#beating cw

[memesomething]

i just think, muses bloodied and bruised and arriving at their loved ones’ doorsteps disoriented and barely conscious. don’t you think -

[whumpiary]

Day 1

[whump-me-all-night-long]

The Scoop of a Lifetime - 28

Whumptober Day 28 -  SUCH WOW. MANY NORMAL. VERY OOPS.

Tagging @mnmlover2002 @cupcakes-and-pain @lave-e @appy-polly-loggies @lovely-little-whump @just-another-whumper let me know if you want to be added/removed!

CW: caning, beating, choking, threats, referenced injuries, referenced past violence/trauma, this one’s kinda rough, let me know if I missed something!

Masterlist // Previous

---

Devin lay in bed, listening to the steady sounds of their breathing. All around them was stillness and quiet. Their open eyes stared at the darkness above them.

After the raid, they’d come to this house, further out into the country. It was one only Wildre, Duncan and a handful of his other most trusted men knew about. Much smaller than his city residence, it consisted of a downstairs common area, with a few bedrooms upstairs. Still, it was decorated lavishly and with care.

Slowly, they pulled themself from the comfort and warmth of the blankets, only the slightest pain when they stood. They silently opened their door and padded down the stairs. They shivered slightly in the cool air downstairs, wrapping their arms around themself. 

They didn’t really know why they had come down here, only that they had needed to get out of that room i felt trapped i couldn’t breathe some fresh air. They slipped over to one of the large windows, standing in front of it, staring out on the scene in front of them.

The moon weakly illuminated the tree line a short ways away from the cabin and the high grass that sprung up in front of it. Devin put a light hand atop the glass, feeling the chill sink deep within their skin. They let out a short huff of air, feeling the window warm up slightly before quickly cooling off.

They fingered the latch, debating opening it, their skin prickling in anticipation of the feeling of the cold air sweeping across it. Before they could, however, a voice piped up from behind them, causing them to whirl around, their heart leaping into their throat.

“Trying to escape again, love?” Wildre leaned against the doorway, his tone light.

Devin flinched back before they could help themself, their mind going back to their first escape attempt. Their hand seemed to ache in response, despite the fact that it had all but healed, a bit of raw, pink skin the only sign of their injury. That, and the occasional pain they would have when trying to move it, but they tried not to think about that.

They quickly shook their head, twisting their fingers around the hem of their shirt to hide their shaking. “No, I- I, um, I just wanted some fresh air. That was all. I know- know better now. There’s no escaping.” They gave him a weak smile, but it faded quickly as he crossed the room in slow, measured steps until he was mere inches in front of them. He continued to press closer to them, forcing them to back up until their back hit the wall and then a bit more. 

He stared down at them and only then did Devin see the seething anger radiating from his eyes. Their heartbeat sped up as he brought one too-still hand up to tilt their head until their eyes were forced to meet his. But I haven’t done anything wrong, a small, broken part of themself wanted to cry.

But they forced themself to stay still and silent as his gaze moved slowly over them. Finally he spoke, moving his hand gently to rest on their throat. “It looked a lot to me like you were trying to escape. Awake in the middle of the night, hand on the lock on the window. What else could it be?” As they opened their mouth to explain, his grip tightened slightly in warning. “And remember, love, that I absolutely detest when people lie to me.”

They swallowed, knowing he felt it, and the words fell out of their mouth in a rush. “I- I swear, Wildre, I wasn’t trying to escape. I really, I really did just need a, a quick breath of fresh air. Some- sometimes it feels like I just can’t breathe in here. That’s all, I promise.”

His expression quickly shifted, turning into one of pure rage and all of a sudden, their airway was shut off. They gasped as he pressed tighter, black spots already dancing in the corners of their eyes. They brought their hands up to rest softly on his own, still having enough of their wits about them to not try to pry him off of them. 

Instead, they choked and looked up at him with pleading eyes, their mouth moving in silent apologies. He glared down at them and they felt a sudden thrill of true terror go down their spine. 

“Did I not,” he hissed, his face nearly touching theirs, “just tell you not to lie to me?”

But I didn’t lie! Devin wanted to scream, as they began clawing at his grip in earnest, their survival instincts kicking in. 

Just as they thought they were about to pass out, Wildre didn’t release his grip so much as fling them from him. They tumbled forward, shaky legs causing them to drop down to the ground. 

On their hands and knees, they gasped for air, their bruised throat protesting but their lungs grateful. They didn’t notice Wildre until he was standing right in front of them.

They started to apologize again before noticing the object he held in his hands. “No,” they whispered hoarsely, “No, please, Wildre, no, not that, anything but that.” For in his hands, he held the same cane that had ruined me broken me destroyed me forever hurt them so badly.

He grinned, the grin of the murderous, ruthless criminal he was. “Oh, yes, love. You tried to escape and you lied to me. You need to be punished, else you’ll never learn.”

They backed away slightly, still crawling, tears beginning to leak from their eyes. “Please,” they begged again. “Anything but that. Not that, please, Wildre.” 

He wasn’t backing down this time, though, and as they went to back up more, he reached down to grab one of their ankles, ignoring their small cry of protest, pulling it out. Before they could curl it back towards the rest of their body, the cane was swinging down, hitting them in the shin with a sickening crack. He brought the cane down several more times on their defenseless legs, seemingly deaf to their pleas and cries of pain. The pain was somehow worse than the first time, causing stars to explode across their vision.

Finally, he lifted the cane. “Well? Are you ready to tell the truth?”

Devin whimpered, barely able to form the words through their pain-addled mind. “I am! I was! I- I was just looking! I was- wasn’t escaping!”

Wildre frowned. “Hm, that’s not the answer I was looking for.” He dropped the cane outside of their reach and bent down to drag them up by the front of their shirt.

They stared up at him, eyes already slightly foggy with pain. They didn’t see his fist until it was buried deep in their gut and they were gasping for breath again, their mouth opening and closing like a fish. They couldn’t breathe, they couldn’t breathe. He drew back and struck again and again and again. Tears were freefalling from their eyes and they couldn’t seem to draw enough breath to make any more noise than a few whimpers. 

Yet again, he paused after a few minutes of flying fists. “Have I convinced you to tell the truth yet?” His voice was hard, none of that ever-present humor in it. They opened their mouth but couldn’t force any of the words out. “I guess not.” 

Then they were flying, colliding hard into the wall, as Wildre held them off the floor by their throat. They wheezed and weak fingers scrabbled at his hands, futilely trying to get him to let go. He banged them hard against the wall again, light exploding behind their eyes again.

There was a fury in his eyes that made me think this is it he’s actually going to kill me i’m about to die Devin had never seen before. There was a sudden sense of a calm sweeping over them, an exhaustion that caused them to drop their hands and limply hang from his grip. 

The darkness had almost completely taken over their vision, and they were nearly completely unaware of their surroundings when a rush of cold, sweet air rushed down their throat. Their battered body, covered in welts and bruises, finally gave out as they heard the words, “You’re never escaping me, Devin. Love. I decide when this is over, not you, not anyone else.”

Next

[whumpiary]

requested by @vickytokio reference image

[galaxywhump]

I got reasonably excited over the chance to hurt E man.

Berkeley, I want to watch you fall apart entirely. I’d love to take you very soon after Wren sends his SOS and chain your arms out as you kneel, just to make sure you can’t hide anything from me. I’ll keep you updated on The League’s status, of course, so you know when they’ll come by to pick you up. In the meantime, I’ll definitely cut you, maybe beat you, and if you get too mouthy I’ll muzzle you since you love that so much. If you’re lucky I’ll stop there, but you have no idea how tempted I am to collar you. You are a dirty slaver, after all. It’s only fair.

He takes a step back with your every word, eyes darting wildly left and right, searching for a way to escape, not wanting to accept that there isn't one. He's cornered, left behind by his subordinates, who were too busy saving themselves to pay any thought to their failure of a leader. He's trembling, imagining the pain that he used to love inflicting, the click accompanying the fastening of a muzzle that used to be music to his ears, and he pales when he hears your plans to collar him, cement his place among the people he has hurt. He wants to say something, anything, but he ends up mouthing incomprehensible nonsense, watching you approach.

He can't help but think, in his panicked state, that the League can't arrive soon enough.

[the-kinfesssional]

they should have to strap me down to a chair with chains inside a steel cage with how much i want to bite cortex fans (not affectionately). they completely ignore me in favor of their fuck ass man or somehow manage to insert him into a conversation about myself when there is literally no mention of him. not to mention how tone deaf they are when i talk about my abuse with him like no he wasn't "being a bit silly" he beat my fucking ass and manipulated me on a daily basis. and don't even get me started on the n//e//o//g//i//n shippers... which btw. no. shipping us in a "wholesome au" doesn't get rid of the fact that he's still abusive and tbh that's completely ignorant on ur part for thinking u can just au away someone's abuse. let's use our brains here.

anyways fuck neo cortex and fuck his stupid fucking fans i will be mauling u 😁👍 srry for the swearing i'm really angry rn..

- 🚀🫐

Dear stars.

Fighting the fandom.

[deluxewhump]

Erik and Carlo AU snippet where they got in some trouble on one of Erik’s many trips abroad. Erik tries to comfort his pet.

Inspired by this prompt by @whumpwillow !

CW: captivity, false imprisonment, pet whump, blood, bruising, abuse, beatings, guns, vaguely implied threat of noncon

-

Carlo woke afraid, from dreams that seemed real and surroundings that seemed dreamlike.

The floor left him sore and cold. He shivered, tasting blood and noticing the cut on his lip had left a series of stains on the cement.

As he pushed himself gingerly to sitting, his Master’s heavy black coat slid down his shoulder. Holstrom had placed it over him open like a blanket, keeping him from the worst of the cold.

He sat against the wall and clung to it, wincing at a pain in his ribs.

“Look at me,” Erik said from beside him. Carlo turned his head.

A gentle finger brushed his bruised cheek, traced the unhurt part of his lip to survey the damage. “Laying hands on another man’s pet. They ought to be shot in their sleep.”

Carlo shivered. He closed his eyes and leaned into his Master’s touch. Far away a dog was barking. A metal door slammed down the hallway, the clanging reverberating through the door that kept them trapped.

“What else?”

Carlo opened his eyes. “Sir?” he whispered.

“What else did they do to you? Those men?”

Carlo swallowed the coppery taste in his mouth. “Nothing.”

The familiar, square fingertips slipped up by his ear and Erik’s palm cupped his hurt cheek, so tenderly it did not press on the bruising.

“Are you sure? I heard them talking.”

“One kicked me,” Carlo said. He didn’t want to seem like he was complaining. His Master had a cut on his eyebrow that had bled and bled, and was swollen now, making one eye appear half shut. But he did not want to lie.

Erik searched his eyes a moment longer. “It’s alright, love. You’re going to be alright. You know that, don’t you?”

Carlo swallowed harder, a painful lump rising in his throat. He had been scared before plenty, entire days in the warehouse he’d been afraid and alone, and he’d been scared when he’d first come to his new home and Erik had slapped him.

But he couldn’t think of a time when he had been this afraid. The men who took them from the back of the car had guns— not handguns like Keith carried at his hip but big guns like in movies, and thick green vests on their chests that made Carlo think they might be soldiers.

Erik sighed, and did something he never did— he took Carlo’s cold hands in his big warm ones and squeezed. “You’re with me, pet. I’m here. Remember that.”

[deluxewhump]

True North: Point of Separation

Samir is alone with the insurgents. (Iago & Samir)

cw: fictional warfare, offscreen child death, guilt, exhaustion, whipping, violence, beatings, dehydration, guns, blood, bound hands/feet, hoods, auction/slavery mention, kidnapping for ransom, captivity whump, platonic touch, missing persons cases, implied murder or manslaughter, negative self talk, hurt/comfort, both Stockholm and Lima vibes with these two.

Masterlist

****

Charlie being ushered into a silver Jeep wrangler was the last thing Samir saw before the black canvas bag was pulled over his head. His hands were tied behind him, pulling the socket of his healing shoulder. His nose bled over his lips and into his mouth, wetting the rough cloth over his face, making it harder to breathe. 

He kicked blindly, making contact with a soldier’s leg. They grunted in pain and annoyance, but before Samir could relish the little victory two men pushed him to the ground, one holding each leg so they could bind them together at the knees, all the way down to his ankles. He thrashed and fought like a wild thing, until one of his captors punched him in the face again.

The pain in his nose was so sharp that his eyes streamed with tears. He went still in shock, trying not to groan as waves of agony radiated up his nose, down into his teeth. They hoisted him onto the back of a truck and slammed the tailgate shut. 

He’d never fought them like that. Not even when they’d first been captured. But they had taken Charlie away. They'd separated them. They’d given him to another group, like trading flour and clementines. Achille had done it casually, with the wave of a hand and a nod. Charlie had looked frightened for a moment, but steeled himself when he saw Samir, telling him it would be alright, not to panic, to do what Achille tells him. 

“I’ll see you soon, Samir,” he’d said over his shoulder as they led him away. Comforting him, even as his own fate opened up like a black pit in front of him. 

See you soon.

“Is this little pussy going to cry the whole way now?” Bones had complained, massaging the handle of his bullwhip. “We shoulda tossed him in as a bonus. A journalist and uh... a useless not-doctor. Two for one.”

“I thought you wanted to pick your teeth with this one,” another had said, nodding toward Samir. “Thought you just had to have him.”

He’d broken away from the soldiers and chased after Charlie, or tried to. Bones and two others stopped him before he got three yards, dogpiled him into the dirt.  The men who took Charlie wore white camouflage, not solid green jackets like Achille and his men. They looked at him strangely as he made a scene, and later Samir realized it was because of he was wearing one of their green jackets, given to him when his own got wet and gave him a case of racking chills.

They thought he was one of them. 

The truck started with a throaty diesel growl, a reverberation he felt in every bone in his body as he lay in its bed. Several men climbed onto the edges of the truck bed, and one clapped the body of it to let the driver know they were good to take off. 

“Iago?” Samir tried, blind behind the black hood. 

“Quiet,” Iago warned icily. This confirmed he was one of the several in the truck bed with him, but he was being tough in front of his fellow soldiers, like always.

“Lie the fuck down and be quiet.”

Samir wanted to scream. He wanted to kick and headbutt until something happened, until he had some power back in the world. He knew the odds of never seeing Charlie again had just skyrocketed. He was reminded of how dire both their situations really were, with the likelihood of some amicable ransom dwindling every day that his government did not pony up the cash and a rendezvous point. 

He had no choice but to swallow the blood that ran down the back of his throat. 

*** 

At least they’d finally taken the hood off his head. 

The truck ride had been punshing, bruising and endless. His nose hurt and the blood in the hood dried so that it stuck to his face and smelled of sweat and metal. After they ditched the truck to walk, someone had jabbed the business end of their kalashnikov into his ribs over and over as they marched through the shelled streets of a ctiy, which he could not see but identified by smells, by things he tripped over. 

Sometimes, a soldier would catch him by the arm and right him before he went down. Other times they let him fall, and by the time they stopped in an evacuated hotel, his hands and knees were torn up from hours of misstepping and catching himself on torn-up asphalt. 

Iago steered him to a corner of what was once an elegant lobby. He had to bind Samir’s wrists for the night, as well as his ankles, but he did so farily loosely, and picked out tiny pieces of gravel from Samir’s bloodied palms before he did.

It was difficult to manage a drink of water now that his hands were bound, so when his thirst grew unbearable he had to ask. To his credit, Iago stopped messing with a broken cell phone to help him as soon as he asked, but it felt less and less like kindness and more like control at the most basic level. Funnily enough, Iago didn’t seem to think anything of it. 

“Tell me about your home some more,” he said as he dried a dribble of water from Samir’s chin with his sleeve. “The mountain that gobbles people up.”

“I’ve already told you,” Samir answered, exhausted. They had ridden all day, and marched half the night through an evacuated, shelled city. He felt on the verge of tears, which would only further humiliate him and amuse the men near them. “Please, Iago,” he whispered, hoping his other captors were not listening closely. “Please, just let me sleep. I’m so tired.”

Iago spread out his green jacket like a bedroll, lay down beside Samir with his pack under his head. He shined his flashlight on the vast, cracked ceiling, twisted his hand above the light so it cast the shadow of an angry dog, ears at attention, lower jaw rolling in a snarl. He clicked the flashlight off, then on again, making his shadowpuppet dis and reappear. “Tell me,” he insisted. “About the forest.”

Samir was close to regretting all the delirious, sloppy conversations where he’d spilled his guts to Iago right about now. His eyes stung and burned, wanting to close. His legs throbbed, and his hands stung. His shoulder hurt. His throat was always dry, but he didn’t want to bother Iago again for another drink of water. He’d just need help to get up and relieve himself that much sooner. 

“To the north of my city is a big woods,” he started, hoping his voice did not betray his fragility. “There’s mountains, and streams, and hot springs... elk and mule deer.”

Iago grunted. The wild game interested him. 

“But sometimes,” Samir licked his dry lips. “People go missing up in the woods. Campers… hikers. Even experienced hunters, with lots of guns and gear. They go missing right off the beaten path, in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes they were right near other people when it happened. Their friends turned around and they were just gone.”

“And people look for them?”

“Helicopters… search parties. Dogs. They comb the woods in these big sections tied off with rope so they know what they’ve already searched.”

“But they never find them?”

“Sometimes they do, sure.”

“But they never found your friend? The one who disappeared?”

“Never,” Samir said, giving Iago the same bullshit narrative everyone back home believed was Jeremy’s fate. 

Jeremy had even been included in an episode of a popular podcast about missing persons in the area who likewise had disappeared from those woods without a trace. Samir had listened in horror, feeling ill the entire time. 

It reminded him of the summer before seventh grade, when the TV was a twenty-four hour nightmare, always covering the search and rescue attempt for Jeremy Huffman. Around day five, helicopter searches gave up on finding a boy and began looking for a body. Eleven days, it lasted, until the formal search was called off forever. 

A decent person would at least send in an anonymous tip, so Jeremy’s parents could bury their son. 

...But you are not a decent person.

He didn’t deserve any compassion from his captors, or any human decency. It felt cosmically revolting that he might live through this ordeal, that he ended up under the wing of Iago or even Achille, who were less cruel than one would expect from the insurgents’ reputations alone. 

“Do people say it was aliens that took him? A UFO?” Iago asked, now leaning toward the conspiratorial, the supernatural and otherworldly, as so many of his own friends and even some of the adults around him had at the end of that awful summer.

“That’s your state, right? You have uhh, Roswell? Area 53?” He could hear Iago’s grin in the dark, and he did not bother to correct him on account of Area 51.  “Here we have...how to say it… portals? Someone is walking through the forest and whoopsie daisy, never seen again. It spits them out in the same place, but in the wrong dimension. Nobody ever finds them. Sometimes we hear them crying for help, but when you go toward them, nobody is there. You think your friend walked into a portal?”

Quiet tears ran from the corners of Samir’s eyes. He was too tired. His mind was unable to keep up the defenses that kept him sane. It was just a fishbowl in there now, all the terrible things he feared swimming around with the lucid, compact lies that kept it all together.

And where is Charlie???

Iago lowered his voice even more so the others would not hear. “Hey. There’s no portals. It’s a bad story. Don’t cry.” 

Samir went cold and still, unsure how Iago could even see that in the dark. Could he hear it in his breathing? He flinched at Iago’s touch, but it was just a friendly hand in his hair, petting the top of his head. 

“It’s alright, little soldier.”

Samir closed his eyes. He hated himself for it, but he wanted Iago’s hand in his hair a little longer. Maybe until he fell asleep. 

Iago clicked off the flashlight a final time. He reached over in the dark and pulled Samir closer. Samir didn’t breathe. He stiffened, still skittish from the blows he’d received the day before. But Iago held him fast with his forearm over his chest. He was not hurting him. Samir's body took another minute to catch up with his brain, but soon he could breathe again, and the fear in his chest quieted. 

The temperature always dropped at night, and he could not remember the last time he was truly warm as he slept. As tough and wild as Iago was, surely he felt the cold, too? Perhaps that was why Iago was holding onto him the way he was...using the captive for body warmth. He lay back against him, unsure of the intimacy but glad for the heat, and the feeling of being protected. 

Like one of their own. 

When Iago spoke next, his voice wasn’t cruel, but musing. “You lose lots of friends, don’t you?”

He’s talking about Charlie, Samir realized. 

“Will those people hurt him?” Samir whispered, his head tucked into Iago’s shoulder. “Who are they?”

“That’s two questions. I’ll answer one.”

“Who are they? The men Achille gave Charlie to?”

“Whitecoats,” Iago shrugged. “Mercenaries.”

“Will they hurt him? Will they kill him?”

Samir knew that was a second question. Iago did too, but he answered anyway. “They’ll take him to auction. But…” he was careful to whisper the rest. “But we know something they don’t know, those Snowycoats.”

“What do we know?” Samir breathed. "Tell me."

“Hmm. No. Can’t tell little American soldiers things like that. Even if we like them. Achille would skin me. Alive.”

His voice nearly broke out of a whisper in his desperation. “Fucking please, Iago.”

“Mm, I like my skin where it is, I think. You begged me to let you sleep just a minute ago. So sleep.”

He had not really expected one of his captors to divulge intel to him. As much as he looked like one of them to outsiders, he was not. And he was still on the chopping block. 

He scooted an inch closer to Iago anyway, and turned his head into the soldier’s arm.

****

taglist: (ask to be added or removed) @starnight-whump, @whump-me-all-night-long, @cursedandtired, @ashintheairlikesnow, @straight-to-the-pain, @highwaywhump , @restrainthenmaime, @heathenville , @pretty-face-breaker , @itallstartedwithharry , @no-comfort-only-hurt