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.
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.”
CW: Torture aftermath, implied continued torture, implied past torture
“Just breathe.”
Leader exhaled a pained breath. It sounded almost like a quiet scream.
“You’ll be okay. I know— it hurts— but your wounds aren’t life threatening. They’re trying to hurt you, not kill you.”
“H-how… how do you kn-know—” Leader gasped as the pain came in a hot flash.
Youngest hesitated. “… You don’t need to worry about how I know right now. The important thing is to stay strong. You can’t break— you know you can’t.”
“It hu-hurts so much—” Leader whimpered.
Youngest gently started to run their fingers through Leaders hair, carefully working out the tangles. “You need to find something else to focus on— something to ground you. I won’t be there when they take you again, but for now, you can focus on me, okay? Listen to my voice. Can you feel my hands in your hair?”
“Mhm—” Leader squeezed their eyes shut, trying with all their might to block out the pain and focus on Youngest.
“That’s good. Try and just breathe, okay? In… and out… that’s good, like that.”
Youngest continued to stroke Leader’s hair for hours until they heard footsteps coming back to the cell.
“They’re coming back.” Youngest whispered to Leader.
Leader whimpered, squeezing their eyes shut so Youngest couldn’t see the fear in them.
“Don’t be afraid to scream. It’s better if they think they’re being successful. You just have to hold out until help gets here. They are coming. Don’t give up yet.”
Leader nodded a little and Youngest slid away from them.
“Remember to ground yourself when you can.” Youngest whispered, then said nothing else as Leader was dragged back out of the cell, already screaming.
Warnings: lady whumpee with male whumper, brief mild gore, referenced past torture, creepy/intimate whumper, stalking, mentioned panic attack
.
.
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.
A/N: So about a week ago, i got inspired by thisawesome prompt about pirates by @whump-maniaand@deluxewhump and wrote this little piece! I’d hoped i’d get the inspiration to write a bit more because i do like, but I don’t know if I will, so here it is anyways.
CW: body horror, past abuse, past torture, near-death, drowning, dismemberment (not to the MC), guns, murder
~
Cannon balls exploded through The Galway’s thick belly, flinging lethal shards of wood in every direction. Huddled down with his shaved head clamped between his knees, Indy gritted his teeth and tried not to piss himself.
At first, the noise had been unbearable; the shattered wood of the ship’s leaking sides flying apart, the chest-vibrating explosions of their and the pirates’ cannons, the men’s violent and terror-filled screams, the crack of rifles up on deck and clashing of metal as the rifles ran short of shot and the Navy resorted to steel blades and galley knives. Now, Indy’s ears were thick with ringing and he couldn’t have said what was happening more than two feet away from him, let alone who was winning the battle above deck.
Filmy, debris-filled water sloshed across the filthy boards of the brig’s deck and Indy’s hyperventilating breaths hitched on a hysterical sob. Maybe the Navy and the pirates attacking them would kill each other and both their sorry ships would sink with steady inevitability into the uncaring, thrashing sea.
God wouldn’t be so kind, Indy thought. The sea didn’t care whether it swallowed up a good man or an evil one, a whole man or a broken one, but Indy didn’t dare wish that his sins would be washed away with any such quiet dignity. It would be too much to hope for that the whole ship and its crew would be lost to the sea beds, no-one alive left to tell of what hell he’d been through, or how his will had been so easily broken.
A cannonball ripped a ragged, gaping hole through the ship’s wall at the far end of the brig and Indy screamed into his arm, clamped over his face. The ship shuddered, a giant beast in the throes of death, and Indy wrapped his other arm even tighter around the brig’s thick bars as the deck tilted alarmingly. The sea frothed and churned, soaking him up the waist in icy water, black in the dim light. Indy sobbed, shaking violently as the sea dug its salty fingers into his numerous cuts and set them throbbing like a fresh jellyfish sting.
If the ocean had cared for the morals of the men it took, it would spare Vince, Indy decided as he screwed his eyes shut, his heart thunderous in his ringing ears. And, hell, maybe Rudy would make it too. The cat hadn’t done anything wrong either, Indy thought with panicked humour. Knowing the scraggly, sly beast, she’d managed to find somewhere dry and safe to wait out the battle. Indy only wished that he could slip through these bars and do the same. He’d lost half his bodyweight or more, but the bars were still too closely packed together to let him escape between them. If the water rose further, or a cannonball erupted through the ship’s side too close by, or any one of the innumerable wooden splinters flying around hit him; he was dead and there was shit all he could do about it.
It took a long time before Indy’s hearing returned enough for him to realise that the battle that had been warring up above had fallen quiet. The water was still rising, lapping at his chest and leaving him numb with the chill. It was hard to hear anything from above deck with the slap and shclish of it butting up against the ship’s walls but Indy caught snatches of shouting. His heart drummed against his ribs, as trapped as he was within these bars.
A gunshot ricocheted through the air, cutting through the lingering ringing in his ears, and Indy flinched like a kicked horse. His bruised ribs ached as he jerked backwards, as if he could possibly push himself any further into the brig’s corner.
The sea continued, indomitably, to rise. When it began to slosh against his neck, Indy forced himself up to standing, clinging to the brig’s bars as he sagged against them, giving the keen of an injured animal at the pain. He struggled to balance once he was up, the sway of the ship so much harder to ride out when he was upright and his slick, frozen hands barely able to hold onto the bars. The sea was up to his hips, frigid and angry at being caught inside the ship’s walls, and it roiled with repressed power, growing stronger with every inch it rose. Indy’s face was so cold he didn’t know if he was still crying or if it was just the salty ocean spray, not that it mattered. He didn’t know if he wanted the sea to keep climbing till it closed over his head, or if he still held out on the hope of someone rescuing him.
How stupid was that? All this time and he still had half an eye on the wooden staircase, watching for a saviour that didn’t exist. Regardless, it didn’t matter what he wanted. He couldn’t change anything. If the captain had taught him anything, it was his own utter uselessness.
The sea continued to climb and Indy clung to the bars as he was lifted off his feet by the force of the waves. The ship was groaning under the strain and Indy didn’t know how much longer she would be able to stay afloat with all the holes punched into her sides.
Indy was gasping at the last half a foot of air space between the sea and the ceiling, fully afloat in the churning water, when the sharp clatter of boot heels came from the stair way. Indy whipped his head around, continuing to cling to the brig bars but unable to make himself call out. A wave of water sloshed over his head and, numb limbs flailing, it took him too long to get back to the surface.
Choking and coughing, eyes streaming, Indy yelped when a rough hand grabbed his arm. Instinctively jerking away, Indy swallowed another mouthful of foul water as the waves tugged him back under. He’d lost his grip on the brig’s bars in his shock and, disorientated in the black water, Indy’s lungs burned as he lost track of which way was up.
Strong hands yanked at his arm and this time, Indy grabbed onto them. The terror of drowning was too strong and he found, as he was dragged forcefully back into the gunpowder-filled air, that he still wanted to live after all.
The brig door was somehow, miraculously open, and Indy was towed out of his loathed cage with barely a moment to catch his breath. The sea was almost at the ceiling and Indy didn’t have any chance to see who was dragging him determinedly forwards before the air ran out and it was a dizzying, lung-burning scramble the last few feet through the water to the stairs.
Knocking his knees hard against the wood, Indy retched up salt water and acid as he pulled himself out of the water on hands and knees.
“Move, fucking move,” a gravelly voice barked at him. The hand on his arm roughly tugged him up the stairs and, uncoordinated with cold and breathlessly disorientated, Indy could only try to keep up.
Water seeped through the floorboards of the middle deck and the Navy soldiers’ belongings washed back and forth in the shallow water. There were bodies up here, sprawled prone and leaking blood into the sea like scarlet paint.
“Move!”
Indy dragged his gaze away from the splatter of brain matter across the wall. As they climbed up the stairs to the main deck, he caught a glimpse of the unfamiliar blond hair and broad shoulders of the man in front of him, his scarily large hand gripping Indy’s matchstick arm with enough force to leave a black and blue bruise. Then the incongruously bright sunlight blinded Indy’s eyes, so used to the squalid darkness, and he staggered up into the chaos on the main deck.
Men were screaming, giving furious orders or yelling in desperate pain, and The Galway was beginning to tilt at an alarming angle. Through his blurred eyes, Indy barely recognised her. Her mast was barely there, cannonballs had wrought unfixable damage all across the shot-pocked deck, and the sailors that had previously manned and mopped and run errands and slept and pissed within her walls were now lying in haphazard, bloody piles.
The ship groaned and creaked as she leant alarmingly to port. A severed arm rolled across the deck towards Indy and he retched violently, his ears ringing deafeningly. The wind was cutting up here and it swept right through his sodden, thin clothes, chilling him utterly and leaving him numb and disconnected.
The one spot of warmth – the harsh grip on his upper arm – dragged him along without relenting and Indy staggered after them without conscious thought. When he fell over a body, hitting his knees on the slick with a bone-juddering impact, he was lifted bodily up and thrown over someone’s shoulder with enough force to knock the air from him. As the blood rushed to his head, he let himself hang limp. He couldn’t hear a thing and his vision was swimming with black dots, but he was somehow acutely aware of the drops of water leaking out of his wet hair and falling to the swaying deck below.
~
so there you are *shrug* <3
@whumpthisway I’ve been on a sea-themed whump kick for reasons I think we can all discern and this was delightful
I love the way you used environment to build intrigue!!! and all of the sensory details felt so visceral, so urgent. I really felt the sympathetic claustrophobia of Indy and you really captured the chaos of the scene interspersed with the introspective moments that didn’t feel forced or abrupt at all!!
you have a great gift for writing action - which is so hard! - and it was so realistic how little details jumped out vividly at Indy (like the arm rolling across the deck, oof) highlighting the panicked state of his brain rather than merely showing his thoughts racing. it was so cool that as the action built and built, more details get revealed!!
am very intrigued about poor Indy his seeming sense of self-hatred…his jaded view of things…how did he end up in this brig? I wanna know more…
