Like Moth to a Flame

I enjoy writing and reading hurt/comfort stories with an emphasis on the hurt aspect, and this is my side blog to post those (and to also post other whump content).

Assume all content here is not safe for work and not appropriate for minors. Despite my best effort not to use this word, I am very much a shipper — you will encounter pairings here, and they will be uncomfortable.

Enter at your own risk.

My angsty Voltron AO3 Works can be found here.

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Please send me an ask with some pertinent information, including the topic/trope, the fandom, and any relevant characters and/or pairings.

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I made a carrd to help folks find my stuff. It's purple. https://noprotocol.carrd.co/

"Disobeying orders led to punishment," the soldier said quietly. "I wasn't the most well-behaved subject in my cohort."

The caretaker ached to get up and give her friend a hug, or a shoulder to lean on, but she didn't want to interrupt him. She knew how hard it could be to share memories that hurt and wanted to give the man a fighting chance.

The soldier shook his head, reminding himself not for the first time that it was only a memory. He was never going back to that place, not alive anyway.

"The room they used for punishments was basically an empty, metal box with grating instead of a solid floor and a restraint hook in the middle." The lighting had been designed for maximum annoyance and to make resting as difficult as possible. "They would attach our arms and legs to the hook. It was impossible to stretch out, or even sit up sometimes."

He remembered the feel of cold steel on his forehead. "And then, they would leave us there, alone, naked, for whatever duration they deemed appropriate. They had a book."

He heard the woman take a horrified breath and shut up. "I'll stop. I'm sorry."

"Don't." The redhead gritted her teeth and got up. "You should be able to talk about this with people. You don't need to make yourself palatable because you think it scares me."

"It's in the past." He sounded lost.

The caretaker stood in front of him, separated by the door that wasn't a door. "Yeah, and it still haunts your present. I'm going to stand right here and listen if you want to keep going. If you feel up to it."

Below is a short drabble that we wrote as a trial run for a setting and story concept that we've been playing with for a while. The situation takes place in a fictional future universe twice removed from any source material, and with original characters and concepts thrown in for flavor.

We might write more if the mood strikes.

Content warning: whump -- mostly physical pain and mild despair

During the calibration, Jack screams until his voice is hoarse.

Hot, burning pain shoots down his spine and into and his shaking limbs until he feels like every nerve is on fire. It’s endless, and he doesn’t remember falling, but suddenly the metal floor is cool under his overheated face. Tears fall down his cheeks, unheeded.

A technician in gray scrubs stands over him with a tablet, taking notes as he runs the newly installed wetware inside Jack’s brain through its paces. A Fleet soldier lingers by the door, armed with a fancy cattle prod, just in case the prisoner gets any wild ideas.

As if Jack stands a chance against the governor implant that now controls his actions and behavior.

As if.

An inquisitor and the judge assigned to oversee his case are visible through a two-way glass window that separates the sterile medical cell from the observation room.

The older Fleet officer has enough humility to look uncomfortable. The short, imposing inquisitor who sealed Jack’s face looks downright bored. This is just another notch in his belt — another traitor brought to justice in the name of the Fleet.

Slowly, the agony fades into a dull ache, and he rolls over onto his back. The bright overhead lights barely register.

With bitter certainty, he knows that this is the first day of his new life. The implants are permanent as far as Jonathan Ceres is aware, and he will never be free of it again.

The black paladin awoke and briefly couldn’t remember where the fuck he was.

Dull but insistent pain pulled at his arms and legs, and his whole body felt like it had been shoved into a box. Disoriented, he forced his eyes open, and memories of the past day returned with full force. 

Startled, he tried to move despite the agony. And discovered almost instantly that he couldn’t.

Thick metal shackles wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and these were connected together with lengths of chain that allowed for very little motion. He couldn’t straighten out or stretch no matter how he tried, forced into a scrunched ball at the bottom of the damn cage. Every new motion sent painful shockwaves through his limbs. A muzzle covered his mouth completely, forcing him to breathe through his nose. 

“Dress the part,” the druid had said.

Keith glanced down at himself and shivered at what little he wore now beyond these restraints. His ribs ached underneath all these other discomforts — broken ribs, maybe. He didn’t want to know.

The misery of his situation warred with fear for his husband and teammates. Pidge had been alive when the druid had knocked him out with some kind of sleeping gas. Were they still alive? All right? Uninjured? 

The Blade did his best to make himself comfortable and focused on his breathing, trying desperately to keep it under some semblance of control. Keeping the terror at bay took priority.

---

Shiro was dead on his feet.

And still, he refused to relinquish his control of the Atlas’ helm. 

He couldn’t — wouldn’t — stop until they had rescued Keith and Pidge. How could he rest knowing his boyfriend was in enemy hands?

A heavy weight sat in the pit of his stomach, and no amount of reassurance that the two paladins were strong and resourceful brought him any relief. They were both still human, still flesh-and-blood people who could be hurt. Or killed. 

Lance lingered in the control room with a stunned and horrified expression. His subdued demeanor said more than words ever could. Keith and Shiro were perhaps his best friends, play partners, and two of the people he loved dearly. They were also the two strongest people he knew.

And now one of them was in enemy hands, and the other stood before him, a shadow of the man Lance knew.

“Any word on the tracker?” the admiral asked in a tense, angry voice.

The communications officer shook their head. “Keith’s tracker isn’t transmitting anymore, and the Blade has dispatched a tactical team to its last known location. Pidge’s tracker is in their suit, which is safely here on Earth.”

Keith barely looked up when the druid returned. At least six hours had passed between the two arrivals, given how much more thirsty he was now. The adrenaline had long faded, leaving behind only terror and misery. The exhausted Blade sat at the bottom of his cage, knees pressed against his chest, and watched the Galra with narrow, angry eyes.

The robed Galra stopped so close to the cage he stood just barely out of Keith’s reach. The cruelty in his expression was unmistakable. “I’m told you’re a reasonable person and might be convinced to compromise,” he said with a merciless smile.

Speaking was difficult when his mouth was dry, and his throat felt raw, but Keith still managed to spit out, “Fuck you.”

The druid chuckled like it was a funny joke. “I might have a proposition for you. But first, let’s check in on a friend of yours. I know you’ll recognize them.”

The same screen appeared again, but the video was clear and high definition this time. Bars were visible in the background of a gray holding cell. The space was bigger than Keith’s cage, but no kinder, and Pidge sat on the floor in the corner, shivering.

Their civilian clothes — a fucking summer dress — were singed and town in places. The green paladin looked young and vulnerable, glasses askew and arms crossed in front of them protectively. They’d all been children when they’d joined the war, and the conflict had made soldiers out of teenagers, Keith reflected bitterly. And still, he hated seeing Pidge like this, scared and alone in enemy hands.  

The bars in front of the green paladin lowered, and a faceless soldier with a blaster stepped into their cell. Pidge nearly jumped as the armed Galra strode toward them, arms instinctively rising to protect their face. 

The soldier stopped only a foot away from the young hacker and placed his gun to their temple in an unmistakable gesture. Keith’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest, and his shoulders sagged. Anger and fear churned his stomach.

“A command from me,” the druid beside him said calmly, like they were discussing dinner, “and the human girl dies.”

Bastard, the Blade thought helplessly, but he kept his mouth shut. “What do you want?”

“Your cooperation in capturing the other paladins. That should prove easy enough with you two in custody. You should’ve seen the look on Shiro’s face when he learned little Pidge had been kidnapped.”

Keith ignored the jibe and focused on the impossible choice. He wouldn’t say no when Pidge’s life was on the line. And getting out of this cage, however briefly, might net him more information about their captors. 

What scared him the most was that he knew with unbearable certainty that Shiro and the other paladins would throw caution to the wind to find them. And that might get them killed quicker than anything the druid could possibly cook up.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

Twenty-four-year-old Keith didn’t like cages any more than twelve-year-old Keith.

The unidentified assailants shoved him into one barely large enough to stand in and with no room to move. It took all of the Blade’s considerable willpower not to spiral straight into panic upon discovering his predicament. 

When he first woke in this dark, stuffy room, he’d examined the cage for a locking mechanism or at least a door and found none. He couldn’t fit through the narrow gaps between the bars and couldn’t figure out how his kidnappers had gotten him inside.

Keith focused on breathing as his mind insisted that the walls were closing in, and the stifling heat meant his oxygen was running out. Focusing on survival and escape helped, but only so much. He couldn’t see any other cages around him, but distant noises — boots on metal, creaks, moans — suggested he wasn’t alone.

Mission failure. Of a mission that should’ve been a walk in the park.

A good hundred paces in front of him, a door slid open with a soft hiss, letting in light and cool air from the hallway outside. A moment later, a robe-clad Galra strode inside, and the door closed quietly behind him. He snapped his fingers, and dim, overhead lights came on, giving Keith a good look at the man’s scarred face.

“I thought you might be interested to know your boyfriends are already planning your rescue,” said the pale-skinned druid as he waved his hand.

Keith gripped the bars of his cage and stared with growing horror at an oversized screen that displayed a grainy video of ATLAS’ control deck. Shiro, Lance, and Pidge were deep in conversation that he couldn’t hear, but he could see a hologram of his own picture hovering above the table between them. 

“Don’t worry, little Blade, we have a welcome party ready for them.”

“Fuck you.”

“Well, it would be rude not to meet our new guests.” The druid’s voice dripped with cruelty, and his smile looked more like a menacing grin. “They’re coming all this way just to see us. You—” The druid chuckled, “make great bait.”

Keith’s grip on the bars tightened. “What the fuck do you want?”

The Galra dismissed the screen with another gesture. “We have great plans for you, Keith. Plenty of buyers out interested in ‘taming’ the Black Paladin.” 

The druid turned to leave. “Best get used to your new home, soldier. I doubt you’ll be leaving it ever again.”

“Why’re you doing this?”

“The former paladins have been a thorn in our side since the end of the war. Removing them now will allow us to dismantle the Coalition,” the jailer replied, already at the door. “Now, it’s time to see about some proper accommodations for your friends.”

“Wait!”

“I have other matters to attend to. But don’t worry, someone will bring you water before you die of dehydration. Maybe.”

Keith’s vision blurred just as a nameless, faceless enemy lunged at him from behind a crate.

He tried to parry the attack and found he could barely move. His body felt heavy, and his thoughts moved so slowly that the pain of being slammed into a metal wall barely registered. His luxite blade fell from his numb, fumbling fingers, and an attacker kicked it away. 

The senior Blade tried to focus. He brought his leg up and kneed his opponent. It took almost too much strength to move, but he refused to surrender without a fight. 

Nearby, a teammate crashed into a stack of boxes with enough force to splinter the heavy-duty wood. Food and other emergency supplies spilled into the wide hallway. Keith tried to move to defend the fallen Blade, but his balance was short. He met the floor instead, face first.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

This planet was deemed safe, and the Blades had come here on a humanitarian mission as delegates of the fledgling Coalition. An easy victory for a still-forming government, practically a vacation. 

And yet, here they were, on the ground, bruised and battered.

Above his head, someone spoke in a language Keith didn’t recognize.

He tried to move again, but his body felt like it was made of lead. It took all his effort just to keep breathing. Perhaps this was an adverse effect of whatever gas he and the other Blades had been dosed with when they’d entered the facility. Perhaps it was an intended consequence supplied his brain far too late.

He watched with growing horror as one of the attackers sliced a cable from a hole in the wall and walked toward him. Keith struggled against the enemy that grabbed his wrists, but it was pointless and a waste of his remaining strength. He felt the cable wrap around his wrists and ankles.

SecUnit is in my medical bay.

So is SecUnit’s right arm, although it’s not currently attached to SecUnit. For all intents and purposes, it is sufficiently complex to a.) watch media with SecUnit in the feed and b.) have opinions about said media. 

It’s tapping out those opinions on a modified display surface. 

Iris is lying inside MedSystem with minor bruising and a gash in her shoulder. The disembodied arm is the reason she is alive at all, so I am being very lenient with its continued existence.

SecUnit pings me on a private channel. Explain it to me again. It’s alive?

I focus on the question because accuracy is essential. It appears to be. The facts of the situation cannot be expressed accurately in words. To the best of my understanding, 2.0 fused with the alien remnant and, in colloquial terms, hitched a ride in the neural tissues and limited processors associated with your shoulder-arm-hand assembly. It lay dormant until some undefined point where it detached from you and rescued Iris.

I know that part. I was there.

Your arm has been malfunctioning for months. 2.0 is likely the reason.

SectUnit starts another episode of Sanctuary Moon since 2.0 would like to rewatch the entire series. And now what?

I am constructing you a new arm as we speak.

I mean, what happens to 2.0?

I know you did, and I am unsure of the answer, either. I cannot predict whether I can transfer 2.0 in its current state into a more-appropriate system. 

It’s stuck like this? Does it know?

It does, I acknowledge. There’s nothing you or I can do right now to resolve this situation. Its continued existence is an adverse effect of the alien remnant. Now that it is here, we’ll do what we can, but we know very little about alien remnants, much less how they interface with construct code. You might not believe this, but I doubt this has ever happened before.

No shit, ART.

2.0 taps something on the display tablet. GOOD PART.

So, I'm going to try to write a couple of different things for Whumptober because there are currently;y two fandoms I regularly hang out in, and I want to do a little something for both of them.