Caretaker finding them freaking out, but still expecting to be told to fuck off.

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If you’re still reading this know that I love you and I wish you all the best. Idk what else to say in this author’s intro, just enjoy I guess?

TW/CW: guilt, emotional angst, whump aftermath, recovery whump (sort of), discussions of death of a minor character (which you’d know about from prev chapters), referenced war whump

A raven cawed overhead, its cry carrying across the clouds on the sunless November day. Khaled paid it no mind as he trudged up the familiar hill. There was no bucket or brush in his hands, no water jug either. Though it had been a few months since the gravestones last got a decent cleaning, that was not what he was here for today. He cleared away the dead leaves and other debris with his boot before getting on his knees, in the position that had been indelibly written into his muscle memory. Today, he was just here to talk.

“I killed a man.” There, he said it. Hardest part over. “He probably didn’t even deserve to die, but I killed him. I—the guilt, it’s so heavy, the blood on my hands is so—I can never make up for this, can I? Never…” Khaled sighed. “But you would know what it’s like to kill someone who didn’t deserve it, wouldn’t you?”

The cold gravestone in the overcast cemetery didn’t answer him. Khaled pushed away a fallen leaf with a gloved hand to expose the dying grass underneath. He stared at the granite, at the name etched into it, as if, foolishly, the man beneath would respond if he would just wait patiently enough, sit straight enough, and be good enough to earn a response.

“I remember the stories,” he continued. “I asked why me, why did you choose me specifically, when you could’ve bought anyone. I remember one day, when you finally stripped me of everything and broke me, you finally told me why. You told me about your brother—how you hated him, how you made up with him, how he died…and then how you killed the first local you could get your hands on who was even remotely guilty of planting that IED…” Khaled shook his head. “It terrified me, and confused me even more, and frustrated me, because even then, you never fully answered me.” A cold November wind blew across the cemetery, rustling the dying leaves overhead. “So, I need to know. Did you choose me out of some misdirected sense of atonement, to resurrect the young Afghan you beat to death with your bare hands? Or, did you choose me to fill the hole in your heart that the loss of your brother left behind?” Khaled asked.

“Or worse—did you see in me an echo of yourself? Is that why you hurt me as much as you did? Did you know what I was capable of?”

He brought up his hands to grip the sides of the gravestone. The frigid granite did not give under his hands like a warm pair of shoulders would. Still, Khaled leveled his gaze with the inscription, staring down ‘Thomas J. Costa’ as if he was looking into those steely gray eyes himself. “How did you live with yourself?” His throat began to constrict, and a steady pressure began to build behind his eyes. “I have no direction, I have no future. All I ever did was sleep around just like the whore you always called me, and now?” A rough laugh that too closely resembled a sob rose from his throat. “I have blood on my hands. I killed a man, just like you, and I can’t stand it!” The pressure reached its breaking point, and warm tears began to track down his cheeks, quickly chilled by the cold. “How did you live with yourself? How do I live with myself?”

The gravestone remained silent.

“Answer me!” Khaled tried to shake the gravestone like he would a pair of shoulders, but it held firm and unmoving in the earth. “Answer me, you bastard!”

Silence.

“Answer me!” Khaled screamed, then slumped over until his head rested against the stone. He heaved deep, shuddering sobs as his grip on the sides of the stone loosened. He curled in on himself, pressing himself closer to the gravestone, as if seeking a warmth and comfort from it that he’d never received in life and certainly wouldn’t now. He continued crying, wishing his master wasn’t dead, then chastising himself for wishing his master wasn’t dead.

Am I going crazy? he thought as his tears subsided. He once thought Thomas was a little crazy for talking to his brother’s grave as if the man was still there. Now, he knew he was in no better place to judge. “I am going crazy, aren’t I?” he sniffled. The gravestone remained silent. “Anyone would, even you did. Of course we would…we murdered someone…”

The crow cawed again, and a stiff breeze rattled the balding oak trees above, scattering their leaves onto the dearly departed and their mourners. The cemetery was nothing like the outpatient psychiatric office at Joyous Springs. There, four walls protected him from the wind and the cold, and a long white hallway led to a series of rooms, one for each therapist. Marcie’s room was one of the cheerier ones. Hers had a wide window that let in plenty of natural light, with a windowsill crammed full of exotic houseplants that desperately stretched towards the sun. A bookshelf in the corner of the room held professional psychiatric volumes and plastic Lego flowers alike. The ceiling was canopied with little fairy lights, and framed posters displaying various European travel destinations lined the walls. A couch rested against one wall, opposite a coffee table and a swiveling office chair, which was rarely stationed behind the desk it was intended to be paired with. And yet, despite the open exposure to the late-fall weather and the cold stiffness of the earth below his body, Khaled talked far more freely than he had in months.

“I can’t talk about this in therapy. Not that I’m not trying to, but, it’s just—I don’t know, it’s just easier with you?” He cleared enough grass away with his hands to lay on his side next to the grave, adopting a much more casual pose as he propped his head up on his bent arm. “You won’t ask me for more, you won’t make me face difficult questions, you won’t report me to anyone for confessing to a murder. You’re just…easier when you’re dead?” Khaled murmured a hasty ‘astaghfirullah’ as a jolt of guilt shot through him. “That was mean, I shouldn’t have said that,” he apologized.

Thomas thankfully didn’t respond.

Khaled checked his phone for the time. He could hang out here a few more minutes; how would he fill the time? “I think things have changed between me and Vikash since Halloween…” he began, starting a new complaint to his captive audience. “He left to go to his parents for two weeks, and he can’t stand his parents. Now that he’s back, he won’t even talk to me.” Khaled’s voice broke. “The guy who rescued me, who saw me, now won’t even say three words to me, let alone look me in the eye. I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt.” The tears were coming back. Khaled blinked them away as he continued. “Did any of them treat you differently, after what you did?” he asked. “Were any of them scared of you? Do you think Vik is scared of me?” The granite’s coarse crystals began to blur into an amorphous stony gray. “He is, probably. Or he hates me and thinks what happened with Murat was my fault.” Khaled laughed. “Oh yeah—it was my fault,” he corrected himself.

He raised a hand to brush his fingers against the polished granite surface. It felt ice cold through the thin fleece layer over his fingertips. “At least Cade and Eric still treat me more or less the same, although Eric’s been asking me some odd questions lately.” Odd questions like ‘do you like large gatherings or small’ or ‘what’s your favorite cake flavor’ or ‘if we were to get you anything for your birthday, what would you like the most?’

“The questions seem pretty harmless though,” Khaled concluded. “I don’t think he knows. I’d like to keep it that way, if that isn’t too selfish. The last thing I need is all three of them hating me…”

The dead man did not respond. Khaled took comfort in that guaranteed silence. For once, in all their years Thomas forced them to be together, he was finally listening to him.

An unexpected series of staccato notes chimed from Khaled’s phone. He repositioned himself up until he was seated on the ground, finally retrieving his phone from his jacket pocket and answering it. “Yeah?”

It was Cade’s voice on the other end. “You want me to pick up what from Moon Garden?” Khaled asked. “The fried chicken 8-piece meal, japchae with tofu, and a side of fried rice…before I get back from the cemetery?” He now rose into a standing position. “Yeah, sure, I can go right now. I’m almost done here anyway. Yeah, see you then, later. Bye.” He hung up, then looked down at the grave. He briefly reflected on how good it felt, to finally be the one looking down on Thomas, if only because the man was six feet under. “Hey, so…I need to go. I’ll bring you some flowers next time,” he promised. “Well…see you later.”

Then, without another word, he turned around and began the long trek down the hill.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz

@bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @yet-how-they-creep @defire

@phoenixpromptsandstuff @scumashling @arobear @whumpty-dumpty-doo @hellodecisionparalysis

-maybe they hold in-depth knowledge that deems them suspicious because how could they know all these things about whumper?

-maybe some of the evidence they use/find is from their own abuse, maybe it's someone else who finds it,

'look, I found a new tape of one of whumper's victims!'

'wait, no, no, not that one. please don't look at it.'

-maybe they need to encounter whumper again, either by chance or when they are finally captured. good whump reveal when it turns out the detective does know whumper (especially if their friends thinks it's because they were working with whumper and accuse them of betrayal)

and im lowkey obsessed with that idea.

After being SA'd, Whumpee feels completely sick with themself. They feel like they somehow violated Caretaker by picturing them when they were being raped.

When they next see Caretaker, they end up completely panicking. Reimagining being in that position they were in with Whumper but with it being Caretaker instead. They don't even know how to explain to Caretaker what's wrong because they think they're a horrible person for 'violating' Caretaker by picturing them like that.

ya know ??? like im imagining caretaker trying to comfort them afterwards and ahhhhh

this is the sort of thing i'm crazy about, right, like. feeling like they've violated caretaker somehow by thinking about them, or telling them something. especially if they thought about caretaker during the assault.

"i'm sorry. i'm sorry. fuck, i'm sorry, i- sorry. god."

caretaker has genuinely no idea what whumpee is apologizing for. they're confused and alarmed and deeply, deeply worried. whumpee had broken down and confessed that whumper had raped them, but that doesn't seem like it, somehow. they clearly feel guilty and responsible for something, but it feels different than a generalized sort of 'this was my fault' reaction to what's happened.

it's like whumpee feels guilty for something related to caretaker somehow.

"it's okay that you told me about this," caretaker says. "that's fucking awful, and i'm glad that i know, so that i can help. i mean, if i can help. i don't know. i want to help."

whumpee just... just sobs.

Whumpee who doesn't know what to say because the way that the question was phrased makes them feel like such a victim. "did whumper rape you?" would have been fine because it's something whumper did, not something that happened to whumpee. But whumpee could not be a person that was raped. They just couldn't be. They're reaching into their mind for some way to create their own consent after the fact just to not have been a rape victim, to not be that vulnerable,

Caretaker who takes the silence and the stricken look on whumpee's face as answer enough.

"i'm sorry," caretaker says, stricken and horrified. they know what the look on whumpee's face means, the way the answer is in the silence of the answer they couldn't give. "fuck, i shouldn't have just said it like that, i'm sorry. i just- i couldn't- i'm sorry."

whumpee hunches over, heaving in breath after strangled breath. caretaker moves to comfort them and whumpee jerks away, shaking their head.

(and caretaker stops. caretaker immediately stops. and whumpee has to fight hard not to shatter at that - that all it took was just moving away. they didn't even have to tell caretaker not to touch them. they didn't have to say don't or stop. caretaker saw that they didn't want to be touched and then didn't touch them. fuck.)

"i don't- i didn't want to."

"i know, i-"

whumpee was raped by whumper as a kid. and they got away somehow. but... somehow, whumper finds them and their friends again.

"it's been so long. you've grown up! what were you, ten when i last saw you?"

at first, the comments seem innocent. the hugs, the one-sided closeness, whumpee's barely concealed horror.

then, their friends see whumper kiss whumpee. and whumpee doesn't fight back, going almost limp, not making a sound as whumper's hands hold them tight.

and oh. oh. oh.

i really do have a soft spot for csa in a character's background, honestly, i'll be so for real. nothing will immediately make me attach to a character like having them have experienced csa.

and i love, love, love a reveal. whumpee's friends piecing things together.

the history that whumper and whumpee have. how young whumpee was when they last knew each other. the strange way that whumpee acted when they first turned up - and that hadn't seemed so strange at first, really. whumpee gets strange sometimes. they get distant and jumpy. a little scared. so they kick themselves for it later - the way that they don't even really pay much attention to whumpee's reactions at first.

and then they see the kissing. they weren't supposed to see it. it was in a quiet corner of the building, out of the way. no one was supposed to see it. and whumper is pressing whumpee back into the wall, whumpee limp and unresponsive and trembling all over. they don't want this. they aren't fighting.

you've grown up! what were you, ten when i last saw you?

“that’s not- that doesn’t matter.” caretaker can’t find a better way to say it, and they finally can’t take it any more. they have to say something. even if it’s pathetic. even if it doesn’t work. “none of that matters. that’s not normal and it isn’t okay. whumper raped you. i don’t care what you did, you shouldn’t have been punished like that.”

it seems for a moment like whumpee is going to argue. their body is vibrating with heightened tension, with things they can’t find a way to express. it’s like every inch of them is braced to find what they’ve been searching for - the moment that caretaker will see that they deserved it, and will take away any compassion or care or absolution they’ve been offered. it doesn’t happen. it isn’t going to happen, and so their desperate anticipation has just continued to build. they’re curled over from it, hunched in on themself as they wait.

that’s fine. caretaker can wait them out. and when the tension snaps and they finally accept it, they’ll handle the collapse that comes with it.

“and i- i’m glad you stopped fighting,” caretaker adds. it’s an impulsive, awful-sounding thing to say. whumpee’s eyes snap open and they look at caretaker with shocked confusion. “i don’t want you hurt. if you had fought more, fought harder, whumper would have just hurt you worse. you kept my friend safe, as much as you could. i’m glad for that.”

whumpee is breathing in rapid, shallow little pants. they keep staring. they’re trembling hard, now. it’s almost there.

“this wasn’t your fault. you were raped, and there’s nothing you could have done to deserve it.”

“but-“ whumpee’s voice is barely audible. they shake their head. they flinch. “but i- it wasn’t- i should have stopped them.”

they never cried. it reached a point where whumpee earnestly wanted to cry. they tried to cry. anything to make whumper ease up, stop trying to make the assaults as painful as possible. it just won't happen. they just can't.

whumper's words haunt them. were they even traumatized? do they feel anything? how could someone be raped and not even react? no one would ever believe they didn't want it. it was brutally painful. whumper was rough, was violent, and they didn't even cry. they must have liked it.

it's over now. they've been to hospital to be checked out and treated. they still feel utterly numb.

their closest friend arrives in a frantic rush, having heard about what happened. they have a key to whumpee's apartment and whumpee texted to tell them what happened. it was a shitty, awful text, but they had to tell their friend what happened. and so now their friend knows, and they've come over, and the door opens, and they're just... standing there, looking at each other in whumpee's living room.