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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Owners disliked interest. Owners disliked curiosity. Owners disliked when pets noticed other people too much, because noticing became wanting, and wanting became disobedience if it wasn’t corrected early.
So Finch kept their eyes lowered and their hands folded neatly in their lap on the drive back to the hotel, knees pressed together, shoulders back, spine straight despite the blooming pain beneath their ribs.
Mr. Harrow was in an excellent mood.
That was worse than a bad mood in some ways. Bad moods were direct. Bad moods had patterns. They gathered in the jaw, the fingers, the silence. Finch could prepare for a bad mood.
Excellent moods made him generous. Generous meant demonstrations. Demonstrations meant hands on their body, in their hair, in all the crevices Finch hated. Or the ones they would hate if they were allowed that.
“You did well tonight,” Mr. Harrow said, swirling the last of the champagne in the glass he’d taken from the gala.
Finch’s stomach turned over. They still plastered on a small smile. “Thank you, sir.”
“You smiled when instructed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t stare.”
“No, sir.”
“You did have a moment with Mrs. Wickham, though.”
Finch’s hands did not move but their heart did. One hard slam behind their sternum.
“No, sir.”
Mr. Harrow laughed softly. “Don’t lie to me, Finch.”
Finch swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“For what?”
They didn’t know. That was the trap. Mr. Harrow loved that trap.
“For giving the wrong answer, sir.”
“Better.”
The city lights slid across the window. Gold and white streaked over the glass, bright and distant and useless.
Mr. Harrow leaned back in the seat. “She noticed you.”
Finch said nothing.
“She has that look, doesn’t she? Like she thinks herself very righteous. Very controlled.” His mouth curled. “I’ve always found people like that are the easiest to compromise. All that restraint. All that dignity. You only have to find where the pressure belongs.”
Finch kept breathing.
In. Out.
Quiet.
Mr. Harrow reached over and dragged two fingers along the collar beneath their pearls.
Finch went still.
“Perhaps I should give her a lesson in discipline,” he murmured. “Since she seems so fond of charity.”
The car stopped.
Finch’s body knew the order before Mr. Harrow spoke.
They opened the door, stepped out first, checked the curb, then moved aside for him. The hotel entrance gleamed with brass and glass. Two private guards waited near the doors. Mr. Harrow’s assistant stood at the concierge desk with a phone pressed to one ear.
Everything looked normal.
That was the problem.
Cruelty looked very normal from the outside.
Finch followed Mr. Harrow through the lobby, half a step behind, eyes lowered. People smiled at him. Not at Finch. Never at Finch. They were furniture with a pulse, an accessory that breathed, a decorative answer to a question no decent person asked out loud.
The elevator was waiting.
Mr. Harrow stepped inside first.
Finch followed.
One of the guards joined them. The other remained below with the assistant.
The doors closed.
No one stopped them.
No one called Finch’s name.
No dramatic hand slid between the elevator doors. No righteous interruption came from the lobby. No one looked up from the concierge desk as the numbers climbed.
Nothing would happen. Rescue was a fantasy pets whispered before being returned in worse condition. Rescue was a word people used when they wanted to make punishment feel like proof. Rescue was never quiet.
The elevator opened on the penthouse floor.
Mr. Harrow swept out.
Finch followed him into the suite, then stopped beside the door and lowered their eyes.
The rooms had already been prepared. Fresh flowers. Ice bucket. Whiskey. Late supper under silver domes. A hotel manager stood near the dining table with a nervous smile.
A young server waited behind him, white jacket crisp, gloved hands folded.
Finch didn’t look at him. Looking was unsafe.
“Mr. Harrow,” the manager said, “welcome back. I hope the gala was enjoyable.”
“It was profitable,” Mr. Harrow replied. “Which is better.”
The manager laughed too quickly.
Mr. Harrow moved to the table and lifted one of the silver domes. His expression soured.
“I specifically said no olives.”
The room chilled.
The manager’s smile broke around the edges. “I’m very sorry, sir. We can have that remade immediately.”
Mr. Harrow looked at Finch.
Finch’s throat tightened.
“Fix it,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Not with the front desk. The kitchen. Personally. And if they try to send me another plate with olives, you’ll explain to them exactly how much I dislike repeating myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Harrow smiled.
There it was.
Generosity.
He was giving them a task. A chance to fail privately. A chance to return with fear already started under their skin.
Finch took the tray when the young server lifted it.
The server didn't look at their bruises.
He didn't look at their collar.
He simply said, “This way.”
Finch followed him out.
The door closed behind them.
The hallway was empty.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
The server led Finch to the service elevator at the end of the corridor. He pressed the button with his knuckle. Finch held the tray carefully, elbows tucked in, shoulders level, because dropping it would be worse than anything.
The service elevator opened.
Inside stood a housekeeping cart, a stack of folded towels, and a woman in a gray uniform arranging washcloths with both hands.
Finch stepped in.
The server stepped in after them.
The doors closed.
The elevator began to descend.
Three floors.
Four.
Then it stopped.
Not at the kitchen.
Finch’s heart lurched.
The doors opened onto a service corridor with bare walls and buzzing fluorescent lights.
The woman with the towels moved first, pushing the housekeeping cart out as if this was ordinary.
The server held the elevator door with one hand.
“Finch,” he said.
Their name in his mouth was quiet.
Not a command.
Not Mr. Harrow’s voice.
Finch’s grip tightened on the tray.
The server removed his cap.
He was older than Finch had thought. Tall. Broad. Brown skin. Calm face. Guard Dog stillness under hotel whites.
Lucky Johnson.
Finch knew the shape of him instantly, because their body had been trained to recognize threat even when it entered politely.
This didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like a door that had opened where there had never been a door before.
Lucky said, “You don’t have to come with us.”
Finch stared at the floor. The tray trembled in their hands.
The woman in the housekeeping uniform turned slightly. She didn't block the hall. She kept one hand on the cart and the other visible at her side.
“The kitchen's one floor down,” she said. “This room is here. Door stays open unless you ask to close it. Five minutes. Water. A chair. A doctor, if you want one.”
Finch couldn’t breathe.
This wasn't rescue.
It couldn’t be.
Rescue would have announced itself. Rescue would have grabbed them. Rescue would have made itself big and bright and punishing.
This was a hallway. A service elevator. A tray cooling in their hands. A choice so small Finch could barely recognize it.
Lucky watched them without moving closer.
“Mrs. Wickham said you might ask for water,” he said.
He arrived forty minutes late with a smile white enough for cameras and a pet kneeling half a step behind him.
Kestrel knew before she saw the bruises.
There were things the body learned to recognize. A held breath. A spine arranged too carefully. Hands folded in the exact shape of fear. The small delay before obedience, not because the pet had disobeyed, but because pain made movement expensive.
The pet wore a collar of dark leather under a strand of pearls.
The pearls were for the gala.
The collar was for Harrow.
“Mrs. Wickham,” Harrow said warmly, offering his hand. “What a pleasure.”
Kestrel smiled.
It was a beautiful smile. Polished. Camera-ready. Empty.
“Mr. Harrow,” she said. “We’re grateful you could join us.”
His hand closed around hers.
Too tight.
Testing, maybe. Or simply used to making everything in his reach flinch.
Kestrel did not.
A flash went off.
Then another.
Beside her, Wick leaned on one crutch, his expression mild in the way it became when he was considering how many ways a man could be professionally ruined before dessert. His gaze dropped once to the pet.
Only once.
That was all it took.
Harrow followed the glance and laughed. “Ah. Yes. This is Finch.”
The pet lowered their head.
Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for Kestrel to feel it behind her ribs.
“Finch,” she repeated.
The pet’s lashes trembled.
Harrow’s smile widened. “Very well trained. I find discipline is a dying art.”
Kestrel’s fingers tightened around the stem of her champagne glass.
Wick’s hand came over hers before the crystal could sing.
She let him take it.
“Leigh,” he murmured, voice soft enough to be intimate for the cameras and warning enough for her alone. “Let me.”
Because there were cameras.
Because the Foundation’s books had been cleaned three times and still wouldn’t survive the wrong kind of investigation.
Because every safehouse they funded lived beneath a lie.
Because if she moved wrong, Finch would be punished for it before sunrise.
So Kestrel smiled again.
“Discipline,” she said, “depends entirely on the person enforcing it.”
Harrow chuckled as though she’d made a clever little joke.
Wick’s fingers closed around the champagne glass.
Kestrel watched Harrow draw Finch nearer with two lazy fingers slipped under the collar. Not hard. Not visibly cruel. Just enough.
Finch moved at once and knelt beside Harrow’s chair when he sat.
The gala flowed around them.
Music. Laughter. Forks against plates. Wealth dressed up as generosity.
Kestrel stood at the head table and gave a speech about dignity.
Her voice did not shake.
She thanked their donors for believing in the Foundation’s mission.
Her smile did not crack.
She spoke about shelter, medical access, transitional housing, legal advocacy.
She did not look at Finch when she said the word freedom.
Not once.
If she looked, Harrow would notice.
If Harrow noticed, Finch would pay.
So Kestrel looked out over the ballroom, over chandeliers and silk and polished silver, and let them clap for her like she was something respectable.
Like she wasn’t planning a crime before the salad course.
Wick’s hand rested lightly at the small of her back as she stepped away from the podium.
“Breathe,” he said under the applause.
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m standing.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She turned her head enough for the cameras to catch the fondness in it. Anyone watching would see Mrs. Wickham murmuring something sweet to her husband.
What she said was, “I need Harrow’s driver.”
Wick’s smile did not move. “Already asked for the plate.”
“And Finch’s registration.”
“Lucky’s working on it.”
“And the hotel.”
“Charity has rooms ready.”
Kestrel swallowed.
For one terrible second, something almost broke through her face.
Wick shifted, blocking her from the nearest photographer with his shoulder.
“You can hate him later,” he said. “Not here.”
Her laugh was soundless. “I hate him now.”
“Yes,” Wick said. “But elegantly.”
That almost saved her.
Almost.
Then Harrow’s voice carried across the table.
“Finch.”
The pet’s head lifted.
“Smile.”
Finch smiled.
Small. Automatic. Dead around the eyes.
Kestrel felt the champagne stem break in her hand.
Wick had taken the glass.
It didn’t matter.
Some sliver had stayed behind, somehow. A bright, wicked little crescent in her palm. Pain opened clean and hot across her skin.
She closed her fist around it.
Wick saw.
Of course Wick saw.
His expression changed by nothing at all.
“Kestrel,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Not fast. Never fast. Not in front of Harrow. Not in front of cameras. She drifted from the ballroom with the smooth, composed grace expected of Leigh Kestrel-Wickham, co-CEO, wife, benefactor, miracle in heels.
“I said I’m fine.”
She stepped away before he could stop her.
The bathroom door closed behind her.
The music dulled.
The smile fell off her face.
For a moment she stood in front of the mirror and did not recognize the woman looking back.
Lipstick perfect. Hair perfect. Diamonds at her throat. Blood dripped steadily from her closed fist into the porcelain sink.
She opened her hand.
The cut was deeper than she’d thought.
A bright line split her palm, red beading fast, then running down toward her wrist. There was a shard of glass still embedded near the base of her thumb.
Kestrel stared at it.
Her breathing went thin.
Not panic.
Not quite.
Something older. Something colder.
A pet kneeling beside a chair.
A collar hidden under pearls.
A man smiling for cameras.
A child in a house where no one called it cruelty because cruelty had paperwork.
The bathroom door opened carefully.
Wick came in without knocking.
Kestrel did not turn around.
“This is the women’s restroom,” she said.
“I’m very rich.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It opens most doors.”
She smiled. It quickly vanished.
Wick crossed to her slowly, crutch tapping against the tile. He set a folded napkin beside the sink. Then a small first aid packet. Then her clutch.
No lecture. No grabbing. No panic.
He looked at her hand.
“That needs tweezers.”
“I know.”
“May I?”
Kestrel’s fingers flexed. Blood welled again.
She gave him her hand.
Wick was careful.
He was always careful with her now, and sometimes that hurt worse than carelessness ever had.
He braced his crutch against the counter, took the tweezers from the packet, and removed the glass without a word. The shard hit the sink with a tiny, delicate sound.
Kestrel flinched.
Wick wrapped the napkin around her palm and pressed down.
“Lucky found the hotel,” he said.
Her eyes lifted to him in the mirror.
“Where?”
“Penthouse at the Alcott. Two private security. One driver. Harrow’s assistant booked a service elevator.”
Kestrel’s face went still.
Wick kept pressure on her hand. “Rho is already moving.”
“Finch leaves tonight.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t care what Harrow donated.”
“I know.”
“I don’t care what he can prove.”
“I know.”
“If Finch says no, we don’t take them. If Finch can’t say yes, we wait until they can. But Harrow does not leave this city with them.”
Wick’s jaw tightened.
For the first time all evening, his smile was gone.
“No,” he said. “He doesn’t.”
Kestrel looked down at their joined hands. His fingers were stained with her blood now.
“I shook his hand,” she said quietly.
Wick’s grip shifted, not tightening. Just there.
“You kept Finch alive long enough for us to do something that lasts.”
“I smiled.”
“You survived the room.”
Her throat worked.
“I wanted to kill him.”
“I know.”
“I still do.”
“I know.”
The bathroom was very quiet.
Outside, the gala applauded again. Another speech. Another lie dressed in velvet.
Kestrel breathed in.
Then out.
Her eyes dried before tears could form. Her face remade itself piece by piece in the mirror. Soft mouth. Calm brow. The faintest curve of a smile.
Wick watched it happen, and something in him went bleak.
“Be careful,” he said softly.
Kestrel looked at him.
“As much as I can be,” she said. Then she took the bandage from his hand and wrapped her palm herself.
What was the first forbidden thing your boxie oc tried in freedom? Or, if they haven't yet, what would they try if they could?
For Joey?
- sara / @justplainwhump
(way into the future)
Joey's pulse was racing the whole time and for several hours after, but it was driven by wonderful exhilaration, not crippling fear.
Aaron bid him goodbye in the kitchen in the morning, Joey was still dressed in his pajama pants and the hood of his soft, well-worn hoodie pulled halfway over his head. He nursed a fresh cup of coffee and nodded sleepily along as Aaron squuezed his shoulder and told him he'd be back home in time for dinner - Marla was coming too and she'd bring her special recipe marinated chicken (which she once had confided in Joey was mostly garlic and smoked paprika).
"See you then," Aaron said and picked up his briefcase by the shoulder strap.
"See ya," Joey yawned, and when he finished, the door was already closed behind his keeper.
He let the feigned sleepiness disappear immediately. His hands were shaking and it wasn't the caffeine.
He was so quick up the stairs that his long healed ankle smarted. He never minded as he pulled off his hoodie and pajamas, quickly finding the pair of jeans - new, never properly used, but still had all the right wrinkles and light spots - in his closet. By his door, new sneakers with dazzlingly white soles. Then, a fresh hoodie and as quickly as he had come up, he flew down the stairs again.
In the hallway, he stopped, breathed, clenched and unclenched his hands.
In a dish on a teak chest of drawers lay several sets of keys. Joey located the one he wanted with his eyes before he reached for it. A single nondescript metal key, solitarily placed on an empty ring. Not even a keyring to go along with it.
Gingerly, taking care to not let the metal make any sound, he pulled it out of the bunch. As if he wasn't home alone and would be continue to for the next eight hours.
Suddenly, he had separated it from the others. Cold metal in his hand, his to wield. He cupped it in both hands and held it close to his chest for a moment, before turning to the door in the kitchen that led to the garage.
--
Aaron was in an unreasonably good mood as he pulled in the long driveway up to his house. It looked silent and desolate, as usual, but he knew somewhere inside was his little ward, listening through his old records or on the phone with Marla (and probably mostly listening to her, too).
"Joey?" he called as he stepped inside, putting down a bag of groceries. "I got that brand of soda that you like, Fizz-something. They didn't have peach, so I got lemon - hi."
"Hi."
Aaron found Joey sitting by the kitchen island as he rounded the corner and entered the room. He seemed to be almost trembling with energy, his lips pressed tightly together. For a short, short moment, Aaron was worried. This manner was so new. Joey was normally pulled back, careful. But now he had a shining glint in his eyes.
Aaron's gaze moved away from his face and down to the counter in front of him. There was a paper bag with a familiar logo and a paper cut with a straw in.
"Did you order in?" Aaron asked as he set down his briefcase and tried to recall when he'd taught him how to do that. Maybe Marla had at some point.
"No," Joey shook his head and bit his lip, to stop what Aaron now could see was a smile trying to break free.
"Did you..." Aaron tried again, not sure what to say. The fast food place was relatively close, but still quite a walk.
"I drove," Joey finally beamed. He gets crow's feet when he smiles this wide, Aaron noticed in the back of his mind.
"You- drove-?" he stuttered, and raced through the possibilities in his mind. He had taken his own car to work, so he must have used the green vintage thing that had taken up space in his garage for three years.
"Please don't be mad," Joey said softly, and his eyes were big now, immediately worried at the lack of reassurance.
"I'm not! I'm not mad," Aaron hurried to put him at ease. He stepped forwards and offered his open arms, that wordless invitation that had become second nature a long time ago. Joey leaned towards him and let himself be enveloped.
"I'm not mad, I promise," Aaron muttered into his dark hair, and he could feel the tension bleed out of Joey's muscles. "I just- you can drive stick?"
Joey nodded against his shoulder. "I guess I do," he whispered gleefully.
Again he bit his lip so as not break the moment. Ten months ago, the mere thought of leaving the house without getting the explicit permission and order to do so, would have been unthinkable. And today he had sat in the driver's seat of a car, all alone, not even thinking about how to use a gear shift. Just falling back on past muscle memory that the memory wipe couldn't take from him.
Neither moved for a long moment, save Aaron's hand making large circles on his back.
"And she runs?" he eventually asked.
"Purred like a cat."
--
all the small things too of course, like using the furniture and saying (carefully, politely) no to things. but one day getting into a car, going down to the sleepy fast food place where the interstate meets main street, order something and then leave again - not telling anyone where he was going, not feeling like he has to tell anyone at all - that was the first 'illegal' thing. aaron didn't say it here but he would like to know if, when and where joey goes. at least as long as he still has that barcode tattoo.
--
@simplygrimly @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @briars7 @hackles-up @doveotions @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @kixngiggles @firewheeesky @maracujatangerine @nicolepascaline @whumpthisway @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @whumping-snail @pumpkin-spice-whump @pigeonwhumps @whumplr-reader @considerablecolors @dustypinetree @snakebites-and-ink @inkstainsonmyhands12 @taterswhump @hxakfhakbcbqkk i'm sorry if i forget anyone, shoot me a dm!
Joey gets a nosebleed and isn’t quite sure how to handle it.
TW/CW: conditioned whumpee, pet whump (not really), whumpee afraid caretaker will hurt him (doesn't happen), nosebleeds and descriptions of blood
--
The morning had been deceptively calm up until that point. It all starts when Joey’s top lip feels warm. The feeling subconsciously tips him off and he swipes his fingers across his face. They come back bloody.
A part of him he thought was long since gone suddenly awakens and forms a curse on his tongue as drops of his blood drips down onto the kitchen table. He holds his hands under his face and leans back to keep from staining the table further, and instead it drips onto his shirt. When he leans forward again to save his shirt it drips between his legs and onto the kitchen chair he’s sitting on.
“No, no, nonono…” Joey whines desperately to himself as he stumbles backwards and to his feet. The chair scratches loudly along the floor. One of his arms shoot out to help regain balance and he knocks over his glass, spilling the last of his juice on the table and down onto the floor. Joey hiccups something halfway to a sob when he sees the red droplets on the cupboards across the room, which were no doubt flung there during his flailing.
There are tears in his eyes when he finally stills, focusing on breathing. Can he clean this up before Aaron comes into the kitchen to tell him goodbye before he leaves for work? He looks around. Definitely not. There’s juice and scratches on the floor and blood everywhere. He probably can’t even reach the red drops on the cupboard. He doesn’t know where the cleaning supplies are, and even if he did he wouldn’t know which were okay to use on hardwood and which would stain it further.
The only way out is to keep Aaron out of the kitchen and take care of the mess when he’s at work. Joey presses his fingers against his nose and tilts his head back, willing the blood to stop. If he can only clean himself up with paper towels, somehow cover the stain on his shirt and meet Aaron in the hallway to stop him from entering the kitchen at all-
“No, wait, don’t lean back,” Aaron’s voice cuts through his rambling thoughts like sunshine through stormclouds. He has entered the kitchen without a sound - or maybe Joey was too upset about his bleeding nose to notice. Joey whips around and makes a noise that is halfway terrified, halfway questioning. What do I do? To his great despair, another couple of drops fling from his hands and land on Aaron’s shirt - a deadly sin if there ever was one. Joey’s eyes are huge and brimful of tears.
Aaron does not at all seem to mind the blood as he raises his hands up to Joey’s head. Joey doesn’t dare move a muscle. This is it, he thinks as he feels Aaron’s hand at the base of his skull, the other one on his chin. . He’ll choke me out. The other shoe has dropped.
But Aaron only gently presses, and Joey immediately folds, following the pressure until he’s pushed his head forwards.
“It’s dripping on the floor-“ Joey starts to sob.
“We’ll clean it up after,” Aaron says, not missing a beat, and Joey takes the words to heart unquestioningly. “You’re okay, it’s just a nosebleed. Come over to the sink and tip your head forwards.” Aaron’s voice is calm and not rushed at all. He’s not mad, Joey realizes.
He trustingly follows Aaron’s directions and stumbles over to lean his head over the sink. He wants to grip the edge of the sink for balance, but his hands are covered in blood so he ends up holding them in tight, tight fists instead, not quite sure what to do.
“There we go,” Aaron says as the blood drips into the sink, still holding a warm hand to the back of Joey’s head. “We want it out, not down your throat.”
“M-hm,” Joey says through his teeth, not confident to say anything else at the moment.
“Do you think you can pinch your nose shut?” Aaron gently asks, taking a step to the side to try and meet Joey’s eye. “I read somewhere that will help stop it.”
“Y-you do it,” Joey says before sense can get the better of him. But Aaron nods.
“Okay. Tell me if it hurts.” Aaron gently takes hold of the soft flesh of joey’s nose between his thumb and forefinger. Joey is shaking until he feels Aaron’s other hand slightly tighten its grip at the base of his skull. The effect is instantaneous. He relaxes into the secure grip, of which he realizes there have been very few of since he came here. Aaron is always careful and gentle with him, and asks before he touches him, whether it’s verbal or non-verbal. Joey has found he likes that, and still ... the trained, ingrained, good-boy-part of him likes feeling a firm, steady hand.
“Remember to breathe, sweetheart,” Aaron suggests after a few moments, and Joey does as he’s told. Lips parted, he takes measured, steady breaths.
For a minute or two, neither say anything. The blood eventually stops oozing out between Aaron’s fingers, and he loosens his grip.
“I got blood on your shirt,” Joey hopelessly reminds his keeper. “And the cupboards.”
Aaron’s hand moves down to where his neck becomes his spine and gently massages him there with his fingers. Joey feels the tension slowly melt and run down his bones, disappearing.
“I have many shirts and cupboards, Joey. I only have one you.”
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don’t mind me, disappearing for two months. anyways. something more experimental coming soon. i’m also pondering another story, with a … supernatural streak.
TW/CW: pet whump, bbu, feelings of separation anxiety and general anxiety (yes i’m writing instead of going to therapy), mentions of broken and bruies bones, fear of non-/dubcon (not in a direct sense and nothing happens, they’re just thoughts of what might happen once), emeto mention. let me know if i missed anything!
-
Joey wakes up to the morning sun rays hitting his eyelids. The November sun isn’t warming, it’s just bright, so he allows himself to stay in bed a little longer to relish in the warm coziness under the comforter and the heavy blankets. Sir is so generous to let him sleep in a bed, with such a soft pillow and with blankets to keep him warm. A distant part of him wonders when he’ll have to pay for it all. And how.
He almost dozes off again. In the end he suddenly startles awake, body jerking, afraid to oversleep.
The house is unusually quiet.
After a couple of weeks here he has grown accustomed to soft music coming from one of the bluetooth speakers, or from the TV. Sir says he likes the background noise when he works (and so, Joey has come to like it too). He spends hours in his office everyday, looking over papers and documents and typing on his laptop. Joey sometimes joins him, dozing on the loveseat that is placed in the window nook.
He is allowed to do that here, encouraged even, to stay close like that. Sir says he likes having him nearby. If it’s to know where his property is or just for easy access when the day inevitably comes, he doesn’t say.
This is not very whumpy nor very comforty. Mostly context and worldbuilding, but I’m trying to work up something more piquant for later. Also Aaron is whipped for Marla y’all. He’s down bad. He might have some mommy issues idk
CW/TW: very little whump in general but some mention of collars, scars and bruising, I guess dehumanization but not outright? more like they’re talking about it.
-
Aaron goes out to meet Marla Chavez in the foyer, leaving his little housemate to wait in the living room.
She stands in the middle of the room, car keys in hand and a tote bag over her shoulder. In her other hand she’s holding a cardstock box of cookies, the fancy kind from a real bakery. Her lips are slightly pursed, her eyebrows pulled down. She is by no means very tall or very strong, but one look from her is enough to bring Aaron to his knees in front of her when they’re both in the mood for it. Today, however, her expression makes him feel like a young boy again, being scolded for breaking a window with his baseball.
“Hi, Marla,” he tries, unsure of how to start it all off.
Her eyes narrow. “Aaron.” It’s short, cold, how he’s heard her address prosecutors in court. He almost flinches.
“He’s in the living room,” he says and juts his thumb over his shoulder, pointing back at the door. “I’ve just told him that you want to meet him.”
Her face doesn’t change. “I’d like you to introduce us. And then I’d like you to wait somewhere else while I speak with him.”
He nods, sensing what her intentions are.
Is this man hurting you? Are you being held here against your will?
Ok it’s been a while. Life got in the way. Anyways, this is short and sweet thing. Love’s worry is unwarranted, but I still like seeing him like this :’)
TW/CW: dehumanization/animalization, brief and vague mention of injury, fear of abuse, difficulties with food
–
Sir cooks meals for the both of them, and the pet lingers closeby, paying close but quiet, veiled attention. Sir seems to like it when he uses the furniture, so he makes sure to do that. He will sometimes beckon him up on the counter as well, with a little “C’mere,” while patting the slate surface, and the pet obeys. Sir gives him small bits of what he’s cooking, handing him a broccoli floret, a piece of cooked chicken glistening in grease, half a slice of toast smeared in honey.
This turned out much longer than I plannet and a lot of it is exposition and worldbuilding, but bear with it because there’s some whump at the end I promise. Also I’m not a lawyer so maybe take the law-talk in this with a bunch of salt
CW/TW: heavy conditioning and dehumanization/animalization, whumpee thinking dubcon/noncon is about to happen but nothing really happens, mention of scars and broken ribs, accidental whump, let me know if i missed any!
–
Aaron’s mother always keeps the guest bedroom made up in case the household ever receives short-notice guests. It’s a habit Aaron brought when he got his own place. Granted, he doesn’t change the unused bed sheets every three weeks like she does to avoid them getting dusty, but still. He’s grateful that he can open the door to the guest room and the bed is already made up.
His house guest watches him carefully, clearly still not trusting him. But when he smiles and gestures slightly, the boy obediently limps past him, stopping in the middle of the room and turning around. His naked toes curl into the thick rug. His hair is still wet, but clean, at least. The waft of citrus that comes off it as he passes reminds Aaron that he should get on calling Marla right away, before she finds out about this whole arrangement on her own. He should hit up Mike too, to get some more info on the boy’s injuries.
“Bathroom’s in there,” he says and points to the ensuite door.
The boy nods, but still looks like he wants to say something judging by the way his knuckles whiten around the hem of his sweater. He notices Aaron looking and disguises it by talking a half step to the side, slightly turning and cocking his head in the process.
He has these little mannerisms, ways of displaying behaviour that should be natural, but it all looks rehearsed. Well rehearsed so, practically flawless, but Aaron sometimes notices anyway. It’s as if he thinks about every single motion he does, as if he’s hyper-aware of his appearance. The way his fingers slightly twitch, how he sometimes pauses for a millisecond, his gaze never lingering in the same place for long.
Aaron wants to chalk it up being nervous and injured and in a whole new environment, but something in him tells him it’s more than that. He’s just not sure exactly what it is yet.
“It’s okay, you can speak if you want to,” he eventually says when the boy doesn’t start off on his own.
He breathes, blinks, and meets his gaze again. His green eyes are suddenly wide open and trained directly at his own, filled with something Aaron doesn’t quite recognize.
CW/TW: heavy conditioning, dehumanization/animalization, scars, bruises, blood, mention of broken bones, dubcon stripping (in the sense that verbal consent isn’t given but not dissent either, just following a suggestion - i don’t think it’ll be a problem but like read on your own risk maybe), collar mention, let me know if i missed any
–
The boy only offers a quiet “Yes, Master,” when Aaron suggests a bath. His hair, long and unkempt, still has blood and grime in it from the time he spent in the forest. He’s cold to the touch, too, and he clings to Aaron as he carries him up to the bathroom.
He sits him down on the edge of the bathtub, busying himself with plugging the drain and checking the temperature of the water whilst he wonders how he should go about this. The boy, well, he’s not a boy. They have to be at least 18 to sign the contract, that much he knows. And he knows that pets aren’t necessarily used to having privacy, or bodily autonomy. Still, as he opens a bottle of foaming shower gel and pours some in, he feels that there isn’t exactly an urge in him to help another grown man clean himself. But then again, the boy is thoroughly beat up and he might not be able to do it on his own either.
Or just ask him, you idiot, he thinks and looks over at his house guest. The boy sits very still with his hands in lap, his bare feet on the tiles below, soaking up the heat from the floor. His eyes have slid almost all the way shut.
“Would you like help? Or would you rather be alone?” Aaron asks as he shuts the water off.
The boy flinches at the sound of his voice. He straightens his back. “I… I would like help, p-please.” He swallows and carefully looks at Aaron, wide eyes full of doubt and apprehension. “If it’s … not a bother, Master.”
There’s something so pitiful and forlorn about the way he says it, about the way he’s so afraid of doing anything wrong, that Aaron’s heart clenches.
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I honestly don’t know why I can’t keep to a single tense throughout multiple installments, I just know that I can’t
CW/TW: caretaker that has no idea what he’s doing, mentions of blood and bruises, reference to being beat up, scars, complicated relationship to food - let me know if I missed anything!
–
The boy had slept most of the way home, curled up against the car door, head leaning on the window. It seemed like a cold and hard place to rest, and Aaron wanted to slide a folded up sweater in between the boy’s dark hair and the window, to cushion him.
He found himself thinking about what he wanted to do for the boy a lot.
He wanted to clean him up, first and foremost. Despite what Mike had told him about what they had done with him - to him might be a better word for it - at the shelter before he was locked in the kennel, rinsed him off under the hose and given him clean clothes, Aaron could still see traces of dirt and blood in his hairline. Dirt under his nails, on his bare feet. Dried blood around his nostrils. Aaron wanted to give him a warm shower, or a bath, and help him clean off properly with a pleasant smelling soap. The warmth would do him good, too.
He wanted him to wear new clothes that fit him, not passed-down and donated old T-shirts and shorts, given to the shelter by well-meaning wannabe philanthropists that thought they made a difference. And sure, they made little difference, because at least the shelter pets didn’t have to go naked. But the same people also gave away their dogs’ old collars, and the boy wore one of them, too.
He wanted him to eat, to eat well and often and healthy. Not some generic slop served twice a day in a metal bowl on the floor. He wanted him to develop a healthy layer of fat and muscle to pad the bones and joints sticking out under his skin. He was so skinny, so bruised, so pale and fragile, so desperately in need of care -
Aaron tore his gaze away and back on the never ending road, white dividing lines flashing by.
No. None of that. This, whatever this is, has to go at the boy’s pace, at his will. Aaron won’t force him to do anything. He’s not like the pet owners he interacts with through his work, he decides. For the record, he’s not a pet owner at all, this is all just temporary and he’s not a pet owner. He’ll just have to wait and see what this … this whole thing turns into. For now, he has to get the boy home, show him the fridge and the bathroom and get him to bed. And he needs some other name, he decides, he can’t go around and think of his charge as ‘boy’.
Just a sweet filler <3 Tense? Don’t know what that is
(also Aaron thinks of him as ‘boy’ but he’s 22, only starved and broken down and looking a lot smaller and younger than he actually would’ve been)
TW/CW: very light but general dehumanization/animalization, brief mention of bruises, blood, broken bones (there’s a song title for you), collar mention, taking unknown pills (which are painkillers and are given with the best intention)
–
Aaron caught himself looking over at the … boy more times than he’d like to admit on the drive home. The poor thing was curled up in the passenger seat, still clutching the blanket around himself in his sleep. When they first got out to the car, he’d stiffened when Aaron opened the car door for him, mumbling something about the trunk. “Absolutely not,” Aaron had said, because of course he wouldn’t be put in the trunk. His voice was not even stern but the boy had surrendered immediately, obediently climbing into the passenger seat and letting Aaron lean over him to fasten his seat belt, all the while whispering the words “I’m sorry, Master,” over and over again.
Aaron pretended he didn’t hear it, mostly for his own sake. His clients called him Murphy, the neighbor kid that mowed his lawn called him Mr. Murphy and everyone else that mattered said Aaron. He was aware that human pets had outdated ideas on ranks and titles, but it had still been a slight slap in the face. Honorifics were a conversation topic for another day. He determined the boy was too fragile - physically and mentally - for it now.
It had been so dark in the kennel blocks that Aaron hadn’t properly seen the state he had been in. It wasn’t until he slid a hand behind his back and under his knees to pick him up - he decided he shouldn’t be walking too much on that ankle until it healed up a little - and the previously quiet boy actually cried out, that he realized he was covered in bruises and shallow wounds that had barely scabbed over. Not to mention the actual broken bones.
“We’ve got a long drive ahead of us,” Aaron had said as they got onto the highway.
The boy hadn’t answered. He stared back and forth between Aaron and the window with large, questioning eyes, clearly not yet confident of the situation. The bruises around his eyes made Aaron wince, although it was clearly the boy who had been beat up and should feel sorry for himself, not him. Either way, he stopped by the first open drug store and got the strongest over the counter painkillers they had.
It had occurred to him while he stood in line to pay that the boy could easily slip out of the car and disappear in the dark while he was inside. He pondered the idea for a moment, not really being able to decide whether or not it would be such a bad idea. Pets got lost all the time, didn’t they? But then he imagined having a busted foot, ribs and nose, being covered in bruises, blood and dirt and left in the forest, like Mike had told him. And he decided he should help the boy as much as he could.
The boy must’ve thought something similar, because he hadn’t moved an inch when he came back. Aaron gave him two of the pills and a bottle of water to swallow them and the boy didn’t waver even a second, placing them at the back of his tongue and pliantly drinking half the bottle. His hands then fell to his lap, sitting quietly and observantly. Waiting for an order.
Aaron sat back in his seat and sipped the coffee to-go he had gotten at the fast food place neighboring the drug store.
“Rockford is a while away yet,” he said as he turned the ignition, letting the car rumble to life. The boy looked at him. Those large, green eyes holding more emotions than Aaron could even begin to sort out and name. In his short life he had already faced more than most ever would.
“You’ll stay with me for a while,” Aaron began, not really sure where he was going with it. A reassurance? A promise?
“It’s, um. It’s a place up north, not far from the great lakes. I go westwards, mostly, for work. Some big landowners that way. Lots of clients.”
He wasn’t sure the boy was picking up a single word of what he said. If he did, he didn’t let it show. Just kept his eyes trained on him.
He didn’t look anything like the pets some of Aaron’s clients had. They were neatly groomed and always well behaved and polite, if they were allowed in the same room whenever he came by. Some owners liked to have them by their sides at all times, silently kneeling next to them to be petted or waiting by the doorway, ready to fetch drinks. Aaron never acknowledged them, not really, just registered them in his peripheral, his gaze lingering a moment or two on the collars they always wore, and then turned his full attention to whichever client needed his services. In the wills and contracts he wrote up they were put down as property, just like the thoroughbreds and fast cars and yachts. Just like this boy, who by a signature on a piece of paper suddenly had become his.
At least temporarily.
“I have a cat. A little tabby. You’ll like her, I’m sure,” he continued.
“Dolly. That’s her name.” He pulled out his phone and tapped on it a few times, pairing it to the car stereo. A moment later, soft country floated out of the speakers.
“After Dolly Parton.”
The car turned onto the highway again. Two and a half songs went by. The boy didn’t move. He just sat there, barely breathing.
Afraid to do anything wrong, Aaron suddenly realized. Judging by the scars he’d seen faintly on his back and wrists, he’d likely had to pay a lot for mistakes in the past.
“It’s okay,” he said eventually, trying to ease the tension. And then, “you should get some sleep. Want me to turn the music off?”
Two or three seconds ticked by. Then the boy drew the blanket tighter around himself, leaning his head against the window. “Please don’t,” he whispered.
He was crying, Aaron noticed. His shoulder shivered slightly and silent tears ran down his cheeks, creating dark little spots on the blanket.
Aaron resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, to console him somehow. The boy didn’t trust him yet, so touching might not do any good at all.
He sat back and held in a sigh. “It’s gonna be okay,” he mumbled, both to himself and the boy. A small half hour later, the tears had stopped running and his shoulders had quieted down.
Aaron faintly remembered being a child and finding a puppy roadside while out driving with his father, and how the gentle humming of the car’s engine had calmed the poor dog and rocked it to sleep as they drove home.
six months early or six months late, here is joey's first new year's eve at aaron's.
tw/cw: descriptions of scars, being shot at, fear of death/being killed, mutilation of wound with knife, general dehumanisation. slow and exposition-heavy writing. plot details at the end that may or may not be expanded upon further if i can make them fit later, don't think too much about them i'm posting this at 1am
---
Instead of going up to his family’s place in Rochester like he used to, Aaron had asked Marla to join their Christmas celebration at home.
Aaron couldn’t bring Joey back home until they had had some clear communication and had come up with a believeable story as to why he had an injured, traumatized man with separation anxiety living in his house. It didn't matter much to Aaron whether the story they eventully would tell was true or not. He was more invested in not giving his mother a heart attack, as well as wanting to preserve Joey's dignity and respect his wishes for the narrative.
Maybe next year's holidays would present a better opportunity for Joey's introduction, Aaron thought, and pointedly did not think about how long Joey would stay with him. Sending him back to Mike, or some other equally seedy, exploitative organisation, was out of the question.
Similarly unthinkable was the prospect of leaving Joey home alone in a big, dark, cold house while he went up to his family himself. The possibility had lingered in his mind, if only for a brief minute. He could make a day trip out of it on Christmas Eve or Day, fly out in the morning and come back late at night and have time to ingest at least one of his mother's homecooked meals in the meantime. Then, he thought about Joey, who undoubtedly would sit at the door and wait for him all day, and probably into the night because of holiday lines and delays, and he thought better of it.
Thus, the week leading up to Christmas had been a quiet affair with a few movies, napping on the couch, hot drinks and a Joey who gradually took shorter and shorter time to slink into Aaron’s side in the evenings. Physical touch really was the way to his heart.
Marla had a few days off and joined them when she could. For the first time in years Aaron pulled the few boxes of decorations he had down from the attic, and they spent an afternoon hanging wreaths and stockings. In the evening, they untangled the Christmas lights and Joey, bundled up in Aaron's old parka and seated on a deck chair placed on the snow-dusted lawn for the occation, watched with poorly concealed awe and fear as Aaron balanced on a ladder leaning on the porch roof and Marla pointed to where the lights should hang. Aaron bought a Christmas tree on a whim as he passed a vendor in a parking lot, and they spent the evening decorating it with paper chains and ornaments so old they had almost no glitter left on them. As Aaron joined Marla in the kitchen to prepare spiced cider and something to eat, Joey stayed in the living room, seated in an old leather recliner with Dolly on his lap, watching the tree. He still sat there when they came back out thirty minutes later, the many bulbs of the Christmas tree lights reflecting in his big, dark eyes like stars in the sky.
Christmas was, as a whole, a relaxing, comfortable event. Much more so than if he had spent it with his own immediate and partially extended family, Aaron thought, without mentioning that particular fact to his mother when she called on Christmas Morning to wish him happy holidays.
New year’s would be an equally quiet and calm affair.
At least, that was Aaron’s intention.
It had started well. Marla had left the day before to fly down to her parents in Houston and spend the holiday there, so he and Joey would be on their own. Before she left, she had hugged them both in turn and combed her fingers through Joey's unruly mop of dark hair.
"Handsome," she said and pulled him in for another hug as he bowed his head and hid his bashful smile in the collar of his hoodie.
Something had happened with him over the last week or two, Aaron had noticed. His shoulders didn't carry the same high-strung tension anymore. His eyes, which had always scanned every room he entered and never quite lost their worried, hunted look, weren't quite as round and wide-open as they had used to be. He didn't ask for permission for the littlest things anymore. He went to fridge to fetch a soda on his own. He didn't wait around with that wretched expression on his face, waiting to be gently told to go put on to go put on wool socks anymore. When his feet were cold, he simply went to the set of drawers in the hall, where the thickest socks were, and selected a pair to wear on his own.
Food was still an issue, but something had happened there, too. He had helped himself to seconds at dinner once without asking - yes, it had only happened the one time, but it had happened, and that in itself was progress in Aaron's mind. Marla had made sure to keep a platter of salted caramel cookies on the kitchen island while she stayed, and she had needed to top it up more than once. Aaron had never seen Joey take the cookies, but neither he nor Marla ate them and Dolly didn't care for caramel, so Joey had to be the one.
It made his stomach turn that Joey was so insecure about food that he potentially felt he had to steal it to get enough to eat. Food was not a scarcity in Aaron's house, and he wanted Joey to know that. He could eat whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and Aaron would be happy about it. Midnight cookies in the kitchen didn't bother him.
"Be nice to him," Marla said to Aaron with put-on sternness. It was Aaron's turn to smile as Marla hugged him as well. Joey watched and politely cast his gaze down when they shared a quick kiss - ever the appeaser.
Aaron carried her bags to her car despite her protests that she could it herself and joined Joey on the porch after to wave as she drove off. He put an arm around Joey's shoulders - he hadn't put on a coat, and Aaron was terminally worried about keeping him warm enough - as her neat, black coupe disappeared.
"It's cold out here. Let's get inside?" he suggested, always making sure to never give direct orders. Something about nurturing self-determination in the rehabilitation of former pets that Marla had talked about.
Joey nodded and carefully hobbled inside as Aaron held the door open for him. It had only been a few weeks since the cast had been taken off his ankle, but the area was still sore and the joint vulnerable, so they had been told to take it easy and not push it.
When Aaron had been looking for the Christmas decorations in the attic, he had found his grandfather's old hickory cane with the carved handle, which he had brought down. Joey's eyes had widened when he first saw it. It probably looked like an instrument of punishment to him, but Aaron had quickly told him it was a walking cane and that maybe he could use it to help with balance while his ankle was still healing. Joey had carefully tried it out, limping back and forth on the living room floor, and since then the cane had always been by his side.
They spent a few hours half-watching sitcom reruns on the sofa, Joey dozing with his head on a pillow leaned against Aaron's thigh and Aaron with his work laptop open on the arm of the sofa. He sometimes cast glances down at Joey's face, and when he noticed his eyes lingering on the door to the kitchen, he gently suggested dinner.
Joey was in charge of the vegetables while Aaron cut the turkey breast they had prepared the day before. He watched them with great reverance - the glazed carrots in the oven and the broccoli currently steaming on the stovetop. As they worked, Aaron was idly thinking about where it would be best to watch the fireworks from later tonight. A couple miles up the road there was a clearing in the forest, high enough up to get a good view of the surrounding exurbs. Or, they could go downtown. There was supposed to be a public firework display over the river, probably visible even if they only stayed in the car for the entire spectacle. Joey would probably prefer that, not having to navigate large crowds on his mangled foot.
"Do you think you would like to-" Aaron began, intending to ask about his preferred viewing location, when a clear, moving light suddenly lit up outside. He leaned forwards to look out the window and watched the red ball of light burn in the dark. It climbed the sky like a tiny airplane, coming from the woods east of the property. It was likely teenagers firing from the backwoods road running up there.
"Looks like someone jumped the gun on their celebration," he muttered right as the ball of light exploded. He flinched, only because he had forgotten how loud fireworks could be up close.
When he turned to face Joey, wanting to say something half-witty about teens literally setting fire to their money, he wasn't there.
It was if he had phased out of existence, leaving no trace other than his cane still leaning on the edge of the counter and a fork piercing a broccoli floret laying next to it.
"Joey?" Aaron said, stupidly, because he was clearly alone in the room. He even walked around the kitchen island and poked his head into the living room, still seeing no trace.
Outside, more fireworks lit up as he turned the heat of the oven and stovetop down, and looked into the dining room as well, even though they almost never used it. Joey wasn't in there either.
He headed upstairs, serenaded by more wheezes and pops from the fireworks outside. The bathroom was empty, as was Joey's own room. The office and the library-turned-temporary-storage-room was as well.
That only left one room.
"Joey?" Aaron said gently as he entered his own bedroom. He should have come here first, he realized, as the door was wide open. Most doors in this house were usually only ajar, to let Dolly come and go as she pleased.
He scanned the dark room, not spotting anything out of the ordinary-
-except for the corner of the worn rug on the floor, upturned as if someone had gotten their toes caught under it as they moved past and did not have time to stop and fix it.
He stepped around the empty bed, not finding anyone in it nor under it, and turned towards the last possible location.
He carefully pulled the closet doors open. There, sticking out from under the long wintercoat he had inherited from his grandfather, was a wool sock-clad foot.
"Oh, little one," he mumbled as he crouched down and pushed the coat aside. The hanger screeched as it was dragged along the rack.
Joey was the smallest he had ever seen him. He was curled up so tight that he looked like a child, somehow having managed to gather all his long, bony limbs until his body was a tight little ball in the corner of the closet. He was on his side, turned halfway towards the wall. Aaron couldn't see his face, only his dark, tousled hair and hunched shoulders, rising and falling in time with his hyperventilation.
The fireworks outside died out, the teens probably not able to afford more than a couple of batteries. The silence that fell over them allowed a wheezing, sniveling sound to reach Aaron's ears. It took a few seconds before he realized it was Joey's sound.
It wasn't even crying. It was a kind of howling. A weak, desperate howl that could only be born from terror.
Aaron hesitated, but only for a moment. Something about the last couple of weeks had made him slightly more certain in his handling of the boy.
"It's okay, Joey," he said mildly and reached out and placed his hand on his upper arm.
He had expected the violent flinch, but not the terrified wailing that followed, nor the Joey's hands shot up to protect his face, as if Aaron had lifted his hand to hit him.
"Hey, hey hey, easy. It's okay, it's just me," Aaron said, and didn't remove his hand from Joey's arm.
"P-please -" Joey's voice hitched between the sobs. As so many times before, Aaron was not quite sure what he was begging for, or if Joey even knew it himself. They were the words of a man desperate for relief.
"It's over, baby. No more fireworks, right?" Aaron kept his hand where it was, and placed his other on Joey's other arm, holding both.
"Come here," he mumbled and carefully pulled Joey's trembling body towards his chest. Joey, obedient to his core, followed immediately, despite the way he still shook with fear.
"Little one, you're okay. Nobody's here to get you."
It was as if something gave way and released in the tightly strung body of his house guest once he was fully enveloped in Aaron's arms. Joey turned his head to burrow it in the collar of Aaron's shirt, releasing a hopeless whine as he did so.
"I won't let anything happen to you," Aaron mumbled and pressed his lips to the back of his neck. "Nothing bad will happen to you here."
Minutes passed as they sat together, Joey shaking and whimpering and Aaron holding him, stroking his back and muttering soothing, reassuring words to him. It was a familiar pattern - yet another situatuion which left Joey entirely wrung out of his skin, tears streaming, shoulders hitching. Yet another piece in the puzzle of his trauma.
Outside, the night was quiet and the sky was dark.
"I'm sorry," Joey rasped eventually, voice low.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," Aaron muttered to him. "You were afraid."
"Yes," he wheezed. "B-but I know they're just fireworks. I know they can't hurt me, and still..." His grip on Aaron's shirt tightened.
You have been traumatized, Aaron wanted to say. You probably have PTSD, on top of general anxiety. But he didn't say that.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked instead, with no clear idea of what it was. He hoped the open-ended question could help Joey open up about whatever it was that was bothering him, in his own way. Let him talk about what was most pressing. They had to start somewhere.
Joey was silent for a moment. Aaron couldn't see his face, but he knew this silence well enough to know that Joey's big, round eyes were unfocused and staring out into the ether as he rifled through his mind, looking for what to say.
"I think..." He took a deep breath. "It was when we w-went to the desert..." His voice was shaking. Aaron didn't push for which desert or who we included, only continued stroking his hair.
"It was at a range, I think? They were trying out different guns," Joey continued. His hand, which had been clutching his probably throbbing ankle up until now, moved up and he gripped his shin over the wool sock. "I don't know why they brought me there. There was no reason to. There was no one there who were... interested in me."
Aaron felt something twinge in his chest at the way Joey's brittle voice seemed to harden and develop an edge.
"It was so hot," he continued. "Even in the shade. I was barefoot and it was so hot. My master," it was Aaron's turn to tighten his jaw, "had a cooler with water and beer and-and... and I asked for something to drink. It was so hot," he repeated. It seemed as if he felt the need to emphasize the temperature, as if to justify what might come next.
"One of the other men had brought his dog. My master told me we would have to share the dog bowl."
Aaron imagined a metal bowl, halfway filled with lukewarm water, sand and dog slobber. He cringed and unconsciously tightened his hold around Joey. His poor boy. His sweet, mild-mannered, skittish boy. Made to share a bowl of water with a dog.
"And I would have!" Joey suddenly exclaimed, his voice taking on a desperate quality. "I would have drank the dog water. But the dog was growling at me, and the cooler was right there, and it was so hot..." He moaned and rubbed his eyes, as if unable to continue.
"You're doing good." Aaron broke through his own ire and grounded himself around Joey. He could be angry later. He had to log and store every little bit of information Joey was giving him now. Every implication or trace of a place, a description, a name. Anything that could lead him in the direction of the people who had done this to his Joey. He had rarely been this forthcoming abut his past.
And most importantly, he had to be there for him. He continued stroking slow circles into Joey's back, reassuring him through what must be a taxing recollection of events. "You're good, baby," he said and rested his cheek on the top of Joey's head.
"I stole a bottle of water," Joey eventually whispered, voice shaking as if he was confessing to a mortal sin. It probably felt like it. Aaron pressed his eyes shut.
"I waited until they started shooting again, and I stole a water bottle, and I drank only a little, and then one of the men saw me, and I dropped the bottle and spilled the rest, and-and-" The rest of his words broke away into sobs again. "-and as punishment they made me stand in front of the targets w-when they tried the next gun."
Aaron stiffened. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know how to react at all.
"They shot so much. I thought I would get hit, but they never shot at me. Only around me." He paused and one of his hands came up to cover his mouth. His eyes were wide open, staring off into nothing.
"But Master said it wasn't enough punishment," he breathed. "He told me to run."
"Oh, Joey..." Aaron managed to whisper and placed his hand on Joey's head, holding him even closer. He could only imagine it. Joey, barefoot and frail, dehydrated, definitely malnourished and probably sunburnt, being pointed to the desert and given what he probably thought was his final order from his owner.
Run.
"They didn't hit me at first. But the gun was automatic, so I think they stopped trying to aim, and just shot." His voice had grown oddly steady now, like the trauma had reached a plateau within him.
"They hit my leg," he said. Aaron cast his glance down to where he was gripping his shin. The leg of his pajama pant had ridden up, revealing a long, thin scar stretching over the outside of his leg, where a bullet must have flown by, ripping the skin open instead of piercing it. It looked like comet in the night sky.
"And my thigh. And somewhere..." his other hand ghosted over the side of his head. Aaron wondered if he would find a similar scar there if he parted his dark hair. The bullet must only have grazed him, for him to still be alive now, but still.
Shot at.
Hit.
In the head.
"I think I wet myself. I was so afraid. I've never run so fast in my life."
"How did you..." Aaron started, but he wasn't sure about how to finish the question. How did you survive?
"I fell. I think I stumbled, or it was when they hit my thigh. I don't know. I passed out, I think, and when I woke up, they were all there. One of them had a spring blade. I think he tried to remove the bullet from my thigh." He let out a sardonic snort of laughter. "Maybe he just wanted to dig around inside of me. I don't know. I blacked out again."
Of course he was afraid of fireworks, Aaron thought to himself as he, astonished by the horror of the story Joey was telling, let his head fall back. He closed his eyes and recollected the gnarly scar on Joey's right thigh, the origins of which had been a mystery to him until now. It looked like a violent paint splatter of scar tissue. The first time he had seen it, on the first night when Joey was in the bath, knees drawn up under his chin, Aaron had thought it a wonder that he hadn't bled to death when he had recieved the wound. Now, knowing it came from a gun shot and subsequent gouging with a blade, his boy's survival was even more astonishing.
"I don't like loud sounds now," Joey offered weakly, after a long while. "I don't like fireworks."
"Of course you don't, baby," Aaron muttered, shaking the mental images of mangled skin. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Joey's head, now accutely aware of the fact that there probably was a scar hiding somewhere behind the sea of dark waves, too.
---
Getting Joey out of the closet and downstairs again was out of the question. That much was clear in the way his entire body stiffened as Aaron got up and gently suggested it. With his fingers, still holding Joey's hand, he could feel the way his pulse sped up at the mere suggestion of it. He was still in a such a frail state of mind after reliving the desert nightmare that Aaron wouldn't put it past him to have another panic attack if he went back downstairs, regardless of the presence of fireworks.
"Stay here," he said, needlessly, over his shoulder as he entered the hallway. A plan had formed in him when he observed the way Joey's face had ashened and how his eyes had grown large and round when Aaron had exited the closet.
He retrieved his old laptop from his office down the hall and Joey's pillow, weighted blanket and stuffed panda teddy from his room. He stopped by the library-turned-storage where his old record player stood next to its newer, more modern sibling.
It wasn't something he would ever ask for on his own, but Joey had recieved a pair of noise-cancelling bluetooth headphones for Christmas, along with the new record player. Aaron had picked up that he liked music, especially the soul-shaking bass and guitar riffs of Aaron's old rock and punk rock records. Since Joey was deathly afraid of being percieved as even the littlest of bits of impeding on Aaron's space, he would listen to the records on the lowest volume, laying on the floor with his ear pressed up against the mesh of the old speakers.
Aaron, instead of spending hours trying to convince Joey that he never, ever could think of him as 'in the way' and that he could play music as loud as he wanted, had gone the other route and instead gifted him a new record player and bluetooth headphones.
It gave Joey what he wanted - loud, high quality music - while also making him feel like he wasn't in the way. And truly, it had worked. Several times throughout the holidays Aaron had walked by the storage room and spotted Joey in there, swaying by the windows, laying flat on the rug or leaning on the armrest of the old couch. Always with his eyes closed and wearing the headphones, and every time with a different record spinning on the player.
Aaron retrieved the headphones and, with some fiddling with the settings on his laptop, managed to pair them. He then returned to his closet.
Joey let himself be covered in the weighted blanket and took the teddy bear and the pillow when Aaron handed them to him. He sat very still as Aaron slid the headphones over his ears, only looking at him silently from under his heavy lashes, Rocky the panda clutched in his arms.
Aaron figured sleeping was out of the question, so instead he found a documentary on forest elephants and handed the laptop to Joey. Joey, always so gravely serious when Aaron entrusted him with something, accepted it and placed it carefully in his lap. Aaron then went downstairs and made up a plate of the food they had almost finished preparing when the fireworks had been shot up. Joey accepted that, too, with great reverence.
"I'll stay here with you," Aaron said and sat down on the bed with his plate of food and his work laptop. Joey didn't answer. He probably didn't even hear what he had said. He was almost finished with his plate, head at an angle as diligently watched the documentary. Dolly had joined him, too, and sat perched on a chair right outside the closet door, squinting her eyes in pleasure at having her two people in the same space as her.
While the clock ticked down, while the fireworks started raging outside, and while Joey studied amber-eyed forest elephants engineering paths through the thick jungle, Aaron double clicked the folder labeled PAST_CLIENT_ARRANGEMENTS and rifled through the files and documents. He opened one called TIMELINE_CLIENT_X and scrolled down.
Joey hadn't mentioned any signifiers of time and place. All Aaron knew was desert, multiple people, guns, dog. He added a new line to the table in the column called EVENT and wrote exactly that. In the next column, labeled PROOF, he wrote: "Bullet graze scar on left shin. Large scar on right thigh, previously unlabeled, likely in connection with event - gun shot and likely consecutive attempt at removal of bullet with blade. Bullet graze on left side of head."
CW/TW: fairly light content here, but a lot of dehumanization/animalization in general, talking over someone’s head, brief mentions of scars, broken bones and other injuries, brief mention of dubcon/noncon, being caged/contained, unwilling caretaker and talk of hypothetical future neglect (I guess)
–
Life in the kennels was unfamiliar, but simple. There was a plastic mat in the back corner, which acted as a mattress of sorts, and the pet was one of the few who had been allotted a blanket to sleep under as well. There was no pillow, but the pet was grateful, of course, to not have to sleep on the cold, tiled floor.
The other pets seemed to be in varied states of disinterest to everything. None of them had spoken to him, and he didn’t try to speak to them, either. Some of them cried a lot. Some perked up every time the door at the end of the room opened, knelt by their respective chain link doors and smiled and smiled, hoping to be taken home. Some - the pet was one of them - rarely ever moved, just to drink or eat or shift their sleeping positions.
Twice a day someone - usually a volunteer - rolled a cart down the aisle of kennels, distributing a bottle of water and a meal for each pet. People came through during visiting hours, surveying and considering. Occasionally somebody would decide on one of them and take them home.
The pet always hoped it would be his Master coming through the door next, but it never was.
The man that had bandaged his ankle and set his clavicle, who the pet thought of as the doctor, came by a few times too, and without opening to the chain link door, would tell the pet to sit up so he could examine his ribs and collarbone, and to flex his injured ankle every which way to make sure it was healing. The pet obeyed, of course, biting his lip until he could taste blood on them to hold back the tears as he bent the joint. Afterwards, the man would stick a few fingers through the chain link and the pet would lean against them, letting the man stroke his hair a couple of times before he left again.
Today, he stayed a while longer. He had his phone stuck between his ear and shoulder, animatedly talking into it while writing on a clipboard with one hand, the other still against the pet’s hair through the chain link. It occurred to the pet that the conversation wasn’t meant for him to hear, but with the doctor’s fingers streaking through his hair, he couldn’t force himself to move away.
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whumper who has the power to control and enter dreams. they rape whumpee every night, but theres no evidence of it. the marks, the physical pain don't carry over when they wake up. whumpee looks in the mirror every morning, feeling the ghosting of hands around their neck with not a bruise on them. wishing there was SOME kind of physical proof of their suffering and then feeling disgusted with themself for even thinking that.
whumpee knows that people are noticing. how could they not? whumpee is exhausted and it’s getting worse. they dread going to sleep at night, and they avoid it as much as they can. they know that every night is going to bring a new violation, a new round of horrifying, painful abuse. even when they do sleep, they don’t get any rest. they’re getting irritable, jumpy, they’re fraying to the point that they don’t know how much longer they can keep going before they’re going to break.
and every day they look at their friends, the people around them, and they want so badly to say something. they want to tell someone what’s being done to them, but the thought of what they would actually say makes them choke on shame and fear. what would they say? nothing is even happening, nothing real. how are they supposed to whine and cry about abuse that doesn’t exist? they can feel hands on them but their body was never touched. every night they’re raped, brutally and violently, and every morning they wake up to phantom pain in a body without a mark on it.
if there was something they could point to, something that they could do to show what was happening was real, maybe it would be different. but even the thought of wanting that makes them feel sick. maybe they’re dreaming. maybe it isn’t whumper at all, and they want to be raped. (maybe their friends will all know that immediately, as soon as they try to explain.)
I like this idea especially if Whumper is part of the friend group and acts COMPLETELY different in the real world. They’re a sweetheart, could do no wrong, no one would ever suspect them to hurt a fly, let alone abuse somebody.
The switch completely flips in the dreams, though, and Whumper acts like a fully different person. This makes it even harder for Whumpee to even convince themselves that it’s real, because how could someone like Whumper really be like that? Maybe it’s just their imagination, some strange subconscious part of them that fears Whumper to that level.
Maybe, one day while hanging out with the group of friends, Whumper says something offhandedly. A phrase they said in the dream, while they were on top of Whumpee. Whumpee’s eyes widen, and when they look at Whumper, there’s a knowing gleam in their eyes.
whumpee who should be getting better, yet theyre getting worse. theyre safe now. they should be recovering. but their panic attacks just get more frequent. their paranoia is through the roof for no reason. and caretaker has no idea how to fix it.
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