@just-horrible-things / just-horrible-things.tumblr.com
TW: alcohol, implied NSFW.
“It’s Marius, right?”
She leans her chin on one hand, lips dark red and shining, nails to match. Waves of dark hair fall over her shoulder as she gives him an unmistakable look.
Marius straightens, resting an arm on the bar as he half-turns towards her. “Yeah, Marius. Do I know you?”
She smiles. “I don’t think so. Would you like to?”
“The Grimmoire Room is down this hall, right?” She questioned, half chewing on the sleeve of her sweater. She was itching to get to researching already. It was so hard to believe Henry was gone. Actually gone. That he wouldn’t just come back and hurt them all again. The others getting called away for Spyglass duties had not helped her anxiety level. With just her and Khloris left at the base, they were the ones who’d been charged with combing through the last of the old Grimmoires that had been found in the safe houses that had belonged to Henry. See if there was a loophole in any of them that could let him come back.
After a few moments she realized two things; Khloris hadn’t answered and the sound of her heels clacking along down the hall had stopped. Holly turned to look at her tilting her head to the side curiously. Khloris was scrutinizing her, those pale brown eyes glinting with something hard. “Khloris?” She asked, pulling her sleeve away from her face.
Her blood red lips curled back in a snarl. “Gods, you’re pathetic. All that power inside you. And yet…” she trailed off laughing harshly “You. Don’t. Use it.”
Holly jerked back at the insult. “I—I don’t—” she shook her head “I’m aware you don’t like me… but… Grimmoire room?”
Khloris laughed and the sound raced down her spine like a shiver. There was a scraping noise and Holly sucked in a sharp breath eyes darting around for the source. There were vines, thorny and rose covered slithering their way across the floor and the walls. Dripping down from the ceiling above Khloris’s head. Holly stopped breathing a moment as they inched forward, her feet taking her backwards before her mind could catch up to the movement. “Wh—what? What are you—”
“Come on Holly! Use your magic!” one of the vines on the ceiling darted out like a snake, petals peeling back to reveal venom dripping teeth.
She shrieked and stumbled back “Stop! Khloris please!”
Khloris made a low noise of disgust “Please? Please?” she stalked forward, her roses hissing and scraping along the walls “You, stupid little girl. You think please is going to save you?”
Holly backed away faster, her shoes catching on the rug “Khloris why are you—ple—” she swallowed the rest of the word. “Why are—are you doing this?”
“Oh, I’ve wanted to do this for so long. You are pathetic. And yet, somehow you have power.” She said the word reverently, like a hymn to a god worshipped by one. The vines shot forward like striking cobras. One wrapped its way around her ankle, the thorns digging into her flesh. She yelped and jerked back, but the vine tightened and yanked harshly. She hit the floor hard, gasping in pain.
Khloris had stalked forward to loom over her “You have power, and you don’t deserve it. You could be a goddesswith what you can do.” The vine dug into her leg and she cried out. Khloris’s eyes glinted with something verging on the fanatic. “And look at what you are instead.” Her lip peeled back “A scared little girl that can’t control her own magic because you’re afraid of it, just like you are of everything. You could bring worlds to heel. Instead you’re terrified of causing pain. I told you the first time we met.” She breathed in slowly as if tasting the air, eyes fluttering closed “Pain is power.”
She wanted to argue, to say she wasn’t afraid. But she was godsdamned terrified. Had been for years, saying what was inside her didn’t scare her was a blatant lie she couldn’t hope to tell. She felt her magic bubbling up into her skin in reaction to the fear and the pain. The half wild feel of it shook her to her core as it always had. It felt like being a ship without moor on a sea that led to the end of the world.
She shook off the words as best she could and reached for the vine cutting into her leg, the rose bloom sprouting off of it snapped its teeth at her fingers, keeping her from reaching it. Khloris practically growled “USE YOUR MAGIC!” she yelled furious.
Holly gasped, panic spiking in her chest as she realized Khloris wasn’t going to stop. The wild thing that lived under her skin sparked out of her hands and she let the rose bloom bite at her fingers as they crackled with light the color of something nameless. The rose made a noise like screaming on a violin and it was unmade. The petals, the teeth, the vine, disintegrating into sand that faded into nothing. She scrambled back, her breath fast and pitchy as she scrambled to her feet and limped back from Khloris.
Another rose shot towards her and she flung her hands desperately towards it, sparks of impossible light reducing it to nothing. More kept coming and she tried to run “Help!”
Khloris laughed “No one else is here!” She shot a bolt of magic towards her and Holly shrieked and jumped out of the way. “You’re alone! You were always meant to be alone!”
Holly turned a corner and ran, Khloris’s voice chasing her “No one is coming in time!” Holly desperately tried the first door in sight, a whine of terror escaping her when it didn’t open.
“None of your little guard dogs are coming to save you.”
She flinched at the phrase Henry used to use for her family as she tried another locked door.
“Use your fucking magic you insolent little brat.” Another vine snapped at her like a whip, slicing lines down her shoulder.
She screamed and Khloris laughed. “Fight back!”
It was all too much and the lightning under her skin wanted out. She threw a bolt of light at Khloris, desperate for her to stop please. It crackled into her shoulder, and she gasped. Perfect blood red lips forming a surprised oh. It ate into her skin, fractured fractals of light sparking like firecrackers as it gnawed away at her flesh, into muscle, and bone, unmaking as it went. Holly felt nauseous, felt horrified, maybe she’d misunderstood maybe she’d—
Khloris laughed. Loud and high and with an edge of mania that felt like the scrape of metal on bone in her ears. Pain is power. Roses bloomed bright and bloody from her ruined shoulder. Bone and muscle and skin knitting and reforming around thorns and blood bright petals. She rolled her shoulders and tipped her head back exposing the long line of her throat as she laughed. Her gaze turned back to Holly as the roses bolted closer sending her stumbling back into yet another door. “Your magic tastes like oblivion.”
The rose vines launched towards Holly as she fumbled for the door handle behind her. She cried out a sound of fear that wanted to be the word ‘no!’, sending her hand out towards the wall of roses. A blast of oblivion left her palm and devoured them. The handle turned and hope lodged in her throat as she stumbled her way through the door and she slammed it closed behind her. She backed into the far wall, only stopping as the desk pressed against dug into her spine.
She gasped for breath, the terror and the destructive aspect of her magic was draining. She fumbled for her phone to call for help, cursing when it showed no signal. There was a rattling at the door, and she whimpered at the noise looking desperate for a way out. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the charcoal lines drawn on the floor. Warding lines.
The door blew open. A tidal wave of thorny rose vines spilling through. Khloris stepped forth from them without a hair out of place. Holly pressed back against the desk shaky hands clawing at the air trying to open a door, she gasped as her magic rebounded. She didn’t have enough left to blast through the warding.
Khloris gave her a mock pout and then broke into a wide grin. She gestured to the charcoal lines on the floor “Warding lines made special just for you.”
Her heart sunk like a stone as she realized Khloris had planned this. Chased her to this room, taunted her into wasting magic. She couldn’t stop her hands shaking as she watched Khloris pace the warding boundary like a shark.
Khloris tapped one stiletto nail against her chin thoughtfully “that means you can’t get out… but I can get in…” The roses surged forward then. She shrieked and scrambled back and up onto the desk pressing as far against the wall as she could. She desperately threw magic at the onslaught of roses, at Khloris, but no matter how many were unmade how much of Khloris was disintegrated, there was always more roses, always more laughter. It was delaying the inevitable as her last frantic wild burst of magic left her palm, she gasped for air as stars danced through her vision. “Stop! Just—just stop please!” The vines twisted around her legs tearing into her skin creeping around her waist. Tears spilled down her face as she cried out from the pain. “Please! What do you—you want?”
Khloris smiled at her as she walked closer “Why my dear. I want your power. I want your magic.”
Holly gasped as the vines tangled around her arms, a scream pulling from her lips at the ragged tears in her skin from the thorns “You—you can’t you—you’re not a—a rift blood. It—it’ll hurt you.”
Khloris beamed like the Cheshire cat “Haven’t you been listening?” The vines tightened and she screamed again “Pain is power.”
Holly shook her head “It’ll—it’ll unmake you. For—for real this time.”
“I’m not immortal for nothing.” She twisted her fingers and the vines wrapped around Holly’s throat. She gasped for breath as they constricted and fresh blood stained the collar of her sweater. “I’m going to take you far away. Somewhere you’ll be lost and never found.” Holly could feel her heartbeat in her ears panic and lack of oxygen mixing to make her vision blur into a kaleidoscope of blood and roses. The vines yanked her down from the desk and slammed her into the ground harshly. She wheezed out a noise of pain as the impact sent white hot agony through her body. “I’m going to find a way to rip your magic out.” Khloris leaned down and grabbed her chin, forcing her barely conscious gaze to focus on her “And if you’re very lucky that’s what will kill you.”
Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.i
Loiral runs at the breakneck pace that only outright terror permits. He is acutely aware of the gravel giving under his imperfectly-fitted boots, stealing his momentum. His hand moves to the sword on his hip. Not fast enough. He’s sure it won’t be fast enough.
Several paces in, he realises he has to decide where he’s going. Away is not good enough. He can hear the human’s deep voice ringing out in sonorous incantation behind him.
This is a series. Start with Part 1 here.
TW: for Religious abuse, emetophobia (vomit mention, brief), discussion of gore, asphyxiation, Non-Con Touch (Could be read as somewhat sexual, just to TW), breath control, creepy whumper, victim blaming
He woke on the rough, thin mattress in his cell, unsure of the time. He was still bound in darkness by the blindfold, his hands back to being linked in front of him. He reached up and dragged it off. He wasn’t going to wear it unless they were around to make him. How long had he slept? He looked up at the window to a dim purple light in that fragment of sky he could see. Was it dusk or dawn outside? The same day or a new one? What did he last recall-
Then memory and the echoes of pain came rushing back to him, and he scrambled on all fours to the lidded bucket in the corner in time to be sick into it. He’d been chained to a rack, answering questions while that bastard tore him apart, he’d felt his bones pull away from eachoth- He turned back to the bucket again but it was just heaving, nothing left to bring up.
He spit a few times to clear the taste from his mouth, wishing uselessly for water, touching his face and neck. Yes, they were still crusted with dried blood, and streaks of it were around his wrists and ankles, but the wounds there had been healed along with his broken joints. Like the last time he’d recieved magical healing, a memory of pain seemed to remain, deep and aching, but the skin and bone were whole, barely marked. Once he’d been put back together like this, they could destroy him again and again. He felt cold with a chill that went beyond the autumn air in his stone cell.
He gathered a musty, thick wool blanket around himself. He couldn’t think like that. He’d survived too much to make that mistake. He couldn’t look ahead to what might await. Once you give in, you give up. You call him Sir? his mind taunted him. That was to survive, he told himself. You do whatever you have to. To survive. I always survive. I will live through this, and get out. In time. He looked up at the tiny square window, barely the size of a man’s handspan. Was the sky getting darker? He didn’t know. He remembered falling unconscious, and he had vague impressions of sliding in and out of greyness, further pain, of voices, laughter, hands on his ruined limbs, flashes of ice that must have been Conroy’s terrible healing power, and then nothing.
He collapsed against the rough mattress that formed his bed, looking at the rush mat on the floor, and the rust colored stains marking it. How much blood could he shed in his time here? Did Conroy plan to keep him indefinitely to torment? Would he be killed if Conroy felt he truly would not break? Would he be killed if he did? Stop, stop thinking of it. Despair was death.
He huddled in the blankets, trying to gather warmth to himself. This cell was always cold enough to hurt his hands and feet. He supposed they’d given him the cheap felt boots so he didn’t lose any toes to something as mundane as the winter. The tiny unbarred window was unglazed and let in whatever icy chill was outside, though the air that came in when the door was opened always seemed to be warmer, because of that forge nearby, he supposed. But he could make it bearable, if not comfortable, by snugging down under the provided blankets.
The door abruptly opened, and Conroy entered with a bucket and a ladle, a small stool, and a bundle of cloth. He dropped the things in front of Harrow’s bed. “Get up on your knees, warlock. And who told you to remove that blindfold?”
Harrow dragged his protesting body up off the mattress to kneel. “No one, Sir.”
“Ah you remember your lessons after all. Good. You keep that up. No, not sitting on your heels, you get up on your knees like a proper penitent. I’ll bet they ache, don’t they?” Conroy watched Harrow’s struggles and smiled.
They did ache terribly. Putting any weight on them made them feel like one large bruise each, and Harrow tried not to remember the feeling of them being wrenched apart.
Conroy sat himself down on the stool, putting their faces level, and picked up the blindfold. “You will leave this on until you’re told to take it off, Harrow. You understand?”
Harrow ground his teeth. “Yes, Sir.”
“And don’t glare at me like that. I could be putting out your eyes, it’s only a blindfold. Don’t make me rethink my small mercies, Harrow. I always have my knife with me, and this session can change whenever I want it to.” He noticed the way the captive inhaled abruptly, the brief flicker in the obstinate black eyes. “You remember the knife, too. Good. Our lessons in respect can continue then. No need to go back to the knife unless you defy me.” He leaned forward with the blindfold.
Harrow knelt there as his tormentor tied the blindfold back over his face, those hated hands tugging the edges, adjusting the fit to be snug.
Then there was a rustling sound, the man was moving around him, and Conroy’s voice said, “I’m going to unlock your arms now and join them behind you again. I like you better that way. If you make any move to defy me while I do this, I will take you to the rack again. Do you understand, Harrow? Let me hear you say it.”
“I understand.. Sir.” It would have been so easy, thought Harrow as his arms were handled, his shackles unlocked, to move once they were free, to rise up and attack the bastard, rip out his smug tongue- but the threat of the rack held him still, and he resented his traitor body for being so damn eager to obey that voice. His hands were joined behind him and his shoulders throbbed.
Powerful hands gripped each shoulder firmly from behind. “Very good, Harrow. I’ll bet these are just aching.” He gave them a squeeze, pushing against the abused joints, and heard Harrow gasp, watched the muscles of his back twitch. “Ah, no dropping down, I did tell you how I want you to kneel. You want to obey me, Harrow. Now, before we begin.”
Harrow knew the words would be said, knew they were coming, and what he would say again in answer.
“Will you make your confession to me and embrace Arost?”
“I will not.”
“Very well.” Conroy stood.
Then there were more sounds of chains being unlocked, moved, and the collar at Harrow’s neck was pulling his head upward. He had to lift his chin slightly to keep his airway open. The chain of his collar was dragging directly upward now, probably fasted to the low ceiling above. His knees were taking all his weight directly and he tried not to whimper.
“There,” said Conroy, stepping back to regard his work. “The humble penitent, kneeling before Arost. But you aren’t humble, are you. See, that’s your trouble, Harrow.”
A hand cupped his filthy cheek gently, the other stroking through his hair, and he fought not to shudder.
“You are far too prideful and stubborn, or I wouldn’t be forced to hurt you like this.”
He was in the dark, left to only hear and feel. Hands explored his jawline, and a thumb brushed his mouth, traced his lips. He wrenched his face away, and one of those hands dug a thumb into his shoulder joint again cruelly. He couldn’t stifle his outcry. “Aahh!”
“Easy there, Harrow, don’t pull away from me when I came to help you.” Conroy took an iron grip on his raised jaw, there was the sound of water, and a soft cloth was washing the dried blood from Harrow’s nose and mouth. Then the grip was moved to his hair so his jaw could be washed clean. He tried to struggle but Conroy was strong. “Always making life difficult for yourself, aren’t you, Harrow?”
Splashing, a rinsing of the cloth, and then it was back against the streaks of dried blood on his neck, his collarbones. The tension on his neck kept him bolt upright, and he breathed through the pain radiating up from his knees.
“You’ve worked out by now that if you slump at all, you’ll be strangled,” said Conroy coversationally. “You have to stay upright. I just put your knees back together- I wonder if they can take the strain? Or will they just… come apart again after long enough? It will be interesting to watch. I might stay just to see you fight to breathe.”
The cloth washed his shoulders, then smoothed gently over his chest, circling the brand as a warm hand spread between his shoulders for support.
“There. Doesn’t that feel better?”
“Not when you keep touching me. Sir,” Harrow growled.
“Oh, that.” The washing cloth practically caressed across Harrow’s chest, fortunately coming between Conroy’s hand and the brand mark there. “It’s hardly a matter of attraction, you understand, it’s all about the effect. I’ll show you.”
By the sound he’d moved behind Harrow. One hand closed about his neck while two hot fingers traced a tortuous line across Harrow’s abdomen just above the waist of his trousers, from one bared hip to the other, slowly, slowly.
Harrow groaned through clenched teeth, shuddering. “S- stop that!”
“What was that?” said Conroy’s voice by his ear, with a threat hanging in it.
“Don’t do that, Sir,” Harrow gasped.
“You do not get to tell me what I can or cannot do with you, Harrow,” Conroy hissed, kneeling right up behind his prisoner and dragging him close, back to chest, to speak low in his ear. “You have no choices here except to submit, Harrow. Submit to the will of Arost or be tormented.” To drive his point home, the touches traced just around the outside of the brand over Harrow’s racing heart while the other hand roved his tensed body. “Understand, Harrow, that there is no part of you that is yours to keep, nothing I cannot take from you. Until you give yourself to Arost this body is mine and I will break it, Harrow. Every breath you yet breathe is the mercy of Arost.”
Harrow shuddered, making involuntary small jerks trying to escape from hands on his skin, the heat of humiliation rising to his face. “Nn…”
Conroy’s hand pressed flat against his stomach. “Now. Inhale for me. Go on, I’m waiting to feel you obey me.” The other hand was still hovering, fingers spread, over the brand marking Harrow as a warlock belonging to Asmodeus. “I don’t have to show you again what will happen if I touch this mark. Now inhale.”
Harrow pulled a deep breath in.
“Good. Hold it,” murmured Conroy in his ear.
Harrow tried, against his will, to do as ordered. Mind games, of course. He’d used them himself, more than once. They were so simple it was laughable- until someone was doing it to you. He needed to exhale, to let out the stale air in his lungs that was turning to poisons, to breathe- “Nn…” He couldn’t stop the small sound of desperation escaping.
“Ah not yet. I didn’t say exhale yet, Harrow. You breathe when I tell you to,” murmured the low voice in his ear. He was pulled close against the other man’s body, could feel him breathing freely, his chest moving, his exhale over skin. Eveything was darkness and those awful hands and that voice, and his own lungs burning.
“Now- exhale.”
Harow let out a spluttering gasp, panting for air, and then felt a sharp stab of pain flash into his heart and he jerked against his captor’s hold with a cry.
“Now, I didn’t say you could do all that inhaling. I gave your brand just a light touch as punishment because you didn’t obey me, Harrow. Now let’s try again. Inhale.”
“You can shove it wh- AUGH!!”
“Amother little touch, just to remind you. I can do more. Now inhale.”
Harrow breathed in, the hand on his stomach moving with his breath.
“Hold it.” Conroy waited until the body against his begain to tremble again. “Exhale. Good. Now wait.”
Harrow felt shame burn his face again but he obeyed.
“Inhale. And hold it.” Again, the wait was kept long enough to start becoming pain. “Exhale.”
Harrow let himself focus on the commands, on getting enough air in.
“Inhale. And hold it.”
He felt the hands holding him, pinning him close to his tormentor, and knew humiliation.
“Exhale.”
He could only comply.
“Inhale, and hold it, there.”
To be held with the threat of torture at his heart, and obey that voice by his ear, to wait for permission to breathe, to live…
“Exhale.”
The blindfold over his eyes darkened as it became damp.
Conroy continued this for a while, waiting to feel his prisoner relax against him, feel him sink into the rhymth of unthinking obedience, feel his will dissolving. “There. See how easy it is? All you have to do is submit, Harrow.” He let go of the man and got to his feet, leaving him kneeling there. “You may breathe freely now.”
Harrow wavered, catching his balance without support behind him, and knelt there panting, his head lifted against the upward pull of the collar. He had begun this visit feeling tired, but controlling his breathing that way had exhausted his last remaining strength. Now he wanted to crumple to the ground, to just lie down and rest. Proper rest, not unconsciousness brought on by pain. When was the last time he’d actually slept instead of blacking out? He wasn’t sure…
“Now we will play one more simple game, Harrow. Even you can manage this one. You will kneel there, which I imagine hurts quite a lot already, and when you are ready to ask me to release you- You will beg.”
Harrow shook his head mutely.
“Oh, I think you will. Everyone does, in the end. You can’t kneel bolt upright for very much longer, you’re too tired- and every time you slip down you’ll be hanged.” He dragged his footstool away to where he could sit on it with his back to the wall. “I’ll wait,” he told Harrow. “I’ve got all day. But you don’t.”
Continues Here, Part 11
@quirkykayleetam @whumpqhs @gimmethatsweetwhump @straight-to-the-pain
Whumptober 11 - Stitches [Content warning: eye scream]
“Don’t wriggle,” she warns him with a smile. “You’re really not going to want my hand to slip.” He wriggles anyway, thrashing against the straps that hold him to the table and tossing his head back and forth. His attempts at shouting make desperate, strained noise behind the tape across his mouth.
She grabs his chin to hold him still. When that doesn’t work, to his absolute shock, she jams two fingers up his nose. Her nails scrape the delicate tissues as she curls the fingers and shoves them as far as they’ll go into the gaps in the bone. Trying to toss his head about is abruptly rather unexpectedly painful.
It only takes a second to realise that he can’t breathe any more. Not the slightest whistle of air. And perhaps he would have started struggling again at that, but she takes advantage of his momentary freeze to bring the curved needle right up to his eye. Reflex scrunches both eyes shut tight, but he feels the tip of the needle brush through the lashes and just barely scrape - cold and sharp - across the delicate skin of the eyelid.
He tries to suck air in but his chest heaves uselessly, refusing to expand. He twitches helplessly. The tape is a seal over his mouth, her fingers an effective plug in his nose. He works his jaw but the tape won’t shift, and he daren’t try to move any further, acutely aware of the sharp point at his eye. His heart hammers in his chest, feeling fit to burst.
“Stay still for me, sweetie, and I’ll let you breathe. Trust me, wiggling about really isn’t in your best interests.” He is still, he is, but she’s not letting up. What kind of assurance does she want? He tries to moan but without any way to expel air all he can make is a desperate, strangled squeak. He taps his fingers frantically against the table, trying to signal surrender, but nothing happens and he can’t tell if she understands, or if she’s just toying with him -
A few seconds more of suffering, and she finally allows him air. He sucks it in frantically - he can’t really get enough through his nose, his chest still burns, he has to take fast, tiny breaths - but it’s better than none at all, a thousand times better than none at all.
And while his attention is consumed by breathing, she pinches his eyelids together between thumb and forefinger, pulls them away from the eye, and pushes the needle through the folds, top to bottom. He whines urgently through his nose at the stabbing pain, and still more desperately as he realises what she is about. Even that helpless noise has to be broken up into sharp, frantic sounds a little like sobs as he still struggles to get enough oxygen.
The thread burns as it pulls through the fresh puncture, and then burns again, differently, as she releases the skin and the thread touches the surface of the eye. He strains to turn the eyeballs as far from that corner as possible, squeaking out vain, wretched protests. Her fingers tug at the thread, fiddling, pulling. As soon as she releases it, she pinches the skin again, and the needle stabs in for a second time.
She puts eight stitches across the eye, from outer corner to inner. His hot tears streak down the side of his face in a continuous flow. The back of his mouth is salty with them. His noises settle into a steady rhythm of fast whimpers as he struggles for breath. He can’t get enough, not while panicking, and he comes close to fainting several times. His eyes are rolled back behind the lids as far as they’ll go, trying to escape the line of scratchy thread.
When the eighth stitch is tied, she takes her hands off his face for a minute. His whole body is twitching, fingers scrabbling helplessly at the surface of the table. Every involuntary twitch of the eyelids makes the burning pain worse. He tries to keep them still, but it’s futile.
The feel of her fingers on his other eye provokes a drawn-out keen of despair. But she is merciless. Her fingers press the lids together and pull them away from the eye, the needle goes in, and the nightmare continues.
Two whumpees are in a room together. Their hands are bound behind them and connected to loops in the floor. They wear collars that constrict when pulled on and loosen when there’s slack. The collars are connected to each other, pulled taut through another loop on the floor between them.
In order for Whumpee A to breathe, B has to lean back and pull on their collar, which chokes them, and vice-versa. Each time one of them leans forward to breathe, they’re pulling on their wrists, chafing them bloody. They can’t lie down like this, and there’s no relief until one of them loses consciousness.
Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.iii
She shoos her creatures away from the crank so that she can work it herself. Loiral’s pleading gets less coherent and more frantic, higher pitched with panic as his limbs are pulled taut and the last of his wriggle room disappears. He’s seen what the rack can do, seen the broken, crippled creatures that result. “Please, please! I, I - aah - fuck--! Please no please I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
"No," he pleads uselessly as he's shoved into the crate, "No no no please I c-can't no don't-!" He's struggling. He never struggles. It doesn't make a difference, of course. He's feeble and skinny and panicking and the hands that push him down are strong and rough and confident. He fights anyway, bruising his arms against their grip, knocking knees and elbows and head against the edges of the crate and not even feeling it through the panic.
Loiral and Marcus - A Lesson In Respect - 4.i
Loiral is picked up by his collar, and Marcus drags him out of the cell. Even if he weren't far too miserable and scared to ask questions, he's too busy choking. He's dragged a short way down the corridor, then released in front of the water closet and shoved towards it. "Relieve yourself," he's ordered shortly, and he supposes he's glad of the opportunity to do so. By the time he is done and stumbles back into the corridor, the surfacer is waiting with a box of metal objects under one arm: shackles and clamps and locks and nails and so forth. Deeply intimidating, in context. He doesn't have time to dwell on it. He's dragged by the neck again back to the cell and tossed roughly to the floor by the back wall.
Ah how could I miss out on the opportunity of some nice collar whump for Lysander? He’s such a nice soft boi ;) and of course I gotta add some choking and electricity to the mix as well.
Varen with lured into a trap?
(I apologize with the delay! I got this one twice so I put it off for a little while. To my other requesters, I have 7 or 8 more BTHB requests to fill. So so sorry if yours has been delayed forever! I have gotten stuck on a few of these!!)
He was back. The dark, horned creature loomed in the rectangle of light that was the entry to her car as Rasia peaked out from below her arm and between the bars of her cage. Thick, iron bars, that despite the red caking of rust, were stronger than even her coils could crush. But the assistant was not as strong as iron, she suspected.
“Are…Are you alright?”
She didn’t respond, as planned. Her head hidden below pale arms patched with scales, molted yellow tail curled tightly in a ball that kept her half hidden against the rough wooden floor.
There was a shuffle as he knelt outside the cage, she stayed silent, eyes closed. His hand pressed the thickest bend of her tail to wake her, smooth scales flexing before he jerked away, as if expecting her to lash out, again. Her teeth ground together, trying her hardest to stay still and silent.
After another moment, her persistence was rewarded. The clink of his many keys, the grate of the lock, the creak of the door. She tensed, scales shifting with a slithering scrape in anticipation. He paused at the door, perhaps considering fetching the other one, the human, the angry one. No, no. Come in, come closer.
Evidently, he decided he could handle her “sickness” on his own, as he knelt, crawling towards her on the hay that scattered the floor. He didn’t notice the end of her yellow molten tail camouflaged below the coarse straw, didn’t notice as it slid towards his ankle.
His hand touched her shoulder, clawed fingers tipped back to keep off her skin. Her arm moved back, revealing her face. Pale red eyes snapped opened, narrow pupils dilating in the light. Perhaps then, he knew he had been tricked.
The end of her tail curled around his ankle, yanking him backwards. The assistant collapsed on top her with a cry as his leg was taken out from below him. Her body twisted, bending over him, curling in a lazy but deadly coil around his chest, trapping his arms to his sides. The horned one managed to scream, or, more precisely, squawk with surprise, before her constricting form crushed around his chest, stealing the air to make anymore noise.
She could have killed him, easily. But she was not like them. Instead her hands grabbed the bars, dragging herself forward with half her body still wrapped around him. He rolled below her, pressed against the floor as she shifted from the back corner to the cage door left open. Freedom laid only a few feet of wooden floor away.
A shadow crossed the door and she recoiled, the assistant choking behind her as her coils tightened in apprehension. The human stood at the door, one hand on the frame, the other reaching towards the whip at his side. Rasia hissed sharply, coiling, bending, shifting backwards over the assistant until he was between her and the human.
This did not stop the Ringmaster from moving into the traincar. She constricted and the assistant groaned. The human stepped closer and she coiled tighter in response, feeling the assistant’s bones grate in her grip. The threat, she thought, was clear. But he stepped forward again, seeming to not care about her crushing grip around his employee. She shifted back, coils curling and the assisted used the last of his air to cry sharply in pain.
“Go ahead. Kill him.”
She started at his command, loosening slightly and the horned creature took a shuttered, choked breath against her tail. The Ringmaster chuckled, the coiled whip tapping against his knee as if impatient for this stand off to be over.
“You thought you could use him as what, a hostage? And I would let you go?”
Rasia curled back further, back pressing against the bars of her former cage, regarding the man with suspicion and disbelief. Her body tightened again and the assistant let out a muffled keen.
“I can replace an assistant a lot easier than I can replace you, dear.”
She hissed, coiling tighter and he thrashed in her grip. A whimper of pain squeezed from him. She felt ligaments and bones shifting, twisting in an attempt to accommodate the crushing pressure. The snap of a rib.
One, then two. Crushed with an echoing crack in the space between her and her captor. The assistant went limp in her coils, though she could feel the frantic beat of his heart against her tail. The human only stood and watched, waiting. The smarmy grin plastered on his face as if he knew she could not go through with it. Or perhaps, really did not care at all if she did.
She could. His bones strained below her quivering coils, she could snap each one slowly, for the part the assistant had played in her imprisonment. She could crush him until his ribs punctured his lungs and he choked on his own blood. She could twist, snap him in two, his spine splintered, neck broken. She could…not.
Her coils loosened, face softening. The assistant coughed, rough and grating, breath wheezing into crushed lungs, broken ribs vibrating against her scales. Rasia uncoiled, sliding backwards, depositing the horned creature like driftwood, left by the ebb of a wave. The Ringmaster stepped over his crumpled form, herding his Lamia back into her cage with the still wound coil of his whip.
She could have. But she would not. She was not like them, she reminded herself. She was not a monster. In body, maybe to them, but not in mind.
“That is why you are the one in the cage,” the man said with a smile, as if he knew her thoughts, knew she was too weak to oppose his stronger will. He pushed the cage door shut with the clank of the lock. Then the Ringmaster turned, grabbing his assistant by the back of the coat, and dragged him out.
