#ty for the fabulous prompt!!! 🤩

[thesandsofelsweyr]

Could you write fic based off of this img

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The red hot branding iron was inches away from his other cheek when he woke with a choked gasp. His ragged breath was running away from him while his heart pounded like fists against his ribcage. His wide, pale blue eyes blinked frantically, adjusting to the darkness, trying desperately to latch onto something—anything—that didn’t belong in his dank, dark prison cell. A bed, he told himself. His chest rose and fell as if he was running a marathon. He swallowed hard. I’m in a bed. The only bed he’d known in Arkham was the cold, hard, filthy wood floor of his cage. But he could still feel the intense heat radiating off the cruel metal onto his tender, unbranded cheek; the Clown’s maniacal cackle still echoed in his ear. He clawed at his pillow, pulling it over his head as if he could hide from his master, as if he could drown out the grating laugh that would haunt him even after he was rotting away in his grave.

“He’s dead,” he panted as his body shook like a leaf in a hurricane, “he’s dead, he’s dead, I’m free,” he repeated, but icy terror still clutched at his throat as his mind refused to believe the words. The walls of the dark room seemed to close around him, swallowing him back down into the bowels of Arkham Asylum, where his master was waiting to punish him again. He choked back a scream. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes, which he screwed shut. “Not again,” he whimpered helplessly. “Please don’t do it again.”

His muscles were as taut as a grappling cable. Cold sweat drenched his entire body. He pulled shuddering knees to his chest, curling into the fetal position, as if he could protect himself from the crowbar in the Clown's lavender-gloved hands. 

A pair of ungloved hands slid beneath the crooks of his arms, and he squealed in terrifying despair.

“Shh,” a voice whispered, as soft as satin, as gentle as a breeze. Then the warmth of an embrace enveloped him, dragging him out of hell.

“I-I’m sorry…” he stammered, sniffling. Warm tears trickled down his cheeks, which flamed red with embarrassment. “I-I didn’t mean to wake you…”

She squeezed him even tighter, curling herself around him, wrapping him up in a cocoon of protection. Her heart beat steadily against his mutilated back, and he grounded himself with the comforting sensation; the reminder that he was needed, that he was loved. 

“It’s okay, baby,” she murmured sleepily. “You’re safe. I’m here…” She placed a tender kiss against his trembling shoulder, and his body relaxed in her arms. “I got you.”