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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

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Colton/Kauri Fanfic Drabble 2: Love Confession

I promised to reward anyone who drew a specific, amazing fanart idea I was sent in an ask with a fake fanfiction drabble that featured the Colton (belongs to @shameless-whumper)/Kauri pairing.

This is my second “Cori” fanfic, this one is for @my-whumpy-little-heart‘s prompt Love Confession. These are written as though they are excerpts of AO3 fanfics people wrote after seeing Kauri on The Host’s YouTube Video in Who’s the Better Box Boy.

And they are so. much. fun. to. write.

P.S. @shameless-whumper wrote this fucking excellent piece over on AO3 of Cori fanfic that broke my heart and I want it to break yours. Required reading, 100% required. You will be answering questions about this fic on your final exam.

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl

CW: Aftermath of seriously dubious dubcon, references to dubcon/noncon, aftermath of biting, aftercare in general, reference to violence/restraints

When the Camera’s Off by PetRescuer445 Youtubers: The Host

Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Colton/Kauri, Kauri/Colton, Colton, Kauri, The Host, Angst, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, Cannot Emphasize Enough How Dubious the Consent Is, Not Safe Not Sane But Kind of Consensual?, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Kind Of Consensual Bondage, Started Out Angsty Smut Turned Into a Love Story, Kauri is a sweetheart, Colton is a treasure, the Host would probably love this, story changed a lot from original plan, honestly this was just an excuse to write crazy smut for my favorite Youtuber, then it turned into a love story between two pets, alternate universe, human pets, this fire took twenty chapters to catch but damn it still burns,

Summary: Alternate Universe: What if Colton and Kauri both got sent to the Host as a gift from Whumpees-R-Us? A peek into the life of Colton, the Host’s Domestic pet, and Kauri as their Romantic pet!

Because let’s face, nobody with those big blue eyes would ever be made anything but a Romantic pet, am I right?!

Two pets bond in unexpected ways when one of them takes care of the Host’s household while the other ~takes care of the Host~. Super slow burn, but trust me, we’re going smutty places! I promise and have I ever let you down? :) Remember comments and kudos are always appreciated!

Chapter 33/40

The Bath

“Why me?” Colton pitches his voice low, so the sound of the water rushing from the faucet into the bathtub will ensure that Kauri can’t hear him from where he sits on the bathmat next to the tub, shivering and hunched over, staring down at the ground with a horribly familiar, empty expression.

“Why not you?” The Host answers, flashing their brilliant too-wide smile. “I’ve got shit to do, babe. Have to edit the new video and then I’m meeting with some people about product placement.”

“It’s not my purpose to, to clean up Romantics,” Colton argues, but there’s no real fight in his voice. For one, it won’t work - the Host doesn’t care whether or not Colton wants to be responsible for this. For two, the Host only ever enjoys Colton fighting so they can push and push and push until he stops. “You, you d-did this-”

“Colton. Babe.” The Host reaches up to pat the side of his face with their palm, and Colton flinches away when they scratch behind his ear like he’s a dog. “Listen. You’re the Domestic, right?”

There’s a pause, when Colton realizes he’s expected to answer. “Y-Yes, I am.”

The hand moves around behind his hair, and the Host’s smile changes a little as they grip hard and yank his head back until Colton’s knees have to bend to stay standing, hissing through his teeth. “Domestics take care of the house, right? Right, Babe?”

“Yes,” Colton manages, voice thin and strained. “We do.”

“Good. You cook, you clean, you come on camera for my viewers and give ‘em something as pretty as me to look at… and you take care of the household. And Kauri’s part of my household. Besides.” The Host abruptly lets go and shoots Colton a cheeky, wicked little smile. “You like seeing him naked exactly as much as I do. Don’t think I haven’t caught you watching me edit the private videos.”

Colton’s face burns. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that,” He says, trying for evasive, but the Host only laughs loud enough to make even Kauri flinch a little where he sits.

“Sure you haven’t. It’ll be our little secret.” The Host gives him a pinch to his cheek, tweaking the skin until it hurts, and then they walk away and leave Colton standing there, staring after them with murder in his eyes and his heart that never, ever reaches his hands.

Then he takes a deep breath, sighs, and turns to look into the bathroom at Kauri.

The Host’s Romantic pet is still sitting where he’d been left, on the bathmat next to the rapidly-filling giant bathtub. The Host was always bragging about how much it cost to get a bathtub this size (“big enough for five, I tried it out one weekend with friends and we really topped out at five”), and Kauri seems dwarfed next to it. Smaller, and lost inside his head, the way he gets sometimes after the Host was in a really good mood.

His stomach twisting, Colton moves towards him, crouching down in front of the other pet, tilting his head. “Kauri,” He says, softly. “The bathtub’s almost ready.”

Kauri blinks, and after a second the deep blue eyes focus on his dark brown. Then he smiles, and some of the emptiness falls off his face, shifting away like it’d never been there. “Oh, Colton,” He says, and his voice is low, a little deeper than you’d think for how delicate he looks. “Hey. I didn’t know you were there.”

“Hey. The Host asked me to sit with you, while you get cleaned up. Do you want that?”

He leaves the offer open, he always does - the Host is constantly having him sit with Kauri after stuff like this, because they never want to stick around to take care of him after they leave him like this. But he always leaves Kauri the option to say no.

“Yes, please,” Kauri whispers in the soft sweet voice that Colton is always trying to hear in any context but this. He holds up his hands, and Colton carefully avoids the bruises around his wrists as he grabs him by his upper forearms, close to his elbows, to pull him to his feet.

Kauri’s hair is a wild, riotous mess, but Colton doesn’t mind the way it brushes his face when Kauri stands up too fast and stumbles forward against him. The red stripes on his back are just welts, really - the Host’s heart hadn’t been in it this time. There are other things he doesn’t want to think about - the choke-chain around Kauri’s neck replacing his usual collar, the red underneath that promises to bruise in the morning, a bite mark so deep on one shoulder that you could probably identify the Host through the dental records.

“I’m going to help you step into the tub,” Colton says softly, and Kauri’s hands grip tightly onto his arms, looking up at him, swallowing hard.

“Can… can you get in, in with me?” Kauri asks, and his voice trembles just a little. “I just need… I could use someone with me. For a little bit, I’m just still kind of… coming down.”

The absolute last thing in the world Colton wants to hear about is how the Host is so good that Kauri has to recover from time with them - but sometimes ‘coming down’ doesn’t mean in a good way, and it looks like today is one of the shaky ones.

“Uh… sure. Yeah.” Colton looks away to hide the flush, moving Kauri gently over to the edge of the tub, trying to keep his eyes on anything but the marks left on the pale skin. They’re too red - or too purple already, some of them - and he can’t stop the surge of anger, the sense of wanting to fix this and make sure it never happens again.

It doesn’t work that way.

It never does, for the Box Boys.

So instead, he lets Kauri hold him for balance as he lifts one leg and then the other to step into the hot water, nearly scalding just the way Kauri likes it after times like this. Kauri doesn’t let go, fingers gripped so tightly they press into Colton’s skin, until he’s sitting down in the tub, in the middle of the giant space that seems to make him seem so small.

“Now… now you,” Kauri says, and tilts his head as he looks sideways up at Colton, and the Host makes fun of him for the way he looks at Colton like that, but Colton… secretly, and he’d never admit it… he loves it.

His hands go to pull the yellow branded sweatshirt off, just brushing at the hem when Kauri flinches back, looking down at the water. Colton drops his hands immediately. “Hey… I don’t have to, Kauri. You know that. I’ll just sit next to the tub-”

“No, I… I want you in the tub. But just… can you keep your clothes, um, on? I know… I know it’s ridiculous…”

Colton blinks, and then he slowly nods. He gets into the tub, feeling the water soak immediately into his gray sweatpants, and slowly lowers himself behind Kauri, until he’s soaked totally through, the nearly-burning water making his clothing half-float around him in the water.

Kauri doesn’t hesitate - as soon as Colton has settled he leans back against him, and Colton slides arms around his waist, clasping hands together under the water, just above Kauri’s navel. It’s quiet, now - they can’t hear the Host and honestly they might have left.

He hopes they left.

Kauri’s hair tickles at his nose and his neck as he leans his head back against Colton’s shoulder, humming to himself, some song that both of them almost remember but neither really does. He’s warm, and his skin feels soft even where it’s been bitten.

Colton slowly cranes his neck, leans down, and kisses at the ring of teeth around Kauri’s shoulder. When Kauri doesn’t pull away, he does it again, and again, and again, once for every single toothmark he can count.

Eventually, Kauri starts to cry.

Neither of them speak, while he does, or acknowledge it - Kauri cries a lot, after, and all Colton can do is be there to hold him through it. The low, half-buried sobs eventually get louder, and Colton’s arms get tighter. He never lets go. He never pulls away from Kauri, he never gives him anything but the comfort he really needs, comfort the Host is totally unable to give.

When the louder sobs have worn themselves out and Kauri’s shoulders stop shaking, when he goes boneless and relaxed again in the water, Colton leans forward. There are tear tracks glimmering on Kauri’s cheeks, but his eyes are open, and warm, and they’re not empty.

“Better?” Colton whispers.

“Better,” Kauri replies, and snuggles back against him. They sit in silence for a long time, and Colton’s heart beats hard in his chest.

“Hey, Kauri, um, how long since we came here?”

There’s a pause, a moment for thought. “Year or so.”

“A year.” They were given together, but they weren’t a bonded pair. They’d never even seen each other before their boxes were opened by the Host, live on camera. Colton was opened first, and all he could think as he watched the Host take Kauri’s blindfold off was Oh, I really like his eyes. “That’s funny, it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, does it?”

“Not really.” Kauri turns his head, twisting around a little so he could look into Colton’s eyes again. His own are red-rimmed from crying but a clear and perfect blue. The water around them is still hot enough to stay comfortable, although where it had soaked in all the way up to Colton’s shoulders felt chilly in the cool air-conditioned room. “But… I like that you’re here with me, Colton.”

“Yeah?”

Kauri smiles at him, and the empty look from before is gone. Kauri bounces back fast from the Host’s attentions - he’s trained to but also there’s something innate in him that just seems to get over it, move past it, move on. Colton’s the one left simmering in resentment, while Kauri smiles when the Host comes back from wherever they go some days, as if nothing ever happened, gives a bright, surprised laugh when the Host shoves him up on the kitchen counter while Colton tries desperately to cook dinner, lets out an excited gasp when the Host pushes him into walls.

Once, the Host pushed him over the couch on his stomach and his head was right next to Colton’s where he sat working on some sound editing. The Host told him to stay sitting right where he was.

That had been the longest fucking twenty minutes of Colton’s life.

Not that he could remember his life.

The sounds Kauri makes are always so practiced, so robotic. Colton can never keep the flicker of disgust from his face. Kauri’s just a better liar.

But there’s one thing Colton is pretty sure Kauri isn’t lying about.

“Hey, can… can I ask you something?” Colton’s voice is still low, just in case. In the Host’s house you could never be sure where a camera might be, or a hidden microphone. They were always careful - had developed something like a code, a long time ago, without either one needing to elaborate on it or explain it.

But he was reasonably sure that there weren’t any microphones in the bathroom.

Yet.

Although there probably would be at least a camera if the Host ever figured out that they sat together like this.

“Ask away,” Kauri says, closing his eyes and resting his head back against Colton’s shoulder, turning so his forehead is resting against Colton’s neck.

“What would you say…” Colton trains his eyes on the big window on the other side of the bathroom, the wispy white curtains, the frosted glass. “What would you say if I told you that I, um-”

Kauri grins - Colton can’t quite see it, but it’s like he can feel it, the smile as much under his skin as on Kauri’s face. “I think I know what you’re asking.”

“… what would you say, then?”

“I’d say I love you, too.”

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

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Colton/Kauri Fanfiction #1

@shameless-whumper and I ended up basically accidentally creating a challenge in which I promised to reward anyone who drew a specific, amazing fanart idea I was sent in an ask with a fake fanfiction drabble that featured the Colton/Kauri pairing.

You guys took me up on it.

Holy shit did you ever.

I am currently sitting at I believe four fanfic drabbles owed with at least one more soon to be claimed, I think.

I’ve finished the first, and it’s below the cut. I give you... @haro-whumps‘s request for “Colton touches Kauri’s hair”:

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @lump-of-whump, @whimpers-and-whumpers

(Colton is of course @shameless-whumper‘s and this drabble comes with express permission and no small amount of glee)

The fog was deep and my voice was inside and it told me a secret by NotAHowenShipper Youtube Videos - The Host

No Archive Warnings Apply, Colton/Kauri, On the Run, Forbidden Love, All They Do Is Kiss (This Time), I wrote this instead of sleeping, should I write another one where they do more, maybe if I get enough comments lol, omg can you even imagine the Host’s face, Owen Grant is a dick, wouldn’t it be so funny if Vincent Shield saw this

Kauri and Colton are on the run after leaving the Host and Owen Grant. They’re alone in the city with no one to turn to but each other. A cold night in a dark alley changes everything.

I love comments and kudos, you guys!!! Let me know if I should write a chapter two or something that gets a little ~spicier~, if you get my drift! LOL these two were so cute in the Better Box Boy video, I hope we see them again. They are TOTALLY made for each other, right????

This was written after like six Redbulls and at 3 AM so don’t judge!!!

The alley is already dark, the shadows of the buildings on either side closing in over their heads. The footsteps pound past, a flash of darker shadow in the yellow late-afternoon winter sunlight.

Colton’s black hoodie blends in, the hood pulled up to hide as much of his face as possible, and he presses Kauri against the crumbling brick wall behind him to hide the younger man, in his thin white T-shirt, from the handlers pursuing them. He has a hand against the wall on either side of Kauri, boxing him in, his mouth very nearly pressed against Kauri’s ear. “Just be quiet and they won’t see us,” He murmurs, and thinks that Kauri’s ear feels cold where his lips just barely brush along the shell.

Kauri was already shivering long before they made it into the alley, but here out of the weak sunlight the temperature drops even more, and he can hear Kauri’s soft breathing starting to get shallow and panicked.

Or maybe he’s breathing faster because of something else.

“It’s okay,” Colton says softly, low voice pitched deep enough not to carry. Black curls gently graze against his forehead, his cheek, and Kauri is biting his lower lip, his eyes staring to the side, towards the entrance of the alley. “It’s gonna be okay, Kauri, I promise, just wait until they’re gone.”

He can still hear them shouting to each other, trying to find them, and while Kauri nods, Colton chances a direct look and finds his blue eyes are wide, white-rimmed, and frightened.

He can’t stand it; hates the way Kauri looks so scared, even days after running out of the Host’s house. They could be picked up any second, the moment a sleeve rides up enough to show the barcodes and numbers tattooed into their wrists, the second their jittery nervousness is read for what it is by strangers on the street.

Pets on the run, to be rounded up and returned to Owen Grant and the Host - probably sent back to the Facility to be refurbished and sold off like virus-riddled computers. He doesn’t even know why he decided to run when he did. Owen and the Host had been in another room, and he’d just grabbed Kauri’s arm and said, come with me.

The real question was why Kauri had so quickly gone with him.

No argument, no fight. Kauri had only whispered, yes, flashed him a slight, shy smile, and run right after him out the door. The Host and Owen hadn’t even noticed until they were most of the way down the block, and he’d heard them shouting as a distant sound that seemed barely human.

But barely human is what they are, and the only way to stay together now is to never stop moving. They’re hungry - Colton’s been panhandling, making enough to get by but not really enough to live on, even as homeless ex-pet runaways. Kauri’s too distinctive, his looks are too much like Vincent Shield, and so he mostly stays back in shadows while Colton, who looks like no one in particular or at least no one famous, does his best to keep them fed.

They’re hungry, and hunted, and running out of time to figure out another plan. He doesn’t even really know where he is, or why he ran, or what he expects to happen next. The weirdest part is that it doesn’t even matter.

All that matters is who came with him.

Kauri shivers again, and he’s close enough to feel it. Colton lifts a hand to his face, and Kauri’s breathing calms, a little, at the touch. Colton swallows against the urge to keep this up, to never stop doing whatever it took to make Kauri feel just a little safer.

“Hey, are you shaking ‘cause you’re scared, or is this just because of the cold?” His heart is pounding but it feels like it’s less from fear than it was before, now some other feeling creeping its way in.

It’s something he doesn’t want to think about, or to talk about, but it’s still been between them from the moment he’d seen Kauri from behind the camera.

“Can-... do I get to say both?” Kauri whispers, and the two of them laugh, airy and breathless and barely sounds at all. “They almost got us that time, Colton.”

“It doesn’t matter. We got away again. We’ll always get away, I promise, I’ll make sure you always get away.”

Kauri turns his head a little, and they’re barely an inch apart, now. “I don’t want me to always get away, Colton,” Kauri says, and there’s a hitch to his voice. “I want both of us to always get away... together.”

The air is warmer between them than the cold around them, and this time when he feels Kauri shiver, Colton pushes closer to him instead of pulling back. He unzips his sweatshirt - they’d dropped the branded Host’s merchandise as fast as they could, taking a sweatshirt right off the hanger at a convenience store and putting the Host’s sweater in its place - and slides it off his shoulders.

Colton wonders why it is that this is the person he wanted so badly to protect that he’d lose everything - and risk even more - just to end up here. Some sweet guy he’d only barely met, barely spoken to… but here they were.

Together, half-starved and freezing in a dirty alley, and Colton is taking off the only warm clothing he has to slide it over the shoulders of the younger man looking up at him with wide, blue eyes, his face slightly scrunched up with confusion.

“Colton, no,” Kauri says softly, but he pulls the sweatshirt tighter around himself, and Colton swallows against an unfamiliar feeling (but no, it’s not unfamiliar at all) of wanting to see Kauri wearing his clothes - all of them, not just his sweatshirt - one day. “You’ll get cold.”

“You’re already cold,” Colton says softly, and his smile is slight and maybe a little sharp, but softer than it ever was for the Host. And Kauri’s returning smile had none of the nervous fear of every time Colton had seen him look towards Owen Grant when Colton had stood behind the camera.

“I don’t want us to trade off being cold,” Kauri says, and his hands are a little shaky when he reaches out, twisting fingers into the fabric of the thick long-sleeved shirt Colton was wearing under the hoodie. When he pulls Colton forward, he moves easily enough, until they’re touching and Colton can feel Kauri’s heart beating as hard and fast as his own. Kauri shifts, pulling the sides of the hoodie around so they wrapped around behind Colton, too, and Kauri’s shiver was still there but it had changed, too. “We could be warm together, instead.”

Colton’s forehead drops forward, to rest against Kauri’s, breathing a little harder. “We don’t even know who we are,” He whispers, and there’s real pain in that confession. He doesn’t know why he’d signed up for the pet program, what he’d done in his past that was so bad he had given up everything.

But he’s found something else in the process.

“I could be a murderer. I could be something terrible, and you don’t even know.” Even as he speaks the words, Colton’s hands move up to cup Kauri’s face, the cold cheeks against his warm palms. He moved his fingers up into Kauri’s hair, into wild black curls that had gone tangled with days on the run, a little dirty, but still they feel impossibly soft to him.

Kauri melts into the touch, leaning his head back slightly, and he’s so close. He’s so, so close.

“I could be a murderer, too,” Kauri whispers, and Colton can’t stop the huff of laughter. Kauri’s eyes flash with defensiveness and the scrunch of confusion shifts to an attempt at an angry frown, but his hands stay wrapped in Colton’s shirt, and Colton doesn’t pull his hands back from his hair. “I could be a murderer!”

“No offense,” Colton says softly, “But killing someone is genuinely the second-most impossible thing I’ve ever tried to imagine you doing.”

“What’s the most impossible thing?” Kauri asks, and Colton keeps one hand in his hair, sliding around behind his head, while the other moves to take him by the chin, lifting his head just a little bit.

The wide blue eyes are on his, now, and they’re not frightened anymore.

“The most impossible thing I can imagine you doing is this,” Colton whispers, and leans down to kiss him.

#fake fanfiction is surprisingly fun to write #Colton/Kauri #Kauri/Colton #God help me #Cori shippers #shameless-whumper #box boy #somewhere Kauri would really like someone to read it to him like six times #and somewhere else Colton would probably like to punch me in the face

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

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People I Owe Kauri/Colton Drabbles

@haro-whumps - prompt: Colton touches Kauri's hair POSTED

@burtlederp( + one extra Kauri drabble) - prompt: "And they were roommates" (plotted)

@whump-account-cause-yk / @max-the-french-ace - prompt - wild card

@my-whumpy-little-heart - love confession

Will add to this post if any more art from the challenge comes in! Am I missing anyone?

#colton/kauri #kauri/colton #cori shippers #we will go doooooown with this shiiiippppp

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

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the kauri/colton thing is cute but i am forever haunted by the fact that i have a friend in real life whose name is colton so

Ahahahaha I know an Owen, and he is much nicer than my Owen

#kauri/colton #colton/kauri

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

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Notes: on this art an observant viewer might notice that Colton appears terrified of the monster himself. Some symbolic elements have secondary meaning of "healing" and "freedom" and "uncertainity", also of "confusion". Embroidery on Kauri's clothes clothes has birds on it. Some armor pieces appear damaged and burnt. The dragon's scales under closer examinaton look crystalline, even if covered in layers of taint and blood. Birds around it have meaning of "purity" but flowers round it "deceit"

... holy cow you guys have gotten really into this and I am enjoying that

So the big dragon that @shameless-whumper Colton is terrified of represents Whumpees-R-Us? What is Owen in this drawing? Like a pissed off slug at the dragon's feet?

#kauri #kauri/colton #colton/kauri

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Reunion: Kauri and Keira

CW: Kauri is surviving domestic violence, and he is still trapped in a lot of self-loathing and victim-blaming about it. Please stay safe, his thought processes can be fucky. Referenced noncon/dubcon. Electric shock treatment, frank discussion of domestic abuse with a robot.

The Colton referenced belongs to @shameless-whumper / @the-host-and-colton.

Tagging Kauri’s crew: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @moose-teeth, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl, @spiffythespook, @slaintetowhump

Kauri can feel the pain, buzzing relentlessly in his fingertips, long after Owen puts his phone away. Days later it’s still there, a heat along his collarbone, a constant reminder of the little metal circles, pretty little things with the tiny blue bits that look like inset glass. You’d never know what they were, if you didn’t already.

If Owen didn’t tell you.

He told everyone, though. Every-fucking-one. He sent photos to at least fifteen people of Kauri shirtless with his collarbone on display, tear tracks still drying on his flushed face, blue eyes red-rimmed from the pain, eyes slightly squinted against the headache that came on after the shocks had gone on so long. He sent them videos of Kauri collapsing to the ground as soon as the shock began, curling into himself, twitching and jerking and convulsing for one second, two seconds, three, four endless fucking seconds-

Then he stopped, and filmed Kauri, twitching, still leaning into his touch when he crouched to pet his hair, murmuring soothing comforting things into his ear, like it was real, like he really cared, and Owen had never really cared at all.

Part of Kauri was desperate to believe he still did.

I can’t believe they didn’t come up with this sooner, this is amazing, Owen had all but crowed to the crying, curled up boy on his hallway floor, his thumbs flying over his expensive, paper-thin phone’s screen. Don’t worry, Kor-Bore. You look fucking gorgeous like that.

Kauri can’t remember if he’d even attempted to reply. His muscles had been contracting and releasing without his consent, without his input, aftershocks of familiar pain racing through his nerves. All he could do was leak tears and little hitching sobs onto Owen’s expensive floor.

He cried less from the pain than he did from who was inflicting it, the reality that the night he’d thought he was going to die hadn’t been enough to make Owen think he’d been punished. This had had to happen, too.

And he’d been… he’d been so good, right? Except for just the once. He’d done one thing wrong, just one single fucking thing. He’d been so good, he’d done everything Owen ever wanted. He’d learned every trick and seduction in training, he’d gone to Owen willowy and flexible, perfect for every single thing he wanted to do to him. He couldn’t say no when it mattered, when he wanted to. Half the time he didn’t even want to. He’d been good and obedient and loved him and he’d done it all right.

All he did was send one tiny little message. Just one. And… and he didn’t think Owen even knew about that, he’d never mentioned it. All of this - everything Kauri was living through - it was all because Owen had caught him reading.

The only thing he’d done to make Owen angry was read, like everyone else. Everyone got to read, but not Kauri. All he’d done was read what people were saying about him, and Owen… had done this.

He’d read those comments to the Host’s video, and sent a message to Colton. That was all he’d done. Not such big things, he thought, not really. Right? Just one teeny tiny little message. He didn’t even know what it was. He didn’t even get to remember why it had felt so worth it to tempt Owen’s anger. It wasn’t fucking fair. It wasn’t fair that Kauri had to live like this now and he didn’t even get to know why, and it must not have gotten back to Owen because the shock implants were all he’d done.

One wrong step.

One moment where Kauri had moved out of line.

He’d fucked up just the once, exactly once in his time here, and Owen had nearly choked him to death, had hurt him over and over on the living room floor next to the laptop with its screen showing an argument in the comments, over how fucking lucky Box Boys were to get to live like this-

Now he sits on the little outside patio chair like he used to, but there’s no plants on the balcony and Keira is gone and Kauri is barely holding a scream back behind his teeth. Owen had promised new plants - you just made me so mad, Kauri, I couldn’t take it, you understand why I had to take it out on something.

He nods and he nods and he nods to the things Owen say, and his heart twists at Owen’s tears, and he wishes he’d never ever had a thought of his own at all. He’s better empty-headed. The bad things don’t happen when he doesn’t think.

He can’t stop now that he’s started. He can’t stop thinking it was supposed to be better than this, somehow. That maybe - rebellious and thin as the thought is, and he’s scared to have it - maybe Colton was right.

Don’t believe their lies.

If he had, though, if he’d just believed everything he was told and trained to do… Kauri presses his hand against the little metal circles spaced evenly along his collarbone, feeling the low residual ache there, and bites his lower lip. If he’d just believed everything Owen said, he wouldn’t have had to go back.

This wouldn’t have happened.

Would that have been better?

He tilts his head back, looking up at the clear and perfect sky, thinking that he used to watch the stars, but tonight he feels like all he can see is the empty dark nothing between them. His fingers tap in rhythm on the arm of the chair, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he never knows what he’s saying, if he’s even saying anything at all.

Tap tap tap. Tap taaaaaap. Tap tap tap taaaap tap.

Taaap taaaaap tap.

Kauri wants to throw the other chair over the balcony and shriek, tell the stars and the sky about how hard he tried to be good, how he had been everything Owen wanted from the moment he stepped out of his box. All he’d done was maybe think, for just a second, that he was allowed to have his own mind.

He knows better now, and it still won’t be enough for Owen to feel safe. Owen will never stop thinking that Kauri is going to walk out the door, no matter what he says or does or thinks or feels, he will never be able to make up for the fact that Vincent Shield walked out the door before.

He has to play second fiddle to someone he’s never met, someone who broke Owen in some fundamental way, and it’s not fucking fair.

Maybe Owen was broken before Vince. Maybe Vince was right to run, then, even if it led Owen straight to me.

He can’t be Vince, no matter that he’ll answer to his name in bed or when there are hands wrapped around his neck, tighter and tighter, cutting off air as his head slams back into the floor, black spots taking over the sight of Owen’s lips curled back from his teeth, the rictus of rage and grief on the handsome face that Kauri had been taught was safe, the owner is safe, even when he hurts you he’s safe.

He’s not safe at all, but there’s no way out of this, and Kauri is trapped living in fear and pain and betrayal and rage.

There’s a deep pain inside of him when he unfolds himself from the chair, a pain he is ignoring with gritted teeth, a pain he knows too well from training, from Owen’s anger. He was Vince for his owner again tonight - Owen drunk and slurring his words, and there are bruises on Kauri’s hips in the shape of Owen’s fingers as he moves back inside. The thick black collar from the Facility is still around his neck, he hasn’t earned the pretty new one yet. Maybe he never will.

It will never be enough.

He was made to be the replacement for someone he can never live up to. He isn’t good enough as himself. He’s stupid and brainless because Owen wanted him that way and it’s still not enough, to lose his thoughts and identity, to be trained in all the things Owen wants, it was never ever going to be enough.

Why couldn’t he just be happy with the life he was living? Why couldn’t Kauri just accept things as they are and stop trying to dream about dark eyes and hair, and something better? Why didn’t he keep his mouth shut when they filmed at the Host’s house, why didn’t he just-

Why… why couldn’t Owen just love him? Is he not worth loving, just as himself?

Kauri knows the answer to that question. Owen has told him before.

Kor-Bore, you’re sweet, but you’re a fucking empty space, you know? You don’t have a relationship with a fucking pet, man. I asked for brainless slut, and nobody’s going to love that. There’s nothing in there to love. It’s nice to pretend, though, isn’t it?

Yeah, Kauri thinks. Sometimes it was.

Kauri hiccups a sob as he stumbles to the couch, flinging himself onto it, feeling the soft give of the cushion under him, a deep teal that he adores. It’s his favorite color really, this saturated blue with just the barest hint of green.

Is it his favorite color? Or did Owen have them put that into his head?

There’s nothing in him to love. He’s a pale shadow of a different man, built to be a copy who can’t escape Owen’s hands, who doesn’t even want to. But Kauri wants to. There’s no way out but he wants a way out, he’d dig a tunnel with a fucking spoon if he could. There’s no way out of this at all.

Kauri cries himself out on the couch, as quietly as he can, careful not to wake Owen up. He tries to cry out all the anger trapped inside him, the hurt and the loneliness, the reality that it will never, ever be any better than this.

He lays down on his side, knees curled nearly to his chest, lets his arm hang off the side. His fingers drift along Owen's beautiful wood flooring. Tears dry into tracks on his face, like empty ancient riverbeds in deserts on Our Planet on TV.

The ceiling fan spins overhead, a lazy movement. The world is still and silent at this hour, and Kauri has never felt so perfectly, utterly, wretchedly alone.

Then he blinks, lifting his head slowly as he hears a noise he doesn't recognize coming from under the couch. A kind of clicking, repeated, like something trying to turn and failing, again and again. He thinks of a skipping record player on High Fidelity, one of Owen’s favorite movies. He thinks of Gavin clicking his tongue against his teeth in the Honor Bound movie.

“What…?” His voice is trembling from the tears that are still locked inside him. He could never cry long enough to get them all out.

The clicking continues, and Kauri swallows, pushes himself over the edge, and hangs his head upside down to look under the couch, wild black curls just brushing the floor.

Two glowing red dots stare back at him from the darkness under the couch.

Kauri reassurance require?

“Wh-what the fuck-... Keira?” Kauri sniffs and twists off the couch, landing with a thump on the floor, digging his arm under the couch frantically until he finds the familiar round metal and plastic shape. He grips onto her, feeling a kind of hysterical laugh wanting to bubble up his throat, swallowing reflexively to keep it down as he scrapes her a little along the floor and finally has her back in his arms.

Kauri rolls onto his back between the couch and coffee table, holding her tightly against his chest, eyes slowly closing. “You’re, y-you’re, you’re not dead?”

There’s a pause, the little clicking he understands now is the sound of a broken wheel on one side. Keira initiate shutdown procedure, set variable Kauri sound. Current power at thirty-two-point-twelve percent.

A bit of plastic nudges under his chin as he holds her even tighter, new tears welling and coming out of the corners of his closed eyes, running down to pool in his ears, to drip onto the ground beneath him. He hitches in a breath, feeling the constriction of the wide leather collar, the weight of Keira on his chest, the way she feels so perfectly familiar in his arms.

Kauri reassurance require?

“Y-yes,” Kauri whispers. “Yes, I, I need… Kauri reassurance require, Keira.”

Keira reassurance provide.

“I fucked up so bad, Keira, I’m so sorry he hurt you-”

Kauri pain sound. Kauri fear sound. Keira maintains memory. Kauri good.

“N-no, I w-w-wasn’t, I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, I, I fucked up and I made him so mad-”

Kauri good. Keira reassurance provide.

“I don’t… feel good.”

Kauri good.

How long they laid there, Kauri didn’t know. She was warm, the wires and everything inside of her felt like a person’s heat laying on top of him, warming him as much from the inside as out.

“I missed you,” He whispers into the dark room, to the glowing red dots that he thinks always as Keira’s eyes. Her little broken wheel clicks once, twice, three times more. “I was all alone and I m-missed you so much, I just-... I can’t… I can’t-”

Keira present. Kauri Grant, Owner.

“M-Mr. Owen’s your-”

Override code accepted. Kauri Grant, owner.

He can’t remember it very well. Had he given her the override code? Maybe he had. Kauri rolls onto his side, clutching her tightly, crying into the hard metal that feels, to him, like arms around him, like someone he loves holding him tightly.

It’s the closest he’ll ever have again to that feeling, and Kauri curls himself around the delusion, tells himself that it’s almost like Keira is real.

Like someone in the world loves him.

Like anyone in the world ever could.

“I can’t fuck up again,” He whispers. “I can’t ever fuck up again. He could have killed me.”

Kauri fear sound, Keira says solemnly. Kauri afraid.

“Yes,” Kauri says hoarsely. “I’m so scared, Keira. I’m so, so scared, and I’m so unhappy, and I hate it here and I hate him so much-” He catches his breath at the lance of pain through his rebellious, aberrant thoughts, but doubles down and buries his head against her softly rounded edges. “I hate him,” He whispers. “I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him.”

He pauses, lets the moment draw out, breathes against the pain until it fads.

“I love him,” He adds, in an even softer voice. “I love him so much and I just w-wanted him to love me back. I just wanted-... I just-... couldn’t be good enough, Keira, I want… I want someone else.”

Owen Grant laptop unlocked. Kauri could have sworn Keira’s metallic voice sounded smug. He slowly raised his head to look up at Owen’s laptop sitting on the coffee table, screen up.

It was on.

“... did you turn Mr. Owen’s computer on?” He asked, slowly pushing himself up onto his knees. “I didn’t know you could-”

Error code 4563453AI AI limiter chip malfunction.

“I don’t know what that means.” Kauri stares in outright shock as he watches, watches, the little circles fill in Owen’s password, opening up his laptop to the main screen. He swallows, hard, curling into himself while Keira works, a low hum coming from within her. Guilt twists in his chest - he’s not supposed to look, ever again, not ever again - but some part of him can’t bear to stop her.

Keira has no limitations. Kauri reassurance require. Keira memory retained last Kauri happiness moment.

The internet browser opens on Owen’s computer and Kauri flinches his head to the side to avoid accidentally reading any of the words. He can hear Owen’s low snoring all the way out here - he must have rolled onto his back.

“K-Keira, we have to be careful, we have to be-... so careful, I shouldn’t-”

Keira reassurance provide. Keira provide Kauri happiness moment.

A familiar face pops up on the screen, holding a chef’s knife, smiling shyly, the frozen screenshot before the video starts. The cursor of the mouse moves quickly and with perfect efficiency across the screen to click PLAY.

Out-of-focus, a deep masculine voice says, “Um, hey guys-”

“Keira, I’m not supposed to-... I shouldn’t be thinking about-”

Kauri Grant, Owner. Keira reassurance provide Kauri Grant, Owner. Kauri good. Kauri happiness moment.

“Is that, um, ‘focused’?” The voice says on the laptop’s screen. Shot of slippered feet and legs clad in familiar sweatpants. Kauri catches his breath. “I, um, they just taught me how to use this and um-”

Kauri heartrate increasing, Keira says, that note of smugness in her voice again. Kauri blood distribution adjustment.

“Keira, you have to turn this off right now, I’m not allowed to watch him alone anymore, I’m not, I’m not allowed to even think about him-”

Shy smile, dark eyebrows and hair, the face he sees when he closes his eyes and pretends he’s somewhere else, with someone else, when he replaces Owen’s voice with another one, a deeper voice, moves his body with the image of different hands, longer fingers, a different shape to the jaw when he puts his hands on either side of his face.

It’s the same as the shy smile with cold fingers pressing a hot mug of coffee into his hands as he stares at the snow on the ski trip.

Kauri’s protests die away, and he sits slowly back, resting against the couch and staring at the laptop screen, blue eyes wide.

Kauri reassured?

“Kauri reassured,” Kauri says, lips barely moving, his eyes locked on the screen. “It… it won’t hurt to watch just one… right?”

He swallows, hard, and watches the screen. The dreams the white room tried to lock away, the hopes that died under Tyler and Delevigne’s tiny scalpels, the resignation that settled in when the Director herself visited his recovery room to press on the shock implants just to hear his whimper of pain, the awful screaming rage that has lived inside of him since the moment he realized that Owen was going to break the only promise he had ever made-

All of the anger fades, in the moment. The hopes and the dreams whisper from the back of his mind that they aren’t dead, only sleeping. Waiting. Still there for him to have.

There are places Kauri goes, Keira says. He barely hears her, only nods. There are people who help Kauri. Keira memory storage including safehouse locations within 500 miles of current location accepting human pets.

“Safehouses?”

Kauri could leave. The voice is lower than before, as if even the Roomba can tell that it’s something Kauri’s mind isn’t allowed to linger on.

He shakes his head, rapidly, before the headache can settle in. Even still, he can’t look away from the screen. “I… I can’t. I can’t ever leave him.”

Kauri leaves soon. “Abusers typically escalate when they feel they are losing control over the relationship, often because they feel that the independence of their partner has increased in some way or that their partner will leave.” National Domestic Violence Hotline source.

“I-I can’t. The things he put in me hurt if I get too close to the door, I l-love him, I… I-” Kauri admits the unthinkable, finally, speaking words out loud he’s only ever thought before. “If I leave, he’ll kill me. I f-fucked up and he nearly, he could have-”

“If you are experiencing escalation and your partner has threatened to kill you-”

“He’s not my partner,” Kauri says, some part of him cracking apart and shattering under the weight of that statement. “He’s my owner.”

“-it is important to develop a safety plan that can help you and your family survive.” National Domestic Violence hotline source.

“Why do you keep quoting them?”

The video ends, and Kauri watches the little circle fill before the next one begins.

Accuracy.

“I don’t have a family.”

Keira reassurance provide.

“Are… are you saying you’re my family?”

Kauri good. Keira retain safehouse information. The laptop exited the internet browser as quickly as it had opened it, turned the computer off. Kauri sat frozen, watching Keira control Owen’s laptop with wide, slightly blind eyes. Kauri good. Kauri good. Keira reassurance provide.

“How… how do I go?” He whispered. But she didn’t have to answer that. Kauri knew the answer, deep within himself.

He needed a plan.

Then he needed to wait for his chance, and when it came, he would have to be able to take it. Until then…

He was going to have to remember, at least for Owen, that he was supposed to be so fucking lucky.

He pushed himself to his feet, padding soundlessly through the condo looking until he found Keira’s charging station shoved into the back of the closet in Kauri’s discipline room and forgotten. Kauri kept his eyes carefully away from his box and from the discipline tools laid out, plugging the charger in while keeping it hidden in the closet, slipping Keira into her docking station, laying a hand on the warmth of her plastic and metal body.

“I’m so glad you’re still alive,” He said, quietly, his voice caught with tears.

Keira pleased Kauri safe.

“Not safe. But here.” Kauri gave her a final pat on the head.

In the bedroom, Owen shifted around, and Kauri jumped when he called, “Kor-Bore? Where are you?” His voice was slurred with sleep, hazy with some kind of desire. Kauri swallowed back a twisted mix of desire and love and disgust and hate, and stepped back into the hallway and into the bedroom, looking at Owen with a slight smile.

The smile didn’t reach his eyes.

It never had.

Owen never noticed.

“Right here, Mr. Owen,” Kauri said softly, pitching his voice low, almost teasing. “Needed water.”

“Come back t’bed,” Owen said, holding out his arm.

Kauri kept his smile set on his lips and slid into the bed, let his body take over and his thoughts drift to a safer place in the back of his mind.

He was so lucky Keira hadn’t been found and thrown away, or broken so badly she was gone, or reset to factory settings. He was so lucky Keira had information he could use, had held onto it, could control Owen’s computer to help him.

He was so lucky Keira cared. That anyone cared, ever, about him at all. Maybe he could… watch more videos, at night, when Owen was sleeping. Maybe he could take the time to make a plan.

He was… he was so fucking lucky he might have a chance to get past the locked door.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

Text

We Signed Up For This

@shameless-whumper and I did a collab piece on what happened after filming stopped for the Who’s the Better Box Boy video. One of my favorite things is two whumpees interacting and Colton and Kauri did not disappoint.

CW: Brief referenced/implied noncon, normalized dehumanization, brief referenced past violence

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @lump-of-whump, @whimpers-and-whumpers

“All right, that’s a wrap!” The Host clapped their hands once and shot a smile to their semi-famous special guest. “You guys were perfect… especially you.” They ruffled Kauri’s hair again, flashing their too-wide bright smile once more before they stepped past to turn the camera recording off.

Kauri nearly glued himself to Owen’s side, flickering one more nervous smile to the camera, fighting to calm the bright red flush from his cheeks.

The Host glanced over their shoulder to Owen and inclined their head towards the filming room door. “Why don’t we let the boys clean up while you and me get a drink? I’d love to hear all about your movies!”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely.” Owen shot a smile to Kauri, whose eyes dropped to the floor, picking at an invisible loose thread at the hem of his shirt. He was still red in the face and trying to hide it with his curls and hunched shoulders. “Be good, Kor-Bore, okay?”

“Y-yes, Mr. Owen.” Kauri nodded without ever looking up.

Owen’s eyes lingered on him for a second, went briefly to Colton - something thoughtful and considering, maybe a little cold, in his gaze. “Kauri’s a good worker, he’ll help your boy. He’s not used to having other people to talk to, he’ll probably enjoy the playdate. You know, I also have done some bankrolling for some documentaries recently-”

“That’s great. And Colton, babe-” The Host turned on Colton and he stood slowly, as though waiting to be ordered immediately to punishment after losing the game. Instead, the Host only made a wide, vague gesture around the room. “You know what to do. Don’t forget about that Quiet Time later though, eh?”

They leaned in, grabbing his chin with one hand and giving him a peck on the cheek. Then they turned to Owen, flourishing a hand to the door to show the man out.

As soon as the door clicked shut and they were gone, Colton reached up and unclipped the collar, ripping it off his neck and rubbing at the sore skin of his throat as he turned towards the prop closet to put it away.

He glanced over his shoulder to the other boy as he threw the collar into the “toys box”, holding out his hand for the one Kauri had been wearing.

Kauri’s hands moved hesitantly back up, as if uncertain whether or not he was allowed to do it himself. When Colton didn’t stop him, he unclipped the back, shifting it away from the clinking white-gold links and blue stones of his everyday collar, resting low on his neck underneath it.

Hints of red ringed his throat from the answers he had gotten wrong, fainter than Colton’s but still standing out bright and garish against the very pale skin. Kauri handled the shock collar like it might be about to inject him with venom, sidling shyly closer to Colton, holding the collar out for him to take.

Colton avoided his eyes as he took the collar and threw it back in the bin with the other. He wasn’t sure if he was expected to instruct him, or if the other boy would simply watch, or… maybe attempt any conversation.

‘Kauri’ (that’s not his name) had already broken Protocol One by revealing he remembered him from training but-

Colton shut his eyes for a moment, trying to grasp for a hint of curly hair and blue eyes among a sea of blurry faces.

He winced softly, blinking away the pang in his skull that was a reminder to try not to remember. He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember any more of training than had already leaked back.

“I-I’m sorry,” Kauri’s voice was a little soft, almost a whisper, before he cleared his throat. His second try came out stronger, even a little deeper, sounding, more like his real voice and less like fear. “I’m, um, not very good at games. I don’t think. I didn’t know we were doing games.”

Colton glanced over at him, eyes darting to the door and back again. Something in his shoulders relaxed. So, the boy didn’t intend to be heard, which meant he might say things that he shouldn’t.

Colton only nodded and forced a reassuring grin, like he had a hundred times for the camera, as he started towards the lights to shut them off.

“You can get those over there, Kauri.” He spoke in a voice far louder than needed for the room, and pointed to the other light as he stretched to reach up and flick off his own.

It was already almost too tall for him, and he knew Kauri, who was a little shorter, wouldn’t be able to reach it.

But that gave him an excuse to come up close behind him as he tried, to reach over his head and at the same moment place a hand against his back, keeping him from pulling away. “It’s okay,” he whispered behind him as reached up to flick off the light he couldn’t reach.

Kauri froze at the touch, eyes widening in surprise. They were all trained to be quiet, unless the prospective wanted louder-

Kauri cut the thought off, gnawing on his lower lip. But he didn’t pull away.

“All they do is play games with people,” Colton continued, once more glancing nervously to the door. “But…” his eyes went to Kauri’s as he hesitated, worried. “You… won’t tell them I said that, right?”

It was a request and a question, a way to ask if Kauri was willing to keep what was said in this room between the two of them. “You wouldn’t tell them that I was… annoyed, that they were being mean to you?” Annoyed was about the most he could get away with saying without knowing how legalistic the other pet was. Even if Kauri ran into the hall to tell their owners ‘Colton said he was annoyed with you’, he could still play it off, just being the usual “bratty” self the Host expected.

Kauri paused. This place had been all traps so far. He’d seen all the videos, Owen had been making him watch the Host since he’d arrived at the condo, and he knew the Host played games and tricks, but…

Did his pet play tricks, too?

“I d-don’t…” His voice cracked, went high with worry and then settled back into its natural deeper sound. “Um.” Kauri’s eyes went to the door - he couldn’t even hear them any longer, but he felt drawn that way, to follow where his owner had gone.

In the back of his mind beat the insistence that only Owen was safe, he was the only safe person in the world, the only safety Kauri would ever have again.

Then his hands closed into fists, and he took in a deep breath, trying for determination. There was stubbornness in him, he remembered he used to be stubborn. Didn’t he? Or was that false memories? He had those sometimes, too, he thought, remembering people who didn’t exist.

Or did they?

“I don’t tell him a lot of things,” Kauri said finally, his face reddening again. He took a chance and turned to look Colton in the eyes, caught by an expression he couldn’t quite read there. “I, I lie to him about a lot of things.”

There. He’d been brave, and if the other pet carried that outside the room, the shock collar would be the least of his worries.

Colton met his eyes and held them, dark brown searching deep blue for any sign that Kauri was lying to him. But after a long moment - and another look to the door - he slowly nodded.

His hand on the other boy’s back guided him away from the light, to behind the backdrop, where their voices would be even more muffled in case either owner suddenly came bursting through the door.

In the shadow of the backdrop, Colton leaned towards him, taking his shoulder with his other hand to keep him from backing up - before he pulled both hands away, remembering that casual and insistent touch wasn’t - or at least shouldn’t - be normal.

Kauri looked towards Colton’s hands as he pulled away, eyebrows knitting in what could have been hurt or confusion before he looked up again.

Colton held his gaze in a way he didn’t remember having ever done with another human. Seeking or holding the Host’s attention was only asking for trouble, for sharp smiles and a murmured ‘babe’ or ‘cover that up for the camera, why doncha?’

“Did-” His voice caught, eyes dropping to the floor and then back up again. "Did you lie about me? Did you really know me? Do you…“ He hesitated, the word caught in his throat as he felt a spasm in his muscles, a ghost of what the word would mean, of what it would bring.

His hands flexed, skin already prickling with sweat and his heart picking up speed over something he couldn’t remember enough to know what he was afraid of.

"Do you remember?” he whispered, even lower, practically only mouthing the words.

Kauri split in two at the question - half of him desperate to say no, the other half just as desperate to tell someone, anyone, the truth. He dropped his eyes, picking at his shirt again, biting down on his lip, trying not to notice that Colton’s touch had felt… better than Owen’s, in some undefinable way. Then he leaned over, just a little closer.

“‘687371 is misbehaving again’,” He intoned, in a harsher voice than his own, an impression of one of the trainers he hadn’t known. “‘Get your stupid shit trainee out of the way, Everly’.”

His shoulders jerked, a little, and Kauri closed his eyes against the residual ache that tried to start up behind his eyes.

Colton winced at the numbers, the words, the tone. His hand took his other wrist, a thumb rubbing over the barcode and numbers tattooed on the inside. No name, just a number, barked commands, white walls, glaring lights, black batons and - he flinched again, shaking the image out of his head.

Sharp pain jabbed behind his eyes, making spots dance in his vision as he rubbed them away.

“I, I know we’re not supposed to,” Kauri muttered without looking up. “I know. I try not to, but things, um, break through. A lot, I’m alone a lot, and when I’m by myself, um, things… break through. I said that already, but…”

“No, we’re not supposed to,” Colton echoed, glancing to the door. He wished he remembered as much as Kauri seemed to. He was scared, and angry, and he knew all of this was wrong. But he didn’t know why he knew it was wrong, couldn’t remember. He couldn’t have signed up for this. He knew he didn’t.

“We signed up for this…” His tone was testing, giving himself an out if Kauri was trying to bait him into admitting too much. “Didn’t we?” he pushed a little more, tilting his head to indicate his own doubt in the answer.

He pulled back after the question, reaching up to start undoing the backdrop. The Host would get suspicious if it took them too long.

Kauri hurried to help, his hands a little clumsier than he meant them to be, eyes constantly moving to note what Colton did and echo it. He was a good helper, Owen had mentioned that to the Host right in front of Colton, and Kauri wanted, for reasons he didn’t really understand, to impress the older Box Boy with how quickly he could work if he understood what he needed to do.

While he helped, he tried to think of what to say.

He was being quiet for too long, and he knew it, but this felt like one of Owen’s movies, where the leads don’t know who they can trust. Like two people dancing and each one thinks the other has a knife behind their back, but maybe it’s only one of them… or maybe no one does.

Kauri hesitated, raking a hand back through his hair, catching on a tangle and wincing. “I d-don’t think…” His face reddened again and he dropped his eyes back down to the floor, glancing at the spot he’d been kneeling in during filming. “I don’t think I signed up for this.”

Colton glanced to the side at the admission, then once more his eyes flicked to the door. Any moment he expected it to fly open and the host be standing there with that infuriating smile. For the other boy to jump forward and be the first to admit the other had been breaking protocol to save his own skin.

He would let him, Colton realized as he watched Kauri take down the other side of the backdrop, saw the lingering flush of color across his cheeks from what the host had made him do on camera. It had been his fault, after all, that the boy had gotten in trouble in the first place. He’d been too obvious, trying to throw the game. But he was used to the games by now, to being played, to being humiliated in front of that lens.

There was something more than that even, though he didn’t know why. He couldn’t let him get hurt. Couldn’t let them hurt him. He’d felt it the moment he saw the other boy, even if he couldn’t explain it, the desire to protect him and the maddening feeling of helplessness that he couldn’t, felt too familiar to be brand new.

Kauri felt like he was choking on the embarrassment of knowing Colton hadn’t known Position 34 - and so he didn’t have to know. He pushed past the shame that nearly closed his throat one last time. “Do… you think you signed?”

“No,” Colton answered without hesitation. “I didn’t. I know I didn’t,” He said, all while staring at the door, thinking he was ready to accept the punishment for those words. When it stayed closed, he exhaled softly in relief. Maybe he wasn’t as ready as he thought.

“However I got here, it wasn’t of my own free will. I don’t care what they tell me, I didn’t 'sign up’ for this!” He threw the backdrop to the floor, not caring about the wrinkles it would cause, then spun around to the tall pole that had held the cloth and kicked the base.

As it tipped forward, threatening to fall, he lunged to catch it with shaking hands, suddenly terrified of the commotion and noise it would cause, the attention it would have brought on them both.

Kauri flinched away at the violence with wide eyes, then seemed to jerk himself forward to help Colton keep the cloth from falling, with his jaw set and teeth gritted to look braver than he really felt.

“S-sorry, sorry,” Colton muttered softly as he balanced the pole back into place, avoiding the other boy’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I just…” His eyes closed, forehead bracing against the cool metal. “I hate them.” His voice trembled at the admission, the words finally forced out. “I hate it here. I fucking hate this whole system.”

Kauri’s lips pressed together into a thin line, breathing hard, and then he reached out to grab Colton’s wrist in one hand, staring up at him. “It’s… okay to hate it, right?”

His heart hammered but he forced the words out anyway. “Because… because I hate Mr. Owen, too.” Kauri’s voice shook, but his eyes were wide and sincere. “I hate him.” It was a rebellion he wasn’t ever supposed to have, and it hurt, but he did it anyway. The worst rebellion, the most awful thing he could say.

He whispered the words as though he were afraid Owen would hear them and come running. They started out plaintive, a little pained, and then he couldn’t stop the bitterness, the furious anger, from finding its way out of the deepest places inside of him where he normally kept it hidden.

“I hate being alone all the time, and I hate what he does to me - and I hate that sometimes I think-… that I think-… I have to think, that they made me think I’m s-so fucking lucky.”

Colton couldn’t help but flinch at the touch, taking Kauri’s hand in his own to keep him from drawing back. He held his wide eyes, nodding along to his words because yes, yes, he wanted it to be right, even though guilt and fear twisted in his stomach at the things they were saying.

“Me, too,” he whispered in reply, his smile was as shaky as his hand as he reached for the side of Kauri’s face, cupping the dark curls below his palm. He took a hesitant step forward, drawing them closer, saw the same hesitant motion forward from Kauri, as if asking for permission, and pulled the boy tight against his chest.

His arms curled around his back, face burying down against his neck, squeezing him hard and fast. “Don’t believe their lies,” he whispered against the boy’s shoulder, the bare skin there. Whose lies didn’t matter - everyone’s, maybe. Even their own minds lied to them, made them feel and believe things that couldn’t be true.

As far as Kauri understood - as far as the existence he remembered all the time and not the maybe-false-memories that came and went - no one but Owen had ever touched him except to lift up his chin or pick cruelly at curls.

There were warm arms around him that would not be followed with the way Owen sometimes hurt him late at night, and lips moving against the skin of his shoulder that would not break away to laugh at him, and the brush of hair against his cheek that did not make him feel sick, deep inside of himself.

No, the way Colton’s hair made his skin feel where it touched was more like sparks of a kind of panic that he desperately wanted to feel again. Kauri locked his arms tight around Colton, hoping the way his heart was pounding wasn’t something the other boy could feel right through his skin, and said, softly, “Colton-”

The doorknob jiggled, the sound of Owen’s low deep laughter at something the Host had said.

For a single second, Colton held tighter, the thought don’t take this from me, too flashing through his mind before Kauri’s face went even paler with fear and he pushed himself back and away.

Kauri felt the lack of warmth where Colton’s arms had been as a physical emptiness around him.

He ran his hands back through his hair, settling the messy curls back into place, and as the door opened Kauri’s expression dropped into something like the usual nervous, uncertain affection for Owen he’d had on when the Host had first opened the front door to greet them.

Owen was the first back through the door, the Host’s green hair a bright spot just behind. “Hey, Kor-Bore, it’s time to go. We have to get back so I can drop you off before I head out to dinner tonight.”

Owen tilted his head, catching something in Kauri’s expression, his eyes moving to Colton’s face and then back to his pet. “You okay, Kauri? You looked a little flushed.”

“I t-tripped over that thing,” Kauri said with perfect sincerity, pointing at something on its side on the floor. He had no idea what it was, it didn’t matter. No one thought he knew anything anyway. “Colton s-saw me trip. I was. Um. I was embarrassed that he saw me fall down…”

The lie came easily, as nearly all of them did now.

“You felt pretty ridiculous, right?” Owen grinned, and flashed the smile at Colton, too, as if the two of them might commiserate over Kauri’s clumsy stupidity.

If Owen saw the way Colton tensed, his jaw set as he looked away to lean over and pick the thing Kauri claimed to have knocked over back up, he gave no sign of it.

“Well, you doing something ridiculous is pretty par for the course, huh, Kauri. Did he laugh at you?”

“N-No,” Kauri said, and Colton set the thing back upright with a slightly louder thump than necessary, making him jump a little. “He didn’t.”

“Well, come on, Kauri.” Owen gestured to him and Kauri moved quickly to take his hand, wishing it wasn’t Owen’s hand at all. “Did you have fun?”

Kauri thought about the games and the embarrassment, the pain of the shock collar and the fear of losing, of the way he’d slowly realized Colton was trying to help. Of finding someone he could talk to, really talk to, for the first time. “Y-Yeah, I did. Could… we come back, Mr. Owen?”

Owen blinked, surprised, and slid a hand over his back, moving him towards the door. “Oh, wow. I didn’t think… We’ll talk later. Say goodbye, Kor-Bore.”

“Goodbye, Host,” Kauri said politely.

“Aw, bye, kiddo!” The Host ruffled his hair and this time, instead of looking worried or uncomfortable, Kauri only ducked his head and smiled. “We’ll talk about that, Owen, yeah? I have some really great ideas on ways to pit these two against each other some more!”

“Sounds perfect,” Owen said, a hint of unkind humor in his voice. “I really liked what you came up with today.”

Just before they left the room, Kauri shot a shy smile at Colton over his shoulder and said in the same empty voice, “Goodbye, Colton.”

“G-Good-” Colton’s voice caught, for just a second, and Owen didn’t notice - but the Host’s smile stretched to a seemingly impossible width, a new kind of mischief entering their face. “Goodbye, Kauri.”

Kauri fought back a smile all the way out the door.

I’m going to tell a lot of lies about you.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years

Text

Vince and the Phone

A phone call between Vincent Shield and his girlfriend, Tara. Tara belongs to @fairybean101 and is used with permission! Thanks for letting me use your girl to talk some sense into my poor movie star.

This post references Who’s the Better Box Boy by @shameless-whumper heavily, so please read that if you haven’t yet to understand Vince’s reactions

CW: Referenced past violent assault, and referenced psat and current noncon

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @lump-of-whump, @whimpers-and-whumpers

He can’t stop fucking watching it.

Vince finally gives up and calls her - one benefit of their relationship for him has been Tara’s simple willingness to pick up the phone so he can ask her to yell at him any time, day or night. Tara never seems to sleep, she’s burning herself out rescuing all those poor Box Boys and Babes, and so she’s never more than a few moments of ringing away.

And she always picks up when Vince calls.

When Eli had initially asked him to consider acting as some kind of go-between for the pet lib people - he’d known Eli for a while, they ran in some of the same circles sometimes - he’d nearly said no.

But he wanted to help; even then, he’d understood something was really, really wrong with the whole human pet system. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it, then, because why not let people sign their lives away? Vince did that every time he signed a contract for a new film and had to stop doing anything but working out and eating stupid plain chicken for months.

But Eli had known more than he let on, at first, and a couple of years later Vince was sitting up in the middle of the night, half-plastered, replaying a video of some poor son of a bitch with Vince’s face laying on his back, ankles flush to thighs, legs spread.

The red in the poor thing’s face, embarrassed and ashamed of something that, according to Tara, he couldn’t have refused to do even if he’d wanted to.

And to Vince, it looked like he wanted to refuse.

He caught the look the other one - the one that the Host kept - gave, presumably, Owen behind the camera. Flat and controlled, an attempt to stay expressionless, but Vince could read the helpless fury there.

“Yeah, you and me both, buddy,” Vince muttered, raking a hand back through his hair as he pulled up Tara’s number. “Both of us get pissed as hell and both of us do fucking nothing about it. At least you have an excuse, I guess. I’m just a goddamn coward.”

Tara’s number was next to an icon of her face, a serious scowl with her red hair a halo around her head. She hadn’t wanted Vince to take the photo, but she’d been the one to choose which of the seven he took got set as her icon on his phone.

It took four rings for Tara to pick up.

“What dumbass thing are you doing now?” Her voice is sharp as ever, but laced, he likes to think, with friendly affection. “It’s two in the morning, Vince.”

“Don’t yell at me for being up, I’m between projects and I always get all weird with my sleep schedule when I’m not working. What are you doing up?”

“Handling some new reports from another group,” Tara replies, and Vince can hear her shuffling papers in the background. “They got word on an upcoming raid, managed to split up their documents and records before the cops found them. We took in a few of their rescues, a couple of other groups took some. All the rescues are taken care of, which is what matters, but shit.”

“Shit…?”

“They’re hitting too many groups. I think someone is talking. But you don’t want to hear about my shit tonight… what’s up, Vince?” There’s a pause and before he can answer, Tara asks softly, “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Vince glances down at his laptop, where the video is currently paused, right on the shot of the look of pure unadulterated trying-to-hide-it murder Colton - who is apparently Dustin Anderson, pet liberation activist, and oh shit what a fucking ominous soundtrack that knowledge starts up inside his head - is giving Owen Grant. He moves the timer back and sets it up to replay the look on the Kauri kid’s face the second he heard the Host say Position 34.

The red flush, humiliated and nervous, the subtle sidelong glance to the other pet only to see the confusion on his face and realize oh shit, I’m the only one of us who knows this.

Did pets judge each other? Did Kauri leave and the other one, the Dustin one, think oh, that one’s a whore when they left?

Probably not.

No, the reaction shots gave too much away for Vince to even think unkind bullshit like that. No, the pets clearly cared, at least a little. The rescues they brought in mostly avoided each other at first, while all the conditioning was in place, but these two look like maybe they wouldn’t. Or at least not as much.

He rewinds again right to the start, watching for the moment Owen Grant looks up, surprised, those green eyes on the camera so soft and friendly.

“He’s such a fucking liar, Tara,” Vince says, and his voice shakes.

“Yeah, okay, so you’re watching it.” Tara sighs, and he can picture it - rubbing the spot between her eyebrows with her index finger and thumb, taking a deep breath. “Vince, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t punish yourself this way.”

“He’s a liar. He goes on camera - what fucking right does he have to do that, by the way - and he stands right fucking there and lies about what happened between us, lies about what I, what I did with him-”

“No.” Tara’s voice is sharp, and it cuts through Vince immediately. His mouth snaps shut. “What he did to you, Vince. We’ve talked about this. You didn’t do anything but go to see your friend one night when he seemed down. Everything after he put the drink in your hand is what he did to you.”

There’s a silence and Vince tries to tell himself she’s right. She’s always right.

Eventually, he gives up to the pull of just letting Tara run the show and smiles, wondering if she’ll hear the expression in his voice. “Yeah, okay. But still… you know he didn’t get someone like that Box Boy by accident. You know he lied about that, too.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tara’s voice is clipped, and goes slightly quieter. “We got a potential informant in the company, and I’ve just seen Grant’s custom order form.”

“What?” Vince’s feet thump to the ground and he sits up. Around him his home is perfectly silent, pure white, and kind of cold. He likes it better when Tara has to stay over, pretend she’s sleeping with him that night. Then this place feels like it has life in it.

Mostly, even when he’s home, it just feels... empty.

“Yeah. We had someone come through and offer to get us some info, and Owen Grant’s order form was in the documents he gave us to show he was good for it. This is… this is the most detailed custom order form I’ve ever seen, Vince.”

“Did he-...” Vince tries to swallow back the question, but it tumbles out anyway. “Did he really just want him for-”

“No, it’s more fucked than that.” Tara’s quiet - Vince can hear his own blood, his heartbeat, his breathing. “Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

“Yes. No. I don’t, I don’t know… will it make me feel better or worse to hear it?”

On screen, Kauri is shocked and Vince watches his flinch, the tears standing in his eyes, still pleading and wide in some hope that Owen will rescue him. Vince grinds his teeth in anger at the way it looks to see his own face, so perfectly broken and needy, looking always to Owen to be saved.

Exactly how Owen had always wanted to see him.

“Probably worse,” Tara answers, and there’s a hint of gentleness there. Tara isn’t gentle with very many people - with him, with Eli, maybe a few others. Always with the rescues, the broken men and women hiding from the system under fake names and with forged documentation, pulled from homes and those two-bit emporiums selling bullshit knock-off Box Boys and Babes. She doesn’t have a lot of gentle left in her, after her own ordeal - but she always finds a little for Vince.

And he doesn’t even try to be ashamed of himself for needing it.

“Tell me anyway. That poor kid probably feels enough like shit, I might as well join him. I’m the only reason he’s even in this mess.”

“Well, okay, it might make you feel better to know he was already in the system. They called him 645898,” Tara reads the number out loud with real hatred edging her voice. “He was already in training before Grant put in his order, but I have a hunch they new Grant had been sniffing around the site and picked him up to have him ready for the order. And fuck, what an order. I don’t know what we’d even do with a rescue like this one, Vince.”

“What? Why? We’ve rescued others that are, that were, that… um…”

“Got their brains fucked out of them?” Tara asks with bitter near-humor.

“Yeah. That.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely seeing his share of that-” Vince winces, closing his eyes, trying not to remember Own’s hand pressed over his mouth, the look in his eyes as he’d whispered I’m so fucking tired of hearing you say no all the time, Vince, the way the ropes had dug into his wrists until they were rubbed raw and bloody. “-but it’s worse than that. He wouldn’t even go with us if we showed up at Grant’s front door.”

“Let me guess,” Vince says heavily. “He wanted the pet to love him.”

I just want you to fucking love me, you piece of shit! Is that so much to ask, Vince? Huh?! Is that so much to fucking ask?!

“Yep.” Tara doesn’t try to soothe him, to paper over old wounds with pretty words. That’s what he loves about her - Vince’s world is one of fake comfort and false friends, and Tara never gives comfort she doesn’t drag out of herself with real sincerity and she’s the truest friend he’s ever had. “If we tried to take him, he... he wouldn’t go. And that’s just the fucking tip of the fucking iceberg, too.”

“Perfect.” Vince sighs. “This kid had no idea what he was signing up for, huh?”

“Vince. You and I both know hardly any of them actually sign up for anything. You and I both know how they get the pets to sign our contracts.”

Vince licks his lips, hesitating, his blood running a little cold at the thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know how they do it. I know it.”

“Close your laptop, Vince. Go to sleep. This kid won’t be any less or more fucked over if you do. We’ll work on his case, I promise, he’s just… he’s going to be tough. He’s not in a house where we can walk up, he never leaves so we can’t catch him in a vulnerable, open place. And if we did… he wouldn’t go. The conditioning is thorough, Vince, and I’ve no doubt he loves Grant and is terrified of the idea of being taken away from him.” Tara sighs, again. She has a whole library of sighs, and Vince loves her for each and every one of them. “I have to talk to Eli about it, we need a better plan for dealing with this one, but trust me - I’m going to figure this shit out. Your clone and Dustin, we’re going to figure it out.”

“If you don’t, Tara? What if you can’t figure it out, for either of them?”

“Then…” Tara trails off. “Then it’s like I said. They’re no more or less fucked over than they were before I knew about them.”

It’s Vince’s turn to snort. “Tara. We both know that’s not how you operate. You never stop thinking about any of the ones you couldn’t rescue.”

“Hm. Maybe I’ll make it work this time if I try hard enough. Go to sleep, Vince. Eli’s on my other line. He took in a rescue and he’s been calling me for advice about her.”

“That’s funny. Me calling to ask you about this Kauri kid, and Eli’s right in his house, at the exact same moment, calling you for advice about, uh, whatever her name is.”

“Keira. She asked him to call her Keira.” Tara is quiet. “Kauri and Keira. Funny, the two names together like that. Eli even says her hair is dark and curly... Anyway, you need sleep and I need to keep moving.”

“Right, because you’re a sleep shark, if you sleep you’ll die,” Vince teases her. She laughs on the other line, and he relaxes all at once.

Did the people who kept Tara, in the shadowy past she only rarely opened up about, ever make her laugh? Did they have any idea how wonderful it was to hear the sound? Did they know her laugh was nearly as gorgeous as the red of her hair? If Vince had ever been remotely into women, someone like Tara might have been just his type.

As it was, his fake girlfriend was probably his best friend. And the only person on Earth who knew what Owen Grant had done to him, when he was 20 years old and looked exactly like the Kauri kid that Vince was watching, once again, lay on his back on the screen.

Ankles against his thighs, legs spread apart, the flush of shame in his eyes and his skin and in the way he moved when Owen yanked him back to his feet moments later.

“You have meetings tomorrow,” Tara says, softly.

“So do you,” He counters. He scrolls down to look over the comments, staring at the array of usernames and inane babble. Mostly just people praising the Host’s cleverness, how funny they are, what a great idea to have two Box Boys face off like that.

Then one catches his eye.

@finder-of-rings: Kauri seems really sweet. God I hope owen isn’t hurting him. It’d be so, so easy to do just anything he wanted to him! They’re all alone and he can’t say no to anything, right??? God, that’s so scary… imagine being all alone with someone like Owen Grant and he can do literally anything to you and no one will stop him and no one will help you! Someone should do something!

There’s a slew of replies telling the commenter they’re making a mountain out of a molehill, that the Box Boys signed up for this, it’s all part of the system, whatever.

Vincent just stares at the words as they go in and out of focus.

“Vince?” Tara’s voice seems a little fainter. “You listening?”

Imagine being all alone with someone like Owen Grant and he can do anything to you - and no one will stop him - and no one will help you.

“I don’t have to imagine it,” Vince whispers. “I’ve been there, Finder of Rings. I’ve fucking been there.”

“Hey, no, are you reading the comments, Vince?” Tara’s voice is sharp again, cuts through the fog and the way his throat has gone tight, his heart beating fast, a dizzy fear pounding in his mind all the way down to wrists that still remember how it felt to be tied down.

A throbbing pulse of phantom pain in the rib Owen had broken, in the eye he’d punched. Some of Vince’s teeth are fake because of Owen Grant.

“Never, ever read the comments, Vince. Never. That’s… we have people who read the comments just to troll for info and even some of them get freaked out. Don’t do it. Or…” The softness is back in her voice, again. “At least let me be there with you when you do.”

“Yeah… yeah, no, you’re right.” Vince’s voice is shaking as he closes his laptop screen, shutting away the vision of Kauri and the Host’s boy carefully not looking at each other as the episode ended. I hope the other pets don’t judge the ones like you, little clone, he thinks. I hope, I hope, I hope.

“I’m going to bed, Tara. You’re right and I should take your advice and just… just fucking shut off for a while. Are you going to take my advice and do the same?”

“Fuck no. I’m calling Eli to see what help he needs with his rescue. She’s a sweetheart, she’s been really put through the worst the system does to people. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Vince.”

“And you’ll die if you sleep,” Vince says, and both of them laugh this time.

She hangs up and Vince sits in his quiet, empty house, thinking of the comment he’d read.

Someone should do something.

He thinks of Owen screaming in his face, holding him by the chin, the way he’d choked on his own blood and the tooth down his throat as he cried and begged Owen not to kill him. Thought of what it had been like when Owen’s mom had found out and Vincent had stumbled out of the old apartment where Owen used to live, beaten half to death and unable to tell a single living soul what really happened.

It’d hurt his career, if he did. He was just getting real acting jobs meant for adults, then - he’d signed Carlotta Grant’s legal shit and taken a year to recover and then come back and become a fucking superstar. It had felt like enough for a while.

He couldn’t have risked his career, then, when it was only getting started. And now...

It’d murder his career to step one foot out of line, now - and put the pet lib people he worked with at risk, if he publicly said a fucking thing about Owen Grant keeping what amounted to a blow up doll with a pulse that looked just like him.

He had to trust Tara, and the people like Tara - the people braver than him.

“Someone should save that poor kid,” Vince mutters, alone in the dark. “Someone should do something. But it’s not going to be me.”

#whump #erase to control #vincent shield is not a hero #fairybean101 #box boy #box boy multiverse #box boy universe #shameless-whumper #colton #kauri #tw: referenced past assault #tw: referenced violent noncon #tw: referenced noncon #youtuber whump #youtube whump #pet liberation movement

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