Bones in the Ocean (Original fantasy writing, siren whump, captivity, magical stuff happenin’)
Daniel Michaelson’s Story (contains some shared content with @evermetnotforgotten) pet whump, conditioning, captivity, rescue, recovery, torture
Erase to Control (Kauri) + Misc BBU Content (contains collabs with @the-host-and-colton and more!) Conditioning, pet whump, BBU/box boy, trauma recovery
What We Can’t Make Right: Jake, Chris, etc (contains references to @deluxewhump‘s Z2 writings) neurodivergent whumpee, pet whump, BBU/box boy, trauma recovery
Vampire Chris AU: vampire whumpee, drugging, drug use, pet whump, trauma recovery, blood drinking, creepy whumpers, neurodivergent whumpee
Chris Saves Himself AU: Trauma recovery, neurodivergent whumpee, drug withdrawal, imperfect caretakers
Little More Than a Chance: New Rescues. Pet whump, conditioned trauma, BBU, group whumpees, trauma recovery, torture (if link doesn’t work, click here for backup)
A Little Town Called Hope and Other BBU Stories: Trauma recovery, lab whump (eventually), BBU, box boy universe, environmental whump (Alternate list here if the original does not work)
What Makes a Monster: Killan Josta (@wildfaewhump‘s universe) Dehumanization, monster whump, magical whump, fantasy setting
Signs of the Sea (mer whump, lab whump, medical whump, captivity)
The Motherfucking Gallaghers - collaborative storyline with @comfy-whumpee‘s Jax Gallagher. Intimate/creepy whumper, lady whumper, shock collars, captivity, slavery
My AO3 Account (includes fanfiction for A Darker Shade of Magic / VE Schwab’s ADSOM series, as well as Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, plus original fiction that doesn’t work on Tumblr)
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I have a tendency to just flat out forget to update for weeks at a time. Check the character tags attached to this post and you may find newer pieces I haven’t added in to any of the masterlists just yet.
If Nadeem was given sunglasses he would love them and also look very cool
You're damn right. He's already got crow's feet at the ripe age of 27 from so much time spent squinting through the desert sun. Throw on a pair of obsidian shades? He'd rock 'em.
joey reveals some of his trauma and doesn't have a great understanding of it
written at 9pm and not proofread so go read the tags at the bottom if you're a little confused (i am also a little confused)
CW/TW: pet whumpee with slight existential crisis, (nongraphic) mention of involuntary body modfications (piercings, finger and ear amputations, 'debarking'), whumpee is slightly drunk
kinda references these two pieces
---
Marla had made mulled wine that evening. The year before she had been in Germany for part of the holidays and had developed an appreciation for the spicy drink. The taste was a little strong for Joey's palate, but he enjoyed the burst of heat as the liquid hit his tongue, and drank from his mug in small sips. The kitchen smelled warm and inviting. In the sink were two empty mugs; Joey still had his. He was presently seated at the bottom of the staircase in the hallway, mug cradled between his hands with his second helping of wine while he watched Aaron and Marla get ready for their date night.
He was a little bit tired from the day (The Fellowship of the Ring, a walk in the neighborhood, shakshouka on the kitchen island for lunch, and Marla's attempt at teaching him Crazy Eights) and a little bit buzzed from the drink. His inhibitions were altogether pleasantly lowered. He was dimly aware of this fact and it did nothing to pull him back down to earth again. Here he was, warm, comfortable, a little sleepy, full and sated, a treat between his hands and in the same room as his favourite people. He idly wondered if this feeling was happiness, or if it was just the alcohol that made him feel this way.
"We're going to be late, Marla. The reservation is at seven," Aaron said, sounding only slightly resigned as he held up Marla's midnight blue coat for her. He was already wearing his own, complete with the burgundy scarf Marla had helped Joey pick out and order for him for Christmas a few weeks ago.
Marla didn't pause her rifling through the drawer of the console table. "I know that, but I can't find my earrings-"
"What do they look like?"
That made her pause and look back at Aaron over her shoulder.
"If I don't know where they are, then you're not going to find them," she said, as if it was the plainest fact in the world. Maybe it was, Joey wondered. Aaron had thought he'd misplaced his tie one morning, only to find that it never left the drawer in the first place. The memory made Joey smile. He had seen Aaron exit his bedroom that morning, sans tie, but back then he had been to scared to bring it up. Instead, he had resigned to watch Aaron hurry back and forth between the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom until he finally found the rolled up strip of silk.
Right now, the though of not being brave enough to talk to Aaron seemed silly. That version of him felt far away, as if he was looking at him through water, light and noise distorted.
"Come on, I can help you look at least," Aaron said, as he not-so-descreetly glanced at his wristwatch. Marla closed her eyes for a brief second before turning to face him.
"Fine. They're little hoops, but wide at the bottom. Gold."
Aaron blinked and then cleared his throat. "What does that mean?" he asked, and Joey couldn't help but smile into his mug.
"Really? They're hoops." She moved her finger in a circular motion in the air. "There's no other way to explain it."
"Golden hoops," Aaron muttered, clueless, and Marla lifted her hand to her face.
"You can borrow mine."
The words slipped out of Joey before he could stop them.
They both turned towards him, and a little twinge of uneasiness woke to life in his chest at so suddenly going from being a spectator to being the sole object of their inquiring attention.
"Yours?" Marla asked, and Joey nodded.
"Yeah." He turned his head and brushed his hair back, and pushed the lobe of his ear out with his finger, showing them the stud.
"They're not hoops, but they're gold, if you want them."
Marla was the first to speak. She came closer to him and leaned down, studying the earring. "Are you sure?" she asked, meeting eyes with Joey. "You wear them all the time, I know they're important to you."
Joey looked down, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. "Oh, not really," he said. "I guess I just never took them out."
It was halfway true. Joey had never felt strongly about the piercings themselves. Not when the handlers had switched out the steel ones they had first punched through his earlobes for these goldens ones before he was packed in the box to be shipped, at least. However, he had been put in gold - piercings and collar buckle - because he had been told his Master liked gold. As time in his new home had passed and his Master had told Joey again and again, directly and indirectly, that he disliked him, he had still held on to a small hope that maybe he at least liked his golden piercings.
Now, in Aaron's home, the studs existed in a sort of limbo that Joey had trouble examining properly. A part of him wanted to stay here, with Aaron, forever, and the earrings would be useless. Another part, maybe smaller but none the less just as insistent, wanted him to keep them in the event that he came under Master's care again.
"Well, I'd love to borrow them, if it's okay with you."
Joey gave her a small, lopsided smile and sat down the mug of wine on the step next to him, then reached up to remove his earrings.
"Sure," he said as he worked, soon having freed one of them from his ear. He deposited it in Marla's hand and turned his head to take out the other. "You can have my tongue piercings, too."
That stopped Marla in her tracks, as she was about to put the earring in her own ear. Behind her, Aaron looked up from his phone, eyes wide.
"Your… what?" Marla asked.
"These." Joey opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, showing off the twin studs on his tongue.
Neither Marla nor Aaron said anything. Both looked sligthly alarmed at his reveal.
What was that look? Had he done something wrong? He pushed his eyebrows sligthly together and closed his mouth again, suddenly self conscious. "Sorry," he said and looked away. "You don't want those. That's gross."
"Did you … always have those?" Aaron asked, stepping closer. Joey felt the odd, sudden urge to hoist himself up and move a step or two up the stairs, away from him. It was a foreign feeling, wanting to move away from Aaron, when he normally always craved closeness.
He hesitated for a moment to answer Aaron's question, considering the facts. "They gave them to me at the-" He cleared his throat and reached for the mug of wine again. "At the facility. I don't think I'd ever had earrings before that. Or, uhm. Tongue piercings."
"Oh, honey." Marla's brows pinched together and she suddenly looked full of grief. Joey didn't quite qet why.
"Did they really…" Aaron started, but he stopped himself and ran a hand through his hair instead. Joey cringed at the way he mussed it up. Marla had spent a full minute pulling her fingers through it this way and that before she had started looking for earrings, and now her work was in vain.
Thanks to Joey, even though he didn't quite understand either of their reactions.
"It almost didn't hurt," he hurried to reassure them. because he had learned that Aaron often didn't like hearing about the way the handlers and his Master had treated him. He always had this sullen look about him after, even though he tried to conceal it to Joey.
"They used a very sharp needle, I think, so it was quick. And they made sure I couldn't move, because if I did and the holes didn't align, they would have to do it again and it would be more painful."
Aaron drew a sharp breath of air and Marla reached for the banister of the stairs to steady herself. Joey grew more uncertain. It really hadn't been that bad. It was just a few piercings.
In a last ditch attempt to placate them, he retrieved a memory of the procedure another trainee had gone through. His own treatment was nothing in comparison, and they would stop looking at him as if he had been tortured.
"They took the little fingers of one of the others," he said and held out his hand, separating his little finger from the rest. "His buyer wanted him to have slim hands."
"Joey…" Aaron began, but he didn't finish. He stepped forwards instead and sat down next to him on the step, putting his arm around his shoulders. Joey didn't know what he meant by it.
"They cut the tips of the ears of a girl. Like that dog we saw today? They were sharp. She looked like an elf," he said instead.
Marla hitched a breath and she abruptly turned away. Aaron's arm tightened around him. Joey looked between them, uncertain. Hurting Marla was the last thing he wanted to do, only surpassed by the prospect of hurting Aaron. Or making them feel uncomfortable. Pets weren't for that. Pets should make their owner's life better, not worse.
He swallowed. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," Aaron reassured him immediately, and warm relief bloomed in his chest. "You didn't say anything wrong."
"It's horrible, what they did you," Marla said. Her voice was sligthly shaking, as if she couldn't hide it fully. She still wasn't looking at either of them.
"I think they made them sleep while they did it," Joey said, because it really wasn't that horrible, even though the others hade gotten the brunt of it, and he only had four little piercings to show for it. He gripped Aaron's hand in his own. His constant, steady anchor in any storm, even of his own making. "There was another boy, too. They, uhm. I think they said that they were going to debark him the next day. I'm not sure what they meant by it." He scratched at a spot under his eye. "They said that they wanted to make him scream a little before then. That it would be a shame to waste such a pretty voice."
That made Aaron hitch, too. He rested his forehead in his palm and took a few slow, steady breaths. Joey looked at him. Surely a few piercings didn't seem so bad now, right? No one had ever taken a scalpel or pliers to any part of his body. No handler had set out to 'make him scream'. His screaming had only ever been an unwanted byproduct of his training. He was lucky.
Aaron cleared his throat and straightened his back, seeking eye contact. Joey did not waver, even though meeting someone's eye sometimes made him queezy. Good pets keep their eyes averted unless specifically told not to.
"Just to be clear," Aaron said and pressed his palms together. "They didn't do any of this to you, right? Or anything else? Just the…" he pointed at his ears and mouth, frowning. "Just the piercings?"
Joey swallowed and nodded rapidly. "Just the piercings."
"Okay," Aaron said and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't move. Neither did Marla, still half-turned away, leaning one hand on the banister.
Nobody said anything for a while, until Joey cast a look at Aaron's wristwatch. He couldn't decipher the time but he could see that one of the hands had moved. He swallowed.
"Please don't miss your reservation because of me," he whispered, loathe to be the reason they were late.
Aaron smiled, although it was a little mournful, and a weight lifted off of Joey's shoulders. He hadn't destroyed it all with his disclosures.
"C'mere," Aaron said as he stood back up. Joey followed and let himself be enveloped. They both hugged him, tighter than usual, but it felt good, not restrictive.
"Do you want us to stay home?" Marla asked as Aaron rubbed Joey's cheek with the pad of his thumb. "We can, if you don't want to be alone," he agreed. Joey shook his head.
"Please don't. You have been at home with me every night."
She squeezed his arms lightly. Her lips tilted up in a little smile.
"You are sweet, Joey."
He shrugged one shoulder and looked down at his socked feet. Being sweet was almost the same as being good.
"There's that pasta dish in the fridge, right? And the soda you like?" Aaron said, even though Joey knew that Aaron knew perfectly well what was in the fridge. Still, he nodded.
"We'll only be gone few hours. I've restocked the wood for you." He took a step back, starting to button up his coat. "Call us anytime. I mean it."
"Thank you- Oh! My other earring. Here." Joey freed the remaning ear from its earring and handed it to Marla, who held it in her palm as she pulled her heeled boots on. "Thank you," she said. "I'll put these on in the car. Aaron, we need to go!"
"You're the one who- nevermind," he said, faux-annoyed, winking at Joey as they both went out into the cold, dark night.
Joey remained in the hallway, looking at them through the warped glass in the door. He couldn't make out their shapes, but he could see the car lights turning on, shadows passing them as they moved around it, and finally, the red taillights growing weaker and disappearing around the bend.
He was warm and comfortable, his people were only a phone call away, and most importantly, he hadn't ruined anything tonight.
---
They were silent for a long time.
"I'm not hungry anymore," Marla said eventually. She looked down at the golden studs she still held in her hand. The sight of them made her nauseous. She imagined a herd of faceless, uniformed men holding Joey down, piercing his ears and pulling his tongue out to pierce that too. She imagined him scared and confused after having his memory wiped, not seeing a single familiar face or feeling a frindly touch. She shuddered.
"Me neither," Aaron said. Still, his hands held the steering wheel tightly as he took off the highway. The restaurant where they had reservations, a spanish place that specialized in paella, was only a few minutes away.
"I didn't even know they could do that. I mean, earrings? Sure. But cutting their ears off? Amputations? And-and… Aaron, they took someone's voice away!"
"I know. It can't be legal."
"Fuck the legality," Marla said, aware of how it sounded coming from a lawyer. "They're people. Just because they're in vulnerable situations, being coerced into uninformed decicisions… they can't do this to them. They can't get away with it."
Aaron's knuckles whitened. He had been stewing in the same thoughts for weeks, months, now. The outrage. The helplessness. The complete and utter lack of any way to make it better, other than to take care of the broken man in his house the best he could.
"I don't know what we can do about it," he said in the end, because it was the only thing he knew to be true. He worked on autopilot as he parallel parked. Marla put the earrings in a zippered side pocket in her bag.
None of them moved, even though the car was in park and they were already twenty minutes late for their reservation.
"I don't know," Aaron repeated. He still hadn't let go of the wheel.
Marla sighed, looking out of the side window. This far down in elevation the temperatures were higher and what had been snow in the air around Aaron's house was big, heavy raindrops here. They hit the window like little projectiles, exploding on impact.
CW: Langdon is 15. Slavery, general abuse, some degrading language. Edwin Young is a creepy sadist.
Follows after this post I wrote a while back
Two shots, aimed right. Langdon tries not to dwell on fairytales, but the thought keeps recurring. How easy it could be to find freedom, a concept he's only ever seen on TV. Two shots, aimed right. Bullet between the eyes, for Master Isaac and Miss Delia both. Maybe he'd set the house on fire on the way out.
After everyone on staff has evacuated, of course. And only when he knew for sure Miss Brynnleigh was at college and Miss McKayleigh was at her boarding school.
He doesn't want to hurt them. Just... just Master Isaac and Miss Delia. Just them.
Two shots, aimed right.
He adjusts a fork that had been placed a little crooked against the cloth napkin beneath, smiling. He doesn't really smile much, but the daydream is so good he can't help it.
Maybe he'll hear the surviving masters scream and cry when they find the smoking wreck of the house, while somebody... somebody who can drive drives Langdon and the rest of the staff away.
Rock music kicks in, credits roll.
Happy ending, right?
Langdon ducks back through the swinging door on its silent, well-oiled hinges into the kitchen. The cook doesn't even look up from the pot of something delicious-smelling he's stirring. The smell makes Langdon's stomach growl, sends dizziness rolling through his mind, but he ignores it. He'll eat soon enough, once the masters are done.
Maybe eventually, if he wasn't such a coward.
There's a smudge of tarnish on the silver tines, and Langdon's heart catches and then beats rapidly. He takes a shallow breath against the spike of anxiety and glances up, furtive and panicked, but the soft sound of voices seems to still be off by the door. If he's quick and quiet, he can replace this fork with a better one. If Miss Delia sees he's missed even a single spot, there'll be hell to pay. She already hates him enough as it is, just for...
For the thing he doesn't think about.
"Need to repolish the silver," He remarks, voice light and airy as always. The cook, a man in his forties with short dull brown hair and equally flat brown eyes, grunts, checking an open cookbook beside him and then turning back to the pot. Some minute adjustment in seasoning is made.
The cook is always in the kitchen, he never leaves except to go to the garden for herbs or vegetables or whatever it is he might need for the masters' meals. He never even goes as far as the woods. His sleeping quarters are separate, a room just behind the pantry with a small single bed, a little side table with a lamp, and a whole wall of bookshelves, with all the cookbooks he's ever asked for. He isn't allowed anything else to read.
There's a tiny TV in the kitchen at least. It drones over in the corner, probably playing the news or something that bores Langdon half to death. Maybe it helps the cook feel less alone.
If Langdon had to sleep all alone, without the steady breathing of the other staff everywhere around him and their weight on either side of him in one of the big staff beds, he'd go crazy. Maybe never sleep again.
Next task - wine. White, because they're having some kind of fish something or other tonight. The bottle has been chilled nearly to ice but not quite, poured at the perfect angle into each glass while Langdon's fingers slowly go cold and finally a little numb. One glass for Master Isaac, one for Miss Delia, and finally, a wine glass for Edwin fucking Young.
He moves gracefully back out, listening as best he can. The voices are louder, maybe, but not much - there's still time. He places the new fork in its perfect place.
Exhales. Ignores the way his breath feels too light, along with his head.
Brewster's back had been whipped so hard it seemed torn open, blood pouring and Brewster crying hoarsely by the seventh strike. Edwin Young had stood there and fucking watched with a wide, joyful smile while he suffered. They hadn't gotten their new medic yet, then, and Van and Greg and Hannah had done the stitching and bandaging while Brewster swore so loud it nearly burned everyone's ears right off.
Langdon shivers. Edwin Young, Master Isaac's oldest friend and business partner, isn't ugly, exactly, but he stares at the staff in ways that make the hairs on Langdon's arms stand up. Young walks up behind him sometimes and whispers awful things into his ear. Langdon watched him get Brewster so drunk he knocked over a vase at a party once.
Worse, he'd done it on purpose, and Langdon knew it.
Too much.
He hates Edwin Young. Everyone hates Edwin Young. But... it'll be fine, though. Vander can handle Mr. Young, he always does, especially if he sees him messing with Langdon. He pulls Mr. Young away, talks to him, puts hands on his arm or his back until Edwin Young stops looking at anybody else.
Young likes Vander.
There's a twist of guilt, knowing he can't help Van back, but the guilt isn't stronger than his gratitude. Langdon's throat feels tight as the voices get louder, and he fumbles for his inhaler.
Langdon straightens his spine to ramrod straight, steps back against the wall, and puts his inhaler to his lips. The rush of chill, slightly metallic medicine catches his lungs before they can start to constrict, keeps his breathing silent and seemingly calm. Nothing to see here - just another invisible piece of the house, there to serve food and be quietly ornamental and secretly daydream about killing every fucking one of them in the bloodiest possible ways.
Langdon only realizes he's smiling again when Miss Delia steps into the dining room and snaps, "What's got you so amused?"
He wipes all expression from his face and keeps his eyes lowered. "Nothing, Miss Delia."
Her narrowed eyes scan over him, the place settings, the wine, the way everything has been shined and dusted and deep cleaned. When she finds nothing she can be angry about - no imperfection in him or his work - she looks faintly displeased anyway and takes her seat. Langdon is there before she even fully exhales, spreading her napkin across her lap for her.
Master Isaac settles at the head of the table. Edwin Young takes the seat on his other side, watching as Langdon spreads the napkins for each of them. He has his stupid smug smile on. Langdon nearly bites his own lip to keep his mouth shut.
"Ike, I have got to say, I think every year he looks more and more like his father," Edwin says, mild as a lamb, eyes sparkling with malice.
Langdon's breath catches in his throat and stays there. He doesn't look up. If he looks up, he knows the look on Miss Delia's face will flay him alive.
"Well," Miss Delia says, her voice so cold Langdon can feel the chill up his spine, "I can't imagine what would lead you to say that, since his paternity remains as much a mystery as the rest of the staff."
"Apologies, Delia, darling," Young replies. There's too much laughter in his voice to be sincere. "You're right, of course. I only mean to say he looks very much like John Brewster, doesn't he? They could be brothers."
Langdon's hands shake as he takes his place against the wall. He puts them behind his back to hide it. His body flashes hot and cold. He looks down at his own feet. Barefoot.
Staff wear a uniform, but no shoes in the house or even outside of it, unless it's winter. Why would staff need shoes? Not like they're ever going anywhere.
"They are," Isaac says, mild as can be, spreading truffle butter on the warm sliced bread that had been placed in a basket for when they sat down. His knife scrapes a little. "Brothers. All staff are brothers and sisters, aren't they?"
"Of course they are," Delia replies, still chilly. But Langdon knows he'll feel her anger later, probably on his own back. Delia doesn't discipline as often, but when she does, it's always Langdon.
He blinks when he realizes. His head jerks up, eyes moving...
Edwin Young is watching him right back, with that smile he'd been wearing when everyone had to stand there and watch Brewster scream.
He's doing this on purpose.
He wants Langdon to hurt tonight.
And there's nothing Langdon can do about it.
His breaths start to get tighter again, lungs constricting with a new thrum of panic. He doesn't dare use his inhaler. Miss Delia hates any sound he makes.
Spots dance at the corners of his vision. He blinks rapidly. His collar feels like it's choking him.
Edwin Young never looks away from him, even as he picks up his wineglass and takes a long, slow sip. Then he winks.
Three bullets, Langdon decides, his hatred briefly overwhelming his terror. Three bullets, one between Master Isaac's eyes, one between Miss Delia's, one between Edwin Young's.
For the record, this is just me trying to do some character studies to get back into writing. I was so thrilled to be inspired to write ANYTHING that I decided to just try not to worry too much about context explanations.
CW: Langdon is 15. Slavery, general abuse, some degrading language. Edwin Young is a creepy sadist.
Follows after this post I wrote a while back
Two shots, aimed right. Langdon tries not to dwell on fairytales, but the thought keeps recurring. How easy it could be to find freedom, a concept he's only ever seen on TV. Two shots, aimed right. Bullet between the eyes, for Master Isaac and Miss Delia both. Maybe he'd set the house on fire on the way out.
After everyone on staff has evacuated, of course. And only when he knew for sure Miss Brynnleigh was at college and Miss McKayleigh was at her boarding school.
He doesn't want to hurt them. Just... just Master Isaac and Miss Delia. Just them.
Two shots, aimed right.
He adjusts a fork that had been placed a little crooked against the cloth napkin beneath, smiling. He doesn't really smile much, but the daydream is so good he can't help it.
Maybe he'll hear the surviving masters scream and cry when they find the smoking wreck of the house, while somebody... somebody who can drive drives Langdon and the rest of the staff away.
Rock music kicks in, credits roll.
Happy ending, right?
Langdon ducks back through the swinging door on its silent, well-oiled hinges into the kitchen. The cook doesn't even look up from the pot of something delicious-smelling he's stirring. The smell makes Langdon's stomach growl, sends dizziness rolling through his mind, but he ignores it. He'll eat soon enough, once the masters are done.
Maybe eventually, if he wasn't such a coward.
There's a smudge of tarnish on the silver tines, and Langdon's heart catches and then beats rapidly. He takes a shallow breath against the spike of anxiety and glances up, furtive and panicked, but the soft sound of voices seems to still be off by the door. If he's quick and quiet, he can replace this fork with a better one. If Miss Delia sees he's missed even a single spot, there'll be hell to pay. She already hates him enough as it is, just for...
For the thing he doesn't think about.
"Need to repolish the silver," He remarks, voice light and airy as always. The cook, a man in his forties with short dull brown hair and equally flat brown eyes, grunts, checking an open cookbook beside him and then turning back to the pot. Some minute adjustment in seasoning is made.
The cook is always in the kitchen, he never leaves except to go to the garden for herbs or vegetables or whatever it is he might need for the masters' meals. He never even goes as far as the woods. His sleeping quarters are separate, a room just behind the pantry with a small single bed, a little side table with a lamp, and a whole wall of bookshelves, with all the cookbooks he's ever asked for. He isn't allowed anything else to read.
There's a tiny TV in the kitchen at least. It drones over in the corner, probably playing the news or something that bores Langdon half to death. Maybe it helps the cook feel less alone.
If Langdon had to sleep all alone, without the steady breathing of the other staff everywhere around him and their weight on either side of him in one of the big staff beds, he'd go crazy. Maybe never sleep again.
Next task - wine. White, because they're having some kind of fish something or other tonight. The bottle has been chilled nearly to ice but not quite, poured at the perfect angle into each glass while Langdon's fingers slowly go cold and finally a little numb. One glass for Master Isaac, one for Miss Delia, and finally, a wine glass for Edwin fucking Young.
He moves gracefully back out, listening as best he can. The voices are louder, maybe, but not much - there's still time. He places the new fork in its perfect place.
Exhales. Ignores the way his breath feels too light, along with his head.
Brewster's back had been whipped so hard it seemed torn open, blood pouring and Brewster crying hoarsely by the seventh strike. Edwin Young had stood there and fucking watched with a wide, joyful smile while he suffered. They hadn't gotten their new medic yet, then, and Van and Greg and Hannah had done the stitching and bandaging while Brewster swore so loud it nearly burned everyone's ears right off.
Langdon shivers. Edwin Young, Master Isaac's oldest friend and business partner, isn't ugly, exactly, but he stares at the staff in ways that make the hairs on Langdon's arms stand up. Young walks up behind him sometimes and whispers awful things into his ear. Langdon watched him get Brewster so drunk he knocked over a vase at a party once.
Worse, he'd done it on purpose, and Langdon knew it.
Too much.
He hates Edwin Young. Everyone hates Edwin Young. But... it'll be fine, though. Vander can handle Mr. Young, he always does, especially if he sees him messing with Langdon. He pulls Mr. Young away, talks to him, puts hands on his arm or his back until Edwin Young stops looking at anybody else.
Young likes Vander.
There's a twist of guilt, knowing he can't help Van back, but the guilt isn't stronger than his gratitude. Langdon's throat feels tight as the voices get louder, and he fumbles for his inhaler.
Langdon straightens his spine to ramrod straight, steps back against the wall, and puts his inhaler to his lips. The rush of chill, slightly metallic medicine catches his lungs before they can start to constrict, keeps his breathing silent and seemingly calm. Nothing to see here - just another invisible piece of the house, there to serve food and be quietly ornamental and secretly daydream about killing every fucking one of them in the bloodiest possible ways.
Langdon only realizes he's smiling again when Miss Delia steps into the dining room and snaps, "What's got you so amused?"
He wipes all expression from his face and keeps his eyes lowered. "Nothing, Miss Delia."
Her narrowed eyes scan over him, the place settings, the wine, the way everything has been shined and dusted and deep cleaned. When she finds nothing she can be angry about - no imperfection in him or his work - she looks faintly displeased anyway and takes her seat. Langdon is there before she even fully exhales, spreading her napkin across her lap for her.
Master Isaac settles at the head of the table. Edwin Young takes the seat on his other side, watching as Langdon spreads the napkins for each of them. He has his stupid smug smile on. Langdon nearly bites his own lip to keep his mouth shut.
"Ike, I have got to say, I think every year he looks more and more like his father," Edwin says, mild as a lamb, eyes sparkling with malice.
Langdon's breath catches in his throat and stays there. He doesn't look up. If he looks up, he knows the look on Miss Delia's face will flay him alive.
"Well," Miss Delia says, her voice so cold Langdon can feel the chill up his spine, "I can't imagine what would lead you to say that, since his paternity remains as much a mystery as the rest of the staff."
"Apologies, Delia, darling," Young replies. There's too much laughter in his voice to be sincere. "You're right, of course. I only mean to say he looks very much like John Brewster, doesn't he? They could be brothers."
Langdon's hands shake as he takes his place against the wall. He puts them behind his back to hide it. His body flashes hot and cold. He looks down at his own feet. Barefoot.
Staff wear a uniform, but no shoes in the house or even outside of it, unless it's winter. Why would staff need shoes? Not like they're ever going anywhere.
"They are," Isaac says, mild as can be, spreading truffle butter on the warm sliced bread that had been placed in a basket for when they sat down. His knife scrapes a little. "Brothers. All staff are brothers and sisters, aren't they?"
"Of course they are," Delia replies, still chilly. But Langdon knows he'll feel her anger later, probably on his own back. Delia doesn't discipline as often, but when she does, it's always Langdon.
He blinks when he realizes. His head jerks up, eyes moving...
Edwin Young is watching him right back, with that smile he'd been wearing when everyone had to stand there and watch Brewster scream.
He's doing this on purpose.
He wants Langdon to hurt tonight.
And there's nothing Langdon can do about it.
His breaths start to get tighter again, lungs constricting with a new thrum of panic. He doesn't dare use his inhaler. Miss Delia hates any sound he makes.
Spots dance at the corners of his vision. He blinks rapidly. His collar feels like it's choking him.
Edwin Young never looks away from him, even as he picks up his wineglass and takes a long, slow sip. Then he winks.
Three bullets, Langdon decides, his hatred briefly overwhelming his terror. Three bullets, one between Master Isaac's eyes, one between Miss Delia's, one between Edwin Young's.
CWs: box boy universe, referenced shocks, referenced violence, institutionalized slavery, past minor whump, OCD, anxiety, kidnapping
Masterlist
-----------------------------------
To say he was scared would be a massive understatement. The word ‘scared’ was used to describe things like movies or stories or nightmares. Things that you could wake up from or turn off. You could run to you mom and have her hold you until you realized that it was all fading away and that you were in no danger and none of those things were real.
But this? This was real. He wouldn’t be okay. And he was terrified out of his mind.
Every morning (evening? afternoon?) when Joshua woke up from the harsh lights blaring into his eyelids, he felt the familiar paralyzing anxiety start to drown him. That was normal, more or less. He’d been living with a knot in his stomach and a weight on his chest for … as long as he could remember. But even during his worst days where he could hardly breathe and his heart pumped so hard he thought he might die and he had to do things in fours over and over and over and over, he’d never felt as scared as he did waking up every morning in a white tile room with white lights wearing a white shirt he didn’t remember changing into.
When he woke he tried to straighten his thoughts through the fog that was continuously becoming worse, but he couldn’t tell if it was because that’s just how his brain worked or if it was because of the IV he didn’t remember getting stuck into him. He tried to do the exercise the school counselor taught him -- list five things he could see, four things he could hear, and so on -- but it was really freaking hard when everything was just blindingly white and cold. There was nothing he could do to push back the panic that consumed his every waking thought until he didn't have thoughts anymore and he was just a crying, hyperventilating mess on the freezing tile floor.
He only kind of remembered what happened, now. The day had started normally, with Josh waking up before the sun rose and starting his morning routine. He first went to each room in the house and checked on his family -- his mom, little sister, Kyrie, and little brother, Logan -- to make sure they were still breathing. They each had to take four breaths, in and out, before he could move on to the next one. After that he got dressed and ate breakfast before going to brush his teeth. That was when the day had started to take a turn. If Josh didn’t brush his teeth for exactly two minutes then he had to do it three more times -- so then it was four -- or something awful would happen. He wasn’t sure what, but he just knew it deep in his bones. And he hadn’t done it right, it had been two minutes and two seconds when he looked back up at the clock he kept in the bathroom, so he’d had to do it three more times to make it four because then it would be okay. But it wasn’t. Kyrie had had a nightmare and Logan was crying because Kyrie was scared and then their mother woke up and she wouldn’t take her pills no matter how much Joshua begged her to, and Kyrie lost her shoes and their mom finally took the pills but she wouldn’t eat something like she was supposed to and Josh just felt so overwhelmed and he just wanted a moment of peace and quiet away from his buzzing head and his tight chest and --
And, well, they were all late to school. That was why Josh was walking alone that morning after he’d dropped off his siblings at the elementary school. He was alone and so he was lost inside his head, thinking about his mom being home alone and how it kind of looked like rain later and did he lock the door behind him? Because if he didn’t lock the door and someone broke in and killed his mom he was pretty sure he would die of guilt and then who would take care of Logan and Kyrie? He was so wrapped up that he didn’t notice the unmarked van that had been following him until it pulled up right next to him.
Josh had stepped back in fear as two men dressed in uniforms he didn’t recognize got out and grabbed him, one of them putting a hand on his mouth so he couldn’t cry out. Instincts he didn’t know he had kicked in as he threw his arms out in an attempt to get the men off of him. He hit one of them he thought, before the other clocked him over the head and black spots burst over his vision.
He’d woken up in the white tiled room. He’d been there for a while now, he thought, but it was getting harder to tell. He’d definitely missed picking up Kyrie and Logan from school and it was eating him up inside. He hoped someone had gotten them. He hoped someone had told his mother to take her pills. He hoped someone turned the downstairs light on and off four times so the house wouldn’t burn down.
The door opened with a whoosh that Josh was starting to know all too well, and Handler Wiley stepped inside. Josh pushed himself further against the wall.
“Good morning, trainee,” Handler Wiley said, making his way over to Joshua.
Handler Wiley smirked as he knelt down and began to remove the IV. “Fast learner.”
It didn’t take being hit with a baton too many times before Josh began to figure out what they wanted of him there, before he began to obey their orders and only think please don’t hit me this time.
They wanted him greet the handlers each morning. To stop crying. To follow orders. To not ask about his family, and tell them that he had to get home very soon to pick his brother and sister up from school. He learned very quickly what kept him safe and he stuck to it as much as possible, bottling all his fear and worries up inside like he was used to doing.
Handler Wiley disconnected the IV and stood up. “Follow me.”
Josh stood on trembling legs and tried to force down his growing panic. If he showed it, he would be hit. He wordlessly followed the handler from the cold white room into the cold white hallway and from there into a different room. One with another man sitting at a table, pieces of paper strewn in front of him and a camera on a tripod in the corner of the room.
“Let’s get this over with, Rhett,” the man said. “It’s too late.”
Handler Wiley rested a heavy hand on the back of Josh’s neck, directing him to sit in the chair across from the man. “Don’t worry, he’s easy. You’ll be back to bed before one.”
It’s late, Josh thought. I wonder if anyone’s checked to see if Logan is still breathing.
Handler Wiley sat in the other chair, the one just a little too close to Josh’s, and the other man began to speak. “I’m Lewis Sims, WRU attorney. State your full name.”
Josh didn’t realize until a hand smacked him on the back of the head that he was being spoken to. He hunched his shoulders, his heart somehow beating even faster. “Joshua Henry Pruitt.”
“State your age.”
Josh shot a confused look to Handler Wiley. He’d been asked that before, by him, and when he answered he got hurt. He always got hurt. When he looked at him and said I’m seventeen, please I’m not old enough to be here, I’m not, I have to go home, I’m only seventeen -- Handler Wiley would take out that dreaded baton and turn it on so it shocked him when he was hit. Was this a game to them? Did they want to see how much they could make him squirm before they decided to hurt him for their own entertainment?
Handler Wiley leaned forward. “The date is November 30th, if that helps.”
Josh’s eyes widened. Oh. He’s been in that white room for over two weeks, if he remembered right. It was his birthday, and he had just turned eighteen years old. Of legal and consenting age to sign his life away forever.
“State your age,” the lawyer repeated.
Josh started at his hands on the table. He took a breath, holding it for four seconds, and then released. “I’m eighteen,” he answered quietly.
“Great.” The lawyer slid a paper and a pen across the table. “Sign here.”
Josh could only stare as he felt his chest become more and more compressed from the panic he was barely hiding away. There was no way out. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say that would get him out of being able to sign. The form said that he was consenting to giving up his freedom, that he’d chosen it himself, but it was wrong. Josh had just been walking to high school when he was blindsided and taken against his will. He hadn’t chosen anything. He wanted to go home, he wanted to watch his family breathe at night and make sure they were all alive and okay and there was just no way to do that anymore or ever if he signed his entire life away. Tears filled Josh’s eyes as handler Wiley began to speak.
“If you sign, you’ll get more sleep and food,” Handler Wiley said. “We’ll be able to start real training then. You’ll get rewarded for good behavior, and at the end of it you’ll have a shiny new family to go home to. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“I have a family,” Josh said quietly. “I -- I already have a family and I have to go home to them, I have to take care of them --”
The baton swung down and Josh flinched as it smacked against the table. “You do what I tell you to!”
The room fell silent for a moment, the only sound that of Josh’s hitching breaths he tried to catch around the tears falling. Everything was so jumbled up and confusing and he knew he was going to forget how to breathe entirely soon, once the pressure on his chest became too much. He hoped he didn’t pass out.
“Listen, trainee. If you sign we can take away that burden of a family you think you have. We can take away whatever’s wrong with your head, too. Wouldn’t that be nice? To just be a mindless pet and get rewarded for it? Things will be so much easier for you once you sign.” Handler Wiley picked up the pen and held it up to Josh. “So sign.”
Josh stared at the pen. He didn’t want to sign, he didn’t want to be there, he wanted to just go home and get rid of the awful worse-than-normal worry that plagued his every thought and he just wanted to sleep and eat and obey and get all of this over with because then it didn’t hurt as bad and he just couldn't think straight anymore because of the anxiety and the drugs and everything just hurt and he was so so scared he didn’t know what to do.
His eyes dropped to the baton resting on the table. He didn’t have a choice did he? If he didn’t sign then they would only keep him and torture him until he eventually gave up. Maybe they’d kill him. There was no way he could help his family if they killed him …
“If I sign…” he started slowly, all too aware of his current position, “can… can my family get some of the money?”
“What?” the lawyer asked.
Josh didn’t look at him, his eyes still trained on the baton. “I heard that some families get money… can mine?” He glanced up at Handler Wiley’s face. “Please? So they … so they at least have something?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Sure thing.”
“Rhett, this contract d--”
Handler Wiley held up a hand. “So you’ll sign then? If I promise that?” He held the pen back out.
Josh tried not to think as he took it in his hand. There was no way he was getting out of there, so he might as well give his mom and siblings something that could help.
Joshua Henry Pruitt the line read, right next to the numbers 847481.
“Let’s go, ‘481,” Handler Wiley said, pulling Josh up. “Now we can really begin.”
As Josh followed followed him out of the room and into the bright white hallway once again, he thought of what he’d just done and all his terror and worry fell away.
Would you ever be open to write a "hunting" piece from Mishas perspective? It would be very interesting to see/know/read what is going on inside his head. The itch and never ending desire to hurt/kill and satisfaction that comes but eventually never stays for too long. Would he let you inside his head for such a piece?
CW: Killer POV, serial killer, some brief references to eye and tooth whump daydreams, murder, some seriously unhealthy family dynamics, jesus
It's not that he means to... not exactly.
It's not his fault.
It's only that, after a while, his schoolday distraction becomes scribbled doodles of terrified faces, circles with big circle eyes and mouths and red blood in gashes over their foreheads, their faces, drooling from the black hole of a mouth. Sometimes other people see him drawing and laugh, or look uneasy, or stop looking at him at all. He doesn't try to think about it, he really doesn't. It's just... a few months go by, and then, hunched in his seat ignoring the math teacher who ignores him in return, he starts thinking about the bones under everyone's skin.
He chews on the ends of pens until they're pockmarked from his teeth and the ink threatens to spill all over the desk... and he can see all their skulls, collarbones, ribcages splayed open like his mother's thick arms welcoming him home from summer vacation with family near Moscow.
He thinks about arms.
Alicia Wyatt, in the front row to the left by the window - she'd have delicate tissue linking thin, graceful humerus to radius and ulna. She'd shed skin like a snake if he slipped the knife between the layers just right. But her parents are overprotective... they'd see she didn't come home on time right away.
No good. Couldn't be her.
Ben Pillman, in homeroom? His parents don't give a fuck about him. He's got the best voice in chorus, and a pretty smile and perfect teeth. He'd scream louder than anyone else. He's got nice hair, too. Scalp him and see how good looking they think he is, then. The girl Misha asked to Homecoming last year said she wasn't going to go, and then she went anyway with Ben Pillman, who told Misha later in the bathroom that he had no idea she'd been asked by anyone else, and that he was sorry that she'd lied to Misha. He'd given Misha a hug, and told him that he didn't really like April anyway.
No, can't do it to him. He's been nice, when he didn't have to be. He waves at Misha in the hallway sometimes, even now, a year later. He still waves, says hello.
Misha remembers to say hi back most of the time.
Artyom is always saying that he should be nicer to people, if they're nice to him. Tyoma, quiet and feline and dark, has girls who watch him everywhere he goes - and one of Misha's friends, John B., watches him, too. He probably comes over just to stare at Artyom when he goes through the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of his shirt riding up when he yawns and stretches his arms overhead.
Misha doesn't mind. John B. isn't really his friend, anyway. Just someone easier to keep around than the others. John likes to watch him play video games, and he never asks to have a turn himself. Misha can forget he's even there until dinner time, and then his mother tells him it's so nice to see he has friends, asks John B. to stay which he always does.
Tyoma knows that he doesn't care about John B., but he never says anything. He doesn't mind either, isn't bothered by John B. having a crush on him. No, Tyoma just watches Misha, dark eyes locked on him, waiting.
Waiting to see it build in him until he might explode, there's so much pressure beneath the surface of his skin.
But no. Can't be Ben Pillman, or John B., or Alicia Wyatt.
Not anyone at school, not even Yolanda Martin, who eats fruit loops for breakfast, crunching handfuls straight out of a ziploc bag in the cafeteria during the free time between arriving and everyone heading for their first class of the day. She chews with her mouth open. It's disgusting and Misha thinks sometimes about popping out all her teeth one by one by one by one.
She would fight and curse and spit, she wouldn't scream at all. And her blood would be thick, sludge from lack of hydration. She only drinks Mountain Dew, even early, before homeroom.
Artyom won't let him think too long about anyone he actually knows. He'll elbow Misha if he's looking too long at Yolanda while she eats, whisper Khvatit pyalit'sya, choknutaya - quit staring, stalker. People he knows are too suspicious, there are too many connections between them for some asshole police officer to play with, turn into a case.
The thing is, it doesn't matter if he wants to or not, it... it builds.
He tells his brother the feeling is like having an itch entirely inside his brain. It begins as a heavy, weighted boredom, and unsettled certainty that nothing important will ever happen again. Video games stop being fun to play. His music even means nothing to him, is just noise. He taps his pencil in class until his teachers snap at him to stop, he pays no attention. The words shift and move when he tries to read, they reform into nothing.
Misha saw a movie once, a horror movie, in theaters. In it the killer heard a voice telling him what to do. Misha never hears a voice, or sees hallucinations. He just gets... bored.
And the boredom grows, day by day, until he can't stand it any longer. He starts to see the veins in his father's heart bursting with fear as his younger son strangles him, his mother's tears if he aimed a gun. It starts to weigh heavier and heavier within his mind, the cycling thoughts that can't be shaken.
The cashier at the coffee shop? He sees her head rolling away from her body. The clerk at the gas station who laughs at Tyoma's terrible jokes? He could chop the guy's hands off one by one. It gets worse and worse, and there's only one way to cure the itch.
He sneaks out a lot, after dark - taking Tyoma with him usually, the two of them clutching bottles of cheap vodka an older guy buys them from a corner store for five bucks over the purchase price, heading out into the woods on quiet feet.
"Don't do it," Tyoma will whisper, sometimes in English, sometimes not. Misha ignores him.
Misha always ignores him.
Tyoma comes along with him anyway.
"Misha, please don't-"
"We're just drinking, Tyoma, relax." But they both know there's more to it than that, that they are buying time. That Tyoma is buying him some time. Tyoma never argues, though. He just nods - he knows it's his job to take care of Misha, who is smaller and used to be sickly and everyone's sort of never noticed that he really isn't sickly anymore.
He's always taken care of Misha, he's always been there to help him with everything he needs. Family comes first, always, and they are each other's family more than anyone else is. Tyoma is his brother, his alone, and he never denies Misha anything in the end.
Sometimes, Tyoma asks him to stay in the woods, in their secret place. They store the bottles of vodka in a cooler they keep in a hole they dug in the ground under a bush, sit on a mattress they know other people use for grosser reasons, pull the bottles out to take swigs that burn down their throat and giggle and talk about girls and movies and whatever else.
It helps... for a while.
A month, maybe.
Two months... three.
Then it doesn't.
Then, even sitting with Tyoma, Misha will grow silent and sullen and stare off into the darkness of the night around him, listening to the scratching and rustling of the underbrush and the wind through the woods.
The only time he is afraid of himself is when he starts dreaming about Tyoma, too.
With the inside of his head a heavy place, he feels chilled when he starts to think about how his older brother would look with his face cut down from those sharp-edged cheekbones, hands around his neck. He thinks about pushing Tyoma into a fire, how it would feel to have a body thrash wildly against his in a desperate effort to stay alive. He dreams about wiping him clean of fingerprints, of proof, about lying to his mother and his father, burying him in their secret place in the woods and coming to drink with his corpse.
He dreams about carrying Tyoma inside of him, being the last one to see him alive.
That's when he knows he can't wait any longer.
That's when he walks the side of the road with his thumb out and his duffel bag on one shoulder, or stalks bars at closing time, or just walks through the parking lot of an apartment complex seeing who will open a door if he knocks, who is out alone in the dark.
Tyoma, always, follows. His shadow, off to the side, keeping himself invisible until it's time to clean up the mess. Sitting silent in the backseat of the car that picks them up, as they ride for a while. Standing silent as Misha kills the driver in a ditch, watching, waiting for his part in things to begin.
The actual act isn't really fun anymore - they all die the same. They fight and scream or cry and give up but they die. They just... die. And then he has to cut them up, into trash bags he and Tyoma spread around dumpsters outside of fast food places until it's done, wash their faces in public bathrooms and then take quick showers once they get home in the middle of the night, grimy and with a layer of what they've done thicker than oil.
But he can't stop, even though it isn't fun like it was when he started. Now he has to do it just to keep the boredom from driving him out of his mind, making him turn on his family, and family matters more than his own mind. His family keeps him together, he needs them for a place to live and someone to hear his thoughts, someone other than himself. Now he has to do it just to keep in check the worst thoughts that linger on how his older brother would look pale and with eyes wide with horror forever, his final expression one of betrayal, dirt dumped onto his face until it disappears.
He and Tyoma clean themselves up, after, and Misha sleeps for the first time in days, and when he wakes up the itch is gone. He smiles at breakfast and laughs at Tyoma's jokes. He feels fine.
For... a while, anyway.
A few months, maybe more, maybe less.
Sometimes Tyoma begs him to tell someone that he cannot seem to stop, but he only smiles, and gives his brother a hug, and whispers, Tvoya sem'ya prevyshe vsego, Tyoma.
Family first.
He's never sure how to tell Tyoma what he knows to be true, deep within himself. They are the only two people on Earth who matter, who are really real, just he and his brother. And if he can't stop the itch and he kills Tyoma, then he'll be all alone.
Hi Ash, I hope you're having a great day and that August treats you well! I've also been thinking about Danny and Nate lately, so I have a question if you feel up to answering it! Sorry if it's been asked before, feel free to ignore if it has.
If you were to publish Danny and Nate's story, are there any points you think you would change for that version? (Not that I think anything needs changing, just curious about your thoughts and process as an author!)
Anon! Hopefully you are still here, sorry I am just seeing this ask today.
I actually do think I would change a few things, mostly for formatting the plot to fit within a novel format. First things, I would structure it with the court scene still being our opening introduction, with the past being filled in as a kind of memory. You see that Danny and Nate made it out. I would actually OPEN a novel format with the scene where Danny goes to the sentencing and says goodbye to Bram, and then from there start with the abduction. You would see in more or large chronological order from there how Danny and Nate both had complicated feelings about Bram - and each other. Watch Nate build up the courage, and finally the desperation, to commit his final act of rebellion and escape with Danny.
I would probably let Bram stay dead, for the record. A second story like the Bad Arc would just be Ashley looking for vengeance, and would be about her playing cat and mouse with Ryan, punishing Danny by taking his brother from him the way Danny and Nate took her brother from her.
Ora would still be more or less press ganged into being an accomplice.
So yeah. The first story would change in formatting ways, but the Bad Arc I would change the plot itself in some big ways.
I've been thinking about Nate and Danny these days!! 😭 Theirs was one of the first whump stories I've ever read on here, or maybe even *the* first. I was obsessed, and just randomly remembered them! I think I'm due for a re-read! ♥️
I'd love to hear anything at all you have to say about Nate. A fun fact, a small character trait, thoughts about his character development, literally whatever you feel like, I just miss that man 😭♥️♥️
Nate and Danny are both such nervous parents when Mina starts dating in her teens. Both of them have been subjected to the impossible obsession of a man who claimed to care - in Nate's case, claimed to love him.
Most of Mina's boyfriends think Nate is the scary one. And he probably seems that way, sure, since his voice was always deeper, and he tends to be silent and always watching.
But that really just means they are underestimating Danny.
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