#negative stim

[discord-emote-customs]

Hello! Could you do an emote of someone with fox ears pulling/yanking/tugging on their ears? As a neg stim?

Thank you ,,

Keep up the great work!

Make sure you’re hydrating!

not having a good time :[

heres ur fox ear neg stim tugging on their ears ^^ love your colored text btw :0

[emoji-ijome]

Rocking Stim

A request from a friend in my discord server!

Rocking /pos | Rocking /neg

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[ashintheairlikesnow]

This Isn’t Hypothetical for Chris

SPECIAL CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains a series of arguments regarding the Box Boy’s whole concept, and a survivor’s reactions to it, that may hit too close to home both for survivors of assault/abuse and also considering American history of institutional violence. Please do not read if you think you are not in the right headspace for this, and feel free to message me for a rundown/synopsis of this chapter if needed.

CW: References to pet whump, institutionalized slavery, Box Boy universe, vague referenced noncon/conditioning, self-loathing, victim-blaming, survivor’s guilt, ableism (both internal and external). Also includes some self-harm/negative stimming including head-banging during a meltdown.

Nicholas/Henry (referenced multiple times) belongs to @orchidscript

“Excuse me, can I ask a question?” The one who raises his hand is… Eshiram, maybe? He lives over in Dalton, Chris knows him, more or less. Sort of. The way you know people who live near you, even on a campus as big as this tone. 

“Yeah, go ahead.” The grad student who teaches the discussion meetings for their Social and Political History class waves one hand in a quick, not quite dismissive gesture.

Behind him, there’s a projected photo of a young man sitting, testifying in court, wearing a suit and tie. Above his head, the words, The Human Pet Industry and Human Rights, 1952-20XX, are angled just so, framing the young man’s head like a halo.

Chris refuses to look at the image of the young man, caught mid-speech. They already had to watch the video recording of it, discuss the way the lawyers phrased their questions to make the young man look innocent or calculating, depending on what they wanted the jury to think, when Chris could have told everyone in here it wasn’t fucking possible for a pet to calculate like that.

Or maybe it was, and Chris just wasn’t any good at it, when it was him.

“So, we’ve spent all week sitting in lecture, and here, talking about how the pet industry is absolutely fucked up-”

“Excuse me?” A girl sitting three seats to Chris’s right and a little ahead of him turns around in her chair to give Eshiram a flat glare. “That is not-”

“Wait your turn, Callie,” The grad student says, looking weary. “Next time I have to tell you to let someone finish a sentence… Man, just, don’t make me do that. Go on, Eshiram.”

Okay, good, his name is Eshiram. Chris is getting better at names, but it’s still hard, and on days like today it’s harder than ever. It’s not that he isn’t paying attention, it’s just that the scar on the inside of his left wrist, that pale reminder of the life he lived before this one, itches and burns more and more as he stays silent, listening to them talk about a life he’s lived like it’s an abstract concept and not a nightmare Chris will never be able to completely wash off his skin.

“Thanks. So, we talk about the pet industry, but I just-... why doesn’t anyone fix it?”

“Fix it?”

“Go in and pass laws… the public push is there to outlaw it completely. So why doesn’t it happen?”

“Because money talks, man,” Another student pipes up, and Chris stares down at his notes, which have gone from neat, if angular, handwriting to a jumbled mix of letters that mean nothing to a series of increasingly anxiety-riddled pointless doodles of geometrics and horses that look like dogs and dogs that look like blobs and blue ink bleeding spots around them all.

On the inside of his wrist, he starts, slowly, to draw little triangles over the scars, filling them in with the deep blue ink. Their voices are all starting to have weight, pounding against his ears, and he should ask to leave, but he can’t remember how to form the words.

“It doesn’t matter how fucking miserable the pets are, if rich people want something, they just bribe the fuck out of everybody until they get it.”

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t be like that-”

“Pets aren’t miserable,” Callie pipes up, and this time the grad student doesn’t stop her, just looks… interested. This is just a class discussion to him. To Chris it’s a building pile of rocks slowly picked up and thrown in his direction. He has to sit still, to be good, to not give away why it hurts to hear it. 

He has to be good.

He drops his head more, blue hair falling across his face to hide it, and digs the nib of the pen into his skin until it hurts.

“Who wouldn’t be?” The student who spoke up rolls his eyes. “Of course they’re miserable. What, you think somebody cleans your house for no money because they’re fucking passionate about Swiffer wipes? All the bullshit in the world can’t hide what this whole system really is.”

“First off, it’s not like that, and second, please do tell me... what is it, really?” Callie asks, poison in her voice.

“Okay, guys,” The grad student says, hands out. “Let’s calm things down a little.”

“You know damn fucking well what it is,” Another girl speaks, glaring a Callie, and Chris looks up from under his eyelashes, almost smiles. Someone speaking up. He pulls the pen away from his wrist, just a little. “Starts with S, rhymes with-”

“Guys. Calm it down.” Callie and the other three all glare at each other, but the whispering among the class slowly settles down. The grad student stands up picking up some papers he has in his hands, setting stapled packets down on every desk. “I’m glad you’re all really passionate about this, and I want you to carry that passion out of this classroom, but we need to focus on the testimonies we’ve been watching this week. Now, each of you has here a written transcript of four examples of testimony from the individuals we’ve heard this week. I want you to read over what Trenton Denver, Phillipa Venn, Yuki Tanaka, and the former Nicholas-”

“You know what’s bullshit, is that you’re all sitting here judging pet owners when I bet none of you has ever even met one,” Callie snaps, and Chris stares down at the rough, photocopied photo on the front of the packet, sees Nicky’s face there. A photo of him before, standing next to his owners during some kind of press conference, and a photo of him after, years later being Henry now, giving a speech standing alone. 

Something in Chris twists with an awful, sick guilt. If he’d only stayed with S-... with Oliver, he could have been a friend to Nicky, whenever he could... and instead, the other boy had had to do everything, to go through it all, alone. It’s not a fair or rational thought, but it’s there, insidious and slithering. His heart wants tries to tighten, to stop beating entirely. 

Does he even deserve to breathe, living a life like this one, where everyone rescues him and he never once saved himself?

“Do you need to fucking meet one to know it’s miserable to be kept like a fucking Golden Retriever? People. Aren’t. Pets.” Chris wants to look up, to see who spoke this time, but he just keeps staring at Nicky’s face, his slight smile blurred and pixelated by the copier. Fake, and unhappy, because they were both trapped in lives they didn’t want to live. 

“Golden Retrievers are pretty happy dogs,” Someone says, and Chris feels himself choke on their words. 

We’re not dogs. We’re people. We’re not dogs. We’re people. We’re not-

“Oh my God, way to miss the point by approximately fifteen thousand miles and also be so insulting to dogs in the process, dumbass. We’re talking about human beings!”

Chris takes in a breath, keeps his eyes down. Digs the pen nib into his skin, deeper and deeper, as hard as he can, trying to drown out the cacophony of noise that is starting to intrude. He can hear their breathing, all of them, huffing in and out. He can hear their words pressing on him, the buzz of the lights overhead is louder for him than anyone else in here, he thinks. He can hear people talking in the hall as another class has let out, he can hear people shouting dimly outside, running to the Student Center, playing frisbee or something on the green space, and he wants to be outside he wants to be outside he wants to move.

Can’t move. Have to be still.

Can’t let them know what he is. Can’t tell. It’ll put everyone at risk. He has to sit still and pretend he doesn’t have opinions on this so nobody looks too close. He has to sit still and stop tapping his fucking foot and stop stop stop moving, stop fucking moving, be still be still be still-

“All I’m saying, is that I have actually met pets before,” Callie announces. Chris wonders why the grad student hasn’t stopped her and sneaks a look up, only to see him sitting and looking bored. It doesn’t matter to him. It’s just something he talks about. He hasn’t had to live it, to see us crying, to know how it feels when they shock you or bring the cane down or make you be still for days and days and days. He’s never seen one of us wake up screaming even when it’s safe.

This isn’t hypothetical for Chris.

“Yeah, Cal, we get it, you’re rich,” Someone says, rolling her eyes, arms crossed over her chest. “We hear about it all the time. Let it go.”

“Eat the rich,” Someone else mumbles behind him. “French had the right fuckin’ idea with the fucking guillotines.”

Chris swallows. He wants to hum, to make some kind of noise to drown them all out, but he can’t. When he, when he needs things, when he needs to tap or rock or hum, it draws attention. Too much attention is dangerous. Have to keep it in until class is over. Just a few more minutes, a few more, just, just a little longer…

“Me being rich isn’t what we’re talking about. I’m just saying none of you knows a thing about the industry, and I do! I grew up with pets! And they were the happiest people I’ve ever met!”

“You don’t, don’t know that.” He doesn’t realize the voice is his own until the eyes feel as heavy as their voices did a moment before, and he notices everyone is looking at him. 

He swallows again, his heart starting to pound with nervousness, pulling his sleeve carefully down to hide the drawing he made on his wrist. “You don’t know that,” He repeats, louder this time, willing his voice not to shake. “All you, you know is what, um, what… what what what, what, what they-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Somebody says, and Chris almost stops there.

He manages to finish, “-... what they thought it was safe to tell you, what, what they were trained to tell you.”

“You think I wouldn’t know if my own pets weren’t happy?” Callie looks… stunned, is the only word for it. “You really think that?”

“No, I don’t, don’t think you… would.” Chris hates everyone looking at him. He likes to be hidden, to stay behind the scenes, to blend in with shadows. But he feels like a police siren going off, unmistakable and too loud, with the classroom all looking at him all at once. “They-... they’re… trained. To make sure you, you, you-you-you wouldn’t ever f-find out if they weren’t... if they were scared, or, or miserable, or if your f-f-family was hurting them-”

“How fucking dare you?” Callie’s eyes widened, and Chris watched them fill with glittering tears. “Suggest that my family would abuse our pets? What is wrong with you?”

He almost - almost - apologizes.

Then she adds, “I’ve known them every single day of my life! I think I’d know if they weren’t happy, Chris.” Callie rolls her eyes, arms crossed in front of her.

“How?” His voice is louder, and he doesn’t mean it to be, but his mind is sparking with anger and fear. The warning bells inside his mind are being drowned out by the other thoughts, the way he has listened to too many people give arguments like this, and this week he’s listened to four different speeches by pets detailing abuse, and suffering, and starvation, and drugging, and he’s lived all of it and here she is just dismissing Chris’s life like it’s a fairytale the pet lib people made up to sell magazines and documentaries and not Chris’s actual fucking life. And Antoni’s. And Leila’s. And Krista’s. And Kauri’s and-

And Nicky’s.

Or… Henry, now.

“How what?” Callie sneers the words and Chris shoves himself to his feet. She’s up as well, and she’s taller than him, not that it matters. He’s not intimidated by her height, and he doesn’t even really see her, he sees-... he sees Oliver murmuring, the others will all hate you if they know what you are, darlin’, and mostly that hasn’t been true for him, but with Callie… it would be.

Or she’d call someone, turn him in.

She’s the kind who would make the call herself, and she’d say it was for his own good, that he was breaking the law, that he-

“How would you, you, you-you… you know? It’d never be safe to, to, to to to to-... to-to… to, fuck, to-” He groans, smacking himself in the head with his hand, and the sudden burst of sensation soothes the broken words inside his head, he can find them again. “It’d never be safe to tell you!”

“Oh shit,” Someone whispers. The same person who made the guillotine comment maybe. He doesn’t care. He’s too angry, now, and not even at her, he’s angry at everyone who looked the other way at Oliver’s parties, or when Owen put Kauri in that video on the internet, or when they watched Jake get arrested at protests or made fun of him when he got set free later and it took two fucking weeks for him to go back to class just because he put his body between Chris and a living hell.

He’s too angry, now, to stop. 

“You’re, you’re s-s-soulless,” He hisses, and there’s an intake of breath. “Every single one, of, of, of you is soulless.”

“Chris, let’s calm down,” The grad student says carefully, moving forward. “Callie just has a different point of view-”

“Is it a, a, a different point of-... of view when it’s someone’s fucking life?” He doesn’t mean to be yelling. He doesn’t know how he started yelling. He’s terrified of his own voice and he can’t stop. The lights hurt, they sit on his skin and they hurt and the world is full of noise and he just wants it to be dark and quiet and better than this.

“Everyone who hurts-” Us “-them is soulless, is, is devoid, you don’t have one, and everyone who s-s-sits, who, who sits around, who-... who does nothing while they hurt us-”

“I’ve never hurt a pet a single day in my life!” Callie shouts back at him, and someone takes her arm, a friend of hers. 

No one takes Chris’s arm. No one speaks. They just watch him from every corner of the room, and later someone’s going to write a fucking post about this somewhere, and he’ll be a laughingstock, and maybe someone will see the look in his eyes and guess - and know - and call the cops - and he’ll get Jake in trouble again-

“I’d bet every d-... dollar in my, my, my bank account that you have!”

“Christopher Stanton, you need to stop, right now, or I’m going to ask you to leave.” The grad student steps between them, and Chris’s eyes flicker to the older man’s. Suddenly he’s unsure, and he wants to sit down.

Sit still. Silence is better than stammering. Stillness is better than what I do. Sit down, be good, be good be good be good be a good boy be good a pet be good be good after all-

“I mean… they signed up for it, right?” A new voice, the girl holding Callie’s arm. “Pets? They get told what it’s all about before they sign up. Isn’t this kind of… babying them? I mean, they made the choice to be one.”

“Nothing happens to them that isn’t on their contract,” Callie says, smug with triumph, and the grad student doesn’t stop her. “Besides, they really loved me! It was like having a friend right from when I was born. They signed up for this!”

It hurts so much more when he hears it said outside his own skull.

“They didn’t like you.” Chris is spitting venom, suddenly, terrified of himself, of his own anger. He’s so good at not being angry, at not having feelings like this, at having good days and knowing how lucky he is to escape, but right now… “They, they, they didn’t like you, they were told to, to, to be nice to you! You, you just-...”

“I mean, they wipe their memories and shit,” Someone says. “That’s sci-fi horror movie shit, that is definitely fucked up. You can’t think you can wipe somebody’s memory and make them, like, memorize all those fucked up things pets say and then believe they just… like you, Callie.”

“They didn’t want those memories! They sign up on purpose, to give those memories up, because they don’t want them anymore! I mean, what do they lose, really?”

Chris hitches in a breath.

Everything.

I lost everything.

And I’ll never get all of it back.

“That’s why… why-why-why, why you’re not safe, why it wouldn’t be s-safe to, to, to to tell you if they weren’t h-happy,” Chris says, throwing the packet of papers with Henry’s face on the front into his backpack, alongside folders full of paperwork, his textbook, laptop, pens and pencils. “Because you’ll b-believe any, any, any any… any bullshit you’re told.”

Someone laughs, nervously.

“Or maybe one of us has actual experience with pets, and one of us wears the same five fucking t-shirts on rotation because he doesn’t own any others.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Callie.”

Chris stares at her, and it’s not fear that washes cold down his spine, but a blistering, awful, sick rage. “You, you, you-you-you don’t know shit about, about, about about… about m-me-”

Talking is harder, it’s like trying to push words through a wall with an opening the size of his thumb. The wall is built of all the noise and weight and rage and pain and sound all around him. He wants to rock, he wants to tap, he wants to get all the energy coiled inside of him out and he can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

Be good be still be a statue boy that’s my good boy trainee keep still for me sweet boy you wanted this you were made for this you signed up for this you knew what would happen to you you wanted this you wanted this you wanted this you wanted it you want it you’ll always want it-

“I know you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Callie snaps. “And that’s all I need to know, isn’t it? Have you ever even met a pet, Chris?”

He wants to start laughing, at the question, and he’s afraid if he starts he won’t stop until it’s tears instead, and he won’t cry in front of her. 

He won’t.

“F-for, for, for, for… for y-your, infor-... fuck, for your, your, your-your-... your-”

No, no no no. He is stalling out, stammering, trains derailed and disappearing into the horrible white light that still lived inside his head, he is stuttering silence is better than stammering you have to stop you have to stop you have to stop-

Callie’s lip curls in a cruel sneer and Chris knows exactly what she’s going to do - how she will hurt him - before she opens her mouth.

“I think you should stop trying to talk until you can stop being such a fucking sp-”

“That’s enough.” 

Chris had forgotten the grad student was even still here. He jumps, stumbling into his chair as the man pushes forward and blocks Callie from Chris’s view. Chris’s legs catch in the metal legs of the chair and he falls backwards, slamming on his ass into the carpeted floor, barely catching himself. 

The carpet burns under his hands.

Only one person laughs.

It’s Callie.

Chris’s face burns bright red, shame and humiliation sweeping over his skin, and he lost nearly all the words, all at once, drowned in the screaming noise inside his head. All he can remember is how to spit, “I fucking hate everyone like, like, like you! You fucking bitch!”

“Leave the room, Chris.” The grad student’s voice is sharp. “That’s over the line. You’re done in this class for now. I’ll email you later and we’ll schedule a meeting to talk about whether or not you should come back.”

Chris’s lungs stop working. He can barely mouth what?

“Hey, wait a second.” Eshiram pushes to his feet, jabbing a finger in the air as he points. “Callie’s the one who worked this up into a fight, Chris didn’t-”

“Cut it, Eshiram, I’m not interested. Chris. Get out of the room, take a deep breath, and cool down. We’ll talk this out later, okay? I won’t mark you absent for class, or mark down participation, or anything. Just… take a walk.”

Chris can’t remember how to speak. All he can do is nod, good boy, take your discipline, discipline is a humane and necessary part of-

He has to get out of here before he calls someone Sir.

“If he goes, I’m walking out, too,” Eshiram says, strong. He was taller and bigger than the grad student, who looked at him, weary, as Eshiram steps over and offers Chris his hand. Chris takes it, skin crawling, and pulls himself back to his feet. “It’s not his fault and I’m not going to sit here like it is.”

“Yeah, me too,” Guillotine-Kid says, pushing to his feet and grabbing his backpack. “I’m out, too. I’m not going to fall for that propaganda bullshit.”

“Me, three,” Says the girl who had very nearly called the human pet industry exactly what it is. “This is bullshit, Darian’s right. She works him up and gets him all mad, and then you kick him out when he fights back? This is exactly the fucking problem we’ve been talking about!”

“Don’t be fucking dramatic, Tali,” Callie says, rolling her eyes. 

“Don’t be such a fucking nightmare asshole, Caledonia,” Tali shoots back.

“Okay. Okay, okay. Just… class dismissed for today. Look over your packets and we’ll meet next time and talk it out. I can see this isn’t going to get back on track. Chris, we’ll talk about you coming back to class when we meet, but until then… just… just work on the assignments.” The grad student sighs.

Chris yanks his hand away from Eshiram, and Callie’s triumphant little snort hits him in the back like a blow as he stomps out of the classroom and into the hall, the rest of the class streaming out behind him.

Eshiram calls out his name, but Chris doesn’t stop.

He should, he should stop, Jake and Nat always say it’s important to reward people for their work towards changing hearts and minds, and to appreciate the little things like people helping you stand up when you can’t stand for yourself, but he… he can’t stop.

If he stops, they’ll know what he is.

If he stops, they’ll tell someone.

If he stops, he’ll cry in front of them, and Chris has cried too often in his life. He just runs down the hallway, as fast as he can, taking turns and twists and stairways until he’s on a different floor, a different side of the building, and he’s totally, utterly lost in it.

He curls up in a tiny bathroom the size of a closet, lights off, door locked, presses himself into the corner in a room that smells like air freshener and bleach, and starts to rock, violently, forcing his head to smack into the wall with each forward motion, and again when he rocks back.

Again, again, again.

It quiets the screaming inside his head, but it can’t make the last hour not have happened.

Silence is better than stammering, stillness is better than what I do, I signed up for this, I signed up for this, I wanted this I wanted it I was made for it I deserved it we’re happy we’re supposed to be happy I’m broken because I wasn’t happy like this I signed up for it I have to be good to be good I am a good boy be still be silent be still be be be-

His phone starts buzzing an hour or so later, when he misses his lunch date with Laken. Over and over and over again.

He doesn’t pick up.

He wouldn’t be able to speak if he did.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions, @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump, @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth

[givemeyourfaceplzzz]

Gosh, internet stress me so much. It constly cause negative stims, intrusiv thought and invailding myself

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Jake having to hold Chris down and force him to take a pill :sobs: maybe antibiotics or something

CW: Negative stims (rocking, chewing on lip - just if you're not in the right headspace for it, just an fyi!), referenced isolation and captivity, referenced/discussed drugging

Tagging Chris’s crew:  @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @stxckfxck, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions

TIMELINE: Shortly after Chris arrives, post-sickness and him introducing himself with his new name to the household.

"Chris, listen to me, it's not-... It's not like that-"

Chris can't hear him, or doesn't want to. It's hard to tell with the awful low hoarse sounds he's making, something like a mix between a whine and a moan, low and constant as he rocks back and forth, curled up against the wall with his hands over his mouth muffling them. 

He didn’t do any of this when he first came, did he? Maybe he did, maybe that was why he’d spent all his time this past first week or so trying to hide in dark spaces or under and behind the bed. Maybe he’d just been rocking under there all the time, hoping nobody would notice.

He’d only started spending most of the day following Jake or Nat around a couple of days ago, and now... now here he is, terrified of them, cringing away from Jake.

Or, rather, cringing away from the pills he has in one palm and the little pill bottle in the other hand.

Natalie stands behind where Jake is crouching, her hands on her hips with an air of resigned compassion, the attitude she carries with her everywhere she goes. “Well, if we didn’t know he was drugged before, we sure know now,” She says, a little wearily. “I guess we should see it as a good sign, though.”

“A good sign? He won’t-... he lost his shit the second he saw the pill bottle, Nat!”

Jake turns and cranes his head back to look up at her, and she only shrugs down at him, giving him a slight, tired smile. “It is a good sign, Jake. It’s a sign that he feels safe enough here to tell us no.”

“This isn’t telling us anything.”

“Isn’t it?” Nat sighed and plucked the little orange-brown bottle with a faded printed label on the side out of Jake’s hand. “I suspected as much, you know. This definitely confirms it.”

“Suspected what?” Jake frowns, slipping the pills into the pocket of his blue jeans, watching the hint of tearful green eyes he can see behind Chris’s fingers watch the movement with absolute focus even as his breath hitches and he curls up a little tighter. 

“I suspected they were drugging him,” Nat says carefully, stashing the pill bottle in the deeper pockets of the light jacket she’s wearing. “It’s not... uncommon, even after they’re out of...” Nat’s nose wrinkles. “Training.”

“Why’d you suspect drugging?” 

“Well, how else would you keep a teenager stuck in a single hallway all day, Jake?” 

Honestly, it’s a relief to hear her say it out loud, what they’d all known the second they got a look at him, that very first night. There’s no way this kid’s an adult. It feels like a release of some kind of tension, every time he hears him called what he is out loud. 

Teenager.

Jake could happily burn everything about WRU to the ground.

“Tell me, when you were his age, could your parents have kept you stuck in a single set of three or four rooms all day, every day, forever?”

Jake snorts. “No.”

“Yeah, well. That’s how you keep someone in if they’d otherwise want to get... out...” Nat’s voice trailed off in thought, her eyes moving across the room to look out the window. “Wait. I know how we do this.” 

She turned around, her braid swinging and slapping against her back again, and crouched down next to Jake, cocking her head to the side to catch the boy’s shimmery eyes. “Hey, Chris... what if we go outside, huh? You haven’t been out yet, have you?”

Had he seriously not? Jake closes his eyes and thinks, but no-... no, the kid hasn’t gone outside since he got here, he’s been hiding in all the dark spaces but Jake knows he’s caught him looking through the window, too. All longing, like he can’t stand being in here, but he’s never asked to go out...

The odd little sound coming from Chris’s throat stops, and his hands have started to lower a little. Jake watches those wide green eyes jump from window to Nat’s face and back, as if...

As if he think she’s lying, teasing him, playing some kind of fucked-up game. Trying to figure out the catch. 

Jake swallows his thoughts, forces them down, and gives an encouraging smile and nod. The boy looks over at him, too - giver of Popeye’s chicken, watcher of so many handstands, man who swept up the glass bits when Chris accidentally kicked over a lamp. You can trust me, Jake wants to say - but his own life and his interactions with rescues have always made it clear that you don’t tell someone they can trust you, you prove it.

 “But-...” The sound from the boy’s throat is little more than a hoarse whisper. “But it’s... day. There... are... people out, outside.” 

“I know, honey,” Nat says, gently. “That’s just fine by me. The neighbors aren’t bad, I swear. Do you want to go see our little garden out back? I don’t have much, just some tomato plants and herbs, but... I guess a few flowers and a hummingbird feeder...”

Chris nods, gnawing on his lower lip, eyes wide.

“Perfect. I just have to ask one thing.” Nat holds up one finger, giving the boy a slightly playful smile that fades back to earnestness when the boy reacts to her expression by flinching back and away from it. “You have to take that medicine. You’re still a little sick and those are going to help make sure you don’t get sick again. You’ll have to take two a day for ten days. They’re just antibiotics, okay?”

The boy’s eyes move from her to the window again, back and forth, like a pendulum, a metronome of suspicion and need, torn in two. Finally, he uncurls his knees from his chest and swallows, hard. “Yes... ma’am,” He says, and holds out his hand. “If you... promise.”

Jake feels a sick lurch of guilt and a kind of rage twist him up inside. This boy doesn’t trust that the pills are good for him, he doesn’t believe her, not really - he just wants to go outside so badly he’s still willing to make the trade. Willing to take whatever awful thing he thinks he’s really being given.

Jake digs them back out of his pocket and hands them over, picking a little cup of water from the floor next to him and handing that over, too. The boy takes the pills with the air of a man stepping up willingly to the gallows, swallowing them with a wince but without difficulty.

Then Jake stands, and helps the boy stand up, too. He allows himself to be moved, obediently enough, walking next to Jake and with Nat just behind them. It’s not until they’re all the way back downstairs and at the back door that Jake sees the moment the boy actually believes that he’ll get his half of the bargain upheld.

“Really?” Chris breathes, as Jake turns the doorknob to the rickety old backdoor, the wood that doesn’t quite fit the frame, the little crack of sun that shows through at the bottom and sometimes results in the occasional visit by tiny black ants after a long rain. 

“Really,” Nat says firmly, and Jake opens the door.

At first, the boy doesn’t move. Jake wants to kind of nudge him but he glances back at Nat and there’s a look in her eyes that tells him not to push, to let the boy move on his own, at his own pace. For a moment, the little redhead just stares out at the fenced-in backyard, a quarter-acre or so with a couple of trees and a big stone patio set with what feels like a dozen planters. Even though it’s winter, here, the winters are mild in this climate and there are still herbs growing bright green and cheerful in most of the clay-colored planters. 

The boy’s eyes trace over the lawn, looking at the grass, drinking it in.

Jake’s never felt so lucky for the shit hand he was given in life, when he sees someone else look absolutely awestruck by the sight of fucking grass.

The boy takes one step forward and then two, laying his feet carefully flat down on the two stone steps it takes to go from back door to the patio, the sun-warmed stone there making his toes wiggle just a bit. The sun flashes off unnaturally pale skin, turning it white, making the hint of freckles there stand out. 

Sun glints off strawberry-blond hair, turning it to the bright flash of copper, penny-colored. 

The boy stops, down on the patio, and turns back, uncertainty written unhidden across his face. “Are... are you going to, to... to come... with me?” He asks, looking between the two of them. He hunches his shoulders over, hands worrying at each other, at the hem of his shirt, picking at his fingernails and then scratching at his own skin, a constant movement even as he bounces a little on the balls of his feet.

“Go on, Jake,” Nat says. Her voice is low, and amused. “You’ve got the rapport going with him. You go out there.”

“Nat, I’m in way over my head,” Jake murmurs, turning his head all the way so the boy won’t hear, maybe won’t try to read his lips. 

“So is he,” Nat points out, giving Jake the teasing smile that had made Chris flinch back just a minute before. “Go on. Meet them where they are, Jake. Open hearts by creating safe places for hurting minds.”

“I hate your stupid catchphrases,” Jake says, but he doesn’t mean it, and he’s smiling too much for it to even be remotely believable.

“Just wait ‘til I write my book and make millions,” Nat says, and steps back inside, leaving Jake on the steps with Chris just to the other end of the patio, waiting for him. Waiting for permission, maybe, waiting to be told just standing in a yard is okay, because he won’t know unless he’s given the order, the command.

“Hey, so... you did, like... handstands and stuff in your room the other day,” Jake starts, feeling awkward, uncomfortable. “Do you... want to try doing them out here? In the yard?”

The boy’s eyes widen - his expression is stricken, one of absolute shock. “... can I?” He asks, in a harsh whisper. “Can, can, can can can can... can I do that out here? People might-might... might... they might see.”

“So?” 

Chris blinks at him, as though he’s never considered that before. “Are, are, are you-you... going to watch, watch me?”

“Do you not want me to? I can’t go back inside-”

“No! No, um, no-no... don’t do that, please. Please don’t do, do that.” There’s a pause and then Chris smiles at him, hesitantly, but the sun is shining on his face and he’s got it tipped up slightly to catch the light even more. “I, um, I want you to-... to to watch me.”

“Well, go on, then.” Jake waves one hand. “I’m watching. Show me.”

He takes off, moving like he’s afraid if he stops, Jake will change his mind or call him back or force him back into the kitchen against his will.

The air is a little chilly but the sun is warm on his back and in his blond hair as Jake watches Chris do cartwheels across the back yard, run at one of the trees and bounce off of it with his feet, pull himself into a slow but seemingly effortless handstand. His long, thin fingers dig into the dirt, into the grass, and then Chris is laughing when blades of grass tickle at his nose and face, his hair a pool beneath his head as he lingers upside down, feet pointed straight up in the air.

“Who the fuck would lock you up?” Jake wonders to himself, leaning back against the siding of the house, watching Chris lower himself back down and then immediately move into some kind of yoga pose with his legs out at angles and his arms straight out on either side, turning at his hips, eyes closed now but with a small serene smile on his face. 

Chris changes position, balancing easily on one foot with the other pressed flat against the inside of his thigh, hands palm-to-palm in front of his chest. He raises them, slowly, up above his head towards the sky.

It occurs to Jake that it’s the only time he’s seen Chris stand still where it didn’t look like something that physically pained him to do.

“Who would keep you so shut up you were that goddamn desperate to go outside, but you didn’t even know you could?”