#nick and hayko

[pretty-face-breaker]

Reunion: Nick Catches Up

cw. whumper finding runaway whumpee, manhandling, kidnapping, very creepy and intimate whumper, violence, borderline psychological torture, manipulation, gun

Art by me! :D

next

—

Hayko feels the weight of a hand clamp down on his shoulder just as he’s halfway through his burger. His first instinct is startled confusion—Vlad had only just gone around the corner to complain about his steak being overcooked—but then he sees it.

A grin in the periphery. A familiar razor-slash of teeth.

Nick’s swung around in the booth behind him, arms draped casually over the red vinyl seatback, both hands now planted firmly on Hayko’s shoulders like anchors.

The moment hits Hayko like a car crash. Every muscle locks. His throat closes. His spine stiffens. His heart forgets what it’s for. Every nightmare, every panic attack, every choke-collared memory rises like bile. This can’t be real this can’t—

They’re alone in the corner of the diner. No one seated close enough to hear anything. It’s quiet. Night presses against the windows.

The diner is quiet. No one nearby. Outside, the windows are painted in cold streetlight. In here, just soft rock and his own rapid, ugly breathing. And Nick’s, fanning warm and lazy across the nape of his neck. 

“How’s dinner?”

Hayko’s fingers won’t respond. His hands stay frozen, white-knuckling the fork and knife. His body refuses to remember every self-defense move he’s spent a year drilling into his bones, spent weeks and months staying late in the training rooms until he tasted his own sweat. His mouth doesn’t work. This isn’t how it was supposed to—Dr. Carter said it wouldn’t happen this way.

“I always did like your freeze response more,” Nick murmurs, giving his shoulders an affectionate squeeze, one that makes Hayko’s stomach convulse. Then, his voice dips, low and coaxing. “My love. Look straight ahead. Do you see him?”

Hayko’s eyes flick to the window. Beyond the blinds, a hooded figure stands partially obscured. Watching them both.

“One nod from me,” Nick says, “and he puts a bullet in your friend’s head.”

Another squeeze. Hayko’s breath hitches audibly. 

Nick adds lightly. “Unless you make a fuss, I have no reason to.”

Hayko swallows, voice fraying.

“What do you want.”

“Up.”

He pushes off the booth slowly, barely making a sound. Nick rises with him and in the same motion swings an arm over Hayko’s shoulders, a movement that could have been mistaken for a lover’s, if anybody else had been bearing witness, but Hayko feels the cold snout of a pistol nestling like a promise between his ribs.

His thoughts blank out on instinct.

They walk.

The distance to the door stretches forever, and Hayko catches Vlad’s blond head in the corner of his eye—still turned away, mid-argument with the cook. Hayko wants to scream. Wants to bolt and shout, but—

Vlad’s profile vanishes behind them as they cross the event horizon. In its place: the hooded man. Closer now to the window, a predator stalking its prey and about to pounce, one hand already buried in his jacket where it hadn’t been before and Vlad is still arguing with the cook. He hasn’t noticed and he isn’t fucking going to notice.

“No—”

The protest barely escapes before Nick’s palm crushes it. A hand clamps over Hayko’s mouth, fingers locking his jaw so tight he hears something creak.

“Hold off until I text you,” Nick says, not to him.

The man hesitates and a breath stutters loose in Hayko's throat as he watches his hand slip back out. Empty. But Hayko doesn’t have a second to savor it.

Nick forces him forward. A black sedan glides up to the curb. The rear door swings open.

Hayko resists on good instinct, feet locking against the concrete, but Nick is faster—gripping the back of his neck, forcing his head down and shoving him into the car. He crashes face-first into the seat and tries to right himself, tasting blood, but everything is slowed—his limbs syrupy with shrill terror—by the time Nick’s inside and the doors are locked.

He’s yanked upright. Metal kisses his throat. Pressed right against his carotid as Nick buckles his seatbelt with a soft click, like a parent strapping in a stubborn child.

Then another. Nick buckles himself in. 

“Evening, love.”

The voice slithers in from the driver’s seat. Hayko looks up and locks eyes with the rearview mirror. Platinum blond hair, slicked into a grotesque pompadour. That wolfish, wide grin.

Harvey. That fucking—

Hayko doesn’t even register the sound he makes. His spine seizes. Electricity floods him, a flash-fry of memory—wires, teeth, screaming into a wet gag. All under that horrible, loveless smile. It’s not Nick’s. Nothing fond in it. Nothing in it at all. Just that empty-calorie cruelty wrapped in human skin that Hayko remembers so terribly.

Hayko reels into the flashback, yanked under—until he surfaces, hearing Nick’s breath again far too close. Until his warm leather and cologne ghost Hayko’s nostrils. Until he feels that arm pull him closer. The muzzle of the gun still firm against his throat.

And then—

And then it happens. A sob. Ragged, helpless, cracked down the middle.

Nick sighs in satisfaction beside him, like he’s just finished the best meal of his life. He presses his lips to Hayko’s ear and whispers lovingly.

“God, Hayko. I’ve missed you.”

—

Before this. A year of recovery, but never peace.

Hayko lived small in Montreal. A quiet apartment on the fourth floor. Two bedrooms, one filled with plants that Vlad watered fervently, even having a notification on his phone. The other full of plastic bins marked “don’t touch.”

In them: Doctor’s visits stacked like receipts. MRIs, lung scans, a neurologist who frowned at his reflexes. PTSD, insomnia, night terrors that left him raw-throated and shaking. Scars that ached and itched when it rained. A few months ago, he passed out on the bus because he thought he saw Nick’s silhouette in a storefront reflection.

Dr. Carter, his therapist, had soft eyes and a hard rule: no talking about Nick in the second person.

He earned a teaching certificate. Grade threes. Morning bells and watercolor handprints, tiny socks lost on the playground. He kept his sleeves down and practiced smiling in the mirror in the least fractured way possible. The children called him Mr. G. and he answered to it like anything else would be unthinkable.

They were laying low. But they were living. They were healing. And then—

The muzzle never leaves his back. Hayko walks ahead of Nick up the long stone path, his shoes scuffing on wet grit. The house is unfamiliar. Modern, faceless. Black paneling. Frosted windows. A house for a man who doesn’t plan to live in it but where it might be optimal to keep someone for a day. Or a few, if Nick intends for Hayko to pay more fully for his misdeeds.

The lock clicks. Nick gestures him in.

“Make yourself at home,” he says lightly. “Drink?”

Hayko doesn’t answer. He steps inside. The air is sterile, reeking of oak and varnish, cold metal underfoot. There’s an absurdly luxurious bar cart in the corner.

Nick walks ahead toward it.

He turns his back.

Hayko sees it all at once: the phone dropped on the counter, just out of Nick’s reach. The silence of the house. The hitman—waiting on that text. And there, on the console table, a glass vase catching the dim overhead light.

His body answers before his brain.

He grabs the vase and swings.

It shatters on impact, a crystalline shriek that floods the house. Nick goes down hard, a mess of blood and shards. He snarls, an animal thing that makes Hayko’s skin crawl but is already rising, pain ignored and teeth bared.

Hayko doesn’t let him. He throws himself at him again, fists raining wild, furious. One cracks Nick across the jaw. Another lands square in his collarbone. There’s blood on both of them now—Nick’s, maybe his own. Hayko doesn’t care.

A grunt. A shove. They crash into the wall. A picture frame falls and the glass within shrieks and shatters. Nick snarls, grabs him by the shoulders, shoves back. They stagger over furniture, breathing like animals.

Hayko brings his knee up. Nick blocks it, catches his wrists mid-swing, trips him, and slams him down against the floor. His head impacts viciously hard and Hayko cries out between his teeth, eyes squeezed shut.

“Goddamn it,” Nick mutters, laughing through bloodied teeth, breathing hard. “The diner. Where the fuck was this version of you?”

Hayko lunges forward and sinks his teeth into Nick’s shoulder.

Nick howls—in pain, but not in defeat or even in anger. In delight.

“There you are,” he pants. “Fuck, baby. It’s been so long.”

Hayko snarls, wrenching, struggling, hissing like a feral thing and angling for another shot at ripping out Nick’s throat.

“Get the fuck off.”

Nick keeps him pinned, one hand digging into his forearm, the other still smeared with blood. His voice turns low and practical.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he says. “Stop fighting. I just want to talk.”

“You have a gun to my fucking neck.”

Nick raises an eyebrow, mouth bloodied but smiling.

“I’ll text him. Tell him to back off. That better?”

Hayko doesn’t respond. He breathes hard and uneven, chest heaving beneath Nick’s weight. Sweat gathers under his shirt collar. His wrists tremble in Nick’s grip and he doesn’t answer. Nick can go fuck himself with his mind games. Hayko won’t be so easily swayed with false promises of security, of mercy. Not again.

Not again.

Nick studies him for a long, quiet beat. Then his voice drops, not soft but sharpened.

“I know your house, Hayko. Every inch.”

A pause.

“Your bedroom. The kitchen. The basement, where you keep that box of medical receipts. I touched the flowers in the garden you and Vlad planted last spring. Daisies, mostly. A few sickly tulips.”

Hayko stiffens. His breathing skids.

“For two months, I know where you sleep,” Nick continues, unfazed. “Where you work. Where he works. Unless you plan on tearing your life up by the roots again—I’m in it. I’ll be in it. Forever.”

Hayko shuts his eyes. Regulate. Dr. Carter's voice in his skull: Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Ground. You are safe.

But he isn’t. He never was.

“I’m not going to torture you,” Nick goes on, still holding him fast. “I’m not going to kill you. I don’t need to break you.”

What would be the point? hangs unspoken between them.

“I want a conversation. Maybe we figure something out.”

Hayko’s voice comes out hoarse, a rasp over gravel: “What’s the alternative?”

Nick chuckles. Amused and warm and chilling.

“You don’t want the alternative.”

Silence swells between them. The only sound is Hayko’s breathing—irregular, staggered, sharp.

Then, finally:

“You don’t want a conversation,” he spits. “A conversation. You want me to shut up and kowtow to you and beg for mercy and forgiveness and grovel like the pathetic-” 

He gasps, air catching in his throat like smoke. A sound like a death rattle claws its way out of his lungs. 

“—shell you turned me into.”

Nick doesn’t flinch, only counters as softly as velvet. “You killed people, Hayko.”

Hayko jerks as if slapped. His voice thins, cracks on the edges.

“That was you. You made me.” 

Nick tilts his head. A mock-thoughtful expression, like they’re in court and he’s about to call surprise evidence.

“Beat them to death,” he recites. “Negotiated drug deals. Defended murderers. Slept like a baby some nights, didn’t you?”

“No. No.”

“Should I continue?”

“You fucking made me—”

“All I needed you to do,” Nick cuts in, almost gently, “was the defending part, my love.”

He smiles a terrible, crooked thing. There’s pride in it. Nostalgic recollection of a child walking for the first time, or maybe a dog finally learning how to maul on command.

“I provoked you. You rose to the provocation.”

Hayko stares at him. A pit opens behind his eyes.

He wants to kill him. Truly kill him, this time. Not just with fists or glass. He wants to erase him. Smother him in cement, because that’s all he deserves, and salt the earth where he stood. But it’s like trying to throw a punch in a dream—his fury keeps folding inward. Every move against Nick feels like it happens inside a sealed room, and Nick is always waiting on the other side of the glass.

“You broke me,” Hayko says, voice thudding low. “You broke everything I was.”

Nick steps forward, slow and deliberate. Hayko doesn’t back away.

“No,” Nick says. “I just peeled off the part that pretended otherwise.”

Hayko’s fists clench. His legs tremble. Sweat pools under his arms. He feels the blood rushing in his ears, the fire racing up his throat. He wants to punch, scream, shove something off a balcony. Instead, his voice shivers out of him like steam:

“I had a life.”

“You have a life.”

Nick moves like he might touch him, but doesn’t. And that’s worse. The excess and absence of contact and how they were wielded as one weapon against him. The ache opens right back up. He aches.

“A house. A job. A live-in partner who still believes he can fix you,” Nick says, and his tone is deceptively gentle now. “All I want is a place in it. A seat at the table. A corner, if that’s too much for you.”

Hayko laughs. One sharp bark.

“A corner? You blew up the whole fucking house. I had to teach myself to breathe again.”

Nick gives a small, pitying smile. 

“And look how well you’re breathing now.”

That does it.

Hayko lunges—but Nick slams him back down by the wrists, forceful but nowhere near as cruel as before, when Nick was getting his kicks off Hayko's immobilizing terror. They lock eyes. Nick’s pupils are blown wide with adrenaline and glee, but under it, something more calculating waits. A long game.

Nick is going to get what he wants.

“I’ll call off the guy. I’ll let you talk to Vlad,” Nick says smoothly. “But I meant what I said.”

He leans in, voice dipped in gravity now.

“You will never be free of me. You can live with that. Or you can keep running.”

Hayko’s breathing stutters. His body begins to shake—there's too much fury, too much heat in too small a cage.

He closes his eyes.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

The technique fails. Everything feels wrong inside his skin. But when he opens his eyes, it’s quieter. No less terrible. Just stiller, to the point that he can string together a coherent sentence that manages to make some progress in this waking nightmare.

“Fine,” he rasps. “That’s it. Just talk.”

His voice trembles with restraint, but it holds.

“Call him off. Call Vlad. Now.”

Nick’s phone is already in his hand. He types something out, then locks it.

“There,” he says. “See? Progress.”

Nick rolls his eyes when Hayko just glares at him with accusation, clearly tired of playing the patient villain.

“Fine. I’ll call him off while you watch. Jesus.”

He unlocks his phone, pulls up the messaging app, some off-brand secure interface with Cyrillic UI settings, and clicks through a few chats. A check mark appears next to the message. Sent. Hayko watches the movement of Nick’s thumb like it’s a loaded weapon.

“There. Happy? He’s off. Vladimir lives.”

Hayko’s voice is quiet but firm. “I’m not doing anything else until I talk to him.”

Nick groans theatrically, drops his head back like a man besieged by unreasonable demands.

“Come on, Hayko. You think I’m letting you call him so you can give him a head start?”

Hayko’s voice trembles and accidentally turns desperate. “Call him.”

It must do more than just give him away because Nick eyes him, lips thin. “You switch to Russian, the call ends.”

Hayko nods once, trying not to show his relief.

Nick exhales sharply, then taps open an encrypted call app—one Hayko doesn’t recognize. He dials. Hands it to Hayko.

Vlad picks up on the third ring. His voice cuts through the line like a blade.

“Where is he?” 

Hayko swallows. Suddenly, speech feels like walking a tightrope with a gun to his chest.

“It’s me,” Hayko says quickly, too quickly. He checks Nick’s expression to make sure he’s doing alright. If this is allowed. “I’m okay.”

There’s a pause. The kind that indicates Vlad's already stepped outside the diner, away from witnesses.

“Where are you?” Vlad’s voice is sharp but careful.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Is he there?”

Hayko doesn’t answer fast enough. Not that he really needed to.

“Bring him back by tonight or you will regret it.”

Before Hayko can answer, another voice cuts in, close to the mic:

“My regret won’t be necessary,” Nick says, sing-song. “Your man will be home before sunrise.”

“Fuck yourself,” Vlad snarls immediately. “You lay one finger on him—”

“Please,” Nick laughs, easy, smooth. “We’re just having a conversation. And don’t bother trying to trace this call, by the way—it’s bouncing through five proxy servers and an Albanian VPN. Your Google Maps won’t help you here, comrade.”

Silence. Then:

“If anything happens to him,” Vlad says, even as ever, “I will not call police. I will call Alexei. I will name the city. And I promise you, Nick, by morning, I will have everything you own.”

Nick’s smile falters, just a hair. He covers it quickly with a chuckle.

“Very pretty, Vlad,” he says, lighter than before, but not quite cheerful now. “Ever the poet.”

Then he ends the call.

Hayko stares at the blank screen a beat too long before gently lowering the phone to the counter. The absence of Vlad’s voice leaves him cold in the bones. But he’s already calculating. Thinking of exit points, of how fast he could run now that the gun isn’t pressed to his ribs.

Nick watches him closely, then breaks the silence with a too-light question:

“Drink?”

“No.”

Nick sighs. “I wasn’t asking. And stop looking for exits.”

He moves to the bar cart again to pick up a new, still-sealed bottle of wine—a heavy red, foreign label—and uncorks it with a pop. The sound makes Hayko flinch. Nick notices, of course he does, but says nothing. Probably delights that he’s uncovered one of Hayko’s post-traumas already.

He pours into a glass. Then sees Hayko’s face.

“Oh for god’s sake.”

He grabs a clean glass from the shelf, holds it up to the light, then takes a cloth from the drawer and wipes it carefully—inside, outside, stem.

“See? Not a drop of chloral hydrate, I swear on my heart.”

He pours again. Slides the glass across the counter like an offering.

“Happy now? Drink. You’ll need something to take the edge off.”

Hayko stares at the glass. The color is dark, almost black in the low light. He doesn’t touch it. He’s not sure if it’s poison—but that’s not what stops him.

It’s that part of him, somewhere deeper than caution, darker than fear, knows Nick is right. He does need something. Something to slow the adrenaline, to anchor him in the room. Something to drink while bargaining with the devil. Because he needs to make this deal. 

Because there’s no alternative anymore.

Hayko picks up his wine and sips it, trying not to look too sour. Nick's life is half-theatre and Hayko will perform if it means they get to live.

Nick watches him with the same ease he might bring to observing fish in a tank.

“Did you really think you could run forever?” he asks, not expecting an answer. “New name. New job. New little apartment where the stove only half-works and the radiators clank all night.”

Hayko’s face twitches. He doesn't look up. His smile is faint, edged with something harder.

“You did a good job,” Nick continues, syrup-smooth. “You even got certified. Helping kids, shaping minds. Safe and sound, in a city where nobody else knows your name.”

He leans forward slightly, forearms on the table.

“Do you sleep better, knowing the men who wanted to carve you up are dead? The ones I killed. Or does that part not count, in your narrative?”

Hayko looks at him now. He does it slow. Purposefully.

“Is this a free therapy session?” he says flatly. “Or should I be charging by the hour for your whinging?”

It lands, despite Nick’s face not moving. His jaw finally clicks—once, audibly—as he grinds his teeth. Hayko sees it. And he smiles, sharp and small.

Good.

Nick’s fists clench, but only briefly. He exhales through his nose, forcibly casual.

“You’re lucky I like you like this,” he mutters.

“Just get on with it,” Hayko snaps. “Your terms. And no—no, sex won’t be one of them unless you’re planning to—”

Nick cuts him off with a dismissive sigh and a pointed eye-roll.

“Obviously I’m not stupid enough to open with that.” He gives him a dry look. “You can unclench. This isn’t that kind of negotiation.”

Hayko doesn’t answer. The silence bristles.

Nick adjusts his sleeve. “But since you’re so curious—fine. Terms.”

He counts on his fingers like he’s listing groceries.

“I want to see you. Talk. Sometimes. Coffee shop, bench in a park, dark alley, I’m flexible.”

Hayko blinks at him. “You think I’m going to just—schedule hangouts with you?”

Nick shrugs.

“You’d be surprised what people will do when their lives are on the line.”

He picks up his wine, sips.

“And keep in mind that yours is. Stalking was fun for the first few weeks. Watching you wait for your bus on Rue Rachel like clockwork, pretending you didn’t see me in the reflection—”

Hayko flinches. The blood drains from his face. He remembers that day. The way his spine locked. The full-body tremor he chalked up to a panic spiral.

“Yeah, love,” Nick says, gleefully watching the realization curdle. “Wasn’t your imagination, was it?”

Hayko swallows, hard. His palms are damp. But he’s still upright.

“How,” he says slowly, “do you imagine this conversation happens on any kind of even ground?”

Nick tilts his head.

“You think we’re equals now? You kidnapped me. You blackmailed me. You—" Hayko's breath stutters "tortured me. For two years. And yeah, you housed me. You fed me. Indulged my masochistic urges. You protected me from being tortured by other people. But that doesn’t erase it. You ruined my fucking life.”

His voice cracks, rising.

“Do you know how recently I got control of my panic attacks? You think that wine is gonna calm me down?”

Nick doesn't even blink.

“I know,” he says smoothly. “I read your therapist’s notes.”

Hayko’s whole body goes still as white horror washes over him. He sees a flicker of Dr. Carter’s handwriting. A post-it with his progress goals.

Nick's voice cuts easily through the fresh horror, unfazed.

“Without me, your body would’ve been dumped in a ditch on the outskirts of Chicago three years ago. You were a loose end. I saved your life.”

Hayko buries his face in his hands.

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispers. “I was so far gone I actually thought—”

He stops himself, shaking. His voice cracks again.

“I thought you loved me.”

Nick doesn’t move for a long moment. Then, matter-of-fact: “I do.”

Hayko laughs. A short, dry bark that’s almost a sob. “No. You don’t. You love owning me.”

Nick doesn’t refute it. He sits very still, fingers tapping once, then stopping.

Hayko lifts his head. His eyes are damp, but furious. His mouth set. His voice, hollow steel.

“Tell me your terms.”

—

TO BE CONTINUED (1/2)

@doveotions @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome–hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp @redwingedwhump @nicolepascaline @ifbtnna  @whumperfully​​ ​@brittaunfiltered09

If you like my stuff, consider supporting me on ko-fi! :D

[b0amagination]

@pretty-face-breaker you already know who it is :)

i need to take care of you in a way that threatens your autonomy and makes you question if you can ever function without me again.

[brittaunfiltered09]

Does anybody ever get so excited over a post about something they like they stim so much they figure out how to snap and also start crying a bit

[suspicious-whumping-egg]

Hey anon! I’m shadowbanned so I can’t reply to ur ask or any anon asks :(( but I saw you asked for whump recs I think? Off the top of my head:

In the Woods Somewhere series by @knivestothroats

Professional//Victim series by @victimeyez

Moneymakers series by @coldresolve 

Guns for Hire series by @avvail-whumps

The Facility series by @avvail-whumps

LGM writing by @evermetnotforgotten

Under the Earth, I’ll Remember You Well series by @burntcoffeewrites 

Home is where the hurt is series by @whumblr

Showstopper series by @painsandconfusion

SV-240 series by @galaxywhump 

Written in blood series by @as-a-matter-of-whump

Martyr series by @whump-me

Conquest series by @whump-me

Hasan and Declan by b0amagination

Emir series by @pretty-face-breaker 

Nick and Hayko series by @pretty-face-breaker

[straight-to-the-pain]

2020

The Rules: Tag five or more people that you’re thankful for in your 2020, that you’re grateful exist in a world that’s hard to live in, whether that be through random reblogs on your posts, or people you’ve had full blown conversations with. Whether it’s just seeing them on your dash, or interacting with them. 

I know that I’m a little late to the game but my holiday tree is still up and the year has only just begun, and I would like to take the opportunity to show my gratitude for all those who made 2020 as good as it could be given the circumstances. I actually didn’t even have a diary for 2020 and I will admit that the year has passed in a haze of brain fog, but there have definitely been highlights. I want to say that I appreciate all my followers and all the people who put glorious whump content on my dash every day! You’re all great, and there’s no way I could include everyone I wanted to in a single post, so if you’re wondering if I mean you, the person reading this, I do <3

Thank you so much to @softsharpdaydreams, @whump-txt, @whatgoeswhumpinthenight, @empathetic-whumper, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @pretty-thoughts-and-a-pen, @sola-whumping, @hearse-song, @whump-it, @forthetaintedsorrow-whump, @whuh-oh-whump, @whumpfish, @whumpforthewhumpgod, @sideblogformindtrash, @goosewhumps, @bloodyfeverdreams for tagging me in your posts! I am sending that love right back at all of you! (And if I missed someone, I do apologise, because tumblr likes to hide notifications from me)

So here goes: @thewhumpstuff, @lettuceknighted, @beckstriad, @sopwithwhump, @whumpstash, @punchhimagain and all the regulars of whump writing central, hanging out with you has been the highlight of my year and I don’t know what I would have done without you. You’re all wonderful people, with amazing whump ideas and I am so glad that I got to meet you!

@pretty-face-breaker: your writing is always so evocative and gives me all the whumperflies, I love the messed up power dynamics between Nick and Hayko and even though I bully him a lot, I think Nick is a great whumper and I’m really enjoying RPing with him!

@pythagoreanwhump: I’m still not entirely convinced that you aren’t a chinese spy but it’s fine because I would willingly tell you my secrets :’) the VMD would straight up not exist without you and I love hearing about all your characters and the questionable things they get up to. Thank you for introducing me to a bunch of shows and films that I have fallen in love with, for doing linguistics puzzles and writing codes with me, and having an impeccable taste in whump.

@quirkykayleetam: where would I be without you? You are a literal ray of sunshine and you always fill me with so much joy and hope. I love brainstorming whump ideas with you and talking about anything and everything, and I’m really happy for all the wonderful things happening in your life <3

@sableflynn: my favourite lady whump lover! I love being able to share my hot takes with you and knowing that you’ll back me up ;) I promise to provide you with some mean man stronk lady content in this coming year, because you definitely deserve it. Thank you for organising a wonderful gift exchange and running such a friendly and welcoming server!

@a-whump-muffin: you write my favourite box boy story and I really enjoyed getting to talk to you over the past year! I adore the richness in your plot and your characters and how thought out the universe is, and your writing is just a joy to read.

@greatandquestionablecontent: I’m so glad that I got to start talking and RPing with you last year (even if I did forget to reply for months all while thinking it was your turn oopsies). Your characters are all really fun and interesting and I love hearing about them and interacting with them. Also, you are super talented at making playlists because the one you made me is still the main one that I listen to and was really the sound of my 2020!

@paininmyheart-imalive: you were quite possibly the first person I properly talked to on this platform, and I know that we might not interact a ton but I want you to know that you mean a lot to me and I’m really grateful that you reached out to me!

I know that it’s impossible for me to tag everyone who I want to tag, so please don’t feel left out if you don’t see your blog name here! This community on tumblr has been my main form of social interaction this past year, and I really don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have this space so I am eternally grateful for all the people who make that possible and interact with my content, all of you!!! Here’s to a brighter 2021!

[keeper-of-all-the-random-things]

@pretty-face-breaker Hayko being sassy at Nick, no?

[flirting] you seem pretty cool. i think i'd like to spend the rest of my life waking up screaming from psychological horror film production level nightmares next to you and instinctively flinching from the sight of you before leaning into your touch.

[nick-pascal]

Whumpmas in July, Day 7!

I'm not sure about underrated cause how could anyone not love everything on there, but @pretty-face-breaker brings joy into my life. I will say that if you haven't checked out Ace's AO3 go do it right now. Some of my favorite Nick/Hayko fics are on there and Mmmm are they beautiful.

Basically I read fantasy/sci-fi pretty exclusively and somehow Ace got me out of my reading comfort zone and loving it. Who would've thought I'd be such a sucker for a, crime thriller? Drama? Romance? It surpasses genre in the best possible way. Just, yes please.

@whumpmasinjuly

[pythagoreanwhump]

Made an alignment chart and put a bunch of characters in!

Ace, Hayko, and Nick belong to @pretty-face-breaker

Harrow/Alsander belong to @redwingedwhump

Elena, Maia, and Sam belong to @straight-to-the-pain , and Elvira and Leila are both ours

Martin belongs to @untilthepainstarts

Michał belongs to @whumping-newbie

Gavin belongs to @whump-tr0pes

And also Villanelle from the show Killing Eve and Q from the James Bond movies

[pretty-face-breaker]

Reunion: Nick Catches Up (2/2)

cw. psychological whump, fear of violence, manhandling, blindfolding, creepy whumper, intimate whumper, manipulation, unhealthy kissing, referenced past drug use

part 1

—

They’re still sitting on opposite ends of the couch but Nick’s moved in closer. The wine’s going down sour, but it’s working, fuzzing his edges, dragging his thoughts slightly behind his mouth. Not enough to forget where he is, just enough to dull the anxiety spiked by each breath.

Nick has one ankle over a knee, swirling his glass like this is a business-casual catch-up.

“Fridays,” he says, “after work. One hour. Minimum.”

Hayko lifts his head slowly, face pinched in disbelief.

“You want to call me once a week?”

“Mm.”

Hayko snorts, dry and humorless, sitting just rigid enough not to be considered relaxed. He can feel his jaw working, chewing on the ridiculousness of that suggestion.

“What could you possibly get out of a weekly phone call?”

Nick shrugs, amused.

“Humor me. Maybe your kids gave you hell that day. I mean, how sane can you realistically stay in a classroom full of third graders?”

Hayko grip on the cushion tightens, fingers curling into it like he might wring it out. He hadn’t mentioned the grade he taught.

The thought of Nick watching him—worse, watching the kids—makes his skin crawl. He straightens in his seat, sudden cold running down his spine. The reality that Nick could be standing at the other end of the schoolyard fence, just out of view, flickers through him like a blade.

But Nick’s already moved on.

“I want to see you,” he says, shifting forward. “Weekly.”

“No.”

It’s instant. Hayko’s voice is jagged and sharp. It shakes a little, but not from fear.

“I haven’t forgiven you. I’ll never forgive you. I don’t want to see you, and forcing me to sit with you once a week isn’t going to thaw the ice, or whatever you think this is. Even this is bad enough.”

Nick pauses. A small tic works under his eye. His fingers twitch once on the stem of the glass. Hayko braces instinctively, his ribs tightening like he’s about to take a blow. Because Nick hasn’t gotten his way and he always does, regardless of the method.

But Nick doesn’t hit him.

Instead, he sets the wine glass down with meticulous care, leans back, and reclines into the plush couch cushions like someone very carefully choosing not to snap.

“Alright,” he says. “Every other week, then. To start.”

Hayko blinks. That’s... it?

“I—okay,” he stammers, because he’s suddenly nervous not to push his luck any further. “Fine.”

His concession still leaves a bad taste in his mouth. But Nick smiles. Pleased, of course, with Hayko’s cooperation. The satisfaction flickers in his eyes like heat lightning.

“Public, if you want,” he adds. “Coffee shop. Park bench. Whatever soothes your nerves.”

He says it like he’s doing Hayko a favor, letting him pick the color of his own noose.

They lapse into an uneasy silence that hums at the edges. Nick sips again, then casually scoots closer. Hayko leans away before he can help it, spine flush to the armrest. But Nick’s eyes are lit now with something heavier than wine and distinctly predatory. 

“Vladimir has to leave the city,” he says, voice dipped in something dark, injecting menace into every word. “The alternative being that he dies.”

Hayko stops breathing.

The world narrows to the shape of Nick’s mouth.

His ribs quake with the rhythm of a sudden, merciless pulse. Vlad—gone. No hands to ground him when the panic hits like a flood. No soft voice at 2 a.m. to remind him he’s safe, despite the firey itching of his scars. No witness. Just him, alone again in the night with his fingers curled around the edge of the sink and his breath caught in a throat that feels phantom hands squeezing it tighter.

The night terrors. The retching, from the night terrors. The subsequent weight loss he’d stopped mentioning to Dr. Carter, because he knew it was just his body desperate to purge the last traces of Nick's intimacy by vomiting out the remaining cells of his touch. 

And now this. Nick, snaking into his life. Offering to replace him.

To be the one to comfort him with his serpent manipulations and derisive comfort, pretending to heal his own work while, in reality, gleefully admiring what a mess Hayko has become under his hands.

“No,” Hayko says. 

And it’s a verdict. It lands like a commandment carved into a stone tablet dropped at Nick’s feet.

“Fuck no. If he leaves, I leave too. And then you’ll have to hunt us again, and I dare you to do it. Kill us both if you want, I don’t give a shit, but he is not—”

Nick bursts into laughter.

It’s sudden, bubbling out of him like something mechanical misfiring. He doubles forward, laughing so hard he actually wheezes, and Hayko stares at him in raw bewilderment.

“I’m joking,” Nick says, wiping at his mouth. His shoulders still shake with leftover mirth. He watches Hayko regulate with shiny-eyed covetousness. “You’d fight me every step of the way. Probably take off running again.”

Hayko closes his eyes. Rage pulses hot behind them. He tries to breathe steadily and stem the venom in him but it leaves him in uneven bursts. He’d forgotten how much Nick enjoyed the spectacle of plucking his nerves and watching them snap and twitch, drawing on his extremity until Hayko was too exhausted to react. They had certainly kept him more docile, Nick’s cult leader tactics.

“Is this as fun as you imagined?” Hayko hisses.

Nick grins, teeth white and unrepentant.

“More fun, actually. God, I missed you.”

The breath Hayko’s been nursing hitches. Something about the way Nick says it—like it means something. A sliver of real sentimentality under the layers. 

Hayko ignores it. Nick doesn’t miss. He obsesses and consumes with a wrought violence that cannot possibly be mistaken for love, now that he’s clear-headed enough to see past it.

Then Nick’s hand is on his face.

Hayko doesn’t even see the movement, only feels the thumb—light against the side of his temple, then down his cheek. He tenses, but doesn’t pull back. Not immediately. Not with the reality of the gun so close to them, on the table by Nick’s side of the couch. Not with Nick being particularly trigger happy when Hayko rejects his attempts at intimacy.

The touch is gentle but proprietary. It trails over the cut on his temple, already crusting at the edges from when Hayko had face planted on the car seat earlier. 

To his surprise, it stays exceedingly gentle.

And maybe it’s the wine, or the exhaustion, or the fact that his body hasn’t been touched in months without him flinching—but Hayko lets himself lean. Just a little.

Nick watches him with a softness that borders on vulgar.

“I missed you,” he says again.

Hayko’s voice is venom but he has to hold back tears.

“I hate you.”

And he doesn’t move.

The touch holds. Hayko stays. And in the dark, in that sick warmth, he remembers why he had sought this—because this, too, had once passed for comfort. Vlad was his shield, yes, his clinical balm, his cool detachment over the last year, when Hayko couldn’t stand human contact. But Nick’s poisonous intimacy always managed to warm him, from the inside out. It was an intimacy wrapped in barbed wire—comfort that cuts.

And he’s still so touch-starved it almost feels good.

For a minute, maybe less, Hayko starts to fold under the weight of the hand on his cheek.

It’s too much warmth after too much cold. He closes his eyes. The wine is settling into his system, dragging fog through the corners of his brain, and the perilous ledge Nick shoved him onto earlier—threatening to exile Vlad—is slipping just slightly from view.

His shoulders start to sink just enough to let his body pretend it isn’t still locked in alarm. The touch is so disgustingly steady and familiar in its comfort.

Then, Hayko opens his eyes.

Nick’s face is close. Too close.

Close enough that Hayko feels each exhale fanning the space between them—soft and slow, like Nick is whispering without speaking. His mouth is tilted, that grin held in suspension, his arm still looped along the couch behind him like this is just another night.

Hayko’s voice is low, threadbare.

“What do you think’s going to happen now?” Not angry or bitter. Just... tired to his soul. “Do you really think I’d even consider it?”

Nick doesn’t move or blink.

“You haven’t moved away,” he says quietly. “And I wouldn’t stop you if you did.”

His eyes flick, just once, to Hayko’s hands—still resting where they were. Still clenched in residual rage and stress but still there, nonetheless. 

“But you don’t want to move away.”

Hayko inhales sharply, half-preparing a retort, but—

“Shh,” Nick interrupts, and it’s gentle, almost patronizing. “You can hate me and want me. I made it pretty easy for that to be the case, actually.”

Hayko closes his eyes again, a sigh bleeding out of him as Nick’s fingers brush across his temple once more.

“I don’t want you,” he says, low and choked by his own grief. “I’m just still too fucked up to want anything else.”

Nick hums, like he’s heard it before.

“That doesn’t stop the want, does it?”

Hayko’s stomach lurches. Something inside him coils forward, as if his heart’s trying to get out of his body. The melancholy hits a fever pitch—rising hot behind his eyes, rushing down his spine like static. His chin starts to tremble.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

“I keep asking myself where I’d be if I hadn’t stopped to help him,” he says, the words falling too fast, too raw. “If I hadn’t been so fucking stupid—”

His voice wobbles, catches on a sob.

“If I hadn’t let myself get snatched up by the cartel and tossed into your orbit—”

Nick watches him spiral. Hayko feels the mockery coming, for his impulsivity. For being juvenile. For walking into his own demise, like a mouse in a trap, and having the gall to break down over it three years after the trap clamped down onto him.

Nick snorts. But it’s softer than it could be.

“You’d be happier, yeah.”

A pause.

“But if it helps, most people wouldn’t’ve helped. Not like you did. Not with that much... stupid nobility.”

He looks at Hayko sideways.

“If that makes you feel better about your character.”

Hayko lets out a small laugh—wet and bitter.

“It doesn’t. I’m just an idiot.”

But even as he says it, something in him catches because he hears it, clearly now:

Nick’s trying to make him feel better.

About the situation. About the past. About himself.

And, strangely, not through threats or baiting or twisted power plays, but in a way that’s unnervingly human. It reminds him too much of himself during those early months in captivity, when he was still bargaining in grief stages, still trying to moralize what was happening.

It’s offensive. Deeply offensive.

The realization guts him. That Nick would offer him tenderness and his own Frankenstein’s monster of understanding, now of all times. It’s laughably, unintentionally cruel on its own. 

Hayko jerks forward—impulsive, furious with himself before it’s even done—and swats away Nick’s hand. Then grabs him by the shoulders. Then kisses him. It’s rough, unsympathetic, ragged with all teeth and no lips. He sobs against Nick’s mouth, mouth moving without rhythm, fingers digging in hard like he’s anchoring himself.

Because this is a relapse, and he knows it.

He hates himself. He hates that Nick was right. That he would be the one to move first. That Nick wouldn’t push for it. That he’d wait—like he knew.

Nick doesn’t resist. He cradles the back of Hayko’s head with one hand, cups his spine with the other, rubbing slow circles like he’s comforting some terrified animal.

He doesn’t deepen the kiss or drive it, seemingly content letting Hayko take what he needs and, somehow, that’s even worse.

When Hayko pulls away, he’s gasping—air rattling through his lungs, trying to steady. His hands tremble as he shoves at Nick’s chest, scrambling to sit up, to get off the couch, to move before his grief turns lethal.

But Nick catches him by the wrist, voice maddeningly gentle.

“Hey. It’s alright.”

“Tell yourself it didn’t mean anything. That’s fine. You can have this. Just this one moment, before you go back to pretending I’m not in your blood.”

Hayko shakes his head, mouth open, eyes raw and leaking.

He wipes at his cheeks with the backs of his hands, unsteady and fast, like trying to hide evidence.

“I want to go home,” he mutters hoarsely. “If you’re done negotiating.” 

Nick’s eyes narrow, watching him.

“Of course.”

But Hayko can barely hear him over the sound of the thought that has finally crystallized, clean and sharp in his skull: He’s complicit. He keeps trying to survive on Nick’s terms.

Nick is a poison.

And for all the therapy and distance and soothing words in Vlad’s arms, for all the gardens and whispered assurances—he’s never really been clean.

—

It’s just after 2 a.m., and the city feels washed out. From under his blindfold, Hayko can see pale-orange street lights blur by the windows in rhythmic flashes as the car snakes through the roads. Harvey is behind the wheel, carrying on with Nick in his usual grating tone, asking about his weekend plans like they’re headed to brunch, not delivering a blindfolded hostage back to his home.

Hayko sits stiff beside Nick in the backseat, fists still balled tight at his waist like he’s holding himself together with sheer pressure. Nick’s arm is slung around his shoulders, the other resting easy on his knee. Hayko leans forward, just slightly, enough to keep from sinking into the crook of Nick’s body. He refuses to let himself touch, even now. Even tired as he is.

He hadn’t even told Nick the address. Didn’t have to, obviously.

Harvey, voice oozing false cheer, throws it over his shoulder:

“You have a good visit, sweetheart?”

Hayko doesn’t answer right away. His lip curls. He inhales slowly, like he’s smelling something foul—and he is.

“Wash your hair,” he mutters.

A beat of silence.

“I can smell your greasy-ass wannabe gangster slickback from the backseat. And no, it doesn’t suit your face.”

A pause. Then Nick breaks into quiet, shoulder-shaking laughter. He presses a kiss to Hayko’s cheek, and Hayko stiffens all over again—but a flicker of vindication sparks in his chest when Harvey goes sourly silent.

God, he wishes he could see his face.

“He’s not wrong,” Nick adds, audibly grinning. “Seriously, Harvey. I keep telling you, get another barber. This one’s doing you dirty.”

Hayko can’t help it. His mouth twitches into a mean little smile but it’s there, and he’s sure Nick sees it in the dark. He hopes Harvey does, too.

The ride goes on.

Forty more minutes. Hayko drifts in and out of micro-sleeps, head dipping forward only to jolt upright again. Every time he loses the thread, he imagines Vlad’s voice pulling him back, but it’s never real.

They roll to a stop on an incline. Tires grind softly against loose gravel. The engine hums and clicks as Harvey kills the ignition.

Nick reaches over, fingers gentle now, and pulls off the blindfold.

Hayko flinches at the sudden shift from dark to streetlight-washed dimness. His vision adjusts slow, grainy. The first thing he sees is Harvey’s eyes in the rearview mirror—cold, speckled orange by street lights, and fixed on him like a dare.

Hayko meets his stare dead-on. Lets his mouth lift just a little. He hopes it looks smug. Then he looks away and opens the door.

The air outside is damp and familiar. Familiar in the way something becomes sacred after enough trauma. The kind of air that reminds you you survived something.

Nick joins him outside. They stand together in the dark for a moment. The sky overhead is thick with clouds. A breeze stirs. Hayko stares down at the quiet slope of the street, his little apartment complex barely three blocks off, just past a corner store and a chain café.

He knows Vlad is awake. Pacing. Maybe gripping his phone with white knuckles. Trying not to call someone. Trying to keep the worst-case scenarios out of his head.

Hayko swallows.

He thinks about what happened earlier.

The kiss. The way he lunged for it. 

He wonders if Vlad will know or see it on him, smell the guilt like smoke. If he’ll ask. Or worse—if he’ll try to understand.

Would he look at Hayko with that slow, careful sympathy he reserves for Hayko’s rare instances of revealing trauma? Would he chalk it up to coercion? Say it’s just mind games? That Nick conditioned him, that it doesn’t mean he’s undone all his healing?

Hayko decides, right then, he’s going to tell him. Secrets would rot between them. They already had. And Nick would want that.

“You waiting for me to walk you to your door?” Nick’s voice cuts into the stillness.

Hayko shakes his head slowly, then reaches into his hoodie pocket. Pulls out a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds, thumbs out a cigarette, and lights it with a small black Bic. He sticks it between his teeth and inhales deep, like it might push all the noise in his head out through his lungs.

The relief is immediate, like exhaling all the little barbs that have been grating on his nerves.

Nick gives him a sidelong glance, faintly judgmental.

Hayko narrows his eyes.

“Give me a break.”

Nick raises his brows, lips pursed.

“Didn’t say anything.”

Hayko takes another drag. Holds. Exhales slow. He can feel the bite of the smoke in the back of his throat, grounding him.

“You used to do coke,” he says. “In case you forgot.”

He keeps his eyes forward, on the apartment, tone flat.

“I was there for that shitshow. Especially the detox. You’re welcome, by the way. For letting you tie me up so you wouldn’t claw your fucking face off.”

He mutters the last part.

Nick raises both hands in mock surrender, still smiling.

“Not judging. And I’ve been clean ever since.”

“Good for you,” Hayko mutters, voice dry and unimpressed.

The silence after stretches. Hayko watches the building. Watches the fourth-story light flicker off, then on again. Vlad’s still pacing.

Nick shifts beside him.

“You using anything else?”

Hayko’s head turns. His voice is sharp, immediate. “No.” A pause. “And if I was, it wouldn’t be your business. We agreed on phone calls and check-ins. Not therapy sessions.”

Nick doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even smirk at his frostiness.

Something in Hayko shifts, not trust but suspicion of Nick’s sheer restraint.

He doesn’t think Nick will hurt him again. Not like before. Not the zip-tie and knives kind of hurt. If Nick hurts him now, it’ll be because Hayko asked for it. Because Hayko cracked and begged for something sharp to remind him he’s still alive or because he’s a stupid masochist. He’s no less of an addict than Nick is, he’s just better at dressing it up as survival.

Nick won’t apologize. Hayko knows that. He’s not going to play contrite.

The cigarette’s burned down to the filter. Hayko flicks it to the ground, grinds it under his shoe, then kicks it into the gutter with a small grunt.

“Goodnight,” Nick says behind him, tone weirdly genuine.

Hayko doesn’t look back. Just starts walking.

By the time he reaches the front door, he already wants another one.

—

@doveotions @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome–hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp @redwingedwhump @nicolepascaline @ifbtnna  @whumperfully​​ ​@brittaunfiltered09 @absolute-bean-loverr

If you like my stuff, consider supporting me on ko-fi! :D

[pretty-face-breaker]

The smell of sandalwood filled Hayko’s lungs as Vlad passed his hand over his face, soothing, paternal, and in a way in which he wished would last the entire night, or forever. Or until he died of this damn infection. Everything felt like hell, from his sinuses to his eyes - god his eyes burned so bad - and sickly cold sweat practically fused his clothes into his skin. Pure misery that he felt was some sick joke being played on him by a higher power.

Sickness makes you delirious. 

But the one thing that made up for it was the Russian’s suspiciously gentle knuckles running back and forth against his forehead, each bump of bone having something of a cooling effect that relaxed him into the hold, his head in Vlad’s lap. “Volodya,” Hayko rasped, clearing his throat and looking up at the tall man who in turn looked down, “Can you take that vase over there?” 

“Eh, what for...if I may?” 

“...Hit me as hard as you can so I can fuckin’ pass out, please.” 

Vlad gaped and dissolved into quiet laughter, to his friend’s displeasure, smoothing a hand over his damp mess of brown curls that was splayed over his jeans. “Come on man, it cannot be that bad.” 

“And who’re you to say it can’t be zat behd, huh?” Hayko mimicked with a sliver of annoyed irony. “I feel like a truck...ran over me and then I fell into a vault of acid and then,” he squeezed his eyes shut, groaning, “somehow lit on fire? And then the vault exploded.” 

Hayko continued the vivid description even if he couldn’t hear himself over Vlad’s hysterical hiccups of laughter, eventually submitting to them himself. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he wheezed as he tried to push himself off the couch, his strength giving out within seconds of the attempt. 

“I-I am,” Vlad made out between laughs before eventually composing himself. “Gospodi, how did you even get this sick?” His arms reached around Hayko’s shoulder, easing his head back into his lap which earned a frustrated groan from the man. “Did someone sneeze into your mouth or something?” 

“Gross...and I don’t wanna think about it,” he mumbled back, “Just wanna sleep and never wake up, and those assholes didn’t even give me the day off. Wait until I get my hands on those pretty machine guns they’re parading around all day and then I’ll take my damn sick day.” Hayko continued to mutter breathlessly, turning on his side so that his forehead was away from Vlad. “You don’t, um...have to, you know...”

“Yeah yeah no,” Vlad said quickly, “It is no problem, really. You look like you need ah...someone right now, so.” 

Hayko tried to swallow the choked up words of gratitude but the ache in his throat was so deeply agonizing that he stopped before he took the chance. Something akin to thank you or nobody deserves you man. 

Or I love you. 

But instead he made a raspy noise of acknowledgement and inhaled slowly, letting himself be gently lulled away from the living room they sat in, away from the house, away from the world. 

Like he was floating into the embrace of unconsciousness with each time Vlad’s fingertips brushed his hair behind his ears. It was a familiar feeling, having his hair played with, but not like this. This was different.

This was safe. 

If only it was always this safe. 

Tagging: @doveotions for these boys having a happy time for once  

who’s the last person that held your whumpee while they were miserably sick?

[pretty-face-breaker]

i think crime nick and hayko deserve some steamy making out too... (shakes my little tin cup with one singular penny in it)

before

It had started off gentle. Exploratory—for Hayko, at least.

Now, Nick's mouth was on his like a threat.

Hayko jolted, catching his balance against the closet door as Nick pressed in—hard, fast, full-body. The angle was wrong. Nick's teeth clicked on his, but it didn’t matter. Hayko clawed at the back of Nick’s shirt, twisting the fabric, dragging him closer.

He tasted like sour blood but it was fine. It was good. Better than not doing it. Better than thinking about what he was doing and why.

Suddenly, Nick shoved him off the doorframe and walked him backward down the hall, step by step, like he was moving furniture. One arm around his waist. The other now tangled in his hair, gripping him at the base of his scalp.

Hayko stumbled, chest rising and falling too fast. Back and back until—

His knees hit the edge of the couch.

He dropped hard with an ugh and Nick followed, straddling him in one motion. He braced his hand on the cushion, chest heaving. His lips were swollen, pupils blown wide.

“You’re still bleeding, you know," Nick said and it was the most breathless Hayko had ever heard him.

Hayko stared up at him with bewilderment, lips parted, pulse thudding like it was about to burst from his skin.

“Wha—? I don’t care. Why are you—”

Nick laughed and kissed him again before Hayko could finish

Harder this time. A lot harder. Less coaxing. All teeth and tongue, pushing him down into the cushions, one knee slotted between his thighs. Hayko groaned low in his throat, fingers digging into Nick’s back like he didn’t trust the contact to last.

Nick’s breath was hot against his cheek. His hands roamed—hip, ribs, throat—skimming bruises, scars, and old restraint marks, cataloguing his months of diligent work. His teeth tugged on Hayko’s bottom lip and his nails scratched the carving on his shoulder until Hayko hissed and jerked with pain.

Nick pulled back just enough to breathe. A smile tugged at his mouth.

"Don't," Hayko hissed.

He didn't want to think about that right now. About anything. In this moment, he wasn't Nick's lapdog or his fucking captive. This was his choice. Nick may have put his initials on him but Hayko had chosen this. He had every opportunity to stop, to run, to fight back.

"For once in your life, can you not be so fucking despicable?" Hayko's chest heaved. "I just want this for a second. Without the pain."

Nick sat back on his haunches, watching him as his breathing steadied. "You've thought about it. My offer."

Hayko didn’t speak. He nodded fast. Transparent and burning.

That was all Nick needed.

He fixed his eyes on Hayko's chest and grabbed the hem of his shirt. Pulled it up in one fluid motion. Hayko lifted his arms to help him, too quick. Too eager. He didn't care. He could be eager for once.

The shirt hit the floor. Hayko's skin prickled with the cold and he tried to avoid looking down at himself too much. There were some fresh ones from the fight earlier. He didn't need to be thinking about the body he had left to cool.

Nick’s hands came next, flat and firm against his stomach. They slid up—it was a slow, possessive movement. Fingers tracing every plane, every rib, like he was acquainting himself with a hidden face of something he'd owned for years.

Hayko shuddered and let him.

The next kiss really bruised and Hayko needed more of it, needed to know how badly Nick wanted him, that, despite everything, Hayko was something want-able like this. Nick's weight pressed Hayko into the couch and before he knew it, Nick's hand was slipping down between them with a promise.

Hayko’s head fell back. His whole body arched up into the contact—aching and completely certain.

It wasn’t obedience.

It wasn’t survival, not really—not right now.

Hayko just wanted him and he prayed it wouldn't become a habit.

—

tagging:

@doveotions @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome–hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp @redwingedwhump @nicolepascaline @ifbtnna  @whumperfully​​ ​@brittaunfiltered09

if you like my stuff, consider supporting me on ko-fi! :D

[pretty-face-breaker]

youve referenced nick drugging hayko a few times- what did nick drug him with (and why?)

I've had to think about this because I think I've neglected how much fun drug whump can be.

Most of those times were about keeping Hayko calm in high-stakes situations by minimizing his anxiety: meetings with violent traffickers, transport jobs involving hostages, cartel parties full of unstable men with quick tempers and trigger fingers. Hayko’s impulse control has always been terrible. He’s anxious, reactive, and righteous—a pretty suicidal combination in organized crime. If someone said or did something lewd, if someone called him a name, Hayko would snap.

Technically, he got into this mess by trying to save someone from a cartel execution.

So Nick would intervene before that got him killed.

A calculated intramuscular shot of midazolam or lorazepam, just enough to take the edge off his instincts or put him under. Calm him. Better drugged than dead, right?

It freaked Hayko out the first time. He didn't understand what was happening to his mind and why he would wake up so dry-mouthed in an unfamiliar city, lain out on a hotel bed with his head pounding as Nick packed stacks of cash in the corner.

Hayko practically begged Nick not to do it again. Promised that he wouldn't do anything stupid. He wouldn't fuck Nick over. And while Nick never injected him again, it didn't stop him from slipping a tablet or two into his food.

And then lying about it afterwards.

Other than plying him, Nick's experimented with what substances Hayko can tolerate. Adrafinil to keep him sharp between the ears in a weapons deal. Some low-dose THC to help Hayko loosen up (context variable :)). Some testosterone micro-dosing.

You know. In case he's been too calm, lately, and Nick wants to stoke his aggression. Maybe his sex-drive.

[pretty-face-breaker]

i adore the development of nick and hayko's dynamic into nick genuinely (as genuine as he can be, at least) wanting to be nicer and more respectful to hayko and not hurt him anymore and hayko not trusting it for a fucking second

I love it so much. Currently writing a follow-up to Hayko's kidnapping and frothing at the mouth and rattling my enclosure!

[pretty-face-breaker]

Apologies if you've already answered this, but Do you see Nick and Hayko being "endgame"? Like do you think they would stay together as their fucked up little dynamic or at least in each other's lives for the rest of their lives? Or is it up to interpretation or undecided?

Personally, I think they will. :)

While I'm definitely not done their story yet, a big part of the appeal for me is this 'blood-bond' aspect of their relationship. That while Hayko was psychologically Nick's captive, they've endured the kind of violence that make them unable to permanently separate from each other. They're just in each other's heads too much and understand each other to too great a degree.

Regardless of how much Hayko hates him.

For me, the post-reunion arc is my desire to see Hayko healthier, more independent, and have him physically and psychologically 'recover' with Vlad as a social safety net, while still developing his and Nick's relationship, albeit on more even grounds. It'll just be through the lens of post-trauma.

I also just want to write Nick being a bit nicer to him, god damn. He's such a demonic bitch. 😭

[pretty-face-breaker]

in nick's eyes, what are hayko's most attractive features?

First, Nick loves Hayko's hair, which he makes uncomfortably clear in his creepy streams of consciousness.

But he also loves his face. Specifically the slight darkness under his eyes, olive skin, strong brow, and full lips. Hayko has that kind of androgynous appeal that really gets Nick (accused bisexual) going. He's a curious mix of masculine and feminine, of a sharp jaw and oddly graceful, long eyelashes.

Nick has... an almost explicit amount to say about his body and all the things he likes about it. His deep and breathy voice and how fast it goes high and ragged in pain. And pleasure. His wiry hands. The cut of his hips.

Not sure he could focus on just one or two. Hayko's a masterpiece to him. He's keen on keeping him in place. :)

[pretty-face-breaker]

post-torture cuddles? :3

CW. creepy comfort, masochism, unhealthy relationships

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Hayko watches the smattering of cast-off bloodstains on the sheets. Glossy, an hour ago, and now dried flat and dull to the cotton. There’s a ringing in his head, hurting with each pulse. He doesn’t respond - the words didn't quite make it through.  

Nick kneels behind him and kneads his shoulders, almost gently. It’s the feeling of his nose in his hair that jerks him out of the reverie. He tenses, sucks in a breath, and blinks away the sting in his eyes.

“Are you back with me again?”

“Partially,” Hayko says, throat raw. He can’t stop the whine when Nick cuts his wrists free from the ropes with a few sharp tugs of his folding knife. Realizes, immediately after, that he didn’t hear him pull it out.

A puff of laughter against his neck, then. “Back in your skin?” 

He’d be lying if he repeated himself. He was. When the pain was a punishing, pulsing thing. Now, with it gone, he’s untethered again. The light cascading in from the window is too bright, the carpet springy and rough. It’s too much. 

“Hey, now.” Nick taps him twice on his cheek, just on the edge of too rough. “I didn’t whip the wits out of you, did I?” 

 “Hardly.” In different circumstances, he might have laughed. “If you did, wouldn’t be much left of me, at this point.”

Nick’s smile comes sharp against his head, an eyetooth pressing into his scalp. He rubs away the chaffing on Hayko’s wrists, sitting limp on the mattress. It’s a mean thing. They’re bantering. Bantering after he just consented to being beat out of orbit for-

For his-

“Is there something you’d like?”

“Just-” His voice chips and self-loathing fills it. “Just stay for a few minutes. Just-”

Nick hushes him, so gently his eyes sting again. Hayko’s throat tightens as the ministrations move to his hair and Nick smooths out the snarls. A few beats of that and he’s pulling him back against his chest. Hayko lets himself fall and hisses, when his shirt catches on the welts. 

“Have I ever left you like this?” 

Hayko swallows, a fervid when haven't you? tucked behind his teeth. But he knows what Nick is referring to, and no, technically, he’s never left him after this. Something decidedly not safe or sane but asked for, all the same. 

He must drift for a minute because when he opens his eyes again, he’s draped over Nick’s chest on the bed, half-wrapped in a towel. He foggily registers a hand smoothing gel over his skin, the other playing along his ribs. 

“You’re running out of time, you know.” 

The hands stop. Nick’s heartbeat is steady beneath his ear, unyielding in a way that seems to disagree with that. Hayko stops himself from flinching when he speaks again.

“Don’t worry about me, dear.” 

He takes the press of lips to his scalp with little more than an aborted breath before Nick gives his ribs a squeeze. Presses into the welts hard enough to startle a full gasp out of him. He’s afraid he might not stop his probing, might just sink his claws clean through his back and into his lungs- 

“Oh. Please-...” 

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Nick’s voice is gnarled with a grin. 

His next breath whistles from his teeth. It fucking hurts. It hurts like nothing. It's so good. “Yes. Yes.” 

And then, nothing. His fingers are gone, leaving him panting and arching up. Bastard, he wants to say, as Nick pulls them through his hair, smearing blood through his curls. Within a second, he’s back to rubbing aloe cream on his back. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Nick says. “After they run out of time, it’ll just be us. No distractions, hm?”

-

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