"Pours you a drink with one hand, judges you with the other if you take it...I gave that fuck pieces of my soul, Adriana. You know what he said to me? He said I should have a fucking drink!"
The Architecture of a Living Cage: An Original / FF 7 Crossover Fic
Summary: An eight-year-old Bianca undergoes a grueling series of mako and S-cell injections under the clinical cruelty of Professor Hojo, with a young Sephiroth forced to act as her restraint.
Pairing: Bianca Moore (f!OC)/Sephiroth
Other Characters: Professor Hojo
Possible Trigger Warnings: blood, child abuse, medical trauma, needles, non-consensual medical procedures, physical restraint, torture
Possible Tropes: bonded pair, dark fic, forced proximity, hurt/comfort, lab rats, mad scientist, red string of fate, soulmate bond, whump
Author’s Note: This piece takes place within the Redemption!AU and was specifically written for @may-lancholy as part of the Day 11 prompt: Forced Drugging. Please ensure you review the full list of trigger warnings above before proceeding, as this work explores deep-seated psychological and physical trauma.
The fluorescent lights of the Shinra laboratory screamed in a high-frequency hum that vibrated through Bianca’s very teeth.
At eight years old, she had already learned that silence in the Science Department was never peaceful. It was merely the breath taken before a plunge into agony.
She was strapped to the high-back obsidian chair. Her small frame dwarfed by the cold leather and the iron restraints that bit into her wrists and ankles.
Behind her, the ruins of her celestial heritage hung like a heavy shroud. Her wings, charcoal and indigo, were no longer the soft, living appendages of a child. They were fractured. The bone structure shattered years prior and now crudely held in a permanent, grotesque shape by internal wires. They could not flap. They could not lift her. They were merely leaden weights of matted feathers and scar tissue that throbbed with a persistent, grinding phantom pain.
The door hissed open. The scent of ozone and formaldehyde preceded Professor Hojo as he stepped into the sterile glare. He wore a cadet blue dress shirt beneath his pristine white lab coat. The fabric was crisp and untainted by the blood that saturated the room's history.
"Subject N," Hojo muttered. His voice was a dry, academic rasp as he consulted a clipboard. He didn't look at her face. He looked at the biological data her fear was currently generating on the nearby monitors. "Your vitals show a heightened sympathetic response. Disappointing. One would think that after eighty-four cycles of stabilization, the cognitive resistance would diminish."
"Please," Bianca whispered. Her voice was thin, a frayed thread in the clinical chill. Her black hair was cropped short to her shoulders, an uneven cut designed for laboratory convenience rather than care. "No more. It makes the world turn gray. It makes my heart hurt."
Hojo finally looked up, his glasses catching the overhead light and turning his eyes into blank, white orbs. "The 'grayness' is the suppression of your demonic instincts, N01. We are balancing the celestial grace with the graft. It is a delicate chemical equilibrium. Your hurt is merely the sound of the cells reacting to progress."
He turned to the tray beside the chair. On it sat a row of glass syringes, each filled with a viscous, emerald-green fluid with blood that seemed to pulse with its own malevolent light. It was a heavy mako-distillate, enriched with S-cells, which he never called it by its name, and neural suppressants.
Bianca’s feline pupils blew wide, nearly swallowing the indigo of her irises. She began to thrash. The metal restraints clattered against the chair with a frantic, desperate rhythm. The wires in her wings groaned, the sharp ends of the metal supports digging into the raw meat of her scapula.
"No!" Bianca shrieked. "Stop it! I don't want it!"
"Hold her, Sephiroth," Hojo commanded. His tone was indifferent.
From the shadows of the corner, Sephiroth stepped forward. He was ten years old. His silver hair was already possessing that haunting, unnatural sheen: cut short and jagged around his jaw and shoulders.
Sephiroth face was a mask of terrifying, learned stoicism: a fortress of ice designed to protect the boy inside from the monster standing before him.
He moved to the side of the chair. He didn't look at Bianca’s eyes. He couldn't. Instead, he placed his hands on her shoulders. His grip was already preternaturally strong. His small fingers pinned her down with the mechanical efficiency of a clamp.
Bianca looked up at him, a tear tracking through the grime on her cheek. "Seph, please . . . don't let him. It burns. It feels like fire in my veins."
Sephiroth’s jaw tightened, a solitary muscle jumping in his cheek, but he didn't let go. Through the Red Thread of Fate anchored to their wrists, Bianca felt the sudden, cold rush of his sympathetic terror.
He wasn't the aggressor. He was never the aggressor. He was the secondary victim, forced to be the anchor for her suffering. He was hardening his heart, just as Hojo had instructed, but the Thread vibrated with a low, mournful hum that contradicted his frozen expression.
Hojo approached. The syringe held upright. He tapped the glass, and a single drop of the greenish red poison beaded on the needle’s tip.
"The thigh," Hojo directed. "The muscular absorption rate is higher there."
He didn't wait. He grabbed the soft flesh of Bianca’s upper leg. His grip was clinical and bruising. He drove the needle in.
It wasn't a quick prick. The fluid was too thick, requiring a slow, heavy pressure on the plunger. Bianca’s back arched. Her mouth opened in a silent, jagged scream. She felt the cold steel of the needle grate against her femur. Then came the chemical flood.
It felt like liquid glass was being pumped into her femoral artery. The sludge moved through her system: a slow-moving lava that scorched everything it touched. Her nerves didn't just fire. They exploded.
"Observation," Hojo noted, leaning in so close Bianca could smell the coffee on his breath. "The celestial aura is attempting to manifest a defensive barrier at the injection site. Fascinating. It’s trying to reject the cells."
He withdrew the needle and immediately reached for the second syringe. "We must overwhelm the immune response. Sephiroth. Keep her steady. If she ruptures a tendon from the spasms, it will delay tomorrow’s combat trial."
The second injection went into the base of her neck, near the junction where the broken wings met her spine. Bianca felt the needle pierce the thick scar tissue, sliding through the matted layers of indigo feathers and unhealed meat.
The sensory distortion hit her then. The white walls of the lab began to melt, turning into a slurry of dark, shimmering blood. She could see her own organs through her skin: her liver struggling with the toxins and her heart thumping in a frantic, irregular rhythm that sounded like a drum in a deep cave.
"Make it stop!" she begged. Her voice broke into a wet, rattling sob.
Hojo ignored her. He was watching the Red Thread. "The sympathetic resonance is peaking. Sephiroth, do you feel the burn? Do you feel the corruption of the Nephilim’s grace?"
Sephiroth didn't answer. His face was ghostly pale. His cyan eyes fixed on the far wall. Through the bond, Bianca felt the lightning strike of her own pain hitting him. He was absorbing the excess. His own body jerked in sympathetic vibration, yet he kept her pinned. He was the cage that held her while the scientist dismantled her.
The third syringe was the largest. It contained a dark, bruised-purple serum: the concentrated demonic suppressants. Hojo drove it into the soft tissue of her abdomen.
Bianca felt the puncture. The wet shlick of the needle parting her skin. The fluid entered her like a cold, heavy stone. It sought out the demonic fire in her blood and smothered it. A psychic suffocation that left her gasping for air that felt like it was made of lead.
Her vision began to fail. The fluorescent lights blurred into a single, blinding sun. She felt the symptoms of the chemical shock: the sudden, icy chill, the frantic race of her pulse, the way her muscles began to slacken as her nervous system surrendered to the overload.
"Data collection complete for the initial phase," Hojo said, the scratch of his pen on the clipboard sounding like the grinding of bones. "She will remain in the chair for four hours of monitoring. Sephiroth, return to your training. You are expected in the VR chamber in ten minutes."
Hojo turned and walked away. His dress shoes clicked rhythmically on the linoleum. The door hissed shut behind him.
Bianca slumped in the restraints. Her head fell forward. Her indigo eyes were dim. The golden constellations extinguished. She could feel the green, red, and purple poisons warring in her blood, a biological war that she was the only battlefield for.
Sephiroth didn't leave. He waited until the footsteps faded. He reached out. His hand trembled now that the eyes of the scientist were gone. He wiped the blood from the injection site on her neck with the sleeve of his hospital gown.
He didn't speak. He couldn't. The hardness of heart was a lie they both lived, but as he stood in the cold, green-hued silence of the lab, the Red Thread of Fate pulled tight. A vibrating cord of shared agony that reminded them they were not monsters, but children being slowly unmade in the dark.
Bianca looked at points where the wires pushed through her skin in her wings. The cold metal reflecting the sterile light and felt the weight of the gray world settling over her. It was a permanent winter fueled by the emerald fluid in her veins.
Fantasy Worlds Taglist: (+ / -) please let me know if you would like to be added or removed from the list by a DM or an ask.
"I'm gonna wish that the Long Walk has two winners. 'Cause then, then in years to come, people can have hope that maybe their friends just might make it."
day twenty-one of @may-lancholy - doomed from the start
Rating: M (violence, female whumpee + male whumper, threats of body mod, pet whump/kidnapping whump)
Notes: Day 11! a prompt too perfect for them to ignore <3
The tray clatters to the ground.
“Here you go.” João taps it closer with the toe of his shoe, then bends in with the key reeling out from the wire on his belt, “Feeding time.”
Grates pulling away, Talia gets an unbroken eyeful of a now familiar sight: Protein and oatmeal slop. A near gray coloration to it’s bulking crests and waves, though João swears it’s chocolate flavored.
All the fiber, protein, and nutrients a pet would need. And not a single utensil in sight within the silver tinny bowl.
It was worse the first time. When Talia held tight to her pride, chest burning with righteous indignation; She wouldn’t eat out of his fucking pet bowl.
“Fine then!” He’d agreed, smoothly pulling it back, “Then I’ll feed it to you.”
She’d kicked the spoon right out of his hands.
Talia’s ribs still sport the bruises from his in-kind response.
She eats his way or not at all; That is her lesson.
The difference in pride between stooping down to lathe her tongue around a bowl like a dog, versus getting fed gruel like a baby, is minuscule. They both make her insides curdle.
At least when she eats on her own, João voices no complaints about her sliver of independence. If it’s independence at all.
She walks two palms out onto the stone and dips her head, hair curtaining around her cheeks and ears. Talia gives one less exhalation against the surface, trying to focus on the sharp scent of imitation sugar than the incoming taste—
Her nose digs into the metal and she laps up a mouthful, shiver running down her spine at the way her teeth scrape the bottom in passing.
“Good girl.” João praises, “That’s my good girl.”
Talia’s stomach twists in acrid agony.
A palm rests along her flank, brushing the purpling bruise with pin-point accuracy.
He presses, gentle, running them along her ribs, “I’ll bring you up to two meals soon. You have a faster metabolism than I thought you would.”
Her fingers dig into her palms. Focus. Focus. If she stops eating to snap at him, he’ll take it away. And if Talia doesn’t eat, then she wastes.
At the very least, his touch remains a distant, clinical, nature. He palpates around her stomach, then up to her spine in a slow crawl. Vanishes when she yanks away silently.
He just laughs.
She nudges the bowl every so often as hunger claws up her throat. Flavor bleeds away to desperation, and she can feel every mouthful slowly working down to her emptied stomach. Like cold water on a starved, hot, day.
Her tongue draws along the inside rim, breath growing heavy.
“Go slow. It’s not going anywhere.” João teases.
Yeah, fuck you.
Her forehead hits the bowl when she pulls back, her hands trembling to remain by her side. They should be used, useful, digging into the nooks and crannies to eat whatever oats remain tucked into the bowl where her tongue and teeth can’t reach, yet—
A wave of sickly heat washes over her. Her weight tips. She just barely catches herself to stay upright.
She tries to blink it away. Still, it rises like warm water emptying into her skull. She’s not sure she’s coming down. Talia’s not sure she could.
Fingers spool out into her hair, “Oh, querida, is it hitting?” She barely flinches, backing up into her kennel. They slip away.
Food drips down the side of her mouth, “What the fuck?” She murmurs, vision unraveling two-fold into blurry unfocused shapes. She feels— hot— like her core temperature is rising up and up and up—
She sits back on her haunches, bent over her knees, and flails a hand out to knock the bowl away, “Wha’d you do—?” Talia’s lips are numb, prickly and strange to speak around.
He hushes her, crouching down. João discards the bowl to crowd in, “It’s me, you’re safe, Talia.”
“What’the fuck d’you give me?” A sob tears itself from her throat, her heart thrumming hard in her chest. Boom, boom, boom— It rams against her ribs to a near painful degree.
“Just something to calm you down.” He assures her, taking her cheek in his palm, “Deep breaths, querida. Follow me—“
“No— No, fuck you!” She shrills, clawing at the ground, “Oh god. Make it stop, make it stop!” Her veins and skin feel lighter, warmer, body humming with an unspoken high.
João croons, “No, come here.” He reaches in, latching a clawed finger around the ring of her collar, “I can help you. Come here, Talia.”
“No—!” Her protests muffle, almost too-easily maneuvering into João’s waiting arms. Talia’s cheek collides with the wall of his chest.
His heart, she thinks blearily, it’s beating so fast.
He hugs her close, wrapping her in entirety, “Shh, I’ve got you. This is nice, isn’t it? Take a deep breath.” His voice is thin, sharpened with a near childish excitement, “Come on, take a nice deep breath in for me.”
Talia gasps, hot tears carving down her cheeks.
“There you go, that’s good.” He sighs, rocking slightly, “Another big breath.”
“Please.” Talia croaks.
“Just one more. One more big breath.”
Her head spins, tipping and turning on a tormenting axis. She tries to inhale through her nose, eventually sputtering out into an early exhale, coughing loudly. It only serves to up heave her mind further. She feels a million miles away.
Her hands claw at his chest, gripping tight to the wife-beater and flannel. She doesn’t wanna go. She doesn’t wanna be stuck here like this, or disappear into this strange upside down space.
Her pleas titter out into wordless whines.
“That’s it. Hold on tight, I’ve got you.” His hand brushes down the back of her head, carding through her locks, “Pretty kitty. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.”
Talia noses into his shirt, eyes squeezing shut. “Make it stop. Please— Please make it stop.”
His hand pets down her spine. “It’s not so bad. Just relax and let yourself feel good, querida. It’s meant to calm you down.”
“It’s not!” She shrieks, chest heaving with cries, “It’s not— I’m scared— João, please!”
He tuts. “It will eventually.” His breath ghosts her ear, “If not, then we’ll keep doing it. Being so stressed out, kitty, it’s bad for your health. You need to calm down.”
“You fuck—fucker. You f-fucking—“
He hushes her, tucking her close, “Just breathe.” His ruddy palm travels up and down her back in a hypnotic pattern, ever so often rubbing circles into the top of her spine. Gentle. Caring. Kind.
Talia squeezes his shirt tighter and weeps until it’s soaked through with tears.
Warnings: Dragon dreams, post trial, canonical character death, hurt/comfort.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Maekar was still awake when his oldest barged into his chambers. He looked up from the papers he'd been trying to read, but his mind wouldn't focus enough to let him. Eyebrows furrowed, surprised to see Daeron so late. He should be asleep by this hour, although Maekar knew he spent more nights than not at the inns.
"Why are you still awake?" Maekar asked, his tone a bit harsh without meaning for it to be.
His face softened when he noticed the tears on his son's cheeks. He was sure this had been difficult on his children too. It was easy at times to forget they were bothered by these sorts of things. They all tended to act so unaffected by hardship going on around them. Daeron had always been his most sensitive child.
"Father," Daeron choked out, stumbling his way across the room.
Maekar rose immediately, meeting his son in the middle. Daeron basically collapsed into him once he was close enough. He wrapped his arms around Daeron and held him upright, urging him close. It seemed to break something inside of him.
The second his father's arms were around him, he let out a shaky sob and pressed his face deeper into his chest. It had been such a long time since Maekar had held any of his older children. He tightened his hold on Daeron and one hand made its way into his hair.
Strands were greasy and sweat-soaked, but he didn't mind. He didn't even think about it. His boy could have been covered in dirt and Gods only know what else, and he still would have done the same.
He didn't have to ask what was causing so much pain, not after everything that had happened. The trial had been stressful on Daeron and Baelor's death had shook the realm. Being drunk certainly didn't help either. Of the few times that Maekar had tried it, he'd ended up a crying mess.
"Come. Lay down with me," Maekar tried to encourage, worried Daeron might end up falling. "You'll feel better that way."
It was difficult to maneuver them there, especially because Daeron refused to part with him. He didn't bother trying to get Daeron's shoes off, knowing the task would be too difficult. They finally made it to the safety of the bed, escaping the risk of Daeron collapsing to the floor and taking his father with him.
Immediately, Daeron pressed into Maekar's chest, clinging to him. When Daeron was a child, he would sleep in the bed between Maekar and Dyanna. All of their children did once, but Daeron had for the longest.
His son trembled in his arms, crying openly now. Maekar had never expected things to feel so empty. Even with Daeron being a man grown, he felt the absence of Dyanna with them. He longed for Baelor to be here to give him advice, to remind him to be patient. He worried for Aegon, wherever he had run off to, and he missed the quiet presence of Aemon.
"It's going to be alright," Maekar assured him, although he wasn't sure how much he believed it himself. "My sweet boy. I've got you."
He wasn't certain how they were all meant to go on after this. Baelor had been the last person he had to support him. Now, he was left to care for his children on his own. And to a lesser extent, Baelor's sons as well. He'd always loved them as his own, he would look after them too.
All he knew for sure was that his children wouldn't need to go through any of this alone. He had them, no matter how hard things became for them all. All he needed to focus on now was his children. Every part of his own grief needed to be tied up neatly and put somewhere out of the way.
He didn't have time to be weak, to fall apart. The realm needed a new heir, his father needed a new Hand, and his own children needed their last remaining parent. He didn't need to sit and cry over his loss. Instead, he needed to support Valarr in the difficult road ahead. He needed to be there for his sons and daughters. He needed to find his youngest boy.
It all seemed so overwhelming. Baelor had been with him for every step from the moment Maekar was born. He'd never had to walk on his own. Tears burned behind his own eyes and he reminded himself he needed to remain strong.
He held Daeron tighter, though he wasn't sure if that was possible. Daeron had been clinging to him the entire time, holding him like he may disappear if his grasp loosened. Come tomorrow, Maekar could focus on the rest of his responsibilities.
For now, he told himself the only thing he needed to do was take care of Daeron. He pressed a kiss to his oldest son's head and kept his face in his hair. He smelled of wine and faintly of blood. Maekar added cleaning off Daeron's cheek to the list of things he needed to do.
Knowing him, he wasn't taking good enough care of the wound to his face. It looked horrible, but he was just grateful he hadn't lost him too. He'd been so certain he was about to lose both of his sons all in one day. Daeron was so warm and real in his arms, bringing him some bit of comfort.
"I dreamed it," Daeron choked out and Maekar gave no answer, unsure of what to say. "I see it all. I saw the," His voice trailed off. "The dragon. It won't fly again. And the knight. The knight."
His words were incoherent. Everything seemed to blur together in Daeron's words, sentence fragments that were disjointed. Maekar stroked his hair, urging him closer to his own body. He knew Daeron was haunted by his dreams, he had been for quite some time. Maekar had never known how to handle them, though. He felt so out of his depth with Daeron, with all his children if he was honest.
"Hush now," He murmured to him. "Try to get some rest."
Daeron trembled in his arms and continued mumbling into his shoulder. Although, the words were too quiet to discern and Daeron appeared to be talking to himself more than anything else. He continued crying and Maekar kept him close, occasionally offering soft reassurances.
Maekar wasn't sure how much time had passed before Daeron fell asleep. He had stayed awake for far longer than Maekar expected, but his crying finally tapered off. His breathing became even and his arms had gone limp around Maekar.
"I love you," He whispered to him.
His arm was beginning to go numb where Daeron was asleep on it. He didn't try to move him, though. He had always complained about it when the children were young, but it didn't bother him now.
Words: 385
He could pace the empty halls forever, but there was no outrunning sleep.
It was a yawning void, pulling him endlessly inward, warping the world around him the longer that he resisted its pull. The shadows flickered, the edges of his vision twitching in time to his pulse, causing the walls to breathe with him and he could feel them closing in. He stumbled, and sent up clouds of dust that further hurt his already stinging eyes.
It was inefficient. Stupid. He needed to rest. He knew this, and yet... his breath hitched at the thought of facing it, helpless against his own mind as he let that control slip away. Awake, at least, he could pretend not to hear their whispering, could pretend to himself that he could not feel the press of their eyes on his back. His shoulder hit the doorway of his quarters on the way in, the physical jolt barely registering outside of a shivering that washed through his visual feed.
He needed sleep. Needed to face them. His hand pawed weakly against a heavy glass bottle and the air grew sharp with its bite as it bled across the tiles. There was no hope for it, no help. He could hear them laughing at the edges of his mind, feel the brush of their hands ready to pull him under. To make him see. Make him pay.
Maybe he deserved it. Maybe it was all that he deserved.
The floor rose up to meet him, damp and burning, the shriveled husk of his dignity the only thing preventing him from rolling on all fours, lapping up a chance at salvation. It wouldn't help, he knew, it never erased them, never blurred them. Memory was a blade his mind kept sharpened, every repetition honing off the surface detail to leave behind something sharper, something rawer, his mind arching lovingly against it night after night, an affectionate cat that bled void, bled static, bled pain until it drowned until it drowned until it disappeared into the hurt and the whispers and the hands and the
guilt.
The floor rose up to meet him and he sunk a little further down. Perhaps, there would be mercy to be found there, at the bottom of his mind. Perhaps he would never rise again.
