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.

It's the kind of cult that welcomes you with cuddles and warmth and older people who really care in the way your bigoted family don't. The kind of place where an older woman picks you up after the worst day of your life (so far) (Your mother found your one rainbow shirt and burned it first thing in the morning and the jocks as school found out you like kissing boys and tormented you all day) and hauls you into a kiss in front of them and you don't even really like women but you like that everyone saw you kissing her and then she takes you to a cult meeting and hands you over to some friends who cuddle you and jerk you off slow and sweet while pinching you with sharp nails and biting at your mouth so hard that when you finally go home, your lips are bruised and bloody and you say you got in a fight and your parents believe that's why your throat sounds like you've been choked. And you revel because they'd shit the bed if they knew you had actually been choked - but by a cock so far down your throat you can still feel it.

That's how it starts, with sweet nothings and help and lovebombing. So when that older woman wants to chain you down spreadeagle and ride you, you think "she helped me out so much, I can do this for her" because she did, the jocks at school have left you alone now that they think you have a cool older girlfriend. Even though you aren't really into women. And when she doesn't let you come for hours and you're desperate for it, her kisses constantly stealing your breath when her breasts aren't smothering you, of course you say yes when she asks to pierce your nipples even if you've avoided any of the permanent body modifications so far. You come as the second needle slides through and you think you feel a mouth on them as you pass out but she only has one mouth? And if the next day she slides a vibrating egg us your ass before you leave for school, you don't say anything because the other members are doing similar things and this was your first time staying over all night. You keep not saying anything even as the vibe goes off randomly in school and you can't get it out because there's no cord and the jocks find your nipple piercings and call you slurs again and spend all day twisting the piercings until they are bloody and bleeding through your shirt and when you stagger through the doors to the meeting that night (even though you've never gone 2 nights in a row) you are bombarded by praise and kisses and hugs and somehow you end up tied down again (to a table this time) with a man's hand up your ass to the wrist and a line of women waiting to ride your cock and pull at your bleeding piercings and at the end of the night he presses the egg into your prostate as the woman on top of you tears out the right nipple ring with her teeth and you pass out.

You wake and find two whole nipples with barbels through them. And to this day, Bernard can't remove the right one. He's fucked if he ever needs an MRI because that barbel is fused - not even welded shut, it's a single piece of metal somehow through his nipple.

Bernard doesn't like to think about this side of the cult. He forces himself to do it twice a week in therapy and refuses every other moment of the day. He'd rather think about that time he intentionally ate an entire ghost pepper whole just for the burn of it.

And the Cult thing true in the "wild fringe religion" sort of way too. At the outset, it seems like set dressing - like an excuse. A reason to get away with the cuddling and the orgies. The senior members swear weird. Less "Jesus!" and more "Dionysus' hairy ballsack!" or "Aphrodite's tits!" (or "Dionysus' Tits!" and "Aphrodite's shave's ballsack" because this cult is inclusive and don't judge). And there are tons, maybe even literal tons, of statues and paintings and portraits and renditions and etc of Dionysus around. After the video game Hades came out someone got a massive standee of the Dionysus character art and it's been a staple decoration ever since. There's this massive statue that seems to be at every meeting - no matter where they meet. And when you're new, you just sort of assume that it's someone's job to cart it from frat house to warehouse to cave to mansion but if you really get in, really believe, you realize that no one moves that piece. It just shows up. Well, it shows up if there's a believer worshipping. Bernard's never been to a meeting without one but he's heard stories. There are hymns and rituals and stuff, but you have to be in DEEP to be taught any of that.

The thing is, there are people in the cult who only do two of the three. There are always a few really grounded yet really wild people who are into the hedonism and the religion. There was this history professor who showed up casually for a while and recited entire ancient greek prayers while walking on coals and letting people pierce any part of their body she wanted - but people like her are far and few between. Almost everyone is taken in by the culty part of the cult - the part that messes with your head. But most people don't go for the trifecta. (Bernard's always been an overachiever.) Most of the cult doesn't actually believe. They're there for the hedonism and the headtwists. It leads to people trying things that even Bernard won't touch. And they don't wake up the next day like nothing's wrong. They wake up in the hospital being tended to by a nurse who they've only ever seen split open on massive horse dildos. He pins them to the bed and shoves needles into their skin in the dead of night. Those people either come back as believers - completely healed or they never fully recover and yet never talk about how they got those horrific injuries.

So it was a wrench when the scales the Cult burned into him were obviously snake scales.

Bernard didn’t even question it when he was sent out to make out with boys in the garden – to work himself up into a state of pure desire. Pain as his cock got harder and harder and pressed against the spikes inside the cage hard enough to draw blood.

He didn’t question it when he was pulled over to a corner of the garden and a Maenard pulled his hair and held his head still as flower after flower fucked his throat. Coming down it and filling his belly and dirtying his face and neck and hair. Distracting him from the rope winding its way around and around his limbs and torso. The rope was rough hemp,  and it tightened and scratched as he was abruptly hoisted into the air, legs splayed uncomfortably – showing off his caged cock and pulling at his shoulders so they ached after only seconds. (Is this incredibly bad rope tying? Yes. It’s very unsafe and not good. But the Maenards don’t give a single shit about Bernard’s long term safety and well being. They’re going to kill him in a couple of months and probably D will mend any damage anyway so why be careful?)

His back was exposed to someone with a whip and they tied a blindfold around his eyes so he couldn’t see and then he couldn’t taste anything but more flesh down his throat and couldn’t smell anything except the come drying on his skin and the sweat from bodies fucking his face and couldn’t hear anything but the laughter and chattering voices – all indistinct and giddy. And he felt. He felt PAIN.

His throat was raw and aching, his lungs burned for air, his cock was pierced by the spikes in the cage, his limbs were pulling and screaming from the ropes, and his back. Something hit his back. A whip? A flogger? It was a dull, thudding pain. It drew the blood to the surface and made each hit worse than the last. The hits spread out, covering his entire back again and again and again. Until his entire back was a throbbing, aching mess that he felt deep into his muscles.

There was a moment. Endless and an instant, Bernard didn’t know which. Time had no meaning anymore.  A moment where something cool traced his back. A drawing? A soothing cloth to wipe the sweat and calm the muscle? He couldn’t even count the time by the thrust of the cocks in his mouth because those had stopped. He tasted only silicone now, shoved deep down and plugging him from puking up the come he’d swallowed.

He drifted, unable to concentrate, unable to focus. An eternity of the same gentle cool caress and fullness and struggle to breathe and steady pain.

And then.

A prick in his back.

First one. Then another. Then another. All down his spine.

As more and more and more went in, the first began to burn. His muscles protesting.

He shifted and PAIN flared. A zinging pain like being struck with lightning or sticking a fork in a wall socket. His nerves were on fire.

The pricks began to sink into him and cause his nerves to scream with every pinch.

It was needles. When he woke the next day, one of his college cult friends would show him a picture of the thousands of needles in his back, each designed to mimic a feather in a riot of chaotic colour. They were all sizes and at first Bernard couldn’t see a pattern and then the friend flicked to another picture at a different angle and those were. They were wings. Massive feathered wings sunk deep into Bernard’s back setting every nerve on fire. In the pictures, he’s screaming. Blindfold covering his eyes but unable to mask the excrutiating pain on his face. Nothing hid the way his cock was dripping in its cage. Both blood and the come forced out of it by the people fucking him. Pictures of hands on his hips, pictures of the wings blurring as they shook from the force of being fucked – every nerve ablaze and his prostate pounded over and over and his cock leaking. Pictures of his hole, empty and leaking. His mouth finally freed and leaking drool everywhere. A picture of his face entirely uncovered that Bernard had no memory of even though he was looking at the camera – mouth open and begging.

Bernard wanted to ask his friends to delete the pictures, but they were shared everywhere. Everyone in the cult seemed to have a copy. And people were praising him. Telling him he was an amazing sacrifice. Telling him he was beautiful and awe inspiring. And how they were devastated that they’d missed a chance to fuck him. Telling him all the things they wanted to do to him. Texting him. Pulling him aside after class. Cornering him in the kitchen at work.

The only time he didn’t check his phone was when he was with Tim. When they were watching Superboy on TV (when Bernard was laughing at Tim’s grumping about Superboy’s terrible leather jacket. Bernard kinda liked it). When he was trying to avoid staring at Tim’s chest in a thin tshirt because then Bernard started to get hard and his cock pressed against the spikes and he was reminded all over again that his body belonged to the cult and D.

Which he wanted. Obviously. They’d given him a home. Taken him in. They loved him in spite of who he was. He was so proud to be a sacrifice. So proud.