#burtlederp answers eventually

[burtlederp]

This Prompt. I like it. Another! (Please and Thank you)

I will try! Sorry it took years.😅

"Whumpee limped haltingly down the road. Their eyes were drooped, unable to raise them from the dirt path, only able to force themselves to take the next step, and the next, and the next. There had to be help somewhere down the road, eventually... Right?"

[burtlederp-incorporated]

I want you to know that you are That Friend where if you post a video with no context, I'm clicking because I know that shit will be hilarious

Legitimately this might be the highest honor I've ever received

[ashintheairlikesnow]

If you're still doing these, how about alamort from the prompt list?

alamort (adj) : half- dead of exhaustion

CW: Blood, trauma response, memory loss/traumatic memory recovery, callous talk of murder, nonsexual nudity, pet whump references, guilt, referenced stabbing

Jake Gets Fucking Stabbed: One Two Three Four Five

The water went cold a while ago, but Antoni hasn’t moved. The chill of the porcelain along his lower back soothes the itching, aching burn scars underneath, the icy blast of the shower raining down on his locks his muscles into a constant teeth-chattering shiver, but it feels good.

It feels so good

It feels like what he deserves.

“How did you fuck up this badly?” Artyom asks, snapping the words in Russian as he cleans the wounds down his little brother’s arm. Misha won’t look at him, all gangly teenage elbows and knees. “Huh? What am I supposed to tell Mama if this happens again?”

“It won’t,” Misha mumbles, sullen, looking off to the side and not anywhere near him. “I’ll figure it out. Anyway, he’s not going to tell anyone, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Doesn’t it?” Artyom reaches up, gripping Misha’s chin, leaving a smear of red blood along the line of his jaw as he forces his brother’s eyes to meet his own. “Did you wear gloves, Misha? At least did you do that?” 

Misha doesn’t answer, but Artyom knows what the lack of answer really means, and groans, letting go and sort of throwing Misha’s head to the side at the same moment with his frustration. “Misha! We talked about this!”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve done it before,” Misha says, still in that sulky mutter. “And i was by myself, you didn’t exactly help.”

“I’m not going to help you kill people!” Artyom wraps the bandages over Misha’s arm so viciously his little brother hisses at the pain. “I am no killer, Misha. And I’m not going to be one just for you.”

“Fine. We’ll see how Mama feels when I’m in prison and you have to tell her it’s because you wouldn’t help me.”

Artyom takes a breath, lets it out. Closes his eyes. There’s already a headache throbbing in his temples. “Misha... fine. Where did you leave the body?”

Maybe they can find it before the police do.

There’s red on his palms, even as the rest of his skin is clammy and pale from the water. Red on his palms and in the burns he is covered with, beginning at his wrists and covering every inch of his torso and back. Burns he earned, burns he took to make up for the crimes he was a part of.

Right?

Antoni shudders, scrubbing at the inside of his left hand, but the red gets worse, if anything. So much blood on his hands, and it won’t come off. It just stays there, a stubborn stain a decade old or more. All of the others, those were only the avalanche, but the first body is the shout that brought down the snow.

Antoni is a collection of rotted bodies and hidden bones, he is all the things he did not stop, he is all the ways he helped hide evil from the light. 

Jake’s blood had run from him first, when the shower water was still hot, when it scalded his skin until he could barely breathe for the pain. Jake’s blood had swirled pinkish in the water, gone down the drain and disappeared. Jake’s blood had been worthwhile to carry, to wear on himself. That had been saving a life, but the bloodstains left everywhere else are from lives taken.

He stares at the scar on the inside of his left wrist, where he and Chris had their barcodes removed together. It’s pale, a shimmer of skin that isn’t quite the same as the skin that surrounds it. No burns, but he is struck with a sudden urge to find Mr. Davies and ask for one. 

Mark me this way, how you marked all my other sins.

He shudders, lets out a choked-off sob that even he can barely hear over the water.

He was a pet for a reason, he was a pet because of what he’d done, but he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known what he did to deserve it. He had suspected but he hadn’t known, he hadn’t-

He knows now.

He could fall asleep here, the unlocking of a whole life inside his mind leaves him half-dead from the exhaustion and guilt, but he can’t sleep. He can’t stop. Not until the blood is gone.

It won’t come out.

“Tyoma!” Misha catches him in a hug, and the two of them laugh. “I missed you!”

“Missed you, too, Misha.” The airport is a busy hum around them, but Artyom has eyes only for his little brother, as always. ‘Mama is waiting at home. How was everyone?”

“Good!” Misha glances side to side, and then leans in to whisper against Artyom’s ear. “I did one there, in Russia, Tyoma. Just one.”

Artyom felt a bit of ice in his heart, lodged there unmelting, a pain he can’t dig out. “Misha, you promised-”

“I couldn’t help it. What are they going to do, Tyoma, track me from thousands of miles?” Misha laughs, and pulls away, and Tyoma follows him, taller and older but endlessly lost in the circle of Misha’s life, endlessly bound to the results of his choices, endlessly putting his small, once-sickly little brother first.

Family first.

Artyom spends the next few months waiting for a call that never comes.

Antoni hears voices outside the bathroom door, muffled but shouting, and he puts his hands over his ears to block them out. Maybe this is it, the end of the life he worked so hard to build, the end of the life of caring for one family because the ghosts of the other will no longer allow him to rest.

He has to turn the water off eventually.

His hand shakes almost too badly to manage it.

Even after it stops, he sits, shivering and dripping and naked in the bathtub. He can’t remember how to stand up to go get a towel. He can’t remember where the towels are. He can’t remember where he is, only the list of deaths that linger on his back, in his mind.

He tastes bitter and salt on his tongue, and starts to cry, holding himself in the tub. Every inch of his skin is burning, every round circle a brand new flame pressed there, Mr. Davies’s voice impassive and soft against his ear.

You deserve this, love.

“I kn-know,” Antoni chokes out, his voice low and broken. “I know, I know, I know...”

You deserve to suffer for what you’ve done, and everyone you ever touch will suffer, too.

Antoni thinks of Jake, bleeding out onto the kitchen floor, screaming as Antoni packed his wound, crying out for his mother.

They always cry for their mothers, while Misha-

Antoni can’t let the thought finish.

Desperate for something that will hurt him the way he deserves to be hurt, he lets Mr. Davies back into his heart, his mind, his body, and remembers his heavy hands in Antoni’s hair, the loathing in his British lilt.

You deserve this, my pretty little ashtray, this and far, far, far worse than I could ever give you.

Antoni rubs at his hands but the red stain there won’t ever come out. He sobs over the blood on his hands and whispers, to the voice in his mind, “I know.”

-

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump

[albino-whumpee]

The Master´s party

A little teaser for you. 

A grin quirked the man´s lips up when he held his chin in a bruising grip. Sann let out a pathetic yelp as the man pulled his face closer to his. 

“You´re an awful liar”

(This one´s long, just heads up for that and just so you know what Albus is taking about at the end, read Of secrets and memories )

This is a series, here´s the Masterlist

Taglist:  @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @giggly-evil-puppy @cowboysrappin @haro-whumps @burtlederp @neuro-whump @comfortforthepain @whumps-the-word @whole-and-apart-and-between @broken-horn @ashintheairlikesnow @rosesareviolentlyread @starnight-whump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @as-a-matter-of-whump  @whumpasaurus101 @grizzlie70 @twistedcaretaker

TW// Dehumanization, slavery, all the box boy jazz, past abuse, shock collars, defiant whumpee, torture, past abuse, conditioning, anxiety, desrealization, humilliation and dissoci@tion. 

The invitation came in a golden envelope.

Albus silently waited for Zarai to read it. He didn´t expect her face to turn from taciturn to horror in the split of a second.

“Absolutely not” she shouted, taking her phone and furiously typing a number as she walked to the studio. Albus glanced at Momo who meowed to be fed.

He was petting the cat while it ate, when he saw Zarai steaming from rage and straightened up in instinct, bracing for a hit that never came.

Zarai let out a loud groan before putting her phone back on the table with a slam that made Albus jump. Slowly his muscles relaxed as he watched the woman rub her temples. He waited a second, just to be sure.

“I can’t believe it. They’re nuts!” She shot her hands up suddenly “Uniform etiquette? That’s- I don’t even know where to start on how wrong that is!” She continued before exhaling a loud, long sigh.

Albus extended her coffee and gulped when he saw her drink it in one go. “I-Is there something wrong with mistress Heleba’s party, ma’am?” He ventured, catching her attention and glad it didn´t come off as misbehaving. She had simply let her chin rest on her hand as she stared at the envelope.

“They want pets to attend the party with uniforms”

Albus frowned. Wasn´t that normal? 

“Would ma´am prefer me to stay then?” he tried, picking up the cup to clean it. He knew she wasn´t exactly a fan of pets in the first place, but her discomfort was aimed more at their owners, so a party with too many of them around? He could smell her complaints from miles.

Albus was surprised to hear her sigh instead. 

“No, I need you there. I wanted you to meet other potential clients and the agencies we will form partnership bonds with in the future. Especially Dune´s executives, but…” she tapped the envelope with bottled anger. His eyes drifted down to the letter.

“Pets are required to use shock collars as uniform etiquette and security measures to our dear guests”

The man at the party´s reception told Zarai as Albus lifted his chin. The man´s partner putting the leather white collar on Zarai´s hand, as the other checked the electrodes against his neck.

Ah, what a familiar sensation, he thought to himself.

“Is it really necessary? He´s not dangerous…” She asked putting the leather collar on her purse with a deep frown on her face.

“Orders from above ma’am” the security guard limited himself to answer.

Zarai whipped her head back at the boy when she heard the buckles click. His hands twitched but he clasped them tightly over his lap, directing a small smile at his owner.

“It´s fine ma´am. Is just a security measure” he said, but a lump formed on his throat when he saw the remote. Squeezing his wrists tight, he held back the impulse to take the collar off himself.

“This button allows you control the intensity and this one is to make it shoot the electricity. Like this” It was already on the lowest voltage so when the man pressed the button, the collar’s box little LED lights turned red for a second as a short wheeze was forced out of Albus.

You forced me to do this 778900. You keep trying to run off somewhere… Don’t be so impatient. Someone will buy you, eventually. This is for your own good.

Zarai yanked the remote from the man “Enough!” He stared at her in confusion as Albus caught his breath. “There was no need for a demonstration” she shot a glare at the man who offered an apologetic smile before she walked away, dragging the boy with her by the arm. “C’mon, Claude will be waiting inside” she whispered, not expecting to not hear a reply. She stopped a few steps away, noticing Albus trembling figure. She looked around the sea of people and dragged both to a small spot besides the pet’s bathroom.

“Can…can you lift your neck Albus?” The boy complied without fighting. Almost robotically. He blinked surprised, however, when he felt her fingers searching for something on his neck. “There” she said with a triumphant click. “They never said anything about it being on” she said, putting the remote into his own hands “I don´t have a use for this. Keep it hidden for me, would you?” she smiled.

Albus eyes softened as he clenched his hand on the remote. “Thank you ma’am”.

Zarai recomposed after giving him a short squeeze on the shoulder “Let´s go. I don´t want to be here more than necessary. Oh, Claude!” she said, calling the doctor talking with some businesswoman and waving at him as Albus hid the remote on his coat´s pocket.

—-

“Mister Serra! I-I didn´t know” some of the guests told him upon seeing the collar on his neck. He was glad none of the people he considered close was there to see him sport the tag he had tried so very hard to keep hidden.

“I apologize for the confusion” he would say in a bow.

“A pet that can read and work, quite unheard of” a man with a funny mustache said reflexively. Albus recognized him from the archives Zarai had made him memorize about the party´s guests. The vice-president of the adjacent company of the many, Rupert Glass owned. “Pretty interesting tactic from Miss Montenegro to keep your status hidden. Never understood her very well… I might try buy one like you. Normal pets are mostly just for show and I want one that can be useful” he said brushing Albus from head to toe. The boy knew better than to keep his eyes at the same level and shyly let down his gaze.

He wished they could go back home soon.

Even if Zarai treated him well, for most of the attendants he was at the same level of importance as the fine glass on their hands.

A luxury they could afford to break.

They only didn´t because it wasn´t theirs. He, wasn´t theirs. It would be rude if they injured or broke someone else´s property. But they didn´t shy from dragging around by a leash their half-naked, bruised pets. 

Some of their eyes nailed on him with anger, but quickly lifted up at their owners pull on their necks. 

Albus could still feel the glares the other pets shot at him and tilted his head only to catch a glimpse of light brown hair. Sann was wearing a tuxedo with a white rose on his chest. But as soon as he spotted him, Sann disappeared into the sea of people taking Albus´ breath with him. “I…It has been a pleasure to meet you Mister Darcy, but I must attend some…matters. Miss Zarai gives you her greeting and wishes you good health” he said, offering his hand to stretch. The older man only gave it a look before wrinkling his nose.

“I don´t handshake pets” he said. Albus backed his hand slowly.

“Excuse me. Thank you for your time, sir” he bowed as he had learnt back on the facility before he dismissed him with a flick of his hand.

He quickly walked away to scan the crowd, not finding the freckled boy among them. He tried searching by the special drink fountain for pets in the back, next to the bathrooms. It only served water and tasteless crackers. A clear contrast with the tables overflowing with delicious looking pastries and varied choices of drinks for their masters. But he wasn´t there or at tables, laying his head on Robert´s knees either.

The man sat with another man, carding his fingers through a shivering girl´s hair sitting by his knees with a charming smile on. Albus backed away slowly when the girl convulsed forward and the man next to Robert laughed along him.

He thought maybe he had imagined him, when he felt a tug on his neck.

“Hey, this one´s collar´s turned off” a man with a security uniform told his partner. The man tightened his grip around Albus´ wrist

“What? Did it turn it off?” the man harshly made Albus whip his head to a side. A whimper escaped his lungs. “Ugh, delicate pet alert” He slapped him repeatedly “Did you turn off your collar? Thought you could get away with it? Do you want us to tell your owner what you did? Hm?”

“N-No, no sir” Albus heaved as both men laughed like jackals “Please, let me explain-Ah!” The man holding him twisted his arms to his back.

“Stay, boy, stay. Don´t make us hurt you more than necessary” He yanked his head up so his partner had free way to the collar. He heard it click on again “What a good boy” he cooed, wrapping a zip tie around his wrists “We can´t let this slip, though. We got to tell your owner” he said, holding his head down by the neck and forcing him to walk.

The man roughly shoved him to his knees besides the guard station, a few steps away from the entrance. His breathing got shallow as his eyes darted through the crowd trying to find the familiar black long hair and the blue suit of her partner.

He saw the man talking to the microphone to announce him as if he was a lost child on a supermarket. No. It was more similar to the announcement of a lost wallet.

People stared at him with indignation. Pets stared with apologetic looks before they clung to their master´s arms.

He pulled his knees closer to his chest. 

It was like he was back at the facility. Being disciplined in front of other trainees because his handlers were getting bored of him. Getting pushed to the front at the smallest inconvenience to make an example out of him to encourage the others to follow every order their handlers gave them through his own tearing screams.

He felt hands on his shoulders and jerked back so hard he banged his head against the wall.

“It´s me Albus, I´m sorry for scaring you” Zarai said, helping him up as a few spots invaded his sight “Didn´t expect this to happen…I´m sorry” she whispered as he felt the release of the zip tie on his wrists. He rubbed his bruising wrists, which infuriated the woman. “What´s the meaning of this?” She yelled at the guards.

One of them sighed “Ma´am, this is just standard procedure. It shouldn´t leave marks. Maybe albinos bruise too easily”

Albus heard those words and his brain turned off.  

Everything was below a thick curtain of fog, the sounds were slurred and his limbs moved involuntarily. It was like living a dream. Was he actually awake? He didn´t know.

He felt his legs walk, his mouth speak and his hand write as Zarai talked. But he wasn´t sure if it was real. He wasn´t sure if the people around him were really there.

Their voices sounded as if they were underwater. Unclear and foggy. A fog, thick as a veil covered the world around him as he walked. After a while, he suddenly found himself leaning against a wall. Just hearing the noise of conversations on the distance, when he allowed himself to wrap his arms around his knees on the floor of a balcony.

He tried to pull air into his suddenly too tight chest.

He hated it.

He hated not knowing why exactly those words put him off like that. Having the feeling he hated to hear it in a certain specific voice. He hated the laughter inside his head that filled his senses. He buried his head in his arms.

“Fuck off” he hissed, not expecting to feel a hand on his back.

He jumped up when he saw Sann on his tuxedo, letting out a lame squeak that made the other grin.

The boy stood up “Sorry…” Sann signed with a frown, his hands twitching in front of his chest as if wanting to say something else but not knowing how, he only stared at him.

Albus waited, just in case, before he looked away and set his eyes on the city “Don´t be, you just surprised me” He opened his mouth and then closed it with a sigh “I´m sorry… Just...give me a second” he said, biting his lip when Sann held his hand.

He brushed his thumbs against his pale hand as if saying “It´s ok, just breathe”

Albus made his lips a fine line before letting it out.

“I might always say hello with food, but you always try to hold my hand” he said in a half giggle, squeezing on Sann´s hand slightly tighter. A smile came to his face and somehow, couldn´t shake it away. 

“…Can we stay like this for a bit?” he asked, feeling the fog on his head dissipate slowly.

“Yes” Sann signed before curling his fingers around Albus´ hand.

Albus looked above at the night sky feeling the warmth of the boy´s hand leak into his before he took a deep breath. Despite the sound of the party inside where most likely Zarai was searching for him, it melted with the usual sounds of the city and the rumble of the sea in the distance. He let out his breath slowly, calm settling on his chest.

He wondered since when he had started to feel that way around the other boy. The other pet looked at the cars below with a little smile hanging on his lips. His hair was mussed up, pulled back in a way that framed his face and made his features pop. The sleek attire with the rose delicately set on his chest, was a look that couldn´t be ruined even by the shock collar on his neck intermittently lighting up.

“You look stunning” the words rolled out of his mouth and didn´t notice he had said it out loud until Sann turned to him with wide eyes. He pulled his free hand to his chin to sign a thank you with an even wider smile.

“You. Too” Sann signed as the albino felt his cheeks burn and tried to hide it by fixing his glasses. He squinted when he noticed something about his hand.

“What´s this?” he asked, fishing Sann´s hand and inspecting the new pink circles around his knuckles. Cigarette burns, he identified bitterly. “What happened? A punishment?” His tone urgent as he lifted his eyes and found Sann´s smile had ran away from his face.

He shook his head.

“No? Then why…” Albus asked as Sann pulled his hand away to lean on the balcony, watching the traffic below with a lost gaze and hiding the injured hand. Albus joined him a second later “…just because?”  Sann nodded with a shrug that pulled a string on his heart. Albus wondered if that was normal treatment for Sann and felt a sting of guilt.

It was a possibility to end up with an owner like that, the handlers had told them as much enough times, but Sann deserved someone better as owner. He deserved to be able to smile without fear of not looking pretty and eager enough to avoid being hurt.

The thoughts raced through his head before being interrupted when Sann looked up at the fireworks popping in the distance, putting that beautiful smile on his face yet again. He turned to him and finding his worried frown, his gray eyes softened.

He moved his hands up to sign, but then had second thoughts and simply smiled with slightly worried eyebrows.

“I´ll be fine” Albus could almost hear him say as he pointed his head at the fireworks.

As Albus watched the show of colors a dread began to grown in his heart. He was to act as a person, but that didn´t change he was a Pet. Just like Sann and the many others inside. They looked at him with envy and resentment, but Sann...Sann didn´t. Despite the scars on his neck and the rest of his body; the sadness behind his eyes, he still would let him hold his hand and smile at fireworks. The pleasant memories of his time with Zarai began to pop into his mind like the blue and yellow and red lights shining in the night sky.

How could he even change that for him if he couldn´t be free from it himself?

Albus felt Sann tap on his shoulder and he turned, only to find him smiling at him holding the rose of his chest and gently put it on him. He blinked perplexed at the rose, now on his chest, before his eyes found him shrugging playfully.

“Gift. For you” Sann signed as he watched Albus take out his small notebook and pen and extend it for him. It took him a second, but Sann pulled it up so Albus could read it.

“My Master can be very explosive, but he´s a man of his word. He promised me he would give me a bouquet of roses if I could stand the burns…“ Albus eyes widened in horror before Sann smiled again and tapped on the note, urging him to continue “I only got one flower, but do you like it?”

Albus was speechless for a long moment that made Sann tense up and shrink into his shoulders. Albus hand gently guided him to look at him again.

“I love it” he said as Sann´s face lit up “But, the best gift you can give me is your smile” at that, Sann´s cheeks flared up. “S-So, please, don´t do something like that for me ever again. Please...” Sann was stunned by his words and only could looked down as Albus let down his hand and Sann noticed the wild blush expanding on the albino´s cheeks, right before he felt a shock on his neck.

Sann wheezed, bent over the balcony, before he felt yet another shock. As he gasped for air, Sann worried if his Master was hidden in the shadows. The terror of it being true made him step forward, a primal fear screaming at him to rush to his side. 

“Wait!” Albus caught his wrist before he could run off. Sann stared at him for a second, heart drumming loudly in fear, agitated, so much more than the composure the albino put as front to his worry as he looked up at him could calm him. Ruby eyes full of determination nailed on him through long, white eyelashes. “Before you go, can I give you a kiss?”

Sann was thrown off the loop and glared back inside, darting his eyes through the crowd in fear of another shock, but when he felt Albus hand on his, his heart eased.

He asked.

He asked a toy like him who couldn´t say no.

Sann returned the squeeze and took one step closer. His hands were small and thin, a bit rough around the edges but so soft. Sann looked at his lips and waited for them to seal with his, but to his surprise, Albus pulled his hand and pressed his lips into his knuckles. 

It was a light kiss. Soft and soothing, Sann´s heart melted when he didn´t step closer to kiss him somewhere else and instead only saw Albus pull away.

“See you later” 

Sann stared at him for a moment, longing for more, but as Albus let go whispering, “Take care” he knew he couldn´t be greedy. He had to hang on to it until there was a chance they could meet again.

His Master glared at him when he came running to kneel besides him and then tugged on his collar, lifting his chin up as he checked his chest pocket and found it empty.  He gripped on either side of his cheeks and pressed just enough on his throat with a severe look on his eyes that made Sann recoil before he clipped his leash to his collar and took him outside. 

Sann slowed down when they passed through the security line to return the shock collar, but when the man only tugged on it for him to keep walking, he knew the collar would stay on that night. 

When the man opened the trunk for him to crawl and sit on, he saw something grim shine on his eyes. 

“Where did your rose go?” the man asked, stroking Sann´s cheek. “Did he like it?” 

For the split of a second Sann stopped knowing how to breathe, but the next he was leaning into the man´s hand, shaking his head and then tilting it as if he didn´t understand the question. 

A grin quirked the man´s lips 

[tendertenebrosity]

Part 5 of Illiam and Helis’ story. Masterpost is here, previous post is here. 

Taglist: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @doglover82; @top-hat-aye; @burtlederp; @just-a-raccoon-with-wifi    @sleepysnapdragonart

When Helis came around, swimming up slowly from the depths of sleep, it was to discomfort. They were sitting up, their back resting against something hard, wings flopped out to either side and arms held up awkwardly over their head. Their limbs throbbed and ached, and they were both thirsty and very cold.

Still blearily trying to force their eyes open, they went to pull their arms down.

Metal clinked. Their arms pulled up short, against something cold and hard around their wrists.

The surprise of this was enough to get their eyes fully open. They were sitting on the floor, cold, smooth stone underneath them, legs out in front. They blinked at their own clawed feet and their dirty uniform trousers in confusion before lifting their gaze.

They were in a room, low-ceilinged but long, lit by the clear white light of magic rather than torches or lanterns. A fire somewhere was crackling. There were no windows.

Helis could see a door to the left, a set of heavy bookshelves and a scroll rack to their right. They craned their neck and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull their wrists free of whatever was holding them up above their head. They seemed to be sitting with their back against the leg of a solid wooden table that took up a large portion of the centre of the room, their wrists affixed to the edge of the table somehow. Moving made the ache of their wing and shoulder joints worse. Metal clinked again.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Helis jerked, looking around them wildly. Their wings tensed, long white feathers sweeping against the floor.

Illiam de Graer rounded the table, put a tool down on it with a clatter, and looked down at Helis disdainfully. He had removed a layer but otherwise seemed to be in the same clothes as before; black clothing that made him look washed-out and tired in the glow of the magelights. The collar of the shirt was loosened and his sleeves pushed up past his elbows.

He clicked his tongue in exasperation. “Inconvenient,” he said. “You couldn’t have stayed out for another five minutes?”

“Illiam!” Helis gasped.

He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “We have established that you recall my name. Wonderful. At this rate, we might get to talk about something of substance in a mere couple of hours.”

“What did you - what are you doing?” Helis asked, looking around. They pulled at their wrists again. “Where are we? Where’s Reed?”

“Improvisation,” Illiam said. He picked up a sheet of paper from the table and perused it, scratching the side of his face absent-mindedly. He made a face at the faint rasp of stubble. Was it only the light that was making him look tired? “Quiet, now. I’m working, and I don’t need you distracting me. I didn’t even really have time for the trip to Rosdan, let alone this.”

Helis noticed a bandage on his left forearm, awkwardly tied, with a patch of bright red seeping through the material. Had he been injured? While Helis was out? Or had they done that to him? They remembered kicking and scrabbling at him but they hadn’t thought…

Helis fought back the ridiculous, mortified urge to ask after it and apologise. No. No, if I hurt him he deserved it, he grabbed me. And he forced a sleep spell on me!

And he hadn’t answered their question. Any of their questions.

Helis took a deep breath, leaned their head back against the table leg amongst their curls, and tried to think.

They noticed with discomfort that their jacket had been removed, and the arms that stretched above their head were bare. No wonder they were cold. Their wings hurt - the sharp throb of a muscle pulled in Helis’ shoulder, and every joint ached. The feathers were uncomfortably frayed and ruffled, and one primary still dangled sadly from its shred of shaft. That was… bad. A broken feather would stay broken until Helis molted and got a whole new set, which was probably months. It had been a long time since Helis had damaged any major feathers that badly.  

Illiam sighed, and Helis jumped, but he wasn’t even looking at them. He turned and strode back to the table, this time the same side that Helis seemed to be cuffed to. He began to move things around up there, paper rustling and metal clinking.

The room wasn’t quite the same as other mages’ workshops Helis had been in, but that was obviously what it was. The walls and floor were grey stone, and something about the lack of windows and the feel of the roof above them made it feel like they were either underground or deep inside a structure. There were no big stone buildings in the Rosdan forest; the closest villages had been wood, and not large enough.

So obviously while Helis slept - they carefully ignored the panic that began to twist inside their chest - they had been taken quite a long way. How far? Why?

If Helis craned back and rolled their eyes up as far as they could, they thought they could see a faint glint of metal up around their wrists. Silver? Illiam wasn’t paying them any attention. Cautiously, they reached for magic, just to confirm it for themselves. There was nothing there; nothing but fear filled their chest.

Alone, no magic, somewhere very far from where they were supposed to be. Helis took a deep breath.

Calm down. You won’t help things by panicking. There must still be a way to fix this, improve this. Illiam was frightening, familiar but changed, impatient and angry and threatening. But Helis was good at talking to people, good at making people see reason, being nice until they were nice, too. They could do that here, couldn’t they? And he had stepped in between Helis and the Duke. Surely they could work with that.

“Illiam,” Helis said, trying to speak calmly. Their wings trembled. Be quiet, be reasonable, be calm, all people really want is to be listened to and reasoned with. “You, um. You saved me. Thank you.”

The noises of work from the table stopped. Tip their head though they might, Helis couldn’t see Illiam’s face; but his hands seemed to have fallen still. He was silent for a long moment before he spoke. “I suppose you’re welcome,” he said eventually, his voice flat and dull. “You really shouldn’t have come. You can’t say I didn’t warn you what you’d find if you came North.”

Helis fidgeted their claws nervously. “Well, Rosdan is neutral, so it…”

“It’s still the North,” Illiam said. “And I believe the correct phrasing is was. It was neutral - but I expect our forces will have it secured in a week.” There was an abrupt click as he picked up a tool again. “All of which is a moot point to you, as you are currently in Toralda.”

“Wh-!”

“I recall telling you to be quiet.”

Helis took a deep breath of horror, shackles curbing the urge to clap a hand over their mouth. He had taken them across the border?

Helis had lived all their life with stories about how bad things were in Toralda for people like them. That even the commonborn humans were practically prisoners to their lords, and wildborn were little more than property. That nobility did whatever they wanted and neither the church nor the government cared enough to stop them. Stories about terrible things, cruel punishments and harsh abuses that happened over there, over the mountains, a reminder of how lucky their family was, not ever a thing that Helis themself would ever see…

They took a panicked breath, then another, chest heaving underneath their shirt, feeling tight. Tears prickled and burned in their eyes. Why had he done this? This couldn’t be happening! Helis needed to find Reed and get home.

Through the haze of stinging tears, Helis saw movement. They looked up to find Illiam dropping down to his knees beside them, holding something in his hands they couldn’t make out that glinted in the light. His eyes met Helis’ for one instant before shifting away.

Helis sniffled, tried to wipe their face on the fabric of their shoulder. He was very close. They drew their knees up and leaned away as far as the silver cuffs would allow. “W-what…”

“Don’t do that,” he said, sounding distracted. “Hold still.” He reached up, over Helis’ head, with both hands. One took hold of their wrist as if to steady them.

His hand against their skin set panic rising in their chest. The last time he’d told Helis to hold still, it was because he was trying to cast a spell on them.

“No!” Helis jerked their hands, twisted against the table and tried fruitlessly to get their feet under them. “No, wait, what are you - ”

There was sudden, bright pain at their forearm and they shrieked, wings flaring against the table. Their elbow hit the wood with a crack that hurt almost as much as whatever Illiam had just done.

Illiam hissed, gripped their wrist tightly. “Don’t be such a baby, that barely hurt. I should know.”

“Ow! What are you doing?” Helis gasped, craning their head to try and see past him.  Their wing battered weakly at Illiam’s shoulder, and he ignored it. They threw their head back in frustration. “Let go! What are you doing?”

Finally, he released his bruising grip on their arm and sat back. They got a better look at the things he was holding; his belt-knife, and a little glass bulb filled with blood.

Helis choked in horror, going momentarily limp. “Illiam!”

He’d - cut Helis, and collected their blood?

They watched in shocked revulsion as he calmly, methodically set the gruesome things down. He stoppered the bottle, wiped the knife, and picked up a roll of white bandaging material. As if this was a completely normal thing to be doing, and not like a, a scene out of a trashy horror play. Blood magic? Blood magic was a thing that people actually did - that Illiam actually did?

“What the hell is that?” Helis wailed. They dragged in a breath past a throat and nose clogged with tears. “Illiam, what the hell is any of this? What are you doing? Why am I here? Why did you take me to Toralda, I can’t be here! You know why I can’t be here!”

He set the bandage back down, face blank.

Now that the words had started, Helis couldn’t stop them. “You can’t just - you can’t just cut people! What are you doing with my blood?” They shook their hand, making the cuffs clatter above their head. “What’s going on with this, you know I’m not dangerous! You just have silver shackles lying around? You used a sleep spell on me!” Tears ran down their cheeks, unchecked. “I don’t understand what’s going on. You can’t just - ”

“I think you’ll find I can do whatever I like,” Illiam said. His hands curled up into fists on his thighs.

“When I first saw you I thought -” They shook their head, trying to get tears and clinging strands of hair out of their eyes. “I thought you might help me. We used to be friends! I never did anything bad to you! You c-called me… you... ” They gulped in a breath. “And what about Reed? You didn’t let me see where they took him! Where is he? You know perfectly well he’s not a spy, we only came North to get the stone! I told you why we were there! Why didn’t you - ”

Illiam rose to his feet abruptly.

“What, you mean this?” he said.

He strode across the room, his stride short and filled with pent-up energy. He was out of view for a couple of seconds; when he returned he was holding the large chunk of clear stone that Reed had dug out of the riverbank.

He hefted it in one hand. “This is what you came all this way for?” he demanded. “This bauble, this shiny rock? How fucking stupid are you?”

Helis sniffled. “I -”

“No, you shut your mouth!” Illiam shouted, suddenly at the top of his lungs, voice bouncing off the stone walls. He spread his arms wide in a furious, violent gesture. “This war has been building up for the last four years, and you thought you could just flutter on over into contested territory like it was a crossroads marketplace! For this? And now you’re sitting there wailing at me that you ‘can’t’ be here? The fucking gall of you!”

I was doing my job, Helis thought, blinking desperately up at him. Blood trickled and itched as it ran down their arm. You weren’t supposed to be there.

“Well, you can shut up and pay attention, because even as simple-minded as you apparently are, I’m only going to have this conversation once!” He was standing over them, his hair pulling free of its neat tail, eyes bright and blazing with fury. “This? This is Toralda. I can do whatever I want. You are a hundred miles from the border and you are never going to be able to make your way back over it, so you had better start getting used to that fact. You and I are not friends. We are at war and you are my enemy, loath as I am to elevate you with that title!”

“But you -”

He lifted a finger, viciously. “Interrupt me again and you’ll regret it!” he hissed. “From now on, you’ll keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told. You live under my sufferance, and you have no idea how lucky you are. You thought I was going to help you? You naive little idiot, I have.”

Helis wrenched their hands against the cuffs. “This is not helping! This is - ”

He moved suddenly, violently; Helis flinched back against the table, but he wasn’t coming for them, he was turning, and lifting up the chunk of raw stone up towards the ceiling. He made a noise, something quiet and inarticulate and enraged.

The stone flew from his hand, hit the opposite wall, and shattered into countless splinters and shards.

The sound of it echoed through the workroom; Illiam turned around.

“Compared to the alternative,” he snarled. He looked down at them, hair falling in his face, breathing a little hard. “It is. You want to know where your friend Reed is? He’s dead. Because that’s what you get in the North when you poke your nose somewhere you shouldn’t, and don’t have anybody sentimental enough to step in and pull your ignorant Southern ass out of the fire.”

A few splinters had landed as far as Helis’ feet. Helis stared up at Illiam.  “No,” they whispered.

Illiam said nothing. His eyes were narrowed as he watched them.

Mindlessly, they pulled their feet up towards them, away from the pieces of conduit stone, glittering sharp and milky-white. They found themselves pleading. “But… but he can’t…”

“He can be, and is,” Illiam said, abruptly. He pushed a falling strand of hair out of his face, irritably.

Reed. Reed is dead. Helis tried to wrap their mind around the thought of it. He was dead. Their friend, who’d kept their spirits up with jokes the whole long journey North, who’d stepped between them and trouble a dozen times, who Helis had set camp, and broken camp, and cooked and slept beside for weeks.

Helis had been sitting here in this workroom trying to talk Illiam around and feeling sorry for themself, and all along Reed had been dead.

Helis stared at the ruin of the stone, spread across the floor in thousands upon thousands of pieces. Conduit stone shattered much more easily with physical force than an overload of magical energy. It was an expensive thing to break in a fit of temper. But we came all this way. Crestmead needed that stone, they wouldn’t have sent us into danger if we didn’t need it. Reed found that stone for us. They opened their mouth, and something like a sob came out.

This wasn’t fair. It was Helis who was supposed to be in danger, Helis whose life wasn’t valuable here. Reed had always thought so - he hadn’t been concerned for his own safety. But here Helis was, being told he was dead like it was an afterthought? Like it didn’t matter enough for them to witness it, or even be told straight away? Like he didn’t matter?

Illiam approached, and Helis cringed away from him as he bent down and reached out.  

“Don’t touch me!” they cried - but then their wrists came away from the table with a clatter. Illiam shoved their hands into their lap, still linked together with silver but no longer tethered up above their head.

Helis immediately threw themselves backwards, away from him, scrabbling and fluttering. They landed on their back with a thump and a surge of pain from their abused wings, under the table.

Illiam hissed in frustration.

“Oh, for - ”

“Don’t touch me-e!” Helis sobbed. They swiped at their face with their bound wrists, shoulders spasming. “Don’t - get away from me! You - you monster, how could you, don’t touch me!”

“Do you want your arm bandaged or not?”

Helis made no attempt to answer, and to their ragged relief, Illiam didn’t attempt to drag them out from under the table. Past their own hitching, sob-choked breaths, Helis heard him mutter something obscene, then stride over to the doorway on the other side of the room. He shouted something, out the door - orders to somebody else.

Helis didn’t care what he said or what was going to happen next. Everything was ruined already, as bad as possible. What did it even matter? They pulled their knees against their chest, pulled a wing over themselves like a patchy white-and-red tent, and cried for Reed.

[haro-whumps]

Group Whumpees 5: Tired

CW: Referenced/Implied noncon, shitty family relationships, faint from hunger, vomiting from fear, disassociation, slavery, aftermath of abuse, multiple whumpees

Tag list: @bleeding-demon-teeth @theycomeinthrees @redwingedwhump @whimperwoods @inpainandsuffering @whole-and-apart-and-between @whump-whump-whump-it-up @whumpingupastorm @newandfiguringitout @lonesome--hunter @looptheloup @icannotweave @cowboysrappin @deluxewhump @whumping-every-day @yeet-me-out-a-window @what-a-whumpy-world @burtlederp @constellationwhump @swordkallya @finder-of-rings @fairybean101 

Masterlist

He’d taken as many painkillers as his body mass allowed (and he was not a small man) but Galo’s headache was still going strong. It had been a few days since his aunt’s death, so funeral preparations were in their final stretch, the funeral itself the next day. Which, of course, meant that anything that could go wrong, was going wrong very presently.

“I told you, dad,” Galo said, rubbing at his temple with the hand not holding his phone, “After the funeral.”

“It hardly seems fair to me that you’ve got access to all her fuckin’ money whenever you goddamn feel like it and I have to wait--”

“Twenty four hours, dad,” Galo interrupted, which he knew was a bad idea in the long run because now he’d just pissed his father off but he was done having the exact same fucking conversation over and over and o-fucking-ver again! “I love you, I’ll see you tomorrow, goodbye.”

And now he’d done it. Hanging up on his father? A bad idea.

He turned his phone off.

“If anyone wants me,” he murmured to the ceiling, “they can have me tomorrow.”

Except… no, what if the funeral home called?

...He’d give it an hour. Enough time for his dad to give up. And if the funeral home was on the list of missed calls, well, hey. They’d leave a message, and he could get back to them then. It gave him a small thrill, defying his father like this. He was very good at keeping a brave face and putting up with his dad’s shit, on the basis that it was his father, and he loved him, and he also knew his dad could make things miserable for him if he responded in kind. But it was kind of nice to be the unreasonable one, for once. 

A very soft knock on the doorframe, and Galo closed his eyes and covered them with a hand. His head hurt so bad, fuck. And Nyla didn’t knock like that, hers were always crisp and clear, which meant the person knocking was one of the other four, and Galo had gotten… more or less okay at navigating around Nyla in the last few days. The others were still pretty enigmatic.

But. He couldn’t just ignore them. He removed his hand, sat up, and saw the last person he expected.

Lilah had largely been hidden from Galo’s view. He was more or less aware that the others were keeping her away from him on purpose, so it was something of a surprise to see her seeking him out intentionally, and without anyone else along with her.

“Hey, Lilah,” Galo said, voice quiet and gentle. He offered her a tired smile. “What’s up?”

“I’ve prepared the flower arrangements for tomorrow, Master. With,” Lilah licked her lips, barely a breath’s moment, “your approval, I will bring them inside, or remake them as you see fit.”

“Already?” Galo asked, pleasantly surprised, “It’s not even noon. Thanks, Lilah, yeah, let’s take a look.” He stood and crossed to the doorway, noting how Lilah grew visibly more and more tense as he got closer. He offered his hand to her, and she knelt and kissed it swiftly. Like he’d hoped, she seemed comforted by the familiar routine, and when she stood back up and followed after him she looked a little less like a frightened statue. Galo stretched his neck from side to side, wishing he had something as simple as that that he could look towards for comfort.

God, that was pathetic. It was probably a good thing Lilah came and grabbed him; staring at some flowers and a bit of fresh air would probably liven Galo’s mood. 

Auntie Bethany’s house phone rang.

“I should disconnect that,” he muttered, followed immediately by the thought, No, no you shouldn’t. Nyla uses the phone to do her job and you’ll need it if you ever have to contact them while you’re away. Stop whining.

Lilah was staring up at him through a loose brown wave of hair, her freckles stark and her injuries not as bad as when he’d first shown up, but still very, very obviously present. He offered her a smile, probably not as convincing as he would’ve liked, but this week had been a nightmare. He was so fucking tired and the funeral wasn’t even until tomorrow. God.

“Master,” Nyla greeted, floating into his peripheral and kneeling when she got close, delicately lifting his hand and kissing his knuckles, “A man claiming to be your father is on the line, Master.”

“Thank you Nyla,” Galo said, “That is my father, yes, and I need you to do something for me, okay? Go ahead and head back to whatever line you answered, and hang up without saying anything.”

Nyla’s surprise was the work of a microsecond, an almost imperceptible twitch to the edge of her ever-present smile. “Yes Master.”

Galo watched her slip away and then turned back to Lilah, offering another smile that was probably even less convincing. “Onward to the garden, eh?”

He kept an eye on her in his peripheral, figuring staring at her directly would freak her out. “Haven’t seen you around much” would be a quick way to get her scared and feeling like she’d done something wrong. “It’s good to see you” probably couldn’t hurt? But then, most anything could hurt, in this place.

“How’ve you been, Lilah?” he settled on eventually, nearing the door to the gardens. Nope, still a bad guess. Her eyes widened, staring vacantly ahead of her, hands fisted in the hem of her shirt. He tried giving her a moment to process his words, maybe give an answer, but he worried she wouldn’t even see the door until she walked right into it. Cautiously, he extended one arm out in front of her, and placed the other gently on her back with a concerned, “Lilah?”

She jumped and stumbled, which he was glad he’d expected. She landed on his outstretched arm, gloved fingers digging briefly into his muscles before she righted herself.

“Sorry Master,” she breathed, words hardly loud enough to hear.

“No big,” Galo assured. “Just got a little worried about you for a second there. You were about to walk into the door.”

“Sorry sir--Sorry Master.”

“You’re okay,” Galo said, carefully placing his hand on her head. Head pats worked for Nyla, once she recognized them for what they were, he could only hope they might work for Lilah too. “You’re good,” he tried, remembering that that tended to go over better. 

Lilah glanced up at him, surprised, and his smile was a little more genuine that round. He’d guessed right, it looked like. She glanced down, eyes wide and peculiarly unblinking, and murmured, “Thank you Master.”

He held the door open for her, ushering her out of the mansion, and he caught sight of the floral arrangements, all of them perched on the lip of the fountain in the center of the weird hedge crop-circle. It was a bit of a walk, but probably central to all of the flowers that Lilah would’ve been working with. And honestly? He needed a walk.

They were about halfway between the house and the exterior hedge when Lilah quietly said, “I have been grateful for the challenge and stimulation of the flower arrangements, Master. I have enjoyed serving you in this way.”

Galo glanced at her, then moved his eyes purposefully forward. “I’m glad. It can be nice to break from routine.”

“Master,” Nyla called softly, and Galo twitched, already knowing what she was about to say. He turned anyway, trying to keep his sour expression off his face. Nyla wasn’t at a point where she would understand he wasn’t upset with her. She pat down her apron when she got close enough to the two of them that she could speak without raising her voice, and curtsied. 

“Your father has called again, Master.”

Galo’s eye twitched involuntarily, and he rubbed at it, feeling the absolute last of his patience start to fray. “Figures.” When he got back in the house, he was finding one of those really oversized wine glasses and filling it to the fucking top. “Okay, here’s what to do now. Leave the phone off the hook, and ignore it. Do not hang it up, and even when it starts blaring the busy signal and fast busy signal, continue to not hang it up. Please let Evan and Greyson--and Sasha, I guess, if you feel like it’s a concern--know not to hang it up, and then go back to your day, alright?”

“Yes Master,” Nyla said, bowing shallowly and then twirling with an attractive flair of her skirts, and returning to the mansion. Galo took a deep, slow breath, covering his face with his hands, and then, for good measure, took another one. He dropped his hands and offered a terse smile to Lilah. 

“Now the flower arrangements.”

“Yes Master!” Lilah gasped, ducking her head and arms circling herself, stumbling as she first backed up, then turned and sped-walked like the world’s angriest roomba was hot on her heels.

“Shit,” Galo breathed to himself, rubbing at his face. Another mistake. He knew he had to accept that he would be making a lot of those, but it was hard to do when each mistake hurt or panicked the people in his care. His long legs caught up with her easily, and a concerned glance at her face revealed she was once again fish-eyed.

“Lilah,” he said gently, arm once again extended in front of her and his fingers lightly tapping her spine. She came to a dead halt, shoulders up to her ears, breathing shallow.

“Lilah, take a deep breath for me please. Nice and slow.”

She tried, it was obvious she was trying. Just not succeeding very well. “That’s it,” he encouraged anyways, “that’s better, keep trying for me, you’re doing great. In,” he breathed in deeply, loudly through his nose, “and out,” he let it out slowly, “Try to match me; it’s okay if it takes a few tries. In,” Lilah got closer, and Galo pressed his palm encouragingly against her back, “and out, there you go Lilah, do that three more times for me.”

She did, and it hurt, how hard this was for her, how scared of him she was. It ached that people could be so frightened by him, when he’d never wanted to hurt anybody.

“There, Lilah, atta girl,” he said, keeping his tone as gentle as he could. No matter how tired and stressed (and pissed) he was, he needed to look out for Lilah and the others, first and foremost. His own emotions could take a backburner, for a little while.

He turned his attention to the flower arrangements, removing the weight of his attention from her, and approached the closest one. “These are lovely, Lilah,” he praised. Too good for Auntie Bethany, he thought privately, slowly rounding the large fountain. “They look really professional; how long have you been doing this sort of thing?”

“I have arranged bouquets for Mistress Bethany’s decor for four years, Master.”

Four whole years, he thought, and glanced at her, keeping his nose pointed towards a gladioli. She was so… small. He was sure it didn’t help that she was curled in on herself standing up, hugging her own arms and staring into the middle distance with the occasional twitch and glance his way, before staring out into space again.

“Lilah, how old are you?” Galo asked, keeping his tone conversational. Idly, he pinched a dead leaf that had been trimmed, but fallen in between the stems, and flicked it away.

“Eighteen, Master.”

Minus four years meant she was fourteen when Auntie Bethany had bought her. That felt so, impossibly young. Logically, it made sense; that was about the age she’d gotten Greyson. Obviously, Galo didn’t remember that part of his life very well, given that he’d been preoccupied riding tricycles and singing his ABC’s, but he also couldn’t remember a point in his life when Auntie Bethany hadn’t had Greyson. God, when he was fourteen he’d been trying out for the swim team and worrying about his grade in history, and Lilah had been indoctrinated into… this.

Everything felt tired and heavy. He hid behind a flower arrangement opposite the fountain to Lilah, and tried to muster up some strength or courage or god knew what to get him through this. He was going to drink a very large glass of wine, and then take a nap. 

In an ironic twist, he felt bad for hating the fact that he had to walk on eggshells every single time he decided to do literally anything, around these five. But he did hate it. It was so hard, but he didn’t know what else to do, but how dare he feel frustrated when they were the torture victims?! It was hardly fair of him. 

He rounded back around the fountain, smile at the ready, and gave Lilah a gentle pat on the back. “Good job, Lilah, these are all perfect.” From the heel of his palm to the tip of his middle finger, his hand covered the majority of her back. She was so, so small. He started to walk past her, slow, telegraphing his movements plainly. She turned, but something must have gone wrong because when she listed to the side, she couldn’t reorient fast enough. He caught her, doll-like in his arms, but where he expected her to simply lean on him a moment to regain her footing like she had earlier, her knees buckled.

“Easy, girl,” Galo said, alarmed, kneeling down to settle her on the grass. “Easy, easy, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry Master!” she whined, covering her mouth with one hand, her other braced on the ground. She sounded like she was about to cry.

“No need,” Galo hushed, touching the back of his hand to her forehead. No fever, maybe a little cool even. “You don’t need to be sorry, Lilah, I’m just worried.” He stroked a hand gently, shallowly up and down her back (she didn’t have a ton of back to rub). “What happened there?”

“I’m--dizzy, Master.”

“Okay, do you know why you’re feeling dizzy?” 

She took another deep-ish breath, and it twinged his heart to see her trying so hard. “I’m hungry, Master,” she answered very quietly.

“Did you not eat breakfast?” Galo asked, brow furrowed. He moved his hand to touch her wrist, feeling her pulse there. A little quick.

“No, Master, I haven’t eaten anything since the last time you gave us permission--none of us have, I promise. We’ve been good, Master, please, we’ve been very good,” she pleaded, desperately looking his way once before returning her eyes to the ground.

…Fuck. Fuck. He’d had his suspicions, from their thinness, that Auntie Bethany had revoked food as a punishment, but he could never have guessed that their default was not eating until they were told to.

“Okay, thank you for answering Lilah. You did good,” he said, gears in his head turning slowly. “You’ve all been drinking water though, right?” Because if that wasn’t the case he had a brand new priority that needed to be taken care of immediately.

Lilah glanced at him in sheer terror, but he didn’t backtrack or rephrase. This question needed answered.

“Yes, Master,” she said tremulously, body tense.

“Good girl, Lilah. That’s what you were meant to do.”

She relaxed a half-step. He watched her swallow, and she nodded, just barely, as though to herself.

“You’ve all been bathing?”

“Yes Master,” she said with a shaky but improved sort of confidence.

“Good,” he praised. He knew they’d been grooming their hair--Nyla’s never looked out of place, and Sasha’s and Evan’s were neatly combed. “Was it just eating that my aunt made you wait for permission for?”

“I--” she swallowed, licked her lips, and took another deep breath, “--don’t know, Master, I think so.”

“Okay? Were there other things you couldn’t do until you got permission?”

Lilah glanced at him, panicked, and he held up a hand to halt her.

“That was too broad, let me rephrase. Are there things you need that you have to get permission for?”

“Just food, Master, and sleep, but, we go to bed when our owner does?” Lilah didn’t sound very sure of herself, scared of getting the answer wrong.

“Well done, Lilah, good girl. Okay, you’ve all done very well for me, and you all definitely deserve to eat. Let’s go get some food in you.”

Lilah perked up, staring up at Galo as he stood with surprised sort of delight. He held out a hand for her and she kissed it, which, well, honestly he should’ve been expecting. “Grab on, I’ll help you stand,” Galo redirected, and she placed her (tiny, so fucking tiny god) hand in his own. She was a little like Nyla, where she barely put any of her weight into that touch, but at least he could feel something there, unlike Nyla.

“Alright, quickest route to the kitchen would be… through the garage?” Galo mused aloud, “Or, well, the shed-garage-hybrid-thing?” Honestly why did Auntie Bethany even have two garages? Only one actually attached to the driveway, the other hosted the mower-tractor thing that Galo should probably learn the official name of and all the gardening supplies, but still. Half of the car garage could be used to store landscaping stuff! No one needed that many actual cars; the size of it was, like everything else here, absurd.

“Yes, Master.” Both of them were attached to the mansion, too, the rear one near the kitchen. Convenient, like fucking everything around here, huh? He held the wooden door open for her, ushering her in first, and rubbed at his undercut tiredly. 

She stumbled again, her hand shooting out to catch herself on the wall, and in doing so she smacked the handle of a rake. Galo shot his arm out, intending to catch the thing before it smacked into her, and the metal teeth caught him on the forearm.

“Shit!” he swore, tossing the rake to the floor and gripping his arm near the elbow. He examined the wound--shallow, but it stung like a bitch--before turning eyes on Lilah, who was, predictably, petrified. She’d been on the brink of panic all day, and Galo became instantly aware that this would send her into an attack. He wasn’t--it was all moving so fast he couldn’t--she looked so scared and--

“Lilah, go stick an ice cube in your mouth,” he ordered, loud and mercifully firm. It was a trick he’d read online somewhere, and he could only hope it worked.

Fortunately, step one of the ice cube trick: disorientation, seemed to do its job.

“I--Master?” she squeaked.

“Lilah, go stick an ice cube in your mouth,” he repeated, ideally with the same tone and inflection as the first time. “If it melts before I get there, do a second one. Go.”

She went. Step two of the trick: movement, fed into a person’s fight or flight response, allowing their monkey hindbrain to feel like they were running away from the threat. Galo imagined that actually being away from him--the “threat” of the situation--would help calm her down, too.

Steps three and four: tactile stimulation to ground the person in reality, and a forced kickstart to the salivary glands that took bodily attention away from fight or flight, would happen, ideally, while he was rubbing hydrogen peroxide on this and sticking some bandaids on top. She would be scared, no doubt about that, but hopefully, hopefully, a panic attack had been circumvented. It also bought him some time to think, which he needed.

He cleaned up his arm--ouch, it stung--and grabbed his box of protein energy bars. There were only six to a box, and he’d already had at least one, so he was relieved to see he still had five left. These would do until lunch time.

He went to the kitchen, where he found Lilah bent over the sink--should he… have instructed her to swallow the melted water? He kinda hadn’t thought he would need to, but that probably didn’t matter at this point--and Sasha with her hands on Lilah’s shoulders, bent over her in concern. Sasha released her and backed away when she saw Galo enter, eyes wide and afraid, and Galo extended his hand to her, high up near her face. Sasha had a tendency of going directly to her knees whenever he was in the same room as her, which wasn’t very sanitary or necessary or anything he was particularly fond of her doing, so his way around it was to give her his hand to kiss, but high enough up she had to stay standing to do it. Nyla and Greyson would sometimes move his hands in order to kiss them, but Sasha never did.

“Hey Sasha, here, eat this,” he said, handing her a power bar, and he set the box with the remaining four on the counter. He leaned his hip against the lip of the sink and placed his palm on Lilah’s back, making her squeak.

“You’re alright, Lilah. I know it was an accident.” 

“I’m sorry Master,” she hiccupped, crying, and the ice cube fell out on the last syllable.

“I know, I know, it’s okay,” Galo assured, rubbing a hand over her back and bracing her by the shoulder. “It’s okay, Lilah. You’re sorry, it was an accident, it’s okay.” She was trembling so hard, fuck. “Take it easy, Lilah, deep breaths for me, okay?” And she tried. God, she tried so hard, he could tell, and he stayed next to her, rubbing her back until she seemed more or less able to walk without collapsing from fear or her own sobs.

“Here, Lilah,” he said, handing her a power bar. “Eat this and go lie down until lunch, okay? You are officially taking the rest of the day off, no work until tomorrow for you.”

“Master?” she squeaked. 

“That’s an order, Lilah,” he said as gently as he could. She took the bar in trembling fingers and left the kitchen in a rush, and Galo rubbed at his undercut, trying not to sigh. Ugh, he really needed a hair trim.

“Sasha,” he said, tone even and light, and she still flinched, the empty wrapper of her energy bar crinkling in her anxious fist. “When you get started on lunch, make enough for six, yeah?”

She nodded, looking surprised but briefly pleased, and he surveyed the kitchen. Everywhere were trees and stacks and platters of foodstuffs, probably waaay more than the funeral would actually need, but eh. Whatever. He could afford to be a little wasteful.

“Sasha,” he said, approaching her, and her wide blue eyes stared up at him in terror. “I’m giving you a new set of responsibilities, okay? From now on, you need to make three meals a day for everyone, every day. You’re in charge of making sure everyone eats. Unless I revoke food privileges,” which he never would, but Sasha likely wouldn’t believe that, “you’re in charge of everyone having at least three meals. If someone’s hungry between meals, it’s your job to feed them then, too. Alright?”

Sasha nodded, and Galo let out a tiny sigh of relief. Good, it stuck, she didn’t look confused and wasn’t searching his face like she might tell where the catch was. Framing it as one of her responsibilities had worked. “I’ll let Nyla know about the change, too.”

He stopped her before she could drop to her knees by holding his hand out to her a second time, and she kissed it again.

“Good girl,” he praised, settling his left hand on her right shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. It was the spot that she was most receptive to, he was pretty sure. She didn’t like her left shoulder touched, and anywhere on the face or head was a definite no-go, but she would occasionally lean into the touch if it was on her right shoulder. “I know I can count on you.”

Fear was replaced by a starry eyed awe, and no small amount of surprise. He gave her shoulder another squeeze, and left the kitchen.

Aw fuck, someone still had to bring the floral arrangements inside to protect them from weather damage. He snagged a bottle of wine while he was halfway through the door, pulled out the stopper, and drank straight from the bottle. His nap would have to wait.

--

Lilah staggered into the kitchen, door banging against the wall and making Sasha jump.

“Sorry,” Lilah whispered, unable to see very well. She landed somewhere on the lip of counter between the sink and the fridge, fingers digging into the marbe hard enough she had to have reopened a scab. She could see the red. She couldn’t feel it.

“Lilah?” Sasha asked, sounding horrified, and Lilah could relate. Her fingers struggled to grip the freezer door handle, and it was even harder to fight past the suction and pry the thing open.

“Lilah h-honey what’s wr-wrong?” Sasha asked urgently, quietly.

I have to put ice in my mouth and I hurt Master Galo warred for dominance, each equally important. One was the order she had to follow. The other was the explanation for whatever was about to happen to her, so Sasha wouldn’t be confused when Lilah was punished on the kitchen tile.

“Ice,” Lilah gasped, crying already. It was worse, when she started crying before the punishment began. If she could hold it in until the first or second swing (she never made it further than that) then sometimes Mistress could be convinced that she was being sufficiently punished, and the pain was the only cause. But crying beforehand was a punishable offense. And Lilah already deserved to be punished so badly.

“I need to put ice in my mouth,” Lilah choked out, “I have to leave it there until it melts, and i-if it melts before Master arrives I have to do a second one.”

Sasha handed her an ice wedge and Lilah put it in her mouth, the sharp cold making her hiccup. It--disoriented her, stung, almost, distracted her from her fear for a moment. She didn’t understand what the point of this was--maybe Master Galo had a sensitive mouth, and the ice would become rapidly intolerable for him? Mistress had always come down hard on their knees, especially when her own were flaring up. 

If Master Galo planned on hitting her like Mistress had--

Lilah rushed to the sink, managing to make the couple steps before she vomited. Water and bile came up, plus the ice, and she sobbed once, daringly loud for someone already in trouble. She extended her hand, she needed to--

“No, L-Lilah, no, j-just get a n-new one,” Sasha interrupted, moving Lilah’s hand away from the ice in the sink and turning the hot water on. “You b-barely st-started that one,” then, quieter, “h-he won’t kn-know.”

Lilah put the new ice wedge in her mouth and watched the hot water melt the ice in the sink, rinsing away the bile as well. Sasha kept an arm around Lilah’s back, hand trembling on her shoulder, and turned the water off the moment the melted ice was small enough to fit down the drain. Sasha’s other hand came to Lilah’s other shoulder, and Lilah keened softly. She tongued the ice into her cheek and said, miserably, “I hurt Master.” Lilah choked on a sob. “I hurt him.”

“Oh, Lilah…” Sasha gasped, and Lilah didn’t need to look to know she was near-tears herself. Lilah wished she could stop crying. She wished she could go Quiet, but that probably wouldn’t happen until at least partway through the beating. 

Of the two kitchen doors, it was the closer one that Master came in through, and it took every ounce of willpower Lilah had to not throw up again. Sasha’s presence left her, and while it stripped her of the physical comfort her being there gave Lilah, it gave a different comfort that Sasha had gotten out of the way in time.

Except Master Galo was talking to her first, apparently, and Lilah’s ears were ringing high and whining. She caught the tail end, though, and it was a great relief against the wall of her sheer terror to know that at least, her fuckup hadn’t taken food from the rest of the group. Master was letting Sasha eat. It was just Lilah that would stay hungry.

When she felt his hand on her back, she nearly screamed, barely able to choke it back. He was talking to her, but some words were missing.

She apologized. She tried to obey. She tried to understand what kind of mindgame it was, that he was still comforting her, and not hurting her, but it was hard just to think, right then, much less puzzle out where the trap was going to spring from. 

Then he told her to eat, and rest, and not to work, and she didn’t understand!

But an order was an order, so she ran from the kitchen, stumbled her way to their bedroom and collapsed on the floor, door ajar and bed nearby but unable to make it there. The pain in her shoulder from where she’d fallen… it wasn’t good, but it helped ground her. It made sense, when she was so scared and confused like this. She sobbed into her gloves, curled up in around herself, power bar crunching in her hand beneath its wrapper. 

She sobbed for an indeterminate amount of time, and was surprised when strong arms lifted her up. But she’d recognize that scent anywhere, even if she couldn’t see straight right then.

“Evan!” she sobbed, clinging to him, and she felt more than heard him shush her, his breath warm on her ear and the side of her face. 

“Easy munchkin,” Evan said, setting her down on the edge of the bed and prying off her work boots, then picking her back up and settling himself up against the headboard, Lilah in his lap. “Easy baby girl, where’s it hurt?”

“Nowhere!” she wailed, fisting a hand in her hair. “He, he didn’t punish me at all,” she hiccupped, and Evan made an angry little “tch” noise. 

“What the fuck is that bastard’s game?!” he asked quietly, mouth muffled in her hair, and his arms wrapped around her so tight and safe, nosing against the top of her head, and she wiped at her eyes.

“Sh-shouldn’t call him a bastard, Ev,” Lilah reminded, her crying finally winding down.

“Yeah, well, he should act like a normal person,” Evan grumbled, gently tugging off her glove, and then prying her fingers out of the energy bar in her other hand, one arm around her at all times. “C’mon, lil lady, he ordered us to eat.”

“I shouldn’t be,” Lilah grumbled miserably as Evan tugged off her other glove, then shoved his (undamaged) power bar into her hands. “If anything made sense anymore, I wouldn’t be.”

“Yeah, well, the dude’s confusing as all hell and the rules are different now. At least he’s done fuckin’ starving us.” Evan ripped open his own (Lilah’s) power bar and picked up one of the chunks, tossing it into his mouth. “For now.”

“I think… he just wanted to prove he could?” Lilah said hesitantly, nibbling on hers so she wouldn’t vomit again. “He asked a lot of strange questions, when I was showing him the flower arrangements.”

“All his questions are strange.”

“Stranger than usual,” Lilah insisted, and Evan pressed a kiss to the top of her hair.

“I believe you, baby girl.”

“Thanks, baby boy.”

“Hey,” he said, giving a lock of her hair a playful tug, “Who are you calling baby? I’m an adult man, thank you very much.”

“And I’m an adult woman, your point?”

Because, technically, Lilah hadn’t been lying to Master Galo in the garden. She was eighteen--probably. Somewhere around there, at the very least. She didn’t know when her birthday was exactly, and she never had any reason to know what day or month it was, but she knew she had been born sometime in this season. So. Eighteen, plus or minus maybe a month or two.

“Noooo, you’re like, ten.”

“Jackass,” she said quietly, knowing fully well that she was saying a forbidden word.

“Baby girl. Baby.”

“Dickhead,” she said with a small, wet giggle.

“Itty bitty little munchkin.”

“Bastard man.”

“Precious baby angel.” She swatted his hand when he tried to pinch her cheek. “Sweet little cherub.”

“Asshole.”

“No no no, wait, I’ve got it,” Evan said with a snap of his fingers, and Lilah tilted her head, curious, no longer crying at all. “You’re my sweet precious darling little--”

She squealed when he jerked in and blew a raspberry on her neck, barely keeping her voice down, collapsing into giggles when he let up. 

“Terrible stinky man!” she said, grinning wide and shoving his face away from her with one hand, trying to wriggle out of his arms, which were very strong and holding her in place. “Awful little dirt gremlin! Nasty boy!”

He let her go, suddenly, and she landed on the bed with a quiet “oof!” He laughed at her, and tilted his head back to down the crushed up bits of his power bar, and she took a decisive bite out of hers, glaring at him. He smiled “innocently” at her and her glare narrowed, taking another bite.

“What’s up, lil lady? You look upset there.”

It might have soured the mood--her face was tearstained and ruddy, she knew--but it was Evan, so it didn’t.

“Yeah, I just have a no-brains for a best friend,” she retorted, finishing off her power bar and chucking the wrapper at him. 

“Hey, stupid and beautiful are a pair of traits that are in high demand when they’re together.”

“I’ll give you that,” Lilah said, crawling back up to the headboard and flopping her head down into his lap. “I guess you’re pretty enough to give a free pass. This time.”

“I’m honored,” Evan said sarcastically, finishing off the crumbs in his wrapper and letting it drop onto her face. She blew at it.

Evan was, about half the time, Lilah’s first and so-far-only real crush. The other half the time, he was her dumb big brother who stuck things in his nostrils to make her laugh. He was her favorite person ever, not that she’d tell the others that (although, they probably knew), and she could count on him to look out for her and cheer her up.

He placed his large, warm palm on her back and stroked it gently, easy on the bruises that were still there, on the scabs and cuts and scars. She sighed contentedly and sank into his warmth, into the comfort his presence always, always provided.

“I’m supposed to rest until lunch,” she told him quietly, soothed by the familiar hand on her back, “And then I’m supposed to stay here for the rest of the day.”

“Doing what?” Evan asked, sounding uncomfortable, almost-angry like he was ready to be mad, but not sure what to be mad at yet.

“Dunno,” she said, shifting a little so she wasn’t lying on the shoulder she’d fallen onto quite as directly. “He said I’m not allowed to do any work for the rest of the day.”

Evan swallowed hard.

“He asked me how old I was, earlier, before I messed up.”

“That bastard,” Evan breathed. “After Nyla went to him, and he told her he’s not gonna fuck us, now he’s gonna--!”

“I’ll be fine, Ev,” Lilah cut him off, not wanting to rile him up. An angry Evan was a stupid-as-all-shit Evan. “You and Grey always made it out the other end. I’ll be okay.” Even if the thought was terrifying. Even if putting those particular pieces together made her want to go glass eyed and Quiet. 

Evan lifted her and hugged her fiercely, and she hugged back, wrung out and exhausted, now that all her adrenaline was spent. She wished she had the ability to not-exist. Even just for a little while.

“Um, y-you two,” Sasha said, nudging the door open with her hip. Two plates were on the tray she carried, and both of them frowned in confusion.

“Sasha?”

“I’m, uh, in ch-charge of making sure e-everyone e-eats, now. M-Master changed the r-rules.”

Lilah took a plate Sasha extended to her, and so did Evan, both of them baffled. “W-we have t-to eat three t-times a day, n-now. Minimum. He said--said it was my job. A-and to feed you, if yo-you’re hungry between m-meals, too.”

Evan snarled, but it melted away into gloomy simmering pretty quick. “Guess that’s one way to see how quickly we can dance to his tune. Starve us for days then turn the rules on their heads.”

“M-maybe he’s, being nice?” Sasha suggested, sounding almost hopeful, and Evan leveled her with a flat look. Lilah subtly punched him in the thigh.

“Who knows. You go eat too, Sasha,” Lilah said, and Evan sighed when the door clicked closed.

“Can’t figure that bastard out,” he muttered, digging into the food.

When he left, he took Lilah’s plate with him, and she was left alone in the family bed, tired but unable to fall asleep in the middle of the day. So her mind went mercifully, wonderfully Quiet.

Next

[sofspook]

good morning!

|| Masterlist ||

i want to kill tumblr. i literally had this queued for 8 this morning, and it didn’t post. then I tried to post it manually and it deleted all the text inside. and now I have to go back and make edits. at least I back up my stories partially. hhhhhhhhh.

anyway. finally some background! this takes place directly after One Thing. have some fluff and a liiiiiiillll bit of sad.. !!

CWs: blanket warning for boxboy universe/pet whump setting, implied past childhood physical, mental, and sexual abuse, implied past withholding of food, and food in general

The next morning's stiff coldness was met with a strong, sweet smell of Swedish pancakes from the kitchen and a quiet sizzling of batter in a skillet. And Keith was no professional cook, by all means, but he did have that one recipe down thanks to his father all those years ago and, he figured, maybe he'd fix up something a little nicer than the usual eggs and toast to brighten the kid's first morning here.

Perks of having sold a successful company happened to include money, sure, but mostly the freedom and flexibility in schedule to take out a few years of working, in Keith's case, which meant he didn't worry about calls about credit or hiring and firing as he chopped strawberries. It meant that now, he could focus on helping people, and filling his hours with rescuing and rehoming boxboys. And making Swedish pancakes.

By the time he poured the last of the batter and finished up the plates with fruit and powdered sugar, it was nearly two in the afternoon. That was something he'd learned to plan for, though, and done on purpose, after having enough exhausted rescues cycle through the place, so when the new boxboy stepped carefully into the kitchen with his hands tucked up in his sleeves and pulled up to his chest, breakfast was still warm.

Keith smiled. "Good morning!"

He remained in the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, hesitant. Even with that bit of distance, Keith could see the fear in his eyes. The tightness in his shoulders. Lowered head, slouching to appear smaller. It wasn’t unfamiliar, and it wasn’t something Keith couldn’t help with a little bit of care.

“Come on in,” he said, nodding to the kitchen island. “I’ve got breakfast for us.”

The boy’s steps were silent, soft new socks on tile. His hands were drowned in the navy hoodie given to him the night before and so was the rest of him, all skin and bones covered in thick clothing that shouldn’t be too big for someone his age. At Keith’s gesture and with a little pause, he finally reached for a stool, and took a seat.

There were several plates set out. One had chopped strawberries, another had bananas, another with blueberries, and on another plate there were minced mangoes. There sat a jar of peanut butter and a jar of Nutella and two big things of whipped cream and some Ghirardelli chocolate sauce and even more miscellaneous toppings strewn about the countertop. Plenty of choices. Couldn’t go wrong.

Keith flipped a Swedish pancake onto the empty plate in front of the boy, and he flinched.

“Ever had these before?” he asked, and he was glad that the answer is a small shake of the head. Breakfast wouldn’t be accompanied by a flashback, then. “Well, the best part about these, is all the toppings.” He dished some onto his own plate pointedly. “See, you just- put whatever you want on top, and roll it up- like this. Like a... burrito.”

The boy watched with fierce, nervous focus. And then, he looked up, with a gaze that said What if I get it wrong? What if I don’t choose the right answer?

“There aren’t any wrong choices,” he assured. “Have whatever you’d like.”

And eventually, after a period of rushed thought, the boy did reach for a few plates, put some odd combinations together like mango and peanut butter, and rolled it up exactly the way he’d been shown. And then he stopped, pushed the plate towards Keith, and looked at him expectantly.

And Keith, who sat beside him at the kitchen island with a mouthful of strawberry-chocolate-pancake, realized he didn’t understand that no, I didn’t mean make me one, I meant make you one. “No, no. This is for you. We’re sharing this food, bud. I made plenty for both of us.” An afterthought, minding the way the kid tensed at doing something wrong as he perceived it, Keith added, “Thank you, though. That was kind.”

So finally, tentatively, with his frantic deer eyes darting over to check his expression every millisecond, he ate, and even gave in when Keith insisted he take at least another two and eat until he’s no longer hungry. Which, in any safehouse’s book, is a success. 

There was... one thing, though. The kid kept one hand under the opposite thigh the whole time they sat at the table. Keith probably wouldn’t have noticed, except he kept switching his arm, and at first he couldn’t figure out why he did that, thought maybe it was some sort of nervous tick or something, until he caught the pattern. Every time Keith moved to another side of him, right or left-- whether it be to get up and feed the cat or grab the plate of mangoes without reaching over him-- he’d switch arms. Why, though, he didn’t know. And probably, he thought, he didn’t need to. None of his business. 

But still. It was... odd.

---

\ @looptheloup​ \  @deluxewhump​ \  @burtlederp​ \  @lave-e​ \ @whatwhumpcomments​ \  @whumptywhumpdump​ \

[overobsessivewhumper]

Mutt’s new Master

This one’s a bit messy and not that whumpy. But there is more suffering coming, do not worry. I might write out a bit of Caleb’s time with Mr. Hughes if anyone’s got any interest in that (I’m gonna write it anyway, just won’t post it all to soon if no one’s interested)

Previous Next

Content warning: Reference to past abuse, idolisation of abuser

Tag list: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @burtlederp @im-not-rare-im-rarr @comfortforthepain @18-toe-beans @haro-whumps @deluxewhump @kungpao-giffy

Caleb wakes up to his own screaming an flailing, and eventually a sharp pain when he hits his head on the coffee table. Then he is his hit by the pain of all his other injuries flaring up in protest as he hits the floor. It also hits him that this isn’t his Masters house. This isn’t where he’s supposed to be! Tears well up in his eyes as he tries to figure out where he could be and where his Master could have went. That’s when someone came running down the stairs, wielding a vase in one hand, and looking rather distraught. But the thing was, Caleb knew that someone. His new Master, Gavin.

Oh yeah. That’s right. His old Master sold… no. Gave him away. He had been bad one too many times. His Master was forced to give him away. Caleb wanted to cry even more now.

His current Master was looking around frantically, still wielding the vase.

“You’re the only one here, right?” Caleb answers his Master with a nod. Gavin sighs, looks at the vase, then puts it down on the table that Caleb hit his head on. “For a moment I thought someone broke in or something…” He sits on the couch, and looks at Caleb. “Nightmare, huh?”

Caleb shakes his head. He still remembered his dream vividly. It was about his old Master. It was impossible for a Pet to have a nightmare about his Master, especially if that Master was as ridiculously lenient, good-hearted and kind as his old Master.

“N… Not… Not a nightmare. Jus… just a… a dream.”

“Oh… Okay.” He silently studies Caleb for a moment. Caleb looks down at his hands. “Would… you like me to help you back up onto the couch?” Caleb looked up at him. He knew that Gavin apparently allows him onto furniture, but it feels so wrong to him.

“If… if it’s all the sa… same to y… you Master, I… I’d rather stay on the flo… floor…” Caleb hopes his Master doesn’t see this as defiance.

“Oh… I… okay then. Want to talk about it?”

Still looking at his new Master, Caleb shifted, clenching his teeth to prevent any noise from escaping his lips. He didn’t want to talk about it. Not really. He’d dreamt about things in the past. How he’d been bad, and had to be corrected. He didn’t want to tell his new Master about how horribly bad he had been in the past. He’d find out himself soon enough. So he shook his head.

“Oh… Well… I can understand that.”

Picking at one of the bandages that covered his knee, Caleb thought. He knew it was bad to think too much, but he couldn’t help it, especially with all the things that had happened in such a short time. He’d been bad enough for Master to give him away! He couldn’t just not think about it. But he couldn’t change it, and instead was grateful for how kind his Master had been to him in their time together, and how much better he’d made him and how Master had given him to a new Master, instead of having him put down.

Carefully, trying not to seem nosy, Caleb looked up at his new Master out of the corner of his eye. His Master just sat there, staring out into the distance.

Caleb thought his new Master was… well… Odd. Not in a judging way! Imagine the disrespect! A Pet judging his Master! No. More in the sense of that Caleb didn’t understand him yet and it was all just so… Confusing!

First off obviously was that he wanted to be called Gavin. Caleb couldn’t understand why. And secondly, where were the rules?! It scared Caleb, not knowing whether he was doing something his Master permitted, or not! It scared him that his Master told him nothing about how to behave and how he can be better for him. For a moment, Caleb wishes he’d be back with his old Master. There he knew how to make Master happy, how he could be a good Pet for him and how he’d be punished if he was bad. But here, he knew nothing. Not even what kind of punishments Master would deal out. He doesn’t even have his collar or muzzle anymore.

But he quickly pushed that taught away. He should be grateful that he had a Master at all. Being a Pet in a privilege, and striving to become good for a Master is a gift. So that’s what he does. He gets onto his knees, biting his lip to keep in the scream that threatens to leave his mouth, and looks up at Gavin.

“Thank y… you for letting me… me rest Mast… Master. Wh… What can I do to… to repay y… you?” He focuses his eyes on his Master , giving him his undivided attention. Caleb’s old Master taught him that Pet’s biggest focus must always be their Master, and Caleb lived by that. His old Master was a very wise man.

“Ex… Excuse me, what?” Gavin’s eyes widen, and his eyebrows are scrunched together. Caleb has no idea what this is supposed to mean, so he just answers his Masters question.

“It… It is a Pet’s gre… greatest privilege to ser… serve their Master. Pl… pl… please let me serve y… you Master! I ca… can be very useful! Please let me… me be useful…” Caleb doesn’t look away form Gavin, not even for a moment. Gavin looks back at him, also not looking away.

“Could… could you excuse me for a moment?” Caleb’s Master gets up, and almost bolts away into the kitchen. Caleb hopes he hasn’t been bad again, but suppresses the tears that build up in his eyes. He knows that if he’s been bad, Master will correct him, and he will learn to be better. Maybe even good.

 In the kitchen, Gavin lets himself slide to the floor against the closed door. What on earth was he going to do?!  His boss had fucked Caleb up, and fucked him up bad. Gavin wasn’t good at things like this. Gavin wasn’t a doctor, nor was he a psychologist. Resting his face in his hands, he tried not to freak out. If he didn’t play along, Caleb would most likely freak out, thinking he’d been bad, but Gavin couldn’t just make the injured man… do work for him! He had to do something…

Caleb obviously wasn’t just going to… change his views of himself. Beating himself up about it hard, Gavin decided to find something for Caleb to do. Something easy, with no walking about involved. Cleaning was way off the agenda, and so was cooking. There wasn’t much to do…

But then Gavin had an idea. He got up, rushed past Caleb, adding a hasty “I’ll be back in a moment!” whilst going past. He went upstairs to his bedroom and started pulling his neatly folded clothes out of the cupboard and drawers, undoing his own handy work in favour of giving Caleb something to do which let him sit down whilst doing it. Looking at the mess he’d made with his cloths, he decided that this would do, and went to get Caleb.

The whole time Caleb went up the stairs (He refused to take any help and promised he could do it by himself) Gavin stayed closely behind the shaky, limping man, ready to catch him if ever he’d fall. He did the same whilst Caleb walked down the hall to the room Gavin had pointed him to.

“Can you fold clothes?” Caleb nodded, not looking back at him. Gavin kept his mouth shut for the last few meters to his room.

Once in the room, Gavin pointed to the bed.

“Those are… my cloths. They need to be… uh… folded. Take your time so that they are… folded… um… nicely.” Caleb nodded and moved to kneel down next to the bed. “Oh and I want you sitting on the bed.” Caleb gives him a slightly confused look, but sits on the bed anyway. “I’ll be… in my office. That’s the next room to the right from here. Just ask if you don’t understand something.” When Caleb nods and begins folding clothes, Gavin goes to his office room.

There he sits down at the desk and lays his head on the surface of the table. Gavin can’t believe he’s the owner of a Pet, and is actually making the poor man do house chores for him! Feeling like a massive asshole, Gavin opens his laptop and searches the internet for anything useful concerning trauma. Gavin just hopes he did the right thing by making Caleb do work already now.

[burtlederp]

Shelley, Salinger, and Wilde????

Thanks so much for the ask!!

Mary Shelley: Were you a goth, prep, nerd, or jock in school? I don't actually know what a 'prep' is? Is it one of the cool kids? 'Cause I definitely wasn't one of those. I think the closest category I fit into was 'nerd,' even though I was planning on going into art school at the time. I definitely wasn't goth, and I absolutely was not a jock, so, yeah, I guess a nerd.

J.D. Salinger: What was the last movie you watched? Hmm, last movie I watched all the way through... I think it was actually the Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)? It was fun. I may technically be a 90's kid, but I was late, so it's definitely a movie that's more fun for actual 90's kids. I wouldn't say it was a good movie, though lol

Oscar Wilde: What book have you read more than once? I have, very literally, lost count of how many times I've read The Book of Mormon. Over ten times, at least, I can tell you that, but I don't suppose I really count that? Alternatively, the first other book that comes to mind is Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French. Really fun book, really fun characters and story. Worth a read!

Thanks again for the asks, sorry it took me over a year to get to them!

Here's the ask game text.

[whump-it]

Callum; Out Of The Basement

@haro-whumps @grizzlie70 @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @comfortforthepain @shameless-whumper @iaminamoodymoodtoday @kawaiiloverofanimu @burtlederp @untilthepainstarts @my-whumpy-little-heart @whump-chains @pepperonyscience

TW for creepy whumper, knife play (of a sort), threat of death, catatonic-like state, restraints.  Stay safe.

Callum was dazed. He had forgotten the last time that he moved. He knew that he had had red days. He knew that he had had a white day. He didn't know how many other days there had been. Or what they had been. He didn't know anything anymore. His arm still hurt from the break and it hadn't been given enough time to heal properly in its makeshift splint before Master Hayden had forced more atonement upon him. Before his hands had been cuffed behind his back again.

There had been intervals that he was just about aware of when water had been tipped down his throat. When his throat had worked of its own accord to swallow and not choke too much. Every so often a lumpy mash of some sort of food would appear in a dish near to him. He couldn't remember if he'd eaten it or not anymore. He didn't feel hungry. But then again he didn't feel much at all.

He hadn't managed to crawl across the floor to get to his teddy.

He hadn't managed to move to relieve himself. He just wet where he was lying. He only really realised what it was because it was slightly warmer than the air around him. His lips were moving on his apologies almost constantly. Muttering it over and over and over.

Food down. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

Water given. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

A nudge with the toe of a shoe. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

A kick to the still- healing flesh of his back. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

A small and steady stream of drool ran from the corner of his mouth and dripped to the floor, puddling there where he lay with his cheek in it.

There were words sometimes. He heard them. He answered.

"Stupid wretch," he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," he muttered.

"Slow stupid boy," he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," he muttered.

"Are you even bothering to think about how you can atone anymore?" he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," he said.

"You're not getting away with it this easily," he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," he muttered.

"Do you have any idea how ashamed you are right now?" he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," he muttered.

Time shifted around him. Insults drifted through his consciousness. The occasional sharp jab of pain broke upon his body. He slept. He woke. He muttered. He dribbled. He swallowed water. He left his food. His shame grew. His desire to be good grew with it as his ability to do anything about it shrank and shrivelled within him.

"You smell foul little wretch," he heard.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..." Callum's words were cut off by the cold wet slap of a bucket full of water being flung over him. He gasped at the sudden intrusion into his fogged and stupid brain. He groaned and curled in a little on himself when the empty bucket was dropped on his head, landing on his temple where so many blows seemed to land.

"Oh!" Master Hayden cheered mirthlessly. "It remembers how to move!" Callum whined and rocked gently where he lay, the cold of the water chilling him.

"Do you also remember when I told you that it'd be a while before you had fresh air again?" Callum rocked back a little to look up at his master.

"Y...y...yes..." he whispered.

"Ah, so you haven't lost all your words then. You had me worried for a while." Callum sniffed miserably on the idea of Master Hayden being worried about him. All of his words were play. They were all code. They were twisted. And Callum couldn't get through their web to reach the middle, no matter that the spider at the centre was lethal. That was where he needed to be. Where he wanted to be. Within striking distance.

"Well then," Master Hayden said, crouching down next to him. "It's your lucky day." Callum watched as his master reached out to stroke his sodden hair away from his face.

"You've been very annoying you know," Master Hayden murmured as he twisted Callum's hair around one of his fingers. "But I have to give it to you, you've used your proper words. Sweet little shame wretch. Although you have refused to eat the food that I've made for you. Which isn't exactly gratitude now is it?"

"N...no...umm...no...no," Callum whispered, feeling his body pushing up just a fraction into Master Hayden's touch.

"You haven't atoned enough yet," Master Hayden said, pushing himself up from his crouch next to Callum. "So you WILL eat."

"Thank...umm... I'm sorry. I'm a stupid slow wretch...umm... I'm sorry. I want...w... want to eat... please," Callum croaked and stumbled over his words, unused to speaking so many different words in one go.

"Good boy," Master Hayden said. "Get up. It's sunny out. You can dry out on the porch."

"Thank you...umm...th... thank you Master Hayden," Callum said, slowly pushing himself up, the motion difficult with the pains that constantly wracked at him. With his hands behind his back like they always were. With the fresh dull ache in his head from another blow to his temple.

"Still insisting on being slow I see," Master Hayden sneered, watching Callum struggling to get up, wet and cold and restrained. Caught up with the effort of it, Callum didn't register the sigh of impatience until his Master's hand was tangled in his hair again. Always always always in his hair. He was pulled up shrieking at the pain until he was standing, shaking. Unsteady and whimpering in the face of his Master's dissatisfaction. Disappointment. Comfort.

"I'm sorry...I... thank you for helping me... thank you Master Hayden."

“Get up the stairs,” Master Hayden said.  “I’ll be waiting for you there.”  He turned around and Callum watched him disappear up the stairs, hearing him call back down to him not to be slow about it.  Callum stumbled awkwardly after his Master, unused to being on his feet after however long he had been lying down for, unmoving and stupid.  He knew that he was being too slow.  He knew it and couldn’t doa  thing to stop it.  His brain was incapable of getting his feet to go any faster than they already were.  He was terrified that the short chain between his ankle cuffs was going to trip him on the stairs.  That the only thing that was going to be able to stop him was his own face, which was one of the only parts of him that still bore no scars.  By the time he reached the top and stumbled out through the door, Master Hayden was stood sighing, looking impatient.  And he was holding a tray.   

Callum looked from his Master to the tray and back again.  It had a cake on it.  It had a glass of what looked like lemonade.  There was a box. 

And there was a knife.

Callum shook where he stood, still dripping water and letting little noises out that were getting stuck somewhere down the back of his throat.

“You took your time...” Master Hayden said.  “...again.”

“I...I....I’m...umm...s...sorry.  Sorry” Callum said, through little panicky breaths. 

“Hmm.  Well come on then,” Master Hayden turned and walked away from him, letting Callum trailing behind, leaving wet foot prints on the floor in his wake.  He followed along out into the sun and fresh air.  So fresh that he coughed on it.  It was so clean and clear.  No dust.  No metallic smell of blood.  Or any other bodily fluids.  It was so clear that it went straight to his head and he swayed a little as he walked towards the small table with two chairs that his Master was currently sitting at, the tray placed on the table. 

“Stand here,” Master Hayden said, his voice breaking through and into Callum’s jittering mind.  He was pointing at the floor next to the chair that he was sitting on. 

“Y...yes Master Hayden,” Callum said, standing where he was told, watching as Master Hayden reached around his back to unclip his wrists and drawing them in front.  Refastening them.  Still trapped.  Still confined even in the clean air of the wide open outside. 

“You can sit down now,” Master Hayden said.  “Sit opposite me.  We’re going to have a chat.  Now that you’re up and talking again.  And you can open that box.” 

Callum sat and glanced from the box to his Master and back again.  He didn’t want it to be a trap.  He was reminded of a jack in the box.  That there might be something in there just waiting for him to free it so that it could come out and terrify him.  Give him nightmares.  And it was right next to the knife.  A sharp knife.  And he had his hands in front of him.  There was a knife between him and his Master and he had his hands in front.  It was glinting in the sunlight in the same cold and calculating way that Master Hayden’s smile was glinting at him as he waded through the mental quicksand that his mind seemed to be made up of.  He reached slowly forwards, hands shaking a little, knocking into the knife as they twitched around the box.  He heard the small huff of unkind laughter from Master Hayden.  So close to having a weapon of his own.  So close but too weak to wield it.  Taking the lid off he peered in to see the contents. 

“Umm...”

“Oh the cake is for me,” Master Hayden said.  “That’s for you.”  He nodded at the box.  “Take it all out.” 

Callum reached in, slowly, slowly, his fingers brushing at the contents, unwilling to take hold of anything whilst he bit back on the surge of dissapointment at what he was seeing.  Touching gently on each of the contents, he eventually pulled out the little tub of slightly lumpy mashed up food that would serve as his meal.  He didn’t know what it was.  It could be vegetables.  It could be fruits.  It could be both.  But it didn’t matter when it looked, felt and tasted the same as it always did.

A roll of tape was the next thing that Callum brought out of the box, placing it carefully next to the tub of mush. Lastly he pulled an envelope out and lined it up with everything else. Master Hayden took the box and the lid away, putting them under the table to leave more room.

"So," Master Hayden said. "A few things for you. I'll take that envelope."

"Thank you thank you," Callum said quickly whilst picking up the envelope and passing it across, remembering his manners. Remembering his gratitude and his rules.

"You can be mother," Master Hayden said, not looking at Callum as he opened the envelope. Callum blinked up at him, nervous and unsure what to do. "It's almost like a birthday isn't it? There's cake, an envelope with who knows what delights inside. I'm sorry, have you gone stupid again? I said you can be mother."

With nervous and twitching fingers, Callum picked up the knife. It felt too heavy. It felt like a threat that he wasn't capable of bearing. With both hands cuffed close, he reached out with them, pressed the sharp edge of the blade into the softness of the cake, feeling it dip before it gave and sliced. As he cut all the way down to the tray, he heard Master Hayden make a sound of satisfaction at what he found in the envelope. As Callum pulled the knife up and out of the cake, Master Hayden knelt down at his feet and unhooked the short length of chain that kept him hobbled. His legs were nudged apart, one foot placed at each front chair leg. He watched while Master Hayden unpicked the end of the roll of tape and wound it around his left ankle, taping it to the chair leg. Callum held on to the knife, shaking and white knuckled while Master Hayden shifted his attention to the right ankle. His Master was there in front of him, head bowed and not looking. And there he sat with a knife in his hands, looking down on him, looking and looking and looking and doing nothing. He could see the entire span of his Master's neck. He could plunge the knife in. He could do it.

Except that he couldn't. He couldn't. He was shaking with terror and indecision and the desperate desire to escape. But he wanted to be better. He craved the perfection that Master Hayden said he could have if he could just get himself to stop being so very slow.

"Good boy,"

Callum blinked. Master Hayden was stood in front of him and his legs were trapped and he still had hold of the knife. He hadn't seen his Master stand. He had been too focused on the knife in his hands.

"I can see that you're finally starting to understand your place here," Master Hayden said. "You could be so much more than this perfect face." The knife was taken from his grip and with it his chance to do anything for himself. The loss of it felt too right and too wrong all in one go. He whimpered when the blade pressed to his lips.

"You can have the crumbs if you want," Master Hayden muttered. "You just have to lick them off."

The blade that felt cold at first press was warming to the temperature of his lips. Tentatively Callum opened his mouth just the smallest amount and let the tip of his tongue touch the flat of the blade. When it didn't move he pushed on, licked it a little harder. A little more forcefully.

"Keep going pretty wretch," Master Hayden whispered, bent over to let the words fall into the shell of Callum's ear.

He pushed on, more and more open mouthed. More tongue. More saliva. He groaned at the feeling of it. At the open-mouthed kiss that he was bestowing on the only thing that could have saved him.

"Oh little thing," the words in his ear. "You want this knife don't you? You'd let me do anything with it now wouldn't you? Do you want to please me? Be perfect? Do you want me to take your shame away?"

Callum moved his tongue to rasp across the blades edge, moaned his wants and needs into the action. Nodded his assertion. Whined when the knife was moved abruptly away from his lips and tongue. He was breathless, watching as Master Hayden sat back down opposite him, placed the wet knife on the table then picked up the envelope again.

"Do you want to know what this is?" Master Hayden asked.

"Yes p... please Master Hayden," Callum murmured.

"This is a list. I've made notes for you about how you can atone correctly. I've kept notes on what happened to Lydia and what you and your perfect face can do to make it right. There was a lot of damage."

"Thank you for letting me atone Master Hayden," Callum said.

"Do you know what's last on the list?"

"N...no Master Hayden,"

"Die,"

Callum blinked. And choked out an instant sobbing hiccup at the word. A garbled yell that he couldn't have stopped if he had tried and that he didn't even know was going to happen. He howled at the sudden movement of his Master who was out of his chair in an instant, grabbing the knife up and hauling Callum's head back by the hair to press the still damp blade against his throat.

"Not so keen on my knife now are you?"

Callum's feet were straining against the tape, trying and wanting to kick out against the pull on his head. He sobbed out huge gasps, panic twisting him up in knots. He screamed as Master Hayden pushed a fraction harder with the blade before, just as suddenly as it had started, the assault stopped. He sagged forwards, heaving air in and out, crying, his face wet.

"It's time you started to pull your weight around here wretch," Master Hayden said, calmly sitting back down, putting the knife back on the table and picking up his slice of cake like nothing had happened. Like Callum wasn't sitting opposite him with his legs taped to a chair, his hands cuffed, his chest heaving and panting and his voice still cracking over sobs.

"Rule nine,"

"Uh...umm...Mmmm...Mast...Master Hayden d...d... does not uhh...umm... appreciate whin... whinging," Callum managed to force the words out in between shaky breaths and tears.

"Hmmm," Master Hayden looked at him. Callum lifted his head slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of his Master's calmly smiling face.

"Well eat up," Master Hayden said. "It's a lovely day for eating outside."

[ashintheairlikesnow]

would love to see the first time chris and kauri are introduced and how they become closer!!

CW: Vague references to past dubcon/noncon, vague references to conditioning

This is enough Kauri that I’m tagging both boys’ lists all at once:  @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,  @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @stxckfxck , @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout

“He’s back,” Jake says, staring through the window towards the backyard. Chris sits up a little, frowning, looking from Nat, who gives a world-weary smile and tucks a bit of brown hair back behind her ear, to Jake, who gives an even world-wearier sigh and lets the curtain drop.

“Don’t sigh like that in front of him, you’ll scare him off,” Nat says, with a hint of affection in her voice. “You know how he is.”

“Does he know how he is?” Jake asks, and Chris wants to ask, who? But he’s not brave enough yet. All he does is curl up tighter on the couch, swathed in Jake’s big sweatshirt, swaying gently side to side, just feeling the soft fleece lining warm against his skin from the inside out. The slight brush of fabric over his bare skin feels good, gentle and soothing, so he keeps swaying, and no one tells him to stop.

He’s been waiting for them to tell him to stop for days, but each new thing - he tapped on the table, he let himself rock a little bit one morning - they don’t say stop at all. They just ask if he is okay, or needs anything, sometimes, and if he says no they act like he’s not doing it or maybe like doing it isn’t something he has to be afraid of anymore.

So today, he’s trying swaying. 

No one stops that, either.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Jake says, giving Nat a raised eyebrow. He’s got his hands in his back pockets now, where Chris would like his hands to be sometimes, but they had a talk about that and he doesn’t have to - isn’t supposed to - be good here, not like that. 

“I’m not,” Nat answers, giving Jake an impish little smile, showing a crooked tooth on one side, just slightly off compared to the others. “I got a call about three hours ago.”

From who? Chris doesn’t ask, but he wonders.

Jake huffs half-silent laughter, shaking his head. “D’you ever wonder why he keeps going back-”

“I know why.” Nat’s voice is quiet, but there’s a warning there, and Jake seems to understand what Chris doesn’t, because he nods, just slightly.

“How long ‘til he stops?”

“Hopefully he doesn’t,” Nat says, brusque now, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel as she steps out of Chris’s sight, heading for the back door. “If he stops going to him, he’ll stop coming here, too.”

“How d’you know that?” Jake asks, leaning around the corner himself. 

Chris wants to beg someone to tell him who they are talking about already, but it’s not his place. He’s only been here a little while. All he does is close his eyes and focus on the shift of the fleece over his elbow as he moves his arm, back and forth, back and forth. 

“Because if he stops coming somewhere he feels safe...” Nat says softly, almost too softly for Chris to hear. He can’t see her face and her emotions are held too deeply under her skin for the voice to mean much to him. “If he does that, Jake... that means he’s done.”

“With what?”

“Trying.”

The backdoor smacks open a second later, and Chris flinches at the sudden burst of noise, pulling his arms inside Jake’s big sweatshirt and hunching his shoulders, looking worriedly towards the kitchen, where the sound came from. 

“Kauri, it’s good to see you,” Nat says warmly, and there’s a pause. Chris closes his eyes, they are probably hugging. He has to be careful when he hugs because he doesn’t know how to not do other things, too. 

“Just here for a night or two,” A voice he doesn’t know yet says brightly. There’s a thump, and then the sound of a zipper. Chris listens with rapt attention as an odd clicking noise starts up, and then the new voice whispers something.

Footsteps. Another pause.

“Stay longer,” Jake says, softly.

“Can’t,” The new person replies, a little muffled. They’re definitely hugging. Something twists inside Chris’s chest, a hint of discomfort he doesn’t have a name for. Why are they hugging? “You know me. I’m hopeless.”

“Kauri-”

“I’m kidding, Jake. I can’t because, believe it or not, I have something to do in two days.”

“What is something, exactly?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The man’s voice slips into effortless flirtation, and Chris feels his teeth set together a little harder than they need to. He can do that voice too, just like that. Tilt his head and look up just a little from under his eyelashes, he’s so good at that, but Jake doesn’t want that from him.

“Gonna guess that means you don’t have anything and you’re just avoiding him, huh?” Jake’s own reply is flat, and Chris fights back the urge to give a little smile, because if the man was flirting with him, it didn’t work at all.

“Okay, fine, you got me. I’m avoiding a fight.”

“One you already had, or one you’re about to have?”

“Um, kind of both.”

“Kauri, for fuck’s sake-”

“Jake. The fight was my fault, I said I was sorry, I left. Let it go. It’s fine.”

“If it was fine, you wouldn’t have left. I just want-”

“I know. And thanks. But I’m fine. When am I not fine?” 

“Kauri, when the fuck are you fine?”

The Kauri-voice laughs instead of answering, and then he comes around the corner and the first thing Chris thinks is that his voice is surprisingly deep for the skinny, shortish man who is suddenly in his view, pretty with wide blue eyes and a mess of black curls that seem to defy gravity, wearing an unzipped hoodie over a t-shirt and jeans, looking every inch like the kind of person Chris wishes so badly he could be.

Kauri sees him on the couch and stops, blinking at him. “You got a new one of us?” He asks, surprise obvious in every line of his face, his posture. 

Chris pulls himself himself a little more, lets his hair fall in front of his eyes, blurred copper to cut the new person apart into an eye, the curve of a jaw, the faded image printed on the t-shirt that looks as old as he is. 

“A new... oh, yeah.” Jake moves around behind him, comically tall compared to Kauri, and gives Chris a warm smile. “Chris, this is Kauri. He kind of comes and goes, but I promise he’s not a total ass. Kauri, this is Chris, he just got here.”

Kauri watches him with unease, and Chris stares back with real nervousness. There’s a beat of silence, and then Kauri asks, voice pitched low, “Is... is he-”

“Yeah,” Jake says, softly. “He is. We don’t know by how much.”

Kauri’s face twists, in an expression that mars the pretty face with disgust. “But-”

“I know. But here he is.”

Kauri swallows - Chris can see his Adam’s apple shift, watches him cross his arms in front of himself uncomfortably. “Looking at him... was he... he was a-”

“Yes.” Jake’s voice darkens slightly. “He was. We’re not sure for how long, or for who.” Chris wants to sink into the couch cushion at the darkness in that voice, the barely-concealed anger lacing the tone, until the floor opens up and swallows him and he sinks into the earth. 

Kauri nods, pauses, and then nods again, like he’s convincing himself of something, before he takes one step forwards and then another. “That’s kind of funny,” He says, with the tone of someone who knows what he’s about to say isn’t funny at all. “I never met another one while I was-... when I was, before. I, I mean, I met another pet... but not... never mind. Now I meet you, huh?” 

Chris leans slowly back against the couch cushions as Kauri gets closer, watching him with green eyes that follow every movement, in perfect stillness and silence. 

Except for one hand he’s pulled all the way inside his sleep, tapping with relentless speed against his own stomach, hidden from them all. Each tap against his own skin is a gentle soothe, a rush of reassurance, a reminder that he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay.

“Kauri’s safe, Chris, I promise,” Jake says, moving over to sit next to Chris on the couch, putting a hand against his back. The warm weight makes Chris feel better, cared for. Cared about. He raises his eyes to look back at Kauri as the other boy stops in front of him and then drops down into a crouch, so Chris has to look down now. “He used to be a Romantic, too.”

Chris’s lips part, slightly, and he takes in the way that Kauri moves in a whole new light, the casual grace, the way his head tilts slightly to the side as he looks at Chris, and Chris unconsciously mirrors the motion.

“I was,” Kauri says, gently. Like Chris is an animal who might spook or run if he speaks any louder than that. 

He’s not entirely wrong. Chris wants to bolt, but instead he presses himself into Jake’s side, and feels a thrill when the older man just slips an arm around him and holds on instead of pushing him away. 

“What... what, what are you, you you-you now?” Chris asks, barely breathing. 

Even living here with the other ones, it never occurred to him to think about there being an after. This new person, this Kauri, is living an after.

Kauri and Jake meet eyes, for just a second. Jake shakes his head, imperceptibly, then Kauri’s blue eyes are back on Chris’s green.

Kauri gives him a sweet, slightly one-sided smile. “Whatever the fuck I want to be,” He answers, in a low voice. “Eventually. I’m getting there. It’s taking me a while, but Nat’s patient and Jake has to do whatever she says-”

“Hey now,” Jake says in warning, humor in his tone, and the two of them share a smile, and the smile makes Chris’s chest all twisted up and strange again. He doesn’t want them to smile that way at each other. He doesn’t like it.

“Do... do you, you live here?” Chris asks, softly. 

“Nat wishes I did,” Kauri answers, then shakes his head, and Chris watches the wild curls shift and move as well, a little shaggy and overgrown. It’s the kind of hair you want to bury your hands in, Chris thinks with a strange detachment, a train that runs its own track entirely separate from the others. A darker track. A track that leads down into the everything he was ever trained to do. “But no. I don’t live anywhere.”

“Why... why not?”

Kauri blinks, as if he’s never thought of that question before. Then he just shoots Chris the same sunny smile he was giving Jake before, pops back up to his feet, and Chris feels like the moment where they saw each other is gone, and he badly wants it back. Somehow his question was the wrong one. 

“Because a place to live is just a place they don’t let you leave,” Kauri says, without looking at him, staring out the window at the sidewalk

“Kauri.” Nat, standing in the doorway, crosses her arms just under her chest and leans against the doorframe. “That’s not how it works and you know it.”

“Do I?” Kauri tries the dizzying smile on her but she doesn’t fall for it, either, only giving him the faintest little quirk of her lips. 

“Yes, Kauri. You do.”

“Hey, don’t gang up on me, now,” Kauri says, but Chris feels a sudden tension in the room, a nervousness that comes off of Kauri in waves. “I’m just meeting someone new, give me a break.” He turns back to Chris and gives him a smile, like they’re in on this together. “Right? We should talk and get to know each other.”

Nat and Jake meet eyes - why does everyone have conversations without their mouths? It’s driving Chris crazy trying to understand the things they don’t say when it’s hard enough for him to understand the things they do. He frowns, swaying a little with Jake’s arm around him, licking at his bottom lip where there’s a little chapped spot that’s been bugging him all day.

I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.

“We’re still going to talk about this more later,” Nat says firmly.

“Absolutely,” Kauri replies, but when Nat sighs and walks away, back upstairs, he turns back to Chris and mouths, no we’re not. Then he winks.

Chris has to hide a little grin, ducking against Jake’s side with his chin lowered, turning his head to nuzzle into Jake’s neck. Jake gently pushes him back without a single suggestion of being upset at the touch, and instead gives Kauri a hard stare. “I saw that, you know.”

“You just like my face so much, you can’t stop looking,” Kauri teases, flirty, but now Chris can hear the training in it, the way he was taught to speak, just like that. Calm the problem, soothe the tension, use your voice and your eyes and your body to keep the worst ways to hurt at bay.

“Whatever.” Jake rolls his eyes. “Come on, come talk to Chris. He could probably use someone who knows what it’s like. We’re... trying, but you know the others are all Domestics, and-”

“Are they mean to him?” Kauri’s head jerks up, a sudden hard glint in eyes that have been soft this whole time. He stares at Jake, speaking evenly, strongly. “If they’re being mean to him the way the other houses are mean to me-”

“They’re not,” Jake says, putting up a hand in surrender. “I promise. We just don’t really know what it’s like. You do.”

“Yeah.” Kauri gives a laugh, but this time it’s bitter, and Chris leans slowly forward, watching his face. 

Soft and smooth, pretty and smiling - and angry, roiling underneath all the softness.

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Kauri rubs the back of his neck with one hand, taking in a deep breath, and then he looks directly at Chris again. “I’ll start over. My name’s Kauri. I lived with-... with someone for a while.” He grips onto the sleeve of his hoodie and pulls it back, showing Chris the barcode and numbers tattooed on the inside of his left wrist. 645898.

Chris glances sidelong at Jake, nervously, and at his nod, Chris holds his own arm out and rolls back the oversized sleeve of Jake’s sweatshirt to show his own, slightly darker tattooed barcode. Fresher, newer. 223499.

“Can I, I ask you something, Kauri?” Chris asks, and his voice is small.

Kauri hesitates, then nods, slowly, licking his lips and giving a soft smile. “Yeah. Ask me whatever.”

“... are you, you happier?”

“What?”

“Happier than, um... than, than than you were before?”

Kauri’s eyes fill with tears.

Chris’s heart drops somewhere near his knees. “I’m, I’m, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-sorry-sorry I didn’t, I didn’t think, shouldn’t have, have have have-”

“No, you’re okay, you’re fine!” Kauri holds his hands out, both of them. “I’m sorry. I just came from kind of an intense... he asked me the same thing, and I just-... he asked it differently and it wasn’t... I’m sorry. Let me tell you something, Chris.” Kauri moves back to him, back into his crouch, and takes Chris’s hand in both of his. He looks up at him, and Chris looks back.

A mirror of himself, only entirely different. A Romantic who isn’t a Romantic anymore, with no locked doors, who goes where he wants to go. Chris wants that so badly he can barely breathe, but he’s too terrified of the idea to ever do it. 

Kauri seems, in that moment, impossibly brave.

“What I need to tell you... the other night,” Kauri says, not quite whispering, “I got caught out in the rain. It rained and rained and rained. Soaked through all my clothes and my jeans chafed my legs and it was fucking awful-”

“You could’ve come here,” Jake says, frowning, worried-angry, which is Chris’s favorite of the ways that Jake gets angry. 

“Not the point, and I... I couldn’t be inside. It was, um,  bad night.” Kauri gives a shrug, tossing his hair, the same sunny smile. “I can’t be inside on bad nights or I can, um, feel him, it’s just-... that’s not my point. Anyway, I ended up sleeping in a bathroom, so it smelled like disinfectant and gross, at the tail-end of a park I’d never been to before, so I didn’t know anybody and I’d had a shit panhandling day, so no dinner. I was hungry and cold and wet and had no blankets or anything, and you know what?”

“What?” Chris’s voice is a whisper.

“If you showed me sleeping hungry, soaked, in a stinking bathroom while laying my head on my backpack... and then you showed me sleeping dry and full in Mr. Owen’s bed with clean sheets and warm blankets... Chris... I would choose the bathroom in the park.” Kauri’s lips tremble, like he’s trying not to cry. “Over and over and over again, I would choose that bathroom, choose sleeping wet, choose being all by myself all night over a single night more with him. I don’t know... I don’t know about happier. But he can’t-” Kauri’s voice catches, and Jake jerks a little, as though he wants to hold them both at once, but Kauri leans away from even the hint of an offered touch, letting go of Chris’s hand when he does.

Chris’s fingers feel cold, when Kauri isn’t holding the any longer. 

“He can’t make me hurt anyone I care about anymore,” Kauri says, almost firmly. “And that’s worth every single bad thing out here. And now yours can’t hurt you, either.”

“... who, who, who did you care about?” Chris asks, but Kauri’s already back up and walking away, back into the kitchen, and he never answers the question.

Jake watches him go, and his arm tightens around Chris. “Don’t ask,” He murmurs, softly. “Kauri wasn’t rescued. He ran away.”

Chris takes in a breath, and watches the wild black curls disappear around the corner. “Wow,” he whispers. “He, he, he, he must be very, very brave.”

Jake snorts. “Maybe if you tell him, he’ll believe it.”

Chris leans into his side, closing his eyes, pulling his hands back inside the sleeves, letting fingertips trail over the fleece. Cabinets open in the kitchen, the sound of water pouring into a glass. “Maybe, maybe I will.”

“Besides,” Jake says finally, after another long pause. “You’re all brave as hell, no matter how you get here. It’s brave to start over, you know that, right? No matter how you start, it’s brave to do it at all.”

Chris isn’t sure he believes that. But he smiles, anyway, just to hear the words.

I’m brave, for trying.

[comfy-whumpee]

170

@whumptober2020​ Day 18: Panic attacks. TW: slavery, dehumanisation, drugging mentions, implied parental abuse.

A request for @wildfaewhump​, who wanted to know more about Arden. Here’s the full story.

Taglist: @lonesome--hunter​, @iaminamoodymoodtoday​, @wildfaewhump​, @ishouldblogmore​, @lektricwhump​, @that-one-thespian​, @raigash​, @burtlederp​

It had never happened before. But then, it was only batch fourteen, and there was a first time for everything.

“170,” Pete said, crouching down opposite the teenager with his arms wrapped around his head. “170, look at me.”

He waved a hand, and the guards started clearing out the other trainees. Their reactions were standard, fear and anger and confusion, but this is...beyond what he expected.

The boy had shaggy black hair around a thin, undernourished face, and Pete knew from his recruitment profile that he was running away from his home life, spending hours each day walking the streets to avoid having to go back. He needed feeding, but he had stamina, and should be grateful for a chance at a life.

That was all Pete knew. It was all he ever knew, nothing else was meant to matter, but this time... He needed a little more.

With a sigh, he sat down, crossing his legs on the concrete floor. 170 was bent over his knees, curled up like he was expecting a baton any second. Pete considered him for a moment, and then laid a hand slowly on his shoulder.

The boy flinched, whimpered, but didn’t pull away. After a moment, he even looked up. Scared blue eyes peeked from his face, made bigger by his haggard cheeks. When Pete only smiled, and didn’t move, the boy settled. Gradually, his breathing slowed.

Pete kept his hand resting on the bony shoulder, letting it be a warm and reassuring weight. “That’s it, 170. You’re alright. Can you tell me what you’re afraid of?”

170 didn’t correct his name. Didn’t object. He didn’t even seem to realise he’d been taken captive. “Mm, I can, can b-behave, sir. I can, I can be quiet and-and respectful. I can behave, sir, I can b-behave, quiet and r-r-respectful, please...”

The words were fast and tumbling, but the repetitions clued Pete in. These were rehearsed. He’d begged before, enough times that the words came naturally. There was already a break in this trainee, made by someone much earlier in 170’s life. Perhaps the reason he was jobless at nineteen. Perhaps the reason he was willing to gamble everything on the chance to have a job.

“You’ll do all of those things,” Pete agreed calmly, smiling in reassurance. “If you don’t, I have ways to make you.”

170 flinched and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Pete didn’t know who put this into 170’s head, but he didn’t care. It was a way in. Not the burrowed holes of repeated conditioning, like the others, but a chasm in 170 through which Pete could stroll at his leisure. And the fact 170 was answering his questions - it was like being handed a map.

“You’re going to work now, 170,” he said gently, kindly. “Work hard, and you’ll never be hurt, never go hungry or be left in the cold. Can you do that?”

The eyes were wide with surprise, and then earnest gratitude. It was a shockingly naive expression. “Y-Yes sir.”

“Do you want to work or not?”

“I do, sir, I-I want to work, sir.”

And just like that, he’d made two months of progress.

-

170 was an anxious, but very dedicated worker. The Teacher praised him frequently. When 170 went into one of his episodes, where he couldn’t breathe even though nothing was wrong, and expected to die even though he was fine ten minutes ago, the Teacher didn’t shout at him. There was no insulting or hitting or kicking out of the way, as he expected. The Teacher cleared a little space, crouched down, and laid a hand on 170’s shoulder. With his other hand, he moved 170’s breathing in and out. His voice was low and soothing, and afterwards, he didn’t rush 170 back to work.

“I know that when you’re going again, you’re going to work twice as hard as everyone else,” he said instead, and 170 does his best to make that true.

And then, at the end of the day, the Teacher went between the cells with the water bottles and the bottle of pills. And when he came to 170, he merely passed him a clean bottle of water, and smiled, and went to drug 171.

Success was measured by those moments, the pause as he decided what to give, and 170’s relief showed he knew it. Nobody else had this responsibility. It was a few days before he realised that what the Teacher had given him...was trust.

-

“You’re not like the others, 326.”

Arden stood by the door, listening while staring straight ahead. The Teacher had been spending a lot of time with this one recently, and Arden wasn’t sure about it. It seemed different, a special focus that went beyond the norm. It seemed worrying.

326 hadn’t been drugged. That was the other scary thing. He sat in his cell and stared at nothing, but he wasn’t dosed to make him compliant. He just did what he was told and worked hard anyway. He could have already be sold anywhere in Arden’s opinion, and have as good a life as a slave would hope for.

But no. The Teacher was still in his cell, talking to him. Just...talking.

“You don’t need any encouragement. You know what your future looks like without me. I won’t need to drug you as long as you can keep that up. “

It was the first time this had happened. Arden felt his chest tightening painfully as he realised the Teacher had met someone else. Someone he liked more.

Arden would no longer be wanted.

-

“What are you doing, Arden?”

It was a certain kind of voice. A voice that said Arden, but meant 170.

Arden dropped the baton to the ground on instinct. 326 didn’t move, even to try and grab it and retaliate. He just sat, nursing the hand that Arden had hit. His head stayed down and his eyes stayed low. It was Arden who was shaking.

“He tou-touched me, sir,” Arden stammered out on realising the Teacher was waiting for an answer. “H-He touched my arm, grabbed it.”

The Teacher looked at him for a long moment. Then his gaze moved to the captive on the floor. “Is that true, 326?”

“No, sir,” the trainee said dully, without looking up.

Arden’s breath caught as the Teacher looked back to him, disappointment sitting deep in green eyes. “Good. Well done, 326. I expected no less.”

326 finally looked up. “Sir?”

The Teacher smiled, relaxing as though he had never been angry, although he was, Arden could feel it, could taste it in the air like the sudden quiet of birds when a predator nears. But the Teacher smiled. “An important test for you. To obey your owner, even at risk of harm. To be honest, not to fawn.”

The trainee blinked, then nodded, head dipping down in the suggestion of gratitude. Arden couldn’t breathe, but he turned anyway, and followed the Teacher out, knowing he would be reminded, again, how hard he should work to stay Arden, and not 170.

-

“Don’t fucking touch me you sadistic fucking shitstain!”

Arden looked up with a sinking heart. 392 was supposed to be having his dose, but he was kicking off for a fight instead, thrashing and biting the guards, trying his damndest to land a kick somewhere it would hurt. He always did this when they approached him, always looked for some way to ruin everyone’s days with his misbehaviour.

Arden didn’t like 392. He was scared of the man’s anger, at the rage buried in him so deeply they weren’t sure they could get it out. The rage exploded in every direction and Arden didn’t want to be the subject.

“Piss off!” There was the sound of fighting, bodies moving and fists into flesh. It would only last a few minutes, but fists on flesh always made Arden nervous, made him think of a distant past, or of the Teacher training him to beat down the captives, over and over until he didn’t hesitate, didn’t even think about it anymore, just hit whatever he was told to, however hard the Teacher wanted. Arden didn’t like that part of himself.

392 appeared in the doorway and Arden moved on trained instinct, grabbing him by the arm and then the neck, half-pivoting on a foot, and throwing him back into the cell. The guards inside descended on him again.

“Fucking freak!”

That one was aimed at him, wasn’t it? Arden shuddered, and focused on his breathing. He wouldn’t have a panic attack here, in front of the other guards. They would only laugh at him, at what he was.

-

“The problem was never 511,” the Teacher said slowly, his whole face lighting up with the realisation. “Don’t you see, Arden? We’ve been duped. The person pulling the strings was 510.”

Arden nodded, although he didn’t understand at all. This batch, though they’d taken a long time, seemed to be nearly finished. 510 never acted out. It seemed strange that the Teacher thought he was the problem. “What should we do, sir?”

“Continue as we are, of course.” The Teacher smiled, and Arden felt the same relief he always did, confirming that he wasn’t disappointed. “Keep a hard line with 511. Accept no disobedience, no reluctance, nothing. He’s gone, and we all know it, but it’ll keep 510 off balance. He’ll lose his focus on himself. He’ll fall too.”

The Teacher had been doing this for...five years, since Arden had come to him, anyway. He knew all the ways to break someone. Arden was just the tool he used. They all were – even the other trainees.

Arden had never seen someone who didn’t break, eventually.

-

510 was back, and different. He broke back down into who he was quickly, but Arden watched him in quiet moments and recognised the old steel underneath. He’d put himself back together while he was free and now he was holding on.

The Teacher beat him. Put him on display as an example. Took him home to be his wife’s new dalliance. Threatened to kill him.

None of it worked. When Arden drove 510 to his grave and opened the boot, the eyes that met his were intelligent, wise and steady. Clearly they hadn’t bothered dosing him enough to last the journey, but... This was more than just clarity. There was no disorientation, no confusion, and there was barely any fear. It was just 510, watching him from where he was folded into the back of the car.

“Hi,” he said. His voice rasped from disuse and dehydration. “Can we talk?”

-

“Can we talk?” Leighton’s gym trainer said, the man his father had hired to toughen him up.

“Sure.” Leighton dropped his water bottle into his bag and slung it over a shoulder. “What’s up?”

His gym trainer was one of the few people in his life that he actually trusted. Most people he met were his dad’s kind of people, not interested in weakness or emotion, more likely to break something than shed a tear. But Arco was cool, and let him vent about stuff on the treadmill.

“I know you’re looking to get out of your dad’s house,” he said. He didn’t know the details there, how bad Leighton had it, but he’d seen bruises. “A friend of mine is looking for someone to work for him. Odd jobs and stuff. I asked him to consider you before he opens interviews. Are you doing anything after this?”

“Mm, no.” He was meant to go home, but it wasn’t like he wanted to. The chance to earn money to get away was too tempting.

“Amazing. I’ll let him know to meet you outside.”

“Thanks.”

It didn’t convey the gratitude he felt for the impromptu, casually-offered help, but Leighton meant it. A chance was a chance. Escape was an escape. One more person in his life who would take his side over the old man.

He met the employer, got into the car, and never came back.

-

“You were abducted,” 510 said. His name was Ty, he said. He was sitting up in the boot now but still not moving, not raising his voice, as Arden had insisted he do. It hadn’t stopped his words. “He kept you at the compound, but you’re still a slave.”

Arden wasn’t sure he’d had a conversation like this ever before. It was strange. It was like he was the one in control, and 510 - Ty - was the Arden. Listening, responding, occasionally suggesting ideas. “I wasn’t sold,” he pointed out. “I’m an employee.”

Ty looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. “An employee. Do the other guards get paid?”

“Yes. I’m still – working off my sale price.”

“Do the other guards go home?”

“Yes, but, I don’t have a home to go back to.”

“Are you allowed to leave the compound?”

“Of course. I drove you here.”

“How about outside of work?”

“Well... He taught me to drive.”

“That’s work, Arden.”

He didn’t like this. It was prickling at his thoughts, twisting up his feelings. Was it important that he didn’t leave or get paid? Wasn’t it just the conditions of his release, of not being one of the numbers anymore?

510 didn’t speak while Arden thought. He watched, frowning in – in concern. He was so strange. Nobody had ever worried about Arden. Even the other guards just treated him like a slightly weird colleague, not talking to him much, passing comments about his role as the Teacher’s attack dog and nothing else. They all knew how he had come to work there.

“It’s better than being a number,” he said eventually. It felt like a pathetic blow. He couldn’t think straight, questions crowding his head.

“I’m sure it is,” Ty agreed calmly. “I can see that you’re grateful for it. But it is still captivity, still slavery. You deserve to be free. You could be free, if you wanted.”

Arden didn’t want to be free...but he didn’t stop 510, either.

“You leave the compound for jobs like this one. One day, if you wanted to leave, or wanted to save someone, save the batch and all the batches in future... You could go to a police station instead. They have an open case about the Teacher, did you know that? They’re looking for him. You could be helpful. And you would be protected.”

He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t even know what he’d say. He’d just have to tell them...everything, and hope they could make sense of it.

Ty was smiling, just faintly. Arden wasn’t sure anyone but the Teacher had smiled at him before.

“You could do it today. Right now, instead of killing me. Wouldn’t that be amazing? To free yourself?”

Nobody asked him questions like that, either. His chest felt so tight with an emotion he couldn’t name.

“You’re going through something horrible. You deserve an escape. If we go now, I can help you. I’ll make sure they keep you safe.”

Was this what it felt like, to be treated as your own person?

“And after?” he asked, and his voice was breathless, weak. It always sounded weak, like he was asking to be told what to do. One man’s orders had dictated his whole life for so long. “What do I do after?”

There was sympathy in Ty’s stare. No numb blank gaze, no spitfire hatred, no grinning defiance like 511. Perhaps this was how 510 had created the most difficult batch the Teacher had ever had.

“After, you can do whatever you want.”

What did he want?

He couldn’t breathe.

“I want...”

The words didn’t finish.

“Take a deep breath, Arden,” 510 soothed, and he sounded so much like the Teacher, and the world was tilting askew.

“I want to work,” Arden said thinly, his heart pounding against his chest. “I want to work. I want to work, I’m, I’m-m g-grateful to b-be able to work.”

510 said something else, but Arden didn’t listen. He wasn’t supposed to listen to the trainees. He got up, feeling the anxious energy build up, remembering how he’d been taught to let it out. He grabbed 510 by the shirt and yanked him forwards to the ground, and kicked him hard in the ribs. He wheezed, more words, lost to the noise in Arden’s head, and he kicked again, and again, a scuffing melee of boots on bones and heavy breathing, until blood tinged the air.

His skin boiling wet with exertion, Arden stepped back. He should finish it now. He knew 510 was meant to die. He should do it. It was his work, and the work was never done.

He was the attack dog and he was so lucky to be permitted to even see another person.

510 looked up at him, and his lip was split, his eyes were swelling, and his hands were mangled from trying to defend himself with broken thumbs and fingers. His voice was rasping, wheezing with pain. “I-It doesn’t have t-to be t’day,” he forced out, blood spilling from his teeth. He coughed, red splattering the dirt under him, and tried to sit up – but his arm couldn’t hold him, and he thumped down onto his side.

Arden felt very, very small.

“Y’can still save yourself,” 510 murmured breathlessly into the dirty grass under his cheek. “Can end ev-verything, Arden.”

But he didn’t want to. He wanted to work. He was a guard, an employee, a slave, the Teacher’s pet, it didn’t matter. He was Arden and he had to work.

But he didn’t draw the knife.

He got back into the car, and drove away.

[tendertenebrosity]

Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Tag list: @quirkykayleetam, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @burtlederp; @paradigmparadoxical @theycomeinthrees @miss-kitty-whumptastic, @looptheloup, @teachunks

In the morning, Galen seemed to be back to his usual good humour. Neither of them mentioned the previous night.

Everet watched as Galen walked out some of the stiffness of sleeping another night on the chill ground, hobbling in circles around the ashes of their campfire making faces. Everet wondered again about offering to help dress the wounds that were hidden underneath the red cloak, but eventually decided against it.  

Instead he gave in to the impulse that had been nagging at the back of his mind since he’d first woken up, and brought out the wooden chest with the Sword of Mercy branded on the lid.

“Hey, um, Galen…”

The mage stopped, glanced over. “Yes?”

“Before we set out today, could I ask you to do something?” Everet gave a self-conscious shrug and nudged the chest with one foot. “If you get a minute… Not to be, uh… pushy about this, but…” But it’s important for me to know if this is lyrium or not.

“Oh! Right! Yes, of course, give it here.” Galen held his arms out for Everet to pass the chest to him.

“Can you pick it?” Everet asked, shoving his hands into his armpits. “Like you did the wagon padlock?”

“Oh, I didn’t pick that,” Galen said absently. “I melted it. Well, melted and froze it.” He sat the chest on the ground and sank into folded legs in front of it, running his fingers over the lock and looking thoughtful. “I just don’t want to use heat too near the lyrium in case it does something weird. Give me a few minutes.”

Everet nodded, nervously. Of course. You melted it. “Remind me not to ask you for help if I ever lock myself out of something that I own and want to keep,” he mumbled. “Especially not, say… a house.”

Galen gave him a quick, bright grin, before returning his attention to the chest.

Everet decided to leave him to it, and went to tend to his equipment. He remembered that he’d once had an idle thought of throwing it all off a cliff, once he’d gotten away from the templar band.

Well, he didn’t see any cliffs at the moment. And it would be a waste of good steel. Stuff was expensive.

Not that it belonged to Everet, really; it had been issued by the Order and it kind of still belonged to them. It wasn’t like he could sell it… could he? Was anyone here in the backwoods of the Hinterlands  going to quibble about that?

Could Everet dig himself any further into trouble with the Order? Surely once you’d murdered two comrades, set a rogue mage free, and assisted said mage to maim and murder a good couple more templars, a little equipment theft hardly mattered.

He turned the sword, spotless and razor-sharp, over in his lap. Well, I’m going to need something to live on, aren’t I? So maybe I should sell this.  

Everet would feel… a little naked without it, he realised. He had been carrying a sword since his teens. Obviously you never went around hoping to use it, but it was there if you needed it, and everybody would see if and know you could use it.

Without one on his hip, who would he even be?

Everet looked up from his thoughts at Galen’s soft noise of triumph. His heart came up into his throat, and he rose to his feet to go to the mage. All of this self-pity might be for nothing; Everet would have a short week to lament the loss of his identity and his purpose before the pain of lyrium thirst was all he knew.

I wonder if Galen would put me out of my misery if I asked him to. That’s an awful burden to lay on somebody, though, I wouldn’t like that.

Maybe he can sell the sword and armour once I’m gone?

Everet looked over Galen’s shoulder to see what progress he had made with the chest. The side with the lock on it was warped and twisted, the wood swollen. Galen pried his fingers into the gap under the lid and levered the box apart with a protesting creak of wood.

The glow of the bottles inside lit up both of their faces with swirling silver-blue. Everet heard a whisper in the back of his mind, and without fully registering it he was leaning closer and closer…

“Maker’s breath,” he gasped.

Galen shifted, a startled little jerk, and Everet realise he was looming over his shoulder and probably scaring him. He mumbled an apology and dropped to his knees beside Galen instead.

Fat bottles of thick clear glass, each of them full of blue and silver powder ready to be made up into individual vials of lyrium potion. The lyrium murmured and whispered in the back of his mind, the familiar song.

Everet had never seen so much of it in one place in his entire life.

Galen silently laid the box in front of Everet’s knees.

“This is… this is…” Everet shook his head, lost for words. He reached out a hand towards the chest, as though that would confirm whether it was real or not. The song swelled in his mind and he snatched his hand back.

“You can use it, right?” Galen asked, hushed. “This is what I was supposed to get? It’s what you need?”

Everet clapped a hand over his mouth, pushing back a startled laugh. “Can I use it?” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “Uh, yes? This is the unit’s entire store! Enough for, Andraste… there’s enough here to keep that group going for weeks!” He stared down at it in mingled awe, relief and horror. What have I done?

Galen let out a quick, relieved breath. “Then that’s good… right?”

Everet tried to answer, and just made a confused sound. “Yes,” he said eventually. “It is. It’s good news. I’ll… I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine for a long time. But…. Maker’s breath.”

“What’s wrong?” Galen asked. He rearranged his skinny, scabby legs so that he was sitting facing Everet in the leaf litter.

“Nothing,” Everet said hoarsely. “I’m just…” He let his head fall into his hands, scraping through the short-cut strands with his fingers. “This is so much lyrium, I never thought… I thought I’d get enough to keep me for a few weeks! But we took all of it, I wouldn’t have told you to take this much! Galen, do you have any idea how expensive this stuff is?”

“Yeah,” Galen said offhandedly. “I know.” His dark gaze flicked up to Everet’s. “But that’s not why we took it. You need it.”

“I do,” Everet agreed, dazed. I’m not going to die. It’s not going to hurt. I have months and months to figure out what I’m going to do next.

I’m not going to die.

They sat there a little longer, watching the glow of the lyrium swirling and moving in beautiful, almost living patterns.

“Do you really think this is all of it?” Galen asked. “All that would have been in the wagon?”

“I think so,” Everet said. “I mean… I can’t imagine they’d be carrying around more than this.”

“Then… what does that mean for, um. Pursuit?”

It took Everet a moment to understand; Galen was more quick-witted than him. But when he did, guilt hit him like a sack of wet sand to the chest.

They hadn’t intended to, but Everet and Galen had just doomed the entire rest of the templar band to exactly the slow madness and death that Everet had feared.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, feeling like he was going to be sick. “Oh, Maker…”

“… Ser Everet?”

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want – I would never have told you to take – ” Everet took a sharp breath, and realised that probably sounded accusatory. He spared Galen a glance – the mage was sitting with his legs folded, watching Everet apprehensively. “You couldn’t have known, I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. We didn’t realise. Maker’s breath, we’ve killed them all.”

Galen gave a queasy smile. “If… they don’t catch us. Which they now have all the incentive in the world to do.”

“I… oh…” Everet winced. “I mean… they only have a week to do it.” A week, maybe two if they were strong, every day the need growing worse, the thirst, the head-spinning pain, minds unravelling into nothing but agony and fear. “But… yes.”

They stared at each other over the ruined chest and its contents. The lyrium notes wove in and out of the noises of early morning wilderness, making music out of the churring of insects and the whisper of wind through the trees.

They moved almost at once, Everet to climb to his feet, Galen to reach for the bottles of lyrium.

“Let’s get moving,” Everet agreed, shaken. “Will you – carry those for me? Thank you.”

They paused only long enough for Galen to tie the lyrium into a fold of his robe before setting off.

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

Broken Trust - Llyr

Whumptober: Day 12

Back for today with my only other pre-written Whumptober prompt! This piece came out of a random prompted concept and subsequent discussion that led to me spontaneously writing a piece that worked perfectly for today’s Whumptober. 

THIS IS NOT CANON. It’s an AU situation where Hugh finds out that Llyr is a selkie and most events of the canon story don’t end up happening. This particular piece comes after he’s stolen Llyr’s skin and has been harassing him for multiple months over it, threatening to expose him to the crew if he doesn’t keep quiet. 

Content warnings: Nothing much except for fear of violence and a tense confession!

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Llyr and Hugh have a particularly severe conflict, ending in Llyr running from the room they still share and the first person he thinks to go to is Ray. He needs to find a way out of this, and it looks like this is the only option left, as much as it terrifies him. He knocks on the door and when Ray answers...

"Llyr? What's- hey, are you crying? No, it's alright, here just-" Ray ushers him in and leads him to a chair with a silent hand on his shoulder, sitting him down as Llyr tries to regain his composure. "It's alright, whatever it is, just let it out. No good holding it in."

Llyr tries to laugh spitefully at that, but it comes out as a loud, desperate sob instead and he claps a hand over his mouth. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to trap tears in them, but they slip out and roll down his face. He wants so badly to say everything and get it over with, but now that he's started crying, he can't stop. 

Tears that have been repressed for weeks on end flow in a constant stream. His breaths heave and his shoulders shake with the force of his despair and longing. Ray sits beside him through it all, a cautious, gentle hand settling on his back, the other coming up to wrap around him when Llyr melts into the touch.

He cries into Ray's chest and nearly feels worse for it. He's the one about to betray him, break his trust, reveal himself as the fraud he's always been, and yet he's taking advantage of the last bit of comfort the man's kind heart has to offer before shattering it. He cries harder. If he never stops sobbing, he won't have to say a thing.

Eventually, he does. After what could have been hours for all he knew, Llyr runs out of tears to cry. He pulls back slowly, reluctantly, from Ray's embrace, letting his face be held in careful hands as his captain gently wipes his tears away. Looking into Ray's eyes, he can see the silent question there but knows he won't say a word. Llyr will have to speak first. 

He crumples back against the chair, folding in on himself as he looks anywhere but at the other man. His heart beats with a steadily increasing flow of adrenaline, quickening his hitched breathing and shaking his blurry vision.

"Promise... promise you won't be upset," he says quickly, his voice a wispy breath. Llyr flushes and hangs his head a moment later. That was stupid. That was childish and stupid.

"Llyr, what's this about?"

"Me," he rasps miserably, "Who I am. What I am."

"I'd never be upset with you for being yourself." It's almost a question, all the confusion at what Llyr meant left unsaid but evident in his voice.

He does laugh, this time, an incredulous wheeze at just how wrong Ray doesn't know he is.

"You know- uh, you know selkies?" His voice cracks. "Mythical seal people?" 

"Sure, I've heard of them before. Why..." The selkie watches the realization form, the suspicion growing into a conclusion as his eyes look Llyr up and down again as if he's just seen him for the first time. "Oh. You..."

Llyr nods hastily, pressing his lips into a thin line, waiting for the inevitable. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see the anger flare up, so he doesn't have to see the other shoe drop. Footsteps approach and he throws his hands over his head, curling up and trying to protect the most vulnerable parts of himself out of pure instinct. His shallow breathing is the only other noise in the room until arms wrap around him, pulling him in close against a flinch. Before he can ask what the hell Ray thinks he's doing, the other man speaks.

"Thank you," he breathes into Llyr's hair, "thank you for telling me; I know that couldn't have been easy, and you didn't need to say anything. I believe you. I'm not upset, and I'm not going to hurt you." 

Llyr is frozen. He can't believe the words he's hearing, can't take them at face value. There has to be some sort of catch. Catch. Like a fish. Or a seal. He might’ve laughed if it was funny. Llyr pulls back from the embrace and stares at Ray in disbelief. As desperately as his instincts need to find something wrong, there’s nothing to be found.

"If I may ask, why did you feel the need to tell me? And why now?"

Llyr sighs. This is the easy part. Some way, somehow, he's survived telling Ray and he'd rather not look any further into it than he needs to at the moment.

"Hugh... Hugh found out," he says bitterly, "He took my- uh, my skin. The cloak I had. That's my skin, and he took it; he's been keeping it from me and threatening to tell all you guys what I am and I- I can't. I need it to stop. I need it back. I'm sorry."

Ray frowns at that, growing angrier with every word Llyr says.

"Goddammit, Hugh," he mutters before taking Llyr by the hand and walking to the door. He speaks through gritted teeth and a forced smile. "Come on. You and I are gonna have a chat with him and see if we can't clear this up in a nice, civil manner." 

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Tagging the Llyr crew on this, ask to be added or removed!

@castielamigos-whump-side-blog​​, @insanitywishes, @whumpingonarainyday​​, @burtlederp​​, @pepperonyscience​ 

[overobsessivewhumper]

Naming Mutt

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Trigger warnings: reference to past abuse

Tag list: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @burtlederp @im-not-rare-im-rarr @comfortforthepain @18-toe-beans @haro-whumps

Groaning, Gavin lifted his head from the table. Rubbing his hand across his face, he groans again, trying to remember why he fell asleep at the dining table. Gavin knows there was something he wasn’t supposed to forget, but he didn’t feel like getting up just yet. Eventually he gets up to find something to take for his growing headache. 

And promptly almost stumbles over a man. A man that’s kneeling on the floor, a few feet away from him, and is watching him. Gavin almost jumps out of his skin, stumbling back into the table. Then the memory of last night hits him, and hits him hard. Then the fact that the injured man had probably been kneeling for the duration of his nap.

He rushes to his side, getting him off his knees as fast and as painless as he can. His legs give out under him when Gavin tries to put him on them, so Gavin scoops him up in his arms.

“What are you doing? Why are you kneeling? Are you trying to hurt yourself?!” Gavin knew letting his fear and worry to slip into anger was a bad idea, but he couldn’t help it. He got confirmation for this when Mutt starts to tremble in his arms, tears welling in his eyes.

“Sor… Sorry. S… S… Sorry Mas… Master! I… I thought… I… I… Should kne… kneel… to… to show that… that I’m gr… gra… grateful.” His words come fast and messily, coming close to sounding like sobs. Guilt hits Gavin like an ice cold dagger to the gut.

“Oh God… Shit… I’m so sorry. I’m not angry at you. I’m so sorry.” He cradles Mutt to his chest. “Shh… You did nothing wrong. It’s okay. Shh… I’m… I’m not angry at you… It’s my fault, not yours.” Not knowing what to do, Gavin takes the shaking man to the living-room and sets him down on the couch. He looks up at Gavin, still tearing up and quivering. Gavin sighs, wishing he’d know how to make the man feel safe and comfortable. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get you up the stairs without falling down it…” He pauses to study Mutt for a moment. “Are you cold?”

A small, shaky nod answers him.

“Wait here and rest. I’ll get you a blanket.” Gavin turns to leave, but hesitates. He turns back to Mutt- “And don’t hesitate to fall asleep if you feel like it… I won’t get angry and I will definitively not hurt you if you do.” With that, he leaves to find a blanket.

He gets the duvet he has in the cupboard on the guest room, and pulls a new cover on it. Whilst doing this, he glances at the clock hanging in the hall just out the door of the guestroom. 9:52. How long had the poor guy been kneeling there? A few hours at least! Guilt hits Gavin again.

When he has the duvet done, he carries it downstairs, trying to not to trip over it. Before laying it on Mutt, he takes a moment to look at him. He’s halfway curled up on his side, eyes half lidded and unfocussed. Carefully, he drapes it over him, making sure he’s fully covered. The man seems to melt under the soft duvet, snuggling into it.

Looking up at Gavin with big eyes, he says weakly, but full of gratitude; “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Gavin smiles sadly. “I’m sorry I scared you when I got… a little loud before.”

Gavin gets his laptop and sits into one of the armchairs. He begins checking his e-mails, whilst he continues to ignore the dull ache of his headache. The only e-mail is from his boss. Preparing himself for something that will make him want to strangle the man, he opens it.

Hey Gavin!

How you getting along with the Pet?

It’s really useful, right? Trust me, your life’s going to be so much better.

By the way, its number code is 43002612. I forgot to tell you yesterday.

Have fun with your new pet, and hope you had a good start to the new year!

Gavin knew he had to answer. And he knew he had to answer sounding grateful and enthusiastic. So he opened a draft e-mail.

Not five minutes into the writing of the reply, Gavin stops, resting his face in his hands, groaning. It disgusts him. It disgusts him that he has to pretend to be this person he isn’t. It disgusts him that he has to pretend to be someone that enjoys abusing others and owning slaves so that he doesn’t risk losing his job. And it disgusts him that his boss sees him as the kind of guy who’d enjoy these kind of things. To who else does he seem like a privileged, abusive asshole? He groans again, louder.

Rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, he looks around to see Mutt looking at him from where he was laying.

“Can’t sleep?” Mutt nods. Gavin puts aside the laptop, closing it, and moves to sit on the floor next to the couch. “Maybe… we could think about what you could be called together?” Mutt nods.

Gavin starts to list any name he can think of that doesn’t already belong to one of his colleagues or family members, but Mutt doesn’t seem to take a particular liking to any of them. Gavin just continues, until;

“I… I like tha… that one.” Gavin stops.

“Which one?”

“C… Caleb. I… I like it… I think…” He looks at Gavin cautiously, as if to see if it was the right choice or not.

“Caleb, huh? I think that suits you.” Caleb smiles a little bit. Gavin smiles back. Not feeling like having to write that horrible e-mail about abusing the now newly named Caleb right now, he decided to push that to later. “You know what? I’m going to make some tea! Would you like a tea Caleb?”

“I… Don’t th… think I’ve had t… tea before…”

“I’ll just make you a cup of chamomile tea, is that okay?” Caleb nods, smiling a little bit.

So Gavin makes tea. And it turns out Caleb really likes the chamomile tea he gets. He drinks it rather fast, and thanks Gavin more then once. Gavin is mostly silent. He doesn’t want to end up saying something to make Caleb feel stressed or uneasy. He picks up a newspaper from the coffee-table, and flips through it, not really registering anything he’s reading and occasionally taking a sip of his own tea. Eventually he gives up reading anything, and leans back in the armchair, closing his eyes for a little while. Trying to motivate himself to write the e-mail takes quite some time, and when he does, he still doesn’t feel like doing it.

But Gavin knows he has to. So he gets up and reaches for his laptop. But he spots Caleb whilst doing that. He’s asleep now. Gavin stops to watch his face for any sign of discomfort, but doesn’t find any. Carefully, he readjusts the duvet to cover him properly.

“Sleep well, Caleb.” As quiet as he can, he grabs his laptop and leaves to write the e-mail in another room.

[burtlederp]

Planty asks, pick your five favorite plants from the list based on their icons and then answer the questions for yourself and Elias.

I think I actually managed to find the original ask game for this one, believe it or not! If I did not, then sorry lol

🌺 What is your oc’s formal wear like? For me, my formal wear is basically a throw-on dress. I don't know enough about fashion to know what they're called, but they tend to be longish and soft and easy to put on and easy to wear. For Elias, if he ever needed to be dressed formal, he'd scramble for the cleanest button-up he owns (or buy the cheapest one at Wal-Mart) and maybe, if he has them and they are clean or relatively hole-free, slacks. But likely he'll just wash his jeans for once and wear those.

🌻 What little things make your oc happy? Would they admit that they make them happy? Plants! Happy little plants in unexpected places delight me, and I'll never hesitate to say so. Elias: Probably children? He'd say he's abjectly terrified of kids, but younger ones, if you stick him in a room with them, he may or may not be in heaven. You'd likely come back to him with clips in his hair and painted fingernails, and then be in a good mood for a time.

🌾 What is your oc’s favourite food? I know I ought not to generalize all of Asia, but yeah for the most part, all Asian food makes me happy if you offer it. Dumplings, pad thai, sushi, takoyaki, and more, all of it gets me salivating and my tummy rumbling. Elias' favorite food... He'd probably say pizza. 😛

🌿 Which oc can handle the most spice? Which prefers the blandest foods? I can't say I'm suuuper tolerant of spice, I'm really not, but the right kind of spice... yes please. I'll eat spicy crab on my sushi or have the spicy mayo or whatnot, but whenever I'm getting comfort ramen, I go with NO spice lol. I think Anton would be the one who likes his food bland, technically, since he does favor straight, raw meat over anything else. As for spice, well, hmm... Honestly? Probably Elias. He's had a sucky life, but even despite that, Courtney and others have taken him to fancy and less fancy places of varying quality and culture, and this is the same kid who ate a sock off the highway for a pack of cigs, so yeah, I'd reckon it's Elias.

🌹 How is your oc with flirting? Either receiving or the source? Okay, I... I think I'm pretty shit. I'm 23, and I've never had my first kiss yet. I could probably count on one hand the number of dates I've been on in my life. As for receiving? I think my face will discover a new shade of red. Elias is probably comparatively shit, but not for lack of trying. I think he's just bad at it. He's probably a little better at taking it, but depending on who it is, he might actually get scared off (you can thank Courtney for that).

Thanks Red for the ask!!! Sorry it took literally.... over a year or two to answer...😅