We Don’t Talk Anymore (Part 1) Verse: Kethrys. The same instance happened in the resistance verse, the only difference is that she wouldn’t have known Ari prior to the feds. In Kethrys, they were childhood friends Timeline: In Kethrys, this would have happened shortly before Jo starts working with Lyllo. In resistance, this happens about a year before she starts spying in the feds. Ariadne (mentioned only) belongs to @just-horrible-things CW for drugging, hurt by a family member​

~~~

Awareness comes slowly, dragging herself from somewhere in the deepest depths of her consciousness, clawing towards the light. Her eyes blink open just as slow as her uncooperative mind, not focusing properly. Each breath is too tight, and no part of her body is willing to cooperate with her demands to move. Someone is standing in front of her, recognizable, but her mind is sluggish to make any connection. She knows him, she— yeah, yeah she definitely does.

Verse: Unlikely Salvation (@whump-sprite) Timeline: Jo is 18 and undercover in the feds, a trainee with Ariadne. Ari is around 19 and in training

Cowritten with @just-horrible-things, Ariadne belongs to JC

Two Shots 4/5

(1, 2, 3, 4)

~~~

Time returns to normal as the adrenaline starts to fade, exhaustion hitting her like a ton of bricks. She holds the gun for a moment longer, still aimed at the two warlocks. She didn’t miss, but the idea of her and Ari being safe isn’t quite clicking yet. They’re not moving, blank and lifeless eyes… there’s a scary stab of something close to satisfaction. Jo slowly lowers the weapon, engaging the safety. She’s not letting go of it. She stumbles up, whole body aching and sore. The movement makes black spots swarm through her vision, waves of pain still crashing around in her skull— it wouldn’t be that bad. Or shouldn’t be. It’s just the crash from the rush of adrenaline spiking all her awareness, making her injuries feel worse than what they are. Eyes flicker to Ari when she can focus again, her friend still unconscious and tied to the chair. Jo isn’t sure if she crawls or walks, but she’s moving, determined to get her friend out of here.

Verse: Unlikely Salvation (@whump-sprite) Timeline: Jo is 18 and undercover in the feds, a trainee with Ariadne. Ari is around19 and in training 

Cowritten with @just-horrible-things, Ariadne belongs to JC

Two Shots 3/5

(Part one, Part two, Part three) 

~~~

Her jaw hurts, arms and wrists aching from how tight she’s clinging to the arm rest, watching as Ari convulses and cries out. Ari’s muscles have long-since seized up, but she’s still trying to thrash for freedom and growing increasingly panicked when that freedom won’t come. Her friend’s body jerks with another powerful shock, and Jo can feel her eyes narrow in hate. They have to stop. Ariadne is trying to spit out curses, breathless, the combined fear and pain making her friend resemble a trapped animal, tugging and biting and practically growling. “Going to kill her right away?” Jo finally speaks up. She can’t wait a second longer, if she doesn’t interrupt, they’ll kill Ariadne right in front of her. Her voice is surprisingly calm, cold and unfazed even as the panic bubbles right beneath the surface at how not okay Ariadne looks. “No wonder you guys are losing this war. You’re shit at torturing.”

Keep reading

Part 1 / Scene 10

Sweat and blood mingle on the bound prisoner’s skin, slick and sticky. Ice water crashes over her and her head jerks up. The creak of the ropes is barely audible beneath her gasping breath and the dwindling patter of the falling water. Corded muscle shifts beneath her skin and metal rattles against metal as the chair shifts against the bolts that fasten it to the floor.

Keep reading

The Water

“Fucking rich piece of shit,” Lauritz snapped, as Rain tried to wipe their eyes and stop the tears. “I should cut you up and leave you to fucking die, your parents are being such bastards. But I’ve got someone better now, haven’t I?”

Rain shook their head. Their voice croaked as it came out. “Please… Don’t.”

They tried to move forwards, to beseech him with their physical presence, but he moved away and the chain around their ankle pulled taught and hard against them.

“Please,” they said again. “L…Lau…”

His hand smacked across their face. “You don’t say my fucking name!” he screamed suddenly, spit flying across the space and the smell of alcohol stale in the air between them. “Every time you say my fucking name I cut her again, you know that you, little shit. I’m going to go do it now, aren’t I? Even though you want my attention. Fucking jealous, because it was just us two, huh?”

No. No, that wasn’t why. It wasn’t, no matter how many times he said it, no matter how many times he insisted that Rain wanted attention wanted his knife wanted him to look at them and nobody else. It wasn’t true. It was only – it only looked like it was true, because they were trying to protect Kala, trying to stop him.

Because Kala had come, and tried to rescue them, and failed, and now she was chained up in the other room.

And Rain could kneel and plead and say pretty words and offer their skin to be cut open, but Lauritz had his eyes on their weakness and he wasn’t giving it up. Every time they tried to get him to cut them, he laughed, kicked them, grabbed their hair, and threw them aside. Bruises and cuts were all they got, and the real injuries were for the meddling bitch. For Kala, who had tried to save them, and failed so, so miserably.

“Fucking family always kept you safe, didn’t they?” he asked, but it was a rhetorical question as he strode out of the room. He didn’t bother to close the door to Rain’s room as he entered Kala’s and they heard the muffled cry of her being roused with a hard boot. “Wake up, bitch!” he shouted. “Yeah, you! Your little friend in there asked me to cut you so they could get some rest. You happy? That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Kala groaned. Something was happening, they didn’t know what. He never let her speak, always gagged her when she wasn’t being forced to eat and drink water. He didn’t want her words, he said. He wanted her to fucking bleed for thinking she could interfere with his work.

“You fucking earned this,” he said. “You earned it and they asked for it. Shut up! Take it and shut up.”

Rain tried not to imagine the knife moving and the skin opening and the blood pouring out. They had heard enough to know that Kala was being hurt far, far worse than them.

“Yeah, there you go. Not so fucking proud now, are you?” Lauritz’s heavy footsteps came back towards Rain’s room and they straightened, folding their hands on their lap. “I’m going to play with your friend and you’re going to sit there and shut the fuck up, or I’ll come back and cut you up again and beat them worse.”

Kala moaned something that sounded very much like don’t.

“Fuck you too.” The door slammed. Lauritz was back in the room and Rain was alone with him again.

Always the worst times.

They pulled back against the wall, folding their knees to their chest. Lauritz stared down at them and then scoffed, pulling out his knife. It was already smeared with Kala’s blood.

He moved forwards. He grabbed the chain and unlocked it from the radiator. He cuffed Rain’s other ankle to it instead.

“Up,” he said, voice flat. “Walk. You know where.”

Heart sinking, Rain obeyed. They knew where. Down the hall, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. Drop to their knees next to the bathtub.

Keep reading

Three years and two weeks ago, Rain woke up to someone putting a hand around their throat. It was October. They’d just turned 21. It wasn’t quite cold yet, the leaves falling around the garden path but others still clinging to the trees, and they were sleeping in fleece pyjamas.

The fleece pyjamas were what they were taken in. The hand around their neck turned into a knife against their skin, and they were walked out of the house with barely a sound. It was before Kala lived with them, when they lived alone in the cottage and thought they were having a quiet life. It was the most vulnerable they’d ever been, and someone had noticed.

Someone had realised whose child they were, and decided to take advantage.

After the knife had been the boot of a car. Rain had tried to find an emergency release, and it had been broken, scraping edges of a plastic handle against their fingers in the dark. They tried to kick out the tail light, but the bastard had planned for that too, wooden boards taped down securely over them both. No amount of banging and shouting had changed the speeding car’s drive across the country.

They had been taken at night, and it was dawn when they were hauled out by the guy with the blond ponytail and dirty flannel shirt. They’d tried to fight him, kicking and scratching, but then the knife had reappeared. When they tried to disarm him, well…

Keep reading

Nano: Revenge

He ate like he thought it would be his last meal, every time. No matter if Rain brought him one meal a day or three, over the next week, he ate like his life depended on it. He pulled back when he was finished, curling into a ball or lying down on his side, half-folded. It was strange, and sad, but far unlike what they had expected. Where was the rushing charge? The violent escape? The victorious comeuppance?

Rain stood by the hatch, watching. Lauritz never quite put all of his attention on the food, always glancing up at them and down again. Something about how they acted, or maybe just his experience so far with two people who hated him, made him constantly wary for the food to be taken away again. Perhaps he wasn’t convinced that they wouldn’t just let him die if he annoyed them too much, or if they got too angry, or if they simply felt like it… Given what they’d done to his nose, they supposed that was fair. Smart of him, even, not to trust them easily.

But they didn’t take the food away. Lauritz got his full meal or three each day, and he showed the signs of someone who had needed it. His colouring improved, less of a pasty paleness to his cheeks. His movements got more steady and less exhausted, and the shadows under his eyes faded a little each day. They had no idea what had been going on before he came here – even he didn’t, of course – but it was both satisfying and dissatisfying to see him recovering at their hand.

Why, why were they the ones who had to do this? Couldn’t he have gone somewhere else, to one of his criminal friends?

There had to be a reason he was here. They couldn’t trust him until they had found out what it was.

Kala had tried interrogating him, and he had the bruises to show for it, but he hadn’t given her anything but desperate pleading. Rain had questioned him too, more sedately, with long, slow pressure increasing like the crank of a medieval rack. Again, he’d had nothing. Apologies in droves, but no useful words came out of him. Nothing but a brief murmur about an orange lunch box, which was unlikely to be anything.

He was frustrating. Rain felt it like a sting.

Kala felt it like an open flame climbing up her spine.

Keep reading

“I don’t like needles,” Luka said in a small voice, worrying his hands against each other.

Alexander scowled, making an annoyed noise. He pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt - a sharp-looking hunting knife with a gut hook on the back.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered.

Luka’s eyes widened. 

“Wh.. n-n…” 

He didn’t even want to speak, knowing forming vowels would cause his mouth to open.

Alex reached out and grabbed his chin roughly. He brought the knife in close.

“Open your mouth. Now.”

Tears stung at the backs of Luka’s eyes as he gave in and slowly let his jaw hang open.

“Wider,” Alexander ordered, laying the blade flat against Luka’s bottom lip. “Show Sam what a liar you are.”

Luka didn’t understand, but he conceded.

Alexander slipped the knife in and caught Luka’s tongue stud with the gut hook, tugging it forward.

Keep reading

Whumptober Day 9 and 16

Prompt: Take me instead, Forced to beg

Word count: 1318

TW: forced to beg, implied conditioning, head injury

Co-written with @just-horrible-things, Ariadne is their oc, Jo is mine. Set in my fantasy world of Kethrys.

Jo stumbles back, one hand going up for what feels like the hundredth time to wipe the blood away from her eyes once more. It was a clever move- one she admittedly didn’t see coming- the spell slicing across her forehead to make it hard to see where to cast. Another spell hit her side at one point, a ball of flame that left burns all along her hip and rib cage. A few other minor slices and bruises, but nothing that should be dangerous in the long run.

It’s a brief seconds pause of victory, almost letting a smile creep forward. Nearly a year, and he still can’t catch her. 

Jo turns slowly in a circle, trying to find where her friend went when the trap was sprung. Last she saw, Ariadne was hit in the chest, head slamming hard against the rocky ground. Then Jo moved to place herself between the attackers and her downed friend, prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.

“Ari?” The words come out a little slurred- head wounds do love bleeding- and with an annoyed growl, she wipes the blood away again, eyesight blurred and tinged in red. “Ari? You okay?”

Movement off to her left, and she blinks again, almost shaking her head in frustration that everything is blurred. Someone is getting to their feet– wait, not just– shit.