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wulfies-kpop-fanfics · 3 years

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Savior → Kim Namjoon

↳ Pairing: Namjoon/Reader

↳ Word count: 3,757

↳ AU: Police Officer!BTS

↳ Warnings: Mention of rape, conception caused by rape, violence, captivity, involuntary bondage

⁙ Summary: While investigating a crime ring, officer Kim Namjoon advocates for the rescue of the final living captive, who has just fallen pregnant.

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“Stop screaming!”

Your voice went quiet, your lips closing as best they could over your tightly bound ball gag. You tasted metal, lapping up blood that trickled into your mouth from your cracked lips. More drool trickled down your chin, the replacement for your long dried up tears of pain. Your throat felt even rawer once you had stopped screaming, to the point that you wished you were still doing so. After being yelled at, you knew it was a bad idea. So, you decide to follow the instructions of the distant voice and silently endure the burning pain searing your throat.

You honestly had no idea how you came to be in this situation. For as long as your memory could recall, you’ve been chained to this bed, existing in the darkness, a small room. A hospital cot, small and narrow, covered by a thin and ratty mattress with only a moth-eaten pillow for you to lay your head-on. Ankles bound to the posts by handcuffs: the skin bound, bleeding and scabbing over from your struggle against the restraints.

Sometimes you would be wearing a straitjacket, white and scratchy cloth. It was old, yellowed and rank, tattered and ripped. Your arms would be bound across your chest, perfect braces for missionary. You could have laughed at yourself, feeling the draft through the hole that was cut into the crotch whenever someone entered the room. Sometimes the hole was covered up by a metal chastity belt, most likely to bar you from touching yourself. Not that you could, anyway.

Sometimes you would be nearly naked, everything out for the world to see, hands bound by rope, zip ties or more metal cuffs against your back and only the belt to cover you. Perfect for being taken from behind, face shoved into your pillow. One thing that always remained was your ball gag, only taken out for 5 minutes each day to feed you. You could not speak words, swallow what was left of your saliva or bite your tongue. If you tried to kill yourself when the gag was removed, you would not be fed, your captors instead deciding to whip you. You knew there were scars all over your back, more recent wounds still bandaged and itchy.

This was the horror of being trapped, wherever you were. Your room was extremely small, only large enough for your bed, a humidifier and a desk where a doctor would sometimes sit. You would never leave this room except for when you were allowed to use the restroom or when the doctor needed more room to examine you. Men would come in here to remove the belt, but you often forced yourself into unconsciousness to deal with whatever happened when they were there. Still, you knew what happened. The wetness and aches between your legs told you as much whenever you awakened.

That was life, and you could do nothing but deal with it. You were at the mercy of these people, no matter what you could plausibly try. They fed you, treated wounds they inflicted, rented you out. There was next to no light coming into your room despite the large window across from your bed on the opposite wall, so you could enjoy nothing. Sometimes your doctor would turn on the desk’s lamp, but you were often blindfolded so that your eyes wouldn’t become irritated - therefore you couldn’t even remember what real, yellow light looked like.

The smallest amount of artificial light came through the large window connecting your room to the hallway most likely from a ceiling light located further down the hall. It was minimal, blue, dim and barely noticeable, but it did give you the ability to see if people were looking in on days you weren’t blindfolded. Often you would see drooling, scruffy men with unkempt facial hair and moth ate clothes. Other times you would see handsome and young men in sleek and expensive-looking outfits, and finally, you would even more often see a security guard peering in with his arm resting up against the glass.

His facial features were hardly ever something you could see through the dim light, but you could still feel his intense gaze through the darkness. He never smiled, never said anything through the window as the scruffy men would, would never stand with both hands extending downwards to where you could not see as the men in suits. The only thing that was uniquely his was the hat he was always wearing, adorned with a golden badge that would at times catch what little light there was and glint brilliantly on the ceiling.

If you had been staring at the ceiling, like you were right now, you could watch the little light show. That would indicate that he was standing there, silently watching you. Sometimes you would wonder what his purpose was. Since you were so weak and restrained, there was no way you were going to escape or scream loud enough that someone would come to rescue you. Sometimes you wondered if he had a weapon on him. He most likely did, there have been times when you’ve heard distant gunshots. Sometimes you wished that he would just shoot you and end your suffering: you had figured out a long time ago that you weren’t going to leave alive. You thought being shot might be the best way to really get out.

No matter what you speculated, you were most likely wrong. He would just stand there, arm pressed against the glass. All he did was stare in. He never entered the room or even attempted to communicate through the glass. While his stares didn’t make your skin crawl like everyone else you’ve seen here, it didn’t make you feel any better.

“How long does this have to go on?” Namjoon whispered through his phone, hidden outside the facility in a small nook where he could make his phone calls without being suspicious. He looked over his surroundings, the night only lit up by the numerous light posts littered around the field. They would go out soon, indicating that Namjoon would either have to leave for the night or retreat into his excuse for a room. Not that he could complain about his situation, you had it far worse than he did.

“Not much longer. You’re sure that (Y/N) is the last girl alive in there?” The voice on the other line asked. Namjoon sighed, nodding even in the knowledge that his superior could not see him.

“I’m sure. They’ve moved Crystal, but I was never given access to any of the girls’ files other than (Y/N)’s. She’s the last one alive in this place specifically. Either they’re starting to catch on, moving them all to other facilities, or worse… leaving them to die of malnutrition as they move onto different products.” Namjoon sighed again at the use of the term. “Please… I just want to save at least her.”

“We first need to make sure that we have enough of an advantage against the ring that’s orchestrating it, to begin with, special agent. If we can’t take them down, saving (Y/N) will be for nothing.”

Namjoon clenched his free hand into a fist, the other one holding his phone so tightly that it might break, “Chief, please.”

The man on the other line sighs. “Wait until tomorrow, at least. I’ll think about it more tonight, go over it with your team. Get ready to take a call around midday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come, dear, I’ve got to check you again,” Dr Woo calls softly from the door, closing it and sitting down at the desk the top of your head is currently facing. You can’t respond, and perhaps that is the doctor’s personal way to torment you like the others that come in. He places a few things on the ground by your bed, but you can’t muster the strength to sit up or lean far enough over to look at what it was.

Dr Woo moves from the desk to stand over you, a clipboard in his hand. From the board he picks up your blindfold, watching your reaction, eyes widening as you see it. You hate that blindfold. It smells like you do after the men come in before the doctor comes in to wash you and put your belt back on. The cloth, however, is a different story from you. You don’t believe has ever been washed. It was once white, you think, but it has since been tinted with stains that even you could see in the minimal light. It goes over your eyes despite your whines of protest, your vision was stolen away from you once more.

Dr Woo wipes the drool from your cheeks and chin, soon moving away to place the clipboard on the desk. You hear the tapping of the board against the surface, waiting for Dr Woo to grab you and sit you up straight. But, it doesn’t come.

“(Y/N), sweetie, I need you to answer some questions,” he cooed at you. You would spit on him if you could. You hated how patronizing he was, how condescending he was and how he pretended to be kind. “Nod for yes and shake for no. Understand?”

You nod. You have no choice but to answer, and if you lie, you know that whatever came after that was worse than telling the truth.

“Have you vomited within the last 24 hours?”

Shake for no. If you did, you’d probably have choked on it.

“Have you been experiencing any abdominal cramps recently?”

Nod for yes.

“Okay,” you hear a pen scratching against paper. “Have your breasts felt sore or tender recently?”

Nod for yes.

“Have you been feeling nauseous?”

You try to scoff, but it sounds more like a gargle than anything else.

“I have no patience for sass, (Y/N). Nod or shake.”

Nod for yes.

“Okay, one more question. Have you been feeling more fatigued or sluggish than usual?”

What was that supposed to mean? You’re almost never moving. You feel tired all the time. You try to sigh, and nod.

“Alright. Thank you, (Y/N). Now, I’m going to need you to sit up for me so I can undo your buckles.” You hear Dr Woo move again, the cuffs on your ankles being taken off, but you don’t bother to try and kick him. You’re too exhausted. You don’t move at all until Dr Woo’s hands are under your head and your back, lifting you into a sitting position.

He scoots you until you’re at the edge of your bed. “I’m going to remove your pyjamas, okay?”

Pyjamas? Yeah right. Soon enough all the buckles of your jacket are removed, as well as your belt. His hands are on your breasts briefly, nothing you’re not used to, but you were sore, so his examination of you was more painful than before. He’s then taking your blood pressure and examining your lungs with an ice-cold stethoscope.

“(Y/N), I have a little bucket here for you, it’s right in front of you, so none of it will get on the floor or on your bed. Can you please urinate for me?”

Was someone else in here with the doctor? He’s never had you relieve yourself in this room. Whatever. If he wasn’t going to get you to stand up and escort you to the bathroom, you guessed that this was your only chance to let go today, so you do as he asks.

“Good girl,” Dr Woo praises. Something small is placed against the desk, you can hear the small tap of it hitting the surface of the desk. You’re soon laid back down with your belt and jacket on, your ankles returned to their place in the metal cuffs chained to your bed.

Usually, after his examination, Dr Woo either gives you a shot, wipes lashing marks (if any) and your ankle scabs, or just leaves. However, you know that he hasn’t left the room. He’s waiting for something. You tense up, wondering what his motive could have been. It would be unlikely that he’d tell you, but you wished that today was an exception as your curiosity outweighed your pain.

After what you assumed was a few minutes, a faint ‘click’ sounded in your right ear, coming from whatever the doctor placed on the desk. You heard him pick it up with a quiet “hmmm”. He stood, pacing across the room a few times before turning off the lamp, removing your blindfold and exiting the room.

There were times when you could hear faint conversations happening outside your room. Hoping that Dr Woo would meet with someone just outside, you strained your ears and tilted your head toward the window with attentiveness. In a stroke of luck, two people appeared before the doctor, standing just inside your field of vision. Their faces were of course obscured by the darkness, but their silhouettes were mostly visible.

“We’ve got a problem,” you hear the doctor’s faint voice from outside. It was muted, but still discernible. More drool dribbled its way down your chin as you attempted to swallow out of nervousness.

“What is it, Woo? Is she?” Another voice came. It’s lighter than Woo’s but more harsh and sharp.

“Yes, she’s pregnant.”

Your eyes go wide. There’s another person inside of you? Inside this hell hole? Your chest tightened and you felt like you could cry, but you had long since wasted yourself of tears and the general dehydration barely kept your eyes from drying out in the first place. A choked breath leaves you. Why did this have to happen now?

“What are we going to do about it?” The third voice asked. It was deep, smoother, and much calmer.

“Either I take out her reproductive organs, remove the fetus which could damage her groin, I give her the shots I’ve been developing, or we kill her and find a new girl.”

“We can’t remove her ovaries or anything of the sort. Fixed girls don’t pull nearly as much money as she does. No damage to the groin, I don’t even want to risk it. How far along are your shots?” The second voice asked.

“I have to admit, not far, especially with the resources we have. It could kill her.”

“Fuck. I don’t know if we’ll ever find another girl as durable and as profitable as her...” Voice number two complains.

“But we might just have to.”

“Backup’s almost there, Namjoon. Are you sure that’s what they said?” Chief Jin asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. I was standing there with both of them as they talked about it. Right outside her room, too. I saw the test and everything.”

Jin sighs. “Then we really do have no choice. Do you have the key to (Y/N)’s room?”

“I don’t, but I know how to pick it.”

“Close enough. Get in there, get her out. She is the first priority. Your team will take care of the rest,” Jin instructs.

“10/4.”

You were startled out of sleep when the knob of your door began to jiggle wildly. “Fuck!” you heard over and over again in the seconds following. Your breathing became ragged. Did they decide to kill you? Where was Dr Woo? Isn’t he the one with the key? You turn your head towards the commotion, not bothering to move the rest of your body. Your neck pops uncomfortably, but an impromptu adjustment is the least of your worries. You couldn’t die, no matter how much you wanted to before. Not now, not while you had another life to protect.

When the door finally flew open, your body jolted in surprise. The silhouette of the security guard was standing in the doorway. Not exactly the executioner you were expecting, but you were getting ready to fight him regardless. He stares down at you, something you’re familiar with but still not exactly used to. The light coming from the hallway illuminates him a little more this time, revealing a round face, thick lips and teardrop-shaped eyes laced with concern.

“We don’t have much time, (Y/N),” he says, walking over to the end of your bed to pick the locks of the metal cuffs. You whine in confusion, wishing that the gag in your mouth was gone. Then again, did you even remember what it was like to do something other than scream? Did you remember how to talk?

“I’m special agent Kim Namjoon. I’ve been undercover here for almost a year, and it’s about time that I get you out,” he explains. “My friends are coming to get the bad guys while I carry you away.”

You sniffle in relief but stay still as your ankles are freed in the slight disbelief that this was actually happening. You’ve been here for a long time. You couldn’t even tell if it was daytime, night or even what day, month, or year it was anymore. Why would someone come for you now? Let alone the person who had been constantly staring at you in silence?

Namjoon slowly moves his hands to your head, raising his eyebrows and waiting for a nod before lifting your head and undoing the clasp that kept the gag in your mouth, successfully allowing you to breathe properly and put your jaw back in the position it was supposed to be in. You lick your dry lips, swallowing in satisfaction and moving your jaw side to side to pop it.

“Can you speak?” He asks, his hands now moving to your back and under your knees, lifting you into his arms.

You shake your head. There was no point in trying.

“Okay, let’s get you home.” He leans to something attached to the pocket on the chest of his jacket. “I’ve got her. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t long after that Namjoon broke into a run, effectively but not intentionally jostling you around. The movement began to hurt your head, eventually causing you to pass out.

When you awoke, you found yourself in another dark room, still brighter than the one you had just been occupying not long ago. Your surroundings weren’t exactly identifiable, you were once again living in little more than the place where you were held captive, but it didn’t feel or smell like death and sex.

You licked your lips. No ball gag. You lifted your leg as best you could. No ankle cuffs. Your arms were resting at either side of your body. No straitjacket. You rolled your head from side to side. A fully fluffed and warm pillow was beneath you. You wiggled your hips. No belt. A wave of warmth and feathery softness washed over you, indicating that a thick blanket had gently been spread over you.

“So, you’re awake,” a voice softly calls from your left. When you spot Namjoon, he smiles. “Don’t try and talk yet, Dr Summers says your throat is still raw.”

You nod.

“You’re in the General Marine Hospital if you’re wondering. How are you feeling? Alright?”

You nod again. He continues to smile.

“Good. Here, I have something for you.” From his lap, Namjoon hands you a teddy bear, fuzzy and soft. He places it in your hand, allowing your fingers to weakly curl over its hand and feel the fabric. “His name is Ryan. Take good care of him, okay?”

“Okay,”

“Shh, I know you will.”

Namjoon continued to sit with you, through the occasional visit from Dr Summers and the filing in and out of his team of police officers. Officers Kim Taehyung, Kim Seokjin, Jung Hoseok, Min Yoongi, Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook were all very sweet, determined to bring justice to the men who hurt you. They would bring small bowls of jello and little popsicles for you along with cups of coffee for Namjoon whenever they visited. They would ask the occasional yes or no question before taking their leave again. But Namjoon stayed.

He would fall asleep in his chair, sometimes with his head leaning back, sometimes with his forehead pressed against the edge of your bed’s mattress. Somehow, you didn’t mind. You felt grateful to him, having saved your life and all. You wondered if he had a family, and what they would think about him never leaving the side of a beaten, nearly dead pregnant girl. You wondered if you had a family, but somehow, you felt that the doubt in your chest was telling you the truth. If you had a family, they’d be here.

Over time, the investigation ended and six months later you attended the trial of your captors through a video call, still only able to answer yes or no questions, Dr Summers’ fear of you never being able to speak again rendering you from answering any complicated questions. But even when Namjoon was assigned to other cases, he would still come every day to see you, to make sure you were okay and if you were taking good care of Ryan.

He would hold your hand, stroking the palm gently with his thumb as he smiled down at you, his former intense gaze relaxing into something you might have been able to see as affection. That alone was something that made your smile return. His stories were things that motivated you to eat. His encouragement and help also gave you the determination to learn how to walk again.

Perhaps after all this, you find it in your heart to feel something other than pain.

On the day you gave birth to Jihoon, you were finally able to speak. You had to have a C-Section, and you spent another three days in a medically induced coma. That was nothing, and you knew it was to keep your son safe. You felt as if Jihoon blessed you, somehow not loathing the fact that the biological father was some stranger who was a part of your torture. To you, little Jihoon’s father was Namjoon, the man who saved your life, the man who gave you life, the man who cured your doubts. The man you fell in love with.

“You know,” Namjoon said after you reawoke, little Jihoon cooing in his arms, “he already looks like you.”

“If…” you try, Namjoon shushing you. “If,” you persist, “if he looks like me, then… he’s going to be brave and smart like you.”

Namjoon smiled down at you. “I hope he’s as brave as both of us.”

#kim namjoon #namjoon x reader #fanfic #reader insert #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop fluff #kpop angst #bts #kim namjoon x reader #bts scenarios

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trademarkblue · 7 years

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100 Days of R/Hr: Day 15

Prompt: “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz

Prompted by: @marauderswho

So I actually came up with this just after reading the lyrics when I wasn’t able to actually listen to the song in the moment. Once the fic was written, I went back and listened to the song. I think it’s mostly based on a few pieces of the whole and maybe not the theme of the song overall, but I hope you enjoy it! x

He walked slowly toward the beach, contemplating how long it had been since he’d seen so many stars so clearly in the night sky. This was actually quite ironic, because he’d spent months living in a tent, sitting night watches outside, so far away from the nearest town. But he hadn’t taken notice then, existing inside his own head or focused too intently on the tree line in case they had been discovered.

Now, he approached Hermione’s small form, where she was sitting in the sand, her body lit only by moon and starlight. She was wearing a black cotton t-shirt that was several sizes too large for her small frame, which he knew to be because of her injuries, still healing after Malfoy Manor, even though she hadn’t said it. It had been almost three days, but his hands would still shake when he was alone in the shower, or when he’d wake up from a cold nightmare with silent dread filling his body.

She turned and glanced suddenly over her shoulder, and he wasn’t sure what had alerted her to his presence. The waves ahead were shifting in and out against the shore, a mesmerising sound in the dark, and he hadn’t been able to hear his own footsteps, bare feet through sand.

“Hey,” he said, now that she’d noticed him, and she watched him as he sat in the sand beside her.

Her legs were nearly bare in a small pair of cotton shorts, and it was quite chilly out, sea breeze blowing her hair into little frizzy tornados over her shoulders, but she didn’t seem to mind. His jumper and jeans suddenly felt stifling in comparison.

“You didn’t eat much at dinner,” he pointed out, almost hating his own voice as he heard the words aloud. Even he had gone through a stretch of lost appetite, when he’d arrived here after leaving them… and he hadn’t been bloody tortured.

She studied his face, and he decided to try and look apologetic, relieved when she smiled softly.

“Wasn’t very hungry,” she said.

He nodded and turned his attention to the sea straight ahead. He wanted to do everything to help her, but he was more often lost than not. He knew there was no switch to flick to make it better, as much as he knew another part of him was desperately, endlessly, searching for it. But, all of a sudden, he felt her hand on his leg, moving over his forearm, fingers inching toward his hand. He met her halfway, fingers lacing together to rest on his knee. And when he risked looking over at her again, she was staring back, glassy eyes holding his gaze.

“How do you feel?” he asked in a scratchy, surprisingly emotional voice. She swallowed, and the reflection of starlight in her eyes intensified as they watered.

He was once again immediately sorry he had spoken, and he squeezed her hand, feeling overwhelmed. But she gripped his hand back before letting go and clearing her throat.

“Better,” she said in a shaky voice, “but… I’m going to have a scar.”

He glanced at her neck, the tiny remaining line across her skin from where Bellatrix’s blade had cut her, but she shook her head.

“Not there.” She hesitated only for a second as he watched her curiously, and then she reached up to the loose collar of the shirt she was wearing, looped a finger over the edge, and tugged it down the centre of her chest, exposing her breastbone all the way down to the bottom of her ribs.

It really wasn’t the right time to notice how much skin she had revealed to him, how beautiful the gentle curves of her body were, how she had a small mole just at the left edge of where her shirt was overlapping the swell of her breast… It wasn’t the right time at all to want to touch her himself, to run his fingertips down the open V of bare skin she was showing him.

Or was it?

Her eyes had welled with tears to the point that if she blinked too hard, he suspected they would fall. Did she think this made her somehow less? The scar was there, but he was having trouble actually focusing on it, seeing more of her than he had ever seen before, alone. And when he did try to see her scar more clearly, he was filled only with rage, something he didn’t want right now. The only thing he could do to tame it was to flip it around so it made him want to wrap his arms around her and hold onto her and stay here forever.

“I shouldn’t c-care,” she sniffed. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m alive. But-”

She licked her bottom lip and let go of her shirt, but it didn’t retreat to her neck, gaping open slightly from being stretched.

“It’s just all I can see, when I look in the mirror,” she nearly whispered, eyes darting away from him to stare out at the waves again.

“It’s not all I saw,” he said, throat quite dry.

She turned back to him, surprised, and he noticed the fresh tear track running down her left cheek.

“You’re just saying that.” But her eyes were darting between his, and she so clearly wanted to believe him.

“No, I’m not,” he said roughly, clenching his fist slightly in the sand… not entirely sure what he was admitting to, but hoping she understood enough to realise how achingly sincere he was.

His gaze danced down to the shadowy gap between her shirt and her chest, flicking back up to her face so fast when he realised what he was doing. His ears burned, but she didn’t seem at all bothered. In fact, she shifted a bit closer to him, until her leg was resting against his.

“I’m trying to be strong, for Harry,” she explained, in a tiny, cracking voice, “but I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be fine-” he started to say, because she was strong, and brilliant, and amazing, and… beautiful, even with a scar she hated. He loved every part of her, half-desperate to let her know. But she stopped him with a hand wrapped tightly around his wrist.

“You have no idea how much safer I felt, the night you came back. I couldn’t tell you then because it hurt too much when you left, but I need you. Harry needs you, too.”

He wanted to apologise again, but she flinched and let go of him, reaching up to touch her scar very gently with her fingertips.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, worried.

“Once in a while, but not much,” she answered, chest moving heavily as she breathed in and out. She flattened her palm to her chest, half over bare skin, half over her wrinkled shirt.

He realised he was going to do it after he’d already started moving. He covered her hand with his much larger one, watching as her lips parted and her eyes fluttered shut.

“I need you, too,” he began, her eyes still lightly shut as she listened. “If you…” But he couldn’t bring himself to say any of the words that came to mind for the impossible possibility that she could ever die. “…left, I don’t think I could do this shit anymore.”

She finally opened her eyes, and he slid his hand slowly off of hers so his fingertips brushed her knuckles before he lost contact.

“I don’t want to think about what’s coming,” she said, so quietly, “or what we have to do next. I just want to stay here with you.”

And he finally noticed that his assumption earlier - that sitting outside in the cold wasn’t really bothering her - had been false. Her bare legs were coated in gooseflesh, and she was lightly shivering now. She moved the slightest bit closer again, and he had to show her it was alright.

“Then, let’s stay here,” he whispered.

He lifted his hand back up to her shoulder, moving slowly up along her collarbone toward the side of her neck, just barely stopping short. But it was enough, and she slid her legs over his, leaning forward so his hand slipped behind her neck and her head came to rest on his shoulder. His fingers got lost in her hair before he remembered to breathe, and he wrapped his arm fully around her back, holding her tight, partially on his lap, wondering why he didn’t do this more often… every day, even.

She bent her knees slightly, drawing her body even closer in toward his warmth, and he bravely lowered his free hand to her leg, heating her skin with his touch before draping his whole forearm across her thighs and dropping his cheek to her forehead. He knew they both knew they had no choice, that they would face what would come, heading straight into the fire. But, right now, they could do exactly what she’d told him she wanted. They could stay here, together, and he’d move only when they had to, not one second before.

#100daysofrhr #prompts #rhr #fanfiction #marauderswho #myfic #tmblue

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silver-spider-art · 7 years

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Borderlands Head Canons

Okay so I have horrible depression writer's block rn and have been replaying all the borderlands games while also daydreaming all the stories I want to tell with these characters. So I’m just going to write out my head canons for shits and giggles cuz I have a lot of thoughts.

Handsome Jack:

Jack is such a wild card. He’s an overgrown toddler and an impatient genius. Also sexy as hell and a problematic fave. I spend so much time playing the game sassing and back talking him (like he can fucking hear me) but I still adore him. And relistening to some of the dialog lines I’ve built up a variety of head canon and AU ideas for him.

So canon vs fanon is a little squishy in my head but Moxxi claims his face is plastic surgery and I’m taking that to be more than the mask. He’s definitely ADHD and neurodivergent. Plus a good helping of PTSD and paranoia thanks to Grandma and trauma from his ex-wives. Those are all his starting points but he breaks into 3 categories based on Angel. Bad Dad, Okay Dad, and Good Dad.

Bad Dad is canon and tips the point of no return for Jack’s mental instability when Angel brutally (but accidentally) murders his wife/her mom. Afraid of his own daughter and horribly betrayed and without “the one good force” in his life, he starts down the path of ultimate Sheakspearian self-destruction. All relationships end tragically and he’s his own greatest enemy. As far as the wife goes, I’m 100% that she is on a pedestal in his head and while he can think no ill of her, the relationship wasn’t all roses.

Okay Dad, in AUs this would be where however his wife died or was lost it didn’t result in his fearing Angel (I normally leave this idea for modern!AUs without Siren powers). He is still overprotective and “doing it for your own good” but without the torture or horrific manipulation. Because of this, while Angel might still resent or hate him, he still has something to live for and is capable of somewhat decent relationships. Still, he rather sucks at it and more often than not is self-destructive. (my fave for writing and reading)

Good Dad, this is a strange and mysterious creature that is nearly unheard of. So often this feels so out of place. So much would have to change to create a catalyst in his life for him to turn out healthy. I mostly see this as a redemption arch thing. Where he might be able to turn it around and make amends given the right people around him.

The other thing I’ve been growing ever found of is trans!jack. He wears a ridiculous number of layers of clothing which is definitely hiding his soft gut, but I’m very fond of the idea that much of his bragging and defensiveness is overcompensation for his fear and trauma both from childhood abuse and gender. There is quite a bit in game dialog on the Jack vs John thing. For the trans!jack I’m actually loving the idea that when he came out and remade his life, he chose John and was hired in at Hyperion with them only knowing him as John. But as he got more comfortable with his new life (and Tassiter made him start hating his new name) he wanted to reclaim his birth name. That he’s always gone by the nickname Jack (born Jacqueline) and was now confident enough in presenting male (and helped by Nisha) that he would even let friends call him Jackie without feeling less masculine. (super self-indulgent reasonings for this)

Other random head canons, Jack is polysexual and pansexual. He prefers women romantically but usually has longer last relationships with men yet rarely thinks of them in the same light. He’s mostly into women powerful enough to crush him and while he is aggressive and into being on top, he’d make a shit dom. He’s impatient and easily losses himself to pleasure. He is, however, a very good sub but it takes a huge amount of trust for him to allow that. (this is also why he is so angry at his attraction to Rhys. Rhys is a soft nerd who can’t even fire a gun, the exact opposite of Jack’s type and he falls for him anyway.) Jack’s vanity knows no bound and he spends way too much time of his look every morning to look perfectly disheveled and like he doesn’t care. Also extremely attached to his favorite things with huge possessiveness (partially caused by aforementioned childhood trauma). Jack actually likes cats but hates being around then cuz old childhood pain. Jack is also complete and utter crap at taking about his feelings or opening up to people.

Timothy Lawrence:

So for dear Tim, my beloved favorite, I have 2 main categories, canon doppelganger or au brother.

Doppelganger: needing money he took a job as Jack’s body double and had plastic surgery to look like Jack. Depending on Jack (Bad/Okay/Good) his relationship turns out drastically different.

Bad ending poor Tim gets branded and has to fell his possessive and deranged boss and spends his life masked on Pandora as a mercenary. Always hiding his face for fear of those who want revenge on the man whose face he wears.

Okay fate, he and Jack are lovers. They fight a lot and Tim’s most often catchphrase is “damn it, Jack” but in the end, Jack is his asshole. Their relationship is polyamorous and stable. But Tim is often in the shadows and overlooked, partially by choice.

Good end? This is so rare I have no idea.

Twin/Brother: having grown up together they get Jack’s asshole and abusing Grandmother and Tim’s “laughs at your death” mother. Having one family member and someone he can always fall back on to help him and someone to be a hero for, Jack never goes full Bad ending. Despite all their fighting and issues, they balance each other out. Always falls in the Okay category of Jack’s relationship to Angel.

But I’ve been working out the redemption arch to lead to a Good Dad ending. Jack actually being self-sacrificing for once and giving up something he wants for his brother's happiness. One idea is that both he and Tim are both pursuing Rhys but after some inciting incidents, Jack comes to realize that his family and friends are happier with Rhys in their lives and Jack knows that he’ll just ruin it like he’d started to do. I can see this beautiful scene of Jack seeing Tim and Rhys talk at a party and seeing Angel come up to join them. His heart aches because he wants that to be himself in Tim’s place but knows it would never happen. That in the end, he’s poison. So he chooses to give up. To let that peaceful scene be reality. That he can accept his claim on Rhys just being as family and not as lover. And that moment of clarity and change of focus helps get him on the path to repairing his relationship with Angel and his brother. Never a smooth ride and he fails a lot, but it does get better.

But back to Tim.

Tim/Rhys is life. I love these two together like nothing else. Jack/Tim and Jack/Rhys is always unstable and huge potential for unhealthy. But Tim/Rhys is heaven and precious and good.

Tim loves cats and sweaters. He wants to write an epic fantasy story but has no faith in his abilities. He’s anxious and terrified of heights but he will be it anyway even while white with fear. He has a huge cybernetic kink he doesn’t want to admit to. Tim dated Wilhelm until the end and still deeply cares for the huge quiet man. While Tim dislikes blood and guts, he found he was actually really good and fighting. After he started the body double gig he got swoll and has stayed in shape since (his own vanity showing). He’s covered in freckles and tans dark in the sun. His voice can be very awkward and scratchy but confidence and vocal training helps that in the non-canon or modern!au settings. Tim is a much better fighter than Jack and can handle any weapon thrown into his hands (I mean just look at his skill tree in game) but he always holds himself back outside of combat and thinks of himself as weak. Despite his skill, he lacks confidence and in the bad endings always believes Jack is actually stronger than him.

Rhys:

My boy. Rhys is trans and autistic. He works very hard to make sure it doesn’t show. He volunteered to get the eye and experimental echo port in order to help compensate for his mental limitations and further enhance his positive skills. His cybernetic arm was also technically voluntary and for badass points he always claims so, but he wasn’t giving up a “perfectly good arm” but a barely functioning arm that always caused him chronic pain due to a poorly healed childhood injury. He stared in Data Mining and while he refused to act in violence to advance, Rhys has very gray morals and had done plenty of shady things to advance in Hyperion. He never had a problem with killing in the vague sense, just not wanting to get his hands dirty directly. This does change slowly, but he still hates guns. They are just very hard for him. When he must fight, melee is the way he goes. Rhys got his chest tattoos after his top surgery to disguise the scars. like his flashy cybernetics, his main goals are “if I have to stand out I want them looking at me because I’m too pretty to look away from”. He tries to fake it till he makes it with confidence even when he has no idea what’s happening.

He always looks everything up on the EchoNet and panics when his connection to it is cut off. It’s his safety net/blanket in many ways. The more the situation is out of control and not following his plan, the more his anxieties act up and leave him vulnerable. This is how Jack easily manipulates him when everything is going to hell. He needs more time to think through things then the chaos of Pandora allowed. Once he’s used to the wasteland and it’s people, this is less of an issue. (Hyperion Rhys vs Atlas Rhys)

His special interests are colorful socks, Handsome Jack (he regrets that deeply after meeting the man), and his new interest is A.I.s. Though Rhys is very into his cybernetics and has moded them some, he can’t build them. His skills are haking, programming, and coding. His old goals where to get a job in digital security or programming once he could get out of data mining. Now as Atlas CEO his pet project has been building and refining A.I.

Random: Rhys is bisexual and leans a bit poly. He is sex positive but doesn’t have to have it in a relationship. He will follow along with most all his partner's kinks as it’s most important for him that they are having fun together. Soft fluff and cuddles are what he lives for though. (everything about this is super self-indulgent)

Angel:

Angel is autistic. It puts her in an especially dangerous/vulnerable position with her powers and Bad Dad Jack doesn’t know what to do with her without his wife to help. He loves his baby girl dearly, but he’s lost and doesn’t know how to help her. In the end, he uses her to fuel his own obsessions and the veneer of childhood is stripped from her eyes as resentment sets in. She lost her father long ago and now only wants release. Like Tim, she could have tried to kill him herself, but while she can and does betray him, he’s still her father in the end.

Okay Dad Jack, (mostly modern!aus) struggles with how to raise Angel but genuinely tries his best. His second marriage was entirely to have a mom for her, knowing he was a shit parent. That wasn’t a good marriage and Angel still didn’t get a mom out of it. Angel goes up angry and resentful of her dad and often refuses to call him anything but Jack. She’s angry that he still treats her like a child. She can’t live on her own and needs assistance in common tasks due to her limitations, but can’t stand being treated childishly like his always buying her unicorn themed things and his insistence on not swearing. She struggles to understand that Jack needs these things for himself too and they both just suck at communicating to each other. They circle around each other, in a strange dance, more like roommates than family. Angel works for Jack as his security expert and hacker/spy. She was instrumental in him taking over Hyperion.

Good Dad... like beforementioned, this is hardly a thing. The good times are mostly in her early youth.

Angel is a lesbian and in okay or good settings falls for Gaige. Jack is very not okay with his daughter dating an openly Anarchist Anti-Cooperate Terrorist who has built death machines. They met online and spend nearly every night having hour long conversations. Gaige makes her feel more normal and nonbroken than anything else in her life ever has.

Random:

Tiny Tina is trans. I read this in a fic and it’s just canon now.

Zer0 is a nonbinary cyborg. They have had most of their body replaced and generally don’t want to be human, so they took matters into hand to make that happen. They feel kinship for Rhys because of this and are growing fond of the awkward man and proud of his bravery foolishness for going into battle despite having no skill. Zer0 and Tim fight well side by side but they do NOT get along outside of combat.

Nisha is aromantic and pansexual and only doms. Her whip very much is used in the bedroom. She and Jack are always off again on again.

Maya is aro/ace and a total badass.

Sasha and Rhys date for a while but end it mutually finding they fit better as friends than lovers.

Gaige helps Rhys make his new cybernetics and he has to argue with her to not install more than one weapon in the new arm or lasers in his eye.

Wilhelm was always going to die of Bone Waste and the surgeries and cybernetics were just delaying the inevitable. Jack set him up to die, but it was willingly on Wil’s part because he didn’t want to die in a hospital but in a huge and epic fight that would be the stuff of legends.

Vaughn is aromantic and sex nonpulsed and he and Rhys are platonic bros for life. Rhys is 100% okay with this and anyone else in his life has to accept his deep love for his bro.

(I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot, but this is long enough for now, oops)

#borderlands #tales from the borderlands #borderlands head canon #handsome jack #timothy lawrence #rhys the company man #random ramblings #My writing #long post

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

Text

Daniel Michaelson: Laced Drink

(another @whumptober2019 prompt for Day 20: Laced Drink. I went with kind of a different take on it, I hope you guys like it!. TW: for nonconsensual touching (nothing NSFW or anything), being forced to drink something against their will)

Nate blinks awake to the sound of a mumbling voice, just a little too muffled to understand. He shifts around in the bed, pushing himself up on his elbows where he lays on his stomach under the heavy soft blankets that Abraham layers one atop the other until Nate feels weighed down by them, by their warmth.

“Bram? Is th-that you?”

“Fuck off, baby,” Bram says without opening his eyes, his voice affectionate but still sleep-slurred, nuzzling into Nate’s neck.

He’s still asleep enough that Nate feels safe pulling away from him, shivering only half in disgust, half in something worse.

The voice definitely isn’t Bram - the mumbling is still going, pauses in-between like he’s listening to half of a conversation someone’s having on the phone. Nate groans, trying to stretch and pull himself all the way awake, feeling skin pull over scratches and bruised spots, wincing a little.

Bram’s arm slides off of him when he moves and the other man - the man he hates and fears and somehow, somehow, feels a helpless despairing love for - rolls onto his other side, back to him, and Nate breathes a sigh of relief.

He still can’t quite stop himself from leaning in to kiss one cold bare shoulder, even though he doesn’t want to, even though he hates Bram so, so much.

He can’t help the little thrill of sick happiness when Bram mumbles, “God, I love you so much, baby,” and then relaxes fully back into sleep.

He hates himself - but he can’t help it.

It’s like a spell - a spell he was under for years and somehow broke and escaped and now he’s under it again, hypnotized, charmed, held captive by his mind as much as by any of the injuries he’s had inflicted on him - and there are so, so many ways to be injured he’d never known before he met Ashley and Abraham.

Before they followed him home.

Before they murdered his best friend.

Before they took him away.

They dragged him out of his own home drugged and beaten and worse days after murdering Ross, kept him locked up and bleeding, and still - still he loves Bram, and hates himself for being so broken as to feel love he didn’t ever want for a man who is a goddamn monster who has hurt him in so many ways and hurts Danny in so many more.

In his sleep, Bram seems utterly normal. Relaxed and breathing deeply, all the power and charisma locked away behind closed eyes. He could be anyone other than who - what - he is.

Nate sometimes lays just like this, watching him sleep, idly fantasizing about smothering him with a pillow or sneaking out of bed to get a knife to stab him with, dumping arsenic in his drink at dinner, just anything - any murder at all would be wonderful.

He won’t, though.

He can’t - and he and Bram both know it. They both know Nate will never do anything more than dream, now.

He escaped once, and then only because Ashley Denner hadn’t given a shit whether or not he loved her - so he didn’t, and he’d been able to kill her while Bram was out hunting for new people to slaughter to sate himself.

He couldn’t turn on Bram.

He wouldn’t dare, not for his own sake.

Although lately he’s started to think that maybe, just maybe, he could if it would help Danny.

Danny had just been some younger guy that he kept sort of thinking about, but here in the cabin, trapped, Nate thought about him all the time.

Danny had been funny, sarcastic and cynical and cursing every other breath - and he’d thought Nate’s quiet dry wit was hilarious. When that part of Danny came back - and it did, when they watched old movies or Bram brought back one of those weird kids’ make-your-own-suncatcher kits and they spent half the night painting them (and eventually each other, laughing in whispered gasps to keep from waking Bram up) - Nate thought he might be falling in love with Danny, too.

Maybe it was just because they were captives together.

Maybe he would have fallen for him anyway.

Nate doesn’t ask - you never ask why, that’s a rule, and Nate follows the rules even for his own feelings, because he’s nothing if not a master at simply burying his emotions in a kind of quiet empty cry for help inside his head that he never, ever lets out.

Maybe he can do something to escape, if he could know for sure it would work, that it would let him get Danny out alive. But every time he thinks about it, he thinks about how Bram will really kill Danny if they get caught trying to escape together… and he can’t do it.

He has to get him out of here - but he just… can’t.

He’s not sure how long he has before there isn’t much Danny left to rescue. He goes away a little more each day, no longer answers to his name, only to the stupid dog-name Bram gave him. He sleeps curled up out there on the thin plastic mat in the early spring chill and he deserves so much more than life as a captive Bram keeps just to see how broken he can make someone.

And Danny is so, so broken. Something of him was still in there, though - Nate could see it in the fury that sometimes still lit the blue eyes, an anger he didn’t dare show. He saw it when Danny remembered, every once in awhile, that he could laugh.

Like the suncatchers thing - when Danny had nearly passed out from trying to hold the laughter back, blue streaks painted in his red hair, a swipe of green across one cheek, and the red nose Nate had given him and called him Rudolph for three days afterward whenever Bram wasn’t close enough to hear it.

Danny had leaned over and painted him right back, a spiral in purple on one cheek and a happy face in green on the other, and finally a streak of blue that started at the line of his black hair and went down the center of his face, the cool paint and slightly scratchy bristled moving in a slow, solid line down over his nose, his mouth, chin, and finally straight down his neck over the scars from every time Ashley carved the collar, until they had reached the neckline of his shirt-

And Danny had stopped, looking up at his eyes, and smiled at him. I wish we were anywhere other than here doing this, Danny had said softly, and then grinned at him, only the barest hint of the darkness in his eyes. Because then I would get you drunk enough to pass out and paint dicks all over you.

Then he’d collapsed back into giggles, and the moment of tense waiting for something, something neither of them could really give in this place, was gone, and Nate laughed with him.

Then there was the Blair Witch day.

Danny had tied a bunch of sticks with twine into Blair Witch effigies and hung them around the clearing near the cabin, twelve or thirteen altogether. It’d taken him all afternoon and when he was done, he’d laughed at his own stupid joke until he fell over, hand pressed to the side where his old broken rib still hurt sometimes, pulling Nate down with him until the two of them were covered in dust and dirt, still laughing.

Bram had paused in his work scraping hides to look up and smile at his two good boys getting along so well.

The laughter died in them both when Bram smiled.

If he is ever going to do anything, it has to be before Danny stops being able to laugh, and there seem to be fewer and fewer times when he laughs now.

Nate tries to shake the thoughts of escape, making himself lay back down with the image of Danny laughing behind his eyes, but the mumbling doesn’t stop. After a moment his sleepy brain wakes the rest of the way up and he realizes it’s not Danny maybe watching TV out there - the mumbling is Danny himself.

Nate’s eyes blink back open and he’s immediately fully awake. He slides carefully out of the bed, disturbing it as little as possible, and Bram doesn’t even move. He usually doesn’t, once he’s asleep, trusting in Danny’s chain and Nate’s broken spirit to keep him safe.

Nate hates that his trust is not misplaced.

The floor is freezing cold under his bare feet as he tiptoes out to the living room, closing the bedroom door slowly behind him. The room is dark but there’s a full moon tonight and moonlight shines through the windows over by the door, lighting the whole room in a kind of eerie blue-white, everything perfectly visible but off-color, like watching a black-and-white movie that someone just barely colorized.

He expects to see Danny curled up on his mat like always, in the defensive sleeping position that’s become second nature to him - hands over his head or stomach to ward off the blow, knees to his chest, head tucked in so as little is exposed as possible, wrapped in every single one of the threadbare blankets he is given and usually still shivering from cold, almost always in just a thin T-shirt and old cotton pajama pants unless Bram deems him good enough to earn a sweater or flannels.

Instead, Danny is sitting up on his mat, his back to Nate, talking to himself.

Nate pauses, swallows hard, and just listens.

“Have to look in the woods,” Danny mumbles, words slurred like he’s drunk, shoulders hunched in on themselves. His head hangs forwards, just a little, hair falling over his eyes. “You have to look, to look in the woods, Ryan.”

Ryan.

That’s his brother’s name - he’d told Nate he had a younger brother, they talked about it a lot in the early days, the biological child of the people who adopted him and who then largely forgot they had two sons and cared only about the younger.

There’s a pause, and then Danny says softly, “He says you aren’t looking anymore, Ryan. Are you-… are you still looking?”

Nate moves slowly forward, giving Danny sort of a wide berth, trying to get a look at his face. When he comes all the way around to where he can see him, Danny jumps a little and turns, looking over at Nate.

Even in the dark, his eyes are glassy and fogged-over, and Nate can see the stripes of color high in his cheeks, the shimmer of clammy sweat on his forehead and the tip of his nose, the place Nate had once painted red because he’d wanted so badly to kiss it but didn’t dare.

“Danny-” Nate catches himself and glances over his shoulder, but the bedroom door is still closed, and he can hear Bram snoring, just faintly, through the door. He turns back. “R-Red, are you okay?”

“Ryan’s here,” Danny says, and his voice is still slurred. He can’t quite seem to lift his head all of the way up, and his hands are rubbing compulsively at his thighs, the way you rub at your aching knee on a rainy day. “He doesn’t know where to look, Nate. I told him, I told him you have to, um, to look in the woods. Bram always says no one’s looking anymore, no one misses me, but Ryan does. He’s still looking, Nate, he promises he’s still looking.”

“I d-d-don’t d-doubt it, Red, b-but…” Nate moves slowly closer, cautiously, watching Danny’s face as he does. The foggy blue eyes slide away from him, back to the spot he was looking at before, but Danny doesn’t tense up or try to pull away when he reaches out one hand.

Danny’s forehead is sweat-soaked and slick and burns so hot Nate pulls his hand back with a hiss.

“This is Nate,” Danny says out loud, without looking back at him. “He’s in the woods, too. Can you, can you tell the cops to look for him, too? Nathaniel Vandrum. That’s his whole name, Ryan. Can you, can you tell them? Please, Ryan, are you still looking?” Danny leans forward, pleadingly, lifting his hands to show them to the phantom brother only he can see.

Nate swallows against the guilt at the lines of red, inflamed scars that travel up his hands, cut just over the tops of the visible veins, cut over and over and over again until the marks were deep and permanent.

Each scar is a rule Danny has broken, each cut carved into him until he swears he won’t break it again.

Nate knows exactly how that feels - his own hands bear the same scars, just a few years older.

“Ryan, don’t give up,” Danny whispers, and his eyes are starting to fill with tears. “Please don’t stop looking for me. Please, you’re the only one who will, please don’t stop looking, I’m in the woods-”

“I c-c-c-can’t fu, fucking l-listen to th-this,” Nate mutters, backing away from him, trying to think. He leaves Danny mumbling to go into the kitchen, pulling the tea Danny had made earlier out in its giant pitcher, pouring a small cup of it. It’s hawthorn berry tea, something Danny had found a recipe for in one of the survivalist books the body had had out here before Bram decided he wanted this cabin. It’s sweetened with plenty of honey Danny had stirred in while it was still hot, and it should cover the taste of the medicine well enough.

He can hear Danny still talking to his brother as he moves over to the bathroom, pulling down the cold medicine, pouring a dose of the syrup into the tea and then stirring to dissolve it as best he can.

After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs the thermometer, too.

They say sometimes to let a fever run its course, but if that meant listening to Danny beg his brother to find him - when Nate knew very well no one ever would, no one ever found Bram unless he wanted to be found - he couldn’t do it.

Nate stared at his own reflection in the mirror - he was older by years than Danny but he’d lost so much of his life to Bram by now that he didn’t really feel it. The face that looked back at him seemed hardly recognizable - he’d been smiling in the last photo anyone ever took of him before there was this, a professor in a suit and tie, in his second year of teaching adjunct and deeply in love with the life he was building.

All the photos of him now had shadows around the eyes, buried deep within the mossy green there, shaggy half-chopped black hair with a curl at the nape of his neck where it always ended up just a little too long. All the photos of him now had the scar in his lip, still healing from the last time he’d really angered Bram by trying to stand up for Danny. All the photos of him now showed the rings of scars around his neck from Ashley’s collar.

He’d worn a lot of turtlenecks and high-necked sweaters when he was out, for those few months, before Bram had tracked him back down.

“You can’t let him turn into you,” Nate says to his reflection, but all he gets back is an empty mouthing echo of his own words.

Danny will turn into something worse, in the end, because Bram doesn’t love him. There’s nothing to stop him from going too far, nothing but the fact that he still find Danny amusing. If Nate can’t figure out where all his courage is hiding and do something, Danny will eventually be too injured to recover.

And if Danny dies, Nate will have absolutely no reason left to remember himself.

Out in the living room, he hears Danny’s muttering change into something fearful, the sound of the chain scraping along the ground, and then he hears the younger man start to cry, the sniffling sound of him trying to hold it back but failing.

He can’t listen to Danny’s tears, not for the days it might take the fever to break on its own. He’s barely hanging on by swinging from each time Danny remembers how to laugh to the next.

Each swing on the vine takes longer, forces him to go further, and Nate isn’t sure he can keep himself together much longer if Danny stops entirely.

When he comes back out of the bathroom, he freezes at the sight of Bram sitting on the couch with the side table lamp lit, Danny settled between his legs with his back to him, Bram’s fingers running through Danny’s hair, petting him gently, oh so gently, with one hand while the other rubs at the back of his neck.

Nate can see how badly Danny is shaking from all the way across the room the careful way he is holding himself very still, the blank blue eyes staring directly ahead of himself, tear tracks a visible shimmer along the scarring on his face.

“H-he’s sick, B-Bram,” Nate says, hesitantly. “I w-w-went to g-get a thermom.. thermo… thermometer.”

“Oh, I know, baby,” Bram replies cheerfully, without even pausing in his movements. “I heard you get up, decided to come out and see for myself what my good boys were up to.” He looks over at Nate, raising an eyebrow at the glass in one hand. “What’s that?”

“M-medicine. R-Red hates t-t-t-taking medicine, so I f-figured put some in t-t-tea so he can’t taste it…” He shrugs, trying to keep his voice casual, trying not to let on how much it bothers him to watch Danny’s absolute terror wash through him, again and again, adrenaline not fighting the fever but fueling its rise.

He moves around, setting the glass on the side table (Bram shoots him an irritated look before picking up a coaster and loudly moving it underneath the cup) and crouches in front of Danny, looking him over. He’s even redder, if that’s possible, and the sweat is gone, replaced by a blistering dry heat underneath his skin that Nate can only stand for a moment.

He’s like a furnace, isn’t he?” Bram says in a low, delighted voice. “I could use him for a space heater in bed like this.”

“O-open your m-m-mouth please, D-… Red,” Nate says softly, flinching as he nearly uses the wrong name. Bram only shakes his head, and Nate shoots him a mute look of apology as Danny obediently opens his mouth, letting Nate slide the thermometer under his tongue and turn it on with a tiny, barely-audible ‘beep’.

“Eye-an ish thalk-ing oo ee,” Danny slurs around the thermometer. His eyes keep glancing off of Nate’s and then bouncing around the room and back again.

Ssshhh, Red, g-g-give me j-just a seh… a second,” Nate says softly, gently pushing his jaw up so his mouth closes all the way. Bram’s hands never stop their gentle petting and massaging at his head and neck, and Danny trembles the whole time under the touch he can’t stand but knows better than to reject.

When the thermometer beeps again, Nate pulls it out of Danny’s mouth, holding the little screen at an angle where he can see the digital numbers in black against the light green. He squints, then looks up at Danny’s pale, red-cheeked face again. “106.8. H-holy sh-sh-shit. No f-f-fucking w-wonder he’s s-seeing th-things, Bram.”

“What are you seeing, little Red?” Bram asks in a tone of syrupy sweetness, and Nate is suddenly deeply sorry he even mentioned hallucinations at all. Bram leans down, the hand in Danny’s hair dropping to his right shoulder, sliding down over the upper arms that are becoming muscled from nearly two years of the heavy lifting and chores he’s responsible for, the other leaving his neck to curve around his left arm and hold that, too. “Hm?”

“M-my brother,” Danny answers, his voice shaking, blue eyes searching the room where he was looking before. “Ryan is, he’s still looking, Abraham, he’s still looking for me, I just have to tell him-”

“He’s not looking for you, you fucking whore,” Bram murmurs without the slightest change in tone. “No one is. What’s even left of you now, hm?”

“N-no,” Danny whimpers, and Nate shatters a little more.

But a little of his unwilling, unwanted love for Bram shatters, too.

“No, Ryan’s looking, he says he’s looking-… you have to look in the woods, Ryan, we’re in the woods-” Bram’s hands tighten around his arms and Danny cuts himself off, but his eyes stay on that corner of the room, staring and staring and staring at the brother he can see there, someone Nate has only seen in a couple of cell phone photos Danny showed him before the night they were taken away. “Please don’t stop looking for me,” Danny begs the empty corner, straining against Bram’s grip. “Please, please don’t stop looking, Ryan, please, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry-”

“No one is ever going to find you here,” Bram says softly. “No one is looking any longer, Red. We’re all you have now - Nate and me. We’re the only ones who could want something as fucked up as you.” His eyes lift to Nate’s, and the cold inhuman amusement in them shifts, warms, becomes the love and affection he always shows his true love.

Nate could kill him right now.

Only he… only he still can’t. He’s never hated Bram more than this, but he can’t do it, he can’t lift a finger, and Bram knows it.

“Give him his medicine, baby,” Bram purrs, smooth a silk, and Danny begins to struggle in his grip. He’s too sick to do more than pull weakly against the hands that hold him, and Bram leans forward in a sudden violent lunge, throwing an arm around his chest to pull him up tight against him, the other moving to his jaw - thumb on one side, fingers on the other.

Danny freezes, eyes wide in fear, as though only now realizing that he’s been struggling, when you never pull away from Abraham Denner.

Never reject a touch.

“I’m sorry,” Danny says in a sudden rush, struggling to get the words out from around Bram holding his jaw. “I’m s-s-sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean-… I just… it’s just, Ryan’s here, I can see him-”

“Don’t give a fuck,” Bram says softly. “Nate says you need medicine. My baby gets what he wants.”

Nate hasn’t moved, only staring at them, breathing hard.

I hate you, I hate you so fucking much, I love you, I love him, how can you do this to him, how can you make me be part of what you do to him, why can’t I kill you, I love you so much I hate you I love you I hate you

I love him

“I said, give him his medicine,” Bram says, and his voice drops into something low and laced with threat and ice, and Nate nods quickly, grabbing the cup off the side table. A dose of medicine for the fever, stirred into a few inches of honey-laced tea.

He takes a deep breath, looks into Danny’s teary eyes, and says softly, “I’m s-s-sorry, Red. I h-have to, you can’t h-h-have a fever this high. Y-your leg’s probably inf-infected or something, I’ll clean it o-out once the fever’s d-d-d-down-”

“Please,” Danny begs him, begs him, and Nate has never felt more like slime. His voice is a high, ragged plea that bounces off the beams in the ceiling and back down. “Please don’t take Ryan away. Please, please, don’t take Ryan away from me, Nate, please! Please let me keep my brother!”

“F-f-fuck, I’m so sorry, I’m s-s-so s-s-s-s-” He can’t get the words out, his own eyes are hot with tears, but he lifts the glass and Bram uses his thumb and fingers to force Danny’s mouth open as he tries to hold it closed.

Danny shakes his head as much as he can, violently, but Bram’s grip is strong and inexorable and eventually Danny’s mouth is forced open far enough for Nate to pour some of the tea in.

Bram snaps it shut, holding Danny’s mouth closed with about a third of the tea in there. He looks at Nate, glacial eyes cold and delighted. “Pinch his nose.”

“Wh-what? Bram, I, I c-c-can’t-”

“Do it.”

Nate closes his eyes for a second against a wash of shame so strong it nearly knocks him over, and then reaches out and pinches Danny’s nose closed with his own thumb and finger.

Danny, eyes wide, struggles again, fights as hard as he can - but he’s sick and weak and he was tired and hungry before that, and eventually he has to swallow if he wants to breathe. As soon as he does, Nate yanks his hand back and Danny breathes as hard as he can through his nose.

Then Bram forces his jaw open again, to Danny’s low pained wordless whine. “Again,” He orders Nate, and this time Nate doesn’t hesitate.

He all but throws his hand forward to pour more of the medicine into Danny’s mouth, and again they force his mouth and nose shut until he swallows.

A third time, and Danny’s taken all of the medicine and Bram shoves him forward and away from himself as hard as he can.

Danny smacks hard into the floor on his stomach, crying hoarsely, whispering, “No, no, you have to keep looking, you can’t stop trying to find me,” and Nate leans over to rub his back. It’s the only thing he can think of to do.

“I’m going back to bed,” Bram says, looking down at the two of them. He pauses, then leans down to run his fingers through Nate’s black hair and down over his neck. “You can stay out here with him, if you want, baby.”

“Thank you, B-Bram,” Nate says, and he really means it; it’s a sick, awful gratitude he feels, but still he’s grateful, even just for this much mercy. He lets Bram rest a hand on top of his head for another moment before he turns and walks away, back into the bedroom, and closes the door.

It wasn’t much, but it was still mercy, and Bram has so little to give.

Be grateful for every gift you are given.

He manages to get Danny back onto his mat, sitting next to him on the wood floor and rubbing his back as he curls back into his ball. He shakes for a while and cries, but eventually the medicine kicks in and Nate watches Danny’s breath slow, his eyes flutter back closed, a cold sweat breaking out all across him as the fever drops.

“I h-hate this,” He says in a thick heavy voice, slurred now with sleep rather than sickness.

Nate nods, leaning over to press a kiss to his forehead, in that little spot between his eyes where there’s a furrow that never seems to leave. “M-me too,” Nate whispers. “I’m s-s-sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too, Nate.” Danny’s limbs have gone loose and Nate pulls the blankets around him as tightly as he can, kisses him one more time, on the top of his head. “I’m so sorry,” Danny murmurs. “I wish…”

“I w-w-w-wish too, Danny,” Nate whispers, low enough he knows Bram won’t hear it. “I wish, t-too.”

I love you.

I hate him.

I love him.

I love you.

Once he’s totally sure Danny is asleep, Nate unfolds himself and lays down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. Guilt is an ever-present beat in him, right alongside his heart.

All he can hear is the sound of Danny begging him not to take his brother away.

#whumptober2019 #no.21 #prompt: laced drink #whump #comforting caretaker #caretaker forced to be whumper #intimate whumper #violent whumper #broken whumpee #prior whumpee #Daniel Michaelson's story #Nathaniel vandrum #Abraham denner #tw: nonconsensual touching #tw: forced ingestion of drink #sickfic #conditioning #dehumanization #caretaker

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