#whump problems

It’s like something is missing, and how fortunate it is that the missing piece is some kind of agony but Silas finds himself bracing for it all the same.

They’re sprawled across the common room, across the couches and the mismatched carpets, and Silas isn’t in surgery, nobody else is in training, their wounds are all healing. Silas is dwarfing the loveseat but Wren had fit himself into the spot at his side and he’s so warm next to him that it’s a good day. It makes Silas’ fingers twitch. Something’s just —

Something isn’t right. It’s electric, and it prickles at the back of his neck. He’s already looking at the door when it chirps to life; a keycard is accepted, then a fingerprint, then the vault lock is unsecured.

Silas was right. Something’s wrong.

The door grinds open and a cavalry of soldiers explode into the room like a swarm of flies. It’s an ambush. They move quickly, covering the door and the perimeter of the common room, shouting over each other, shouting commands.

They flood through the common room, guns pointed towards them.

Wren’s small hand finds Silas’ quickly and Silas squeezes. He helps Wren to his feet as guns are aimed into their faces and soldiers shout at them, commanding and militant, “on your feet, asset! On your feet!”

They’re herded into a row, which gives Silas a cool, uneasy feeling he doesn’t let show on his face. Standing next to each other, they’re too drastically different in size to hold hands in any practical way, but Wren keeps close at his side, fingers woven through Silas’ sleeve so tightly his knuckles are white.

It gives Silas a pang of — not of reassurance, because it’s next to impossible to ever be reassured in a place like this, but something a bit more akin to resolve. Something’s wrong, but it really doesn’t matter what it is. If Wren’s in any sort of danger, Silas will raise fuckin’ hell. No harm will befall even a hair on his little blonde head as long as Silas has something to fuckin’ say about it.

He shifts, only slightly, shielding Wren behind his arm just as Point saunters into their unit, hands behind his back, at ease. He walks with casual, unhurried footsteps, pacing up and down the line of them, and he’s quiet for a long time. He stops once in front of Wren and Silas doesn’t like the way he looks at him.

“Assets,” he greets finally, loud and commanding. “It has come to my attention that this unit has been causing me some trouble. Again.” He stops, turns to face them, arms still at ease. “One of you,” he says, “has been feeding some information to the big guy —“ he points at Silas “— that we suspect will make him extremely volatile. That puts us in danger, and that just won’t do, will it?”

Point looks down the row of them before he settles on Wren, close against his back. “And it was you, wasn’t it?” He asks. “You weren’t a very good girl.”

Wren inhales sharply at his back and Silas isn’t sure if the race of his heartbeat is Wren’s or his own. Something cold starts to trickle down the back of his neck, just as cold as whatever’s started to frost over the inside of his ribcage.

“I asked you a question,” Point says.

Wren’s fingertips dig into Silas’ arm so hard he probably draws blood. “No,” he breathes, so soft it’s barely audible.

Point grins at him. “No?”

“No,” he insists, just as soft. “I’ve never — no. They don’t — they don’t know.”

His eyebrows lift. “They don’t know?” The way his smile spreads wider across his face is grotesque. “My,” he says. “Didn’t this just get a whole lot more interesting?”

“Please,” Wren whispers.

The way Point grins at him makes Silas’ stomach bubble. He pushes Wren behind him entirely. “Fuck off.”

Point’s gaze flickers up to Silas’ face, almost appraising, before that awful, grotesque smile spreads across his face again. “That’s why you’ve got such a soft spot for her,” he says. “She never told you she’s a whore.”

Wren inhales sharply and Silas is going to rub that smile off Point’s face with the concrete floor.

Before he gets the opportunity, Robin says, “it was me.”

He doesn’t break line, he doesn’t change face, a proper and trained soldier. But, “I talked to Silas. Wren didn’t know.”

Point turns his head before he follows the movement of it, stalking the line of them to Robin.

Wren’s older brother, the familial resemblance is undeniable; they have the same white hair, the same dark eyes, the same cheekbones. The difference between them is that Wren is a person, soft and warm, and Robin is a super soldier. He’s big and he’s broad, his hair cropped short above his ears. When he isn’t in combat, he wears round, dorky glasses. He’s always scared the hell out of Silas and Silas doesn’t quite know why. Not much else scares him.

Robin had come to him maybe a week ago, and he hadn’t said much. He didn’t know much, even. Wren hasn’t really been…himself, he’d said. More than usual. He won’t tell me what’s going on with him but I was hoping you would…keep an eye on him. He trusts you.

He really didn’t even need to ask, because Silas was always keeping an eye on Wren but Robin was worried about him and Silas knows more than enough how that feels.

He keeps his chin up as Point approaches. Wren is shaking at Silas’ back. “You?”

“Sir,” Robin agrees.

Point hums thoughtfully. “This unit is just full of surprises today, isn’t it?”

He just barely looks at his men, tipping his head towards Robin. The militia descends on him, shouting and aiming and threatening, getting Robin to his knees, hands behind his head. Two of them hold him there, kneeling on the concrete as Point stands in front of him with a grin.

“Asset,” he says. “You have been charged today with inciting violence.”

“No,” Wren breathes. “No, please —“

“Normally,” Point says, grinning wider, not turning his head, “the punishment for inciting violence is execution. But we’ve made exceptions for the freak,” he explains, his eyes flickering to Silas, “so we’ve decided to show you mercy. You will get to walk away.” And he grins, flicking his wrist, and a buck knife slides out from his sleeve and glints tauntingly in the fluorescence. “We just need to make absolutely certain you are no longer capable of inciting violence in our facility. Precautions need to be taken.” With his other hand, he grabs a fistful of Robin’s white hair and he drives his knee into his windpipe.

Robin chokes, gasping for ragged breaths as Point takes a step back, just far enough that he can boot Robin in the face and throw him off his knees, onto his back. From there, Point stomps down onto his face, and the pitch of the gurgling noise that Robin makes gives Silas goosebumps.

“Today,” he announces, “we will take your tongue. We will no longer have to worry about threats of violence, and you will be used as an example to your unit. We don’t make empty threats. We will not have any more insurgence in this fuckin’ place, do I make myself clear?”

“Please,” Wren breathes, peeking out from around Silas’ arm and Silas tries to shield him again but he’s stubborn, he’s insistent. “Please. Don’t do this.”

Point looks at him and he looks for a long time. It makes all the hair at the back of Silas’ neck stand up, and he holds out an arm, not shielding Wren, just blocking him, just in case. Silas can see the idea form in the way that Point’s face lights up, cruel and delighted. He clicks his tongue at Wren, angling his head, some kind of signal. “Bring the girl over here,” he commands. “I want to be inside her while I cut out her brother’s tongue.”

“No,” Robin grunts, with the wet strain of somebody bleeding down the back of his own throat.

“No,” Wren breathes, taking a quick step back.

A wall of black tactical gear and assault rifles closes in on him quickly, and Silas moves without any hesitation or conscious thought at all.

He pivots. He’s gentle, he’s so gentle with Wren as he pushes him behind himself and barricades him from the nightmare cavalry. Wren’s hand finds his arm so tightly that Silas’ bones grind together and it’s his resolve. He won’t let anything happen to Wren — he can’t. Over his dead fuckin’ body.

Robin — whatever. Silas could take him or leave him. But he means a lot to Wren, and Silas won’t let Wren down.

“I fuckin’ dare you,” he spits.

Give lifts his gun. “Stand down, asset.”

“Tell you what,” Silas says, lifting his chin. “If you get me down, I’ll stay down.”

Give aims his gun towards Silas’ dick. “I don’t think that’ll be too hard.”

But the funniest thing about these soldiers is that they know Silas. They were here for his creation. They’ve witnessed every field test. They know what he can do. They know exactly what he’s capable of. When Silas needs to be escorted from the unit they’ll argue amongst themselves, throwing weight and rank around, about who has to stand in front because none of them want to put their backs to him.

They’re scared of him. They’re right to be, but they’re scared of him. But there’s something in this unit — maybe it’s because Silas is corned and drastically outnumbered, but it makes them cocky. It’s like they forget to be scared.

They should always be scared.

Silas rips the gun out of Give’s hands and shatters every bone in his face with the base. He drops into a limp pile of limbs and Silas can’t tell if he’s breathing. He struggles, sometimes, with how little it actually takes to kill a human being. Overkill, sometimes, but he’s never tried to tone it down.

“Asset!” Preach bellows, and Silas hooks his foot behind his ankle, sending him sprawling. Once he’s on the ground, Silas drives his heel down and right through the centre of his face. He hits concrete, and bone tears through his sock and bites open the bottom of his foot.

He’s rewarded with a knife between the ribs.

It’s whatever, it’s a knife to the ribs, it’s definitely not Silas’ first. But it hurts, of course it fuckin’ hurts, it hurts all the way through him and deep into his chest and he rips the knife out of his side with a roar. Rock, still standing close at his side, exhales an, “aw, fuck,” before Silas gives him back his knife. He brings it up, through the underside of his chin, into the roof of his mouth. Blood pours out of his face like a faucet had been turned on. He hits the ground with a noise like a splatter.

This time, he’s rewarded with a bullet to the face.

It isn’t lethal, but Silas is still shot in the face.

His cheekbone shatters on impact and he goes completely blind on his left side. For a second, for only a second, the world around him blurs completely, but it happens for a second too long. Silas sways, and when the vision clears in his right eye they’re all close, they’re all way too fuckin’ close.

“Back up,” he snarls, but then everything blurs again and their hands are on Wren and they’re trying to wrench him from his side.

“NO!” Silas roars.

“Silas!” Wren cries. He reaches for him, and Silas grabs him quickly by the hand.

While his arm is outstretched, Need strikes, and he breaks all the way through Silas’ elbow with a buck knife.

It crackles with pain for barely a moment before Silas stops feeling anything in his arm. It falls to his side, useless and limp, and Silas quickly reaches for Wren with his other arm but Silas thinks he might be losing a lot of blood and quickly isn’t quick enough.

Wren is hauled away as Silas is surrounded, guns aimed at all his most vital spots, fingers on triggers.

Wren fights, begs, struggles, but Tide and Vineyard make easy work of dragging him across the concrete. His wrists are tied behind his back, and when they drop him at Point’s feet, they drop him on his back, his hands trapped against the concrete. There’s something really helpless about it and it makes Silas really nauseous. The knife is still pierced through his elbow.

Point lifts his boot and presses it down against Wren’s throat, holding him there.

Silas doesn’t snarl so much as his chest makes some kind of noise, something low, like some kind of predatory animal. The barrel of a gun is hoisted, cold, against the nape of his neck, a warning.

“This is getting just fuckin’ ridiculous,” Point snaps at the room at large. “Ridiculous! All of this fuckin’ trouble! For some whore!” He looks down at Wren and tells him directly, “you are not worth all this fuckin’ trouble.”

Something akin to hatred knots in Silas’ chest, something akin to hatred but something so much stronger, something he doesn’t have the words to describe. It’s heavy, and it’s restless under his skin. The knife is still pierced through his elbow.

Point coils Wren’s braid around his fist and drags him over to Robin as Wren cries. Robin tries to protest, makes a hiccuping sort of sound, but he doesn’t speak. He probably can’t. He’s drowning.

“You people have been giving me a lot of trouble,” Point announces. He props Wren’s head up against Robin’s chest. “I’ve earned this.”

Wren sobs and it’s the single worst sound that Silas has ever heard. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it. The knife is still pierced through his elbow.

“Please,” he begs, “please, please. Don’t do this. Please.”

Point grins at him. “You know how much I love it when you beg.” In a single, fluid motion, he hauls Wren’s joggers down his thighs.

The knife is still pierced through Silas’ elbow. He takes quick stock. He can still use one of his arms and he can still see from one of his eyes. He’s probably still at an advantage over a regular, human soldier.

Except Hal is swarmed, too. Not the same as Silas, because Hal’s a little more human than Silas, but he’s swarmed, and still, he shoves a soldier out of his way by the side of his head as he shouts, “you can’t do this!”

Point looks up quickly. He kind of scans the room before he settles on Hal. “Excuse me?”

“You can’t fuckin’ do this!” Hal cries.

“Stand down,” a soldier warns him and Hal pulls that guy’s knees out from under him.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?” He protests. “This is fucked up!”

Point looks down at Wren for a long time, who cries quietly and doesn’t look back. Finally, he leans over him, up to Robin, and pries his mouth open. Robin doesn’t fight him. He doesn’t even hiccup this time.

Point eases his tongue from his mouth and severs it with a flick of his wrist. Stepping over Wren and Robin, he sidles up to Hal, getting right up in his face. “Which one are you?”

“Singh,” Hal answers. He adds, mocking, “sir.”

Something flickers in Point’s jaw. “Singh,” he agrees. “They tell me you’re not very bright, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I will choose to believe it is ignorance and not defiance that has made you think you have any right to stand up to me or to tell me what I can’t do. You do not. I can do anything I’d like. I can do whatever I want to you people. Do I make myself clear?”

Hal doesn’t deign that with a response.

Point flicks Robin’s tongue into his face and bellows, “do I make myself clear?”

Hal doesn’t flinch, but he closes his eyes.

Point delights in it. “Soldier,” he says, and when Hal looks at him, he goes on, “you know to look at a superior when they’re talking to you.” He looks at Vineyard. “Both eyes. Left and right.”

Vineyard nods.

Hal says, “what?”

The swarm is back at him in a second and it’s bigger this time. They force Hal onto the ground, onto his back, they pin him there by his arms and his legs and his wrists and his chest and his chin. Tide holds his eyelids open.

Hal thrashes. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? This is bullshit!”

“You should’ve known better than to misbehave,” Point says.

He hands Vineyard the same knife he’d used to amputate Robin’s tongue. Vineyard flips it over in his fist, and straddles Hal’s chest. Hal thrashes again, trying to throw him off. “Get the fuck off me! You can’t do this shit! This is fucked!”

“What did I just say?” Point snaps. He snaps his fingers, and Vineyard carves both of Hal’s eyeballs out of their sockets.

He screams the whole time.

He screams himself hoarse, and when Vineyard climbs off of him, when the swarm depletes, he’s a pile on the floor, head down, and Silas can’t tell if he’s still conscious.

“I am getting sick,” Point spits, “sick of the behaviour from this fuckin’ unit. You are livestock. You are property. You belong to me. You have no power here. And I’m delighted to let you know, livestock, that you aren’t even our best. You aren’t special. If you can’t learn to behave yourselves, you will all be put down, and our efforts will be relocated to another unit and you will not be missed. Except the girl,” he adds, mostly to Wren, standing over him again. He winks. “What a waste of such fuckable meat. We’ll keep her in the barracks until we get bored of her. She will be kept busy.”

Wren sobs and Silas’ fingers twitch. His arm is hot with bleeding.

Point crouches down above Wren again and makes a sound, a mock sigh. “I was really looking forward to fucking you while I cut his tongue out,” he says, pulling his joggers the rest of the way down, “and now I’m really disappointed. So you’re gonna have to make that up to me.”

Wren sobs again. His voice is trembling as he begs, “please, please. Please don’t do this. Please.”

“Be good,” Point tells him, and there isn’t even any mocking amusement in it. “I’m already disappointed. Don’t put me in a bad mood.”

“Please,” Wren sobs.

Point pulls him a little closer, pulls his head off of Robin’s chest. “Be a good girl,” he says. “I’m not asking.”

His hands find Wren’s waist and Wren wails. “Please.”

Something shifts in Point’s face. His bad mood. “Just be a good girl!” He cracks his fist into Wren’s face so hard that the back of Wren’s head ricochets off the pavement before he goes completely, unsettlingly still. His cheekbone is already bruised as Point snaps, “fuck sake.” With a grunt, he spits in Wren’s face. “Dumb bitch.” As he stands, he looks right at Silas. “Not as much fun fucking her when she’s not awake to fight me off.”

Silas is a violent person, but the kind of violence that Point stokes in him is something like nothing else Silas has ever experienced. It’s dizzying, not a thirst but a lust, and Silas doesn’t just want to kill him but he wants to eviscerate him.

He makes it half a step closer before the soldier standing closest, Vienna, lifts his gun and shoves the barrel tight against the bottom of Silas’ chin.

“Stand down.”

Silas doesn’t even have time to remove the knife from his arm. Silas grabs Vienna around the throat and crushes every bone in his neck with his other hand. He’s dead before he has time to react.

Two gunshots are the soundtrack to his body hitting the concrete. The pain registers a moment later.

It explodes through both of Seven’s kneecaps, one at a time, a white hot sort of pain that seeps into the marrow of his bones and hurts from the inside. He drops to his knees, and fire licks up into his hips, his chest, it churns his stomach with something hot and acidic that crawls up the back of his throat as he bellows.

Point lowers his handgun. “He told you to stand down.”

“Eat shit,” Silas seethes, and Point fires another shot into the already shattered plate of his right knee. The way the pain ripples through him knocks the wind out of him, and Silas groans through his teeth, breathless.

“Down, boy,” Point says. Silas snarls as he saunters closer, gun raised but almost mocking in its brandishing. “You embarrass yourself, you know,” he tells him. “Losing all this blood for the sake of the fucksleeve. This is a waste of your talents.”

Silas snorts at him. “Get fucked.”

It brings back Point’s grin, and he points at Wren’s limp body. “Like your little girlfriend’s going to be?”

Silas rips the knife out of his arm. He means to throw it, but he doesn’t get that far.

He gets shot in the face. Again.

It blows everything to darkness for a second and when Silas comes back to himself he’s on his back, looking up at Point, illuminated ominously by the fluorescent lights.

Point grins down at him again. “For constant belligerence,” he says, “left leg. Below the knee.” He holds out a hand, and Vineyard hands him an axe. “I’ll do the honours. Shame the girl isn’t conscious for this one.” He turns the axe in his hands, brandishing it dramatically before he hoists the end of it towards June.

“Tollier,” he says. “Any grand, heroic gestures for this one before I amputate his leg?”

June looks at Silas like she might try.

He shakes his head against the concrete.

She looks at him for as long as the moment will allow. Still, she doesn’t look away when she whispers, “no.”

“Hmm,” Point says. “Good girl.” He looks at her with an almost genuine approval. “Two fingers from your left hand for general insubordination,” he orders. “But I’ll let you pick which two fingers.”

Vineyard’s grin glints in the overhead lights.

Silas is sure June screams, but it sounds like his ears are full of water and he can’t hear much of anything else.