Numb - Pilot(?)
Hi so I've been working on this for 5 days. I'm extremely proud of this thing and I can't wait to share it with y'all. It's an AU of my Favorite Versatile Guy, Finley!! um... yeah I'm not gonna introduce this anymore :3
Quick note: When I started writing this, Governor Winters was a man, but I decided to make him a girl because I love whumpers who are women <3 so if there are any mentions of her that use he/him pronouns uh. whoops
CWs: Pet whump, dehumanization, whump of a minor, usage of a shock collar, drugging, transphobia and deadnaming
Word count: 4.2k
Finley let the man run his fingers through his hair for the first time in a while. In, out, in, out. The leash that kept him chained to this sofa was so short. He didn't want to choke himself. The television was playing something interesting about wild animals, which helped him to not recoil from this.
The needle prick in the back of his neck helped far more, though. The cold cocktail of drugs began rushing through him even faster than it normally did. He gasped and coiled back from the shock as the woman began scratching behind his ear. “Shh. Shh, I know. It's okay.”
Finley hated that guy.
He inhaled deeply as everything just… sunk. His body shrunk into the deep, plush carpet and his eyes became heavy, not from the drugs just yet, but from the exhaustion. He hadn't slept in what felt like days, and he knew it hadn't been that long, but goddamnit. Nothing was stable or secure anymore. At least he had a stable idea of what was happening now. The governor was texting someone about something, and the chef was cooking food. Governor Winters’s daughter was playing with dolls upstairs. Finley was slowly being enveloped by the drugs he'd been injected with.
They came daily. Some strange combination that made it harder to focus, harder to choose things, harder to comprehend, to speak, to walk, to read, to rebel. Finley hated them. The drugs that kept him in line were horrible and they made him feel like he was losing control of himself, like he'd been swept away from his body. He whined quietly as the words that stayed on the screen began to blur, along with the rest of the room.
“Just breathe.”
“I hate youuu…”
“I'm trying to help you.”
“The fuck you… you are… nnnnngg…”
“Focus on the screen, L______.” “My name is… my name’s Finley and you know that, you…. shhhhithead.”
Governor Winter didn’t say anything else.
Finley kept trying to focus on the stupid TV screen.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
Finley looked down. He was holding a plate. He didn’t remember getting it, but here it was. It just had pieces of chicken… so no human food today. Finley sighed. “Did’n notice.”
He ate with his hands and wiped them clean on the carpet. The food here didn’t suck, at least, but he never wanted to accept it. It was humiliating. This time, he was just surprised that he wasn’t slapped across the face for getting the carpet dirty. Maybe he had been. His brain was like sludge in this moment.
The light pressure that caressed his head, although disgusting, was making him so tired now. The hunger had probably been the only thing keeping Finley awake, and-
Yeah, he was gone.
-
The next thing he saw was the metal mesh a couple feet over his head. Finley blinked as he stared at it. The drug had worn off a bit, and things were clearer. His body was burrowed into the shallow bed and the blanket weighed heavily on him like it always did. It pinned him against the floor. He groaned as his head protested strongly against this new state of consciousness with a pounding ache.
And suddenly someone was standing over him.
“Hi, L______!”
“Please just… just call me Fffffffinley.”
“But L______ is pretty.”
“Finley is- is- is, it's prettier.”
“Mom says-”
“Right. Can't make, make you disssssobey her.” The strange complications in Finley's speech were getting easier to ignore. He sighed. “Mmmmarcie, what are you, what are you, what are you do- doing?”
“Chores.”
“Mm…” Finley turned his head to the side and stared at the wavering wall of the stupid bed. “Nice. Good for… for you.”
“I'm gonna open the cage, okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Are you tired?”
“I'm pretty sure I'm, I'm on weeeeeeeed or some shhhh sh sh sh shit.”
“...”
“So no.”
“Right,” Marcie mumbled. She turned around. Finley cursed himself out inside- she was gonna leave it closed and Finley would be stuck in here for the rest of the day- but it turned out to be misplaced. He registered a noise somewhere far from him, then Marcie had returned. She knelt and pulled out a key and made quick work of the locks.
She pulled back the blanket, and then she was gone.
Finley stared at the ceiling for far too long before he sat up and shoved the ‘bed’ down. The little room, painted with black walls, only held the necessities. There was a bowl of water in the same corner where a plate of random chopped-up vegetables had been placed today, a toilet tucked in an alcove, and a light switch that Finley had never been able to reach like this. He crawled out of the cage and dragged himself to the plate of food.
He began to eat.
Ugh. Disgusting. There was no cohesion. It was so clear that there was going to be something good for dinner for the h- for the family. And Finley got the scraps. Tomatoes, raw potatoes, the ends of onion, unusable carrots, unappetizing bits of celery. Finley was beginning to struggle to muster the hate necessary to encompass the horribleness of this.
He ate it all whole like the disgusting parasite that he knew the Athena people thought he was and took a deep breath when he was done. He curled up on the carpet and tried to focus on the few coherent sections of his mind. Every day was just so mind-numbingly boring. He didn't know what to do anymore. Governor Winters would be here soon and Finley would be allowed to try to leave if he was lucky.
Finley wanted to turn the light off. He wanted to sit in darkness. He wanted to curl up on the stupid pet bed and sleep forever. He wasn't tired, no. He just wished it would all stop. He just wished he wouldn't have to feel as if he were melting at every moment.
He heard footsteps.
As he curled his tail up and around his head, Finley just tried to prepare himself.
“Good morning, L______!”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Oh, don't be like that. I'm taking you upstairs.”
“That happening and you fffffffucking yourself are not mutually exclusive events.”
“...”
That earned Finley a stinging shock. He gasped and curled in on himself. Those things hurt like a bitch.
“Just shut up.”
“Neverrrrr.”
A weight was added to the back of Finley's neck and suddenly he was being dragged up the stairs. He didn't register being taken to the stairs. He just knew that he was suddenly at the top and his back hurt. He looked up, eyes assaulted by the sunlight, hands planted in the floor in front of him. Someone nearby chuckled, but Finley couldn't place who. Finley scrambled away, or tried to. He ended up covering his eyes and leaning against the doorframe. Another chuckle.
“Yeah, it’s scary up here,” said Governor Winters, voice dripping with condescension.
“Shut up.”
Finley was being dragged again, suddenly, up the second flight of stairs. His eyes snapped open and he tried to bolt back down, wriggling out of Winters’s grasp.
BEEEEEP
The collar went off and Finley collapsed on the steps, trying not to scream. He tried to keep going, but he was grabbed and pulled back by the back of his shirt.
“You’re not gonna avoid Marcie today, L____. She’s lonely.”
Finley’s weakened mind couldn’t formulate a retort. He knew there was one, an easy one, something about Marcie’s lack of other people to speak to, but he couldn’t formulate the words. He only managed a sound somewhat akin to a growl.
When Finley ended up crumpled on the floor of Marcie’s room, he forced himself to sit up and get to the closest wall. There was some sort of short argument, but it didn’t take long for Governor Winters to leave.
And then it was just Marcie, staring at him.
“...”
“Aren’t you, you, aren’t you like, 6?”
“I’m 7.”
“Why?” That… conveyed the wrong question. Finley glanced to the side as Marcie giggled. “Because I’m 7.”
“...”
“Hey, _______!”
“Mm?”
“Do you like cats?” “...I guess. I guess so.”
“Because I’m getting a kitten!!” the girl exclaimed as she burst into giddy laughter.
“...Cool. That’s ….. It’s cool, Marcie.” Finley knew his tone was flat. He didn’t give a fuck.
“I’m gonna name her Lilac! And you guys can play!”
Hell no. Oh, it was so hard to not hate this girl. Finley loved cats, but he knew how Marcie was thinking about it, and it was very unfun. It was all he could do to not glare.
“Cool. When is Lllll… what did you say her- her name was?”
“Lilac!”
“Right. When is she coming?”
“Mom said she’d be here tomorrow.”
“Great,” Finley sighed. His tail twitched as he leaned back and rested his head against the paper-covered wall.
“And she's so fluffy! Her hair is just like yours! But… uhhh…” Finley was sure she said something else, but he didn't catch it. Everything was getting blurry again. He watched Marcie as she began pacing around the room, jabbering away about the kitten or whatever. She giggled when one of the waves washed over him and he let his head rest against his shoulder, breath coming heavily for a moment. His lucidity faded out for a second before it slammed back into his brain like a dump truck. Marcie giggled as she lightly pushed her pointer finger against his nose. Alarmed, Finley yelped and snapped at the thing. Marcie appeared disgruntled. She used her whole hand to push his face down. “No. Bad. That’s mean.”
“You can’t, can’t tell me what to do.” Finley twisted his face to the side and shoved Marcie away.
“Yeah, I can!”
“I’m…. I am 10 years older than you, Marcie.”
“No, you’re 9, silly!” She puffed her chest out proudly. Finley didn’t even hide the contempt on his face as she kept talking. “And Mom says-”
“Shut up.” Finley tried to scoot away and stand, but the muscles in his legs failed him. He toppled to the floor and now Marcie stood over him.
“You need to stop being mean, because… because if you keep being mean, I need to tell Mommy, and I don’t like it when she-”
“Whatever. I don’t care. She can go fffffffuck herself.”
Marcie gasped. “_______!! Nooo, now I gotta-”
Finley let loose a vicious hiss. Marcie whimpered, afraid this time, and went running away and down the stairs. After he watched her, he curled up, not bothering to try to pull the box away from his neck.
BEEEEEP
Finley couldn’t even hold in the scream of pain. The shock must’ve been at a higher setting than normal, because Finley was affected by it far more than he should’ve been. Or maybe the drug had gone into a dip. Either way…
It was a long shock. He must’ve been writhing on the floor for a while before he knew he could still and curl back into the corner. Tears ran down his face, but at least he wasn’t sobbing. He tried to breathe and be calm and not look rattled, but Marcie’s voice was back before he could even make the tears go away.
“Are you okay?”
“Goooooo go go go go go go-” He didn’t know. He didn’t know where the word was in his mind. He panicked and kept searching for it. “Go, go, go, go, go, go- I- I don’t- LEAVE!” He ended up shouting it. The frustration got the better of him.
Marcie didn’t listen to him. She knelt and began scratching at his scalp. And Finley hated it. He hated it all. The hate would never go free, though. It just built like a glacier formed and stayed for thousands of years, only beginning to trickle and fall away when these shitheads held a torch up to him. And it would never end. And he knew it.
He didn’t want to forget those basic words. The word was Away. A place he needed to be.
“Hey, guess what?”
“What.”
“It's lunch time.”
“Already?”
“Yeah! And we get flower sandwiches!”
“That's fun.” Deadpan. He didn't care.
“Yeah! Oo, do you think Lilac will like bologna?”
Finley just barely managed to remember who that was. “Bologna-” -he stumbled over the word- “isn't good for cats.”
“...So you can't have bologna?”
“I'm not a cat. I can eat anything.”
“But you-”
“I am nothing like a cat.”
“But-”
A knock at the door.
“ALLIE!!” Marcie gasped and bolted for the door. Finley sat up as it opened to reveal Allie standing outside with a plate. “I bought them. There are two for this gal.” She vaguely gestured at Finley, causing his eyes to narrow. “I'm not a gal.”
“Sorry. Required by law.” Allie shrugged as she handed Marcie the sandwiches. Marcie quickly dug into one as Allie handed Finley… four? Finley looked up, but Allie held a finger to her lips. “Lettuce and Bologna!” She exclaimed instead, addressing the kid. “I know it's your favorite.”
“Mhm!!”
Finley took the time she was distracted to quietly cram two into his mouth. They tasted good. Better than vegetable waste. He chewed slowly- he wanted to make sure he could savor it. Allie kept talking to Marcie until Finley swallowed and started nibbling on another one. One he could really savor. Only then did Allie say anything. She said she had to go finish dinner and she left.
Marcie wolfed down her sandwiches and ran to go grab her I-pad.
“What are you doing now?” Asked Finley, who was maybe halfway done.
“I'm gonna read the magic treehouse!”
“Don't you have….. don't you have schoolwork to do?”
“It's Saturday.” She giggled. “Silly.”
“...Oh.” Finley had been completely and utterly unaware of that. That didn't mean he was silly. Right? He just hadn't known.
He hated when things got blurry again. He could've sworn that yesterday had been Thursday, or maybe he'd been left alone on Wednesday? He got lost in thinking about this. Could he even know what time meant anymore? Life came in cycles of meals and sleep and it had for months. He stared at the wall as Marcie kept reading her stupid book on her stupid tablet. She might've been talking. Finley didn't know. He was too busy thinking.
…
The door opened. “Marcie, I'm gonna have to take _______ now.”
“Awwww, why?”
“We have things to do.”
Fuck. At least Finley got to leave.
–
Governor Winters held the kitten very securely. She was curled up in a ball, fast asleep. Finley was surprised to see that she wasn't actually orange- she was tortoiseshell, and she was simply majority orange. Her fur looked very fluffy. The cat was a long-hair.
“She's very cute, don't you think?”
“Yeah. Most…. most cats are cute.” Idiotic sentence. Finley cringed inside and shut his mouth as the governor smirked.
“Mhm. She's 8 weeks old, too. I think Marcelline will like her.”
“Okay. What do I have to do with… this?”
“I'm just making sure,” came the simple response.
“...That…?”
“Making sure that you know that if you try to do anything to this kitten-”
“Do I look like I punch kittens?”
“You might. You tried to bite my daughter.”
“You need to teach her, ummm… fuck, what- SPACE. Teach your daughter space.”
“You’re making no sense,” Governor Winters chuckled. “That’s fine. But back to my point: if you hurt the kitten, I hurt you. Understood?”
“Yeah, whatever.” Finley leaned against the fabric of the chair. This living room was so formal. He hated it. Even though the carpet he dug his fingers into was comfortable, it just smacked of a McMansion.
“No, really. If you hurt the kitten, the punishment will be severe.”
“Got it. You're really just putting ideas in my head.”
BEEEEEP
That one was mild, but it still stung. Finley leaned back. “Can't you tell… can't you take a joke?”
The woman didn't react to that. She leaned back in the armchair. The kitten didn't stir. “I think you might be interested in the fact that she might live in the basement with you.”
“... She's a cat.”
“And?”
“She won't escape. You could just let her… Let her…” the word wouldn't come forward. “...Not live in the basement.”
“We don't want cat hair on our furniture.”
“...”
“...”
“Fine.”
“Good girl.” The governor stood. “She'll be sleeping in your room tonight, at any rate.”
“Ah.” Finley was fine with that. A kitten. Fine.
The governor carefully lowered her back into the crate and shut the door. The front of her shirt was covered in cat hair. Finley choked back laughter. The governor didn't notice.
“I have work to do tonight. You’re sitting where you did yesterday for a while.”
“...” Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. Governor Winters tugged the long leash and nearly sent Finley toppling flat on his face, but he managed to stay balanced. Balanced enough to begrudgingly crawl forward and sit next to the couch. The cat carrier was set next to him. The TV turned on, but Finley stayed focused on that cat.
It wasn't long at all before Finley lifted the carrier and set it on his lap. The kitten inside still looked sleepy. Disoriented, but sleepy. It was a calm disorientation. And now Finley was wondering if he should open this thing. There was a jerk at the back of his neck, signalling that he’d been secured in. Finley didn’t know how that worked, really. Was there a hook in the couch cushions? His mind quickly slipped away from that when the kitten’s head popped up and stared at him. Oh, she was so cute. Finley grinned. Her big copper eyes blinked curiously as she tilted her tiny head. “Ohhh, Hi, baby,” he cooed as he stuck a finger through the bars of the carrier. She didn’t approach. That was fine. Finley looked up from the carrier at the sound of a chuckle. It peeved him. “Kittens are cute, Ellen, I’ll do what I-”
“What did you just call me?”
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. No going back now. “I called you by your name. Ellen.” Finley knew what was coming. He set the carrier aside.
BEEEEEP
Air hissed between Finley’s teeth. He didn’t want to frighten the kitten by screaming, he didn’t want to give Governor Winters the satisfaction, he didn’t want to be here. Stupid. Stupid. He wished he could make it stop.
When it did, he leaned back. “...”
“It's-”
“Governor Winters, yeah. Whatever. Ugh.” his mouth felt weird.
“I really don’t understand why you’re like this.”
Finley didn’t have a response to that. He looked down at the carrier.
“It’s like you started malfunctioning after you graduated from that college.”
“I’m on what you put me on, Governor Winters,” Finley spat.
“...” Something went unsaid, and neither of them pressed. You’ve been like this since before I had you. Finley was just glad that the lady had no idea why.
He took a deep breath. In. Out.
The TV played something about nature again. Again. Maybe this was why Finley’s mind had skipped one of the weekdays- the repetition. All the things Finley experienced just happened over and over and over. It was horrible. Routine was nice, but not to this degree.
Oh, shut up and just focus on the stupid nature show, 04-
His fingers dug into the carpet.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
Finley picked up the carrier again. The kitten was sitting up and staring at him. Finley tilted his head and reached out a hand to rest on the lock. Yeah, he’d open it. He slid the bolt on the top of the carrier to the side and pulled the thing open.
“MOW!!” The kitten’s pupils swiftly contracted. Finley closed the door. He was surprised that Governor Winters didn't say anything.
It was a moment before he opened the door again. The kitten immediately climbed out and started purring in Finley's lap. This nearly caused him to explode from holy shit, a kitten, but Finley managed to resist. The kitten just… settled.
Finley managed a smile.
It was a while later. The kitten was back in the crate. Finley was watching the episode- it was something about the oceans, and it was clear amateur shit. But it provided a bit of entertainment in the void.
It was quiet, for once. Nothing but the sound of the show, turned down for the governor’s convenience, and the sound of typing.
It was stagnant, was what it was. And even with no petting, no orders, nothing to deal with, everything felt so wrong. Rightfully so. It was now, just before the dose, that Finley felt his most lucid. His most here. And he wanted to bolt. To scurry away and go home. But… the collar. The leash. And he was still drugged. Risk. Everything was risk. Every word that left his mouth was a risk, but a safe risk. Some risks were just… too risky. Like escaping. Like finding a way out. Like… like being obedient.
shff
Oh, shit.
Finley leaned away, tried to hide his neck behind the arm of the couch, but the Governor reached down and pushed his head back to normal. “Don't choke yourself.” No needle came. Not yet. But the movement had prompted the governor to start petting. Stupid, stupid, stupid, st-
The sound of a blue whale sounded from the screen and rang through Finley like a bell in a town square. He didn't know what about the call affected him so much, but he ended up leaning against the couch. The collar stopped the lean from being total. Ugh.
And it was only then that the syringe was emptied into his neck. He gasped and shuddered from the cold.
“Just relax.”
“Shut it.”
Like always, the screen got blurry. Like always, the words from the recording were sludged. Today he noticed it when he was handed the bowl of stew. He registered, faintly, that it was far too hot and it was practically inedible as it was handed to him. But he ate it as-is. He knew he got it all over the carpet. He knew that he couldn't even taste it. He didn't care.
He knew that the leash was unclipped from whatever kept it in the couch and he was pulled away from this place. He realized that he was being pulled down the steps, back to the room in the basement. Every thought of his slipped through the thick, muddy blanket of haze left his mouth, even if he didn't fully comprehend the sentences that his brain formed.
He was made to crawl back into the cage, and he was pinned down again by the blanket, and suddenly he was gone.
–
He was woken up by Marcie’s squealing and the meow of the kitten.
The governor stood over the cage.
“Good morning, Finley.”
“...Fin… huh?” “Finley.” The governor tilted her head. “That’s the name you like, right?”
“.....Whyyy…?”
“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
Finley tentatively shook his head. Everything was still murky. “Uh…”
“FINLEY LOOK IT’S A KITTEN MOMMY GOT ME A KITTEN!!!!!!!!!!” Marcie ran up to the cage and the governor backed up to give her space. “SHE’S SO CUTE I’M NAMING HER FREYA!!!! DO YOU LOVE HER??? I love her!!” She burst into a fit of giggling. This was… so confusing. Freya… Freya? Wasn’t… wasn’t the name of the kitten Lilac? Why wasn’t Finley being called… that name? There were too many noises, too many…things happening, and suddenly it was just too hard to listen to anything. There was a fade, a strange and sudden one, and… floating. Finley was floating. It was too bright, too loud, too quiet, too many factors. He knew that Marcie and her mother were still talking. Ugh… he wished mornings could be quiet. Everything was always so….
So…
“Finley?”
Reality crashed back in and Finley was buried under the blanket again. His head hurt now, but Marcie had left. It was just him and the governor. And Finley just stared at her.
“Not… not L______?”
“Do you remember what you told me yesterday?”
“...Noooo…”
“Of course you don’t. Well,” said Governor Winters as she crouched, “You struggled when I tried to get you down here, and I told you to stop.”
“...”
“You said you’d stop if you were called by your ‘name’.”
“...huh?” “So I’m calling you by your name. Until you try anything again, of course.”
“...”
“What?”
“Are you… are you, are you- are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“...”
“Oh, you’re…” Governor Winters laughed and reached down to unlock the crate. “You couldn’t possibly understand anything right now, could you?” Right. The drugs. Finley had nearly forgotten them. He nodded. It was all so… confusing.
“Right. Well, that’s fine.” The crate was open. Governor Winters reached in and brushed some hair out of Finley’s face before she pulled the blanket back. This was uncharacteristic. Unnerving. Finley tried to wriggle away, but the deepness of the divot he rested in was too much for him to move to the side subtly. Governor Winters spoke again.
“You can think about it. Marcie and I have things we need to do today.”
“…”
The governor left before Finley could say anything.
…Finley. Before Finley could say anything.
They were really calling him by his name.
Huh.
He rolled over in the bed.
…Maybe today would be better.
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@silly-scroimblo-whump
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@littlebookworm69
:3
