Maybe their crew didn't have a choice about joining them.
Perhaps when the pirates capture a ship the captain samples each of the captured sailors. The ones who taste good are added to their crew and the rest are slaughtered. Or maybe they're sold off at the nearest port.
Of course, this vampirate makes sure their crew is well-fed and taken care of. They can't have scurvy or other illnesses and ailments ruining their collection of hard-working blood bags.
However, keeping people alive doesn't mean they can't or won't get hurt for acting out. You can't have your crew plotting to kill you after they start to think you're getting weak and soft, now can you?
Who would a vampire such as this entrust to be their first mate? Who could this vampire trust to watch over their crew during the day while they sleep?
That seemed to be one of the hardest aspects of it all; Leo had gripped the edges of the piece of fabric so tightly, he felt like his knuckles were going to split. He had to stop himself from shaking his head, instead lowering it and mumbling quietly under his breath.
“Please...” He whispered, wincing when Roy shifted onto his feet. He resisted the urge to look up, because otherwise the mercenary would have been towering over him.
“Take it off,” he ordered, his eyes narrowing. “Or I’m going to prolong this, and I know you don’t want that.”
Leo held onto it tighter.
The jacket hadn’t been taken away from him once, it was his only source of comfort, and he despised the way it was being ripped away from him. He felt small when he finally peeled it off his body, and his skin tingled unpleasantly when Roy took it effortlessly from him.
He tried to resist the urge to cry, because that would be pathetic, wouldn’t it? Crying over something that wasn’t even his.
The mercenary draped it over the chair, and he smiled down at Leo’s trembling form fondly.
“Shirt next,” he mused, feet moving towards the tools. The secretary’s face paled, forcing his eyes to follow him. Thoughts of the ground swallowing him up seemed like a very good idea right now, especially when he watched the mercenary take the whip between his fingers, unravelling it.
It wasn’t as long as some Leo had seen, but that wasn’t what he was focusing on.
He gripped the bottom of his shirt, his eyes welling with burning hot tears.
“No, please,” he begged, shaking his head frantically. “Please.”
Roy raised a brow. “Any little noise you make, and I’ll add another five lashes.”
Leo’s throat closed up, and he felt the tears start streaming down his face once more. His breathing picked up in panic, willing to do just about anything to keep that whip away from his skin.
“No,” he sobbed, his voice breaking. “No, no, no. Please, please Roy, don’t...”
“Okay. An extra five.”
Leo heaved on a choked gasp. “Please!”
“That’s an extra ten.”
The secretary slapped a hand over his mouth, hunched over to try and stop the stone cold dread from punching into his stomach violently. His sobs clogged in his throat, desperately shaking his head. Roy wound the whip between his fingers, slotting it carefully on the side of his belt.
“Every second you don’t do as I’ve told, that number is just going to increase,” the man hummed threateningly, and Leo’s heart thumped loudly in his head. He forced his eyes open, beyond blurry through the tears, trying to find the strength to remove the hand from his mouth.
His fingers were numb as he clenched the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head. He heard Roy stepping towards him, and bit down on his tongue to stop himself from whimpering when he jerked him onto his feet.
He staggered towards the back wall, and he tried to let his mind wander aimlessly as he was forced back down to his knees. He stared numbly at a spot of flecking paint, the tears still steadily tumbling down his cheeks.
Leo felt the cold bite of metal clamping his wrists together, and he tilted his head back to watch Roy attack the chain to the ceiling. It stretched his arms uncomfortably over his head, and he could already feel the tense pull in his shoulder blades.
His eyes stared up at Roy, silently pleading, but the man only smiled down at him in amusement.
“Fifteen,” he spoke, untangling the whip after pulling it from his belt. The tip trailed along the ground, but Leo couldn’t crane his head round in the awkward position. “Plus, the extra ten.”
Leo shuddered in terror, his fingers winding around the chains for some sort of stability. He was too afraid to move, his spine sitting as straight as he could get it. His breath hitched as he waited for the inevitable blow, screwing his eyes shut.
The first one landed with a harsh crack, and Leo jerked violently. The pain came quickly afterwards, spreading through his back like wildfire. The sting of the second one was much worse, and it was then Leo realised what he was really in for.
By the third, he was already crying.
The pain cracked along his back like agony, and he was sure he could feel warm blood sliding down his spine, shivers wracking through his body.
It only took two more until he was screaming at each sharp impact, his back arching when the whip licked at his skin. His throat burned. Leo could hardly think, every long pause between each strike making him crazy with sickening anticipation. He could feel his fingers going numb, the cuffs digging into his wrists and rubbing the skin raw.
Black dots scattered along his vision, another lash making him jerk.
“Stop!” He screamed, his chest tightening as he dissolved into harder sobs. “Please!”
Roy didn’t say anything, and he was only rewarded with two lashes consecutively after one another. The agony was hot and bright, and Leo’s mind went numb, his head lolling forward.
A strained moan escaped his lips when a hand gripped his jaw, the clammy sweat along his skin glistening under the light. Roy slapped his cheek, eyeing him up.
“Wake yourself up, or we’re starting over,” he snapped. Leo tripped over slurred words, simply crumbling into more pained sobs. Somehow, the rest was like a fire unlike the others. He’d screamed until his throat had gone numb, and his lungs had stuttered to a stop.
He felt like he could only babble incoherently under his breath, slick blood running down his arms and slipping down his back. His head was full of static, buzzing like fire ants in his brain. He could barely comprehend Roy unclamping the chains. The moment he fell into his arms, he started sobbing again.
He didn’t care if they were the arms of the person that had done this; Leo was exhausted, shaking from the agony, and he wanted this all to end. He needed something to hide away in, to feel like he could get away from it all.
He pressed his head into his chest, his fingers digging weakly into the fabric of his shirt. He felt Roy place a hand on the back of his head, stroking gently through the damp hair. He whimpered, the agony splitting through his back like fire.
It was travelling to his head, rocking his skull until he felt like he could barely think.
“There, there,” Roy purred softly, holding him carefully, and so softly that the secretary just melted into him like butter. “It’s over now. You’re okay. You did so well.”
Leo pushed himself closer, his arms clumsily clutching at his shoulders. Each little movement caused his back to flare up, and he let out a painful moan.
“It hurts,” he sobbed, his tongue like cotton. “I-It...s’not...”
The mercenary shushed him. He was holding him so gently, so protectively, that Leo didn’t have the willpower to pull away. He cried as the man shifted, gently tapping his temple.
“Look, lion,” he whispered softly, gently stroking his face. “Look at that.”
Leo obediently craned his head to the side, squinting through his exhausted, blurry vision. He was only rewarded by a sharp pinch on the other side of his neck, and his head slumped forward against the mercenary’s shoulder.
“There’s a good boy,” Roy drawled, gently hefting him off the ground. “There you go.”
hmmm how about a newly turned vampire is trying their hardest to stay good, but now they’re feeling veeery tempted by the blood they can smell from their drunk and slightly helpless friend 👀
Is that a good prompt? I’ll leave it up to you whether you want the vampire to give in or not!
~ @ba-bhump
Liquor:
⚠️ Slight blood, intoxication, and usage of vampire and friend in place of character names
The porch creeked under the soft padding of their best friend. No matter how hard they tried to be quiet, the porch seemed to be a built-in alarm.
"Psst," Friend unnecessarily whispered. "Wanna get fucked up?"
"Do I ever not?" The vampire whispers back equally unnecessary. Super hearing and all that jazz.
Now, forty minutes later, the pool table became an impromptu counter.
The paper mache bats strewn about all over were a product of friend's intoxication. Every time they got drunk, they wanted to paper mache.
So the vampire sat and drank a vodka and coke they'd mixed for themselves.
Friend preferred tequila mixed with all kinds nonsense to make it old-fashioned.
Friend's long hair always fell in their face, so the vampire had clumsily pulled it up.
Never having been around anyone with long hair for their foreseeable future, they'd better start learning, or that's what Friend told them.
But something glinting caught their eyes. Scissors. When did Friend find the scissors?
They'd made sure to cut up all the supplies that need to be cut before they started drinking. Friend hadn't been watching them, or so they'd thought...
"What're you doin'? You don't need those." The vampire hollars suddenly rousing their lean friend.
Who'd been nearly stabbing themselves with the scissors trying to cut towards themselves.
"I'm cutting!" They hollared back with renewed vigor and a jolt.
A jolt that send the tip of the dual blades down their forearm.
Though nothing was pierced, luckily, there was still a mile long scratch with blood welling up.
Friend kissed their teeth, sloppily taking some colored tissue paper to the cut.
The vampire gave up watching the television, the music videos forgotten in favor of preying on helping their friend.
Who was audibly chocking back cries suddenly terrified by whatever they saw, looking back at them.
☝️🤓 it’s because the further you move toward the earth’s poles, the lower the angle of the sun is at the hottest parts of the day, meaning the radiation hits your whole body, causing it to feel 10-20 degrees warmer than the thermometer reading will tell you. People from tropical climes, aka close to the equator, are used to the sun’s radiation hitting a much smaller target- their head and shoulders.
Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.
it’s a shame more vampire media doesn’t pull from vampire bat behavior because they’re such sweeties. they can only survive their incredibly specialized diet because bats will share blood with colony members that didn’t find a meal! there’s evidence that suggests the donors sometimes initiate this behavior themselves by approaching hungry bats! the colonies are mostly harems of females with a few males but they’ve been observed letting unrelated males in when it gets cold so they can all stay warm! cute little social critters!
The Whumpy Printing Press is seeking submissions for our next anthology, After the Hurt!
The theme of this anthology is basically the effects of whump. So this could be escape, recovery, caretaking. But it could also be flashbacks, recapture, or even a whumpee becoming so conditioned that whumper doesn’t bother hurting them any more.
For this anthology, we are looking for stories in the following categories:
Micro-fiction: 250 words or less
Flash fiction: 251-1,000 words
Short Story: 1,001-7,499 words
Novelette: 7,500-17,500 words
Each author can submit one story per category. So for example, you can submit a short story and a micro fiction but you can’t submit two micro fictions.
Compensation: ebook contributor’s copy, one free paperback OR $10 USD, and discounts on additional paperbacks
50% of proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Submissions Open: July 1, 2026
Submissions Close: July 31, 2026
Expected Publication Date: October 2026
Submit here!
The Nitty-Gritty (aka more details about submitting)
Simultaneous submissions: Allowed, but let us know immediately if your story is accepted somewhere else.
Multiple Submissions: One per category. So for example, you can submit a short story and a micro fiction but you can’t submit two micro fictions.
Reprints: Allowed, but please indicate where your story was originally published. This includes if your story was originally posted on AO3 or Tumblr!
Rights: Nonexclusive worldwide English language electronic and print rights. All copyright remains with the author. A simple contract will be provided.
Compensation: One ebook contributor’s copy, one free paperback OR $10 USD, and discounts on additional paperbacks
Submissions are open to residents of any country.
You must be 18 or older to submit.
No explicit torture of children under the age of 13. No sexual content of characters under the age of 18. No torture or sexual content involving non-sentient animals.
No fanfiction, for legal reasons. No stories generated partly or in whole by artificial intelligence.
Formatting: Please submit your story as a Microsoft word document with 12pt, Times New Roman font, double-spaced. Indicate scene breaks with ***.
Edits: Stories will be lightly edited for spelling and grammar. The content of the story will not be changed, and all edits will be sent to you for approval.
