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[distinctlywhumpthing]

In League — Another Strike

Masterlist

CW: Late-19th century, explicit language, indentured servitude, starvation/isolation as punishment, beating. Whumper pitting whumpees against each other and being a bully.

August wasn’t very good at waiting out his week-long punishment in the attic. 

By the fourth day, he thought he would go mad from staring at the same walls and eaves. Shivering on the thin mattress, hunger gnawing at his belly and only fistfuls of snow to stave off thirst. Fionn hadn’t so much as glanced at him, let alone spoken to him, since the caning. All his walking-dead-ringer did was sleep. Or at least that’s what he pretended to do while August was awake. 

So, August started pacing. 

The full length of the attic. Making a narrow circle as wide as the steep angle of the roof would allow without having to stoop. Back and forth, back and forth. 

He once saw a lion at the fair down in the village square. The older boys from Elmwood had goaded him to stand nearer and nearer the bars of its cage but the beast had no eyes for him. Focused only on pacing back and forth in its prison where it had already worn a track into the grass, heavy paws treading an endless tight loop. Eventually, he’d wrapped his fingers around the bars to the ill-intentioned approval of his audience but the lion never paused. The rest of the servants peeled off while he lingered, feeling sorry for the poor creature. 

August nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to find Fionn sitting up, staring at him. 

Colour rose to his cheeks and he felt himself wilt under Fionn’s gaze. “I—I’m sorry,” he said lamely, “‘twasn’t my intention to wake you.” Just another strike to add on top of the previous twenty-four mercilessly beaten into him for August’s mistakes.

Fionn shook his head, eyes already falling. “It’s too late.” His voice was barely a whisper. 

Hopelessness welled up in August’s throat, carrying with it the tide of shame and dejection he’d held at bay until his eyes filmed with tears and there was no way he could open his mouth without crying.  

But Fionn didn’t want his worthless apologies and he hadn’t been speaking of disrupted sleep anyway. Keats burst through the door and within seconds, Fionn was on his knees again and August was gasping for breath because the lackey charged with holding him this time did so with all four thick fingers down the back of his shirt collar. 

As though no time had passed at all. 

Except for some reason, Fionn took off his shoes and stockings this time, and Keats shoved him so he fell onto his hands and stayed there. August’s stomach dropped as Keats pulled off his belt, doubling back the thick leather but when it rained down on Fionn it was not at all where August expected.

Keats drew blood before August could pull himself together to voice any manner of protest, it trickled down Fionn’s bony ankles to disappear into his trousers. Droplets of it sprayed onto the walls and ceiling with each swing of the belt. 

Fionn eventually fell onto his elbows, holding his head. He cried out in time with each lash, sound muffled by his arms, but somehow still managed to keep his feet in the air for Keats to whip. 

Again and again and again. 

August had never even started counting and now he was too afraid to speak. He couldn’t make this worse with more thoughtless, impulsive stupidity. He had already made everything so much worse.  

He flinched when something landed on his cheek and, even though he knew what he’d find when he lifted a hand to his cheek, he was unable to mask his distress when his fingertip came away stained with Fionn’s blood. 

Keats winked. 

Just as quickly as they came, they went. Without a single word.

After a few beats of silence, August made a half-start toward Fionn. If only to fall onto his knees and apologise or help him find a way to lie comfortably. But as if he could sense August’s intentions, Fionn turned to glare up at him, hatred plain as day on his tear-stained face. 

August backed away, biting his lips together and willing himself not to let any of his own undeserved tears fall. He folded himself against the far wall, facing the corner and hugged his knees to his chest. 

Even he could understand what was being left unsaid, by Keats and Fionn alike. 

He was entirely alone here.

@whumpy-writings @writer-reader-24 @deluxewhump @no-whump-on-main @maracujatangerine @painsandconfusion @wolfeyedwitch @briars7 @gala1981 @redwingedwhump @whumpflash @poeticagony @annablogsposts @fleur-alise @magziemakeswhatever @neverthelass

[distinctlywhumpthing]

In League — Another Strike

Masterlist

CW: Late-19th century, explicit language, indentured servitude, starvation/isolation as punishment, beating. Whumper pitting whumpees against each other and being a bully.

August wasn’t very good at waiting out his week-long punishment in the attic. 

By the fourth day, he thought he would go mad from staring at the same walls and eaves. Shivering on the thin mattress, hunger gnawing at his belly and only fistfuls of snow to stave off thirst. Fionn hadn’t so much as glanced at him, let alone spoken to him, since the caning. All his walking-dead-ringer did was sleep. Or at least that’s what he pretended to do while August was awake. 

So, August started pacing. 

The full length of the attic. Making a narrow circle as wide as the steep angle of the roof would allow without having to stoop. Back and forth, back and forth. 

He once saw a lion at the fair down in the village square. The older boys from Elmwood had goaded him to stand nearer and nearer the bars of its cage but the beast had no eyes for him. Focused only on pacing back and forth in its prison where it had already worn a track into the grass, heavy paws treading an endless tight loop. Eventually, he’d wrapped his fingers around the bars to the ill-intentioned approval of his audience but the lion never paused. The rest of the servants peeled off while he lingered, feeling sorry for the poor creature. 

August nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to find Fionn sitting up, staring at him. 

Colour rose to his cheeks and he felt himself wilt under Fionn’s gaze. “I—I’m sorry,” he said lamely, “‘twasn’t my intention to wake you.” Just another strike to add on top of the previous twenty-four mercilessly beaten into him for August’s mistakes.

Fionn shook his head, eyes already falling. “It’s too late.” His voice was barely a whisper. 

Hopelessness welled up in August’s throat, carrying with it the tide of shame and dejection he’d held at bay until his eyes filmed with tears and there was no way he could open his mouth without crying.  

But Fionn didn’t want his worthless apologies and he hadn’t been speaking of disrupted sleep anyway. Keats burst through the door and within seconds, Fionn was on his knees again and August was gasping for breath because the lackey charged with holding him this time did so with all four thick fingers down the back of his shirt collar. 

As though no time had passed at all. 

Except for some reason, Fionn took off his shoes and stockings this time, and Keats shoved him so he fell onto his hands and stayed there. August’s stomach dropped as Keats pulled off his belt, doubling back the thick leather but when it rained down on Fionn it was not at all where August expected.

Keats drew blood before August could pull himself together to voice any manner of protest, it trickled down Fionn’s bony ankles to disappear into his trousers. Droplets of it sprayed onto the walls and ceiling with each swing of the belt. 

Fionn eventually fell onto his elbows, holding his head. He cried out in time with each lash, sound muffled by his arms, but somehow still managed to keep his feet in the air for Keats to whip. 

Again and again and again. 

August had never even started counting and now he was too afraid to speak. He couldn’t make this worse with more thoughtless, impulsive stupidity. He had already made everything so much worse.  

He flinched when something landed on his cheek and, even though he knew what he’d find when he lifted a hand to his cheek, he was unable to mask his distress when his fingertip came away stained with Fionn’s blood. 

Keats winked. 

Just as quickly as they came, they went. Without a single word.

After a few beats of silence, August made a half-start toward Fionn. If only to fall onto his knees and apologise or help him find a way to lie comfortably. But as if he could sense August’s intentions, Fionn turned to glare up at him, hatred plain as day on his tear-stained face. 

August backed away, biting his lips together and willing himself not to let any of his own undeserved tears fall. He folded himself against the far wall, facing the corner and hugged his knees to his chest. 

Even he could understand what was being left unsaid, by Keats and Fionn alike. 

He was entirely alone here.

@whumpy-writings @writer-reader-24 @deluxewhump @no-whump-on-main @maracujatangerine @painsandconfusion @wolfeyedwitch @briars7 @gala1981 @redwingedwhump @whumpflash @poeticagony @annablogsposts @fleur-alise @magziemakeswhatever @neverthelass

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Yes please chin hold and water til he’s choking on it

WHUMPTOBER day 11:

Prompt: "Captivity"

Medcezir 34. Bölüm

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Let's scare whumpee and caretaker!

Halloween (or year round!) whump prompts:

Accidental whump

Whumpee gets lost

Someone threatens whumpee

Whumpee has nightmares

Caretaker needs caretaking

Someone from whumpee's past

Caretaker learns something horrifying

Something scares whumpee

A disastrous misunderstanding

Whumpee home alone too long

Something goes terribly wrong

Whumpee has a flashback

A frighteningly close call

Send me a number and character(s) for a drabble!

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Petition for the whole crossover spin-off series 👀

Luke and Sebastian Walk Into A Bar

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @hold-him-down !!! Here is this absolute chaos spin-off/crossover event.

NOTE: The characters of Luke Bennett and Leo Evans are entirely Holdy's. I am just borrowing them to play in our shared most-non-canon cinematic universe. Also, our world building details don't always align so adjustments have been made & rules don't count here.

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-adjacent, alcohol, talk of sexual content, heavy talks of slavery, asshole politicians

“Vodka soda.” Sebastian saddles up to the last seat at the bar, putting the most distance possible between himself and the next patron. 

The place is a dive; dimly lit and underpopulated, both of which are characteristics he actively sought out. It’s been a stressful, exhausting forty-eight hours in Washington D.C., and his social meter has all but depleted. This seems as good a place as any to blow of steam.

Under the bar, he pulls out his phone and types a message. 

Early flight tomorrow. Can’t wait to be home. Everything good?

As usual, the reply comes almost immediately. 

J: everything is good. we are watching a movie. ezra taught me how to sous vide chicken. 

Before Sebastian can type out his response, his phone buzzes again. 

J: I’m glad you’ll be home soon.

Something swells in his chest in the way he’s becoming accustomed to when Jaime decides to say the most casual thing that takes an emotional baseball bat to his heart. He shoots off another message, telling Jaime to sleep well and that he’ll see him in the morning.

Just as he is slipping his phone back into his pocket, a man settling in across the bar catches his eye. Not to be a cliche, but the tall-dark-handsome combination has always done it for Sebastian, and this guy is certainly no exception to the rule.

Their gazes meet just long enough for them to acknowledge each other and�� Well, this wasn’t exactly the kind of stress relief he had in mind for tonight, but Sebastian isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Sebastian doesn't consider himself to be particularly good at flirting, even with the crutch of alcohol, but he has learned to navigate this sort of interaction with enough poise to get by. Usually. It was a learned skill, born out of necessity; if you’re going to restrict all intimate interaction in your life to anonymous strangers from a bar, you’ve got to get good at picking them up. 

Still, it’s been a while. Casual sex hasn’t been a big part of his life since Jaime came into the picture, and Sebastian is rusty.

The bartender places his drink in front of him, and Sebastian knocks it back in three long swigs. He slides off of his stool and saunters over to the empty seat beside the stranger.

“Anyone sitting here?” he asks. 

The man angles slightly toward him on his barstool. His dark brown eyes cast a look of approval over Sebastian and a small smile flicks up the corner of his mouth.

“Just you,” he says. 

Still got it, baby. 

“So,” Sebastian tries after a beat of not-entirely-comfortable silence. “You come here often?”

Okay, so maybe he is rusty after all. The handsome stranger raises an eyebrow.

“Zero points for originality.”

“Sorry,” Sebastian says. “I’m usually not this bad at flirting with strangers.”

This earns him a smile Sebastian chooses to read as amused. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“Trying to? I’m not usually this sober when I attempt it.”

“That, I can help with. What are you drinking?”

“What’s that?” Sebastian asks, pointing to the man’s drink. 

“Whisky.”

He grimaces. “Nevermind. I’ll take a vodka soda.”

The man waves down the bartender with the air of someone who has been here before. When Sebastian has his drink in hand, he angles his stool toward the stranger. “I’m Sebastian,” he says.

Something hesitant flickers over his expression, just a fleeting moment, before he turns to him with an outstretched hand. “Luca.”

“Wow, a handshake, huh?” Sebastian can’t help but chuckle, even as he meets the firm grip with his own. 

A sheepish smile graces his expression.  “Sorry. Hard to get out of the professional headspace sometimes.”

“What do you do?”

Luca studies him for a moment, eyes darting over his face in search of… something. Finally, he says, “I’m in politics.”

“Ah.” Sebastian nods. “Should have guessed.”

“What about you?”

Sebastian’s fingers tense slightly around his glass. He briefly entertains the idea of concocting a fake backstory on the fly, but promptly remembers he’s a nervous liar and defaults to the simplest truth.

“I’m a doctor,” he says.

“Oh. Wow.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I’m not,” Luca lies, then concedes to a guilty smile. “It’s just… you look young is all.”

“Thanks. Pretty soon I think they’re going to let me upgrade from safety scissors in the OR. If I’m really good.”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, he’s quick with the jokes, too. What kind of medicine are you in?”

Well, this is one way to kill a mood fast. “Shop talk isn’t exactly what I was hoping for tonight,” he says. 

The glass pauses halfway to Luca’s lips. He cocks an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, are you looking for?”

Now they’re getting somewhere. 

“Depends. What are you offering?”

“Depends,” he echoes. “How much have you had to drink?” 

Sebastian smirks. “If you’re into playing daddy, you could have just said so,” he flirts, and the words surprise even him coming out of his mouth. Maybe he hasn’t forgotten how to do this, after all. 

It earns a surprised laugh. “How old do you think I am, exactly?”

“I’m not saying you’re my daddy,” Sebastian argues. “Theoretically, you could have a baby at home. Or maybe you had kids young. I don’t know your life.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Luca drawls. “And I don’t.”

“No kids,” Sebastian repeats. “What I’m hearing is… your place is empty?” 

This… does not get the reaction he was hoping for. Luca's smile drops a bit, eyes averting to the bar. 

“Oh,” Sebastian backtracks, sobering slightly. “I—Sorry, did I misread this? Oh god, please don’t tell me you have a wife.”

“I’m not married,” he assures him. “Definitely not to a woman. It’s just… my place. It’s not…”

Sebastian levels him with an appraising gaze. “I’m trying to decide if you're hiding a body or a rare Barbie collection." Luca flushes slightly and Sebastian decides to take pity on him. “Lucky for you, my hotel is three blocks away.”

Luca swallows down the rest of his drink and flags down the check. 

****

As with every hot, steamy rendezvous, their night takes a brief interlude at a 7/11. 

At this hour on a Friday night, the cast of characters includes one miserable cashier, a man reciting bible verses under his breath on a loop, and a gaggle of stumbling-drunk college kids. Sebastian’s eyes catch on one of the latter: a boy with blond curls and thin wrists protruding from his cuffed sleeves. For just a moment, at just the right angle before he turns, Sebastian sees a flash of Jaime, and the comparison sends a shockwave through his gut. 

In another life, that could be him; laughing with his friends on a Friday night, arm slung around a girl with blue streaks in her hair, being slightly too loud in a public space. 

It should be him. He should be here, living a normal, happy life, not holed up in Sam and Ezra’s guest room, waiting for the owner of his contract to come home. 

“Next in line.” The cashier’s voice pulls him back to the present, and Sebastian blinks, realizing he’s suddenly a little more sober and a lot less horny than he was a minute earlier. 

They lay their items on the counter—a three-pack of condoms, travel sized lube, and two bottles of water—and both pull out their wallets to pay. 

“On me,” Luca says, pushing forward a silver Amex.  

“Chivalry isn’t dead,” Sebastian cheeks, trying to nudge them back toward the path of flirtation instead of depressive-crisis-in-a-convenience-store. 

It almost works, too, until they step outside and a voice calls out:

“Senator Luke Bennett.” 

Beside him, Luca stiffens. A man appears in front of them. He casts a look to the condoms and lube in the transparent bag, to Sebastian, then back at Luke. A smirk edges up his mouth and—wait. 

Sorry. Did he just say senator?

“Is your boy not doing it for you anymore?” The man’s breath smells of liquor and mint when he leans too close. “I hear WRU has a good return policy for unsatisfactory performance.”

Suddenly, the senator bombshell doesn’t feel all that important. Sebastian takes a step back, watching the image of the attractive stranger warp before his eyes. 

“You have a contract?” he asks. 

“Ooo,” the man chuckles. “Didn’t mean to stir the pot.”

“No, Richard, that doesn’t sound like you at all.” Senator Luca is all ice. 

“I’ll leave you to it.” Richard backs off with both hands raised and a smile firmly in place. “My best to Leo.”

Luke watches him retreat with cold steel in his eyes. When he’s gone, he turns to Sebastian, halfway through an apology.  “Listen, I—”

“You have a fucking contracted worker at home?” Sebastian cuts in. “That’s why we couldn’t go back to your place?”

The look on his face is all the answer he needs.

“Jesus,” Sebastian scoffed. “I would have preferred a wife. God, I don’t know what I expected. I guess when-in-Washington, you’ve got to screen your hookups a little better. One, are you a conservative? Two, are you a fucking senator? Three, do you support the literal modern day slave trade?”

Luke’s jaw is cut in a way that might have been hot before Sebastian knew a few key details. He lifts his chin, keeping his voice infuriatingly even.

“I am in the public eye,” he says. “I have never been shy about my stance firmly against the system.”

“That’s one hell of a mixed signal you’re sending.”

And… okay. Sure. Sebastian is being a little bit hypocritical. But his situation… it’s different. Right? And highly unlikely that he just so happened to stumble upon a high ranking government official who just so happens to own a contract out of system resistance. 

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Luke says. “But I also can’t fault you for being angry. I’m glad you are. It means you’re one of the good ones. That being said…” He throws a half-hearted wave with the hand not holding a bag of condoms and lube. “It was nice meeting you.”

He’s a few steps down the sidewalk when something possesses Sebastian to call after him. 

“What does that make you?” he says.

Luke stops.

“If I’m one of the good ones,” Sebastian repeats. “What does that make you?”

He turns back to Sebastian, and the honest look of sadness in his eyes catches him off guard.

“I try to be good for him,” he says. "I do my best."

And Sebastian knows he should let it go and walk away, but he hears himself respond anyway. “Yeah, you and every other prick who thinks they’re doing these people a favor. I know how that goes. I see it every day, what that kind of ‘goodness’ does to them.”

Luke’s brow furrows. Sebastian’s brain catches up to his mouth a few seconds too late.

Shit. 

“What do you mean you see it every day?”

“I…” Sebastian scrubs a hand over his mouth, “You know what? Never mind.” He steps around him, making a beeline for his hotel. This time, it’s Luke who calls after him. 

“Wait.”

Sebastian waits. Luke lowers his voice, closing the distance again. “Do you…?” His mouth shapes and reshapes a few attempts at words. “Are you in resistance work?”

Is it really a lie to leave out part of the truth? As long as the part you do say is still true? Probably best to go for avoidance altogether. 

“If I was,” Sebastian says, “I probably wouldn’t run and tell the first government representative I meet.”

Something like recognition flashes in Luke's eyes. “You’re in town for the supply trade. A group of medical resistance workers were planning to network in the city this week.”

Sebastian takes a step back. He’s struck with the sudden paralyzing fear that federal agents were about to pop around the corner and drag him away. 

“How do you know that?” he whispers.

“I…” Luke begins. “I know someone who does some work in that area. When he can.”

Sebastian crosses his arms. “Public opposition is one thing,” he says. “Knowledge of illegal action against the system is another, Senator.”

Finally, a bit of the hardness in his expressions gives way to a smile. 

“Then I guess we know where my allegiances lie.”

[distinctlywhumpthing]

“Answer me nicely,” Whumper orders softly, flicking open a pocket knife, “or I’ll ask my questions a different way.”

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Omg this deep dive meta was EVERYTHING. The way she’s wrestling with her mistake and her past and the present. You write it so well, it just sweeps you right into her narrative and it’s so so good!!!

and then Alex coming in all protective at the end is just the cherry on top 🥰

‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 3, Ariadne is on probation with the Resistance

Traitor, pt3 [ First | Prev | Next ]

She waits at the table for judgement to be passed, feeling like a prisoner in the space that felt like home this morning. Alex is gone, probably talking to Anders and Daniel. Someone will decide what’s to be done with her.

She rests her head in her hands and rubs her scalp with her fingers, but it doesn’t do much to help the pain. At least her vision is mostly back to normal and she can walk a little on her own. If she sticks to a wall, and takes frequent breaks to sit down and let the dizziness subside.

Keep reading

[distinctlywhumpthing]

WAIT but does Alex ever find out about the abuse?!?! 👀 I want his reaction to her believing she deserved it!!!!

‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 3, Ariadne has just started working for the resistance

Ross, pt3 [ First | Pt1 | Prev | Next ]

The truck pulls up at the back of the building, and Taryn waves the driver into her spot with enthusiasm. Ariadne trails on her heels, and helps her fold down the tailgate. The bed is piled high with crates. Not for the first time, Ariadne wonders where this stuff comes from. But she doesn’t need to know, and she isn’t given time to ponder. “Up you get,” Taryn orders. “All those goodies need unloading.”

Keep reading

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Their dynamic is just 🤌🤌

He’s hers because she broke him but thinks he doesn’t deserve her. She owes him her life but thinks she doesn’t deserve him. I love the similarities in their heads while coming from opposite sides of power and it all just getting so muddled and they switch back and forth taking care of each other. So soft, soooo angst 🤩

‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 2, Alex and Ari have been living together a little while

Alex Stabbed, pt3 [ First | Pt1 | Prev | Next ]

It's cold that drags her back to full wakefulness. Not acute, air-hurts-to-breathe cold, but the slow and steady discomfort of not being quite warm enough to sleep. Alex is still cold against her, despite the close press of their bodies and the layer of insulation over the top. 

Shit, she thinks, she was going to try and get some sugar and hot fluids into him, once he was a little warmer. She shouldn't have let herself doze. It's hard to let go of Alex. It feels good, holding him close. But she's done enough damn damage, making herself feel good at his expense. 

So she peels herself off him, tucking the covers carefully back in close so as to keep in whatever warmth he has, and rolls out of the bed. They've made a right mess of it. They'll need to move again - and soon. She killed a guy and she left the murder weapon at the scene, covered in her prints. They need more distance. But not now. She cranks the thermostat up, shivering, and puts the kettle on. She can find more clothes to pile on top of the covers, too. He deserves more than her faltering efforts, but he'll have the best she can do.

---

There are no dreams, at first. Just warmth, and relief, and the pleasure of something soft beneath him rather than the cold stone floor. 

But when she leaves, when the cold and the pain set back in, he dreams of her. 

Give me something, anything, and this can all stop, she hisses. She's on the other side of the room, standing calmly, while the guard slams the metal baton into his abdomen. 

I don't know, I don't know any of that, please, please, they, please, interrogator... 

Thud. He wails. She smiles. 

And then he tells her Anders' address. He tells her the place where they teach the children. Then the safehouse that's their makeshift hospital, because they can't trust the real ones. 

It's not enough. Thud. He keeps talking. He can't stop. Thud. She smiles, and tells the guard to keep going. 

"Please, interrogator," he moans out loud into the pillows, while the interrogator herself is making him tea.

---

It ought to cut deeper. But she's heard it so many times, both when he was hers and she was the government's, and since then. So often when he sleeps. It's just familiar, where it ought to be painful with guilt. 

So she twists the knife herself, reminding herself of how tirelessly he spent his magic on her broken bones. How he went above and beyond, dulling the pain for her, cool hands on her inflamed skin. Bought her food, drove her away from danger, paid her way while she found her feet. How he did all that, after everything she did to him. 

He cared for her, knowing what she is, when she broke him without caring enough to wonder if he might be a better person than her. 

There, now it stings like it should. 

"Alex," she answers softly. "Alex, you're safe, I'm not going to hurt you." 

Her voice wobbles a little, and she swallows to make it steady. She wasn't stabbed, she wasn't tortured. She has no right. 

"Wake up, Alex. I'm not going to hurt you. Are you thirsty? There's tea here for you - you don't have to do anything, it's yours as soon as it's brewed..."

----

Alex... Alex, wake up, not going to hurt you.... 

He wakes immediately, and with confused, bloodshot eyes looks at her as he grabs at his abdomen where the guard beat - no, where they stabbed him - shit, shit, shit. 

"What did I --- Ariadne, what did I say --- while I was sleeping, what ---" He tries to sit up, and looks at her in panic, not entirely sure whether she is his friend or his interrogator. Had he said it all? Had he said those secrets, out loud, in his sleep? She can't know them, still can't know them --- 

---

It's not exactly a surprise, how he startles awake, but it still makes her jump. She's on edge. 

"Woah, woah, shh, you're still injured-!" It comes out a little more forceful than she means - not with anger but just surprise and fear for him. 

—

The pain and exhaustion overtake him, and he falls back, gasping, a bit of blood soaking through his bandages onto his fingers. He can't heal in front of her, even if he could heal at all --- can he? Is that allowed? 

He can't begin to think about tea.

—

She deliberately drops her voice to answer the question. Indoor voice. Calm as she can keep it. "You didn't say much." What does he think he said? It seems urgent. She knows about waking with the dreams still more pressing than reality. "Just 'please', and 'please interrogator'." She feels as bad as she should, repeating it. How ashamed, he must feel, to still beg in his sleep. How cruel of her, to rub it in. 

But he seems desperate to know. And it's not as if it's anything he hasn't said before. God, what a thought to have. She shouldn't think such things. He has meant it every time, she knows, and she didn't care. 

"Nothing else," she assures him. "Just that, and then you woke up. Please don't try to move yet...?"

---

Just please, and please interrogator. Alex falls back on the pillows in relief. "Okay." 

That's fine. Only a sliver of shame. He's gone well beyond humiliation with her, a long time ago. He's sobbed and pleaded and whined and flinched and yet somehow, she doesn't seem to think he's pathetic. He is, of course. But he knows that. It's no revelation. 

If it were Taryn there maybe he'd say it hurts or he'd ask her for another blanket because it's still cold. But it's not Taryn, and he doesn't want to ask her for anything, not knowing what request might be too much. His bones sink into the bed, chilled to the marrow. His abdomen is a spiral of pain, radiating under his ribs and up to his shoulders. If he heals again, the cold will be worse, the cold that has only started to release its grip a few millimeters under three blankets with the heat turned all the way up. The pain or the cold. He'll take the pain, for now. 

He remembers, suddenly, that he fell asleep with her holding him. 

That he felt safe, warm, like that. 

Because if she's soft and curled around him, she's not stern and cruel and in the corner, signaling the guard to keep going with an impassive, brutal face. If she's holding him to keep him warm, she's incompatible with that. 

He wants to ask her to come back. But that's more impossible, more ridiculous, than any other request he might make. 

"Not moving," he says obediently. "Hurts to move."

---

She nods, relieved, and turns a fraction of her attention back to mugs and hot water and as much sugar as will dissolve. For a moment she wonders if it's selfish to be making herself tea too. But she's cold. Most of her is still listening for any sounds Alex makes, trying to work through what she can say to him. 

"You’re safe here,” she starts. “This is a BnB because we couldn’t stay at the other place, but our stuff’s in the car. We can stay here…” For how long, she's not sure. “At least for tonight.

"I know it hurts, I can't fix that, I would if I could. There's painkillers, if you can swallow them. It'll help a little. And tea, I hope it'll warm you up a bit, and you need to get some water in you, you lost a lot of blood..." She's rambling, she knows. But she doesn't know how present he is, whether he's here or lost in memory and clinging dream. 

She makes herself shut up to offer him the hot drink. Careful, not sure if his hands will have enough grip to take it. Moving cautiously. Wary of spooking him with any sudden motion that might be taken as aggression.

---

"Please," he murmurs, to all of it. It's hard, with his magic and thus his soul running on empty, to reconcile her, this attentive creature making him tea and bringing him painkillers, with the cruel interrogator of his dreams. They only look a bit alike. How --- he doesn't know how. 

"Why ---" he murmurs first, and he isn't sure if he knows what he's asking why about. 

He grips the tea with shaky fingers, momentarily afraid that if he drops it, he'll be hit. A tiny flinch, at the thought. 

The warmth soaks into the frigid little bones of his fingers. He drinks it right away, and savors the burn on his tongue. 

It comes to him. 

"Why are you doing all this for me?"

---

Why? 

The question floors her. How could she not? Alex is everything she has. 

He's the reason she's still alive. He saved her from death and worse. He's her anchor, with every other tie she had in the world cut. He's the most moral person she has ever known. If she devotes her life to doing everything for him she won't ever make up for a fraction of what she did to him.

"Because you're hurt," her mouth is saying. Hesitant, faltering. "You need it." And I need you. 

But how can she explain that, if he still doesn't expect her to reciprocate basic necessities? Living and working together, planning how to make ends meet, she thought they were starting to settle into a routine. It was almost starting to feel comfortable. 

But how could he ever feel comfortable around her? 

She feels hollow, like his words opened up some chasm inside her and her insides just fell away, leaving a brittle shell. She needs him, but she doesn't deserve him. 

"We're... in this together, aren't we?" she is asking anxiously. She curses herself as soon as the words leave her mouth. She can't ask that of him, as if her newly good intentions entitle her to a comfortable relationship. 

"I just want to help you, if I can..."

---

Another swallow of tea. The throbbing beneath his ribcage makes him dizzy, tilts the bed under him, twists his thoughts into clouds that slip through his fingers. He doesn’t know if he’s thought we’re in this together a good way to describe them. Sure, they’ve behaved as some sort of team, if only for basic necessities, ever since her limbs were able to carry her.

She needed him, at first. Needed him for any hope of a life not spent confined to bed in agony from Taryn’s cruelty.

She doesn’t need him, anymore. So why was there fear in her eyes at the thought of losing him?

“But, I… I mean, y-you’re healed now, int- Ariadne.” His tongue feels dry in his throat. He takes another sip, presses the hot tea to his cheek as if it would ground him. “Why, h-help -”

Speaking is effort. Thinking is worse. He was her prisoner, and then he was her healer, and now --- now --- 

What am I to you?

How can I be good for you, now?

---

Why help?

Two quiet, hesitant words, but the question is so vast Ariadne has no idea how to wrap words around the answer. She stares dumbly at Alex.

Why help?

It’s so obvious to her, and yet she can’t put together a single reason.

“You saved me,” she fumbles. “You… I owe you. I owe you a lot. It’s… not enough, helping you. But if I can…” You can have everything I can give. It still won’t be enough.

“I want to help you,” she repeats, voice thick with emotion. “That’s all I want.” She can feel the colour in her face, but for once she doesn’t hate it. She should be ashamed. She’s ashamed of everything she is.

“You deserve… so much better.”

---

He’s known it, in the way she’ll bring him food and it’s not a reward for good behavior, remembers his preferences, lets him have the bed when there’s only one. But it’s never fully been said out loud. There’s been a change, not just in which one of them is gazing up at the other with agony-ridden eyes, but in the way she views him.

The way she views warlocks?

The way she views herself?

The lips of the interrogator speak strange words, of help, of deserving better, and he shouldn’t believe her, shouldn’t believe her for a second, not with the way she sat and demanded cruelty be inflicted on his body, unyielding metal on fragile skin. A day at work for her, a new horrifying chapter in his horror-filled life.

But he does. Believe her, and he’s glad of it, because if she feels that way about him, it must mean he’s done well. Made her happy. Been good.

There is part of him attempting to make sense of her words, of what has happened here, fighting its way out from behind the overwhelming desire to please.

And that’s the part that speaks hesitantly and says, part statement, part question: “You want… to help me.” Breath, pause, swallow. “You… wouldn’t want to go back anymore. To the feds. Even… even if they’d welcome you.”

---

It hurts, confronting the truth.

Day to day she -- doesn’t quite forget, can’t forget the reality of how she lives now -- but she doesn’t feel it like she does now. Shame burns in her face, her eyes, her throat. Deeper, in her core, the hollow weight of horror that makes it almost hard to breathe. All of it sharper for having to put it into words.

“I don’t want to go back,” she repeats. “Even if they’d have me. Welcome me.” A breath in. She has to force the words. “I was… very wrong, to hurt you. I’ve… been wrong about… a lot of things. I want… I don’t want to do that any more.”

Clenching her teeth has not stopped the tears from forming. She hates herself for crying - a sharp flash of fury that she has to try and swallow in case Alex thinks she’s angry with him. She brushes the tears off her cheeks roughly with the back of a hand. There are more.

She takes a deep breath, and tries to ignore the tears. “If you’d rather I just left, it’s still on the table. Once you’re well, I mean. You only ever need to say. We can split the money and you’ll never see me again. I won’t go back to the feds.”

Alex is quiet. He finishes his tea, and wordlessly Ariadne holds out her hands for the mug. The kettle is still hot, and starts to hiss and rattle almost as soon as she switches it on.

“I don’t want you to go,” he says, sounding uncertain. “Then I’ll stay,” she says. “As long as you want me to, I’ll stay.”

I’ll do better, she wants to promise. I’ll make things better for you, better than they are.

But she doesn’t know what she can promise to do, when it’s her fault that everything is fucked in the first place.

[Next]

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Such pretty words 😍🤩

Maybe it’s just because I write historical and use a lot of weird words, but there’s just something about underused, obscure whumpy words.

Feeble. Timid. Backbreaking. Unmercifully. Wrath. Despair. Wretched. Relentless. Unbearable. Arduous. Grievous. Chastening. Deference. Malevolent. Dreary. Fearsome. Anguish. Excruciating. Torment. Irons. Lament. Hopeless. Fetters. Sorrow. Suffer. Weary. Thrashing. Tearful. Disdain. Powerless. Leniency. Shudder. Pitiful. Sardonic. Lowly. Pitiless. Languishing. Mistreat. Cudgel. Scourging. Cuff. Chastisement. Futile. Drudgery. Shackles. Servitude. Quivering. Travail. Cringing. Subservience. Recalcitrant. Spurn. Meager. Hatred. Malignant. Condemnation. Timorous. Weeping. Sanguine. Pallor. Forsaken. Forlorn.

I could go on.

[distinctlywhumpthing]

maybe i’m being super paranoid (or i missed something) but can’t shake the feeling of something being? off?? because (as far as i can tell), there was not a single name said in the 27th chapter. usually your characters refer to themselves by their name in their pov but this time it was all „he“

You're not being paranoid (: although, he did refer to his number quite a lot.

More details (idk if you'd call them "spoilers" per se) below the cut...

In Part 18, Aiden has a flashback to training and you learn his number (or at least the abbreviation of it) is '359.

Part 27 is intentionally ambiguous because I wanted the possibility of recapture to feel very real! (After all, that's how it feels to Aiden!)

In Part 28, he refers back to things from 27, revealing it was in fact a memory:

He’d been here before.  He was there.  Beside the pool, clothes still damp from diving in, from sweating through what had to be hours of CPR. Dragged to his knees, slapped around, put in a van. The End. He wouldn’t be able to give them his number this time, even if he wanted to.

So, he recognizes just how hard of a time he's having keeping himself grounded in the present...before falling into another flashback, this time with Harrison <3

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Formative whump gif series:

District 9 (2009)

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Unintentional 28

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CW: BBU-adjacent, institutionalized slavery, dehumanization. Ongoing raid, fear of recapture, clinical/hospital setting, side-effects/consequences of medwhump (cerebrovascular). Beta-read by @alittlewhump <3 Second ask is from this list

Leo told him to stay still and pretend to sleep, no matter what. One of so few direct orders, Aiden could count them on his hand. The very same Leo had just been holding, fingers warming his, giving him one last reassuring squeeze before he’d let go. 

He couldn’t fail Leo.

Aiden pressed his hands into the bedspread to hide their shaking, to make them still. Starched-not-soft fabric in an orderly, woven grid under his fingertips. Hundreds of washes keeping it uniform for every new patient. Knuckles wrapped in the soft fabric of Leo’s sweatshirt. Left hand throbbing, forearms aching. Betadine and antiseptic sharp in his nose. The sounds in the hallway—the agents in the hallway. He knew those boots, those footfalls. He’d been here before. 

He was there. 

Beside the pool, clothes still damp from diving in, from sweating through what had to be hours of CPR. Dragged to his knees, slapped around, put in a van. The End.

He wouldn’t be able to give them his number this time, even if he wanted to. Except instead of taking a stand, he was simply too damaged. The idea of being beaten in front of Leo made his stomach twist and his throat tighten.

He couldn’t shake his head, squeeze his fist, find something, anything, to anchor him to where he was, who he was. The simplest task impossible. He used to be more than a passenger, an observer, recognizing less and less with each visit. Especially when it was like this, when he fell beneath the surface, into things that were muddy and murky and meant to stay that way.

He wanted to look, to confirm what he kept telling himself was true, but he had to keep his eyes closed. 

Leo wouldn’t leave him. Leo had promised. 

But the very foundation of the conditioning was doubt. 

With Archer it pushed him toward an impossible perfection. Empty responsiveness that only left him aching to do more, to be better. 

It nagged him constantly with Harrison but there was little to be done. Harrison took what he wanted, didn’t care what kind of vessel it came from. All of his memories returned were not enough to erase the conditioning, relieve the doubt. The ache to be deserving. 

He was certain it was worse to have both: what once was housed in the ruins of what he was now. 

Leo had no idea what he was taking on. Had no idea Aiden was falling to pieces in his own head when all he had to do was stay still and be quiet. 

He wasn’t meant to open his eyes but Harrison was peeling them open for him. Shining his penlight into one and then the other. 

“I know you’re awake.” His tone was terse. Frustrated? There was a complication? A delay? It was hard to follow, his mind slow to process. He tried to turn his head but he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t, he was strapped down like always. 

Leo had told him not to move.

Harrison snapped his fingers in front of his face. “I asked you a fucking question.” 

He blinked a fraction of a second after he thought of it. He couldn’t remember hearing a question. There weren’t any quips surfacing and he wasn’t sure he had the energy to speak anyway. 

He hadn’t felt this drugged before. 

He wasn’t. 

Leo—was Leo still there? 

“For fuck’s sake.” Harrison demanded all of his attention by undoing the straps. “You’re lucky we need to do this or you’d be kissing a taste of freedom goodbye thanks to your attitude.” 

Too slow to snipe back again. 

He cried out when his arms fell to his sides, so heavy now that he had to hold them, fingers tingling as the blood rushed down to his fingers. 

He had to stay still. 

“I don't have patience for your bullshit today. Do not test me.” 

He swallowed the next whimper, the reprimand curdling in his empty stomach. Unaware that Harrison had released all of the other restraints until he folded forward. Harrison caught him unceremoniously, wrapping his arms around him in a parody of an embrace that still made his heart race and his cheeks flush as if it were earned attention, a reward. Sometimes, he’d wriggle closer, moan in Harrison’s ear or whisper a few lurid suggestions. (Anything was better than being a lab rat.) Once even licked his neck but after that, Harrison had kept him unconscious for so long. 

As much as he had nothing to lose, would push every button he could find in a fruitless attempt to force Harrison’s hand, his nerve was riddled with holes. Whenever Harrison was gone too long, he’d wonder if he’d ever come back. Doubt warping fearful anticipation into longing. He’d miss Harrison. Miss the attention, even of his scalpel, when there was a question of it never returning. He was nothing if not what they’d conditioned him to be. 

“Alright, up you go.” Harrison’s voice still had an edge. They were in the other room across the hall but he didn’t remember getting there. Harrison pulled him to his feet, placed both of his hands on the rail bordering the room. “Let’s go, I don’t have all day.” 

He gasped when Harrison let go, overwhelmed by all of his muscles working together for a purpose. But there was something else too, something beneath whatever drugs Harrison always gave him before these bouts of “exercise” to make sure he wasn’t too much trouble. 

“I don’t feel right…” It came out slurred.

Harrison was busy on his phone and waved him on with his free hand. “You remember. One foot in front of the other.” He used the hard toe of his sneaker to prod against his bare heel until he moved. 

Left foot forward. One step at a time. 

His head hurt, ears ringing, vision wavering. Harrison would be furious if he passed out. 

Right foot forward. His leg almost buckled and he gripped the bar tighter. The room spun. 

“Something’s wrong.” The syllables were marbles in his mouth. 

Left foot forward. 

The fingers of his right hand slipped from the bar. 

He couldn’t raise them again, like his whole arm had been numbed. His heart sprinted and stuttered, drilling fear deep into his chest. “Harrison, what did you give me?” The panic in his voice was clearer than the words.  

“Whatever game you’re playing, I am really not—”

Right foot forward. The room tipped. 

Harrison caught him and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m fucking serious. Stand up and finish the lap.” He tried to shove him onto his feet again but he couldn’t balance. 

He was crying now, tears sliding down his cheek. The ones on the other side lost in the fabric of Harrison’s lab coat. “I—I—can’t—I can’t—” No words came out at all this time, only sounds. “Harrison!” His vision spotted. Harrison lowered him to the floor, let him slump against the wall, listing sideways. 

His expression was out of focus but his voice was stern. “This is your last chance. Stop—what—what are you doing?” 

Harrison caught him again but he couldn’t feel where, only the other hand opening his left eye for the light. He didn’t feel his fingers on the right before his vision flared. 

“Fuck.” Harrison held two fingers to his neck, checking his watch. “Look at me, talk to me.”

“I—I—I’m scared,” he cried. It was nothing, it was moans and slurs. “Harrison, help me, please!”

“No, no, no.” Harrison laid him down. “Squeeze my hand.” 

His hand was empty, he couldn’t—

Harrison raised their hands into his line of sight. His right hand limp in Harrison’s grip. “Please, come on, Nothing. It’s nothing, you’re fine. You’re fine.” 

He couldn’t feel his hand. “What did you do to me?” Again nothing came out. He whimpered when Harrison rolled him onto his side. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

He must have been high out of his mind to hear those words. 

“Talk to me, stay with me.” 

How many times he’d wanted to say that himself but now he was the one leaving. 

“Beau, come on. Hold my hand.” Harrison wrapped both hands around his left one. He didn’t think he’d ever done that without gloves on. It felt so warm. “Here, see? Stay with me, Beau.” 

But Beau didn’t belong here. 

He had died when she had, when he’d failed her. 

“No, no, no.” Harrison was holding his face now. “Hey, ‘359. Come on, keep your eyes open. Trainee ‘359. That is a direct—” His voice broke. “Fuck. Please—”

‘359 was out of place too. 

Fragments and pieces, hollow on the inside, incomplete before he’d been given Beau’s purpose. 

A clean slate would always be empty, ‘359 couldn’t exist here.

“Please.” Harrison held him more carefully than he’d ever imagined him capable of. Like he was far from nothing, precious even. “Brandon. Forgive me.”

But he wasn’t Brandon. 

Or ‘359. 

Or Beau.

He only wanted to be Aiden. 

And even though he could still feel Harrison’s fingers entwined with his, he was Aiden. Aiden being careful not to make a sound as memories drowned him. Aiden not moving a muscle or opening his eyes, pulse sprinting in his chest as they waited. He couldn’t feel anything under his fingertips anymore, was growing more and more desperate to check that he was in fact lying in a bed and not waking up on the ground beside Harrison or worse already back on his table. He—

The door opening brought everything in his head screeching to a halt.

It wasn’t Harrison’s warmth still lingering on his hand. 

It was Leo’s. 

Leo who had found him, sheltered him, been so patient and kind with him. Had risked everything by bringing him here. 

He could keep still and quiet, bury his fear of what it would mean to go back, in hopes of selling this lie. To say nothing of what consequences Leo and his sister might face. He could never be the reason someone else was unmade. He owed Leo this, at the very least, as disappointing as he may have been in the rest of their short time together. 

Or did he have a different kind of obligation now? Not just to please and obey but one of higher grounds. To earn everything Leo had given him so freely. To repay selflessness with a sacrifice of his own.

One of the agents cleared their throat and Aiden knew this was it. If he went easily, quietly, they might leave Leo alone. As long as he surrendered before Leo had a chance to try and improvise. 

And he wouldn’t look at Leo at all. To make sure to implicate him as little as possible. 

There were voices in the hallway but he couldn’t catch the words over the way his heart beat so loudly in fear, thudding through his whole body. 

He promised himself he would tear the stitches in the van later. 

Being manhandled into cuffs might start the job anyway.  

He would—Aiden would do this to save Leo. 

He sat up and opened his eyes—

In time to see the backs of the agents as the nurse ushered them out, hissing something about “immunocompromised” and “goddamn idiots, don’t they teach you to read?” 

And Leo, staring at him in disbelief.

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[distinctlywhumpthing]

Oooh the prose and plot-building just pulls the reader right in 🤩

Conquest, Chapter 1: The Coward

Chapter 1 of Conquest, a novel-length fantasy whump story about a timid royal clerk captured by the disgraced prince who needs their help to rule their newly conquered country. This series is best read in order. Masterpost here.

Contains: fantasy setting, nonbinary whumpee, fearful whumpee, war, suicide

---

Miranelis

On an ordinary day, the spare pantry at the very back of the palace kitchens smelled like subtle spices and gentle herbs. Each one was mild on its own, but transformed into a cacophony of scent when all stored in the same close space. The spice jars, packed together on the shelves along with blocks of salt and bags of dried beans, were sealed but not airtight, and the dried herbs that hung from the ceiling sent a constant stream of fragrance into the air.

When Miranelis and Havedrial had first run in here and barricaded the door with the heaviest sacks of grain they could find, Miranelis’s entire face had ached for hours with the effort of holding back a sneeze. Only the knowledge of what would happen if anyone heard them had made it possible.

Now, after days in the darkness—or maybe only hours, but it felt like days—Miranelis thought back with nostalgia on that pungent mix of odors. Now the pantry smelled of sweat and urine. And whenever they got too close to the door, they caught the faintest whiff of blood. The blood had smelled fresh at first. Now it was rancid, and the reek made Miranelis’s stomach flop like a gasping fish.

Which was for the best, because it kept hunger at bay. Miranelis knew they should have been hungry, but whether because of the smell or the knowledge of what was waiting outside the door, they had no appetite whatsoever. Havedrial must have been in a similar state, because they hadn’t said one word about their appetite, even though they had a habit of being forthright about such things to the point of impropriety. It was just as well, because nothing in here was edible in its current state. If they stayed in here much longer, they would both die of starvation surrounded by food.

As deaths went, it sounded more pleasant than their other options.

Miranelis was wedged into the far corner, their back against a hard jutting wooden shelf, their knees pulled up to their chest. Their muscles ached with the effort of holding the same position for so long, but they couldn’t move. They felt like a rabbit frozen under the gaze of a hawk—a Wolf, rather—although there was a solid door between them and the horrors outside, and even the most rabid Wolf couldn’t see through walls.

They hadn’t slept. Little tremors kept running through their hands, and they couldn’t tell whether it was terror or exhaustion. A little of both, most likely. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a feeling that was compatible with sleep, no matter how drained they felt.

Next to Miranelis, the palace’s head clerk Havedrial lay flat on their back, a bag of beans under their head serving as a makeshift pillow. They had taken off their outer shawl and draped it over their thin, wrinkled body as a blanket. Their eyes were closed, their breathing slow and rhythmic. They certainly looked comfortable.

That made one of them.

Jealous though Miranelis might have been at Havedrial’s preternatural ability to sleep, they didn’t begrudge their teacher the small moment of respite. If not for Havedrial, they would have frozen at the first panicked shouts when the Wolves breached the gate, and stood there blinking until a sword took their head off. Havedrial knew how to think fast under pressure. It had saved them—and the queen—in many a tense negotiation. And it had saved their life and Miranelis’s when they had sprinted down the back hallways to the kitchens and Miranelis had found just enough presence of mind to follow.

The rest of the clerks had planned to stay and fight. Havedrial had called them idiots, and praised Miranelis for being quick enough to see that running was the only way to survive. Yes, praised—Havedrial always has been agonizingly lavish with praise. Just one more way they cared nothing for propriety. And in this case, the praise hadn’t even been true. Havedrial had run because they were clever. Miranelis had followed because they were a coward.

The fighting had reached the kitchens soon enough, as Miranelis and Havedrial listened from behind the pantry door. It had been impossible to tell which of the dying screams belonged to people they knew. Their fellow clerks. The guards. The ambassadors who hadn’t fled in time. That hadn’t stopped Miranelis from worrying at the thought like a dog with a bone, trying to match voices to names, picturing familiar faces with dead staring eyes mere feet away on the other side of the door.

Of course the royal family would be dead by now. Of that, there was no question, although doubtless they had died far from the palace kitchens. Miranelis kept trying not to picture their bodies. But their mind was trained to stay active even when their body was exhausted to the point of collapse. And they had nothing else to keep their mind occupied here in the darkness.

Miranelis had liked the queen. They hadn’t ever seen much of the child prince, but they remembered his smile. He had approached them in the palace courtyard a few weeks ago and shyly handed them a bracelet woven from blades of grass.

While the queen and the prince and everyone else had died, Miranelis had huddled in the dark pantry, shivering and crying, snot dripping down their face. Even Havedrial hadn’t lost control so thoroughly and shamefully. They had sat cross-legged on the floor, looking as calm and wise as an old sage in a tapestry, as if this were nothing more than an exceptionally tricky diplomatic negotiation.

It was quiet now. There was no one left on the other side of the door to scream. The only sounds were the rhythmic rumble of Havedrial’s breathing, and Miranelis’s own ragged gasps.

Come to think of it, Havedrial’s breathing was a little too slow and even. Miranelis leaned down to peer into their face. A glint of reflected light under their eyelashes confirmed what Miranelis had already thought: Havedrial wasn’t really sleeping.

Havedrial let out a soft sigh, as if they knew Miranelis had found them out. They pushed themselves to a sitting position with a quiet groan. “This floor is too hard for my tastes,” they said, as if they were lecturing the maker of their bed. “I’ve always preferred a soft place to sleep.”

Miranelis couldn’t imagine ever being able to sleep again. “How long do you think we should wait?” they asked, with a nervous glance toward the door.

Havedrial, of course, answered with a raised eyebrow and a, “How long do you think we should wait?”

Echoes made the best teachers, after all—or at least that had always seemed to be Havedrial’s philosophy. Although it hardly seemed fair to stick to that philosophy when this had nothing to do with Havedrial’s training as a royal clerk—training that had ended years ago. Not to mention the fact that both their lives hung on the answer. Still, Miranelis took a deep breath and thought before answering, as Havedrial had taught them. Havedrial’s face creased in a smile.

Miranelis looked away out of reflex. Just because Havedrial didn’t care about propriety, that didn’t mean it didn’t fill Miranelis with hot, crawling discomfort to see childish emotion displayed so clearly on another’s face. “I don’t think it matters,” they answered, their voice steady but their thoughts miserable.

“And why is that?” asked Havedrial.

“Because they’re still here,” said Miranelis. “If the Naskori didn’t want to keep the palace for themselves, they would have burned it behind them, and we would already be dead. The fighting is over, and I know our side didn’t win. We had no chance. But the palace didn’t burn around us. That means they’ve claimed it for themselves. They’re not leaving.”

“You have a question, I believe,” Havedrial prompted.

Miranelis took another breath before answering, because they needed to be sure their voice didn’t break. Doomed or not, they would not let themselves act like a mewling child who hadn’t even mastered the basics of self-control. Their tears in those first hours had been humiliating enough.

“Why did you run here, if you knew you would die either way, whether they burned the palace or claimed it?” Miranelis asked.

“Because every other option led to immediate and certain death,” Havedrial answered. “Fleeing the palace would have run me directly onto their swords. Staying to fight would have ended the same way in short order. I chose uncertainty, because uncertainty was the best of all possible options.” And then came the echo: “Why did you run, when you were clever enough to have seen where it would lead?”

In that moment, Miranelis hadn’t seen much of anything. Just the blind panic at the feeling of a predator’s claws and teeth about to grab them. “Because I’m a coward,” they answered.

“Maybe,” said Havedrial placidly. “Maybe not. In my opinion, a coward is simply one who hasn’t found the right opportunity for bravery.”

Miranelis had had an opportunity, and the rest of the clerks had taken it. Miranelis had run instead. But they both knew that, and saying it wouldn’t change what they had done, so they stayed silent.

“If they’ve decided to claim the palace,” they said instead, after a moment, “they’ll probably search in here eventually. They’re known for being thorough. They don’t like to leave any potential enemies alive.”

“Yes,” Havedrial agreed, “that’s very likely. The only surprise is that they haven’t done it before now.”

Miranelis didn’t understand how they could be so calm about this. They had both heard the same stories of Vorhullin the Unmaker and his army of Wolves from the north. They both knew the brutal things they had done to their enemies as the countries to the south of the Unmaker’s barren mountainous lands fell one by one. They had sat in on the same meetings, and dutifully transcribed the same tense conversations between diplomats. They had seen the creases on the queen’s face, even though she had always thought she had less to worry about than her neighbors. Danelor was supposed to have been too small for the Unmaker to bother with, not worth crossing the mountains that had always kept them protected in the past. The most they had to worry about, the queen had assured them all, was that their major trade partners would fall. That would have been a catastrophe in itself, but it would not have meant death. At least, probably not.

They were supposed to have been safe.

But they should have taken into account that their mountains were nothing more than hills compared to Kyollen Naskor, where the Wolves came from.

And now they weren’t safe after all. The enemy had swept in with less than a day’s advance warning. Everyone Miranelis and Havedrial had known was likely dead; they had heard it happen. So how could Havedrial seem so unbothered?

At a faint, rhythmic sound, Miranelis tensed. Maybe their panic-soaked mind was playing tricks on them. But they could have sworn they heard footsteps.

Miranelis studied Havedrial’s placid face in the darkness. They weren’t simply good at keeping control of themselves, Miranelis knew; they barely even cared about control. They were perfectly fine with acting like an immature child when it suited them, laughing uproariously at a murmured joke or shedding unrestrained tears at a wedding. Was the facade for Miranelis’s benefit, then? Or was Havedrial really so at ease?

The rhythmic sound came again, closer this time.

“They’re out there,” Miranelis said in a whisper.

“Yes, I believe you’re right.”

Miranelis shook their head. “Don’t you care?” Despite their efforts, a hint of emotion came through in their own voice.

“It’s all right,” they said. “I have a plan.”

“Then why didn’t you say something before?”

As Havedrial sighed, the facade slipped away, and their eyes creased with sorrow. But their voice was as steady as ever. “Because I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

“You can’t be planning to fight them. We don’t have weapons.” Miranelis felt their pockets, as if a knife could have slipped in there without them noticing, and came up only with a quill pen. They pictured trying to jam it into the throat of an enemy warrior a head taller than them and twice as broad. Then they imagined dangling in the Wolf’s grip as the Wolf closed a meaty hand around their neck. They gulped in a breath.

“We don’t have to. Every pantry has a knife or two lying around.” Havedrial reached behind him without looking and came up with a short, squat knife. It looked much too short for battle, like something the cook’s assistant might have used for opening a stubbornly sealed lid. Either Havedrial had eyes in the back of their head, or they had already gone looking and spotted it hours ago.

“You can’t be thinking we’ll fight off an army with that.”

Havedrial shook their head. “We can’t fight them off. We both know that. But we don’t have to.”

“Then what…” Miranelis’s voice trailed off at the hollow look in Havedrial’s eyes.

“I may not be able to save your life, Miranelis,” said Havedrial, “but I can ensure that your life does not end alone and in fear.” They patted the space next to them. “Come. I’ll make it as quick and painless as I can. We’ll go together. It won’t be so bad.” Their face was creased with the same affection Miranelis had seen when they had first begun their training, when Havedrial had told them—making Miranelis blush, aghast at the brazen breach of etiquette—that they were the best student that had ever seen. “I promise.”

Miranelis’s mouth dropped open in horror before they could think of controlling themselves.

“It’s a better fate than whatever the Wolves have in store for us.” Havedrial voice was gentle. “You know it as well as I. You were there in all the meetings. You’ve heard the stories.”

They were right, Miranelis knew they were right… but… Miranelis’s eyes landed on the blade, then skittered away. They imagined the blade parting flesh, and felt the sharp, fiery bite of pain as if it were already happening. They saw blood—their own blood—spilling out on the pantry floor. Their stomach flopped.

Miranelis shook their head. “I can’t.”

“We have no way out. I hoped circumstances would shift, that some other path would appear, but luck was not on our side this time.” They tilted their chin upward, where footsteps—unmistakable now—creaked above their heads. “We don’t have much time.”

Miranelis swallowed hard at the sound of the footsteps. But then they looked at the knife again, and almost vomited right there on the floor. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“Let me save you in the only way I can.” The naked pain in Havedrial’s soft voice brought a blush to Miranelis’s face, even now. “Please”

“Maybe they won’t find us,” said Miranelis, even as the floor creaked again. “Maybe they won’t think to check in here.”

Harsh shouts reached Miranelis’s ears, faint in the distance but coming closer. They spoke in the harsh language of the Naskori. Miranelis was unpracticed enough with the language that the distortion created by the walls between them made it impossible to decipher the sounds into meaningful speech.

“Are you sure?” Havedrial asked, with a quiet plea in their voice. “This may be your only chance.”

Miranelis knew it was the best option. But they couldn’t move any closer to Havedrial, not knowing it would mean that knife biting into their flesh, and their blood spilling out over their skin. They had run because they were a coward, and they were a coward still.

“I’m sure.” Miranelis couldn’t stop their voice from shaking.

“Then I won’t force you.” Havedrial let out a long sigh. “You were always my favorite of my students,” said Havedrial, “and you have grown into my equal in both skill and knowledge, even if you don’t believe it yourself. If circumstances had been different, I’m certain you would have taken my place someday.”

Miranelis had far more important things to worry about than Havedrial’s insistence on talking to Miranelis as one child to another, praise naked and uncouched, affection plain in their voice. Even so, Miranelis’s face flamed scarlet, and they dropped their gaze to their feet.

“I’m sorry you have to see this,” said Havedrial. In their peripheral vision, Miranelis saw the knife flash down in the darkness.

Miranelis squeezed their eyes shut just in time. But there was nothing they could do to block out the small groan of pain as the knife pierced Havedrial’s flesh. The hiss of Havedrial’s labored breathing. The sharp tang of their blood on the air.

Miranelis tried to keep their eyes shut, because if they saw this horror, it would be with them for the rest of their life—however short that life might be. But huddling in the corner, eyes closed, was as good as leaving Havedrial to die, and Miranelis couldn’t do that. They forced their eyes open.

Blood poured from the deep slashes in Havedrial’s wrists. It bubbled up to spread through their layers of clothing, matting the fabric together like the time when Miranelis had spilled an entire jar of honey on themselves as a child. It spread onto the floor in a dark pool as Havedrial sagged against the shelves, eyes half-open.

Even now, Havedrial’s face was calm. If there was any time when it would be reasonable to show one’s feelings, it would be now.

Miranelis wanted nothing more than to look away from the parted skin that stretched wider and wider to let more blood escape, and the creases of pain on Havedrial’s wrinkled face. They wanted to wedge themselves as far into the corner as they could in the hope that the blood wouldn’t touch them. Instead, they forced themselves closer to Havedrial, grimacing as the hot blood soaked through their shawl and into their tunic. They pressed their body tightly against Havedrial and wrapped an arm around their shoulder.

Even Havedrial, who could be barely more than a child when it came to showing their feelings, was not so indecorous as to touch someone outside their family. In all the years they had known each other, they had never so much as brushed fingers. But Havedrial didn’t pull away. They let out a soft sigh as their head drifted heavily down onto Miranelis’s shoulder.

Miranelis didn’t try to hold back their sobs. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and onto Havedrial’s head as Havedrial’s breathing gradually slowed along with the flow of blood, then stopped entirely. Miranelis cradled their teacher’s limp body in their arms as they sat soaked in rapidly cooling blood, shivering and alone.

They were still shaking when the door flew open and a shout of triumph echoed through the blood-soaked kitchen beyond.

---

Tagged: @suspicious-whumping-egg @halloiambored @whump-in-the-closet @whump-cravings @gala1981 @sunshiline-writes

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[distinctlywhumpthing]

'Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 2

Riot, pt3 [Prev]

It’s not new, running the opposite way to the panicked crowd, toward the sound of gunfire and screaming. It’s weird that it’s not new. It’s weird that she’s doing it now, after everything, weird to be doing it in civilian clothes, especially weird to be on the wrong side of the equation with Alex – a warlock for fuck’s sakes – as her only backup.

Every time her shoulders knock painfully against someone running the opposite way, she has to clamp down on the instinct to wheel on them, hit them, beat them into the ground.

Fucking cowards.

It’s all fun and games until the guns come out. They’re brave enough to smash up random strangers’ shit, they aren’t brave enough to stick around and try to help their fellow rioters as they bleed to death in the street.

She loathes them all and still she’s running to their aid.

A glimpse of black uniforms ahead and she stops in her tracks, grabbing the back of Alex’s sweater to haul him down behind the cover of a parked car. She expects him to protest, but he’s already stopping, only half a second behind her.

They crouch there together for hour-long minute after minute until Ari dares to stick her head up to check on the position of the threat.

It’s backward, it’s all backward and she can hardly breathe.

Alex makes the call to keep moving – eye contact and a nod forward and they take the plunge.

Into a side street, out of sight of the uniforms, and they’re running again.

As they get closer, the voices of the wounded separate from the background noise. Panic and grief and pain hang in the air.

They hit survivors before they hit the scene of the shooting. Anyone with any sense and the ability to do so has dragged themselves or their wounded friends away from the cops.

They’re milling in panic – crying or clinging uselessly to one another. Blood-drenched hands press over bleeding wounds. Ari sees it in a dozen disconnected flashes of detail. Panic is trying to claw its way up her throat and she bites down hard on the inside of her cheek to try and anchor herself to the moment.

Alex doesn’t slow down until he’s practically on top of the first group, until they’re turning and standing up to question him, then his sneakers practically skid on the tarmac. 

“I’m a healer,” he forces out between breaths. And that’s enough for them to step aside and let him at the woman writhing on the ground.

His hands glow. He works his magic. The woman gasps as the pain clears from her face.

She’s just starting to thank him when he gets up and moves on.

By the time he’s started healing his second patient, people have noticed. They’re dragging their wounded towards him, clamoring for his attention. Alex casts an almost panicked look up at Ariadne, and she understands what she can do.

“Back off,” she tells them, “back the hell off. Wait your turn. Show me where you’re hit.”

Alex doesn’t pick anyone still well enough to be crowding round him. He goes to another casualty still on the floor. Ariadne shoves dressings into the hands of the walking wounded and tells them “you’re not dying, you don’t need healing. Back off, let him work.”

One’s dead by the time Alex gets to him. A bullet opened an artery. He’d have died in minutes. His clothes are dyed with blood. 

A friend clings to the body, weeping. Blood no longer pulses between the fingers clamped uselessly over the bullet hole. The friend’s clothes are dyed with blood.

Alex stoops, touches the dead man’s skin. “Help him,” the friend begs, “save him.” “I’m sorry,” Alex says, already straightening. “I can’t bring back the dead, I’m sorry.”

The guy reaches out a red-stained hand to catch at Alex’s clothes. Ariadne slaps it away, hard enough to make him yelp.

“He’s gone,” she snaps. “Get over it.” “Ari,” Alex scolds her. The reproach only feeds the fury bubbling inside her, but she swallows it down.

Alex fixes half a dozen wounds. A cracked skull. An arm broken underfoot. Ari helps Alex pull it straight. A brief touch of magic while Ari ties off a splint. Another bullet hole, deep and gaping, closed miraculously beneath his touch. 

Endless reaching hands, white-ringed frightened eyes, jabbering voices. Pleading, trying in far too many words to explain what Alex can tell in far more detail with just a touch.

“Back off,” Ari repeats, “back off. Show me.”

The work takes them ever closer to the intersection. Alex is rubbing his wrists and tugging his scarf tighter round his face and neck. He keeps pulling his beanie down right to his eyebrows, and it keeps riding up again as they move.

They approach the corner cautiously. Ari signals Alex to wait while she sticks her head out. Her heart is pounding so hard she can feel it in her teeth. 

This is the place where the cops fired into the crowd, there’s no mistaking it.

The gunfire’s done its job in clearing the dense press of bodies and breaking their will to fight. There are still dozens of people in the street but a lot of them are on the ground now – either injured or crouched over the injured, huddling against the buildings, cowering against the floor.

There was a barricade here – a makeshift thing of vehicles and furniture – and the cops are swarming over it now, dismantling it. Guns are still aimed at the clusters of survivors, but they’re confident enough in their control not to need to actively harass them.

“We grab the injured and bring them back here,” Alex instructs. “Got it,” Ari affirms. Her voice comes out weaker than she expects.

They duck out of cover. Unexpected pain lances through Ari’s chest, too rough-edged and raw to be a stitch. She ignores it. She knows there’s nothing wrong. Her bullshit does not triage as important right now.

The cops aren’t shooting at the injured or the people trying to help the injured. They won’t shoot at two more idiots doing the same thing. They’re dressed just like everyone else. They look harmless.

They grab a semi-conscious woman left alone, and drag her back to the same side street they ducked out of. She’s not bleeding. Ari can’t tell where she’s hurt, until Alex puts his hands on her head to heal her.

Some of the people he healed before have already vanished. Others are grouping up to help each other with smaller injuries. One or two still gravitate to Ariadne and Alex.

“Hey, green hoodie.” She points, gestures him closer. “Stop gawking. Get out there, grab someone off the floor, and bring them back here.”

The fewer times Alex has to go out in front of the cops, the better. If they realise he’s a healer, they’ll round him up for the bonus.

Green hoodie doesn’t bring them anyone before Alex is done with the concussed woman. Ari and Alex sneak out again, grab a youngster who bleeds hot blood into Ari’s clothes as she hefts their body. Her skin crawls.

Alex closes the wound, coughs into his scarf, and meets Ari’s eyes. He’s afraid, and she has no answer. He’s right to be afraid.

Green hoodie brings them a patient. Alex does his thing.  He’s shivering, so Ari shrugs out of her jacket and hands it over. 

An engine starts up, then metal scrapes loudly on metal. The screech sets everyone jumping out of their skins. Ari’s gun jumps into her hand, but she catches herself before pulling it out of her clothes.

No one else is braving it, so she sticks her head out. The cops have gotten one of the vans from the barricade started, and are using it to shove the other vehicles out of the way.

Across the main street there’s another little group forming up, working together to drag the wounded away. Like Alex and Ari’s efforts, the cops are watching but they aren’t interfering. Not worth their time. They’re in a hurry to move on, find more targets who aren’t yet cowering and fleeing.

Another stranger is half-carrying half-dragging another casualty towards Ari. She casts a glance back at Alex, reluctant. But her feet carry her forwards, and with two people supporting the casualty they get to cover in half the time.

Alex is wide-eyed when she returns, hands wringing circles round his wrists. “Don’t – go off like that,” he says. “I’m sorry.” The words to explain are too much effort. It doesn’t matter.

Another patient. Another. Red flesh and exposed bone. Alex fixes just enough to save their lives. The glow around his hands is fainter now, and starts to flicker.

A staved-in rib. Mindless moaning gasps turn to real breaths under Alex’s hands. He stands up, and staggers, and Ari steps in instinctively to catch his arms.

“Okay,” he croaks, leaning against her. “M’done.” “Mm.” It’s not enough answer. She nods her head. “Okay.”

Let’s get out of here, she doesn’t plead. They’re going to. They’re going to get out of here.

Green hoodie has another casualty. Alex looks torn – almost scared.

“He can’t,” Ari says sharply. She shrugs the first aid kit off her shoulder – then stalls. It’s hard to let go of it. She forces herself to step forwards, push the bag into green hoodie’s arms.

“I – don’t know what to do with this,” he says. “Then find someone who does,” Ari snaps.

She doesn’t wait to see if he nods. It’s his problem now.

Hers is Alex.

He stumbles like he’s drunk, trailing half a step behind her. She slows, and offers him an arm, and he takes it. The pace he sets is too slow, but she swallows her frustration and doesn’t force him.

They just need to get home.

All she has to do is get them home.

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Never did write August finding out it was Emma…

Whumpee doesn’t know who their attacker was. All they remember is the mask their whumper wore. They see that mask in their dreams. They see it every time they close their eyes. Sometimes they see it in the corner of their vision or in the shadows, startling just to look closer and realize it was never there at all.

They’re going mad with thoughts of the mask.

Luckily, Caretaker is there. They tend to Whumpee and keep them safe. Keep them fed and help them through the nightmares. Hold them when they cry and make sure they take their meds on time.

Whumpee feels safe with Caretaker.

Until one day.

Whumpee is home alone and cleaning. Just bored and twitchy and itching to do something, so they start deep cleaning. Washing the walls. Moving furniture to vacuum under it. The works.

And they find the mask that haunts their nightmares tucked in the back of Caretakers closet. Still stained with Whumpee’s blood.

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Together 18: Gone.

CW: Explicit language and content, torture, long-term captivity, conditioning, dehumanization, burns/branding, knife wounds, blood, restraints, masked whumper, whumpee forced to whump, creepy whumper, intimate whumper, manipulation, punishment, gaslighting, lady whump (electrocution, shock collar), dissociation (observed by a third party, letmeknowifimissedany

@alittlewhump, thanks for being my devoted beta-reader and muse.

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The knife is so heavy in my hand. I’m trying not to shake or tremble or blink or breathe or let myself cry. I can’t stop looking at the first two letters of my name branded onto August’s ribcage and thinking about how he’d put on such a brave face. As if he should have been worrying about lessening my pain and not the other way around.

It was worse than all the times he didn’t know it was me. How could it not be? I wish he had cursed, begged, questioned, screamed. Anything other than holding my gaze, trying to help me through it, trying to make it easier for me to hurt him. Wyatt had to help me hold the iron because of my fucked up hand, the one he couldn’t be bothered to fix himself, the asshole. It was just like every other time, his voice in my ear to pull the strings.

“Emma, you wanted this.”

“Emma, he’s been yours from the beginning anyway.”

“Emma, this isn’t even the worst thing you’ve done to him.”

“Emma, it’s hardly a punishment that he has to look into your eyes while you do this.”

But if I hadn’t been so selfish about wanting Wyatt, demanding he finish what he started, hold and mold me like his personal handful of silly putty, maybe August would still be fine.

Because something is different.

There was one night after when he cried out for me in the dark. The only other time he’s said my name out loud.

I rushed over to him to check if he was sick, feel his neck for a fever, but there wasn’t anything wrong. Well, apart from fucking everything.

I held his hand while he sobbed. It was outside the permitted first-aid-only touching and earned me shock after shock after shock but I couldn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry, Baby,” he said, over and over. Like he was supposed to save me, rescue me, and somehow he was the one of us who had failed.

August—

“You don’t deserve this.”

Please don’t cry for me, I don’t deserve any of your tears.

“I’m so sorry, Little Bird.”

Don’t be sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry, August.

And then he pulled his hand away and rolled over. Maybe he wasn’t apologizing for our circumstances or what had happened, maybe he knew he couldn’t take much more.

Today, he’s chained to a table. Starfished like how he used to sleep. Nowadays he curls up in one corner and spends most of the night staring at the wall. I could smell the heated metal when I walked in, even through the mask. We all knew that burns were the worst for him now, no surprise. He should have been a wreck but instead, he was staring up at the ceiling. He continued doing so, glassy-eyed and barely breathing, even once I’d started slicing him to ribbons with the heated blades.

He’s going to be gone completely soon.

I should kill him.

If I had any mercy or strength or anything worth a damn, I would kill him.

I should really just kill him.

“Emma, stop,” Wyatt’s voice interrupts the torrent raging in my head.

I refocus and realize I’m done. Every cut Wyatt wanted, I have effortlessly etched into August’s skin.

And then I kept going.

An object in motion will stay in motion.

I drop the knife and stumble out of the room. Go through the actions required to get back to August. I swallow the panic, which continues to grow in my chest like an inflating balloon, squeezing into the space where air should be. I have to keep it together for August. I have no right to fall apart.

He needs me.

Luckily, Wyatt decides I don’t need to be delayed today. I take my five-minute shower and race back to the room. They’ve left August on the floor. I don’t even register whatever comment Jack makes as he closes us in. August is curled up on his side, staring straight ahead at nothing.

At least he's not bleeding very heavily. I get everything I need from the cabinet and gently roll him over. He continues to stare up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused and glassy, face slack.

I lean into his gaze but he doesn’t register me.

Fuckfuckfuck. I should have paid better attention.

My hands shake as I work to stop the worst of the bleeding. August doesn’t even blink when I pour alcohol into the wounds.

In the end, his torso is a patchwork of bandages.

Five more than there should have been. Five more that were solely mine. Five more that pushed him over the line.

He still hasn’t moved, hasn’t returned.

August.

He hasn’t sung in weeks. It used to be all the time, nearly constant. Songs I’ve never heard but sometimes songs I recognized. He’d started to repeat those when he’d seen the recognition in my face. He was sweet like that.

He is sweet like that. He’s right here, he’s right here, he’srightfuckinghere.

All he ever tried to do was make things better for me. And I’ve never given him anything worth a damn.

I twine my unbroken fingers through his.

He looks right past me while I hold his hand even when I lift it to my cheek.

This isn’t like the time he was beaten to shit and I could hide under the guise of making sure his face wasn’t broken. It’s clear that I’m ignoring the rules, going outside the bounds of first-aid for his latest injuries and into the realm of something more comforting, so it’s no surprise that they start shocking me.

I grit my teeth and ignore it. Push the pain to the back of my mind. If I can space out and cut August five more times than I should have, I can do this.

The next shock is stronger but I don’t let go. I focus on remembering the sound of August’s voice, singing one of my favorite songs. My song, he always called it, giving me a goofy wink and that dazzling, charismatic smile I used to want to roll my eyes at.

I reach up and run my fingers through his hair.

The waves are knotted and matted down. The auburn color darkened to brown.

I struggle to catch my breath after the third shock. I hold his face with both hands and move even closer, trying to get him to focus on my eyes.

He looks right through me.

I have to pause for the next. Let it run its course before I have control over my hands again.

I trace his temples and his jaw, trailing down the sides of his neck with my fingertips.

His empty gaze makes me feel sick.

He’s somewhere else entirely.

I’m out of time. My vision starts to go dark at the edges. If I’m not careful, I’ll fall on him and he’ll be even more hurt by me.

I draw back but, of course, I still get one more warning shock. It’s all I can do to stay conscious. I wind up across the floor from August, waiting to be able to breathe again, joints grinding against the concrete while my muscles tense and arch and spasm.

August doesn’t move at all. It’s like I’m not even here.

His life was in my hands.

I let him slip away, right between my fingers.

He’s gone.

And I don’t have any voice to call him back.

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