“I’ve always wanted to hurt you,” Nick murmurs, an immense satisfaction sweeping over him in waves with each round. The pattern soothes him: cinch his hands tight around that throat, squeeze, wait, wait, wait, squeeze harder, then release. Keep his hands on that throat as Crow gasps raggedly, coughs, wheezes. Allow him enough air to remain conscious, and then start again.

The shifter nods slightly as his lips take on an unhealthy grey tinge. He’s gorgeous like this. His hair is unevenly shorn and messy, his body weak from little food and injuries that have made walking difficult. His skin is dull and pale, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He’s worn down and weak and stunningly vulnerable.

Nick squeezes as hard as he can, pressing his fingers into the sides of Crow’s neck instead of crushing his windpipe beyond repair. How long has it been this time around? Fifty, sixty seconds? The week, impulsive struggling toward the end sends his heart racing with glee. He leans down closer to watch.

“Your throat will bruise,” He muses, smiling at his friend’s pained grimace. “Pretty, dark colors. Black and blue and purple. The faded parts, the yellow and green, you won’t see those even after a few days. It’ll stay all dark, because I’m going to choke you every day that you’re here. You’re so gorgeous when you can’t breathe, I could just crush you.” Crow’s eyes are fluttering and rolling back, his body’s spasms fading. Nick lets up his grip and listens to the weakest gasps yet. Time for a break - which means, really, time to watch Crow breathe for as long as he wants.

“I was worried that hurting you for fun would change things. That we would stop being friends. But we haven’t, have we?” His grip tightens just slightly in an unconscious threat.

Crow shakes his head a fraction, and the grip lets up. Glassy dark eyes look up at Nick, and it makes the far larger man smile again.

“Such a pretty bird. You used to hide your bruises with makeup, but you know I like seeing them - you won’t hide these ones, will you? I won’t hurt you anywhere else, won’t bruise your wrists or your ribs. I can control myself. Are you ready for more? We’re going to go for longer this time, I really want you to last longer. It’s no fun when it’s too short. Little gasps in between, maybe? We’ll try that. Take a deep breath first, go on.”

With wild eyes, pupils wide, the Hunter watches Crow take a measured breath, then squeezes his throat to close it off again. He can feel the chest he’s straddling jerk from the start with failed attempts at breathing, can feel the throat under his hands tensing up.

A minute in, he allows Crow a single rasping inhale. A minute later, an exhale. Then, he gives Crow several seconds to breathe as much as he can - they’re rapid, shallow, whistling wheezes, so fast that it resembles hyperventilating. The choking continues too soon, and Crow can’t help but struggle with all his meager strength.

Tears are running down the shifter’s face now. He nearly passes out again, body shuddering; the grip on his throat leaves, and he dry sobs silently.

“I can’t stop.” Nick traces the bruises adoringly, and wipes away his friend’s tears. “I just can’t. Let’s go for hours and hours. I’ve waited so long, I held off, I was patient - I earned this, earned your… participation. Listen, I know… at this point, it’s not worth it to you anymore. You’re scared, you want to go. Some part of you does. But just try to be a good friend and stay, won’t you? Say yes.” There’s a pause, and then, “Ready for more?”

Crow takes a tremulous breath, then nods. Yes, he mouths, obedient like a friend should be.

Nick beams madly and grips so hard, presses down with such force, that he hears a crack and feels Crow go limp.

No. No. Nick jolts awake, hands flying out to find no dead body, no other body near him at all. The sheets are twisted around his legs and the air is stuffy around him, nearly suffocating. Crow isn’t here. No one’s here, except for a warlock in the basement, probably passed out.

Nick would be sick if he did that to Crow, if he gave in to the compulsion to hurt him. His hands still curl inward with the desire to crush, though, and he needs to overwrite this guilt, this horror, with something distracting.

He supposes that he can go on downstairs and choke that warlock until he’s blue in the face and spluttering soundless pleas. Some nameless prisoner, he can choke on and off for hours, can eventually crush into silence without an ounce of regret.

The Hunter stands to do just that.

He didn’t mean to. He didn’t mean to. It’s just hard, it’s hard to swing the weighty thing slick with his sweat, blood getting flung everywhere and flicked off the end of the braided leather.

“Do you know what these are, Nicholas?” His supervisor asks, tapping unmarred skin right next to the welts and slender gashes on the prisoner’s arm; Nick focuses on not reacting.

“They’re from the whip,” The eighteen-year-old answers, staring at the concrete wall just past the man scolding him.

“They’re marks of failure. You still haven’t gotten a handle of using the whip, so it snaps in toward you and cuts you. Instant consequences for inadequacy.” The man’s curt tone makes Nick feel very small, despite his ample height and muscles. He does his best to never flinch, but every time he feels the burn along his upper arms as the whip kicks up in the wrong way, another spark of panic is added to the heap stinging in his chest. He’s changed so much to survive here but it’s not enough, not yet. He still has these little failures.

“If you’re so eager to add onto your collection of new scars…”

Nick’s eyes glisten with the fear he can’t let loose in a cringe or a step back. “No, I’m learning, I’m just - the whip, it’s hard, maybe I can try something else?” He’s seen the combat knives that the senior officers carry at the hip. Big, jagged weapons that can cut through rope, skin, anything meant to give way under a blade. He wants to get to choose what weapons he uses, if he’s going to be forced to use them on people.

His supervisor steps right up to him, and Nick takes an unsteady breath. They get close when it’s time to take his lashes, or to be observed in his agony after the lashes. The supervisor leans in closer, hands wrapping around Nicholas’ upper arms, calluses rough against sore, swollen, stinging wounds.

“There’s a reason we give the new ones the whip to use. So when you fuck up, your supervisor can see it, can count how many mistakes you made.”

“I know,” Nick bites out, scared and trying so hard to hide it behind immediate frustration and pain.

“But more importantly, these help you remember, help you improve. Now. How many do you have?”

“Nnh, I don’t - I haven’t counted. S-several.”

“Let’s count, then. One, two, three, four…”

Staring down at his own arms, following his supervisor’s pointing finger to count the marks, Nicholas’ fear grows. There are far more than he thought - his supervisor counts past ten, past fifteen, and he’s not nearly done. Some of the marks are scabbed over, some in the early stages of scarring. How long will he keep making mistakes? It’s been weeks but still, his hand slips or his mind wanders or he winces at a prisoner’s scream and a new livid red mark is sliced across his skin.

It starts in his hands - it always does. The hands that are made to hold weapons and tools dripping in blood. No amount of steadying breaths will stop the tremor that’s found its way into his hands.

“Stop that quaking,” His supervisor grunts, fingers digging harder into welts.

“T-trying, sir.”

“Now, Whitmore.”

“I’m -“ Nick gasps as he’s forced to his knees, shirt yanked up to expose his barely-healed back. “Trying!”

Despite his plea-tinged cry promising effort, his hands tremble worse by the minute. He can’t stop thinking about his failure, or about the coming consequences.

“Disappointing, Nicholas.”

“Sorry, sir.”

The whip is unfurled from its clip at his supervisor’s side. This time, Nick flinches.

“No-!” Nick cries, blanket swooping upward as his fist swings. His gasps ring out in the dark of the room; his back doesn’t burn with pain, his arms aren’t torn up… but his heart is racing. His chest is heaving with shallow, rapid breaths.

His hands are shaking.

The whumpee asking to sleep near the whumper after having a nightmare.

The whumpee sharing a bed with their caretaker. It doesn’t have any romantic/sexual motives, they just really need someone to hug in their sleep. It staves off the nightmares.

Whump prompts: fever edition

- pale skin with a sheen of sweat, eyes unfocused

- flushed cheeks, lips cracked and bleeding

- lying very still with his eyes open and unseeing, too out of it to do anything else

- thrashing and crying out, trapped in fever dreams

- shivering violently, teeth clenched to stop them chattering, painfully cold even as he’s burning up

- blistering heat that pours off him in waves

- the way his skin is hypersensitive, so being touched - even carefully - hurts

- that fierce ache in his joints, the way it feels like his bones are cracking open

- damp cloths on his forehead and throat, which feel good at first but the fever heats them up almost immediately

- delirium that manifests as terrors and haunting memories which are normally hidden

- delirium that manifests as confusion and distress

- delirium that manifests like a truth-serum

- not knowing friend from foe; fighting against the ones trying to keep him safe

- burning hot tears

- trying to find a cool place on his pillow or on the bed

- fevers from wounds

- fevers from poison or drugs

- fevers from illness: flu, malaria, mystery diseases?

- that moment where he realises something isn’t right: “Does anyone else think it’s warm in here?”

- the world seeming unreal and shimmery, his vision blurring with the heat

- a character who’s been running a low grade fever for days, never enough to justify going home, but enough to make him feel pretty uncomfortable, until someone notices and forces him to go home, and tucks him in bed and feeds him drugs and water and it’s only then that he realises how bad he’s been feeling

- another character inadvertently touching him, and exclaiming in shock: “You’re burning up!”

- temperature taking: someone else’s hand on his forehead (palm cupped for intimacy; the back of the hand of there are walls up between them)

- an old-fashioned thermometer in his mouth

- trying to take his own temperature with the back of his hand, but his hands are also too warm so it’s easy for him to dismiss it as nothing serious

- being forced into a cold bath (or jumping in himself): the violent shock, water so cold it hurts, shaking so hard he cramps up

- being soaked in sweat as his fever breaks, and suddenly being as weak and trembly as a kitten, all of the delirium-born strength gone

- recurring fevers, where he knows that any respite is temporary (and especially if his temperature climbs a little higher each time)

- pushing through a fever, because it’s not that big of a deal, and he’s busy, but it wears him down over time until his body reaches its breaking point and he finally collapses (I will never not love this)

Didn’t know androids had nightmares too…

Nightmare Part 2

Lux fell asleep first, in the Hunter’s lap. It’s been a few hours, and he woke up with a start when the hand in his hair slipped out of the curls and down his back, loose and falling slowly.

The Hunter’s fallen asleep, now, sitting on the cellar floor to hold him. Lux doesn’t dare move but he doesn’t have to see the man’s face to know he’s asleep. His breaths are deep, even and gradual in a kind of calm that only sleep brings. He isn’t touching Lux’s hair, or his scars, isn’t holding him close. The side of the prisoner’s head against his captor’s chest is warm from being held there so long. It’s really comfortable, sitting in the Hunter’s lap, even if it’s scary that he might make the man angry by waking him up. He needs to stay very still, and very quiet.

He’s just closing his eyes again and trying to relax when the chest he’s pressed up against hitches with a breath that breaks the rhythm of soft near-snores. Lux’s brow furrows and he opens his eyes, pulls his arms in a little closer to his chest.

It happens again, a startled breath, but the Hunter’s still asleep where he sits up against the wall. Lux whimpers and turns his head a fraction to press his face into the Hunter’s shirt. He’s being good, sweet and good.

The Hunter makes a similar sound, with a little rumble in his chest, and Lux curls up more. He’s being mocked.

Except, the Hunter’s arm twitches, a muscle under his skin ripples slightly, his fingers jerking against the floor, and Lux figures out that he’s still asleep. He made that sound in his sleep.

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