#abraham denner

[whumpingwithclara-alt]

cool tumblrs oc collages ~ part 1

So I made character collages for some of@ashintheairlikesnow 's oc characters :)

Ashley

Bram

Nate

and sweet Danny

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Daniel Michaelson Master List

I had someone request a master list of Daniel Michaelson posts, so here! I’ve also got a master list going right here on my blog’s page, so you can always check there if you’re looking to see if you’ve missed any!

I may even manage to keep it updated. I’m crazy unpredictable that way.

These are in the order they were written/posted, not at all chronological. I am up for requests if anyone thinks of anything they’d like to see in this universe, send me an ask. I will be posting slower as time goes on but still, I hate having unanswered asks in my inbox so trust me, you will be answered.

Daniel Michaelson’s Story

Part One: Shaky Hands

Part Two: Explosions

Part Three: Delirium

Part Four: Human Shield

Part Five: Gunpoint

Part Six: Dragged Away

Part Seven: Isolation

Part Eight: Wake Up

Part Nine: Shackled

Part Ten: Stay With Me

Part Eleven: Nate Vandrum, Two Years Before Daniel

Part Twelve: Trembling

Part Thirteen: Laced Drink

Part Fourteen: Nate Vandrum’s Nightmare

Part Fifteen: The Rules

Part Sixteen: The Pain is His

Part Seventeen: Unaffected

Part Eighteen: Mine

Part Nineteen: Waterlogged

Part Twenty: Beaten / Numb

Part Twenty-One: He Belongs to Himself

Part Twenty-Two: Embrace

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Daniel Michaelson: Trembling

(for @whumptober2019, Day 20: Trembling TW: serious violence/torture, SW: creepy whumper thoughts, Abraham Denner is a bad bad man)

“Am, am I doing okay so far?” The man’s blue eyes are wide, moving from one lawyer to another, a constant dance of seeking approval and reassurance from anyone he can see. 

Of course, no one in the courtroom can see the lawyers he is looking at, only him - he is the center of the frame, wavy red hair falling nearly to his eyes, scarred hands flat on the table but visibly shaking even through the digital image projected on the screen.

“You’re doing great, Mr. Michaelson. We just need to keep going, okay? Do you think you’ll be fine to continue?”

The man slowly nods. “I, I can try to keep going.” The warm blue eyes are rimmed in red by now - his testimony includes several edits and jump-cuts, and the jury doesn’t see the tears but they do see the way his face has changed, over time, from nervous but resolute to sniffing and uncertain and finally to frightened and eager to smooth over whatever offense he thinks he might have caused by not being perfect enough.

He doesn’t give up, he never stops trying.

He’s trying so hard to be brave, and it’s so fucking beautiful.

He’s being such a good boy, and Abraham wishes he were right here in the courtroom so he could tell him so right to his face.

Abraham Denner can nearly feel those tear tracks that shimmer only a little in the soulless fluorescent lights, the way they would give the slightest damp warmth if he ran his thumb down pretty red scar dug deep into his cheekbone, down the softer skin below it, all the way to his jaw. 

He could picture how Red would hold himself so still, trembling under Abraham’s touch, but he would never flinch or pull away. 

If Abraham wanted information from him, of course, it would all fall out of his mouth like a waterfall of words, whatever he wanted to hear, to know, all his for the taking. Red was all his for the taking, but these lawyers - they did not know how to take him correctly.

Instead, they question and dance around and try to coax without really coaxing. It’s annoying, but it draws everything out, so he tries to sit back and enjoy it. Honestly, who knows when he’ll see his Red all tear-stained and gorgeously tempting like this again?

Little less bleeding than he likes to see, granted, but he can just imagine that part.

His memories provide so many images of Red bleeding. 

“Okay, Daniel. Let’s keep going.”

“What is your name? Who do you belong to?” He holds Red by the chin, tilting it up to meet his eyes where the man kneels on the floor, his wrists tied with barbed wire Abraham found in the body’s workshop out back and held out in front of him at chest level, holding himself perfectly still so none of the barbs will cut him. 

He’s been kneeling like that for an hour in the smokehouse, in the dark with the scent of old fires and curing meat all around them. Abraham set a timer on his phone and sat back to take some photos, then simply waited, watching him, until the timer beeped.

It’s hot, and Red is pouring sweat in rivulets and rivers, but he doesn’t try to get up, and he doesn’t try to move his wrists even as his arms begin to tremble with the effort of holding themselves up like this.

“Red, m-my name is Red.” The voice shakes, it shivers for him. Red is always shivering for him, one way or another, when he bleeds. “My name is Red and I belong to y-you, Abraham, to you.”

“Good boy. Put your hands on the ground.” He watches Red do as he is told, smiling as some of the barbs finally prick into his skin and Red winces, laying his palms flat on the ground. “Now are we going to try any of that nonsense again? You going to try picking the lock on your chain again?”

“N-No. I’m sorry, Abraham, I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Good.” Abraham lets one boot come out and press against Red’s wrists, forcing the barbed wire to dig into the skin, and listens to the sound of Red hissing through his teeth at the pain, digging his fingernails into the earthen ground, with perfect contentment.

Those blue eyes stay open, and they never look away from his, even as they well with tears.

Abraham leans down, reaches out, and gently wipes one tear away as it slides down that perfectly scarred cheek. “I adore you, Red,” He says softly. “You’re going to be our perfect puppy forever.”

Red licks his lips, breathing in shallow pants to avoid making any noise as Abraham puts even more weight over the wire wrapped around his wrists, and nods quickly. “Yes,” He says in a gasp. “Yes, I will, I will, please stop, I’m sorry, I’ll try harder to be good-”

“Yes,” Abraham says thoughtfully, and pulls his foot back, listening to Red’s relieved half-sob in response. “Yes, you will try harder. And you will be good.”

“Th-thank you, Abraham,” Red manages in a voice just above a whimper. “Thank you for listening to my apology, thank you for only hurting me a little, thank you.”

The way the lawyers question him is irritating. What Red really needs, of course, is someone in that room to give him some orders, using his true name, the name Abraham had gifted to him, a way to understand his place, to become what he was meant to be.

If they would only tell his good boy what to do or say, of course, Red would understand what they want from him. He would feel safer, more secure, hemmed in the way he deserves to be. Red feels safer in a life full of cages, now, defined bars made up of commands and orders and expectations. 

Red likes the rules. He understands his name.

All those lawyers in fancy suits do, though, is ask questions, they give him choices. It confuses Red, makes him struggle to figure out the right thing to say.

No one bothers to get Abraham’s advice about any of it, of course. He’s the bad guy, he’s the villain, just for simply doing what came naturally to him and turning Red into what he had been meant to be all along. 

In a world where the monsters all wear nametags and point at someone higher-up when called to accept responsibility, Abraham is a monster all on his own, one they cannot tame, and so they want to lock him away.

They call him a lot of things, in the newspapers that report on the trial - he gets four newspapers every day in jail - but mostly he’s picked up the nickname The Carver in the Cabin, and he kind of likes that one. It’s better than he thought he’d get, anyway, and his guards are quick to let him know that the Carver is the nickname that seems to be sticking.

He likes the guards. They’re his best friends now.

Granted, everyone he talks to is his best friend if you give him long enough - that’s always been true.

Abraham and Ashley have been caught so many times, but until Nate burned the cabin down none of those moments ever seemed to stick.

Abraham Denner could charm the pants off anyone - and often did, shortly before killing them.

Ashley could never seem to charm anyone - something about her was too cold, the violence in her coiled too close to the surface and too visible to anyone who looked right at her. Abraham could bury his.  

To him, though, Ashley was always his warm and loving twin sister. To him, she had been arms around him from birth, arms he could still sometimes feel even though she had been dead for more than four years.

Nate’s fault - but he couldn’t feel angry… he couldn’t feel anything but pride at his black-haired prince for being strong enough to pull it off, to leave. No, he’s not mad at Nate. 

He’s mad at Ashley for leaving Nate the opening to kill her. She should have known better.

In the video, Red rubs compulsively at the scars around his face, and Abraham feels his mouth go a little dry just watching him, pouring himself a glass of water (next to him, his defense lawyer flinches, just the slightest bit, and Abraham feels good about that). He sips slowly, savoring the cool clear nothing-taste of it while imagining Red’s tears were just for him, just for him and Nate, the way it should be.

Red, a tall and lanky man with heavily muscled shoulders, is hunched over like a child waiting for punishment with fear in his eyes, and it’s all because of Abraham Denner. He’s so perfect, so genuinely and perfectly beautiful. 

Nate was his true love, of course - and Abraham fully intended to find some way to see his sweet man again, either a prison visit or, hell, never write off an escape, he’d done more unbelievable things in his life… but he would never walk away from his Red, either.

“All right, Mr. Michaelson,” The prosecutor on the video is saying. “We need to move on to speaking about what happened in this photo. Would you be able to look at this photo for us, Daniel?” 

The soft scrape of a bit of paper being moved across the table, and Red reaches out as if to touch it. His eyes glance down, too quickly to do more than take in the basics, and then he looks back up, looking more confused than frightened, pulling his hands back. “We, we have to talk about, um, about that?”

“Yes. We need to understand what was happening in this photo. Would you be able to talk about that now? Obviously if you need a break-”

“No,” Red says quickly, leaning forward, pulling the paper towards himself, shaking his head so his hair falls back over his eyes. “No, I’m fine, I can do it, I’m sorry, I’ll just try harder, I can, I can be good and do this for you-”

That’s my good good boy, Abraham thinks with a grin. He knows the jury watches him. He can feel their revulsion when he smiles at Red’s tears. 

He doesn’t care.

Nothing about this trial was ever going to end in anything but a prison sentence, and Abraham isn’t the type to delude himself. He’s not here to try and find acquittal. He’s just here to have some fun before he gets locked away.

“I will show the photo using the secondary screen,” The prosecutor sitting at the other table speaks out loud. The judge gives his approval, and when the prosecutor clicks the remote to pull up a large-scale version of the photo the man is holding in the testimony, everyone in the courtroom sees a photo of Red sitting on the ground, his face turned away and eyes shut but his mouth open wide in a scream, his hands wrapped tightly around himself.

Nathaniel Vandrum is crouched just behind him, one arm around him, one hand buried in his hair to pull Red against his chest. Nate’s chin rests on top of Red’s head and he’s glaring right at the camera - right at Abraham - with pure, loveless fury.

Closed around Red’s left leg is a bear trap. The smears of bright red showing through his torn jeans seem too brilliant to be real in the courtroom’s yellow light. 

Abraham takes a deep breath, seeing it blown up so large, larger than life really, and has to take another drink of water before he’s totally bowled over by the incredibly knife-sharp surge of pure joy that rocks through him head to toe.

Joy, and something much darker.

“I stepped in a bear trap,” Red says in the video testimony, staring down at the photo. “He took a photo before he let Nate get me out of it.”

“Why were you in a bear trap, Mr. Michaelson?”

“I was bad and I did not apologize,” Red says, head tilted down at the photo, tracing his fingers along it. “When you do something wrong, you apologize, and you get hurt so that you do not do it again.”

Someone in the jury coughs hard.

Red’s eyes are glittering again, and Abraham can see him trembling, even though this isn’t really happening right now.

He shivers so well, little Red.

He knows just how to shake the way Abraham likes best.

“Are you saying that Mr. Denner forced you into the trap? We need you to be absolutely clear, for the record, Daniel. Can you be clear about this for us?”

Red takes a deep breath, licking his lips, and slowly nods. He looks around the ring of lawyers offscreen again, looking for their approval, and then lets his eyes drop back down to the photo. Abraham looks over to the jury to see some of them glaring right at him with hatred, most of them looking at the photo still, and one old woman dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a tissue.

“Yes,” Red says finally, and his voice is shaking as hard as he is. “He told me to step in the trap as hard as I could or he would, um, he would… he would…” His voice trails off and he hunches over, mumbling too low to be heard.

“Please, Daniel, please try to speak clearly for us, just to finish this last little bit. Then we’ll take another break. Describe what happened.”

“He told me I had to step in the bear trap to punish myself or he would hurt Nate again.” Red looks up, pleading with them to understand with his wide eyes. “He, he said he would really hurt him this time - he’d break his leg or worse, if I didn’t go in the trap, so I had to. The last time I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take my punishment like a g-… like he wanted me to, he beat Nate so badly, so.. so I had to go in the trap. I had to step in it, I had been, I had been bad I had tried to say no again, and I don’t get to say no. Puppies don’t get angry, pets don’t… I had to, I, I had to be good, I had to…”

They cut the video short again, but Abraham isn’t done with this memory, not at all. He’s going to be thinking about the bear trap for days, running over and over in his mind the moment Red had agreed to do exactly what he said to spare Nate.

The way Nate had glared at him over Red’s head, holding onto him, the way the guilt had shredded Nate for days and days, that Red had been so willing to take a punishment to save him. 

“I’m sorry, Abraham, please, I’ll do it. Don’t hurt him, please!”

“I won’t, if you step right in. Not just a little step, either. These things are made for much larger animals than my skinny little puppy. You stomp your foot right into it and take your punishment, or Nate takes it for you.”

Red’s hair is sweat-soaked and stuck to his forehead, even out here in the chill air. He nods quickly, hugging himself around his middle as though it would ever make it any better. “I will, I’ll do it, Abraham, just, just give me a second, I just need…”

“Take a moment. Deep breaths, Red. In and out, in and out. That’s my good boy.” Red’s whole body shakes, but he nods, breathing slow and deep, just the way Abraham tells him to. Nate steps over to him, hands on either side of his face.

“You don’t h-h-have to d-do this,” Nate says softly, gently, and Abraham missed the love in his words, because he was so busy searching for it when Nate looked at -him-. “I c-can take it. I’ve t-t-taken it before, Red. I can t-take it. Don’t d-d-do this just because of m-me.”

Red looks up at him, tears in his eyes, and shakes his head. “I’ll do it. You were so hurt last time, I can do it, Nate. Okay? Okay, Nate?”

Nate just pulls him close for a hug, holds him tightly, and finally steps back. “I’ll b-be right h-h-here to hold you after,” He says, gently, reassuring, leaning in to kiss Red’s forehead, each side of his face, the tip of his nose. “I’ll h-hold your hand.”

Abraham’s not jealous, not yet. He had taken Red to give Nate a friend, after all, and in Abraham’s world there was no such thing as a platonic friend. The puppy’s not a person, and taking is what puppies like Red are made for.

Red nods, stepping back, taking breaths as deeply and slowly as he can.

He turns back to the bear trap, one hand gripped white-knuckled onto Nate’s, as he moves towards it, staring down with abject dread. He shivers, he shakes, and Abraham all but purrs watching it.

Red’s left foot is trembling as he slowly lifts it up above the open trap.

He looks back at Abraham - maybe hoping for some sort of last-minute mercy - but Abraham just smiles and waits, shaking his head. “Will you be good for me, Red?”

“I’ll be good,” Red whispers. “I’m going to try harder. I can be good, just… just don’t hurt Nate.” Then he jams his left foot down into the trap, onto the little metal plate in the center, as hard as he can.

The trap snaps shut around his left leg and Red collapses long before the pain reaches him. He gives out and falls backwards, Nate grabbing onto him tightly around the chest and waist, holding onto him and murmuring soothing nonsense sounds.

Red goes suddenly still, his eyes wide and white-ringed, and he begins to scream. The sound shatters the woods around them, sends a flock of birds flying up into the sky in a burst of wings, bounces around the trees and crisp air, goes on and on and on.

Red screams, and screams, and screams.

The video testimony cuts to after the break, his little Red looking shaken but still resolute, still resolved to see this through. Abraham glances over to the prosecution’s side and sees Red’s little brother, that Ryan kid, ashen under his darker skin (adopted brothers, and still the brother comes here every day but the parents don’t… interesting, that) and staring at nothing now, twisting a little bit of paper into shreds with his hands.

He sees Nate, looking straight at the screen still, his jaw locked tightly and his green eyes totally focused. He doesn’t look to Abraham. He doesn’t see what his reaction was.

But Abraham settles back. He doesn’t care about this next bit of testimony.

No, he closes his eyes and relives, one more time, the moment his beautiful Red put his foot down in the trap.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I could really picture Bram with number 20

(technically the ask calls for this being said to the OC, but you know what, this is definitely a thing Bram would say, instead…)

“Cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.”

Nate doesn’t look up, staring down at his own hands where they’re laying loosely in his lap. He must have been all excited for this date he was on when Bram finally tracked him down; he’d combed his hair all nice and parted on the side, was wearing a nice rust-colored button-up shirt tucked into slacks.

He’s wearing goddamn loafers, for fuck’s sake.

Bram turns the music up a couple of notches - you can kind of hear the kid in the trunk trying to… who knows, maybe kick his way out? Bram could’ve told him that wouldn’t do any good, but no one ever asks Bram first.

This is not the first body he’s had in a car trunk, and still no one ever treats Bram like the expert he is.

“Look,” Bram says, when Nate is still silent, fiddling with his seatbelt. “Look, it really isn’t. It’s going to be better now, Nate, because I finally found you. I looked and looked, and I found you, so now we can be together again. I get why you did it, I really do, and I’ve put Ash where she’ll wait for me until we can be together again. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, Nate.”

Nate’s lips press together into a thin line, and he nods, slowly.

“I mean… you missed me, baby, right? Didn’t you miss me? Don’t you love me, Nate?”

“Y-yes,” Nate finally replies, his voice hoarse, barely audible over the blaring music. “Of c-c-course I d-do, Bram. You know I l-love you.”

“So it’s really not the end of the world that I interrupted your date?”

Nate turns to look at him, anger blaring in those green eyes, before they meet Bram’s and the anger falters, fades away, is replaced by something sweeter, softer, more vulnerable. “You k-k-kidnapped him. Let him g-g-go, Bram. Just take m-me, okay? I can g-go with you, you d-d-don’t need him.”

“No can do, baby. You need a reminder of the permanence of our relationship, you know? You liked this guy?”

Nate slumps into his seat, as the distant thumping from the trunk gets momentarily louder. They hit a hard bump in the road and Bram hears a wonderful hoarse cry of pain from the trunk, and then it’s silent after that. “I d-did,” Nate admits, finally. “I d-do like him.”

“Well, good. So I got you exactly what you wanted. This isn’t the end of the world, baby… this is just our new beginning.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Daniel Michaelson’s Story: Nate Vandrum, Two Years Before Daniel

(this is late for @whumptober2019 - it was planned for Day 18, Muffled Scream - but hey, it’s fun, so I’m posting it. This is Nate Vandrum, the Denners’ prior whumpee and Daniel Michaelson’s eventual savior of sorts, during his initial captivity when both twins are alive. TW/SW: knives, blood, abusive behavior, the Denners are awful)

Ashley’s sitting on his lap, facing him with her arms around his neck, crossed at the wrists just behind his head. She is close, so close her eerily pretty face takes up his entire field of vision. Slightly narrowed eyes, upswept at the corners and oddly feline, high cheekbones, wide mouth, white-blonde hair and eyebrows that seem sometimes to nearly disappear against equally-white skin.

The spitting image of her brother, nearly identical - but colder.

"You could have more scars," She murmurs in a voice like velvet soaked in whiskey, and as she leans in he turns his head to the side, looking away from her, trying to find a spot on the wall he can stare at instead.

Looking away is the best he can do. He has spent hours memorizing every mark on the walls while they turn him into someone other than who he used to be.

"Oh, Nate. Don't be so rude." She rolls her hips forward so they press against his, and he swallows hard at the way it doesn’t feel that bad at all. "You know the rules, don't you?"

There are so many rules.

Never pull away from Ashley or Abraham Denner. Never reject a touch. Never ask why. Say thank you for every gift you are given, and remember that every breath is a gift we give you now. Do whatever you are told to do, as soon as you are told. 

Take each bruise, each bleeding wound, with gratitude.

Be our pet.

Fall in love.

He'd like to pretend they cannot force the last one on him, but Bram has been gone all day and Nate misses him - his touch, even the bruising ones, his kiss, his everything.

He'd been with them for years, and somewhere in there - somewhere between the pain and the things they do to him and the way they hold him afterward - his deep abiding hatred and urge to escape have been twisted, broken, reshaped.

Ashley he cannot be forced to love, but that's not what she wants, anyway. 

Only Bram wants his love. 

Ashley just wants his obedience and fear, and those are so much easier to give.

He slowly turns his head back to face her, jaw locked tightly, feeling the ring they put through his lip on one side shifting.

When his green eyes meet her blue, she laughs, a soft low sound from deep in her chest. "Fuck, that's so good to watch. Are you going to admit I’m right now? Hm? My Brammie won't be home til late, it's just… you and me and this argument we don’t have to be having."

Nate can feel the blade in her hand graze, gentle as a kiss, against the back of his neck. He does not stiffen up or go tense - never pull away from the Denners - and Ashley never lets the edge of a blade touch someone accidentally. 

This is how she is choosing to touch him, and he has to accept it, even if it hurts.

Especially when it hurts.

“I’m not having an argument,” He says, feeling the blade move a little, the softest kiss of sharpness, around the side, up and down the line of the vein in the side of his neck, not quite cutting, not yet. Then over his Adam’s apple, smiling at him as he swallows hard and the blade pricks, just the slightly bit.

“What are you doing, then?” Her voice is a purr, a rumble in her chest. 

“Not having an argument.” Nate fixes his eyes on hers, tries to look unintimidated, like the person he maybe used to be. “You’re just wrong.”

She lets the blade slice, just the barest bit, and Nate hisses air through his teeth, picturing the droplet of bright red welling up. She darts her head forward and he feels the wet press of her tongue as she licks it up. He used to get nauseous at that feeling. Now he feels nothing at all. “You don’t get to tell us we’re wrong. God damn do I love it when your blood is hot.”

She is playing with him, of course - this is a game. Ashley Denner has always been a cat and Nathaniel Vandrum little more than the mouse she is not allowed to consume, because her twin brother loves him and has declared he gets to live.

If he stays relaxed, if he looks bored, she might get bored, too, and walk away. Maybe. 

She might decide to slice the collar again, the cuts in smooth lines that go around and around his neck but never too deep. If she does that, he must hold still. For every flinch or noise he makes, she’ll wind the knife another time.

He is very good at holding still for Ashley’s knife, now.

Never reject a touch.

She is safer when Bram’s home, because Bram loves him, and he hurts Nate because he loves him, because he has to be fixed, made better. If he’s good, if he does what he’s told to do, Bram won’t hurt him very much at all.

This relationship only works if you understand your place, Nate. You're my pet and I love you - we’re going to be together forever. But if you don’t understand that you belong to me, then I’ll have to break up with you, and then you’ll have to die.

Bram loves him, and he wants to keep Nate as a pet forever, and there are moments when Nate forgets who he is.

He was a professor, back home. He had a whole life before he met them. 

Some days, it’s hard to remember that - and in those moments, he loves Bram, too, and all he wants is to make him happy. In those moments he feels like maybe he was meant for this, born to be with Bram and Ashley, born to kneel for Bram, that every single second of his life was leading up to the night they followed him home.

Bram says it all the time. You need to understand that you loved us already. You just didn't know it yet, before we found you.

I love you, Nate, so much, so much you get to live, with me forever. You'll never leave me. You'll never run. 

If you leave me, I'll cut parts of you off until you never leave again. 

I love you, Nate. I love you. I love you so much.

Now say it back or I’ll get the razor blades out again.

Bram Denner's a psychopath, and Nathaniel Vandrum is sometimes still himself and sometimes a pet, and he has no idea how long he can hold any part of himself together. He has no idea how much more of this there will be, only that it will last for the rest of his life, and one day they will get tired of him and kill him and at least it would all be over, then. 

If Bram is a psychopath, Ashley is something even worse.

“You know, when you’re like this, I can see why Brammie loves you so much.” She shifts around again, leaning in close to kiss his cheek, a trail of kisses to his ear, down the side of his neck over the healing cuts that itch and itch, licking at the still-bleeding place she’d let the knife cut in. “You've got a nice jaw, good mouth, pretty nice eyes… I get it, I really do."

Other than the fact that she is clearly female, Ashley Denner looks exactly like her twin brother. Sometimes when they are hurting him, Nate can’t remember which one he is currently begging to stop, calls the one with the knife or the whip or the cane by the wrong name, and they laugh and laugh and hit him harder until he gets it right the next time.

“Thanks for the compliment,” Nate says dryly. He doesn’t stammer yet - the stammer comes later, after he tries one more time to escape and Bram hits him too hard in the head a few times. He doesn’t stammer yet. “But you’re still wrong.”

He is currently tied to a chair because the two of them are both fucking idiots, and they refuse to listen to someone who knows something they don’t.

If she were anyone else, the weight of her hips pressing lightly against his would have been supremely pleasant. Even with Ashley being exactly who she is, it isn’t exactly a bad feeling. He tries to remember when feelings like this came from people who weren’t in the process of slowly destroying him, piece by piece.

“I’m not wrong,” She says, rolling her eyes.

The knife trails down the side of his neck, over his collarbone, traces the line of it. There’s never enough food (not enough sleep, either - when one of them is done with him the other is only getting started) and he’s lost weight since he came here, defining the muscles they force him to exercise to build.

When he is good, he eats enough, but the days he is good are the days he starts to forget who he used to be, and so he’s never good for enough days in a row to fully lose the hunger.

He has to remember who he used to be.

He has to remember that he is a person.

He has to remember long enough to find the opportunity to escape.

“You are wrong.” Another prick of the knife, just above his collarbone this time, and he manages not to wince at the bright flash of pain as the knife digs in a little deeper. “You can’t be identical twins, Ashley.”

“Why not?” She cuts a smooth line across the length of his collarbone and up to his shoulder, and Nate lets his head fall back, teeth ground together as hard as they can to keep his jaw shut, shifting but not flinching away as the skin separates like she’s cutting butter, not him, and the blood wells up in a line.

She licks it away, a low pleased growl in her throat, and her other hand holds him still by the back of his neck, fingernails digging in hard, dimpling the skin until they ache, too. 

“You’re a man and a woman,” He manages, voice strained with keeping control. Never reject a touch. Never pull away. Follow the rules. 

Be grateful for the pain, because every breath is a gift we have chosen to give you.

“I fail to see the problem with that,” Ashley says against his skin. She moves the knife away and for a second he thinks maybe this will be all, this will be enough to satisfy her.

“Identical twins have to be the same biological sex. It’s a single person’s genes that get split into two eggs. You’re not identical twins.”

She pulls back and looks at him, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully. “We were a single person, once, then we split in two. Male and female, like twin gods in the myths.”

Nate takes a deep breath.

She’s moved the knife back and away, and is watching him with no anger in her eyes. Maybe this time he’ll get through to her.

“Identical twins are always the same biological sex.”

“Unless they’re gods,” She counters.

“No,” Nate says trying to sound patient but his collarbone and shoulder ache from the cuts and he just wants her to undo the handcuffs and let him get out of the chair. “Even those stories about the gods - they’d have been fraternal twins. That’s what you are - you’re fraternal twins.”

“We’re identical.”

“No. You’re similar.”

She frowned. “No. We are identical twins.”

“You are very similar-looking fraternal twins, Ashley.”

“I’m going to tell Brammie you said that when you come home,” Ashley says, sitting back and away from him now, resting her weight entirely on his lower thighs where they connect to his knees. He swallows, knowing what’s coming, but somehow he can’t let this go.

He doesn’t love her.

She doesn’t want him to.

And she’s wrong.

“I’m going to tell him you said we’re not identical.” She changes her grip on the knife and he knows what is about to happen next. 

He turns his head away one more time, closes his eyes, and waits. 

“He’s going to be so upset with you, Nate.”

The blade of the knife jams straight through his shoulder and out the other side, buries itself with an audible thunk into the wood back of the chair, and Nate only barely keeps his mouth shut to muffle the scream.

Ashley leans in close again, watching him with wide eyes like a child looking into the reptile cage at the zoo, her head slowly tilting to one side until a bit of wavy blonde hair falls across her cheek. “No, Nate. I want to hear you. Turns me on.”

He shakes his head, biting down on his lower lip until it bleeds, the agony spreading from his shoulder down his arm, into his chest, the feel of wet blood running in rivulets down his chest and back. 

“I say we are identical twins, Nate. And I say you’re going to scream.”

She smiles, twists the knife as hard as she can, and Nate’s back arches him nearly out of the chair at the pain, still biting his lip, the cry trapped in his throat, keep it down, don’t make noise, she likes that too much and she’ll want too much afterward, don’t-

She twists again, and then time Nate screams, head thrown back, pulling helplessly trying to free himself, the handcuffs rattling hard against the back of the chair. Ashley grinds her hips into his and starts to laugh, a strange high-pitched hyena laughter, yanking the knife back out and somehow that hurts worse and he screams again.

He always tries to hold it back.

He always screams in the end.

“There we go. That’s our good, good boy. Now… are we identical twins, Nate?”

He’s breathing hard, panting really, like the dog they always tell him he is until he earns being a person. He can’t speak for the pain, can barely hear her over the buzzing agony, and all he can do is shake his head. “Fra-... fraternal,” He grinds out. 

“Oooh, you are a masochist today,” Ashley says. Her voice is warm and playful but her eyes are very, very cold. “You are indeed. Okay, Nate. Have it your way.”

When the knife buries itself in his other shoulder, he doesn’t try to muffle the scream this time, just lets himself collapse and drown in it, in the sound from his own throat, in the pain that rattles the walls. She yanks it back out and he groans again, head dropping, black hair in his eyes.

Ashley twists her fingers into that hair and yanks his head back up. When he finally opens his eyes, narrowed against the ache, she waits until she is sure he is looking at her and slowly licks his blood off the blade.

“Bad puppy,” She says, and her lips are smeared red with his blood. “You’re a very, very bad dog. Let’s see how much of you is left by the time my Brammie gets home.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Nate Vandrum Before Danny: Request Answered

(for @blackstar-1391 who requested Nate and the twins pre-Danny... Ashley decided to show up late, sorry about that, but I’ve got an Ashley-focused drabble knocking around in my head for the future! Tagging @bleeding-demon-teeth who mentioned liking being tagged for Bram!)

TW: Non con touching, knives, mentions of sex (implied/referenced), some reaaaaaal lowkey emotional manipulation and like the bittiest bit of torture

“Don’t be mad, baby,” Bram croons, sliding the edge of the knife down the side of Nate’s neck, not enough to cut, just enough to be a shiver of cold metal he can’t quite deny. “Look, we talked about this, didn’t we?”

“Did we?” Nate asks, keeping his eyes closed and turning his head to the side. His voice comes out calm, and steady, and he’s proud of himself for that.

“We did. I’ve been really opening up to you, Nate, and I just feel like you’re not listening to me.”

Looking away like this bares his neck to Bram, which has its own risks, but it keeps the edge of the blade off his cheek, and in his best attempts at calculation, that seems the safer bet. “I’m sorry, it’s hard to hear you when you’re cutting my fucking shirt off.”

His voice doesn’t shake, but his heart is knocking against his chest hard enough that he’s a little afraid it’s going to burst right out of him like a horror movie nightmare moment.

“Look, I get that you’re pretty upset right now,” Bram says reasonably enough, nudging the slivers of cloth puddled at his feet to the side. “Although I’d like to point out that you currently have enough bandages on you that you might as well be wearing a second shirt, anyway.”

Nate shifts and hears the slight crackle of them, feels the pull of the adhesive, the soft brush of the gauze. “Because you cut me.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t give you any excuse to be rude, does it?”

Nate nearly opens his eyes at that, nearly turns to look back at him, to argue, but he catches himself just in time. 

If Abraham notices, his voice doesn’t give it away. “I’ve been really explaining my motivations to you, my feelings, and I expect you to reciprocate. It’s perfectly normal for couples to have a fight, occasionally, but the secret is to a healthy fight, Nate, is when you actually communicate. So far this has been pretty one-sided, I think.”

Nate snorts derisively, but stiffens as the blade of the knife moves, the point beginning to press at a spot just under the side of his jaw, where the bone angles up towards his ear.

It’s reassuring, to have the knife at his neck and not up on his face. Bram doesn’t like to cut anything you could actually bleed to death from, so the odds of getting his throat slit are pretty slim to none.

He’s less confident in whether or not he’ll get to keep his eyes, especially since Bram’s even more psychopathic sister keeps talking about how pretty they are, and Nate’s a little afraid Bram’s going to leave him alone with her one day and come back to a blind captive and Ashley Denner bragging about her totally unrelated brand new set of eyes in a jar. 

“This is not what I would consider healthy communication,” Nate replies, and as long as his eyes are closed, he can hold on to the anger, to himself. If he never looks right at Abraham Denner, if he doesn’t let himself fall into the ice, break through to the darkness under the surface, he still has control of this, if nothing else.

The only control he has left is his occasional ability to hold onto his own mind, and even that has begun to slip.

“Why not?” The point of the knife presses in, just a little, and Nate hisses air through his teeth. 

“Because I can’t fucking move my hands, Bram!” His back’s against the wall, but with his hands tied behind his back with thick ropes that dig in and rub his skin raw, Nate has to arch his back not to press hard enough on them to hurt. 

Bram moves closer to him, and Nate can feel the cold of him before he feels the nudge of a hip against the side of his, the brush of his skin, the whisper of frozen breath along his ear. “What’s wrong with this, hm? You need your hands tied or you don’t focus very well, do you? So really, I’m helping you here. This is the best way to get you to be honest with me, Nate.”

“Or to get me to tell you anything you want to hear out of sheer fear for my life,” Nate mutters, and the knife digs in just a little. He stiffens, waiting with his eyes closed, and sure enough - he feels the pinprick of pain as it breaks the skin, the moment of anticipation, and then Bram’s cold tongue laps the drop of blood that wells up from his neck.

He shudders, half in disgust - but after a year with them the disgust isn’t the strongest reaction any longer, and Nate hates himself for that. 

He’s pushing his luck as it is, but Bram came home in a good mood, and Nate is in a terrible one, and he couldn’t stop himself from trying, even if just for a little while, to remember who he is when he’s not looking into Abraham Denner’s eyes.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Bram points out, pulling back. Warm air rushes to fill the space where his frigid chill was, and Nate shivers at the sudden change, goosebumps rising along his arms. “I would know if you did that, and I would cut deeper until you were honest with me.”

“You cut me up anyway.”

“But not deeply.”

He can’t really argue that. The slices all across his torso and shoulders are always shallow, enough to burn and itch while they heal and drive him insane, but not enough to cause any severe permanent damage. Most of them don’t even scar, unless Ashley’s the one doing the cutting.

He’s special, according to Bram. He’s different than the others (and Nate wants to ask, wants so badly to ask about these mysterious others but he also very much doesn’t, never will), he’s important.

He’s fucking trapped, is what he is.

Kidnapped by psychopaths, held here, drugged with whatever they put in his water and by the things that move behind Bram’s eyes, the spell that weaves around his voice. Nate’s anger builds when he’s left alone in the house, or when he’s with Ashley. He constructs elaborate ideas for ways he could get out of this.

Then Bram walks in the door, looks him in the eyes, and Nate feels himself go weak in the goddamn knees.

There’s a pause, and then Bram slides a hand up his face, cold palm and fingertips against his cheek, his cheekbone, up to his temple. The knife stays right where it is, slowly pushing in, and Nate wonders if another bead of blood is welling up.

He has his answer when Bram licks again.

“I love you,” Bram breathes into his skin, and where he touches Nate he feels frozen, pushing himself away as best he can, ignoring the pain in his wrists and hands as the pressure of his back forces them to hit the wall at an angle that pushes all the small bones awkwardly together. 

The knife trails down the side of his neck again, pricks at his collarbone just a little, cuts through a bandage and over an earlier wound, making Nate groan, low in his throat, at the resurrected pain there. 

“Won’t you tell me you love me, baby?” Bram asks, nuzzling into his face as his knife cuts a little deeper in a straight line down his ribs.

“No,” Nate grinds out between gritted teeth. “Because I fucking don’t.”

Nate wants to scream and to cry all at once because it was one thing to be targeted by a psycho for torture but to be forced to say you loved him, too, it was just all too fucking much.

And when they put enough of that shit in his water, sometimes he didn’t have to be coerced with a knife.

“You will,” Bram says softly, cold breath against his face. “Don’t worry, baby. One day you’ll love me so fucking much, if I want you to…”

“What are you two bastards doing?” Ashley’s voice, sharp as the crack of a whip, is enough of a surprise that Nate’s eyes fly open.

Bram pulled the knife back, his nose still just brushing Nate’s cheekbone, leaning his other arm on the wall. The two of them turned to look at her in the same moment, heads turning, Nate’s black hair mingling with Bram’s white-blonde.

He and Bram, he thinks, look like two teenagers caught making out in the hallway by a parent, and he feels himself flush, unwillingly, as much from having the thought at all as from the image. He doesn’t have to fake the scowl on his face.

He tries to arch away from his hands, to take some of the pressure off, but Bram presses closer to him at the same moment and his stomach flips and his heart skips a beat and how the fuck does Bram do this to him?

“We had a fight,” Bram says casually. “We’re making up. What were you doing?”

“Hunting. What does it look like I was doing?” Ashley’s at the other end of the hallway, dressed in an unzipped black hoodie over a black tank top and jeans, and she is coated in blood. Spatters have dried brownish on her face, soaked into her hair until it hangs in strangely-colored clumps, the blood on her hands is still more red, obscenely wet, and looks like it might drip on the floor.

A few months ago, Nate might have found this surprising.

Now, he was mostly just pissed that he would be the one scrubbing the blood drips out of the floor later on.

“Was it a good hunt?” Bram asks, as though it’s an everyday occurrence for his twin sister to walk in up to her elbows in blood while he’s slowly cutting stripes into the captive he is absolutely convinced is his boyfriend.

Well.

It is an everyday occurrence here. 

“Good enough,” Ashley said, looking down at her left hand, spreading the fingers out and contemplating the drying blood there. “Bought us some time. Couple of good bodies.” She looks slowly up, tilting her head, and Nate finds himself pushing back against the wall and away from those cold eyes, nearly leaning to the side into the span of Abraham’s arm. 

Between the two of them, he’d pick Bram every time - at least Bram seemed interested in letting him survive this.

Ashley rolls her eyes. “Can you two stop fucking in the hallway long enough for me to get to the shower?”

“Ashley.” Bram raises an eyebrow. The knife jabs into Nate’s ribs again, catching him by surprise, and he cries out in pain before he catches himself and his mouth slams back shut, but he hears Bram’s soft delighted exhalation in response. “You would have heard it if we were-”

“Ugh, fuck off,” Ashley groans, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be gross, Brammie.”

Nate feels a deep, instinctive urge to ask her where the fuck she got off judging them when she was coated in someone’s blood, and just barely fights it back. 

Bram snorts in laughter. “Fine, fine.” He turns to look at Nate, who looks back at him before he remembers not to, and in Bram’s eyes Nate feels himself fade. The anger that roils in him sloughs off and away, piece by piece, and Nate will trade whatever of himself he has to in order to survive the dark things that swim in the depths of the ice he is staring into. “Should we go back to our room and talk this thing out, Nate?”

“There’s nothing to goddamn talk about, Bram,” Nate says, but all the fight has gone out of his voice, and he knows Bram can hear it, because the smile already on his face spreads a little wider. 

Ashley wanders towards them, clumping gracelessly in her heavy boots, stopping to raise one bloody hand to cup Nate’s face. “Is he being a shit today, Brammie? I can fix that. You know I’m good at fixing him when he’s bad.”

“He’s mine,” Bram says, turning to look at his sister without any real jealousy or irritation. “I can fix him just fine on my own.”

“But I like the little cuts…” Ashley smiles, and there is blood on her teeth, too. “I like the big ones. I like the hitting and the skinning and the… if he’s not being a good relationship partner, Brammie, if he’s hurting my baby brother-”

“Hardly,” Bram snorts.

“Enough to count,” Ashley sniffs. “If he’s hurting you, let me fix him.”

Nate, trapped between the bloodsoaked ice queen and the glacial monster that thinks it loves him, has his choice of one kind of dying or the other.

Nate takes a deep breath, considers what options he even has, and turns to look right into Bram’s eyes. “I’ll talk to you,” He says, trying to pitch his voice lower, softer, sweeter. “Let’s, um, let’s talk, you and I.” It’s surprisingly easy, easier every day, and when he looks right at him and into his eyes he can feel  part of him whisper, he loves me, and when something like Abraham Denner loves you, you don’t get to choose.

“Good. Then you can get the fuck out of my hallway,” Ashley says, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes as she pulls back and away. “I need a shower. Nate’s gonna make me a drink when I’m done, yeah?”

“I think we’ll be busy,” Bram says, grabbing Nate by the rope that bound up his arms, turning him to walk in the direction of the big bedroom at the end of the hall. His heart pounded, but it was better than being alone with her.

Even if it meant being pulled under by the things in Bram’s eyes.

Even if it meant the knowledge that one day the real Nate Vandrum might be totally subsumed by the version of him he wore alone with Bram.

“Tell me you understand, baby,” Bram says, and there’s a hand guiding him by the ropes that tie his arms behind his back until they’s covered in welts and bruises, there’s a knife in his side that will soon be cutting him open to bleed for Bram’s endless appetite. “Tell me you love me.”

“I understand. I love you,” Nate says, eyes on the floor, and he doesn’t mean it.

Except that sometimes, when he looks right into Bram’s eyes and listens to his low, deep voice, he does.

“See?” Bram says brightly, shoving Nate ahead of him into the bedroom, watching Nate lose his balance and crack hard onto his knees on the floor, listening to his hissed curse at the pain. “All it takes is some open and honest communication. And maybe you’re thinking it’s not honest, because you don’t love me, but trust me, baby, you will. Everyone loves me, eventually. You know what, Nate?”

“What?” Nate grunts, trying to stand back up, but Bram’s hand slams down on his shoulder and holds him. The knife is a bloom of pain at his shoulder, and he hisses, grinding his teeth together as hard as he can. He can feel the blood this time, the warm droplets that run down his cold skin, and he shivers when Bram licks that up, too. 

The pain is always a promise, here - it’s never just a threat.

He’s going to die with these people, and they’re going to make him absolutely fucking crazy first.

“You’re so goddamn miserable,” Bram breathes out in pure ecstasy. “We’re going to be so happy together. Now… let’s see what I can do with your shoulder blades today.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Ashley: 2 or 16

(oh, Ashley, you terrifying monster woman. Don’t worry @blackstar-1391 - this doesn’t count as your request, I am 100% doing a longer piece to fulfill your Denners + Nate request!)

“How are you feeling today?”

Her twin brother’s boyfriend stares her down as he asks the required question, setting the plate in front of her, and she stares right back. 

Her favorite, of course - toast with Irish butter (their time in Ireland had been so good - how long ago was that? There were a lot of miserable people back then, skinny and starving) and two eggs, over hard, a dash of the hot sauce she gets at the store down the block.

Nate is so good, these days - and the bandages under his long-sleeved shirt give away just how long it took him to learn.

Upstairs, Brammie’s still in the shower - honestly he’s probably still singing, a sound she loves to hear - Brammie has such a good singing voice, and he just doesn’t know it.

More people should get to hear Brammie sing - not just Nate in bed, when Brammie sings him to sleep (or the drugs do, and honestly, who gives a fuck which it is but Brammie himself?) or Ashley when she overhears him and he doesn’t know she’s listening.

Nate isn’t looking as good these days as he did when they first followed him home. No, these days, trapped in the house with them, Nate has grown pale, gotten thinner, and she can see the marks all across his neck from where Brammie got a little aggressive with him last night. 

Brammie likes his sweethearts skinny and showing every inch of the life they’ve had taken from them. Ashley never really likes to let them live this long, but she has to admit it’s kind of nice to have the eye candy around every day.

“I’m feeling lovely, Nate, thanks so much for asking.” Her voice is a sultry, pleased purr, and she watches his jaw tighten as he glares down at her, his green eyes full, absolutely full, of abject hatred, blurred and foggy from whatever Brammie put in his water when he woke up this morning. 

“Glad to hear it,” He nearly snarls, and sits down at the table himself, staring down at his own plate - just toast with the butter for him, the drugs make his stomach upset in the mornings a lot. Ashley likes to joke that maybe he’s pregnant.

Nate doesn’t like that joke. 

He doesn't like that joke at all

She doesn’t care.

Ashley picks up her toast to eat, and says pleasantly to him, “How are you feeling today, darling?”

“Like I’ve been kidnapped by a couple of goddamn psychopaths,” Nate replies, his voice a snarl of anger.

“Then do something about it,” She says softly, so softly, and he stares at her for one more moment before his eyes drop back to his plate.

“I can’t,” He whispers, just as Brammie enters the room.

Ashley grins as her brother slides an arm around Nate’s shoulders, leans down to kiss the top of his black hair.

“Good morning, baby,” Brammie says lovingly. “How are you feeling today?”

Nate straightens a little under the touch, then looks up at him, and Ashley watches the hate melt a little into something closer to fear, maybe even love. As close to love as you can feel for someone who cuts you up each night, she supposes.

Ashley wouldn’t know.

“I’m, I feel fine, Bram, thanks,” Nate answers him. Bram kisses him, white-blonde hair still soaking wet and dripping just a little onto Nate’s shirt, and when he pulls back to sit down, Nate gets back to his feet, and Ashley watches him serve Brammie his favorite breakfast, too.

Two eggs over easy, plain white toast with nothing on it (for dipping in the egg yolks), two pieces of sausage, all of it kept perfectly warm until he was ready. 

Brammie grins up at Nate as he sets the plate down, and written all over his face is his pure, unadulterated love.

Ashley smiles and takes another bite of toast.

Another perfect day, and she feels fucking great about it.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Oh, this can definitely only end well, right?

I got a @badthingshappenbingo card and, uh, I’m feelin’ real good about it