#febuwhumpalt7

[whumpinthepot]

The Devil You Know

@febuwhump 2026. Day 12. Alt prompt 7.

Decided to make a playlist for this prompt! Runtime is 52 minutes. I hope you enjoy.

Songs on the playlist:

Devils Price - Poor Man's Poison

Inside the Fire - Disturbed

Cold - Alfie Castley

To Hell and Back - Sabaton

Devil's Cup - Jax The Bard

Dance With The Devil - Breaking Benjamin

Devil in Disguise - Marino

Wrong Side of Heaven -Five Finger Death Punch

Me and the Devil - Soap&Skin

Devil in a Midnight Mass - Billy Talent

Devil Doesn't Bargain - Alec Benjamin

Nobody Praying For Me - Seether

Hell and You - Amigo the Devil

Weak And Powerless - A Perfect Circle

Sinners - Barns Courtney

Devil Like Me - Rainbow Kitten Surprise

[labtrauma]

⸻ BETWEEN TWO DEVILS .

FEBUWHUMP 2026 | @febuwhump ALT 7: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

Dr. Louviere—now known as Elodie—returns to Clare's cell after betraying her, and she brings along a cruel new companion.

CHARACTERS: Clare (whumpee), Dr. Elodie Louviere (whumper), Phoenix Moveth (whumper). SETTING: The Daystar Research Facility. MASTERLIST(S): Clare's masterlist (PREV + NEXT), Febuwhump 2026.

!! CONTENT WARNINGS !! Lady whumpee, lady whumper, multiple whumpers, defiant whumpee, shock collars, electrocution, manhandling (kicking + hair-pulling), restraints (handcuffs + magic restraints).

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I feel like everything I've written so far has been building up to this moment. Elodie (I can finally stop calling her by her stupid last name, christ alive) is too nice of a whumper for me sometimes. Phoenix is much more my style. I'll explain the purpose of her involvement later, I promise!

[ TAGS: @ghostingwings @screams-n-shackles @loonybun @doctorsawyer @stars-hide-our-fires @wlw-whump @galactic-worm @mxrr0rball -- go here if you'd like to be added to my tag list! ]

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Or so the saying goes, as far as Clare remembers it.

She's heard it all her life, from soldiers, captors, and survivors alike, yet she's never once been able to believe it. There is a strange mercy in faceless enemies and tactical cruelty; far worse is the slow, personal horror of betrayal, of realizing the knife is being held by someone you trusted.

In the sleepless night, Clare is lost to the pain in her neck, fingers clawing at the metal collar as she tries, again and again, to wrench it free. She knows now, with certainty, that this is worse; when she first woke up here, it had been easier to keep her captors abstract into faceless enemies she could survive out of spite alone. Now, all she can see is a face. Dr. Louviere's face. Every seemingly benign detail—the kind eyes, the solicitous smile—is burned into her consciousness, flashing behind her closed eyes, poisoning every thought she has. Fury and grief twist together in her chest, and all she can think is why? Why, why, why?

She doesn't even know where to start with her tangled mess of feelings. What she does know, however, is that she needs to get this fucking collar off.

She's tried everything. Grabbing, clawing, twisting, pulling, even hitting it in blind frustration. All she's accomplished is hurting herself; her neck is raw and burning, maybe even bloody. The earlier shock started it, sure, but she's made it worse herself. Every movement drags the prongs against old scars, sending fresh pain down her spine.

Prongs. It has fucking prongs! How could she have been dumb enough to believe it was anything but a shock collar? A health monitor, Louviere had said. What a fucking joke.

After several long, agonizing minutes of forcing her nails beneath the collar and into her own neck, she finally lets go with a gasping breath, folding forward onto the floor where she's kneeling. When did she start kneeling? After Louviere left her alone, she never really got back up. She knows her prosthetic works fine now—she's been kicking it viciously against the floor the entire time—but everything else has dissolved into a blur of hours spent sitting here, hurting, thinking of nothing else.

But she has to get up, she decides through the buzzing in her head. She has to find something else to attack the collar with.

Pain and fury have her wound so tight it feels like she might snap. She knows a break would help, but she refuses to take one. How could she rest, trapped like this? No, she needs to burn this energy off somehow. Gritting her teeth, she braces herself against the wall and drags her legs under her, forcing herself back to her feet in a clumsy, unsteady scramble.

Once she's upright, she searches her cell with desperate eyes, as if something new might appear if she looks hard enough. Alas, there's only what's always been there: the toilet, the sink, the bed—and, beside the bed, a stack of meal trays.

Her gaze lingers on them for a moment. The plastic is durable, but if broken, a shard might be thin enough to wedge into the collar's seams, to jimmy a latch. Is it a plausible plan? Fuck no. But she'll try just about anything at this point.

She starts toward the trays, but only makes it a few steps before a sound to her left pulls her up short. It's faint, barely there, and she almost dismisses it as another noise her isolated brain has invented to fill the silence, except it's too vivid.

A soft beep. A distinct click. The slow groan of metal hinges. She knows, instantly, that the door is opening.

Adrenaline surges through her as she spins to face the doorway. She expects to see Dr. Louviere, but instead—

"Down, girly."

It's spoken like a command meant for a dog, coming from the mouth of a stranger. She's tall and toned, black hair ragged around a pierced face, eyes dark like chips of obsidian. Unlike the doctor who came before her, this woman's uniform isn't medical at all; straps crisscross over armored plating, weapons rest easy at her hips, part of her silhouette like natural extensions of bone and muscle. And in her hand—small, almost delicate by comparison—is a familiar remote.

Clare's eyes must give her fear away, because the woman lets out a quiet, amused chuff. "You remember what this does, yeah?" She says, voice rough, unpolished, almost lazy. "Heard you don't handle the shocks so great."

She angles the remote forward; a wordless threat. "So unless you're feelin' brave in a real dumb way, you're gonna get on the ground for me. Now."

In any other situation, Clare would've ended this already. A flick of magic and this bitch would be on her back, staring up at death without Clare having moved an inch. But with the nullifier clamping down on her magic like a hand around her throat, she's left grasping at empty space.

She knows she can't win like this, and yet she can't bring herself to kneel. She remains upright, eyes locked on the stranger, fingers twitching at her sides, mind racing.

The woman clocks it immediately. She lifts the remote in a clearer warning, and Clare's body betrays her with a small flinch. "I see them little gears turnin'. Don't."

Don't, her internal voice repeats, but it's swallowed by the rage coursing through her veins. A small step forward, and the woman mirrors her with a step back. Clare sizes her up. She's certainly strong, but shorter, and less bulky. All that gear looks intimidating, but it's dead weight in a close fight. Clare's been throwing elbows in back alleys since she was a kid. Magic came later, a skill she took time to hone, but her fists? Those are still plenty deadly, nullifier be damned.

The thought barely has time to crystallize before her body cuts loose. In an instant, she's flying forward, lunging at the stranger like a rabid dog—

But before their bodies connect, agony detonates at her throat, and she's back on the ground.

Even as she screams and writhes in pain, she knows exactly what just happened. Her hands clutch the collar, feeling the spikes of voltage fizz under her fingers, shivering through her body, leaving her raw, bruised, broken, pissed off and helpless all at once.

As her senses come back, she hears the stranger laughing above her.

"Wow, you're dumb!" A swift kick to Clare's side drives the point home, pain lancing through her and making her gasp. "Bold, sure, but dumb."

She's a mess on the floor, gasping and choking on nothing, mouth tasting of copper. Her eyes won't stop watering. Her body won't move. But her voice, ruined as it is, still manages to find the words she needs: "Fuck… you…"

Another burst of laughter. "HAH! Wow. You weren't kidding, Elodie. She's got fight."

The pain eases just enough for Clare to catch the name. Elodie. Someone else is here.

"W—" A wet, ragged cough. "Who—?"

A hand twists into her scalp, grabbing a fistful of hair and hauling her upright. A strangled sound rips from her throat as her spine arches painfully, her vision swimming.

"Clare, was it?" The stranger's voice is right beside her ear now. "I've brought your little friend along. Dr. Louviere? You two know each other?"

Shoes enter Clare's field of vision. She drags her gaze upward, past the hem of a white coat, past familiar hands, to that soft, practiced face. Anger eclipses all other sensation, all other emotion. "You…"

"Just call her Elodie from now on. And you can call me—" She lets go of Clare's hair, letting her body crash to the ground. "—Phoenix."

Elodie and Phoenix. What kind of edgelord bullshit names are those? She's committing them to memory anyway, so she knows exactly who to come for when she gets out of here. Clare tries to push herself up on her one working arm, but it's grabbed instantly, along with her useless prosthetic, and twisted behind her back.

"AH- HEY!" she yells.

A sharp click. Cold bite into her wrists. Handcuffs.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Clare yells, despite herself. "L— Elodie! Talk to me! What the fuck is going on?! Why are you doing this?!"

"I-" She hears the beginnings of Elodie's soft voice, but Phoenix cuts her off.

"Don't even. We don't need to answer shit."

"Well, I want to," Elodie retorts, and Clare instantly registers how cold her voice sounds when she isn't acting. It makes her feel sick.

With a disgruntled sigh, Phoenix steps over Clare again, pulling her head up. Elodie kneels in front of her. That look on her face—so empty, stripped of the warmth she'd shown just days ago—makes Clare's anger flare hotter.

"There are a few reasons," Elodie begins. "None of them are going to sit well with you. But… simply put, I needed you to trust me. You wouldn't have let me get close otherwise. I had to know exactly what I was dealing with before… acting." She pauses, perhaps expecting a retort from Clare, but when none comes, she continues. "And you were going to be tortured regardless. At least I took the time to get to know you first. That has to count for something, yes?"

Clare just stares, beyond disbelief. In all her years, she has never heard a defense of violence this absurd.

"No, you fucking dumbass," she spits. "What part of getting to know someone makes it hurt any less when they're hurting you? Would you rather be, fucking, I dunno, beaten by someone pretending to be kind, or by a total asshole stranger?"

Elodie's expression dims. A tiny, petulant downturn of her mouth. She rises, brushes off her coat, and her voice goes cool. "If that's how you see it, then you'll likely prefer Phoenix's approach."

"Damn straight." Hands clamp onto Clare's shoulders, dragging Clare onto her knees as if she weighed nothing. It takes her a moment to register the impossibility of that action; there's no way Phoenix could have lifted her entire body just like that. What the hell was happening?

Only as she's pulled to her feet, without anyone even touching her, does she notice the wispy, shadowy shapes darting in and out of her vision, slithering over her skin.

"Are you kidding me?!" The words explode out of her. "You get to keep your magic?!"

Phoenix laughs again. Clare already feels herself getting sick of it. "Of course I do! I work here!"

Clare shakes her head. "If this is an anomalous containment whatever-the-shit facility, then you should be locked up, too!"

Phoenix pauses, stunned, eyes wide, mouth agape. She glances between Clare and Elodie, then turns to Elodie and bursts into laughter. "Oh my god! That's what you told her? You clever little devil!"

Elodie ducks her head, almost bashful. "It was off the cuff, but I thought it was fairly plausible."

The laughter continues, easy and warm, like they're sharing a drink. Like Clare isn't even in the room. Her blood goes very cold.

"Then… what's the truth? What is this place?"

Neither of them acknowledge her. Her heart starts hammering.

The laughter fades to silence, and Phoenix turns back to Clare, still catching her breath. "Anyway. Lets get you outta here, princess."

Clare tenses. "No, I'm not going—AH!"

The magic coiling around her jerks her forward, shoving her toward the door. Phoenix laughs again, cruel and teasing. "Oh, yes you are!" she mocks. "Move it! Elodie, you too."

Elodie jogs up in front of her, close enough for a punch if Clare's arms weren't suddenly fixed at her sides. She squirms, trying to break free, but knows, with sickening certainty, that it's useless. With the press of a keycard, the door sighs open, and Clare's body is marched through it without her consent.

The anger that had kept her alive slowly burns out, leaving a cold, hollow pit in her chest. She is helpless. The truth of it settles into her bones. She cannot break these bonds, cannot outrun her captors, cannot even imagine what they plan for her. She cycles obsessively through her limited options, each one spiraling back to the same suffocating dread.

The hallway stretches before her, black and endless. She feels so, so small inside it.

[pigeonwhumps]

Friend, lost

Bug and Company masterlist

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @whumpinggrounds @den-of-whump @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump @febuwhump

Febuwhump alt 7: last words

Sarita has a nightmare.

713 words

CWs: BBU, pet whump, death, grief, manslaughter, nightmare, emeto, implied food deprivation

"No. Please no. Don't die, please don't die."

Her friend coughs, wracking her body, hacking up blood.

"We knew it'd happen," she whispers. "Once they start to use you as bait and employee training you don't last long."

"But you– you can't leave me, please. I can't lose you, Six."

"Sarita."

"What?"

She coughs violently. "It's my name. Sarita. It's all I remember. Can we talk about something better?"

"Okay. Okay. What would you like to..."

"Tell me your ideal holiday?"

They've done this oh so many times. All either of them have are dreams, things they've heard handlers mention. But anything is better than here.

"A beach. A very sunny beach, and it's warm, and we can hear seagulls. We're eating ice creams, but I don't know what flavour because I don't know what flavours exist. We have large floppy hats on. You have ice cream on your nose, and we're laughing and happy and... and..."

She trails off. Her friend's body is still, her eyes blank and staring.

She bends over and kisses Sarita's bloody forehead. "No. I can't go on those holidays without you. Please come back. Please, come on, I can't do this without you."

There's no answer. Of course there isn't. She tightens her grip on Sarita's body, buries her face in her still-warm chest, and screams.

It takes five handlers to prise her away.

_

Sarita wakes up, heart pounding, tears streaming down her cheeks. It takes her a minute to realise she's not there, she's at Alix's, that was a long time ago. It feels like she was just there.

She can't hear anyone else so she doesn't think she actually screamed. But she can't stay here. The bed's sweaty and she can feel the cold light of their room, her friend's body, the blood on her hands.

She throws the covers off and lurches out of bed, just making it to the toilet before throwing up.

Not again. Not again. She can't keep doing this.

She stumbles into the front room, vision blurred with tears. There's a nice, soft couch there and she can just see through the light of the sodium-yellow streetlamp and she curls up in the corner, grabbing a pen and paper on the way.

She thinks vaguely that it's a nice coloured biro.

Then she starts to draw. Not the blood-covered face, not the one that was still and blank and staring. It's the good one. The one from when they were first put in a room together, and her friend offered half her meagre portion of food and a small smile that had tugged at the corner of her mouth as the only attempt at comforting the new trainee available to her.

One sharing of food too many was the final infraction that made her disposable. Sarita still doesn't understand why that was an infraction, or why rooms were shared in that training facility when nowhere else seems to do it.

Sarita uses half the pad before she's happy with the sketch. And then she moves onto one of her friend's dreams, the two of them in the forest together, eating a picnic and enjoying a waterfall.

It's not fair. It's not right. She shouldn't be dead, she should be alive and here and smiling shyly and able to go on all their dreamed-up holidays.

Sarita notices movement out of the corner of her eye as Oscar places a mug of chamomile tea down in front of her and sits far enough way that it doesn't feel like an intrusion, sipping at faer coffee. She should've noticed fae earlier.

"I'll change your bed," fae murmurs after a while. How many nightmares has fae heard that fae knows to do that? How many of hers?

How many of faer own?

She nods tearfully, not trusting herself to speak. Oscar is... fae's not in charge as much as Alix and Jane, she doesn't think. But she likes fae all the more for it.

She doesn't move for hours, until the sun starts filtering through the gap in the blinds and she realises she needs to move before anyone else appears. So she heads back to her bedroom, curls up under the pile of blankets with an electric candle lantern, and carries on drawing.

[luciousx310]

Sorry it's shitty again. I went for alt prompt body horror, but really I couldn't find the heart in me to draw. Nothing really looked right, and now I'm losing sleep to my art that I desperately need.

I guess it's more of the idea behind it, rather than the drawing itself.

So Luck loves playing games, and is pretty reckless. He's playing a game with John on who can get out of the maze the fastest, and there's a dire troll in the way. Tobi has swayed it to reshape itself into a comical ball of limbs. When the door to the dire troll's den opens, Luck tries rushing forward, for John's echo to try grappling him. A fighter vs a negative strength dealer should be set in stone (especially since once Luck's scuffed, he can't contest anymore), but with good rolls and swaying fate, Luck was able to get out of the echo's grip. John used the homebrew sprint that I forgot about to get minorly ahead of Luck, when the dire troll's turn came. Luck ended up taking all five attacks, and they dealt exactly 88 damage. Luck had 44 max hp.

Imagine trying to beat your skrunkly cat friend in a race, and he gets torn to shreads besides you.

Imagine watching your friend/brother race off again, playing another game, and he gets eviscerated before your very eyes.

[starwalker42]

febuwhump day 3: immortality

episode: deadalive | tw: canonical major character death | teen and above

As she stands over his grave, watching the dirt fall from her fingers, all she can think is that he must be out there, somewhere, waiting patiently for her. That seems like something Mulder would do.

It should be a comfort, but the thought paralyzes her, because that would mean he’s  somewhere far from her, waiting, not knowing. He doesn’t know that he could wait forever, and it might not be enough. Speaking the words always made it seem more real, somehow, so she’d never told him, never shared the fear that has kept her awake since they found his body in that field, battered and broken.

What if I can never join you?

She cradles the barely-there swell of her belly in one hand and tries not to think about how, one day, she will have to bury her child – their child - and their child’s children, and their children after that, never growing old herself but stuck forever in this moment, burying part of Mulder for the rest of time.

Mulder didn’t believe in heaven, but he believed in souls finding homes in starlight. The night of his burial, she searches for him, a new pinprick of light against the velvet of the sky. Just seeing him, she thinks, would help. It would give her something to wait for, too.

Starlight won’t die.

Maybe she won’t either.

@today-in-fic

[noirineverysense]

Part 6 - My Arthur

Previous -> Masterlist -> Next

Isaac yelled out when Nasira, if that even was her name, had been taken away for more questioning. She wasn’t in a state to answer questions. Her head hung low as she whimpered and cried, nothing like the strong, angry threat she was when she came in.

That left him and Arthur in the room with her, this maniac who decided to take up that other man’s place. Who decided it was now her job to torture Max.

That poor kid. Isaac hoped that they could find him before it was too late. Max still hadn’t become an adult, after all these years of being experimented on, then escaping. Only to be brought back to the place of his nightmares.

It didn’t matter to them that he was a child. In fact, it probably excited those freaks more to be able to test on him.

Isaac seethed; it wasn’t just Max either. Arthur had walked straight back into the hands of those he feared most for his son. And now they were getting ready to experiment on him again too.

He lets out an audible growl that Arthur turns too. His eyes widen at the fear in Arthur’s eyes. Obviously, he hadn’t been paying attention to what the mad scientist had been saying.

He gets the gist of it when guards come over and put a blindfold over his shaking head. He fights the hands that unchain then manhandle him into the centre of the room.

He gets forced to his knees; he has no idea who he’s turned to, but he yells all the same.

“You keep trying to break him, but it won’t work – ”

He’s cut off by a punch to his abdomen, he bowls over and coughs.

“Isaac, please! Don’t make it worse!” he hears the tears in Arthur’s voice.

“Hey, Arthur, it’s okay – ” his head snaps to the side after a punch across his face.

“You can stop this, Arthur Reyes.” The low but feminine voice of the scientist starts. “Don’t you feel obliged to. Seeing as this is all your fault.”

“No- ” Isaac gets a punch to his jaw, knocking him off balance.

“Leave him alone!” Arthur screams.

“Don’t you wish you hadn’t bothered him with your problems. Hadn’t started that silly agency with him. Hadn’t ever met? Then he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t be hurt, he would be safer without you. Don’t you agree?”

Before Isaac can interrupt her, a guard pulls him up by his hair before slamming the butt of a gun into his temple. He groans, disorientated by the hit and the blindfold.

“No!” Arthur yells out, “I’m the one you want! This is my fault, leave him alone!”

He gets a laugh in response, “Of course it is your fault. You should have kept him away. You should have known, this team you put together would be nothing more than pieces for us to use to break you, once we got our hands on you again.

“No...”

“Did you honestly think you wouldn’t be back here? Did you actually think that there was something left of Arthur Reyes? You are a subject and you always will be. All you did with all these years of “freedom” was collect some new subjects for us to toy with.”

“No!”

“So why don’t you tell me where the third mutant of your collection is? You already doomed them the moment you met. Just like your dear boyfriend.”

Arthur’s eyes widen and tears spill. “Isaac, I’m sorry. I’m sorry we- ”

“Arthur if you finish that fucking sentence, I’ll punch you in the face.”

Arthur stops, stunned by the rage in Isaac's voice. The man, despite his position, had his back straight as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“I mourned for you for three years. Every single day of that I wondered if it was worth living without you. You coming back into my life saved me. And we found our family and got together and you’re going to tell me you regret all of that?"

“Isaac I- ”

“Say it all wasn’t worth it. Go on.”

“I-It, it was worth it. I’m sorry, I love you. It was worth it.”

Isaac smiles before he turns to where he heard the scientist’s voice.

“’He bothered me with his problems?’ I did nothing for him for three years while you freaks had your hands on him. I’d take all his pain now if I could. You don’t know shit about him. My Arthur doesn’t break. And you don’t know shit about me either if you think I’d want to be anywhere else other than by his side.”

He laughs into the emptiness. “So go fucking ahead. Punch me. You ain’t getting shit from it.”

There’s another punch to his jaw, the blackness seemed different as he passed out.

[lonely-harts]

Febuwhump- Day Eleven: Blindfolded (alt 7 used)

Content warnings for this chapter: Sexism, subtle external and internalised queer/homophobia, ableism, drunkeness?

“I simply love playing blindman’s bluff on Halloween, how about you?” asked Jonty. Even though he left university last year, many of the students studying the arts still enjoyed inviting him to their parties, his smile and his jokes brought that extra something to them.

As the group hooted in agreement and excitement, a young guy slipped into the back of the room. He had short, well, short-ish, blond hair that flopped a little over his face. His face was sculpted but sculpted by a cherub, his cheeks round and rosy. The man moved through the crowd and laughed with another, taking a bottle of cider and watching on as another guy moved to the centre of the room to explain how they were going to play. The blond-haired man dressed as a man who didn’t know his own…

Noise rushed into Jonty’s ears as the first guy donned the blindfold and the few of the girls who had been snuck in shrieked as the man lumbered in their direction.

Jonty glared at the blond-haired guy, the game going on furthest from his mind and Jonty didn’t move away when the others around him did. 

“Got you,” declared the blindfolded man, gripping Jonty’s forearms. “Whoever you are!”

Jonty sighed comedically and rolled his eyes. This was his favourite game, but right now, he couldn’t care less. That blond-haired man was eating up his brain.

Some of the others chuckled, as the man rubbed his hand up over Jonty’s lips. “Well, you aren’t a girl, unless someone invited Paul’s sister without telling me!”

The room erupted with laughter, and Jonty smirked. Okay, that was a good one. His eyes were still fixed on the short blond guy though, his cheeks even ruddier now he had begun drinking. The flickering candles put up for Halloween seemed to make him glow.

Jonty laughed half-heartedly as the guy in front of him continued to make more jokes. Then, the blond guy looked up, their eyes meeting. Jonty winked, an unknown reflex. The guy flushed even deeper red, his ears beginning to redden.

“...So, you must be Jonty!” announced the blindfolded guy. Everyone clapped, letting him know he was right so he pulled off the blindfold and handed it to Jonty.

Jonty smiled as he was spun around, he always did have a good sense of direction and he knew who he was going to get, despite not knowing his name.

Jonty heard the crowd part and the girls shriek again as he drunkenly marched over to where the intriguing man had stood. Nothing, thin air. Jonty smiled, he had made no attempt to move the first game, he knows I’m after him. Jonty whipped around, sending everyone scattering again. This time, Jonty heard an unfamiliar voice giggle as they moved away, the guy?

Jonty honed in on the sound and moved towards it, catching at a jumper. He had been wearing a jumper, a pumpkin-orange one. The guy yelped and wriggled free but continued to squeal and giggle, it was cute. Jonty wanted to frown at that thought, but couldn’t, he was having too much fun.

“You make too much noise, are you sure you know how to play this?” Jonty whispered.

The guy laughed as if saying ‘Come here, maybe I want to lose.’

Jonty reached out with his long arms again and grabbed the guy firm by the shoulders. “I’ve got you!” Jonty declared, victoriously. Now for the charade of guessing, guessing a guy’s name I’ve never met before.

Jonty moved his hands up from the shoulders, cupping the man’s face, it was so warm and soft. Shaking his head, as if to shake the new, alien thoughts he was having away, Jonty continued to move his hands, now a little less tenderly, but still carefully exploring every inch.

“Patsy?” Jonty guessed, knowing it would get a laugh to distract from his own warming and reddening cheeks.

The girls somewhere behind him playfully went ‘Humpf!’, as the other men laughed. The man under Jonty’s hands stifled a giggle.

“Hmm, he certainly uses his mother’s face creams then!” 

Everyone laughed again.

Jonty reeled off some names, just for show, before admitting defeat. “I don’t know you, you can’t have been here last year.”

Someone in the room yelled “His name begins with C!” and everyone began discussing amongst themselves what it could be.

“Er… Charlie?”

The guy shook his head, “That’s my brother’s name.” His voice was gentle, like that of a lamb’s.

“Cornelius?”

The guy spluttered, trying not to laugh.

“Oi, that’s my middle name!” someone in the room shouted.

“Christopher?”

“Yeah!” yelled the guy from before and the man under Jonty’s hands nodded.

Jonty removed the blindfold, finally up close to this Christopher. “Pleased to meet you, Christopher,” said Jonty, smiling. Despite knowing it was bad to, a syrupy touch entered his voice. 

“Call me Chris,” he said, taking the blindfold from Jonty, his hand lingering a second longer than needed.

    “So you paint?” Jonty said, impressed.

The pair were in the corner by the buffet table, people occasionally stopping to talk to Jonty. But mostly, Chris and Jonty had been in deep discussion for the past hour. The party had begun to die down now, it was half-past midnight and people were slipping off back to their rooms or out into the streets of Oxford.

“Not often, I’m not an actual art-art student, I’m doing art history, I hope to be a restorer or a curator for a museum or gallery,” Chris explained. “Or summat.”

“I would like to think you’re going to be a bit more than a ‘summat’. You have the hands of an artist, and I think the eye too.”

Now Chris’s ears were truly red, his face couldn’t get any redder.

“C-Can I show you them?” he said nervously, fiddling with the watch on his wrist

“Sure, I can take a look,” said Jonty, trying not to sound too interested, aware of how his last statement sounded.

Chris stood up and lead the way, past tipsy and out-right drunk people clinging to the hall walls.

He climbed the stairs, turning to see if Jonty was still following. Jonty smiled and winked. This man just draws winks out of me somehow, thought Jonty, his own not-sober hands gliding excitedly up the bannister.

   Chris opened the door and enthusiastically ushered Jonty through. Jonty looked around, it was a small room, as all of them were, his own not much bigger. The single bed had forest green sheets and books were everywhere, but neatly. They were in little stacks, decreasing in size as the pile went up. Chris offered Jonty the bed to sit on while he went over to the cheap brown wardrobe.

Chris pulled out three paintings, his small arms struggling to bring all three over to Jonty.

“This one I did when I went on holiday at Cromer,” Chris told Jonty, passing him the first.

It was a painting Jonty hadn’t expected from a holiday trip, it was dark and moody, waves crashing against a pier, and great horses were rearing up, clamouring over one another.

“A-And this is from a trip to Wales I took,” Chris said, nervous that Jonty hadn’t passed comment and silent had accepted the next painting. This painting was calmer but no less dramatic. A large, imposing oak tree, bathed in golden sun.

Jonty touched Chris’s trembling hand. “Stop shaking,” he compelled. “You are good, really really good.”

Chris’s face brightened. “Thanks, Jonty,” he mumbled.

“I would like you to work for me, Chris, you have an amazing eye and that would be so useful with my photography,” Jonty said as he flicked out his fingers for a piece of paper and a pen.

Somehow, Chris knew what Jonty needed and rushed over to his cramped little desk and brought him a pen and paper.

Jonty grabbed a book from the floor and leant on it to write his address and telephone number.

“Come, Thursday, don’t do anything dumb, and I’m sure you won’t, and we’ll get along fine.”

Jonty offered the slip of paper, biting his lip.

Chris accepted it, placing it on his bedside table, next to a packet of paracetamol.

“Oh that reminds me, I need to get some of those, I have the most horrendous headaches, I am not a nice chap to be around when I have one of those,” Jonty joked, pulling a face and groaning like a monster.

Chris giggled, in that cute- no, thought Jonty. This is wrong.

“Do you want to see the other painting?” Chris asked, his chestnut eyes aglow.

Jonty shook his head, getting up from the bed and sauntering over to the open wardrobe, pulling down a tie off a hanger.

“What you doing?” asked Chris shyly as he was blindfolded and he laughed weakly. Then he smiled and leaned out into the air, his lips expectant.

“What are you doing?” Jonty corrected. “We’re playing blindman’s bluff, silly, catch me,” he whispered, snapping his teeth by Chris’s ear.

“Wha-?” Chris lifted the blindfold and watched as Jonty slipped out the room, the door clicking shut.

@febuwhump

[callaeidae3]

Febuwhump Day 18: "I can't see" x Alt 7: Time travel

Time travel AU in which older Kyle (21) goes five years back in time to June 12-Tau, with the mission of preventing Yuuki (24, then) from developing PTSD from Ninao incident.

Kyle finds him on the first day in the shed.

"Yuu- ... Takahashi?"

Yuuki, scared, exhausted, nervous, thinking Kyle might be a bad guy come back for him. "...what do you want? Wh-who are you?"

Kyle: "...Kindall. Kyle Kindall. You don't know me yet, but...please... remember that name, if you can. I...I'm gonna need you to remember it someday..."

Because, although the me who lives in this time can't see it now, in about a year from now...

I'm going to end up caught in a similar situation to what you're in right now.

We'll meet again then.

@febuwhump