behavior modification
WRU has hired renowned behaviorist Dr. Ivan Peters to refine their training protocol for Romantic acquisitions. When Jack Kenyon–the brilliant young partner of one of Ivan’s med school rivals–applies to be Dr. Peters’ research assistant, he has no idea what he’s signing on for.
the kennel
Will and Tommy are headed on an ill-advised camping trip when they encounter some car trouble. Luckily, Doc Barker is there with a tow and some hot coffee. But when Will wakes at Doc Barker's place the next morning, he realizes that he and Tommy have far more than car trouble on their hands.
Hello, tumblr friends. Obviously, I've been more than a little absent over the last year or so, and I don't think that will be changing. So, I wanted to let you know that Joe & Jack, and Will & Tommy have probably done all that they're going to--at least as I've written them. I love them very much, and I love this community very much as well, but my personal life and my writing priorities have shifted away from my sweet boys. I'll do my best to make sure that I leave behind a comprehensive master list in the weeks ahead, so that they can still be enjoyed by anyone who loves them!
I may pop on every now and again to see what everyone is up to. If anyone wants to play around with my characters, they're welcome to it, but I would appreciate a creator's credit in return.
Thanks to all for their love and encouragement, and I'll see you around!
CW: Yandere whumper, aggressive whumper, carewhumper, kidnapped/captivity, beatings, torture (whipping, not shown only aftermath), implied noncon, emotional and physical abuse, restraints, gags, whump/torture aftercare, wound cleaning, blood mention, adult language (I beg! Let me know if I have missed any!)
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God forbid, what the poor lad looks like now.
Kurtis paled at the thought of what may have become of Josh. When he first met him, back when he was first taken, there was fire beneath the fear. A determination that defied his pain. But now, Kurtis debated what could be waiting for him on the other side of the door. Whether the boy would be skin and bones…or ashes and dust. It wasn’t an impossibility, was it? Given Felix’s less than shiny track record.
With a four-pack of beer dangling from one hand and a stack of frozen pizza boxes precariously balanced and teetering on the other, Kurtis kicked the door open. Inside, Felix sat alone in shadowed silence, hunched over on the sofa, his head buried in his hands.
“Oi oi,” Kurtis chirped, his voice echoing through the empty room. “Where’s your better half hidin’?”
Felix didn’t bother to look back.
“Basement.”
His tone was venomous. There was a dangerous stillness to him, a simmering rage bubbling just beneath the surface. Kurtis hesitated, knowing better than to poke the bear. As he edged closer, he noticed a series of deep scratches raking down Felix’s cheek - raw, red and angry.
“I could have fucking killed him, Kurt,” Felix spat, “Look what he fucking did to me.” His finger jabbed towards the inflamed wounds shredding through his face.
"Shitttt," Kurtis breathed. He drops the four-pack and stack of pizzas to the floor, his hand flying to his mouth in shock. The sight was horrific. Felix looked like he'd been mauled by a wild animal. Kurtis could ask why Josh would do that, but he knows why. He could only imagine the terror and pain Josh must have endured to lose control like that. The lad’s a fighter through and through, and Kurtis can’t say he blames him.
But fighting back does him more harm than good. Josh should have learnt that by now.
“I give that brat everything! My heart and soul. I love him down to the bone!” Felix roared, spittle spraying and veins bulging at his temples, “And this is what I get?! Do you think I deserve this shit?!”
Felix’s body trembled with irrepressible rage, as if it were being torn apart from the inside out. The fury coursing through him was so intense, Kurtis feared he might burst an artery.
“Just take some time, yeah?” Kurtis crouched down to his level, placing his hand on Felix’s bouncing knees, “Breathe. Take a minute to yourself. Maybe sleep on it. You’re wound up-”
“Of course I’m fucking wound up, he attacked me!” Felix bellowed.
“I know, mate. I know. But lashin’ out ain’t gonna solve anything, is it? It'll only make it worse. You’re gonna push him further away, you don’t want that.”
Felix’s usually warm and soft brown eyes had narrowed to slits, a storm raging within. His jaw clenched, a low growl rumbling in his throat as he ground his teeth together. There would be no getting through to him, not like this.
“How long’s e been down there for, then?” Kurtis sighed, pushing himself up to his feet.
“A few hours. A day? I don’t know. Don’t care,” Felix shrugged dismissively. It’s just a facade. When he cools down he’ll be fawning all over Josh again, he’ll be glued to him.
“I’ll go check in on him.”
“No,” Felix barked, “Leave him down there. I want him to stew on what he’s done.”
“And I wanna have a word with him. I bet I can knock some sense into that stubborn head of his.”
Kurtis made his way to the basement door, unbolting the sliding locks and turning the key. The basement was sub-zero, without a doubt, his skin broke out into goosebumps from the first step. His breath fogged before him in the frigid air. His eyes strained against the darkness, trying to make out something out of nothing. The only light a faint, flickering bulb swaying overhead. A shiver trickled down his spine as he descended deeper into the depths.
What Kurtis saw made his blood run cold - colder than the bitter air around him. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but it wasn’t this. Any frustration with the boy dissipated in a heartbeat as pity crept in to take its place.
Josh laid on his belly, half-hanging off the metal cot - like he’d crawled to his ‘bed’ but couldn’t muster the energy to heave his body completely up. The chain around his ankle snaked across the floor, marking his trail from the drain to where he’d collapsed. His hands still cuffed above his head. Whip marks criss crossed the entirety of his back, slashed to smithereens, leaving crimson welts blooming against his sickly pale skin. He couldn’t lie on his back even if he wanted to.
And Josh’s face? It made Felix’s wounds look like a little kitty scratch. A bruised eye, the color of grapes, was swollen shut. His still good-eye, streaming with tears, watched Kurtis like a hawk. A rag soaked with blood and saliva was jammed into his mouth, his lips busted and split around the gag.
“Oh, mate,” Kurtis exhaled, his voice heavy with concern. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Josh couldn’t stop sniffling, his Adam's apple fluttering as he swallowed down his sobs. This was in no way comparable to Felix’s injury, this wasn’t a level playing field. Kurtis hovered his palms over Josh’s back, just above his raw, open wounds. Jesus christ, he could feel the heat radiating from his skin, it felt like he was holding his hands to a bonfire.
He knelt beside Josh, his heart aching at the sight of the lad’s injuries. He didn’t deserve this, despite what he did. It’s not proportionate - it’s overkill. The boy’s good eye rolled in its socket before trying to drift shut with pain and exhaustion. Kurtis tentatively reached a hand out to tuck away the strand of hair hanging in front of Josh’s black eye, but panic fills Josh - he flinches away from his hand and cries out into the gag.
“Hey, hey! Easy now,” Kurtis soothes. “You’re alright. I ain’t gonna hurt you, just tryna get a good look at the damage.”
Suspicion and doubt crossed Josh’s face, but he had no choice but to accept. He let Kurtis tuck his hair away from his face, and trace the unmarred skin around his bruise. Kurtis sucked his teeth and shook his head in disapproval. Too far. He went too fucking far. Again.
Kurtis carefully pried the gag free from Josh’s beestung lips and let it fall around his neck. “Tell me your side of the story, man. What the shitting hell happened?”
Josh’s lip quivered. He gulped before he spoke. “He - He tried to r…r-a…p-,” Josh couldn’t finish the word before he fell apart. Kurtis was sure he’d never seen such pain and suffering in his life, not even the other ones endured hell like this. Josh was an inconsolable wreck, hiccuping and choking on his tears, “I can’t. I can’t do it anymore. I c-can’t do this. Please - I’m tired-”
A cry for mercy. Kurtis hears it, but he’s too stunned into silence to warrant it with a response.
“I just wanted him to stop. I-I wanted to make it stop. I-I didn’t mean t-to hurt him, I swear-” Josh squalls desperately. And somehow, Kurtis knew he was telling the truth. Josh didn’t want to hurt Felix…but he needed to. In a moment of panic, pain and humiliation blurring together, Josh’s body overrode his head and heart. Fuck. Kurtis promised himself he wouldn’t feel sympathetic for this one….
“Let’s get you cleaned up, eh?” Kurtis swiftly changed the subject. “That might help you feel a bit better.”
He ran back up to the kitchen and grabbed what he could before sprinting back to Josh’s side. A bag of frozen peas from the freezer, a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medicine cupboard, a dishcloth from under the sink.
“Can I clean your wounds, dude? I’d hate for ‘em to get infected. You don’t need any more strife, do ya?”
Josh weakly nodded his head and groaned his agreement. Kurtis doused the washcloth in the alcohol and touched it to one of the gashes. Josh bucked like a mule and shrieked in pain.
"Shh, I know. Sorry.” Kurtis murmured, his voice filled with sympathy. He gently pressed down between Josh’s shoulder blades, forcing him flat against the cot, "I know it hurts. I’ll be as quick as I can, yeah?”
Kurtis worked thoroughly at cleaning and sanitising Josh’s wounds, even as Josh wept and every muscle in his body tensed and trembled. Once he was done with the wounds, he handed the frozen peas over to Josh. With his cuffed wrists, Josh took the cold compress in his shaking hands and held it against his eye.
“Keep holding that there. Should help with the swelling. Lemme know if it thaws and I’ll find ya something else.”
Josh sniffled again. “I m-must have done something pretty horrible in a past life,” he murmured miserably. Kurtis can’t help but recall how his eyes were so bright when they first met - even if they were twinkling with fear. Now they were just dull, and lifeless. The tears don’t stop rolling down his gaunt cheeks.
“I-...I’m going to die here…aren’t I?” Josh whispered, his voice cracking and broken.
This time Kurtis did dignify it with a response. “No. You’re not going to die. Not here. Not while I’m around. I’ll keep him in check.”
“E-Even when I’m o-old…and grey. If I’m still here then-?” the young lad croaked.
Kurtis perished the thought. He didn’t even know if Felix would still keep him around when he’s grey and old and past it. Or if he’d die long before that day even comes. What could he ever say to make it any easier?
“That’s not going to happen,” he settled on instead. It wasn’t really lying. Josh probably won’t make it to that point - not if the state of him now is anything to go by.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Josh scoffed, and Kurtis could have sworn he saw the slightest twinge of a cheeky smile through the mask of hurt. It pulled at Kurtis’ heartstrings. There’s not a bad bone in the boy's body… leave it to Felix to corrupt someone so innocent.
Kurtis swiped up the bottle of alcohol solution and the cloth, making his way towards the stairs.
“You’re not l-leaving, are you?” Josh fretted.
“I didn’t come here to see you today, did I?” Kurtis frowned, “You were just a little pit-stop.”
Guilt flooded in when he saw Josh’s face drop, and his body slump.
“Look, just…get some rest. Be gentle with yourself. I’ll be the peacemaker and talk to the big-guy.”
“T-Thank you…” Josh whispered. Kurtis only nodded in response and began trudging his way back upstairs.
“K-Kurtis?” Josh called after him. “Could you tell him that I’m sorry? Please. I honestly didn’t mean to hurt him…”
“Between me and you…good on ya for getting a good lick in,” Kurtis winked down at him. “Been a long time coming, if you ask me. Just watch it, okay? I think you should count your lucky stars this time… I doubt you’ll be so lucky again…”
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tagging people that expressed interest in this on a previous post! My apologies if you do not wish to be tagged, pls let me know and I'll refrain from doing similar in future!:
A lil Halloween drabble for Felix & Josh because why the hell not?! 🦇🎃👻
CW: yandere whumper, creepy/intimate whumper, submissive/compliant whumpee, forced feminisation (clothes), noncon touch, noncon kiss, future noncon/fade to black noncon, restraints, kidnapped, captivity, forced relationship, adult language (let me know if I have missed any! <3)
Josh stares into the grimy bathroom mirror, and the mirror stares back. He looks right through himself, past the unholy phantom posing as his own reflection. Hollow eyes flicker to meet hollow eyes, and Josh feels nothing. A defeated stranger glares back at him, with their ashen and gaunt cheeks, swollen red eyes and split lips drawn into a thin line. A lifeless shell of what used to be a man.
What he truly sees is a toy; a living blow-up doll. His hair, for once, looks glossy and synthetic. His eyes are big, blue and empty. He’s sure that’s what Felix sees in him too - a plaything to bend and break to his every perverted will. A puppet enslaved by its strings, nothing without its master’s control.
“Taking your precious time, aren’t you, baby?” Felix’s voice calls from the other side of the door. Shivers ripple down Josh's spine, his stomach twists and turns with cold dread. Josh will always try to steal every minute of privacy and savour every second of solitude. He makes no apologies for that.
“Come on now. Chop-chop. Come out and let me see your costume, my darling.”
Josh’s legs give out, and just in time, he catches himself with his sweaty palms gripping the sink. He wouldn’t be caught dead dressed like this. Scarlet shame colours his cheeks. It’s not quite what he had in mind when Felix picked out a Halloween costume for him, but then again, all the more fool him to not expect it.
He thinks of his Halloween dress-ups when he was a kid; when he’d be bouncing off the walls, itching to hit the streets trick or treating. A werewolf or a vampire, a power-ranger or spiderman-
-Never this. A playboy bunny. A black corset cinched so tight around Josh’s waist that he can barely drag in a breath. A laced thong that leaves nothing to the imagination. Fishnets criss-crossing up his slender legs, complete with a fluffy white tail and floppy bunny ears. Wave after wave of nausea crashes over Josh, he fights back the tears in his eyes. It’s mortifying. He’s beyond embarrassed. He wants nothing more than the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
Felix pounds his fist on the door, “I’m losing my patience. You have until the count of ten to get that perky ass of yours out here. One-”
Josh tries to steady his ragged breathing but there’s no point. He’s near hyperventilating now. His hands shake as he frantically makes his last-minute adjustments. He tugs at his fishnet stockings, runs a nervous hand through his hair, and slips his feet into the towering black stilettos.
Fuck - the last thing he needs is a broken ankle from these too-high heels. They’re like stilts. How does Felix expect him to walk in these things? How can anyone walk in these?! He clip-clops his way to the door, wobbling off balance and nearly slipping on the tiles. The epitome of sexiness, he’s sure…
He swallows hard, his throat dry and tight. Josh reluctantly turns the handle and cracks open the door. His heart pounds out of his chest as he peers out at Felix, the madman's eyes are saucer wide and craning his neck to steal a sneak peek and when he catches a glimpse, his jaw drops.
So does Josh’s stomach.
"Joshua..." Felix groans, his voice a low rumble. He only ever uses Josh’s full name like a furious parent would - to scold. Josh doesn’t understand what he could have possibly done wrong. He stares like a deer in headlights. Felix wedges his foot in the doorway before Josh can even think about slamming it shut on him.
Felix’s ravenous eyes rake up and down Josh’s half-naked form. “Are you trying to give me a damn heart attack?"
With a swift movement, Felix shoves the door open wider and reels Josh out into the bedroom by a bruising grip on his arm. Josh stumbles forward, his ankles nearly rolling. Felix’s gaze is intense, his eyes burning into Josh’s exposed skin, drinking in every detail. The tight fishnets, the sky-high heels, the perfectly tousled hair and floppy bunny ears.
"Holy fuck. I want to rip your clothes off and have you right here on the floor."
He's like a feral animal in heat, barely controlling his primal urge. Felix licks his lips, looking Josh up and down like a piece of meat. His warm hand splays through Josh's chest hair, stroking down and over Josh's corseted belly and slipping beneath his lacy panties. Josh bites his bottom lip to trap a whimper, his eyes squeezing shut.
"No tricks this Halloween, gorgeous," Felix chuckles. He nibbles into Josh’s neck, his teeth sinking in like a vampire feeding. "All treats."
Felix cups and squeezes Josh's ass cheek, moulding it like clay in his kneading hand before landing a sharp slap. He steals his chance and quickly darts his tongue into Josh's gasping mouth, moving his hand from Josh's behind, to tangle in his hair and wrench his head back.
Josh can't remember what it feels like to have the guts to fight back. He couldn't imagine and wouldn't dare dream of shoving Felix off him, of swatting his vile hands away. He's learnt how to slip out of his body, to not feel a thing. He watches from above like a spirit, he watches every single grope, he watches as Felix shoves his face and tongue even further into Josh's. But he doesn't really feel it. He zones out and tells himself he's anywhere but here.
Still, his body involuntarily gasps and sputters for air when Felix's tongue eventually untangles with his, and only the rank aftertaste of his breath remains. His chest heaves against Felix's in perfect synchronisation.
"The things you do to me, Joshy," Felix grunts out of breath, his eyes burning with lust, "Did you think I'd let you get away with looking this delicious?”
Felix's arm snakes around Josh's waist, his other hand reaches up to caress Josh's cheek, fingers tracing the outline of an already swollen and purpling bruise from yesterday or maybe last week. Josh instinctively recoils, his body stiffening. He will forever despise the way Felix touches him, always possessive and always dominating.
He will forever despise the way he’s too weak and pathetic to dare put a stop to it.
"You look so fucking good, my little bunny," he purrs, his breath hot against Josh’s ear. “Get on the bed.”
Josh flinches, his eyes wide with terror. Tears creep up on him as he shakes his head. His lip quivers, “N-No. No, you said - you said you wouldn’t. Felix,” Josh squeaks, a sob clawing its way through his throat, “Y-You said we were going to carve pumpkins-”
“Pumpkins can wait. I can’t.”
Felix hooks a single finger under Josh’s collar. With a brutal jerk, he drags Josh stumbling across the room and throws him down onto their bed. He lands with a thud, the wind knocked out of his lungs. Before Josh can even blink, Felix is on top of him and pinning him down, unhooking the suffocating corset.
He rolls his head to the side as tears slide down his temple. He forces himself to gaze out the window and focus on anything but this. A full moon, with its sinister orange hue, hangs high in the night sky and casts an eerie glow along the bedroom carpet. How fitting for Halloween, Josh bitterly thinks. The only monster Josh needs to worry about tonight is the one draping himself over his shaking, naked body.
The familiar bite of rope nips at Josh’s wrists and then his ankles as it winds around the bedposts and stretches him out. His muscles are entirely lax, his arms limp and pliable. He doesn’t fight the inevitable anymore. He lets Felix take whatever he wants, whenever he wants and without question.
And maybe… just maybe if Josh is a good boy- if he pleases Felix enough…Felix might reward him. He might let him watch ‘Hocus Pocus’ tonight when he asks...
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halloween divider by @/strangergraphics !
Play Pretend tag list (pls let me know if you'd like to be added!)
A rare third-party POV, this time from the perspective of Grayson's therapist. Consider this the preface to the joint-therapy arc, in the works now.
WARNINGS: Talk of captivity, talk of abuse/noncon, PTSD, referenced suicide attempt
Dr. Collins was twenty-six years old when he began practicing. In the private practice he operated alongside three of his colleagues, he had been the youngest by almost twenty years. For his first few years, he took on the heaviest cases that came through their doors; victims of child abuse and domestic violence. People with PTSD so severe that it impacted their daily functioning.
His older colleagues warned him against fatigue and burnout if he continued to shoulder such an intense workload, but he never once considered backing down.
Their warnings weren’t baseless. The first few years were hard, and all the more difficult for the fact that he was in a new town, in a new state, without any kind of support system around him. There were a lot of long, lonely nights, and more than one unhealthy coping mechanism he used to shake off the weight of his dark days.
Things got better, gradually. He made changes. He met the love of his life and married him just after his thirtieth birthday. They bought a home together and filled it with color and life. He learned the meaning of a work-life-balance and watched as his work became more rewarding than it was exhausting. Things got easier.
He was no longer a young man when Grayson Dawning came into his life, but he was the first client in a very long time that stirred up those long buried fears of inadequacy.
Dr. Collins knew about him before he met him as a client. It felt like everyone in the country knew. Definitely everyone in the state, and most especially in several-town radius of the church that had launched the disastrous mission.
After two months of radio silence following the disappearance of the two young missionaries, most everyone began to assume that they would never come home. Dr. Collins had come to believe it, too, as much as he ever allowed himself the space to think about the missing young men.
And then, beyond all hope, word of their rescue reached their town.
And soon after, Dr. Collins received a call from the pastor of the church, wanting to arrange a long term treatment plan for one of the rescued men. Boys, really. They were so young, still. Dr. Collins had not hesitated to take him on.
He hadn’t known many details, then, about the trauma Grayson and his counterpart had endured in their time away from home. After several months of intensive sessions, he regretted to say that he still didn’t know nearly as much of the story as he should. It seemed that the more he leaned on Grayson to open up, the more he closed in around himself.
Guilt was the primary emotion Grayson exhibited in their months of sessions. It weighed on him, as if he had been the sole survivor. In some way, he thought Grayson might actually see it in those terms. Their captivity was framed, in his perspective, as something that had happened to Elijah, and something Grayson bore witness to. It was Elijah who was taken. It was Elijah who was tortured. It was Elijah who was raped.
(There were private doubts Dr. Collins held but didn’t push too hard. There were too many blanks in the story. Certain territories Grayson refused to touch).
It was for this reason that he couldn’t be entirely surprised the night he got the call that Grayson was in the hospital after an attempt. It didn’t mean he felt the impact any less.
Seeing Elijah for the first time in the hospital that day—the trembling young man holding a bouquet of flowers in Grayson’s hospital room doorway—had driven home the idea he had considered pitching to his patient for weeks.
He could admit that he didn’t know how it would go, putting them together in a session like this for the first time. He had even been a little surprised when both of them agreed to see it through. He wanted to do everything in his power to be worthy of that trust.
TBC...
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TAG LIST: @mylifeisonthebookshelf @hold-him-down @distinctlywhumpthing @diyalogues @finder-of-rings
Masterlist here. FLUFF. THERE IS FLUFF. And also angst. But please enjoy this flash into the future with Jack, Joe, and their sassafras baby girl, Hallie.
content warnings for memories of abuse, vague descriptions of a bbu-style system, adult language, and tooth-rotting sweetness.
years later, with their child: lucky
Joe knows something is wrong the instant he buckles an overall-clad Hallie into her booster seat; he should have picked up on it earlier, but he was juggling macaroni art and a lunchbox and her naptime blanket. But now he sees. Hallie’s cheeks, still blessedly round with baby fat, are red and streaked with tears. At first, he wonders if she’s been hurt, but then he sees the set of her jaw. These are patented Hallie Prescott-Kenyon Angry Tears.
“Pumpkin, you’ve got your angry eyes on.”
Hallie sighs and stares out the window as Joe straightens her harness. Her little chin trembles ever so slightly. “Kaitlyn said something mean.”
Ah, yes. Kaitlyn. Hallie’s Kindergarten nemesis, and, much to Joe’s chagrin, the child of a pair of WRU higher-ups. Joe knows it’s wrong to punish a child for the sins of the father, but if he’s referred to Kaitlyn Halstrom as “Pol Pot in pigtails,” he’s not going to start feeling badly about it now. Especially not when Hallie’s so clearly upset.
“What did she say?” Joe asks.
“She called me a teacher’s pet.”
“Well, you’re right. That’s not nice, baby. But–”
“I know,” Hallie interrupts. She throws her curly head back with a long-suffering sigh. “I told her it’s not nice. And then I hitted her.”
Fantastic. Joe sighs, leaning against the doorjamb. It’s not that Kaitlyn didn’t get what was coming to her; it’s just better if his kid isn’t the one doing it. Jack isn’t going to be pleased.
“Hallie Marilyn–”
“And I told her people aren’t pets.”
Joe’s chest twinges, and he nods. Hallie’s been asking more questions about pets lately, and they try to answer honestly. They want her to understand that pets are not less than, that they are pawns in a system gone wrong–people who needed help and got something else entirely. Hallie seems to get it, but it’s excruciating for Jack. So far, Hallie hasn’t seemed to notice that Daddy needs to excuse himself after those talks. Joe hopes they can keep it up just a while longer.
“That’s right. They’re not. But–.”
“--and then she said she has a people pet at home. That her mommy bought her to help around the house.”
“Okay?”
“It’s not okay!” Hallie fires back.
Joe knows he should be proud–he is proud–but he has a sneaking feeling that he absolutely does not like where this is going. A nervous ache fills the slats of his ribs.
“No, that’s not what I–what did you say, baby?”
“I said that was bad.” Hallie’s eyes fill with tears again. “And then–then, she said another mean thing!”
Joe smooths Hallie’s sticky curls out of her face and cups her cheek. “What, baby?” Hallie buttons her lower lip, trying to stop the trembling of her little jaw. Joe kisses her forehead. “Hallie, you can tell me.”
“She said that my daddy was a pet,” Hallie whispers to her knees. “Before I was born, he was a pet. The bad kind of pet.”
Joe feels like he’s taken a cannonball to the gut. He isn’t ready for this. They’re not even remotely ready for this. Hallie’s only five, and–
Hallie’s sniffles tug him back into the car. “Papa, is she true?”
“I–”
“Were you a pet?”
If Joe could fall to his knees, he would. But he looks Hallie in the eyes and shakes his head. “No, baby, I wasn’t.”
He braces himself, and still, he isn’t prepared.
“Was Daddy?”
“No,” Joe says, so forcefully that Hallie’s little body jumps in the booster seat. She blinks at Joe, and he forces himself to take a deep breath. “No.”
“But Kaitlyn said–”
“Kaitlyn doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
And even though he shouldn’t, Joe slams the car door. He braces himself against the SUV for a moment, both hands spread against the driver’s side window like he’s waiting for someone to search him.
It’s something he’s had to reckon with for the last five years–figuring out how to be Hallie’s Papa and Jack’s husband and himself at the same time. Hallie deserves better than what he’s giving her right now, but all he can think about is how hard they fought to get away from everything that’s about to fall on top of them.
“Fuck,” Joe whispers, his hand clenching into a fist against the window. “God fucking damnit.”
He takes another few breaths–too shallow, not at all calming–and then he gets into the car. Hallie watches him carefully, her brown eyes wide in the rearview mirror.
“Papa, are you mad at me?”
“No, baby.” Joe tries to smooth out the rough edges in his voice as he turns the key in the ignition. “I’m not–but we’re going to have to talk to Daddy when we get home.”
Not that Joe wants to. He absolutely does not. He knows how badly this is going to hurt Jack, and even though Joe knows he’s there to catch him, he doesn’t want to watch him fall. Not when he’s been doing so well.
“Is it ‘cause I did something bad?”
Hallie’s voice is too small, and it makes Joe’s chest feel tight. He sighs.
“Well, it’s not nice to hit.”
“I know,” Hallie says, and the edge in her voice suggests that she is every inch five going on fifteen. Joe would smile if he could remember how just now.
“But it sounds like Kaitlyn’s mommy is saying things she shouldn’t, and Daddy and I don’t want you to be confused.”
“I’m not. I’m a big girl. I’m smart.”
“You are, pumpkin, but even smart people need help understanding things sometimes.” Joe knows that for fucking certain. He doesn’t understand why any of this happened to them. “That’s why Daddy sees Dr. Breyer, right? And why all of the nice people I help come to see me.”
Hallie nods and flops her curls back against the seat. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
It’s something Joe marvels at–the way that, sometimes, an explanation that would be inadequate to anyone else satisfies Hallie’s endless questions. She trusts him. She trusts Jack. She knows they love her. It’s something Joe doesn’t take for granted. He knows how hard it is to come by.
Hallie watches the houses flash past as they make their way home, and Joe tries to ignore the way his ribs threaten to cave in.
It’s Tuesday, so Jack is waiting for them when they get home. He’s been doing some pro-bono counseling a few nights a week at a halfway house for teenage rescues, but Tuesdays are sacred. He’s in the kitchen, hips swaying to some god-awful girl pop from the 90’s, and for a second, Joe thinks about turning around and leaving. He doesn’t want to ruin this.
But when they come in through the mudroom, Hallie launches herself at Jack.
“Daddy!”
Jack scoops her up immediately, spinning in time to the music. “Hallie!” He kisses her curls, and she wraps her chubby legs around his middle.
God, Joe loves them.
“Did you have a good day, baby?” Jack asks, shifting Hallie’s weight to one side so that he can check the slow cooker. Whatever’s in there smells divine.
Hallie sighs and leans her cheek on his shoulder. “Maybe?”
“Maybe? Why’s that?”
“Well, Kaitlyn said something mean, so I hitted her.”
“Hallie Marilyn!”
“I know: hitting’s not nice.”
“You went over this with Papa?” Jack smiles at Joe over Hallie’s head, and Joe nods. He moves behind them, plucking Hallie’s backpack off her shoulders and kissing Jack’s cheek.
“Mm-hmm. But Kaitlyn’s not nice either.”
Jack slips the lid back on the slow cooker, and he sets Hallie on the counter. He keeps his hands on her hips and leans down to give her his full attention. “Why, punky? What did she say?”
“She said–”
“Hallie,” Joe interrupts, his voice creaking like a teenage boy’s. “Why don’t you put your stuff upstairs? I need to talk to Daddy, okay?”
Jack looks over his shoulder, face suddenly uncertain, but he plucks Hallie from the counter and sets her down on the tile. Joe holds Hallie’s backpack out to her–Star Wars, of course–and she takes it from him with a very serious nod.
“So you can help him understand?” she stage whispers.
“Yes, baby.”
“I think Carl is in your room,” Jack says. “You’d better give him some snuggles after you get your homework folder out.”
“Fine.” Hallie says it like he’s asked her to do some great chore. Then, she turns back to him, and a big smile cracks her face. “Can I put on my Moana dress?”
Jack grins right back, but Joe can see the tightness in his face. “Absolutely. It’ll go with dinner. Kahlua pork and pineapple fried rice.”
Hallie’s petite body wiggles in what Jack and Joe have taken to calling her Snoopy dance. “Yes! Yummy!”
“Go on now, baby,” Joe urges.
“Okay!”
Hallie thumps up the stairs, and Joe stands in the kitchen, staring at Jack like an idiot.
“Joe?” Jack asks, and Joe tries–he does–to open his mouth and say something, but he shuts it again.
Jack grabs his phone to pause the music, and then he moves to Joe, wrapping his arms around Joe’s shoulders. It’s the kind of casual touch that Joe missed the most when Jack was gone–and just after he came home. When Jack still thought he was a pet.
Joe buries his face against Jack’s chest, and Jack’s arms circle tighter around him.
“Baby, what’s going on? Is Hallie in trouble?”
“No.” Joe forces himself to lift his head, and the skin around Jack’s blue eyes is wrinkled in concern. “I mean, yes. No recess tomorrow, but–”
“What did that little girl say to her?”
“She called Hallie a teacher’s pet.”
Jack chuckles. “I mean, if the shoe fits–”
Joe shakes his head, running his hands over Jack’s biceps. He talks too fast, but he’s afraid if he doesn’t, he won’t be able to say it. “And when Hallie told her that people can’t be pets, the other girl said she had one at home. That her ‘mommy’ apparently bought the lady to help around the house. Fucking charming.”
Jack stiffens.
“That’s not where it ended, is it?” he asks. Joe prays for a sinkhole to open the kitchen floor and swallow them whole. He can’t tell him. He can’t. “Joe?”
“Apparently, Kaitlyn’s mommy has a big fucking mouth.”
Jack’s face is white. “What did she say?”
“That you were a– a–Jackie, I–”
“A pet.”
And fuck if Joe doesn’t feel like someone just drove an 18-wheeler through his chest. Jack sinks away from Joe’s arms and leans back against the counter, but Joe can’t let him go. He takes a step forward and twines both hands with Jack’s.
“I know this isn’t how we wanted to tell her.”
“Never,” Jack snaps. He won’t look Joe in the face. “Never is what I would have preferred.”
Joe can’t pretend to understand. It didn’t happen to him. But he can see the way Jack’s body curls in on itself, and it reminds him too much of things he thought they’d left behind.
“We knew that wasn’t practical,” Joe says gently, stroking Jack’s knuckles with his thumb. Then, his jaw tightens. “But I could kill that bitch.”
That gets Jack’s attention. His head snaps up. “Joey–”
“I’m sorry. I’m just really fucking pissed.”
“I can see that,” Jack says, a sad smile playing at his lips. He ducks his head again. “Did Hallie ask you?”
Joe’s hands move to Jack’s face, his thumbs anchored at the hinge of Jack’s jaw. They bow their foreheads together, and Jack closes his eyes.
“I told her no,” Joe says. “Because you weren’t.”
“I was. For all intents and purposes. And I was in the WRU system for years after–”
“It was a technicality. Your contract was voided. They had to pay you damages.”
“It doesn’t change what happened to me. Or what people might think of me.”
Joe leans back. “Yeah, well, the people who think any less of you aren’t people worth considering.”
“But they’re out there. And with the media attention we got, there’s plenty more of them.”
“I know.”
It’s why they haven’t been more active in the pet lib movement. They’re donors to every major pet rights organization in the country, but their gifts are anonymous. Jack provides his free counseling, but he only uses his first name with the kids. It isn’t that they can pretend it never happened; it’s that Jack doesn’t want it to be the only thing people see. It took him long enough to see himself again. He doesn’t trust that other people will put in the work.
“It’s only going to get worse,” Jack says. “That Kaitlyn doesn’t know what she’s saying, but in a few years–”
In a few years, Hallie won’t ask them. She’ll find the nearest search engine, and she’ll know everything.
“I know, baby.”
Jack’s throat cords, and Joe can see that he’s trying not to cry. “Did she–she doesn’t know what–what kind I was?”
Joe loops his hands around the back of Jack’s neck and draws him close.
“Jackie–”
“I mean, kids don’t know enough to put that together, do they?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good.” Jack’s forehead slides against Joe’s. “Good.”
Joe feels completely helpless. They can’t be back here. He wants to grab Jack’s phone, to blast fucking Britney Spears until they can’t think anymore, to dance wildly with his husband and pretend like it’s alright.
He wonders if that’s what they’ve been doing all this time. Pretending.
Joe guides Jack’s forehead to his shoulder, and he lets him cry.
Hallie’s voice cuts through the silence. “Daddy! I can’t get the back by myself!”
Joe starts to call back, but Jack presses a hand to his chest.
“I’ll be right there, baby!” he calls, his voice thick and hoarse. He sniffs and mops his red face with his hand.
“You want me to come with?” Joe asks.
“No,” Jack says immediately. His face softens, and he presses a gentle kiss to Joe’s lips. It tastes like salt. “I–thank you, baby. I love you. But I need to do this alone.”
“I’ll be right here.”
Jack tries to smile. “You wanna take your rage out on that pineapple while I’m gone?” He gestures at the pile of ingredients on the counter.
Joe shrugs. What he really wants is to go upstairs and be there for Jack, but he isn’t going to press it. “I can do that.”
“Watch your fingers.”
“Shut up,” Joe says, but the words are watery. He catches Jack’s hand before he can walk away. “I love you.”
“Love you.”
Jack walks away, his fingertips scrabbling nervously against the rough skin at his throat. It isn’t that he thought he would never have to have this conversation; he just didn’t think it would be so soon. It’s been harder lately; Hallie’s so curious, and they don’t want to lie. But every time she asks about pets, Jack finds himself on the floor of his closet with Carl.
He wants his little girl to know that her Daddy is strong, that he would do anything for her. He doesn’t want her to doubt him. And once she knows, how will she ever trust him to keep her safe again?
Jack waits at the doorway to Halle’s room, watching her pose in her floor length mirror. The room is an aesthetic disaster–Star Wars mixed with kittens, with a dash of dinosaurs and a frosting of Disney princess–but it’s important to Jack and to Joe that Hallie gets to make her own choices. She deserves to know that what she wants matters.
Hallie turns, and she lights up when she sees Jack. She holds the twin strings from the collar of her Moana costume up for him to see.
“I can’t do the tie-y thingy, Daddy.”
Jack sidesteps the Lego village she’s been working on for the last week and squats down beside her. “I know, punky. I got it.”
Hallie holds her curls away from her neck with her doughy little hands, and Jack ties the strings into a neat bow, smacking loud kisses against her knuckles when he finishes.
“Da-ddy,” Hallie giggles.
“What?” Jack asks in mock offense. He spins her around and kisses her freckled nose, which wrinkles in kind.
She’s so precious, Jack thinks. He can’t bear to disappoint her.
“Did Papa help you?” she asks.
“Hmm?”
“He said in the car. That he talks so people can understand. And that’s why you talk to Dr. Breyer.”
Jack tries to swallow the lump that’s rising in his throat.
“You had a lot to talk about on your ride home today, huh?”
Hallie nods seriously. “Did Papa say about Kaitlyn?”
“He did,” Jack says.
“Are you mad?”
“No. Not at you.”
“At who?”
“I–well, that’s complicated.”
“But you’re mad?”
“I guess–” he hesitates, “I guess I’m upset.”
“Why?”
Jack sighs and eases himself back onto his ass, narrowly dodging Halle’s favorite teddy bear on his way down. He criss-crosses his legs and pats his thigh.
“C’mere, princess.”
Hallie rolls her eyes. “Moana’s a chief, Daddy.”
“Well, c’mere, chief,” he laughs. Hallie obliges, and Jack can’t help but press another kiss to her wispy curls. He wraps his arms around her, and she snuggles close. Her little body is warm against his chest. Jack never wants to let her go. “Papa said that Kaitlyn said something about me.”
Hallie doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then she presses her little face against Jack’s tee-shirt. “She said you were a pet,” she whispers. “The bad kind.”
The bad kind. Jack only just barely keeps himself from wincing, but the words roll through him like one of Ivan’s shocks. If Hallie were older, if she knew to pay attention, she’d feel the way his heart is hammering in his chest. He forces himself to take a deep breath, but it doesn’t help much.
“How did that make you feel, baby?”
“I didn’t like it,” Hallie murmurs into his chest. “It made me feel funny in my tummy.”
“That’s okay. It’s okay to feel scared or confused. Why do you think it made you feel that way?”
She straightens a little and looks up at him, long lashes tickling her cheeks as she blinks. “You said that people aren’t pets.”
“They aren’t. Or they–” he clears his throat, “they shouldn’t be.”
“And I wondered how come you would say that if it’s not for real?”
“It is for real. People should be treated like people, always.”
“But Carl’s a pet.”
Hallie points at Carl, who is curled up on the floor by her bed. Carl’s an old man now, but his ears still perk up at the mention of his name.
“Carl is a dog. Carl’s ancestors could survive in the wild, but what do you think Carl would do if he ran into a pack of wolves?”
Hallie’s face scrunches in contemplation. Then she nods. “He’d run away. Or excited pee.”
Carl grunts indignantly and then lays his head back down.
“Right. And he might get himself into trouble. So, we take good care of Carl because he’s not made to live with all the wild animals.”
“But neither are people,” Hallie points out.
“You’re right, baby. But people have different rules than animals.”
“Do people pets get treated like Carl? Do they get cuddles and treats and toys?”
“Some of them do,” Jack says, knowing full well that they are few and far between, “but that still isn’t right.”
Hallie wriggles on his lap. “But I like cuddles. And toys.”
Jack closes his eyes. He thinks of the gimmicks used to lure people into WRU. No decisions. No stress. Affectionate owners who will spoil you. And then, he thinks of the reality. Of the people who are not people at all and don’t know it until it’s too late.
He would never let that happen to Hallie.
“That’s true,” he says carefully. “But you like school too, don’t you? And doing big girl things like picking your outfits and reading books and writing in your notebook?”
“Yeah.”
“People pets can’t do those things.”
“Because they don’t know how?”
“Because they aren’t allowed.”
He remembers Ivan’s voice, the way he told Jack again and again that this was all he was good for, that it didn’t matter how smart he was before. There are kids at the halfway house that feel nauseous when they try to read, older rescues who end up on the streets because they can’t bear to ask for what they need.
“They can only do what their owners tell them,” he says, “even if they want to do something different. And sometimes, owners are very mean to people pets. Meaner than they would ever be to animals.”
“And that’s not right neither,” Hallie says with a decisive nod.
“Exactly. We shouldn’t be mean to anyone.”
“I was mean to Kaitlyn,” Hallie confesses.
“You were. And did it make you feel better?”
“Kinda.”
Jack almost laughs. “Hallie!”
“Daddy!” she fires back. She snuggles just a bit closer and looks up at him. “Were you really a pet?”
Jack doesn’t want to answer, but he has to. Hallie deserves the truth.
“I was.” Was. He isn’t now. He knows that. He does.
“Are you Papa’s pet?” she asks, and Jack’s eyes sting. “Does that make me a pet too?”
“Oh, baby, no. I’m not–I’m not a pet anymore. And you never were. You never will be.” Jack squeezes her tight.
“How come?”
“What, baby?”
“How come you were a pet?”
Jack isn’t sure how to explain it, but he tries. “I–I made a mistake. There was a bad man who said he needed help with his work, and he tricked me into signing the papers that pets have to sign.”
“Did he put you under a spell? Like in a fairy tale?”
“Kind of, baby.”
He can’t tell her that Ivan’s spell was ketamine and an electric shock collar, but it bound him to that basement just as sure as any sleeping curse in one of Hallie’s books.
“And he changed you into a people pet?” Hallie presses.
“For a little while, yes.”
Jack’s voice is barely a whisper. It sounds easier, to be changed the way Hallie thinks he was. Like someone waved their magic wand, and Jack’s bones twisted and crumpled into something they weren’t. Hallie doesn’t realize the spell was cast on his mind.
“Did it hurt?” she asks.
“What?”
“Did it hurt to get changed?”
Jack nods, and he forces himself to swallow. “Sometimes.”
Hallie’s little fingers reach up and tickle across the scar tissue on his throat. “Is that where your owies came from?” she asks.
“It is.” Jack wraps her hand in his and kisses each fingertip. “But they’re all healed now, huh?”
“So,” Hallie says, like she’s working out the end of a story, “he was one of the mean ones. The bad man.”
“He was.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I didn’t either. But I’m okay now.” His chest catches, but he smiles anyway. “I promise.”
“Sometimes, you’re not,” Hallie says.
“What?”
“When you stay in bed. Those days.”
Jack didn’t realize she’d noticed. But he doesn’t realize much when he’s like that. They’re infrequent now, but there are days when he can’t quite untangle the knots in his head, when he feels like he should never have escaped the basement, when he’s sure Ivan’s going to come for him and that he deserves to be taken. When he’s tangled, he can’t move. It’s like he doesn’t remember how. And so, he doesn’t. He stays in bed with the shades drawn, and he waits for it to pass.
Joe never minds. Well, he minds, but he knows there’s not much he can do about it. He usually takes Hallie away, so that she doesn’t have to see. They go to the zoo or the aquarium or the library, and when they come home again, Jack tries to smile, even if it’s hard. It’s what they tell Hallie: you have to try, even when something is hard.
This is so hard.
Hallie purses her little pink lips. “You get sad on those days, huh?”
“I do,” he says softly. “Because sometimes, things hurt so much that they take a long time to get all the way better. But I guess what I meant is I’m safe. And so are you and Papa.”
“The bad man is gone?” Hallie asks.
“He is.”
In theory. They don’t know where Ivan is, only that WRU promised that appropriate disciplinary action would be taken. But he hasn’t bothered them in years.
Hallie squirms, and Jack opens his legs so that she falls in between them, her back to his chest. She drums on his pant legs. “How did you get changed back?”
“Papa helped me. And Grandma.”
“They rescued you?”
“They did.” Jack tents his knees, and Hallie’s arms rise up above her head. “Papa’s my knight in shining armor.”
Hallie turns to look at him. “Does that make you a damsel?”
Jack laughs, and it feels right. “Well, I think damsels are usually ladies, but sure.”
“Damsel Daddy.”
“Dadsel,” he says.
Hallie groans and pushes herself to standing. She turns to face Jack, hands light on his shoulders. Her big brown eyes are just the same. She isn’t looking at him any differently. She’s still his little girl, and he is still her Daddy.
“You’re silly, Daddy,” she giggles.
“I am.”
She pops one coral-clad hip, chewing at her lip. “So, Kaitlyn was true?”
Jack nods. “She was repeating something she shouldn’t have, but yes, what she said about me was true.”
Was. Is not. Will never be again.
“She said you were a bad pet. Or, um, the bad kind.”
“Papa told me,” Jack says carefully.
“What’s that mean?”
“There are different kinds of pets, baby. They have different kinds of jobs.”
“What kind of job was yours?”
He shakes his head. “It’s hard to explain.”
“You hafta try even when things are hard.”
Jack laughs again, and he reaches to tickle her sides. “Oh, we’re here, are we? Using my own words against me already?”
Hallie shrieks with laughter and collapses back into his lap. “Stop, Daddy!” she commands. “Tell.”
Jack thinks for a second, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. “My job wasn’t nice.”
“You were mean?”
“No, I–my job was to let other people–to–well, the bad man, he wanted me to be his pet so he could–um, so he could hurt me.”
“How?” Hallie asks.
Jack feels a pang in his stomach. He can’t tell her that. She doesn’t know that anyone can be hurt that way, not yet, and he wants that to last as long as it can. He kisses the crown of her head.
“Lots of ways,” he says vaguely. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“But why?”
“Some people like to hurt other people. It makes them feel good.”
Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t get it.”
“I’m glad, baby,” he says, and he squeezes her to him. Hallie shifts against him and wraps her little arms around his neck. She presses a wet kiss to his cheek.
“It still hurts, huh, Daddy?” she says, leaning back to look at his face. Her tiny hands rest on his cheeks. “On the bed days, like you said?”
“It does sometimes.”
“I don’t want you to hurt, Daddy. I–I need you.”
Jack wraps her in a tight hug, and her chin notches over his shoulder. “It never hurts so bad that I forget about you and Papa. I love you guys too much.”
“Can you say?”
“What, baby?”
“When it hurts? Can you say so I know?”
“I don’t–”
Hallie leans back again. “Maybe I could kiss it and make it better. Or bring you treats in bed. Like you do when I’m sick.”
Hallie isn’t old enough to understand that not all tears are sad, so Jack blinks his away.
“I’d like that, princess,” he says, and he kisses her forehead. “Do you have more questions, baby?”
“The bad man is really gone? He can’t change you back into a people pet?”
“He can’t.” Jack hopes it’s true.
“Do you think someone can rescue Kaitlyn’s mommy’s pet?”
“I hope so, baby,” he says, even though he knows it’s unlikely. It will be hard on Hallie when she realizes just how many people are trapped–and just how lucky her Daddy was to escape. But that’s for another day.
“Should I tell Kaitlyn her mommy was right?”
“No. I think you should say you’re sorry for hitting her, and Papa and I will talk to Miss Farber to see if you can have a different seat.”
“You should tell Miss Farber that Kaitlyn’s a big poopy stupidhead,” Hallie says with a toss of her curls.
Jack just barely smothers his laughter. “Hallie!”
“I’m mad, Daddy.”
“I’m glad you know what you’re feeling, but that doesn’t mean we call names. Or hit. That’s not how we treat others, no matter what.”
“O-kay.”
Downstairs, something clatters against the kitchen floor.
“I’m fine,” Joe calls. “Totally fine.”
Jack leans toward Hallie with a smile. “Should we go check on Papa?”
“Prob’ly,” she says, and her voice is so world-weary that Jack wants to laugh again. He stands up, and she tugs on his hand before he can move. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Don’t ever get tricked again, okay? I’d miss you too much.”
He can’t blink away his tears this time. “I’ll try my very hardest,” he says, voice rough and crackly.
“Good,” Hallie nods. “And if something happens, I can be Papa’s sidekick. We’ll rescue you, okay?”
She kisses the back of his hand and then pulls him forward. She’s amazing, his little girl.
“Okay, chief,” he manages.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“Kiss, please,” she says calmly.
“Coming right up.” Jack scoops her into his arms and settles her on his hip, and he drops a gentle kiss right between her downy dark brows.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Jack doesn’t know how long it will be before he has another bad day. He doesn’t know when he’ll have to have a harder talk with Hallie. But for now, he isn’t thinking about that. For now, he can only think about how lucky he is.
“I love you too, baby. So much.”
taglist: @oddsconvert, @darkthingshappen, @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump, @sparrowsage, @aut0psy-s, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @no-terms-and-conditions-apply, @reflected-pain, @darlingwhump, @squishablesunbeam, @dont-be-gentle-please, @deltaxxk, @irishwhiskeygrl, @keep-beach-city-werid, @keeper-of-all-the-random-things, @hold-him-down, @peachy-panic (send a message to be added!)
CW: kidnapped whumpee, missing whumpee, search for whumpee, implied panic attack, grief/despair, mention of yandere whumper, sensory deprivation, restraints, gagged/muzzled, conditioning of whumpee, psychological manipulation, adult language (I'm definitely missing some, let me know if any catch you! 💖)
I'd like you all to meet Alec! Josh's best friend since highschool! and love interest 🤫 This one's a little look into what's going on on the outside, and we see how Josh is hanging on too... 😌😘
-
“I’m sorry, the person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later, or leave a message after the tone-”
Voicemail. Again. Alec fights back the surge of nausea as he listens to that cold and robotic voice drone on for the millionth time. It mocks him with empty apologies and faux concern. He can’t bear it anymore. Each and every unanswered call chips away at his already fragile hope. Two weeks, it's been. A whole fortnight and nothing. Nada. Josh has seemingly fallen off the face of the earth, vanished without a trace.
The tone that follows isn’t the usual dull hum, the jarring sound that Alec has grown sickeningly familiar with; so much so that it haunts his sleep. This time, it’s a shrill and insistent whine that echoes the growing pang of panic in his chest. He cradles the phone against his cheek for a beat too long. The following silence is deafening but Alec doesn’t break it. Instead, he hangs up. Dozens of messages already clog Josh’s voicemail box, each one more frantic than the last. What good will one more do?
The trouble is, Alec can't for the life of him decide at what point his worry is warranted. It's not like this is unusual for Josh. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, radio silence is the norm - it's the ring of the phone that's the anomaly. Days stretching to countless weeks could pass by without so much as a peep. But Josh isn’t one to ever disappear without a heads-up first, and he always resurfaces…eventually.
Not this time. Something is different, something is wrong. Alec can feel it in his gut. It's a nagging - no - a gnawing feeling that's eating him alive from the inside out. He paces his apartment, the walls closing in on him with each step. His nails are bitten down to the quick. His heart sits heavy in his chest. Images of Josh, hurt or lost, flash through his mind. Is he okay? Fuck. What if something’s happened?! A cold sweat prickles across his skin. Just for the sake of it, he desperately dials Josh's number for one final time.
When it cuts straight to voicemail, Alec doesn't dare hesitate. In seconds, he's bent over his laptop in a frenzied search for the nearest airport, the next available flight. Every click, every loading screen feels like an eternity. But it’s only minutes when a confirmation email pops up. A one-way ticket, leaving that very evening.
Alec doesn't even think about what he's going to tell his boss, or how long he’ll be gone for, what he’ll do when he gets there, how he'll pay his bills, or the cost of all this, or what clothes he needs and oh god does he even have enough time to pack before his flight?! …It doesn't matter, none of it does. He'll worry about the logistics later. For now, he just needs to know Josh is okay. For his peace of mind. He just needs to reach him, to see him and hear his voice. Even if he gets to Josh's doorstep, and his usually-sound gut instinct is proved wrong, it will be worth it.
*!*!*!*!*!*
The flight is a haze of forced calm. Hours pass by in the blink of an eye. Alec absent-mindedly stares out the window, his leg bobbing up and down as he watches the endless expanse of clouds floating out the window. He watches the sun rise on another day, the fifteenth day with no word from Josh. What else could he do? Sit there, helpless, and stress himself senseless whilst stuck tens of thousands feet in the air?
Landing jolts him back to rough reality. All the worry floods back the second the wheels touch tarmac. He disembarks, wincing at the harsh daylight, the city air thick and heavy in contrast to the sterile air-conditioning of the cabin. A taxi ride, a blur of streets and unfamiliar faces, deposits him just outside Josh's flat.
Alec squints, wondering if maybe the cab driver got the address mixed up and dumped him on the wrong end of the city. A derelict block of flats looms over him, nothing short of squalor. Graffiti splatters the bricks, and smashed glass windows are boarded up with mismatched wooden planks. Overflowing bins reek of something unspeakable, and a swarm of buzzing flies claim them as their own. Not a splash of colour exists here, and not even the sun dares to shine on it. How Josh calls this ‘home’ is a mystery. It’s a cement hell-hole.
Buckets line the hallways inside, collecting the drip-drip-drip of water from leaking and rusty pipes above. The air hangs heavy with the stench of mildew and stale cigarette smoke. Alec reaches Josh’s door, and sees the sorry state of Josh’s beloved potted plants outside. All the leaves have wilted and browned, brittle husks skirt the pottery and litter the welcome mat. Cold dread coils around Alec’s heart. It’s not a promising sight. Josh is such a doting plant-dad, he would never let his green babies get to such a sorry state.
Alec knocks on Josh’s door. Once. No answer. He waits. A second time. His palms begin to sweat. Thrice-
“Josh? You home?” he calls through the door. Nothing. Alec knocks five times, ten times. Panic strikes him like lightning upon a tree.
“Josh. It’s Alec. Open the door,” he raps on the door now, thumping his fists so hard that the neighbours must be seething. Still, it’s silent. Alec is sick to his stomach of this never-ending silence at every turn. God, please let this be a giant misunderstanding. Let there be a simple explanation. Maybe Josh is grinding through a hellish work stint, or catching up on some much-needed sleep. Alec prays he’s overreacting to high heaven.
Alec crouches down by the letterbox, the metal cold beneath his prying fingertips. He peeks through the narrow slot and peers into the darkness inside - his heart hammers against his ribs. Instantly, he knows something is horribly wrong. It’s empty. No-one’s home. Everything is too still, too quiet, too dark. But most importantly - the thing that makes Alec break into cold sweats; there’s no wet black nose shoving through from the other side in greeting. No wagging tail, no leaping labrador. Where the hell is Milo?
“Milo?!” Alec whistles through the letterbox, clicking his fingers, “C’mere boy!”
If Milo is gone, then Josh is definitely gone. Without a doubt. Wherever he goes, Milo goes. Josh loves that dog more than anything in the whole world, he would never dream of leaving him behind. But where would they go? And why vanish without a word, without so much as a goodbye? Alec can’t wrap his head around it.
Two doors down, an elderly woman totters through her doorway with her walker, watching Alec with soft, hazel eyes. Her face etched with lines of age, her eyes crinkle at the corners with nosy intrigue. Alec can only offer her a disconcerted smile.
“No sign of our Josh?” she asks.
Alec shakes his head, his mop of blonde hair shaking like a dog out of water. He swallows back a lump lodging in his throat. “N-No. I was just checking in.”
“Such a nice lad,” she beams, “Always wearing a smile and makes sure to wave me hello. Always lends me sugar for my cuppa. I’m sure he’ll pop up soon.”
Alec’s smile falters and his eyebrows knit with worry. He hopes so too, with his entire aching heart…but he’s not so sure.
*!*!*!*!*!*
The next leg of Alec’s whistle-stop tour brings him outside Josh’s work. The bell above the cafe door chimes its welcoming tune as Alec trudges his sorry way through. The warm, inviting aroma of freshly ground coffee and pastries instantly fills his nostrils. Nostalgia washes over him as he breathes it all in. It must be years since he was last here - sat slowly sipping his long-gone-cold americano and waiting for Josh to clock off shift.
The cafe looks no different, other than worn by age. The faded duck-egg walls are now splattered with coffee stains. It’s strange; Alec seems to remember the fairy lights strung across the ceiling twinkling merrily above him, but tonight they cast a dim, mournful glow over the empty tables and mismatched wooden chairs. It feels so wrong without him. The cafe just feels lifeless. It needs Josh’s smile to light up the room.
Behind the counter, a young girl, no older than seventeen with a shock of fiery red hair, hums along to the faint pop music playing on the radio. Her oversized teal uniform and black apron that swallows her slight frame doesn’t hide the easy confidence in her movements as she expertly wipes down the espresso machine. Her vibrant green eyes sparkle as she catches sight of Alec lingering in the doorway.
“Hey there!” She greets, a wide smile lighting up her face and Alec wishes he could find it within him to return the favour. “What can I get you?”
“Some answers, I hope” Alec mumbles miserably. The girl tilts her head in confusion, her eyebrows furrowing. Alec’s eyes cast down to her nametag - Riley. He knows of Riley. She’s one of the few that Josh can actually stomach a conversation with. A bright and dedicated young girl studying at the local college and working away every single spare hour in the day she has to help make ends meet at home. Josh admires her for that, he sees himself in her.
“My name’s Alec. I-I’m a friend of Josh’s-”
A flicker of recognition passes her face, and then it drops in perfect synchronisation with Alec’s stomach. Her eyes fill with a mixture of sorrow and sympathy that Alec can’t quite place nor understand. God, he begs and prays that this gut feeling of his is horribly wrong. But the sinking feeling in his stomach starts to feel more like a bottomless pit.
"Josh...," Riley breathes, her voice barely audible, “I-”
“-Josh’s friend, eh?”
A short and round lady bursts through the ‘staff only’ door and shoves Riley out the way. Teeth too big for her mouth and an apron tied too tight on her. Her dark hair is scraped back tight into a donut bun with a hair net half tangled, half hanging out.
And you must be Traci - Alec thinks bitterly to himself.
“Josh?” Traci scowls.”You a pal of his?”
“Yeah, I-”
“Well, when you hear off him or when he decides to turn up, tell him he’s done. Fired. Ain’t welcome here no more.”
Alec’s jaw drops in disbelief. Fired? Why?! His mind races, trying to make sense of everything. Josh is such a hard worker. He’s never once called in sick, always jumps at the opportunity to cover last-minute shifts, works himself down to the bone. What could he have possibly done to deserve this?!
“Can wave goodbye to his last bloody paycheck too," Josh’s manager seethes, her face burning tomato-red with anger.
“Traci-” Riley sheepishly tries to interject.
“No.” Traci snaps and points her finger in the young girl’s face. “After everything we’ve done for him over the years. He ghosts us?! Not a single word off him. He left this place a-” she quickly glances around for any lurking customers, and when there’s none in earshot, she whispers, “-shit-tip…pardon my french.” Traci clears her throat and pats down her apron. “Took me hours to clean up his mess. Then he doesn’t show up? I take that as his resignation. He clearly doesn’t care about this job. Fine with me. Tell him to never show his face here again.” With her piece said and done, she storms off in a huff, slamming the door behind her.
Riley pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs her disapproval. “I am SO sorry about that. I think she’s just stressed. We’re so short staffed, we can’t afford to lose another body-” she catches herself mid-sentence, “- sorry. I know that’s not what’s important right now. That’s the last thing we should be worried about, right?”
Alec feels like an outsider looking in. Everyone seems to know something he doesn’t, he’s out of the loop. It’s a suffocating feeling, the panic grips him by his throat.
“What’s going on?” Alec frets, his voice wobbles. He trusts wholly in his gut now, he lets himself fall into his suspicions. He allows himself to feel like his world has stopped spinning.
“You… Oh. You…You don’t know. Do you? You haven’t heard?” the young barista laments.
“I haven’t heard from Josh. I - That’s why I’m here. I wanted to check if you had heard from him at all, or if he’d shown up for work?”
Riley’s voice trembles as she tries to find the right words. “I-I’m sorry you had to find this out from me. But… Josh is… missing.”
Missing. Alec’s ears are ringing and his head is reeling. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. Josh can’t be missing? Alec thinks of all the missing person appeals he’s ever watched on the news - he’d always assumed that those things only happened to other people - not him, not people he knows and cares about.
“He stopped showing up for work,” Riley continues, “No-one could get hold of him, we tried and tried calling him but it cut straight to voicemail every single time-”
-Alec knows about that all too well.
“At first we thought he was just a no-show-no call quitter, but one of my colleagues went to his apartment to see if he was doing okay. They said it was deadly quiet and there was no sign of him. We called the police for a wellness check but when they went and checked it out, the place was empty. Everything was gone. Like he’d just upped and left, they said.”
The world tilts on its axis. None of this feels real, it feels like a cruel joke. Like if Alec pinches himself hard enough he’ll wake up from this nightmare. He pinches himself just to be sure - he hisses in pain - definitely awake. Josh can’t be just gone. Where to? With what money? He can barely afford rent and dog food, let alone afford to uproot his life and run for the hills. Alec really wanted to believe that Josh would just be here, at the cafe, working his backside off, albeit with bags under his eyes and bird's nest hair.
Alec’s knees buckle and the floor rises up to meet him. Riley sprints out from behind the counter to help.
“Are you okay?! Let me get you some water!”
“-m fine … I’m fine - just - just …need a minute,” Alec gasps out, holding his hand up to halt her in place. His other hand clutches his heaving chest as he pants for air. He doesn’t believe this for a fraction of a second. Josh would never, in a million years, abandon everything and everyone. Everyone….
“Fuck! I - He - Does his mum know?!” the colour drains from Alec’s face, he’s ghostly pale. “She’ll be worried sick!”
“She knows,” Riley nods, her voice ever so gentle. She crouches down and places her hand on Alec’s shoulder, “Come on. Let’s get you some water and a seat.”
“I-I need to speak with her,” Alec croaks out, “I need to see her-”
Riley pauses for a second, as though debating whether she should follow through with what she's about to.
“I really shouldn’t do this…but his mum is his emergency contact. I could…pull her number for you.”
“Please! Please, if you could?”
Riley nods, her expression serious. “Follow me. Come through to the back.”
Alec, still visibly shaken, pulls himself to his unsteady feet. He follows with slow and deliberate pace as he fights against the dizziness. Riley ushers him through to the office but on their travels, Alec spots Traci loitering out by the delivery entrance, a cigarette dangling from her lips. His eyes bore into her, filled with pure detest. He’s heard all the stories about her - the countless times she’d reduced Josh to tears, all the ways she’d screwed him over time and time again.
Alec remembers the month she’d docked Josh’s pay over a till error that he didn’t cause, and left him on rations. He hopes she gets what’s coming to her one day. When Josh comes home, Alec will never let him step foot back in this wretched place ever again.
Riley guides Alec into the chaotic office, papers and receipts scattered haphazardly across every surface - desks, chairs, walls, floors, the ceiling.. She quickly searches Josh's information on the computer that looks like it’s from the stone-age, then dials the number and hands the phone to Alec.
“Here. It's ringing.”
Alec takes the phone with trembling fingers. He half expects it to cut straight to voicemail, he's so damn used to that. But it clicks after a few rings and he hears the line connect.
“Hello?” a raspy voice answers. A voice thick with despair. Alec clears his throat, trying and failing to steady his own voice.
“Se-Serena? It's Alec-”
That's all it takes for Josh's mother to burst into tears on the other end of the phone. It's a mournful wail that snips Alec’s heartstrings. She knows why he’s calling before he’s said a word.
“Alec,” she chokes, “I’m so glad to hear your voice-”
“I-I’ve heard about Josh. I - I - Can I please come see you?”
“Please - Please, Alec. I need someone to make this make sense - ” she cries in desperation.
*!*!*!*!*!*
Before Serena can open the door even a crack, Milo bursts his blundering way through. Tail wagging furiously and pouncing on Alec, nearly knocking him to the ground. Alec’s heart sings for joy - Milo is here, he’s safe and sound. Then it dawns on him. As much as he’s over the moon to know Milo is in good hands, he’s not in Josh’s hands. It just confirms his worst fears. Josh could never leave him behind - they’re inseparable. If Milo is here… where has Josh gone?
“It’s good to see you, Al,” Serena throws her arms around Alec. She squeezes him so tight, he thinks he might pop. “God, it’s been years. I just wish it were under better circumstances,” she snivels.
Alec relaxes in her hold and squeezes her in return. “Me too.”
It doesn’t feel like years, it feels like only yesterday he was last here. He feels fifteen all over again, in the throes of high school. Like he’ll walk in the house and teenage Josh will be sat inside.
“Come in, come in!” she urges him as she pulls away and wraps her arms around herself. Her breath fogs in the air. “Get inside - you’ll catch your death out here.”
Milo paces around Alec’s legs in figure eights as he walks inside, letting out a joyful bark that echoes through the house.
“Milo likes you”, Serena observes, a dash of jealousy to her otherwise soft-spoken voice. Her stress-riddled, tremoring hands swipe runaway strands of hair behind her ear, wisps of new greys scattering through. The whistle of the kettle whisks her away, she potters over to the stove and busies herself. Saved by the bell. She pours Alec’s tea, and spoons in the two sugars. She remembers how he likes it.
“He just whines….and paces…all day,” her voice cracks, the teaspoon clatters on the counter as she drops it, delicately dabbing at tears along her cheeks. “I know he's looking for Josh. Waiting at the door for him.”
Alec crouches down to meet Milo, who wriggles with delight. He ruffles the curled fur along his chest and scratches behind his dangly ears. The happiest, goofiest little face Alec has ever seen. His tongue flops out of his grinning mouth like it's too big for him, his eyes slipping shut to enjoy his fuss. Milo’s just happy to see a familiar face. Before Alec moved away, he arguably spent more time with Milo than Josh.
“How can I make him understand that I'm waiting and looking for Josh too?” Serena weeps.
“How did you end up with him?” Alec questions. Did Josh drop him off in person? Did he explain where’s going? Or why?
“I came home from work and heard barking in the garden. His lead was tied to fence outside and there was this - this note-”
Serena pulls a crumpled note from the fridge door, moving the magnet of a family Christmas picture off it. She hands it to Alec. The note was scribbled obviously in haste, the handwriting barely legible.
‘Mum.
Please look after Milo. I’m sorry.
Josh.’
“This is all he left?!” Alec gasps in complete and utter disbelief. No explanation. It gives him more questions than answers. He can’t imagine what could have driven Josh to leave so abruptly, to dump his dog, not even say goodbye. What sort of trouble has he got himself into?
“There’s nothing of him left behind. He took everything with him.”
“But - But why would he go? Where would he go? That’s what I don’t understand-” Alec shakes his head, like he’s trying to unscramble all his thoughts.
“Maybe we’ll never understand it…or him. God, I can’t bear this,” Serena sobs, “I just hope wherever he is, wherever he’s run off to, he’s safe. He’s happier.” Alec can tell she doesn’t believe it. It’s as though she’s speaking it into existence - if she says it enough, it will become reality.
“Serena, do you really think he would do this? Up and leave his life behind without so much as a goodbye? That’s not him - he…he wouldn’t - surely?”
“I don’t know, honey. None of this makes much sense to me.”
“People don’t just disappear. He hasn’t evaporated into thin air. If he has run away, like they say, then where’s the trail? Why hasn’t he touched his bank? Why isn’t his phone pinging off any networks? Why would he leave Milo behind?!”
“I’ve made myself sick with all the questions, Alec.” Alec can tell. Her hands haven’t stopped shaking, a sickish hue colours her face and her eyes haven’t been dry for a second. “I can’t stop asking myself why? But the police tell me there’s nothing that gives them cause for concern. He’s twenty-three years old. As much as he’s my boy, he’s not a child anymore. He’s an adult. A grown man. To them? It looks like a cut and dried case; a man fed up with his life, wanting a fresh start.”
“...and do you believe that?”
Serena looks up at him through glistening tears in her red, puffy eyes. Her lip wobbles.
“My boy wouldn’t do this to us,” she whispers and shakes her head, “He wouldn’t want us to worry, or be scared. And I don’t think he just skipped town but … but I can’t bear to think about the worst-case scenario-”
*!*!*!*!*
Josh's warbled cries could pierce the sound barrier, but of course he couldn’t know that.
His world shrunk to a black void. Either Felix is his entire world, or he’s allowed no world at all. He’s adrift in a sea of darkness, a prisoner of his own body. Time has dissolved into a meaningless concept. Had it been only minutes? Hours? Days? All Josh knows is that this feels like forever. His mind is a barren wasteland of despair.
His tremoring muscles scream for release. The pain is a constant companion thrumming through his body, threatening to consume him whole. His wrists are raw and chafed from weakly tugging at the leather restraints. The muzzle swallows his face and gulps his desperate sobs down.
If he could think—if his senses gave him a minute to breathe—he would think that he wants Felix. But thinking isn’t something he’s quite capable of anymore. He lives to just exist, to be and to be used - that he’s coming to understand. He’s not really supposed to think anymore. Why would he need to? Felix does all of that for him. He’s not meant to feel either. At least, not feel for himself. Any feelings should be of undying love, a lesson learnt, or the urge to obey.
His skin, once soft and smooth like a porcelain doll, now feels rough and caked in sweat. The taste of bile rises in his throat, bitter and metallic. His mind yearns for the oblivion of sleep, a respite from the relentless torment, but his body remains stubbornly awake, trapped in this nightmare that refuses to end.
Josh can feel himself bending to Felix’s will. Bending and breaking. Afterall - ‘no-one will ever love him like Felix loves him’. That voice plays over and over, blaring in his ears until they nearly bleed. He tries to resist, to fight that voice with all his might - but the pain, the isolation, the fear - it all chips away at his wavering resolve. Josh isn’t meant to win this.
The thought of Felix fills him with a surreal mixture of dread and longing. He craves the facade of safety again, and wants Felix’s delusion of normalcy. Josh wants to be hoodwinked into believing that everything is okay, that he is loved and protected like Felix swears he is.
He just wishes it weren’t true; the thing he’s been running from all his life. Because deep down he knows Felix is right. Josh knows that Felix’s love is all he deserves and all he will ever get. It doesn’t get any better than this.
But even deeper down, a flicker of a memory comes to him but it’s snuffed out as quick as it came. A fleeting image of someone else. Someone who isn’t Felix, someone who might have cared. Someone who could have loved him, truly and unconditionally. Maybe in another life, there would be someone out there for him. They would see him as a person not as a possession. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Someone who would love him, not despite his flaws, but because of them - and wouldn’t destroy him in the process of ‘perfecting’ him.
It’s just wishful thinking. The universe would never be that kind to him. Felix knows it, and Josh is slowly learning - he was made to be Felix’s.
-
Thank you to @whumpcereal and @angst-after-dark for giving this a second pair of for me! 💖
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part of the kennel. will's recovery arc, just to whet your appetites. masterlist here.
post-rescue snippet, tender first-aid
"Annie said you wouldn't let her change your dressings."
Will shrugs. It's true. He doesn't want Annie to see him this way. He doesn't want her to know everything that happened once he was sold away from Doc's, and as soon as she sees him in any state of undress, that's going to be pretty much impossible.
Could he have handled it better? Sure. But she got the message. She left. Just like he wanted her to. She shouldn't have to see him. Not like this. Not at all.
He doesn't really want Tommy to see him this way either. Tommy is still beautiful, just the way he always was. Will is--well, if he was a sad little mutt before, he's a junkyard dog now. A junkyard dog without any bite.
He's not a dog. He's supposed to remind himself of that. That's the strategy. His therapist is goddamned brilliant.
Sure, she is.
Will never thought he'd miss the person he was before, but he does. He didn't appreciate what he was when he could. And now--
"Will?" Tommy sighs. His steps move further into the room because of course they do; it would be too much to ask for some privacy. Not that Will feels like he can ask for anything. Not anymore.
He wonders how long it will be before he feels like he can open his mouth and actually fucking speak.
Speak.
Will flinches, and he doesn't answer Tommy.
Tommy comes closer, one leg dragging just a bit behind the other. Will closes his eyes. Like that's going to make some kind of difference.
"Okay, well, unless you want to go back to the hospital, you have to let us help you," Tommy says. He's obnoxiously calm. Like this is normal. Which, at this point, maybe it is. They've all been through so much.
Tommy's weight settles on the edge of the mattress, his hip close to Will's back.
"It isn't anything I haven't seen before, you know?"
That much is true. Tommy is intimately acquainted with Will's body in a way he wasn't before they were taken. But Will doesn't really want to think about that just now.
He just wants them to leave him alone. And they won't. They won't.
He isn't sure why that makes him cry, but it does.
"It's okay," Tommy says softly. "You're safe now, you know?"
Will doesn't know it. He doesn't know what it will take to understand that it's over. Maybe Tommy does, but Will can't ask him. Not yet.
Tommy' s hand rests gently on Will's arm. "Can you just roll over on your--I mean, can you lie on your stomach? I promise I'll be as quick as I can."
Will hesitates, just to know that he can. It's not an order. It's a request. If he tells Tommy "no," or if he thrashed and whined like he did with Annie, Tommy will leave.
But he slips further down the mattress and rests on his stomach; it's flat now, almost concave. Shit, Tommy could count Will's ribs if he wanted to.
"I'm just gonna--" Tommy's fingers flutter at the hem of Will's tee shirt.
Will nods. He doesn't know if Tommy sees, but it doesn't really matter.
"Can you--"
Will braces himself on his elbows so Tommy can inch the shirt over his back. He lets Tommy gently slip his arms from their sleeves and pull the rest of the shirt over his head.
"Fuck," Tommy murmurs. "Will, I--"
Will grinds his face into the comforter, sandwiching his tears between his cheek and the soft cotton.
Will's reputation as a "whipping boy" was pretty hard to shake, even when it wasn't Doc doing the whipping.
"It's okay," Tommy says. He presses his hand against the back of Will's neck; it's one of the only safe places to touch. Well, if open wounds and shredded flesh aren't really your thing, it's one of the only safe places to touch. "I'm going to take off the old stuff, okay? You've--you've gone through some of it."
Will nods into the bed.
Tommy's hands are gentle, but then, they always were, even when nothing else was. He peels the dirty bandages from Will's back, and if it hurts, Will doesn't really notice. Not anymore.
"I'm going to--to clean them now," Tommy says. "I'm sorry if it--"
"S'okay," Will whispers, and he feels Tommy freeze.
"You--Will, you--" Tommy's voice is choked, and Will knows if he looked, Tommy's blue eyes would be full of tears. Tommy's body stretches above him. "Okay. It's okay."
Tommy works in silence for a while, and Will doesn't move. So much of his back is scar tissue now that he can't really feel everything Tommy's doing. It's weird, to feel the cold press of fingertips in one place and nothing in another.
"Annie could handle it, you know?" Tommy says. "She knows what--"
Will shakes his head. "Don't--don't want her to."
"It won't matter to her. This--" Tommy's fingers tap against Will's shoulder, "--it won't make any difference. Not to her. Or me either."
It makes a difference to me, Will thinks. He knows they feel obligated. He doesn't want love that feels like a requirement; he wants to be worthy of love for real. Maybe he can't be now--and if he can't be, then they shouldn't waste their time. They deserve better, both of them.
"We're just glad you're home," Tommy says. There's the soft tickle of a fresh bandage against Will's skin. "The rest of it--we'll figure it out, okay?"
Will wants to ask how--how the fuck does anyone figure this out? But he doesn't. He just pillows his cheek against the comforter and nods. "Yeah," he whispers. "Okay."
The words are inadequate, and they both know it. There’s nothing that Casey can say that will bring her absolution; she isn’t sure that she wants it anyway. She didn’t want the life she had with Brian; she knew she wasn’t the mother Will deserved. At least, that was the explanation she gave herself. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to be his mother, or anyone’s, in the first place.
And yet, Casey is his mother. It’s an incontrovertible fact. When she looks at Will’s face, sunken though it is, she can see bits and pieces of herself knit with Brian’s features. She’d love to say that it doesn’t matter to her. That it doesn’t matter that the boy in the hospital bed is part of her, that she was absolutely right to walk away, because if it doesn’t matter, why would she have stayed?
But it does matter.
“Of course you didn’t know,” Brian says, his voice low and, Casey thinks, dangerous. It’s different than before. If Brian had ever shown the slightest bit of fight, she might have stayed. But if Brian couldn’t fight for her, at least he is fighting for their son. It’s more than Casey has ever done. “I tried to call you when he went missing, and the number was disconnected.”
“I didn’t know,” she says again. She didn’t know Brian would call, she didn’t know Will would be in such trouble, she didn’t know that any of this would ever matter again.
“We don’t need you,” Brian says. He holds Will’s scarred and gnarled fingers between his hands like a talisman. The message is clear: they are connected; Casey is not.
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Good. Because we don’t.”
Casey sighs. She should move further into the room, but she can feel Brian’s rage from six feet away. If she moves any closer, she’ll get singed. “I know you don’t. I wouldn’t have left if–”
–if I thought he needed me.
“Fuck you,” Brian snaps. “Fuck you for leaving him.”
I left you too, Casey thinks. She doesn’t feel remorse. Not for that. But Will–
She takes a half-step closer. The boy in the bed doesn’t look anything like the one she left all those years ago. He is older and bigger, of course, but like this–she can’t imagine what he must have gone through to come out looking like this. A patchwork man of scar and bone. It should turn her stomach, and it does. But it’s the horror that gnaws at her belly; she doesn’t feel like the boy is hers at all.
For that, she is sorry. But she doesn’t know how to make it better. She can’t repair what wasn’t there to begin with.
“I deserve that,” she whispers.
Brian makes a noise low in his throat. “You don’t deserve shit.”
“Brian—“
Brian clasps Will’s limp hand to his chest. “Why are you here?”
“He’s my son.” It is technically true, but it’s been years since Casey’s said the words.
“No,” Brian snarls, “he’s my son.”
“I know that—“
“He needed you. He needed his mother. I needed…and you weren’t fucking there.”
“I know—“
Brian finally lets Will’s hand go, and he stands. Casey had forgotten how tall he is, how imposing he could have been if he hadn’t been so insular and lost.
He is imposing now. He looks like he might tear her limb from limb, and part of Casey wants to let him.
“You don’t know.” He takes a step closer; Casey holds her ground. “You don’t know that he cried himself to sleep every night for a year. You don’t know that he used to write you letters, and I took them to the post office, but I didn’t know where to fucking send them. You don’t know that he put the ornaments he made you on the tree every year—“
Stop, Casey wants to say, but she knows that she has no right to ask for mercy. The guilt she feels is abstract anyway. It’s sad for a kid to grow up without a mom, sad when a marriage doesn’t work out, but what the hell was she supposed to do? She digs her nails into the hip seam of her jeans.
“You don’t know what he did on his tenth birthday. You don’t know his favorite food. You don’t know what makes him laugh, or how he’s kind even though he’s afraid of everyone he meets. Because of you. You don’t know that he’s spent years wondering what’s wrong with himself because of you. Because you made him believe that there is something wrong.”
“Isn’t there?” Casey asks, gesturing at Will’s bed.
“Shut up. You know that isn’t what I–”
“I do. I know what you meant. And I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t,” Brian snaps. He takes another step and jabs his finger into the air between them. “Don’t fucking pretend you’re sorry.”
Casey holds up her hands in contrition. “I am sorry. About this. I mean, when I saw, on the news–”
“God, how terrible that must have been for you,” Brian spits, every word souring as it hits the air.
“It was. I love–”
“You don’t. You don’t love him.”
But Casey does. Not in a way that either Brian or Will might understand, but she loves them both. She loved them enough to spare them. She can’t explain it, but she knows that it’s true. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t love them.
“You don’t get to say what I do or don’t feel,” she says softly.
“You don’t get to show up after years and pretend like it’s fine,” Brian counters back.
“It isn’t fine. There’s no way this could possibly be fine.” She takes a careful step forward, and she and Brian are suddenly close enough to touch. Brian’s chest beats with uneasy breaths; Casey waits.
And then Brian crumbles. He sags backward against the foot of their son’s hospital bed, and he hides his face in his hands. Casey’s eyes are dry.
Her eyes are clear when she looks at Will, the bony lines of his body tucked in beneath a blue waffle pattern blanket. He is smaller than he should be, smaller than the photo she saw on the news, and he is so quiet, so absolutely still. It breaks her heart, but she can’t cry. It doesn’t feel like she’s allowed to.
“Brian?”
“They’ve mostly kept him under since they brought him home.” Brian’s voice is small and faraway, and, somehow, Casey knows he isn’t really talking to her at all. “He’s had a few surgeries. And they say his body is exhausted after–well, after everything. I haven’t–I haven’t seen his eyes. Not once. I don’t know if he can hear me. I’m afraid that–I’m afraid–”
Casey moves so that she’s beside him, her rear end resting on the footboard of the bed next to Brian’s. She doesn’t touch him. “What are you afraid of, Bri?”
He flinches. Bri. It must have been too much. She called him that too long ago; taking hold of the memory is like tearing roots from deep soil.
Brian shakes his head, but he keeps his eyes on the foggy hospital linoleum. “You wouldn’t understand. You gave him up.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Casey says. She grips the footboard with careful hands, and her little finger is a hairsbreadth from Brian’s. It reminds her of when they were kids, fumbling over the movie theater armrest. “What are you afraid of?” she asks again.
“You don’t know what they did to him.”
She knows some. The news reports made some pretty convincing speculations based on what happened to Will’s little friend, Tommy. Not so little now. Not so innocent. But Casey doesn’t say anything. She looks at Brian, even if he doesn’t look back.
“He–what he went through–I’m afraid that he won’t–what if he isn’t happy to–what if he doesn’t–if he doesn’t want to wake up? What if he’s afraid of me?”
“He was never afraid of you,” Casey says immediately.
No, Will was afraid of her. Because Casey has always been prickles and thorns, sharp corners and edges. It’s like she’s missing some essential element of her DNA; she’s never known how to be a mother, at least not the kind a boy like Will needed. She still doesn’t know how.
She always thought Brian knew what she didn’t. It made her hate him, just a little. She was supposed to know. She was supposed to be able to do it. And she couldn’t.
And then, she just didn’t.
She knows now that she won’t, either. This is not the start of some new beginning. This, Casey suddenly realizes, is the goodbye she never said.
“No,” Brian half-laughs, “I guess he wasn’t.”
It’s silent for a long moment. Well, almost silent; the monitors that track their son’s heart, his breathing, the pain medication that is almost certainly coursing through his battered body click and beep in arrhythmic succession.
“I never meant to hurt you. Either of you,” Casey says finally.
Brian forces all the air from his lungs. “Well, you did.”
“I know that. But it wasn’t–I wasn’t trying to–”
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t very good at it,” she says.
“Me neither,” Brian says softly. He looks over his shoulder at Will, his eyes still bright with tears.
Casey nudges her finger alongside his. “That isn’t true.”
Brian was the one who did the late night feedings when Casey couldn’t get Will to latch. Brian held the baby against his bare chest, murmuring to him in a language that Casey couldn’t understand. I heard skin to skin is good for them, Case. Maybe that was when the distance began.
It was Brian who potty trained Will, because Casey was impatient with the wet pants and the tears. It was Brian who airplaned food into Will’s mouth, who soothed Will’s scrapes and bruises, who checked on Will when there were monsters in the closet. Casey should have been jealous, should have felt inadequate; she felt nothing at all.
But looking at Brian now, at the lines that crease his forehead, at the pain in his drawn expression, Casey wonders if there is new distance, this time between father and son. Not that Will isn’t distant from everyone and everything just now.
But Brian blames himself for whatever it was that put Will in this hospital bed. That much Casey knows. Brian has always blamed himself.
Brian pulls away and pushes himself from the footboard. “It’s unfair that he got stuck with us.”
“He isn’t stuck with you, Bri. He’s lucky to have you. I’m sorry I wasn’t up for it.”
“You weren’t up for it?” Brian parrots. He nods at their son’s motionless body. “It wasn’t a chore or something, Casey: it was our marriage. Our child. You don’t just get to leave those things the way you did.”
Casey doesn’t have any defense, and even if she did, it would be pointless to try. “I know.”
“If you knew, you wouldn’t have done it.”
It isn’t entirely true, but she cannot make Brian understand. When she left, she didn’t know just how much she wouldn’t feel, and she’s sure that’s not what Brian wants to hear. That she did them a favor. Even now, she is certain she did the right thing. Right for her; right for them.
“I should go.”
“I don’t even know why you came.”
“I don’t either,” Casey says softly. “You don’t–maybe don’t tell him I came.” It wouldn’t do any good, would it? It isn’t like she’s going to come back.
Brian laughs cheerlessly. “So, that’s it, then?”
“Brian–”
“You’re a real piece of work, Casey.”
“I know that.”
He shakes his head. “So long as you know.”
Casey closes her eyes. “I’m never going to ask you to understand.”
“That’s real fucking big of you.”
“I couldn’t do it, Bri. I don’t know how to be the person I would have had to be if I’d stayed.”
“Poor, poor Casey–”
She sighs and lets her eyes flutter open again. Brian’s face is red, and his hand is curled around the plastic headboard of Will’s bed. It’s ridiculous, but she almost wants to shush Brian so that he doesn’t wake Will. It was always Casey who did the shushing. But, of course, nothing is going to wake Will. He isn’t really asleep. For just a second, Casey wonders if he can hear them.
“I don’t want sympathy.”
“Good,” Brian spits, “because you won’t get any from me.”
“I know. I know I’m a bitch, Brian, okay? I knew you’d be better off without me. That’s why–”
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I didn’t know how.”
Brian looks at the crown of Will’s head. Anywhere but at Casey. “You should have tried.”
“I’m trying now.”
Brian waits. He leans down and kisses the crown of their son’s head, and he waits for her to try.
“He is lucky to have you,” Casey says. “I’ve always known that, but–Jesus, Brian, now? Neither of you deserved this. No one deserves this, but he’s so lucky. You’re going to be there when he wakes up, and you’re going to see him through whatever comes next. You’ve done that his whole life.”
Brian smooths Will’s hair, and his voice is waterlogged when he speaks again. “It wasn’t just him.”
“What?”
He manages to look at her, and his tears are finally slipping down his cheeks. “I can see him through. I have to. You taught me that. But you left me too. There’s no one to see me through.”
“I couldn’t. I wish it was different, but–”
Brian sniffs. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says again.
Casey crosses the room, and she is surprised when Brian lets her duck under his arm. His body is warm and a little clammy, but his smell is familiar; he still wears the same aftershave he did when they were in high school, still uses the same laundry detergent she used to buy from Costco, back in another life. She leans her head against his chest, and Brian’s breath catches. Then, his arm slips awkwardly around her waist; he doesn't relax, and she can’t blame him.
“It wasn’t you,” she says. “It was never you. Or Will. It was me.”
“Okay,” Brian whispers.
Casey reaches to touch her son’s face, and for the first time, she feels something needling at the back of her own eyes. Her fingertips glide over Will’s cheek, the skin there still baby soft.
“Give him the chance to see you through,” she says softly.
“He can’t–”
Casey shakes her head. “Everyone’s going to think they know what he needs; people are really good at that. But no one is going to know. But he needs you, and I think if you let yourself need him–well, you’ll give him a reason to keep going.”
It’s an imperfect plan–who knows what will happen when Will wakes–but they’ve always needed each other, her boys.
“I loved you,” Brian said. He watches her fingers slip over the bridge of Will’s nose, his eyebrows, behind his ear, places she hasn’t touched since he was an infant.
“I know. I love you too.” She hopes he doesn’t notice the present tense; he wouldn’t understand.
Brian’s lips ghost against her hair, and then they are gone.
“You have to go.”
It isn’t a question, but it isn’t a command either. Casey peels herself away from Brian’s side.
“Yeah.”
“He’ll be alright,” Brian whispers.
“I know. You’ll take good care of him. You always have.”
He doesn’t watch her as she turns to the door, but Casey is almost certain that he knows what she does: this is it.
“Brian?”
He drops his body into the chair next to Will’s bed, and he takes up Will’s hand again, running his thumb over his son’s knuckles. “Yeah?”
Can you write a few lines of how Izaak would react to being forced to eat blue cheese? I miss his voice so much!!
"If you think I'm eating mould, you've got another thing fucking coming," Izaak spat. His tongue curled, and his stomach churned like the ocean's tides. The sight of it, the stench of it - revolting. Izaak would take the ravenous rumbles and cries of his empty stomach over this any day.
"Don't be so damn precious," Ronan hissed. "This is a luxury, pet. A treat. You'll be grateful for whatever I give you. The little one is-"
Ronan turned back to Henley, pressing another nub of blue cheese to his lips. Henley obeyed, obviously, quickly swallowing it down. His doe-like eyes beamed up at Ronan for validation. Izaak couldn't decide what's more disgusting. The smell of the cheese, or how much Henley reeks of desperation.
"Think I'll stick with the usual stale bread," Izaak scoffed, his eyes narrowing.
Ronan erupted like a volcano. Henley flinched into himself as Ronan shot up to his feet, the plate of cheese in his hand clattered across the floor. "Choice is another luxury," he growled, "one that you don't get nor deserve."
A barely stifled chuckle fills Izaak's cheeks. He shook his head. "Not eating it."
"Yes. Yes, you are."
"Try and make me," Izaak grinned from ear to ear. His fists clenched in their chains, every muscle taut and ready to pounce. Adrenaline coursed through his veins.
Ronan stooped down and picked up a grimy crumb of blue cheese from the floor, completely ignoring the dust and stray hairs clinging to it. He held it up to the light, examining it with a curious grin.
“Look at that,” Ronan smiled, pulling a hair off the cheese, “Extra flavour.”
Henley and Izaak dry-heaved in unison. Ronan lunged at Izaak, snatching his shaggy hair and forcing his head back. He held the crumb of blue cheese inches from Izaak's face, his eyes filled with rage. "Open. Your. Mouth,” he snarled.
Izaak’s jaw remained clenched, his lips clamped shut. He shook his head stubbornly.
Ronan leaned in closer, holding the cheese underneath Izaak’s nose. He felt his throat close up as the pungent smell assaulted his nostrils. He pulled at his chains, trying to break free.
“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. It’s an order. Open your fucking mouth.”
Izaak’s eyes flashed with defiance, huffing furious breaths through his nostrils. This time he didn’t even shake his head - just a dead stare.
“Fine. Want it your way, Izzy? Let’s do it your way.”
He reached out and pinched Izaak’s cheeks together, making his lips pucker. A low groan rumbled in Izaak’s throat in protest as he swung his head violently from side to side. His nostrils are pinched together, cutting off his last vestige of air. Still, he doesn’t relent, refusing to open his mouth. Even as his complexion morphs to a bursting, breathless blue. Even as stars danced in his vision.
Izaak’s world dipped as the shock collar lit up. A bolt of electricity wrapped around Izaak’s throat, constricting like a serpent. It surged through his veins - his body trembled with exertion, his face contorted in agony. The chains binding his wrists rattled and clattered as he clawed at them, desperate to reach his throat. Finally, he let out a silent, strangled gasp of air.
Ronan stole his chance, quickly popping the cheese inside whilst his mouth was wide open, forcing his jaw shut with his hand. He held Izaak's head steady, forcing him to chew until the cheese was swallowed. Izaak’s eyes watered at the taste, and his tongue recoiled. It was as if he’d licked a mouldy stock. A vile blend of tang, bitterness and a hint of decay. Ronan slammed his palm over Izaak’s mouth as he gagged and tried to spit it back out, the sound of his heaving echoing in the room.
“Swallow. Be grateful.”
Izaak’s eyes burned with hatred, but he reluctantly swallowed down the cheese. Nearly immediately bringing it back up. He coughed and spat bile as Ronan removed his hand, and instead began to gently card it through his tangled hair.
“I don’t know why I spoil you, pet... My kindness is wasted on you.” Ronan sighed, drawing a drooling Izaak closer into his chest, his voice filled with a deceptive warmth.
---
Henley tag list: @livelaughwhump @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @sorrowful-hyacinth @possumhoe
Ronan tag list: @kira-the-whump-enthusiast
Izaak tag list: @emmettnet @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @sorrowful-hyacinth @whumpsoda
Thinking of the “forced to hurt” trope and wondering which OC would be the most disturbed by it if they had to hurt another OC they love (for some inescapable reason)
Joe. Jack would never want to hurt Joe either, but Jack is more guarded whereas Joe’s very tender hearted. He loves deeply, and he knows how badly Jack has been hurt by other people, so the notion that Joe might add to that when he’s promised to protect him—well. Crisis.
I don't know what to ask! These things always intimidate me a little, like how am I worthy to be interacting with such amazing writers??
But let me think.... Ok can I ask how Jack and Joe's week has been?
💙💙💙
This ask is from forever ago, but I meant to thank you for it when you first sent it. But after all the kind words you had for The Kennel last night, I want to 1.) thank you again for being so kind to me and 2.) try to answer this. I obviously haven't been around as often, but I do still check in and think about my boys. Here goes nothing!
"You're not serious."
Jack looks back over his shoulder, and he tries not to laugh. Joe stands in the kitchen doorway, his face frozen in horror and his eyes fixed firmly on the mottled blue-red lobster that Jack holds pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Jack should have known he wouldn't get away with this--or at least, that Joe wouldn't let the occasion pass without protest. This is, after all, a man who became a vegetarian because of his mother's highland cow wall calendar.
"You don't have to eat it, Joey."
"Neither do you," Joe replies. "You could let him go right now."
Jack sets the lobster back into the open cooler at his feet and closes the lid. "Where would you propose I do that?"
"We live on the water."
"I don't think he's from Long Island Sound. It wouldn't be very nice to abandon him so far from home."
Joe's lips purse. "You're going to boil that poor animal alive."
"That's how it's done, my love." Jack nudges the cooler with his stocking toe. "He's been chilling in there all day. He won't even feel it."
Joe stares at the cooler with disgust. "How do you know?"
"I suppose I don't. But Hallie--"
"--do not blame this on our child--"
Jack sets gentle hands on Joe's shoulders. "Hallie asked if she could try lobster."
"She wouldn't have asked if she knew that it was going to turn you into a murderer."
Jack snorts. "Well, she made a concession. I offered her crab--then I wouldn't have to do the killing--but she said Sebastian was a crab, and she didn't want to eat Sebastian."
"You walked her past the lobster tank, didn't you?"
"Yes. I am a monster. "
"Jackie--"
"She said they looked like big bugs. I guess no one's anthropomorphized lobsters yet."
Joe doesn't quite know what to say, and Jack knows it. He presses a kiss to his husband's lips.
"I promise, it will be over fast."
Joe looks down at the cooler with a sigh. "That's what they all say."
"If it's any consolation, I think Hallie only wants to try it because she gets to dip it in butter."
"Butter?"
"Yessir," Jack says, wrapping his arms around Joe's waist. "Drawn butter." He kisses Joe's neck. "I got some fresh sourdough for you," he whispers. "And your own butter warmer. They sit on top of candles. It'll be romantic."
Joe groans as Jack's teeth nibble at the meat between his neck and shoulder. Jack could certainly never be a vegetarian.
"Careful, Dr. Prescott. We need to keep it PG until Hallie's in bed."
Joe's hips buck forward. His voice is breathless. "You started it. You're just trying to--to--"
"Butter you up?" Jack says with a grin.
Joe laughs. "I love you, even if you're about to murder an innocent crustacean."
"I love you too. Now, get out of my kitchen. I want you to have plausible deniability."
I’ve waited years to be able to finally say this to you—you, specifically, this wonderful group of people who have supported my writing for so long:
My debut novel, A SERIES OF ROOMS, will be available later this year.
On the night of his twenty-first birthday, a domino effect of unfortunate events leads Liam Cassidy to a chance encounter with a stranger: shared refuge in a bar bathroom. For a brief moment in time they hide away in the comfort of commiseration, each with their own reasons for avoiding the party outside the door. When they part ways, Liam expects that to be the end of their story.
He definitely doesn’t expect to find the same stranger waiting in his hotel room that night.
The young man is revealed to be a sex worker, hired without Liam’s consent—a thoughtless joke of a birthday gift from his friends. But it doesn’t take long to realize something nefarious lies behind the boy’s circumstances. Hungry, guarded, and jumping at shadows, it’s clear he is in need of a break, and Liam finds himself in the unique position to grant him one.
Drawn together by their mutual need for escape, the two of them fall into an arrangement of weekly meetings inside the cheapest hotel rooms Chicago has to offer. The encounters are not sexual in nature, but an unexpected intimacy blossoms between them over time.
For one of them, it’s a night of guaranteed safety. For the other, it’s the first real friendship he has ever known.
But soon, the realities that exist outside their secluded series of rooms begin closing in around them, reminding them that they can’t live in a bubble forever.
CW: kidnapped whumpee, captivity (kinda/kinda not), defiant whumpee, whumpee thinks caretaker is a whumper, forced to kidnap references, vampire caretaker, threat of violence/death, weapons, adult language (pls let me know if I've forgotten any!)
AND FINALLY! THE LAST PART FOR AUGUST AND LUCAS' BACKSTORY! 🎉 Thank you so much for your guys' patience, with this one - it means everything <3 We resume with our usually scheduled Declan next chapter! 😍 And a mahoosive thank you to @darkthingshappen for her beta and help!
---
August feels like a stranger in his own home. A prisoner in his own home; his sanctuary now nothing more than a gilded cage. He is forever and always a captive of his own compassion and a victim of his cowardice.
But August curses himself for daring to think like that. It’s unjust to think like that, especially on a night like tonight. The frantic hammering of a human heartbeat upstairs is his bleak reminder that he’s not alone anymore, and yet somehow… he’s never felt more alone in his life. The quiet has never screamed so loud, and the walls stretch to endless empty space around him.
For decades, August has been a ghost haunting this house. Lost in the in-between, a nobody with nobody. For decades, August has been at peace with that. Or at least, he had convinced himself that he was - if he dared to admit that the solitude was crippling, then the silence would drag him under and swallow him whole. Contentment was a convenient lie for the last century, but August’s loneliness is a glaring truth rearing its ugly head. He isn’t ready to face it.
Despair gnaws at his insides, sharper than the bite of the cold nipping his skin. Daylight has been and gone, and now moonlight bleeds through the dusty drapes. The ornate windows have blurred over with swirling white as the blizzard wails like a banshee and rages outside. August waits and waits, the grandfather clock in the corner ticks with a maddening slowness. He waits for something, anything and nothing all at once. He doesn’t know what. His comeuppance, perhaps? A wooden stake plunged straight through his spine?
The human is still hidden away upstairs. Hours have bled by without a sound, not a whisper of movement and not a creak of the floorboard. No doubt he is plotting and scheming, waiting for his perfect chance to strike. Who could blame him? If August were in the human's position, trapped and desperate, the only natural urge for survival would twist his mind too.
August repeats his earlier vow in his mind like a broken record, over and over. When the snowstorm clears, the human will be released, and not a second later. He is a healer, not a gaoler. Every fibre of August's being aches with the need to atone. He will right this wrong no matter the cost.
A sudden chill snakes down August's spine. A different kind of chill than the frosty air that fogs his breath. He snaps around, his eyes zeroing in on the dark figure lurking in the doorway. The human. They hadn’t made a sound, they’d just…appeared. Materialised out of thin air. Their sunken-in and bloodshot eyes lock with August’s in the dim light. His stance is imposing, his demeanour threatening. August feels strangely diminished by the very sight of him, as though he’s two inches tall.
"Hungry."
A single grumbled word is all that leaves the human's lips. Barely audible but the demand is crystal clear. Not a beg for scraps or a plea, it’s a demand. An attempt to claw back a sliver of control in a situation spiralling wildly out of reach for both of them. The terse delivery, the lack of a complete sentence - it speaks volumes. August isn't worthy of conversation, of any respect or dignity. He isn’t human, afterall - why should he be treated with any humanity?
The realisation eats away at him more than the rumbling of the human’s stomach.
That’s another thing. August forgets how quickly the human’s digestive system and their metabolism works. It’s a miracle how they live as long as they do. It’s as though the second they swallow, their belly immediately roars for even more. It must be impossible to keep up. August can’t keep up.
"I-I'll see what's in the pantry," August stammers, his voice cracking under the weight of the human's burning stare. "It- It won't be much, but..."
He shuffles towards the kitchen and its meagre cabinets. A can of chicken chunks, a tin of kidney beans, cobwebs and layers of dust line the shelves. The human catches a glimpse of the miserable sight, his expression drops to a mix of disapproval, offence and somehow, something akin to pity.
“If you plan on keeping me prisoner, you need to feed me, vamp,” the human snarls with contempt, “That’s human biology 101. Didn’t you claim to be a doc?”
August's jaw clenches. That hit a raw nerve. He wants to retort, to defend his capabilities, but the accusation lodges itself deep in August’s gut. He feels a flush of shame and embarrassment fill his cheeks, because the man’s words were a bitter truth. How can he call himself a doctor? When all he’s responsible for is pain and misery? He can’t even provide basic sustenance.
August finds himself at a loss for words. He can’t even look at the human. Instead he hangs his head and anxiously picks at the skin on his fingers. “I-I …I didn’t p-plan this. Any of this-”
“-Food,” the human makes his demand again. His fuse running short.
“H-Help yourself. You don’t have to ask. Please, just make yourself at home.”
“This will never be my home,” the human spits venomously, his hands balled tight into fists.
“No - I - I didn’t mean tha-”
The human tears past August in a huff, his body vibrating with barely contained rage. His shoulder slams into August with deliberate malice. August, however, stands firm and absorbs the shove without a flinch. He watches as the human throws himself at the kitchen with the ferocious hunger of a starved lion. He wrenches the cupboards open with bone-jarring bangs and slams them shut with enough force to rattle the windows.
“So what’s your plan?” the human side-eyes August, squatting down to the lower cabinets and flinging them open. They’re empty too. They all are, really. He groans in frustration and slams them shut. “Earn my trust to break it? I’ll be a mindless zombie in days?”
"My plan is to return you to where I found you. As soon as I possibly can. Without hesitation."
“‘Without hesitation?’” the human scoffs, a bitter and humourless laugh, “what a fucking joke.”
He snatches at cans and packets, what few there are that he can get his hands on. He crams a half-empty bag of dry pasta and a tin of peaches into his arms - god knows how long they’ve been there. Nothing that constitutes a full meal but his stockpile will stretch to a couple days, at least. August feels a weight settle heavy on his chest at that. He knows with a devastating certainty that the bridge of understanding between them is crumbling away. The human will surely disappear upstairs again, never to be seen. There will be no getting through to him. Strangers, they will remain.
The human fills his arms and races back towards the stairs. August scrambles after him, his voice tight, "Please, can we just talk? Before you-”
“NO! Don't follow me! Don't talk to me. Don't you dare come anywhere near me. Don't even knock on my door. You want to make good on your promise? I don't want to hear from you or see your face until we’re heading back to human territory. Comprende?!”
If August had a tail, it would be between his legs. His shoulders slump as he nods solemnly, shamefaced.
“I understand,” August croaks, “I’m so sorry. I won’t come near you until it’s time to go.”
“Not a moment before, and not a damn second later,” the human growls with a point of his finger, veins bulging in his neck that August can’t help but notice.
One moment he’s there and the next, he disappears up the stairs in a flash. He slams the door like a hormonal teenager and August hears the unmistakable screeching and scraping of furniture being dragged across the room all over again.
*!*!*!*!*
Lucas doesn’t count the days it’s been. He doesn’t need nor want to. Even if he tried, the numbers would slip through his fingers like grains of sand. He refuses to be one of those prisoners who scratches tallies into the walls until there’s no space left to etch, until their sanity crumbles to nothing.
Either yesterday, or three days, or a week ago - Lucas can only guess, everyday has turned to mush - the storm knocked out the power lines. The house plunged into pitch-black darkness and stayed that way ever since.
It’s now or never. The vampire or him. Lucas knows no-one is coming to save him. No-one is looking for him. He can’t afford to be the damsel in distress and wait for a saviour or a miracle. The gnawing ache in his stomach and the dwindling rations remind him that his clock is ticking.
Only one of them walks out of this alive.
Lucas grits his teeth, his resolve hardening like steel. He will be the last one standing. He dismantles his barricade, and the stake finds its way back to his palm again. His fingers curl around the splintered, shaved wood. On tip-toes, he sneaks through the shadowed hallway. A too-loud creak of the floor and Lucas freezes on the spot, his ears pricking. When nothing comes of it, he creeps on towards the stairs.
How will it feel? Brief hesitation coils around his gut. His hands turn clammy. How will it feel to take another’s life? There’ll be blood on his hands for the rest of his life - maybe guilt will eat him alive. But needs must. If he doesn’t slay the monster, there’ll be no life left to be wracked with guilt. How many countless other lives will this save aside his own?
Lucas holds his breath, cautiously poking his head through the bars of the stairwell railing. In flickering candlelight, the vampire hunches over a worn chessboard. Its face etched with an ageless ennui, it tediously moves the black knight across the squares. Somehow, its pale skin seems even more ghostly in the dim light, but Lucas notices how its dark eyes seem to hold a profound loneliness and deep despair.
The vampire was playing all by itself; the opposing white pieces stood sentinel in their starting positions. A ragged sigh escapes its lips as it captures a white pawn with a languid grace. The victory, if it could be called that, brought no spark of joy or satisfaction to its eyes. The vampire simply reset the captured pawn. And played on.
Lucas watches the vampire, his mind in turmoil. This isn’t what he envisioned; being kidnapped by a vampire. He’d imagined a life of forced subservience, drained for every drop of his blood. He saw himself fighting tooth and nail for a life no longer worth living. A life as livestock, waiting for slaughter. His grip on the stake loosens, and he stares down at it with deep contemplation.
This doesn’t feel like the nightmare Lucas had always feared it would be. This vampire, this monster that stole him… has kept to every promise it’s made. Lucas can’t believe that he’s admitting that. It hasn’t used persuasion. Why? It would be so easy, like taking candy from a baby. Lucas would have no choice but to grovel at its feet and offer it a drink from his neck. But the vampire hasn’t even tried to feed, claims it doesn’t want to feed. The vampire hasn’t laid a hand on Lucas. It’s given him peace and solitude, food and drink, endless promises to return him to human territory, safe and sound.
A wave of doubt crashes over Lucas. Could he dare to trust the vampire’s word?
“Care to join…?”
Lucas jumps out of his skin. The vampire is looking right at him, its gaze fixed and intense. For a moment, Lucas fears the worst. Has he angered the creature? But as he looks closer, he realises that the vampire's expression was not one of anger. Instead, there’s a raw desperation and longing in its eyes, a look that Lucas had never seen or maybe cared to notice before. He quickly and discreetly shoves the stake into the waistband of his jeans, and grabs the bars of the stairs like the prisoner he’s been so convinced he is.
“What do I win?” Lucas calls down. There’s still hesitation to his voice, an air of stubbornness. He’s not fully prepared to let his guard down just yet.
For the first time, the vampire actually smiles. “Bragging rights. I never lose.”
Lucas hesitates, a mixture of curiosity and trepidation coursing through him. Perhaps this game of chess would help pass the time before he goes back, and maybe, just maybe, it would give him a chance to glimpse into the mind of this vampire. He nods and heads down the stairs as the vampire frantically and meticulously restarts the board.
“I’ll let you go first, of course. Give you a headstart. It would be unfair otherwise,” the vampire lightly teases.
Lucas moves first, his fingers hesitating slightly as he places a white pawn forward. The vampire responds with equal care, its movements precise and deliberate. They play in pregnant silence, the only sound the soft click of the pieces against the board. An eternity and a half passes before the silence is dared to be broken.
“I’ve been thinking,” The vampire ponders, “when the power is restored, is there anyone you could call? Just to let somebody know you’re safe? That you will be back as soon as you can?”
Lucas leans back, his eyes glued to the board, and without looking up, simply replies, "Nope."
“No-one at all? Not a single soul?” the vampire presses.
“That’s what nope means, don’t it?” Lucas takes a pawn, and the vampire uncomfortably shuffles in its chair. “You know that no-one’s looking, that’s why you chose me, remember…?” a condescending smirk curls on Lucas’s lips. Like he can afford to prod and jibe. He’s feeling more at ease, his confidence growing with each passing moment.
"Anyway. You must be the softest leech going. Either that or you're playing the long game. The self-restraint is mind-boggling... don't you want a bite? Bet the smell is driving you almost cuckoo," Lucas outstretches his arm and waves it underneath the vampire's nose.
Lucas doesn't know how much he even believes what he’s saying anymore. His thoughts are a whirlwind. He has been so hellbent on survival, on staying one step ahead of the vampire, that he hadn't had a second to breathe and take a step back to really think about what was happening. He watches the vampire's face closely, searching for any sign of weakness or desire. Is the restraint genuine, or is it just a facade?
Instead the vampire’s face falls and it gasps, reaching out for Lucas’s wrist, “Your wound-”
The gash on Lucas’ palm is deep, the edges jagged and uneven and the skin around it is inflamed and swollen. Lucas had bigger fish to fry than worrying over a silly little cut, but now he notices it, he feels it throb with dull pain.
“That’s not looking good. Would you let me take a look at it?”
Lucas quickly retracts his arm and cradles his hand defensively. His eyes narrow. “If you win. If you win, maybe I’ll let you. But what do I get if I win?”
The vamp seems satisfied by that. So certain of its inevitable triumph. “I told you. Bragging rights.”
Lucas isn’t so certain that the vampire will best him. He remembers the long days spent practising his moves against the undefeated champion. His grandpa was tough, but Lucas had always held his own. There were times when he thought he might just be able to beat him, but the old man always managed to pull through.
A flicker of nostalgia and a flicker of grief passes over Lucas's face. “My grandpa. He was the undefeated champ. But I got pretty damn close on occasion. This will be childsplay.”
The vampire’s face softens, its voice gentle, “Is he…still with us?”
“If he was, do you think I’d be sleeping rough on some sopping wet cardboard?” Lucas makes another sharp move, capturing one of the vampire’s pieces. Silence fills the air, and Lucas sighs.
“Why aren’t you using persuasion? You could easily win this. Make me move my knight and the game’s all yours,” Lucas suggests, shrugging. The vampire lets out a low chuckle, his eyes scanning the board as he calculates his next move. But Lucas's words lingered, a nagging thought in the back of his mind.
“No…but, in all seriousness…why - why aren’t you using persuasion? Like, at all? I’d be powerless to stop you. I’d… be y-yours,” he stutters. “Entirely at your mercy. You wouldn’t have to follow through on your promise to free me.”
The vampire's ruby-red eyes widen in shock. Its mouth drops open as though he’d been struck. It averts its gaze down to the flickering candlelight.
“Why would I?” the vamp laments, “I don’t want to use persuasion. To what aim? I’ve made a promise to you, and I intend to keep it. I value your trust, and I would never do anything to jeopardise it. You deserve your free will. Your choices and your thoughts are, and will always be, your own.”
“I didn’t choose to be here-” Lucas' lips respond quicker than his brain can comprehend. He can tell those words cut like a knife to the vampire.
“No… you didn’t.” The vampire whispers, its tone heavy with guilt. “And that will haunt me for as long as I shall live.”
Lucas is taken aback. He’d always assumed that vampires were cold, unfeeling monsters - devoid of all emotion. But here, he saw something different. He feels something different. The vampire’s words were filled with a mournful regret. He fears he’d been too quick to judge, too eager to paint the vampire as a villain. Maybe there is more to this creature than meets the eye.
The wind suddenly picks up outside, it howls and screeches, whipping against the glass. Lucas stares out the window, a chill running down his spine as he watches the snow swirl and fall.
“I hate to say it… I am glad you are here. Not out there tonight,” the vampire says, watching the blizzard too with a heavy heart.
"Yeah. Me too,” Lucas mumbles.
"What would you do?” the vampire frets, dragging itself back to the game’s attention and playing its turn, “If you were? Where would you go?"
"I...I don't know,” Lucas shrugs, “Loiter somewhere warm inside until they chuck me out?"
"Is there truly no-one you could go to?"
"No-one. I – I don't have any family left. And try making friends in a nomadic lifestyle. I'm never in one place long enough to keep friends. And if I'm honest? I'm shocked one of you lot hadn't snapped me up sooner. I was...kinda expecting it."
Every night was a gamble, every morning was a blessing. Lucas always had to be careful, to seek refuge in shadows and find safety in numbers wherever possible. He knew it was coming sooner or later. He was always a sitting duck for a vampire to come along and nab.
“Forgive me if I do say, I am glad I was the one to snatch you up. And not another.”
The walls Lucas put up seem to be slowly knocked down brick by brick. He doesn’t feel like a hunted animal or a captive anymore. He doesn’t feel like he has to look over his shoulder at every turn. It feels almost…safe.
“Yeah… guess I probably lucked out, huh?”
Silence falls once again, Lucas looks down to the board. But now he sees an opportunity. With a swift and decisive move, Lucas advances his rook, placing the king in check. The vamp’s king is trapped, cornered by Lucas's pieces.
There’s no escape. The vampire’s face falls as it realises. Lucas has won the game.
“There’s no way-” the vamp mutters, shaking its head in disbelief. “Well played,” he concedes, offering a hand out to shake. Lucas takes it readily.
“I - I know we made a deal, but please may I look at your wound?” the vampire tries its luck.
“Finee,” Lucas rolls his eyes jovially, “Guess I’m feeling benevolent. Coming off a high from my win.”
*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*
The human sits on top of the examination table, swinging his legs nervously like a child. His eyes flitter around the room, eyebrows furrowed. There’s no sign of the destruction and chaos he unleashed last week.
August approaches him and gently lifts the human’s hand, examining the slash across the palm. “This looks deep,” he murmurs to himself, turning the human’s hand to different angles and reaching for a bottle of antiseptic.
“Luckily, I don’t think it’s infected. Just a bit swollen. I have some antibiotic ointment - neomycin - and we’ll dress the wound. Shouldn’t give you too much trouble.”
As August pours the antiseptic onto the wound, the human flinches and hisses through his teeth. His eyes squeeze shut, snatching his hand away. The sudden movement startles August, who flinches back too, his heart hammering at his ribs.
"Are you alright?" August asks once he’s caught his own breath, his voice filled with concern. He tries to appear confident and in control, but the truth is, he’s just as nervous as the human.
"Yeah, I'm fine," the human replies, his voice a bit shaky. "It just stung a bit, is all."
August nods, his eyes filled with a strange intensity. "Want to know something?" he asks. The human nods, his own eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.
"I used to be terrified of humans," August confesses.
The human’s eyebrows shot up. "You? Scared of humans? A vampire?"
“My mother spun tales of hunters, mobs, and lynchers. I was taught hell hath no fury like a human. I grew up believing our own blood bags would tear me limb from limb should they grab hold of me. I thought humans were my natural predator."
The human is silent for a moment, his mind racing. "…when it was the other way around," he finally finishes. “I’ve lived my entire life in fear of you - of your kind.”
“Me too. Our practices are cruel-”
“What makes you so different?” The human cuts in, desperate for answers, “Why - Why are you being kind to me?”
August gently applies the ointment to the human’s wounded palm, then a clean bandage securing it with a strip of medical tape. He places a cold compress on the area to help reduce swelling and pain.
“Kindness costs nothing, but means everything,” August explains, “You were not put on this earth to suffer, or to be my food. Nor would I ever want that. You deserve your freedom - your humanity. I will live my life, and you will live yours.”
“Why-Why did you take me? If you never wanted me, if you never wanted this … why am I here?” the human croaks, tears brimming in his eyes.
“I was left with no choice, I promise you. I - I took you to save you. My family - they forced my hand. They said they would take you if I didn’t. They would hurt you. They would make your life a living hell. It was the only way I could stop them - It was the only way I could make sure you made it home again-”
A tear freely rolls down the man’s cheek, he quickly swipes it away. “You…You saved me?”
“I’m so sorry it had to happen this way. But I would do it ten times over if it meant I knew you were safe in my hands.”
The human closes his eyes, and exhales a deep breath of relief. August can see the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. “T-Thank you,” the human whispers.
“Please,” August shakes his head in abnegation, “Don’t thank me. I don’t deserve gratitude. You deserve every apology I could ever utter, and still it would never be enough.”
August scuttles across the room to his cabinets, rummaging around for the painkillers he knows are hiding in there somewhere.
“August?”
August’s heart leaps. He stops still, the world stops still. It’s the first time the human has spoken his name. Not vamp, not leech, or monster. August. It’s like music to his ears.
“My…My name is Lucas. Lucas Slater. I - I thought if I gave you my name… I was giving myself away. But I trust you with my name.”
It’s not much, but it’s more than August could have ever hoped for. It feels like the sun rising after a long, dark winter. His legs feel as if they might give out beneath him, he has to lean against the countertop to steady himself.
“Lucas.” August whispers to himself. He can finally put a name to the stranger. “It’s - It’s nice to finally meet you, Lucas.”
*!*!*!*!*!*
The day finally arrived. The day Lucas had been waiting for was finally here. Hometime. To where or whatever his home is supposed to be. But home has never been just a place to Lucas. It’s always been a feeling, a sense of belonging. This house, that was supposed to be his prison, has become more of a home in this short time than he has ever known in his entire life. The days spent with August felt like a new lease of life, their connection grew day by day. At night, Lucas slept like a baby, without a care in the world. In a toasty bed, and not on cardboard and newspaper. With a warm belly, and no starved rumbling. For the first time, he feels that sense of belonging he’s craved.
He’s never belonged anywhere, and neither has August, it seems.
The snow has melted, revealing a landscape that was both familiar and foreign. It looked so much like human territory but felt worlds apart. As they drove through the countryside, Lucas couldn't help but think about all he would leave behind. The vampire's old, dusty house had become his asylum, a place where he felt safe and protected. He had grown to trust August, to rely on him.
Lucas couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had been gnawing at him all morning. He knew his time with August was coming to an end, and the thought of leaving filled him with a sense of loss. He had grown to respect the vampire, more than he ever thought possible. He glances at August in the rearview mirror. His expression is unreadable, dormant. He’d been quiet all morning. He stares absentmindedly out the window, lost in thought. Lucas wonders if August feels the same way. They both live such lonely lives. A nobody with nobody. What if he stayed? Would that be so awful?
They continue driving in silence, the only sound the gentle hum of the car’s engine. Lucas watches the road pass them by from the window, edging closer and closer to human territory. Lucas feels his stomach sink. Going ‘home’ shouldn’t feel like that. This isn’t right.
"Stop the car," Lucas blurts out.
"You want to get out here? We're still miles away yet!" August queries.
"No, I... I've been thinking," Lucas stammers. "How do you... feel about a new roommate? I guess I'd feel bad leaving you to your lonely, boring self with your dusty, old books."
Lucas silently scolds himself, using his humour as a shield. He lets the mask slip, and his lip wobbles with impending tears.
"I - I have nothing back in human territory. You plucked me from the streets, my cardboard bed, my only possession was a paper cup with a few coins... I'll do anything. Odds are another vampire will find me again in no time and I - I doubt I'll be as lucky to get another one as kind as you - it'd be like lightning striking the same spot twice."
"If you truly wish to stay, you're more than welcome..." August began, his voice soft. "The guest bedroom is yours for the taking, stay as long as you need or want. Please do not stay on my account, or out of fear of me. You truly are free to go."
Lucas hesitates, a thousand what if’s fill his mind. This is quite possibly the most idiotic choice he’s ever made, but it just feels right in his gut. It’s the path he’s meant to take. "I - god this is so stupid, I barely fucking know you but... I think I trust you. If this kindness is all an act or a game then hey, props to you for keeping it up this long, you deserve to feed off me."
August can't help but smile, a gentle expression that warmed Lucas's heart. "Only if you're absolutely, positively sure. You can change your mind at any time. But...I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."
Lucas takes a deep breath. He rests his head against the window. "Turn the car around. Let's go home."
