#broken spine

[ghosts-of-eden]

hang in there bro pls

[whump-tr0pes]

Lux in Tenebris - Tribulatio - Chapter 20

Wiping The Other's Tears Away for @badthingshappenbingo

Thank you so much to @twigsofmanyfaces for letting me borrow your boy Trouble and shake him like a cocktail shaker. If y'all haven’t read their work yet, you should do that immediately!!

The bar Trouble frequents sees all types: humans, non-humans, and a certain subset of both that Trouble just loves getting his teeth into. Tonight is no different. Three of the usual assholes can’t seem to take their eyes off him. Trouble is happy enough to go along with their schemes for long enough to get his meal - until he realizes he isn’t the only one in the angels’ basement.

This takes place during an alternate version of Dee’s first captivity.

Lux in Tenebris Masterlist here

AO3

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

Contents: stashing a dead body, broken spine, mild gore, kissing, past noncon, self-loathing, past murder, past demonic possession, past drugging, past kidnapping, guilt

~

The demon slept like a rock, and that was probably for the best. It meant he slept through Trouble sliding out of bed in the middle of the night and sneaking out of the room. He slept through Trouble wandering down to the giant superstore down the street and purchasing the biggest suitcase they carried. He slept through Trouble bringing the suitcase back to the room and rolling it to the closet where the asshole fratboy still lay in a heap. He slept through Trouble stuffing the dead asshole into the suitcase - and the sound of the asshole’s back snapping in two, when he wouldn’t fit the first time. 

Trouble took the suitcase back out of the room while the demon slept, and rolled the damn thing right out of the hotel lobby and out onto the near-empty street. He rolled it all the way to the angels’ place and dumped the asshole on the floor, right next to Brent. He set the suitcase by the door and walked back to the hotel. 

No use leaving the asshole in the suitcase and letting him rot there. They might need the suitcase again. 

So when Dee stirred and opened his eyes to the faint light poking around the edges of the blackout curtains, Trouble had been back in bed and sleeping for hours. Trouble smiled and kissed Dee’s hair. 

“Mornin’, you,” he said sleepily. 

“Mmm.” Dee flopped onto Trouble’s chest and nuzzled into his neck. “Morning.” 

“You sleep okay?” Trouble’s fingers slipped under Dee’s shirt, and he gently scratched his back with blunted nails.

“Mmm. Really good.” Dee’s breath warmed Trouble’s neck. His lips crept higher, brushing Trouble’s jaw, finding the corner of his mouth. 

Trouble inhaled into the kiss, hand drifting up to cradle Dee’s face. “You… you don’t have to, Dee… I mean…”

You were assaulted last night. Almost raped. You thought I was going to sell you to the man who was going to do it. You don’t owe me anything.

“You don’t have to,” he said again, lamely.

“I want to,” Dee said, pushing himself up until he was straddling Trouble’s hips. 

Trouble groaned. “Dee…” His hands settled on Dee’s hips. “Wait…”

Dee froze. When Trouble opened his eyes, Dee was staring at him, eyes wide, pupils round with fear. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Dee whispered. He began to tremble. He slumped off of Trouble.

“Hey, no,” Trouble said. “It’s not… It’s not you, Dee. You’re not… the bad one. Okay? I just… I want to explain. So that you… know.”

“Know what?” Dee hadn’t stopped shaking. He hugged himself tightly. 

Trouble whined softly. He knew he had to tell Dee, but everything had been so nice up until now. That had to end sooner or later. May as well be sooner, so he didn’t keep deluding himself that this could be… something. 

That they could be something.

He reached out and gently took Dee’s hand. “You watched what I did to Jude… right?” he said. 

Dee’s eyes went a little wider. “When he–” He motioned, briefly, to his mouth.

Trouble flinched. Of course, that’s what Dee would remember, instead of the part where Trouble had become a monster after. He swallowed hard. “Well, I was… feeding on him. After I took you upstairs, I fed on Lucas, too. I fed on them both. It’s how I… eat.”

“You… ate them?” Dee breathed. 

“No. I eat their… energy, I guess,” Trouble said. “Their pain. Or their, um. Orgasms. I like those, too. It’s how I’ve lived… pretty much since I was a teenager. I… I just feed on people. That’s how the angels found me. I was finding more people to feed on. I’m… a fucking parasite, Dee.”

The demon flinched back, releasing Trouble’s hand. “But you… you feed on people who want to hurt you. You killed the angels. You took the man who kept trying to kiss you at the bar. You killed the man… the man who…” His voice began to tremble. His eyes flicked to the doorway, where the man who had tried to rape Dee had stood yesterday. “You killed them. I don’t think that’s bad, Trouble.” 

Blood flooded Trouble’s cheeks. He squeezed his eyes shut as he said, “I haven’t always killed… bad people, Dee. There have been good ones in there.”

The silence stretched out for an uncomfortable amount of time. Dee drew in a deep breath and said, “the body I took… she was good. She was a good person. Funny. She liked wearing dresses, and this… specific color purple. I don’t think she lived here; I think she was visiting. She liked smoothies and this one actor - she had a lot of pictures of him in her phone. 

“When I took her body… she was frightened. I kept telling her I was only borrowing it and I’d be gone in a few days. She let me take us to a park and to a… a big fountain. I put our hand in the water and it felt so good. It was summer, I remember that. I took us to a bar because I heard music inside. I liked the music. We danced, and I liked that, too. And then someone asked if he could buy us a drink.”

Trouble opened his eyes. A tear rolled down Dee’s cheek. 

“Lucas,” Dee rasped. “That was Lucas. He bought us a drink. She told me not to take it, but I drank it anyway. I liked how it tasted. She said it didn’t taste right. I finished it.” He whimpered softly. “I started to feel strange, and tried to leave. Lucas followed me out, and she started to scream at me to run. I didn’t - I couldn’t. I was too dizzy. When he reached out, and burned me…” Dee’s chest hitched. “She never stopped screaming, after that. She screamed when they cuffed us. She screamed when they put us in the trunk. She screamed when they whipped us, beat us… and then they drowned us, and she… she stopped.” 

“Dee,” Trouble whispered. “I’m so–”

“I just mean that… I’ve killed someone, too,” Dee said. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Someone good. Someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Trouble shook his head. “That’s not the same–”

“It is to me.”

Trouble moved in close and brushed the tears from Dee’s eyes. He wrapped his arms around Dee and held him tight. 

After a long moment, Dee spoke again, his voice muffled against Trouble’s chest. “Do you want to feed… on me?”

“No,” Trouble snarled in horror and disgust, his body going rigid.

Dee recoiled. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t… does that mean you don’t… want… me?”

Trouble’s stomach dropped. The demon looked so small, huddled on the bed. He swallowed hard. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything,” he said, finally. “But… yeah, Dee. I do want you.”

Dee nodded meekly. “Could I… Am I… allowed to kiss you?” he said. 

Trouble lurched forward and caught Dee’s mouth in a kiss. “Forget this ‘allowed’ bullshit,” he said against Dee’s lips. The demon whimpered against his mouth. “We can do whatever the fuck we want, Dee.” He kissed his way across Dee’s cheek, down his neck, his teeth nipping Dee’s collarbone. “So tell me what you want, honey, okay? Is this okay?” 

Dee inhaled sharply. “Trouble… yes, it’s… could I have… more?” 

Trouble grinned as the spicy scents of Dee’s happiness floated in the air. “Yeah, Dee,” he murmured. “We can do more.” 

Continued here

@womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @whatwhumpcomments, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck,  @whumps-the-word, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood,  @inky-whump,  @orchidscript, @inkyinsanity, @this-mightaswell-happen, @newandfiguringitout, @whumpkitty, @pebbledriscoll, @im-just-here-for-the-whump, @endless-whump, @grizzlie70, @oops-its-whump, @kixngiggles, @1phoenixfeather, @butwhatifyouwrite, @carnagecardinal, @laves-here, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @wolfeyedwitch, @batfacedliar, @also-finder-of-rings, @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump, @extrabitterbrain, @i-eat-worlds, @alexmundaythrufriday, @theloveofwhump

[nofatclips]

In my Head it is Kind of an Escape by Aidan Baker & Karen Willems from the album Nonland

[thewhumperinwhite]

WKW: The Healer's Shame

Story Masterpost Here // Continued directly from here

@whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi also please dm me if you wanna be on the taglist, since i take so long between updates idk who's still active

TW for: broken bones (incl. ribs and spine) (and its gross); punctured lung and difficulty breathing; guilt and self-hatred; past parental abuse; implied/mentioned alcoholism; pretty sure Thorne is having a full panic attack at the end there also.

----

Feira has been the Healer at Colomur Castle for nearly 30 winters now, not including the two years she spent under the apprenticeship of her predecessor, back when she had lived through barely twenty winters and still considered the position one of great honor. She was here when Audoine became the Lion, after his third or fourth great victory on the battlefield; she mixed the ointment the old man rubbed into his battle-scars until the very week of his death. She put the old man’s shoulder back in its place when the third boar he insisted on tilting with nearly tore it from its socket; she kept the old man’s limp at bay for nearly ten years before she finally told him to swallow his pride and walk with a cane. And, of course, she delivered the old man’s children, both; placed two healthy babes into the Queen’s arms and sent a servant each time to congratulate the King on the birth of a son.

And when they brought one of those sons to her, brave and beautiful and barely fifteen, after his father had rent the flesh of his back to the bone, after the Lady had tangled her aura up with his and moved his body and spoken with his mouth, after he was no longer dead but lay on her table as still as a corpse and nearly as cold from all the blood he had spilled on the dirt of the castle courtyard, Feira—stayed. She did not hand in her Patronage and look for other work. She let the guards bring in the body of the babe she had delivered, and she bound it back together with cloth and tree sap and the scant bit of magic her predecessor’s Patron allowed her. In the same mortar where she mixed soothing ointments for an old warlord’s aches and pains, she mixed new ones that might allow his son to lift his arms without tearing his slowly-scarring back wide open again, someday. And when he could walk again, she let him—let him walk back into the halls of the man who had killed him; let him eat across the table from his murderer; let him kneel at his killer’s feet and swear fealty again as the Lady’s bearer.

There was a time—this was after Audoine broke the prince’s wrist when he was ten but before he knocked out half the prince’s hearing with a thrown stone paperweight—when Feira successfully convinced herself that she was—mitigating harm. That there might still be kindness in remaining; that she might hold the princes together better than whoever they would get to replace her if she left. She may even—this is embarrassing to think of, now—have believed for a few years that perhaps if she healed a cracked rib or a bruised collarbone well enough, the Lion of Colomur might not break it a second time.

Feira is too old to believe any of that now, of course. She knows herself too well. She knows that she possesses just the wrong amount of kindness, and of bravery, and of honor. Too much to ignore the princes’ bruises; too little to stand before the King and demand that he no longer beat his sons; too little to storm out of her cushy little salon and declare that if all the rest of the staff wish to turn a blind eye they may find another Healer. Just enough to sit here, to watch the Summer Prince grow, survive his father, stand straighter and prouder and braver every summer, and end all her days in town drinking enough bad whiskey to fall asleep without worrying about what the Lion will do when he realizes that his son is outshining him.

As Fourshield House is falling, Feira holes herself up in her salon, glad she keeps an extra whiskey bottle under her desk. Perhaps, she thinks, the Lion will be victorious; certainly no one has succeeded in killing him thus far, and many better men have tried. If the White Crane triumphs, she thinks, he may well wish to employ a Healer. The devil Feira knows is bad enough; there is only so much worse the devil she has not yet met can be.

When they bring Prince Andry back to her, his lungs are filling up with blood, and he is dying.

----

When Thorne stumbles through the door of the Healer’s room, for the second time in as many days, the old woman is sitting at her desk, and snaps her head up to glare at him, looking tired and immediately disgusted.

Then she sees the stretcher he and Heron are carrying, and she leaps to her feet.

“What have you done?” she wails, in her own language; in Andry’s. She is not angry, this time. Her immediate, horrified grief is even worse.

“Well go on, put him down already,” Crow snaps from behind him, unnecessarily. Thorne is shuffling the stretcher through the doorway as fast as he can, nearly dragging Heron, who is watching the tortured arch of Andry’s back with too much interest to carry his weight. Crow steps into the Healer’s room after them and closes the door, primly.

Andry is still breathing. The sound is worse, now; there is a bubble at the end of every breath that is making Thorne taste vomit in the back of his throat. But Andry isn’t dead.

(“Thank you,” was what Andry said to him. After Thorne had left him alone with three guards, because he was too much of a child to think that might be a bad idea; but before he immediately left him alone again. Thorne—thought he had locked the door to his rooms, before he left Andry asleep in there. Like he was learning to think, and not to be so bloody stupid all the time. “Thank you,” Andry said, before Thorne left him alone again.)

(But he isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.)

“You’re a Magician, too, aren’t you?” Crow says to the Healer, as calm and arch as ever, as if he wasn’t speaking over the sound of Andry dragging air through his bruised and swollen throat and into his flooding and bubbly lungs. “Orders from the White Crane are to save him, if you can.”

They have set the stretcher on the Healer’s table. The Healer has been looking at Andry, her face white behind her thick spectacles; she snaps around to look at Crow, now, and for a second there is hatred in her face like Thorne has never seen; not on Raven, or the Lion, or on all the children who threw stones at him when he was small; like if she could tear Crow’s heart out with her hands she would do it. Then she sets her face—Thorne thinks she might literally bite her tongue, hard—and turns back to the table where Andry is dying.

“His back is broken,” Heron tells her cheerfully, “look here.” And he puts his hand on Andry’s hip, and pushes down. Andry’s hip rolls easily, with no resistance at all; something grinds audibly with a stomach-churning crunch.

The Healer drops the bandages she has been reaching for and slaps Heron so hard that he stumbles backward, his mask sliding back over his hair to reveal his wrinkled, plain, utterly gobsmacked face.

Crow laughs once, too loud. There is a long moment of silence; Thorne’s heart has dropped into his stomach, and Heron and the Healer are staring at each other in what seems to be mutual surprise and alarm.

Andry’s next breath turns into a violent gagging cough at the end, and that snaps the Healer out of it.

“Get them the fuck out of here, Dog,” she snarls at Thorne, in Craetan. Thorne’s heart stutters in his chest; the idea of even trying to tell Crow and Heron to do anything—

The Healer bends over Andry to put her ear against his breathbone; he makes a horrible sound, an awful choking wail.

Thorne has grabbed the back of Heron’s cloak before he even realizes he is moving. “We’ve got to go,” he says, and Heron is still startled enough to let himself be bundled out of the room. Crow follows, and he is laughing again.

When they are in the hallway, and the door has closed on the sound of Andry’s terrible gasping breaths, Thorne feels for a moment as though the floor is slipping away from under his feet, his knees weak with relief and horror. Crow and Heron are both looking at him curiously, and that is enough of an emergency for Thorne to blink his vision halfway clear again. He tells them a lie he won’t remember later, about where they are needed now instead of here. Heron’s face is unreadable behind his readjusted mask; Crow’s is visible and full of doubt, but they do leave him. Thank all gods.

When he has sunk to the floor beside the door to the Healer’s room, and is sitting there in silence with his hands over his face, the hallway is silent enough that Thorne can just barely hear the sounds from inside—Andry’s harsh breathing, sometimes punctuated by a thin whine or a sobbing cry or, once, a throat-scraping shriek that makes Thorne tremble down to his toes; and, under that, the Healer’s voice, repeating something over and over. It’s too low for Thorne to be sure, but he thinks it might be: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

[ask-lifty-shifty]

RIP swap Lifty’s spine

Hopefully, he doesn’t press charges.

[cerberus-albian]

Cui Cui today Monday August 16/2021

She feels a little bit better and is improving, tomorrow she will have her fisrt week at the veterinary. (she cries just with someone is with her, she wants to come back to her home).

But I have to leave with the veterinarians another week more. She still in danger :( but is stable at least. Feels less pain and she moves a little bit more.

If you know how expensive is to have dogs inside of the clinic you can help with small commission 40usd.

Or if you want to donate a little bit, I will thank you so much ♥️ 🥺

Paypal [email protected]

Buy Loba Maior a Coffee. ko-fi.com/loba_maior

Help Cui cui, she suffered an accident and broke her spine :( the surgery is really expensive (she is already cared for by an veterinaria) b

All the process cost more that 1500usd and is really hard to cover all the cost by my own.

Thank you so much to everyone who already donate or ask for commisions 🥺♥️ I don't have words to thank you! You don't know how much you help me, in this horrible situation.

[studioswitchum]

Okay my ST1100 is back. Yeah there's different shades of red here and there ( Honda color code R158P is notorious to match), but she is all there, looking pretty. It was a long- expensive journey to fix her up. Cost more and longer to fix myself up, actually. Ride safe everyone. Ride like invisible.

[babylon-crashing]

rebound

Call it braille. These scars. This ferociously

opened flesh. You say that you know something

about holy texts, at least one, maybe,

that bad translation that you keep calling

Word. Yo. You've yet to touch this. If you can't

touch you can't read and my secrets won't be

handed down to you. The last who could chant

every line aloud is gone. Her dead sea

called. She answered. This is one text that knows

it won't be rebound, recovered. Some verse

and code and syllabary are better

lost. “Show me,” you said; but I keep my clothes

on. You can't read me, call these words a curse,

or trace my broken spine with one finger.