#dehumanization mention

[badluck990]

Day 9: Stay With Me

TW: Kidnapping, Betrayal, Swearing, nightmares, magic, magic induced nightmares, gangs, trafficking mention, dehumanization mention

Let me know if I missed anything!!

��You can’t do this to me!” Kai screamed from the glass as their partner in crime sold them out to Melody. Whether she was ignoring them or the box was soundproof was anyone’s guess. They watched their so-called friend walk out of the building leaving them with Nathan.

“If I knew offering your girl some money was all it took to separate you two I would have done it a long time ago.”

“She’s not my girl you asshole and so what you got me locked up, now what?” Kai groaned trying to sound more confident than hurt.

“Good question. See I can’t seem to make up my mind on what to do with you.”

“Oh really? Fine I’ll bite, what are the options?” /Maybe if I can keep you talking, I can get this box open/

“Aw you’re taking an interest. How sweet. Well let’s see, on one hand you’re pretty-”

“I’m flattered.”

“Shut up, you’d pry go for quite a bit with the Bolt’s little group, but I have worked too hard tracking you down to sell you off so soon.” They paced around the base explaining all the options, a weapon, a servant, (non-lethal) magic practice, ect.

“See there’s just so much I could- ah I see what this is. You’re not getting out of that box, it’s made of Soul Glass, unless you can kill me from inside you’re not getting out without me letting you out. You know I think that makes my decision easy.”

“What’s that-”

“We’ll do a bit of everything,”

“You must be joking,”

“Don’t blame me for Melody singing a different tune. Now, I have to get everything set up, enjoy your new home.”

As Kai’s nightmare of betrayal went on, Melody held them close trying to get the Necklace of Tears to come off as Nathen teased them relentlessly.

“You know the deeper they go into the nightmare realm the harder it is to pull them out. It’s already been half an hour, how far down do you think they’ve fallen?”

“Kai please, I don't know what you’re seeing but you have to stay with me! Please help me help you out…I can’t lose you too.” They begged their partner as their nightmares raged on.

“What happens if you do lose them dear Melody, due remind me how the beast could come out without their potions. Shame you could never make them work like they could.”

“Shut up and let them go! That necklace is made of bleak! I know for a fact you have a bloody monopoly on it!”

“Hmm, these are facts, yes. But I think it’ll be more fun to tell you what he saw. Only once he’s gone of course.” Nathan walked away.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Is it possible to have some more Mr Flavour please?

The first thing he notices is the soft mattress underneath him. It's such a stark difference between the bed of his motel and even the bed at his house that Danny knows he's nowhere near his tax bracket.

There is such a thing as too comfortable. The sinking feeling of the plush pillow around his head is entirely like that.

When he blinks and opens his eyes, he finds that someone has placed him in a large bed with a canopy bed. Shifting about tells him that all four of his limbs were tied to the bedposts, and although he's not pulled taunt, he definitely isn't going anywhere without his powers.

The chains used were long enough that he would likely be able to shift about but not get off the bed. It looks like they were meant to allow him to move in the middle of the mattress, but that's it.

Curiously, he heaves himself into a sitting position, mindful of not going too far in any direction, running his eyes over the bedroom he finds himself in. It takes him a moment to notice that everything is themed around a mushroom forest, almost as if he was dropped in the setting of a fantasy novel.

He realized his clothes had also been changed, starting to look at the silk-like tights and tunic. He felt a weight shift when he moved his back to bring his knees up and lean on them. Glancing over his shoulder, he found a pair of wings strapped to his body.

Danny tilts his head before he goes back to surveying the room, and his eyes catch the mirror of a light brown wooden vanity. His reflection looks back at him with carefully done make-up. He has dark navy blue eyeshadow but with glitter resting on them and his cheeks to remember stars, the twinkle-looking kind. White eyeliner was also used to paint sharp butterfly-looking wings from the edges of his eyes pointing towards his ears.

Metal cuffs shaped like pointed ears were added to his ears, and a pin was attached to his hair, which held tiny little daises, even in his few strands of hair.

A jeweled collar is wrapped around his neck as thick as his thumb, with the North Star resting just over his Adam's apple.

The bed he was sitting in had a mushroom top that spanned out with a bright red cap and white poke dots. He could not see it from underneath it, but it looked like his bed was the steam of the mushroom.

Oscar dressed him up like a garden fairy.

"This feels like it was way too much effort," Danny mutters, staring at his reflection. He looks annoyingly pretty, offended the style fits him so well. He thinks he would have made a way better vampire. At least Sam would find it funny. "I have to handle it to him, though; he knows his way around a make-p brush. Wonder if I can get out of here."

Danny tugs on the chains, pulling his limbs as far as they go before a nasty pop is heard, and he has to bite down on his lower lip to stop a scream. His left wrist is useless, having snapped. A wave of agony courses through him until his healing factor kicks in long enough to snap his bone back, but the soreness lingers.

Phantom was just out of reach still, hidden somewhere underneath his skin.

"Guess not," he sighs. A few minutes pass, and Danny fills the void by reciting the periodic table and their atom masses. But when he grows bored of that, he starts patting his knees to a random beat, making popping sounds with his mouth.

That leads to him singing, at first, a few words from actual songs, then it drifts into nonsense.

He finishes his little jingle for his sodas, creating a rip-off of commercial jingles from home, adding more ecstatic slaps against his knees in a fast-paced drum roll.

He attempts to think of a rhyme for soda, using words he believes aren't real when the wall across from his bed suddenly shifts.

Danny hadn't even realized the open space across from his bed was a door since it blended so well with the flowers that decorated the wall. Oscar stands in the doorway, still wearing his suit and smiling his oily grin. "How is my lovely little fairy?"

Danny waves at him. "Hey, fruitloop. Here to kill me?"

Oscar laughs, steps in, and closes the door behind him. He crosses the room to carefully caress his hair. Danny hisses, but it does nothing to deter the man, who sighs lovingly, "I could never harm you. You're the first of your kind in my collection. Usually, my fairies have lighter hair like those of the forest, but you're from the stars, aren't you? My lovely cosmos fairy."

"Hmmm," Danny squints, "I don't like this. Just kill me."

The man laughs, dragging Danny into a hug by the chain on his left arm. "You are so mischievous and defiant. I should have collected your kind years ago."

Danny allows the hug only to feel Oscar's pockets press against him. He doesn't feel like a key is on Oscar's person, nor does he feel like he is carrying a weapon.

Quick as a wipe, Danny throws out his fist, nailing the older man between the legs. Oscar wheezes, but not enough to make him stumble. He squeezes his arms tighter, encaging Danny, and the pulled chains limit his movements.

Danny struggles against him until his eyes land on the mirror again, watching as his kidnapper grabs the side of the watch. "No misbehaving."

One click later, the North Star lights up. Shockwaves of electricity rush through his body as a scream is ripped from his throat. Distantly, his mind flashes back to the last time he felt this sensation- when he opened the portal on himself. His body spams about as Oscar coos into his hair, muttering reassurances until the power dies.

"Good boy. Such a good boy.," Oscar mutters as Danny gasps against his chest. "A good fairy can be mischievous but not misbehave, right?"

Danny opens his mouth to snap at him when he notices a glow in the corner of his eye. He raises his hands, staring at the familiar sight of Phantom's glow, feeling his heart leap with joy as his healing kicks in. He wonders if he finally got his powers back.

He wills his body to flout, to sink through solid, or even to vanish from sight, but nothing happens. He gains a new piece of his other half, but not nearly enough to turn into him. There is only a glow to his skin for now.

Oscar obviously sees it, for he gasps with delight. "My star fairy, shining for me."

Danny headbutts him, but even though he causes the man's nose to bleed, all he does is laugh and pet Danny like a cat. Another button press has the chains retreating into the wall, flinging Danny back on the bed, spread out and unable to move.

The teen frowns when Oscar eventually leaves him, promising to build him a galaxy room soon. A few hours go by, and a dull ache builds up in his limbs, but eventually, the man returns, setting up some glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the top of his bed. He rewards Danny's "good" behavior by allowing the chains to grow, and he's back to being able to move on the bed.

Days go by like this when Danny attempts to force the man to use the button, wondering if he needs electricity to finally have Phantom back. Sadly, nothing seems to upset Oscar, who chalks every act of defiance as a characteristic of his "star fairy" genes.

Eventually, Danny grows bored, even though Oscar regularly brings him food and walks him to a bathroom where he is ordered to shower—thankfully without the man inside but attached to the chains of the shower walls—and retouches his make-up with great care. His clothes are always replaced with new, clean versions, even with the same design. He doesn't know how long he's been trapped here, but he is sure it's a few days.

"Can I make sodas?" He asks while Oscar is laying behind him, hugging Danny to his chest like the teen was a giant teddy bear. There is, thankfully, nothing intimate about it, just holding him while they slept. "I'm bored."

"Of course. Your kind needs mental stimulation rather than the physical kind, don't you? That's why you made your drinks before; you wanted humans to need your potions." The fruitloop mutters, tucking the galaxy blanket over Danny's shoulder. "I'll bring you things tomorrow."

The following days are a little more leisurely with his soda-making. Oscar had his men find Danny's motel, taking everything he needed to create his Mr. Flavor soda and sets up three tables next to the bed for him to work. Apparently, Danny is his calmest fairy, so the chains around his wrists are removed, and the ones around his ankles increase in length.

Danny can now freely move about the room to his heart's content. Oscar vanishes for hours on end but eventually always comes back every night to watch Danny work on his sodas. He brings glass bottles the two fill, and Oscar hauls them away to who knows where.

Danny can't really tell the time as there are no windows, and the only source of light is one large lamp hanging from the ceiling. However, Oscar's behavior has a pattern. The older man shuts off the giant lamp and lights some fairy lights, leaving the room in a dull glow.

He only does that when the pair go to bed, making him think it's nighttime. Danny carefully counts the hours from there.

One day, Oscar doesn't come back, as the hours drag to what he knows is nighttime. This is his chance. He takes his wooden spoon, the one he uses to mix the syrups in a bored flavor experiment, biting down on it as hard as he can.

Danny grabs his feet, bending them until two nasty cracks are heard. The wood muffles his scream, but even as his healing attempts to fix the damage, he yanks and pulls his limb until it slips through the metal cuffs.

Once they land on the ground with a clack, Danny is hit with a wave of nausea. His tunic is coated in sweat, his head is swimming, and he doesn't feel Phantom, but Danny is free.

A few minutes go by when his healing gets to work to fix the damage as he drags himself to where the door is. The chains had allowed him to wander there, but he never attempted to pry it open.

Today, he not only tries, he succeeds. His bare feet return to a healthy state, allowing him to stand in the doorway. Outside his colorful galaxy, slowly losing the first theme bedroom, is a long grey hallway filled with other doors.

Each door has a number painted in a large black font.

Danny glances both ways, sees no one, and sprints down the hallway on his right. He makes it all the way to the end, where all that's visible is a single door. He looks over his shoulder to where he came from and finds that his room is the last one in the hallway, showing no exit.

He gulps, praying this is the way out while carefully twisting the door numb as quietly as possible. Thankfully, no soul is in sight when he pushes the door open.

The first thing he realizes is that the space is much smaller than his cell, looking more like a broom closet than anything else. Inside, a chair is set up in front of multiple monitors that are all handing over a large desk. Two file cabinets are on the side, but that's all the room there is for.

Squinting, Danny realizes it's a security system. Getting closer, he watches as various light brown hair people dressed as fairies are shown chained up, moving about their rooms frantically and fearfully.

They are all forest themes with a number on the corner of the screen. Danny realizes he knows those numbers and glances back over his shoulder. Sure enough, the numbers are in the same font and color as the ones on the screens.

Well.

Danny hums, rummaging through the office in search of keys. He is alight with dying, but he doubts the other people Oscar has kidnapped are Halfas in waiting. There is nothing on the desk, so he turns his attention to the file cabinets

Inside are deranged notes on fairies' habits. Records of their diet behavior and a shockingly large amount of physical exercise for each kidnapped person are documented.

Apparently, where Danny, a star fairy, needs mental simulation, the forest fairies need to do HIT training mixed in with random types of Dance to keep them happy and healthy.

Number 4 was tap dancing, while Number 7 was doing ballet. It was so unfair. He would have loved to develop some muscle here, making his new desire to break into the grid storage easier.

Maybe he could shock Phantom back. The next drawer has his bottled sodas, which clack against each other. A note about storing his potions for future healing is on top of them, and Danny's face twitches.

Fruitloop.

He considers the drinks before deciding the other captives may need an energy boost to help them leg it when he sets them free. He grabs a premade hanging water cooler, swinging it over his shoulder after checking to make sure his sodas are inside.

Eventually, Danny finds a ring of keys at the bottom of the last drawer. After confirming that the exact numbers are painted on them, he rushes out of the office. He arrives at number 1 with a cheer and flings it open.

A man in his mid-twenties jumps a good foot off the lofted tree-shaped bed. He is also dressed as a fairy, but instead of Danny's blue and purple hues, this one is in different shades of brown, and his face is clean.

A similar color to the one Danny wears is wrapped around his neck, but the centerpiece is a large oak tree instead of a star.

Danny grins, holding out a bottle of cola. "Hey man, want a drink?"

The stranger only has chains around his wrists, which means he can scramble to the back of the wall the second Danny speaks, "What?"

"Oh, by the way, I'm doing a prison break. You in?" He laughs, swinging the keys around his other hand.

Hours later, Number 1—he refused to give Danny his name after the boy attempted to rip off the collar on their necks. Apparently, explaining that he wanted to feel the zap all over his body instead of wanting to set Number 1 free was "alarming"—it had helped him free all nine captives.

The Halfa was the youngest among the group, as everyone else was at least older than twenty, though it looked like ages ranged from early twenties to late forties.

The only things they shared were chestnut hair and earth-themed fairy costumes. Danny stood out for more than just his manic grin and bubbly personality. He offered one of his sodas at every rescue.

Everyone had accepted a drink from the overly cheerful child, who eyed Danny with distrust but was willing to follow him through the last door. It led to a ladder drilled into the wall. Danny volunteered to go up first, ensuring the coast was clear after forcing a latch to open above him.

Oscar had stashed them in a bunker far outside Gotham's city limits. It took some coaxing, but Dannt got the group to wander through the darkness, holding hands so as not to lose anyone. His powers weren't entirely back, but he's always been able to see a bit better in the dark than his friends.

He chatted the whole time, offering more bottles whenever someone grew too anxious. He spent twenty minutes describing all the flavors he made for his sodas, taking careful steps through small dips in the uneven ground. It seemed the bunker was on a hill, isolated from people.

Eventually, they caught sight of a road, and everyone breathed a breath of relief when a car came into view. It was three loops of curling roadways down below. Still, it passed under the only light post, showing a sleek black model that indicated wealth.

Number 3- who also refused to tell him her name- was in the process of thanking the heavens that someone could help them when Danny demanded that everyone drop.

It was gratifying when they all did it without a second thought.

"That's Oscar's vehicle. He drove it at the restaurant." He hisses as the car rounds the cliff's side, nearing them. The air grows cold as the rest of the victims try to hide in the shadows.

It won't work. Despite the fact that they are on high hills, there is no coverage. The second Oscar's headlights were within reach so he would see them.

Danny considers the sobbing Number 3, her once joy now gone, and realizes she doesn't want to be found. Unlike him, if she gets hurt, she won't unlock the powers that had once made him unbreakable.

He takes off his cooler and hands it over to Number 1 with a soft command: "Stay low, and no matter what, don't try to save me."

"What-"

Danny stands from his hiding spot, flinging himself over the edge of the cliffside in a familiar leap and landing with a loud thump on the lower hill. He drags himself to his feet, running in the opposite direction of the group, singing at the top of his lungs his new Mr. Falvor jingle.

Oscar's headlights fall over him as the man hits the brakes. A second of silence later, the car turns on its wheels with a loud screech as Danny rushes to the edge of the second loop.

"My Star! What are you doing!?" Oscar cries, but the tone sounds amused as Danny flings himself over the edge with a cheer.

"Come catch me! I want to play a game!" He calls out, ignoring the ache of his knees, and takes off in a run the second he lands. He hears the roar of the motor as Oscars round the side, foot on the accelerator, and laughs alongside Danny.

He barely makes the leap when the vehicle smashes against the road railing. Oscar had attempted to run him over.

"Oh, you naughty star fairy!" The car is thrown in reverse and starts down the much longer road as the man driving it sings Mr.Flavor's jingle. Danny doesn't look towards the victims, worried he'll give them away, as he whoops loudly and takes over into a sprint.

The longer road bought him time, but now it's just him against a speeding car. There is no light down here, and he forces himself to be as fast as possible. He can hear Oscar getting closer, but he pushes through, wanting to put distance between them and the other kidnapped people.

He uses the fact there are trees alongside the road to his advantage, but beyond that is a cliffside and the crashing waves of the sea. He could jump, but even if that brought back Phantom, Oscar would potentially cut his losses and turn back, catching the hiding group. He weaves through the barks as Oscar drives behind him, yelling about punishments and naughty fairies.

He gets pretty far, he thinks, the hill with the bunker long behind him, looking much smaller when Danny runs out of trees. Then it's just him and the open space. Oscar's headlights bathe him as the man jumps off the road, speeding until the motor sounds like a roaring monster.

Danny can't outrun him, so he doesn't. He stops, twists on his heel, and spreads his arms wide open. He doesn't close his eyes as the lights get closer, and he sees Oscar's mad, flushed face seconds before the metal rams into him.

"KID!" A horrified cry fills the air as Danny is thrown from the windshield. It's like time has slowed down.

He manages to turn his head in time to see multiple police cars come to a stop just a few feet away from him, a man in the process of throwing himself out of his car, one arm stretched toward Danny.

His face is twisted in horror, but Danny recognizes his eyes. It's the masked man who felt guilty the day he was kidnapped. Ha. He knew he was an undercover cop.

Danny hits the ground hard, rolling three times before he lies broken and tired. His skin is glowing, and his hair puffs up a little, like it was electrocuted, but that's the only real chain besides the multiple wounds on his body.

Phantom's powers are still not entirely back.

He feels numb as the background noise of the police swarming Oscar is heard, with one of the Gotham heroes leading the charge with a war cry. Danny can't bring himself to turn his head but watches Red Robin fly by on his motorbike, aiming the front wheel hood of Oscar's car.

He uses that as a springboard to launch himself through the front windshield- already cracked by Danny's body, and attacking the driver like a beast. Police near the car, all with guns pointed and shouting.

Someone drops to their knees in front of Danny blocking his view. It's the same undercover cop who is talking fast and desperate, but Danny can't really understand him because of the ringing in his head. He feels his healing factor finally start, but it's much slower than normal.

Hands carefully turn him onto his back so they can put some pressure on the bleeding coming from his neck. Glass had smashed against his flesh there, and Danny hadn't even noticed.

The man's desperate face fades in and out of focus until his healing finally pops his ears, and sound rushes through his senses.

"-going to be alright!" The man is screaming. "Hang on, kid. Hang on. What's the ETA on the medics!?"

"Five minutes! Keep putting pressure on his wounds, Grayson!" someone shouts back out of Danny's eyesight. Hmm, dark spots are appearing in his vision now. He was going to pass out soon.

He should tell Officer Grayson about the rest of the Numbers before he does.

"The Others...."He coughs, spitting some blood. The man's face spams.

"Don't talk. Save your strength," he commands, but Danny ignores him, forcing his hand to raise and point to where the group was hiding.

"The others...are hiding....I lead....Oscar away.....from them. They need help.....please." He babbles, watching tears gather in the man's blue eyes. He blames himself—Danny can see it clearly as day—for putting the Halfa in this position the day he helped the rest kidnap him.

Obviously, he needed to do it to find the rest, but that doesn't stop the guilt from eating him alive right in front of Danny. He forces his face to twist into a smile.

"Don't be sad....I told you....I wanted to be a ghost." His words are a bit clearer as his healing throbs around his throat, but it's all he can handle. He fells himself, fading as the look of devastation clouds Officer Grayson's face. Just as Danny passes out, he mutters. "Delete Oscar's footage of my soda making. It's my secret formula."

He surrenders the blissful darkness as the ambulance sirens fill the air.

[dykedvonte]

Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.

Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.

They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.

I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.

[blackholemojis]

Can you make emojis for “dehumanizing” and or “dehumanized” (since i have both on my AAC) as an AAC user it feels like people don’t take us serious or treat us as humans- i want to add this to my self advocacy folder on my aac!

Absolutely, I had two design ideas so I went for both

[ID 1: A person looking up and to the left at a speech bubble with a disapproving expression. The speech bubble has a silhouette of a human on it and a red X over it. /End ID]

[ID 2: A person looking frustrated and upset at a sticky note that’s been put on their forehead. The sticky note has a silhouette of a human and a red X over it. /End ID]

[paingoes]

Destroyer

Medical Conference

hi guys um. i cant stop writing destroyer. i swear ill figure out a system to organize these “bonus” chapters soon i promise i promise

delta is eighteen in this but the chapter delves into abuse he experienced when he was a child so cw for that

(Content: living weapon whumpee, lab whump, medical whump, put on display, dehumanization, conditioning, noncon drugging, needles, non-consensual/nonsexual nudity, noncon touching, physical abuse, emotional whump, angst, child abuse, child death mention, parental whump?)

~

“I forgot, sir,” Delta tried weakly. He knew as soon as he said it that he should’ve just kept quiet.

“No, you didn’t. You’re going to lie about it as well?” Dr.Martino shut down the attempt, focusing his attention back to the device.

Delta laid down unmoving against the steel table as the scanner searched over him. It gave him mild electric shocks each time it passed. Of course, he hadn’t been looking forward to the diagnostic tests. But he hadn’t been trying to get out of it entirely. That wouldn’t have worked. He only wanted more time to psych himself up for it. Too long, apparently. He’d had to be collected for it. It’d been a bad note to start on.

The rest of the exam went on in silence, without anymore mention of his avoidance. As Delta redressed, he thought he might’ve been off the hook for it. Dr.Martino was fumbling though his desk drawers like he’d already left. 

He produced two unopened packs of pencils from inside the desk. Delta deflated a little bit. 

Delta took the pencils and arranged them in two rows along the floor, lined up flush against one another. Gingerly, he kneeled down on top of them.

“Hands behind your back,” the doctor said, leaning back in his chair.

Already there. He knew the drill. He lowered his head, silently counting. No longer than twenty minutes, usually. No fewer than ten.

When he looked up again, Martino was leaning back against the table, flipping through a folder.

“The ISCEM conference is coming up in a month,” he said offhandedly, as if this would mean something to him.

“Okay?” Delta answered, more in confusion than anything else. He hadn’t meant for it to be disrespectful. 

Nevertheless, Dr.Martino’s shoe pressed down against his calf, driving the pencils further into his skin. 

“Yes, sir,” he quickly corrected himself. The pressure disappeared. The pain stayed where it was.

“You were probably too young to remember the last one, weren’t you?” Dr.Martino sighed.

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t really think about it. He was pretty distracted by the numbness traveling down his legs.

“Well, put it on your calendar. Don’t want you forgetting again.”

“Yes, sir.” 

He didn’t have a calendar.

~

“Mention the steady-state thing we discussed. I have files on it, I - is it too late to make a copy? I will. And if you could just please pass along a message for me, I would be ever so grateful,” Simon went on, fumbling through his own briefcase, trying to give what he could. Dr.Martino took the reports from him, flipping them around to see the equations he’d scribbled onto the back.

“You’re not coming? Sir?” Delta added the “sir” on as an afterthought, conscious of the doctor’s presence. Simon himself rarely demanded such formalities.

“Don’t interrupt,” Dr.Martino snapped, more tense than usual. But Simon obliged him, stepping a little closer.

“Not my scene.” Simon patted his head. It was soft, but Delta reflexively flinched away from any hands that drew too near to his face. 

Something on the desk beeped. The transit had rafted up. 

Delta held his wrists up easily as Martino presented the cuffs. They were psychic tech, meant to restrict his powers more than the collar already did. Presumably some kind of safety measure. He felt his world going flat as they clicked into place, all his spatial awareness reduced to a single field of view. The effect was extremely disorienting. He nearly fell over getting off of the table.

~

He’d mostly evened out by the time they’d gotten to the hotel. He sat idly against the chair he’d been placed in, watching the doctor unpack. Everything in the room was the same shade of beige. 

It seemed like they should’ve been able to go. Martino abruptly produce a vial from the bag. Delta recognized it as a sedative. He inserted the syringe into it, drawing it back up.

“I’ll behave, sir,” Delta offered. He eyed the needle warily; he’d usually have been given something in the way of warning.

Martino shook his head. He took a firm grip of Delta’s arm.

“Believe me, this is for your own good.”

Delta tensed his arm up, holding still as the needle entered him. Something cold shot into his veins. It took a long time for the chamber to empty. 

~

It hit him before they even reached the elevator. He clung to Martino’s arm, needing something to brace himself against, however briefly. Martino assured him he wouldn’t have to stand for long. They moved backstage at the panel. Delta nearly collapsed into the fold-up chair.

The cuffs were briefly removed as he was given the medical gown to wear. His hands moved slower than he would’ve liked, but he was able to put it on. It tied along the front, leaving much of his chest exposed.

Dr.Martino took a minute to make sure it was fitted correctly. He cursed, noticing for the first time the visible boot print against the side of Delta’s ribs. 

“Great. They’re going to think I beat you.”

You do beat me, Delta thought. Not as much as he used to. Not as much as Paris. But Martino still hit him. 

The doctor felt over the bruise with his hand, reigniting the pain. Delta winced. It was recent — still tender. The sedative helped a bit. All his thoughts were coming to him in a haze.

There was nothing that could be done to cover it, so apparently they were just going to ignore it. The cuffs came back on around his wrists. He led Delta out onto the platform regardless, sitting him up against the stool. It was had a back to it, luckily. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay upright without it. He’d been trained enough not to slouch or to look so outwardly high, but it was definitely a struggle to maintain neutrality. He kept his head down. It was the safest, the easiest to maintain for a long period. People gradually filed in. Though he was used to being put on display, the sterility and lack of decorum in this new space made the whole thing feel all the more jarring. It all felt far away, though.

His eyes closed without meaning to. When he tuned back in, Dr.Martino was droning on. He recognized some of the words. He would’ve recognized more if he wasn’t drugged. It was a talk about internal power generation. Conduits. There was a hand on his shoulder. Delta stood up from the chair. The gown was pulled down a bit from his shoulders.

Martino pressed the multimeter to his collarbones, watching the number climb until it broke. He pulled it away before it could burn up completely. He pressed a thin disk up against Delta’s chest, where it held there. It was some kind of controller. A thin arc of electricity emerged from it without any conscious intention on his part. More appeared, each of them branching away from his body like a plasma ball. The effect was immediate; that familiar fear crept into the eyes of the audience. 

It cut all at once. The disk was removed. Delta sat back down on the chair, pulling the gown back up over himself. 

The lights darkened. Behind him, a clip show began to play. He didn’t need to look back. He’d seen it plenty of times. Different explosions, annihilations, destructions. All his own work. He could recount each of them to the second. It played for a long time.

For some reason, they clapped when it was over.

~

“Sorry — do you mind if I look at it?” 

Delta opened his eyes again, sensing the it in question. He tensed up. 

He hated being touched. The moderator stripped the gown back again. He felt the electric pulse still going about Delta’s clavicle. His hands traveled around the collar. 

“I’m biomedical by trade,” the man explained, tapping at the gold, “This is custom, yes? When was it made?”

“The model’s about five years old. It gets updated about once a year.”

“Incredible. I see some scarring, though.”

Delta shivered as the fingers traced the burn scars by his neck, a bit on his trapezius. They were in the shape of a Lichtenberg figure.

“That seems non-optimal?”

“Those actually predate the collar. They’re a natural result of it overextending itself during an exercise. The restrictor works as a stopgap to prevent that kind of burnout.”

Though he’d expected it, it still jarred Delta just how easily Martino slipped back into calling him it.

Another scientist approached. She slid up to Martino, shaking his hand eagerly.

“Oh, darling.” He embraced her. She grinned, readjusting her jacket as they pulled away.

“Danny, it’s been ages. How are the girls?” Her nails clicked together.

Danny. The girls. Martino actually had a family. Not that he ever saw them. He had daughters. They’d been kids, the one and only time Delta had ever met them. They had to be in their twenties by now. 

“Brats, the lot of them. They’re smart, though. Smarter than I was at their age.”

“Well, that’s not saying much.”

Delta was not surprised when her hands traveled onto him. He barely flinched this time. But he hadn’t expected her to speak to him.

“Oh, and look at you. You’re all grown up now, huh?” 

She gripped his chin in between her fingers, studying his face. The touch wasn’t harsh, nor was it gentle.

“You probably don’t remember me.”

That was correct. Her face was vaguely familiar, but he could find no memories to attach to it.

“He’s a bit distant at the moment. You’ll have to forgive him,” Martino answered for him.

She released her grip, turning her attention back to the doctor. Even in his current state, it didn’t take him long to put it together. She’d been one of the teachers at the Institute. He wondered how many of them were wandering around out there now. Most of them. Dr.Martino had been the only one to retain some semblance of his position. All the other administrators had been cast away just the same as the students.

He had forgotten nearly every one of their names.

~

Martino packed up the last of the day’s display materials, arranging all of it back into the suitcase. It’d been a success, as far as these things go. He’d revealed all he could without breaching the terms of his contract. All the real science was under a strict NDA. It was nice to catch up with some colleagues, though. It was healthy to be off of a spaceship every once in a while.

He tugged Delta’s sleeve, pulling him up from the plastic chair. He took a minute to undo the cuffs; he’d thought they were an excessive measure to begin with and they had prevented any real show of power. Delta rubbed idly at the marks they had left there.

They made their way back up to the hotel room. The drug had not yet worn off; Delta still stumbled a bit when he walked. He’d redressed himself in a thick hoodie, trying to keep out the chill from the overactive AC or perhaps just trying to hide. 

The door opened. Martino dropped his suitcase onto the bed. Presumably out of habit, Delta lowered himself to the floor, kneeling there. Waiting for instructions, as if he could have followed them. Martino scoffed. 

“You can sit on the bed. I booked a double room for a reason.”

He watched the whole minute it took for his words to sink in. The way it took even longer for Delta to actually rise, blearily climbing up onto the mattress. His hands gripped searchingly across the blanket, pulling up the edges like he needed something to hold onto.

Martino ignored him. He moved to the far side of the room and opened the door to the balcony. The city skyline was clearly visible just down the road. The lights from it shone brighter than the stars from space. Martino produced one of the foreign cigarettes from its packet. The ember burned in the dark night. It was all quiet.

“What was I like when I was little?”

He turned to look at Delta. The kid was drugged out of his mind. He might’ve given him too much.

Dr.Martino took a long drag. He rarely smoked, so used to the endless sterility that he would not so much as dirty the air. But tonight was a rare night.

“What were you like?” He ashed the cigarette, turning back to look at the night skyline. “I don’t remember.”

Delta looked down, disappointed. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself. Martino sighed, losing the battle.

“…You were quiet. Same as you are now. You mostly kept to yourself.”

He gave no visible reaction.

“You didn’t get along so well with the other kids,” Martino admitted, some disdain entering his voice. 

Delta looked up. His expression was totally blank.

“Why do you hate me?” he asked.

It was manipulative, and self-pitying in a way that did not flatter him. Martino put the cigarette out. He stepped back into the room.

Delta shrank back a bit. The doctor looked him over. His eyes had dimmed some, no doubt due to the sedative. His hands were unbloodied. Just looking at him, no one would have know what he’d done. Martino remembered the sound of bones snapping and the bodies out in the yard. He remembered the expression Delta had worn the first time he’d killed — as blank and unfeeling as the one he wore now. He did hate him, he supposed. He’d never been his favorite. All his favorites had been buried a long time ago.

He didn’t say that. He remembered his lines — and he cursed himself for ever diverging from them, even for a second. He would correct it now.

“There is no you.”

Delta opened his mouth as if to object, then thought better of it. Good.

“No more talking tonight,” Martino said.

Delta nodded, laying down onto the mattress. He fell asleep with all the lights on.

…………

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @vivulapom @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @pigeonwhumps

[sideprince]

I resent getting dragged into the discourse but it's wild to me that there are people out there who read the HP books and laud Harry for being brave and having a big heart and redeeming the wizarding world with his unusually great ability to love, yet can't comprehend how he could learn to appreciate Snape's sacrifice.

I'm very specifically thinking of the fact that Harry watches Snape die. Snape, who is lying on the floor, gripping Harry's robes, and whose eyes Harry is looking into and seeing the life leave. I don't understand how people can humanize some fictional characters and treat them as if they were real and completely dehumanize another. Not even for Snape's sake, but for Harry's sake, do these people not understand what it is to watch someone die? What's the expectation, that the Capacity For Love Posterchild protagonist steps out of character and doesn't care about the guy he watches bleed out and die suffering because you, as a reader, don't like him?

Which is it? Does Harry have a huge capacity to love or not? Pick a lane. Either you value this character trait in Harry or you don't. But you have to take or leave everything it comes with, otherwise you're a hypocrite. Or maybe illiterate.

I just don't GET it.

[whumpy-wyrms]

The Last Lab Rat #17: Close Your Eyes

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content: lab whump, captivity, clones, drugging, dehumanization, nonsexual nudity, murder mention, restraints, experimentation, mind control, noncon body modification, eye whump, medical whump, winged test subject whumpee, creepy scientist carewhumper

teehee Dew finally gets ice cream in this one yay

(if you can’t read this because of the eye whump, here’s an eye whumpless summary!)

— 

Anton was up late into the night, getting his test subject’s new clone ready. As Dew slept, Anton had injected him with something that’d make sure he wouldn’t wake up in the night during this ordeal. He didn’t want Dew awake and watch another clone come to life. He didn’t want Dew to watch Anton set another version of him free.

The cloning machine was on the other side of the lab anyway, so Dew would hardly be able to see it from his room. Still, it was a necessary precaution. Dew was already going through so much pain; he didn’t need more stuff to worry about.

Anton was far too familiar with making clones. He’d spent five years of his life alone in his lab with nobody to experiment on besides himself and his clones; he’d grown familiar with the process of making and breaking multiple versions of himself. He’d grown used to not viewing these things as real people, because they weren’t.

The process was always the same. Inject a DNA sample into the machine, and wait a couple of days. The clone would come out with all of the memories of its original, it would… most of the time be an exact copy. Of course, Dew’s clone couldn’t be an exact copy of him now, not with his wings, so Anton had to do some tweaking. Make a clone of the old clone; a copy of a copy. Easy enough. No harm, no foul.

In the early days of making clones of himself, there was a recurring problem Anton had noticed. There were too many times where a new Anton would see himself standing before him, lab coat bloodied and hair disheveled, and know right away what its pathetic life would be used for. There were too many times where the clone would fight back, try to outsmart him and escape.

He needed a way to keep himself safe— from himself— so he implemented something into the machine that sedated when they first came out. It kept them weak and docile, lessened the shock of being a test subject, and kept them unable to fight back. It’d come in handy now, as well.

The machine whirred to life, lights lighting up and beeping. Anton didn’t miss that sound in the slightest. It brought him back to his darkest times, times he honestly wouldn't mind to forget completely, if he hadn’t already.

After a few moments, the clone was ready. Anton swallowed his nerves and walked up to the machine.

“Hello,” Anton said, helping the new Dew step out of the machine.

“Hi,” the clone said, looking up at Anton with wide, curious eyes. It stood in front of him, calm and relaxed. It wasn’t wearing any clothes, but it didn’t care. It just stared ahead. So innocent. So blissfully oblivious to the horrors just under its nose.

“Do you know your name?”

“It’s Dew…” The clone looked around, curious eyes dancing across the strange and unfamiliar laboratory. Though, it didn’t look scared. It turned its gaze back to Anton. “Where am I?”

“Don’t worry your silly little head about that,” Anton said, patting the clone on the head. “Put these on.” The scientist handed the clone some folded up clothes, and stepped away.

It felt wrong, to Anton. This wasn’t the Dew he had grown familiar with the past couple months. It didn’t have top surgery. It didn’t have wings. It was just a lie made to keep his friends at bay. All Anton saw when he looked at this thing was all his hard work gone. This clone wasn’t the real Dew, and for that, he despised it.

Anton shook those thoughts away. Of course this wasn’t the real Dew, that was the point. The real Dew would be safe with him, here. He never needed to think about clones again after this.

After the clone was dressed, it started looking around again, expression noticeably more dazed than before.

“Woah, what’s that thing?” It said, looking closely at a giant cylindrical tube-like vat of green fluid. It was tall, going up all the way to the ceiling, and the glass looked very thick. There was nothing inside of it besides a bright green and glowing fluid that was mesmerizing to look at. And even though the rest of the lab was dark, this lit up the area around them well enough.

“Nothing. Follow me.” Anton grabbed its arm and swiftly led it out of the lab before it could ask any more questions.

“What’s going on?” It asked, catching up to Anton’s pace.

“I’m taking you home.”

“Oh. Who are you?”

“…It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.” Besides the pair of footsteps, there was a long silence as they walked up the stairs. “This place kinda reminds me of the strongholds in Minecraft… Hey, I’m kinda cold.”

“We’re almost there.”

Anton led Dew’s clone to his car and sat it in the passenger seat, put its seatbelt on, and shut the door. It had stopped talking now, seemingly too tired to ask anymore questions. As Anton drove, he couldn’t help but periodically glance at the dozy, docile thing sitting next to him, looking out the window at the dark forest. It had no idea what was happening. It was almost cute.

“I’m sleepy.” The clone yawned. The repetition of the trees going past the car was almost hypnotic.

“I know. Just relax. It’ll be a long drive.”

“Okay,” It said softly, resting its head against the cold window. “G’night…”

Anton gave a bittersweet smile, and watched its eyes flutter shut as it drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

In around four hours, Anton would be dropping this clone off at its house. He would wipe its memories of the night, and it’d live its life as Dew, its friends none the wiser.

He just had to drive back to Dew’s old house. It was easy.

Anton had tried to ignore the horrible feeling in his gut, his memories of the gory and grotesque scene his lab rat had caused in that room, only a few days ago. He had tried to forget it, tried to focus on the fact that his test subject had escaped, and what had to be done about it. The murder could be easily taken care of; disposed of, cleaned up, and forgotten about. It was in the past. It didn’t matter anymore.

And yet…

Visions of Dew’s bloody and broken corpse flashed through Anton’s mind. The way his favorite little lab rat was lying lifeless on the carpet, blood pooling under the limp and stiff body that was littered with stab wounds, knife only inches away from the scene. The way the light in the poor guy’s eyes was gone. Just like that.

The way Dew was dead.

Dew was dead. Not the real Dew, of course, but that didn’t matter. Anton had seen a Dew’s bloodied corpse laying in front of him, and it sickened him.

He had tried to ignore it. There were more important things to worry about than his feelings— than those horrible feelings of sadness and grief flooding through him at the sight of his test subject, dead on the ground. More important things like the fact Dew had escaped, and needed to be brought back home. The fact he had to punish Dew for disobeying.

But how could he possibly punish someone who was hurting so bad to the point he drank one of Anton’s vials, or shot himself with one of Anton’s inventions? How could he possibly hurt someone worse than they were already hurting? He couldn’t.

Of course, Dew knowing he had been cloned and that there was nothing to do to escape his life as Anton’s test subject was probably punishment enough. It was obvious now he felt completely hopeless; Anton had stolen each and every ounce of hope the man had left by replacing him with a clone and threatening his friends.

So Anton didn’t punish him for escaping. He didn’t punish him for his obvious disobedience and attempts to get out of experiments— too caught up thinking about if Dew had grabbed any other vial, any other invention, it could’ve been so much worse. He didn’t want anything bad to ever happen to him. So he’d been kind, comforting. And it seemed to have worked. Dew was content here, he seemed to finally accept things, which was all he really wanted.

Anton arrived at his test subject’s old address. The clone was still fast asleep, and it took a few light nudges of its shoulders to wake it up. It was alert now, as normal as it could be, acting like the spitting image of Dew. The two of them got out of the car and it questioned him, but Anton was quick to hit it with a quick blast of his memory eraser. He left it by the curb of its house, and drove around the corner out of sight. Memories of that night left its mind, and it stood alone in front of its house. Shrugging its shoulders, it walked inside, out of sight, and Anton began his ride home.

. . .

The scientist had been preparing for an experiment all morning, and Dew had no idea what it was.

Anton had agreed to take a few days off and let Dew rest, giving them both a much needed break and start experiments again once he was ready. Of course, he’d never be ready, but if it was going to happen anyway, it was best to get it over with, and Anton seemed to be itching to start again.

It had to have been almost lunch time by now, and without Sasha to keep him company, Dew spent the morning curled up in his room, drawing and listening to music, blocking out the rest of the world and hoping whatever Anton had planned for him wouldn’t be too agonizing.

Without anything to be hopeful about, that was all he’d been doing lately. That was all he could do, now. Anton didn’t seem keen on letting him outside anymore, and Dew was too petrified to ask.

Dew could’ve spent more time with Anton the past few days. He’d thought about the birthday party he threw him, and their time spent outside together, playing with animals and flying, and when they had watched Dew’s favorite show together upstairs— the last time he had interacted with Anton before he’d ruined everything with his stupid escape.

The truth was, Anton had been fun to be around sometimes, and at this point, Dew wasn’t afraid to admit it. He’d been scared before, when he still held on to the possibility of being free, but now? If he really was stuck here forever, maybe it was in his best interest to use Anton’s friendliness to his advantage. Dew hated the man, but at least he wasn’t cruel. At least he was trying to keep him happy.

If Dew was really going to be a test subject forever, as depressing as that sounded, he should make the most of the rest of his life.

So he sat on his bed, waiting apprehensively for Anton to finish preparing his torment and bring him into the lab. As he doodled in his sketchbook, he heard the scientist’s footsteps coming towards his room. He put his sketchbook down, brought his knees to his chest, and stared at the door.

“Okay Dewey,” Anton walked in, smiling menacingly, yet giddy with excitement. “It’s all prepared. Let’s go.”

Dew slowly stood up, hospital gown already on, and stared incredulously at the scientist as he pulled out a long chain.

“W-what is that?” Dew asked, taking a nervous step back.

Anton sighed. “The past two days you have hurt yourself using the things in my lab. I don’t know if I can fully trust you in there unrestrained anymore. And this experiment has to go perfectly, I don’t want any more delays, okay?”

Of course. Dew had lost all of Anton’s trust, it only made sense for him to be extra restrained in the lab. That didn’t stop his heart from racing, though. “O-okay.”

Anton smiled and clicked the chain around both of Dew’s wrists in front of him, then the two of them headed into the lab. Dew ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was his life now, and he had to be the best test subject he could be so that Anton would be nice to him. He had to be good. He had to.

He hopped up on the operating table, and was told to lay down. Anton placed a pillow behind his back so his wings would be cushioned semi-comfortably. Dew was thankful for that, at least.

As Anton started messing with the restraints on the side of the table, Dew looked up at him with teary eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked meekly.

“You’ll have to be restrained for this one,” Anton explained, tightening the straps around Dew’s legs. “Can’t have you moving around too much. This too tight?”

“N-no.”

Dew weakly protested as Anton tried grabbing his arms. The scientist shot him a look, and he meekly complied, allowing the scientist to spread his arms flat against the table and strap them tightly in the restraints. Dew shuddered as Anton gave the straps an extra tug just to make sure they were secure.

Anton took out his tape recorder and pressed record. “How are you feeling?”

“It’s cold,” Dew whimpered, goosebumps running across his skin.

“Don’t worry.” Anton ruffled his hair. “I’m sure you’ll forget all about the cold after we begin.”

The scientist began rummaging around the tray of tools, and Dew’s nervousness got the better of him. “W-what are you gonna do to me?” he asked.

Anton looked up, a giddy smile creeping across his face. It made Dew’s stomach drop. “Eyes are fascinating, aren’t they?”

“Um, what do you mean?” Dew mumbled.

“Eyes. They’re so fascinating, so complicated and intricate. We rely on our eyes to see the world around us, but… what if there was more? What if there was a way to see beyond the threshold of reality? I want to test something I’ve been working on for a while now, and I think I’ve finally figured out how to do it.”

“You mean— test on my eyes? You’re going to experiment on my eyes?”

“Yes! I won’t tell you the exact details though, I want it to be a surprise.”

As much as Dew wanted to behave as well as possible, he was beginning to panic. “N-no! No, Anton, y-you can’t! They’re my eyes! Please—”

“Remember that one time you asked me to give you night vision?” Anton joked, nonchalantly waving around a long syringe. “Don’t you want this?”

“No!” Dew screamed, but quickly realized that resisting would only make things worse. That’s right, he had to behave. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down, and looked back up at Anton. Maybe they could talk this through? “Wait— wait. Can’t you j-just test this out on a clone instead? What if something goes wrong?”

“I would, but that’s why you’re here, silly.” Anton booped his nose. “And nothing will go wrong. I’ll make sure of it.”

“No— c’mon, Anton! I th— I thought we were friends!”

Anton furrowed his brows, looking at Dew with a sad expression. “I need to do this, Dew. You’re my test subject. This is what you’re here for. …How about, after this, I’ll get you some ice cream? How does that sound?”

“B-but— Ah!” Dew yelped and squeezed his eyes shut when he saw Anton’s hand come towards him, only for him gently taking his glasses off. Still, that was not a good sign.

Dew peaked an eye open to see Anton picking up a giant, blurry needle.

“Wait— wait wait wait wait WAIT!” Dew cried, imagining all sorts of horrible things Anton could do to his eyes, and knowing this would probably be the worst thing he’d have to endure so far. He struggled against the restraints fruitlessly, only tiring himself out. “I— I’ll do anything, anything but this! Please!”

Anton sighed. “C’mon Dewey, be a good test subject.” As Dew continued pleading and blabbering as if his life depended on it, the scientist took out a roll of duct tape.

Dew’s eyes went wide. “Wait! Wait wait wait, please! Please n—”

“Stay still.” Dew’s breath hitched as he was rendered completely motionless. A chill ran down his spine as the scientist put a strip of duct tape over his mouth, smoothing it out with his hand. Dew glared at him, and Anton ruffled his hair, smiling. “There you go.”

He was eerily still as Anton prepped the syringe. Dew whimpered into the gag as Anton brought the needle closer, grabbed his arm, and injected a strange fluid into his veins. Dew only hoped it would ease the horrible pain that was sure to come.

“This’ll just make you feel a little groggy. A small sedative, that’s all it is. But I need you awake for this, can you stay awake for me?”

Dew nodded, already feeling drowsy, as tears fell down his cheeks.

“Good. Let’s get started, then.” Anton said, snapping on black rubber gloves.

The scientist picked up a small glass bottle that was filled with a very bright blue liquid. It was neon teal and glowing bright, with small bubbles swirling around inside it. Anton took an eye dropper and filled it with the substance. Then, Dew hazily heard a command to keep his eyes open, and he realized he was unable to close them no matter how much he wanted to.

The scientist was smiling to himself and saying something into the tape recorder, something Dew was too dazed and terrified to make out.

His chest heaved as he watched Anton’s hand slowly approach his eyes. He quickly turned his head away, only causing the scientist to wrench his head back with a rough hand entangled in his hair. Dew wanted nothing but to squeeze his eyes shut, but he couldn’t.

His eyes burned with tears. Everything felt like a hazy dream, far far away and yet so real. A wave of terror flowed through him. Anton held the eyedropper above one of Dew’s eyes and squeezed it, causing a couple of drops of that glowing blue liquid to fall into his eye. 

No no no NO NO NO! Dew couldn’t move. It felt like his eye was on fire. Something was coating his entire eyeball inside and out and he couldn’t get it off of him.

Anton repeated the process with Dew’s other eye.

Anton looked down at his test subject. “Hey, hey, don’t cry, Dew. Stop crying.” His tears dried up immediately after.

Dew could only watch in horror, his vision blurry and pained, as the scientist picked up another object and brought it towards him.

Dew’s vision was fading, and so was his consciousness. He hoped that only implied he would fall asleep soon. Yes, sleep, that sounded nice. Dew tried to relax as the room went dark, as he let Anton do whatever he wanted to do to him. He felt himself drift off, succumbing to the drugs. He barely heard the scientist’s voice anymore. He was so, so tired.

Right as Dew was about to close his eyes, he felt a sudden sharp sting on the bottom of his face. Anton had ripped the duct tape off.

“Wake up, Dewey.” It was the scientist’s voice, shaking him and his mind awake. That’s right. Dew was supposed to stay awake.

Anton loosened the straps enough for Dew to partially sit up, and held a cold flask of liquid to his lips. “Drink this.”

Dew moved his head away groggily. “W-w-why are you doing this?” Dew sobbed. “M-my eyes! What did you do to—”

“Shhh,” Anton said. “You’ll find out soon. Now drink.”

Dew didn’t have a choice but to gulp down whatever strange substance Anton had just given him. It tasted juicy, a strong sour, yet empty and cloudy at the same time. He all so suddenly felt lightheaded and dull, thoughts sizzling out into nothing. His head felt foggy, and he felt far, far away.

Dew didn’t know what happened after that.

. . .

In situations like this, during experiments like these, it was easy for Anton to get carried away, fueled with the excitement of creating something new. It was easy to be blinded by the power he held, and forget all about how his poor test subject felt. Experiments like these were what fueled him, what reminded him of why he still did this in the first place. Testing the limits of the human body, creating things nobody ever thought possible. This was why he loved science.

Not a single ounce of hesitation went through Anton’s mind when he took out a spoon and brought it to his test subject’s face. Right now, Dew was completely out of it. He wouldn’t remember any of this, which was a huge relief. At least he wouldn’t feel what was about to happen.

Anton brought the spoon closer to Dew’s glossy eyes. And…

Whatever was in that glowing blue liquid seemed to have worked, creating a link between the eye and the brain, no optic nerve needed. He was holding his test subject’s left eye in his hands. His eye.

It was easy to assume there was no coming back from this. Dew may as well have just lost an eye. But Anton was sure he’d be able to pop it back in place eventually, that was part of the experiment, after all.

He held the slimey, squishy, disgusting thing in his hands. It stared back at him, brown eye wide and still and petrified. It disgusted him. It made him feel sick to his stomach at the thought of permanently making Dew lose an eye. But the thought of this experiment being a success outweighed any guilt or remorse he felt, replacing it with the exhilarating thrill he’d been searching for. He held the eye between his thumb and forefinger, giving it a slight squeeze, just to see how it felt. If this experiment went right, everything would change.

He talked into the tape recorder as he prepared for the next step. An injection here, a bit of lasering there, he worked quickly and meticulously, lost in his own world. Once he was ready, he popped Dew’s eye back into place, and repeated the steps with the other one. One last injection with another strange substance, and Anton stepped back to take a look at his handy work. If all went well, things would start happening any minute now.

And he was right.

All of a sudden, Dew started writhing against the restraints, screaming at the top of his lungs. The straps keeping him restrained to the table pulled taut, and Anton was glad he decided to make them extra tight this time. Feathers flew everywhere as he flapped his wings in the midst of the struggle. The sound of nails scraping against metal filled Anton’s ears, but that was nothing compared to the screams. Anton hadn’t hurt such visceral, gut-wrenching screams in a long time. It made him feel sick, but he couldn’t stop watching.

All too quickly, something bubbled its way to the surface of Dew’s skin, bursting out of his forehead with a pop. There was minimal blood, to Anton’s surprise and relief, and he was almost sad that it had happened so quickly.

And then, eerie silence. Dew collapsed down against the table, limp and heavy, erratic breathing turning deep and calm.

Anton approached him slowly, heart pounding through his chest. On the center of Dew’s forehead was an eye. Wide and bloodshot, staring directly at him.

. . .

A few hours later, Anton watched his test subject stir awake, unrestrained and laying flat on the table. He was at his side in an instant, ready to provide painkillers or sedatives or even comfort if needed.

“Dew? Are you awake?”

“Y-Yeah,” Dew said, still feeling groggy. He looked around and started to panic. “I… I can’t see anything—”

“There are bandages covering your eyes, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just calm down.’’

“W-what did you do to me?”

“We’ll talk about that later. First, tell me how you feel.”

“I…” The lack of sight caused Dew to panic as he remembered what was happening before he blacked out.

“Dew,” Anton said, putting his hands on Dew’s shoulders. “Calm down. I’m here. Everything is going to be okay.”

“Y-you— my eyes!” Dew cried, twisting out of Anton’s grip. “What did you do to my eyes?!”

Anton swallowed thickly. This was not going well. “I’ll tell you later. Are you in any pain?”

“I-I… kinda? Everything’s still- still weird. Like, numb, almost. What did y-you do to me?”

“Hm, okay. That’s to be expected.”

Dew flinched in surprise as he felt the scientist grab his arm. “H-hey, what—”

“I’m just giving you something to help you relax. Stay still.”

Not being able to see only caused Dew to focus harder on the injection, unable to drown it out. Dew tensed as he felt a needle enter his skin, and choked back a sob when he felt the sting of the contents entering his body. But, like always, it was over as soon as it began.

“There, that wasn’t so bad,” Anton said. “I should check on your eyes. Try to relax, okay?”

Dew nodded, and Anton peeled the bandage off slowly. He sucked in a breath the second light hit eyes, and he batted the scientist’s hand away.

“Too bright!”

Anton winced. “Sorry.”

“Wait—” Dew lifted his hands up to his eyes and peeled the bandage off. He slowly peaked out, and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized he could still see. Thank fuck. Anton dimmed the lights, but everything still hurt to look at, so Dew covered his eyes again. “I-I can see fine, but- but it hurts.”

“We might need to keep those bandages on for a few weeks, while they heal, and just while your brain and body gets used to… a new eye. “You can handle that, right?”

Dew’s heart skipped a beat. “A— a what?” He squeaked.

“Another eye, Dewey.” He heard it in his voice that Anton was smiling wide. It made him shudder. “I made you grow another eye. On your forehead.”

“What?”

“That’s not the only thing, don’t worry. There’ll be more changes in the coming weeks, which is why the bandages have to stay on. It’s gonna be great.” Dew flinched as he felt the scientist’s hand gently ruffle his hair.

“O-okay.” Dew nodded, numb to it all. A new eye. He didn’t want to think about it. He was just thankful his vision wasn’t gone completely, a few weeks of darkness wouldn’t be too bad.

“Oh yeah!” Anton exclaimed, putting a cold bowl of something in Dew’s hands. “Ice cream, like I promised.”

“Th-thanks,” Dew said. It was vanilla, not his favorite, but he realized he didn't remember the last time he’d eaten ice cream, so he’d take what he could get.

Once Dew was done eating, Anton gently lifted him up and started walking to his room. He wrapped his arms tightly around Anton’s shoulders as a way to balance himself, disorientated from not being able to see and afraid of being dropped. He felt the scientist gently petting his back, probably trying to be comforting. Dew was carried up the stairs, through the door, and gently set into bed. He put his knees to his chest and reached a hand up to itch at his bandages, but Anton quickly stopped him.

“Don’t touch your bandages.” Anton reminded him, holding his wrist away from his face.

“They’re really itchy,” Dew said. “Do I really have to keep them on?”

“Yes. Your eyes need to heal.” Anton sighed. “I don’t wanna do this but… I don’t know if I can fully trust you either.”

“Do what?”

Dew flinched as he felt something rough and scratchy brush against his wrist that the scientist was holding, wrapping around it tightly. “Hey! What are—” He weakly pulled away, but Anton was stronger.

“Calm down. It’s just so you don’t mess with your eyes while you sleep. I can’t risk this going wrong.”

Dew looked down and allowed Anton to tie both of his wrists together behind his back. “There. That’s not so bad.”

“Easy for you to say…” Dew grumbled, flopping into bed. He curled into a ball, and the scientist tucked him under the covers. He thought he must look so defenseless like this, eyes covered, body restrained, completely unable to see anything coming. He hated being this vulnerable.

Anton petted his head softly, and smiled when Dew leaned into it. Dew wasn’t his clone, but he was still as cute as ever.

“Goodnight, Dewey.”

Dew heard the scientist leave the room and close the door. The click of the lock echoing through his ears. He heard footsteps get farther and farther away from his room, and assumed Anton had already turned the lights off and left the lab. He was alone.

Dew laid there on his bed, unable to move his arms that were restrained behind his back. He was still groggy from the drugs, dozing in and out of consciousness while he tried to focus on anything else but the incessant itching of the bandages and pain in his eyes. But it was dead silent in his room and he wasn’t even able to turn his music on. Unable to see, move, or hear anything, Dew was left to wallow in his own mind until he drifted off into a deep sleep.

. . .

Now that it was late at night, and Anton was by himself, the events of the day had caught up to him. It must’ve been so scary for his test subject, painful as well. Anton had to admit he was a bit blinded by the thrill of the experiment for a moment, and didn’t stop to think about how Dew was feeling. He could tell how much he was hurting, such a distressing and risky experiment would do that, he should’ve been more careful.

Anton felt disgusted with himself. But it’d be okay. Dew would forgive him eventually, and they’d move on, like they always did.

“Hey Anton, are you okay?” Sasha asked. They seemed to always see right through him.

“Yea—” No, he had waited long enough, it was time to tell his friend the truth. “No, I mean… Dew’s back.”

“...What?”

Anton fidgeted with the hem of his sweater. “I brought him back. Your guys' escape plan failed. I’m sorry.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t feel bad. It was inevitable. And there was no way he could live a normal life out there with his wings. I’m just… trying to protect him.”

They were quiet for a moment, then, “Can I see him?”

“He’s asleep right now and… I think it’d be best to leave him alone for now. After the experiment today… he needs time to heal from it. I can’t have anything interfering with the results. Though… maybe after a week or two, some enrichment would be good for him. I know you two are friends, it’s not right to keep you apart.”

“Will he be okay?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Well, that’s good. Tell him I said hi?”

Anton smiled. “I will.”

“G’night, Anton.”

“Goodnight.”

— 

eyes are so strange and wacky am i right

taglist:

@whumpinthepot @shywhumpauthor @whump-me-all-night-long @whump321 @fuckcapitalismasshole

@sorry-i-spaced @theelvishcowgirl @catnykit @tettlod @delicateprincepaper

@rejectedbytheempty @mijajaj @anothertawogsideblog @creppersfunpalooza @toyybox

@parasitebunny @bottlecapreader @thecareandkeepingofwhumpees @inkwell-and-dagger @vidawhump

@thepotatoofnopes @labwhump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @whumping-valentine @whumpsoda

@silly-scroimblo-skrunkl @lumpofsand @cepheusgalaxy

let me know if you want to be removed or added to the taglist!

[take-care-of-it]

Saw a really good post abt Polly being Anya’s mouthpiece for her true feelings abt Jimmy and like while I do think that’s true, I also think that Jimmy associating Polly (and by extension, Pony Express) with Anya in his mind also says so much about what he thinks of her.

Because Pony Express is, obviously, a capitalist nightmare company that made everything worse. It negatively impacted and exploited everyone on that ship, including Jimmy. So him associating her, his victim, with the company that exploited him, did wrong to him, is incredibly revealing.

She’s not a person to him, that much is obvious by the fact her representation in his mind is a mascot. Because if she was a person, he should feel bad about what he did to her. So she can’t be a person.

But he takes it a step further. She’s not just “not a person”, no, she must be an obstacle. Something that’s ruining Jimmy’s life (through no fault of his own, of course). Through his association of her and pony express, we can see that he’s convinced she has power over him (or at least, the potential to have power over him.) Because she could “use” her pregnancy against him to “ruin his life.” He has victimized himself against her in his mind.

I also think it’s one of the reasons he belittles her skills as much as he does, trying to undermine her confidence in herself as a way to “keep her in check.” To make sure she doesn’t “try anything.”

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

it’s funny that i’ve seen people in the fandom be like “kids aren’t dumb, they know how to differentiate fiction from reality” like,, ADULTS are dumb enough to believe the wrong morals sent by this show, what makes you think kids aren’t susceptible to it?

[highwaywhump]

remember this piece?

unnamed guard dog is still unnamed.

TW/CW: pet whump, (former and current) dehumanization/animalization, distraught whumpee, whumpee idealizes death mentions of scars and injuries, long term whump situation, tbh not much is happening here but two old men are having a moment ig

---

The flames weren’t real. 

They were the first thing the guard dog saw when he was pulled from the abyss. Orange LED lights scattering through lenses and refractors, creating the illusion of a pile of embers that would never go out. 

And still, he noticed he wasn’t particularly cold. It wasn’t slick linoleum or cold metal against his skin, it was… fur?

He blinked and looked around, trying to get his eyes to refocus. He was on his side on a cream fur rug, facing a fake fireplace with neverending little fake flames dancing along the edges of fake logs. He turned over, biting his teeth together as his shoulders protested the movement. He was getting too old to be laying on floors, even if they were covered by plush fur rugs. 

Then again, that wasn’t up to him. 

What had even happened to land him here? It was a living room with high windows stretching up and up and up towards even higher ceilings. An luxurious-looking leather sofa, complete with a matching pair of chairs, made up the seating arrangement. There were bookshelves along the walls, a huge blue-hued painting of foggy hills on another. Everything looked needlessly expensive. 

Who had put him here? Why?

He tried to sit up, only to groan and rub his face with his palms as a sharp pain shot through his head. He hadn’t just been sleeping, he figured. He was always groggy after naps, but never like this. Somebody must have … given him … something- 

The guard dog lurched forwards, doubling over on himself and gagging violently as the memories flooded back to him, filling all his senses. The cold examination table, the clammy blue gloved hands, the bright light, the syringe… He would have thrown up, had he had anything to eat the last seven days. His pulse was racing, his hands were shaking as he grabbed onto the fur of the rug, trying to ground himself. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck…

“Oh, good. You’re awake.”

The voice pierced through the blood rushing in his ears. 

“Thought I lost you there for a second. Again.” 

The voice was more familiar to him than the ache in his bones, the taste of blood in his mouth, the tight skin of his scars. 

He didn’t have to turn around and face the source of the voice to know who it belonged to. More importantly, he didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to believe it could be real. 

That he was back with him again. 

It took him several long, grueling seconds to find his voice. He realized he hadn’t used it for weeks, and when it finally came out of his mouth, it was gravelly and rough, nearly impossible to shape into words. For a moment there was only bare sound, akin to that of a wounded predator. 

Then, finally, did the words come. 

“I… I was supposed to feel better.” 

The voice of the man he did not want to face, scoffed, caught off guard. “What?” 

The guard dog keeled over, his scarred, wide hands digging into the rug as he yelled into its plush fur. 

“I was supposed to feel better!” 

“I fucking hope you do!” the voice snapped harshly, and a pair of fine leather shoes trod across the dark hardwood, into the guard dog’s line of sight. 

“You better feel fucking great! They were going to kill you!” 

“Yes!” the guard dog moaned, hiding his face in his hands. His shoulders shuddered, the scars there dancing. “That was the point.” His voice took on a sore quality, like he was straining to control it, to keep it together. He didn’t look like the mighty guard dog he once was, hunched over on the plush rug, stifling his sobs. 

“That was the point, so why didn’t you let them.” 

The other man was silent for a beat. The guard dog could, between his fingers and through the tears fogging up his eyes, catch a glimpse of the black Oxfords he wore, perfectly shined as always. 

Derbies are for doormen and loafers are for geriatrics. If you forget everything else, remember that, pup. 

The man sighed and went down on one knee, steadying himself with a hand on the floor. He wore the same ring he always had. The red garnet shone in the fake firelight, reminding the guard dog of all the times that hand had struck him, the ring often slicing the skin of his cheek. 

 “Don’t tell me I should have let them murder you. I don’t want to hear it.” His voice was resigned, but nevertheless cold, not leaving it up for discussion. Some years ago, that voice would have been enough for the guard dog to forget even the mere thought of disobedience. 

“Why did you bring me back here? Why-” The guard dog hunched in on himself, caught in a coughing fit brought on by the sudden and harsh use of his gravelly voice. He wouldn’t be surprised if he coughed up blood on the fine fur rug. 

The man, now behind his back, did not react to the sharp onslaught. He remained silent until the guard dog’s wide shoulders had stopped their rhythmic contractions. His voice was still unwavering. “I am only reclaiming what is mine.”

“Yours?” The guard dog barked out, then groaned as his sore lungs protested. “You sold me! You didn’t want me anymore. You sent me away to the first caller!” 

“I sold you only because I had no other choice. You do not understand these things. You never did.”

The man reached out as he said this, hand folded, and slid his knuckles down the column of the guard dog’s neck. 

His touch was like an electric shock, his warm and gentle hand such a contrast to the guard dog’s cold surroundings that he flinched like he had been hit, his spine jerking away on its own accord. The skin contact was enough to wrench another violent sob from his body. 

“And I let Louie take you only because I couldn’t bear the thought of having to see you go any further. It was better to do it quickly. It wouldn’t have been healthy for either of us to wait around for the right person.” 

“There was nothing healthy about him!” groaned the guard dog. “He put me in the fights! I made his fortune when I knocked out Bruiser! And six months later he sold me on again, and after that….” His voice broke. His anger seemed to have dissipated now, replaced by violent sobs that caused his whole body to heave and lurch in between his words. 

“Oh, pup. What did they do to you…” The man’s fingers ghosted across his spine, following one particularly nasty scar, too jagged to come from a blade. “I never should have let you go, should I.” 

“I wish you never got me back.” Despite the words, the guard dog’s voice was not resentful, only fatigued and spent. 

“Don’t you like me anymore? You used to love me.” 

He was quiet for a while. The man wondered idly if he had passed out, but did not check.  

“It wasn’t love,” came the rough voice eventually. “It wasn’t about that.” 

“Then what was it about?” 

“Loyalty.” The answer came before he could even think of it. Loyalty was the fundament for everything he was, everything he would ever be. Everything he had ever done. “I will always be loyal to you. No matter what you do to me.” He recalled the very last beating they had shared, the evening before his new owner had retrieved him and brought him to the fighting rings. 

It was quiet for a while.

“I know you don’t believe me, but I will always be loyal to you, too,” the man said eventually. 

He looked up, suddenly face to face with the man he had been made for, all those years ago. Now older, rougher, gray around the edges, but still the same brown eyes, framed by the same perpetually upturned eyelids. The guard dog’s own eyes were bloodshot, tear tracks creating shiny trails down his cheeks. They were only a few inches apart, the man having knelt down to his level. 

It wasn’t the first time they had been this close, but the guard dog watched him with fresh eyes this time. Nigh on two decades of life away from his master had forever changed the curious atmospheric aura they once used to share. 

“You’re right. I will never believe you again.” 

The familiar brown gaze studied him for a second, jumping down and back up, roaming the litany of scars and blemishes on his skin, several stretching into his hairline. His lips made a peculiar twitch before he suddenly sat back up and got to his feet, limber and flexible despite his age. 

“In any case, you’re getting a hosedown before dinner. You smell like shit.”

---

tags:

@maracujatangerine (were there more of you? lmk, also lmk if you don't want me to tag you)

[insufferablemod]

hi im still mad davesprite never got to talk to dirk

[emptyportrait]

The sheer fucking audacity of CNN to refer to yet another inhumane massacre of Palestinians who were just trying to retrieve aid for their starving families as a "chaotic incident" enrages me. They refuse to name the perpetrators who murdered Palestinians, the IOF and they refuse to condemn Israel for the atrocities they have been carrying out since October. The CNN and other western news/media outlets don't even deserve to be called as journalists but rather a bunch of heartless ghouls with no morality, fortitude, or spine. and these so-called news outlets should be put on trial for their complicity in this genocide.

[3-2-whump]

The Auction Floor: Thomas Costa’s POV

Hi all,

In exchange for a chapter on the current timeline (a chapter I am still working on/fixing up before it is posted), I am posting a prequel chapter. Any and all prequel chapters will be found under 'Eternal, part 0.' They won't have nav arrows, but they will have an explanation to when in the story they take place, and a link to the masterlist to read more. Hope this system works for everyone!

This chapter happens slightly before, concurrently, and a little after The Auction Floor

TW/CW: death of a minor character (briefly mentioned), institutionalized slavery, pet whump, dehumanization, nonconsensual nudity (nonsexual), minor whump (at time of story), creepy/intimate whumper(s) (sort of a multiple whimpers situation), manhandling (nonsexual) (towards the end)

Mob boss Luciano Antonio Costa – Boss Tony - had died, leaving mafia to his grandson, Thomas, to control. The newly-appointed heir didn’t look much like a typical Italian mob boss. With his blonde hair, steely blue eyes, and freckled fair skin, he hardly even looked Italian. However, the old boss never had any legitimate male heirs to pass the helm of leadership to, having only one daughter before his wife died. Although he begrudgingly accepted his daughter’s marriage to Tom’s father, an inconsequential gangster from the Irish mob, he had always intended to pass the family business onto his surviving grandson.

“I’m so sorry for your loss” began to lose its meaning after the fourth well-meaning chump, and unfortunately, Grandpa Tony’s funeral had a good turnout. “That was a beautiful eulogy,” one of many nameless faces sniffled. “You two must have been very close,” they’d said to him. Were we ever close, though? Thomas wanted to ask, remembering only the time they last fought. It may as well have been a lifetime ago when he was a teenager who turned his back on the family to try and live a straight life, but the guilt hung over him like a curse no matter how hard he had tried to run away from his fate as the next boss of the Costas. It was always about what he wanted me to be, not what I wanted. Never once was it ever about what I wanted to do with my life, he bitterly remembered. Even now, it was all about Grandpa Tony’s wants, as he accepted his role in leading the Costas. He cast a baleful glance at the casket as it slowly disappeared beneath the earth.You won, old man.

His underboss and a few of the capos, men that he had grown up with and who now supported him in running the large criminal organization, caught on to their new boss’ sour mood. Admittedly, it wasn’t hard to notice how intensely he scowled at the freshly filled-in grave. They suggested celebrating Thomas’ ascension to head of the family with drinks and a night out, but their idea of a night out was attending a black-market auction and maxing out the organization’s funds on frivolous shit. Powerful drugs, illicit weapons, plundered antiques, and –dear god, did Jaime just buy an arowana?! Thomas looked over the side of his whiskey glass disapprovingly.

He glanced over at a corner of the auction house that seemed to gather a large crowd. He shrugged and decided to join them to see the display. The crowd surrounded an entire floor-to-ceiling wall of glass, behind which stood people from all around the world, each divided into their own little compartments within the glass wall, each of them completely naked. The way they were displayed in those little glass tanks was oddly reminiscent of how fish were displayed at a pet store.

Get a pet, people had said to him. It’ll be good for you, they said, help lift your spirits, they said, if you’re responsible for keeping one little thing alive, maybe you’ll be more motivated to take care of yourself, they said. Surely those people had meant a cat or a dog or a python, and probably not an actual human being. Although, Thomas remembered the people giving him that advice were part of the major crime families of the city, too. Perhaps this was what they meant all along?

Regardless of what those people meant, it was a whole different thing to actually commit to owning a person. He’d never seriously considered it before, but now he found himself thoughtfully observing the merchandise behind the glass. Though there were a few people who were obviously adults, most of them were teens, and most them were girls, though there were a couple boys, too.

Whichever one he’d pick, they would have to be relatively attractive, if he was going to have to bear looking at them at the end of every day. He eyed a glass cell with a stunning blonde girl futilely trying to cover herself with her hands and ignore the gazes directed within her cell. Thomas pushed past the crowd and moved on; pretty girls like that would be swiped up immediately, so it wouldn’t even be worth the trouble to place a bid. The next cell held a freckled boy who leaned into the glass, fogging it up with his breath and writing ‘HELP ME’ over and over again with his finger. Thomas passed on that one, too. One by one he would find something wrong with the human assets behind the glass cases. Too shy, too desperate, not my type, that one just stares ahead and doesn’t even move…

He finally stopped around the last few cells, where a crowd had dissipated from in front of a glass cell with discontented murmurs. Inside that one crouched a small boy, knobby knees drawn to bony chest, thin, tan arms wrapped around his shins, and a head of messy dark hair resting on top his knees. The boy dared to look up from his hiding place. Loose, unruly waves of hair and thick, dark eyelashes nearly covered his expressive dark brown eyes. Those eyes hid nothing as they shone with fear. Thomas gripped the whiskey in his hand a little tighter. The child cut a striking image inside the glass prison, reminding him of a time and a place and an incidence he never liked to think about for long-

To his misfortune, his subordinates caught him staring. “Got your eye on the little slave, Tommy-Boy?” Luca asked as he sauntered up to him.

“Don’t call him that.” Even if that was technically what he would be, the whole concept still took a while for him to get used to. “I just think he’s cute is all,” he mumbled into his glass, draining it of the rest of the whiskey while he tried to convince himself the pink in his cheeks was only from the drink.

“Why don’t you place a bid?” Thomas whipped around to see Jaime lurking behind him. When did he get here? His eyes traveled down to the large picnic cooler on wheels, supposedly where Jaime’s new fish was. “Boss Tony, God rest his soul, left you quite the inheritance, I’m sure you can afford him,” Jamie snickered. He pointed to the sign above the glass cell, where the serial number and QR code were displayed prominently. “142225,” he read.

“Doesn’t he kind of remind you of-”

“You shut up. Right now,” Thomas warned.

“We’ll shut up once you place a bid, now come on! At least look up the little slave!”

Thomas sighed and whipped out his phone; the sooner he scanned the QR Code with the app the black market had made him download, the sooner his underlings would shut the hell up. A profile popped up on his phone screen, the men crowding comically around him to read over his shoulder. 142225 had been collected in Pakistan, was 5’1”, and weighed barely 90 lbs. at the last weigh-in.

“They like to starve the kids here,” Luca explained nonchalantly. “Makes it easier to control them.” Thomas glanced briefly at the thin boy inside the glass, frowning a little as he let that unsettling fact sink in. He quickly scrolled past the blood type, known allergies, and other information he deemed irrelevant to hover his thumb over the ‘PLACE A BID’ button.

“Well, go on, you know you want to!”

“He looks easy enough to take care of, and easy on the eyes, too!”

“We saw how enviously you stared at Matteo’s pet at the last New Year’s party, won’t it be nice to finally have one of your own?”

 Eventually, their peer-pressure resulted in the new mob boss placing a bid, becoming $30k poorer, filling out some ridiculous form about any last-minute body mods he may want, and waiting until the end of the night to collect his new slave and go home. His companions had left hours ago, and every other buyer had gotten their slave already, so it was just him waiting alone in an emptying warehouse, trying to make small talk with one of the event coordinators.

“So, does he have a name?”

She didn’t even look up from her tablet. “He’s named whatever you want to name him.”

“Where is he from? Besides the collection point, where’s he actually from?”

“We don’t know.”

“How old is he?”

“We don’t know.”

Thomas barely suppressed a groan. “Is there anything you do know?” he ground out impatiently.

“Yeah. He looks even cuter when he cries.” The woman smirked over her tablet, looking over Thomas’ right shoulder. “He’s here.”

Thomas turned around to see the boy, now clothed in a white T-shirt and bluish gray sweatpants. He kept his eyes downcast and his hands folded in front of him. “What’s your name, kid?”

The boy looked up briefly before dropping his gaze back to his bare feet. “Khaled,” he replied, voice timid and heavily accented, “but you may call me whatever you want, sir.”

Khaled. He silently rolled the name around on his tongue as if savoring an exotic sweet. Khaled. Thomas cast what he hoped was a reassuring smile, not that Khaled saw it with his gaze fixed to the floor. “Luckily for you, I like your name.” He strode decisively toward the exit, gently placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder to direct him. “Come with me, Khaled.”

In the nearly three-hour car ride back to Thomas’ home, the mob boss learned three things about his new purchase. Firstly, Khaled was shy, only speaking when spoken to and even then, using as few words as possible. Also, Khaled probably didn’t speak much English; how much of this was because he was shy, and how much of this was because he literally couldn’t understand him? And –finally, -Khaled could run. Since the moment the car parked, Khaled dashed out and sprinted into the street. He nearly got hit by a truck before Thomas could chase after him, pull him back, and drag him inside the apartment building. The scene of a grown man dragging a distressed kid who was screaming bloody murder probably shocked some residents, but fortunately the doorman was part of the Costas and did not bat an eye.

“It is too damn early for this!” Thomas complained to himself as he practically threw Khaled into the awaiting elevator. “Do you want to be leashed up like a dog, you little shit?! Cause that’s what’s going to happen if you keep trying to run away!”

“Let go of me, please!” the boy cried, his voice brittle and panicked like a scared, caged animal as he tried to twist out of the punishing grip on his arm.

“Like hell I’m letting you go, not after maxing out my personal credit card on you and pulling an all-nighter for the first time since Kandahar!” He violently jammed the buttons that would take them to the top floor of the high rise.

Soon the elevator dinged, doors swooshing open as they reached the floor of his penthouse. “Come on!” Thomas continued to drag the boy through the hallway, ignoring him begging in that endearing accent of his. Khaled’s complaints all but ceased as soon as he opened the door to his penthouse and let the boy step inside. His eyes widened, sparkling in awe, and his jaw dropped as he let out a reverent “whoa” that transcended any language barrier.

The living room to the penthouse itself was light and spacious, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of natural light, and minimalist décor to accent the living room. A large L-shaped couch dominated the living room and looked over the expansive rooftop and the cityscape beyond it. The rest of the room terminated sharply into a dining area with a large oak table and a wood-floored kitchen with two large granite countertops. An imposingly large door –the door to Thomas’ bedroom, -stood closed to the left of the living room. A hallway to the right branched off into an office on one side, and a guest bathroom opposite. A small staircase right outside the laundry room led to a storage loft spanning above the entrance. Thomas toed off his shoes at the door. Khaled, who wasn’t wearing any shoes, hesitantly walked in. Tom frowned when he noticed the dirty footprints left behind on his beige rug.“Would you like a bath, Khaled?” he suggested. The fact that Khaled didn’t reply made him again wonder how much English he truly understood. We can work on that. He sighed in exasperation as he gripped the boy’s arm and dragged him off to the guest bathroom. Once inside, Thomas deposited him at the entrance and turned on the lights and the fan. He got the shower head running next. Khaled stood silently watching him by the door as he tested the water’s temperature with his hand a few times. He nodded in satisfaction as the water finally reached an agreeable temperature. “Come on in,” he beckoned. Khaled inched closer to the bath tub. “Can I take off your clothes?” he asked. The boy blinked, then shook his head as he quickly took off the shirt himself. The drab sweatpants soon followed, and he quickly stepped into the shower. Thomas drew the curtain to prevent water from spilling and to give him a shred of privacy. As the boy showered, he soon realized Khaled had nothing to wear but that depressing little t-shirt and sweatpants. He took them to the laundry room and chucked them in the hamper, making a mental note to buy some clothes for Khaled as soon as possible. Cute as the small naked boy was, he was still a minor, and Tom didn’t need any extra distractions while he was adjusting to his new role as Boss of the Costa Family.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump

[paingoes]

Crash Out - Reflection

Birthday, shower thoughts, shrooms

Paris reflects on the birthday incident and his life in general

(Content: whumper turned whumpee, (ex) royal whumpee, living weapon whumpee, whumper POV, past abuse, abuse apologism, dehumanization, beating, drugs, addiction, body image, minor emeto, suicidal ideation, guilt, death mention)

It was his birthday and the same night everything was destined to be destroyed. The Castle Thales seemed to know this and did its best to look haunted. The warmth of her presence broke through all that was the cold and crystalline. She was the only one he could stand to speak to.

Everything had been fine until they’d ended up back in the main hall and that old argument started up again.

Delta knelt at the side of the throne with the golden chain around his neck. All the bruises had been painted over carefully. He looked bored more than anything else. One hand played idly with the thread of the carpet. He did not see them come in.

Lorelai went rigid just as soon as she saw him. She pulled away from Paris as harshly as if he’d hit her.

“…You really keep him there all night?” she asked in unease.

He rolled his eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed. He didn’t want to go through it again now. Not on his birthday. He wanted a single fucking night where he didn’t have to think about it.

“Yeah,” he answered flatly. Obviously.

Her expression darkened, “And you make him wear a leash.”

“Who cares?”

“I’m sure he does,” she said, “Can you imagine how he feels?”

“Oh my god, are you still on about that commie shit?” He moved one hand to his hip, his irritation deepening. He was tired of explaining this. She wouldn’t understand.

“You are mean,” she said. She said it like it was a revelation, like it was something that was supposed to surprise him. Like she was finding it out now for the first time.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“You’re worse each time I see you.” 

Something like horror was dawning in her eyes. She was the only person he cared about in the world and in that moment, he swore that he hated her.

~

One year later, in the bathroom of a rundown motel, he washed the dirt off of his hands and carefully re-bandaged all the places the skin had torn. The air was heavy with steam. It opened up the shredded membrane of his throat. It distorted his reflection.

“Can you imagine how he feels?”

The thought came to him without warning, but with the kind of day it’d been, it didn’t come as a surprise. And he couldn’t have imagined it, not really. He’d never spared Delta the time, or even the consideration.

But he was starting to. He could almost imagine it, forced down onto his knees by the barrel of a gun, the blindfold tied over his eyes. He’d treated it like it was nothing. Empire demanded sacrifice — from everyone. It was all just more of the same.

He wiped at the mirror to reveal the litany of bruises along his skin. His body was turning into a minefield of scars. It was meth thin, and tired often. He’d done such a number on it.

~

Twelve hours earlier, Lorelai’s ship had pulled down onto the clearing of the festival. For all that had happened, the partying had went on uninterrupted throughout the entire trip. She’d asked if he wanted to skip it for a little bit, since his head was fucked, and since his body was fucked, and since he’d almost died. He said no.

It didn’t take them long to disappear into the crowd, about as indistinguishable from any other pair of losers in their twenties. She could get along with anyone — and he was finding it was a lot more tolerable to talk to people when they didn’t know who he was.

They found refuge in the company of the spring-breakers. College students. They were easy to work. The fine arts student pulled a knitted pouch from within her purse.

“No. None for you. Don’t give him any,” Lorelai insisted, popping a handful of the shrooms into her mouth.

“I’m fine,” Paris said.

“No. You always freak out.”

“I’m literally fine.”

“Don’t give him any.”

They waited until her back was turned before making the handover. 

“I took it,” he said, the moment she turned back.

“Are you fucking crazy?!”

~

“You know what? Fine.” He yanked at the chain around Delta’s neck, harder than he needed to. He slid the key into the lock. The chain clattered loudly to the floor.

“Fuck both of you.”

He stormed out. It was freezing on Thales that night and he could barely feel it. He was hot. He was burning all the way through the wood path.

He stomped up the ramp of the ship and all the way to his room.

Empire demanded everything. It would erode away at any happiness he might’ve gotten, any other life he might’ve had. He would give and give and give and get nothing and still keep at it endlessly. He’d made his peace with it. 

He thought he did.

And still he thought he might have her. 

Empire would rob him of that too. It was the final intrusion, one final act of self denial.

He handled it with all the grace of someone off six different stimulants.

He tore his room apart and he took everything in it. He was in the grip of it. All the scorn and betrayal bubbled up and coiled and burned. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

She belonged to him. 

They both did. 

~

Through the thin walls of the motel room, he could hear her on the other side. She laughed softly, her voice indistinct as she took the call.

She could never know. He’d tell her almost anything, but this she could never know. 

He tried to imagine saying it to her now. He tried to imagine telling her what he’d done that night. The fear and the shame coursed through him like ice. He never could. 

Everything he owned fit inside of the trunk of her ship. There was so little that belonged to him anymore. 

~

The shrooms crept up on them about midway through the set. They hit her first. He saw the way her eyes dilated, the little mania that crept into her movements, and knew he did not have long to go. Sure enough, the colors shifted, and the strange vibrations through his body picked up in synch with the bass.

He thought it was fine. In the busyness and brightness of the crowd, he could almost forget that it was his destiny to freak out each time he went on psychs. It was only as the sky darkened and the music quieted that he felt it crawling.

They were in the woods. Why hadn’t he realized it until now? He stumbled back to the college kids’ little outpost and found that they were surrounded by woods on all sides. He was on the ground. He was in the dirt. Something large and tiger shaped crested in his periphery. Something dog-headed flashed behind his closed eyes — and the harder he tried to push the thought from his mind, the more it wanted to stay. He whined miserably into his crossed arms, hiding his face in the grass.

“I told you not to take it,” Lorelai sighed, combing her fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, meaning it. 

“Shh,” she said. She kissed his temple. “Just ride it out.”

~

It was so easy to blame Delta. He’d gotten into the habit of it. And Delta took it so endlessly. He never fought back. 

Paris would never be happy. He’d known it for a long time. Empire demanded sacrifice. It demanded and demanded and demanded. Paris would give to it endlessly, everything. He did everything for it.

He was so fucking sick of it.

He did not dream of a better life. He dreamed of dying. He dreamed of crashing the ship into the side of a mountain and killing everyone onboard. He dreamed of unlocking Delta’s collar at the ball and unleashing upon all of them a fury that they’d all done everything to deserve. He dreamed of death in a million different ways.

Paris hated his life. He hated Empire and that nuclear bomb they had built up in his brain, the child they’d ripped from his home and turned into a machine, the fucking symbol of all that had ever gone wrong. Real evil burns and coils and glows. It destroyed cities and cut civilians in half. It cauterized wounds and bled from the mouth. It was down there now, with one of Lorelai’s hands pressed up against its own.

Because Delta was so fucking blameless. He’d never had a choice, he heard Lorelai’s voice in falsetto.

What fucking choice had he had, either? Delta got to be blameless. And he got to be worse each time I see you. He got to be mean.

He did the last of the line off of the cracked sink.

He’d show them fucking mean.

~

He felt around in the space between his ribs. He traced careful fingers over the star-shaped scar on his chest and then again over the bandages on his palm. It still hurt nearly too much to touch. He didn’t know when it would heal again. They’d stitched it up for him at CTRL and they had not even done it painfully. He hadn’t understood why. He still didn’t understand why.

The word mercy tasted sour against his tongue. It spun sickly within his mind. 

Wasn’t he just a little bit disappointed when the gun was removed from his mouth, when his life was extended any longer than it had to be?

And wasn’t he so devastated when he learned that he was spared?

He traced the scratches along his arms. Delta’s claws had gotten in deep. It was some of the last traces of him left on the earth. All the rest was buried at the bottom of the ocean.

It wasn’t fair.

He didn’t deserve it.

~

One of the art students gave him a sketchpad just to shut him up. He took it, grateful to give any form to the horrific intrusions.

He drew wolves, mostly. Wolf heads. Lorelai laid down on the grass beside him. The others were sprawled out a bit further away. 

She wanted to share the paper with him. He held it in between the two of them. His drawings were scary, at first. All the wolves had eyes in their throat. All the lions had teeth like knives.

But she filled in the empty space with vines and flowers until it looked like a jungle you’d find in a children’s book. She said she wished they had paint. He remembered she’d been good at that. They’d have gotten a lot of mileage out of it. 

He felt his fear dwindling. He felt guilty that he let it.

He knew he freaked out whenever he took it. He did that with most things, really. Did he even like drugs? Why had he taken it?

~

Paris barely heard him. So much adrenaline coursed through his system that even seeing felt like an impossibility. He didn’t bother holding back anymore. He didn’t want to.

The impact broke the mirror open and scattered the shards all across the floor. He threw Delta roughly down on top of the broken pieces, not caring. The glass crunched beneath his boots, crystalline, iridescence.

Everything was ruined. Everything was ruined and there was no coming back. There was no hope.

He pulled his leg back and drove it straight into the side of Delta’s rib, listening for the crack that followed. He hated it. He hated all of this so much he could not stand it. He was spiraling, he knew, completely lost in the goddamn tantrum. He didn’t care. He wished they’d both just fucking die.

He yanked at Delta’s collar again, dragging him into the bathroom. He was going on about some shit that Paris didn’t understand, that he couldn’t even begin to care about. If he’d been listening, if he’d really been anywhere but inside his own head, he might’ve noticed that Delta had been crying. That he’d started begging. He didn’t notice. He took a rough handful of his hair, forcing his head back down whenever he squirmed too much.

The water reached the rim, and he’d forced his head under that, too.

Delta laid gasping within the tub, the thick strands of his hair slick and wet across his face, his wrists bound up in chains. He’d tried to speak again. He couldn’t. Paris clamped a hand over his mouth. He didn’t want him to speak, to interrupt his own spiral. He wanted to feel it all, to drown in it.

“I hate you,” he said.

And Delta’s eyes got wide, probably wondering what he’d done wrong, as if it’d ever been about him at all.

~

He tried to throw up, but nothing could come out. He hadn’t eaten in days. It’d become habit. His hands were shaking and his nose was bloody and the hot steam of the bathroom made it so that there was no coolness to the tiles. He felt no relief even as he pressed his skin against them, as badly as he wanted to lie down on the floor and never get up. He was sick.

He could still hear Lorelai through the door, the faint sound of the phone call, and of her music playing in the background. She seemed to know, always. He heard her rising up from the bed, a gentle knock at the door.

“Paris?” she called softly through it.

He winced, closed his eyes. How could he ever begin to tell her?

He was sick.

~

Did he even like drugs? He asked himself this again and again, still sprawled out on the grass, still with her beside him. The night was on in earnest now. Thousands of stars peppered the sky. The music student said there would be a meteor shower tonight. Maybe they’d get lucky.

Why had he fought so hard and so fiercely? They’d come all this way, across a hundred different planets, across an entire year. He’d dragged her from her home and across the galaxy. It was such a desperate bid.

He must have wanted to live. This was the behavior of someone who wanted to live.

And so why had he gotten drunk every night of the trip, and each night before that, ever since he turned fifteen? He’d taken the pills off the street when he could afford to pay for the real thing. He’d forgone the test kits, when it was no trouble for him to get them. He’d taken more than he should and he’d picked fights he couldn’t win. He’d spent hours prodding at Delta, at an atom bomb, just hoping for something-

He hoped the ship would crash sometimes. He hoped the stars they passed would explode without warning. He hoped for one thing, desperately, and he had for as long as he could remember.

I want to die.

It was a quiet admission. He could only say it in his head. Lorelai was tripping too hard, it would throw her in a bad way. But as it surfaced, there was no way to submerge it again. It rose up all at once.

Death evaded him. It was denied to him. Was he ever relieved afterwards? He wasn’t. He hadn’t been.

The world was cruel as it was endless — and it was out for him. He would die just as stupid and evil as everyone else had been.

But then they’d been so careful when they pulled him out of the grave. They’d bandaged his hand and stitched it without hurting him, even when they had every right to. They’d given him blood from their veins when his own had run out.

Lorelai’s hot tears had fell onto the bare skin of his clavicle. She’d clung to him when he was found. She didn’t want to see him in pain. In spite of everything.

She killed for him.

I want to die.

And as soon as he admitted it, he didn’t want it anymore.

“Lorry, I think I need to get sober,” he said.

She turned over in the grass, whining a little bit.

“Me tooooooo. Why is it lasting so long?”

“No, like, permanently.”

“Oh.” She poked her head up. “Are you serious?”

His hand rested against his chest. He could feel his heart beating beneath it, quick and painful. The same frantic rhythm it’d been honing for years. He nodded.

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

Her face turned back into the grass. He looked back up into the sky, waiting for his heart to settle down, waiting for meteors. Absently, her hand reached out for his own.

~

On the morning after his birthday party, Paris woke up with sick clarity, and he knew he’d done something he could never take back.

One week later, Delta was dead and the kingdom was lost.

~

Paris stood up roughly from the bathroom floor. He pulled a clean shirt over his head and combed his hair out with his fingers. 

As he looked up into the clouded mirror, he remembered the shards that had spilled out onto the floor of Delta’s room. He’d broken the mirror.

Seven years of bad luck.

He was sure he’d earned himself so much more than that.

~~~

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @whump-queen

[lotus-pear]

okay guys I see what ur saying with the Dazai critiques, man’s insane. I personally enjoy that insanity but yk, fair game to hate

but I have to say that I at least don’t defend yk. bc it would be exponentially funnier if I did, but my heart wouldn’t be in it </3

this leads me to remembering one of my favorite comments ever on dazai opinion that I found on Twitter X once

actually hilarious to me to see ppl simplify the murder as mental health… it’s just… how

crazy stuff, fr

cuz dazai has hundreds of counts of murder and torture and manipulation… but he’s just sad uwu

im cackling at this rn hkyxkagrgea

bsdtt try to actually characterize anybody in bsd fucking correctly challenge (impossible) GO‼️‼️ imagine calling dazai a cruel and heartless individual when he literally wrests control of his entire fucking life at the mere age of eighteen DESPITE being suicidal and devoid of emotions and any will to live after the death of his dearest friend/parental figure. do they understand how mentally STRONG someone has to be in order to do that? do you guys fucking understand how EASY it would have been for dazai to let that be his breaking point and finally kill himself? every time i look back at oda's death scene i am stunned and miserable at how reluctantly dazai gets up. like he wants to die right there too. but he picks himself up and escapes the mafia. he carves a life out for himself despite being a fucking hollow shell of a human. a husk of the boy he could've been had oda not died. alienated from society with no skills outside of the mafia despite his analytical mind with the word "traitor" on his head and no one by his side. can you imagine doing all of that while being barely at the brink of adulthood? that was a CHILD.

[sillygoose1777]

Chapter 2: First Night Home

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Word count: 2835

Trigger Warnings/tags : mentions of abuse, whumpees kept as pets, multiple whumpees, carewhumper, og characters, supernatural/nonhuman whumpees, supernatural/nonhuman whumpers, mind reading whumpee, guard dog whumpee, muzzled whumpee, dehumanization (from whumpers), drugged whumpee, non con stripping, unconscious whumpee, og ocs, og world, og story, mentions of past abuse, mentions of medical whump, neglectful carewhumper, attention seeking whumpee, defiant (kind of) whumpee, talkative whumpee, quiet whumpee, possessive whumper (kind of), clingy whumpee, rich whumper

Other notes: Btw Kori (the lynx) is about the size of a toddler. Valerian LOVEs Zenith and often needs a lot of attention from him. Hudson is a tursian (og species), Valerian is a harpy, Kori is a lynx (og species), and Zenith is a dragon breed. 

Hudson watched as Zenith went inside the house to finish his phone call. He was still holding the lynx in his arms, not knowing if he should put it down or not. It was a tiny thing, curled up in the crook of his arm with its blanket. He waited until the workers had finished unloading the other pets into Zenith's garage before he took his leave. As soon as he shut the front door behind him, Valerian jumped up from the couch over to him. 

“Hudson! It took you long enough, I wish I could have gone with you guys. Did Zenith find anything? He was on a call just now and completely ignored me. Couldn’t even give me a spare glance,” Valerian rambled on, huffing annoyingly. “What are you holding?” Hudson hesitated before shifting the lynx in his arms to show Valerian. 

“Is that a fox?” Valerian asked, coming close to inspect it. 

“It’s a lynx,” Hudson corrected.

“Close enough.” Valerian reached out and brushed the lynx’s fur out of its face. Hudson tensed slightly but didn’t nothing to stop Valerian. 

“Why are you bringing it inside? Doesn’t Zenith normally keep them in the garage?” Valerian asked.

“It’s Zenith’s new pet.”

“Like us?”

“Like us,” Hudson confirmed. 

Valerian looked down at the lynx again. “Are we not enough?” he whispered. Hudson didn’t answer. Not that he thought they weren’t, but because he wasn’t the one to make the judgment. 

“I’m going to our room,” Hudson said after a moment. 

“What about the lynx?” Valerian asked.

“What about it?” 

“Doesn’t Zenith want to see it or something?” 

“Zenith never took it from me,” Hudson stated, hoping that was enough to keep from getting in trouble with Zenith. Zenith rarely argued against his logic. 

Hudson left the front room and walked deeper into the house. Valerian hesitated for a moment before following closely behind. Hudson led the way in silence while Valerian hummed to himself, letting his wings drag on the floor. When they reached their bedroom, Hudson made a beeline for the beds. He gently laid the lynx on the bed before building a little blanket dome around it. Valerian had takening to jumping up on one of the hanging beds high up that Zenith had installed for Valerian’s benefit. He was watching Hudson work with interest, but not enough to help. 

Once Hudson had finished with building the little fort, he hesitantly left to go look at the bookshelves. Zenith had allowed him to keep a small library, constantly rotating books out for new ones for Hudson to enjoy. There was a small bookshelf where he kept his favorites. He remembered seeing a book about the different species types there were. He found the book and skimmed through the pages. He found the chapter he was looking for and made his way back to the lynx. He sat down on the floor and began reading. 

After a couple of hours, Valerian came down from his bed to join Hudson on the floor. Hudson didn’t look from his book right away, ignoring Valerian. It wasn’t until Valerian started waving his hand in front of Hudson’s face where he looked up, albeit with a glare. 

“What are you reading about?” Valerian asked.

“About lynxes,” Hudson deadpanned, flipping the page. 

Valerian sat down on the floor, resting his head on Hudson’s shoulder. Hudson gave him a sideways glance but otherwise didn’t move. 

“Anything interesting?” Valerian asked.

Hudson sighed and halfway closed his book. “Well, at the market the lynx was being used to create swords. It was able to hold burning red metal without a single burn, and I wanted to know why. It turns out their species is immune to fire, it’s what fuels their mana. The sunlight as well.” 

“Mana? Like what allows us to use our magic?”

“Yes. Everyone relies on mana, you, me, Zenith, everyone. It’s how we are able to use magic. Everyone pulls from some sort of energy source, usually a core element like the sun or the earth.”

“I already knew a lot of that,” Valerian grumbled. Hudson rolled his eyes and opened his book again to read. “But besides that, anything else?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know.”

“Like?” Valerian dragged out the word with annoyance. 

“Like where they’re from and the type of civilization they normally live in,” Hudson mimicked in Valerian’s tone. Valerian huffed with annoyance and seemed to be content with Hudson’s answers. He thought that he might be able to read in silence again. Valerian turned his body where he was still leaning on Hudson but was looking back at the lynx. 

“I feel kind of bad for it,” he said softly. 

Hudson fully gave up on reading and set the book down to look at the lynx with Valerian. “So do I,” he whispered like it was an admit of defeat. 

“I thought they were supposed to be extinct,” Valerian said.

“Why would you think that?” Hudson looked at Valerian. Valerian didn’t meet his eye. 

“I don’t know. I heard Zenith and his business partners talking about it one time. They were saying how some research team made a discovery of ancient history from the lynxes. Said it was a big advancement or something because they couldn’t ask the species themselves.”

Hudson sat back for a moment, trying to remember if he was there for a conversation like that. He couldn’t remember any instance like it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. He decided to take Valerian’s word for it. 

“If that’s what the world believes and it turns out it's not true, that makes this lynx a one of a kind. Or he is the key to what the researchers need to find the rest of them. Either way that makes it very valuable.” 

“How valuable?” 

“Priceless. Enough to start wars over.”

They sat in silence for the rest of the afternoon, staring at the lynx. Trying to comprehend its importance with its seemingly helplessness. 

…

Zenith finally got off his phone call with a potential buyer. It was something that could have been easily handled by his employees, but the man on the other end of the line only wanted to speak to him. No matter, the phone call was over now and Zenith could get back to his earlier tasks. He looked out his window and saw that the sun was beginning to set. He got up from his desk and left his office. 

He had three things on his list tonight. 1, to make sure the pets from earlier had been properly situated and brought to their correct rooms. 2, to have dinner with his personal pets and update them on tomorrow's plan. And lastly, 3, to get the lynx prepared to see the medic tomorrow. 

Zenith made his way down to the basement, where he normally kept the other pets in his house. His basement was split into three sections, a wine cellar, a supply room for his servants, and the rooms for his other pets, which he called the domestic. He had the domestic remodeled a few years ago so that a hallway cut down the middle with four rooms on each side, making it 8 in total. All of the pets would have their own room, never giving them the opportunity to be completely alone with each other. A bed and bathroom were provided, and they were fed twice a day. Sometimes he would let the pets move in with their trainers, and other times he kept them in his basement until they were ready to be sold.  

He walked down the pristine white hallway and looked through each door's window to make sure there was a pet inside. He would then check the corresponding electronic chart next to the door, making sure it matched up. Once all 8 rooms were checked, Zenith gave the go ahead to his servants to have them fed. From there, the servants would take up the routine, only notifying Zenith if the pets were acting unusual. 

Zenith left the domestic to go back to the ground floor, making a mental reminder to jot down all the trainers he needed to contact in the morning. He arrived at the edge of the kitchen to find a cart of food, like there always was, ready for him. He lifted the metal domes covering the plates to make sure it had everything they were supposed to. A greener diet for Valerian to keep up his appearances, and a more protein based diet for Hudson to build up strength. He set the domes back down and pulled the cart behind him to his pet’s room. 

He gently knocked on their door before entering with the cart behind them. The room was one of the biggest in the house, almost the same size as one of his ballrooms. He had many walls knocked out in this room to make sure it was big enough. On one side were his pets beds and their own little areas for their hobbies. On the other was a dining area, a hallway that led to a large bathroom, and a small library. Behind the dining table were large arching windows that lead out to a balcony, though he always kept those doors locked. And above it all was a mini jungle gym that had anything from hanging beds to enrichment toys like stings and perches, all installed for Valerian. Even though it was meant for a harpy, he made it accessible for anyone to get up, though it would take a lot more effort. 

His two pets looked up from where they were sitting on the floor of the beds. Valerian immediately got up and rushed over to Zenith, wanting his attention. He was happy to provide, giving Valerian a very welcoming hug. When he pulled back, Valerian was already talking.

“--your meeting? Did it go well? It seemed really long for just a normal phone call. Me and Hudson were waiting here for you the whole time. Mostly talking about lynxes and stuff. Oh! The lynx you got is so cute!! He’s all curled up in a little ball with his tail tucked, you should come see.”

Valerian was sprinting back to where Hudson was, who hadn’t moved once from his spot. Zenith left the food cart behind to join them, slightly curious on how the lynx was doing. He knew that it would be out till the morning, that's what the technician said. Hudson was watching him warily as Valerian continued to ramble on about lynxes. Behind where Hudson was sitting on the floor, up on the bed was the lynx curled up like Valerian had described. It was still holding its star blanket close, which reminded Zenith that he needed it washed. 

“It’s been out all day,” Hudson informed. 

“I know, I had a technician give it a sedative that’ll last till morning.”

“When are you going to take it to the medic? It looks like it really needs it,” Valerian asked, interrupting their conversation.  

“That’s what I was here to talk about. Let’s discuss it over dinner,” Zenith said. 

As Zenith turned his back he heard Hudson getting up while Valerian rushed ahead of them. Valerian had already begun setting the table by the time Zenith and Hudson joined him. Once the table was set and they had all taken their seats, Zenith began talking. 

“As I'm sure the two of you know, I will be taking the lynx to the medics tomorrow as per my normal routine. That will also mean that both of you will be going as well.”

Hudson grimaced while Valerian groaned. It was common knowledge that none of them liked going to the medics, despite it usually being necessary. 

“I know neither of you like going but not only would it be convenient to do it now, it would also replace the appointment you have a couple months from now. In short, if you go now, you won’t have to go for another routine check up for about 6 months.” 

Valerian still picked at his food like it had suddenly become unappetizing by the statement Zenith had said, which he figured it had. Zenith let the room sit in silence for a moment, letting his words sink in. 

“Do we have to watch the lynx get examined?” Hudson was the first to break the silence with his question. 

“No. I figure its appointment will run significantly longer than the both of yours. When you are finished, I’ll take you somewhere while we wait for the medics to finish up with the lynx. Does that sound fair?”

They both nodded reluctantly, not daring to fight against Zenith’s word. They finished their dinner quietly with minor small talk here and there. As Zenith was loading the food cart with their dishes, he could tell his pets were waiting on him. Normally after dinner he would spend time with them. Usually he would play chess with Hudson while Valerian watched, most often cuddling against him. But tonight he would have to put that off till later in the night, maybe even tomorrow if he had too. 

“Are you staying tonight?” Valerian asked, his eyes making it obvious that he was hoping that Zenith would. 

“I don’t think so. I have to get the lynx prepared for the medics and it’ll be well past your bedtime by then.”

He watched as Valerian’s heart sank, his wings even changing a slightly different color to match his disappointment. Zenith felt pity for him but stood firm by his statement, not allowing a bird to manipulate him. He walked past his pets and over to where the lynx was sleeping. He scooped it into his arms like a kid that needed to be carried inside from falling asleep inside the car. He made sure to grab its blanket. Its head lolled with dead weight and he held it against his shoulder. The lynx’s muzzle pressed against his shoulder and he tried to remember if the technician was supposed to take it off or not. 

He walked back to his other pets, and ruffled Valerian’s hair. He gave him a hug before letting go and turning to Hudson. He gave him a nod, respecting his wishes not to be touched. Then he left his pets in their room. He waved to a nearby servant and told them to grab the food cart he had left behind, then continued to walk on. Once he made it to his own room, he shut the door behind him and gently laid the lynx on the bed. He stepped back out into the hall with the lynx’s blanket and hailed down another servant.

“I want this to be washed and placed on my desk before I leave for the medics tomorrow.”

The servant nodded and whisked away with the blanket. Zenith then stepped back inside of his room and began getting ready for bed. He took a shower and changed into different clothes. He had grabbed another blanket while he was in the closet getting dressed, and brought it with him for the lynx to have. He examined the lynx’s clothes and decided they were too dirty to stay. He stripped the lynx and then covered it in the blanket to make sure it could stay warm. He took the rags that had been mistakenly called clothes, and threw them away without any expectation of needing them again. 

He made a mental note to go shopping with Hudson and Valerian while they waited on the lynx. He was slowly compiling a list of things he would need, which he knew would only grow after the medic would give him some recommendations. Zenith took the bundle of blanket and lynx off of the bed and carried it to the kennel that was sitting not very far from his bed. While he wanted to leave the lynx on his bed, the lynx was not yet trained and there was no saying what it would do. So he left the lynx in the cage while he himself slept in a real bed, waiting for the sun to rise and the new day to begin. 

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