#abraham denner

So I made character collages for some of@ashintheairlikesnow 's oc characters :)

Ashley

Bram

Nate

and sweet Danny

I had someone request a master list of Daniel Michaelson posts, so here! I’ve also got a master list going right here on my blog’s page, so you can always check there if you’re looking to see if you’ve missed any!

I may even manage to keep it updated. I’m crazy unpredictable that way.

These are in the order they were written/posted, not at all chronological. I am up for requests if anyone thinks of anything they’d like to see in this universe, send me an ask. I will be posting slower as time goes on but still, I hate having unanswered asks in my inbox so trust me, you will be answered.

Daniel Michaelson’s Story

Part One: Shaky Hands

Part Two: Explosions

Part Three: Delirium

Part Four: Human Shield

Part Five: Gunpoint

Part Six: Dragged Away

Part Seven: Isolation

Part Eight: Wake Up

Part Nine: Shackled

Part Ten: Stay With Me

Part Eleven: Nate Vandrum, Two Years Before Daniel

Part Twelve: Trembling

Part Thirteen: Laced Drink

Part Fourteen: Nate Vandrum’s Nightmare

Part Fifteen: The Rules

Part Sixteen: The Pain is His

Part Seventeen: Unaffected

Part Eighteen: Mine

Part Nineteen: Waterlogged

Part Twenty: Beaten / Numb

Part Twenty-One: He Belongs to Himself

(for @whumptober2019, Day 20: Trembling TW: serious violence/torture, SW: creepy whumper thoughts, Abraham Denner is a bad bad man)

“Am, am I doing okay so far?” The man’s blue eyes are wide, moving from one lawyer to another, a constant dance of seeking approval and reassurance from anyone he can see. 

Of course, no one in the courtroom can see the lawyers he is looking at, only him - he is the center of the frame, wavy red hair falling nearly to his eyes, scarred hands flat on the table but visibly shaking even through the digital image projected on the screen.

“You’re doing great, Mr. Michaelson. We just need to keep going, okay? Do you think you’ll be fine to continue?”

The man slowly nods. “I, I can try to keep going.” The warm blue eyes are rimmed in red by now - his testimony includes several edits and jump-cuts, and the jury doesn’t see the tears but they do see the way his face has changed, over time, from nervous but resolute to sniffing and uncertain and finally to frightened and eager to smooth over whatever offense he thinks he might have caused by not being perfect enough.

He doesn’t give up, he never stops trying.

He’s trying so hard to be brave, and it’s so fucking beautiful.

He’s being such a good boy, and Abraham wishes he were right here in the courtroom so he could tell him so right to his face.

Abraham Denner can nearly feel those tear tracks that shimmer only a little in the soulless fluorescent lights, the way they would give the slightest damp warmth if he ran his thumb down pretty red scar dug deep into his cheekbone, down the softer skin below it, all the way to his jaw. 

He could picture how Red would hold himself so still, trembling under Abraham’s touch, but he would never flinch or pull away. 

If Abraham wanted information from him, of course, it would all fall out of his mouth like a waterfall of words, whatever he wanted to hear, to know, all his for the taking. Red was all his for the taking, but these lawyers - they did not know how to take him correctly.

Instead, they question and dance around and try to coax without really coaxing. It’s annoying, but it draws everything out, so he tries to sit back and enjoy it. Honestly, who knows when he’ll see his Red all tear-stained and gorgeously tempting like this again?

Little less bleeding than he likes to see, granted, but he can just imagine that part.

His memories provide so many images of Red bleeding. 

“Okay, Daniel. Let’s keep going.”

“What is your name? Who do you belong to?” He holds Red by the chin, tilting it up to meet his eyes where the man kneels on the floor, his wrists tied with barbed wire Abraham found in the body’s workshop out back and held out in front of him at chest level, holding himself perfectly still so none of the barbs will cut him. 

He’s been kneeling like that for an hour in the smokehouse, in the dark with the scent of old fires and curing meat all around them. Abraham set a timer on his phone and sat back to take some photos, then simply waited, watching him, until the timer beeped.

It’s hot, and Red is pouring sweat in rivulets and rivers, but he doesn’t try to get up, and he doesn’t try to move his wrists even as his arms begin to tremble with the effort of holding themselves up like this.

“Red, m-my name is Red.” The voice shakes, it shivers for him. Red is always shivering for him, one way or another, when he bleeds. “My name is Red and I belong to y-you, Abraham, to you.”

“Good boy. Put your hands on the ground.” He watches Red do as he is told, smiling as some of the barbs finally prick into his skin and Red winces, laying his palms flat on the ground. “Now are we going to try any of that nonsense again? You going to try picking the lock on your chain again?”

“N-No. I’m sorry, Abraham, I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Good.” Abraham lets one boot come out and press against Red’s wrists, forcing the barbed wire to dig into the skin, and listens to the sound of Red hissing through his teeth at the pain, digging his fingernails into the earthen ground, with perfect contentment.

Those blue eyes stay open, and they never look away from his, even as they well with tears.

Abraham leans down, reaches out, and gently wipes one tear away as it slides down that perfectly scarred cheek. “I adore you, Red,” He says softly. “You’re going to be our perfect puppy forever.”

Red licks his lips, breathing in shallow pants to avoid making any noise as Abraham puts even more weight over the wire wrapped around his wrists, and nods quickly. “Yes,” He says in a gasp. “Yes, I will, I will, please stop, I’m sorry, I’ll try harder to be good-”

“Yes,” Abraham says thoughtfully, and pulls his foot back, listening to Red’s relieved half-sob in response. “Yes, you will try harder. And you will be good.”

“Th-thank you, Abraham,” Red manages in a voice just above a whimper. “Thank you for listening to my apology, thank you for only hurting me a little, thank you.”

The way the lawyers question him is irritating. What Red really needs, of course, is someone in that room to give him some orders, using his true name, the name Abraham had gifted to him, a way to understand his place, to become what he was meant to be.

If they would only tell his good boy what to do or say, of course, Red would understand what they want from him. He would feel safer, more secure, hemmed in the way he deserves to be. Red feels safer in a life full of cages, now, defined bars made up of commands and orders and expectations. 

Red likes the rules. He understands his name.

All those lawyers in fancy suits do, though, is ask questions, they give him choices. It confuses Red, makes him struggle to figure out the right thing to say.

No one bothers to get Abraham’s advice about any of it, of course. He’s the bad guy, he’s the villain, just for simply doing what came naturally to him and turning Red into what he had been meant to be all along. 

In a world where the monsters all wear nametags and point at someone higher-up when called to accept responsibility, Abraham is a monster all on his own, one they cannot tame, and so they want to lock him away.

They call him a lot of things, in the newspapers that report on the trial - he gets four newspapers every day in jail - but mostly he’s picked up the nickname The Carver in the Cabin, and he kind of likes that one. It’s better than he thought he’d get, anyway, and his guards are quick to let him know that the Carver is the nickname that seems to be sticking.

He likes the guards. They’re his best friends now.

Granted, everyone he talks to is his best friend if you give him long enough - that’s always been true.

Abraham and Ashley have been caught so many times, but until Nate burned the cabin down none of those moments ever seemed to stick.

Abraham Denner could charm the pants off anyone - and often did, shortly before killing them.

Ashley could never seem to charm anyone - something about her was too cold, the violence in her coiled too close to the surface and too visible to anyone who looked right at her. Abraham could bury his.  

To him, though, Ashley was always his warm and loving twin sister. To him, she had been arms around him from birth, arms he could still sometimes feel even though she had been dead for more than four years.

Nate’s fault - but he couldn’t feel angry… he couldn’t feel anything but pride at his black-haired prince for being strong enough to pull it off, to leave. No, he’s not mad at Nate. 

He’s mad at Ashley for leaving Nate the opening to kill her. She should have known better.

In the video, Red rubs compulsively at the scars around his face, and Abraham feels his mouth go a little dry just watching him, pouring himself a glass of water (next to him, his defense lawyer flinches, just the slightest bit, and Abraham feels good about that). He sips slowly, savoring the cool clear nothing-taste of it while imagining Red’s tears were just for him, just for him and Nate, the way it should be.

Red, a tall and lanky man with heavily muscled shoulders, is hunched over like a child waiting for punishment with fear in his eyes, and it’s all because of Abraham Denner. He’s so perfect, so genuinely and perfectly beautiful. 

Nate was his true love, of course - and Abraham fully intended to find some way to see his sweet man again, either a prison visit or, hell, never write off an escape, he’d done more unbelievable things in his life… but he would never walk away from his Red, either.

“All right, Mr. Michaelson,” The prosecutor on the video is saying. “We need to move on to speaking about what happened in this photo. Would you be able to look at this photo for us, Daniel?” 

The soft scrape of a bit of paper being moved across the table, and Red reaches out as if to touch it. His eyes glance down, too quickly to do more than take in the basics, and then he looks back up, looking more confused than frightened, pulling his hands back. “We, we have to talk about, um, about that?”

“Yes. We need to understand what was happening in this photo. Would you be able to talk about that now? Obviously if you need a break-”

“No,” Red says quickly, leaning forward, pulling the paper towards himself, shaking his head so his hair falls back over his eyes. “No, I’m fine, I can do it, I’m sorry, I’ll just try harder, I can, I can be good and do this for you-”

That’s my good good boy, Abraham thinks with a grin. He knows the jury watches him. He can feel their revulsion when he smiles at Red’s tears. 

He doesn’t care.

Nothing about this trial was ever going to end in anything but a prison sentence, and Abraham isn’t the type to delude himself. He’s not here to try and find acquittal. He’s just here to have some fun before he gets locked away.

“I will show the photo using the secondary screen,” The prosecutor sitting at the other table speaks out loud. The judge gives his approval, and when the prosecutor clicks the remote to pull up a large-scale version of the photo the man is holding in the testimony, everyone in the courtroom sees a photo of Red sitting on the ground, his face turned away and eyes shut but his mouth open wide in a scream, his hands wrapped tightly around himself.

Nathaniel Vandrum is crouched just behind him, one arm around him, one hand buried in his hair to pull Red against his chest. Nate’s chin rests on top of Red’s head and he’s glaring right at the camera - right at Abraham - with pure, loveless fury.

Closed around Red’s left leg is a bear trap. The smears of bright red showing through his torn jeans seem too brilliant to be real in the courtroom’s yellow light. 

Abraham takes a deep breath, seeing it blown up so large, larger than life really, and has to take another drink of water before he’s totally bowled over by the incredibly knife-sharp surge of pure joy that rocks through him head to toe.

Joy, and something much darker.

“I stepped in a bear trap,” Red says in the video testimony, staring down at the photo. “He took a photo before he let Nate get me out of it.”

“Why were you in a bear trap, Mr. Michaelson?”

“I was bad and I did not apologize,” Red says, head tilted down at the photo, tracing his fingers along it. “When you do something wrong, you apologize, and you get hurt so that you do not do it again.”

Someone in the jury coughs hard.

Red’s eyes are glittering again, and Abraham can see him trembling, even though this isn’t really happening right now.

He shivers so well, little Red.

He knows just how to shake the way Abraham likes best.

“Are you saying that Mr. Denner forced you into the trap? We need you to be absolutely clear, for the record, Daniel. Can you be clear about this for us?”

Red takes a deep breath, licking his lips, and slowly nods. He looks around the ring of lawyers offscreen again, looking for their approval, and then lets his eyes drop back down to the photo. Abraham looks over to the jury to see some of them glaring right at him with hatred, most of them looking at the photo still, and one old woman dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a tissue.

“Yes,” Red says finally, and his voice is shaking as hard as he is. “He told me to step in the trap as hard as I could or he would, um, he would… he would…” His voice trails off and he hunches over, mumbling too low to be heard.

“Please, Daniel, please try to speak clearly for us, just to finish this last little bit. Then we’ll take another break. Describe what happened.”

“He told me I had to step in the bear trap to punish myself or he would hurt Nate again.” Red looks up, pleading with them to understand with his wide eyes. “He, he said he would really hurt him this time - he’d break his leg or worse, if I didn’t go in the trap, so I had to. The last time I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take my punishment like a g-… like he wanted me to, he beat Nate so badly, so.. so I had to go in the trap. I had to step in it, I had been, I had been bad I had tried to say no again, and I don’t get to say no. Puppies don’t get angry, pets don’t… I had to, I, I had to be good, I had to…”

They cut the video short again, but Abraham isn’t done with this memory, not at all. He’s going to be thinking about the bear trap for days, running over and over in his mind the moment Red had agreed to do exactly what he said to spare Nate.

The way Nate had glared at him over Red’s head, holding onto him, the way the guilt had shredded Nate for days and days, that Red had been so willing to take a punishment to save him. 

“I’m sorry, Abraham, please, I’ll do it. Don’t hurt him, please!”

“I won’t, if you step right in. Not just a little step, either. These things are made for much larger animals than my skinny little puppy. You stomp your foot right into it and take your punishment, or Nate takes it for you.”

Red’s hair is sweat-soaked and stuck to his forehead, even out here in the chill air. He nods quickly, hugging himself around his middle as though it would ever make it any better. “I will, I’ll do it, Abraham, just, just give me a second, I just need…”

“Take a moment. Deep breaths, Red. In and out, in and out. That’s my good boy.” Red’s whole body shakes, but he nods, breathing slow and deep, just the way Abraham tells him to. Nate steps over to him, hands on either side of his face.

“You don’t h-h-have to d-do this,” Nate says softly, gently, and Abraham missed the love in his words, because he was so busy searching for it when Nate looked at -him-. “I c-can take it. I’ve t-t-taken it before, Red. I can t-take it. Don’t d-d-do this just because of m-me.”

Red looks up at him, tears in his eyes, and shakes his head. “I’ll do it. You were so hurt last time, I can do it, Nate. Okay? Okay, Nate?”

Nate just pulls him close for a hug, holds him tightly, and finally steps back. “I’ll b-be right h-h-here to hold you after,” He says, gently, reassuring, leaning in to kiss Red’s forehead, each side of his face, the tip of his nose. “I’ll h-hold your hand.”

Abraham’s not jealous, not yet. He had taken Red to give Nate a friend, after all, and in Abraham’s world there was no such thing as a platonic friend. The puppy’s not a person, and taking is what puppies like Red are made for.

Red nods, stepping back, taking breaths as deeply and slowly as he can.

He turns back to the bear trap, one hand gripped white-knuckled onto Nate’s, as he moves towards it, staring down with abject dread. He shivers, he shakes, and Abraham all but purrs watching it.

Red’s left foot is trembling as he slowly lifts it up above the open trap.

He looks back at Abraham - maybe hoping for some sort of last-minute mercy - but Abraham just smiles and waits, shaking his head. “Will you be good for me, Red?”

“I’ll be good,” Red whispers. “I’m going to try harder. I can be good, just… just don’t hurt Nate.” Then he jams his left foot down into the trap, onto the little metal plate in the center, as hard as he can.

The trap snaps shut around his left leg and Red collapses long before the pain reaches him. He gives out and falls backwards, Nate grabbing onto him tightly around the chest and waist, holding onto him and murmuring soothing nonsense sounds.

Red goes suddenly still, his eyes wide and white-ringed, and he begins to scream. The sound shatters the woods around them, sends a flock of birds flying up into the sky in a burst of wings, bounces around the trees and crisp air, goes on and on and on.

Red screams, and screams, and screams.

The video testimony cuts to after the break, his little Red looking shaken but still resolute, still resolved to see this through. Abraham glances over to the prosecution’s side and sees Red’s little brother, that Ryan kid, ashen under his darker skin (adopted brothers, and still the brother comes here every day but the parents don’t… interesting, that) and staring at nothing now, twisting a little bit of paper into shreds with his hands.

He sees Nate, looking straight at the screen still, his jaw locked tightly and his green eyes totally focused. He doesn’t look to Abraham. He doesn’t see what his reaction was.

But Abraham settles back. He doesn’t care about this next bit of testimony.

(technically the ask calls for this being said to the OC, but you know what, this is definitely a thing Bram would say, instead…)

“Cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.”

Nate doesn’t look up, staring down at his own hands where they’re laying loosely in his lap. He must have been all excited for this date he was on when Bram finally tracked him down; he’d combed his hair all nice and parted on the side, was wearing a nice rust-colored button-up shirt tucked into slacks.

He’s wearing goddamn loafers, for fuck’s sake.

Bram turns the music up a couple of notches - you can kind of hear the kid in the trunk trying to… who knows, maybe kick his way out? Bram could’ve told him that wouldn’t do any good, but no one ever asks Bram first.

This is not the first body he’s had in a car trunk, and still no one ever treats Bram like the expert he is.

“Look,” Bram says, when Nate is still silent, fiddling with his seatbelt. “Look, it really isn’t. It’s going to be better now, Nate, because I finally found you. I looked and looked, and I found you, so now we can be together again. I get why you did it, I really do, and I’ve put Ash where she’ll wait for me until we can be together again. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, Nate.”

Nate’s lips press together into a thin line, and he nods, slowly.

“I mean… you missed me, baby, right? Didn’t you miss me? Don’t you love me, Nate?”

“Y-yes,” Nate finally replies, his voice hoarse, barely audible over the blaring music. “Of c-c-course I d-do, Bram. You know I l-love you.”

“So it’s really not the end of the world that I interrupted your date?”

Nate turns to look at him, anger blaring in those green eyes, before they meet Bram’s and the anger falters, fades away, is replaced by something sweeter, softer, more vulnerable. “You k-k-kidnapped him. Let him g-g-go, Bram. Just take m-me, okay? I can g-go with you, you d-d-don’t need him.”

“No can do, baby. You need a reminder of the permanence of our relationship, you know? You liked this guy?”

Nate slumps into his seat, as the distant thumping from the trunk gets momentarily louder. They hit a hard bump in the road and Bram hears a wonderful hoarse cry of pain from the trunk, and then it’s silent after that. “I d-did,” Nate admits, finally. “I d-do like him.”

(this is late for @whumptober2019 - it was planned for Day 18, Muffled Scream - but hey, it’s fun, so I’m posting it. This is Nate Vandrum, the Denners’ prior whumpee and Daniel Michaelson’s eventual savior of sorts, during his initial captivity when both twins are alive. TW/SW: knives, blood, abusive behavior, the Denners are awful)

Ashley’s sitting on his lap, facing him with her arms around his neck, crossed at the wrists just behind his head. She is close, so close her eerily pretty face takes up his entire field of vision. Slightly narrowed eyes, upswept at the corners and oddly feline, high cheekbones, wide mouth, white-blonde hair and eyebrows that seem sometimes to nearly disappear against equally-white skin.

The spitting image of her brother, nearly identical - but colder.

"You could have more scars," She murmurs in a voice like velvet soaked in whiskey, and as she leans in he turns his head to the side, looking away from her, trying to find a spot on the wall he can stare at instead.

Looking away is the best he can do. He has spent hours memorizing every mark on the walls while they turn him into someone other than who he used to be.

"Oh, Nate. Don't be so rude." She rolls her hips forward so they press against his, and he swallows hard at the way it doesn’t feel that bad at all. "You know the rules, don't you?"

There are so many rules.

(for @blackstar-1391 who requested Nate and the twins pre-Danny... Ashley decided to show up late, sorry about that, but I’ve got an Ashley-focused drabble knocking around in my head for the future! Tagging @bleeding-demon-teeth who mentioned liking being tagged for Bram!)

TW: Non con touching, knives, mentions of sex (implied/referenced), some reaaaaaal lowkey emotional manipulation and like the bittiest bit of torture

“Don’t be mad, baby,” Bram croons, sliding the edge of the knife down the side of Nate’s neck, not enough to cut, just enough to be a shiver of cold metal he can’t quite deny. “Look, we talked about this, didn’t we?”

“Did we?” Nate asks, keeping his eyes closed and turning his head to the side. His voice comes out calm, and steady, and he’s proud of himself for that.

“We did. I’ve been really opening up to you, Nate, and I just feel like you’re not listening to me.”

Looking away like this bares his neck to Bram, which has its own risks, but it keeps the edge of the blade off his cheek, and in his best attempts at calculation, that seems the safer bet. “I’m sorry, it’s hard to hear you when you’re cutting my fucking shirt off.”

(oh, Ashley, you terrifying monster woman. Don’t worry @blackstar-1391 - this doesn’t count as your request, I am 100% doing a longer piece to fulfill your Denners + Nate request!)

“How are you feeling today?”

Her twin brother’s boyfriend stares her down as he asks the required question, setting the plate in front of her, and she stares right back. 

Her favorite, of course - toast with Irish butter (their time in Ireland had been so good - how long ago was that? There were a lot of miserable people back then, skinny and starving) and two eggs, over hard, a dash of the hot sauce she gets at the store down the block.

Nate is so good, these days - and the bandages under his long-sleeved shirt give away just how long it took him to learn.

Upstairs, Brammie’s still in the shower - honestly he’s probably still singing, a sound she loves to hear - Brammie has such a good singing voice, and he just doesn’t know it.

More people should get to hear Brammie sing - not just Nate in bed, when Brammie sings him to sleep (or the drugs do, and honestly, who gives a fuck which it is but Brammie himself?) or Ashley when she overhears him and he doesn’t know she’s listening.

Nate isn’t looking as good these days as he did when they first followed him home. No, these days, trapped in the house with them, Nate has grown pale, gotten thinner, and she can see the marks all across his neck from where Brammie got a little aggressive with him last night. 

Brammie likes his sweethearts skinny and showing every inch of the life they’ve had taken from them. Ashley never really likes to let them live this long, but she has to admit it’s kind of nice to have the eye candy around every day.

“I’m feeling lovely, Nate, thanks so much for asking.” Her voice is a sultry, pleased purr, and she watches his jaw tighten as he glares down at her, his green eyes full, absolutely full, of abject hatred, blurred and foggy from whatever Brammie put in his water when he woke up this morning. 

“Glad to hear it,” He nearly snarls, and sits down at the table himself, staring down at his own plate - just toast with the butter for him, the drugs make his stomach upset in the mornings a lot. Ashley likes to joke that maybe he’s pregnant.

Nate doesn’t like that joke. 

He doesn't like that joke at all

She doesn’t care.

Ashley picks up her toast to eat, and says pleasantly to him, “How are you feeling today, darling?”

“Like I’ve been kidnapped by a couple of goddamn psychopaths,” Nate replies, his voice a snarl of anger.

“Then do something about it,” She says softly, so softly, and he stares at her for one more moment before his eyes drop back to his plate.

“I can’t,” He whispers, just as Brammie enters the room.

Ashley grins as her brother slides an arm around Nate’s shoulders, leans down to kiss the top of his black hair.

“Good morning, baby,” Brammie says lovingly. “How are you feeling today?”

Nate straightens a little under the touch, then looks up at him, and Ashley watches the hate melt a little into something closer to fear, maybe even love. As close to love as you can feel for someone who cuts you up each night, she supposes.

Ashley wouldn’t know.

“I’m, I feel fine, Bram, thanks,” Nate answers him. Bram kisses him, white-blonde hair still soaking wet and dripping just a little onto Nate’s shirt, and when he pulls back to sit down, Nate gets back to his feet, and Ashley watches him serve Brammie his favorite breakfast, too.

Two eggs over easy, plain white toast with nothing on it (for dipping in the egg yolks), two pieces of sausage, all of it kept perfectly warm until he was ready. 

Brammie grins up at Nate as he sets the plate down, and written all over his face is his pure, unadulterated love.

Ashley smiles and takes another bite of toast.

Oh, this can definitely only end well, right?