#....eventually

I was studying yesterday and got to a section on Cryoablation and my brain, as it does, went "what if cold???" and then I recorded a fic about hypothermia today and that just cemented it. Bernard has experienced Cold. Both hypothermia style and cold so sharp it burned. The hypothermia was with a walk in freezer. I haven't fully figured out this scenario so feel free to chime in, but it definitely involves him slowly succumbing to hypothermia and maybe starvation while someone fucks him slowly and softly. Bernard is pretty sure that's the first time he actually died. They said they brought him back before his heart stopped but he knows what it feels like to have D bring him back and he's pretty sure that was it.

As for the sharp cold. Sometimes you're at a party and someone brings some liquid nitrogen to do the banana trick and you think "what if I shoved my hand in there?" - the Cult of Dionysus isn't known for controlling those intrusive thoughts. Which leads to people cheering and screaming and that guy that you think is so fucking hot finally looking at you and you end up on your knees sucking him off as he cracks the tips of your fingers off one by one. And you orgasm at the feeling of the entire thing shattering down to your wrist. Bernard's come from weirder sensations than the sharp burning there-and-gone pain of his entire hand shattering. Besides, now he has super fine scars over his entire hand. Perfectly preserving the moment. One ice and one fire. Eventually he'll be the avatar.

The second scenario is because I was, again, studying and this time it was needles and wires involved and I wondered - what if fish hooks? Which is why Bernard now has a story to tell to Aquaman about how he knows how much fishhooks hurt. There was a girl from the docks who was learning to be a piercer and Bernard's wanted dick piercings since he first saw someone with them in the Cult and one thing led to another and. well. he was wandering around the cult meeting with his dick out and displaying the fishhooks ladder. High fiving the person who said his dick was now a "fish ladder". Later, the piercer rode his dick with the hooks still in before ripping them out and leaving him to wander around with his bloody torn open dick and wondering how he was going to hide the bleeding in his crotch from his college roommate. [sidebar, did Bernard go to college? did he dorm??] He woke up in his bed the next morning with the ladder back - this time with more of those eerie fused barbells.

The third scenario happened because I was trying to think of who Bernard could make these remarks to and realized the gold that is Jason crashing a fake date with Tim. Jason is crashing it because this guy is super sketchy and he's trying to make up for almost killing Tim that one time. Gotta make sure little bro is being treated right. Only then Bernard turns to him and is like "...you're his older brother and Not Dick Greyson....." and then sees the edge of his autopsy scar and is all "oh hey! I've got one of those too! But you were probably dead for yours weren't you. Dunno how to feel about that. Like, on the one hand the pain of the scalpel is sharp and the sensation of the saw cutting through your sternum and ribs is like nothing else but the sensation of having someone literally hold your still beating heart in your hand? Makes me want to get heart surgery with no anasthetic. Makes me wish this guy *gesture at Tim* was a trained surgeon." And. well. what can Jason do in the face of that but retreat.

[and now I need to back away slowly from that scenario because otherwise I'm going to start shipping Bernard/Jason with the angle of "survived a death cult"]

And as for the last thing - and this finally leads us once again closer to The Ritual: @coconutjelly linked me to this post:

And when I read it I think I got a little muddled with the bit about Lethe because I assumed the water of Akheron had some memory shit going on but I can work with this.

So I said that my Cult of Dionysus was a pretty Dry cult. there's some drinking but mostly not by people who do the sensation stuff because drinking tends to dull the physical senses. And hard drugs are generally also a no because of the same reason. They mess with your ability to really feel. [I say as someone who barely drinks much less has experience with hard drugs, I could be wrong here.] But everyone in the cult knows that sometimes the punch is spiked with the water of Akheron and that it increases pain a thousandfold and messes with your memory. And for years Bernard assumes that's what's happening to him. He didn't actually blow a hole in his hand with a blowtorch - he just felt like it. He didn't actually have his nipples ripped out or his dick torn apart or his hand shattered - that was the Water of Akheron talking.

Only then he gets inducted into the true Believer part of the cult - the parts that do the rituals and stuff. Because even with thinking his memory is fucked up, the physical evidence is there and deep down, unconsciously, he believes. And the set up for the induction ceremony is so tame. Just a bunch of cushions on the floor and a goblet in the middle.

the Water of Akheron Fucks. Bernard. Up.

He's never had to miss school or work or anything because of Cult activity but this takes him out for a week.