I found this awesome (whumpy) prompt a while ago and I can't find the person who I got it from. I'll add their name once I find them.
Prompt: Caretaker being forced to watch Whumpee be tortured.
Caretaker is holding it together the best they can, trying to stay strong and steady for Whumpee, not to crumble while their friend goes through so much worse.
.....until Whumper forces the two of them to look at each other, and the look in Whumpee's eyes utterly breaks Caretaker.
Yeah no, Caretaker crumbles pretty fast...
The most horrific Whump I've written. Makes it worse that I had some parts buried in a google doc from months ago. But hey, at least it's mine. TRIGGER WARNINGS: idk everything??
The room smelled like copper and sweat. Ryan had been trying not to breathe through his nose.
They had him in a chair—metal, bolted to the floor, the kind of industrial fixture that suggested this space had been used for this purpose before. Ryan's wrists were zip-tied to the arms, his ankles to the legs. Not tight enough to cut off circulation. Tight enough that he couldn't do anything except sit there and watch.
Three feet away, Eddie was on his knees.
He'd been there for twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Time moved strangely in the room. The concrete floor was cold, and Eddie's hands were bound behind him, shoulders pulled back at an angle that had to be burning by now.
He wasn't looking at Ryan. That was the first thing Ryan noticed. Eddie's head was down, chin to chest, eyes fixed on the floor between his knees like if he didn't look up, this wouldn't be real for either of them.
You're going to be alright, Ryan told him silently. In his head, where it counted. Where Eddie couldn't hear how his voice shook even in thought. You're going to be alright, and then I'll get you out of here, and then I'll—
The man with the baton—Ryan hadn't caught his name, didn't want to know it—circled Eddie slowly. Boots scraping. Measuring.
"You're quiet," the man said. "I thought you'd be louder."
Eddie didn't respond. Didn't move. But Ryan saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers kept flexing uselessly against the bindings behind him, searching for purchase that wasn't there.
The first hit took Eddie in the ribs. Ryan heard the sound—dull, heavy, intimate—and watched Eddie's body fold forward, breath catching hard. A sharp, involuntary noise escaped him, cut off quick, and Ryan's hands spasmed against the zip-ties.
You're going to be alright.
Eddie forced himself upright again, slower this time. His eyes were squeezed shut now, not performing blankness, just surviving. Ryan could see the tremor in his jaw, the way he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep quiet.
The second hit, kidney. Eddie made a sound—worse this time, breathless, surprised—and Ryan felt it in his own body, phantom pain flaring in his side.
You're going to be alright. I'll make sure you're alright. I'll—
"Your friend here," the man said, not looking at Ryan, "he's watching very carefully. Very concerned."
Ryan didn't react. He sat with his spine straight and his jaw locked and kept the words running in his head like a prayer, a promise, a thing he could offer if only thinking it hard enough made it true. You're going to be alright. You're going to be alright. I'll fix this. I'll make it stop. I'll—
The third hit caught Eddie across the shoulder, and something cracked—small, sharp, wrong—and Eddie's composure finally shattered. He cried out, raw and human, and Ryan's vision tunnelled.
"Please," Ryan said. He hadn't meant to speak. The word just fell out of him, hoarse and desperate. "Please, don't—"
The man turned. Looked at Ryan with mild curiosity, like he'd forgotten he was there.
"There he is," the man said. "I was wondering when you'd join us."
Eddie's head came up at Ryan's voice, just slightly, and Ryan saw his face—pale, sweating, eyes wet with pain he wasn't hiding anymore. Eddie shook his head once, sharply. Don't. Don't give him this.
But Ryan couldn't stop. The internal reassurances had curdled into something else, something frantic and helpless.
"Hurt me instead," Ryan said. The words tumbled out, unplanned, undeniable. "I'm asking you. I'm begging you. Take me out of the chair and hurt me instead. Please."
The man tilted his head. "Interesting."
"Please," Ryan said again, and his voice was breaking, he could hear it breaking, could feel the control he'd been clinging to dissolving into raw pleading. "You want someone to scream? I'll scream. You want someone to cry? I'll cry. Just—just stop hurting him. Please. I'm begging you."
Eddie made a sound, small and wrecked, and Ryan looked at him and saw tears starting down his face—silent, helpless, nothing like the performance he'd managed in interviews. This was just Eddie, hurting, unable to stop it, unable to even pretend he was okay.
"Please," Ryan whispered.
The man seemed to consider it. He walked over to Ryan, stood close enough that Ryan could smell him—soap, something metallic, the absence of sweat. A professional. He reached out and gripped Ryan's jaw with one gloved hand, forced his head up, studying him.
"You'd really do that," the man said. It wasn't a question. "You'd take his place."
"Yes," Ryan said immediately. "Yes. Right now. Please."
The man smiled. It was worse than his blankness. "But I don't want you to scream," he said softly. "I want him to scream. I want you to hear it. That's the point."
He released Ryan's jaw and stepped back, returning to Eddie. Ryan strained forward against the zip-ties, feeling them bite into his wrists, his ankles, feeling the chair creak against the bolts but not give.
"No—" Ryan started.
The man drew a blade from his belt. Ryan saw it catch the light, and his stomach turned to liquid terror.
"Don't," Ryan said, louder now, struggling harder, the chair legs scraping against concrete. "Don't you touch him with that, don't you—"
The man ignored him. He moved behind Eddie, out of Ryan's direct line of sight, and Ryan heard the soft sound of fabric parting, the sharp intake of breath, and then—
Eddie screamed.
It wasn't loud. It was worse than loud. It was high and broken and utterly involuntary, the sound of someone who had reached the limit of what they could endure silently. Ryan felt it like a physical blow, like the blade had gone into his own body instead.
Something in him snapped.
He didn't lunge. He convulsed—his whole body jerking forward against the chair with enough force that the metal legs screeched against concrete, the bolts holding it to the floor groaning. The zip-ties bit deep into his wrists, his ankles, but the pain didn't register, wasn't real, wasn't anything compared to the sound Eddie had made.
"Eddie!" The name tore out of him, raw and desperate. "Eddie, I'm here, I'm right here—"
He twisted his shoulders, trying to get one arm free, just one, feeling the plastic cut to bone and not caring. His foot stamped down, trying to find leverage, trying to rock the chair, tip it, anything. The metal frame shuddered but held, bolted down, immovable, and Ryan made a sound—frustration and agony and something almost animal—because he couldn't get there, couldn't get there, couldn't—
The man moved into his peripheral vision, blade still in hand, and Ryan's focus narrowed to a single point of red fury.
"Let me go," he snarled, and he was pulling against the chair arms now, his whole body arched forward, muscles standing out in his neck, his jaw, his shoulders straining until he felt something pull, something tear, and still he pulled. "Let me go, let me go, I need to—"
He needed to hold him. That was the only thought left. He needed to get his arms around Eddie and pull him close and press his face into Eddie's hair and say you're safe, you're safe, I've got you even if it was a lie, even if they were both dying, even if—
The zip-ties held.
Ryan's right wrist was bleeding freely now, hot and slick, and he could feel the left one swelling, going numb, and he didn't stop. He thrashed against the chair, making it jump and scrape, and when that didn't work he tried to stand—tried to lift the whole chair with his body, carry it forward step by staggering step, get closer, get within reach.
The chair was too heavy. The bolts held.
He collapsed back down, gasping, and immediately tried again, his vision spotted with exertion, with lack of air, with the absolute impossibility of what his body was trying to do.
"I need to hold him," Ryan heard himself saying, and his voice was wrong, broken, tears and terror and something that sounded like madness. "Please, I need to—let me hold him, just let me—"
His hands kept opening and closing against the chair arms, grasping at empty air, reaching for something three feet away that might as well have been three miles. "Eddie," he choked out, still straining, still trying, his body refusing to accept what his mind knew. "Eddie, I'm right here, I'm—"
The man stepped between them.
Ryan made a sound that wasn't a word. He tried to lunge again, forgetting the chair, forgetting everything, and the restraints caught him hard, snapping him back, and he slumped, gasping, tears streaming down his face, his body still twitching with the need to move, to act, to reach.
The man looked down at him with something like clinical interest. "Done?"
Ryan didn't answer.
The man stepped back into view, blade wet, and Ryan saw the blood now, dark against Eddie's shirt, across his chest, and Eddie was shaking, crying openly, no attempt to hide it, his face turned away from Ryan like he couldn't bear to be seen.
"Look at me," Ryan begged. He didn't know who he was talking to anymore—whumper, Eddie, himself. "Please, look at me, I'm here, I'm right here—"
The man crouched in front of Eddie and gripped his hair, forced his head up. Eddie's eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaming down his face, his breathing coming in sharp, panicked gasps.
"Open your eyes," the man said softly. "Your friend wants to see you."
Eddie shook his head, helpless, and the man struck him across the face—not hard enough to knock him out, just hard enough to force a reaction. Eddie's eyes flew open, shocked, and immediately found Ryan.
Ryan stopped struggling.
He looked at Eddie—really looked—and saw everything. The pain, the fear, the tears, the blood on his chin from where his lip had split, the way he was trembling so hard he could barely stay upright. And he saw Eddie seeing him, seeing Ryan's face, seeing the desperation and the helplessness and the failure written there.
Eddie's expression crumpled. He tried to look away and couldn't, held there by the man's grip, forced to witness Ryan witnessing him.
"I'm sorry," Eddie whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"No," Ryan said, and he was crying now too, he realised, tears running down his face, his voice stripped to nothing. "No, don't—don't you apologise, don't you dare—"
"I can't—" Eddie's breath hitched, broke apart. "I can't—"
"You're going to be alright," Ryan said, but the words were ashes now, lies, things he couldn't promise anymore. "You're going to be alright, I'll—I'll—"
He couldn't finish. Couldn't say what he'd do, because he couldn't do anything, trapped in the chair while Eddie bled and wept and apologised for being hurt.
The man released Eddie's hair and stepped back, satisfied. "There," he said. "That's what I wanted."
Ryan didn't look at him. He was still looking at Eddie, memorising him, trying to hold every detail—the colour of his eyes, wet and wide and terrified; the shape of his mouth, still forming silent apologies; the line of blood tracing down from his lip to his chin.
Trying to hold it because he couldn't hold Eddie, couldn't reach him, couldn't do anything except sit there and weep while the man wiped his blade clean and prepared to start again.
"Please," Ryan said one more time, to no one, to everyone. "Please."
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