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whumpwillow · 2 years

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Kane & Jim fanfic: View

saw this post and felt inspired...what if Jim saw a video of Kane’s torture ohohoho. why would the hunters would randomly send Jim a video of Kane’s torture? Idk don’t question it

based on the characters and series by @whumpsday

warnings: past torture, whipping, blood, references to past captivity and abuse, trauma

—

The day had already started off weird with the solar eclipse. He’d seen one before—they happened every eighteen months—so its occurrence wasn’t the odd thing. Jim watched it from his doorstep, wearing some protective sunglasses, and felt this was something he should have seen coming. He should have known when it was going to happen, when he would be vulnerable even during the day. It made sense and didn’t make sense at the same time, and it stirred in him an uneasy feeling as the sun was blacked out by the moon.

Did vampires burn even under a covered sun?

Kane had run off to the basement as soon as Jim opened the door, which could either mean the answer was yes, or it was just his usual reaction due to the trauma he’d experienced at the hands of the hunters who held him captive.

Vampires and the sun didn’t mix, no matter the situation.

Things only got better from there, and by better, he meant worse. Jim dropped a piece of silverware while making lunch and Kane went to pick it up, only to end up with burned fingertips and tears in his eyes. Jim had forgotten—of all things—that his silverware was real silver. A gift from Liz, to make him feel safe, back in the early days when he’s spend every second looking over his shoulder for a certain vampire, expecting him to make a reappearance.

The same vampire he’d dreaded seeing for years was now kneeling on his kitchen floor, sniveling. He reached to pick up the fork again, the blasted idiot, and Jim grabbed it from his hands a bit too forcefully. He just didn’t want Kane to burn himself again, but now the vampire had his forehead pressed to the floor and began begging him for mercy.

“I-I I’m sorry…I’m sorry, I just—I wanted to help—”

Jim knelt down beside him. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re being plenty helpful.” He put a gentle hand on Kane’s hair, ruffling softly. “I just don’t want you to get burned again. You don’t need to.”

Eventually, Kane sat upright and nodded. Wiped his tears on his sleeve. Drew in a shaky breath.

It was longer still before Jim had him calmed down enough to get off the floor.

After lunch, Jim went to check his email. He didn’t get much of them; he wasn’t exactly the most social of the family. Though he did like to know what was going on every once in a while, maybe see if he got another royalty payment coming in from that damned book.

The newest weird thing was the email that appeared at the top of his inbox, displayed with an empty subject line. The sender’s address spelled out a name that sounded vaguely familiar so Jim didn’t immediately discard it as spam, but it looked sketchy as hell. Jim couldn’t place where it might’ve come from. It contained no words. Only a single video file, which Jim was glad his antivirus scanned before opening.

He wished he never had.

The video started with an image of Kane. Kane, as he was before. A scared, bloodied thing, curled on the floor in the heart of the hunter’s base. Jim’s stomach clenched, already dreading what he was about to see. He knew the hunters had been cruel to him—obviously, because Kane had ended up the way he had. But the vampire had never detailed explicitly what had happened to him during those long years. Jim could only guess.

He paused the video before it began.

The Kane that had been presented when he first came to collect him from the hunters was not what he’d been expecting. He thought he was getting the same arrogant, smarmy bastard who’d punch Jim’s lights out for looking at him wrong. Who’d thrown him against a wall for talking back. Who threatened to shatter his ankles if he ever caught him, and meant it.

A shiver ran through him.

The Kane he’d picked up had been…obsequious. Subservient. Desperate. He wore an unpadded muzzle, the silver directly against his skin, and hardly any clothes. He was unclean yet relatively uninjured, but there was a haunted look in his eyes that Jim was intimately familiar with.

He clicked the play button.

The camera showed Kane in about the same state as Jim had found him in, sans the muzzle. He wore no chains, only a small pair of tattered shorts, and had a few scrapes but little else in the way of injuries. He lie sprawled out on the concrete floors of the base, looking up at the camera with tears pooling in his eyes.

Someone laughed in the background.

The camera shifted upward abruptly to show three men behind Kane. One of them had a long, silver whip in his hand, the tail of it dragging over the floor and ending in a spiked point like an arrow.

Jim inhaled deeply and held his breath.

“Come on!” one of the men in the video shouted impatiently. “What’re we waiting for?”

The man with the whip jostled him, bumping him in the shoulder. “Fuck you, you wanna do it?”

The hunter behind the camera sighed. “Decide quickly—I’m running out of battery, dumbass.”

The other hunters rolled their eyes and the first one that had spoken made a low groan in the back of his throat. The camera moved back to show Kane. A pair of feet entered the frame, followed by the sound of metal being dragged over concrete.

Jim had to remember to breathe.

THWACK

“Ngh!”

Kane whimpered as the whip struck him, hot and quick. The camera focused in on his back, on the bright blood that welled from the wound in a thin line. The pointed tip had missed him—it had missed him, Jim thought, but that was only the first strike. He wasn’t naïve enough to think it would stop there.

It didn’t.

The next strike came down and Kane spasmed, his back arching in pain and his hands stiffening like claws. The tears that had been gathering in his eyes spilled over like he was an overfilled glass, water dripping down to his chin and bruised jaw.

Another strike. Another scream.

This one sizzled as it hit. The camera had to have been good quality, for Jim could hear every minute detail. Like the moment butter hits a hot pain, it made a tsssss sound for more than a few seconds.

“Hck—”

The next lash hit. And the next.

The fifth strike fell and the barbed point lodged itself in Kane’s shoulder as the hunter doing the torturing tried to pull back the whip. Kane’s chest heaved up and down, his head bowed, jaw locked. He didn’t move. He didn’t go to pull out the silver that burned him, that must have been searing in his bloodstream, burning his skin as if someone had taken a blowtorch to it. He didn’t resist.

Jim paused the video. He considered closing out of the tab, deleting the email, and forgetting that all of this ever happened and never speaking of it again. He felt nauseous—more than that, he felt sick to his stomach. The utter submission rather than the obvious abuse was what got to him. It struck something in him that he’d rather have forgotten and he hated it. Hated it to his core.

He pressed play.

“P-please…” Kane whimpered. “Please, please stop. I’m sorry—I—”

More raucous laughter.

“Guys, it’s sorry!”

THWACK

Kane threw his head back and screamed. Jim didn’t know what to think. The pain, the loneliness, the despair—he knew those things. Kane had never whipped him—thank all that was decent—but he could understand the emotions Kane must have been going through in that moment.

The pain was an entirely different matter altogether. Jim couldn’t even fathom what it must have been like.

“N-no more, please please please no more!"

Kane begged and begged, but the whipping did not stop. The video played on for what could have been hours or only minutes. Jim didn’t know. He couldn’t look away from the screen, from the blood and the tears and the long ropy lashes on Kane’s bare back that multiplied every second. Red. Red. Red. His skin was torn to shreds and he’d curled in on himself, turning his body into a ball, huddled on the floor for what little protection he could find.

Begging turned to babbling, which lead to unintelligible noises of pain with the occasional scream, which then tapered off into sobbing. Jim lost himself in the torment, watching the darkest moments of Kane’s life as he was stripped of everything that made him who Jim had once known.

“Jim?” Kane asked.

Jim gasped and whirled around, knocking several things off his desk. They clattered to the floor, a scattering of pens and paperclips. Kane stood in the doorway.

“Kane!” Jim exclaimed.

Oh no, the video.

In a moment of extreme panic and stupidity, Jim closed the tab, shutting off the horrid video. He then felt foolish, because it made him look like he was hiding something when Kane had clearly already seen what it was.

Jim sheepishly turned back to face Kane. “Hey, I—”

Words fell short when he saw the stricken expression on the vampire’s face. He was paler than usual, which was saying something, as he was a vampire. His eyes held that same haunted look as when Jim had first rescued him, and for a second, he thought Kane had gone somewhere far away, deep within his memories.

He took a step forward into the room. Blinked a few times.

“You saw.”

Jim winced. “Listen, I’m sorry, I—”

Kane gave him an absent, half-hearted smile and shrugged. “Don’t worry. That was far from the worst thing that’s happened to me, so you don’t have to feel bad.”

Jim stared at him without moving for a beat. That was far from the worst thing that’s happened to him? That wasn’t the worst?

“The fuck do you mean I don’t have to feel bad?” Jim blurted out without meaning to.

Kane flinched. Jim held out his hands, palms out, in a placating manner.

“I’m sorry, I mean, what I meant was that I’m sorry I watched the video without your permission. I know it’s something deeply personal, so I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to see…you like that,” Jim finished lamely.

Kane positioned himself next to the desk and leaned on the edge, just slightly. “Ah.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, I didn’t know what it was at first, so…” Jim rambled.

“I don’t mind,” Kane said. “You’re free to do anything you like.”

Jim inhaled deeply and let out a breath. Funny, that he should hear those words now from the same person who had restricted him for so long.

“But seriously though,” Jim started. He looked up at Kane from his chair and raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Kane nodded. Jim could tell he didn’t want to lie to his face in words.

—

#whump #whump writing #my writing #willow writes #vampire whump #vampire whumpee #recorded torture #whumper turned whumpee #whumpee turned caretaker

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whumpetywhump · 2 years

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Favourite Trope: Held Hostage (87/?) Private Lives - Ep. 15

<- Previous Masterlist Next ->

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twopaperairplanes89 · 5 days

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The Tortured Poets Department 🤍

#taylor swift #lover #1989 tour #my edit #swift #ts7 #taylor #edit #tswiftedits #1989 #ttpd #ts ttpd #taylor swift ttpd #the tortured poets department #vinyl records #vinylcollection #vinyl

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tswiftupdatess · 6 days

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Local Record Stores are giving fans who buy 'THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT' vinyl variants a printed note Taylor Swift wrote for Record Store Day!

''Happy Record Store day!! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for welcoming The Tortured Poets Department into your vinyl collection and your life. It's my goal to create a memento you'll want to keep forever, and I hope you'll feel that with every turn of the page of the lyric book, every secret thought poured into this work. It's an honor to be able to trust you with my feelings. Love, Taylor.''

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #record stores #ttpd #taylorswift #swifties #april 19 #photoshoot

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kingofmyborrowedheart · 2 months

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Having thoughts about Taylor writing “Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past” in the prologue for Red (Taylor’s Version).

#taylor swift #ttpd #red tv #girlie was going through it and we are going to hear about it soon #this just stuck out to me particularly since we know she was working on both midnights and the tortured poets around red tvs release #I think a lot was dredged up for her doing the re-recordings and it made her reflect on the past (midnights) and present (ttpd)

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cyarsk5230 · 6 days

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verity1989 · 5 days

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The Tortured Poets Department

The Albatross

#taylor swift #swifties #taylor swift eras #taylornation #vinyllover #vinyl records #cd collection #cds #taylor swift ttpd #ts ttpd #ttpd era #ttpd #the tortured poets department #the albatross

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thissmycomingofage · 8 days

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All I'll say about ttpd for now is that everytime I thought "oh finally something interesting and pretty!" It was an Aaron song. Every. Single. Time.

#i didnt even do it on purpose but i went to check the credit of the one song i was listening to #and it was always him #this man is caring this mediocre record on his back #ttpd leaks #ttpd spoilers #artist: taylor swift #album: the tortured poets department #text #oli schist!

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serickswrites · 3 months

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Not Listening

Warnings: captivity, restraints, torture, gag, video recording, knife, blood, threat of death

Caretaker answered the video call from Whumpee with mild frustration. Whumpee knew they had a busy work day and couldn't take time off to chat. They had talked with Whumpee about waiting until after work to talk. "What?"

A face Caretaker had never seen before stared at Caretaker. "Caretaker?"

"Who is this? Actually, you know what," Caretaker couldn't keep the irritation from coloring their words, "I'm sure you're some friend of Whumpee's. I can't talk now. I told Whumpee that. I have a lot of important things at work today. So, whoever you are, tell Whumpee I'll call them on my way home since they are so eager to talk."

"Caretaker, allow me--" the stranger started, but Caretaker cut them off.

"I am hanging up now. Tell Whumpee I don't appreciate having my day interrupted like this."

"Tell them yourself," the stranger said as they walked over to something--someone--tied to a chair. They fisted the person's hair and lifted their head. Whumpee sat bound and gagged in the chair. The stranger held a knife to Whumpee's throat. "Do I have your attention now, Caretaker?"

Caretaker's mouth went dry. "What do you want?" Whumpee looked unharmed, their eyes wide with fear.

The person pressed the knife point to Whumpee's throat, drawing a small trickle of blood. "Well, I just want to talk, Caretaker. But are you ready to listen?"

#serickswrites #whump #whumpblr #queue #whump community #whump writing #tw captivity #tw restraints #tw torture #tw blood #tw gag #tw video recording #tw knife #tw threat of death

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befuddled-calico-whump · 4 months

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Total $hit$how: A Subtle Threat

in which Kaius begins to understand who he's working with

cw: violence/beating, adult language, brief emeto mention, implied/referenced torture

previous ///// masterlist ///// next

×~×~×

“I didn't even get to help.”

“Sure you did! You said the drone chassis was like a combo lock—”

“A master brand combo lock yes, but those are child's play.”

The team was gathered in the dining hall for the evening meal; platters of tasteless chicken, rice, and some unidentified green vegetable. Kaius assumed it was as nutritious as it was bland, and mindlessly forked small bites into his mouth as the others chattered. Vic’s test had been as challenging as he’d anticipated, and though they’d technically failed it, the trial had given him a better perspective on the team. Cavan was fearless and determined; Ruebin was fearful but willing to run into danger all the same; and Davis… Jericho’s heart got in the way of his brain. Even Harbor had his uses, when he proved willing to cooperate.

He was nearly finished with his meal when Vic strolled into the room, something unreadable on his face. Cavan and Ruebin fell silent, and Jericho straightened in his chair. Shockingly, even Harbor sat up straight for once, looking like he may actually be paying attention. Strange to see him go from a slouching mess to someone who looked like he almost cared about this mission in the span of a few weeks.

Kaius had paid enough attention to know he and Vic had been spending time alone, but he was uncertain if it was for behavioral correction, additional training, or something else, and he didn’t care enough to speculate.

“I hate to interrupt your dinners,” Vic began. His tone was rife with his usual friendliness, though it seemed off, somehow. Like his voice was wearing a mask.

“I’ve just received an encrypted transmission from a source I believe is connected to Rotorworx.”

Interesting. If the transmission was anything pertinent, it could be the first new development in their intelligence collection. Kaius wondered if this would turn out to be something negative, and that was the explanation behind the shift in Vic. Was their handler concerned about something?

Unsurprisingly, Cavan raised her hand. “So does that mean they know who we are? Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“It’s nothing to be worried about,” Vic replied. “They reached me using a phantom frequency. One-time use. Untraceable.”

Jericho frowned. “How did they get the frequency?”

At this, Vic sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want all of you to come with me to the briefing room. I’ll answer further questions there.”

Kaius pushed himself up from the table without hesitation. If they were being directed to the briefing room, this was certainly a more serious matter. The rest of the group trailed behind, filing into the room and taking their seats. A projector screen had been set up against one wall, and the lights were dimmed. Vic closed the door behind them and typed something into the keyboard of an open laptop. The screen flickered to life, a gray stone wall frozen on the frame.

Vic pressed a button, and the video began to play.

“If you’re seeing this, you fucked up,” came a voice, made tinny and small by the laptop audio. It was that of a man, low and hoarse, and as he spoke, he angled the camera down, catching his black lace-up boots for an instant. “We caught your little spy.”

Caught their..? Kaius’s breath stuck in his throat as the camera spun around, landing on a figure tied to a chair. He was slouched forward as if unconscious and stripped to the waist, revealing scarred skin and a heavily bruised torso. Curly, sweat-damp hair hung in his face, obscuring it, but Kaius knew who it was.

“Sahota,” Jericho whispered.

A second figure moved into frame, masked and clad in black. They seized a fistful of Sahota’s hair with a gloved hand, forcing his head up. His face was just as bruised as the rest of him, his eyes unfocused and glaring, blood streaming from his nose.

“If you want him to stay in one piece, you’ll need to take it up with our boss,” said the man behind the camera. “If you don’t, it’s no skin off my back. I’m sure we’ll crack him eventually.” At that, the second figure let Sahota’s head drop, moving around to drive their fist into their captive’s stomach. The camera lingered in place as the beating continued, blow following blow until Sahota was retching up bile.

Every moment of impact sent a small jolt through Kaius—a memory of a nightmare that might’ve not been a nightmare after all—but he couldn’t make himself look away.

“What?” said the cameraman. “Nothing to say to that? Nothing?” He punctuated the question with a blow that sent Sahota’s head snapping to the side, but didn’t draw out much more than a gasp in way of sound. The cameraman let out a breathy laugh.

“Guess if we can’t crack him, we’ll just kill him and find you anyway.” The camera dropped, lens facing the ground once more. “Your choice.”

Vic turned it off. In the absence of the video's sound---the blows and threats and ragged breaths---the silence was very, very loud

“Following this, there’s a black screen with instructions to contact,” Vic said simply, like he was just listing the day’s training exercises.

“What are they? How do we start?”

“We aren’t going to start, Miss Cavan.”

Kaius felt frozen in his seat, unable to look away from the now-blank screen, unable to stop seeing Sahota’s bloodied face. He couldn’t steer his thoughts from his childhood home, the grand estate and all the secrets within it, the secrets he’d worked so hard to uncover but found only regret when they’d come to light. Blood and stone and chains, his mother telling him to come sit in the drawing room and they’d talk about it, and I promise this all has a perfectly sane explanation—

“Then what is your proposed course of action?” Kaius spat out, the words coming out too harsh. No matter, he just needed to curb his thoughts, and there was nothing for that like a good plan. Now that he’d torn himself free of the screen, he could see he wasn’t the only one the video had affected. Across the table, Ruebin was still and teary-eyed, and Jericho seemed rigid beside him.

“Action?” Vic repeated. “I don’t plan on taking action.”

“What?” Joy said. “What do you mean, you’re not taking action? Isn’t he your partner?”

“Sahota is perfectly capable—”

“Sahota is tied to a fucking chair getting the shit beat out of him,” Cavan protested. “Why would you show us this if you don’t want us doing anything about it?”

Vic calmly closed the laptop screen, then moved to turn the lights back on. “I prefer to keep my operatives in the know if the situation pertains to them. The video explains the potential prolonged absence of your trainer better than words could, as well as providing justification for any adjusted security measures on my part.”

Cavan stood. “So what, that was an infographic?” she snarled. “Is he just a fucking visual aid to you?”

“Miss Cavan—”

“I don’t give a fuck what your plan is, I’m not just going to sit here while your second-in-command is tortured.”

“He can take it,” Vic snapped, and his voice seemed to echo in the silence it caused. Cavan’s mouth fell open, but she said nothing.

“Take your seat.”

She did, the room quiet and waiting around her. Vic let the air still for a long moment, as if daring the room to cause another interruption.

“I’d thank all of you to maintain a respectful tone,” he said at last, his voice stony and cool. “Remember that you only have this opportunity because of me, and that I can take it away as easily as I granted it.”

The muscles in Cavan’s jaw tightened.

“Sahota is a trained agent. I know him better than anyone, and I know what he can handle,” Vic continued. “The goons currently in possession of him don’t know what they’re dealing with. Should I give in to their demands and contact their boss, I would be lighting a beacon. They would locate me, locate every one of you, and come down with everything they had. You all would return to whatever sub-ideal situation I rescued you from, and the mission would be a bust. In a few weeks’ time, the Reality Cage would conduct its test, and untold destruction would fall onto the city, potentially the world.” He paused, tugging down the cuff of his shirtsleeve. “And all this for the sake of sparing Sahota a little pain.”

Kaius swallowed, his palms flat on the table though he couldn’t seem to feel its surface. Logically, doing nothing seemed to be the correct move, but the way Vic said it, cold and uncaring, only filled him with a sense of wrongness.

“Is there a third option?” he asked. “You have resources. Is a rescue attempt out of the question?”

“It would be a waste of time and energy,” Vic replied.

“Would it?” Jericho said. “What if they get something out of him? Wouldn’t the mission be a bust anyway?”

At that, Vic actually smiled. “They don’t have what it takes to break Sahota.”

“They said they’d kill him then,” Ruebin spoke at last, his voice wavering. “We—We have to try—”

“They won’t get a chance,” Vic said. Some of his usual jovial tone was beginning to creep back into his voice, and Kaius wondered if the initial shift he’d detected wasn’t worry at all, but frustration at a minor setback. The way he was speaking, it appeared that was all this was to him. Could the same be said for Sahota?

Kaius had a sort of admiration for their trainer. Cold though he was, he was efficient and competent, and didn’t waste words. Having seen him in action, Kaius did not doubt Vic’s claims that he could hold out. But that didn’t mean he should have to.

“I didn’t realize you would all be so distressed over this,” Vic continued. “Rest assured, Sahota will be fine. He will escape, and he will complete his mission. If you don’t believe me, you don’t know him at all. You saw it yourselves. He was hardly shaken by their threats.”

The bruises, the glazed look in his eyes like he was distancing himself from the moment…

Kaius clenched his jaw. “You don’t think it will be a detriment to our training when he returns injured?”

Vic let out a dry chuckle. “You’d be surprised what he can walk off. I don’t think he feels pain at all, not anymore.”

“I still think we should try—”

“I see now that I made a mistake showing this to you,” Vic interrupted. “I can only blame myself. I keep forgetting you’re not accustomed to our lifestyle.” He let out a loud sigh. “But if it gives you peace of mind, I suppose I’ll allow you to attempt a rescue mission.”

“Allow… us?” Ruebin said.

“Yes. I can promise you, you are the only ones with any concern for Sahota’s well-being. I can’t spare the manpower, but if it’ll put your hearts at ease, I can spare you. If you five unanimously agree to it, I’ll temporarily release you from the facility for that purpose.” He held out his hands, palms up, an eyebrow raised. “So what say you? Who wants to rescue Sahota?”

Immediately, Cavan’s hand shot up, closely followed by Jericho. Kaius raised his own hand with a grimace. They’d need someone to keep them on track.

Across from him, Ruebin closed his eyes, let out a breath, and thrust his own arm up. Almost surprising. Kaius knew he’d never volunteer on his own, but the man seemed more confident in a pack. There was only one vote left to count.

Truthfully, Kaius was surprised Harbor’s hand hadn’t gone up sooner. The often-disheveled man was certainly reckless enough, and if anything, Kaius at least expected him to volunteer out of boredom. But when he glanced over, Harbor was still, fingers tapping restlessly against the table, his eyes fixed on Vic.

Cavan let out a huff. “Harbor, it’s on you. Do you really not want to—”

“I think Vic is right,” he mumbled. “It’d just be a waste of time. Sahota’ll get out soon anyway.”

Before she could protest, Vic clapped his hands together.

“It’s settled then. I suppose I should let you all get back to your dinner.” He unlocked the door and opened it with a shove. “Dismissed.”

It was clear that was the end of the conversation. Kaius was slow to stand, but the others were slower, shuffling out into the hall like undead. It felt surreal, to be called in to witness brutality against an ally only to be told they could do nothing about it. Almost like it wasn’t the explanation Vic had claimed it was, but a warning. ‘Should you stumble on your quest, this will be you, and no one is coming to save you.’

Jericho and Cavan were whispering behind him, and Kaius turned his breathing shallow to pick up on their voices.

“...really stop us? If we can find out where he is—”

“Dangerous, but I like our odds.”

Hmm. Kaius slowed his stride until the pair were a scant few feet behind him. “Planning an illicit rescue?” he said, not turning around.

“Maybe,” Cavan whispered. “Want in?”

To disobey orders was to put himself against Vic, a scenario he was liking less and less. But to turn his back on Sahota’s predicament completely was no different from participating in his torture, and Kaius had sworn to himself years ago it would never come to that. If you had to become the thing you ran from in order to escape it, what was the point of running at all?

“Both captors were dressed in low-grade tactical gear,” Kaius said. “They’re likely mercenaries hired by Rotorworx, and likely don’t have an excess of weapons or backup. The location they had him in in the video is walled by a very distinct type of stonemasonry, indicating one of the city’s older buildings, likely the basement of a repurposed church or courthouse.” He cast a half-glance over his shoulder. “Which should bring us down to a dozen or so potential targets, if we’re lucky.”

“Shit,” said Cavan.

“We need to get out of here first. Without Vic knowing,” Jericho said.

“Better get Benji onboard.”

“What about Harbor?”

“He’s made his choice,” Kaius said. “Meet in the kitchen at midnight. If we can make it out of the facility undetected, I’ll have a plan at the ready.”

Perhaps it was stupid, but to stay his hand would be to betray himself. Even without his usual resources, Kaius was confident he could come up with something substantial.

He kept careful watch of the time and sat in his room, lights off, mentally recovering everything he knew about the city. To reach it on foot would take too long; they’d need to commandeer some sort of vehicle. Then once they located Sahota, they’d need to deal with his captors. If they were incredibly lucky, it would only be the pair that had shown up in the video, but even if they weren’t, Kaius was willing to bet there were no more than five men. The team had no access to weapons, but he supposed he could leave it to Cavan to improvise something.

The clock struck eleven fifty five, and Kaius made his silent journey to the kitchen.

Jericho was already there when he arrived, Cavan and Ruebin stepping in a shade before midnight.

“The path outside is likely alarmed. Ruebin?”

“Yup. I’ll handle that.” Ruebin seemed tense. They all did, really. Even Kaius was feeling the fear of potential failure, of what could happen if Vic caught wind of it and they couldn’t sway him to their favor.

“You take point, Manak,” Cavan whispered. “Signal us to stop if you see anything.”

Kaius nodded, motioning them to follow him out of the kitchen. As painful as it was to move slow, caution was key; he had no idea what Vic got up to in the later hours. He halted at every corner, every open doorway, just to make absolutely certain. His nerves buzzed with uncertainty at every step, his own body questioning the will of his mind. He ignored it, peering around the next corner.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up when he caught a silhouette, moving towards them. Kaius held up his hand for the group to halt, moving back a pace. Was it Vic? If their handler caught them at this point, what could they say to dampen his suspicions?

He silently waved the group backwards, gesturing to an open doorway. The library, its lights darkened. The group rushed inside, and Kaius lay down with his body parallel to the room’s inner wall, angled so he could just barely see out into the hallway.

To his surprise, it wasn’t Vic who rounded the corner. It was Sahota.

Kaius had to hold his breath to keep from making a sound as the other man passed by. His cheekbone was darkly bruised, his lips swollen, dried blood still crusted at the corner of his mouth. One finger was wrapped in a crude bandage. Despite this, he walked with his usual grace, though Kaius knew the layers of bruising hidden under his shirt.

Vic… Vic had been right, hadn’t he?

Kaius kept silent until Sahota had disappeared, then slowly pushed himself to his feet.

“Is he gone?” Ruebin whispered.

“He’s back,” Kaius answered. “Sahota is back.”

“No shit,” Cavan muttered.

“We ought to go to bed.”

“Is he okay?”

“He's on his feet.” As bad as his injuries had looked on camera, he seemed unbothered by them. Jericho stood up and began to move towards the hall.

“I'm going to check on him—”

“Don't,” Kaius said. “We can consider our mission complete, and I imagine he'd prefer rest to conversation.” Truth be told, he felt his own plan-oriented nature scrambling at this development, his mind searching for the next step now that everything had so abruptly changed. The only solution he could find was getting to bed; collecting what rest they could before a new training day began. As he left the library and made his way back to the sleeping quarters, the other three followed, albeit reluctantly.

“It was a good plan,” Jericho offered as they walked. “They really can’t get anything past your notice, huh?”

Kaius nodded at the perceived compliment, though he was becoming more and more uncertain of that fact. With every new development, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was getting past him, something that could well be dangling right in front of his nose, but he couldn’t so much as point in the direction of what that something might be.

Whatever it was, perhaps it would only take a more critical eye. Whatever it was, he’d need to unravel it.

Before it was too late.

×~×~×

@theonewithallthefixations

#:)#total$hit$how #stoic whumpee #spy whump #beating #recorded torture #hostage whump #interrogation #whump writing

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taylorvinyl · 2 months

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Taylor Swift, Fearless, and 1989 RSD variants

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #taylors version #rsd #taylor’s version #taylor nation #taylorswift #taylornation #records #vinyl records #record #record store day #vinyls #vinyl

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skyloftian-nutcase · 24 days

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The evening brought a chill as Abel held Link closer. Tilieth was working on cooking dinner for the family, and they were in an area he had just cleared of monsters, so he knew they would be safe for now. It left him time to just hold his son, to look him over and be content in the moment.

Considering such moments came so rarely, he would take what he could of it.

It hadn't even been a hard day. Aside from the skirmish with the beasts, they'd found nearly half a dozen shrines, and they'd all been simple puzzles. No strenuous climbing, no catapults, no endless pits... and at the end of it all, Link's wounds had improved greatly with each spirit orb they found.

And now, Tilieth hummed off tune as usual, bringing a smile to Abel's lips as he gazed at his boy. Link looked serene, resting comfortably on his father's lap, and he turned his head slightly to snuggle in closer. Abel felt his heart speed up a little at the sight of it, considering the boy was usually not reactive at all. Were the spirit orbs really helping that much?

Link sighed steadily through his nose, and then his eyes fluttered open.

Abel jumped a little, reaching for some broth they had set aside for the next time the boy woke. He sat Link up a little, whispering, "Hey, little knight. Time for some food, okay? Can you stay awake?"

Link kept his eyes open, drinking the offered broth as Abel tipped the bottle back for him. The boy had been far more interactive lately, though still clearly not really lucid. At least the fear of him dying of dehydration or starvation was greatly lessened than it used to be.

Link hummed when he was finished, leaning against his father's shoulder and smiling. Abel stared at him, blinking, completely caught off guard. Slowly, he put the bottle down and poked the boy's chest. Link scrunched his nose in response.

Could he be...? "...Link?"

He looked at him.

His boy was looking at him.

Abel stared into the teenager's blue eyes, breathless, his own eyes blown wide. Link blinked blearily, tired, but smiled a little more. "Hi, Papa."

Tilieth's humming stopped immediately, and the sound of a ladel clattering to the ground came next as she rushed over. "Link?!"

Their son turned his head to look at his mother as she fell to her knees beside him.

"Link!" she sobbed, holding him as Abel continued to stare in shock. He--he was--

"Oh, honey," Tilieth cooed, rocking him and holding and probably never ever letting go again. "Honey, you're okay, you're awake!"

"Mama," Link muttered into her collarbone. "You're squishing me."

Tilieth laughed. "That's all you have to say at a time like this?! You silly little goose, do you--"

His wife sobered for a moment, and continued hesitantly, "D-do you remember anything?"

Link watched her curiously, face still bright and open, as if he had no recollection of the Calamity whatsoever.

He doesn't remember it.

Abel came back to life, eyes stinging, hiccups tearing out of him. Link immediately looked at him, wiggling out of his mother's grip. "Papa?"

Abel's lip wobbled, and Link scooted back to his lap, letting his father practically collapse on him. "I missed you, son."

Link stiffened a little before returning the hug in full. "It wasn't your fault, Papa."

Abel jolted. "I--what--"

"It wasn't your fault," his son repeated, emphasizing his words and holding him tighter. "I love you, Papa. I love you so much."

Try as he might, Abel couldn't stop the tears. Something about the boy's words and tone, the fact that he was awake--everything poured out of him at once, sorrowful and joyful and beautiful, and he held his boy so tightly.

"I love you too, little knight."

Link held tighter. And tighter. And tighter until it felt like he was squeezing the life out of him, like he was trapped, and--

Abel opened his eyes, tangled in blankets, hearing Tilieth snoring beside him. Breath tickled his neck, and he looked down to see Link, pale, frail, and injured, sleeping between the parents.

The former knight poked the boy. He didn't stir.

Sighing, Abel wiped away the tears that had somehow managed to fall despite just dreaming, and went back to sleep.

#April Fool's suckers #and by suckers I mean Abel #poor dude #FOR THE RECORD #I blame Tellie and Oma for this #they helped brainstorm how to torture Abel #it was horrible #I loved it #poor abel #blood of the hero #abel #tilieth #breath of the wild link #botw link #writing

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