Warning ⚠️: ADHD in full effect.

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Thanks @generic-whumperz and @whumped-by-glitter for being the best beta reading team I could ask for

TW/CW: mentions of family drama, mentions of previous traumas (capture, enslavement, death of a family member, domestic violence (on Cade’s end)). So pretty mild, comparatively speaking

“You have a visitor, Khaled.”

The young man’s back straightened from its slouched position on the carpeted floor in the library as he looked up at the staff worker who had called him. He set down the book, got up from the floor, and eagerly followed her to the main entrance. Though he kept a neutrally calm expression, his nerves buzzed with excitement under his skin.

It hasn’t even been 24 hours; have the good doctor and his friend returned already? Have they decided what to do with me? Will they take me away from here? Not that ‘here’ was a bad place, per se. Khaled had only spent one night in the mental health ward, but he already found it a boring experience. Maybe if he actually participated in the activities and group therapies, he would think different, but he didn’t plan to stay long enough to find out.

Khaled stopped in his tracks as instead he saw a person he didn’t recognize waiting for him. A shorter man with soft features and light brown eyes stood in the common area. He wore a hooded leather jacket zipped up to the neck, with a pair of distressed jeans and Doc Martens to complete the look. His light brown waves of hair hung loose around his fawn freckled face, gleaming with a coppery glow when the sunlight from the window hit him just right. In his hand was clutched a bright blue folder stuffed with papers. He put on a false smile as he waved Khaled over. A pair of black metallic studs glittered from the corner of his lower lip, an exotic piercing Khaled had never seen before. “You must be Khaled, hi!” he greeted. “Come on, let’s talk in an area with less foot traffic, huh?”

The man was a good five inches shorter than him, and, although the jacket hid his form, Khaled would bet he wasn’t that muscular underneath. If need be, he could fight this guy and win. So, he followed the stranger to the couches below a potted palm tree. “W-who are you?”

“Cade. I’m a friend of Vikash and Eric’s,” the man explained. He sank down onto the far end of the couch and patted the opposing cushion invitingly.

Khaled hesitated, then sank to the floor in front of the couch. “I’m fine, no thanks, I just need to stretch my back,” he lied as the stranger tried to invite him onto the couch again. He stared up expectantly at Cade, unanswered questions threatening to spill out of him unless they were soon answered.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, and the simplest answer is, I vet people for my friends,” Cade explained.

The ex-slave cocked his head to one side. “Vet people?” he echoed.

“My friends sometimes make decisions without thinking too hard on the consequences, like wanting to help a person in need that they hardly even know.” Cade opened the bright blue folder and began selecting some documents from it. “It’s my self-ordained task to know those people, so that I can determine whether they’re worth the trouble to help or not.”

Khaled stared at the papers Cade was sorting. Assuming the documents were about him, since that seemed to be the case, he wanted to peer over and read what they said. However, he was taught very early on that it was rude to read other peoples’ documents. ‘It would be a miracle if you could understand them anyway, stupid you are,’ his master once added sardonically. So, he sat on the floor quietly as Cade laid out the relevant papers on his lap and began to pass them to him.

“I ran a background check on you, and the only official records I could find were from an incident in early 2016,” Cade began. He showed Khaled an article from a local news agency detailing a youth who had gotten trapped inside the recycling bin at his apartment. The workers at the recycling plant heard his screams just before the kid was almost crushed to death. Although Khaled himself was never explicitly named, nor was his owner, all the other details (date, apartment building, age of the kid) aligned neatly with his fourth escape attempt. Khaled remembered that escape attempt; the resulting punishment was what gave him most of his back scars. Thomas was furious at him for that one.

“After that, it gets very difficult to find any information on you,” Cade continued. He shuffled the next series of papers over. “I tried to look for you on foreign websites, but I turned up next to nothing on a Khaled Bakhsh around your age.” He pointed to a photograph of several dozen students lined up outside their middle school, standing in front of a banner with the name of their school on it. “This is the most I could find, and even after that, nothing!”

Khaled zeroed in on a child in the back row, near the left-middle side of the school portrait. That child’s face was circled with red sharpie marker and annotated with a question mark. He traced his index finger along the old picture, hardly even recognizing himself with that shaggy unkempt hair, those bright eyes, his copper skin, and that radiant smile. “You marked the right boy, at least,” he confirmed, though he hadn’t been that boy in a long time. His touch lingered on the picture a bit as he lowered it down on his lap. “I dropped out of school after that year,” he quietly explained. “My dad died, and I wanted to help my mom support the family.” Even almost nine years later, Khaled still felt detached as he recounted the tale, as if it had happened to somebody else.

“Didn’t you have extended family? Aunts, uncles, cousins, all that, to look after you?” Cade asked.

“Yeah, in Quetta. That’s not exactly next door to Karachi. Besides, we’re not close.” Khaled sucked in a breath as he organized his thoughts. It had been awhile since he’d explained his messy family dynamics. “My parents lived with the family until I was three years old, and my little brother was two. My grandparents were awful to my mom, apparently–I was too young to remember– and the stress of being bullied by them every day was bad for her pregnancy with my sister. So, my father found a job in Karachi, and, with him being the middle son whom everyone forgot, he moved us with hardly any resistance from my grandparents.” Khaled recalled his earliest childhood memory, when Abba opened the door to their new apartment and the fumes of freshly painted walls immediately assaulted their senses. He remembered running excitedly around the empty space until he was told to stop. The apartment looked so big back then, but he, as well as his siblings, grew into the well-loved space.

-

It felt as if Cade had intruded upon a cherished memory as Khaled smiled to himself. So, family seems like a sensitive spot for him, he realized. He remembered breezing past the comment that Khaled’s dad had died, so looping back to that might lead somewhere. “You mentioned that your father had died…”

Khaled’s smile slid off his face. He drew his knees closer into himself. “Yeah… motorcycle accident…”

“I’m sorry,” Cade replied. The man on the floor waved his hand in a ‘it’s fine’ gesture. The downcast shadow in his eyes said otherwise. As much as it seemed to hurt his conversation partner to discuss, Cade had to continue this test. He needed to see what kind of man Khaled was when pushed to his emotional limits, that he wouldn’t lash out or be violent.

Brant was violent when he reached his emotional limits. If Cade needled his ex-boyfriend to the brink of emotional distress, he would start making rapid, unpredictable movements, raising his voice, towering all 5’10” of his height over Cade in an act of intimidation. If Cade were lucky, it would boil over into a shouting match followed by a few broken mugs and plates. If he were not so lucky, it would end with a split lip and a lonely night banished to the couch. So, with that in mind, Cade paid attention to Khaled’s body language as he continued his test.

“Was your father…a nice guy?” he asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Yes,” Khaled answered without hesitation. He lowered his eyes behind his lashes as a small, wistful smile gently curved his lips. “The nicest…”

As they bantered back and forth for nearly an hour more, Cade’s suspicions gradually lessened. This guy was nothing like his ex, not even when they talked about more sensitive subjects like his capture and enslavement. At those points, it was like drawing water from a stone. Khaled became reticent and guarded, not telling Cade any more than the bare minimum. It made him feel terrible for asking, seeing the man freeze up like that, and he felt even worse for assuming Khaled would start acting like Brant when provoked.

I mean, I had to be sure, so it wasn’t like I’ve been emotionally torturing him for no reason, Cade justified. Still, his visit with Khaled had to end far too soon. At the end of their time together, Cade collected his papers, rose from the couch, and extended a hand out towards Khaled to help him off the floor.

Khaled waved him off as he got up by himself. “So, did I pass the test? Am I worth the trouble?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, you passed,” Cade nodded as they walked together towards the common area’s exit. “I’ll be seeing you soon, I hope.” He raised his arm to give Khaled a friendly tap on the shoulder, but then thought twice about it. He ended up raising his hand in a parting handshake, which Khaled returned cautiously. It was strangely funny, how much he reminded Cade of his younger self sometimes. Not that their situations were entirely comparable, but Cade wouldn’t be surprised if one day, Khaled would be the one initiating the handshake one day.

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The ending part of the previous chapter, but retold. Thanks again, beta readers @generic-whumperz and @whumped-by-glitter

TW/CW: conditioned whumpee, allusions to past whump (slave whump, nsfw whump), angst, discussion of modern psychiatric wards

The click of the padlock on the locker door triggered an unidentified feeling in Khaled. He felt his tense muscles relax–no, more like resign at the sound. Whatever would happen next was outside of his control, and he’d accept it with the quiet resignation that was drilled into him all these years no matter the outcome. The Asian man (Eric?)  held his phone out to him. With small, careful movements, he extended his hands and took his phone back, tucking it into his pocket before dropping his hands back to his sides.

“Do you have any place to go, Khaled? Somewhere safe?”

The young man looked up at Doctor Gill–Vik, his coworkers called him–and hesitated. He’d been running all day, in a state of panic and anxiety for hours until the doctor had extracted his tracking chip. He hardly even had time to process what he saw that afternoon at the morgue, but now the realization of what he’d lost punched a gaping hole through him. A home, a safe place, a consistent quality of care, a Master–they slipped down the chasm within him and fell away, leaving him with nothing. “I, um… I don’t know,” he finally answered.

“I know some places that would probably take you for the night,” Eric (?) offered. Before he knew it, a phone was shoved into Khaled’s face, featuring a map of their area with neat little pins stuck within several blocks of the hospital. “Look, there are shelters like Guiding Light, Second Chance Shelters, San Isabella Ministries, Mother Helena’s, Augusta Francesca Shelter from Domestic Abuse–”

Khaled recognized that name. Augusta Francesca Costa. His late master’s family opened a domestic abuse shelter? Oh, that was rich! He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream, but his face landed on some sort of disdainful scowl.

Whether Vik noticed the disdainful twist of his lips or not, Khaled wasn’t sure. “I literally just pulled a tracker out of his shoulder, Eric,” he interrupted, “we should probably direct him somewhere safer.” Preferably not somewhere supported by the Costa family.

“Oh, well, in that case, we have Winter Cherries Health and Wellness Center, Joyous Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, where Vik’s cousin is detoxing, Sunavalon... they’re all psychiatric hospitals that do 72-hour holds.” Eric’s fingers pinched the screen to zoom in and out of the map. “So, you’ve got options, man,” Eric explained.

Khaled frowned for a second before schooling his face into a more neutral expression. So, they still think I’m crazy, he thought with disappointment, otherwise they wouldn’t be recommending this. He cautiously reached for Eric’s phone and toggled around the map with his fingertip, occasionally clicking on a name or two to feign interest.

Vik cleared his throat. “I, uh, I know from experience that Joyous Springs has been really good to Vikram.” Khaled half-listened as he tapped on Joyous Springs’ pin. He had no experience with any mental institution at all, only knowing them from whispered stories laced with stigma, or worse, from those weird pornos he and Thomas used to watch.

“They treat both addictions and mental health crises, but it’s super safe!” the doctor reassured. “They lock the doors every night–”

So the inmates like me can’t escape? he wanted to ask.

“–and they don’t allow any kind of tracking technology inside like cell phones and things like that.”

So the Costas cannot find me, Khaled realized. Okay, so that’s one pro for mental wards. He clicked the link to Joyous Springs website. The link redirected him to the official website, displaying a neat, welcoming interior that looked nothing like the sterile, hostile places he’d expected. “Group therapy, individualized therapy, team-building projects,” Vik prattled on. Khaled located the drop-down menu. Group therapy, individualized therapy, team-building projects–it was all there under ‘Patient Services.’ Still, websites can lie, and the potential cons weighed heavily on his mind, despite Vik’s closing assessment of “it’s really cool, I think.”

“Would you like me to go there?” Khaled asked. It wasn’t an unfair assumption to make, seeing how the man spoke so highly of it.

“It’s up to you,” Vik answered with a shrug, “I was just describing how it was for my cousin, but the choice is yours.”

That’s the thing, wasn’t it? Khaled didn’t make choices–choices were made for him, often without consulting him at all. That’s how it had been for several years of his life, and he’d just submit and deal with the consequences. Now here he was, in a hospital changing room, with two well-meaning strangers, being asked to choose something for himself. God, can’t they just collar and leash me and take me to wherever they want? It would be easier for everyone, wouldn’t it? he complained to himself. He stared at the phone screen, hoping he’d look like he was deep in thought, but internally grasping for straws, as they waited eagerly for his answer.

“Isn’t it…expensive?” he asked. Places like that had to be.

“Well… we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Eric said.

Ah yes, the classic ‘don’t worry about it’ evasion tactic. But Khaled worried about it; how was he supposed to afford a stay at a mental hospital that looked like a hotel lobby? He pouted, not any closer to deciding where to go, but not wanting to try his benefactors’ patience. Vik seemed to want him to go to Joyous Springs, so, without any more direction than that, Khaled decided to go there.

“Yeah…okay… I’ll go to Joyous Springs.”

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Chapter title is pretty self-explanatory, but this'll be the last combination chapter in a while. Thanks again goes to my beta-readers @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz

TW/CW: medical whump (featuring a somewhat detailed procedure), trypanophobia (fear of needles), allusions to as well as explicit references to past whump (slave whump, nsfw whump, noncon), discussion of modern psychiatric health wards

Vikash texted his best friends and roommates to say he’d be a little late coming home, and that he had something he had to finish up at the end of his shift. The late afternoon to evening rush of emergencies left him little breathing room to check up on Khaled. Once he was officially off the clock, he planned on sneaking the man into an empty examination room, excising the chip, and being in and out in less than five minutes. Khaled himself seemed less than enthused about waiting until the end of the day until his tracker could be removed, but he seemed to accept it quickly enough. Last he heard from Ashley, he was sitting at one of the tables in the breakroom, fiddling with a child-sized juice box, staring blankly at a wall.

Khaled was really selling this whole ‘crazy cousin’ act.

They found an empty examination room for their clandestine little operation. Vik gathered up his supplies that he’d need and led his patient into the empty room. He gestured Khaled toward the examination table after he closed the door behind them.

“So, here’s what we’re gonna do: you’ll take off your shirt and lay on your stomach, then I’ll give you an anesthetic, make a small cut, take out the tracking chip, and patch you back up,” Vik explained. “The whole procedure shouldn’t take longer than five minutes, I’ll be in, then out, and we’ll be done,” he reassured.

Khaled scrutinized the tools laid out next to the doctor, eyes scanning each item as if he was looking for something. His mouth downturned into an uncertain little frown as if he was struggling to find it. Vik cleared his throat. “Is that, um–do you have any questions about the procedure?” he asked, trying to understand the man’s hesitation.

“Yeah, I…” Khaled hesitated. “Is the anesthesia a needle?” He cast his eyes to the floor as he explained shakily. “I-I get weird about needles… bad things happen when I get stuck with a needle...”

Vik wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but it didn’t matter at the time. “Luckily for you, this anesthetic is topical, meaning it goes on top of your skin, not under it,” he replied. He held up the bottle of lidocaine spray and turned it around in his hand. Khaled leaned in to examine it as Vik held it out to him. “Of course, if you have any heart conditions or if you’re allergic to this type of anesthetic, we may have to consider something else.” He paused. “You don’t have any heart conditions or allergies I need to know about, do you?” he belatedly asked.

Khaled shrugged. “Master kept track of those things on my app.”

Vik understood all those words, but not in that specific order. “Come again?”

“On the app,” Khaled reiterated. He reached into his pants pocket and took out a cellphone. “I have a barcode tattooed behind my left ear, that’s my identification code,” Khaled explained. “You scan it with the slave-tracking app, and it’ll tell you everything about me.” He tapped in a few things, murmuring what sounded like potential passwords to himself, before handing the phone to Vikash with the screen open to a photo-taking app. “Go on, scan me!” he invited him.

Vik took the phone from him. Khaled bowed his head and reached a hand up to hold his left ear flat, revealing the barcode to the scanner. Vik focused the camera to get as clear of a picture of Khaled’s ear as possible before clicking. The photo immediately directed him to a profile with a table of information listed under a full-body picture of him: his serial number, name, age, blood type, allergies, prescriptions, owner, and status. “Owner and Status?” Vik read aloud. A notification box popped up advertising Khaled as a runaway who had assaulted his master. Come to think of it, Khaled said something about headbutting his next owner in a parking lot, didn’t he?

He wasn’t lying.

Oh my god, he wasn’t lying!

Wait, the medical information! Vik exited the pop-up notification and scrolled back to the pertinent information. “No known allergies, good cardiovascular health–we’re alright then,” he summarized. The tracking chip extraction could proceed as planned.

He changed gloves and picked up a sterile wipe from the tray as Khaled laid on his stomach, back facing up. It was like a punch to the gut when Vikash saw the gashes he remembered from their first encounter, now healed into sinuous scar tissue. He focused on his task by wiping the skin he was about to work on with the sanitary wipe. Then, he followed up with a spray of the numbing medicine.

“It’s cold,” Khaled murmured.

Vik wasn’t about to apologize for things outside his control, so he didn’t deign to answer that comment. He glanced at his tablet, where an image of Khaled’s X-ray was displayed, using it as a guide. It looked like the microchip was implanted right under the tattoo of the skull and snake. It’s brilliant, really, he acknowledged. The blackish blue ink covered what minimal scar tissue remained so effectively that Khaled did not even know where the chip was in his own body. Vik palpated the area around the snake. He tried to feel around for any sharp edges, or unusual shapes prodding out just underneath the skin.

He found it right around where the snake exited the eye socket. “I hope you weren’t emotionally attached to this tattoo, dude,” he sighed as he picked up his scalpel. He nicked the serpent’s neck and sliced down, beheading it and exposing the dermis beneath. To his credit, the man beneath him didn’t so much as scream, though he made sporadic flinching movements as Vikash tweezed the microchip out of his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m sure this is uncomfortable, we’re almost done,” he reassured him. Khaled’s profile said he was captured and sold in 2015, and so a lot of excess tissue had grown around the intrusion. He tweezed with one hand, and took the scalpel in the other to cut as he pulled. “You’re doing so good, we’re almost done,” he murmured as he worked quickly. Beneath him, Khaled threw a silent thumbs-up.

Vikash finally excised the chip and set it aside in a sterile steel tray. The chip landed with a metallic clatter that echoed through the room as the doctor closed and bandaged the wound. “And, there we go!” he announced. “You’re done!”

Khaled pushed himself into a sitting position. “Really? It’s out for real?” he asked.  A small smile graced his lips as he eyed the bloody chip in the tray. He looked up at Vik, eyes shining in gratitude and awe, like he had hung the stars in the sky, or strung Lord Shiva’s bow. “Thank you,” he whispered.

This was why he became a doctor, after all. And, after one year since he made that promise to help Khaled and other people like him, it looked like he’d finally deliver on his promise.

 “No problem,” Vikash replied, all too happy to throw the chip into the biohazard waste bin. “Now, put your clothes back on, and…” He scrutinized Khaled’s clothing. Hoodie, t-shirt, a pair of hospital scrub pants to replace his blood-stained skinny jeans? None of it was appropriate for a cold February night. “Let’s stop and get you some warmer clothes first.”

-

A short man with a rust-red beanie on top of bleached-blond hair waited for them at the staff locker room. He had changed out of hospital scrubs and now wore a beaten-up pair of sneakers, blue jeans, and a jacket over a graphic t-shirt bearing a buxom anime woman. He looked up from his Nintendo switch and waved at Vik, his welcoming smile waning a little as he saw a person he didn’t recognize.

Vik’s jaw dropped. “Eric, what are you doing here?” he asked. “Your shift ended hours ago!”

“Ashley told everyone your crazy cousin was back from rehab, and I was going to hang around because I know how you get, dealing with family drama and all.” Eric directed his attention to Khaled. “Although, now I see that this is not Vikram Gill, and now I think you got some explaining to do?” he asked, looking back at Vikash.

Vik opened his locker and took out a pair of sweat pants, a long-sleeved shirt, an athletic fleece jacket, and a heavy coat. “Okay, Eric, Khaled, Khaled, Eric,” he introduced them, waving from one to the other. “He’s a–well, he’s been, um–Khaled, let me see that app again,” he requested, giving up on explaining Khaled’s situation himself.

Khaled logged into the app again and bent down so Vik could take a picture of his ear. Vik wordlessly handed the phone to Eric. Eric skimmed over the evidence, his thin eyes widening in shock as he took it all in. “Yeah…” Vikash said.

Eric kept pulling up more tabs on the app as Vik changed his clothes. His fair face paled as he read more and more. “Most effective punishment–burning, most dicks sucked in a single hour–twenty, kinks–thigh-high stockings, nipple play?” he read aloud.

Khaled’s face flushed bright red. His hand made a flinching move towards the phone, as if he wanted to swipe it back, but he stopped himself mid-way. “It really says all that?” he squeaked.

Vikash shook his head, as if physically trying to dislodge the words he’d just heard. “Never mind that, let’s just go!” he decided. He closed the locker once he had changed, putting the padlock back on before scooping up his gym bag and slinging it over one shoulder. Eric handed Khaled’s phone back to him. “Now, do you have any place to go, Khaled? Somewhere safe?” Vik asked.

“I, um… I don’t know,” he faltered. Vik supposed he should’ve expected that Khaled had nowhere to go after this. No family living nearby, he assumed, and he didn’t know what this guy’s friend situation was like. Maybe the only place he could’ve gone was back to his abuser. Seeing as this abuser was dead, that option was certainly out.

“I know some places that would probably take you for the night,” Eric suggested. He took out his phone and typed in a query in the maps app, tilting the screen toward Khaled as he showed him the results. “Look, there are shelters like Guiding Light, Second Chance Shelters, San Isabella Ministries, Mother Helena’s, Augusta Francesca Shelter from Domestic Abuse–”

Vik noticed the face Khaled made at the names. Perhaps a generic homeless or DV shelter wasn’t the best solution. “I literally just pulled a tracker out of his shoulder, Eric. We should probably direct him somewhere safer,” Vik suggested. And somewhere he can begin to work through all that trauma, was unspoken, but understood between the two friends.

“Oh, well, in that case, we have Winter Cherries Health and Wellness Center, Joyous Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, where Vik’s cousin is detoxing, Sunavalon,” Eric listed. “They’re all psychiatric hospitals that do 72-hour holds.” Eric’s fingers pinched the screen to zoom in and out of the map. “So, you’ve got options, man,” he concluded. Khaled raised his fingers to scroll around the map himself, his eyes skimming reviews of each location he selected. 

Vik cleared his throat. “I, uh, I know from experience that Joyous Springs has been really good to Vikram. They treat both addictions and mental health crises, but it’s super safe! They lock the doors every night, and they don’t allow any kind of tracking technology inside like cell phones and things like that,” he helpfully described. “Group therapy, individualized therapy, team-building projects, it’s really cool, I think.”

Khaled turned to him. “Would you like me to go there?” he asked.

“It’s up to you,” Vik answered, “I was just describing how it was for my cousin, but the choice is yours.”

“Isn’t it…expensive?”

“Well…” Eric tapered off. They should assume this poor former slave wouldn’t have health insurance, or any way to finance his stay. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” If Vik and Eric were expected to foot the bill, their salaries were ample enough to take the $2,000-some hit. Or, they could set up a payment plan with the institution that Khaled chose if they didn’t want to hemorrhage so much money in one go. The point, as Eric said, was that they had options.

Khaled pouted, going thoughtfully silent as he stared at the phone in Eric’s hand a few seconds longer. “Yeah…okay… I’ll go to Joyous Springs,” he decided.

“After we get you some warmer clothes,” Vik reminded him. He glanced at the clock in the locker room. If they left now, then they’d be able to reach the secondhand charity down the block about half an hour before it closes.

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Hi everyone,

Thank you thank you thank you for sticking around for the follow-up story to Eternal. I want to acknowledge my beta readers @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz , who have probably read like five versions of this same damn chapter. Thank you for sticking it out with me you two, I couldn’t have done it without you ❤️

Some quick asides, I don’t know/can’t guarantee this is gonna have the same consistent updating schedule as the previous story. Irl nonsense like job woes and trying to apply to grad school have been demanding more of my energy than I’d like to give, but I will try to update regularly. Thanks for the understanding in advance 🙏🏽

Well, without further ado…

Mountain Bike

TW/CW: allusions to past whump. You could probably start the sequel without reading the first story, though, but if you want to know exactly what our main character is running from, I highly recommend The Morgue

Dr. Vikash Gill was having a great day today. He’d gotten up early, went to the gym a few blocks away from his house, and came back home to make a quick toast and coffee. He went well into his first few hours as a resident doctor in the emergency department without any serious injuries to treat. In the background, on every television and phone screen, news about the murder of a well-known mob boss spread like wildfire, with suspicious undertones of gang activity throughout the tight-lipped reporting from the news outlets. Now, he was on the way back to the hospital from his quick lunch break at the café around the corner, ready for another five or six hours of work.

Like most people in the medical profession, he loved and hated his job, and like most people in the medical profession, he had plenty of stories to tell. From bullet wounds to stabbings and a whole host of suspicious injuries in between, Vik had treated it all at this point, and he had received every fantastical story and explanation with an apathetic indifference.

Like his mentor Dr. Kimura had said, “We’re doctors, not detectives, the best thing we can do is to shut up, treat their wounds, and get them out the door ASAP,” or something like that. Whatever she told him almost a year ago seemed to stick though, as he stitched up every gang member and staunched the blood flow of every mafia soldier without so much as a blink of an eye.

There were more than a few times where Vik wished he had studied medicine in a small-town rural community instead, somewhere where the biggest injury was something normal like a tractor accident. During those times, he’d make himself remember the ‘mountain bike accident’ that he treated just over a year ago.

The man was a few years younger than him, according to his charts, but his small, skinny frame and big, sad eyes made him look even younger. He had a unique set of tattoos, singular black bands on his neck, wrists, and ankles. He came in completely naked with a broken nose, hand-shaped bruising all over his body, a torn rectum, and a back carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. The older man who came in with him –Thomas J. Costa, the dead boss who most probably fucked with the wrong gang and found out– claimed all those wounds were merely a ‘mountain bike accident.’ Vik knew that was bullshit, yet there was nothing he could do at the time, being only a med student. Now, with a little more freedom and experience with being a licensed doctor, he hoped that he would be able to help that poor guy, and other people like him, should the opportunity ever come up again.

A chime went off on his phone just as he rounded the corner on his way back to work. Vik fished around his pockets for his phone, not looking where he was going until an unexpected force collided into him at speed. It knocked him back on his feet a little and pushed his glasses askew up his face. Vik completely forget about his phone for a second as he began to curse out the stranger who’d just run into him. “Hey! Watch it you-…wait…” Vik adjusted his glasses. The curses died on his tongue as he came face to face with a familiar young man with a dark floof of hair, the saddest dark brown eyes, and a visibly distinct tattooed band on his neck. He may have been fully clothed now, in a thick black hoodie and skinny jeans with a suspiciously growing red stain on the right thigh, but Vikash Gill would recognize that tattoo and those sad brown eyes anywhere. He remembered the ‘mountain bike accident’ that forced them to cross paths; he may never forget that night as long as he lived. “Mountain Bike?!” he asked incredulously.

“A doctor, oh thank god!” the stranger exclaimed. Whether it was Vik’s scrub pants, sweater emblazoned with the hospital logo, or his ID tag that tipped him off, the stranger visibly melted with relief before surging toward him with desperation. “Help me!” The young man’s chest was heaving as he panted around every word. His face shone with sweat and exertion.

Vikash took a step back. “With what?” he asked.

“I need to hide!”

He glanced around the corner where Mountain Bike had come from, but nobody was coming. “From whom? Why?” The stranger wobbled on his injured leg, and Vik instinctively reached out to catch him. “Did you do something? What did you do? What happened to your leg?” he demanded. It was clear that he had been running from something–or someone–and the desperation in the stranger’s eyes as he looked up at him put pressure on Vik.

“I didn’t do anything–well, okay, I might’ve headbutted my new owner and ran away–”

“Whoa, whoa, back up–what do you mean?”

Mountain Bike gripped onto the front of Vik’s jacket, locking eyes with him. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m telling the truth!” he insisted. He stepped back to give the doctor more space. “Look, you remember me, right?” His eyes searched his hopefully as he put on a strained smile of friendliness. “You sewed up my back last year, do you remember?”

“Sure I do,” he answered, “but I don’t see how–”

“I’ve been held against my will the last several years and I finally have a chance to escape. I’m not making this up, I promise! Please, take out my tracker and I’ll be able to prove everything, just help me!” Mountain Bike begged.

“But, what about your leg?” Vik asked, watching the stranger wobble when he tried to put weight on it.

“Screw the leg! I’ll be fine, I need the thing that tells them where I am out of my body now!”

 “Still though,” Vik rationalized, shaking his head, “how can I trust you?” The guy seemed pathetic enough, but Vik didn’t know him, and wasn’t about to allow himself to be robbed blind or stabbed to death just because he felt sorry for someone.

Mountain Bike quickly detached from Vikash’s side, extending his arms outwards as he stood in a T-pose. “Search me. I’ve got no weapons, and I’m too weak to hurt you in any way that counts,” he said. He flapped his arms a little. “Well, go on, search me!” he urged.

What the fuck did I get myself into? Vik sighed, wondering how he was going to explain to work how late he was from lunch break. Still, the stranger’s jumpy movements and quiet desperation seemed like they were coming from a real place of fear. Vik reluctantly gave the stranger a rudimentary pat-down, like the ones he’d get at the airport. He didn’t miss the way Mountain Bike flinched under his touches, even though searching him was his idea. He stood at least a head taller than the man, so he was able to catch a glimpse of black ink behind his ears. A barcode, and ‘TJC’? He frowned, thinking there might be some credibility to Mountain Bike’s story after all. The enigmatic little puzzle pieces that surrounded Mountain Bike for a year had finally started to assemble into a picture of what had really occurred that night in the emergency department. Once he confirmed that Mountain Bike was unarmed, he stepped back, and the stranger dropped his arms from the T-position. “Okay, you’re unarmed,” he confirmed. “But, how do I know you’re telling the truth? No offense, but I hear a lot of tall tales in my line of work. How do I know you’re in danger and this isn’t some kind of mental breakdown?”

Mountain Bike let out a pained sound somewhere between a groan and a whine. “Come on, man! Do I gotta show you everything?”

Vik fell back on concussion check protocol. “What’s your name and date of birth? What date is it today?” he asked

Mountain Bike sighed. “Khaled Bakhsk, November 22, 1999. Today’s February 22, 2022,” he recited with a roll of his eyes. “I can’t give you the exact time it is, but it’s after noon. Now come on, take me to the hospital and take out my tracker?” Mountain Bike begged.

“Why do you even have a tracker?” Vik asked.

“Because. I’m. A. Slave,” Mountain Bike spelled out. He huffed a frustrated sigh. “You know what, I don’t know what it’ll take for you to believe me, but if you at least find it and take it out, I swear I will never bother you again!” His voice was edged with desperation as he cast Vik the saddest, darkest puppy-dog eyes underneath his long lashes. “Please?”

And honestly, if this stranger was telling him the truth, would Vikash Gill be able to live with himself if he knew he just let this guy be enslaved again? “Fine,” Vik relented, “but I’ll need to find the tracker first, and even when I find it, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to extract it immediately. Besides–” he cast a furtive glance down at Mountain Bike’s bloody thigh, “–you should at least let me treat your leg first.” He followed the seeping blood trail with his eyes, brows furrowed in concern.

Mountain Bike–er, Khaled’s face lit into a grin as he dropped to his knees and hugged Vikash’s legs. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank–”

“Okay, stop that. Get up,” Vik replied, uncomfortable with both the sudden infringement on his personal space and the over exaggerated gratitude Mountain Bike displayed. “Let’s patch up that leg!” He directed the stranger to follow him to the hospital, where he could be evaluated and get whatever kind of help he needed.

“Remember these words: pencil, dragon, phone, spoon,” he told him. Vik still couldn’t rule out the possibility of a head injury, and one of the tests for a potential concussion involved memorizing a string of words and repeating them back. Mountain–Khaled didn’t respond.Well, it was a great day for Dr. Vikash Gill, but now it was just kind of a weird one.

Le Tag List for The Recovery Arc (also if you want on or off, nbd, just let me know 👍🏼) (also if I missed anybody I am so sorry, I haven’t had to make one of these in a long time 🥺)

@kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz

@bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

This species (Zoosphaerium neptunus) is commonly known as a giant emerald pill-millipede. The females can measure up to 90mm long (roughly 3.5 inches), making this the largest species of pill-millipede in the world.

There is a significant degree of sexual dimorphism in this species, with the males measuring only about 45mm (1.8 inches) long -- roughly half the size of the females.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes are found only in Madagascar, which is home to several endemic species of giant pill-millipedes (order Sphaerotheriida). The Malagasy name for giant pill-millipedes is "Tainkintana," which means "shooting-star."

Pill-millipedes use conglobation as a defense mechanism, which means that they can curl their bodies up into a spherical shape so that their dorsal plates form a protective shield around the softer, more vulnerable parts of their bodies, just like an actual pill-bug or a "roly-poly."

When they roll themselves up completely, they look almost like gently polished chunks of malachite, emerald, or jade.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes will sometimes form large swarms that travel together as a group. This is the only species of giant pill-millipede that engages in any sort of swarming behavior, and the purpose of that behavior is still unclear. The swarms often contain thousands of individuals, with almost all of them moving in the same direction, even when there is no physical contact that might allow the millipedes to "herd" one another along.

Their swarming behavior also has some very peculiar features, as this article explains:

During swarming, Zoosphaerium neptunus individuals pay little attention to their surroundings; many specimens were observed walking straight into and drowning in small puddles. Some swarms even display ‘cliché lemming behaviour:' in Marojejy, a large part of a swarm walked into and drowned in a small river.

No single specimen was observed walking ‘against the current,' all specimens were moving in the same direction (southeast), even when not in contact with one another.

Of 273 randomly collected individuals, 105 were males, while 168 were females. The males were 8.3 - 14.1 mm wide (average width 10.4 mm). According to the inner horns of the posterior telopods, all males were sexually mature. The females were 9.95 - 15.4 mm wide (average width 11.4 mm). All females displayed non sclerotized vulvae and were sexually immature.

Some researchers argue that the swarming serves as a defense mechanism, providing a layer of protection (or at least some cryptic cover) against local predators, but the swarming behavior is still poorly understood.

Important Note: I just want to remind everyone that these animals belong in their own natural habitat -- they should not be trapped, bought/sold, traded, shipped, collected, or kept as pets. This particular species does not survive well in captivity, either, and the demand for these "exotic" invertebrates is putting the wild populations in jeopardy. The previous article discusses those issues, too:

Another possible threat for Z. neptunus swarms are collections for the pet trade. There exists a large demand in Japan, Europe and North America for 'green -eyed monsters’ as pets. Giant pill -millipedes from Madagascar unfortunately have a very short survival time in terraria. The species is specialized on low-energy food (dead leaves), and adapted to the cool climates (<20°C) of the highlands. Specimens in terraria often starve to death quickly.

So I know that they're adorable and really, really fascinating...but let's just let them be their chunky, adorable little selves out in the wild where they belong.

Sources & More Info:

European Journal of Taxonomy: Seven New Giant Pill-Millipede Species and New Records of the Genus Zoosphaerium from Madagascar

Madagascar Conservation & Development: Swarming Behavior in the World's Largest Giant Pill-Millipede, Z. neptunus, and its Implication for Conservation Efforts

Bonn Zoological Bulletin Supplementum: The Giant Millipedes, Order Sphaerotheriida (an Annotated Species Catalogue) (PDF)

My WIP asks

You’re the first one to ask, so I’ll give you both!

First, the SFW one. There are sooooo many ways I could’ve ended Eternal, and so I organized the alternate endings all into one document.

The alternate endings are:

Multiple Whumpers/Epic Rescue by Julio & Nico

Tom lives, but just gets arrested and put behind bars for tax fraud or something silly like that, potential for him to come back in 10 or so years to reclaim what is his

Or to apologize and try to make up

Khaled dies (I know 😬💀 😭💔)

Khaled lives, but gets the Stockholm Syndrome pretty badly, and they live ‘happily ever after’

Khaled is abandoned like a unwanted pet

Khaled does not escape at the very end

And yeah, I mean, obviously it was a decision to stick to the ending I stuck with, because I love all these alternate endings and ways it could’ve gone

So, Recovery Arc NSFW was unplanned, but it kinda wrote itself? Frank discussion of kinks and consensual sexy times below the cut:

What is their weapon of choice? (Or do they prefer fighting barehanded?)

What pronouns do people use for them? How do they feel about it? Would they change it if they could?

How much autonomy are they given?

Do they groom themselves? What details about their appearence are chosen by other people?

How obedient are they? Are they defiant or more compliant?

Do they have a comfort object?

How do they dress to go on missions? Do they have an uniform?

Do they have a workout routine?

Are they enhanced in some way? Like drugs/metal transplants/magic to improve their capacity?

Are they a favorite? Are they precious or replaceable?

Are they stealthy? Or perhaps bulky, odd or othersie eye-cathing?

What is their name? Is it a number? Do they have a nickname? Who uses it?

Do they have multiple handlers? Which one is their favorite? Which one sets them less at ease?

Do they have a favorite food? How often do they have it?

Did they have a life before this?

Do they have a person they care for? Is it someone they are supposed to protect or is it in spite of orders?

Do they have a squick in their job? Something that bugs them (like blood under their nails) or pisses them off?

How do they wear their hair?

Do they have a good aim?

Do they have survival skills? If they are on their own, can they find food, take care of themselves?

Would they survive a battle royale situation, like the Hunger Games?

Do they have any disabilities? How does it impact them on their job?

Are they loyal? Do their superiors trust them to go off on their own and come back, or are they kept on a tight leash?

What makes them relaxed?

What makes them nervous?

Do they have any nervous habits?

Can they blend in on a civil and normal environment? Do they know how to use a phone/buy groceries/whatever is normal in your setting? Can they get by lowkey or would they catch attention?

Do they have a non-fighting related skill, such as writing, doing math, drawing or speaking another language? Was it taught to them? Did they learn it themselves?

Can they endure torture? Is there a method that immediately breaks them? Are they good torturers?

How are they doing?

Taglist hehe

Thank you for the title suggestion and the beta read, @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz

This one shot doubles as both a look into Cade's backstory, and a glimpse into how the roommates resolved conflicts and worked out a solution before Khaled came into their lives. Enjoy I guess?

PS, I really miss writing and posting, so I might just ignore my previous timeframe and post the sequel earlier? Idk. It's my blog, I make the rules here, but I don't know what I'm doing lol

TW/CW: domestic violence/intimate partner violence (offscreen, alluded to), transphobia, unhealthy relationships, toxic masculinity. I think I got them all, but I can tag more if need be. Heed the tags on this one, folks.

It began with a phone call at 9 PM on a cold night.

“Come on, pick up, please, pick up,” Cade murmured desperately. The shelter wouldn’t take him, he hadn’t talked to his parents in a year, this was the only bridge he hadn’t burned yet, and he just hoped to the gods or whatever higher power was out there that his shining light would pick up the phone.

Loud and lively party music blared through the phone, quickly interrupting the drone of the ringing phone. Cade thought his heart might burst with relief as his dearest and oldest friend finally answered the phone, yelling a little to be heard.

“Yeah?”

“Eric, it’s me, Cade!” Cade yelled back.

“Cade?” Even through the din of the loud music, Cade could hear the smile in Eric’s voice. “Shit, man, let me move to a quieter place!” There were some light shuffling sounds, then some heavy footsteps, indicating that Eric stepped away from whatever party he was attending.

Why are you interrupting him at his party? He’s having a great time, don’t bother him with your- Cade cut off the intrusive inner voice and anxiously stayed on the line.

“Okay, is that better?” Eric asked.

Cade smiled, nodded, then remembered Eric couldn’t see him nod. “Yeah,” he answered.

“Now, what’s good, Cade?”

“I…” Classic Eric, always asking about him, always there for him, always making him smile when he wanted to do nothing but cry. Which, judging by the constricting of his chest and the way his eyes pricked with tears, would be very helpful right now, to have something to smile for.

“I… I need help…”

-

It was a year ago today that Cade began to live with Eric and his roommate Vikash. Eric had driven to the street corner Cade was waiting on in the Moon Garden Catering Van. He wore a tunic-like thing and smelled like something divine. He picked Cade up and drove him back to the party –a Diwali party, hence the clothes. He fed him some of the best curry he ever had in his life, introduced him to Vikash Gill and his family (who were hosting the party), and briefly explained the situation to Vik. Once Vik learned what had happened and who Cade was to Eric, he welcomed him into 716 Sunvine Ave with open arms.

Although, this morning, maybe he’d change his mind, Cade fretfully worried as he continued fiddling with the drain to the kitchen sink. Beside him, Vikash stood, hair disheveled from his morning workout, and mouth downturned into a scowl as he bitched and moaned about the clogged sink.

“Damn it, Cade, you’ve lived here for a year already, and you still forget we don’t have a garbage disposal in this sink?!” he asked.

“I thought it was small enough to go down!” Cade defended, panicking as the sink half-full of rancid water burped up broken food particles with every thrust of the takeout chopsticks he’d taped end to end.

“Chutiya, it’s rice! Rice expands when it’s wet!” Vik yelled.

“You don’t have to yell at me! I’m trying to fix it!” Cade screamed back.

Eric rushed down the stairs and rounded the corner, phone in one hand and a five-gallon bucket in the other. “Break it up, break it up! Yelling at him is not gonna fix the sink any more than poking it with a stick!” Eric chastised. He gently but firmly bumped Cade out of the way and threw the cupboard doors below the sink open. “Now, Jason is gonna be here any minute, and I don’t want our landlord doing the annual inspection on his former childhood home when the sink is clogged, do you?!” he asked the two. Both men shook their heads, crouching down beside Eric to clear out the space below the U-bend of the sink, their shouting match already forgotten as they took out bottles of cleansing spray, dish rags, and rubber gloves alike.

The doorbell rang amongst all this mess. Cade jumped, Vik groaned, and Eric ignored it, shimmying the bucket under the U-bend and grabbing the tools he’d need to loosen the pipes. “Someone else get that,” he ordered, too absorbed in what he was doing.

Cade volunteered. He quickly ran out of the kitchen, took one look in the hallway mirror to adjust his hair and damp t-shirt, and came to the door to answer it. “Hey,” he greeted.

The welcoming smile on his face faded as soon as he saw it wasn’t Jason on their doorstep. The bearded man in the plaid shirt stood on their doorstep, smiling back as he raised a hand. Cade flinched, then cursed himself for flinching when their unwelcome guest merely waved in greeting. “Hi Cade, it’s been awhile.”

The memories and the hurt began to bubble from somewhere in Cade’s gut, threating to boil over into his esophagus and poison his words with resentment. Best end this interaction as quickly and politely as he could. “Go away, Brant,” Cade replied coldly.

Brant dropped his hand. “What, aren’t you going to hear me out?” he asked, sounding confused and a bit hurt. It took all of Cade’s strength not to cave to that façade of hurt.

“What’s there to hear out?” Cade asked. He kept his hand on the doorknob, ready to slam it at any moment’s notice. “We broke up a year ago, and yet you tracked me down and showed up at my house. Why?”

“I-I wanted to talk to you, to work things out between us,” Brant said, “but you wouldn’t pick up your phone, you wouldn’t text me, you wouldn’t reply to my DMs –nothing!” Cade raised an unimpressed brow as Brant fell back on the classic excuses. “And yeah, sure, I started seeing someone else for a little bit,” his ex-boyfriend admitted, “but they mean nothing to me, compared to you!”

Cade let out an unimpressed laugh. “I’m sure Danny would love to hear that!” he added sarcastically.

“Come on, Cade! I followed your Instagram stories for months, called your work, got your address, drove for three hours to talk to you, and you won't give me the time of day?” Brant pouted.

Cade made a show of bringing a hand up to his chin to stroke it, pretending to be deep in thought. “Hmmm. And why do you suppose that is?” he asked rhetorically. He shot Brant a scathing glare.

His ex-boyfriend huffed a frustrated sigh as he rolled his eyes behind his thick-framed glasses. “I give you some tough love one time-”

“’Tough love,’ my ass –you locked me out of our house!” Cade interrupted.

“Fine, I lock you out of the house one time, and then you gotta disappear on me in the middle of the-”

“Brant, let me stop you right there,” Cade said firmly, holding up his hand to silence the man at the entrance. “You don’t get it at all, do you?! You made me sell my Oscar, you smashed my crystals, ridiculed my music, flushed my birth control! I had two decks of tarot cards, Brant, because I knew that when you found one, I’d still have at least one deck once you threw the one you found away! And don’t even get me started on how you’d trigger my dysphoria when we were in bed on purpose!”

Brant dropped all pretense of making friendly. “You’re making it into a bigger deal than it was,” he growled, poking a finger accusatorily at him. “A real man would’ve let that shit slide and moved on-”

That triggered a bitter laugh from Cade. “’A real man’?!” Classic Brant Voorhes. How pathetic/infuriating/relieving to know he never changed, Cade thought. “Really?! Honestly, fuck you!” he yelled. “In the fourteen months that we dated, you told me the whole time what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to act, how to be a ‘real man’ or whatever, but you weren’t really interested in making me a man,” Cade accused, “you were only interested in making me your dog, and I had enough of it!”

Brant gaped slack-jawed on the concrete steps to the entrance, his mouth moving without sound like a flopping fish as his face reddened with pent-up emotions.

Cade shook his head. “So, all that I mean to say is…” he continued, lowering his voice. He stepped away from the door frame, beginning to close the door between him and his ex as the man tried to follow him inside, “…fuck off, Brant. And don’t ever come back again.”

Slamming the door on that piece of shit was the most freeing thing he’d ever done in his life, apart from coming out. He caught a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror and gave his reflection a victorious smile. “Nice job, me,” he praised.

He returned to the kitchen with a bounce in his step. Vik looked at him confusedly. Eric straightened up from underneath the sink to a sitting position on the kitchen floor. Cade hummed as he picked out a box of mithai Vik’s parents sent home with them after Diwali last weekend.

“Was…that Brant?” Eric asked tensely. Cade remembered how angry Eric got when he told him about all the things Brant did to him the first time around. It was the closest he’d ever seen his easygoing friend get to homicidal levels of rage.

“Yeah.” Cade replied. He fished out a syrup-saturated jalebi and took a bite. Just as good as it was last year, he thought to himself, smiling around the sugary treat.

“Are you okay though?” Vik asked. “I know that guy fucked you over, it must’ve been hard to see him again.”

Cade swallowed, then took another bite of jalebi into his teeth. “Nah, not really,” he shrugged.

The doorbell rang again. Eric got up from the kitchen floor, muttering something about how if it was Brant out there, he’d do something to end up on the news. Vik slowly walked towards Cade, lowering his eyes as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, this unexpected visit with Brant reminded me it’s your one year anniversary of leaving that prick, of living with us.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, about earlier,” he apologized. “I’m glad you came to us, and if anyone’s going to clog our sink with leftover chunks of rice, I’d rather it be you.”

Cade popped the last of the jalebi in his mouth. He was about to give Vik’s bicep an appreciative pat, but stopped his hand midway remembering that his fingers were covered in syrup. “I know, and… thanks,” he replied. They exchanged smiles, then their attention was directed elsewhere, as Eric led Jason the landlord into their apartment.

Le Tag List (if you want to be added or subtracted from the backstory bits, nbd, just let me know): @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz

@bamber344 @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @defire

I only realized halfway through how similar this piece was to an older one- so an unintentional redraw, I guess?