Hurt/Comfort Exchange 2021

[positivelyvexed]

Dear author,

I'm so excited to see what you come up with for this exchange! Hurt/comfort is one of my favorite tropes and this is one of my favorite exchanges, and I will be delighted to receive hurt/comfort for any of these fandoms.

I am very fine with leaning into the pain and agony on the way to comfort. I often enjoy a bit of friction between my pairings and comfort that isn't always soft and uncomplicated. I also really love characters struggling to give/receive comfort because of a fraught relationship, or because they're just not the sort of people comfortable giving/receiving comfort. I also find characters trying to help each other but being too damaged or beat up to do it properly to be absolute catnip.

I've requested a bunch of "both hurt" tags, but don't feel obligated to make the hurt equitable. If you want one character to be significantly more hurt or incapacitated than the other, or one character hurt emotionally and the other physically, that's fine. Please feel free to contact me through the mods if you have any questions.

My AO3 username is PositivelyVexed.

Requested Fandoms
True Detective
Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly
The Hateful Eight

General likes

• Enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, unlikely team-ups, characters who don’t quite trust each other being forced to rely on each other
• Ideological conflicts
• Unexpected loyalty or kindness
• Characters who are bad at expressing their feelings, characters expressing their feelings in unconventional ways
• Competence porn, characters revealing hidden talents or depths
• Adventures, daring rescues, daring escapes, daring heists
• Con artists and con jobs
• Road trips
• Hurt/comfort, especially with characters who are bad at comforting and/or uncomfortable with being comforted
• Loyalty kink, us-against-the-world, fighting back-to-back
• Survival stories, lost in the wilderness, Canadian Shack
• Bed-sharing, huddling for warmth, falling asleep against each other, etc.
• Roaring rampages of revenge
• Internalized homophobia, repression, period-typical attitudes toward sexuality, religious guilt where applicable
• Ghosts, monsters, eldritch abominations, curses, deals with the devil, “Came Back Wrong”-type tropes, the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise)
• Characters telling stories, in-universe legends and urban legends
• Scenery porn
• Winter, snow, fall/autumn, deserts, mountains, storms of all kinds

Porn/kink likes, if you're so inclined:

• Oral sex, fingering, handjobs, frottage, anal sex
• Clothed/semi-clothed sex, outdoor sex, semi-public sex
• First times, first-time-with-the-same-sex sex
• Eagerness, desperation, characters being so overcome with desire that it forces them to push through their intense sexual repression and shame
• Bed-sharing and/or heat-sharing leads to sex
• Cuddling
• Hair-pulling, hair-petting
• Shoving someone up against a wall
• Characters unexpectedly stumbling into kinks that really work for them
• Informally negotiated kink or unnegotiated kink
• D/s dynamics, struggles for dominance
• Bondage: ropes, handcuffs, characters getting tied up with whatever’s lying around
• Manhandling, rough sex, bruises, biting, spanking
• Bloodplay, gunplay, knifeplay, breathplay

Do Not Want:

• Noncon. Dubcon is fine as long as both parties enjoy and want it on some level. Canon-typical references to rape are fine. Fuck or die scenarios are also fine.
• Pregnancy, babyfic
• Completely bleak endings
• Completely alternate-setting AUs (modern, mundane, in space, Regency, whatever)
• A/B/O, D/s-verse
• Breeding kink
• Flaying, fingernail or toenail trauma
• Heavily negotiated BDSM, characters using BDSM jargon like "subspace" or "safe, sane, consensual"
• Unrequested gender/sexual identity headcanons
• Explicit sex involving characters under 16

True Detective
Tom Purcell/Roland West (hurt Roland), Tom Purcell/Roland West (hurt Tom), Tom Purcell/Roland West (both hurt)
Requested Tags: Accidental arousal while cuddling for comfort, Altered States - Character is out of it due to pain, Angry Broken Outbursts Resulting in Desperate Embraces, Character A Indirectly Responsible For Character B's Injuries, Character A takes Character B on a road trip to avoid dealing with current bad situation, Character(s) ashamed of their sexual desires, Comfort Sex, Comforter drapes their coat over hurt character's shoulders, dealing with grief by fucking, Delirious hurt character & comforter are hiding their relationship from other people present, Hookup at cruising spot goes wrong, Internalised Homophobia, patching up wounds after drunk barfight, Time Loop - Character A Keeps Failing to Save Character B, Touch-Starved Character gets their hair stroked & gets other kind gentle touches & cuddles, Role Reversal - character who is usually the one comforted has to do the comforting


You pretty much can't go wrong with hurt/comfort for this ship for me. Tom's life is unrelenting misery, and I would like to see him get some comfort in any form. Or get more misery piled on him. I'm particularly interested in the way Tom's sexuality and religion angst interact with each other and with his family grief, and I'd be interested in seeing that explored in '80, '90, or any point in between. I'm also fascinated by his terrible coping mechanisms of drinking and fighting, and his stumbling attempts to get better, when we know that he'll ultimately be pushed into backsliding. If you want to offer a happier spin on things, I'm interested in fix-its set at any point in canon as well.

Some elaboration on specific tags:

Hookup at cruising spot goes wrong: Embarrassing hookup where they recognize each other too late? Tom runs into trouble at a cruising spot, getting outed/injured by a creep partner/attacked? Alternatively, Roland ends up in trouble? The hurt party being extremely cagey about exactly how and where they got their injuries while the other innocently pushes for answers? Go nuts!

Character A takes Character B on a road trip to avoid dealing with current bad situation: After the events of '80 or when Tom hits rock bottom in '85, Roland decides to take Tom on a road trip to get away from West Finger (and Roland's own problems) and they end up on a cross-country trek of misery, healing and repressed longing.

Character A Indirectly Responsible For Character B's Injuries: Interrogation scene AU, where Tom survives the aftermath but is injured, and Roland has to deal with the guilt?  Alternatively, Tom's recklessness (fight picking?) getting Roland into a bad spot when Roland tries to help him. I'm down for any scenario here.

patching up wounds after drunk barfight: I can't get enough of this trope. Optional idea: what if... the bar fight was between them?

Role Reversal - character who is usually the one comforted has to do the comforting: I'm just very down for anything that hurts Roland and puts Tom in the position of having to step up to comfort him.



Rust Cohle/Marty Hart (both hurt)
Requested Tags: The after effects of encounters with eldritch horrors, Altered States - Drugs (Nonconsensual), Altered States - Hallucinations, Injury on Top of Old Injuries, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Character needs painful first aid but there's no anesthetic, Comforter is kind of an asshole about it so comfortee doesn't think they're going soft, Emotional Hurt - Existential Despair Upon Realizing the Universe is Absurd and Meaningless, Falling Asleep As A Sign Of Trust, Internalized Homophobia, Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape, patching up each other's wounds, Prickly Relationship Between Comforter and Comfortee, Protectiveness - Character A guards character B while B is injured, the aftermath of a fuck-or-die scenario, Trapped Together While One Is Injured, Trying to hold back bleeding with bare hands, Character A comforts Character B about their shared misfortune, Character doesn't care about their own wellbeing

I'd love some complicated hurt/comfort between these two at pretty much any point in canon.

The scene in Carcosa, with Marty having to hold Rust’s blood in with his bare hands was Peak Hurt/Comfort for me, and I would be down for anything that dragged out their trauma a bit more in that setting. I would be delighted with any AU where Carcosa is an actually or ambiguously supernatural place that they end up trapped in, or where they actually encounter something eldritch. Or maybe Marty just didn’t call back-up and they have to get out by themselves?  I’d also be into creepy fuck or die scenarios in Carcosa, sex pollen or Childress Made Them Do It, with as much drugged out, trippy, violating weirdness as you like and traumatized aftermath.

I’m also really interested in any post-canon fic where Rust’s nihilism isn’t fixed as easily as it seems to be at the end of the show, (his tearful confession could still happen, but it turns out it doesn’t wipe away decades of fucked-up thought patterns) and he has to figure out something else to live for.

Anything set at an earlier point in canon or going canon-divergent AU would be interesting to me. (I'd prefer to believe that Rust wouldn't hurt Maggie by fucking her husband, so I'm a-okay with things remaining pre-slash for this ship while Marty's still married.) Maybe Marty's inability to stay in the car while Rust is going undercover has dire consequences for them both? Things otherwise go south and both are badly injured in 1995? Or something different forces them back into contact, post-2002?

Rust showing no concern for himself after an injury, justifying it from his perspective, and Marty being exasperated and unable to avoid getting drawn into an argument about nihilism while trying to administer first aid? Basically, I'm into the fact that they’re both complete messes who seriously get on each other’s nerves, but still end up looking out for each other.


The Cold Indifference Of The Universe & Rust Cohle (hurt Rust)
Requested Tags: The after effects of encounters with eldritch horrors, Character doesn't care about their own wellbeing, Character has nightmare about their trauma, Character Planned to Die but Didn't, Emotional Hurt - Existential Despair Upon Realizing the Universe is Absurd and Meaningless, Downplaying Trauma, Drug Withdrawal, Forgetting to eat, having to hide while injured, Hurt in the wilderness, Road Trip - To Undo the Apocalypse, suffering alone, Altered States - Hallucinations, Relapsing Drug/Alcohol Addiction


I have no idea how this one works, but I'm curious to find out. The Cold Indifference of the Universe both hurts and comforts Rust? Existential despair can be a hurt! Can it also be...a comfort? Let's find out! Show me Rust receiving comfort from a meaningless universe and maybe even making peace with it. Always down for canon-typical pretentious navel-gazing, leaning into the hints of Lovecraftian horror (if you want to go full on eldritch horror or apocalypse, go nuts!) self-destruction, drug trips, and more.


Tom Purcell & Rust Cohle (hurt Tom), Tom Purcell & Rust Cohle (hurt Rust), Tom Purcell & Rust Cohle (both hurt)
Requested Tags: Character opens up about past child loss, Comforted by Meeting Someone Else as Messed Up as You, Emotional Hurt - Existential Despair Upon Realizing the Universe is Absurd and Meaningless, Grief/Mourning, Hurt by Loss of Religious Faith, patching up wounds after drunk barfight, Relapsing Drug/Alcohol Addiction, Prickly Relationship Between Comforter and Comfortee, hurt during drunk barfight, Unexpected Heart to Heart, Character A comforts Character B about their shared misfortune


Sure, it might be hard to get these two to meet, considering the timelines, but I am more than happy to handwave what happens to Tom in 1990 in the name of fic. Tom lives and Rust follows his quixotic search for clues between 1995 and 2002 to Tom's door, thinking there might be a connection to the disappearances in Louisiana? Tom bails on Arkansas altogether and moves to Alaska? The two of them end up in some kind of recovery program for addicts together and butt heads, particularly when Rust starts in on his pessimism spiel, but eventually they find an unlikely connection over their dead children? I'm done for all of that and anything else you can think of! They're both prickly bastards with very different worldviews, so I'd be really interested in them having conflict (Tom picking and losing a fight would be amazing) and then finding some unexpected connection and catharsis from each other.



Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
"Blondie" | The Man with No Name/Tuco Ramirez (both hurt)
Requested Tags: Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape, Collapsing from exhaustion, Falling Asleep As A Sign Of Trust, field medicine, Circumstances force enemies to patch each other up, Comforter is kind of an asshole about it so comfortee doesn't think they're going soft, Comforter refuses to acknowledge to themself that they care about comfortee's wellbeing, Comforter started out trying to manipulate comfortee but now they're not so sure, Enemies forced by shared antagonist to work together and provide each other comfort, Hurt in the wilderness, On the Run - Together, Stuck In A Blizzard Together, Trapped Together During Gunfire/Fighting, Cleaning/treating wounds


Okay, these are characters who have tried to kill each other multiple times, and the comfort that happens in canon is often blatantly mercenary and manipulative. And I am so, so into that. Give me all the vitriolic hurt/comfort with deeply questionable motives or bitter, grudging team-ups with betrayal lurking around the corner. If they start out convinced they are only comforting each other for ulterior reasons and then start to suspect, to their dismay, that that may not be the whole story, that would be amazing. If each character's hurt was inflicted by the other, I will be in heaven.

I am into all manner of Western-themed injuries. Lost in the desert again? Rattlesnake bites? The after effects of one of Tuco's hangings gone wrong? Gunshot wounds in need of sewing up? Pinned down by a Bolivian Confederate army? I'm down for all of it!

While I'm all about conflicted hurt/comfort for these two, I'm very into the idea that they do like each other, deep down, so any moments of grudging fondness and genuine concern, even if they can't admit it to themselves, would make me very happy.



The Hateful Eight
Chris Mannix/Marquis Warren (hurt Warren)
Chris Mannix/Marquis Warren (hurt Chris)
Chris Mannix/Marquis Warren (both hurt)
Requested Tags: Aftermath of Resurrection, Catching injured character as they faint or lose balance, Circumstances force enemies to patch each other up, Comforter is kind of an asshole about it so comfortee doesn't think they're going soft, Enemies to Lovers - Accidental soulbond between enemies, Getting to sleep in a nice warm bed, Hands too shaky to complete task, Hurt in the wildernessImpaled through the hand, On the Run with a Sick or Injured Partner, Rape Recovery, A rescues B from the underworld or afterlife, Resurrection - came back wrong, stranded in hostile environment with injury, Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting, Time Loop - Character A Keeps Failing to Save Character B, Magical Healing Cock (literal), Unwilling allies after being magically bound together in some fashion, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Comforter refuses to acknowledge to themself that they care about comfortee's wellbeing,

Optional Tags: Character with injured hands requires assistance (which turns sexual), Delirious hurt character & comforter are hiding their relationship from other people present, Badass in Distress, Huddling For WarmthBlood Magic, CursesStuck In A Blizzard Together


I can't resist the dynamic between these two, and they lend themselves surprisingly well to hurt/comfort. Anything with them being protective of each other (and hating it) and awkwardly patching each other up or looking out for each while vocally denying it will make me very happy. The idea that any comforting Warren does toward Mannix is objectively awful, but it works for Mannix anyway is deeply charming to me.

 I'm down for pretty much any kind of supernatural scenario for these two, including mixing and matching different supernatural tags. Soulbond requires a rescue from the Underworld? Sure!

Any post-canon "how'd they get down the mountain in that blizzard?" story is welcome. I also just generally love all manner of wilderness or western-themed hurt, so any "getting in danger in the wilderness and having to work together to survive" or "they get in over their head with mean bastards and get whumped and have to work together to survive" fic would make me happy.

I also feel like Warren has just been through a lot of terrible shit in his life and could really use some comfort, so anything with him being a badass iron woobie who just needs a comforting blowjob and a warm blanket (and Mannix giving them to him) would make me happy.

For Rape Recovery, if you want to go whole hog on "they get captured and bad things get done to one or both of them in front of each other and then some kind of roaring rampage of revenge and sex on their own terms ensues," I will eat it up with a spoon. (Feel free to disregard my noncon DNW for this one.)