A collation of curios, a welter of words, a miscellany of misery! Collected masterlists of my fic.
Iesin & Talvos
A fae captured and systematically, brutally experimented on becomes the doorway to escape for his captor’s assistant, a quietly traumatized human who has never known freedom.
Set in Iesin and Talvos’ verse (links to same doc, look for Falconry Fae section), Serys is a fae captured and trained by a human to be a silent, obedient hunter.
Main tropes: dehumanization, forced mutism, occasional gore, food deprivation.
Fog and Furrow
Fern, a touch telepath kept by one of the agencies who care for and imprison nearly all Paths, learns to live as a person after their rescue from a sadistic handler, while struggling with the long-term effects of the agencies’ callous use of their mind.
Main tropes: institutionalized dehumanization, overstimulation, telepathy whump, mind control.
Elias and Colin
Set in the Fog and Furrow verse (links to same masterlist, look for Elias section) Elias is a damn good Path handler - and also a double agent for a kidnapping ring. Their Path, Colin, fights secret issues of his own while unaware that his readings are used to support the same kidnappers that the agency’s clients pay to use his talents against.
Main tropes: institutionalized dehumanization, telepathy whump, kidnapping, organized crime.
237599: Home Again
Peyton Montgomery had it all. Born to a staggeringly wealthy family, he was on the fast track to inherit a life of luxury and privilege. His disappearance changed everything. Twenty-seven months later, returning as a product of the WRU’s famed system, the human pet who answers to 237599 is forced to regain the memories taken from him by a family desperate to have him back.
Main tropes: box boy universe, pet whump, conditioned behavior and recovery from conditioning.
Lourdes: One of a Kind
The product of a secretive program deep within the bowels of WRU, 338947 is the latest pet produced by the Lourdes Program. Set in the same canon as 237599: Home Again.
Main tropes: box boy universe, pet whump, rape, dubious consent, exploring individuality, recovery from sexual trauma, sexual exploration as a means of healing, imperfect recovery, morally grey protagonist, serial killings, murder.
Platonic Ideal
Passed from house to house by a series of owners ranging from uncaring to incompetent to unkind to cruel, Platonic Companion - Medical Specialty boxie Matti endures the WRU system's toll on his body and spirit with fewer and fewer hopes for the kindness and safety he was once promised. In the end, leaving is the easiest decision he's ever made. It's recovery that's hard. Set in the same canon as 237599: Home Again.
Main tropes: chronic illness, box boy universe, pet whump, recovery.
Hollow-Point Intent
Five years ago, Cyril Moore - contracted tattoo artist to their fiancé's family "business" and competitive sharpshooter - disappeared and was presumed dead. They didn't dare hope they could return. When their wildest dream comes true and they find themself in their fiancé's arms once more, it's with the knowledge that there are things lurking under their skin they have no way to explain.
Main tropes: noncon body modification, disassociation, selectively mute character, transphobia, organized crime.
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Would you ever be open to write a "hunting" piece from Mishas perspective? It would be very interesting to see/know/read what is going on inside his head. The itch and never ending desire to hurt/kill and satisfaction that comes but eventually never stays for too long. Would he let you inside his head for such a piece?
CW: Killer POV, serial killer, some brief references to eye and tooth whump daydreams, murder, some seriously unhealthy family dynamics, jesus
It's not that he means to... not exactly.
It's not his fault.
It's only that, after a while, his schoolday distraction becomes scribbled doodles of terrified faces, circles with big circle eyes and mouths and red blood in gashes over their foreheads, their faces, drooling from the black hole of a mouth. Sometimes other people see him drawing and laugh, or look uneasy, or stop looking at him at all. He doesn't try to think about it, he really doesn't. It's just... a few months go by, and then, hunched in his seat ignoring the math teacher who ignores him in return, he starts thinking about the bones under everyone's skin.
He chews on the ends of pens until they're pockmarked from his teeth and the ink threatens to spill all over the desk... and he can see all their skulls, collarbones, ribcages splayed open like his mother's thick arms welcoming him home from summer vacation with family near Moscow.
He thinks about arms.
Alicia Wyatt, in the front row to the left by the window - she'd have delicate tissue linking thin, graceful humerus to radius and ulna. She'd shed skin like a snake if he slipped the knife between the layers just right. But her parents are overprotective... they'd see she didn't come home on time right away.
No good. Couldn't be her.
Ben Pillman, in homeroom? His parents don't give a fuck about him. He's got the best voice in chorus, and a pretty smile and perfect teeth. He'd scream louder than anyone else. He's got nice hair, too. Scalp him and see how good looking they think he is, then. The girl Misha asked to Homecoming last year said she wasn't going to go, and then she went anyway with Ben Pillman, who told Misha later in the bathroom that he had no idea she'd been asked by anyone else, and that he was sorry that she'd lied to Misha. He'd given Misha a hug, and told him that he didn't really like April anyway.
No, can't do it to him. He's been nice, when he didn't have to be. He waves at Misha in the hallway sometimes, even now, a year later. He still waves, says hello.
Misha remembers to say hi back most of the time.
Artyom is always saying that he should be nicer to people, if they're nice to him. Tyoma, quiet and feline and dark, has girls who watch him everywhere he goes - and one of Misha's friends, John B., watches him, too. He probably comes over just to stare at Artyom when he goes through the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of his shirt riding up when he yawns and stretches his arms overhead.
Misha doesn't mind. John B. isn't really his friend, anyway. Just someone easier to keep around than the others. John likes to watch him play video games, and he never asks to have a turn himself. Misha can forget he's even there until dinner time, and then his mother tells him it's so nice to see he has friends, asks John B. to stay which he always does.
Tyoma knows that he doesn't care about John B., but he never says anything. He doesn't mind either, isn't bothered by John B. having a crush on him. No, Tyoma just watches Misha, dark eyes locked on him, waiting.
Waiting to see it build in him until he might explode, there's so much pressure beneath the surface of his skin.
But no. Can't be Ben Pillman, or John B., or Alicia Wyatt.
Not anyone at school, not even Yolanda Martin, who eats fruit loops for breakfast, crunching handfuls straight out of a ziploc bag in the cafeteria during the free time between arriving and everyone heading for their first class of the day. She chews with her mouth open. It's disgusting and Misha thinks sometimes about popping out all her teeth one by one by one by one.
She would fight and curse and spit, she wouldn't scream at all. And her blood would be thick, sludge from lack of hydration. She only drinks Mountain Dew, even early, before homeroom.
Artyom won't let him think too long about anyone he actually knows. He'll elbow Misha if he's looking too long at Yolanda while she eats, whisper Khvatit pyalit'sya, choknutaya - quit staring, stalker. People he knows are too suspicious, there are too many connections between them for some asshole police officer to play with, turn into a case.
The thing is, it doesn't matter if he wants to or not, it... it builds.
He tells his brother the feeling is like having an itch entirely inside his brain. It begins as a heavy, weighted boredom, and unsettled certainty that nothing important will ever happen again. Video games stop being fun to play. His music even means nothing to him, is just noise. He taps his pencil in class until his teachers snap at him to stop, he pays no attention. The words shift and move when he tries to read, they reform into nothing.
Misha saw a movie once, a horror movie, in theaters. In it the killer heard a voice telling him what to do. Misha never hears a voice, or sees hallucinations. He just gets... bored.
And the boredom grows, day by day, until he can't stand it any longer. He starts to see the veins in his father's heart bursting with fear as his younger son strangles him, his mother's tears if he aimed a gun. It starts to weigh heavier and heavier within his mind, the cycling thoughts that can't be shaken.
The cashier at the coffee shop? He sees her head rolling away from her body. The clerk at the gas station who laughs at Tyoma's terrible jokes? He could chop the guy's hands off one by one. It gets worse and worse, and there's only one way to cure the itch.
He sneaks out a lot, after dark - taking Tyoma with him usually, the two of them clutching bottles of cheap vodka an older guy buys them from a corner store for five bucks over the purchase price, heading out into the woods on quiet feet.
"Don't do it," Tyoma will whisper, sometimes in English, sometimes not. Misha ignores him.
Misha always ignores him.
Tyoma comes along with him anyway.
"Misha, please don't-"
"We're just drinking, Tyoma, relax." But they both know there's more to it than that, that they are buying time. That Tyoma is buying him some time. Tyoma never argues, though. He just nods - he knows it's his job to take care of Misha, who is smaller and used to be sickly and everyone's sort of never noticed that he really isn't sickly anymore.
He's always taken care of Misha, he's always been there to help him with everything he needs. Family comes first, always, and they are each other's family more than anyone else is. Tyoma is his brother, his alone, and he never denies Misha anything in the end.
Sometimes, Tyoma asks him to stay in the woods, in their secret place. They store the bottles of vodka in a cooler they keep in a hole they dug in the ground under a bush, sit on a mattress they know other people use for grosser reasons, pull the bottles out to take swigs that burn down their throat and giggle and talk about girls and movies and whatever else.
It helps... for a while.
A month, maybe.
Two months... three.
Then it doesn't.
Then, even sitting with Tyoma, Misha will grow silent and sullen and stare off into the darkness of the night around him, listening to the scratching and rustling of the underbrush and the wind through the woods.
The only time he is afraid of himself is when he starts dreaming about Tyoma, too.
With the inside of his head a heavy place, he feels chilled when he starts to think about how his older brother would look with his face cut down from those sharp-edged cheekbones, hands around his neck. He thinks about pushing Tyoma into a fire, how it would feel to have a body thrash wildly against his in a desperate effort to stay alive. He dreams about wiping him clean of fingerprints, of proof, about lying to his mother and his father, burying him in their secret place in the woods and coming to drink with his corpse.
He dreams about carrying Tyoma inside of him, being the last one to see him alive.
That's when he knows he can't wait any longer.
That's when he walks the side of the road with his thumb out and his duffel bag on one shoulder, or stalks bars at closing time, or just walks through the parking lot of an apartment complex seeing who will open a door if he knocks, who is out alone in the dark.
Tyoma, always, follows. His shadow, off to the side, keeping himself invisible until it's time to clean up the mess. Sitting silent in the backseat of the car that picks them up, as they ride for a while. Standing silent as Misha kills the driver in a ditch, watching, waiting for his part in things to begin.
The actual act isn't really fun anymore - they all die the same. They fight and scream or cry and give up but they die. They just... die. And then he has to cut them up, into trash bags he and Tyoma spread around dumpsters outside of fast food places until it's done, wash their faces in public bathrooms and then take quick showers once they get home in the middle of the night, grimy and with a layer of what they've done thicker than oil.
But he can't stop, even though it isn't fun like it was when he started. Now he has to do it just to keep the boredom from driving him out of his mind, making him turn on his family, and family matters more than his own mind. His family keeps him together, he needs them for a place to live and someone to hear his thoughts, someone other than himself. Now he has to do it just to keep in check the worst thoughts that linger on how his older brother would look pale and with eyes wide with horror forever, his final expression one of betrayal, dirt dumped onto his face until it disappears.
He and Tyoma clean themselves up, after, and Misha sleeps for the first time in days, and when he wakes up the itch is gone. He smiles at breakfast and laughs at Tyoma's jokes. He feels fine.
For... a while, anyway.
A few months, maybe more, maybe less.
Sometimes Tyoma begs him to tell someone that he cannot seem to stop, but he only smiles, and gives his brother a hug, and whispers, Tvoya sem'ya prevyshe vsego, Tyoma.
Family first.
He's never sure how to tell Tyoma what he knows to be true, deep within himself. They are the only two people on Earth who matter, who are really real, just he and his brother. And if he can't stop the itch and he kills Tyoma, then he'll be all alone.
Content Warning: Human trafficking, enslavement, captivity, dehumanization, physical and sexual abuse, coercion, drugging, violence, medical trauma, overdose, death, recapture, failed escape, homelessness, dehydration and malnourishment, recovery whump, neurodivergent and POC whumpee, and PTSD, BBU/BBU BBU-ADJACENT SETTING
At nineteen, Sita-Blessing Kande is abducted to silence their journalist father.
They're sold instead.
Stripped of their name, their freedom, and their legal personhood, Sita becomes 363: a beautiful possession, a trained weapon, and a living advertisement for the Worldwide Relationship Union.
But Sita has never believed they are property.
Every lowered gaze is calculated. Every obedient gesture is a performance. Every rule they follow is another chance to survive long enough to break it.
The Art of Looking Owned is a dark story about captivity, resistance, stolen identity, complicated freedom, and the chosen family waiting on the other side of survival.
Sometimes looking broken is the most dangerous disguise of all.
Training Facility Arc
Intake
The Drip pt 1
The Drip pt. 2
The Drip pt. 3
Office Chatter
CW: BBU/BBU-ADJACENT SETTING, FACILITY WHUMP, INSTITUTIONALIZED DEHUMANIZATION, SOME WORKPLACE MISOGYNY
Kaycee Peterson loved her job. And she was good at it.
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CW: Langdon is 15. CWs include slavery, referenced collars, referenced abuse, and dreams of murder most foul
Langdon is fifteen years old when they take the inhaler out of his hand and put a gun in it instead.
"It's okay," Brewster says, with a slight, friendly smile, patting him on the back. Brewster's older than he is by more than a decade, if only just. They look sort of the same, most of the staff does, with curly dark hair and eyes a little too big for their face.
Plus, the black leather collars, white button-ups, and plain black pants all staff wears for every waking hour. He got his first work uniform, all three pieces, at four, like everybody does.
Not all the staff looks exactly alike, though. Some of them, like Vander, have almost unsettlingly bright blue eyes, too. Runs in the master's family, which means it runs in the staff family, even though no one talks about it. Langdon's are blue. Brewster's are a color like a stormcloud in some lights. Something about both your parents having blue eye genes, but since Langdon's never been to school, all he knows about genes is what he's seen on TV when it's his night to pick a show.
Greg, his sister's husband, came to live with them from another house when he was three years old. His eyes are brown. His hair is stick-straight, lighter in color. His smile doesn't have the same sort of lilt to it.
Greg doesn't have Marcoset blood poisoning him, not like Vander - whose nerves are broken and don't feel pain, leaving him scarred and forcing Brewster to be his shadow all the time to keep him from hurting himself. Not like Langdon himself, who can barely work outside for half an hour without his inhaler close at hand. Not like Rita, who hardly ever leaves the bed, or Henry, who was born deaf and is probably going blind, too. Too much toxic blood in just about everybody.
The medic thinks he and Brewster are both the master's. Anyone who said that out loud where the master might hear would be whipped.
Personally, Langdon thinks Brewster is too happy to be Isaac Marcoset's son. Isaac Marcoset has a library of scowls and glares for any occasion, and only one or two smiles.
Brewster turns him to face the targets, breaking him from his thoughts. They're just wooden cutouts in vaguely human shapes that have had crude faces with horrible Os of surprise painted under their little dot-eyes. "We're just testing you out. Take the shots, see if you hit the targets. These two guys here, and if you hit those, those bottles I lined up on the tree trunks over there."
"I don't want to do this," Langdon says, voice low, a little airy. Even with his inhaler, his lungs fight whenever he's scared, or if he works too hard. The inhaler just holds off the worst of it. He hates the heavy weight of the handgun he's holding. Hates how good it feels. "Brewster, I-I don't want-"
"I know." Brewster keeps a hand on his shoulder, his bright smile dimming a little with sympathy. "I know, Lan. But we don't have much of a fucking choice, yeah? Boss says you learn to shoot, you learn to shoot. Van and I learned when we were like... ten or eleven. We started going on jobs around your age, so... You got a few years to wait that we didn't, right? That's some luck. Kept you safe as long as we could."
"Right." His chest hitches as he stares at the targets. Big black circle-eyes, bigger black circle-mouth. "Lucky."
His breath is thin. His lungs protest every movement he makes, but Brewster's right - there's no choice. If Isaac Marcoset wants another trigger on hand, Langdon is fifteen and that's as old as Van and Brewster were the first time they killed someone.
He aims. Brewster slides something like a heavy headphone set over his head, the noise of the birds suddenly silent. Langdon bites his lower lip.
Just like Brewster taught him. Safety off only when you're ready. No finger on the trigger til it's time.
If he thinks of Isaac Marcoset instead of the wooden target when he fires, that's his own business.
He hears, dimly, the sound of Brewster yelling but ignores it as he fires at the next target - Miss Delia and all her cruelties the image he holds this time. Then the bottles, one by one by one. The gun kicks a little but it feels good, too.
At the end, he missed more than half the bottles.
But the targets, Isaac and Delia Marcoset in his mind, have been shot right through the center.
Brewster takes the headphones off and hugs him, but Langdon can't take his eyes off the holes he just shot through the wood.
Leaving the estate for the first time in his life, taking off his collar and wearing other clothes, making choices for himself... It could all be as easy as two shots, aimed right.
"... Can I keep practicing?" His voice is hoarse. His lungs catch but he ignores the way his head goes light.
"I knew you'd like it once you tried," Brewster says cheerfully. "Let me reload for you, show you how to do it. You did fucking awesome, little man. You're going to be as good a shot as me one day, I can already tell."
Langdon thinks of red spreading over Miss Delia's stupid pristine tablecloth, she and her husband slumped over the table while Langdon walks away. Gets in a car, maybe. Goes somewhere, anywhere else.
"I hope so," He says softly, and gives Brewster a smile. "Show me how to reload."
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Aug 20XX - WRU issued a sharply worded statement Monday condemning Asryn Pharmaceutical’s decision to end business relationships with pet facilities and related corporate entities.
The company called Christopher Wickham’s remarks “irresponsible, defamatory, and motivated by personal distress rather than regulatory fact.”
WRU emphasized that its facilities operate within existing legal frameworks and maintain “rigorous standards for training, placement, behavioral management, and owner satisfaction.”
The statement also rejected Wickham’s description of pets as people, saying, “WRU recognizes the legal status of all contracted assets and remains committed to humane, efficient, and compliant ownership support.”
The sentence drew immediate backlash online.
A spokesperson for Asryn declined to respond directly to WRU’s statement but confirmed that the company’s audit has already begun.
Multiple smaller biomedical suppliers have reportedly paused pending contracts with WRU-affiliated subsidiaries in the wake of Asryn’s announcement.
One executive, speaking anonymously, said, “Nobody wants to be the next company named in a press conference.”
A year after Asryn Pharmaceutical began its internal audit, Christopher Wickham announced the creation of The Wickham Foundation.
Not at a press conference.
Not beside Kestrel.
Not with WRU’s name anywhere in the prepared remarks.
The announcement appeared first as a filing.
Then as a clean, tasteful website.
Then as a brief statement released at seven forty-five on a Thursday morning, early enough to miss the breakfast shows and late enough that every corporate counsel in the sector would already be at their desks.
THE WICKHAM FOUNDATION TO EXPAND TRANSITIONAL HOUSING, COMMUNITY HEALTH ACCESS, AND LEGAL SUPPORT FOR VULNERABLE POPULATIONS.
There were no accusations. No mention of pets. No mention of ownership. No mention of WRU, its subsidiaries, its contractors, its “affiliated placement environments,” or any of the charming euphemisms its lawyers kept inventing as fast as the old ones began to rot in public.
The statement was beautiful in its restraint.
Kestrel read it twice from the kitchen table with a cup of coffee going cold between her hands. Beside her, Dami stood with their hip against the counter, scanning the text on Wick’s tablet.
“Vulnerable populations,” they said.
“Mm.”
“Community-based crisis response.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Legal support for persons experiencing coercive domestic instability.”
Kestrel’s mouth twitched.
Dami looked at her.
“Expensive way to say runaway pets.”
“No,” Kestrel said.
Dami blinked once.
Kestrel lifted her eyes from the statement. Her face was calm in the way that made most people in the house reconsider whatever they had been about to say.
“It’s a very expensive way to not say runaway pets.”
Dami considered that.
They nodded. “Better.”
Across the room, Wick sat in his chair near the windows, wearing a suit he didn't needed to wear and had insisted on wearing anyway. His crutch rested against the arm of the chair. His hands were folded too carefully in his lap, the left thumb pressed hard into the right palm.
The statement had already gone out. The accountants had signed. The board had been seated.
The lawyers had built walls around every word until the whole thing looked charitable, boring, defensible, and nearly bulletproof.
He still looked like a man waiting for a door to break open.
Kestrel watched him over the top of her tablet.
“You don’t have to look like you’re about to be cross-examined in our kitchen.”
Wick gave her a faint smile. He shrugged, trying to pass it off as unbothered.
“I don’t know. Our kitchen has, has, has seen worse proceedings.”
"That’s true," Dami said.
Kestrel glanced at them.
Dami shrugged. “Waffle maker.”
“That wasn’t a proceeding.”
“It had witnesses.”
“It had smoke.”
“And testimony.”
Wick’s smile deepened for half a second, then faded when his phone began vibrating on the table.
None of them moved.
The phone kept going.
Kestrel looked down at the screen.
Unknown number.
Another call came in on Dami’s phone.
Charity texted Kestrel.
It’s live. We’re getting media requests. Rho says nobody say anything clever.
Tell Rho she’s no fun, she responded.
Rho replied a second later from Charity’s phone.
I’m fun when people aren’t building felony infrastructure before lunch.
Kestrel stared at the message. Then set the phone facedown.
Wick was watching her.
“Charity?” he asked.
“Rho.”
“Ah.” Wick exhaled through his nose. “Are we in, in, in trouble?”
“She’s charging us with felony infrastructure.”
“Not wrong,” Dami said.
“It’s not a, a, a felony.”
They both looked at him. Wick's jaw shifted.
“It’s probably not a, a, a felony.”
“That’s the spirit,” Kestrel said.
His laugh came out thin. He rubbed at his sternum once, then stopped when Kestrel’s attention dropped to the movement.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m operational.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Dami hummed. “You’re pale.”
Wick looked offended. “I’m always pale.”
“More pale.”
Kestrel rose before Wick could argue and crossed to him. He tried to compose himself before she reached him, which was stupid and tender and exactly like him. She laid her hand over his, not restraining. Just covering.
“You did the thing,” she said quietly.
Wick looked at their hands.
“No,” he said. “We did it. We made a, a, a door.”
Kestrel’s expression changed by a fraction.
Dami looked away first and Wick swallowed.
“A, A, A boring door,” he continued. “With nonprofit compliance and, and, and domestic violence grants and mobile legal clinics and, and, and an absolutely intolerable number of advisory committees.”
“Don’t forget housing insecurity,” Kestrel said.
“God forbid.”
“And community health access.”
“I may never recover.”
“And no mention of WRU.”
Wick’s mouth went still. The room softened around the absence of the name.
Outside, in a world that had paperwork and shareholders and courtroom language, The Wickham Foundation had nothing to do with WRU. It was a philanthropic organization focused on transitional housing, crisis medicine, survivors’ rights, and community reintegration.
Inside the room, it had everything to do with WRU.
It had everything to do with the person sleeping in Charity’s clinic under a false name because their owner had filed a missing property report.
It had everything to do with the girl who still ate under tables.
The man who cried when nobody praised him for kneeling.
The Romantic who kept asking whether kindness counted as permission.
The Guard Dog who would not enter a room until every exit had been counted.
The Shield who had once believed survival was the same thing as obedience.
Kestrel’s fingers tightened slightly over Wick’s. He looked up at her.
“Not in writing,” he said.
“No.”
“Not in speeches.”
“No.”
“Not where some smug bastard in a, a, a better suit can hold it up and, and, and call it conspiracy.”
Kestrel’s eyes sharpened at the stutter, but she didn't interrupt.
Wick breathed in once through his nose.
“We don’t say what, what it is,” he said. “We build it well enough that people can survive long enough to, to say it themselves.”
For a moment, no one answered.
Dami nodded. “That’s better too.”
Wick gave them a tired look. “You’re very generous with, with your reviews today.”
“Had coffee.”
Kestrel’s phone buzzed again.
This time, the alert came from a news app.
The headline was already live:
WICKHAM FOUNDATION LAUNCHES NATIONAL HOUSING AND LEGAL AID INITIATIVE
A second headline followed:
ASRYN HEIR FUNDS SURVIVOR SUPPORT NETWORK AFTER YEAR OF CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING
Then a third:
WRU DECLINES COMMENT ON NEW WICKHAM CHARITY
Kestrel read that one aloud. Wick closed his eyes.
There was a delicate pause. Dami hummed, rocking back on their heels. Their eyes never left the headlines.
“Commented by declining to comment.”
Kestrel hummed in response. “That’s usually how declining to comment works.”
“Wanted people to know they were declining.”
Wick opened one eye. “That is also how declining to, to comment works.”
Dami considered that.
“Corporate communication is inefficient.”
“Wildly,” Wick said.
His phone vibrated again.
This time, he picked it up, checked the screen, and froze.
Kestrel felt it through his hand.
“What?”
He turned the phone so she could see.
A message from an unknown number.
No greeting.
No signature.
Just six words.
Does this mean people can leave?
Kestrel stared at it.
The room disappeared for one breath. Then another.
Wick’s hand trembled under hers.
Dami came closer, silent now, all humor gone from their face.
Kestrel re-read the message again.
Does this mean people can leave?
Not pets.
Not assets.
Not contracted dependents.
People.
She took the phone carefully from Wick’s hand.
“Can’t answer that,” Dami said.
“I know.”
“Could be testing.”
“I know.”
“Could be WRU.”
“I know.”
Wick’s voice was rough. “It could also be someone who saw the website.”
Kestrel looked at him. The stutter was gone now. That was worse, sometimes. His voice went smooth when he was forcing himself not to break.
“It could be someone standing in a bathroom,” Wick said. “Or a pantry. Or a garage. Or wherever they get five seconds alone with a, a, a phone they aren’t supposed to have.”
Kestrel held the phone.
The safe answer was no answer. The legal answer was no answer. The strategic answer was to preserve the firewall, route everything through intake, never engage an unknown sender directly, never create discoverable material, never, never, never say enough to prove intent.
She knew all of that. So did Wick. So did Dami.
Kestrel set Wick’s phone on the table and opened her own.
She didn't reply to the message. Instead, she texted Charity.
The public intake number is already receiving risk signals. Make sure the script says people can request housing support without disclosing ownership status. No pet language. No rescue language. No promises over text.
The reply was almost immediate.
Already done.
Kestrel looked at Wick. Wick looked back at her. She leaned down and kissed his forehead.Wick closed his eyes under the kiss. When she pulled back, his face had changed.
It wasn't calmer, not exactly. It was set. Determined.
Kestrel knew that look. It had frightened her once, before she understood the difference between a man deciding what he owned and a man deciding what he would never allow himself to own again.
Wick opened his eyes.
“The first, first, first grant disbursement goes out today?”
Dami answered before Kestrel could.
“Yes. Bartlett House at noon. Three legal clinics by the end of today. Falwell Memorial gets new equipment from the Rural Health Initiative.” They frowned. “Not rural though.”
Wick looked at Kestrel.
Kestrel lifted one shoulder. “Words are flexible when rich people use them.”
“Of, of, of course. Hypothetical roofs are a, a, a serious public health concern.”
“Especially when hypothetical people are sleeping under them.”
Kestrel looked toward the window.
Morning had fully arrived while they weren’t paying attention. The city outside was bright and indifferent, traffic sliding along streets that had carried owners, handlers, contractors, runaways, and everyone who had learned to look away.
Somewhere, a statement was being read by men in expensive offices who knew exactly what it meant and couldn't say so.
Somewhere, WRU counsel was deciding whether outrage would look too defensive.
Somewhere, a person with a stolen phone might still be staring at six words and wondering whether the answer was yes.
Kestrel touched the edge of Wick’s phone once and stepped back.
“We don’t answer directly,” she said.
Wick nodded.
“No.”
“We don’t confirm anything.”
“No.”
“We don’t make promises we can’t protect.”
His throat moved.
“No.”
Dami’s gaze settled on the dark phone screen.
Kestrel looked at both of them.
“We make sure the door works.”
Wick’s smile was small, exhausted, and devastatingly polite.
“Mrs. Wickham,” he said, “that sounds like charitable programming.”
just picture it: talvos sitting in the window of his tower, talvos carrying his braid in a basket on his hip as he tends to his plants, talvos re-reading a few carefully hoarded books, talvos who has never seen more of the world than the view from his window. and then into his life flits a fae who goes wherever the wind takes him but who keeps returning to visit again and again, a fae who brings gifts of plants and stolen books and suncatchers he makes for talvos and no one else; a fae who teaches talvos that there is a life outside of his tower and that he can want it.
now picture talvos tied by his hair to a hook in the wall, hands chained behind him for good measure. picture talvos straining to reach iesin as he too is chained up, forced to watch his beloved burn in iron for the crime of loving him 🤌 yeah, you agree
okOK a little snippet. a little crunchable munch. a little treat for you (for me)
~
On the last day before Talvos expects the witch to return, the fae brings a fist-sized chunk of crystal which he presents to Talvos almost solemnly.
Talvos accepts it wonderingly. "Iesin… this is beautiful." He tilts it back and forth, admiring the play of sunlight scattering through its faceted surfaces. "For me?"
Iesin peeks at him through a fringe of hair. He's perched on the windowsill today, seemingly uninterested in coming inside. "Yes, for you. Like this, you?"
"Very much." Talvos glances around for a place to put it. Mentiro will be sure to notice if Talvos keeps the crystal where it can be seen. "Is it alright if… it's just for us? I'd rather not have to try to explain-"
"Yes— yes, just for us," Iesin agrees quickly. "Did not bring for witch, me. Just you. Just Talvos."
Something warm unfurls in Talvos' chest. Just Talvos. He feels a smile tug at his lips as he nestles the crystal under his pillow.
Iesin watches him. "Put in nest, yours?"
Talvos glances back. "Is that alright?"
Iesin shakes his head, dislodging more hair to fall between himself and Talvos' attention. Behind it, a pearly flush sweeps high and bright across his cheeks. "Yes! Is alright."
He hops to his feet, bracing one hand easily on the top of the windowframe. "Time to go, me," he announces abruptly. "Need to find more-" his wings shiver. "Never mind. Going now!"
Talvos steps helplessly towards him. He did something, said something wrong. "Wait, Iesin-"
But as ever, he is too earthbound and slow to keep up with the fae's flighty movements. Iesin drops out of the window and circles the tower once before climbing up and away to disappear in the clouds.
BIG fan of when a character’s dialogue is a massive understatement on how they’re doing. They’re too out-of-it or in too much pain to actually communicate it coherently, so they end up saying the most general obvious statement of all time and worry everyone more.
Sky-high, obvious fever and all they can say is “I don’t think I feel good.” Extremely painful, apparent injury and what they say is just “it hurts.” No specifics—they can’t think clearly enough for that.
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He wakes to Iesin's weight shifting atop him. He pulls Talvos' arms over his head and pins him with one knee on each bicep, then leans forwards to brace his hands on Talvos' wrists. Talks looks up through the white fall of his hair, but Iesin's face is obscured in the night-dimness of their tent.
"Ies--"
"Shh," his beloved interrupts. "Silent, you."
Talvos' mouth shuts. The weight of Iesin's grip on his wrists is steady, immovable.
"Cannot move, you," Iesin continues softly. "Are stuck. Could do anything wanted, me."
His talons tighten briefly, nearly breaking the thin skin at Talvos' wrists.
"Understand, you? This is small part of how felt, me. Could not move. Could not stop you. Could not move."
His arms are heavy, intolerably weighted. Talvos strains to lift them, and Iesin leans closer, until the edges of his hair brush Talvos' cheek. Talvos still can't see his face. Fear and a dreadful certainty chill him. It's time for him to pay for what he's done. Why Iesin has waited this long is a mystery, but he can only be grateful that he was allowed any time to love him at all.
"I understand," he breathes.
"Iron burned wrists, mine." Iesin's talons sink into his flesh, ten distinct points of pain so bright Talvos sees a dull glow begin above his head, though it does not reach the shadowed void of Iesin's face. He masters his breathing and focuses on Iesin.
"Was never a moment was not in pain, me. Left iron on while stars spun seasons, you." His talons contract, piercing deeper into flesh, scraping against the delicate bones underneath. "Could not close hands after escaped, us. Remember? Could not hunt, me, could not grip prey."
His hands are vices around Talvos' wrists now, solid bands as unyielding as iron. Talvos can feel his skin burning, blistering in layer on layer. His arms shake in Iesin's grip, but he cannot-- will not-- try to pull away.
"Can hunt, now. Need nothing more from you, me."
"Please--" Talvos feels tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. He wishes-- he doesn't get to wish-- he wants-- he doesn't get to want-- "Please, please let me see you?" One last time, before his beloved tears out his throat.
"Have seen enough of me," the void of Iesin's face declares. "Always watching, you. Watched and did nothing while screamed for mercy, me. Called for stars, me, and only watched, you. Have seen enough."
Blackness, utter and impenetrable, falls over his vision. He feels the heat of Iesin's grip on his wrists. He smells the blood pouring from his wrists, then tastes it as Iesin's teeth meet his throat, and his last strangled scream--
"Beloved. Talvos, beloved. Wake, wake--"
The talons cupping his cheek barely trace the surface of his skin. Talvos' eyes snap open, finding faint dappled shadows of moonlight and leaves against the tent's sloping roof. His chest burns with its instinctive clamp down on his scream.
Iesin is shifted up onto one elbow next to him. Talvos shudders as he turns his head just enough to catch a glimpse of his-- his face, as evenly lit by the moon as the rest of the tent, eyebrows pinched together in open concern.
"Ies--" he's run out of air. He takes a tiny, hitching breath, but he's not sure if he's allowed to speak.
"Are awake?" Iesin queries. His hand leaves Talvos' face to tap at his shoulder. "What doing with arms?"
His arms-- Talvos twists his head to look up at them. He can't tell, as wakefulness and dream clash together, whether he hurts or only remembers hurt.
One wrist rests under the edge of their tent; the canvas, which he carefully pegged down earlier that day, presses against his arm where his hand has somehow found it's way out onto the other side in his sleep. The other is trapped under his pillow.
Oh.
He eases his arms back and pulls them against his chest slowly. No burns or fresh talon-marks break the skin, only the ridges of old, spiraling parallel scars.
"Dreamed, you," Iesin guesses. He lowers his head to Talvos' chest, draping an arm across Talvos' waist and then one wing over them both.
just picture it: talvos sitting in the window of his tower, talvos carrying his braid in a basket on his hip as he tends to his plants, talvos re-reading a few carefully hoarded books, talvos who has never seen more of the world than the view from his window. and then into his life flits a fae who goes wherever the wind takes him but who keeps returning to visit again and again, a fae who brings gifts of plants and stolen books and suncatchers he makes for talvos and no one else; a fae who teaches talvos that there is a life outside of his tower and that he can want it.
now picture talvos tied by his hair to a hook in the wall, hands chained behind him for good measure. picture talvos straining to reach iesin as he too is chained up, forced to watch his beloved burn in iron for the crime of loving him 🤌 yeah, you agree
