Reading conversations about Hazbin Hotel's Angel elsewhere on the Internet makes me very glad for all of you here.
When I wrote Kauri, I worried a little after his freedom that he would be misunderstood, not connect with readers as much, because he dealt with abuse and rape by becoming hypersexual and self-destructive, taking control back over his body in the only way he knew how to do at the time.
With Angel, who does the same thing, I see people complaining that it's unrealistic or "sexualizing trauma" and I just...
I appreciate you guys here so much. You got it, with Kauri, right from the start, that sex can exist alongside or within a tragedy and sex can just as much be one of the ways someone rebuilds their foundation after it crumbles. That no one has to be the perfect pure and noble victim, some people fuck up because it can feel like if you hurt yourself first, other people can't hurt you that way any longer. It's a shield, a form of protection, just one with spikes on the inside that cut you even as they keep everyone else from getting the chance.
So yeah.
Seriously, as a writer I would like to thank my Kauri readers for getting what he needed to do and who he was so well so fast and following with me as he figured it all out.
NOTICE: This piece has been replaced by an update. If you're just scrolling through tumblr for fun, feel free to read on! But if you are actually following Dany's story, read this one instead!
For @nsfwhumptober set 2. This is (a short) part 1, prompt collar, and just some setup for the nsfw part of this set...
Content note - briefly referenced dubcon, captivity, collar, lady whump (whumper not present), referenced branding, generally hopeless mindset of whumpee
[Dany Masterpost] - on the timeline, this is set within her first few weeks with @what-a-whump s OC Ridley
*
My days in Ridley's penthouse have developed a distinct, horrible routine. Ever-repeating cycles of humiliation, sex, sleep, sex, and loneliness. The long hours when he's at work and I'm locked in his bedroom are the worst, somehow. I've given up trying to speak to the cleaning staff who come in while he's at work and who treat me like a particularly nasty piece of furniture. I think too much, or too little, drift off in dread, despair and disgust at myself. I know of the cameras by now, know he can watch my every move, call in to hurt me even without being there.
The only moments in which I can truly be free are those I spend under the shower.
Ridley has left for work some time ago, with the distinct click of the door bolt, and eventually I've dragged myself over to the ensuite bathroom, stripped off the flimsy nightgown he allowed me to wear and set the shower to full heat.
With my eyes closed, my ears filled with nothing but the soothing noise of running water, with the hot water cloaking my skin, shielding me from the outside world, I can pretend to be anywhere.
Back at the tennis club, after some exhausting training. In my student apartment, getting ready for a day of seminars. Home at my family's mansion, worried only about the choice of a dress for tonight's function.
I stay under the hot water long after the whole room is filed with steam, until my skin is red and hurting, and my mind dizzy. This is my own pain, my haven, the last tiny shard of control left to me.
It's with a pang of sadness that I turn off the water and reach for one of the soft white towels to wrap myself in it, store some of the heat for a tiny while longer.
My fingers brush over the embroidery, Ridley's initial stitched into the corner of the towel, a stylized R, the same design that is branded into my own skin.
I almost sob as I reach for the white leather collar I've left next to the shower and put it back on with shaking hands. It fits neatly between the constant welts that have formed around my neck.
Power came from strength, of course, and Tristan had proved time and time again he could man-handle Matthias into submission, pin the beautiful boy beneath him and do as he pleased. But the more enticing form of power, one that Matthias barely had a shred of, was the power of rank. In their culture, Tristan was one of the highest ranking men around, his stature and prominence letting him get away with far too much.
Like being able to treat Matthias a nobody - as his own personal plaything.
Whether it be by his strength of the innate arcane ability deep inside him, Tristan could overpower Matthias with ease. But he loved just as much to dominate him by words and thoughts alone. Let his pet know just how useless fighting back was. Make him see how futile resistance is. The best part was, Matthias knew this. Oh, he could fight back and claw and scratch… to an extent. But if Tristan got tired of his defiance, all he had to say was “Kneel or I’ll throw you back to the wolves you crawled away from” and Matthias would have no choice but to kneel. He couldn’t go back - it would be death, for him and his younger brother. Tristan was salvation. Tristan was protection.
Tristan was a monster that Matthias lived to serve.
if you have some time and energy, could you be persuaded to perhaps write some streetkid chris with jake and the safehouse? i’ve never stopped needing comfort for him
CW: Heavily internalized ableism, referenced past dubcon and noncon, some internal dehumanization, referenced drug use
(Street kid Chris au pieces here and here)
-
He sobers up, more or less, on the bus ride out of the center of the city, his forehead resting against the cool glass window. It's all a blur that moves through and around him, steel and concrete shifting to grass and trees and little houses placed next to each other like a child's toys.
Baldur hides a smile, imagining a giant toddler hand lining the houses up one by one by one by one, picking doll families to live in the little doll houses. Giant baby god giving this family a dog and this family a goldfish and that one a pretty boy like Baldur to do everything they say-
A laugh catches in his throat, dies there with the chill of sudden grief. What is his Sir doing? Is he at home with some new pet, playing games? Was Baldur replaced that quickly?
Of course he was. He was never special, never really very good even. Pretty, until he got too old. Stupid statue-boy trying and trying to hold still and never winning any of Sir's games. Sir would've ordered someone else right away.
He's probably forgotten about Baldur by now.
His throat tightens even more, heat stinging his eyes, but Baldur fights it back. The only thing worse than his wrong words and his wrong hands is when he cries, of course. Sir always says-
But Sir doesn't want him any longer, isn't there to tell him never to cry and then play games and hurt him until he does it anyway.
"Hey." Kauri, sitting next to him, must catch something in the shift of movement in his throat when he swallows or the stare of his glassy green eyes. "What's up, buttercup? You need some water? I know coming down always makes me so thirsty I could scream."
Baldur shakes his head, curling up as best he can, pulling his knees to his chin with his heels pressed against the edge of the seat, pushing the dirty soles of his shoes against the cushioned fabric. "No thank you," He whispers. "I... I'm fine."
"Yeah, yeah. I've heard that before - or I guess I should say that I've said that before. And you know what, Chris? Never once was I actually fine. So. Here." Kauri holds a bottle of water out, shaking it a little as if trying to lure a stray cat with a can of tuna. "Come on, have a drink. It'll help hold off the headache, I swear."
Baldur's fingers are shaking when he takes the bottle, and it takes three tries to get the cap open, but the water is cool and clean on his tongue and down his throat, and before he realizes it the bottle is half empty, his chest feels cold on the inside as the water trickles through him, and he's gasping for breath.
Kauri's smile is soft, gentle, only a little sad. "There we go. Keep working on it, okay? Hydration is the best defense against hangovers, not that I ever take my own advice. But it is still excellent advice."
By the bus reaches a stop that Kauri declares is theirs, he's had all the water and it's an empty bottle he stashes in his backpack. He can refill it at the first sink he sees, have something he doesn't have to beg for or fuck for to drink later on.
Baldur steps off the bus and into a neighborhood right out of TV.
Houses line the street on either side, and Baldur stares at old trees that rise over his head, dappling the ground with shade that blocks some of the heat of the sun. The air smells like grass, and there's a drone from somewhere nearby that he realizes must be a lawn mower, a sound he's only heard from Sir's windows while watching the landscapers work far, far below.
There's a fence around the yard next to them - a white fence, even, with chips of peeling paint. Baldur moves to it, reaching out and letting his fingertips brush the rough wood, one nail scratching at a bit of paint coming free. He doesn't hear himself humming, low and tuneless, repeating over and over, until Kauri pops back into view in the corner of his eye.
"You never seen a fence before?" Kauri teases, but then Baldur flinches back and away and watches Kauri's smile falter, briefly, before it determinedly returns. "Sorry. I scared you, huh?"
"I'm fine," Baldur says too fast, realizing too late that he isn't answering the question Kauri asked - either of them. The blush heats his cheeks and he turns away, jamming his hands in his pockets as hard as he can, hunching his shoulders. "Fine. I'm... I'm fine."
The word sounds good in his mouth. Soothes his mind. He opens his mouth to say it again, fine fine fine - but Baldur catches himself this time. He can't repeat words he hears, that's wrong. Can't stammer, that's wrong. Can't move, or sway, or use his hands - wrong.
All wrong.
"Right. Well, come on. The house is this way." Kauri walks a little ways away, then looks back over his shoulder. Baldur hurries to catch up, keeping himself hunched. The weight of his backpack is familiar and comforting, all his things in there. The usual headache when the pills wear off teases around the edge of his mind, but it doesn't take hold. Maybe Kauri was right about the water.
Kauri talks, chatting brightly. His hands move constantly, in gestures and emphasis, and Baldur keeps staring at it. Sir would have slapped his hands if he moved them so much, but Kauri doesn't even notice he does it.
The house has people there like them, Kauri explains, although not like them like them, just - other pets. Domestics, mostly. The woman who runs the house, like the shelters Baldur has stayed at but they won't make him pray.
"Trust me," Kauri reassures, "I wouldn't stay there if they did. I've traded a bed and some food for having to go to their church and let them tell me what a bad boy I am enough for one lifetime, thank you. Sinners have more fun, anyway." He winks, and Baldur blinks back at him. "The last time I stayed at one, the pastor hit on me. The very, very married pastor. Which goes to show you - when you are as good in bed as I am, even God doesn't measure up."
Baldur swallows. He should say something - something witty. Kauri seems to have things to say about everything, all of the time, but Baldur's mind is still slow from the pills, even though he's sobering up. He can't think of anything except to say, "Really?"
"Really." Kauri's smile is bright, flash of sun off the hood of a car blinding but with something about it that seems cracked, too. "Once we get there, I'll make introductions. But I promise, everybody is nice."
"... Nice," Baldur murmurs. Nobody is, not really, in his experience. Everybody takes something in return for every bit of nice they offer. Everybody sees his barcode and knows they can do whatever they want to him, and then they do. And if he's lucky it's only to make him eat food that makes him feel sick, or talk to him about how he's walking a dark path, as if there has ever been a lighter one. Or sometimes they tell him to go lay down on the bed-
"We're here!" Kauri's voice cuts into Baldur's thoughts, and he looks up.
In front of him there's a two-story house with white siding, flat-faced with windows that look down on him like eyes. There's a porch with chairs on it, and sitting in one of them is a tall, thin man with a mess of dark hair and sharp, dark almost-feline eyes. He's fiddling with something in his hands, but when he sees them he shoves whatever it was into his pocket and quickly stands.
Baldur hesitates - but Kauri moves right up the overgrown path, flat stones half-covered by grass and weeds. "Hey, Ant! I brought someone."
"I see this," The man says, in a smooth, accented voice. He sounds like velvet. Baldur looks at him, trying to think. Just a blowjob, probably. Easy. Baldur has traded those for lots of things. He barely has to do anything, once they grab his head. "Kauri-"
"Oh, wipe that worry off your face, Antoni, he's one of us." Kauri waves a hand back at Baldur, then grabs at his arm to pull him forward. "I brought him to meet Nat and Jake. Chris, this is Antoni. Antoni, this is Chris."
Antoni looks at him, then turns and silently heads back into the house.
Baldur swallows, shifting to half-hide himself behind Kauri. "... he doesn't... like me."
"Nah, Antoni's just kind of a mood killer professionally. He's a softie once you get to know him, I promise." Kauri half-drags him up the steps and through the front door, into an entryway that has a pile of coats abandoned on a coat rack, shoes on a mat. The house smells like something cooking, and Baldur's mouth waters, his stomach twisting as it remembers how to feel hungry and not just emptied-out and light. "Jake! Hey, Jake!"
"Jake's out," A woman's voice says. Baldur stares as an older woman pops her head in. She has brown hair with bits of gray in it in a braid that lays over one shoulder, a flannel shirt over a t-shirt and ancient jeans, and a soft smile ringed in laugh lines that crinkles at the corners and near her eyes.
She's beautiful.
"Who's this?" The woman looks from him to Kauri, with curiosity - not trepidation, not worry, and not anger. "You brought someone by?"
"Yeah. This is, uh, this is Chris. He's one of us. Chris, this is Nat. She feeds me sometimes."
"Love that description." Nat's voice is wry with good humor, and she steps forward, holding out her hand. "I have hobbies, too, you know. Hello, Chris. I'm Nat, and this is my house. I help runaways from WRU start over."
He stares at her outstretched hand, then back at her, before hesitantly shaking. His grip is limp compared to hers, but she doesn't say anything about it. "I-... I thought... you were... a man."
"No, that's Jake," Kauri corrects him. "He insists on having a life outside of waiting for my beautiful ass to show back up, so we'll see him later."
"... Okay." Baldur studies the woman - Nat - thoughtfully. Then he offers, "I can... do women, too."
Nat's expression changes - so subtly he can't tell what the change is. But he sees it. Baldur knows how to tell when the mood of a room goes sour, to try to protect himself. "Romantic," She murmurs. "I see. Kauri-"
"Don't say he can't come here," Kauri interrupts, bristling, and Baldur stares at him in open terror as his heart drops to his knees. He's angry at one of them. Baldur didn't know you could do that. "He's got as much a right as anybody else does, and you let me come here, and he could use the help, Nat, so don't you dare-"
"Kauri. Hey." Nat puts her hands up, as if surrendering in a fight. "That's not what I was gonna say. I was going to say, Kauri, how about you set him a place at the table for dinner. Okay?"
Kauri's jaw is set, and it takes him a moment to stop looking ready to keep up the argument that isn't even happening. "I-... yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll do that. Just-... Nat, you know that a lot of places won't-"
"I know. It's okay, honey. It really is okay. Just go get him set up. And you." Nat smiles at Baldur, and he tries to see the mean she's hiding, but it isn't there. Too buried underneath a kind face, maybe. Baldur can't imagine there just isn't any cruelty there at all. "We take all kinds here, and you're welcome. No one touches you here, and I'd prefer if you kept your hands to yourself at first."
Those words don't mean anything. The shelters say that a lot, too, but Baldur still wakes up to a hand over his mouth and a voice whispering to him to be quiet sometimes when he sleeps in one. He'll find out the real cost of staying here at some point.
But he'll find out with food in his stomach, and that's worth something.
"Yes, ma'am," He murmurs, looking up and around at the high ceiling in the entryway, carpet-covered stairs that curve up and disappear around an angle. Bookshelves, and off to one side the corner of a living room with a TV playing.
"Just Nat is fine. Kauri?"
"Got it." Kauri gives a mocking, if still friendly, salute. It makes Baldur smile - but he hides it behind his serious face when he sees Nat look at him. "I'll get him settled in. Maybe we'll stay over tonight? If that seems like a good idea, if not-"
"It sounds great."
Baldur watches her go, heading up the stairs - that creak as she walks, giving away the house's age. Wondering what she'll want him to do later on, to pay for the food, to earn the bed he'll sleep in.
He has more pills in his pocket. He can take some, and drift through whatever staying here costs, let his body and training do all the work. He's done it before, over and over again.
He'll always have to do it again, sooner or later.
When Kauri takes his hand again, he lets himself be led.
He doesn't notice the dark-haired man, Antoni, watching him from a doorway as Baldur digs out two small pills and swallows them dry while following Kauri into the kitchen.
Oh Rafael my precious boy! I will buy him everything he wants and most importantly: make a nest on the sofa, cuddle him all he wants and watch movies with him all day and buy his favourite snacks🥺
He deserves the woooooorld😭
How is he doing these days?🥹❤️
Oh, Raf is fine these days, but remember when he wasn't-
CW: Takes place when Rafael was at his first safehouse. Soooooo much casual slut shaming here, people. So... so much angst.
They go quiet when he comes back, the group of three sitting at the kitchen table. Rafael feels their eyes on him like lit matches on the tips of his fingers and he hunches his shoulders, arms crossed in front of him. His backpack is lighter than when he left, and he wonders if anyone ever pays enough attention to notice.
"Holy cow, I didn't even know he was gone," A former Domestic, Freddie, says with a slightly nervous, airy laugh. Her voice is a whisper that isn't quite quiet enough, but Raf pretends he can't hear it anyway as he slips his shoes off to leave on the little rug by the door.
"That's what they do," Another says - Sam, or Sal, or something else Raf can't quite remember. His voice sounds like he must be rolling his eyes, but Raf refuses to look and see if he is or not. "They sneak around like that, they teach them in training. I saw one getting his feet whipped because he walked too loud once."
"Gross. That-... that sounds awful." Raf blinks, surprised at the hint of sympathy, and glances over to see Freddie shiver.
"Honestly, he probably liked it. They love that stuff, that's why they get picked for it. They're just like that already. I heard they have to talk about their-" Sal lowers his voice, but it still carries. "-their kinks with their handlers when they sign up."
Rafael's face burns as he moves to walk past the doorway. His handler never asked him what he liked or didn't like. His handler had told him outright it didn't matter and the person he was before didn't exist any longer. He, if he wanted to be good, would learn to want what his master or mistress wanted, there was no such thing as having a desire of his own. Did they not know that?
It was warm outside, and he'd been sweaty on the bus in his black sweater and pants with the sun beating down and heating them up, but now he shivers from a chill that lives entirely under his skin.
They know. They don't care. The idea that he wanted it all is easier, and... he must have, right? Or he wouldn't have ended up like this.
"Hey." The third one speaks up, waving to get his attention. "Uh... Romantic. What was your name again?"
Raf pauses, turning to look instinctively, meeting three pairs of flat, hostile eyes in flat, hostile faces. Mr. Martin swears they'll warm up to him, but they never have. Maybe no one ever will. Even Mr. Martin treats him like there's slime on his skin, especially when he said he didn't want to change his name. "It's Rafael. Yeah?"
Vex, that's what the third one calls himself. Raf remembers that, because he'd told Rafael once it was because he hoped him running pissed off the people he'd run from. Rafael had thought he was sharing as a way to break the ice, but then Vex had never spoken to him again. Until now.
Vex's eyes narrow. "Where do you keep going all the time?"
His heart stops, panic sparking like torn wires in his nerves, but Rafael knows how to be terrified and never show it. He only smiles, perfect and pretty, his good-pet-grin. "The library. I'm trying to learn how to read again."
His voice comes out smoothly sincere. He's a good liar. All Romantics are incredible liars. That's what everyone says, anyway. And Raf is pretty good at it.
"Huh." Vex shares a look with the others that Raf can't quite read, and his prickling unease keeps rising. "You never come to our group lessons, though."
Rafael has an answer prepped for this. He shrugs, unbothered. "You said it wasn't comfortable for you when I did."
Vex frowns, thoughtful, some of his prickling hostility fading. To Rafael's shock, he looks... almost guilty. "... Oh. Yeah. I forgot we told Mr. Martin that."
"You kept sitting with your legs open," Freddie says, voice slightly uneven. "And... sitting too close."
"... I know. Again, i'm-... sorry, I am, I didn't even know-... No one told me until Mr. Martin said you told him-"
"Whatever." Vex snorts. "Let's talk about the library. You're spending, like, hours over there."
"Well... It's not just learning to read." His heart isn't pounding in his throat at all, he can't feel his fingers trembling until he hides them in his pockets. He doesn't even flush when he realizes in a spike of shame that there's an empty condom package still in there. He forgot to throw it away before he got back. It crinkles and he has to fight not to widen his eyes. The sound feels impossibly loud.
It must not carry. None of them seem to notice.
Freddie nudges Sal with her elbow. "Told you so. He's fucking somebody."
Sal sighs. "I didn't argue with you, Fred."
Vex's eyebrow raises. "That's against the rules. Mr. Martin says no inappropriate relations inside or outside the house. Especially sex ones. You'll get kicked out for that."
"I'm not sleeping with anyone," Rafael lies without even batting an eyelash. "You can have Mr. Martin check my phone, I'm at the library the whole time."
The phone is, anyway. He leaves it there, most of the time, in a hiding spot inside a conference room nobody ever uses, before he meets one of the other Romantics who work on the street and goes back to the apartment and the warmth of their arms and the familiar slick slide of their bodies against his. Sometimes he has money to pay, sometimes he doesn't, but they open the door even when he has nothing but his body to offer.
Sometimes they just hold him, and it's enough to make him feel human again, for a while, anyway.
Vex looks at him, then away. "Whatever. As long as you're a creep somewhere else, who cares what you do?"
Raf swallows. His throat feels too small for the air he has to breathe. "You can ask Mr. Martin-" He starts again, catches his voice wobbling and fights hard to keep it steady, falsely confident.
"I'm not a snitch," Vex interrupts, snapping the words angrily. Raf catches himself backing up instinctively to avoid anyone who might be angry getting close enough to hurt him for it. "None of us are. We aren't Romantics like you."
"Yeah, we're not the ones who go tell the owners whatever gets them more dick and called a good boy," Sal sneers. Freddie just looks worried and a little scared of them all. Raf's face burns bright red.
"I-... I don't-"
He does, though. Sort of. Rei, his second-favorite of the others he finds on the streets who understand him, calls him that at the end. Raf likes it and Rei likes to play good and gentle owner with happy pet, using a soft voice that warms Raf inside and out with the idea of anyone ever saying it without the edge of humiliation or danger his own master and mistress held.
Sometimes just hearing it so sweet like that can have him coming in a flash or crying and the feeling is almost the same.
"It's-" Raf's voice finally cracks, and he clears his throat. He can't look them in the eyes any longer. "It's against the rules to use unkind language to each, each other-"
"It sure is." Sal snorts, derisive. Disgusted with him. "Gonna go tell Mr. Martin we were mean, Romantic?"
"My name is Raf-"
"We don't care. Look, you tell Mr. Martin we were big meanie-faces and hurt your delicate little slut feelings, then maybe we tell Mr. Martin that you're definitely not spending all that time just learning to read."
Rafael's heart beats so fast he feels like he's trying to outrun his own body. "No, I, I am-"
"We just said we don't care. Just... go somewhere else." Vex waves his hand, and Rafael turns on his heel and tries not to move like the beaten animal he is as he goes back to the room he stays in, alone, where he lays awake all night in a bed where there is no one to hold him.
How they talk to him would hurt less if it wasn't true.
He is sneaking off to find sex, the comfort he isn't allowed to have, the only touch anyone ever gives him. He does sit too close, and not know how to stand or sit in ways that aren't a wordless invitation. He does lie, over and over and over again.
He breaks all the rules and he can't seem to stop.
But... it's only because he's so lonely he could scream until his throat bleeds if he has to live where no one will touch him.
Rafael throws his backpack across the room, slamming his door so hard the frame rattles and hearing Mr. Martin's muffled no slammed doors, please! from somewhere else within the house.
Another broken rule.
Rafael collapses onto his bed, curling up on his side, pulling out the plastic feather he carries everywhere he goes. Rubbing his fingers over the texture helps remind him - the guy who gave him the feather thought he could do this. Believed in him.
Had said, somebody loved you, and really, really meant it.
Even if someone had, Raf thinks, they probably couldn't love him now. Not this version of him, anyway. And the guy, who had been gorgeous and had been one like him, definitely... He didn't really know Raf at all. No one does.
But everyone here thinks they don't need to talk to him at all to already know everything they needed to in order to judge him as worthless.
Their judgments would feel less like damnation if he didn't think so, too.
He'd only ever been worth what his body could do for the ones who put the collar around his neck. That hasn't changed at all. He just has no collar and no one to care for him now. No one who cares about him. His handler was right. He's only ever going to be wanted for one thing.
If it weren't for the feather and the memory of the man in the museum believing he deserves to be free, he'd walk outside right now and turn himself in.
Go back to his master and mistress, to a home that isn't home but at least there they cared enough to touch him.
At least there he had been lonely without being alone.
hey hey hey I have had a hell of a day (Actually Hell) because I did too many fun things (a problem apparently) and then also we put up the christmas tree leading to the inevitable christmas tree installation arguments (they pop up every year like clockwork!)
anyway i have been overstimulated and stressed (just want to emphasize that there is NO pressure here whatsoever! id like to avoid any semblance of that actually and I know you're already working on 12 days so take your time) and it would be very cathartic to see chris dealing with similar issues (the Wonderful guy. we are pretty similar.) thanks a lot for reading this, even if you don't write anything !
Sorry this took so long, Anon! I swear I've been trying to get this written for literally almost two months now
CW: Some references to Chris's past, overstimulation, anxiety
"Hey, where did Chris go?" Laken blinks and looks around, but the living room of the house they rent - filled with laughing, happy people - shows no sign of Chris's telltale lavender hair with its new-penny copper roots.
One of Brit's friends just shrugs at them and gestures, vaguely, in the direction of the kitchen. "Dunno. He wandered off a while ago, maybe that way?"
"Oh, okay. Huh." Laken steps back, the circle of laughing people closing up tight as soon as they do. Their dark eyes scan the room, but there's no sign of him.
He'd been doing great - all but holding court, one of the most popular people at the party. He's sort of famous, since the Olympics, and people had been peppering him with questions and compliments, crowding around wanting nothing more than to be friends with the ex-pet who stood up to the bad guys on live TV. They'd seen him dancing, too, the music loud enough to nearly make the walls shake. The easy, unselfconscious dancing they loved in him the most.
He'd seemed to be enjoying himself, at the time, but...
Where has he gone?
They weave around people, stopping to pick up an ornament that has fallen off the tree. The scent of pine is subtle and ever-present, and they carefully work the ornament's little loop back over a branch, ruefully watching a couple of pine needles come loose and drift down. The damn thing is already starting to turn a little brown around its edges, thanks to Laken's roommate having insisted on buying it literally the day before Thanksgiving.
Laken doesn't even celebrate Christmas, not since they stopped going to Mass on Christmas Eve years and years ago. Still, in a house they rent with three others, they're the only one who doesn't at least pay lip service to the holiday.
And even if they don't give a fuck about Christmas, they do like having an excuse to throw a party.
The tinsel wrapped in spirals around, over, and below the ornaments glitters in the light, and the look makes them think of Chris, and how his eyes have always looked just the same, to them, when they're out at night and the moon hits the green of his irises just right.
Their search leads them to Ben, contentedly sitting on the couch, a drink in one hand and his phone in the other, quietly reading something there while the party is in full swing around him. He glances up and then instinctively, immediately, uses a finger to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Laken. What's up?"
"Is Akio not coming tonight?"
"Oh... no." Ben blushes - it's adorable, and Laken can't help the smile playing around their lips. "He's got some kind of meeting with the gymnastics team, or his coaches? Or... something like that. He said sorry, though."
"Nah, no problem. But, hey, so. Uh, have you seen Chris, like within the last ten minutes or so??"
Someone puts Christmas music on and Laken shudders as they hear that damn 80s pop song start up again. If they have to hear that fucking song one more time...
"Nope. Not in a while." Ben shrugs, taking a drink. Whatever he has in that cup is pinkish-red and probably far more alcoholic than it tastes. Laken's roommate had insisted on a signature cocktail. "You could check outside? Sometimes when there's a lot of people, to Chris it's... too much."
Laken nods, still scanning the crowd, but their stomach knots a little with the first hit of real anxiety. Ben is right, Chris can get overwhelmed by too much noise and movement, but also he's been drinking tonight - they saw the same red punch in a cup in his hands earlier - and he has a tendency to get... hazy, when he drinks. Flirty in ways that aren't natural to him. Willing to let people hug him that he doesn't like, unable to bring himself to stop them. Sometimes his stammer smooths out, which makes people who don't know him feel more comfortable and people who do know him nervous. He starts tipping his head to the side in a way that makes the sweep of his growing-out hair hide the scar on his forehead, biting his lower lip when he smiles. It makes Laken feel a little sick to see it happen and realize Chris doesn't even notice when he's doing it.
The last thing they need is to have to come up with an explanation for Chris losing track of himself again, or why he's eating olives off the charcuterie board Brit brought knowing damn well he'll just go to the bathroom and get sick all over the place again, or... fuck, what if somebody hits on him and he's too drunk to stop it?
That hasn't happened since college, but...
They pull their phone out, uneasily checking for a text, but there's nothing. If he went outside, he'd text, right? He does, he always does. Texts can be easier and Chris is always a little nervous about being outside alone.
He insisted on coming tonight, said he was feeling good lately, but-... what if-...
They flinch when fingers touch their arm, only to see Ben must have stood up when they weren't looking. He slips his own phone into his jacket pocket and looks Laken over more closely. "Hey. It's okay, he's probably fine. You know he gets weird when parties are really going. It's like a light switch, enough to too much, I totally get it. It's why I'm on the couch fucking around on Kindle instead of, you know... talking to people." Ben says it like talking to people is literal hell, and... okay, Laken can see how that might be the case. "He probably just needed to get away from it and wandered off."
"Uh, yeah. I know." Laken rubs at the back of their neck, fingers moving through the soft, shorn undercut beneath their longer black waves. "I'm sure that's it. Just... you know, sometimes he... when he gets nervous..."
"I got you." They adore Ben, sometimes, for how often they don't have to finish the sentences they don't want to say. He knows what words haven't yet spilled, unwilling. Sometimes he acts like he belongs to us, not like he loves us. Sometimes I can't trust him to find his way back on his own. Sometimes I feel like Jake, and I hate feeling like Jake.
Words die in their throat.
Ben squeezes their arm, gently. "Let's split up and search around. I'll go outside, you go around the house, okay? We verify how he is, then whichever one finds him tells the other. Sound good?" Ben smiles, and Laken relaxes a little, finding a smile for him in return.
"Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Ben."
"No problem." Ben has always understood Chris, thanks to his little brother being similar in some ways. He understands Laken's worry, too, because better than anyone else here - he knows how Chris sometimes gets lost in his past, especially if he's drinking, worse the maybe twice Laken's ever seen him try an edible or a pill.
What if he got drunk and someone offered him something and he took it? Drunk Chris sometimes isn't a Chris who can easily turn down anything he's offered.
This party was a stupid idea.
Laken takes a deep breath and squares their shoulders.
Chris is not a child.
He is a goddamn grown man and Laken is not his keeper. They're not his parent and they're not a babysitter. They're definitely not his fucking... owner or whatever the bastards that hurt him would have called it. They're his partner. He can handle himself, better than they could if they'd lived his life, and they need to trust him to either know his limits and to get away if he can't say no, or to come to them if he wants to ask for help. Otherwise, they're not any better than the bullshit he's been buried in for longer than he's known them.
Ben goes to check outside, slipping silently out the sliding door onto the back porch where a small crowd has congregated in a cloud of skunky smoke, while Laken heads upstairs, peeking their head in to room after room with no sign of him anywhere. They see some movement under a pile of coats, but that's... definitely not Chris, based on the very female voices who yell at them to give them some fucking privacy, please.
"Sorry, Brit," Laken calls, closing the door tightly. "And, um, Leigh. Just looking for Chris-"
"Well, he isn't in here or we'd have kicked him out already," Brit says, cranky but without any real anger in her voice. Laken doesn't recognize the redhead whose eyes pop up from beneath the pile of coats next to her. "Check a different room."
"Yeah, I will. Uh... keep having fun, I guess-"
"That's the plan! Now leave, please!"
The door latches as they close it, and they exhale. There's one room left, at the end of the hall, and they can hear a familiar murmuring from behind the door when they press their ear up against it.
Laken knocks, rapping gently with their knuckles, and turns the knob when they hear no answer - but no demand to stay out either. The murmuring goes silent. They sigh, and the door swings open, light cutting across the carpet until it reveals their wayward boyfriend.
No one has claimed this bedroom yet, so it's bare and empty except for a couple unpacked cardboard boxes, Brit's exercise bike by the window, a couple of her yoga mats, a laundry basket with a few folded towels, and a bare mattress the last housemate had left behind on the floor when they moved out.
Laken's lips press together, eyes scanning the room. Chris's phone is on the mattress, along with an empty beer bottle, but Chris isn't. "Chris? Cariño?"
A muffled rustling makes them jump, heart in their throat, and then they realize the sound came from the closet, where the folding doors are closed. Laken pulls them open to reveal Chris curled up, knees nearly to his chin, an open bottle clutched in one hand, his chewy necklace in the other. He'd chosen the bat one tonight, and his hand is closed around it in such a tight fist Laken can tell his knuckles are white even in the dark.
Chris doesn't look at them. He's swaying, rocking forward and back, his eyes focused on something far, far away from them. There's red lines on his left wrist, where he's dug his nails in, scratching not quite deep enough to draw blood, but close. Laken takes a deep breath, shifting into a crouch.
"Talk to me, Chris."
"No." The answer is flat, and they watch his thumb rub over the little nub of the silicone bat's nose, the points of its tiny ears. "No, no, no. No."
At least he's saying it out loud.
That alone makes the knot of anxiety in their chest start to loosen. If he can say no, he isn't gone, maybe just... standing a little farther back, inside his own head, than the surface.
"Okay. Okay, that's fine. No talking, that's fine. Are you okay, baby?" Laken keeps their voice just above a whisper and lays their hand on the wood trim that frames this shitty excuse for a closet, the floor creaking under them. "You... kind of vanished on me, there."
Chris's eyes flick to them and then away again. "Loud," He manages, and he sounds like he's forcing the word out between gritted teeth. Maybe he is. "Too, too, too... too loud. Too much, too... many."
"I guess Ben called it." Laken sighs, pulling out their phone and sending Ben a quick text that they found Chris and everything's fine. they get a thumbs-up in reply almost immediately. Ben must have been as anxious as they are, if he was just watching for their text to come in. "Do you want me to call Jake to come get you, or..."
"No!" He snaps it, and Laken tries not to wince. He's just struggling with the noise of the party, they tell themself, he's not actually angry. Chris almost never gets angry, and even then it's only at himself. Which... is worse, somehow. "No. Just... Quiet, it's... it's it's quiet."
"Right. Do you want me to stay with you? Be quiet with you?"
He shakes his head, but he doesn't say anything else. His mouth moves, but no further sounds come out.
"Chris, did..." They want to ask, did someone say something to you? Sometimes people said things, referenced pets or something in a way that set him off. But even if someone had... he probably wouldn't tell them, at least not now, not when every word seemed to have to filter through layer after layer of self-protection in his mind. "Never mind. Is there anything I can do for you? Water, or..."
He shakes his head. "No. Just. Um. Quiet... quiet, now. Please?"
"Yeah." Laken leans over and presses a kiss to his hair. He tips his head against their lips and they exhale in relief. "I love you, Chris. Come back if you can, but if you can't, that's okay, too. Just don't hurt yourself, okay? Things should start winding down in a couple hours." They take the little plastic bat and push it against the hand that's still scratching at his shoulder, until he takes hold of it again, pressing it against his mouth and running it back and forth, back and forth.
Chris is quiet, but as they open the door to head back into the hallway, they hear a quiet, "Love, love you," from Chris, barely audible.
They smile as they close the door. Down the hall, the sounds of the party hit them like a brick, beckoning them back to the noise and the cheer and the awful fucking Christmas music still blaring at top volume. Someone yells something out and the whole damn crowd cheers, making Laken wince at it feels nearly deafening.
I know you have little time on your hands for writing atm but I might just sneak in here anyways to give input. Who knows maybe you have time some day :D
I remember you posting about this Au where Chris won‘t get saved and Branch throws him on the street when he‘s "too old" and Chris encounters Kauri and he brings him to Jake and it‘s much harder to recover from there on.
Can‘t stop thinking about it it made me so sad!
Maybe you can write a piece about them meeting this way sometime when you feel like it 👉👈🥺
CW: Aftermath of spice, some dubcon implications, brief internalized ableism, drug use
Kauri wakes in a pile of bodies, briefly content simply knowing that if anything is the opposite of being alone, it's this. He still aches in all the right places from last night, and stretches his arms above his head, arching his back. His eyes are closed.
Someone next to him mumbles and rolls over, rolls away. Mourning the loss of even one point of contact, Kauri sighs and sits up. His head hurts, but that's normal on a Sunday morning, especially when his Saturday nights had been so fun. Sober now, he knows it's time to dress and disappear into the daylight, off to find the next drink, the next pill, whatever will soothe the way even now, he feels hollow.
He makes it to the door before he realizes he isn't the only person awake this early.
A flash of blue is slipping out ahead of him, hunched over in clothes too big for his frame. The man's profile is oddly delicate, strikingly beautiful.
Kauri had a hazy knowledge of someone with blue hair the night before, his back against someone's shoulder, another man between his legs. Or had it been the other way around, had he been between some man's legs...? It's hard to remember details. Kauri had been between two men himself, never the same two men twice.
Man, last night was fun.
Still, yeah, he remembers the hair. And a vague recollection of a sweet smile and soft pleading. The way his hips had rolled riding someone, hands splayed out on a sweat-soaked chest, biting his lower lip with his eyes closed. Making noise like it was forced out of him, but it'd been... yeah.
It'd been a performance.
Kauri had figured he was probably a hooker called in for the fun, but... now he wonders.
Hookers don't stay overnight.
"Hey," He calls out, and hurries to catch him. "Hey, wait up." He grabs the man by his arm. "Wait-"
The man goes still. He's short, skinny, swimming in these clothes. His hair's dirty and dull with copper roots showing through. But he turns to look back, and his irises - at least what Kauri can see of them around the dilated pupils - are the brightest green that Kauri has ever seen.
He's also clearly still high. Or maybe high again.
He has pale freckles in a scatter across his cheeks and his nose. Kauri wonders if you could play connect-the-dots with them, make something, maybe just a constellation.
"... what?" The word leaves the man slowly, like he has to consciously think about it first. "They... they said I could... have more before I left. I... didn't steal." He hesitates. "Did I?"
There's a scar over one cheek, somebody cut him with a knife. Not too bad - just for show. Just to make the scar.
Kauri swallows, and puts on his brightest, friendliest smile. "No, no, you didn't. And even if you did, I wouldn't say anything to anybody. But, just. I didn't get to say much to you last night. We were busy, right?" He winks.
"No." The man's gaze never meets Kauri's own - it dances, shifts from looking past his left shoulder to somewhere over his head, down to the right. Eye contact comes in brief flickers, as if he can barely stand it. He smiles, but it isn't real. It's false and faint. "Busy... last night. Having fun."
"Yeah, uh, it was a good time."
The man hesitates. Then he turns away again, pulling himself free of Kauri's grip, rubbing at the place where Kauri's hand had been nervously. "Good," He murmurs, as if reminding himself. "A good time. I had... a good time. I w, wanted-... I wanted... this. Always..." He trails off.
Then he starts walking, as if he's forgotten Kauri was even there.
"Want this," He's muttering. He sways from side to side as he walks, then stops, then starts again. His hands rub constantly, compelled, against the seams of his jacket.
Kauri's intuition prickles like a physical touch to the back of his neck, the weight of a shock collar, and he moves fast to catch up. "Hey, uh, are you-... um... let me buy you some breakfast, yeah? I got, like, forty bucks to my name. That'll get us some food. You look like you could stand to eat more."
The man pauses, briefly, looking over in Kauri's general direction. His hands bury themselves into his pockets and he hunches himself so much he seems inches shorter than he really is. "... okay. You, um. Want, want-..." He winces. "Wait. Silence is better than stammering, silence is better than stammering," He whispers, a recitation, and Kauri swallows as his spine chills from the nape of his neck down to the small of his back, all at once.
He's heard that chant before.
"... you're one of us," Kauri says, and it isn't a question. As soon as the other man tenses, he has his wrist up, looking side to side to make sure they're alone before he snaps open the leather bracelet and shows his barcode.
The man goes very still. Green eyes wander over the sight, and then he pulls his sleeve up to show his own. "WRU, Facility 001, Romantic 223499."
It's irresistible. Kauri hears another pet give theirs, he has to give his, too. He can all but feel his handler breathing down his neck waiting for it. "Right. Facility 001, Romantic 645898. But, uh. I'm Kauri." He tries for his bright smile again, but the other man doesn't return it. "What's your name? What do people call you?"
The man swallows. Then, he offers quietly, "My Sir... called me Baldur."
3: George Bailey “We’ve lost everything we have.” | Disowned Drowning | Comfort: Christmas Market
4: The Grinch Sedatives | Blackmail | Yandere Whumper | Comfort: Ugly Sweater Party
Follows on this piece exploring the AU of Chris never being rescued/running away and instead being abandoned years later on the street
CW: Drug use, drugged whumpee, references to noncon/dubcon scattered throughout
-
“Hey.”
A foot nudges against his side, but Baldur barely notices the pressure pushing into one rib. He’s drowning and it feels wonderful. The push of the pill through his veins keeps him languid and loose-limbed, lying on the ground with his eyes open, staring up into the watercolor sunset. He can feel the earth turning on its axis, spinning wildly in the empty universe. The pinks and reds in the clouds above him shift and change with the movement.
Everything was so loud today. There are people everywhere, crowding together for the Christmas parade. He’d taken his usual route around looking for someone who might give him a bed to sleep in if he handed over the body everyone used anyway, but instead of the usual handful he knew, there had been police officers watching with their handler-like eyes, groups of families fighting and laughing and shouting.
The Christmas market and parade. He’d forgotten about it.
His Sir had always given a speech at the parade, ridden in a float. Baldur had watched him on television each year, lying in silence on the floor, wondering if he missed his Sir or was glad for the time alone. Desperately grateful for any time at all where he wasn’t afraid.
But then he’d forgotten it would still happen, even after his Sir didn’t want him anymore.
Today had been terrifying. People everywhere and he’d had to push through them as he moved, the constant weight of their voices pressing his brain into a smaller and smaller space, bouncing around the inside of his skull.
He’d caught himself shifting his hands, trying to flap, had to stop himself - stillness is better than what I do - repeating his handler’s mantra for him in his mind over and over and over again. But if he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get the sounds out from under his skin. Everything had been crawling over him, laying against him, buzzing like bees in his ears and behind his teeth.
Then he’d run into Vamp, a runaway like him who works a corner at night and a convenience store counter during daylight. She’d seen the look on his face when he ducked inside to hold off the worst of the noise and told him to wait while she got something out of her purse. She’d even bought him a bottle of water to wash it down with.
About an hour after that, and in the hours since, everything has been soft around the edges, the noise bouncing off of him. There’s a wall between him and the rest of the world. He doesn’t even know when he got to the park, only that at some point he stopped standing upright and instead was like this. Nothing ached in his legs and arms any longer, his mind no longer buzzed with the weight of the noise.
It feels just like the mornings at home with Sir, or when he’d gone off to work for the day and left Baldur behind, dozing drugged in his bed waiting for him to come back.
He used to cry all the time, when Sir was gone, wishing he could think again. Palming the pills when he dared. Now he just wishes he could at least go back to the quiet room and the comfortable bed, to one man demanding access to him in exchange for his life, instead of many. But the pill helps.
A little.
The foot nudges him again.
“Hey, are you-... are you dead?”
Baldur manages a blink. He has to consciously tell his head to move on the stem of his neck to look to the left now and see the man leaning over him, staring down.
Vaguely familiar, with wild black curls ringing a perfectly lovely face, big warm blue eyes, dark brows a little knit together with concern. The guy who bought him breakfast a couple of weeks ago, he thinks, after they’d been the stars of the show in that house the night before. That had been fun, Baldur thinks. Maybe. Or had it not been? Skin on skin never feels good, but he’s supposed to act like it does. Sometimes he blanks out and he thinks his body has fun, then… His lips move with his thoughts, unable to separate enough not to.
The man squints. “Okay, so not dead, definitely moving and breathing, but… are you, like, OD-ing, or… what is this whole thing happening here? What am I looking at?”
“... colors,” Baldur whispers, and looks back up into the sky above him. Grass tickles the back of his neck and the palms of his hands. “Night, soon. Then we’ll see stars, stars dead… a billion years ago. Far enough… far enough away… we still see the lights. Like me. Dead but you still see me… dead, but the image… like ghosts. Like… us.”
The man’s frown deepens, but he drops into a crouch, laying a hand on Baldur’s forehead, pressing a palm to his cheeks one after the other. He closes his eyes at the touch and pushes up into it like a cat. His Sir never cared enough to check him for fevers like that. He has fuzzy memories of a woman, dark hair, smiling eyes, who would do that. Oh, sweet boy. You’re on fire, huh? The image dissolves, though, before he can hang onto it or turn the impression into a real memory. It leaves an imprint of pain behind, making him wince.
The man pulls his hand quickly away, and Baldur fights back the urge to whimper at the loss.
No one touches him anymore unless they want to fuck him about it. He’s so tired of just wanting someone to hold him and stop there.
The man sighs, shifting to sit down. “Just really fucked up, huh? I get it.” After a pause, the man lies down beside him, fingers laced together behind his head, following Baldur’s gaze to the sky. “I do that, too. What’s got you wanting to fuck off out of this reality tonight?”
Baldur doesn’t answer.
Instead, he thinks for a long, long moment of silence, and then manages, “... I forgot your name.”
“Kauri,” The man answers readily, without offense. “That’s okay. I remember you said you’re called… Baldur, right?”
“My Sir… called me that.” Baldur blinks again, his eyes shutting with a clang in his mind like garage doors before opening back up again. The thought makes him smile. “I… don’t like it much. But there… isn’t any other.”
“Oh.” Kauri thinks that over. Then asks, “What do the guys you fuck call you?”
“... baby. Sweetheart. Sexy…”
“Yeah, I guess there’s only so many nicknames in bed. Do you want to be Baldur?”
“... no.”
“Oh. Then… you can pick your own new name, if you want.”
It takes a little while for the statement to work its way in. He hears the words but they don’t really land, just sort of flit around his head for a while trying to find a place to nest. He giggles at the thought, like pretty birds with wings chirping pick your own, your own, own new name, name you.
Kauri watches him, then exhales. There’s a fond sort of smile on his face, but it isn’t the kind of smile Baldur is used to seeing, one heavy with meaning. The kind of smile that comes before a hand on his ass or moving his head down where they want it. Baldur turns his head to look back. They’re inches apart. He’s probably supposed to kiss him, now.
But the pill makes it so he remembers that he doesn’t actually want to do that. It makes him so he can just lay here, and wait to be kissed or not kissed. It’s okay. Everything is okay, like this.
“Funny to see it from the outside,” Kauri murmurs, and then moves up on his elbows. “Hey. Listen. If you could call yourself anything else - not Baldur, or your number, just like anything else that you picked and you alone… what would you choose?”
Baldur blinks again. Lets the words settle, arrange themselves into something that makes sense. Then, he closes his eyes and drifts, almost asleep instantly as soon as he shuts himself away from the vision of the sky and the way the yellow-gold fading sunlight turns the hair of the man lying next to him to some kind of glimmering brilliance. “... -ris,” He mutters, the sound coming to mind without any thought.
“What?” Kauri pokes him in the nose, making him open his eyes with another giggle to see his confusion, which only makes Baldur laugh harder. “What’d you say? Did you say Chris?”
No.
But Baldur can’t say no, can he?
No, good boys only say yes.
“Yes,” He says, and puts his hands over his mouth to try and stop his giggles from escaping. He fails, and finds himself rubbing his feet one against the other even through his shoes, rolling from side to side. He thrills at the forbidden movements, something he can only do now, when his mind isn’t in control of him any longer, when the handler’s whispered demands and punishments aren’t the loudest thing he hears.
“Oh, wow, you are gone,” Kauri says, a little enviously. “Well, damn. Man, and that was basically my plan tonight, too. That’s okay, though, nothing like playing babysitter to the world’s most beautiful park decoration for a few hours to make you appreciate sobriety, huh?”
Baldur’s laughter fades, replaced with a hazy frown. “... hours?”
“Right. Yeah. Cause the way you are right now, somebody’s going to murder you and you won’t even notice until like ten minutes after you’re dead. So I, being your self-declared fairy godmother of the evening, am going to keep an eye out and make sure this little Cinderella lives past midnight.”
Kauri pokes him in the nose again.
“Got that, Chris?”
It sounds good, actually, that name. Baldur weighs it on his tongue. He mouths it, teeth close together and then opening, tongue moving. Chris. Chris. Chris.
“Chris-... Christopher,” He sounds out, slowly, thinking of a child’s movie he barely recalls, a teddy bear. “Christopher. But Chris.”
“Right. Once you sober up, I’ll get you something to eat and then I want you to go see a friend of mine. I think you could maybe use somewhere to crash for a while, and there’s a place I go - they don’t make you do anything, there. So I go there sometimes. There’s a shower and you can eat any of their food and nobody stops you. You’ll like it. How’s that sound?”
Baldur doesn’t hear anything Kauri says. He’s too busy sounding out the name he’s chosen inside his mind. But he knows from the way Kauri’s voice lilts up at the end that he’s been asked a question. So he just says, “Okay.”
“Great. So tell me more about the stars and shine on you crazy fucked-up diamond.”
Kauri lies back beside him, the side of his arm just barely touching Baldur’s, a warm touch grounding him to the earth without climbing on top of him or shoving a hand down his pants or telling him to shove his hand down someone else’s. Baldur lets his eyes close, and breathes in the cool air.
“A lot of the stars… are already dead. But, but we… still see them. Because the light, um, of dead… of the dead stars… still travels so, so far… and it takes so long… we see them shining… and, and they’re already gone…”
“Hm. I take it back. Talk to me about something less depressing than that.”
Baldur has to think for a long time to find something that fits. Then he offers, “I met… a man over by the red diner… who carves little horses out of wood. He told me that he used to… work with wild mustangs, horses, a long… long time ago…”
“Perfect.” Kauri’s smile is brilliant, and Baldur is caught by the sight of it, staring for a long time in silence with wide eyes at the way it shines. Those blue eyes catch his, their heads turned towards each other. “Well? Keep talking.”
Baldur swallows, and then slowly nods, and tries to think of all the funny people he’s met since his Sir decided he needed replaced. He stammers, sometimes, but Kauri doesn’t seem to notice or maybe just doesn’t care.
He doesn’t hear the handler’s voice in his head, either.
Not while Kauri is looking at him. For the first time since his Sir shoved him out of the car and drove away, he feels like someone cares.
