“Talk back to me again, scum.” The chief overseer’s face twisted, a garish mask of scorn and hate contorting what might have been a passably handsome countenance into the grisly snarl of a bloodthirsty beast. “Try it. See what happens.”
He kept silent, watching the overseer’s eyes. They snapped and glinted, blazing with savage fury.
“Nothing more to say, huh?”
Without warning, the overseer swung his club, cracking it into his jaw. He fell, tasting the bitterness of blood on his tongue.
“You keep your mouth shut and your eyes down, rat, or next time, I won’t be so gentle.”
suggested reading order | MWM event masterlist
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All my writing is original. Feel welcome to interact/comment/reblog. Pls don’t steal or repost.
Cw: abuse, assault, implied kidnapping, head trauma, slight elemental whump
Sidekick walked the streets, their jacket drawn tightly around them. The wind pushed at their back, icy claws raking down their spine as they fought to keep walking. Their hands were stuffed deep into their pockets, but that did nothing to fend off the stiffness settling into their joints, a numbness brewing beneath their fingertips that swelled to engulf their fingers, then their entire hands.
It wasn’t that late. Maybe nine or ten, they weren’t sure. A few hours after their patrol should have ended, they were sure. Their night route was usually easy, usually uneventful. Watch was higher in the evening and through the night, so most experienced criminals knew to lay low during those rush hours, so it was mostly dealing with drunks or street fights.
But no. Not tonight, things weren’t easy. Why would they have been? Considering Sidekick’s luck, they supposed it was nothing short of a miracle that they were able to walk away from a fight with Villain with only a few scrapes and bruises, and maybe a cracked rib, given how the pain in their side worsened with each heavy step and each breath they took a bit too deep. They had been so eager to get back home, to their little shared apartment with Hero, they hadn’t bothered to stop by the infirmary. They could breathe just fine, the pressure wasn’t growing unbearable. Some ice and ibuprofen, they’d be feeling fine in a couple days. They didn’t need to wait for Medic to finally make rounds on them, after treating all of the heroes who were actually injured.
There was nothing particularly special about today. It wasn’t an anniversary of some big city’s event, the sky wasn’t filled with unyielding storm clouds, the Agency was not having some big celebration—it went against every cliche that criminals tended to stick to. It was just Tuesday, Sidekick had taken a shift at the store which they worked earlier. The Agency paid them fine, they could survive off it, especially living with Hero who was kind enough to take care of matters such as groceries and bills. Heroes were paid better than sidekicks, which was expected. As soon as they were promoted, they’d be able to drop the part-time and invest fully into the Agency. It was seriously just like any other day.
At least it was, until something snatched their hood, their jacket pulling against their throat and nearly choking them as they were wrenched back into a narrow alley.
Their first instinct was to scream, naturally, but that was hindered in the first few moments as a gloved hand clamped over their mouth, covering their nose, cutting off both their scream and their breath. The hand that held their hood gripped their jacket tightly, dragging them a few paces deeper into the alley before shoving them face-first against the jagged brick wall.
A hot pain sparked along their cheek, skin scraping and splitting against the surface as the hand that was against their jacket moved to twist in their hair, dragging their head back before slamming it against the wall.
Dark spots exploded in front of their eyes, swarming the edges of their vision like ants, crawling across their sight. They didn’t have time to try and fight back, to get away, before the bricks were flying to meet their temple again.
“Oh Sidekick,” a low voice chuckled, their hand dropping from Sidekick’s face as they shoved them to the ground. Blood welled against their head, the scrapes along the side of their face, hot and flowing. “How lovely it is to… bump into you again.”
Though they barely spoke above a murmur, their voice seemed to resonate in Sidekick’s head, each syllable like a sledgehammer against the inside of their skull, another stroke of black covering their dimming vision.
Villain drew back their foot, and slammed their boot hard against Sidekick’s ribs.
The Crow and the Dove | The Merry Whump of May edition
Day 3: “You are not looking so hot” | Tension | Alleyway
Hello, I am obviously very late with filling this prompt. Do I care? Nope. Thanks for coming to my ted talk, let’s go!
This is set up three years after Kai and Ashe escape Kyriel. They are both teenagers and running for their lives, not yet together, slowly falling for one another. A bit hard to do when Kyriel tries his very best to kill them both, but well!
CW: injury whump, damaged wings, exhaustion, poison, past trauma, bleeding, bite, drugging effects from poison, fever, infection, infected wound (nasty), mention of past minor whumpee whump (implied)
Masterlist @themerrywhumpofmay
The alleyway was filthy. Filthy, dark, and finishing with a dead end. Ashe saw more than the normal amount of rats scurry away as they stumbled in, Kai half unconsciously slumped over her shoulders - his stupid, beautiful wings, barely concealed by his cloak, dragging to the ground.
She would have worried he was going to get an infection just for that, if they didn’t have a bigger problem already.
“Easy, easy now,” murmured the girl, letting the boy slowly fall down on the floor with a winch. The cobblestones might be dirty, but the alleyway was sheltered - the tall buildings surrounding it being so narrowly close to one another that barely any rain made it through the space in between them. And Kai was shivering, and no hostel would have a winged creature - they had to run away from a priest-led mob the last time they had tried that, funny really when one considered Kai was a fucking angel now, but having Kyriel lead the dark hordes against peasants’ lands would turn even the most fervent believer against winged creatures - and so they needed the cover. No matter how filthy, no matter how dark.
Besides, Ashe had the sinking feeling Kai’s leg was going to smell worse than that dead end street, the outline of the bite of one of the angel’s beasts stark on his skin.
“Let me see that,” the girl ordered, falling on her knees. She reached for the boy’s cloak, long blonde hair falling over her shoulders - rain plastering her braids to her face, her clothes. She could see where blood had seeped into his clothes, the darker patch of wet expanding over his tight.
Her heart broke, in a familiar thousand pieces, when Kai flinched away from her - instinctively grabbing her wrist with his hand, holding her away.
The girl’s lifted her eyes, mouth dry - meeting the boy’s wide, unfocused, and terrified ones.
“Kai,” Ashe’s voice was a low, soothing. “It’s me.” She swallowed, slowly moving her free hand to wrap her fingers around Kai’s, the boy’s hold almost painful over her bones. She caressed his skin, the movement small. “Just me.”
There must have been a sedative of some sort, a drug or poison, in Kai’s wounds - for it took a beat too long for him to blink, silver eyes struggling to put her into focus. For understanding, embarrassment, to dawn on his face.
He let go of her as if burned, flinching away.
They’d come into the night, as they often did. Kyriel’s hounds hadn’t howled, hadn’t left a footprint on the ground. They only chased, relentlessly reforming themselves from the shadow where a woman might cleave them with a sword, with only Kai’s blinding magic seeming to be able to dissipate them for a sufficient amount of time to allow them to run. But this time, together with the usual monsters, Kyriel had sent another creature; a tall, humanoid, furless thing with clawed bat wings, white eyes, and purple teeth. It had charged them from the sky, falling onto Kai from above and grounding him to the ground - followed by other two identical monsters charging onto him after the first one had latched on Kai’s torso.
They’d grabbed his wings. And the third -
Ashe had been unable to do a fucking thing, her own hands full with keeping the hounds away from herself, as the third blind bat creature had wrapped its three pointed tails around Kai’s leg, and sunk its teeth into his tight. And even though Kai had literally roared - his power exploding again, lightening the night sky and shredding the creatures and the hounds both - it had been too late.
They’d both seen the fangs seep in. Had both seen the venom glinting off the beasts’ teeth, the purplish colour of their veins and wings.
Kai wet his lips, breathing heavily against the wall. His head rolled to the side, eyes blinking and unfocused - his skin still covered in blood, the gore of the fight.
“Have I ever told you,” he slurred, visibly forcing himself to let the words out, “that you are really pretty?”
Ashe froze, head snapping up. She opened her mouth, her face a mixture of shock and astonishment.
Kai - the dying-on-her bastard, her childhood best friend - dared to flush.
Had she not been worried he was going to die on her or worse, she would have laughed herself hoarse.
“Do not be ridiculous now,” she snapped, hoarse. She swallowed, doing her best to fashion her face in the picture of indignity - batting the boy’s hand away to reach for his injuries. “You are not exactly looking so hot right now, are you.”
Kai looked at her from under thick eyelashes, silver eyes almost luminescent in the moonlight - pupils as wide as saucers.
He smirked, the bastard, thin white hair falling over his face.
“I am the prince of the undeads,” he slurred, voice low as he repeated the bullshit Kyriel had drilled into his skull in the years he’d been his prisoner, before Ashe could find a way to fish him out from under his clutches. “I am always hot, thank you.”
The girl groaned, at that.
It had been three years since they had escaped Kyriel’s tower. Three years since Kai had come back to life, since the boy had started growing again. And although he didn’t look anymore like that terrifying, scrawny child-like thing Ashe had found under the Tower - something the girl was terribly proud of, her heart swelling every time Kai sank his teeth into normal food and stuffed himself full - there were no doubts he was still young. Barely looking like he was fifteen now, lean and still skinny despite his impressive latest growth, his body catching up on the lost five years of life he’d spent as an undead. And even though Kai was technically twenty, two years older than her - Ashe often wondering, sometimes, how much the physical development of the brain could be offset by the actual years of life and experiences spent into the world - there were no doubts, no doubts in the bloody fucking world, that he was still a teen.
Hormones included, apparently.
The boy’s flush deepened, a lovely shade of red, as Ashe pinned him to the wall with furious, ice blue eyes. He quickly turned the colour of beetroot under her gaze - the girl wondering, faintly, if he was embarrassed or straight up dying on her.
Fifteen. A kid. A powerful, stupid, idiotic, child.
“I am just saying,” the boy continued, ignorant or undaunted by Ashe’s growing rage - for how dared he get a crush on her, the bloody idiot, of all the things they needed to worry about! - “that if you wanted me undressed, you only had to ask.”
He looked down, pointedly, to where Ashe’s fingers were pulling at his clothes, trying to expose the wound on his tight.
Oh, she was going to murder him.
“Kai,” Ashe slowly growled through gritted teeth, summoning every ounce of patience and maturity still existing in her after three years of running away from a psychopath who would cut them in pieces and make them wish never to have been born if caught, “shut up. Or so help me god, I’m going to smash your skull in.”
He giggled, the drugged bastard. Giggled, and threw his head back against the wall, silver eyes surveying the slither of sky visible from the bottom of the alleyway.
“He never needed to threaten,” he murmured, wings stretching outwards behind his back. “I’d obey anything he asked for anyway.”
Ashe’s fury reached a truly impressive point once again, the girl feeling the familiar outrage at what Kyriel had done to the child who’d been his best friend - the son of the women who’d welcomed her into their home when she hadn’t had anywhere else to go, the boy who’d never wanted to harm a living fucking soul. What he’d turned him to, the killing machine, the soldier, he was still even now.
“Yeah, well,” she hissed, yanking the cloak off his body to expose the wound, “I’m not a psychopath with compulsion powers over your brain, am I. Sorry about that.”
She could have kept going. She wasn’t shy of her opinion of what the angel deserved after having murdered her best friend and killed all of their people, Kai and Ashe both the only surviving members of their clan, their ruined country.
But then, she saw the bite.
“He did punish me sometimes though,” Kai murmured, watching the wound with a faintly disgusted expression himself. “Didn’t need to use much force. But he did like - he did like pain.“
Ashe didn’t need to ask Kai, watching the outline of the purple bite - the wound deep and as large as her palm, with foul smelling pus already seeping out of it, purple poisoned veins shooting from all sides of its outlines - if it did hurt at all.
Her stomach lurched.
Kai’s brow was covered in sweat, the boy looking at her with a grim smile.
“My bet,” he murmured, “is that I will live. But I might wish I didn’t.” He clicked his tongue, the years of imprisonment, of running away, fuelling the dark of his humour. “And that he’s already on his way now.”
To grab them both, and make them pay. To kill Kai again, make him his pupil once again, and punish Ashe through him. Or Kai through her, why should the angel limit himself?
The girl shook her head, fighting the faint rise of panic in her chest.
“No,” she whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat, testing Kai’s injury with her trembling fingers. “It’s alright.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “You are going to be alright.”
It was more a prayer than a promise, both of them knowing that if Kai would have been able to heal from it, he would have already.
Kai threw his head back again, sweat glistening on his skin as the pain started slowly seeping through his limbs. Watching the sky above, monitoring for his murderer’s arrival - a crooked small smile forcefully pushing over his face.
They both knew she was a terrible, terrible liar.
Tag list: @suspicious-whumping-egg @forthetaintedsorrow-whump @flowersarefreetherapy (was thinking of you when writing Ashe!)
As always, thank you to my whumperful crew: @whumpcereal @oddsconvert @quietly-by-myself and @sparrowsage who did a fantastic beta job on this and tomorrow's entry. :-)
Warnings: BBU Universe, human trafficking, predator and prey, kidnapping, drinking, noncon drugging, drunk whumpee, whumper perspective
The Handler lingered in the shadows of the alleyway. He knew that any minute the back door of the club would open up and his prey would tumble out of it and he would pounce. The tension built up inside him like a spring waiting to be sprung, a bomb ticking towards the explosion.
The lightbulb above the back doorway flickered slightly, causing the Handler to nearly jump out of his skin with anticipation. But he didn’t. He held himself in check, waiting, waiting, waiting.
The door opened and still he waited. His prey did indeed stumble out of the door and curl over by the wall, retching. This was going exactly as planned. The target was alone. Alone and pathetic, just as the Handler wanted. Still he waited. He waited until the metal back door slammed shut, locking the target out of the club and in the darkened alleyway. The Handler smirked and waited for the realization to hit the ill young man.
His prey swayed heavily as he straightened back up. He groaned and reached for the nonexistent door handle.
“Aw, fuck!” the target glanced around at the dark alley and then up at the single lightbulb over the door. “Shit!” He squinted down the alleyway first one way and then the other.
The Handler had done his homework. He was a student of psychology. In one direction, the alley went on for several dozen meters with no light, so much so that by the time the alley ended, it was completely obscured in inky blackness. The other direction, the direction that the Handler had hidden themselves, was only a few meters long with the bright lights of the populated square beckoning to them. Only an idiot would choose the other direction.
As he predicted, his prey took a deep breath and stepped towards the lighted street and the Handler lying in wait.
The Handler waited for his target to pass. When he did, the Handler, quick as lightning, stepped behind his unsuspecting prey, wrapping his arm around the man’s middle and pulled him against him.
“Where are you off to all on your own, darling?” His words distracted the mildly struggling drunk young man as he slipped the needle into his prey’s neck and depressed the plunger.
The Target grunted and tried to pull away from the sudden prick of pain in his neck, as well as the man holding him
“Shhh, darling. You don’t look so well. I’ll take care of you, don’t worry. You just let go. Rest now. When you wake up, you’ll be snug as a bug in a rug. Don’t you worry. All those pesky choices that life keeps pushing on you, you won’t have to worry about it any more. The WRU’s got you. We got a home already all picked out and waiting for you. You’ve been specially requested.”
The Target moaned again and slumped against the Handler.
“We got you, little trainee.”
The Handler turned his target slightly so he could see the last moments that the prey’s eyes were open. Wide with panic and fear, though fading fast. The Handler thrilled to it. That was the exact look he was hoping for; it was his favorite part of the job.
Once he was sure his target was out, he dragged his prey to his waiting vehicle near the entrance of the alleyway.
“Hey man, is that dude okay?” a random person passing by asked.
“Oh, he’s fine. My buddy just had a bit too much to drink. I’ll get him home and make sure he’s okay.”
“Ah, so you’re the sober friend. Glad he has you. You may want to tell him not to get passed out drunk next time.”
“Yeah for sure, though I think he’s had enough this time. I’m gonna help him dry out. I don’t think there’ll be a next time.”
“Good for you. You seem like a great friend.”
The Handler waived at the bystander as the man walked on, a friendly smile stretched across his face that could fool his own mother. The Handler laid his target out across the backseat, faced down. No one noticed as he slipped the handcuffs on nice and snug around the young man’s wrists, rolling him onto his back to hide the evidence once he was certain they were locked on. He locked his prey’s ankles together in a similar fashion before covering him up with a blanket.
Moments later he was in the driver’s seat, driving off with his new trainee sleeping in the back seat.
Tags: Tagging List: @i-can-even-burn-salad @peachy-panic @deluxewhump @arwenadreamer @whumpcereal @melancholy-in-the-morning @dont-touch-my-soup @whumpsday @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @oddsconvert @melennui @susiequaz12 @morning-star-whump @crystalquartzwhump @whump-and-other-things @mylifeisonthebookshelf @reflected-pain @hold-him-down @quietshae @sparrowsage @quietly-by-myself @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @darlingwhump @hold-him-down @quietshae @no-terms-and-conditions-apply (I hope I’m not forgetting anyone - please let me know if I am and I’ll fix it. I’m still getting used to this)
Whumpee’s neck craned back and forth as they stepped out of the noisy club and into the ringing, icy silence of the alleyway. The light bulb over the door flickered on and off, making them squint harder than necessary through the smokey air.
“You’re not looking so hot.”
A flinch ripped up their spine, wrapping their hands around their shoulders as they skittered backwards, squinting for the voice through the haze and the throbbing in their head, praying it was just a tension headache, not the beginnings of alcohol poisoning.
But..if it was that, then…they wouldn’t be in a good enough brainspace to realize that…right?
Fuck if they knew, it just hurt. Whumpee stumbled to the side, heel of their hand pressing at their forehead.
The world was spinning.
The stranger frowned, stepping closer. “...are you okay?”
Whumpee’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Their ankle slipped to the side, and their vision flickered out with the light - now sideways on the alleyway floor.
(tw beating, blood, lost tooth, strangulation, death mention)
Whumpee spat blood out of their mouth. It tasted like copper. A taste irrevocably linked with failure.
They’d messed up. They'd messed up bad.
Whumpee stumbled further into the alleyway, pushing their tongue into the gap in their teeth. The missing tooth was in the centre of the patch of blood they'd just spat out. “Shit.”
The tooth glinted white for a split second before the heel of a boot descended on it. A crack, and then the white was gone.
Whumper smiled. Not a good smile. A “You’re as good as dead” smile.
This was very very bad.
Whumper grabbed Whumpee by the collar of their shirt, slamming them into the side of the building. Their grip was unrelenting, tightening as Whumpee struggled to break their hold.
“Wait!” Whumpee choked out. “Please!”
The grip loosened. Slightly. “Speak quickly, rat.”
Their faces were inches apart. Small details stood out. The blood drying on Whumpee's lips. The dark shadows under Whumper's eyes. The sharp smell of a leather coat.
“I didn’t hear anything! I saw nothing! Please don’t…don’t go through with this?” It came out as a question.
The grip tightened, shoving Whumpee back further against the wall. Their shoulders felt like they might break.
“You’re going to go through with this,” whispered Whumpee. “Aren’t you?”
Whumper laughed as Whumpee choked. “Look at that, a lightbulb finally went off in your head. Took you long enough.”
The ground and air blurred into one single colour. Red.
Whumpee couldn’t breathe. But they could still hear Whumper laughing. It would take an ocean of noise to drown out that laugh. They would hear it until the day they died. Which might be today, for all they knew. For all their luck. What luck?
Whumpee didn’t have luck.
“Aw, you’re not looking too hot. That’s okay, no one’s going to care about that once I’m through with you.”
@themerrywhumpofmay 3; "You're not looking so hot." Alt; wine glass
(may or may not be used in Hidden Killer. If not, I have a scene for another story)
Fandom: Transformers
Rating: T
Warning: Drugs
Jazz likes when he has the weekend off. He can go to the dance club on Friday, but he wouldn't be able to drink if he has a Saturday shift. Jazz doesn't have to work on weekends often. Jazz doesn't drink enough to get drunk, but he'd rather not drink if he has a shift the next morning.
"Hey, Jazz, shift tomorrow?" The bartender asks.
"Should I be embarrassed, you know to ask? But no, I don't have a shift tomorrow."
"Some would find it concerning the bartender knows them beyond their first name, but I consider it a good thing."
"Just a beer tonight," Jazz tells him.
"You know I always tell you that even if you have to work tomorrow, you can have a drink?"
The bartender gives Jazz a list.
"Now I'm embarrassed."
The bartender laughs. Jazz leaves the bar with his drink. He joins a few humans in a sitting area as a female sits at the bar.
Jazz can't stop staring at her beauty.
"Sir, care to join us in a game of pool?" A man asks.
Jazz agrees, more to stop staring at the female at the bar.
The female talks to the guy sitting next to her until he leaves. Other than the bartender, she's alone, drinking her wine. With no one to serve, the bartender watches the patrons having fun until his eyes focus on the female sitting at his bar.
"You don't look so hot," he says, not liking the lack of response, "ma'am, are you ok?"
Jazz and the other men enjoy their game until they and every other human near the bar hear the bartender yelling for help. All the patrons see the female Jazz was staring at on the floor, having a seizure. He rushes to the bar.
"What happened?" Jazz asks the bartender after alerting Ratchet. Knowing he'd get here faster than other ambulances.
"I don't know. She was talking to a guy. A little later, she wasn't looking good, then fell onto the floor."
"Don't touch that drink," Jazz instructs everyone as he sits on his knees by the female. The seizure doesn't last long, and the female wakes up, but she's out of it.
"Don't move until we get you checked out," Jazz tells her.
"Here, ma'am, drink some water," another female insists.
Prowl and Ratchet agree to take the female to the base. Jazz is worried about her and can go with them into the medbay.
Jazz waits in the hallway until the medics are done. He can sit by the bed while Lennox, Optimus, and Prowl talk to her.
"My name is Jetta Jackson. I was at the dance club for the same reason as everyone else on a Friday night."
Jetta waits for the questions before continuing her story. Knowing the officer is taking notes.
"The bartender said you were talking to a mech. Did you know them?"
"No, I should have been more careful. Rule number one being female going into a club; don't take your eyes off your drink."
"Something doesn't add up," Jazz comments, "I know the cliché scenario; femme gets drugged to be taken somewhere and raped. The guy left after he put the drug in her drink."
"Either the drug was supposed to be slow to take effect, or the guy seriously didn't think anyone would care if anyone was acting odd or having a seizure in the club," Ratchet guesses, "we'll have to wait to figure out what was put in her drink."
Jazz is allowed to stay in Jetta's room.
"The red eyes confirm whom we're dealing with," Prowl argues, "even if I'm wrong, this is a concern."
"I think you're right," Lennox argues, "I worry she's a target once he finds out she's not dead."
Though they can't have every surviving victim stay at the base, the three mechs think Jazz will be looking to be Jetta's guardian. They'll talk to the two tomorrow morning.
Prowl's last question for Jetta is if she lives with other family members. In a way, he's happy she lives alone. Now he doesn't have to worry if others could be targets even if Jetta doesn't know the guy who drugged her drink.
Ratchet takes an hour to test the remainder of Jetta's wine and a blood sample. He is relieved to get an answer even if Jetta seems ok.
"GHB," he tells the other two medics, Lennox, Optimus, and Prowl, "she's lucky the only effect she had was a seizure."
"But that happens when a high dose is taken," Jasmine points out, "it's been an hour. Either she's lucky, or we'll have a serious emergency."
***Conflicting research. Yes, GHB causes seizures. A little later into research, only in high doses, meaning there should be a medical
emergency, and Jetta shouldn't be in good condition for questioning for days. I might fix this as I put this in the story or decide it's one of those rare instances. ***
Roy ducked into the bathroom, flung on the cold tap and splashed water on his face. It stung. Lukewarm and stale. Blood dripped into the grimy porcelain sink. Roy drank from the faucet and spat out pink water. He caught sight of his reflection in the smudged mirror. The lightbulb above flickered and blinked. He touched his cheek and winced.
That would be a black eye tomorrow.
The lightbulb flickered out and the bathroom went dark.
“Ah, man.” Roy sighed, reached up, and unscrewed the dead bulb.
Bulb in hand, he pushed back out into the bar.
“Come on, Roy, chip in.” Eddie said as he counted cash out on the bar. Jeff was adding coins to the mix. The bartender was standing behind the bar, looming over them, arms crossed.
“What’s all this?” Roy slipped the dead bulb in his jacket pocket. He would tell the bartender about it in a minute.
Jeff looked back, nose crusted in blood. “We are paying the gentlemen for the damages done to his establishment in the scuffle.”
They happened to be walking by half an hour ago when they heard screaming coming from the bar. Turned out that five or so guys were robbing the place. Of course they had to step in. And it had gone the way it usually did. Badly.
But that’s what superheroes did. They tried.
“Damages?” Roy sidled up and stuffed his hands into his jeans pocket for his wallet. “What damages? We got the guys, didn’t we?”
“Well…” Eddie started and trailed off as the bartender strode around the bar.
“Broken window?” The bartender pointed to one of the large front windows, shattered glass lying all around on the floor.
Roy frowned. He was tired, and dizzy, and sat down on a barstool. “When did that even happen?”
“Two of them threw you through it, Roy.” Eddie supplied.
Roy nodded, then stopped, because his head hurt too much for that much movement. “Right, right.”
“Tables and chairs.” The bartender continued. HIs shouting was painfully loud.
A table or two leaned on broken legs and a few chairs lay in pieces.
Roy did remember falling into those. So did his back and ribs.
“And the upholstery!” The bartender pointed at one of the booths, the red leather pierced with several forks.
“That was him.” Roy pointed at Jeff. “He’s the fork guy.”
“Thanks, Roy.” Jeff rolled his eyes and shoved his change across the bar. “Pay up already.”
Roy opened his sad, deflated wallet and pulled out his last few ones. “All I got.” And slapped it on the bar. “I’m going.”
And now he had no more money until payday. Great. Just great. He moved towards the door to the outside, limping a little. His knee was swollen and stiff.
The bartender blocked his path. “Uh-uh, oh no, look at this place. That isn’t nearly enough!”
Roy stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets, one hand found the dead lightbulb. His fingers wrapped around it as the bartender continued to shout.
Roy nodded a little. “I understand. I can come back tomorrow and help clean-”
He was cut off. The bartender continued to point out every bit of damage, a finger jabbed into Roy’s sore shoulder.
Roy lowered his eyes. He grit his teeth. Breathe in. His head pounded. Breathe out. His heart raced. Felt the blood leave his face. He balled his hands into fists. Pushed past the guy.
Stumbled into the alleyway. Trying to breathe. Trying to stay standing.
Rouy staggered as far as he could go and leaned against the cool, brick wall.
Finally his ears stopped ringing. Someone was talking to him.
Roy looked up.
“Roy, you okay?”
Eddie and Jeff stood there, Eddie’s hand on his shoulder.
“We did break quite a lot of things, but he was quite unpleasant to you, Roy. Don’t let it get to you.” Jeff was trying to scratch away the blood from his nose.
Roy just focused on breathing.
“You’re not looking so hot.” Eddie sighed. “Are you hurt?”
“A bit.” Roy panted. “Maybe. Not really. No. I’m fine. I just- You know. Yelling. I’m fine. I think I’m gonna go-” He took his hands out of his jacket pockets.
“Jesus, Roy!” Eddie exclaimed. “Oh boy, do we need to get something on that. Jeff, you got any gauze left?”
“What’s wrong?” Roy blinked slowly.
Jeff did a double-take. “Oh my lord. I’m going to be-” He retched a little. “How did you do that?”
“What?” Roy was getting annoyed now.
“Your hand.” Eddie gripped his wrist. “Don’t touch anything.”
Roy looked down at his hand.
The lightbulb.
He had gripped it so hard that it burst. Exploding into his palm and fingers. His whole right hand was covered in blood and glass splinters. Funny. He couldn’t even feel it.
Blood pattered down onto the gravel of the alleyway.
“Hospital.” Eddie ordered.
