Warnings: captivity, torture, restraints, blood, wounds, rescue, unclear character status, caretaker and whumpee
Caretaker had gone into a blind rage when they burst into the basement and seen Whumpee. Whumpee was slumped over, chains pulled tight on their wrists and throat, a pool of blood growing around them.
"C-C-Caret'errrrrrr," Whumpee rasped, weakly trying to lift their head.
The team, including medics, followed closely at Caretaker's heels. "Where is Whumper?" One had asked Caretaker.
But Caretaker didn't answer. They stared at the blood. Stared at the gaping hole in Whumpee's gut. Stared at the gurgling wound as the medics surged forward and surrounded Whumpee.
And their resolve broke. They turned on their heel and searched through the compound. Searched and searched until they found Whumper.
"It's you," Whumper sneered.
That was all it took for Caretaker to pounce on Whumper. They punched and kicked at Whumper, a wordless roar of anger ripping from their throat. Whumper fought back weakly, but they were quickly overwhelmed.
It was only when Whumper stopped moving beneath them that Caretaker stopped. Their fists were coated in blood and Whumper's face was a swollen ruin. Caretaker didn't care if Whumper was alive or dead. Or if they would live. "Rot in hell," they spat as they rose.
Caretaker could hear their name being called and their stomach dropped. Whumpee. They had run from Whumpee. They raced out into the hall and almost collided with one of the medics.
"Caretaker! Whumpee's asking for you. They.....you just better come."
Caretaker nodded, their mouth going dry at the medics words. "I'm coming, Whumpee. Hold on. Hold on," they muttered over and over as they made their way back to the basement.
"Did you really think I wouldn't notice?" Elgar'nan's voice chilled him. Worse still the play of his fingers across Solas' shoulder. "Did you think me so naive?"
"I am uncertain what you are—" his protest was cut off by Elgar'nan tsking.
"Is that the best you can do?" The All-Father sounded disappointed. "At least give me a good showing. Anything less is an insult, and you know I do not tolerate insults, pup."
"Very well," he said stiffly. "I do not know what particular thing you refer to. All I do is keep secrets, is that not so?" Years ago, decades perhaps, Elgar'nan had thrown that insult at him. He laughed now, like a man fondly reminiscing. It infuriated Solas, but he forced that feeling down.
"Not bad," he admitted, "but not good, either."
"Is this the game, today? Shall I guess what reply will please you?"
It was too cavalier, but he was tired of this. Tired of being treated like Elgar'nan's toy, made to perform.
"Fen'Harel," his voice was deep and sonorous, yet it sent a chill coursing down his spine, "this has never been a game." Suddenly the delicate touch on his shoulder became a crushing grasp on the back of his neck, lifted out of his seat and held aloft. His whole body reacted, hands trying to dislodge Elgar'nan's iron grip, legs flailing as he tried to find something to brace against.
"What I would like to know," he continued calmly, as if Solas' strong reactions were nothing at all, "is where you took my slaves." He kept Solas dangling, his reactivity slowly calming until eventually he just hung limp. He could still breathe, and although the grip was painfully tight, it was not doing any substantial harm. He could tolerate this, and did not wish to bring a greater punishment down on himself. "You seem to believe you can save them. That you can offer them some grandiose utopia. But I offer them a purpose. Protection. Guidance. The Elvhen are a powerful people, but young. Untested. However, they can be shaped into something profound. What can you possibly offer them that is better than that?"
"Freedom," he rasped, voice tight. Elgar'nan shook him; gently, but the swaying was still disorienting and pulled hard on the muscles of his neck and shoulders.
"Ah, yes. The freedom to die on their own, is that it?" He abruptly let go, Solas plummeting to the cold stone floor with a sharp grunt, pain throbbing through his knees and palms. "You must paint them a fine picture. The liberated few, now…" the pause was deliberate, and he could imagine Elgar'nan's smug smile, "indebted to you. Tell me, does it quell your envy to have your own slaves? Does it soothe your pride to have them believing their enslavement a gift?" He tasted bile and swallowed, body trembling with rage that he wanted to loose.
But that was the point, and he would not play the role Elgar'nan wanted him to. He would not let anger loosen his tongue. No more than it already had.
He regretted the response. Not for Elgar'nan's reaction, which was to be expected, but as a confirmation of what he was doing. It had served him—served all of them—to have it as an open secret. In a single moment, a burst of anger, he had ruined that thin benefit.
Grief doused his anger like water over a fire. Someone else should be doing this. Someone else should be leading. Someone better, someone—
"You look pitiful." Elgar'nan's cold judgement brought him harshly back to the moment, to the varied aches in his body, the sting of blood in his mouth. Perhaps he bit his tongue as he fell. It did not matter. "It is almost enough to leave you in this state." He glanced up, met cold eyes with a heat of his own, and Elgar'nan smirked at his display. He wanted to bare his teeth, wanted to bite into the man's thick neck, fangs tearing through muscle and blood bursting in his mouth, dousing him in its metallic tang. Like an animal. At least the thought sickened him. "But then, what kind of father would I be if I let you escape your punishment? It would hardly be fair."
Ah.
Of course.
Still dreaming of violence, a cold reserve began to settle over him. He stayed on the ground, unwilling to contribute to his 'punishment'. He wondered what it would be, then tried to quickly put such considerations from his mind, refocusing on Elgar'nan's throat. On how his blood would taste.
Elgar'nan permitted his study, and Solas tried to ignore how smug the other man looked. To stare at his throat inevitably kept his face in view, his expression clear despite Solas' best efforts to see nothing save the tender, fragile flesh, pulsing with a flow that could be interrupted, stopped…
Consumed. For he still imagined the taste of it flowing over his tongue, the wet, hot mass pooling in his mouth until he swallowed.
He no longer begrudged himself these fantasies of violence. He had taken the form of a wolf many times. Had fought battles with tooth and claw as often as magic and blade. He knew the metallic tang of blood flowing over his coarse tongue, draining like inevitability into his throat.
He had swallowed that violence. His stolen flesh utilizing it. Stolen and stolen again. And now? Now it would be abused. This flesh which carried hints of so many others would be brutalized until Elgar'nan was satisfied.
Perhaps it was just. Perhaps deserved. Not for whatever had angered the All-Father, but for sins that ran far deeper.
The silence was so long, Solas slipping so deep into himself, that Elgar'nan's voice was like being doused with cold water: "get up."
He met the man's eyes. Golden.
They should be beautiful. Warm and rich. They were not beautiful.
Solas rose.
He did not want to, but he knew to deny it would be worse. Elgar'nan could kill him. It had always been a possibility. There was only so far he could dare to deny him, and he could see that the All-Father was in no mood to extend patience.
His golden eyes were not warm. They were not rich.
They were hungry.
He felt the tension of a spell a split second before it was cast, his will half-forming a barrier before his mind caught up and forced it away.
His fine robes unraveled. His high collar unwound. His leather wraps peeled and cracked until they fell away in thin sheets, leaving him bare, his modesty coiled in layers around his feet.
He did not cover himself. He did not shrink away. At least they were in the privacy of Solas' own room. A small blessing.
"If you care for the slaves as much as you insist," Elgar'nan began, holding Solas' gaze, "you will accept punishment as one of them."
He had known. He had. But still, the words were like a stone in him, a deep, sinking despair, horror bright and hectic on its tail. But he did not falter. He stood tall.
Pride, indeed.
"Of course," Elgar'nan continued, slowly pacing around Solas, "a pup should be properly adorned." The All-Father's presence at his back was like standing too close to a raging hearth, skin feeling brittle and sore with the heat. The hand that settled across his mouth made him flinch despite himself, Elgar'nan's laugh like something toxic. But his hand was hot, hotter then the heat at his back. He felt certain that his lips were burnt, as they might be from the sun.
As potent as the pain was, he was still distracted from it by the new rush of magic, aligned with Elgar'nan pressing his two middle fingers between the scorched seam of Solas' lips.
He reacted rather than thought it through, mouth falling open at the pressure, cursing himself inwardly as the fingers sank within. It took everything in him to not bite down on the offending fingers and their violation, although a significant portion of his anger was directed at himself.
Who parts their lips at pain? What kind of pathetic creature was he, that his body receives abuse and its instinct is to open up to more?
In his self-recriminations, he'd nearly forgotten what Elgar'nan had said. But as the fingers circled inside his mouth once, twice, and a third time, he tasted something hot, acrid, like a storm building on the horizon. He felt the pressure surge in his mouth, following the circle Elgar'nan's fingers had traced, something taking form behind his front teeth.
After a moment—and a single, thoroughly condescending petting of his exposed tongue—Elgar'nan withdrew his fingers from Solas' propped-open mouth. He felt that hot hand stroking down his jaw, the thumb digging in just under his ear. "That's much better, isn't it?" With a voice thick with artifice, sickly-sweet, the All-Father continued to idly stroke Solas' face.
But no gentleness now would ease what was to come.
His mouth was forced open by a gag which tasted of Elgar'nan's power. It was a promise: that he would make noise, noise the All-Father wanted to hear.
Here he stood, exposed even beyond the nudity, unable to do anything other than await the beginning. He could not yet think of the end. Couldn't allow himself to.
The beginning.
Elgar'nan was in no rush.
For a moment, he tried to imagine their roles reversed. Would he relish drawing out the suspense in this way? It was difficult to think about. Distressing, really, which was a grim kind of amusement given the current situation. That was what distressed him, while he awaited certain torture?
But his mind grasped again for the consideration. It was a problem to be solved, however pointlessly.
He balked at the general consideration, the idea of taking such vicious pleasure in suffering, but then he found himself moving from the general to the specific. Less a question of whether he would want to do this to someone, more whether he wanted to do this to Elgar'nan.
And he found that he did.
The All-Father forced to his knees before him, powerless and at his mercy. He, too, would want to draw it out. To extend anticipation and—his heart seemed to skip a beat—retribution alike.
"You're trembling."
The observation, spoken almost absently, forced him back to the moment more effectively than a strike would have.
Trembling. Showing fear. He did not want to show fear.
"I am going to enjoy this."
He was sickly grateful when the hand tracing his jaw clutched his neck, the anticipation snapping as it began. He was thrown to the ground, taking the impact on hands and knees. Elgar'nan made a low sound, something vaguely frustrated. "That's no good, is it?" He used his foot to shove Solas to his back, staring down at him appraisingly.
His lip twitched right as he felt the pressure of his will. Elgar'nan—without needing to touch him—forced Solas' arms in front of his chest, forearms together, hands just under his chin. He grimaced as the thick, tight binding materialized, coiled rows of stark red leather. "Hm. It appeals, but I think we can do better." He watched as the red faded until a creamy white remained. "Let's see if you can dye it back, shall we?"
He felt himself pale, Elgar'nan laughing above him. He reached down and grabbed at Solas' bound arms, using them to lift him. It made him aware of a band that wound beneath them and around his chest and back, keeping his arms in position against his body even as he was hoisted by them. He dangled freely, body arched, Elgar'nan seemingly expending no effort to hold him.
He did not fight. He did not strain to raise his head. He let himself go limp, trying to conserve whatever strength he could for what was to come. He felt Elgar'nan's weight shift a moment before it happened, flung forward, barely time to register the suspension of his body in the air before he landed on his desk, scattering his books.
He wanted to curl up on the familiar surface, as if the wood grain he knew so well could possibly shelter him. Instead he forced himself to remain in the awkward position he'd landed in, one hip and back against the cool wood. Elgar'nan reached out and shoved him so that he lay instead atop his bound arms.
It ached. And he embraced this pain, knowing it would be the gentlest to come.
A burst of magic, a flare of heat, then his ears caught it first, a sharp crack as something traveled through the air before a strip of brutal heat cut across his back. He tried to jerk away but there was nowhere to go, a second strip following, then a third. Forth. Fifth. As each new one was laid the others seemed to burn anew. Sixth. Seventh. He only slowly realized he was screaming with each strike.
Eighth.
Ninth…
Tenth? Twelfth? He lost count, mind unable to hold onto something as irrelevant as a number amidst this agony. His throat burned and he was sobbing wretchedly as he was struck again and again.
From the back of his neck to his knees, his flesh was a screaming mass of pain. "Thirty." The word felt important somehow, but he could not make sense of it. Another line seared into his back. Another. Another.
Another.
The world narrowed. It was as if he slept in the brief interludes between lashes, utterly unable to do anything other than wait passively. Mind empty and body reacting.
"Forty."
What did it mean?
"Fifty."
He screamed with an empty voice. A vague impression came that he was dead, unable to accept that this could be living.
"Sixty."
Something was there. Something in the voice. It was shaky, hoarse. The brutality slowed, but did not stop.
His body spasmed with each strike. They sounded wet now, accompanied by a thick splattering sound. The longest pause yet, his mind beginning to return. He made out another sound, a different sound, but before he could even attempt to make sense of it his flesh was introduced to a new agony.
"Mm," a horrible grating pressure, pain a jagged protrusion trying to rip free of him. "You make me an animal. But it feels good to be a beast. And you, a beast yourself, you can take it."
He woke.
Elgar'nan's hands on his raw shoulders. Elgar'nan's weight on his flayed back. Elgar'nan moving back and forth.
Back and forth.
He knew what was happening, retching, but nothing emerged but bloody spittle. He could feel it now, the firm line drawn against his brutalized body.
Elgar'nan was fucking him.
Fucking his open back, whipped raw. He wondered if skin remained, but could not tolerate the idea that a cock stroked against his bare muscle.
"I'm close." He moved harder, faster, and Solas saw stars as he lingered in one area, some of the line he'd felt before seemingly absent.
Where was it? Where? Elgar'nan was gasping, thrusting hard in the same spot, as though he'd sheathed his length within Solas' body.
He thrashed, a blind terror overtaking him, somehow even more powerful than the pain. But Elgar'nan just grunted and laid over him, gasping and moaning against his ear while something shattered in him.
"Mm, yes, I'm— there."
Hips jerking as he came. Each coarse rub of his body against Solas' a fresh agony. The violation as appalling as the pain, mind shying away from the brutal reality that Elgar'nan was orgasming within his body, that his seed slicked across Solas' interior, in places where nothing should ever reach.
He could not feel it within, but it was no blessing, his entire body throbbing with unyielding suffering.
Elgar'nan slowed, panting against his ear, while tears pooled beneath his cheek. He felt himself drifting again, mind numbed by shock and horror, and this time he welcomed it, surrendered to any respite.
He did not move, not even when Elgar'nan grunted and began to thrust again. He felt the vague sense of fingers digging into his neck, but he could still breathe. It only slowly occurred to him that the man was making sure he hadn't died.
Apparently, he would not want to fuck a corpse.
Solas wished he was a corpse.
Time stretched and contracted strangely, and he felt dazed, disoriented. He knew there was something he should feel, but each time he reached for it some part of him demanded he stop, so he did. There was a peace here, after all.
He felt nothing. Knew nothing.
He was empty.
All things were just a sensory tease, a flutter at the farthest edges of his awareness. Was that a sound? A smell? A sensation? He did not know, and it did not matter. He was nothing, nothing surrounded by nothing, and that was as it should be.
That was the only thing he knew.
Change occurred at the periphery, easily set aside.
His entire body rocked, and again, again, then it stilled. And he drifted.
He sensed himself at the edge of something enormous. A chasm. An eternity. A promise. He did not know.
But its presence was like force and absence. Something different. Demanding in its strangeness.
Like pleasure and—
Pain.
Pain.
It tore through him and he felt himself shredding in its wake, unbecoming, unmaking and unmade. His power pulsed around him and the bindings were smoke, his body twisting as he dislodged all parts of this heinous violation.
Elgar'nan fell and Solas followed, keeping them close as he sank his teeth into the meat of his throat and tore. Blood burst hot in his mouth and Elgar'nan's gasp was liquid and it made him want.
He swallowed, nearly choking on the evidence of his violence, only to do it again. The blood splattered across his face in a hot arc and he felt dizzy with desire.
He would have stayed here, biting and swallowing, until the man was nothing but a weight in his gut, but he was pushed aside. He screamed as he landed against his skinned back and then Elgar'nan was atop him, his anatomy exposed by the ragged holes Solas had torn in his flesh.
He did nothing to stem the blood that streamed from his ruined throat.
Solas met his eyes.
It was an awakening. Everything changed. How had he never seen, never known?
Instead of flinching away from it, he laid down flat, letting the pain overwhelm. He gasped at the glut of sensation, eyes fluttering shut.
This is what flesh gave them. This is what immortality granted them.
All experiences were a gift.
"I knew it." Elgar'nan's voice was wretched, hoarse, wet, and utterly ruined, but the words were just able to be understood. "I knew it. I knew you were like this."
Solas felt him bend in near, the blood that poured over him even hotter now. "You're just like me."
He shuddered, something wet between them. It took him a moment to place it as an orgasm. The pleasure was just another sensation. Elgar'nan put a heavy hand on his bare waist, fingers just catching the edge of his torn skin, and he yanked. Solas threw his head back with a loud crack as the motion tore strips of flesh free, panting and wanton.
"I saw it in you," he continued in a way that might be conversational if not for his voice. "It took time to emerge in me, too. But I needed it. Do you understand? I needed this—" he released his grip on Solas' waist to grab his head, shoving it into the bloody wet ruin of his throat as he cried out with his ruined voice.
Solas consumed. He gulped the thick blood, iron blooming across his tongue; he tore at flesh and muscle; he worried delicate tubes until they snapped in his mouth and he knew their flavor. All the while Elgar'nan trembled, hips thrusting.
He understood. He understood.
The pinnacle of sensation.
It was not pleasure. It could not be pleasure.
It was pain.
It was being destroyed and surviving. It was being killed without dying. It was what they alone could do.
This was not bestial. No, a beast would kill to feed or to protect. This was not bestial at all.
They were spirits who had taken flesh.
This was only for them.
No one and nothing else could understand.
Time lost meaning as they explored. He lapped at the interior of a body, grazed his cheek against the underside of skin, feeling how soft, warm, and wet it was. He drew his tongue across the ridges and divets of muscle, exploring the mechanics of organic propulsion. This let Elgar'nan move, let him command, let him call out.
Solas learned.
He could barely breathe as he pressed deeper in, blood running down him in layers, growing tacky against his skin even as it coated him anew. Suffocating in this violence did not matter, did not disturb—only another experience. He would not die, and perhaps when he woke Elgar'nan would have exposed a different part of Solas, or a different part of himself, to their mutual fascination.
A vibration against his skin as Elgar'nan moaned, hips jerking as he came between the press of their bodies, Solas feeling every ragged sound he managed to make despite the ruin of his throat.
This flesh was forged of violence, of violation. It haunted him, that cruelty, but it had felt inevitable… Mythal had needed to try and control Elgar'nan, and when she needed his help, how could he possibly deny her?
She was everything to him. He had been everything to her.
But flesh changed them both. It did not destroy, but it complicated. It complicated beyond reason, for here he was, supping upon tender violence like it was the only thing he knew.
Tactics had been abandoned. Logic, too. There was nothing but their strange desires, foreign and wretched and perfect. He was not trying to kill Elgar'nan, this man who had formed Solas' fate; he was sating himself.
He had been shown.
But it waned. His guilt interfered. How could it be harder to bear than the ruination of his back, than the layers of muscle he no longer tried to deny that Elgar'nan had penetrated, fucking into him until he spilled, his pale seed mixing with Solas' own dark blood?
But it was. It was.
He pulled away and Elgar'nan gasped, fingers scraping at his skull. "No, no—"
He had never thought to hear the All-Father sounding so desperate. It ached to understand.
They were alike. So alike. Even among the Evanuris, Solas could not fathom another favoring these extremes of violence. He knew as he drew away that he was rejecting something precious, something profound.
Such bliss. They could have this for eternity, doing nothing but exploring the furthest reaches, pushed and pushing. They could bear it: more, they could revel in it.
But he couldn't. Having the disposition did not force him. And it could not turn him away from his goals.
For if he gave in, even if he drew Elgar'nan into an eternal confluence, he would be standing aside while the others did whatever they so chose. He would be permitting empire to rein.
He could not.
He pulled himself out from under Elgar'nan. He told himself that dragging his ruined body across the ground hurt, that it was agony, that it was undesirable.
He met golden eyes.
He looked away.
Such sorrow… he had never expected to see it, not on that face. Elgar'nan looked as though he had lost the most important thing in the world.
Perhaps he had.
Perhaps they both had.
When it was clear that Solas would not look at him again, he felt the surge of the man's magic like an angry throb as he healed his throat. Solas did not watch him dress.
He waited until he'd left before healing his back.
Thank you everyone for your patience in waiting for this post. We can't wait to see what you create this year! Have fun!
Image text under the cut-
Transcription:
ABOUT THE EVENT
The Merry Whump of May is an event run by @wormwriting and @painsandconfusion. There are 31 days of prompts to be completed each day of May. Feel free to do as much or as little as you’d like.
Prompts can be filled in prose, poetry, art, or any other medium you resonate with.
There will be participation and completionist medals in downloadable pdf format.
Prompts
01 - Breathless
“Get back in there” | Ring box | Cliff
[ID: a banner featuring bright red apples, prison bars, and medieval looking text of the story's title, Rain and Apple Blossoms. End ID.]
A nameless convict suffers in a prison camp, sentenced to years of hard labour for his crime. There, he is tormented by cruel guards and an even crueller chief overseer who seems to enjoy humiliating him.
Eventually, he escapes, and he finds himself cared for by a kind stranger who is on her own journey of grief and self-discovery.
With soldiers still hunting for the fugitive, every moment he spends in his unlikely caretaker's company is a risk to them both.
Heavier on whump than plot. Heavier on hurt than comfort. But it's all there.
Full list of CWs at the bottom of this post.
Written for The Merry Whump of May 2024. All drabbles, exactly 100 words. All connected, but many can be read as standalone pieces. However, if you want to read it as a full "narrative," the suggested reading order is below. (Alternatively, find the list of prompts in event order here.)
Suggested Reading Order
🌫️ The Camp
Day 9 - “You’re nothing.”
Day 27 - C for “convict”
Day 8 - A proud, arrogant fool.
Day 2 - Snake venom and molten sand
Day 2 - “Don’t you dare.”
Day 7 - “Forget about them.”
Day 10 - “I don’t have regrets.”
Day 11 - “Pretty little thing.”
Day 12 - “Let me hear you.”
Day 3 - “See what happens.”
Day 14 - “Leave him alone.”
Day 16 - Your neverending insolence
Day 16 - Twenty-nine and one
Day 16 - “Naïve fool.”
Day 1 - Swallowed by the dark
Day 28 - The indistinct phantoms of nightmares
Day 14/23 - Deserving sinners
Day 5 - The chance to flee
Day 6 - Disobedient dogs who try to run
Day 13 - “To know you'll only fail again.”
Day 8 - “I’m fine.”
🌫️ The Escape
Day 13 - Leave no trail.
Day 7 - The world beyond
Day 6 - A sombre dawn
Day 15 - A fool, a dead man
🌫️ The Cellar
Day 4 - “Who are you?”
Day 15 - “Let me help you.”
Day 17 - “Wait, are you afraid of me?”
Day 24 - “Lean on me.”
Day 23 - Cursed, hunted, condemned
Day 27 - “You’re trembling.”
Day 12 - “I’m dangerous.”
Day 17 - “You’re not a prisoner here.”
Alt Prompt - “No one knows you’re here.”
Day 15 - Her foolhardy selflessness
Day 25 - “Is that wise?”
Day 24 - “Just forget about me.”
Day 30 - “I think you might be a good man.”
Day 29 - “Just another few days.”
Day 15 - Endless pools of sorrow
Day 20 - “Are you alone here?”
Day 24 - “What’s with all the apples?”
Day 13 - “I just wish I could repay you.”
Day 28 - “You've found your smile again.”
Day 25 - “I’ve always loved the rain.”
Day 2 - “What are you doing in my house?”
Day 1 - “What were you thinking?”
Day 18 - “Why do you love him?”
Day 11 - “An arrangement, and nothing more.”
Day 6 - “He would never hurt me.”
🌫️ The Recapture
Day 18 - “Nowhere to run, crook.”
Day 19 - “Rot in hell.”
Alt prompt - “It was her.”
Day 4 - He with no future
Day 20 - “Don’t tell me you forgot about me.”
Day 22 - “It’s been too long.”
Day 22 - A death sentence disguised as mercy.
Day 31 - “Enjoy your last night here.”
Day 31 - “Now you’re a broken man.”
Day 28 - “Hope you enjoyed the last taste of freedom you'll ever have.”
🌫️ The Pits
Day 29 - “You ought to be grovelling at my feet.”
Day 26 - A shambling spectre that once was a man
Day 21 - Leashed, muzzled, and ordered around like a beast
Day 3 - Half-lives in the dust
Day 30 - A creature soft, yet wild
Day 25 - “I’ll always love the rain.”
🌫️ A Free Man
Day 1 - Retribution well-deserved
Day 29 - “You are free.”
Day 29 - Charcoal and silver
Day 26 - Fading stars and blooming sun
Alt prompt - Rain and apple blossoms
Full List of Content Warnings
pain, angst, prison, prison camp, labour camp, forced labour, chains, blood, restraints, cruel law enforcement, branding, taunting, humiliation, physical violence, beatings, very brief minor whump, whipping/flogging, gag/muzzle, exhaustion, thirst/dehydration, mine collapse, minor character death, death mention, failed escape, torture, barbed wire, exposure, guilt, fear, grief, loneliness, prospect of a loveless marriage, betrayal, recapture
Tw: forced swallowing of suspicious substance, handcuffs, small spaces
Completely unedited :) so read at your peril
~*~*~*~*~*~
Casper let out a groan as the car finally came to a stop. With his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs bunched up in the tight space, there was no way to stop himself from hitting his head off a corner at the sudden stop. It only aggravated his headache from the beating Monroe’s goons had given him before they stuffed him in here.
Casper heard two car doors open and close followed by footsteps that got closer and closer to the boot. Casper knew this was inevitable, if you stuff someone in a boot and park the car, usually you’re going to have to remove them from the boot, but still… his heart pounded all the same.
It was Gavin who opened the boot and stared down at Casper with a wicked grin. “Enjoy the ride, Casper?”
“I’d enjoy it more if I didn’t have to see your face, ugly,” Casper replied, already moving to sit up in the boot which turned out to be more of an effort than he initially thought.
As soon as he sat up Gavin had a fist wrapped into Hero’s shirt and yanked him forward. Casper’s eyes went wide but he could do nothing to stop himself as his body went with gravity and he fell face first onto the concrete. At the last-minute Casper jutted his shoulder forward, taking the brunt of the impact there instead his face but it still hurt.
“You’re such a dick,” Casper spat, rolling onto his back and wanting to kick his legs at Gavin. He would have too, except for his legs being dead. His blood fizzed as feeling slowly returned to him. Gavin let out a stupid laugh that grated on Casper’s ears, hurting more than the fall.
God… Casper really wanted Monroe to just kill the fucker already. Give Casper some peace, hire better goons.
“Oi,” the other goon called, voice drawl and monotone. “What’s the holdup?”
“He’s being difficult,” Gavin said in reply. Casper heard a sigh and then the other guy walked around the car to see Casper lying on the ground. Casper instantly scurried backwards as best he could on his cuffed hands and pins-and-needle-riddled legs that was just becoming awake.
Monroe’s other favourite goon, who Casper only knew as Dante, was far scarier than Gavin thought he was. He was lethal, efficient and humourless. His pale eyed stare pinned Casper in place after Casper’s back hit the wall. Casper watched as Dante reached behind his back and retrieved his gleaming pistol, drawing back the hammer and loading a round into the chamber with the simple flick of his thumb.
Dante inclined his head, voice monotone as he said: “would you like to walk up to Monroe’s suite, Casper? Or crawl?”
Casper set his mouth into a resolute, thin line, trying to maintain any of his dignity that vanished when Dante was involved. “I think I’ll walk,” Casper replied, already pushing himself up by leveraging his back against the wall.
Dante’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t holster his pistol; he just walked over to Casper and grabbed the crook of his elbow before pushing him towards the lift that led to the hotel above. Casper knew exactly where he was. Dante had brought him here multiple times before. The handcuffs and the boot treatment was new, but Casper didn’t have to think twice about why he was cuffed. Why Dante was being especially impatient…
Gavin followed him into the lift and pressed the button for the penthouse suite. This was when the nerves usually kicked in, but today Casper was more scared of Dante than Monroe. Monroe, he could sweet talk. Dante was like talking to a wall. An imposing, emotionless brick of a wall. The only advantage Casper had for assurances that Dante wouldn’t kill him was Monroe’s… fondness for Casper.
On good days, Casper liked to think on his relationship like more of a partnership. Where Casper and Monroe were equals. That’s the way it had always been, but lately… well, things have been tense to say the least.
He cast his eyes to the ascending numbers of the lift, watching every floor rise until he reached floor 63: Monroe’s home, the penthouse suite.
Dante punched in the six-digit passcode to enter the penthouse, while Gavin nudged Casper with his shoulder. “You fucked up big this time Casper, I don’t think Monroe’s gonna be so forgiving.”
Casper scoffed, glancing back over his shoulder to Gavin. “Even if he kills me, it would be a blessing. At least I wouldn’t have to stand so close to you.”
“You just think you’re so smart, don’t ya?” Gavin cursed, shoving Casper forward. Casper didn’t brace for a push and so he stumbled forward, just at the perfect timing that the lift doors opened. Casper lost his balance but recovered slightly and only dropped to one knee.
“I don’t think I’m smart, Gavin,” Casper replied easily, getting one foot under him. He shot a smirk over his shoulder to the bull in a China shop and said: “I just know I’m smarter than you.”
Casper got his second foot under him and went to stand but froze when he felt Gavin’s meaty hand on the back of his neck.
“Why you little—”
Dante’s cool voice cut through Gavin’s no doubt colourful insults. “You’ve wasted enough time already.”
Gavin’s hand disappeared from Casper’s neck, instead Dante’s hand replaced it and yanked Casper up. Before Casper could protest, Dante shoved him forward, further into Monroe’s apartment, the threat clear. Keep walking or else.
“Okay, alright! I’m going,” Casper grumbled, rolling his shoulders, thankful his legs had stopped prickling and was now fully functioning. Casper walked into the kitchen and froze.
Sitting at the kitchen island with a steaming cup of coffee beside him sat Monroe. He smiled when he saw Casper and stood to greet him. A hand pressed between Casper’s shoulder blades shoved him further into the kitchen, barely catching himself.
“Casper,” Monroe greeted, his voice soft and melodic like a warm tenor, pleasing on the ear. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Casper bit back his unhelpful reply and just beamed a smile at Monroe instead. He had to play this safe, otherwise he’d probably end up dead. Casper matched Monroe’s steps forward, shrugging as casually as he could with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Yeah, well. Not every day you get thrown into the boot of a car by two goons, is it?”
Monroe’s grin was sharper than a Stanley blade as he extended a hand to Casper’s forehead where Gavin had slammed his head against the ground to stop him from fleeing.
“You’re bleeding,” Monroe said, tenderly touching the broken skin around the wound. Casper barely caught the greedy look in Monroe’s eyes before he pressed his thumb to Casper’s cut. Casper hissed and recoiled, but Monroe caught the back of Casper’s head with his other hand and kept him still. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes!” Casper hissed, trying to shoulder Monroe away from him.
The corner of Monroe’s lips twitched up. “Good,” he said, digging his thumb in harder before pulling away from Casper altogether. The pain was more of an annoying ache really, a loss of sensation but he wanted to relieve it somehow. He wanted to reach up and press a tender hand to it, but with his hands cuffed he couldn’t really do much of anything.
He watched as Monroe strolled over to retrieve his coffee off the island, then shot a pleasant smile back and Casper.
“Shall we enjoy the sunset on the balcony, Casper?” He asked, but he was walking before Casper could answer. Casper glanced back to Dante and Gavin before setting his jaw and reluctantly following Monroe out to the balcony.
“I’d enjoy the sunset if you took these cuffs off,” Casper told Monroe, voice sweet like honey. Monroe smiled at Casper as he sat in his favourite cushioned armchair and set his coffee on the glass table in front of him.
Monroe gestured for Casper to take his usual seat in front of Monroe’s, “please, sit.”
“You know what, Monroe? I’d love a coffee, if you’re feeling generous,” Casper said with a sigh and a cheeky smile as he settled into his own cushioned chair.
Monroe laughed. “Oh, Casper… I am feeling a lot of things towards you at the moment,” his brown eyes cutting into Casper’s. “Not one of him is generous.”
Casper reclined back into the chair, kissing his teeth and switched his gaze to the bustling city instead. The sunset was beautiful, casting the buildings with soft orange light as the sun sank low into the blue and pink sky. Casper wished he could enjoy it like he usually did. Instead, he was here, sitting across from Monroe and trying his best to ignore the claw of fear that had gripped his chest.
“I thought we had an understanding, Casper,” Monroe began with his soothing tone and sugar-coated words. “I thought we was partners.”
“Yeah,” Casper said with a scoff, turning to look at Monroe. “I thought so too. Then, next thing I know Dante’s at my door, beating the shit out of me to drag me here to you! My phone didn’t break by the way, it still works. Normal people call when he need something.”
Monroe’s eyes flashed with a drop of cruelty, a knowing smirk spreading across his face.
“Are you really trying to play coy with me, Casper?” Monroe asked with a laugh. “We both know you’re smarter than that.”
Casper sat forward in his chair and tried for a charming smile. “How about you take these cuffs off and we can have a lovely little chat, hmm? That’s what you want right? To smooth everything over.”
Monroe hummed, taking a sip of his coffee and glancing out across the city’s skyline. Casper huffed out a scoff and rolled his eyes, glancing back to the door to track where the other two arseholes was.
“Of course, Casper. We can have a civil conversation.”
Casper cocked an eyebrow, waiting for the and, if or, but. Monroe in reply, took something out of his pocket and placed it on the table between him. Casper made a point of looking at it — it was like a scientist’s test tube but smaller with a cork in it, or a vial of some toxic substance. The liquid inside was a deep purple where the sun hit it, but otherwise it looked black. When Casper glanced back at Monroe he was smiling, looking very comfortable and pleased with himself.
The warning bells was already blaring in his mind, so Casper just remained silent. Even if he wanted to speak, he wouldn’t know what to say.
“I’ll take off your cuffs, as long as you drink this.”
“I can’t drink it unless you take the cuffs off,” Casper shot back, agitated.
“Nonsense, “Monroe waved away, grabbing his coffee from the table and nodding at someone behind Casper. “That’s what I pay Dante for.”
A hand crossed in front of Casper, and he recoiled back, his heart racing. He jumped to his feet as Dante appeared in front of him, but a pair of hands on his shoulders dragged him back down to the chair and held him there.
There was a pop as the vial was uncorked.
“No, no, no! Wait!” Casper cried, struggling under Gavin’s hold as Dante stepped too between Casper’s legs that ruled out the use of his legs. “Monroe! What is that?!”
“Open up, Casper,” Dante said in the same monotone droll. “Don’t make me force you.”
Casper’s chest rose and fell too fast as he continued to struggle, turning his head away as Dante reached forward. A hand in Casper’s hair had him crying out as Dante wrenched his head backwards.
“Aagh! Get off of me!” Casper cried, twisting and turning, trying to stop Dante’s hand from getting closer or even better, spilling the fucking contents of the vial.
“Always so difficult,” Dante sighed, yanking Casper’s head back until he was staring at the sky. Casper grit his teeth to keep from crying out or opening his mouth. Dante leaned over Casper, pressing his forearm across Hero’s forehead, keeping him down and with his freehand he grabbed Casper’s nose and plugged it between his fingers.
Casper’s eyes widened, his struggles renewing as he realised what Dante was doing. Those pale, uncaring eyes stared down at Casper’s, waiting for him to open his mouth.
“You could have done it the easy way, you idiot,” Dante said, watching as Casper went purple from holding his breath. The struggling didn’t help with his lack of oxygen and Casper was afraid he’d burst or pass out and so —
Casper gasped and then the cool liquid was running down his throat. Casper coughed and sputtered, trying to spit it out. Before he could, Dante slammed his palm under Casper’s chin and dug his fingers into Casper’s cheek. Those pale eyes stared down soulless and bored.
“Swallow it, you child.”
Casper tried to twist his head free, but Dante didn’t let him. Dante slammed Casper’s head back again, so he was staring at the sky.
“Oi,” Dante drawled. “Do I have to cut off your oxygen again or are ya gonna behave?”
Casper pulled every ounce of hatred from his body into the glare he shot at Dante, his nostrils flaring but he knew there was only one way that this ended.
Casper swallowed the now warm liquid. “Is it gone?”
“Mmph,” Casper tried to affirm.
Dante tilted his head. “Swallow again.”
Casper obeyed. Satisfied, Dante let go of Casper’s cheeks and stepped away. Casper let his head fall forward, rolling his neck to try and get rid of the creak. Dante stepped to the side of Casper’s chair and snapped his fingers onto his palm in a ‘come here’ gesture that Casper understood to mean give Dante his hands.
Casper leaned forward, coughing slightly. Dante grabbed Casper’s cuffed hands none too gently and Casper heard the satisfying click that signalled his freedom.
Casper coughed again as he brought his hands in front of him, glaring at Monroe as he rubbed his wrists.
“What—” Casper said, cutting himself off with a cough. “What was that, Monroe?”
Monroe’s smile was cruel as he leaned forward in his seat, clasping his hands between his knees. Casper’s throat felt so dry, and swallowing wasn’t doing anything to relieve the scratchiness.
“You remember Colt,” Monroe said.
Casper raised his brows. “Yeah? Vaguely?”
“He works in science, in a lab more specifically. Remember he made those power dampeners that the police love.”
“Yeah, they’re not the only ones,” Casper spat pointedly. His wrists weren’t the only things those stupid cuffs affected. It left Casper’s abilities disoriented afterward, something Monroe no doubt wanted Casper to experience. That off kilter, claustrophobic—
Something lurched in Casper’s chest, as if someone had just hit him from inside with a hammer. Casper’s hand went to his chest, fingers digging into his ribcage.
“Something wrong?” Monroe asked kindly.
“What—?” Casper breathed before another pang hit him and Casper jerked forward, taking in two long, panicked lungfuls of air. Casper got to his feet, needing to get away because something was wrong. Something was so so… wrong.
His vision turned as if Casper was on a waltzers or something and he barely managed to brace himself with his hands before he hit the balcony floor, heaving.
“AGH! Mo— Monr—” Casper cried, screaming as his chest burned, spreading a current of pure pain from his heart around his body. Casper’s strength left him as his body convulsed and felt like it was burning. As if an army of fire ants was crawling under his skin, biting and cutting and burning.
Casper curled into a ball, grabbing his knees and digging his nails into his waist as his breath seemed to falter and stop and he was so hot, his mind blind with pain as stars burst behind his eyes and something was wrong!
Casper shivered, his clothes scratching and uncomfortable as he writhed in pain, loud whimpers and screams torn from his throat as the poison made its way through his veins. That’s all that little vial could be… poison. Monroe… Monroe was going to kill him…
As if reading Casper’s thoughts Monroe stood, pressing his heel into Casper’s shoulder and kicking him onto his back. Casper’s glare was probably teary and ineffective, but he glared up all the same as his energy ebbed and flowed through his body, shivering and almost paralysed.
“Yeah, nerdy Colt. Little genius really,” Monroe said with a casual shrug, crouching so he could get closer to Casper. Casper tried to lift his arm and push him away, but he could barely lift it off the ground. “Well, I asked Colt if he could somehow manufacture an ingestible version of the power dampeners.”
Casper’s eye’s widened in horror, mumbling out incoherent protests as his body spasmed beneath him.
“Oh hush, don’t worry. I don’t want your abilities gone, I just wanted to punish you for disobeying me, Casper,” Monroe said softly. His words anything but soothing. He reached out and brushed some of Casper’s sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and smiled down at him almost tenderly. “The effects are temporary, Colt assured me, maybe two or three days—”
“You’re a bastard,” Casper spat, teeth chattering.
Monroe grinned.
“The effects are temporary, Casper, but I hope the message won’t be,” he said as he moved his hand to Casper’s throat and squeezed. Casper’s body only responded weakly, his arm brushing Monroe’s trying to dislodge it, but Monroe leaned so his breath fanned Casper’s cheek. “And if the message gets lost along the way, well, I had back-ups made in case you need a little reminder every now and then.”
Dark spots crowded the edges of Casper’s vision and for a moment he thought Monroe was going to choke him out.
Dante said something to the side and Monroe raised his brows, intrigued. Then as lazily as he cut off Casper’s oxygen he stood to his full height and grabbed his empty mug off the table. Casper gasped in air, turning on his side as he guzzled in sweet, fresh air into his lungs.
His smile was the same, usual charismatic one he wore when he was trying to imitate a human being. “Wonderful. Well Casper, get up. Duty calls. You can’t just lie around on my balcony all day. I’ll put on the kettle.”
Casper rolled onto his back and stared at the colour-streaked sky, his body spent and his mind racing. All he wanted to do right now was sleep, or die, or kill Monroe and Dante— or all three.
As soon as he got his breath back, he’d do one of him. Maybe. Probably, for now he just stared at the sky.
“Casper!” Monroe called from inside. “If you don’t move in the next ten seconds, I’ll get Dante to administer a second dose.”
Casper held up his middle finger through the window, not caring if Monroe even saw it. Reluctantly Casper sat up and got to his feet slowly, using the furniture to help him up.
He had made up his mind: he was going to kill Monroe…
