Here is is, the final part of Negotiation day! If you're not entirely satisfied with your reading experience, I've got a whole alternate ending drafted up for your reading pleasure too. I plan to post that in a bit, but for now, for better or for worse, this is the canon ending.
(Don't worry though; I still plan on putting Khaled through more whump after this, it'll just be a different kind of whump. Everything will be different for him after today.)
Thank you @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for letting me bounce ideas off you and for making this chapter possible, love you guys
TW/CW: slave whump, references to past whump (particularly this), bound and muzzled whumpee, triggered whumpee, guilty caretaker, questionable decisions by caretaker, past high school angst, hurt/comfort
“And there we go,” Vik concluded, after a prolonged haggling session. He tapped at his phone screen as he addressed the mob boss before him. “I’ve just sent you $15,000 for the purchase of one human test subject known as Khaled.”
Luca squinted at his phone screen, his scowl only lightening a little as a notification pinged on his phone. “I just got it,” he confirmed. Switching off the phone and putting it in his pocket, he held out his hand to Vikash one more time. “Pleasure doing business with you, Doctor Gill,” he said politely.
The Costa members got up from their chairs and began filing out the door, with Luca close behind them. He stopped to look at Khaled, mouth set in a tight frown as an indecipherable emotion clouded his face. “Goodbye Khaled.”
Understandably, the bound and muzzled slave could not respond. Vik wasn’t entirely sure how he did it, but it seemed Khaled had put himself into a trance midway through the negotiations. His eyes were closed, his breaths slowed down, and he barely moved, becoming as still as a statue, and as unnoticeable, too. Vik found it a bit of a relief; this negotiation wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly as it had if Khaled acted up. Yet at the same time, he wondered where this eerie, trance-like state was coming from–if this was some sort of trauma response, that would just make him feel worse about finding strength from it.
“Oh, and Doctor?” the Costa boss called.
Vik’s eyes snapped back to the door of the conference room. He was still playing the part, and he would continue playing it until Luca and his pack of schoolyard bullies leave already. “Yes, Mr. Bianchi?”
“Just thought I’d share a care and keeping tip with you before you go,” Luca offered casually. “If you ever need this one to fall into line quickly, get out an iron.”
“An iron?” Vik echoed, confused.
“My friend burned the bottom of his feet with a clothes iron to prevent him from running away,” Luca bragged, “and last I checked, the very sight of one is enough to make him cower!”
Thank the gods that Vik had an award-winning poker face, because his heart dropped to his stomach as he heard this sickening revelation. He vividly remembered how Khaled acted that morning as he walked in on him ironing his pants. Ironing…my pants… iron… oh FUCK. A terrible feeling of guilt writhed in Vikash’s gut as he recalled how afraid Khaled looked. And despite the churning guilt in his stomach, his face remained perfectly neutral. “I see. Thank you for the tip.”
Luca raised a hand in a dismissive wave and left without another glance. Only once Vikash, Eric, Cade, and the ‘security staff’ heard the faint whirr of the elevator taking the Costas back down to the first floor did they dare breathe a sigh of relief.
“Oh my god, we did it!” Cade exhaled, literally collapsing on his knees.
“It actually worked!” Eric chuckled with relief. His chuckles soon turned to loud peals of laughter as it all sank in. “We didn’t die!”
The Juicio Divino guys whooped and cheered too.
Vikash sagged his shoulders and collapsed into the first open chair he could find. “We did it,” he breathed, not quite believing it himself. That was the most exhausting role he’d ever played. But, as he looked up from where he sat to watch Eric and Cade untie Khaled, he knew it was more than worth it.
Khaled stumbled a little as he was let up from the podium. He straightened his back, wobbling a little on his legs, as he took a few hesitant steps. Cade reached up on tiptoes to undo the straps of the muzzle, and Eric pulled it away from his face. He looked… not great, with a blank expression and a distance in his eyes, like that time when he got triggered by the candle at IKEA. Vik straightened up from his chair. “Hey, are you alright?” Khaled did not respond.
“Are you okay, yes or no?” Vik asked.
Of course he’s not okay! Vik thought, finally giving himself permission to feel guilty after the negotiation was over. “I’m sorry. Do you want to go home and have some time to yourself to rest?” he suggested.
Khaled nodded. He limply accepted Vikash and the others’ touches as they gently herded him towards the door. “Let’s go home,” Vik murmured, hoping he sounded reassuring.
Eric wasn’t surprised that it would take Khaled a couple hours to come back to himself. He’d dissociated pretty hard during that negotiation, to the point that he and Cade began to worry. It was miserable, not being able to do anything or even check on him, and having to pretend to be heartless minions of the big bad Doctor Gill, but fortunately it was over now. And while Khaled pulled himself out of whatever distant corner of his mind he’d sheltered in throughout the negotiation, Eric, Nico, and a few of the guys from Juicio Divino went to the supermarket to buy supplies for a party.
So far, their cart was quickly filling up with booze. Not that Eric minded a good drink, but Vikash rarely drank, Cade would probably only have one beer, and nobody had seen Khaled express any interest in alcohol whatsoever. “Guys, let’s think about getting something other than liquor and beer, okay?” Eric suggested.
“Oh, we could get pizzas!” Nico suggested. “The frozen pizzas are just around the corner–”
“Yeah, and my oven only has one rack!” Eric reminded him. “If we’re buying pizzas, we’ll get them delivered hot and fresh!” He rounded the corner and crossed an aisle, stopping to throw in two can of mini-sausages. Then, they passed another aisle before he swiped a large package of shelf-stable tteok.
Nico and the young gangsters exchanged confused looks. “Come on guys, it’s for sotteok! Sausage and rice cake skewers! Sotteok?” For how popular Korean food had been getting in mainstream America in recent years, Eric guessed it had yet to penetrate the heart of Juicio Divino territory, or the Costa’s fortress, if the group remained confused. “Whatever, you’ll love them!” he reassured.
Still, delivery pizzas, sausage skewers, and a shit ton of booze did not exactly scream ‘party’ to him. Eric rubbed his chin. “What are we missing here?” he asked thoughtfully. “What just screams ‘party’ that we don’t have yet?”
One of the Juicio Divino boys raised his hand, as if he were in a class. “Yes, you?” Eric called.
“We could get a cake with a custom message iced onto it,” the boy suggested.
Eric broke out into a grin. “There it is! Nice work, um…”
“Mariano,” the boy answered. He, like the other boys who had come on this trip, couldn’t have been any older than high school-aged, despite Julio’s insistence that he never took anyone into his gang that wasn’t a legal adult. Maybe the kid joined fresh out of school, then? It made Eric a bit sad, to see Julio’s young foot soldiers who otherwise could’ve had a bright future, aligning themselves with a life that would get them incarcerated or killed. There was a higher chance than not that Mariano would never grow up. He decided to converse with Nico to distract from those depressing thoughts as the ragtag group steered the cart toward the bakery.
“So, you know, I’ve been curious,” Eric said, once Nico had finished talking to the bakery staff.
Nico hummed inquisitively. They watched the baker ice their custom message onto a cake amongst buttercream vines and flowers. Meanwhile, the Juicio Divino boys were swordfighting with stale plastic-packaged baguettes. One of them, Juan Marco, fought with a baguette in each hand, saying something about ‘dual-wielding’.
“When did you first realize what was happening to Khaled, and what did you do to help him?” Eric asked.
Nico fell quiet, dropping his gaze to the pastry display behind the glass case. “I had been friends with him for about two years before I started realizing his story didn’t add up,” he began.
“We would see each other at lunch, talk about our days, watch football–I mean, soccer, watch soccer…” Eric leaned against the cart, listening enraptured as Nico continued. “Once I had figured out what he was–who he was, and what happened to him, I was already too deep in my job, in the organization, to do much more than offer him support–”
Eric’s brow furrowed. “So, you did nothing?”
“I mean, I gave him my old cell phone to call me or maybe google some abuse and trafficking hotlines,” Nico explained, “and I was collecting evidence of his abuse on a flash drive for years in case my boss ever got prosecuted.”
“Well, what happened to it? The flash drive?” Eric asked.
“I was forced to destroy it,” Nico admitted ashamedly. Something caught his attention in Eric’s upper right, because Nico craned his neck to address Julio’s kids behind him. “Hey, you break that shit, we have to buy it! Knock it off!” he scolded. He refocused on Eric, and sighed in defeat. “I know, you probably think I was useless all those years, that I could’ve done more, that I should’ve done more–”
“I didn’t say anything,” Eric pointed out.
“But, I do care about him,” Nico insisted. “Khaled is my friend, first and foremost…” He trailed off, as if he wanted to finish that thought but was unsure of how to.
“I know,” Eric said, setting the other man at ease. Because no matter what he thought of Nico or how he judged his (in)actions, he could sense the truth behind his words. If Eric himself were in such a situation, what would he have done?
A younger Eric confronted a younger Cade–well, Catherine, at the time–curled up between the lockers in the hallway after school. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” he urged her. “The cheer team is not worth sacrificing your well-being!”
“But, Alyssa will say–”
“You think I care about what Alyssa would say?!” The very thought of how much power the cheer captain held over his friend made him scowl. He sighed, then placed his hands over Catherine’s hands. They were small and beautiful, with freckles like comets trailing star dust down each finger. He looked into her swollen red eyes, shimmering like liquid amber with unshed tears. “One of these days, you’re gonna have to learn to live for yourself and not just for others,” he told her. “And when you figure it out, I’ll be there for you,” he promised. Eric gave her hands a light squeeze, and straightened up from where he crouched to leave.
Well, it doesn’t matter what Eric would’ve done or not done. What’s happened has happened, and telling Nico what he should’ve done wouldn’t help Khaled anymore. Besides, he was free now, and that’s the part that mattered.
The bakery clerk passed Nico the finished sheet cake, which was settled gently atop the bottles of liquor and cans of beer. It had ‘YOU’RE FREE’ iced over it in cursive. Eric grinned, certain that Khaled would love this. Now, all that was left was something for the vegans.
Khaled could hear Julio call for him at the base of the stairs. “Jaan, it’s time for dinner.”
Not hungry, he thought, curling into his blankets on his bed even tighter. Not hungry, not thirsty, not much of anything after dragging himself out of his long-repressed memories.
Khaled sighed, annoyed yet appreciative of Julio’s persistence to take care of him. He turned around to face the entrance of his room, hugging his plush shark to his chest, blinking the tears away from his red-rimmed eyes as he came back from the dark places his memories led him to. “Yeah?” he croaked.
Julio stood at the foot of the stairs leading into the attic bedroom. “Dinner,” he announced, waving at him to follow.
Khaled reluctantly untangled himself from the bedsheets and set down his shark to get up and follow Julio to the first floor. His boyfriend was smiling the whole time, though Khaled had no idea why. At least, not until he reached the living room and saw a commotion out in the backyard.
“CONGRATULATIONS!” everyone yelled as Julio and Khaled stepped out of the house. Nico and Eric let off poppers, strewing confetti across the lawn while the Juicio Divino guys cheered. Vik and Cade smiled proudly beside a banner spanning across the picnic tables that read ‘YOU’RE FREE.’
Khaled stood frozen like a deer in the headlights until Julio encouragingly pushed him forward. Once he realized he wasn’t in danger, Khaled dropped the tension in his back and shoulders. He took the time to look around at the people gathered in the dimly lit back yard, at the food, at the enormous cake with the same message as the ‘YOU’RE FREE’ banner iced into it in vibrant buttercream frosting. “You did all this…for me?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course! This is a big deal for you,” Cade replied.
“And we wanted to celebrate your freedom with you,” Eric added.
“And what’s better than a surprise party?” Vik asked.
Khaled wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “So…you…wait, I’m actually free?”
Vik’s smile wavered a little, as did everyone else’s. “Yeah, of course you are!” he said.
“And you don’t really think I’m a useless sack of meat and bones?”
“What–no! No, I didn’t mean any of that!” he insisted. “I only said that ‘cuz I was playing a part, you know?” He shook his head. “Come over here a second,” he directed, waving Khaled over as he walked toward a far corner of the fenced-in yard.
Vik and Khaled stepped away from the picnic table as everyone else began helping themselves to the food on it–three types of pizza, sotteok, roasted vegetable kebabs, the cake, and at the very end of the table, enough alcohol to stock a modest little gas station.
“Do you really believe I thought of you like a useless object?” Vik asked sincerely.
Khaled shifted his weight to one hip, crossing his arms in front of him as he bit his bottom lip while thinking. “Well, no, I guess…” he trailed off. But it still hurt to hear all the same, he mentally finished. But it was all meant to set him free and get the Costas off his friends’ backs, and it worked, so it was worth the discomfort his friends had caused, wasn’t it? Khaled decided so, and he began to apologize. “Sorry, that was silly of me–”
“Don’t apologize,” Vik said. “If you ever thought I devalued you, then I apologize.” He thumped an open hand onto his own chest to emphasize. “And I want you to know that it’s the furthest from the truth.”
“Yes! I value you a lot, especially your courage!” Vik said. “Seriously, I have no idea how you kept so calm the whole time!”
Khaled shrugged. “I mean, I dissociated pretty hard near the end of it,” he admitted. The appetizing aroma of barbecued food and takeout pizza wafted on the next spring breeze, and neither man could resist the siren pull of that smell. “Maybe I could share some tips on dissociation as we eat?” Khaled suggested.
“Talk about whatever you want, so long as we can eat,” agreed Vik. So, they got in line, helped themselves to some food, and found a seat on the large picnic blanket with everyone else.
“You know–” Eric took a bite of pizza before continuing, “–now that you’re free, you’re going to have to seek asylum, get a work permit, find a job, and all that other fun stuff, right?”
Khaled groaned. “You mean, you freed me so I could do more paperwork?!”
“Necessary paperwork,” Cade reminded him.
Khaled sighed, then glanced over to Vik, who was drinking from a red plastic cup as he scrolled through the black market app. “Are you sure you can’t just keep me?” he asked.
Vik snorted. “Not a chance!” He lowered the cup from his lips as his thumb hovered over the slave profile for 142225, featuring a picture of a child Khaled no longer recognized. “By the way, now that I have full access in this app, what do you want to do with your profile?” he asked.
Khaled gently took the phone from his grasp and stared down at his own profile. Right below his asset number and given name, in smaller but no less important print, was a line reading ‘owned by Vikash Gill.’ Khaled set aside whatever complicated feelings that line brought up, picked up his slice of pizza, and quickly swiped his way to ‘Status.’
In Service (Default Setting)
Damn, ‘deceased’ is so…final. And it can be easily disproven, so obviously not that one, he thought. He took a bite of pizza, chewing it slowly as he considered the second to last option. Listing himself as freed would immediately tip off the Costas to their little act, so choosing that would be a terrible idea, too. Still though, being ‘in service’ while officially freed feels…I don’t know…wrong? It doesn’t feel right at the very least, he argued with himself. What else could we do?
An idea came to him, based off a fellow slave’s experience he’d heard of several years ago. Khaled struggled to swipe through the phone with pizza grease-stained fingers, but he eventually got to the ‘profile viewing options’ and switched his profile to the ‘private view’ option. “At the very least, we can take my profile off the public search results. Now, only you and the people you authorize can see it,” he explained, handing the phone back to Vik.
Vik pocketed his phone and got back to eating his food. Khaled laid down and reclined on his side, mirroring Eric’s relaxing position as Julio’s guitar music began to play. “So, um,” he began, “after the paperwork and the schooling and the job, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
Eric shrugged. “You’re free now, dude. You’re going to have to live your life and figure it out like the rest of us.”
“But don’t worry,” Cade said, laying down next to them with a joint in hand, “you won’t have to do it alone. You’ve got us, and we’ve got you.”
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