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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Mock execution that stops just a little later than you'd think it would.
Whumpee made to dig their own grave. They're driven out, they dig the whole thing, they're made to lay down in it, but Whumper doesn't get them up. Whumper starts shoveling the dirt in on top of them, to the point that their head is covered, and only uncovers them once they're sure that Whumpee has actually begun to suffocate.
Or a Whumpee who's taken out back. Made to kneel, gun to their head. They beg and plead, but the gun actually fires. Maybe it just fires into the ground beside them, or maybe it fires into Whumpee, just not in a fatal place. Still- Whumpee wasn't expecting them to actually fire it.
Maybe it's not the first time a mock execution has happened. Maybe Whumpee goes through the motions thinking it's another intimidation tactic. But then Whumper starts taking that extra step- and that's when Whumpee starts to panic and beg, but at that point it's already "too late".
whumpee who is so used to being hurt that their mind wanders whenever it happens. not dissociation just- thinking about the chores they still have to do. prioritising.
listing the tasks they won't be able to do once whumper is done with them. the ones they can't afford not to do. thinking about the cleanup - they'll have to stay a bit, to cry and whimper and be pathetic for a while ecause that's what whumper expects, but also, that carpet is dead - and them with it - if whumpee doesn't get started NOW.
planning their route: straight to the bathroom to get the products, the sheets into the washing machine and then straight to scrubbing.
fine as long as whumper doesn't decide to stomp on their hand. or to ruin their ankle again.
The campaign launched at 8:03 on a Tuesday morning. There was no press release and no statement from WRU.
There was a mother crying on television.
Kestrel was halfway through buttoning the cuff of Wick’s shirt when the television in the Foundation’s executive conference room cut from the weather to a photograph of a smiling young man standing beside a Christmas tree.
The photograph was several years old. His hair was longer than Kestrel remembered. His smile was wide and fixed, his hands folded neatly in front of him.
Positioned.
Dami stopped beside the coffee machine and Wick felt Kestrel’s fingers go still against his wrist.
Onscreen, the host leaned toward the woman seated opposite her. She looked to be about sixty with silver-blond hair. She was dressed in a cream blouse. A tasteful gold cross at her throat. She held a crumpled tissue in one hand and a framed photograph in the other.
“Tell us about your son,” the host said gently.
The woman’s mouth trembled.
“Eli is vulnerable,” she said. “He’s always been vulnerable. He needs structure. He needs medication. He needs people who understand his condition.”
Behind her, the screen changed to a photograph of Eli washing dishes. Then another of him kneeling beside a garden bed. Then another of him seated on the floor at the woman’s feet, his head resting against her knee. Every photograph showed him looking at the camera. Every photograph showed his collar.
The host’s expression softened.
“And you believe he was taken from your home?”
“I know he was.” The woman pressed the tissue to the corner of one eye. “These people targeted him. They filled his head with things. They told him he was being abused. They convinced him that the family who loved him was his enemy.”
Dami set their mug down carefully. Kestrel didn’t look at them. She didn’t need to. She knew the rhythm of that stillness.
Onscreen, the woman drew a shaking breath.
“He didn’t understand what he was signing. He can’t make those decisions by himself. He was happy. We were happy.”
A banner appeared across the bottom of the television.
FAMILIES LEFT BEHIND: THE HUMAN COST OF EXTREMIST ACTIVISM
Underneath it, in smaller letters:
#BringThemHome
Wick’s hand closed around Kestrel’s wrist.
“Turn it up,” he said.
Dami did.
The segment shifted to an immaculate man in a navy suit standing outside a WRU-branded family support center.
“We’ve seen a disturbing increase in vulnerable adults being removed from stable homes by unregulated activist networks,” he said. “These groups operate without transparency, without clinical oversight, and without regard for existing guardianship arrangements.”
The footage behind him showed the exterior of a community center.
One of theirs.
The sign had been blurred, but not well enough. Kestrel knew the brickwork. She knew the cracked concrete planter by the front steps. She knew which basement door wasn’t visible from that angle
“They filmed that yesterday,” Lucky said from the doorway. No one had heard him enter. His phone was already in his hand.
“I’ve got three staff reporting news vans outside their sites. Two centers have had calls asking whether they’re holding missing persons.”
“Are they?” Wick asked.
Lucky’s expression didn’t change.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to be mistaken for anything but policy.
Wick nodded once.
On television, the WRU representative continued.
“These aren’t criminals fleeing justice. These are sons, daughters, spouses, and dependents being isolated from the people who know and love them best.”
Dami watched the footage without blinking. They hummed.
“Changed the vocabulary,” they said.
Kestrel finally looked at them. Dami stood behind her now, close enough that the front of their shirt brushed her shoulder. One of their hands settled at the back of her neck, thumb resting just below her hairline, checking in with her.
She leaned back into it for half a second.
“From what?” she asked.
“Ownership to guardianship. Recovery to reunification. Runaway to vulnerable adults.” Dami’s voice was flat. “Forced return sounds like elder care.”
The woman on television was crying harder now. The host reached across the space between them and took her hand.
“What would you say to Eli, if he’s watching?”
The woman turned toward the camera. Her grief vanished so quickly Kestrel almost missed it. Her mouth stayed soft but her eyes didn’t.
“You know where you belong,” she said. “You know who you are without them confusing you. Come home before you make this worse.”
Kestrel felt Wick’s fingers tighten around her wrist.
The woman smiled.
“We forgive you.”
The television went dark.
Lucky held the remote.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The silence was broken by the conference room phone.
Then Wick’s phone.
Then Lucky’s.
Then the tablet on the table began chiming with incoming messages.
All at once, the room filled with sound.
Dami crossed to the wall controls and silenced the conference phone. Lucky muted his mobile but kept reading. Wick ignored his entirely.
Kestrel looked at the black television screen and saw her own reflection.
Small. Straight-backed. Wick seated beside her, one hand around her wrist. Dami towering behind them, their palm still warm against her neck.
A family portrait, if you didn’t know better.
“What else?” she asked.
Lucky’s thumb moved across his screen.
“WRU’s launched a site. Missing-person profiles. Owner testimonials. Anonymous reporting line. They’ve partnered with three guardianship advocacy groups and something called the Coalition for Ethical Family Restoration.”
“Real organization?” Wick asked.
“Registered six weeks ago.”
“Funded by?”
“Not listed.”
“WRU,” Dami said.
“Yes.”
Another message came through.
Lucky read it and stopped.
Kestrel saw the change before he spoke. Lucky rarely showed fear. He was calculating.
“What?”
“One of the profiles is Jonah.”
Kestrel took her wrist gently from Wick’s hand and stood.
“Where is he?”
“Fourth floor quiet room. Charity’s with him.”
“Did he see it?”
“Yes.”
Kestrel was already moving. Dami followed without being asked. Wick planted both hands on the arms of his chair.
“K-Kestrel.”
She turned. His face had gone pale beneath the anger.
“You can’t go down there and tell him they won’t find him.”
“I know.”
“You can’t promise—”
“I know.”
His jaw worked. Kestrel crossed back to him. She bent, cupped the back of his head, and pressed her forehead to his.
His breath caught.
“We don’t promise safety,” she said quietly. “We build it.”
Wick’s eyes closed. His hand found her waist. Dami stepped closer, their palm settling between Wick’s shoulder blades. For one brief moment, all three of them held on.
Kestrel straightened.
“Lucky, get counsel in here. Freeze all public comments until they arrive. Nobody says stolen. Nobody says trafficked. Nobody says we’ve seen any of the people in those profiles.”
Kestrel took the folded note from her pocket and set it beside the packet.
“I delivered a copy to their attorney. Their original stays with us.”
Rho stared. “You did what?”
Kestrel’s voice remained calm.
“I informed counsel that the Foundation is in possession of a dependent abandoned in a medical clinic with a signed note, ownership documents, and evidence of attempted unlawful disposal after WRU refusal. I also informed them that if any member of the Whitcomb family comes within five hundred feet of this clinic, Gray, or any Foundation facility, we will give the press exactly one sentence.”
“Daniel Whitcomb’s children pinned a note to their dead father’s Romantic and left him in a clinic waiting room.”
The room went silent.
Wick slowly exhaled.
“Oh, that’s vicious.”
“Yes.”
“Effective.”
“Yes.”
“Dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Rho put both hands over her face. “I love you and I’m horrified by you.”
“That seems fair.”
Dami tilted their head. “Did they respond?”
“Yes.”
Everyone waited.
Kestrel removed her gloves, finger by finger.
“They want this handled quietly.”
Lucky laughed once, short and sharp.
“They shouldn’t have used a safety pin.”
Kestrel’s face didn't change.
“No,” she said. “They shouldn’t have.”
Wick looked at her cuff again.
“What’s on your sleeve?”
“Mud.”
“Kestrel.”
“Mud,” she repeated.
Lucky’s gaze flicked toward Dami. Dami stared at Kestrel’s sleeve. Wick made a faint pained sound.
Kestrel turned toward the hallway. Charity stepped into her path.
“Before you go in,” Charity said quietly, “he thinks he’s being punished.”
She stopped. “Why?”
“Because the family left him here instead of sending him to disposal. He thinks this is a prolonged corrective placement.”
For the first time since she’d returned, Kestrel’s face changed.
“Does he want to see me?”
Charity looked toward exam room two.
“I don’t think he knows what wanting is doing right now.”
“Ask if I can come in.”
Charity nodded and went back inside.
Kestrel waited in the hall. No one spoke. After a moment, Wick came beside her. Slow on the crutches. Careful. He didn’t touch her.
“The note,” he said.
Kestrel looked straight ahead.
“Yes.”
“You read it once.”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
She was quiet for long enough that he almost withdrew the question.
“It said he had no known medical conditions except occasional hysteria and poor appetite when ignored.”
Wick’s face went cold.
“It said he responds best to firm affection and routine.”
Behind them, Rho made a sound like she’d been stabbed. Lucky looked at the floor. Dami’s jaw tightened. Wick closed his eyes.
“I see,” he said.
Kestrel’s hand went to her pocket. The note was no longer there. It sat on the desk now, folded beside evidence of abandonment. But her hand still went to where she had carried it for two hours, like something toxic that needed to remain contained against her own body until she could decide where to put it.
Wick noticed.
Of course he did.
“Did carrying it help?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded. “Did leaving help?”
“No.”
Another nod. “Did what you did help?”
Kestrel’s eyes shifted toward him.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She looked at him. He held her gaze.
“I’m angry,” he said softly. “Not lecturing.”
Her shoulders lowered by a fraction.
Charity stepped back into the hall.
“He says yes.”
Kestrel entered exam room two.
Gray sat on the table with the coat folded beside him now instead of on his lap. That was new. His hands hovered near it, not touching. His eyes went immediately to Kestrel’s face, then down to her shoes.
“I’m sorry I caused trouble,” he said.
Kestrel stood near the door.
“You didn’t.”
“My family—” He stopped. Corrected himself with visible pain. “His family. They said you help difficult cases.”
“We do.”
His mouth trembled.
“I can be easier.”
“No.”
He flinched.
Kestrel let the word settle, then continued.
“You don't have to become easier before we decide what to do.”
Gray stared at her.
“What will you do?”
“That depends on what you want, what’s medically necessary, and what counsel advises.”
His expression hollowed.
“I don’t have counsel.”
“You will.”
“I don’t have money.”
“The Foundation does.”
He blinked at her.
Something like fear crossed his face.
“What will I owe?”
“Nothing.”
No belief.
Not even close.
Kestrel hadn't expected any.
She stepped farther into the room, staying visible, staying away from the door.
“The Whitcomb family’s attorney has been notified that you are alive, medically evaluated, represented by pending counsel, and not available for private retrieval.”
Gray’s face went slack.
“They know I’m here?”
“They know you reached a Foundation clinic. They don't know where you’ll be next.”
His breathing sped up.
“They’ll be angry.”
“Yes.”
He wrapped his arms around himself.
“They don’t want me.”
“No.”
He looked up sharply, eyes filling.
Charity glanced at Kestrel. Kestrel didn't soften the truth.
“They don’t want me,” he repeated.
“No.”
“Then why does it hurt?”
Kestrel’s hands folded in front of her.
“Because being unwanted by cruel people can still hurt.”
Gray made a sound that went nowhere.
Kestrel continued, “Because being discarded is not the same as being freed, even if the door opens.”
He stared at her. His mouth twisted.
“They left a note.”
“Yes.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
His face flushed with shame.
“I didn’t write it.”
“I know.”
“They pinned it.”
“I know.”
“Everyone saw.”
“No,” Kestrel said.
He looked up.
“I saw it. Lucky saw it. Rho saw it. Dami saw it. Then I removed it.”
Gray’s fingers curled against his sleeves.
“Was it bad?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
Kestrel waited.
After a moment, he whispered, “Can I know what it said?”
Charity’s eyes moved to Kestrel.
“Not today,” she said softly.
Gray opened his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because today you would believe it.”
His face crumpled. His shoulders bent. He covered his mouth with one hand and made himself small, trying to hide the sound of crying from people who had already seen the note pinned to his coat.
Kestrel didn't move closer.
Charity did.
Gray cried harder because no one stopped him. After a while, he looked up at Kestrel through tears.
“Am I abandoned?”
The word gutted the room.
Kestrel’s expression stayed calm by force.
“Yes,” she said.
Gray’s breath caught.
“And found.”
He stared at her. She held his gaze.
“Both are true today,” she said. “We can work with found.”
Gray’s mouth trembled. A laugh came out.
Terrible. Wet. Not happy.
Alive.
“That sounds stupid.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t feel found.”
“I know.”
“I feel left.”
“You were.”
He wiped at his face. No one told him not to. No one handed him a prettier version.
“You were left. We are here. The next part takes longer.”
Gray looked down at the coat.
“Do I have to keep that?”
“No.”
“Do I have to throw it away?”
“No.”
His fingers hovered above the wool.
“What if I want it?”
“Then it stays.”
“What if I hate it?”
“Then it goes.”
“What if both?”
“Then we put it in a bag and decide later.”
He breathed in.
Out.
“Bag,” he whispered.
Charity nodded. “I’ll get one.”
Gray watched her go, then looked back at Kestrel.
“Where did you go?”
Kestrel didn't answer immediately. The truth was ugly and incomplete. She'd gone to the Whitcomb attorney’s office. She hadn't entered. She'd waited outside under the awning until a junior associate stepped out with coffee and a phone and a badge that opened too many doors. She'd made two calls. She'd let Wickham money, Asryn pressure, Foundation counsel, and one terrified paralegal with a conscience do what force would have done less cleanly.
She'd stood in the rain for twenty minutes because she didn't trust herself to come back while the note was still the only language inside her head.
“I made sure they couldn’t quietly change the story.”
Gray absorbed that.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
He looked baffled. Almost offended.
“I’m no one.”
Kestrel tilted her head.
“No one arrives with that much paperwork.”
Gray stared at her. He laughed again. It was still awful but a little less broken.
Charity returned with a clear belongings bag. She held it open without reaching for the coat.
Gray looked at it.Then at the coat. Slowly, he picked up the dead man’s coat and put it in the bag himself. His hands shook the whole time but he did it.
Charity sealed the bag only after he nodded.
Kestrel watched.
Transfer complete. It wasn't freedom or healing yet but the coat was no longer on his lap. The note was no longer pinned to his body. The family that had abandoned him had been made afraid of being named. It was a start .
When Kestrel left exam room two, everyone in the hallway pretended not to have been listening.
Badly.
Rho wiped her eyes.
“There’s soup for him,” she said. Then, after a beat, “And you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Dami looked at Kestrel. “You should wash your sleeve.”
“It’s mud.”
“Mostly.”
Wick leaned on his crutches beside the wall, watching her with a face full of things he would not say in a clinic hallway.
Kestrel looked back.
“I’m fine.”
“No,” Wick said quietly. “But you’re back.”
She looked toward exam room two.
Gray was speaking softly to Charity now. It wasn't much. It was enough.
“Yes,” Kestrel said. “I’m back.”
No one asked where she had been after that. It wasn't because they didn’t want to know. It was because sometimes a person disappeared for two hours with a note in their pocket and came back carrying enough rage to build a wall. And sometimes the kindest thing was to let the wall stand until the person behind it was ready to open a door.
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i agree so much about making your blorbos pathetic but i do fear that many take this to mean 'make them more traditionally feminine/submissive' which genuinely hurts my soul. make your blorbos pathetic in interesting character-oriented ways. understand their neuroses and turn the dials up to eleven. juxtapose the parts of life they handle extremely well with the parts of their lives that make them eat shit. make them angry. make them cold. make them pave their own way to hell while building walls preventing them from seeing any other way. please i'm begging you no more pathetic as an euphemism for bottoming im gonna mclose it.
They weren't far from home when the sun began to set, and his quiet tension about the dark and what came with it was temporarily pushed away when he saw the scene spread out for him. Gaps in the clouds let rare blue grace the sky, and the sun made the most of its brief appearance. Everything was burnished gold, suddenly. He could see everything that was frosted over because bright reflections flashed brilliant white as they drove by. Whole lakes turned to ice.
─ "Slow".
fanart for @whumpawaydarling based on "slow"; this is a part of their whump series, amor vincit omnia <3 please give it a read it is just absolutely wonderful
worked on this with @cepheusgalaxy over the past few days and it was so so so much fun. beautiful drawing of a beautiful moment for a beautiful person!!! happy birthday chaos :) i hope you like itttt
oh. my god oh my god HI 😭 jaw dropped. you guys are insane i can't believe you did this.... >_< im actually speechless i don't even know what to say thank you so much ???!!?! this is so beautiful im just. in awe.
For the first ten minutes, everyone pretended she was making a call. For the next twenty, everyone pretended she was speaking with counsel. By forty-five minutes, Rho stopped pretending.
“She took the note,” Rho said.
Lucky stood near exam room two with his arms folded, watching the door where the man had been taken. “Yes.”
“Why did she take the note?”
“Because if one more person looked at it, she might have had to become unreasonable.”
Dami, near the hallway, said, “She’s already unreasonable.”
Lucky glanced at them.
Their face didn't change. “I mean more.”
Wick sat behind the intake desk, one crutch propped against the wall, phone in his hand, doing nothing with it.
That worried everyone more. He knew where Kestrel was. Or he could find out.
He hadn't.
Rho turned on him. “You’re not tracking her?”
Wick looked up. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she left.”
Rho’s mouth tightened. She looked away because that was exactly the kind of answer Kestrel would have wanted, and all of them hated it.
In exam room two, the man sat on the paper-covered table with his coat still in his lap.
He hadn't let go of it.
Lucky stood by the counter. Charity had arrived fifteen minutes after Kestrel left and now moved through the room with the kind of careful practicality that kept people from shattering out of politeness.
“I’m going to ask about injuries,” Charity said. “You can answer, refuse, or say you don’t know.”
The man nodded.
“Any pain right now?”
He smiled. “I can tolerate discomfort.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
The smile faltered. Charity waited.
The man looked at the floor. “The pin scratched me.”
Charity’s face did something fast and terrible, then settled.
“Thank you for telling me. Anywhere else?”
His fingers tightened on the coat. “My chest hurts.”
“Sharp, dull, tight, burning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Does it feel like fear?”
He looked up. This time, the smile didn't come.
“Yes,” he whispered.
Charity nodded. “That still counts.”
His eyes filled.
“I wasn’t bad.”
“No,” Charity said.
“I was quiet.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t ask to stay.”
Lucky closed his eyes.
Charity kept her voice steady. “No.”
“I didn’t ask to go.”
“No.”
His mouth trembled. “They said he loved me too much to leave me to the lawyers.”
Lucky’s jaw tightened. Charity’s hands stilled on the chart.
The man looked between them.
“He died,” he whispered. “My owner died, and everyone cried, and I didn’t know what to do because he told me I’d go with him, but then there was a funeral and then paperwork and then they put me in the car.”
He looked down at the coat in his lap.
“I thought they were taking me home.”
The room held around that.
Carefully.
No one rushed to fill it.
After a while, Charity said, “Do you want the coat on your lap?”
The man looked confused.
“It’s his,” he said.
“Your owner’s?”
A flinch.
“Yes.”
“Do you want it on your lap?”
He looked down. His hands had locked around the wool so tightly his knuckles had gone pale.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Lucky said, “You don’t have to know today.”
The man looked at him.
The words didn't comfort him.
Not yet.
At one hour and twelve minutes, Wick finally made a call to Maddie Singh.
“I need a probate search on Daniel Whitcomb,” he said. “Household trust, dependents, registered pets, transfer records, estate filings, and next of kin. Yes, Whitcomb. No, not tomorrow.”
He listened.
Then his eyes moved toward exam room two.
“No,” he said. “They abandoned him in our waiting room with a note. I’m feeling impatient.”
A pause.
“That was the polite version.”
Wick looked at the side door.
“She’ll come back,” he said after he ended the call. No one had asked. Everyone needed to hear it.
Dami looked at him. “You don’t know that.”
Wick’s mouth curved without humor.
“Yes, I do.”
“Because you know where she went?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because she folded the note.”
Lucky, emerging from exam room two, stopped.
Rho frowned. “What?”
Wick’s voice was quiet. “If she meant to disappear for longer, she would have kept it open.”
No one knew what to do with that.
It sounded absurd. It also sounded exactly like him and Kestrel.
At one hour and forty-nine minutes, the man in exam room two chose a temporary name.
Not Adrian. Not the owner’s name for him. Not yet anything permanent.
“Gray,” he said, staring at the coat.
Charity looked up from the chart. “You want us to call you Gray?”
His face tightened. “Just for the file.”
“Okay.”
He watched her write it.
Temporary name: Gray.
He cried when he saw it. Silently. Carefully. Like crying was something he had learned to do without disrupting anyone’s afternoon.
Lucky handed him a tissue box and then looked away.
At two hours and three minutes, the side door opened.
Kestrel came back in.
Her hair was wet from the rain. Her coat was buttoned. Her shoes were muddy. There was a smear of something dark on one cuff that might have been dirt and might not have been.
She carried nothing.
The waiting room went silent.
Wick stood too quickly and had to catch himself on the desk.
Kestrel’s eyes flicked to him. He stopped.
Dami looked her over. “Are you injured?”
“No.”
Lucky’s eyes narrowed. Kestrel looked at him.
“No,” she repeated.
Rho crossed her arms. “Did you do something illegal?”
Kestrel paused. Wick closed his eyes.
Lucky muttered, “That’s not a no.”
Kestrel unbuttoned her coat.
“Where is he?”
“Exam two,” Charity said from the hall. “Temporary name Gray. No acute medical emergency. Panic symptoms. Minor scratch from the pin. Malnutrition likely. We haven’t searched the documents yet.”
“I have.”
Everyone turned. Kestrel reached into her coat pocket for a folded packet of papers. Wick stared at her as she set the packet on the desk.
“Kestrel,” he said.
She ignored him.
“Daniel Whitcomb’s estate transferred all household property to his children. They declined the registered transfer of his Romantic dependent because they didn’t want ongoing liability, maintenance, or public association with ownership. They tried to surrender him to WRU first. WRU refused because the original contract was private resale and the warranty period expired.”
Rho’s face went white with rage. Dami’s expression emptied.
Lucky said, “Where did you get those?”
Kestrel looked at him. No one asked again.
Wick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please tell me you didn’t break into a law office.”
“I didn’t break into a law office.”
A pause.
Wick opened one eye. “Did you enter a law office?”
“No.”
“Did someone else enter a law office?”
Kestrel looked toward exam room two. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” Wick and Lucky said at the same time.
Kestrel ignored both of them.
“They left him here because they thought we’d quietly absorb the liability. If we reported abandonment, they could claim compassionate surrender. If we returned him, they could refuse possession. If WRU collected him, they’d deny arranging it. The note was designed to make him our problem without making him their responsibility.”
Oh god, new bucket list scene concept: interrogation training.
I'm so sorry, but if they catch you these are the things you're going to experience. You have to be ready. You can't break. Do you understand?
This next one hurts a lot, I apologize in advance. I'll let you bite the belt the first couple of times, but we have to make sure you're not going to spit out sensitive information.
Oh, oh no. Okay, if this was a real interrogation, I'd have everything I needed and you'd be dead now. I really need you to keep quiet. If I don't think you can keep quiet, I can't send you on this mission. You want to go on this mission, right? You want to save them, don't you?
Let's take it one more time, from the top, okay? I know you can do this. If I didn't believe in you you would never have gotten this assignment.
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need That character absolutely delirious with fear. recoiling from everything. unable to parse what's happening around them, their mind stuck in fight or flight. shaking and hyperventilating. completely unconsolable even as they're wrapped in a crushing hug.
At first, no one noticed him as an emergency and that was the point.
They found him in the clinic waiting room between the lunch rush and the afternoon wound-care block. He’d been placed carefully in the blue chair by the radiator. A coat lay folded over his lap. His hands rested on top of it. His hair was comb. His shoes were tied. His posture was perfect enough for him to disappear in the busy room. He sat with his knees together and his shoulders relaxed in a way that wasn't relaxation at all. His face was empty and plenty if no one looked too closely.
Romantic training did that sometimes. It made suffering pretty.
There was a note pinned to his coat. A silver safety pin through wool, paper, and the edge of his sweater beneath, because whoever left him had not bothered to check whether they were pinning fabric or skin.
Lucky saw that first and his face went blank.
“Rho.”
Rho looked up from the intake desk. “What?”
He nodded toward the blue chair. When the man didn't move, Rho’s expression changed.
The waiting room went quiet in the strange ripple-pattern of places that knew how to recognize danger late. A mother pulled her child closer. A volunteer stopped stacking cups. Someone near the coffee station whispered, “Was he there before?”
“Yes,” Dami said from the hallway.
Everyone looked at them.
Dami’s voice was flat. “Came in with a family. Four people. Left without him eleven minutes ago.”
Rho’s hands curled around the clipboard. “And you didn’t stop them?”
They shrugged lightly. “Looked like donors.”
That wasn't’t an excuse. It was an indictment.
Lucky crossed the waiting room slowly, stopping several feet from the man in the blue chair.
“Hello,” Lucky said. “My name’s Lucky. You’re at the Bartlett clinic.”
The man blinked. He didn't look up.
Lucky glanced at the note, then back at him.
“Can I remove the paper from your coat?”
The man smiled immediately, beautiful and wrong.
“If it pleases you,” he said lightly, low and breathless in the way every Romantic had been trained.
Rho swore under her breath and Dami stilled.
Lucky’s mouth tightened. “It doesn’t please me. I’m asking if you want it removed.”
The man’s smile trembled. He blinked. The script had failed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay,” Lucky said. “Then I won’t.”
The clinic door opened.
“No,” Kestrel said into the phone. “No public comment until counsel sees the draft. If they use the word recovery, send it back.”
She stopped. Her eyes moved once across the room.
Lucky.
Rho.
Dami.
The man in the blue chair.
The note.
She ended the call without saying goodbye.
No one spoke. The man noticed the silence before he noticed her. His posture sharpened, adjusting itself for attention. His chin lowered. His mouth softened. His hands stilled.
Kestrel crossed the room slowly. Hurrying would have made him responsible for her urgency. She stopped in front of him but to the side, not blocking his view of the door.
“What name do you want used?” she asked.
His eyes flicked to her shoes. Then her hands. Then the floor.
“Whatever you prefer.”
“No.”
His lips parted.
Kestrel’s voice stayed level. “That wasn’t a command. It was an answer. We don’t choose that for you.”
Something moved beneath his face. A tiny, trapped thing.
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Okay.”
Kestrel looked at the note. The safety pin had gone through the sweater. Not skin, thank God. The paper was folded once, his name written on the outside in neat blue ink.
Not his name.
A name.
Adrian.
“May I remove the note?” she asked.
The man’s hands flexed.
“I was told to keep it visible.”
“By the people who left?”
He swallowed. “Yes.”
“They’re gone.”
His eyes closed for half a second. Pain crossed his face so quickly it almost looked like relief.
“May I remove it?” Kestrel asked again.
He nodded.
She unfastened the safety pin with hands steady enough to make the whole room colder. She removed the paper from his coat. Then she folded the pin closed and set it on the side table instead of keeping it.
Small things mattered. Sharp things mattered. Ownership hid in small, sharp things.
The man watched the safety pin like it might be returned to him as punishment.
Kestrel unfolded the note. Rho stepped closer. Lucky did not. Dami looked at her face.
The note was short. That made it worse.
To whom it may concern,
This is Adrian. He belonged to our father, Daniel Whitcomb, who passed last month. Adrian is trained Romantic and light Domestic. He is well behaved but emotionally dependent and no longer appropriate for our household. We understand your Foundation works with displaced persons and difficult cases.
Please do not contact us regarding return. We are not interested in reclaiming him. His documents are in the envelope in his coat pocket. He has no known medical conditions except occasional hysteria and poor appetite when ignored.
He responds best to firm affection and routine.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kestrel read it once.
Only once.
Her face did not change.
Rho’s eyes filled with furious tears. Lucky looked away toward the clinic windows, jaw tight. Dami’s hands closed at their sides.
The man in the chair smiled up at Kestrel like he was waiting for her to decide whether the note had lowered his value beyond use.
Kestrel folded the paper along its original crease. Then folded it again. Then put it in her coat pocket.
“Lucky,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Medical intake. Not in this room.”
Lucky nodded. “Adrian, can you stand?”
The man’s eyes moved to her.
“You can answer him.”
He swallowed. “Yes.”
“Do you want to?”
That question broke something. His hands lost their perfect stillness
“I don’t know what happens if I don’t.”
Lucky’s voice stayed even. “Then you sit in the chair until you decide, unless there’s a medical emergency.”
The man stared at him.
“I’m getting tea,” Rho said. “I’m going to make tea available. He doesn’t have to drink it.”
The man’s gaze moved between them, terrified by every ordinary adjustment made around his will.
Dami stepped closer to Kestrel. “Where are you going?”
Kestrel did not look at them.
“Out.”
“Kes.”
She turned. Dami stopped. Whatever they saw in her face made them step back.
Wick chose that moment to arrive from the hall, moving carefully on his crutches because the clinic’s elevator was down again and he’d made bad decisions about stairs. He took in the room the way Kestrel had.
The man in the blue chair.
Lucky beside him.
Rho at the counter, shaking with anger.
Dami silent.
Kestrel with nothing in her hands and a note in her pocket.
His face changed.
“Kestrel,” he said softly.
She didn't look at him for long. It was long enough. Not long.
Oh yes. This would be a game right up his alley. Not that he'd test them on himself, or participate in the game.
Our willing participate would be sneering and snarling bucking against leather restraints on a table with her sleeve rolled up.
Perhaps he'd appreciate it so much, that even he wouldn't know what was in which syringe :) Like, let's try this, no, I don't know which juice this is, actually I don't even know what any of them do. Let's find out!
WARNING: Unauthorized access, reproduction, disclosure, or removal of this document is grounds for immediate termination, civil action, and criminal referral.
SUBJECT FILE 01
CHRISTOPHER WICKHAM
FILE NUMBER: CID-WF-001
SUBJECT STATUS: ACTIVE
LEGAL NAME: Christopher Wickham
KNOWN NAMES: Wick; Mr. Wickham
SUBJECT TYPE: Civilian Hostile Actor
PRIMARY AFFILIATIONS: Asryn Pharmaceutical; The Wickham Foundation; Falwell Memorial Hospital
Christopher Wickham is assessed as the principal financial and institutional sponsor of the Wickham Foundation’s recovery-obstruction network.
Subject is not considered a significant direct physical threat.
Subject is considered an extreme strategic threat.
Wickham possesses the financial resources, corporate access, legal infrastructure, political influence, and personal motivation necessary to disrupt WRU operations at a regional or national level. His actions have already resulted in the suspension of vendor contracts, interruption of medical supply relationships, increased litigation costs, reputational damage, and the failure of multiple recovery actions.
Subject routinely presents himself as physically vulnerable, socially agreeable, and procedurally cooperative.
This presentation is operationally deceptive.
Personnel are advised that Wickham does not need to overpower an extraction team. He only needs to delay it long enough for someone else to move the target.
II. IDENTIFICATION AND PHYSICAL PROFILE
SEX: Nonbinary Male
AGE: Adult
HEIGHT: 6ft
BUILD: Variable due to chronic illness and reduced mobility
Subject frequently uses forearm crutches or a wheelchair. Mobility varies according to fatigue, pain level, illness progression, and environmental conditions.
Observed symptoms during periods of physical or emotional stress include:
Increased stutter severity
Hand tremors
Reduced balance
Labored breathing
Muscular weakness
Loss of consciousness
Inability to remain standing without assistance
These symptoms must not be interpreted as confusion, diminished judgment, or reduced situational awareness.
Multiple WRU personnel have made that error.
III. BACKGROUND
Wickham is the surviving heir to the Wickham family and retains controlling influence over Asryn Pharmaceutical and related corporate holdings.
Following a series of public statements concerning corporate ethics and coercive labor practices, Asryn terminated, declined to renew, or suspended multiple relationships involving:
WRU subsidiaries
WRU-contracted research facilities
Ownership-service providers
Medical contractors servicing training and recovery facilities
Third-party companies with undisclosed WRU investment
The Wickham Foundation began formal operations approximately one year later.
The delay between the Asryn contract terminations and the Foundation’s establishment is assessed as deliberate. It provides separation between Wickham’s public corporate actions and subsequent private support of former contracted persons.
No Foundation charter, public filing, donor statement, or program description directly references:
WRU
Contracted persons
Bonded companions
Pet designations
Ownership disputes
Recovery obstruction
Despite this absence, a statistically significant number of individuals listed as missing, stolen, noncompliant, or unlawfully withheld have subsequently received assistance from Wickham-funded entities.
Documented or suspected assistance includes:
Emergency medical treatment
Long-term housing
Legal representation
Identity-document replacement
Trauma services
Employment placement
Domestic transportation
International relocation
Wickham has denied direct knowledge of individual cases. These denials have not been disproven.
IV. BEHAVIORAL PROFILE
BASELINE PRESENTATION
Subject typically presents as:
Charming
Courteous
Self-deprecating
Verbally hesitant
Physically nonthreatening
Cooperative with legal and medical personnel
Concerned with procedural fairness
The subject's stutter is genuine. His use of it is not necessarily passive.
Wickham understands that visible pain, speech disruption, and mobility limitations alter how personnel respond to him. He exploits the reluctance of officials to interrupt, search, restrain, or publicly confront a visibly disabled civilian.
This does not require fabrication of symptoms. The subject uses existing symptoms as operational terrain.
NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOR
Wickham demonstrates advanced proficiency in:
Prolonging conversations without appearing obstructive
Redirecting direct questions into procedural disputes
Demanding clarification of warrants and jurisdiction
Requiring medical accommodations
Creating competing legal obligations
Invoking disability-access concerns
Forcing officials to choose between delay and adverse publicity
Positioning witnesses before confrontation
Generating documentation faster than field teams can review itThe subject frequently allows opponents to believe they are controlling the interaction.
They are not.
STRESS RESPONSE
Threats to Wickham’s own health produce limited behavioral change.
Threats to Leigh Kestrel Kestrel-Wickham produce immediate and observable physiological distress, including increased speech disruption, tremors, respiratory difficulty, and reduced mobility.
This response must not be treated as proof that the threat is effective.
When Kestrel is endangered, Wickham becomes less risk-averse, less procedurally predictable, and more willing to deploy corporate, legal, and financial resources without regard for personal consequences.
V. DOCUMENTED INCIDENT: FALWELL MEMORIAL
INCIDENT CODE: FM-09
LOCATION: Falwell Memorial Hospital
OPERATION TYPE: Joint inspection and recovery action
OUTCOME: Target not recovered
During a coordinated inspection of Falwell Memorial, Wickham personally intercepted six officials in the hospital’s primary lobby.
At the time of contact, subject was experiencing an active medical flare and required forearm crutches.
Wickham challenged authorization documents, requested accommodation for his speech impairment, disputed the inspection team’s access to restricted medical areas, and initiated contact with hospital counsel.
The resulting delay lasted approximately nine minutes.
During that period, unidentified Foundation personnel relocated a person of interest through a secured service route. The individual was removed from the relevant floor before inspection personnel obtained access.
Wickham lost consciousness shortly after the team was denied entry.
It remains unknown whether the collapse was anticipated, deliberately risked, or medically inevitable.
The distinction has no operational value.
The target was gone.
VI. KNOWN AND SUSPECTED METHODS
Corporate pressure against WRU vendors and affiliates
Cancellation or nonrenewal of supply agreements
Strategic donations to hospitals, shelters, legal clinics, universities, and community programs
Funding through intermediaries with no disclosed Foundation connection
Use of medical privacy protections to obstruct searches
Use of disability-discrimination complaints to delay questioning
Deployment of counsel before field personnel complete initial contact
Public criticism designed to damage WRU without creating actionable defamation exposure
Emergency hospitalization of recovery targets
Reclassification of custody disputes as medical or housing matters
Creation of overlapping jurisdictional claims
Deliberate physical presence at high-risk operations
Acceptance of medical deterioration when delay benefits Foundation personnel
Use of Asryn-controlled facilities as neutral or protected environments
VII. ASSOCIATED PERSONS
LEIGH KESTREL-WICKHAM
RELATIONSHIP: Spouse
ROLE: Operational authority; field assessment; security coordination
THREAT STATUS: EXTREME
Kestrel is believed to possess independent command authority within Foundation operations. Wickham should not be assumed to control her actions.
She is capable of recognizing conditioned behavior and specialized protection training on sight.
Bates is a former contracted fighter and is assessed as willing to use direct force against recovery personnel.
See Subject File CID-WF-005.
VIII. LEVERAGE ASSESSMENT
FINANCIAL PRESSURE
EXPECTED EFFECTIVENESS: LOW
Wickham possesses sufficient personal and corporate resources to withstand extended litigation, supplier losses, fines, and targeted economic pressure.
Financial attacks may accelerate Asryn’s disengagement from WRU-linked companies and create additional scrutiny of WRU corporate structures.
MEDICAL PRESSURE
EXPECTED EFFECTIVENESS: MINIMAL
Threats involving medication access, treatment delays, insurance complications, or personal health exposure are unlikely to produce compliance.
Subject has repeatedly accepted physical deterioration rather than abandon an operation.
SPOUSAL PRESSURE
EXPECTED EFFECTIVENESS: UNSTABLE
Threats against Kestrel create immediate distress.
They also remove Wickham’s normal caution.
Use of Kestrel as leverage is likely to trigger simultaneous retaliation from Wickham, Cartier-Wickham, Johnson, Bartlett, and Bates.
PRESSURE AGAINST FOUNDATION RESIDENTS
EXPECTED EFFECTIVENESS: SHORT-TERM / HIGH-RISK
Threats against residents may produce temporary cooperation.
They are also expected to activate the full associated network and may expose WRU operations to public, legal, medical, and corporate retaliation.
No threat against a Foundation resident should be issued without Executive Command authorization.
IX. COUNTERMEASURES AND CONTACT PROTOCOL
Personnel engaging Wickham must comply with the following:
Medical personnel must be present or immediately available.
WRU legal counsel must review all operational paperwork before contact.
All interactions must be independently recorded.
Wickham must not select or alter the meeting location.
Electronic communications must be restricted during active negotiations.
Subject must not be permitted unsupervised contact with Foundation personnel.
Requests for medical accommodation must be documented but must not automatically terminate questioning.
Personnel must verify all claims involving warrants, medical privacy, hospital policy, and disability access.
No officer may leave the primary team to respond to a secondary disturbance without command approval.
All service corridors, elevators, loading areas, and medical-transfer routes must be secured before subject contact.
ADDITIONAL RESTRICTION
Wickham and Kestrel must not be allowed direct contact during negotiation, detention, questioning, or recovery activity.
They communicate efficiently with minimal speech.
Physical separation alone may not be sufficient. Visual contact, hand signals, medical-status updates, and third-party messages must also be controlled.
X. OPERATIONAL INDICATORS
The following may indicate an active Foundation relocation:
Wickham arrives without prior notice
Wickham insists on remaining physically present despite visible illness
Hospital counsel appears before formal notification
Falwell Memorial initiates an unexpected lockdown or privacy review
Multiple Foundation vehicles enter or leave separately
Johnson changes vehicles or routes without explanation
Kestrel becomes unusually calm
Cartier-Wickham stops communicating
Bartlett requests restricted medical access
Bates moves residents away from public areas
Wickham begins requesting names, badge numbers, accommodation records, or written clarification
When three or more indicators occur simultaneously, field command should assume the target is already being moved.
XI. ANALYST COMMENT
Wickham’s physical limitations are real. So is the threat. He does not need to be healthy to damage WRU. He does not need to be armed to stop a recovery. He does not need to admit what the Foundation is doing.
He owns the hospital where the target disappears. He funds the attorney who challenges the warrant. He supplies the medication that keeps the witness alive. He donates to the institution that later refuses WRU access.
Then he smiles, apologizes for taking so long to answer, and asks the field team to repeat the question.
XII. COMMAND ADDENDUM
HANDWRITTEN ENTRY — RECOVERY COMMAND
Stop calling him harmless. He has shut down three suppliers, purchased a hospital, buried two ownership suits, financed an interstate concealment network, and smiled through every meeting. Harmless men do not require this many pages.
END SUBJECT FILE CID-WF-001
CLASSIFICATION: BLACK // INTERNAL EYES ONLY
DO NOT COPY
DO NOT REMOVE FROM SECURE SYSTEM
REPORT ALL UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE COMMAND
No windows, one door, twelve chairs, a pot of coffee no one had touched, two pitchers of sweating water, and a framed print of a city skyline so generic it looked like an apology.
A room designed for polite damage.
Her counsel sat to her right. Another Foundation attorney sat to her left with a laptop open and three color-coded folders stacked in front of him.
Wick sat behind her. Not at the table. Not beside her. That had taken twenty minutes of negotiation and a surprising amount of legal language to accomplish. Christopher Wickham could observe. Christopher Wickham could not answer. Christopher Wickham could not confer with the witness while a question was pending. Christopher Wickham could not, under any circumstances, interrupt opposing counsel.
He had smiled through all of it but Kestrel knew he was furious.
He looked harmless today, which was its own form of violence when Wick chose it carefully. Charcoal suit. Pale blue tie. Forearm crutches leaned against the wall within reach. His wheelchair locked beside him. A leather folder balanced on his lap. He had brought a pen he didn't need and had not uncapped.
Across the table, Alistair Reed’s attorney arranged his notes with ceremonial care.
Charles Renn, a man with silver hair and a red tie. Kestrel had read his biography twice. He liked soft openings, narrow questions, and forcing people to choose between moral truth and legal self-preservation. He was an expert in corporate liability, asset recovery, reputational harm, and had three prior suits against underground-adjacent charities.
Beside him sat Reed, a fifty-six year old real estate agent with private security contracts and one registered Domestic-Platonic combination pet purchased five years ago through a WRU affiliate.
Product #440918.Legal name, according to Reed’s ownership documents: Tara Reed.
Chosen name, according to the woman currently being moved from Charity and Rho’s safehouse to a secondary location under a different intake file: Elise.
Kestrel folded her hands on the table. Her wedding ring caught the fluorescent light.
Reed kept looking at it. Then at her throat. Then at her face. Owners always wanted recognition. They wanted you to know who they were. They wanted the whole room to understand that the law had already sided with them before anyone spoke.
The court reporter lifted her hands over the stenotype machine. “Please raise your right hand.”
Kestrel did.
“Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
Behind her, Wick shifted once. It wasn't enough to be disruptive. It was enough for her to hear him.
“I do,” Kestrel said.
Renn smiled.
“Please state your full legal name for the record.”
“Leigh Kestrel-Wickham.”
“Do you also go by Kestrel?”
“Yes.”
“And is Mrs. Wickham acceptable?”
“In formal contexts, yes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wickham.” Renn wrote something down. He didn't need to. “You are one of the executive officers of the Wickham Foundation, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You founded it with your husband, Christopher Wickham?”
“Yes.”
“And Mr. Wickham is present today?”
Kestrel didn't look back.
“Yes.”
“For moral support?”
Her counsel leaned forward. “Objection. Relevance.”
Renn lifted a hand. “Withdrawn.” His smile didn't change. “The Wickham Foundation publicly operates homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and free clinics. Is that accurate?”
“Those are among the services we provide.”
“Among them?”
“Yes.”
“What other services does the Foundation provide?”
“Objection. Vague.”
“You may answer if you understand the question, Mrs. Wickham.”
Kestrel looked at him.
Emergency transport. False intake names. Medical care without ownership notification. Safehouses that didn't exist on paper. Phones with numbers memorized and then destroyed. Bus tickets bought in cash. Drivers who knew not to look in the rearview mirror if someone was crying.
“Emergency housing,” she said. “Food access. Medical referrals. Legal aid referrals. Transportation stipends. Crisis support. Job placement assistance.”
“For people?”
“Yes.”
Renn’s pen paused.
There.
The first hook.
“For people,” he repeated. “Does the Foundation provide those same services to pets?”
The room went quiet in a way that was almost physical.
Kestrel kept her attention on Renn. “The Foundation provides services to individuals who come to us in need.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Her counsel said, “Objection. Asked and answered.”
Renn gave a small nod, as if indulging them. “Mrs. Wickham, you understand that under state law, pets are classified as property.”
“I understand the law.”
“Do you disagree with it?”
“Objection. Relevance.”
“It goes to motive.”
“It goes to spectacle,” her counsel said. “Ask a question tied to the allegations.”
Renn’s smile thinned.
Reed watched Kestrel with cold interest.
Not anger yet. Interest. Like she was a product with an irregularity.
Kestrel had seen that look before. In old rooms. On old faces. On men who thought ownership was the natural order of the world and disobedience was a manufacturing defect.
Renn glanced down at his notes. “Let’s discuss Product #440918.”
Kestrel didn't move.
“Do you know that designation?”
“No.”
Reed made a sound under his breath. Almost a laugh. Almost a threat.
Renn looked up. “You have never heard the designation Product #440918?”
“I don’t recognize it.”
“You don't recognize it, or you have never heard it?”
“I don’t recognize it as belonging to anyone known to me through Foundation services.”
“That's a careful answer.”
“I am under oath.”
Behind her, Wick uncapped his pen.
Renn’s eyes flicked past her, then returned. “Do you know the name Tara Reed?”
“No.”
“Do you know my client’s pet, Tara?”
“No.”
“Have you ever met a person calling herself Elise?”
There it was.
The blade under the paper.
Kestrel thought of Elise at Charity’s kitchen table with both hands wrapped around a chipped mug, shoulders nearly touching her ears. She thought of the way Elise had asked permission to sit down after being told three times that every chair in the room was available to her. She thought of Rho placing toast on the table without comment. Charity kneeling to wrap Elise’s feet. Lucky standing in the hall because his Guard Dog instincts had clocked the exits, the windows, the danger, and still chosen not to crowd her.
She thought of Elise whispering, “Will he be allowed to come get me?”
And heard herself saying, “Not while I am breathing.”
Her counsel’s shoe touched hers beneath the table.
A warning. Not here. Not like that.
Kestrel looked at Renn. “The Foundation serves many people. I am not able to identify individuals based on a first name alone.”
“Have you ever met a runaway pet using the name Elise?”
“Objection.”
“You can answer.”
“I cannot identify any Foundation client in response to that question.”
“So you refuse to answer?”
“I am preserving client confidentiality.”
“Pets don't have client confidentiality.”
“The Foundation serves individuals,” Kestrel said.
Renn leaned back.
Reed’s jaw flexed.
Kestrel watched the word land badly. Good. Let it bruise.
“Mrs. Wickham,” Renn said, “did you knowingly assist Product #440918 in evading Mr. Reed?”
“No.”
The answer was easy.
She hadn't assisted a product. She had assisted Elise.
“Did the Wickham Foundation knowingly assist Product #440918 in evading Mr. Reed?”
“I am not aware of any Foundation program by that name assisting any person by that designation.”
“By that designation,” Renn repeated.
“Yes.”
“Again, very careful.”
“Again, I am under oath.”
A small sound came from behind her. Not quite a laugh.
Renn ignored it. “Where is Product #440918?”
“I don’t know.”
Reed’s chair scraped against the carpet.
The sound was sharp enough that the court reporter startled.
Kestrel didn't. Neither did Wick.
Renn lifted one hand toward his client. “Let the record reflect that Mr. Reed is understandably emotional.”
Kestrel’s counsel said, “Let the record reflect only that Mr. Reed moved his chair.”
The court reporter resumed typing.
Kestrel almost liked her.
Almost.
Renn lowered his voice. “Mrs. Wickham, are you testifying that you don't know the location of my client’s lawful property?”
“I am testifying that I don't know the location of Product #440918.”
It was true now.
That was the point of the move.
Kestrel had known where Elise was that morning. At breakfast, she had known the room, the house, the county, the road that bent around the old church and ended where the trees grew thick. By the time she entered the conference room, Lucky had already sent the message.
Bird in transit.
By the time Renn asked, Kestrel didn't know. Not the car. Not the route. Not the destination. Not the final house. That knowledge had been taken away from her as deliberately as a weapon being removed before a search.
She knew Elise was not with Reed.
For now, that was enough.
Renn slid a paper across the table. “I’m showing you what has been marked as Exhibit Four. Do you recognize this document?”
Her counsel intercepted it first, reviewed it, then passed it to Kestrel.
A reimbursement form.
Gas. Tolls. Convenience store receipt. A driver listed as M. Santos. Date: March seventeenth. The night Elise had come in barefoot and hypothermic and apologizing for the rainwater on Charity’s floor.
Kestrel looked at it for the correct number of seconds.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“A Foundation reimbursement form.”
“Did you approve it?”
“Yes.”
“What was the expense for?”
“Transportation support.”
“For whom?”
“The form doesn’t state a client name.”
“Do you know who was transported?”
“No.”
“Who is M. Santos?”
“A Foundation contractor.”
“What does M. Santos do for the Foundation?”
“Transportation support.”
“Transporting whom?”
“Clients.”
“Pets?”
“Individuals.”
Renn’s smile went thin and hard. “You can see how this looks.”
“I can see the document.”
“Mrs. Wickham, are you familiar with the legal concept of conversion?”
“Yes.”
“Tortious interference?”
“Yes.”
“Theft?”
“Objection.”
Renn continued. “Are you aware that depriving an owner of lawful access to his pet may constitute theft?”
“I am aware that your complaint makes that allegation.”
“Do you deny it?”
“The Foundation denies wrongdoing.”
“Did a young woman matching Tara Reed’s description enter a Foundation-funded facility on March seventeenth?”
“I don't have enough information to answer that.”
“Was she given food?”
Kestrel paused.
Her counsel went still beside her.
Wick didn't move behind her.
“No,” Kestrel said.
Renn blinked. Then smiled.
“No?”
“No, I don't deny that the Foundation gives food to hungry people.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“It’s what the Foundation does.”
“You don’t know that Product 440918 was hungry.”
“I know people come to us hungry.”
Reed leaned forward. “She has a dietary plan.”
Renn’s eyes closed for half a second.
Too late.
The room caught it.
Kestrel turned her head and looked at Reed for the first time.
He looked irritated that she had acknowledged him at all.
“She has medical requirements,” Reed said. “Supplements. Caloric restrictions. She can’t just eat whatever some shelter hands her.”
Kestrel’s counsel said, “Mr. Reed is not questioning the witness.”
But Kestrel kept looking at him.
A person told you everything in what they corrected.
Not she's afraid.
Not she's hurt.
Not I want to know if she is alive.
Supplements. Restrictions. Requirements.
As though Elise had been a misplaced piece of equipment with manufacturer guidelines.
"Then I hope she is somewhere with food.”
Renn leaned forward immediately. “Did you just admit you know she is somewhere?”
“I admitted that I hope a missing person is fed.”
“She isn’t a missing person,” Renn said. “She is my client’s registered pet.”
Kestrel looked back at him.
“Then I hope Mr. Reed’s registered pet is fed.”
The words tasted like rust.
Renn seemed pleased anyway, as if making her repeat the legal category meant the category had won.
It had not.
Not today.
He turned a page. “Do you know Dr. Charity Bartlett?”
“Yes.”
“In what capacity?”
“She operates a free clinic that has received Foundation grants.”
“Does Dr. Bartlett shelter runaway pets?”
Her counsel’s voice sharpened. “Objection. Calls for speculation and seeks information outside the scope of this deposition.”
“You may answer if you know, Mrs. Wickham.”
Kestrel’s pulse changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Charity’s name didn't belong in this room.
Rho’s didn't. Lucky’s didn't. The blue room didn't. The patched fence didn't. The old kettle that whistled too loud and made everyone complain didn't. The safehouse didn't belong in the mouth of a man who called a terrified woman stolen property.
Kestrel folded her hands tighter.
“I know Dr. Bartlett provides medical care.”
“To pets?”
“To patients.”
“Runaway patients?”
“To patients.”
“Does the Foundation fund Dr. Bartlett’s illegal sheltering activities?”
“I’m not aware of any illegal sheltering activities by Dr. Bartlett.”
“Is that because you don’t ask?”
“It is because the Foundation funds documented medical services.”
Renn tapped his pen once. “Mrs. Wickham, we can subpoena Dr. Bartlett.”
“You can attempt to subpoena anyone you believe has relevant information.”
“And if she refuses to comply?”
“That would be a matter for Dr. Bartlett and her counsel.”
“Does that concern you?”
Kestrel held his gaze.
“Yes.”
Renn brightened.
Kestrel let him.
“It concerns me when medical providers are harassed for treating vulnerable people.”
The brightness died.
Beside her, Foundation counsel wrote something in the margin of his notes.
Behind her, Wick capped his pen.
They broke for lunch twenty minutes later.
The smaller room down the hall did have a window, but it looked directly into a brick wall.
Wick maneuvered his chair in first, then waited until the door shut before letting Christopher Wickham fall off his face.
His hands were shaking.
Kestrel crossed the room and crouched in front of him.
Not because he needed her lower.
Because she wanted his eyes.
“Wick,” she said.
His jaw worked once.
“They said Charity’s name.”
“I know.”
“They shouldn't have Charity’s name.”
“I know.”
“They shouldn't have enough for Santos either.”
“I know.”
He looked at her, pale and vicious with rage. “I can bury Reed.”
“I know.”
“I can bury Renn.”
“I know.”
“I can make sure every donor who has ever shaken Reed’s hand suddenly remembers a scheduling conflict.”
Kestrel rested her hands on the arms of his chair. “Not during my deposition.”
For one beat, he stared at her.
Then a laugh broke out of him, short and rough. He covered his face with one hand.
Kestrel stayed there.
He reached for her with the other hand. She gave him her fingers.
“I hate this,” he said.
“I know.”
“I hate that you have to sit there and let them call her that.”
“So do I.”
“I hate that they get to call you Mrs. Wickham like it means you belong to me.”
Kestrel looked at him.
His face tightened as if the words had cut him on the way out.
She squeezed his hand once.
“They can call me Mrs. Wickham,” she said. “They still don’t know what it means.”
Wick looked at her for a long moment.
Then his mouth trembled at the edge.
Not a smile.
Not grief.
Something that held both and survived them.
Her counsel knocked once and opened the door. “They’re ready.”
Wick inhaled.
The public face returned piece by piece. Smooth suit. Straight spine. Pleasant mouth. Empty eyes.
Christopher Wickham, co-CEO, benefactor, husband, observer.
Kestrel stood.
He caught her wrist before she stepped away.
“Kestrel.”
She looked back.
In public, most people called her Mrs. Wickham. In private, he called her by the name she had kept alive with her teeth.
His voice was low. “Don't let him make you bleed for telling the truth carefully.”
Kestrel bent and pressed her forehead to his for one brief second.
“I won’t.”
When they returned, Renn had a photograph.
Kestrel knew before he turned it around.
Owners always brought photographs. Proof of condition. Proof of possession. Proof that the thing had once been where it belonged.
He placed it in front of her.
Tara knelt beside Reed’s chair at some formal event. Pale dress. Glossy hair. Hands placed exactly on her thighs. Collar visible, tasteful enough to pass for jewelry if the viewer had never been trained to see a leash in every pretty thing.
Kestrel knew what to look for.
The tension in the jaw. The unfocused eyes. The obedience arranged so neatly it could be mistaken for peace.
Elise was thinner now but her eyes had changed. Fear was still there. It didn't leave just because a door opened. But there was anger under it now.
Small. Unsteady. Lit.
Kestrel protected that ember by keeping her own face blank.
“Do you recognize the person in this photograph?” Renn asked.
Kestrel looked at it. “No.”
Reed slammed his palm on the table.
The court reporter jumped.
Wick didn't.
Kestrel didn't.
Renn snapped, “Mr. Reed.”
“She is lying,” Reed said.
Her counsel said, “We are going off the record.”
“No,” Kestrel said.
Everyone looked at her.
Even Wick.
She kept her eyes on Renn. “I can answer.”
Her counsel hesitated. Then sat back.
Renn watched her carefully. “You don't recognize this person?”
“I recognize that there is a person in the photograph.”
“Do you recognize her as Tara Reed?”
“No.”
“As Product 440918?”
“No.”
“As Elise?”
The lie was harder this time. Elise had chosen that name in a whisper on Charity’s porch while Rho pretended to fix a loose hinge nearby. Elise had deserved to be known by it. Elise had deserved someone saying,
But not here.
Never here.
“No,” Kestrel said.
Renn slid the photograph closer. “Look again.”
Kestrel did.
The collar had a small charm.
T.R.
Tara Reed.
Property disguised as affection.
Kestrel considered breaking Reed’s hand one finger at a time. She could be effiecient. She wouldn’t even need to raise her voice.
She didn't.
Restraint had been forced into her too young and too thoroughly. Today, she used it against him.
“I have looked,” she said.
“And your testimony is that you don't recognize her?”
“My testimony is that I can’t identify the person in that photograph as anyone known to me through Foundation services.”
“That's not the same answer.”
“No.”
“Which answer is true?”
“Both.”
Silence.
Renn’s eyes sharpened.
There.
Now he saw her. She wasn't just a wife. Nor was she only the charity executive. Neither was she only a polished co-CEO in a tailored suit and wedding ring, sitting five feet two inches tall at a table full of men who thought volume and height were the same as power.
He finally saw the thing underneath. He finally saw the girl trained to stand in rooms full of predators and know which one would move first.
Renn changed tactics.
“Mrs. Wickham, were you raised in the Wickham household?”
Wick’s pen stopped behind her.
Her counsel’s voice went cold. “Objection. Harassment. Relevance.”
“It goes to bias.”
“It's a spectacle.”
Kestrel said, “I can answer.”
Her counsel looked at her.
Kestrel didn't look back.
“Yes,” she said.
“In what capacity?”
“I was raised there.”
“As a pet?”
The word landed between them. Wick inhaled behind her.
Reed watched with sudden, ugly fascination.
There it was. Recognition at last.
Not of her face but of her category. She had been freed and disobedient. She was a warning.
Kestrel let him look.
“No,” she said. “Not as a WRU pet.”
“But you were owned.”
“Objection.”
“Were you owned, Mrs. Wickham?”
The room with no windows blurred for half a second into another room. It was bigger and warmer. There were flowers on the wallpaper and Malcolm’s hand on the back of a chair. Charlotte’s voice telling someone not to make a scene. Wick laughing somewhere else, young and loved and unaware.
Then it was gone.
Kestrel looked at Renn.
“I was a child.”
Renn paused. That hadn't been the answer he expected.
Good. Let him trip over it.
“I’ll rephrase,” he said. “Do your experiences with the Wickham family influence your work with the Foundation?”
“Yes.”
Behind her, Wick’s breath caught.
She continued before anyone could stop her.
“They influence my belief that children should be protected, that hungry people should be fed, that sick people should receive medical care, and that no one should be returned to a place where they are unsafe.”
Renn leaned forward. “Even if returning them is required by law?”
Her counsel said, “Objection. Calls for a legal conclusion.”
Kestrel looked at Reed. Only Reed.
“I don't return people to unsafe places.”
Reed’s face flushed.
Renn said, “People.”
“Yes.”
“You keep using that word.”
“I know.”
“You understand that my client seeks the return of his pet, not a person.”
Kestrel looked back at him.
“I understand what your client is seeking.”
“And would the Foundation comply with a lawful court order requiring it to disclose the location of Product 440918?”
“Objection. Hypothetical, calls for a legal conclusion, and assumes facts not in evidence.”
Renn ignored her counsel. “Would you comply, Mrs. Wickham?”
Kestrel thought of the first safehouse.
Empty now, or almost empty.
She thought of the emergency bag under Elise’s bed.
The coat Elise had chosen herself.
The second van.
The driver who didn't know the final address because the route would change twice.
Lucky’s message. Bird in transit.
She thought of Charity’s hands wrapping Elise’s feet. Rho teaching Elise to say no by starting with tea. Wick behind her, trying not to shake. Every law written by people who had never been property and every law broken by people who understood exactly what property felt like from the inside.
“The Foundation complies with lawful court orders,” Kestrel said.
Renn smiled like he had won something. “Would you personally provide the location?”
“If compelled by a court, I would consult counsel regarding the Foundation’s legal obligations.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It’s my answer.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Do you know who knows where she is?”
“No.”
“Do you know whether she is alive?”
Kestrel hated him then. Not sharply. Completely.
“I hope she is,” she said.
Reed scoffed. “She would be if she came home.”
The room stopped.
There were sentences that told on themselves. Renn knew it. Kestrel saw irritation flash across his face before he smoothed it away.
Kestrel turned to Reed.
“She would be if she came home,” she repeated.
Reed’s eyes narrowed.
Kestrel tilted her head. “Interesting phrasing.”
Her counsel murmured, “Mrs. Wickham.”
She let Reed go.
Renn rushed in. “My client is understandably distressed. His property has been missing for nearly a month.”
“Twenty-seven days,” Kestrel said.
Too fast.
Her counsel closed her eyes.
Renn went still.
Reed did too.
Behind her, Wick became motionless as glass.
Renn’s voice softened. Dangerously soft.
“Twenty-seven?”
Kestrel looked down at the complaint.
“The incident report attached to your filing states that Product 440918 left Mr. Reed’s residence on the evening of March sixteenth. Today is April twelfth. That's twenty-seven days.”
Renn watched her.
One second. Two.
“Of course,” he said.
He didn't believe her.
That was fine.
Suspicion was not a location.
By the time the deposition ended, Reed had lost his temper twice, Renn had lost his smile once, and Kestrel had used the word individual so many times it had become a quiet act of vandalism.
The court reporter packed her machine.
Counsel gathered exhibits.
Renn stood and buttoned his jacket. “This is far from over, Mrs. Wickham.”
Kestrel rose.
Reed stepped around his attorney.
Too close.
Wick’s chair shifted behind her.
Kestrel didn't move.
Reed lowered his voice. “You think you’re noble.”
Her counsel snapped, “Mr. Reed, don't address my client.”
But Reed was looking at Kestrel.
Only Kestrel.
“She isn't like you,” he said. “Whatever happened to you, whatever story you’ve told yourself, Tara had structure. She had a home. She had a purpose. She gets confused without direction.”
The old shape of obedience waited in Kestrel’s bones.
She smiled.
“Then I hope,” Kestrel said, “wherever she is, someone gives her time to be confused.”
Reed stared at her.
Kestrel stepped around him.
Wick was already beside the door, upright on his crutches now, pale with pain and rage. Christopher Wickham in every line of his suit. Wick burning through the eyes.
He opened the door for her.
In the hallway, neither of them spoke until the conference room door closed behind them.
Then Wick said, very softly, “Elise has been moved.”
Kestrel looked at him.
He didn't smile.
“Lucky called during the break,” Wick said. “Charity agreed. Rho hated it. Elise chose the coat herself.”
Kestrel’s chest loosened so suddenly it hurt.
“Where?”
Wick’s eyes held hers.
For one breath, he looked like the boy he had been before he knew. Before the world cracked open and showed him the shape of the house he had loved.
Then he looked like the man he had become after.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Kestrel stared at him.
A tiny, terrible laugh escaped her.
Wick’s mouth trembled at the edge of answering.
Neither of them let it become more than that. Not there. Not with cameras in the lobby, counsel waiting by the elevator, and Reed’s people still close enough to hear if they raised their voices.
Kestrel reached for his sleeve instead of his hand.
Public enough.
Private enough.
The elevator doors opened.
Their counsel stepped in first. Wick followed, slow and careful on his crutches. Kestrel came last.
As the doors slid shut, Wick leaned close.
His voice was barely audible.
“You told the truth.”
Kestrel watched their reflections blur in the polished metal.
“No,” she said. “I told enough to keep her alive.”
Wick looked at her reflection.
Then nodded once.
The elevator descended.
Above them, in a conference room with no windows, men with expensive pens tried to turn a missing woman back into property.
Below them, the city kept moving.
Somewhere else, Elise was in a different car, under a different blanket, with a name no one in that room had earned the right to use.
And for now, no one who wanted to own her knew where she was.
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18 for the wij prompts? (preferably unintentional..)
18 from wij is smoke. ngl, I was like...smoke? You want me to set their house on fire? Smok...ing? Not something I can picture Leo or Aiden doing but have written for Harrison (end of this & implied here).
Anyway, I'm lying in bed thinking smoke, smoke, smoke. Nothing. I start daydreaming about what I would really like to write and what I'd really like to write is Harrison & Aiden meeting up post-Leo, with Leo there(!) even, but there's this one really crucial discovery Aiden needs to make first... and, boom, up in smoke. *Might be helpful to read this for more snippets of Aiden's fragmented recalling of his first/only contract!
(If you had a more literal smoke scenario in mind, please feel free to send it in! Also, I'm posting this whenever like wij is a fluid prompt list instead of a calendar 💫)
cw: victim self-blaming, internalized ableism, past noncon, past self-harm & past suicide attempt mentioned frankly.
Previous — Masterlist — Next
It’s just a normal trip to the store.
He and Leo split up to get through the list faster. He’s just grabbed the cereal when he sees them.
It always seemed too theatrical, melodramatic even, when people in movies and tv shows dropped everything in a moment of shock.
But it’s almost reflexive. To empty your hands when everything you’ve built your life around goes up in smoke. So your fingers are free to cling to the fragments. To pluck the burning, rising remnants of all meaning out of thin air.
The cereal box slaps against the grey industrial linoleum, followed closely by the saltines and the mayonnaise. Thank god it’s the plastic squeeze bottle because there weren’t any of the glass jars they usually buy. If it weren’t for the explosions of sound in the vacuum inside his head, he’d never be able to tear himself away from that face, that expression, those eyes.
An impossible ghost in the flesh. Not a ghost at all.
And to think he felt a flash of uncertainty at the substitution of a fucking condiment minutes ago. Enough to make him hesitate for a half-second before pulling it off the shelf. It’s the same brand and we need it for dinner, he defended to himself. (And last he checked the container the mayo comes in was not on Leo’s List. The secret one Aiden keeps diligent catalog of in his head.)
He stumbles back, away from the groceries he’s meant to bring back to Leo and the cart. Away from the curious, judgmental, bored, prying looks of the other shoppers. He’s not fast enough and his ruination incarnate starts to turn. Either from the noise or the sense of being near a spectacle and wanting, needing to make sure you’re not it.
Aiden spins and smacks right into a scowling, broad woman but doesn’t stop long enough to make sense of her clucking accusation as he mechanically and clumsily rushes from the store. His skin prickles under the weight of a too-familiar glare on his back but he can’t bring himself to turn and meet it, confirm he hasn’t immediately been passed over as a random weirdo. He weaves around someone’s cart at the last second, almost takes down a whole stack of Nilla Wafers and knocks shoulders with someone else in his careening retreat until finally he’s stumbling over the rubber spaghetti carpet of the entrance.
Blessed fresh air and sunlight blinding him and all he can feel is his heart beating so hard he thinks it will crack him open and there will be nothing at all inside because he doesn’t know what’s left. Maybe one of the bored stock workers will lend him some notes for taking inventory.
He ducks down the space between the grocery store and the Barnes & Noble. It’s not the skinny alley he wishes it were but he can tuck behind the fenced off dumpster, beside a stack of empty wooden pallets, and pretend it’s the best hiding spot in the world.
His breath rattles through his throat, lungs like wet plastic bags caught on branches in the wind. For a second, he thinks he might pass out. His thoughts have slowed to a crawl. Glacial in grasping onto the next rung of reality, they just hang there suspended. Flight, freeze, at least he got out of there before fawn tripped along.
Laughter climbs out of his mouth, jolting him back to the brick of the building behind his back, the asphalt where he sits. He has to clap both hands over his wild, hysterical grin before it slices his head in half like a watermelon. What is he even made of? Instead of nothing at all, maybe it’s just liquified now, syrupy juice will run down his ears, over his nose and lips. The overturned top of his head a tiki bowl on the pavement. Just waiting for someone like Harrison to slip a straw in, stir it around and take a taste.
You’re being dramatic, the Harrison in his head says flatly. As close as if he were resting his temple on Aiden’s shoulder. Watching the whole scene unfold like a movie he would never choose but will obstinately sit through to the bitter end, if only for the opportunity to heckle as proof of his superiority. You can pick next time, Aiden easily cedes. Somatic comfort in giving him exactly what he wants, folding to the familiar dynamic, because that well-worn crease is rest compared to resisting. What’s the point?
His phone buzzes in his pocket. Once. Twice. He’s been out here long enough Leo decided he’s taking too long. He’ll make a lap or two around the whole store. Then he’d pretend finding Aiden early was serendipitous. All the while swallowing a sigh of relief, playing at nonchalance when just a second ago he was pulling out his phone in a panic.
But Aiden’s nowhere to be found so Leo does call. His phone pulses with the fear Leo must be feeling but Aiden can’t bring himself to share in it, can’t seem to move. He just waits for the second call to come a heartbeat later, buried in his hoodie. For Leo to use the Find feature to get Aiden’s phone to sing a chorus of shrill beeps, silenced or not. Sometimes he can’t hear it if he’s working, if it’s across the room, or he left it on his pillow. Sorry! He’d text back, adding a monkey emoji covering its eyes. Leo would always call him after that. It’s okay, the first words out of his mouth. Twice, Aiden’s let the routine play out on purpose, just to have Leo’s reassurance in his ear. Squirming from the sweet guilt and the way it warmed him from the inside out.
He tries to see if he feels anything knowing Leo is zooming in on the little map and rushing to find him. Guilt for making him worry? Shame for losing it in public, yet again? He peels his hands off his face and presses them into the gritty pavement, tiny rocks digging into the skin of his palms, the pads of his fingers. At least he can feel that.
There should also be at least a tiny shred of comfort, of warmth, at the fact that Leo knows him well enough to come peering around every obstacle in the no-man’s land between the buildings to find his hiding nook. Empty handed of course because Leo would abandon anything to come to his rescue.
Leo kneels down, close enough to reach but leaving enough space that he’s not boxing Aiden in. He’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s freaked out. Face lined with worry, eyes searching and probing and Aiden knows his dead expression isn’t giving him anything.
“Aiden,” he has to ask. He’s never gotten any better at letting Aiden suffer silently. “What happened? Are you alright?”
He jerks his head in a nod, drags a hand over his face to try to reset the muscles. “I saw someone—some…two,” the sounds roll over his tongue, meaningless syllables. His lips twitch into a smile. She smiled. Right at him. As unreal as all the words, spoken countless times already and washed clean of all meaning they reach his lips. “Two people.”
“What?” Leo’s panic doubles in turn. “Did they recognize you?”
He shrugs. That smile. “She might’ve but she’s…she’s only…” He’s crying. “Three now.” He wipes the tears off his cheeks. “She turned three,” he whispers to himself, grinning giddily. Testing Leo’s anxiety.
“Aiden? What about the other person?” He looks like he’s about to throw him over his shoulder and sprint to the car.
“Dunno.” He can’t bring himself to care. Nothing else matters. She turned three. “If he did, he’d call.” It’s not funny but he can’t help laughing. “He’s…an asshole,” he laughs. “He always hated me. Didn’t stop him fucking me—” He claps both hands over his mouth but it only makes him sound more manic.
Leo’s jaw hangs open.
He tries to pull a breath through his nose, gags because he can’t stop laughing. Has to release his out-of-control mouth again to choke down enough air. He flaps a hand at Leo. It’s fine.
Leo shakes his head, a gentle pushback.
He tries harder to get a hold of himself, presses the heels of his shaking hands to his temples. Switches to covering his eyes. Pulls his hood down low over his forehead instead. He’s still laughing. Or something close to it.
“I think we should leave…” Suggested with all the care of trying to balance a soap bubble on his finger tip, like Aiden’s about to detonate. (Hasn’t he already?)
He nods, tears streaming down his face. Leo pulls him up with a strong grip around his wrist and doesn’t let go of his arm. Aiden puts his head between his knees as soon as he’s buckled in, unable to remember if he did it himself or if he even opened his own door.
Eventually, the hysterical sounds coming out of his mouth simmer down to a silent vibration deep in his chest. A rumbling, rearranging of everything that used to hold him together.
They’re halfway home before Leo pierces the silence he let Aiden rest on for the last ten minutes. “I’m gonna need to know who you saw. Just tell me it wasn’t…” He shoots a nervous glance at Aiden, testing the waters before he nevertheless throws a rock in. “...Harrison?”
“No, no.” The idea is almost enough to make him laugh all over again. Imagine. He stops himself from blurting that Harrison never touched him like that. Leo should have known already it couldn’t possibly have been Harrison from that comment alone. He will have to clarify that nuance later. For some reason it’s important, a needling itch he won’t be able to leave untouched.
“Okay…” Leo tries to give him a minute to answer on his own but he’s out of patience. Counting without Mississippis. “So?”
He leans his head against the window, watches the blur of leaves against the clouds. They’re already starting to turn, the first hint of fall coming in to soften the brightness of summer into shades of sepia. “Mira, Mr. Park.”
“What?”
“Even after everything I did, they’re alive.”
Leo blinks at him, has to brake hard when he misses the light turning yellow and it’s red by the time he looks back at the road. “You’re serious? Aiden. Aiden—”
“Leo,” he cuts him off. They’ve had this conversation more than once.
When he forced himself to confess because he couldn’t bear the thought of Leo signing for legal responsibility of him without knowing. He practiced through tears night after night, condemning his reflection in the powder room mirror while Leo slept upstairs. Like a ritual of self-flagellation, punishment in equal measure for his mistakes and for still not having full faculty of his speech. A murderer, he finally articulated. What? Was it in self-defense? Leo didn’t believe him. No, I killed two people. He felt his soul shake under Leo’s silence. Minutes of it, until he thought it would press the life right out of him. Did you mean to do it? Aiden shook his head. Okay. He didn’t think it was right to promise he wouldn’t do it again, knowing what he was capable of.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he tells Leo’s profile in the car. He lets himself smile again.
“Like fuck it doesn’t matter, Aiden. You were…” Leo pulls over and stares out the windshield as the traffic streams past. He punches the steering wheel, making Aiden tense.
The second time, he found himself in an exhausting tunnel of nightmares about it. He couldn’t see an end, thought he had to earn a reprieve. Leo caught him with a lighter, burning lines with a heated knife high on the sides of his ribcage where he thought they’d never be seen. He’d spelled out the entire series of events in a panicked, desperate defense, so articulate was he at last. You didn’t kill anyone, you’re blameless. Leo was furious, devastated. Two people are dead because of me, because of my actions. I killed them. It was much worse than the first time. What else was a complete lie? All Aiden could do was apologize. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please. Louder and louder to try to drown out Leo’s escalating desperation to find something, anything to tip the scales in his favor. Nothing was worse than letting Aiden go on believing this about himself, until it was. Did you even slit your own wrists or did Harrison come do it for you? And then he was crying too hard to get the words out and Leo surrendered, rushing in to hold him and wrap him up in a tide of his own apologies. We’re not done with this. He’d whispered between kisses to the crown of his head. But there was no way either of them would bring it up again.
It starts to rain, little drops hitting the windshield.
“Please don’t,” Aiden whispers, holding onto the smile even though the muscles in his cheeks are starting to tremble. Tears stinging the corners of his eyes.
Leo still won’t look at him. “This is how you should have felt all along. Dead or alive, nothing that happened that day was ever your fault. You were being hurt, you were being—”
He pulls Leo’s hand off the steering wheel. “Please?”
The most recent time, it brought itself up. A series of perfectly laid dominoes falling to pave the path to him refusing to babysit Jesse’s daughter. Leo caught on instantly and this time he was prepared. What if I had been in your position? Determined to keep his cool and find a weak spot in Aiden’s resolve. You weren’t. Again and again, mapping out hypothetical situations after alternate chains of events after endless what-ifs. Would you blame me? What about Delia? He’d just shake his head. It’s different. There was nothing Leo could draw on from his own life, no horror he’d shared in close enough to even hold a candle to the darkness Aiden was sheltering. Please, I promise to be good, he finally said, letting tears fall from his eyes, pretending it was hard to meet Leo’s gaze. I know what you’re doing. He faked a flinch. I swear to God, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to change your mind. He nodded solemnly, genuine in the hopelessness in his expression. Another layer of punishment to fit the crime: Leo having to share in his suffering. One more addition to the list of things he’ll never repay.
The rain falls harder, audible on the roof of the car. Competing only with the rush of tires on the wet road outside.
He squeezes Leo’s hand in both of his, begging him to cede.
“God.” Leo sighs, looking skyward for serenity, patience. A purer, softer kind of grace than the thorned yoke Aiden had pinned himself under. Mirroring the punishments he bore on the outside. Needless, all of it.
He cries from relief. Trembling in the upside down state of the world now that the smoke has cleared. Uncertain how to hold the fragile clarity that it’s within reach to deserve all the good. Maybe it wasn’t smoke at all but snowfall. Everything fresh and clean, just like when Leo found him. A sob escapes his lips.
Leo brushes the tears from his cheeks. “Com’ere.”
Aiden gathers fistfulls of the back of his shirt, breathing in the smell of fabric softener, of Leo, of home. He feels weightless. Cocooned in Leo’s arms and the knowledge that there’s nothing left to forgive.
got a little obsessed with this idea. king whumpee and gray eminence whumper who is very displeased to have been disobeyed. publicly.
cw: royal whump, covert whump, manhandling, mentions of punishments
The duke holds the door open for him, a charming smile for the crowd. He bows his head when the king climbs in, also smiling at the crowd. They sit across each other, and the duke keeps one of the curtains open for the prince to smile and wave at the mass as the carriage starts moving.
He only lets go when the crowd has thinned, but his smile is gone long before that. As soon as the curtain has closes, the king sinks to his knees. There’s not much space in the carriage and his nose brush the archduke’s knees as the man spreads his legs.
“I apologise, Your Grace.”
The duke’s eyes turn towards him with a glint of something cruel as he evenly says, “Whatever for, Your Majesty?”
Truthfully, he doesn’t know, but there’s only so many things he could have done that would make the duke so angry. He speaks clearly, knowing better than to stumble over his words.
“I went against your will. I didn’t think-”
The duke’s hand moves and he flinches, expecting a hit. It only tangles in his hair, pulling his head up sharply. The duke doesn’t look composed anymore, and his voice is not so even as his lips curl into a sneer.
“You were never asked to think, were you?”
The tight space of the carriage makes it feel as though he is looming over the prince when he leans forward.
“Opposing me so publicly – Did you think you were allowed an opinion on my decisions? That you could… express it? Publicly?”
The hand in his hair tightens its grip and the duke shakes him a little. He doesn’t even try to speak to defend itself.
“I think not. I think His Royal Majesty simply forgot his place.”
The king swallows. He tries to lower his eyes, but the duke grabs his chin, nails almost digging into the skin – but not yet; there’ll be another crowd at the palace’s gates.
“My apologies, Your Grace. I didn’t- I didn’t realise it meant so much-”
He can’t flinch away from the slap. It’s almost a relief that the duke has let go of his hair, both because his neck and back were starting to hurt and because there’s no way he could have dressed his hair again if it became too dishevelled. He doesn’t have the luxury of another blunder right now.
“You naïve little fool. Everything I do means something. Every. Single. Thing.” Every word is punctuated with a sharp squeeze of the hand holding his chin, and the king assumes it’s already reddened. He can’t feel crescent-shaped thing digging into him yet, which should make it easier to hide.
The duke is in control enough – and kind enough – to not backhand him. There are no rings to scratch at him, and he shouldn’t bruise from this.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into that pretty little head of yours, but we’re going to fix it.”
Another flinch from the king, who forces himself to meet the duke’s eyes. “Please, Your Grace, I swear-”
The duke surges forward, pulling the king along. The king is slammed against the carriage’s wall, pinned under the duke’s frame. The duke is still holding his chin, but his other hand trails down the king’s chest, fingers splayed possessively.
“You’ve been such a wicked ward, haven’t you? Teasing me, defying me, making such a spectacle of us both.” He presses close, lips brushing the shell of the king’s ear. “Don’t worry, Your Majesty, I’m going to take good care of you. Do such a good job reminding you of your place.”
He keeps the king pinned a while longer before relaxing his grip and stepping away. The king sinks back to his knees, burying his face into the duke’s robes.
“Your Grace, please-”
“That’s more like. This is the respect you should have shown to me earlier.” He buries his hand in the king’s hair, almost petting. “Shh, there’s no need to cry. I’ll guide you. Put you back into your proper place.”
He tilts the king’s head up with a brush of his knuckles. “It’s my responsibility – my right – to discipline you when you stray.” His thumb brushes softly over the king’s lower lip. “We’ll work together, you and I, hmm?”
“Please-”
The duke tries to maintain his façade but his eyes glitter with satisfaction, something almost predatory in the way he looks down. He loves seeing this – a desperate, submissive king, completely at his mercy and grovelling for forgiveness.
“Shh. I told you there was no need for his.”
His hand moves from the king’s chin to his throat. His grip stays lax, more possessive than anything else.
“I suppose it’s been a while, but that’s no reason to behave like this.” A sharp squeeze to make the king meets his eyes. “When we arrive, you’re going to walk beside me; head held high and that pretty smile of yours for the crowd.”
His grip tightens a little as a flash of anger darkens his face. “If you even think about disobeying me again, so publicly at that, I will destroy you. Is that clear?”
The king swallows, throat bobbing under the duke’s grip. He nods, but the duke’s doesn’t relent. He lowers his eyes.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
A smile spreads on the duke’s face, wicked and slow. He lets go of the king’s throat, fingers trailing down. He leans back slightly.
“Good boy, I knew you’d see reason.” He lets go, straightening his collar and smoothing out any wrinkles with meticulousness.
“Remember, love, your happiness, your safety – your very existence depends on pleasing me.” His tone is gentle, almost sweet. “I can be very generous to those who obey, darling. You’ve seen it.”
He pulls the king up, pushing him back on the settee and not paying him any more attention as he tries to quickly straighten his clothes. The carriage slows down as they approach the gate and a smile is back on the duke’s face. “Let’s put on a good show, hmm? Smile for your adoring subjects.”
He doesn’t grant the king any time, quickly opening the door. The king pushes himself up and almost scrambles – but not because that would be stupid – forward to smile and wave and pretend.
The duke steps out behind the king, leaning close. “Such a good king, aren’t you? So well-trained, so obedient.” His hand finds the small of the king’s back in a gesture that appears supportive. It burns like a brand but neither of their smile waver.
He raises a hand to acknowledge the crowd’s adoration, smile just shy of seductive. “Please, Your Majesty. We have much to discuss in private.”
He bows slightly, letting the king leads them – though he stiffens with every step. The mask falls as soon as they’re behind closed doors, and the duke stalks forward.
“Alone at last,” he almost purrs, matching the king’s retreat step for step. “Now then, my disobedient little pet,” he grips the king’s wrist tightly, pulling him flush against his chest. “Let’s discuss your transgressions properly, shall we?”
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