CW: Recovering pet whumpees, brief unintentional medical whump, conditioned responses
Alternate universe where @boxboysandotherwhump’s Dee and Sam find somewhere new for safety... it’s a (slight delayed) birthday gift for Theo!
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“We don’t have room for them both,” Jake mutters, worrying at a hangnail on his thumb that he hasn’t yet gotten up the courage to pull, and has already clipped as close to the cuticle as he safely can. “Where are we going to put them? The fucking porch?”
“We’ll figure that out,” Nat says, reassuring, arms crossed in front of her. Outside, the night sky is clouded and a formless, featureless blue-gray, lit at its edges by the soft orange glow of the city. The two of them sit in uncomfortable hard-backed plastic chairs in the waiting area of a doctor’s office not far outside of downtown.
Jake leans over and picks up a magazine, flipping through it. His eyes scan through images and words without really seeing or reading them. Celebrity gossip, bullshit about food trends, bullshit about exercise, bullshit about parenting, bullshit about-
His eyes catch on a full-page WRU ad. It’s a photo shot in a slightly filmy, blurred way, as if to echo old-style vintage TV shows. A teenage girl in a school uniform sits at a table, chin on one hand, looking with slightly rolled eyes to the side. Next to her sits a man in his twenties, a collar visible above the crewneck of his sweater, pointing out something on the paper in front of them with a cheerfully helpful expression.
Behind them, a woman clearly meant to be the girl’s mother looks over her shoulder with a warm smile.
Give your children every academic advantage - and a lifelong best friend - with a Box Boy all their own. Find a Platonic Companion to add to your family with WRU.
Bile rises in Jake’s throat. He looks at the mellow, pleasant smile on the man’s face and wonders what torture it took to create it, how long the man spent locked in the cells, how frightened he was before they gave him the tiniest hint of mercy.
He knows there’s a law that they can’t use actors to portray the Box Boys in advertising, it has to be the real thing. So what did they do to get this guy camera-ready? What will they do if he ever fails to nail the shot?
He closes the magazine with a slap and tosses it violently back on the side table.
Nat glances over at him, eyebrows raised. “You okay, Jake?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, glowering towards the darkness visible through the slats in the blinds at the front window. He sees headlights cutting through, briefly blinding him, and blinks, rubbing at his eyes.
“Showtime,” Nat murmurs. “Remember, they’re a bonded pair.”
“Yeah, got it.” Jake pushes himself to his feet. Shadowy figures outside exit the car, one person from the driver’s seat and two getting out of the back. Jake squints, only able to see silhouettes thanks to the still-shining headlights. “Jesus, how fucking tall is that guy?”
The door opens, Dr. Masood coming in, gesturing the two others behind him.
The first one through is short - or maybe he isn’t, but he seems short compared to the hulking goddamn giant who walks behind him. The guy has to duck not to knock his head on the doorframe, and even Jake doesn’t have to do that.
Jake’s eyes narrow at the sight of the immense, muscular man, scarred heavily down one side of his face right up to his auburn hair, and down his neck, disappearing into the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing. There are scars on his hand, too, making Jake think there’s a lot hidden under that shirt. He looks… weirdly familiar. Like Jake has seen him somewhere before.
The man sees him and his eyes narrow right back, putting a hand on the smaller one’s shoulder. “Sam,” He says, in a low voice. “Stay close.”
Dr. Masood closes the door quickly and locks it, glancing around. “Hello, Natalie. Hello, Jake. Sorry I’m late - Anderson had to evade a potential WRU tail to drop them off with me. We’re here safe and sound, though.” He moves over to the door back into the hallway where the exam rooms lie. “I’ll need to perform basic physical examinations. Who would like to go first?”
Sam - the smaller one is Sam, Jake tells himself, memorizing the name quickly - presses his back against the big guy. He’s dressed in a loose t-shirt that’s more tunic than top, going down nearly to his mid-thighs with leggings underneath, sleeves pushed up to bare his hands as he crosses his arms in front of himself. He’s gorgeous, shorter maybe than Chris is. His eyes, though, have a flinty spark that Chris’s eyes don’t. “Dee and me, we don’t separate.”
Dr. Masood considers, and nods, slowly. “Fair enough. You may both come back with me, then.”
Jake, who has seen newly-freed Box Boys lose their absolute shit on well-meaning physicians after nearly all medical care has involved torture in their memory, moves as well. “I’ll sit in on it.” When he catches the poisonous little glare from Sam, he gives them a patient smile. “No worries, I don’t look, just stay outside the room to make sure you’re safe.”
“Oh, sure, you say that, but-”
“It’s standard,” Dr. Masood says in his own warm voice with its lilting, slight accent. “I have worked with Jake for many years, I promise he means what he says.”
Sam and Dee share a look, and then they must decide this is as good as they’ll get, because they nod - with a little huff from Sam - and follow Dr. Masood and Jake back to the door labeled PATIENT ENTRANCE.
“I’ll keep watch,” Nat calls.
As Jake’s back turns, she picks up the magazine he discarded and starts flipping through it, curious about what angered Jake so badly.
Dee ducks again to avoid the doorframe, even more this time, and Jake clears his throat mildly. Part of him wants to remark on it, the rest of him knows how annoying it is to have people constantly point out you’re tall. After all, he gets it all the time.
He can’t shake how weirdly familiar this guy looks, even though he’s sure he’s never seen him before.
“We’ll just take this exam room,” Dr. Masood says mildly, opening a door and flipping on the lights. “Sam, if you’ll step inside. Dee, is it?”
The giant nods.
“Dee, if you’ll stay out here with Jake. We’re going to do a basic physical and I would prefer to give the patient some privacy.”
“Oh, we don’t get privacy,” Sam says, casually, his arms swinging a little at his sides as he moves into the room. He’s already pulling his shirt off, not even waiting to be told. Jake catches sight of scars, long, thin, and surgical, along his ribcage and chest.
“Nonetheless, I would like you to get a sense for it,” Dr. Masood says kindly. “To your underwear, please, and here is a gown to wear-”
“Don’t want to bother with the gown, and underwear just slows me down. Look at whatever you want.” Sam shrugs, and Jake quickly turns away, looking across the hallway at a framed painting of a flowerpot. He knows the challenge when he hears it - are you trustworthy, will you look, will you touch, will you hurt us, will you will you will you.
Dee looks over at him, leaning against the wall, and Jake realizes the big man is more or less echoing his movements. When he crosses his arms, so does Dee. “Sam is my bonded,” He says, in a low voice, barely audible.
Maybe he’s shy.
“So they said in the phone call,” Jake replies, pitching his voice low and kind to suit the big man’s demeanor. “I know you don’t know our safehouse, but I should tell you, we don’t separate bondeds, if you were worried about that. You stay together.”
Dee swallows, hard, and looks at him more closely now. He’s still got a collar buckled around his throat, tight enough that he’s got a bit of red rubbed raw along the edges. “Good. Um. Good. They, the last place, they said no room for a bonded pair, that we’re… dangerous.”
“Well, for starters, they shouldn’t say shit like that to you.” Jake snorts, irritated, raking a hand back through his hair. “Even if they separate bonds for sleep, they shouldn’t tell you it’s because of you being dangerous. That’s not really why.”
Inside the exam room, they overhear Sam say, “No, it’s fine, I don’t even have a gag reflex,” and Jake is reminded with a bittersweet pang of Kauri.
Who is, as usual, God knows where doing God knows what with some asshole who doesn’t deserve him.
“Well, why then?” Dee asks, curiosity overcoming his reticence to speak. “Why do they separate us? I-... I need my bonded. Sam takes care of me.”
Jake had expected it to be the other way around. His surprise must show on his face, because Dee actually smiles - very slightly - and then looks away. He’s hiding the scarred side of his face, Jake realizes, his clouded eye.
“Usually the big guys are there to take care of the smaller ones,” He offers, and finds himself relaxing more and more in Dee’s company. “I don’t think I’ve seen it the other way around before.”
“Oh.” Dee goes quiet, for a second, and he starts fiddling with his fingernails, looking down at them. Within, they hear Sam critiquing at length the quality of Dr. Masood’s instruments. Finally, Dee asks, hesitantly, “Why do they separate us? You didn’t answer.”
“Oh, it’s. So, um, WRU is the one who puts bonded pairs together. So the idea is… to fully recover, they have to learn how to be apart. Some safehouses do it, like, what they call the ‘tough love’ way. Separated right off the bat.” Jake shrugs. “Nat doesn’t believe in that shit, though, because… we have kind of a different philosophy.”
Dee just looks at him, eyebrows raised slightly in curiosity that he doesn’t put words to.
“If you’re bonded,” Jake says, glancing down the hall towards the door to the waiting room where Nat watches for the possibility of a raid right here and now, “you’re bonded. It’s a real feeling, right?”
Dee doesn’t respond at first, then realizes Jake must be waiting for him to at least react. He clears his throat and says, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, it is.” He smiles, just a little, his head still tipped so Jake doesn’t see the scarred side.
“Right. Just because they created it artificially doesn’t mean it isn’t a real attachment, a real bond, even real love, depending on the people involved. Separating can be… some people handle it, some don’t. But the slow approach works better, Nat says, and she’d know, she’s been at this for like twenty years. So, you stay with us, you stay together. The work on learning how to live on your own happens together. We can kind of adjust towards independence as we go, right?”
“Um. Right. But… what if we don’t want to be independent?”
“Well, that’s up to you. We want you to live happy lives, free of WRU, as the real people you really are.”
“Huh.” Dee looks away, wincing as if his head is beginning to hurt, reaching up to rub at his temple.
Jake looks over at him, and once again, he can’t quite… shake the sense that Dee looks like someone he’s definitely seen before. Maybe at a group meeting, or in a video or something? Maybe…
“Hey.” He clears his throat. “Uh, can I ask, do you-... remember anything from before you became-”
“At least warm the fucking speculum up first, asshole!” Sam shouts from inside, and Dee whips around with sudden speed at the sound of his voice raised high from surprise and discomfort. Jake watches him nearly smack his head on the door before he ducks at the last second, glowering at the doctor, who is already backing away.
“My apologies, I wasn’t aware that it hadn’t been left to warm as I requested, the machine was off-”
“Yeah, well it was still cold. It’s okay, Dee, I’m okay, but listen if I wanted to freeze from the inside out I would buy some ice cubes!”
“Again, my apologies-”
The moment is gone. Jake frowns, staying right where he is, looking at the flower in the frame across the hall and wondering what lives these two had lived before they came here.
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@finder-of-rings @astrobly @burtlederp - who have asked to be tagged in all things
