#//tried to avoid including anything too brutal or graphic from the actual scene

[gas-stxtion]

Closed starter for @modestmuses 

Jack doesn’t know how much time has passed since Spencer came and grabbed him at the gas station. It feels like it’s been hours, but for all he knows it could’ve been just thirty or so minutes.

What he does know, however, is that this is probably the closest to being in hell that he’s ever been. Which, considering the life he’s lived for the past few months, is a bit of an achievement.

He’s more than a little delirious from the sheer amount of blood he’s lost, and he knows if help of some kind doesn’t arrive soon, he’s as good as dead. Spencer’s already more than overpowered him, and he knows he has very little chance of making it out alive.

That doesn’t mean he’s making it easy for Spencer, though.

“Still don’t believe I’m here to kill you, Jack?” Spencer says, planting his boot on Jack’s chest and digging in his heel, just to fuck with his likely bruised and fractured ribs some more. His tone is calm and casual, as though he’s just discussing the weather, but Jack knows him well enough to tell that he’s pissed.

Jack can barely speak between his wheezing cries of pain, but he’s determined to reply. If he’s going to die here, he isn’t going to give Spencer the fucking satisfaction.

“N-No,” he chokes out. “You’re too much of--” Spencer snarls and puts more of his weight on Jack’s chest, and Jack can feel something crack, but he barely manages to finish his sentence anyway “--a fucking bitch.”

Spencer stares at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable, then abruptly he lifts his foot from Jack’s chest. Jack barely has a moment to suck in a breath before it’s quickly knocked out of him once more when Spencer aims a sharp kick to his side, knocking him closer to the gaping hole in the ground Spencer had forced him to dig. For a long moment, he simply lay there on his side, struggling to breathe and focus.

His mouth tastes like copper, and he tries not to think too hard about that.

Spencer is saying something, a vicious growl in his voice like an angry dog’s, but Jack hardly registers the words as his exhausted, aching eyes fall on something lying near the hole.

The shovel. The fucking shovel. Spencer had been taunting him with it all fucking night, just barely missing him each time he swung it his way.

“Stay still, Jack,” he’d said. “I wanna see how close I can get.”

If he can just get his hands on the shovel, he might have a fighting chance.

With what little strength and adrenaline he has left, Jack starts to drag himself over to the shovel. It hurts like hell, and he’s sure that he has more than a few new broken bones to add to his collection, but he has to try. He expects Spencer to stop him, but it doesn’t happen.

Instead, he vaguely registers the sound of a gun cocking. The haze that is Jack’s mind right now clears long enough to hear Spencer ask incredulously, “Who the fuck are you?”

Jack doesn’t look up to see who Spencer might be talking to, his hands shaking as he finally grabs the handle of the shovel.

Fucking finally.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

whumptober day 9: take me instead

still here, still doing this! ‘twas nice to take a break for the last 6 months but i think i’m ready to come back.

summary: set after titans s2. jericho’s spent years as a mind without a body--enough to think he’s not in real danger from the villains the titans fight on a regular basis. it isn’t until dick puts himself on the line to save him that he realises how wrong he’s been.

warnings: SPOILERS for s2. serious body horror including gore and mutilation. a whole scene of this is inspired straight from a nightmare i had, so please be cautious as the descriptions are graphic. 

take me instead

Leave him alone! I can… I can give what you want, and more. I’ve seen and done things you couldn’t even imagine.

Take me instead.

It’s the last thing Jericho remembers for a while.

-

When Jericho is next aware, he’s sitting at a familiar workbench next to his father. Slade is taking apart and putting together guns of increasing complexity at a steady pace, not looking at Jericho once, but the silence is familiar and almost… comfortable. There’s none of the cloying dread or desperation that he felt while spending six years trapped in Slade’s head; the guns might as well be fishing rods or model airplanes to the curl of warmth in Jericho’s chest.

“I want you to be ready,” Slade says in the manner of someone already in the middle of a conversation, “for this next mission. I know that it’s on short notice, but there’s something in the next room that should help you.” He finally turns to look at Jericho, and he realises with a jolt that Slade’s actually smiling. For a long, dumbfounded moment, Jericho stares at his father, at the beaming smile, the crinkle of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.

“Go on, then,” Slade says, tilting his head at a door that Jericho didn’t notice before. A part of Jericho is pulsing with anxiety (remembers that endlessly white prison, dead-but-not) but it’s smothered by a haze of contentment and a ready, easy trust that has him get up, open the door, and step through.

There’s a long metal table with a body on it. The reason it’s a body and not a person is because it’s covered with a long white sheet and the shapes underneath the sheet are… unnatural. The angles too sharp, the girth too thin, everything too still to be anything that’s alive. Jericho’s not sure why Slade thinks a corpse would help him with anything, but he moves ahead as though compelled, again, and lifts the sheet away.

The body is on its back, naked, limbs splayed awkwardly. It’s emaciated to a degree that the skin is worn down to the bone in some places: the fingers are literally skeletal, and so are the jutting crescents of the hips. There are enormous festering wounds on one thigh and one arm, excavated through layers of skin, fat and muscle like craters filled with… slough, and pus, and other disgusting things, and still bleeding--

--still bleeding--

Jericho’s been avoiding looking at the face until now, and there is a slow, sad sort of resignation in his chest as he lifts his gaze to see skin cleaving to the skull, eyes huge and watering in nearly abyssal sockets. The body’s lipless mouth moves.

“Jericho,” Dick says.

There’s no moment where Jericho’s jolted back to reality; just a dawning horror. There are a thousand questions crowding in his throat but the one he asks is: “Did… did Slade do this to you?”

“No, he--Jer--” Dick coughs, and Jericho watches with sick fascination as his ribs glide underneath his skin. “You have to get away from here. Now.”

“Not without--” you, I can’t leave without you “--knowing what he did to you, how could this even--”

There’s a chill in the air, so sudden and fierce that it slices through his skin and numbs his lips. The room he’s in--that he’s hardly paid any attention to so far--warps and twists, the edges where the walls meet the ceiling blackening like it’s a photograph that someone’s taken a flame to. Dick twitches on the table, trying to move, and bloodied spittle sprays his chin as he says, “Leave! Now!”

“I don’t--”

I SEE YOU.

The voice, female, is both a whisper in his ear and a roar that echoes inside the collapsing room. Dick lets out a scream that frankly Jericho would’ve never guessed he had the strength for and an invisible force pushes Jericho to the door that he just came from. Jericho tries to fight back, twist and get back to Dick, but before he knows it, he’s stumbling through the door, falling to his hands and knees. He jumps to his feet, unaccountably angry at Slade, the world, and mostly Dick--who, despite having far less experience with this slippery, in-between world than Jericho, just tossed him aside like it was nothing at all.

Overachieving bastard.

He whirls around to confront his father, but Slade has disappeared, and so has his workroom, and any semblance of a place at all. Instead, Jericho stands in the middle of ever-extending blackness that might be a cavern, given the way his footsteps echo eerily and the weak light that filters in every few metres. Dust motes float lazily in those little beams, and their presence makes the whole place somehow creepier than the complete absence of light.

“Dick?” Jericho’s voice is small, uncertain, but the word echoes nonetheless, making him flinch. Once the echoes die, however, there is only silence.

He picks a direction and keeps walking, because, honestly, what else is he going to do? It doesn’t take long for a human shape to materialise in one of the pools of watery light, and Jericho isn’t entirely surprised to see that it’s Dick. This Dick looks… whole, though, strong and broad and dressed in his Nightwing suit sans mask. He’s got his escrima sticks out as though anticipating an attack, and he’s not really looking at Jericho.

Jericho’s about to call out to him when a shape swoops in from the darkness straight to Dick. It’s moving with incredible speed, claws extended and glinting in the light, but Dick is faster. He swings his sticks around and knocks it to the ground, only to bring them up again to block the next attack. 

Soon Dick is at the centre of a storm of black, punctuated by the rustle of cloth and the screams of the creatures dying as his sticks turn into swords. He’s barely finished skewering one creature before he’s lifting the sword--still dripping with gore--and plunging it into the heart of another creature. Jericho watches, open-mouthed, as Dick fights with a frightening combination of grace and force, his body twirling and leaping like he’s dancing but his thrusts sharp and brutal, driven by pure anger. Jericho can hardly countenance this… force of nature with the man who melted in his arms when he gave him an unexpected hug, or the one that came to seek absolution from his mother, half-wrecked by guilt and anguish. 

He could’ve kept watching forever (Dick could’ve kept fighting forever) when he feels a bony hand like icicles rest on his shoulder and hears I’VE FOUND YOU, LITTLE ONE

“No! Jericho!” Dick stops for the second it takes him to shout Jericho’s name, and Jericho realises why Dick had been such a storm of movement: it takes only a fraction of that second for the shadow-creatures to overcome his defences and… tear at him. Blood and gore spray in a messy arc as his arm is torn clean off his body but Dick’s still standing, staring at him, shouting--

Jericho’s knees shake and his stomach’s turned to water but he shakes off the hand on his shoulder and runs--away from whatever it was that spoke to him, away from Dick, whose shouts have died and been replaced by the sickening, wet sounds of ripping flesh. 

He runs, but there’s Dick again, younger now, crushed between two panes of glass like an insect in a display case--

YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER.

--turns a corner, and Dick’s on a rack, an actual rack, and at each corner there’s somebody turning the pulley and stretching his limbs until his shoulders and knees pop out of their sockets, and, and, is Batman one of them? And one of the others, his face is half-shrouded in scar tissue--

ALTHOUGH, and now there’s a hint of amused menace, THAT MIGHT BE FUN, TOO.

Jericho sets off again, heart thundering in his chest and pulsing in his neck, panic scraping his breath through his throat and nose. It’s been so long since he’s had a body to call his own, but his mind can’t forget what it feels like to be truly afraid, to look at a threat and think: that’s going to really hurt, or i’m going to die, or both.

Along the way he feels little nudges from Dick, helping him pour on the speed. When these nudges stop, and he’s run out of corners to turn and reached one where he can only huddle, he turns.

There’s a woman standing there: tall, almost statuesque. Her skin is grey and her hair hangs limp past her shoulders. But her eyes are luminescent: pools of algae on water that reflects a coal-black night. There is naked hunger in the way she looks at him, in her smile full of mossy, pointed teeth.

HE’S RIGHT IN A WAY, she says. HE BURNS SO BRIGHT, AND HIS PAIN SO EXQUISITE. BUT HE IS ALREADY BURNING OUT. YOU… she steps closer, YOU WILL LAST FOREVER.

Jericho feels frozen as she reaches a bony hand towards him. HIS SACRIFICE WILL HAVE BEEN IN VAIN--HOW DELICIOUS.

He feels a familiar ice-cold pain along his throat, razor-thin, and a deeper, hotter pain that’s boring into his stomach. If he closes his eyes he can imagine that it’s Slade on the other end of a sword, eyes wide in horror and--and betrayal--

“No.” The pain in his stomach stops, and Jericho opens his eyes to see Dick’s back in front of him, the pointed end of an icicle emerging from his middle and dripping blood on Jericho’s feet. 

And Dick still--

“While I’m still here, in my head,” Dick growls, “you don’t get to touch him.”

The woman screams--it’s a horrible sound, full of  rage that buries itself like needlepoints in his eardrums--but Jericho has no time to linger as he feels the hardest push he’s gotten from Dick yet, and a sensation like someone’s reached into him and pulled his stomach clear out of his body, and then--

then--

he’s out.

For a long, surreal second, he is just a mind floating without a body, threatening to vanish into the ether if he can’t ground himself in somebody else’s head. He casts frantically for the nearest person and enters--and to his relief, it’s Rose. She must know something of what’s going on, because she immediately steps back and lets Jericho take over her body.

They’re in the Titans Tower, and he can see Kory, Rachel and Gar crowded around something--well, somebody--on the floor. At his choked, “Dick,” they immediately part, and there’s Dick on the floor, curled around nothing, ashen, eyes open and unseeing. He’s shaking minutely, but besides that there’s nothing to indicate that right now, inside his head, he’s being torn apart over and over and over again--

“He won’t let me help him,” Rachel says, her voice trembling, tears streaming down her face. “She wants you. He says he won’t let that happen.”

Jericho crashes to his knees next to Dick. He gathers his head onto his lap--tries to ignore how cold he feels and banishes all memories of his wasted body on that cold table--and kisses his forehead. “Please,” he says, tears spilling to land on Dick’s face and slide down to his ears. “Just--please.”

He’s not sure what he’s asking for. But he thinks Dick will find a way to give it to him anyway.

[whateverisbeautiful]

Reveling in Richonne

#152: The Intensity (9x14)

They said this episode would get intense and that was a very accurate statement. The last eight seasons is estimated to have covered the span of about six years, so you know within this six year time-jump these characters probably went through some crazy things considering the craziness they went through in the first six years. 

And that proved to be real true cuz this has got to be one of the most insane things a character has had to go through on this show. 

Jocelyn was clearly nuts so Michonne understandably had to let her know; if you want to get crazy...

Michonne wakes up and her and Daryl are tied up like animals as Jocelyn makes her legion of evil kids brand them both. It’s insane. 😰 And the acting from Danai and Rutina when Michonne’s branded is so well acted and super striking. The intensity is real. 💯

Michonne yelling in Jocelyn’s blank face is so raw and powerful. 🤭 I heard about how Rutina actually wasn’t supposed to be in this shot and so her reaction isn’t scripted. I’m glad they kept her in cuz I really think the scene is elevated by having her in it with this expression. 

To me, Jocelyn’s emotionless expression really emphasizes how she’s too detached to even care for Michonne’s pain as a human being. And Michonne’s expression communicates that she’s going to mess Jocelyn all the way up one way or another. 

Not even a horrid predicament like this can stop Michonne or make her give in when it comes to saving her kids. And this yell is like her telling Jocelyn, even through pain that...

Michonne and Rick have this drive to protect people that’s unmatched so, despite all the abuse, Michonne and Daryl make it out. It’s definitely a testament to the two of them as survivors.  

(Side note: If Rick and Michonne had been the duo in this episode this would have been the most graphic episode for what Rick would do to Jocelyn and anybody who hurt his family. 👀 Imagine the acting we’d get from Andy when they brand Michonne. All bets would be off from the second they even took Judith. And then after the branding of his pregnant wife. 🤭 Rick would’ve been another level of brutal once he faced these people who are trying to hurt his immediate family.)

In the present, Michonne rides her horse and takes out walkers in her search for Judith. And then back to the past, they gloss over how exactly Daryl and Michonne break free (which I thought was really odd) but they do break free and they end up deciding to split up. 

Michonne comes across Jocelyn and her kids and demands to know where Judith and the Alexandria children are. You can tell that the branding isn’t even a concern for Michonne right now, it’s all about the kids. And that’s motivation enough for her to push through this pain. That’s Mama Michonne for you. 

Note that’s “Where are my kids.” Plural. She was talking about all the taken Alexandrian kids. They were all her kids in that moment cuz she’s a real one. 👏🏽Her and Daryl were the only ones out here getting branded for these kids and then the community wants to give her attitude?? 🤔)😑 Cuz again, with those other adults at Alexandria...

Jocelyn responds with, “Why? She’s better off. You live in the past chasing a ghost while Judith’s here with me.” Tried it to capacity. 😡 Quick question, Jocelyn...

Cuz this lady clearly doesn’t realize that she’s dealing with the undeniable baddest chick in the game and Judith’s mother who prioritizes her over anything including a so-called “chase”. 

And also I was like, Jocelyn, Rick def isn’t a ghost, so...

So then the kids run out and Michonne can see Judith running with them. Judith’s all smiling cuz they have her thinking this is a game. And it’s crazy cuz she’s so little and has no clue her mother is going through literal hell just a few feet away. 

Michonne is left to fight these two kids and even as they approach her she tells them she doesn’t want to hurt them. But then that awful little boy strikes her pregnant belly, causing her to start bleeding, and that’s when you visibly see the rules change. Cuz Mama Michonne reaches her final form, once they try to come for her unborn child like that. As she should. The way she swipes at them after that is so genuinely intense.

Danai did such a great job showcasing the ferocity of maternal instincts when it comes to protecting their child. The hands become rated e for everybody when you come for a mother’s child. 💯

Michonne continues to run and yell for Judith but when she makes it outside, Jocelyn just starts brutally beating her. It’s way too much. 🙅🏽‍♀️ And Michonne uses all her energy to stab Jocelyn and kill this evil horrible woman.

Rick and Michonne have had a lot of similarities in their character and journeys. And now “having to kill your best friend because they came for your kids” is added to that list. 

This moment again also reminds me of how Rick had to tap into a dark place to take out that perverted Claimer and protect Car. And because R&M are cut from the same cloth, Michonne had to tap into that space as well for Judith.  

When Michonne gets up and looks around, the Children of the Corn are all aiming knives at her. She tries to tell them it doesn’t have to go down this way and they can all go back to Alexandria, but at this point I was like nah boo we ending this right here and now. It’s the only way. 💯

But I get how difficult and complicated this would be for Michonne. Most everyone can feel sympathy for a child but when you’re a mother I’m sure you’re even more sympathetic to children. Especially right now as a pregnant mother. So Michonne feels for them extra hard and wants to spare them as much as she can. 

These baebae kids should’ve taken her offer to come back to Alexandria, cuz under her supervision they would’ve got it all the way together had a good safe life. 

However, they refuse to listen and the blonde kid Winnie is instructed to kill Judith and the Alexandria kids which at this point in the episode I was just like...

You mean to tell me that just months after losing Rick, Michonne had to worry that she was going to lose Judith and possible her unborn child too!? This episode was piling on the trauma in extreme doses. And it was just time to shut it down. 

So then Michonne does what must be done and takes all these kids out. She tries so hard to avoid it but it becomes clear there really is no other option if she wants to save her children. It’s “look at the flowers” times like ten extra kids.

So to avoid getting too graphic, the show smartly cuts from Michonne slicing walkers in the present to dealing with these kids in the past. And after the sequence, Michonne has got rid of all the killer kids and yells for Winnie to not hurt the kids inside that RV. 

Again, Danai does a terrific job of conveying the anguish and conflict Michonne feels having to kill these kids in order to protect her own kids. She by no means wanted it to be this way. But they took Michonne’s daughter so she had to take them all out.

Daryl walks out too with bloody knives implying he took care of business as well. Winnie knows she lost so she runs off, and Michonne is generous to just let her leave.

Then, with the last bit of energy she has left, Michonne cries and her voice breaks as she calls out for Judith. 😢

Judith walks to the entrance of that RV and again looks so beyond adorable. I love that she heard her mom calling and knew to walk out. Like I’m sure the rest of those kids inside were scared and hiding after what they heard going on outside but Judith was like look y’all I gotta go cuz...

Judith stands at the entrance and stays there looking at Michonne with what could appear to be a scared and uncertain expression.

Michonne notices Judith’s hesitancy so concern etches across her face as she worries that Judith has been too traumatized to recognize her mom. 

But after a moment of silence the cutest thing ever happens, cuz Judith smiles and runs to Michonne with open arms saying, “Mommy!” 

My cup runneth over with how adorable this moment is. 😭😊🙌🏽 

And then Michonne feels utter relief (and me too) as she embraces Judith and doesn’t let go. Y’all, this mother and daughter content is just the best. 

And after holding my breath all episode it was at this precious moment that I could finally be like...

It’s cute that little Judith got to act a bit with her expressions this episode. ☺️ And I’m so beyond glad that we got to hear the little one call Michonne “mommy”. I had wanted to hear that from her for some seasons now, so to bring little Judith back and hear her say it was everything.

(Side note: I love thinking about how this Judith would totally have been calling Michonne “mommy” when Rick was around too cuz they were just such a family in every way.)  

Still embracing her daughter, Michonne turns over to Daryl and the two share a smile. And then even despite her own physical pain and trauma, Michonne puts on the sweetest calming voice to ask if Judith and the kids are okay. 

It’s moving to see how, so shortly after such a draining experience for her, Michonne’s focus is still on the kids first and foremost and wanting them to feel safe and like it’ll all be okay.  

And it’s a sweet subtle detail that as she hugs the kids, Daryl runs up to them so they don’t have to see the bloody scene.

I appreciate the unity and bond between Michonne and Daryl. They go through it together and know this is what had to happen. Of course there’s heaviness cuz no one ever wants to take a young life, but I think those two know that in this situation they aren’t monsters for doing what had to be done.👌

I love that Judith, this baby who’s been looked after by so many characters, who at this point in the flashback has just lost her father, still has the best mother in the world to raise her, love her, and fight for her no matter the circumstances. 😌

This whole event is significant for a couple reasons. And one of the biggest ones is that this moment made Judith apart of the apocalypse. 

This appears to be the first time Judith saw the darkness of the world she’s apart of, rather than being inside safe walls just playing. She’s not just that little girl in the house anymore. She’s seen things now that has made her aware. 

Y’all, this has got to be one of, if not the, darkest subject matter this show has ever done. And I really feel like Michonne is one of the few characters who could ever endure something like that and not go completely crazy. Not cuz she’s some warrior robot, but because Michonne has demonstrated an ability to put in the work required to rise above the pain time and time again.

And her desire after this to keep the communities closed makes total sense. Other characters might’ve reacted even more extreme than that had they been the ones in this situation. So Michonne def deserved more empathy from people within and outside of the show (and that empathy should’ve been long before this episode ijs). 

This also showed me that RJ is a miracle baby. Michonne is so resilient to have been branded, cut, and gone through extreme physical and emotional trauma and still give birth to her healthy baby. She’s a queen and RJ’s been persevering since before he was born. 

All that being said, imma need the show to not put Michonne though any more abuse. Like for real. 

Of all the women characters, I feel like she’s had to endure the hardest beatings and it’s time to stop. Just cuz she can take it doesn’t mean she should have to, so I really hope her final season lets her be when it comes to stuff like that. 

Back to the present, Michonne continues to slay walkers and then she finds Judith who’s also using her baby katana to take out walkers. Like mother like daughter. 😊

And when Judith’s using her baby katana you just know she wants to be like her mom. It makes sense, Michonne’s the ultimate role model. And I love that Judith is this fighter like her mother. 😊

Michonne doesn’t take anything laying down so why wouldn’t Judith. She’s fierce and caring and determined, just like her mom. (And she doesn’t stay in the house, just like her big brother lol.) 

It was deep to have Michonne in the past taking out kids and in the present taking out walkers with the same motivation; getting to Judith. It’s like she said in that 8x16 deleted scene; “Everything you do is for that child.”

She gets to Judith and they smile as Michonne sees that her daughter really does take after her in some ways. But before their moment of being happy to see each other can last, a walker grabs Judith. And I so adore the fact that Judith’s immediate instinct is to yell for her mommy and of course her mom is right there to help her. 😌

Judith has been written to be extremely mature for her age, which I don’t mind cuz it would make sense for her to not be like other kids since this is the cutthroat world she’s had to grow up in. But at the end of the day she’s still a little girl and she does need her mommy so I’m glad that older Judith had a moment of not being too grown to need her mom. 💯

Michonne runs to her and takes out the walker and then they hug and it’s precious. 🥰 I really adore the parallel of little Judith and older Judith saying “mommy” to Michonne and embracing. 🥰 Both Judith’s know their mom has got them no matter what.  

Michonne asks if she’s okay, as that’s her first concern just like when they embraced in the flashback and then she lets Judith know they need to talk.

And yeah they definitely do. And it’s one of the most heartfelt conversations.👌🏽😊😭

🏽gifs source: @michonnegrimes @winterswake