whine with her air stolen away.

It goes on, for a few minutes or an eternity, she’ll never know. The ability to breathe comes and goes, she coughs and whimpers when she can, and tries not to pass out when she can’t. All the while, he pokes and prods at her broken rib. She can feel the bone moving. When coherent thoughts are even possible, she’s panicking about the possibility of a punctured lung, wondering if he actually knows how to not kill her.

At last he lets go, with one last stroke of his fingers down her throat, and steps back. She somehow manages to not fall down.

“I’ve got one more gift for you before I go.” He steps backwards, toward the sink. “Come here.”

It takes her a couple of tries to push herself up off the wall. The bathroom spins around her as she walks, making her stumble and have to pause a few times to keep from face planting.

As soon as she’s close enough, he grabs onto her right wrist and yanks her forward. Her hip bone slams into the countertop. He doesn’t have to hold her as tightly as he does, she wouldn’t try to get away, but she knows he enjoys trying to create as many bruises as possible.

“Got a fresh cup just for you.” He’s reaching for the coffee he left here earlier. She knows what’s coming, tears are already starting to stream down her cheeks, but there’s absolutely nothing she can do to stop it. Even if she could get out of his grasp and make it to the door before he caught her, which would never happen, she knows him. He’s rich, influential. No one would ever believe her over him, she’d be dragged through an ordeal where he’d do everything possible to humiliate her, then they’d go right back to where they are now, but with her friends involved because of her failure to remain silent and obedient.

“Now. If you scream, people are going to ask questions. We don’t want that, do we?” The way her wrist bones creak and grind together make it clear she’s supposed to shake her head in reply.

He pops the lid off, sets it neatly to the side. She can see the steam rising from the black liquid inside. There’s not enough time to fully prepare herself, probably never would be, her hand is already positioned over the sink, and -

It’s quick, at least. He doesn’t drag it out, just dumps the entire contents over the back of her hand. Somehow she doesn’t scream. She does bite a bleeding hole through her lip trying not to, though.

Her whole hand feels like it’s on fire. She chokes out a sob, then another, trembling hard and wishing he’d just let her go, let her turn on some cold water to run over it, the faucet is right there.

But of course he doesn’t. He pulls her hand up higher between them so that they can both admire the bright red skin, the way patches of it are already starting to puff up and pucker.

Then he finally drops it, but she still can’t do anything because he’s holding her face in his hands, brushing her disheveled hair back from her forehead and drawing patterns on her cheeks with her tears that won’t stop flowing. “There you go, my sweet. A little parting gift, to make sure you’ll be thinking about me all week.”

He steps back, picks up the coffee cup and crushes it before throwing it away. Then he smiles at her, eyes sparkling. “I’ll certainly be thinking about you. And I’ll be seeing you again very soon, don’t worry.”

Cadence clutches her injured hand and refuses to watch as he turns his back and leaves the room.

As soon as he’s gone she stumbles to the door and locks it, as if she wouldn’t immediately let him in again if he returned. Then she goes back to the sink, turning the cold water on full blast and shoving her hand underneath. It feels good despite being a few minutes too late. She still can’t stop crying. Her mind is whirling with replays of everything that just happened, with the knowledge that he’ll do this again and she won’t know when it’s coming, with wondering if she has aloe at home and what Janaysia and Devin are going to say about this, with the realization that there’s no possible way she’s going to be able to finish the McIntyre project on time now. She’ll have to call them. No, she won’t be able to call them. Any progress she’d made towards being able to carry on a conversation will be gone again now.

She wants to collapse on the bathroom floor and cry until she can’t cry anymore, but she can’t. She has to get out of here, she has to go home. So she shuts off the water, dries her cheeks, crouches down to clean up the bandages he’d dropped, tries to ignore the renewed pain in her ribs every time she breathes, picks up her bag, and deliberately does not look at herself in the mirror. Whatever anyone sees when she leaves, it doesn’t matter. She won’t be coming back to this coffee shop, anyway.

Querencia BBU AU - Exhaustion

(Day 16 of Angstpril 2022)

Today we’re back to the regular BBU AU, no Kestrel Sisters involved. :)

Taglist:@justplainwhump,@painful-pooch

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Warnings: lady whumpee, BBU, whumper POV, creepy/intimate whumper (seriously this guy is a real creeper), mild blood, scars, implied future torture, noncon touch (non-sexual)

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The fighting ring is not Manuel Beckham’s favorite place to be. Yes, he owns it. Yes, he makes sure that it’s a respectable establishment, as far as illegal pet fighting rings go, that it’s kept as clean and presentable as any of his offices. Yes, many of his esteemed colleagues can be found here on any given night. And yes, the fights here bring in as much money in a week as some of his legal companies.

But personally, he finds all the blood and sweat and cheering for pain a bit…distasteful.

Not that he’s against pain. But pain should be something beautiful, something carefully crafted with expert hands and enjoyed more privately. It’s wasted on these dogs, and on their owners who roar for more.

Still, he’s obligated to drop by once in a while. The employees always make a huge ordeal out of it, scurrying around like ants trying to make sure everything is perfect for him, always giving him the, “Oh, we weren’t expecting you, we would have had something special prepared for you,” speech.

Of course they weren’t expecting him. If he announced when he was visiting, they could make sure to clean up their act before he arrived. This way he sees everything raw, exactly how it happens on the nights he isn’there.

They sit him in his own private box, though someone is constantly in and out, offering him food and drinks and the chance to place bets. More than one person stopped him on the way there, shaking hands and giving fake smiles and faker compliments. They all want a chance to sit in the box with him, to claim that they’re best friends with Manuel Beckham. He’s yet to invite any of them in.

“You’ll be happy to know,” one of the managers tells him halfway through the night, after one of the dogs takes a brutal beating, “that the new healing program has taken off. We’ve been making nearly ten percent extra each week from healings alone.”

Beckham gives a non-committal hum, sipping his drink. “Healing program?”

“Yes, sir, the new healer pet you ordered. It’s been doing its job well. Your clients are very pleased.”

Healer pet. Right, he vaguely remembers signing off on such a thing. It had to have been at least a year ago by now.

“Well, that’s good to hear.” The concept intrigues him, actually. A pet with magic? He knows they exist, but has yet to come across one.

He makes an impulsive decision in that moment, a rarity for him. “I’d like to see it in action. Once the fights are over, someone can escort me downstairs to watch.”

The manager’s eyes widen almost comically, but he nods eagerly. “Yes, sir, of course! I’ll take you down there myself!”

It’s been years since he ventured into the belly of the beast. As long as the upstairs, the place where all of the business takes place, is presentable, he honestly doesn’t care what happens behind the scenes. He’s still pleased to see as he descends the echoing staircase into a long, grey hallway that they’ve kept it clean and tidy down here. The proximity to a bunch of snarling, filthy mutts is a bit too close for his tastes, but he can ignore that for his curiosity’s sake.

“Just down here is where we have it set up.” The manager - Beckham can’t be bothered to remember his name at the moment - leads the way past closed office doors and several owners tugging their dogs out on leashes. Thankfully most of them are too busy either reveling in their wins or wallowing in their losses to notice his presence.

“Pierce!” A black man built like a bouncer turns at the call of his name. “Mr. Beckham is here. He’d like to see the healer pet at work.”

Pierce merely gives a polite nod to Beckham, who decides immediately that he likes him. No groveling or fake smiles, just business.

“Perfect timing. I’m about to take the next dog in.” Pierce gestures toward the people standing there, a woman he thankfully doesn’t recognize and her female dog that’s nearly covered in blood.

The door opens, and Beckham immediately spots the healer, despite the fact that she’s tucked herself neatly into the corner. He’s hooked right away. Her big grey eyes stand out from her gaunt face, dark circles underneath making them even more prominent. Freckles dot her nose and cheeks. Her dark brown curls are a mess, falling just below her shoulders, but he can tell they’d be gorgeous with proper care. A scar bisects her full, perfect pink lips and runs up her cheek. Everything about her, including the way she folds her hands tightly in front of her and ducks her head just so, is perfect. She’s like a little mouse. He can’t stop staring at her.

When the Guard Dog has been properly restrained, she finally emerges from her corner, head still respectfully down. She doesn’t even need to be told what needs healing. Her hands move gracefully around the dog’s body, mesmerizing blue light spilling from her fingertips, stitching up the deepest of wounds with the slightest of touches.

Once she’s done, she steps back into her corner. The owner takes out a wet wipe and cleans off some of the blood here and there, checking the wounds, but there’s nothing to be found but a few, small white scars. She pays her dues and leaves satisfied.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” the manager asks.

“Yes,” Beckham hums. “She is. Tell me, does she have a name?” He still can’t take his eyes off of her.

“Um…”

“Her trainers called her 472,” Pierce offers. “But some of the guards here have taken to calling her Freckles.”

“How’d she get that scar on her face?” Freckles and a number won’t do at all. Little Mouse, that’s how he’s going to think of her.

Pierce shrugs. “Some dog she healed a few months ago. That’s how her magic works, she takes on the pain of whatever she’s healing, and she gets matching scars.”

She takes on the pain. How completely fascinating. He can see it now, watching her work on the next dog. The slight stiffness to her movements, the way she favors one leg almost imperceptibly. A weariness that weighs down her shoulders. She does an excellent job of keeping it to herself, though. He’d never have noticed if he hadn’t been told. Now he can’t stop noticing, though, can’t stop wondering where she’s hiding invisible injuries, what parts of her are hurting. It must be strange, carrying someone else’s pain. She must be exhausted.

It just adds to her perfection.

Beckham stays until the last dog is healed, watching. He can tell that she knows, but she’s a good pet, never raising her eyes except to look at injuries, never speaking at all, never making even the slightest pained noise even as she heals a broken collarbone and a sprained wrist. He wants to know what her voice sounds like. Wants to know what it would take to make that voice cry out, to make tears fill those impassive eyes.

As soon as he gets home that night, despite the late hour, he locks himself in his office and searches his records until he finds every single piece of paperwork that Beckham Solutions, Inc. has on the Little Mouse. Designation 521472, trained as a Platonic, with an emphasis in healing magic and a little bit of Romantic training thrown in to boot. She was lauded by WRU as being ‘highly obedient’ and received high marks in every aspect of her training.

She’s meant to be a companion. To be petted, and held, and loved. And now she’s trapped in the bowels of the fighting ring, carrying the burden of so many injuries so that the Guard Dogs of a bunch of rich, entitled owners won’t have to.

The more he learns of her story, the more delighted he is.

Hewantsher.

But of course he can’t just go and take her. Yes, she technically belongs to him, but what would his employees think if he snatched away the source of a ten percent increase in earnings just for his own whims? He’s a businessman first and foremost. If he’s going to have the Little Mouse for himself, he needs to make sure there’s a way to replace the money she brings in.

So he contacts WRU the very next day. Informs them that he’s in need of another pet with healing magic, and no, he doesn’t mind paying extra for a custom order. Drops plenty of hints that if they don’t have one that has signed up by conventional methods, they should most certainly pursue unconventional methods of procuring one. Yes, he’s alright with waiting as long as it takes. He wants his Little Mouse now, but he’s a patient man. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all.

Months pass. He stays away from the fighting ring altogether, not wanting to tempt himself to act rashly. He finally gets a call from WRU, telling him that they’ve found a candidate. His training will begin immediately, this time strictly focused on obedience and healing. Beckham inquires a little into this new pet’s story, out of curiosity, and finds that his magic works quite differently from Little Mouse’s. No taking on pain involved. Much less interesting. He promptly forgets about him, other than occasionally wondering how close his training is to being completed.

Little Mouse, on the other hand, he thinks about every single day. He quietly begins making preparations for her arrival, whenever that may be, much to the curiosity of his other pets, he’s sure. They don’t need an explanation from him, though. They’re just pets. They’ll find out what’s happening eventually.

At last, almost a year later, when he’s practically worn thin from the waiting, he gets the call. His new Box Boy is ready and will be delivered to the fighting ring the next day.

Beckham doesn’t waste any time. He’s waiting down the hall from the healing room that night half an hour after the fights end, waiting for his Little Mouse to emerge from her very last night working here. The fact that she has no idea makes him a little bit giddy. He’s already set everything up for the new pet’s arrival with Kara, who will be the one in charge of unboxing him and putting him to work. All that’s left is to take her home.

He’s purposely set himself up a little ways away from the door so that he can watch her for a moment when she comes out. It’s a struggle to keep himself from breaking into a smile when she does. She’s just as perfect as he remembers. Time has changed her, though. His Little Mouse has turned into something of a ghost, haunting the basement halls of this establishment. There’s no longer a light, airy quality to the way she walks. The exhaustion he’d seen on her before weighs even heavier now, dragging her down. She moves more stiffly than before, less able to hide the amount of pain she’s constantly in. Her skin is paler than it should be. The bags under her eyes have grown even darker.

But she’s still perfect, and she’s his. Give him a little time, and he’ll bring all of that grace and beauty back to life.

He steps forward, intercepting the path of the guard, though he pays them little attention. His eyes are only on her. “Hello, Little Mouse. Do you know who I am?”

Her throat bobs as she swallows. “No, sir.” It’s the first time he’s heard her voice. It’s quiet and demure, as it should be, barely above a whisper. She shakes her head, but leaves it tipped down toward the floor.

“My name is Manuel Beckham.” There’s a visible, physical reaction to that name. She’s heard it before, somewhere. “I’m the owner of this fighting ring.”

Stepping in closer, he reaches out with two fingers, nearly trembling with excitement, and tips her chin up. It’s been so long since he’s been able to see this face. He takes it all in now, burning it into his memory, relishing the fact that he’ll get to see it every day from now on. Her eyes stay locked somewhere around his chin, thick eyelashes nearly covering them.

“Which means I’m also yourowner.”

Her lips part, and she sucks in a barely audible gasp of air. Perfect, she’s entirely perfect.

“Look at me, Mouse.” Grey eyes slowly move up to meet his own. There’s a million thoughts and emotions shining in them, feelings that are kept dutifully hidden from any other portion of her body. He makes a note of that - her eyes are where the truth is held.

“I’m here to take you home. You don’t belong in this place any longer, toiling away so that stupid Guard Dogs don’t have to deal with their own pain. You’re coming home with me, to finally become the beloved pet that you deserve to be.”

Her carefully controlled demeanor is cracking. No one else would see it, perhaps, but as close as he is he can feel the way she’s shaking, can see the tears form in the corners of her eyes. She’s so, incredibly weary, and this is the one thing that she’s been waiting on since completing her training. A pity, some would say, that so much time was wasted training her for companionship only for her to end up here. Others might feel sorry for the pet herself and how disappointed she must have been, though anyone assigning that much weight to a pet’s feelings is an idiot.

For Beckham, though, it’s all exactly how it should be. She was placed here, fulfilling only half of her purpose, so that she would need him as much as he wants her. They’re perfect for one another.

“Come, little one.” He releases her chin, only to slide his hands behind her neck and unbuckle the ugly black shock collar around her neck. Without looking, he drops it into the hand of the flabbergasted guard, then reaches into his inner jacket pocket and brings out the new collar he’d purchased just for her. It’s thin and delicate, genuine leather dyed pink and embedded with pink diamonds. Just one of many fine pieces that she’ll wear in the coming days.

He brushes a strand of messy hair back from her face, and she melts, eyes fluttering shut. Beckham finally allows a smile onto his lips.

“It’s time to go home.”

In Irons 11 - Misunderstanding

(Alt. Prompt 1 for Angstpril 2022)

Taglist:@darthsutrich,@a-series-of-whumpy-events , @ladydani101 , @thingsthatgowhumpinthenight

Previous|Next|Masterlist

Warnings: lady whumpee with male whumper, implied attempted noncon, fear of noncon, mild referenced gore

.

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“Going to meet with Marshall again, eh?”

A ripple of chuckles runs around the bunkroom. Adelaide slows her movements momentarily, but then returns to quickly retying her boots, ignoring what is clearly a taunt. Why it’s a taunt, she hasn’t yet figured out, but everything these men say to her is meant to either insult her or get a rise out of her.

Footsteps approach, a pair of worn black boots stopping just in her line of vision. She knows it’s Jones without looking up. “Yeah, we all know all about your little, eh…visits.”

“Who knew it would be Marshall that’d end up getting what all the rest of us want?” someone else sneers from further away.

Heat rises into her cheeks, and her stomach turns. Is that what they think she and Marshall have been doing all this time? Of course it is. These men can’t possibly think she’s doing something like sword training, learning to defend herself from them. No, they apparently still have one thing only on their minds, and it makes her simultaneously sick and furious.

“Of course he did. He’s first mate. So while we get reprimanded for even trying to touch her, he gets to -”

In one, swift movement, Adelaide snatches her dagger from its scabbard at her hip and stands, placing the point of it directly underneath Jones’ chin. The look of surprise on his face nearly makes her smile. He covers it up quickly, of course, scowling back at her.

She raises her chin. “What I do is none of your concern, and I’ll thank you to keep your opinions on it to yourself.” She could dispute him on what they’re actually doing, attempt to dispel this nasty rumor, but she knows it would do no good. Shutting his mouth will satisfy her.

Jones snarls. “You think you and your little knife can stop me? Can stop us?” He gestures to the two other men in the room.

Fear threatens to turn her legs to jelly and steal away her voice, but she draws on the bit of confidence she’s gained from Marshall’s lessons and stands her ground. “I think slitting your throat would do nicely toward stopping you, yes. And I thought you were smarter than disobeying a direct order of the Captain, but…perhaps I was wrong.”

“You little minx -” He steps forward despite the knife, and it nearly works. She flinches at the movement and nearly lets him in closer, but at the last second she remembers she’s the one with the weapon. She pushes it back toward him, digging the point into the soft skin beneath his beard. He stops, glaring, but there’s a wariness behind the look, too.

His voice lowers, threatening, spit flying from his lips. “If you think that you can just keep hiding behind the Captain, you’re sorely mistaken. Trust me, I can have you without the Captain ever knowing. You’d better watch your back, miss.”

She does watch her back. Constantly. Every moment that she’s not on the upper decks, she’s afraid. His words make that choking, crawling fear even worse.

But she steels her expression, refusing to show it, refusing to back down. She knows that if he and the other two men really want, they can knock the dagger right out of her hand and do whatever they want. It’s three against one, and the one is far less experienced. They know it, too. She’s just hoping that the threat of the Captain finding out will sway them.

An eternity passes before anyone speaks again. “You’d better let her go, Jones,” one of the other men finally says. “We have to report for duty any minute.”

“Fine. I’d rather let her wait and wonder, anyway.” He gives a wicked smile as he backs away from the knife before turning to stroll out of the room.

Adelaide nearly collapses when the door shuts. She wants to curl up in the corner of the room and sob, to ask herself for the thousandth time why she’d ever left home, but she knows it would do her no good. The moment would end, eventually, she’d have to stop crying and get up and go on with this life that she was now trapped in, and all of the crying and questioning wouldn’t have made her feel any better. Or worse yet, someone would walk in and find her in the midst of her tears.

Besides, she does have a meeting with Marshall to get to, and she’s already running late.

As soon as she walks into the storage room after a tense walk through the bowels of the ship, she blurts out, “When can I begin carrying a real sword? I feel I’m ready for that now.” The dagger he’d given her helps, yes, but it’s nothing compared to the swords everyone else carries.

Marshall tilts his head to one side, studying her. “Did something happen?”

She’s shaking all over, she suddenly realizes, and she still has the knife gripped tightly in her hand. She slides it back into place a bit too aggressively. “I do not wish to talk about it.”

“Alright.” He still looks concerned, but he doesn’t push the matter any further. “Let’s see how you do today, and then we’ll discuss whether you may carry a sword. Remember, we agreed at the beginning that you had to be fully ready to fight with one before anyone else saw you with it.”

Teeth clenched, she nods tersely. “I remember. But I need to be ready now.”

“Very well.” Marshall draws his own sword, gesturing with his head toward where hers is leaning against a stack of crates. “Show me. Prove to me that you’re ready.”

He doesn’t believe in me. He thinks I’m just as weak as everyone else does. Grabbing up the sword, she dives into an attack immediately, swinging hard, barely focused on her aim past the need to hit, to be strong. Marshall deflects several in a row before spinning away and backing across the room.

“You’re angry. It’s making you sloppy.”

She grinds her teeth together and lunges after him, not bothering to correct her form at all. He deflects again, then shoves her away.

“Miss Gray -”

“Yes, I’m angry!” She attacks again, punctuating each statement with a swing of her sword. “I hate this life! I hate them, I hate this ship, I hate you for bringing me here!”

It comes out her mouth without thought, but she fumbles once she realizes what she’s said. Marshall, on the other hand, doesn’t seem fazed. He merely nods, sword still held ready.

“Good. It’s about time that you got angry. You deserve to feel it. And you can use that anger, you just have to pull it in and focus it.”

Hewants her to be angry? She’s never been allowed to be angry before, and it certainly has never been encouraged. Adelaide paces in a circle, emotions pounding energy through her veins and making it impossible to stand still. “I don’t know how.”

“Well, let’s get some of it out, first.” He beckons her forward with his hand. “Come. Give me your anger. Hit as hard as you need, and if you want to say what you’re angry at, do.”

She doesn’t need a second invitation to get back into fighting. It feels awkward at first to start talking again, to pour out her thoughts to this man, but after a moment the feelings bubble over into words.

“I was never supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to have to spend my life frightened, waiting to be attacked, or punished.” The more she speaks, the faster the words and her strikes become. “I’m so tired of being scared! I just wanted to get away from Charles. I wanted to have a chance to live without a man forcing himself on me, and instead, I have a dozen of them attempting it!” She chases after Marshall as he dodges her. “And I hate myself for leaving, and I hate that living with him now seems like it wasn’t that bad, and I hate that this is probably my punishment for forsaking my marriage.”

This time when he pushes her back, she stays, panting, slightly embarrassed for revealing all of her sins, but surprisingly calmer than she had been.

Marshall, thankfully, doesn’t comment on anything she’s just said. “Now that you’re not exploding, we can work on focusing it. Feel it in your center. Don’t try to suppress it, let it give you strength, but keep your head and remember the skills you’ve learned at the same time.”

Right. She can…do that, she thinks. The anger is certainly still burning inside of her, just smoldering now instead of flaming up into a wildfire. She still wants to hit something, still wants to prove herself. But her mind is clearer.

Nodding, she drops back into her ready stance, sword raised. And she waits. Steadies her breaths, slows her heart beat. Marshall has taught her to always be wary of making the first move.

He rewards her patience by making it himself. She blocks his swing, and the next, ducks under a third and skips backward to reset. By the time he’s turned around she’s charging. She bombards him with a flurry of strikes, which he can only continuously parry, stepping back each time until he’s up against a stack of crates. Just as she’s ready to pin him, though, he spins out of the way and finds his footing again in the center of the room.

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’s…having fun. Almost smiling. She is fighting better than she ever has before, but she can’t dwell on that or she’ll lose her momentum.

Their fights have been getting longer, as she’s been able to hold out better, but this may be the longest yet. It almost feels as if they’re evenly matched for once.

He does still win, eventually, locking down her sword arm and feinting a blow to the head, but she finds she doesn’t mind at all. They’re both out of breath, but she feels like the warmth inside of her is less from anger now and more…a glow, from knowing she’s done well. She’s actually proud of herself, for once.

“I believe…” He huffs, digging the tip of his sword into the wooden floor and leaning on the hilt, “…that you are correct. You areready.”

WaW Angstpril Masterlist

Doorstep Collapse - BBU/Kestrel Sisters Liliana

Survivor’s Guilt - Kamaria

Flashback - Kamaria

Misunderstanding - Adelaide

Exhaustion- BBU!Liliana

Whumper Run-In -  Cadence

Threats-  Cadence

Blackmail- Adelaide

Forced to Hurt - Adelaide

Cry for Help - A’ninsi and Meli

@whumpawoman

Kestrel Sisters AU - Starving

(Days 5 and 25 of Whumpay)

This piece is for the original Kestrel Sisters AU (not the BBU version). Leigh and Liliana have been kidnapped by Leigh’s former whumper, Malcolm, and are being held in an abandoned warehouse.

Malcolm and Leigh belong to @for-the-love-of-angst ! Thank you for letting me play with them!

<><><><><><><><><><><>

Warnings: lady whumpees with male whumper, captivity, referenced parental death/abandonment, homelessness, starvation, touch repulsion, touch starvation, implied torture, self-deprecating thoughts

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It’s quiet in the dark concrete room. Leigh is awake, but silent, insisting on ‘keeping watch’ even though they’re both aware by now that she won’t be able to do anything to stop Malcolm if he comes for one of them.

Liliana is supposed to be asleep. She’s curled up in the corner, shivering, arms wrapped around her middle as if she could possibly hold in some warmth or ease the cramps in her empty stomach. It isn’t the first time she’s needed to sleep in the cold, and it’s certainly not the first time she’s gone hungry. Hunger has become such a familiar part of her life over the past two years that she wouldn’t know who she was without it.

She’s never let it get this bad before, though. There’s not ever much to eat, but there’s usually something. So far, in the time they’ve been here, which has to have been a couple of days, at least, he’s only offered them water. Which helps, of course, but can only go so far.

Another cramp threatens to rip her in half, and she curls in further on herself, biting back a whimper.

“Lili? You okay?”

It throws her off, still, how casual and familiar Leigh is with her. Giving her a nickname, acting like they’ve known each other for years. Which, for Leigh, they have, in a way. Apparently she was old enough when…they were separated, however that happened, that she actually remembers her sisters. Probably remembers calling her by that nickname when she was just a baby.

It’s all too wild and overwhelming for Liliana to quite get a grasp on, though. Part of her even refuses to believe it. To accept that her parents, the ones that she grew up with, the ones that she fled from as soon as she turned eighteen, aren’t even her actual parents, and that she…had? has? another set of parents out there who…what? Died? Abandoned her? She doesn’t even know, isn’t sure she wants to know. Leigh might be able to tell her, but they haven’t had a lot of time for chitchat in between being tormented by their captor.

“Are you awake?”

Oh, right. She’d apparently gone into a daze, unaware of how much time was passing since Leigh first addressed her. “Mhm. ‘m fine.” Her voice sounds atrocious. Going from months on end of hardly speaking at all to a couple of days of screaming and crying has not done it any favors.

There’s the sound of movement, and a moment later Leigh crawls close enough that she can actually make out her features in the darkness. A look of concern is etched into her face, though that seems to be her default right now, when she doesn’t look angry or in pain. “Are you sure? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“N-no.” Finally deciding that she can’t stand the cold of the concrete floor seeping through her clothes anymore, she shoves herself upward with weak, shaky arms, immediately regretting it when what little she can see disappears into a black void.

When her brain stops pounding into her skull and she’s aware of her surroundings again, there are hands on her, gripping her arms. Gasping sharply, she jerks away. Her spine slams against the wall, heart beating wildly.

“Sorry! I’m sorry. You almost fell, I was trying to help.”

It’sLeigh. Just Leigh, no one is trying to hurt her.

“S-sorry. Sorry.” She sucks in a deep breath, trying to calm her heart. “I j-just, um…got lightheaded.”

Leigh hums thoughtfully, but doesn’t say anything else right away. Liliana can almost feel her staring, analyzing her, but she can’t find it in her to worry about that right now. Her head has started aching again, rivaling the pain in her stomach, and she’s so weak and shaky that it’s taking all of her focus just to stay upright. An extra intense shiver nearly knocks her over.

“You’re freezing.” It isn’t quite a question, but it’s more than a statement. Liliana isn’t sure how she’s the only one shivering, in this frigid room, but then again, maybe it’s just her. She always struggles to keep warm.

“I’d offer to share some body heat with you, but…” Leigh trails off, leaving the thought unfinished. There are probably a couple of ways it could end. “But you just freaked out when I touched you,”and“But you smell like a dumpster,” are both valid options.

“I’m fine.”

Silence falls again. Liliana listens to Leigh’s breathing and tries to match her own to it, but it’s difficult to keep a steady rhythm.

“Listen, I know I’ve already said this once, but…I’m so sorry that you got caught up in this. You…do-…-e here…me…-colm…you…”

Liliana grits her teeth, trying to focus on the words, but they fade in and out, mixing with the pounding of her pulse in her temples. Then they stop, and she should say something, she’s being rude, but she doesn’t even know what was said and she’s not used to carrying on conversations and she’s not really sure what words even are anymore, her mind is just static and pain and cold and hunger, until she feels herself falling sideways and can’t do a thing to stop it.

She wakes lying on her back with her head pillowed on something softer than the concrete. There’s a hand on her face, and she flinches, trying to swat it away, but her arms are made of lead and won’t cooperate. The hand moves anyway.

“Shh, Lili. You’re okay. Can you hear me?”

She gives a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan in response.

“Okay. I need you to tell me something. Are you bleeding anywhere?”

It takes her a moment to fully comprehend the question, but she shakes her head no.

“Good. That’s good.” Leigh hesitates, and Liliana takes a second to try and orient herself. Leigh’s face is above her now. She must be…yes, she’s lying with her head on her lap. The proximity makes her heart skip a beat, but she doesn’t have the strength to change her position.

“When’s the last time you ate something? Before…before coming here?”

Food. Liliana’s stomach groans at the thought. It’s a struggle to get her mind to go back that far, to remember the day before she was kidnapped, and even more of a struggle to put the memories into words.

“I…I had a…the end of…a sandwich? Like…like…” ¿Cuál es la palabra, cuál es la palabra? “…el pan, con mayonesa. Para el desayuno.” She doesn’t even register that she’s switched to the language she grew up speaking.

“Not a whole sandwich? Just…bread with mayonnaise?”

Liliana hums in agreement, holding up two fingers to indicate how big the piece had been. She’d hoped for at least a little bit of meat left on it when she pulled it out of its takeout box, but hadn’t been that lucky.

“¿Qué más?” Leigh urges softly.

“Saved the…the fries…for dinner.”

“Fries. Okay. Just…plain fries?”

“Mhm.” It had been about a handful. Most were the small, crunchy bits, but she didn’t mind. They had good seasoning, even cold.

“And that was…the day before you were taken? You didn’t eat anything the day of?”

“No. No pude encontrar nada.” She’d just thought she was hungry that morning. It was nothing compared to now.

“You couldn’t find…” Leigh cuts off, then after a moment leans down so she’s looking Liliana directly in the eyes. She tries to focus in on her, but her facial features seem to be wavering and multiplying.

“Lili…I could be completely wrong about this, but…are you…homeless?”

The shame is like a punch to the chest. It’s not like she’s tried to hide the truth from her…her sister. But she was perfectly okay with her not knowing. From what she’d gathered from her clothing and snippets of conversation, she’s a successful businesswoman. Might even possibly be the CEO of a company, if she’d heard correctly.

And her little sister lives next to a dumpster and survives off other people’s trash and charity.

Still, she can’t lie to her. So she nods, slowly, and whispers, “Sí.”

There’s no real reaction. Leigh leans her head back against the wall again, staring off into the distance, not saying anything. Before Liliana can go too deep into her spiral of she’s disgusted by me she’s ashamed to call me sister she wishes I’d stayed out of her life, though, something touches the top of her head, yanking her attention away. It’s…fingers. Leigh is running her fingers through Liliana’s hair.

She freezes, mind going in a dozen different directions. Someone’s touching her, and touching always means pain, but…this feels really nice? It doesn’t hurt at all, but it could hurt, it could change at any moment, she could grab a handful of her hair and pull…but then again this is Leigh, and she hasn’t treated her with anything but kindness over the past couple of days. But she really shouldn’t be touching her hair, her hair is gross, it’s greasy and matted and no nice, respectable person like Leigh should be putting their hands anywhere near it. Except it’s so gentle, and soothing, and she hasn’t been touched like this in…in years, and she can’t seem to do anything but melt into it, eyes drifting shut.

“You were probably half starving already,” Leigh murmurs. Liliana’s eyes flicker open at the sound, but are too heavy to stay that way long. “We ne-…-ou some foo-…-re really worr-…me.”

The pitch blackness behind her eyelids is inviting. Her head doesn’t hurt so much anymore, even her stomach has calmed, no longer trying to turn itself inside out. She doesn’t know what Leigh is saying, but her voice is soothing, despite the fact that it sounds very far away.

Suddenly the hair petting stops, and there’s a warm hand on her cheek, tapping. Pulling herself back up out of the depths of the darkness is difficult, but eventually she manages to pry her eyes open, the pain in her head spiking again with her return.

“Lili, you need to stay awake.”

Stay awake? Had she fallen asleep? She tries to answer, but words are hard. English, especially, is hard. “Cansado,” she finally manages.

“Sí, lo sé.” She doesn’t go back to rubbing her hair, and Liliana wishes she would, but she does keep her hand against her cheek, and that feels pretty nice, too. Occasionally her thumb strokes across her cheekbone.

They spend what could be an eternity like that, Liliana floating on the edge of consciousness while Leigh does her best to keep her on the waking side of it. Sometimes she nearly gives into the darkness again, and the tapping fingers bring her back. Sometimes Leigh hums, or talks, and even though she can’t concentrate on what she’s saying it’s nice to have the reminder that she’s not alone.

Finally, the lock on the heavy door turns with an echoing click that catches her attention. She turns her head on Leigh’s lap just in time to see the door creak open slightly, a man’s hand rolling three water bottles onto the floor.

“Hey!” Leigh’s voice rings out sharply, none of the earlier softness there now. The hand is gone, but the door pauses, not closing yet. “Tell Malcolm that if he doesn’t get some food in here right now he’s about to lose one of his pets.”

The door opens a bit more, and the man steps in - through the haze, Liliana recognizes him as one of the men who’d grabbed her from the alley - light spilling into the room with him. He squints in their direction, looking them up and down.

A sharp pain stabs through Liliana’s stomach, and she winces before shutting her eyes again. Leigh and the man are having a conversation above her that she can’t decipher. Somewhere in the distance, there’s the sound of a door shutting, then a hand begins carding through her hair again, fingers tapping on her cheek. She hums, but can’t make her eyes open this time. It’s just too hard.

The next thing she’s aware of is a scent. It takes her a moment to process it and place where she’s smelled it before. It’s…peanut butter. Her eyes pry themselves open almost of their own volition, even though she’s half convinced that she’s hallucinating.

“Hey, chica.” Leigh smiles down at her, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ve got food for you, open up.”

Liliana obeys automatically, and a small piece of something is slipped between her lips. The taste of peanut butter explodes across her tongue. Whatever it is, it’s chewy, with chunks in it that she identifies as peanuts. Leigh is waiting with another piece pinched in her fingers as soon as she’s done swallowing that one.

As she chews the second bite, her eyes flick up to Leigh’s face, and the granola bar she’s holding. A small smile crosses her lips when she sees Liliana looking at her. “You really scared us, you know that?”

Liliana isn’t sure what she did, but she whispers, “Sorry.”

“Just eat right now.” Leigh pushes another bite up to her mouth. “But let me know if it gets to be too much.”

“I can…I can do it.” Having to be hand fed is far too embarrassing. The look Leigh gives her is dubious, but she holds the granola bar out to her anyway. It takes all of Liliana’s strength to raise her arm and grasp it, hand shaking so hard she nearly misses, and once it’s in her hand she can’t quite seem to bring it any closer to her face. She feels pathetic. Leigh hasn’t had food while they were here, either, and she seems perfectly fine.

Without a word, Leigh wraps her hand around Liliana’s and guides the food toward her. It isn’t much better than hand feeding, but Liliana swallows what little pride she has left and accepts it.

She manages to make it through three-fourths of the granola bar before she decides she can’t hold anymore. Leigh wraps it up carefully and sets it to the side, then goes immediately back to petting her hair.

“We’ll try to get some more in you in a little while. There’s another bar here, too, that you can have when you’re done with this one.”

There’s something…questionable about that statement, but she doesn’t currently have the energy to figure out what and why.

They stay huddled together for a while longer, not speaking much. Eventually Leigh helps Liliana sit up again, which sends her head spinning, though not as badly as before. She takes more bites of granola bar whenever she feels she can. Leigh stays pressed up against her side the whole time, and Liliana is surprised to find she doesn’t mind it at all.

Then the lock turns and the door opens again, and Malcolm himself steps inside. A harsh shiver runs down Liliana’s spine at the sight of him. Leigh shifts even closer to her, face set like stone.

“Well, Birdy.” His voice is sickly sweet, his eyes roving over them with far too much delight. “I think it’s time you pay me for the food you ordered.”

Liliana can feel the way Leigh flinches, and finds herself reaching out to hold onto her arm. She doesn’t know precisely what the man wants, but she knows it isn’t good.

“I did you a favor,” Leigh spits. “I kept you from killing her with your neglect.”

Instead of getting angry, he smiles. “Hm. You’re right, the little one is the troublemaker, here.” His gaze is solely on Liliana now, and it makes her skin crawl. “Maybe she should be the one to pay up.”

“No!” Leigh is on her feet instantly. “I’ll do it. Leave her alone.”

“Leigh -” She may not know her sister very well, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t scared for her.

“It’s okay, Lili. Just keep resting. I’ll be back soon, alright?”

Liliana watches helplessly as Malcolm latches onto Leigh and tugs her out of the room. The door shuts and locks with an ominous clang. She’s suddenly freezing again without Leigh next to her, but she’s pretty sure that the way her body is trembling is more from fear than the cold.

She isn’t worth whatever he’s about to do to Leigh. She should have just left her alone.

whump-side:

Jumping on the last day of @whumpawoman Angstpril event with this entry !
Prompt : bleeding out

Carrot Top 51- Restriction

Well, this was originally going to be a lot longer, but I decided to split it up into two separate chapters. Anyways, here’s chapter 51! Chapter 50.Masterlist.

CW: medical whump, experimenting on a whumpee, restraints, power-restricting/shock collars, some lady whump (nothing graphic, very brief), manhandling, possessive whumper, unconscious whumpee.

- - -

“Is this the right place?” Micah whispered.

They had been traveling for nearly four hours, following the directions of the coordinates on the small device. They were all on the edge of their seats- exhausted, and incredibly worried. Mickie finished rebraiding her hair for the hundredth time and wiped the sweat from her palms onto her pants. 

“Well it looks pretty similar to the last time we had to rescue him, so I’d say we’re here.” Justin stated. He finished chugging the water bottle he had in his hand, crumpled it up and tossed it off to the side. 

“The last time?” Micah glanced around- staring at the concrete building, towering walls- a few stories high, glowing faintly in the dark light. “What should- what should I expect?”

“Considering he was practically drowning in a pool of his own blood- whatever that man has done, it’s- it’s going to be bad.” Mickie snarked- her voice trailing off as she stared out towards the building. 

Micah bit back his tongue, trying to swallow the fear. He had to stay level-headed for as much of this as he could. He glanced at Mickie as she zipped up her jacket. She looked so much like her brother- acted a lot like him too.

He wished the first time meeting his boyfriend’s sister would’ve been in better circumstances than a rescue mission.

His boyfriend…

Could he even call him that? 

He obviously knew the boy liked him, that was clear. But if he was ready for a whole other level to their relationship was another question.

As soon as Andrew was better- once he was safe, he’d ask him. He’d make sure of it.

Micah climbed out of the helicopter, following everybody else as he adjusted the pistol tucked in the waistband of his pants. 

They didn’t know he had brought a gun- after all, from their explanations they never needed them because of their powers. But he was just normal. Micah didn’t know how to fight like they did. But he did know how to defend himself.

And this man- whoever this ‘Splice’ was, had obviously done unexplainable horrors to his friend. 

There was no way he was walking in there empty-handed.

“So, Justin and I will walk in there first- hopefully we can minimize any fighting necessary with my controlling powers- and then Mickie, you can disguise you two and follow close behind? Kind of as backup if necessary, but I want you to stay out of sight if possible.” Ali explained.

Everyone nodded, they knew this had to go as smoothly as possible. For Andrew’s sake.

- - -

It had been a little more than eight hours, and he was getting ready for the ninth transfusion. Double checking and triple checking everything- it seemed like it was going well. The cuts had closed up by now, which was good. He needed to retain the new blood- not continue to lose it. Splice admitted he looked beautiful though- the red lines covering the back of his body- the way his hair fell towards the ground- his eyes perfectly closed as he succumbed to the machine. 

He checked the blood in the eighth bag from where it was hung- it was nearly empty- when the door to the room burst open, and two small figures stepped inside.

“You’re early!” Splice cried.

“W-what?” The girl said.

“This is not how I had planned it to go!” He cried, throwing his hands down onto the cart of supplies with a crash. The two kids just stared at him in shock, the boy with a weapon of ice poised to attack, the girl standing just behind his shoulder. Her eyes were so focused on Andrew that she didn’t even glance towards the man as he spoke.

“I needed three more hours. Just three!” Splice groaned in frustration, shoving the cart to the wall with a crash. The girl flinched back as tools and supplies rained to the ground as it toppled.

Splice dug his fingers through his hair. What was he going to do now? The process was going to be interrupted if they tried to rescue him. True he could always restrain the other two while he finished, that was an option, but before he could come up with a plan, the boy jolted towards him.

“Let him go!” He cried as he lunged an attack.

Splice groaned in frustration, knocking Justin back towards the ground with a well-aimed kick. He quickly sprung back to his feet and began throwing punches and attacks as the man tried to defend. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl rushing towards his prisoner where he lay.

“Oh no you don’t-” He stepped away from Justin, causing him to fall off balance. Splice grabbed Ali by the arm as she reached for Andrew and threw her across the room in a swift move. He darted to the control panel- grabbing a lever towards the side.

“Stop!” He shouted. “Don’t move. This lever controls everything he’s hooked up to- I pull it, and all the machines keeping him alive and breathing, will shut off, splat, kapoot- that’s it.”

“No- don’t-” The girl whispered. 

“Oh I won’t hesitate.” He threatened. “It’s very noble that you want to help, and rescue him, but I need you to back away from the boy.” Splice demanded. The two kids did as they were told- holding their hands in the air. “Good. Now it’s very vital that I finish what I was doing, or this whole thing I’ve been working on will be useless.”

At the sound of his words, Splice’s own form seemed to melt off of his body. It pooled to the ground before rising up and splitting in two, creating two other replicas of the man. 

Ali shuddered as one of them approached her- they always looked so dead inside- nothing behind their eyes, no thoughts- no feelings, just whatever command they were given. 

“Grab her.” He commanded.

Ali couldn’t mind control something that didn’t have a mind of it’s own.

Her powers were useless against it as the figure pulled her arms tight behind her back, holding her in a tight grip. Justin darted towards her to help but the second clone grabbed his arm and pulled him back. 

He cried out, trying to swing a punch with his other arm but it was blocked just as quickly as he swung it. 

“Hey now-” Splice called out- motioning towards the lever- “I suggest you cooperate. For your friend’s sake here.”

Justin glared towards the man and let his arms be pulled behind his back with a grumble- glancing towards Ali to make sure she was alright. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of Andrew the entire time. 

“There we are, that’s better.” The man stated. He disconnected the drip bag that was now empty, and set it off to the side.

“What are you doing to him?” Ali asked. Her voice wavered with worry as she watched her friend lie there- unmoving, suspended in the air.

“Oh you don’t need to worry about that. Let’s get you two out of the way for the moment, shall we?”

Splice moved to the cart where he had collected a few extra collars. They were scattered about with the other supplies, but he managed to pick them out of the mess. The goal was to make more as time went on, for all future prisoners, but these other three he had rounded up would have to do, even if they may have been a little imperfect. 

He slipped one over his arm, grabbing the second in his hand. He pressed his thumb against a button and moved towards the girl.

“Hold still now- this will only pinch a little.”

“What are you- hey-” She cried out as the collar was locked around her throat, a sharp pinch in the back of her neck from the prongs. Almost instantly waves of pain shot up the back of her neck, exploding into her head. She groaned out- this was far worse than any migraine- and soon her vision began going spotty.

Her limbs felt heavy, and her knees began to buckle. 

Justin lashed out towards her as she started to fall. The clone struggled to hold him back, but as the other one laid Ali down by the wall it quickly came to restrain Justin as well.

“What did you do!” He cried. “What did you do to her!” He was seething with anger- thrashing about as a clone struck the back of his knees, tearing his arms behind him as he crashed to the ground. 

Justin watched with terror as she groaned and writhed on the floor- her hands clutching the sides of her head. His attention was quickly pulled away Splice approached him next with the second collar. 

“No- get that away from me!” 

Splice wrenched his head back with a fistful of his hair, exposing his neck and soon the collar was locked around his throat as well. He winced at the pain and nearly instantly began to feel slightly dizzy. 

“What is-” his fingers reached towards his throat. “What is this-” his breathing began to quicken.

“They’re power restricting, isn’t wonderful? Much easier than a surgical procedure, like we had to use last time” Splice explained. His clones came back and melded back into his form, as Justin collapsed on the ground- panting for breath.

“It’s different for each person. They’re beautifully made, but of course I’m a little biased, considering they are my creation.” He gestured towards the boy- his white hair drooping to the ground- his pale skin. “Andrew here simply became more easier to work with. For her, she’s probably having the worse migraine of her life, and you,” Splice knelt down in front of Justin- his face beginning to feel clammy as he tilted his chin up “-you will probably start feeling the affects of dehydration pretty soon. Your powers being water-based and all.”

Justin looked towards Ali once more. Herbody was shaking as her arms wrapped around her head. His limbs felt heavy as he dragged himself over to where she lay on the ground. His fingers fumbled uselessly over the edges of her collar- trying to find a clasp, an opening, or something.

“I wouldn’t recommend that if I were you.” Splice taunted.

“Take it off-” he pleaded- “it’s hurting her-”

“That won’t work- they’re encoded with my fingerprint. It’s the only way to remove them.”

Ali grumbled as he fussed with it some more- ignoring all the man’s direction.

“Take it off-” he demanded.

Splice shook his head, reaching for a small remote he kept in his pocket.

“Alright, well if you won’t listen to me-”

And then there was fire coursing through his veins. Justin flew back from Ali, his back crashing against the ground.

“Did I mention they have incapacitating abilities as well?”

The shocks coursed through his veins- spasming every muscle, tightening his lungs- and Justin screamed. Splice knelt near the boy as he thrashed against the ground, and waved the remote towards the girl.

“Next time- it’ll be her collar that goes off, understand?” 

Through his groans of pain Justin nodded, sweat pouring down his forehead as he spasmed. 

“Good. I suggest you listen from now on, yes?” 

Splice rose to his feet as he turned up the dial for the strength of the shocks, and Justin screamed once more.

Tag List: @imagination1reality0@just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi@thehopelessopus@burtlederp@whump-me-all-night-long@laves-here@yesthisiswhump@myfriendcallsmeasickwoman19@brutal-nemesis@lunaabsentee@morning-star-whump

gottawhump:

The Worst Part

Year 20

CW/TW: lady whump, branding, creepy whumper.

The horrible, familiar smell of hot iron fills her nostrils. She struggles against the straps, but they’re tight and secure. She’s choking on the collar welded around her neck.

“Please,” she tries, “please, don’t. Don’t do this, please. I’ll be good, I’ll be goof for you, Evon, please!”

“Hush,” he says, very gently. “Hold still and it will be over quickly, Ryssa.”

His hands cover hers, flattening them to the arms of the chair she’s bound to. She lifts her head, tears streaming down her face, to meet his green eyes, soft and loving and entirely without mercy.

That’s the worst part. He loves her, or thinks he does, but it won’t stop him from hurting her. Her first Master demanded her love, demanded everything from her, but didn’t pretend to love her in her cruelty. Thomas loved her and hurt her, but he didn’t want to hurt her. She’s used to loveless cruelty.

“Please,” she begs.

“Hush,” he repeats. With one hand, he presses her fingers down. With the other, he brings the hot iron in the shape of his House crest onto the back of her hand.

She can’t obey. She cries, she scream. Then some more, when the second iron comes down on the back of her other hand, burning his monogram into her.

When it’s done, Evon frees her from the chair and takes her into his arms.

“There, there,” he murmurs, soothing, “it’s not so bad. It’s over now.”

He said the same thing, in that same comforting tone, so many times before, when they were both slaves.

It hurt so much now.

Taglist:@newbornwhumperfly@distinctlywhumpthing

Stupid 2 - Aftermath

Previous

CW: lady whumpee, lady whump, past torture, manhandling, drowning, dehumanization.

=-=

She was right. Anna thought about the punishment? lesson? What was it this time? Was there even a reason at all? 

Rachel had said she wouldn’t be able to as much as open her eyes and she truly couldn’t. She could only feel the pain, the blood, the fear. Rachel was saying something, using the sweet condescending tone he always uses, but Anna couldn’t hear a word through everything.

She groaned, or tried, her throat was too hoarse to allow her to actually make a sound, Rachel picked her up and she wanted to ask her not to. To beg. It almost never works but she can’t stop herself from pleading for any strand of mercy Rachel might have.

Anna heard the chains falling down, and groaned again when Rachel carried her up the stairs to the bathroom. She must have passed out somewhere in the way because when she came back her head was being forced in the full bathtub.

Rachel pulled her out as soon as she started struggling, “Stupid mutt, I told you not to sleep without permission. Didn’t I?”

Anna gave a small nod, her body limp and hurting too much already, she just wanted it to stop.

She passed out another two times during the bath, both times she was forced awake by despair and pain.

“Oh mutt…” Rachel said, chaining the now clean and with dressed wounds Anna near the dog bed inside Rachel’s room, “If you weren’t so stupid I would be so much nicer to you,” she grabbed her victms’ hair, “are you listing to me?”

Anna nodded, trying to force herself to stay awake. She had to force herself to listen. 

“Idiot, this is the reason you are hurting all the time, because you fucking deserve it, or do you think I am the only one who would hurt a idiot like you?” Rachel let go of her.

The chain was too short, forcing Anna on her knees, she whined pitifully, trying to be allowed to lay down, else she would choke everytime she fell asleep. The whine only earned her a hard slap across the face.

“Think about what you did mutt,” Rachel said, walking towards her bed, where she lay down comfortably, “in silence.”

=-=

In the Underdark

d&d oc ladywhump commissioned by @silentlygo

content warnings: female whump, minor character death, graphic violence, blood, and brief mentions of nausea

—

Baenviir is not unfamiliar with the Underdark. She is half-drow, after all. Her dark blue skin is a testament to her heritage. Below the surface of the sunlit world, she knows what dangers to look out for. She treads lightly, her golden eyes peeled at all times. This is not her first time in the Underdark, and she prays it will not be her last.

She cannot confidently say the same for her current traveling companions, however. Her faction has tentatively formed an alliance with another group in an attempt to strengthen their numbers. They need all the help they can get if they hope to stand a chance against the new threat brewing in the Underdark. Still, she doesn’t exactly mix well with her new associates. She’s never been the most sociable or quick to trust, especially not down here where lives can be so easily snuffed out. It’s best not to grow attached.

And yet… Gaheris.

She tried to ignore the human man at first, but putting him out of her mind proved to be extraordinarily difficult considering how loud he was. Granted, you could never be truly loud in the Underdark if you wanted to stay safe, but Gaheris’ talkative manner pushed at the boundaries of safety. Most of the members of her group ignored him, signifying the divide between the two factions, but she once made the terrible mistake of muttering a sarcastic remark in response to one of his over-the-top attempts to unite the two parties. Upon hearing her speak, he immediately directed his efforts toward her, and she’s been stuck with him ever since.

The thing is, Gaheris isn’t a bad person. In fact, he’s rather obnoxiously noble. He’s not helpless, either, with his knight-status, gleaming armor, and longsword. She has no real reason to reject his acquaintance, and yet…

It’s the Underdark. Not exactly the best place to make new friends.

Baenviir may not be unfamiliar with the region as a whole, but she is a stranger to the caves her party is currently navigating. Her and Gaheris walk side-by-side down the path, situated somewhere near the center of the group, their weapons strapped to their belts and their packs slung over their shoulders. They’ve been traveling for days, and even though she would never admit it, she’s exhausted. 

Gaheris playfully nudges her shoulder. “Nothing like a pleasant stroll through some creepy caves to brighten the spirits, eh?”

Baenviir shoots him a glare, taking a step to the right to create some much needed distance between them. “Just wait until we come across a Beholder. That’ll really lighten the mood.”

The knight chuckles, amused. His green eyes glint in the dim light of the caverns. “Y’know, down here it feels more like we’re on vacation than anything. I mean, everyone we’ve met so far has been so hospitable.”

She snorts. “Yeah? Like the kobolds we ran into the other day?”

Gaheris grins. “Exactly!”

“One of them bit Valeheart’s calf like a rabid dog would,” she points out, cringing when she visualizes the nasty infection the human man is currently combating.

The knight falters slightly. “Well, we can’t all be winners.”

“You don’t mean that,” she says, well-aware of the goody-two-shoes morality hidden underneath his teasing.

“I don’t,” he admits, giving her a sideways smile, “I just like getting under your skin. I have to repay you for those drow lessons somehow!”

Baenviir hums in acknowledgement. It’s true he owes her for the kindness and attention she’s bestowed upon him. After all, she isn’t handing out drow language lessons to just anybody. He’s her only student. She doesn’t intend to make him pay her for her tutelage, however. She’s only helping him because she wants to. Besides, it gives her something to do.

She opens her mouth to say something, but before she can form words, a bloodcurdling scream echoes throughout the chamber. The sound stops her heart and sends chills rolling down her spine.

Immediately, her hands fly to her scythes, her fingers curling instinctively around the hilts as she scans her surroundings. She can’t pinpoint where the commotion is coming from at first, but, a moment later, an arrow soars over her head and lodges itself into a traveler behind her. The attackers must be charging from the front, then.

Gaheris unsheathes his sword, standing close beside her in a display of loyalty. He won’t leave her. Whatever threat comes, they’ll tackle it together.

In a matter of seconds, the previously peaceful cave descends into chaos, battle cries and magical blasts filling the air. Their travel formation immediately dissolves as enemies break through their ranks. Orcs, armed to the teeth and seemingly intent on slaughtering them all, rush forward. Baenviir grips her curled, poisoned-soaked blades and clenches her jaw, feet spread wide in a fighting stance. An enemy strikes down the party member in front of her, but before the orc can turn his attention to her, Gaheris slashes his sword across his abdomen, spilling his guts. Baenviir cuts his throat for good measure, ducking to the side to avoid being crushed when he topples to the ground.

She doesn’t spare a moment to gloat (she’s too much of a seasoned warrior to gloat). Spinning around, she lunges toward the nearest enemy, stabbing the orc in the thigh, making her howl in agony. She manages to land a punch, and the blow leaves Baenviir winded, forcing her to take a step back. Before her opponent can strike again, she slams both her blades into the orc’s chest. The metal sinks in deep, past cartilage and slipping between the bones of her ribs. Blood spills from the orc’s lips, and Baenviir rips her scythes free, her teeth bared in ferocity. The orc falls at her feet, and she moves on.  

Her golden eyes narrowed in determination, her heart pounding furiously, she searches for Gaheris in the mess of carnage. As she makes her way through the crowd, cutting anyone who comes too close as she steps over the wounded and dying, worry seeps through the cracks of her mental fortress. What if he’s already been slain?

Finally, she spots him several yards away, engaged in battle with two orcs, his expression twisted into a snarl. Before she can even start in his direction, a sword slashes his side, leaving a sizable dent in his armor. From where she stands, she can see his mouth fall open in a pained yell, but she can’t hear his voice over the clamor of battle.

Her pulse spikes, and she sprints forward, leaping onto the back of the orc who attacked her friend, slicing his neck. Her scythes dig so deep, she nearly decapitates him, his hot blood gushing onto her hands. Even though he’s dying, the orc manages to grab hold of her and throw her off. She lands on the rocky ground with a thud, grunting. One of her blades slips from her hands, and as she rolls over to reach for the handle, a heavy boot connects with her side. Pain blossoms across her ribs, and she groans. Curling into herself to protect herself from further damage, Baenviir awaits the next blow. 

It never comes.

She opens her eyes just in time to see Gaheris finish off the orc who attacked her, his longsword running him through. With a huff of effort and a boot planted against the orc’s protruding stomach, he wrenches his weapon free, staggering back as he does so. Baenviir snatches both her scythes and climbs to her feet, kicking the back of the orc’s knees to ensure he goes down.

Panting, she looks the knight in the eye, searching to see if he’s alright. He shrugs, gesturing to his wounded thigh. His leg armor has been penetrated, and red drips from the gash in his trousers. Baenviir’s stomach flips at the sight. He won’t be much use in a fight with an injury like that.

“Baenviir!”

The shout pulls her gaze from Gaheris’s wound to his face, which is alight with a primal fear that can only be found in the realm of death. His wide eyes are looking past her, so she spins around, and—

Another body slams into her own, knocking her back several feet. She trips over a dead body and loses her balance, her arms pinwheeling as she falls backwards. She faintly expects to land on the stone path, but instead she falls on uneven ground, her body tumbling fast down a slope that ends in darkness. Her heart drops into her stomach as she spins, completely out of control of her own movements, propelled down the steep embankment. Over the sound of blood rushing in her ears, she can hear Gaheris scream her name.

She crashes into a boulder, and pain explodes across her vision. Her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she’s out like a light.

—

When Baenviir wakes, she almost wishes she hadn’t. Her head aches like her skull has been split down the middle, a deep crevice in the bone that can never be mended. She’s dizzy even though she has yet to open her eyes, and she fears she’ll be sick if she dares to sneak a peek. Parting her lips, she sucks in a reedy breath. Her chest aches, even more so when her lungs expand. Her ribs must be bruised, if not fractured, from the battle and the ensuing fall. As she measures her own pulse, she takes stock, shifting ever so slightly. Her outer left forearm itches in a way she knows means she’s been cut, either on jagged rock or an enemy’s blade. Her right knee throbs as well. All in all, she’s a mess. She’s lucky to be alive.

Eventually, when she thinks she can stand to bear it, she opens her eyes. Her light of sight is black, stars sparking along the edges, and she grimaces as her stomach rolls. If she doesn’t want to throw up, she’ll have to take things slow.

Baenviir wills herself to be patient, suffering through minutes at a time, blinking repeatedly as her eyes adjust. She’s at the bottom of the embankment she was pushed down, further away from the faint light emanating from the crystals on the ceiling of the cave but not too far down to be trapped in total darkness. She can’t hear a single sound. The battle must be finished, then. She wonders who won. She assumes the orcs did, otherwise her party would’ve rescued her. Or maybe not. She would’ve assumed a missing person dead after a fight like that. Gaheris would’ve searched for her, though. He wouldn’t have left her behind. 

Unless he was dead.

Dread stirs within her at the thought, and she forces herself to sit up. She feels wretched, but she knows she can’t stay down here forever. She’ll die of dehydration or be devoured by some wild creature. Crawling onto her knees, she reaches around on the stone ground for her scythes. She has no hope of survival without them. Movement hurts her right knee, the cap bruised in the fall, but she grits her teeth and powers through, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Finally, several feet higher up on the slope, her fingers brush against the familiar hilt of her weapon. She heaves a sigh of relief and grips the blade tightly, hugging it to her chest. She finds its sister soon after.

Once she’s strapped her weapons to her belt, she attempts the feat of standing. Leaning against a stalagmite for support, she hoists herself up, wavering as she struggles to remain upright. Her body is weak and trembling, but after a moment or so, she’s steady enough where she won’t immediately pass out and fall on her ass. 

She takes a deep, slow breath, mentally preparing herself for the grueling climb up the slope back to the road, but an odd noise catches her off-guard. Pausing, she cocks her head to the side and listens. She hadn’t noticed it before, too distracted by her own pain and frantic search for her weapons, but a strange keening sound is coming from up ahead. It doesn’t sound like an animal. It sounds like a person. 

Baenviir starts in the direction of the noise, dread and hope both finding a place in her heart. Squinting in the darkness, she can make out the shape of a body lying at the bottom of the hill. Cautiously, she approaches, unsure if the figure is friend or foe.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” a male voice hisses, and her ears perk up. Could it be?

“Gaheris?” she whispers. 

The swearing stops. “Baenviir?”

She lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding and hobbles over to him. He looks like he just regained consciousness. He must’ve been knocked down the embankment as well, left for dead like she was. 

He smiles at her, struggling to sit upright. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Warmth blooms in her chest. She’s relieved that he didn’t abandon her and that he’s still kicking—for now, at least.

“You hurt?” she asks.

He leans against a boulder, groaning. “Always cutting to the chase.”

“You still have your weapon?”

He shrugs, but the motion seems to cause some discomfort, judging by his grimace. “Probably around here somewhere.”

Baenviir hums and crouches down beside him. His armor is dented in several spots, and his face is a mess of bruises, but her eyes gloss over those minor injuries. What really bothers her in the cut in his thigh, a deep gash that’s still oozing blood. 

“We gotta deal with this.” She reaches for his armor, unlatching the lower half and discarding the metal pieces before moving on to rip apart the seams of his pants, prying the fabric away from his skin.

Gaheris grunts, squirming. “Can I at least keep my clothes on?”

Ignoring his weak attempt at a joke, she takes the scraps of fabric and ties them together, wrapping them tightly around the wound. “You’ll bleed out if I don’t take care of this. Either that or die of infection.”

“What about you?” he asks, looking her over. “You hurt anywhere?”

“Nothing that’ll kill me,” she says, tying a knot that makes the knight wince. “But climbing back up that hill will be a challenge.”

“You’re telling me,” he grumbles, glaring up at the cave ceiling high above them. “Can’t wait to get out of this miserable place.”

Baenviir nods silently, sitting back on her heels. They need water, food, and medicine. Their packs were likely ransacked by whoever won the battle, but there might be something left on the road. Maybe they’ll find enough supplies to get them to the next settlement. If they’re lucky, they won’t die from their injuries.

“We shouldn’t wait any longer. We’ll only grow weaker by the minute.”

Gaheris frowns deeply at the thought of scaling the embankment. She can understand the sentiment. 

“C’mon. Let me help you up.” She extends her hand, but he waves her off.

“Don’t think I can stand,” he says, shifting to his hands and knees, “I’m gonna have to crawl.”

She purses her lips, wanting to argue. There’s no point, though. She can’t support his weight as well as her own. 

“Go slow,” she orders, “and keep a lookout for your sword.”

He grunts in assent, and she turns around, shuffling toward the hill.

As soon as she starts, she realizes she’s better off on all fours, her hands digging into the rock as she pushes herself up one step at a time. Her wounded knee sparks in protest, and her ribs creak with each inhale, but she grits her teeth and forces herself to continue. She has to do this if she wants to live. Every couple minutes, she glances over her shoulder at Gaheris to make sure he’s alright. If he slips and tumbles back down the hill, she doesn’t know what she’d do. He’s several feet below her, his limbs shaking from effort, and whenever she asks how he’s doing, he simply nods, too busy panting to speak properly. Will they have the energy to go on once they’ve reached the top? Or will they simply collapse?

Climbing the embankment takes significantly longer than it did for her to roll down it. By the time her fingers touch the dirt road, she’s soaked in sweat and suffering from a pounding headache. All of her muscles ache from exertion (likely a combination of the battle, her injuries, and the climb), and she flops over onto her back, closing her eyes. 

“Gaheris?” she asks, too tired to lean over the edge and see how far he’s come along. “You almost done?”

She doesn’t get a response, and as the minutes tick by, her concern grows. She begins to consider helping him up the rest of the way, but before she can will herself to move, the sound of heavy breathing indicates his arrival. With a heave, he rolls over next to her, his face pale and drawn. 

“Are you gonna faint?”

He makes an expression that seems to indicate he might, but after gulping down air like a dying man, a bit more color returns to his cheeks. 

“I…” he says, patting his sheath, “I found my sword.”

True enough, the weapon has been returned to its rightful place. “That’s good.”

“Yeah.” He wipes his brow, closing his eyes. “We should probably look around for leftover supplies.”

Baenviir turns her head and scans the road. She sees nothing but orc and human bodies. “We have time. Let’s just rest a minute.”

“For once, you have a good idea!” he exclaims, breathless, and despite herself, she laughs. Shifting to get into a more comfortable position on the ground, she allows her eyes to slip shut once again, her hands resting on the hilts of her blades. This won’t be their last time in the Underdark, not if she can help it. 

The Angel Within

d&d oc ladywhump commissioned by @pixels-and-paperweights

content warnings: female whump, mentions of animal death (horses), graphic murder, blood, memory loss

—

Morning breaks over the peaks of the mountains, and even after traveling all through the night, Fayde Rithindren and her companions still haven’t reached their destination. The mountain pass they’ve been tasked to clear is far from most towns, but the feral orcs occupying the passage are still a threat to the merchants, travelers, and hunters in the area. Fayde and several others have been tasked by the Emerald Enclave to deal with the orcs, a job that involves traveling on horseback for days, venturing past the safety of civilization into the mountainous wilderness.

Fayde enjoys missions like these, for the most part. She gets the chance to absorb the world around her, and the straightforwardness of the task grants her the control she so desperately craves. She was the one to suggest they power through the night in order to ensure they battle the orcs in the daylight as opposed to in the dark. The heightened visibility will give them an advantage in the coming fight. She’s proud of herself for her practicality, but some of the others in her group are not as pleased. Her girlfriend Seren has bags underneath her eyes, but she’s too polite to accuse Fayde of robbing her of precious sleep.

Maul, on the other hand, has no such qualms.

“By the Gods, what I wouldn’t do for a cup of coffee right now!” the human man announces loudly to the group. They packed limited provisions to keep their packs light, and coffee didn’t make it onto the list of essentials. They don’t have time right now to stop and brew a pot, anyway. Maul is just trying to entertain everyone with conversation.

“After we slay those goddamn orcs, I’m going to lie down right there in the road and sleep for an entire day,” he declares, twisting his torso around on his horse to look at Fayde, his amber eyes meeting her cerulean ones.

Seren rolls her eyes—brown orbs speckled with flecks of gold, ceaselessly enchanting—at his antics. “If you do that, we’ll have to leave you behind, and you’ll be eaten by wolves.”

Maul laughs boisterously instead of mustering up a false front of insult. Some of the other travellers look back at him inquisitively. Fayde doesn’t know any of them by name, content to stick to her small, tight-knit group of friends instead of familiarizing herself with the entirety of her local Enclave. Maul combs his hand through his short salt-and-pepper beard, a dangerously contemplative expression on his face.

“What now?” Fayde asks, even though she probably doesn’t even want to know. He grins.

“I was just thinking…” he begins, but Fayde isn’t listening. She recognizes the markers along the trail as the ones they were told to look out for. They must be close to the pass.

Fayde shares a look with Seren, and the half-elf woman nods. Fayde tugs on the reins, slowing her horse, and readies her weapon, grasping the staff of the halberd with both hands. She’s fought worse than feral orcs before, but she can’t help but remain prepared at all times. Maul teases her for being anxious, but she likes to think of herself as simply “reasonably cautious.”

The Enclave member at the head of the group lifts his arm, signaling for all of them to stop. The air is quiet except for the heavy panting of the horses in the heat and the whistling of the wind. The leader of the pack proceeds slowly, rounding the corner.

Fayde listens to the sound of hooves on packed dirt as he scouts ahead. She doesn’t expect much to come of it—the orcs aren’t likely to be standing around in the middle off the road, they’re feral after all—but she tightens her grip nonetheless. Seren shoots her a reassuring look. “We’ve faced worse before. This job will be easy,” her expression seems to communicate. Fayde nods and steadies her nerves with a deep breath.

Suddenly, a howl pierces the air, setting her nerves alight. A scream comes from around the corner, cut short too soon.

Fayde absorbs all this in the span of a second, charging forward with the flick of her wrist before she even realizes what she’s doing. Her entire group acts on instinct as well, their horses rushing around the bend, not stopping. They don’t stop, even as Fayde scans the path ahead and sees the slaughtered orcs. Over a dozen bodies, soaked in their own blood. A glowing, shrouded figure stands above one of the fallen, ringed by a pack of hellhounds. Fayde spots the scout and his horse, their corpses charred by the beasts’ flames.

Her mind works fast. The pass has already been cleared by a dangerous acolyte and their hellhounds. Whoever they are, they clearly intend to wipe out her and her companions. Fayde hardly has time for the realization to form before the monsters descend upon them. Armed riders collide with the pack in a thunderclap of violence. At the front, one mare bucks off her rider, sending the armored woman soaring into the air, but she raises her sword mid-flight, carving into a leaping beast as she lands. The mixed sounds of shouts, snarls, and clashing metal pollute the air. Fayde falls into the familiar motions of battle, her blood thumming with energy, her vision hyper-focused. She swings her halberd, and the double-edged axe at the end of her weapon swipes the side of the nearest hellhound, knocking him astray before he can pounce on the back of Maul’s mount. Fayde jumps off her own horse, knowing she can fight better on her feet than horseback, and the stallion breaks off in a sprint toward the woods. She barely spares it a sliver of a thought, stabbing the sharp point of her halberd into the hind leg of a hound that’s snapping at Seren. The fiend rounds on her with a ferocious growl, lunging at her. She sidesteps it, knocking it aside with a grunt.

A strange crackle in the air sends a chill up her spine. She locks eyes with Seren. Her girlfriend’s pupils snap wide open, terrified black spilling into her irises.

“Get down!” she screams over the roar of battle, and Fayde ducks just as one of the hounds releases a cone of flame from its gaping maw. Her auburn hair is singed by the heat, and she gasps in pain as the skin of her back is roasted hot, even through her armor. The shrieks of her ignited comrades and their burned horses ring in her ears, and she covers her head with her hands for protection, eyes shut tight as she’s blinded by the light.

When the inferno subsides, Fayde barely has a moment to rise before one of the creatures rushes at her. It successfully dodges her attack, and its claws manage to break through her armor. She hisses as talons slice her bicep, but the injury doesn’t slow her onslaught, and she strikes down the beast with a fierce cry. Her line of sight is splattered with red, crimson and fury flooding her vision. 

Ruthless, she cuts into the hounds, aided by those who’ve not yet fallen. Seren and Maul find her side and stay there, the three of them taking brutal blows and dishing them out in kind. They’re seasoned warriors, but surviving an ambush of hellhounds is no easy feat. As their comrades gurgle and choke on their own blood, their throats torn out by sharp canines, tumbling to join the blackened corpses of their roasted fellows, an unfamiliar panic builds in Fayde’s chest. She’s much less confident right now than she’s comfortable with.

A hound tackles Seren to the ground, the monster snarling above her, snapping at her face, and Fayde throws herself atop the beast, raising her halberd above her head and bringing it down hard enough to stab through the creature’s skull. She rolls off, bringing the impaled, twitching body with her, and Seren crawls out from underneath. 

“Fay—!” Seren yells, her voice cut off by Maul’s battle cry. Fayde spins around just as he bodily slams a hound that got too close to ambushing her from behind. His trademark jovial expression has been replaced by a more grave look, and Fayde’s heart drops to her stomach at the sight. Their comrades are dying all around them, and if something doesn’t change right now, Fayde and her friends will be next.

With a growl, she scans her surroundings, slicing at any creature that comes too close, and her eyes fall on the hooded figure standing away from the heart of the fight, their arms raised and illuminated by magic. They’re likely controlling the hounds. Maybe if she takes them out, the hellhounds will be less organized and easier to kill.

Determined, she cuts a path through the carnage. Maul covers her six without prompting. They’ve been fighting together for so long, they know each other’s moves well. As she engages with a monster that’s blocking her way, it bites her shoulder, sharp canines breaking through her armor. With a scream, she guts the hound and pries it off before its teeth can pierce too deep. Panting, she slouches over, one hand braced on her knee. Her nose is plagued by the scent of blood and smoke.

A shrill cry commands her attention, and Fayde straightens herself, spinning around to face the sound. Several feet away, Seren is wounded, blood gushing from her side, her face contorted in agony.

Fayde’s heart stops.

If you asked almost anyone, they’d tell you that Fayde Rithindren is human. “Of course she is,” they’d say, “She looks human. What else could she be?” But despite her best efforts to appear otherwise, Fayde isn’t entirely human. “Aasimar,” they’d say if they witnessed her wings and celestial powers. She’s embarrassed by her heritage, skeptical of godly beings and unwilling to associate herself with them, so she goes to great lengths to keep her identity a secret. Her girlfriend doesn’t even know who she truly is.

Seren has never screamed like that before, though, and it shocks something in Fayde’s system, something primal that responds violently to the massacre around her and the pain in her closest friends’ expressions. She’s dimly aware of the faint glow emanating from her, growing brighter and brighter until—

Her wings. She hasn’t felt them in so long, but they’re as familiar to her as the palm of her hand. They burst forth from her back, breaking apart her armor, black and skeletal and undoubtedly terrifying. Her eyes throb like she has a headache from staring directly into the sun, and she knows they’ve dissolved into pools of black. She’s unleashed her necrotic shroud. The air around her buzzes with her power, and the hellhounds in her vicinity freeze, visibly startled. She takes advantage of their fright and cuts them down, emboldened by her own celestial powers. They snap out of it quickly enough, but she’s undeterred, swinging her halberd indiscriminately. She’s lost all train of thought, her mind silenced in favor of immediate action. One hellhound opens its mouth, orange sparking behind its tongue, but she cuts off its head before it can douse her in flames. She marches ahead, straight toward the hooded figure. The acolyte stares right at her, taking a wary step backward… and then they aim their glowing hands in her direction. 

Fayde’s dodge isn’t quick enough: her bitten shoulder is struck by magic. She screams as electricity laces through her wound, sending searing pain all the way down her arm. Gritting her teeth, she gathers herself before her enemy can summon another curse, dealing a fatal blow with a brutal slash of her weapon. The figure crumples with a cry, collapsing in the dirt in a bloody heap of robes.

Not stopping to revel in the glory of victory, Fayde turns and slays the remainder of the hounds, luring the beasts away from where Maul is crouched over Seren, pressing hard on her bloodied side. Distracted by the sight, Fayde takes a gash to the thigh, but she kills the creature before it can even think of finishing her first.

Limping, she makes her way over to where her friends are, surrounded by smoking corpses of people, horses, and hellhounds alike. She locks eyes with Seren, and even in her trance-like state, Fayde notices her girlfriend shiver when their gazes meet.

She lowers herself to the ground, drops her weapon, and reaches for Seren’s wound.

“Don’t,” Seren gasps, “You’re a mess, you need to stop before—!”

Ignoring her warnings, Fayde presses her healing hands on Seren’s injury. Her skin glows, the world around them glows, and everything fades to white until all Fayde can see is her own pulse behind her lids, and then—

Nothing.

—

When Fayde wakes, she wakes slowly. As she rises out of unconsciousness, she notes the stiffness and heaviness of her body. She must’ve been out for a long time. She cracks her eyes open when she can muster the strength, her lids heavy. Her surroundings are blurry and bright, making her wince. A familiar voice says her name, but she can’t quite place the source. Blinking repeatedly to clear her vision, Fayde groans and tries to lift her arm.

She can’t lift her arm.

“What…?” she mumbles, her voice rough and dry. She glances down at her thoroughly bandaged right arm and shoulder, the entire length of the appendage wrapped in gauze. When did that happen?

“Finally!” another voice shouts, one she instantly recognizes. She looks up, squinting in the sunlight, and spots Maul standing at the foot of her bed. He looks a little worse for wear: there are heavy purple bags underneath his tired eyes, his left arm is in a sling, and cuts cover his cheeks.

“Maul?” she asks, trying to sit up in bed but discovering she can’t, pain surging through her at the slightest movement. Grimacing, she continues, “What happened? Where are we?”

“You passed out after healing Seren,” Maul starts, and the name fizzes in Fayde’s mind like something she should know. “We had to get you to down a health potion right then and there to keep you from dying. We rounded up some of the horses that had run off into the woods and headed straight back to town. The healers here have been helping us out, but you’ve been unconscious for the past…” He pauses, counting on his fingers, “Been almost a week now, I think.”

Fayde tries to absorb this new information—and it is new, all of it. None of his explanations sound familiar at all. The fabric of her bed rustles somewhere to her left, and Fayde realizes there’s a half-elf woman sitting beside her. She doesn’t look visibly injured, but she’s staring at Fayde with intensity, her striking brown eyes flecked with gold. Her dark brown skin, round cheeks, and dreadlocks are all so familiar but… there’s something missing. Fayde knows this woman, but, at the same time, she’s acutely aware she’s lost something.

“How are you feeling?” she inquires, voice soft and soothing. “Do you want me to go get the healer?”

“I’m…” Fayde searches through her memories frantically, finding giant empty holes where recent events should be. “You’re… Seren. We’re together.” She manages to remember bits and pieces of their relationship, but the woman is still whittled down almost nothing in her mind.

Seren’s brows reach for her hairline, her mouth falling open in surprise. “You don’t remember me?”

Fayde shakes her head, her head throbbing at the motion. “No, I do, I do… mostly. We haven’t been dating for that long, right?”

Seren grabs her left hand from where its resting limp on the bed and squeezes tight. “Nine months.”

Fayde frowns. “Oh.” That’s not right at all. “I don’t… what day is it?”

“This could pass,” Maul cuts in, striding across the room to place one hand on Seren’s tense shoulder. “There’s a lot going on in her system right now, and she might’ve hit her head. It’ll be alright.”

Seren is trembling. Fayde feels awful. Confusion, anxiety, and guilt fight for dominance as her mind whirls. She grabs Seren’s hand when she moves to pull away, intertwining their fingers.

“I’m hurting you. I’m sorry for hurting you,” she says softly. “I’m not sorry for healing you, though, if that’s what pushed me over the edge. I remember that I care about you, so…” Fayde trails off. Judging by the distraught expression on the woman’s face, her words aren’t helping at all.

Seren sucks in a breath. “You’re Aasimar. You had… wings. I think that’s what did it. You pushed yourself too far, Fayde.”

Fayde winces, glancing between the two of them awkwardly. They both seem to be struggling how to deal with the revelation.

“Things must’ve been pretty bad if I…” she swallows, “I don’t like to show that part of myself.”

Maul scoffs. “No kidding. I’ve known you for years, and you never told me anything.”

She can’t tell if he’s actually bitter or not. She’s too sore, aching, and out of it right now to pick up on subtle social cues. “I’m sorry. I… don’t like who I am, so I never share it.”

“It’s okay,” Seren reassures. “Let’s just focus on getting you better right now.”

“Okay,” Fayde agrees, eager for the conversation to move on. Seren moves away, and this time Fayde lets her go. 

“I’m going to get the healer,” she announces, exiting the room before anyone has the chance to respond. Fayde sighs, her heart thumping loud beneath bruised ribs.

“It’ll be alright,” Maul promises, clapping a hand on her shoulder. She hisses in pain, and he pulls back with a chuckle. “Sorry! That’ll heal soon. And the rest…”

She looks up and meets his amber eyes. He gives her a smile. “Well, like I said. It’ll be alright.”

oc werewolf ladywhump commissioned by @silentlygo

content warnings: female whump, gun violence, blood

—

Jelko Erban was accustomed to getting into fights—it was part of her job description, after all. Unofficially, of course. She was an officer of the law and therefore expected to conduct herself as responsibly as possible, but everyone knew her lycanthropy meant she was regularly assigned the more… dangerous assignments. Conflict came with the territory. Supernatural cases ended in violence more often than not, unfortunately, and she was more durable than her fellow officers, so she was frequently placed on the front lines. Normally, her status as the resident tank wasn’t a problem. She charged into the fray, tackling opponents to the ground and even taking bullets to spare her co-workers from suffering fatal wounds. She was stronger than non-lycans, and she healed faster too, so better her than them, she reasoned. She didn’t resent the other cops, the higher-ups, or the full-timers for the sacrifices she was asked to make. As a liaison officer, she was used to being called in for the tough jobs, so she didn’t really mind. Her work with the police made her kind appear less-threatening and more cooperative to non-lycans, who were typically wary of werewolves in general. Besides, she liked helping people. She wouldn’t have gotten involved in the whole arrangement in the first place if she didn’t want to make the world a safer place.

All-in-all, Jelko had a pretty good deal. Steady work, good pay, and only the expected amount of uneasiness from the other cops. She couldn’t complain.

With her skills, advanced abilities, and years of training under her belt, she rarely ran into real problems on the job, but when messes happened… well, things got ugly. She was rather tough, so she only got into trouble on the worst of days.

Today was one of those days.

Jelko was called in on another supernatural case, as per usual. Once again, she was partnered with Detective Jack Tyler, an upright man who she’d worked with on all of her recent cases. The department seemed to think they made a pretty good team—or Detective Tyler did something to warrant the annoyance of his superiors and thus kept on getting stuck with her as punishment. Even if that was the case, he never treated her with any disrespect. He wasn’t warm or friendly toward her, and she could tell he was uncomfortable with having a lycan partner, but he never verbally expressed his complaints, so she never asked for anything more than base-level professionalism from him. She had to deal with rude and even outright malicious partners in the past, so Detective Tyler was frankly an upgrade. She just hoped he wouldn’t request to be assigned a different officer in the future. She didn’t want to have to make the adjustment for the upteenth time and risk being stuck with a prejudiced asshole.

The case started out routine in the beginning. Violent gang activity with suspected supernatural beings involved. Jelko and Detective Tyler, after interrogating the suspect in custody, gathered enough evidence to be granted a warrant to search the property of the suspect’s alleged leader. The drive to the site was terse, Detective Tyler replacing the potential for conversation with smooth radio tunes, the music quiet but still loud enough to keep them both alone in their own heads.

Occasionally, she shot glances at her partner. The detective wasn’t an intimidating looking man by any means. With big ears, a triangular nose, and pale skin, he looked very British. His brows were low, just barely above his dark eyes, giving him a perpetually serious, worried countenance. His mop of thin, brown hair sat atop his head, straight and cut short. He usually wore a black leather jacket. Overall, he looked more professional than anything. Despite his lack of excessive musculature, he seemed relaxed in her presence, alone with her in his cruiser. More at ease than she was used to. Awkward, sure, but not concerned for his safety. When he looked at her out of the corner of his eye while stopped at a red light, she shot him a smile. He nodded out of obligation. Yes, their partnership was significantly more pleasant than what she was used to.

They arrived at the factory by the docks in a shadier part of town, the sun already starting to set. The plan was to search the place and question anyone they came across.

What they didn’t expect was to come across the leader of the group while he was conducting criminal business, but, as was their luck, they did. They knocked on the door, barged in when no one answered, and hurried down the dark hall until they stumbled into some sort of meeting. All of the men and women in the bright lit warehouse room looked so shocked, it was almost comical. The thugs got over their surprise quickly, however, and immediately pulled out their weapons, their grips tight on an assortment of blades and handguns. Jelko recognized several of the faces in the room—previous arrests, ex-cons, and wanted felons. They weren’t likely to come quietly.

The fight that ensued was rough, to say the least. 

Immediately, both Jelko and Detective Tyler took cover behind crates of what was likely contraband, diving for shelter just as the gang members started shooting. They were outnumbered for sure, and their adversaries seemed intent on firing first and asking questions later. Detective Tyler pulled out his weapon and shot her a look. When the room quieted down to only the sounds of heavy breathing and frantic re-loading, Jelko jumped out from behind the crate and into the fray.

She charged the person closest to her, catching him in the jaw before he could ready his pistol. With her increased speed and strength, she incapacitated him before the others could react to her presence, sweeping his leg and knocking him to the concrete floor. Without hesitation, she lunged for her next target, swiping the woman’s weapon out of her hands before she could try to use it on her. As she brought her hand down on her shoulder and struck a pressure point, Jelko quickly scanned the room. Only a dozen or so armed thugs, all of them hastily shaking off their stupefaction from the surprise attack. Detective Tyler was firing his gun, shooting warning shots that sent a couple of the gangsters retreating for cover. Behind all the others stood a large, burly man with an enraged expression on his bearded face. She spotted his tail bristling behind him. A lycan, their leader, just as their intel suggested. He was the only real challenge for Jelko here.

Only after she took out a third opponent did the bullets properly come flying in her direction. She now had to operate on the defensive—despite her quick healing, a gun wound would still slow her down, and she couldn’t risk one of them scoring a lucky headshot. Ducking and dodging, she made her way to the next felon, engaging him in hand-to-knife combat, effectively directing the bullets in another direction. Apparently, these goons were smart enough not to risk killing each other in their pursuit of her. The man snarled and slashed his knife at her, but she snatched his wrist and twisted it so painfully he had to drop the blade. Grunting, he swung his other fist at her, but his blow to her stomach did little to stop her. She spun him around and locked him in a choke-hold, using him as a human shield as she forced him into unconsciousness with the pressure against his neck, his hands clawing uselessly at her jacket arm.

After she dropped him, she felt bullets whiz past her head, her elongated ears twitching at the proximity. A loud whistle pierced the air, the noise subdued by the cacophony of gun-fire, but Jelko could still hear with her advanced hearing. The gang leader had apparently concluded that she was too powerful a threat and would likely take out all of his goons if he didn’t stop her himself. He lowered his hand from his mouth, and the remainder of the thugs who were out in the open speedily joined the others in their hiding spots. Detective Tyler was still exchanging fire with the sheltered shooters, but none of the bullets came close to her now as the lycan leader of the gang approached her. He was a big man, but she had fought and beaten bigger lycans before. She readied herself in a fighting stance, briefly considering pulling out her gun but deciding against it. She wouldn’t kill him unless she had to. She was better than that.

With a shout of rage, he charged toward her, and she just barely ducked out of the way. The fight happened as if in slow motion, they were both moving so fast. Claws out, fangs bared. The man was clearly not holding back, which left her at a disadvantage. He wasn’t too proud to yank on her tail or tug her tied-back brown hair, which left her more frustrated and insulted than anything. Hissing, growling, and cursing between heavy pants, they hashed it out. Fighting lycans was completely different from fighting humans. For Jelko, it was a whole new level of challenge. Each blow hurt, dealing real damage, knocking the breath out of her and leaving her winded. It took all of her focus and concentration to maintain the upper hand, but, after a particularly well-aimed punch to the face sent her stumbling backward several steps, her odds ceased to look promising. He kicked her in the chest, knocking her to the floor, which was when she realized she was well and truly fucked. He climbed on top of her, and she slashed at his face. He howled with pain, clamping a palm over the red gashes.

“Bitch,” he hissed. Her ferocious expression matched his.

“Fuck off,” she barked, trying to scratch him again.

The next couple minutes passed in a blur. A series of punches and relentless blows. A cut across her forehead spilled blood into her eyes. She tried her best to shove him off, but his attacks sapped her strength and focus. She knew she was getting in some good hits because of his furious swearing, but, other than that, she was losing bad. He clamped his hand around her throat, warding off her swats with his other arm, and even though her eyes were closed against the rain of her own blood, spots gathered across her line of sight.

She heard Detective Tyler yell something she couldn’t decipher, and then she was out.

—

When Jelko next awoke, it felt as if only a moment had passed. Her body, heavy and bruised, ached more than she was used to, and when she cracked open her eyes, her lashes were sticky with blood. She groaned, and a face appeared in her hazy vision. Detective Tyler. He was crouched down in front of her, his expression one of pinched concern.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck.”

“You alright?” she asked him. She could handle getting banged up, but she didn’t know if he could. She cleared her throat. Her neck was sore, purple bruises more than likely discoloring the tan skin of her neck. The fight came back to her as she cataloged her wounds, but she couldn’t recall the end. “What happened?”

“I shot ‘em,” Detective Tyler said, his voice tinged with a light British accent. He was rummaging through the white case with a red cross that they kept stashed in all of the patrol cars. “That bastard was gonna kill you, so I shot him in the head. The rest scattered soon after that. I dragged you outta there, and we were driving away when someone shot out my tires.”

Jelko listened attentively. He looked rattled. Neither of them had expected this when they left the precinct earlier that evening.

“They’re following us—or they were, at least. I carried you outta there to the closest safe house. I think this operation is bigger than anyone thought.”

Jelko looked around the room. A bit dusty, clearly unused, with curtained windows and a locked door. Definitely a safe house. She was lying down on a lumpy couch, her head cushioned by his leather jacket, folded into a make-shift pillow.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to meet his eyes. He could’ve left her behind and few people would’ve blamed him, her being a lycan and all. He went through so much trouble to save her.

He waved her off. “Just doing my job, Erban. My arms are right sore from dragging you around, though.”

She chuckled a little at his weak joke, hoping to ease the tension between them. He still wouldn’t look at her directly.

He produced a water bottle and a handful of drugstore brand painkillers. “Here, you’ll want this.”

She nodded and accepted the offer, sitting up with his help. She swallowed all the pills without hesitation, much to Detective Tyler’s apparent surprise.

“How much can you take? I mean, do you need more in order for it to kick in?”

She smiled, appreciative of his careful questions about her lycan physiology. “Maybe a couple more.”

He handed her the bottle, and she finished the pills with the remainder of her water. The cool liquid soothed her throat, and she sighed. Detective Tyler watched her before standing up and heading toward the sink, a towel in his hand.

“I stitched up your head. A sloppy job, but it should be fine until we can get out of here and to a hospital. I called for backup. They should be here soon.”

Jelko nodded along to this new information, reaching up and delicately thumbing her forehead. Sure enough, she could feel the lines of stitches. She winced. She normally would heal quickly enough not to need stitches, but the claws of another lycan left longer-lasting wounds. 

He returned to her side with a damp towel. Without asking, he started to wash away the blood splattered across her face and neck. She arched an eyebrow at this, surprised by how readily he offered her aid and came into close proximity, but she didn’t question him. She felt weak and tired, something she wasn’t used to, so his help was welcome.

“I’m sorry for not intervening sooner,” he said quietly. “It seemed like you had a handle on it for a while. You usually do. I know we haven’t worked together long, but… you have a reputation, you know, and I’ve seen what you can do. I figured you would be alright if I focused on picking off the little guys one by one, and I only realized you needed help when it was too late…”

Detective Tyler trailed off, the white towel in his hand pink with her blood. He shrugged. “I guess I thought you could take out another werewolf on your own. Guess I was wrong.”

Jelko listened quietly. This was the most they had spoken throughout their partnership, and it was a heartfelt apology. She almost couldn’t believe her ears.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. She knew he took his job seriously and held himself accountable, but this was pushing it. “You handled yourself exceptionally well. You brought me here, didn’t you? I’m the one who lost the fight.”

The Detective finally met her eyes. He looked skeptical. “That was one big fucker, Officer Erban. I don’t blame you.”

“And I don’t blame you,” she said earnestly, and he nodded slowly, seemingly taking her words to heart. Rising to his feet, he made his way back to the sink. 

“Your face is clean. I’ll grab you an ice pack, I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere.”

Jelko laid back down, relaxing into the relative comfort of the soft surface beneath her. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She normally liked to be alone when she was injured, safe at home in her apartment, licking her wounds. Hurt lycans tended to suffer mood swings and other unpleasant side effects. She wouldn’t want Detective Tyler to witness her in such a state, especially since it seemed he was finally starting to like her. 

The floorboards creaked as Detective Tyler returned by her side. She cracked open her eyes, and he handed her a bag of ice. She placed them on her ribs. Her bones throbbed, muscles aching. She could tell the painkillers were starting to kick in, but she would need something stronger from the hospital. Detective Tyler gnawed on his bottom lip. If only his colleagues knew he was such a mother hen. The teasing would never end.

“I’ll be alright,” she assured him with a half-hearted grin. “I heal fast. The process will just be a bit slower this time, but still plenty quick.”

He nodded, seemingly absorbing the information. “Okay. I’d turn out the light and let you rest, but I don’t know if you have a concussion.”

“Good thinking,” she praised, even though all she wanted was some sleep. He shot her a knowing look, apparently aware of her thoughts.

“Don’t worry, I called a half-hour ago. They said they’re sending a squad car to come bring us to St. Mary’s. You can rest once we get there.”

“I know, I know,” she sighed, playing up her exhaustion. His eyes crinkled, almost as if he wanted to laugh. He sat down on an unoccupied space of the couch by her feet, sinking into the pillows with a deep exhale. He looked tired himself.

“Long night?” she asked, and he smiled wryly.

“You don’t know half of it.”

“How ‘bout you share the details of your selfless rescue?” she suggested, and he appeared unamused. “To keep me awake.”

He groaned, looking as if he were about to roll his eyes. He was silent for a long moment, but then he began: “Well, it all started when I had to drive halfway across the city to search some rundown warehouse. Little did I know, a bunch of good-for-nothings were there waiting for me…”

Jelko smiled as he retold their night, focusing primarily on the parts where she was unconscious, as they waited for help to arrive. For the first time in a long while, she felt like she was part of a team.

evilwriter-originals:

I don’t like this idea that lady whump is inherently bad and that most people have an “aversion” (saw that on a post) to it. It’s okay to not like lady whump, but don’t try to say it’s immoral or anything like that, because that’s bullshit.

This is probably going to sound weird to anyone who’s seen my blog, because I never write lady whump on tumblr (and only sometimes read it), but I actually really enjoy it. Before I came to the whump community, I wrote entire novels stuffed full of it. My longest project to date is the biggest lady whump fest (really just a whump fest in general, but most of the characters are women).

Strength! Resilience! Recovery! Getting up when you’ve been knocked down again and again! I absolutely love those themes when a female character is involved.

The main reason I don’t do lady whump on here is because I enjoy it less so for the whump (I don’t tend to get whumperflies from it) and more for the aforementioned themes. Something that’s way more difficult for me to achieve in the word counts I go for on tumblr.

But no, I agree it’s definitely not immoral and tbh I always just assumed the relative lack of lady whump on here was all down to personal preference? Kind of weird to me to think female characters ought to be protected from harm, or treated at all differently.

“Be Still.”

Tw: Blood, Restrained by Barbwire, Female Whumpee, Guns, Gunshots, Threats, Begging, Implied Death? (This could be made into a p.2 later, so.. idk), Neglect, Captivity, Male Whumper.

@badthingshappenbingoTrope: Barbed Wire.

Whumper is a hunter, and his forced companion, Whumpee, cannot tolerate the sound of gunfire. It terrifies her. So Whumper comes up with a way to possibly help fix that unfortunate fear.

× × ×

Whumpee held her breath tightly in her chest as hot tears burned her cheeks, as she suddenly heard a loud Bang–! 

She was only feet away from the sounds of a 9mm handgun being fired off in front of her, causing her to unconsciously flinch, tugging at the barbed wire wound tightly around her wrist, holding her arms high over her head, making the mental barbs dig deeply into her soft ivory flesh.

Thin warm trails of scarlet blood stained Whumpee’s arms as she let out a scream, closing her eyes, pressing her back close to the wall behind her as a searing pain inflamed her wrist more.

“You’re going to get used to hearing gunfire sooner or later. For your sake? I’d say the sooner the better.” Whumper scoffed calmly, not even bothering to gaze over in her direction.

Whumpee bit her tongue tightly while opening her eyes, wincing in pain as she tried to relax herself so that the barbed wire clawing into her skin didn’t add any more tension.

Before she could make any attempt to respond, Whumper raised his arms in front of himself while taking aim at the human-shaped target in front of him, firing another shot, again hearing a pained scream from Whumpee’s direction.

Whumper sighed in annoyance while placing the gun down hard on the table in front of him, glaring over in Whumpee’s direction. 

“You know, it was cute at first. But now this is frankly starting to piss me off, you whiny little bitch." He said this bitterly while picking up a pair of gloves from the table and slipping them on as he turned towards Whumpee.

Her eyes widened. In a panic, she saw him walking towards a small roll of barbed wire he had stored in a small crate near Whumpee as he bent over, reeling from the spool, cutting the appropriate length with a pair of pliers attached to his belt.

"P-please n-no.. I’ll stop– I-i won't–" 

"Tch, darling.. don’t you think it’s a little late for that?" 

"No! I’ll be s-still, I swear, just– Don’t!" 

She screeched as Whumper tied the length of the wire around her chest, back, and abdomen tightly enough that the barbs only poked against Whumpee’s frail skin, until she unwittingly moved again.

"Well, be still then, Whumpee.. or this is going to hurt a lot more than it needs to.”

Whumper warned her as he walked back towards the table, tossing his gloves to the side of the table again while picking his gun up and taking aim again.

Whumpee tried hard to steady her trembling while watching Whumper with wide eyes.

Bang–! 

Whumpee’s instincts to suddenly flich from the abrupt noise caused the wire around her wrist and now her torso to rip into her skin, causing small shallow lacerations across her body and leaving trails of deep crimson blood painted on her body.

Whumper watched in a faintly disappointed way as the pained cries continued to echo throughout the room.

“Truly pathetic.” Whumper scoffed as he shook his head, watching her tremble from the sheer pain coursing through her body.

“But I do have a meet up to get to too. Perhaps we can try this later.. If you haven’t bled out by the time I get back." 

"can’t.. le..ave me.. m'plea..se.." 

Whumpee tearfully begged Whumper as she watched him glance towards her, ignoring her words and desperate looks as he continued to walk out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Leaving Whumpee In the fluorescently lit room alone, she was painted in her own blood as her body trembled unconsciously from the searing pain flaring throughout every inch of her body.

‘Be.. st-still..’ she thought to herself quietly, closing her eyes slowly, trying to ignore the pain and lightheaded feelings.

'Just.. stay.. still..’

{End}