#Illyn tried really hard

[whumpywhumper]

Puppy Face 🐶

So, I had some very lovely individuals request another Markus/Lucien drabble and, for some reason, that freaked my poor anxiety-ridden brain right the fuck out, and I couldn’t do it. 😅

Therefore, I went ahead and worked with Illyn and @0idril0 ‘s amazing OC, Clint, from her Nico series! 

I now have a solid idea for what I want to do with Markus and Lucien and, hopefully, I can get another drabble up today or tomorrow. My lovely requesters, @starrywhump @castielamigos @comfy-whumpee @imagination1reality0 , please bear with me! 

Edit for Masterpost

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Illyn paced, hands in her hair, smoke from her altar fouling the air. Her latest fucking failure.  She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know who to call. Usually, she would call Markus, but that wasn’t an option. 

Obviously. 

She gave her messy blonde hair a vicious tug and swallowed a sob of frustration. Crying wouldn’t help anything. She turned sharply on her heel, feet sinking into the fluffy carpet, and stalked back to the myriad of books that lay stacked and open to various pages. There had to be something there that she could try, something that she hadn’t thought to use. 

If Markus was here he would know what to do. He would open right up to a spell or a dowsing rod and he would have the answers. He was a genius at this shit. Illyn was too new, inexperienced. Her talents lay in different directions. 

The old books were musty to her stopped up nose and their leather bindings crinkled as she shuffled through them. Her eyes were burning and she brushed away tears as they fell onto the vellum pages. She didn’t even know what she was looking at. Glyphs and diagrams swam in front of her vision, carefully drawn botanical depictions blurred together,  and she squeezed her eyes shut to get away from them.  

Markus had been gone for 40 hours.  Almost two fucking days. 

In that time, she had been able to make contact with him once for all of two minutes before she couldn’t hold the spell any longer. The only information she had was that he was still within a fifty-mile radius of his shop and he was being kept in a concrete room with florescent lights. 

She had nothing. 

All subsequent attempts to contact him had failed. She barely understood the spell that she used the first time well enough to get it working and had no idea why it wouldn’t work again. The police weren’t an option. Pretty much all supernatural incidents were ignored unless they had to do with a human. She and Markus didn’t have many friends here in Salem and the friends she had that could help her were half a country away. 

Her hands tightened in the overly large flannel she wore over her nightshirt, pulling it up to her nose to suck in the rosemary and sage smell. She’d taken the flannel from Markus’s work station; he wore it constantly and she never let the chance to make fun of it get away from her.   She hadn’t changed her own clothes since Markus’s call had woken her up in the middle of the night. 

She stank. Her hair was greasy. She was exhausted. 

She couldn’t do this. 

Illyn’s lip trembled and she bit it to quell the oncoming sob-fest. She sank to the floor and hugged her knees, rocking slowly, back and forth. 

All of the information that she had didn’t give her any new leads, any new direction to go. She’d found Markus’s cell phone, the crumpled remains of the demolished electronic were exactly at the GPS location Markus had texted her. 

She’d driven as fast as she could, screaming, hitting her steering wheel. Breaking every traffic law that she knew in order to get there as fast as she could. And she was still too late. All there was was the fucking cell phone. A small spatter of blood from Markus’s fucking bullet wound that didn’t lead anywhere. There weren’t any footprints on the asphalt.  Nothing. 

Her rocking sped up and her hands sank back into her hair. A noise bubbled up in her throat and she didn’t fight the agonized wail that escaped her lips. She pressed her face to her knees but it did nothing to muffle the heartache. 

Illyn didn’t let herself break down for long. Great hiccuping breaths followed after a few moments and she tried to pull herself together. The meat of her palms pressed the tears away, and she stood. She’d run very option through, now it was time for someone else to step in. As much as she didn’t want to call. Face what she’d done. 

Hands trembling with fatigue, she dug through her purse and found her phone. Still charged like a miracle in and of itself. Her favorites list was only two clicks away and she pressed the nickname “Puppy Face” with the dog emoji. 

The phone rang twice before a deep masculine voice answered. “Hey dumplin’, mind if I call ya’ back? In the middle of tryin’ to tie up some loose ends.” 

“Clint.” She squeezed the name out of her tight throat, eyes burning, and her entire face scrunched up of its own accord. “Clint, I need your help. Please.” 

“Illyn? What’s wrong?” 

She sobbed, recalling those same words coming out of her mouth. “It’s Markus, he’s been taken. I can’t find him. Please, you have to help. I’ve tried everything. Scrying, dousing, spells— there’s a spell in here that calls for the damn lens from a fly’s eye, not even the whole fly. Is says specifically not to put the whole fly in there. Can you fuckin’ believe that? There’s another—” 

“Illyn— Dumplin’, you’re rambling. Slow down. What do you mean Markus has been taken?” 

Her shaking hand moved to cover her mouth, to stop the random deluge of information, and she took a deep breath. Right. Priorities. 

“I mean that he called me at two o’clock in the morning almost two days ago and I’m pretty sure that he was kidnapped by something that showed up on one of my augers. Something that scared the shit out of me.” 

“Two- Two days ago.” There was a deep breath over the line and what was possibly a suppressed growl. “Illyn you know the first 48 hours are the most important in these situations. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

Guilt rumbled through her body like the subway overhead at midnight. She bit her lip and sank back down to the floor. Fighting tears. She pressed her back into the cabinet, grounding herself. “Ca-Cause it’s m-my fault.” Her breaths hitched in her chest, oxygen lacking from every inhale. The knobs of her spine dug into the wood behind her. 

“Explain.” The word was short, to the point. 

A whine made its way out of her mouth and she hated how pathetic she sounded. How pathetic she was. “I-I borrowed Markus’s gr-grahm, Clint. I-I was scared and a-asked if I could buh-borrow it and copy it. And—And he didn’t have it—“ she sucks in a wild breath, trying to make the dark spots gathering in front of her eyes go away “—he didn’t—“ she couldn’t say it again. She curled in on herself, her head pounding with tears. 

Clint’s voice softened, just barely, “Dumplin’, this isn’t your fault. Just tell me what happened.” 

She sniffed, snot and mucous slurping up her nose, as she told him what happened. “. . . I swear, Clint, I tried to get there. But he was just gone. He screamed and—and he just wasn’t there. . . . “ She trailed off after giving him all of the information. Her forehead rested against her knees. Exhausted. 

“Okay,” Clint sighed. She could almost see him pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to head up there as soon as I can, but there’s someone closer to you that I think will be able to help. Illyn, I need you to do something for me, okay?” 

“Anything,” she begged. 

“Go take a shower and a nap. You’re exhausted and ya’ can’t help if you’re dead on your feet.” 

Illyn rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “Okay,” she mumbled, “okay.” 

“Illyn,” Clint said, voice catching her attention. “We’ll find him, okay?” 

She swallowed. “Yeah, okay.”  

“I’ll talk to you soon Illyn” 

“Bye Clint.” Illyn hung up the phone and dropped it to the floor with a thump. There was nothing else she could do.  

[kellyvela]

Hound stans confused bravery and chivalry with crudeness, harsh and violent. Abusing and killing the children is not strength but cowardice. His constantly being rough with Sansa and Arya shouldn't be equated with his kindness. It's Sansa and Arya who shamed him and taught him lessons of mercy in different ways. He tried to break both girls but didn't succeed. He never fit the criteria of brave, gentle and strong.

Those shippers really believe that their fave child killer is the ideal person for Sansa.... They talk about their fave villain as if Eddard Stark had been thinking about him when he said the brave gentle and strong line to Sansa.... Ned, honey, I'm so sorry.....

I rolled my eyes so hard when I found several metas claiming that "the hound is the only man that meet Ned's standards", they even elaborated statistics charts that concluded the hound was the only man that was described by Sansa as brave gentle and strong, but they clearly manipulated the facts to reach those results. They discarded all the men that meet Ned's standards but Sansa didn't described; they discarded all the men that Sansa called brave in a general way (e.g. "She sang (...)  for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today"); they discarded the fact that Sansa told to herself "I must be brave, like Robb;" they discarded the fact that Sansa called Sweetrobin brave and strong; and more important, they didn't take into account that most of the times Sansa said those adjectives (brave gentle and strong) to the hound, she didn't do it because she honestly felt it that way, but because she thought it was the courtly and/or right thing to say. She was just being polite and/or kind, and Sansa calling Sweetrobin brave and strong to encourage and calm the fears of the young boy is the best example, but obviously those shippers don't count that in their metas.

Their metas only analyze the text at face value, they never take into account the context or the sub-text. That's cursory reading and/or wishful thinking.

Let's just make a little exercise with some of the quotes they often use to support their metas:

Strong hands grasped her by the shoulders, and for a moment Sansa thought it was her father, but when she turned, it was the burned face of Sandor Clegane looking down at her, his mouth twisted in a terrible mockery of a smile. "You are shaking, girl," he said, his voice rasping. "Do I frighten you so much?" —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Sansa thinking Ned was there to defend her from the hound and Illyn Payne means calling the hound strong it seems.....

Also, they always go for "physical strength," but Ned Stark wasn't talking about "physical strength" only, and we all know that the hound lacks of mental or spiritual strength.

And they never quote the following paragraph, because Sansa being scared of him, wrenching away from his grasp and Lady rumbling a warning, is not good for their ship:

He did [frighten her], and had since she had first laid eyes on the ruin that fire had made of his face, though it seemed to her now that he was not half so terrifying as the other. Still, Sansa wrenched away from him, and the Hound laughed, and Lady moved between them, rumbling a warning. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Let's continue with this quote:

"I'm king now. Dog, get her out of bed." Sandor Clegane scooped her up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she struggled feebly. Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she had only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness. "Do as you're bid, child," Clegane said. "Dress." He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

ALMOST gently???? You mean that it didn't get to be gentle????

And they never quote the following paragraph, because Sansa backing away from the hound is not good for their ship:

Sansa backed away from them. "I did as the queen asked, I wrote the letters, I wrote what she told me. You promised you'd be merciful. Please, let me go home. I won't do any treason, I'll be good, I swear it, I don't have traitor's blood, I don't. I only want to go home." Remembering her courtesies, she lowered her head. "As it please you," she finished weakly. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

And this quote:

"True knights," he mocked. "And I'm no lord, no more than I'm a knight. Do I need to beat that into you?" Clegane reeled and almost fell. "Gods," he swore, "too much wine. Do you like wine, little bird? True wine? A flagon of sour red, dark as blood, all a man needs. Or a woman." He laughed, shook his head. "Drunk as a dog, damn me. You come now. Back to your cage, little bird. I'll take you there. Keep you safe for the king." The Hound gave her a push, oddly gentle, and followed her  down the steps. By the time they reached the bottom, he had lapsed back into a brooding silence, as if he had forgotten she was there. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

WHOA!!!! "True knights," he mocked." "Do I need to beat that into you?" How gentle things to say to a child!!!!

Also, ODDLY gentle???? Oddly, in a way that is different from what is usual or expected; strangely???? You mean that he usually treat you not gentle????

And of course they forget to put the line immediately before, because Sansa being scared of him is not good for their ship:

He was scaring her. "T-true knights, my lord." —A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

And this other quote:

Turning back to the stair, Sansa climbed. The smoke blotted out the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red Keep's tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires everywhere. Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants with torches, and crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the ramparts. Down by the Mud Gate, outlined against the drifting smoke, she could make out the vague shape of the three huge catapults, the biggest anyone had ever seen, overtopping the walls by a good twenty feet. Yet none of it made her feel less fearful. A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

Again, they always go for "physical strength," and we can't deny the hound's brutal force, brutal force that he uses to kill and scare and hurt innocent children.

Also, it's evident that the hound stalked Sansa. He was always following her around the castle hidden in the shadows and I bet he was following Cersei or Joffrey's orders. And I also think Littlefinger did the same with the Kettleblacks, but this is not the time for that speculation....

So, would you describe your stalker as brave and/or gentle and/or strong????

And of course they never quote the following paragraph, because Sansa asking him to let go of her is not good for their ship:

She grabbed a merlon for support, her fingers scrabbling at the rough stone. "Let go of me," she cried. "Let go." —A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

Oh, this quote is a good one (LOL):

She made herself look at that face now, really look. It was only courteous, and a lady must never forget her  courtesies. The scars are not the worst part, nor even the way his mouth twitches. It's his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger. "I . . . I should have come to you after," she said haltingly. "To thank you, for . . . for saving me . . . you were so brave." —A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

"She made herself look at that face now, really look. It was only courteous and a lady must never forget her courtesies (...) you were so brave"

Do I need to say more????

Let's go for the next quote:

Sansa was spared the need to reply when two Kettleblacks reentered the hall. Ser Osmund and his brothers had become great favorites about the castle; they were always ready with a smile and a jest, and got on with grooms and huntsmen as well as they did with knights and squires. With the serving wenches they got on best of all, it was gossiped. Of late Ser Osmund had taken Sandor Clegane's place by Joffrey's side, and Sansa had heard the women at the washing well saying he was as strong as the Hound, only younger and faster. If that was so, she wondered why she had never once heard of these Kettleblacks before Ser Osmund was named to the Kingsguard. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VI

Other people talking about the hound's physical strength is not the same as Sansa mentioning the hound's physical strength, right???

And about Sansa realizing that the Kettleblacks came from nowhere and aren't prestigious knights, I had to read with my own eyes that those shippers think that line, together with this one: "Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had," means that Sansa thinks she had the hound who is superior to any Kettleblack or any other knight suitor of the Tyrell girls.....

Yeah, let's misinterpret Sansa's cleverness with our own lust for our fave pedo killer villain bad boy........

And the last quote:

The blood masked the worst of his scars, but his eyes were white and wide and terrifying. The burnt corner of his mouth twitched and twitched again. Sansa could smell him; a stink of sweat and sour wine and stale vomit, and over it all the reek of blood, blood, blood. "I could keep you safe," he rasped. "They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them." He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VII

Do these shipper really believe that Sansa wanted to be kissed by a man reeking of stale vomit????

"He was too strong to fight" OH WOW!!!! Your stalker and rapist was too strong to fight????

I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THESE PEOPLE

And they have such an air of superiority, and look at every other Sansa ship with such condescension, and they adorn any of their platforms with "proud sawsaw" banners, and they especially hate the creepy shippers (that until jonsa became a notable ship), but they are so blind to realize that their fave and Littlefinger are both predators, child molesters and pedophiles. I mean just read this passage that is a repeated (UN) kiss situation:

Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss . . . before she turned her face away and wrenched free. "What are you doing?" Petyr straightened his cloak. "Kissing a snow maid." "You're supposed to kiss her." Sansa glanced up at Lysa's balcony, but it was empty now. "Your lady wife." —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Both hound and littlefinger pulled Sansa into them without consent but Littlefinger not being "strong" as the hound allowed Sansa to wrenched free from him.

And of course the canine shippers NEVER quote the following passage, because their fave attempting to rape and murder Sansa is nothing good for their ship:

"Still can't bear to look, can you?" she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. "I'll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said." His dagger was out, poised at her throat. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life." —A Clash of Kings - Sansa VII

I don't know how blind you need to be to believe that this individual can be positively described as the brave, gentle and strong person that Ned had in mind for his daughter's husband.

And to end this post, let me tell you that those shippers (the same way they never mention in their multiple Beauty and the Beast metas, that the Beast was a Prince enchanted/cursed to lived in beast form in an enchanted/cursed castle, and not only an ugly guy like their fave), never mention in their multiple brave gentle and strong metas that Ned stablished 4 parameters for Sansa's future husband, not only three.

Indeed, the first parameter that Ned mentioned was that that man needs to be a High Lord.

Is the hound a Prince enchanted/curse to live in beast form in an enchanted/curse castle????

Is the hound a High Lord????

Nah, he's just an ugly guy that enjoys to terrorize and kill and hurt innocent children. So brave and gentle and strong, right????

Thanks for your message :)

about this post

[omegangrins]

Chibnall, Children, Choice and Consequence

Allow me to introduce a companion piece to A Treatise on the Doctor:

It's pretty simple:

Chibnall knows what he's doing and is playing a long game to show how the Doctor needs to take more responsibility.

Let me start off with my favorite examples. That's right, plural.

Every single villain 13 faces is never defeated, merely pushed away from causing them any immediate problems. Tim Shaw being the prime example.

1&10. Seriously, Tim Shaw. Her plan was to use his own bombs on him and then teleport him off the planet. Even without Ranskoor Av Kolos, the Doctor should have thought to check in on him. Especially after The Ghost Monument showed the Stenza were a greater threat than she knew. She still hasn't even checked up on WHAT THE HELL THE STENZA ARE! They sound worse than Daleks but naw, let's go rain-bathing in the upper tropics of Canstano instead.

2. Ghost Monument. We saw the END of an interuniversal race. What the fuck is the beginning that got them there? Who is Illyn and how and why did he orchestrate a super race?

3. Krasko. Sent back in time. Really, Doc? Not gonna take a look at the device and see where Ryan sent the prick so you can double check that he's not gonna cause anymore damage?

4. President Trump analog. Ooooo, you looked at him menacingly, Doc, that'll show him!! Not like he's gonna KEEP DOING ILLEGAL SHIT LIKE THIS.

5. The Pting. She literally shunted it off ship to be dealt with by someone else BUT DOESN'T GO BACK TO BE THAT SOMEONE ELSE ONCE SHE HAS HER TARDIS. That's like leaving a living nuke floating around after sweeping it under the rug while you fly off to Paris.

6. The Pakistani-Indian conflict still happens and millions still die. Not her fault but still....

7. Kerblam. Sure, Charlie's terrorism was solved but not the underlying problem that led to it. Humans still can't work because corporations like profits over people.

8. Similar to the Punjab, how you gonna solve sexism, classism and all the -isms?

9. WHY WAS THE SOLITRACT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE??!! It's been around since before the universe. Why'd it decide to come back now? It's a whole universe trying to hug our universe to death. Maaaaaaybe we should check out why.

11. She's gets a pass on the Dalek. Fucking impossible to eradicate them.

12. The Master!!! Finally she checks up on something after the adventures... and it's horrible. With everything gone to shit in her absence. Seeing a pattern yet?

And Barton? And the Cassaven? They didn't disappear into smoke.

13. Multiple Earths being multiply fucked. Remember when I said the Doctor couldn't solve racism, classism, sexism, or any of the other -isms? Starting to look like she needs to TRY.

14. The Skithra FLY OFF after getting hit by a laser beam. That kind of thing tends to piss people off. Even if they're idiots using other's technology.

15. Jack. The Judoon. The Ruth Doctor. All things I'd start checking out if I had a time machine BUT

16. WE CAN'T cause the TARDIS emergency alert is going off and we need to hurry up and run and solve this problem before we run out of time in our TIME AND SPACE MACHINE. Leading to another problem the Doctor could help solve but won't. Plastic and over-consumption.

17. Oh yeah, let's trap two Eternals from another universe in the same place. There's NO WAY that could ever turn out bad.

18,19,20. And again. Cyberium. Pushed off Shelley onto herself and onto Ashad and onto The Master.

That's almost 20 "enemies" the Doctor still needs to deal with.

Oh, not to mention that they let UNIT go defunct because they didn't have the forethought to ask if they needed any money in their alien fighting budget. After asking for an office, a desk, and a job. Kinda funny that way, aren't they?

I hope by now you've gotten the idea that this is VERY deliberate. This is Chibnall laying down some very heavy pipe to smack the Doctor like a clothesline. There isn't a one of these situations that can't come around to bite her in the ass.

Barton, Roberts, Skithra. These are all very loose strands for a time traveller like the Doctor to get tripped up on. Chibnall's past episodes prove it. They're all about the Doctor learning how to take responsibility.

42: The Doctor almost gets Martha killed and almost gets himself killed trying to fix it.

The Hungry Earth: The Doctor (a thousand year old "adult") tells Elliot (a 10 year old kid) that "Sure it's totally fine to go get your headphones while we prepare for an approaching unknown alien force." And 11 rightfully gets his ass chewed for it by the child's mother when the kid goes missing because OF COURSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, JACKASS!

Cold Blood: I could write an entire essay about the Doctor's guilt over the Silurian/Human conflicts they've witnessed, but I don't need to. Because every single Silurian centered episode written in the new era is from Chris Chibnall. And you can feel the sad knowledge of Classic Who spill through. He KNOWS how many times the Doctor has fucked up with the Silurians (about 8 times in television format. And it's rough everytime. Rough.) and he writes those episodes like an apology on behalf of the whole human race. And the Doctor. You know why people are put off by Warriors of the Deep? 5 releases a gas that melts the Silurians. And though it's cheesy, the idea and execution is still horrible.

Add to that if the Doctor hadn't stopped to check the crack, then Rory wouldn't have waited and been around to be shot then absorbed by the time crack.

Power of Three: An entire episode about how the Doctor has a problem slowing down and really taking account of the lives of their companions.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: The Doctor actually tries to be responsible and pick the right people for a job. For once. But gets angry when they realize it's too late and there's another bunch of Silurians they failed to save. Classic!

Like I said, if you can't see the pattern, you're not paying enough attention to your responsibilites.

Which leads me to the why.

When you fly around time and space for thousands of years, you develop a few duties of care along the way. In every situation, you're the oldest. Technically the only adult in terms of experience. You have a responsibility to act a little less rude and be a bit more aware than needing cue cards to tell you that you should be sad about things around you. And that's the purpose of 13. She's unlucky but learning. Like 12 telling himself something with his face he couldn't say out loud, 13's instincts are leading her to a new place for the Doctor: being a caring, responsible person. Not so much laughing hard or running fast, but being kind. It's the one thing they recognized as a problem in themselves when seeing 1. Being a Doctor is about being kinder than that. Just because you HAVE to saw someone's leg off, that doesn't mean you can't wait a little and comfort them before you do it.

You wanna know what gave me every faith in Chibnall showrunning Doctor Who? 13 staying for Grace's funeral.

Do you understand how unprecedented that is? This is the same person who never said Goodbye to Jo Grant as she got married and fucked off into the night. The same Doctor who said, "I don't do domestic.", did it with Rose a regeneration later, and then closed himself off to everyone but a married couple he felt guilty about who ended up birthing his wife. Have you any idea the number of funerals the Doctor should have the common decency to sit through? This many.

So for 13 to stay around for the death of a woman she has only just met and not only that, BUT call out Ryan's father for not doing the same, it shows tremendous character growth. It's taken millennia but they're still changing.

Something similar happens with Rosa and The Witchfinders. Realizing that there a lot of companions who have been in situations that are sometimes worse than aliens, but they still manage to make it through. So she needs to buck it up and persevere for everyone else.

That's where her anger comes from, and really it's one of my favorite traits on her. It reminds me of 7. Someone impossibly old and impossibly kind saying to hell with it and at least having some fun with the evils who drag us through the universe. And just like Cartmel planned for 7, 13's past will come to haunt her.

That's where children come in. Most of us are crying babies to the Doctor.

There's this thing you notice most in British shows about answering the question directly as asked. Someone says "Are you sure?", you answer "Sure". That's a direct acknowledgement that you heard the question, understood it, and processed it enough to respond in a manner directly correlating to the question asked. Yas and Graham got it and said "Sure" but Ryan missed it and said "Deffo". This is like Elliot with the headphones. The Doctor should have immediately been like, "Okay, Ryan, it's obvious that you're still dealing with the trauma of your grandmother's death and probably not processing things on a logical level. I said "Are you sure?" Not "Are you deffo?" Because we are most definitely not deffo, Ryan. Graham, you wanna help here?"

I'm being sarcastic for points sake but you understand the idea. The Doctor knows better and has a responsibility as such. She should've really sat down with Ryan and Graham and seen if there was a better way to process their grief.

Because I'm fairly certain that "Deffo" is gonna lead to Ryan's death and Graham's cancer resurging as time cancer (I don't know what time cancer is. I just know it's bad.)

And that is gonna piss Yas off. Which will give you all that character you think she's missing (she isn't. Her character is in her subtleties and silences.). That's WHY her character is a police officer (like how does no else see that the man who wrote Broadchurch wrote an inspector character companion?) Imagine you're Yaz and you see the Doctor flying around in a big, magic box that says POLICE. As a fellow officer, you're gonna expect some basic safety protocols.

Like do a background check on everyone flying in the TARDIS to know whether they're stable enough (mentally, physically, emotionally) for time and space travel. It's no picnic. These people are going to go through hell. A little vetting and planning like Time Heist or Dinosaurs on a Spaceship goes a long way.

Secondly, full fucking disclosure.

"Oh. I can't die because I change my body. Oh. I have arch enemies that will try to kill and torture us any chance they get. Oh. My home planet is full of the biggest assholes in the universe and I'm including my arch enemies."

Third, police like to do this thing called "check-ups" where they go back to the scene of the crime in order to see if there is any more information that can be gleaned which you might not notice when you are busy running around trying not to be killed... Like, the Doctor has the perfect machine to do this with, but nope. Adventure done, run to the next place!!

These are all things you'd expect any reasonable person to do and say when taking others flying off into time and space and "helping". Even if they are an idiot passing through and learning. Especially when you consider the Doctor is vastly older and more experienced than everyone they encounter. They SHOULD know better. And they've got the lifespan to slow down. It's not like they need to be in a hurry because they're going to die at any moment like humans. The Doctor could easily stay for tea and it would be less than a drop in their lifespan.

Now, as usually is the case when I make these theories, I have a parts 1,2,3,4 and 6. There's allways this 5th piece I miss but I manage to get at the end.

But the 6th piece is the Timeless Child. The Doctor isn't a Time Lord anymore. They're not beholden to those people and ideas anymore. Even moreso, those people basically raped her childhood for their own gain so it's not like you'd really listen to them and their "policy of non-intervention".

I'm sensing a coming Trial of a Time Lord season (even believing these two seasons are the opening statement and preliminary evidence of the trial itself) wherein the Doctor finally gets the turnaround 6 deserved. A Trial of the Time Lords, if you will.

"In all my travels through time and space I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here! The oldest civilization: decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core! Power mad conspirators? Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — they're still in the nursery compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power: that's what it takes to be really corrupt!"

This is what it's all coming down to. Chibnall's takedown of the Time Lords. And The Master is going to play the most crucial role of all.

They're going to be revealed as an Ux alongside the Doctor and show how the only constants they have in this universe are each other and it's about damn time they work together and tell these high collars to eat Schitt while they explore every star and planet they can find.

Come on, the episode is called The Timeless "Children". If it was just the Doctor it'd be called "The Timeless Child". The Master says as much with the misdirect line, "built on the lie of the Timeless Child." since we see two kids playing in that flashback.

"Since always. Since the Cloister Wars, since the night he stole the moon and the president's wife, since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie, can you guess which one?"

Now we know which one was a lie, we know the Master HAS known the Doctor since they were a little girl. THAT little girl...

But this is all just speculation. It's not like Chris Chibnall could have been thinking about this for the past 40 years and was given a blank slate to do whatever he wanted for five years on his favorite TV show. If y'all want to think he took those reigns and is choosing to make things worse...

Well then you don't know much about responsibility.

I'll let the man himself tell you about it.

"Very early in my career,” says Chibnall, “someone told me that you learn more from a failure than you do from a success. And then I lived out that phrase for a year in Los Angeles. I learned that I would not work that way again or be put in that situation again.” The essential lesson was: “You either have to be in total control of a show or working with people who share your vision and will work with you to achieve it. Also, never work with 13 executive producers.

“Camelot was the classic case of too many cooks. It wasn’t a harmonious set-up and I think that does manifest itself on screen.

“I had a fantastic cast but you have to be free to tell the story you want to tell in the way that you want to tell it. What ended up on screen was not what I wanted and so it is a blemish on my CV.”

Credit to @thirteenthdoc

“You immortals - so entitled, so spoiled. You never clear up after yourselves and you always leave stuff lying around.” - Thirteenth Doctor in Can You Hear Me?

[sydneysageivashkov]

Everything We Are (Is There On Our Faces) 1/?

It started, once upon a time, with Ned Stark finding a litter of orphaned dire wolf cubs, with Robert Baratheon riding for Winterfell, with Ned becoming Hand of the King in the viper’s pit that was King’s Landing.

It restarts like this:

Arya and Sansa wake up as children again, a message ringing in their ears. The Old Gods need Westeros to be strong and united to defend the Wall, and the Old Gods don't forget oaths easily.

(Time travel AU. Eventual Sansa/Theon, Arya/Gendry, Jaime/Brienne.)

AO3 | FF.net

It started, once upon a time, with Ned Stark finding a litter of orphaned dire wolf cubs, with Robert Baratheon riding for Winterfell, with Ned becoming Hand of the King in the viper’s pit that was King’s Landing.

It restarted like this:

Sansa bolted upright in her bed, hand flying to her throat as she gasped for breath. There had been cold hands around her throat only seconds ago, closing tight –

Sister, a voice whispered.

“Bran?” she gasped, staring around the almost familiar room wildly.

It took all the magic that I possess to do this; to fling you back to the beginning. There will not be another chance. Westeros must face the Others united. I know that you are capable of this. Good luck, sister.

“Bran,” she whispered. He did not respond. “Bran!” Only silence met her.

Sansa threw the covers back and ran to the hallways. It was Winterfell, she realised that now – Winterfell, that had burnt under the Golden Company’s torches, as Jon and Daenerys fought to stop the wights’ advance on Winterfell just north of the castle.

She flew into her chambers, slamming the door behind her. She leant against it and gulped in a few desperate breaths of air.

In the bed, a figure bolted upright. Ramsay, she thought, hysterically. It’s Ramsay, he’s come for me, he’s come –

“Sansa?” asked her father, as Catelyn sat up next to him. “What’s wrong?”

Sansa stared at them, shaking her head slightly. It couldn’t be them. How could it be them?

Before she could even begin to conjure a response, she was knocked aside as the door slammed open again and Arya barrelled into the room.

“Sansa, I need you!” cried Arya, before stopping abruptly at the sight in the bed.

“Arya?” asked Catelyn.

Sansa, I need you. Arya had been looking for her. This, Sansa could handle. “Arya?”

“I just heard…” Arya’s voice stumbled as she continued to stare, thunderstruck, at their parents. “I heard Bran. In my head. I need your help. He told me -”

“That Westeros needs to stand united and that this was our last chance,” finished Sansa. Arya jerked her head around to look at Sansa. “I heard him. He must have been talking to both of us.”

“He only called me sister,” whispered Arya.

“Girls!” interrupted Catelyn. “What is going on?”

“Do you think this is real?” asked Sansa. “Do you think he’s really capable of pushing us back?”

Slowly, Arya nodded. “He said that he was the one to make Hodor, Hodor,” she said. “He told me when I asked him what the Three Eyed Raven could do. He skinchanged into Hodor in the past.”

Sansa turned to look at her parents, who were watching her and Arya worriedly. “Mother,” she said, her voice breaking. “Father.”

Arya moved first, throwing herself on to the bed and her arms around Ned. Sansa picked up her skirts and ran to the other side of the bed, flinging herself into her mother’s arms.

Catelyn stroked Sansa’s hair carefully, and Sansa felt a sob well up inside her. “Mother,” she whispered, snuggling deeper into Catelyn’s hug.

“Girls,” said Ned. “What on earth is going on?”

Sansa squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears from leaking out, not knowing how to begin answering that question. “Nightmare,” mumbled Arya after a long, silent moment.

Sansa felt her breath slowly evening out. She could tell that her parents were trading worried looks above her and Arya’s heads. Sansa met Arya’s eyes from across the bed. As she watched, Arya’s eyes wet eyes slowly solidified into steely determination. Sansa nodded slightly, minutely enough that Catelyn wouldn’t notice.

They were going to fix everything.

-

Sansa woke, more peacefully than she had the night before, slowly blinking her bleary eyes open. Arya was curled up next to her, the both of them cocooned between their parents. Sansa reached out and touched her sister’s shoulder gently, who jerked awake instantly at the touch. Sansa had only a moment to register the panic in Arya’s grey eyes before Arya’s eyes settled on Sansa and she relaxed.

“We need to talk,” whispered Sansa. Arya nodded in response and picked herself up, silently and smoothly, and crept off the bed. Sansa couldn’t help feeling like a clumsy horse as she followed Arya out into the hallway.

As Sansa eased the door closed behind them, Arya demanded, “What exactly did Bran say to you?”

Sansa glanced both ways down the hall to check there was no one around to overhear. Arya rolled her eyes at Sansa and crossed her arms impatiently. “He said that he used all of his magic to give us one last chance, and that he knew I was capable of keeping Westeros strong and united,” answered Sansa. “Was it the same to you? The exact same?”

Arya pushed her hair – so much longer than she had worn it only last night – out of her face and nodded. “The exact same.” She looked up at Sansa. “We can save Father and Mother and Robb and Rickon.”

“We can save everyone,” agreed Sansa. “They’re alive, now. They’re all alive…” She trailed off, her breath quickening. Joffrey. Ramsay. Petyr.

“We can win the war before it even begins!” said Arya, her voice sounding tinny and distant. Joffrey. Ramsay. Petyr. Ramsay. Joffrey. Gods, oh Gods.

I need to be brave. I need to be brave like my lady mother. Like Robb. Like Arya. Ramsay, Joffrey, Petyr. Ramsay Joffrey Petyr -

“Sansa? Sansa, can you hear me?” Arya’s voice broke through to Sansa. Sansa blinked, and Arya was suddenly right in front of her, hovering anxiously. As Sansa focused on her, Arya’s face grew hard. “We’ll kill them, Sansa. We’ll kill each and everyone of them. Joffrey, Cersei, Illyn Payne -”

Ramsay, Joffrey, Petyr.

“Ramsay,” whispered Sansa, her voice strangely hoarse. “Ramsay Bolton. We kill him first.”

Arya grabbed Sansa’s shoulders and squeezed them. “Ramsay Bolton,” she repeated. “He’ll be at the top of my list.”

Sansa grasped for a way to pull herself out of the spiral. “The war,” she remembered. “We need to stop the war. We need to stop Littlefinger before he can start it.”

Arya nodded. “I can take care of that.”

“No!” Sansa’s voice rang through the hallway, and she desperately tried to reign her runaway emotions back in. “He’ll already have his fingers in so many pies. We can’t risk the power vacuum just killing him will create.”

Footsteps sounded from further down the corridor and Arya grabbed Sansa by the wrist roughly and pulled her down the hall. “We need to go somewhere we won’t be disturbed,” Arya said through gritted teeth.

“You never know who’s a little bird,” Sansa agreed faintly. She realised where Arya was taking her within only a few turns, and soon enough they spilled into the Godswood. Sansa nestled herself in the roots of the heart tree. There was a slight chill in the air, but Sansa barely noticed it; it was nothing compared to the bone-chilling cold she had felt in the crypts, the kind of cold that made you want to lie down and never get up again. Like a million pinpricks of ice forcing their way under her skin, so cold they burned. And then there had been the hands wrapping around her throat…

Sansa shivered, and pulled her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders.

Arya knelt in front of Sansa. “We can’t leave Littlefinger alive,” she said, breaking the silence they had kept since they fled from the servant’s footsteps. “He caused everything. He’s the reason Father died. Why are you protecting him?” She hurled the words at Sansa like an accusation.

Sansa took a deep breath and counted to three. She dug her fingers into the earth, relishing the grass tickling at her palms and the cool, damp earth getting under her nails. When she felt her breathing return to some semblance of normal, she replied, “He’s been building towards this for years. He’s manipulated Aunt Lysa; he’s wormed himself into the Small Council and has the whole economy of the Seven Kingdoms ready to collapse. His aim is chaos: he wants to use it as a ladder for himself, but what he’s created won’t disappear just because he has.”

“So we just leave him there?” asked Arya incredulously.

“I can handle Petyr,” said Sansa, firmly. Her voice didn’t shake, and she kept her hands resting in her lap so that they couldn’t give her away.

Arya shook her head. “You’re playing with fire,” she warned.

Sansa lifted her chin. “Winter is coming. Maybe we need a little fire.” Arya glared at her, crossing her arms across her chest. Sansa softened slightly, and said, “We don’t even know how long we are. We can plan. We know what Joffrey’s like better than maybe anybody else; we know what Littlefinger is; we even know about how the Lannisters will wage the war, if it comes to that. We know Daenerys Targaryen will hatch three dragons in the Dothraki Sea and raise them to be the Black Dread come again.” Sansa leaned forwards and took Arya’s hands in hers. “We know about the things that no one else will be able to see coming. I know who Littlefinger is, but as far as he knows, I’m a sheltered little dove who knows nothing of the world. I can handle him.”

Arya still looked doubtful, but she rose, dragging Sansa up with her. “We should tell Father,” she said. “Mother, too. They can help.”

“They won’t believe us,” said Sansa flatly, dropping Arya’s hands.

“They will if we can prove it,” insisted Arya. “You spent time in the Eyrie; you can tell Father all about the castle. I’ve ridden through the Riverlands. We know people who we’ve never met. We both know things about dragons and about the Others that Old Nan won’t have told us.”

“What happened to us is impossible, Arya,” said Sansa. “They don’t know anything of magic, not really. Just the old stories that Old Nan tells us, and Mother thinks they’re nursery tales made to scare children, and Father thinks they’re about things that died out years and years and years ago.”

“Then we can send ravens to Uncle Benjen,” said Arya. “It can’t be that long, from the look of you, until that deserter came through talking about the Others. If we can at least convince him to investigate, he can tell Mother and Father that we’re right about the Others and they won’t be able to ignore us any longer.”

Sansa pursed her lips, unconvinced. She couldn’t see anyway to convince her father – let alone her mother, who thought that the Others were as real as grumpkins – of the Others, not when she had barely believed a castle full of the Night’s Watch and wildlings telling her, not when she had struggled to believe in magic even after she saw the scars cutting across Jon’s chest. There had been a part of her that was expecting the dragons to be overgrown curiosities until they had soared over the walls of Winterfell, and the Others to still be a fairy story until they had assembled outside Winterfell right before the end.

And even if they believed that – would they believe in the people their childhood friends had become? Would Ned believe how the Demon of the Trident was dead already, with Robert having given himself over to all of his flaws? Would Catelyn believe the evil that Littlefinger was capable of, or would Catelyn try to find ways of rationalising or justifying his actions so that he could still be the little boy in Riverrun?

“It’ll be safer to work in the shadows,” she said, instead, because she doubted that she could sway Arya on the matter of their parents’ belief. “If people like Cersei or Varys or Littlefinger can track any interference back to us, then we’re in danger.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “Sansa, look at us. You aren’t the Lady of Winterfell anymore. How are you planning on affecting what’s happening in King’s Landing as what looks like -” Arya quickly swept her gaze over Sansa critically – “a twelve year old girl in Winterfell?”

“Father tried playing the game, and he died for it,” snapped Sansa. “If we get him involved, we can’t protect him.”

Arya worried her lower lip thoughtfully. “We can’t protect him from Joffrey,” said Arya, eventually. “Joffrey is mad; he’ll break any script we set for him eventually. If we tell Mother and Father, then they have warning of what we’ll be dealing with.”

Sansa set her jaw and looked behind her at the face of the heart tree. Is this what you wanted? she wondered. Were we only meant to be the three blasts of the horn, nothing more?

She closed her eyes and turned her head back to Arya. “Forewarned is forearmed,” she murmured to herself.

“Exactly!” exclaimed Arya. Sansa opened her eyes to see Arya turning away, ready to move inside. Sansa grabbed at her hand again and pulled her back.

“Arya,” she said, not certain where to begin. “Can we… Can we just have this morning? Just a regular morning with our brothers. We can see Robb and Rickon and Bran again.” She almost regretted including Bran – he had still been alive – but he hadn’t been Bran, had he? Bran had said as much multiple times.

Arya stared at her for a long moment before nodding slowly. “We can tell Father that we need to talk to him at breakfast,” said Arya. “But he won’t have time to talk to us for a little while at least, anyway.”

Sansa followed Arya back into the castle. Nervous excitement ate at her stomach, and she couldn’t help glancing into every room, down every hallway, soaking in the Winterfell of their youth. She trailed her hands over the stone walls, rough and cool under her hands. They passed Ser Rodrik in the training yard, setting up for the morning in the training yard, and Maester Luwin in the corridors by the Great Hall. Sansa’s heart was hammering furiously in her chest by the time they reached the doors to the Great Hall.

“Ready?” whispered Arya.

Robb was behind those doors. Bran and Rickon were behind those doors. Their parents were behind those doors. They would be talking and laughing and they wouldn’t know anything about what was coming for them all, but they would be alive.

“I think so,” said Sansa, squaring her shoulders.

Arya grabbed the dark steel handle and hesitated. “I’m not – I’m not what they remember, Sansa.”

“I know,” said Sansa. “You terrified me, coming home and talking about your list of people to kill. You were so different to when we were small.” Arya blinked and looked down at the floor, so Sansa hurried on, “But you’re still Arya, and just as I’m still Sansa even after everything they did to us. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, remember?”

Arya looked up and gave a tiny, jerky nod. With a deep breath, she pushed the doors open. Sansa slipped in behind Arya and looked, instinctively, for Robb, thinking You were going to bring me his head –

She stopped short when she found Robb. He was standing between the High Table and all the others, looking down at his feet in confusion and exasperation – because at his feet was Theon Greyjoy, sobbing and rocking back and forth ever so slightly. Sansa picked up her skirts and ran to Robb’s side.

“Reek, reek,” garbled Theon between broken sobs. “Rhymes with meek. Reek, reek…”

“Sansa, you should probably go back to your room,” said Robb, trying to shift between her and Theon. “Septa Mordane can bring you – and Arya – your breakfast there.”

Sansa ignored him, slipping past him and kneeling next to Theon. He hadn’t noticed her yet, his hands covering his face. “Theon,” she said, as calmly as she could, loud enough for him to hear.

He jerked his head back and forth, insisting “Reek, reek, my name is Reek.”

“Your name is Theon Greyjoy,” she said more forcefully. “Can you hear me, Theon? Ramsay isn’t here. It’s only me. It’s only Sansa. Ramsay’s gone.”

Theon had stopped whispering to himself, but sobs were still racking at his shoulders.

“We ran, do you remember?” she said, keeping her voice soothing. “You told me that you would die to get me to the Wall, but you didn’t have to. I fed Ramsay to his own dogs, and you came back to me in Winterfell.”

Theon peeked at her through the fingers, shoulders slumping as he saw her. “Sansa?” he whispered.

“Look at me, Theon, only at me,” she told him, gently taking his hand in hers. “We’ve got another chance, you and me. Can you feel your fingers?” She ran her hands over them lightly, soft as the first breath of snow.

Theon grasped her hands. “How, Sansa? The Night King was there – there was no one left. I was ready to die for Bran, I was.”

Sansa swallowed thickly. “I think you did, Theon. Did you hear a voice, when you woke up? Did you hear Bran?”

Theon nodded slowly. “He told me to fulfil my oaths.”

“I died, too,” she said. “The dead rose in the crypts, and then I woke up in my own bed, and Bran was telling me that I had to keep Westeros safe. We have a second chance at everything, Theon. Ramsay won’t ever touch either of us, not this time.”

“Don’t think that I’ll forget.” Sansa glanced up to see Arya behind her, glaring down at Theon. He cringed into Sansa’s side.

“Not now, Arya,” hissed Sansa.

“No,” snapped Arya. “He still did it. He made those choices. I won’t forget it.”

Sansa squeezed Theon’s hands comfortingly, and said, “He did make those choices, just like I still made those choices to go to Cersei back in King’s Landing. I lived with that every day of my life, just as Theon lived with what he did and what was done to him.” She brushed her fingers over Theon’s, a gentle reminder that he was here with her, not in the dungeons of the Dreadfort. “We have a second chance to make better decisions, Arya, all three of us. It was Bran he did wrong, not you or me, and evidently Bran thought he was worth saving.”

Arya hissed, air escaping between her gritted teeth. She knelt down to be level with Theon, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I trust my brother,” she said. “But if you do a single thing to hurt anybody in this castle, I will gut you. Do you hear me? There won’t be anywhere you can run from me.”

“That’s enough,” snapped Sansa. “We’re going to have to work together, Arya. We can’t be at each other’s throats the whole time.”

Arya looked back to Theon. “Just so long as we understand each other,” she said with false calmness, and stood up in a fluid motion. Then, in shock, Arya exclaimed, “Father!”

Sansa looked up. Ned Stark was standing over them, his expression dark. She had been so wrapped up in Theon that she hadn’t even noticed him approach, and she had no idea how much he had heard. Standing shoulder to shoulder with her father, though, was Robb – and he certainly had heard every word. Sansa bit back several choice, uncharacteristic curse words; Gods knew that Robb – good, decent, honourable, impulsive Robb – was the last person they needed to hear about their situation right now. But it was all her fault: in her rush to comfort Theon, to pull him out of the dark place she had barely escaped entering only an hour earlier, she had forgotten her brother entirely. At the High Table, though still close enough to overhear them, was Catelyn, who was watching all three as if she didn’t recognise any of them.

Sansa let go of one of Theon’s hands so that they could stand, but held the other fast, keeping him anchored in the here and now with her. He tried to let go as Robb’s eyes latched on to their joined hands, but she held on stubbornly, lifting her chin defiantly at her brother. She had no need for his protection.

Ned looked between the three of them, taking in each of their expressions, before he said, “I believe that we need to talk.”

[anoldwound]

with one hand, i’m steel - Jaime/Brienne [ASOIAF]

Title: with one hand, i'm steel Characters/Pairings: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth Rating: R Word Count: ~3900 Warnings: Sexual content, language, mild violence. Summary: “It's only normal that you're not going to be as adept with your left hand; you've used your right hand your whole life! Do you think you can just casually re-learn everything you spent your entire life doing the opposite way?” Brienne helps Jaime learn to fight without his sword hand. Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, and neither does the world they inhabit. A/N:         This is part of the Made of Steel series, but can be read as a stand-alone fic. And I still haven't read A Dance With Dragons yet, so my apologies if there are any inconsistencies.    Spoilers ahead for all of the books. (also at AO3) She was no longer the Maid of Tarth. Brienne, Jaime, and Pod had taken refuge under a willow tree as the storm started to slow. Pod was emptying the snow out of his shoes, as Jaime shook it out of his hair. Brienne just leaned against the trunk and watched. It was still so surreal, everything that had occurred up until this moment. Their escape from the Brotherhood, her shouted promise to Lady Stoneheart as she'd climbed atop her horse and galloped away. Finding Jaime, Pod, and Ser Hyle underneath a tree just like this one. Jaime's face when he had seen she was still alive. And later, at the inn, unspoken realizations and – most unbelievable of all – losing her maidenhead to the Kingslayer. But it didn't feel as though she had “lost” anything. She had heard so many tales of such intense pain, roughness, and blood from her septas and other women, and while it had certainly not been very comfortable, it was nothing compared to Jaime and his fingers, touching and caressing. His lips, soft against hers, beard scratching her chin. Her heart swelled, and she brushed her hand against her mouth absent-mindedly at the memory. She could hardly wait for it to happen again – that is, if he still even wanted to. She was finding it difficult to fathom that he was... well, feeling what she was feeling. Even though he had literally thrown Ser Hyle out of the inn after finding out about his participation in the contest to take her virginity. Even though they had made love twice the night before. Part of her still believed it to be part of some kind of elaborate joke. “Should we get moving, ser? My lady?” Pod asked. His shoes had been emptied, and he was hastily strapping them back on his feet. “Oh, yes, that reminds me,” said Jaime. “Brienne, may I borrow Oathkeeper for a moment?” “What? Why?” “I just want to see it.” His good hand was extended towards her. He's not going to take it away, is he? Brienne reluctantly removed her sword from its sheath and placed it in his hand. The Valyrian steel seemed even more beautiful in Jaime's grasp, his bright green eyes examining it closely. “Please kneel,” Jaime said, his eyes meeting hers. “Excuse me?” “Kneel, Brienne.” He held the sword across his golden fist. Utterly perplexed, she asked, “Why?” “Just do it.” When she continued to stand stupidly in front of him, he groaned and said, “Gods, Brienne, I'm trying to knight you.” Is he serious? Yes, she could not doubt it. He was looking at her expectantly, a hint of exasperation in his handsome features. Almost as though beyond her will, her knee fell to the snow, her head bowed. As his sword – her sword – touched her right shoulder, then her left, she struggled to hold back the tears of joy she knew could escape at a moment's notice. Was this really happening? This was nearly better than last night... in some ways, it was better. This is everything I ever wanted, and all at once. “I, Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and Warden of the East, do hereby name you Ser Brienne of Tarth, from this day until your last day. Do you swear by the Seven to uphold the laws of the Seven Kingdoms, to honor your family, to honor your king, and to bring glory to his name? To protect the weak and the innocent? To die with a sword in your hand?” “I swear.” Her voice was quivering. “Then rise.” Brienne shakily stood to her feet, overwhelmed to her bones. Jaime presented Oathkeeper to her, bowing deeply. She took it back and clumsily slid it back into its sheath. “Jaime,” she said, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes, despite her best efforts. “Thank you. Thank you.” “Come now, knights don't cry.” But he was grinning. “Can you... can you do that, though?” Pod asked. He looked amazed. “Make a woman a knight?” “I can do as I please,” Jaime replied. Unable to contain herself any longer, Brienne threw her arms around him so forcefully they both fell back a little. Jaime laughed and hugged her back, and for a moment nuzzled his beard against the crook of her neck, before removing himself from her grip. “I should've done it ages ago,” he said. He was still holding onto her shoulders, and he was looking at her with such affection that Brienne felt a rush of warmth throughout her whole body. “If I'd had any sense, anyway.” Pod coughed loudly, and they sprang apart as though struck by lightning. “I guess we should, uh, be going, huh?” Pod was smiling at them so widely Brienne was surprised his mouth did not extend past his face. “I suppose so.” She looked up, the flurries of snowflakes still falling from the sky. “The question is, where?” “Where were you headed originally?” Jaime asked. “Riverrun.” “Well, Sansa Stark is most definitely not there,” he said. “Or, if she was, she has somehow managed to change her appearance entirely, including her face, which I find somewhat difficult to believe. Is there anywhere else you were going to try?” “We were going to go to the Vale at first,” Brienne said. “But Lady Lysa has been killed. It's unlikely that Sansa would have taken refuge there with her aunt dead.” “Perhaps.” He looked thoughtful, but said no more. “Shall we set for Winterfell, ser? My Lady? I mean, Ser?” “It seems that's the only place left to search. At least until we find another lead.” She turned to Jaime. “What do you think?” He didn't say anything for a moment. “Winterfell is burned to the ground. Sansa knows this. I find it far more likely that she's in the Vale than there. When she escaped the castle, Lady Lysa had not yet met her fate through the Moon Door. It's possible Sansa got there before this occurred, and is there still, maybe even under an alias, in order to allay suspicion.” She had to admit that this made a lot of sense, and felt like an imbecile for not thinking of it earlier. “So, the Eyrie, then?” “Yes,” Jaime said. “It's the best thing we've got to go on at the moment... until, as you said, we find a new lead.” “Are you sure you're... do you want... doesn't the king need you? Or... the queen? Your sister?” Brienne stumbled over her words, a tremor in her hands. Jaime's gaze turned cool, though she was reasonably certain the coldness was not meant for her. “Tommen shall get on fine without me, for the moment. As for my sister...” He turned away, his shoulders stiff. “I couldn't care less what she needs and doesn't need.” “Oh. Okay.” What did he mean? Was it possible that... no, she was being stupid. Who would choose Brienne the “Beauty” over the actual, legendarily beautiful Cersei Lannister? If she looks at all like her brother, she must be something to behold indeed. Wait, was she really in a situation where she was in romantic competition with her lover's sister? What in the world was her life? She tried not to think about it any further as they gathered their belongings (sans the horse, which Ser Hyle had taken when ejected from their group), and began their trek to the Eyrie. There was no time to linger on such matters. Their journey was to be a long and perilous one, especially now that winter had come, and there were more important things at stake than if Jaime Lannister would rather be with her, or the queen (his sister). It certainly didn't feel less important, though. * * * It was twilight when they approached another inn. It was a larger one than the last, but just as deserted. “Not a lot of travelers on the roads these days,” Jaime observed. “Can't blame them.” The war was really taking its toll on Westeros' population. She could only hope it would end soon, before the winter's frost became even worse. Who knew how many more lives would be lost if this war continued to drag on? She almost didn't care who won at this point. As long as it wasn't Stannis. I will still get my revenge, one day, she vowed to herself. The trio went inside, the large oak door swinging shut loudly behind them – or perhaps it only seemed so loud because the place was completely bereft of people, save for a small woman behind the bar and a man sharpening an axe by a  window coated with snow. The pair immediately rushed towards them and chattered greetings as they ushered them further inside. Jaime tossed them a few coins, much to their apparent joy, and they pulled out seats at a dining table for them. “We'll get a meal for you folks right away,” the woman promised, and followed the man into the back. “This is a nice inn,” Pod said, and Brienne agreed. The ceiling was incredibly high, and a beautiful wooden chandelier hung from its rafters. Small, clear jewels dangled from the ends. The tables and floors were made of a rich mahogany, and the carpets were a lush red. The only ugly sight in the place were the piles of dust. This inn must have been for lords and other nobles at one point. Everyone had fallen on hard times, it seemed. “Excuse me,” Jaime asked the man, who had just emerged from the kitchens, “would you happen to have a practice yard here?” “We do, m'lord. Over by the stables.” “Perfect.” He turned to Brienne. “I'll need your assistance after dinner.” “With what?” “Ser Illyn Payne was helping me – well, that is to say, attempting to help me learn to fight with my left hand. I'd like for you to take over this duty of his, since he is no longer here. If it pleases you, of course.” “I'd be honored.” She wasn't sure how much help she could be – she'd never attempted sword-fighting with the wrong hand, and didn't know how to go about teaching him – but if Jaime wanted her to aid him, she would try in every way she possibly could. After a filling dinner of salted cod and potatoes, with just a little red wine (which Jaime had accidentally spilled on the carpet, but everyone except her pretended not to notice), Pod went up to his chambers while Brienne and Jaime headed out to the practice yard. It was darker out now, and the smell of horse dung clung to the air. She wrinkled her nose at the foul odor. At least the snow had finally stopped. Jaime had outfitted himself with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his left hand. It didn't look natural. He seemed ungainly and awkward. Perhaps he's better with his sword than he looks. She hoped so. They both stood ready. “On my count,” Jaime said. “One... two... three!” Immediately Brienne could see that Jaime was not the fighter that he had once been. His swings were messy and inaccurate, he was unable to block her attacks effectively, and he constantly moved in the wrong direction. She was barely trying and she was giving him a hell of a beating. She decided to change tactics, just to see if he could fight at all. She switched to merely dodging and blocking his sword as opposed to being on the offense. He was still terrible. He only managed to make contact with her once, and that was because she had stumbled over a sudden slope in the terrain. This is pathetic, she thought, and instantly felt awful for thinking it, but it was still true. Sweat had gathered on Jaime's forehead, a heavy and determined glare fixed on his face. She found herself feeling such profound pity for him that she simply stood as he hacked away at her armor. “Why aren't you fighting back?!” he demanded. His sword slammed against her leg, but she hardly felt it. “Don't just stand there! Give me your best!” If I gave you my best, you would be dead. But she went back to slashing at him anyway, and could practically feel her heart break as Jaime tried and tried and tried but was unable to fend her off. This was not the man who had fought her so well at the creek that, had he not been in chains, might have managed to beat her. Brienne could not imagine what he was going through. To be incapable of... he was just as much of a knight and fighter as she was. They both lived and breathed swordplay. She knew that he, too, was only truly alive with steel in his hand and an enemy's throat against his blade. His blood rushing in his ears and coursing through his veins. It was clear he would never be able to feel that way again. So much time passed. The moon was high and gleaming in the night sky, which was littered with stars. They were both panting, Jaime even more so, clearly exhausted. His armor was scratched to the seven hells and back, while Brienne was no worse for the wear.   “This is pointless,” she said, doubled over from tiredness. She cast her sword to the side. “Pointless?” He looked so hurt and angry that it cut deeper than his sword had. “It's pointless?” “I'm sorry, Jaime,” she said, and she was. “I don't think... you're not going to be able to do this right away. You would need years of training, and that's time we don't – ” Jaime barked with cruel laughter, and threw his own sword onto the ground. It bounced and landed by the horses. “I see, wench, I see. I'm just a hopeless cause, am I? A helpless little cub? Gods, I should never have knighted you. You can't even teach a man to swing a sword!” “You're not being fair,” Brienne snapped. “It's only normal that you're not going to be as adept with your left hand; you've used your right hand your whole life! Do you think you can just casually re-learn everything you spent your entire life doing the opposite way?” But Jaime wasn't listening. He had sprinted over to the fence, which he was now pummeling like mad with his golden hand, wood splintering everywhere. Brienne watched as he punched and punched and punched, and battered the fence with his shield over and over, until finally the fence collapsed. Her brows furrowed. Huh. Jaime stumbled backward. His shield dropped onto the dirt, and he stood as though dazed and in a dream. Brienne approached him slowly, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Jaime?” “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn't have... it's not your fault. I apologize.” He sighed heavily and ran his hand through his beard. “You were right. It is pointless. Just... forget it. Forget I ever asked you to do this.” She bit her lip as he picked up his shield. His shield... “Wait,” she said, and he froze, bent over and looking up at her, his shield in his left hand. “Stand up.” Jaime obeyed, though he looked confused. “Stay there,” she ordered, and jogged over to where she had thrown her sword. She picked it up and stood in a fighting stance. “Okay. Let's go again.” “...Are you mocking me? I just told you that you were right! I'm bloody useless with a sword, okay?” “So don't use the sword,” she said. Jaime blinked. “What?” “Don't use the sword.” Brienne shifted her legs and beckoned him over. “And how, exactly, do you suggest I fight you without a sword? Do you expect me to just use my – ” Finally, he understood what she was saying. She grinned at him. “Are you going to finish what you started or not?” He didn't move for a few seconds. Then, suddenly, he was charging at her, shield held in front of him. She sliced at it, and as she did so he sprung to the right, and his gold hand hit her so hard in the side that she nearly fell over. That thing packed a hell of a punch! Before she could get her bearings, Jaime was bashing her with his shield, and striking her in the back with his hand. She was kneeling on the ground now, and she swung her sword up at him again, but he blocked it once more. She stood up, assailing him with fury, but he was blocking almost all of her attacks. She moved in, he moved out, nimble on his feet and quick. This was the Jaime Lannister she remembered. They continued for some time, and it seemed to Brienne that Jaime was charged with a new life. It was apparent from his toothy smile and flushed face that he could do this for hours. Brienne, however, could not. She had gotten very little sleep as it was, and it was nearly dawn. “I yield, I yield!” she cried, throwing her arms in the air. She was breathing so hard, it was like she could not get enough air in her lungs. Jaime, however, didn't seem even a little tired anymore. “Aw, come now, Brienne!” He poked at her gently with the bottom of his shield. “We could go for a little while longer.” “Maybe you can,” she said. “But I can't.” Jaime pouted, but stopped. “Oh, fine.” He paused. “Do you really think... can I really fight like this? No sword, just a shield and a fake hand?” “You already are. And with a lot of practice, you could probably take on the Mountain if you wanted.” “Except Gregor Clegane is dead, but let's ignore that little detail.” Beaming, and with a strange look in his eye, he walked over and stood almost right up against her, and Brienne felt herself stir below. “I want you. Now.” “What? Here?” Brienne's cheeks grew hot. “Yes, here.” Jaime tossed his shield aside and pulled her closer to him. “Don't tell me you're not all riled up. I can see it, plain as day on your face.” He wasn't wrong, but she didn't want to tell him that. “It's almost morning. We've been training all night. And we're outside.” “I don't care. I want you.” His eyes drank her in, his lips slightly parted, and Brienne was about to brim over. Oh, what the hell. “You have me,” she said. She was too weary to do much of anything, so she allowed him to be the one take off both of their armor, and kiss her, and touch her, and slide his fingers in all of the places that made her shudder and moan and feel as though she were on fire. He was inside her, and on top of her, nearly crushing her, but she liked being crushed a little. Her back scraped against the ground as he thrust and grunted. She idly ran her fingers through his hair and held tight to him. Everything was aligned and synchronized, and her skin sang and sang and sang. When it was over, Jaime curled up against her, and she wrapped her arms around him. They took in the sun coming over the horizon, orange and warm. “What would I be without you, I wonder?” he murmured into her ear. “You would probably still have both of your hands,” she quipped. Jaime laughed softly, but then his voice became serious. “I'm not usually one for believing in fate and destiny and all of that nonsense, but... everything in our lives led us to each other. Do you ever think about that? How if even the slightest thing had changed... if I had been at the Trident, instead of leading the attack against Riverrun, and my father was the one captured by Robb Stark. If you had never fallen for Lord Renly, and never joined his Kingsguard. Hell, if I hadn't pushed the Stark boy out of the window, even. Everything else had to happen, for this to happen. Even losing my hand.” Brienne pondered his words for a long time. She hardly knew what to say. He didn't seem to expect her to say anything, however, and she felt him falling asleep in her embrace. She soon followed. * * * They awoke at noon to the sight of the innkeepers and Pod gaping at them from across the yard. “Oops,” Jaime said, as Brienne hastily covered herself. Their weapons and armor were scattered around them in a heap. “Good morning!” “Good afternoon,” the woman corrected. “Yes, of course.” Jaime yanked his undershirt on over his head as Brienne pulled the rest of her plainclothes on and began picking up their things. “So sorry for the mess. The horses didn't seem to mind, though.” The woman just laughed, while the man shook his head in disapproval and went back inside. “I'm sorry you had to see that,” Brienne said to Pod, who was walking over now that they were both at least somewhat dressed. “We should've been more discreet.” She threw Jaime a pointed look. “Oh, I'm tired of being discreet,” Jaime complained, wiping the dirt off of his breeches as he stood up. “It's such a relief to not have to worry so much about being caught.” “Remember, you're still Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” she said. She needed to remind herself, too, before she got carried away. His face grew somber. “I know.” The three of them ate their lunch – well, Jaime and Brienne broke their fast – and before long they were ready to set out again. But not before Jaime purchased three of the horses from the stable. “Should make it easier,” he said. “Oh, and since you're a knight now, we can officially make Pod your squire.” A knight. She had almost forgotten. It still didn't seem real. None of this did. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to jump out of the bushes and start pointing and laughing at her because she fell for it. “I am still Tyrion Lannister's squire,” Pod said defiantly. “But... until I find him... I guess I can be your squire too, Ser Brienne.” “Ser Brienne.” She rolled the name around her tongue. “I think we're going to have to come up with a different title for lady knights.” They climbed onto their horses – Brienne's a white one with a black mane, Pod's a sturdy brown, and Jaime's a majestic black beauty. “We should have a new shield forged for you,” Brienne said to Jaime as they trotted down the cobblestone path. “One made of the finest steel, and sharp on the edges. Perhaps even with spikes, or the like.” “A new shield? Why?” Pod looked at them curiously. “Brienne has invented a new fighting style for me,” Jaime explained. “Apparently now I am going to use my shield as a weapon.” “And your golden hand,” she reminded him. “Yes, that too. It doesn't sound like an effective fighting technique, but it works surprisingly well.” “I should like to see that,” Pod said. “Maybe later.” Brienne clutched tightly onto her reins. Everything felt like it was going to float away, or be snatched from her at any moment. She had seen too much to still think that fairytale endings were possible, especially not for the likes of her and Jaime Lannister. But she could still enjoy herself while it lasted.

[whumpywhumper]

Yo, Markus! What’s the grossest thing Lucien ever made you endure? Could be a food you were forced to eat, something physical, or a mental thing

I appreciate this ask so much, really made me try and think outside of what I would normally do--I had a few ideas for this, but this happened to be the first one I wrote. @0idril0 was an amazing help, as always. 

Tagging: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @insanitywishes @oceanthesarcasamfox @rosesareviolentlyread @0idril0 @captivity-whump @voidwhump @imagination1reality0 

TW: um. . . I have no idea how to trigger warn this? Please let me know

Going to use this for my Bad Things Happen Bingo Card: Bleeding Through the Bandages @badthingshappenbingo

Edit for Masterpost

~~

When Markus stood up, his blood pressure bottomed out. 

One second he was vertical, the next blackness overtook his vision, and he was on the floor. He was shaking even as he opened his eyes, shoulder and ribs making him swallow back nausea as they protested, flaring with bright pain and fresh bruises. “Fuck,” he moaned softly, trembling hands crossing over his torso to hold himself together. He felt hollow, unsteady and weak. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been with Lucien, probably less than a week, but it wasn’t like he had any reference of time. Huge swathes of his days were spent unconscious or dazed on venom. The vampire had been feeding on him frequently, though, and this was one of the few times that he’d woken without the vampire’s hands already on him. 

All he fucking wanted was to take a piss by himself. 

He scoffed, shivering weakly, he couldn’t even stand up without falling over. The shoulder he was laying on gave a vicious throb, and he groaned, grabbing hold of his bicep tightly. Why couldn’t I have fallen on the other one? he thought darkly. 

The bullet wound in his shoulder was tightly bandaged, but he felt the odd hot/cold sensation of an aggravated injury, the injured arm refusing to work correctly as the damaged muscle tried to right itself. He turned his head into the floor, grimacing through another flare of pain as his shoulder told him exactly what kind of idiot he was for pushing himself.  

If he’d been at home, he would be in his bed begging for some painkillers and any material he needed to make his body heal faster. But he wasn’t at home. He was in a concrete cell that was less than 70 feet square, with no adornment other than an empty plastic bottle of water, a few blankets, and a stainless steel toilet. Not exactly the Ritz. . .  

He still had to piss. 

Groaning, he placed his unsteady hands on the ground, pushing himself into a sitting position slowly. His head swam, black spots springing to life over his vision. He took an unsteady breath, eyelids fluttering as he leaned back against the wall. The concrete against his back was freezing, and Markus shivered, the cold sinking even further into his body as what heat he managed to form was stripped away. 

God, this sucks. He swallowed, wincing at the ache in the sides of his throat. He couldn’t see himself, but if the bruises on his wrist and forearms were anything to go by, his neck was probably bruised to hell, multiple bites creating a mottled purple that hadn’t had time to heal. There wouldn’t be scabs there, not really. The vamps’ saliva acted in counterpoint to his venom and created a weak seal for the skin without wasting the blood to clot. Given enough time and enough bites, it would scar. 

He wondered if he’d be alive long enough for that to happen. 

Taking a deep breath, he moved as slowly as he could, pausing to let the black spots fade as he made his way over to relieve himself. It took a few stumbling tries to actually find his feet, arm cradled carefully over his chest so that he didn’t jostle it, but he managed the handful of steps. By the time he was done, he was completely drained of any energy he’d mustered, new waves of dizziness making his head spin as he fought to keep his feet. 

I need to lay down before I fucking fall down. Again. The few feet back to the blankets were like a marathon that had him puffing in short, heavy breaths, his ribs weighing more and more as he fought to expand them. His arm continued to throb with every pulse of his heart, and he swallowed thickly, blinking slowly as he used the wall to slide down to the floor. 

Markus met the floor hard, groaning as the jolt made a fresh wave of pain thunder through him. What I wouldn’t give for a fucking bed right now. His chin met his chest as he sank into a doze, arms laying heavy over his crossed legs. He’d be more comfortable if he laid down, but any more movement cost precious energy he wasn’t sure that he had. 

He took a minute, trying to catch his breath as his head swam and his muscles shivered, but his eyebrows furrowed as something slid down his arm. It took another several seconds to force his heavy eyelids back up and look at it. 

“Damnit,” he muttered, watching another bead of blood slip free of his bandages to run down his bicep. The red liquid was stark against his ashen skin, the previously white bandages quickly soaking through with the rapidly spreading blood. 

He forced his heavy arms to move, pulling the edge of one of the blankets up to his shoulder as he slid down onto his back. He took a careful breath, looking up through his lashes at the ceiling, before grinding his teeth together and pressing the wadded up blanket hard against the wound. He grunted, blowing the rest of the air out in a gust, hands white knuckling on the fabric at he continued to put pressure. Fuck that hurts. 

His arm was spaghetti noodle weak, but he had to stop the bleeding somehow. It’s not like I have any blood to fucking spare, now do I? Just his luck he would be taken by the one goddamn vampire to use a gun, leaving him with a wound his venom laden blood would continue to leak out of. Not like he didn’t know his venom is an anticoagulant, seriously?��

Fuck, he was pissed. And exhausted. He sucked in a furious breath on the next painful throb from his arm, licking his dry lips, wishing he had enough energy to hold onto that anger as the fatigue built. “Goddamnit,” he whimpered, eyes burning as he held back unwanted tears. 

I want out of here. The thought was fraught with desperation and a tinge of despair. He didn’t stand much of a chance of getting out of this place by himself, and he had no idea what kind of leads his friends were possibly following. If there were any leads at all. 

He sniffled as he thought of Illyn. It wasn’t fair to her—he knew that the poor girl was probably blaming herself. That she was on the phone with him, that she had his grahm, that she hadn’t found him yet. But it wasn’t her fault. He knew better than going out without protection, and this vamp was powerful enough that he’d probably stored up enough protections that it was unlikely that even his coven would be able to get his location. 

The click of the door unlocking had him stiffening, and he choked back a pathetic whine as he turned his face away from the door. He shifted to his side in the blankets, curling around his injury protectively, pushing back against the bleeding in his shoulder from where the pressure had weakened. Markus’s heart pounded against his rib cage, breaths coming in short pants as fear curdled in his belly. 

Lucien took a breath in through his teeth when as he opened the door, the noise sounding like a hiss to the bleeding witch, making him feel even more like prey. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, too tired to do more than screw his face up in denial. “What have you done now, darling?” the vampire murmured, bare feet sliding across the concrete. 

Markus moaned in pain as Lucien grabbed ahold of him, pulling him back onto his back with strong hands. The witch’s head lolled back in the blankets, doll-like, blinking up at the vampire with fear glazed eyes. Lucien’s nostrils were flared, eyes coated in black as he looked down where his blood was soaking his blanket. 

He bit his lip to keep futile begging from bubbling out as Lucien took his wrist in a grip that was just on the wrong side of bruising, pulling his resisting hand away from where it was holding pressure. Markus caught a glimpse of sharp fangs as Lucien licked his lips and shuddered, feeling cold down to his core. 

Lucien tsked, pulling the blanket away with a disparaging grimace. “Making a mess of yourself, aren’t you?” 

A new wave of exhaustion rolled over Markus, and his next breath came on a heavy gasp, eyelids blinking lethargically. “Fuck off,” he slurred, proud of the way his voice didn’t reflect the bristling panic in his chest. 

The vampire laughed, leaning over Markus until his breath ghosted across his face, placing a hand over the center of his chest. “There’s so much fight in you,” he murmured, fingers tap, tap, tapping against his sternum, “even with your heart drumming with bloodloss.” He revealed his claws, the sharp tips pricking against his skin and making Markus stiffen. 

Lucien grinned, chuckling as he pushed Markus’s hand down to his side and straddled him, keeping his arms trapped with his thighs. The witch couldn’t hold back the scared whimper that was pushed out as Lucien’s weight settled over his hips. He squirmed weakly, unable to put forth enough effort for more than a token protest. 

“Easy, Markus,” Lucien crooned, one hand cupping around his throat, using his thumb to push under Markus’s jaw, tipping his head back, “have to stop the bleeding and clean you up, yeah?” 

Markus’s breathing hitched as Lucien used his claws to lift the edge of the bandages wrapping around his shoulder, ripping them easily. A sob was ripped out of him when the bandage was pulled free of the wound, exposing it to the cell’s cold air. Lucien shushed him, holding him in place as slow droplets of blood dripped to the soak the blankets beneath him. 

He couldn’t see what the vampire was doing, gaze turned away from where Lucien loomed over him, but he could feel the wet touch of a tongue against his aching skin. He jolted, a flash of pain even at the soft press of that malleable muscle, weakly trying to pull his arms free or buck Lucien off. The movement was futile, and Markus squeezed his eyes shut, unsurprised to feel hot tears on his lashes. 

Lucien chuckled, the tip of his tongue dipping into the opening left by the gunshot wound, working its way deeper despite Markus’s pained cry. He flinched back, trying to escape the invasive touch as his stomach heaved with a burst of nausea. “Agh!” The vampire’s breath was hot against his neck, and Markus’s heels dug into the concrete as he sought leverage. What the fuck?! 

His breath was quick, jolting inhales as his vision swam, the tendons in the side of his neck cording as the muscle in his shoulder was manipulated. The sloppy, moist sound of Lucien’s mouth against his skin, slurping at the damaged tissue as he dripped spit into the wound made him shudder violently, wordless protests springing free as he shook his head against Lucien’s grip on his jaw. 

The vampire withdrew his tongue with lingering laps to the raw flesh and muscle, humming in approval as his prey continued to cry in pain beneath him. “Can’t have you bleeding out, can we?” he murmured, pressing a kiss to his clavicle, thumb stroking underneath Markus’s jaw. 

Markus cried out brokenly, sobbing as Lucien continued to lave at the wound, spreading his saliva in an effort to stop the bleeding. Every touch of his tongue set off a starburst of agony in the witch until he was reduced to a whimpering mess, face wrinkled in disgust and distress. Stop, stop, oh my god, no!  

Lucien groaned deep in his throat as Markus lost the strength to keep struggling, going still except for his shuddering inhales. He licked across his shoulder like he was hunting smears of blood, hand tightening as his fingers sought out the witch’s thundering pulse. “Fuck, Markus,” he huffed, dragging his fangs across the bruised, sensitive skin of his pectoral, “it’s almost a pity more venom might actually make you bleed out.” 

He leaned back slowly, pulling Markus’s glassy eyed gaze back to look up at him. Blood was smeared on his spit shiny chin, eyes black lodestones Markus couldn’t look away from. His lips quirked into a smirk, fangs gleaming in the fluorescent lighting, “though I do think the exit wound is bleeding as well.” 

Markus shuddered, a scream rising in his throat as Lucien moved supernaturally fast, jerking him by his hip and injured arm so that he could flip him face down. He didn’t have any chance of resisting, the vampire rumbling in his chest as he settled back over his prey. A hand settled into his hair, grabbing a thick handful to press his face further into the blankets. 

He couldn’t help himself as his scream tumbled down into soft crying, feeling disgusting and pathetic and so fucking weak as Lucien’s pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. “Don’t worry, darling,” he purred, “you’re going to feel a lot better once the bleeding stops.”

[whumpywhumper]

Humans

As much as I hate her separate work schedule--thanks @0idril0 for reading through this and encouraging me :) 

@comfy-whumpee I promise that my next Markus post is gonna be comfort, I just really wanted to do this 😅

Edit for Masterpost

****

The nest was quiet and dormant; the Elders sleeping, their young distracted amongst themselves. Sharing blood, wrapped together like a pit of vipers. 

Markus was also quiet, dazed and desperately seeking sleep, curled in a corner away from the door. His entire body ached with the myriad bites and bruises from too strong hands, from fractured bones, and heartache. From the venom that lingered in his blood stream. 

He missed Illyn. 

Shivering, he hugged his arms to himself, trying to hold himself still from the way his entire body felt like it was swirling. He had a blanket, but it was in the other corner. Too far away for the dizzy witch to grab. It didn’t matter. Markus was too tired. 

So tired. So tired from the way his body was constantly working to replenish his blood supply, so tired from the constant pain, so tired from constantly being cold. He could feel his heart working overtime, trying to pump his reduced blood supply through his body. It was a hollow thump against his breastbone, quickly outpacing his shallow breaths.  

Head dipping against his knees, Markus allowed himself to sink farther into sleep, his eyelids grating like sandpaper against his overwrought eyes. He just wanted to sleep, just wanted to go away for a while.  The world started to feel soft at the edges, fingers and toes tingling with lethargy. 

He was on the cusp of full sleep, breath coming slow, shivers finally subdued, when a noise echoed through the room. Voices. Just outside of the door. Markus tensed minutely, not fully aware, sleep numbing the instinctive fear to run or hide. God, he was so tired. He pressed his eyes deeper into his leg, a small hum of malcontent thrumming up his vocal cords. 

The door opened quietly, lock disengaging, the whispered voices silencing themselves as it creaked. He didn’t bother to raise his head, but he trembled, sleep falling away from him as he felt multiple sets of eyes on him. Footsteps echoed off of the concrete floor, and Markus flinched when the door was slammed back in place. What? That wasn’t normal. 

Slowly, he raised his head, muzzy and shaking with fatigue to look at the newcomers. 

Two men and a woman stood in front of him, staring down at him. The men were as different as two men could look. Both handsome but one short and stocky with light hair, the other tall with dark skin and hair. The woman was petite, her bubblegum pink hair cut close and sticking up enough to just tickle at the shorter man’s chin. The female and the light haired male, standing in front, looked down on him, contempt and anger shining through their eyes in equal measure. The third looked uncomfortable, feet shifting, looking over his shoulder at the door. 

Humans weren’t uncommon in a vampire nest, logically, Markus knew that. As much as Lucien looked down on humans in general, no one could deny that vampires were dependent on them. They were their history and their sustenance; their servants and their converts. But what were they doing here? 

Markus’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, a questioning noise working its way out of his mouth, “Wha-?” His lips were numb, tired, fumbling at his effort to form words. 

The lead male sneered, “This is what Lucien has been spending all of his time on?” He stepped forward, thick fingers gesturing at Markus’s slumped form, jean clad legs wisking together to stand in the middle of the room. He looked at the female, incensed, when Markus shrank away from him. “Can you believe this shit, Maggie? Look at him.” 

Maggie’s eyes flashed, and she pursed her lips. “Lucien is allowed to like what he wants, Kris,” she answered tightly, eyes skating up and down Markus’s bare skin. He swallowed, bewildered eyes darting between all of them. “As much as I hate it,” she muttered under her breath as she crossed her arms under her small breasts. 

“Guys, are you sure about this?” the third hissed, eyes wild. 

“Shut up, Joseph,” Kris snapped, “we’ve discussed this. It’s in the nest’s best interest; it’s within the nest’s rules. He’s a distraction, we’re getting rid of it. It’s that simple. It’s no more than we’ve done to others and been rewarded for, or don’t you remember?” 

“But—“ 

“No buts! You have your orders, neolate, follow them.”  He stalked forward, grabbing a fistful of Markus’s hair, easily ignoring the witch’s pitiful attempts to pry his hand away. “We’re doing what we have to do.” 

Markus cried out when his hair was pulled, strands snapping in the other’s hand as he was dragged into the middle of the room, scrambling to keep up with the cruel grip before his scalp separated from his head. Kris threw him to the ground with a snarl, making the weakened witch’s head bounce against the concrete. 

Stars swam in front of his eyes and a pulsing pain echoed through his cheekbone. He shuddered, trying to lift his head off the ground, chest hitching with ragged breaths as he tried to make sense of the situation. What the fuck was going on? 

“He’s right, Joseph,” Maggie said, coming to stand next to him as he pushed himself up. She also buried her hand in his hair, wrenching his head back hard enough to make him gasp. 

He grabbed her little hand where it was buried in his hair, the other grabbing at her shirt, dazed reaction trying to lessen the pain he was in. Stop, stop, please. His mouth moved, trying to form a plea or question past the knot of fear climbing up his throat. No sound other than a croaking, mumble made itself known, his eyes still trying to focus past the dizziness.  

Distaste was painted on Maggie’s features as she looked down at him, her blue eyes meeting his own with an upturned lip. “He’s a distraction, the nest can’t thrive with all of Lucien’s attention on this thing.”  The crack of her hand on his cheek echoed in the small room, the crisp sound distorting over the hard edges and soft bodies. 

The blow was a bright, stinging pain over his already bruised face, and he grunted at the impact, unable to catch himself as he careened back to the floor. He crumpled when he met the ground, breath starting to rasp in his throat. 

“You’re right, you’re right,” Joseph muttered, “I just don’t want Lucien mad at me.” 

A boot caught Markus in the ribs, throwing him onto his side as a different type of crack echoed through the room. Markus screamed when his ribs snapped, and he saw Joseph scramble forward, brown eyes huge. “Fuck!” Two dark hands slapped over his mouth, muffling his shout, the rest of his air leaving through his nose in a gust. Markus grabbed the man’s wrists, huffing pained sounds through his nose, eyes clenching shut over the agony that shuddered through him. 

Kris laughed, “You’re not going to be able to keep him completely quiet, Joseph.” 

“We need to keep him quiet enough not to arouse Lucien,” Joseph retorted, “or do you want him to come in here and see us?” 

“Lucien won’t rouse for hours. We need to do this right, Jo.” Maggie said, her voice coming from closer to Markus’s feet. 

Markus could hear Joseph’s teeth grinding at Maggie’s answer, but he slowly removed his hands from his mouth. The witch sucked in a sobbing breath, eyes fluttering open to look at the man still hovering over him. His mouth was pinched at the corners, eyes distressed. “He just didn’t want to hear me scream,” Markus realized. 

“Ple-Please,” Markus whimpered, hands still around Joseph’s wrist, “Please, d-don’t—“ 

Kris dragged Joseph off of Markus’s prone form, breaking his weak grip, and kicked him again. Markus cried out, trying to curl up, protect himself, but the man was relentless. “What we do is not up to you,” he snarled, foot snapping into his side with every word, kicking him in the stomach, forcing his way past his limbs to get to his soft belly. 

What little air Markus had managed to find rushed out of his mouth, small, ineffectual wheezing all he could manage under the assault. Sharp pain buckled under his ribs, gasps feeling raw and agonized even when the kicking stopped.  Black dots overtook his eyes, and he lolled on the ground, completely limp, unable to keep track of his tormenters as his vision swirled around the room. 

He couldn’t even think to fight when hands wrapped around his wrists, tugging him onto his back. All he could do was take tiny sips of air as his chest jerked sporadically.  He blinked, not sure how much time had passed when his eyes were finally able to focus. Joseph held his arms over his head, his long fingers able to wrap all the way around Markus’s wrists in a solid grip.   

Maggie sat on his legs, her small frame still easily holding his weakened legs down when they jerked. The girl was was looking at the door, humming to herself, a slight smile on her lips, but Kris was no longer in the room. Did he leave?

He tugged at the hands on his wrists, arms weak and shaking with adrenaline, trying to pull his hands free. “Guh,” a wreaked noise caught in his throat at the pounding pain from the way Joseph’s fingers made the broken bones in his wrist grind together. 

Joseph looked down on him, a tight determination in his eyes. “Be quiet, and they’ll make it quick,” he whispered.  

Swallowing thickly, Markus begged him, tears trickling down the sides of his face, “Wh-whate-v-ver you’re g-gonna do, please, d-don’t.” 

Shame twisted his expression, but his grip didn’t loosen on his wrists. He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “It’s not up to me. Just be quiet, and it’ll be over soon.”  

“Y-your name’s Jo-Joseph, right?” Markus asked, trying to keep his stuttering voice low. The man didn’t answer him, looking away, toward the door. “Jo-Joseph please,” he whimpered, “please, j-just let me g-go.” 

“Joseph,” Maggie barked, making them both cringe, “would you shut him up, pleeease?” 

Grimacing, Joseph wedged Markus’s unbroken wrist under his knee and wrapped his free hand around his throat. Markus coughed around his tongue, not even enough room in his throat to pull in a whistling breath. The bigger man didn’t say anything further, simply waiting until Markus went limp, eyelids fluttering against darkness, his breathless struggle quickly abating, before his big hand loosened its grip to let him draw in a ragged gulp of air. 

Kris re-entered Markus’s cell before his breath came back, before he could try and beg again. A knife was held in his hand, long and glinting in the overhead light, and a terrified whine forced its way out of Markus’s rasping throat. Oh fuck, nononono. The other man grinned at the noise, letting the door swing shut behind him. 

 “Please! Please, don’t do this!” Markus begged, trying to pull his limbs free of the strong grips they had on him. The witch tried to twist his way free, panic giving him another burst of strength. Maggie rode his legs easily, hands coming down on his hips to dig her thumbs into the divots of his torso, nails roaring into those pressure points. Joseph didn’t even budge, simply tucking Markus’s broken wrist under his other leg and getting a grip on his shoulders to pin him down. He screamed between his teeth, straining to get his arm free as Joseph’s patella crunched against broken bone. 

His heart was galloping in his chest, adrenaline forcing his body into fight or flight, but he couldn’t do anything. Eventually, the witch fell still, panting and shaking. Dread climbing up his spine as Kris walked closer. 

The smaller man knelt next to his chest, the tip of his blade tracing down the line of Markus’s sternum. Markus couldn’t keep his eyes off of the hand holding the knife, unable to lift his head and follow how it slid along his skin. His bruised and snapped ribs jerked and shuddered. Please, please, no. 

“How should I do this?” Kris whispered to the others, voice full of anticipation. 

“Do it quick, Kris,” Joseph said, “this doesn’t have to be messy.” 

Maggie made an indignant noise, “At least cut him a little, let them know how upset we are, right?” 

A sob caught in his throat, and Markus shook his head, trying to jerk away. “Please, ple-MMph!” 

Kris slapped a hand over his mouth, and Markus clenched his eyes shut, breaths coming quickly through his nose as the knife pressed deeper into the flesh of his stomach. “I didn’t ask you,” he hissed. “Matter of fact, nobody asked you, so I’m going to keep my hand here, and you’re not going to utter another word.” The knife dug deeper, sliding downward, and Markus screamed. He screamed, but even if he had said another word, all they would have heard was a muffled wail as the knife lifted away. 

Blood dripped onto Markus’s bare chest from the knife, ran in a river from his stomach, down his abs as they quivered. Oh god, fuck! 

Kris chuckled, tapping the blade against Markus’s cheek. His eyes flew open, jerking from the blade, between the people looming over him, to rest on Joseph. Silently begging. Pleasepleaseplease. 

He’d resigned himself to being bled dry by a vampire—not being stabbed to death by fellow humans. 

The man steadily ignored his gaze, glowering at Kris. “Get this over with, please.” 

“I don’t think so, Joseph, I think Mags’ is right.”  The knife dropped to his collarbone and Markus thrashed, back arching as the knife drug against the bone—from the middle and across to his left shoulder. He screamed, Joseph’s fingers digging bruises into his shoulders to keep him still, Maggie grunting as a particularly hard jerk of his leg jarred her. 

He tried to suck in air through his nose, eyes rolling into the back of his head. His chest heaved, ribs bellowing with pain, not getting enough oxygen. I can’t breathe, please, I can’t breathe. 

Everything became foggy as the pain continued, Markus shivering and moaning in distress when the knife skated down his ribs, across the vulnerable skin of his stomach, to press above Maggie’s hand and into the divot of his hip. The scream that left his mouth was piercing in the small room, even through Kris’s hand, as the knife was buried into the meat of his hip, through the muscle, and to the floor. 

White eradicated his sight, blood pounding in his ears in an overwhelming roar. He groaned when the knife was flicked, still impaled in his side, too weak to scream anymore, eyes glassy and unfocused. The hand over his mouth tightened cruelly, fingertips digging bruises into his face. “You still with us, pum’kin?” 

Stopstoppleasestop. Markus couldn’t actually form any kind of answer, barely heard the taunting voice above him. It echoed in his ears, soft and loud, close and far off. 

The hand moved off of his mouth to deliver a quick slap to his cheek, rousing the witch slightly to whimper at the motion, his head lolling to the side. 

“That’s enough, Kris, finish this.” 

A sigh, “Fine, you big baby.” 

All Markus can do when the knife is pulled out of his side, a wash of blood pouring out of him, is suck in a feeble breath that turns into a tiny keen tumbling from numb lips. He can’t try and pull his arms free, can’t kick his legs out from under the heavy weight of Maggie, can just watch as the knife—covered in his blood—is raised to rest just under his rib cage. His eyes flick upward, coming to rest on Joseph’s conflicted face. The man isn’t looking at him, has turned his face away, creases at the corners of his eyes like he wants to squeeze them shut and ignore what’s about to happen. 

Tears burned Markus’s eyes, made the room swim, distorted through water, but he couldn’t make himself close them—if this was going to be the last think he saw then so be it. The hand came back to rest over his mouth, trapping any last words he might have, as the knife  pressed into skin. Kris moved slow, pushing the knife into his chest, drawing a ragged moan out of his victim as pain continued to blot everything out. 

A deafening shriek pierced through the air, reminiscent of a long forgotten predator clawing at the background of the human psyche, seething fury dripping from the drawn out sound.  

“What-?”

“Oh fuck!”  

“Move!” 

His would be killers fled in a flurry over his prone form, the crushing weight on his wrists disappearing, the knife reversing course as the hand slipped from his face, the woman on his legs springing away. Markus couldn’t move, arms left stretched overhead, head limp on his neck. His chest automatically jerked in shallow gasps as the others bolted for the door. 

The metal shattered inwards before they could make their escape. The hair raising shriek turned into a bass roar, and a dark form engulfed the doorway. Markus couldn’t focus to make out the detail, but he felt the others freeze as energy snapped through the air. Glamor. 

Markus whimpered at the feeling of the energy in the air, Christine’s touch so fresh on his mind after the amount of agony that was inflicted on him, muscles clenching in a tiny tremble; the most he could do to get away. Kris, Joseph, and Maggie all hit their knees in a thump, the metal of the knife tinking off of the concrete. 

“Lucien,” breathed Maggie, fear dripping from her voice, “please, let us explain.” She raised her hands in supplication, the tiny trembling appendages coated in red.  A flinch was all she could manage before the vampire was on her—no golden hair or pale skin—simply gray desiccated flesh, dead hair, and a face out of nightmares. 

Black engulfed his eyes as he used his fangs to rip her throat out. A choked gurgle, and the petite woman was on the floor, her pink hair being swallowed by spurting and pooling blood. Her eyes staring in horror. Dead. 

Kris and Joseph screamed, the former trying to run while the latter collapsed onto his face, begging and covering his head with his arms. Lucien left Joseph on the floor, Maggie’s slowly growing pool of blood coming to leech its way across the face pressed into the concrete. 

A clawed hand latched onto Kris’s retreating shoulder, and all Markus could see was a body flying over him, feet completely off of the floor, impacting with a dull thud into the opposite wall. A choked moan followed the crumpling slide of a body hitting the floor. 

Lucien turned to Joseph, picking him up by neck, and holding the non-combative man aloft with ease. Red coated his mouth in a macabre decoration, his fangs glinting in the florescent light as he spoke, “You have two seconds to open yourself, and explain to me what happened, before I turn you over to Christine.” 

Joseph’s brown eyes were huge as he looked at the Elder vampire, Maggie’s blood trickling down his forehead. He nodded his head vigorously, and the energies gathered in the air again as Lucien plundered the human’s mind.  

Eyes sliding closed, Markus felt a numbing cold steal through his limbs, pain coming to him in distant lapping waves. 

“Illyn. . . Illyn, ‘m cold.” 

Something slapped against his cheek, the harsh blows barely registering. 

Please. . . don’t. . . 

The blows came again, a loud noise drilling into his ear, “-up! Markus! Wake. UP!”  

Markus summoned a tiny mewl of pain in the back of his throat, trying to turn his face away from the painful slaps. “That’s it, darling. Now, open your eyes—c’mon, look at me.” 

He whined at the demand. . . . can’t. . please. . .

“I know you’re tired, darling, please—open  your eyes.” Pain erupted over his sternum, and Markus groaned, trying to arch away. His hand flopped uselessly, eyelids fluttering, trying to see what was hurting him. A blurry shape hovered over his face as Markus’s eyes rolled in his head, gaze half-lidded. “There you are, hey beautiful, look at me.” A hand cupped his cheek, forcing his gaze upward. “Look at me.” 

Lucien. . . Markus tried to keep his eyes on the vampire, feeble breaths rocking his head with every inhale, but it was a losing battle. His eyelids were heavy weights that he had no chance of holding. 

“Fuck! Markus!” The voice came out of the dark. “Markus!” 

*** TO BE CONTINUED****

[whumpywhumper]

Bloodhound in Chicago-Part 1

So, @comfy-whumpee put the idea into @0idril0 and I’s whumpy heads to do a collaborative project wayyyyy back when with Clint and Lucien, and we’ve finally gotten around to posting part one. That’s right, there’s more, so keep an eye out. :) 

This is set prior to either one of our series. 

Thanks @voidwhump for reading through this 

Edit for Masterpost

<>

Lucien was growing soft in his old age.

He watched one of his young clumsily play with the human he had caught for him and all he felt was a swelling pride when the vampling stumbled and fell over his feet, not used to his new found speed. The human girl was no more than nineteen, pretty, with mousy hair and a bad knee. Someone easy for little Tristan’s first feeding.  

Tristan’s eyes were a stone cold grey, not yet the ebony black they would be when he was finally blooded. The older vampire found that he liked the way Tristan’s hunger sparked in those eyes when he focused in on his prey. He licked his lips and leaned forward, eyes skating down the exposed muscle under Tristan’s shirt, at the messy blond hair that stood up over his forehead. A scream pierced through Lucien’s careful perusal of his newest nestmate.

The girl had fallen, her knee giving way when she turned to dash away from the reaching vampire. She hit hard, her hands slapping against the concrete. Flailing, she turned over and stared up with huge eyes, tear streaks standing out on her red cheeks. “Please, please, don’t-don’t do this!”

Lucien knew that, by now, Tristan was beyond caring about what his prey said, what she begged or promised him. The venom was pounding in his mouth, the instinct to rip into her throat overwhelming. He could see his hands shaking and an echoing growl rumbled up through the air. Tristan backed the girl up to the wall, and Lucien felt a swelling in his own mouth at the mewl of fear that tumbled from her mouth when her shoulders hit the cold stone.

Experience told him that Tristan would need help soon, and Lucien stood, stalking forward, to hover behind the trembling vampling. “Grab her, Tristan,” he murmured, coaxing. Tristan shuddered at the sound of his Elder’s voice and leaned back into Lucien with a whine. The older vampire chuckled, arms encircling his lean waist. “Do you want my help, love?”

Tristan nodded, his head laying back on Lucien’s shoulder. He could feel the want rolling off of the young man, and Lucien swallowed back an urge to bury his fangs into that pale throat. That wasn’t what they were here for so he pushed Tristan away to bend over their shaking prey.

“Please, please, no!” She held her arms over her head, and Lucien caught the foul smell of adrenaline and urine seeping from her. Lucien’s nose wrinkled, but he leaned down to grab her anyway, his hands encircling her wrists to pull her up. She was featherweight to his enhanced strength, and her inane struggles did nothing to his grip.

Lucien smiled, fangs pressing into his lower lip, when she tried to kick him. “That never works, darling.” His hand encircled both of her wrists, and he pulled her against his front, other arm wrapping around her back. She quivered, trying to pull away from him, whimpering and sobbing. He rested against the wall, turning them so that the girl’s back was to Tristan, and met his hunger dazed eyes. “Come here, love,” he ordered, his voice breaking through Tristan’s haze.

Tristan started forward, his fingers carding through the back of the girl’s hair in a disconcertingly gentle grip, his other hand stretching her shoulder. Lucien could feel her breath against his throat, quick puffs of terror, could hear the thundering beat of her heart. God, this was beautiful. His young’s first feeding.

Virgin fangs pierced into the girl’s unbroken flesh, a little too in the middle of her throat, but not off enough to cause any problems. The girl’s eyes flew open when the younger vampire started feeding, startlingly green eyes staring at him in horror, and a protesting cry dropped out of her mouth. Lucien could tell when Tristan released his venom, the girl twitching in his arms, bucking against the invasive feeling, eyes dazing in pain. Tristan gave a low groan, throat working, swallowing loudly. The seal wasn’t perfect, and Lucien watched scarlet droplets dripping down to the sweet girl’s collarbone.

He licked his own lips when the girl’s eyes fluttered, and he smiled at Tristen when he opened his eyes. They were coal black with no whites showing, glassy with pleasure, his mouth still suctioned on her neck. “Good job, love,” he crooned, “Well done.”  Lucien took more of the girl’s weight as her legs collapsed, her heart galloped hollowly in her chest to Lucien’s sensitive ears, weak whimpers pushed out with every feeble breath.

Tristan bled the girl dry, her heart giving out moments before he drew his fangs out of her throat. Lucien leaned forward, licking the sweet beads of blood from the girl’s skin, before dropping her to the ground. The body fell gracelessly, sprawling between them. But Lucien didn’t pay it any mind when he pressed forward, stepping over the empty corpse to get into Tristan’s space, to grab him by the hips. “How was that, love?”

The vampling groaned, swaying into Lucien, nuzzling at his neck. “Oh my god, Lucien,” he said, “I didn’t—I had no idea—It was so-so. . .“

Lucien chuckled, “I think I understand.” He pulled the younger vampire to him, rutting their hips together. “Do you want to go home now?”  Tristan bit his lip, nodding vigorously, black eyes still glassy.  “Follow me then.”

The two vampire’s stumbled to leave, hands traveling up each other’s bodies. Leaving their prey on the concrete floor. Discarded.

<>

Clint walked into the police station already itching for a fight. Two hours. Two hours he’d been in the city. He’d nearly been run over on his motorcycle three times since he’d been in the city. If he got out of here, and his bike was gone, he was gonna be pissed.

Clint consciously suppressed a growl, squeezing his eyes shut to hide the yellow. “You’re in the middle of a group of people who would actively attack you if they think you’re dangerous. Get it together, numbskull.” He shook himself, looking around the station for his contact. The station stank, burnt coffee and homeless sweat permeating the air. That, combined with the click of keyboards and telephones..... he had a headache.

“Oí, perrito, over here.”

Clint groaned, grinning slightly as he turned toward the thickly accented voice. A small Latina was smirking at him from behind a cubical, and he felt some of his built up frustration ease at the sight of the familiar face. “Amada, my Latina Doll, I wish you wouldn’t call me that, you and every other woman seem to like comparing me to three pound fluff balls now.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t act like one, show a little fang every once and a while, maybe we’d be more respectful.” She winked at him, waving him towards her overflowing desk. Her partner’s desk was unoccupied and he was grateful, Steven didn’t particularly like him.

Scooping the thickly built woman up into a hug, he snorted. “I’m pretty sure I could eat a dear raw in front of Illyn and she’d still call me puppy.” He placed Amada down and spun her extra chair around so he was sitting backwards in it. “Now, can you please tell me why I drove sixteen hours up here, and stayed in a really shitty motel last night? I need a shower and a snack before I wolf out and one of your friends shoots me.”

She smacked him with a file before settling into her chair. “They’d have to beat me to it, I’ve been itching to shoot something since I got this case.” Amada muttered something else in Spanish before handing him the file.

“Nineteen year old female; Caucasian; lived just outside Canton, Ohio until last year.” Clint opened the file and the dimpled face of a rural charmer greeted him. Mousy blond locks framed her face and a frizzy braid had been pulled around one shoulder. “Per her parents, she developed an unhealthy obsession with tarot cards, and started trying to brew potions. Kid stuff. The coroner checked though, and she did have tracers for some latent magic; says her attacker probably didn’t even notice. So, obviously, the city is writing the death off as sup vs sup.” Amada’s face was drawn, all laughter forgotten as she laid out a crime scene photo of the victim.

Oh Sunshine... Clint cleared his throat as he picked up and examined the photo. The girl was splayed, clothing a mess on her tangled limbs. Her legs had twisted at awful angles underneath her, and her eyes were vacant and dead. “I was really hoping you would take the case so this wouldn’t happen again.”

Clint put the the picture down slowly, decision already made. “You still have the body?” Amada gave him a tight nod. “Good. We’ll stop there, then we can see what else we need.”

“We? You trying to steal my partner again?”

Clint huffed, rolling his eyes at Amada, before plastering a bright smile on his face to greet her partner. “Oh, ya know me Steven, I just can’t wait to do your job for you.”

The man glared at him before settling down at his desk, fighting his belly as he pulled himself to it. “We don’t need your help with anything. I told Amada not to call you, there’s no case.” The Latina cursed, spewing in Spanish. Steven ignored her, talking louder. “Local vamp probably got out of control when he tasted her magic. That’s it. No judge is going to prosecute, we don’t get involved with sup victims that’s just the way it is.”

Clint couldn’t help the sour growl that rumbled in his chest. “If a vamp got someone with magic, I can guarantee that this girl wouldn’t have died so quickly.” He pushed himself from the chair, jerking his head to Amada.

The heavy set man called after him, “There won’t be a finder’s fee with this one Clint, there’s not a case!”

Amada hurried to keep up with him as he walked, following his nose towards the morgue. “I’m sorry Clint, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Don’ worry about it, Doll. I bring a killer vamps head in for a bounty, I get paid either way.” It is what his boss paid him for after all, it was just a perk when the police paid him too.

When Clint stepped into the morgue, the smell of decay and disinfectant made him crinkle his nose. His sneeze echoed off the metallic surfaces of the room, and he shook himself. “Which one she in?”

Amada tugged him towards one of the farthest freezers and slid the slab out. Hackles rising, Clint approached and slid the zipper open. Death always put his wolf on edge, made it search for predators. It made him good at his job at least.

Clenching his jaw tightly, Clint pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves. Hi Sunshine... They’d removed her clothes, and he could see where they’d collected evidence. But other than that, the girl was untouched, black makeup streaked down her face, whorls of blood covering her pale throat. The brilliant green eyes were cloudy and half lidded. He closed her eyes, hiding her the best he could from his necessary voyeurism. The stench of urine and bloated bowels stung his nose, making his eyes water even as they flickered yellow.

“This wasn’t a ‘local vamp’ Amada.”  Clint whispered, gently gripping the girl’s jaw and turning her head to view the punctures more closely. There was a crust around the edges of the wound, crystalline and hard. Rubbing a finger over it, he let more of his wolf surface. Amada took a shuddering breath and stepped back as his face cramped before elongating slightly, canines biting into his gums.

“Wha-“ There was a thick cough as Amada cleared her throat, regaining her composure. “What do you mean by that?”

Clint took a deep breath, mouth falling open slightly as he let the scent of venom flow over his tongue. He brought the glove, coated with the crystal substance, closer to his nose and snuffled. He grimaced at the stale scent, it wasn’t strong enough. Sighing, he stuck the finger in his mouth and swirled his tongue around the appendage, liquefying the crystals from the glove. He heard Amada gag, and Clint smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, lips wrinkled in disgust.

“Por qué?! That’s fucking evidence, perro estúpido, Dios mío!” Snatching up a stack of papers she struck at him, pushing him away from the body.

Clint snickered at her, baring a long fang in a grin. “Would you rather have waited another few weeks for someone to tell you that you’re dealin’ with more than one vamp’?” Clint batted his eyes at her, face returning to its pure human form. “I’m faster than your lab, especially because they don’t believe there’s a case here.”

Anger thrummed through the air, Amada’s fists rattling the papers as she clung to them. “That’s still disgusting, you practically licked a dead body.”

Clint shrugged, smirking again. “Werewolf.” Raising a thick brow, he nodded to the body in front of them. “Now that we’ve established I do some weird things, do you want to know what else there is?”

“Lick anything else, perrito, I’m out.” The Latina folded her arms, staring pointedly at the young girl in front of them.

“This vamp’s never fed before, or at least if it has, it’s still too young to know what it’s doing. I think this was an initiation feed.”  Clint let the statement hang heavy in the air, watching as what he was suggesting crystallized in Amada’s mind. Her plush lips parted slowly, eyes squinting as she looked up from the body.

“What do you mean?” Her voice was skeptical, not experienced enough with the supernatural to see what he saw.

“I mean, this whole thing looks wrong. For one you’ve never had to call me for a vamp’ case in Chicago, it’s always some other sup. For two, you’ve seen a vamp’ case before, right?” Clint waited on her nod before continuing. “Look at the puncture marks. She was bitten in the wrong spot, an experienced vamp would have gone farther forward so they didn’t have to deal with the muscle. And what’s the other big part of vamp kills?”

Amada scrunched her nose, examining the puncture mark. “They don’t leave any blood behind.”

“Exactly!” Clint tilted on his toes, leaning on the slab. “Usually with a vamp kill there isn’t any blood, their saliva seals the injury off so there isn’t any clean up. But newbie vamps sometimes don’t do it right, they dribble like a fucking toddler, see the blood smears?” At Amada’s nod, he scraped a finger through the crystallized saliva again. “The saliva here is from two different vamps, one doing cleanup, zero waste, shit like that.”

Splaying playing his hands to emphasis the girl in front of him. “This is like a mother cat teaching her kittens to hunt, I can almost guarantee that the Elder was the one to lure her in. Little vamplings don’t have good control of their glamor yet, what I’ve seen with a vampling that gets made and abandoned is, let’s just say, gory.” Clint rolled the zipper of the body bag further down, examining the rest of her with careful hands. “I bet you she has some sort of deformity, or injury, that made it harder for her to run when the Elder let his glamour go to let the younger practice.”

Humming, Amada ruffled through the charts before pulling a slender folder from the stack she had snatched up. “Looks like she broke her right knee falling from a horse when she was a teenager, coroner’s report says she’s got a few metal rods in.”

Grunting, Clint examined her knees, black blood was crusted there, oozing from abrasions that hadn’t had a chance to heal. He picked up a strong wrist, feeling a small pull of sadness as he did. Her wrists were delicate, even though they wouldn’t be considered the traditional willowy. She shouldn’t have been an easy target, for any human she would have been able to put up some sort of fight. Dark bruises had bloomed on her wrists, the grip of slender, powerful hands forever cast onto pearly skin. He held her wrists up for Amada to inspect. “Vamps don’t need to do this, not unless they’re new or they have someone they can’t glamour.”

Amada’s skin turned a sickly yellow as she looked up to Clint, eyes wide as she searched his face for clarification.  “But, we have several established nests in the city, they don’t do anything like this. They have contracts with blood donors, they’ve also made contracts with halfway houses.” At Clint’s questioning glance she clarified. “Apparently, the venom is like methadone, and it makes it easier to transition off of drugs. It’s also healthier if they can’t kick the habit. The vamps that have the contracts make sure they’re healthy.”

Clint nodded his head, brow quirked with understanding. “Another point in favor of what I’m saying. Your nests wouldn’t need to kill, and they definitely wouldn’t leave a body for anyone to find. There’s a new Elder vamp’ in town trying to push in on territory, and he’s finding converts. This is just the beginning, unless we find them first.”  

Letting out a groan, Amada settled into a nearby chair and rubbed at her temple. “Mierda.”

Nodding, Clint passed a hand through the girls soft hair before gently zipping up the body bag. “Don’t worry Sunshine, I’ll find them.”

[whumpywhumper]

Darling

Thanks be to @0idril0 for allowing me to bounce ideas off of her when she should be sleeping

TW: elements of noncon

Edit for Masterpost and because formatting was a mess

* * * 

Markus knew better than to go into the city at night without his grahm but Illyn had asked to borrow it. Told him she needed to copy it because she had seen something in her auger that scared her. 

He was strong enough that he didn’t always need a grahm. Adept enough that he could protect himself. The grahm made it easier—made it to where he didn’t have to think about it. So he’d told her not to worry about it. 

He should have listened. Should have thought. 

All he needed was some damn copper wire to finish this project. He was aggravated and cranky as hell from working into the small hours of the night. Caffeine only got him so far and he figured it was only a short trip to his shop and back on his bike. Then he could sleep. 

His client was coming for his amulet in the morning, it had to be finished. The poor old man was in desperate need of some help with his arthritis. His poor swollen joints had cried out to Markus’s senses without even touching them and his doctor prescribed medications weren’t cutting it. So he’d come to Markus. 

He’d wanted to help. He’d just wanted to help. 

He turned the corner just two blocks from the shop, keys to his bike in one hand and spool of copper wire in the other, happy to go home and finish the project when the form had come from the shadow. Markus hadn’t even had the opportunity to cry out before he was slammed into the brick of the alley wall with a hand over his mouth. “MMPH!!” he clawed at the arm, his nails not getting any traction. 

A dark chuckle rumbled into his ear, “That’s not going to work very well, darling.” 

Markus’s eyes widened when they finally took in the pale form in front of him. “Shitfuckdamn,” he thought with a frantic grab at the white crystal on his belt. A shackle of a hand encircled his wrist, slapping it to the brick above his head. Markus tried for the other hand and the fingers on his face tightened like a vice, threatening to break his teeth from his jaw. 

The vampire lifted its lips in an approximation of a human smile when his captive stilled, his fangs glinting in the moonlight. “Hmm, maybe you are smart after all. I was curious why a witch would go anywhere I could sense him without some protection. Only thing I could think was that he must be stupid.” The vampire’s voice was like dark honey fresh from the comb, deep and thick, coating Markus’s entire body. Making him shiver.  

A thought wormed his way to the front of his brain. The vampire was beautiful. Blond hair worn long and curling at his collar bone. A five o’clock shadow highlighting a strong jaw and high cheekbones. His blue eyes looked kind, maybe he wasn’t—

Markus sucked in a shuddering breath, throwing up any kind of defenses that he could scrabble together with his wayward magic. The vampire grinned outright this time, feeling Markus gather the energies from the air. He drew closer to his prey, “Oh, you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?” His eyes were no longer blue but a deep abyssal black. 

The trapped witch trembled, realizing how outclassed he was against the blond. Vampires were just as much mental creatures as they were physical. Could make a human walk to their deaths and thank them at the end, screaming in ecstasy, when they drew every last drop of lifeblood from their quivering bodies. Markus could only pray to be so lucky. 

The vampire slotted a thigh between Markus’s legs, turning his face to the side, and purring into the crook of his neck. "Mmm, beautiful, you smell wonderful." To anyone looking in the alley, they would look like a couple of lovers, locked in a passionate embrace. Markus was frozen, fear pounding in his throat, feeling weak and powerless against the stronger man. The hand around his wrist was tight, strong, grinding the bones together hard enough that he had to suppress a wince. 

He felt damp breath on the tendons of his throat and an instinctual fear knocked on the back of Markus’s head. He acted. Struck out with his magic, a small burst of light erupting from one of his rings, bright enough to make the vampire flinch. He ripped the hand from his face, “Ma’Ventus!”  

A gust of concussive force flung the vampire into the opposite wall. Into a garbage can. Markus stumbled at the sudden cold feeling roiling through his gut, stopping himself from falling by the grace of a nearby door handle. He did not like using that much magic without a damn proper focus. A shake of his dark head and he staggered away. One foot in front of the other, eyes skimming over the alleyway. He needed to get away. His keys. Where were his keys? 

He gave up the search when he heard a low growl from the garbage can and his stagger turned into a dead sprint. A quick hand to his belt and Markus palmed the white crystal. His last resort. Thick boots splashed through the puddles of the city alleyway. His shop? He spun the corner, trying the locked door. Nope, and tempered glass made busting in a non-option. He kept going. 

None of the other shops had lights on. He dodged corners and ran through the deserted streets. Fast footsteps dogged his every turn, catching up. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” he chanted to himself, breath rasping down his raw throat. 

Markus heard it before he really felt it. 

A sharp crack against the night air shoved him forward and his boot shattered the calm of a puddle as he stumbled. What the fuck? Pain, white hot, erupted from his shoulder and he cried out as he fell, twisting in the air to land on his back. He pressed his hand to his shoulder and it and the crystal came away red. Blood? Had he been shot?! 

Laughter ricocheted down the street, and Markus felt his heart thud to a wild tempo in his chest when the vampire spoke, “I got tired of running you lot down a long time ago.” 

Eyes blurry with pain induced tears, Markus focused on the vampire as he sauntered up to his prone prey. He held a small caliber pistol in a casual grip. Fuck. He tried to scramble backward, away from the predator advancing upon him, but the vampire clucked. Raised the gun. “Don’t move.” 

An hysterical thought bubbled up, “So, I’m either going to be shot, again, or be this douchebag’s next meal. Great. Awesome.” Markus stilled, swallowing bile, and gripped his crystal tighter. He had one shot. 

The vampire strode forward until he stood over Markus, straddling his waist. The gun trained between his eyes. “I always wondered what one of your kind tasted like,” he said, a thoughtful tone to his honeyed voice. “I’ve never had the opportunity. . . “ Black pooled into the vampire’s eyes and he licked his lips, eyes locked on his bleeding shoulder. 

The witch stared, breaths short, feeling a queasy panic start to thrum in his gut. Markus had heard all of the fireside stories. 

Don’t let a vampire catch you, the taste of magic is addicting. 

A vamp’ got Enry. Took him to the nest and passed him around before he        got away. Poor guy’s never been the same.  

They can’t turn you, but that only makes you sweeter. 

The vampire dropped to his knees, one hand holding the gun between Markus’s eyes and the other coming to rest on his throat. His hands were cold on Markus’s still living skin and he swallowed, feeling his fluttering heartbeat against those strong fingers. Those soulless eyes were intent, the witch didn’t dare move, didn’t fight when the vampire knocked his hand away from the bullet wound. “Guh!” He couldn’t help the groan that was pulled out of his chest when the blond dug his thumb into the weeping opening, eyes rolling into the back of his head. 

The blond grinned, “Did that hurt, darling?” His thumb dripped blood. Markus’s blood. The witch trembled, breaths coming quickly. The vampire took his eyes from his prey, his lids hooded and full of desire, lips open and heavy with anticipation.  He tucked his thumb into his mouth and Markus struck, shoving his fist into the vampire’s face. 

He poured energy into the crystal, feeling cold leech up his arm and into his chest, as sunlight burst from his palm. A howl and the vampire recoiled, flesh boiling, the gun falling to the side as he brought his hands up to claw at his melting face. Markus pivoted his hips, throwing his attacker, and clambered to his hands and knees. “Gogogogogo,” the vampire’s howl spurred him onward even as it turned to a choking gurgle. 

Markus ran. 

He didn’t stop running until he physically couldn’t anymore. Bending at the waist and panting great heaving gulps of oxygen down his acid-laced throat. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dripped down his nose. He held the stitch in his ribs and glanced around, feeling a sense of foreboding rising through him. He’d run to the warehouse district. Not a hard thing to do in this city, not in the slum that his little storefront was in, but still dark and deserted. 

Breathing heavily, he fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed. The ringtone echoed against the empty building. 

“Hello?” 

Relief rushed through him and Markus felt his knees try to give out at the sleep raspy voice. “Illyn?” he whimpered. 

“Markus? What’s wrong?!”

He laughed, shaky and small. “I think I found what was in your auger.” 

“Oh my god, what was it? Where are you?” 

He swallowed against the stone in his throat, “I’m not sure, ran from my shop into the warehouse district.” 

“Fuck, okay, do you see any street signs?” 

“No, I don’t even see any building signs.” 

“Okay, send me the location from your phone.” His hands shook as he did as she asked. “Are you hurt?” 

Markus choked back a hysterical giggle, “He fucking shot me Illyn.”

“He WHAT?!” A door slammed over the speaker and Markus heard her car startup. 

“Yeah, in my shoulder,” he tucked the phone against his cheek and good shoulder, gripping the bullet wound. His hand came away slick. “I’m still bleeding.”

“Holy shit, put pressure on it. Can you heal any of it?” 

He shook his head, feeling cold and exhaustion creeping into every iota of his body. “I’m tapped. Had to use a lot to get away. I don’t have the right materials on me anyway.” Markus leaned against the empty warehouse, the rough brick catching in his leather jacket as he slid down. 

“Okay, hold on for me, alright? My phone says I’m ten minutes away. Can you get under a street light?” 

“I don’t think so. . . Illyn, m’really tired.” 

“Stay with me, baby, okay? Stay with me. I know you’re tired. You probably used too much magic at once. Remember how I got so sick that one time I tried to impress you? Huh?” 

He gave a weak chuckle, “I ‘member. Passed out on the floor. Had to carry you home.” 

“Yeah, yeah you did. This time I get to carry you home, ‘kay? Keep talking to me baby, let me know you’re there.” 

Markus hummed, letting his eyes slide closed, “M’kay. . . Illyn?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Want my grahm back, kay?” 

A choked laugh, “Of course baby. Anything you want.” 

Something took the phone away from Markus and his eyes snapped open. A horrified scream poured out of his mouth, cut off by a hand around his throat. 

“Markus?! Markus?” 

“Is that your name, darling? Markus?” The vampire held the phone to his ear and picked the witch up, forcing him to his feet. “It suits you.” 

The vampire’s smile was hideous. The human carapace of his face had been ripped away by Markus’s sunlight. It left the gray leather of an ancient corpse, the blond hair replaced by stringy white. His nose was just gone, a bat-like snout in its place. 

“I’m sorry, your friend can’t come to the phone right now.” Markus could hear Illyn on the phone, cursing and calling for him. “Don’t worry, I will take very good care of him.” The delicate machine crumpled in the vampire’s fist, glass shattering and tinkling to the ground. 

Markus grabbed at the hand around his throat. A harsh rasp coloring the night air when he tried to draw air past the blockage. Fear choked him as much as the hand around his throat.

“You were not very nice to me earlier, darling. You hurt my feelings.” The vampire drew closer and Marcus turned his face away, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt fingertips brush across his cheek to trace down his jaw. “I think I’m going to have to teach you some manners.” His head was forced back by a vicious grip on his hair and Markus clenched his teeth as he tried to push at his attacker’s shoulders. He may as well have been pushing the wall at his back. 

The vampire chuckled at Markus’s struggles, moving the hand from his throat to caress down his chest, across his stomach, and to press him closer by a hand on the small of his back. Markus shuddered at the familiarity of the gesture. The way it made him arch against the taller man. He couldn’t push the vampire away. Couldn’t shake his head. He felt dampness laying thick and heavy on his eyelashes. 

Fuckfuckfuck. 

Something cold and wet ran up the side of Markus’s neck and he gasped in surprise. His eyes shooting open. All he could see was the cloudy night sky, thick with smog and light pollution. He tried to jerk away but was held closer. The arm going around his back to crush his ribs to the firm chest in front of him. 

Markus strained against the hold, his breaths short and painful. Sharp points of hard teeth tugged delicately on the thick muscle of his neck. He was fucking playing with him. An angry flush washed through him, “Just get it over with you asshole!”

A soft puff of air against the wet line on his throat and the arm around him became bruising, “As you wish.” 

Markus grunted when the vampire’s sharp fangs pierced into the side of his neck. Hands clenching into his attacker’s jacket at the pain. He tried to jerk away and gasped when the vampire sank his teeth in farther, tightening his hold to make his ribs creak in protest. He fought to breathe, ragged and shallow. The hand in his hair forced his head back to an even more awkward angle and he groaned as it stretched his neck against the fangs in his flesh. 

He could feel the vampire’s lips sealed tightly around the entry wound in his throat. A slight sucking sensation whenever the vampire swallowed. The soft touch of his tongue. 

Fear fluttered in Markus’s chest as the vampire steadily drank. He pulled at the back of the vampire’s jacket, tried to get traction with his boots. “Enough...stop, stop.” 

A soft moan of pleasure rose at his begging and Markus whimpered at the tingling numbness that started to work its way through his extremities.  The clouds twirled overhead and he felt his heart racing in his chest. Damnit, nononono...

Markus’s knees gave way after a few more eternal moments and a short broken sound dropped from his chest at the extra weight on his ribs. At the way the vampire’s fangs tore further into his skin. “Stop. . . No, stop, I—I can’t. . .” The clench of his hands went slack as the cruel grip on his hair loosened. 

The vampire cradled the witch to him. Drawing him closer so his face came to rest in the crook of the other’s neck as the other hand kneaded into the lax muscle of Markus’s back. A thumb rubbed soothing circles into the nape of Markus’s neck and his eyes fluttered closed, gifting butterfly kisses to his attacker.  

The vampire shuddered and pulled away from Markus’s neck with a soft, wet sound. His tongue laved at the marks he’d left and Markus gave a weak mewl of pain. Stop, it hurts, please please, stop. The vampire nipped at the curve of Markus’s jaw, sharp points making his prey quiver in his arms. 

“Fuck darling, that was. . . “ he shivered and nuzzled at Markus’s neck, pushing him against the wall to hold him there with the weight of his body. Markus’s attacker ran his hand up and down his side to find the seam of his t-shirt. To find the bare skin underneath. 

The witch pulled a convulsive breath and twitched at the touch. Tried to draw away. A growl made the hair stand up on his neck and he stilled with a low whine. “Good boy” the vampire breathed, his thumb digging into his side. Pressing into one of the delicate pressure points above his hip bone. Markus groaned, head still lying limp on the vampire’s shoulder. He shook his head, a gentle rocking back and forth on his forehead, his finger’s twitching against the vampire’s back. 

The hand on the back of his head slid under his jaw and rolled his head to rest on the brick wall, “Look at me, beautiful. I want to see you, see those lovely green eyes.” Markus mumbled something that was supposed to be a denial and the vampire tsked at him, patting his cheek in an almost slap. “Look at me, Markus.” 

Markus flinched at the sound of his name falling from that fanged mouth. He swallowed thickly and blinked his eyes open with a herculean effort. They burned with fatigue, taking too long to focus on the vampire’s face in front of him. The blond façade from before had been replaced, black eyes peering out of flawless pale skin. A pink flush dusted his newly whole cheeks and his eyelids hung heavy with want. 

The vampire smiled at him when he was able to focus, “There you are, darling.” He rubbed his thumb along the fang marks and Markus whimpered, breath catching in his tight chest. “I’ve heard the rumors of how sweet your kind are but I never believed them. I can feel the magic, your magic, running through me,” he giggled, actually giggled, and brought his face up to Markus’s. Almost kissing him. “You know, I don’t think I’ve felt drunk since I was human.” A pink tongue flickered out of his mouth to lick a red smear at the corner of a full lip. “That’s been a very long time for me.” He shuddered, rubbing himself against Markus, and drug his hand farther up his torso, along the bare skin. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to give that—to give you—up.” The blonde’s smile turned feral. 

Oh fuck, no, please, nonononono. . .

Markus trembled when lips met his neck again, a shiver running along his spine when the vampire whispered, lips tickling the sensitive skin, “I guess I’ll have to take you with me before your friend gets here.” Fangs sunk in a second time and Markus cried out, broken and small, when the pain was reignited. He gasped at air with short and shallow expansions of his lungs while his eyelids slid shut. His entire body went limp, heart thundering behind his breastbone. Finding an irregular aching beat. 

Unconsciousness loomed like a dark shadow and he was barely aware when the vampire pulled away from him to scoop his non-responsive body into his arms. As he slid under, into the darkness, a soft breath puffed at the top of his head, into his hair. 

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll take excellent care of you.”