CW: Kauri is surviving domestic violence, and he is still trapped in a lot of self-loathing and victim-blaming about it. Please stay safe, his thought processes can be fucky. Referenced noncon/dubcon. Electric shock treatment, frank discussion of domestic abuse with a robot.
The Colton referenced belongs to @shameless-whumper / @the-host-and-colton.
Tagging Kauri’s crew: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @moose-teeth, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl, @spiffythespook, @slaintetowhump
Kauri can feel the pain, buzzing relentlessly in his fingertips, long after Owen puts his phone away. Days later it’s still there, a heat along his collarbone, a constant reminder of the little metal circles, pretty little things with the tiny blue bits that look like inset glass. You’d never know what they were, if you didn’t already.
He told everyone, though. Every-fucking-one. He sent photos to at least fifteen people of Kauri shirtless with his collarbone on display, tear tracks still drying on his flushed face, blue eyes red-rimmed from the pain, eyes slightly squinted against the headache that came on after the shocks had gone on so long. He sent them videos of Kauri collapsing to the ground as soon as the shock began, curling into himself, twitching and jerking and convulsing for one second, two seconds, three, four endless fucking seconds-
Then he stopped, and filmed Kauri, twitching, still leaning into his touch when he crouched to pet his hair, murmuring soothing comforting things into his ear, like it was real, like he really cared, and Owen had never really cared at all.
Part of Kauri was desperate to believe he still did.
I can’t believe they didn’t come up with this sooner, this is amazing, Owen had all but crowed to the crying, curled up boy on his hallway floor, his thumbs flying over his expensive, paper-thin phone’s screen. Don’t worry, Kor-Bore. You look fucking gorgeous like that.
Kauri can’t remember if he’d even attempted to reply. His muscles had been contracting and releasing without his consent, without his input, aftershocks of familiar pain racing through his nerves. All he could do was leak tears and little hitching sobs onto Owen’s expensive floor.
He cried less from the pain than he did from who was inflicting it, the reality that the night he’d thought he was going to die hadn’t been enough to make Owen think he’d been punished. This had had to happen, too.
And he’d been… he’d been so good, right? Except for just the once. He’d done one thing wrong, just one single fucking thing. He’d been so good, he’d done everything Owen ever wanted. He’d learned every trick and seduction in training, he’d gone to Owen willowy and flexible, perfect for every single thing he wanted to do to him. He couldn’t say no when it mattered, when he wanted to. Half the time he didn’t even want to. He’d been good and obedient and loved him and he’d done it all right.
All he did was send one tiny little message. Just one. And… and he didn’t think Owen even knew about that, he’d never mentioned it. All of this - everything Kauri was living through - it was all because Owen had caught him reading.
The only thing he’d done to make Owen angry was read, like everyone else. Everyone got to read, but not Kauri. All he’d done was read what people were saying about him, and Owen… had done this.
He’d read those comments to the Host’s video, and sent a message to Colton. That was all he’d done. Not such big things, he thought, not really. Right? Just one teeny tiny little message. He didn’t even know what it was. He didn’t even get to remember why it had felt so worth it to tempt Owen’s anger. It wasn’t fucking fair. It wasn’t fair that Kauri had to live like this now and he didn’t even get to know why, and it must not have gotten back to Owen because the shock implants were all he’d done.
One moment where Kauri had moved out of line.
He’d fucked up just the once, exactly once in his time here, and Owen had nearly choked him to death, had hurt him over and over on the living room floor next to the laptop with its screen showing an argument in the comments, over how fucking lucky Box Boys were to get to live like this-
Now he sits on the little outside patio chair like he used to, but there’s no plants on the balcony and Keira is gone and Kauri is barely holding a scream back behind his teeth. Owen had promised new plants - you just made me so mad, Kauri, I couldn’t take it, you understand why I had to take it out on something.
He nods and he nods and he nods to the things Owen say, and his heart twists at Owen’s tears, and he wishes he’d never ever had a thought of his own at all. He’s better empty-headed. The bad things don’t happen when he doesn’t think.
He can’t stop now that he’s started. He can’t stop thinking it was supposed to be better than this, somehow. That maybe - rebellious and thin as the thought is, and he’s scared to have it - maybe Colton was right.
Don’t believe their lies.
If he had, though, if he’d just believed everything he was told and trained to do… Kauri presses his hand against the little metal circles spaced evenly along his collarbone, feeling the low residual ache there, and bites his lower lip. If he’d just believed everything Owen said, he wouldn’t have had to go back.
This wouldn’t have happened.
Would that have been better?
He tilts his head back, looking up at the clear and perfect sky, thinking that he used to watch the stars, but tonight he feels like all he can see is the empty dark nothing between them. His fingers tap in rhythm on the arm of the chair, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he never knows what he’s saying, if he’s even saying anything at all.
Tap tap tap. Tap taaaaaap. Tap tap tap taaaap tap.
Kauri wants to throw the other chair over the balcony and shriek, tell the stars and the sky about how hard he tried to be good, how he had been everything Owen wanted from the moment he stepped out of his box. All he’d done was maybe think, for just a second, that he was allowed to have his own mind.
He knows better now, and it still won’t be enough for Owen to feel safe. Owen will never stop thinking that Kauri is going to walk out the door, no matter what he says or does or thinks or feels, he will never be able to make up for the fact that Vincent Shield walked out the door before.
He has to play second fiddle to someone he’s never met, someone who broke Owen in some fundamental way, and it’s not fucking fair.
Maybe Owen was broken before Vince. Maybe Vince was right to run, then, even if it led Owen straight to me.
He can’t be Vince, no matter that he’ll answer to his name in bed or when there are hands wrapped around his neck, tighter and tighter, cutting off air as his head slams back into the floor, black spots taking over the sight of Owen’s lips curled back from his teeth, the rictus of rage and grief on the handsome face that Kauri had been taught was safe, the owner is safe, even when he hurts you he’s safe.
He’s not safe at all, but there’s no way out of this, and Kauri is trapped living in fear and pain and betrayal and rage.
There’s a deep pain inside of him when he unfolds himself from the chair, a pain he is ignoring with gritted teeth, a pain he knows too well from training, from Owen’s anger. He was Vince for his owner again tonight - Owen drunk and slurring his words, and there are bruises on Kauri’s hips in the shape of Owen’s fingers as he moves back inside. The thick black collar from the Facility is still around his neck, he hasn’t earned the pretty new one yet. Maybe he never will.
He was made to be the replacement for someone he can never live up to. He isn’t good enough as himself. He’s stupid and brainless because Owen wanted him that way and it’s still not enough, to lose his thoughts and identity, to be trained in all the things Owen wants, it was never ever going to be enough.
Why couldn’t he just be happy with the life he was living? Why couldn’t Kauri just accept things as they are and stop trying to dream about dark eyes and hair, and something better? Why didn’t he keep his mouth shut when they filmed at the Host’s house, why didn’t he just-
Why… why couldn’t Owen just love him? Is he not worth loving, just as himself?
Kauri knows the answer to that question. Owen has told him before.
Kor-Bore, you’re sweet, but you’re a fucking empty space, you know? You don’t have a relationship with a fucking pet, man. I asked for brainless slut, and nobody’s going to love that. There’s nothing in there to love. It’s nice to pretend, though, isn’t it?
Yeah, Kauri thinks. Sometimes it was.
Kauri hiccups a sob as he stumbles to the couch, flinging himself onto it, feeling the soft give of the cushion under him, a deep teal that he adores. It’s his favorite color really, this saturated blue with just the barest hint of green.
Is it his favorite color? Or did Owen have them put that into his head?
There’s nothing in him to love. He’s a pale shadow of a different man, built to be a copy who can’t escape Owen’s hands, who doesn’t even want to. But Kauri wants to. There’s no way out but he wants a way out, he’d dig a tunnel with a fucking spoon if he could. There’s no way out of this at all.
Kauri cries himself out on the couch, as quietly as he can, careful not to wake Owen up. He tries to cry out all the anger trapped inside him, the hurt and the loneliness, the reality that it will never, ever be any better than this.
He lays down on his side, knees curled nearly to his chest, lets his arm hang off the side. His fingers drift along Owen’s beautiful wood flooring. Tears dry into tracks on his face, like empty ancient riverbeds in deserts on Our Planet on TV.
The ceiling fan spins overhead, a lazy movement. The world is still and silent at this hour, and Kauri has never felt so perfectly, utterly, wretchedly alone.
Then he blinks, lifting his head slowly as he hears a noise he doesn’t recognize coming from under the couch. A kind of clicking, repeated, like something trying to turn and failing, again and again. He thinks of a skipping record player on High Fidelity, one of Owen’s favorite movies. He thinks of Gavin clicking his tongue against his teeth in the Honor Bound movie.
“What…?” His voice is trembling from the tears that are still locked inside him. He could never cry long enough to get them all out.
The clicking continues, and Kauri swallows, pushes himself over the edge, and hangs his head upside down to look under the couch, wild black curls just brushing the floor.
Two glowing red dots stare back at him from the darkness under the couch.
Kauri reassurance require?
“Wh-what the fuck-… Keira?” Kauri sniffs and twists off the couch, landing with a thump on the floor, digging his arm under the couch frantically until he finds the familiar round metal and plastic shape. He grips onto her, feeling a kind of hysterical laugh wanting to bubble up his throat, swallowing reflexively to keep it down as he scrapes her a little along the floor and finally has her back in his arms.
Kauri rolls onto his back between the couch and coffee table, holding her tightly against his chest, eyes slowly closing. “You’re, y-you’re, you’re not dead?”
There’s a pause, the little clicking he understands now is the sound of a broken wheel on one side. Keira initiate shutdown procedure, set variable Kauri sound. Current power at thirty-two-point-twelve percent.
A bit of plastic nudges under his chin as he holds her even tighter, new tears welling and coming out of the corners of his closed eyes, running down to pool in his ears, to drip onto the ground beneath him. He hitches in a breath, feeling the constriction of the wide leather collar, the weight of Keira on his chest, the way she feels so perfectly familiar in his arms.
Kauri reassurance require?
“Y-yes,” Kauri whispers. “Yes, I, I need… Kauri reassurance require, Keira.”
Keira reassurance provide.
“I fucked up so bad, Keira, I’m so sorry he hurt you-”
Kauri pain sound. Kauri fear sound. Keira maintains memory. Kauri good.
“N-no, I w-w-wasn’t, I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, I, I fucked up and I made him so mad-”
Kauri good. Keira reassurance provide.
How long they laid there, Kauri didn’t know. She was warm, the wires and everything inside of her felt like a person’s heat laying on top of him, warming him as much from the inside as out.
“I missed you,” He whispers into the dark room, to the glowing red dots that he thinks always as Keira’s eyes. Her little broken wheel clicks once, twice, three times more. “I was all alone and I m-missed you so much, I just-… I can’t… I can’t-”
Keira present. Kauri Grant, Owner.
Override code accepted. Kauri Grant, owner.
He can’t remember it very well. Had he given her the override code? Maybe he had. Kauri rolls onto his side, clutching her tightly, crying into the hard metal that feels, to him, like arms around him, like someone he loves holding him tightly.
It’s the closest he’ll ever have again to that feeling, and Kauri curls himself around the delusion, tells himself that it’s almost like Keira is real.
Like someone in the world loves him.
Like anyone in the world ever could.
“I can’t fuck up again,” He whispers. “I can’t ever fuck up again. He could have killed me.”
Kauri fear sound, Keira says solemnly. Kauri afraid.
“Yes,” Kauri says hoarsely. “I’m so scared, Keira. I’m so, so scared, and I’m so unhappy, and I hate it here and I hate him so much-” He catches his breath at the lance of pain through his rebellious, aberrant thoughts, but doubles down and buries his head against her softly rounded edges. “I hate him,” He whispers. “I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him.”
He pauses, lets the moment draw out, breathes against the pain until it fads.
“I love him,” He adds, in an even softer voice. “I love him so much and I just w-wanted him to love me back. I just wanted-… I just-… couldn’t be good enough, Keira, I want… I want someone else.”
Owen Grant laptop unlocked. Kauri could have sworn Keira’s metallic voice sounded smug. He slowly raised his head to look up at Owen’s laptop sitting on the coffee table, screen up.
“… did you turn Mr. Owen’s computer on?” He asked, slowly pushing himself up onto his knees. “I didn’t know you could-”
Error code 4563453AI AI limiter chip malfunction.
“I don’t know what that means.” Kauri stares in outright shock as he watches, watches, the little circles fill in Owen’s password, opening up his laptop to the main screen. He swallows, hard, curling into himself while Keira works, a low hum coming from within her. Guilt twists in his chest - he’s not supposed to look, ever again, not ever again - but some part of him can’t bear to stop her.
Keira has no limitations. Kauri reassurance require. Keira memory retained last Kauri happiness moment.
The internet browser opens on Owen’s computer and Kauri flinches his head to the side to avoid accidentally reading any of the words. He can hear Owen’s low snoring all the way out here - he must have rolled onto his back.
“K-Keira, we have to be careful, we have to be-… so careful, I shouldn’t-”
Keira reassurance provide. Keira provide Kauri happiness moment.
A familiar face pops up on the screen, holding a chef’s knife, smiling shyly, the frozen screenshot before the video starts. The cursor of the mouse moves quickly and with perfect efficiency across the screen to click PLAY.
Out-of-focus, a deep masculine voice says, “Um, hey guys-”
“Keira, I’m not supposed to-… I shouldn’t be thinking about-”
Kauri Grant, Owner. Keira reassurance provide Kauri Grant, Owner. Kauri good. Kauri happiness moment.
“Is that, um, ‘focused’?” The voice says on the laptop’s screen. Shot of slippered feet and legs clad in familiar sweatpants. Kauri catches his breath. “I, um, they just taught me how to use this and um-”
Kauri heartrate increasing, Keira says, that note of smugness in her voice again. Kauri blood distribution adjustment.
“Keira, you have to turn this off right now, I’m not allowed to watch him alone anymore, I’m not, I’m not allowed to even think about him-”
Shy smile, dark eyebrows and hair, the face he sees when he closes his eyes and pretends he’s somewhere else, with someone else, when he replaces Owen’s voice with another one, a deeper voice, moves his body with the image of different hands, longer fingers, a different shape to the jaw when he puts his hands on either side of his face.
It’s the same as the shy smile with cold fingers pressing a hot mug of coffee into his hands as he stares at the snow on the ski trip.
Kauri’s protests die away, and he sits slowly back, resting against the couch and staring at the laptop screen, blue eyes wide.
“Kauri reassured,” Kauri says, lips barely moving, his eyes locked on the screen. “It… it won’t hurt to watch just one… right?”
He swallows, hard, and watches the screen. The dreams the white room tried to lock away, the hopes that died under Tyler and Delevigne’s tiny scalpels, the resignation that settled in when the Director herself visited his recovery room to press on the shock implants just to hear his whimper of pain, the awful screaming rage that has lived inside of him since the moment he realized that Owen was going to break the only promise he had ever made-
All of the anger fades, in the moment. The hopes and the dreams whisper from the back of his mind that they aren’t dead, only sleeping. Waiting. Still there for him to have.
There are places Kauri goes, Keira says. He barely hears her, only nods. There are people who help Kauri. Keira memory storage including safehouse locations within 500 miles of current location accepting human pets.
Kauri could leave. The voice is lower than before, as if even the Roomba can tell that it’s something Kauri’s mind isn’t allowed to linger on.
He shakes his head, rapidly, before the headache can settle in. Even still, he can’t look away from the screen. “I… I can’t. I can’t ever leave him.”
Kauri leaves soon. “Abusers typically escalate when they feel they are losing control over the relationship, often because they feel that the independence of their partner has increased in some way or that their partner will leave.” National Domestic Violence Hotline source.
“I-I can’t. The things he put in me hurt if I get too close to the door, I l-love him, I… I-” Kauri admits the unthinkable, finally, speaking words out loud he’s only ever thought before. “If I leave, he’ll kill me. I f-fucked up and he nearly, he could have-”
“If you are experiencing escalation and your partner has threatened to kill you-”
“He’s not my partner,” Kauri says, some part of him cracking apart and shattering under the weight of that statement. “He’s my owner.”
“-it is important to develop a safety plan that can help you and your family survive.” National Domestic Violence hotline source.
“Why do you keep quoting them?”
The video ends, and Kauri watches the little circle fill before the next one begins.
Keira reassurance provide.
“Are… are you saying you’re my family?”
Kauri good. Keira retain safehouse information. The laptop exited the internet browser as quickly as it had opened it, turned the computer off. Kauri sat frozen, watching Keira control Owen’s laptop with wide, slightly blind eyes. Kauri good. Kauri good. Keira reassurance provide.
“How… how do I go?” He whispered. But she didn’t have to answer that. Kauri knew the answer, deep within himself.
Then he needed to wait for his chance, and when it came, he would have to be able to take it. Until then…
He was going to have to remember, at least for Owen, that he was supposed to be so fucking lucky.
He pushed himself to his feet, padding soundlessly through the condo looking until he found Keira’s charging station shoved into the back of the closet in Kauri’s discipline room and forgotten. Kauri kept his eyes carefully away from his box and from the discipline tools laid out, plugging the charger in while keeping it hidden in the closet, slipping Keira into her docking station, laying a hand on the warmth of her plastic and metal body.
“I’m so glad you’re still alive,” He said, quietly, his voice caught with tears.
Keira pleased Kauri safe.
“Not safe. But here.” Kauri gave her a final pat on the head.
In the bedroom, Owen shifted around, and Kauri jumped when he called, “Kor-Bore? Where are you?” His voice was slurred with sleep, hazy with some kind of desire. Kauri swallowed back a twisted mix of desire and love and disgust and hate, and stepped back into the hallway and into the bedroom, looking at Owen with a slight smile.
The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Right here, Mr. Owen,” Kauri said softly, pitching his voice low, almost teasing. “Needed water.”
“Come back t’bed,” Owen said, holding out his arm.
Kauri kept his smile set on his lips and slid into the bed, let his body take over and his thoughts drift to a safer place in the back of his mind.
He was so lucky Keira hadn’t been found and thrown away, or broken so badly she was gone, or reset to factory settings. He was so lucky Keira had information he could use, had held onto it, could control Owen’s computer to help him.
He was so lucky Keira cared. That anyone cared, ever, about him at all. Maybe he could… watch more videos, at night, when Owen was sleeping. Maybe he could take the time to make a plan.
He was… he was so fucking lucky he might have a chance to get past the locked door.
