Possible NSFW just so ya know! If you have “whump” in your title or description, I will follow. Even though this is mostly going to be reblogging other posts, I do a little bit of writing myself, (if you can call it that) so please feel free to hit me up with a prompt and I promise I’ll probably disappoint. Please don’t be shy, I will respond. This is my brand new blog, btw✌️&❤️
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CW: Choking/strangulation, whumper as whumpee, guns, brief dubcon and gore mentions, brief gendered slur towards the end
For @amonthofwhump day 11: Strangulation
You can find more Nanda on Jameson’s masterlist
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He was stupid, really. Just fucking full-on stupid. No excuse for it, no reason, no understandable explanation for what he’d overlooked. Forgetting to check one single room in the enormous house. Losing track of one person for just a few seconds. Not even his assigned target.
Just one single man in one single room that Nathaniel Benson hadn’t accounted for.
One stupid mistake, and now he’s on his back with heavy hands closed tight around his neck, gasping for a thin thread of air he can just barely pull into his lungs.
This asshole, with a face like a thumb that got delusions of grandeur, is going to kill him and dump his body and Nanda’s brand new house will go to some chump who doesn’t even deserve it.
“Let… go-” He hisses, but honestly, he doesn’t even know if this guy speaks any English. There’s no reason for Thumb Face to know it, they’re deep inside the borders of another nation across the breadth of the world. But he says it anyway.
It’s pure instinct, and just as stupid as forgetting to check that room. Like the guy will just decide to pull back, whoopsie-doodle, guess I’ll stop trying to kill you since you clearly don’t actually want me to…
As it is, the guy only sneers down at him, and leans forward. His weight on Nanda’s stomach keeps him pressed into the floor, just a few feet away from his gun.
He could fix this, if he could only reach that gun. Just a few inches too far away. Just a little too far.
Just far enough.
Bright white bursts like fireworks flash in his vision, his body pleading with him for oxygen he can’t provide. Between those sparking lights, he can see the snarling expression of the man who will soon murder him, his teeth far too white to seem real, sweat beading up on his forehead over a pulsing vein.
I am going to die at the hands of a man who looks like a child drew him while blindfolded.
His fingernails scrape and scrabble along the man’s thick forearms, gaining purchase but no strength to pull him away. He’s already torn long red gashes, but none of it moves the man at all.
If only he could reach his fucking gun-
His vision grows dark at the edges, heart pounding, desperate to force what oxygen he has left to his brain to keep it working for as long as it can.
The darkness is growing…
Who will even miss him? After he’s pitched into some dark river and found by police who see no identification on an anonymous corpse? Who would notice when Nathaniel Benson never comes home?
(Anon, I wasn't sure if you meant this for the comf asks or for the NSFW asks, so I... sort of combined them! Dinner date + going down on someone)
CW: Dehumanization, dubcon, implied dubcon, NSFW
"Is that Nathaniel Benson?"
Nanda hears her voice from across the room as she spots him and smiles, shifting in his seat as he cuts a bit of steak. Seared perfectly, it still bleeds, so rare it might as well still be mooing. He raises a hand in greeting, a bite speared on his fork. "Monica Niederman, as I live and breathe. I haven't seen you in months! What've you been up to?"
"Oh, nothing much." Monica laughs. "Just spent some time in South Korea for work, actually. Flew back from Seoul two days ago and I'm still fighting jet lag."
"Oh, yeah, I've done that flight a few times. It's a r-..." He hitches in a breath. "... A rough one."
She pauses, looking at him more closely. "Are you feeling all right, Nathaniel?"
"Hm? No, fine. Why do you... ask?"
"Nothing, just... You seem a little... off."
Nanda had to work to keep his voice from going husky. "Oh, I guess just... Just a... strenuous workday."
His other hand, hidden beneath the tablecloth, twists sharply in the hair of his pretty pet. He feels the way the beautiful boy's throat works around him as he tenses and he nearly finishes right then and there.
Little brat, trying to get him off too fast.
He kicks lightly at the boy's leg. The pet pinches his leg right back.
He'll pay for that later.
"Oh, oh of course. I suppose I should let you-"
The pet coughs, briefly gagging - something Nanda was sure they'd trained out of him. But Monica hears it and frowns, confused.
Around them, the rest of the restaurant goers eat. The tablecloths drape the floor. His pet is firmly hidden. He jerks on his hair again.
"Did you hear that?" Monica says, head tilted to one side. Nanda's heart beats faster with the threat of discovery. It sends whole new thrills of pleasure down his spine.
"Nope. Anyway, Mon, I need to get back to my dinner before it gets cold..."
"Oh! Right. So sorry. Have a good night, Nathaniel. Let's do lunch next week, okay? Just you and me."
"Definitely. Wednesday, 1 pm? I'll text you details."
"It's a date!" She grins, cheeky, and walks away to join the rest of her party at a table across the room.
His pet pulls back and Nanda sighs at the sudden chill against wet, hard skin. There's a snort. Nanda tries not to roll his eyes. "What?" He whispers without moving his lips, taking a bite.
"You have a date." It's a vicious little hiss from the jealous, gorgeous pet under the table. Nanda badly wants to look under just to see his brown eyes sparkling, angry and sullen.
He settles for using the grip on the pet's hair to shove him back where he had been, wet and warm and tightening as Nanda pushes in too far too fast. Teeth graze but never quite hurt.
"Don't worry, pet," He soothes, and shifts his left leg. It presses between the pet's, and - unseen under the table in the middle of a crowded restaurant - the pet begins to grind himself on it, even as he works Nanda with tongue and throat like he'll die if he stops.
Nanda takes a bite of steak, smiling. There are perks to owning a restaurant. Knowing three members of the staff know very well he has his pet under there with his mouth hard at work is at least half the fun.
His pet moans, and the vibration has Nanda rolling his hips, just a little, too.
"Don't worry, pet," He cooks as he cuts another bite of steak. "Date or not, you're the only one I'm fucking."
He makes eye contact with Monica as he comes down his pet's throat.
ash beloved, as a prince of woe and misfortune (a fibromyalgia haver) can i request some jameson on a bad pain day
the current vibe is 'i need to pee but my legs are fucking screaming and i havent even moved them yet and my shoes feel too tight because all my peripheral joints are getting inflamed' and i feel Terrible bc i used to be able to just ,, do stuff and now i cannot because of the evil 'You Have Pain And Doctors Don't Know Why' Disorder™
i am not sure whether i want to revel in shared misery or schadenfreude but i am sure i want to see a guy in pain
Anon, my gift to you and my sympathies for your Whole Body:
"You pushed yourself too hard, that's all." Nat tries for soothing, but when she puts a hand out to touch his shoulder, Jameson shoots her a furious glare and she carefully shifts it back again. "Right. Okay. You have to take things slow, honey, your legs-"
"-are goddamn fucking useless, yeah, I get it. I got it." Jameson's rasping voice is thinned to little more than a whisper as he hunches over himself, sitting sideways on the couch with his legs out on the cushions bent at the knees, refusing to straighten. He slams a fist down on his thigh just to feel a bloom of new pain that's is brighter and new compared to the eternal goddamn throbbing of the old. It's... nice. He tries it again on the other side.
Jesus, how fucked up is this? That this is what helps?
"Hey, hey now," Nat says, and before he can do it again she takes his wrist in her cool hands and holds his arm steady. "Not your best idea. I didn't call any part of you useless, that isn't what I said, honey."
"I wanted to walk to the goddamn gas station." Jameson glares at her hands, but he holds still under her deft, gentle touch. He doesn't pull away, or hit anything, he just... sits here, his knees shifting and muscles twitching in a pointless attempt to escape what's inside of them, what's as much a part of him as his own breath in his lungs now. "It's less than two miles. Less than two! I used to-... to run, on the treadmills in training, for fucking five miles, ten miles, no fucking sweat. My handlers told me I had a record for going so fast. I could run for fucking days on end, if I had to! Now..."
He groans, dropping back against the arm of the couch, even angrier when hot tears burn against his eyelids, trying to force their way out.
"Jameson-"
"Now... I can't even fucking walk."
"You do have the crutches, and the chair you can use, I know the sidewalk runs all the way past the gas station-"
"I wanted to fucking walk, Nat! I felt really good this morning! This shit didn't start up until I was putting on my fucking clothes! I shouldn't have fucking needed the goddamn fucking crutches or the stupid fucking chair!"
He grabs almost sightlessly for the crutch leaning against the couch, has it in his hand, and pulls his arm back to throw it.
"I hate this fucking shit!"
Nat's hand closes back around his wrist, and this time her grip is like iron, and Jameson feels his rage wither when he meets her steady hazel eyes.
"Jameson. You are not going to throw that."
Nat rarely uses this voice. Not with him. But now she does, firm and even stern, brooking no appeal. If she wasn't Nat, that voice would be an impossible turn-on. He'd be on his knees, not that he could do that without screaming any longer. He'd be begging her for... anything.
If she was Nanda...
No one's ever going to be Nanda. Not ever again. He pushes down the sharp, if finally slightly faded, spike of pain.
Nat refuses to let him look away this time. "Listen to me. That crutch is a tool, not a weapon. It was a gift, and it is a gift for you. It lets you go places you could not go before. Just like the chair. So if you break it, it's broken, and you lose that tool. Please, honey, don't cost yourself something that helps by getting angry at it for being needed."
"I didn't need it, before," He whispers, and she takes the crutch away from him, laying it down on the floor. He lets her do it. "Even when I was on the run. I didn't need this shit until I started getting better, and it feels like I'm just getting worse."
She nods, and holds his hands in her own. The ache in his fingers fades a little when they warm to each other. "Your body is incredible," She says, voice low. When he scoffs, she shakes her head, smiling. "Come on, let me finish. You survived two people who tried to kill you."
"Technically five people have tried to kill me."
"Five?" Nat looks, briefly, so baffled that Jameson nearly laughs. "You've only mention the two-"
"Those were the two where I killed them first," He says, voice low. "I don't even feel bad about it."
"I know. And I'm not asking you to feel bad. I've done some things in my life I'm not proud of, too, but it kept this safehouse together and I don't regret it for a second."
"What... what did you do?"
"We're not talking about me. I'm saying that you lived when other people died. You have survived more than any other runaway I've ever met. Your body carried you through it. It kept you alive. It kept you moving, kept carrying your weight when it wanted to give out because you hadn't given up fighting. Now, it doesn't have to carry you so far anymore. Your body knows you're safe, that you have people here who care about you, so it's hurting like hell because it hasn't allowed itself to hurt as much as it needed to for a long, long time. Your body carried every bad thing that ever happened to you, and I for one am grateful for it, because it got you here to us. Look at you."
Jameson shifts, trying to move his legs so he can face her. They protest with a scream that he has to grind his teeth against, but he manages to get both feet flat on the floor. "Look at me?"
"Yeah. Look at you. You're alive, honey." She smiles, hands on either side of his face, and he finds himself - reluctantly - smiling back. "You're alive and you wake up every day and sometimes the days are good, and sometimes they're not-"
"Like today. Today sucks."
She laughs, short and soft, and he loves her so much it is physically painful, the way that you love a mother, or a sister. "Yeah, okay. I'll give you that. But today is just one day, and you've got more comin'. Maybe tomorrow you can walk to the store, or maybe you'll need the crutches or the chair, but you know what? You'll still get there, if you want to, because you are the most stubborn son of a gun on earth and if you want those awful taquitos, I know you'll find a way."
Jameson's smile shifts. Incredulous, he asks, "Did... you just say 'son of a gun'?"
"Oh, shut up. I grew up in a family where that was just about the worst thing any of us could say without serious punishment. Sometimes that stuff still comes out." She pokes him in the nose, watching him wrinkle it in response.
There's a pause.
Then he clears his throat.
"It wasn't, uh, it wasn't taquitos." He discovers he's mumbling, flushing a little.
"Oh. Doughnuts, then?"
"No, not those, either, just... it's stupid. But Vince, uh, the other day he made this stupid fucking joke about Red Bull, so..."
"So..." She blinks, eyebrows furrowing. "You were... going to buy him a Red Bull?"
"I was... gonna buy about fifty and put them in his bed."
Nat just stares at him, blinking, as seconds stretch slowly out. "You were... you were going to-"
"Buy like... fifty Red Bulls and put them in his bed, uh, cover them in his fucking blankets and like arrange them like a person, and then... you know... It, uh, makes better sense in context."
"How could it possibly? You know what, doesn't matter. Here's what we'll do. You get those crutches on your arms, and i'll drive you to the gas station, and we will... we will get you your... fifteen Red Bulls."
"Fifty."
"Oh, my God. Where do you even get that much money?"
"... Vince gave me money."
"You're using his own money to prank him?"
"It's not like he fucking needs it!"
"You know what? I'm going to stop asking questions when the answers only give me new questions to ask." She pats his arm, and he takes the opportunity to brusquely throw an arm around her and crush her tightly to him in a hug. "Jameson-"
"Thanks," He mutters, then pushes her back and away so he can clumsily get on his feet. His knees nearly buckle, but when he throws his hand out Nat is holding the crutch, and he slots his arm into the cuff that fits just below his elbow. Nat has to hand him the other one, and help him with his shoes, and the whole time his legs ache like someone is slowly sawing them off with a nail file, but he stays standing.
He wants to play this stupid fucking prank on Vincent fucking Shield, and he can already tell it's the only thing he'll be able to do today and even that's only with Nat's help.
By the time they get back from one single errand he'll need more painkillers and a nap just to recover enough to finish putting the energy drinks into Vince's bed. Then maybe another nap after that.
But it's what he wants to do.
Fuck it.
If he only gets one thing to work on this shitty day, it might as well be the most bafflingly confusing thing he's ever done.
Plus, Nat always plays Jameson's playlist when she drives him in her car. So that's one good thing.
Ash. Please. I’m BEGGING for just a morsel of literally anything with Nanda. All I have to offer you is🐚🍄🪢🧋Por favor mi s’more!!!
CW: EXPLICIT DUBCON, nonconish, BBU, pet whump, box boy, Jameson's Masochism, Nanda is a creep, creepy whumper, intimate whumper
Follows after the events that conclude in Family Business
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"Fuck me," The pet whines, sliding a hand beneath the waistband of Nanda's pants, sliding closer to him where they lay in bed, pressing himself hot and needy along Nanda's body.
Half-asleep, Nanda grabs the pet's wrist and tightens his grip until the pet hisses in pain and tries to jerk himself free. "Mmmmf. Stop fucking around."
"I'm not. I'm not, you asshole, I am dying here, please, I want your dick so bad-"
"Stop." Nanda finally cracks open one eye.
The pet is so close they're nearly kissing, his black eyes mostly faded, bruising still painting him in gorgeous watercolor shades of yellow and purple everywhere Nanda looks. Between visible injury and the needy edge to that pleading voice, Nanda feels himself stir to arousal.
He sighs. "You know the medic said no sex for six weeks."
"But-" The pet exhales, dropping his head down, kissing Nanda's chest and then dipping beneath the blankets. In the cave of warmth created by their bodies, his mouth is hot and wet, and Nanda groans, tangling a hand in the pet's mop of dark hair. "I need it," the pet whispers. "You can't have a slut and not fuck him, right? We die without dick, they tell us in training all the time."
"If you were dumb enough to believe that, maybe you deserve this." Nanda snorts, derisive, even as he groans at the way the pet tongues over his pelvis, those fingers with their broken nails and bloodied cuts still bandaged alternately rough and soft where they knead his hips. "Fine. Suck me off. That counts, right?"
The pet makes a discontented noise, muffled against his skin. "No. It fucking doesn't and you know it."
The pet flips the blanket back, and Nanda is caught all over again by his little whore's beautiful dark eyes ringed in healing bruises, locked on his, mouth hovering above him in a way that is painfully promising. "Why do we have to wait? You fuck me so deep it hurts all the fucking time and it's great. Why can't we just... you know... ignore that bastard and fuck anyway?"
"You have the filthiest mouth," Nanda murmurs, rubbing his thumb in circles behind the pet's left ear until his beautiful boy all but melts. "And... still no. I fuck you deep, but I don't tear you apart in a way you can't come back from, and I won't now. I'll wait, and so will you. You want cock so bad? Put it in your mouth. But nothing inside, no whips, no spikes, and no bleeding until you heal all the way and the medic gives me the okay."
The pet stares at him, then pulls away from his hand and tries to roll over and turn his back. "Fine. Fucking jerk yourself off, then. I'm going to goddamn sleep."
"Like hell you are." Nanda tightens his grip to pull the pet back down by his hair until he can hear the soft whine of pain, shoving that pretty face back between his legs where he belongs. "Put your mouth to work."
"Why fucking bother?" But the pet's expression has brightened, and when Nanda shifts his leg, he can feel the pet hard against his calf, and feel how the little slut shudders as soon as there's friction.
"Because I fucking said so. Now open up, or you can sleep with the big gag in until you can't even close your goddamn jaw anymore to stop me."
The pet's breath hitches, pupils blown wide, and he lowers his head with only a little pressure from Nanda's hand to take him into his mouth. Nanda's head drops back against his pillows, eyes closing, rocking his hips into the hot, wet tightness and the movement of that tongue, how easily his pet's throat opens for him.
He takes a big, deep breath, and then violently shoves the pet down until his nose is pressed into Nanda's pelvis too hard for him to breathe.
The pet groans, instinctively trying to push back and away, but Nanda only holds him down with even more force as he fucks up into his throat.
"Don't try to get out of it now," He says, in a voice as much a snarl as a purr of affection. "You were such a mindless fucking animal for cock, what, now you change your mind and have regrets, huh?"
He finally relents - just long enough to let the pet breathe desperately through his nose once, twice, three times - and then jams him down again.
All that beautiful bruised skin, those gorgeous scars on his back, those wide eyes fighting back fear as lack of air makes him dizzy... that's all Nanda's creature, his slut, the love of his fucking life.
Not that he'd ever say it.
Instead, he moves his leg to rub more firmly against the pet's own hard cock, listens to the cries fucked out of his throat, pleasure and pain and panic.
"Get yourself off," He says, almost growling, feeling like an animal himself, "Or don't get off at all."
The pet responds immediately, rutting against his leg like the little whore he's been trained to be. It's a heady rush, knowing he could kill the pet right here and now - that his pet knows he could kill him and nobody would ever even notice - and that they're both still hard and sweating and moving together in bed regardless.
The pet knows Nanda could kill him.
But he also knows he never would.
It takes embarrassingly little time to come down the pet's throat, feeling the other man's own movements frantically speed up, chasing a climax Nanda could deny him, even as Nanda keeps his hands pressing the pet's head down, keeps him dizzy and airless, keeps feeling the way he keeps trying to gasp in air as Nanda finally softens.
Nanda lets go of the pet's hair, only to slide his hands around his neck instead, over the soft leather collar. The pet whines, his eyes all but rolling back in his head. Through a haze of endorphins, Nanda watches his cheeks redden, the way his eyes get distant as spots must be dancing in his vision.
"Good boy," He whispers. "Come for me and you get to breathe again. Come on, sweetheart, there you go... good boy..."
He doesn't let go until he feels the pet go still, every muscle locked. The sound he makes with Nanda still soft in his mouth is fucking incredible.
He's only minutely still able to move as he comes against Nanda's leg, grinding himself against it until his body goes limp and his eyes flutter closed.
Nanda lets go immediately.
He pulls the pet up close, arms around him. When the pet wheezes, coughing weakly, Nanda hums and kisses his hair, nosing into the soft shampoo-scented strands.
"Feel better?'
"No," The pet croaks, coughing again, but he curls into Nanda's embrace anyway, giving the lie to his protests. He's shivering, trembling with the force of it all. "You asshole. That's not what I-... shit. That's not what I wanted." His voice is a hoarse rasp, and Nanda could fuck him all over again just at the sound.
"Since when is what you want a consideration?"
The pet grumbles, but settles, and the more gently Nanda holds him and kisses him and murmurs praise into his ear, the more the trembling finally fades and he goes boneless and satisfied, just the way Nanda likes him best.
Well.
That and crying from pain and overstimulated pleasure.
"Medic said six weeks," He whispers against the pet's forehead, moving barely moving. Almost a kiss. "Two more to go."
There's no answer. He realizes after a pause that the pet has fallen asleep in his arms. Nanda smiles, letting his own eyes drift closed again, and surrenders to sleep himself.
Holding him like this might be the way he likes the pet best, too.
Caretaker dotes over their favored whumpee. They cry when they cry and they're happy when they're happy.
Except when whumpee's physically injured. Caretaker turns into a personal stoic doctor who'll do even the worst operation imaginable, whatever it takes to keep them alive, calm through the entire thing.
Give me an “asshole” whumpee, abandoned by all of their friends. And I mean all of them.
Ever since the whumper started threatening and hurting them, Whumpee, who was already unliked by most, would lash out at people and accuse them of secretly siding with Whumper. Eventually, people just got fed up with checking up on Whumpee. They got tired of making sure that Whumper wasn’t able to get them. They just left.
Caretaker lasted a while. They cared about their friend, the person who was there before all of this. The person who laughed at their jokes and made sure they never went too far with their bad attitude, even on their worst days. So Caretaker stayed for the old Whumpee, the one who didn’t have trust issues or severe anxiety manifesting it’s way into angry outbursts.
But Caretaker eventually realized that their version of Whumpee wasn’t coming back. Caretaker knew that Whumper was still out there, sending threats and ready to attack Whumpee the second they aren’t protected. Actually, they already have. Caretaker is just one person, and they’re only half invested in this whole affair. Whumpee is getting hurt again and Caretaker can’t or won’t do enough to stop it, just make sure Whumpee doesn’t end up captured.
Whumpee is spiraling, they see their last remaining friend slipping away. They know that their actions have pushed Caretaker far beyond their limits.
But they can’t stop themselves. Their unhealthy defense mechanisms have taken control.
“You don’t care about me! You’ve never cared, not since Whumper’s first attack! If you cared, you wouldn’t have let this happen!”
“I’m just one person, Whumpee! It’s not my fault you ran everyone else out of your life.”
“But you never stood up for me! You never convinced them to stay!”
Caretaker sighs angrily. “Look, Whumpee. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t like who you’ve become. I think maybe… maybe you’re a bad person. Maybe Whumper was right to hurt you.”
“Caretaker…”
But Caretaker doesn’t stay to listen. Whumpee sinks to their knees, sobbing. They don’t know how many hours they spend there, crying and pleading with no one in anger and despair and loneliness. But most of all, fear. Now that Caretaker is gone, truly gone, there’s nothing and no one left to protect them.
And Whumper is aware of this.
“Aww, Whumpee, are you all alone? I guess not even Caretaker could put up with how annoying you are. But don’t worry. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s this. I will never, ever leave your side until the day you die.”
“Do you think you’re the first one I’ve kept, whumpee?” Whumper kneels in front of them. Whumpee makes a small noise, scrambling back against the wall, but Whumper only snatches them by the collar, hooking a few fingers underneath the leather to keep them there. “You think this little thing makes you special? Keeps you safe?”
“No, sir,” Whumpee answers quickly, shaking their head. And of course they hadn’t. The collar had never kept them safe from Whumper—not truly. But it had kept them alive.
Written for @bbu-on-the-side Day 13 of the BBU Community Days, “Safety”; posted early, because impatience. Refers to multiple conversations I’ve had with @redwingedwhump , especially regarding the Chewtoy concept. Thank you so much!
A WRU inspector confiscates a pet.
Content: BBU, heavily leaning in the institutional aspects of it; conditioning, witnessed and discussed noncon (not explicit), feverish whumpee, dehumanisation, derogatory language, overall this is an 18+ piece for sure.
Sometimes, Adrian wondered how his job would’ve been different in other parts of the country. Rich assholes would be rich assholes everywhere, sure. But maybe a New England professor or a Californian tech billionaire would tone it down a bit.
Rich assholes in Texas would never back down from laying it all out openly.
He was greeted by a Guard Dog at the front gate of the estate already. The man was build like a brick house, shoulders wider than Adrian’s, thick black collar around his neck, with a polished gun on his hip that seemed to have been chosen for looks, not function.
In any other state, this would’ve been the rich asshole’s first offense. Here in Texas, though, pets were allowed to be armed. Adrian didn’t like it one bit. But then again, he didn’t like a lot about the pet system.
He lifted the badge he wore around the neck. “WRU. Pet Safety Inspection. Name’s Adrian Delgado.”
It was chilling how the scowl on the Guard Dog’s face softened into fear and submission. He wondered what it was. Was the mere sound of the company name enough? Was it the way his badge looked eerily similar to the handlers’ badges in the facilities?
Somehow, many pets feared these three letters more than they did their masters. This one seemed to be torn somewhere in between. “Mr Donnell is not expecting any visitors,” he said, as he straightened his back, gaze flickering between Adrian’s badge and his face. “Sir.”
“By possessing four or more pets, Mr Donnell is obliged to accept unannounced inspections,” Adrian said. “He does not have to let me in, but it might result in his owner’s permit to be withdrawn.”
The pet raised his chin and nodded curtly, before he turned aside to speak into his radio. There’d been a hint of fear flickering in his eyes. Adrian got it. According to the files, Donnell owned eleven pets. Eleven humans stripped off of their humanity to serve the whims of one oil billionaire in cowboy boots. This was the world they lived in.
Eleven pets, that would be boxed up and sent back to the company, if Donnell wouldn’t pass the inspection.
Oh, oh, you know what I'd love to see some time? Kauri getting an electric shock from a domestic appliance or something. It doesn't need to be serious, we just know how much he hates getting shocked 👀
"You need a new toaster."
Jake looks up, rubbing a hand over his face, blinking where he sits on his bed in a pair of pajamas pants. Things are blurred and bleary, it's too early for this on one of the few days he doesn't have class. Still, though - he can't help but feel a little... happy, maybe, to hear Kauri's voice. "What...?"
"Your toaster's fucked up." Kauri has it in his hands, gripped white-knuckle tight. Jake reads in his appearance the story of his night - his hair is a mess of black curls, there's dark circles under the bright blue eyes, he's still wearing clothing he had on two days ago, the last time Jake saw him.
His shirt is on inside out. Whose cologne will be smell like if Jake gets close?
There's a twist of something odd and sharp in Jake's chest. "... Our toaster is fucked up?"
"Yeah. It... It's broken. It shocked me. When I plugged it in." Kauri dumps the toaster on the floor in Jake's room, and Jake winces as he watches ancient crumbs scatter everywhere as it tips on its side.
"... And you brought it up here because..."
"Because it's broken. You should get a new one. I wanted to tell you." Kauri's voice is short and sharp, Jake can see his eyes are a little too wide. He crosses his arms and Jake thinks it looks like he's hugging himself, trying not to be obvious about it. "It's a stupid toaster. It hurt me. It-... It shocked me, and-"
"Yeah. I'll handle it, I will. But, are you okay?"
"What?" Kauri looks... uncomfortable and surprised. "I'm fine."
"Yeah, but. You said it shocked you?" God, he's too tired to think. Jake leans into instinct instead. "Like electric shock?"
"Yeah. Just. A little one, but..."
Silence draws out between them. Jake rakes a hand back through his hair, and then pushes himself to his feet. If Kauri's eyes drop to Jake's bare chest down to his stomach and the waistband of his pants, Jake doesn't notice. Or he pretends not to, anyway. There's a Tshirt on the floor, and he pulls it on over his head. "Yeah, but... Still. Are you okay?"
"I'm not hurt-"
"That's not what I'm asking. Kaur, you used to be shocked, before. Even if you're not hurt..." He looks back down at Kauri. "That doesn't mean you're okay."
Kauri's smile fades for just a second - then it's back, but brittle this time. "I'm always okay."
"No, you're not. Kauri, I just wanted to know if you need to talk-"
"Absolutely the fuck not. I just came here to get some breakfast, not get trauma interrogations at six in the morning."
"I'm not interrogating you-"
"Then take 'i'm fine' for an answer for once."
Jake's mouth opens and then closes again.
Kauri's smile is small and vicious. "Like I said. Buy a new toaster."
"Kauri, just-"
Kauri disappears from the doorway and is halfway down the stairs before Jake can get out of his room.
The whumpee, fairly new and fairly defiant, spits up at the whumper from the ground where they're kneeling. They half-expect to be hit, mocked, threatened or punished further for their declaration; instead the whumper looks pensive for a moment.
"Okay."
With nonchalant ease they pull out a gun. It stops inches away from the whumpee's quickly paling face, and as the safety clicks off the whumper relishes in silence their suddenly frantic backtracking.
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