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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 months

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All We Have Is Each Other

CW: Intimate whumper, captivity, defiant whumpee, biting, creepy whumper, obsessive whumper, noncon kiss, vague noncon references, drugging. For @amonthofwhump Tropeathon Day 1: Duel

The Motherfucking Gallaghers Masterlist

Takes place during Jax’s second captivity. As always, Jax is used with oversight and permission from @comfy-whumpee)

Savvie rolls dice every time she uses the mortar and pestle in the kitchen to grind up one of her collections of pills and mix it into Jax’s drink.

She’s always gambling with the drugs. The first part of the game is seeing whether he’ll drink it before he realizes there’s something in it. If she doesn’t mix it well enough, he’ll see the cloudy bits floating around in the glass and look at her with terrible sad eyes. Sometimes she can’t take it. She just takes the drink right back out of his hand and pours it out, makes him a new one.

Other the other hand, sometimes his sad voice and sad eyes piss her off worse than anything else could, and she just tips it up until he chokes and makes him finish it anyway. Or shocks him, pressing the button to the remote and watching his muscles lock up, knowing he’ll look sweeter once he’s fighting the way his muscles jerk afterward, the unconscious twitches he can’t quite get rid of as the aftermath works its way through him.

Sometimes he even looks scared. Those nights are some of her favorites. Savvie never loves Jax as much as she does when he is scared of her.

But... she can’t keep him scared all the time. What kind of marriage would they have if she did that? No, the drinks aren’t to scare him, they’re just to make… to make things easier. And she doesn’t always do it! She doesn’t always drug him, but it’s enough that he never trusts her. She knows that. He doesn’t… trust easily.

That’s okay.

Their relationship got off to a rough start, that’s all, what with Jax starting off as one of the staff, bought and paid for. Plus, Jax’s dad convinced him Savvie was evil, once upon a time when he ran away from her. Taught him to hate her. She had to have her uncle fly all the way to England to bring Jax back, and it’s taking years to undo all the damage that stupid old man did.

That’s okay. He’s getting better, he’s definitely getting better. He is. He has to be getting better.

Still… he’s not an easy man to be married to. Not with having to keep an eye on the remote to his shock collar so he can’t take it off and try to run away again, not with the way he watches her sometimes like he wants to dunk her head into the toilet and hold it there until she drowns. Putting stuff in his drink just lets Savvie be able to relax.

She doesn’t have to worry about what he might do when he’s so high he can’t do much of anything. Besides, it’s only like one out of every ten nights, sometimes twenty, sometimes she even goes for a month or two without doing it.

She really doesn’t even want to. If he would just learn to be happy without it, she wouldn’t have to keep drugging him, would she? If he’d just stop being so difficult about being her husband… but that isn’t fair. He can’t be any better than he is, not really. Jax just… isn’t wired that way.

So she has to help him a little, to make it so he can have nights when he can’t stay mad at her. Or at least nights when his anger isn’t able to simmer in there behind his eyes while he says Yes, Miss Savvie or No, Miss Savvie like there’s a gun to his head.

Still. Trying to give him these evenings where both of them just relax… it’s always a gamble.

Even if he drinks whatever she makes without realizing it’s spiked, he doesn’t always react the same way. If she’s lucky - if her dice rolls well - the drugs make Jax… softer. He’ll lean against her when some of his strength slides away, not seek out touch but loathe it less. Those are the nights she can coax a sound out of him that isn’t clipped or tense. She still thinks about the night she gave him a back rub and he genuinely fell asleep sitting on the floor between her knees, his head drifting until it rested on her leg, the knots of tension slowly loosening beneath her kneading hands until she got distracted by the movie and forgot what she was doing.

Sometimes he smiles, when he’s blurry and unfocused. Smiles, enough to show teeth even… God, sometimes he even laughs at some of Savvie’s jokes. It’s rare, but it happens. She loves those nights the best. Those are the nights that their marriage almost feels normal… if she just ignores the dilated pupils and the way he can’t stand up on his own.

Sometimes he gets so foggy he can’t stop laughing, which is irritating but at least adorable to watch and take videos of to make him look at later on the next day when he sobers up again. Sometimes the side effects make him too scared to smile, his eyes darting nervously everywhere watching the movements of shadows he swears are watching him. She… tries not to give him those pills anymore.

The nights tend to end with her telling him to take off his shirt so she can enjoy the view, or even his pants, too. She usually waits on that, though, because it doesn’t matter how good the drugs are - he always hesitates when it comes to taking off his pants, as soon as his fingers touch the boxers with their oddly rolled waistband.

It reminds him he doesn’t want to be here. Makes his addled mind come back to the collar he wears around his neck, to the reality of the life they’re living, the marriage Savvie has built all by herself whether he wanted to or not.

And he… he didn’t want to.

So normally she waits on the getting naked bit until they’re in the bedroom and what he wants matters so much less that neither of them think about it any longer. The drugs, at least, make it harder for him to slow her down in there.

Savvie tries not to think about that, because she doesn’t remember it that way. She likes the nights best where he doesn’t even try to fight, just lets her pull him upstairs and she gets to bury her hands in his hair and tell him what to do and have him, languid and loose-limbed, follow every command without the tension and misery he usually carries into their bed.

She doesn’t always roll well.

Sometimes, she rolls snake eyes… and she gets this, instead.

“Fuck’s sake,” Jax groans, words slurring around the edges, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He pushes clumsily away from her, nearly falling off the couch before he manages to catch himself. “For… f’r fuck’s sake, Savvie, what the fuck.”

His wedding ring glints, light from the TV bouncing off the deceptively plain platinum band. She’s hit all over again with a wave of love for him, for the life she’s built after he was brought back home to be hers forever, just like he always should have been. She’d been an idiot not to see it, not until he was gone and she spent years in prison dreaming about getting him back.

“Fuck’s sake what?” She asks, voice light, smiling at him and poking him in the shoulder where they sit on the couch.

He doesn’t slap her hand away, but she sees him look at her and… he wants to. His expression is dark. The light is bouncing off his hazel eyes, too, giving them a strange sheen of white that wipes out the color, obscures even his dilated pupils slowly taking over the iris. “What the fuck was it?”

“What was what?”

“What the fuck did you give me?” He goes to push himself to standing only to have his knees buckle beneath him, crashing him to the floor, barely catching himself on his hands. Savvie’s mouth waters, and she swallows, trying to ignore the flutter of fascinated interest in watching his fingernails scrape the rug as he tries to steady himself. “What the fuck is it, Savvie?”

“It doesn’t matter,” She answers, without changing her own tone, leaning forward with her arms resting on her thighs. Her hair falls in heavy waves down her back and over her shoulders. “It’s not anything that could hurt you.”

This time, he doesn't say Miss Savvie or try out the sad eyes. Instead, he looks away. She can nearly hear his teeth grinding. “Yeah, but once I’m all fucked up, you will.”

“Don’t be rude,” Savvie chides him, but she doesn’t move. He looks good, on his hands and knees on the floor. Well, he looks good all the time, really, but he looks even better on his hands and knees. She knows the physique he’s built with the workout routine she makes him do, knows the muscles there hidden beneath the green sweater and jeans he’s wearing. “You’ve been stressed all week. I’m just trying to help-”

“Fucking shit, the hell you are!” He manages to sit back on his knees, then collapses back until his back hits the edge of the couch cushions, upright through sheer force of will and a bit of good luck. His hands lay limp at his sides, now. When he turns to look at her, his eyes don’t focus quite right - but the fury in them is clear.

Well.

Tonight’s not going to be the best night for them, then, she supposes. She feels the edge of a headache starting up, and sighs, looking mournfully at the movie she’d pulled up for them to watch. Another night, then. A night when the gamble pays off and doesn’t backfire. A night when he can’t remember how to be angry at her.

“Fine,” She says, heavily. “I’m not trying to help you. I’m trying to help me.”Her own voice changes - drops almost a full octave from her usual carefully constructed diction and sweetness to something sharper. “I’m making tonight easier on me. Making you less… less-” She can't think of a good way to end the sentence, so she just lets it hang there between them.

Jax snorts, looking away again. His head keeps lolling forward until his chin nearly touches his chest before he jerks it back again. “Yeah, I fucking know,” He manages, but his slurring is getting worse. “Shit f’r brains.”

Savvie sniffs, but the fake tears aren't coming as easily as they usually do. She probably accidentally gave him too much again. It’s just sometimes so hard to remember exactly how much the dose is supposed to be…

“I don’t enjoy you being cruel to me any more than you enjoy it when I do it to you, you know,” She says, suddenly… so tired. She spends so much time and effort creating a marriage herself out of a man her uncle bought for her once and abducted for her the second time, and she’s doing this all on her own - no one helps her, not really. And Jax never gives up.

She’d been sure he’d start to settle in and understand by now, but he just… he just doesn’t. And she’s so tired. Her fingers toy with the little black remote to his shock collar. Maybe she should just… just give up on having a good night and punish him for the cursing until he just bites off his stupid tongue.

No, wait.

She likes what he does with his tongue, when she gives the order. He’s so good with it now. Maybe… maybe just a small shock. Just to remind him he's hers. She takes a deep breath. “Jax… get on your-”

“On m’knees f’r discipline?” He starts laughing before she can finish, cutting her off, letting his head fall totally back against the arm of the couch until he’s staring at the ceiling. He sounds wild, almost like an animal. Her quiet watchful husband is feral, and Savvie resolves never to give him the pill she gave him tonight ever again. “Yeah, fucking… fuckin’ do it. Second I don’t play along, there y’go. Bzzzt.” He cackles, a cracked bark of laughter she’s never heard him make before. “Shut me up so you don’t hear me say it.”

Savvie’s heart twists. “Say what?”

The laughter dies in him as suddenly as it appeared. He turns his head, or tries to - it mostly just falls to one side until he’s looking at her. Their eyes meet, his all black pupil and hers with nearly no pupil at all. “How much I fucking hate your fucking guts.”

“You don’t hate me.” She says it firmly, as if he’s being ridiculous. “Don’t be mean, Jax. You don’t hate me at all.”

She takes a deep breath. Married couples have fights, even ugly ones sometimes, and they work it out-

“Yeah. I… I really do.” Disgusted, that’s the tone in his voice. Disgusted with her. “I do. I hate you.”

“Why do you hate me?”

The look he gives her is such a blatant are you a complete fucking moron that she can hear his voice even though he doesn’t say a word.

“No, hold on.” She waves one hand, dismissing her own question. His eyes briefly follow the movements of her fingers, distracted by whatever the drugs make him see there. Trails of light, maybe. It’s probably beautiful. “Hold on. I know why-”

“Do you?” His question is sharp, snapped, even as his every muscle can barely tense enough to move. “Do you fuckin’ really?”

“Yes. I do.” Savvie’s too tired to talk him in a circle tonight. She’s just… too exhausted by her bad gamble, bringing neither the snuggly Jax or the scared one, but this angry, vengeful animal instead.

Her headache is getting worse.

She grabs her glass of wine off the coffee table and chugs it so fast a little drip escapes the corner of her mouth and runs down her chin. She has to wipe it away, wincing at the… at the idea of how that looks. Her mother would have had a fit about it. If she hadn’t died years ago. “Because I had you kidnapped.”

Jax is silent, for a beat. He squints at her. “Fuck… what’d you say? Might be hearin’ shit.”

She laughs, softly. Not her usual laughter, crafted to fill up a room and put all eyes on her. This laugh is barely there, but far more genuine. “No. You're not hallucinating, that shouldn't happen with what I gave you tonight.”

“Oh, good, not this fucking drugging, then, jussss-” His head falls too far to one side and he forces it back up, groaning. “Jusss… others.”

“Only one of the pills does that. And you were cute when you thought there were monsters in the bathroom.” She gets that flat stare from him again and this time she can't hold eye contact, looking down and away, still fiddling with the remote to his collar. “I just. I do know what I did, Jax.”

“Yeah, I fucking know you know-”

“I had you kidnapped.” She takes a deep breath. It feels oddly good to say, like a scene in a movie confessing to a priest. A foul-mouthed priest she’s been sleeping with for over a year. The thought makes her smile, just a little. “My uncle had people watching you, and when I was ready, he knew where you’d be and he abducted you for me. I know that. I know that you’d run, if you could. I’d take your collar off right now if I thought you’d stay without wearing it.”

Jax is silent for so long she briefly wonders if he's flat out forgotten how to talk. Then he shrugs - or tries to, his arms don't quite follow his commands. “You’d find somethin’ else, some other reason for shit ‘round my neck. You fuckin’ like it.”

For the first time, she doesn't deny it. “I do.” She laughs at the way he looks almost comically surprised, unable to keep his usual closed-off expressions in place with the drug coursing through his veins. “What? Can't a girl have a kink?”

“Sure fuckin’ can, but you… you don' have a kink, you got… goddamn victims.”

“... I… yeah. But it-... that's not my point. It isn't about the collar, Jax. Your wedding ring does it for me, too. I could barely wait to get you home after we signed the marriage certificate.”

The glare is back. His hatred is blistering her skin. She watches him try to stand, making it nearly upright before he falls back down again with a heavy thump.

Her mouth twitches. “You want help, sweetie?”

“Ffffuck you.”

“Well, I mean, if you’re asking so nicely.” She giggles at her own joke.

He mumbles something she can't quite hear, trying to stand one more time but quickly giving up. He makes it onto the couch, at least. Savvie stands, turning to grab his ankles, shifting so he’s lying on his back, head and feet each cushioned by the arms of the comfortable, overstuffed couch. He struggles weakly, and it's hard work, but she gets him where she wants him. She barely breathes, taking in his chest rising and falling under his sweater, how his inhales are coming more sharply.

She can't help herself.

Savvie climbs on top of him, like she’s done a hundred times. She straddles him, sitting on his hips and leaning down to kiss his neck, nosing under his jaw. At first, his head tips back in resignation - but then he curses and pushes at her weakly instead. “Don’t.”

She grabs his wrists and shoves them above his head. He’s so weak, the drugs have taken all that muscle and made them… useless at holding her off. There’s a shiver of excitement down her spine. “Uh-uh, sweetie. You’re the one who said to fuck you, remember?”

She feels a thrill at saying fuck, like she’s still a kid sneaking swears in her room when her parents won’t overhear.

“Don't,” He groans. “Sav-... Savvie, stop. G’t off me. I hate you.”

“I know.” She smiles down at him. His eyes meet hers, tired and bleary. Furious and almost resigned. “I know you hate me, Jax… but I love you.”

She leans down, her hair a waterfall curtain, blocking them both off from the world. She can smell the cologne she buys for him, blended with her own pricey perfume. His wrists jerk against her grip and she digs her nails in until he grunts in pain and the skin gives beneath.

“Savvie,” he whispers.

“Sssshhh.” She lets go with one hand, shifting both his wrists to her other one, and presses a finger against his lips. “I love you so much,” She whispers. “And I don't need you to love me back, sweetie, I don’t. I just need you to lie for me.”

She kisses him, then, pressing her lips firmly to his. For half a second, his mouth is slack and unresisting even as his body shudders with disgust. He’s warm, his skin burning up beneath her. Her mouth moves against his, trying to get him to answer her, to open up.

His lips gently part. For a brief moment, Savvie feels the rush of victory.

Then he bites.

Pain blooms in a sudden flare as his teeth bury themselves into her lower lip and he jerks his head to the side, sensitive skin tearing.

“Shit!” Savvie jerks backwards, staring down at him wide-eyed. She can taste her own blood in her mouth. It’s smeared on his lips and his teeth like badly-done lipstick as he gives her a smile that's really a snarl. “Oh my God, Jax-... how dare you-”

“Fuck you! Don't fucking touch me!” He gets his arms more or less under his own control and shoves her off of him. She crashes into the coffee table, the legs giving out, tumbling her to the floor. Pain spikes hot and demanding along her hip where she hits the hard angle of the corner and she finds herself the one lying on the floor, while Jax slowly sits up, wiping blood off his lips.

Her blood.

Savvie pulls her fingers from her mouth and gasps. There’s a smear of red, bright and vibrant, the unmistakable sense of blood trickling down over her chin. She tongues at the wound, then winces as the pain flares bright, like he’s bitten her all over again. She considers tears - looks at the loathing in his eyes, the absolute rage written in the lines of his face - and then decides they’re wasted on him tonight. Instead, she just shakes her head. “That hurt.”

“Good. Don' like bein’ the one fucking bleeding for once, huh?” His eyes drift closed. He struggles to open them again, to keep his eyes on her. “Shit feelin’, isn't it?”

“God.” She swallows. Blood on her tongue is making her feel nauseous and she gets to her feet carefully. Her mouth and hip throb. She’s going to be so bruised tomorrow, going to ache so much. “You’re awful sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah.” He grins. He hasn't bothered to try and get the red off his teeth. “I know. So… so fffffuckin’ get rid of me, then.”

Savvie snorts, limping a little as she moves to pick up the spilled wine bottle from the floor. She could shock him now - that’s what she would usually do. Or call Isaac and have him carted off to spend another month locked in the kennels with the dogs. He… probably doesn’t care about that, though. Anything to get away from her. Anything is better than her, to him.

“Get rid of you?” She drinks the last swallow in the bottle, washing blood down her throat with the wine. “Then what, Jax? I should just… live here alone, without you, for the rest of my life?”

“Fucking-... yes, or go fucking die. I don't fucking care.” The flush of hot anger bleeds away, his voice softening a little. “I don't… don' care, Savvie. I don’t care about you.”

“No. You do.” She feels a burst of desperation to make him understand. “You hate me, right? That’s caring about me, still.”

“Savvie-”

“No. I love you. You are mine, and I am keeping you. This is love, Jax. What I feel for you is true love.”

He shakes his head, swaying a little where he sits. He tries to push her away again as she takes him by the arm but his burst of energy seems to have used him up. He lets her, in the end, get him onto his feet. She leads him on his unsteady legs out of the room, and he stumbles along with her.

“S'not love,” He mumbles. She keeps an arm around his waist to help him balance. “Fucking… fuck you. Let me leave, Savvie.”

He doesn't have the strength to push her away, not anymore. He has to use her to stay up as they take the stairs one at a time, although after three or four he jerks away again and uses the railing, leaning heavily against it as he drags himself upwards, inch by inch, step by step.

She lets him pull away, watching his determination to not need her, how badly he doesn’t even want her. There’s a canyon inside of her, something dark and deep that hurts so much worse than her hip or her torn open lower lip, threatening to claw its way out as she watches the man she has forced to play the role of her husband do anything he can to avoid her touch.

Her jaw sets. “It is. It is love, and you know what? It’s all the love you’re going to get. Ever. No one else will ever love you.” Savvie’s voice stays low. “You’re not… you’re not lovable, Jax, but I don’t care, I love you anyway. Nobody else would. No one is ever going to even want to love you but me.”

He slumps. The fight’s all gone out of him, for now. Her gamble failed tonight and Jax is buckling under the weight of what runs through his veins, the heavy expectations in her eyes and her smile and her devotion.

“Fuck,” is all he says, barely a whisper under his breath.

Savvie sighs, touching her fingers to her lip again. The bleeding has slowed but there’s still a spot of red. “Goes both ways, though, I think.”

He doesn't look at her. “What?”

“This… how much you hate me… how I had to kidnap you, and put that thing on your neck to keep you here, how you wish you were anywhere but here with me… you know, I, I get it.”

He has to stop at the landing and lean over, resting his forehead against the wall.

She lays a hand on his back, leaning over to speak right against his ear. “I get that your hate is all the love I’m going to get, too, Jax. Nobody else will ever love me, either.”

Her throat feels tight, and she can’t tell if she really feels the twisting nerves in her stomach, the sense of dread, or if it’s part of her act for Jax. Sometimes even Savvie isn’t sure when she means the things she says. Sometimes, even worse, she really does.

“All we’re ever going to have is each other.”

He doesn’t answer her. But when she takes his arm in her hand, he allows himself to be dragged along towards her bedroom. The fight might be gone, but so is the feeling. There’s nothing in his eyes that shows he even heard her.

That’s okay. She can be honest, in the dark, in the middle of the night, knowing that he’s too drugged to remember anything she said when he wakes up again. She’ll lie to herself again by morning. So will he.

She just needs him to lie.

@whumpyourdamnpears consider this my evil savvie gift to you

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onlythegoodpretzels · 2 months

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Straight from the sketchbook King Rauru from Tears of the Kingdom. I might color this sometime, but...glowing...so many layers...

I love the idea of him surviving sealed with the Demon King, and he and Link having to share the arm. Usually Link has it. It only reverts to Rauru when he's in a very bad way and can't stop the reflex calling it back trying to survive.

For @amonthofwhump trope-a-thon day 1: Duel

#amow tropeathon2024 #day1 #duel #whump art #whump #totk rauru #king rauru #loz totk #totk fanart #collapsed #kneeling #zonai have such teeny short little legs! I think they're so funny!#my art

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rizzoto-whump · 1 month

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@marchofpain Alternative prompt: "Please...."

@amonthofwhump day 5: Military - Interrogation

"I-I know nothing about it, C-Captain, please…." Colonel Zhang coughed up blood, purple and red marks marring his skin. "You know about that!"

Captain Van den Berg laughed before flipping the chair, causing the Colonel to stumble to the ground once again. How many times had it been? He had lost count. The Captain beat the Colonel again, striking his stomach, causing more blood to spill from the Colonel's mouth. He then stepped on his shoulder.

"S-Stop."

"Please, Sir--" Captain Van den Berg whispered, his breath hot against the Colonel's face. They were closer than the Colonel realized. "--Just tell me what the fuck I want to hear. And we're done with this nonsense."

The Colonel rolled his brown eyes. What did he actually want?

#whump #whump prompt #whump art #whump oc #military whump #amow tropeathon2024 #interrogation whump #older whumpee #Please #march of pain #OC: James #OC: Ronald

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blackrosesandwhump · 1 month

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A Punishment Most Vile

A Month of Whump: Impalement

March of Pain 2024: Miserable

BTHB: Slammed into a Wall

Fandom: Original work

Synopsis: The servant boy of an evil magician finds himself in deep trouble and suffers the painful consequences.

CW: torture, magic whump, punishment, impalement

The magician’s workshop smelled of stale magic, pungent and fermented-sweet and unsettling. The orphan boy held his breath as he straightened a stack of ancient books covered in thick blue dust. Given the kind of magic experiments the magician conducted, that dust could be anything. The powdered skin of some strange creature, or maybe the remnants of an experiment gone wrong. The orphan boy didn’t want to find out.

He shouldn’t have to find out, he thought, turning from the books to the puddle of murky, foul-smelling liquid pooled in the back corner. He was eighteen. He should be learning alongside the magician, helping him with his work rather than cleaning up his messes like some dumb servant. Helping him, rather than suffering the punishments brought on by his anger.

You are a servant, though, came the little annoying voice in his head. That’s all you are.

And as usual, he argued back.

No, no, I’m not!

You’ll never amount to anything, will you? You know that.

Just watch! I’ll prove you—

“Are you quite finished?” said the magician from the door. The orphan boy jumped and almost slipped in the murky pool.

“Almost, sir,” he mumbled. “There was a lot of mess to clean up.”

“Is that a criticism?” said the magician.

“No, sir.” The boy turned away, hiding his smirk.

But the magician saw it anyway. His gloved hand shot out and seized the boy’s throat, lifting him just barely off the ground, so that his toes dragged across the grimy stone. The boy choked and spluttered, scrabbling at the powerful hand around his neck.

“I would expect,” said the magician, in a voice dangerously low and cool, “that you would know your place by now. But I see you still need to learn.”

Calmly, as if tossing aside a piece of trash, the magician threw the boy across the room. He slammed into the stone wall and crumpled, whimpering, in a heap.

Just a servant. Nothing but a servant. Nothing but a—

“On your feet! Stand up!”

The boy stood, shaking, knowing what was about to happen. Another punishment. And all because of his stupid mouth and his stupid thoughts.

There was a flash of magic; something hit his chest hard, driving him up the wall with its force. He stuck there, feet dangling off the ground, unable to move. The magician muttered an unintelligible word. The pressure in the boy’s chest magnified to an intense pain, radiating through his pinioned body. He clenched his teeth against it, willing himself not to scream, not to betray his agony and satisfy the magician’s whim.

“You will remain there until you learn what I’ve tried to teach you,” the magician ordered, turning on his heel.

His back was turned.

The boy looked down.

A glowing shaft, oily black despite its underlying green hue, protruded from the left side of his chest. Tendrils of dark magic trailed from its end, smoky and foul.

The boy dropped his head back, squeezing his eyes shut against the shattering pain, against the pulse of his own failure in his impaled heart.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you die. That would defeat the purpose of this lesson, after all.” With that, the magician left, and the boy hung alone in his punishment, with only his own tormented thoughts for company.

@marchofpain @amonthofwhump @badthingshappenbingo

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crimsonlyinglilly · 1 month

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AMOW 3. A Long Cold Night / Doorstep Collapse

Day three of AMonthOfWhump's March Trope-a-Thon

Back to Reincarnation woes AU and the beginning, where I *checks notes* kill Elijah again, but this time with his whole family. sorry

Warning for child death.

(Mikael didn't take to learning about Esther's deal and decides to save his grandchildren by- killing them. Grandfather of the century Mikael. not)

Fun fact this Au also has the subtitle of Auntie Dahlia redemption.

---

Freya had never thought she could be happy with Dahlia, since she was stolen from papa and her Finn. She grew up fearful of Dahlia’s anger and cruelties.

Some small part of her is jealous that someone else managed to get past Dahlia's cold bitter cruel self to find the person underneath that Freya had given up on, but her little brother had managed it within just a few meetings, seen what Dahlia truly wanted and bargained with her to keep his daughter with him and prepare her in the way no one had Freya.

She had followed Dahlia with growing horror when her aunt had told her of another firstborn, wondering which sibling she would watch as they had their child stolen from them.

The man that met them had Dahlia’s look but Freya knew him, since she pressed a tiny hand on mother’s swelling belly and felt the little life inside.

Elijah gave all his magic, untrained as it was, to Dahlia keep Astrid with them until she reached 16, so his daughter could grow up loved but aware of her future so any future siblings would know of the deal and be prepared not to fight it. He reminded her that if she didn’t take his offer and stole the child from them there they would never have another child from his line, holding the fact that mother had already ended their sibling’s lines and Kol disinterested in children of his own.

In a way she shouldn’t have been surprised that Elijah was the one to see though Dahlia, she never would have thought the babe she had once dreamed of holding could mirror her captor and nightmare but as she stood behind Dahlia and watched as Elijah stared back waiting her her answer, the pretty dark haired woman holding the child in question and a boy around eight behind her, behind him.

Dahlia accepted but demanded a link to the girl before she left, the other man there, barely more than a boy himself had stepped in to argue for a short lived link one that would force her to visit every few months.

She had watched as Dahlia stripped Elijah of his magic before they left that night. Watched with mild envy, unsure if it was the way Dahlia had taken all she wanted from him and he shrugged it off or the way Kol had caught him, the easy way they were with each other as Kol scolded and Elijah had laughed weakly that he hadn’t expected to feel it to be that much.

She never questions why Elijah had never been trained with his magic, why it seemed none of her siblings but Kol had, she learns to block out the fact she could always feel Elijah magic in the link she shared with Dahlia a ghost in their bond, and a constant reminder of what Elijah had given up to keep his daughter where no one had for her.

----

That was how it started, how she learned Kol was a natural prodigy at their craft with no interest in joining a coven or having children to Dahlia’ open annoyance, every few months they would travel from the hut they had built a little over day away from any other humans to the village her brothers had settled, she got to know them, watched as Astrid grew.

For the first time since she was stolen she felt like she had a family.

Within years Astrid was followed by Sigrid and they had started visiting once a month, Dahlia started teaching Astrid along with her constant shadow Sigrid, Freya started to see the rare warmth that had kept her going through the worst of her childhood more often.

The biggest and clearest sign of the change was Dalla, her third niece who was named for the woman who saved her.

During a thick winter storm Hale had arrived at their hut begging help for Tatia who had gone into labour and something had gone wrong, while Kol was away from the village, Dahlia truly had no reason to help, she had her firstborn and another to continue the line if Astrid didn’t want to bring another child to face Dahlia’s resentment, Elijah may have even be easier to push into giving up astrid earlier if left to raise three children on his own.

Instead Dahlia had ordered her to grab the medical herbs and they had followed the boy back to find out Elijah hadn’t sent him, Dahlia had taken charge and by the time Kol had returned it was to a living but tired Tatia and niece named for Dahlia.

Freya had watched quietly as Dahlia took the news with wide eyes, and saw before they left Dahlia had placed a hand on Elijah’s shoulder when her brother’s mask had slipped to reveal how shaken the night had left him.

Dahlia looked, even at a distance, very clearly unused to comforting someone one but it wasn’t until Elijah said something to her was her hand tightened enough that it looked natural.

It takes Freya two months to realise Dahlia had started to look at Elijah like she looked at her and Astrid, a possessive ownership, doesn't really want to know what he had said to her to earn that.

Still as Dalla grew to join her sisters in their monthly lessons with Dahlia is was clear Dahlia paid a little more attention to the girl with her name, neither Astrid or Sigrid care much perhaps they would have the older they got but when Freay had asked the two while Dahlia was distracted by the younger one they had shrugged and informed her it made sense since their mama had Hale, and papa had Uncle Kol, while they had each other.

Not that she’ll admit she was any better when it came to Frey, her littlest nephew, the one named for her by Astrid, the little boy who reminded her of her own shadow, her Finn.

She learns later of Elijah’s second deal, offering all his children for Dahlia’s claim on Kol’s line, that Dahlia had laughed when she realised he had given her a choice of the coven she wanted, one she had grown and trained or give that up on the off chance the prodigy she had once wanted, changed his mind.

She had accepted the deal and for a few years Freya had seen a future where instead of it being her, Freya and Astrid, they could move to the village, live as normal as life as she could.

Two weeks before Astrid turned sixteen she, though the temporary link she had with her nieces and nephew, felt that dream end.

Sharp, sudden and painful she felt each of her nieces die, they were already out of the house running before Frey vanished.

It’s too late when they arrive, they know it would have been but somehow she hadn’t pictured the full horror until she found Kol and Hale alone surrounded by cloth wrapped bodies. Moved past them without thought somehow still hoping it was a nightmare and all she had to do was step past the door to find them all their alive.

The home is covered in blood, puddles and pools she can almost see where they fell, her legs give out in the doorway, it’s Hale that catches her in her collapse, her nephew in all but blood, the only nephew she had. She hadn’t cried during the run, desperate denial keeping her going, she did then, in Hale’s arms, the boy she watched grow into a man the way she hadn’t been able to with any of her brothers, the way she wouldn’t with Frey.

She’s numb as they’re told what happened, Dahlia’s rage shakes the trees at news of Mikael taking from her again but Freya feels nothing but a hollow ache.

Her little brother, his beloved wife, her precious nieces, her treasured nephew taken, murdered by the man she loved, the only parent she had cared for.

Her papa was a monster.

It was a very long cold night, she sat as Kol and Hale built the pyres and carefully transferred the bodies,

They each take a moment to say they goodbyes, Freya ignores over hearing Kol promise Tatia and Elijah that he would watch over Hale the way she ignores the way his voice breaks.

It wasn’t fair after the weeks she had wished to see Elijah born that she would miss that but see his funeral.

She focuses on the funeral shroud of her oldest niece when instead of the tight grip Dahlia has on Elijah’s shroud.

She lays a hand the head of her little shadow, her Frey the smallest body on the pyre, and wishes she could feel his soft hair under the cloth, wishes she would see his bright crooked grin that he had gotten from his papa but was much freer showing it.

After they say their words, Kol lights a torch for Hale, who lights the pyres for Tatia and Elijah, she watches as Dahlia and Kol follow and light Astrid’s and Sigrid’s, leaving Frey's to her.

She takes a breath and lights it, realising as she had to dig for it that Dahlia still held the magic she had taken from Elijah years earlier separately.

She’s not as angry at the thought of it anymore, it was something they had of him, a reminder of the decade and a half of happiness.

It was a very long cold night, despite the flames as they all stood and watched the pyres burn.

Dahlia and she leave within a month to return to the place they had lived before they had been called by Astrid’s birth, there was no point to remain since the only living line Dahlia still had a claim to was exhausted in a night.

----

A few centuries later it’s the memory of happy magic lessons with her nieces and the awe in Dahlia’s eyes as she held Dalla after learning her name that gives Freya the courage to speak to her instead of running with Matthias, that lead her to the chance of watching as her son take his first steps, seeing both her children growing older than her brother's children, of decades loving a good man.

That meant even when she lost Matthias after years of marriage she still had her son and daughter by her side when they returned to their century sleep.

#amow tropeathon2024 #day3 #A Long Cold Night #Doorstep Collapse #fanfiction #elijah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #freya mikaelson #dahlia to #original characters #the originals #fic #the originals fic #the originals au #AU - reincarnation woes

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nothingofvaluewaslost · 1 month

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Immured

For AMOW's March 2024 Trope-a-Thon

@amonthofwhump

Immured

Challen does not put up resistance when the castle guards come to bring him to his new fate. He is almost grateful for their heavy bodies, like a battlement around him. They mean that he can no longer change his mind and recant. He looks down at the flagstones as they pass: hewn into half-moons and many-sided shapes and diagonal straps, a more complex pattern than he knew. All he can do is focus on staying upright and breathe, breathe and force air deep into his lungs and keep his gorge down.

They bring him to the courtyard. A slip of March wind trails down between the vertiginous walls, and its scent of forest and distant expanses hits him like a blow. He is aware of the direction to the scaffold; as Prince, he can only be executed with a sword across his neck, a death as quick as a breath. He does not know whether one will feel the blade’s cold, or sharpness, or how long one’s head can retain awareness and feel that it is separated from its body.

His guardians do not turn that way. He makes sure to stay his gaze ahead, to not remind them of the chopping-block by even a moment’s deviation.

A rough voice from the crowd:

“Coward!”

Of course that is what they will call him, since he refused to accept his lot and go to the Dragon’s Gate. Challen raises his head and holds it straight. It is not hard: since Father pronounced his sentence in the Red Hall, he has felt light, as if he need only turn in the right angle to feel his feet lose touch with the ground and drift off. The wind is cold where it plays through his raven tresses. All that remains for him is not to show fear.

The distance to the chopping-block continues to grow. They lead him towards one of the tall turrets that he has never seen in use. He should have realised; it is not an easy death he deserves, he who refused to act on his lot. Another youth or maid will wander the long path to the Dragon, and he himself will have a death that will frighten each and all from fighting their fate. Still the guards close tight around him, sparing him from collapsing or twitching in desperation.

The darkness of the gate swallows them. The touch and sound of the wind die.

Up the stairwell they move, and something confuses his senses until he no longer knows whether he is rising or diving. The chill of the stairway has grown dense from enclosure, into something that feels different from air. It presses against his skin. Regular narrow slits in the wall give them light to see the steps, but he feels no freshness passing under them.

The guards ahead block his gaze and he stumbles on a step, not having realised it was the last. He is in the turret room: just an unfurnished roundel of masonry, tall enough to stand in the middle. There are slits in the walls at each point of the compass, admitting pale light.

Craftsmen have brought up bricks, mortar and buckets of water, behind him, where he couldn’t see. A couple of them get to work, one lighting a taper as the natural light dwindles. The slits are so narrow, one only needs to stack up bricks singly to cover them. For a moment he just watches, taking satisfaction in the skilled, repetitive moment. He must have already realised, he is not going to die here. Even before the work starts, there is no opening wide enough to send him hurtling. The roof is well-built and closed over him.

“Well, Prince Challen,” the Captain says to him. “I believe you know what comes next.”

There seems to be a slight delay in his words. There might be more than a delay; he may not be perceiving the words right, he may be hearing something else entirely. Challen nods, eyes glassy, focusing on keeping the contents of his stomach down. As long as he says nothing, he will not scream.

They crowd out into the landing. At this point, there is a throbbing in the side of his head, and he wonders whether it is the beginnings of something that will kill him, hours or days from now. If he were to request of the guards to kill him, while there is still a chance? The thought rises above the surface and falls again, traceless.

The mason places a layer of bricks along the narrow doorway, lays mortar, smooths it with small chinking melodic sounds. Challen watches it and prays for it to be faster. The smell of mortar fills his nostrils, wholesome, almost like fresh bread. He watches the second layer, and the third. They leave a gap, not large enough for a man’s shoulders. He is to be fed. Air will enter there, the same enclosed air.

When it is done, he sits on the hard flagstones. It is not quite dark, a little daylight enters his one palm-sized square of day. He can still hear a second layer being added on the outside. He cannot stop himself from picturing the movements of the mason, his muscles switching and playing in his arms, whatever expression is on his face – any of a thousand –, how he will go home to his cottage in the fading red-purple of the sunset.

The sounds have faded. Silence presses in on his eardrums like deafness. He falls asleep with exhaustion, his first night.

When Challen listens by the gap in the doorway-shape, he hears footsteps dragging up the stairs. A muffled figure leaves a jug of water and half a loaf of bread. Each time he tries to plead or threaten or reason, but perhaps they have sent a deaf-mute, because he never sees a reaction. Each time he tries to resist eating or drinking, but hope and his own weakness force him. Even if he pours out the water, to win over his body that way, there is nowhere for him to get rid of the crumbs of bread when hunger sits in his stomach like a stab wound.

Then time stops being a trajectory, the way it was in his life, and becomes something shapeless that fills the tower room. Perhaps he was always dying. Perhaps, if he were saved now and restored to sunlight, the tower would leave a stain on his mind that would keep it pinned here.

He dreams of fields and sunlight, warm as fresh milk on his hands. Then, those dreams wink out, and he dreams of a round cave of blackness.

THE END

#amow tropeathon2024 #fiction #day1 #fantasy #horror #tower #locked in a tower #male protagonist

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 month

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A Kindness

CW: Runaway whumpee, referenced hunger/malnourishment

Timeline: After Jameson escaped from Robert but before he found a safehouse

For @amonthofwhump Tropeathon Day 3: A Long Cold Night

It’s fucking freezing out here. Jameson thought California wasn’t supposed to get cold like this, but just his goddamn luck, it definitely does.

He’s curled up against the heavy concrete beneath the overpass, using it to block the worst of the wind. There are a scattering of tents around him, others who have figured out some slim form of shelter. There’s a couple fires going, too, but Jameson doesn’t want anything to do with the people circled around them, sharing stories and in-jokes. They’ve been out here for long enough to know each other. To trust each other, more or less.

Like everywhere else he goes, Jameson doesn’t fit.

He sure as fuck doesn't trust.

When he finds other runaway pets, they think he’s frightening. The twisted scar near his mouth catches the firelight too well. He's too brash, too angry, someone who might be violent.

When he tries to stick around non-pets, they read him like a book and treat him like shit on the bottom of their shoes. Or try to sneak up on him when he sleeps and get a hand down his pants, assuming that he won’t fight back, because everyone knows Box Boys will lie back and take it, right?

Well, Jameson isn’t like other pets.

He isn't just any Box Boy.

Nanda taught him how to survive, no matter what it cost. Nanda taught him-

Goddamn fucking dead Nanda.

If he wasn't so fucking dead none of this would be happening.

Jameson closes his eyes against a hot rush of tears he refuses to allow out, not now. Not when he knows he's being watched, considered for whether he might have a few dollars that could be stolen or if he could be held down and made to accept their touch. He won't be.

The ones who try learn that real fast not to try again, once they have busted lips and black eyes and, in one case, a set of balls so bruised and twisted that the asshole who tried to make Jameson kneel for him is definitely sterile now.

Cold nights make his legs ache, the final loving legacy of the braces he’d worn for too long that never let him stand all the way up. Two goddamn assholes had put those on him, and he'll never be free of the pain. Jameson ignores it, grinds his teeth until his jaw hurts worse than his legs ever could. He can ignore it just fine until the weather gets cold.

Mostly.

There’s a scraping off to his left, footsteps crunching on gravel and shards of broken glass. Jameson’s knife is in his hand as easily as he breathes and he’s already got it brandished when he turns, putting a sneer on his face, leaning into the ugliness of the scar that twists one side of his mouth more than the other. “Listen, motherfucker, try to stick your dick anywhere near me and I’ll fucking cut it off-... shit.”

His voice dies as he takes her in.

She’s small, almost dainty looking. He reads her for what she is in a heartbeat, the grace in every movement carefully trained until it was no longer a conscious choice, the soft skin that had spent a long time moisturized and cared for at odds with the hackjob and clumsy box-dye red she’d done to her hair to try and make herself less recognizable. She’s drowning in a man’s overcoat at least four sizes too big and so long it’s dragging the ground, heavy boots that she has to be wearing at least three pairs of socks to fit into. She’s wearing leather driving gloves too big for her hands.

Her eyes are wide and frightened.

But she's not frightened of him.

She reads him right back, and they recognize each other before a single real word is said. She manages a slight, trembling smile. Jameson feels the snarl fade off his own face. They might have trained together, not that he remembers much of training.

“... can I sit with you tonight?” She asks, voice low, glancing nervously over her shoulder and then back to him. “Please? You’re, you were one too, right?”

Jameson’s jaw works.

He should tell her to fuck off, this is his spot, leave him alone. That he’s not nice, he’s no one anyone can trust. He’s been owned three times and twice they made him live on his hands and knees, once he starved, once he watched people die over and over again until he sees their faces every time he sleeps.

He didn't deserve to be the one who lived after it all, but he's the one who would do anything not to die, so here they are. Here they fucking are.

Instead of rejecting her need for even one small kindness, he replies instead, "Yeah, whatever. Go ahead. Don't try to talk to me about it, though."

He closes the knife, letting it slide back into his pocket as she makes her way to him, dropping down to sit beside him, curling her knees to her chest and pulling a hood up over her head. Jameson feels… settled, at the gentle unassuming touch, her weight barely noticeable when she leans slowly until her head rests on his shoulder. She smells kind of gross, but he probably does, too. Who knows when either of them last showered?

“Sorry,” She whispers as she slides her gloved hand into his, twining their fingers together.

“Uh-... what-... what the fuck are you doing-”

“There’s a guy who won’t stop following me around.” She keeps her voice low, turning and lifting her chin so she’s almost kissing Jameson’s cheek right over his scar as she speaks. “I told him you were my boyfriend. Can you-... just pretend to be, for a while? We’re good at pretending we’re in relationships, you can do it, right? I knew when I saw you that you’d been like me.”

Jameson fights the twist of pain.

Pretending we’re in relationships.

That’s as close as he’s ever going to get, and even that was ripped away from him. Jameson never even got to tell him-

He shuts that thought down.

He doesn’t think about Nanda anymore. He doesn’t think about anyone unless it’s to hate them - that’s easier.

All he does is nod, giving a smile - fake but to anyone else it looks warmly genuine. He can make any expression an owner wants on command, still - the scars and bald patches where hair used to be, rubbed away by the muzzle day after day, make it a little scarier. But it never looks like a lie.

“I got you,” He murmurs back, and kisses her forehead like they’ve known each other for forever.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a man lurking, skulking around, one eye on the girl all the time, watching Jameson slide an arm around her waist with barely concealed jealousy. Jameson shoots him a serene smile, pulling the girl tightly against him.

It’s going to be a long, cold night, and he’s not going to sleep at all.

The girl dozes off almost immediately, finally feeling safe enough to sleep, and that… that helps. A little bit.

It's a kindness.

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @yet-another-heathen @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

#amow tropeathon2024 #day 3 #a long cold night #escaped whumpee #runaway whumpee #jameson bb #scars #scarred whumpee #bbu #box boy #box boy universe

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 month

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I Can't Cross O'er: An Interlude

CW: Captivity, child of whumper POV, blood, referenced whipping, magical whumpee, siren whump. For @amonthofwhump Tropeathon Day 4: Monster! Monster!

Bones in the Ocean Masterlist

Six years ago

A door shut, clicking into place, just down the hall. Carefully hidden inside one of the seven bedrooms in this wing of the house, Ford and his sister Nathalie waited, listening, as the man in the hallway took a deep breath. “By God,” The man muttered. “What a voice he has.”

Nathalie tried to peek around Ford's arm. “Is he-”

“Sssshhh.” Ford swatted at Nathalie without looking at her, and she swatted back.

“Like an angel…” The man continued, not realizing he had an audience - if currently a distracted one. “An absolute angel. The way he sings..."

Nathalie poked Ford right in his ticklish side with one finger, jabbing roughly. "Ford-"

"I said sssshh!"

"Don’t you dare tell me to shush, Guilford,” Nathalie hissed.

Ford looked at her, and whatever she saw on his face made the momentary triumph of mocking him with his hated full first name drain from hers. She laid a hand on his arm, then, awkwardly patting, whispering, “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry, Ford, I didn't mean it-"

“Don’t ever call me his name,” Ford said, but his voice was weak. Like always since his mother died, he felt tears rise unbidden and had to fight them back below. “Please, please don’t.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Nathalie whispered. Her eyes were huge and sad in the light that filtered in through the gauzy curtains across the room. “I really didn’t. I’m sorry, Ford. You’re not like him at all. I promise you're not."

He found a smile for her, just to watch the way her shoulders, which had hunched up, relaxed again. “It’s… it’s all right.” There was another sound, and Ford turned back, trying to peek through a crack in the door they were hidden just behind again. He couldn’t quite see the man, but he could hear him still muttering to himself. Thankfully, the Lord Fellswooth spoke to himself loudly enough that he hadn’t overheard them and realized he was being spied on by two of Lord Wentworth’s children.

Or grandchildren.

Or... prisoners.

Whoever they really were to him.

Seconds passed, and Ford could see in his mind the way the tall, strikingly thin Lord Fellswooth must be patting down his shirt, checking for wrinkles or any detail out of place. He’d been a fussy one at supper earlier, the sort to surreptitiously check the tines of his fork over before taking a single bite, as if checking for a smudge or a bit of tarnish he might make a barbed comment about. He was probably running quick fingers through his hair to get the little curl of salt-and-pepper over his forehead just so - he’d done that over and over since he’d come to meet with Lord Wentworth, as if it were some sort of compulsion rather than simple vanity.

Ford’s teeth worried at his lower lip as he listened to Fellswooth take a deep breath, murmur it was only a business call, of course, Theresa, that’s all, as if he were rehearsing his lines for a play, before he turned to leave. The two children eased back and away so no hint of them might be seen as he went past them - Ford's eyebrows knitted in confusion at a spot of bright red he saw on the Lord's cheek, smeared like he'd rubbed open a wound. The Lord's steps were nearly soundless thanks to the plush gold-threaded rug that ran the length of the hall all the way to the grand staircase that would take him right out the front door.

The butler met him there.

Mr. Keller was chilly sometimes but Ford mostly found him kind. His voice filtered up the stairs as he let Lord Fellswooth know his horse was saddled and waiting for him just outside. Mr. Keller had been around forever, he was very old and soon to retire, Father- the man who made them call him Father, anyway - said. He’d made mistakes, sometimes… more often lately.

There had been some sort of trouble with Mr. Keller writing letters that made no sense, begging for rescue from employment, that had led to some distant relations coming to the door last month, worried for his health.

Father had assured them all was well, and after speaking to Mr. Keller over a few days, the cousins or whoever had gone away again. Mr. Keller had been... different, ever since, but still mostly kind to the children.

Ford’s father read all Mr. Keller’s letters now before he sent them, and he’d put out an advert and told his very important friends he was looking for a new butler, that Mr. Keller was ready to step down and have a well-earned rest.

If he didn't just get thrown in the pond with the monster, like Ford's real father had been.

Once Fellswooth was safely gone, Ford eased out into the hall, the well-oiled hinges moving in perfect silence as he swung open the door. Nathalie was on his heels, creeping just behind him. They made their silent way towards the door that the fussy Lord had just come out of.

Ford paused just a foot away and turned to look at his sister over his shoulder, putting a finger to his lips.

Nathalie nodded, solemnly. Like Ford, she still wore a black armband, the sign of mourning after their mother’s death the year before. At ten, her face was losing the child’s roundness and thinning out. She looked like their mother had, more every year, and sometimes it hurt Ford to look at her at all. It would be six more years before their father would want to start looking into marrying her off, which meant only four years until marriage might happen for Ford.

The thought terrified him.

Ford had become a part of his father’s grasping ambitions only a month after Mother died, when she could no longer protect her children from Lord Wentworth’s plans for his family. Ever since, he’d been subjected to endless lectures on business ventures he didn’t care about overseas, tutored for hours every day on how to convince other nobles to speak to his father about those business ventures, or selling land, or… whatever it was that Guilford Wentworth wanted from them. All those lessons, in the end, centered around learning how to lie - or how to bring the aristocrats and royalty to meet with his father and his father’s awful creature.

Alongside all that unwanted education had been a rise in the careless, constant violence that had already dogged him all his life. He was not good enough at the skills Lord Wentworth wanted him to learn. He did not lie so easily, he did not care about colonies and copper mines a thousand miles across the sea. And he paid for not caring with bruises like the ones he wore even now, always and only in places that his clothing might hide.

Nathalie, though, wore no bruises, and neither did the twins. He’d done what he could to protect them all the way his mother had once tried to protect him. If he were married, though, especially if he were married to someone with more money or land and he had to go live with her family, he couldn’t keep Guilford’s anger on him any longer.

It would turn on his sister, until she was found a husband - and then it would finally turn on the twins, who had never known violence and would have no one to keep them safe any longer

What if whoever was picked for his sister’s husband was cruel, too? What if his own wife turned out to be some terrible witch, like Guilford Wentworth, just with hair ribbons? He’d rather die than be married, but he knew enough about his father’s monster by now to know that it wouldn’t matter what he wanted, when the time came.

He’d want whatever he was told to want, once the monster sang its hideous song. He'd be a dutiful, loving husband, or he'd be a dutiful loving son, or he'd have his throat torn open and turn to bones in the bottom of the pond in the garden, just like his real father.

Ford closed his fingers slowly around the doorknob, turning it as quietly as he could before he gently pushed the door open so he and Nathalie could peek inside.

They had come to peek at the monster.

The awful thing looked handsome and harmless. It perched along the edge of a heavy mahogany desk, leaning against it and looking away, towards the window, one hand over its mouth. Jet-black hair fell wavy, as if it had only just dried after a swim in the ocean, over beautiful eyes and curled around its ears. Its hair was all mussed up, as if it’d been grabbed at and pulled on, but the creature didn’t seem to notice.

It looked, with the last of the sunset’s yellowed light shining on its warm brown skin, like a sort of perfectly sculptured mockery of a human man, the most beautiful one Ford had ever seen in his life. It was only a trick, of course - it was more of a demon.

Ford had seen its real face when it killed his real father, a mouth that opened too wide and was full of hideous sharp teeth.

It wore some sort of loose robe that fell off one shoulder. It was covered in embroidered flowers in white against the shining pale blue fabric and tied at the waist. Its arms were crossed in front of itself and it hunched over, just slightly. The markings like tattoos that began just under his jaw on one side disappeared into the neckline where it lay over the thing’s collarbone and then reappeared along one delicately formed wrist, running all the way into its palm and over its long, elegant fingers. One of its legs was marked, too. When Ford looked at the monster’s feet, he could see one was covered in the same markings all the way to the very end of its toes.

“It's done, for now,” The monster said to no one, its voice soft. It spoke like a melody, a rumbling bass that could just as easily soar to tenor. Ford had taken singing lessons, for a while. He was hopelessly rubbish at it.

The twins, though, were good. And the monster sang like heaven.

There was a pause.

“Done,” It repeated, dropping to a whisper. Its voice cracked and broke this time, rasping. There was a horrible sorrow and anger in the lines of its beautiful face. “For now." Its voice rasped, suddenly, went rough-edged like it was talking around something blocking its throat. "Until the next, and the next, and the next…”

When it looked to the window, towards the sunset, the light glimmered along trails of shimmering wetness that ran down its cheek. Its body shook, and it dropped its head into its hands, letting out a wretched, shuddering sob.

He’d seen this thing murder his real father, sing him into the pond in the garden and then rip out his throat and stain the water red while Ford had watched, unseen, his own hands clamped tight over his mouth beneath his wide, nearly bulging eyes. He had been screaming, desperately muffling the sound, until he’d run for his mother, and discovered that she… she wasn’t the same either, anymore.

She hadn't died for years after, but really she had been mostly dead already, as soon as his real father was.

Once the monster sang to you, he took whatever he wanted of you away, and only left what was useful for the family. Which just meant useful for Lord Wentworth, which Ford’s real father hadn't been any longer.

The monster had taken from Ford’s mother even the memory of his true father. No one had cared enough to bother to take it from Ford, or Nathalie. No one listened when they insisted their father was someone else, someone no one in the house even knew had ever existed any longer. The twins had only been babies, and they wouldn’t remember anyway.

Weeping or not, it wasn’t a person, and Ford steeled himself against how much it hurt to watch the thing cry. It might weep like a man, and look like one, but Ford had seen it kill on command.

The creature turned away toward the window, its back now to the children spying on it from the doorway. Ford and Nathalie both inhaled sharply as the robe it wore slipped a little, dipping low enough to show that it was bleeding.

Ford felt something cold and shivery-sick dip in his stomach as he saw stripes of torn-open skin smeared in a horrible too-bright red just above its shoulder blades and down its back, disappearing beneath the shining black satin, only to still show through in spots here and there that seemed to stick to its skin. The blue robe turned the blood soaking through it purple, a sickly color that made Ford think he might be sick all over the floor.

There was-

There was so much blood.

Ford’s throat suddenly felt like it might close all on its own, and he jerked in a hissed breath. He felt sick just looking at it, too bright and too red. His stomach flipped and twisted, his heart racing its way up his throat as if it might come flying out his mouth.

There was blood on the floor, spattered on the wall by the window. It looked like a murder had been done, and yet Lord Fellswooth and the monster had been alone, and only the monster wore wounds.

What had Lord Fellswooth done to it?

Fellswooth had lifted his upper lip in a sneer just looking at how dusty Ford had been when he’d returned from the afternoon ride on his favorite horse. He’d run fingers over the washbasin stand checking for specks of dust Mr. Keller and the other servants might have missed. He’d shuddered just walking in the front door when the stable boy’s wolfhound had tried to lick at his palm.

What sort of man who could be so fussy as all that could tear the monster’s back to shreds and simply leave his blood running down his body to drip to the floor as he stood by the window?

How badly must all those wounds hurt?

Not that Ford cared, or anything. It was a murderous monster creature his false father used to enthrall and get what he wanted out of everyone who came near him. It wasn’t even human, it spent almost all its time in water hiding under the surface, coming out only when Lord Wentworth summoned it. Ford didn’t care about it at all.

But…

But that didn’t mean he thought it should bleed like that.

Even monstrous animals were only animals, after all, and this might be a creature of murder but did it need to suffer for that? For someone else's fun?

The monster, standing before the window staring out at the setting sun, began to sing to itself. Unlike the song they’d heard before when it was alone with Lord Fellswooth, this song was neither strident nor even very loud - it was a private song, one it sang only for itself. Its perfect voice did not swell or even rise much. Instead, each note seemed like a sidestep to the last, a winding staircase of melody that it wrapped around itself like a kind of blanket.

Ford caught his breath, listening. He could almost hear where a harmony should be, if there had been more of those… things… singing at once. Maybe this had been a song it sang with its own family, if it had had one.

Did monsters have mothers, like men did? They must. Everything living had a mother at one point or another, didn’t it?

The song was his pain, Ford realized. Winding and circling itself, neverending, a river even monsters would drown in when they never found shore. It was the creature's way of crying, beyond human tears. It wept, by the window, in a way that stole Ford's breath and made him want to weep alongside it.

“He’s so pretty,” Nathalie breathed, just beside him, her own wide eyes shining with tears. Her voice was too loud but his own felt too caught in his throat to shush her again. “He’s so pretty, Ford, isn’t he?”

The monster’s voice cut off all at once.

It spun around to see the two children who had - without realizing it - leaned further and slid the door a little more open. Ford’s heart dropped to his knees as those fathomless dark eyes locked on his. He and Nathalie both gasped as they fell under the thing's direct regard.

“Oh, no,” He whispered. "Nathalie-"

The monster opened its mouth in a snarl as it pulled its robe so tightly around itself nearly none of its skin could be seen any longer. Ford and Nathalie both froze at the sight of row after row of razor-sharp pointed teeth as it bared them.

“Go!” It snapped, in a voice that was not human, that spoke the human tongue in a roar and with a mouth not made for it. “Go away from me! Now!"

Ford's heart was in his throat "We're-... w-we're sorry-"

"Fear the monster your father keeps more than death itself and get away from me!”

The last was a shrieking command, not a song but a singular deafening note. Ford felt himself turning before he could even breathe. The command took effortless hold and he grabbed Nathalie's hand.

Get away from me.

The children could never have done anything but obey.

They fled shouting their fear of the monster, half-falling down the stairs and racing outside until Mr. Keller, who had seen Fellswooth off, caught them in his arms. Both of them burst into tears, there, while the stableboy and the groomsman stared surreptitiously in confusion. Mr. Keller held them, and shushed them, and finally took them to the stables in the hopes that he could calm their tears before Lord Wentworth overheard.

Inside, Guilford Wentworth’s monster sagged and then sank to the floor, his knees simply giving way until they touched the rug beneath him. He bent over until his forehead brushed the fibrous cloth, and he wept again.

This time, he wept in silence.

Taglist: @grizzlie70 @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump @shrimpwritings @there-will-always-be-blood @latenightcupsofcoffee@angelsproject

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 month

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Is He Safe?

CW: Captivity, creepy whumper. For @amonthofwhump Tropeathon Day 5: Covert Identity. (Jax, as always, used with permission and oversight from @comfy-whumpee)

Takes place during Jax’s first captivity.

The Motherfucking Gallaghers Masterlist

The ocean sounds like it’s breathing, a constant rhythm of water against the shore. Further down the way, groups of people laugh, throw beach balls, or otherwise enjoy the brilliant sunshine and growing warmth of the day.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of one of the Marcoset vacation homes, the beach is perfectly empty. Private, and privately theirs. At a white table in a white kitchen, Savvie sits, one hand laid over his, watching her best friend speak to his father on the phone.

Jax is allowed one phone call per week, with Savvie by his side of course. She’s written out a few ideas for him on what to talk about on a little piece of paper.

If he asks about:

How you are: Great!

Mention foods you have eaten recently that you like

Change the subject

What you’re doing: Hanging out with friends!

You love traveling around with me

We have a goal of seeing all fifty states! You’re really looking forward to seeing Alaska

Where you are: Tell him we’re at the beach in Florida

Seashells

Walking by the ocean

Sunshine

Talk about that concert we went to

Ask him about himself as often as possible

I will end the call if he upsets you

They’re really… optional.

Just guidelines on how to keep the conversation nice and light. He doesn’t have to use them, if he doesn’t want to, although of course he wants to. Easier, that way, it must be so much easier than trying to come up with things to talk about all on his own, right? Besides, she’s been able to keep his collar off all week here, and she’d like to not have to put it back on before they even get back home.

Taking him out to eat and to shops feels like regular, normal life - briefly, Savvie forgets her grief over the loss of her parents, which still sometimes appears in deep waves that knock her over and leave her lying in bed weeping for a day or two on end, Jax cleaning somewhere in the house while Savvie can’t even begin to know how to go check on him or see what he’s up to.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll just be cleaning, anyway. Unless she forgets to let him out of his room, and then he’ll just be sitting on his bed, or staring at nothing.

“We, uh-” Jax clears his throat, and it jerks Savvie out of her reverie. She shoots him an encouraging smile, and he answers it automatically before he looks away from her again, looking out at the sea where it laps against the shore. His arm shifts under her touch, and she watches with fascination as goosebumps rise. She rubs at them, watching with delight as he shivers. His voice trembles, but only a little. His dad probably can’t hear it. “We’re in Fl-Florida, right now. Spent last week at the beach, yeah. Picking-... seashells and shit like that.”

“You picked… seashells?” There’s a note of something Savvie can’t read in Jax’s dad’s voice - he sounds almost doubtful, although it’s honestly true. Not the Florida part, but they did spend the last week at the Marcoset family beachhouse in North Carolina. Close enough. In any case, Jax absolutely spent a couple hours yesterday picking up the seashells Savvie pointed out to him, putting them into a little bag to wash and take back home. She'd even found a little bit of rock washed smooth by saltwater in the shape of a heart.

“Uh, yeah, we-... my-... my friends are into it, I guess,” Jax says, and looks at her again. She nods, and smiles, and gives his hand a little squeeze of approval. He’s doing so well. “Honestly I m-mostly just… hang out.”

“Getting a tan, then, are you?”

“B-bit of one,” Jax responds. He’s pale as a ghost, he hardly ever goes outside. When they lay out on the beach, Savvie makes him wear SPF 100+ sunscreen that lathers on as thick as chalk paste. But… his dad doesn’t need to know that either.

“Well, that’s good, then. But, Jax… these... friends of yours that you're with…”

All the conversations happen on speakerphone, but Savvie stays quiet and neither of them mention to the soft-spoken Brit on the other end that she is there. Jax knows better.

His eyes close, briefly, and then he looks steadfast out at the ocean. “They’re nice, Dad. I t-told you.”

“Right, but-”

“How’s Mam?”

The subject change isn’t done well, but his dad goes with it, answering reluctantly and allowing himself to be led away from questioning Jax’s mysterious friends. The first few times he asked, Savvie reached over and hung up the phone, and then made sure Jax didn't call him for weeks on end.

Now, Jax makes sure the wrong kind of questions stop fast.

She isn’t forcing him to. It's not like they aren’t friends, like they aren’t on a beach trip, like he isn’t having a great time. And he can still call his dad, of course. It’s not like… a threat, or anything. Just that Jax gets so worked up, and it’s better for him to just not talk to his dad at all for a while if it’s going to cause him so much pain and worry.

That doesn’t happen anymore. Jax cuts it off before it can.

Content, Savvie curls her fingers until the tips brush against his palm, and feels his muscles twitch in response. Savvie tells herself he’s squeezing back. They’re friends now. She tells him everything, and he’s such a good listener. They go on weekly coffee dates, just as friends of course, where he sits in the sun by the window, sipping black coffee and watching Savvie as she tells him about… anything. Everything. She’s gone on three dates during this monthlong beach vacay and told him all the dirty details the morning after each one, while they wait for breakfast to be delivered from the bakery down the road.

One man she'd even brought back to the beach house, and Jax had been there, an unobtrusive presence cleaning up after breakfast that her date hadn't even asked about.

All her thoughts and feelings spill out of her with Jax, and it’s amazing. She’d been feeling so alone when her parents died, and Jax has made sure she knows she’s never, ever going to be alone again.

He’s been such a good friend to her. And she’s been such a good friend to him in return, giving him these trips out and days off his work cleaning her house, letting him speak to his dad as long as he doesn’t start telling him lies or anything like that. Letting him come out of the shell the training place had put him into, letting him be sober most of the time instead of drugged like her uncle keeps telling her he should be.

He’s such a good friend.

He’s so good.

They’re going to be best friends for their whole lives.

She gives his hand another little squeeze and smiles. He echoes the expression, a half-second delayed, his attention torn between her and the voice coming through the phone.

“... -coming home any time soon?” His dad asks, a little hesitantly. He’s asked that before, and Savvie’s smile briefly fades away, her brows furrowing in distaste.

He keeps asking.

Jax’s eyes flicker to her, searching her face for what he’s supposed to say - this isn’t written on the paper in front of him. She’d figured the old dolt would stop asking by now. She gives a slight shake of her head.

“N-not soon, Dad, no,” Jax answers, without looking away from Savvie. The sun warms the handsome lines of his face and sets those hazel eyes to sparkling. Honestly, you could get lost in eyes like that. If she ever meets a man she wants to marry, and lets Jax date once she has someone else to spend her time with, some girl is going to fall head over heels for him just because of those pretty eyes.

She ignores a twist of some faint ugly feeling, refusing to see it as jealousy. He and his girlfriend can both work for her, that would be fine. Isaac probably has some staff he could choose from, if he wants a girlfriend or a wife. Or maybe one of the other families would have someone. Savvie would have to approve, of course. He'd have to marry someone Savvie thought was good enough for him.

Maybe she should pick someone out for him, she'd know better than he does what he needs, anyway.

“We’d like to see you,” Alfie offers, voice soft, not judging or angry. “We all miss you. Your mam, too, and your sisters-”

“I-I know, Dad.” Jax swallows. There’s a pain in his face Savvie wants so badly to soothe, to hug right out of him. She squeezes his hand again, harder this time, and he jumps a little, as if shocked back into awareness. “Sorry. You… you know h-how it is in America.”

His dad hums, noncommittal. He probably doesn’t know anything about living here, really, and Savvie can’t blame him - she knows more about Russia than she does England, and one day Jax can go with her to visit Moscow and see the ballet…

The thought makes her smile, wistful and daydreaming already about how Jax will get to see so many new things, living with her. She’ll be as good a friend to him as he’s been to her and show him so, so much…

Jax’s shoulders relax just a little bit when he sees her expression back to pleased. He chances a look back at the phone, but of course there’s nothing there but the call screen, the number, the time ticking away in seconds and minutes until Savvie tells him to say his goodbyes for another week.

“I’ll let you know if I-I can come sometime,” Jax says. His breathing isn’t quite as steady, now. He isn’t looking at her.

She doesn’t like him as much when he isn’t looking at her.

“Jax, are you-... are you safe?” His father’s voice softens even further, hard to hear through the phone. “Is someone keeping you from having your own phone-... I don’t know, just. We miss you. You know if you ever need to talk-”

Savvie’s eyes narrow. She leans over and firmly presses her index finger down on the red button to end the call.

Jax exhales in a rush, looking over at her with wide eyes that look oddly hurt. She pulls the phone back to herself and turns it off in case the stupid old man calls back.

“Don’t look at me like that,” She snaps, her good mood dissipating now, dissolving as she thinks about the question.

Are you safe?

His hands are rough, calloused and with skin that cracks and peels from the harsh chemicals that he cleans her house with. There are circles under his pretty eyes because he doesn’t sleep very well. Savvie isn’t much of a cook and the two of them mostly live on delivery and whatever can be safely popped into an oven and ignored for a while. He has scars around his neck in a little circle, like an odd reddish necklace.

Sometimes she has him sleep in her room and she holds him, feeling the careful rise and fall of his breathing beside her. She has given him new clothes to wear when they go out and takes off his collar so no one will realize that he’s just staff. She lets him call his stupid family when Savvie should be all the family he needs, and his dad has the gall to not even be grateful for it.

Is he safe?

What kind of question is that?

“Miss Savvie-”

“Shut up.” Jax’s mouth snaps shut, and Savvie fights a prickle of guilt, trying to tell herself it isn’t what it seems like from the outside. “Honestly, how dare he? As if I would ever let any harm come to you. How dare he!”

She throws the phone. Jax flinches when it bounces off a wall and hits the ground with a crack, shoulders hunching in an attempt at self protection.

“He, he’s just-... w-worried, Miss Savvie-” Jax is leans away from her when she stands. She ignores it - he’s her friend, he’s not scared of her, he’s just surprised by the phone being thrown, is all. They were nasty to him at that place where he learned how to work, and he just… doesn’t like sudden movements.

That’s all.

He knows Savvie would never really hurt him, if he’s good.

Savvie stalks over to the fallen phone and picks it up, rolling her eyes when she sees the screen is cracked now. “Not again. Ugh, Jax, your dad drives me crazy! Maybe I should take you to see him just so he’ll stop asking all the damn time about it!”

“If-... that’s what y-you want, Miss Savvie,” Jax answers, cautiously. Savvie hates this version of him the most, where he gets quiet and barely speaks. Hates even more that it’s her own anger that made him that way.

No.

It’s his dad asking stupid questions, that’s what did it. Not Savvie’s perfectly logical response to them.

“He… he is just awful, isn’t he?” Savvie says, voice flat and angry, setting her broken phone down on the counter. She’ll have another one delivered today. “I don’t know how you can stand to even talk to him, Jax, he’s so… rude.”

Jax is silent, now.

That rankles even more, that he doesn’t agree with her and he doesn’t argue. He just watches her, and she can feel the weight of his eyes and usually it just means he’s listening to her but right now she’s sure it means he’s judging her.

“Right. Well, he’s clearly stressing you out.” She straightens her shoulders, taking in a deep breath. She makes her voice cheerful and relaxed, hoping her body will follow suit. “So. Here is what we’ll do. Until I think you’re okay to talk to him without getting so worked up, then we’ll take a break from the calls, huh? Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

He still doesn’t answer.

His answer is not required.

Honestly, she’d just get angrier if he did answer.

Is he safe. It circles around and around in her mind. She’s the best thing that ever happened to him. She was given a cowed, frightened, silent slave to clean her home and now he’s got his own room, his own things, he’s her very best friend. He goes everywhere she goes. She hardly even lets him out of her sight.

Is he safe?

“Get your swimsuit on,” She says, turning away and pointing towards the stairs to the second floor, watching as he hesitantly gets to his feet, watching her still. “We’re going swimming.”

“M-Miss Savvie-”

“Not one word about it, Jax. You can talk to that nasty creep again when I am damn good and ready.” She finally looks back at him. "You don't belong to him, Jax. You don't owe him anything."

“Yes, Miss Savvie.” Whatever he must see in her eyes keeps him from trying to talk it out any further. Good.

He heads for the stairs, and she falls in just behind, running her fingers over the cracks in her phone screen, her skin catching at the edge of one, just a little.

Is he safe?

He’s the safest he’s ever been.

As long as he doesn't care about anyone else more than he cares about her.

@whumpyourdamnpears @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @arlin-always-writing @wildfaewhump @whump-tr0pes @iaminamoodymoodtoday @orchidscript @sableflynn @pretty-face-breaker @raigash @whumptywhumpdump @boxboysandotherwhump @thefancydoughnut @mylifeisonthebookshelf @whumpinggrounds

#amow tropeathon2024 #day 5:Covert Identity #day 5 #covert identity #captivity #whump #creepy whumper #jax #savvie #the motherfucking gallaghers #captive best friend #they're besties!#really #savvie isn't making it weird at all

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blackrosesandwhump · 1 month

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March of Pain Day 20: Addiction

Also, @amonthofwhump Cover Identity.

CW: vampire whumpee, blood mention

Though swathed from head to foot against the deadly sun, the assassin could still feel its heat, pressing in on him through his mask. A single misstep, a single inch of uncovered skin, would expose him and his true identity.

It’s better this way, he thought, sprinting on silent feet down a mercifully shaded alley. And, of course, if he played his cards right, he always had a convenient meal.

A corrupt noble, that was his target today. Nothing out of the ordinary. Barely even a challenge. Which was good, because it meant less effort on his part to satisfy his craving. His addiction. That’s what it really was, uncontrollable and insatiable. Inescapable.

Ironic for someone who could escape from anything.

He paused in the shadow of a large building, just across the square from the noble’s house. Should he wait until sundown, until he could do his job without the sun’s threat? No. It couldn’t wait. His hunger couldn’t wait.

One of these days that hunger would betray him. He could sense it, deep down in the part of him that still retained a shred of humanity.

Blood would be his undoing.

@marchofpain

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onlythegoodpretzels · 1 month

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The bounty hunter knew: The Galra's headprice was far beyond anything they'd ever seen from the miserly imperium. Their prize shook off the stun blast faster than a creature his size should have. He wanted to struggle but chose against it quickly, so hanging by his arms, prosthetic inactive, must hurt effectively.

He watched. Even though the struts immobilized his head. They said he was vicious, and that he could wait so calm was unnerving. He must know where he was headed. Where had all that fight gone?

The bounty hunter didn't know: Shiro didn't need to move, or speak, or even breathe to speak to Black. So they were already hotly pursued by four furious Voltron lions. Soon they'd see for themselves.

__________________________________________________________

I've been so inspired by Linecrosser's whump art recently, the greyscale stuff they do looks SOOOO GOOOD. I wanted to try some of that kind of color work too.

For @amonthofwhump's trope-a-thon day 5: Kidnapped

#amow tropeathon2024 #day6 #captivity #whump art #whump #vld shiro #takashi shirogane #shiro voltron #vld fanart #voltron shiro #cw: blood #unsafe suspension -- alien doesn't know dislocating his shoulders would suffocate him Hunk's gonna be so mad #my art #restraint systems #headcollar #restrained

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crimsonlyinglilly · 1 month

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AMOW 2. Impalement

Day two of AMonthOfWhump's March Trope-a-Thon.

oh no! Elijah's been impaled. anyway-

more Elijah Whump, This time from Grandfather Elijah AU, so centuries after 'Hale the boy grew.' and Nadia discovers her traveling companion is more that he appeared.

also while writing this I discovered I didn't post the second part of Hale the boy grew. will get on to that.

---

It had been years since he had used any of his true strengths and abilities, Nadia was more than happy to take the lead in their search so Elijah had let her believe her first impression, that he was just a young vampire Katarin-Katherine now, had turned and left behind, it was easier to be Elijah Hale rather than Mikaelson, the one who had failed her family and led to their deaths.

Oh, he knew who Nadia was, he had convinced Katarina’s parents to keep him informed of the baby’s growth after they had sent their daughter into his care, the letters were likely still at the bottom of the trunk he had left on the ship. He had assumed she was another, tiny body left in the aftermath of his brother's rage, so when she had introduced herself when they both met during their own searches for Katherine he had been stunned.

Quickly agreeing to join her, following her instructions with little complaint, it was easy to see how she gained the idea he was younger, but the sight of her, alive, learning that she had children, even if he had little to no chance of finding them or their descendants at this point, was a weight lifted from his heart, that he still had something left from his grandchildren, that Hale’s line had survived his brother the way Tatia hadn’t survived him.

Besides he had gained plenty of practice following someone else’s lead while watching their back and Nadia was far more careful than any of his siblings besides Finn.

So it made sense for him to stop holding back the moment the makeshift stake made its way towards her heart, he’d survive it, she wouldn’t. She was family even if she wasn’t entirely aware of how much.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t lose her.

The hearts of the two that had been fighting him, quickly found their way out of their chests and on the floor before he moved.

He gets to see her look of shock and horror as she realised he managed to take her place before the stake punctured his chest, ribs cracking, flesh tearing on the wood.

Metal was always clearer,

Elijah wished he could say he was a stranger to this feeling as the sharp pain erupted stealing his breath; no matter how much he was expecting or that he didn’t need to breathe, he wasn’t, sadly it was a familiar feeling. He choked on a wet gasp despite himself as the wooden former chair leg shifted as he stumbled back and the man let go of it, he was however more annoyed at the ruin of his shirt than anything else.

Darkness swallowed him and he had faith that Nadia would hold her own against their four opponents long enough until his body remembered this wouldn’t kill him and he woke up to pull out the stake himself.

---

First time it had been his father’s blade on the night he lost his humanity, then in the years after Hale’s death and the realisation Hale’s younger son, his grandson looked old enough to be his father he had tried himself following rumours of wooden stake killing his kind.

Then years after that soon after his reunion with his siblings it was the brotherhood of Five and their accursed daggers.

Recently, as the last centuries had come to be to him, those things had come to be a comfort, the sharp slide of the ash coated dagger into his heart spare him to ache of losing his last ties to Hale, of failing Katarina.

The black nothing of the daggered death meant he wasn’t living with the knowledge of the village he had visited decade after decade, to watch grow since a small collection of his grandchildren followed him back to the old world, had been massacred by his little brother.

It was a reminder of how he had cost Tatia’s her life because of his lack of control and cost those that had looked up to him with his own blindness towards his brother.

Being daggered in the coffin meant he didn’t have to face his unending love for his brother, while still remember bring there for Lana’s first steps, she had been 60 when Klaus descended in anger, or wondering if Kaila and Juste had had their first child before they were killed, or if Mayflower had gotten permission to marry her boy, or how Heath had had progressed with his blade work or the fact he would never get to see Eli, the child named for him, show him how good he had gotten with the bow Elijah had given him on his last visit.

Every time his brother had undaggered him expecting, demanding forgiveness Elijah remembered another face, another person, another life Klaus had cut down without care. He had stopped fighting back after the fifth time he had been released, simply refusing to look at Klaus harmed him far more than any thoughtless lashing out, he was daggered just as quickly after that when Klaus couldn’t stand being ignored more than any anger.

In the end the only reason Elijah had swallowed his rage and grief at his lost grandchildren, was his other siblings pleading and the reminder that Katarina was still alive and free, running from them as she was.

Katarina who was sent to him, by her family to protect, to guide, to give a better life and he had unknowingly left her to be used as a sacrifice by his brother.

Katarina who believed he had known, believed he had sold her out to be killed, who was running from him as much as Klaus.

So he had accepted Klaus’s apology and let them return to an almost normal state, using his freedom from the coffin and time awake to look for Katarina, learned who she had gained her blood from, where she had run, and warned Klaus not to bring anymore harm to her.

It was however from Kol that he learnt she had changed her name, going most commonly by Katherine, Klaus took his relive of news of her as a example and started bringing the small pieces of information to him like a cat brought dead birds, if could almost be seen as small hints of apology if Klaus had accepted killing Elijah’s grandchildren was wrong at all.

That was one problem he found that spending so much time mostly daggered, the connections he had collected had scattered, faded or died. A reminder of the cruellest lesson this life had taught him, one could never win against time.

Still he had waited watching out for any sign of her from afar as he rebuilt his network and tried to manage and help his family, he would have stayed doing that if Father hadn’t found them, hadn’t pushed them to flee again.

He couldn’t return to the new world, not when all signs pointed to Katherine was still in Europe, not when the last time he had been on the continent where his siblings were born, it had been to a village he had watched grow, one wiped out from illness and fighting in the century following his absence.

But he couldn’t tell Klaus that or he’d end up spending the passage in a coffin, proof of the came when Kol refused to leave.

So he had helped dagger Kol to get Klaus to lower his guard and ensured he himself was off the ship before it left. Klaus would undagger Kol soon enough without him, if he didn’t Rebekah would and Elijah would collect various magical tomes and objects to make up for his cold usage of his youngest brother, but Kol was the only one that had understood and hadn’t judged why he had spent a century away from them in the first place, they had come to a understanding of sort.

Finn had been Finn, Klaus was betrayed and Rebekah was jealous no matter how she had tried to hide it.

Kol would have taken anything, done anything, to hold on to a spark of his magic, he hadn't blamed Elijah for trying to cling to his humanity with Hale.

He had left Rebekah and Kol a letter each, that was forty years ago he likely would have given up his lone search for Katherine if he hadn’t come across Nadia a few years ago.

---

It happened suddenly, they were passing through a town that the latest rumours of her mother had pointed to, she had learned where Katherine had been staying and followed the lead in hopes to find out where she had gone after the town.

Instead they had fallen into a trap, she had led Elijah into a trap where they were outnumbered.

She was confident in her own abilities and the fact she had never seen Elijah struggle with anything; in a fight, hunger, bloodlust had been on the small list she had collected screaming that he was more than he let her think but at first she had only planned on using him to find her mother later it had grown into a true fondness.

But two against six, stronger, likely older than them wasn’t a great chance, which was proven when she stumbled back and found herself stuck unable to escape and too slow to block as her death came at her.

Then everything changed.

One moment the wooden stake was heading for her heart with no way she could move out of the way the next she was falling over the table that had blocked her coming up up to turn and watch with horror as the stake impaled her travelling companion of three years in the heart

Elijah Hale, the man she had first thought was just some poor pretty nobleman her mother had ensnared and turned on a whim, as she had learned from her travels, was somewhat of a habit she had.

He was charming and kind, she could see why her mother had gotten attached enough to turn him, even if kindness was something she wasn’t used to from their kind, she could ignore the way he sometimes stared at her with awe and assumed it was from relief at no longer looking for Katherine alone.

While habit of dress and his ability to talk rings around nobles and gain what he wanted with barely the use of compulsion agreed with her idea of him being a noble, his ease travelling with nothing and a few stories she had gotten out of him spoke of rougher roots

He spoke of Katerine as Katarina, sometimes a name she hadn’t used since she was alive and Nadia adapted her idea of him as someone who was turned around at the same time, that perhaps he was someone her mother hadn’t just used but had loved.

She had allowed herself to get far more attached herself at that thought, that they could find her mother and actually stay together as a sort of family, even if she wasn’t sure what Elijah was exactly, as she had started to notice through the stories of her mother she had managed to gain from him, that they weren’t lovers that Elijah spoke of her as a younger relative more than anything else.

She hadn’t realised how much the idea of that mattered to her until it died, as Elijah stumbled back and slumped against the wall looking down at the wood impaling his heart with more annoyance than anything else as his skin turned grey and ashened in death.

She swallowed back any grief and threw herself back into the fight realising that before Elijah had somehow moved quicker than she thought possible and taken her place he had killed two of those fighting him, leaving her against four.

She lost track of time as the fight passed in a blur she managed to stake one of the remaining men and she was caught before she could do anything more, she was struggling against the hold when a voice called out.

“I wouldn’t if i was you.” A familiar impossible voice froze them all and she turned slowly to see Elijah standing the wooden stake that should have killed him in one hand. Watching them with a mild smile but she doubted the surviving three were looking at his face, she herself could barely pull her eyes from the healing hole in his chest.

The fatal wound closed as if nothing had happened.

---

I'll end it there as the impalement is over.

Part two may follow.

#amow tropeathon2024 #day2 #impalement #tw impalement #elijah mikealson #nadia petrova #AU- Grandfather Elijah #fan fiction #the vampire dairies au #the originals au #tvd fanfiction

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crimsonlyinglilly · 1 month

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AMOW 4. "Monster! Monster!" / Caged

Day four of AMonthOfWhump's March Trope-a-Thon.

Elijah gets a break, as I return to Bleach and Shared custody.

AU summary- Uryuu was taken by squad 12 members alongside Souken's soul on the day he was attacked.

Tensions and events in Seireitei led to Uryuu facing his past.

---

Uryuu’s hands pressed against the glass, attempting to use the cold feeling to ground him against the growing panic, he wasn’t sure how or why he had ended back here.

He had noticed the new members of the squad two that had appeared after the attack at the gate, likely to watch him in case he showed any sympathy to the ryoka.

Which itself was stupid, and a waste of manpower, after years he had spent following their rules, healing their people, the only person he would side with was father and he was too smart to risk coming for him.

Uyruu had long learned to smother the longing wish that he would come, if he did it would just lead to the last of his family dying likely in the same place he was once again trapped.

But none of that explained why he was back in the glass case that had served as his cell in the earliest months in soul society until Yachiru had found him

It was meant to be shattered, even on the times he had been forced back to the lab ‘for checkups’, it was never there. The monster had gleefully shown him his new cage if the head captain decided to return Uryuu to his care.

“Let me out.” a child’s voice pleaded suddenly cause Uryuu to jump and turn around the child that hadn’t been there.

As he stared he realised the child shouldn’t possibly be there at all as he found himself looking down at his past self. He hadn’t notice how much he had grown until he took in the fact his younger self barely reached his chest height.

Uryuu froze as the glass vanished for a moment as a hand with long black nails appeared to grasp his younger’s arm and ripped him from the case with ease.

“No, no no, let me go.” the boy screamed in panic, and Uryuu struggled to swallow around the lump of terror that climbed his throat.

“So picky and here I thought you wanted to come out.” the monster grumbled to himself ignoring the desperate movement from the boy he was dragging towards the table.

Uryuu’s breath failed as he heard the voice and his lungs hurt, begging for him to take a breath but he couldn’t, he was stuck watching as his worst nightmares was suddenly playing in front of his eyes.

A syringe appeared in the monster’s hand and with little care entered his younger self’s neck taking what little fight he could put up, Uryuu flinched, the days without Nemu was alway worst she always used a little more than necessary, giving him a little escape from the pain and horror.

He looks so small when the monster places him on the table, screams lost to quiet whimpers, useless pleas and desolate crying.

Then he notices the woman standing behind the scene isn’t Nemu, as she sees his attention she smiles at him growing taller from the lieutenant’s height to her normal towering stature.

Yudokuna.

It takes him a little longer to realise what was different from her normal appearance, Uryuu stiffened as red-gold eyes met his blue, her golden mask was missing leaving her eyes clear and the usual markings around her eyes were open, giving her eight to his two.

She stepped away from the ease in loud echoing footsteps walking towards the glass he was still caged in, all three pair of her arms visible and unhidden for once

"Monster! Monster!" The remains of the child he once was whimpered from the table and Uryuu wasn’t sure if it was still stuck in the nightmare facing the monster that had taken them, killed grandfather a second time on that table and taken him apart, or was voicing thoughts about the appearance of the other half of his soul.

She had hidden most of her spider traits when he was younger showing them more as he grew, he had found comfort in them, spiders ate butterflies.

“Wake up. ” she whispered, as she laid hand on the glass above him, the golden tipped nails scratching the glass, the sound filling across the room and covering the whimpers from his past self.

He woke up, throwing himself up and away from his bed to take a deep breath as he took in the difference from the dark lab and his daylight lit room.

Now he remembered; he had taken a nap to prepare for the chance he’d be called to deal with any injuries caused in squad 11 after they had announced an impromptu party/brawl after Captain Ichimaru had beaten them to the gate.

It was a dream he told himself as he took deep breaths, just a dream, it was obvious now he was awake but trapped in his mind it felt so real.

His Zanpakutō spirit materialised beside him leaning down to look at him with concern, mask lifted up to sit more like a crown over her hair but only looking at him with her normal two gold-red eyes..

Before she could speak a crack interrupted them and they looked up out of the window to see the sky above Seireitei away. He watched as the barrier broke and something passed though holding for a moment before it broke apart and started to fall to the ground in pieces.

‘Not pieces’ he thought, ‘groups’ as he could pick out different reiatsu of seven people.

The thousand voices started hissing in his mind as he fled their rush of excitement and Yudokuna’s concerned looks was slowly overtaken by a wide smile showing off her sharp fangs, the markings around her eyes started to open again.

He reached out to pull her mask back down to cover her face.

“Not yet.” he warned her, they had too much attention on him to do anything at the moment but even as he spoke he couldn’t help the growing uncertainty as he noticed something achingly familiar about one of now falling ryoka’s reiatsu.

It couldn’t be.

Father?

---

Tomorrow should be a return to Elijah, the soulmarks AU and a lighter fill.

#amow tropeathon2024 #day4 #“Monster! Monster!”#Caged #bleach #ishida uryuu #Yudokuna #AU-Shared custody #bleach au #fanfiction #fic #mayuri kurotsuchi

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crimsonlyinglilly · 2 months

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AMOW 1. Victim of a Curse

I'm back for AMonthOfWhump's March Trope-a-Thon.

Starting with more from Reincarnation woes and a look into the Crescent curse and the problems with cursing an entire bloodline.

The point of view of someone uninvolved in the power struggles of new Orleans who is still effected by it as a mistake brings the crescent curse on them.

Elijah latest life is a change from the last thousand years but an unfortunate twist of fate places him at risk of two curse and sets him on the path of war against the boy he had once taught.

and he thought being born a girl was going to be the most difficult part of this life to deal with.

----

Mikeala Bayes left her family when she was eighteen, after a stranger, a vampire; who was supposed to be her enemy, killed her parents to save her from becoming a murderer.

He told her to run, warned her and she hadn't thought twice, she didn’t want anything to do with the pack, with the supposed blessing that was in her blood and left to travel the world.

She only really came back at twenty five to settle when the few relatives she kept in contact warned her about the curse, that it would be safer if she was affected to be at home.

She was forced to agree, no matter how careful she was, the last thing she wanted was to risk her daughter being left alone somewhere.

The fact Elijah’s stupidly rich father also lived in New Orleans helped, it was getting harder to travel with a growing child and her daughter needed a chance to get to know others her own age.

Those from the pack and other normal human children, Elijah didn’t have the anger that was normally found in their family, the same way she hadn’t been born with the birthmark Mikeala had from her mother’s line.

It was part of the reason Mikeala hoped Elijah may have somehow escaped the danger her blood carried, what she had grown up with, her baby was calm and smart even compared to the human kids.

It was a good idea, her daughter bloomed from a slightly shy-cold five year old to a bright if reserved eight year old after they settled down, Mikeala also had to admit part of it came from the younger half-brother she had gotten to know.

At least little Kol had more sense than the father, even at five.

Said stupidly rich father lived up to his uses, the man may be naive and blind to everything around him but he was a loving father who never tried to take Elijah from her which put him above most people to her and he made sure Elijah never wanted for anything, the moment Elijah expressed an interest in something; classes and equipment were already ordered.

Which is why they were driving back late one evening from Elijah’s latest dance class when everything was ruined.

They were on the right side of the road, they were going at the right speed, none of that mattered as the other car crashed into them.

She barely lost consciousness but the first thing she did was check Elijah, ignoring her own aches as she twisted around.

Her baby looked at her with wide eyes and a fear she rarely ever saw from her daughter, there was a slight cough as she replied to her questions that Mikeala was sure it was from the bruises from the belt.

Once she was sure the most important person was safe she pushed open her door to check and scream at the idiot who had hit them.

She could smell the booze as she managed to wreck the door open, she was cursing at him before she realised what was missing.

He was too still, her hand reached out for his neck.

“Wake up” she hissed as she felt nothing and refused to accept it.

“Dammit NO.” her voice cracked, she was seconds from begging as the full understanding started dawn on her “Wake up.”

“You fucker, you don’t do this to me.” She swore as she stared at the man, the dead man, the stupid waste who was drunk and had killed himself by her hand and ruined her life.

Twenty eight years she had avoided triggering the curse in her blood, the last ten she had done everything to stay away from her family along with it.

Destroyed in a night by a selfish person who likely had no idea there was more in the world.

The curse didn’t care she didn’t want to be part of the pack.

The curse didn’t care she had left years ago.

The curse didn’t care it wasn’t her fault.

The curse didn’t care that she had a daughter.

She ignores him and runs back to her car. She could feel it creeping over her, feel the magic gathering around her, the curse of her blood and the added one the witches and vampires had cast upon them.

It wasn’t fair she thought as she managed to get back to her car, to her little girl watching with curiosity and concern as she placed her hand on the glass, she wouldn’t open the door, even if she wouldn’t harm her baby, with they’re shared blood.

She couldn’t risk Elijah wandering away to follow her or getting cold, who knew how long it would be before someone came.

Still she wanted to, she wanted to pull her baby into her arms and never let go.

“Mama loves you,” she tells her, hoping with everything in her that Elijah could hear, Elijah has to know it if it’s the last thing she does. “I-” she bite back as scream of pain, “need you to remember-”

She screams as the pain doubles and she falls to the floor, panting on all fours ‘like a beast’ her thoughts remind her cruelly, as everything tells her to return to the woods to find her pack, she could smell them.

She didn’t want to- she couldn’t yet.

Dragging herself up she ignores the claws screeching on the metal on her car’s door, the sounds too much for new hearing.

A small hand pressed against the glass.

Dark brown eyes stared at her, little lips twisted into a frown but there wasn’t fear in her daughter's face, for the first time she thinks she sees a flicker of the rage in their blood, in her baby’s eyes.

“I love you, no matter what.” she breaths on the glass, ignoring the yellow reflected from her eyes.

It was her new hearing that helped her hear the little reply.

“- fix this. Love you.”

She tried to stay upright to keep her little girl in her vision, but the next time the wave of pain hits, she hits the road and howls.

----

The wolf laid in the undergrowth as lights, cars and humans arrived. She watched as the child-pup was taken from the car and carried away, biting back a whine, that was hers. She hurts as the small one vanishes from view into a van.

She starts to follow the pull from where she knows what's hers is, until another wolf appears, she relaxes, it’s not alone, pack. Pack would help her get her pup back.

They don’t, they get in her way, they stop her.

She snarls.

She fights.

She loses.

—--

Elijah sits in the van next to the policeman and breathes, deep, slow and calm, mama alway told her she was so good at keeping her temper. But mama didn’t really know everything.

Elijah Colson-Bayes was once Elijah Mikaelson, and has been enraged for a thousand years, every new life brings more injustices, he loves his brother, he doesn’t blame him, they are each other’s centre stone, the only constant, tied to each other as they were, but every life since had just built on that anger without release.

Elijah has been furious since father tried to kill them for mother to make them monsters, loathing since he realised that Klaus and Rebekah had already been killed before father had come for Finn, Kol and him.

Incensed since he learned Esther had already given his first born child away, since Mikael returned and destroyed everything he had built leaving him alive long enough to sit with the bodies of his wife, three daughters and youngest son, until Kol returned and Elijah had to see the devastation his failure to protect his family had brought to Hale and Kol.

He had thought he was done as he died cursing his parents, until he grew up again to realise papa was Kol.

That was the beginning, this was countless lives later and Elijah was very good at keeping things to themselves but if there was one good thing about all this, they were always underestimated.

Elijah was going to fix this, whatever had caused Mama to change when there wasn’t a full moon, even if it meant tearing New Orleans apart and out of the hands of Klaus’s heir.

#amow tropeathon2024 #day1 #Victim of a Curse #fanfiction #elijah mikaelson #original character #the originals #fic #the originals fic #the originals au #AU - reincarnation woes

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