#referenced pet whump

[hold-him-down]

Hold Him Down (pt. 1)

TW: Med Whump, Gratuitous Med Whump, Medical Restraints, Chemical Restraints, Noncon Touch, Referenced Noncon, Parker Destin, Institutionalized Slavery, Noncon Drugging, Conditioning, Referenced Food/Water Restriction, Referenced/Described STI testing, Referenced/Described Shock Collar, Whumper POV, literally over 4k words wtf, get leo a pet fish and warm hug when.

Notes: This is one of those things that I'm, as usual, not sure needs to or should exist, but I spent so much time writing it that I couldn't just NOT post it, sooo here it is. Parts 4-6 coming eventually. Takes place in the 12-ish hour span after Leo is prematurely returned from our best guy, Parker Destin. This may be one that I revisit and try to refine down the line.

✥ ✥ ✥

From behind a two-way mirror, Handler Otto Gray and an unfamiliar intake handler stand, arms crossed over their chests. They watch Leo quietly, relieved that, at least for now, the dust has settled. 

His eyes finally closed, a few hours earlier, following a massive fight that ended in a sizable dose of Lorazepam. Even drugged, it took what felt like ages for him to settle down, and even longer for his body to finally go limp. Hours later, the salty tear-streaks are still visible on his cheeks.

The doctor asked them to wait on cleaning him up; in spite of the second handler’s objections, in spite of the apparently innate desire to put this unconscious boy in his place, the handler turned on his heels and left in a huff. Otto hesitated, sparing a quick glance at Leo. He wondered, briefly, how he had managed to fail so spectacularly, before dismissing the thought all together. Against his better judgment, he squeezed Leo’s hand briefly, then he checked to make sure the restraints were appropriately secured and exited. Today was sure to be a long day, sure to be even longer if they could not get a handle on whatever panic-induced psychosis Leo was clearly grappling with.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, shift change happened. The handler who had spent the evening scowling at Leo’s lifeless form clocked out, muttering a, “Good luck,” to his replacement. Otto stayed, though, with a quick glance at handler Nick Ford, according to his name tag, and a muttered greeting. Hopefully, he thinks, this one is better suited for this type of work than the last. The doctor comes up behind them, and the three stand in silence for a moment.

“He’s asleep?” the doctor asks, which is a question that could ordinarily be answered with a quick glance through a chart, but Leo has a notoriously unpredictable response to sedatives and that, if nothing else, has been noted numerously in his file.

Otto nods, his jaw locked. “I think so.”

Leo’s wrists are red, raw where each strap hugs them, but for the last few hours, they have been still. Mostly.

“For how long?” the doctor asks, thumbing through the notes from the night before. A colorful account of the events that led to this moment, which, although maybe not immediately helpful, might lend insight into the inner workings of Leo Evans.

“A couple hours,” Handler Ford supplies, and Otto is struck suddenly with a potent distaste for how this night has played out. 

It’s not out of the ordinary, exactly, for a worker to require this level of support after a contract.  He hoped, though, maybe naively, that Leo was more resilient than this.

He’s been drugged out of his mind, and as hard as he fought it, the drugs eventually dragged him under. To Otto’s understanding, it was only after several hours of trying to calm him down using other methods that he was eventually medicated, and, to Otto’s understanding, the doctor intends now to keep him drugged until he’s under control. He idly wonders if there’s a chance at modifying those plans. Leo is tough, sometimes damn near impossible to work with, but they had found a kind of balance when Otto was his handler. And he thinks, now, he can perhaps spare everyone some heartache if he can have a go at his former trainee.

Otto peers in closer to the window as Leo gasps, his wrists pulling once, lightly, at the straps.

“Alright,” the doctor says, at the same time that Leo’s eyes crack open. As Handler Ford reviews the notes with the Doctor, Otto studies Leo. He hadn’t been an easy trainee. He had been downright defiant at times, resistant to every standard training tool the DLS employed. Otto had been called in in his second month, after his primary handler was fired for, more or less, losing his patience with Leo one time too many, with Leo landing in the ICU. Even after that, success came in short, nearly unpredictable bursts.

When Leo had finally been cleared to take his first contract, that would usually have been the end of Otto’s time with him. But, at least in some of his most challenging successes, he liked to keep an eye on them, if not just to see how they did. He would tell you he did this to improve his own methods, and to help him understand the longer term implications of his work. That wouldn't be the whole truth, though. 

Leo was one of the select few that Otto found himself keeping an eye on. He had gotten through his first contract easily, and Otto recalled the feeling of immense relief as he read through Ms. Smith’s post-contract interview. Leo had been put in a short term holding site and almost immediately secured his second contract. That one wasn’t set to terminate for three months still, so when Otto got the notification that Leo’s file was being updated last night, he called in some favors with the intake department.

He stands here now, mostly frustrated, a little bit confused, and perhaps, maybe slightly sympathetic. Simmering beneath all that is anger, misplaced but a constant undertone that, he worries, may drive some of his decisions today. He buries it as deeply as he can. It serves neither him nor Leo.

Leo blinks hard toward the ceiling, but seems to clock his circumstances quickly. His head turns toward the mirror and for a moment, Otto thinks Leo can see him, right through him, right into the place Leo used to occasionally access and attempt to exploit.

Otto stares at his eyes, red, heavy, and unfocused, and wills Leo to remain calm. Leo swallows, and pulls again against the restraints.

Stop, Otto silently commands. But he doesn’t. Of course, he wouldn’t.

“What are the odds he’ll take it on his own?” Otto hears from next to him.

“What?” Otto responds, shifting his focus.

“The meds?” Handler Ford says as he holds up a small cup of pills in one hand, a syringe filled with an off-white liquid in the other.

“Oh,” Otto responds. The odds, he thinks, are nonexistent. The good news is this isn’t explicitly his problem anymore. 

“Any pointers?” Handler Ford asks then. At Otto’s look, he says, “You worked with him, right?” 

Otto nods, but doesn’t offer any pointer. Handler Ford stares at him intently, so, out of some misplaced desire to prove that he is not, in fact, completely incompetent with his trainees, he says, “A long time ago. I did his initial training after his first handler got canned.”

“What for?” Ford asks. He’s stalling, Otto thinks. 

“Assault,” Otto supplies. He inclines his head toward the room, and turns away from Handler Ford, re-orienting himself toward the window.

“Wish me luck?”

“Good Luck,” Otto says, not unkindly, as the handler disappears behind the door. Moments later, he is in Leo’s room.

Leo’s demeanor immediately shifts, from alarmed and fighting to gain function to panicked, but he stills, he swallows, he forces his eyes on the handler, and takes a breath. Good boy, Otto thinks.

He’s whispering something, but Otto can’t make out the words. He thinks he’s heard Parker’s name, and Handler Ford shakes his head.

Leo nods, then, and takes one of those deep, shuddering breaths that usually mean he’s on the edge of some big feelings. Otto, once more, leans closer to the window.

Handler Ford begins listing out the things he needs Leo to do this morning, and Leo’s brow creases as he takes it in, nodding after each item, but seemingly oblivious to the actual requests.

Inside the observation room, the doctor joins Otto.

“Do you know what happened?” Otto asks the doctor. Otto, immediately realizing he could be asking any number of things, clarifies, “That led to this. He didn’t have an issue after his first contract.”

“Sometimes they get freaked out after spending some time with a particularly cozy buyer,” he replies. 

Otto nods. 

In the room, Handler Ford’s hand is on Leo’s neck, pressing under the collar. Leo stays still, but Otto can see the fear in his eyes, behind layers and layers of grief. It’s odd, seeing him like this.

“You didn’t last too long, did you?” Handler Ford is saying, dripping condescension, as Leo swallows, holding in a fresh wave of tears.

✥ ✥ ✥

“It’s nothing personal, Leo.” Parker’s driver waits for Leo just beyond the threshold. In his hand, Parker holds out a DLS-issued bag.

Leo nods.

Parker grabs his face between his hands and presses his lips to Leo’s forehead. “You have to understand I didn’t plan for this,” he’s saying, but Leo’s ears are ringing. “I would have waited to take on a worker if I had any inclination I would be called away.” His words are kind, Leo thinks, but there’s almost a note of condescension under them. 

Leo feels a sort of emptiness spreading throughout him, a cold void that precedes what he could only describe as terror. For what’s next. For losing this thing, that he isn’t sure he should want, but he wants, so desperately. He clings to it. 

“Parker, I– I can,” Leo starts, taking a step back. He can, what? fix this? do better? be better? “Please don’t do this…”

Parker’s thumbs glide across Leo’s cheeks.

“I thought they beat that out of you,” Parker says, his lips pulled into a half-smile. Leo falters, the words he has prepared are completely knocked out of him.

“I– I’m sorry,” is all he can now formulate. He can feel his circumstances changing as every second passes. He’s going to be sick. The feeling of bile rising wars against the knowledge that if he is sick at this moment, it will be unforgivable. 

Parker’s hands drift down to Leo’s shoulders and he pulls him into a half-hug, pressing his forehead against Leo’s.

“Don’t worry about it,” Parker says. He wants to say more, Leo thinks.

Instead, Parker uses the grip he has on Leo’s shoulder to push him away and rakes his eyes slowly over Leo, from his head to his toes. He smiles and grabs the collar of Leo’s shirt, poking out from under a deep blue sweater. It’s Parker’s favorite.

He inclines his head briefly toward the door and Leo counts every breath he takes.

“They said not to send your books and clothes and things,” Parker explains as he pulls open the front door. “It’ll just go to waste. I can donate it, if you’d like?”

And Leo, in that moment, hesitates. Can he ask Parker to keep it, for when he gets back from his trip? Maybe, he thinks. Maybe Parker hasn’t considered that Leo could stay in the house and look after it, and he doesn’t need to send him away. 

And then it occurs to Leo that maybe Parker is using this time to help figure out the gaps in his training, because they’ve been butting heads lately, and if that’s the case, he wants to tell Parker that he will take this time seriously, and will be better suited to be what Parker needs him to be when he returns.

Leo opens his mouth to say this, to say any of it, even just to tell Parker that he will try harder when he gets back from his trip.

But the panic wraps itself around Leo’s throat, and Leo says nothing.

✥ ✥ ✥

“Are you ready to behave?” The words distort around the edges and Leo blinks hard, willing himself to focus.

This handler, Leo thinks, is unfamiliar to him. There is a fuzziness to both his vision and his thoughts, compounded by blurry memories of the night before. The handler is standing just outside of his line of sight, offering terse reprimands each time he fails to respond. He is trying, though. He wants to tell them he’s trying, but his tongue feels too thick and his voice won’t work.

There’s an added danger that Leo tries not to acknowledge, even silently. They’ve put a training collar on him, but they haven’t gone so far as to shock the world into focus. Even if his limbs didn’t weigh a thousand pounds, he would not be able to lift them. Thick canvas straps wound tightly around each wrist and ankle keep him in place, and Leo blinks at the unexpected wave of terror: these people can and will hurt him with no regard for the fact that he is wholly unable to protect himself. 

The drugs help him accept these facts, but do not help him to forget them.

Memories of the night before claw their way to the surface. Of the sound of his own screaming, of gloved hands pinning him down, of his clothing being pulled off of his body. Of Parker's favorite sweater, which he held tightly to his chest, as it was ripped from his arms. He flinches at the memory of himself, just [some?] hours earlier, as he begged them to let him keep it, as a needle digs its way deep into his thigh. The darkness was quick to swallow him up after that.

And then there are other memories, too, from later in the night. Distorted flashes of the handlers coming to visit him, of cold hands pulling off the thin blanket that had been draped over him. He wondered if the drugs might ease the pain. When they didn’t, he allowed himself a moment of relief in the hope that this might all just be written off as a drug-induced nightmare in the light of day.

And now, the drugs fading, and the light of day doing nothing to erase ache deep inside of him, he swallows, blinking slowly, and longs only for the reprieve that unconsciousness may bring. That maybe they will drug him again, before they touch him again. His stomach turns over, and he draws his focus to the lights on the ceiling.

“He’s lost some weight,” he hears the doctor say, but they aren’t speaking to him, so he closes his eyes and taps each finger on the pad beneath him, just to see if he can feel them all. 

“His buyer kept him hungry,” the handler replies. He can, he thinks, feel them all. “My understanding is he kept him on a pretty strict eating plan.”

Leo recoils, hearing Parker’s voice in his head. The DLS has asked that you start out on a kind of strict meal plan for a little bit. He blinks back tears at the unwelcome memories. Of Parker, event after event, selecting everything he ate, everything he touched. Of the imperceptible nod Parker would give him when he reached for something at the dinner table. Or the terse shake of his head when he moved to something unacceptable. 

Leo wants to tell these men that Parker didn’t keep him hungry. That he was just enacting the plan he had been given.

“I’ll need a copy of it,” the doctor responds, and Leo squeezes his eyes shut, forcing his mind blank.

“It’s in his file,” the handler says. Leo’s ears ring. 

“Good.” The doctor presses his hands fingers into the back of Leo’s neck, the collar momentarily tightening as the fingers explore under it. “He’s dehydrated,” he says, and Leo can picture the handler typing his notes. “Are you going to tell me the buyer restricted his water intake too?”

From somewhere far away, the handler laughs, and Leo’s expression tightens, momentarily stunned by the mockery.

“It’s alright,” he thinks he hears, but the voices are so far away now. He doesn’t know that he’s crying until he feels a thumb wiping at his cheek, and Leo sucks in a breath. “You’re alright.”

The world stands still for what could be seconds or minutes or longer. When the doctor’s hand finally migrates upward, and a light is shined into each of Leo’s eyes, he is momentarily blinded, but immediately aware that he has lost time.

The doctor’s fingers, inches from his face, snap once. “Hi, Leo,” he says simply. And then, “I’m Dr. Grant. Are you with me?”

Leo swallows, which hurts, and other memories slide to the surface of the night before. He tries to nod. The movement makes his head pound. “Yes,” he whispers, but based on the doctor’s– what was his name?– grimace, he doesn’t think it came out right.

The doctor sighs and seemingly gives up on Leo’s active participation, instead pulling the blanket down to Leo’s waist and putting a stethoscope to Leo’s chest. It’s nothing, Leo thinks, but it’s never just this. He closes his eyes again and begins counting in his head. Every so often, he forgets where he left off, and he starts over.

The doctor explains what he’s doing as he works, and Leo wonders idly if it’s for his benefit or for some other reason. To pass the time, and maybe to distract himself, Leo imagines a new doctor in the adjacent observation room, learning this trade. He wonders if it’s a good doctor or a bad doctor, and opens his eyes just enough to glance toward the mirror, to see if he can spot him back there. There are no good doctors here, he decides, and starts counting again.

The doctor looks at Leo’s wrists and describes them to the handler, who writes it all down. He examines Leo’s arms and his shoulders and his chest and his stomach as he searches for signs that Parker hurt him beyond what would be considered reasonable, which he didn’t, Leo wants to say, and that Parker will come back for him after his trip, and that he needs to be ready to go home. Then he starts counting again, because the idea of telling this man that Parker will come back for him will be met with laughter, and Leo doesn’t know if he can handle it. He’s pretty sure he can’t.

Fingers prod at Leo’s stomach and he can’t suppress the accompanying flinch, and as the drugs start to wear thin, he feels himself less and less able to accept what is being done to him.

“Alright, Leo,” the doctor says, and Leo opens his eyes and is met with mostly, he thinks, concern.

“I’ll be back.” The doctor shoots the handler a look, and Leo wants to close his eyes again, but as the handler approaches, Leo knows, acutely, that it’s a bad idea.

“Are you going to cause a scene?” the handler asks, before lifting the blanket from Leo’s lap. Leo shrinks back, an instant passing in which his entire body goes rigid, but shakes his head ‘no.’ He hopes it’s enough.

He holds his breath, waiting for it to be over, or, waiting for it to start, and feels the handler’s eyes sliding down his body.

He thinks he might be shaking, but he isn’t sure. 

The doctor returns a moment later, and after a quick assessment of how things have evolved, issues a quick but gentle, “It’s alright.” It’s not, though, and Leo locks his jaw to keep from crying. He wants to ask if he can close his eyes again. Sometimes they would let him, when things were about to get really bad, in initial training. Sometimes, if he asked clearly, and if he caught them on a good day, they would let him.

“No wonder he was returned,” the handler says, leaning back against the wall. 

“Can I close my eyes?” he whispers then, before he can catch the humor in the handler’s expression. The doctor looks at him once, and nods. Leo doesn’t hesitate to clamp his eyes shut, unwilling to chance opening them at all, maybe ever, and instead continues counting in his head. 

“Continue working on your empathy,” the doctor says evenly, but Leo is pretty sure he isn’t speaking to him so he works on breathing and counting and nothing else.

He tries to block out the words. This is another moment in training, and it too will end eventually. 

“They put him through hell in training. He has a right to be mistrustful.” And then, to Leo, he says, “I’m going to give you something to help balance you out,” and his touch disappears. “Just hang tight, Leo.” 

Without warning, a hand clamps around his neck, pinning him in place. His eyes fly open, his arms pull instinctively against the restraints, as the tip of a syringe is pushed past his teeth and to the back of his throat.

He gags, his head knocking back against the thin pillow, but the handler’s grip is merciless, and in the next instant, a thick, bitter liquid is sliding down his throat. Tears well in his eyes, and he would swear the culprit was simply the bitterness of the medicine.

It’s mistaken for something else, though, and the handler releases him as the doctor runs a hand through his hair and says, “You’re alright.”

Leo’s shaking harder now, and his fingers grip into the pad he lays on and he urges himself to still. His chest aches as he tries to catch his breath, the taste of the medicine still heavy on his tongue. But still, almost immediately, he can feel his body lightening, the tension pulling back until the shaking eases, and the doctor nods, and approaches. Leo can’t feel the fear he knows he should feel. 

He can feel nothing.

Even with the memories of the night before, even with the doctor and the handler so close to him, he can breathe again.

Still, Leo can’t contain the subconscious jerk of his body as a flash of sharp pain shoots through him. The doctor issues an apology, along with a soft, “almost done,” and turns the swab, over and over, as Leo’s legs fight against the hands that hold them in place. He tries to find a place in his mind to retreat into, but he hasn’t been there in months, if not longer, and in that moment, it offers no reprieve. He thinks he cries out, locking his teeth and pressing his head back into the pillow as hard as he can to distract himself from what goes on lower. When the doctor is finished, he wipes Leo down and drapes the blanket over his lap.

What he doesn’t say is ‘Good, Leo,’ because they would both know it to be untrue. 

Still, in the next breath, the restraints are being unbuckled, and Leo is lifted at his shoulders until he is sitting, and his wrists are being examined, and there is a hand rubbing his back. He blinks slowly, willing the room back into focus, and he can hear voices but he isn’t able to follow their conversation.

“It doesn’t need to be this hard,” he thinks the handler is saying, and even though his head is hung low and his shoulders are scrunched to make him as small as possible, in his peripherals he can see the doctor shooting the handler a sharp look. “What?” he bites back. “It’s true.”

“Alright, Leo,” the doctor says then, ignoring the handler entirely. Leo keeps his eyes locked on the ground and he takes the blanket in a white-knuckled grip.

The doctor lets him catch his breath, rubbing his back every few seconds. Leo thinks he’s using it to get a read on his heart rate, but he doesn’t care just then. The doctor explains what’s next, and moves to ease Leo onto his side. Leo, for his part, cooperates, lowering himself slowly, watching as his fingers shake. He wraps his arms so tightly around his stomach he think he might leave bruises, but when the doctor touches him, he doesn’t flinch.

“There’s some bruising,” the doctor says neutrally, but Leo can’t look at the handler to see if he types it. It could be from the handlers, or it could be from Parker’s friends the night before. Leo chokes on his next breath, and in spite of the drugs, he can feel the panic rising.

“Leo?” the doctor says. “Are you doing alright?” 

The handler takes a step forward.

“I don’t consent to this,” Leo whispers, so softly he isn’t sure anyone hears him. The look the handler levels on him is scathing. “I–I kn…know it doesn’t… I know it doesn’t matter.” His voice is soft, slurred around the edges, but clear enough. “But I… I j-just– I want to make sure you know.”

The doctor says nothing, and the handler frowns. Leo wants to ask him to type it into his chart, but the doctor moves behind him, and Leo’s vision is suddenly and immediately blurred by his tears. 

By the time they finish, by the time the doctor drapes the blanket over his hips, letting his hand rest on Leo’s head briefly before retreating, Leo’s body is wracked with sobs. They leave him to calm himself down, and he finds himself, for a moment, grateful for the simple mercy.

But he cannot stop crying, as he stares into the mirror and thinks of all he’s lost. Of what, in spite of what he tried to convince himself he could have, he will never have. Of Parker, laughing with his friends as he picks out a new worker. Of the handler, and all those that came before him, smiling as they hurt him. The door opens with no warning and a familiar voice, a voice warm enough to burn Leo’s entire world down, issues a commanding, clear, “Stop this, Leo.” 

And almost instantly, Leo stops.

FIGHTER TAG LIST:

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[whumpitisthen]

Whumpers who have a personal toy <333

Whumpers who have a little whumpee following them around like a pet <333

Whumpers who control and humiliate and abuse whumpee at every turn for entertainment and still expect whumpee to behave perfectly and obey them and look pretty doing it <333

Whumpers with a whumpee who is deathly afraid of them but who has no chance of getting away or even to just be themself because all that matters is keeping whumper content so they might be hurt less <333

Whumpers who coo down at whumpee and hold them close and know everything about them and are so involved with them in every possible way it seems like the two are inseparable <333

Whumpers with a favourite whumpee who is pitied and hated by all other whumpees because on one hand they get to be outside and do things and see things unlike the ones living in cells but on the other no one has to spend more time with whumper than them and that thought in itself is terrifying <333

Whumpers with accomplices and friends and colleagues and family and people who know them who also know what whumpee is and they not only tolerate their treatment, but sometimes even encourage it, if not join in <333

Whumpees who are just whumper's little things <33333333333

Whumpees who are accessories and toys and pets and servants and slaves and they follow whumper around like a little dog and its like theyre a package deal and if you see one of them you'll surely find the other nearby <3333333

~

Masterlist | Ko-Fi

[serickswrites]

You Belong To Me

Prompt from the lovely @watermelons-whump-game

Warnings: pet whump, captivity, collar, non con touch, creepy/intimate whumper, manipulation, captivity, referenced physical violence

"Aren't you just lovely, my pet?" The Master said as they stroked the Pet's hair. "You belong to me. And only me. Forever."

The Pet knew better than to respond. They knew better than to do anything other than let the Master pet them. It had taken them the better part of a month to realize what had happened to them. How they had been lied to, tricked, and manipulated into this. How they had been betrayed by those closest to them and kidnapped and brought here.

It had taken the Pet another month to learn exactly what the Master wanted from them. From the moment the Master fastened the collar around their neck, the Pet realized life as they knew it had ceased to exist. Each beating because they failed to follow a command the Pet realized that their life was over. That everything they had hoped and dreamed of was over.

"You are just so perfect," the Master whispered in the Pet's ear.

The Pet held themself very still. The Master wanted the Pet to be very still while they touched the Pet. They had to hold themself very still.

"I am so glad I have you," the Master breathed as they caressed the Pet's chest and kissed down their neck. "You are my favorite by far."

The Pet fought against the tears that filled their eyes. They couldn't let the Master see. The Master didn't like it when the Pet cried. They only wanted the Pet to lay there and let the Master do whatever they wanted.

And so the Pet did. They did knowing that they had no choice. They did knowing that if they didn't there would be hell to pay. They did it knowing that this was all that they had in life. They did knowing this was it.

[angst-after-dark]

CW: BBU/BBU-ADJACENT SETTING , REFERENCED NONCON, REFERENCED INSTITUTIONALIZATION, OBSESSIVE WHUMPER

Valerian Ainsworth belongs to @wildfae-afterdark

Art credit to @whump-card

For @ailesswhumptober day 19, "I wish I could get you back."

TAGLIST: @siren-of-agony , @girlsjustwannadrawwhump , @gottawhump , @flowersarefreetherapy , @emeraldwhump , @writingbackwards-blog , @winedark-whump @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @oddsconvert (please let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist)

AUGUST, 20XX - It’s the start of August, summer is nearly over, but that hasn’t stopped the hydrangeas in front of Valerian Ainsworth’s apartment from blooming. A lover of beauty, Ainsworth has had the gorgeous white flowers, about the size of my hand, plucked and put in a vase. It adorns the table in their front foyer, greeting me as I enter their home for our interview. 

Dressed in a floor length, powder blue dress that shimmers every time they move, Ainsworth is as beautiful as ever - the epitome of everything their platform stands for. Thin gold bracelets wrap around their wrists. Since they have a habit of speaking with their hands - “My Italian heritage,” they laugh -  they jingle and create a sound that sparkles the same way they do. Their hair is swept away from their face and trailing down their back in soft waves.

Everything about them - from their home, to their attire, to the way they carry themself - is aesthetically pleasing. It’s stunning and I find myself marveling at the differences between their life and mine. 

One might think, with how horrifying the accusations against them were, Ainsworth would be emotionally drained and hiding away from the public. However, as they themself have stated over and over, they are a survivor.

While many others would’ve been cowed and buckled at the attention of last year’s trial and their subsequent stint in a rehabilitation facility, Ainsworth has used it to their advantage. They haven’t shied away from talking about their experiences - an experience many have wanted to hear about. Their newly garnered fifty million TikTok and Instagram followers can attest to that.

While they’re not quite a pariah in the online community, they are a controversial figure. And, as we know, controversy sells. It is as lucrative as ever. Their phone buzzes ceaselessly during our interview.

Brand deals, they tell me. 

Far from being canceled by any sort of “woke” mob, Ainsworth seems to have fallen upwards and many are happy to see it. The past seems to be forgotten as they sit on the couch in their quiet, Midtown apartment. 

It isn’t. 

The past is the sole purpose of my visit. Getting a peek behind the carefully curated persona and digging into the ugly truth. 

VALERIAN AINSWORTH: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell my truth. It’s truly difficult to understand what really went on with all the stories floating around. There’s been so much of a focus on legal procedure; there hasn’t been a chance to focus on all the things that truly matter. 

NESTA ROBERTS: The trial did seem pretty brutal. There was a lot of evidence put forth. Some things looked like they were difficult to sit through. Was there anything the lawyers, your lawyers, failed to mention during their closing arguments that you think would’ve helped your case?

VALERIAN  AINSWORTH: Absolutely. I had a decent legal team and I’m so grateful for the work they put into my case but they spent so much time on my past, on things that happened with my parents, they failed to mention how deeply I care for Christopher Wickham. 

NR: You’re speaking of care, present tense. Not cared, past tense?

VA, laughing a bit sadly: Yes, care, present tense and perhaps it’s a bit foolish. I know - I know, now, that my love won’t be returned but the heart wants what it wants. I was always taught to follow my heart’s desire wherever it may lead me. Unfortunately, I wasn't taught boundaries to go along with that but I'm learning those now. 

NR: Yes, of course. My heart’s desire often leads me into another pint of Rocky Road Ice Cream whether it's good for me or not. Now, a lot of people are very curious. Why Wickham? What drew you to him in the first place?

VA: At first, it was because of their connection to another old friend, Peyton Montgomery but once I met Wicky, Wickham, once I got to know them and that mind behind those adorable curls, I couldn't look away. They truly captured my heart. They’re incredible, stubborn, strong, gentle, funny, and so very kind. He’s a sweetheart who always made time for me and, as you heard in the trial, I’m not accustomed to being a priority in someone’s life. It was a whirlwind and I will always be grateful to Wicky for showing me what that feels like. I wish I could get him back.

NR: They do sound like a catch. What about Peyton Montgomery? Do you still have feelings for him as well?

VA: Peyton was….He was my first love and in some ways, your first love never leaves you. I still care for him deeply, but….not in the same way I once did. He’s very different from the person I spent Hampton summers with. It’s truly bittersweet but I will always hold a fondness for him in my heart. [LAUGHS] Peyton and I always got into a bit of trouble back then. It was more of a crush, puppy love, if you will. I grew up with Peyton. He was someone familiar and safe but we weren't compatible. It was never something that could be longterm - not like it was with Wicky. 

NR: Okay, Valerian. I have to ask because there have been several theories surrounding your case and you know how the internet gets. Wickham’s case against you, his allegations, have made both of you quite popular - you’re practically a household name. Quite a few people followed the trial on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, other social media platforms….

VA: …Yes. I was….that was very unexpected. I’m just a person in love. I truly wasn't looking for infamy or clout or anything and if I could’ve avoided putting our relationship out there, I would have. It was a sweet, private thing. Wicky was the one who wanted to take everything to the media. 

NR: Wasn't there a text on your phone saying you would send Wickham’s nudes to the media if they didn't do what you wanted?

VA: I never would have done that, Nesta. As I said, it was a sweet, private thing. Something Wicky blew out of proportion. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have said that but couples have their issues and often say things they don't mean. As much I love them, as happy as I was in our relationship, it was far from perfect. 

NR: There have been theories that your obsession with Wickham was actually revenge for your old friend. The theories state that everything that passed between you two was to punish Wickham for keeping your first love as a Romantic.

VA [LAUGHS]: Oh God! Hardly. I suppose there will always be people who look for the worst light to cast someone in. No, I was never looking for revenge. I was just…lonely. I had lost the woman I felt would be my forever. I lost my pet. I lost everything I felt made me, well, me. I read too much into passing kindnesses and fell in love with a man who pretended to love me back. I’m sure everyone has been through something similar when looking for a rebound. 

NR: Have you heard from your ex, did you hear from her at all while you were pursuing Wickham?

VA: No. She only loved my money. Once that was gone, so was she. I did see her on social media every once in a while; It was clear that she’d moved on rather easily. I suppose that’s another mistake I made.

NR: Oh?

VA: Yes. I trusted the wrong person but I’ve learned. Life has a way of showing you who your true support is and I’d like to take a moment to thank my fans on social media, on Instagram, Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Tiktok, who have sent me love and encouragement everyday. They have been my true cheerleaders. I know, whether Wicky and I work out our issues or not, I’m blessed to have my fans. 

NR: Is there anything you’d like to say to your ex, anything you’d like her to know?

VA [SMILES]: Oh yes, of course. If she hadn't abandoned me when things were looking their worst, I wouldn’t know what real love is. [THEY GESTURE TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS] I suppose I have her to thank for all of this.

Valerian Ainsworth is a person obsessed with beauty, with appearance, with aesthetics. In this age of perfectly made up influencers and social media driven lives, they're a master of their craft. Every part of their life has been carefully curated, especially their honesty and vulnerability. One has to wonder if they are their own target audience. Is it truly authenticity if you believe your own stories? Where does the craft end and the person begin? Do they even know? We certainly don't.

[whump-since-2010]

Butterfly Whumpee - Inhuman

(Check tags for tws)

Whumpee finished her song, wincing back a cough as her throat scratched on the last note, and she faltered. Her eyes darted to his as a scowl tugged down on the corners of his eyes and lips. She shrank in on herself, the sudden urge to cover her body overcoming her in a moment at his disdain.

Cold exposure pricked beneath her skin, and a shiver raced down her spine. Icy steel of the chain cuffs stinging her flesh as a movement pulled them slack, and she gasped, choking on air.

"Come here."

Whumpee hesitated, trembling as she looked down. She opened her mouth, but the chain around her neck yanked her to her knees

"I said, Come here. Not speak. You're not a person, you're a pet, and pets obey orders."

Whumpee broke into a coughing fit, her throat burning as she shivered.

Whumper's cold fingers found her shoulder and gently trailed from her collarbone to her jaw, and forced her face within a few inches of his nose.

His other hand found the tentacle-like tendrils in place of her hair as his thumb brushed over her lips. "You're a destroyer. You're dead at a lift of my finger. You are mine."

Whumpee tensed, but Whumper yanked her chains tighter and slid his hands to her neck, hard ice on soft golden brown. "Open those wings for me, bug. You know you want to."

Whumpee grunted softly and shuddered into another coughing fit. She flinched away from him, but a clank of chains yanked her back.

His knuckles cracked across her skin in an instant. She cried out, collapsing onto her hands and knees. Blood trickled slowly from her flat nose.

"You're a monster, bug. A destroyer. It's in your name. You were never meant to live. The only reason I kept you is because I like the way you look. The more you disobey me, the uglier you get. First, the legs, now your pretty face. If you don't use those ears of yours, you'll cost nothing by the time I'm done with you."

Whumpee whimpered softly.

"You do sound so sweet when you beg." His nails dug into her tendrils. "You're losing time."

Whumpee's wings trembled open at his threat, and Whumper's face flashed into a smile. She closed her eyes as he moved her body where he wanted it, trailing a hand along the bone of her wing. He pulled her into a kiss, lips whispering over her skin as the words brushed her tongue. "Good girl."

Please comment... I would love it if you did :)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Drag Him Back

@redwingedwhump and I did a WWI-but-with-vampires AU RP with our characters. Then we did an AU to the AU. And this is just a lightly discussed Au-to-the-AU-to-the-AU... just a thought I had in my head that refused to leave.

This is a one-shot just to get it out.

CW: Captivity, vampirism, referenced noncon but just implied, escape, some suicidal ideation

- 1917, Belgium

The door was left unlocked.

It was sheer luck that Emil even noticed. He was lying on his back on the bed, staring up into the canopy and listening to the sound of his own heart struggling to beat despite the lack of blood left in his veins. His neck still tingled, the aftereffects of the venom sending tendrils of exhausted pleasure down through his limbs.

One of the servants had come in to check on him, like they always did once his master was done. The emperor was not kind to his creatures, and there were three servants whose entire existence revolved around keeping Emil alive until His Majesty had finished with him.

Emil was long since past caring about the looks on their faces when they came in to wash the smears of blood and other fluids from his neck, his face, his stomach, between his legs. He barely felt it. The memory of the emperor's hands and his body cold as winter pressed against Emil's own wiped away any comfort he could ever have taken from the pity he saw on the servants' faces.

He barely felt alive.

Someone helped him to stand long enough to change the sheets on the emperor’s enormous bed. Someone else wrapped a bandage around his neck before easing him into a hot bath to soak his aching muscles. A third laid out fresh clothing for him. A fourth only watched the others. Emil laid there, trying not to think about the stinging pain he felt far too deep inside.

Instead, he thought about how lovely it would be to sink beneath the warm water and simply not resurface. Let it close over him and put an end to this nightmare for good. 

But… he could not make himself seek that death, which seemed nobler sometimes and like cowardice at others. Deeper down than his despair, a single point of certainty burned - if he could only hold on long enough, his chance for escape would come.

And then, unlike the last three attempts he made to run, he would not be dragged back for the emperor’s displeasure to write itself on his skin. The next time, it would work, he would be free, and he would stay hidden from the emperor’s gaze for as long as it took for the vampire’s eye to turn itself to some other unlucky bastard that would be put into his place. 

One day.

If he lived long enough.

If he could hold off that final despair. 

He let his head tip back against the lip of huge wrought-iron tub and exhaled, listening without really hearing the servants’ whispered words as they spoke above and around him. The clink of porcelain, a teacup on a saucer settled down next to the bed. The commands by the emperor’s own personal servant, a rung above the other two on the ladder. 

Someone came and helped him to sit back up, washed his hair for him. Emil never opened his eyes even to see who it was. He murmured answers to the questions put to him.

He did enjoy the way they knew to scrub at his scalp, though, the gentleness that with the emperor was laced with humiliation, but with the servants was simple efficiency.

It didn’t matter.

As long as it wasn’t the emperor touching him, back already to bring him to the brink of death but refuse him the final peace, he didn't mind. As long as it was only a human servant, with warm hands and a beating heart. As long as he did not feel those chill, long fingers closing slowly around his throat, feel the cool breath against his jaw, the graze of those sharp fangs over the scars of dozens of wounds left to heal only with time.

As long as it was a human who touched him, at least he could feel human himself - if only for a moment or two. 

He had not felt human often, these past two years. Instead, he wore a pendant on a leather cord like pampered dogs wore collars, the emperor’s vampire clan mark carved into it. It was a collar he could never - would never dare - remove. Emil remembered the first time it had been slid over his head, how cold the pendant had been, at first. He had been kneeling on the floor, arms bound behind him and tears still drying until his face felt like cracked sand. His father’s body had been still warm from the slaughter that had taken his family and left him the heir to lands that had been conquered.

Not that being heir meant much, when the emperor had seen him and demanded his life.

If only... if only it had been just to feed.

He had been lifted to his feet by the emperor’s seemingly effortless strength - oh, but he hadn’t been the emperor, then. Just a minor noble, someone whose ambitions had been laughed at by the wealthy humans who thought themselves above vampiric predations. But the vampire plague had taken the country faster than anyone thought possible. It had spread east and west into the neighboring lands, and when they had come to Emil’s home, there had been no stopping them.

Emil had been a prize, that’s all, a symbol that the soon-to-be emperor could take what he wanted whenever he wanted it. There had been protests, but each one had been quelled. Every riot violently suppressed, each battle won, the man who held him rising and rising in the world until finally, half of Europe knelt at his feet.

No one cared about the nobleman who had become blood supply and plaything, begging on command and baring his throat with only a crook of the emperor’s ringed finger. His schoolmates all probably assumed he was dead. It... it had been a kindness the emperor had done, to have him announced as having died with his family. It had been a mercy, that everyone believed he was buried back in Austria-Hungary with his parents and brothers.

Really... he was, in a way.

The Emil who had witnessed his father’s bloody death had died then and there, in the dining hall of their estate. He wasn’t sure who had risen from kneeling and allowed himself to be led in numb horror to the conqueror’s bed, but it hadn't been the same man who had gone to his knees in the first place.  

He might have left his own mind, during the bath.

He was in the tub, staring at nothing. Then he blinked and found himself lying back on the bed in the fresh, clean bedding, head on a pillow, staring once again up into the gilded canopy above him. He wore a loose white shirt and dark pants. On a side table, that cup of tea had long since cooled and lost its steam. 

Who had made it?

Where had they gone?

When had he gotten dressed, or been dressed, without noticing?

Moreover… how long had Emil been lost in wherever it was he often went, after the emperor’s visits? 

It didn’t matter. 

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, the room briefly swimming around him. The emperor’s temporary accommodations in this strange place - some neutral ground between invader and invaded, where representatives met at tables to bicker and argue before the vampires slaughtered them all anyway - were the nicest available, but he would have been happier sleeping on the floor, if only he were allowed to sleep alone. 

Or to sleep during the night.

But he had to stay awake. If the emperor wanted him again, he would be punished if found sleeping without permission again.

He couldn’t have said what inspired him to look over at the door. It was purely some thoughtless fancy, but he felt his breath catch in his throat when he realized… the door was cracked open. He could see a sliver of the hallway just beyond it.

Emil swallowed, his throat tightening nearly to breathlessness as he tried to understand. The door was never left unlocked, had never been open. All his prior escape attempts had been through windows he’d broken or jumping out of the emperor’s auto and running into the crowd. This could not be real.

It must be a trap, a test, the emperor toying with him. Another of his games. It... it must be.

Emil pushed himself fully upright, then. He slid to the edge of the bed and stood, leaning against one of the four posters for balance as his head swam the world spun. His heart lurched painfully in his chest, beating with labored throbs that made it hard to expand his lungs. 

Somewhere in this cavernous place, his master would be smiling as he watched nations fall at his feet, as the radio sent updates on the battles in France where human men fell in waves, some rising as vampires to turn on those they had called friends - against their will, but when one’s vampire commands… the fledglings, as the emperor called them, obey.

There was no way for the humans to win, and yet they fought to the bitter end. Even brought some of their own vampires to the side, including the oldest one to survive the madness of life too long lived.

They had held longer, here, and now the Americans were involved, but...

He was distracting himself. If it was a trap, well, he would have to step into it and feel it close around his foot. But if it wasn't... could he live with himself if he ignored even the tiniest, slimmest chance?

One foot in front of the other, each step a little less difficult than the last. He went from the bed to the doorway, just barely brushing his fingers against the heavy wood. When he eased it open a little further, some part of him was braced for screaming rusted hinges to give him away, but… no. The hinges had been oiled recently. The door swung, smoothly silent, and Emil stared into a perfectly empty hallway.

Of course, it was nearly midnight.

The vampires would all be moving around, the servants had come by and done their work, and only the blood would be left, some of it tied down and some simply too frightened or lost in the haze of the vampire's venom to wander.

Emil was far past being frightened, by now. And the emperor did not always give him enough venom to leave his mind too emptied to act.

If he tried to run and was caught again, he had no doubt he would be killed for it this time. He had pushed his master’s patience too often, to its limits. And yet… was the way he lived now even living, or simply an impossibly slow death anyway?

Emil took one step.

Then another.

He shuddered, goosebumps on his arms and a chill down his spine. He felt dizzy for an entirely different reason as he stood in the hallway, alone, for the first time since his capture two years before. No servant, no minder, no guard, no emperor-master whispering vile promises in his ear with a hand curving around his waist. No vampire nearby licking their lips and threatening to turn him to mincemeat whenever his master grew bored and threw him to the pack to be devoured.

Gas lamps gave off a warm, flickering yellow light up and down the hallway. The emperor disliked the new electric lights, as he kept calling them, the same way he loathed the automobiles that nonetheless outpaced the horses. The rest of this building was wired for the electricity - but the emperor’s own quarters were still lit with gas.

It took only a few seconds to move from the door to the end of the hallway, but Emil felt like it took ages. Each second ticked painfully, violently by the second hand on a clock hanging on the wall. His heart seemed to pound in time, his hands shaking so hard that when he tried to open another door, it took him three tries to grip tight enough to pull.

This door’s hinges squeaked - just a little. Emil froze, heart in his throat, and stared with wide, white-rimmed eyes around him, waiting for the shouted demands to be still, for a hand to clamp down and drag him back to the bed, where the emperor would have him chained, just like he had at the beginning.

His ankle still wore scars from the metal cuff that had been closed just a little too tightly. It had taken months to earn its removal, months that must be earned again after every single escape attempt failed. 

The wounds lingering along his throat beneath his bandage stung, reminding him of his place in this dance of war between nations - to lie in bed and wait to be wanted, to be consumed, once again. He had wanted to play soldier, as a young boy. He had never gotten the chance as a man.

No one came after him, and so Emil moved further, keeping to shadowy areas, shifting in and out of emptied rooms when people walked past, staying carefully out of sight. He found boxes and boxes of papers, telegrams and notes from the front. The further he went, the more what snatches of speech he overheard from those he was hiding from were no longer in a language he understood. At some point, his careful movements had taken him out of the emperor’s quarters and into the enemy’s.

This building was neutral ground, but only if you stayed to your own side of it. He caught snatches of French and English, but no longer any German.

Emil was trespassing, then, and it was only a matter of time before he was noticed. There was no escape here - taking advantage of that unlocked door had been a mistake. As high as his hopes had risen, they crashed far, far lower. He found himself shifting into a wardrobe, sitting heavily down and curling into a ball, hands over his face. He would be found, turned over to the emperor, chained back to the bed again. He would be made to regret ever trying, yet again, to find some life outside of the hell he had been forced into. The Allies would sneer at him for the blood doll he'd been forced into being, and would care no more for him than anyone else.

The rumors said the Allies had offered asylum and even amnesty in some cases to any of the newly-turned vampires who could find their way to them, the ones forced to fight against their will. But would they offer the same to a man tied to a bed for two years?

Emil might rather die than see the look in their eyes as they understood what he was, what he'd done.

He had to get out of here, or death would come in the end anyway. No matter how well behaved he was, the emperor would become bored with him. Worse... he might choose to Turn him, and then he would be subjected to the man’s commands burning through his vampiric blood for all eternity, or at least until he was no longer wanted and was disposed of anyway. There would be no choices for him. There could be no final rebellion, not unless he took his chance now and ran.

Two of the enemy came into the room and Emil went still. He could hear them talking, but all he knew in their language was hello, goodbye, please and thank you, useless things like that. He had no idea how to say, I am not a spy, please, I need help, what do you want to know about the emperor? I will tell you anything, just don’t give me back to him, please don’t give me back. Please don't torture me, I know nothing useful, I only don't want to be his any longer.

The two men spoke. Papers rustled. Eventually, though, the door opened and closed again. Emil waited, counting to one hundred three times inside his mind, and then he cracked open the wardrobe to peek out.

The men were gone.

One of them, though, had left his dress jacket draped over a chair. 

Emil moved in a rush, ignoring the dizzy spin that still clung to the edges of his vision, pushing himself out and jerking the scratchy wool on. It fit almost perfectly, which felt like some small miracle of luck. His pants were all wrong, but it was dark at night and dim even with the lights. Maybe he could go unnoticed, if he was quick and looked busy.

He rapidly finger-combed his hair, trying to get it to be less mussed, to be more the English style he'd seen here and there.

He made it halfway down the hall before he realized, with something like embarrassment more than terror, that he was still barefoot. It was just that, losing so much blood, his feet mostly always felt cold and a little numb. He was never allowed shoes unless the emperor took him outside anyway. He hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t wearing them. Someone would eventually see that...

But maybe he could make it outside before they did.

If he could make it outside, he could disappear into the city streets, leave the soldier’s jacket somewhere to be found and maybe returned to him, and… he had no idea what would come after that.

Emil no longer cared.

He hadn’t felt this alive since the emperor had first taken his chin in hand and called him beautiful, right to his face, since the pendant had been slid over his head and settled cool against his skin to mark him as no longer fully a man.

He hesitated as he pushed up a window inside a dark room, feeling the breeze from outside come inside with a biting chill. One hand went up to graze fingertips along the leather cord, to find the carved pendant. He…

No.

If he wanted to even have a chance to survive recapture, he could never take off the emperor’s mark, no matter how he hated its eternal weight and how easy it was to forget it was even there.

“Oy, Nightley, is that you?” A voice spoke up. He knew none of the words, beyond you, and he turned to look, startled. He felt like a deer freezing in the glare of sudden light. The man in the doorway squinted at him. “You look rough, Lieutenant. Trouble sleeping?”

He recognized the lilt of the man’s voice as a question having been asked. Emil swallowed, and took a chance - he nodded, and hoped he hadn’t chosen the wrong response.

“Me too. Bloody hard as hell to sleep with fangs all over the place. Although I guess you have it easier than most, since you’re used to the damn things, aren’t you?”

He chanced another nod, a shrug of his shoulders. The man came closer and Emil’s heart dropped into his stomach, terror sending chills down his spine, his arms, even to the very tips of his fingers and toes. He would be known, in a moment. He would be handed back to the emperor, to face his rage, or he would be used as a bargaining chip in the negotiations and the emperor would simply find some other pretty creature to claim for his own. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Blackthorne’s sort of a prickly business. Oh, shaved off your moustache, did you? Odd choice, thought you liked the damn thing. Anyway, you want a smoke? I’m dying for one, myself, always helps me relax.” The man held out a cigarette.

Emil took it, trying to hide how badly his fingers trembled. He nearly dropped the damn thing. The man lit his own cigarette with a match, fire briefly flaring and then dying out, and lit Emil’s as well.

He chanced, keeping his voice raspy as he inhaled and exhaled the cloud out into the night air - he hadn’t had a smoke since the emperor claimed him, it made the blood too bitter for him to enjoy - a simple, slight, “Thank you.”

He knew how to say that in English, at least.

“Welcome, lieutenant. Bloody mess, this war with vampires business. Keeps a man from his bed at all hours, and I feel like I’m just… buildin’ a wall that’ll get kicked over as soon as it’s done.”

Emil made a sound. Was it a yes, or a no? Even he couldn’t tell. The man’s tone gave him nothing to go on. He was guessing and he had no faith in his luck. It wasn’t as if he’d had any before this.

The man chuckled, unbothered, and turned away. “Not in a mood for natterin’ tonight, are you? Well, I’ll leave you to yourself, then. Oh, Blackthorne was looking for you. Shall I tell him you’re in here?” 

Emil heard the question-sound again, and he paused, staring outside, and then just nodded. 

“Huh. You are a quiet one tonight. Well, fair enough.” The man, sounding maybe a little upset, disappeared back out into the hallway. He was gone, though, and Emil inhaled his cigarette so deeply the embers flared bright in the near-darkness. He listened to the man walking away and slowly followed, closing the door behind him. He counted to sixty, and then moved back across the room and eased the window open the rest of the way. 

It was easy enough to shift one leg out, then the other, turning and moving slowly downward until his bare feet touched cold grass. 

In the room he had just left, the door opened again. “I swear,” Said the voice of the man who had given him the cigarette, “I thought it was you I saw in here, Lieutenant. Oy, wait, look over there-... someone's gone out the window!"

Emil let go in a panic, turning to run and then coming to a sudden stop. There was a high fence all around the building, too high for him - weak from blood loss and the enforced idleness of captivity - to climb on his own. 

There were shouts from the room behind him, and welcome adrenaline flooded his veins as he simply turned on his heel and ran like hell. There had to be a gate, a way out onto the streets, somewhere he could safely disappear to. Or even a stable, a place to hide long enough to try to think of his next move. 

There had to be somewhere-

He was so busy looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being followed that he ran directly into a wall.

He landed with a thump on his back on the grass, the breath knocked out of him, mouth open like a fish on land until his lungs cooperated again and he could inhale with a wheeze, trying to climb to his feet, stumbling. A hand caught him by one arm, and he jerked back as hard as he could.

“Hey, Lieutenant, are you-”

He took off running again.

"Hey!"

"Catch him! He's got my dress jacket!"

"Who the hell is that? Is that one of the Germans?"

His head pounding, vision narrowed to a single panicked point, a tunnel of clarity surrounded by sheer, impenetrable darkness, Emil ran.

He couldn’t run for long. He adrenaline wouldn't hold out. He could already feel it threatening to flag, but there was a tree next to the fence, and if he could climb it, he could get over.

Then he would just have to be able to keep running.

If he could just run for long enough, maybe he could get far enough away that the emperor would not drag him back to hell.

[deluxewhump]

okay probably a dumb question but I love the thought of long term whump, what would happen if Erik never got caught/never did anything to get caught and Carlo stayed with him till he (Erik) passed away or moved? (wherever he did in the journals) also, what would happen if Erik did pass away with Carlo still in his care?

(english also isn't my first language, please forgive me 😅)

Not a dumb question. I’ve never received a dumb question! :)

It’s definitely long term!

Carlo wonders if Erik would have ever let him out of his pethood. (Now, at 24 or so and having had a good taste of another life, he understands why this is important, even if it would have made him feel unwanted initially) The initial sale to Max happens when Carlo is only 18, so it never had really come up yet as he was still a minor, or had only just turned 18. Erik *says* he would have probably given him his citizenship anyway, he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But this is coming from Erik, years later, and he’s often trying to downplay everything and keep Carlo coming back to him. (I swear I wrote this into some dialogue but I can’t find it)

Even if he did that, I doubt Carlo would have wanted to be far away from him at all. It would have been more of a gesture of goodwill from Erik than anything.

If Erik never freed Carlo, he would’ve still definitely gotten a longer leash in his 20s. He was already allowed to go out in certain cities on his own all day when they traveled, so that leniency would’ve gotten stronger when he was older. It’s not like he had any desire to leave, or get away from Erik. As Carlo says, he was very loyal.

I think Carlo was very close to going with Erik overseas, even after everything. If Max wasn’t Max, and he and Carlo weren’t so close, he might’ve done it. I think the biggest thing that stopped Carlo was thinking how much he’d miss Max and how disappointed in him Max would be.

So anyway, if Erik had never sold Carlo, he’d definitely take him anywhere he moved to. He wouldn’t even have asked, it would’ve been an assumed thing.

He did have a will, the entire time, and in it Carlo is taken care of. if Erik died he would’ve been given money (the same money Erik gifts him at the end of Erik’s Journals) and a specific lawyer would’ve taken Carlo under his wing and made sure he was set up for citizenship and given the money and some of Erik’s own resources (mostly people he could reach out to for things). Carlo doesn’t know this. Erik never tells anyone this either, only the lawyer and possibly his sister. He didn’t even tell Martin Olsen, who he trusts as his business partner but not when it comes to anything to do with Carlo.

But if he’d died, naturally or otherwise, it would’ve freed Carlo as a result. Whether Carlo would have been mentally prepared for that or not is another thing entirely.

[justplainwhump]

Blanca

Instead of writing for the prompt I had planned to, I came up with a new character, and backstory to an existing one. Things happen. At least now we know, why Rosa was a little sad when watching Angel.

[masterlist]

Content / warning: BBU, multiple whumpees, pet whump, implied/referenced noncon (BBU Romantic), lady whump; mentioned (consensual) pregnancy of a side character. 

Rosa found out while cleaning Madam's bathroom. Her masters had one private bathroom each, both branching off from the huge master bedroom, and connected by a walk in wardrobe. Sir's had a shower, Madam's had a bath tub, and the little white plastic tube was laying on the edge of that tub, nested on a piece of toilet paper.

Rosa didn't know why she recognized exactly what she was looking at, but she did. 

A pregnancy test. 

Positive.

She didn't throw it away. Not because Madam might've wanted to keep it to show it to their Sir - which was likely. But because Rosa wouldn't look at even one more time. If she refused to see, maybe it would just fade out of existence, these two blue lines that were going to tear apart her entire reality. 

She refused to see, to think, to talk. Just let her routines take over, finish cleaning the rest of this bathroom, then the other, fold her owners' clothes, arrange his watches, polish his shoes, everything perfect for when he'd return from his business trip. 

She cooked dinner for Madam, coq au vin, her favorite, and Madam was in a good enough mood to let Rosa sit with her at the table and eat some of it herself.

Rosa didn't question it. She didn't want to think about what it was that made Madam so generous. 

To her horror, Madam obviously did want to think about it. Think, and talk. To her. It was daunting. Rosa preferred it quiet.

Blanca sometimes teased Rosa for it, for the silence between her and Madam. Blanca's narration made it seem like there was rarely any silence between her and Sir. Rosa didn’t think that was any better, though.

"You do have training as a caregiver, Rosa, isn't that right?"

She didn't want to reply. She did anyway, of course. She was good. 

"I do, Madam." She forced herself to grant her owner a shy smile. "Combination Domestic / Platonic, focused on nursery."

The wedding gift package, her handler had called it. And she had been just that; a wedding gift from Sir to Madam. 

Madam's wedding gift, on the other hand, had been that Sir had been allowed to keep Blanca.

At least as long as it still was socially acceptable to keep a romantic. 

Rosa knew what it meant.

As long as there were no kids involved. 

Across the table from her, Madam hummed. "Excellent."

No, Rosa thought, surprised herself at the intensity of the sentiment. No. Everything but.

"Prepare me a bath," Madam said. "And lay out my nicest lingerie, I want to surprise Cory when he-"

Rosa tensed, when she heard the faint click of a door lock behind her.

"Surprise!" Sir's voice boomed through the house. "Plane got in early!"

"Shush", Madam gestured at Rosa to get up from the table, and she followed the order right away, getting to her feet, stowing her plate in the dishwasher, all fast enough to sink to her knees behind the door and welcome her Master. Without even acknowledging her, he flung his bag at Rosa, eyes only on his wife. 

Rosa didn't look at Sir, either. Nor at Madam. 

Blanca entered just a moment later, all soft steps, and a careless sway to her hips that Rosa knew had cost her weeks to master. There was a strain to her elegant movements, though, one that only Rosa noticed; one, that seemed to arise more and more after they returned from business trips. 

The other pet sank to her knees right beside Rosa. Only Rosa heard the tiny wince escape Blanca's lips as her knees hit the ground. Only Rosa heard the whispered "I've missed you", spoken in unison with their Sir greeting their Madam. 

Blanca's breath was warm, a soft caress on Rosa's skin, before their gazes snapped back to the ground in front of them.

"I've missed you, too", Rosa's lips formed, while Madam was speaking.

"I know," Blanca hummed into her ear, and there was nothing to cover it up, just the hope that their owners wouldn't try and listen in. 

Rosa shivered. A hand wrapped around hers, fingers interlacing, once, just for a moment. 

When Sir addressed them, both their hands rested on their thighs again. Position two. Perfect.

"Clean yourself up, Blanca," he said with a frown. "You're a mess. Rosa, give her a hand, if she needs it. These Texans really didn't go easy on her."

Rosa felt bile rise in her throat. It was okay, she reminded herself. Blanca was made for it, just as Rosa was made for cooking and cleaning and taking care of babies. Right?

"You closed the deal, darling?", she heard her Madam ask, while she stumbled to her feet, offering Blanca a hand. 

"Sure did," Sir mumbled into Madam's neck. "That's why-"

Rosa guided Blanca outside and she softly pulled the door close behind them.

Blanca's weight felt heavier on Rosa's shoulder, suddenly. "It's good to be back," she whispered. "Texas was -"

"Blanca," Rosa said. She'd never interrupted her. Never. Blanca was the one talking, always, Rosa the one listening. She wasn't as funny as Blanca, or as eloquent, and most of all, she never had anything new to tell. Now, for once, she did. And she wished from the bottom of her heart she didn’t.

"Blanca," Rosa repeated, and turned to face her, a hand on Blanca's cheek. She felt her voice tremble. "I think we need to run."

[pumpkin-spice-whump]

Try

Wow a new Jesse! I've finally been thinking about him more. Not a ton happens in this piece but hey content!

CWs: bbu, grief, OCD, anxiety, references to noncon

Masterlist

———————————–

Jesse couldn’t take it anymore. He had been at the safehouse three weeks -- almost four -- and he had hardly slept more than four hours a night the entire time.

His whole chest just ached. He felt so -- he had no idea what he felt, but it was bad. It was as if all his insides had gone rotten. He was decomposing from the inside out, and it started with his heart. The heavy hole in his chest couldn’t be explained any other way. 

He could hardly function at all. He couldn’t pay attention when people talked to him or during group. They all thought he was simply still ‘adjusting’, but Jesse was never going to be adjusted. He couldn’t, it wasn’t in his DNA. He was always going to hurt, always going to be scared and sick and unsatisfied.

He just needed to know. If he knew they were okay, he would breathe easier, he knew it. An integral part of him was ripped away -- as important as his heart or lungs, and he needed to know his girls were safe and okay and alive --

Of course they’re alive. Why wouldn’t they be? They had to be because if they weren’t and it was all Jesse’s fault then he wouldn’t be able to live with himself and -- well. He just couldn’t do it.

Jesse kept being told he was so lucky for getting out, so brave for taking that step. What step? Abandoning his family? It wasn’t brave it was pure hostile cowardice. Contessa said it mostly. She won’t stop saying she’s proud he left -- especially because he’s a Platonic. But he wasn’t brave and he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stay in that house.

If being free was constantly feeling this awful, he didn’t want it.

Even if Mr. Bakeman took him back to WRU… At least they would get rid the memories and free him of this torment.

So Jesse was leaving. He had to, he couldn’t stay anymore. He couldn’t bear the pain. He didn’t let himself think through how’d get there. He was far away -- hours of driving. He had no idea how he’d make it on foot, but surely he’d hitch rides from people. He could…. He could pay them somehow. It made him shudder to think how, but if it was necessary he’d do it.

He saved all the food brought to his room for a couple days prior. It wasn’t much, but it would do. He hadn’t really left his room in a week or so, he hardly left before that either. No one would miss him.

Well. Maybe August, the other platonic. He tried to talk to Jesse whenever he had the energy to leave his room. Jesse could tell he wanted a friend. That made him feel a little guilty. Not enough to change his mind, though.

The stairs creaked as he hurried down, but Jesse tried not to care. He’d be gone so fast no one would have time to come looking. He thought anyway.

He had hardly pulled the thrifted coat he was given over his shoulders when he heard the footsteps behind him.

Jesse whipped his head around, heart in his throat. Would Cooper stop him? Would he  drag him upstairs and lock him away, yelling about how ungrateful he was? Would he finally hurt him? Jesse should run, he needed to go now before hands wrapped around him, dragging him away from freedom--

“Jesse?”

It’s not Cooper. It’s Gwen. Jesse hadn’t really talked to her since that first day, when she had a migraine. She was better after a couple days, Jesse could hear her melodic voice and laughter through the door to his room. Even though his palpable misery, Jesse could see how the orange nightlight lit up her skin, casting shadows on the gentle curve of her jaw, her round nose. She wore a baggy t shirt and sweatpants, hair tucked up in a bonnet.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of herself.

Jesse faltered at the sadness in her voice. How could she be sad for him? She didn’t even know him.

“I--” he cleared his throat, eyes darting to the stairs. Did others hear him come down? “I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“I need to go back. I need to -- I just have to go back.”

“To your owners?”

“Yes.” He took a step back, one hand on the doorknob. Leave. Run. Go before you can be stopped. You have to see them.

“Wait!” Gwen took a couple steps closer, but not too close. Jesse got the distinct impression of trying to get a stray cat to come to you without wanting to scare them off. That’s how he felt, prickly and terrified. “Don’t go.”

Jesse raised his free hand, turning his collar around. One, two, three, four. He was the only one still wearing a collar. He couldn’t make himself take it off and lose that last connection to Abi, Eva, and Harper. His girls. “You don’t get it.”

“I know. It’s different for platonics. But August gets it. And Cooper can help--”

Jesse was shaking his head before she was even done talking. “No, no August doesn’t get it.” His voice was suddenly thick with tears, and he did his best to swallow them down. “No one gets it. I have to -- I have to do this.”

It’s not a Platonic thing. Even he knows it wasn’t supposed to go this far. It’s Jesse. It’s just a Jesse thing. He’s broken, something’s wrong with him. And he has to do this.

“Even though they hurt you?” His eyes snap up to hers. “Isn’t that why you left? They hurt you too badly? That’s why I left.”

He mind flashed to that night, the one he didn’t let himself think of, the one that made him leave. He’d see his girls if he went back, yes, but… but what if Mr. Bakeman didn’t decide to kill him or send him back? What if… what if he kept him and forced him to endure what he did that night? Rented him out, strung him up naked and terrified, allowed others to destroy him again and again for the rest of his life? The pain from that night was finally gone, and the thought of being used like that for as long as Mr. Bakeman wanted made the tears he was holding at bay fall.

Jesse swallowed, trying to soothe the tightness in his throat. The brass doorknob was warm in his hand.

“Will you stop me?” he whispered. He couldn’t tell if it sounded like a question or a plea. “Are you going to get Cooper?”

Gwen shook her head. “Even if I did he wouldn’t stop you. I won’t either. You can do as you please. I don’t want you to leave but I won’t stop you.”

Jesse should’ve opened the door and run then. Guilt ran hot and heavy as tar down his back, coating him in a thick layer of it. He felt ill. “Why don’t you want me to leave?” he found himself asking.

Gwen shrugged, suddenly shy. One of her hands went to instinctively push hair behind her ears, instead just pulling down the edge of her bonnet. “I want to know you, Jesse. And I -- I think you can get better. I know you can. If you give yourself a chance.”

Jesse sniffed. He twisted his collar round again, thinking of his positions like a good little pet. Good little pets don’t live in safehouses and run away from home. His hand was starting to slip off the doorknob. “I just miss them,” he confessed miserably. “I need to know they’re okay.”

Gwen nodded. “The children?”

Fresh tears fell. “Yes.”

“What will happen to you though? I don’t want you hurt. You just got here.”

Jesse’s eyebrows raised in -- he didn’t know what emotion. Everything inside him was so tangled up there was no telling which way was which. He couldn’t think through anything, just feeling the overwhelming despair and misery and confusion and confliction -- what could he possibly do?

Gwen stepped closer. “Try. Or just try to try. Talk in group. Go to therapy. Give it -- give it a month at least. Four more weeks and see how you feel. Please, Jesse?”

“What do I do?” he said aloud, voice weak and desperate.

Jesse had spent a good portion of his time in this house crying and panicky, eyes red and throat raw. He started to fall apart again, right in front of Gwen. His hand slipped off the doorknob, hanging uselessly beside himself as he struggled to get ahold of his breathing.

But Abi and Eva and Harper and Mr. Bakeman and WRU and Abi and Eva and Harper and the house and safety and pain and suffering and Abi and Eva and Harper and rape and pain and death and Abi and Eva and Harper--

How can I ever be happy again?

His face screwed up, eyes on the floor. He slumped his shoulders, backpack falling with a muted thump. Gwen closed the distance between them and helped Jesse out of his coat, hanging it back up. She led him upstairs, back to his lonely room where he fell into the bed unceremoniously. Gwen was the only thing holding him up on the way there.

Gwen left, closing the door behind her. Before it clicked, Jesse heard her speak. “Just try Jesse. I hope you’re still here in the morning.”

———————————–

Taglist: @mylifeisonthebookshelf @boxboysandotherwhump @hold-him-down @winedark-whump @melancholy-in-the-morning @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @cyborg0109

[honeycollectswhump]

Gone, gone

[masterlist]

CW: accidental self-harm-like actions, suicidal ideation (NOT acted upon), blood, emeto, loss of a friend, mental breakdown, referenced: substance abuse, pet whump recapture

The plates are the first thing she sees. She had set the table and prepared dinner. The sauce is still in the pot, now cold. Aveline should put the pot aside, clean away the remains of what was supposed to be their meal. She doesn’t. 

The plates are the first thing she sees, and she tears them down. She swipes over the table, not stopping as they shatter on the ground. Gone.

The glasses are next. Intricate, little designs that once belonged to her old landlady. Aveline pushes her palms into the glass, crushing them until shards dig into her flesh. She doesn’t feel anything. Blood seeps into the tablecloth, that's how she knows, the knowledge just barely grazing her mind but leaving no impact. Gone. 

Tears blur her vision, as the grabs the cloth. A breath, then two. With a jerk, she rips and tears, cutlery clattering to the ground. Aveline claws at it. She wants it to hurt. It can never hurt, she can never hurt, but she wants to. 

This is pain, she thinks, this must be pain. 

A scream wrenches itself from her throat. Her voice cracks. She cracks. She is in her body and she is not. The sight of her home disgusts her, it destroys her. If she is loud enough she won’t have to hear herself. 

A glint of the sun against one of their pictures catches her eye. Aveline whirls around, cloth in hand, disoriented. She stumbles against the wall, the cloth getting caught on the frame, and she tears and tears and tears. 

The photo falls to the ground, breaking on impact. There is a crack over his face, there is a crack over Atlas’ face and he’s gone. Aveline stares at it, at the ruined picture, at what she’ll never have again. Gone. He’s gone.

The thought settles over her like a fog, taking over. Someone is screaming, she is screaming, and she’s breaking apart at the seams. Aveline yanks at the coffee machine and throws it across the room. It collides with a cabinet, the booming sound ringing through their empty house. Filling the silence between her screams, her sobs. Gone.

There are still shards stuck in her hand as Aveline lurches forward to retch into the sink, her ears filled with a deafening ring. Nothing but bile comes up but she feels like she can see pieces of her very soul laying exposed to the world, ugly and rotten, with fraying edges. Fat tears roll down her face, dripping down and mixing with droplets of blood. Gone.

Aveline crumbles to the ground, falling hard on her knees, barely registering the impact that will leave her with bruises she will never be able to feel.

It doesn’t make sense! 

Atlas was supposed to go out for a short walk, he was supposed to come back just in time for dinner. He didn’t even take his phone with him. 

They told her he’d run away, like he did before, from his old life. But Aveline knows, she knows, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t run without preparation, he’d take money with him, or a proper jacket or anything at all. 

They don’t trust him, they say there is no evidence. They say it’s to be expected of someone like him, someone like her Attie, especially with his addiction. 

He is six months sober now, but they don’t believe him or they don’t care. To them, it doesn’t matter how hard he worked to get to this point, how much blood, sweat and tears went into this. Atlas had fought to get bits and pieces of his life back, that his old Master had stolen from him. It would be all for nothing now. 

Atlas is gone, he was taken. 

And no one will do anything.

It hits her then, all at once. 

There is nothing.

There is no hint, no message, no reason. No evidence and no case. No one to turn to, no one to lead the search. 

He’s alone, she’s utterly alone and he’s gone. 

Gone. 

The moon rises. It takes a while for Aveline to notice the shift in light, to notice that the taunting sunset has given way to the cold moonlight. Distantly Aveline thinks her knees must hurt, her joints must be stiff. Time simply passes by her without touching her and it’s not like her body can tell her otherwise.

The blood has started to dry, sticking to her skin and clothes in clumps. She is barely there, her mind moving through a swamp of numbness. This must be pain and it will kill her. 

It will eat her from the inside out until there is nothing left and Aveline will welcome the bliss of nothingness with open arms. She can’t do this, she simply can’t. She can’t continue on with her life, as if nothing happened, can’t imagine a life without him, without her Attie. 

She wishes him back, begs for him, even if in his darkest days, high or drunk, she doesn’t care, she’d take it all if just to get him back. Having him back, anything would be enough.

Maybe she will die like this. Aveline contemplates never moving again, it has nothing left to give anymore. Maybe she will starve or die of thirst, maybe her heart will just mercifully stop beating. If it doesn’t, she could help, doing nothing but accelerating a natural process. 

Then he’d be gone and she would never have to feel this torment again because she’d be gone too.

Still, something inside her fights the thought, sending a spike of urgent desperation up and down her spine. 

Atlas, her Atlas isn’t dead. He is gone for her but he isn’t gone gone.

He would be if she gives up. He’d be gone, in the sense that he could never be there again if there isn’t someone fighting for him.

Someone has to do something.

It won’t be any law enforcement and it won’t be the Pet Lib shelter Attie told her about either, the one that had helped him become who he is now, doesn’t believe her or in him. Maybe she could ask around in Pet Lib groups but it’s not like Atlas ever gave her access to their resources and Aveline knows they are notoriously impossible to find for outsiders.

And what can a girl like her do anyways? She has nothing but her mind and her body and that can never be enough when all the world demands is money and power.

But there is no alternative, is there? If Aveline doesn’t do anything, then no one will, and then Atlas will be left all alone in whatever hell has claimed him. 

She is nothing without Atlas and maybe these feelings will pass but Aveline hopes they don’t. She holds onto the longing, the desperation, making her frantic, making her shake.

In the end, Aveline has everything to give. If she loses her mind or loses her body, it will be no different from now. And for now, it’s enough to help her get up, to help her move, even if she is just a tool to get her Atlas back.

taglist: @octopus-reactivated let me know if you want to be added or removed :)

[whumpitisthen]

The Crave

It starts out as nothing but a couple of stray thoughts. Sudden whispers flying past; a memory flashing by. In moments of calm, the mind wanders, and that is all there is to it. A flicker of an idea — then it is forgotten. 

The flickering comes quicker as time goes on. Stray thoughts become common, then constant. The background noise grows in volume until it becomes an incessant buzz that distracts from what���s important. That distraction will gain importance through necessity, until it will take charge of one’s life. Memories will turn into daydreams. Boredom will become insufferable. 

What starts out as a want will become a need. An urge. Something primal. A craving. It feels to be necessary to live, though what it really threatens is sanity. Attention will be fleeting. One’s eyes become unfocused while the mind’s eye takes over. Life outside of one’s own body will become gray and boring compared to the fantasies playing inside, depicting what one truly needs to feel whole again. 

Tormented, craving to share the madness with someone. Someone defenseless. Weak. Perfect to maim. Grab a hold of. Smash. Break. Tear. Suffocate. Taste. Feel. Hurt, hurt, hurt; hurt until they feel as pitiful as they are supposed to, until they breathe blood and exhale their teeth. 

His skin crawls with the desire to do just that to a body. His mind screams and his hand clenches. He feels like an animal, prowling along the edges of his territory looking to ensnare some unfortunate soul once more. A crazed look dances in his eye. His teeth grit. 

No one is outside at this time of night. No one but his prey.

There it is, hurrying back to its home, head hung low and shoulders scrunched up to its ears against the cold wind sweeping along the dangerous street. A little fawn. All alone. Much too far away from home. 

The silly thing never learns. Through the itching in his skull, he finds amusement in watching this lost pup trying to find its way through the rain. 

Then suddenly, it all stops. His fidgeting calms, his breathing slows, his mind focuses, the fog of hunger clears. Eyes on the prey. 

Now, the hunt begins. 

He tails his fawn along each crossing of a street, each circle, each attempt at escape. It’s smart and catches on quick, but it doesn’t quite understand who it’s really up against, not yet. Matching patterns, a couple wrong turns and it comes right to him, pulled into his suffocating embrace, caught between his claws, and it has been too long. Far, far too long. 

If only it knew what it does to him to let it go each time. How he misses its fear, its voice, its pain. How hard it is to count the days, the hours, the seconds until he can keep it again. How utterly boring it is without it around. How lonely it gets without its cries to fill in the void. It's maddening. 

His cold and calculated composure breaks when it looks up at him with those gorgeous deep hazel eyes already filled with tears. As he watches it recognize the face it thought it escaped so long ago, he grins. Giggles like a madman, snarls like a carnivore. Dishevelled, desperate, crazed, but victorious and joyful. 

His toy has healed up nicely, but learned nothing in the past months. Still out at night, still walking home alone. Still naïve enough to think it was over. It no longer limps, no the wound on its face scarred over nicely, but the terror in its soul remains. It will never leave, not as long as he lives, and loves. 

He pushes it up into a wall, claws around its neck gripping it like he had imagined doing so hundreds of times, and a shiver runs through him like electricity; so sudden he gasps out a satisfied sigh. He feels the pulse inside quicken, he can almost hear its little heart pounding out of its chest, he can smell its horror, flowing freely out of its eyes. The pleasure mutes the cries of his victim, as well as the pain of clawing hands hitting and scratching at his arms to let go in a wild panic, fitting for critters caught in a mouse trap. 

Now, all he can really think of is how much more fun life will become again. The empty, lonely darkness in his cellar will fill with screams and the smell of iron once more. No longer will he sit down there, reminiscing about how truly sad it is when no one is down there to accompany him. Those manacles will have a breathing, shivering body in them again; the blades he has been sharpening over and over for so long as he waited will finally get to dive deep into its delicious flesh and peel some more off its bones. It will cry for him at night, curled into itself and gasping in agony from being left in such a tormented state, calling for him to come down and fix it, and he will be comforted under his blanket, a lullaby playing on repeat all night long. 

When he comes to, stumbling out of his own thoughts, his little dear has given up on struggling, limply hanging from both of his hands gripping its throat so tightly that he hadn’t even noticed the quiver in his own arms. He quickly lets it drop to the muddy ground, staring at it, waiting for life. 

No movement comes. No shivering, no flinching. No groan, no whimper. Panicked, he squats down to put his hands on it again, listen for a breath. 

Raspy, weak breaths. A slow, shallow beat of a heart. It’s alive, barely. 

He gingerly swipes its locks to the side, gently taking it into his arms. He almost just killed his toy from the force of his glee. He has never felt more like a thoughtless, wild, instinct driven, feral beast. He swallows his guilt, his chagrin, not daring to think of it, of how pathetic he truly is to lose control so easily in such crucial moments. Of how close he got to throwing away his little one, his joy in life, his sweetness, because he is no more in reality than a wild thing, not so unlike the body soaking in the puddle next to it, clinging onto its horrible, horrible life despite it all. 

He picks it up, holds it close to his chest, and begins walking home. He can’t help checking for a pulse every odd moment when he can’t hear its breaths through the rain. 

For the first time in a long while, his mind doesn’t buzz, his hands don’t fidget. All he can feel is a peaceful void, and a new emotion, uncommon for him to feel: worry, for a being he has deemed prey. 

[serickswrites]

little prompt for you:

an ex-pet Whumpee living with Caretaker, occasionally falling back into old habits

love to see what you’d do with this

This is a great prompt! Thank you!

I am absolutely delighted to write this. Please enjoy!

Warnings: conditioning, referenced captivity, referenced torture, implied pet whump, hurt/comfort, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, caretaker and whumpee

The Pet had been living with Caretaker for two weeks before they had their first slip up. They had been so good, trying so hard to be good. But it had been hard to forget all of the Master’s rules and remember that Caretaker didn’t have the same rules. “Welcome home, MAs—I mean Caretaker,” the Pet had said as they ran to the open door to take Caretaker’s coat.

Caretaker hadn’t said anything about the Pet’s slip up, so the Pet thought they were in the clear. That night they punished themself for making such a mistake since Caretaker wouldn’t.

Two days later, the Pet didn’t catch themself in time. “Please forgive me, I am not worthy,” the Pet said as they prostrated themself at Caretaker’s feet after calling them master.

“Whumpee, Whumpee, what are you apologizing for?” Caretaker tried to pull the Pet Whumpee to stand. “You don’t have to call me ‘Master’ just as you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to here. You are free. And you are my guest.”

“I….I…I…c-c-can’t help my-my-myselfff,” Whumpee whispered as they began to cry. “Every time….it just comes out.”

“Oh, Whumpee, it’s ok. It’s ok. It’ll just take some time. Don’t feel bad. I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s ok.”

[whumptywhumpdump]

Oh, this was a fun one...

Cuddling

Found this one written on my drafts and abandoned for some reason. I quite like it actually, Ace really does deserve some more of my love.

Cw: Box boy universe, Pet/owner relationship with somewhat fucky thought patterns, mention of dub/noncon (of the blink and you miss it type). 

Keep reading

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The Lights

CW: Pet whump, whump of a minor (OC is 17), some conditioned internal ableism, Oliver Branch is a goddamn creepy intimate whumper, isolation, captivity, referenced drugging

For @amonthofwhump day 4: Holiday light show

Chris’s masterlist

-

The grounds of the governor’s mansion are nearly silent as Baldur moves nervously, following his Sir. The blindfold - really a sleep mask, soft as fur against his eyelids and with elastic holding it on - keeps him dependent on Sir’s hand in his. It feels like being led by a leash. It should be comforting but it only makes Baldur shiver harder as a chill breeze seems to find its way up his sleeves and underneath the hem of the perfectly draped blue sweater his Sir had allowed him to wear with his usual soft pants.

His feet are bare, and the ground is so cold it makes his toes burn and tingle. Eventually, though, he doesn’t feel the grass very much at all.

“S-sir-”

“Ssssshhhh. Be quiet, sweetheart.” Sir’s hand squeezes his, once and then again. There’s laughter in his voice, and Baldur turns towards it like a flower finding the sun. If this is a game, he hasn’t given Baldur the rules. Not that it matters - even when he does know the rules, Sir almost always makes sure he loses anyway. “Remember your most important truth, darlin’?”

“Statue boys… are good boys,” Baldur says. His tongue hates the words, moves thick in his mouth around them, but he doesn’t have a choice. He says it anyway. It’s the first thing he learned from his handler, beaten so deeply into him he could say it in his sleep, he probably does say it in his sleep. “Silence is better than… than stammering. Stillness is better than what-... I do.”

“Good boy.” Another squeeze, and warmth that feels like rotten honey blooms in his chest. He finds a smile, but he doesn’t know if Sir can even see it or if he’s even looking. It feels good to be praised, but it feels like poison, too. Like the news story he saw on how sometimes animals eat antifreeze because they think it tastes sweet.

He can’t remember what antifreeze is.

But he knows what it means to have poison given to you like ice cream. 

The two of them move over the grass, the blades tickling Baldur’s bare feet. Dew hasn’t set in, yet, the grass is still dry. Then he is stopped, and Sir puts hands on his shoulders, turning him around in circles until he cries out with dizziness and tries to grab on to anything he can to keep his balance.

Sir’s hand claps over his mouth to muffle him as he comes to a stop, the man’s warmth and solidity just behind him, something to fall back against as his chest heaves with rough breathing. If only Baldur could trust his Sir to catch him if he fell, and not simply to watch him, and laugh, and bring his belt down again.

“Did I not just tell you to shut that pretty mouth?” Sir whispers against his ear, slowly pulling his hand away and back to his shoulder. Baldur’s eyes close as tightly as they can behind the blindfold to try and keep back the rush of hot tears, the only part of him that feels warm. “I still have security here at night, you know.”

“I, I know-”

“If they found you, I would go to prison, darlin’.”

“... Sir-... I’m sorry, sir-”

“And you know what would happen to you?” The whisper is suddenly vicious where before it was soft, and Baldur’s spine straightens, every muscle locking. But he can’t even begin to remember how to pull away.

“... I, I do, I know-”

“You’d go right back into WRU. They’d wipe you and start over again, only you’d be even worse off this time, sweetheart. Do you want to go back to WRU?”

“No! No, sir, please no, please-”

The hand claps tightly again. “I said be quiet, Baldur!” This time those fingers clamp painfully, jamming his lips against his teeth, until he whimpers. Only then does Sir slowly lift his hand, hovering, ready to press down again. 

Baldur swallows, his voice thick, heart racing just beneath his breastbone. His hands are shaking, his stomach has frozen inside him. “I’m s-sorry, sir, I’m, I’m, I’m-”

“Baldur.” His Sir’s voice drops, suddenly low and threatening. 

“I’m… sorry.” He fights his voice to keep it calm and low, soft and even, only a little trembling and not stammering at all. “Silence is better than stammering, silence is better than… I’m sorry, sir.”

“That’s better. Now… I did the unveiling officially earlier, I couldn’t show you that, but…” He lays a hand over Baldur’s eyes and pulls off the blindfold in the same smooth motion, keeping him in the dark. “One… two… three.”

Sir pulls his hand away.

There’s a pause.

“Well?”

“Um… Sir, may I… open my eyes now?”

Sir laughs, harsh and mocking, and Baldur feels blood pool hot in his cheeks. “Yes, Baldur, darlin’. That’s the idea. Oh, you stupid pretty thing. Look!”

Baldur opens his eyes, embarrassed that he didn’t understand that the game had changed, but then all sense of being worried and frightened fades as he takes in the sight of the governor’s mansion, just over the swell of the small hill they stand on. 

It’s lit up, not only the warmth of the lights inside and the grand Christmas tree in the big window, but with strand upon strand of lights hung from every conceivable surface all along the outside. His hands creep up to cover his mouth, instinctively muffling his own gasp. There are white lights, blue lights, red and green. Baldur’s eyes follow the shapes they create, draping from awnings and curving over the high doorways. His mouth drops open without him knowing it, and he leans back against the support his Sir provides behind him. There are warm arms over his chest and around his stomach, and he slowly rests a hand on each of them, ignoring how his skin crawls.

That’s less important than the lights, than the gift he is being given of getting to see them from the outside, not trapped within. 

“Sir… the house-”

“Mansion,” Sir corrects him, voice low and affectionate. “Let’s not sacrifice accuracy just because we’re a little bit starstruck, darlin’.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” He whispers, but he can’t be frightened enough of the words. He can’t feel the fear he should feel. All he can see is the beauty of the lights. His eyes follow the trail of one set. It’s decorating the window to the room Sir eats breakfast in sometimes. Baldur has peeked through that curtain to watch the school buses come and memorize the knock-kneed nervous stride of the teenagers, so like him and so entirely different than he will ever be. “It’s… beautiful.”

“I know.” Sir rests his chin on top of Baldur’s head, and it’s the gentlest and sweetest he’s ever been. The pet closes his eyes briefly in something that would be contentment, if he wasn’t still terrified of the man who holds his entire life in his hands. His collar is buckled safely around his throat, a sign that he can’t be hurt too badly, not with it on. 

He’ll be safe, as long as Sir doesn’t take off the collar.

He never really feels safe, though.

“I’ll get some good press for this,” Sir murmurs. His voice is a low rumble, the vibration traveling through his chest into Baldur’s back right through the thin sweater. Baldur is still shivering in the cold, but Sir doesn’t seem to notice. “I was able to get some local businesses involved, so it didn’t cost the taxpayers extra. It’s good for my reputation. I’ve got an interview with the morning show tomorrow, Baldur darlin’, so you’ll need to sleep in a little bit until I’m done, hm?”

Baldur takes a breath, the beauty of the lights fading.

Sleeping in is a code, he knows, for being given extra pills to keep him unconscious in the bed while Sir sits across the room calling in using a camera on the television. Sir likes to flirt around the edges of being caught with Baldur, likes the adrenaline rush of it. He doesn’t care that it gives Baldur headaches when he wakes up, leaves him helpless and weak and nauseous, unable to eat and throwing up into the toilet sometimes, crying on the bathroom floor until finally he feels able to crawl into the shower and lay there under the hot water until it turns cold.

No, Sir doesn’t care about any of that. 

He likes Baldur that way. Likes to be the one who carries him back to the bed.

“Maybe if you look at them long enough,” Sir says, his smile in his voice - Baldur doesn’t even need to see his face. “You’ll dream about them while you’re sleeping through my interview. What d’you think, sweetheart?”

Baldur bites back and shoves down any honest answer that tries to fight its way out. Instead, he says softly, “I hope… I do dream of it. Thank you, Sir, for… showing me.”

Maybe if Sir is distracted enough, he can palm the pills, let them sit under his tongue and then spit them out and hide them behind the bed. Even if he has to lay still under the covers and pretend, curl up in the shower and plead feeling sick and listen to Sir laugh at him for being so weak, it’s better to pretend to feel those things than to actually have to feel them.

But, for just a second, when the hand first came off his eyes… he had seen only the lights. He had seen only the beauty of the house, and he hadn’t thought, in that second, at all about the ugly days he lives through inside.

Baldur stares at the Christmas lights until his eyes blur with the tears he hopes his Sir cannot see and punish him for. 

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlinthesnep @thefancydoughnut @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

[steviewashere]

In it For the Long Haul (And Then Some)

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Minor Internalized Ableism Tags: Post Canon, Post Season Four, Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Hospitalization, Medical Conditions, Steve Harrington Has Head Trauma (Brief Mention), Amputee Steve Harrington, Amputee Eddie Munson, Disabled Steve Harrington, Disabled Eddie Munson, Whump, Implied/Referenced Depression, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve's Injuries Actually Have an Effect On Him, Eddie Munson Calls Steve Harrington Pet Names, Medical Accuracies (Surprising, I Know), Tattoos, Implied/Referenced Sex, Getting Together

Guys, oh my god, my Apple keyboard has prosthetic emojis?! That's so cool.

🦾🦿—————🦾🦿 He thought it’d be another concussion that would put him out this time. It’s practically the stamp of approval left on his body by the Upside Down. Should be bright green and sticky on his forehead and in big bold letters for everybody to read. But it isn’t a concussion. And he’s not sure what to do with himself.

Maybe they should’ve taken him to the hospital to get medical treatment after the bat bites. It wasn’t just on his back and arms and stomach. The marks were on his legs, too. Even though he had tried to kick the demobats off, they still sunk their teeth in when they had the chance, albeit briefly. Considering, too, he also walked through that hellhole without shoes on. He should’ve seen a doctor. First thing, he should’ve seen a doctor. But he didn’t. And he had the infection to show for it. Except, his body hadn’t healed the way it was supposed to. His immune system didn’t cooperate. It didn’t keep up.

The infection spread through the muscle of his left foot. And when it didn’t go away fast enough, it worked its way through his toes, shot up his ankle, and into his calf. Right below the knee.

His pinkie and ring toes went first. They—and he wishes he could spare the gruesome details—turned purple and swollen and numb. That’s when he knew things would be different. As soon as those parts were gone, he had begun to turn his face away from the window of hope. Instead, he looked out at the deep ocean waves of regret and grief, and imagined himself as a sinking ship. Filling with water. Plummeting to the bottom. Rotting.

Robin and the kids would all come around. Flood into his room. Talk to him while he was delirious from anesthesia first, then morphine next. Spoke to him when he hissed through phantom pains. Looked away when he had to be wheeled into the all too spacious hospital bathroom. “Tug the red chord if you get stuck,” he recalls a nurse saying. “Don’t put pressure on this foot, it’s still draining,” another had said. And by the time he could stay out of the wheelchair, he forgot what it was like to pee without the reminders, what it was like to go to the bathroom and be able to stand on his own.

Because of his luck, though, he lost the whole foot next. The infection had worked its way into his tibia. Didn’t fall asleep willingly after he was taken off of medication. Just sat in his cramped hospital bed, staring down at the stump of where part of him once was, and wept. Hands curled over his thighs, nails digging into his flesh, lips tight against his teeth, unblinking and weeping softly into the silence of his room. The first night without morphine and without the foot, he sat in the dark. In the black ink of his room. Choking on himself. Uncaring towards his limp and greasy hair dangling in front of his eyes. And he didn’t sleep. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t take the glare off his absent foot.

He stopped flexing the other foot, stopped running it against his left leg when he did try to sleep, stopped wanting to use it all together.

It wasn’t until the calf was removed completely, leaving him with half a leg and just his knee, did he stop talking. He just sat in the bustling white noise silence of his room. Wide eyes that were dry and red and bloodshot staring down at the thin cloth blanket draped over himself. An even thinner hospital gown stuck to his sallow skin. Stomach rumbling with hunger, but he couldn’t eat in the presence of himself. He just sat and thought of blankness, of absence, and of loss.

He’s been in the hospital nearly a month—endless surgeries and endless bouts of infections—when Eddie finally visits. Steve barely glances at him. Notices his silhouette and odd gait and the hiding of his right arm, but nothing more. Goes back to his lap with a raw emptiness, gaping and pulsing the more and more he sits in this room. Still recovering. Not even at the point of physical therapy yet. Still trying to heal his, how he views it, now useless body.

Eddie sits down in the chair to his left. Grunting with the exertion. He releases a measured, deep breath. “I heard from Robin that you were up here,” he states conversationally. “Thought I’d come up and see you now that I’m not stuck in my own room.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. Just traces his thumbs over the hem of his blanket. He thought he’d be angrier at the mention of Eddie being discharged. Filled to the brim with bitter jealousy. But all that tinges in his chest is a beastly want. An ache. The sizzle of something dwindling out.

“Haven’t had the chance to thank you, Steve,” Eddie murmurs. “I thought I’d die down there. Figured it was the best option, y’know, considering my circumstances? But then you and Dustin did the whole tourniquet thing and risked your lives and welcomed me in like a friend. So, my mind’s been changed. Hate this town and how it hates me, but I’m glad to still be here with some of the best people I’ve met,” he says sincerely. “But—I, uh—I wanted to come keep you company, as a friend. Show you something, too.”

At that, Steve raises his eyes slightly. Enough to catch on where Eddie’s knees are pressed firmly against the side of his bed. Angled oddly to stretch out and wiggle his right arm in sight of Steve’s vision. That’s when his eyes catch on the limp sleeve of the flannel he’s wearing. How it just flattens to the bed, red and black, lifeless.

The sleeve rolls up to reveal the stump of Eddie’s arm. His hand, wrist, and half of his forearm completely gone.

“We match,” Eddie says. And it should be grim. It should be a devastating statement to make. But something in Steve starts to warm. A desperation sort of growth, one that comes from the want and need to be seen. Eddie continues, “And—Look, I know it’s not ideal. It really isn’t. If anything, this is like majorly fucked up for the both of us. But…We’ll figure it out, you know? Get prosthetics. Cut up our clothes to accommodate our limbs, or well, lack of. But you aren’t alone; that’s my point.”

Hesitantly, Steve raises his head. Finally looking at Eddie in his entirety. The palm sized scar on his cheek, pink and shiny and stark against his face. The ring around his neck and the other red raw scars that creep into the collar of his t-shirt. And his hair. It’s gone. Shaved down. Replaced by a bit of fuzz and one long scar that goes from the widow’s peak of his hairline, to where it tapers at his neck. Steve doesn't remember Eddie getting injured there, but it must've been from when he fell through the portal—limp and loose.

He realizes, looking down at himself, that there are swirls of scars from the back of his own arms, deep white lines on his knuckles, the ring around his neck surely present, and that doesn’t even include the ones that ache on his back. He looks back to Eddie.

Eddie reaches out a slow hand, cupping his cheek, wiping at something. That’s when Steve realizes that he’s crying. “Hey, oh, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I’m sorry, Stevie. I didn’t think that—“

“You get it?” Steve squeak-rasps. His throat throbs. It's dry and brittle and painful all the way through him; down to his stomach, into his sweaty palms, at the base of his stump. Phantom stings that make him twitch. But his voice...It's nothing like him. It's haunting to hear himself. And for a moment, he wishes he didn't speak. Eddie, however, startles and softens all at once. Eyes glistening at Steve, worried and concerned and cautious, but also enamored and welcoming and empathetic.

Nodding, Eddie says, “Yeah, sweetheart, I do. I’m still getting used to it, too.” He pushes up into Steve’s messy hair, swiping it away from his forehead. Doesn’t even grimace at how gross it surely feels on his fingers. “You don’t have to sit alone about this. ‘Cause I’m right here with you. And…” His eyes grow immeasurably softer. “…I may not have both hands, but I’ve got both arms to hold you," he breathes.

It’s easy to lean into Eddie’s hand. To close his eyes and let himself feel this. Sobbing quietly, muffled behind his lips. Shoulders shaking with it. He blubbers, “I hate this, Eddie. I hate this, I hate this, I—“ And cuts himself off with a loud, unashamed, explosive sob.

“I know, sweetheart,” Eddie is saying as he wraps himself around Steve. Tucks himself in close, to where Steve is able to set his head on his shoulder. He sits on the edge of the bed so that he doesn’t overcrowd. And just holds on tight. “You feel how you need to feel, Steve. Get it out, it’s okay.”

Steve groans harshly in the back of his throat. Gasping in short breaths, chest rattling with the effort. He slams his forehead into Eddie’s chest, over and over. Muffling into the fabric of his shirt, “Nobody else gets it. They don’t understand. They don’t…All of them.” Eddie doesn’t speak. Afraid that Steve will stop if he does. “They think I’ll just bounce back, but everything is different now, Eds,” he cries, “Everything.”

And he finds that he does mean that. He knows he's too quiet. Knows he's behaving too serious for his bones. Too mature for his lungs. He's hollow to his core, and bleeding between his teeth. There's something deeply fractured in him now, even if he were to ever show a sliver of who he was before.

He allows himself to cry for a few minutes more before slumping with exhaustion, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Doesn’t let sleep pull him under. Just shakes and shivers and twitches in Eddie’s warm hold. Until, Eddie pulls back. Arms set firmly on Steve’s shoulders. Eyes wandering his face, his hair. “You look so tired, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “When’s the last time you’ve slept?” Steve shrugs in lieu of a response. Eddie's eyebrows twitch down, a frown wanting to form, but he worms it away. Offering with a well-crafted small smile, “How about you sleep and I keep watch for you?”

He shakes his head. “They’ll take more of me if I close my eyes. They keep doing it,” Steve mutters. His voice is weak and slightly petulant.

“What do you mean, Stevie?” And Eddie's face drops again. Frowning through the floor.

“They come in here and tell me the infection spread. Tell me about how it goes bone deep. Or how my limbs are turning purple. Or how something doesn’t look good,” Steve rambles on, “Then, they have to take me back for surgery. And I have to let them because I get it, I do, because my body isn’t healing right. And it's not something I'll just make up for at home, so I let them. I let them and then...I wake back up and more of my leg is gone. I can’t let them take more from me. I can’t lose more of myself. I can’t, Eddie, I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—“

Softly, Eddie shushes him. Rubbing his remaining hand up and down Steve’s arm in long stripes, carefully avoiding his still agitated scars. “Shhh, baby, you’re okay. It’s scary, I know. But they said that you’re doing better. Treatment is working, Steve. You won’t lose anything else, okay?” His eyes are wide and imploring. Deep brown, enriching, swallowing Steve whole. “You won’t. This is it. They just need you to rest. I’ll be right here while you do so; I won’t let them do anything to you that you wouldn’t want. But you need sleep. You’re wasting away on me.” His hands push firmer on Steve's shoulders. Imploring again, searching and hoping for Steve to understand. He reiterates, “You’re wasting away.”

“I’m not,” Steve weakly argues.

“You are,” Eddie whispers, “You look like you haven’t slept in days, Stevie. And the doctors already told me how you’ve been refusing to eat. That’s not good. You gotta rest and get healthy, to a place they need you to be, so that you can go home.” Steve doesn't like that idea. Back to his big, almost always empty house. Eddie must read that, somewhere, on his face. He gently splays his hand over Steve’s chest, shoving at it with light force. Promising low, "Home can be with Robin or Nancy or me, Stevie. But you have to get better first. You have to. Just lay down and talk to me, sweetheart."

Hesitantly, Steve lays down with Eddie’s push. Head lolled on the pillow so that his face is pointed towards where Eddie sits. He stretches out his hand and weakly grips to Eddie’s fingers. “I’m scared,” he finally confesses. The words falling heavy from the tip of his tongue.

And though Eddie knows, Steve can see it in his eyes, he asks anyway, “What’s got you spooked?”

Steve blinks groggily. Wrung out from the tears. From the sobbing. The speaking. From existing the way he has been. “Of not being myself,” he answers, muttering. “I can’t drive now. I can’t work out the way I used to. Can’t even stand to use the bathroom. I’m not losing more of my limbs, but it’s like I’m gone.”

Eddie’s thumb pushes firmly into the back of Steve’s hand. And he looks straight on at Steve’s tired, tired, tired eyes. “I ain’t letting you go,” he swears. “We’ll find what works. We’ll find you again, I promise. Especially now that we have all the time in the world.”

“It’s going to take so long, though. You don’t want to be stuck with me during that.”

Simply, Eddie shrugs. “So, what? I’ll be figuring out myself again, too. And from what I’ve heard, you’re the kind of guy to take no shit. If anything, you’re going to be the one stuck with me.” His voice grows lower and lower as Steve’s eyes dip to a near close. “Go ahead and sleep, Steve. It’s okay.”

With a long, grieving sigh, Steve closes his eyes completely. Mumbles, “You’re a good guy, Eddie.” Voice slow and sticky. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

As Steve’s grumbling snores fill the room, Eddie stands to lightly open the curtains. Soft sunlight pooling through the room. It makes Steve glow in yellows, his hair shiny and his skin glistening. He’s worse for wear, that much is evident to Eddie. But he can work with that. He’ll accommodate all that Steve is willing to give. And he’ll keep an eye and an ear out, too. Even if that’s all he’s allowed to offer.

He sits back in his original chair. Stretching himself so that he can lean over Steve's bed. And swipes the stray hair away from his eyes. “I’m glad you’re my friend, too, sweetheart,” Eddie murmurs into the white noise of the room. He stays until visiting hours are over.

And comes back every day until Steve gets to go home.

——— Their prosthetics don’t match perfectly to their skin (the prosthetic’s skin being a shade darker than what they’d usually have), but they make do with them. And they find a way to joke about it. To mingle with the still raw ache of what they’ve lost.

Steve ends up painting the nails of Eddie’s prosthetic hand to match his real fingernails, black and shiny. Eddie aids with changing out Steve’s sneakers so that they match his polos and sweaters. And they find it especially funny, when they get together and hook up for the first time, to be laying in a pile of limbs quite literally on Eddie’s bed—but to look off at his side table, their arm and leg are cradling each other. Just as they do. Holding one another on the worst days, through the phantom pains and the afternoons where they sob. It comes easily, being with one another.

It takes time, like all things do. Like watching paint dry on some days. Or waiting for water to boil on others. Prone to lash out, sure. Prone to stay stock still in bed with far away eyes. But they’re in it. They live it. And as time pushes, days grow to be normal. To be expected.

“We should draw tattoos on our limbs,” Eddie suggests one day.

“I can’t draw, Eds. But what do you have in mind?”

In it for the long haul, with a drawing of a hand, is put on Steve’s prosthetic calf.

And then some, with a leg wearing a Nike sneaker, goes on Eddie’s wrist.

“Can’t believe my first tattoo literally cost an arm and a leg,” Steve mutters later, admiring the work Eddie’s done. And all they can do afterwards is laugh until their stomachs hurt, air is impossible to catch, and their cheeks are wet with tears.

🦾🦿—————🦾🦿 When my mom was alive and, obviously, still used her prosthetic leg, she'd threaten to beat up my bullies by taking her leg off and whacking them with it. Also, her leg had a piece of see-through plastic on it where she could have something customized in it, it said "Kicking ass and taking names."

[shywhumpauthor]

“Gentle” Pet Whump

“Whump” isn’t really the right word for what I’m referencing but I can’t think of anything else.

I want a Whumper who bought their Whumpee because they just wanted a companion. Someone else in the house, someone to help with the chores, someone they can just chill and watch a movie with, someone to sit at the table with them while they eat.

All the centered stories I see with tropes kinda like this are always recovery centered, like a second hand pet bought from some shady dealer who is insanely traumatized both physically and mentally. And their owner is always like some sort of radical caretaker, encouraging them to find their humanity again and whatnot.

They still have to be a Whumper, but they don’t have to be *bad*. Just let both them and Whumpee be content with their dynamics.

Whumpee has to wear a collar, but Whumper doesn’t care that much if they have it off in the house—just be sure to have it on whenever they go out or have company over.

The rules aren’t strict, and neither are the consequences if they break them, but there’s still repercussions. They break something? Just a slap on the wrist, a warning or whatever. They enter a room they were told not to? Go to the corner, you can bring a rug over to kneel on, just stay there until Whumper says they can move. Dinner isn’t done by the time Whumper gets home from work? Well then, they can have the leftovers tomorrow morning, but tonight they don’t get to eat. If they don’t finish their chores in time, or if they forget to switch the laundry from the wash to the drier, they might earn themself a slap and a yelling at, but Whumper will move off it quickly and make up for it with a cup of hot cocoa after Whumpee finishes their task.

Whumpee gets a crate, of course, but Whumper doesn’t really lock it anymore. Sometimes Whumpee will sleep on a little cushioned mat in the corner of Whumper’s room, sometimes on the couch in the living room, sometimes curled in Whumper’s bed tucked under the warm covers. They’re allowed on the couch, or they can kneel by the coffee table, whatever.

Whumper doesn’t have a dungeon in their basement. They don’t have a collection of terribly sharp knives or beaded whips or spiked restraints. They have the shock collar they were given with Whumpee’s purchase, and the cuffs, but those were both tucked away in a box somewhere in the attic. Whumper never even bothered to put batteries into the remote.

Just give me casual pet/owner dynamics. Not all pet owners have to be cookie cutter whumpers or caretakers. Have them border that line, away to either side but never quite cross it.