Whumper calming Whumpee down when they're having a panic attack? Anyone? 🦋
Loosening their restraints and holding their hands.
Pulling the gag away from their mouth so they can drag in a proper breath because they're sobbing/hiccuping/hyperventilating.
Brutal hands that inflict so much pain turning soft - a hand carded through their hair, warm palm placed on Whumpee's heaving chest as they're asked to mimic Whumper's breathing. Wiping the tears away.
Offering a sip of water. Offering them praise like; "It's okay, deep breaths," "Not long now, whumpee", "You're being so good for me."
I feel https://www.tumblr.com/survivesurvivingwhump/816724699010744320/thought-whumper-and-whumpee-in-public-whumper-is?source=share is especially good if Whumper and Whumpee know everyone around them.
As in it's a friend group and everyone is giggling at this. Especially if it's a culture that sex is very normalised in. So Whumpee feels that if they try to speak up they'll be shut down because "stuff like that is normal" "everyone does it" "we're all friends here, don't be a prude"
oh that's a fun away to take this prompt farther. not only do people notice but it's their friends. or whumper's friends. they're giggling and smirking and thinking this is a good thing. the problem is clearly that whumpee is a prude, is embarrassed, is ruining the vibe. maybe other people are making out, are being handsy with each other, maybe at a nightclub.
maybe not to that extreme, whumper is the only one shoving a hand down someone's pants or up their skirt, actually stroking or penetrating them with searching fingers, but they're not the only person feeling the mood. the mood whumpee needs to just calm down about.
whumpee looking around desperately and making eye contact with someone whose head is tilted back, someone else kissing their neck, and that person winks. and whumpee knows no help is coming.
"When I'm finished..." Whumper breathlessly murmured in a coy tone against Whumpee's trembling lips, "You'll barely be able to stand me not being inside you."
content: pet whump (bbu/institutionalized slavery), literary flashbacks, explicit discussion of suicide, discussion of dead parents, implications of past sexual assault, implications of past underage whumpee, smoking & drinking
♤♢♧♡♧♢♤
It was only once Sonny’s mind caught up with the mechanisms of his body that he even registered he was conscious, sitting bolt upright, having shot up without thinking. His heart thumping against his ribcage was evidence of how he had startled. He clenched and unclenched his fists to feel the workings of muscle, tendon, and bone, trembling with nerves. It was always jarring, to be ripped from sleep and sent straight into fight-or-flight.
He could not identify with any certainty what noise had woken him. It had been loud— he only knew that much. The first thing his brain supplied to him, neurons grasping at straws, was the slam of a cabinet door. Bang! But some subconscious sense told him that it didn’t quite fit. The volume, the distance, the quality of sound… how to describe it? A crack? A pop?
When he turned to check if Port was awake too, he could only blink at the empty space beside him. Sonny was alone.
* * * * *
The shadow in the doorway left as quickly as it had appeared— so silently, that once the door shut and there was no longer proof before his eyes, Sonny was not confident he had not merely hallucinated it.
His head fell back onto the pillow. Drifting in and out, he kept seeing gut-twisting things he did not want to put names to out of the corners of his eyes, disappearing at the flutter of his eyelids. He felt the mattress dip under him. He himself being bent until he might stretch and warp and snap. He felt five distinct points of pressure gripping his neck, his bicep, his thigh. He feared he might find shadows of bruises on his skin as evidence, if he looked.
He did not know if these sensations plagued him for minutes or hours, but at some point he must have fallen into a deep, genuine, dreamless sleep. He pried his eyes open, gazed at the ceiling, and realized he was lucid.
He clenched and unclenched his fists. At the unfamiliar, scratching sensation, he remembered the bandage wrapped around one hand. The cut on his palm did not really sting, anymore. He pulled up at the edge with his fingertips, unraveling it. The wound, less than a centimeter long and settled into one of the wrinkles, was pink and raw. It was still shiny with the ointment Rida had tenderly applied to it with a finger.
Every swallow was like a razor blade slicing the track of his esophagus. When he finally collected the will and the strength to sit up, he noticed the cup on the bedside table, one of the acrylic ones with texture like a chiseled stone. His arm was heavy when he raised the water to his lips. It hurt sliding down his throat, but it activated his thirst, and then it was gone.
He coughed into his elbow, hating the rattle in his lungs. He hoped it would not stick around. He ran his fingers through his hair, which felt limp and greasy, clinging together and sticking up in strange ways in the back. He wondered how long he had been out. When he tried to remember his last moment of clarity, what came to mind was waking up in the middle of the night with terrible nausea and stumbling to the bathroom to curl over the toilet bowl. He remembered the way his shirt stuck to his back with sweat. Who was it who had pressed a grounding hand between his shoulder blades? Rida, right? Why was Port’s face floating to the front of his mind? And why had he been… wet? And naked…?
It trickled back slowly.
He sat in the memory for some time. A nausea crept back into him.
Having had enough of replaying the way he had shamelessly pressed himself against Port’s collarbone, and the way Port’s pinched face and hardened hands had morphed into someone else entirely— someone he could not name or even remember— Sonny swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood, faltering a little at the sudden light-headedness.
He pulled the curtain aside on the window facing the street. Hardly any light entered the room— the sky was dark. Street lamps cast golden cones on the pavement. A stranger passed through one, like stepping into a spotlight, walking a dog connected to her by the leash hooked on its collar. Sonny wondered if she might be able to see him there, standing in the window, if she looked. If she might be able to see the collar around his own throat. Her eyes were too far and shadowed to tell. He drew the curtain shut.
* * * * *
Port never left the room before dawn. It was not allowed. This rung through Sonny’s mind as his fingers hovered over the doorknob. Not allowed, not allowed, not allowed.
He could almost feel an electric buzz coming off it, connecting to the pads of his fingers with invisible cords that would surely burn him if he drew closer. The thrumming traveling from his chest down his arm pushed his hand forward. There was no pain. The metal was cool to the touch.
He opened the door silently, twisting and holding the knob so that latch wouldn’t stick or click. The hallway was dark except for the faint glow emanating from downstairs.
The door to Mr. Oz’s room was ajar.
* * * * *
As soon as Sonny emerged from the bedroom, Port noticed him. The flash of his brown eyes as he turned over his shoulder. They disappeared when Port turned back a second later, hardly landing on Sonny for a second.
God, Port must hate him. Sonny bleakly wished that he had drowned in the tub so he wouldn’t have to think about how he had tried to kiss Port’s neck.
Embarrassingly, the rejection still managed to sting, even if it was at least partly due to Sonny being sick and not in his right mind. He never really thought Port would reciprocate in the first place— and that was probably for the best— but in that state he had thought Port was someone that wanted him, too. All the confusing, illicit sensations. Wires crossed. He wondered if Port would push him away all the same if Sonny were to try it in a state of perfect lucidity. He would not actually attempt it, of course. Port would probably be less nice about it.
Sonny forced himself back to the present. Tal was there, too, sitting across the kitchen table from Port. Playing cards were spread over the surface, and they each held a fan of them in their hands. It struck Sonny as odd to see Port not busying himself with something— engaging in leisure with his master.
“Yo, the Son has risen!” Tal exclaimed. “How ya feeling?”
Sonny blinked away the disparate image of Mr. Oz’s face, focusing on Tal’s unique qualities. Recalibrating master from Mr. Oz to this boy.
“I…” Sonny cleared his throat, sound not coming out right. “I think the fever is gone, sir.”
“Still sick, though?”
“Getting better.”
“That’s good,” Tal said. “Wanna play cards with us? We can deal you in.”
“Uh…” He was distracted by the way Port was refusing to turn around and face him. Sonny stared at the wavy hair falling over his nape.
“Wait!” Tal threw his hands up. A card slipped out from under his thumb and landed face-up on the table. Ace of spades. He hastily flipped it over to hide it from Port’s view. “You should eat. Rida got some crackers for you.” With the guidance of Tal’s pointing finger, Sonny noticed the conspicuous box of wheat crackers sitting by the kitchen sink. He went to grab them, and they rattled around inside.
Sonny turned around at the scrape of chair legs on tile and reeled back against the counter, alarmed, when he saw Tal leaping towards him. But he was aiming for the cupboard, not for Sonny— he produced a cup and filled it with water, kicking the cupboard door shut with his toe. Bang. He held the cup out. “Here.”
Eyes flicking from Tal’s expectant face to the cup of water, Sonny grabbed it cautiously. “Thank you,” he said.
“No problem-o. Hydration is important.” As Sonny drank, relishing the cool water sliding over his tongue, Tal returned to his chair and swept his abandoned cards back into his hand. “Rida’s on the patio, if you were wondering. It’s really nice out. Sure would be nice to sit out there… if she wasn’t smoking,” he said pointedly, eyeing the back door like he could x-ray his disapproving look to her.
Sonny was struck with the sudden and overwhelming urge to escape the stifling house. Out there, Port’s refusal to meet his eyes wouldn’t be so obvious. “May I go outside?” he blurted.
“Sure, bro. No one’s stopping you.”
Tal could, if he wanted to. But Sonny appreciated that he wasn’t.
* * * * *
Every sensible part of him urged Sonny to simply shut himself back in his room, lay down, and go back to sleep. If Port and Mr. Oz were downstairs together, at this hour, doing god knows what, it was in his best interest not to get involved.
But something felt off. Really off. It was quiet downstairs— not even hushed voices. The silence rung in his ears, a pressure against his eardrums just short of tangible.
* * * * *
The breeze against his face was heavenly. Somewhere, wind chimes tinkled gently. Rida was sitting in one of the wicker chairs on the patio cobblestones, pushed up against the adobe wall. Her head swung towards Sonny, who was hovering in the doorway, surprise playing across her face. Her elbow rested on one of the chair arms, cigarette perched delicately between two fingers. The soft wind blew the thin plumes of smoke, dancing in the air like silk threads.
“Heyyy,” Rida said. It was soft, like a coo, the same way she had murmured to him when she bandaged his hand. She’d had him sit on the closed toilet lid, kneeling before him with the first-aid kit by her knee, and saying to him, softly, “Hey, hey, you're okay.”
“Hi,” Sonny replied, still gripping his box of crackers.
“Did you need something, babe?” Her voice was strangely sweet, though she was not smiling— maybe it was just his lingering sickness or sentimentality. Maybe the way she called him babe.
He forced himself to speak, suddenly clutched by timidity. “May I sit out here?” he asked quietly.
She gestured to the open chair beside her, sweeping lazily with her smoking hand. It drew the swirling plume through the air. “Be my guest,” she said. “I can put this out.”
Before she could stub it in the ash tray resting atop the little table on her other side, Sonny stopped her. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” He shut the door behind him and sat in the twin chair, placing the box of crackers between his thighs. “I don’t care about smoke.”
“You found the crackers,” Rida said.
“Tal told me to eat them.”
“Good. Eat them.”
A command was familiar. Sonny obediently opened the box, prying up the cardboard tab on the top. It ripped uncleanly, forcing him to pick at it with his fingernails. Before he could get to the bag inside, a scratch crawled its way up his throat, and he coughed into his elbow. He buried his face deeper in the crook of his arm when he noticed Rida’s attention on him.
“Are you sure I don’t need to put this out?” Her brow was furrowed in concern. “I really shouldn’t be having it, anyway.”
“It’s fine,” Sonny wheezed, cough petering out. “It’s just the sickness. I used to smoke myself.” He didn’t know why he bothered to admit that. To connect with her, he supposed.
She tilted her head. “Really?”
He pinched the plastic bag of crackers on either side. “I mean— it’s been a while,” he said. “But yes. Though I prefer vaping. Um…” The bag sort of squeaked as he peeled it open. The salty, wheaty smell filled his nostrils. “Not that it matters. It’s been a few months,” he finished lamely. Not since before Mr. Oz. He still got the itch for it, sometimes.
She hummed, raising the cigarette. The cherry glowed red as she took a drag. “Me too, but vaping fucks with my sinuses,” she mused, smoke blowing from her lips. She held it over the ash tray and tapped it with her thumb, a clump falling off the end.
“That sucks,” Sonny said, and placed a cracker on his tongue. It was delightfully salty.
“Yeah. I keep trying to kick it, especially since Tal can’t be around the smoke. He’s got bad lungs.” She idly nudged the ash tray and it scraped across the table. “Fuck, my mother would kill me.”
Sonny wondered, grimly, what had happened to her. No surviving spouse, Beau had said.
Rida threw her hands up. “But it’s easier said than done. I only really smoke when I drink, anyway. And I only drink when I’m stressed, these days.” It was then that Sonny noticed on the table the heavy-bottomed glass, halfway full of dark liquid, rippling minutely at the vibration.
* * * * *
He crept towards the top of the staircase and carefully lowered his toes to the first step. Then, gripping the handrail like a lifeline, the next. And then the next. Then the next. On the fifth step— creak. He froze.
“Sonny?” That was Port’s voice. It was hissed, like he wanted to keep his voice low, but it cut through the dead silence.
* * * * *
“I’m sorry,” Sonny said, stomach flipping. He was the reason for her stress, no doubt. She probably regretted taking them in already, especially with the trouble he’d caused.
Her eyes widened, landing on him. “Oh, don’t be. I didn’t mean it like that, babe.” She pressed her fingers against her temple, black nails pushing up into her hair. “I’m always putting my damn foot in my mouth. It’s just the whole… uh… situation.”
Sonny did not know what else to say. He ate two more crackers, taking his time to chew and savor the texture, as Rida wrapped her hand around the glass and took a sip. Sonny felt another unwelcome wheeze in his lungs and broke into another bout of coughing.
Rida clicked her tongue. “Your poor thing,” she said. “That cough is persistent.”
“Yeah,” he rasped.
“Whiskey cure?”
Sonny blinked through watering eyes at the glass in her hand. She was sort of holding it out, and grinning a little goofily, teeth peeking out between her dark painted lips. He realized she might be a little more tipsy than she'd let on. “Um…” The thought of a drink sounded strangely appealing, though he doubted it would actually help his cough.
Her smile faded, registering his expression. “That was meant to be a joke, but if you actually want some…”
He hadn’t had any alcohol in a long time, just like nicotine or any other substance— not since he lived with the Hans. He liked the way it made him looser, less anxious, though that came with its drawbacks around his masters. With their daughter, though… he had found it funny how it made Alice’s cheeks flush, and the way her touch on his hip burned like the bourbon down his throat, even through clothes. But Alice was long gone, a thousand miles away.
Too many thoughts crowding his head. “If you’re offering…”
“What the hell, sure. Here.” She held out the glass, but then withdrew it just as fast, liquid splashing into itself. “Actually, I can get you your own.”
For some reason, he did not want her to go inside and leave him there alone, even for a moment. And he didn’t want the other two to see her search through the cupboard and take an empty glass. “I don’t need my own,” he said. “If you don’t mind. I don’t care if you don’t.”
She hesitated. “Are you sure? Okay. I don’t care.”
He reached to meet her extended arm halfway, connecting himself to her through their shared press of prints to glass. The skin of their fingertips nearly brushed, but did not touch, and then her hand was gone and the glass was his.
He rotated it in his grip, the scant amber swirling at the bottom. His eyes caught on the dark print of lipstick on the rim. He was mindful not to press his mouth to it— he oriented the kiss across from his own, so that as he tilted the glass to let the last vestiges of whiskey slip into his mouth, the wax wrinkled blurred before his eyes.
It burned terribly, as expected. His nose scrunched involuntarily, coughing again into his elbow. The sore throat was momentarily made a thousand times worse, but he relished in the feeling of warmth blooming in his chest as the whiskey made its way down.
Rida took the glass back from him. “That wasn’t your first drink, was it? I would feel bad.”
“No, no,” he said. “I promise it wasn’t.” The breeze returned then, moving his hair. It made him shiver, though he wasn’t cold at all. The weather had warmed significantly since his frigid journey from Texas. He heard those wind chimes again. He looked above Rida’s head and saw them, hanging from the logs spanning over the patio, spinning gently in the air. A glass bird hung down from the center on a string, its crystalline facets catching the light, winking at him like a precious gemstone.
* * * * *
Sonny’s voice stuck in his throat, terrified to speak aloud. “It’s me,” he whispered.
“Don’t come down here,” Port said after a moment, voice shaking. His tone made something tighten in Sonny's chest.
* * * * *
Rida leaned down to reach for something by the leg of her chair— the bottle of whiskey, he realized. Refilling the empty glass. Not a drop was spilled— she twisted and lifted her wrist at the end of the pour. “You are definitely not 21,” she murmured, twisting the cap and setting the bottle back on the ground.
Sonny didn’t bother to comment on that, thinking bitterly about his redacted file. But he knew it was true— they only would have blacked out his birth date if they had something to hide, and it didn’t take a detective to figure out what that was. So-fucking-what.
Regardless of the circumstances of his acquisition, regardless of whether he had been illegally underage or not, he decided it was irrelevant. He had pondered, more than once, the question that would often rise to his mind unbidden, especially in his darkest moments— a question that, back in the facility, handlers would answer before it was even asked. You chose this.
Faced with circumstance, faced with scarcely concealed truth, faced with the things he had seen in the throes of mind-warping fever, he decided he was done asking. It didn’t matter. In some subconscious sense, in memories of impression buried deep within the recesses of his mind, the answer had always been with him. Maybe this is always what he was meant to be. Maybe he chose this for good reason. Maybe it was best not to remember.
Some things were not worth thinking deeply about. (Whoever he used to be was dead, now.)
* * * * *
Sonny knew he probably shouldn’t ask. Still, he could not resist. “Why not?”
Silence.
He was too scared to move. “Porter?”
* * * * *
Or maybe it was just the alcohol talking. He realized, perhaps too late, that his tolerance was nonexistent and his stomach was practically empty. When he turned his head, the world took a few seconds to stop spinning.
He had to ask: “Is it true Tal had to convince you to take us?”
Rida sighed, staring into her swirling drink. “He was on board from the beginning. I’ll admit I had my reservations… but I would’ve made the same decision, anyway,” she said. She never really opened her mouth all the way, especially with her tipsy slurring. She spoke softly. “I want you to know that. I just hope you won’t hate it here.” She sipped at the whiskey, lips landing on the waxy mark, and swallowed. “It has to be better than living with my dad, at least, right?”
Rida was not looking directly at him, but her dark eyes were aimed towards his face out of her peripheral. Gauging his reaction. Sonny sunk deeper into his chair, quietly running his nail over the waxy cardboard box. “You think he didn’t treat us well?”
She raised a shaved eyebrow, finally allowing herself to twist in his direction. “Am I wrong?”
He only shook his head, eyes on his lap. He meant it as a denial to answer, but she seemed to take it as confirmation. He supposed they were effectively the same thing, anyway.
“I figured,” she sighed. “I didn’t expect anything better.” Her hand rose to her chest. There, bellow her collar, hanging from a thin chain necklace, was a ring like one might wear on a finger. She twisted it over and over, a comforting motion, thumb running over the delicate solitaire diamond. “I think him killing himself was inevitable. I wasn’t that surprised. Some part of him always knew he was a piece of shit.” She took a final puff from her cigarette. It was burnt nearly to the filter by now. She stubbed it into the ash tray. “Can I ask something?”
Somehow, despite the subject matter, Sonny found himself lulled by her words. She lisped like there were cotton balls stuffed under her tongue, giving her voice a muffled, dreamlike quality he could not help but like. “Yes,” he replied automatically, complacent and pacified.
“How did he do it?”
* * * * *
“He’s…” Port’s voice broke. He cleared his throat. “Oh, God…” he whispered, not meant to be heard. “I don’t know how to explain this. Please, just go back to bed.”
* * * * *
“Gun,” Sonny answered.
“Checks out,” Rida said brusquely. “Sounds messy.”
“It was.”
Rida’s head snapped towards him, though because he was not looking, he did not know what sort of look she had on her face. “Shit, did you see it? I’m sorry.”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “I didn’t see it, but…” Porter did. He wasn’t supposed to say that, though. Port asked him not to tell anybody. “I can assume,” Sonny finished. He had smelled it, even underneath the white sheet.
Rida did not respond. When his eyes flicked back to her, she had produced another cigarette, which was sticking out of her mouth. She was lighting it awkwardly with a needlessly long lighter, like one he might use to light a gas stove if he was scared to get too close. The end caught the flame, and she took a draw. She noticed his stare and released the trigger, flame disappearing. She pulled a little smoke into her mouth. “Don’t make fun of me,” she said, smoke swirling. She placed the lighter on the table. “I can’t find my Zippo. I don’t know where it went.”
Sonny could not suppress his urge to grin. “I wasn’t going to make fun of you.”
“Sure,” Rida intoned. Her eyes narrowed at his face— then she broke into a smile. It looked nice on her, when it wasn’t forced. “You have dimples,” she said, delighted.
Suddenly shy, and feeling his cheeks go warm, he resisted the desire to hide behind his hands. He could not tamp the grin entirely, and dropped his eyes. “I guess I do,” he said. How funny it was, for her to be so enchanted by such an innocuous feature of his face.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile before.”
“Maybe I’ll smile more often,” Sonny said. “If I have reason to. Can I have another drink?”
“I suppose,” Rida said. “But not too much more.”
She passed it to him, and he took a reasonable sip. It went down easier the second time. Something occurred to him, staring into glass. “Is this halal?” he asked.
Rida made a weird face at him, halfway between incredulity and amusement. “Do I look Muslim to you?”
“I— I don’t know,” Sonny stuttered, fearing to have offended her. “A Muslim can look like anything, can’t they?”
Rida broke into a laugh, tilting her head so that her bob fell closer against her cheek. Her bright face sent some relief through him. “You know what? You’re right. You shouldn’t judge based off looks.”
“I’m open-minded,” Sonny proclaimed, giving the glass back to her.
“You’re sweet,” Rida said. “But I’m not Muslim. You’re thinking of Tal.” She was fidgeting with that ring looped on her necklace again. On the tiny diamond, a tinier facet caught the light and twinkled in his eye. “He takes after our mom. She was always the religious one.” The cigarette hovered by her mouth, but she did not put her lips on it. “I guess in that sense, I take after Dad.”
* * * * *
Port did not come upstairs for hours. Sonny laid awake the entire time.
When he finally stepped through the door, he had a wild look in his eyes. Sonny had always thought his thousand-yard stare was one of his most striking traits. Now, Sonny realized he had never even seen how unsettling it could really look.
* * * * *
“When did she die?” Sonny asked, before he could stop himself.
Nothing changed in her face. Her eyes were lidded, gazing across the dark yard to the wooden fence, like she was deeply considering a long crack splitting the rot. She continued to twist the ring in her fingers. “Last year. May.”
Sonny thought back to that fateful evening, the night Mr. Han lost that card game. The night he gave Sonny up to Mr. Oz’s clutches. Sonny knew he was lying when he tried to convince himself that the game was the extent of it. It was merely the culmination. The tension had been building long before that.
Before he got into Mr. Oz’s car, he remembered taking a final look at the brick house he had come to know, windows glowing from within. The evening had been warm. Something sick settled in his stomach— not the alcohol. “He took me in June,” Sonny said.
Rida pursed her lips, nodding. “I know. I saw that in your file.”
* * * * *
Port’s hardened hands shook as he cupped Sonny’s in his own. They were cold, and slightly wet, like he had just washed them and did not bother to dry them all the way. Sonny stared down at them, at the shadows of the bones pressing against his skin, at the missing fingers, and the misshapen nails. There were dark threads of earth under the white tips, like little crescent moons.
* * * * *
Sonny could not really remember how he had reacted, when Port told him the news. He could barely even remember the day after, by this point— it was all getting buried away, like countless other moments, many of which he was sure he had already forgotten and did not want to remember or even think about in passing. (For the best.)
Port had waited to call the police until morning. He’s already gone, he’d explained to Sonny. Might as well wait until daybreak.
Sonny, despite the warning bells ringing in his mind, had accepted this. He had been terrified of what would happen to them next. If Port wanted to delay it for as long as possible, he was okay with that. As long as he got to spend the rest of the night by him, savoring it, in case he would never get the chance again.
Seems like it all worked out, Sonny thought. Now if only we could stay off the topic of Mr. Oz, forever.
The moon shone through a tear in the clouds. Sonny turned to the horizon. It was too dark to see clearly, especially beyond the rotting fence, but he imagined he could see the shadow of the distant mountain range if he just focused hard enough.
Grab your character and shove their head underwater. Keep them pinned until they breathe in the water. Pull them up and let them splutter and cough. Push them under again. Pull them up. Let them use their precious seconds of air to beg. "Ple-Please, please stop — " Push them under again. Feel them squirm. Pull them up sooner; they couldn't hold their breath long enough. Once more for good measure. Don't let them up until they nearly suffocate. Pull them up and throw them to the ground, let them cough up all the water they swallowed. Pull them into your lap. They are shivering, the cold water having seeped deep into their bones. They are crying. They are going to try to pull away. Don't let them. Hush them gently. Card through their hair. Let them relax under your hands. Then drag them back over to the water. Put their nose right above the surface and keep their head right there. Let them imagine how it will feel to be pushed under again, held there, pulled up just so they can drown again. They will fight, they will sob, they will plead and barter and yell. They will be scared. Answer them with an order. "Take a deep breath for me." Watch them struggle to decide if they should. They probably won't be able to take one deep enough if they tried. Push them under. Watch them squirm. Repeat.
whumper who forces whumpee to thank them every time they're sexually assaulted. who clicks their tongue and says no, no, i didn't believe you. try harder. i need to hear your gratitude. again.
Whumper owning trained dogs and living weapons and treating them the exact same. They sleep in crates next to each other, wear the same collars, have the same commands, even eat the same foods. Some of the weapons don't even know how to speak and have adapted bark and growl-like noises for communication. Whumper sharpening weapon's teeth once weapon begins biting enemies they same way the dogs do.
Whumper sits down and has a dog resting its head on his thigh for pets, and soon weapon begins to mirror it. Whumper pets weapon's head the exact same way he would for the dogs, and the weapon's eyes close with bliss. "Good boy."
i love you all and i need you to stop writing trauma as a single breakdown scene in the rain after which the character is Healed and Ready to Love Again. that is NOT trauma :(
⊹ Trauma doesn't announce itself. it shows up as your character suddenly not being able to eat a specific food, or going very quiet in a loud room, or laughing at the wrong moment because their nervous system decided that was the appropriate response. it's mundane and weird and it makes no sense from the outside. the dramatic flashback sequence is the least realistic part. the most realistic part is your character suddenly needing to leave a grocery store for a reason they can't articulate.
⊹ The body keeps score and it keeps it in the strangest places. a particular smell. the quality of light at a certain time of day. a tone of voice that sounds like someone who hurt them. your traumatised character doesn't think "this reminds me of the bad thing." their heart rate spikes and they don't know why. they feel wrong and they can't locate the feeling. they're irritable for three days and only later, if ever, do they make the connection. write the disconnection. it's more honest.
⊹ trauma also does not make people universally sympathetic and wise. it makes some people controlling. some people funny at inappropriate times. some people very good in a crisis and completely unable to handle a normal day. some people are generously kind to strangers and absolutely terrible to people they love. trauma shapes behaviour in contradictory, inconvenient ways that don't resolve into a lesson. your traumatised character can be difficult to like. that's not a flaw in the writing. that's the WRITING.
⊹ Healing is not linear and it is not a destination. your character does not get better and stay better. they have a good month and then something small undoes two years of progress and they have to start again with slightly more tools than before. that's the actual shape of it. the spiral, not the arc. the scene where they finally open up and cry is not the end. it might not even be progress. sometimes it just means they were tired that night.
past domestic whump scenario. caretaker going through whumpee's old home movies for some reason, looking to cheer them up, understand them better, help them recover memories, whatever. so far, most of the tapes have been charming and nostalgic--recordings of people singing "happy birthday" to whumpee at various ages or fun day trips they took with friends and family; those long, unedited holiday videotapes that people have, that are just like, six grainy hours of christmas morning.
caretaker is in the middle of watching one, smiling fondly along with the whumpee on the screen, when the tape suddenly cuts out; the feed switches to a dark, slightly blurry recording of whumper raping whumpee. turns out, whumper accidentally taped over something else when they were trying to make a record of their abuse--replacing happy memories with their cruelty and humiliation.
oh that's fantastic. i love that. the sudden shock of it, the way that caretaker is watching these in the first place because they're trying to do something to help whumpee. understand them, cheer them up, remind them of how loved they are, by so many more people than just caretaker.
and then all of a sudden there's that horrible image. there's whumpee with whumper on top of them. whumpee making horrible, wounded sounds, quiet and miserable and confused, while whumper lays on top of them and moves in these sickening, jolting thrusts. caretaker should be snapping this video off immediately. they should be burning this tape already but- they're just. they're frozen. they can't process it. they don't understand. it's so clear what's happening. this is not a sex tape. this is documentation of a horrific crime, a devastating violation. they're watching whumpee get raped. they just can't understand it.
whumper- caretaker knew whumper. caretaker saw them together with whumpee (as roommates, friends, partners, in whatever capacity this domestic situation took place). was this happening the whole time? was whumper raping them the whole time? how did caretaker not know? why didn't whumpee tell them? did caretaker make them think they couldn't? did whumpee think caretaker wouldn't believe them, would- would take whumper's side? why? why?
-Promised pain meds that are actually aphrodisiacs
-Drugs that make the whumpee sleepy and vulnerable, becoming drowsy and affectionate even if they usually were terrified or disgusted by their whumper
-Drugs that make the whumpee angry, aggressive, and energetic - easily manipulated in this state to even attack others at the behest of their whumper
-Finally getting pain meds after living in constant pain for ages and being brought to tears by the relief
-Super strong pain meds that make the whumpee slow and stoned, unable to defend themselves verbally or physically
-An allergic reaction to some pain meds or antibiotics - will the whumper risk bringing them to the hospital? Do they have a doctor who will help on the hush? Do they leave their whumpee to suffer through on their own?
- MEDS A WHUMPEE NEEDS TO FUNCTION, do they have to struggle to live without them? Does the whumper give them meds but on the condition of good behavior? Does the whumpee refuse the meds? Does the whumper give them their meds but secretly replace them with something else?
-Drugs that make a whumpee hallucinate - what do they see? Are they scared? Are they emboldened?
-Sleeping meds, keeping the whumpee too drowsy and weak to try to escape
- Stimulants, forcing a whumpee to stay up for days, sleep deprivation, forced labor
- Drugs slipped into food and drink, not knowing what’s happening when they start to feel funny
-Whumpee being forced to eat or drink something they KNOW is drugged but having no choice
-Injecting a whumpee with a syringe, the sharp pain of the injection and then the terrifying realization that they’ve been drugged, begging the whumper to tell them what they just gave them
-The whumpee trying to drug their whumper, maybe hoping to make an escape attempt, but being caught and forced to consume whatever it was themselves
- Starving a whumpee and then finally offering them some food, they know it is drugged but struggle to resist the temptation of the food, they are just so hungry
- Drugging a whumpee and letting them go, them being so overwhelmed with relief that they can finally escape, only to collapse just a few feet away from freedom
-Making a whumpee dependent on drugs, so they become even more dependent on their whumper, their Whumper threatening to take away the drugs as punishment knowing the horrible withdrawals they would go through from being cut off
- Drugs that paralyze the whumpee while leaving them conscious, the whumper getting to manipulate their body like a doll while they are horrified but unable to struggle
-Drugs that paralyze the whumpee’s legs, so they have to drag themselves anywhere they go
DRUGSSSSSSSS
If you use any of these prompts, please @ me, I’d love to read it!
Whumper who triggers Whumpee's fawn/freeze response with close proximity and a gentle hand on their face, just caressing them despite the hurtful intent behind it.
Whumpee whose defiance dies as their brain shuts down once they're touched in any manner resembling intimacy, just staring wide-eyed at Whumper who coos unnerving things into their ear
Whumper tells Whumpee they won't stop raping them until Whumpee finally cums.
god that's awful, especially if it's a whumpee who's really not becoming aroused during the abuse at all. their body is not responding. they're too in their head, or they struggle to become aroused and orgasm even on the best day with a skilled consensual partner, or it just hurts too much, but whatever the reason, they're not getting hard or wet, they're too soft or too tight. but whumper tells them it won't stop.
maybe whumper leaves, and whumpee curls into a ball, relieved that whumper seems to have changed their mind. they ache so much, pain throbbing between their tightly pressed together thighs, and they shake and cry.
until the door opens again. whumper is back, and there's something in their hand. whumpee's throat goes dry and terror freezes their lungs as they recognize the toy in whumper's hand. it's not over. whumper isn't going to stop, they've just gotten something to use, a vibrator or a fleshlight or some other tool, to force whumpee into pleasure they don't want and can't reach.
"let's try this again," whumper says, annoyed and intense. their hands easily force open whumpee's exhausted, strained, trembling legs. "you're not getting out of this until you give me what i want."
Whumpee who is touch repulsed, but therefore also touch starved. There are only a very small number of people they trush enough to be able to tolerate their touch. Whumper is one of those people, and uses it against them, either by using them reacting (unwillingly) positively to unwanted/abusive touch, or by using that touch to hurt them when they least expect it. Maybe whumper only hurts them once, or maybe whumper does it many times; at what point does whumpee start being repulsed from their touch? Are they still able to let the other the other people they trust to touch them?
that's horrific and i love it. the combination of so many things that i love... i'm imagining this scenario, right. and the question of the aftermath, when they're carrying their original struggles with touch and this trauma around someone using that precious, rare trust and comfort to abuse them. me being me, i have to believe they find ways to get safe touch after that. but the scenario playing out in my mind reading this ask...
whumpee and whumper are on the couch. they're watching a movie together. whumper has their arm around whumpee who is cuddled up close to them, leaning into their chest, calm and comfortable and soaking in the contact with one of the few people they can accept it from. the movie is not the point - the touch is the point. the warmth. the pressure. the feeling of someone breathing against them.
then things start to change. so slowly that whumpee barely notices at first, the way that whumper is holding them shifts. their hands move, travelling across whumpee's body. at first, it's nice. even the press of whumper's fingers on their bare skin is nice. for a few moments, it's nice, resting on their hip, just barely under their shirt. and then... then farther under their shirt. whumpee squirms a little, hoping whumper will get the message.
they don't. or, they don't care.
"i..." whumpee murmurs.
"shhh," whumper hushes. their hand spreads, possessive and invasive, over their chest, whumpee's shirt getting bunched up. whumper's thumb grazes their nipple and they flinch, only to be hushed again. "everything's okay."
it's not okay. whumper keeps going. whumpee is squirming harder now, trying to wriggle away, but they're too close, whumper's arms are too tight around them, and now there's a hand forcing its way under the waistband of their pants. it's groping down, down.
"whumper, i don't-" and whumpee's voice cuts off with a sharp gasp as the hand that's wormed its way under their pants, into their underwear, grabs them between their thighs and squeezes. terror grips their chest and they're horrified by the way their hips jolt, responding to stimulation they don't want.
"shhhh," whumper hushes. "shhhhhhhhh."
their hands don't stop. they don't stop. it doesn't stop.
Thought: Whumper and whumpee in public. Whumper is not even trying to be subtle and whumpee has to grasp with the horrifying realization that people can see and not only can they see, but they are choosing to let it happen. They don't want to get involved.
yes, YES.
the first thing that came to mind is some kind of dinner party or restaurant. whumper has their hand in whumpee's lap, up their skirt or down their pants or even groping them over their clothes. it's subtle but it's not that subtle. people are definitely noticing. they're glancing over, doing a double take, and looking quickly away.
some of them are snickering to each other or suppressing embarrassed grins. some of them look disgusted, their faces contorting in horrified sneers.
whumpee is so humiliated they could die. people are watching. they're watching whumper stroke them or push fingers inside them or just pet their skin, stroke it, grab and grip and squeeze them between thighs that twitch and shake. whumpee suppresses every whimper that rises in their throat, every horrified whine or - even worse - forcibly pleasured sigh. they shift in their seat and whumper grabs them harder, fingers and palm gripped punishingly hard to whumpee's most vulnerable place. everyone can see. no one is saving them.
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