#Not much longer...

[littlehouseoftrinkets]

hellooooo tumblr, we meet again

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

D.E.A.N | Chapter 30 - Peak

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 8086 [Also very action-heavy, so I can’t cut it into two chapters]

TW: Suicide Pact, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Dread, Minor Character Deaths (antagonist), Blood, Injury, Weapon, Gun, Firearms, Shooting, Drugs, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Gore, Explosion, Medical Instruments and Treatments

He can sense it’s nearly over, although he doesn’t know on whose favor fate will fall into: his side or the enemies’. All who remain are now left to lick their wounds pitifully, wondering if they’ll ever get back to the way it was. Mark tells himself that, at least, ones dear to his heart are still breathing on this God’s green earth.

Whumptober 2023 Themes (last 4 and Alt. Bonus only):

Day Alt. bonus — Aftermath of Failure

Day 28 — “You'll have to go through me.”

Day 29 — Troubled Past Resurfacing

Day 30 — Bridal Carry | “Not much longer...”

Day 31 — Emptiness | Setbacks

Whumptober 2022 Themes (post-event, not completionist):

Day 11 Alt. — Ambushed

Day 24 — Fight, Flight or Freeze | Blood Covered Hands

Day 26 — No One Left Behind | Separated

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

——

Once they’re in the open, they whip their heads left and right, trying to figure out which vehicle Angie and Doctor Lowe are near to. There are two vans: one on the far side of the left, and the other on their right but close. It’s probably not helping that everything is dark.

He didn’t realize how late it is. No wonder many sections of the headquarter looked dark before. What time is it anyway?

Suddenly, they see Angie’s head poking from behind the van on their right. Her arm follows, showing up from the other side of the van to wave to them.

“Angie!” Mark calls out happily, although he still makes sure he keeps quiet.

Anna and Mark sprint to close the distance.

He doesn’t know about Anna, but he feels warmth washing over him with his heart feeling a little lighter. Like giant boulders are lifted off his shoulders. Like hope.

“How did you get here? How did the bomb go?” Anna blurts out quickly.

“Long story. I survived. That’s all that matters.”

“Okay. True,” Anna replies.

Mark gives himself a few seconds to scan Angie and Doctor Lowe quickly, seeing some cuts and bruises here and there, and scratches on their clothes, but they’re alive and well and standing firmly. They’re all okay. Mostly.

Across him, Angie throws a slight look towards Nick in Mark’s arms, one arm lolling on the side and dangling weakly. Nick is quiet and not moving, his head laid against Mark’s chest, but his own chest still rises and falls. Angie stares at the bloody palm of Nick that’s hanging down. She doesn’t point it out.

Which is probably for the best because they can’t afford to panic and spread the anxiety towards each other. They need to be steady and quick now.

“Get in,” Doctor Lowe tersely instructs Mark while Angie walks towards the back of the van to open the doors. It’s not locked.

Mark frowns while looking at the van, pausing a few steps away. He scans their surroundings and sees no one else beside 5 of them.

“What?” the surgeon turns around to him exasperatedly.

“Is this safe?” he asks. “Did any Helga people get to it?”

“It’s fine. I’ve been here all the time we were separated,” Angie says urgently to Mark. “The agents in charge of guarding the backyard just left for the inside not too long ago, so the vehicles were still protected from any sabotaging.”

Mark contemplates for a few seconds, but ends up closing his eyes and sighing as he accepts Angie’s explanation, so he steps forwards to approach the van.

“The keys?” Angie asks him.

Mark faces her fully to give her better access to Nick’s pockets on his utility belt. Nick stays still, eerily silent. He doesn’t react at all to Angie rummaging her hand through his many pockets until she gets to the one with the handful of metal keys.

“Okay, good, lay him down there,” Doctor Lowe instructs him once Angie has the keys in her palm. The surgeon points to the far side of the van’s interior.

Mark bends down his body a little so that he can fit into the back of the van as he steps into it. He climbs into the van’s inside while crouching, still with Nick in his arms, but when both of his feet are firmly on the floor of the van and he is pretty much squatting, he starts shifting his legs one knee at a time to kneel. He shuffles that way a bit until he reaches the divider between the back of the van and the driver section so that he can deposit Nikolai on the floor.

Nick is still unmoving with face leaning against Mark’s chest and one arm lolling around, even until he gently lays Nick down.

“No, no. Sit him up a bit. His legs can’t be higher than the rest of his body,” the surgeon interjects, pulling on Mark’s arm a bit to stop his movement.

Nick finally makes a sound by groaning weakly when Mark tries to pull his body up into sitting position, while Doctor Lowe pulls his legs straight from slightly bent position. It seems to be very important that Nick’s legs are lower than his torso as he is bleeding like this, as said by Angie too before the first surgery.

Once they’re settled inside, Doctor Lowe turns back to pull the doors in and slam them closed. Only then does Mark take off his helmet and put it away. He takes off Nick’s helmet next to see his face and gauge how he is doing.

Nick’s eyes are half-lidded, blinking sluggishly once in a while. He looks extremely pale with cold sweat drenching his body and wetting his hair. Even his skin is cold to touch.

“Kid, just last a little bit more, okay?” Doctor Lowe now says as he crouches to sit next to Nick across from Mark, both facing the weakened boy. The old face uncharacteristically shows strong emotions and non-clinical concern, for once.

Nick’s thin hands are on top of his own abdomen, but they’re not really pushing on his wound strongly, probably because his energy is completely depleted. Mark kneels on one knee in front of him as he puts his own palm on top of Nick’s to push at it firmly.

Nick winces and weakly shifts his head to the side.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. We need to put pressure on your bleeding,” he tells Nick softly.

Nick turns his head forward again to look at him, face seemingly half-conscious. His breathing is labored and dragging, and when Mark takes Nick’s left wrist to feel his pulse, it’s faint but abnormally rapid.

“Why the fuck are we not driving yet?”

He sees Doctor Lowe raising his head to look over Nick’s head towards the divider, his face urgent with a somewhat angry look. He has never been a patient man in all the time Mark has known him, after all.

“Hey,” the doctor calls out again, “what are you waiting for?!”

He bangs on the divider, making Nick wince and moan in pain again. Mark glares slightly at the surgeon, but the man doesn’t seem to care.

“We’re looking for the key!” they both hear Angie’s muffled voice.

“Do it fucking faster!”

Even with the divider, Mark can hear Angie and Anna frantically mumbling with each other, “Where the fuck is the key? Is it this? No, that doesn’t fit, fuck! I don’t know which one? Did they not say which key is for which car! Oh my god…” with metal jiggling.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you serious, you dumb bitches? Go now!” Doctor Lowe yells out incredulously.

“We’re trying, okay?!” follows with more metal clanking from both women in the front.

“For fuck’s sake, just cut the cord and start with it!” Mark now screams in turn in frustration.

“Are you fucking serious? No! It’ll just destroy the car!” Angie responds from the front.

Nick shifts his head to the side again, weakly gasping with eyes barely open.

“Angie! Anna! Come on!” Mark yells again after looking at that.

He hears more metal jiggling and hissed arguments from the front, and he is about ready to get out and sort the problem out himself, but then he hears the van sputtering then humming to life.

“Gotcha!” he finally hears from Angie.

Mark and Doctor Lowe unconsciously exhale in relief and sag their bodies at the same time. He can even hear Nick exhaling weakly too.

He turns to Nick again with a tight smile, trying to be calming and reassuring.

“This is it. We just have to reach backup team and it’ll be over. You’ll be okay there,” he says softly.

Nick simply looks back at him, seemingly fighting against his exhaustion so that he can keep his eyes open. He winces a bit before blinking weakly, then his eyes stay half-lidded until they all can feel the motion of the car starting to be driven away.

Of course, in ideal situation, it’s better to drive slowly and carefully so that Nick isn’t jolted around while bleeding like this, but there are still dozens of Helga people they’re trying to run from in here, and possibly even more who are still trying to reach this headquarter. They don’t have any other choice but to accept Angie hitting the gas and speeding up along their path until they reach Central Hub’s backup team.

Doctor Lowe and Mark have just taken off their guns and put them on the floor when they simultaneously push at Nick’s shoulders instinctively. He is whipped from side to side at a sharp turn Angie is taking, so they’re making sure Nick isn’t knocked around—especially on the head—and injured more.

“Argh…” Nick immediately yelps in pain at the sudden movement.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m sorry,” he soothes Nick.

He can see tears flowing from the corners of Nick’s swirly blue-brown eyes as they’re squeezed shut. In turn, Mark squeezes Nick’s shoulder a little to calm him down. Eventually, the van is going at a more even pace with less bouncing as it seemingly settles on an established road.

“You keep pushing on his wound. I’ll try to connect to backup,” Doctor Lowe eventually instructs him.

He simply nods and sits down with crossed legs so that he is in a more comfortable position to hold Nick. His own right shoulder is leaning against the divider as he keeps his left palm’s pressure at Nick’s abdomen. Mark sees Doctor Lowe sit on his heels while clicking on his watch for a while.

The old surgeon tsks.

“The reach is too short with this,” he comments.

“Well, yeah. It’s for a contained network. It’s not meant to be far,” he responds.

“It would be nice if it can. I was hoping its reach is far enough considering we don’t have any of our heavy-duty laptops.”

“There is our satellite map on the dashboard, isn’t there?” he inquires.

“For them,” the surgeon nods his chin to the front to refer to Angie and Anna, “but not us. We can’t see where we are from here. Can’t prepare.”

Oh, that makes sense.

“I guess we should just keep our comms open to connect to backup’s network.”

“I’d rather not do that for too long. We can be intercepted. There are only 5 of us here,” the old man informs him, finally clicking the button on the earpiece itself, seemingly disconnecting from 1034’s headquarter’s network.

Mark too ends up clicking on his earpiece to disconnect it.

There is no point in connecting to 1034’s headquarter anymore since they’re leaving that place and won’t need to communicate with any of them. He knows they’re not going to send more chaperone agents for Nick because there simply are just not enough agents to fight Helga in the headquarter itself.

It’s better to make sure their connection isn’t intruded on by any non-authorized party by turning it off completely.

He almost falls asleep due to his extreme exhaustion and lulling silence for a while when Doctor Lowe suddenly talks to him.

“Shift him a little,” Doctor Lowe instructs Mark.

He furrows his eyebrows.

“I need to see behind us,” the doctor explains, pointing at the screen on the divider that’s supposed to show the back of the van through the small camera on the door.

“Oh.”

Mark gently slips his right arm between Nick’s back and the divider to circle Nick’s body from behind, pulling him closer almost to an embrace until Nick’s head is lying on Mark’s right shoulder instead of covering the screen.

He doesn’t realize the intimacy of the gesture until Doctor Lowe stares at him for a few seconds.

He is about to push Nick away a little bit to minimize the too-personal sense of their position, but when he sees Nick’s closed eyes on the pale exhausted face, he just doesn’t have the heart to do it. Who’s going to have a problem with it anyway?

Doctor Lowe ends up shaking his head and rising to kneel so that he can get closer to the screen and turns it on.

It crackles a bit before he sees the screen coming to life. Not that it’s going to help in telling them where they are, especially since it’s dark outside, except just to see if their environment is safe.

For quite a while, all they do is just glance at the screen every so often while mostly ignoring it in favor of laying back and closing their eyes to get a little bit of rest. They’re not really expecting anything noteworthy to happen, but he hears a bang on the divider from the front.

He and Doctor Lowe furrow their eyebrows and look at each other.

“Look at your watch! What colors are they?” he hears Anna inquire.

“What? What color? What are you talking about?” he shouts back with a perplexed expression.

“There are incomings shown in our satellite map. Are they our guys?”

He immediately straightens up his back with an alert look, just as Doctor Lowe does. They whip their heads to look at the screen.

It’s not obvious in the beginning, but he can see some dots following them from behind that are getting closer and closer and eventually appearing like several vehicles that are not D.E.A.N issued.

Oh, fuck.

He looks at his watch over Nick’s head and shoulder who is still leaning against his chest, clicking a button on the side to turn it on again.

They’re all brown pulsating dots following from behind.

“Oh, shit,” Doctor Lowe whispers horrifically.

“Nick, Nicky, get off, I need to move,” he says to Nikolai, trying to be gentle even if he is about to lose his shit.

Nick flutters his eyes open and winces, seemingly having fallen asleep before.

He hates being rough with Nick, but he has to quickly shift Nick’s body away from him so that he can move to grab his rifle again.

Doctor Lowe is kneeling while slamming the seat covers up, seeing what’s inside their under-seat storage. He frantically grabs all manners of firearm cartridges, from long rifle ammo clips to boxes of handgun bullets from the inside. Mark can see that besides those, there are explosives too like grenades and some smoke bombs.

There are also different kinds of rifles there, seemingly more of a sniper rifle type, along with some rifle tripod mounts.

Sniper rifle be damned. He’ll use them when he has to. Bullet is a bullet once it’s in someone’s skull.

“Wha…” Nick mumbles with half-lidded eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says distractedly as he starts reloading several magazines worth of bullets for his pistols, then inserting a long ammo clip into the chamber of his rifle along with Doctor Lowe.

Not long after, they immediately hear shots hitting the back of their van.

Shit. He thought they’re out of the woods already.

Doctor Lowe frantically rummages through the storages again, muttering furiously to himself.

“Doc, you got bullets. What are you looking for?” Mark asks in frustration.

“I need sticky tapes for the rifle mounts.”

“What?!”

Doctor Lowe sits on his heels again while turning towards him.

“I’m not Addrianne or Mary who can probably shoot the fucking moon without rifle mount, all right? I need a steady mount.”

“Just shoot with your machine guns!”

“You do it! I’ll find some tape.”

Mark tsks incredulously, but he does grab his helmet to put it back on before pushing open the hatch on top of their van. He takes a slight look at the screen to get a feel of what kind of enemies they’re dealing with before popping his head up with his machine gun pointed to the back.

There are 5 jeeps following them.

“How the fuck did they know about us?!”

Mark ignores Doctor Lowe’s question to start pressing his rifle trigger, followed by resounding shots and strong recoils that hit him much harder than usual with his current shooting position. He mostly hits the windows and non-vital parts of the enemies he can see.

When he pauses a bit, he observes them and finds that they all look fresh and battle ready, maybe even more combat-trained than the ones swarming 1034 before. There are women there too, ones who look as military-trained as the rest.

He absently thinks about Doctor Lowe’s question.

He doesn’t like the thought that maybe there was a planned breach of information about their strategy. These enemies look especially prepared for this kind of battle, while the ones in 1034 look more like low level thugs of the syndicate who just happen to be given firearms.

He bows down his head under the hatch when the other side returns the shots, waiting until they stop so that he can shoot again. On his left a little bit behind him, he hears shotgun shots and cocking from Anna who is poking her head out of the window to shoot with him.

He feels their van swerving to the left sharply, feeling himself knocked to the side and hit hard on the chest by the metal opening of the hatch.

“Fucking hell, Angie!”

“I’m avoiding their shots!”

He breathes hard as he steadies himself, pointing his machine gun again to shoot mostly at the driver of the jeep closest to them.

They seem to know his plan, so that jeep also swerves to the side to avoid his shots.

“Move!” Doctor Lowe yells at him from under.

Mark looks down to the inside of the van and sees Doctor Lowe holding a short rifle tripod mount, presumably with sticky tape on the bottom of the feet.

He pulls himself down to allow Doctor Lowe to stick the mount to the top of their van, using the opportunity to pull another long ammo clip to be slung over his shoulder as preparation before the current one runs out.

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to install that!” he half-shouts.

“Shut the fuck up. I told you I’m not a sniper. I’m just doing what I can,” Doctor Lowe shouts with voice half-muffled by the windy surrounding. “Now give me that rifle!”

Mark looks down on the ground to see the different kind of rifle usually used for precision shooting. He simply grabs that and follows the surgeon’s instruction.

Unlike their automatic machine guns which can shoot endlessly as long as they keep pressing the trigger and have ammo clips attached, the rifle Doctor Lowe is using right now is semi-automatic. It requires him to pull the trigger each time he wants to take a shot, although he doesn’t have to keep reloading each time.

Mark kneels on one knee with his own rifle strap slung over his shoulder again, both of his arms holding the gun itself, while he faces Nick.

The younger man’s face is alert and scared, no longer has any trace of sleepiness as before. Mark’s heart clenches at the deep fear shown on that bony and pale face, undoubtedly in pain too at the sudden movements Angie keeps making.

Nick is holding the sides of the opened seats for dear life.

“What’s going on, Mark?” he asks shakily as he starts crying again.

“It’s fine. We’ll deal with it,” he softly says, once again saying it both for Nick and himself.

Eventually, Doctor Lowe removes his rifle from the mount and pops back down to gather more ammos and fill the chamber with them once again. Mark uses this opportunity to pop back out, and he starts shooting again.

He aims lower this time, trying to point at the wheels.

Their van swerves to the side once again, so he groans as the corners of the opened hatch hit him on the chest again.

“Argh!”

“Sorry!” Angie simply shouts.

He starts shooting again once he is sure Angie is done with her swerving. He hits one person, and he can see the man’s body flopping to the side and bowing forward. The driver next to him doesn’t flinch or look away from the road despite having her comrade shot to death next to her.

Mark starts pointing his gun at another jeep now, going for the passenger shooter again. He only manages to shoot the person’s shoulder, but that’s good enough. She’s not going to be able to shoot properly like that.

He pulls back, going down into the van again to take a break from the harsh recoils and avoid the shots from the other side, so Doctor Lowe rises again with his semi-automatic rifle after reloading it.

Doctor Lowe focuses on the scope, taking a shot more carefully and slowly. Mark can only guess what’s happening. The only way the people in the back of the van can see what’s behind is by looking at the screen, but that has a limited view.

He hears another shot from Doctor Lowe, followed by loud crashing, but before he can catch what’s happening, there is another bang to the back of the van, so now the screen crackles then goes black.

Oh, great. Fantastic. As if they weren’t already stuck and cornered before.

Even so, Doctor Lowe lowers himself again, gathering ammos to be inserted into the rifle chamber again.

“Your turn,” he tightly says as he keeps focusing on inserting some ammo clips.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Got one of their drivers.”

He furrows his eyebrows as he thinks about what Doctor Lowe means until he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

The driver shot by Doctor Lowe either got injured enough that they can’t steer the vehicle well anymore, or killed so the jeep swerved around uncontrollably until it hit another one.

Basically, taking two enemies’ vehicles at once.

Not like Addrianne, my ass, Mark thinks.

“Your turn, Hayden!” Doctor Lowe yells at him.

He immediately jumps up over the hatch to point his gun again.

As he guessed before, there are now only three jeeps still following them, while the other two are falling behind so far in the back. Still, that doesn’t mean they can’t change drivers and start chasing his team again. He doesn’t know if their jeeps’ engines are damaged enough to stop them completely.

He squints his eyes at the recoil of his rifles, still not used to how harsh and painful it is while being shot this way, but he keeps going. He quickly pulls the end of the other long ammo clip to start inserting it into his machine gun’s chamber. He cocks it after it’s inserted and starts shooting again.

He got two, but only some back passenger shooters, not any driver like what he aimed for.

“Here,” Mark hears Doctor Lowe call to him.

He pops in a little only to see the surgeon handing him a smoke bomb. He would prefer the grenade, but they’re still too close to throw it safely, so he accepts the smoke bomb anyway.

He pulls away the pin with his teeth and throws it far into one of the jeeps’ open roof. There is clanking and harsh hissing before smoke quickly seeps out of the can and fills the jeep. The jeep swerves wildly to the side after that and gets left behind.

Two more to go.

He starts shooting again for a while until his ammo runs out.

He only manages to simply graze the remaining chasers instead of causing substantial damage to his enemies. Behind the two jeeps, he starts to see the jeep left behind after the smoke bomb, and it’s gaining on them. He also sees another one, which is one of the two crashing jeeps that Doctor Lowe shot before.

Oh, fuck. It’s going up to four again, then.

Doctor Lowe and Mark keep taking turn shooting either with machine guns or sniping rifles, or even a shotgun they find after rummaging through the under-seat storage more carefully. Once the ammos for those run out, they take out their pistols, which are not ideal because they’re not as strong as machine guns or as precise as sniping rifles, but better than not fighting back at all.

He can feel his worry and panic starting to rise again each time he pops back down and sees more and more empty bullet boxes and used clips.

“Hey kid, you need to hold on really tight on this seat, okay?” Doctor Lowe cryptically tells Nick as he points at the jutting metal under the opened seat.

He doesn’t understand why Doctor Lowe is saying that considering Nick is already holding onto the seat so tightly.

Nick is no longer pushing down on his abdomen and seemingly hasn't been for a while, which means he’s been bleeding more than they would have liked compared to if he’d been pushing at his wound. He’s getting even paler, grimacing more often after every swerving and jolting from the speed of Angie’s driving.

He faces where Doctor Lowe is pointing.

“Wha… about—”

“It’s okay. Mark is gonna help you with your bleeding,” the surgeon cuts him off, instantly knowing what Nick means.

Doctor Lowe cocks his head to the side to point at Nick. Mark gives a questioning stare for a bit, but obeys the surgeon’s command.

“You hold on tight too,” the old man says cryptically again, but doesn’t wait for Mark to comply before popping out of the hatch.

Mark simply kneels down facing Nick with one hand pushing at the wounded abdomen and another gripping a handgrip tightly as the doctor tells him to.

He’s not sure what the surgeon is planning until he hears loud boom and a sense of this van almost being flipped over, roughly knocking him over to the floor. Thankfully, he pulls his left arm from Nick’s stomach quickly enough to throw it above his head so that it’s cushioned against the metal body of the under-seat storages.

Still, the force of it brings sharp pain to his forearm that can’t help screaming in pain. He feels like he has broken the bone in his forearm, or at least given it some deep musculature damage.

Nick thankfully gets thrown into his arm too, so his head isn’t knocked around too at the harsh bump the van was put through.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Doc?” he cries out angrily.

The doctor simply pops back down to bend down and grabs an item.

“We have no bullets,” he tightly says without a care towards Mark’s offense.

“And you didn’t think to warn us before throwing a fucking grenade?”

“I did.”

The surgeon knocks at the divider twice before popping his head back out while gripping another grenade.

This time, Mark is more ready.

He elongates his legs to tightly push against the under-seat storages on both sides. He pushes feet against the left under-seat while his lower back is pushed against the right one. Being tall has its perks, it seems.

One of his hands is holding onto a handgrip attached to the divider while his other hand is putting Nick almost in an embrace again. Nick too is holding on to a handgrip on the other side of the divider, while his other hand is pushing at his stomach.

He hears another kaboom and feels the van jolts around roughly, but without throwing his body around since he has good enough grip on his surroundings. It happens three more times, each time adding more and more aches onto his body due to the rough jolting, on top of his muscles being forcibly and endlessly taut.

Nick too keeps keening in pain, fisting Mark’s shirt desperately while leaning over and sobbing.

After the third explosion, Doctor Lowe bends down to frantically crawl all over the floor, repeatedly slamming the seat covering of the storage loudly. He keeps mumbling to himself like he is possessed, until he eventually reaches the one closest to Mark and Nick near the divider.

“Move over,” the surgeon tightly orders him.

Mark has to bodily carry Nick in his arms to move him away so that Doctor Lowe can turn that storage upside down too.

They wince when they feel harsh shots at the back of their van, now being dented by the repeated firings of strong firearms.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Nick’s half-lidded eyes land on the surgeon’s back.

“Wha… what’s—what’s going… on?” Nick stutters weakly.

Doctor Lowe’s shoulders slump again, giving Mark another jolt of fear. It’s never good when the surgeon slumps like that. The beer-bellied man then weakly sits on his heels with his head leaned back while exhaling shudderingly.

They hear more shots, and the dents get deeper.

The doctor still doesn’t face Nick or Mark, and instead bangs on the divider.

“Anna! Why aren’t you shooting?!”

Mark can feel his heart thumping on his chest painfully, faster and faster the longer it takes for Anna to reply.

“There is no more bullet,” they all hear Anna shout with her own resigned voice.

“Try to find more! Under Angie’s seat or something!” Doctor Lowe tries again.

“We tried, Doc. We can’t find more!”

Just as she is done talking, they hear more bullets shot in their way with clanging sound. Mark realizes that one manages to lodge itself into the door of the van.

He feels cold washing over him.

Nick shudders in his arms, and Doctor Low stares helplessly at that bullet.

Everything feels like slow-motion, or being submerged into a pool with a sense of detachment the more bullets shot in their way. There are now several bullets being lodged into the van’s backdoor. One of them is even pushed out into the inside of the van by another bullet shot to that hole.

“No…” Nick whispers horrifyingly with tears starting to flow from his eyes again, “…no, I don’t—I don’t wanna… go back…”

He whimpers again.

Mark hopelessly stares at the closed doors with many bullets lodged into them, as does the old surgeon in front of him. He feels a sense of cold dread in his chest. In his arms, Nick turns away from the door and pushes his face into Mark's shoulder instead.

“No… I don’t want them to take me again… please, I don’t want to…”

Mark squeezes his eyes closed at Nick's muffled and desperate mumbling and tightens his arms around the fragile body, accompanied by more shots towards their van.

“It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay. You’re not going back. You’ll be okay,” he whispers gently to Nick as the boy keeps crying in his hold.

He moves his hands to rub Nick’s back up and down, tucking Nick’s head into the space between his neck and shoulder, cradling Nick like a child.

“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, don’t worry, yeah?”

He knows it’s a lie, of course.

There are four jeeps worth of highly trained Helga members on their tail. Maybe more, considering their screen is broken and they can’t see outside if there are more jeeps coming. They’re cornered. They have no weapon—no bullets, no protection, no means of fighting back.

God knows how long they still need to go to get to Central’s backup.

They…

They lost.

But he keeps rubbing Nick’s back up and down, continuously telling Nick that everything’s going to be fine.

Eventually, Nick whimpers, “Just… just kill me… please… I don’t want them to take me back…”

“No, don’t say that, come on,” he whispers gently to Nick’s ear, hating that Nick is trying to shatter his self-made illusion.

Across from him, Doctor Lowe stares with just as much emptiness on his face. The man even looks scared with glistening eyes.

Nick pulls back to face him fully.

“Just kill me…”

“Nicky, don’t—”

“I know we’re stuck, Mark.”

He stares back at Nick’s sure face, even if it’s wet with tears and pale.

“Don’t let me go back to them, please…”

Mark breathes out shakily, wincing once in a while when he feels more shot at their van.

“Just kill me…”

Nick chokes on a sob after that, face terrified but resigned at the same time.

Behind Nick, he sees Doctor Lowe digging into his pants then pulls out four glass vials.

Mark stares at them, catching a glimpse of ‘morphine’ and ‘100ml’ on the labels.

“No,” he firmly says to Doctor Lowe.

“You know we’re done, kid,” he tells Mark gently.

“No, we’re not. We’ll be fine.”

Doctor Lowe gives him a heartbroken and pitying look, but…

They’ll be fine. They have to be fine. He doesn’t have to kill Nick to prevent him from being taken back. They don’t have to kill themselves so that Helga can’t torture them back. They’ll be okay.

They’ll be fine. They’ll be fine.

Even if there are more bullets lodged on their door, they’ll be fine.

They’ll be fine, they’ll be fine, they’ll be—

“I’m too old for this shit, son,” Doctor Lowe says with palpably heavy sense of exhaustion as he takes one bottle from his palm and keeps it in his own vest pocket.

Four bottles and one taken by Doctor Lowe already.

He gulps painfully.

Nick… Nick has to have one. He deserves that, at least.

It’s either Mark, Angie, or Anna whose fate in Helga’s hands will be uncertain.

Mark bites his lip, feeling terrified too with cold realization seeping into him. He feels his eyes getting wet, suddenly thinking about his mom and how he never got to say a proper goodbye to her, or Jackson. Or the others in his team.

How Nick will never get to taste freedom, except by taking one of those bottles.

It’s so unfair. Why is it all so unfair?

He hugs Nick tighter with his own closed eyes and tears flowing down his cheek.

“It’s okay,” he continues softly again to Nick’s ear, “you’ll be okay. They’ll never take you again. I promise. You’ll be okay.”

He keeps doing that, delaying the inevitable, trying to find it in his heart to help Doctor Lowe injects the content of that bottle to Nick’s vein when push comes to shove. And it will come to shove.

There are more shots to the van, and he feels deep plunging in his chest again.

Maybe he has never been cut out for this. For being a D.E.A.N agent. He doesn’t think a true D.E.A.N agent should be this shaky and terrified at the face of danger they supposedly signed up for.

“Wait.”

He opens his eyes and stare back at the surgeon.

The old man’s face is confused with furrowed eyebrows.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Mark asks back.

“There are shots fired,” the surgeon replies with widened eyes.

Mark glares, feeling angry at the fact that he’s emotionally being yanked around. The surgeon is the one forcing Mark to come to terms with what they’re going to face, but he is now the one being obtuse and playing around.

“I can fucking see that, Doc,” he harshly replies.

“No, look,” the surgeon says, curiously with a smile blooming on his face, “there are shots outside.”

Mark glares even more at the surgeon’s demented game.

“I’m aware. I have ears and eyes.”

“No, listen,” the old man emphasizes.

He stays glaring with Nick crying in his arms while refusing to look at the door with bullets lodged all over it. He doesn’t understand the point of Doctor Lowe saying all of these stupid shits.

But then he furrows his own eyebrows. There is something strange about the gunshot sounds.

Obviously, he can sense some bullets being shot in their way, be it through sound or the vibrations once they hit their van, but he still turns his head towards the doors along with the surgeon.

“These are not shot towards us,” he concludes.

On top of that, he finally hears some really loud whooshing above them, enough to penetrate the metal body of the van and into their hearing.

Mark quickly clicks on his earpiece comm, almost missing it in his haste. Immediately, there is a crackling sound of it connecting to a network.

Mark clicks on his round button.

“This is CC75 reporting in. Are you 1056? Over.”

“Oh, god,” he immediately whispers out.

“I repeat. This is CC75 reporting in. Are you 1056? Over.”

Mark shakily clicks on his square button while looking at his watch, seeing light blue dots all around them.

“We copy. Confirming this is 1056. Over,” he shakily replies.

“What’s your code? And is the informant with you? Over.”

“This is MT56. And yes, the informant is with us. Over.”

At that, Doctor Lowe jumps up and slams open the hatch again.

Mark immediately looks up, now realizing that the whooshing sound are from several helicopter blades.

“YOU’RE LATE YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!” Doctor Lowe screams with his hand thrown upwards while cackling like a maniac. “WHOO HOOO!”

Mark chokes out a half-laugh half-cry at the surgeon’s excited yell.

They still hear more shots, but it’s clear that it’s more between backup’s heli and the Helga members chasing them, rather than between those members and their van. He can even hear slight booming while their van is jolted around a little. He can only guess that it might be from backup’s grenade launchers.

Doctor Lowe pops back in and basically lets himself drop to his ass while leaning back on his arms, still laughing once in a while. He has tears too on his face despite the weirdly soothing chuckles.

Mark closes his eyes and lets more of his own tears drop to his cheeks, but out of relief. He hugs Nick even tighter while burying his face into the black hair.

“I told you we’ll be fine, right?” he whispers to Nick’s ear, now being honest.

Nick wraps his own arms around Mark too and pushes his face deeper into Mark’s neck, sobbing too out of relief.

Mark hears more crackling, so he clicks his square button again. He hears a different person talking this time, with a voice he is more acquainted to even before going into D.E.A.N.

“Agent Hayden, I have informed Agent Kingston and Agent Basset that you should drive forward for 20 more miles with two of our helis and three other backup’s vehicles, totalling 40 protection agents until you reach our rescue station. There are Medic agents ready to treat the informant’s puncture wound on his abdomen and other injuries all of you might have sustained. Do you copy? Over?”

“Yes, we copy, Agent Callahan. We’ll meet rescue teams in 20 miles. Over.”

“Good. Unfortunately, we can’t send all of our backup with you because we’ll need to assist 1034, but I think 40 agents are plenty enough to protect 5 of you. Do you copy? Over.”

“Yes, we copy. Of course, Sir. We’ll manage with that. Over.”

He is about to click circle to turn off his comm, but he hears another crackling signifying another request to connect to him.

“Good to hear you, son. Would love to hear Jackson too, but I bet he’d be proud of you anyway.”

Mark chuckles.

“Thank you, Sir. I’m trying my best.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

He waits for a bit, but eventually the familiar senior agent says, “CN94 over and out.”

The van continues to go for a while, with the shooting sounds eventually ceasing to the point that the bumping motions have become calming and lulling them all into a state of half-asleep. Mark makes sure to continue staying awake for the most part so that he can help Nick put pressure on his wounded stomach.

He doesn’t have the energy to think about what it means that Nick is leaning slightly to the side so that he can keep lying on Mark’s chest. Nick’s black-haired head is tucked so deeply under Mark’s chin that he can feel his lips slightly touching the dark sweaty strands. Mark’s arm is also still circling around Nick’s back and putting pressure on the wound that way.

He doesn’t even realize it when the van starts to slow down until it comes to a stop.

Suddenly, the doors to the back of the van are slammed open with lights flooding the space. He has to squint and put a palm over his eyebrows to adjust to it.

He sees several people wearing D.E.A.N’s standard uniforms with bulletproof vests on top who are pushing a gurney towards them, rolling it until it touches the back bumper of the van. Some step into the van itself to help Mark and Doctor Lowe shift Nick around until they can deposit Nick onto the mattress.

The bed is adjusted into a position where it bends upwards in the middle so that Nick isn’t completely lying down. An oxygen mask is quickly fitted onto his face with his head raised a bit so that the elastic band can be pulled behind his head. They put his head back to the bed again after that.

He doesn’t really notice Doctor Lowe walking away to be treated himself.

They immediately start wheeling Nick away, but before they can move far, Mark already steps forward quickly to approach the gurney without thinking. Nick too suddenly lifts his head with a desperate whimpering while reaching out to Mark. When Mark is close enough, Nick quickly holds his hand and grips it tight.

“Sir, we need to insert IV in him for the transfusion and other medications.”

“Let me go with him,” he insists, ignoring the other Medic agents who are trying to get him to sit down and be treated too.

He can’t be bothered to think about himself until he can see Nick safe.

“We’ll need to get him to a medic facility and into a Central Hub HQ. He is a critical informant.”

“He is a 21-year-old human trafficking survivor with PTSD. He is not just an informant,” he replies firmly with a little bit of offense and anger on Nick’s behalf at how they just reduce him to another mission object.

“Yes, sir, we’re aware,” the agent firmly responds to him without reacting to his impassioned words, “but he is still our critical informant, and we need to transport him to a safe confidential location as soon as possible.”

“Let me be with him until then,” he insists.

The Medic agents stare at him then at Nick who is still gripping Mark’s hand, no inhibition in his exhaustion and severe blood-loss. One of them sighs.

“Just until he is ready for transport to a medic facility.”

“Thank you,” he responds with deep relief and gratitude.

“And you’ll need to be treated too in one of the tents.”

“Yeah. With him.”

They give him an unreadable look, but he is too exhausted to think about what that means. They end up simply wheeling Nick into one of the medical tents with Mark on the side still continuously holding Nick’s hand.

Mark can see other agents being wheeled into some tents too, some arriving with helicopters. He assumes those are agents from 1034 and their backup after they decided Nick had plenty of backup agents protecting him already. Some of those arriving agents are able to stand and walk by themselves, but some have to be helped to move around. Some don’t move at all.

He doesn’t know what’s their exact status, and he is too afraid to think more about it, so he focuses on Nick again.

The Medic agents start pulling at Nick’s clothes to unzip his bulletproof vest and outright cuts up his shirt to get to his wound. Nick whimpers a bit at the sudden touches from strangers around him, so Mark squeezes his hand and whispers, “It’s okay, they’re not hurting you, they’re taking care of you, don’t worry”. Nick seems to calm down at that, and the Medic agents give him another unreadable stare that he is starting to get irritated with.

Is it so strange that he wants to calm Nick down and make sure that he is okay?

Nick reaches out shakily to move his hand out of Mark's grip and closer to the lower side of his bulletproof vest. He furrows his eyebrows seeing Nick's movement until the pale frail hand eventually hovers while the boy mumbles half-consciously, "Hmm... you... your bleeding..."

Mark feels warmth in his chest, relieved that Nick is safe enough to be able to feel concerned for someone else. And touched that in his muddled sense, Nick still cares about his condition.

"It's fine. Just lightly grazed. I'll be okay," he says as he bends closer to Nick's ear and squeezes Nick's palm lightly.

One of the Medic agents frowns with a disapproving look, seeing as the blood is copious enough to warrant a guess that it's slightly more than a superficial wound. Whether it's because he is minimizing his injury or because he keeps refusing to be treated until Nick is done, he doesn't know.

Nick shifts his head again to stare more directly at his right waist.

"Hurts? Doesn't... hurt?"

"I'll be fine," he chuckles, "don't worry about me."

"Hmm..."

Nick continues looking like he hardly has wits about him, unfocused despite trying his hardest to cling to consciousness.

The Medic agents keep treating Nick regardless, cleaning up his wound and entire front torso with disinfectant. He is guessing it also contains anaesthetic so that Nick isn’t too in pain when they cauterize his wound with the cauterizer. One of them lifts Nick’s palm that’s not gripping Mark’s palm and starts palpitating the skin to find a vein until she settles at one spot. Another Medic agent brings her a plastic pan with IV attachment instruments and materials in it.

After that, it’s pretty straight forward until the saline and blood bags are attached to Nick.

There are agents firmly walking out of a newly arriving helicopter, and the Medic agents who are caring for Nick turn to look at those agents slightly before looking back at Mark.

“He is going to be transported now.”

A firm dismissal.

But Mark doesn’t really care. He still walks to follow Nick’s gurney even when Nick has let go of his hand, maybe because the mask also disperses sedative so that he doesn’t feel afraid anymore being bounced around between strangers without Mark.

Eventually, they lift the bed to raise it and insert it to the heli with Nick being shifted around a bit. Mark sees that those swirly blue-brown eyes are closed, and his breathing is steady. Nick might have fallen asleep or unconscious, but he seems okay overall.

The helicopter’s blades are spinning again, creating strong gush of wind around. Mark has to put an arm over his face to soften the blow, then it takes off.

Mark would have liked to follow Nick all the way to the medic facility, and maybe beyond, but he does understand the need for the separation and confidentiality, so when some Medic agents clear their throats, Mark turns to them to dutifully follow them into a tent and sits on one of the beds as instructed.

Mark closes his eyes and leans his head back while they fuss over him. He takes a deep breath, finally letting himself feel the entirety of his shaky body, along with his exhaustion and the pain of the last many hours—and maybe even days or weeks—washing over him, but also deep relief.

When he opens his eyes again, he fittingly sees the dawn breaking with the sun starting to peek out of the sandy landscape.

A new day. A symbol of everything horrific happening before, now over.

Not everything is well and good, of course, considering there is still the question of Nick’s condition—which he doesn’t know whether he is allowed to be told or not after this.

There is also deep grief when he sees agents being wheeled on gurneys into several medical vans and helicopters, some of them fully covered by white sheets as their bodies and the fabrics are smeared with deep red, while the others are in varying degrees of being injured.

Even after this, there will most certainly be many more missions to deal with the rest of Helga. Undoubtedly going to be much more difficult than this.

But the yesterday of chaos is over. It’s really over.

It’s all okay now.

He can finally breathe easy, until the next mission.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

[hummingbird-of-light]

No. 30 “It’s okay just to say ‘I’m not okay’.” (“Not much longer...”)

Continuation to Prompt 1

~

“Shh, not much longer and the pain is gone, doctor.”

He felt a hand running through his hair, heard the deep soothing voice of the man who was slaughtering him, taking him apart bit by bit. It was taunting him.

“You’ll make the perfect dinner for Monty and me. He’ll be just so happy.”

Another blow with the hatchet. Another piece of his body getting chopped off. He wanted to scream, but no sound left his voice.

“What kind of Scotch do you think he prefers? Lagavulin or Talisker?”

Another blow, cutting his left arm off.

“Well… I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as the haggis is perfect.”

Right arm.

“I really hope that you taste just as good as a lamb.”

Left shoulder.

“After all, Monty is an expert and might notice the slight difference.”

Right shoulder.

He gritted his teeth in anger and despair. Scotty… He couldn’t let this bastard take his husband!

“I’ll just tell him that it’s the sauce. The sauce makes all the difference.”

McCoy shuddered when the cold blade touched his neck. He knew that the next blow would be the last.

“Don’t worry, doctor, I’ll tell him your regards.”

He meant to say something, important last words, but he didn’t get the chance to do so.

A quick pain and his head was off.

-

He screamed out loud, sitting upright in bed. Cold sweat was running down his forehead and he ran his hands through his damp hair.

McCoy gasped for air, trying to breathe slowly. His heart seemed to explode, pulse racing.

He felt arms wrapped around him, but only after a moment realized that a soft Scottish brogue was talking to him.

Scotty. It was Scotty!

He was holding him in his arms, rocking him gently.

“Shh, it’s alright, Len. Everything’s fine, mo ghràdh.”

Slowly, the doctor managed to nod as he sank deeper into his love’s hug.

They were fine. They were both safe and sound. The police had found them in time.

“A nightmare again?”

Another nod.

“Will… ye tell me about it?”

McCoy felt his blood turn cold in his veins. No… he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell his love about it. He couldn’t bother him after everything the man had been through.

So he slowly placed his hand on Scotty’s cheek and stroked it gently.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. Let’s… let’s just go back to sleep.”

Scotty’s worried eyes met his. They stared at each other for a long time.

“Len… It’s… it’s okay just to say ‘I’m not okay’,” the Scotsman whispered after a long moment of silence.

McCoy felt his eyes widen at these words and suddenly hot tears streamed down his face.

“I… I…”

All this time he had held it in. All this time he had wanted to protect Scotty.

But maybe it was time to talk. Maybe Scotty was ready.

So McCoy talked, hoping that it would help them both to overcome what had happened.

[ice-cap-k]

Heads Will Roll CH 3

Read CH 4 here

Read CH2 here

Read CH1 here

_______________________________________________________

Scar’s boot heels clicked with every step against the polished marble floor. This castle was amazing! He still couldn’t believe his recent stroke of luck. An entire city, all for him. A Kingdom, even! Complete with a castle and a crown and gold… Well, probably gold. He had yet to see what silly King Ren had in his vaults, but all in good time. 

So what if the place was crawling with humans? Humans were fun! So full of vigor and creativity! A little fragile, perhaps, but he could work with that. There were plenty of them for him to play with. He could afford to break one or two after things had settled down. 

The corridor ended abruptly with a pair of matching spruce doors twice his height. He threw them open to greet the pale dawn. Two armored soldiers stood waiting outside. They stepped in line behind him.

“How was your stay in the castle, sir,” one of them asked. He did not bother to see which one. Instead, he shielded his eyes and looked up at the sky blanketed in overcast grey. 

“Amazing,” Scar said, putting as much sincerity and pep in his voice as possible. He meant it too. “Simply amazing. The architecture, the attention to detail, the materials! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something so masterfully made. Truly, whoever built this place has an eye for detail.”

“The King had it renovated when he inherited the crown,” the other soldier spoke up. Scar found her familiar. Perhaps one of the guards from the other day. She looked misty-eyed as her gaze passed over the building’s ornate spires and buttresses. “He had personally helped with some of the masonry, but the blueprints were all his own.” She let out a sigh, and it dawned on Scar that she was growing sad. Oh, no no no. That would not do. Sadness would mean regret, and he couldn’t have them regretting a change that hadn’t happened yet.

So the vex flexed the magic in his invisible wings, twisting the perception of the guard and, deciding it was best to play things safe, the other standing quietly behind her. Just in case. 

“In hindsight, we’re lucky he didn’t make it a death trap,” the guard behind her spoke up. 

The other nodded her head. Her voice hardened with a noticeable edge. “I can’t believe I was foolish enough to think I was doing some good as his guard for all these years.”

Scar let one hand press against the back of her shoulder. The familiar purplish black sheen of enchanted netherite buzzed against his fingers, less pronounced than the poisonous burn of iron, and warmer than the chill of chiseled diamond. “There was no way to know. Besides! After today, you won’t have to worry about it anymore, right?”

“Right.” Both soldiers nodded once in unison.

“So, how about that courtyard? Is everything set up for today's main event?”

“You mean the town square?” she corrected gently.

“Yes! That." Scar wanted to smile but kept himself composed. 

Humans were easy to control. They balked at their own shadows and were easily swayed like the branches of a willow in a lakeside breeze. They flock like sheep, running from any perceived threat. They rushed headlong towards the first inkling of protection they could find. Having no magic of their own made them blind in the face of glamor. He would pity them, if it wasn’t for the sheer convenience their deficiency provided him and, to some extent, that Ren fella. 

As a vex, he had magic on his side. His glamor kept him safe outside of the fae territories, and his ability to exercise it at will meant other people were more than happy to provide him the life he wanted. A privilege he learned long ago that would never be available back at his old home amidst his own kind. And what he decided he wanted as he passed by this latest, greatest, sleepy little cesspool of humanity, was grandeur. 

As they led Scar through the castle gardens to the carriage waiting at the edge of the winding tiled path, he marveled at his surroundings. The landscaper had managed to keep the early spring melt from turning the flower beds into muck. The first few buds of daffodils and tulip leaves were bright green in the morning chill. Carefully tended vines and shrubs lined gravel pathways that branched off out of sight. Marble statues stood in stark white contrast amidst green topiary and brown branches. 

The most surprising thing, though, was that the person behind the design of this haven had found ways of working carrots into the layout. They dotted the ground in decorative sprays of green amidst the rose bushes, which were still a little too brown despite their forming leaf buds. Carrots! Fully grown and leafy in spring. He sensed no magic traces on them. They were there through pure gardening genius, and most likely hard work. 

“Your carriage, sir.” In his admiration, Scar hadn’t noticed that they had reached the gate at the front of the property. White horses lined up in a row tossing their heads impatiently at the head of a gleaming carriage. One of the soldiers was already holding open its door for him.

Scar made no attempt to hide this grin. “Don’t mind if I do.”

The door clicked closed behind him as he settled back into velvet seats. The lacquered interior shone, even in the scant morning sun. It was all smoothly sanded and polished surfaces, lined in luxurious leather and fabrics. There was even a cup holder! 

The chassis shook slightly, and he could see the armored guards climbing into place at the back through a little curtained window. There was a snap of the whip, a muted jerk as the horses were set into motion, and then they were off. And all Scar had to do to get where he needed to go was sit in the lap of luxury. He could get used to this. 

He had that silly little band of humans to thank for this. The ones he had met at the remains of the tower he had knocked down with the full intention of remaking it to his standards. Standards that were clearly higher than whoever had designed that ugly thing in the first place. It was basic. Plain. Simple. It wouldn’t even work as a blank slate, but its materials would be useful. There was already enough there to make a finer tower. That’s what it had originally been after all. A tower. And he needed a high place to live where he could take off from great heights. 

It had seemingly been a fine location to finally settle down after leaving home for the human realm. There were people conveniently nearby for him to take full advantage of, to charm, and to toy with. And the cows at the nearby farm… They made for a fun little game of target practice. 

But when those two officials came poking around the build site for his new home, he was intrigued. And when that blond fella first mentioned a castle, Scar’s intended project immediately went forgotten. He simply had to see for himself. And once he saw for himself, he liked what he saw. And when he saw that the man in charge of it all, when he looked through the beast’s own charade that was fit to collapse at the first little prod… Oh BABY the plan practically laid itself out in front of him. 

Then there were the humans. 

Sure, Vex tended to be a part of the Unseelie Court, the ridiculously large grouping of various fae species who hated humans. They hosted hunts to strike fear into the hearts of humankind, haunted the woods outside bustling civilizations, goodness, even kidnapped babies from their cribs! 

But not Scar. Scar never really cared for the Court. He certainly never participated in their affairs, and they didn’t exactly have an issue with Scar leaving. So much hatred was misplaced into a species that he felt could be much better utilized. And now was his chance to prove it! After today, he’d have this place all to himself. King Ren might as well have been keeping the seat warm for him. And once he was gone, Scar would take good care of the humans left behind. 

It wasn’t anything personal. Scar didn’t even know the guy. What kind of monster knowingly lived among humans without the protection of glamor anyway? Especially humans who clearly wouldn’t hesitate to kill any monster they came across? The King wasn’t fae. He didn’t have that magic. His people would have found him out eventually, even if Scar had not intervened.  If throwing some random stranger under fire was all it took to get everything he ever wanted, Scar wasn’t about to feel bad about it. It’s not like he was supposed to feel any sort of kinship towards the guy just because he was a monster. 

Really, Scar was just bringing about the inevitable. 

Maybe, and that’s a really unlikely maybe at that if Scar had looked past Ren’s wards and seen a vex instead of a beast, he might have thought twice. But while vex are fae and fae are considered monsters, monsters aren’t fae. 

So Scar didn’t worry about it. Rather, he looked forward to it. It would be a grand event where all the people would gather to watch. A spectacle worth seeing.

Today’s execution was just the first step. He already had his voice in many an important ear at the castle thanks to last night. With a little bit of magic, convincing the higher-ups that he would make a fine stand-in for the king would be a breeze. 

He propped up his cheek against his hand so he could stare out the window. He mused to himself as the countryside passed by and the number of homes lining the street became more numerous. It was a nice enough town. It could use a few touch-ups here and there, but it was a great starting point.

“Not much longer now…”

___________________________________________________________________

Ren could practically feel the seconds ticking away as the footsteps approached. His jailors had come for him.

The disgraced king was half tempted to start counting his heartbeats, for surely they were numbered. Martyn hadn’t come back last night. Ren should know. He never fell back asleep. Couldn’t. The stress had been too much to handle. He had no idea if his Hand had managed to figure out Scar’s true nature for himself. 

Whether Martyn had figured it out or not didn’t seem to have much bearing on the situation at hand. The guards who appeared outside the bars of Ren’s cell still looked at him with loathing in their eyes. Unlike yesterday when his friends had frozen up and gone vacant, these guards appeared to be fully aware of themselves and their surroundings. There was no spell swaying them. The hate was real.

Ren gripped at the chains hanging from his wrists. “Well hey, fellas!” He plastered on a false smile and tried to tone down the shaking that was making its way into his voice. “Aren’t you up nice and early?”

“It’s morning. You know the law, your highness. Why not make it easy for all of us and come quietly?” One of them slipped the key into the lock on the door. The heavy metal grated against the floor as the space between the bars swung open. “Or do we have to do this the hard way?”

“I, uh, don’t suppose I can change your mind?”

Two of the guards gave each other a knowing look. They nodded, and then one of them reached for the chain hooked into the loop by the door. 

Ren had to stumble forward to keep from getting his feet swept out from under him. The guard wrapped the chain around their arm, link by link, gradually shortening the tether bound to the King’s feet. The metal cuffs chaffed painfully against his ankles with every yank. 

Words came tumbling out of Ren’s mouth as they pulled him closer and closer. “Okay, fine. I understand I can’t change your mind about me. But listen to me, that Scar dude is dangerous. He’s a monster! A fae even, with wings and everything. I swear. You can’t just leave him running around or a lot of people are going to get hurt. Someone has to catch him before things get nasty!”

One of the guards rolled their eyes. “As if. You’re just saying that to buy yourself some time.”

“I’m really not-”

“Quiet!” The one holding Ren’s chain gave it a good shake. The metal snapped like a rope, painfully clipping the king’s shins. The pain came so quickly and suddenly that he dropped to one knee. He sucked in breath through his teeth to keep from crying out. “A monster like you won’t fool us any longer. You!” He turned and motioned towards a third guard. “Go get us something to gag him with.”

Armor clanked as they ran off. Ren took deep breaths, trying to ignore the stinging in his leg now layered on top of the bruising from last night. “I’m not lying,” he spat, standing back up. They tried to pull him forward again, but this time he dug his heels in. “Mark my words, that man will ruin the lot of you once I’m gone.”

“Then you should have nothing to worry about,” the guard said coldly. “After all, you said it yourself. You’ll be gone.”

A wave of goosebumps ran down Ren’s arms. Hearing it come out of the other man’s mouth like that didn’t make it any more pleasant. So he stopped trying to argue. The guards weren’t listening to him anyway. 

They pulled him stumbling to the door. When he came close, one guard held a spear tip out threateningly while the other unclipped the chain connecting the shackles around his ankles to the wall. It was mostly a precaution to make sure he didn’t try anything risky like lash out at them. Or run. Not that he would dare. He was too busy trying to keep his own heart rate under control. He counted the seconds as he took a deep breath in, then a deep breath out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. If the guards noticed, they made no comment about it. 

They left the fetters on his wrists and legs. The short chain connecting wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle remained, but at least now he wasn’t directly tied to the wall.

The other guard came back with a rag. Ren curled his lip at the sight. “Is this really necessary?”

“Are you going to keep trying to talk to us?”

“I suppose I could hold my tongue…”

“Well then…” The guard who brought the shred of cloth rolled it up and went to tuck it away into a pocket. 

“Wait!” Another guard grabbed their arm before they could fully put it away. His eyes were darting back and forth between the king and his comrades. “We should gag him anyway. I don’t trust myself if he were to try and talk his way out of it.”

Ren snorted. “Hate to break it to you, dude, but not all monsters work that way. I don’t have that kind of power over anyone.”

They shook their heads. Their voice wavered as they spoke once more, eyes gluing themselves to the floor. “You do. But not as a monster. As our King.”

The two other guards shuffled awkwardly at that. One nearly growled his displeasure at the younger man’s words. The other simply brought a gauntleted hand up to rub at the back of their head.

Ren, however, felt his gut twist. To think that this man might still consider him a King…

He didn’t like it, but he held his ground and didn’t flinch as they wrapped the cloth tight over the bottom half of his face. The wound-up fabric presses his lips uncomfortably against his teeth. And when they tied a rope around the bindings on his wrists to lead him out of the dungeon at a safe distance, he kept pace without argument.

They strode past the staff who had worked for him for years. They watched with eyes widened with confusion and surprise. Some glared at him with disapproval. A few spared him a bow, despite how filthy he was from a night in the dungeon and the lack of a crown on his head. When they did, it finally dawned on Ren that some of these people still had respect for him. Not just the young guard. The cooks, the cleaning maids, the gardeners who tended to the grounds, amongst each of them were a handful of people who almost looked sad to see him go. Those that had pity in their eyes for the tied-up king being led away in chains. 

So Ren straightened his spine, rolled back his shoulders, and went forward with his chin up. He couldn’t have them pitying him. To them, he was the King they had once admired. 

The guards walked him out the front doors of the castle. He could feel the eyes of his staff burning into his back as they left his old home behind. His friends hadn’t been among them; they weren’t there to see him on his death march. There was no Martyn. No Skizz, Etho, or BigB. They were probably already at the town square, where the execution block would surely be set up by now. Them, and more than half of the kingdom of Dogwarts. 

These guards would be walking him through town like this, bound and at spearpoint. He would be the last one to arrive at his own party. They had to give the rest of the guests time to get there first and find a good place to watch the show. 

Ren’s heartbeat had been going at an impressive rate when they had first left the dungeon, but now that he was left to his own thoughts, unable to speak, trudging down the open road with another handful of guards that had come to surround him, he found himself growing… Well, calm wasn’t the right word for it. He wasn’t calm. He was still terrified. But it was a little less daunting at the very least. 

It gave him time to think and reflect. He was trying to focus on the good things. He didn’t regret his life as King as he had led it. Dogwarts prospered. His friends were amazing, and he hoped what little he had been able to give them had made their lives a little better. They would go on with their own futures without him. And sure, that Scar was a problem, but at least he had managed to tell Martyn last night about the vex in men’s clothing. If there was anyone Ren could count on, it would be his Hand. Martyn would do everything in his power to take care of the problem, even after Ren was gone. 

Other guards were sparing him glances, or avoiding looking at him entirely. Plenty still had that look of anger and hatred burning in their eyes, but for those who didn’t, Ren pushed forward with his head held high. 

One last time playing a role. Masking his real worries with false confidence. If this was to be his last performance as the strong King he portrayed to the people of Dogworts, then he would do it justice. 

It wasn’t like he had much longer to pull it off. 

______________________________________________________________

“Where on Earth is Etho?!? We’re running out of time?”

“I don’t know,” BigB fretted, his fingers practically winding knots out of themselves as he fidgeted. “I couldn‘t find him at his place and Skizz ran back to the castle to check there.”

Martyn gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He was just as nervous as BigB was, but he had to keep it together. “Well we better hope he finds him, or he gets back quick. If Etho isn’t around for us to tell him, then we’re just going to have to do this without him.”

They were standing on the outskirts of a growing crowd in Town Square. People were packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the temporary wooden stage set up in front of Dogwart’s local courthouse. They chattered like a flock of starlings about the King, how he had kept such a big secret for so long, what would become of the kingdom after tonight, and who would be next in line for the throne. Rumors developed, thrived, and then withered on the grapevine of people spreading thoughts and opinions en masse. 

There was only so much room available in the large brick square. Tall two to three-story shops and businesses pressed up against all sides. Overhanging lookout bridges used by guards on nightly watches hung over the streets. Their sturdy cobblestone arches and spruce trusses held plenty more onlookers hoping to get a bird's eye view of the scene below.

It was at the base of the staircase to one of these towers that Martyn and BigB were nervously watching the road leading back to the castle. BigB kept looking over the crowd, just visible through the alley. It was making Martyn more and more nervous.

Finally, he decided he couldn’t sit still anymore. He pulled away from BigB, heading for the crowded alley. “Oh, sod it. I’m going to go looking through the crowds again. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find him.”

BigB whipped around in surprise. “You’re leaving?! What about Skizz?”

“I’ll be back.” Martyn waved him off. “I’m going to have a quick nosy around the square. You stay here and wait for Skizz. If he’s back with Etho by the time I come back, then we’ll go over the plan one more time.”

“And if Etho’s not with him?”

Good question. “We’ll… we’ll figure something out,” Martyn finally managed, fumbling over the words. Before BigB could ask him anymore, Martyn pivoted on the ball of his foot and shoved his way into the crowd.

There were a lot of people here. Navigating wasn’t easy, and more than once Martyn had to strong-arm his way past someone. “Excuse me. Pardon me. Coming through.” The whole time he went, he kept an eye out for a telltale shock of white hair. 

Etho wouldn’t actually miss this, would he? Martyn realized that his friend was upset about yesterday’s revelation, but they hadn’t seen him since he walked out of that lounge. BigB had just come from Etho’s home, and they hadn't found him sulking around the castle last night after they came from Scar’s room. But was he actually so upset that he couldn’t face Ren’s own execution?

Although, that begged the question, would Martyn have been able to face it if he hadn’t seen what he had seen last night?

Probably not.

His fingers curled protectively against the opening to the pocket with the four-leaf clover. Pick pockets wouldn’t be searching for the likes of it, but he wasn’t taking any chances. It was thanks to that lucky little charm that Skizz and BigB had believed Martyn and everything Ren had told him. They were going to need it.

Martyn cupped his free hand around his mouth. “Etho. Etho!” He called, watching the movement of the crowd for any reactions. “Ethoooo…” 

“Make way everyone! The royal court is arriving!”

That caught Martyn’s attention. Whoever had announced that was lost in the crowd, but the carriages pulling into the end of the square not boxed in by buildings were hard to miss anyway. The wind was nearly knocked out of his lungs as the people pressed back into him. Those closest to the driveway backed up, parting like the Red Sea for stately-looking carts pulled by proud horses. When they pulled to a stop, familiar officials in fine clothes stepped out.

Martyn recognized many of the advisors, court, and law drafters that appeared. Technically, as the Hand, he should be among them. They filed their way towards a cordoned-off section of the stage, set with seats and a wood plank guard that would probably come up to Martyn’s waist had he been standing up there. 

But the last carriage pulled in. The one normally reserved for the king. The white horses slowed, and out stepped none other than…

“Scar???” Martyn’s heart nearly skipped a beat as he realized the shirtless man was with the high-ranking officials. He wore no insignia or sign of rank, but the others on the stage didn’t so much as bat an eye as the man… No. The fae pulled up a chair and sat with them. 

Martyn’s hand dipped into his pocket. The tips of his fingers brushed against the dried clover stem with bated breath. Not the entire clover. Just the stem and a single leaf. It had been a gamble, but after the impromptu meeting with Scar last night, Martyn decided to take a risk. The clover was the only thing that let him see past whatever magic could keep monsters hidden. It had worked on Ren down in the dungeon, and then it had worked in Scar’s temporary room when he went with BigB and Skizz. But now that he wasn’t the only one who knew about the truth, he had to try to come up with a way to give his friends a little bit of that protection. Despite their arguments, he had finally decided to split up the clover and give them each a piece. One leaf for each of them. If it worked, they would need that for today in case anything went wrong

This was the moment of truth. Time to find out if he had made a huge mistake.

To his relief, the illusion surrounding Scar fell away. Martyn couldn’t make out the wings from this far away, Scar’s back was turned the other way, but he could still see the grey-blue skin with near-black scars crossing his body. Nobody else could see it, but Martyn could.

Thank heavens.

It took a bit more effort to move forward once more now that the crowd had compressed itself to make room for the officials, but he found a way. He had to get back to BigB. If the rest of the court were here now, then it wouldn’t be long before Ren arrived. 

“Etho! Ethooo!”

“Hey, watch it,” someone growled at him as he pushed past. 

“Wait a minute, isn’t that the King’s Hand?”

“I’d know that blond hair and bandanna anywhere.”

“It is! It’s Martyn!”

 more and more people turned to look at him. Before Martyn could think of some way to reply, a hand wrapped around his arm.

“Did you know that the King was a beast?!” someone demanded angrily.

Martyn flinched back. “What? No, I did not!”

“But you’re the Hand,” someone else accused, jabbing a finger against his chest. “You’re the King’s closest advisor.” 

“I bet you he was the one who orchestrated everything!”

“He could have helped the King hide the secret!”

“What other horrible things were you hiding from us, eh? What were you and the King planning?”

“Nothing,” Martyn spat. He was growing more and more frustrated. How dare these people accuse him of such things. And Ren too! As if Ren would plan anything horrible against his own people. “Why don’t you all bugger off and leave me alone. I had nothing to do with this.”

“Lies!”

“Everyone knows the King consults with you for everything.”

Despite everything, that sent a small pang through Martyn’s heart, because Ren hadn’t talked to him about this. Not until last night.

“I’ve said nothing but the truth. It’s not my fault you don’t believe me.” He tried to push forward. He went elbows first, trying to shove his way past more people, but the crowd closed in around him. More people snatched at his arms and shoulders. They weren’t about to let him go. “Hey! Don’t do that. Stop!”

“Don’t let him go until he tells the truth,” someone hissed.

Martyn pulled and pulled, but it wasn’t just like fighting an uphill battle. It was like trying to push forward against a rushing river. There hit a point where his feet just slipped against the ground in the effort to make headway, but was held back by the sheer force of everyone pressing in. “Let go!”

As soon as he shouted those words, another arm wrapped around his waist. Martyn cried out in surprise as it tugged sharply. His feet were dragged out from underneath him. He folded, falling out of the grip of most of the hands on his shoulders and upper arms. They reached after him, but the arm on his waist kept pulling. It half dragged, half carried him past the legs of more people. A few startled away, surprised at someone so low brushing past their legs, but it was far easier to travel and those reaching hands couldn’t keep up. 

Martyn tried to pry off the fingers gripping his belt at the hip, but the gloved hand held firm. It dragged him for who knows how long before the people fell away and he was hauled out under a sparsely populated overpass for the guard towers. Only then did the arm around his waist release him. Martyn wasn’t exactly standing when it did so, so he fell into a lump of dirty snow with a crunch.

“You know, someone as famous as you should be more careful around crowds,” a light voice with a playful lilt said. “You should try laying low sometimes.”

Martyn let out a bigger sigh of relief than he thought possible on a day like today. With a smirk, he picked up a handful of the snow he landed in and tossed it at the man now standing in front of him. The one who had pulled him out of that situation. “Yeah, well now I’m lying down. Don’t suppose that’s low enough for ya, Etho?”

Etho reacted instinctively, pulling in his shoulders and holding up his arms in defense. The poor excuse for a snowball disintegrated into a wet spray of slush when it collided with Etho’s elbow. 

“Where have you been,” Martyn demanded, rolling back up to his feet. He brushed what he could of the snow off the base of his trousers, but it was going to leave a wet mark on the seat. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you since last night.”

“Sorry man.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his vest and backed away until his shoulders came to rest against the cobblestone wall of the tower. It was shadowed there. And with so few people nearby, it was like the two of them were standing in their own little slice of the town. A dark and damp slice, but private enough nonetheless. “I had to go clear my head.” His good eye went to the gap in the alley that still framed part of the wooden stage in the distance. The one where a gleaming ax rested against a dented block. “I wasn’t sure if I could even come today.”

“Well, boy am I glad you did.” Martyn fished in his pocket to look for the spare clover leaf he had been holding for Etho. “Listen, I know last night was crazy, and today is crazy too, but I went to see Ren last night.”

Etho’s shoulders stiffened against the cobblestone wall. His eye almost seemed to glow as it narrowed at Martyn. “You actually did it, huh?”

“I did, and he told me everything. It was…” Martyn’s breath hitched as he tripped over what to say next. “It was a lot,” he finally settled on. “But I can fill you in on most of that stuff later. What’s important right now is that you need to know Scar is a fairy.”

Martyn let his words hang in the air, waiting for them to sink in. Etho didn’t move. His shoulders didn’t relax. If anything, his eye narrowed even more. “You’re kidding, right,” he said, absolutely deadpan.

“Truly,” Martyn continued, a bit of desperation leaking into his voice. “You can ask Skizz and BigB if you don’t believe me because it’s true.”

“And Ren told you this?”

Martyn drew back. “Well, yes.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes. I did,” Martyn said a little more forcefully. He didn’t like the edge creeping into Etho’s tone. “And you should too, Etho. He is our friend, after all.”

“Our friend that lied to us.”

“He didn’t lie! He just… he just omitted!”

“And now you’re acting like it doesn’t actually bother you,” Etho said with a knowing quirk to his brow. “Can you honestly say that you’re okay with everything that you know now? That you’re just going to trust him without question all over again? I told you, he’s going to do whatever he can to try to save himself. That includes toying with us!”

“Of course I don’t like it,” Martyn snapped. He means it so much he almost screams and startles the people at the edge of the alleyway. He means it with his very bones. “I’m pissed at Ren! And yeah, maybe he is worried about his own skin, but wouldn’t you be if you were in his position? Because I swear to God, you almost could have been.”

That self-assured look dropped off his face. Instead, it contorted into something much more guarded. “What do you mean?”

“He told me last night that this whole thing is because of that attack,” Martyn hissed. “By the riverside off the woodland trail. He got bit, and he ended up like this.”

Etho’s hand went absently to the side of his jaw where the fabric of his mask still covered his face. His one good eye shone with unease. “He… he could have been lying. He’s a-”

“Monster?” Martyn cut him off. “Yeah. I know. And I don’t really like it either. But I do know that the thing he was worried about most last night was that Scar was going to do something awful to Dogwarts and everyone in it. And I have a way to prove it.”

“MAKE WAY! KEEP YOUR DISTANCE! MAKE ROOM FOR THE MONSTER!”

Both of them froze as the announcement rang out.

Sure enough, the crowd parted once more, leaving a clear path for a large group of armored guards. They carried spears at the ready. The tips were real, but there was a bit of ceremonial flair provided by the flags hung below the spearheads that barely moved with the sway of their steps.

At their center was Ren. The king looked just as bad as when Martyn had seen him in the dungeon. He still wasn’t wearing his crown and his day clothes had grown even filthier from the night in the cell. His long hair had come loose. It was disheveled, barely hiding a few bruises on his face. There were even more along his arms. And as if to add more insult to injury, they had basically muzzled him. A large scrap of cloth was wrapped around his mouth and covered everything from his chin to his nose.

Ren walked slowly, but he walked with all the grace of a true King. His head was high. His eyes were firmly facing ahead where the stage lay. Every step he made caused the rope to pull at the chain around his arms and legs. 

Step. Clink. Step. Clink. Step. Clink. 

You would have to look hard to notice it, but Martyn could see the way Ren gripped at the end of the chain hanging from his wrists. The twitch of his fingers. To all the world, Ren was solid and fearless. But not to Martyn. Martyn saw the terror there that no one else could. 

Etho’s voice sounded small behind him. “Ren…”

When Martyn looked back on his friend, Etho looked torn. He was gripping a corner in the bricks so tightly that his knuckles were white. The fabric of his mask shifted, but there was no way for Martyn to know for certain why. He could have been chewing at his lip, or opening and closing his mouth, unable to form words. There was a war raging behind that eye. Martyn just didn’t have time to wait and see which side won out. 

“Here.” Martyn bumped his fist against Etho’s arm. Etho’s focus seemed to snap back to what was happening right in front of him. He reached up towards Martyn’s hand, looking confused. The confusion only deepened when Martyn opened his fingers and a single clover leaf fell into his friend’s palm. “Whatever you do, just hold onto this. If you were to ever trust me on anything, just trust me on this one, okay?”

Etho slowly closed his gloved fingers around the little leaf. “Okay.”

“I gotta go.” Martyn was disappointed as he turned away from Etho. He had hoped he could have had enough time to work him into the plan. The more people on his side, the better. But Etho’s heart wasn’t in it right now. It may never be.

Time was almost up.

Etho didn’t follow Martyn when he went out the back end of the alley. It opened a little chasm at the base of Martyn’s stomach to know that Etho wouldn’t be coming with him, but he kept going. He rounded the back streets, circling the square outside of the crowd to where he last left BigB. 

Sure enough, Skizz was back. He and BigB were standing at the base of the stairs leading up the guard tower, deep in conversation. BigB saw him first. “No luck,” he called as Martyn drew close. “Skizz couldn’t find him back at the castle.” His brown eyes flicked to Ren, still making his way across Main Square. “I don’t think we have time to look anymore.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Martyn huffed. He debated telling them about his run-in with Etho, but that would just make them feel worse. It already made him feel pretty awful as it was. He would tell them after everything was over. Instead, he took his first step up the stairs and looked back over his shoulder to make sure his two friends were following. “Now come on. Let’s get into position.”

BigB and Skizz both nodded.

“Got it.”

“Sure thing.”

They split up. Martyn and BigB both went up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, while Skizz stuck to the ground. He skirted along the buildings as he took off in the opposite direction, and Martyn quickly lost sight of him in the crowd. 

Ren had just stepped up onto the stage when Martyn and BigB split, each taking different overpass bridges.

The crowd grew hushed as Ren finally came to a stop at the center of the stage. Another man came from the group of guards with him. Like the others he had traveled with, this gentleman was suited up in fine netherite armor. Unlike the others, though, he carried no weapon. His arms were further covered by thick leather gloves, not plate gauntlets. Nor did he wear a helmet. He wore a low-hanging hood. He stood behind Ren, offset to the side. Close enough that if he held his arm out he could reach the King. 

The executioner.

Then one of the nobles from behind the wood cover stood. It was one of the eldest advisors. A long-time court member who had run important round table discussions with the King and his Hand many times before. He held his arms out in welcome and began to speak.

“Greetings, everyone. As you all know, we are here today because-”

And that’s about all Martyn heard before he tuned them out. It took a lot of concentration and physical duress to leap from building to building, and he would rather put that focus on making sure he didn’t end up going splat on the ground below. 

He wasn’t the best at parkour, but he liked to think he had some skill. He was certainly fit enough to leap out the open viewing area in the guard bridge onto a nearby roof. And then climb up another story using the gaps in between the cobblestones. 

All that mattered was that the official kept talking until he could get into position. 

By the time Martyn made it to the top of the courthouse roof, Ren was being led over to the block. The guard in the hood was pulling him along with a hand clamped around his shoulder. Martyn’s breath hitched at the sight. 

Despite the rough treatment, Ren looked unshaked as he was forced down onto his knees. 

Fwip!

An arrow buried itself in the floor right in front of the speaking advisor.

They shouted. The executioner and the rest of the peanut gallery sitting on the sidelines of the stage backed away or shuffled in place, scared and confused. Screams went up across the crowd.

Ren’s eyes shone when he saw the fletching sticking up out of the floor.

Martyn’s gaze followed the arrow’s path all the way to the top of one guard tower, empty save for BigB peeking up over the bottom of the viewing window. Martyn could just barely make out the top of his bow from here. “Nice one, B,” he whispered to himself.

“What’s going on,” the advisor demanded, looking all around for the source of the arrow. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I’ll tell you what the meaning is…” Before the people onstage knew where to look, Skizz was already climbing up from the back. Everyone was too busy looking for the source of the arrow to think about checking the other way. The executioner didn’t have time to react as Skizz reached out and strong-armed the ax out of his hand. “I’ll be taking this.” 

The armored man made a grab for Skizz, but Skizz was bigger, stronger, and faster. He slapped away their hand and danced back out of reach. He held the weapon out at the ready, daring anyone else to come closer.

That was Martyn’s cue.

He stood up, arms held wide to make himself as large and noticeably as possible. “Everybody! I have something to say!”

Murmurs rose up from below.

“Who is that?” “Isn’t that the Hand?”

“I told you he was in on it!”

“They’re attacking!”

“Please, everyone,” Martyn cried. “Just listen!”

Ren looked up with wide eyes. He was still kneeling, but cracks were forming in his stoic mask. To say he looked relieved would be an understatement.

Skizz gestured up towards Martyn with the ax. The motion made him look extremely intimidating. It certainly made an impression on the crowd.  “If I were you, I would pay attention.” His words had an immediate effect. The crowd became silent. The officials onstage froze. Even the executioner backed away a step or two as everyone turned their attention to the man on top of the courthouse.

“I understand the law is clear,” Martyn began. “But I have come to say there is another monster in our midst. One that actually poses a danger to us all. One that King Ren has been trying to protect us all from. And yet it sits among you while you worry about destroying someone who was never a threat at all.”

“What could you possibly mean, Hand,” the advisor demanded.

Martyn pointed down to the one man who stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the group of nobles. The man who appeared to have blue-grey skin as long as Martyn held on to his little stem. “I mean Scar.”

All eyes went to the shirtless man.

“Well that’s just ridiculous,” Scar said with that honey-sweet voice of his. “Honestly, Martyn, I thought we were getting along. And here you are making such wild and baseless accusations. Clearly, you’re distressed after learning about this man here.” He gestured towards the King still kneeling by the block. 

“Aha, but I learned a thing or two from you last night, ey Scar. I can prove it, just like you did.” Martyn dared a smile. He held up the clover stem. It would be too small for everyone to see from up here, but it would get his point across. “The thing is, Scar. I can see you. I can see your wings.” As soon as the words left his mouth, the smile dropped off of Scar’s face. His eyes grew wide as saucers and Martyn’s smile grew bigger and bigger. He knew Martyn wasn��t bluffing, and it only made his guilt more apparent. People were starting to give him odd looks, questioning his reaction. They inched away from him, starting to wonder if there was something to what the Hand was saying. Martyn waved the plant, daring to feel a little triumphant. ”Turns out, a little clover can go a long way.”

He and Scar stared each other down for a moment. The crowd grew hushed. The court inched away, putting more space between them and Scar. 

Finally, Scar let out a defeated sigh and rolled his shoulders. “Well, I guess the jig is up.” The motion sent his wings vibrating. Bright blue particles drifted off the filigree wings like dust and emanated out from him.

Almost instantly, the people in the crowd slumped in on themselves. Their eyes grew glassy as the fae glamor worked its magic. 

Oh no. Martyn hadn’t expected Scar to jump to something like that so quickly. He gripped the clover in his hand tighter, praying that it would keep the magic at bay like Ren said. 

“Oh, that little weed won’t help you,” Scar said with a chuckle. He tilted his head back to stare at Martyn once more, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Sure, my glamor won’t work, but it doesn’t have to when I have everyone else conveniently right here.”

A shiver ran down Martyn’s back as the wings on Scar’s back lifted. With a snap of his fingers, a wave of blue pulsed through the veins lining the wings. “Take care of them.”

The people in the crowd lurched to life. They stumbled forward. Many towards the stage, but some towards the tower where BigB was hiding, or the base of the courtroom below Martyn. 

Not good.

Martyn scrambled to climb down. He stumbled, slipped, and then rolled down the roof towards its edge. His hand barely managed to grab the gutter before he could go tumbling further. Beneath him, Skizz was struggling to keep the mesmerized executioner at bay. He had the ax, and the other man was unarmed, but Skizz clearly didn’t want to hurt someone who wasn’t in their right mind. Still, the executioner wasn’t pulling back any punches. As he struggled to pull himself up, Martyn caught sight of Skizz taking a nasty left hook to the chest before his fingers gave out. With a jolt, Martyn just managed to brace himself before he dropped from the second-story roof to the one below. 

He had to get down there and help Skizz. Hopefully, BigB had enough space between him and the crowd to make a run for it.

“I said,” Scar huffed a little more harshly. “Take care of them!”

Before Martyn could get back up to his feet, a hand wrapped around his ankle. He had barely enough time to grip the clover in his fist before he was dragged roughly off the edge of the overhang. The spectators who had hauled him off let him hit the brick floor with a painful, “oomph.” 

They were reaching for him. Hands grabbed his arms and his shoulders. Pressed down on his back. Kept him pinned. 

“NO! SKIZZ,” he screamed as the executioner full-body barreled into Skizz. His friend slammed head-first into one of the posts lining the stage and was out like a light. He slumped over, passed out but still holding the ax. 

“Now let’s get this show on the road,” Scar said, rolling his shoulders once more. Another pulse of blue light flashed across his wings. “Hurry up and finish this up so we can move on and I can take over, okay big guy?”

The executioner didn’t respond. He turned back to Skizz. One by one, he pried Skizz’s fingers off the handle before he could rip it free.

Ren looked beside himself. He was screaming behind the gag, trying to muscle his way back up to his feet so he could run towards his fallen friends, but more members of the crowd were holding him down. They kept him kneeling in place as the hooded man approached with the ax.

“Please, stop! You don’t have to do this,” Martyn cried, trying to pull himself out of the grip of his own captors. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t worry, uh… what’s your name again? Marty? It’s nothing personal. I’ll deal with you after this. And your friends. You won’t have to remember a thing. Trust me. It’s going to be amazing. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Scar snapped his fingers once more.

With one hand, the executioner pinned Ren’s shoulder down against the block. With the other, he raised the ax high overhead. It gleamed menacingly as it caught the light of the sun at its apex.

Martyn struggled. He heaved and pulled and dug his feet into the ground, trying everything he could to break free. To get away. To stop this!

He caught Ren’s eye. His friend and his King. They both realized at this moment that there was nothing either of them could do. Ren stopped trying to wrench himself free. A single second felt like an eternity, and in it, Martyn could have almost sworn he saw Ren smile sadly.

Then time ran out.

The ax came down.

THUNK!

“M’LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD…!!”

[h1myname1sv]

FIC UPDATE: Side by Side 13/14

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: blood Fandoms: Star Wars, Clone Wars Relationships: Commander Cody & Obi-Wan, Commander Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi Characters: Commander Cody, Obi-Wan Kenobi Additional Tags: Whumptober, Whumptober 2023, Whump, Angst, Tragedy, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hurt Commander Cody, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Commander Cody Needs a Hug, Protective Obi-Wan Kenobi, Protective Commander Cody, Developing Relationship, Bittersweet Ending, POV Alternating, Idiots in Love, War, Not a Fix-It, Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt, I love these two so much ahhh, which of course means I'm gonna hurt them Wordcount: 14k Summary:

Glimpses of pain within and pain shared between a general and a commander during a war that never seems to end. (Based on the Whumptober 2023 prompts on tumblr.)

Excerpt:

When Obi-Wan drops, Cody is almost completely unprepared.

Near the beginning of their partnership, Obi-Wan had warned him that this might happen. "Just as a precaution," he had said with a smile. "Nowadays, it is very unlikely for me to have a vision that presents through a seizure. It's far more common for me to see glimpses of the future through short flashes or dreams."

"Nowadays, sir?" Cody had asked.

"Well, one can never say that my childhood hadn't been interesting."

Anyways, Cody had been warned, but his general had never told him what exactly to do if it were to happen. And for some reason, Cody had never asked, had never prepared for the possibility, had sectioned it off as Force osik in his mind.

He regrets that now, as he kneels by his general's twitching body. He decides to treat this like a regular seizure and rolls Obi-Wan to the side so he doesn't choke. He resists the urge to press a gloved hand against the wound on Obi-Wan's temple, which he had gotten when he'd hit the ground (and Cody hadn't reacted in time to catch him).

"You'll be okay," Cody says soothingly, though the man on the ground knows nothing, and blood is starting to bleed from his nose. "The medics will be coming soon. Not much longer..."

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[shayneysides]

hobie: kill yourself

pavitr: WHAT THE HELL BRO WHAT DID I DO

original format from @ha-youwish in this post!

[mo-mode]

AU where Mr. D claiming to be Percy’s dad accidentally counts as Claiming according to Greek god law or whatever and now all the other gods legitimacy believe Percy is his son, but if Mr. D corrects it, he has to explain to Zeus why he pretended he was Percy’s dad so now he’s like “YEP ol’ Perry Johansson is MY child wowie just look at the little fry, you have your mother’s eyes. Please stop standing next to water or you will blow my cover”

Meanwhile Poseidon is just standing off to the side like “how on earth did I dodge THAT bullet”

[hinamie]

I'll rip in hands and teeth and take a bite

[inquissien]

A kitten at heart

[ladybeug]

he was stupid after all...

thats romance.

merry christmas!!!! I was thinking recently I don't just draw for fun very much anymore, so I put some time aside as a christmas gift for me.

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

D.E.A.N | Chapter 29 - Marathon

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 5767

TW: Blood, Injury, Minor Character Deaths (antagonist), Weapon, Gun, Firearms, Shooting, Drugs, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Gore, Explosion

With less and less protection around their charge, Mark and his team are spread very, very thin. And that’s not even talking about the protection for themselves. Everywhere they go, there are nearly undetectable and inescapable dangers and enemies all around that he doesn’t know how they will get out of this in one piece.

Whumptober 2023 Themes (last 4 and Alt. Bonus only):

Day Alt. bonus — Aftermath of Failure

Day 28 — “You'll have to go through me.”

Day 29 — Troubled Past Resurfacing

Day 30 — Bridal Carry | “Not much longer...”

Day 31 — Setbacks

Whumptober 2022 Themes (post-event, not completionist):

Day 11 Alt. — Ambushed

Day 24 — Fight, Flight or Freeze | Blood Covered Hands

Day 26 — No One Left Behind | Separated

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

——

Once in a while, he hears some hissing and muffled growls with hazy words, followed by yelping and moaning in pain that’s obviously from Nick. He heightens his sense of hearing, straining his ears to get to Nick.

“Please stop… don’t—argh…”

He debates whether to call out Nick’s real name or his codename, considering right now, he’s at the hand of some Helga handlers. If he calls out Nick’s real name, the other Helga people might be alerted and will come here, but if he calls out Nick’s codename, those two Helga members will know it refers to Nick and might then spread it around to the other members through their radios.

Mark continues running in the direction the sound is coming from. He hears the three people’s ruckus while weighing his decision.

Eventually, he doesn’t have to choose.

Nick and those two men are right there, at the edge of the corridor that has a left and a right turn.

He raises his pistol this time to aim it at the man who is not holding Nick, minimizing the chance that we would accidentally shoot Nick.

At Mark’s three shots, all of them instinctively bow down with one arm over their heads, but one of the men turns to the left while the one holding Nick turns to the right. Mark follows the one going to the right.

He runs for a while until he hears Nick grunting, a thump, and a pained yell from an unfamiliar man’s voice.

“You bitch!”

It’s then followed by running steps.

Mark keeps running until he sees the man, so he starts aiming his handgun again to shoot, but the man is too close.

He darts out his arms to Mark’s wrists to push them away from him, wildly turning Mark’s gun around and up. Mark tries to pull down his arms so that he can aim it again to the man, but the man is just as driven as Mark to get it away from him and instead, get the barrel pointed at Mark.

He growls in anger as he keeps pulling down his arms, just as the man does.

Mark pulls the trigger when he thinks he has the upper hands of pointing it at the man, but his arms are slapped away at the last second, so his pistol shoots at a random wall on his right instead.

It’s a big mistake that he snaps his head to the side to see where the bullet was shot; that one split-second moment of inattention is enough to get the man to slap his gun away.

It gets thrown to the side, far away from both of them. Before Mark is ready, he feels a slash of something sharp on his lower right waist that’s not covered by his vest. It takes him several seconds to register the pain, and when it does, it weakens him again, enough to get the man to slam him until Mark falls to the floor on his back.

The man is aiming the knife again at Mark, but at his face this time.

“You shouldn’t have tried to take our whore from us, you SWAT bastard,” the man growls on top of him.

He feels another jolt of fury, enough to give him a boost to sneak a punch onto the man’s face, earning a loud scream of pain.

“He’s not a whore and he’s not yours!” he growls back.

The man looks even more enraged at the punch and pushes even more to try to stab Mark.

He feels wetness seeping out from his side, dripping sensation flowing through his skin. He doesn’t like the fact that the pain is starting to get to him. It’s definitely enough to finally show at his face, if the man’s devilish grin is anything to go by.

One of the man’s hands then goes to his right side to push directly on his wound.

He can’t help yelping in pain, even if it’s short and not loud.

The pain on his grazed right waist is getting more intense as the bastard above him is pressing on his wound even deeper. Both of their faces are contorted into snarls, except he can tell there is a slight sickening satisfaction on the face above him, while his own face is tinged with anger and pain. He can’t afford to change his focus onto getting that hand away from his waist to stop the pain. It will be a guarantee that the arm holding the knife above him will easily plunge it into his throat, right between his vest and the bottom of his helmet.

Fuck.

“Erggh…”

He tries to channel his pain into more energy and adrenaline to push at the arm about to stab him, growling furiously while both of his own arms keep pushing back to keep the blade away.

“Just fucking die, why don’t you?” the man above Mark hisses.

Mark spits at him from the open visor, and maybe that’s a big mistake because the man’s face changes fully into a furious expression and the strength of the pushing gets even stronger. Mark notices a figure of a person showing up with rustling sound on his peripheral vision, but he can’t focus on that. The man above him pulls up his hand, preparing to give another swing downwards at him to stab him even more powerfully.

And then there is a booming shot.

Mark feels some splashing sensation on his own face.

Marcus also feels pressure on top of him and the presence above him getting heavier, yet easily pushed aside. The man on top of him seemingly falls down onto his forearms without direction or strength in itself, so he flips the man over and drops the body next to him.

He hovers half of his body on one leaning forearm against the ground. He looks towards his side.

The man’s face is half-exploded on its right side with red seeping out from the deepest crevice of the destroyed head. When Mark uses his other hand to swipe at his own face, he also sees red on his palm. He then turns back to the opposite side of the dead body.

He sees Nick’s thin body standing there, shaking hard. His arms are pointed firmly forward, ending with his hands holding Mark’s pistol with slight smoke coming out of the barrel.

“Okay,” Mark breathlessly says, “put that down.”

That gun may have helped him and saved his life few seconds ago, but it might kill him if Nick’s shaky hands keep gripping it and pointing it to Mark’s direction.

He sees Nick’s trembling hands lowering the gun to point it at the concrete ground instead. He can tell, seeing the shakiness of the palms holding the grip, that Nick is very close to accidentally dropping the weapon from his hold. It would feel undoubtedly very heavy for an inexperienced shooter. An injured one, on top of that.

Another circumstance that can result in unintended and dangerous shots.

Mark immediately rises, his left arm going around his own body to push his left palm against his wounded waist. Despite the sting and the trembling that he is feeling after the adrenaline wears off, he takes wide and quick strides towards Nick and reaches out his right hand to take the gun from the younger man.

“It’s okay,” he whispers as he gently wraps his own fingers around the weapon, carefully pulling Nick’s finger from the trigger, “give it to me.”

Nick is shaking like a leaf from head to toe, whimpering audibly with choking out sobs.

“Oh God, Mark… I—I killed... I killed him...”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mark shushes him gently, hand still trying to get the gun out of Nick’s quivering fingers, “it’s all right. He hurt you.”

Even when the gun is fully in Mark’s hold (and he toggles on the safety), Nick’s fingers are still hovering and shaking like he still has something in his palm. It’s not a gentle tremble either.

“I killed a person…” Nick whispers horrifically, eyes undoubtedly staring at the dead body with mangled head, “…oh fuck, I killed him. Fuck.”

“It’s okay, he hurt you before. And you were protecting me, all right?”

Nick doesn’t seem to hear him.

“I’m—I’m a… fuck I’m a kill—killer…”

Mark wraps his right arm around Nick, pushing the back of his palm against Nick’s head so that it’s not his gun that’s pushing Nick closer to his shoulder.

“You had to. It’s not your fault, okay?”

Nick continues crying, saying “I killed him, god, I killed someone,” over and over again, not hearing Mark at all.

Fuck, this is taking too long.

He steps back and grips Nick’s head roughly.

“BEL!” he shouts, tightening the grip on Nick’s jaw slightly but still keeping it loose so that it doesn’t hurt Nick.

It’s only now that Nick inhales deeply and stops his incessant horrified whispers.

“It’s okay,” Mark softens again, putting on a comforting face, “It’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. Vermin like that doesn’t deserve to live. It’s not a big loss to this world.”

“I’m a monster…”

Mark rubs his thumb on Nick’s wet and teary cheek, feeling pained at the sight of that bruised eye and split lips caused by those men. If only Nick could realize they deserved to be exterminated like the pest they were.

“You’re not. You had to. You never wanted to kill anyone. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?”

Mark pushes Nick’s head onto his shoulder again with continuing hiccups and weeping, but Nick eventually gets a little calmer with his body feeling slack.

“I’m so sorry you had to do that, you’re not evil. I promise you.”

For a few moments, Mark lets Nick lays his head on his shoulder as the younger man continues to sob quietly. All the while he wraps his arms around the thin frame, not just for Nick.

Even he needs to make peace with the fact that he had to kill the enemies he defeated before, that he is not drowning his hands with innocent blood. That those men had it coming.

They both have to do this.

After Nick has seemingly calmed down from his guilty mental breakdown, Mark pulls back again. He starts frantically scanning Nick from head to toe while patting the bony body everywhere now that he has the chance to observe Nick more carefully.

“Are you okay?” Mark blurts out quickly, “Did they hurt you anywhere else?”

Nick’s eye is bruised along with his arms obviously, and Mark can see a drop of blood trailing down the temple from the black hair somewhere, but there doesn’t seem to be any severe injury.

Nick also confirms that by shaking his head.

Just shaken, then.

He pulls Nick quickly into his embrace again for a split second in relief before pulling back and lowering his right hand.

His palms go to his right side below his wound to unclasp the helmet dangling on his belt. He deposits the formerly lost helmet onto Nick’s thin hands.

“Okay, wear this,” he instructs.

“Um… the ear… ear thing?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

They don’t have the luxury of a safe environment to run around searching for Nick’s lost earpiece comm. He still has the watch. It’s good enough.

Mark darts out his left hand to immediately grab Nick’s palm, pulling him to run again. He tries not to feel the pain on his wounded waist.

It seems that it’s not his lucky day (if there was even any luck on this day at all) because he feels a body roughly slamming onto his back hard until he is sent crashing down face first to the concrete floor. Both Nick and he gasp loudly in pain and shock.

Since Nick was holding his hand when Mark was slammed on his back, Nick too is sent hurtling to the ground, but Nick lands on his back and far from Mark. His pistol too is thrown off his hand and into the far side of the corner.

When he flips his body to face up so that he can see what’s going on, he sees one of the men from before, those who caught Nick.

“You. Fucking. Bastard.”

The man emphasizes each word as he steps heavily towards Mark now, so he swings his leg to tackle the man. The man immediately tumbles down to the floor next to Mark. Mark raises until he is on his knees then tries to pull the strap of his machine gun to point it forwards, but that man turns around too to face up and punches Mark on his bleeding waist.

“Argh!” he cries out, dropping to his four in pain.

The man stands up while Mark is overcome with the wave of agony, his right palm going immediately to his waist to squeeze around the wound, hoping it will alleviate the pain. He feels the man bending down with arms going around his neck, unclasping his chin strap and pulling his helmet off his head roughly until his face is knocked around the inside of his helmet. The man kicks him on his side until he topples to the ground again. He hears the helmet being thrown away so that he can’t reach it again.

He flips himself back again to see the man, shuffling backwards away to avoid getting hit or kicked again, but the man doesn’t need to do that anymore since he is the one with a rifle pointed at Mark.

“Do you know how many you took out, you piece of shit?” the man growls as he stalks up to Mark. “Do you know how much damage that bitch caused?”

He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know. If it’s a lot, he’d feel grateful—but he can’t think about the satisfaction of vengeance and Helga’s operation destruction right now.

Mark is still lying on the ground, eyes locked onto the man also looking at him with a mixture of rageful and satisfied look. Mark’s hand is frantically feeling for the concrete above him to grab his gun again with the furious but also resigned beating of his heart.

The gun is too far, and he can’t look at it. Nick is cornered on his own.

The man points his gun at Mark more firmly, and he gulps with cold hopelessness seeping into his body.

Fuck.

Nick lost his earpiece. He can’t contact anyone for help.

Who is going to protect Nick now?

Everything feels like a slow motion as he looks at the man’s finger about to pull the trigger of his machine gun, hearing Nick scream ‘NOOO!’ desperately. Mark turns his head away with squeezed eyes, and then there is a shot fired.

He breathes deeply, waiting for the pain to register in his mind. He is already shot.

But it doesn’t come.

Once more he thought he was done for, yet he is not.

When he opens his eyes and looks at the man again, that man has a wide-eyed look on his face, and his mouth is forming an O shape.

He still doesn’t quite register what is happening, even as he sees a disembodied leg kicking at the man’s back, almost like it’s a ghost emerging from the dark of the other side of the wall. The man falls face first onto the ground with a grunt.

The rest of the body belonging to the person kicking the man emerges too, looking like an angel of death slithering out of the pitch-black space, and now that person points a gun barrel at the back of the fallen man’s head. He hears a succession of loud machine gun shots while the man jolts around, eventually settling in a quiet with eerily opened lifeless eyes. His mouth has blood seeping out of it.

Mark looks on with his own wide eyes, still trying to process what just happened in a span of less than 10 seconds. Behind him, he can hear Nick’s heavy and shuddering breath.

“Get up. We need to go.”

It’s only then that Mark looks up at the person who just saved his ass (and head too, probably), and there he sees Anna’s short and thin stature standing firmly: unshaken and steady. He can tell, even if her visor is still down.

“Get the fuck up, Marcus!”

He immediately scrambles to take back his helmet and gun, then he crouches in front of Nick to offer both of his hands to the terrified boy.

“Come on,” he gently says, and Nick eventually holds his arms so that Mark can help him stand up again. Before Nick pulls down his visor again, Mark catches a glimpse of the heterochromatic irises in his eyes being swallowed by the dark and wide pupils. Nick’s body is shaking terribly while rising.

“The backyard is over there, I remember,” Anna says curtly with muffled voice without looking back, “so it’s not gonna be too long until we can get to the van.”

“I can’t believe you’re still alive,” Mark says to her breathlessly, scanning her from head to toe.

“Well, do you want me to be dead?” she snarks at him.

Mark frowns at the sarcastic jab but doesn’t respond. They’ll engage in full insult mode when they’re all safe.

“Did you see any of them?” Nick now asks quietly.

“No shit, we saw a lot of them. Did you not?” Anna snaps at him.

“No, not Hel—Helga… I—" Nick stammers, unsure and intimidated, “I mean—um… Doc Lowe and—and Angie?”

Anna turns towards Nick, and Mark senses that she might feel a little bad for being snarky and easily riled up, even if he can’t see her face directly.

“I don’t know,” she responds a little softer this time, “I tried finding them. Nada.”

“Shouldn’t we search for them? I don’t want to leave them behind,” Nick murmurs, his head shifting to his right and left to see around him.

“No time. We gotta get you out of here.”

“But—”

“Bel.”

Anna stops walking and turns to the heterochromatic-eyed boy, her voice firm and irritated. Nick slightly curls into himself.

“We need to focus on you. Not them. They’ll take care of themselves.”

Nick casts down his head slightly, so Anna sighs with a softer voice.

“I’m sure they’d rather have you safe than running around trying to search for them in danger like this.”

The half-Russian gives a small nod.

“If we find them, we find them.”

Anna turns to Mark now, giving a onceover from his head to his torso, pausing on his right waist.

“We need to get you to backup quickly to take care of that, anyway. It’s not safe to do it here.”

He agrees. While it is true that it is pretty superficial, he is still injured. The bleeding doesn’t seem to slow down yet, so he still can’t let it continue untreated. It’s imperative that they get to the backup fast and deal with it there.

She then turns around to continue powerwalking to the backyard, so Mark and Nick have no choice but to follow her.

Or at least, that’s what Mark thought.

After few steps, he realizes that is Nick faltering a little bit and falling behind. Mark can already hear muffled but quite loud pained moaning before he even ceases his own steps. Because both he and Nikolai pause their walk, Anna too ends up stopping, and then Mark and Anna turn around to see Nick.

The shaky body is bent forward a little, and he can see Nick’s trembling arm going below his vest to under his shirt, covering his palm for few seconds. Mark’s heart immediately jumps up to his throat with his eyes bulging out, seeing Nick slowly pull down his arm to take it out of his clothes.

His palm has thick red streaks all over it.

“Oh, fuck,” Mark automatically says.

Nick gulps audibly and raises his head too look at Mark head on, his bloodied hand shaking with palm up, while his other hand is pushing against his abdomen over the bulletproof vest.

“Ma… Mark…” Nick stammers, visibly in pain and panicked, “wha… what do…” he gasps and swallows thickly, “what do I do?”

“Shit,” Anna hisses now, “Shit. Fuck. Fuck.”

Anna is then stomping around in frustration, throwing her hands up. If she weren’t wearing a helmet, Mark is sure that she would be pulling her hair out. Alas, her palms only manage to roughly slam against the headgear.

Eventually, she pauses, staring at Nick’s abdomen. Her hand goes to the upper right of her vest. She clicks on it, whispering endlessly with eyes trained on Nick.

“MA56, this is AJ56. Do you copy? Over. MA56, do you copy?”

Mark hears her curse “shit” again before trying more, although she is settling with simply calling random Medic team, and not Doctor Lowe specifically this time. After a while, Anna ends up exhaling deeply and shakily, and Mark knows that’s not good.

“No Angie,” She whispers frantically while she starts walking in circle again, “no Doctor Lowe. Fuck!”

Mark is not sure he is meant to hear that.

“Okay, fuck, okay,” Anna says, trying to sound more stable despite still visibly being shaken herself.

Mark decides to walk to Nick to hold both of his wrists and pulls him down, seeing as Anna is probably too panicked herself to know what to do. Anna follows by kneeling on the ground with both of them.

She then asks, “Does it hurt?”

Before Nick even replies, Anna swears to herself, “of course, you fucking idiot.” She then inhales deeply before exhaling again to look at Nick’s face steadily.

“Okay, I mean, does it really hurt? Can you still walk?”

Nick gulps and breathes out shakily. “If… if I have to.”

Despite his reply, Nick is clearly in pain while breathing quickly to the point of nearing panic attack.

“Okay, okay,” Anna says again. Mark is not sure she even knows what she needs to say.

Anna pulls up her visor, probably making sure she can communicate more clearly—or avoid panicking more with the claustrophobic space inside her helmet. It’s only now that Mark realizes Anna’s face is also bruised with another handprint-shaped one around her neck. He can also see bloody cuts all over Anna’s body, but none of them look alarmingly deep, at least.

Seems like he and Nick aren’t the only ones fucked over by Helga today.

Mark follows her by pulling up his visor, while Nick isn’t successful in attempting to do the same. Mark has to be the one to pull his visor up for Nick since the heterochromatic-eyed boy only ends up shaking the visor and dropping it down repeatedly again.

Mark turns slightly towards Anna to say, “Search for pain meds.”

“Where?” she asks back with an anxious face.

“Everywhere, Anna!” he hisses roughly, “Your pants, utility belt, vest pockets, mine, his. I don’t care. Just find some!”

Nick is in pain, and he is currently holding onto Nick’s hands to calm him down. Anna is the only one with free hands.

“Nicky, listen to me,” Mark tries while using his real name to calm him down, making sure to sound steady and level to ground Nick and himself.

There are no Helga people around and he is being quiet. It’s probably safe.

Anna is rummaging through her pockets in the background, so Mark needs to stay calm and logical for three of them.

“You need to breathe slower.”

Nick chokes and keens while keeling forward, his left hand pulled away from Mark’s hold to squeeze his abdomen.

“Nick, hey, Nicky,” Mark calls out again, one palm cupping the lower left side of Nick’s helmet to focus the boy on him. “Try to follow my counting, okay?”

Nick looks into his eyes desperately, gritting his teeth.

“Slower heartbeat means slower blood flow, so slower bleeding, you understand that?” he tells Nick, to inform him as much as to focus himself to his standard first aid training.

Nick is breathing fast with desperate gasps, but he does nod in the end.

“Take breath in four, hold until four, and release in four too. You think you can follow that?”

Anna is still rummaging frantically, the clanking of the many items in her pockets audible. On top of that, she keeps whispering, “Shit, shit, where… where… fuck, what med is it?”

“Try my pockets,” he tersely says to Anna. She immediately obliges.

When Nick turns to Anna, Mark pulls his head forward to center Nick again.

“Hey, hey, listen to me. Not her.”

Nikolai nods again.

“One… two… three… four, now hold.”

Nick chokes slightly when he tries to hold his breath, but overall, he manages to follow Mark’s instruction, so they continue with inhaling-hold-exhaling method for a while. But Anna is taking a forever.

“Anna, where the fuck is it?” he asks her tensely, making Nick look at Anna again.

He turns to Nick slightly and tells him to continue with the breathing, so Nick decides to close his eyes instead.

Good. That’s better. One less sense that would overwhelm him.

“I don’t—I don’t know which ones are pain meds.”

“Oh, fuck,” Mark exhales with closed eyes. When he turns towards her, Anna’s face has no hope of hiding the desperation and cluelessness she is feeling.

“Just read the label if there is morphine in it. Or opioid. Percocet, Tramadol. Or some shit.”

Anna nods then gets to work again, this time rummaging through her own pockets again, then Nick’s. Mark continues to help Nick to breathe slower and be distracted from Anna’s movements.

“Hey, uh, something called rox… roxa… what is it, roxalone?”

He furrows his eyebrows, feeling like that name isn’t right. “You mean Roxanol?”

“Yeah. I mean, it says morphine on the strip.”

Mark turns to look at the aforementioned strip with aluminium sheet cover over all of its tablets.

“Hey, Nicky?”

Nick opens his glistening eyes.

“Do you remember if Doctor Lowe ever gave this to you? For pain? Maybe back then after you got your first surgery with us?”

Nick turns to look at the strip. There is some recognition there.

“My handlers gave it to me sometimes.”

He fucking hates that Nick’s first thought is his experience under Helga, but this is as good as it gets. He can’t give meds that he doesn’t know to Nick, only for it to be lethal. At least Nick knows what it is.

“We don’t have water. Can you swallow it dry?” Anna asks him this time, a little gentler and less panicked now that they have a possible solution.

Nick nods.

Within all discomfort and pain that he is currently feeling, swallowing a pill dry is probably not the biggest challenge.

Anna pushes the bulging part of the strip to break the covering and gets the pill out of its package, then she puts the pill near Nick’s lips, probably making sure his bloodied hands don’t give him unnecessary infection.

Proving true what Nick said before, the pill is gone from Anna’s fingers and swallowed without any fuss before they both can even process it. It’s either because Nick is too good at taking meds after being tortured so many times in Helga, or his current pain right now makes him unreasonably quick and desperate for the med to help him as fast as possible.

“Oh, I found this too in your pocket,” she says again after pulling out her hand from one of Mark’s pockets on his pants. She is holding a tiny vial with ‘lidocaine’ on the label. “It’s for anesthetic, right? Or is it just disinfectant?”

Mark stares a bit, racking his brain for information pertaining to it, and he decides it’s probably right.

“That’s for IV, isn’t it?” Mark asks.

“No, that’s liquid morphine,” Anna replies, her face unsure, “I think.”

Mark furrows his eyebrows.

“We can smear this on his open wound directly to dull the pain,” she adds, “I’ve got a full box of alcohol swabs. I can clean my knife, hand, and the top of the vial before pouring it.”

Mark exhales dejectedly, but he nods anyway.

“Okay, fine,” he relents, not knowing what else they can do to mitigate their problem right now.

She immediately gets to work, taking out her knife and ripping one alcohol swab packet to rub the sharp tip of the blade. She hands it to Mark, making sure that he doesn’t touch the disinfected tip. Next, she disinfects the top of the small vial, almost to the bottom of the glass bottle before carefully putting it down on the ground. She then rips open several alcohol swab packets to rub them around her hands, but mostly on the tips of her fingers. In the end, she takes her knife back, then stabs her disinfected blade’s tip to the top of the vial and breaks the seal.

“All right,” she gently says to Nick, “I’m gonna open your shirt and touch you a little, okay?”

Nick simply nods.

Anna takes that as permission granted and gingerly holds the vial on its disinfected part. She slips one hand under Nick’s shirt, causing him to stiffen. Mark rubs the side of Nick’s shoulder to calm him down, pushing the back of the covered black-haired head gently so that Nick is laying on his shoulder.

“I’m touching the top of the gauze,” she informs again, making sure Nick knows what’s going on so he stays calm.

Nick moans again, so Mark rubs his back again.

“I’m pulling it loose a little bit.”

Nick simply nods, face turned away from Anna and what she is doing.

“Okay, I’m pouring it now, bit by bit.”

When Nick hisses a little louder, Mark knows that the liquid has now reached Nick’s surgical wound. He can see the movement of Anna’s hand from under Nick’s vest and shirt, tilting the vial bottle bit by bit, as she said.

Eventually, she pulls both of her hands away from under Nick’s clothes, her hands bloodied too now. The vial still has some liquid in it.

“I don’t want to give him the whole thing just in case the dosage is too much,” she says when she notices Mark’s stare.

For some reason, Anna pulls out another packet of alcohol swab, ripping it open and rubbing the top of the vial again.

“You want it for yours?” she then asks him, looking at Mark’s waist.

He looks down on it and realizes that it stings. He knows it’s not deadly for now, but he could use something that helps the pain a little.

“Yeah, sure. Just few drops—”

Anna already moves before he’s done talking. “I know.”

Anna pulls up his shirt to show his wounded waist. She tips over the vial and lets some of the lidocaine drop onto it. He groans slightly too, but not too badly.

As she said before, she ends up leaving some of the liquid still inside so that only a few drops got to Mark’s injury. She puts it inside her pocket, although he knows there is no way it can be used again. Rubbing it with alcohol swab again isn’t going to make it sanitary for later use, especially since the bottle is already open.

He turns his attention to Nick again.

“Does it hurt less now? Can you move?” Mark inquires softly.

Nick shakes his head, face still buried on Mark’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry. What if we move a little slower?”

Anna looks at Nick expectantly after she says that, clearly concerned with staying here too long and risking getting ambushed again. They also cannot waste time to get to the backup team.

Nick pulls his head back with shaky breath and closed eyes, gulping deeply. He then turns towards Anna.

“O… okay,” he mutters quietly.

“Good,” Mark concludes.

Anna and Mark quickly move to put each of Nick’s arms around their shoulders, their own arms caging Nick’s waist to help him to stand. Nick shudders and grits his teeth, his knees buckling several times. The fact that Anna is much shorter than Nick is probably not making things easier, practically making Nick bend down unevenly to his left side.

He groans and squeezes his eyes. He is definitely not going to stand.

“Okay, fuck this,” Mark finally concludes.

He pulls away Anna’s arm from Nick’s shoulder so that Nick only has one arm around the back of Mark’s neck, then he puts his arms under Nick’s upper back and knees. He rises with Nick being bridal carried. He has a thought that they should have done this since the beginning, but they can’t turn back time.

This is the best they can do for now.

“Just cover us,” he instructs to Anna.

Anna nods and looks around again to check if they are safe. Once she makes sure no one else is around, she starts to powerwalk again with Mark behind her.

They all stride quickly following Anna’s direction until Anna falters a bit.

“Anna, what the fuck is going on?” he asks tersely, impatient with her pausing and wasting more time for escape.

Anna raises her hand with the index finger up, a gesture to shut him up.

“AM56, this is AJ56. Do you copy?” Anna suddenly says with her fingers clicking on the buttons on her shoulder.

Mark steps forward a little bit to stand next to her, and he can see her face blooming into a relieved and slightly smiling expression.

“Holy shit, Angie, I thought you were done for. Where are you? Over.”

Mark’s jaw drops slightly with widened eyes, while Anna turns to face him with a hopeful expression.

“Okay. To the back. We’re going there. Wait for us. AJ56 over and out.”

Mark can see her clicking her round button.

“She and Doctor Lowe are already near our van. They’re waiting for us.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” he breathes out with slightly closed eyes.

“Come on,” Anna calls out quietly.

They start running again, finally reaching the backdoor and actually able to pull them open without getting ambushed anymore. Of course, it’s to be expected since there is literally zero pulsating brown dot near them when she sees Anna’s watch in the passing. Still, it’s a big relief to actually be able to escape.

He can now see their metaphorical and literal light at the end of their tunnel.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

[brainrotcharacters]

TW: Wolverine Badonkas

I laughed rewatching because like

[therealdistortion]

I find it funny the way Jon blames himself for the apocalypse. Cause essentially what happened is that Jonah put a nuke in his lunch and he blames himself for it.

Like, imagine you got a sandwich for lunch. You’ve been looking forward to eating this sandwich for so long, you haven’t had one in weeks. Your friend got it for you from a restaurant and you are so so excited.

It looks amazing, it smells amazing, you are so excited. Then, you go to take a bite and there’s a fucking nuke in it. It explodes and kills everyone around you, except for you. Then you blame yourself.

You didn’t put that nuke in it. You didn’t know there was one there. You were just trying to eat lunch.

It was the guy from that restaurant, he put a nuke in your sandwich! And it wasn’t even like he put it in a random sandwich and you just happened to get it. No, he put it specifically in your sandwich so when you try to eat your lunch it will explode.

And you know that he put the nuke in your sandwich. Cause he wrote you a note explaining to you exactly why and how he did it. He told you it was so it would explode and kill everyone, and he told you that he put it specifically in your sandwich. And he hid the note so you would only see it after you started eating, at which point it was already too late.

And you still blame yourself. Even though you had no idea. How does that make sense?

Jon, it is not your fault there was a nuke in your sandwich

[britney-rosberg06]

“ohh they’re pushing Percabeth too hard” “ohh lukes so weird to make that comment abt them bickering what about the slow burn” SHUT UP SHUT UP! LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND TELL ME YOUR OLDER SIBLING NEVER GAVE U SHIT FOR TALKING/LOOKING AT A KID YOUR AGE WHEN YOU WERE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL! THAT GIRL IS IN THE TRENCHES OF EMBARRASING OLDER BROTHER STAGE RN

[kira-angel24]

Whumptober 2023 Day 30

"Not Much Longer..."

      Kira glared at the captain. He waved at Uira as he presented her to the crowd. She turned away, her back to the people. Kai stood next to Uira while Nazli and Finn stayed close to Kira. "It's okay little one, not much longer." Their eyes darted back and forth through the crowd. Onlookers passed their stand, a few stayed to haggle with the captain. "He's here," Nazli mumbled.

     "Magnus is that you?"

     "Yasir! Good to see you," Kira turned to see the man. His clothes were made of fine silks and other luxurious fabrics. The man stood out compared to the rest of the crowd. "What brings you here?"

     "I saw that you were back in the market. I wanted to see what you brought in from the ocean."

     "My biggest catch! This lovely mermaid and a little angel!" He gestured to the two girls.

     "Wow, That's wonderful! May I look at them?"

     "Of course!" The man waltzed over to Uira. His eyes scanned her bound figure. Yasir moved towards Kira, his eyes moving all over her.

     "They are beautiful," he walked back over to Magnus. "How much for both of them?"

      "Both of them?! I... I think we can work this out over drinks."

      "Excellent, let's get going then. Drinks on me."

      "Let's go men! We'll put these two in the back." The crew pushed the two girls back into the shed. "We'll be back girls, and potentially with your new owner."