my own slavery universe, 17 yo whumpee, generally pretty violent, threat of noncon (will never actually happen), disproportionate retribution. listed chronologically. (ongoing verrrry slowly)
847481: Jesse
box boy universe, platonic box boy, heavy themes of ocd and anxiety, some noncon (never explicit. really only heavily implied). listed chronologically. (ongoing)
Whumper/Carewhumper who realized they pushed Whumpee too far. Maybe Whumpee has been stoic this entire time and now just won't stop sobbing. Maybe Whumpee was defiant and now is just... complacent. Maybe there was something Whumpee always cared about, a comfort object or person, and now when Whumper tries to tempt them with it Whumpee just shakes their head. Especially good with a Whumper or Carewhumper who thought that what they were doing was best for Whumpee, but now they very clearly pushed them too far.
A Whumper who is just doing a job. They tell Whumpee it's not personal. They are very professional about it all. Whumpee fights back? "It's okay, it makes sense you feel this way." Whumpee finally breaks? "There's no shame in it, everyone breaks." They say it as if it's simply a fact.
When they have the information they need, they're nicer to Whumpee. They feed them properly, give them a book to read, a pillow to sleep on. "You have given us what we need, there is no need to suffer more. It's not personal."
Finally, Whumpee escapes. Whumper is in their way. And as Whumpee drives the knive in Whumper's chest, they only have one thing to say to them. "It's not personal."
• Eyes flicking to someone’s mouth mid-sentence
• Forgetting what they were about to say
• Leaning in unconsciously
• Mirroring posture without realizing
• Smiling at something that wasn’t that funny
• Adjusting hair or clothes when the other person enters
• Noticing and remembering details no one else bothers to
• A pause before pulling their hand away
• Shoulders softening
• Looking away first and then back again
• Swallowing before speaking
• Voice lowering slightly
• Turning their body fully toward the other person
• A delayed reaction to a touch
Whumper entering the room and the air changing immediately, heavy and expectant and tense, as Whumpee tries to steel themselves for whatever comes next
six months early or six months late, here is joey's first new year's eve at aaron's.
tw/cw: descriptions of scars, being shot at, fear of death/being killed, mutilation of wound with knife, general dehumanisation. slow and exposition-heavy writing. plot details at the end that may or may not be expanded upon further if i can make them fit later, don't think too much about them i'm posting this at 1am
---
Instead of going up to his family’s place in Rochester like he used to, Aaron had asked Marla to join their Christmas celebration at home.
Aaron couldn’t bring Joey back home until they had had some clear communication and had come up with a believeable story as to why he had an injured, traumatized man with separation anxiety living in his house. It didn't matter much to Aaron whether the story they eventully would tell was true or not. He was more invested in not giving his mother a heart attack, as well as wanting to preserve Joey's dignity and respect his wishes for the narrative.
Maybe next year's holidays would present a better opportunity for Joey's introduction, Aaron thought, and pointedly did not think about how long Joey would stay with him. Sending him back to Mike, or some other equally seedy, exploitative organisation, was out of the question.
Similarly unthinkable was the prospect of leaving Joey home alone in a big, dark, cold house while he went up to his family himself. The possibility had lingered in his mind, if only for a brief minute. He could make a day trip out of it on Christmas Eve or Day, fly out in the morning and come back late at night and have time to ingest at least one of his mother's homecooked meals in the meantime. Then, he thought about Joey, who undoubtedly would sit at the door and wait for him all day, and probably into the night because of holiday lines and delays, and he thought better of it.
Thus, the week leading up to Christmas had been a quiet affair with a few movies, napping on the couch, hot drinks and a Joey who gradually took shorter and shorter time to slink into Aaron’s side in the evenings. Physical touch really was the way to his heart.
Marla had a few days off and joined them when she could. For the first time in years Aaron pulled the few boxes of decorations he had down from the attic, and they spent an afternoon hanging wreaths and stockings. In the evening, they untangled the Christmas lights and Joey, bundled up in Aaron's old parka and seated on a deck chair placed on the snow-dusted lawn for the occation, watched with poorly concealed awe and fear as Aaron balanced on a ladder leaning on the porch roof and Marla pointed to where the lights should hang. Aaron bought a Christmas tree on a whim as he passed a vendor in a parking lot, and they spent the evening decorating it with paper chains and ornaments so old they had almost no glitter left on them. As Aaron joined Marla in the kitchen to prepare spiced cider and something to eat, Joey stayed in the living room, seated in an old leather recliner with Dolly on his lap, watching the tree. He still sat there when they came back out thirty minutes later, the many bulbs of the Christmas tree lights reflecting in his big, dark eyes like stars in the sky.
Christmas was, as a whole, a relaxing, comfortable event. Much more so than if he had spent it with his own immediate and partially extended family, Aaron thought, without mentioning that particular fact to his mother when she called on Christmas Morning to wish him happy holidays.
New year’s would be an equally quiet and calm affair.
At least, that was Aaron’s intention.
It had started well. Marla had left the day before to fly down to her parents in Houston and spend the holiday there, so he and Joey would be on their own. Before she left, she had hugged them both in turn and combed her fingers through Joey's unruly mop of dark hair.
"Handsome," she said and pulled him in for another hug as he bowed his head and hid his bashful smile in the collar of his hoodie.
Something had happened with him over the last week or two, Aaron had noticed. His shoulders didn't carry the same high-strung tension anymore. His eyes, which had always scanned every room he entered and never quite lost their worried, hunted look, weren't quite as round and wide-open as they had used to be. He didn't ask for permission for the littlest things anymore. He went to fridge to fetch a soda on his own. He didn't wait around with that wretched expression on his face, waiting to be gently told to go put on to go put on wool socks anymore. When his feet were cold, he simply went to the set of drawers in the hall, where the thickest socks were, and selected a pair to wear on his own.
Food was still an issue, but something had happened there, too. He had helped himself to seconds at dinner once without asking - yes, it had only happened the one time, but it had happened, and that in itself was progress in Aaron's mind. Marla had made sure to keep a platter of salted caramel cookies on the kitchen island while she stayed, and she had needed to top it up more than once. Aaron had never seen Joey take the cookies, but neither he nor Marla ate them and Dolly didn't care for caramel, so Joey had to be the one.
It made his stomach turn that Joey was so insecure about food that he potentially felt he had to steal it to get enough to eat. Food was not a scarcity in Aaron's house, and he wanted Joey to know that. He could eat whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and Aaron would be happy about it. Midnight cookies in the kitchen didn't bother him.
"Be nice to him," Marla said to Aaron with put-on sternness. It was Aaron's turn to smile as Marla hugged him as well. Joey watched and politely cast his gaze down when they shared a quick kiss - ever the appeaser.
Aaron carried her bags to her car despite her protests that she could it herself and joined Joey on the porch after to wave as she drove off. He put an arm around Joey's shoulders - he hadn't put on a coat, and Aaron was terminally worried about keeping him warm enough - as her neat, black coupe disappeared.
"It's cold out here. Let's get inside?" he suggested, always making sure to never give direct orders. Something about nurturing self-determination in the rehabilitation of former pets that Marla had talked about.
Joey nodded and carefully hobbled inside as Aaron held the door open for him. It had only been a few weeks since the cast had been taken off his ankle, but the area was still sore and the joint vulnerable, so they had been told to take it easy and not push it.
When Aaron had been looking for the Christmas decorations in the attic, he had found his grandfather's old hickory cane with the carved handle, which he had brought down. Joey's eyes had widened when he first saw it. It probably looked like an instrument of punishment to him, but Aaron had quickly told him it was a walking cane and that maybe he could use it to help with balance while his ankle was still healing. Joey had carefully tried it out, limping back and forth on the living room floor, and since then the cane had always been by his side.
They spent a few hours half-watching sitcom reruns on the sofa, Joey dozing with his head on a pillow leaned against Aaron's thigh and Aaron with his work laptop open on the arm of the sofa. He sometimes cast glances down at Joey's face, and when he noticed his eyes lingering on the door to the kitchen, he gently suggested dinner.
Joey was in charge of the vegetables while Aaron cut the turkey breast they had prepared the day before. He watched them with great reverance - the glazed carrots in the oven and the broccoli currently steaming on the stovetop. As they worked, Aaron was idly thinking about where it would be best to watch the fireworks from later tonight. A couple miles up the road there was a clearing in the forest, high enough up to get a good view of the surrounding exurbs. Or, they could go downtown. There was supposed to be a public firework display over the river, probably visible even if they only stayed in the car for the entire spectacle. Joey would probably prefer that, not having to navigate large crowds on his mangled foot.
"Do you think you would like to-" Aaron began, intending to ask about his preferred viewing location, when a clear, moving light suddenly lit up outside. He leaned forwards to look out the window and watched the red ball of light burn in the dark. It climbed the sky like a tiny airplane, coming from the woods east of the property. It was likely teenagers firing from the backwoods road running up there.
"Looks like someone jumped the gun on their celebration," he muttered right as the ball of light exploded. He flinched, only because he had forgotten how loud fireworks could be up close.
When he turned to face Joey, wanting to say something half-witty about teens literally setting fire to their money, he wasn't there.
It was if he had phased out of existence, leaving no trace other than his cane still leaning on the edge of the counter and a fork piercing a broccoli floret laying next to it.
"Joey?" Aaron said, stupidly, because he was clearly alone in the room. He even walked around the kitchen island and poked his head into the living room, still seeing no trace.
Outside, more fireworks lit up as he turned the heat of the oven and stovetop down, and looked into the dining room as well, even though they almost never used it. Joey wasn't in there either.
He headed upstairs, serenaded by more wheezes and pops from the fireworks outside. The bathroom was empty, as was Joey's own room. The office and the library-turned-temporary-storage-room was as well.
That only left one room.
"Joey?" Aaron said gently as he entered his own bedroom. He should have come here first, he realized, as the door was wide open. Most doors in this house were usually only ajar, to let Dolly come and go as she pleased.
He scanned the dark room, not spotting anything out of the ordinary-
-except for the corner of the worn rug on the floor, upturned as if someone had gotten their toes caught under it as they moved past and did not have time to stop and fix it.
He stepped around the empty bed, not finding anyone in it nor under it, and turned towards the last possible location.
He carefully pulled the closet doors open. There, sticking out from under the long wintercoat he had inherited from his grandfather, was a wool sock-clad foot.
"Oh, little one," he mumbled as he crouched down and pushed the coat aside. The hanger screeched as it was dragged along the rack.
Joey was the smallest he had ever seen him. He was curled up so tight that he looked like a child, somehow having managed to gather all his long, bony limbs until his body was a tight little ball in the corner of the closet. He was on his side, turned halfway towards the wall. Aaron couldn't see his face, only his dark, tousled hair and hunched shoulders, rising and falling in time with his hyperventilation.
The fireworks outside died out, the teens probably not able to afford more than a couple of batteries. The silence that fell over them allowed a wheezing, sniveling sound to reach Aaron's ears. It took a few seconds before he realized it was Joey's sound.
It wasn't even crying. It was a kind of howling. A weak, desperate howl that could only be born from terror.
Aaron hesitated, but only for a moment. Something about the last couple of weeks had made him slightly more certain in his handling of the boy.
"It's okay, Joey," he said mildly and reached out and placed his hand on his upper arm.
He had expected the violent flinch, but not the terrified wailing that followed, nor the Joey's hands shot up to protect his face, as if Aaron had lifted his hand to hit him.
"Hey, hey hey, easy. It's okay, it's just me," Aaron said, and didn't remove his hand from Joey's arm.
"P-please -" Joey's voice hitched between the sobs. As so many times before, Aaron was not quite sure what he was begging for, or if Joey even knew it himself. They were the words of a man desperate for relief.
"It's over, baby. No more fireworks, right?" Aaron kept his hand where it was, and placed his other on Joey's other arm, holding both.
"Come here," he mumbled and carefully pulled Joey's trembling body towards his chest. Joey, obedient to his core, followed immediately, despite the way he still shook with fear.
"Little one, you're okay. Nobody's here to get you."
It was as if something gave way and released in the tightly strung body of his house guest once he was fully enveloped in Aaron's arms. Joey turned his head to burrow it in the collar of Aaron's shirt, releasing a hopeless whine as he did so.
"I won't let anything happen to you," Aaron mumbled and pressed his lips to the back of his neck. "Nothing bad will happen to you here."
Minutes passed as they sat together, Joey shaking and whimpering and Aaron holding him, stroking his back and muttering soothing, reassuring words to him. It was a familiar pattern - yet another situatuion which left Joey entirely wrung out of his skin, tears streaming, shoulders hitching. Yet another piece in the puzzle of his trauma.
Outside, the night was quiet and the sky was dark.
"I'm sorry," Joey rasped eventually, voice low.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," Aaron muttered to him. "You were afraid."
"Yes," he wheezed. "B-but I know they're just fireworks. I know they can't hurt me, and still..." His grip on Aaron's shirt tightened.
You have been traumatized, Aaron wanted to say. You probably have PTSD, on top of general anxiety. But he didn't say that.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked instead, with no clear idea of what it was. He hoped the open-ended question could help Joey open up about whatever it was that was bothering him, in his own way. Let him talk about what was most pressing. They had to start somewhere.
Joey was silent for a moment. Aaron couldn't see his face, but he knew this silence well enough to know that Joey's big, round eyes were unfocused and staring out into the ether as he rifled through his mind, looking for what to say.
"I think..." He took a deep breath. "It was when we w-went to the desert..." His voice was shaking. Aaron didn't push for which desert or who we included, only continued stroking his hair.
"It was at a range, I think? They were trying out different guns," Joey continued. His hand, which had been clutching his probably throbbing ankle up until now, moved up and he gripped his shin over the wool sock. "I don't know why they brought me there. There was no reason to. There was no one there who were... interested in me."
Aaron felt something twinge in his chest at the way Joey's brittle voice seemed to harden and develop an edge.
"It was so hot," he continued. "Even in the shade. I was barefoot and it was so hot. My master," it was Aaron's turn to tighten his jaw, "had a cooler with water and beer and-and... and I asked for something to drink. It was so hot," he repeated. It seemed as if he felt the need to emphasize the temperature, as if to justify what might come next.
"One of the other men had brought his dog. My master told me we would have to share the dog bowl."
Aaron imagined a metal bowl, halfway filled with lukewarm water, sand and dog slobber. He cringed and unconsciously tightened his hold around Joey. His poor boy. His sweet, mild-mannered, skittish boy. Made to share a bowl of water with a dog.
"And I would have!" Joey suddenly exclaimed, his voice taking on a desperate quality. "I would have drank the dog water. But the dog was growling at me, and the cooler was right there, and it was so hot..." He moaned and rubbed his eyes, as if unable to continue.
"You're doing good." Aaron broke through his own ire and grounded himself around Joey. He could be angry later. He had to log and store every little bit of information Joey was giving him now. Every implication or trace of a place, a description, a name. Anything that could lead him in the direction of the people who had done this to his Joey. He had rarely been this forthcoming abut his past.
And most importantly, he had to be there for him. He continued stroking slow circles into Joey's back, reassuring him through what must be a taxing recollection of events. "You're good, baby," he said and rested his cheek on the top of Joey's head.
"I stole a bottle of water," Joey eventually whispered, voice shaking as if he was confessing to a mortal sin. It probably felt like it. Aaron pressed his eyes shut.
"I waited until they started shooting again, and I stole a water bottle, and I drank only a little, and then one of the men saw me, and I dropped the bottle and spilled the rest, and-and-" The rest of his words broke away into sobs again. "-and as punishment they made me stand in front of the targets w-when they tried the next gun."
Aaron stiffened. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know how to react at all.
"They shot so much. I thought I would get hit, but they never shot at me. Only around me." He paused and one of his hands came up to cover his mouth. His eyes were wide open, staring off into nothing.
"But Master said it wasn't enough punishment," he breathed. "He told me to run."
"Oh, Joey..." Aaron managed to whisper and placed his hand on Joey's head, holding him even closer. He could only imagine it. Joey, barefoot and frail, dehydrated, definitely malnourished and probably sunburnt, being pointed to the desert and given what he probably thought was his final order from his owner.
Run.
"They didn't hit me at first. But the gun was automatic, so I think they stopped trying to aim, and just shot." His voice had grown oddly steady now, like the trauma had reached a plateau within him.
"They hit my leg," he said. Aaron cast his glance down to where he was gripping his shin. The leg of his pajama pant had ridden up, revealing a long, thin scar stretching over the outside of his leg, where a bullet must have flown by, ripping the skin open instead of piercing it. It looked like comet in the night sky.
"And my thigh. And somewhere..." his other hand ghosted over the side of his head. Aaron wondered if he would find a similar scar there if he parted his dark hair. The bullet must only have grazed him, for him to still be alive now, but still.
Shot at.
Hit.
In the head.
"I think I wet myself. I was so afraid. I've never run so fast in my life."
"How did you..." Aaron started, but he wasn't sure about how to finish the question. How did you survive?
"I fell. I think I stumbled, or it was when they hit my thigh. I don't know. I passed out, I think, and when I woke up, they were all there. One of them had a spring blade. I think he tried to remove the bullet from my thigh." He let out a sardonic snort of laughter. "Maybe he just wanted to dig around inside of me. I don't know. I blacked out again."
Of course he was afraid of fireworks, Aaron thought to himself as he, astonished by the horror of the story Joey was telling, let his head fall back. He closed his eyes and recollected the gnarly scar on Joey's right thigh, the origins of which had been a mystery to him until now. It looked like a violent paint splatter of scar tissue. The first time he had seen it, on the first night when Joey was in the bath, knees drawn up under his chin, Aaron had thought it a wonder that he hadn't bled to death when he had recieved the wound. Now, knowing it came from a gun shot and subsequent gouging with a blade, his boy's survival was even more astonishing.
"I don't like loud sounds now," Joey offered weakly, after a long while. "I don't like fireworks."
"Of course you don't, baby," Aaron muttered, shaking the mental images of mangled skin. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Joey's head, now accutely aware of the fact that there probably was a scar hiding somewhere behind the sea of dark waves, too.
---
Getting Joey out of the closet and downstairs again was out of the question. That much was clear in the way his entire body stiffened as Aaron got up and gently suggested it. With his fingers, still holding Joey's hand, he could feel the way his pulse sped up at the mere suggestion of it. He was still in a such a frail state of mind after reliving the desert nightmare that Aaron wouldn't put it past him to have another panic attack if he went back downstairs, regardless of the presence of fireworks.
"Stay here," he said, needlessly, over his shoulder as he entered the hallway. A plan had formed in him when he observed the way Joey's face had ashened and how his eyes had grown large and round when Aaron had exited the closet.
He retrieved his old laptop from his office down the hall and Joey's pillow, weighted blanket and stuffed panda teddy from his room. He stopped by the library-turned-storage where his old record player stood next to its newer, more modern sibling.
It wasn't something he would ever ask for on his own, but Joey had recieved a pair of noise-cancelling bluetooth headphones for Christmas, along with the new record player. Aaron had picked up that he liked music, especially the soul-shaking bass and guitar riffs of Aaron's old rock and punk rock records. Since Joey was deathly afraid of being percieved as even the littlest of bits of impeding on Aaron's space, he would listen to the records on the lowest volume, laying on the floor with his ear pressed up against the mesh of the old speakers.
Aaron, instead of spending hours trying to convince Joey that he never, ever could think of him as 'in the way' and that he could play music as loud as he wanted, had gone the other route and instead gifted him a new record player and bluetooth headphones.
It gave Joey what he wanted - loud, high quality music - while also making him feel like he wasn't in the way. And truly, it had worked. Several times throughout the holidays Aaron had walked by the storage room and spotted Joey in there, swaying by the windows, laying flat on the rug or leaning on the armrest of the old couch. Always with his eyes closed and wearing the headphones, and every time with a different record spinning on the player.
Aaron retrieved the headphones and, with some fiddling with the settings on his laptop, managed to pair them. He then returned to his closet.
Joey let himself be covered in the weighted blanket and took the teddy bear and the pillow when Aaron handed them to him. He sat very still as Aaron slid the headphones over his ears, only looking at him silently from under his heavy lashes, Rocky the panda clutched in his arms.
Aaron figured sleeping was out of the question, so instead he found a documentary on forest elephants and handed the laptop to Joey. Joey, always so gravely serious when Aaron entrusted him with something, accepted it and placed it carefully in his lap. Aaron then went downstairs and made up a plate of the food they had almost finished preparing when the fireworks had been shot up. Joey accepted that, too, with great reverence.
"I'll stay here with you," Aaron said and sat down on the bed with his plate of food and his work laptop. Joey didn't answer. He probably didn't even hear what he had said. He was almost finished with his plate, head at an angle as diligently watched the documentary. Dolly had joined him, too, and sat perched on a chair right outside the closet door, squinting her eyes in pleasure at having her two people in the same space as her.
While the clock ticked down, while the fireworks started raging outside, and while Joey studied amber-eyed forest elephants engineering paths through the thick jungle, Aaron double clicked the folder labeled PAST_CLIENT_ARRANGEMENTS and rifled through the files and documents. He opened one called TIMELINE_CLIENT_X and scrolled down.
Joey hadn't mentioned any signifiers of time and place. All Aaron knew was desert, multiple people, guns, dog. He added a new line to the table in the column called EVENT and wrote exactly that. In the next column, labeled PROOF, he wrote: "Bullet graze scar on left shin. Large scar on right thigh, previously unlabeled, likely in connection with event - gun shot and likely consecutive attempt at removal of bullet with blade. Bullet graze on left side of head."
(Content: living weapon whumpee, institutional child abuse, dehumanization, PTSD, flashbacks, stress position, past abuse, child death, fainting, comfort)
Δ-107 was eight years old and he was sitting by himself in the corner of the classroom. It was quiet across the entire floor, the period carved out for independent study. He went over his notes diligently, remembering to hold the pen correctly, remembering to write in full sentences.
A ruler slammed abruptly against his desk, nearly causing him to drop his flash cards.
“Sit still.” His teacher’s voice was pure venom.
Δ-107 flinched, mumbling a soft “Yes, sir” in response. His focus fragmented further, now dedicating effort just to keep himself from rocking.
Plot the following plane.
How would you find the volume of this irregular solid? Show your work.
At what temperature will the fluids in the body begin to evaporate?
How much pressure does it take to create a diamond?
The door creaked open. A scream echoed down the hallway, the faint sound of struggle. Nobody acknowledged it.
“May I borrow him for a second?” The administrator cleared her throat.
Δ-107 began to put his school supplies away. It was for him. He could tell it was for him. They always asked him. Sure enough, the hand was around his arm in an instant, yanking him up and out the door.
“107. You’re to subdue 058. You will do so non-lethally, and any superfluous damage you cause her will be inflicted on you in turn. This is a test of your precision, and of your judgment. Do you understand?”
He couldn’t tell if she was bluffing yet, so he had no choice but to take her at her word. He didn’t know he was valuable yet. He wouldn’t put anything past them.
“Yes’m,” he affirmed.
His skin was bruising within the grasp, and the other child was seizing on the floor.
~
A little short of two decades later, Delta sat curled up in the passenger seat of an old rebel ship, hiding his face in his hands. He took slow, measured, and desperate breaths to recover from the bout of hyperventilation that had overtaken him not moments earlier. It kept happening like this. He hadn’t been able to breathe normally all morning. Violent sobs kept coming to the surface, wracking his whole body. They came in like the tide.
In a waning, relative calm, he managed to speak through the wave to his companion.
“…There’s no way I can go in there.” Delta’s voice was hardly more than a murmur.
Lorelai Winn sat in the driver’s seat, her chair a good distance from the wheel so that she had space to stretch out. Her hair fell in auburn tresses about her head, and squished up against her hand as she leaned her elbow on the headrest. She was watching carefully, and endlessly patient.
Almost.
“You don’t have to,” she said gently. “You know I won’t make you. Nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
But.
“But. This might be the only chance you have.”
But he had dragged her out here for this.
But he had risked life and limb to be back here.
But he’d left Galatea for this.
But he was here all the time anyway.
He could see its image on the back of his eyes. He kept seeing the hallways when all he wanted was to sleep. The past kept needling him, and now it was only a few meters away, and if he left it standing there he would never be rid of it, and he’d never forgive himself.
Delta felt absolutely sick to his stomach.
“It’s okay,” Lorelai soothed him without touching him. “Take all the time you need.”
He nodded weakly to show his understanding, and his gratitude for her patience. That was certainly something he’d never received here.
The crumbling shell of Beldam stood before them. Parts of its spires still stretched up above the trees, but most of it was grounded, misplaced and damaged. The walls wouldn’t have been very good for holding prisoners anymore. There was as much space as there was stone. Delta looked at the ruins of the once impenetrable fortress, and found himself oddly sedated by the sight of the decay. It was dying. It was dead.
He hoped there was a kind of hell for institutions. He hoped the building itself would be punished.
But it occupied a different kind of afterlife.
Wearily, cautiously, Delta managed to extricate himself from the ship and stand upright on the forest floor. Lorelai lingered close by, but a few paces ahead of him. The unofficial custodians of the new space were perched out by their car, a bit closer to the entrance. Two young guys — psychonauts, ravers — were watching with an uncharacteristic reserve.
Delta felt a little ashamed to be seen by them. For a long time now, he’d been able to escape a gaze like that. He’d been comfortable in a novel anonymity. There was nothing like that here. They looked at him, and he knew they had seen everything.
But that was what he was here for.
~
Dr.Martino had him kneeling. Grains of rice were laid out in a rough and uneven layer, and they gradually embedded themselves into his sensitive skin. Likewise, Δ-107’s arms were stretched up above his head, straining the muscles long past the point of pain. He didn’t cry. He knew better than to cry, knew he’d be here all night if he did. All the hurt stayed inside of him instead.
Dress shoes clicked in a circular pattern around him. They could go a long time without talking — rather, he could go a long time without being spoken to, and that much condemned him to silence. He kept his eyes down, afraid to look at any authority figure — anyone — straight on. All he could hope for was that release would be granted soon, but he’d already resigned himself to the fact that it could take hours. He could believe it would take forever and that would still be easier than getting his hopes dashed on the rocks.
Finally, the doctor spoke:
“Tell me what you’re being punished for.”
Shame surfaced in him. They were always so good at making him feel small. He fought back to urge to cry again, and his throat felt so constricted he didn’t know if he’d even be able to speak.
“Talking back, sir,” he managed. Not I’m sorry yet, though he was. Don’t beg.
Dr.Martino gave a small hum of approval. He would draw out these moments as long as he could, while the grains were fully cutting into his student’s skin. Δ-107 had to breathe slower, and to steer himself towards patience.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“You’ll follow the orders we give you. This is a rule, and you aren’t owed an explanation for it. You obey it whether you understand it or not. But since you seem to have so much trouble with it recently, I’ll enlighten you. We are not issuing them out of ignorance. We understand your abilities better than you do, on an empirical level. You don’t know better than us, and you’re not in any position to try and tell uswhat to do with you. I don’t want to hear you whining like that ever again.”
Δ-107 nodded. His arms were starting to shake from the exertion. He’d never been strong. He hadn’t meant to talk back, but he had, and what he meant was beside the point now. He just needed this to be over.
“Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
Please. Please.
“You can put your arms down.”
He almost collapsed on the spot. His limbs were fully numb by now, so that when given permission to stand, it took multiple tries to get to his feet again. It left a lasting ache throughout his entire body, but the worst was the pressure behind his eyes, the flood with nowhere to go.
~
“Uh, hey, man,” one of the ravers waved to him. “Name’s Alex. That’s Titus. Cool to meet you in person.”
Delta nodded, slowly regaining his ability to speak. Pleasantries. He had to at least get the ball rolling on the simple things, or else he’d never be able to talk about what he needed to. He was aware he was speaking a little too formally, and he could feel the traces of the imperial accent peeking through: “It’s nice to meet you too.”
Beyond that, Lorelai did him the mercy of facilitating.
“So the plan was to tour the ground first, then head back to the office to see the physical archives?” She clasped her hands in front of her.
It became clear from how she spoke that she’d done her research too. She’d done it long before she even knew Delta was alive. That was…strange. He hadn’t thought he’d matter that much to her.
“Yeah. Yeah, we actually have some of the folders here in the trunk, if you wanted to look now. Or, uh, I think you’ve seen them before. I mean if he wants to look.”
Delta peered into the compartment he was referencing. It was absolutely crammed with yellowed papers, and they carried a familiar medicinal smell.
“I want to see the building first,” Delta said.
He got the oddest sense that if he turned his back to it, if he let anything distract him from it, he would he putting himself in great danger.
No, the space itself had to he dealt with.
Delta entered the threshold alone, by his own request. The whole clearing smelled vaguely of smoke, as if heralding some decades old disaster, but he knew it was likely just the remnants of a recent bonfire. There were a few spare beer cans littering the grass, and other remnants of that week’s party. To him, the space felt so haunted and tense that he could not imagine ever letting his guard down around it. He didn’t understand how anyone would be able to enjoy themselves with all that psychic energy surrounding them on all sides.
Here was the entryway. Here was the foyer. Here was the receptionist’s desk, and the security office, and the showroom.
He inhaled. The phantom touch of fingers traced his neck and his wrists. They were oversized. He’d been smaller back then. Here was where he’d met His Eminence, His Majesty. One of the buyers.
The floor was still intact in places, but the space had truly been gutted. Delta walked through the hall where the beds had been arranged, and found nothing waiting for him there but open air.
Much of the upper floors had been destroyed. Many of the stairs led to nowhere. Cautiously, Delta followed the ones he could anyway. So much of what he remembered — the labs and the classrooms — had been reduced to nothing at all. The rooms he’d once been tortured in were simply gone forever. If they were to be rebuilt now, it would not be the same. There’d be nobody to man them.
He slowly eased himself down from the ledge, back to the ground level. He felt just as hollow as his surroundings, just as haunted. Delta felt almost…sad for the building, sitting there in the still morning, rotting away. He imagined it old and toothless and lonely, and he could not help but feel pity for his old tormentor.
Some of the tension in his body eased away as he moved back towards the exit.
“…You guys killed it,” Delta said, resting one hand on the archway.
The archivists looked at him with a kind of bemused guilt, like they were sorry but they didn’t know what for. Delta could relate to that.
“Uh, repoman took most of the furniture. We just got the files. And the drugs.”
Naturally.
Something cold crept up his spine, and he felt the lure well before he could articulate it as such. Compelled, Delta began to walk around the perimeter of the institute. Lorelai and the others followed him at a distance. He heard them talking amongst themselves, talking about what had happened here, and the absurdity of it induced total vertigo within him. This had always been a private apocalypse.
Delta found himself in the backyard. His powers pulsed unwillingly, sending out their sonar signals throughout the cold earth, and his mind couldn’t take it anymore.
~
All was dark. He was eight or eighteen or twenty three now and he didn’t even know his real name. Was he even a he? By most accounts it was an it. Under here, with the rest of them, it was all they. They were trying desperately to speak.
Δ-107’s hands were chained behind its back, and something stronger than it had just beaten it senseless. It’d been left here in the dark to process, so the trauma would have all the space it needed to sink in. Someone was trying to teach it something. Something was always trying to teach it something.
If you disobey, said the teeming voices from beneath the soil. If you fail, you’ll be just like us.
Hot tears ran down its face. It could only ever happen now in the privacy of total darkness. It didn’t know if it was alone in here. Had it been locked into a closet or into a coffin? Or was it just blindfolded? Were the hands touching it real, and if so, who did they belong to?
Wave after wave of icy fear coursed through it relentlessly with the same rhythm of its heart as it prayed secretly, desperately for escape.
~
From the outside, it looked like a lightning strike in reverse. It rose up from the ground and struck the sky, and it coursed its way through him to get there.
Delta awoke to a cold cloth being pressed to his head. He was lying down across the backseat of the ship. It was darker out now, quieter. He could hear the faint buzz of cicadas, and it led to a temporal disorientation within him. The night sounded like it had when he was a child.
“There he is.” Lorelai was leaning over him. She swiped some of the hair away from his eyes. A very gentle frown worried its ways across her face. The little pockmarks where her diamonds had been plucked out stood out to him. Like some ravage of innocence. Delta groaned softly as he came to.
“Don’t try to sit up yet.” Lorelai’s hand pushed his shoulder back down.
“Yes, miss,” he muttered absently. It drew a sad coo from her, cry of the mourning dove. He looked to her more attentively to find that her eyes were tinted pink. She was upset.
“…I’m sorry,” he followed up, weakness still evident in his voice. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t know what had happened. He knew of the dream, if it was a dream, but he didn’t remember the moment he lost consciousness. The present moment gave no clues as to what had transpired beforehand.
Lorelai settled back into a lean, hooking one arm up by the headrest to support herself.
“I’m okay,” she said softly. “Just sad. Um. I never told you what happened the first time I went there.”
“You did. You said Paris freaked out.”
“I told you what happened to Paris. I didn’t tell you what happened to me.” The ghost of a smile graced her lips. “But it’s the same thing, I guess. The same thing that happened to you.”
Delta inhaled slowly. Out of the window, faint stars were visible against the darkening sky. He imagined an analog static across his voice as he spoke again:
“I thought I heard them. Or…that I could feel them. I think that’s what got me. I put too many feelers out, and I touched one of them by accident. There were so many bodies down there.”
He was ashamed. He’d touched a dead, rotting thing, and he reeled back with fear and disgust as if he’d been wounded. As if he was the victim here. He’d done it before, with the mutilated and maimed victims of the Castle and its outposts. Delta was such a selfish coward.
“I thought I saw them,” Lorelai said. “Or…someone’s face. Not the kids, maybe. It was something different.”
He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.
“Am I allowed to sit up?” he asked.
“You feel well enough to?”
“Yes’m.”
“Ok. Go slow.”
He did. The dizziness kicked in a small wave, but he rode it out. Lorelai placed the cloth away into the compartment.
“We’re at the guys’ office now. You can see the files they managed to save. They should have all of yours. Are you good enough to walk?”
“Yes.”
“Good boy.” She helped him up out of the ship. Some of his paleness faded as the blood rushed back to his face.
The “office” was a work building, tucked away amidst the greenery along a grander stretch of gravel road. Delta spotted a highway in the distance. How far had the institute been from civilization? The distance had seemed impassable as a child. It was preferable to think of it as a place removed from time and space than it was so acknowledge that it had in fact been driving distance from the nearest town. That it’d been happening in someone’s backyard.
Delta half-limped his way to the entrance, where the two boys from earlier were sitting in swivel chairs amidst a space packed with books and paperwork. The same sharp, medicinal smell, almost enough to induce fainting again. He steadied himself.
“…I’m sorry you had to see that,” Delta said, meaning it. It was embarrassing. It’d probably been scary.
But, evidently, they’d built up quite a tolerance. They brushed off his apology, pointing him over towards the stacks.
“Those bodies need to be exhumed,” Lorelai said at a distance. “There aren’t even grave markers. No wonder they’re restless.”
“You believe in ghosts?” Alex asked her.
“What else would you call a feeling like that?”
But it wasn’t really the children, was it? She’d been right the first time. With each year that passed, it became something else.
“I can ask Apollo,” Delta volunteered. “The same people who are doing triage on the facilities…I think they’d be okay with getting the bodies out.”
His hands traced the files. He thought about the forensics involved, what DNA was documented and what might remain.
Then, he asked the boys: “Has anyone else come looking for these? Any other alumni?”
“…Not really,” Titus answered. “There aren’t that many left walking around.”
Of course not. The failures died, and the half-successes were still out there, facing varying degrees of exploitation and enslavement. It was too horrible to speak about, too much to look at dead-on.
“I think you should stop having parties there,” Delta suggested, quite seriously. His gratitude was mixed up with his distaste. He just felt like if it kept happening, someone was bound to get possessed.
“In some cultures, funerals are treated like parties,” Alex refuted. “That’s how we do it. You should come sometime.”
Lorelai glared at him, and he wilted.
“Maybe not.”
But Delta tuned out, too swept up in the wave of cruelty to pay much attention to the present. He was getting closer. He’d arrived at his section.
Δ
Δ-059
Δ-072
Δ-103
Δ-107
He pulled it out, and held the record in shaky hands. He got as far as the title page before he fainted again.
Sports player Whumpee uses the hem of their shirt to wipe the sweat from their brow during a game, completely forgetting that their abdomen is absolutely littered with bruises. The cameras catch all the damage. The commentators aren't quite sure what to say. Whumpee drops their shirt and keeps playing.
You have to shove your whumpees to the ground on their stomach and yank their arms behind their back to tie their wrists before pulling them back to their knees with a harsh yank on their hair otherwise they're not getting proper enrichment
One of the biggest “whump awakenings” I guess you could call it came from a book I read as a kid where the main character was accused of a crime and declared a “wolf’s head” which was described to mean he was no longer considered human, he could be killed or harmed or anything by anyone and they would face no consequences. So in a lot of things I write, that’s a concept I think about a lot. It’s not that a character is being actively hunted, it’s that there’s nothing protecting them. The only thing keeping them safe is someone else’s decision to do so.
solitaire masterlist: act i / act ii (but this can be read alone, no prior knowledge necessary)
cw: institutionalized slavery/pet whump (kinda leaning into the pet thing more than usual here), comparing whumpee to an animal, somewhat defiant whumpee, misinterpreting commands, injury reveal, minor homophobia in some sense, complicit carewhumper vibes?
hitting the taglist so this doesn’t get lost in the sauce. don’t worry if you don’t like it because i don’t intend to write more; this is just a one-off :P
Fielding (aka Port) is ~20 years older and never went into the system. Oz, on the other hand, is ~20 years younger and did. (never thought this would be the circumstance of Port’s birthname reveal o_o)
* * * * *
Fielding very carefully not did not reveal the surprise on his face when he realized his boss was talking about a human pet.
The way John spoke about Oz, he had always pictured an unruly dog. He'd say: He’s well-trained, but got a lot of personality. Or I hate it when he goes on the furniture. Or, even more bizarrely in light of the new context, I have to put him in the crate when he misbehaves. In hindsight, Fielding probably should have questioned it when he mentioned Oz liked to “talk back.” He’d thought it was just a funny way to describe barking. Or, heck, maybe Oz was a parrot.
It was only when John mentioned needing to buy him new shoes that the thought even crossed Fielding’s mind. He was still in short-lived denial about it until John went on to say he was a size 12. Had to do a whole lot of mental recalibration in the span of about one second. Was he joking about the crate, or…?
How embarrassing. To be fair to himself, Fielding didn’t interact with that world much at all. He hadn’t even been a free person himself when the system was instituted— imagine that. You go into prison and everything is normal, come out ten years later and all of a sudden there are human pets running around.
He’d never been interested in it. The kind of person to have a Companion was way out of his tax bracket, anyway… or so he thought. Now he couldn’t help but wonder if either human pets were cheaper or if his boss was richer than he realized.
The fella went on about how he was going on vacation soon and having trouble finding someone to watch Oz. And, well, Fielding was too much of a people-pleaser for his own good. As soon as the offer came out of his mouth, he sort of regretted it.
A dog was one thing. A person was an entirely different beast, in the most literal sense. But he couldn’t exactly take it back, and now John was at his doorstep, human boy at his side, truck idle and growling in the gravel that ran along the front of Fielding’s home.
Boy might be a misleading term, in truth. The pet before him had enough scruff on his face to mark him as a young man. He looked sturdy and corn-fed, broad in the shoulders and tall in a way that surprised him— seemingly taller than both himself and John. Still, anyone under thirty and still with acne spots and the remnants of youthful roundness in his cheeks might as well be a boy to him— like the newest recruit he’d been training at the warehouse, who was fresh out of high school, green and tenderfooted in a way that Fielding found quite endearing.
Oz’s chin was tilted down, eyes cast to the ground. There was a tightness in his jaw, the minute twitch of muscle there, and Fielding imagined his molars grinding together in his mouth. He did not overlook the hard bob of Oz’s adam’s apple shifting beneath his collar as he swallowed. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt, which was odd considering the weather. Fielding was beginning to sweat just standing in the doorway.
He went for the handshake out of mere habit, really, and by the time he realized it might be an odd thing to do, it was too late to withdraw. Oz stared at his hand for a second, then offered his wrist.
John huffed an awkward sort of laugh at the scene. Caught off guard, Fielding slid his unexpected contact with Oz’s wrist down to his limp hand, which was not too soft nor too calloused. He dipped it once. “It’s called a handshake, bud,” Fielding said. Oz’s shoulders rose defensively towards his ears.
John clapped the boy on the back— he jerked under the force, but stiffened back into that straight posture of his without a stumbling step. His grip on Fielding’s hand tightened momentarily before going loose again. “Haven’t taught him that trick yet,” John said, baring his teeth in a smile. “He doesn’t interact with strangers much.” The distinct crease between Oz’s brows made him look angry, though Fielding figured it might be better attributed to anxiety or embarrassment. He released his sweaty hand. “He’s well-behaved,” John continued, though there was a distinct pointedness to his tone as he looked at Oz. A warning undercurrent. “Potty-trained and everything.”
Oz’s eyes were still boring into the floor, but his heavy brows drew even lower on his forehead, still with that sullen wrinkle.
Fielding smiled, hoping it didn’t come off as a grimace. “Uh, good to know,” he said. “I didn’t even think that was something to be worried about.”
* * * * *
Once John drove off, and Fielding watched the dust cloud dissipate, he beckoned the stock-still boy into the house. “The place ain’t very big, but how about I give you a tour?” Oz’s eyes flicked to his face at the invitation, but dropped just as quickly. Fielding wasn’t sure how to take his silence. “You’re a quiet one, ain’t’cha?”
The boy trailed after him like a poodle as he showed him the rooms in the house. He’d cleaned up in expectation of company, though the general dingy look of the place couldn’t be helped. The AC didn’t work too well, so he kept a spinning fan murmuring by the couch, long white tail plugged into one of the crooked power sockets on the wall. “You’ll want to watch the tripping hazard... and I wouldn’t walk around barefoot,” Fielding warned him. “Sometimes staples stick through the carpet and poke ya.”
He found his dog resting with her head on her paws by the kitchen table, wooden legs marred with teeth marks from when she was more excitable and destructive and liked to use her mouth on everything. Now she was old and had a drooping, grey face, but still held her persistent sense of curiosity. Her long ears perked and her tail started wagging at the presence of this new, unfamiliar, unique-smelling boy.
“Her name is Potato, but I like to call her Tater for short,” Fielding told him. “She doesn’t mind nicknames.” She pushed herself up to standing and tottered over to Oz, peering up at him inquisitively. She sniffed at the worn cuff of his pant leg. Oz pushed her snout away with his foot— not necessarily roughly, but not nearly gentle as Fielding would have liked. “Hey… be nice,” he chastised. Tater, meanwhile, merely snorted at the rejection and retreated back underneath the table.
Oz glanced at him with those dark eyes of his. Fielding realized the sour look must be stuck on his face, because so far he hadn’t seen him wearing any expression outside of the range between anxious and irritable. “Don’t like dogs much?” Oz maintained the eye contact in a way Fielding hadn’t known he was capable of, lips still glued together and pulling in displeasure. “What, cat got your tongue?” Fielding asked. Oz’s eyes rolled to the ceiling in what looked like exasperation. Fielding frowned— then something occurred to him. “You’re allowed to speak, y’know.”
The boys lips finally parted. Fielding’s delight dissolved as soon as Oz said, brusquely, “No, I don’t like dogs. But it doesn’t really matter, does it, sir?”
Fielding crossed his arms and pushed at the inside of his cheek with his tongue, considering the edge in Oz’s voice. Bolder than he would have expected. “No, I guess not,” he said. “Careful with the attitude, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
He decided to show Oz the outside, too, though there wasn’t much to see other than dirt, grass, trees, and the other homes in the trailer park. Nobody seemed to be hanging around, probably because of the sun beating down. “Nothin’ too special out here,” Fielding said, squinting down the gravel road. “Ain’t no Emerald City. And no twisters, either, for the most part.” If a tornado came around these parts it would certainly pick his little mobile home right up and throw it all the way to Kansas.
Dogs liked to roam around the place— some strays, and others simply uncared for. It was impossible to go jogging without a pack of them nipping at his heels. Some of his meth-head neighbors kept their pets chained out in the yard permanently, which Fielding found distasteful and frustrating whenever the chorus of barking and rattling started up, usually due to one of them spotting a squirrel or something of the like. It got poor Tater all worked up, the thin walls of the place offering no sound protection.
Fielding had put up a little chainlink fence in what he considered his backyard so he could let her run around without fear of being attacked by some of the meaner dogs. His pride and joy was the quaint wooden doghouse he built with his own two hands, painted red like it was straight out of Peanuts. Arching over the entrance, POTATOE was written in painstakingly careful brushstrokes. It wasn’t until after he’d already finished that his neighbor told him “potato” didn’t have a silent E. When Fielding recounted all this to Oz, the boy didn’t seem all that charmed, face blank with vague boredom.
The gate squeaked open, and Fielding turned— dang it, he hadn’t bothered to latch it and now one of those lanky mutts was nosing at the fence, testing its luck at entering Fielding’s forbidden and ever-alluring yard. He clicked his tongue in displeasure. “Hey, git!” he said, making a shooing gesture with his hand. The dog, undeterred, let its tongue loll out of its mouth as it panted. Fielding took a few steps towards it. “Sorry, pal, but I don’t want you in here.” Something about his approach made the dog excited, tail wagging. It barked and bounded over to Fielding in a few strides, jumping up on its hind legs and pressing its muddy paws against his shirt. “Darn it, boy! Get down!” He put a firm hand on the thing’s flat skull and pushed it away. “I said get down! Jeez.”
Behind him there was a faint thump, grass rustling and crushed. Fielding didn’t even really register the sound until all four of the dog’s paws were back on the ground and he turned to check on Oz— who was kneeling in the earth, legs folded under him, head bowed so low that all Fielding could see was his crown of thick, dark hair.
Fielding’s heart jumped— was he hurt? Fainting from the heat? “Are you alright, Oz?” He picked his way over somewhat cautiously, grass flattening beneath his feet. He bent down a little— ignoring the cracking in his knees— to try and get a gander at his face. Oz’s hands were laid on his legs, gripping at the muscle of his thighs so tightly that they shook and pulled at the fabric of his jeans.
Oh. His stomach sunk at the revelation— Oz had taken the command as though it were meant for him. Get down.
“Oh, dear. I wasn’t talking to you.” The boy’s head dipped even lower. His hands strained enough that Fielding could see the popping shadows of his bones and the veins peeking out from his under sleeve raised on the back of his hand.
“I know,” he gritted out.
Fielding, self-consciously, put his head on a swivel to check if any of the neighbors were watching. He would be somewhat mortified to have an audience to this. He did not see anybody, but that was no guarantee that someone was not peeking through their curtains. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Please stand up.”
Unbeknownst to Fielding, the dog had been sneaking around him, curious at the scene. He didn’t notice until it poked into his line of sight. Oz flinched at its harsh bark. His head snapped up, face twisted. “Go away,” he told it, nearly growling.
Fielding snatched at its collar and bodily guided it out of his yard. “Shoo,” he said, nudging it away with a hand to the ribs. The dog barked again, but it must have got some sense that it wasn’t wanted, because it stalked away.
By the time Fielding returned to Oz, he had risen to his feet, stains of grass and mud marking his knees. His mouth was a tight line, and his cheeks were red enough to be obvious even through his tan complexion.
* * * * *
Being as it was about lunchtime, Fielding left Oz in the living room with the TV changer while he fixed something up in the kitchen. The boy had seemed ambivalent when Fielding asked him about his preferences. He reportedly hadn’t eaten yet, so Fielding figured he must be hungry, and didn’t want to take the time to make something from scratch. He looked in the fridge and hoped leftover casserole would be to his tastes— his cooking was nothing to write home about, but he liked doing it. He would never take the ability to cook for himself with real ingredients and spices for granted ever again. It was a world of difference from making concoctions out of ramen noodles, hot dog slices, and Doritos in prison.
Fielding decided to heat up portions in the oven rather than blasting them in the microwave. When he returned to the living room, he was surprised to find Oz on his knees again, in front of the couch instead of on it. He was staring somewhat blankly at the news story playing on the television— the last thing Fielding had been watching before shutting it off. It seemed Oz had not changed the channel at all.
“You sure do like to be on your knees, huh?” Fielding asked.
Oz’s face turned to him, brow heavy. “It’s how he likes me,” he said, low.
“Is he gay or something?”
The boy’s lip curled with unconcealed ire. “No,” he said. “This is typical posture. You would know that if you could afford a Companion of your own.”
Fielding graciously ignored the thinly veiled insult. “Well, no need to do that. Come grab some lunch.”
Oz bent over to place his palms on the floor. Then he froze— stuck on his hands and knees. Fielding watched in perturb as he remained in the strange position for multiple seconds, eyes darting across the floor. He finally got his feet underneath him and stood up, unfurling to his full height, and Fielding realized— Oz had been about to start crawling, but thought better of it.
“What is with you?” he asked. The strange behavior was kind of freaking him out.
Oz regarded him with a dark stare, but said nothing— perhaps wisely, if he didn't have anything nice to say.
“Bless your heart,” Fielding muttered. “Come on.” He moved to the kitchen and Oz followed him without objection. He opened the oven to grab the casserole, and the wave of heat that fanned out was a little sickening with how warm it already was. “Wash your hands in the sink there,” Fielding said over his shoulder, spooning the casserole onto plates. “You don’t want them floor germs in your mouth.”
“I’m not gonna eat with my hands,” Oz said testily.
Fielding exhaled through his nose, long and slow. He turned to face the petulant boy, increasingly unamused with his retorts. “It’s called basic hygiene, bud. Have you heard of it?”
“You’re not my master,” Oz spit, eyes burning. He said it like he’d been biting his tongue until now. “You don’t get how this works, so you shouldn’t treat me like I’m some sort of idiotic, exotic freak.”
Fielding felt the last dredges of his patience dry up like a puddle of water outside on a sweltering afternoon. “Listen, boy,” he snapped. “I may not be your master, and I may not be used to dealing with your sort, but I expect the same decency you would show to him, understand?”
Oz met his eyes, wide and angry. His jaw was working in a way like he was withholding some choice words.
“I wanna be nice, but I ain’t no pushover. I don’t like it when you speak to me that way. How about we start over and show each other some basic respect?”
Oz faltered— in a physical way, like his legs nearly gave out from under him for a moment. “I haven’t seen any respect from you,” he said, quieter, eyes narrowed.
“It’s a two-way street, bud. Am I gonna have to chain you to a pole outside?”
That made Oz’s defiant expression crack— the flash in his eyes made Fielding regret threatening him. Though said out of frustration, it was really just meant to be a tease. He would never actually do such a thing, especially not under the unforgiving sun, in view of all his neighbors and those mean stray dogs. But from the look on the boy’s face, it was clear that Oz believed he might, at least for that split second when his eyes revealed something like apprehension, regret, or… fear.
“No, sir,” he said, suddenly devoid of all sharp edges. His face was not so angry anymore— just serious, and wary. “I’m sorry.”
Though the apology was probably more to avoid punishment than it was true remorse, something about the chastised way Oz said it tugged at him. Fielding pulled back in a more relaxed stance and crossed his arms, sighing. “Of course I ain't gonna chain you up. I’m sorry for saying it. But will you drop the attitude? I thought you folk are supposed to be well-behaved.”
His eyes dropped. “Yes, sir,” he said, with a nod of his head.
“Okay. Wash up, please.”
Fielding went to set out utensils, pleased by the sound of the faucet turning on behind him. He grabbed a couple drinking glasses, too, and twisted so he could wait his turn to fill them at the sink. Oz was not looking at him, face turned towards the basin. He had his sleeves hiked up so they didn’t get splashed with water, and— goodness, what had happened to him?
The dark hair on his arms did nothing to disguise the splotchy bruises, a few lacerations, and most horrifyingly what looked like a massive, excruciating burn spanning across nearly his entire forearm. It was fresh enough that there were still painful-looking pockets of yellow pus around the edges like bubbles.
It was such an odd shape, almost triangular, with circles of clear skin left untouched within. His heart dropped when he realized— that was the silhouette of a clothing iron, and that was no accident or slip of the hand. Someone had deliberately pressed the hot iron to the plane of his arm, long enough for his skin to burn and and peel and redden.
Oz’s face tightened under Fielding’s stare. He twisted the faucet, ending the stream of water and white noise. Cords of muscle twitched and shifted under his skin as he flicked droplets of water from his fingers and hastily, self-consciously tugged his sleeves back down, covering up the damning evidence under fabric and wet thumb prints.
Fielding nearly lost his grip on the glasses in his sweating hands. “What happened?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Oz met his eyes, then. “Punishment,” he said darkly.
“What did you do?” Fielding breathed.
Oz turned away, drying his hands on the towel draped over the cupboard beneath the sink. “Does it matter?”
Fielding found himself slowly shaking his head. No, it didn’t.
Ive been working on more Jesse (shocker i know) and I've decided to change August's name. Probably just to Auggie to keep it easy and similar but the name August has changed it's meaning to me irl and I can't deal with it in a whump context anymore 😅 so I'll be updating all the chapters with it soon!
3 people asked for more Buck Never Leaves AU within 2 months (which is a lot when you consider this series came out 6 years ago) (FUCK) (I'm 30 tomorrow isn't that wild?) so I whipped up a little somethin' somethin'.
tbh a lot of my creative thought production for this world is going towards The Pros and the unwritten but 80% complete in my head sequel, so I hadn't thought about BNLAU (which is what i'm gonna call it so i dont have to keep writing it) in a while, even tho when I first put it out I remember being like "there's so much more I could write for this!" well, i guess I shoulda written it down, because I don't remember.
ANYWAY... enjoy. And thanks for still giving a shit about my work. :)
~~
Fletcher may have introduced Buck to the new trainees as someone who “works for” them. They may have told the new trainees not to hurt him - not to lay a hand on him - unless Fletcher tells them to do so. And they reassured Buck that they would only ever tell them to do so for a lesson. If any discipline was required, Fletcher would only handle it themself. And they trusted Buck was wise enough about his situation that they wouldn’t need to call on anyone else to help “wrangle” him.
But the relationship was clear. The power dynamic was glaring. The way Fletcher ordered Buck around, the way Buck labored without argument. The way Fletcher volunteered him for lessons, the way he cowed in their presence. The scars. The tracking bracelet.
The trainees were not bold enough or dumb enough to hurt Buck outside of the lessons. But that didn’t mean they didn’t bully him.
One in particular, Williams, thought he was hot shit when he could flex some power over Buck. Making threats and taunts, “accidentally” shoulder-checking him in the hall or bumping into him while he had his hands full.
One day he pulled his gun. Waved it around as he gave Buck some speech that was supposed to intimidate him, but he wasn’t listening. His eyes tracked the movement of the weapon. Out of fear, Williams thought. But they were wrong.
Williams kept his finger off the trigger, Buck noticed. At least if he was going to ignore every other safety rule, Buck didn’t have to worry about him accidentally squeezing off a shot.
Buck had been paying attention to the lessons. Maybe more than Williams. Certainly, he was able to disarm him with ease.
“Fletcher.” Buck’s voice was stern.
“Wha…” Fletcher looked up from the pile of carrots they were peeling, and trailed off.
It was the most surprised Buck had ever seen them, second only to when he had killed Petrova. Ironically enough, more so than when he had pointed a gun at them, considering he now had a gun pointed at one of their students.
Buck held Williams in front of him, one hand holding tight to the collar of his shirt. The other hand held the gun, pressed to Williams’s temple.
“Give me the key to your truck,” Buck demanded.
Fletcher’s eyes traveled to Williams.
“This is going to look bad on your report card,” they said. “You could be looking at summer school.”
Williams made an annoyed noise.
“Whatever, it’s not like he’s actually gonna do it.
“Oh, he’ll do it,” Fletcher assured them easily. “He’s done it before.”
Williams paled. “What? He killed someone before and you kept him?”
“First time the gun wasn’t loaded, second time it was actually in my best interest.”
“Twice?”
“First one was an attempt on me, not a student,” Fletcher clarified.
“Fletcher,” Buck interrupted. “Your keys.”
Fletcher stood from the kitchen table slowly, and even slower reached toward their belt.
“Keys are by the holster,” they said. “I’m gonna go slow.”
Buck nodded. Fletcher carefully unclipped their key ring from their belt loop and held them aloft.
“How we gonna do this?” Fletcher asked.
“Toss me the keys. When I get to the truck, I’ll let Williams go,” Buck instructed.
“Normally I would insist on an at the same time thing, but I guess you have no reason to kill Williams if you get your way.” Fletcher reasoned. They looked at their keys for a moment. “If you take my truck, I’ll be stranded.”
“I know you have the four wheeler,” Buck shot back.
Fletcher shrugged, caught. “Where’s my truck gonna be?”
“What?”
“Tell me where you’re going to leave the truck so I can retrieve it.”
“I’m keeping the truck,” Buck insisted. “I don’t have anything; I’m going to need…”
He trailed off.
“Yeah, what is your plan?” Fletcher asked. “Sleep in the truck? Be homeless? You have nowhere to go, you have no money, you don’t have anyone to turn to.”
“I know where you keep your cash in the truck,” Buck said.
Fletcher scowled, then returned to a neutral look.
“Fine, that’ll get you started. And then, what, get a job? You know how long it will take you to save up enough money to get an apartment? Did you pack a bag? You’ve got one change of clothes and no shower, so good luck at interviews. Applications are all online now, anyway. And you’re going to need to save that money for food, so-”
“Goddammit, Fletcher!” Buck snapped, rattling Williams who let out an involuntary gasp. “Anything’s better than staying here!”
Fletcher’s laugh started off small, then crescendoed.
“That’s not true.”
Buck flexed his fingers on the grip of the gun.
“You gonna come after me?” he asked.
Fletcher thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“Undecided. Probably not now that I’m in the middle of a training season. So that’ll give you a good head start. Might not be worth the effort to try to pick up your trail… as long as you’re smart about it. You know not to go to the cops, right? It’s a death sentence.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Buck said, exasperated. “Give me the keys.”
“We need to come to an agreement about the truck.”
“The agreement is that you give me the keys or I blow your student’s fucking brains out!” Buck roared.
Fletcher let out a small chuckle, eyebrows slightly raised, like they were more amused than intimidated.
One moment, Buck was staring Fletcher down with their trainee at gunpoint. The next moment was all pain, sharp and overwhelming in the back of his skull. The next moment was on the ground. Both his hands were bracing against the floor, which meant that the gun…
By the time his eyes caught sight of it, having fallen from his grasp and slid a few feet away, a hand was already reaching down and picking it up. He tracked the movement, leading his gaze up to Fletcher.
Buck tried to push himself up, but collapsed back down as the pain doubled. He pressed one hand to the back of his head, expecting to feel blood, expecting to feel his skull caved in. A new pain slammed into his ribs now, in the form of a steel toed boot.
“Alright, Caldera, you got him, thank you,” Fletcher said. “I’ll take it from here.”
Williams held out his hand for his gun, but Fletcher tucked it into their belt.
“Oh, you’ve lost gun privileges."
“What?” he protested.
“For now. We’re going to talk about how this happened, and how we can prevent it from happening in the future,” Fletcher said, voice dripping with condescension.
They crouched down in front of Buck, who managed to look up enough to meet their gaze.
“That was a good attempt,” they said, then sighed. “I hate to lock you up again; I thought we were past that. But really, more than anything, I need to keep you under observation.”
They took Buck’s chin and tilted his head up as he grimaced, studying his eyes.
“When you’ve recovered a bit, then we can discuss how things are going to be from now on.”
~~
I'm never sure if I should add the taglist for bonus stuff (or how many of those urls are still accurate, or how many ppl asked to be tagged after I had finished the series and I thought I was Done Forever so I didn't make a note of it) but uhh here we go