The First Ember - IX
1,921 words. Original work: The Jackal of An Nadr
<< | previous | next | >>
Content Warning | unintentional drug overdose by captors (bad side effects but not life threatening), fever whump, the very first signs of pneumonia, undressing while unconscious (medical reasons), heavy bruising, evidence of past noncon, wound/scar reveal, mention of unsanitary bodily fluids, [Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings]
Tag List | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-ghost-writer @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump @whump-queen @scoundrelwithboba @suspicious-whumping-egg
The human looked like it might not survive the night.
Yeezumon had been cradling it for the last fifteen minutes while Odrai climbed down the side of the ship to gather sand from the dunes. It was already several hours into the night, but below the topmost inch of sand, the dunes were nearly as warm as they had been during the day. He returned to the deck and passed the bags down to Ifyaa. As he did, he cast a somewhat worried glance at the human. "How bad is it?"
"...I don't know yet," Ifyaa admitted, creating a nest on their cot with the bags. "It's running a bad fever, and...." He paused, sharing a worried look with Yeezumon. "And I think we may have overdosed it on the eadh."
The little thing was showing every sign of it there was. Breaths clouded with heavy mist, despite the warmth of the cabin. Excessive tears. Cold sweat. Everything across its body that could produce water was doing so in abundance. On its own it wouldn't have even been that concerning; eadh overdoses weren't fatal. But with the fever already ravaging its system? That changed everything.
Odrai seemed to realize as much. But all he could offer was, "If anyone can save it, it's you."
Ifyaa said quietly, "Thank you, Odrai."
"We'll call on you if we need anything, but you should go," Yeezumon said gently. The human was starting into another fit of incoherent crying. "It isn't safe."
Odrai just nodded, giving the human one last, lingering look. Then he was gone, the trap door shut behind him.
The Husbands shared another look, then turned their attention back to the human. It was clinging onto Yeezumon like a lifeline, face pressed flush against the heat of his chest. Every inch of it was violently shivering against the cold. Its clothes were nearly soaked through with sweat, even to the outermost layer of its robes. Long hair had come loose from its braids and gotten tangled from tossing and turning beneath the sheets. Tear tracks, snot, and saliva smeared parts of its face. It was entirely a mess.
It was crying. Sometimes letting out incoherent jumbles of words as it dreamed, but mostly just crying. Every whine sent waves of glowing, orange pain through their chests like embers being caught by a breeze. It felt like a barb tugging on the wrong side of Ifyaa's sternum, as sharp as it was disturbing.
He sat down on the edge of the cot, wringing out the cloth in warm water. Its eyes barely opened at all, and when they did there was no coherent thought at all behind them. Drifting, unseeing. Wherever it was in its dreams, it was lost there. And still, when Ifyaa brought the cloth to gently dab at its face, it immediately twisted away. Gasping. Taking in deep, clouded breaths like it was struggling to breathe.
There was every chance it was. The only time that an eadh overdose could be dangerous was if the lungs began to fill with fluid. That usually took weeks of constant overuse before it became a problem. But Ifyaa could hear the crackling of its lungs when it breathed too deep. Just because something was safe for the ifrit didn't necessarily mean it was for a human.
It took a while for the wave of crying to pass, the human already so burnt out that it simply couldn't continue. Yeezumon continued murmuring reassurances against its temple, running hands over it to try to give it more warmth.
Both of them were worried. But the look on Yeezumon's face was heartbreaking.
"Habibi, if I've killed it—"
"No. No, love." Ifyaa laid a hand on his cheek. "It won't be because of the eadh. If it doesn't make it, it will be because of the fever. You haven't done anything that can't be fixed with time."
"It might not have time."
All he could do was manage a small smile. "Have you met this thing? Don't give up on it just yet."
That managed to get a huff of air in lieu of a laugh. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
"Here. Help me get it out of its robes."
They moved it to the bed, Yeezumon settling in behind its back. His fingers started on the lacing of its robe. The little thing barely even stirred, boneless aside from the rhythmic strain of its breaths.
They worked its clothes off in effortless tandem. First the burnt sepia-orange of its outer robes. Then the long pants it wore beneath, and finally the soaked-through fabric of its kurta.
Both of them stopped entirely when they saw what was underneath.
Bruises, mottled all across bronze skin. Across its stomach. Its knees. Rope burns spun around its wrists and ankles. A massive, red-purple blotch colored its hip most of the way down one thigh. But they were nothing compared to the dozens of bruises along the inside of its thighs and encircling its upper arms. Many the still-recognizable shape of hands.
Its chest had been wrapped with a long length of bandaging, nearly covering its entire ribcage. Just beneath its collarbone on the side of its heart, an angry red brand lay scabbed and broken. The symbol was nearly the size of the boy's own palm. It looked like calligraphy, the kind that the Qa'imrani merchants along the east edge of the desert used for trade.
Ifyaa recognized the script before Yeezumon did.
"The boy has been branded a thief."
It took several long moments for the implications to sink in for both of them. The horror of it wasn't even that it was a criminal. They were on a pirate ship, after all. It was so much worse than that.
"So that's why we found it all alone out there." Yeezumon wiped a hand down his face. "Its own people left it out there to die."
Over something that as an ifrit would, at worst, have lost a hand over. The two of them already knew what little regard humans had for each other's lives, but staring down the evidence of it was sickening.
"The mark can't be more than a week or two old."
"No wonder it reacted to the iron as badly as it did. And all this...." He was still staring at the bruises that disappeared all the way up under its innerwear. "It didn't even show other signs that it was hurt."
Ifyaa probed gently over the bandage on its chest. "Help me lift it up a little. I need to see how bad the wounds are."
They readjusted, and Ifyaa began unwinding the linen starting at the bottom of its ribs. He was careful not to press too firmly, no idea what he was going to find.
But with every unwound coil, he found only more unbroken skin beneath. A few mottled bruises, but no cuts. And his gentle probing only produced the faint winces that he'd expect of tender bruising. Nothing that indicated broken ribs.
Ifyaa's eyebrows furrowed. And then with one more undone loop, his face lit up with surprise. "Oh."
The jackal wasn't hurt.
It wasn't a bandage.
Beneath the soft, brown waves of chest hair he'd been expecting, there were breasts. It was clear they'd been intentionally softened and made flatter over time, either by the repeated compression, or by hand. The boy wasn't hurt. He'd been binding. And by the looks of it, he'd been doing so for a very long time.
The Husbands made a flash of eye contact over the top of him. Then after a pause, Ifyaa's hands moved to carefully check over the rest of its ribs. It had a rather spectacular bruise on its shoulder to match the one on its hip, but aside from that he found nothing.
"Well....that's far better than I'd expected to find. At least nothing is broken. Here, lend me your hands."
Yeezumon helped him to work off its innerwear. He'd been planning to do so anyway, it needed as much skin-to-skin contact as possible for warmth. But it was the final confirmation of what they both suspected. While he certainly was a man now, he hadn't been born that way. He was one of the Inan.
And there was even more evidence of what had been done to him all the way up his thighs. Layers of bruises, in addition to scratch marks on his hips. This couldn't all be the work of one man. It was brutal.
"Gods..." Yeezumon whispered. "No wonder it's so terrified. If its own people did this, imagine what it must think is coming for it now."
Its shivering had badly worsened with its skin exposed to the air, and its unconscious sounds of distress were as sad as they were painful. Yeezumon spent a moment working down his own pants, then lay down and drew it closer against his chest.
He was careful to keep it away from his own bandaged shoulder, but was able to position a sandbag between its thighs where the arteries ran beneath. Then he wrapped it up in all his remaining arms, a loose embrace that it sank into immediately. A few more tears raced down its cheek. But its breaths were already coming easier now that the pressure of the binding was gone. And soon what sounds it was making were ones of exhausted, boneless relief.
Ifyaa spent a while longer cleaning the worst of the sweat from its skin, then undressed and joined them. Half his arms braided themselves between his Husband's, while the other set about gently teasing the tangles back out of the boy's hair.
"It's going to be so angry with us in the morning," he said.
Yeezumon chuckled. "Without even the faintest doubt." A moment of quiet. "I'm almost afraid to give it more eadh at all, come tomorrow. Is there anything in the infirmary we can use as an alternative?"
"Nothing with so few side effects. We'll just have to start in much smaller doses, and see how it tolerates it."
"Mm."
He fit his hand into one of Yeezumon's, and gave a small squeeze. They'd been married for three centuries. He knew the sound of his husband's guilt. "He's going to be alright, Habibi. Don't spare your regret on something that hasn't happened yet."
Yeezumon sighed, but gave a small nod.
Softly, "I'll take first watch. Get some sleep."
Another nod. Then as was their way, "I love you always."
"I love you longer still."
They lapsed into silence. Ifyaa spent the time carding gently through the human's hair. He enjoyed the feeling of loose waves that were so different from the curls he was familiar with. And though his mind drifted, he continued to listen as the human's heart evened out and slowed. It was falling into deeper sleep at last.
....but after a while, something caught at the edge of his senses. The rich smell of incense, edged with a coppery tang that made his head start to spin. Pheromones as familiar to him as the number of his hands. His mouth twitched up.
He knew exactly what his husband was thinking about—because he'd been thinking it, too. "Don't get too tempted," he said, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice. "I know full well how you get when you're around them."
Yeezumon didn't open his eyes, but his mouth twitched. "You're just as guilty as me."
A chuckle. Yes, that he was. “We're still selling him.”
“Wouldn't even dream otherwise.”
next | >>
Like this chapter? Please remember it can only be seen by other people if you reblog!
33 notes
·
View notes