#febuwhumpday28

[whumpinthepot]

@febuwhump 2024, Day 28. Alt 5. CPR

Oc Saunix

Mature art tag list: @frogkingdom @coppercoyote @winged-wolf-s-collection-of-arts @ilasknives @alittlewhump @demondamage @for-the-love-of-angst

#whump gif #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #whump art #febuwhumpday28 #breezys post #febuwhumpalt5 #gif #tiny whump #CPR tw #breezys art #flashing lights #tw flashing #fairy whump #well its slow but better safe than sorry #breezys ocs #saunix

[linecrosser]

Febwhump 2024 - Day 28 - "No... not like this"

SQQ/SJ and LQG in the LingXi Cave.

#febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28 #no... not like this #blood #death #svsss #scum villain self saving system #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #original shen qingqiu #liu qingge #whump #whump art

[simpforchuchu]

There's no other way

Prompts: DAY 28 - “no… not like this” @febuwhump Characters: Rindou x reader Fandom: Tokyo Revengers Summary: Rindou finds out his girlfriend’s betrayal

A/n for prompts: Hello guys! This is my first time trying a prompt challenge. I hope you like the short fics I wrote. I will finish them by writing some of the requests I have. I love you 💜

Sorry for the grammer or spelling mistakes.English is not my main language so...

Thank you and love you 🥰

Warnings: mention of guns, blood and death | ANGST

“Y/n!”

The young woman turned to the man approaching from behind and smiled. The man's facial expression did not change, he looked serious.

“I guess you found out.”

"Why?" asked Rindou. “Why did you betray me? Did they threaten you?”

Y/n smiled sadly and shook her head.

“I betrayed them, not you.”

y/n sighed as Rindou looked at her in surprise.

“I fell in love with you Rin, I disregarded my duty and loved you. I betrayed them. But I also knew I could never be with you. I am sorry."

Rindou wanted to take a step, but the young woman stopped him with her hand.

“I'm sorry, I'm really sorry Rin. But I will solve this problem.”

Rindou looked at her with fear when the young woman put the gun she had hidden behind her head to her own head.

“Y/n, wait! Don't do that!"

Y/n gripped the gun tighter with shaking hands.

“There's no other way, Rin, you know.”

The young woman smiled one last time.

“No… not like this!”

And a gunshot was heard. A loud sound echoed throughout the building. Rindou couldn't even reach to catch Y/n as she collapsed on the ground covered in blood...

#febuwhumpday28 #febuwhump #febuwhump 2024 #tokyo revengers fic #haitani rindou x reader #rindou haitani x reader #tokrev rindou #haitani rindou #rindou haitani #rindou x reader #tokyo revengers rindou #tokyo revengers x reader

[scratchandplaster]

FEBUWHUMP DAY 28 - "No...not like this"

CW: tiny whump

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

A tiny Whumpee who is forced to dance and perform on a music box. Ballet, reciting poems or whatever else Whumper has in mind as a pastime, though one lanky plié or exhausted breather gets them locked in there for hours.

Bonus points if Whumpee is a faerie and the box is made of iron, so every fall or stumble off the dancing platform burns their flesh.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Thanks for reading 🤍 [Febuwhump 2024 Masterlist]

@febuwhump

#whump #whumpblr #creative writing #whump community #whump drabble #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28 #tiny whump #nonhuman whumpee #conditioning #whump prompt #faery whump

[what-the-whump]

Febuwhump 2024 | Day 28 | "No...not like this"

Power Rangers Cosmic Fury | 1x01 | Lightning Strikes

#Power Rangers #Power Rangers Cosmic Fury #Javi Garcia #1x01 #hurt #collapse #worry #weak #support #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28

[ninjadeathblade]

Febuwhump Day Twenty Eight: (Alt. Prompt) Last man standing

Warnings: Being sick, combat training

Word count: 602

Author's notes: The one and only thing I have written for The Bad Batch this month, happy Season Three Episode Four.

Crosshair ducked down behind the ledge of the tower, barely avoiding the bolts of fire that went past not a second later.

“Tech? Hunter? Wrecker?” He hissed into his comm. “I could use a distraction right now.”

Silence echoed back over the feed and he risked a quick peek down onto the field to spot where Wrecker had been swarmed by droids and his other two brothers seemed to have been tagged.

Right, stupid training regulations.

If you were tagged you were effectively dead and couldn't respond to comms.

And Wrecker was clearly too busy to reply.

“Useless di’kuts,” Crosshair sighed, quickly dodging a few more bolts.

The young clone swung his training rifle up with him, quickly sniping the droids that had been firing at him.

An overdramatic shout rang through the room and Crosshair rolled his eyes as Wrecker lay down on the floor.

That left him.

Last man standing.

He quickly sniped a few of the droids that were more sluggish about moving away from Wrecker before cursing as a bolt of training fire zipped past his helmet.

Crosshair wasted no time with picking off the last few before scaling back down the tower as the buzzer that signified the end of training sounded.

Wrecker clapped a hand onto his shoulder, jostling his skinnier brother. “Awright Cross! Nice job!”

The sniper kept his expression blank as he tugged his training helmet off, Maker forbid his brothers’ tease him. “I would have appreciated it more if you didn't go down so easily.”

“In my defence, ”Tech stated, a throaty sniff punctuating his words. “I am not functioning at usual standards due to the strain of the influenza virus I have picked up after you decided to drag us into a fight with a group of regs that had just returned from another planet.”

Crosshair shook his head before fixing Hunter with his piercing gaze. “And your excuse?”

Hunter shifted, averting his gaze. “Tech’s sniffing and coughing kept distracting me.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Crosshair dragged the word out, trying to highlight his disbelief - at Hunter's obvious lie - and annoyance to his brothers.

“Tech, I'm going to harass a medical droid to get you something to take. Hunter, you are clearly having migraine symptoms so I'm also gonna grab your painkillers, di’kut’ika. Wrecker, get Hunter to his bunk and then try to be quiet, however hard for you that may be.”

Wrecker mock-saluted before flinging their brother over his shoulder, Hunter's screeches of protest making Crosshair snicker.

After those two were gone he turned to Tech. “You look like you need to puke.”

Tech's nose scrunched. “I will inform you that I do not need to regurgitate our first meal, I am perfectly fine.”

Crosshair looped an arm around his brother's shoulders, guiding him towards the exit their other batchmates had taken. “Y'know, you really don't have to phrase it that way. Also, you definitely do, I've never seen you this pale aside from that one time when I mixed some of your rations into your drink.”

Tech gasped, turning to him with knitted eyebrows. “I was certain it was you! Why you-”

Crosshair quickly stepped back as Tech doubled over, proving Crosshair correct.

The silver-haired clone gently rubbed his brother's back, trying to give off an air of indifference.

When Tech straightened back up he adjusted his goggles with one hand, using the other to wipe the edges of his mouth.

“Yeah, I'm definitely going to harass a med droid.”

“That would be appreciated Crosshair, thank you.”

“Sure, whatever, just go back to the barracks and try not to throw up again.”

#the bad batch #tbb #cadet batch #cadet crosshair #cadet hunter #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28 #cadet wrecker #cadet tech #bad batch #sw tbb #star wars the bad batch #tbb crosshair #tbb tech #tbb wrecker #tbb hunter

[dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night]

DAY 28: “You’re Safe Now"

TW: captivity, recapture, death threat, referenced conditioning, referenced deconditioning, referenced pet whumpee, intimate/creepy whumper

"It's alright," Whumper cooed. "They won't touch you again. Just stay here with me. You're safe now."

"Please," Whumpee voice broke. "I have a family now. And a home. God, I want to go home."

"Oh Whumpee." Whumper hugged them tightly and whispered in their ear. "You are home. And I forgive you. I know it wasn't your fault. Caretaker kidnapped you. I'm not going to punish you. I love you."

Whumpee choked down a sob. "Please. I can't do this. Not anymore."

"They've corrupted you, and undone all my hard work. But I'll retrain you. Don't worry. We can be happy again."

"I wasn't happy. I was never happy. Surely you know that."

"Shh, Shh. I'll be gentle. You were my favorite, you know that. You were always good, so compliant and respectful."

"I don't want to be your pet. I want to be a person."

"Just relax. We don't have to start yet. I hate Caretaker for what they did to you. They broke you. If they come here and try to kidnap you again, I'll kill them. You don't have worry about them. I promise."

Whumpee sobbed. Whumper held them tighter.

@whumpsday

#Whump #Febuwhump #Febuwhumpday28 #Creepy/intimate whumper #Pet whumpee

[aquinnix]

Febuwhump Day 28 - "No...Not Like This"

Everything froze, like time itself was held captive by the shock coursing through Grian’s veins. It wasn't supposed to end this way, then again, what is ever truly supposed to happen? Still here he stood, Scar kneeling before him, a sword reaching out to him in offering. Instantly, all of his anger faded. It didn't matter that Scar had run him through with the same blade only moments earlier. It didn't matter that Scar had allowed him to die. All that mattered were the words slowly making their way from Scar’s lips. 

“You may slay me and take the enchanter.”

Grian had always envisioned him and Scar at the end, just not this kind of end. He imagined their bodies falling side by side in battle. He imagined slicing Scar’s throat when their alliance finally crumbled, and following soon after. He imagined taking an arrow for his friend, but the sacrifice not being enough. Every possibility ended with them sharing a grave. Now, Scar lowered his gaze, not capable of holding Grian’s broken stare. Grian’s hand moved to take the blade, and paused, unable to take up the offer.

It couldn't end this way. 

It needed to be a fair fight, Scar deserved that much. 

It hurt just to think about having to harm him. To have to think about only one of them moving on, and the other left alone. It was an impossible situation, after everything they did, after all the lives they ended to get the far, only one could survive. Grian couldn't bring himself to take the easy way out. 

One thing about his dream came true. In the end, it would be just him and Scar. 

#mcyt #life series #trafficblr #3rd life #desert duo #grian #goodtimeswithscar #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Febuwhump Day 28 - ALT PROMPT - Human Weapon

You can also view this on Ao3, here. This took us long enough to post that we feel fully justified in getting it beta read and such before posting. This work is a ship of Theseus compared to the original we had done in February because we kept revising the outline for the main work this is based off of. At the very least, we think it's solid now.

Thanks to @wormlette for beta reading this for us, and we hope you enjoy.

In the first few hours after getting the tattoos, he isn't thinking.

There are more things to worry about than what the things stabbed into his skin mean, at that point. He's stuck in the back room of a place he doesn't know, shaking with the remnants of a paralytic he can't identify and grappling with the aftershocks of the most pain he's ever felt in his life, with an ominous list of instructions rattling around his head and no idea if he'll even be capable of leaving.

He's not thinking straight, and he knows it, but he's too thoroughly in shock to do much about it, so he doesn't. He sits on the dingy bench in the back of the room, and he stares at the lines inked into his hands, and he listens to the tallman tell him care instructions as he tries not to think about the way a single slip of a sleeve could get him jailed for life.

There are runes etched into his skin. There's dark magic inked into his flesh. There's a person talking just over his shoulder who tells him that he'll need to pay her back for the procedure, because even if his friend vouched for him, her expertise doesn't come cheap - and he's stuck with a bill he needs to pay, for a procedure he never wanted, and the creeping awareness that the sounds of beasts fighting from just beyond the wall are just a bit too human for it to be just normal monsters.

The tallman that she called his friend walks in, and the moment that he recognizes him the blood roars in his ears with the bitter, bitter memories of betrayal.

And then he's trapped in a room, with a curse inked into his skin, and a man who tried to feed him to monsters barely a few feet away.

It is a very, very small mercy that Laios manages to find him here. He's astounded that he even managed to find him, honestly - tracking things on cobblestone is difficult enough with half-foot senses, let alone tallman senses. Still, presence is one thing, and actually helping is another - and Laios merely being there does nothing to stop the tallman in the room with him from picking him up by the ankle and holding a jack-knife to his throat.

The pulse of magic that runs through his body is new. The pain flooding his senses is not.

Something in his body shifts, joints pulling out of alignment in a way that sets off alarm bells in the back of his head. He dangles, abruptly, a few inches lower, his spine crackling and popping like sand in the delicate gears of golden machinery, and every inch of the runic tattoos spread over his skin lights up with the sensation of being stabbed with thousands of needles. He thrashes, some instinct in him saying to kick out, and-

When the pain clears, he's toppled over on the floor, every inch of his body itching with something new and wrong. The tallman who signed him up for this is dead on the floor, his head nearly three metres away from his body in a quickly-spreading pool of blood, and Laios is staring at him as if he's never seen him before.

His hands are covered with deep brown fur. His stomach feels like it's been abruptly overrun by starving beasts. When he looks down at his feet, he finds himself looking at an entirely too long set of rabbit's paws.

It takes him a bit longer than he's comfortable admitting to realize what it is that's been done to him. Laios reaches out to help him up, tentative in a way that he's never really seen from him before - there's a snide remark welling on his tongue about it, something barbed and bitter and colored by years of being manhandled before then this is what finally makes someone think twice about hauling him around as they please - but the words die on his tongue, caught in a throat that can no longer form words and drowned in the overwhelming pain that flares the moment he tries to pick himself up.

His body aches.

Searing pain rolls through his muscles every time he moves, like he's been boiled in oil again and somehow left alive. Every motion he makes only seems to make it worse - the burning rolls along any limb he tries to move, searing deep into muscle and bone. The first hint of weight on his feet erodes his nerves as if they've been dipped in acid, and even just trying to walk is, if anything, worse - like trying to walk with red-hot spikes imbedded into his soles.

This form feels alien, strange, wrong- and it takes all too long before he figures out how to make himself turn back.

The rabbit form withdraws back under his skin, bones shifting and flesh warping in a halting, agonizingly slow display he has to force himself to keep going through. The magic subsides. The pain does not.

Muscling through the sort of soul-deep agony that the transformation inflicts is far, far easier said than done. Thinking coherently, when he's grappling with consciousness through a haze of pain that makes it feel like he's dying every time he moves an arm, is even more so. Knowing this doesn't make it easier to think, nor does it make it less horribly, horribly embarrassing when he realizes that he's got nothing on but the thin, flimsy, tallman-sized dressing gown he was wearing when he first woke up.

The realization that he's been trotting around in a bathrobe so oversized that it makes him look like an actual child would, in any other circumstances, be just about the worst part of his day. This situation is already far past horrible on so many levels that at this point, it barely registers.

At the immediate moment of time that he notices it, it's also largely overpowered by the realization that there are slits in the back of the dressing gown, and the fact that he's horribly, horribly humiliated himself in front of a party member, badly enough that his most remote chances of it being forgotten are as good as dead.

It's a unique kind of awful, even without the curse bands on his wrist, to realize just how much of himself might've been bared against his will. It's even worse when he thinks of how the other races tend to view half-foots, and the way that rumors tend to proliferate between adventurers, and the fact that it's Laios, of all people, who came across him. Laios, who couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it, who talks about monsters like no one else he's ever known, who's just seen him turn into a monster-

Chilchuck takes all of five seconds before his pain-wracked brain finally catches up with the facts enough to foretell the imminent end of his adventuring career, at which point his joints finally decide to give up the ghost, and he narrowly stops himself from falling face-first into cobblestone, just to put the cherry on top of the entire awful ordeal.

He's about five steps past even being capable of dragging his thoughts together enough to try and think of some way out of this horrible situation, to the awful modifications stabbed right into his body, to the idea that whatever's been done to him has run deeply enough to behead a tallman without even consciously trying, when Laios offers him one of his spare shirts and he's forced to come to terms with the realization that the world has simply decided to stop making sense entirely.

He's battered, exhausted, and grappling with enough awful revelations to choke a nightmare to death on the bad dreams alone. He's on his hands and knees in a room that belongs to someone he doesn't know with arterial spray spattered on his skin and a soldier's strength curse stabbed into his body. He's too far past done to try for more than the barest hint of dignity, still stuck in a dressing gown so fine it's nearly transparent, and...

Well. He's not really sure he even has enough left in his brain to try and get himself together.

He takes the shirt.

He tries not to speak, while he shuffles it on. He's painfully aware of just how bad the situation is, and every movement he makes feels like he's exposing himself all the more. The way his skin burns every time something so much as brushes the new-laid tattoos doesn't help in the slightest, and the slide of coarse fabric over skin is almost more painful than the idea of leaving himself bare - but he's not willing to go that far, not yet.

The blood on his skin makes the fabric stick uncomfortably. Every movement makes it cling different, prickling at his whiskers and pulling at the tender lines of ink that make up most of his abdomen by now, glued to his sides in disgustingly tacky red. He doesn't think he's ever felt so humiliated before in his life.

When the woman who stabbed the curse into his skin in the first place comes back, it just feels like the punchline to the overly long joke that's become his life.

He checks out through the bulk of the speech she makes the moment that he registers she's retreading the same treatment instructions that she gave to him. Nothing makes sense and everything is wrong. He stares at the brilliant red lines on his arms, his ears flattened to his head, and he barely registers it when whatever conversation Laios has with the tallman woman putters out.

His legs dangle entirely too far above the ground when Laios picks him up, but his complaints sound dull and useless, even to his ears. After tonight, he has very little in the way of dignity left to lean on. He and Laios both know that he won't be walking out of here, anyways. Not when trying to put weight on his feet makes them hurt so much he threatens to pass out.

Somehow, knowing that he'll have to submit to being carried for as long as this takes to heal makes him dread the coming days more than anything else.

His clothes, thankfully, are still intact. There's running water somewhere in the cranny of the dungeon they're in, but the tallman doesn't acknowledge it, simply directing them back the way they came. He doesn't want to stick around long enough for one of the resurrectionists he spots on the way out to get to his old "friend", anyways. At this point in the night, he's too burnt out on everything to bother getting blood out of multiple items of clothing.

Tallmen have a lot more gore in them than any reasonable creature should.

The lines on his palms burn with every bit of contact they make. He shouldn't be surprised that the ones up his back are the same. Laios carries his pack, and he's trapped between being grateful for it and hating his own lack of ability more than he hates nearly anything else that's happened since he woke up on a damn table.

There's a lot going on in his head. He struggles to work through the pain enough to make it make sense.

At some point between the arena and the campsite, he passes out.

Considering the circumstances, it shouldn't have been possible to hide it. Considering every prior encounter he'd had with Laios, he shouldn't have been capable of keeping it a secret for an hour, let alone a day, let alone the rest of his life-

But in the morning, Chilchuck wakes up in his bedroll, bandages wrapped around nearly every square inch of skin he has, to an elf fussing over his bedside, a plate of dry rations set just within his arm's length, and, though some unbelievable stroke of luck, no sign that they even know what happened on a single party member's face.

He's still alive. The world doesn't end. He hasn't been submitted to the canaries.

Somehow, that feels worse than if he had been sent off for dark magic.

At least, when Laios corners him to ask if he can tell Falin about his new condition, it feels more like normal than anything else in his life right now.

For all that means, anyways.

The tattoos spread over his back. There are rings inked into his skin, cuffs of ancient runes like shackles around his wrists and ankles, circles of runes on his heels that sting like the devil every time he sets a foot down just slightly too hard. He washes them every day that he can, unwilling to deal with either infection or whatever consequences that fucking with the magic in it might bring. He's lost enough weight from the initial spellcasting that he's not allowed to skip meals anymore, even if they buy his excuse that half-foots simply need to eat less. All of the padding over his ribs is simply gone, everything standing between him and his own organs thinned to near-nonexistence - he doesn't have enough body mass for a healing, let alone a resurrection, and it shows.

He looks like he's been starved halfway to death in the space of a single evening.

It's the least dramatic change in his body in the past forty-eight hours. It's the only change that his party's been able to see.

He's not sure he wants to know what they think of him. But he can't stay ignorant without blinding himself to nearly everything they do.

Marcille sneaks him extra rations, and Namari asks after hauling his bow, and Shuro makes pointed comments about how close they still are to the surface, and all he can think of is how frail they must see him, now that he's forced to rely on them for everything.

He hopes that they won't think less of him. He's not naive enough to really believe it.

Three weeks to fully heal, according to the arena tallman. At least a week before he can try walking on it, according to Falin. Laios asks if he wants to turn back now, but he refuses - they may be only a few days from the surface, but that's still a few days from the surface, on an expedition where their party still hasn't found anything of note - leaving now would just waste their progress and leave them all off worse for it.

They have the supplies they need to delve deeper. They just need to find the guts to do it.

Chilchuck might be dead weight, but he's less weight than if it happened to anyone else, and he, at least, can try to do his job even when he's stuck being carried.

Being stuck in a dungeon without working legs is a death sentence, but a dungeon has less people willing to question a mysterious injury, and his chances of being able to get by on the surface without someone poking too far into his cover are so small they might as well be nonexistent. Half-foots have only survived as long as they have through community, but there's no such thing as privacy in a half-foot den, and he fears the death he'll face at the hands of the Canaries more than he fears the death he'll face at the hands of the dungeon.

He doesn't mention the latter half of his reasoning. No one knows what's inked into his skin yet, not besides the Toudens. His party doesn't need to know how likely he is to wind up as one of the criminals who treat the dungeon as their home, and so he's not about to tell them. He still has eyes and ears and expertise, and they're all blind and deaf by his standards anyways. He can survive a week, as long as they can work like a proper troupe for seven days.

And if he dies, then it'll be quicker than old age.

Laios agrees to the plan surprisingly fast, for all the concern he's directed Chilchuck's way since the day in the arena. Suspiciously so, even. Falin's willingness to back his decision is, Chilchuck thinks, the only reason the other party members don't veto it on the spot - he's infirm and unstable right now, and as far as all of them are concerned, he might keel over at any minute. He's hardly dungeon-delving material right now, and all of them know it, but Falin is the most accomplished healer out of them, and most of the party has enough affection for her that they'll bend over backwards to fit her word.

The door they need to map is on the sixth floor, more than a month deep. If Chilchuck were at his best, he'd be able to shave weeks off that time. As he is now, all he can do is offer insight from above and pray that his party won't be stupid enough to get themselves killed anyways.

The decision goes through, and everyone looks at Laios like he's lost whatever few screws kept his head on previously, but they let the decision slide.

Objectively, it's a stupid choice to make. His party must think he's gone mad. Right now, Laios is the only thing standing between him and a lifetime behind elven bars, and he knows he should be grateful for him for listening to his pleas, but-

He doesn't voice the suspicions he has.

He knows the way that Laios looked at the fighters in that ring, even in passing. The love that the tallman has for monsters is so poorly-veiled it barely even counts as a secret - he's surprised it hasn't come up more often, now that he's part monster himself, but he's not blind enough to think that Laios's pet obsession doesn't have a part in this - he wants more time to examine the monstrous rabbit half stitched onto his bones, and he's so bad at hiding it he might as well not be trying at all.

He's... not sure how he feels about it.

He knows, already, that Laios is... odd. Strange. Out of place. His habits are an anomaly even among other tallmen. He can speak for hours upon hours on monsters that no one else would spare a second glance to, dedicating endless time and energy to fields of study so niche that Chilchuck could swear he's the only person he's ever seen show the slightest interest.

He's oblivious to social mores, more interested in rambling on about living armor or kelpies than the tired expressions of his peers. He's unable to go a single day without talking of some obscure beast from the depths of the dungeon, yammering about its biology with more enthusiasm than some people announce their engagements. He cares for the beasts more than he cares for his own teammates, Chilchuck thinks.

He understands monsters more than he does the people he interacts with every day of his life.

And now Chilchuck is one of those.

Chilchuck doesn't have much more to do than watch, while he's stuck being lugged around like a sack of flour. Laios notices... more, now. He's more attentive. More careful. When his carrying abrades more than usual, he readjusts at the slightest hint of discomfort, sometimes before Chilchuck notices himself - he doesn't realize how unnerving it is to not have his feet on a solid surface now until he spends an hour being hauled around by Namari and has to pull himself off halfway through. Walking makes the scabbing on his feet burn like fire, but it's easier to tolerate than the awful fear that rises in his chest with every second he spends with his legs dangling in the air.

He's picking up habits that he didn't have before, and they fit in so seamlessly that he barely even realizes until someone points it out.

Too much meat turns his stomach. He can hear better, whispers that he once could have tuned out now louder in his ears than even a normal conversation would. His heart beats faster than before, nearly two hundred and fifty beats in a minute - he worries, when he notices, that it'll give him away, and it only beats faster at the thought. He nearly forgets how little the other races can hear. It's only hours later that he puts real thought to how little it took to nearly drive him to a panic.

There's a stranger in his skin who isn't him, who isn't even human - something etched into him in bone-needle pricks and searing, boiling-oil agony - and he's the only one who knows that it's anything more than just a few odd habits.

He, and Laios.

And isn't it strange, to be sharing something so delicate with someone so indelicate?

Laios, he thinks, still probably knows more about his new monstrous biology than Chilchuck himself does. He can't say that his feelings on it are anything less than... mixed.

Chilchuck doesn't know much about artificial beastkin. It's forbidden to know about, illegal to even try and research - he's not stupid enough to go poking at things better left buried, much less to put himself in the line of fire for long-lived races who'll put him in jail for the rest of his natural life. Still, he's heard gossip.

He knows, if faintly, that the spell was created for the sake of enhancing soldiers. He doesn't remember where he first heard it - some bar somewhere, maybe, or an offhand comment from a former teammate - but the fact floats in the back of his mind when he thinks of it, faint and damning. He can see its echo in the spurs sprouting from his heels, in the leg muscle he's never worked to get, in the speed and acrobatics that come horribly naturally to him, in the thump of rabbit's legs against a neck-

The first thing that he ever did with this new form was take a man's head off. And all he can think of, when he looks back at it, is how easy it was to do it.

Chilchuck never would have gone anywhere near the arena, if he had a choice in the matter. He wouldn't have paid for the spell inked around his wrists, much less be put into an unknown amount of debt over it. He doesn't need a body made for fighting - he doesn't need a body so obviously inhuman, so easy to dismiss and dispose of. Half-foot tails are cropped for a reason - he doesn't need to be farther from the other races, doesn't need to be even more of an other.

Laios carries him from place to place, unfalteringly attentive to whims he didn't even know that he had as the soles of Chilchuck's feet heal from the tattoo needle. Laios tells him about monsters, and animals, and rabbits, more than he ever thought was possible to know. Laios... looks at the curse etched into his skin with a sort of longing that he doesn't know how to put words to.

He wonders, as he washes the still-healing ink by the river, if Laios wishes that he were the one with black magic forced under his skin.

Chilchuck isn't perfectly observant, not with people, but he knows how to interpret at least some of it. He might've been half-conscious at the area, but he's not blind enough to not see how Laios looked at those beastkin fighters, and he's not blind enough that he can't see the way that the tallman looks at his curse marks. It's a strange mix of emotions, something like flattery curled around something slimy and squirming in the pit of his stomach. He's got a spell etched into his body that'd get him thrown into an elven jail to rot for the rest of his life, and Laios...

Laios, he's beginning to think, would have wanted this body. Would have wanted to have someone stab a soldier's supplement written in a curse tongue into his shoulders. He cares for monsters more than humans, beast body language more than simple common - hell, Chilchuck's seen first-hand how massive of a gap there is between his common communication and whatever he has with monsters.

Laios is an actual combatant, the kind of person who signed up to swing a sword - sturdy enough to take a few knocks, chubby enough that transforming probably wouldn't make his stomach scream like it's trying to eat itself, knowledgeable enough that he wouldn't be struggling to figure out a whole new set of rules from first principles. Chilchuck has spent so long being himself that trying to adjust to a whole new body this late in life is being thrown into the deep end without a paddle - but Laios, he suspects, knows monsters' bodies better than he knows his own hands.

...if their positions were different, he thinks, then Laios would have handled this far, far easier than him. And he's not sure how to handle it, when Laios seems to envy him for a curse that was forced on him against his will.

Chilchuck is a locksmith. Chilchuck makes his living in traps. Chilchuck is a noncombatant, who has never really wanted to become a combatant, who was stuck with this body against his will, who'll have to scrounge up the money to pay for it, who has no need to behead a man in a single kick, no need to cut through flesh like butter, no need to leap with enough strength that he knocks Laios stumbling just from using his pauldrons as a kick-off.

The body he's been given is made for spectacle. For loss of humanity. For violence. It's modified for death, for flashy sprays of arterial blood in the coliseum. Rabbits don't have spurs on their feet, don't have a kick that decapitates - don't dent armor from lashing out on instinct, let alone have instinct to go for someone's neck when threatened. Rabbits don't have legs strong enough to break solid oak to pieces - half-foots might not keep them as livestock, but he's lived in mixed-race settlements for years, and Laios has been murmuring facts about them into the backs of his ears for nearly two weeks now-

Rabbits can break their own spines with the force of their kicks.

And he didn't know, before now, but he has to know now, because he might be the same way - and that makes it feel all the worse when he has to find it out from an offhand comment from Falin, because it's something that she knows that he doesn't, because it's another reminder of the landscape full of landmines he's struggling to navigate, because it's yet another thing that the Touden siblings seem to know like the back of their hands where he-

He doesn't know the slightest thing about this.

About what he is now. About what he's supposed to be. He doesn't know anything, and every time he speaks with them, it gets hammered in more and more. There's a gap of knowledge so wide that it might as well be unbridgeable between him and them, because there's half a world of difference between him and tallman farmers who've dedicated half their lives to farming an animal that he only knew by tangential proximity before it was stabbed into his soul.

And that's the problem, isn't it? His own shortcomings, in the face of people who feel so much younger than him, who he has to rely on for his own well-being. Who he has to lean on, if he wants to get anywhere, and who he's becoming more and more aware are more suited to bearing this sort of thing than Chilchuck ever has been.

This has never been a life that Chilchuck wants. If there isn't a way to break the chains shackling magic to his body, then he'll be stuck hiding parts of himself for life - either forced to hide the spell well enough to pretend it doesn't exist, or locked away in some elven prison somewhere until he forgets his own name. He doesn't want to be a monster, he doesn't want to be a tool, he doesn't want to give another excuse to treat him like he's disposable-

But Laios, he's beginning to think, would rather be a monster than human.

He can't claim to understand it. He's spent too long watching what people do to beast-men for that, too long watching how people act with anything they think they can mistreat - beast-men are a level below the rest of humanity, and he doesn't even want to think how something like him might rank. They're inhuman, illegal - he's seen half-foots taken away for as little as looking into the wrong books, he has no doubt that it would be worse if the elves caught wind of someone altering their body with magic. Who would want an enchantment that guarantees they'll need to spend their life hiding?

Laios would, apparently. And he hasn't the slightest idea how he's meant to handle that sort of want turned towards him, towards something he had no choice with.

He has the rest of this dive to avoid answering it. After that... he doesn't know.

The scabs, he knows, will heal eventually. Will set into his skin, like any other tattoo, probably settled to the same rusty red that the tallman who gave them to him had, if the way they've been healing is any indication, and then... well, he doesn't know.

He can't be seen with them by anyone, not if he wants to keep himself from going to jail for the rest of his short life. He can't ever take off his gloves in someone's company again, can't wear his hair short - the length it's grown out to now only barely hides the diamond-shaped rune that caps the array on his scalp, and it's a small miracle that no one's looked too close at the outsides of his ears yet. He can't hide these, not like he can hide anything else about this.

Paranoia's had him double-looping his cowl around his neck to hide the markings, and he's seen the other party members look twice at it, heard them absently discuss it even through the walls. His hearing's never been sharper, and they're far from oblivious - discussion of just what he's doing with the Touden siblings, discussion of what he's doing with Laios, makes up more dinner talk than he'd prefer under any circumstances.

He's not entirely sure what to make of the fact that something like half of the party appears to have jumped directly to the hare-brained idea that they've been having relations, even after Chilchuck set down the very clear base rule of no inter-party romance.

He's not sure if it's better or worse that the idea seems to be working to get them off his trail.

It'd be a decent cover, for someone else. Plausible, especially in parties with similar no-relationship clauses - when you're skirting the rules, you tend to dance around your other party members. But it's a wrong impression, directed to the one member of the party he's least likely to fall for - and worse, it makes him seem flaky and ingenuine, going back on his own rules the second he sees a pretty tallman. It stings to know they think so little of his self-control, and it stings more to know he can't say anything against it without incriminating himself in an entirely different way.

He hates the situation he's found himself in. He hates it with every ounce of his body, every bit of his breath - but he can't do anything about it, and that just makes it worse, if anything.

Maybe, at the end of this, he'll be able to go back to normal. He'll be able to cover up the tattoos crawling over his skin and brush off the allegations of a relationship with Laios. He'll be able to go home to the guild and make believe that he's fine even to a room with dozens of pairs of listening ears pricked for gossip. He'll be able to pretend nothing has changed.

But he won't be able to make things be the same.

There's a second body bound to his, made of muscle and bone and blades. There's a living weapon lurking just under his skin, waiting to be used, and he can't make it go away no matter how much he wants to - and that scares him, maybe even more than everything else does.

Because the rumors, no matter how bad for his career, are temporary. Because talk can be forgotten about, or fade into obscurity, or fail to take off the ground more than a handful of whispers. Because even if laws have been changed or forgiven before, if the laws around artificial beastkin were lifted today, he still wouldn't be able to be the same-

Because this, whatever it'll wind up meaning to him, is permanent. And it's that permanency, more than anything, that terrifies him.

He washes the tattoos. He rewraps the wounds. He returns to camp like nothing's ever changed, even though the rabbit's soul still itches under his skin.

He's been changed. He's not wholly human anymore. He'll never be the same again, and the proof of that is seeping into his very soul with every moment that passes, no matter how much he tries to dig his heels in. His body isn't wholly his own, and the only person who even knows is a freak who wouldn't understand social graces if they bit him on the ass, and-

Everything's different. And yet, almost nothing's changed.

A human weapon sits at a campfire. His party sits around him.

One more job. One more floor. Just one drawing of the runes on the door, then a return trip to the surface. Just a bit more time to let his wounds heal.

He won't be able to hide this forever. If things keep getting worse, then he probably won't be able to even keep it subtle for much longer.

But for now, he can play at normalcy, and given the givens, that's more than he ever expected to get.

#whump #my posts #writing #dungeon meshi #chilchuck tims #laios touden #werebunny au #werebeasts #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28 #human weapon #nonconsensual body modification #dysphoria #(somewhat unconventional form) #dungeon rabbits

[kybercrystals94]

Coded

Read here on Ao3!

Febuwhump 2024 | Day 28 | Prompt 28: “No…not like this.”

Rated: G | Words: 288 | Summary: Missing scene from Season 3 Episode 4. [SPOILERS]

This story was inspired by @isthereanechoinhere96’s post! [see it here!]

A hand falls heavily on his shoulder, shaking him. “Hunt, wake up!”

Hunter startles, not sure when he closed his eyes, how much time passed between one blink of his eyes and the next. The data pad he’d been pouring over sits in his lap, screen dark with idleness. He looks up and finds Wrecker leaning over him, his face twisted with an expression Hunter hasn’t seen in months: hope.

“What? What is it? Did Echo find something?” Hunter asks, lurching to his feet.

Wrecker steps back, shakes his head. “No, but a coded message just came through. You have to see it for yourself. I think…” Wrecker’s voice breaks. “I think it’s her.”

Hunter doesn’t breathe, doesn’t move, the shock of the words paralyzing him. This is a dream, an awful dream that he will wake up from. Her. Omega. No. It isn’t possible.

Wrecker is grabbing him now, pulling him to the console where the message is still pulled up. “Look! It must be talking about the moon where we met Hera, right? That’s what it means. It has to. Only Omega would send a message like that.”

Hunter reads over the message. Once. Twice. Three times. He gasps out the breath he’s been holding like a sob. And maybe he is crying. “It’s her,” he whispers.

Hunter doesn’t know if he can continue standing upright, his legs threatening to give out; however, before he can decide, he is engulfed in Wrecker’s arms.

“‘Course she found us!” Wrecker is laughing and crying, his embrace so tight Hunter can barely breathe.

Hunter finally reaches up and pats Wrecker’s arm, until his brother releases him. “Put in the coordinates,” he says, voice unsteady. “Let’s go get our girl.”

END

Forgoing my taglist for this one since it contains spoilers!

#Febuwhump 2024 #febuwhumpday28 #prompt 28: no…not like this #star wars #the bad batch #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #tbb hunter #tbb wrecker #the bad batch season 3 spoilers #tbb season 3 spoilers #missing scene

[whumpinthepot]

@febuwhump 2023

Day twenty eight: “You’re safe now”

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday28 #whump meme #febuwhump you’re safe now #whump #kidnapping whump #breezy’s post #febuwhump2023 #i hope this one makes sense lol I wanted to make more memes and felt like this one was a stretch

[thethistlegirlwrites]

Bargaining Chip

If he ever decided to write an autobiography, Nico is pretty sure he’s going to have to title it “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. 

That exact logic is why he’s currently in the middle of a warehouse full of very hostile vampires.

All he’d wanted was to get out of the Phelans’ friends’ place for a bit and work on some leads on a job or a place to stay that wasn’t going to put undue hardship on people who are already skirting the rules by helping unregistered fae keep their identities secret.

A logical place to start had been a vamp bar he knows the Sunrisers used to shake down on the regular, but that had been outside his own regular patrol route, which meant a pretty low chance of actually being recognized.

Unfortunately, that chance hadn’t been a zero. And that was how he’d ended up nearly choking on his second glass when something sharp was dug into his ribs and someone hissed into his ear to come with them or get dusted right here.

He is resisting the urge to tell them that he’s such a new vampire the bar owner would have had to deal with a rotting corpse, not a pile of ashy dust.

It doesn’t seem particularly wise to antagonize the vamps who are pissed off at him for asking too many questions. 

They were all legitimate. But apparently he hasn’t lost the aura of ‘hunter’ even after turning, and the bartender he was trying to get some leads on vamp-friendly jobs or apartments from got suspicious. A surreptitiously texted photo to his coven later, and Nico was greeted with a stake in the ribs.  

Okay, so he might have been a little direct. But it shouldn’t be that weird for people to show up wanting to know if there’s a job opening or a place they can stay. 

Then again, it’s not like he did a whole lot of undercovers for the Sunrisers.

Maybe they knew he’d get himself outed and his throat torn out in minutes.

Still might happen if he can’t convince them he was asking around for legitimate reasons and not to set up raids on workplaces or apartment buildings. Which might be sort of difficult given the leader of this particular coven is someone he’s been trying to put a stake in since his rookie days.

There’s no love lost between him and Guido, and Guido is making sure everyone here knows it. “I knew the Sunrisers were cold sons of bitches, but getting one of their own turned just to spy on us better, that’s a new low.”

“That’s not what this is.” Nico is well aware he’s already in over his head, but he knows this could end very, very badly if he can’t at least convince them to let him walk away. “I’m running from them same as you.” 

“Then maybe we ought to give their little fugitive back to them as a peace offering, huh?” Iron grips close on his arms. He could fight them, maybe, but these people have been vampires a lot longer than him, with better judgment of their own strength and better control of how to use it. He might break free for a few moments, but he wouldn’t get far. “Maybe a trade would get Vega off our backs.”

He really didn’t think it was possible for this situation to get worse, but it just did. Frankie Vega was his first partner on the job. After a vamp nearly gutted him, he shifted into a role doing mainly informant cultivation while Nico stayed in the field as an active hunter. 

If anyone is going to want Nico staked and laid to rest, it would be Frankie. 

Guido pulls out his phone and stalks into a corner. There’s a low hum of conversation that is lost in the seething hisses and snarls of the vampires ringed around Nico, waiting for their leader’s orders.

“Sounds like a former hunter is someone the Sunrisers want dead even more than a coven leader,” Guido says, snapping the phone closed and turning back to the assembled vampires. “Vega will be here within the hour. We’ll leave this one for him, but we don’t plan on sticking around.” He glances at Nico. “But that’s more than enough time to show you what happens to hunters, turned or not, when they come on our turf. Pity you won’t live long enough to learn anything from it.”

He waves his hand, and the circle of vampires closes in.

Nico sort of expected this.

They’re taking out their hatred of the Sunrisers, justified or not, on him as the easiest target.

It’s not personal.

Knowing that doesn’t make this any easier.

The snarls and taunts and jeers and slurs echo in his ears even after he’s dragged into a small storage room and the door is slammed shut, the sound of something heavy being dragged across it ends, and he’s left to his fate at the hands of his old teammate in the dark chill of the abandoned building. 

He huddles into himself in the corner of the room. He’s bleeding from over two dozen gashes, one arm, one ankle, and a few ribs are definitely broken, and if he could bruise anymore, he’d be nothing but one massive one. His clothes were shredded off him by his attackers’ claws, and the damp chill of the concrete under him is leaching into his skin without the barrier. 

Maybe if he’s lucky, he’ll go into a coma from the cold and blood loss and he won’t feel whatever the Sunrisers do to him when they get their hands on him. 

Whatever heavy object was left in front of the door starts sliding again with a screech of protesting metal, and Nico flinches and covers his ears. 

Frankie’s here. 

The door opens, and Nico can’t bring himself to look up. If he’s about to be shot, he really doesn’t want to see it coming. 

Something hits the ground beside him with a wet-sounding smack. He turns his head a bit to see what it is. 

A blood bag.

Great. They want him healthy before they kill him. 

He looks from the packet to Frankie, who is standing in the doorway, holding his gun near his thigh, keeping one eye on Nico and the other on the room outside, just like they were trained to all those years ago.

“You look like you’re going to need more than that, but it’s all I got on me.” Frankie says. “Figured they’d rough you up pretty good, had the pedal to the metal all the way, but I couldn’t get more than this from storage without raising some eyebrows.” 

Nico reaches slowly for the package and raises it to his mouth, turning away and curling in on himself to hide as he swallows down the chilled blood. It’s even more humiliating to be seen devouring his own former friend’s blood than it is to have Frankie see him battered, broken, and naked. 

It isn’t nearly enough blood to heal what’s been done to him. But it’s knitting his bones together enough he thinks he can walk on the ankle if he supports himself with something, and at least the gashes aren’t actively bleeding out anymore, just red and raw. 

“Can you walk?” Frankie asks, and if Nico didn’t know better, he’d say that was real concern he hears in the man’s voice.

“Think so.”

“Then let’s get out of here. I don’t trust Guido not to be planning an ambush.” 

Honestly, neither does Nico, but Guido is also smart enough to know outright killing a hunter in his own turf after there’s been documented contact is a move guaranteed to bring the Sunrisers down on his operation in force. Right now, they’re a thorn in his side when he skirts the law, but if he pisses them off, they’ll go scorched earth. 

Frankie doesn’t move out of the doorway, which means Nico has to get to his feet on his own. He uses the wall for support, limping around the edge of it until he reaches the door.

Frankie puts his free arm under Nico’s shoulders, other hand keeping the gun trained on as wide an arc of the warehouse as he can manage, and helps Nico to the loading door, which is cranked open far enough Nico can see the dark red GTO parked outside. 

A chill harbor breeze whips through the opening. Frankie grimaces. “Sorry about the cold, but I’ve got to get you in the car first.” Nico understands. They’re a lot safer in the vehicle than they are in this place. 

As soon as Nico is settled into the back seat, Frankie is up front in the driver’s place, and the doors are locked, Frankie turns around over the seat back.

“My go bag is under the seat there. Grab whatever you need.” 

Nico rummages around under the seat until he finds the battered duffel with Frankie’s old college baseball team logo on it. There’s a set of civilian clothes on top, the worn flannel shirts and black jeans Frankie always favored.

Frankie is taller and thinner than him, but he takes the clothes anyway. Better than nothing. They don’t fit well, and it’s hard to wrangle himself into too-tight jeans and shirtsleeves when he’s got a half-healed ankle and arm, and he’s sliding around the back seat while Frankie is driving them through the city like a bat out of hell, but he manages.

It feels like the old days.

Almost. 

But they’re headed the wrong direction for Frankie to be bringing Nico in to the locale he was operating out of last Nico knew. The Sunrisers don’t have one base location, but they do have several smaller sites scattered throughout the city that they use for holding areas or clinics. Frankie isn’t heading for any of them.

Instead, he parks under a highway overpass and kills the engine. 

“This is as far as I can take you,” he says.

Nico finishes lacing up the boots that are already rubbing sore spots on his heels and ankles, but at least come up his leg far enough that they make an extra brace for his bad ankle.

“I thought you wanted me dead.”

“Not like this.” Frankie shakes his head. “If I ever cross you on the streets, believe me, there’ll be a stake in your heart. But I don’t hold with what some of us do to the defenseless ones.” 

Some part of Nico bristles at Frankie calling him defenseless, even though right now, it’s absolutely true. 

“I had to call this in. When I come back empty-handed they’re going to want to know why. I’ll cover for you, but this is your warning. Get the hell out of this city because there’s not going to be anywhere in it left for you to hide.” 

The GTO pulls away and Nico starts walking. He’s about a mile from where he wants to be. 

The old Buick Riviera is still in the storage unit that used to be his dad’s. It’s a matter of seconds for him to snap off the lock with his vampire strength.

He hasn’t been back in this car since he was turned, but his go bag is still in the back seat, there’s still stakes and first aid supplies in the door pockets, and the radio is still tuned to the indie station that played classical-sounding covers of the latest pop hits. 

He pulls out of the storage company’s lot and onto the highway, heading west. 

He has to get as far from New York as he can.

Ricky just got accepted to an oceanography program in San Diego. 

Maybe he can kill two birds with one stone. 

If not, California is as good a place to die as any.

(You can read this story and more from this universe on my WorldAnvil here!)

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @the-one-and-only-valkyrie @telltaleclerk @ettawritesnstudies  @writeouswriter @whump-place @the-lovely-wren

#febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday28 #no...not like this #tw: nonsexual nudity #domenico pontevecchio

[how-much-for-a-whump]

FEBUWHUMP day 28:

Prompt: "You're safe now."

Mehmetçik Kut'ül Amare 5. Bölüm

@febuwhump

#febuwhump2023 #febuwhump #febuwhumpday28 #you're safe now #Mehmetçik Kut'ül Amare #Semih Ertürk #turkish #turkish series #whump #male whump #tied up #captured #difficulty walking #dragged #pain #choking #passing out #carried #wounded #blood #fever #cooling rag on forehead #chills #comfort #cared for

[littletrash1027]

"Shhh...it's okay. You're okay. It's just a bad dream. You're safe now." 

 it's been a journey yall. see you in March

au by @madychi

#febuwhump #febuwhump2023 #febuwhumpday28 #whump #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #tmnt oc #oc #tmnt au #au #tmnt raph 2012 #tmnt raph #raphael #squirrelanoids #big brother raph taking care of nightmares

[aquietwritingcorner]

No... Not Like This

Title: No… Not Like This Day: Febuwhump 2024, Day 28 Prompt: No… Not Like This  Fandom:  TMNT 2003 Word Count: 691  Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl Rating:  M Characters:  Donatello, April O’Neil Warning: SAINW, Major Character Death Summary: April O’Neil knew that the Shredder was a twisted, vile person. But she had never expected to find this, and part of her wished she never had.    Notes: I’m once again using one of Peter Laird’s original SAINW ideas, this time the “stuffed Donatello” one. This is not a happy story, and the implications are kind of disturbing, so please, read at your own risk.    ff.net || AO3

__________________________

No… Not Like This

April stared in astonishment trophy room that Angel had discovered. They all knew that Shredder had kept prizes, but they hadn’t understood the depths to which he would go until they started going through his stronghold. Some of what they had found had truly sickened them, although April could say that she wasn’t terribly surprised at just how far his depravity could go.

But still. She had never expected this.

April trembled as she stared at the find—as she stared at the body of her friend, her brother, Donatello, perfectly taxidermized and on display. Bile rose in her throat, and her stomach heaved, yet she couldn’t look away. He was young, the same age he was when he disappeared, and he’d been arranged in a fighting position, his highly polished bo held in his hands. His expression was fierce and determined, so similar to one that she had seen on his face a thousand times, although it rang hollow, as if whoever had set it didn’t know how to set it right.

And they probably didn’t. Whoever it was probably didn’t know Don, and probably hadn’t cared as he or she killed Donatello, and tore him apart, removing organs and—

April turned and threw up. She fell to her knees, and heaved, the little food she had eaten being violently expelled from her body, and after it, whatever bile she had.

Oh. Oh God. Oh, God in Heaven. Oh God. Donatello had been stuffed. He’d been taken, captured, held, killed, and stuffed like he was some kind of animal, a trophy, as if from a prize hunt. And then he was displayed there for anyone that Shredder wanted to see, to see. He hadn’t even hid the fact that he was more than an animal, not with the stance and expression, but it hadn’t mattered to him, he hadn’t cared.

It was too much, and suddenly all those years of repressed grieving reared up. A sob tore out of her, and April wept where she was, grief and horror pouring out of her.

She had always wondered what had happened to Donatello. She’d hoped that one day he would come back, or that they’d find something of him. She had always hoped that one day she would find out. But not like this. No… Not like this.

That he had died like this, probably in terror and pain, all alone, without any hope. That her gentle, intelligent friend had died in such a gruesome, degrading way, treated as little more than an animal even after death—No. Of all the ways that Donatello could have died, not like this. No… Not like this. The horror of it all was too much, and April felt like she could barely breathe as she wept.

It felt like hours before April stopped weeping, although the tears still fell from her eyes. As much as she didn’t want to, April turned around to face the body of her friend, of her brother, once again.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice shaking. She could still see the undercurrent of fear in his face, something that they couldn’t get rid of. “I’m so, so sorry, Donnie. I promise you, we’ll give you a proper burial, like you should have had all those years ago, right next to your brothers, next to Splinter. But I am so, so sorry, that you died a death like this. No one should have this happen to them, but especially not you. No… Not like this.”

April took a shaky breath, and tried to compose herself, at least a little bit. She wasn’t going to hide her grief. In this time, there was no shame in it, and besides, she didn’t think she could. But she still had duties to take care of them, and chief among them, now, was arranging for a proper burial for Donatello.

After all, it was the last thing that she could do for him. And do it she would, even as she grieved the way that he had died. He didn’t deserve to die like that. No… no, not like that.

Never like that.

#Febuwhump2024 #FebuwhumpDay28 #TMNT #TMNT 2003 #TMNT 2k3 #SAINW #tmnt april o'neil #tmnt donatello #tmnt fan fiction #tmnt fanfic

[comfort-questing]

28. "no... not like this"

the hard frost lay silver-white on the stones of the courtyard far below, and slick black on the castle walls; their breaths fogged into one cloud together where they shared a cloak in the curl of the staircase, the narrow window-slit bright with the moonlight beyond.

"you shouldn't be out of bed at all," they said to her, where she huddled in the curve of their arm. "but there, it's a window. are you satisfied?"

she was shivering despite their body against hers, their cloak around her; the feverish flush on her cheeks stood deeper with the chill. she stifled a small dry cough against their shoulder, but then nodded.

"I just - wanted to see."

"yes. doesn't surprise me you were getting tired of that room. warm as an oven though..."

"we'll go back soon," she said; but stared out almost hungrily through the empty slit of the windowframe, eyes full of the moon's silvery glint. "thanks... thanks, Mar."

"I just hope you're not going to catch your death of cold like this," they said, and drew the cloak tighter around the two of them. "your noble family will band together and ritually execute me or something if so."

"I should hope not," she said. "anyway, you're my guard, aren't you? you do what I say, don't you?" she chuckled then, through teeth clenched against their chattering. "I mean, you usually do."

"well, I'm not actually your guard. I'm just - a guard. according to the armory records."

"hmm. are you, though?"

"look, if you want me to bring Captain up to your room to talk with you and prove it by the list..." they sighed. "we can talk about this later. it doesn't really matter, what the names are."

"doesn't it, though." she coughed again, peering over their sheltering arm to squint at the moon hung high above the rooftops and the dark spruce trees. "give me your sword."

they snorted. "I don't have my sword."

"your knife then... you must have your knife."

a pause. "Lady, you can't mean - "

"yes, I do. I - want you to be mine, you know; you told me once you'd never been anyone's at all."

they turned from the window, their face a hands-breadth from hers beneath their shared cloak. their eyes were shining with sudden unshed tears, mouth working back and forth. "you can't mean - no - not like this."

one hand slipped around theirs, catching at the calluses with her thin fingers. "if anything happens. if I can't, later. I want - I want you to have this much."

for a long moment only her quick, rough breaths rustled in the silence. and then metal clinked gently, and they brought up from their belt the slim dull dagger they wore, balancing it in their palm.

"...this, no more in aimlessness, but in purpose; not as a single blade, but of another hand the extension; this, you receive back from me, but I shall hold your faith given with it..."

they closed their eyes, as she finished murmuring the words and folded their fingers back around the hilt; she bent and kissed their knuckles with her chilly lips, and then leaned into their warmth again, shivering.

"all right. now - now, my guard, we really - probably ought get back to my room, before they come looking for us."

"let them," they said, but clambered to their feet anyway, lifting her along with them. "I shall defend you and your wishes for fresh air and moonlight, my liege, to the death. or something like that."

she laughed, into their shoulder. "something like that."

#whump #hurt comfort #febuwhumpday28 #febuwhump2024 #I don't know these people but they seem nice