Slow, ragged breaths huff out of the exhausted warlock, sending ripples across the water inches from his face. Thereâs no more frantic slippery scrabbling against the walls of the tub, no more pleading; his arms are pinned between his back and Emoryâs chest as heâs held firmly in place, ribs pressed in on by the edge of the tub. A hand is fisted in his hair to keep his head just above the water.
âWhat would you do for this to stop, huh, Curls?â
Lux takes another heavy, shuddering breath. âAn-nything.â
âWould you beg some more for me?â
A weary nod. âPle-ease, pleaseâŚâ
âWould you be good for me?â
âYes, please, I, Iâll be, goodâŚâ Itâs so much slower than his usual panicked begging. Emory pushes Luxâs head down enough for the chilly water to kiss his cheek, and it steals the warlockâs breath.
âVery good?â
âV-v-very, very g-good.â A weak cough sends water splashing, and Lux flinches back from it, eyes squeezed shut. âPlease, no mo-oreâŚâ
"I love you but you're doing wrong in a way I cannot condone" and "I hate you but you're being wronged in a way I cannot stomach" are top tier and I need more of them.
It will be difficult to get the mud up without a spade. So far, nimble hands that are accustomed to plucking a bow have done little more than scoop up sludge and allow it to run back into the divot theyâve dug. The ground doesnât want to open into a grave, doesnât want to take the body.
A funeral pyre would be acceptable, probably, although there is no tinder around here that would take. Cillianâs mouth is a crooked gash as they give up on the mud and look up into the canopy.
Well, if they have no solution yet about rites and a proper sendoff⌠Cillian can at least make a respectful gesture. They turn hesitantly toward the corpse and avoid its face to inspect the knotted vines. They are thick and slimy, flexible to have been cinched tight and then soaked through until they swelled and became impossible to untangle.
As Cillian traces a fingertip over the slime and tries to dig a digit under one ropy length around an ankle, the leg twitches away. The skin shudders.
Instinct has the once-knight locked in place. Eyes on the vine still, wider now. No looking at the thingâs face. They still arenât sure what it is. Whether there is any power in its eyes, whether any part of this is a trap.
The vinebound is moving. Canât be alive, right? Cillian thought it was dead for sure. It is moving so slightly, shivering, not attacking.
The once-knight risks sliding their gaze until it finds the thingâs face. The corpseâs shoulders are angled sharply, defensively, its face turned to press into the earth.
Experimentally, Cillian touches the vine around the ankle again. The vinebound tries and fails to yank its legs away. They remain bound together and weakness seems to keep the thing largely unable to move itself far at all.
The sun is going down. The chill of night crawling in makes the bite of the swamp water worse, sticking their clothes to their body. It is still uncomfortably muggy here, and the sweat dripping down the small of their back is a reminder that the swamp is not far behind at all. Does the vinebound feel it too? The thick moisture of the air, the inescapable warmth? Even as night comes to relieve the heat, more bugs hum into the air, glowing and fluttering. There is no end to the noises and the smells.
They are growing distracted. Too hungry, too tired. Cillian grunts out a surprised sound as they realize their palm has been resting on the vineboundâs leg, and the corpse has been trembling violently about it.
The creatureâs shuddering is painfully familiar. The once-knight knows that disgust, and they jerk their hand away with appropriate urgency.
The thing remains lying on its side and falls still. The eyes are still pearly, still unfocused and too dead to look recognizably human. The whole of it is soaked in sludge and water. It doesnât look comfortable.
This ground is better than the swamp. If Cillian carried the body further, theyâd probably find drier land. If they had enough energy, enough strength. The birds flying overhead taunt the foolish wanderer who allowed their quiver to tip over and spill empty.
No good options right now. Cillian could leave the corpse and go search for food or shelter alone, but it would feel wrong. There is a right way to do things. They ought to trust that this will go how it should. Cillian lowers themself onto their side, shifting to settle with their cheek pressed to a rotting log. A short rest and then they will find the right way, the right idea.
~
An eerie sound. Itâs like an animal howling in the distance, but closer, lower. Cillian frowns, half-asleep, as they try to picture the poor creature that could generate such a sound in its throat, and whether it might be dangerous.
Their eyes creak open to find the corpse still beside them. Its face is hidden behind a curtain of knotted inky hair.
Cillian shimmies out of their cloak, gathering the heavy fabric into wobbly hands. Sitting up is a strenuous chore, but worth it as it grants them the leverage to lean over the vinebound and stretch the cloak to drape over its form like a blanket.
Sunken eyes open slowly to reveal pearly orbs, unpleasant to look upon but holding their own sort of presence. Theyâre not as soulful or present as any living personâs eyes, but neither do they look perfectly absent of awareness.
âToo far,â Cillian chokes out softly. Apologetically. It is far more difficult to form those words than it was to rise from their sludge-sticky rest. They glance toward their home, the direction in which theyâd been trying to carry the vinebound. âTried.â
The cloak shifts. Cillian watches, tensing with the desire to move back and away from it. But they ought to be cautious about appearing disrespectful. So they hold still, even as a decayed hand slides out from under the covering and rests atop their shoulder.
The vinebound moves its jaw, opening its gaping mouth, as if to speak. No sound comes out even as its ribcage appears to expand in an attempt to draw air. It is unable to answer, but it tries anyway.
A sharp crack from afar, something like a branch snapping beneath a foot. The vinebound flinches, dead eyes widening, and then it crumples into a pile of loose bones, disjointed, hiding under the cloak and indistinguishable from a heap of rotted logs.
What could be out there, audibly approaching, that would scare a dead thing so badly? Cillian finds themself frozen where they lie staring at the mound beneath their sopping cloak.
Twigs snap, closer and closer. A tree groans ominously as if it is being pushed aside, leaning and tearing up its roots on its way to go horizontal. Seconds later a darkness looms above Cillian, and at the same moment, that creaking tree crashes into the slimy ground.
The once-knight jolts, startled, and squeezes their eyes shut. A cold weight wraps slowly around their wrists. It feels dangerous to look, so Cillian does not. A wild animal does not take hold of your wrists. This is something strong, something sentient. Something that emanates wrongness. Cillian does not want to look at it.
Their arms are lifted almost gently from their sides and pressed into the ground above their head. The once-knight draws shaky breaths, their ribs aching as they expand with each increasingly shuddery gasp. They must have done something wrong, something to offend nature. To offend someone powerful. Did they unintentionally hunt the wrong creature, one protected by magic? Did they pick something up that was not meant to be taken? Did they make too much eye contact, or too little, with someone in the last village that they dared to pass through?
There is inky air, thick and heavy, pressing open their mouth and pouring down their throat. It is like being force-fed water, being trained to survive a rag over their mouth as a pail of water is poured slowly. Cillian was taught how to handle that. This, this is worse. Itâs unnatural.
Cillian tries to scream, but no sound comes out - their back arches up and shudders wrack their frame, as all-black eyes watch them from far too close. The once-knight canât help but look, now, blinking up in distress at the creature looming over them. It is a mass of shadows, too thick for the sun to peek through, leaden and applying force to pin them with no apparent effort at all.
They can feel the heavy darkness filling their throat, their stomach, seeping into their blood, into their muscles⌠every part of their body feels like it is sinking into the ground, feels full of something that should never have been introduced to their matter.
The frightening part of it is that sometimes it is breaking a rule, not defending youself. Sometimes you are meant to avoid and fight corruption of your body, sometimes it counts as stealing to have something absorb into your body. This is what they have been taught.
So they feel like a failure, with their eyes wide and teary, their body trembling and jolting with the invasion of the darkness. It fills them further, grows heavier and heavier in between their muscles and around their bones, and they wish they could have run, could have fought back better - or not fought in the slightest, not even tensed up, if that was required - or guessed the riddle and solved it - or offered the right gift.
Cillian never knew the exact right way to avoid offending powerful beings. They were so focused on surviving, fitting in, succeeding - and sometimes, it led only to being perfectly isolated, perfectly focused on the wrong thing, to be attacked from behind.
It is painful, it is horrifying, as their vision blacks out, the canopy disappearing in a fog that Cillian isnât sure is physically there. They feel only their fingers dug into the moist leaves and dirt beneath them, and the monster flipping them over like they weigh nothing at all.
The creature weighs down on them, so massive and dense that Cillian worries in the pit of their stomach that maybe they are imagining this, their frantic mind picturing a villain when really a tree has fallen atop them.
A thought in their head, not their own, oozes silently, No words? Nothing to bargain?
The once-knight shudders. Presses their cheek to the mud and lets out an unsteady breath. They could only attempt to speak in the safety they sensed between them and the vinebound. It was something like a companion. A prospective friend. They cannot speak now, not even to beg an incomprehensible creature bleeding darkness into them.
This will be a long year, a long year, Breathes the creature without speaking aloud. Straight into Cillianâs head. They shiver with the invasion. One so quiet, so focused. Feeling, without asking for an end. Good, good.
The forsaken knight tries not to even think. No words for the being to delight in. Sweat prickles at the back of their neck, pools at the base of their spine. Their blood is dripping free of their skin, mixing with the slick mud of the ground, itching. The pain is immense. Cillian has not had worse, but they have had similar - do not think of training, do not think of the battle - the battle, the baron, the weight of their armor as they hung over the crenel and the sight of the fire and carnage viewed upside-downâŚ
What happened at the battle? Who was behind you? Says the demon, or spectre, or monster. Cillian grits their teeth so hard that their pulse pounds out a rhythm in their temple. The beat of it sounds like war drums. I have so much time to find out. Try not to think it, it comes forward sooner.
Their fingers dig into the mud above their head for purchase. The grit of the soil wedges beneath their nails and serves to distract them, just a little, from their agony. From the weighty wrongness. From the voice in their head, a head that is usually so peacefully quiet and easy to focus.
They do not feel the day turn to night. It would get colder, around them, theyâd know. A year is not really passing. They would feel it in their bones if so much time was going by. But the voice, the creatureâs voice in their head, insists. Seasons gone, seasons gone.
Is the pile of bones still there at their side? Where is the vinebound? Cillian croaks out a miserable, inaudible cry.
The weight atop them doubles. Cillian squirms, wheezes under the brunt of it. Their tendons burn with the stretch, their organs feel close to bursting. The voice in their head is louder, bigger, now. It makes their skull throb with pain. What vinebound? What vinebound?
They shouldnât put their friend in danger. Cillian scrambles for something to offer to the creature of darkness as they try fruitlessly to shift the angle of their legs, to relieve the pressure on their hips. They think of being shot by an arrow, the pain of that - they think of nearly dying from thirst, once, as they waited to be found, hiding under their dead horse after a battle lost - but the creature is present around Cillianâs head, now, in a way that feels unsettlingly familiar until Cillian belatedly recognizes jaws wrenched wide, a maw poised to tear their head free of their body.
A dead one, in the wetlands? Bound in vine, all alone? Asks the monster, with such a fierce grip on Cillianâs wrists that the once-knight is sure theyâve snapped already.
âAldous,â Cillian forces out, close to sobbing. âBehind.â
The looming pressure around their skull lessens. Backs off. The weight across their back increases again, as the monster settles back atop them fully. A baron. Show me.
~
Their legs will not cooperate to carry them all the way home. Cillian will not try. They quake where they lie curled up on their side, muscles spasming uncomfortably, head tilted just enough to avoid choking on the thick water thatâs gathered shallowly atop the mud theyâve made a divot in with their body.
The discarded cloak shifts. Jitters with movement, the heap of desiccated bones beneath reforming and skittering to attach at the ends, growing more and more into the shape of a person. Cillian watches through blurry vision as the vinebound peeks out at them.
It is not humiliating, somehow, to be seen like this by the vinebound. Something about the tragedy of its death speaks to a shared experience. Cillian continues to breathe, and waits for something to happen.
The vinebound then moves an arm, plants it against the dirt, and begins dragging itself. Cillianâs brows furrow with concern upon seeing the creature initiate movement all on its own.
Dragging itself toward Cillianâs home.
It takes a moment of self-pitying and a soft sound of distress, but then Cillian moves their arms forward, too, and lifts their hip enough to bend a knee.
It takes over a day - and Cillian is certain that it's the vinebound's presence that summons a pool of fresh water for Cillian to drink when the thirst becomes too much, because they don't remember passing a clean pond on their way here - and Cillian isn't sure if they'll survive it, as hunger starts to make them feel terribly weak and shakier than they were in the presence of the monster.
Beady eyes follow them when Cillian passes their corpse friend, and then the vinebound drags itself along behind Cillian - and they feel safer for it, somehow, even though the vinebound probably couldn't do anything to protect them, if the monster came back.
Dragging themself through the doorway, and into their dark, warm, hollowed out tree home, the once-knight collapses with a shuddering sigh onto their mossy floor. They are in the way, so they do not bother to let loose a noise of complaint as the vinebound drags its soggy, bony body over theirs to get inside and fold itself up behind a bookshelf to hide.
âDefiant is a good look on you,â whumper said without a trace of sarcasm, tilting whumpee's face by the chin- pulling their hand back quickly to avoid the bite. âAlmost a pity I'll have to break you in...â
Whumpee held strong. Whumpee never broke. Whumpee never said "stop", never said "please", never shed a tear. When the law enforcement rescued him, he made sure to give as many valuable details on Whumper as he could recall. Officers tapped him on the shoulder, saying "Good job, champ."
And then Caretaker came. And hugged him, ever so gently.
Two seconds, three, five. "Ok, ok, I'm alright, you can let go now," Whumpee say. Caretaker nods and keeps holding. Fifteen seconds in Whumpee's arms raise to hug Caretaker back.
And thaaaat's when the dam breaks. First the lip begins shaking. "I'm alright, really," he says and the voice cracks. He finally cries.
"I got you," Caretaker replies softly and holds him through screaming, and ugly crying, and eventually sobbing quietly. Caretaker's vest gets wet with tears. "I got you."
A whumpee with broken ribs. They just got out of a situation, and Caretaker, who doesn't realize that they were injured, hugs them tightly. Cue Caretaker's frantic apologizing as Whumpee doubles over from the pain in their ribs.
Girl whoâs been in some form of captivity for an extended period of time in which her short hair grew out getting some relief of her trauma after escape/rescue by cutting it short again.
I think the idea of chemical restraint is underused in whump. Is your prisoner causing you too many problems? Fighting? Hurting themself? Why not drug them! Plenty of various substances to choose from all with their own fun side effects and consequences. Canât plot an escape plan if they canât think straight. The fear of the unknown horrors held in their captorâs needle. Fighting with their own mind and body.
âTell you?â The rasp is soft, gravelly. Shaking hands press over the wound thatâs finally making itself known. Pain is etched across their face, exhaustion slumping their shoulders. âWas hoping I could get away with⌠not.â
Iâm wondering about the chance of a lighthearted Jameson and Nanda snippets, or lovely facts about âem?? TIAđĽ°
"Oh, what is that face about?" Nanda turns, looking over at his pet where the young man sits on the bed. The spot where he'd bitten his lip until it bled is still red and swollen, making Nanda want to kiss it until it burned, see if he could drag more whispers out of that pretty throat.
The pet shrugs, cross-legged and still naked with a blanket thrown over his shoulders. The sun makes his brown hair faintly gold around the edges, and Nanda finds himself slowing as he buttons up his shirt, giving himself more time to look. "What face?"
"That one," Nanda says, teasing, watching the pet scowl in return. "The pouty one."
"I'm not fucking pouting."
"You absolutely fucking are. So tell me. What is the problem, exactly?"
The pet's eyes drop to Nanda's hands, move back up again. Nanda grins and walks forward, until he can lean over and use a finger to push up the pet's chin for a kiss.
"Tell me," He whispers. "Or I'll make sure you regret not telling me."
"You have a date," The pet spits out, bitter and angry. "You already have me and you're still going on fucking dates."
Nanda laughs, standing up straight again and shaking his head as he tucks in his shirt, then untucks it just a little for the perfect dressy but casual, not too bothered but not a slob look. "You're my pet, not my partner. Don't get it in your head that you get a choice on if I go on dates or not."
The pet's scowl deepens. "Fuck you."
"Mmmn, that is how we usually solve problems, isn't it?" Nanda pauses, looking over and catching the genuine hurt, even sadness, his pet is trying to hide by acting angry. He finds his smile gentling - less mocking and more sincere.
He sits down next to the pet, sliding a hand over the back of his neck to push him in for a kiss. "Hey," He murmurs, their foreheads tipped together. "It's not a real date, anyway."
The pet's breath catches. "It isn't?"
"No. This is just for work. This won't even last long enough to get to fucking him. I'll come home and fuck you."
The pet starts to smile, then clamps down on the expression. Nanda caught it, though. He knows all his pet's faces, especially the ones he tries to hide. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Trust me." He kisses his pet's cheek, pulling back and enjoying the shy flush his prickly boy normally won't show. "I won't ever see this guy again."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Nanda doesn't bother to explain that it's because tonight's date will be dead in the backseat of his own car before midnight.
Today I pictured a scenario where a character is lost and feverish or has a concussion or has been drugged (and is also injured in some other manner of course), and is just out of it enough that they assume anyone they meet like, won't immediately be able to tell there's something wrong with them? Even though there really, obviously is. But they can't see the way they're staggering or how bloodshot their eyes are and how they're obviously bleeding, they're just internally panicking about how they'll have to be Very Very clear with whoever they first meet (if they meet anyone) that they're hurt in These Ways they've been outside for This Long they need This Treatment.
So they rehearse to themselves as they trudge in the direction of safety, repeating their injuries in a slurred mumble until they're exhausted. Finally, finally they reach a town, or flag down a car, or get back to whoever they were separated from, but to their horror it's been so long that all their careful rehearsal falls out of their mind completely and all they can manage is "I'm really cold and something hurts and I think I hit my head..."
Which, of course, is more than enough to set off multiple alarm bells for anybody, but whumpee is terrified they haven't been convincing enough to get help.
mmfgh thinking again about whumpers who maliciously redefine the terms of "pain". I'd never hurt you, I know what I'm doing, I know how much you can take...
