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adrift-in-thyme · 7 months

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Whumptober Day 13: “I don’t feel so good”

Read it on Ao3

- Four, Sky, & Legend

- Summary: Four suffers from an infected wound

CW for blood and injury, infected injury, vomiting, and delirium

—————————

Another step.

Four breathes in deep and blows it out. The murmur of his brother’s voices surround him, swelling and retreating like the tides. The rhythm of their footsteps beat upon his pounding head.

Clank, clack. Cank, clack.

Every movement awakens their weapons, their armor. Every step sings with noise.

The migraine that has been torturing him for hours now increases again, a sudden wave of sickening agony. Bile rises in his throat and he fights to keep it down.

Another step.

One foot in front of the other. Slow and steady. Keep going.

It’s the mantra that he has been repeating to himself all morning. And he supposes it has done its job. After all, he has made it this far, hasn’t he? Across the hills and plains of Wild’s Hyrule, through monster camps and past streams of rushing water. With the incessant burn left from a guardian’s laser coursing through his leg and the left side of his abdomen, he has continued.

Because he has had to.

“—can’t be far,” Sky says, voice faint. Four has the creeping feeling that he has said the same thing once before.

“Yeah, unless the portal sent them somewhere else entirely,” Legend retorts. But there is little of his usual sharpness in his tone. “Another Hyrule would be awfully far away.”

Sky’s hands clench at his sides. There is blood smeared on his knuckles.

“They’re close. I know it.”

Legend gives him a doubtful look, then glances at Four, plodding along beside him.

“How’re you doing, smithy? Still kickin?”

Four tries for a smile and comes up short. His surroundings tip slightly and he fights to keep walking in a straight line.

Walking…how long has he been walking? It feels like an eternity. Perhaps, at some point, he will just walk off of the face of the earth into an endless expanse of blue sky.

“Smithy?” It’s Sky now, looking at him with an expression of concern. He comes to a halt and Four nearly collides with him. “Maybe we should take a break.”

Four shakes his head, vehemently, hair swishing and smacking him in the face. The movement makes his dizziness one hundred times worse. For a moment he is certain he is going to fall.

“We can’t stop,” he grits out, forcing down the breakfast that his body is so eager to expel. “We need potions and bandages, something to properly wash our wounds with. We have to find a town.” He sighs. “Besides, the Shadow wants us apart. That’s why he sent us in different directions. If we can find the others – or at least get to a place where they can find us – we’ll have a better chance at standing against any further attacks.”

Sky and Legend exchange a glance.

“He’s right,” Legend says. “We can’t stop yet. We can’t afford to.”

Sky hesitates a moment more, a battle evident on his face. Then, he sighs.

“Alright. We’ll keep going.”

Four nods and starts forward. “Then there’s no time to lose.”

His feet are immeasurably heavy now, as though the brief pause has allowed them to cement themselves to the ground. It takes a great effort to force them to move. Especially when the world dips again, a tilting, smearing world of color, and Four nearly loses his balance and goes down completely.

“Smithy!” Sky is suddenly at his side, propping him up. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Four blinks blearily up at him. He should argue, more than likely, assure the knight that he can walk on his own. After all, Sky is injured too. A line of blood colors his right shoulder and chest, a grim cloud of maroon on the emerald of his tunic.

But walking is much easier with the support and his strength is waning more by the second. He is never going to make it on his own. So, instead he gives Sky a smile, lopsided and a bit loopy.

“Thanks, Sky.”

There is concern shining bright in the Skyloftian’s eyes, but he returns Four’s smile anyway.

“No problem.”

The pain only gets worse from there. Though Sky’s aid keeps him on his feet, it can only really do so much. He needs a potion – they all do. But that is a luxury they lack at the moment.

With every step, though, with every movement, tongues of flaming agony streak up Four’s leg. He feels lightheaded with it, nauseated, strangely heavy and light at the same time. He is buried in the molten core of the earth and floating in dizzying circles amongst the clouds. Dreadfully present and oddly detached. Legend and Sky’s voices are meaningless hubbub, their journey a painful thing he must endure.

Once more, he squints up into the sun, gritting his teeth against the agony.

Why is he doing this again?

He’s so tired. Can’t he just take a moment to lie down here amongst the tall blades of grass and fluffy wildflowers and rest?

His body decides that that is a wonderful idea and in the next moment, Four finds himself on his knees, staring down at the dirt path. He frowns at it, trying to decipher how exactly he got there.

“Four!” Sky’s face comes into focus as the Skyfloftian kneels before him. “Are you alright?”

Four looks up at him, blinking in a vain attempt to clear the strange, crackling darkness from his vision.

Everything hurts. Why does it all hurt so badly?

“I…” He swallows a mouthful of fire. “I don’t feel so good.”

An icy palm presses against his forehead.

“He’s burning up, vet. We have to find a town. And soon.”

The veteran lets loose a string of colorful curses. “That’s great. Just great. I thought champion’s Hyrule was full of towns! But we’ve been walking for hours now and haven’t come across a single one!”

“He also said his Hyrule is large,” Sky replies, quietly. He moves closer cradling Four to his chest and the smithy slumps against him. Any strength he had possessed has fled. “It could take us days to reach the nearest town by foot.”

“Well, unless you know how to catch one of those giant mustangs over there, that’s our only option.”

Four’s stomach gives a sudden lurch and he shoves away from Sky, heaving into the grass. Both of the heroes fall silent. Sky places a gentle hand on his back and begins to rub little circles into it.

“I’m sorry,” the smithy mumbles once he has managed to catch his breath. “I…ca…can’t walk anymore.”

“It’s okay,” Sky reassures. “I’ll carry you.”

Four closes his eyes as the Skyloftian lifts him off of the ground, trying to ignore the way it feels as though the world is spinning off its axis. But when Sky shifts to get a better grip, he can’t quite keep back a groan.

“Sorry.”

“ ‘k,” he mutters, through clenched teeth. His stomach is churning again and it takes all of his effort to keep whatever might be left within from coming out.

Sky begins to walk and Four shuts his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain. With every movement claws dig into his wounds. He is being torn apart from the inside out.

Is this how Wild had felt? He wonders, dimly. When he had fallen?

How horrible that must have been.

Another streak of agony burns its way through him, this one the worst since the guardian had shot him down. Four chokes out a strangled gasp. Far, far away Sky murmurs an apology, but he doesn’t have the strength to reply. His grip on consciousness slips. He plummets into nauseating, directionless, darkness.

———————-

He’s drifting. Drifting on waves of befuddling pain signals. Four curls in on himself, cringing at the sensation of his tunic rubbing against his skin. The curtain of slumber still blankets him. Nothing makes sense here.

Not the bone deep chill, chipping away at him. Not the way everything aches. Not even the way he shivers, constantly, violently, despite the way he hugs himself in a desperate attempt to keep from falling apart.

He drags in air through constricted lungs and ends up choking on it. The coughs that erupt rattle his chest and shake his body. Tears spring to his eyes as waves of pain course through him.

Gentle hands prop him up so that he can breathe easier. Something soft and limp and terribly wet is draped over his head. Four shivers as icy water dribbles down his face.

“—fever down,” someone mumbles, their voice slurred and nearly incoherent past the daze blanketing Four. He tries to grasp the words to decipher their meaning but they slip away, drifting out of reach. He lacks the strength to pursue them.

“Still too…”

“...gotta be one closer.”

“Infected. Not…last.”

The pain increases again and Four’s breath catches in his throat. A low groan escapes through cracked and bloodied lips.

“Hurts,” he whispers to no one in particular.

Is anyone even truly here with him? …Wherever he is right now.

Can anyone hear him at all?

“...alright,” comes that voice again, soft and reassuring. “You’re going to be alright.”

Then, another wave of burning agony washes over him and Four slips away.

——————-

When he next awakens it is to the sensation of being burned alive.

Not that he has ever actually experienced such a thing. But he imagines this is what it would be like.

There is heat everywhere, oppressive and smothering and terrible. It eats away at his bones, pulls his muscles taut, pulses behind his eyes and situates itself in a tight, little knot at the back of his skull.

His back arches as a low, pitiful groan escapes. It wants to be a scream, begs to be, but he is so tired, too tired to let loose something so powerful as that.

Hands are on him again, clammy and warm. Voices collide above his head, incomprehensible.

“Please,” he begs in a voice so cracked, so hoarse he can’t even be sure that it is his own.

He can’t be sure of anything anymore. Everything is a blur of pain and heat and frigid, bone-deep chill.

He wishes it would stop.

He thrashes, weakly. The hands hold him down.

“Please, he-help me!”

“….will. We will.”

“Sorry…hold on.”

Hold on…

He lets go.

———————-

Time passes, Four fades in and out, dipping beneath the waves of consciousness. He is dimly aware of movement that rattles his bones and only adds to the aching in his head. Sometimes it picks up, sometimes it is nonexistent, a pause in a journey he no longer remembers. But the pain, the pain never stops.

…until it does.

It comes to a halt in a blurry of agony and confusion. Of people begging him to fight, to not fight, to let them pour fiery liquid down his throat, flaming magic into his veins. He is buffeted by it all, as though he stepped into the ferocious winds of a hurricane.

Then, after an eternity of indecipherable, dizzying pain, it stops.

He blacks out before it does, caving to the darkness in favor of the chaos tearing him apart. And when he awakens once more, it is to the dull, fuzzy, sleepiness of someone who has fought for far too long.

Four drags open his eyes, groaning as wakefulness brings phantom aches to his attention. But the pain is nothing even close to what it was before. And the nauseating mixture of hot and cold are gone now too, leaving him feeling strangely empty.

“Smithy?”

Sky leans over him, form hazy. But even through his clouded vision, Four can see the darkened bags beneath his eyes, the pallor of his skin. He looks exhausted.

“How’re you feeling?”

Four shifts, slightly, relieved to be able to do so without sheer agony paralyzing him.

“Better,” he croaks. “What…what happened? Did we find the others?”

Sky nods. “And not a moment too soon.”

The words he doesn’t say hang heavy in the air. Four swallows.

“I apologize. You should never have had…had to…”

Sky shakes his head, a kind smile lifting his lips. “It wasn’t your fault, smithy. You were hurt. None of us could ever blame you for that. We’re just glad you’re alright now.”

“Yeah,” Legend pipes up from Four’s right, “you were really bad off there for a bit, smithy. Completely out of it. I think if we’d let you go you would’ve tried to burn the camp down or something.”

Four can’t help but shoot him a less-than-enthused look. At least, he knows the veteran is alright. He too looks exhausted, but no wounds are visible.

“And everyone else...” he manages, past the tiredness already dragging him back into its embrace, “they’re okay?”

Sky seems to sense his waning consciousness. He reaches forward, tucking the blanket more snuggly around him and brushing his limp bangs from his face.

“Yeah, they are,” he says, gently. “You can rest now.”

Four nods, a small smile on his lips. His eyelids are already growing heavy, vision going blurry.

“Thank you…both of you.”

He doesn’t have the energy to specify what he is thanking them for, but they know. He is certain they do. Sky runs a hand through his hair again, his touch soothing, and with a sigh of relief, Four allows himself to drift off once more.

#whumptober 2023 #no.13 #‘I don’t feel so good’#linkeduniverse #fic #vomiting tw #infection tw #injury tw #blood tw #trin writes #lu four #lu sky #lu legend #hurt/comfort #angst #whump

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unabletomakedecisions · 1 month

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#the corruption tma #the corruption #the magnus archives #tma #trypo tw #bugs tw #infection tw #kinda like a self portrait but with some Key Differences #corruption avatar #drawing #magnus archives #the magnus archive fanart #just left home for uni and feeling stressed so im back to the bugs babiieeeee #kinda just accepted that my old friends aren't going to bother with me anymore #got some new friends though and im chatting online with people i knew from middle school so im going alright #just feeling like shit because i forgot about a post lab test until 15 minutes after the deadline passed #should probably be sleeping or studying rn

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raisans-art · 2 years

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idk why but i am very delighted by the fact that zed has his tail undocked :] is there a reason they didn't dock it or did they just never think to do so?

Tails are docked on sheep to prevent fly-strike, a infection that comes from flies breeding in their wool around their bum.

With Zed being in a sealed and sanitized tube, there’s really not a worry about that and no real reason for them to dock the tail.

#hermitcraft #zedaph #hermitcraft fanart #hermitcraft au #test tube zedaph au #ask raisans #infection tw

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fletcherwilbury · 6 months

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@whumptober Day 14: Flare

Warning for Self-harm, illness, sickle cell crisis, injury, infection, fever

#whumptober #whumptober 2023 #whumptober day 14 #flare #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2012 donnie #tmnt 2012 raph #tmnt 2012 casey jones #tmnt 2012 splinter #jonatello #brains and brawn #self-harm tw #illness cw #sickle cell crisis cw #injury cw #infection tw #fever cw

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freezing-kaiju · 6 months

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Lunatic of the Flesh

@my-ceiling-is-tilted 's Biotober prompts 7, 17, and 25: Cancerous, Mutation, and Infection.

Warnings: extreme body horror, werewolves, biting and neck trauma, intimacy, it's about a werewolf themed resident evil infection going horribly wrong so make of that what you will! it's also a bit t4t

---

The bus stop close to my old home has been chewed on.

Bites have been ripped out, glass lines the bench, and, on the metal, patches of fuzz grow, waving in the wind. There’s the sound of crickets and toads, but no cars, nothing save for the bus rattling away behind me and the wheels of my baggage against the ground.

The plants grow thick, choked with weeds and bursting with gorgeous flowers, except for patches here and there that lay covered in hair. Great tendrils of matted fur, gray and blue and black, swaying like grass in the breeze. Deer bound through the distance in packs twenty strong.

The bus patrols exist for the infected. I’ll count as one soon, so it’s fine.

I fix my makeup in the window. Wouldn’t want to disgust them. After all…

——

…they’re beautiful.

Not from tip to toe, I know that. Slinking through the forest, I see some dragging massive, misshapen claws, some dangling boils, some with extra halves of jaws. Their hunts of the massive deer seem mutual; their destructive power is so increased, but the deer are so much faster, and they’re working so hard to catch their prey. Their imposing snouts, so well-suited to eating and howling… their ears, so soft-looking, so perfectly pointed… their backs so arched, their tails so long and fluffy, everything about them is so. Unbelievably. Perfect.

And yet, none of them are the right one. Maybe they know this; the first to catch sight of me slipped its pulsing violet eyes away not a moment after, likely out of disinterest. Maybe the foliage, leaves and bushes dead and alive, hides me perfectly.

Maybe… I’m already something else’s prey.

I stop, look behind myself. Nothing but the same fallen leaves concealing the same insects, the same trees looming thin and tall above me like the bars of a disorganized prison, but…

Above me.

Something flicked.

I look the rest of the way up and drop my luggage.

A wolf. Poised between the trees, spread on all four of its pristine limbs, a massive, gorgeous wolf.

“RUN,” it cajoles.

I can’t.

The few tendrils that shiver on its body are symmetrical. Its teeth are so well-kept they shine. Its third eye lingers above the left one in the exact place a chunk of winged eyeliner would be, adding to a glorious air of cuntiness that its breasts only further contribute to. Those claws— oh, what I wouldn’t give to be pulled apart by them! And the chest fur… those patterns…

“RUN,” it says again.

“I cannot.”

“TOO WEAK?”

“I refuse! I will join you without wasting your precious energy.”

“JJOIN?”

“I’ll join your pack! I’ll become part of it! I’ll make you MINE!”

The wolf’s chest swells with what had to be pride. Two of the branches I thought might impede it if I needed to run cracked beneath just this simple exertion. “A WEAK HUMAN...WANTS TO JOIN? THE PACK? MINE?”

“Your pack, and nobody else’s!”

“WHY?”

“Because I know you! Do you not recognize me?!”

It took in a shuddering breath, paw scratching its chin in what would be a human gesture were its claws not out and drawing blood. “RECOGNIZE...YOU?”

“Y…” I planted my other foot and stood my ground. “Yeah, Winnie. I came all the way back to meet you again. You…”

God, from the Kingdom Hearts pattern on the chest fur to the strange piercings, she was precisely the same.

“You look like the fursona I helped you make.”

Both paws slammed down in the snow. The wolf’s great head, it—

A motorcycle’s worth of predator.

Launched.

Towards me.

In that moment, I processed it quite like someone had thrown a car at my face, and screamed.

The wolf stopped short.

“IF…I AM WINIFRED… I AM? WINIFRED?”

“Y-yes,” I said, “yes, definitely, you are her and she is you.”

“I…CAN BE HER… THEN, I AM HER.” Winifred rises, not to her full height but a hunched position, like she speaks not to prey but to someone shorter than herself. “AND WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE HER DO?”

“B….bite me. Infect me. Love me! Love me like I always wanted you to, my dear friend, my beloved, make me yours!”

Winifred licks her lips and leans forward, snout inches from my face. “STAND UP…STRAIGHT. NECK OUT.”

I comply, face burning, soul weeping for joy.

Her mouth closes round my throat, and I can….I can feel the moment she penetrates me. Sharp. Clear, but right, I gasp for air and—

And I feel something pumping into my throat.

Dutifully, I swallow, wishing it were in my mouth, wishing I could taste the beauty that would now swallow me whole. I’ll be different, not this ugly, useless thing, but something sleek. Agile. Beautiful. Something that’ll make this all…worth…

——

Before my fur grew in, the hair I’d taken such care to mediocrely raise fell out in clumps that left me sobbing on the bedroom floor. I fear I’ve not lost cause to weep, nor have I stopped looking so…bald.

The glorious snout Winifred bears never grew in properly. My new ears came in in twain, perfectly shaped… the only thing in this wretched body to not split and pustulize. They top a sunken face, one I can hardly see from when my maw splits it to feed. If I look down, I behold a series of lumps; whether breast, stomach, tumor, or chin, I’m incapable of telling. As Winifred tells it, I have a centaur’s form… what grotesque parody of Greek myth she knows, I can’t imagine.

Perhaps I’m meant to have so many, such engorged and muscular legs, maybe their desperate uncoordination is the movement I deserve. After all, this form… I have no clue of the full extent with it, the last mirror brought within my sight is still shards on some barn floor. But I can feel my stomach churn with more than meat, feel parts of myself bloat with a thing beyond blood and meat. Winifred, too, is sometimes…

That venom she pumped into me, so clean and clinical, I… I drool it now. It fills my mouth and drips out when I breathe, onto buckets or the floor of our hideaways. At least, when she isn’t looking.

When she is, my mate licks it from my lips like a woman possessed.

I can’t fathom it, neither the eyes left on my face nor the ones that dot the rest of my body like moles can believe how hungry she’s become. She comes home from hunts or meetings dragging cow after cow, sometimes a bag of human food too, and sets upon me with her tongue and hands faster than I can whimper a greeting. Every hair-coated fold of my body she cleans, licking as if hunting for some buried treasure. Are my moans that rewarding? Is my pain what she wishes? Does she want me to bite back? I can’t, I won’t, my maw will… it’ll do too much damage, truly. I can feel my vestigial tails flop and writhe as she buries her face in my part. When her paw holds the one of mine small and shapen enough to hold hers —I felt every agonizing moment of my right fusing together, and my second left is a mass of knotted fingers— those tails crack and sting with how forcefully they wag.

“My moon,” she calls me, her tongue still exploring an area I’d never wish to touch myself, “my gorgeous moon, the hunt was so long.”

“I am,” I choke out the rote response, “sorry I couldn’t go.”

“No, be thankful. The others spoke covetously of you. It gladdens me…to have you all to myself.”

I feel something bubble up within me, and in a moment of terror, know not if metaphor can affect this husk.

“You’re…just…saying that because you’re stuck with me…”

She laughs at that, a barking laugh, one whose charm I’ve still yet to reach. Have I laughed recently? Only when she stimulated me to, only in…what could be called roughhousing, had I not fallen over, had she not treated me with pup’s gloves afterwards.

“No??? I, like, treasure you,” Winifred said, tongue taking a rest from its travels across my taint. “This was all so lonely before you became—“

“Trapped?”

“What?”

“Trapped, isolated, burdened,” I found myself saying, coughing out each word within a mouthful of venom and teeth, “made into something— something disgusting, something that weighs you down, something that—“

Winifred leapt up from under me, growling like a chainsaw. I folded under those three burning lime eyes, but, curiously, when I silenced myself and slunk lower, Winifred’s own tail and ears dropped back too.

“Selene, I didn’t— never did I consider that—“

“You are a wolf! You’re perfect, everything everyone who’s ever been an edgy adolescent yearned to become! I am…”

“Selene.” Winifred’s paws reached up, squished together my cheeks, forcing our eyes to meet. “I am… the perfect specimen of a normal beastic wolf, yes. But you…” She pressed our snouts nearly together, “you are something special. Your mass of gloriously haphazard legs, your imposing form, every perfect eye and lovely tendril— and your soft, downy fur— and your tails! Their excitement is so… you’re so…”

“It hurts to move,” I whimper. “It hurts to breathe.”

“As does it for me, too,” Winifred admits, and shakes herself off, parts of her arms I never even thought had joints cracking like thunder over the plains.

Her…her own breathing is ragged, too, isn’t it? Winnie’s rib cage had always flexed and contracted, like a butterfly flapping its wings, in a way that I always thought was painless but…

Maybe she’s in as much pain as me.

And maybe...

Ah, she's started with her tongue again...

....maybe I can lose myself in it, too...

#body horror #halloween #biotober #werewolf #infection #nsft #ask to tag #infection tw #gross tw #neck trauma tw #gore tw #gore #neck trauma #writing #my writing

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daisy-mooon · 7 months

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Whumptober 2023, Day 6 and 7: Made to watch, "Can you hear me?"

Unformatted sorry yall

Meg watched as Apollo all but collapsed into Hazel's arms - she may have been small, but she was strong and with Lavinia, they managed to carry him between them. Meg watched as his head lolled to the side, already limp to the purple that threaded through his veins. Meg watched as he unconsciously choked on even the miniscule sample of glittering unicorn draught, and Hazel had to concentrate with a surgeon's precision to manipulate the gold and silver medicine down his throat.

Every part of it felt wrong. Throughout her entire journey, they had defended each other with their lives. Yet here Apollo was, defeated and withering into a husk, and Meg could do absolutely nothing but watch-

He made a choking cough, and Lavinia adjusted her grip on him to push the hair away from his face. She so badly wished that she was the one carrying him: she'd hauled him into Camp Half-Blood with nothing but fear of her stepfather and even greater terror at the distant unease of the woods, but that was when they were carrying nothing but the clothes on their and she was relatively uninjured. She wanted to stop the girls, wanted to beg them to let her carry him, but that would only slow them down from getting him to a doctor. She wasn't even sure that she could actually carry him now - not with aching bones and wounds from debris. She certainly wouldn't do a better job than Lavinia, who was stocky and tall and capable, or Hazel, who was tinier but still bigger than her and carried muscle and deathly power.

Meg didn't have anything to do on the way back other than carrying Lavinia's manuballista for her and casting worried glances back at him. His face was sweating and pinched, a face that she'd grown familiar with upon their months of travelling together, a face that very much signified that he was in agony, and she forced herself to grab at the manuballista instead of him. Her grip around it was tight enough that her knuckles turned white, that she feared it might splinter.

"Easy." Hazel said calmly. It took her a second to realise that she was talking to her and not Lavinia or Apollo's unconscious form. "We'll get him back to Camp Jupiter and heal him soon."

Meg scowled and hugged the weapon closer. "You guys couldn't fix him the first time. How is giving him the same stuff going to help him?"

The girls cast looks at each other. Lavinia helpfully didn't offer anything, leaving her centurion to fend for herself. Hazel's voice adopted a tone of gentleness she'd grown accustomed to coating anger, even though she could tell that Hazel wasn't angry. "Meg," she began, placatingly, "I can't tell you that he won't die. There's a thick aura of death around him. But I can tell you that he will absolutely not die today, and there are a lot of things that we can do for him in a day."

She didn't know what reaction she was supposed to make, so she nodded jerkily and snapped her gaze back to the ground.

That was how they made their way back to Camp. In silence, the only real noise being made was Lavinia almost inaudibly humming and the ragged, cracked gasps that drew out of Apollo with horrifying ease. The purple in his face didn't move, but every time she looked back at him, his skin was a little more ashen, a little more dried. When she didn't look at him, she was struck by the freezing and terrible paranoia that he had died and she would need to kill him before his corpse killed her-

They didn't go the way they had came. It had been difficult enough before, and there was no way that Hazel and Lavinia could carry him and manoeuvre up the rocks and hills at the same time. Instead, they began to lug him down to the tunnel - not the secret one that they had entered, but the main one that actually led into Camp Jupiter.

It should have been harder for the two Romans to haul him past traffic, but she didn't concentrate on anything beyond making sure that she didn't get hit by a car herself. The guards on shift at the entrance stared, one anxiously abandoning his post to assist them. Lavinia took over, and she said a kind, reassuring and very un-Lavinia "thank you" as she took the manuballista back. Meg was relieved not to carry it, but now she had nothing to hold at all.

Her hands buried into her pockets as Hazel and the new legionnaire began to pull her friend down the tunnel. Here, surrounded by stone an all sides, Apollo’s pain grew louder. Meg desperately tried to ignore them, tried to focus on the sound of her own breathing, but his distress seemed to clear through all of it with ease.

Stupid, stupid Apollo. Why did he let himself get scratched? Why did she let him get scratched? She'd been training since she was five, wielded her scimitars and fought with them every single day, and she let him get scratched-

"Meg." Hazel's voice cut through her panic and she turned to face dark, dark eyes. She looked so much like death. "Apollo is going to be okay."

She wanted to scream, but she bit her lip and clenched her hidden hands into fists. She didn't understand how Hazel could be so calm and sure when she had just said that he had an aura of death. It mirrored Nico's relative unconcern when he had first seen him on the porch of the big house… except Nico had been looking at someone freshly bandaged, not someone on the verge of death.

"He's dying." She bit out, turning back to the distant opening. Sunlight streamed in from the exit of the tunnel.

"Hey, listen." The legionnaire, who had been silent until now, hefted the former god in his arms. "The infirmary get people who are dying all the time. Nine times out of ten, they save them. Phoebus- well, Apollo, I guess - is a tough piece of work. He's not dying on you anytime soon."

Apollo let out the beginnings of a whimper, which Hazel spoke over hurriedly. "We're almost there Meg. The doctors here are good."

"Better than Nico's boyfriend?" She sniped, voice lightening with relief as they exited the tunnel, entering the daylight, feet firmly on grass and earth. At least here, she didn't feel like she was suffocating.

"Don't tell him I said that."

She snorted despite herself, nudging a particularly large tuft of grass with her foot. The life around was reassuring, reaffirming, and she gasped as she heard Apollo groan exactly like he did when he was about to wake up.

His eyes had flickered open only the barest amount, staring straight at her. His lips twitched and another noise came flooding out, but no other part of him moved. He looked like he was-

"Meg." Hazel said slowly and carefully. "I need you to run to Camp Jupiter and get someone from the infirmary. Tell them that Apollo's infection is worse, and that he's possibly been paralysed."

"What do you mean, paralysed?!" She demanded, voice raising into something hysterical.

"He will be okay, but the sooner the doctors can help him, the better. They won't know what level of infection he'll return with unless someone tells them."

"I'm not leaving him-"

"Meg, please."

She hesitated, unable to look at Hazel's face. She focused on Apollo, watching as he could do nothing but stare blankly at her, unable to even twitch. He needed help.

With a deep, deep breath, she looked at the clump of dandelions next to her foot and knelt down, fingers brushing the stem and slowly curling around it. She could hear Hazel and the legionnaire pause in confusion, but she didn't have the time to dwell on it. With a shove at the nature, and a shove at herself, she teleported into Camp Jupiter.

A Roman shouted next to her, startled. Meg stood up shakily - this was only her second time teleporting - and gasped a question out at them. "Where's the infirmary?"

"Uh-" they jabbed a thumb at a building to her left. "It's there. Where's Hazel-?"

She took off sprinting. Her legs wobbled underneath her, threatening to buckle and sprawl her achingly on the floor, but she persisted, tearing across the cobbles, running straight through a yelling lares and almost knocking over a startled swordsman. Her hands scrabbled for the handle of the door and yanked it clean open-

A guy in a white shirt promptly dropped a pile of books clean on his foot. He swore, winced, and then squinted at her as worry flooded his face. "It's… Meg, right? What-"

"Apollo." She gasped. Teleporting was hard. "Infection worse. Paralysed."

"Where is he-?"

"Ran ahead. He's at the river- with Hazel-"

"Give me ten seconds." The healer said, snapping his body into a sprint and racing back into the infirmary. Other healers and patients yelled at him, and he yelled right back, snatching up an apron and what looked like a bag of medical supplies. It took him just over twelve seconds to scramble back to her, narrowly avoiding a collision with a wheelchair user and promptly ran. Meg blinked once before moving into action next to him.

She cursed silently as her muscles began to throb - she wouldn't be teleporting any time soon. The healer… was his name Pranjal? Probably. Pranjal outpaced her easily and she felt almost guilty as he slowed down for her. She didn't need to keep up with him - Apollo needed help.

By the time they had skidded frantically out the gates, Hazel and the legionnaire were accompanied by two more as they hurriedly crossed the river - they were using one of the girl's shields as a makeshift stretcher to carry him on, eight hands and Hazel's manipulation of the imperial gold stopping him from falling into the river. Most likely for the better. The last thing he needed was to be exposed to anything shocking.

Pranjal waited as they made their way across and Meg could do nothing but at the lolling head of her best friend. It bounced slightly whenever someone shifted their grip, and that was about the only movement he could make. Terror seized her in sickening, violent waves: Apollo, who screamed and cried and laughed and fought and was constantly moving was forced into immobility, his body held captive by an undead tyrant, and as usual, Meg had made everything worse. If she hadn't tried to attack Tarquin, then Apollo's infection would have been slower and less painful and none of this would have happened-

They exited the river neatly, and let Pranjal immediately begin checking the wound. The soldiers didn't complain about his weight, instead focusing on each other, and his limp, helpless form.

Fingers slid his shirt up and she looked away almost immediately. She'd seen some gory things in her time - rushed amputations, slitting of throats, shattered bones and so many more, but this wound took pain to the next level. The purple infection did more than corrupt the veins laced through his skin - it inflamed them, tore them, and wriggled through them in an attempt to claim his body. The actual stab wound itself…

Meg tried to look and almost threw up.

"This has gotten a lot worse." She stumbled away from the group, only distantly aware of Pranjal speaking. "I think we need to apply unicorn shavings directly."

"Do you want me to help?"

"...no. Hazel, you're over-exerting your powers. You need to rest. Go to the infirmary and get nectar for yourself. Tell the other healers what's happened, and ask for a cheese grater-"

A what.

"Get him into the stables," Pranjal instructed the other three, taking over from where Hazel had left to stumble away, and they began to walk in an odd, shuffling manner.

Meg knew she couldn't do a lot, but she gripped the side of the shield he was lying on and helped them carry it. Her gaze focused everywhere and nowhere at the same time - on Apollo's face, his wound, his sweat-dampened hair, his usually twitching yet unmoving fingers.

Soldiers stared at them as they pulled him along, gasping and muttering amongst themselves. The eyes made her skin crawl, but they were laced with just enough sympathy that she could manage it until they got him to the stables.

Hurriedly, they ushered Apollo's limp form past the gate and a staring, confused unicorn and laid him on the ground. Someone propped him up so he was lying on the shield as opposed to the hay, and he let out a shocking loud whimper that made her heart clench. A unicorn plodded over to investigate, head nudging the side of his chest, and one of the legionnaires gently shooed it away.

Moments later, another healer came running out of the infirmary, accompanied by Hazel. Pranjal frowned at her direction, making a vague gesture to her arms which were- oh. They were glittering like jewels. Will had told her that Nico dissolved into shadows when he overused his powers. Hazel looked like she was in the very early stages of becoming a gemstone. She shot a withering look back at him and gestured down at Apollo, whose veins were currently coated with amethyst, although when he motioned at her to sit down, she did so without argument.

"You guys," Hazel sighed at the legionnaires that helped carry him. "Go find Frank-"

"-Reyna's on shift, right now-"

"-go find Reyna, and tell her what happened. Lia, get someone to relieve Lavinia and Olivar of watch duty. Lavinia can give an explanation of what happened-"

"Pranjal." The second healer handed over a gold, angled box with a handle on top and started cleaning the wound as Hazel continued her instructions. "Grater."

Meg blinked and gawked at it. "Why are you trying to heal him with a cheese grater?"

"Unicorn shavings." The healer explained as Pranjal stood up gently, and went to one of the unicorns. It nudged him, poking his chest experimentally with its horn, and he stroked its back, coaxing it slowly forward until its wide-eyed head hovered cautiously over him. “You’ve seen the unicorn draught, right?” She nodded, and he continued. “We usually mix the shavings with water and medicine so it can be digested. But for cases like these, with an open wound, we apply the shavings directly onto the wound.”

“And that helps?” Meg squinted at him.

“Yep.” He didn’t explain further, choosing to focus on his cleaning of the wound. White fabric in and out of flesh that was stained purple like a berry bush had exploded inside of him and tore his skin open. “Pranjal, can you manage the unicorn shavings?”

“I’ve got it from here, Callum. You go back to the infirmary, and take Hazel with-”

“I’m staying here.”

“Hazel-”

“I’m staying.” She insisted, staring at him dead in the eye. The black of her iris seemed larger than usual, as if her eyes were overcome by shadow. "I've already taken nectar. The infirmary is just going to overwhelm me."

Both healers cast a look at her, then decided they didn't want to argue with a centurion. Callum ran off. It then hit Meg why they were hurrying: they still had an outrageous number of wounded from their last battle. Hot, fiery guilt burnt straight into her as she realised that Apollo’s injuries were distracting the healers from people who might have needed it more, and that she had caused this-

The grater slowly slid across the unicorn horn and thin, long shavings of gold slid into Pranjal’s hand. He took them carefully and began uncurling them, gently laying them out on top of Apollo’s stomach. She stared at the shavings as they dissolved almost instantly.

“Do unicorn shavings have a limit like nectar and ambrosia?” Meg asked, shuffling to look at Apollo better. She hugged her knees.

“Not really?” Pranjal answered, not looking up from where he was untangling a particularly large shred of gold. “The more shavings used, the less effective they become. But they don’t ever stop healing.”

The shavings were carefully laid on top of his wound like a glittering bandage, covering the wound entirely from sight. They started fading into his skin just as quickly as before, and Meg tried to pacify herself by watching the gold sink into purple. It really didn’t look like it was helping.

Hazel pointed a finger at a particularly thick clump of gold, and it straightened immediately. Pranjal shot her with a look as he laid it over the gash. “I won’t make you go to the infirmary, but you need to stop using your powers.”

She smiled semi-apologetically and scooched over to sit beside Meg. The healer's face scrunched up in concentration as he continued his work. The unicorn whinied softly.

She could feel her eyes settle on her. Meg ignored her. She didn’t want to talk to Hazel, didn’t want her to attempt to reassure him that Apollo was okay when he wasn’t, when he was dying, when it was her fault. She hadn’t been the one to try and fight Tarquin, hadn’t been the one to charge out and force the tyrant to force himself into Apollo-

“Meg,” Hazel said softly. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on Apollo. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She mumbled into her knees. The sound was muffled, but Hazel heard it anyway. She was a centurion - she probably heard that excuse a lot.

The older girl said nothing, keeping her company in silence as Pranjal worked. He pushed Apollo's T-Shirt as far up as it would go, and whilst it would have usually made Meg squawk in annoyance as she caught a glimpse of healthy coloured flab, now made tears threaten to spill out of her eyes as she could only helplessly stare at the sprawling mess of sickly, violent purple. The acne, usually an angry shade of red, was a shriveled shade of black. She looked away and let the tears spill- this was her fault, and now all she could do for Apollo was to watch-

Apollo made a forced, strangled noise.

All three of their heads snapped to Apollo at once. He was still sprawled on the shield and it rocked ever so slightly as he started to twitch. Meg could have sobbed in relief as the paralysis broke, or at least began to break.

"Meg." He whimpered.

Her heart exploded and she was leaning over him in an instant, one hand scooping the curls away from his face and another snatching his with careful precision. His eyes didn't open, but his fingers curled around hers on reflex. Feeling their hands slot together felt as natural as breathing.

Pranjal frowned. "He shouldn't be awake yet-"

"Meg." And that's when she knew something was wrong. It wasn't a tone of recognition or relief, but instead a mumbled plead. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his face was clenched into an unamused frown. Like he wanted her, and didn't know she was there.

"What-"

"Apollo," Pranjal spoke loudly and clearly, causing her to startle ever so slightly. "Can you hear me?"

He mumbled something feverishly and she panicked, gripping his hand even tighter. The fear must have been obvious on her face, because in a second, Hazel was taking her arm and slowly pushing her back into a steady sitting position, this time cradling Apollo's arm as if it was made of glass.

His skin was burning hot to touch. She clung tighter, unaware of what else she was supposed to do. Pranjal was a doctor. Hazel could manipulate gold. All she could do was play with plants and swords. She felt useless, useless, useless-

Apollo let out a hoarse whine and stilled momentarily. The opportunity to lay more unicorn shavings on him was there and taken, and she would have snatched up the grater and done it herself had she not been too busy holding his arm and desperately trying to hope that he would suck in a burst of godly energy and jump upright to laugh at her. What she wouldn't do to listen to one of his stupid, cringe jokes, to listen to him lament the horrors of mortal society and to overdramatically wail about one of his exes.

Her eyes began to water again as a silent teardrop slid down his grimy, sweaty cheek. How much pain was he in, right now, that he couldn't hear them? She didn't know. She wasn't sure she wanted too.

She heard Hazel distantly trying to comfort her, trying to say that his aura of death was reducing, trying to convince her that she could feel the golden unicorn shavings flood through his veins, but she couldn't answer her. The only thing she could do was hold Apollo's hand, and cruelly wish that she could hold it forever.

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mxrshaldillon · 4 months

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Continued from:

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I know it does, but you don’t wanna let that fever get any higher, either. It’s bad enough already.”

He knew he’d have to try and extract the bullet from her leg sooner than later, but boy, did he wish it didn’t have to be him doing it…

The marshal grabbed the medicine bottle from the table beside him, filling the cup to the halfway mark. “Doc says you’ll need some of this every few hours so the infection doesn’t get worse.” Eyeing the wound on Scarlett’s leg as he handed her the cup, he added, “at least I found you in time. Don’t know how much longer you would’ve lasted out there.”

Matt paused. “You probably don’t know where you are, do you? I guess I… didn’t think of it until now.”

After glancing over at the door, he looked back up at her. “My name’s Matt Dillon. I’m the marshal of this town- Dodge City. Can I ask your name?”

@a-adventurer

#ic #rp threads #threads #a-adventurer #matt and scarlett #infection tw #injury tw #here ya go!#ask to tag #Verse One- Main

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actress4him · 10 months

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June of Doom 2023

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Taglist: @painful-pooch , @robinbugbanned

Day 21 - “On three.” | Dehydration | Memory Loss | Choke

Day 25 - “Don’t move!” | Natural Disaster | Drowning | Stranded

Day 26 - “I made a mistake.” | Ambulance | Hopelessness | Numb

Contains: lady whump, infection, police, referenced noncon drugging, guns, restraints, panic attack (ish), referenced gunshot wound, referenced touch aversion, referenced broken bones

Isa’s getting worse. Lainey has spent…hours, maybe - she’s sick of trying to figure out the passage of time - lying as close to her as she can get, checking her temperature with her hand every so often, watching her labored breathing and her eyelids fluttering restlessly as she dozes. Her ribs are killing her from this position, but she can’t bring herself to move. Isa’s skin has grown hotter since she first checked it. She’s more out of it, too, which she could just attribute to her being half-asleep but it’s like she can’t seem to fully wake up.

She needs water. She needs medicine, but even water would be helpful at this point, before her fever dehydrates her. But the man, for the first time since he dragged Lainey back here, has now, of course, decided to stay upstairs and leave them alone. She’s itching to get up, to get as close to the stairs as she can and start yelling. Part of her thinks she should, regardless of what she told Isa.

But she doesn’t want to break her promise. And…rest is important, too, right?

She doesn’t know what to do. She’s so scared for her, can’t stop watching her chest rise and fall as if one of these times it’s just going to quit.

And worst of all…Isa’s right. It’s been too long. They should have been here by now. Except she doesn’t know that for sure, and she keeps trying to remind herself that she’s clueless about time right now and she doesn’t know what all they might have to do first that might hold them up. But there’s this pit in her gut, a whisper in her mind saying that she just experienced two full days outside, she should know what it feels like.

It feels like it’s been too long.

Lainey keeps up her vigil, trying not to fall asleep, herself. She stares hard at her fingertips and reaches deep for the magic that’s withered and tired inside of her, trying to force water drops to form from nothing, but that wasn’t something she was very good at even before she was pumped full of who knows what kind of drugs. Her fingers remain dry, and she’s forced to give up. She has nothing to offer Isa except her company.

She’s glaring at the staircase, on the verge of giving in and calling the man down despite Isa’s wishes, when suddenly the older girl wakes with a start, hazy eyes flicking up toward the ceiling. Her brow is furrowed, but Lainey doesn’t know whether it’s confusion, worry, or just the pain and fever.

“What is it?” she asks softly, her own gaze following as if there’s something up there to see.

“Something…coming…cars…?” Isa mumbles. She swallows hard and grimaces, one hand sliding up slowly to rub at her sternum. “Too many…too many cars and…people.”

Lainey’s eyes widen. “Cars and people? Isa that’s a good thing, that’s a great thing!” They’re here. They came, they’re here to save them! Her heart is pounding out her chest but for once, it’s from elation and relief instead of fear.

There’s a sudden cacophony of sound from up above. Multiple voices are shouting so that she can barely make out anything they’re saying, though she catches, “Don’t move!” and “Hands where we can see them!”

Tears are pouring down her cheeks. “Isa, they’re here, they’re here!”

But Isa is moaning, clutching her shirt above her heart and attempting to bury her face into the floor. Lainey is torn between trying to comfort her and focusing on what’s happening upstairs. It sounds like they caught him, otherwise they wouldn’t have been yelling all those things. Any second now, that door is going to open for the very last time. She pushes herself up, barely even feeling the pull on her ribs in her excitement. If she could, she’d jump up to her feet and run to the foot of the stairs to wait for them, but with her feet shackled she’ll have to settle for sitting.

The locks start clicking and squeaking. For once, the sound doesn’t bring terror. The door flies open and a voice calls out, “I’ve got stairs going down, someone back me up.”

“We’re down here!” Her voice is so choked with emotion and with her rapid heart beat that she can barely get out the words. “Help us, please!”

Someone comes into view, wearing a navy uniform and crouching to sweep a gun across the space. Her eyes come right back to the two girls on the floor, and she starts down the stairs rapidly. A male officer is right on her heels, repeating her motions with his own gun.

“It’s just us,” Lainey tells them breathlessly. “Just us and…and the man upstairs. Please get us out of here.”

“We are.” The woman gives a quick glance into the alcove as she passes, then holsters her gun, slowing a bit as she approaches and crouching down beside them. “You’re safe now. It’s all over, okay?”

“You’ve got to help her.” Her emotions are a jumbled up mess that she can’t even decipher, so much relief and worry all at the same time. “She needs help, she’s sick, I think her back is infected. Please help her.” She stretches her hands out toward Isa, debating lying down so she can be close to her again. The girl is trembling all over, the hand that was holding her shirt now covering her ear.

The other officer is already back at the stairs, shouting up them. “Get the paramedics down here! And has anyone found keys?”

“Got ‘em!” Another officer thunders down the steps, two people in some other kind of uniform carrying kits following. The new officer has keys, which he brings over to Isa first, at the female officer’s instruction.

“Hey, I’m just gonna get this off for you, okay?” he says softly, crouching down and reaching for the shackle around her neck. Isa only moans in response. She’s growing more and more agitated by the second, and Lainey’s worry for her matches.

“Isa, it’s okay. It’s the police, we’re safe now. It’s not him.”

The shackle is unlocked and pulled away, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s gasping for breath, digging her fingernails into her hair above her ear. As the officer moves toward Lainey with the keys, the other two - paramedics, she assumes - approach Isa, opening their kits and starting to reach for her.

Lainey tugs at the chain that tethers her to the wall, anxious to be free. “Wait, she, she doesn’t like to be touched, you have to be careful! And her back, don’t touch her back! You’ll hurt her!”

The woman turns to smile gently at her. “We’ll be careful, I promise, but we’re going to have to touch her some. As soon as you’re able, you can come sit next to her and reassure her if you want.”

Every whimper and hitched breath tears at Lainey’s heart. When the last of her restraints come off, she immediately starts a one-handed crawl to be by her side. They’ve pulled Isa’s shirt up in the back to see the inflamed lashes, and are currently trying to tug her hand away from her ear so they can take her temperature.

“She’s scared. She’s too sick to realize what’s going on, and she doesn’t like to be touched.” Lainey grips her knees to keep herself from reaching out, rocking back and forth slightly. She wants to be able to hold her hand or cup her cheek or anything to let her know it’s okay, but that will only make it worse. She also wants to slap the paramedics’ hands away from her, but she knows they need to help.

She settles for leaning in and whispering, “You’re okay. It’s me, I’m here. You’re safe now.”

“Does she have any other injuries besides her back and these cuts?” the man asks as the woman finally manages to get the thermometer in Isa’s ear.

“She got shot,” Lainey blurts, pointing, “in her leg.” He immediately starts unwrapping the dirty bandage. “And um…I don’t, I don’t know, I can’t remember what else he’s done to her lately.”

“That’s okay.” The woman reads the thermometer, then puts it away. “What about you? Are you injured anywhere?”

“Um. Broken wrist? And ribs. And…I hit my head a…couple of days ago, maybe? I didn’t pass out, but it bled.”

“Okay.” She focuses in on the gunshot wound that the man is inspecting for a moment, then turns her attention back to Lainey. “Stan is going to get the stretcher. Mind if I do a quick check on you while he’s gone?”

She glances over at her friend, who’s still on the verge of hyperventilating. “But…Isa…”

“We’re not going to let anything happen to her, I promise. As soon as he gets back we’ll get her loaded up and both of you on your way to the hospital, okay?”

Lainey nods shakily. The woman pulls a small flashlight out of her pocket and shines it in both of her eyes, watching her pupils contract, then puts it away and gently takes her hand to inspect her wrist. She’s carefully running her fingertips across the bouquet of bruises on her ribs when Stan returns, one of the officers helping him carry the stretcher down the stairs.

They set it down, folded, right next to Isa, and both paramedics get in position to lift her onto it. “On three,” Stan states. “One, two, three.”

Isa cries out as she’s moved, and Lainey clutches the side of the stretcher. The paramedics position her on her stomach and begin stretching yellow straps across her neck, hips, and legs.

“Why are you tying her down? You’re going to make it worse!” They’re supposed to be helping her, not doing the same things he did.

The woman throws her a sympathetic look. “We’ve got to carry her up the stairs, and she’s moving around a lot. We can’t risk her falling off.”

It makes sense, but seeing her strapped down feels so wrong. Lainey can’t stop staring at her, knuckles turning white from how hard she’s holding the bar.

“Do you think you can walk up the stairs? We’ve got another ambulance on its way for you to ride in.”

Her eyes go wide. “No, no, I don’t need an ambulance. I want to stay with her.”

They glance at each other, then the woman nods. “Okay. I’ll walk with you, alright? Stan and Officer Calhoun can carry your friend.”

It hasn’t been that long since she was tearing up these stairs and running full speed through the woods, but somehow today she can barely make it up them. She’s weak, her legs wobbling and trying to buckle underneath her with each step. They eventually make it up, though, into the main part of the cabin. She purposely doesn’t look around. She doesn’t want to know the details of what it looks like, how this man lived when he wasn’t torturing them. Her focus stays ahead, on the stretcher holding Isa and on the front door.

Last time everything was a frantic rush. Even while she was in the woods for two days, she was constantly running and thinking and planning and worrying. Now she wants to take the time to breathe in the outside air, to gaze up at the night sky and marvel at stars she wasn’t sure she’d see again, to feel free.

And she does, some. But at the same time, stepping outside is overwhelming. Her attention is pulled in every direction, to all the people in uniforms talking all around, to…are those reporters? Her eyes are too blinded by the lights of the police cruisers strobing in the darkness to make out much of anything, just a lot of activity and sound all at once. Wincing, she holds up one arm to block the lights, and wonders if this is how Isa was feeling in the basement.

As they approach the back of the ambulance, she glances over to the side and stops short. It’s him. The man who’s been tormenting them for all this time is standing there, hands cuffed behind his back, being guided into the back of a police car. It’s such a strange feeling, seeing him restrained for once. Seeing him finally caught, knowing that it’s actually over. Her mind can’t fully comprehend it.

“Ready to get in?” The paramedic’s voice jolts her out of her reverie, and she turns to see Isa already loaded into the ambulance. With some support at her elbow, she climbs in after her, taking a seat out of the way and returning to her vigil over her friend. The doors slam shut, the siren wails to life, and just like that, they’re driving away from their nightmare.

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shoechoe · 1 year

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joseph gets tetanus and dies au

#shitposts #stardust crusaders #short posts #what do i tag this as #infection tw #ask to tag

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cowboy-anon · 2 years

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HEY GUYS, I DID SOMETHING-

CW: Blood-borne illness mention, crying, infection mention, mer whumpee (let me know if I should tag anything else?)

Blood poisoned mer whumpee! Did an old wound get infected, or is this some blood-borne infection he can’t fight?

#guys you have no idea how good it feels to post again- idek what happened there but brain said no #UNTIL TODAY! :D #whump #whump art #my whump art #mer whumpee #crying tw #illness tw #blood illness mention #infection tw #infection mention #just tagging both just in case lol #idk i just took the creepy vein look of sepsis and rolled with it pfft-

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tristaratops · 2 months

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Wip for Dark Nails Creek! More will be revealed very soon!

#my art #art #artists on tumblr #artwork #digital art #fan art #original art #tristaratops #trolls #trolls 3 #trolls creek #trolls oc #trolls infection au #infection tw #tw infection #dark nails au #trolls dark nails au

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whumpwillow · 2 years

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(Not a prompt)

I had a dream about a whumper getting a stomach injury with got really infected (Like, literally rotting kind of infected)

So he ended up really sick, unable to move on his own. He was rescued by whumpee's caretaker, who wasn't gonna let him die, but still hated his guts.

In the end, the caretaker didn't give him any painkillers or anesthetic, and literally cut away some of the rotten flesh while the whumper cried and begged for mercy. (Caretaker basically just said "Shut up")

Eventually, the ex-whumpee came in, and told caretaker to put him under anesthesia, or at least freeze the area, while whumper begged for forgiveness

gotta love whumper turned whumpee

#gore tw #infection tw #infection whump #idk how to tag for rotten flesh #gross tw #whump #whump tropes #whump prompts #whump prompt #willow answers #answered asks #whumper turned whumpee my beloved #whumper turned whumpee

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stigmvtas · 8 months

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GABRIEL LEONE — ABRIDGED.

welcome to marina, GABRIEL 'GABE' LEONE ( nonbinary, they/them ) ! they are a TWENTY EIGHT year old who has lived over on TOWER HILL for MOST OF THEIR LIFE and works as a BARTENDER/PIERCER. everyone says they look a lot like JUSTICE SMITH. what do you think? — JAMES, 24, THEY/THEM, EST.

MENTIONS OF DIVORCE, DRUGS, BODY HORROR / INJURY / INFECTION, AND DELUSIONS.

profile.

full name: gabriel ‘gabe’ leone.

birthday: october 31st, 1995.

astrology: scorpio sun, scorpio moon, gemini ascending.

sexuality: queer.

currently listening to: sextape by deftones.

last known location: [[[cannot be found]]]

PINTEREST.

brief history.

divorce mention; moved to marina when they were seven, following the divorce of their parents. their father's still a chef in nyc, while their mother - sonia - is an artist. an illustrator.

still visits nyc sometimes to see their dad & to participate in the underground scene there, since their dad's the one who instilled a love of punk music in them.

sonia remarried when gabe was a teenager (not just a regular teenager, an emo teenager, at that), giving them a bonus brother, and they did not take it super well.

drugs mention; preferred smoking in whichever forested area they could find, or far down the shore, or in their friends' attics and basements, than be home and get to know their new family. had a complex. still kind of has a complex.

extremely average in school, had no idea what they wanted to do after graduating except 'make music, fuck art, eat shit idk' which led to most of their friends heading off to private universities and gabe dropping out of community college.

body horror? / injury / infection; got into piercing because it's something they've done since a teenager, and it comes to them easily. plus, money. money is always good. almost got sued recently because they pierced someone's balls and the person did not take their aftercare advice seriously and wound up with an infection.

started bartending afterwards out of pure fear that they'd be bankrupt and jobless. is not bankrupt and jobless. starting a tattoo apprenticeship just for funsies.

facts & temperaments.

currently residing in the cheapest apartment they could get in tower hill. it's not, like, great - but they have at least one giant window, and that's enough for them.

too friendly for their own good. isn't automatically trustful but also isn't distrustful. it's easy to get on their good side, because despite all their anxiety - they're pretty laidback otherwise.

is in their head. a lot. insecure but keeps a mostly confident demeanor. tends to laugh it off a lot but they care a lot about what others think about them. at least if it's someone they care about.

clingy so clingy. loves their friends to death and is probably a little in love with them too. doesn't do well when there's miscommunication, because they'll probably assume the worst. but the worst is always, oh they don't like me anymore and they think i'm ugly and my dick's a flop and - and not like, oh they're betraying me in some way.

drugs / delusions; partier. loves loud music, loves crowds. loves feeling alive. prone to acid trips. last year they had a particularly bad trip and they still believe they're actually just a ghost and their body's buried somewhere on the island. has gotten a little more impulsive because of it.

5'6" and every inch of their skin minus their face (mostly) is covered in tattoos. can't help it. has gotten re-tattooed over older tattoos because they grew tired of them. has a knuckles tattoo that just says KNUC KLES. it's actually their favorite sonic character.

was a band kid in high school. and a dnd nerd. is still a dnd nerd. and a comic book nerd. and a horror movie nerd.

still plays guitar, sometimes does their own vocal tracks but it's mostly distorted or altered in some way. is stuck in the 2000s emo scene perpetually, but also the punk scene. and the nu metal scene? there's variety.

has a lip ring. and a nose ring. and an eyebrow ring. lots of rings.

nude figure model for the local colleges' art programs because they would never say no to some extra money, and also because they love their body.

vegan n loud n proud about it. big on sustainability and animal rights.

#marina:intro #divorce tw #drugs tw #body horror tw #injury tw #infection tw #delusions tw #––– ❛ gabriel leone 【 the sound of the waves collide / about. 】

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mcrtyrdoms · 9 months

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;; GABRIEL LEONE — AS TOLD.

[ justice smith, nonbinary, he/they ] - was that gabriel 'gabe' leone i saw by the lighthouse today? i heard that the twenty seven year old who has been in nightrest for twenty years and works as a bartender at deadlights / tattoo apprentice at deadly inks has a reputation of being animated, but also foolhardy. they reside in fog gate & people in town usually associate them with waking up in a body as heavy as the dead, emotions always on the verge of spilling over; laughing before the punch lands, and the belief that every encounter you have will be the last. let’s hope the killer doesn’t go after them next. [ james, 24, they/them, est, n/a ]

MENTIONS OF TERMINAL ILLNESS, DIVORCE, DRUGS, DEPRESSION, DEATH MENTION, WOUND INFECTION, VAGUE NSFW, SMOKING BEYOND THIS POINT.

profile.

full name: gabriel ‘gabe’ leone.

birthday: october 31st, 1995.

astrology: scorpio sun, scorpio moon, gemini ascending.

sexuality: queer.

currently listening to: sextape by deftones.

current mood: desperate 🥺

current location: [[[cannot be found]]]

last tweet: pleasepleaseplease let me tattoo the sexy rat please this is a HOMAGE to my HOME.

PINTEREST.

history.

grows up in the jersey suburbs with their mom and dad for the first seven years of his life. his mother sonia’s an art student-turned-struggling artist who splits her time between nj and nyc for whichever side gig she can pick up, and his father’s an old punk turned chef with a severe vendetta against bobby flay.

when money’s tight and there’s no sitter to turn to during the summer, gabe accompanies their parents into the city. occasionally the stars align and sonia picks up a waitressing shift at the restaurant his father works at, allowing gabe to sit in a tucked away booth and scribble away. sometimes his dad’s old friends stop by the diner, letting gabe color inside the lines of their tattoos as his mom finishes up for the day.

TERMINAL ILLNESS; when gabe’s seven, sonia gets a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with an illustrator she’s long admired and once mentored under; he’s terminal, losing control of his hands, and needs someone to finish what he no longer can. the pay isn’t the most lucrative, but the experience alone is enough for sonia to accept the offer. the only catch being that they have to relocate to nightrest, massachusetts, where her old mentor resides.

around the same time, gabe’s dad gets promoted at the restaurant he’s been cooking at - he’s got it in good with the owners, could very well own the business himself if he keeps up the way he has. he loves his job, loves the restaurant and the bustle of the city. he wants to move them up to nyc.

DIVORCE; gabe doesn’t really understand why it happens, he’s seven and doesn’t really know where massachusetts is - they already take the train between new jersey and new york, why couldn’t they take the train from new york to massachusetts? if their parents love each other, why do they have to go separate ways? no amount of explaining could make gabe understand; and next thing he knows, his mom’s driving with him up to nightrest.

it’s tough settling in at first; gabe misses their dad and the city, and his dad’s cooking, and taking the train every other weekend between the two states - and his dad’s cooking, again. but it’s not all so bad; even though they reside in nightrest - the town is still drenched in halloween, like a constant celebration of gabe’s birthday. and he’s not completely alone; their dad’s old walkman left in their possession and the promise of visiting whenever he can.

days turn into years, and gabe’s older now, a teenager; he still visits the city every summer and crashes on his dad’s couch when he’s not out exploring the city or making out with a random boy from the hardcore show they’ve just attended.

MINOR DEATH MENTION; sonia remarries, eventually - and it’s like, good. it’s really good. they met during one of sonia’s local art exhibitions, her career finally taking off after her mentor’s passing. his name’s bill, or greg - maybe craig. he makes sonia laugh like gabe’s dad did, and has a son around gabe’s age. it’s good. life is good for them.

DRUG MENTION; it’s difficult for gabe to adjust to the marriage, and the addition of a step-brother. he’s not used to family being anything other than sonia, or his dad. his friends are like a family to them, but that’s different. it just feels different. their step-brother doesn’t play dnd, or care for marching band in the way that gabe oddly does - doesn’t listen to hardcore, or appreciate horror movies despite living in nightrest. fuck, he doesn’t even smoke weed. not even a little.

gabe’s not home as often - they’re off doing better things, like smoking in someone else’s basement and trying hard to start a band that never really takes off. they do free piercings at parties in cramped bathrooms; it’s how they’ve gotten several of their own. stick and pokes on someone’s grandfather’s old leather couch, drinking shitty beer from the only gas station that doesn’t check ids just outside of town.

they don’t mean to distance themselves from their family - it just sort of happens. the only child complex; the inability to share, and minor feelings of incompetency whenever his step-brother gets praised for his ever-growing list of achievements, while gabe’s stuck with the same routine of try hard, fail, mope, then pick themself up again just to do it all over again.

eventually they graduate high school (barely but surely) and enroll in the community college - most of their friends head off to better colleges in better states for better opportunities while gabe stays in the same place. they could go back to the city - but it’s expensive, and well - fuck - gabe doesn’t know. it’s hard to go anywhere once you feel stuck.

DEPRESSION, DEATH MENTION; they start taking anti-depressants sometime after dropping out of college, unsure of what they want to actually do with their life. gabe hits a couple low-points, but eventually takes up a job as a piercer at a tattoo shop down in salem and gets an apartment for dangerously cheap in fog gate after the previous tenant passed unexpectedly in the home.

INFECTION, VAGUE NSFW; gabe tells this one customer like a thousand times the proper aftercare for a fresh piercing, especially one done in a particularly...sensitive area - not to go swimming, wash with a saline solution, etc. etc. does the douchebag listen? no. has the audacity to go to a beach party - swim in the fucking water - then comes back saying that gabe’s fucked up the piercing, that it’s all infected - that he’ll sue. gabe knows damn well they didn’t fuck up the piercing - but it’s their word against his, and eventually gabe’s forced to quit as a piercer just to appease the guy.

present day and gabe’s currently a bartender at deadlights - just managed to get an apprenticeship at deadly inks after following the artists around the shop like a lost puppy - sad eyes and all. now if only they’ll let him tattoo on people. they’ve always liked drawing - the talent not quite as natural to gabe as it is to their mom, but years of practicing american traditional instead of writing chemistry notes has finally paid off.

traits.

has a serial case of being Too Friendly. they just love to talk. they’re not very good with long silences and will end up making some sort of noise to compensate anyways, so might as well let them ramble on about whatever. charismatic but still a little awkward at times.

DRUGS, DEATH MENTION; had a bad acid trip sometime last year that messed with his psyche a bit, had him thinking he was dead and a ghost for like. hours. worried they’re gonna like crack their back the wrong way one day and go on another bad trip.

tries so much to be like. Positive. Think Positive. sometimes they get into a bad rut and it takes them a couple of days (more like weeks) to fully snap out of it, but they really do try.

very affectionate with all his friends and gets lonely if they’re left alone for too long. separation anxiety</3. really likes being around others. loves parties. like gabe can cope if they’re on their own but they’re almost a little catlike in the sense like. they need alone time when they need it but when they need people time they Need it.

so endlessly loyal unless a friend’s done some truly fucked shit. but other than that gabe’s a ride or die.

he’s short. gabe’s like, 5′6″ at the very most. but what they lack in height they make up for in heart<3

just. fully covered in tattoos. started with stick and pokes and those cheap little tattoo guns from amazon when they were a teenager, all the way to their current big age with like. actual professionally done tattoos. there’s like very little skin that hasn’t been tattooed at this point.

has knuckle tattoos but they literally just say KNUC KLES.

was a Band Kid. was in marching band. and u know what? he fucking loved it. tried to start his own band as a teenager but it never took off and now he just plays guitar as a hobby.

has. a lip ring, a nose ring, and an eyebrow bar.

grew up interacting with the diy punk scene in nyc when he would go in the summertime, and their music taste reflects that almost exclusively. perpetually stuck in the early 2000s even though he was like 10.

has a rly old iphone like they don’t make the chargers for it anymore kind of old but he’s just not willing to upgrade it. doesn’t know how it’s still running. but he doesn’t have iphone kind of money.

99% sure they have adhd but were never tested or medicated for it. explains a lot of executive dysfunction but gabe does Not want to think about their problems like, ever. will avoid problems involving himself, like, interpersonally, but if one of their friends starts acting weird or distant then gabe will instantly be like. whats up? you good? why are u ignoring me? :/

has modeled nude for figure drawing classes before because they r proud of their body goddammit.

sometimes, occasionally, crosses that boundary between friendship and like. situationship. likes affection and pleasure but most of their relationships are short-term because they also live fast die young or whatever. what i’m trying to say is that gabe has been around the block more than a few times.

SMOKING; will never give up cigarettes for vaping!! never!!

huge nerd; plays dnd, loves high fantasy. loves halloween. big horror enthusiast.

doesn’t sleep well at all and is usually running on only a few hours. like at most 5 hours.

OH. THEY’RE VEGAN. passionate about like. Big Meat and animal cruelty and the environment and sustainability. all their leather is secondhand, they mostly thrift. just like their dad they also cook<3 mostly trying new vegan recipes that they then make their friends try.

they try their best to stay neat but sometimes<3 it just doesn’t stay that way. their apartment accumulates mess but then gabe will dedicate like an entire day or two to deep cleaning. it’s actually very therapeutic idk.

relationships.

long term friends!! people who’ve known them since they moved, or since high school, etc. people that gabe would die for without a second thought.

like a best best friend. the bestest of friends. the one person gabe cannot imagine life without.

first loves, second loves, thirds, forths, etc. spanning from high school to current day. i imagine most of their relationships are like. puppy love or honeymoon phases and then it fizzles out or gabe gets a little Too Much for the other to handle. most of them would be with masculine-presenting people i’d imagine

hook-ups of christmas past, present, n future. just fun, no thoughts or feelings which is hard because gabe falls in love just a little bit with like every person they meet<3

i love antagonistic relationships. people who hate gabe. gabe who hates people. they’re surprisingly spiteful and not a forgive n forget type of person. holds grudges like a motherfucker sometimes. maybe a brawl or two. it’d be funny if every once in a while they exchange hate texts just reminding each other how much they dislike the other.

i also love pining and unrequited feelings<3

apartment neighbors, i think gabe lives alone but he’s very neighborly (and is broke and out of ingredients and will ask for two slices of bread or a cup of sugar). but he’ll also leave fresh baked vegan goods outside your door<3

bar friends! drinking friends! dnd friends! artist friends!

friends to enemies or enemies to friends. got into physical fights in high school but now you’re like begrudgingly becoming friends now that you’re older<3

or maybe ur drifting away!

omg. the guy who tried to sue gabe for the dick piercing mishap.

but im down fr like literally anything gabe is Versatile and i love any sort of connection.

#nightrest:intro #illness tw #death tw #depression tw #drugs tw #smoking tw #infection tw #divorce tw #hello again ... friend of a friend ...

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