Hi! I'm Ruth, they/them pronouns, 26, and I enjoy most types of whump! I do art, graphic design and writing.
I try my best to tag, but if I miss a content warning you'd like added, please just shoot me an ask! I won't tag lady whump as a content warning, but anything else I will if you ask.
Whump 2024 advent calendar
Favourite tropes:
RECOVERY WHUMP!!!
Found family
Gagging
Muzzles
Pet whump
Whumper pressing down on whumpee's back to keep them from getting up
Branding
Whipping
Caretaker turned whumpee/whumpee turned caretaker
Hero/villain whump
Tall whumpee/small caretaker (or vice versa)
Tall whumpee/small whumper
G/t whump
Whumpee thinks caretaker is their new whumper
Incompetent/clueless caretaker (they're trying their best but they have no idea they're doing)
General contents: pet whump, dehumanisation, amnesia, PTSD
Sam and Lucan 'verse
In a world where non-humans are enslaved, our characters are just trying to live out their lives in peace. And failing, mostly.
General contents: non-human characters, institutionalised slavery, fantasy racism, dehumanisation, PTSD
A Death in the Family
When his estranged father dies, Tristam, against his better judgement, attends the will reading, and ends up leaving with long-term bloodbag Sunday Afolayan and Eldrida, his father's former employee (and a terribly mistreated one at that, it turns out).
Even with Aileen and Evelyn's expert advice and friendship, it's tricky to bring Sunday back from the depths of his enthrallment, and Eldrida's struggling too. Six years under the cruel fist of Barnabas Sharpe was hard to survive.
It's a difficult recovery for both of them. But surely, things can't get worse now.
Contains: vampire whumper, non-human whumpee (vampire), lady whump, conditioned whumpee, disabled characters (Tristam has ADHD, Eldrida has anophthalmia, and Sunday has joint problems, a badly-healed arm, and an absence epilepsy-like condition), recovery whump, multiple whumpees
Botanist Whumpee
When the rich and powerful Sebastian Beaumont offers Alyssa a place to stay, she doesn’t expect to become his captive for three years. And when Silver rescues her at a party… well, the only thing she’s absolutely sure is better is that they don’t have a basement. They don’t have much of anything, actually. And she doesn’t know whether she can trust them or not, but she stays anyway. With no-one left to care about her, and Beaumont using all his money and connections to search for the pair of them, where else is she supposed to go?
Contains: recovery whump, captivity, lady whump, somewhat defiant whumpee, found family, intimate whumper
Cian and Row
In a world where superpowers are real, heroes and villains exist, and there's a large black market in powered people, Rowan's been enslaved for as long as they can remember. They're befriended when they're three by Cian Sinclair, a local empathic five year old, and at the age of eleven is rescued and adopted by the Sinclairs. Years later they become a supervillain, disappear for five years and reappear to reunite with their family, and attract another enemy, one far more powerful than their previous captors and obsessed with their healing powers.
Contains: slavery, PTSD, minor whump, past minor whump, immortal whumpee, discrimination, villain whump
Immortal Cannon Fodder
Masterlist part 2 - character profiles, character asks
Phoenix, an immortal hero, joins a team that hurts them and uses them as cannon fodder. But their teammates are only doing what's necessary to help them all survive. Phoenix's regular sacrifices are necessary. And it's not like they've got anywhere else to go anyway.
It takes the arrival of Kai, a wolf-shifter and telekinetic, to help them see what's going on. But a friendship and a promised eventual transfer can't fix everything.
Contains: hero whump, abuse, past abuse, immortal whumpee
MD-264N
When MD-264N, the government's best weapon, runs to avoid being decommissioned and collapses on the doorstep of a small ragtag team of rebels, it's a surprise to everyone. But despite resistance, the weapon, now known as Morgan, starts to find their place, and the rebels soon find that they'll do anything to keep them free.
Contains: living weapon, found family, dehumanisation/self dehumanisation, team dynamics, reluctant caretaker (not the main caretaker), recovery whump, caretaker whump, disabled caretaker (forearm amputee)
Operation Badger
In the year 2037, Earth is invaded by the Stex. 14 years later, superpowers start appearing in teenagers, and are apparently humanity's best defence against the aliens. What is Earth Security to do but train these people up as weapons?
Contains: sci-fi, living weapons, team whump, multiple whumpees, minor whump, aliens, disabled character
Out of the Frying Pan
Five years ago Elis, former bodyguard and weapon of Lord Wulfric, was rescued from a fiery death by Col and Sæwin. He now lives in relative peace with them in Sorestan, a peace that's abruptly disrupted after an unwelcome visitor brings his past colliding with the present.
Contains: medieval whump, fantasy elements, living weapon
Out of the Water
Túathal, a merman, is captured and kept prisoner by pirates for his valuable scales. While Robyn, the youngest of the crew and not very popular, takes care of him, the others only bother with his scales (and anything that makes their extraction easier). Especially James. And once the rest of the pirates discover that Robyn and Túathal have become fond of each other, things only get worse.
Whumpee is captured by a Whumper who wants to teach them survival skills. Painfully.
Contains: survival skills whump, sadistic whumper
The Greatest Show on Earth
Damon and Pythias are an unwilling two-person sideshow act in The Greatest Show on Earth, Pythias forced to kill Damon multiple times a day for the entertainment of paying circus patrons. Damon has been in captivity since birth, Pythias not quite so long (although certainly long enough), and they're both ready to get out.
But the outside world is even trickier to navigate than they imagined.
Contains: non-human whumpees, multiple whumpees, immortal whumpee, lady whump, circus whump, public whump, captivity, recovery whump, temporary character death (both implied and shown at times), guilty whumpee, whumpee as caretaker
Other writing:
Non-series whump masterlist
Miscellaneous writing, art and graphics
Fanfic/fanart (AO3)
BBC Merlin, Good Omens, Doctor Who, The Sandman, The Murderbot Diaries
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I was thinking, what if Jake accidentally triggered Chris? Like maybe Jake casually says something that sir would say when he was about to punish Chris. He’d probably feel so guilty.
So this isn’t exactly what you asked for, but it hits on another ask I received and is very similar! (sorry, other asker, I ended up losing your ask because Tumblr sucks)
CW: References to past whump involving a minor. PTSD/trauma response to stressful stimuli. Includes description of stimming including head banging. VERY vague references to past implied noncon.
Chris’s mind runs fast. Not as fast as his mouth, but that’s okay, he can mostly catch up to himself if he works at it. His mind runs fast but it also derails and crashes on tiny details when he’s trying to finish his chores, and he never had chores before he came to live here but he doesn’t mind them - it’s just hard to get them done when there keep being so many other things to look at.
He’s supposed to be cleaning the living room, and it takes Jake maybe half an hour to do this but Chris has been at it for nearly forty-five minutes, he thinks, maybe longer… and he’s still just trying to finish dusting all the shelves.
The thing is - the TV is on, because he likes the background noise, but words keep catching his attention, little phrases and bits of information his brain wants to add to the constant loop of his thoughts. Plus - plus, on top of the TV and the swirly letters he can’t read on all the books, and the way the throw pillows have kind of a cool texture - on top of all of that, there’s a chipmunk outside.
He knows it’s a chipmunk because Jake told him about how they chirp, which he didn’t know before he came here. Chris mostly didn’t know anything before he came here, but he’s learning, piece by piece.
The chirping keeps catching his attention, drawing him away, slowing him down. He’s no good at cleaning, he can’t think about it long enough, cleaning is too slow and too methodical for his brain. But he likes doing chores, because chores mean he belongs here.
He fluffs a throw pillow, then runs his fingertips over the rough braided texture right down the center, a change from the silky-touch feel of the sides. Silk, rough, silk, rough, silk, rough.
His eyes start to unfocus, go slightly blank.
Silk, rough, just like-
“How’s it going, Chris?” Nat calls from upstairs. She’s turning over all the mattresses and changing the sheets today, Antoni is with her, while Leila works on cleaning the bathroom upstairs and Jake’s down here, in the kitchen, just a few feet away.
“It’s, it’s, it’s it’s it’s good!” Chris calls back, jerking himself into motion, but he can hear the chipmunk outside still, calling and calling and calling. Is it missing someone?
Do I miss someone?
The thought breaks in, strange and uncertain, hardly his own. It’s plaintive, sad. It’s a thought that belongs to Baldur in the dark nights, and to the numbered boy before that in the flat white room. It’s not a thought that belongs to Chris, who stands next to the window and looks out into sunny day. It’s not a thought he wants.
So he ignores it.
Thoughts like that come with headaches that leave him shaking in the dark, and he’s very good at ignoring anything that might bring on the pain again.
He moves to clean around the windowsills, which - who ever heard of doing that, but it’s on the list she reads out to him, and he tries to remember everything. He’s getting better.
The chipmunk chirps outside the window, a kind of throat-swallow sound, and Chris finds himself echoing the noise, making a high-pitched eep-eep-eep sound. It doesn’t sound like the chipmunk at all, but the little animal goes silent outside when he does it, and Chris feels a thrill.
It understood I was trying to talk to it. Maybe it’s listening to me.
That’s a silly thought, and he tries to tell himself it’s stupid, but when he thinks awful things about himself he can kind of hear how Jake would respond if he said them out loud. You’re smart, Chris, you’re smarter than you think you are - you’re brilliant in there, we’re just bringing it back out. Don’t talk down about yourself. The way you think about yourself is how you think about the world.
Chris mostly loves the world, now. So he tries to love himself.
The chipmunk starts back up again, and Chris moves closer, a smile on his face. Slow, and careful, step by step, cleaning forgotten, he tilts his head and-… there it is. Tiny body no bigger than a mouse in a movie, reddish-brown with the black and white stripes across its head and down its back.
Jake says they have stripes like that because the things that eat them don’t see color like people do, and the stripes help them hide.
I wish I had stripes to help me hide.
But the thought doesn’t matter, because Chris doesn’t have to hide anymore. He puts that thought away, too. Lets it sink into the revolving mix of things going on inside his mind at any given moment. Right now it’s mostly the chipmunk.
His hand keeps moving with the rag in it, wiping back and forth across the windowsill, spraying the glass cleaner and wiping at that, too, but it’s half-hearted and he knows he’s leaving streaks. He just… can’t quite stop thinking about the little chipmunk he can just see, hardly a breath of an animal, sitting in Nat’s grass under the white birch tree in her front yard.
If you go to the tree you can peel strips of white and black bark away, easy as cake, like peeling away all his skin to find the real him underneath.
There’s a voice, behind him, from the TV. Smooth, genial, warm and slightly arrogant, the voice of someone who has total and perfect confidence in themselves.
Chris drops the glass cleaner, the plastic bottle bouncing off the floor. The chipmunk catches some hint of the sudden movement and takes off, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
“Of course, Deborah. But I don’t think it’s fair to remove this right that’s been enshrined in our laws since 1952 just because a few protesters get their, well, I won’t say it in polite company. But just because a few protesters are bothered, that’s no reason to get rid of an entire system that’s working just fine. We need to crack down on abuse, of course, and these nasty rumors about illegal acquisition - which, I know the head of WRU personally, I can tell you that’s all a bunch of nonsense-”
Chris’s constant running barrage of thoughts comes to a stuttering halt.
He turns slowly around, cleaning rag still clutched in his other hand, his heart somewhere trapped around his knees, to stare at the TV.
There’s a woman on the screen right now, with blonde hair shellacked in a kind of circle around her head, wearing bright red lipstick and a dress to match. She tilts her head at a practiced angle, and Chris unconsciously echoes the motion. His free hand twists, fingers twitching in a kind of dance, before they tap against his own side. Tap-tap-tap-tap, the motion soothing him, calming him, a rush of something pleasant that fights the fear.
“Of course, Governor Branch-”
“Oh, how do I love to hear myself called that, still,” The man replies. He sits back, the slight shine of the light off his hair makes Chris dizzy. He can almost smell the hair product that’s in it, can almost feel the smooth fabric of the suit Sir is wearing slipping through his fingers.
That’s the one he wore the night Miss Megan saved me.
“Speaking of illegal acquisitions, there’ve been persistent rumors surrounding WRU and its competing corporations about pet abuse, abductions, even minors being put into the system. What would you say o the protesters and pet liberation groups asking for better, more thorough investigations? Would you support the call for a Congressional investigation?””
Sir laughs - it’s a lovely laugh, pulling a smile onto the woman’s face, it’s a laugh Chris has dreams and nightmares about - and Chris lets out a choked-off sound.
Baldur, darling, you do know how to make a man laugh, don’t you?
His fingers twist faster, tap harder into his side. He steps away, stumbling gracelessly, until he can find a hard surface, the wall. He taps on it as fast as he can, a constant barrage of tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, holding back the worst of the fear, keeping it at bay.
The rush of the sensation isn’t enough to beat back the fog in his mind. He’s buying time but not enough. He can hear Jake singing to himself in the kitchen, and his mouth opens to call, to say, that’s him, that’s my Sir, that’s him on TV, but no sound comes out.
Outside, the chipmunk starts chirping again.
Chris slides down to the floor, curling himself up into a ball, staring fixedly at the screen.
“Deborah, I have spoken to my good friend Timothy Rahm - current CEO of WRU, sorry, not all your viewers are going to know that, are they? - and he has assured me again and again that WRU has absolutely no minors in the system. They have strict physical examinations and quality control checks that ensure every single pet is of legal consenting age.”
Sir smiles, flash of bright white teeth. Chris thinks of whitening strips laid out in a little stray next to Sir’s sink. He had to look good for cameras. He does look good, in his suit with his tan and his sparkly amused eyes.
Darlin’, don’t look upset. You’re going to stay right here in the basement for the party, can’t have anyone getting too good a look, can we?
But, but, but but I don’t like the, the basement, Sir I don’t-
Baldur. You’ll stay in the basement. No arguments.
Yes, Sir.
Chris leans his head over, until it thumps into the wall. Briefly, he feels a burst of better, a wash of something like adrenaline, but soothing, calming. So he does it again. And again. And again.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The chipmunk is silent, listening outside to the sound of Chris as his thoughts revolve and focus around the man on the TV.
He can’t hear what they’re saying any longer, he doesn’t try to. He lets the sound of Sir’s voice, melodic and warm, wash over and around him, but if he keeps thumping his head on the wall - if he keeps tapping, too, if he can just do both - he won’t let him in.
Get him to stop doing that thing with his hand, it’s annoying as hell. I don’t care how, tie his fucking hands down. Teach him not to do that anymore.
The voice wants to trickle under his skin, but a good thump - it’s not painful, it doesn’t hurt, it’s only a shake out of his freezing, it’s holding back the sounds that would hurt if they made it too far in - knocks it back out.
Not yours. Not yours. Not yours. Not yours.
He chants along with the thumps of his head, the taps of his fingers. He whispers without sound.
Better now. Better now. Better now. Better now.
His eyes go unfocused, and Sir is gone, but Chris can’t remember quite how to find his own way back. He doesn’t know how long he floats there, waiting. He doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for.
Someone crouches down in front of him and Chris flinches - no, no, he’s not supposed to touch the walls any longer, he has to stop or he’ll be in trouble again - only to feel Jake’s warm hands on his shoulders, up his neck, on either side of his face.
Jake’s smell, simple clean shower-smell, nothing like Sir’s heavy cologne. Jake smells like soap from the shower and fresh-cut grass from mowing the lawn this morning and the sun that shone in his hair when he did it, while Chris watched from inside.
“Chris?”
“I, I, I, I… I I I saw, I saw, I saw-”
Jake’s eyebrows furrow in concern, a hint of worry lines across his forehead. “What did you see, man? Can you tell me what you saw? Can you tell me what’s in your head right now?”
Sir isn’t on TV anymore. They’ve moved on to talk about something else. Chris swallows, looking up at Jake, then shoves himself forward to push into Jake’s chest, tap-tap-tapping on his side. Jake doesn’t stop him, Jake never ever stops him, he understands the tapping helps. Jake only puts one arm around him and holds him tightly, leaving the other down so Chris can tap, twist-fingers-tap-shirt, again and again.
The simple, clean rush of calm, bit by bit, building a wall to fight back the waves of awful things that want to dig under his skin.
“Chris, I need you to talk to me. What did you see? What happened?”
Chris closes his eyes, thinks of Sir’s smile, just like it always was. His laugh.
Thinks of being good in the dark.
“I saw a chipmunk,” Chris whispers. “Saw, I saw, there was a, a, a-a-a chipmunk, saw a chipmunk, saw-… then the TV, I-… on the, the TV on the tv there was, um, on the TV-”
“Okay. Okay, I know that wasn’t it, but… do you need me to turn off the TV? Would that help?”
Chris nods into Jake’s shirt, clutching hard onto the fabric, tapping his fingers. Hold it back, hold it back, push back the fear and the noise. “Heard, on the TV, I-I-I heard, I heard-”
“It’s okay. Look, I’m going to-… there, if I stretch I can just grab it-” Jake reaches out with his free hand, shakes the side table next to the couch until the remote drops off of it onto the floor within his reach. He turns off the TV and the sudden lack of sound fills the room with a new kind of weight. “No rush, buddy.” Jake squeezes Chris’s shoulders with one arm. “No rush to tell me. Take your time. You’re okay, you’re right here with us, this is Nat’s house. Nobody’s here but us, and we’re safe. I’ve got you, man.”
“You’ve, you’ve got me,” Chris whispers. He feels an urge to thump his head on Jake’s shoulder like he did on the wall, but manages not to. Only just. He can still hear Sir’s voice, like music that won’t stop playing, like when you get a song stuck in your head.
Sir would hate him wearing Jake’s big T-shirt, would hate the silky-mesh basketball shorts he wears all the time. Would hate his knobby knees sticking out from them, his sharp elbows that dig when he doesn’t mean them to. Sir hated his cold feet under the covers.
Jake doesn’t mind any of those things. Jake gives him the shirts he likes, and holds him, and doesn’t stop him from doing the things he has to do to keep his mind from running away too far for him to catch it. Sir was on the screen, but Jake has him here, and only one of those things is real.
Outside, a bit of bark peels away from the white birch tree in the wind, slowly revealing soft, easily-damaged wood the color of pale human skin underneath.
what if someone accidentally says "respect" without thinking about it in a safehouse
CW: Trauma induced flashback, noncon touching and kissing (brief)
"No, I get it... Yeah. No, it's fine. It's fine, Mom." Jake rubs at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, keeping his eyes closed against the threatening headache.
Not a real headache, just the return of Mother Knows Best.
"Yeah, I get that you don't like it, but you don't have to. I'm making a difference, I-... No, it's not like working in a fucking crackhouse, Mom! These people are not-... No!"
Shit. Too loud. Jake hears a sudden scramble from another room, rescues running for cover from raised voices, and groans, leaning slowly forward.
"I am helping people," Jake says, softly. Keeps his voice low, and even. Calm. "They are profoundly traumatized, and I'm making a difference for them. I am... What the hell do you mean, think about my future? I am! And I'm thinking about theirs! They're someone's kid, too!... Don't even-... No this is not like someone having a sugar daddy, this is coercion, and worse, it's-..."
The pounding in his head is worse. He and Mom had gotten away from Dad when he was twelve, and it had made him always want to stand up for people who had to live in fear... But his mother wanted to hide from the ones who caused fear instead. And he knew why, he understood why, but it never made this conversation any easier.
"Mom. My major is not up for debate. No, it's-... Damn it, Mom, can you just fucking understand that this is what I want? That I did my research and I know what I'm doing? Can you just show me some basic fucking respect?!"
There's a hard thump, and Jake looks up to see Chris, the little Romantic who'd appeared just a few weeks ago scared and hungry under the arm of one of Nat's contacts, on his knees in the doorway to Jake's room, his forehead pressed to the floor, trembling.
"Oh, shit," Jake whispers, as his heart drops to his stomach. "Mom... Call you back." He hangs up before she can say anything else. "Chris?"
Chris doesn't say anything, doesn't even move. His name wasn't Chris when he arrived. He picked it, like all the rescues, except Kauri and a handful of others, pick new names to build new lives.
Jake swallows, trying to remember what Chris's pet name was. He stands, slowly - no sudden movements - and makes his way to the door. He slowly crouches down.
Shit, what was his pet name?
Jake reaches out and puts a hand to Chris's shoulder, expecting him to flinch. Instead, the shorter, much younger boy pushes into the touch, rubbing his head against Jake's inner arm, turning his head to kiss Jake's wrist.
It's Jake who flinches and jerks his hand back, face burning. But he remembers the name.
"Baldur," He says, softly.
Chris looks up at him, eyes wide, hazy, lost inside himself. In his training. "Yes, sir. I'm... sorry, sir. I misbehaved. I will... show-"
"Ssssshhhhh. It's okay, Baldur. Come here. It's okay." Chris, still shaking, lets Jake pull him into his arms. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. You're still good, a good boy. You're still free."
With Chris a trembling leaf in his arms, Jake thinks that no matter how hard it is, or how low the pay is or whatever, he'd never want to do anything with his life other than help the people out there like Chris.
Jake wakes to bare feet padding nearly-soundlessly into his room, blinking, his mind working sluggishly to understand the shift in air pressure as the door opens. A sudden hint of chill air. Wind whistles outside, and it’s pitch black, has to be midnight, or later.
“J-Jake?” The voice trembles. A rescue, but shit, his eyes are barely open. Jake yawns widely, pushing himself up on his elbows, squinting up.
“Chris? ‘s that you?”
A flash of light, barely visible through the curtain, and out of very old habit, Jake counts. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5-
Thunder rumbles, rolling from one side of the sky to the other, rattling the windows in their ancient frames. The bare feet move quickly closer and Chris drops down next to the bed, worrying his hands over each other, staring with wide, nervous eyes into Jake’s.
“Jake, hey,” Chris whispers, reaching a tentative hand out, brushing a bit of hair from over Jake’s eyes. “Hey, hey Jake-”
“Yeah, Chris,” Jake says, trying to keep a groan from his voice. It’d just be from being tired, but the young Box Boy wouldn’t know that. He’d think it was annoyance, and apologize, and Jake is too tired to play the talk-down-from-apologies-game. “I’m here. Is something up?”
“It’s, um. It’s storming, Jake.”
As if on cue, another flash of lightning. The thunder takes a full nine seconds this time, but sounds louder. Chris flinches back, pressing himself against the side of Jake’s bed.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Jake yawns again, then stretches, blinking a few more times. Chris is curled into a tiny ball on the floor, wearing one of Jake’s college sweatshirts and basketball shorts, his fingers digging into the sheets and old, kind of grody mattress underneath.
“Jake, can, it’s, um-… can I please-… Jake-” Chris’s voice shook, and Jake’s mind was moving slow - shit, he’d only gone to bed like three hours ago after he and Nat stayed up making inventory lists for buying new paper towels and other supplies. “Jake, my-… um, my Sir-”
Jake winced, suddenly far more awake than he wanted to be.
“-he… my Sir used to l-lock me outside during storms if I was, was bad, can I can I can I-… can I, can I stay in h-here with you? I don’t, I don’t want to-… please please please-”
Oh. Oh.
Jake pushes himself up to sitting quickly, wondering how it’s taken him so long to wake up enough to understand what Chris wants so badly to ask. “Hey, yeah, sure, Chris. Gimmee a sec.”
Jake makes room for Chris - the bed isn’t really big enough, but that doesn’t matter all that much with someone as small as the diminutive rescue. Chris’s reddish-blond hair looks coppery in the darkness, and his eyes are owlish as he climbs up into the bed. He moves limbs-first, like a spider, clinging to the bed as though he might fall off the earth if he wasn’t holding on.
“I need to, to put a shirt on, Chris-”
Another flash of lighting - this time the thunder hits immediately, and the windows rattle heavily in their frames.
Chris lets out a little squeak of fear and buries himself against Jake, tucking his head under Jake’s chin and throwing his arms around him. “Don’t care, don’t leave, please, please…”
“Ssssshhhh, it’s okay. I got you.”
My Sir used to lock me outside during storms.
Jake closes his eyes against the rage, and bundles Chris even closer, pulling him down into the bed to lay against him, holding Chris as tightly as he can. “I’ve got you,” He murmurs. “You can stay here all night, Chris. Right here with me.”
Chris nods against Jake’s throat and they have to shift around a little - it’s not a big bed, and getting remotely comfortable with two people in it isn’t easy - but eventually they mostly settle with Chris against the wall and Jake the barrier between him and the storm.
He keeps Chris’s head under his chin, eyes closed, half-dozing as the boy jerks and flinches with every lightning strike, each roll of thunder. After a while, Jake murmurs, “Anyone ever show you how to count th’ distance in a storm?”
“The, the what? Um, n-no, no no they didn’t,” Chris whispers back. His breath tickles against Jake’s neck.
“When you see lightning, count like this, slow and steady. One… two… three. Count ‘til you hear the thunder. My dad used to say it would tell you when the storm was, was going away.”
Only good thing I ever learned from that crock of shit, Jake thinks, but doesn’t say.
“Might… help you feel safe.” And help Jake get back to sleep before his alarm goes off in entirely too little time, so he can get up and start on breakfast for the rescues before he goes to class.
“Um, okay. Can you, can you try it with me? I’m, I was, I-” Another flash of lightning and Chris trembles, wriggling himself as close against Jake as he can. The movement isn’t entirely unpleasant, and Jake closes his eyes, counting as much for himself as for Chris.
“See? My dad would say it’s farther away this time.”
Chris nods - Jake can feel the motion of his hair brushing against Jake’s jaw. “I, I, okay. I can do that. I can. I’m, I’m sorry I woke you up, Jake…”
“It’s okay,” Jake says gently, rubbing a circle through the sweatshirt along Chris’s back, feeling the boy melt gratefully into the gentle touch. “That’s why we’re here, is to help you heal up. This is a thing you need help healing from. I got you, Chris. Just chill with me tonight, and see if we can’t get back to sleep.”
They count with the next flash, and the next. With each round of counting, Chris shakes a little less, doesn’t flinch, goes calm and boneless in Jake’s arms. by the seventh, Jake starts to count and Chris doesn’t join in at all.
He realizes, after a moment, that Chris’s breathing is even and deep.
He’s fallen asleep in Jake’s arms.
Jake sighs, laying mostly on his back and staring at the ceiling. He watched his ceiling fan lazily circle as he rubs matching circles in Chris’s back. He can still feel the long, thin fingers pressing into his ribs as he finally falls back asleep to the sound of distant thunder.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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"Chris." Krista sets the plate down on the coffee table, waving a hand in front of his face, trying for a slight and shaking smile. He doesn't even look at her, his eyes slightly off to one side, focused on nothing at all. "Hey. Chris, Nat got you a box of chicken nuggets and some fries, okay? Can you eat?"
He doesn't react at all at first, one of the strings from the hoodie he's wearing stuck in the corner of his mouth. He leans back and away from her, shaking his head without looking. It's less like an answer and more like an instinct, as if shaking water off his hair or out of his ears. His eyes are on the TV. "Not, not hungry," He mumbles around the damp cloth he's chewing on.
"Not hungry," She echoes, and her heart kicks up. Oh, Nat will be disappointed if he won't eat. She looks back over her shoulder, the others laughing in the kitchen, then back to Chris.
Small and young, he looks as lost as Krista often feels. They're all ghosts, but Chris seems like someone who can feel the chill of a grave down his spine, when he has a bad day.
Like today.
"Can... Can you try, Chris?"
His eyes flicker to hers and dance away again. He curls up, almost consumed by one of Jake's big sweatshirts, knobby knees sticking out from the basketball shorts he's always wearing. Again, he shakes his head, and this time he looks all around her - over and under and through. "Not, not, not hungry," He repeats, and she can see his hands twisting the fabric of his sleeves, pulling tight and twisting and letting go, doing it again. "I, I, I can't... Can't. Eat. Bad, bad pet. No, um, no dinner can't can't sit still bad pet."
"Bad pet," She whispers, and shivers. Her eyes close as she fights the fear that tries to claw up from deep inside her, the light that will freeze her if she can't get back to the safety of the dark. "Bad, bad pet."
"Bad pet," He whispers.
Which one of them is an echo? Which one is the original voice? She can't remember anymore.
Krista takes in a deep breath. "Okay, I... I have an idea. Nat asked me to get you some dinner. What if... we get a protein shake? With a straw?"
"Bad-"
"Good," She cuts him off. She can't hear it again. She can't. "A good pet sitting still to eat his dinner. Okay?"
He licks at his lips, pulls the hoodie string from his mouth. It's fraying at the end. His eyes cross a little as he focuses on something so close. "Um. Okay."
She exhales and goes back to the kitchen, ignoring the eyes on her as she pulls down a small bottle. This one is vanilla. There are strawberry ones, too.
But absolutely no chocolate.
Chris doesn't acknowledge her, but when she opens the bottle, settles a straw in, and moves it to his lips, he drinks. She watches the straw change color as the liquid rises, watches his throat move as he swallows.
He keeps sipping, and she keeps holding the bottle, and after a while it's gone. She sets the empty container down on the table next to nuggets and fries going cold. He doesn't speak.
But after a pause, he leans slowly over until his shoulder meets hers, until the side of his head rests against her own, mingling his copper-colored hair with her blonde.
"What happened, Chris?" She asks, in a whisper. Whatever it is, he doesn't want the others to know, or he wouldn't have hidden, silent, in here.
"Bad, bad dreams," He replies. His expression is carved by a sculptor, wide eyes and stark cheekbones and the memory of pain. "Bad dreams, bad... Bad me."
"Bad dreams. Not bad you. Dreams aren't real." She takes his hand in hers. Despite the sweater, his fingers are pale and cold. "They're not."
"But, but, but... what if the bad thing is, is something you... wanted? What, what if what you dreamed was... was, was, was so terrible... but, but it made you... so happy?"
This time, his eyes are the ones searching, and Krista is the one who looks away.
"I don't know," She says, and then echoes herself. She wonders what he dreamed. She doesn't dare ask. "I don't know."
Five sentence prompt for Kauri, Chris, or Nat: “Come on, breathe, I know you’re in there”
CW: Panic/fear response, mute whumpee (not really but not talking), minor whumpee (OC is 17), referenced pet whump, referenced collars
Timeline: Chris's first full 24 hours or so at the safehouse.
Also includes @outofangband's prompt!
"Come on, kiddo. Breathe. Deep breaths."
Her voice is solid, low and soothing, but his nerves all spark with the knowledge that the people with the softest voices are the ones who hurt him worst. He curls up more tightly instead, jammed into the corner between the bed and the wall, as far away from her as he can get.
He can see her dark eyes, considering him, her long braid swinging to the side as she peers through the underside of the bed to try and catch his eyes.
The last dose wore off... yesterday? He doesn't know how long he's been here. His mind is spinning, running a million miles a minute, uncontrolled trains full of terrified passengers and no destination. The thoughts loop through his mind, again and again, over and over.
He's not safe here. He needs his Sir, his Sir is safe, the hallway is safe the big bedroom is safe the pain is safe his collar is safe and this is not safe, this isn't safe at all.
"I know you can talk," She says, her voice still gentle - a trap, a trick, something he can't predict yet. He doesn't move and he doesn't look away from her, lying on his side with his knees nearly at his chin. His heart pounds behind the thin barrier of his breastbone and skin. "I know you're in there, Baldur."
He shivers, at the name.
His name but not his Sir and not Miss Nancy either.
He presses his lips together and stares back at her, silent, waiting for her to yank the bed back from the wall and start barking orders, or worse - to lower her voice more and speak like... like a handler.
Instead, she sighs, and pulls away. "I know you're scared," Her voice says. He can't see her face any longer, just her beat-up tennis shoes with gray laces. "We'll get there. But you gotta eat, kiddo, okay?"
He doesn't answer.
The sneakers shift and walk back and away from him, and he watches them go. The door opens and closes. There's a silence, and he takes a breath.
"You should speak to her, you know," A low deep voice speaks from the one across the room in the other bed. Baldur swallows around the lump in his throat. "She is really quite kind. You are safe here."
Other ones can lie, too, and this one isn't like him. He knew as soon as he saw him. This one isn't Romantic, and he'll be cruel, like the other ones in training could be.
Baldur doesn't move, makes no sound. He doesn't even breathe.
Eventually, the other one sighs and turns the page in the book he is reading.
Soooo fucking obsessed with the dynamic between a tired weapon of mass destruction and his weirdly intimate handler who genuinely wants the best for him but doesn't actually have enough power to free him, so they just do their best to try and look after him within the framework they have to operate in.
Grabbing him by the back of his neck and looking in his eyes, drilling an order because they know if he disobeys, he will get into trouble. Helping him hide his mistakes. Snapping at him and calming immediately when he flinches. Acting to others like they don't see him as more than an assignment but also not letting a single person fuck with him for no reason. Not being in a position where going easy on him is an option, so being intense and overbearing in this case is the only way they can look after him.
Considering Koko from my werewolf story. A shifter kept drugged to force down any aggression or attempts to free himself for so long he no longer even remembers being able to think for himself. Separated from captor through circumstance, feeling his mind clear.
The way it feels like stepping into water that's too cold against bare skin, his double-layered water-resistant coat all insulating him from feeling it all too much but the chill soaks in eventually.
Thinking is a terrifying prospect when he hasn't been allowed to do it for so long.
Hiding in the hollow space beneath a fallen tree, shifting to human to find the collar he's worn so long it rubbed bare spots in fur hanging now loose around a man-sized neck, his muzzle simply dropping off his face with no snout to hold tight over. Thumbs working with clumsy inexperience to find the buckles, to take the hateful things off.
Heart pounding, as he drops the soft aged well-used leather to the dirt, covering it in leaves and brush. Looking up with eyes that see clearly a blue sky between leaves, read scents in the air that were dull and soft for so long, suddenly sharp.
Wondering, as his mind begins to race, what his real name was before they took it from him.
Wondering how to find out.
Maybe he'll only learn if he asks with his hands and teeth closed on the throat of the man who kept him. Maybe the last thing he'll ever let that man tell him.
Standing up on two legs, wobbling and falling over again.
Inspired by Alien: Earth, I am thinking about a person who befriends a true monster. Not a wolf with soulful eyes, but a genuine, honest to God Threat with a Capital T to all life.
A person who speaks softly to snarling sneering bared teeth and lays a gentle hand on smooth, rubbery skin that ripples with anger. A person who curls up to sleep with a creature hovering overhead to protect them, who would massacre any and everything else.
A person who looks away from the bodies left in their wake, because none of them matters half as much as the monster who loves them, and only them.
What kind of person? What sort of personality? What is the background that leads to becoming this person? What is their past?
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For @amonthofwhump’s 12 Days of Whump, Day Four: Muzzled
CW: Whump of a minor (OC is 17), muzzled, pet whump, facility whump, collared, creepy whumper, ableism, drugging, some VERY vague implications of noncon
-
His alarm beeps, and Luke glances up.
Visiting hours over.
He sighs, sitting back, stretching his arms over his head and arching his back until his spine cracks. He used to be able to sit down and work on paperwork for the whole damn night, scratching his signature, writing up evidence reports, lying about why he pulled some asshole over…
Now, two hours at his desk in WRU, and his back sounds like a maraca. “You’re getting old, Petrus,” He mutters to himself.
It beats the alternative, though, right?
He stands up, shaking out one foot, leaving his training room and walking with purpose down the plain white hallway. Soft, muffled cries - from weeping or something else entirely - are sometimes vaguely audible from behind the other training rooms’ closed doors, and the sound makes him smile.
Nothing like a pretty thing in pain to make your day.
He takes a right, then a left.
The place is designed to be a maze, a labyrinth. Even the smartest escapees don’t get far - they end up running circles until they wear out, until a handler finds them and takes them down. The interns have maps on their cell phones, the new guys end up using them for months on end before they get the hang of checking for the tiniest marks on the walls that tell the handlers which direction to go.
His heavy uniform, with its long sleeves, keeps him warm in the Facility’s chilly air. When he passes a trainee on his way to a training room, a handler’s hand heavy on the young man’s shoulder, he watches the way the trainee shivers and presses himself to his handler’s side for warmth with his smile only growing wider.
It’s the visiting rooms he’s headed for - a small hallway with just a few spaces where perspectives can come interact before the training is over. It helps with bonding, with associating in the minds of the terrified men that the people they see here will be an escape from the torment of the Facility… if only they’re good.
Some of the handlers are nervous about these visits, worried about how their trainees might behave - you can get written up if your boy begs to be freed, or fights back. But Luke isn’t concerned about that. His boys know better.
And this latest one is probably the most desperate yet to get away from him. It’s a good feeling. It feels like the kind of power he could never have, even on the force, back in the day. It’s total and complete control over a human life, and this time there aren’t any consequences, as long as he doesn’t leave scars and nobody dies.
Next to the visiting room, there’s a muzzle hanging on a hook, and Luke takes it down. The black leather is smooth in his hand, and he rubs a thumb over it while scanning his badge on the reader. The door beeps softly, unlocks with a hissssss, and Luke steps inside.
“Governor Branch,” He greets, pitching his voice warm. “Time’s up, I’m afraid-” He comes to a stop, looking into the room.
Shout-out to characters who don't plan to survive their stories! Heroes who think they can only atone for their failures through sacrifice, villains who don't think they deserve to live in the world they're trying to create. Gimme that passive suicidality baby, mm-mm, delicious.
The meat in the soup that A had made practically fell off the bone and mixed in to the broth. It was so rich and hearty that it spread warmth through Whumpee's chest like nothing ever did. (Although B braiding their hair does give the same feeling.)
Whumpee had never had something like this before.
So filling and mouth watering.
A said it was something called “Chameen”.
Whumpee thinks they've heard of it. They've seen it. The red and black feathers. Their old handlers would eat the meat roasting it over fire. But it wasn't called Chameen then. They can't remember. But they never had it.
Previous handlers never fed them because they don't need food to survive.
But A and B give them food. And food tastes good.
They shoveled the last spoonful that was left in the bowl and looked at A. They were feeding B.
__
A's knee was warm to lean back on. They had folded their leg so B could lean on one while they sat up because it helped A feed them better.
B's eyes felt so heavy. But A looked so excited as they grabbed the bowl of soup. They felt nauseous, they felt bloated and full. But A's smile as they took a spoonful and raised it to their lips made them want to eat a few bites.
B took a bite. They couldn't taste anything. But it was warm. B furrowed their brows.
The texture of the meat was stringy.
“Why is it bad? I know I'm not the best cook but I tried to make it taste good.” A asked sheepishly.
“No no…” B trailed off. “What meat is that?”
A smiled at them mischievously. “Can you guess?”
B took another bite and mulled it over around their mouth.
B looked at A's smug face. “I got nothing. Is it a kind of mushroom?”
“No it's Chameen meat.” A said giddily.
B stared at them for a good two minutes.
__
A watched B stare at them.
“...what?” A asked hesitantly.
“Where did you get the Chameen?” B's voice was steady. Hoarse, but steady.
“The woods? While I was gathering?” A tried.
“How did you catch it?”
A could tell where this was going.
“Bow and arrow.”
A watched with dread as B took in a sharp intake of breath.
“You, went hunting.”
A wished the ground will open up and swallow them whole.
“Well not exactly…”
“Not exactly?”
“I went to gather and well I was looking for pallen tail for so long ya know? Cus you asked but I tried and tried and I couldn't find it-” A risked a look at B's eyes and immediately averted them again. “- so I was looking and wondering how I'm going to find dinner. Cus you know… dinner is important. So then the Chameen just landed next to me… like… a couple of feet away.. so like… I slowly took my bow and arrow and uhm.. you know like shot it.”
If B's looks could kill A would have a heart attack right about now. They wanted to say ‘oh look I think leader needs me’ and run out of there but B leaning on their leg was preventing them.
B took a deep breath closing their eyes. When they opened again A offered a nervous smile.
B ignored it.
“Take your shirt off.” They said bluntly.
“Wh-what?” A blushed.
“Take your shirt off. I need to see your ribs.”
A blinked and slowly took off their shirt.
B turned their body and started prodding and poking around their ribs with their eyes squarely on A's face.
B poked a certain spot and A winced.
B leaned back with that stubborn glint in their eye.
“You're leaving your bow and arrow in this tent.”
“But the forest-”
“You're not going in to the forest. We can find food from the creak down the hill. The supplies you got us will hold us for three days.”
“But-”
“Nope.”
A sighed. “Okay.” There was no point arguing. B had made up their mind. They had that ‘you are not getting out of this’ look.
“But will you at least eat it?”
“Of course I will. I love Chameen meat.”
A smiled, taking another spoonful and giving it to B.
__
Leader stared at A.
This was the third day A was here instead of B. Leader didn't like that one bit.
“Where's B?”
“They're resting.”
“Resting…”
Leader was glad they were getting some rest but the way A's eyes shifted away and how they insisted upon feeding another spoonful of broth didn't sit right with them.
“How has… camp been? B didn't say much.”
“It's alright. We've gotten in to a sort of routine. B said you'll be able to sit up soon.”
Leader hummed.
“Why didn't B come for the past few days?”
A prodded another spoonful to Leader’s lips. “They've been resting.”
Leader swallowed the morsel as quickly as A had pressed it to them.
“So I take it that you don't… plan on telling me the truth.” Leader winced slightly.
“I don't know what you're talking about.” A pressed another spoonful of broth a little too soon and tipped it in to leader’s mouth.
Leader was so glad they were recovered enough for A's feeding style. Maybe they secretly hated leader and wanted to poke the wound. Quite literally.
Leader didn't ask a question until A finished feeding them.
They couldn't believe it.
They were being silenced. By broth.
It made them want to throw that bowl away. It made them want to never eat.
They were all keeping secrets. Both of them were lying to them. They were the leader. They were the one who A and B used to turn to. Why would they lie to them.
How could they lie to them.
…
Leader knew why.
They knew it was because of the weapon.
They were becoming attached to it probably. They know these two. They used to carry A home on their shoulders after they finished fooling around in the meadows back in the Kingdom.
Leader looked to A.
This wasn't the kid that used to come up to them to show the biggest fish they caught. This wasn't even the person who'd beg for them to spar together.
This person couldn't stand them. This person bolted the moment Leader tried to talk.
This person chose the thing over everything they went through.
“I'm finished. Thank you.”
A blinked. “There's more. Are you sure you're done?”
“Yes I'm sure. Thank you.”
A cleared their throat. “You… you don't have to thank me.”
“I know. I'm assuming B is sick. Go check on them.”
“But I'm supposed to change your bandages.”
“You can change them tomorrow.”
A stared at them as if they wanted to say something.
“You have something to say.”
“No… no.”
“We have always talked about everything. There's no reason for that to change now.”
“Yeah. I know. That won't change.” A smiled. “It's just… I think B will be okay to come back tomorrow. So I won't be coming to change the bandages in that case.”
Leader smirked. “Oh praise the heavens. I was half scared to death at the thought of you doing it.”
A blushed. “Hey! I can do it!”
“Sure. And I will also remember the Gods every ten seconds and B will wonder why certain patches of my skin are missing.”
A narrowed their eyes. “It's better than the time you tried to make me a fishing rod.”
“You fished with it successfully!”
“I also got splinters from it successfully.”
“Splinters build character.”
A rolled their eyes. “Of course they do.”
Leader breathed out deeply.
“A?” They said their name softly.
They raised an eyebrow at the change in Leader's tone. “Yeah.”
“How… how're your ribs?”
A crooked their neck. “Eh they're fine. B keeps scolding me about moving around too much though.”
“I see…”
“They don't hurt as much.”
“That's good.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“A?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm sorry about your ribs. I didn't think I… it's not an excuse but I didn't think I hit you that hard.”
A blinked slowly as if they didn't exactly know how to react.
“Hey… don't.. it's okay. Anyway… I punched first.
“But it doesn't make it right. I'm sorry.”
A sighed. “Okay. Apology accepted.” A crossed their arms over their chest. “Are you going to apologise for insulting my bandaging skills.”
Sabine asked for the meeting after dinner. She didn't ask during intake. She didn't ask while Charity cleaned the split skin around her tracking implant removal or while Lucky photographed the bruising around her wrists for the sealed medical file. Nor did she ask when she signed a name that belonged only to her for the first time and stared at it until the ink dried.
She waited three days.
Then she came into Kestrel’s office carrying a child’s yellow hair ribbon.
“I need to contact June.”
Kestrel didn’t answer immediately.
Sabine had been classified as a Domestic-Caregiver combination. She’d spent eleven years in the Bellamy household and ten of those years raising their daughter.
June Bellamy was twelve years old.
Sabine had packed her lunches. She’d slept beside her bed when she had the flu and learned how to braid her hair from videos because June cried when her father pulled too hard. She’d attended school meetings while standing two steps behind Mrs. Bellamy and helped with spelling tests, scraped knees, nightmares and the first terrible months after June’s mother died.
Then Sabine had disappeared through the employee entrance of a hotel with nothing but a stolen coat and the yellow ribbon clenched in her fist.
Kestrel folded her hands on the desk.
“What kind of contact?”
“I don’t know.”
“That matters.”
“I know it matters.” Sabine’s voice sharpened. “I’ve spent three days being told everything matters.”
Kestrel let the anger pass through her, unmet.
Sabine looked exhausted. She wore a donated sweatshirt with the cuffs pulled over her hands. The ribbon had been wound around two fingers so tightly that the tips had begun to darken.
Kestrel reached across the desk slowly.
“Your fingers.”
Sabine looked down. She unwound the ribbon at once, trained obedience moving faster than thought. Her face changed when she realized she’d done it.
Kestrel drew her hand back.
“I wasn’t giving you an order.”
“I know.”
“You reacted like it was one.”
“I know.”
Sabine closed her fist around the ribbon again, looser this time.
“I raised her.”
“I know.”
“She’ll think I left her.”
Kestrel’s expression remained still.
“She may.”
Sabine flinched.
Most people would’ve softened the answer. Charity might’ve said they didn’t know what June had been told. Wick would’ve explained that children understood more than adults expected. Someone kinder might’ve offered hope first.
Kestrel had learned that false reassurance was another way of taking control.
Sabine stared at her. “They’ll tell her I ran away because I didn’t love her.”
“They might.”
“Her father told her pets don’t love like people do. He said we bond because we’re trained to.
Kestrel felt the old, cold part of herself settle into place.
“What do you believe?”
Sabine’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Kestrel waited.
Finally Sabine said, “I don’t know which parts of me they put there.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“I loved her.”
“Then you loved her.”
Sabine’s eyes filled so suddenly that she turned her face away.
“She was two,” she whispered. “The first night they brought me home, she climbed into my lap. Nobody told her to. She just did it. She had applesauce in her hair.”
Kestrel pushed the tissue box across the desk without looking at it.
Sabine didn’t take one.
“She used to come into the laundry room when I was being corrected,” she continued. “She’d pretend she needed socks. She knew if she stayed in the room, he wouldn’t—”
Her voice stopped.
Kestrel didn’t make her finish.
“She tried to protect me.”
“She was a child.”
“I know.”
“You were protecting her, too.”
“I left her there.”
“You left her with her father. That isn’t the same as leaving her alone.”
Sabine laughed once, bitter and breathless. “You don’t know him.”
“No,” Kestrel said. “But I know men who make everyone else responsible for what they do.”
The office door opened quietly.
Dami came in carrying two mugs and a glass of water. They took in Sabine’s posture, the ribbon in her hand and Kestrel’s untouched tea.
They set the water near Sabine.
“Legal team is ready,” they said.
Sabine’s shoulders rose.
Kestrel looked at Dami. “Give us another minute.”
Dami’s eyes moved to Sabine’s hand.
“Ribbon is hurting you.”
Sabine immediately loosened it again.
Dami remained by the door.
Kestrel tipped her head toward the hallway.
They understood and stepped outside, pulling the door nearly closed behind them.
Sabine watched them go.
“Do you always keep guards outside these meetings?”
“Dami isn’t guarding me.”
“They watch every door you’re near.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like guarding.”
“They’re guarding the exits.”
Sabine looked at Kestrel for a long moment.
Then she wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
“You’re going to tell me I can’t contact her.”
“I’m going to tell you what direct contact could do.”
“I know what it could do.”
“Then tell me.”
Sabine went rigid.
Kestrel recognized the response. Testing. Recitation. The demand to prove understanding before being granted anything.
She adjusted.
“I’m not asking you to earn permission,” she said. “I need to know which risks you’ve already considered.”
Sabine swallowed.
“They could trace the call. They could pressure her to ask where I am. They could record me. Her father could pretend to be her. He could use the fact that I contacted her to prove I’m emotionally unstable or that I was never being held against my will.”
“Yes.”
“He could punish her.”
Kestrel’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“He could make her believe it’s her fault I left.”
“Yes.”
Sabine’s voice broke. “He’ll do that anyway.”
That was the center of it.
Not the call.
Not the tracing risk or the lawsuits or the television interviews Mr. Bellamy had already begun giving about his missing caregiver.
Sabine wanted to place one truth somewhere her owner couldn’t reach it.
Kestrel stood.
“Come with me.”
The legal room had once been a conference room, back when the building pretended it was only a community clinic. Now the windows were covered with privacy film and the whiteboard held no names, only case numbers.
Wick sat at one end of the table, his crutches resting beside his chair. He looked pale beneath the overhead lights. Dami had taken the seat nearest him, one hand resting lightly against the back of Wick’s neck.
Charity sat across from them with Foundation counsel and a child-trauma specialist named Dr. Evelyn Shaw.
Nobody stood when Sabine entered.
Charity had made that a rule after too many survivors mistook standing adults for an approaching wall.
Sabine sat beside Kestrel.
Wick reached across the table. Kestrel placed her hand in his without looking at him. His thumb pressed once against her knuckles.
Counsel opened a folder.
“There are three possible routes,” she said. “None of them involve direct, unsupervised contact right now.”
Sabine’s jaw set.
“Let her finish,” Kestrel said, then looked at Sabine. “That wasn’t an order.”
“I know.”
“You can leave.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
Counsel continued. “The safest option is a one-way letter delivered through June’s court-appointed representative.”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“We’re petitioning for one.”
“On what grounds?”
“Her father’s public use of her in an active civil and criminal matter. He’s had her appear in two interviews asking for your return.”
Sabine went white.
Kestrel hadn’t wanted her to learn about the interviews in a room full of people.
Dami’s hand left Wick’s neck.
“Show her,” they said.
Charity looked at them. “Dami—”
“Needs to know.”
Sabine stared at the closed laptop in front of counsel.
“Show me.”
The interview lasted forty-three seconds.
June sat on a cream-colored sofa with her father’s hand on her shoulder. She wore her school uniform and the expression of a child trying not to cry because she’d been told crying would ruin the take.
Sabine made a sound when she saw her.
Not a word.
Something pulled out of the body.
June looked directly into the camera.
“If you can see this, please come home. Dad says you might be confused. We aren’t angry. I need you. Please stop hiding.”
The video ended.
Sabine remained motionless.
Wick closed his eyes.
Kestrel’s fingers tightened around his.
“She cut her hair,” Sabine said.
No one answered.
“She hates it above her shoulders.”
Charity reached toward Sabine but stopped before touching her.
Sabine looked at counsel.
“What are the other options?”
“A recorded message, reviewed by your attorney and Dr. Shaw before it’s delivered. June can watch it without her father present, assuming the court approves the representative.”
“And the third?”
“A controlled exchange through counsel. Letters only, screened for identifying information, coercion and tracing attempts.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“I understand.”
“No, you understand that I want contact. I want to hear her. I want to know whether she’s sleeping. She gets migraines when she doesn’t sleep. She won’t tell him because he says headaches are attention-seeking.”
Dr. Shaw spoke gently. “Sabine, June may not be able to talk to you without protecting her father.”
“I don’t care if she protects him.”
“You might care if she asks you to return.”
Sabine went silent.
“She may believe that’s the only way to keep you safe,” Dr. Shaw continued. “Or herself. She may repeat things he’s told her. She may be angry with you. She may say something she doesn’t mean because an adult is listening.”
“I can handle that.”
Kestrel watched her.
“Can you?”
Sabine turned on her. “You think I’ll go back.”
“I think conditioning can make returning feel like the only way to stop someone else from suffering.”
“I’m not conditioned to her.”
“No,” Kestrel said. “You’re attached to her. That can be more powerful.”
Sabine shoved back from the table.
The chair legs scraped hard against the floor.
Dami stood at once but didn’t move toward her. Lucky appeared in the doorway, drawn by the sound, and stayed there with both hands visible.
Sabine looked from one trained guard to another.
“I knew this wasn’t a choice.”
“It is,” Kestrel said.
“You’ve already decided.”
“We’ve decided no live call today.”
“You said I could leave.”
“You can.”
“And if I walk out?”
“We won’t stop you.”
Sabine’s eyes went to the door.
Lucky stepped aside immediately.
The corridor beyond him was empty.
No locked door.
No hand reaching for her.
No voice changing into something she had to obey.
Sabine didn’t leave.
She sank back into the chair and covered her face.
“I promised her,” she said. “She was six. Her mother had just died, and she asked whether I’d disappear too. I promised I wouldn’t.”
Kestrel let go of Wick’s hand.
She moved her chair closer to Sabine, leaving enough space between them that Sabine wouldn’t feel enclosed.
“You made that promise while someone else controlled whether you stayed,” Kestrel said. “It wasn’t yours to guarantee.”
“It was real to her.”
“Yes.”
“I broke it.”
“The people who owned you broke it.”
Sabine shook her head.
Kestrel lowered her voice.
“You don’t have to disappear without explanation. But you also don’t have to place yourself back within reach to prove you loved her.”
Sabine looked up.
Kestrel held her gaze.
“We can help you tell June the truth that belongs to you. Not everything. Not where you are. Not who helped you. Not anything her father can use to find other people.”
“What truth?”
“That leaving wasn’t her fault. That she didn’t fail to make you happy. That you remember her. That the love she felt from you wasn’t pretend.”
Sabine’s mouth trembled.
“And that I’m not coming back?”
Kestrel didn’t look away.
“Yes.”
The words hurt.
That didn’t make them wrong.
Sabine stared at the yellow ribbon in her hand.
“Can I tell her about the applesauce?”
Dr. Shaw’s eyes lowered.
Counsel looked toward Wick.
Wick cleared his throat, the sound catching before the first word.
“Y-you can tell her anything that belongs to the two of you.”
Sabine glanced at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Mr. Bellamy doesn’t own every memory made in his house.”
For the first time since the video played, Sabine’s face changed.
Not relief.
Something smaller.
A crack where relief might eventually fit.
They recorded the message the following afternoon.
Sabine changed her shirt four times.
She chose a plain blue sweater because June had once told her blue made her look like the sky right before snow.
The recording room contained no Foundation logo, no window and nothing that could identify the building. Kestrel sat behind the camera. Charity stayed by the door. Dami waited in the hallway with Wick, who’d been ordered to rest and had interpreted that as permission to sit in a wheelchair outside the room making legal calls.
Sabine faced the lens.
For nearly a minute, she said nothing.
Then she took the yellow ribbon from her wrist and held it in her lap.
“Hi, Junebug.”
Her voice broke on the name.
She stopped the recording.
They started again.
“Hi, Junebug.
“I saw your message. I’m sorry I couldn’t answer it right away. There are things I can’t explain yet, and there are things adults may tell you about me that aren’t true.
“I need you to know that I didn’t leave because of you.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You couldn’t have said something different or behaved better or watched me more closely. It was never your job to keep me there.
“I remember your first day of kindergarten. You wore both shoes on the wrong feet because you said they felt friendlier that way. I remember the purple cast you hated and how you made me draw a dragon over it. I remember you hiding in the laundry room when you thought I was scared.
“You were brave. But you shouldn’t have had to be brave for me.
“I remember the applesauce in your hair.
“I remember every lunch note.
“I kept the yellow ribbon.
“What I felt for you was real. It is real. Nobody trained me to know the face you make when you’re trying not to laugh. Nobody ordered me to sit beside you when the thunderstorms were loud. Nobody made me love you.
“I’m not coming home.”
Sabine stopped.
Her breathing turned shallow.
Kestrel didn’t interrupt.
Sabine closed her eyes, then opened them again.
“I know that hurts. I know you may be angry with me. You’re allowed to be angry.
“But I had to leave because staying was hurting me. One day, I hope you’ll understand that leaving a place that hurts you isn’t the same as leaving every person inside it.
“I can’t tell you where I am.
“I am safe.
“You don’t have to look for me. You don’t have to save me. You don’t have to make your father forgive me.
“You’re twelve. Your job is to grow up. Make friends your father thinks are strange. Read books that are too long. Wear your shoes on the correct feet, unless you’ve decided I was wrong about that.
“And when you’re older, if you still want to know me, there will be a way for you to ask.
“I love you, Junebug.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.
“I’m glad I got to help raise you.”
Sabine reached forward and ended the recording herself.
No one moved.
Then Kestrel came around the camera.
Sabine stood so quickly their bodies nearly collided.
For one terrible second, she looked as though she expected Kestrel to correct her for ruining the take.
Kestrel opened her arms instead.
Sabine folded into her.
She was taller than Kestrel. Most people were. It didn’t matter. Kestrel held her with one hand between her shoulder blades and the other cupped around the back of her head.
Sabine sobbed into the blue sweater she’d chosen for June.
“I left her,” she said.
Kestrel pressed her cheek against Sabine’s temple.
“Yes.”
The truth shuddered through her.
“And you survived leaving.”
In the hallway, Wick lowered his phone.
Dami’s hand settled over his where it rested on the wheel of his chair.
Neither of them looked away from the closed recording-room door.
Three weeks later, the court-appointed representative delivered the message.
June watched it twice.
She didn’t send a letter.
She sent the yellow ribbon’s matching blue one, sealed in an envelope with a single handwritten sentence.
I’m still angry, but I know you’re real.
Sabine read it at the kitchen table.
Then she pressed the ribbon to her mouth and wept until Charity sat beside her, until Dami silently moved the kettle off the heat, until Kestrel came in and rested a hand against the back of her neck.
No one told her the message was closure.
It wasn’t.
It was a door neither of them could safely open yet.
For anyone worried because they write the same trope more than once: I love that shit. I will love that first one and I will still be excited for the thirtieth one. Let these idiots do the same thing over and over again. We deserve that.
A few years ago, I had an anon go in my ask box saying along the lines of "Why do you post the same thing over and over? You're clearly not delivering good stuff on the table." Likely over me writing/talking about the used as bait trope.
So. I wrote and talked about it more out of spite >:)
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Kestrel found Dami in the service corridor, sitting on the floor beside the locked supply closet, staring at their hands. Their back was against the wall. Their knees were drawn up awkwardly in the narrow space, their six-foot-three frame folded down as small as it could reasonably become.
She sat beside them, shoulder fitting beneath theirs. She leaned against their side, solid and familiar, and took one of their hands between both of hers.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
“She remembered me,” Dami said.
“I know.”
“Remembered her.”
“I know.”
“Broke her wrist.”
Kestrel tightened her grip around their hand.
“Yes.”
Dami’s thumb moved once over her knuckles.
“She was seventeen.”
Kestrel closed her eyes.
They hadn’t said that in the room.
They’d kept it from Tess because telling her they remembered exactly how young she’d been would’ve been another wound.
“Thought bringing her back myself was better," Dami said.
“You were wrong.”
“Yes.”
“You were also being used.”
“Yes.”
“Both things are true.”
Dami stared at the opposite wall.
“Don’t know what to do with that.”
“You live with it.” Kestrel rested her head against their upper arm. “You make different choices now. You respect every boundary she gives you. You don’t ask her to make you feel better.”
“Wouldn’t.”
“I know you wouldn’t.”
Their fingers closed around hers.
Kestrel stayed tucked against their side, quiet enough that Dami didn’t have to perform being all
right.
After several minutes, footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor.
Dami went rigid.
Kestrel didn’t move away.
Lucky appeared around the corner, saw them on the floor, and stopped.
“Tess is with Charity,” he said. “She’s asking questions about the east residence.”
Dami looked up. “Shouldn’t have to think about where I am.”
“She wants to know the boundaries are real.”
“They are.”
“I told her that.”
Dami glanced toward the community room. “Does she want me to leave now?”
“No. She wants the route maps.”
Kestrel lifted her head. “The internal ones?”
Lucky nodded. “Only for this building. She wants to mark the rooms she’ll use and the times she expects to be here.”
Dami began to stand. She caught their wrist.
“You’re not going back in there.”
“Need to see the routes.”
“I’ll bring you a copy.”
“Can adjust my schedule now.”
“You can do it from home.”
Dami looked down at her. She held their gaze.
“This isn’t an emergency,” she said. “You don’t need to solve it before you’re allowed to breathe.”
Dami’s expression flattened.
Lucky folded his arms. “That means she’s right.”
“Understood what she meant.”
“Good. Saves time.”
Kestrel climbed to her feet, using Dami’s forearm for balance. Once she was steady, she offered both hands.
Dami took them.
She hauled uselessly.
Dami rose mostly under their own power. They let her pretend she’d done it.
“You’re going home,” Kestrel said.
“I drove.”
“No, Lucky drove.”
“I can drive his car.”
“You’re not stealing Lucky’s car.”
“I know the access code.”
Lucky’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you know the access code?”
“Entered it in front of me.”
“One time.”
They shrugged. “All I needed.”
Kestrel rubbed a hand over her face. “This household is exhausting.”
“You married Wick twice,” Lucky said. “You made an informed decision.”
Dami looked toward the community room again.
The faint humor disappeared.
“What if she changes her mind?”
“Then we deal with it,” Kestrel said.
“Where would I go?”
Her face hardened.
“Home.”
They stared at her.
“Home,” Kestrel repeated. “With me and Wick.”
Dami hummed. “Might be impractical.”
“I’m not discussing the practicality of whether you’re allowed to live in your own house.”
“Not my house.”
Lucky made a quiet, pained noise.
Kestrel stared up at them. “You have a bedroom. You have keys. You’re on the emergency contact list. You reorganized the pantry and terrorized three separate contractors about the upstairs smoke detectors.”
“They were incorrect.”
“You live there.”
Dami looked away.
Kestrel stepped closer and put one hand at the back of their neck, not forcing their gaze down, simply holding them there.
“You’re my partner,” she said. “That doesn’t stop being true because someone has every right to be afraid of you.”
Dami swallowed.
“Platonic,” Lucky added.
Kestrel looked at him.
“What?” he said. “Wick’s going to ask whether we clarified.”
“You’re thinking about sleeping in an alley so you don’t inconvenience anyone.”
“Doesn’t affect motor function.”
“It affects my willingness to sit beside you at seventy miles an hour.”
Dami considered that.
“All right.”
They left through the rear exit.
Dami sat in the back with Kestrel, though the front passenger seat was empty. Kestrel stayed close enough that their arms touched from shoulder to elbow.
Neither spoke during the drive.
When they reached the house, the downstairs lights were on.
Wick was waiting in the sitting room with a blanket over his legs, his crutches leaned against the side of the sofa. A mug sat untouched on the table beside him.
He took one look at their faces and pushed himself more upright.
“What happened?”
Kestrel closed the door behind them.
“A survivor recognized Dami.”
Wick went still.
Dami remained near the entryway.
“They were sent to retrieve her,” Kestrel continued. “Years ago.”
Wick’s eyes moved to Dami.
He didn’t ask whether it was true.
He didn’t ask what WRU had made them do.
He asked, “What does she need?”
Dami answered from beside the door. “Separate routes. No shared rooms. No information about her schedule. Doesn’t want me near her.”
“All right.”
“Might decide I need to leave.”
Wick’s fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.
“The building or the organization?”
“Hasn’t decided.”
“And if she asks for the organization?”
“I’ll resign.”
Kestrel took off her coat with sharp, angry movements.
Wick watched Dami carefully. “Did Kestrel tell you that means you’re moving out of our house?”
“No.”
“Did you decide it anyway?”
Dami didn’t answer.
Wick closed his eyes briefly.
“D-Damiel.”
Dami flinched at the use of their full name.
Not because Wick sounded angry.
Because he sounded tired and frightened.
“This is your home,” Wick said. “Not Foundation housing. Not temporary placement. Not a reward for good behavior.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Dami stood very still.
Wick reached for one of his crutches.
Kestrel crossed the room immediately, but he shook his head.
“I’m coming to them.”
“You’re already in pain.”
“I’m aware.”
Dami moved first.
They crossed the room and crouched in front of the sofa so Wick wouldn’t have to stand. Even kneeling, they were nearly level with him.
Wick set the crutch aside.
For a moment, his hand hovered near Dami’s face.
“May I?”
Dami nodded.
Wick rested his palm on their cheek.
“You hurt someone,” he said.
“Yes.”
“She’s allowed to hate you.”
“Yes.”
“She’s allowed to want nothing from you except distance.”
“Yes.”
“None of that means WRU gets to take the rest of your life too.”
Dami’s eyes lowered.
Wick’s thumb moved once against their skin.
“You came home,” he said. “That was the right choice.”
“Kestrel made me.”
“I assisted,” Kestrel said.
“She threatened to involve Lucky.”
“That’s not a threat. That’s logistics.”
Wick almost smiled, but it didn’t hold.
“What did you do to her?” he asked quietly.
Kestrel looked at him.
Dami answered before she could intervene.
“Tracked her to a motel. She tried to escape through the bathroom window. I restrained her. I broke her wrist and returned her to the facility.”
Wick’s face went pale.
Dami watched him absorb it.
“Told her to stop making it worse,” they added. “Believed I was keeping her from getting hurt more.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
Wick looked down at his hand where it rested against Dami’s neck.
“No,” he repeated.
Dami waited for him to pull away.
He didn’t.
His expression was stricken, but his hand stayed exactly where it was.
“I don’t know what to say,” Wick admitted.
“Don’t have to say anything.”
“I want to.”
Kestrel came around the sofa and sat beside him. One hand settled over Wick’s wrist. The other reached down and rested between Dami’s shoulders.
The three of them stayed connected in the quiet room.
Wick took a careful breath.
“I believe her,” he said.
“So do I.”
“I’m horrified by what happened to her.”
“Yes.”
“And I love you.”
Dami looked up sharply.
Wick’s mouth trembled.
“Not in the same way I love Kestrel,” he said. “Before you make that face.”
“Didn’t make a face.”
“You did.”
“It was minimal.”
Kestrel’s hand pressed more firmly between Dami’s shoulders. “He means you’re family.”
“Know what he means.”
“Do you?”
Dami hesitated.
“No.”
Wick nodded as though that was the answer he’d expected.
“It means you don’t have to be innocent to come home,” he said. “None of us are.”
“Not comparable.”
“No. It isn’t.” Wick’s stutter caught briefly as his voice tightened. “I’m not comparing it. I’m telling you that this house isn’t a courtroom. You don’t lose your bedroom because your history becomes difficult for us to look at.”
Dami’s eyes flicked toward the stairs.
Their bedroom was on the second floor. The same room they’d chosen because it had two windows, a clear line to the landing, and morning light at seven thirty. Their mug was in the kitchen. Their clothes were in the dryer because Wick had complained that Dami couldn’t keep wearing the same four shirts while living with people who owned a pharmaceutical company. Their shoes were beside Kestrel’s by the back door. There were three toothbrushes in the upstairs bathroom. The house had adapted around them so gradually they’d never been able to identify the moment staying had become living.
“Might need to stop working at the center,” Dami said.
“Maybe,” Kestrel said.
“Should give my job to someone else.”
“Maybe.”
“Could be recognized again.”
“Yes.”
Dami looked at her.
Kestrel didn’t soften the truth.
“We’ll need a protocol,” she said. “A real one. Not one that assumes your past stays abstract because it’s convenient for us.”
Dami nodded.
“No surprise contact,” Wick said. “Staff should know how to remove you from the space without treating you like an active threat.”
“Survivors should be told about retrievers working with the Foundation,” Dami said.
Kestrel considered it. “Without identifying you unless necessary.”
“They should know.”
“They should have enough information to make choices,” she agreed. “But WRU doesn’t get a public list of every former product working here.”
Dami’s jaw tightened.
She was right. That didn’t mean they liked it.
Wick leaned back against the sofa, fatigue creeping into his face.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll make the protocol tomorrow.”
“Should be done tonight.”
“No,” Kestrel and Wick said together.
Dami looked between them.
Wick pulled the blanket aside.
“Come up here.”
“Not enough room.”
“There could be. Kes needs to stop taking up two-thirds of the sofa.”
“I’m 5’2.”
“You occupy space with intent.”
Kestrel shifted closer to Wick, leaving a narrow section on her other side.
Dami stared at it.
“Butt is bigger than that.”
“Sit on the floor, then,” Kestrel said. “But you’re not going upstairs alone to inventory every bad thing you’ve ever done.”
Dami sat on the rug between their knees.
Kestrel’s hand immediately returned to the back of their neck. Wick rested his bare foot against Dami’s thigh beneath the edge of the blanket.
Ordinary contact.
No ceremony.
No absolution.
Just the physical language the three of them had built together: I’m here. You’re here. Nobody is leaving tonight.
After a while, Wick asked, “Did she hit you?”
“Yes.”
Kestrel glanced at him. “How did you know?”
“There’s a mark.”
Dami touched their cheek, then stopped when they remembered there was no useful sensation to check.
“Hit me twice.”
Wick’s expression tightened.
“She was scared,” Dami said.
“I know.”
“Had a right to be angry.”
“I know that too.”
Wick’s hand found Dami’s shoulder.
“Knowing why someone hurt you doesn’t mean I enjoy seeing the mark.”
Dami didn’t respond.
Kestrel’s fingers moved through the short hair at the base of their skull, separating a small tangle.
“Tess said she doesn’t want WRU deciding Dami is a monster,” she told Wick.
Dami turned their head slightly. “Said she wasn’t giving me anything.”
“She wasn’t.”
Wick nodded. “That belongs to her.”
“Yes.”
“But you heard it.”
Dami looked toward the dark window.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
They sat there until Wick’s foot grew cold against Dami’s leg and Kestrel’s hand became heavy with sleep.
Dami stayed awake longer than both of them.
They listened to Wick’s uneven breathing settle. They felt Kestrel’s fingers loosely curled against the back of their neck. Then, carefully, Dami rested one hand over Wick’s ankle and the other over Kestrel’s wrist.
Dami had been carrying a box of donated coats when the survivor saw them.
Nothing dramatic happened at first.
The box didn’t fall.
No one screamed.
The survivor simply stopped breathing.
They stood just inside the community room with Charity beside them, one hand still curled around the strap of a canvas bag. They’d arrived twenty minutes ago under a name nobody had verified and nobody intended to. Their hair was badly cut, as if they’d taken scissors to it in a bathroom mirror. Their coat was too large. Their eyes had tracked every door since they came inside.
Then they landed on Dami.
Six foot three. Broad shoulders. Dark clothing. The same controlled walk they’d had in the facility, every footstep placed deliberately, their body quiet enough to disappear despite its size.
Dami stopped.
The box remained braced against their chest.
The survivor’s face emptied.
“No,” they whispered.
Charity looked between them. “Tess?”
Dami’s grip tightened on the cardboard.
The survivor backed into the wall.
“No. No, you said this place was safe.”
“It is,” Charity said carefully.
“You said they couldn’t come here.”
Dami lowered the box to the floor without taking their eyes off the survivor. Their movements were slow now, exaggeratedly visible.
“Tess,” Charity said, “nobody’s going to touch you.”
“They already did.”
The words came out shredded.
Across the room, Kestrel looked up from the folder she’d been reading.
Lucky rose from his chair.
Neither of them moved closer.
Dami stood with their hands empty at their sides.
The survivor stared at them.
“You,” they said.
Dami didn’t deny it.
The survivor’s breath hitched so hard it hurt to hear.
“You came to the motel.”
Dami’s expression changed by less than most people would’ve noticed. Their jaw went rigid. Their eyes sharpened, not with threat, but memory.
“Yes,” they said.
Charity’s attention snapped to them. “Dami.”
“They asked me a direct question.”
“I didn’t ask you a question!” Tess shouted. “I know it was you.”
Dami went still.
The whole room seemed to arrange itself around that stillness.
Tess pressed harder against the wall as though she could force herself through it.
“You were wearing a gray jacket,” she said. “There was blood on the sleeve.”
Dami glanced down at their left arm.
An old reflex.
“Yes.”
“You knocked twice.”
“Yes.”
“You said you were from the front desk.”
“Yes.”
Lucky shifted nearer to the hallway, quietly clearing the path to the exit. Kestrel set the folder aside. She moved only as far as the edge of the table, keeping her body low and her hands visible.
Tess wasn’t looking at anyone but Dami.
“I knew you were lying,” she said. “I climbed out the bathroom window.”
Dami swallowed.
“You landed badly.”
Tess made a sound like she’d been struck.
Charity turned on Dami. “Stop.”
“I’m sorry,” Dami said immediately.
The words were for Tess, not Charity.
Tess’s whole body shook. “You remember.”
“Yes.”
“How many people did you drag back?”
Dami’s mouth opened.
Closed.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
The honesty was terrible.
Tess laughed once, breathless and ugly. “Of course you don’t.”
Kestrel’s gaze moved to Dami, a silent warning against explanation. Against reaching for conditioning as a shield. Against trying to make the damage smaller because they hadn’t chosen the hands that made them do it.
Dami understood.
They always understood Kestrel fastest when she said nothing.
Tess touched the side of her neck.
There was no collar there now, but her fingers found the place one had been.
“You caught me behind the ice machine,” she said. “I hit you with a pipe.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t even react.”
“I couldn’t feel it.”
“I hit you again.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept coming.”
Dami’s breathing had changed. Measured in. Measured out. Too deliberate to be calm.
Tess stared at them with tears running down her face.
“You looked at me like I was nothing.”
Dami’s voice came quieter. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I remember your room number. I remember the broken window latch. I remember you’d shoved the dresser against the door, but the carpet caught under the left leg, so it didn’t hold.” Their fingers curled against their palms. “I remember you had no shoes. I remember there was glass in your foot.”
“Dami,” Lucky said softly.
They stopped.
Tess looked sick.
Dami took one step backward.
Then another.
“You remember all of that,” Tess whispered, “but you don’t remember how many of us there were?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Dami’s face had gone blank in the way it did when blankness was the only thing holding everything else in.
“Because they didn’t let me keep names.”
Tess flinched.
Dami did too.
Not from pain. From the sight of it.
“They gave me photographs,” Dami said. “Routes. Likely shelters. Medical risks. Whether you were expected to fight.”
“You broke my wrist.”
“Yes.”
The word landed without defense.
“You put your knee on my back.”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
Dami’s voice nearly failed. “I know.”
“You told me to stop making it worse.”
Dami closed their eyes.
There it was.
The sentence.
Not a command WRU had programmed into them. Not a script handed over by a handler. Something Dami had said with their own mouth because Tess had been fighting and Dami had needed her still.
When they opened their eyes again, Tess was waiting.
“I said that,” Dami said.
“You said it like you were helping me.”
“Thought I was.”
Tess stared at them.
Dami’s voice thinned.
“They told me the retrieval team coming after me would use restraints that damaged shoulders. Said you had a heart condition. Said if I brought you in quietly, you wouldn’t be punished.” Their gaze dropped to the floor between them. “Believed them.”
“And did they punish me?”
Dami didn’t answer.
Tess’s face twisted. “Did they?”
“Yes.”
Dami said it so softly the room almost lost it.
Tess crossed the space before anyone realized she’d moved.
Lucky tensed.
Kestrel lifted one hand, stopping him without touching either of them.
Tess slapped Dami across the face.
The crack echoed off the walls.
Dami’s head turned with the force of it but they didn’t raise their hands. They couldn’t feel the sting. They could only hear it, calculate the angle, register the heat blooming in Tess’s palm and the horror on Charity’s face.
Tess hit them again.
They stood there.
The third time, Kestrel moved. She caught Tess’s wrist gently before the strike landed and released it the moment Tess stopped pulling.
“You don’t have to protect them,” Tess said.
“I’m not.” Kestrel’s voice was calm enough to cut. “I’m protecting you from having to wonder later whether you became someone you didn’t want to be.”
Tess yanked her hand back.
Dami’s cheek was reddening.
They didn’t touch it.
Kestrel looked at them. “Leave the room.”
Tess gave a broken laugh. “That’s it?”
“No.” Kestrel didn’t look away from Dami. “It’s the first thing.”
Dami nodded.
They bent to pick up the box.
“Leave it,” Charity said.
They straightened again.
For one second, they looked uncertain where to put their hands. Then they held them loosely in front of their body, visible and empty.
“Won’t come into this wing while you’re here,” they said quietly Tess. “Lucky can tell me the routes. Won’t see me unless you ask to.”
“I’m never going to ask.”
They nodded. Their lips pressed together.
Tess’s breathing was ragged. “I spent six years thinking you were coming through every door.”
Dami looked at the doorway behind her, then deliberately shifted farther from it so they weren’t blocking the exit.
“Won’t come through this one again.”
Something in Tess’s expression cracked.
Not forgiveness.
Nothing close.
Just the shock of being believed without argument.
They turned.
“Wait.”
Their body halted before thought.
Every muscle locked.
Tess saw it.
So did Kestrel.
The command response was small, almost invisible, but survivors knew the language of bodies trained to obey.
Tess’s anger faltered.
Dami stayed facing the hallway.
“You were one of them,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But you were wearing a collar too.”
The room went silent.
Dami’s hand rose halfway to their neck before they stopped it.
“Yes.”
“I thought it was tactical gear.”
“Was made to look like it.”
Tess wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “Did they send someone after you when you ran?”
“Yes.”
“Did they catch you?”
Dami looked toward Kestrel. She held their gaze, steady and close. She didn’t answer for them.
“Yes,” Dami said.
Tess stood very still.
“What happened?”
“That isn’t something they owe you,” Charity said.
Dami’s gaze remained on Tess. “I was returned.”
The phrasing was clinical. WRU language. Safer than saying what return had meant.
Tess understood anyway.
“And then they sent you back out.”
“Yes.”
“To do it to somebody else.”
“Yes.”
Tess’s mouth trembled.
Dami waited.
There was no version of this where they asked her to see the collar before the hands. No version where their captivity erased hers. They’d learned that guilt could become another demand if placed in the wrong person’s lap.
So they stood quietly and carried it themselves.
Tess looked at Kestrel. “You knew?”
“I knew what they were trained for,” Kestrel said. “I didn’t know they’d been sent for you.”
“And you let them work here?”
“They don’t do retrievals.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.” Kestrel’s voice stayed level. “It isn’t.”
She came around the edge of the table, stopping several feet away.
“Dami doesn’t live here,” she said. “They live with me and Wick. But they work here. They’re part of the Foundation, and we don’t ask anyone they harmed to forgive them, trust them, speak to them, or share space with them.”
Tess’s eyes flashed. “And if I say I want them gone?”
Dami’s shoulders lowered slightly.
They’d already accepted the answer.
Kestrel noticed.
Of course she did.
“This is your first day,” Kestrel said. “You don’t have to make permanent decisions while your body thinks you’re back in that motel. Tonight, Dami goes home with me. You stay here. They won’t return to this wing, use this entrance, or access your schedule.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you still don’t have to decide.”
Tess looked at Dami again.
“You’d go?”
Dami turned slowly enough to face her without startling her.
“Yes.”
“Just because I said so?”
“Don't want it to be unsafe for you.”
Kestrel’s jaw tightened. Her hand flexed once at her side, wanting to reach for Dami and refusing to make Tess watch her comfort them.
Tess saw that too.
“Then what?”
“I’d go home.”
“Where’s home?”
“With Kestrel and Wick.”
The answer was quiet but immediate.
Kestrel’s shoulders eased by a fraction.
Tess looked between them.
“You love them,” she said.
Kestrel answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
Tess flinched.
Kestrel let her.
“They’re my partner,” she continued. “Platonic. They’re family to me and to Wick.”
Dami’s eyes dropped.
“And I believe you,” Kestrel said. “I believe what they did to you. Loving Dami doesn’t require me to lie about that.”
Tess sank into the nearest chair as if her knees had stopped working.
Charity moved closer but didn’t touch her.
After a moment, Tess said, “I don’t want them gone.”
Dami looked up.
“I don’t want to see them,” she added fiercely. “I don’t want them near my room. I don’t want them knowing my schedule. I don’t want them asking about me.”
“They won’t,” Lucky said.
Tess stared down at her hands.
“But I don’t want WRU deciding they’re a monster and that being the end of it.” Her voice shook. “They did that to all of us.”
Dami’s face folded for half a second.
A tiny, involuntary fracture.
Then it was gone.
Tess shot them a look.
Despite everything, a strange sound escaped Lucky. Not laughter. Nearly.
Tess rubbed her palm, the one she’d struck Dami with.
“You really can’t feel that?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Shouldn’t.”
Tess nodded once. Then she looked away.
It was dismissal, and Dami recognized it.
They left without picking up the box.
Kestrel stayed with Tess until Charity had settled beside her and Lucky had brought over a printed floor plan.
