#blanketholes

[sunshinexlollipops]

“Duplicity”

Here is my @hannibalholiday for @blanketholes this year!

I sadly wasn’t able to get the gift fic finished in time for the Christmas upload deadline, so for right now it is a WIP until I’m able to get the rest done, but I  promise it won’t take long!

Until then, you can read what I do have up on AO3 HERE!

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy new year!

I hope you like it! <3

[artyuletide]

To: @Blanketholes From: @marcinhaunts Fandom: Beauty and the Beast (1991) Notes: beau and the beast... the words of your prompt convinced me ;A; this AU has so much potential to be hilarious and heartwarming!! im invested now

[jessejackreyes]

Working Out

@blanketholes (the @ thing isn't working for me here) prompted me with a Zarya/Genji prompt (Zarji?) like a billion years ago and I finally finished it. Sorry it took so long. I'm not sure if this was exactly what you wanted. It was very different for me. Working Out It was inevitable Genji supposed, that in a group as diverse as the new Overwatch team there would be some tension. Knowing that intellectually and dealing with it well were two very different things though. It did not help that the angry words were being thrown, in part, at Zenyatta. Genji could handle people insulting or attacking him, but the moment it was aimed at Zenyatta it became very difficult to not do something stupid. His master had taught him well though and he restrained himself through the Russian insults being lobbed at them. He did not need to understand the language to get the gist of what the woman was saying. The ninja found his master’s hand reassuring squeezing his shoulder and he smiled softly behind his mask. This woman who goes by Zarya was not the first person he had met still bitter about the war. The wounds had still not healed in most of the world. Hanzo had apparently grown less patient and calm over time though and shared a few choice words of his own with the large woman. Apparently his brother did not appreciate her speaking to Genji like that, a surprise to the cyborg, but also to Zarya. It was clear she thought he was an Omnic and before anything could be said about it, she stormed off angrily. Genji was happy to avoid the Russian whenever possible, if only to keep himself from accidentally doing something stupid. It was easy most of the time, but despite his cyborg body, he still needed to workout the parts of him that were still flesh, primarily his left arm. She stumbled into the gym as he was preparing for a workout. “What is a metal man doing here?” She asked, voice dripping with annoyance as if he had intruded on her space. Genji elected to ignore her as removed the parts of his exosuit that covered what was left of his body. Much of the top left half of his torso was still Intact and he worked hard to keep it in great shape. The muscles in his left arm were well defined and strong and what was left of his body was toned as it had ever been in his youth, even if the look was ruined by the machine that most of him was now. It became difficult to ignore her staring as he moved to begin his workout routine. He had to remove the suit so that what was left of his body did most of the work instead of the suit itself, but still, people rarely saw him like this. For the most part only Zenyatta was around because Genji trusted his master more than anyone not to judge him. “You are no Omnic?” It was a question, but also an accusation like it was Genji’s fault that she had made that assumption. He turned to face her, removing the mask plate that covered his eyes. “No, I am not,” His stare chased her gaze away from him as he flipped himself to be standing on his hands. His right arm fell away as soon as he balanced himself and he proceeded to begin performing one armed push-ups in that position. It required strength and balance that he had trained since birth to manage, but he was more than capable. “So you are human?” “Somewhere in between,” His answer did not seem to placate her. She scowled and seemed to fall into her own thoughts for an extended silence. “How am I supposed to trust someone who is half machine?” She asked finally. “How am I supposed to trust someone who judges people they don't know anything about so quickly?” He snapped back at her, never stopping his exercise. “You know what the Omnics did, what they are still doing to my homeland,” “Yes, but I also know a thing or two about the history of your country. Would you think it fair for others to judge you based on that?” He felt a small swell of pride at how much he had managed to sound like Zenyatta there, less elegant perhaps, but he had the same rhetorical spirit at least. “That is not the same thing,” Zarya replied with an angry scowl. “I fail to see a significant difference,” He replied as he continued his routine. The room grew silent for a while until it was broken by the sounds of weight lifting. The Russian had turned to begin her own workout routine to sort out her own frustration. Genji nearly gaped as he watched her deadlift what must have been easily 500 pounds. He'd never even seen Reinhardt manage that much without his armor helping him out. They mostly ignored each other as they finished up what they were here to do, though they both stole glances at the other when they thought no one was looking. Genji departed before Zarya finished what she was doing, leaving her without a word. He saw neither hide nor hare of her for a few days, managing to miss her during meals and training. Genji had managed to calm down, for the most part, though letting anyone insult Zenyatta was not something he could do even if his master asked him to let it go. They bumped into each other finally as Genji was entering the gym again one afternoon. There was a tense silence as they stared at one another, broken eventually by the Russian woman speaking. “You seem quite strong,” Zarya said loudly in somewhat of a greeting. She continued once he had nodded in return. “What are you?” She asked him. “Man or machine?” She clarified what she was asking. “Both, or neither. Most of my body is artificial, but the heart of a man still beats inside me. Zenyatta has helped me to accept that I do not need one of those labels. I am simply me,” The Russian woman seemed to consider his words carefully, falling silent as he spoke and for several long moments afterwards. Finally she seemed to reach some decision and spoke up. “How about an arm wrestling match?” She asked gesturing to one of the tables nearby. The sudden offer was quite strange and surprising, but this might have been a way for her to extend an olive branch and he accepted. Zenyatta had taught him much of forgiveness. “Wouldn't my enhancements be cheating?” He asked taking a seat across from her. “Your left arm is human. It'll do,” As if requested he began removing the armor that covered his left arm so that they could have a fair contest. “You're left handed?” Genji asked as he rested his elbow on the table. “Right, but both are strong,” Her arm joined his over the table. “Very well,” Their hands clasped together and the first thing he noticed was how strong the woman’s grip was. The second thing he noticed was how seriously she seemed to be taking this, so he decided it would likely be best if he did so too. “We start On go,” She announced as she began a countdown. His arm strained against her the moment they began. Genji had always been fairly strong, he had trained to fight from a young age, but he had only gotten stronger since his transformation. He had kept up his strength in Nepal too, so the fact that he was not so slowly losing to the woman across from him really said something about how strong she was. They were both sweating and straining by the end of it, though the winner had been fairly obvious from the start. Dragons were a stubborn breed however and Genji would never accept defeat until the very end when the back of his hand met the table. By the end of it all his face was flush from effort, but his hand hit the metal surface all the same. “Not bad,” Zarya told him as he rubbed his sore arm. “Must be difficult working out like that,” It might have sounded crass, but given her nature he doubted that she would be one for such backhanded insults. If she was trying to insult you she would simply do so. “I have adapted to it,” “Yes, but I know we could build you up some more. Just need the right training regimen,” She fell deep into thought again as she considered her own words. “I train here every day at 1400 unless I am busy with something. Join me and we will make an arm wrestler out of you,” He thought the invitation to arm wrestling had been an attempt at an apology of sorts, but he knew that this was. His master was right, though that came as no surprise to him. Zenyatta had a habit of usually being right. Getting angry and lashing out at Zarya would have done nothing to help the situation that a little time and a few words could resolve. “I will stop by if I am free,” Genji replied. “But now I have duties to attend with my master,” “Da I will see you tomorrow,” The bodybuilder called after him as he retreated to Zenyatta’s room. “Is something wrong Genji?” The monk asked as his student wandered inside unannounced. “No, why?” “Your faceplate is off and your face is very red,” The Omnic explained. Genji had not noticed the flush in his face as he made his way across the base, nor that he had forgotten his faceplate and he groaned. He knew what this meant now that his master had pointed it out. It meant that he had learned another thing about himself that he didn't know. He apparently had a thing for women who could bench press him without breaking a sweat. Now he was both dreading and looking forward to training for a new set of reasons. Zenyatta placed a supportive hand on his shoulder as he cursed himself. Hanzo always told him that he loved a challenge when it came to his flings and that it was what made these things so difficult. His brother also had a tendency to being right more often than not, unlike Zenyatta though, Genji hated it when his brother was right.

[artyuletide]

To: @blanketholes

From: @bleulily

Fandom: Black Swan

Notes: Happy Yuletide!

[artyuletide]

To: @jannadis From: @blanketholes Fandom: Bastion Notes:Smile anyway.  (The first handshake in a long time.)

[priestly]

My quite belated @hannigramholidayexchange gift art for my recipient, @blanketholes!

They asked for: Hannibal/Will, swiggity swag the nightmare stag, abuse, bamf!Will, mutual manipulations, and hallucinations so I came up with… something vaguely resembling that. (I hope!) I hope you like it and had a healthy and wonderful new year! (@blanketholes, if you’d like an HQ copy of the art, feel free to message me and I’ll be happy to provide!)

Direct link if the above can’t be full-viewed.

[artyuletide]

Recipient: @blanketholes

Gifter: @arealmellowwartoday​

Fandom: Black Lagoon

Notes: This contains explicit description of self-injury and mental illness, as well as graphic depictions of gore and nudity.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write this, I’m really proud of the way it turned out. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Sawyer

by Tristan Wright (arealmellowwartoday)

I hate the word “please” more than anything else. And yeah, I’m not exactly in a position to hate words, ‘cause beggars can’t be choosers, but good God. Every time.

I pulled up my goggles, my mask, tied back my hair and opened the door to the freezer. The pleading began immediately.

“Don’t hurt me! I can pay you whatever you want, I’ll pay you double what they’re paying you just please don’t hurt me!”

I pushed a side of beef out of my way, using only my fingertips, very careful not to get blood on my apron. In the back, a man hung naked, suspended from the ceiling by his wrists. He did not look out of place among the animal carcasses surrounding him. My only client of the day. Of course it couldn’t be a simple, cathartic little cleanup job. They wanted answers. Then, and only then, could I kill him. I had set up an hour and a half prior, but general procedure required that I give him some time alone, let him get scared of the boogeyman. Seems reasonable.

On his right were my tools. On his left was a full-length mirror. Directly in front of him was a cart holding the medical supplies, and of course, me. I have a routine I like for these sorts of jobs. It’s comforting to tick off the boxes in my mind.

Take your picture in the mirror. This will be your BEFORE image. Note the pristine smoothness of your scrubs.

Lower the client to where his/her toes barely hover above the floor. 

Begin interview.

I flicked the switch on my choker-mounted electrolarynx.

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”, I said, trying as hard as I could to make the terrifying monotone sound friendly.

“M-my name is Tony Franco? Listen, tell the boss I’m sorry, I’m not gonna make excuses and I’ll tell him-”

“PLEASE STOP TALKING.”

He shut up real quick. I would laugh if I could.

3a) Refer to request form regarding questions to ask and information to obtain.

The form requested names of the people he contacted.

“TELL ME THE NAMES OF THE PEOPLE YOU CONTACTED”

He told me names that meant nothing to me, which I wrote down in pencil, since ink tended to clog in cold temperatures. What a pal. I really was grateful.

I leaned in close, not bothering to turn on the larynx, and whispered in his ear, in my own voice.

“You’ve made this very easy for both of us. Thank you.”

“Y-y-you’re welcome. Can I g-go?”

I smiled at him warmly before the sting of blood in my throat hit. With calculated undulations of my neck and tongue, I rolled the blood upward, and spit it out into the floor.

He was exhausted, I could tell. His shoulders were already dislocated after two hours of hanging in the freezer.

I moved to the table and scanned its contents, eventually settling on a pair of pliers. I switched the Ultravoice on. “YOU ARE A COWARD.”

“What?”

“DO NOT. EVER. WASTE MY TIME AGAIN.”

In a single motion, I got a solid grip on one of his molars, and pulled with all my might. It came out cleanly, save for a string of flesh from his gums still attached to it, and the mountains of blood leaking out of his mouth. He screamed.

4) Try to have fun!

The next three days were dull. I got payed. Continued to interview Tony for the next couple of days. Finally got fed up with the electricity and started cutting off limbs. I didn’t know how to treat shock, though, so I cut him in half just above the waist while he was still conscious.

Routine is important to me. When you keep to yourself like I do, routine becomes something sacred. Instinctual. But I’m special, because for me routine is the only thing keeping me alive. I have to wear my scrubs when I’m cleaning, and I have to take a set of before and after photos, or I’ll die. I don’t know that for sure, of course, but I can feel it. I trust my instincts.

My instincts told me to try something new tonight.

I laid the key to my pickup on the kitchen table, making sure it was facing away from the window, and ran a bath. While the tub filled up, I had some free time, and I thought about doing it, but I decided to wait, and enjoy my functionality while it lasted. I went out onto the balcony and lit a cigarette, because who gives a damn, I already need my Ultravoice. I took a draw and let out a ragged breath. The smoke lost its shape and disappeared into the night before I could find something poetic about it. I had only taken a couple millimeters off the cigarette, but I tossed it anyway, grinning mildly at the thought of it landing on a cat, or in a car with an open sunroof. I undressed, turned off the bathwater, and pulled the drain plug out by the beaded chain. The water swirled down the drain and before long it was gone. I replaced the drain plug and turned on the warm water. I hung up my clothes, thinking about the burning cat. My apartment was absolutely frigid. I wanted to put some clothes on, but I’d die if I did that, so I went back to the bathroom to drain the tub. I made faces at myself in the mirror while I waited for it to fill back up. Slipping into the water, my muscles tightened briefly, and then relaxed. I stayed in there for fifteen minutes, then climbed out and dried off. I couldn’t put it off any longer.

I’d been thinking about it for a while. I had a little tray of options set up in my room. Box cutters, pocket knives, razor blades, strands of wire, and a small ceramic bowl with ideally shaped pieces of broken glass resting inside. Eventually I picked an old cut throat razor with a rattlesnake patterned handle that I’d found on one of my clients.

For the first cut, I got scared, and only tore up my skin. I held my breath for the second one and initially, I was disappointed. The razor left a clean line, barely distinguishable from my own skin. Then it turned darker, darker, darker until the blood reached the surface and clawed its way free from my veins. I let it run down the length of my arm. It was like a raindrop sliding down a window. I tried once more, deeper, and the my skin made an audible tearing sound as the razor cut through it. All of a sudden, the pain hit. It burned, stung, ached, all of it. Every kind of pain gathered on my wrist at once. It felt like acid, or scalding water eating away at my flesh. I trembled. My stomach turned. I looked down and I had done it again. I watched, spectated, really, as the razor ran across my arm again and again and again.

I woke up a few hours later. When I say “woke up”, I mean that I became aware of my own existence. After I finally stopped, I just checked out for a while. I became part of the furniture, aware of time passing and of my thoughts, but not my body. My thoughts moved slowly, too slowly to be comprehensible, and I just sat there, until I woke up. Feeling like I was in a dream, I walked into the bathroom and pulled the first-aid kit out of the medicine cabinet. Feeling numb, I dressed my wounds. Something in the center of my body was turning to ice. I curled up underneath the covers and drifted off to sleep. That night I dreamed that a hive of bees, or a snake, had found its way into my bloodstream. It thrashed and flailed (maybe it was some kind of rodent?) against my skin, warping it, pulling at it. I tied myself down to a table and cut my wrist with a chainsaw. Bugs crawled out of the gash I had made, thousands of them. Ants, aphids, crickets, locusts, june bugs, cockroaches. Thousands. I woke up and took a bath in scalding water. Then I took another. Then I took another.

Animals operate solely on instinct.

Eat

Sleep

Kill

Fuck

Die

A simple sequence of commands. If they aren’t followed to the letter, the animal dies. A simple routine. Mine is infinitely more complex. It speaks to the marvel of evolution that is the human mind.

So why do I feel like my humanity is slipping away with every box I check?

My apron was slick with blood. Not a speck of blue fabric shone through in my AFTER photo. The woman tied to the chair somehow found the strength to yell at me.

“Did you hear me?!”

God, what a bitch. I looked at my options.

Pliers. Maybe the fingernails.

Hacksaw. Maybe the fingers.

“I said you’re inhuman! You’re a fucking animal!”, she said, making my decision much easier. I picked up the chainsaw and pulled the cord. It thundered to life in my hands. I heard her hold her breath. It’s been months. Pink scars crisscrossed my wrists like a spiderweb. Nothing has changed.

I used a box cutter this time. Cutting has stopped working. The pain never goes away. I get sick when I look at my scars, but it doesn’t matter, because if I don’t cut, I’ll die. It sounds more attractive every day, I think, pulling the drain plug and watching the crimson bathwater slip down into the tub’s gaping maw.

[artyuletide]

Recipient: @valveillen Gifter: @blanketholes Fandoms: The Evil Within / Psychobreak, & X-men First Class Finnish Police AU Notes: Wherein Erik lifts Shade While Doppelganger sneaks up on them. Hit full View to see movie poster at the back.