#box boy universe
An awful thought I had regarding the Box Boy universe
We know that the few people who speak out against the pet trade end up being targeted. What if eventually, pet lib activists have to start making those videos - you know the ones. They film themselves, say their full name, their birthday, current the date, and then state that they did not, and will not, under any circumstances, willingly sign themselves over to WRU, or any like companies. They state plainly that they are working in opposition to the pet trade, and that if they ever surface in the system as a box boy/babe, it is because they were kidnapped and conditioned against their will. The recording is to be released if they die or go missing.
Then imagine finding one of these videos for an existing box boy or box babe. There is nothing left of the fierce, angry-eyed person in the video, and yet, the face is the same. Except now, they smile in a way that doesn’t reach their eyes, and tilt their head just so, and say ‘of course, Sir/Madam, all WRU products are of the age of consent when they sign up for the program.’
Do the videos get released? Does the government/companies like WRU try and sweep it under the rug? And how many more activists can they get away with nabbing before these pre-made videos start becoming a problem?
cat’s name is Pepsi
Connor learns how to crochet and is trying his best. Markus would wear anything he made for him tho.
i don’t even think i have to caption this
I need to @ @ashintheairlikesnowand@albino-whumpeespecifically for this one
LISTEN
CW: Ableism, abusive relative, abuse of a minor, pet whump references, BBU, some brief vague noncon references, blood, drowning kinda, death threats, just general ‘it’s gonna get bloody’ below the cut…
Sean Malley previously appeared in the the pieces Sean Malley,Learn to Fly, and Paul Higgs: Baby Daze.
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“What’s wrong with him?”
Jo looked over at her older sister, eyebrows raised in perfect arches. She’d lined them herself this morning - the whole eyebrow plucking thing had been a fucking disaster, and now she had to draw them on every day.
“What?” Ronnie looked up. Her sister, not even quite twenty yet, was hovering over a pot of water that would hopefully eventually boil for pasta. She looked older, and tired, and Jo picked at her own fingernails every time she visited to avoid bringing it up.
Two years ago, Ronnie had been seventeen and beautiful - now she was nineteen, nearly twenty, and she hadn’t slept well since before Paul’s stupid baby was even born, and it showed. Ronnie did smile more, Jo thought, a little grudgingly. Since she’d been kicked out of their parents’ house for refusing to give up Paul’s baby, she’d moved in with his parents during the pregnancy and now the two of them had an apartment and a stupid marriage, and Jo had to admit Ronnie smiled so much more.
Their parents hadn’t gone to Ronnie’s high school graduation, but Jo did. Ronnie had hugged her so tightly it hurt, having to sort of awkwardly shift her hips back so her huge pregnant belly could fit between them.
He wasn’t even born yet and the stupid shit was already ruining things.
There had been photos, a million of them. Jo had gone home that night and told her parents, “Ronnie looks amazing,” and they had turned to each other and kept talking like Ronnie - and anything Jo said about her - didn’t exist.
Because of Paul’s stupid. fucking. baby.
But now, two years later, the stupid fucking baby was a stupid fucking toddler, and Ronnie and Jo together watched him - wispy red hair floating like feathers around his head - as he made a low hum, again and again, holding a small plastic dinosaur and repeatedly opening and closing its mouth, staring fixedly at the sharply-formed plastic teeth inside.
“Oh,” Ronnie said, as if it was totally normal, nothing to worry about. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“You don’t know? I’ve never seen a baby just stare at something that long. Aren’t they supposed to have, like, no attention span? Or pretend it’s biting him or something? I don’t think I have ever seen that kid play pretend.”
Ronnie took in a deep breath. “They are,” She said, hesitantly. “Supposed to. But Tris… I don’t know. He does pretend play sometimes, he really does. Not when-… when it’s just us, or just the three of us, he does, he just… doesn’t, so much, when other people are around. His doctor says it’s nothing to worry about yet.”
“… yet?”
Ronnie dumped the pasta from the box into the water, and they talked about something else.
Joanne Botham comes home - to her sweet little bungalow, snapped up for a pretty penny in a good neighborhood around the outskirts of Berras, perfect for commuting into work at WRU - and dumps her purse on the floor, exhaling in a rush. She kicks off her sensible work heels into the little shoe tray she bought at some home goods store where everything cost about fifty dollars more than it should, but she’s got money to burn, these days.
Or she used to.
In any case, it could be worse.
Luckily, this is more or less a WRU company town, and things aren’t so bad here. The Olympics had aired while she was relaxing in the pool at a hotel in Sao Paulo, and she honestly hadn’t paid them any attention. She’d been vaguely aware of a commotion, a sudden rush of Portuguese from the staff and just about every language on earth from the hotel guests, but when someone said it was a press conference at the Olympics, she’d lost interest.
It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything important - so she didn’t care. She was on vacation, and nothing was going to ruin her visit to Brazil. She had been taking a guided tour while some pet libbers tried to torch the WRU daycare and “free” the workers, leaving the poor things terrified and clinging to each other, running to the handlers who came to help them.
One of them was still missing, and probably had wandered off and died somewhere, and wouldn’t that be just what those fucking libbers deserved. To be responsible for that.
A handler had gone missing, too. There were rumors the daycare worker had offed him and he just hadn’t been found, but Joanne found that hard to believe. She’s worked on the copy for commercials with those placid little cow-people for years. None of them have a single brain cell not dedicated to childcare. None of them could swat a fly, let alone murder the handlers who keep them safe.
In any case, all of that had happened while she was still gone, had her work phone off, and ignored anything and everything sent her way.
When her plane touched down, though… that’s when Joanne realized the absolute pile of epic shit WRU had just been thrown into.
Two former pets - two people who should be current pets, actually - had spoken at a surprise press conference, and more than twenty Olympics athletes from fifteen countries had shown photos of people they claimed had been coerced, abducted, or otherwise forced into the pet system.
It was all fucking bullshit, but…
Well, it wasn’t allbullshit.
One of the speakers, turns out, had been none other than Paul’s stupid fucking baby, all grown up. He’d given out his real name, which the dumbass wasn’t even supposed to remember any longer, and it had been enough information for journalists to dig up who he was, what had happened to him, and most importantly, who his living relatives are.
There was an article in TIME magazine. Unlikely Voices - how two runaway human pets from WRU became the face of a movement and the cry for justice from a lost generation.
They’d done their research, all right. Tristan’s entire life had been laid bare in that article, in excruciating detail, up until… until he’d disappeared into WRU.
Which meant there had been a mini-profile in a little sidebar. Who is Joanne Botham? A shadowy figure from Tristan Higgs’ past… There’d been a photo of her, taken without her consent, but her attempt to sue had been dismissed.
His little stunt had been making Joanne’s job - and life - hell. She can’t even go into work in her own car any longer, there are reporters camped out who know her make, model, and license plate. She has to catch rides with different coworkers. She can’t go out to a simple restaurant without someone yelling at her, without discovering protesters at her car when she tries to go home. She can’t get her haircut without her stylist - someone she’s been going to for years! - suddenly refusing to cut her hair any longer.
Mysonis autistic, her stylist had said, voice cold. You’ve listened to me talk about Gabe all this time, how could you do that when you did what you did?
It’s not the same-
It’s exactly the same! Get out of my salon!
No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.
Not that anyone ever has. Everyone’s always blindsided by Ronnie being obsessed with her kid or Tristan being pretty adorable when he wasn’t being terrible. Everyone’s always got wool pulled over their eyes, and only Jo has ever seen it for what it really is.
Tonight didn’t go any better than the last few weeks had. She’d been recognized while picking up takeout Thai food for dinner. The pet lib assholes had to be breeding like fucking bunnies, they seemed to be everywhere now. One of them had followed her from the restaurant to her car, asking her if she had any regrets.
“Yeah,” She’d said, her voice rough and harsh. “Talking to you, that’s my biggest regret.”
He was probably recording that. They’re always recording her, now.
At least her house is paid off, this little bungalow bought with cash from her finder’s fee after Tristan’s application had been accepted by WRU. Her car’s paid off, her house is paid off, her 401k looks amazing…
Maybe she should just retire now, and disappear.
How long would it take the pet libbers to pick some new target, if Joanne Botham wasn’t an easy enemy to find?
She drops the takeout container on the kitchen counter, the smell of cilantro, fish sauce, and chicken rising through the air, making her mouth water. She can’t even remember what she ordered, but it doesn’t really matter. She’ll barely taste it, anyway.
She grabs the remote and turns on the TV, checking the news channels with a nervous new habit. Nothing new, though, it looks like. Nothing too big.
Nothing to worry about.
She pulls down a bowl, dumping the takeout into it, looking at the chicken and shrimp swimming in noodles, sauce, and sauteed vegetables. They left the mushrooms in, she realizes. She had specificallyasked for no mushrooms-
“What a lovely little home you have, Miss Joanne,” says an older man’s voice from behind her, slightly creaky with age.
ohhh OH FUCK YES FUCK YEEEEESSSSSSS DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD
god all the justifications and the ableism and the self-centeredness UGHHHHH JOANNE. she reaped what she fucking sowed GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE
also!!!! the daycare facility!! it was the one from Telling Time wasn’t it!!! and the missing handler and pet are marc sonders and beringer!!!! ohhhhh I wonder if they ran away together or if beringer killed marc……
The Same Bed: Krista
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CW: Break-in, threats, beating, stalking and harassment, abusive relationship references
Follows after Jake, happens concurrently with Chris,beforeVincent.
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She’s floating. She’s actually floating. Krista keeps the phone between her ear and her shoulder and she listens to the voice of the woman on the other end, humming to show she’s listening. She is, mostly, but part of her is too lit up with happiness to take in a single word.
She can hear Pepperjack meowing on the other side of her apartment door, knowing her steps as always. She scrapes her shoes off on the doormat, a fresh new one for the season with a rainbow and HELLO SUNSHINE in bright big letters.
“Did he really?” She giggles, and blushes at herself for giggling. Her neighbors - the apartment next to hers - don’t seem to be home. Their lights aren’t on, anyway, and she can’t smell the usual blend of patchouli incense and grassy smoke making its way out through the less-than-perfectly sealed walls.
She listens to Meg tell the story, butterflies flipping in her stomach. Meg’s a coworker and she’s pretty sure not only interested in guys, but Krista hasn’t pulled up the courage yet to admit to her absolutely overwhelming crush.
Meg is almost six feet tall and could carry Krista around if she wanted to and does roller derby and Krista might actually faint dead away if Meg flirts with her any harder at work than she does already.
She digs her keys out of her pocket, jangling as she searches for the right one. The grooved metal fits seamlessly into a lock-
Leather smell suddenly floods her nose as a hand is clapped over her mouth, and she’s yanked back with a cry.
Her back thuds into someone’s flat chest as a voice growls low in her ear, “Hang up the fucking phone.”
Krista’s heart stops, and then starts again, racing as dread pools frozen in her stomach and knees. No, no, it’s been more than ten years, it can’t be happening now, it can’t-
She hears Meg, soft and muffled, asking her if she’s okay.
The owner of the voice behind her exhales in annoyance and shoves her. Krista smacks hard into her own front door, dazed, and he grabs the phone from her suddenly limp fingers. “Fuck it, I’ll do it. You’re not fucking bright, are you?”
“N-not-… fucking bright…” Krista echoes. Her fingers fumble with the key and push open the door, trying to get inside and lock it behind her.
She makes it in, Pepperjack winding around her legs, and she trips on him. “Pepper, baby, n-no-”
She spins, trying to slam the door.
When she goes to close it, though, he’s already there. Not tall and not short, he’s got a mask on the lower half of his face and a knit beanie pulled down. Bits of light-colored hair tinged blue by the streetlight down in the parking lot stick out from underneath.
Pepperjack yowls and runs to jump up on the couch, hissing at the man as he stalks inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
The room is dark.
“Pl, please-”
“Shut up.” He kicks her as she tries to get away, knocking her back down. When she crawls, he grabs her by her ponytail and yanks hard enough that she cries out as she feels some hair pulled right from her scalp. Her hands scrabble at him, but his gloves are thick and her fingernails can’t scratch. “I said shut the fuck up!”
“Shit the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up-” Krista’s mouth keeps moving, echoing him as her voice gets breathier. Her ribs ache where he kicked her. Her phone rings, Meg calling back maybe, but he declines the call, kicks her again, listens to her whimper.
He’s smiling under that mask at the sound.
She can tell.
“Jesus.” The guy stares down at her, then looks at her phone. “You keep any guns in this place?”
Krista swallows. Her owner, long ago, had guns all over the house. He used to make Krista put the barrel in her mouth while he counted to ten.
He never pulled the trigger, but-
Hecould have, and they both knew it, and he liked how she looked when she knew he might kill her.
“No,” She breathes. “I don’t have any money, I don’t have anything, I swear-”
Pepperjack is still meowing in the background, and when the guy turns to look at him Krista thinks wildly please don’t hurt my Pepper he’s already old please don’t-
“Don’t worry, kitty,” The guy says, oddly soothing, to the angry, worried animal. His voice changes entirely from threatening to soft. “She’s gonna do one thing for me and then I’m out, all right? Just one thing.”
“One, one thing?” Krista moves to stand, and he doesn’t stop her. She’s not a threat, he knows she isn’t. Maybe it’s a good thing but it burns in her that he doesn’t even think she could defend herself enough to worry about. “Just one thing?”
“Just one. Go sit down at the table.”
She must hesitate too long. He backhands her so hard she goes flying to the side, head smacking into the television, knocking it off its precarious stand. It tips forward onto her foot and she cries out, falling backwards.
Her face hurts and her head hurts and her ribs hurt and her foot is probably broken and the TV sparked and that’s not good-
“Fuck. Sorry about that.”
She looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Incredulous anger overtakes fear, just for a second. “Sorry about that?”
“Yeah. Didn’t think you’d just turn into a soccer ball.”
He grabs her by the arm and drags her back to her feet. The right one, the foot the television landed on, spikes sudden agony and she whimpers as he yanks her across the room, limping as much as she can.
He drops her into one of her own kitchen chairs and she stares at the little centerpiece there. “Am, am I going to d-die?” She asks, voice trembling, her hands gripped to the sides of the hard wooden kitchen seat. “Are you going to kill me?”
Am I going to die staring at a little paper flower bouquet and ceramic figures of dogs playing fetch?
“Wasn’t my plan, no. Just need you to make a phone call. I’ll tell you what to say.”
“… Tell me what to say,” Krista echoes. Her heart is beating so hard she’s worried it might break itself apart against her breastbone.
He drops her phone, then - on the other side of the table, too far for her to easily reach. He stands behind her, and she hitches in weak gasps as his hands pull out her ponytail holder and run through her hair.
“You’d look good as a romantic lead,” He murmurs, thoughtfully. Then he takes out his own phone, pulls some kind of program up - it’s not a phone call, not exactly. It’s video, and he leans over, pressing the side of his face against her temple.
She wants to throw up.
He tells her what to say.
The phone rings and rings. Her breath stutters and the world spins in her terror as his leather-tipped fingers play with the hair along the nape of her neck, graze along the line of her jaw.
Someone picks up.
She realizes who the guy is calling as soon as she hears the cheerful deep voice say, “Hey, Krista, what’s up?”
His face appears when the video portion connects. Wild black curls and wide blue eyes that narrow and then wide again as he sees her sitting in the dark lit only by the light of her phone - and then sees that she’s not alone.
“Krista?”
Her lips are trembling, and she can’t speak - not until he presses the palm of his hand against her neck, closes fingers and thumb, starts to squeeze.
“Kauri,” She says, tears running down her cheeks. The man’s face is so close. His cologne is making her sick. “It’s time to come home, b-baby ”
Kauri stills. Even in the slightly fuzzy video, she can see him freeze. “What?”
The man’s hand leaves her neck, and he tips his head to pull his mask down, yanks off the beanie. His hair mingles with Krista’s. He needs a shave.
“Come on, Kor-Bore, even you can’t be that stupid.”
Krista watches Kauri shatter right in front of her, a tiny face on a small screen. “Owen.”
“Owen,” Krista echoes.
“That’s right, baby,” Owen says. He twines a finger around a lock of Krista’s hair. She shudders, her knuckles white where she holds herself still. “Look who I ran into.”
Kauri is silent, eyes searching Krista’s, then he snorts with feigned disinterest. “Owen, you don’t even like women. Don’t act like you’ll do that shit to her, we both know you won’t. This isn’t ab-… about her. It’s about us, it always was. Just tell me what you fuh-fucking want.”
He sounds so brave. Krista loves Kauri for his bravery, when he needs to be brave, as she has loved him for every other part of him, too, even when it hurt.
Owen shoves her off the chair, and she hits the ground with a thump as Owen sits down where she was. Krista crawls and then throws herself to the couch, grabbing Pepperjack and holding him so tightly he yells in protest.
“I want you,” Owen says, as simple as that. “And I want you to know that I can get to anyone you care about, whenever I want, until you come back to me. I can be everywhere at once. I’m being nice right now, but I can start hurting them if I have to.”
“Owen-… Please, Krista didn’t do anything to you-”
“I know. And she’s just fine. But she doesn’t have to be. I don’t give a fuck about broken fucking pets, baby, you know that. You want to keep her safe? You have my number. And you and I both know if you go to the cops they’ll give you right back to me.”
“But-… Everyone knows, now-”
“You’re still my fucking property, Kor-Bore. I’ve got friends that are cops these days. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Owen-!”
“Comehome, Kauri. And it’s Mr. Owen, remember? Call me when you decide to come home where you belong.”
Owen hangs up the call and walks right out Krista’s front door, leaving her on the couch, Pepperjack’s claws digging into her arm through her shirt.
“Sorry about your TV,” He throws over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.
When her neighbors get home five minutes later, they find Krista’s front door wide open and their usually shy, cheerful neighbor crying on the couch, whispering to herself, “Kauri come home, Kauri come home,” again and again.
And again.
And again.
-
@burtlederp@finder-of-rings@endless-whump@astrobly@thefancydoughnut@newandfiguringitout@doveotions@pretty-face-breaker@gonna-feel-that-tomorrow@boxboysandotherwhump@oops-its-whump@cubeswhump@whump-tr0pes@downriver914@whumptywhumpdump@whumpiary@orchidscript@nonsensical-whump@outofangband@eatyourdamnpears@hackles-up@grizzlie70@mylifeisonthebookshelf@keeper-of-all-the-random-things
(If you write this, tag me I want to read it. I think it is a pretty brilliant whump prompt, I would keep it for myself, but I’m sure I’ll never write it myself. )
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Box Boy Universe. Box Boy bought buy a tattoo parlor, or maybe just an independent artist. For the tattoo artist to practice on.
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I’ma tag some of my favorite whump writers…
@wildfaewhump@ashintheairlikesnow@spookyboywhump @deluxewhump
237599 (338947): Lourdes’ Acquisition Papers
DATE OF ACQUISITION:03.22.20XX
LOCATION ASSIGNED: Facility 023
SUBJECT:338947
PREVIOUS ALIAS: Bayani, Jaslene
AGE:29
DATE OF BIRTH:08.06.20XX
HAIR:Black
EYES:Brown
HEIGHT:5’1"
WEIGHT:105lbs
SEXUALITY:Bisexual
DESIGNATION:Romantic
KNOWN SKILLS: Second chair violinist in local symphony; known to also sing, play piano, and flute.
KNOWN CONCERNS: Subject’s family should be monitored in aftermath of acquisition. Steps will be taken to ensure that any attempt to “go viral” with false missing persons claims does not succeed.
Caution for: BBU, pet whump, conditioning and associated tropes, “romantic” pet, noncon
Just Acting - Reflection
[First | Prev| All | tbc]There were chains in the Facility. Gleaming silver things reserved for pets who needed more correction than a brief round of discipline. 651 has hazy memories, somewhere in the white light that swallows early training, of posture correction, a chain linking her hands to the floor, her collar to the wall.
The chains in the Facility were cold and hard and unforgiving, but they were always clean. Bethany imagines a handler scrubbing the shining links with the same meticulous thoroughness that they use to scrub the pets clean.
The chain round her ankle now is black with filth – gritty, sticky, clinging oil that has left stubborn smears all over her skin and her clothes despite her best efforts not to touch it. She hatesit, with a depth of loathing that she hasn’t felt for anything since they took the shock collar away and swapped it for the one that is meant to be safe.
237599 (338947): Lourdes’ Acquisition Papers
DATE OF ACQUISITION:03.22.20XX
LOCATION ASSIGNED: Facility 023
SUBJECT:338947
PREVIOUS ALIAS: Bayani, Jaslene
AGE:29
DATE OF BIRTH:08.06.20XX
HAIR:Black
EYES:Brown
HEIGHT:5’1"
WEIGHT:105lbs
SEXUALITY:Bisexual
DESIGNATION:Romantic
KNOWN SKILLS: Second chair violinist in local symphony; known to also sing, play piano, and flute.
KNOWN CONCERNS: Subject’s family should be monitored in aftermath of acquisition. Steps will be taken to ensure that any attempt to “go viral” with false missing persons claims does not succeed.
KNOWN IMMEDIATE FAMILY: Bayani, Alon, father. Bayani, Reyna, stepmother. Bayani, Crisanto, Chesa, Vergel, and Efren, siblings.
OTHER KNOWN FAMILY: Lacanilao, Mauricio and Jejomar, uncles. Lacanilao, Danilo, Makisig, Ikso, Benjie, cousins.
METHOD OF ACQUISITION: Participant in loyalty retention exercises.
ASSIGNED HANDLER: William Beckendorf, Romantic high-security wing and Guard Dog division, primary. Nina Valens, Romantic division, secondary.
SIGNATURE PROVIDED VOLUNTARILY, SUBJECT NOT SEDATED FOR SIGNING. SUBJECT REPORTED EXHAUSTION, HUNGER, AND CONFUSION COMMON TO NEW ACQUISITIONS.
CONTRACT SIGNED: 04.01.20XX, 2:36 am. PRESENT AT TIME OF SIGNING: Niall Thomas, WRU Legal Counsel; Nina Valens, WRU Handler; Daria Federova, head of Facility 023 Acquisitions Coordination.
ESTIMATED COST FOR TRAINING: $150,000; ANTICIPATED PRICE POINT: $275,000 ADDED FEES: TBD AT TIME OF SELECTION BY PROSPECTIVE.
CURRENT LOCATION: Facility 023, Romantic division, room D-3686.
REQUESTED TRAINING: All standard positions; Romantic subset positions; flexibility training; yoga; dance classes; conversational training; beauty and makeup application; hair styling training; literacy removal.
COMMENTS:William Beckendorf: Acquisition achieved desired outcome wrt Handler Lacanilao. Acquisition was a shitshow in pretty much every other respect. Subject was quite the little spitfire. Nearly bit my finger off. Gonna enjoy working that out of them. Request to assign Lacanilao to my wing when I bring them through the dog gauntlet. That should make sure the lesson sinks in.
Nina Valens: They’re quite the looker. They’ll fetch top dollar once we break them of that biting habit. Little shit pitched a fit at the signing, snapped the pen and lunged at the lawyer. Suggest a tube feeding gag or muzzle with IV nutrition for at least a month. Suggest additional courses with the Drip also. I want them so fucking loopy they don’t know which way is up by the time we take it off.
concept: it’s an open secret that BBU chick fil-a is staffed entirely by pets. people ha-ha about how eerily cheerful and assiduous the staff are but everyone knows that the high necks of their uniforms conceal collars. there are videos on the internet of various locations with each shift change arriving together in a big white van, which also picks up the departing shift. the “managers” sometimes carry something blurry pictures and stolen security camera footage claims is a taser or shock collar remote. most importantly there are absolutely no retail horror story tiktokkers who claim to work or have worked at chick fil-a
The Same Bed, Part Three: Chris
Follows on Part One: JakeandPart Two: Vincent.
CW: Stalking, harassment, threats, dehumanizing a d derogatory language, implied recordings, referenced consensual spice and past noncon, brief reference to past ableism
Laken wakes with a long stretch and an arch of their spine, turning their head to look through the tumble of their thick black hair at Chris beside them.
He’s still sleeping, his feet twitching lightly and rubbing at each other beneath the thin sheet in the early-morning light, thin and pale through the gauzy curtains. His hair gleams lavender, and they love the way the moment makes him look inhuman, almost elfin, as if they’d found the love of something supernatural and not only a man.
Laken’s body, though, is a little more insistent on needing the bathroom than they are on staring at their sleeping partner, so they slip out from under the covers, walking barefoot across the floor in boxers and a tank top and out into the hall.
They’re flushing the toilet in the bathroom when they look to their right to see the bathroom window is wide open.
Dark thick eyebrows furrow over black eyes as they stare, almost too confused for conscious thought to break through their tiredness, at empty space where glass or at least a window screen should be.
Leaning out, they look down towards the grass. The window screen lays there, staring back up at them.
Did it fall off? Can that happen? Laken blinks again and pulls their head back inside. A door shuts somewhere in the small, decrepit house they rent with two friends across from a church and they jump, hand over their heart - only to let out a breathy nervous laugh when they hear one of their roommates humming, clearly the source.
Laken shakes their head, then their whole body - like a dog shaking off water. What a weird way to start a day, they think as they drop their boxers and tank top into the laundry hamper.
They shower, the house waking up around them. They hear their roommates calling to each other faintly over the sound of the water, scrubbing shampoo into their hair, rinsing it out and watching the bubbles circle the drain. Drying takes a while longer - lucky this place has two bathrooms - and then Laken steps out, wrapped in a towel, to hear back to their room.
“Hey, Chris, it’s time to wake-… Chris?”
Their partner sits up in bed, staring with huge green eyes across the room, full of a terror Laken can barely fathom.
They turn, following his stare.
Written on their bedroom wall in bright green market is ONCE A PET, ALWAYS A PET.
Below that is SLUT, WHORE, a few other words Laken has heard Chris call himself on his worst days. Words he learned from the place that hurt him.
Below that…
YOU DESERVED IT, TRISTAN PAUL HIGGS.
Laken swallows, breath and voice gone as they look at photos taped to the wall, realizing they’re seeing crime scene photos - two people murdered, bloody bullet wounds, seated against a wall in a home somewhere. A woman whose blank dead eyes stare forwards, dark hair framing her look of endless, unending grief.
A man, next to her, and in his emptied-out expression… The shape of his face and the way his eyes look so huge against the smear of blood that runs down over nose and mouth…
“Dios,” Laken whispers. “Chris, those are-”
Chris doesn’t speak, but his lips move. My parents.
“I just-… I was just in here, none of this was-” Their voice catches and they move forward, lunging to tear the photos down even as Chris sits in a terrible frozen stillness, a statue of fear in their bed. “Who came here, Chris? Who was here?!”
“N, n,… Nobody,” Chris manages, voice thin, cutting in and out. Forcing the words through the overwhelm in his mind. “It, I, I, I woke up and and and it was, um, it w-was here, all, all here-… Once a pet, always a pet once a pet always a pet once-”
“Chris, stop. Listen to me!” Laken puts a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look them in the eyes. Chris shudders and Laken lets him drop the eye contact, realizing too late it’ll only make it worse. They try to gentle their voice. “Listen, baby, none of that was here when I got up, that’s, that’s all less than an hour old. Okay? And my roommates didn’t hear anything, someone has been in my house-”
The bathroom window was open.
“… And I know how they got here. But why the fuck-”
“More,” Chris mutters. He tries to sway, in their grip, and they let him go to find what peace he can from the movement. “More on, on the end of the bed, more.”
Laken looks, and sees more photos piled there. They brace themself against the possibility of more gruesome murders scenes, but what they find instead sends cold straight down their spine.
They’re photos of Laken and Chris last night, fooling around on the bed. Laken with their arms around his neck while they kiss, Chris with his head between their legs, smiling up at them with pure love in their eyes. Laken’s eyes wide as they reached their climax with his fingers inside them. The two of them cuddling afterward, Laken flushed and smiling and so, so in love.
The angle the photos came from…
Laken looks.
Their closet door is open. When they race over to fling the door wide, their clothes are shoved to either side. A small throw pillow sits on the ground, an empty soda bottle beside it. An equally empty protein shake.
There’s another note written on the inside of Laken’s closet, just below a scratch in the paint.
This note is written in black.
Kauri, come home. Or else.
“Wh-… What the fuck? Chris, what-”
Chris is suddenly behind them and Laken lets out a breathy scream in surprise before turning to pull him close, holding him tightly. He shakes against them, burying his head against their neck.
“Someone was in my room all fucking night,” Laken says, almost whimpers, and hates themself for showing fear. “Someone watched us-… Someone watched us and took photos and waited-”
Chris nods, his fingers digging into their back. His tears burn against their skin as he cries. “My, my, my mom and my d-dad, they they they Owen has has photos of of them, d-dead, dead, d-d-d-… Silence is better than stammering, stillness is better than what I do silence is better-”
“Chris, stop! Baby, baby no, I need you to stay with me right now, okay? Please, baby, stay with me, we need to call someone-”
“K,Kauri come home,” Chris mumbles, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, still sobbing in-between hitched attempts to stop. “Kauri come home-”
“Chris, fuck, please don’t do this right now-”
“I, I, I need to to to-to call Jake.” Chris looks up at them, his eyes far, far too wide. “I have to to to tell Jake.”
On the bedside table, Chris’s phone starts to vibrate.
Both of them jump and turn to look, half expecting another threatening message.
But all it shows is Jake calling them.
“Oh, shit.” Laken swallows and slowly looks back at the graffiti all over the wall. Slut. Whore. Oliver Branch’s Little Bitch, god, what fucking monster could have seen Chris now and still think of doing this?
They don’t answer the call in time. It cuts out.
Jake immediately calls again.
“What the fuck is happening?” Laken whispers. Inside of them, fear begins finally to melt as the heat of anger takes hold, and they turn to the closet and punch the writing on the wall.
Their hand hurts. They shake it out and punch again. Cheap plastered drywall starts to crumble under their fist.
Chris reaches for the ringing phone with trembling hands to answer.
-
@burtlederp@finder-of-rings@endless-whump@astrobly@thefancydoughnut@newandfiguringitout@doveotions@pretty-face-breaker@gonna-feel-that-tomorrow@boxboysandotherwhump@oops-its-whump@cubeswhump@whump-tr0pes@downriver914@whumptywhumpdump@whumpiary@orchidscript@nonsensical-whump@outofangband@eatyourdamnpears@hackles-up@grizzlie70@mylifeisonthebookshelf@keeper-of-all-the-random-things
CW: Ableism, abusive relative, abuse of a minor, pet whump references, BBU, some brief vague noncon references, blood, drowning kinda, death threats, just general ‘it’s gonna get bloody’ below the cut…
Sean Malley previously appeared in the the pieces Sean Malley,Learn to Fly, and Paul Higgs: Baby Daze.
-
“What’s wrong with him?”
Jo looked over at her older sister, eyebrows raised in perfect arches. She’d lined them herself this morning - the whole eyebrow plucking thing had been a fucking disaster, and now she had to draw them on every day.
“What?” Ronnie looked up. Her sister, not even quite twenty yet, was hovering over a pot of water that would hopefully eventually boil for pasta. She looked older, and tired, and Jo picked at her own fingernails every time she visited to avoid bringing it up.
Two years ago, Ronnie had been seventeen and beautiful - now she was nineteen, nearly twenty, and she hadn’t slept well since before Paul’s stupid baby was even born, and it showed. Ronnie did smile more, Jo thought, a little grudgingly. Since she’d been kicked out of their parents’ house for refusing to give up Paul’s baby, she’d moved in with his parents during the pregnancy and now the two of them had an apartment and a stupid marriage, and Jo had to admit Ronnie smiled so much more.
Their parents hadn’t gone to Ronnie’s high school graduation, but Jo did. Ronnie had hugged her so tightly it hurt, having to sort of awkwardly shift her hips back so her huge pregnant belly could fit between them.
He wasn’t even born yet and the stupid shit was already ruining things.
There had been photos, a million of them. Jo had gone home that night and told her parents, “Ronnie looks amazing,” and they had turned to each other and kept talking like Ronnie - and anything Jo said about her - didn’t exist.
Because of Paul’s stupid. fucking. baby.
But now, two years later, the stupid fucking baby was a stupid fucking toddler, and Ronnie and Jo together watched him - wispy red hair floating like feathers around his head - as he made a low hum, again and again, holding a small plastic dinosaur and repeatedly opening and closing its mouth, staring fixedly at the sharply-formed plastic teeth inside.
“Oh,” Ronnie said, as if it was totally normal, nothing to worry about. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“You don’t know? I’ve never seen a baby just stare at something that long. Aren’t they supposed to have, like, no attention span? Or pretend it’s biting him or something? I don’t think I have ever seen that kid play pretend.”
Ronnie took in a deep breath. “They are,” She said, hesitantly. “Supposed to. But Tris… I don’t know. He does pretend play sometimes, he really does. Not when-… when it’s just us, or just the three of us, he does, he just… doesn’t, so much, when other people are around. His doctor says it’s nothing to worry about yet.”
“… yet?”
Ronnie dumped the pasta from the box into the water, and they talked about something else.
Joanne Botham comes home - to her sweet little bungalow, snapped up for a pretty penny in a good neighborhood around the outskirts of Berras, perfect for commuting into work at WRU - and dumps her purse on the floor, exhaling in a rush. She kicks off her sensible work heels into the little shoe tray she bought at some home goods store where everything cost about fifty dollars more than it should, but she’s got money to burn, these days.
Or she used to.
In any case, it could be worse.
Luckily, this is more or less a WRU company town, and things aren’t so bad here. The Olympics had aired while she was relaxing in the pool at a hotel in Sao Paulo, and she honestly hadn’t paid them any attention. She’d been vaguely aware of a commotion, a sudden rush of Portuguese from the staff and just about every language on earth from the hotel guests, but when someone said it was a press conference at the Olympics, she’d lost interest.
It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything important - so she didn’t care. She was on vacation, and nothing was going to ruin her visit to Brazil. She had been taking a guided tour while some pet libbers tried to torch the WRU daycare and “free” the workers, leaving the poor things terrified and clinging to each other, running to the handlers who came to help them.
One of them was still missing, and probably had wandered off and died somewhere, and wouldn’t that be just what those fucking libbers deserved. To be responsible for that.
A handler had gone missing, too. There were rumors the daycare worker had offed him and he just hadn’t been found, but Joanne found that hard to believe. She’s worked on the copy for commercials with those placid little cow-people for years. None of them have a single brain cell not dedicated to childcare. None of them could swat a fly, let alone murder the handlers who keep them safe.
In any case, all of that had happened while she was still gone, had her work phone off, and ignored anything and everything sent her way.
When her plane touched down, though… that’s when Joanne realized the absolute pile of epic shit WRU had just been thrown into.
Two former pets - two people who should be current pets, actually - had spoken at a surprise press conference, and more than twenty Olympics athletes from fifteen countries had shown photos of people they claimed had been coerced, abducted, or otherwise forced into the pet system.
It was all fucking bullshit, but…
Well, it wasn’t allbullshit.
One of the speakers, turns out, had been none other than Paul’s stupid fucking baby, all grown up. He’d given out his real name, which the dumbass wasn’t even supposed to remember any longer, and it had been enough information for journalists to dig up who he was, what had happened to him, and most importantly, who his living relatives are.
There was an article in TIME magazine. Unlikely Voices - how two runaway human pets from WRU became the face of a movement and the cry for justice from a lost generation.
They’d done their research, all right. Tristan’s entire life had been laid bare in that article, in excruciating detail, up until… until he’d disappeared into WRU.
Which meant there had been a mini-profile in a little sidebar. Who is Joanne Botham? A shadowy figure from Tristan Higgs’ past… There’d been a photo of her, taken without her consent, but her attempt to sue had been dismissed.
His little stunt had been making Joanne’s job - and life - hell. She can’t even go into work in her own car any longer, there are reporters camped out who know her make, model, and license plate. She has to catch rides with different coworkers. She can’t go out to a simple restaurant without someone yelling at her, without discovering protesters at her car when she tries to go home. She can’t get her haircut without her stylist - someone she’s been going to for years! - suddenly refusing to cut her hair any longer.
Mysonis autistic, her stylist had said, voice cold. You’ve listened to me talk about Gabe all this time, how could you do that when you did what you did?
It’s not the same-
It’s exactly the same! Get out of my salon!
No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.
Not that anyone ever has. Everyone’s always blindsided by Ronnie being obsessed with her kid or Tristan being pretty adorable when he wasn’t being terrible. Everyone’s always got wool pulled over their eyes, and only Jo has ever seen it for what it really is.
Tonight didn’t go any better than the last few weeks had. She’d been recognized while picking up takeout Thai food for dinner. The pet lib assholes had to be breeding like fucking bunnies, they seemed to be everywhere now. One of them had followed her from the restaurant to her car, asking her if she had any regrets.
“Yeah,” She’d said, her voice rough and harsh. “Talking to you, that’s my biggest regret.”
He was probably recording that. They’re always recording her, now.
At least her house is paid off, this little bungalow bought with cash from her finder’s fee after Tristan’s application had been accepted by WRU. Her car’s paid off, her house is paid off, her 401k looks amazing…
Maybe she should just retire now, and disappear.
How long would it take the pet libbers to pick some new target, if Joanne Botham wasn’t an easy enemy to find?
She drops the takeout container on the kitchen counter, the smell of cilantro, fish sauce, and chicken rising through the air, making her mouth water. She can’t even remember what she ordered, but it doesn’t really matter. She’ll barely taste it, anyway.
She grabs the remote and turns on the TV, checking the news channels with a nervous new habit. Nothing new, though, it looks like. Nothing too big.
Nothing to worry about.
She pulls down a bowl, dumping the takeout into it, looking at the chicken and shrimp swimming in noodles, sauce, and sauteed vegetables. They left the mushrooms in, she realizes. She had specificallyasked for no mushrooms-
“What a lovely little home you have, Miss Joanne,” says an older man’s voice from behind her, slightly creaky with age.
“No one cares about Joanne’s side of the story.”
No, you bitch, no one fucking does!
“Correction,” Sean Malley says, that twinkle back in his eyes. “You worked for WRU. As of five o’clock, Miss Joanne, you are no longer employed by that illustrious institution.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
How is it that you always make me hate Joanne more?! I never think it’s possible but then there you go…
“The man holding her slaps a wet washcloth over her nose and taped-up mouth and the one with the bucket starts to pour.”
Remember when you wrote the piece of Oliver dying and I commented that only your writing could possibly make me feel bad for that scumbag even for a second? Well, guess nothing can make me feel bad for Joanne, I am delighted by this
“It took longer to shake the knowledge that Tristan was down there with him.”
She fucking knew… Not that it made it any better if she didn’t, but the bitch has been acting like she didn’t know this whole time and she did!
“Give Tristan Higgs the last ten years of his life back. Undo what you’ve done, all you’ve taken, all the money you stole.“
Ooooooooohohoho. Can’t do that, can you, Joanne?!
"She breaks down into sobs, realizing that the photos could have made the difference.”
Elation is what I feel
“What is wrong with me?”
Right now, it’s the fact that you’re dead. Sayonara, bitch.
i don’t even think i have to caption this
I need to @ @ashintheairlikesnowand@albino-whumpeespecifically for this one
… I’m dying
God, this is one of my favorite tiktoks of all time lol
The Same Bed: Krista
-
CW: Break-in, threats, beating, stalking and harassment, abusive relationship references
Follows after Jake, happens concurrently with Chris,beforeVincent.
-
She’s floating. She’s actually floating. Krista keeps the phone between her ear and her shoulder and she listens to the voice of the woman on the other end, humming to show she’s listening. She is, mostly, but part of her is too lit up with happiness to take in a single word.
She can hear Pepperjack meowing on the other side of her apartment door, knowing her steps as always. She scrapes her shoes off on the doormat, a fresh new one for the season with a rainbow and HELLO SUNSHINE in bright big letters.
“Did he really?” She giggles, and blushes at herself for giggling. Her neighbors - the apartment next to hers - don’t seem to be home. Their lights aren’t on, anyway, and she can’t smell the usual blend of patchouli incense and grassy smoke making its way out through the less-than-perfectly sealed walls.
She listens to Meg tell the story, butterflies flipping in her stomach. Meg’s a coworker and she’s pretty sure not only interested in guys, but Krista hasn’t pulled up the courage yet to admit to her absolutely overwhelming crush.
Meg is almost six feet tall and could carry Krista around if she wanted to and does roller derby and Krista might actually faint dead away if Meg flirts with her any harder at work than she does already.
She digs her keys out of her pocket, jangling as she searches for the right one. The grooved metal fits seamlessly into a lock-
Leather smell suddenly floods her nose as a hand is clapped over her mouth, and she’s yanked back with a cry.
Her back thuds into someone’s flat chest as a voice growls low in her ear, “Hang up the fucking phone.”
Krista’s heart stops, and then starts again, racing as dread pools frozen in her stomach and knees. No, no, it’s been more than ten years, it can’t be happening now, it can’t-
She hears Meg, soft and muffled, asking her if she’s okay.
The owner of the voice behind her exhales in annoyance and shoves her. Krista smacks hard into her own front door, dazed, and he grabs the phone from her suddenly limp fingers. “Fuck it, I’ll do it. You’re not fucking bright, are you?”
“N-not-… fucking bright…” Krista echoes. Her fingers fumble with the key and push open the door, trying to get inside and lock it behind her.
She makes it in, Pepperjack winding around her legs, and she trips on him. “Pepper, baby, n-no-”
She spins, trying to slam the door.
When she goes to close it, though, he’s already there. Not tall and not short, he’s got a mask on the lower half of his face and a knit beanie pulled down. Bits of light-colored hair tinged blue by the streetlight down in the parking lot stick out from underneath.
Pepperjack yowls and runs to jump up on the couch, hissing at the man as he stalks inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
The room is dark.
“Pl, please-”
“Shut up.” He kicks her as she tries to get away, knocking her back down. When she crawls, he grabs her by her ponytail and yanks hard enough that she cries out as she feels some hair pulled right from her scalp. Her hands scrabble at him, but his gloves are thick and her fingernails can’t scratch. “I said shut the fuck up!”
“Shit the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up-” Krista’s mouth keeps moving, echoing him as her voice gets breathier. Her ribs ache where he kicked her. Her phone rings, Meg calling back maybe, but he declines the call, kicks her again, listens to her whimper.
He’s smiling under that mask at the sound.
She can tell.
“Jesus.” The guy stares down at her, then looks at her phone. “You keep any guns in this place?”
Krista swallows. Her owner, long ago, had guns all over the house. He used to make Krista put the barrel in her mouth while he counted to ten.
He never pulled the trigger, but-
Hecould have, and they both knew it, and he liked how she looked when she knew he might kill her.
“No,” She breathes. “I don’t have any money, I don’t have anything, I swear-”
Pepperjack is still meowing in the background, and when the guy turns to look at him Krista thinks wildly please don’t hurt my Pepper he’s already old please don’t-
“Don’t worry, kitty,” The guy says, oddly soothing, to the angry, worried animal. His voice changes entirely from threatening to soft. “She’s gonna do one thing for me and then I’m out, all right? Just one thing.”
“One, one thing?” Krista moves to stand, and he doesn’t stop her. She’s not a threat, he knows she isn’t. Maybe it’s a good thing but it burns in her that he doesn’t even think she could defend herself enough to worry about. “Just one thing?”
“Just one. Go sit down at the table.”
She must hesitate too long. He backhands her so hard she goes flying to the side, head smacking into the television, knocking it off its precarious stand. It tips forward onto her foot and she cries out, falling backwards.
Her face hurts and her head hurts and her ribs hurt and her foot is probably broken and the TV sparked and that’s not good-
“Fuck. Sorry about that.”
She looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Incredulous anger overtakes fear, just for a second. “Sorry about that?”
“Yeah. Didn’t think you’d just turn into a soccer ball.”
He grabs her by the arm and drags her back to her feet. The right one, the foot the television landed on, spikes sudden agony and she whimpers as he yanks her across the room, limping as much as she can.
He drops her into one of her own kitchen chairs and she stares at the little centerpiece there. “Am, am I going to d-die?” She asks, voice trembling, her hands gripped to the sides of the hard wooden kitchen seat. “Are you going to kill me?”
Am I going to die staring at a little paper flower bouquet and ceramic figures of dogs playing fetch?
“Wasn’t my plan, no. Just need you to make a phone call. I’ll tell you what to say.”
“… Tell me what to say,” Krista echoes. Her heart is beating so hard she’s worried it might break itself apart against her breastbone.
He drops her phone, then - on the other side of the table, too far for her to easily reach. He stands behind her, and she hitches in weak gasps as his hands pull out her ponytail holder and run through her hair.
“You’d look good as a romantic lead,” He murmurs, thoughtfully. Then he takes out his own phone, pulls some kind of program up - it’s not a phone call, not exactly. It’s video, and he leans over, pressing the side of his face against her temple.
She wants to throw up.
He tells her what to say.
The phone rings and rings. Her breath stutters and the world spins in her terror as his leather-tipped fingers play with the hair along the nape of her neck, graze along the line of her jaw.
Someone picks up.
She realizes who the guy is calling as soon as she hears the cheerful deep voice say, “Hey, Krista, what’s up?”
His face appears when the video portion connects. Wild black curls and wide blue eyes that narrow and then wide again as he sees her sitting in the dark lit only by the light of her phone - and then sees that she’s not alone.
“Krista?”
Her lips are trembling, and she can’t speak - not until he presses the palm of his hand against her neck, closes fingers and thumb, starts to squeeze.
“Kauri,” She says, tears running down her cheeks. The man’s face is so close. His cologne is making her sick. “It’s time to come home, b-baby ”
Kauri stills. Even in the slightly fuzzy video, she can see him freeze. “What?”
The man’s hand leaves her neck, and he tips his head to pull his mask down, yanks off the beanie. His hair mingles with Krista’s. He needs a shave.
“Come on, Kor-Bore, even you can’t be that stupid.”
Krista watches Kauri shatter right in front of her, a tiny face on a small screen. “Owen.”
“Owen,” Krista echoes.
“That’s right, baby,” Owen says. He twines a finger around a lock of Krista’s hair. She shudders, her knuckles white where she holds herself still. “Look who I ran into.”
Kauri is silent, eyes searching Krista’s, then he snorts with feigned disinterest. “Owen, you don’t even like women. Don’t act like you’ll do that shit to her, we both know you won’t. This isn’t ab-… about her. It’s about us, it always was. Just tell me what you fuh-fucking want.”
He sounds so brave. Krista loves Kauri for his bravery, when he needs to be brave, as she has loved him for every other part of him, too, even when it hurt.
Owen shoves her off the chair, and she hits the ground with a thump as Owen sits down where she was. Krista crawls and then throws herself to the couch, grabbing Pepperjack and holding him so tightly he yells in protest.
“I want you,” Owen says, as simple as that. “And I want you to know that I can get to anyone you care about, whenever I want, until you come back to me. I can be everywhere at once. I’m being nice right now, but I can start hurting them if I have to.”
“Owen-… Please, Krista didn’t do anything to you-”
“I know. And she’s just fine. But she doesn’t have to be. I don’t give a fuck about broken fucking pets, baby, you know that. You want to keep her safe? You have my number. And you and I both know if you go to the cops they’ll give you right back to me.”
“But-… Everyone knows, now-”
“You’re still my fucking property, Kor-Bore. I’ve got friends that are cops these days. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Owen-!”
“Comehome, Kauri. And it’s Mr. Owen, remember? Call me when you decide to come home where you belong.”
Owen hangs up the call and walks right out Krista’s front door, leaving her on the couch, Pepperjack’s claws digging into her arm through her shirt.
“Sorry about your TV,” He throws over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.
When her neighbors get home five minutes later, they find Krista’s front door wide open and their usually shy, cheerful neighbor crying on the couch, whispering to herself, “Kauri come home, Kauri come home,” again and again.
And again.
And again.
-
@burtlederp@finder-of-rings@endless-whump@astrobly@thefancydoughnut@newandfiguringitout@doveotions@pretty-face-breaker@gonna-feel-that-tomorrow@boxboysandotherwhump@oops-its-whump@cubeswhump@whump-tr0pes@downriver914@whumptywhumpdump@whumpiary@orchidscript@nonsensical-whump@outofangband@eatyourdamnpears@hackles-up@grizzlie70@mylifeisonthebookshelf@keeper-of-all-the-random-things
HOLY SHIT!
CW: Not much. Just grief, mostly, and only in the second half. If you just don’t read after the time jump it’s like I wrote something happy!
Second half takes place during Chris’s early days at the safehouse
-
Ronnie likes to sing while she cleans, and the little house is full of music blasting from the computer speakers while she sweeps the living room floor, dust bunnies and the debris of living caught under the broom.
“I’ve been living to see you, dying to see you but it shouldn’t be like this… this was unexpected, what do I do now?”Ronnie’s singing voice is a rasping, deep alto, and the piano and drums seem to drift around it, as though the song were written for her.
Tristan sits on the couch, watching her as she does a little spin and winks at him. His legs are crossed, feet pulled up off the floor so he isn’t in the way. He watches her with bright green eyes in a pale freckled face, smiling with one front tooth slightly crooked.
There’s been talk of braces, but Ronnie just isn’t sure what it would be like, trying to get Tristan through that experience. And he’s only got the little bit of crookedness…
She’s distracted from her thoughts when Tristan sings, too.
“Could we start again, please?” His voice is a soft high tenor, and he sways heavily back and forth, back and forth, moving like a metronome with skin. Ronnie laughs, losing the thread of the song for a second. She’s a bright light, his mother, in ancient blue jeans and a t-shirt knotted at the waist with a hair tie.
She’s not running the vacuum today because he’s home, knowing how he hates the sound of it, the heavy deafening growl overwhelming his thoughts and racing up and down his skin. Instead, she cleans the longer way, by sweeping and sweeping and sweeping until the broom doesn’t pick anything else up, finally, until there’s no more dust left.
She’ll vacuum on days Aimi Nakamura takes Tris to practice, stealing herself a half an hour to use every single item in the house that Tristan can’t stand the sound of.
She’s seen ads in the magazines she reads while she sits in waiting rooms during Tristan’s therapy and doctor appointments for this new generation of Roombas with some kind of weird artificial intelligence, but the price point of those things made her eyes just about pop out of her head. Maybe for their anniversary in a few years. She and Paul will have a big one right after Tris turns sixteen, maybe then.
Four more years isn’t so long to wait. Until then, she can sweep.
“I think you’ve made your point now,” Tris keeps singing, and she slows, watching him. His eyes drift closed, and she watches with joy how he dips his head as he sways, his body moving with perfect freedom here in their house, unfettered by the eyes of anyone who doesn’t understand him. “You’ve even gone a bit too far to get your message home, before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt-”
“Oh, could we start again, please?” Ronnie picks up the next line, and Tristan bites his lower lip with his top teeth, words dropping into a hum, chin tipped up. Back and forth, back and forth, shoulders-first.
She wonders what air feels like over his bare arms to his brain, as he raises his hands a little, his fingers bending and straightening, again and again. He’s tried to explain it, but her own brain just doesn’t work the same way, and it didn’t make much sense to her.
It makes sense to him, and really that’s what matters most. She doesn’t need to understand it. She just needs to see in his face the serenity of music and movement to know enough. It’s the same look he gets during gymnastics, when she watches with some part of her heart still in her throat at the risks her only child takes as he swings from uneven bar to uneven bar. His body knows how to move in the world in ways her own does not, and his mind thrills at the moments he feels like he’s flying.
Some boys, Ronnie thinks, were born for wings.
Her tree-climbing, backflipping, always-moving child was made for discovering the world through the grip of his fingers and the placement of his feet, and it’s a crime he lives in a time and a place where concrete and broken glass demand he wear shoes and snapping adult voices demand he be still.
“I’ve been living to see you,” Ronnie continues, crouching. Her singing voice thins as she sweeps a little pile of dust into the dustpan, goes strong and solid again as she walks over to the trash can to dump it in.
Tristan jumps in, and he can’t quite harmonize and his voice is sharp and slightly off but fuck it, Ronnie loves his singing voice more than she cares about bullshit like that. They sing together, and Ronnie grins at him, pretending the top of the broom is a microphone. She dips to one side, dramatically cradling it, like she’s Adele at a concert. “Dying to see you but it shouldn’t be like this. This was unexpected, what do I do now? Oh, could we start again, please?”
Tristan doesn’t pick up the rest of the melody - instead, he groans and rolls his eyes, putting his hands over them, still swaying heavily, more than he even was before. “Mom, oh my-my-my-my God.”
Before she had a preteen, she’d had no idea just how much disdain a child could put into three simple syllables. She’s not looking forward to ages thirteen through eighteen, that’s not sure.
That’s a lie.
Yes, she is.
Watching him turn into a grown man is going to be the greatest thing she’s ever seen, and Ronnie Higgs knows it.
“What? You don’t like Mom being a pop star?” She laughs, and the sun behind her baby boy’s head turns his hair into a copper halo around him. Paul’s perfect little clone, her son, except for how tightly he hugs her, how he sings with her and sways to the music where Paul would just be puzzled. As confused about what she gets out of it as she is about what Tristan gets out of swaying.
Between the two of them, though, she has everything she needs.
He peers at her from behind his fingers. “Mother, please,”He says, and she knows he’s picked that tone up from Lisa Huang, who would never dare use it to her own mother’s face. But coming from Tristan, it feels silly, not sarcastic.
She sighs and leans on the broom, resting the side of her face on her hands over the top. “You over this one? Should we do a different musical? A singer or something? I still need to dust the fan blades.”
Tristan’s hands drop and he licks at his lips, eyes moving over the room, up to the ceiling fan, bouncing off his mother’s face and down to the floor. His hands tap over his legs, marking rhythm on his thighs, as pale and freckled as his face where they stick out beneath the loose mesh basketball shorts he wears whenever she doesn’t make him wear something else. “Um, what, what, what what what what about-”
“No Katy Perry,” She says, seeing the look in his eyes.
He groans again and flops over onto his side, with all the drama inherent in his age. He rolls onto his back and turns to look in her general direction, glaring without any real anger. “Mom, you, you, you said, you-you-… yousaid…”
“I know what I said. I’m also saying no Katy Perry. We had to listen to her for like an hour on our last drive to practice, and another hour back, so think of something else. I’m all Katy Perry’d out, baby boy. Pick a musical.”
He pouts, but it doesn’t last - it never does. Instead, he gets that smile on his face that means he’s thought of something he imagines is very clever as a comeback. She raises her eyebrows, waiting. His hair falls over his eyes. One of Paul’s coworkers used to call them his Irish eyes.
“Um, what, what, what about… wh, what about… um, um…”
She waits - he knows what he’s trying to say, he just needs time to get his tongue and teeth to cooperate with his racing thoughts, for his mind to slow down enough for the words to find their way out.
“What about Backstreet Boys?” His voice is innocent enough.
She bursts out laughing again. “Oh, you know my weakness, huh? Talk 90’s pop to me and I’m weak. Yeah, yeah. Let me switch up the album.”
She knows which one he wants, too - it’s the one she used to play nonstop while pregnant with him, a weeping seventeen-year-old who still had a CD player with bulky headphones listening to the saddest songs she could find over and over and over while inside her, Tristan’s tiny feet pressed all the air from her lungs and kicked so hard and so much she was half-convinced he’d burst out of her like the guy in Alien. She should’ve known back then he was never going to sleep.
When the incredibly of-its-time synthetics and drums kick in, with carefully orchestrated laughter over the introductory melody, she grabs a dust cloth and drags over a chair, clambering up to run the cloth over the blades of the ceiling fan, one by one.
“I may run and hide when you’re screamin’ my name, all right-… but let me tell you now there are prices to fame, all right-…”
She winks down at Tristan.
“All of our time spent in flashes of li-iiiiight…”
Tristan hums more or less with the music and watches her, his fingers dancing over his stomach, the couch around him, the air itself. He grins when she winks, pretends he’s absolutely embarrassed by her dancing where she stands, bouncing on her feet to the beat the same way he does.
“When you were a baby,” Ronnie says cheerfully, sneezing as dust settles in and up her nose, “I used to play this whenever you wouldn’t stop crying. You’d cheer right up. Used to tell your dad I sure you’d heard it when you were still growing, before you were born, that you knew the music as well as you knew my heartbeat.”
“I, I, I like your heartbeat,” Tristan says, slightly distant. He’s listening to the music more than he is her, but the upside to ADHD, Ronnie thinks, is he can half-pay attention to about twelve things at once, even if he can’t put his whole attention on anything unless that little switch in his brain demands it. And then God help anyone who tries to interrupt.
“I like yours, too,” she says, laughter in her voice, climbing back down and dragging the chair back to the computer desk in the corner of the living room. “Your dad absolutely hates Backstreet Boys, though, so that’s why they’re just for us, huh?”
“Just for us,” He echoes happily. The song switches to the next one, a little slower.
Ronnie hums, looking around, hands on her hips. “Shelves, bookshelves and then the kitchen, okay?”
“Okay.”
She hums along with the music, and halfway through taking the bookshelves from dusty to slightly shining and smelling of the lemon-scented wood polish she uses - the only one Tristan doesn’t hate - she catches herself singing again, too.
Tris sings with her, standing beside her, bumping her occasionally as he sways. She’s not sure what she did to deserve a perfect kid, but there are days like today where she’s sure no mother on earth has ever had a better son than him.
“She’s seen ads […] for this new generation of Roombas with some kind of weird artificial intelligence”
KEIRA!!! /0/
“She and Paul will have a big one right after Tris turns sixteen, maybe then.”
Ash, how dare you?!?!
“She’s not looking forward to ages thirteen through eighteen, that’s for sure. That’s a lie. Yes, she is.”
STOP! D= You said it wouldn’t be sad before the time skip! D=
God damnit! Fuck! Now I’m crying in bed! Shit, that was heartbreaking.
Cassiel Belanger belongs to @painful-pooch <3
Across the Stars and Through the Meadow Masterlist (Cas and Star AU)
Tagging the Star crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump
CW: referenced pet whump/BBU, angsty comfort, terminally ill whumpee, hospital whump
***
Star, in her slight drug-induced haze, watches her gorgeous, shirtless husband cook her dinner. They got home from the hospital late last night once her fever had passed, and spent most of today in bed.
In bed with his muscles…
Star shamelessly stares at him and wonders how she got so lucky. He had scooped her out of bed, kissed her on the forehead, and told her he’d make her pasta for dinner, carried her in his strong arms and set her down on the couch. Even though he hates needles, he helped her get her IV connected to her port to run her at-home infusion, draped a flannel blanket over her legs and kissed her again.
He did the buttons on her shirt so she didn’t have to struggle on her own, called Russo and told him they needed time off, tied her hair out of her face with his gentle, giant hands, helped her slide her wedding ring on.
Tonight feels like one of those nights where they’re all too aware of their situation. All too aware of how fragile she is, of how they’re running out of time together. Of how the pills on the table equal extra minutes they’ll get before she has to say goodbye to her true love.
It’s one of those nights where everything is right and wrong at the same time.
She looks up at the fairy lights above her head, at the walls around her. She knows each scuff mark, each picture, each story. Not as well as she knows Cas’s body. Knows the scars and divots and strong curves of muscle. She knows him better than she knows herself, and she loves every part of him.
He dashes some olive oil into a pan and looks back to smile at her.
She grins in return. Her beautiful, wonderful, amazing husband who she belongs to completely, and him to her, body, mind, and soul. Each aspect of their lives, they share.
He can’t promise her forever, but he did anyways in his vows.
Her husband looks unbelievably attractive in a suit, too. He looks attractive when doing anything, though. She just wants him to finish cooking so she can bury herself in his chest and be completely enveloped by her sexy Scottish man.
She’s so in love with him, every aspect of Cassiel Belanger couldn’t be more perfect.
It’s funny, it’s almost as though they were meant to find each other. But she’s never been a big believer in fate. They worked for this. They found each other when they needed it most. 728501 and 496173. Handler Greco’s prized possession and the man who couldn’t seem to forget his name. They found each other through violence, the fight the handlers wanted that never happened.
They found each other on the bathroom floor in the bar, Cas bleeding from the head and Star’s clothes torn apart. They found each other in a hospital room over and over as Star’s health ebbed and flowed. They lost each other in a hospital room too. They lost each other in a warehouse, they found each other in Faraday Abernathy’s mansion bearing more scars than before. They found each other and turned a white room to a street corner to an apartment.
Star holds her regrets so close to her head. She regrets not loving him sooner, she regrets hiding so much from him.
He carries her. He always carries her and he’s never going to stop until she’s gone.
Tonight is just one of those nights where everything feels real.
Her impending fate, a slow, painful death with no way to stop it, just delay the inevitable.
More importantly, though, their love feels real, like she can reach through the air and touch it. Little golden threads connecting her to her husband forever and always.
She can’t let go. She could never but it’s something she has to accept.
Star had accepted it at the beginning, was ready to stop taking her meds and die as quickly as possible. But then she learned that she was allowed to let herself be loved.
Maybe she wasn’t all bad, she wasn’t just a mutt after all.
She has value, and that value was given to her over and over by Cassiel Belanger.
Not many people are lucky enough to find a love like theirs. A love that’s not perfect and quiet but a fiery love, battle tested and hard earned, a love built to last.
Certainly not a pure love with the way she’s staring at him. Cas being shirtless does things to her.
Cas and the lamb, always and forever, forevermore free. The ending she’s always wanted but never thought she was good enough to earn.
When she dies, she won’t remember the bad stuff. Faraday and Rhys, the bar bathroom, her bad decisions made before their marriage, Handler Greco. Dr. Roth said she might lose some of her memory as her disease progresses, and she knows what she needs to hold onto.
It’s little snapshots and little moments in time.
Cas’s face lighting up when they first walked into their apartment.
Buying their first Christmas tree together and decorating it together.
Dancing in their living room to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, her standing on Cas’s feet in a yellow sundress, him singing so softly to her.
Cas rushing into her hospital room and doing his best every single time she’s there to make it feel more like home.
Him feeding her soup when her hands are too weak to hold a spoon.
Her burying herself against him, a blanket covering them both up, smelling the forest on his shirt.
Their wedding, seeing her future husband waiting for her after all the times they’ve suffered.
Could a pet, a monster, have loved like this? Could a lab-created dog have such a vibrant life?
No.
It’s through Cas that she realized that she isn’t a pet and never was, that WRU lied to them.
They’re not dogs.
They’re people who love and hurt and cry and smile. Real people who will be missed when they’re gone.
And maybe this feeling of being real can be overwhelming. If one thing is real, it’s all real, the good and the bad.
Overwhelming is good because it reminds her that she’s still here.
“Cas,” she murmurs. “Leave the food.”
He looks over at her in a mix of confusion and worry. She knows what’s going through his mind, the fears that immediately crop up. She could be feeling sick and need to go to the hospital where the doctors will try to rip her away from him again while her body breaks down. She could be denying herself food as a punishment for doing something wrong. Or it could be a flashback or trauma response because she doesn’t eat during those and that’s a whole other set of problems.
She just smiles and reaches her slender, scarred, strong hands out towards him, a bruise still on the back from her IV. “Leave the food,” she repeats. “Leave the food and get your gorgeous self over here to hold your wife.”
Star feels like dancing tonight. She feels like dancing and running and jumping around, but she knows she has limits and tonight? She should just relax and let Cas take care of her.
It was hard to acknowledge that. Hard acknowledging she couldn’t be the fighter she once was. To take that leap…it was painful. She was trained to be better than this. Trained to fight through pain, except when she feels pain, she knows now it’s a sign that something worse could be brewing in her.
Accepting her limits was a good decision. It makes the good days great and the bad days bearable. There’s good in taking a break.
She’ll always be his lamb, no matter what he does.
His lamb in a white t-shirt and black shorts and a collar.
His lamb behind the bar mixing up a drink.
His lamb in a hospital bed, tubes all over her body.
His lamb, forever and always.
Cassiel Belanger, making dinner for her while shirtless because he knows she likes to watch him, smiles at her and kisses her so softly, like she’s the most precious thing in the world.
Cassiel and Star Belanger, together forever.
Some comfort for Star before everything gets worse. Takes place before she and Cas know they’re in love.
Cassiel Belanger belongs to @painful-pooch
Across the Stars and Through the Meadow Masterlist (Cas and Star AU)
Tagging the Star crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump
CW: BBU, hospital setting, I promise this is actual fluff, Star is angsty, self hatred
***
Star glares when she hears the knock on the door, knowing there’s nothing she can do to make whoever it is leave her alone. “Come in,” she snaps, fiddling with her hospital bracelet.
A younger nurse walks in wearing powder blue scrubs and pushing a wheelchair. He walks with a limp, favoring his right side, but Star isn’t a Guard Dog anymore, so she can ignore that and focus on staring at him. “Who are you and what do you want?”
He grins at her with perfectly straight teeth. “Star, right?”
She nods.
“Yeah, the other nurses told me you were kind of an asshole.”
She smirks. “Still haven’t answered my question.” Already, she likes him more than the last few nurses she’s met.
“Fine.” He pushes the chair next to her bed and crosses his arms across his chest. “Answer one. My name is Noah, and since you’re going to be here a lot, Dr. Roth thought it would be good for you to have some consistency with your nurses. Thus, they stick the newbie with you. Fresh out of the University of Georgia, thank you very much. And answer number two is that you appear to be scheduled for a CT scan on those lungs of yours.”
Star looks him up and down, trying to figure out if he’s safe, how much he knows…
His face softens as he starts disconnecting her IV from the line and removing the heart monitors. “You can trust me. Dr. Roth picked me herself, I know about…WRU.” He whispers the last word, almost like he’s afraid of it.
Star snorts. “I was a mutt. Great. Glad you know. Means I don’t have to wrap my wrist in that itchy ass gauze.”
His eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to speak, but just stammers out, “I…I…”
“Yeah, guess they don’t prepare you for a patient like me in med school.” Star folds her hands neatly in her lap once all the tubes are gone, save for her oxygen cannula. “I’m not getting in the fucking wheelchair.”
“Sorry, Star. Hospital policy is that you get in the chair and let me wheel you down. Now, I would consider bending the rules, especially considering your age and the fact that you’re not here for anything regarding your legs or back, but…” He trails off and taps the bright red bracelet with black blobs around Star’s wrist. “You’re a fall risk on oxygen and I do not want to get in trouble when you collapse and end up having another problem.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Is the reason they assigned me to you because you’re also an asshole?”
“They assigned me to you because I know what it feels like to have something medical happen young that changes a lot.” He blushes. “Well, not really. My life was going perfectly, until I tore my ACL when I was 19. Ended my football playing career forever. I left my fraternity and holed myself up in my dorm, but things worked out in the end. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing like what you’re going through.”
“Because you’re not dying, right?”
Noah freezes. “S-Star…”
“Relax, new kid. I’m teasing.” She gives him a long look. “I get your point. But I still think you got assigned to me because we’re both insufferable bastards.”
Noah slips into an easygoing smile. “Where’s the guy anyways? Dr. Roth said his name is Cas. You know, the only one who puts up for you and doesn’t get paid for it.”
Star smiles softly. “He’s at work. Keeping busy is…good for him, I think. He’s having a harder time with the whole impending doom thing than I am.”
“The hospital offers counseling for this sort of event–”
She cuts him off with a wry smile. “He does the whole therapy thing. I don’t. Never have–to my knowledge–and never will.”
“You should consider it. Just like you should consider getting in this wheelchair so the imaging techs don’t get mad at me for you being late.”
“Not. Getting. In. The goddamn. Wheelchair.”
“Get. In. The goddamn. Wheelchair.” Noah glares at her. “I told you that I tore my ACL, but don’t forget that I played D1 football. I’ll pick you up.”
She holds her position, jutting her chin out. “I bite.”
“Sure you do. What’s so bad about one scan? If it’s claustrophobia, I can get you anti-anxiety meds.”
Star sighs, clenching her fists and looking away. “You’re going to make fun of me.”
Noah sits down on the edge of the bed. “I won’t. Trust me. We nurses only make fun of the patients who do things like ‘falling’ on a wine bottle and getting it stuck up their butt. Whatever it is, you can tell me, because I bet I can find a way to make it easier.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“Don’t count me out just yet, Star. Go ahead. I won’t make fun of you.”
“I’m afraid.” Her voice comes out small and weak and so very much unlike her normal self. “It’s not really about the scan. If I get in the wheelchair, it’s showing weakness. It’s accepting what’s happening to be and it’s giving up because I’m supposed to be able to walk, dammit.” Tears prick in the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall. “And if I get the results of that scan back…I can’t do it. I can’t give Cas any more bad news, I can’t look my best friend in the eyes and tell him something else wrong that’s just going to make him more nervous and more sad. And if I never know, I don’t have to tell him. I don’t have to be useless and a burden and we can pretend that it’s all okay.”
Noah’s quiet for a moment before softly asking, “What will you do if it’s bad?”
Star sniffles. “I’ll tell him and I’ll hate myself so much for it. I’ll hate myself when I see his face and how hard he tries to hide how much that news hurts him and I’ll hate myself when he promises me that he’ll find a way to make it work.”
“And what will you do if it’s good?”
She finally looks over at him, green eyes brimming with tears. “What?”
Noah shrugs. “If it’s good. Or at least, not the worst. What will you do then?”
“I don’t…I haven’t thought about that.”
“Then let’s think about that.” Noah leans forward. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, and you tell me how you’re going to react to that. Okay?”
Star unsteadily nods, trying not to cry. “Kay.”
“You’re going to get in the wheelchair. I’m going to take you to the MRI, and it’s going to go fine. I’ll bring you back here, sit with you for as long as I can because I’m just a glorified intern, and then we’ll get the results. Dr. Roth is going to tell you that the only thing wrong with your lungs is that you’re still recovering from pneumonia, and you’ll be discharged tomorrow morning once your oxygen levels are back up. What are you going to do after that?”
Star taps her fingers against her leg. “Okay. I’m going to have you or Dr. Roth call Cas and give me the phone so I can talk to him and tell him the good news. He’s probably going to freak out and talk really loudly because he’s excited. It’s not often that we get good news.”
“After that?”
“I’ll tell him to stay at work until his shift is over, and to pick up Chinese food from the place we like to bring to the hospital. He’s going to show up before his shift is over because Russo will see that he’s definitely not focusing on work, and he’s going to get here and celebrate the good news and fall asleep next to me. He’s, um…cuddly.”
“And how would that make you feel?”
“What are you, my therapist?” She shoots him a grin. “It would probably be good. I wouldn’t feel like such a disappointment and seeing Cas happy makes me happy.”
“Awh, I think you’re in love.”
Star gives Noah the middle finger, but her face feels warm. “No. In love? No.”
“Sure you aren’t.” Noah stands back up and pats the wheelchair. “But listen to that. You just thought of how good it’s going to be to get good news, right? And isn’t it worth a try?”
“The universe hasn’t exactly been kind to me. It’s normally bad news.”
“Take that chance, Star. If not for yourself, for Cas. And I promise you, the wheelchair doesn’t show weakness. Being afraid of bad news doesn’t show weakness. But hiding from this does.”
“Harsh.” Star chuckles and looks down at her hands. “But fair.”
“It’s awful. What’s happening to you and what’s already happened to you. And you think you’re supposed to be able to do everything you used to because you’re only twenty and you were trained to be strong, but I’m telling you, it’s okay to not walk. It’s okay. You’ve had to be strong for a long time. Your life is different now, and you getting in that wheelchair isn’t giving up. It’s finding a way around the problem. And besides. I won’t let you down. I’ll talk to Dr. Roth and have her recommend you to a physical therapist so you can start prioritizing your mobility. But for now…your chair awaits.”
Star glares at him. “You talk too damn much.”
Noah smiles. “It’ll grow on you. I promise.”
“Too late to request a new nurse?”
“Yep. Now wheelchair. We’re already late.”
Star grumbles and winces as she pulls herself up from the hospital bed and immediately slides into the chair. She’s been experiencing a lot of pain in her back, her condition was flared up by her recent bout of pneumonia.
Noah switches out her oxygen tank to a non-magnetic one and clips it to the back of the wheelchair. “Alright. Before we leave, anything magnetic on you that you want to leave up here?”
Star shakes her head. “Nope. Took everything off when I had to put on this stupid fucking hospital gown.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” Noah starts slowly pushing the wheelchair down the hallway. “Don’t have a heart attack on the way, old lady.”
Star bites back a laugh, softly smiling. “You’re literally older than me.”
“Only by a few years. And I’m not the one taking rides in the wee woo wagon every couple weeks. I read your file.”
“Because that’s not creepy as fuck.”
“I wanted to know if you were as bad as everyone said. But I actually think you’re kind of sweet.”
“Not sweet.”
“Oh, sorry. You’re terrifying. For someone so short.”
That finally pulls a laugh out of Star, broken up by a coughing fit that has her doubled over and groaning.
“Breathe,” Noah says. “I’ll try to stop being so funny. Just breathe.”
Star gets herself under control, turning her head and glaring at him. “You’re an asshole.”
“Save it. You know you love me. Or at least, I’m growing on you.” Noah pushes her to the door of the MRI room, where nurses are waiting to prep her. “This is where I leave you. Don’t worry. I’ll have Cas’s number ready to go so you can give him the good news.”
“Don’t hope too much.”
“Too late.” Noah puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking away. “I miss you already.”
“I never want to see you again.”
“I’ll be waiting eagerly for your cheerful self back in your room once you’re done in the metal tube of doom.” He smiles impossibly wider. “You’ll be good.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“It’s not a promise. I’m just saying, you’ll figure it out. Whatever it is.”
Star looks up at him. “Hope you were right. About good news.”
“If I am, will you be nicer to me?”
Her eyes narrow. “We’ll see.”
He gives her two thumbs up before she’s wheeled into the room and the door is shut behind her.
***
She lets herself have a small smile, a moment of happiness when Dr. Roth gives her good news. Just like Noah said.
For@whumpawoman Angstpril! Day 26 - Left Behind
Sunny and Star Crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump@painful-pooch - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, derogatory language, threat of noncon, sad Star hours
***
“Get in there,” Mr. Bianchi growls, pushing Star into the small closet.
She turns around before she makes it in, growling at him. “No. I don’t want to.”
“Get the fuck in the closet, puppy.”
Star looks out across the hotel room, at Comet and Sunny, who are standing behind Mr. Bianchi. “I thought I was supposed to come with you, Sir,” she whispers, trying to make her voice as sweet as possible, trying to appease him. Anything so she won’t be left alone in the closet.
Mr. Bianchi sighs. “Do you understand where I’m going today? Why we’re here, not at home?”
Star shakes her head. Of course she doesn’t, he doesn’t tell them anything, and if he does, she can never remember it. Too many hits to the head, or something like that.
“Dumb slut.” Mr. Bianchi stares at her, smirking condescendingly. “I have a very important business meeting. One where I’m not renting you and Sunny out, so I want my good pets. The ones who make me proud.”
Both Comet and Sunny look uncomfortable, but they don’t say anything.
Star clenches her hands into fists, setting her jaw and jutting her chin out. “I can be good.”
“Please. You look pathetic like that.” Mr. Bianchi steps forward. “You always say that and you never follow through.”
“Don’t fucking leave me!” Star’s eyes are wild with anger, with fear. Not the closet. Please. She doesn’t want to be alone again. “I’m useful. You like bringing me to these things, I can help you!”
“Only when they want something to use,” Mr. Bianchi hisses. “Like you did for Mr. McIntyre.”
Star’s face flushes, remembering the Irishman and what he did to her…
“Whatever.” Mr. Bianchi takes another carefully measured step forward. “Get in the fucking closet. Don’t make me ask again, or I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Star snaps, internally cursing herself. If she wants to avoid the closet, to stay with her bonded, she has to be good. She falls to her knees, batting her eyelashes. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me, Sir.”
“You’d be more convincing if you weren’t swearing at me a few minutes ago. If you really want to be sorry, then get in the closet.”
“Please.”
“Would it make you feel better if I let Comet beat you first?”
For the briefest of moments, Star swears she sees revulsion flash in Comet’s eyes, but he schools his face back into neutrality.
Star is well and truly alone, and she focuses back on Mr. Bianchi. There’s no getting out of this, she can tell that much. “What if I run?” she asks, fire in her eyes.
“You’ll run where, puppy?” Mr. Bianchi lets out an amused, barking laugh. “You’ll leave the hotel room and everyone will see what a little slut you are and send you to the pound. If you even get that far. I know you won’t leave Sunny.”
He’s right. She can’t leave her bonded behind and that’s the only thing stopping her from leaving.
“Stop dragging this out and get in the goddamn closet.” He takes another step forward and grabs her collar. Her heartbeat stutters, she can feel his breath on her neck. “Come on, puppy slut. You’re either going to feel so fucking good when I get back—“ His hand dips down, brushing across her ass. “—or I’m going to make your life a living hell and add another scar to that gorgeous, fucked up face of yours.” He grabs her roughly, drawing a yelp from her. “What’s so bad about the closet, hmm? I want the truth.”
Humiliation washes over her, cheeks turning red. “I don’t want to be alone,” she growls. She hates him and she loves him and she can’t lie to him.
“Aw. Poor puppy,” Mr. Bianchi mockingly coos at her. “Get in the closet.”
Star looks at him with bitter fear and anger, her heart dropping as she backs into the closet.
Mr. Bianchi grabs black rope and winds it around her wrists, leaving them bound in front of her. “Get comfortable while I go get the gag,” he says, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “I need to store my puppy right.”
Star settles, sitting with her back to the side wall and her legs curled into her chest. Deep sorrow is already pooling in her lungs and the door hasn’t even been closed yet.
Comet and Sunny look down at her, not saying anything. She wants them to, wants them to scream and fight back and do *something,* anything to get her out of this.
They don’t move.
Mr. Bianchi comes back with a red ball gag and grips Star’s jaw, forcing her lips to part so he can shove it in her mouth and buckle it behind her head. “Pretty,” he says, brushing back her hair.
The gag is already hurting her jaw, drool dripping down her chin.
Mr. Bianchi backs away, giving Star a smile. “See you in a few hours, puppy.”
There’s no ceremony as he closes the door, just darkness falling over the shaking, scarred body of the pet. Some light peeks through the slats in the wood, but not enough to bring Star any sense of comfort. She doesn’t mind the dark. It’s the loneliness that gets to her in the end.
She hears the door to the hotel room slam shut and knows that she’s well and truly alone. WRU made her need to be touched, made her crave something against her skin, a caress or a fist or a whip. She wasn’t meant for loneliness.
Star tips her head back and starts tapping out a rhythm on the wall. All of her first memories are songs, she doesn’t know why.
A single tear slips down her face, she tongues at the gag. This isn’t her purpose but it has to be now. She was bad and this is what bad pets get.
They have to be alone.
She has to lean how to be alone, so she keeps tapping out the rhythm of the song like she’s drumming with her bound hands.
For@whumpawoman Angstpril! Day 22 - Threats
Sunny and Star Crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump@painful-pooch - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, EXPLICIT NONCON, MINORS DNI, NSFWHUMP, derogatory language, dehumanisation, guns, Rhys is his own content warning, lady whump
***
Rhys is on her in a second, slamming her head against the headboard and wrapping his strong hands around her throat. “You fucking bitch,” he hisses. “You stupid fucking animal.”
A bruise is forming on his cheek, sharp and angry and swollen.
Star laughs. “That hurt, bitch?”
She hates his fucking accent, hates how rough it is in her ear as he growls, “Not as bad as you’re going to be hurting.”
“Isn’t the punishment supposed to fit the crime?”
He slams her into the headboard again. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Didn’t…fucking…do anything, you Irish bastard.”
Rhys starts putting pressure, cutting off her air. “Bitches don’t talk. Bitches get fucked, you cunt.”
Star has given up on surviving this, her bonded is safe and she wants this bastard far, far away from her. “Gonna kill you,” she chokes out.
“No. You’re going to take my cock like the fucked up Romantic you are. Understand?” His grip tightens.
She smirks up at him, her face turning red. “The fuck are you going to do if I don’t listen? Fuck me? Hurt me? You’re going to do that anyways.”
“I’ll take your bonded,” he hisses into her ear. “I’ll take him and I’ll ruin him and I’ll give him back once he’s a fucking shell of who he used to be. I’ll make sure when you look into his pretty eyes, there’s nothing there. He’ll just be a walking corpse.”
Star’s mouth goes dry. “Sir wouldn’t…”
“I wouldn’t test that theory. He gave me you for the night, didn’t he?” Rhys lets go of her throat, roughly grabbing her breast. “I think there’s a lot your Sir is willing to do to have my protection.”
“Your protection doesn’t mean shit, seeing how you got punched by a pet.” She makes a pouty face. “Can’t even protect yourself from a whore like me?”
“That’s right. You are a whore. At least you know that much, you stupid bitch.” Rhys takes his hands off her throat to tie her hands to the headboard and pull out a knife. “I’ll take your bonded. I’ll make him mine. Wipe any thought of you out of his head. Because you’re not actually in love. You’ve just got all those stupid programmed thoughts in your head. I’ll wipe them out. I’ll make him love me.”
“You can’t,” she hisses, fear overtaking her senses.
Rhys begins slicing apart her shirt, baring her skin to him. “Pretty tits.”
“Fuck off.”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll give you something good to do with it.” He pulls the shredded pieces of her shirt away and starts teasing her waistband with the knife. “Let’s see if you’re worth all the stress you cause Hunter, hmmm? If you’re a good Romantic slut. Because you’re sure not a worthy one.”
She spits in his face. “Your definition of worthy is fucked.”
Pure rage shoots through his eyes, and he reaches up to wipe the spit off his cheek. “Stick your fucking tongue out, cunt,” he growls. “Or I’ll fuck you with my knife and make your bonded watch.”
Star can barely comprehend the terror rushing through her, but shakily, she sticks her tongue out.
Rhys sets the knife down, pulling out a gun and turning the safety off. “Go ahead. Lick the gun.” He puts it out, rubbing it against Star’s tongue.
The bitter taste of the metal makes her gag, but she gives the gun kitten licks. Her gaze is angry and defiant, and she looks at Rhys, trying to let him see that she won’t break.
Rhys laughs. “Good cunt.” With no warning, he shoves the gun into her mouth. “Hold it. If you drop, your bonded is mine.”
Star gags at the intrusion, but closes her lips around the metal obediently. She doesn’t want to die, and even more, she doesn’t want Sunny to break.
Rhys roughly yanks her panties down, picking his knife back up to trace the crease of her thigh. “Now I see why you’re a Romantic.”
She glares at him. She can take this, it’s what she’s meant for.
Rhys undoes his pants, lining himself up with her entrance. “Don’t drop the gun. Or…”
He doesn’t need to finish his sentence.
Rhys thrusts in and Star bites down on the gun, metal scraping her teeth. Fulfilling her purpose for Sir. Like she’s meant for.
***
“Was she good?” Mr. Bianchi asks Rhys.
Rhys shrugs. “Tight. Defiant, but I fixed that.”
“What’d you do?”
“Put a gun in her mouth.”
“That’ll shut the whore up.” Mr. Bianchi finally looks over at the corner of the living room, where Rhys had discarded Star after using her. “Time to go home, puppy. Your bonded is in the car.”
Sunny. Star perks up at that, dragging herself to her feet, her inner thighs still sticky with Rhys’s spend.
Mr. Bianchi clips a leash to her collar. “Call me about our business deal tomorrow morning.”
“Sure. Thank you.”
Mr. Bianchi nods and pulls Star out the door. “Finally, you didn’t get a bad report.”
“Because he’s fucking terrifying,” she whispers, voice hoarse from the gun.
He slaps her across the face. “Dumb bitch.”
Star is tossed backwards by the hit, and he takes the chance to throw her into the car and climb in after her. He taps on the slide to let the driver to start going.
Star grabs onto Sunny, holding him tightly. “Don’t ever leave me,” she whispers. He’s here. He’s okay. She was good enough to save him this time.
“I, I won’t,” he responds, gently rubbing her back.
She did it. She kept him safe, no matter how ruined it made her. Star tightens her grip, trying to ignore the watchful, lustful gaze of Mr. Bianchi.
They all know what’s going to happen when they get home.
For@whumpawoman Angstpril! Day 21 - Whumper Run-In
Cassiel Belanger belongs to @painful-pooch
Across the Stars and Through the Meadow Masterlist (Cas and Star AU)
Tagging the Star crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump
CW: lady whump, BBU, pet whump, burning, dehumanisation
***
Star is on autopilot. There aren’t enough customers for her to stay focused, and her head is throbbing with a dull ache.
Cas has already started cleaning the kitchen for the night. Star listens to him singing while he works, smiling at the sound. That’s it. If she focuses on his voice, maybe the pain will disappear.
She’s so enthralled by his beautiful singing that she doesn’t notice the new customer at the end of the bar until the woman clears her throat.
Star throws her towel over her shoulder and walks over. “What can I get you?”
“728501, right?”
Star freezes. 728501. It’s been…three months, roughly, since she and Cas escaped. Three months isn’t long enough for her body not to react to the numbers. Slowly, she raises her head to meet the woman’s eyes. “Handler Reyes.”
Handler Reyes smirks. “501. Greco’s been so damn angry since you’ve been gone.”
“G-good,” Star stammers out, trying to keep her bearings despite the world crumbling around her. Handler Reyes wasn’t her primary, but the woman had helped Handler Greco with some of her training. Star remembers the pain left in the wake of the woman’s baton, the bruises and welts and shocks and blood, red against the white floors. “Why are you here?”
“Believe it or not, pet, I’m here to get a drink. Seeing you is just an added bonus.” Handler Reyes drums her fingers on the tabletop. “I’ll have an old fashioned.”
Star puts the sugars and bitters into a rocks glass, keeping her eyes on Handler Reyes. She can’t let her know that Cas, another escaped pet, is just in the kitchen, oblivious to what’s happening at the bar. She can suffer, but she won’t let Cas be taken back there. He deserves to be free, he’s not meant to live in captivity.
She’s a mutt. Her freedom doesn’t matter.
“Greco has been…well, right after they found out you escaped, he put a Guard Dog in a coma. Kid wasn’t going to make it out of training anyways, but still. I’ve never seen him that mad.” Handler Reyes looks at Star’s shaking hands. “Trouble?”
“Yeah, I’m having trouble,” Star snaps, adding water to the glass and stirring to dissolve the sugar. “Are we really going to play this game?”
“What game, 501? I just want my drink.” Handler Reyes leans back in her chair, crossing her arms across her chest. “One of my friends recommended this place to me. Said the bartender wasn’t half bad and the cook was pretty good. Where is he, anyways?”
“Manager sent him home early.” Star can’t breathe, frozen in place with the glass in her hand. “It’s just me tonight.” She has to protect Cas. “And stop playing games with me.”
Handler Reyes shrugs. “I’m not playing games, you dumb mutt. I just got off of work and I want a drink. That’s it. I’d fix that attitude of yours, 501, or I’ll have to punish you.”
Star glares at her. “I’m going to get punished anyways once you bring me back, so fucking do it, you coward.”
There’s a moment of silence before Handler Reyes bursts into laughter. “You’re still a spitfire. Even when you’re not in a white shirt and black shorts with a collar around your neck.”
Star snarls, her heart racing, but she adds large ice cubes to the glass with shaking hands and selects a high proof bourbon. Three months. That’s all she got. Three months of happiness.
It’s not long enough to satisfy her, but it’s long enough that she knows going back is going to hurt so much worse, knowing what she could have instead.
For the first time since she’s seen Handler Reyes, Star looks over at the kitchen, where Cas is cleaning away, still singing.
He doesn’t know. He’s going to walk out once he’s done and find nothing but an empty bar, nothing but an empty space where a mutt used to be. She has to hope, though, that he can move on. That he’ll find something and some reason.
She has to leave some kind of sign, something to let him know that she didn’t just leave him, that she was taken.
The image of Cas thinking she left because of him hurts her more than the idea of going back to WRU.
Is that…tears are building in her eyes. Star brushes them away and pours the bourbon. “So take me back. That’s how this ends, right? Handler Greco gets his spitfire mutt back in a collar and on her knees?”
“No.”
Star’s eyes widen. “What?”
“Keep stirring my drink, 501. My, my. It’s taking you an awful long time to make a simple cocktail.”
“Because you’re a goddamn Handler,” Star retorts, stirring the drink obediently. “I can’t fucking focus because the last time I saw you, you were bashing my face in with an electric baton.”
“Good times, 501. Good times.”
Star adds the orange to the drink and slides it across the bar. “So how do you want this to go? I’d prefer quietly, and I’ll come without a fight.” She has to protect Cas at all costs.
“Please. If I was going to take you back to WRU, I would have already.” Handler Reyes takes a sip of the drink. “Mm. Good job, 501. You make a mean cocktail. Throw a mean punch too. A natural Guard Dog.”
“So then just get this over with!” Star roars, slamming her fist against the counter. “Fucking take me back to Handler Greco already!”
Handler Reyes wrinkles her nose. “See, that’s the problem. The only reason I’m not dragging you back to WRU by that pretty brown hair of yours is because I’ve got a bone to pick with Devin Greco and you back in his arms would bring him far too much pleasure for my liking.”
Star grips the edge of the bar, knuckles turning white. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. That fuck Devin Greco walks around thinking he’s the founder of life as we know it. Getting you back would make him even more smug, somehow, and I couldn’t handle that. Plus, he’d probably just buy you himself so you could never leave.”
Star’s heart skips a beat. “B-buy me?” Not Handler Greco. Not the man who did nothing but drug and beat her and say it was for her own good.
“Oh yeah. He’s obsessed with you.” Handler Reyes takes another sip of her drink. “God, this is good. If you weren’t so feral, I would have put you as a Domestic.”
Star is speechless, her eyes wide and her breath coming quickly.
Handler Reyes chuckles. “You’re terrified, aren’t you? I miss hearing your screams coming from Greco’s training room. And as much as I hate that man, he got the most delicious sounds from you. Do you still know your positions, trainee?”
Star nods, her whole body trembling under Handler Reyes’s cold stare.
“Position six.”
Star’s arms move on their own, extending all the way out with her wrists together, right in front of Handler Reyes.
“Good mutt.” Handler Reyes digs around in her purse. “Do you think I can get a scream out of you?”
Star’s mind immediately shoots to Cas. If he hears her scream, he’ll come running out, and Star doubts that Handler Reyes won’t send him back to Handler Rowan. “No, Handler.”
“We’ll see.” Handler Reyes pulls out a lighter. “This way, I can scar you all I want and not get busted for damaging the merchandise.”
She has to be strong, she has to take this for Cas. “Will you tell Handler Greco you found me?” she asks, fear in her voice.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But first—” Handler Reyes opens the lighter, and a bright flame ignites. “You’re going to burn for me, pretty thing.”
Star bites down on her lip as Handler Reyes brings the lighter closer and closer to the underside of Star’s forearm, watches with building anticipation and a sick feeling in her stomach as she can feel the heat on her skin.
The flame makes contact with her skin, and Star barely manages to contain her whimper. The pain is immediate, searing, and Star wants nothing more than to pull away from the fire. But she holds her position, even as she can smell her own skin burning, mixed with the smell of the bar.
Handler Reyes takes a sip of her drink, tracing the lighter around a small portion of the back of Star’s forearm. “One hell of a bartender, 501.”
Star grits her teeth, tears building in her eyes from the bitter pain. “That’s not my fucking name.”
“It’s what your barcode says. It’s the only thing that matters.”
“Why don’t you do me a favor and burn the barcode off? I’m not a pet. I don’t need it anymore,” Star hisses.
“You’ll need it one day. You’re still just a mutt.” Handler Reyes smirks. “I think you like it, too. The barcode. Belonging somewhere. So no. I won’t burn the barcode off. But I’ll burn the rest of this pretty skin until I get the sound I want.”
“Fuck you.” The pain builds, and Star feels her skin slowly being destroyed. She’s going to be sick. But she can take it, she has to take it.
Handler Reyes doesn’t say another word, Star keeps her screams smothered, and in this silence, she can hear Cas singing away in the kitchen, unaware of how well Star burns. Good. He needs to stay that way at all costs.
The seconds stretch into minutes and the minutes stretch into hours and what must be an eternity of pain passes before Handler Reyes puts the lighter away and goes back to her drink.
Star doesn’t move.
“Impressive. Even the best Guard Dogs I’ve trained would have pulled away, or at least shed a tear.”
Star stares at the far wall, her lip trembling. She’s just a mutt. She’s supposed to take it.
Handler Reyes finishes her drink and slides the empty glass across the counter along with a ten dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
She didn’t say to release position, so Star stays still as a statue.
Handler Reyes pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of Star’s arms, making sure to get her barcode and numbers in the shot. “Just in case Greco gets on my nerves. Relax, 501.”
Star gingerly brings her arms back to her sides, the pain making her eyes misty.
“Go clean yourself up. Don’t worry. I won’t come back again. You’ve served your purpose.” Handler Reyes stands up, looking Star over. “Not a scream. Damn. You really are a cold and calloused mutt.”
“Yes, Handler,” Star whispers.
“Good mutt.” With that, Handler Reyes walks out the door, leaving the smell of burning skin behind.
Star runs over to the sink, letting cool water rush over the burns. It helps, a little, enough that she’s able to bite back her cry of pain when she puts a jacket on. Cas can’t know what happened here.
There’s things to do. Glasses to wash, liquor to organize and label, drink mix to throw away.
Star stands in place, staring out on the bar.
Something wet runs down her cheek.
She’s crying.
Just like that, Star is crying. From the pain and the humiliation and the knowledge that she’s just a mutt and she’ll never be anything more. Just a mutt. Just a toy.
She twists a towel around her hands until she cuts off her own circulation and silently, she cries, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.
She breaks. She rebuilds. She repeats.
And she pushes it all down the minute she hears Cas call out for her, wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her jacket. “Coming, Cas,” she says, keeping her voice neutral.
He can’t know how close he was to going back, what Star just let happen to her. He can never know. It’s just the way it is. She has to keep him safe.
She doesn’t know why, but she’s drawn to him like nothing she’s ever felt, so she has to keep him safe.
It’s what good mutts do.
It’s what good people do, too, and Star is a mix of both these days.
Continued from HERE
ReferencesTHIS
Sunny and Star Crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump@painful-pooch - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, lady whump, stabbing aftermath, PTSD flashback, self-hatred, dehumanization, memory gaps, complex feelings around trauma and bonded whumpees, idk how to tag this
***
Star had to stitch up her own wound. Unravel the bottom of a towel, thread a needle she’s used one too many times, and weave it around the wound to stop the bleeding before she passed out. She’s done this before, she knows she has. The scar on the other side of her torso that she doesn’t remember getting tells her a story of its own.
She’s done this before.
Push the needle in and out of skin, try to ignore how her nerves feel like they’re on fire, try to ignore the images flashing in her head nonstop. Sunny, coming at her with a knife.
She loves him. She still does.
She loves him even though she can’t stop seeing the way his face looked the moment before he plunged the knife in. Determined, almost. Like he wanted to do it.
But that…it’s pulling up things she’s not supposed to know, false memories that are just a natural part of training. They’re just false memories.
That dark hallway, the glint of a knife as someone approaches her…it’s just false memories. A communal bathroom, blood on her hands and the smell of death in the air…it’s just false memories, false memories, it’s all false memories.
She doesn’t realize she’s hyperventilating until she feels like she’s running out of oxygen, finds herself on her hands and knees, sweaty forehead pressed to the wooden floor, teeth gritting together.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
How did she get back to the pet room from the bathroom, she doesn’t remember putting a white bandage over the stitches. She’s losing time, losing time, losing time, she’s remembering things that shouldn’t be there.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
Loud music, drums and guitar and someone singing but the drums stop and she’s on her knees and she can’t breathe, she’s not supposed to remember any of this. False memories, false memories for her stupid bad mutt brain.
How can Sunny love her when she’s fucked in the head, you know that?
Does he even love her?
She would have stabbed herself if he had asked. She once was a Guard Dog, she could have done it right, made sure nothing bad happened to her organs, made sure the wound was just enough to stop her stupid mutt paws from hurting Mr. Bianchi but not so bad that Star swears she heard the knife scrape bone.
She’s supposed to think about her bonded to calm herself down. Supposed to focus on her beautiful Sunshine’s face, but now that face is connected to the gleam of a knife and the gleam of a knife is connected to a dark hallway and the rotting stench of infection and blood and sweat and something darker, low throbbing energy that makes her want to stand up and scream. It’s a pulse of violence, the desire to crack her hands against a brick wall, adrenaline coursing through her along with a twisting sense of dread.
She can feel phantom hands pulling her along, phantom hands kicking and clawing and punching at her and the distant, false memory of her own hands pushing back, of her own lips pulling up into a satisfied snarl and she’s lying on her back now, gasping for breath and whining softly.
Phantom pain on her body…not her body, Mr. Bianchi’s body, Sunny’s body, just a vessel for her stupid mutt brain.
What are you what are you what ARE you, girl
I’m your worst goddamn nightmare
“I’m a mutt,” she whispers into the nothingness.
“I, I’m b-back.”
Star props herself up on her elbows and looks at him but his face makes her think of the knife and the knife makes her think of her false memories and this is a bad night, bad pain night with her head splitting itself open.
She turns away and doesn’t say a word because the face that brought her so much light and joy is just sending her down dark hallways and false memories and things that just show how she’s a stupid bad mutt.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
He’s crouching down next to her and whispering something and Star is everywhere and nowhere all at once, the pet room and Hunter’s bedroom and the Facility and dark hallways that are just her false memories.
She whimpers, she’s not angry anymore, she’s in too much pain and too tired.
She does so much to protect him. She tries her hardest and she takes all the punishments she can because she understands how her owner operates beyond just wanting to please him. She knows he’ll hit them anyways but if she can divert his attention and take all the pain no matter what it is, maybe Sunny won’t become a stupid ugly mutt like her.
She has to talk to him, though, she’s bound by chemical need and what WRU made her into. “You hurt me,” she says, her voice hoarse from holding back her screams when she sewed herself up.
“I, I know.”
She keeps her eyes closed, can’t look at his face, can’t look at his face and she can’t explain why the idea of that fills her with fear. Her skin is cold and clammy and it’s like she’s holding onto a ledge that’s crumbling underneath her fingertips.
She’s not allowed to let go.
Falling means death, fists pounding into her face that won’t stop or Handlers with drugs and batons or Hunter with his whip or Sunny with his knife. Falling means failure and failure means death.
“You hurt me,” she repeats.
“Y-you were, were going to h-hurt Sir.”
It’s supposed to be so plain and simple but it’s not, it’s not and the ledge crumbles a little more.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
“Okay,” she whispers. “I fixed my own wound, in case you were wondering. You didn’t ask but I’ll tell you anyways. I sewed my own wound shut.” She tries to hang onto her own words, tries to pull herself off the ledge but her muscles are so weak.
“I h-had to do that,” he whispers.
She doesn’t look at him but she can still feel him tense, she feels his heartbeat and his anxiety like it’s her own.
“Why?”
It’s one word.
One word that seems to such all the life out of the air.
So she repeats it.
“Why?”
One word and it’s a death sentence, one word and Star feels like her ribs are going to cave in.
She’s searching for something that doesn’t exist and they both know it. Looking for a light in a darkness that isn’t there.
“I h-had to.”
“That’s not an answer.” She’ll always be the bad pet, the pet full of hatred and anger, the discount mutt. She knows that won’t change. But he could talk to her. Please. She can’t take all the pain on her own, she needs to be helped up from the ledge even though she’s a stupid mutt who doesn’t deserve it.
“Can, can we just g-go to bed? Sir h-h-hit me.”
Compartmentalize. Push it all down and learn how to deal with it. She doesn’t have another choice. She has to pull herself up the ledge again even though she doesn’t even understand where she is. Her and the world and a foggy pane of glass but leaving her eyes closed feels like safety. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs to him.
“It, it’s okay.” She feels him snuggle up to her and she winces from his bony elbow pressing into her wound.
“You stabbed me,” she reminds him, her heart racing in her chest. Hands on her is bad, she has to fight and win but she can’t. It’s her bonded, she can’t hurt him. “How?”
“Because you, you threatened S-Sir.”
“But I’ve tried to hurt you before and it didn’t work.” Eyes still closed and she’s slipping under again. “Even when Sir told me to, it didn’t work.”
“C-can we go to bed?” Sunny asks, his voice a little more insistent.
“I don’t think the knife hit anything major,” Star responds. “If you were wondering.” It’s almost like he’s forgotten but Star is still dangling from the ledge.
“Oh-okay.”
It’s with her eyes still closed that Star crawls over to the sheets, her wound burning, and falls over, panting.
Sunny’s right there, curling up next to her.
Another brief moment of silence before he speaks again. “I d-did it because you were thinking bad, bad thoughts and I needed to f-fix you before you, before you did something stupid.”
“Right. Because I’m just a stupid mutt.”
Sunny nods and a tiny part of Star shatters.
“N-night, S-Star,” Sunny whispers, holding her to him.
It hurts, but she doesn’t say no. He corrected her behavior once, she doesn’t want him to do it again. Pets can’t say no.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
“It, it’s okay. We’re okay now.”
Star doesn’t sleep that night.
She’s still dangling off the ledge.
For@whumpawoman Angstpril! Day 15 - Hidden Injuries
Sunny and Star Crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump@painful-pooch - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, facility whump, lady whump, nonsexual partial nudity, dehumanization, possesive whumper
***
“Lift in three…two…one.” Devin Greco lifts up one side of 728501 while another Guard Dog handler, Analyn Reyes, grabs the other side of her. Together, they move the trainee onto a metal table, her pale skin almost sickly in the harsh lighting. Greco looks down at her, smirking. “You’re good, Analyn. I don’t need you anymore.”
“I want to stay,” Analyn says, her voice smooth. She moves to stand by the wall. “You’ve talked so much shit about how you got this trainee, I want to see what’s under the surface.”
“We’re lucky she’s drugged.” Greco starts stripping 501 down to her undergarments. “Since you’re here, grab the clipboard and start taking notes.”
When he’s got 501 out of her clothes, his eyes go wide. “Holy fuck.” 501’s got some scars on her, some injuries that he didn’t find during intake, hidden by that stupid baggy shirt she was wearing when he grabbed her. She’s only been at WRU for two days, not long enough for all the marks to heal, and certainly not long enough for some of these scars to fade.
“What?” Analyn asks.
Greco gives her a long look. “You can come see, but don’t get too handsy.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to get too close to the fucking mutt,” Analyn says, walking back over. “Holy shit.”
Greco smirks. “Told you. Alright, let’s get this started before she wakes up and starts trying to bite. Hands are—”
“Start from the head and work down,” Analyn says. “Head, neck, torso, arms, legs.”
He glares at her. “Fine.” He turns all of his attention back to the pet on the table, reaching out to push her brown hair out of her face with his gloved hands, already planning her next punishment. “Tiny, tiny scar on her right temple. Practically unnoticeable.”
“Got it,” Analyn says.
“Nose is crooked by…not much. Maybe half a degree. Shouldn’t be noticeable to any perspectives. Hell, I think it gives the kid some character.”
“Leave the personal comments out of it,” Analyn says.
Greco rolls his eyes. Analyn Reyes is a good Guard Dog Handler, but she’s all protocol, no fun. Doesn’t bend the rules, not even with something like 501. The rules are meant to be broken when it comes to a feral, gorgeous mutt like her. “Faint scar on cheekbone, bruise on jaw,” he calls out. “My girl’s a spitfire.”
“Your girl is going to be a fucking menace, based on what you’ve told me so far.” Analyn taps her pen against the clipboard. “Need me to take the collar off so you can look at her neck?”
“No. I saw it when she came in. There’s nothing there.”
“You mean when you had her tied to a chair for days trying to see to see if she would break.”
“I’m glad she didn’t,” Greco murmurs, tracing his fingers across the trainee’s shoulders, admiring the strong muscles there. “I’m going to make her crumble into a million different pieces so I can be the one to tape her back together.” He pulls his hand away, only to slap her across the face.
Analyn makes a face, seemingly annoyed. “Next thing?”
“Worried she’s going to wake up?” He shoots her a smug smirk. “I want to see what the kid was hiding from me during intake. All the damage that this body has taken.” He runs his gloved hands down her torso, lingering on a wicked two inch long scar, tiny dots from stitches on either side. “Well, hello there,” he says, running his hand over where the scar divots into her skin. “Kid got stabbed.”
Analyn looks over. “Seems like it.”
Greco’s eyes lock back onto the sleeping face of 501. “What else are you hiding, Marlow?”
“728501,” Analyn corrects.
“Does it matter? I like knowing her name. Makes it so much better looking at her now.”
“Anything else on the torso?”
“Relax, Analyn.” Greco puts his thumb against 501’s lip, parting them. “I think she’d look amazing with some metal fangs.”
“Greco. Irrelevant.”
Greco shrugs. “Not to me.” He pulls his finger away from her lips, tracing her arms. “Few faint scars on the arms, looks to be shallow knife wounds. Her knuckles are bruised, but I guess I already knew that.”
Analyn makes the notes quickly, and Greco moves onto her legs. “A few various knife wounds on the legs. Nothing much. But damn. She’s muscular.”
“Already knew that.” Analyn frowns. “Flip her over.”
Greco eases his arms underneath the sleeping trainee and rolls her onto her stomach. What he sees makes him stop in his tracks, makes anger cloud his vision, his mind roaring with thunder. “What. The. Fuck.”
“Oh, *shit.*” Analyn keeps tapping her pencil against the clipboard. “How…”
501 has a massive bruise spanning most of her back, a combination of purple and angry red, swollen up from her skin. Greco gingerly reaches his hand to touch it, feeling how warm it is. It’s almost like 501 was attacked by a wild animal, thrown into the wall over and over again. If she hadn’t been walking this morning, Greco would have assumed something was broken.
“How did this happen?” Analyn asks, her voice hushed.
Greco’s still trying to figure that himself, running through all possible options in his head. It couldn’t have happened today, he hasn’t left his girl alone—
He went home last night and left her under Handler Robinson’s care. “That *bitch,*” he hisses, pulling out his phone and calling her.
“What?” She answers in a bored tone.
“What the fuck did you do to my dog?”
“She jumped at me. So I had one of my trainees teach her a fucking lesson.”
“No. Fuck that. She could beat the shit out of all your trainees.” Greco’s vision is going red at the edges, he can barely breathe. “Tell me the truth, Analyn, or I swear to fuck…” Greco’s got plenty of influence around here, just as much as Willow, but he has more…connections than her.
“I’m telling you the truth. I had one of my trainees use her back as a punching bag while she was tied up and muzzled.”
“Who gave you permission to do that to her?”
“I have seniority over you, Greco. And she’s fine.”
The line goes dead, and Greco stares at his phone, seething. “That bitch.”
Analyn snickers. “She had it coming.”
Greco stares at her “Don’t. Don’t even go there.”
“Fine. Fine. I’ll note this in the injury report.”
“The bitch mutt fucking hid this from me, too.” Greco grabs 501 by the back of her hair and yanks her head back. “Oh, kid. I’m going to teach you one hell of a lesson when you wake up.”
“I’ll forward this information over,” Analyn says.
“And find out which one of Willow’s mutts did this to my girl.”
She gives him the middle finger. “Do I look like your fucking secretary? Figure it out yourself.” With that, she walks out of the room, leaving Greco alone with 501.
He begins carefully redressing her. “I didn’t want anyone else to touch you,” he murmurs into her ear, not caring that she can’t hear him. “Those mutts are nothing like you. They’re worthless.”
Marlow Lancaster. 728501. Greco wants to ruin both.
“I’m going to give you purpose, kid.” Greco grabs a muzzle, fastening it to 501’s face. “And I’m going to show you that you should never fucking lie to me like that. You tell me everything. Even if I don’t ask.”
It’s funny, how innocent she looks in her slumber. Like a true eighteen year old, barely old enough to vote, not even old enough to drink. But she’s not human. She’s a vicious, bloodthirsty mutt.
“If you’re extra good—“ He runs his hand through her hair. “I’ll let you really fuck up the dog that hurt you. Wish you could hear me right now, kid. You’re mine. Understand? Mine.”
It’s laughable that she thought she could go to college. Something with so much potential shouldn’t bother with that.
“Mine. You’re never going to forget me, not even once we’re apart. Mine, kid. All mine.”
For@whumpawoman Angstpril! Day 12 - Forced to Watch
Cassiel Belanger belongs to @painful-pooch and is used with permission
Continued HERE (coming soon)
Across the Stars and Through the Meadow Masterlist (Cas and Star AU)
Tagging the Star crew: @ashintheairlikesnow@whumpinggrounds@whumptakesthecake@justplainwhump@whumpfessional@winedark-whump
CW: EXPLICIT NONCON, NSFWHUMP, MINORS DNI, lady whump, BBU, former pet whumpees, dehumanization, derogatory language, degradation, self-hatred, defiant whumpee, this is fairly intense so let me know if I missed anything!
***
“Excuse me.”
Star turns around, one hand on her hip, the other holding an empty glass. Tonight’s been slammed, she’s barely had a minute to breathe, let alone go pop an Advil for the pain creeping into her bones. “Give me one moment, I’m making a drink.”
The man across the bar, the one who interrupted her, sheepishly smiles. He’s not unattractive, in his late twenties. His friends have been by the pool tables for the last thirty minutes, all playing horribly. “I’m afraid it can’t exactly wait. Someone’s in the bathroom, he seems really sick and I don’t know what to do.”
“Fine.” She sets the glass down and wipes her hands off. She looks around for her knife, better safe than sorry, but swears internally when she remembers that Cas took it because he thought she was in a bad mood this morning.
Damn you, Cassiel. She glares over at the kitchen, but all he does is wave eagerly at her.
Star steps out from around the counter. “Alright. Let’s go. The sick dude, he one of your friends?”
There’s a slight pause before the man answers, something off about his voice. “No. I just went in to…you know.” His laughter sounds forced, and Star doesn’t like how close he’s standing. Her fingers twitch, wishing she had her knife.
“Actually, you know what?” She says, stopping in her tracks. “Let me go grab the bouncer, if this guy’s really that drunk, I could use the help.”
The man puts his hand on her upper back. “I’m sure he’s busy. I’ll help you out if he gets too rowdy.”
Star looks over her shoulder, but she can see Andy busy checking people in at the door and watching over the crowd. “Yeah. Okay.”
They make it to the bathroom, and the man opens the door. “After you.”
She nods at him and steps in. The lights are off, and she fumbles for the light switch, but not before she hears the door lock behind her.
Starr finds the light switch, and her heart sinks at what she sees. There’s no sick man in sight. Instead, there are three other men standing there, one holding a switchblade.
“What the fuck!” Star yells, turning around to escape, but the man from before blocks her.
“Not so fast.” He steps forward, crowding her into the center of the room. “Don’t make a sound, little boxie, or Owen will slit your throat.”
They want her to fight. They want to take her back to WRU and make her into a good Guard Dog. They want to get the pretty finder’s fee on runaway pets.
Star stares defiantly at the man, a growl escaping her throat. “Let me out and I won’t shatter your skull.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Star whips around, seeing that each man has stepped even farther forward, boxing her in. Her heart pounds into her chest. Think. Be reasonable. If they want to take her to WRU, they probably have some drugs or something to knock her out. She just has to fight her way out of here.
She was always one hell of a fighting mutt.
Star shakes her head and takes up a defensive stance, slowly stepping around to make eye contact with each of the men. “I’ll kill you before I go back.”
“Go back where?” One of the men asks, a sadistic grin on his face.
Star stares at him. “You know where.” There’s a single beat, one half moment of silence before she lunges forward, aiming a kick at the man’s chest. It lands, and he goes stumbling backwards, but someone is grabbing Star from behind, pinning her arms behind her back.
She snarls, thrashing in the grip and shooting her leg out behind her.
Greco taught her well, she’s lucky for that, lucky she caught onto the training so quickly. She catches her attacker in the sensitive spot just above the knee and wrenches herself from his grasp. She doesn’t wait a moment before she attacks the next person, trying to land a flurry of punches and drive the man away so she can get to the door.
Get to the door. She knows this drill, she’s done it before. Get to the door and protect your owner. She always was such a good fighter, but these days, her body is breaking down.
Pain shoots through her back, and Star winces, her rhythm thrown off by the sudden flash of agony. She stumbles backwards, hitting the far wall, and one of the men takes the chance to jump on her and start punching.
Star’s vision blurs, her ears ring as the blows rain down on her face, blood dripping from her nose and mouth and cheek. She puts her hands up to protect her head, knowing her only option is to try to protect herself
The first man walks up to her, grabbing her by the hair and twisting her head back to look at him. “You fucking bitch.”
One of the other men slams his fist into her stomach, and Star doubles over, gasping for breath. “Who’s she going with first?”
So they’re going to take turns carting her back to WRU, back to the white walls. Star whimpers. She has to get out of here, she can’t go back but her body is being torn apart by pain.
“You take her first,” the man with the switchblade says, gesturing at the first man. “You were the one who got the dumb bitch in here.”
He smirks. “With pleasure.” He twists his hand further into Star’s hair and pushes her forwards.
She kicks and screams and scratches at his arms, but she knows no one can hear her. No one can save her. It’s just her with no chance to say goodbye.
The man bends her over the sink and lets go of her hair, only to grab her hands and roughly zip tie them behind her back. “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” he hisses into her ear.
What’s that supposed to mean? Star stares down at the sink, still trying to kick her legs to get the man off of her.
“Stop fucking moving,” the man with the switchblade says, grabbing a fistful of Star’s hair and yanking her head back, forcing her to look at herself in the mirror.
Star sees her long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, she sees her green eyes full of pain and fear, she sees her pale skin underneath the bathroom lighting with her hands tied behind her back and she sees her face bloody and bruised and broken. She sees the man behind her run his hands down her back because she doesn’t want to feelit.
Star goes still. “How are you going to take me back without people seeing?” she asks.
“Take you back?” The man with the switchblade laughs and presses the knife to her neck. “Oh, you dumb bitch. You’re not going anywhere.”
“What do you–”
Star is cut off when the first man hooks his fingers in the waistband of her jeans and slowly starts pulling them down.
Aren’t you lucky to be here, 501? Not down the hall with the Romantics?
The pieces click together as soon as the man has pulled Star’s jeans and underwear all the way down. “I’m not a–” She can’t think, she can’t process what’s happening. “I’m not trained for this, Sir.”
“You don’t need to be trained,” the man hisses. “You just need to stay right there and don’t fucking scream.”
Star’s eyes dart to the side, panic clouding her brain, her breath coming in quick pants. This can’t be real, this can’t be happening, she doesn’t know what to do, how to react.
The man with the switchblade digs the knife into her throat, drawing a bead of blood and sharp pain with it. “Look at yourself. Go on. Watch yourself.”
Star looks at the mirror, her heart shattering as she sees her eyes. No longer human and brave and defiant and everything she liked about herself, everything she had gotten back from WRU. Just afraid.
The man runs a finger across her slit, and Star whimpers, sick to her stomach and disgusted with herself. “I’ll go back,” she whispers. “I don’t want this.”
The man hushes her. “You don’t need to talk. Just take it, bitch.”
The other two men walk to stand by the door, both staring at Star, staring between her legs at what’s now bared to them.
Star can’t close her eyes, can’t look away. She can’t do this. Greco might have drugged her and beat her and broke her down but he never did this to her. She’s never had sex before, not even in her false memories. She doesn’t even want to have sex. “Please,” she whispers at her reflection.
Her reflection doesn’t answer.
“Going to prep her?” one of the men asks.
“Nope.”
Star feels something press against her entrance. She’s dry and scared and she doesn’t want this, please, she doesn’t want this. She twists around, trying to free herself.
The man with the switchblade tightens his grip on her hair and presses the knife further into Star’s throat. “Keep moving and you’ll bleed out.”
She doesn’t want to have sex with this man. She doesn’t want to die like this, she wants to die in the hospital like she’s supposed to in a few years.
She stays still and hates herself for it.
“She’s nervous,” the man with the switchblade says, smirking. “I don’t think she’s done this before.”
“Good. She’ll be tight.”
Tight? What does that mean…oh. Oh. No, absolutely not, she can’t, she doesn’t want this, she can’t even think about it.
There’s no fighting this, no way out.
So Star screams, hoping someone, anyone will hear her and come in and save her from this…this thing that Star can’t name, even if it’s just having sex.
Greco had protected her from this for so long.
Maybe it’s not a good thing that she left him, because now…this can happen. Without Greco, she has to have sex.
Her scream is short-lived by the man with the switchblade putting his hand over her mouth and snapping, “Hand me her panties.”
There’s a brief rustle of movement before she sees her gray underwear being passed to the man with the switchblade. He pries her mouth open and shoves the fabric in there. “Finally. Now you can fuck her.”
Star chokes on her underwear, her eyes filling with tears. No. She can’t cry, it has to be fine, it’s just sex, right?
“Hold her head up,” the man behind her says. “I want her to watch herself get used.”
Get used? Maybe that’s what this is. She’s getting used. There’s not a difference between that and sex.
The man with the switchblade yanks Star’s head back up, and she’s forced to confront her dead green eyes again, the underwear distorting her face and making her look disgusting. Worthless. Like a piece of shit, useless bitch who deserves to die.
Maybe it’s a good thing she’s gagged so Cas doesn’t have to see the worthless mutt he rescued being…used like this.
She holds her gaze at her reflection and her reflection stares back as she hears a bottle cap opening and a clumsy hand spreading something gelatinous and cold across her vagina. “Don’t want her to tear, knowing the three of you are going after me?”
There’s *more?*
The man with the switchblade grabs at Star’s thin black t-shirt, and with one strong pull, he rips it off of her and slices her bra off with his knife.
She’s naked and she hates this so much and Handler Greco was supposed to keep her safe from this.
It’s what she gets for leaving him behind.
“Perfect tits.” The man behind her runs the back of his hand down her back, stopping at her bound wrists. “Let me show you how a real man fucks a whore, gentlemen.”
A whore. That’s the word she was looking for, the word to describe what she really is. She’s a whore.
“Gonna fill this useless bitch up with my cock.” The man thrusts in.
More of Star’s hope vanishes.
He pulls out. Thrusts in again.
Any light left in Star’s eyes is gone.
He pulls out again. Thrusts in again.
Star, the whore mutt, doesn’t want to be here anymore.
Pulls out, thrusts in, over and over and over.
All Star can do is look at her bruised, bloody, pathetic face in the mirror and hold back her tears and watch herself shatter. She should have stayed with Handler Greco. She should have done something different.
But instead she takes a stranger’s cock like a good whore with her underwear in her mouth and she’s breaking. The reflection in the mirror moans around the gag. The reflection’s cheeks are streaked with tears, the reflection’s body rocks with each thrust. The reflection reacts, moves like a good pet.
But Star is so far gone.
Loyalty’s Price for a Saber’s Worth
For@amonthofwhump’s Mafia Madness!
Prompt: Snitches and Stitches
Tagging the crew: @ocean-blue-whump,@for-the-love-of-nsfwhump,@gottawhump,@ocean-blue-whump, and @winedark-whump
Referencing@ocean-blue-whump ’s Nessa because she and Farkas are a bad couple!
CW: Pet whump, BBU, lady whump, organized crime, conditioned whumpee, derogatory language, gun violence, knife violence, bondage, death threats, mentions of past abuse and torture, mentions of drugs, Faraday and Farkas deserve their own warning, and death (not a major character)
~~~
Saber stood to the side of the room, closest to the door, her eyes locked dead ahead while Faraday and Farkas, his nephew, both were roaring at a man that had gone to blab to the police about some shady shit happening at one of the warehouses by the pier. Their screaming always terrified her, but she couldn’t let that show.
She was built to handle it all and trained how to be a good Abernathy dog, worthy of a special collar that separated her from the domestics and romantics, but… not like it mattered when it came to Farkas. She was scared of him the most, especially if Nessa, his girlfriend, was around too. They both knew just how to make her miserable, and she knew that she couldn’t let the pain be shown unless they wanted it obvious. They’d make sure of that at least.
“Really?! You thought the cops were going to put you in some witness protection shit, Winston? Are you fucking stupid?!” Farkas asked, slapping the man who was tied up, his hands tied up above him with chains. Saber used her peripherals to see that the man was stripped down to his boxers, his torso covered in splotches of black and blue, red accented wherever it managed to find the canvas that was their unmarred skin.
A laugh came from Faraday and he held a knife under Winston’s chin. “I have half a mind to send your ass to WRU, have them wipe you, and give you to your wife, so she can see what a disgrace you became. At what cost, hmmm? You thought you were going to one up me or something? How about I just get rid of your entire bloodline and have you bury them?” He inquired, digging the tip of the blade in, the poor man sobbing and looking up at his torturer.
For@amonthofwhump Mafia Madness! Prompt: Family Business
Tagging a few people who might be interested: @painful-pooch@whumptakesthecake - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, lady whump, organized crime, heavily conditioned whumpee, derogatory language, mention of severed fingers, not super heavy on the whump but a look at the McIntyre family, consensual sex mention
***
“Does the pet really have to be here for this?” Siobhan asks, crossing her arms across her chest from her seat at the head of the table, her pursed lips painted mulberry purple.
Rhys smirks. “Of course she has to be here. My toy can be good.” He sits down in his chair and pats his lap. “Up.”
Pumpkin gives Rhys a longing look, climbing up into her Master’s lap and burying her face against his chest. He grins, running his hand along her back. His gorgeous toy. So obedient. So perfect.
Siobhan rolls her eyes. “I still don’t understand why you bought a Romantic. My Guard Dogs are much more useful.”
Making the McIntyre Toy
For@amonthofwhump Mafia Madness! Prompt: Rite of Passage/Initiation
Introducing you to Irish mob boss Rhys McIntyre and his pet Pumpkin, and their very dysfunctional relationship. These characters were first created in RP with @whumptakesthecake, so thank you, Alex!
Tagging a few people who might be interested: @painful-pooch @whumptakesthecake - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: pet whump, BBU, lady whump, organized crime, heavily conditioned whumpee, derogatory language, stripping (nonsexual), gun in mouth, tattooing
***
Rhys runs his hand over the pet’s lower back. “Take your shirt off, Pumpkin,” he says in a low, growly voice. “Just the shirt.”
Pumpkin trembles under his touch, but undoes the buttons on her white shirt and pulls it off, folding it neatly.
Rhys takes the shirt from her and throws it into the corner of the dimly lit room, leaving the pet in nothing but a bra and navy blue pants. “Tonight, my pet will officially be allowed to take her place under my control as a McIntyre toy. She’ll receive our family crest.” His sharp Irish accent echoes off the walls and bounces back to him and the pet.
Pumpkin keeps her back straight and her chin up. She’s earned this. She’s fought for this. Her place as a McIntyre toy wasn’t just given like all those other pets. She deserves this.
Mafia Week: Family Business
Decided to put my Paul Higgs story on the backburner so I can have more fun with it, and wrote a wee little epilogue for this week’s Nanda and Jameson showcase instead!
For@amonthofwhump’s Mafia Madness - Family Business
-
Kidnapping|Snitches and Stitches|Vendetta|Assassination | Family Business
CW: Pet whump, intimate whumper, internal injuries, injured whumpee, creepy comfort, some brief dubcon references, dehumanizing/degrading language, Nanda is kind of a possessive creep, but also this is pretty soft? They’re so weird. Just a little epilogue, of sorts.
-
The pet’s eyes narrow as he watches Nanda enter the room. He’s weighted down under heavy blankets, layers that keep the air around his body warm, working with the painkillers to keep him loose-limbed and languid, barely able to move.
Not that he wants to. Every slight shift sends a thrill of pain up his spine from somewhere deep inside of him. Even taking too deep a breath brings to brief, blurry life the aches and pains he’s littered with. It breaks through the wall constructed by the drugs that hold him, fuzzy and protected from the awful ache of his own body.
The odd, unpleasant medic is gone – with his businesslike invading fingers, his way of causing pain without any method of making it good,his flat stare as he worked. His pet is gone, too, the Platonic who had come out of shock only to cry until Arvid took him in his arms and whispered to him, the pet nodding and nodding like a puppet on a string, his sobs turning to sniffles and then to whispers in return.
He had never looked at the pet, not once. The other pet had treated him like he’s invisible, like the others always treat the Romantics, but at least it’s better than treating him like he’s a lying little snitch.
Eventually, they’d gone, with Arvid shoving a bottle of rattling pills into Nanda’s hand and giving him timing and dosage the pet couldn’t overhear. He doesn’t know if he’s being given too much or not enough.
He just has to trust Nanda.
And he tries.
For@amonthofwhump Mafia Madness! Prompt: Vendetta
Tagging:@painful-pooch@whumptakesthecake - let me know if you want to be added/removed!
CW: organized crime, referenced pet whump/BBU, referenced workplace sexual harrassment, threats
***
“I don’t want you to handle it like this.”
Donal checks over his shoulder, making sure no around. Rhys, his crazy bastard of a brother, would consider this to be an act of treason. “I told you. I’ll take care of it. He could come back for you. He hurt you. And I won’t let it happen again.” His throat catches. “No matter what the rest of our siblings say…you’re family.”
“They still don’t suspect you?” Her voice sounds so scared and weak.
Donal’s expression darkens. “They underestimate me. I play my part well, Eireann. They think I’ve shunned you, too.”
Retaliation
Sasha
CW/TW: blood, knife, killing, death. For @amonthofwhump Mafia Madness: Assassination.
“You thought you could steal from me, Maxim?”
“You thought you could spy on the whole damn organization, Aleksandr! Or was that your so clever husband’s idea?”
“It hardly matters now.” He shrugs, displaying more calm than he feels. “You stole from me, you damaged my property, you tried to blackmail us.”
He moves closer as he speaks, the words mostly meant to distract the other man. People trying to verbally riposte often forget to guard themselves physically. And Maxim’s used to relying on his Guard Dog.
He’d already dealt with the Guard Dog, knocking it out with a tranquilizer dose before it raised an alarm.
“Youupset my so clever husband, Maxim.” With that his arm lashes out, too quick to block, slashing Maxim’s throat open, carotid to jugular, deep red blood pulsing out the other man’s life in seconds.
He scrubs away all signs of his presence before he leaves, as he always does.
At random, whenever they strike me, have some little bits of whump.
CW: PET WHUMP, BBU
AU: Riley, a big tough Guard Dog “box boy” captive, inherited or caught and sold, not back to WRU, but into a black market for underground “Dog” fights.
Picture him kneeling in a darkened cell, muzzled, chained wrists above his head so he can’t lie down. They’ll leave him like that, depriving him of sleep to wear him down before they go in to teach him his place and his new role.
