Could you please write a platonic scenario of father Aizawa in which his daughter (she is in her teen years) has a really bad nightmare so she goes to his room crying and saying she is scared?
Thanksss.
Hope you have a great day
TW: Gore and limbs being decapitated readers death (only in her dream)
You've been often getting those night terrors that made you afraid of going to sleep, you tried staying up secretly watching TV to pass the time but Your father caught you one day and sternly told you to go to bed so all you had to do was either stare on your phone or stare up on the client but alas sleep overtakes you were knocked out
You heard screaming from the distance and footsteps running past you desperate to get away from it but failed when the creature got close to them and their pleading for mercy and help ended with a sickening crunch You covered your mouth tears streamed down your cheeks its growls sounded like a mix of a dying Animal and a human moaning in pain it kept searching and searching for more prey a man was across from you staring at you with the same reaction you had..terrified his eyes where blood shot red and there seems to be an injury on his lower waist when he saw that it was gone he looked at you for the last time and sprinted you heard nothing but footsteps from the man then seconds later you heard that thing crawling quickly towards the poor man screams and pleading for mercy were heard then there were silence and sickening crunching noises you couldn't take it anymore and threw up which the creature heard it slithered up to you now you and whatever that thing was close to each other you can see the man's arm still dangling from it mouth..the thing grabbed you with his sharp claws hovering you over his mouth and-
*BOOM*
The sound of thunder woke you up your clothes were dammed in sweat your face was soaked with tears all you could hear was your heavy breathing and tears you silently got up to go the bathroom to clean up, you grabbed your comfort plush and went upstairs your legs shaking and wobbling a bit but managed to make it in the bathroom "y/n? What are you doing up late?" you turned and your dad was shocked to see your horrified and soaked face he ran up to you grabbed your shoulders and kneel down to your level "Oh sweetie you've been crying are you alright did something happen"
you tried to explain but your voice was filled with mumbles due to the sobs and spit in there and just held onto him and cried your father didn't know what was going on but hugged you "cmon kid you sleeping in my room" he picked up you up and the 2 of you headed to his room, he turned on the lights and gently put you down and tucked you in "Now do you want to tell me about your bad dream or you'll explain in the morning" you hesitated for a second to tried to even explain "in the morning.." your dad signed and softly smiled at you, he kissed you on the forehead and wrapped his arms protectively around you
Next time he shouldn't added that much sleeping pills in your drink as a punishment for staying up the last time..but it rewarded him in the end to cuddle up with his beloved daughter~
She jolts out of bed. Not her bed— it’s far too comfortable to be her bed. This isn’t her room.
Is she dreaming? She can’t think of any other reason she’d go to sleep in one bed and wake up in another. She closes her eyes and focuses very hard on waking up. Nothing happens.
So… either she doesn’t remember going here of her own will, or someone took her here while she was unconscious.
No matter which is the case though, one thing is clear: she’s in danger. She would never forget something like traveling to a new location unless someone did something to her to make that happen, and obviously being moved while she was unconscious means someone has bad intentions.
She looks around for cameras, but finds none. She'd feel more reassured if she had found any, that way she could be reasonably confident that was all there was and find a way to deal with them. This way she's uncomfortably aware that there could easily be a camera or a bug she missed in her search.
She scans the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. There's not much. There's a bookshelf, but all of the books are paperback and none look thick enough to do more damage than a slap would. There's a dresser–
Tracy freezes. It's full of her clothes. She can recognize some of the stains and tears. There are some new items, but the large majority would've had to have been taken out of her apartment. More importantly, they're neatly folded and organized in a way that Tracy never keeps her clothes. She didn't put them there and forget, someone else took her and her clothes and who knows what else and brought them here. They would've needed plenty of time to get everything all neat in the dresser, too. How long was she unconscious?
Focus. Right now the most important thing is finding a weapon. There's a spinny chair next to a desk, but it seems too bulky to carry around. She'll keep it in mind, it's definitely heavy enough. The lamp, maybe? She tests it out, but it seems too light to do any damage. There is a lightbulb, though. She takes off the lampshade (plastic, no wires that could be used for lock picking), unscrews the lightbulb, and breaks it against the nightstand like an egg. She breaks off enough that all that's exposed is sharp, jagged edges, which she should be able to do a good amount of damage with if she has to. She cut her hand a bit, but not enough to matter right now.
No one's come for her yet. Maybe she can get out the window and run for safety? It's far out of her reach and frosted so that she can't see anything out of it, but maybe if she moves some furniture around…
She quickly finds that every piece of furniture in the room besides the spinny chair is nailed down, and the spinny chair isn't steady enough to let her stand on it to try and break the window with enough force without falling.
She sets down her improvised weapon and holds the spinny chair upside down, then slams one of the wheels against the window as hard as she can. It makes a lot of noise. She would've barricaded the room first if she could move anything else (unfortunately the hinges are on the inside of the room, so she wouldn't have been able to tie the doorknob to something with a blanket to keep the door closed), but she can't, so she just hopes that either the chair or the lightbulb will be able to fight her captor(s?) off.
The window doesn't crack or show any sign of being weakened no matter how hard she hits it. She starts to hit it to a rhythm– three fast, three slow, three fast. S.O.S., or close enough to it. She knows she wouldn't go investigate if she just heard banging against someone's window, but she would if that banging was saying S.O.S. in Morse code, and she hopes there's someone nearby enough to hear that's similar.
Once her arms are so sore they start to shake, she sets the chair down and picks up the lightbulb again. If she kidnapped someone and didn't come to stop them when they started pounding on a window, it would be because she knew there was no chance of the window breaking or alerting anyone. Her chances of escaping this way are slim.
That just leaves the door to the room. She doubts it's unlocked, but when she twists the doorknob she meets no resistance. This is where they want her to go, then.
There's a lock on her side of the door. That's… odd. She pulls the door open a crack and peaks out, but doesn't see anyone. She opens it a bit more.
There's a lady with long, blond hair sitting on a couch reading a book. There's no way she didn't hear all the racket Tracy was making, but she doesn't seem phased at all. Maybe she's deaf?
The door creaks and the lady looks towards it, destroying that theory instantly. She heard everything, she was just that confident that nothing Tracy did in there would negatively impact her.
"You're awake! How are you feeling?"
Tracy slams the door shut and rushes into the closet of the room. There are more of her clothes and the closet smells like her apartment–
She covers her mouth with one hand to quiet her breathing and holds out the lightbulb with the other. When the lady comes, she should be able to catch her by surprise.
She waits, and waits, and waits, and no one comes. The lady isn't going to give Tracy a chance to catch her by surprise. If she wants to leave this room, it has to be through the door, towards the person that most likely kidnapped her in the first place.
The cuts on her hand have mostly stopped bleeding, and the blood that ended up on her face from covering her mouth has dried. She hopes that makes her look intimidating… probably not, though, since the lady most likely knows full well the only person in here is Tracy.
Tracy opens the door again and holds the lightbulb out in front of her. "Where am I?"
The lady puts a bookmark in her book and gets off the couch. She gasps when she gets a good look at Tracy.
"Oh, dear, what happened?" Her eyes flicker to the lightbulb, Tracy's empty hand, and back to her face. "Is it just your hand that's hurt? Come, let's get you cleaned up."
The lady is weirding Tracy out. "No! Don't come any closer, don't touch me." She waves the lightbulb to accentuate her point. "Where am I??"
The lady raises her hands in surrender. "I'm not going to hurt you. Well, I guess if you were to attack me with that I would have to defend myself… I have no intention of hurting you. You're safe. Can you take some deep breaths for me?"
"Tell me where I am!"
The lady gestures to the room around them. "Your new home."
Tracy's stomach drops. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. I told you, I have no intention of hurting you. Do you want to sit down?"
"Why– how– Who are you!?"
"Oh, right, I forgot you don't know. I know so much about you, it's hard to remember that to you I'm just a stranger. My name is Molly. It's nice to finally speak to you, Tracy."
Tracy's legs feel weak. "You're– you–"
"Just relax. From now on, you have no responsibilities, no stress. I understand if you need to keep fighting, though." Molly gestures at the lightbulb. "You need to feel like this is completely out of your control, or else you’ll feel guilty for resting. It’s alright. Fight until you’re satisfied that there’s no escape. I won’t take it personally. I'd really like to take care of your hand first though. You wouldn't be surrendering or anything like that, just taking advantage of your resources. It would be a lot harder to fight with an infection, right? And who knows, maybe if you act compliant I'll let my guard down enough to give you an opportunity to escape. You can accept my help guilt-free, it doesn't mean anything more than that you're smart enough to care for your injuries."
Tracy hates that Molly's reassurances are actually comforting. Cooperating wouldn't hurt anything, and it would benefit her quite a lot… Still, she's suspicious. She wants to figure out what the catch is. "I– please, can I take care of it on my own?"
"Of course! The bathroom is through that door over there, and the First Aid kit is under the sink. I'll stay right here if you want."
Tracy backs into the bathroom, pointing the lightbulb towards Molly the whole way. Like the bedroom, the bathroom locks from the inside. Tracy closes the door and locks it before setting down the lightbulb.
She cleans the blood off her face, then cleans the cuts on her hand and bandages them.
Her best option right now is to cooperate and gather information. Molly is extraordinarily confident that there's no way for Tracy to escape, so Tracy needs to figure out why and how to get around that before anything else.
When she exits the bathroom, Tracy takes a deep breath and heads to the sitting area. She still points the lightbulb at Molly, but she sits in a seat facing the couch Molly was reading at. She's just gathering information and gaining Molly's trust. She can do this.
Molly smiles and sits back down next to her book. "You look much better. I'll admit, I was worried you'd try and break the mirror and just cut yourself more, so I'm glad you're satisfied with the weapon you already have."
Tracy's not sure how to respond to that. "...what do you want from me?"
"I don't want anything from you, dear. I want peace and joy and health for you, but you don't have to do anything."
"Why?"
"Because you're broken, Tracy. And I'm going to fix you."
tw: amputation, restraints, implied drugging, noncon body mod
...
Whumpee woke up feeling imbalanced.
They were in chains, keeping them upright while suspending them off of the ground, so the imbalance didn't matter, but it was there. Two chains around each ankle going into the ground, one around their right wrist and one around their neck going into the ceil-
Wait. That's not right.
Whumpee had never had chains around their neck.
It was a little suffocating, and Whumpee had to take deeper breaths to get enough air.
As the grogginess wore off, Whumpee's head felt clearer and their vision sharpened. The dark, formless blob in front of them turned into Whumper. They were laughing in that way they did when they made a cruel joke at Whumpee's expense.
Whumpee felt pain in their left side, and they let out a deep moan.
Whumper realized they were awake and spoke slowly. "Hey, Whumpee, how are you?...You might realize things are a bit different now..."
Whumpee looked around as best they could and tried to move around, forgetting for a moment their restraints. All of the other chains jingled, except for the one on their left. No sound, and when Whumpee looked over, no arm. They finally processed what it meant and started hyperventilating, panicking.
Whumper laughed again. "You kept complaining about it so much, I was doing you a favor. It was getting pretty mangled, there wouldn't have been anything left soon anyway."
Whumpee was in shock and didn't have the capacity to get angry in that moment. They barely had the capacity to respond. "What-wh-why-no-I d-didn't-please-"
"-I believe the words you're looking for is 'thank you.' You'll be fine, trust me, and now no one will have to hear your stupid whining."
Whumpee was at a loss for words, so they went along with Whumper. "Thank you...?"
"You're welcome." Whumper smirked. "Enjoy life with one less limb- oops, problem." Whumper walked away, leaving Whumpee with their panicked thoughts.
Hello I’m here to request some more past Sebastian angst 👀 –whumpiary/nell
(This refers to some ask answers here & here).
Um hi @whumpiary, so I've been sitting on this for a couple of days and it accidentally turned into a 4k word Tragic Backstory shit show. So. Here you go, ig.
He Never Needs to Know
Do No Harm TAG LIST: @whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @finder-of-rings
WARNINGS: Noncon/alcohol/implied drugging/memory gaps/vomiting - and a big mix of those together. I normally don't write situations like these that are so... grounded in reality? As in like, BBU stuff is a different fictional ballgame, a little easier to separate, etc. I don't know what I'm trying to say here. Just. Be careful with this one.
Sebastian could feel the bass thumping in the thin walls of the apartment as he used them for support, guiding himself along the edge of the living room. His palm ran across something sticky and he pulled it back momentarily, grimacing. The crowd had grown a little too large for the tiny space and he kept himself pressed closely to the wall as he scanned the room for his boyfriend.
“Ethan?” he called out, but he could barely hear his own voice over the music. A girl in a shimmery tank top bumped into him as her friend dragged her by the hand, and the force was enough to knock him back a few steps. He was entirely too drunk, and frankly, ready to go home. He had humored Ethan enough for one night, having finally given in to his pleas to accompany him to his friend’s party.
“Pleeeease,” he sang down at Sebastian the night before, having had him in a perfectly unfair position to be asking him to agree to anything. Sebastian had pretended to pout until Ethan started planting kisses along his jawline, keeping his hands pinned firmly on the mattress above his head. “It’s your first college party,” he peppered in between kisses, “And I’ll be there,” another kiss, “and you work too fucking hard all the time,” kiss.“You deserve to have some fun.”
In the end, of course Sebastian had caved. It was hard to deny Ethan anything that made him happy, and twice as hard to deny him when he was shirtless and pinning him to the bed.
Ethan had been right, for the most part. It was a nice change of pace to be out with people their own age, doing normal college-aged things that would make their parents furious. Maybe that was the real reason he had agreed. Regardless, Sebastian had had his fill of partying for one night, and would much rather be at home in bed with his gorgeous boyfriend and an open box of pizza and a lot less clothing.
“Ethan?” He called out again, but the familiar curly-brown mop was nowhere in sight above the crowd.
The room was beginning to sway. Sebastian was the first to admit to his lightweight status — he hardly had the time nor desire for drinking — but this was ridiculous even by his standards. He supposed he should have eaten dinner before the party. He could already hear the “I told you so” in Ethan’s voice as he would inevitably be rubbing his back as he puked his guts out later tonight. Lots to look forward to.
“Have you seen Ethan Blackwell?” he asked a couple who was making out at the base of the staircase.
Their mouths never broke contact and Sebastian blinked at them, cringing at how much tongue was spilling over onto the poor girl’s face. He shook his head and stepped around them, clinging to the railing for support as he pulled himself up the stairs. Something about the change in height made his dizziness all the more apparent, and he nearly toppled over as he reached the second floor. A pair of hands reached out to steady him.
“Woah, easy there,” a voice swooped in alongside the hands. “You alright?”
Sebastian reached out for the wall once again, casually stepping out of the stranger’s touch. “Shit. Yeah. Thanks, man.”
He tried to skirt around him to see if Ethan had gone into one of the bathrooms upstairs, but the guy placed his hand on Seb’s low back. “You come here with somebody?” he shouted over the music.
“My boyfriend,” Sebastian called back, unable to ignore the slight flutter in his chest that still happened every time he said the words out loud. “I’m looking for him.”
“What does he look like?”
Sebastian’s eyes turned back to the crowd beyond the bannister, scanning over the sea of bobbing heads. “He’s tall. Brown hair, dark skin. Hot as fuck.”
The guy laughed. “Sounds like a catch,” he said. “Unfortunately, doesn’t quite narrow it down. Want me to help you find him?”
“He’s probably just upstairs. I’m going to—” Just as he went to take another step up, he saw the other boy’s leg slide out in front of him. Sebastian’s foot caught on his shoe, sending him tumbling forward again. A strong arm caught him around the waist before he could fall.
“Woah,” the guy laughed again. “Easy there, buddy. I’ve got you.”
Sebastian blinked hard as another wave of dizziness crashed over him, trying to right himself in the man’s grasp. He had seen him stick his foot out. He had tried to trip him up on purpose. Hadn’t he? Right? Maybe Sebastian was mistaken. The alcohol was hitting him harder than he thought.
“Come on,” the guy said, nudging him toward the bottom of the staircase, in the opposite direction of where he had been trying to go.
“Where?” Sebastian slurred, gripping onto the railing with one hand, and the stranger’s shoulder with the other, desperate to keep himself upright.
“You need to drink something,” he answered, pulling him toward the kitchen.
“I’m already drunk.”
The guy deposited him onto one of the barstools along the counter and flashed an amused smile. The features in his face were swimming slightly in Sebastian’s vision. “Yeah, that much is obvious,” he said. “I meant you need to drink something non-alcoholic.”
He bent down behind the opposite side of the counter and grabbed a can of Coke from the cooler on the floor. “Perfect,” he smiled. “We’ll share the last one.”
As he turned and grabbed two plastic cups off the top of the stack behind him, Sebastian put his head down on the cool countertop, letting the smooth surface pull the flush out of his cheeks and forehead. He was so warm. He didn’t feel so good. When he found Ethan, he definitely needed to tell him he wanted to go back to his dorm. It was obvious he was far past the level of intoxication to do anything more than sleep there, but still, even just laying down beside him right now sounded nice.
“Here.” A tap on his shoulder pulled Sebastian out of the soft cloud of his imagination and back into the harsh noise of the party around them. “Drink up. You’ll feel better.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled, taking the red cup from his hand. He brought the rim to his lips, taking a careful sip. He hardly ever drank soda of any kind — he hated the way the carbonation stung his throat — but he was thirsty and he was too tired to get some water for himself instead. The first of the sharp sweetness reached his tongue and he cringed. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Matthew,” he said, taking a swig from his own cup. “Yours?”
“Sebastian.”
“This your first party?”
“Is it that obvious?” Sebastian tried for a guilty smile, but if the sound of his words in his ears was any indication, he had little to no control over what he was putting out.
“Not at all,” Matthew lied. “I just haven’t seen you around.”
“Freshman.” Sebastian pointed lazily at himself, then at the drink, then put his finger over his lips. “Shh, don’tell anyone,” he added in a whisper.
Matthew leaned in closer, so close that Sebastian could smell the booze on his warm breath— or maybe that was his own?
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
A crash from the living room, followed by a collective shriek and then a chorus of laughter, yanked Sebastian’s focus toward the doorway. When he whipped his head too fast to the left, it was like his entire world shifted on its axis. Time stuttered in its tracks, the sound in the room warped like melted vinyl. He tried to focus in on Matthew’s face in the blur of color that rushed past his vision, but there was nothing stable enough to latch onto.
Woah. Okay. He was drunk. He was really, really drunk.
“I need to find Ethan,” he said again, shifting to the front of the stool and trying to get his legs underneath him. They felt disconnected from his body. “I need to— I need to find- and we need…t’ go home. To the dorm.”
“You and Ethan share a dorm room?” His words came at him in a scramble and Sebastian had to take a few moments to sort them into place like a puzzle.
“No,” he said. “He’sstayin’ overnight. Roommate’s not—” he paused long enough to let out a long yawn “—not there. He’s never there.”
“Lucky you.”
“Lucky me,” Sebastian slurred back. He tried to stand up again, and a pair of hands was there to steady him. “Here, finish this.” The cup was placed back in Sebastian’s grasp, and it seemed like the easiest path to just follow the simple instruction. So he did.
“There you go,” he heard a soft voice whisper somewhere just behind his ear. A shiver went down his spine, spiking goosebumps over his skin.
“Ethan,” Sebastian said when he emptied his cup. He closed his eyes against a sudden wash of nausea, gripping the side of the counter. “Where’s Ethan?”
“I think he left.”
“No.” Sebastian shook off the suggestion. “Nah, he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t d’that.”
“It’s fine,” Matthew said — Matthew, right? His name was Matthew? “I’ll make sure you get back to your dorm safe, okay?”
“Ethan…”
“Ethan will catch up with you later.”
Sebastian yawned again. He was so sleepy. “Yeah. Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” Matthew echoed. Sebastian didn’t register his hand on his waist until he was being ushered forward. He opened his eyes so he wouldn’t fall, and the sick feeling ebbed back to him as the room rushed by, sweaty arms and cool sloshes of liquid knocking into him as he passed.
A cool burst of air hit his face. It felt so good against his flushed skin.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
“Getting you home, remember?”
Right. He did remember. He definitely remembered.
“Where’s Ethan?”
A bubble of laughter came from beside him and Sebastian tried to look up, confused. He didn’t understand what was funny. “Jesus,” he heard. “You’re really shitfaced, huh?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Maybe it was in his imagination, but the arm around his waist seemed to pull him closer.
Things got blurrier from there.
He recognized the tile in the lobby of his residence hall only when his chest and hands made hard contact with it, the black-and-white design swirling inches below his eyes. “He’s fine, I’ve got him,” he heard someone say from above, just before he was pulled to his feet again. His head was beginning to pound, and he worried he might have smacked it on the floor without realizing.
They were in the elevator. Matthew’s hand had moved lower and was rubbing soft, slow circles over his hip. Sebastian wanted to push it away, but his limbs were so tired, and he was so tired and—
They were at his door. When did he—? How did—?
“Key?” Matthew asked. He was so close to him. He stuck his hand down Sebastian’s front pocket to find it.
“Ethan?” He mumbled sleepily. It was getting harder to keep his eyes open. Getting harder to stay standing. Getting… he wanted… to lay down—
His face landed in the pillow with a thump that made his ears ring. It was dark. The lights were off, or his eyes were closed, or maybe both. The stiff, dormitory mattress groaned beneath his weight as he tried to adjust his position. When he managed to turn his head, he caught the last sliver of light from the hallway before his door was pushed shut. Matthew stood in front of it, turning the deadbolt. The zippered hoodie he had been wearing at the party was halfway down his arms, then he blinked and it was on the floor. Somewhere inside him, far beneath the murky layer that coated his current consciousness, alarm bells were ringing in his head.
“Where’s my phone?” Sebastian tried to say, but the words came out as an indistinct groan. That was fine. It was fine. He needed to call Ethan, to let him know he had gotten home safe, but he was fading fast. He was sure he would forgive him in the morning when he explained how tired he was.
Sebastian let his eyes fall shut.
When they opened, it was to the panicked realization that he couldn’t breathe right. There was something crushing him; a warm, moving weight that settled over his back.
“Shhh. Lay back down.”
He didn’t realize he had lifted his head until something shoved it down into the pillow again. Darkness overtook him.
Something was wrong. When he woke again, he couldn’t open his eyes, but he could hear everything from behind him, and he could… he could feel it. He could feel everything.
“Yeah— oh, fuck—.”
Sebastian tried to scream, but only a whimper escaped, muffled by the pillow under his mouth. It hurt. Oh god, it hurt so bad, please stop. He could think of nothing else but the pain and the terror and the fact that he couldn’t open his eyes, but he knew it wasn’t Ethan because Ethan was never rough with him like this. It didn’t hurt with Ethan.
Ethan.
Ethan would be so upset with him. Ethan would hate him for this. What was he doing? He could feel his arm crushed beneath his stomach, and he tried so hard to pull it out, to do something, to end this. His hand made it as far as grasping uselessly at the wooden rail above his head before it was yanked down, pressed hard into the mattress like the rest of his body.
“Stop,” he managed the single syllable with a voice he didn’t recognize, but nobody must have heard him. The pain continued. When he tried to speak again, a sweat-sticky palm flattened over his mouth from behind, the edge of the other man’s thumb threatening to cut off his air supply at his nose. Sebastian stopped resisting as he felt the next wave of darkness creeping toward him.
The palm turned into fingers, sharp and prodding and pulling at his lips until they were pried open, pushing past his teeth, salty on his tongue and further. Gagging him.
The last thought he had before he passed out was that he didn’t want to throw up.
***
It was morning. Some part semi-conscious part of him recognized that much. The light from his window bore through his closed eyelids, rousing the idle thumping in his head to a full-throttle pound. It took a minute before he could open his eyes all the way, and the moment he did, he regretted it.
He was still drunk. He had to be, because the room was spinning and limbs wouldn’t cooperate with him, and when he turned his head to the side he—
Oh god. Oh god.
Forcing back the dizziness, Sebastian scrambled to the edge of his bed, toppling off the side and onto his knees. He grabbed the plastic waste bin beside his desk just in time to heave out the first round of vomit. Misery trembled through every muscle and bone as he coughed and gagged his way through several more bouts, burning his throat and clawing at the inside of his stomach. He had never felt so awful in his life. Every inch of him ached for reprieve that wouldn’t reach him.
What felt like an eternity later, Sebastian collapsed back from the bin, falling against the leg of his twin bed for support. Even with an empty stomach, the deep, sick churning in his gut persisted. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the grainy wood, soaking in the mild coolness against his skin, praying for some kind of relief to find him. Promising any god who would listen that he would never drink again if they took this feeling away.
There was a smothering guilt, too; one that the time and distance away from his past hadn’t quite been able to stamp out. The idea that this agony was brought upon him as punishment for his actions. Maybe if he hadn’t drank. Maybe if he hadn’t agreed to go to a party with his boyfriend—
Ethan. Shit.
Sebastian opened his eyes, scanning the sun-drenched room for any sign of him. He was supposed to come home with him after the party. His roommate was out of town for the weekend and Ethan was going to stay through Sunday, but he wasn’t here and neither was any of his stuff, except...
His gaze caught on a discarded pair of jeans beside the bed, his boxers tangled inside them. Sebastian blinked. As if the rest of his consciousness was only now beginning to wake along with the rest of his body, Sebastian felt a chill slide over his skin, the rough scratch of the carpet under his legs. He looked down to find himself naked from the waist down. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly aware of his own vulnerability, Sebastian ran his clammy hands over his thighs, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt.
“What the fuck?” he whispered as he shoved his hair back from his face, tangles catching between his fingers. “What the fuck?”
He didn’t remember getting back to his dorm. He didn’t remember undressing. He barely remembered the cold air of the walk home or the end of the p-... the party. Someone was with him. Not Ethan, he couldn’t find Ethan. He wanted to find him, but… but there was someone… someone…
Sebastian reached up behind him, gripping onto the bed frame to pull himself up. His legs shook beneath him as they took his weight, knocking him back against the bed for support. When he reached out to brace himself on the mattress, his hand found bare vinyl where the bedsheet had been yanked free from the corner. His comforter had been shoved into a heap at the foot of the bed, half-draped over the edge. “What the fuck?” he whispered again, but this time it came out breathless and thin as his heart began to race, his chest tightening. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t-... he couldn’t remember. He had never had blanks like this, huge missing chunks in his memory, and the absence filled him up with something huge and hollow that squashed his lungs against his ribs and forced his heart into his throat.
Why couldn't he remember? What couldn’t he remember? Where the fuck was Ethan?
His phone. He needed to find his phone.
His palm scrambled blindly behind him on the bed, searching under the pillow and down the sheet and—
He snatched his hand back, whipping around, when his fingers grazed across something damp. He blinked, dazed, in the direction of his soiled bedsheet, trying to force blank pieces of a puzzle together in his head. A fresh prickle of nausea, along with a dread he couldn’t quite name, climbed up the inside of his stomach. He pressed a hand just above his navel, trying to suppress it. He closed his eyes, drawing in one slow breath after another, then he opened them.
Phone. He needed to find his phone. Just focus on finding his phone and then… and then he could figure out the rest later.
He tossed the lump of bundled comforter off of the bed, away from the spot in the middle he pointedly refused to acknowledge. There was a muted clatter as his phone skittered over the carpet, landing face-down under his desk. Sebastian grabbed it and turned it over, noting a long crack down the screen that hadn’t been there before. The notifications lit up immediately. Sebastian’s heart dipped lower.
Eleven missed texts, four missed calls, all from Ethan.
Sebastian scanned through the last few, thumbs shaking where they hovered over the screen.
EB: Hey! Where did you run off to?
EB: Seb??
EB: Did you leave???
EB: It’s fine if you did! Just let me know. I can meet you back at yours in a bit.
EB: Are you okay? I’m getting a little worried…
EB: Sebastian, please call me back when you can. Just let me know you’re alright.
EB: I’m sorry. I know that party wasn’t really your thing. I never should have dragged you there.
EB: I came by your dorm, but you didn’t answer when I knocked. Back to being worried.
EB: Okay. You’re asleep. You’re probably just drunk, and you’re asleep, and I’m being crazy. This is what I’ve decided.
EB: You’re going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow, champ. Breakfast is on me, okay? Wherever you want.
EB: I love you.
Sebastian’s eyes were stinging and he didn’t know why. He scrubbed at them with the heel of his palm and closed out of his messages, looking instead at the time. 10:24 am. Ethan’s last message was stamped at three this morning. Sebastian had no idea what time he had gotten home. He needed to text him back. What he really needed to do was call him, but he didn’t trust his voice right now; not at the rate his breathing still quivered in his chest with every inhale and the way his fingers trembled around his phone. A text would have to do. He reopened his messages and began typing.
Hey, sorry I
He stopped.
“I- what?” It occurred to him he didn’t know what to say, because he genuinely didn’t know, but the real jolt of it came from the realization that he had the instinct to lie. Sebastian wasn’t a liar. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t that, and especially not with Ethan. So why, then, did he suddenly feel so ashamed to explain to him what little he knew of the truth?
Sebastian clicked his phone shut and let his arm drop to his side like deadweight. The spot in the middle of his bed drew his gaze like a magnet. It was entirely possible that this had been the result of a slew of a million different embarrassing things that could have happened in his sleep or in his drunken state. He knew that. But he also knew, based on whatever was churning in his gut at the sight of it, whatever lingering shadow danced at the edge of his subconscious, that it wasn’t what happened.
Moving on autopilot, Sebastian crossed to his dresser and opened the top drawer, pulling out the first pair of sweatpants his hands found. He pulled them over his lower half, only locking up slightly at the sore twinge of pain that came with the movement. He must have… he had fallen, probably, at some point on his journey home. The thought conjured the briefest flash of an image, of the tile in the lobby under his cheek, the hard smack of linoleum on his body. That must have been it. That was probably it.
He placed his phone gently on the edge of his desk and walked back to his bed.
Laundry. He needed to do laundry. That was the next logical step, the next concrete moment he could cling to for sanity. Sebastian wadded up the comforter he had tossed onto the floor, ripped the sham off of his pillow, and grabbed a fistful of the fitted sheet. With a sturdy yank, he pulled hard enough for the other corner to pop over the edge and--
--and he saw his own hand in the dark of the room, clutching out at the bedpost, the nightstand, the sheets. Clawing at anything he could gain traction on. The sheet tore free from the corner of the mattress and Sebastian cried out until his face was pushed forward into the pillow, muffling the noise and cutting off his air.
Laundry soap. It was- It… The laundry soap was underneath the sink.
He padded across the room, grabbing it along with a handful of quarters from the jar he kept beside it. He didn’t bother with socks or shoes, only stopping long enough to grab his key card off of the floor before pushing out of his room and down the hall to the laundry center. Mercifully, at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, both machines were empty. Sebastian shoved his linens into the front-loader, pushing it down with more force than necessary so his comforter would fit along with the rest. One cup of detergent wasn’t enough. He poured another, then wished he had thought to buy bleach on his last trip to the store. It was fine. This would do.
Cranking the dial up to the heaviest setting, Sebastian inserted his coins and jammed the start button. The blare of chaos in his head seemed to momentarily soften as the spray of water started up inside the machine. He staggered backward a couple of steps, his shoulder blades falling against the wall. He didn’t realize he was sliding down until he was eye-level with the circular glass door in front of him. Sebastian pulled his knees up to his chest, his gaze focused straight ahead as the sheets began to spin. In the center of the rush of fabric was a darkened reflection of a face he barely recognized as his own.
His phone was down the hall. He knew needed to contact his boyfriend at some point, sooner rather than later, but for now he just… He let himself get lost in the blur as the machine did what it was supposed to. As the soap bubbled up into patches of foam against the glass, tossing back and forth in the hot water, he took a small comfort in the promise of cleanliness to come. The erasure of the morning he had woken to in a body that didn’t feel like his own, and the guilt and shame that curdled in his gut every time he looked at that fucking bed. The machine was wiping it clean like his memories of the night before. A fresh start. A blank slate. Nobody needed to know.
[Here we are! Drawing the final curtain for Escape week 2020 by @amonthofwhump. It’s been lots of fun, and I look forward to doing more in the future!]
“Griffin, please. You know how to find him. You, you just don’t understand. Griffin, please.” Hilton’s head turned to him, as if he was looking at him from behind the bandages wrapped tight around his eyes. His voice was soft and begging, as if looking for any leeway in his ironclad decision.
Griffin brows were furrowed with confusion and horror. Here he was, sitting next to Hilton’s hospital bed, and he was asking, no begging, for Trevor. Trevor. The man that drugged him twice within an hour. The man that demanded more and more visions until Hilton’s eyes had stopped focusing. The man that smiled as he practically flayed his arm with his own personal knife.
The man that Hilton vanished with for hours at a time.
Griffin’s stomach turned. He had seen the way that Trevor looked at the kid, the subtle raise of his brow and glint in his eye. The way he was always touching him, gliding knuckles across his cheekbones or sliding fingers through his hair. Hilton was neutral about touch, unless it was Trevor. If it was Trevor, he was desperate, leaning in and reaching out.
“Hilton, stop. You’re not going back to him.”
He might as well have slapped him, with the way Hilton reacted. He blindly scrambled to get his feet under him in the hospital bed, straining the IVs in his arm.
“Griff,” he begged. “Griff, please. I can’t leave him. You don’t, you don’t understand.” Griffin grabbed his hand, causing him to flinch at the unexpected touch.
“Then make me. Make me understand. Why the hell do you want to go back to him? He’s the one that did this to you.”
Hilton made a whining sound in the back of his throat, and Griffin nearly shrunk back. What the hell was going on? Was it some sort of weird side effect from the anesthesia? This, this wasn’t Hilton.
“I, I don’t, I – I can’t! I don’t know! Please, please Griffin. I just feel like I’m gonna die without him.”
“Hil, you’re going to die if you go back with him. I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said, shaking his head. Not that Hilton could see that, but it was only natural.
“O-o-oh. O-okay. Okay.” Hilton sounded defeated, which only confused Griffin more. Two seconds ago, he was crying like a lost puppy. Now he sat back on the pillows, fully accepting and giving up the fight.
Griffin groaned, cracked his back and stood. He pushed the chair out behind him, scrapping along the ground.
“Good. I’m going down to the cafeteria for a coffee. Want anything?”
Hilton turned his head away.
“No.” Griffin shrugged, mostly out of instinct, and walked out the door, making sure his footsteps were audible. He crept back in, surprisingly light on his feet for a man his size. Leaning up against the wall, only a foot or two from the bed, he crossed his arms and waited silently.
Hilton sat; head cocked to the side like he was listening. He was. A minute or two after Griffin had “left”. He pulled the IV from his arm and tried to put his feet on the ground. After everything that he had been through, his legs couldn’t hold his weight and he started to crumple to the floor.
Griffin stepped in and caught him by the waist before he hit the ground.
“Okay, here we go,” he muttered as he hoisted Hilton back onto the hospital bed, avoiding the flailing limbs.
“Stop it! Let me go! I have to go; please!” He landed back on the bed with a thud, and Griffin grit his teeth and held the younger man’s arms down.
“No. Hilton, stop! You are not going anywhere near that guy, and the decision is final.”
The nurses had been alerted when Hilton pulled his IV, and two rushed back into the room. Griffin let them handle this, stepping out into the hall. He didn’t need to be here for this part.
He did end up going to the cafeteria for a lack of anywhere better. One large coffee later, he sat at one of the tables with his laptop.
Something was going on, something that he was going to get to the bottom of. DIFC didn’t have much on Trevor; most importantly they didn’t have his last name. They had no clue what his family line was, if he was powered or not, any information about him.
But Griffin had a hunch.
He pulled up the DIFC’s DNA database and started poking around. He sorted it by mutation type and started his search. There were lots of dead ends, lots of family lines that merged with another or broke apart through the generations, but he finally stumbled on what seemed like the right one.
The Silanno line; a level 4 mutation. They were a quiet line, but there were already a few held in penitentiaries. They weren’t publicly allied, but all the convicted had lines to the Southwest Syndicate. The rough generations estimate matched up, the location matched up, and the power description was spot on.
Silannos secrete a type of pheromone that interacts with the hormone centers of the brain, tricking serotonin and dopamine reactors at physical contact. Subjects that have been exposed to a Silanno’s touch for an extended period of time show symptoms of withdrawal and attachment.
Griffin rubbed his temples. Sounds about right. Trevor took every opportunity he had to graze a hand of Hilton, getting as close to him as possible. The first question that came to Griffin’s head was why? Trevor already had Hilton, locked up in the hotel. Why go out of his way so often to make him attached? For a situation like this, so Hilton would fight to go back?
He read over the file again. The withdrawal was completely recoverable; no lasting side effects. A few days and Hilton would be fine. So, why?
What the hell, Trevor? What did you have planned for Hilton?
Somehow, Tracy is even more tired than before. She's stopped worrying about escape methods, which if anything should free up her mental energy, but she's just exhausted. Using the gym, which used to be easy, saps Tracy's strength further, until she stops using it altogether.
She's not even just tired, she's achy and weak and hypersensitive to cold. Molly must've changed what she's drugging her with, or maybe stopped drugging her, causing withdrawal. It doesn't really matter, there’s nothing Tracy can do about it either way.
“How are you feeling?” Molly has been hovering around Tracy, worried, since the disaster of Tracy’s last escape attempt.
Tracy shrugs, staring at but not really watching the movie Molly put on.
After a moment, Molly moves to slap Tracy!— oh wait, she’s just placing her hand against Tracy’s forehead. False alarm.
“You’re burning up…” is that excitement in her voice? “I should’ve checked that sooner, you’d think a former nurse would know not to just assume something is mental health related without checking! I’ll— I’ll make you some soup, and read to you, and keep a lukewarm washcloth on your forehead—“
“I don’t get sick, Molly.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t get sick.” Tracy repeats. “You know why I’m miserable, you just want to blame it on something that you can fix without letting me go.”
“…I know you probably won’t suddenly feel great about everything after you’re better. But you won’t be sick anymore, and that’ll help at least a little.”
“I’m not sick!”
Molly chuckles. “Whatever you say, dear. I’m going to go make some soup, is that okay?”
Tracy can’t come up with an answer to that that doesn’t make her sound like a pouty child. “…fine.”
Molly’s definitely got a spring in her step as she heads to the kitchen. She seems to really like the idea of Tracy being sick. Not because she likes it when Tracy suffers, Tracy's fairly certain that she doesn't, but because she likes how vulnerable it would make Tracy. Which is worse. Tracy shudders. Just from the thought of how creepy Molly is, not chills or anything of the sort, because Tracy doesn’t get sick.
Tracy rests her eyes. She's so, so tired. So…
She wakes up in her bed with a washcloth on her forehead. She's definitely being drugged, how else would Molly move her from the couch to her bed without Tracy even stirring?
"Are you awake? Are you hungry? I ended up putting the soup in the fridge since you were asleep, if you're hungry I'll reheat it for you."
Tracy rubs her eyes. "...what kind of soup?"
"Chicken noodle. Can't go wrong with a classic."
"Mm… I can reheat it myself." Tracy tries to get out of bed, but Molly gently pushes her back down. "I'm not sick. You're fucking drugging me, and I can't avoid it because there's no food here that hasn't gone through you first."
"The only time I ever drugged you was to get you from your old place to here. I can have some of the soup too, if it helps you feel safer."
"Reheating it myself would would help me feel safer."
"Hmm… what if I brought in a bowl of soup and had some in front of you so you know it’s safe? With a different spoon, of course.”
“Then the spoon could have a drug on it.”
“But… germs… what if I brought a few spoons, and you can pick which to use and which to have me use?”
“…that works. Wait— no, I want to get it myself, I’m not—“
“You are sick, dear. Even if you were sick because I drugged you, that wouldn't mean you're not sick, right? You'd just be sick for an unconventional reason. I haven't drugged you, but if you can't believe that, can you at least believe that you need extra care right now, whether it's because of a virus or drugs?"
"No, I don't get sick! Stop treating me like I’m incompetent! I’m not—“ hot tears fall from Tracy’s eyes. Could this get any more humiliating? “I’m not that weak! I’m not pathetic, I don’t get sick!”
“Being sick doesn’t mean you’re weak or incompetent or pathetic.”
“I’m not sick! I don’t get sick, please stop saying that, I’m not— I don’t make excuses, I’m not sick, I can do it!”
"...okay. This seems like something we should talk about when you're feeling better. For now… could you just humor me? Please, I desperately want to take care of you. It’s not because I think you’re weak or incompetent or pathetic or making excuses. It’s the opposite, actually. I know you can do it. You’re so strong, and you always work so hard. You deserve to be taken care of. Will you please let me take care of you?”
“You’d just drug me more if I said no.”
Molly looks crestfallen. “I… is there anything I could do to convince you I’m not going to do that?”
Tracy shakes her head.
“That’s… that’s okay. You don’t have to trust me, and… I’m glad you don’t feel like you have to pretend to. I’m glad you can be honest with me.” She looks at Tracy with big, sad blue eyes. “Do you really want to get the soup yourself? Or do you just not want me to do it?”
Does she actually want to get the soup herself? It… wouldn’t actually prevent Molly from drugging it, since she could’ve beforehand. Even with Molly’s offer to eat some to show that it’s safe, eating a little of something drugged wouldn’t have as strong an effect as eating a lot of something drugged. And if Tracy pushed for Molly to eat the same amount as her… Molly could just say no, and then what would Tracy do? She has to eat. Tracy will eventually eat what Molly wants her to whether it’s drugged or not. Even if Molly did eat the same amount as Tracy, it’s always possible that she has higher tolerance to the drug she put in the food, or has access to a drug to neutralize the effects of the drug she put in the food. There’s no point in trying to ensure the food isn’t drugged. It always could be, no matter what.
And Tracy feels like shit. Does she want to get out of bed when she doesn’t have to?
…No, of course not. Who would want to make things harder for themselves on purpose, when the same result is reached either way? Of course she wants the easier way. That’s… that’s not weakness, that’s normal. It’s normal. Healthy, even. That’s what Tracy has told Alicia to comfort her countless times, and Tracy doesn’t lie, not to Alicia.
Really, the only reason she wants to do it herself is because Molly would really enjoy getting soup for her, and that’s creepy as fuck. Is that all this argument is about? Molly would enjoy taking care of Tracy, so Tracy doesn’t want to let her?
This is such a pointless, childish power struggle, and Tracy is too tired to continue it. “I guess I just wanted to argue.” Tracy says softly. “You can get the soup. I don’t care.”
The answer doesn’t seem to make Molly happy. “I… that’s very self aware of you. I’m proud of you. I’ll be right back.”
Molly leaves the bedroom and Tracy pulls a blanket over her head. She’s so fucking worthless, can’t even get soup for herself… but… she can. She could’ve. Molly wanted to do it for her. Molly begged to do it for her. So… what does that say about Tracy, that she let Molly do it? She doesn’t know. Well… it doesn’t matter. Who cares?
Achy and tired and trying not to cry, Tracy groans into her pillow. She can’t go on like this. Every little thing can’t be a huge debate and power struggle. What else can she do, though? Just accept that she’s stuck and do whatever Molly wants? She doesn’t want to fight and she doesn’t want to give in either.
Molly finds Tracy curled up under the covers crying when she comes back. “Oh, dear… what’s wrong?”
Tracy doesn’t answer. There’s no point in starting another argument.
“I know, I know, I know it’s hard. I’m sure you’re really miserable right now, but I promise it’ll get better.”
“I’m so tired.” Tracy sobs. Tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired tired tired.
“Let’s get some soup in you, then you can go back to sleep. Can you sit up? I brought a few spoons so that you can pick which one you use and which one I use if you want me to prove it’s not drugged.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Tracy stops hiding under the covers like a child and sits up. She reaches out to take the bowl of soup from Molly’s hands, but Molly seems to have a different plan. She picks out a spoon and sets the rest down, then fills the spoon with soup and starts bringing it towards Tracy’s lips.
“What the fuck is wrong with you??” Tracy knocks the spoon out of Molly’s hand. “I can feed myself! I’m not— I’m not…” anger quickly gives way to horror. “You- you think I’m sick. You think I’m so sick I need help bringing a spoon to my mouth, and— and I’m still here. Not in a hospital.”
“…I just wasn’t thinking. Of course you wouldn’t want me to do tha—“
“If I was so sick I couldn’t eat on my own, would you take me to the hospital?”
“I was a nurse, dear. Breathe. You’re safe, I can take care of you.”
“What if— what if I had a heart attack or a stroke or something?? What if my appendix burst, you’ve never been a surgeon, have you??”
“That’s extremely unlik—“
“Humor me! What would you do?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I don’t want you intentionally injuring yourself to try and get away, so I’ll leave it vague, but I do have plans in place. You’re safe with me.”
“I’m going to die here! Alicia won’t even know! They’ll never find my body!” Screaming again so soon after last time does not do her throat any favors, but she’s too panicked to care.
“You’re safe. Can you take some deep breaths for me?”
Thoroughly drained by her outburst, Tracy lies down and complies. Molly guides her through breathing exercises until Tracy can hardly keep her eyes open.
“I hate seeing you so scared. I would do absolutely anything to help you feel safe, so please let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’m going to leave the soup and the spoons here on the nightstand, okay? I’ll bring you a water bottle too.” She picks up the spoon Tracy knocked out of her hand. “I’ll take this, since I assume you don’t want a spoon that’s been on the floor. I’ll clean the carpet later. Does all that sound good?”
Tracy doesn’t answer and tries to pretend she’s already asleep.
“You’ll feel better once you’ve had some sleep and food.” Molly says softly. “If I could take your sickness on myself so that you didn’t have to be this miserable, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I love you so much.”
Tracy is asleep before Molly’s footsteps leave the room.
Tag list: @whumpyourdamnpears @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @iamheretohurt
Puppy regrets nodding about Bunny killing Master almost immediately after she does it. This is what anger does, makes her act irrationally in ways that will get others hurt. She shouldn't have encouraged him, it can only make things worse.
She shakes her head immediately after she nods, but Bunny doesn't seem nearly as impacted by that as he was by her nod.
Master lets her and Bunny bring Kitty upstairs and take care of them. They’re hardly injured at all. Just some acid burns on their toes. It’ll make it hard to walk, but Puppy won’t mind helping.
They’re really out of it, so she and Bunny get them set up all cozy on the couch with some snacks.
“I’m sorry.” Bunny whispers over and over to them. “I’m so sorry, I won’t let this happen ever again.”
After Kitty’s settled in, Bunny pulls Puppy aside.
“I think you’re really brave, you know. And strong. And I want you to know I love you no matter what happens.”
He's going to do something really stupid. That's the only reason he'd say that.
Her worry must be visible on her face, because Bunny looks sad.
"It's all going to be okay." He hugs her tightly, then runs off to his room. He can't use his hands, so hopefully he won't be able to do anything too stupid…
She really doesn't want to have to watch him get his hands and tongue cut off. She should supervise him, just to make sure he didn't find a way to cast without hands, but Kitty also needs supervision.
She thinks that if Kitty tries to get themself hurt, she'd be able to stop them, but she's not sure about Bunny. So she stays in the living room where she knows she can be useful, as much as leaving Bunny to his own devices pains her.
~~
You've just had the most wonderful idea.
Everything has magic in it, first of all. Barron (you'll just have to push through the discomfort and think about it) and its books tended to only use twigs, leaves, and rocks, but theoretically anything could be used to cast, especially if it's less refined and closer to nature. And Puppy communicated to you that Jane's blood is important… it only makes sense to use that to cast. You're a genius!
If you manage to kill her, you probably won't be able to cast anymore, but you're okay with that. Magic no longer existing is a small price to pay in order to be free of Jane.
Oh, does that have something to do with how she's not usually affected by magic? If she was made immortal by the same thing that made magic possible, it doesn't seem too crazy to think she wouldn't be impacted by magic in the same way everything else is…
Wait. Wait wait wait wait- her blood has to do with her immortality. Her immortality has to do with the creation of magic, which means that her immortality (and therefore blood) is connected to why magic doesn't work on her the same way. So maybe, if she had enough normal blood in her body… magic might work normally on her, and she might be able to die!
"Jane! Jane! I have an idea on how to kill you! Jane!"
Jane appears sitting on your bed. "My stupid Bunny has an idea? Don't hurt yourself."
"Shut up. Have you ever tried to replace your blood with a mortal's?"
"Yes. Do you really think no one's thought of that before you?"
That's a bit demoralizing, but you continue. "Have you ever had someone cast magic on you while there was mortal blood in you? Oh, oh! And had someone cast using your blood, at the same time? So like, there's a spell on the normal blood and a spell on the immortal blood?"
Jane blinks. "I… not at the same time…" She regains her composure swiftly. "But I have tried those separately. Why would doing them at the same time work?"
You've got her. There's no way she won't want to try. "Well it would probably be impossible to replace all your blood with mortal blood, so it makes sense why that one wouldn't work on its own. As for using your blood to cast… well, did it have any effect when you tried it on its own? Or did nothing happen at all, like when I tried to make you intangible?"
"Nothing happened." Jane is sounding more and more annoyed.
"What spells did you try? I guess that since your blood works different it wouldn't be able to cast the same things the same way…"
"...What makes you so sure that my blood works different?"
Shit, you don't want to get Puppy in trouble. "It doesn't matter. What spells did you try?"
She rolls her eyes, but luckily she doesn't seem to care enough to push it. Maybe she already knew, or figured it out (did you ask Puppy while Jane could've been listening? You can't remember). "Any spell that had even a tiny chance of killing me."
"Hmm… and you cast it? Or did someone else?"
"Someone else. I can't cast, at least not the way mages can. Which I know because I tried, many times."
Oh, it's a good thing you asked, since she talks about it saying 'I' instead of 'we.' You suppose it does make sense for her to think about mortals that helped her in the past as just extensions of herself.
Another idea is starting to form. You've been forcing yourself to think about Barron a lot lately, and its death (along with the others') is fresh in your mind after thinking Kitty was dead. You think 'what would Barron do?' You think about your first time meeting it.
"Well… your blood, uh, makes more of itself only while it's inside your body, right? So maybe using it to cast would only work if it was still inside your body? I could… I could carve a rune into a rock, then like… cut you open and put it inside you and cast, so that it would have the normal magic of the rock and the weird magic of your blood." Man, this is a pretty gory conversation… Living here has really desensitized you.
Jane tilts her head to the side. "...worth a shot."
"Wha- you've never tried that before?" You were expecting to have to give more justifications as to why it would be different this time.
"I have reason to believe my blood maintains its properties while it's outside my body, but you're right that it only replicates while it's in my veins. So it's worth a shot, even if nothing comes of it. Come downstairs."
Jane vanishes.
This could go very, very bad, but you leave your room and go down the stairs to the basement anyway, purposefully avoiding looking at Puppy and Kitty's reactions.
Jane is setting up some kind of scary looking contraption. You instinctually step back when you see it.
"Relax, it's not for you. You've seen how instantaneous my healing is, this is to hold my arm open while you… hey, your hands are still broken! Go grab Kitty and Puppy, you can instruct them on how to carve your runes or whatever. That works out better anyway, I'd have to cut off your hands if you did it yourself, or no one would believe my threats again."
You run back upstairs. You can't stop the smile starting to form on your face. This might work. This might actually work! Even Jane thinks it might work!
"You guys need to come downstairs. Not for a punishment! Probably. I suggested a way to maybe kill Jane and she agreed! But I need your help cause I can't use my hands right now. Um, Puppy, could you help me get supplies from my room?"
She looks skeptical, but follows anyway. Kitty wordlessly goes down the stairs into the basement, walking on their heels.
You direct Puppy on what materials to grab, and then you and her go down into the basement too.
Jane is sitting in a chair that wasn't there before, with the scary contraption beside her. "Alright! Tell them what to do. You two, do what Bunny says for now."
You take a moment to gather your thoughts. Your plan is complicated, so you're afraid you'll miss a step.
You direct Puppy on what rune to draw on a leaf (you've decided engraving a rock would take too long) and have tell Kitty how to cast a healing spell with the stuff you've already got prepared. Their magic makes you taste sour candy.
You feel the bones in your hands mend. "Perfect, thank you Kitty. First I want to try casting with your blood. I want to see if it can do things like healing and teleporting, since those are the magic things you can do."
Jane scoffs. "My magic doesn't heal me. It keeps me in the state I was right before- it keeps me in this specific state. To call any of my powers healing is ridiculous, the entire point is for me to suffer."
You gasp. She said that so casually, like it wasn't the last piece of the puzzle. Has she said that before? Maybe she has, and you didn't realize the importance.
She's tried so many different ways to kill herself. If the purpose of her magic isn't to make people miserable, what could it possibly be?
Magic responds strongly to intention. Her blood, her magic… what if it only works if the end result is more suffering?
Okay, drop the replacing some of her blood with yours idea. You just need her blood. "Do you have, like, a bloodbag in your void?"
"I have everything in my void." Jane sets up a blood draw quickly herself. "Will that be enough?"
You nod. You shouldn't need much at all. You know why using her blood to cast didn't work when she tried it before…
Well, you don't know. Which is why this first step is important. You set the blood bag aside. "Puppy, hand me that leaf you drew on like I told you."
She hands you the leaf, her expression unreadable.
Jane laughs. "You know that if this doesn't kill me I'll have to cut off your hands and tongue, right? Since you're casting it yourself."
"Yep." You examine Jane's contraption. "So how does this work?"
"It'll cut and hold the flesh open while you stick the leaf in there. You'll have to do it as fast as possible. Are you ready?" She puts her arm in the contraption and holds down a lever.
You position the leaf right above where it looks like the contraption will cut. "Ready."
She releases the lever and the contraption slices and pulls, ripping skin and then muscle and holding the rip open. You can see the flesh trying to reunite, straining against the contraption. Ew. Jane doesn't flinch.
You thrust the leaf forward into the wound (ew ew ew ew) and chant the spell words, then yank your hand away and pull the contraption off. Her skin mends around the leaf.
Magic responds to intention. Usually that means that it doesn't work unless you have the right intentions, but it can benefit you too. You want the force-field to hold her in place while leaving a hole for magic to get through, and it does. Instead of being a sphere around her, it's shaped the same as her so that she can't move, with a hole over her chest.
"...why did you do that?" Jane looks more confused than anything.
She teleports, but once she reappears across the room the force-field is still around her. It worked! You can't cast spells on her, but you can cast spells on the area around her, and since the leaf's inside her it will move with her, so the spell is always on the area around her! And she can't teleport it out, and she can't cut it out because she can't move her arms. It really worked! So long as you keep the spell up, she won't be able to hurt anyone.
You watch as the realization dawns on her. "Ha ha. So clever. Except the spell will still only work until you lose focus, and with your brain damage I doubt I'll have to wait long… And if I told my Puppy to attack you, she would, and you'd lose focus even faster."
"I know. I just needed… insurance. I need you to not be able to hurt anyone while I try this. Sit back down, I think my idea will work."
She appears back in the chair and rolls her eyes. You pick the blood bag back up.
"Puppy… I need you to cast this spell for me. You… her magic, it only causes suffering right?"
She nods hesitantly.
"That's it's purpose?"
She nods again, and you feel giddy. You were right! Puppy confirmed it!
"So if we want to cast with her blood, it has to be to cause suffering. And I think… you're the only one who can try to kill Jane and see it as a cause of suffering. I think that you're the only one here who's even capable of processing Jane's death as a bad thing." You're not positive, but based on the way she acts around Jane, and some of the things that Kitty's told you… it's possible. Her hatred for Jane doesn't seem to be as strong as yours and Kitty's, at the very least.
Tears well up in her eyes, and she nods slowly.
You hand her the blood bag. "Okay, I need you to, like, fingerpaint with the blood." You describe the rune to her and she dutifully paints it on the floor.
"And then… you need to say the spell words." There are probably other ways to cast without the ability to speak, but you don't know them.
Jane has been watching silently, but when Puppy looks at her pleadingly she speaks up. "I'm not going to give you permission to speak. If you actually think this is going to work, you don't need my permission, because I won't be able to punish you. And if you don't think it'll work… you have no reason to do it."
Tears stream down Puppy's face. You don't know what to do– if it doesn't work, you don't want Puppy getting hurt because of you.
Kitty has been mostly quiet, but now they speak up. "...Puppy. You've got this. If it doesn't work… we'll keep trying, and she won't be able to hurt you– or anyone, because of the forcefield. And… if your worry is about us getting hurt… we're willing to risk that. Right, Bunny?"
"Right."
"Please, Puppy… I can't do this anymore. I can't– I wouldn't be able to go on knowing that we had a chance and we didn't take it. Please."
Puppy wipes her eyes, unclips and removes her muzzle, and hesitantly takes off her collar. Jane doesn't say anything.
You quickly tell her the spell words, and she repeats them. Her tears mix with the blood on the ground.
When she's finished, Jane goes unnaturally still. Her eyes lose focus. Despite how hopeful you were, your first thought is oh, she's fucking with us.
If it worked… she shouldn't be able to heal (or whatever she wants to call it) anymore, right?
You take one of the many knives laid out in the basement and drive it through the hole in the forcefield, into her chest, then pull it out. The wound doesn't heal.
"Guys- guys!" You drop the forcefield and slit her throat. It bleeds and it keeps bleeding and there's not even the slightest pull bringing the flesh back together.
"She's dead. Jane is dead. She's- she's-"
It doesn't feel all that different to when you killed other people under her orders. You feel kind of… numb. Everything feels too quiet. You've daydreamed about this for so long, but you don't feel triumphant like you expected. Just… tired.
And you always pictured dying right after. Sacrificing your and Jane's life for Puppy and Kitty's. But you're alive. You're alive and Jane is dead.
A/N: Everything so far has built up to this... I hope it's at least a little good! Let me know if I should tag anything else, or if you want to be added to or removed from the tag list! Season 4 will begin April 22nd at 5:00PM EST.
Tag list: @eatyourdamnpears @whump-in-the-closet @scp-1296 @thecosmicmap @quins-whump-stuff
