WHUMPTOBER [2023]

No.1: healing in the darkness, within her arms

"But now this room is spinning while I'm trying just to fill in all the gaps."
Safety Net | Swooning | "How many fingers am I holding up?"

DORLENE [Dorcas Meadowes x Marlene McKinnon]

{Warnings:
SA (sexual assault)
Mentions of rape
Trauma, from above ^}

***

Dorcas stalked the hallways, breath hitching at every turn. Wherever she had ended up, she wanted to get out, and now would be preferable.

She should have never come to this stupid party.

Dorcas groaned. Her head hurt, and she could still envision the man's lips mouthing the words against her skin: "Mine, darling, you're mine."

Dorcas heaved right at her feet. Her surroundings seemed to blur again, everything becoming one whole haze. There was a thumping in her chest repeating an unhelpful sequence of 'there's no escaping.'

Shuddering, Dorcas slumped to the ground, mind pounding and body aching. She didn't want to acknowledge the reason behind it, or why the muscles in her lower region felt horridly betrayed — rightfully so, because just a few minutes ago, they had to endure endless rounds of sexual torment Dorcas couldn't ignore had happened. Sex she had said no to, again and again, until he was forcing her into a yes.

After that, the world had fallen beneath her feet, and she felt like nothing at all. A weak, stupid woman, in this awful, awful world.

Dorcas broke into sobs, ones that soon turned to screams she didn't realise she wasn't repressing. They echoed back at her in the hallways — taunting.

"'Cas?"

Dorcas choked, scream cutting off, and turned miserably to whoever had spoken. She just wanted to scream again when the figure simply had no shape to them, as if it were a blurry long piece of flesh.

"Oh my god, 'Cas! What the fuck? Are you okay?" Panic. Of course, they were panicking. Dorcas had probably never felt worse in her entire life, and here was her saviour, fucking standing there and panicking.

Dorcas wanted to reach for her phone and dial Regulus, maybe scream at him to kill them, whoever 'them' was; the man who had so shamelessly spiked her drink and raped her. The man she didn't even know the name of.

"Dorcas, who did this to you?" The figure's voice was firmer now, like it had regained sense and wanted to start tearing through skin. With a start, Dorcas realised the person had spotted her slight nudity, from where her top hung low and her skirt was ridden up to her hips.

"Who are you?" Dorcas grunted. "Get me Regulus," she decided to order next.

"He's- he's gone, 'Cas. With Sirius. Almost everyone is. Fuck. You don't know who I am?" They sounded small now. Ridiculous — they had no right to be upset at the moment.

Then, Dorcas gasped. "Marls?" Of course it was Marlene, but her voice had sounded so far away and so wrong, she hadn't recognised it. "Marlene!" Her shriek made Marlene jump, her blurry figure coming closer, albeit hesitant.

"Listen to me, 'Cas... it's going to be okay, alright? You're going to be fine..." It was the first time Dorcas had ever heard Marlene's voice crack in such a way. Marlene sounded almost as broken as Dorcas felt.