artangel3993

[artangel3993]

poppy: be smart

so this is 1 of 2 poppy-centric stories, this one’s called be smart and the other one is gonna be called be stupid. epic. this story can stand alone as itself, but poppy is part of a larger collection of stories on my blog and she gets introduced here

this is from when poppy was 533062! set in the boxboy universe during her time at the facility. girlpools cover of cut your bangs inspired it partially!

also through this drabble i cemented that poppy canonically used to know a shit ton of vape tricks and that is extremely funny to me. anyways

cw: beating, fem whumper and fem whumpee, conditioning, cigarette smoking, referenced past drug use (heroin)  

---------

“Get up, 533062. Position 2.”

Handler Deidra’s voice came from somewhere behind her, but she wasn’t about to move right now, and if Deidra had a fucking problem with that she could deal with it herself. She was curled up on the floor, cold tiles against her side, staring at the wall, and she wasn’t in the mood to be fucked with at the moment. She’d been training with her all morning and usually being stuck in the white room alone drove her zero attention span ass nearly insane but she’d been liking just… laying there, studying the texture of the paint. Not letting anything in particular run through her head. She was tired.  

Turns out: Diedra was, in fact, going to deal with it herself. She heard the swing of the baton too late to do anything about it and then her whole world was pain, blooming from her side, making her curl ever tighter into a defensive ball. After the wave passed, she tentatively took a hand from where it was wrapped around herself and felt her side for any damage. “You almost broke my fucking rib.”

Deidra was standing right above her, and 533 turned onto her back to be able to look her in the eyes. She knew Deidra hated that. “Hey.” Deidra spat down at her, the saliva a muddied color from her chewing tobacco, lodging somewhere in 533’s hair. “Language.”

“Apologies! I’ll try again.” 533 dramatically cleared her throat. “Oh, Handler Deidra, I’m just a defenseless Box Babe, could you please not almost break my fucking rib?” 

She cried out, when the baton landed the second time, over the exact same place on the small of her torso. Deidra really had a knack for that, remembering exactly where she’d hurt 533 previous, what a cheery skillset to have. “Ca-” She caught her breath. “Careful, I’m…. I’m about to get out of here. You said so.” 533 smiled too smug. She breathed in and out, in, and out, before she could continue. “Wouldn’t it be bad for the image of the company if my prospective found out that I, I don’t know, was sent to them with a broken bone. Or something.”

Deidra’s expression didn’t change. “You talk too much, 533. And I hope you know that you’re not going anywhere if you can’t even stand to complete your outtake physical, which I can arrange. We could switch to a method that won’t leave any marks on you, but I thought you preferred the baton to the collar,” Deidra said, nudging the shock collar around 533’s neck with the tip of her baton for emphasis. 

“Not the- no, Deidra-” Deidra thought she was being cute, didn’t she, pulling the little remote out of her shirt pocket and nearly giving 533 a fucking heart attack. 533 dragged herself up onto her hands, backing herself against the wall. “We don’t have to- you don’t have to use the collar, you don’t have to I- keep using the baton not the collar not the collar it fries my fucking brain- hey!” Deidra’s hands rested on the buttons, but never pressed down, her mouth twitched into a little satisfied smile. 533 was going to kill her, she swore to god.

“And I won’t have to if you’d just listen to me, so I’d suggest taking Position 2 and watching your fucking language.” She paused, and then added: “And that’s Handler Deidra to you.”

533 swallowed her stupid pride and got on her knees, her eyes cast vaguely downward. 

There was quiet between them, until Deidra, unexpectedly, knelt down with one knee until their faces were on the same level. “Hey.” Diedra’s voice had gone a little softer. They’d done this all before. 533 pointedly shifted her glance to the other direction. “Look at me.” 533 looked at her, glaring. “You’ve been here for a year, as of today. Passed up a lot of good placements. I’ve been with you for, what? That whole time? And I know you know how to do this shit without needing negative reinforcement all the time. You’re smart. So just show me that, 533. That’s all you have to do.” Fuck her, for calling her smart. Deidra knew she liked it when she called her smart, it wasn’t fair. 

“Yes, Handler.”

They went through all her Positions in a random order. For the most part, she did them perfectly from the back of her mind. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to act, what was expected of her, she guessed she just liked being difficult because she was bored, it was something to do and- most of the time at least- it was funny. But when she wanted to, and focused on it, she could be the picture of obedience. She’d been here long enough to have that down. Until Deidra said 23. 

533 had been in standing in 17, her forehead on the wall, and suddenly, she broke it to snap her head right to Deidra and look her in the eyes, trying to telepathically communicate you bitch to her with glare. This was pointless, she knew her Positions, she didn’t need to constantly keep proving that every fucking day, she wasn’t stupid. And she was not about to drop into something so humiliating just for training, for pointless training she knew better than she knew herself at this point.

She peeled her hands off the wall, and crossed them over her chest instead, turning to face her. “No.”

Deidra looked caught off guard, for a moment, and then sighed through her nose, her face settled in a look of disappointment, or tiredness. Or maybe both. “This is the last one. The last one, 533. Let’s finish without a scene. ”

But 533 didn’t budge. “No. I’m not gonna. You know I know it already.” She pretended not to see Deidra’s grip on her baton tighten. 

Deidra walked closer to her. “So what would happen if your prospective asked you?” 

“If my prospective asked me, I would do it,” she said, eyes trained on her handler as she paced in front of her, making her feel closed in and surrounded, like roadkill circled by vultures.  “But you’re not my prospective, are you?” Deidra looked a little affected by that, it struck a chord, so 533 accentuated it with a cold laugh from her throat and a belittling, teasing smile. “No, you’re not. You’re still just my handler and I’m still here so none of this fucking matters-”

There was a loud slam, against her side, again, paired with what she thought was a snap noise and 533’s instincts didn’t come fast enough to hold herself up from it, her knees buckled and she fell to the floor ungracefully, a tangle of limbs plummeting down, down. Her head crashed into the tiles and crushed her nose to the floor with an audible impact, and she could already feel the blood running from her nostrils. Her breathing grew faint, quiet. Every inhale felt like a thousand knives to her lungs and she thought, from somewhere far away, fuck, is my rib really broken this time, if it is I have six more weeks here, at least, then, six more weeks, but her hands came to her side again and felt around despite her body’s protest and- no, no broken bones, at least not any that she could feel through skin. 

She could’ve laid there for longer, crumpled up, shielding her face from view, squirming with pain with every intake of breath, but that would be admitting defeat, and defeat was fucking boring. She flung her head back to look at her handler, tasting the iron dripping onto her lips, her teeth. Her bloody mouth twisted in a smile. “Congratulations,” she heaved out, “you actually broke it this time.” She was lying, but still. She wanted to see if it made Deidra care or not.

Deidra was standing by the door. That was always the thing with her, wasn’t it? She didn’t care about putting 533 in pain, but every time she’d make quick to leave before she had to see 533 unravel all too much, looking anywhere that wasn’t in her eyes. It was curious. Deidra retracted her baton and clipped it to her side, the familiar click click click sound making 533 audibly breathe out in relief. She still hadn’t spoken to her, after what she said, acknowledged her existence in any way. Slowly, Deidra’s hands reached behind herself and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds from her back pocket, in the same little movement she’d do every time she was about to leave her, pulling out a single cigarette and tucking it neatly into her breast pocket. 533 could’ve laughed.

“Hey,” 533 was catching her breath, still, but she moved to her knees from where she was splayed out, her hands on the floor taking most of her weight as she shifted under herself, “you have another one of those?” 

She’d asked her the exact same question countless times. In her first couple of months at the facility, Deidra would act like she didn’t hear her at all, or give her a you think you’re being funny, don’t you kind of glare, and then be on her way. 533 had never stopped asking. Over the months, the glare had turned into a smile, or a laugh, at her predictability if anything else. (To be fair, 533 had really, really needed a cigarette. She couldn’t quite remember if she’d smoked before, but the idea of having one she got in her head when she saw Deidra’s pack would wash over her in a bone deep longing every time, so she assumed she’d been addicted, at one point.) Then, one day, it hadn’t just been a joke anymore. They smoked together. Pretty much ever since, unless Deidra was actually pissed at her, it became routine. 

For a second, she thought Deidra was going to open the door and walk away, and then, with hesitant steps, she knelt next to her. Deidra’s hand was so warm on her side that it almost didn’t matter how much her skin ached at the contact. 

Deidra’s hands felt gently over her ribs. She still wouldn’t look at her. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Yeah, but you still checked.” 533 smiled, “I can’t be that bad at it, then.”

Deidra held out a hand for her, and, leaning all her weight onto it, 533 accepted. She was so fucking predictable, but 533 liked the routine and sense of stability it brought. Once she had her hand in hers, Deidra grabbed her uniform windbreaker from the nob and opened the door. 533 stumbled out behind her. Deidra turned her back on her as she locked her room in a quick little movement and a jangle of her keys. Deidra was done being a dick to her, being all official. That’s what it meant, once the door was shut. The concrete floor of the hallway stung through her socks to her feet with cold, and she peered all the way down the corridor, endless doors lining the white halls. 

At first, 533 tried to keep up with her, but from her heaving breaths and how long it took her just to make little steps forward, they abandoned that plan and Deidra slung 533’s arm across her shoulder, taking the weight off her steps. Two rights, a left, then it’s a straight shot, 533 remembered the way to the door in her head like it was imprinted on her heart. They passed a few other handlers on their way,  people 533 had never seen before, all of which didn’t pay Deidra much mind, didn’t even seem to see her, either of them, at that. (533 made fun of her a lot for how she almost never interacted with her coworkers, how all the attempts at socializing she had seen from her seemed so forced. “Revolutionary concept here but like, you could just... wave to them. Smile, even. It won’t kill you, I promise.”) 

They went through a set of double doors marked WAREHOUSE ENTRY -- 2 and grey light suddenly enveloped everything 533 could see (it’s blinding, but not the way the lights were inside her room, not drowning), and she closed her eyes for just a moment as the first gust of air rushed passed her, smelling like life and clean and electric. It was raining. Past the door, there was a little concrete landing and a couple of steps from it to the ground, protected from the weather by a built in awning jutting out from the outside wall of the facility. Beyond that was a large asphalt parking lot, a couple trucks backing into the warehouse, their brake lights flashing, people in uniforms unloading boxes, shouting things to each other she was too far away to hear. A tall, tall fence enveloped it all, the chainlink lined with plastic slats so she couldn’t see anything beyond, curling barbed wire at the top. Deidra helped lower her to sit on the steps as she hissed in pain, and immediately felt her socks get soaked as she rested them on the step just past where the awning covered, stepping into a puddle. Feeling the water, she quickly brought her legs back to her, drawing her knees to her chest. Stupid. She was in only a thin white t-shirt and black sweats and it was fucking cold, and now she didn’t even have the marginal warmth her socks offered her. 

She heard the lighter spark and suddenly Deidra was sitting next to her. Deidra lit the dart in her mouth, gave 533 a once over, and put down her pack. Grabbing her windbreaker draped over her arm, she hung it over 533’s shoulders. She knew Deidra probably didn’t want to acknowledge she just did that, so 533 didn’t say shit, but tugged it closer to herself, bundling herself in it. Deidra was built like a brick wall and much taller than her, so she swam in all that fabric.   

Deidra took a drag and let it hang in her mouth before pulling out another cigarette, pressing the tip of it to the end of the one already lit, watching it smolder until it turned orange, and handed it to 533. She grabbed it fiendishly from Deidra’s fingers, taking a drag. She let the smoke pool in her mouth, then opened it and breathed through her nose really quickly, causing the smoke to travel up from her mouth and into her nostrils. Deidra rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. 533 was smiling too. She liked to show off. She couldn’t remember where she learned the trick, exactly, and it itched at her, that place where the memory should be. 

Then the buzz hit her brain, and that little voice in her head that was constantly repeating you know I could really fucking go for a cigarette right now finally shut itself up, and she was tingly all over.  She hit it again, the embers blazing red with her long, long inhale, letting the smoke race straight to her lungs and fill them. Taking a breath that big made the throbbing pain quicken again, but still she held the smoke in her lungs until her stomach twisted. She didn’t care, about the pain. It didn’t matter as much as that magic prickly sensation coursing through her whole body. After she finally exhaled, she spoke. “You’ve seen my intake papers.”

Deidra ashed her cigarette onto the step, deliberately taking her sweet time to answer. “Yeah.”

“Did it say…” Her voice was  uncharacteristically quiet and unsure, testing the waters. She knew Deidra wasn’t supposed to say shit about who she was, from before, knew it could probably award Deidra a slap on the wrist from her superiors. Still, she was going to try. “Did it say anything about a smoking habit?” It would explain how much she craved them, even from before Deidra started sharing. The first week at the facility, she couldn’t stop puking, tremors wracking her entire body. She wondered if that could’ve been withdrawal. The months after that had been filled with her desperate psychological longing for something that didn’t have a name. She thought it was just from irregular food and water and sleep, at the beginning, but once she had drank, had ate, had slept, that stupid gnawing hunger still remained, tugged her insides out, forever unremedied. 

“Big time.” Deidra laughed. It was a deep, scratchy sound. “But believe me, just nicotine? That was the least of your worries, when they found you.”

The loud echoing beep of a truck backing up knocked 533 out of her shock Deidra actually answered her. She pushed it a little further, because that’s what she was good at. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, Deidra reached out and grabbed her left wrist. 533 barely reacted, didn’t pull away or make a big deal out of it, because they were out of the white room, which meant Deidra wasn’t going to hurt her, go all serious-handler-mode on her. She never did, after she pulled out the pack of Reds. She pushed up 533’s baggy t-shirt sleeve, turning her arm so her hand was palm up. “See these?” Deidra laid her fingers along a few pink and white scars in the crux of her arm, little bumps in her skin a tad bigger than the tip of a fountain pen. Her touch switched to run along the raised path of a slightly discolored vein near the dots. 533’d seen them before, yeah, but didn’t really think much of it. She nodded her head. 

“Track marks,” Deidra said, and 533 couldn’t place the word. 

Deidra waited for her to get it and that moment never came. She let her wrist go, and sighed through her nose, taking a long drag of her dart before continuing. “You were a junkie. Understand? An addict.” Oh. Huh. 

533 tried to make that fact mean something to her, another little part of her she’d lost over the past year but found again, a hint of who she’d been before everything got fuzzy. She wanted to be shocked, impacted by the information, but she wasn’t. She knew it didn’t matter in the fucking slightest, wasn’t going to change anything, it felt like a fact spoken about someone else entirely. That junkie, that girl, was torn down from her consciousness, and she shouldn’t waste any brainpower on her. Not when she was trying her damn hardest to construct herself another identity on the foundation. The white ash on the tip of her cigarette fell off all by itself, landing unbroken on the step. 533 realized she’d been neglecting it so long in thought it was already halfway gone. She unwound herself, letting go of her bunched up knees and shifting until she was sitting criss-crossed. “Well, shit.”

Deidra nodded, her gaze zoned out on the truck.  “Don’t go telling that to your other handlers. I shouldn’t have said anything, but… you’re almost out of here, anyways.” 533 heard her voice go quieter, during that last part. 533 looked up at her but she couldn’t meet 533’s eyes.

“You think I talk to my other handlers? No way.” 533 smiled and nudged her playfully in the arm to get her out of it. “You’re the only person I’ve given the special burden of dealing with my conversation.” Sure, she’d try talking to the other ones, a lot at the beginning when she wasn’t used to boredom, but Deidra was the only one who actually talked back. Who listened. Deidra finally looked at her again, a half smile on her face. 533’s cigarette had gone out, so she took it from 533’s hand and lit it once more. Deidra handed it back to her with purpose, like she was trying to fix something for her, no matter how miniscule.

“How much longer do I have?”

“A week.”

A week. It didn’t feel real. 

Deidra cleared her throat, spoke again. “I’m not… I’m not scheduled with you for the rest of your time.”

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. So this was it. Why hadn’t she told her sooner? If she’d known it was her last day with her she wouldn’t have been so difficult, so annoying. Her face flushed with anger from how unfair it was. She wanted to rewrite the past 20 minutes and be better for her. She wanted to tell Deidra to get her baton, break her ribs and finish the job, so she’d have to wait for them to set before she left, so she could have a do-over of their last day.

Instead, she said this: “I’m gonna miss you.”

Deidra made a little chuckle noise, barely more than a quick breath out of her nostrils. She didn’t believe her. “Cute joke.”

“Hey, shut up. I’m being serious, okay?” She was. She never meant to get attached but, shit, she was, she so was. A dozen little memories played in her head clear as day. The first time she had looked at herself in a mirror and stood there, anger and desperation flushing her cheeks because she had just wanted to cut her bangs, that’s all, she wasn’t supposed to look like this, she would feel normal if she could just cut her bangs again, she would feel herself, herself, herself, which quickly derailed into a breakdown, berating herself the whole time over how something so small and stupid could have set her off. The next day, Deidra had smuggled in kitchen scissors, and held 533’s wrist as she let 533 snip off the overgrown hair herself. Just the two of them on the white floor. More memories: the first time they’d smoked together (which kinda had felt like an apology, from Deidra, over something she’d done earlier, but she couldn’t remember what.) The time Deidra had left for a month and when she got back, she had let 533 chainsmoke three in a row to the filter. She had eventually thrown up, after, but it felt fucking incredible in the moment. 

Then, 533 did something stupid. She snuffed her cigarette. Then she latched onto Deidra, grabbing onto her arm and resting her head on her shoulder. “I’m not just bullshitting you, I’m not making a stupid fucking joke, Deidra. I’m going to miss you.” 

Deidra gasped a little, went stock still, acting like this was the first close touch she’s had in her life. “You really shouldn’t.” Her voice was quiet.

“Whatever. I don’t give a fuck. You mean something to me.” 

“I’m…” Deidra stopped talking. She was still all stiff. She shook 533 off her arm, and 533 though, I just fucked everything up, didn’t I, but then, Deidra used her free arm to wrap around her, pulling her close in jerky movements with little experience to back them up. “I’m gonna miss you too.” 533 closed her eyes, tucked herself into her.

They stayed like that for a while. 533 eventually couldn’t bare the seriousness of this conversation, of this gesture, suddenly she wasn’t just fucking around and making stupid jokes and that was all too much. She broke the touch off, snaking herself out from Deidra’s arm, looking at her with a smirk. “Hey. Hey. Don’t get too used to me gone, though, yeah? I’m a fucking disaster. I’ll probably be back in like, three weeks.” She put her hands on her hips all proud and smiled all smug, like it was a badge of honor. “Three weeks tops.” 

Deidra rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t annoyed, just in a playful way. “Sure you will.”

 But then, Deidra’s face leveled, no longer just playing. She looked at her, really, really looked at her, put her hands on her shoulders, their foreheads so close they were almost touching and then said: “You better not try anything to land yourself back here on purpose. Okay? You understand?” Her eyes looked so worried. It was strange, seeing that emotion on her face. The rain poured down harder 

“Okay.”

“Good. You’re too smart for that.” 

Except 533 didn’t want to be smart, not right now. She didn’t want a prospective now that it was actually happening, now that it was in front of her after a year of waiting and waiting and never being good enough, she didn’t want this to be her last cigarette on the concrete steps, she didn’t want her memories, her past, her future, she didn’t want anything in this specific moment than to be stupid forever and ever so Deidra would keep fixing her and never let her go.

[artangel3993]

Carlo and Elle: Little Prince

This isnt even whump, and it certainly isnt among the stack of requested drabbles I really want to get to. But I love Carlo and Elle’s dynamic and that’s what decided to speak to me today. 

****

When he’s sick, he wants Max. Even when he’s not sick, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself, he wants Max. Back when he first got here, he’d wanted Erik. That seems a little absurd to him now. A little sickening. But he’d missed his Master’s cool hand through the metal grate of his kennel, touching his cheek, his forehead. I think someone’s a little under the weather. 

Then he’d discovered Max was all around a better bet. Max would even relax his ‘everyone in their own bedroom’ rules when Carlo was sick or not feeling good, and he could get away with falling asleep to a movie in Max’s bed and wake up there in the morning on his belly, sprawled out with his head tilted toward the side Max sleeps on. 

Plus Max gives him medicine. Real medicine, regular people medicine. Erik never did. He wasn’t allowed to have any, with the one exception of his epipen. Max gave him whatever he needed, and was so easily concerned. But he’s working, and it’s Elle who finds him curled up on top of Max’s bed instead. 

Keep reading

[artangel3993]

restrained - ellis

Thank you @for-the-love-of-angst for this minific insp.

Disappointment is heavy. It’s like a duvet a foot thick, layered over Ellis through his every movement. It makes him bent over, hunched, slow to move, and unable to raise his head.

He stares down, instead, at the cuff around his ankle.

The chain is long, fine links coiled together across the rug. He can get to the en suite. He could even get into the hall, though he knows the door is locked. He can…go about as usual.

Master brings him food and water. He nap, and then he wakes. There’s the window, for him to sit by and warm himself in the sun. He could look out at the clouds and the trees and think about immaterial things.

But he doesn’t. He is weighed down. He stares at the cuff, keeping him in. The disappointment holds him in place like a butterfly pinned to a board.

Downstairs, Master’s family celebrate his birthday.

[artangel3993]

How about some fluff with Z2 and Cam 👀?

(this is pretty fluffy for Cam)

***

“Come here, Z2.” Cam says flatly. He’s using his Master voice, which makes Z’s stomach turn sour and his palms sweat. He hurries to Cam’s side and kneels at his feet. 

Cameron doesn’t take his eyes off the TV. He and Tyler are playing a video game, something with lots of gunfire and jerky screen movements that make Z dizzy. Cam’s thumb snaps a controller button so fast Z flinches. 

“Hold this.” Cam hands Zee a can of Sprite. He feels like a dog doing a trick there on his knees, eyes lowered, doing nothing but holding a cold can in both hands like it’s a chalice. He waits for further instruction but Cam only speaks to Tyler, some shorthand about the game Z doesn’t understand.

“Fuck.” Cam says after a tense moment, tosses the controller on his lap. “Z.” He makes a gimme-here gesture with his fingers. Z hurries to hand him the can. He takes a swig and passes it back, wiping the condensation from his palms on Z’s shirt, picks up the controller again. 

“Alright. Use that scope. No, that one. Yeah.”

“Can Z2 hold my beer, too?” Tyler asks.

“No.” Cam says shortly. “Use the fuckin’ table. Damn.”

Tyler rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue. After a while Z’s knees ache and his back needs some stretching, but he doesn’t move. Thinking about how he’s doing this to please his Master helps. It gives him a purpose, something to tack the discomfort to.

When Cam asks for his drink again he drains it. Z thinks he is going to ask him to go get him another one but he just crumples the can in one hand and tosses it over Z’s head to bounce and slide on the floor. 

“Good boy.” 

Z’s head buzzes, his heart picks up. 

Cam pats the couch.“C’mere.”

Slowly, making sure he had not misunderstood and wasn’t going to be backhanded, Z crawls off his stiff knees and onto the sofa beside Cam. He curls up small, hesitantly lays his head down. Cam shifts the controller to hold it in one hand and pets Z2 with the other. 

His long fingers have a casual, idle way of touching. Z gets goosebumps down his right side as Cam makes little circles in his hair, gives the back of his neck a few scritches. 

He returns his hand to the controller when a new round starts and Z closes his eyes, wonders if he could slowly scoot closer and put his head in Cameron’s lap. He doesn’t. A gentle touch was reward enough.

[artangel3993]

Frathouse Boxboy drabble: Z2 officially realizes Dominic and Alex are friends who have definitely discussed him before.

*** 

He’s so tired. Dom lets him in when he knocks on his door. He stands there guiltily, an exuse on the tip of his tongue but the other boy just pulls him inside.

He clicks the side of his bulky headset. A little red light blinks out. “It’s our buddy.” He says into it, closing the door and locking them inside. “Yeah. Sure. Hang on.”

Dom waves him over, takes the headset off and slips it over Z’s ears. Z steps closer to Dom’s computer, double monitors with text on one and a game open on the other.

“Hello?” He says into the mouthpiece.

He can hear Alex’s smile in his voice. “Hey Zee.” 

Z2 smiles, touches one earpiece. “Hey.”

“Doing okay this weekend?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone give you any shit?”

“No.” He lies.

“Remind that overgrown hillbilly to feed you later, okay? I know everyone shares, like, one brain cell around there.”

Z looks at his feet, knowing full well that Dom can hear Alex’s muffled words. Dom acts like he isn’t listening, types something into the keyboard so his text pops up on the monitor on the right. 

“He will.” Zee says quietly. 

“Yeah, yeah. He better. Alright, I’ll see you Sunday, hun.”

Carefully, Zee pulls the headset off his ears and hands it back to Dominic.

“Hun?” Dominic repeats into the mouthpiece as if Z isn’t standing right there. 

Alex doesn’t seem to care. “What of it? Zee’s my baby.”

Dominic snorts. “Fair.”

Z isn’t used to Dom and Alex talking. It feels strange, like to worlds he hadn’t known were one and the same. Have these two talked about him together before? Suddenly he gets that impression. He rarely even sees them in a room together, thought of them as two totally separate allies. But they must know— they’re friends. They live in the same house. He wonders what they might have said about him when he wasn’t around. 

A new game has started and Dom’s got one hand on his mouse, the other hovering over the keys. Z2 can’t even discern what is happening on the screen— there are too many moving pieces. Dom’s eyes are making micromovements back and forth, reminding him of a cat with a laser. 

“Z, grab me my Gatorade, would you? Bedside.”

Z hurries to obey. He can hear Alex still over the headset. 

“Don’t make him wait on you, lazy ass.”

“Fuck off.” Dom says distractedly. Then, urgently. “Behind, behind. Reaper behind.”

Z sets the plastic bottle a safe distance from Dominic’s mouse and backs up onto Dom’s bed. He doesn’t ask anymore, which feels incredibly bold, but Dom had been clear every time Z had tried to sit on the floor, made him get up and into the bed. “You’re not a dog.” He’d grumbled. Then he’d paused for a moment to consider that, too. “I always let my dogs on the bed, anyway. Not that I’m comparing… you get it.”

Z2 lays his head on the pillow that smells just like Dominic. He associates it with safety, with sleep. He blinks heavily until he can’t open his eyes anymore, listening to them talk to each other over the headset, the rapid fire clicking of Dominic’s mouse. 

[artangel3993]

i never saw the prompt but if it was hallucinogen/fear drug then i'd say stick to that but it's up to you i'll enjoy it either way :>

CW: Forced drugging, recorded torture, briefly referenced potential noncon

She’s got the flash turned on, and each spark of light is a burst of something trying to get close enough to eat him. Dex flinches from the light, curving his arms up over his head even as they ache from his earlier discipline. 

The guests have mostly gone, and by now it’s just Madam and three other people - two men and a woman. Their faces bleed and run like candles, wax that drip-drip-drops to the ground and pools there in puddles of skin that Dex knows will expand like water pouring from a crack in the dam.

Another burst of light, and he whimpers. The light is worse than the shadows, but all of it is monsters.

“Madam, if we could take him back to his room-” Peter starts, and Karen hushes him, a harsh snapped shut up that had Peter’s mouth closing quickly. Dex can’t look at him either, not directly. From the side Peter is okay, but head-on he starts to run, too, and Dex curls up where he sits on the coffee table, pleading in his mind to be saved.

The hair left, and the eyes, and the hands that should love him. Or they weren’t here. He can’t remember, he doesn’t know how old he is, what year it is. It’s all fear, it’s a drumbeat, it’s his heartbeat, a thrumming hummingbird of panic with wings that try to bash their way out from his breastbone and break there and crumble and and and-

what if he’s only twenty-three again? What if he doesn’t know there is an end at all? What if there isn’t one?

“How do you feel, darling?” Karen asks, and her voice is low and soft. 

He shudders and curls up tighter, tears leaking out from the corners of his eyes. His veins hurt, they itch and burn and hurt, and he’s got too much in his system, he can’t take this. He wants her to hug him, he wants to be held, he wants someone to touch him but if they touch him he’ll be eaten by shadows and light and die again.

He dies so many times, here, again and again, for her. But he is not yet dead enough to make her happy.

“This is cruel, Karen,” One of the men says, and his voice twists and writhes like snakes. Then he laughs, and reaches out faster than Dex can react, ruffling his hair with a heavy monster’s hand. Dex flinches back, but the touch feels so good, too. It feels good to be eaten by monsters.

“Is he on the menu for tonight, too?” The man asks, with a different tone to his voice.

Not yours, Dex thinks, but he can’t make his hands move to sign the words. Not yours not yours not yours, not yours to take, no no no

“Unfortunately, Chad, he’s not.” Karen shrugs, smiling thinly. “He’s not on the menu for anyone right now. He used to be a bit of fun for a friend of mine, but… someone got too attached.”

Keep reading

[artangel3993]

December

[Yes it’s another @whumptober2019 drabble named after a different month. Not proofread because I am falling asleep but too stubborn not to write something.]

He’s never been alone for this long before and it’s deeply unpleasant. The house is silent and dark, with only the lamp’s switching on and off to guide him through the days. It comes on at four, when sunset begins, and switches off at ten, when he should be sleeping. Then it’s on again at eight. If he fails to sleep the full ten hours, which is frequent, he has no choice but to lie in the dark.

The house is cold. The only heat comes from the water. He is allowed a bath every three days, and he stays in them until they are too cold to bear. Then he leaps out, wrapping himself in his towel and scrubbing off quickly, before burrowing back into the blankets he was given.

Master is away for the holidays. He’s been gone for two days. He packed some things, left Ellis some food, and drove away. Master has family, like most people. He has people to visit. He loves his pet, but he has to go. Just for a week.

Keep reading

[artangel3993]

summer meets the gang: pt 2

nic and elana time! u have met everyone now. welcome to the girl disaster gang + a stupid emotional support gamer. this is part 2 of another piece, which can be found if u click the ‘prev’ link below

cw:  general warning for box boy universe stuff, mentioning the facility and the conditioning that entails, drug use, lacing drugs, fem whumper and whumpee, a little bit of medical stuff, general dehumanization

prev | next

So they went back, to Violet and Poppy, to their whole world now, Summer following a few steps behind Safiya. Time sped up. Safiya let her hand leave Summer’s and find Violet’s. Summer watched. Violet said something about Poppy showing her around the bunker, and Summer pretended to hear her. Poppy then thrusted her arm around Summer’s side, jokingly pulling her into a buddies-side-hug to go along with something she was saying that Summer couldn’t make herself listen to, she was just thinking about how much she wanted Poppy’s hand off of her, she couldn’t have touch, she wasn’t supposed to have touch, until it fell away. “...and Summer and I’ll be the best of friends by the end, won’t we?” Poppy’s voice came. Summer didn’t say anything.

Violet nodded her head approvingly, and then led Safiya off into a metal hallway. That was it. For the first time in two months, Summer was without her. She felt small, all of the sudden, like she was slowly closing in on herself, down the drain. She watched Violet and Safiya get tinier and tinier in her vision until they turned a corner and disappeared completely.

“Summer?? Earth to Summer?” Summer shook her head and snapped out of it, locking eyes with Poppy, who smiled at her. “So. Are you ready for your tour?”

Poppy outstretched her hand. Summer, tentatively, reached out and took it. Violet wanted her to go with her. That was what she needed to focus on now. Poppy was… a lot, in Summer’s mind, too loud and bright, it was a bit accosting. She watched Poppy’s eyes dart across the numbers on Summer’s wrist before they joined hands and Poppy tugged her into one of the rows of industrial shelves, their eyes meeting. “I didn’t mean to stare, honest.” Both of their footfalls echoed against the concrete, and Poppy looked down in thought. “Here. I can show you mine too-” she took her hand from Summer’s and pulled her kandi further down her right wrist, “-so we can be even, see.”

She held out her inner arm for Summer, her hand in a fist, 533062 printed in a neat black font beneath all of Poppy’s plastic beads. So that’s what she meant when she said she’s Violet’s, oh god, and she felt her throat tighten. Summer hadn’t realized. Poppy shuffled her bracelets back over it after a self conscious moment, crossing her arms around her chest and twirling the fabric of her shirt under her fingers as they walked in silence further and further into the shadows of the shelves blocking out the chandelier. Summer looked at her again. She was so expressive, Summer wondered how she’d survived the facility, why that part of her wasn’t gone yet. (A piece of her ached for Poppy, in that moment, some secret pact they shared with those numbers, and made her resolve to herself that she couldn’t be that bad to be around. Even if she was loud and came from a bunker full of people Summer didn’t trust.)

“Why are your eyes like that?” Summer asked. It was quiet but she wanted to try to talk to her. She looked like she needed the distraction.

Poppy frowned. “Is the dilation really that bad?”

Summer didn’t have anything to compare it to, so she shrugged.

“I’m on, uh, approximately a fuck ton of shrooms right now,” she smiled when she said it, like it was an inside joke just for herself. “Elana knows the actual, like, number but yeah. Scientifically I would describe it as a whole bunch. Oh!” They reached the end of the shelves and were faced by a metal door in the wall, which Poppy threw open. “You’re going to want to see this!”

Inside was a tunnel-like hallway that ran straight across, the walls itself completely circular besides a little concrete path along the floor, metal curving above her and making her feel like her and Poppy were shrunk down and put inside a PVC pipe. “This is one of my favorite places in the bunker,” Poppy yelled back to her, running ahead and gliding her hand along the curved walls. “We call it the Tunnel. It’s very fun when you’re tripping.”

They opened the door at the end and the bunker’s whole world poured out on the other end. Poppy took Summer through room after extravagant room, each one looking like a little palace had been stuffed inside this strange hole in the ground. They had a lot of money to throw around the place and it showed, sitting rooms full of antiques in the middle of a windowless maze. Summer was overwhelmed by it all. Sometimes, around a hidden corner, there would be blankets and pillows all thrown in a comfortable looking pile, and Poppy would explain that they were one of her nests- “I don’t have a room, they were all moved in when they got me, but I do make a lot of nests. Or I’ll just go sleep in Nic’s room. Or Elana’s. I figure it out. Listen to me Summer- this is of… grave importance. I am giving you access to all of my nests. You can sleep in any of them, just like, don’t fuck them up. You’re the only person in the world to have been given this honor.” Summer played along and nodded solemnly.

They were walking through a hallway into another portion of the bunker when Summer spoke up. “The other people Violet mentioned, the ones she works with...”

“Nic and Elana, yeah. What about them? Their rooms are the next stop on the tour, we can say hi.”

Summer stopped walking. Her face was blank with fear. They were close associates of the woman who owned her, and she couldn’t mess this up. She couldn’t go to the facility for a third time.

Poppy looked behind her when Summer didn’t keep up. “C’mon, Summer. You’re going to be fine, they’re probably too wrapped up in their nerd projects to even notice you.” Poppy grabbed onto her hand and Summer didn’t fight it. “Now let’s go. Together, yeah?” Poppy held up their intertwined hand and gave her a sheepish smile.

They walked a little bit down the hall until they approached a door, loud digital noises coming from the other end.

“Alright, so.” Poppy untangled her hand from Summer’s and positioned herself back to the door as if she was a news anchor giving a report live on the scene. “This is Nic’s room. He does- uh, you know how Violet is in charge of all the money, pricing, budgeting, negotiating, that kind of thing?” Summer hadn’t known that but she nodded anyways. “Nic’s basically glorified IT and is kind of the only thing keeping us from getting busted. He makes sure our location’s always scrambled if we’re doing business online, encrypts our messages to and from potential buyers, yeah. A lot of other stuff I don’t really get. We would be fucked if it weren’t for him. He’s also just a fucking incel and acts like a doormat and games a lot and I hate him and he’s my best friend.”

Poppy raised her hand to knock on the door and Summer whined, trying to grab her fist. “Summer, please,” Poppy said, “this is quite literally the least intimidating man in the world. You’ll be fine.”

Poppy knocked and then waited half a second before barging right on in.

Summer followed. Nic’s room was in an almost comical disarray, band posters plastered everywhere, clothes hanging haphazardly off his bed and cluttering his floor. What Summer assumed must be Nic was sat on a ridiculously large gaming chair, all black with red streaks running the sides. Before him was a table with two monitors on it, one open on some kind of first person game, the other on a chatroom, messages flying too fast to read. Poppy jumped onto his lap, the force from her leap causing his chair to spin a full 360.

“This is the gaming police, stop what you’re doing and meet my new friendddd,” Poppy told him as they spun, pulling off Nic’s headphones.

Nic sighed and rested his head back on his chair. “Poppy. I’m- uh, actively streaming. Like, right now.”

“And?” Poppy smiled at him teasingly, her arms oh his shoulders. “Pause your nerd stream, bitch. I want attention.”

“I can’t pause a stream, the whole point is the fact that it’s, like, live… ” but Poppy wasn’t listening, at this point she’d already turned herself around and was squinting at the chat monitor, leaning into the mic on his desk to speak.

“this bitch again ffs,” she read from the chat, grabbing the base of the table microphone, “yeah, fragz_only97, I’m back. Problem?”

Nic leaned into the mic clumsily from behind her. “Alright guys I’m gonna, uh. I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” he said, moving his mouse to the stream monitor and pressing a button to make a little be back soon picture appear over the feed of the game, placing the headphones Poppy’d ripped off him carefully on the desk. She turned to face him.

“Jesus, your pupils got huge.”

Poppy nodded, her eyelids moving all slow. “I fucking know. They’re never like this just on shrooms.”

“Elana’s been looking for you,” Nic said, his tone almost in a warning.

Poppy laughed. “You want to know a secret?” She leaned in closer to him. “I swear Elana laced them with something else.” She looked around for a moment, and then: “Liquid LSD, probably. It wouldn’t have tasted any different. She thinks she’s so smart.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “Oh wait, I almost forgot!” She climbed off of him, turning his chair to face where Summer was standing, just in the threshold of the entrance. She felt like an intruder. “Nic, Summer’s here!”

Poppy continued. “She’s from the same company as me, but she’s been with Violet’s girlfriend this whole time. Violet just got back from picking them up.” Nic coughed, looking this way and that, rubbing his hand to the back of his neck in what looked like a nervous tic. There was a long quiet, and then Poppy looked to Nic. “Oh my god, introduce yourself, stupid.”

He gave Summer an awkward wave. “Hi, I’m uh- Nic, it’s. It’s nice to-”

A woman’s voice called out from the hallway. “Poppy?”

Poppy froze up entirely. Even Nic stopped talking. “Yes, Elana?” Poppy said, in what must’ve been the most passive voice Summer had heard from her since getting here.

Poppy crept to the doorframe, past Summer, moving as if she was being pulled by some invisible thread, and Summer couldn’t help but faintly peak her head out of Nic’s room, too. This must be Elana, Summer thought, her breath starting to quicken, but she forced her thoughts down.

She was standing from the doorway to a room farther along the hall, long curly brown hair and warm skin wearing a high collared shirt with a smart-looking sweater over it. She had a clipboard in her hand, something else Summer couldn’t make out resting on top of it. Poppy walked toward her dizzily.

Elana looked cross under her glasses, holding an arm out for Poppy to grab onto. Poppy crossed her arms around herself instead, looking up at her.

“Where have you been?”

Poppy looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Summer’s. “Showing Summer around…” she started, and Summer immediately poked her head back out of the hallway, leaning her forehead on the frame. She wanted to stay invisible for just a little while longer if she could.

“Hm." Summer knew that voice, the kind you’d use to a child playing make believe. “Put this on.” The sound of velcro tearing.  

Summer heard Poppy’s whine. “No. I don’t want that thing on me.”

Elana audibly sighed. “I need to keep track of your bpm. So you either wear this, or you spend the rest of your trip in my room where I can monitor you.”

“You’re a fucking dick, you know that?” And then, after a moment: “Fine. Give it to me.”

There was velcro being snapped back on. “There. Was that so bad?”

“Yes and also fuck you. Hey. Elana. Hey Elana. I know that wasn’t just shrooms. Tell me what else you gave me.”

The metal screech of what Summer thought must be the top of the clipboard. The sound of a pen clicking. “Giving you any details about the compounds you consumed, psilocybin or not, would entirely compromise the conditions of my experiment. Now look at me.”

Summer peaked back into the hallway right in time to see Elana shine a light into Poppy’s eyes, scribble something on her clipboard. There was something on Poppy’s neck, now, and that made Summer swallow, place a hand against her own collarbone instinctively. “Perfect. Alright. Visual?”

Elana wrote as Poppy spoke. “Uh… colors are fun right now. There’s halos around some stuff. One of Nic’s eyes didn’t look like it was in the right place, hah… ”

“Focus, Poppy.”

“Right. And, uh- the walls. Are breathing again. That’s it.”

“Good.” Elana made a final note, and then looked up. “Auditory?”

“Everything sounds like it’s ringing. People from across the room sound like they’re right next to me.” Poppy’s running through it like a laundry list, jittery and mildly disinterested, and it made Summer wonder how many times they’ve done this. Elana scribbled on.

“Tactile?”

Poppy shook her head.

“Olfactory or taste?”

“Nothing- wait. I drank a lukewarm Mountain Dew in the kitchen when I was coming up and it tasted funny.”

Elana looked up at her, blowing a strand of hair out of her vision, and rolled her eyes at Poppy.

Poppy shifted her weight between her feet all antsy. “Are we done here?”

Elana looked like she was in thought for a moment, pressing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and then: “Yes. Remember to come see me in the next thirty minutes for data collection again, alright? And don’t take that off.” Elana stepped back into the threshold of what Summer was assuming was her own doorway.

“Yeah, whatever, thanks for nothing,” Poppy said as the door shut in front of her.

Poppy stood there, for a moment, softly kicking the door once in a small frustration, talking to herself all quiet under her breath. Then, she sighed, wrapping her arms around herself, looking at the floor dissociated, hunched over. Summer didn’t like seeing Poppy like this. It was too intimate a moment. She decided to, quietly, come out of Nic’s room and approach her.

“Oh. Hey Summer.” She offered Summer a weak smile, and Summer couldn’t help but notice how much everything about Poppy had just been… taken down a notch. It irked her. She had a long black strap around her neck, with some sort of plastic black box resting right next to her jugular.

Poppy must have noticed the stare. “It measures my heartbeat. One of Elana’s weird science things. Whatever. Okay, tour.”

Poppy, just like with Nic’s door, put herself in front of it, facing Summer, her news anchor voice coming back, smiling in a way that felt so fake, now, that made Summer rethink all of her other expressions up until now, “This is Elana’s room. She’s the chemist. She’s the chemist and she’s... a dick, half the time, at least. She isn’t that bad, not really. I’m just angry and I want to say she sucks so she sucks. There. Tour over.”

[artangel3993]

Almost, Soon: Dex / Wright Farling

CW: References to past torture/injuries, references to ongoing torture

Collab between @spiffythespook and I, featuring Wright Farling and Dex.  A direct follow-up to the Dismantled, Insecurity by @spiffythespook, Reconstruction, He Imagines Going Home, and A Chance to Burn series of Dex and Wright pieces.

It contains my favorite Dex line I’ve ever written.

The library was less than a mile from Karen’s house. On a normal week Dex walked there in a little more than fifteen minutes. He liked to take his time, appreciate the flowers in people’s yards or the birds in the trees.

This was not a normal week.

When he was finally unwilling to wait any longer, and Seb and Peter could no longer convince him to stay in bed or in the house, the walk to the library took nearly an hour.

Dex was only upright by the end of it thanks to Peter, who kept a careful arm around his lower back, avoiding the welts still healing under Sebastian’s makeshift bandages. He listed heavily to the right and Peter took his weight without complaint, the much-younger man as focused on the goal as Dex was.

Peter took risks the others wouldn’t - or in Henry’s case, risks no one would allow him to take.

Dex wasn’t healing fast enough - Karen’s insistence on keeping him sleep-deprived and underfed ensured it. Refusing to let her win, Dex had decided today was the day that he would make it to the library, come hell or high water, and no amount of nervous worry from his brothers could make him change his mind.

“We can still go back,” Peter said softly, when Dex stumbled again and Peter had to catch him by his elbow to keep him on his feet.

Dex shook his head, and kept his light brown eyes focused on the library’s double doors. Just fifty feet or so, fifty steps, that’s not so bad. He looked terrible and he knew it - even though Seb had cut the stitches and removed them after ten days like the video said, his face was still bandaged and he shuffled more than he walked, new bruises from Karen’s grudge rapidly covering the healing ones.

Peter pulled the doors open and Dex managed - just barely - to keep himself upright to walk through them on his own. People stared.

Dex didn’t care. He had a singular goal, and he wouldn’t fail it. Even as he kept himself straight-backed and strong, he was terrified he would follow Wright’s instructions and sit here, alone, until he understood this hope he had been given was just another trap, too.

Whiskey to ease a dying man towards his end.

A prayer to give the damned a delusion of salvation.

He took the largest copy of Paradise Lost, a leatherbound, illustrated edition that he had checked out before, and found a table near the history section. When he opened up to a random page, he tried to scan the words, but saw nothing but floating, meaningless letters. He was so fucking exhausted, and so hungry, and it all hurt so, so much.

Peter leaned over with a careful hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to leave?”

Dex looked up to meet Peter’s calm brown eyes. Compassion, friendliness, and courage. He had understood only after Karen had nearly killed him how unfair he’d been to his brothers. He was trying to make up for it, now, however he could.

N-O-T Y-E-T, he fingerspelled with his good hand, then gripped onto Peter’s shirt and tried to say please, mouthing the word without sound.

If Wright didn’t come, Dex could not stand the idea of being alone.

Peter nodded, settling into his seat. “Don’t worry,” He said softly. “He’ll come. Madam always says she likes that Wright doesn’t break promises. He… he won’t break one he made to you, right?”

Dex looked at him, with no idea what to say or how to begin to say it, before he dropped his eyes back to the book.

Abash’d the Devil stood and felt how awful Goodness is.

What if Wright didn’t come? What would he do then? What would even be left to hope for?

In the parking lot, a man in a cheap rented car - utterly nondescript, and something Karen wouldn’t spare a glance at if she happened to spot it around then - watched the library.

Keep reading

[artangel3993]

BTHB: Bound and Gagged

CW: Implied noncon. Dehumanization (one whumpee dehumanizing another, as well as whumper dehumanizing whumpee), very brief (corrected) misgendering (thanks to @finder-of-rings​ for invaluable assistance here!), some pet whump (towards the end), references to past torture and noncon. 

Bloodstains: Requested || Puppy Stickers: Completed

Follows immediately after I Get It, part of the Bad Arc.

Tagging the Danny crew: @finder-of-rings, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @spiffythespook, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @whale-whumps, @swordkallya

“That was close,” Ora mumbled, turning right onto a long straight drive. At the end of it, far far ahead, they could see the squat stone building rising from the ground like a crouching shadowed monster in a fantasy movie. “The last car we stopped next to… those people really looked.”

“Yeah, well, what are they gonna do?” Ashley shrugged, looking at the backs of her nails with her feet up and crossed on the dash. Ora wondered if Ashley did this because she had seen people do it in movies - it wasn’t like she had nail polish. Ashley’s nails were broken, dirty, cuticles full of dried blood from other people she never seemed to clean. The soles of her feet were only clean on days Ora could convince her to wear shoes.

“I mean… call the cops, probably. You know, report that they saw a man wearing a fucking-… that, um, thing you put on him… that we kidnapped someone…” Ora answered, gnawing on their lower lip, staring at the road ahead. They kept their hands carefully on ten and two - Penny had always said they were the best driver, ever since they met-

Ora’s throat tried to close and they fought back the feeling, tightening their hands until their knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Don’t cry about Penny. She tried to run away and leave you to get murdered. Ashley was always telling Ora how awful that was, and every week they and Ashley were together was a week that Ora understood that, more and more.

They shouldn’t be sad about Penny. They shouldn’t grieve her. They shouldn’t give in to the emotions that kept trying to claw their way out, because if they were too weak for too long, Ashley would get tired of them and they would die.

Better to be numb, and survive.

Better to ignore the sounds of muffled harsh breathing from the backseat, the occasional whimper or whine. They didn’t have to listen. They could choose not to listen.

Better not to listen.

Better to settle into the gray haze that wrapped them safely up and let them survive.

“Pfffft. I guess so.” Ashley crossed her arms behind her head, leaning back against the seat, enjoying the low strains of an Eagles song playing softly through the car’s radio. Ashley had a weird thing for 70’s rock bands, which Ora couldn’t even begin to understand.

There were a lot of things about Ashley Denner that Ora had stopped trying to understand.

Just below the sound of the music, Ora could hear the occupant of the backseat again. They leaned forward and turned the music up, until they couldn’t hear it any longer. Couldn’t hear him. Ora should have felt guilty to do it, but it wasn’t like they could do anything to help him, after all.

“If we get arrested, I’ll go to prison. I… I don’t want to go to prison.” Ora licked their lips, nervously. “I haven’t even, even done anything. But they’d call me an accomplice, they-”

“Well, I mean, you’re doing an awful lot of helping me bury bodies,” Ashley pointed out helpfully. She leaned forward with her legs still up, squinting at a spot on her knee, rubbing at it with a thumb, nearly bent in half in the passenger seat. “That… seems… pretty accomplice-y.”

“Because you make me,” Ora muttered. Ashley kept rubbing, and finally Ora glanced at her sidelong. “What are you doing?”

“I think I have a fuckin’ bruise,” Ashley said, sounding offended that her skin would even dare. “That last one put up a fucking fight, didn’t she?”

Ora looked carefully away, trying not to think about the young woman in the woods just outside of Eureka. “Yeah. She did. People usually want to live.”

The prison kept growing, as they drove inexorably towards it. Ora had no idea what happened when they got there - Ashley just kept reassuring them that Brammie will be ready for us. Although Ora wasn’t really sure it was all that reassuring at all.

“People usually do. Stupid fuckers.” Ashley grinned, reaching down to pick up the ginger ale she’d been sipping since their gas station stop that morning and take a drink. She twisted around without dropping her legs to look at the man in the backseat. “Hey, sweetheart, you thirsty?”

Ora kept their eyes away from the rearview mirror - but they didn’t have to look to know exactly what Ashley saw.

Keep reading

[artangel3993]

Frathouse Boxboy: Z2 Collar Disagreement- Alex and Cameron

***

Cam raises the collar in his right hand. “You like it?” 

“Dude, he’s too high right now.” Alex rubs Z2’s shoulder. Soothing, friendly. It makes Cam want to kock their heads together. He doesn’t think Alex would even bother coming out of his room anymore if it wasn’t to keep his annoying, mother-hen watch over the BoxBoy. Their BoxBoy, which Cam admittedly dipped into his federal loan money for because it sounded fun as hell.

“He’s alright.” Cam argues. “He only had a few hits. You awake, princess?” He taps Z2 on his cheek. Glassy eyes lift to meet his, out of focus for a moment. “Yeah? Woof. Earth to Lassie.” 

Z2 reminds him of a dog, mostly. A little bit too of the kids he used to pick on when he was younger— way younger, when it was good fun and nobody got too upset about it. Except even they would avoid him after a while. They learned safety in numbers, or else figured out how to be boring enough to be left eventually alone. Z2, though. Z2 wants to please. It’s his main function, it bobs back to the surface no matter how long you hold it under. He only blinks dumbly, flinching at Cam’s hand as it taps his face but never pulling away.

“See? Mikey likes it.” He says to Alex, who gives him a holier-than-thou look of disapproval. 

The collar is thick, black with a D-ring like some BDSM shit. Well, makes sense, considering the site he went on to buy it. 

Cam dangles it in front of Z’s face, letting him focus his vision on it. He looks back to Alex, unsure.

“Don’t look at him.” Cam corrects, taking Z firmly under the chin. “Look at me.”

“Don’t hurt him.” Alex says sharply, blue eyes flashing. 

“Don’t hurt him,” Cam mocks back in his best will-you-stop-being-such-a-pussy voice. Z2, stoned and not following, grins at him. Thinks he’s playing. Cam snorts at that, runs a hand over Z’s shaved head. “Atta boy.”

Alex watches him with poorly concealed disgust. Alex, who studied fucking rhetoric and psychology and political science and changed his major a final time to what? Philosophy, or some other academic circle-jerk. He was becoming less and less active within the fraternity this semester, but as a result had less and less sway over the rest of them. Cam was happy to take that spot. You don’t need thirty credit hours of bullshit to know how to steer a crowd. 

Cameron lifts the collar to Z2’s neck. The boy flinches at the sudden proximity near his throat. He’s been like that every since the bathtub incident, and the time soon after when Cam put a hole in the drywall with his head and choked him a little. 

Well. He’ll get over it. He’s already pretty much over it since Cam brought him some cheap gas station grub and gave it to him. Eat up. What you waiting for? You earned it. A look of naked gratitude had crossed his face. Cam had watched him curl around a paper bag of powdered donuts like a feral animal, licking the white dust from his fingers. He didn’t mention he’d told the rest of the house not to feed him for a while first— so he’d be extra hungry and therefore extra grateful. That wouldn’t help.  

“It’s okay.” Alex says softly to Z. Alex was against the idea of a collar, but he’d been almost unanimously outvoted. Still, he’d insisted on being there for Cam putting it on. 

Z2 winces as the collar is clasped in the back, tight enough that Cam even can’t slip a finger between the leather and his neck. He leans back to admire the finished result. 

“Yeah. That’s so much better.”

“No leashes.” Alex warns.

Cam gives the D-ring a tug, watches the surprise in Z2’s eyes as he’s pulled forward sharply by the neck. “Tribe has spoken, Al. Where there’s a collar, there’s a leash.”

Alex is too self-righteous to ever stop and wonder why he is in the overwhelming minority when it comes to having fun with their mascot, though they all spent good money to do just that.

“Check it out.” He says, pulling a small padlock from his pocket. He turns Z2 around, handling him firmly but gently, which he found out quickly was the best way to do it. He fastens the metal around the clasp mechanism of the collar, clicking it shut and locking the collar onto Z.

Alex shakes his head. “Nah. No way. That’s straight up… that’s sick dude, it’s dangerous. And it wasn’t part of the vote.”

Cam can’t hide his smirk. That’s exactly the rise he wanted to get out of Alex. “It wasn’t part of the vote to take him in our rooms for days on end and not let anyone else play with him either, was it?” 

Z turns his head from side to side, whimpering in new discomfort. He almost reaches a hand to his neck but thinks better of it, returns it to his side. 

Alex’s jaw jumps on one side as he grits his teeth. “Why do you actually care about that? I’ve been wondering.”

 Cam rolls his eyes. Here comes the armchair psychology. “Look.. Two sets.” He takes two keys on a circular keyring out of his pocket, dangles them so they clink together like charms on a bracelet. “You have one. I have one. Is that checks-and-balances enough for you?”

Z2 whimpers again, shrugging his ear to his shoulder like the collar is bothering him. 

“How tight did you make that thing?” Alex asks, reaching to feel. “Jesus, man. Come on, give me a key.” He holds out his hand, eyes still focused on Z. “It’s okay. You can breathe. It’s tight, I’m gonna fix it.” His voice gets sharper. “Cam, key!”

“It’s not too tight.” Cam says, spinning the key ring on one finger, catching them in his palm. “Chill out. Both of you.”

“C’mon, it’s too tight.”

“It’s fine. He’ll get used to it.”

“Give me the fucking—”

Alex surprises him by making a grab for the keys. Cam twists his hand away and Alex comes at him harder, shoving him back by the shoulders.

He’s able to grab Alex’s wrists and push them down, and when they slam into each other it’s already with intent, each trying to push back the other to take a good swing.

For a moment all Cam can get is a few bad swings, barely getting his elbow back to put any force behind them.

He feels one land on Alex’s jaw just as Alex’s fist makes contact with his side, sending a spike of pain up into his ribs. They roll onto the floor, a close range grapple for the upper hand. A side table upends in the struggle, sending a lamp sideways onto the floor, scattering a stack of textbooks.

The sound of glass breaking snaps him out of trying to hurt Alex. He turns his head to see Z2 kneeling next to them, holding a broken Heineken bottle by the neck, six inches from Cam’s left eye. Alex freezes at the same time, focused on the jagged glass.

Breathlessly, Cam holds up his hands. 

“Hey.” He laughs. His heart is pounding. He can feel sweat picking his hairline. “Easy there, Zee-Zee. I don’t think BoxBoys get tax-payer prison. I think they go right to the puppy farm. Huh? Whatcha doin?“

The makeshift weapon trembles in Z2’s hand like seaglass. 

“Zee.” Alex says, breathless as Cam. “It’s alright. Hey.” 

Alex crawls over Cam’s legs toward Z2. Cam winces, holding his side as he watches Alex talking their BoxBoy down like a spooked horse. 

Z2 drops the glass with a dull thud on the carpet. Alex is nodding, yes, good, opening his arms and Z is collapsing into them, crying. 

Cam lets his head fall back on the carpet, laughing, both keys still digging his palm.

[artangel3993]

summer meets the gang: pt 1

this is a continuation from this piece which starts at this piece! this is set in the box boy universe and yeah its psychedelic bunker time feat summer pov. i swear to god this is leading to actual whump scenes njfddfjn. poppy gets introduced here and i love her! nic and elana are gonna be introduced in the second part of this it just got wa y too long to be one thing. but yeah welcome 2 bunker

cw: general fuckery of the box boy universe, discussions of ownership and dehumanization 

prev | next

--

Summer scratched at the strap of her backpack absentmindedly as Violet drove through the long gravel driveway leading to, what Summer assumed, was going to be the bunker. She hadn’t taken it off for the whole car ride, with how quick Violet made her and Safiya leave the cottage, just sitting there in the backseat in a shocked quiet. (She brought the pouch with all her seeds here, though, she knew the whole point of the bunker was that it was underground but maybe they’d have a place for her to plant them, she didn’t know. She liked having them on her.) 

Safiya and Violet had been talking in the front the whole car ride in hushed whispers, drowned out completely from her by the music. At some points in their conversation, Safiya had laughed, smiling at Violet so bright and genuine. Now, she had her arms crossed, looking pointedly out of the window, face flushed with anger. Summer didn’t want to stare, even through the mirrors, she knew whatever there was between them was… complicated. But that was none of her business. The way Safiya would tear through the mail back home looking for Violet’s name. None of her business. 

She looked out the window instead, all the trees passing by still sticky with summer, a couple of yellow leaves here and there as autumn crept upon them. They had gone far, far into the country, even more isolated than Safiya’s cottage in the quiet town. Summer ached for what had begun to feel like her home: waking up early to watch the sunrise as she watered all of her flowers she’d raised herself out in the front, feeling the morning dew bead on her face all softly. Taking off her sneakers and her socks to wade in the stream and look for tiny fish, down the trail from the backyard. Coming back inside and finding Safiya working at the kitchen table, having just made Summer a mug of tea waiting for her next to the other chair. Thinking about good things was keeping her head busy. Change frightened her, she liked feeling grounded and she didn’t want to sound ungrateful, it was just sudden, how Violet had come in, was all. Spun both of their worlds on her axis.

Summer was thrown out of her thoughts by the sound of metal screeching against metal and caught sight of the bunker for the first time, fingers pressing against the glass. A dome of concrete jutted out from a raised landmass, the opening on the front that was now parting for Violet’s black Tesla looked big enough to open for a rocket. She heard Violet say it was an abandoned underground missile silo, but she couldn’t even conceptualize what that could look like until now. the lighting changed from natural to fluorescent as they entered the bunker. 

Violet parked next to a lineup of four other cars against the metal opening to the bunker, and as Summer stepped out, she was struck by how enormous just the front room was. The ceiling was a good fifty feet or so up, made out of arched concrete, a precarious chandelier hanging from the highest point, over rows and rows of tall shelves with packaged boxes all over, its elegance chaotically disrupting the underground warehouse energy the rest of the room gave off. It was a curious place and Summer wanted to explore, but Violet terrified her, and she wasn’t so keen on accidentally bumping into one of her associates. She walked over to Safiya because things felt less scary next to her, thought briefly about reaching out to hold onto her, but thought the better of it. 

Their conversation was finally in earshot now. Safiya looked up to Violet, who had taken her sunglasses off and put them in her black clutch. “How did this… happen?”

“What?”

“This bunker. How the fuck did you guys just... stumble upon an entire military bunker.”

Violet thought for a moment, looking to the side. Summer realized, for the entire eight hours she’d known her, she’d never seen her facial expression change once. So this was whose name was really on her contract, had all of her information since becoming company property, had eventual final say in all legal matters concerning her life. Theoretically, she could send Summer back to the Facility tomorrow, if she wanted. If she interfered with her and Safiya. Summer decided to study the floor rather than look at her any longer. “Well, it was Nic who originally sent me the listing, but the deed’s under my name. We won’t be able to stay here forever but it’s a good place to manufacture longer term, Elana loves the privacy-” 

Violet’s voice was interrupted by a muffled, far-away “wait, they’re here?!” followed by echoed footfalls ringing along the metal shelves, in the places where light doesn’t reach, methodic skipping sounds. Suddenly, a girl appeared from the dark. 

She was much shorter than Summer but not quite as short as Safiya, gripping the end of the shelving and steadying herself from stumbling, her socks on the smooth concrete causing her to slide a little forward. She had dark brown hair that went down a little past her shoulders, cut in messy layers that flicked this way and that, carefully tiptoeing the line between bob and mullet. She had on a crop top that looked like she cut it herself from a t-shirt, multicolored swirling patterns all over it, her grey pajama shorts tied to hug her waist. She was smiling out of breath, her face flushed from running down the hall. 

Violet said, in what sounded like equal parts explanation and irritation: “Poppy.”

After getting her footing back, she walked over to the three of them, crossing her arms. “So, which one of them’s Safiya?

Violet looked down at her. “Introduce yourself, at the very least.”

“Fine,” the girl said, not stifling her eye roll. “I’m Poppy, nice to meet you, etc etc. I’m Violet’s, but I think that can be said about, uh, all three of us, basically. Now, who’s Safiya- or, wait. Can I guess? I’m going to guess.”

With that, Poppy put one of her hands over her eyes and stuck her other arm out in front of her pointing, blindly moving it between Summer and Safiya. Summer and Safiya, over and over to some invisible beat, until it landed clumsily over Saf.

Safiya cleared her throat. “Yeah, that’s... that’s me.” 

Poppy opened her mouth in a mock surprise and looked over at Violet. “So this is who you’ve been spilling your guts over to me for like, months-”

With that, Violet quickly took Safiya’s wrist and pulled her to the side, storming off away from earshot, muttering something to her. Summer saw Safiya nod. Beside Summer, Poppy took her finger out of the air and ruffled the side of her own hair with it instead, looking away. “I… I fucked that up, didn’t I?” She laughed a little, trailing at the end of her sentence, but it didn’t mask the nervous tone in her voice. 

 Summer didn’t respond to her. She hadn’t been able to find her voice since they left the cottage, if she was being honest. From here, she could see how large Poppy’s pupils were, too dilated to be natural. Another thing she didn’t bring up. She fiddled with her backpack straps, again. 

After a moment, Safiya and Violet walked up to both of them, hand and hand. Safiya slipped away from Violet, giving her a look. “I’m gonna- I need to talk to Summer, for a second. I’ll be back.” Summer met Safiya’s eyes, grateful for the excuse to be rid of all of the new people. 

They stood in the corner of the warehouse, where the curved wall met the cars. Safiya stopped her when they had gone far enough. Saf tried to start a sentence, and pinched between her brows instead. She stopped for a second, and then: “So. This is a lot.”

Safiya waited a couple moments more, for Summer to say anything, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know where she was, it was too much change too quickly and she didn’t know what was going on and she didn’t want to mess it up, by saying the wrong thing. She couldn’t mess up. The silence, the realization that Summer wasn’t going to answer just made Safiya’s gaze go from worried and stressed to pity, only pity. Summer didn’t know how to feel about any of that, either. 

She reached for Summer’s arm. 

“It’s… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for- for fucking, all of this, but I promise Violet’s not…” Safiya backtracked on herself.  “You remember back at the cottage, the first few days? When you didn’t want to leave, so I told you… I told you you’d always have a home there if you wanted it, that I’d keep you safe?” Summer nodded faintly.

“That won’t change here, I’m still going to… I’m not going back on what I said. If Violet’s friends have a problem with that, they can come to me with it, but I’m not- you’re not going to get entangled, in all of this…” Safiya’s voice started to fade, and Summer thought, what a beautiful chandelier. All crystal and glowing. She remembered one just like it, in the staircase of the other house, buried in her memory. It came back to her perfect in her vision like a dam had just been opened, the breaking crown moulding lining the walls in centuries old paint, all the statues, the stacks of books against the archway to the living room with the candle wax dripping down, down…

“Summer? Summer I- uh. Can you hear me?” 

Summer was thrown back into the present, met with Safiya’s worried eyes, her hand still firmly on her arm. Summer looked down, grounding herself, her head going dizzy. 

“You left again,” Safiya explained. 

Summer felt the self consciousness creep up on her, shifting the weight on her feet side to side, found it in her to say a soft “I’m sorry,” to Safiya. 

“You don’t need to apologize.” Safiya paused before running her hands through her coiled hair, a nervous tick Summer’s picked up on. “Listen, though, me and Vi have, uh. Things. We need to talk about. Alone. So, I’m going to go with her, for now,” instinctively, Summer brought her hand to where Safiya’s was on her arm, holding onto it for dear life, “hey, I know, but I have to. I haven’t seen her for… I have to. I’ll come find you right after, I promise- and I wouldn’t leave you alone unless I knew nothing was going to happen to you.” She didn’t believe her. 

Their hands fell from Summer’s arm down and just stayed like that, entangled by their sides. Summer stood there, in that quiet, for all too long a moment. “Are we ready to go back?” came Safiya’s stressed tone, cracking a little at the edges. Before she could let herself think about it too long, Summer nodded her head.

[artangel3993]

this is pt 2 of this drabble and it wont rlly make sense w/o it!  time 4 violet. cw for i mean general fuckery that is conditionally present in the box boy universe, contracts n ownership discussed, also mention of drugs

the inspiration for the setting of the underground military bunker turned psychedelic warehouse is from a real case that was i think still the largest lsd bust in the 2000s which is neat. drug history! that link has pics of the actual bunker too and im p sure vice also did a documentary on it, its a really interesting case! anyways i just want to get to bunker time so i can introduce poppy bc i love her. 

prev | next

--

Safiya could not, for the life of her, figure out what the fuck was wrong with this algorithm. She kept running it through her IDE over and over, checked all the spellings of the variables, and it still wouldn’t run the way she needed it to, or be a functional block of code in any way, intended or not (she got that sometimes, when a program would run but it would do something completely fucking different than her intentions.) She dragged her hands down her eyes, and took another long sip of her energy drink. She hadn’t slept in two days and she was still behind on her end of the code for her company’s new game- which fucking sucked, but at the same time, Saf liked the challenge, the conflict. Having something to do. Vi left her with enough money that she’d never have to work a day in her life again and still be fine, but she was good at game development- well. Not right now, but in general. Right now, she was about to ring whoever invented C++ by the neck.

Safiya was set up at the table by the kitchen, hosting her computer, a jumble of folders and piles of unorganized papers, at least three finished Monster’s scattered in between it all, and herself: wrapped in a knitted blanket, the monitor’s blue light bathing her dark skin. Summer was a couple steps away on the couch, lying down on her stomach and watercoloring, her legs idly kicking this way and that in the air (when Saf was working, Summer liked to create with her, she’d put on one of Saf’s records and make all kinds of art in a concentrated, comfortable silence, but watercoloring was always her favorite. Sometimes she’d give Saf painted pictures of the characters in whatever game she was working on, which made Saf smile like an idiot every time and put them someplace safe.) There were still wildflowers and weeds weaved into Summer’s golden hair, mud caking her tennis shoes laid forgotten by the door, and a soft smile on her face; all clues that made Saf infer she’d probably been out in the garden this morning that Summer had recently started. Saf had a lot of land extending from the cottage she’d never explored and left wholly wild and uncared for, so Summer kind of took over. 

Now when Saf looked out one of the front windows, there were all kinds of flowers lining the house, fluffy bumblebees laying on their petals, the beginnings of an apple tree supported by two wooden poles on either side as big as the sapling was. Once, she got dressed in all of her protective clothing because Summer asked if she could bring her outside and show her the full tour, just to see her get excited talking about all the different seeds she’d planted, her plans to tie a swing to the big oak tree out front. Safiya, in those moments, felt like she knew Summer, really. Felt like she knew what she could do to keep her in that good place, and even if she still slipped into being far away, Saf could handle it.

(There were other kinds of days, too, when Summer felt like a completely different person and Safiya was out kicking in the fucking deep end with no understanding of what to do, if anything she could do would make a difference anyways. Sometimes Summer wouldn’t talk for days. Sometimes, she’d sit poised and elegant- on the couch or the rocking chair or her bed in what used to be the spare room- for hours and hours and hours with the only movement being her blinking every so often, her face otherwise looked like it was as trapped in a pose as the rest of her. Safiya would try sitting down with her, and talking as quiet and gentle as her voice would allow, ask her if she was alright, if she wanted to maybe stand up with her and they could take a little walk around the rooms of the cottage, maybe, or- or Saf could put on all of her gear and they could go outside together- take my hand, everything’s okay, you’re safe I promise- but Summer would be unresponsive at that point, staring straight ahead, and Safiya would realize just how fucking unqualified she was to try and help her at all.)

Safiya fell out of her thoughts as the record Summer put on got caught in a groove, and started repeating the same chord over and over. Summer’s head peeked up from the couch, and she walked over to the record player, delicately flipping the vinyl and motioning towards putting it back onto the player.

She never got the chance, though. The front door made a clicking sound, the hinges sighed, and Violet Lowe was standing in the doorframe. Summer dropped the vinyl and it shattered. 

“I thought I changed my locks.” Safiya didn’t move from where she spoke.

Violet shrugged. “You did.” There was quiet. She closed the door behind her to keep the light out.

Safiya stood up, her blanket dropping to the floor, and she felt stupid for being in her sweats and a pair of fucking crocs because it would be really great if she was anything close to intimidating right now. Still, she walked over to Vi, putting herself in between her and Summer. 

Safiya intended to say a lot of things to her, everything that had been boiling in her mind since the morning Vi left and didn’t come back, insults and how could yous and I deserve better than thats. Instead, this is what came out: “I missed you, Vi. So much.” If, Saf thought, she was just a little less emotionally stunted, there’d be tears in her eyes. She really thought Vi wasn’t going to come back this time.

Violet smiled, but it was unreadable behind her sunglasses. She was definitely selling again, it showed in the gold and silver coiling around her fingers in serpentine rings and  dripping down her neck, contrasted starkly against her black cocktail dress. She had new heeled boots that made her stand almost as tall as Summer was, their glossy cold-black finish the exact same shade as her perfectly maintained bob. “I know you missed me. It’s why I came back.”

“Where have you been selling?” Saf knew Vi had friends in the business with mansions up and down the west coast they’d hop around, going from city to city giving out all kinds of compounds and getting rich as fuck in the process, living like psychedelic royalty. But this felt different, she’d been gone for too long.

Vi shook her head. “Not selling. Manufacturing. That’s where the real money is. We don’t have to move around, either, we bought this underground military bunker-”

“A bunker. An underground military bunker.” How the fuck do you just buy an underground military bunker.

Vi mhm’d impatiently, as if she was puzzled as to Saf not being able to keep up. “It used to be for large weapons storage, but it got auctioned off. One of the smartest decisions me and Nic ever made.” Sometimes Saf didn’t recognize the names Vi would rattle off, but Nic, Nic she knew from the one time she’d been with Saf while she was away on her business trips. She swallowed the memories she, frankly, could not be less prepared to deal with, back down.

Violet took Safiya’s hands in hers, the cold metal of her rings making imprints against Saf’s fingers. “Saf, Elana’s making psychoactive compounds nobody’s even theorized about before, with the amount of privacy we have there. You understand? We’re about to change the drug underbelly of this entire nation. And I want you there with me.”

“I’d go with you?” Vi’d never offered to take her with, ever since everything happened that summer, with her Vi, Elana and Nic. Safiya looked back at Summer in her floral sundress (she only wore that one on days when she was feeling good, Saf knew it was her favorite,) who at that point had pressed herself against the wall, standing straight and dead silent, staring at the both of them, her face unreadably calm to most, but Saf knew she only disconnected like that when she was fucking terrified. The record was still in pieces on the ground. With both eyes on her, Summer peeled herself off of the wall and hurriedly started picking up the shattered bits. Safiya moved towards her, breaking Vi’s grip. “It’s alright, Summer, I’ve got this, don’t worry about it-”

“Summer?” Vi said behind her, and Safiya realized just how badly she does not want these two people in her life to interact ever. Fuck. “It suits her so well. How have you liked my birthday present for you so far?”

Safiya stomped back up to Violet, and in a whisper edging on a growl, “We are not doing this right now Vi.” Saf would make grave eye contact with her if it weren’t for the fact that Vi still had her fucking shades on. 

“Now, if you had such a problem with my generosity, she’d be gone by now, wouldn’t she?” And then, after a moment, she added: “Stop acting like a saint, Safiya. You’ve never been a good liar.”

The room buzzed with the echo of her words, and Safiya stood there, quiet, for a dragged out moment, trying to think of some way to spit back at her. It didn’t happen. With the most calm face she can put on right now, she turned back to Summer. “Summer, maybe you should... go outside, for a little bit. I’ll tell you when I’ve shown Violet out.” She makes those last words taste like venom, matter-of-fact, so Vi can hear her anger. 

“No, she can stay.”

Summer stopped dead in her tracks. Looking at the fear in her eyes, that sinking look that overpowered any kind of calm Summer usually had when Saf was there, Saf knew she was lost. Summer was listening to Vi, now, all Vi, the kind of gone Saf was all too familiar with people getting under Vi’s words.

“Anyways,” Vi said, a tad annoyed, as if all of that had just been a mere blip in the conversation, turning her head to address Saf, “yes, you’re coming with. You’d be safe in the bunker, I made sure of it. All of your special lights. I want…. I want you there. With me.”

If this had been in literally any other context, Safiya would’ve smiled at Vi’s effort to communicate her feelings, Saf had been with her for years and she knew how hard it was for her to even understand her own emotions, much less say them out loud. But she was pissed at her, and she was going to hold onto that feeling for as long as she could to make her feel worse. “Summer stays here.” There was no way in hell she was going to let Summer anywhere near Vi’s fucked up drug empire. 

Vi just fucking shrugged. “She’s coming.”

Saf charged at her again, pointing an accusing finger at her and getting close enough until it buried into the fabric of Vi’s dress. “You can act like I’m as fucked up as you are but I would never trust her with your or your f-”

Vi smiled, and batted Saf’s hand off of her as if she was a somewhat disinterested cat. “Let me rephrase that. My name is on her contract. She’s coming.”

[artangel3993]

BoxxyBoyz Message Board: Section: Waiting Room - Thread Title: Almost got enough saved up aaaaaaaah!!

I just need to wait for my dad to deposit my allowance this month (hurry TF up Dad!!) and I’ll have enough for my own box boy. Yes I’ve been binging on the videos of Colton on YT in the meantime. I’ve got to do something to tide myself over. IDK what do you do to be patient?

Anyway now I’m trying to think of names in advance. I really want a name that’s connected to trees or forests. I know I was talking about kind of “gothy” names before but now I’m thinking forests. Yes I could change my mind. My boy, my choice.

So far I’ve got…

Linden

Rowan

Oliver (or Olivier���yes maybe inspired by Timothee stfu)

Cedar

Dara (Irish)

Aki, Daiki, Haruki, Hideki, Hiroki, Kazuki, Naoki, and Taiki are all great but I don’t want to get blasted for “cultural appropriation” because they’re Japanese names and I’m not Japanese.

Silas is good but it’s not as obviously a “tree” name because it’s a short version of Sylvanus and no one knows that, you know? Sylvain is good too, though, and it’s the French version. What’s with me and French names lol???

There are some good ones from Basque, but I have no idea how they’re pronounced lol.

Suggestions welcome!

[artangel3993]

(i got really inspired by @shameless-whumper and @ashintheairlikesnow ‘s series and tried to write something in the box boy universe! credit for the world goes to @sweetwhumpandhellacomf!)

next 

There was a person in a wooden crate in Safiya’s living room.

Violet had written to her (fucking Violet, of course she had done this, of course she had thought this was a solution, she had told her she would be fine alone, leave, no really) in her too-perfect cursive, telling her she was going to get her help. Because she felt so responsible for leaving her defenseless and didn’t want Saf to be all by herself. A quick note in an envelope with no return address. 

If you felt so responsible, why didn’t you stay?

And of course she had heard about the company, it was all over the news, social media, the senate floor. She didn’t understand the appeal and beyond that, didn’t give it much mind. But when Joshua (he worked for the post office and had been delivering mail to her cottage for years, he had the keys to her place at this point and left her packages for her in the living room because he knew she wouldn’t be able to retrieve them from her porch) had brought it in this morning, the logo for the company plastered right on the side, her mind went straight to Violet. She had the money. Who fucking knows, at this point, Vi might’ve gotten one for herself, too, Saf wouldn’t put it past her. When she wrote help, she thought Vi might have meant a nurse to come check in on her, maybe more film to cover up her windows, or whatever the latest new miracle skin cancer-preventative supplement was, but never… this. 

Hesitantly, she crept in quiet steps on the carpet from her old rocking chair to the crate, again. It had been an hour and she was still too nervous to open the top more than a crack, but that felt irresponsible of her. She laughed, breathy and just to herself, about how fucking ironic it was that Vi thought the perfect way to fix her ex and get leaving her off her consciousness was to put someone else in the care of her. Saf could barely take care of herself. Couldn’t she return the box, whoever was inside of it? She was going to, she decided in her head. She would look through all the paperwork that was attached to the crate and find out how to take all of this back, even if it meant getting an angry letter from Vi (maybe it would be nice, to hear from her again, even if it was just for wasting her money.) But for the meantime, until she figured all of this out, she couldn’t just leave whoever was in there for however long that process took, just lying there like that. Quietly, she slid the wooden lid off and placed it by her side on the floor.

There was a woman all curled up inside, a living, breathing girl, her chest albeit faintly moving in and out with her lungs. She looked as still as if she was in a deep sleep, eyes blindfolded, her long, yellow-blonde hair pooled about her in the packaging, it reaching down all the way to her waist in soft, dainty ringlets at the ends that were so stiff and perfect it made Saf recoil because it was so fucking unsettling, like it was the wig of a perfect marionette doll in the window of a toy store. Softly, with both hands to make sure she didn’t tug on her, she took her by the arms and propped her into a sitting position, and took off the blindfold.

Safiya watched the woman’s deep brown eyes adjust and dilate to the muddled dark she always kept her house in, focusing on her face. Her gaze hesitated on Saf’s skin for a couple of moments in curiosity, and then immediately darted down to look at the bottom of the packaging, twisting her fingers tight around the newspaper padding.

“It’s alright. You can look, if you want to.” It took Safiya a second to find her voice. “I’m not offended by it. Being able to perceive things people haven’t seen before makes it less strange, in their heads. Less other. It’s good to look.”

Hesitantly, the woman’s eyes found her again. She studied the marks running through Saf’s face, dripping down her neck, all of the little dots, the red and black scarring from the sun, those raised, swollen places that had gotten too irritated by UV rays. Safiya didn’t like to look in mirrors much anymore but she still knew where everything was, all her abnormalities, when she would run her fingers along her own skin. It was something she couldn’t forget. She’d had the freckles all over since she was really little, but most of the scarring had come from a few years ago, when she’d accidentally had UV’s on her skin for the first time in forever, when she wasn’t cautious enough with the lights she’d gotten for her new place and they’d been on all at once. It had felt like her skin was about to melt off. She’s lucky all that had gotten left was aesthetical damage.

Safiya spoke again. “I promise it’s not contagious, or anything. It’s from a genetic condition.”

Slowly, the woman nodded her head. “They told me, during training.” Her voice was so delicate, something only slightly above a whisper, like it was expecting to be broken. “Xeroderma pigmentosum.”

“Training?”

“Yes, you… the custom training order you put in when you got me.” Jesus christ, Vi. How much had she spent on all this? “I know how to help you with administering medication, handling seizures...”

How was she supposed to explain that that wasn’t her, who ordered all of that? Safiya sighed, ran a hand through her coarse brown hair, looking down for a minute to gather her thoughts. Her eyes rested on the woman’s side, where a long, healed scar slithered out from her black sports bra and down her willowy frame, to the small of her waist.

Her eyes were on Saf when she looked up. She must have noticed her staring. Safiya opened her mouth to apologize, but she shook her head. “You can look at it. Like you said... it’s better, to perceive. I just thought you knew… it’s on file. From my last placement. Before I got refurbished.” Then she added, after a moment: “I’m sorry if I’m disappointing.”

Safiya didn’t know what refurbished meant but she’s pretty certain it was the kind of thing she didn’t want to know about. “No, you’re not disappointing I just- what’s your name?”

The woman slowly unfurled her right arm and held it out to her, where a little black number was printed along her wrist. 075395. 

“This is a number.”

Carefully, she brought her arm back to herself, curling it along her knees pulled tight to her chest. “You can name me, if you would like that better.”

“Listen-” Safiya couldn't attach herself to the situation like that, she was just going to wait with her for a couple of hours until she could go back, she didn’t mean to- how was she supposed to explain this? “This has all been a big mistake.”

The woman’s eyes widened with some unnameable dread from the pit of her heart, stricken into a deep, terrified stillness as fuzzy as a scratch on a record, before she looked down just slightly, and something switched and she went back to an unreadable, eerily serene expression. “Mistake?”

“Yes, I-” Safiya looked for the words to tell her she was going to return her, she really did, but it took too long, and then she remembered that look in her eyes, if even the smallest notion of something being wrong could push her down that thought process. Saf breathed out. “What would you want your name to be?”

She looked taken aback for a moment, then dissociated all deep in thought, before decisively shaking her head no.

So this had to be Safiya’s decision, then. She thought for a moment. “What’s your favorite season?”

The woman looked out the living room window through the deep grey UV light protectors resting on the pane, it made everything look dark and fuzzy outside but she could still make out the tree outside her porch rustling in the wind, its leaves moving this way and that. Quietly, she spoke again, her eyes still on the outside, an airy quality to her words. “Summer.”

“Why not Summer, then? Do you like that?” It suited her, Saf thought to herself. Everything about her was so bright, so warm when she let it be, her hair glowing like rays, her golden skin, her melty eyes. 

She brought her gaze back to Safiya, but it didn’t look curious or shocked this time, her eyes rested easily on Saf’s scars (the same type of understanding she hadn’t seen on anyone since Vi). Summer smiled. “Yes. I’d like that a lot.”