#it's way too long and makes no sense but I'm extremely sleep deprived and this is what that does to me

[togansweep]

What would a togan honeymoon look like

they would go to italy for sure; the place where tom truly chose logan and showed him the depth of his loyalty and love (and hole). the place where their love really started to bloom, so to say. and not only that, it's also the backdrop of their shared fascination for the roman empire. after his previous honeymoon failed, bridezilla tom is determined to make this one perfect. logan couldn't care less but likes watching tom humiliate himself by going through all this effort for him.

because tom is desperate to impress logan (even though they're literally married now), he makes sure that the entire thing is roman empire themed: they stay in a villa that used to be the home of some roman emperor, they have a historically accurate roman breakfast every morning, and tom planned some exclusive roman empire activities.

logan thinks it's all a little ridiculous and dramatic and doesn't hesitate in telling tom this. this hurts tom deeply, but it's fine because every now and then logan holds his hand and gives him a soft smile, and the feeling this gives him makes it all worth it.

since they're now married, they're at a certain level of trust where logan finally dares to swim with tom. tom tries to kiss all of logan's scars because that's the sappy kind of shit he would do. this of course pisses logan off and in his anger he nearly drowns. after this incident logan acts cold towards tom and they barely talk. tom spends these days crying in his room. the issue is resolved when tom licks logan's feet clean as a peace offering.

and inbetween all of this they would of course have holeblowing sex every night. tom kind of wants to try roman empire roleplay but is too scared to ask (roman empire roleplay in his eyes is just calling logan names of emperors though, he remains vanilla at heart). but luckily he can still indulge in one of his other fantasies: connor gave them experiential male fertiliser pills as a wedding gift so now logan tries to get tom pregnant every night.

one of the activities tom was looking most forward to was dressing up in original roman attire, something he mostly planned because even just the thought of logan dressed like that makes him cream his pants.

but alas, they never get to this exciting event; their honeymoon is cut short when tom chokes on one of logan's assworms and has to be hospitalized. luckily, he survives and so does little fetus vermis, conceived during the night of the accident and born 9 months after.

[farfromstrange]

Sub!matt idea. Sensory deprivation.

It can be common as a way of control, heighten the experiance or even to help calm and sooth to blindfold your partner and make them rely on other senses. But for Matt he already has this to the extreme which can be distracting able to hear three blocks away when all he wants to focus on is you his world in this moment.

After a day of honestly tiring input he just asks for you to take over he somtimes does that wanting someone else to control him for a while and he trusts you. And trusts you enough to fuck you with his hearing either gone or reduced only able to feel, smell and taste you which is more then enough. Esspecially when you focus on the touch lavishing his body with sensory your hands never off him roaming, soothing holding. Your lips almost always on him kissing, sucking biting anything to elicit the sweet groans of him. He keeps a hand on your chest or throat not controlling but to be able to sense your rumbling groans and soft sighs feel the uptick in your heart rate as he focuses on you and only you

I am SO sorry that this took so long! And when I finally started writing it, I got carried away, so it took me two whole days to finish. But I wanted it to be good enough after I left you hanging.

On that note, your smutty thoughts make me feral!! Not gonna lie, I sat in my lecture the other day and I couldn't stop thinking about this, which is why this turned out to be over 4k words. On this page, we celebrate sub!Matt and all that comes with him!

Thank you so much for your request, and I hope I could do it justice <3

Sensory Deprivation | Matt Murdock x afab!Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x afab!Reader

Summary: The world tends to get a bit loud, but thankfully, you're there to help Matt focus.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), sub!Matt, use of "good boy", oral m!receiving, swallowing, use of earplugs (sensory deprivation), Matt's catholic guilt, slight blasphemy, (almost) coming untouched, mention & use of safe word/action

Word Count: 4.4k

A/n: I'm so horny for this man, I can't function. Also, even though I did proofread this, I'm not sure if I missed any mistakes. My brain doesn't function as well as it used to. I'm sorry in advance.

More than anyone in this world, Matt believes he has to function, always, and without exceptions. He believes that he has to be useful, always doing something and never resting. His heightened senses make it impossible for him to turn his back on even the most minuscule cases of injustice, and he still beats himself up time and time again because he can’t be everywhere at once. He hears everything, smells everything, and feels the despair in the air, but in the end, he can’t take on the weight of the world all by himself. 

Ever since he met you, you have become his reprieve. You’re the haven he returns home to when everything gets just a little too much. When his senses are flooded and his heart is heavy. He crawls to you when he’s wounded, and he would crawl to you if he only had a few more minutes to live. You’re the first person he thinks of when he wakes up, and the last person he thinks of when he goes to sleep at night, preferably holding you in his arms to make sure that you won’t slip away from him. In you, he has found someone who would never judge him for who he is. Someone who will always stand by his side proudly, and someone who will hold him when he’s at his weakest. And he has been hanging off the edge of his breaking point for quite some time, holding on for dear life.

You can tell Matt must have had an awful day from the second the key turns in the lock to your shared apartment. His feet drag over the wooden floorboards as he makes his way inside. You look up from your book. 

Matt takes a deep breath, dropping his bag by the door. His shoulders are tense. He folds his cane, places it aside, and removes the red glasses you’ve grown to love—but you don’t nearly love them as much as his beautiful brown eyes, the green specks so distinctive, you could recognize them anywhere.

“Rough day?” you ask. 

He opens the first button of his dress shirt with shaky fingers. “Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about it,” he says. 

He hasn’t said hi to you like he usually would. Tonight seems to be one of those nights again. You know Matt well enough to pick up on the subtle clues in his behavior. He’s overwhelmed, possibly even anxious, and the weight he always carries on his shoulders is threatening to crush him. He’s walking a very thin tightrope, and he’s about to fall off. 

You place your book on the coffee table and straighten up. He rounds the couch you’re sitting on, his unfocused eyes searching for you. Your heartbeat resonates in his ears. Your breathing is regular. You’re calm. You’re his rock. You won’t let him drown, no matter how strong the current is that is dragging him down. 

Raising your eyebrows, you look up at him when he stops right in front of you. “No hello kiss?” you dare to ask. It’s a soft question, a little teasing, but he knows you mean well. 

Matt shakes his head. As soon as he breathes you in, he’s done for. His brain cells fry on the electric chair of his mind. His heart starts beating up to his throat. You’re so close yet so far away. You smell incredible; you must have showered after work, and then you sat down with your favorite tea and read your favorite book while waiting for him so you could have dinner together. You’re so considerate, you even used his scentless soap so all he would be able to smell is your natural scent. You consume him. The city moves into the background, and the bricks are about to fall off his shoulders. He’s close to collapsing, falling on his knees and begging you to take control to just make him forget, but he isn’t quite there yet.

A car honks in the distance. The night is calling for him. His hand clenches into a fist at his side while the other rests flat against his thigh. 

You slowly rise from your position. “Matthew,” you breathe his name like a siren. “What do you need?”

He sniffs. His fingers twitch. He has to go out, but he can’t. You envelop him in a bubble, and it makes him feel like he isn’t alone. Like he isn’t trapped. Like he can finally let go after holding on for so long. 

“Talk to me,” you say. 

His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. “There was so much noise,” Matt whispers back. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t focus. I’m trying to stay in control, but I can’t focus, and—” He breaks off into a shaky sigh. 

You chase his eyes; they’re glossed over. You reach out to tilt his chin in your direction. His eyes flutter closed. A stray tear slips down his cheek. It’s a tear stemming from months of exhaustion, physical pain, and emotional turmoil. He tried to push through, but he’s arrived at a point of no return. He’s breaking, and you’re the only one capable of catching him. 

After another deep breath, Matt’s eyes open again. “You’re here,” his voice is still barely above a whisper, but the smile that starts to grow on his lips speaks the language of relief. 

“I’m always here,” you answer. 

“You keep me sane.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”

“I also know that, but it doesn’t matter. I know how hard it is for you. If you need to be distant for a while and then blow off some steam, I’m okay with it.”

He shudders when your fingers brush his cheek. The faint bruise underneath his eye has turned green. You trace the injury with gentle fingertips. 

“What did I do to deserve you?” he says. 

You smile back at him, knowing he can feel it, and you guide him toward your face. “You exist,” you tell him. “That’s enough for you to deserve me.”

His nose brushes against yours, but before his lips can meet yours, he stops. He inhales your scent. He feels your pulse under his fingers from where he’s wrapped them around your wrist. Your skin feels so soft against his. He’s no longer on fire. The world is no longer on fire. He can let go. He wants to know that it’s okay to let go, but the voice in his head is telling him to stop. The crossroads he finds himself at won’t let him leave in the direction he wants to go. 

You can feel his inner turmoil. He’s holding back. He always does so. You’ve been together for what feels like forever, and he still doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants. What he needs. What he deserves. You told him to be primal when he needs to be. You told him to admit when you need to take over. He never does it out of his own free will. He waits until you force him into submission. 

Tonight should be the night he finally tells you. Matt needs to learn that his needs matter just as much as yours. His catholicism can go to hell for all you care. 

“I need—” He swallows. “I-I need t—”

“Go ahead,” you urge him. 

“Ugh,” the sound resembles a broken growl. And then, the barriers finally break. “I need you to take over,” he begs. “I need you to help me breathe again, sweetheart. Please. I need you.”

God, he sounds so wrecked. 

“You want me to take control?” you ask to clarify. 

He nods. “Yes.”

“Okay. Good boy. I can do that.”

Matt’s lips part in a weak whimper in response to your praise. Calling him a ‘good boy’ always has the same welcome effect. You don’t even have to look down to know that his cock is slowly swelling in his slacks. 

All the blood has rushed from his head and his beautiful rosy, stubbly cheeks to his groin. It doesn’t take much to turn him on, especially not in his current state—especially not if it’s you.

Hearing him admit that he needs you like this makes you feel a myriad of emotions. You want to take care of him, you want to love him, and you want to give him a moment of peace amongst the constant chaos, but there is also something so arousingly erotic about the way he begs for you to take control that makes your thighs clench. 

Often enough, he is the one taking care of you. Matt is a giver, not a taker. He always puts you first, but on some days, he just can’t bear it anymore. And you couldn’t possibly ask him to take charge in bed in his current state. It would break him. He’s a vulnerable man, whether he likes to admit it or not, and he can be as fragile as an ancient vase. You have to handle him with care on those days, which is all you intend to do as you guide him to your shared bedroom. 

You gently urge him to sit down on the bed. “Do you trust me?” you ask. 

His unfocused eyes flick from one side to the other. “Always,” he breathes out. 

“Good. Lie back for me. I’m going to take such good care of you, I promise.”

He would never doubt that. 

You climb into his lap, and finally, you kiss him. His lips part slightly in a desperate groan. Before he can slide his tongue into your mouth though, you pull away. His grabby hands are already resting on your hips, wandering, and wandering, and…

“Nuh-uh,” you tell him, taking hold of his calloused fingers and placing them on your upper thighs. “Patience, baby.”

“Please,” Matt begs. You love it when he begs. He’s completely putty in your hands. You could tell him to get on his knees and pray, and he would, no matter how blasphemous it may be. 

He’s holding onto you for dear life. You place his hand against the left side of your chest, allowing him to feel your heartbeat. He isn’t leaving you cold. He never does. Alone the sight of him is enough to make your thighs clench with need, but straddling him, you can’t get the friction you need. 

You reach for the nightstand to your right, opening the drawer. You know exactly what he needs. “Turn your head for me,” you murmur. 

Matt follows your instructions without questioning them. Finally finding what you were looking for, you retrieve the earplugs from the bedside drawer. This isn’t the first time you have used them on him, or he has used them on you. The specific brand renders you almost entirely deaf and renders Matt’s enhanced hearing almost to an entirely normal level.

You gently put the first plug into his left ear, then the other into his right. Before you push it in though, you ask, “Do you remember our safeword?” 

He nods. “Red,” he says. 

“Good boy. And when you can’t speak?”

“Tap your wrist three times.” His lips curl up into a weak smile. “Usually, I’m the one asking you that.” 

“Not tonight, you aren’t. May I put this in now?” You tap the earplug.

He nods again. It’s all the confirmation you need before inserting it, reducing his hearing completely. He lets out a sigh of relief. He closes his eyes, and you know he’s trying not to cry. 

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” you ask, cradling his cheek. His stubble scratches your fingertips, but it’s a welcome pain. 

He can still hear what you’re saying, feel the vibrations in your chest from where his hand is resting, and he smells you so much clearer now that he no longer has to listen to the city screaming at him in the background. Your arousal gets stuck to the tiny hairs in his nose, and he inhales sharply. Every nerve in his body is on fire. 

Matt moans. His tongue darts out, tasting the air. For a moment, he forgets that you just asked for his consent. Everything is so much more intense, yet it isn’t nearly enough. 

“Matthew,” you nudge him. “Talk to me.”

“Yes,” he whispers. At least he thinks he’s whispering. 

You smile, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and then you lean down to kiss him again. This time, you let him push his tongue into your mouth, tasting you, feeling you, and consuming all of you. He wants every ounce of you ingrained in his mind forever. 

His hands slide under your shirt, feeling the warmth of your skin. His focus is on you entirely. You help him take the pesky piece of fabric off, followed by his own. He’s suddenly so hot. 

Your teeth clash when you kiss. His cock is hard as a rock, pressing against his lower abdomen. You can feel it between your thighs. It must be painful for him. 

His kisses trail from your mouth, down your neck. He tastes the salt on your skin. Your pulse jumps as he drags his tongue over the vein. It’s a primal need. He needs to mark you. He needs to taste you, all of you, and make you his for all the world to see. An animalistic growl escapes his lips. His teeth dig into your skin. He nibbles just enough to make you moan, your chest vibrating underneath his hand. Matt doesn’t even hesitate to grab a handful of your breast, tugging at your sensitive nipple until it’s stiff enough to rival his aching cock. 

You throw your head back, your jaw slack, and he uses the newfound space to kiss down to your collarbone. You’re going to be purple and bruised tomorrow, but you don’t care. 

With a demanding grip on his hair that pulls at his scalp and causes him to groan against your shoulder, you push his head toward your chest. He isn’t in control, you are, and you know how much he loves to please you. 

Like a man starving, he sucks your nipple into his mouth. No, it’s not just your nipple. He takes as much as he can into his mouth, his teeth grazing the sensitive nub only momentarily before he moves on to the rest of your silky skin. 

You moan. You have to let him know that you’re enjoying yourself. He feels the sound deep within your chest from where his hand is resting, and the way your breast moves slightly when you moan. Matt only becomes more eager when he feels and smells what he’s doing to you. 

The scent of you is addicting. Your arousal smells slightly sour, sometimes slightly metallic, but most of all, it is you. And when he tastes your essence on the tip of his tongue without even licking at your slick folds because you are simply that wet, it makes him feral with this insanely primal need to have you. 

He wants to spread you out before him and taste you until you’re coming all over his face. Though today, he is too weak to keep you restrained to the mattress. Matt takes what he can get, what you are willing to give him, and he does so eagerly, like the good boy that he wants to be for you. 

With the world silenced, he can focus on you. The way your heart is hammering against your ribcage, right against his palm. The way your chest heaves with every labored breath you take as he sucks and sucks at your breast until your nipple is beyond swollen. He can feel how smooth your skin is, smell the remnants of your body lotion that he sometimes steals so he can smell you everywhere he goes, and the slight sheen of sweat that has started to cover your body from head to toe. And he can smell your arousal so thick in the air, his cock jumps at the mere thought of sinking into your tight walls—of being completely consumed by you, body and soul. He doesn’t need to hear right now, all he needs to do is feel you. 

You know about his desperate urge to please. You know that, even while you’re in charge, he wants nothing more than to make you feel good. Matt is anything but selfish. But his selflessness doesn’t have a place in this bedroom tonight. 

As crazy as his mouth on your breasts is driving you into an oblivion of pure ecstasy, your walls clenching around nothing, you find it in yourself to pull him away. 

With his eyes hooded, he looks so delicious. His cock is still straining against his lower abdomen in his underwear. When you pull him away, his expression reads offense. You can’t help but snicker. 

“Did you think I’d let you make this about me?” you say just loud enough for the sound to reach through the earplugs. 

He exhales. “I was praying,” he says. 

Praying. He is too far gone to realize. There are sides to Matt Murdock you love more than others, and when he becomes blasphemous, it does things to you. This good catholic boy turns into mush when you just touch him, and then you are his God. You’re who he wants to worship, and he would pray to you, worship at the altar of your body, and drink your essence like holy water if it meant being all over you and inside of you. And you take your position very seriously. 

He trusts you. That is not a small feat. He trusts you with his body and soul, and he trusts you with the most vulnerable parts of him, be it in bed or merely a hug after a bad day. You know what he needs, and he trusts you to take care of him. He wouldn’t let just anyone do what you do to him.

“What were you praying for?” you ask him. 

“You,” he whispers. 

“You can have me, but first… focus.”

He told you he was losing focus because the world was far too late, so with the noise reduced, you will help him focus on something other than the world out there. 

“Feel that?” You kiss his mouth, and from there, you move down to his stubbly jaw. “Focus on that. Focus on me.”

Matt sucks in another sharp breath. While one hand still rests on your chest, the other comes to rest around your neck, feeling your pulse, feeling you, and his eyes flutter closed at the feeling of your luscious lips all over him. 

Your kisses trail down his neck. You pay close attention to the sensitive spot behind his ear. He moans. His hips buck upward. He’s so painfully hard, his cock has already started leaking pre-cum into his boxers. 

Each scar, each indentation on his skin that reminds you of all the good he does at the expense of his health, you kiss. You trace your tongue over the healed wounds, feeling the warmth of his skin seep into yours. He’s so sensitive. 

His fingers involuntarily clench around your neck, but you don’t mind. He’s not choking you, he’s simply trying to hold on. You have established a safe word for a reason, after all. He can get carried away the same way you can get carried away.

You wouldn’t dare push him too far though. Not tonight. Not when he’s already this wrecked underneath you. You purposefully leave his nipples out of the equation and move further down his body. His abs tense under your tender touch. You can’t help but smile. 

And him? Matt feels like he’s floating. He can feel every kiss against his heated skin, your fingertips tracing his scars after you’ve so sensually pressed your mouth against them, and he can feel your every breath as you move downward. Every kiss leaves a series of shivers in its wake. He’s hot, yet he’s cold. He needs more, but at the same time, you are already close to driving him into overstimulation. 

His balls tighten. He can’t believe that the feeling of you is enough to make him want to explode. He knows that if you touch his cock now, he might as well come right then and there. It’s so much more intense like this when he doesn’t get distracted by the world outside. You are his world, and you are all he focuses on. 

You move further down until you reach his boxers. His arm is no longer long enough to keep his hand around your neck, so he moves it into your hair. It’s a silent warning, you suppose because he is close. You only kissed him, and he’s already so close to coming undone. You don’t blame him. He’s been so tense lately. 

You press a kiss to his hip bone before murmuring against his milky skin, “It’s okay.”

Matt whimpers. Your words make their way into his bloodstream. 

You pull his boxers down. The cold air hits his aching tip and the way his back arches makes you almost feel bad. You spit into your hand, but you make sure your palm is warm enough before you reach for his girth. 

The moment you touch him, he’s done for. “Sweetheart, I can’t–” he chokes out, but you shush him by placing your lips against his tip. 

You lick at the salty pre-cum. It tastes like him. You can’t deny that you missed this while he was so distant from you. This is as much for you as it is for him, that is something you can’t deny either. You’re a little selfish tonight. Just a little. 

His words of protest get swallowed by a needy moan, and his fist tightens in your hair. He’s not going to last long. 

Matt is not one to come early. The guilt swallows him faster than you can swallow his cum, which is why he always holds himself back. Tonight though, you won’t let him torture himself for your pleasure. You hate it when he does it. 

“Ugh!” the moan comes from the depths of his chest. “Fucking–God!”

You take him into your throat as far as you can without gagging, and what you can’t take, you wrap your hand around. He’s so thick, and he’s so incredibly big—you can feel the tears forming in your eyes. But God, he is so beautiful with his head thrown back, brown eyes squeezed shut, and that little drop of sweat dripping down his temple. It’s lewd, it’s erotic, and it makes your thighs clench. 

All of his reservations vanish when you take him all in. Your throat is tight, but you’re enthusiastic. Your tongue traces the vein on the underside of his cock, moving back up to the overly sensitive head. Your hands cup his balls. Every time you go down on him, Matt swears he can feel heaven reaching its hand out to him.

He grips your hair a little tighter, his other hand tangling in the sheets. He’s so close. He twitches, painfully so. And when he comes, he instinctively pulls your head upward so you won’t choke. His hot cum spurts down your throat, and you have no choice but to swallow. 

You surprise both yourself and him when you fight against his hand and force yourself down far enough so that your nose brushes the base of his cock, and you gag. 

Your throat is so tight and hot that it drags his orgasm on for eternity. He can hear his blood rushing in his ears. His heart is racing out of his chest as if it has somewhere to be. The fire ripples through him, the inferno turning into a dangerous explosion that tears his nerves apart, putting them back together just to tear them apart again. He feels as though the skin is falling off his very fragile bones, and his muscles collapse in on themselves. 

Matt can’t breathe. When he finally manages to untangle his hands from your hair, he lies there. The blood in his ears is obnoxious. He can’t hear. He can’t see. And suddenly, he can’t even feel anymore. He doesn’t exist. Reality slips away into a moment in time. Now, he’s dying. It feels like he is dying. 

You pull off his cock, catching your breath. His cum trickles down the corner of your mouth. You wipe it away. Pressing a kiss to his hip bone, you look up through your lashes. At first, he looks blissed out, but his expression quickly changes. 

He can’t talk. You take his hand. “Matt,” you coax him. 

Not even his chest is lifting in time to accommodate his heavy breathing. His body is shaking as every ounce of stress falls off his shoulders, and his nerves fall victim to the inferno that is still wreaking havoc inside of him.

He taps your wrist three times. 

“Okay,” you murmur. You quickly climb back up his body. 

“Out,” he manages to tell you, weakly pointing to the earplugs. 

“Okay, baby. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

You pull the earplugs out as fast as you can. Matt’s arms wrap around you, searching for a lifeline, and he pulls you against him.

“Shhh.” You cradle his head in the crook of your neck. 

You hold him like this for a while. You hold him against you tightly, gently, as if he is the most fragile thing you have ever held. 

Eventually, his breathing returns to normal. His heart starts to slow down. His fingertips no longer dig into your back as desperately as they have before. He’s just content now. 

You press your lips to the crown of his head. “You okay?” you dare to ask. 

Matt takes a moment before he nods. He leans back slightly. “Thank you,” he breathes. 

“For what?”

His lips curl into a tired yet satisfied smile. “For helping me focus.”

You smile back at him. “My pleasure,” you say, and you lean down to capture his lips in a loving kiss. 

“I love you,” he murmurs into the kiss.

“And I love you, Matthew Michael Murdock.”

“Oh, you love me that much, huh?”

You giggle, “Shut up!” before you pull him in for another kiss. 

For now, he needs to catch his breath and pick up the pieces you shattered by giving him this orgasm, but you know that once he does, it is going to be a long night for you. And you won’t be able to find it in yourself to complain. Not that you want to, anyway.

Matt Murdock Smut Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @mattkinsella @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617

[dwncata]

Hi I don't know how to format stuff to look nice I'll figure it out later shh but do y'all wanna see this delulu AU I made centered on Dottore and Boothill set in a universe where HSR Genshin and Cyberpunk elements are just thrown into a blender

Reposted from my AO3 fic, this will make no sense I'm sorry idk I like brainrotting about them a lot man nsmsbsjsb

--They're extremely ooc high-key I'm sorry lmao

Boothill glanced at his phone, then up at the barren, decrepit building before him, then back at his phone again. Yep, this was the place- even the rust stains on the walls matched. Felt more like an Abyss hideout than a ripper clinic, even bearing the warnings and rumors in mind- but he didn't exactly have many options.

He entered the building, and started descending the stairwell. This guy definitely knew how to keep himself away from people- even for someone who's seen hell up close and personal, the way metallic groans echoed around the space with every step gave him the creeps. Third floor down, there's supposed to be a door with the Fatui's emblem instead of a number... It was the only door on the floor, easy enough to find.

After few firm knocks, there was the light sound of footsteps before a disheveled man with blue hair slid the door open. He looked rather impatient, piercing red eyes boring into Boothill before he even spoke a word. "A patient, I'm assuming?"

The bags under his eyes felt like the result of long term unrest than a temporary sleep deprivation issue- For a ripper, the clothes he wore were very loose, tears and frays littering what looked like your average lower end jeans and tank top. Geometric flower designs were scrawled across his arms and chest as tattoos; yet even with such complex patterns, he had a concerning amount of scar tissue visible under the ink. Most of it seemed like burns, possibly chemical burns- but there were a few that seemed to be from knives or the like. This guy experienced a lot, that much you could tell at a glance.

Boothill gave a simple, upfront response. "Hopin' so. Y'see, I was askin' 'round these parts for a ripper who could help me with an... Unconventional request, if you catch my drift." The ripper let out a slight huff. "Specify, please." He spat the word out with annoyance, it seemed he was not one for beating around the bush.

"...Right. Wanna get myself as much chrome as 300k can buy. Was hopin' you'd help me figure out what works best for a guy like me, I'm not too keen on usin' blades or those heavy guns, y'know?"

The doctor's brow raised, unsure whether to feel skepticism or pity. "...You don't seem the wealthy type. Am I about to fuel a suicide mission?" He asked plainly, almost matter of fact- Boothill didn't quite know how to respond. Vengeance on a single target, no care in the world for after the fact- that was more or less the idea, he guessed.

Before he could piece together how to say it, the doctor continued. "Your response won't affect whether I do the work or not. I simply need to know if cyberpsychosis is a concern."

...Alright, he really just lays it out as is. "Well, I suppose I'd like to live after, but I won't wanna give up or risk losin' my target for anythin'." The doctor was silent for a second, then turned with a slight shake of his head. "Alright, sure. Come, then."

The "clinic" was the most bare bones place he could imagine. Operation chair, standing trays. A few organizers on counters for tools, and boxes further back with various cyberware. That was pretty much it.

However, he continued past, moving a curtain to a side room. Here, he kept his laptop, more storage boxes, and... There was an old couch, it was likely he slept here- That was all that was in the room.

"Take a seat, I'll be asking questions to see what'll work best for you." Boothill did just that, letting himself fall into the couch with a loud creak.

"Preferred weapons?"

Boothill answered easily, no hesitation. "I was a gunslinger before all this. Revolvers are my favorite- I could tell you all day about my preferences on those, but I'm guessin' that's not too relevant. But, when it comes down to someone in yer face, the boom of a shotgun's got its own charm- simple, effective, what more could ya need?" The doctor tilted his head slightly- as much as he's had his fair share of people who wouldn't shut up about themselves for the life of them, this client felt... Different? There was a certain air about the simple, yet genuine way he described his preferences, with a refreshing appreciation for the weapons themselves. It was a trivial difference, but... It was noticable enough, nonetheless.

"Heavy ranged preference, light-mid... Do you aim to enhance reactions or stamina more?"

"Probably reactions. If I'm gonna do this, I wanna get it done before too much backup arrives." ...Well, discreetness was very, very evidently not a factor with this one. Honestly, that just made it easier then. "Most people try to keep their intents private; but if you're gonna be so open anyways, I'll save us both time. What's your goal?"

Boothill sat up, taking the conversation a bit more at heart now. "I'm gonna pack some lead straight into Oswaldo Schneider's skull. I don't care what happens to me after then, but I will not let myself die until I see that motherfucker go with me."

Despite the heartfelt lament, the doctor's expression remained unchanged. "An IPC department head? I feel there's more issues on that plate aside from 'Weapons tune up.' Why him specifically? You know with them, it's the same shit regardless of whoever the bastard in front is."

The nomad shook his head, leaning back with a grimace. "Don't care. The orders given that destroyed my life were issued by the bastard. I don't got nothin' left, least I could do for myself at this point."

The doctor, not even looking through the cyberware on his screen anymore, wasn't sure how to proceed. He should just do the work, get his cut, and pretend he never saw this guy. None of this was his concern, and yet...

"...I don't think I can fulfill this request. There's too many variables and I can't properly define what your limit is in one shot. But I'll tell you what I can do." He typed up an estimate, summarizing a rather pricy operation; despite his half hearted word of caution on cyberpsychosis, this looked damn near a complete bodily rebuild.

Turning his laptop, he walked Boothill through his idea; a silhouette took form on his screen, text flying by as he explained. "90% of this is focused on reflexes, while giving as much smooth aiming as possible. A reinforced aluminum shell will leave you lighter on your feet, and you won't experience pain as much to slow you down. That being said, it'll be harder to tell when you've gone too far, and that won't take too many hits."

Boothill pointed the silhouette's head, which was a brighter red than the rest. "Wait, why so much in the brain? I don't do none of that netrunnin' stuff." The doctor rolled his eyes a bit with an exasperated sigh. "I could tell."

He pointed down along the silhouette's spine. "Your nerves all answer to your brain. The rest of the body isn't as bright because it's spread out, but your nerves will essentially be put on overclock. Your brain needs the ability to process that data and create responses at a matching pace, if it's gonna be useful. Though, I feel more of your interest would be here." He pointed at the silhouette's left arm. "EMP grenade launch system. Along with hand implants to create volatile tech weapon shots, and reduce recoil."

A toothy smile took its place on Boothill's face, but it fell as soon as he saw the cost- a little over 500,000 credits. "Hey, uh. I don't mean to be 'that guy', but when I said 300, I meant 300- I don't got another sum like that just sittin' around. It took a lot to get this together, y'know."

The doctor shook his head, lazily waving his hand. "I'm aware, that wasn't your price. That's the next part, consider this a bit of an experiment." He took the laptop back, and started typing again.

"Labor will be heavily discounted if you report back to me how you feel every now and then. I haven't met a client with this strong of a death wish; usually they're either begging for scraps, or have safety concerns of some kind. But you have the credits, so at the very least I'll be properly compensated for the hardware itself. Currently, you don't have much cyberware at all, so I can't say there's gonna be good results having it all put in you at once. I'm not moving anytime soon, and I'd assume you have no idea on Oswaldo's personal whereabouts yet?"

Boothill's eyes shifted a bit. "...Yeah. Got a few leads I'm followin', but since I managed to reach a good place with savin's, I figured gettin' chromed up sooner than later would speed that up a lil." The ripperdoc kept typing, explaining details and warnings of various cyberware he planned on implementing, in what stages, how often to check in... Boothill wasn't able to remember much of it, but he trusted he was in good enough hands.

"Alright, then. I'll do half labor, so 230,000 in total- including follow ups and the like. I'd assume you plan on paying it all upfront?" After all the technical jargon, Boothill had to focus in again to make sure he heard that right. "Wait- as in, that's the total total for everythin'? Runnin' yerself a lil dry there, aren'cha?" The doctor quietly sighed, crossing his arms in annoyance.

"I don't see why you'd want to pay extra, nor if you're truly in a position to do so- but I'll take any free credit you're offering." Boothill shook his head, growing slightly weary for the first time in all of this.

"That's like sayin' not to look a gift horse in the mouth. But you're right, we've got this far- is it really that dangerous?" The doctor shrugged. "I wouldn't say dangerous per se, more unknown than anything. Again, I expect you to return and report how you feel from time to time."

That was fine, then. He had a feeling there was something else influencing the ripper's choices right now... He'd have plenty of time to figure it out, though. "...Right. Could ya send me a text or somethin' to summarize it? Just to be safe, n' all."

The doctor replied, expressionless. "I had already planned to. You'll get a text from me later, save it under the name Zandik."

Boothill was surprised at the name- everyone who spoke of him used a title, "Il Dottore". Evidently, Zandik noticed his expression shift.

"Yes, consider it private knowledge or whatever you'd like; I don't normally have repeat clients, and I'd rather not be referred to as 'Doc' during follow ups."

Boothill glanced away, nodding awkwardly. "Ah- you got it, Zandik."

The doctor had already begun sifting through boxes- he waved his hand vaguely towards the other room. "Transfer the funds and lay on the chair, I'll be out in a bit."

It all felt a bit surreal, but hell, he wasn't complaining. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but he felt he was about to get the tune up of a lifetime- and his first friend in this new life.

---

[cadavercowboy]

(i wish there was a read more for asks because i'm going nuts here) i'm also with miss meat on this one. i'm a huge fan of true crime as well and to my knowledge cannibalistic serial killers tend to have a history of abusive mothers (it gets really fucked up) so i'm still wondering whether or not steve lied about his mother being dead to bond with noa, or if he only wants her to be dead, or if her death came at the hands of something seriously fucked up.

i also have a theory about his family simply being a cult (baphomet references, worshippers were accused of cannibalism at some point) and about his parents simply wanting steve to follow in their footsteps because human meat is such a lucrative business.

to me, steve seems very susceptible to manipulation, despite him being a manipulator himself. when he likes someone, someone like noa, he's surprisingly easy to bend. i'd guess his parents probably did the same thing (although i can't decide from which side or both). his disregard for the value of human life has to come from somewhere.

also, human meat apparently tastes like pork or veal, and the texture is said to be different but also a cannibal once confessed that any average person could not tell the difference. so the effect seems mostly psychological and steve is almost religious in the way he explains how he feels about eating human meat. it's powerful, becoming one with somebody else, surrendering, giving yourself to them completely.

IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG BUT I COULDNT HELP MYSELF i need to know your theories as well so maybe i'll jumpscare you in the dms to not clog up the dash but i'm shy

OKAY I wasn’t gonna go off on a tangent about my Steve’s Mom Theories, but I may as well, right? Fresh spoilers under the cut obvs. For the record, I am sleep deprived and generally lacking in brain cells so I promise you this response is gonna be all over the damn place and probably won’t make a bit of sense.

Re: Mama Kemp Being Dead

I initially had a theory that Steve’s mother may still be alive, however when Noa mentioned that her father had passed…it made me wonder whether Steve lied about his own mother. I fully believe that’s something he would lie about just to forge that little connection with Noa and offer a sense of comfortability by offering up something very personal that she could relate to.

BUT more importantly, I have a way more in-depth insane theory about his mother actually being deceased. So here’s my headcanon. I think that Steve’s mother may have been abusive. At the very least, I don’t think she was very loving or affectionate so he grew up extremely emotionally deprived. Kind of similarly to what you mentioned about how many cannibals have mommy issues, I think the lack of maternal love/attention during his most developmental and important years kind of fucked him up.

Now here’s where my theory splits off into two possible routes.

On one hand, let’s assume his mother passes away for some reason or another. I think her death ripped something open in him. Facing the reality of knowing he would never mend their relationship and feel the love he was robbed of as a wee lad would break him a little bit. He realizes he’ll never know a mother’s love and so he begins seeking that fundamental level of closeness elsewhere. Just based on the speech he gives Noa about what he gains from eating people (surrender, love, etc), I really think his whole murder/cannibalism thing derives first and foremost from a lack of emotional connection within the confines of a normal relationship.

This one’s kind of wicked and fucked up and is borne simply from the fact that I read way too fucking far into this film. My alternate theory is that Steve killed his own mother. I think that she may even have been the first person he ate. Touching again on his speech, he said it himself that there’s no way to be closer to a person than to give yourself over and be literally consumed by them. That was his way of both fulfilling the emptiness he felt from her lack of love and healing his inner child from the abuse he did/might have suffered.

I’m about to get a little carried away, but since I’ve already gone off on my Mom Theories, I have to continue because it bleeds directly into my other deranged theory about That Hideous Pink Dress. I really think that was some Norman Bates shit. That thing was ugly and outdated and looked like something straight out of another decade. How crazy would it be if that dress belonged to his mother or reminded him of something she wore and that’s why he gave it to Noa to wear? Everything he does is to compensate for the gaping hole his mother left by not loving him enough. He dressed the woman he had feelings for in an outfit reminiscent of his mother and it was the ultimate Freudian slip (although it was probably intentional so not so much a “slip”). Similar to Norman Bates, he could have done it to avoid facing the reality that his mother is dead and he’s the one who killed her, but it also could just be as simple as fulfilling a need in a super sick and twisted way. Noa loved him or made him feel loved at least and making her wear that placated a need to be loved by his mother finally.

ANYWAY. I really agree with Steve being incredibly malleable. It’s probably a desperate need for validation and acceptance that makes him so easily persuaded. When he likes someone and craves that connection, he would do anything to get that from them. Even if that means being vulnerable and showing his hand in a way that’s risky…he’ll do it because his worth lies in how other people perceive him.

As far as the taste of human flesh, when he said he likes the taste of it I don’t think it was literal. It probably tastes no worse or better than animals do. Like you said, it’s about the power. Almost a placebo effect that makes you think it tastes better simply because you know how corrupt and immoral it is to eat it. He doesn’t enjoy the flavor so much as he enjoys the compelling intensity of consuming someone and joining with them so fully.

I didn't even notice all the allusions to cultism when I watched it until someone else pointed it out (I was too busy being feral over Steve) but that poses an interesting question about whether his family was involved in it and that's how he ended up being a cannibal. I really, really wish they delved more into his backstory instead of just being like "yeah I ate a person when I was 19" like???? DETAILS!!!! I NEED DETAILS! How did it even happen in the first place, how did he find the rest of the community, what made him want to participate in the business aspect of it rather than just the eating part? I have a million and one questions about him, I could sit here all day theorizing about it all.

Sorry for all of this unhinged, endless rambling bullshit. It probably makes no sense and I’m not gonna read it back because I’m afraid of my own brain and the foolishness it produces haha. Also you’re always welcome to jump in my dm’s, I’m as shy and dumb as they come so you’ve got nothing to worry about <3

[scripttorture]

Hello! I have a few questions related to your most recent post and the definition of torture. You said:

"A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture."

According to everything else I have seen on your blog, this makes sense - the mental and physical trauma from being tortured have lasting effects which make certain tasks more difficult.

However, this seems to juxtapose certain tropes I've seen in US military training advertisements. For example, "Hell Week" in the Navy SEAL training seems like it would be torture if it was forced upon someone (like if the soldiers didn't sign up for it and didn't have the option to quit.). *Hell Week is when soldiers are training continuously for 5 days in freezing, wet conditions, with little more than 4 hours of sleep for the entire week, under insane amounts of physical and mental stress.

- If someone chose to be tested both mentally and physically, I feel like it wouldn't be torture. However, if the same exact conditions were forced upon someone else (testing their mental and physical limits without their consent or understanding), does your quote above mean that the person who did not have a choice would not reap the benefits of the training/testing? Or would the Navy SEALs be better soldiers if they didn't have to go through 'torturous conditions' during Hell Week, regardless of their choice to do so?

(I used Hell Week as an example, but I meant this question generally. I'm trying to figure out how to best train an elite soldier and avoid any harmful torture apologia tropes, while also making sure that they are able to handle insanely challenging situations)

- My other question has more to do with the definition of torture that you quoted from the UN in one of your master posts. If someone is being seriously injured (pulled fingernails, whipping, starvation etc), but not for the purposes of interrogation, punishment, or intimidation, is that still torture, or is that just abuse? And, regardless of what we call it, would the effects be the same as if it were torture for any of the three motives above?

Sorry if this is long and hard to understand, I can clarify if needed!

It’s not the longest I’ve gotten and it’s perfectly clear, duck*. :) Honestly this is a difficult topic with a lot of nuance, it’s better to take a longer and more thoughtful approach.

 From the stand point of the legal definition and what we study/understand as torture any consensual activity, however extreme, is not torture.

 But here’s where it gets interesting: consent and our attitude to an activity actually changes our response to pain. It may even change how much pain we feel.

 I’m going to take a slightly different example to yours. There are a lot of cultures globally that have practiced scarification, ritual cutting to deliberately form scars. And this can be done for a lot of reasons: membership of a family or clan, coming of age, traditional medicine, religion, you get the idea.

 A lot of people in these cultures describe their scars as incredibly important and the process of getting them as a moving, deep and positive process.

 This does not mean they wouldn’t be traumatised if they were attacked by someone with a knife.

 Being able to approach something painful and see it as positive really changes our perspective. It makes trauma and mental illness a lot less likely. And being able to back out, even if it’s just for a little while to take a breather, seems to make us able to withstand more pain then we would have otherwise.

 The simplest and most famous experiment that dealt with this relationship between our mindset and pain asked people to keep their hands in ice cold water. They timed how long people could do it when they were told to stay silent and how long they could do it when they were allowed to swear. If they swore they could hold their hands under for longer. An average of forty seconds longer.

 Looking back over O’Mara (Why Torture Doesn’t Work, a very good intro to how pain works and what it does to the brain) the way he describes it as by thinking of the experience of pain as a collection of three things. There’s the physical sensation itself, the nerves firing. But there’s also an affective component, how we feel emotionally about the experience and a cognitive component, how we think about it.

 Did you ever play that game as a kid where you stuff as many chilis as possible in your mouth to see who would spit them out first? I… might have done. And from what I remember it hurts an awful lot. But those memories to me are mostly about messing about with my friends, I remember trying to be stubborn about it and I remember us laughing at each other.

 This is a completely different experience to someone being held down and having chili stuff up their nose. But the difference isn’t necessarily in the physical damage done or the physical sensation of pain. It’s in the other components, the emotional response and the rationalisation.

 I also had a filling drilled in my tooth without painkillers as a kid. I don’t know how common this is in the West? It happened in Saudi. Honestly my biggest memory of it is the language barrier between myself and the dentist.

 These are anecdotes obviously but I’m trying to show that you probably also have experiences in your own life that back up the experiments too. The way we think about a painful experience really does make a huge amount of difference. And that means consent matters enormously.

 These soldiers are going into this experience knowing what to expect, how long it will last and that they can stop at any time. That makes a huge amount of difference. Those same factors have drastically increased the time volunteers will spend in solitary confinement for research. I’m pretty sure if I dug even a little I’d find pain studies with similar findings.

 Here’s the flip side: the physical factors are still in play.

 Sleep is an important physiological process that’s essential to normal functioning. Studies on consensual sleep deprivation have shown massive negative impacts on memory along with a host of other things that you can read about here.

 Let’s take a non torture example. A student who stays up all night cramming for an exam is not going to develop the symptoms of trauma that a torture survivors who was sleep deprived would. But the effect sleep deprivation has on memory is due to sleep playing an essential role in preserving memory (and learning more generally.) So they’re both likely to have difficulty remembering things in days just before and just after sleep deprivation. They’re also both more likely to have false memories and catch a bad cold.

 As a result of this memory impairment I question the educational value of anything involving sleep deprivation: you can’t learn while messing up the processes that let your brain remember things.

 There have been cases in the UK of people dying during training for the armed forces. Because while consent makes a huge difference, mindset makes a huge difference- our bodies still have limits. We can choose to push ourselves past those limits and, whatever our motivation or feelings, it can do real harm.

 Personally? I’m unsure of the benefit of these kinds of exercises. As in I’m unsure there is a benefit. Learning is going to be shot, chances of injury are going to be a lot higher- I don’t see anything that could be improved by these sorts of exercises.

 Anecdotally people do report feeling like a closer unit after going through these sorts of routines. That might be the benefit: moral and unit cohesion, possibly self-esteem too.

 If you’re making up something for your story I think it’d be helpful for me to mention a little statistical effect that gets used to justify punishment pretty regularly. Get some dice out if you’ve got them and roll one. Let’s say the number represents performance in some kind of test (because effort and learning matter but our performance also varies because of things we can’t control.) A roll of 1 gets punished, a roll of 6 gets praised.

 Now after you roll that first 1 statistically speaking the chances are your next roll will be better. And if you roll a 6 then statistically speaking the chances are your next roll will be worse. People observe this effect in real life and they often conclude that there’s no point in praising someone but that punishment leads to improvement. Really it’s just a statistical effect, after a particularly, noticeably bad day the chances are things will be better next and vice versa.

 This effect can make it difficult for people to recognise overall, long term progress. Which is the kind of progress you should be paying attention to when designing a training program.

 If you want good performance from people, whatever the metric, the most efficient thing to do is ensure that those people are; well fed, have access to clean water, get plenty of sleep, have breaks and have access to medical treatment when they need it.

 I’d say the main things to keep in mind when designing this fictional training regime are:

Being honest about the effects you describe, ie if they’re spending long periods without shelter are they at risk from exposure? If they’re standing in cold water are they going to get hypothermia?

Remember that even if something is damaging or causes lasting trauma it would not necessarily prevent someone from doing their job. Torture survivors have serious, lasting symptoms but many of them still work.

 I think I’m going to leave that there because I’m not an expert in militaries or training people. And keep in mind that I am a pacifist, read this with my biases in mind.

 Getting to the second question, there is a little more to the UN definition then that. The primary factor is still who the abuser is. For it to be torture (legally speaking) the abuser has to be (or be ordered by) an on-duty government employee, part of a group that controls territory (ie an occupying force). Some countries also count international organised criminal gangs in this definition.

 It’s also important to note that torture can be targetted at someone other then the victim. So if the police arrest the brother of a political opponent and beat him in order to intimidate the politician, that is still torture.

 Basically there are a lot of factors in the legal definition of torture and it’s that way by design. The hope is that you end up with a framework that captures as much government abuse as possible.

 But it also means that there’s a pretty high barrier when it comes to proving torture. Which means that things which are legally torture can be prosecuted as assault, bodily harm or equivalents to these, because it’s easier to get a conviction for those charges.

 Technically you are correct: if abuse done by a government official doesn’t have one of the four motivations in the legal definition (attempts to obtain information, forcing a confession, intimidation or punishment) then it doesn’t meet the definition.

 However in practice I’ve not heard of a case failing because of the motive.

 I’m not a lawyer and I’m not an expert in international law. I won’t say it’s never happened. But it’s much more common for cases to fail for other reasons. Off the top of my head I’d say the most common reason is difficulty proving the abuse took place.

 The most common types of torture today are ‘clean’, a term we use to indicate that they don’t leave obvious marks. If someone turns up with fingernails torn out or the skin of their back lacerated by a whip that is clear physical evidence of abuse. Nothing else causes similar injuries. But if someone turns up at a doctor’s with swollen feet or reddened skin, if they’ve lost a lot of weight or they’re so tired they’re struggling to stand… Well all of those things can be caused by common tortures. But they can also be caused by common illnesses.

 A lot of the deaths from torture today are similarly hard to prove. Beatings and stress positions ultimately cause death by kidney failure. Which can mean that prosecutors are asked to prove a victim didn’t have an underlying health condition. Or take drugs.

 Honestly my instinct is that the motive is the easiest thing to prove. It’s often harder to bring charges against people in positions of authority, regardless of the country we’re talking about. Bringing those charges, proving abuse took place and proving it was done by the person in question, those are usually the tricky parts.

 The difference between torture and abuse is scale. Torture is industrial scale abuse.

 The law doesn’t define that scale but that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about abuse from organised authority. Abusers might have dozens of victims. Torturers have thousands, tens of thousands.

 If you want to explore a different motivation in your story, something outside the legal framework, consider the scale at which this abuse is taking place. Consider how organised it is. If it’s organised and large scale, with multiple abusers, with no prior relationship between the abuser and victims then torture will probably be a better model then abuse. If it’s smaller scale with a more personal relationship and if it isn’t supported by a legal framework/organisation then abuse might be a better model.

 For victims and survivors the difference isn’t so much about the symptoms they personally experience as the… side effect of that scale. Abuse victims are often very isolated and may not know anyone who has had a similar experience. Torture implies a community of survivors and possibly generational trauma. There are also effects to do with access to support, access to medical care and how likely it is that someone will be believed.

 Torture survivors are often systematically disenfranchised in a way that abuse victims are not. Torture survivors are often forced to leave their home country. Anecdotally, based on what I’ve seen globally over the last few years, I think that struggling to get citizenship is increasingly an issue for torture survivors. And without citizenship there’s difficulty finding legal work, getting accommodation, accessing medical care, accessing the legal system etc.

 I do not know whether torture survivors are more or less likely to be believed by their community compared to survivors of abuse. I do not think any one has attempted a comparative study. I do know that the prevalence of clean torture means that many torture survivors are not believed and this puts up a further barrier, making it harder to access medical treatment and bring charges.

 Rejali’s book was published in 2009, so things may have changed a tad. At the time he was writing the average wait for a torture survivor to see a specialist doctor was about 10 years.

 Abuse is to torture what murder is to genocide. And there are difference on a wider social scale as a result.

 I mention all that because I feel it’s relevant but the impression I get is you’re mostly interested in the long term symptoms? In which case, yes the legal definition makes very little difference. The physical injuries caused by particular kinds of abuse don’t change depending on whether it’s a private individual or a police officer holding the Taser.

 The lasting psychological symptoms are not particular to torture; they’re what the human brain does when traumatised. The same symptoms can manifest in people who witness traumatic events but weren’t actually hurt themselves. They can manifest in people who were injured in accidents and they manifest in people who were neglected or abused. Hell, I have a couple of them, though no where near the severity a torture survivors would experience. A sufficient amount of stress is enough for these symptoms to start developing in anybody.

 You can find the general list of symptoms here. There’s also a post specifically about memory problems over here.

 The pattern I describe; that these symptoms are a list of possibilities not ‘every torture victim will get all of these’ holds true for trauma survivors generally. Anecdotally there is some variability with chronic pain being reported more often with some kinds of abuse. That might be because it can have physical causes, psychological causes or a mix of the two.

 Whether it’s torture or abuse there isn’t any way to predict a survivor’s symptoms in advance. Much of the advice I have about writing torture survivors and their symptoms holds true for trauma survivors generally. Which is why I’ll still take a crack at some questions that aren’t about torture.

 Pick the symptoms that you feel fit the character and serve the story. We can’t predict symptoms and that means that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick the things that appeal to you.

 And I think I’m going to leave it there. I hope that helps :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*This is a weird English endearment. I had someone ask if this was me trying not to swear. 

[stabastian-the-knife]

Stepping stones #1

My first ever whump writing! Not sure if it's clear that I have no idea what I'm doing, hopefully I'll figure stuff out along the way lol

Basic premise: willars, a magical humanoid species with wings, have been living alongside humans for millennia, hiding their powers from their non-magical peers. After a series of events leads to humanity learning the truth, a willar named Benjamin has to experience firsthand what humans can be like towards creatures they fear and despise...

Content warning: captivity, dehumanization, sleep deprivation, starvation, dehydration, magic spell gone wrong makes whumpee feel like they’re burning (but no actual fire); mention of beating, forced drugging and magic spell feeling like electrocution (feel free to ask to tag if I missed anything, and be safe <3)

The first thing Benjamin noticed when he opened his eyes was the white.

It wasn’t hard per se. What few things were in the room were all white; the walls, the thin mattress that probably served as a bed, the metal door, even the neon lamp cast a pure white light on everything around him. He had to blink several times for his eyes to get adjusted to the scene.

Go figure, he thought to himself. Something tells me they aren’t turning the lamps off at night.

Not that he knew what time of the day it was. The tiny room had no windows, only the blank walls, confining him in a space so small he could barely stretch his wings. He still tried to at least move them around a little, his muscles still stiff from sleeping on the (white) concrete floor. How long was I out?

He stood up, still stretching, trying to figure out if the pain came from the hard floor or if he might be bruised somewhere. His right hand reached for his left wrist, and sure enough, the familiar metal band wrapped around it. He wasn’t surprised; he knew how paranoid humans could be of magic users like him. A small part of him had hoped he’d get some level of freedom, though, at least in his chamber.

After turning around a few more times and coming to the conclusion he wasn’t dying of some secret wound, he sat back down. He was expecting much worse treatment, like maybe being punched half-dead or getting pumped up with drugs that make him hallucinate, or at least some water dripping from the ceiling to slowly drive him insane, but thus far the only inhumane thing in the room was the extremely uncomfortable-looking bed that made sleeping on the floor seem luxurious.

In fact, everything was too calm. Like the calm before the storm. It made him uneasy, the silence, like they were yet to notice he was awake and were only waiting for the right moment to torture him.

He didn’t like waiting.

“Uhm, anyone out there?” he called out, directed at the door. No response. “I’m awake! Y’all did a shit job at trying to kill me!”

Still nothing. The silence was almost frustrating; the buzzing of the neon didn’t help. The rectangular hole in the door was covered by a lid of some sorts, so he couldn’t see if there was actually someone out there – but if there’s no response, there might be a chance he wasn’t being guarded, something that might come in handy later if he tries to escape.

Suddenly, his stomach rumbled, reminding him that it had been hours if not days since his last meal. He realized his mouth tasted like sandpaper, and he found himself wishing for a river’s worth of water. It made sense – food and water deprivation are an easy way to torment someone.

“Just so you know, I’m kinda hungry!” he called out again, less because he expected a response, and more to ease the silence. “I mean I know you guys want me to suffer and all, but you also want me alive – I think – and I can’t survive without food.”

To his surprise, the lid slid open. Startled by the metallic sound, he jumped to his feet, swaying a bit from the hunger. A pair of brown eyes appeared in the hole.

“You’re a magic freak, aren’t ya?” a very hostile voice spoke.

“Freak is a strong word, but I guess, yeah.”

The guard grunted. “Then use your fancy little powers to get food, idiot. At least I hope you can use it for anything other than lightshows.”

“I’m not sure if you noticed, but…” Ben raised his left hand, showing the bracelet. “I can’t really do that. I mean you obviously do realize this, and are probably just mocking me, but you guys are supremely good at keeping my powers at bay.” He flashed a charming smile. “So you bringing me any fresh salads, or?”

He could only see the guard's eyes as his expression shifted, but he could’ve sworn the guy was smiling, very cruelly. “Oh don’t you worry. They outlawed those. It wasn’t “fair” against menaces like you, apparently. This one is just to, uh… keep you in check. You can still do magic with it.” And with that, the lid closed shut.

Ben winced at the words. He remembered how the old restraints worked, keeping in all the magical energy his body would produce. And since most parts of his natural metabolism used magic (thinking, feeling, healing, existing, all that sorts), with no safe outlet, the pent-up energy could have nasty side effects like hallucinations, intense physical pain, heart attacks, and in the worst cases even death. It was somewhat like being electrocuted and drugged at the same time non-stop, amplified by strong emotions – so to a degree, he was happy to know the torturous device was finally made illegal.

That being said, he didn’t like the way the guard talked about this new device. Then again, he was hungry. And if the guard spoke the truth, then having his powers back could mean an easy escape route. Surely it can’t be that simple, right?

Another rumble from his stomach. Right. Food first. But what should I do? Back in his school, when he was first introduced to transformations, they would always make him create oranges – he never understood why those specifically, but now that he had to pick a simple but juicy meal to ease his thirst too, he figured it would be a good way to test the new device. He reached out a hand, imagined the round fruit, feeling the air molecules bend to his will as they shifted form-

Something exploded. A wave of fire washed over him, like thousands of nails piercing his skin from the inside. He yelped, pulling his hand back at his body. He fell to his knees and hunched over, spreading his wings to protect himself from the heat. As the pain died down, he opened his eyes, expecting rubble and red fire everywhere – but the same white walls greeted him.

What the… A thought occurred to him. Of course, it couldn’t be that simple.

He straightened up, steadying his breaths, then tried, again. This time, he paid more attention, letting the magic flow through him slowly. And sure enough – the fire returned. It started from his chest, as if he accidentally breathed in a box of needles, which then molted into lava and spread through his body. He gasped for air and coughed, but didn’t stop. His fingers were now burning from transforming the air into the round fruit, and his vision blurred from the tears, ears ringing from the pain, but he couldn’t give up, he needed something to eat, and no matter how hard his hand was shaking, no matter how hard it was to breathe, he wanted to finish this.

A far too long moment later, the sloppiest orange he has ever seen landed on the floor. He let out a groan, loud enough for the guard to hear and chuckle as a response. He ignored it. He reached out for his work, peeling the fruit with shaky fingers – the taste was quite watery, but at this point he was glad he had something in his digestive system.

***

His plan was simple. Any time he felt any energy, he would summon food or water, so that when he was exhausted, he would have backups. Problem was, with each magic use, the pain became more and more unbearable. His chest burnt every time, leaving him breathless, his mind filling with red as he struggled to stay conscious. And every time, he could come up with less and less of the orange, the tiny portions leaving him with an empty stomach. At first, he tried with different kinds of food, hoping that something simpler might come easier, but trying not to pass out required a lot of concentration and there weren’t many other foods he had this much practice creating.

And time went by. He had no idea how long he’d been in the white room. He tried chatting with the guard, but aside from the first conversation, nobody responded. As he expected, the lights weren’t turned off when he tried to sleep – so now next to the gnawing hunger, he got a worsening headache along with all the other body pains from lying on the hard bed too much.

He knew fully well he couldn’t teleport out. If the easiest of transformations nearly sent him unconscious, there was no way he’d survive the travel between spaces. He still had some hope, though, that he could get out somehow; but with each burn in his veins, with more and more heat building in his body, came less and less energy to even care. After a while, the only thing he could think of was getting by. Wake up, use whatever energy he gained from the sleep, fight through the fire no matter what, no matter how much yelling from his hoarse throat, no matter the snicker on the other side of the door, eat what he had, then go back to resting. It became automatic, his mind not even thinking anymore, as even that hurt like someone slapped him with a baseball bat.

It could be worse, he would tell himself. At least I’m still alive.

[thestarssystem]

aa hello i've written this like 10 times but it always got extremely long so i'm gonna try to keep it shorter hdbznj also i just wanted to say its okay, take ur time ! i hope u had a nice time on ur break :] also i'm glad you're fine with these asks cause i always end up rambling and stuff that makes the asks really long dgzbzj

i've been thinking about the possibility of a persecutor as well, but i wasn't really sure because i was like "why would the first alter that i directly hear/that presents themself to me be a persecutor" so ty for the response :]

& the thing about giving away information would make sense, the panic specifically started when i was feeling very ,, apathetic but on the upset scale? if that makes sense? and wanted to vent about it on a subreddit about venting, and i don't even remember what caused the panic, but i assumed it was either a. i started getting memories of the events i was trying to vent about (emotional flashback?) or b. it was just social anxiety acting up again because i knew i would do as much as writing it all out but i would never post it, but i think it could've been a mix of both + what you suggested (also quick note: when someone called me fox they also said stuff like their dms are open if i need to vent etc etc and i don't exactly remember what caused the panic to spike there? but i think i was just happy-ish someone cared and then i think something else happened in my mind that could've influenced me in a bad way (e.g self h4tred) but honestly i don't remember </3)

but another thing is, i've done that a bunch of times. for example i post neg posts / vents / rants a lot sometimes on a different website (on an account where i feel comfortable on, though i always delete them like 6 seconds later) and i posted one on the same subreddit on friday because i was panicking, i barely remember what happened when i was panicking though, and i kind of blocked everything out because i was too focused on the trigger (school). the voice hasn't been back for a while now so i'm starting to think it could've just been my imagination? though it could've been i'm just not able to hear it anymore / before that, or that it's not always there (which might/probably is the case if it wasnt me imagining stuff)

also, i have a few questions if thts okay :]

this might be a weird question, but is it normal to like- have a good relationship with alters almost right away, despite the fact it's your first time directly interacting? or have alters front even though you've never heard them / they've never interacted with you? i know those are two very contradicting statements, though i have no idea how to explain it further </3

one last thing: yesterday i had like 2 mental breakdowns because i got triggered by some stuff and i was up until like 3am (i went to bed at exactly 4am) and i did some stuff like switching up my profile, i was really tired and had been d1ssociating for hours after i got triggered. when i woke up today, and went on my profile, it all felt very ,, weird? like, it kind of caught me off guard when i realized my profile was different because i barely had memory of doing so (i could recall it though, it was just very very fuzzy and in one of them i felt like i wasn't even the one doing it). i just wanted to ask, could the d1ssociation have caused that, or is that just a normal thing for when you're tired?

sorry i didn't want to send just a regular update on things so i waited a bit until i had questions shxbxj hope you're doing well :]

- fox (i was a bit anxious because it was getting long so i kept them a bit short, so if u need me to elaborate on any of these i'd be glad to! i don't mind /gen)

oo wait i really quickly wanna make a small suggestion to you. Just something that we do a lot! If you have snapchat, i suggest creating a private story with yours as the only account that can see it and just use that to rant! It makes it easier to document for later (if you want) but also keeps it private and allows you to rant about what you’re feeling and get that nice moment of release haha.

Anyway, on to your actual questions:

So I would say that a lot of the time, it’s normal to not have a good relationship with alters right away. A lot of the time they’re kind of like strangers and you have to take the time to get to know them and be friends with them. For my system, we didn’t know of each other until we started talking about OSDD, but now I would consider most of us friends haha. Also, the first time that Daniel fronted was completely out of the blue. Granted, we didn’t know OSDD/DID at this point but there wasn’t even a slight sign that he was there haha. I would say that’s also fairly common. Maybe because they don’t want to talk to you, don’t need to talk to you, or are just too nervous to talk to you before hand.

Just normal dissociation could have caused the foggy memory about your profile, but the lack of sleep definitely didn’t help lol. When the brain is sleep deprived, it doesn’t have the energy to encode actions into memory like it normally. This is completely normal and happens all the time to people who are sleep deprived. However, dissociation (even without a switch) can also cause that weird “hazy” feeling. Because dissociation (without switches) normally causes a person to feel disconnected from themselves and from reality, it can cause processing of those memories to be a little wonky at times. In this state, you can still remember vaguely what happened, but may not recognize it as your own.

Also, you don’t have to worry about the length of your asks, Fox c: If you need more space to write then write your heart away. I’ll still give the same attention to your asks, regardless of length.

Stay safe xx

-Clover

[evelynsfics]

The calm before the storm.

A nornal day in Liyue, right? Wrong. Childe's the reason we can't have nice things >:(

Ayame walked through Liyue, humming a lighthearted tune that drifted off in the morning wind.

It was a rather slow day, and she wished she could have spent the entirety of it in her bed, asleep. After the last emergency commission she took the previous day, she felt rather tired, but mora is mora, and she could never pass up so much of it.

Sure, fighting a few rogue ruin hunters was tiring, but she'd been through far worse. A little sleep deprivation wasn't going to do anything horrible to her anyway.

In her hands, she was holding a letter, or rather, a commission she got from the adventurer's guild. It wasn't anything too exciting, but it paid, and Mora was tight for Ayame.

She missed the days when she could go out and get something fancy to eat. Usually, it was right after a dangerous mission that could have very well cost her her life, but commissions like those paid a hefty amount of coin, so she never minded the danger all that much. It was fun, it paid well, and usually it kept her from getting bored half to death.

After all, you can't get bored when you always have to be on guard and extremely careful with every movement you make in case someone is following you, or you know, there are ruin hunters nearby that seem to be itching for a fight.

I mean, they can't really ich since, nevermind, im sure you get what i mean.

But since she didn't have that kind of money to toss around at the moment, she just had to get by by either collecting ingredients she found out in the wild while on a journey, or buy them from that shop next to the teleporter.

Second life, was it?

She was never good with remembering names, of any kind.

Ayame was never the best cook. She could make a few of the easier dishes sure, but that didn't mean they would taste amazing. Somehow, someway, she manages to burn even water, and that's worrying to say the least.

Careful not to trip on the strairs, she began walking with the slightly torn paper in her hand. By that point, she knew Liyue well enough where she didn't really need a map to get around, but considering her awful tendency of getting lost literally everywhere she went because she couldn't follow directions for the life of her, she made sure to keep a small, worn out map in her pocket, just to be sure.

She was tracing the paths on her map, trying to figure out which one would take her to her destination the fastest. This mission would last about two, or maybe three days, so, she had to make sure she had an escape plan ready.

If she was out up in some mountain or stranded in some tiny island out in god knows where, no one would come help her, and even if they did, it would probably be too late by the time they actually get there. So, Ayame, being the paranoid person she is, made sure to always have an escape route at the ready in case something went wrong and she had to make a run for it.

Those times where few, she knew she could count them on one hand, but she never spoke of them. Even when she got so drunk she talked about everything she could think of, like stories she heard while traveling around, myths and legends of far away lands, a few cooking recipes that didn't really make sense, and hell, even how annoying a guy named Dell was.

Apparently, she met him in a tavern somewhere, and he wouldn't stop bothering her, so Ayame, like the sane, logical person she is, cursed him so every time he annoyed her, or you know, talk to her, he'd fall asleep for a few moments, just enough for Ayame to leave.

That happened for about two out of the seven days she stayed there, and after she left... she uh, never whent back to that tavern, or that town in general.

The sun was high up in the sky, it's rays warm and gentle, a beautiful, soft gold color, one Ayame really loved. Few clouds drifted peacefully, but those too soon left. Lost in her thoughts, Ayame didn't hear the footsteps coming closer and closer to her until a hand on her shoulder caused her to slighty turn her head to the side in order to see who it was.

"Hm?"

It took her a second, but she recognized the person pretty quickly for being fast asleep just a few minutes ago.

"Oh hey Childe, what's up?"

She yawned, clearly missing her bed and her soft pillow and comfy blanket and-

Ahem.

"Tired?"

He asked, and Ayame could clearly hear the teasing tone he hopelessly tried to hide.

"It's 8 in the morning on a sunday, what did you expect me to be?"

She looked sleepy, her hair was a bit messier than usual and the bags under her eyes a tad darker, tiny details childe quickly picked up on.

"Oh? Then why are you up, then?"

He smiled at her, clearly looking for an opportunity to ruin her day.

"You've been breathing down my neck for the past 5 minutes. I'm sure you've already figured out why."

She flashed a tired smirk at him, earning a small chuckle from the tall man in return.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Ayame's eyes moving from whatever caught her attention one second, to the next the other. Still, with her gaze focused on a pretty blue butterfly, and away from him, she spoke again.

"Hey don't you have like, literally anything else to do? Or are you going to follow me around all day?"

"Oh come on! I just want to help you out!"

Childe defended himself, or well, tried to. Either way the mood was pretty light, friendly jabs and jokes here and there, never getting too bitter or hurtful, but still extremely annoying.

"Oh? Is that so?"

The pale girl asked, her hair swaying in the light breeze.

"Hm? You don't believe me?"

"No, not really."

"And why's that?"

"You see, i want to reduce the possibility of me ending up with an arrow through my chest as much as possible, and having you follow me around kind of..."

She paused for a second, looking him dead in the eye with a smile.

"Doesn't help out my plan."

She saw a small flash of shock and maybe...something else appear in Childe's eyes, but as soon as it came it was long gone, not even leaving a single trace behind of its short lived existence.

And that's when she knew her words got to him. Yeah, he tried to hide it, but he wasn't fast enough, and now, Ayame thanked the heavens for making her get up, because today sure was gonna be fun.

He smiled after a long second, turning to fully face Ayame. She looked up at him, ocean blue eyes met bored brown ones and in that second, it almost felt as if Ayame was challenging him.

"Give me one good reason as to why i should let you come with me, and i will."

She smirked again, but this time it was clear on her face that she was enjoying this.

[killian-whump]

I know what most of these are: electroshock, sensory deprivation, wet packing, straitjackets, heat/cold treatments, water treatments, ice baths, literal shackles and chains. But what in the seven bloody hells is wet packing? Also, now I'm thinking of Killian in a sensory deprivation tank made of glass, so he can see outside, but he can't hear anything.

Seven bloody hells... XD Hi there, Nonny!

Okay, two things here... FIRST, that’s a GREAT idea and I love it. Imagine him in there... able to see through the glass only... and made to watch Emma/Alice (depending on which flavor of Hook you’re into) being tortured... and then... everything goes black... he can no longer see anymore, either... only scream silently into the abyss... totally deprived of all of his senses... quickly losing his grip on reality... Mmmhmm, yes. I like this.

SECOND! Wet packing. This one’s a form of “hydrotherapy” which is the formal word for the wild and wacky world of water treatments. I just mentioned this one specifically, because it was on my mind as a result of a book I read a week or two ago on the history of an asylum that employed it regularly. It was generally done as a “bedtime” treatment, done to ‘agitated’ patients at lights out, and then left completely unchecked until morning. How therapeutic! :P

Although, to be fair, it’s apparently still done today in holistic spas and what-not, and when done properly, they (who??) claim there’s all kinds of benefits from it. Now, I’m not going to say anything on any of that, because I don’t really care about any of that - my interest is merely in the historic medical practice that was, uh, anything but beneficial.

Basically, the patient would be stripped naked, then wrapped tightly in layers of cold, wet sheets. They would then be wrapped in additional layers of dry sheets (in order to limit evaporation of the wet sheets underneath), then the whole patient-burrito would be strapped to the bed and the lights turned out ‘til morning. Left as such, the patient would be completely immobilized and helpless as the moisture and tight wrappings did their “thing”.

And that thing consisted of three stages. Immediately after being wrapped, it’s COLD. Because, you know, you’re wrapped in cold, wet sheets. Theoretically, this stage is good for treating fevers, which kinda makes sense, though there’s definitely better ways of doing that. Thankfully, this stage tends to be short, as the patient’s body heat quickly starts to warm up the sheets.

That’s when the treatment enters the second stage. At the point where the wet sheets’ temperature is roughly the same or slightly higher than the patient’s body temperature, it’s actually supposed to be quite pleasant and relaxing. Like being, you know, wrapped in a full-body, totally immobilizing, and quite damp... hug. If you’re into that sort of thing. This was the stage where it was believed to be of benefit to psychiatric patients, and also the stage that tends to induce sleep in the patient. So, you know, that doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Except the third stage is when the wet sheets continue absorbing the patient’s body heat... and it starts getting HOT in there, like someone’s cooking you in your little burrito prison. Now, therapeutically, this stage is intended to make the patient sweat out the toxins in their system, similar to saunas and other heat treatments. But it kinda defeats the entire purpose of lulling a psychiatric patient to sleep if you’re going to then cook them alive in their bed. Now, ideally, the patient would be unwrapped, dried off and put to bed normally after stage 2... but some old time asylums just didn’t bother with all that.

And patients bound up in wet sheet packing overnight or sometimes even longer would suffer additional problems. Obviously, being held completely immobile for that long of a time can cause panic and physical discomfort. Not to mention that many patients had no choice but to soil themselves before they were freed. They’d also suffer from skin lesions and rashes from the prolonged heat and moisture right against their skin. Patients also often developed headaches, anxiety and dizziness from being wrapped too long.

Anyway, wet packing is just one of many old timey “treatments” that seem innocuous in theory, and are often even still practiced on willing parties in spas and holistic treatment centers today... but can be tantamount to torture when done on unwilling patients and/or taken to unhealthy extremes through ambivalence towards patient well-being or downright malice. Often, treatments like these that could be unpleasant were inevitably turned into punishments to keep unruly patients in line - meaning whatever benefits they once might’ve had are outweighed by orderlies and staff who are purposely trying to make the patient suffer.

[spicycreativity]

A Place Where I Can Breathe - Ch 5

Chapter: 5/7 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: Paranoid tendencies, depictions of extreme anxiety Excerpt: Three days of this had Virgil feeling like a walking conspiracy theory. He was absolutely convinced that Janus was going to come striding in, armored in the fury of the scorned, and neatly burn away his friends' self-esteem until nothing remained but a smoldering ruin of the love Virgil had only just grown accustomed to. And he would have nothing but the pain of his own empathy, and Janus would have Remus.

Virgil grew increasingly jumpy as the days passed and danger failed to manifest. He had taken to sleeping in the living room in his clothes in case Janus tried to corner someone. He wrung the details of the encounter out of Roman, who was unusually reticent about the whole ordeal. This did absolutely nothing to calm Virgil's nerves. He kept himself glued to the others whenever they came downstairs, never letting them get more than a few paces away from him.

The sleep deprivation wasn't helping matters either; even without the anxiety-induced insomnia wreaking havoc on his fragile sleep schedule, the couch was just the wrong size for sleeping on and he woke up multiple times during the nights to readjust. Fearing that exhaustion would make him complacent, he supplemented this lack of sleep with copious amounts of caffeine.

Three days of this had him feeling like a walking conspiracy theory. He was absolutely convinced that Janus was going to come striding in, armored in the fury of the scorned, and neatly burn away his friends' self-esteem until nothing remained but a smoldering ruin of the love Virgil had only just grown accustomed to. And he would have nothing but the pain of his own empathy, and Janus would have Remus.

It was early in the morning on what would have been the fourth day of Virgil's self-imposed lookout duty when he finally reached his breaking point. He threw off his blankets and crept to the basement door.

He stood in front of it for a long time just staring at the patterns in the wood. His breath echoed in his head, so loud he was half-convinced it would wake the whole house. He had no plan. He just needed to know.

Virgil opened the door.

He stepped over the threshold and immediately froze on the landing at the sight before him. Shame burned hot in his face. There was nothing sinister to behold, just the innocent sight of Janus and Remus asleep on the couch in their clothes, two GameCube controllers tangled on the floor in front of them. Virgil almost smiled at the memory of long nights spent in front of the TV, spirited wrestling matches and arguments about what counted as cheating.

He gave a wistful sigh and leaned against the banister, fully aware of just how creepy he was being. He wanted nothing more than to cast aside this stupid grudge and curl up under Remus' arm, his head only inches away from Janus' where it rested on Remus' chest.

Virgil knew it was foolish to linger, more foolish still to descend a few steps, and a few more, and a few more until he was sitting on the bottom step. He didn't have a goal in mind; he just wanted to stay in the moment. He could pretend he had just woken up and gently extricated himself from the cuddle pile. He could pretend they had all stayed up late playing Mario Kart and were about to all have coffee together. He could, for one moment of sublime nostalgia, pretend that things were back to normal.

Even if that meant pretending that Roman, Logan, and Patton didn't love him yet.

Virgil couldn't deny that there had been a sense of solidarity in rejection, a connection forged in mutual scorn. And for one fleeting moment, Virgil understood why Janus and Remus had felt so betrayed by him. Even Janus, who dealt almost exclusively in gray areas, was unable or unwilling to see past the false dichotomy of 'dark' and 'light' that had dictated and defined their lives for so very long.

Virgil braced his elbow against his knee and let his chin rest in his palm. He knew he should leave. He intended to leave. Soon.

And then, like shattering glass, the spell broke on its own: Remus opened his eyes.

For one heart-stopping moment, he and Virgil just stared at each other.

Then Virgil shot to his feet. "I was just leaving," he whispered.

Remus held eye contact. He couldn't get up without disturbing Janus, who was still asleep on his shoulder. "What were you doing?" Remus whispered back, too sleepy to be anything but confused.

Despite himself, Virgil's eyes flickered to Janus. He shook his head and put a finger to his lips.

He really should have known better. Remus pursued chaos with the same reckless determination of a labrador chasing a tennis ball; he was going to sink his teeth into this opportunity no matter who or what he knocked over on the way.

Remus' eyes lit up. Keeping his gaze locked onto Virgil's horrified face, he lifted his elbow and nudged Janus in the ribs. Hard.

In the basement, 'Janus is not a morning person,' was not merely a statement of fact, it was a threat. Janus jerked upright, looking for all the world like a cobra with his capelet hung up on the couch cushions behind his head. He narrowed his eyes at Virgil, and the expression of sleepy irritability was so familiar that Virgil would have laughed if he wasn't too busy panicking.

"Look who dropped in for a visit," Remus prompted, looking every part the triumphant tattletale as he smirked at Virgil.

Janus arranged his capelet over his shoulders and addressed Virgil without looking at him. "Did you want something?"

"Yeah, actually." Virgil set his jaw, pointedly ignoring the ghosts of familiarity that still flitted in the periphery of his mind.

"I thought you were leaving," Remus said.

"Yeah, well…" Virgil tried and failed to think of something punchy to say. "I just remembered I'm mad at you."

Janus scoffed. "Right. You're mad at us."

"I am!" Virgil nearly stamped his foot, but managed to hold back. "Look, let's…" He sighed, suddenly exhausted. "Let's not do this. Just-- Please don't hurt the others again, okay? I know it's me you're mad at, so please don't drag them into it. And I'll do you the favor of never coming back here." He took one last look around the room and turned to leave.

"Wait!"

Virgil froze with his back turned. He had expected some sort of protest from Remus, but that had been Janus' voice. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see Janus slide back into the cool persona he wore around like armor. But for one split second, his face had been so open and Virgil had seen the truth beneath the layers. It was a look of despair so honest and pure that Virgil's chest ached to behold it, and he understood in an instant something he had always known: Janus was afraid.

The coals burning in Virgil's chest went out, with barely a whiff of smoke to indicate that they had ever been there at all. "What, Janus?"

"Um." And with that final hesitation, Janus had control again. "Virgil, Virgil, Virgil. You can't leave so soon."

"Watch me," Virgil said, less as a threat and more as a way to prompt Janus to get to the point.

"We should talk," Janus said, examining his gloved fingertips as though he wasn't still half-asleep and panicking. "Why don't you stay for coffee and we can get this straightened out?"

Virgil was quiet for a long moment as he thought it over. He wanted to believe that Janus had a sincere apology prepared, but he knew that would never be the case. Maybe if one of them was on their deathbed, but never before. But more than that, he missed his friends. He so badly wanted an excuse to forgive them, and if there was even a chance that Janus would admit, even obliquely, to any sort of wrongdoing, then Virgil wanted to take it.

"Oh, just say yes," Remus snapped. "We all know you want to."

"Upstairs," Virgil said.

Janus and Remus both made faces of disgust. "Aw, Virgil, are you too good for the dungeon now?" Remus asked. "We even put away all the ticklers, sex knobs, and lacy hoohas just for you."

"Ew." Virgil wrinkled his nose. "Upstairs. Take it or leave it."

"That's hardly fair," Janus started, but Virgil cut him off.

"Take it or leave it," he repeated firmly.

"Fine by me," Remus said, standing up and rocking forward onto his toes.

Janus made a show of sighing and rolling his eyes, so Virgil knew just how demanding he was being. "Oh, very well. Upstairs it is."

Remus didn't drink coffee. Virgil offered him one anyway, which Remus declined.

He just sat back and watched and tugged at his hair while Janus spooned mound after mound of crisp white sugar into his mug and Virgil poured his customary eight fluid ounces of milk into his own mug.

Coffee rituals completed, Virgil and Janus sat down and stared at each other.

"You owe Roman an apology," Virgil said, scowling.

Janus, still a little disoriented and moving slower than he would have liked, played dumb. "Whatever do you mean?"

Remus growled at the mention of Roman, but did not interrupt. Instead, he bounced his legs under the table. He knew that Janus and Virgil were both hurting, though their little dance was agonizing to watch. But that was how they worked, so Remus sat and tried his hardest not to give voice to the hundreds of thoughts racing through his brain.

"I'm not in the mood for games," Virgil said, staring at his coffee. "He told me what you said."

"I'd be perfectly happy to apologize to Roman," Janus said, pausing for dramatic effect, "just as soon as he apologizes to me. And Remus, for that matter."

Remus stuck his tongue out the mention of his name, but kept his thoughts to himself. He just wanted Virgil back, and didn't particularly care what path Janus took as long as they reached their destination.

"Come to think of it," Janus continued, more at ease now that he had a plan of attack, "has he apologized to you ?"

"He doesn't need to," Virgil said, still not looking at Janus. "None of them do. They didn't know how badly they were hurting us."

"You didn't tell them."

"I don't need to!"

"Mm." Janus sat back, fixing Virgil with a critical gaze. "So you expect an apology from me , but not from your new friends? Why the double standard, Virgil? What makes me so different from them?"

"Because!" Virgil clenched his hands into fists under the table. "Because I know they're sorry for how they treated me. They don't have to say it, because they show me every day. And you-- I truly don't think you're even capable of admitting when you've made a mistake."

"Oh, shit," Remus muttered.

Janus was silent, his mind working feverishly to identify the combination of words that would hurt Virgil as deeply as Virgil's words had hurt Janus.

"And I know it's hard for you," Virgil continued, the anger draining out of his voice, "but you could say something. Say it backwards, for all I care."

Janus washed away the venom on his tongue with a mouthful of lukewarm coffee.

"I don't know what you'd have me say." A pause. "Because I did everything right and I don't regret anything I said or did. I certainly don't miss you."

Virgil was quiet for a long moment as he processed that. "My turn, I guess," he said finally. "I… should have communicated better with you guys. And I should have been more respectful of your feelings. I was just so tired of being angry all the time, and I… I guess I was hoping that you guys would follow my lead."

"Do I have to apologize for anything?" Remus asked, kicking his boots up onto the table. "Let's see…" Guilt and remorse weren't typically in his wheelhouse, though he was certainly capable of feeling them. He simply didn't have time for regret, always charging forward to the next possibility. "Oh, I'm sorry I put slugs in your bed!"

Virgil looked at him sideways. "You… didn't… put slugs in my bed," he said slowly. Then again, he hadn't actually seen his bed in several days. "Did you?"

Janus shook his head.

"Oh, that's right!" Remus waved a hand and smiled at Virgil. "I only thought about it."

"Please," Virgil said, "please explain to me the creative merit of putting slugs in my bed."

"He never said it was a creative endeavor," Janus said.

"No, that was a revenge plot," Remus said. "I would never use slugs for self-expression. There's nothing shocking about slugs." He paused, scrunching up his mouth in thought. "Unless you put one up your ass or something." Virgil choked on his coffee, spitting out a mouthful across the table at Janus, who was mostly successful in his attempts to dodge it. Unruffled, Remus continued, "And there are much more shocking things to put up your butt!"

"Slugs, Re," Virgil reminded him between coughs.

"I think," Janus said, imagining a roll of paper towels to hand to Virgil, "there are lots of ways to express oneself via slug." He gave Remus a keen look. "You just have to be creative enough to come up with something."

"Of course you'd say that." Virgil mopped up the spilled coffee, balled up the paper towel, and aimed it at Janus' head.

Remus nodded his agreement, snatching the paper towel ball out of the air as it passed.

Janus let himself be teased. "Oh, please do me the favor of elaborating on that," he said, bowing his head to Virgil in a show of false deference.

"You're pro-slugs," Remus said, just for the sake of throwing a wrench in things.

"He's pro-anti," Virgil corrected.

"A contrarian," Remus agreed.

Janus rolled his eyes and leaned forward. "You're right. I never agree with anyone."

"What do we do now?" Remus asked Virgil in a faux-whisper.

Virgil responded by lunging over the table and knocking Janus' hat off.

"You know how much I love it when you do that," Janus grumbled, bending to pick it up. "You never go after each other like this," he said once he'd resurfaced.

Remus just shrugged at him. "Sorry, Danger Noodle, but Virgil doesn't wear a hat."

"Yes, that's what I meant." Janus sat back and crossed his arms, putting on a show of irritation.

Under the table, Virgil gently kicked his shin. Janus flashed him a closed-mouth smile.

***

4:45 was a disgusting hour to be awake, truly barbaric. Roman rolled out of bed before he could change his mind on the matter and stood up, yawning and running both hands through his hair to try to get it to sit right. Ordinarily, he would never emerge from his room looking anything less than his princely best, but today he had (dare he say it?) bigger things to worry about.

Bigger things such as Virgil's newfound guard dog tendencies. Roman couldn't believe that Logan and Patton hadn't brought it up already, or even seemed to have noticed that anything was amiss. Roman was the only one who seemed to chafe under Virgil's constant supervision, flinch at the way he haunted the corners of the room whenever anyone ventured downstairs.

And, since apparently no one else was going to do it, Roman took it upon himself to wake his comrades from their slumber and gather them in his room so they could work out a strategy for helping Virgil out of his weird, paranoid phase.

It was not lost on Roman that Virgil's vigil had only started up after Roman's encounter with Janus. He had kept that information to himself, ashamed in a way he couldn't really define and didn't like to think about. He really didn't think Patton and Logan needed to know.

Neither one of them was particularly happy to be summoned at such an early hour, and neither one had their glasses. They both squinted at Roman, who bounced on his toes and looked around the room to make sure everything was perfect.

Roman's bedroom, much like everyone else's, was inherently linked to his function. His room represented ultimate creative freedom, meaning he could change it at will to facilitate whatever creative undertaking he so desired. Since today's was a confrontation, he had first imagined a massive meeting room at the top of some towering skyscraper. But he had second-guessed himself, and in the moments before summoning his friends, had cycled through a tree house, a laboratory, and a stage, before finally turning it into an exact facsimile of the living room. Thinking this might be disorienting, he changed all the decor to red and gold, and finally summoned his friends before he could change his mind again.

"Y'okay, Roman?" Patton mumbled, falling back onto the couch without a second glance and rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles.

Logan, who was much more annoyed at this disturbance, didn't wait for an answer. "Confusional arousal, also known as 'sleep drunkenness' is a condition that results from being woken suddenly--"

"I know, I know!" Roman waved his hands. "Look, I'll just come right out and say it: I'm worried about Anxiety."

"May I inquire why?" Logan asked stiffly. "Or are you going to interrupt again?"

Roman made a face at him. "Have you seriously not noticed that he's always downstairs?"

"Is he?" Patton asked. "I noticed he's been waking up earlier, but…" He paused and shrugged at Roman. "I mean, you sometimes wake up that early."

"That's what I'm telling you!" Roman said. "He's always down there! Even at weird times!"

"How long have you been observing this phenomenon?" Logan asked.

"Do-doo-be-do-doo," Patton sang.

"Phenomenon," Logan said, closing his eyes. "Not 'Mahna Mahna'."

"Do-doo-be-do-doo," Patton sang again, shimmying his shoulders a little.

Logan opened his eyes and turned to Roman. "How long have you been observing this behavior?"

"I don't know, like three days?" Roman said. "What, do you not believe me?"

"Aw, I'm sure Logan believes you," Patton said, trying to mediate despite the fact that he had no idea what Logan was getting at.

"I do believe you that Anxiety has been in the living room every time you have gone downstairs," Logan said. "What I am trying to determine is if this is a coincidence."

"It's not a coincidence!" Roman snapped. "You don't have to keep undermining me, Logan! If you don't believe me, just say so instead of trying to make me look stupid and… and inadequate."

"Whoa, kiddo!" Patton put up his hands. "Nobody thinks you're inadequate." He paused and waited for Logan to agree. Logan just looked at him, confused, so Patton continued, "Right, Logan?"

"That depends. Are we discussing Roman's creative works or his adherence to the scientific method-- Patton, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Forget it," Roman rolled his eyes. "I might as well just come right out and tell you: Deceit dropped by for a visit a couple nights ago--"

"When?" Logan interrupted.

Roman dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "And he tried to get me to say that Anxiety was bad for, well, for me. For all of us, I think is what he was getting at. Probably so we'd kick Anxiety out and send him straight back to Deceit's creepy clutches. Anyway, I told him to get lost and went right upstairs to tell Anxiety what had happened, and he's been camped out in the living room ever since."

"If I'm doing the math correctly," Logan said, looking at Roman sideways, "that was also the night that Thomas dreamt about a Dionysian org--"

Patton squeaked, but it was Roman who got words out faster, "I think we all remember! Let's not bring it back up."

"My point being, you were distracted or otherwise incapacitated for the rest of the night."

"This isn't about me!" Roman said, "As much as it pains me to admit it. This is about saving Anxiety from…" He hesitated. "Well, from whatever it is he's freaking out about. I say we go down there, sit him down, and work this out once and for all."

"Yay!" Patton said, caught up in the moment.

"Logan, are you in?"

"Would it even matter if I said no?"

"That's the spirit!" Roman strode to the door and pulled it open, sparing a thought to imagine Logan and Patton out of their pajamas and into their normal clothes. "Come, my brethren! To battle!"

"Um, battle?" Patton said, trailing after Roman with much less vigor than Roman would have liked. "How about to breakfast?"

"Can we have French toast?" Roman asked, looking between Patton and Logan while Logan shut the door.

Logan shrugged helplessly. "Sure."

"Very well." Roman beckoned Patton and Logan to follow him and marched down the hall toward the stairs. "Come, my brethren! To breakfast!"

He was quiet on the stairs in case Virgil was asleep; part of him hoped Virgil was asleep so that Logan would see and possibly admit that Roman had been correct in his statement that Virgil was always downstairs.

But to their mutual confusion, voices emanated from the kitchen. Roman paused just short of the doorway, frowning at the sound of his brother's voice.

"You still have to tell us what you think the creative applications of slugs are!" Remus said, oblivious to the audience just out of sight.

"You know he doesn't have any," Virgil said, laughing.

Roman's frown deepened and he glanced behind him to meet the equally confused faces of Logan and Patton.

"You haven't given me any time to think," Janus said. "And I did specify that a creative person could come up with something."

This was the catalyst that got Roman in motion, compelled by the understanding that something was deeply wrong. Forgetting his original goal entirely, he stepped into the kitchen to find Virgil smiling at the two sides Roman had thought he hated most.

Patton and Logan followed Roman into the kitchen. Patton froze, just as baffled as Roman, but Logan only inclined his head on his way to the coffee maker. "Good morning, Anxiety, Deceit." He turned to Remus and frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't know how I should address you."

"Call me by your name, Elio," Remus said, widening his eyes.

"Neither one of us is name--"

"Oh, forget it." Remus waved a hand. "Call me Remus, call me Dukey, call me Madonna for all I care."

"Good morning, Remus."

"Logan!" Roman said, his eyes still locked on Virgil. "Don't-- Don't--" He shook his head. "Anxiety, what's going on? Why aren't you scared of them?"

"Why would he be scared of us?" Remus demanded.

Janus watched, his eyes traveling from one face to the next until he found what he was looking for. He didn't have a clue what was going on, and it was obvious that Logan didn't either. Roman and Remus were trying to work it out, which left Patton, who barely factored into the equation, and Virgil. Virgil, who was shifting in his chair looking like he'd rather be anywhere else than here. Aha.

"Because you're evil!" Roman said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"And…" Patton said hesitantly, "You hurt him."

"He doesn't like you!" Roman agreed. "He was glad to be rid of you!"

Virgil grit his teeth but could only watch helplessly as Janus and Remus exchanged a look of mutual understanding and stared expectantly at him.

"Is that what he told you?" Janus purred, ignoring the violent beating of his heart against his ribs. "Were we cruel to you, Anxiety?" He gave Remus an expectant look.

Remus held eye contact. He knew what Janus wanted him to do; a part of him even wanted to do it. As much as Remus was about morbid possibilities, he was also about ugly truths. He had no interest in defying his function, in censoring himself. But the sight of Virgil in his periphery, pale and shaking in his chair like the sole survivor of a head-on car crash, made Remus pause. And, holding eye contact with Janus, he lifted his hand and placed it over his own mouth.

Janus accepted this with a roll of his eyes. If Remus didn't want to put Virgil out of his misery, then Janus certainly wasn't going to be the one to do it. "Well, Anxiety? Answer the question." He curled his mouth into a vicious, humorless smile. "And do be honest, won't you?"

Virgil couldn't breathe. He swallowed convulsively, trying to get himself under control. The tightrope stretched out before him, growing narrower by the second. He kept his weight centered a second longer and stared, pleading, at Janus. "Don't."

"Leave him alone, you fiend!" Roman said, lunging forward and slamming his hand down on the table.

"Hey!" Virgil shot to his feet, chest-to-chest with Roman. The look of confusion in Roman's eyes turned to betrayal at the sight of Virgil facing off against him with his back to the Dark Sides. "Listen," Virgil said in a quavering voice, sinking back down into his chair, "let's just… Everybody calm down; I can explain."

"Take your time," Janus said, irritably. He motioned for Remus to put away his morningstar, which had jumped into his hand the moment Roman had hit the table.

"What is there to explain?" Roman demanded. "Are they holding you hostage, or what?"

The tightrope quivered beneath Virgil's feet. He took a deep breath and jumped. "I lied, okay? I was scared that you guys wouldn't want me anymore if you knew that we…"

Remus peeled his hand away from his mouth. "That we're tighter than Logan's ass!"

"Were friends," Virgil said.

Roman sat down next to Virgil, heart stuttering in his chest. Patton and Logan sat as well, but Roman barely noticed the movement. "You mean you were friends the whole time?"

"No!" Virgil said hurriedly. "Which reminds me." He turned and gave Janus a stern look. "I think Deceit has something he wants to say to you."

"I think Deceit can speak for himself, thank you," Janus said.

"If you're talking about that little late-night rendezvous, you can just forget it," Roman said, puffing out his chest. He didn't need everyone to know just how badly he'd been hurt, and insisting on an apology would do just that.

Janus turned to Virgil, triumphant. "See? There's nothing to apologize for."

"Wait a second," Patton said. "I'm confused." He turned to Virgil. "Why did you let us think that Deceit and the Duke were mean to you?"

"They were a little bit," Virgil said. Janus scoffed and Virgil kicked him under the table but continued explaining, "They didn't like that I was spending so much time with you and…  Well, I was scared that you wouldn't want me, and we were on bad terms when I moved up here, so I thought it would be easier if I just… kept my mouth shut."

"You were fighting?" Patton asked. "Did we cause that?" He was horrified at the thought. He didn't like Deceit and he didn't like the Duke, but the idea of actually hurting them or Virgil made his chest ache.

"You," Janus pointed at him, "have caused more pain than you even know."

"How?" Roman demanded. "We don't even talk to you."

"You shut us down every chance you get!" Remus said, baring his teeth. "How would you like it if your pens never wrote, hm? What would you do with all those thoughts in your head?"

"You're not making any sense, Dastardly Whip-stache, although I'd expect nothing else from the likes of you."

Janus raised an eyebrow at Virgil, looking at him pointedly. Virgil sighed. "Okay, okay. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to make you feel bad, but… When you try to stop Thomas from listening to us, it's… destructive."

"Destructive how?" Logan asked, leaning forward on his elbows.

"Try 'psychological torture,'" Janus muttered.

"Oh, please," Roman said, rolling his eyes. "We don't torture you. Like I said, we never even see you!"

Janus sat up straight. "How would you like it, Roman, if every time you tried to write one of your little stories, your pen tore straight through the paper? Or you turned around and the whole thing was shredded?" Not wanting Patton and Logan to feel as though they were absolved of any guilt, Janus looked at them in turn. "How would you feel if you were never able to properly perform your function? If something stopped you every time? If Thomas never heard your voice no matter how loud you tried to scream?"

"That sounds like it would be psychological torture," Logan said drily, unmoved. He only assisted in silencing Janus and Remus when their influence prevented Thomas from healthy functioning, which was rare.

"Do we--" Patton choked out. "Did we-- Virgil?" he beseeched. "Did we do that to you?"

Virgil nodded, knowing full well that there was no sparing Patton's feelings now. "That's part of the reason why we fought," Virgil said. "I forgave you and they--"

"Don't," Remus said.

"I was hoping that you guys accepting me meant we could all learn how to coexist without hurting each other," Virgil said, blushing. "Like, not to sound all bleeding-heart about it."

"So what, when did you guys all magically make up?" Roman demanded, resentment coloring his tone. Virgil's explanation soothed the sting a bit, but jealousy and bitterness still swirled dangerously in his mind.

"Uh, like, ten minutes ago?" Virgil said. "I was trying to get Deceit to apologize to you."

"For what, exactly?" Logan asked, looking at Roman. "You only mentioned that he tried to turn you against Anxiety."

"It's nothing to worry about," Roman said hurriedly.

"I think we need to apologize," Patton said. Everyone looked at him and he shrank back a little before finding his confidence again. "We hurt Virgil and his friends! That was wrong of us."

Janus eyed him, his gaze calculating. "The best apology is changed behavior."

"Oh, well, um." Patton looked down at the table.

"That's what I thought."

"You did it for me," Virgil pleaded. "You thought I was bad for Thomas, but now you know that I can be important too. What's different about them?"

"You can't seriously be expecting us to put up with that ," Roman said, gesturing at Remus, who was making lewd gestures at him across the table.

"C'mon, a month ago you would have said the exact same thing about me," Virgil said.

Roman crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry, but this is too far."

"Aw, and you haven't even heard about my idea for desert ungulate erotica," Remus said, sticking out his lower lip. "I call it the Camel Sutra."

"See?"

"I'm just asking you to take a chance on them like you took a chance on me," Virgil said. "Look, I'm even vouching for them! Nobody vouched for me and you took me in."

"For the record," Logan said, "I have no opposition to this. We are all parts of Thomas and we all have important contributions to make."

"I meeeaaan…" Patton said slowly. Again, everyone turned to look at him. "Anxiety is kind of right."

"Virgil," Virgil blurted before he could change his mind. "My name is Virgil. If we--" He took a deep, shaky breath. "If we're gonna do this, I want you to know my name."

"Do what?" Roman asked, still reeling from Patton's words. "Uh, I mean, thank you, Virgil for being honest with us, but-- Him?" He pointed at Remus.

Remus flipped him off. "You're being a real dick right now, you know? What'd I ever do to you?"

"To Thomas, you mean? You scare him!"

"And who told him we were scary?" Remus demanded, reaching out to sling one arm over Janus' shoulder. They were a little too far apart for the motion to be comfortable. Remus dug his fingers into Janus' shoulder to keep from losing his grip. "You did! You and Daddy Long Dong over there."

"Roman," Patton was perfectly miserable, guilt weighing heavy on his shoulders, "I think he's right."

"But they are scary!" Roman insisted. "I don't care if An-- If Virgil turned out to be a good guy--"

"Gee, thanks," Virgil muttered.

"--Deceit and my brother are not good for Thomas."

"And who are you to decide that?" Janus asked, sticking his chin out. "For Thomas' sake let's at least be honest with each other, Roman. You don't care one way or the other whether Remus and I are good for Thomas. You're only thinking about yourself. And I'm so sorry to tell you, but you're outnumbered. So what does that say about you? Virgil is practically on his knees begging you to give us a chance, and here you are denying him because you can't see past your own inherent prejudices."

"Yes, thank you, Deceit. I'll be sure to take that advice to heart," Roman snapped. He turned helplessly to Patton. "Well, Padre, you've always been our guide for right and wrong. I'll defer to you on this even if… Even if I don't like the answer. I trust you."

"Don't put it on him!" Virgil said. "I'm the one-- Don't-- It's not fair to put it all on him."

Patton smiled at Virgil, then at Roman. "It's okay. I think we should give them a chance. At least let them, you know, express themselves."

"Yeah," Roman sighed. "I was afraid you would say that."

"If we can work with Virgil, I don't see any reason we can't work with these two," Patton said. "Even if it does make me feel kinda…"

"Squirmy?" Remus suggested, wriggling in place to emphasize his point.

Patton screwed up his face in disgust before catching himself. "Uh-- Yeah. 'Squirmy' is a good word for it." He trailed off and cleared his throat and for one split second, a chill silence dominated the air.

Then Logan stood. "Was that the heartwarming conclusion?" he asked.

"I don't think there's gonna be a heartwarming conclusion, Lo," Virgil said to him.

"Ah. Well in that case, may I suggest French toast?"

Janus rose, smoothly shrugging Remus' hand off his shoulder. "Well," he started, "I'm sure--"

Virgil cut him off with a guttural noise like he was trying to deter a naughty cat from swiping a glass off a countertop. "Mm!"

Janus turned to him, brow furrowed in faux-concern. "Are you trying to get my attention or are you choking on something?"

"I need to talk to you for a sec," Virgil said, then turned to Remus. "Both of you." He turned to leave and motioned for them to follow him, giving both Patton and Roman lights taps on the shoulder on his way out.

He led them to the basement stairs and paused on the landing. "Listen, I know--" He broke off with a frustrated sigh, not wanting to offend his friends. "I want this to end well, and I know what you guys are like." Janus raised an eyebrow but did not interrupt. Virgil made an apologetic face at him and continued, "Don't push them, okay? Remus, no scare tactics. Janus, you know what the boundaries are. Don't try to find them. Just be cool, and I'll make sure they're cool back."

"I'll behave if Romano-Hermano does," Remus said, bouncing on his toes. "Ugh, fine, and I promise I won't write about his phobias unless I have a reeeaally good idea."

Janus sniffed and swept his hair back. "And I'll be sure to push as hard as I can. You're right, Virgil, it's in my best interest to antagonize Saint Patton and his little sidekick right out of the gate. Thank you for the warning."

Virgil refused to be intimidated, knowing full well that Janus was only pushing back so hard because Virgil had seen right through him. "So," he said expectantly, "French toast?"

"Sure." Janus was already in motion, leaning into Virgil so he could reach the doorknob. "This is going to be fun."

--

"This would be good with cinnamon," Patton said, his voice bright with false cheer, as he hacked at his French toast with needless ferocity.

"Mm-hm," Virgil said, desperate to ease some of the tension that made the maple syrup go sour in his mouth.

"The recipe called for powdered sugar only," Logan said.

Virgil kicked Janus under the table in a desperate bid to get him to break the icy silence he'd been maintaining.

Janus sneered back at him, having no other way to communicate that making small talk about breakfast toppings was beneath him.

It was Remus who extended the first hand. "What about cayenne?" His eyes flickered from one face to the next, nervous and probing, and Virgil's silent 'thank you' went unacknowledged.

Logan twitched in irritation. "The recipe--"

"Oh, forget the recipe, Discount Alton Brown."

"You can't call him that!" Roman said, forgetting himself.

Virgil took a breath to intervene but stopped himself, not wanting Roman to feel ganged up on.

"You called me an 'off-brand nerd processor' earlier this week," Logan said.

"Well, yeah, but…" Roman tapped his fingertips against the table, agitated, "Endearingly funny-mean nicknames are my thing."

"Now they're our thing," Remus said with a wicked grin, although he was sure not to sharpen his teeth this time. "Aww, how sweet. We have something in common."

"I think," Patton interjected, "spicy French toast sounds, eh…" Here, he faltered. "Interesting?"

Virgil looked down at his massacred pile of French toast so no one would see the hesitant smile on his face.

Breakfast ended with no major fights. Virgil managed to coalesce all the tact and charm he was capable of and use it to corral Logan, Roman, and Patton into his bedroom.

He imagined some purple beanbag chairs for all of them and sat down heavily in one, twisting the fabric of his hoodie in his hands. "I'm really sorry I lied to you guys. I understand if you're mad at me or don't want to hear it, but I just-- I was so scared that you would kick me out if I told you the truth. And it's not that I think you would-- Like, I know we're friends, it's just that I'm me."

"Virgil," Roman said, because Patton didn't look like he was going to interrupt. "It's okay. And, well, I'm big enough to admit that I may have been a little overzealous in my attempts to protect you. Although I'm really not sure how you manage to get along with my brother."

"Practice makes perfect," Virgil said, flashing what he hoped was a winning smile.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Roman grumbled.

"Anyway," Virgil said, looking at the floor. "I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me, but I get it if not."

"Of course we forgive you!" Patton said. "I'm sorry I ever made you feel like you had to lie to us. You can always be honest with us."

Virgil nodded. "That's all I wanted to say. I don't know where to go from here."

"Your options are limited," Logan said. "However, I suggest that we all go down to the living room and try to encourage Remus and Deceit to do the same. Provided," he paused for a moment, and his gaze flickered to Roman, "everyone feels they can be cordial."

They all nodded in agreement and trundled back down the stairs in a single-file line with Logan at the head.

Remus began to hum a funeral march as they descended. He had made himself comfortable on the couch, his head propped up against one of the armrests and his feet in Janus' lap.

"You're still here?" Virgil asked, surprised. "Sorry, I didn't mean-- I just would think you'd be off writing."

Remus waved a hand. "John Dee-ceit Rockefeller over here is helping me workshop some things."

Janus considered solidarity for a split second before deciding to act natural. "Am I? That's news to me."

Virgil hurried over and sat down on the floor with his back to the couch, eager to mitigate whatever could easily become a complete disaster. Patton sat down beside him in a show of support, leaving Roman and Logan to eye each other over the remaining armchair.

"You don't have to be shy," Remus said, pleased that he was being allowed to dominate the conversation. He thought for a second, picturing the living room sans coffee table and with a bigger couch. Then he yawned.

This triggered a chain reaction. Virgil and Janus, who had been looking at him, also yawned, followed shortly by Patton, then Roman, then Logan.

"Maybe we should go back to bed," Virgil suggested, checking his phone. It was only a little past 7:00.

"I'm staying right here," Remus insisted. "I even made the couch bigger and everything." Knowing what was about to happen, he pulled his feet off Janus' lap.

Sure enough, Janus stood. "Do come get me if you need anything," he said, already in the process of sinking out.

"Translation," Virgil said, "'Disturb me under penalty of death.'"

"I'm going to make coffee," Roman muttered, wary of the potential nightmares that might result from sleeping too close to Remus. "Anyone else want one?"

"No, thank you," said Logan. "I have work to do."

"Robot," Roman muttered as Logan sank out. "Anyone else? Virgil?"

Virgil was too sleepy to consider the potential disaster of leaving Remus, Patton, and Roman alone together. He could barely feel the caffeine in his system. "M'going to bed," he muttered, running one hand down his face. "Possibly for several thousand years."

"No slugs," Remus murmured.

"I'll go with you," Patton said.

Roman darted to the kitchen before they could sink out properly, realizing a moment too late what was going to happen.

He took his time in the kitchen, realizing with a sinking dread that he had accidentally boxed himself in. As much as he wanted to hide in the kitchen or sink out and have his coffee in his room, he knew full well he couldn't allow himself to do that.

Avoiding the living room because Remus was there was a kind of cowardice that Roman simply could not allow in himself. So he made his coffee, exacting a kind of petty joy in the shrill hum of the milk frother. Then he strode right into the living room and sat down next to Remus, who was making no effort whatsoever to hide the fact that he was staring.

The tense silence pressed down on both of them, aching against their ribs. Remus' fingers itched for his morningstar, a thousand fragmented revenge fantasies playing out in front of his open eyes in stunning technicolor. He could never see them through to the end, though. No matter how hard he tried to pin one down, his attention invariably wandered to the climax of another.

Oblivious to this, Roman sat and tried not to squirm. He hated awkward silences, and his desire to fill them verged on compulsion. The trouble was, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. The English language only had so many social niceties built in, and none of them covered reconnecting with one's disowned evil twin.

Remus' fervent, feverish gaze sent a nasty itch down Roman's spine, and it took a great deal of effort not to shudder. It irked Roman, not knowing which of Remus' idiosyncrasies were his own, and which were calculated to be as annoying as possible.

As much as Roman wanted to believe that he couldn't fathom how this distorted shadow of himself could ever be considered useful, the truth was that he could . Roman believed, deep down in the darkest part of himself, that he was half a function. He had vowed a thousand times over that he would work as hard as he needed to in order to make up the difference. He could be good, and if he was good enough then maybe Remus would just disappear.

"Does Deceit ever talk about me?" Roman asked, well aware that Remus had no context for the inquiry.

Remus rolled his eyes. He had half been hoping that Roman would attack him so he had an excuse to fight back. He supposed he should have known better that Roman's first concern would be his reputation. "Oh, yes, all the time. He's in love with you."

"That's not what I meant!" Roman said, blushing. "Does he ever talk about us ?"

"You and me?" Remus asked, genuinely surprised. "No. Why?"

Roman ignored the question. "Has he ever brought me up?"

"I don't know what kind of conversations you think we have down there," Remus said, confused, "but we mostly just have sensual, passionate group sex-- Wait, no, I promised Virgil I wouldn't antagonize you. Um." Roman raised an eyebrow and sat back to watch Remus flounder. "Well, no. It's never come up."

"So you don't think you're half a function?" Roman asked, striving to keep his tone light. He failed, but knew better than to let that show on his face.

"Is that what he said to you?" Remus asked, half-impressed and half-offended. "You really must have pissed him off!"

"Is that pride?" Roman asked, cocking his head. "You're impressed with me for that ?"

Remus ignored this in favor of addressing Roman's earlier point. He didn't lie often, but the topic at hadn't was something he couldn't even be honest with himself about. "No. I don't think I'm half a function. I could be perfectly capable of being Thomas' sole Creativity if I ever got the chance."

"We," said Roman, determined not to cede any ground. "Same. And I certainly wouldn't want any assistance from the likes of you."

They glared at each other, teetering on the edge of a real argument.

Of the two of them, it was Remus who harbored the deeper anger, scars of resentment burned jagged and destructive in his psyche. He clenched his fist around nothing, his promise to Virgil keeping his morningstar out of his grip.

Of the two of them, it was Remus who had the most to lose if this truce went badly.

Half-hating himself for it, he relaxed his hand and said, "Dragons have four limbs."

Roman's brow furrowed in confusion; he searched his brother's face before he remembered the childhood argument and grinned. "No, that would make it a wyvern. Dragons have six limbs."

"That's unrealistic."

"They're fantasy creatures! It doesn't have to be realistic!"

"Wyverns are dumb, anyway," Remus teased, sticking out his tongue.

To their mutual surprise, the bickering escalated, not into a fight, but into a deep and detailed debate over fantasy worldbuilding.

When Virgil woke up and came downstairs, it was to the sight of the living room covered in papers and two Creativities asleep on opposite ends of the couch.

[scripttorture]

H! Do you know of any survivor accounts that focus on recovery? A big part of the story I'm writing happens after the main character is rescued from torture, and I want to make sure I don't downplay the effect it had on him and portray his recovery realistically. I'm mainly interested in a timeframe for reintegration/being able to go back to a "normal" life. If it's relevant, he is imprisoned and tortured (mostly beatings, stress positions, starvation and sleep deprivation) for about a month.

I’m sorry this one took so long. My best guess (and it is a guess) is somewhere in the range of 3-10 years. The rest of the answer goes into my reasoning, factors that typically effect recovery and things I’ve found helpful when I’m trying to write this sort of plot.

 From the sounds of it I think the most useful thing would be someone’s diary, but I don’t think there is actually a published diary covering the period immediately after a survivor was released for months and years afterwards.

 Survivor’s accounts often talk about recovery but- the thing is that isn’t usually why they make their experiences public so that often doesn’t end up being the focus.

 Alleg talks about recovery but his aim in publishing his memoirs was demanding the French authorities stopped torturing people in Algeria. Similarly people like ‘Donny the Punk’ Donaldson and Nadia Murad Basee Taha talked about their experiences to highlight abuses that were taking place on a wide scale.

 And that is often the reason people make their experiences public: to raise awareness, to draw attention, to demand change.

 By its nature that kind of discussion tends to make recovery secondary.

 It’s also worth noting that most survivors write about what happened to them a significant period of time after it actually happened. I believe there are some Inquisition era diaries that recount the period a victim was held for, but they’re rare and I think most of the authors were killed.

 Monroe is interested in recovery but it’s recovery in a rather broader sense. It’s less about what people can do when and instead about the more nebulous idea of holding on to humanity and being able to have faith in other people. Her focus is war but this isn’t the sole focus of the book.

 I do recommend her book, A Darkling Plain, generally. It’s most constructed of interviews her students took. Their instructions were to find someone who had lived through- Monroe calls it ‘political upheaval’, which sounds like a euphemism when she goes on to list war, genocide, violent revolution and oppressive regimes as her examples. The students were taught Institutional Review Board procedures and interviewed a survivor about their experience.

 One of the things I think is… enlightening about the approach is that emphasises how close we all are to survivors. We all know someone even if we don’t know the details of what they lived through. I think it’s easy to forget that sometimes.

 The interviews are very much led by the survivors. They’re generally looking back on experiences that happened years or decades ago. They go into how an experience changed the survivor, how it effected their outlook on life and whether/how they moved on.

 I believe you’d find it helpful but I don’t think it necessarily answers the more precise questions that effect writing. When someone could return to a job, when someone might be ready for a relationship, how they’d interact in the community.

 Based on modern accounts of the living conditions survivors find themselves in- I think the question of when people can comfortably do things is difficult because survivors are often put in a position where they’re either forced to do something before they’re comfortable with it or they’re actively prevented from doing it when they want to.

 Let me try to explain that with an example. A lot of survivors now are in refugee camps. A person’s ability to find work will vary depending on the camp, the country and the individual’s legal status.

 In some situations people in the camps are given very little support. In which case if the survivor doesn’t find some kind of work they might end up starving. In other situations a survivor’s immigration status might mean it’s illegal for them to work. Earning a wage can also be used as a reason to cut charitable or governmental support. Which can be a problem if the survivor is only capable of working occasionally and needs a steady source of income to keep them alive between the periods where they can work.

 The environment these people are in can force them into work when it isn’t healthy for them or it can prevent them from working when having a job would help.

 Environmental factors like these can obscure individual choice.

 Generally I’d encourage you to think about environmental factors and how they could effect the character’s recovery. Survivor’s still have bills to pay and they might be surrounded by people who think working or going back to a mainstream school/university would be ‘good for them’.

 Taking away environmental pressures there’s still a question of the character’s drive and motivation. A lot of people want to go back to doing things that are important to them. They want to recapture a sense of normality.

 A character who feels very strongly about their job and is highly dedicated is more likely to be back at work quickly whether that is healthy for them or not. A medic who has built their identity around helping others is much more likely to be back at work after three months then someone who doesn’t identify with their job.

 This does not necessarily mean the medic would be doing a good job or should be back at work. People do have a tendency to throw themselves back into tasks they identify strongly with.

 With work there’s also, potentially, an aspect of physical recovery to consider. A character who has survived a suspension torture, with the resulting nerve damage, may not be able to go back to being a pianist. At least not without a considerable period of time adapting to their disability.

 Even if a character is still able to do their job without adaptions and feels strongly about it they probably won’t be up to handling much stress or their previous workload. This does not necessarily stop people from trying.

 Whether a character identifies strongly with their job or not they might feel they ‘should’ be doing some form of work. And work has the potential to be extremely helpful during a mental health crisis. It can provide routine, a reason to get up when that feels impossible. A point of stability and a place of relative safety.

 Of course the flip side is it can also become a huge source of additional stress and pressure. Which it is depends on the job, the survivor, the working environment, the support (or not) of colleagues and the adaptions in place to support the survivor.

 Reintegrating into the community is also complicated by factors that have very little to do with the survivor character or their symptoms.

 A lot of communities reject survivors. Child soldiers and victims of rape (especially if it resulted in pregnancy) are often portrayed as traitors who have taken the ‘side’ of their abuser.

 This can apply to torture survivors too. If the dominant culture sees torture as a way of obtaining accurate information (this isn’t possible) then the assumption is often that the survivor must have ‘betrayed’ the community. People also tend to assume that if someone was arrested or otherwise targetted for torture they must have been guilty of something.

 If the survivor was subjected to ‘clean’ (non-scarring) tortures then- well then people usually assume that the survivor is lying and they weren’t tortured. From the sounds of things all the tortures your character survives are clean.

 These factors often work in tandem and make it impossible for survivors to feel welcome in their community. That isolation and lack of support has a huge negative effect on recovery. And because it’s so rare that survivors don’t have to deal with these additional stressors it’s difficult to estimate what recovery looks like without them.

 Anecdotally a lot of survivors report that support from their families and from religious institutions was incredibly important to them.

 I feel like a lot of this comes down to what a ‘normal’ life means.

 Because life for this character probably wouldn’t be quite like it was before. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t look normal.

 Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to cope with the stress, pressure or uncertainty of his previous job. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t work. Perhaps he’d struggle to do things he previously enjoyed, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t find other hobbies.

 I’m sorry that I can’t provide an accurate, statistically supported timeframe. I hope that I can describe a helpful way of approaching the problem as a writer-

 It’s unlikely that the character will be able to fix everything at once. He might be able to get a ‘normal’ working routine before he has a ‘normal’ social life, for instance. Or vice versa. I’d suggest splitting up the different aspects of his life that have been effected and thinking about them separately.

 You can categorise things in a way that makes the most sense for you. I’m outlining the way I would do it as an example, but if my categories don’t make sense for your story then add or remove things as you see fit.

 I’d split it up into: Work, Social life, Family life, Romantic/Sexual relationships (if applicable), Communal life and Ritual (ie engagement with wider cultural activities, such as religious services, may pole dancing, getting pissed at the solstice or anything else that’s a big event).

 I’d try to think about them separately and think about which area is the biggest priority for the character. I’m assuming ‘work’ comes first for the rest of the example because survivors still have bills to pay. I’m also assuming the character has enough support and stability to recover at his own pace; that the environment isn’t pressured and his environment isn’t adversely effecting his recovery.

 So I would start with the symptoms and the way they manifest.

 If he has anxiety or hypervigilance, what kind of situations set that off? For instance if his symptoms are triggered by crowds and loud noises then he might not be able to work in a popular night club any more.

 If his ideas of ‘normal’ and his goals revolve around doing that particular job again then his recovery and returning to work would take longer. It could take several years. If his personality/experience means his goals are more flexible then he might be able to find another career that provides a less triggering environment and includes something he liked about his previous job. In that case he might be working regularly again in six months or so. Possibly less.

 That could then provide enough stability/routine to let him find a balance in other areas of his life.

 If he has insomnia then trying to fit his life into a regular 9-5 schedule might be more stressful then it’s worth. Finding work that lets him be flexible about when he comes in, working from home or part time or free lance- could mean a speedier return to something like ‘normal’.

 Once I have some ideas about one aspect I’d take a look at the others and the wider plot. I’d think about whether there’s anything going on in the other categories, the plot or with the other characters that could impact on the survivor’s recovery.

 When I’m looking across the different categories I’m also on the look out for ways I can use them to feed back into the plot.

 So, if I stick with the night club example, perhaps this character has now started a job at a recording studio because this lets him indulge a passion for music with less crowds. And may be I can use that change in environment to introduce him to other characters. May be Drama at the night club is still effecting him through his social circle. May be working somewhere different means he’s unaware of the Drama and that aspect of the plot is going to take him by surprise.

 Stress from the different categories will feed into how he’s doing overall and so will positive things like stability and support. Some of the aspects of the character’s life are likely to look ‘normal’ before others.

 My best guess for reasonable time frames based on what I’ve read is something in the region of 3-10 years. But that’s taking everything into account across all those categories.

 In the best possible circumstances your character could have one aspect of his life looking normal within a year, possibly even as short a time frame as six months. But that assumes an unusual level of support, financial independence, access to treatment and- the internal flexibility to accept a normal that’s distinct to their pre-torture experience. Which could mean a different job, or a different way of socialising or a different degree of engagement with the community.

 Generally- there’s a lot lacking in the environment survivors find themselves in. There’s lack of support from family, friends and wider community, if not outright rejection. There’s a lack of accessible, specialist medical care. There’s a lack of safe housing and financial support.

 My impression is that a period of years is closer to reality for most people. But we’re talking about fiction and you can choose to make your world better then the one we inhabit.

 This kind of recovery isn’t linear. People do backtrack. Even people who are ‘better’ have bad days. Mostly- it’s about showing slow improvement over time and how frustrating slow improvement can be from the inside.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[scripttorture]

I'm working on something set in the Star Wars universe. The charcter I'm writing with is being stalked by someone using the Force to induce nightmares, soon after he first hits REM sleep, leaving my character with about 90 to 120 minutes of anxiety spiked sleep a night for over six months. I know short term what this does to a person's body and mind, but long term, less so. Can you help me out with sleep deprivation as torture?

Iam very glad I invested in those new books on sleep. :)

Partof why this one (and the other ask focused on sleep deprivation) tookso long is because I felt I needed to do more reading in order toaddress them properly. And having done at least some of that extrareading- I think this is a good idea in terms of story potential butI think this scenario might be too extreme for the time frame you'reproposing.

BothNREM and REM sleep are necessary for continued health and well being.As well as, well life.

Bycutting off sleep at 90-120 minutes the body is being deprived ofhuge chunks of both.It’salso worth noting that the patterns of NREM and REM sleep atdifferent times of the night might well be doing different things.Experiments where researchers have interrupted particular chunks ofsleep at particular times seem to suggest different effects.

Allthe experiments I’m aware of that do that with people have beenpretty short term (the longest I’ve seen was a few days) andtorture/abuse scenarios don’t generally tend to focus on oneparticular type of sleep.  

Therearesome experiments on rats from uh- the days before ethics committeescared about rats. Researchers deprived rats of sleep until they died.Then they tried depriving rats of particular kinds of sleep to see ifthat makes a difference. Deprived of REM sleep rats die as quickly asthey do from total sleep deprivation. Deprived of NREM sleep ratsstill die, but it takes three times longer. Around 15 days and around45 days if you’re interested, (please be kind to rats).

Forhopefully obvious ethical reasons I’ve got no idea how this maps onto humans.

Myinstinct here is that the 6 month time frame is probably going to bemore important to the story then where exactly in the sleep cycle thecharacter wakes. I can see exactly where you’ve got the 90-120minutes from, it’s the first cycle of REM sleep. It’s alsotypically one of the shorter periods of REM sleep.

ButI’m not sure how survivable 6 months on 2 hours of sleep is.

Unlessthe character was already ill, injured or immuno-compromised then I'mnot sure it would be directly fatal. By which I mean- I don't thinkthey'd be dying from the kind of gut bacteria rapidly infecting theentire body in a lethal way that killed those experimental rats. Butthere's still a lot of ways that this extreme state of sleepdeprivation could more indirectly lead to death.

Forinstance it massively increases the chances of a heart attack orstroke in adults. And that chance rises still further the longer aperson is sleep deprived. The drop in reaction speed, processinginformation, working memory and coordination can all lead to seriousaccidents. Combined over the long term accidents are almostguaranteed.

I'vefound individual cases of real people surviving periods similar toyour character on similar amounts of sleep. But every case I've foundseemed to involve someone who was hospitalised for most of that time.

Youcouldplausibly have the character live but he’d need some prettyintensive care. Because of how agitated and emotionally volatilesleep deprived people can be (coupled with the memory loss it causes)I think he’d need to be watched round the clock. He’d need peoplethere to tell him where he was and why occasionally. He’d needpeople who could persuade him not to leave the sick room, not to dodangerous things or to just calm him down.

Thislevel of sleep deprivation for this time would effectively take himout of the story. If that’s what you want and the story is centredon other characters saving him, that’s absolutely fine. But if youwant this character playing a more active role then I thinkincreasing the length of time he’s sleeping nightly is going to benecessary.

I’vegot some suggestions for that I think could fit with the story idea,first I think I should talk about the likely effects of what you’vegot.

Ithink the first thing to really grasp is that there isn’t really aleveling out effect with sleep deprivation. There isn’t a pointwhen any of these factors stop getting worse. Not until the charactergets some sleep. In that sense it’s very much like starvation:there’s only one way to treat the problem and even then there’s arisk the damage already caused is too great for total recovery.

Inthe long term, ie after he’s able to sleep normally again and pastimmediate recovery, this character will still have a hugely increasedrisk of a whole host of problems. Cancer, virtually every sort, seemsto become more likely with sleep deprivation. Heart attacks, strokes,diabetes. Vaccines become less effective (sometimes ineffective) ifthey’re administered when someone is sleep deprived. Which can leadto problems later. There’s a decrease in fertility for both men andwomen. Increased risk of Alzheimer’s. There are also effects on theDNA some of which may be permanent. Most of the effects I’ve readabout are effectively ‘ageing’ the DNA, shortening the protectivetelomere caps on chromosomes. This means that changes may not bepassed on to children but I’ve not seen an epigenetic study on thesubject.

Theremight well be generational effects.

He’dcertainly be looking at a shorter life span generally.

Interms of when he’s actually being deprived of sleep. Well over thistime frame with this extent of sleep deprivation it would be prettycatastrophic.

Hismemory would… probably pretty much fail from a functionalstandpoint. He’d very quickly reach a point where he’s forgettingmost of the time he’s awake.

He'dbecome extremely emotionally unbalanced. Depressive symptoms, extremeagitation, aggression and anxiety are all common. Highs of positiveemotions are possible too, technically. But I've only ever seen thatdescribed in cases where sleep deprivation was voluntary. Sleepdeprived people don't tend to stay in one of these moods but havepretty severe mood swings between them. Unless they're alreadysuffering from a condition effecting mood.

Ifthe character has a pre-existing mental health problem this willprobably set it off. Sleep deprivation for one night has been shownto knock people with manic depression from a 'stable' emotional stateinto either a depressive episode or a manic episode. Sleepdeprivation has also been linked with increased suicide attemptsacross a variety of mental health problems.

Thelack of REM sleep in particular would effect his ability to processemotions. It stops us from...decoupling intense emotion from memory.That doesn’t just mean that negative experiences feel moreintensely negative for longer. It more broadly effects emotions and aperson’s ability to navigate them.

Italso interferes with our ability to accurately recognise otherpeople’s emotions. And when sleep deprived we tend to err towardsseeing other people as threatening.So we don’t just misread their emotions but we tend to read theworst possible intent.

Lackof REM sleep also effects creativity and problem solving. Buthonestly, given the extent of sleep deprivation here generally Idon’t think that would be distinguishable from the character’sother symptoms. His memory would likely be so bad that creativeproblem solving would be impossible anyway.

He’dprobably talk nonsense pretty regularly and he’d hallucinate. Mostsleep deprivation hallucinations I’ve heard of have been eitherneutral or negative. A lot of them sound pretty threatening andfrightening. And they’re likely to further feed into negativeemotional states.

Physicallyspeaking he’d have extremely slow reaction times. He’d sometimesfail to react completely. Within the first week I think he’dstruggle with fine motor control, things like doing up buttons. He’dget shakes. By the first month I’m not sure he’d be able to walk.

He’dget sick much more easily and even simple colds would have a muchbigger impact on him. He’d take longer to recover. Wounds wouldtake longer to heal and infections would be more likely.

He’dfeel more hungry and a lot of the food he’d crave would be fattyand sugary.

Ontop of all this sleep deprived people have been consistently shown tounderestimate the effect of not having enough sleep. Like drunks whoinsist they’re sober sleep deprived people thinktheyare capable of doing things they’re in no state to attempt.

AndI feel like it’s worth stressing that this ispainful. It’s a kind of pain that’s difficult to describe becauseit’s not really associated with anything other than lack of sleep.But it is pain. It is the marked lack of something essential to oursurvival.

Maybe this is exactly what you’re going for; it would be a good way totake a character out of the plot for a while. However if you want thecharacter playing a more active role then I think allowing him moresleep is essential.

Obviouslyyou want to keep the connection to REM sleep and dreaming (it’sgenius, you want to keep it). So I’d suggest rather than cuttingoff sleep at 90-120 minutes during the first short period of REMsleep at ‘cycle 1’, do so during the longer period of REM sleepat around 5-5 ½ hours in ‘cycle 4’.

Theselater cycles of REM sleep are longer and may be more intense. Easilydouble the length of time of the first REM sleep cycle. They’realso the periods of REM sleep that currently seem to be judged asmost significant.

Andthis would stillleave your character on death’s door in the time frame you’vegot, he’d just have a longer period where he could play a moreactive role in the plot.

Fivehours sleep a night, rather like some of the crazily extreme dietsout there, is incredibly damaging and very much normalised.

Forinstance, sleeping about 6 hours a night rather than about 8 raisesthe risk of serious injury in professional athletes from about 35% (8hours) to about 75% (six hours). That’s not ‘over a prolongedperiod’. That’s one night of missed sleep.

Aftersix nights the response time of someone who is regularly sleeping forabout 4 hours is at the same level as someone who didn’t sleep atall for a night. That’s an average drop of 400%. (From separatetests, someone driving on 4-5 hours sleep is almost four and a halftimes more likely to crash).

There’sa delightfulexperiment where a scientist squirted live cold viruses up the nosesof volunteers. Which showed that if someone slept an average of fivehours over the week before their infection rate was around 50%,whereas at seven hours or more the infection rate is around 18%. Asimilar level of sleep restriction (4-6 hours a night for a week)leads to a 50% drop in immune response to vaccines. And a singlenight on four hours sleep leads to a 70% drop in natural killercells.

Ander- testosterone levels fall to a degree that effectively ‘ages’men by 10-15 years.  

Practicallyspeaking what this wall of statistics means for your character isthat he’d be able to functionfor a good period of that six months. Perhaps as long as 3-4 months.But he’d show a noticeable drop in ability across- basicallyeverything.

It’sa drop that he’d gradually become acclimatised too. He’d probablyclaim that he’s ‘used to it’ and can do things again. Eventhough his actual performance would say otherwise. He’d also besubject to the same intense emotions and mood swings and significantmemory problems.  

Andas with the more extreme scenario every aspect would be getting worseevery day. Neither scenario has a 'leveling out' affect where he'sat a steady physical/mental performance. A long term sleepdeprivation story is about decline. What I'm suggesting here ismaking the decline less steep. Because the original scenario wouldvery quickly rob the character of his ability to remember, physicallyperform tasks, think coherently, communicate and survive.

Someoneon five hours of sleep for six months is probably also going to behallucinating, occasionally incoherent, unable to concentrate andparanoid by the end. But I think someone who was only sleeping fortwo hours a night could get to that stage in the first or secondmonth. One of the sleep scientists I've been reading compares theemotional and mental effects of sleep deprivation to severe mentalillness and from everything I can see he isn't wrong. The paranoiaand hallucinations are reminiscent of psychosis, the extreme moodswings are reminiscent of manic-depression. The upswing in suicideattempts is frankly terrifying, especially when put into the largersocial context encouraging long term lack of sleep. Sleepdeprivation, even in the relatively short term, causes structuralchanges in the brain.

Iwant to leave you with both options because I think that the'appropriate' level of sleep for this character is really dependenton your story and what you want the character to do. If you want thecharacter to be active in fixing the problem and able to communicatehis situation with any coherency beyond the first few days then Ithink you need to change how long he's asleep for. If on the otherhand you need him out of the story for a period of time and you wantother characters to fix the situation for him then the first scenarioworks perfectly well.

Ofall the books I've read on sleep and the lack of it recently, I thinkthe one most relevant to this ask (and most readable) is M Walker'sWhyWe Sleep(Penguin 2017). He doesn't explicitly reference every study he quotesbut he does give credit to the scientists who conducted the work andfurther details can be found by looking up their universities in mostcases. I think you'd also benefit from taking a look at some survivoraccounts of sleep deprivation. So far as I can tell none of thesurvivors in Monroe's book were sleep deprived and Alleg doesn'treally describe it in 'TheQuestion'.

Ithink the best book you could get hold of is an old Russian one byMenachem Begin called WhiteNights.I haven’t gotten hold of a decent copy yet but it’s one of thesurvivor accounts of sleep deprivation everyone references. For aninside view of what it feels like I think you should give it a look.

Ihope this helps. :)

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