#and since the mother would never let me buy masculine clothes in her presence i take my gender stuff from this :3

[aesrot]

godbless my grandma for helping me acquire gender clothes teehee

[haro-whumps]

Box Boy Meeting Mama

(CW: slavery, dehumanization, creepy + intimate whumper, implied noncon, videorecording, possessive behaviors)

Tag list:  @thatsthewhump @whump-it @ashintheairlikesnow @fairybean101 @finder-of-rings @comfortforthepain @shameless-whumper @that-one-thespian @burtlederp @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @raigash @im-not-rare-im-rarr 

Part 1

“Mama! Mama!” Ren called to the open front door, bouncing down the steps excitedly.

Their mother was a stunningly tall woman, with heavy brown hair that waved like a product model and a solid, masculine build. Her shoulders were broad, her wrists thick, and she had a jawline that could only be drawn using squares. Although her skin was free of wrinkle or blemish, she could never be described as youthful, her presence heavy and sharp in any room she entered. Her color palette was almost exclusively red, with some black and rare gold, and anytime someone told her that a woman of her size shouldn’t wear high heels, she bought herself a taller pair.

“Hello duckling,” she greeted with a bright smile, hugging her child, the only person in the world who would ever describe her as warm or loving.

“Soren!” they called over their shoulder, only half-stepping away from their mother, “Heel! Position 1!”

Soren had been told he’d be meeting Ren’s mama that morning, and had been dressed up for it, wearing what could only be called a toga and gold sandals that stretched up to his knees. He rushed to them and stood with his feet slightly parted, arms at his sides, spine straight.

“Oh there he is,” she said curiously, eyeing him over as though to judge if his presence lived up to the rumors. He stood close to Ren, nervous around the looming woman, with her sharp eyes and strong arms. Ren was his owner, so of course they could do whatever damage they wanted to him, but they knew that to a whumpee, their mama cut a much more intimidating figure. She could do as much damage with a closed fist as Ren might with a belt. Maybe more.

“You’re right, the short hair really isn’t suiting him,” she commented at length, lifting a lock of Soren’s hair, which now skimmed his shoulders. The products were doing their job. She tilted his chin and her eyes lingered on the birthmark. “But you are a cute little thing, aren’t you pet?”

“Thank you, um, m-ma’am?” he said hesitantly, body tense, and Ren giggled.

“Aw,” Ren’s mama said with a knowing click of her tongue. “Did you call my child ‘ma’am’ and get scolded for it?” she asked with a small chuckle shaking her impressive shoulders.

“Uh--um, well,” Soren stammered, which was too cute, so Ren took pity on him and kissed his pretty temple.

“He’s been perfect, lately; hasn’t messed up since, have you angel?”

“No, Exalted,” he said, obviously relieved that Ren had stepped in.

“Oh, Exalted!” Ren’s mama crooned, “I like that, that’s so classy!”

“Thanks!” Ren said cheerfully, beaming up at her. “The other option is ‘Honored One,’ which I think has a similar ring to it.”

“Good choices, good choices,” she agreed. “Well, off to Sunday brunch?”

“Mm!” Ren hummed. They gave Soren a quick kiss to his cheek, petting his hair in a smooth, swift gesture. “Behave yourself while I’m out, Soren. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Have, have fun,” Soren said, glancing between them and their mama, timid around her, but that was fine. If Soren wanted to see Ren as the only safe thing in all the world, that was a-okay by them.

They climbed into the passenger seat of their mama’s red luxury car, one of the smaller ones today, and arranged their skirts around their legs. Best part of skirts: Ren looked phenomenal in them and they showed off their calves. Worst part of skirts: maneuvering in them.

“He really is,” Mama murmured as she started the car with her thumbprint, “That’s your sweet little Soren.”

“I know!” Ren said with a laugh, “I can still hardly believe it sometimes!”

“Well, he seems healthy and whole, at least.”

“Mama! Of course he is!”

She snorted and pinched their cheek, eyes still on the road. “I didn’t say I ever thought you wouldn’t take care of him, dumpling. But you know how those whumpee-vendors can get, sometimes. Every couple of months, it seems like there’s some new scandal that everyone just needs to flood the news streams with.”

Ren sighed knowingly, very put upon. “It’s true. I mean, really, you’d think we’d be past the whole ‘Oh hey let’s lose our shit over this’ phase of whumpees, right? They knew the risks when they signed themselves over, and it’s not like they’re actually people anymore.”

Mama hummed. “Do we want to go for cheese and pasta or are we thinking seafood today?”

“I could go for somewhere with refried beans and pork, if you’re up for it,” Ren stated.

“Oo, fancy today.” Mama threw on her turn signal. “Guaca Maya’s always a safe bet.”

“So, did I not, express, to Soren, enough, that I loved him and liked taking care of him when we were younger? Like, why didn’t he come crawling back to me?”

“Duckling,” Mama crooned, like when they were acting just a little unreasonable about how life wasn’t fair.

“It’s been bothering me since I found him, Mama. I would have forgiven him! He had to have known that, right?”

“Honey, sometimes poor people just… behave in strange ways. They’re not rational.” She gave their thigh a sympathetic squeeze. “The more you try to make sense of them, the more frustrated you’ll get.”

Ren sighed and stroked their brow, probably messing up their eyebrows but ah, such was life. “I know, I know. It doesn’t matter, I have him now,” they said, flaring out their fingers.

“And so cute, too; he’s so nervous!”

Ren giggled. “Oh, oh! Once we get seated I’ll show you; remember how I told you I was buying all those cameras?”

“Oh, that’ll be nice,” she said, parking the car. 

They were seated at one of the better tables, the waitress accidentally calling Mama “sir” before she noticed the mixup, and after they’d ordered their food Ren pulled out their phone and tapped through the application, searching for their boy.

“Ha, there he is,” Ren said, holding out the phone screen so Mama could look. “He really likes that balcony.”

“Good thing, too, his freckles are so pretty when they’re dense,” Mama commented, taking the phone in that way the previous generation had, instead of just looking while Ren held it. Soren was seated on a patio chair, plush but waterproof, and was dozing in the late morning sun. 

“I’m glad I got him the two in one sunscreen and lotion,” Ren remarked, staring gleefully down at the screen, chin in their palm. Even though it would be fun to poke and prod at the burns, they thought privately. Such things were not meant to be shared with their mama; she would scold them for casual violence. 

“You’re such a clever kid,” Mama said proudly, handing the phone back, “Always the most prepared out of all your peers, I don’t know where you got it from.”

“Statistically speaking, probably you,” Ren said, and they both laughed. Brunch went by pleasantly, the two of them catching up on the events of the week. Mama knew a good portion of Ren’s week, since they had kept on delightedly texting her throughout, but it was always fun to eat and chat. Mama enjoyed flaunting her wealth as much as Ren did, and tipped equal to the bill, then drove Ren home.

“Same time next week,” she said before they got out of the car, “But not the week after--”

“--because you’ll be overseas, so we’ll have to videochat,” Ren confirmed, leaning across the consol so she could kiss their cheek affectionately.

“You got it. Alright darling, have a good one.”

“Bye Mama!” Ren called brightly as they got out, and returned inside. Brunch with Mama always left them feeling pleased and calm, and knowing that they were returning to Soren left them positively bouncing, skirt flaring out around their knees. They went to the kitchen to put their leftovers in the fridge,

and their mood turned on a dime.

“What are you doing with those scissors!?” they bellowed, crossing the kitchen in an instant, catching him by the wrist so hard he dropped the blades, their nails pressing bleeding crescents into his skin.

“E-Exalted, I--”

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?!” they yelled, slamming that fragile arm into the pantry door, grabbing him by the front of his toga and lifting, furious, spots swarming their vision.

“Nothing! Please!”

“The hell does nothing need scissors for?” they shouted, their face so close to his that spit flew onto it. “Do you seriously think you can just--”

“Thread! There’s a loose thread!” Soren wailed, free hand desperately pressed against Ren’s chest. They stopped, breathing hard, rage still curling in them but paused, just for a moment. Soren hiccupped on his little sobs and shakily moved his hand to point at the strap of his toga. “T-*hic* There’s a l-loose thread, Honored One,” he said, lifting it so they could see. Thin, unnoticed when the clothing was delivered, hardly even visible without someone pointing it out. “I, I was snipping it. I would never hurt you, Exalted, Ren, please, I would never, I’m not a fighter, I wouldn’t hurt you, please,” his fingers curled in the front of their blouse, “please, never, never. I wouldn’t, Honored One, please believe me, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.”

Ren released his wrist, their fingers trailing down his skin and leaving bloody marks. They took a deep breath, and let it out, releasing his toga and lifting their hands to his face, cupping his cheeks. “Oh, baby,” they murmured, trying to calm their heartbeat. “Oh Soren,” they said, pressing up against him, his back flush against the pantry door, their face pressed into his hair. His gorgeous hair, that he wasn’t going to cut. He hadn’t even been thinking about it. His first concern was that Ren thought he would hurt them, use the scissors to fight; cutting his hair was so far from his mind it never crossed it. 

They stood there, pressed up against his quietly crying body, for an indeterminate amount of time. They pulled back when they were calm enough, and silently took the thread between their fingers. They leaned down and bit it, snapping it easily, and then kissed Soren’s birthmark.

“Go ahead and clean up the mess you made,” Ren said, glancing at their leftovers, which were now spilled across the kitchen tile. “I’ll go get some disinfectant for your wrist.”

“Thank you,” he said, high and quiet and Ren felt okay enough to smile at him. They kissed his pretty lips, thumbing at the tear tracks, half-dried, and left the kitchen. But not without first grabbing the scissors, taking the blades with them.

Next

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[joyfullynervouscreator]

Leaving Home pt 5

@life-is-righteous

Dori’s leaving

word count: 3k

Dori could have sworn she saw Nori’s distinctive peaks when she went to the market to buy something for their supper, but she shook off the thought. Nori had not come back once these past few years, leaving no word with the ragamuffins that used to come to her backdoor with his presents. Dori had learned a long time ago not to speak to Nori’s delivery boys, though they would usually accept a token of food for the delivery.

She regretted their last fight, five years earlier, and she missed her little brother, her mithril-heart, that bright spark of mischief that Nori had always had, able to make her laugh even when Amad was dying, only holding on for Ori’s sake. Dori sometimes wondered if it had not been better for Arnóra to have died with less suffering, even if it would have stolen her mother at least six years earlier. She chastised herself for the thought, but she still felt – even if she now realised that Nori’s current lifestyle had always been nigh inevitable – that if Arnóra had died earlier, Nori might not have come to the Guard’s attention quite so soon. That was wishful thinking, she knew, because Nori had told her that their father, under the name Radulf, had taken him on as a protégé many years before Arnóra’s lungs, damaged by the smoke from Smaug’s fire and further harmed by the coal dust from the mines where she worked, had begun to fail her. Sometimes, Dori had envied Nori the time spent with Natfari, whom she had rarely seen herself, but at the same time, she had been aware of the danger his presence posed to their lives. Natfari was always careful, entering their little house quietly, and never in the same disguise, but her Adad did not have the same life as he had enjoyed in Erebor, spending enough time in Guard rotations that he could be home at least every third night.

Dori remembered the day the dragon had attacked, shortly before the Forge Day Feast, when it had been permitted for parents to bring their children to work, to show them what they did for a living. She had begged for WEEKS before Natfari had agreed to bring her with him on Guard duty, having already spent many hours in her Amad’s wire-weaving workshop. When the fire and smoke clouded the hallways, she had been ripped away from Natfári’s hand, but someone she didn’t know had picked her up along with another little girl and carried her out of the inferno and made sure she was fed. Dori had not known at the time that Princess Frís had been her saviour, something she had only realised upon meeting the princess as an almost-adult in Ered Luin. By then, she had been used to hiding her femininity, having learned early on that it was far easier to avoid trouble with Men if they though she was male. Her mother had wept, as they re-stitched clothes to hide Dori’s bust and give her a more masculine shape. The beard alone might have fooled them, but she did not want to give away her identity to other Dwarrow either, and so Dori, daughter of Natfari, had become Dori, First Son of Arnóra.

By now, braiding her hair as a male was second nature to Dori, and she was quite content never to have felt the Longing, because trying to explain her complicated relationship with her own gender would have been more than troublesome. The Sons of Arnóra were fairly well-known, by now, with Ori making himself a name under Master Balin’s tutelage – for which Dori was grateful to her father, towards whom her feelings were even more tangled than towards her brother – and Dori herself had done well as a tailor and lace-maker, especially since she had met Princess Dís. Dís was one of the only ones who knew her true gender, but Dori knew that her friend would take the secret to her grave if need be. Dís had not liked that Dori felt she needed to hide, and sometimes she had invited her to the Royal house while her ‘boys’ – Dwalin, Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, and Balin – were out, in order to let Dori have a safe place to be feminine and pretty. Of course, Dori was always pretty, widely considered the most beautiful Dwarf in Ered Luin, and many had lamented the fact that such beauty was wasted on a male who had no interest in suitors. Dori had giggled when Dís brought her that bit of gossip, delivered in the Princess’ driest tones, but with her eyes showing her mirth.

 When she got home, having shaken off her musings on the past and almost forgotten the possible sighting of Nori, she had received the first shock of the day.

Nori was in her kitchen. Dori dropped her parcels with a shriek, her hands flying to her mouth, but Nori handily grabbed her bags and put them on the table.

“Nori…” Dori had not known what to say, and Nori had simply stood there, looking as though he was unsure whether he should have come. In two steps, Dori had reached him, pulling him into the tightest hug she had ever given him. “You’re alive!” as Nori’s arms hesitantly wrapped around her, Dori inhaled his familiar scent, a mix of leather, mineral oil and something herbal that always clung to his hair.

“Hello, Dori.” When he tried to give her one of his unrepentant grins, Dori had snapped. She had punched him in the stomach, hard enough to make him winded, before she had found her words.

“FIVE YEARS, NORI! FIVE YEARS AND NOT A SINGLE WORD!” She shouted, and she DID NOT care if all of Granite Way could hear her. “YOU COULD HAVE BEEN HURT! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD!” her breath hitched, but her glare kept Nori seated, looking like he had as a Dwarfling when she berated him for getting in trouble with the Guard. “You could have been dead, Nori, and we would never have known what happened to you!” Dori’s voice lowered to a whisper, a broken sob on her next words, “Nori, you could have been just like Adad, just never coming home…” Dori crumbled. She was surprised when Nori caught her, sliding to the ground with her as he let her sob into his shoulder, stroking her braids gently. Dori’s anger calmed slowly.

Nori had made a pot of tea, just the way she liked it, and silently pushed her cup towards her. Dori’s hands shook, but she lifted the cup and sipped her tea, staring at him in total silence. Nori looked skinny – but Nori always looked skinny – and slightly haggard, as though he had spent months on the road with little rest. Dori winced, but she did not apologise for hitting him, and Nori gave her that smile that meant he knew he had earned her ire and deserved everything she threw at him.

“I’m sorry, Dori.” Nori eventually broke the silence, tracing the edge of his own empty cup with a finger that had a slightly crooked look to it, as if it had been broken and set by someone with little experience. It had not looked like that the last time he was home, Dori was sure. She reached out, covering his hand with hers and stilled its slightly twitchy movement.

“I know, Nori. I’m sorry, too.” Neither of them needed to say more, and when Dori knocked her forehead against Nori’s, he gave her a soft smile and caught her up in a proper kin-blessing. Dori’s shoulders lost the last vestiges of tension, at least until Nori spoke once more.

“I came to say proper goodbye, sister,” his voice was hoarse with unconcealed emotion and Dori stiffened once more.

“What’s wrong, Nori?” she searched his face frantically, but Nori just sighed and pulled her back to rest her head against his.

“I am going on the Quest for Erebor along with the King, Dori.” Dori’s second shock of the day was even more devastating than the first, but her first reaction, a vehement denial, died on her lips when she saw the look in Nori’s eyes.

“Please, Nori.” She begged, “Please, don’t do this.” She knew his answer before he voiced it, however, and just caught him up in a wordless hug. “Thank you for coming back to tell me,” she whispered, her heart breaking into tiny pieces.

“You’ll be good, Dori. Ori will take care of you, and I’ll do my very best to come back to you,” Nori swore. Dori almost believed that he would – in fact – return to her, but she knew her brother well enough to know that even if he used every trick in the book, he was going up against a dragon – not to mention all the dangers he might find on the road between here and Erebor – and she knew that this was his goodbye. Nori did not expect to live long enough to see her again once he left, and Dori knew it.

“I’ll help you pack,” she whispered, and it was a declaration of love. Nori hugged her tighter. When he finally let go, they both wiped away tears, but Nori’s crooked smile had returned.

That’s when Ori entered the house, like a harbinger of doom, and delivered the third shock of Dori’s day:

“Master Balin is going with Uzbad Thorin to Erebor!” he exclaimed, glowing with pure excitement. “I’ve already signed up; I’ll be appointed official scribe! Master Balin says I can earn my Mastery writing the official account of the Quest!” Dori froze. Nori sent a despairing glance towards her, but Dori was speechless in the face of Ori’s excitement. “Nori’s here!?” the journeyman scribe exclaimed, hugging the Thief tightly. Dori screamed.

 When she had yelled herself hoarse, with unexpected but heartily welcome support from Nori’s impressive collection of curses, Dori looked at her brothers, feeling her heart break as surely as a glass orb under a smith’s hammer. “You can’t both leave me behind to wait for news, Nori,” Dori said, dashing away the tears she would not shed. “I expect it from you, but you can take care of yourself, I know. But Ori… please, Ori, don’t go get yourself killed like this too.” Looking at Nori, who – in a rare unguarded moment – gave her the smile he had always saved especially for her as a Dwarfling, her efforts were in wain. The tears began falling, and the next thing she felt was Nori’s slim arms wrap around her as he whispered soft Khuzdul into her ear. On her other side, Ori – who was right that he was an adult, she knew, but that didn’t stop her seeing the Dwarfling she had raised almost as if he had been her child – joined the hug. The three children of Arnóra spent the night curled around each other, looking for some sort of comfort.

 Three weeks later, Dori was signed up as the Quest’s jack-of-all-trades, strongly backed by Dís, who had given her a teary hug when Dori had come seeking her advice and realised that she had only one option, and surprisingly Dwalin. Dori was sad to leave her friend behind, but Dís had all but told her to go with her brothers, and Dori felt grateful to have such an understanding friend.

 The Present:

Dori looked over the three packs that littered her kitchen table. Nori’s, a little worn from use, but with so many extra pockets and other useful things stitched into the seams that she would never even suggest he replaced it, Ori’s, which was brand-new, and her own, by far the bulkiest. Sometimes, it was good to have her strength, Dori knew, and she had caught the grateful flash in Dwalin’s eyes when she had signed on. The big warrior had met her through Nori, of course, but Dwalin had only challenged her to an arm wrestle once. Nori had suggested it, a drunken wager going round the table of the inn they found themselves in, and Dori had earned the moniker ‘The Strongest Dwarf in Ered Luin’ with as little apparent effort as when she lifted her mug of ale. She smirked at the thought of the look on the Shumrozbid’s face; flabbergasted had been putting it mildly, but she had earned a new kind of respect from Dwalin thereafter. With a sigh, Dori turned her attention to their saddlebags, counting off her completed tasks on her fingers.

She had decided to stitch a supply of gold wire-thread – her mother had been a canny Dwarrowdam, and she had known many things that had been useful when they lived on the surface – into their clothes seams, so they would have money, even if they lost their packs. Most of their food would be in the saddlebags, but she made sure to stuff a bundle of oilcloth-wrapped cram into the bottom of each pack, on the basis that the ponies might run off with their saddlebags.

They’d each have a small blade – Nori had obtained these, and Dori knew better than to ask where he had found three blades of exquisite quality on such short notice – strapped to their belts, which had more holes than necessary, in order to be cinched in when they lost weight on the journey. Dori had been stuffing all three of them full of the richest foods she could get her hands on since they had decided to go, and even Nori now had a small layer of extra padding around his middle.

Dori had – at the urging of Dís – asked young Prince Kíli to help her create extra pockets in her own and Ori’s boots. Nori’s already had such, each boot carrying two small blades cleverly hidden in invisible pockets. The Prince had been so excited about the idea that he had promptly added more pockets to his own and Prince Fíli’s boots. King Thorin had already been gone by then, but Dori would not be surprised if Masters Dwalin and Balin also sported boot pockets when they all met up in the Shire.

All their cloaks had been treated against the weather, and lined with a layer of silk Dori had once bought from a merchant and then never had opportunity to use. The silk would ensure that the cloaks were warm in the cold but not overly hot when the sun shone, and Dori had noticed that Nori had stitched superstitious luck-knots and old traveller’s blessings along the hems. The thought made her smile, an old habit of their mother’s carried on in Nori’s fine stitches. He had learned the knot-language from Natfari, Dori was sure, and she still had some of the frankly beautiful knots he had tied when he was still learning. She had one that spelled her name, with each knot meaning beautiful sister, and it had hung over her bed for many years.

When the packs were as organised as she could make them, Dori turned her attention to that night’s supper and the morning’s breakfast. She had set aside the whole day to get them all ready, handing the key to her shop to Dís for safe-keeping the day before and saying her goodbyes to her neighbours and few friends.

When Ori got home – the lad had been adamant that he would finish his current project and bring the payment along on the quest against unforeseen events as he had called it – Dori was almost done cooking. They waited for Nori to make an appearance, but when it was an hour after normal suppertime, Dori tersely ordered Ori to eat. Her own stomach was in knots, and she could not stop herself from listening for the door – a rather useless occupation, as Nori always oiled all hinges when he came around and could move as quietly as a cat – but Dori tried to eat anyway. When they were done, she was grateful when Ori escaped to his own room, leaving her to fret by herself. Her baby brother needed a good night’s sleep. Dori did not, or perhaps could not, think of Ori without seeing his excitable Dwarfling face superimposed over his adult face, and he would always be her baby brother, even when he woke in Itdendûm and got to meet their father for the first time. When Dori finally went to bed, far later than she had planned, she did not think she could sleep, but sleep found her with surprising speed.

When Dori woke, the first thing she did was check on Nori. She had not heard him come in – a surprise, considering the stench of alcohol that drifted from his very skin as well as the fact that he was accompanied by Bofur, who had probably never even heard the word stealth – and her relief mingled with fury until she was yelling at the two delinquents at the top of her lungs.

Eventually, Dori took pity on them, both dwarrow looking more than a little abashed and definitely hung-over. With a final scoff of contempt, Dori granted them each a token of her mercy: a cup of her secret hangover cure, which made Bofur call her many flattering things and apologise profusely for his drunken state. Nori simply sipped in silence, and ushered the miner out the door with a raised eyebrow at Dori, who huffed, cuffing him gently round the head. Nori grinned, tossing back the rest of his cup and began to check the gear she had packed.

They were delayed by several hours, but Dori knew they could make up the time on the road so she didn’t worry. Nori was – by far – the most travelled Dwarf of all the Company, she knew, and felt surprisingly good about their leaving Ered Luin. Waving back at her neighbours, Dori set off into the sunlight with a slight smile.

Full series on Ao3!