« Aches & Ice »

« Summary »

In a world divided between the glittering Sphere above and the poisoned Ground below, winter is more than a season—it’s a sentence.

Rudo has lived his entire life in pain. The scars spiraling down his arms—gifts from a father he’d rather forget—throb with a cold-born agony that no amount of grit or training as a Cleaner can erase. In the North Ward, where toxic snow falls like ash and heaters sputter on their last breaths, winter turns every night into a battle he barely wins.

But when a brutal storm traps the Cleaners inside HQ, Rudo discovers he isn’t the only one fighting a war against the cold.

You’ve carried your own quiet suffering for years, hiding the way winter locks your body into unyielding stone. Like Rudo, you’ve learned to stay silent—to endure, to breathe through the pain, to avoid being a burden.

Until the night the heaters in your room die.

Drawn by a sound he knows too well—the muted, desperate silence of someone hurting more than they can bear—Rudo acts on instinct. Bursting into your frozen room, he finds you trapped in the same hell he’s lived since childhood. And for the first time, the wall he’s built between his pain and the rest of the world cracks.

As storms rage outside and old wounds flare within, two people shaped by suffering find an unexpected refuge in each other’s warmth. But in a place where survival demands strength, letting someone close is its own kind of danger.

« Notes »

Okay. Honestly I'm not to awfully proud of this one...sorta ran outta steam half way through writing it and I feel like you can definitely notice....

Like a dumbass I forgot my pain meds this morning AND my new heating pad was delayed til tomorrow 🙃 my body is hurting like a bitch rn...

I will...most likely return to this after I finish Riyos bot. Zanka is done, Zodyl has been drafted. If anyone has any other suggestions for the omegaverse bots do lemme know.

« Credits »

Dividers by CafeKitsune on Tumblr.