torture, trauma, horror

[Part one here, previous part here.]

[Content warnings for this part: mild gore (aftermath of severe whipping), mention of IV fluids.]

[Content warnings for previous parts include: gore including impalement through wrists, violent death of background characters, grief.]

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Tacitus? Ariadne tries to whisper, but her voice is a broken ghost of a thing.

The hands that grab her and flip her and roughly manoeuvre her - those aren't Tacitus' hands. He would never be so bold. Is he gone? Did she drive him away, by trying to refuse help? Her thoughts are muddled and murky. She's so exhausted, but it hurts too much to sleep.

[Part one here, previous here.]

[Content warnings: captivity, torture, mild gore, blood, blood loss, aftermath of severe whipping, mention of facial disfigurement, painful wound cleaning, life threatening injury.]

[Content warnings on the series include: gore including impalement through wrists, death of background characters.]

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He thinks she is unconscious until the heavy box of supplies slips from his shaking arms. It crashes to the floor and the noise makes her whimper. He makes an involuntary unhappy sound of his own. She shouldn’t be conscious, she’d be better off not feeling. She twitches and shudders, trying to curl up. He barely feels his bruised knees hitting the floor.

[Prequel here]

She’s painfully glad of the quiet hours. She’s too exhausted to think straight, but she hurts too much to sleep. A few more days will fix that. But for now she just lies still where she’s pinned face-down to the floor, drifting in a haze of misery. It’s dark, and the concrete is cool against the heat of her wounds but not cold enough to make her shiver. It could be worse.

Whumptober 7 - Isolation The guards don’t take him to the Interrogator. They don’t take him to be beaten either - it’s been a while since the last time, but he remembers and fears those wordless, merciless punishments. But they don’t take him to the interrogation room at all.

Instead they put a blindfold on him - a shaped piece of cloth moulded closely to the contours of the face so that no light creeps in around the edges once it’s tied tightly in place. His breath hitches nervously. Then they take him by the arms like usual and he goes floppy so that they can drag him as they please. Fear and dull, awful resignation mix in a familiar cocktail inside his chest.