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🎃Whumptober Day 2: “They Don’t Care About You.”🎃 (Phantom Thieves x Reader)

It has been a while since you hung out with any of your friends. Every time you ask one of them, they always have an excuse to not hang out with you. At first, you thought nothing of it. After all, you get busy yourself. But after a while, it seems like they are becoming more distant. To add to that, the group chat isn’t active anymore. Even if there are messages, they are short or one word messages. It is like they are slowly forgetting you.

Maybe you should leave them alone.

Maybe they don’t care about you anymore.

Whumptober Day 2: "They Don't Care About You."

Fandom: Nimona

Summary: A story from when Ballister was younger. Todd never was nice to him, even when they were young.

Waring: Some violence

Ballister didn't want to be here. He didn't want Todd to be looking over him. He felt small even if he was only a bit shorter than him. He held him to the wall, not letting him do so much as move.

    Boldheart looked past Todd to his fellow knights in training. They had never helped him before so he didn't really know why he tried.

    Sureblade grabbed Ballister's face and forced him to look at him, "they won't help you."

    Hands wrapped around the man's throat, "They don't care about you."

   Pulling his arms up, Bal clawed at Todd's hands. He scratched himself but the marks on Todd's hands were worse.

    The world started to feel strange. He eyed the other who had all gone back to what they had been doing but faster.

    That's when he realized, they truly didn't care about him. Here he was being choked out and they would rather finish what they're doing then help. They would rather let him suffer then do anything at all.

    They other trainees sure but what about Ambrosius? What about him? And the Director? Did she care? The queen? The one who believed in him from the beginning, the one who gave him a chance?

    Did they pity him? Did they care? What would he do if they didn't? What if he was alone after all? What if Todd was right?

    The world started to fade. Ballister tried kicking at Todd but nothing worked. As his vision blurred he stopped fighting so hard.

    After a moment Todd tossed him to the ground. Leaving him unconscious on the dirty floor.

    When Ballister awoke on the floor, alone, he didn't bother getting up yet. He lied on the floor knowing he needed to get up anyway. He stood and looked at the wall then to the rest of the room.

    Meeting his eyes in the mirror felt cold and lonely. But he was lonely. Ballister walked over to the mirror and punched the glass. Then, with a bloody hand he walked towards the door.

    No one had come to look for him. Maybe Todd was right he thought, maybe no one cared about him.

thermometer / delirium / they don't care about you (i’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back)

Voices murmured in the air around him. Some sounded almost familiar, some sounded beyond strange. Images coalesced around him from time to time, odd shapes in various sizes that occasionally seemed too large to exist in the confines of the room he was in.

Serpents lunged at him from the shadows, fangs dripping blood on their retreat. Howls of otherworldly beasts drowned out the voices he could nearly place and he found himself frightened. Something long and cool was forced into his mouth and he gagged at the intrusion, writhing to escape the dagger being tucked under his tongue, but something else was restraining him with impressive power.

Spike was a fierce fighter when he was feeling his best, but in his fevered delirium his abilities altered from fiendishly strong to feeble as a newborn kitten from one raspy breath to the next. He went from nearly overpowering the demon crushing him to the bed, to a trembling mass of sweat and fear. Was this hell at last? Doomed to be tormented by unclear voices, throat raw from calling out for the others - Faye, Jet, Julia, even Vicious - desperately screaming for anyone to save him from these monsters lurking in his peripheral vision and striking out whenever his gaze skittered elsewhere.

They won't answer. They don't care about you. Who would? You cost Julia her life. You killed Vicious yourself. Your hands are stained, your soul is stained. They can't answer you and wouldn't even if they could. You taunted Faye, walked away while she was breaking down …why would she come to your aid now? You got Jet shot, left him on a busted up ship to face your past - why would he worry about your fate? How selfish you are. You abandoned them. You abandoned them and you expect them to answer you now?

*

"Dammit, this thermometer is broken!" Jet snarled, throwing the useless tool across the room.

"No shit, he bit the fucking thing in half." Faye wearily dropped back into the chair that had been drug over beside the couch where Spike lay sprawled, insensate. Bandages covered his upper body, some soaked through with blood, and fresh gauze lay spread out on the table to replace those patches. She looked up at Jet with bloodshot eyes. "What was the point of the thermometer anyway? He's obviously got a fever. I'd bet at least one of these bullet wounds is giving him grief."

Jet sighed. "Hard to believe that gash was the cleanest wound." He stared down at the weakly thrashing man on the couch. "You gonna be able to wrap those wounds on your own? There's a guy I can see about medicine. And I've got beef cooking up in there too - figured we need to eat to keep our strength up and maybe the smell would get to him and do some good. Can you take it off the heat? I don't wanna wait around here til it's done - the sooner I leave the sooner I can be back with something to break his fever."

"Yeah, yeah," Faye waved him off. "Go see your guy, I got this situation in hand. He's all worn out from battling us - I got at least half an hour to get him freshened up before he gets another wind."

Nodding, Jet limped over to the stairs and hurried up them as fast as he could, leaving Faye alone in the living room with the delirious Spike. As exhausted as she was - it had been… well, she'd lost track of time, but it had been a while since he left. A while since she'd convinced Jet to take them to Tharsis to recover whatever might be left of Spike. A while since discovering him facedown on the stairs of an apocalyptic scene and somehow, miraculously, alive.

He'd had the presence of mind to collapse with an arm wrapped around the most serious wound at the time - handiwork of Vicious's katana no doubt. She figured that would be well on the way to healing with an awful scar if only the bullet wounds hadn't become infected. Now they were dealing with a touch-and-go situation and neither of them had slept since the syndicate takedown.

Spike muttered as she worked though she couldn't make out if he was actually saying words. His brow was furrowed and his face pale. His wounds must have been causing him agony but his features were twisted with a deeper torment.

Unable to bear witness to the anguish writ large in the strain on his face, Faye fled the living room to tend to the meat in the kitchen.

*

Wraiths circled his position. Specters of the people he had known in life. Countless faces, some more clear than others. Each and every life he'd taken. Annie, Mao, Shin and Lin and the Elders. Each and every life that had touched his and been burnt by the contact. Whispers of accusation, pronouncements of his guilt.

Julia's face, blank of emotion, mouth set firm.

He called out to her and she refused to answer.

Vicious glaring at him with fury and disappointment in his cold eyes.

All that needed to be said between them had already been said - Spike's regret over the demolition of their partnership merely another weight upon his shoulders to bear with shame.

Howls rose from the throats of the other phantoms. Screeching wails that made his ears bleed. He knew their pain was real, he knew their words were truth. Dead men tell no lies.

You are alone. You were always alone. Your notion of love was pathetic. You sacrificed your place for what? A paltry life amongst the stars, ruining the lives of everyone you met. You were a fool, a fool, a fool. And you thought life gave you a second chance? Pah! Your heart is your weakness. Your comradeship a death warrant. You make the lives of others worse everywhere you go. Why would anyone left alive in your wake desire to see you survive? Why would anyone want you around?

But something was beginning to drift into his awareness. Not a ghost, not a wail. Something that made his stomach growl - the familiar ache of hunger, a pang he never expected to feel again.

The tantalizing aroma of cooked beef. And, much lighter but still noticeable… bell peppers as well. There had only ever been one man who made that meal for him. The most steadfast and reliable person Spike had ever known. Jet was drawing him back to himself, providing the one thing he needed. A hearty meal and, more importantly, the promise of a place on the ship. A home.

The scent buoyed him. It distracted him from the monsters of his mind who were trying to convince him that he had no one. Was wanted nowhere.

And in the distraction he became aware of something else. 

A gentle sound that cut through the angry murmuring of the embittered crowd. A sound he'd heard only a few times - and always when he was suffering. He had teased her about being off key in an attempt to keep her at bay, to shield his own heart from repeating the mistakes of the past. 

But he'd been lying then and could not keep lying to himself now. Or lying to her for that matter.

Faye was somewhere nearby. Watching over him. Caring for him. And humming.