A collation of curios, a welter of words, a miscellany of misery! Collected masterlists of my fic.
Iesin & Talvos
A fae captured and systematically, brutally experimented on becomes the doorway to escape for his captor’s assistant, a quietly traumatized human who has never known freedom.
Set in Iesin and Talvos’ verse (links to same doc, look for Falconry Fae section), Serys is a fae captured and trained by a human to be a silent, obedient hunter.
Main tropes: dehumanization, forced mutism, occasional gore, food deprivation.
Fog and Furrow
Fern, a touch telepath kept by one of the agencies who care for and imprison nearly all Paths, learns to live as a person after their rescue from a sadistic handler, while struggling with the long-term effects of the agencies’ callous use of their mind.
Main tropes: institutionalized dehumanization, overstimulation, telepathy whump, mind control.
Elias and Colin
Set in the Fog and Furrow verse (links to same masterlist, look for Elias section) Elias is a damn good Path handler - and also a double agent for a kidnapping ring. Their Path, Colin, fights secret issues of his own while unaware that his readings are used to support the same kidnappers that the agency’s clients pay to use his talents against.
Main tropes: institutionalized dehumanization, telepathy whump, kidnapping, organized crime.
237599: Home Again
Peyton Montgomery had it all. Born to a staggeringly wealthy family, he was on the fast track to inherit a life of luxury and privilege. His disappearance changed everything. Twenty-seven months later, returning as a product of the WRU’s famed system, the human pet who answers to 237599 is forced to regain the memories taken from him by a family desperate to have him back.
Main tropes: box boy universe, pet whump, conditioned behavior and recovery from conditioning.
Lourdes: One of a Kind
The product of a secretive program deep within the bowels of WRU, 338947 is the latest pet produced by the Lourdes Program. Set in the same canon as 237599: Home Again.
Main tropes: box boy universe, pet whump, rape, dubious consent, exploring individuality, recovery from sexual trauma, sexual exploration as a means of healing, imperfect recovery, morally grey protagonist, serial killings, murder.
Platonic Ideal
Passed from house to house by a series of owners ranging from uncaring to incompetent to unkind to cruel, Platonic Companion - Medical Specialty boxie Matti endures the WRU system's toll on his body and spirit with fewer and fewer hopes for the kindness and safety he was once promised. In the end, leaving is the easiest decision he's ever made. It's recovery that's hard. Set in the same canon as 237599: Home Again.
Main tropes: chronic illness, box boy universe, pet whump, recovery.
Hollow-Point Intent
Five years ago, Cyril Moore - contracted tattoo artist to their fiancé's family "business" and competitive sharpshooter - disappeared and was presumed dead. They didn't dare hope they could return. When their wildest dream comes true and they find themself in their fiancé's arms once more, it's with the knowledge that there are things lurking under their skin they have no way to explain.
Main tropes: noncon body modification, disassociation, selectively mute character, transphobia, organized crime.
The cold steel of the apparatus of circles and tubes Essylt is using today passes across Iesin’s torso, pausing over his lungs, then moving lower, sliding across his abdomen under his ribs. Iesin presses his lips together, clenching and unclenching his fists in the straps holding him down. Nothing hurts, yet - nothing new, anyway, but he’s out of his cage and on the table and he is not so foolish as to believe that he will make it through the day with no new pains to take back to the refuge of his imprisonment.
The apparatus stops, a short distance under his bottom left rib, and Essylt listens for several breaths. After a few moments, she pulls the ends of the tubes out of her ears and hands the end of the device to Talvos, keeping the other end pressed over the spot on Iesin’s side which has caught her attention.
“Listen to that,” she says to Talvos. “What does it sound like to you?”
Talvos takes the tubes and listens for a moment, while Iesin’s breath picks up, coming just a little quicker, just a little faster, matching the anxious flutter of his heart.
“It sounds like lungs, my lady,” Talvos says at last, pulling the tubes out of his ears.
“It does,” Essylt confirms. She taps Iesin’s chest with one finger. “But its lungs are up here, are they not?”
“So you’ve already made sure of, my lady.”
Talvos is slipping into the stone-like stillness that he dons, sometimes, when Essylt starts cutting into Iesin, and it’s a warning, more sure than the chimes of the wind-bells before a storm, that Iesin is about to lose more blood to her knives. He breathes quick and deep through his nose, watching them both.
“Indeed,” Essylt says thoughtfully. “One must wonder, then, what exactly is going on here.”
She turns, just long enough to pick up her favorite scalpel, and Iesin’s gaze slides off of Talvos’ blank facade, slipping like a turned ankle on a rain-slicked stone away from a glimpse of his thoughts.
I was going through my art and I don't think I ever shared this. Its from an old request that ended up birthing the Sonoriels as a concept, a harpy religious organization whose goal is to re-awaken their mother goddess through song.
you’re one of the three survivors after the apocalypse & the other two are visibly passing one of theirs’ phones back & forth having a secret conversation in a notes app
I’m a sucker for whumpee being thrown against a wall.
The huff of air that is forced from their chest. The hands on the wall to steady themself. The dazed expression or bloody nose when they hit their head/face off the wall. The crumpling/sliding to the ground. The cowering and curling up to shield themself from further attack. The aggravation of previous injuries
the hottest thing a guy can be is barely conscious on the floor while someone lifts his head up by the hair so that you can see his glazed out eyes and the blood running down his face
the other day i started reminiscing about the stories that got me into whumpblr circa 2018, when i first began lurking, through 2020 when i finally made a blog and got involved. soooo: appreciation post time! here's a list of some stories i read way back when and still think of fondly. i'm also gonna make a project out of rereading and reblogging at least parts of these.
without further ado:
@wildfaewhump's talvos and iesin (fae lab whump!), and also their pathverse (institutionalized superpower whump) (zipper lore: pathverse is what finally convinced me to make a blog!)
@friendlylocalwhumper's lux and the hunter (captivity & magic whump) and marlow (honestly i remember less plot and more aesthetics from that one but it was such a vibe)
@whump-sprite's anders stuff (absolutely brutal, very whumperflies-inducing)
@robins-whump's finn saga (captivity whump) (i have a really vivid memory of reading this between classes in high school and then having to go into class all dazed with whumpy thoughts lol)
@crash-bump-bring-the-whump's a gentle death (grim reaper lab whump) (you KNOW i was there for that sweet lab whump)
@tendertenebrosity's Ruler and Empress (royal forced marriage) (damn i'd forgotten about that one!), Illiam and Helis (fantasy political whump), and TJ and Danny (pathverse whump)
@whatiswhump's Alfie and Dr. Harris (psychiatric whump)
@clockworknightmares' laurent series (useful whumpee/captivity whump)
@knivestothroats' in the woods somewhere (captivity - get this - in the woods) (also i totally forgot this started all the way back when but i guess it did!)
the great thing about tumblr is that you can (and should!) keep giving love to your favorite writing even years after it was posted. so go give these blogs some appreciation! they deserve it. and if you've ever felt like making a shoutout post for your own foundational whump stories, please do!
Marcus and Jake are finally safe from AMTEC - although their escape nearly cost them both their lives. Now they are free to heal and discover what they might be to each other - and they learn that AMTEC’s influence leaves not a single person in their lives untouched.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a sequel series to Beneath Gunmetal Skies. Start here, continued from here.
Contents: STD mention, recovery, past torture, hypervigilance, mild ableism, embarrassment, having a job
~
Lars suspected Jake had been fighting more than just the chlamydia infection, given how much better he looked after just three days of the antibiotics in his system. The kid – and Lars knew it was a bad habit to think of Jake as a kid, as they suspected they were close to his age if not younger – looked night-and-day better than the half-dead torture victim Marcus had carried to their front door, bloodied and sunken-eyed. As Lars made their way home from another grueling shift, they wondered how much better he would look by the time they got home.
This morning, the bruises had still been there – hell, some of them looked worse than when Jake had arrived – but the swelling on his face had gone down, and he had light in his eyes where before there had only been dull terror. He had a healthy appetite now, too. His short-cropped hair was still dull, but Lars had been able to get their hands on a shampoo a Black coworker at the HRT clinic suggested. After just two days of that, they’d seen improvement.
They had fielded that coworker’s questions. She’d assumed the shampoo was for someone Lars was dating; Lars let her believe that. It was a reasonable enough lie, although the prospect that they would probably have to start keeping track of all the lies and all the people they told them to made their head throb with exhaustion. Celeste was at least content to let the mystery remain a mystery. But eventually people would start wondering why Lars was spending less time at the clinic they ran, why they were so distracted at the job that actually paid the bills, and eventually someone might show up to their house, and then they might see two very good reasons why Lars should be in the same kind of fucked up AMTEC torture cell they had heard so much about.
They took a hand off the wheel to chew at their nail bed. Maybe I should take up smoking, they thought bitterly. It was probably healthier than putting their hands in their mouth after working a thirteen-hour shift on the ambulance. At least they always wore gloves, and washed their hands.
At long last, after what felt like an hour but what they knew couldn’t have been longer than twelve minutes, they pulled into their driveway. Their eyes caught the telltale flicker of movement in the living room window. Lars knew without seeing him that it was Marcus behind the thick white curtain; they suddenly had a vision of being greeted by an enormous dog, one that kills silently instead of barking when threatened.
Their throat tightened. That dog was living in their house.
But that wasn’t right – they knew that wasn’t right.
When Marcus followed Lars into the kitchen after finding out about the chlamydia test, they thought for sure he was going to… to do something to them. And all he’d done was stand there and dissociate for several minutes. When Lars changed the dressing on Jake’s arm yesterday, and Jake cried out, they’d thought he would do something then, but he hadn’t. He just gritted his teeth and held Jake through it.
And now. He’s not guarding the house against me. He’s making sure it’s nobody but me.
They fumbled for their keys as they approached the front door. It opened before they could find the right one. Marcus stood in the doorway, face in that weird blank expression he had so often. Lars pursed their lips.
“All good?” they said, clipped.
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “You’re just home.” He stood aside.
Oh. He was being… helpful.
They wondered, briefly, how long Marcus had been a Lev – or what other explanation there was for him to be so goddamn socially abnormal.
As they walked in, they set eyes on Jake. He was out of bed and sitting at the dining room table.
“Holy shit,” they said, a grin breaking out across their face. “The dead rise.”
Jake didn’t seem to mind the faux pas of referring to Jake as the dead when he’d just recently come so close to actually being one. Marcus looked like they’d just slapped him. They silently cursed and tried again. “You’re looking a lot better. How you feeling?” They heard their own voice taking on their uncanny patient-provider cadence. They shook it off. “I mean. How do you feel?”
Jake smiled at them. He had such a sunny smile, and it had been coming out more and more. It was good to see. “I’m feeling… pretty good. Just had a pill, which is probably helping. But I had a shower today, and Marcus made sure I ate. Slept well last night, too. Feeling better than I have in…” The smile faded; his focus did, too, as if he genuinely was trying to figure it out.
Lars would hazard a guess the answer was: at least six or seven weeks. But maybe it was longer. The life of a Lev didn’t exactly sound like a cakewalk. There had to be a reason these two left, with the cost so high.
As Lars watched, Marcus crossed to Jake and bent to kiss the top of his head. Jake leaned into Marcus, eyes sliding shut at the contact between them, and Marcus leaned in, too; Jake’s head rested on Marcus’s stomach, and Marcus’s fingers stroked through Jake’s hair. It was just one instance out of dozens of the simple, easy touch between them. Jake looked like he always did, but Marcus seemed to become someone else entirely: gentle, vulnerable, soft.
Lars wondered if Marcus had ever been those things with anyone, even himself, before he met Jake.
“You’re almost out of eggs,” Marcus said, dragging Lars from their reverie.
They blinked. “Huh?”
“Eggs,” Marcus said flatly. “You’re almost out.”
“Oh.” Lars went to the fridge and opened it. All things considered, they weren’t doing terribly on groceries. There was enough there to throw together something for the three of them tonight, as much as they longed to just strip off their scrubs and fall into bed. “Okay. I’ll grab more while I’m out tomorrow. Sorry, I should have checked this morning, I just didn’t—”
“Is there a way for us to get a phone that isn’t traceable by AMTEC?” Marcus said. “That way we can contact you.”
Lars pinched the bridge of their nose. “I don’t know,” they said. “Fuck. I don’t feel like cooking, but I shouldn’t get delivery again.”
“What are you hungry for?” Jake said. “We can help, you don’t have to do it yourself.”
“I’m not really hungry,” Lars said. “I mostly just want to go to bed.”
“We can do it, then,” Marcus said, and the certainty in his voice made Lars want to fucking cry. “I’ve been feeding him all day. You should sleep. You’ve been… You need to rest, too.”
Lars closed the fridge and slowly turned to look at Marcus. He was staring at them, his gaze as steady and unnerving as it ever was. Their relief at his confidence – earned confidence or projected Lev swagger, they didn’t care – as well as their gratitude at his willingness, all mixed with several days of exhaustion, was a potent mix. Emotion washed through them.
Discomfort quickly crowded it out. They squirmed at their own mushiness – and couldn’t help but ruin it. “All those gourmet cooking classes at Lev academy paying off?” they said lamely.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. Lars quailed.
Jake snorted. “Latchkey kid,” he said, pointing to himself. “I’ve been talking him through it.” He pointed at Marcus.
Exhaustion and embarrassment at themself swirled in their stomach. “Like… brains and brawn?” they said, regretting the words as they said them but unable to stop themself. They cringed.
Jake’s smile fell. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said.
“Right,” Lars rasped. “Sorry. I, uh. I need to go to bed, I think. Sorry.” They skirted around Marcus and made a beeline for their room. Once they were there, they buried their face in their hands, shuddering with bewilderment at why they hadn’t just shut up when they had the chance. They took off their scrubs and binder, and fell into bed in just their boxers. They didn’t even brush their teeth before they were sound asleep. They didn’t move until their alarm woke them in the morning, and Lars had to consider just how badly they needed this job.
If you want to be on the taglist (including for the spicy chapters,) let me know! I only tag people in 18+ chapters if I know they are adults through conversations or if their age/age range is in their bio.
ough i'm working on putting iesin & talvos in manuscript format (lots to add, lots to cut, some things are changing) and i've devastated myself emotionally writing a chapter from sierol (iesin's sibling)'s POV 🥺
all they ever wanted was to be as important to him as he (protector, provider, parent/brother/friend, their only ally against the rest of the world) was to them, but iesin's calling to the mysteries and then his disappearance taught them very harshly that they just aren't enough (for anyone, under any circumstance)
and just when they've learned to live without him he comes back wrong~
Next installment of @wildfaewhump and I's Just A Fling AU. The perfect Geoff, Peyton and their mentioned friends are Vic's characters and they penned a lot of this piece.
[Just A Fling Masterlist]
Content / warnings: Intimate whumper, whumpee meeting whumper in public, past trauma and not ideal coping with it, mentioned serial killings, mention past noncon drugging and assault, sexually derogative language, mention of BBU-pets; pretty frank discussion of past noncon.
2B is Dany's favorite seat on most long distance flights. Best class available, be it First or Business or whichever names they came up with. Aisle, meaning she can get out without the need to talk to anyone. Second row instead of first so there's a bit more air in front of her instead of a wall.
She's gotten it for this flight as well, the way home after some intense days of preparing and ensuring the final acceptance of their newest freight terminal. It's been a success. Another one. Dany is good at her job, and she knows it.
She leans back in her plane seat and opens her laptop to check on the press release the company is about to send out, tuning out the busy noise of the last passengers boarding and filing to the back of the plane.
"Excuse me, Madam" someone next to her says, half bored. "I'm 2A."
She's not sure if its his voice that sets her off, the smell of his cologne, or his looming figure, some inches too close to be entirely polite, but her whole body is on alert suddenly.
Geoff Cortlandt.
"Oh. Ms Hammond," he says, eyebrows up. "Hadn't recognized you, fully dressed."
Dany's hand, halfway to the tray table, freezes mid-air. Geoff's gaze feels heavy on her skin. Even without looking up, the smug amusement radiating from him is almost palpable.
She sets her jaw and reaches out to pick up her laptop and slide back the tray table to let him pass. "Mr Cortlandt."
"Just kidding," he whispers, as he squeezes past, too close for the amount of legroom the plane offers, and pauses, his mouth next to her ear. "You were not actually memorable undressed, either."
"Peyton saw that differently." It slips out, before she can think twice, her voice perfectly even. She's taken seminars on it, on her way to becoming the negotiator she is today - quick comebacks, how to deal with low blows.
Paying back in turn ranks very low on the list.
And it is downright stupid, when it's about the exact thing Peyton's tried to warn her about in his very own, very inappropriate manner. 'We were getting pretty close. And I was… distracted by you. In a way that wasn’t working for Geoff.'
Geoff freezes for a moment, and she thinks she sees a muscle in his jaw twitch, before he breaks into an easy smile. "Well, he's luckily left that behind him now, didn't he?"
He slides into his seat next to her, just as a flight attendant leans into their row. "Can I offer you a drink before take-off?"
"Champagne," Geoff says smoothly. "For both of u-"
"Vodka for me," Dany interrupts. She'll have to sit through this. She's not going to fold, not again, not after she panicked at the tennis match and let him have it. "Straight."
The attendant lifts his eyebrows, but doesn't say a word, while he prepares a plastic flute of champagne for Geoff and then bends down to the bottom of his cart to hand Dany a tiny bottle of Vodka and a glass.
"Well, then." Geoff waits until the attendant has left for the next row, before he raises his glass. "Cheers, Ms Hammond. Go on. Drink up. We both know you're more fun once you've got a little liquor in you."
"We both know it wasn't just liquor. We both know it wasn't fun." Dany screws open the cap of her bottle and pours it into the glass, pausing before she looks at him again. "And we both know you walked away. Is it just like that? Do you always just happen to get away with it?"
He smiles, and it's shaped like it should be charming. It's not. It's just empty. "I'm here, aren't I? Makes you wonder. Is it really possible for someone to do 'wrong'? Or are we just afraid? If right and wrong were the immutable forces we treat them as, wouldn't it be impossible for us to do wrong?"
Dany chuckles dryly and shakes her head, then downs the vodka in one go. "I didn't say anything about right or wrong, you started that yourself. My degree is in psychology, not philosophy." She puts the glass down and grimaces. "Pretty sure you, Mr Cortlandt, are an interesting case for both fields."
He laughs a little in return, and it makes her stomach churn. "I like that." He sips too, his eyes wandering over the cabin, before he turns back to her, shifting in his seat to pull up one knee and cross his opposite ankle under it, leaning in like they're good friends. "So," he says. "What did you like most about fucking Peyton?"
"There's a reason you and I were only intimate when I was unconscious, Geoff, and that's because I don't fucking want you in my bed. Not physically, and not mentally either." She smirks and tilts her glass at him. "You'll never know."
His grip on his glass is tight, but he doesn't retreat, and his smile doesn't drop. If anything, it gets more dangerous. "Fair enough. You know-" He glances around like he's about to share a secret. "There was this one time, he and I. We had a little bit of a threesome, there was this girl. We had her between us, on her hands and knees like a whore, she was so hot for it. Peyton has this way he angles his hips- her whole body seized. She wasn't really my type, but the way she looked right then, coming undone for him with my cock so deep in her throat she couldn't breathe... I almost had to keep her." He takes a deep breath and smiles brightly. "Anyway. I can only imagine he was a great lay for you too."
Dany can't breathe. Couldn't then. Can't now. It is her, it was her, the woman caught between them, betrayed, helpless, powerless. Images she can't remember, but dreams of anyway.
She has to get away. Her hand flies to her waist, unbuckles the security belt, and she staggers to her feet to escape towards the restroom.
"Madam," someone yells, and before she can flee, a stranger is over her, presses her back into her seat. "You cannot get up, Madam, we're in the middle of takeoff, are you insane? Mr Cortlandt, Sir, could you please take care of your friend? She's endangering everyone."
There's more hands on her, Geoff's hands, on her shoulders, wrapped around her own hand, and he's talking over her, her own voice stuck in her throat. "Of course, I'm so sorry about her. She's a nervous flyer. You'd never want everyone on the plane in danger because of you, would you, Dany? We're going to get through this together, I promise. You just need to put your seatbelt back on."
"You got her?", the other man asks sharply.
It's all too much. The shaking of the plane, the hands all over her, the images, and Geoff, Geoff, Geoff, he's next to her, he's over her, he's inside her, 'my cock so deep in her throat that she couldn't breathe', she's dizzy and nauseous and nothing makes any sense.
"No," she whispers weakly, "No, I don't want this, please."
He's not leaving. His hands are on her hips now, almost tender, pulling at the seatbelt, locking her back in. "I know, but there's nowhere else to go. You're just going to have to endure. I'll stay right here with you the whole time, alright? You're not getting rid of me."
Louder, to someone else, he adds. "I think I've got it from here. Thank you for your help."
The plane's rattling gets heavier, then stops, as it raises from the runway, pushing her back into her seat even deeper.
Dany's whole body is trembling. Tears are catching in her lashes, but she's not even able to cry. "Why?" she whispers tonelessly.
Geoff whispers in her ear, one arm around her shoulders. "Why not? You were just a fling."
-
They stay like that, Dany locked in her seat, caught in her own body, Geoff leaning in over her, holding her hand in his like a friend would, until the plane has reached cruising altitude and the seatbelt lights turn off with a little ping.
Only then does Dany manage to shake her shoulder and brush his hand away from her.
"I hate you."
Geoff settles back into his own seat, the grin on his face satisfied and smug. "Whatever helps you sleep at night." He pulls out his phone and opens his picture gallery. "Hey, want to see pictures of my pets?"
She can only shake her head tiredly. "I want you to die"
"You first, princess."
It's almost casual, almost like smalltalk, but it cuts deep. Peyton's words ring in her ears. 'If we hadn’t done what we did, you would be dead. Pieces of your body would have been hidden from here to Georgia, and no one would ever have found you.' Geoff had been ready to kill her. He'd not, he'd found another way, but he'd been close.
"Don't call me princess," she says, even though she knows it's hollow and empty and he'll do whatever he wants anyway. It's easier to reply to that part of his line, than acknowledging the meaning of the other.
He leans closer again anyway, swiping through pictures of a young Philipino person, sultry eyes thick with mascara and shadow as they watch the camera from repose in a king-sized bed. "This one's Lourdes. They're my latest, just got them a couple weeks ago. I always like to have one picture when they're brand new." He swipes again, and the next picture shows someone with similar features. This one, a young man, is hollow-eyed and clearly frightened as he sits stiffly on an ornate couch, hands clasped tightly between his knees. "See? They just... lose that spirit, after a while."
She doesn't want to look at his phone, but it's not like she can go anywhere. Pets are people, she thinks, she's said it so often, but she doesn't now. Because if anyone is aware of this, she's sure it's him. That's why he's showing her these pictures. Because they're people and because he enjoys to make them miserable.
Like he enjoys to make her miserable.
You first.
"You kill them," she says flatly. "Don't you? That's what you're going at with flashing this photo gallery at me."
He glances around, as if to make sure no one is taking an undue interest in their conversation. "What a horrible thing to say! I love all of my pets. And they're all still with me in one way or another. But I wouldn't expect you to understand that bond, since you have none of your own. You're not very caring, are you, Dany? You flit through life without ever really taking anyone with you. It's why I didn't like seeing Peyton get caught up as your latest infatuation. You would have moved on eventually without a drop of care for what it did to him."
"I did move on," she says, carefully. There's something about the way he's phrased it that rubs her wrong. "He moved on, even before I did. Without a drop of care. You made sure of this." She chews her lip, processing what he's said. "What difference would if had made, if I had 'cared' for him?"
His phone screen darkens as he puts it away, voice turned into an angry hiss. "He deserves better! He actually liked you. 'Dany this' and 'Dany that'-- he sounded like he was twelve, discovering Emiliana all over again. And all you wanted was his dick."
His sudden anger is frightening. Still, it's more manageable than whatever mood that was he's been in before. "All he wanted was my body," Dany hisses back. "He didn't care about anything else. He didn't even care about my consent, for fuck's sake. And, he's married. He didn't deserve better. He just didn't deserve anything I ever gave him. He even handed me to you, to shove your fucking cock into me. What the fuck more did you want? For me to actually love him? Or for him to only have eyes for you?"
"Please," he rolls his eyes. "His marriage is as real as the tits Valerian's always going on about getting someday. What I want--" He breaks off to smile, as the steward passes down the aisle. "What I want," he resumes in a whisper, plastering on a smile again, "is for you to be forgotten so entirely that it's as if you never existed. But I'd settle for getting off this plane."
Dany laughs, sudden, harsh, almost broken. She doesn't bother putting up an act, just stares at Geoff plainly, waits for him to meet her gaze. "You wouldn't ever get that," she says then. "Whatever Peyton does or does not forget about me, the problem is yourself, Geoff. Because wherever I am, whatever you do to me, you, you will remember there was someone else in Peyton's life, someone he couldn't get enough of, even while he had you." The corners of her lips pull up, almost a grin, but it's too desperate. "Which means you always lose."
The armrest creaks under his grip. His grin is a macabre stretch of lips over teeth. "Have a pleasant flight, Ms Hammond. Wherever you're going after this, I hope you reach your destination safely."
He slips out of his seatbelt and grabs his jacket with clipped, angry force.
This time, when he passes her, he keeps his distance.
Dany doesn't turn around, when he passes her to go towards the back of the plane, just hears a whispered apology to someone else and the re-buckling of a seat belt.
He's in front of her, when they disembark, walking away from the plane, from her with long, determined strides. Dany pulls out her phone. She still has Peyton's number. She never even bothered to block him. She's pretty sure he didn't either.
*You're the one in danger, Peyton. You know he can't stop. And you're the centre of it all.*
*He'll kill you.*
*Take care.*
She puts the phone down and looks through the huge airport windows at the cloudy sky outside, before she adds,
*Or don't. I don't actually care.*
The messages are marked as read right away. He doesn't reply.
-
Just a few hundred meters away from her, Peyton Montgomery looks through the windows of his car, spotting the tall figure of his best friend stepping out of the airport doors.
A quick flick of his thumb deletes Dany's messages.
Geoff would never hurt him.
When Geoff gets into the car, Peyton's smile is as easy as ever.
Leo's spin doctor searches for a way to twist the news in Ridley's favour.
Shout out to @hackles-up who lets me borrow her OCs!
Content / warnings: outside pov, mob whump, pretty immediate aftermath of noncon (no comfort), degradation (of a female character), implied noncon drugging, very frank discussion about murder, implied forced relationship. There's nothing explicit in this, but there are some pretty cold takes on the suffering of another.
[< prev] [masterlist] [next >]
Jonah Kauffmann stirs some more sugar into his overpriced espresso, while he listens to his sister ruminate about her new job at some environment aid agency - the insane hours, the erratic boss, the burned out colleagues, shit pay, but the satisfaction of doing something genuinely good.
He hasn't interrupted her over the entirety of their dinner, and he still is not going to. If he did, she'd apologize and quickly make up by asking him about his own career, and while he has an excellent cover story, he doesn't like lying to family.
Some cosmic fate has decided that while Sarah does something inherently good for a living, Jonah does something inherently bad. It's nothing he's proud of; but he's aware of it. He is a bad guy, whose job it is to make other - usually, worse - bad guys look good. And he excels at that.
Working for Leo Luciano pays better than his previous PR job, his campaigns have much better funding, and usually the job is actually pretty chill.
His phone chimes, and he casts a quick glance at the preview. 'Gazette about to break a story on DH'.
Jonah shifts in his seat. Fuck. Maybe his job isn't always chill. DH. Danielle Hammond. She's been his main project over the past few weeks. Rich, blonde, sexy company heir gone missing after the dramatic reveal of her influential father being a kingpin of organised crime.
Stories like that - faces like hers - make numbers. Jonah's job is to make these stories stay just far enough from the truth.
The whole spin about her fleeing the country after collaborating with the police to betray her father has been Jonah's idea. The story should've faded out by now, hadn't her friends started some desperate campaign to find her.
Still, unless Frankie Mueller jumped ship, the Gazette shouldn't even be remotely in the position to break 'big news' about the case any longer.
This can't be good.
He downs his too sugary espresso.
"Are you still listening?", Sarah asks, and then, more worried. "Are you okay, Jo?"
"Not really. Work," he says and pushes his chair back. "Gotta deal with some urgent media bullshit. Sorry. I need to go."
"What? It's the weekend."
"Sorry," he repeats. "My boss can be a real bitch when I miss on something important."
Understatement of the century.
*What's the angle?*, he types back, slipping into his jacket at the same time.
"Dinner is on me." He tosses some bills on the restaurant table.
"Jonah, this-"
Romance.
The fuck. Jonah knows more about Danielle's life, about her entire personality, than he does about his own siblings. It's almost a relief. The story has to be made-up gossip. Danielle Hammond doesn't *do* romance. Ever.
"Take care, Sarah! Catch up later!" He jogs out of the restaurant, about to text another source, hoping to confirm that there's no real danger, when another message pops up.
His boss. 'Ridley's place. NOW.'
-
Leo and Ridley are standing in front of the huge TV, on opposite ends of the couch, both tense. While Jonah knows he should find their stances alone concerning, though, he's taken in by something else.
She is there.
It's startling to see her in person.
Somehow, he thought she'd be locked up in some basement cell. But no, in contrary, Danielle Hammond is dozing on the couch of one of the city's most exclusive penthouse apartments.
The marks of torture however are just the sort he's imagined. Whoever has had her last - Ridley, he presumes - left her like in the needle of the act. They didn't even bother to pull down her dress; her lower body and the irrefutable evidence of what has been done to her shamelessly exposed.
Jonah's jaw clenches at the sight. "Could you maybe... cover that up?"
"Don't look at it, if you cannot stomach it, boy," Leo says sharply. "We have a bigger problem."
With a freshly poured drink in his hand, Ridley strolls over to the couch and sits down to tug Danielle's dress down.
He does not pull back his hand though. It's still there, under the fabric, between her legs, slowly stroking.
She whimpers softly, but doesn't wake.
"There are no problems," Ridley says, leaning back into the cushions. "We have an opportunity. Oh! Here we are!"
He reaches for the remote with his free hand and unmutes the TV. Recordings of him are running on the screen, favourable, jovial; at charity events, at conferences, as keynote speaker.
"...Ridley Lordin, head of the - recently renamed - Ridley Corporation, infrastructure magnate, business genius, aspiring politician - AND, the entire coast's most sought after bachelor..."
Was there a mixup? This isn't a story about DH. It's a story about RL. He frowns, turns around to ask, and freezes when he hears the next sentence.
"... might have found romance, our friends at the Gazette uncovered. And his rumored sweetheart is, dare I say, unexpected."
No. No. They can't have found about them. Not Ridley and Leo. That would topple everything. And it would be Jonah's death sentence. Not just death. There's much worse fates than death when you fail Leo Luciano.
"In an unforeseen turn of events of another story we've all been following for weeks, Ridley Lordin has been seen secretly dating missing millionaire heir Danielle Hammond."
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
"It's fine," Ridley says with a half shrug. "She's hot and interesting. I'm hot and interesting. That sort of gossip makes me favorably present in all sorts of key demographics that my campaign would pay tons of money for and might never reach anyway."
"Jonah," Leo says, voice pressed. "Can we kill this story?"
Jonah pinches the back of his nose, still wrapping his head around all this. "We… we could try to set up a story that contradicts it, but they seem to have a source. And they are right, this is an incredibly sexy story. It's not going to stay local, because interest in Ridley goes further than local. Regional, national maybe? Even if we kill the story, their names will be connected." He casts a glance at the girl. Ridley has propped her up against his shoulder and wrapped an arm around her, almost an embrace. She has buried her face into his chest. It's a haunting sight.
Jonah sighs. "So yeah. We can kill the story, but we cannot kill her."
"Great. Fine, -"
Leo cuts Ridley off. "Amore. She needs to die."
"She can't." Fuck. Contradicting Leo is always a horrible decision. "If anyone were to find her, Ridley's name would be on top of the suspect list."
"What if I just roll with it then?"
Jonah's eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. Leo frowns deeply.
The girl cuddles up into Ridley's side, as he casually talks over the silence.
"I've got her where I want her, really. She's all mine. And Barry - well, that's Governor Jackson for you - actually recommended I offer some more… domestic optics. A hot woman by my side is perfect. Especially since the boring old mayor has the absolute... dullest wife imaginable."
"First, thats not domestic vibes, that's erotic vibes. Still sells, but for another demographic. We'd need to redo her whole… public appearance to actually serve both. But then again, she's not just some random hot woman. Danielle is publicly known to be very... promiscuous. Half her fame is for some -admittedly very hot- sex tape with the Montgomery heir. The other half is for being the daughter of an imprisoned kingpin of organized crime."
"A sex tape?" Ridley's eyes gleam, as his hand roams Danielle's front, slips under the dress to fondle with her breast. "Juicy. She's never mentioned that."
"I can send you a copy. I've got it stored somewhere," Jonah says flatly. "But coming back to the point at hand. I don't think 'running with it' is a good idea."
Leo shrugs impatiently. "What if we took her far abroad, finish her off there, and make the bodyguard take the fall for it?"
"Leeeeeee! You said I could keep her!"
Fuck. Jonah isn't ready to be caught up in a relationship fight between the city's richest and the city's deadliest man. He shifts on his feet.
"Francis - that bodyguard - wouldn't go with a story that makes him responsible for…" He gestures at Danielle's violated body. "Well, all that. He'd talk, and he does know who he sold to. And if we kill him, the story gets pretty flimsy very soon. All that, while we still have Ridley's name tied into it. It's quite the risk."
"Careful, Kauffmann," Leo warns. "Remember who pays you."
"I could pay you better," Ridley chimes in. "Let us hear all options. Let's say we did roll with it. The sexual promiscuity stuff would face out, obviously. I mean. It's not like she'll get any chance to cheat on me. What about these… Daddy issues?"
Sweat pools in the back of Jonah's neck. He can feel Leo's icy glare on him.
"I… It's already an established narrative that she bailed on him, so… we can spin that." He licks his lips. The idea taking shape is pretty genius. For Ridley. It's another question, what his boss will think. Still. Leo cares about Ridley. And it's not like there's feasible alternatives. "Ridley… saved her. That's how we take control of the narrative. She came out to him about her doubts, about wanting to escape a world of crime. It was Ridley, who convinced her to cut the ties to her Dad. To actually bring him to justice. She hid with him, to be safe from her Dad's henchmen. It gives us everything. Ridley as a savior. Less doubts about her character. A plausible reason to reinvent her personality. And no reason to suspect Ridley having another - impossible to spin in your favor - affair."
A wide smile spreads on Ridley's face. Jonah can see how he easily charms the press. He just hopes he charms Leo just as easily. "Hear that, Lee Lee? It's perfect."
"Not quite yet," Jonah interrupts, before someone can point out the flaw in his plan. "Like. I can make a lot of that happen. We own Frankie Mueller, her trusted confidante, who will say everything we want him to as long as he doesn't incriminate himself. For some cleaner, more quotable testimonials, I have several people in mind who can be bought, or... well, convinced to confirm your sweeping love story. But. There's one obvious obstacle left." He tilts his head towards Danielle. "Your girlfriend has to play along."
Leo's forehead is creased in thought, but the murderous glint in his eyes is gone. He taps a finger to his chin, nodding to himself.
"Babe?" Ridley prompts.
"Alright." With a defeated sigh, Leo looks at his lover, then at the barely conscious woman on his lap. Danielle seems to shiver under Leo's gaze. "Fine. Leave that to me."
Because @wildfaewhump has amazing (hot!) characters and Dany just can't keep her hands to herself, here's another spicy AU. In which my Dany and Vic's Peyton have had nothing bad happen to them and are successful rich kids working in their parent's companies. They also happen to have insane chemistry.
[Just A Fling Masterlist]
(Don't worry though, there's plenty whump on the horizon. Peyton isn't exactly a nice guy.)
(This is technically aligned with the "Everything and Nothing" AU of Vic, focusing on Valerian as Peyton's spouse)
Content: (Very) Spicy flirting. A lot of innuendo.
Night has long fallen, and Dany leans back in the leather chair of the hotel bar, staring at the city lights far below. Young Leaders in Management, the conference is called, and it's an honor to be there; chances are a bunch of them will be in next year's "30 under 30" list of top managers. It's hard to truly believe in it, when most of them work for companies that have their parents' name.
People like Peyton Montgomery, 29, CFO of Montgomery Capital. Charlene Lennox, 26, CFO of Baxter, Lennox and partners. Orville Roscoe, 25, whose grandmother put the R in WRU. And herself, Danielle Hammond, 29, COO of the Hammond Group.
Charlene had invited her to dinner over their joint venture building up a freight airline; and as always she'd been a strenuous and utterly un-fun conversation partner, leaving Dany in desperate need of a drink after their meeting had finally ended.
A drink, and a distraction.
She pulls out her phone with a sigh, scrolling down to find the respective apps.
"What are you doing?", Kate asks, suddenly alert. Shes been half asleep before, and Dany almost feels the pang of a bad conscience. Kate is second shift of her security detail, but that still means she's been working all night.
"Bumble." Dany turns her screen for Kate to see. "I need a fuck."
"Dany," Kate groans. "Please, give me a break. You know how hard it is to vet random strangers on the internet? For all I know, any of the men in that app could be a serial killer."
"Well, what else do you suggest?"
"Look at what's right in front of you. How about..." She makes a vague gesture. "Peyton Montgomery? He's sitting at the bar and he checked your ass out twice in the last five minutes alone."
Dany glances over her shoulder through the dim light of the half empty bar, easily spotting Peyton's dark curls. He's sitting at the bar. Alone, it seems - a state that seems entirely wrong for him. At home during any social events, he's the heart of the party; him, his spouse and their elitist circle of old-money friends. She'd never felt any need to belong.
"Pretty sure your line of arguments is flawed," she notes. "Rich boys can be serial killers, too, you know."
"At least I can be sure that he isn't in it for your money." Kate shrugged and pushed her glass of water from one side of the table to the other. "Plus, he lives in the same hotel. Neither of us has to get out in the cold."
Dany sighs and looks at him again. She's attended a panel with him, earlier today, 'Cost cutting by Process Automation'. Arrogant, spoilt, pumped with the casual confidence of those who always got whatever they wanted. He's also got a pretty smile, dry humour, and a way with numbers. And she really likes the way his shirt emphasises his shoulders.
Maybe it's worth a shot.
His head goes up to the mirror over the bar and he smirks, acknowledging her stare. Slowly, not breaking eye contact, he raises his glass to his lips and takes a small sip.
Fuck.
Just for that smirk, she'd swipe him right in any app.
She breaks their eye contact and looks back at Kate, half defeated. "I'll talk to him."
Kate grins and raps her knuckles on the table. "Good luck."
~
"Dany Hammond." Peyton smiles as she steps up next to him. "Really enjoyed that debate with you today. You're up late."
"Thanks. Right back at you. Still not over your cost efficiency argumentation, though. These numbers are obviously -" She bites her lip and shakes her head. Focus. She's here to find something else entirely. "Well you're right with one thing. It's too late to talk business."
"It is." He tilts his head at the empty bar stool next to him. "Let me buy you a drink?"
Dany raises an eyebrow, stepping back to look him down slowly. His shoulders and arms under that expensive shirt look even better up close. He really is her type. "Depends on what your intentions are with that."
He chuckles and returns the favour, taking her in head to toe. "Well... I could certainly come up with some ideas for my... intentions." Peyton glances over her shoulder and raises his glass towards Kate. "I guess it all depends on what your bodyguard back there will let me do to you."
"Ah." Dany clicks her tongue in fake disappointment. "Wrong answer, rich boy."
"Oh?" He narrows his eyes, a hint of a challenge sparking in them. "Depends on what... you'll let me do to you?"
She takes a sip of her drink and tilts her head. "Better."
He's not moving for a moment, simply assessing her, and she wonders if Kate's been wrong.
"Let's say..." He begins, and something to his tone makes a warm shiver run down her spine already. His eyes are firmly on hers now, very carefully observing any reaction. "Let's assume my intentions were to fuck you over every horizontal surface of my suite?"
Dany's heart is racing with anticipation. "Hmmm." Her lip twitches into a smirk. "Then I guess you should order these drinks to go."
Peyton snaps his fingers and signals the bartender without taking his gaze off of her. "You should just know, Dany," He gives her an almost boyish grin, as the bartender scurries back to pick up a bottle. "I was prepared to properly seduce you. I'd have given you the whole nine yards. The words, the smiles, the body language, the touches. People tend to admire my effortless charm."
Dany slides from her chair, their bodies almost touching, but just not, close enough to feel the heat radiating from each other. "Oh I don't have a doubt you're a good actor", she admits, and reaches out, fingertips resting on his chest. "But haven't we found on in that debate that we both rather share a passion for..." She leans in, acutely aware of how her hair falls over his shoulder, how her breath must feel on the skin of his neck. "... efficacy."
He moves faster than she expected, his hand on her hip spinning her around, and then she's pinned between his body and the bar, and it's his mouth that is on her neck, his teeth grazing over her skin.
From the corner of her eye, she sees Kate jump to her feet.
Peyton chuckles, holds out his hand, and a cold bottle of champagne is handed to him.
"Make sure your bodyguard knows not to disturb us," he murmurs into her hair. "We're going to be making a lot of noise."
From mine and @justplainwhump 's Dany and Peyton au, also under my Everything And Nothing au umbrella where Valerian is Peyton's spouse! This piece happens after Distraction and before Equipment Room.
Their hair is a sheet of platinum blonde, its ends brushing the peak of their ass every time they move. Their dress hangs just as perfectly, quicksilver silk poured over their body. Diamonds at wrist, neck, and ears complete the look, and Valerian knows that tonight they are beautiful.
Peyton hasn't looked at them once.
Valerian clicks tapered nails across the top of the cocktail table. Their husband, sequestered at another, tips his head closer to hear the tart whispering in his ear. His lips curl in easy enjoyment as he looks up and down the woman that Valerian can't match. His fingers toy with hers, a shameless display of the affair Valerian has known about for months.
Danielle Hammond -- Dany to her friends -- is everything Valerian is not -- cannot be -- tonight. Her red dress hugs curves everywhere Valerian is flat; even the curls of her warm blonde hair are perfectly proportioned. She has eschewed jewelry - probably so nothing will distract from her decolletage, which Valerian silently, seethingly admits is stunning.
Peyton laughs again and waggles his empty glass. Valerian can read the offer to get her another from across the room. Their nails tap against the base of their own, empty since the moment Peyton abandoned them.
"He's fucking infatuated."
Valerian jerks. "You're lucky I don't have any drink left. You should have a face full of liquor for sneaking around like that."
Geoff grins. He sets a trio of flutes down, but twitches the nearest one away when Valerian reaches for it. "Oh, you don't want to be the one drinking this."
Valerian scowls. "And just what is that suppposed to mean? I'm not in the mood for games tonight."
Geoff lifts his chin towards Peyton, just arriving back to his table with a pair of drinks. "What about a game with her?"
"Ew. I'm not a fan of orgies."
Or sharing, but they've already had to compromise so much on that front that to say so would invite ridicule.
Geoff remains annoyingly cheerful. "Relax, you won't have to touch her. Or even watch, if you're gonna be a prude. But you can't say you don't want her taken down a peg, can you?"
Valerian eyes the flute. "She's certain to have an army of lawyers. I don't want you jeopardizing my husband just because you weren't allowed to bring your pet to this tedious gala."
Geoff's smile is edged, a dangerous focus in his gaze, and Valerian realizes he hasn't been watching Danielle all this time. Only Peyton.
They shiver. The damned a/c must be set too low.
"Here's what I want," he says after a lagging, too-long gap. "Cover for us with Peyton's parents if they ask. We're going to head down to my property in Georgia for a week or two."
"And what do I get in return?"
"Ms. Hammond put in her place. And unlikely to pick things back up with Peyton when he gets back."
Valerian eyes the flute, innocently sparkling between them.
"I'll handle Charles and Imogene. If you promise that there's no way anything you do tonight will come back to bite us."
"Absolutely." Geoff tips his glass and departs with a grin.
Valerian can't help but watch, caught in the web of his game. They watch concealed distaste flit across Danielle's features as Geoff joins them, and their heart trips over something not quite hope and not quite fear as she hesutates to raise the offered flute when Geoff proposes a toast. But Peyton's arm slips around her waist, his flute clinking gently against hers as he brushes his lips against the shell of her ear, and she smiles and tips it to her lips.
After that, it's almost painful to watch. Her composure unravels to tipsy delight, and a few heads start to turn as Peyton braces her against his side and escorts her out. She'll be remembered as drunk, later.
Geoff slips out the same door a few minutes later. Valerian sniffs and signals for another drink. They wish--
It's no use wishing. Sentiment never bought anyone diamonds, and protecting what's theirs is their right. He's their husband. She's just a tart with more tits than brain.
The party flows around them, all glitter and glitz and the scent of money. But the next drink, and the one after that, don't soften the edges of the memory of Peyton's hand around Danielle Hammond's waist, or of Geoff's predatory tread stalking after them. The glass in their hand chimes softly against the table as another shiver courses through them. Another party dances at the edge of their mind, a memory they've locked away for years knocking on their weakened defenses.
In the corner of their eye, the door they've been trying not to watch opens. Two dark heads slip out, Geoff's bent towards Peyton's ear as he steers them quickly towards the exit. Peyton doesn't look up.
Valerian grips the edge of the table with shaking fingers. The door stays closed.
They're across the room before they quite know they've decided to move, but once the handle is in their grip they know they can't go home without seeing--
The hallway is quiet. Nobody will be heading back to their rooms yet. One door left ajar spills light across richly plush carpet. Valerian's heels sink into it silently. They pause in the center of the hallway and stare.
She's a tangle of limbs on the floor, hitching her dress back up over her tits. Tears and worse streak her face, her neck, her thighs. Fingertip bruises are starting to dimple her hips. When she looks up, the blown centers of her pupils swallow her irises almost completely. She's still high. She braces one hand on the floor, unsteady, and watches them as if not quite sure what she's seeing is real.
Valerian looks for the warmth of vicious satisfaction, but all they can find is another shiver. Two steps carry them out of her sight, but it's not enough to hide the sound of her choked sob.
They hurry, panting immediately, awkward in their heels. They wanted her punished. Humiliated. Driven away from their husband. She was a slut who got what she deserved.
