Tags: @lave-whump, @pebbledriscoll, @highwaywhump (tag list is always open, please asked if you want to be added/removed from the list!)
warnings: bbu general warning, WRU general warning, bbu conditioning and training, pet whump, creepy/intimate whumper, romantic whumper, lady whumper, defiant whumpee, escaped whumpee, resentful whumpee, memory stuff, description of physical injuries, dehumanization; a very fucked-up version of the Fake Dating trope, dubcon/noncon kissing, dubcon/noncon touching, alcohol, trauma survivor, trauma recovery, smut/consensual recovery sex.
~*~*~*~
**As close to chronological order as possible**
Part One: Midsummer / / Mistake (wij) / Photo / Secret / Edge / Darkness / Liminal Space / Roadside / Roulette / Dream / In the Pines
Part Two: Warmth (wij) / Troubled & Confused / Caged, Unseen / Behind Glass / Emmett’s Intake Paperwork / Sixty-Six & Seventy-Nine / Afterlife / Chained to a Bed (BTHB) /
Part Three: Boxes / Twisted (BTHB) / Dormeveglia (Faye) / Passing Notes / Cornered / Endless / In The Dark / Patterns / Sleep (wij) / Cafuné / Nemesism / Shiver / Confluence / Heartbeat / Nightmares (BTHB) /
My dear gentlefolk, I’d like to introduce to the stage: Faye Murphy. There was a small taste of her in an ask a few weeks ago, but now she’s here for good. I hope you enjoy :)
Emmett’s Master List
Tag: @lave-whump, @pebbledriscoll, @highwaywhump (Tag list always open! Let me know if you’d like to be added!)
Warning: bbu general warning; implied training, implied conditioning, trauma survivor, trauma recovery, suspicion, hesitation, memories. Nothing too dangerous in here, folks, but let me know if I’m missed something!
~*~*~*~*~
“I want you to talk to someone,” Oliver began quietly. “Nazanin too.”
The back porch was quiet and dark. The summer night was all humidity punctuated by cricket song, fireflies, and far away on other porches. Nazanin was at one of them -- a baby shower for a close friend. Emmett had helped her make the dessert she left with. Emmett leaned back in his chair, the wrought iron squeaking as he did. He tilted his head up to the dark sky, cooling the back of his neck with the cold condensation from his drink glass. Lemonade and bourbon for him; Oliver just had vodka.
Emmett had liked it better when they weren’t talking.
“I know someone. She’s good, knows her shit,” Oliver kept talking, clearly disliking the other man’s continued silence. “She doesn’t have to know you were ever... well, where you came from, but she works with survivors and I think it could help. To talk it all through.”
Emmett let out a slow breath. So much for hoping silence would beget silence. “I like my sketchbook just fine, Oliver.”
“You might need more than a sketchbook someday. Like the days when you don’t want to get out of bed, when Naz sneaks you chocolate at breakfast.”
“No. Thank you.”
Emmett took a long drink. It felt good to say no to someone; anyone really. He could now without the harsh sting of guilt in his throat.
“Would you think about it?” Oliver asked. “Naz will push you harder than I will, but will you at least think about it?”
“Why?”
“Why will Naz push you or why should you think about it?”
“Why should I think about it?”
Oliver took a drink and cleared his throat. Hesitating, stalling. The man hated confrontation more than anyone Emmett had ever met. “B-Because she’s coming to visit next week. For a few weeks.”
“She was already invited before you moved in, Kerr, so don’t go down that path,” Oliver shot back. “She’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were eleven. I’m -... um...”
“You’re what, Oliver?”
“I’m just saying. If you wanted to test it out, try out a shrink’s couch when its still technically my couch, she might be a good place to start.” Oliver exhaled the last of his breath, then inhaled again. Vaguely irritated -- something the man was rarely capable of being.
Emmett catches him shift in the weak light coming from the house behind them. He crosses his legs, running a hand through his hair. Oliver was handsome, in an ordinary comforting sort of way. Emmett didn’t often mull on it -- the man wasn’t his type at all -- but it occurred to him every so often. It occurred to him now, a strange mix of half-light and a genuineness that softened his annoyance.
He sighed, relenting but only an inch. “What’s her name?”
“Faye.”
“How long has she been at this therapy thing?”
“Four, five years now... She knows her shit, Emmett. And she’s handled some shit of her own. At the very least, she can sympathize.”
Emmett stared out into the dark backyard, right at the top the fence line separating their yard from the neighbor’s. “You trust her? Really trust her?”
“With my life,” Oliver answered quietly. He drummed his fingers on the sides of his own glass, staring at the same spot in the fence. “She pulled me out of a frozen pond in high school, so you can take that endorsement as gospel.”
Emmett went quiet. Everything about therapy was unappealing. It felt like airing dirty laundry to a stranger, picking open stitches to let that same stranger poke around on the inside. He didn’t like marinating in memories -- they were mostly bad memories, given that he didn’t have many others and the rest was hollow greyness inside his skull. It felt like the “bad thoughts” he had been warned against in the Facility. He was always waiting for a headache to rear up.
He didn’t enjoy the idea of explaining that to Oliver or Nazanin, let alone both of them. Emmett was perfectly content licking his wounds and putting all the residual pain into pencil drawings. It didn’t make sense to bother anyone but himself about it. Rhiannon, the three years he had lived with her, what she had ordered him to do -- that could stay his secret. Fooling himself into thinking anyone could or would commiserate only hurt him in the end. Didn’t it?
“How long have you known her?” He asked at last, now trying to fill the silence himself.
Oliver hummed as he thought. “Since we were ten, so... twenty, twenty-on years.”
“That’s a long time,” Emmett mumbled. He took a drink, finally feeling the alcohol warm in his skin. He glanced sideways at Oliver, his tawny hair and white tee shirt backlit like a bad scene in a good movie. He’d never tried to pull anything over on him, had never lied to him. Oliver was... decent. He was a decent person. “Okay. I’ll think it over. No promises.”
Oliver raised his glass in the air. “Good enough for me.”
~*~*~
Faye Murphy was short.
From the upstairs windows, that’s about all Emmett could make of the woman. Short, dark hair tucked into a neat bun, sunglasses over her eyes. She and Oliver were going back and forth in the driveway. Teasing, he guessed by the look of it. Nazanin had said at breakfast, after Oliver had left for the airport, that the pair was more like siblings than friends.
Emmett dithered at the window, wondering whether he should be downstairs before she came in the front door or be called down after. As he watched her walk around the car to retrieve her bags, then hug Nazanin, he decided he would split the difference. He would appear in the front hall right as they were walking in the front door.
He caught the faintest flash of copper in her deep brown hair. It caught his breath, fear slingshotting through him so quickly he had to hold the window frame to stay standing. He took a breath, rubbed his eyes.
The woman standing on the driveway took off her sunglasses.
Not Rhiannon, he reminded himself.
She, Oliver, and Nazanin began walking towards the front door. Swallowing the shock, he made himself move out of his bedroom and into the hallway. He could hear their happy chatter as he reached the top of the staircase, dawdling once again.
“No, you should have been there it was hysterical. I’ve never heard Wynn scream so loud in my life.”
“Have I ever told you you’re a terrible person, Faye?”
“No, just that I’m a terrible friend. Same difference right?”
“Right.”
Emmett stepped to the side, out of sight as the door closed and they came to stand in the entry hall. So much for splitting the difference. From where he stood tucked against the wall, he could see small bits of them -- Oliver’s shoes and Nazanin’s hand and bracelets, two small bags resting on the first landing step, the back and shoulders of the new arrival. He waited for them to move, to get just a little bit further down the hall before he made his way down, but they didn’t. They just kept talking, standing right there on the threshold.
“As far as I’m considered, Naz, you’re the only one who could possibly make Williams interesting again. You’re not just going to recycle the movies like everyone else does.”
“Well, that, and I couldn’t give a shit about Liz Taylor.”
“I respect that.”
“You’ll have to come back when we finally get to put it on stage.”
“I will. I’m tempted to just keep asking you questions until you smack me.”
She had the same lilt in her voice as Rhiannon. Well no, he thought, not the same. Rhiannon’s was genuine, but only brought out to get her way, to smooth talk someone into something or add emphasis to her pouting. Faye’s didn’t fluctuate, going in and out with the amount of emphasis on her words or the topic they were on. It was just there -- a gentle rolling over of consonants, slow and deliberate.
He was beginning to feel silly, self-conscious about his quiet watching. It was strange, but he liked his look-out spot. The small spike had eased, his anxiety lowering to a simmer as he watched Faye. She tilted her head and crossed her arms when she talked about herself; lowered her arms and tangled her fingers together behind her back when Oliver or Nazanin were speaking. Her hips slid fluidly from one side to the other when she changed the weight on her feet.
“Mother’s doing well. Eh, well... as well as she can. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re dealing with, how much help dad needs, you know? Miranda’s already offered to move, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“She hates Jersey that much, huh?”
“Nah, just her department. She’s thought about quitting before, so now she’s just clawing at the wall.”
Taking a breath, Emmett pushed away from the wall and stepped back towards the stairs. He rested one hand on the bannister, still listening, still waiting. Still watching the trio’s every move until something told him it was alright to descend. The hesitation was strange, but not uncomfortable.
“Even after catching that creep out in the Pine Barrens?”
“Apparently... I don’t know much more’n that though. Miri won’t talk about it.”
“I wouldn’t either if I knew my sister would psychoanalyze me the whole time.”
“What makes you think I don’t do that to you already?”
“Oh no, I know you do. Helps me sleep at night.”
“Oh does it, Ollie?” Faye shot back with a teasing laugh, her head tilting back just slightly. More of her came into view as he walked slowly down the stairs, careful not to hit his head. “I’m so glad, really I am, I-! Oh. Hi there.”
Emmett looked up into amber eyes. Startling, bright, focused and nearly bird-like; surrounded by black lashes and precisely drawn winged liner. If it weren’t for the circumstances, they alone may have sent him back to his room. It took him a few moments to see the face those eyes were set into -- heart-shaped, friendly, a smattering of freckles to soften the line of her nose and arch of her eyebrows. Emmett cleared his throat and held out a hand to the woman. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, stranger,” Faye said, cheerful but careful. Balancing her enthusiasm, probably having spied the startled flash in his eyes. She took his hand, shook it once. “I take it you’re the visitor Oliver was telling me about.”
“I hope so.” A faint smile pulled at his lips. “Emmett Kerr.”
“Faye Murphy.” She squeezed his hand and stepped away, as if leading him down the stairs. “Here. You’re too tall for those stairs.”
“I know. I’ve hit my head a few times,” Emmett replied smoothly.
Surprisingly smoothly.
He was still trying to get a feel for her, trying to understand what was polite pleasantness and what was her real persona. Trying to find the line, just like he had with Rhiannon; always trying to find the line.
Down in the entry hall with them, he could get a better look at her. She was, indeed, much shorter than all of them, but held herself with a half-minded rigidity -- shoulders squared, back straight, chin up, but as though she did not know she was doing it. She was dressed in a loose white shirt that hit at her waist and a pair of fitted pale green pedal pushers that picked up from there. A scarf was threaded through her dark hair and wrapped around her ballerina bun. Her sunglasses were tucked into the waistband of her pants.
Everything about her was old fashioned. Not put-upon though -- he thought back to Rhiannon chirping about “old Hollywood glamour” as she sprayed her hair, applied red lipstick, put on a dress that covered up more of her chest than usual. It was thoughtful, considered, but seemingly effortless. He couldn’t help himself from thinking about how the eyeliner -- practiced and neat -- made her eyes seem larger, sharper; how the soft pink lipstick brought out the summer blush in her cheeks.
“Did you hit your head again just now?”
Emmett blinked, swallowing down the thoughts. “No, not this time.” He shook his head, casting a look at Oliver that he hoped asked for a little help. “Sorry, I’m not great at this.”
Faye laughed under her breath. “The whole getting to know you thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She shifted her weight again, one hip raising as the other lowered. “First time I met Naz, I had red wine spilled down the front of my dress at a wedding. Why she still talks to me, I’ll never know.”
Naz rolled her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I? That was the most interesting part of that whole weekend.”
“That was? Not spray painting plastic toys gold on the front yard?”
“I don’t remember much of that. Paint fumes.”
“That makes two of us.”
As they walked to the living room -- Faye and Oliver chatting idly, Emmett trailing well behind -- something shifted in his chest. A sort of sliding feeling, something rolling to an edge and dropping a few inches. A feeling he couldn’t place, couldn’t remember if he had ever felt it before. It let an odd warmth settle in his stomach. Not spreading, just sitting there. It left him on edge, closer to confused than upset; tingly and off-kilter in the chair he had picked.
He stayed quiet for a long while, listening to the chatter around him and trying to feel a part of it. Trying to peel apart Faye Murphy as she talked and teased and laughed. Trying to solve what the newfound feeling in his gut was. Trying, desperately, to find the line.
euneirophrenia (n): the peace of mind that comes from having pleasant dreams 🥰
Athena, my dearest, you definitely did not intend for me to go completely off with this prompt. But it sparked so much joy and now this prompt is a mile-and-a-half long. I hope you don’t mind some serious fluff and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :)
warnings: bbu general warning, survivor navigating consent, new relationship -- its just a lot of fluff with a little dash of angst, y’all.
~*~*~
Emmett and Nazanin lingered over their coffee that morning. They didn’t speak much, each wrapped in their own early-morning bleariness. She refilled their cups more often than usual, pulled out the chocolate cookies instead of saving them for afternoon tea.
He quietly thanked her every single time, knowing she could see the late night on his face. He hadn’t bothered to shave when he finally rolled out of bed and knew he looked more rundown than usual. He didn’t feel rundown or exhausted, but quietly proud of himself.
He didn’t regret a single moment of the night before, spent on the back deck with Faye, watching one-off fireworks throughout the neighborhood and talking until nearly three. They’d tiptoed upstairs, Emmett falling into Faye’s bed and sleeping until habit forced his eyes back open.
Thinking about it left him with a loopy smile and tingling skin. Every time he felt it, he covered it with his coffee cup. He knew Nazanin could see it and he knew he didn’t care.
He had let her touch him more had pulled her in for more kisses. Curled up under blankets next to him, she was warm and soft. He was beginning to like the feeling of her body half on top of his, her legs tangled in his, her hair tickling under his nose.
Faye was still asleep when he got up, simply sniffing and pulling his pillow closer to her face. He might have crawled back under covers if he hadn’t caught the smell of coffee.
He’d only slept a few hours, but it had come with restful, easy dreams. He didn’t often dream and, when he did, they were elaborate twisting things that transformed into nightmares or were completely forgotten when he opened his eyes. Coming out of his doze, holding Faye close to him, Emmett remembered the dreams. Remembered the pale, happy scenes that had spun out in front of him like a movie.
The dark haired woman had been in every singled one. A version of the fireworks night with just the two of them. Scattered, warm-glow images of him taking her to all the restaurants Rhiannon had dragged him to, knowing in his gut it was a special occasion and he was treating her. Faye taking his hand, her’s running over his face and neck, settling at his collarbones.
He had smiled, listening to the birds chirping, and felt settled. In that moment, he felt as far away from Rhiannon as he ever had. She couldn’t touch him there, in that warm patch of happiness. She hadn’t invaded that sanctuary and ruined it all.
It felt like hubris to believe that meant he was truly free from her, but Emmett wanted to believe it meant something. Wanted to believe that one day Rhiannon could mean nothing to him.
Nazanin had just pulled out the script she was working through when footsteps sounded in the hall above them. Her eyes found Emmett’s, smirking. “Half a Ritter’s bar says it’s Oliver.”
“The whole Ritter’s bar says it isn’t,” Emmett answered, voice scratchy. He took a long drink, hoping the warm coffee would loosen up his tone.
“You’re on, Kerr.”
“I’m gonna pick your favorite flavor too. The butter biscuit one.”
Nazanin pursed her lips, adjusting her scarf around her earrings. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would,” Emmett sighed. “And I’ll eat in front of you.”
“You’re the worst.”
“Oh good, you finally agree.”
“Shush, he’s on the stairs.”
“No he isn’t.” Emmett smirked, tucking his head to his sketchbook.
He let his pencil move absently, the point scratching lightly on the creamy smooth paper. He hadn’t had a plan when he opened it up that morning, but it seems his hand had made one for him. Emerging on the page was the form of a young woman, hair scattered in a dark halo on a pillow. He took in a deep breath, smiling to himself — he was hopeless, smitten and stupid, and he liked it.
When she appeared, Faye looked fresh as a daisy.
She was barefoot, her hair loose down her back. She hummed lightly as she stirred sugar and milk into her coffee cup. She wore another one of her old-fashioned dresses — the night before, he had listened, rapt, as she told him about how she picked her clothes, had decided that “vintage fifties” was how she liked to look — and her face held none of the tired-eyes glaze his did.
Emmett watched her, heart fluttering in his chest. He chewed on the end of the pencil, watching the swing of Faye’s hips. He waved good morning when she turned around, smiling as she set her cup at the chair next to him. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and his face flamed.
“Be right back, forgot my book upstairs.”
Nazanin snickered as Faye left the room. “Like something, Kerr?”
He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and willed the hot flush away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Naz.”
“Sure you do.” Nazanin leaned back, reaching for her candy drawer. She rummaged a hand around, pulling out the bar he’d won fair and square. She dropped it in front of him, then reached back again. She came back with another one — hazelnut, based on the wrapper color — and waved it in the air. “Can I bribe you?”
Emmett left his pencil in the spine of the sketchbook and considered the chocolate bar. “Maybe… You already saw my crush, what more do you need to know?”
“You like, like, like her, don’t you?” Nazanin began, a twinkle in her eye.
“What are you, twelve?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I just like her, Naz. She’s easy to talk to, easy to be around —,” he cut himself off, shaking his head. “Fine. We’re close, I’ve kissed her, I fell asleep in her room last night.”
“Fell asleep,” Nazanin mused. “That’s what we want to call it.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, just teasing.”
“I’m not taking the other one. You can put it back in the drawer.” Emmett waved a hand at her and sat back in his chair. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. We can’t make bets on this. I’m going to mess it up somehow.”
“Oh quit. If you like her this much, you won’t,” Nazanin tried to reassure him. Her expression said she wasn’t as convinced as she wanted to be; simply seeing that made Emmett feel better. Nazanin licked her lips, raising her eyes to the ceiling like she was listening. “Does she know?”
Emmett raised an eyebrow. “She’s knows about Rhiannon… But, no.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I’d like to feel it out more…”
“I can have Ol—.”
“No. I have to do this myself. I can’t hide that I’m illiterate forever,” Emmett sighed. “But, if it —. If we could be something… then yeah, I’ll tell her. She should know, right?”
Nazanin nodded. “Oliver and I were dating for three years before I came out. I know its not the same thing, but I can commiserate if you need it.”
“Thanks.” Emmett slid the butter cookie bar towards him. He opened the package flat and split the bar in half; he pushed a half to Nazanin and nodded for her to take it. “It is your favorite.”
Nazanin snickered as Faye left the room. “Like something, Kerr?”
He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and willed the hot flush away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Naz.”
“Sure you do.” Nazanin leaned back, reaching for her candy drawer. She rummaged a hand around, pulling out the bar he’d won fair and square. She dropped it in front of him, then reached back again. She came back with another one — hazelnut, based on the wrapper color — and waved it in the air. “Can I bribe you?”
