Already I'm seeing awful, heartbreaking sentiment about immigrants because of the Bondi shooting yet I bet not one of these cunts will acknowledge that the legend who tackled the shooter was (as I've heard at least) himself an immigrant
And what if we get a little celebration where Kingsley is being crowned Plank King and all the Nein congratulate him and do little toasts in his honor— (to make up for the fact he didn’t get to give a speech or anything at Fjord and Jester’s wedding—)
Sometimes I just need to return to my gorehound roots c: Miguel, as always, is @whumpr's
TWs: vaguely described gore, vaguely described disembowelment, disorientation, fainting, broken bones, exhaustion, unpleasant healing magic, overstimulation
simple / disgust / gutting
Mariano groaned, eyes flickering open in the sticky darkness. He didn't remember how he got here. He didn't remember an attack.
He didn't remember why his stomach hurt so badly.
In the dim light from his pact rings, he saw something sparkle. It looked wet, like a river rock. It shifted sometimes, writhing halfheartedly like an exhausted eel. Mariano blinked, slow and hazy.
His mouth tasted like blood and bile. He swallowed, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He was so thirsty.
Mariano tried to lift his arm, but his wrists were weighed down by shackles. They didn't seem particularly weighty, but...even so, he couldn't move. Rolling his head to one side, he felt the bite of concrete against his face. His hair stuck to the floor, held in place by something sticky but not unbreakable.
If he didn't know any better, Mariano would think it was blood.
He tried to move his leg, to bend his too-stiff knee and give it some relief. That felt like an impossibility too. Nauseating pain ripped through his gut whenever he flexed his hip the wrong way. He tried again.
Mariano didn't mean to doze.
He didn't remember trying to, anyway. One moment he was trying to move his leg, and the next hands were on him. Desperate, terrified hands held his face. Miguel was there, taking up the entirety of Mariano's vision. His hair curtained Mariano's face, blocking him from looking around in the newly-lit room.
Miguel looked like he might be sick.
"Hey, don't go back to sleep." He said, voice tight and haunted. "Keep looking at me."
"Mi...guel?" Mariano rasped.
"That's right, it's me. I'm here. So are the others." Miguel's thumb traced along Mariano's cheekbone. He realized that Miguel was covered in blood, dried and black.
"You...are hurt?" Mariano asked, a hand twitching as he tried to reach for Miguel.
"Not mine." Miguel answered, swallowing hard. "None of it's ours."
"Almost ready to heal him, Miguel. Keep him talking." Manuel's voice cut through the fuzz filling Mariano's ears. "Just another minute."
"Why...where, where are we?" Mariano tried. "Healing...?"
"You're really hurt." Miguel said, voice thick with some emotion Mariano couldn't name. "Really hurt. Don't move, we're taking care of you."
The slick slip of something meaty sliding against itself entered Mariano's perception. He felt something tugging at his stomach, at something deep, deep inside of himself. He felt cold air where he'd never felt cold before.
"Careful, careful, that's where it connects." Manuel's voice was tight and commanding. "C'mon, get it over here--that last bit there is all we need now." He'd only ever sounded like that when someone was dying.
"Don't wanna die." Mariano mumbled, and Miguel gripped his face harder.
"You won't." Miguel said. "You're not going to die here."
Mariano's eyes fluttered. Miguel slapped him. Mariano winced, a soft laugh escaping. "Don't have to go easy on me. Can take more."
Miguel half-sobbed. "Shut up--don't shut up. Keep talking. What do you want for dinner later?"
"I'm...I w...I want--" Before Mariano could answer, Manuel's magic ripped through him.
A terrible winter poured into him and Mariano's voice went airy and strangled. Hands, heavy and warm, pressed his hips and shoulders into the unforgiving concrete. Light painted the inside of his eyelids, like he'd rubbed his eyes too hard for too long. Smears, bursts, color after color flicked by too quickly for him to name.
It felt like someone was forcibly reaching into his stomach to yank his organs back into their proper places, like arranging a backpack's supplies without opening it. When had they gotten out of place? His muscles were yanked back together, the painless teeth of starving magic sinking in and pulling and knitting and sealing. Numbness spread through him as the magic sprinted under his skin, washing away the pain he hadn't even been able to understand he was feeling.
Mariano heard someone sobbing in the distance.
The three minutes Manuel's healing took felt like years. They always did. As suddenly as the magic had slammed into him, it stopped. The pain was gone, leaving every inch of his skin tingling and electric. Mariano's head buzzed, his brain feeling like it had been sent through his washer's spin cycle and thrown into a hurricane to dry afterwards.
He was left in the crushing quiet of his own gasping as the other sounds of the room slowly filtered back in. Manuel was talking to the others about bringing the car around. Dimitri was asking about where to cremate "the body". Miguel's thumbs slid along his cheekbones, brushing away hot tears that Mariano didn't realize had started falling.
"It's okay. It's over." Miguel said, sounding close to crying himself. "It's over. No more."
Mariano swallowed, shuddering and trembling underneath Miguel. His hands curled in on themselves, and he recognized Izan's scarred palms against his. "What...what happened?" He tried, his own voice hoarse and faint."
"Someone thought you'd make good party streamers." Izan explained. "We had differing opinions."
Mariano laughed, a half-hysterical noise as his brain started to connect the dots. "I...I'm party streamers?" Those hadn't been river rocks, or eels. That had been him.
"Was." Izan corrected. "We'd never let you stay as some freak's basement decor. Unless you asked."
"Think I'll pass next time." Mariano mumbled as Miguel sat up more properly, eyes never leaving Mariano's face.
"Izan's going to pick you up, then we'll go home." He explained. The way Miguel was splattered with blood almost seemed like he'd ripped someone apart. "Close your eyes, you've seen enough for one day."
Mariano turned his head to hide his eyes against Izan. "Don't have to tell me twice." Miguel was right, he was pretty sure he'd seen enough for one day.
You know the (new) rules. Choose a GIF or image that illustrates, to you, the meaning of the word. We do this obviously under protest, because we have no new half nakedness. Reblog with tags within this thread because we want to see everybody’s choices, etc. 
The past two Wednesday words have been beautifully oblique. I have been giving this a lot of thought, and took @jessieren’s comment that she tries to come up with a word around a photo she happens to want to use to heart.
I hope you find the myriad possibilities in this week’s word. 
