Ummm something with the team finally finding whumpee and untying them.
Whumpee repeating "I didn't break, I swear I didn't, I didn't tell them anything, I didn't," while sobbing.
It's true, whumpee didn't tell them anything, but all that caretaker cares about now is trying to calm whumpee down before they bleed out even more.
A Messy Rescue
whumpee slumped over until caretaker grabs their face, desperate to see if they're still conscious
wide eyes and split lip-- a flash of recognition-- and before caretaker can assure them that its all going to be okay, whumpee panics
"I didn't say anything, I didn't, please you have to--" their sentences fragment as they gasp for air. "You have to believe me!"
At first, the team is horrified that this is whumpee's recognition. They feel sick. One teammate turns away, unable to stand it. Unable to watch. It's wrong.
Caretaker snaps out of it first. "Help me cut them down!" Then, they notice whumpee's blood drenching through their once-white shirt
As the team works to free whumpee's wrists from the shackles, Caretaker frantically tries to assess the damage. But whumpee keeps thrashing, jerking out of reach and flinching at their touch.
Alternating between, "I didn't say anything!" and "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry- please don't-- please don't hurt me!"
The teammates all have these grim expressions, mouths in a thin line
A fluttering horror is embedded in caretaker's chest-- this is so much worse than they could have imagined
Even better if Leader, with real pain in their voice, says "We have to keep them quiet."
Caretaker pulls away for a second, hands half-full of bandages. "What're you saying?"
Leader breaks through the last bit of metal and whumpee slumps to the floor, shivering uncontrollably. Caretaker places one hand protectively on their back, rubbing up and down. They don't stop crying. Leader looks away. "Gag them. Or get them to shut up. We don't need them giving away our position to Whumper"
Carrying a gagged and sobbing whumpee out of the building, caretaker can't look them in the eyes. They keep whispering how sorry they are, but they have no idea if whumpee can even hear them or cares. It feels like betrayal, but they can only hope it was worth it.
a trope I love and don’t see nearly enough: when a battle/fight breaks out but nobody bothers to free the prisoner.
whumpee is just stuck chained up or tied down while chaos erupts around them. perhaps dangling from the ceiling, or locked to the floor on their knees, all while getting grazed with arrows or bullets that just barely miss them. or maybe they don’t miss.
whumpee getting pummeled into when one assailant’s body slams another. someone else’s blood spattering whumpee’s face when one stabs another.
the captivity has left them so weak. maybe they’re barely conscious of the commotion around them, dazed eyes flitting over flying fists and spattered blood.
do they cry out for help? is there anyone they can trust here? do they dare? does anyone care? can anyone even hear them over all the commotion?
are their friends trying to rescue them? or is it just another team who wants whumpee to themselves? if their friends are trying to save them, whumpee is now they’re just stuck watching their friends get hurt by whumper’s goons and being unable to do anything about it but cry out to them and tell them they’re sorry. they shouldn’t have come. they’re so sorry.
terrified whumpee yanking at the restraints and begging their friends to turn back. that it’s not worth it. to leave them here and surrender, retreat, to escape while they can before they end up just like whumpee, chained up and useless and utterly helpless to whumpers whims.
I like the idea of a whumpee panicking when they see their friends coming to rescue them. they know there’s no chance they’d win, not against whumper. that was the only solace whumpee had, that at least their loved ones were safe, and now they’re watching that slip away with every team member captured before their eyes.
the guilt, the panic, the helplessness, I love it all.
Another page full of asks this evening, all pretty much the same... so let me say this again:
…
We cannot comment publicly on the details of our operations.
Especially one that is so recent and regarding which there are likely to be formal investigations by various bodies.
We are devastated by every life lost, whether or not we ever had any chance of saving them. We have been there. We know that pain. And nothing we can say or do will make it better for those suffering right now. We did our best but we wish we could have done more.
I will not reply to and thus make public the string of posts I have had purporting to describe the victims of the terrible tragedy yesterday. To do so would be incredibly disrespectful at a time when the families haven’t even had 24 hours for the change in their lives to sink in.
I will not provide fuel for your soulless click-bait. Every single life lost is precious, regardless of how sellable their story might be.
Similarly I will not give credence or publicity to the spurious (and frankly nonsensical) allegations made on zero evidence against our hard-working operatives, myself included. If the GDF have any concerns about our approach they will raise it with me and appropriate improvements will be made.
That is all I am able and willing to say on the matter. The GDF will release any further details it deems appropriate.
Until that time please be advised that we will treat any further badgering of our operatives as harassment and report it accordingly.
Hi Allison! If you're inspired anytime, "Washing their hair for them when they can't," from the prompt list?
Hi Morgan! Thank you so much for this! It got wildly out of hand but I promise the prompt is in here. I just had to get all the hurt out of the way before I got to the comfort. 😉
Long Way Down
Summary: A rope rescue gone wrong leaves Buck fighting to save a hapless victim. And himself.
Rated: T
Word Count: 11959
They don’t talk about it on the drive home. Eddie keeps the radio down low and the window cracked to let in a breeze and his eyes are on Buck almost more than they’re on the road. Buck pretends he doesn’t notice.
He shifts his feet and the floor mat slides up as he does, bending awkwardly under the dash. Slouched down in the seat, Buck’s knees knock against the glove compartment and he can’t change his position without bashing them against something else. He doesn’t know how Eddie manages to sit like this all the time. They’re basically the same height. Buck shouldn’t feel like he’s been flat packed for shipping just trying to sit in the passenger seat of his car.
Reaching for the lever under the seat to move it would hurt too much. Getting annoyed about it almost hurts too much. Buck’s muscles tense and then retreat immediately from the threatening snarl of pain. He flops back against the seat, making a sound that’s part sigh, part whimper, and part curse and Eddie’s hands tighten around the steering wheel.
“We’re almost there,” he says.
Buck nods. Painfully. And picks at the bandages on his arms.
*
The call came in just before dawn, the alarm rousing them all from the sleep they’d finally managed to settle into only a couple hours earlier. A man had gone for a hike in the dark, hoping to reach the peak in time to take in the sunrise, and the trail had fallen away beneath his feet. He’d plummeted, along with a dump truck’s worth of rock and dirt, and had somehow landed in one of the shrubby trees that grew out of the rocks all throughout the hills. A witness had been able to confirm that he was alive.
Due to the narrowness of the trail, they had to leave the trucks in the parking area and double-time it up to the accident site. Thankfully, it was barely more than a mile and the popular path was flat and easy to run. Forest service said that they might be able to rout an ATV out that way in time to help cart the victim out, but no one was planning on it.
“You know. I could get into nature if it wasn’t always trying to kill you,” Chimney mused as they hustled toward their destination. “The problem is: you stop to admire the view and POW. A squirrel bites your ankle and a rock the size of a Volkswagen lands on your head.”
“Or a large boulder the size of a small boulder,” Ravi said.
He got five matching looks of confusion and almost stopped running.
“Come on,” he said. “None of you remember the boulder?”
“If it’s the size of a small boulder, doesn’t that just make it a small boulder?”
“Forget it,” Ravi sighed and picked up his pace again.
The original witness met them a few yards from the scene. Her entire front was covered in dust, but she didn’t look hurt.
“911 told me not to stand right where he fell,” she explained as the team approached. “I was laying down so I could see him, trying to keep him calm, but he’s kind of losing it a little.”
“You did good,” Bobby assured her. “We’ll take it from here.”
Sheepishly adjusting the straps on her backpack, she said, “I guess the trail to the top is probably closed for the day, huh?”
They walked the rest of the way. Everyone assumed the same cautious gait as if tiptoeing would somehow prevent the rest of the trail from giving way beneath them. Without really meaning to, Buck found himself drifting just a little closer to the edge, trying to sneak a peek down to their victim and the path he’d be rappelling in a few short minutes. Eddie reached out and tugged his belt, pulling him back onto ground that at least looked a little safer even though none of them had any way of telling if it actually was.
“Help! Get me out of here! Help! Heeeeelllllllllp!”
As they turned a corner, the voice of their victim came rising up from some two dozen feet below. It wasn’t difficult to see where he’d fallen. The trail went from being wide enough for two people to pass beside each other to barely having room for one. An enormous bite was taken out of the side of the cliff and the normally sloped and grassy drop was now nearly vertical.
Holding out his arms to stop them, Bobby said, “Alright, we’re gonna consider all of this ground unstable. Unless you’re on a rope or holding a rope, I want you back away from the edge.
“Buck, we’re gonna send you down there. Just get him secure and get him back up. We’ll assess any injuries here at the top.”
“Easy peasey, Cap.”
Because of the amount of the cliff that had been sheared away with the landslide, there was no way to drop a straight line down to where the victim lay, draped over the skinny tree trunk like a sheet hung out to dry. It was a miraculous landing (though Buck was sure the man below would have preferred something slightly more miraculous) and it must have knocked the wind out of him when he landed. His backpack had slid toward his head and the weight prevented him from looking anywhere but at that long, long way down.
His position meant that he couldn’t help with his own rescue at all. Buck would have to come down a couple yards to the side and scramble his way across the crumbly cliff face. Eddie would manage the winch at the top, carefully letting out enough line to let Buck move without giving so much that he dropped too low. It was a little tricky with the loose stone and the shrub bushes that grew out of the hill, but nothing they couldn’t manage.
Of course the man didn’t stop screaming the entire time.
“I’m coming to you,” Buck announced, leaning backward over the edge of the cliff and nodding to Eddie that he was ready to start his descent. “Just keep calm and I’ll be right there.”
“Get me out of here!”
“Or keep yelling and make everything harder,” Buck muttered under his breath. “That works too.”
Without a stable rock ledge to balance on, Buck had to pull himself along using the remains of tree roots. Every large rock he tried to grab just fell away under his fingers and he was grateful for the gloves that let him keep a tighter grip than his bare hands would have managed.
“I’m almost there. I’m Buck; I’m gonna help you out. You’re doing gre- Ah! Fuck!”
One misstep and Buck had let go of his safety root before he knew he had a solid grip on the next handhold and he was falling. He had the harness and he had Eddie, but Buck’s stomach still dropped and he gave an undignified yelp as the ground rushed toward him. He swung like a pendulum, grasping wildly at anything he could reach as the scrape of the rope sent a shower of dirt and rocks falling down on his head.
You paced your room in dread. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen.
A handful of the Titan Trappers you grew up with had an inkling that Belos was behind your disappearance and infiltrated the castle as scouts to find that they were right. No one questioned how easy it was to both enter the castle and find you.
During the escape, a fight broke out and one of the scouts who engaged the leader of the small group was killed. This is what led to your recapture. Everyone in your group froze. Even in Titan Trapper law, murder was a death sentence. Killing a Coven Scout was one too. Considering none of you had killed a scout up until that point to escape, it couldn't be considered self-defense as the scouts weren't aiming to do anything past capture.
The death sparked outrage in Belos' throne room, calling for the whole group to be eliminated. All Belos did was sit there and stare at you from behind his mask with his cheek leaning against his fist. He only chimed in that you were innocent of the charges as you had done nothing wrong. Besides, "the Titan has plans for them. They are not to be harmed."
The rest, however, were given a death sentence for trespassing and murder. No mention of kidnapping. The group was taken to holding cells until their time and you were taken back to your room.
The Emperor is not a merciful man repeated itself in your head as you paced. The sound of your door opening made you halt and turn to see Belos step in. Without a second thought, you raced up to him.
"I-It was an accident! Please, reconsider their sentences! They didn't mean to kill anyone! They just-!" you pleaded. Belos only scoffed.
"And tell the family of the victim what exactly? Why should they have justice taken from them?" he moved past you to a seat near the window. "Wild witches stole their family member's life from them. How is it fair that they do not see those responsible pay for it?"
You clenched your fists when you saw he wasn't budging.
"If you hadn't tried keeping me here against my will, none of this would have happened!"
"You could have left at any time."
Your fists relaxed.
"What-? But you said-!"
"And you did not attempt to see if I was serious. You didn't even try to leave. If you had, you would have found I wouldn't have stopped you. Clearly, you were conditioned to be obedient and not to go against those witches."
You froze. Very rarely did you or anyone else go against your elders while in the Titan Trapper community. There was no need to. Because Belos had told you you couldn't leave, you believed it and didn't try to escape. The only thing you were focused on defying at the time was him taking you to the human realm. Part of you would have stayed to argue that with him and it made you want to kick yourself. The door to the cage you found yourself in was never locked.
"Did you not find it strange that no one brought up kidnapping and were so hellbent on charging you as well? The rest of the castle is aware that you are a guest here."
You stood there, staring at him. What sort of mind games...?
"In fact, if you wish, you can leave now. I won't stop you."
"I can't..."
"Yes, you can. The door is right there. No one will stop you, although you may meet some accusing stares."
"... I can't leave without my friends..."
"Ah. Well, I'm sorry but they did murder a coven scout. Their sentences are to be upheld."
Anger rose in your chest upon hearing this and you tried to grasp at anything you could to get him to change the sentencing.
"I-I'll go back to my clan and tell them what you did!" you blurted out suddenly. "You kidnapped me regardless of what you want to call it! And-!"
"I know what you intend to do upon your return. However, by the time you get there, the executions will have already taken place. Though I would love to know how you would prove your kidnapping when you could leave during your stay and how you would explain the murder to your clan. Surely they would call for justice for the fallen or are they too savage to understand that?" Belos narrowed his eyes at you. "It would not surprise me either way, Wild Witches are unreasonable and violent, as proven today."
You bit your lip in thought. Part of the reason no one knew about your kidnapping is that you had an argument with Bill over something stupid and left to cool down. Belos had taken advantage of that and grabbed you. You knew trying to explain this situation to Bill would only confuse him and blame would somehow find its way back on you considering he still thought he was in the right WHEN HE WASN'T. That meant you would have been banished from the clan for indirectly causing the deaths of other brothers and sisters.
But that was neither here nor there. This situation was twisted and now that lives were on the line, it would only get worse. You were beginning to doubt yourself, that Tarak would believe you. The only chance anyone would believe you would be if your friends were spared execution and they were able to return home.
With a deep breath, you stood in front of Belos.
"What do you want?"
"Hm?"
"What... can I do to stop this from happening...?"
"What makes you believe you can?"
"There has to be something I can do that can stop the executions. I-I'll take their sentences if I have to! I-If I could have left at any point, then this really is my fault and I need to be the one punished, not them!"
Belos stared at you before pushing himself out of the chair.
"You are already essential to the Titan. You cannot take their sentences. Whether you leave now or stay, what I have outlined to you earlier is going to happen regardless and you will return to the human realm with me as per the Titan's commands."
Your heart dropped hearing this and your mind raced.
"F-Fine, then convert their sentences to life imprisonment! You're the Emperor! Surely you at least have the power to do that!"
"... Do you understand what you are asking for?"
"Y-Yes... I-I won't be able to leave if I take their sentences then... A-And I-I won't fight you when it's time to go back to the human realm... I-I'll go willingly..."
His falling silent was the worst feeling ever. You couldn't tell what he was thinking behind that mask. With a hum, he moved for the door.
"Give me time to think about this. Until then, do not leave. If you do, the executions go as intended. Understand?"
You immediately nodded. You could feel some of the dread drain at the fact he was willing to at least think about it.
"Y-Yes, of course!"
"Good night, Y/N. I will have your answer in the morning."
Blood pounded against Pidge’s head. Sharp, short bursts of pain at her temples as a headache came about through anticipation. Sweat dripped down her forehead as heavy footfalls boomed against the ground, heading towards her.
“Lance! Keith! I need assistance! Galra are coming my way and I still have another couple level to scale, can you hold them off?” Her helmet buzzed with life as she gained an affirmative from the pair, acknowledging her plea for assistance. Pidge gritted her teeth in annoyance, she hated asking for help in physical combat most of the time. However, this time was an exception.
Her bayard glowing with energy, she continued to run deeper into the compound. Metal stairs clanged as she ran farther and farther downwards, occasionally facing the charged end of a blaster before taking out that opponent and continuing her race down. Pidge needed to get just a little bit farther, go a teensy bit deeper.
The air was growing stagent and the scent of blood was thick in the air. Streaks of red, green and pink lined the walls, passing glimpses of the horrors that had occurred in the cell block. Most of the guards that had been stationed there had abandoned their posts to attend to the commotion upstairs of the Paladins of Voltron attacking the Prison that was transporting the more valuable prisoners. She wasn’t exactly sure how Matt got on that list but suspected that it was to do with Shiro and the two’s connection in the arena.
Sound could now be heard from the lower levels. Ear piercing shrieks, cries for blood and groans for help all echoed off the walls in a wail of misery and suffering. The scent of blood strengthened, intertwining with the smell of vomit and rot. Pidge scanned the cages, releasing all that she could as she raced by before finally skidding to a definitive stop. Ears ringing and heart beating ridiculously fast, she pressed the sentries metal hand against the lock pad, causing the door to swing open.
Inside was her brother. Inside was the living, breathing Matt Holt.
Pidge’s eyes welled up with tears as she rushed forward to hug him, reassuring him that it was Katie, his little sister, his little gremlin. Laughing a laugh filled with emotion she dragged him outside, careful to mind his leg which appeared to be injured and ignoring the slightly dazed look on his face. Looking backwards she could see the small smile on his face and the genuine hope in his eyes.
Racing up again, the robots and guards were all but taken care of. The path was clear and the other Paladins had radioed in to say they were returning to the Red and Green Lions, ready to get back to the Castle of Lions, this time with an extra member. Feelings of elation rose up inside of each Paladin as they saw Matt and Pidge only meters away from the Lions. A mission had gone well, no extreme casualties and wounds, only minor cuts and grazes.
Too bad they missed a guard.
One shot was all it took and Matt feel to the ground, gaping red hole in his chest and gurgling in pain as he choked on his own blood. The violent red coating the young man as he convulsed, light slowly dripping out of his eyes. Vaguely, screaming could be registered. Pidge’s screams as she clutched at her brother’s hand, cursing fate and God and the universe for the unfair hand it dealt. She cried out of need. She needed her older brother. She couldn’t just... just lose him like this. She couldn’t lose him permanently. Behind the fuzziness she felt herself be pulled away, pulled away from the corpse of the person she loved most in the entire universe for the last time.
-Kae
(Okay so we’re back into the Voltron angst with some Pidge! Honestly I gotta write more I’ve just been having major writers block so that’s fun. Thanks for reading!)
“Oh darling, don’t you know,” the whumper cooed, running their fingers through the barely conscious caregiver’s hair, “love is always bitter.”
They smiled, pulling the injured caregiver into a loose embrace, the whumper planted a kiss on their forehead, their eyes reflecting a playful glee as the broken and defeated whumpee watched in disgust.
“[Wh- whumpee]...”
The whumper pressed into their bleeding wound, drawing out a pained groan through gritted teeth, “Oh you two love birds. When will you learn?”
