āplease donāt take it awayā for river or felix
from this ask game
tw: institutionalized slavery, referenced human experimentation, light med whump, whumper pov
ā„ ā„ ā„
āPlease donāt take itāā Felix starts, fumbling over his words as he yanks his hand away from Jakeās. āPlease donāt take it away from me.ā He casts his eyes low, and Jake is suddenly torn. Felix shakes his head, backing himself into the corner, but he wonāt look at Jake. His eyes are glued to his fist, and to the item inside of it, which moments earlier, Jake found under his pillow.
The item in question? A crumpled up dandelion. Jake cocks his head to the side as he regards Felix.
āItās trash,ā Jake starts, holding out his palm like heās requesting a forbidden item from a defiant child. āAnd not only that,ā he continues, ābut itās contraband, too.ā
Felix peeks up at him through his eyelashes, a practiced move that is no doubt meant to activate the softer side of Jake, and hell, maybe it does. āFelix,ā he says, keeping the firmness in his voice that Felix responds well to. He kneels down to Felixās level, nudging his fisted hand with his own. āWhat the fuck.ā
Felix is shaking from how tightly he grips the thing, but they both know the battle is lost, and itās only a matter of time now.
āHand it over,ā he says. āI will let you pick a new one after you finish up this afternoon.ā That, he thinks, is kind of him. He smiles warmly, as tears flood Felixās eyes, threatening to spill over.
His fingers open slowly, one by one, until the crumpled, dying weed is exposed, lying in his palm. They both stare at it.
āPlease donāt kill it,ā Felix whispers, meeting his eyes. āPlease,ā he says again, as Jake takes it from him.
He sets it on the counter, holding out a hand to help Felix off the floor. He gets Felix showered and changed into a gown, and deposits him into the prepped exam room for his procedure. Thereās a kind of melancholy in every one of the kidās movements, but there are no more mentions of the dandelion, and no more acts of defiance along with it.Ā
As Jake goes about his day, though, he canāt completely shake this thing that nags at him. Whatever the feeling is, he doesnāt enjoy it, and by the time his shift ends, heās wound up tighter than he can ever remember being. He doesnāt know why he does it, but after he clocks out for the day, he finds the unit nurse, and then, surprising even himself, he asks her if Felix did okay, and if he's back in his room.
The nurse tells him Felix did do okay, and that he is back in his room, but heās sleeping, and that they should let him sleep. She says it with a specific type of tone and a look, and Jake smiles and says āthanksā, even though that just gets him even more wound up, because he wasnāt planning to wake him up, and the implication pisses him off.
āWard,ā the nurse says as Jake turns away, and he turns back a moment later. Thereās a pause, while they square up, and then she says, āGo easy on him.ā
Instead of acknowledging that, he turns and heads toward Felixās room. All is quiet in Belleview at this hour. Everyone is tucked in for the night, and apart from one handler, one nurse, and a floor supervisor, the unit will be locked down once he leaves.
He taps his key card on Felixās lock, and pushes the door open. The hallway light illuminates the sleeping boy well enough. Heās soft, with short, white-blonde hair, and an innocence about him, especially as he sleeps. He has an IV running into his arm, bruises forming around his wrists and around his neck, one hand fisted into his sheets, and the other into his t-shirt.Ā
This is the boy that makes River go wild, he thinks, running his eyes down his sleeping frame. This is the boy that has River picking fucking weeds when he thinks no one is looking. But Jake is always looking. He smiles at the thought of River doing this thing, and he takes a breath. He'll unpack what to do with this information another day. Tonight, though, he has unfinished business.
As he approaches Felix, he pauses. Heās never given Felix much thought, outside of how he can be leveraged against River. Here, now, under the soft glow of the hallway lights, he sees the appeal.
He takes a breath, and then he covers Felixās hand with his own and pries open his fingers. Felix stirs, every muscle tensing momentarily, and Jake whispers, āeasy,ā as he flips his hand over. Jake reaches into his back pocket for the flower, presses it into Felixās palm, and closes his fingers back over it.Ā
āDonāt say I never did anything for you,ā he says then. He isnāt sure if itās Felix making him soft, or River, and he isnāt sure if he likes it or not, and he isnāt sure if any of those things matter, but itās done.Ā













