Does that hurt? Good.

After confronting Jack, Adrian has to report to his superior.

Pet Safety Masterpost

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Content / warnings: None, other than for genre-typical institutional whump setting and general disregard of humans (BBU setting). Referenced and implied threats, including one of vague noncon.

Adrian was called up to his boss’ office first thing in the morning. As expected, he figured. He’d almost punched one of their most prestigious clients; and almost been beaten up by that same man’s high profile Guards, right in front of another handler and dozens of safety cameras.

As expected, Kelly wasn’t amused.

As - well, not as expected per se, but still as 'probable enough' - she let this one slip anyway, because it was obvious enough from the visual evidence, that the client had been the aggressor.

What came completely unexpected though was Kelly raising an eyebrow and proceeding to a next topic. "Funnily enough, this isn't even the only video of last night that shows you getting into a fight."

She put two manicured fingernails on the corner of her screen to turn it towards Adrian.

A shaky video, taken by hand, on a phone he assumed, of the brightly lit clinic entrance. Ray and him facing each other, obviously agitated, obviously fighting. Ray's fist punching into his stomach. Adrian going down.

His chest felt like his breath was punched out of him again. 

"Care to explain?" Kelly asked.

"He hates me."

"Seems so. You went to see him on your own terms, though. Why?"

"He's a good doctor. It's a good clinic. And they do treat pets. My pet needed a doctor, after what our preferred customer Jack Donnell did to her."

Kelly raised an eyebrow. "Careful, PSI Delgado. In case this isn't obvious, I'm interrogating you here. You've been in contact with a known pet lib activist, who also just happens to be married to your sister."

hahaha we have fun around here

peace and quiet. 🖤

cw/tw: it as a pronoun, mention of animal's blood, mention of sunburns, brief description of removed teeth, exploitation. quite light, mostly angst but not much of that either. not proofread.

-

Aaron startles awake.

He is not alone.

It is as if his very base instincts wakes him up. Cave dweller-instincts.

Prey instincts.

He'd spent a few hours googling vampire nature and care and intermittenly trying to get a hold of Mike. But Mike didn't answer and very few people seemed to post actual, reliable care guides on the Internet, so he'd eventually resolved to read the endless wiki on vampires and had fallen asleep on the couch. His head had tipped back at an awkard angle which had given him a painful twinge on one side, and he tries to massage it away with one hand while the other fumbles for the light on the sidetable, eventually finding the switch.

It's dark outside, and once the lone bulb starts glowing, it seems even darker where the light doesn't reach. Aaron scans the room, trying to establish whether the hairs standing up at the back of his neck were justified. The little thing had not attacked him in his sleep at least, and immediately he took back the thought. Vampires aren't a realistic threat to a humans. Especially not one like the one he so easily had picked up and carried downstairs.

The species had grown to fear humans, claimed most of the literature he had come across.

Lone individuals typically strayed far away from human settlements in prehistory. Like cats, they have keen smell and hearing, and sensitive eyes which can pick up even the faintest traces of light.

And there it is. He can see it now, the almost supernatural shine of light reflecting in the creature's eyes, where it is peeking out from the darkness of the stairwell down to the basement, halfway hidden behind the door which Aaron had left ajar. It is so low to the floor it must be crouching, or is perched on one of the steps near the top.

When it understands that Aaron has spotted it, the shadow startles back. For a second Aaron thinks it has retreated back down again, but soon the eyes are back.

Like coyotes, they scitter away before any human can even realize they are nearby.

Hm. This one, not quite.

"Hi there," Aaron tries, slightly unsure of how to apprach.

"You said I could come upstairs."

It's the first time he's heard its voice. It sounds sore, like it's screamed itself hoarse. Dragging its words like an old man. Shaking, like a little boy.

"Yes. Come up here, please? I would like to see who I'm talking to."

For a few long seconds the creature doesn't move, and then the shadows around it change. It looks like it is one with the absence of light surrounding it, morphing from one abstract shape of darkness to another. It doesn't go in a straight line from the basement door and towards Aaron; it migrates from patch to patch of shadow, coming closer and closer.

Like wolves, they are only brave enough to be a legitimate threat to humans when they are part of a pack.

Aaron hopes so, as he watches the creature move. It certainly doesn't look threatening once it comes close enough to step into the light of the side table lamp. It stands there, head bowed and shoulders hunched, looking more like a repentant child waiting to be scolded than a predator of the night.

It is wearing somebody else's clothes. It must be, with the way the shoulder seams of its t-shirt hang down its upper arms and and its shorts end well below its knees, halfway covering blue and brown bruises. Those are the only garments its wearing. Aaron can see the bumps of its ankle joints and the sharp lines of the clavicles sticking out, lik his skin has been threaded over a wire armature. It's skinny. Some part of his brain wonders about the metabolic rate of vampires. Has this one been stared or do they all look like this? How much blood do they actually need, and how often? Which quality? Should it ideally be human?

Its hair is long enough to brush its shoulders and Aaron has to duck his head down a little to get a better look of its face. The sunburn is still present across his cheeks and nose, a violent red compared to its otherwise pale skin. Its not just pale - the skin is completely colourless. Almost like a black-and-white movie. It makes few drops of blood on his lips stand out even more. So half-thawed cow's blood in a dish works.

"I have tried to get into contact with Mike, who took you here," Aaron begins, as he sits back on the couch again, tilting his head a little to one side. "He's not picking up, or answering any of my texts. So I'm hoping you can tell me where you're from, since he won't."

The vampire doesn't move its downturned head, but its gaze flits up to Aarons from where it's been burrowing into the floor. The pupils have receeded some from the vast blackness they were when the creature came from the basement door, when they were so expanded they took up the entire iris. Now they're sort of elongated circles, floating in greenish-grayish pools.

Not quite cat.

But decidedly not human, either.

"Springfield," it says blankly, and Aaron blinks.

He doesn't know what he expected, but Springfield wasn't it.

"From a private collector, or a drug farm? A lab?" he tries, because he's not entirely sure what sorts of places keep vampires. Some roam like wild animals, following highways until they find something to eat and then move on. Most exist in some sort of captivity. Legislators have still not agreed on exactly what vampires are, only that they are not humans. Some claim them to be no more tame than orcas in a pool; mostly willing to do obey for food, but inclined to pull their trainer under if given the chance. Some call for eradication, arguing that there is no place for a species which has been known to prey on humans when the conditions are right. Others believe that the humane solution is containment until a consensus is met. But almost nobody thinks they are fit to be part of society alongside humans.

Aaron doesn't quite know where he stands, but he supposes he has to make up his mind if this one is to be stay with him for the unforeseeable future.

"Leeland incorporated, Antibody Manufacturing department. Private facility."

He's not prepared for such a clear answer. These are google-able terms, he realises, and repeats the name in his head so he can remember to look it up after. He had imagined… well, he doesn't know what place of origin he imagined. The skinny thing in front of him with bruises on its shins and blood in the corners of its mouth is the first vampire he's ever met.

"What did they do to you there?" is what he asks next, because he cannot imagine that it was voluntary, whatever it was.

It avoid eye contact again, and bites its bottom lip with a set of front teeth that are remarkably straight and human-like. Not a fang. Aren't they supposed to have sharp, fox-like incisors, to pierce flesh with?

"They take our venom," it whispers eventually, so low Aaron almost doesn't hear, even though the living room is completely silent and the house is situated far enough away from any road to not be distrubed by the sounds of traffic.

"Your… venom?"

It nods, quickly, like it rather not talk about. A tear travels along its waterline, eventually rolling down from the corner of its eye and over its sunburned skin. It winces and draws a hand up to sooth the skin, and in the process pushes its lip up enough for Aaron to see that there indeed is no sharp canine there. Not because he's been tricked all these years into believing that vampires have sharp teeth, but because there simply is no tooth there at all.

There is only a red orifice where he can only assume such a tooth once was.

"What happened to your teeth?" he asks before he can stop himself, and immediately regrets it. It's appearantly a touchy subject, because the vampire lets out a sob and brings both hands up to cover his eyes, which only serves to irritate the sunburn further.

Aaron isn't sure what to do. Should you soothe a vampire? It feels slightly degrading to put his hands on it like it's an animal. Even though, it strictly is.

"They take them too," it suddenly lets out, heaving like it's ran a mile. It's trying to hold back its tears. It is still holding its hands to its face, further aggravating its sunburn. On a whim Aaron rises from the couch and retrieves a pack of frozen peas, which he wraps in a kitchen towel and brings back to the living room. The vampire isn't making much sound, but its shoulders are shaking. Aaron holds out the makeshift icepack, anticipating the flinch when the vampire spots him out from between his fingers.

"This will help," he says, gently nudging the icepack inbetween its face and hand. The relief seems immediate and palpable. Its red-rimmed eyes close as it grasps the icepack in both hands and presses it gently to its skin. First one cheek, then the other, then it brings it to its mouth and rests its sore gums on the cool fabric. It repeats the triangular pattern while Aaron sits back down on the couch.

He doesn't push the teeth-issue anymore. He has some information to work with now, and some pointed questions to ask Mike when he decides to pick up his phone. For now, he's got to take care of the little vampire in front of him.

"Do you have a name?" he gently asks when the worst of the crying seems to have subsided. The vampire looks at him from over the icepack, which he's now placed across his cheekbones and nosebridge like a cold compress.

"One of them called me Joey."

It's low and muffled through the towel, but Aaron still manages to pick it up. He smiles.

Thinking about sensory deprivation. Specifically sensory deprivation for whumpees who are being... particularly difficult. Most pets only end up in the program if they have behavioral issues, but these ones have special extra behavioral issues. The "I literally cannot stop myself from trying to kill everyone around me" kind.

Bonus points if this part of the program is prompted in part by Whumpee actually TRYING to cooperate, only to find they can't. They can't stop flinching or twisting away or disobeying the orders to hold still.

Clearly their discomfort with touch is the root of their issues. That's easily fixable. All you have to do is immobilize them, put blinders over their eyes and deafening earplugs in their ears. If they have issues with biting, you add an open-mouthed gag and tube-feed them.

The program is then customizable to meet pet's needs. Pet is blinded, deafened, and unable to move. They can't hear or respond to commands. They can't watch their captors or anticipate what's coming next. Literally all they can do is experience the sensation of touch.

Pet might remain in this position for anywhere from a few days to months on end. The program typically concludes when they no longer respond to stimuli with problematic behavior.

IE: they remain limp and quiet and very Very good in situations where they would normally fight/fuss.

Some very common training regimens:

THOROUGHLY cleaning pet's mouth twice a day (if gagged). Good dental hygiene is important and pet can't do it themselves! Excellent for defiant pets who have a biting streak, a swearing problem, oversensitive gums, etc.

Touching and massaging areas that always cause pet to flinch. Obviously varies from pet to pet. It can be particularly effective to focus on just one sensitive body part per session, since this helps pet understand things like "inescapability" and "total helplessness."

As briefly mentioned above, tube-feeding pet. Swallowing a feeding tube is significantly less painful than having it forced down your throat. Excellent choice for defiant pets who are disobedient for the sake of disobedience. See how long it takes them to cooperate just because they're desperate to stop gagging.

Comforting touch as a reward when pet is docile and good. Pet can't hear praise, but you can gently stroke their hair and their throat to send a message.

Tickling. It's the fastest way to make the body betray itself. For pets who pride themselves on defiance, tickling is a unique form of humiliation, especially when it's intense enough to hurt and make breathing difficult.

Speaking of -- restricting the breathing. Again, pet can't hear or obey commands. But they can react when you place your hand over their mouth and nose. Some trainers use this just to exacerbate pet's sense of fear and helplessness, because pet never knows when they'll be allowed to breathe again. Other trainers wait for pet to exhibit a desired behavior -- typically being quiet, limp, and calm -- and then let them take a breath.

In the beginning, this desired behavior will almost always only occur after pet loses consciousness. Even if they're trying to remain calm, they WILL start to thrash eventually.

(Takes place the evening after what dreams may come, where Carlo senses an ancient vampire’s presence nearby and is deeply unsettled by it. Based on an ask by @distinctlywhumpthing!)

CW: vampire & bloodbag pet, past abuse mention

Maxim woke as he had every nightfall in the recent memory of the world. The house was entirely still. As if uninhabited, it had slipped silently into the blue shadows of evening. If a mortal held their breath (and tried to hear over their own thoughts and rabbit-quick heartbeat) they might be able to hear the bullfrogs starling to croak down by the creek-fed pond, but they wouldn’t hear the hum of traffic down the hill on the highway as he did, that endless snake of red taillights was too far for human ears to pick up. They wouldn’t be able to scan the nearby woods and acres of old farmland for vampires either, which he did as a habit every evening. This night, all was quiet on Vampire Radio.

Maxim’s pet (pet was a demeaning word for a mortal, even meant as a term of endearment. It was Erik’s word, not his, though better than the more modern and unappetizing moniker of bloodbag) was not somewhere on his own in the house as he usually was at this time of evening, playing a record or watching tv or cooking. In fact Maxim couldn’t sense any of the usual signs of life in the old house, not even the dim hum electric lights emit.

Where was Carlo, then? He opened his eyes. The answer was right in front of him, sleeping. Well, not right in front of him. A far enough distance to be respectful of the deep sleep of a vampire, and a short enough distance to be endearing.

Maxim hadn’t slept in a coffin since before the Baltimore Railroad Company was formed, instead choosing a bed with a canopy and curtains that could be drawn as an extra layer of precaution against unwanted sunlight. Even without them drawn, no daylight could reach the second floor bedroom he slept in, because the windows were permanently boarded up, plastered over, and painted to match the wall. Still, drawing them provided him some measure of ease, like sleeping with a blanket, though that was wholly unnecessary too. In fact he’d slept this summer day without one, unlike his mortal friend, who was curled up on the floor three feet from the bed with a pillow he’d brought from another room and his favorite soft throw draped over him.

Maxim regarded the familiar shape of the top of his head sticking out from it, the way his hair spilled on the pillow. He pushed out of bed and knelt silently beside the boy, touching soft curls with the backs of his fingers.

“Of all the places to be, why are you on my bare floor?” he murmured so that it might wake Carlo gently. He was answered with a whimper and a quick drawing of breath that mortals do when they wake— that moment of confusion passing over their eyes and giving way to recognition. He pushed himself up on one elbow.

“I thought I felt it again,” Carlo said sleepily, a troubled look soon replacing the relief and trust that had flooded his features upon opening his eyes. “Him. The vampire from last night.”

“In the day?” Maxim asked gently, but it came out as doubtful as he felt. Carlo looked away sheepishly. He knew it to be unlikely, too. But he’d never come in this room before, and must have been quite frightened in order to do so.

“Maybe you did,” Maxim said, brushing a strand of hair from the boy’s eyes. “Or maybe it was just an echo.”

“An echo? Is that a thing?”

“It can be. Especially in one of the more ancient of us. Like embers left from a fire.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I tried not to wake you with the door. It was unlocked.”

Maxim nodded an acknowledgement. The boy was waiting for him to tell him he needn’t sleep on the floor, that he could have crawled up on the bed, but the truth was it was unwise to approach a sleeping vampire unexpectedly. They did not wake well in the day. He might reflexively lash out at anything disturbing his sleep. One half-awake swipe of the arm could result in a broken bone. One accidental, primal bite could sever an artery. Carlo knew that— both from an unfortunate wealth of experience with vampires and his own instinct.

All of this considered, he was flattered Carlo still thought the safest place to be in the entire house was his sleeping room. Rather than embarrass anyone by saying so, Maxim reached out and touched the mortal’s warm cheek. Only inches away was his neck, tender and quickly healing from a recent puncture— two barely-pink bite marks that would soon fade to nothing, no more of the rapacious double-dipping that had left him with silver scars on his wrists and hands.

Knowing he was forgiven, or better yet that there was nothing to forgive, Carlo smiled and leaned into his cold palm. He thumbed over the boy’s skin to feel the pliable warmth, the blood just beneath. He was so mutable, delicate. A changing and temporary organism that could walk in the sun, age, and die… and yet of the two of them, more alive. Hunger pawed at Maxim’s mind, dilating his pupils and setting his teeth on edge. He would like a substantial drink, and soon. But this one was not for a real Feeding. Never. This one was for lovebites.

The boxie looked old for a pet, maybe 30 or so. Covered in scars and looked like he'd been hastily hosed down after a long period of being covered in his own filth. Long streaks of muck still clinging to him in places.

The men by the cage were jeering at the boxie.

"Nah look at the state of it, it's barely fit as dog bait"

"I thought Owens was meant to be coming today he usually has something decent"

Turning the tag on the cage to show the guide price

"£500 they're having a laugh, most expensive dog meat on the market at that price"

"Might be worth a punt if it goes cheap enough though. Give the guard dogs something to keep em busy this weekend"

The auction thankfully didn't drag the animals up one by one, the bids going too fast for that to be practical. The Bantums came up and he got them for less than he'd thought. He should go, something made him stay. The boxie came up. Opening bid a measly £50 it climbed slowly to £200 peering around he spotted the man he'd seen at the cage. Taking a deep breath he raised his number. The other man bid another couple of times but soon gave up, the worn out boxie not worth much.

Well this was a stupid idea. What the hell was he gonna do with a box boy at the end of its use? Maybe he could at least make him comfortable in his last days, like he'd planned to do with his donkeys.

cw: pet/slave universe, otherwise nothing

His new master, a man of only twenty-nine and still somewhat of a mystery to him, turned to him with an expression of bemused curiosity.

“Did you save this for something?” he asked, holding a piece of chicken carcass in his hand.

It hadn’t occurred to Carlo that the wishbone thing was perhaps not universal until this very moment. He’d done it without thought, more concerned with putting all the dishes away correctly on the first try. But now that Max was asking, it seemed ridiculous he’d cleaned, washed, and left a piece of bird clavicle on the windowsill to dry in the spring sunshine.

“It’s the wishbone,” he said. From Max’s unchanged expression he knew this was not a helpful bit of information and that he’d have to explain himself. “You save the wishbone, dry it out, and then you can… uhm, two people can each make a wish and break it. Whoever gets the longer piece of bone gets their wish. It’s just an old superstition, it’s—”

Stupid, he was going to say, but Max had taken the dried fork of chicken bone between his thumb and forefinger as an upside-down V. “Like this?”

Carlo took the other dry end, yellow as parchment, and nodded.

“And we just… pull?”

“At the same time.”

“Count us down from three then. Pull on one.”

Carlo counted backwards and on one gave a tug. The brittle nexus of bone at the top strained and snapped, and each came away with their portion. Upon comparison, it was clear Max had gotten the longer end, either from luck or a more confident pull at the count of one. Carlo smiled graciously, which he always remembered to do upon losing anything. He’d been distracted by Max’s sudden nearness, their knuckles almost touching, his indistinct but alluring stranger-smell that he was beginning to smell on his own clothes now as he used the same detergent, the same shampoo, that he’d forgotten to even make his wish. Perhaps fortune always favored an wishmaker over an abstainer.

“Can I tell you my wish, or is it like a birthday wish type of thing?” asked his new master with a hint of a smile that narrowed his eyes.

“I—don’t know.” As many wishbones as he and the cooks Erik employed had snapped between them over the years, it had never come up. He tried to guess which answer this man might want, if there was one.

“I’ll tell you if it comes true, how’s that?” Max said, and gave him his end of the wishbone. They looked like an archaeology find in his palm, broken but with the whole they had once been plausible and obvious. He thought of his life in similar terms, pulled from the cushioning flesh and tendon he’d come to rely on, left high and dry to be suddenly and irreparably snapped into two pieces. He was immediately a little ashamed of the cliche. Erik would say ‘life as a snapped wishbone’ was only appropriate for the imagination of a middle class child of divorce. You’d win a sixth grade poetry contest with that champion of a metaphor for sure, Lo, he’d say dryly.

Intending to throw away the bones, he found himself instead watching from the kitchen window as a spring wind shook the blossoms of the apple trees in the backyard. Max told him the hard and sour crab apples they produced were technically edible, but that as a boy he’d stabbed them onto sharpened sticks and flung them as far as he could instead, imagining he was operating a trebuchet mid battle.