highwaywhump

[highwaywhump]

being aromantic and into whump is like. shoutout to whump for being a great opportunity to engage with stories about intimacy and vulnerability and powerful emotion and physical interactions with other people and intense relationships that are not presumptively based in romance. what would i do without you.

#yes #i have no problem reading romance but damn. the inherent hotness of hurt/comf #of relationships deeper than attraction #the intimacy of stabbing someone and then stitching them up after

[highwaywhump]

Last fill is a newspaper article feat. future Ade!

Text-only version below the cut.

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @mirasmirages @flowersarefreetherapy @whumpinggrounds @cepheusgalaxy @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump @bbu-on-the-side

CWs: BBU, pet whump, dehumanisation

Do you think Guard Dog designated pets should be legally required to wear an auditory identifier in public?

Summary of the proposed law: Guard Dog class pets will have to wear an auditory device such as a bell collar or proximity alarm at all times whilst in public spaces.

Yes

David Cooper, Talk Radio presenter and former owner of GDS Ltd

In all pets there is the danger of them running off, to name one problem, but not all are likely to harm people. This honour is reserved mainly for Guard Dogs.

In 2022, 54% of all reported violent pet-related incidents were caused by Guard Dogs. This is compared to 22% caused by Domestics, 9% by Platonics, 12% by Romantics, and only 3% by Objects. Clearly, something needs to be done to regulate Guard Dogs further and reduce their detrimental impact on the general population. They are a danger to adults and children alike, and although an extremely useful asset, precautions must be taken to ensure nothing gets out of hand. They are inherently violent, and if training is done badly then they can become killers — and not just in defence of their owners.

I recognise that a lot of proposals, such as MP North's in September 2021 to keep Guard Dogs muzzled at all times around vulnerable people, go too far, and are unworkable in terms of ensuring their owners can still be protected, but something needs to be done. And a warning causes no harm to anyone.

I know there are arguments that this dehumanises Guard Dogs, and that it is unneeded, but I disagree. These are the same type of people who argue that bell collars aren't good for cats despite the numerous evidence that they prevent bird kills. Pets do not feel embarrassed, that is the fact of the matter, and a bell or proximity alarm would not be an annoyance but rather an acceptable fact of having a Guard Dog. You own a Guard Dog, you must have a bell, and that would be the end of the matter.

One thing I do object to though is the lack of consideration given to disabled people throughout this proposal. If a deaf person were to need an alert to a nearby Guard Dog, for example, how would it work? They wouldn't be able to hear an auditory identifier.

I propose that, in addition to the auditory identifier, Guard Dog pets should be fitted with a device that emits a flashing light. This would allow those with low or no hearing to know when a Guard Dog is nearby. A GPS device would be useful if the Guard Dog is unseen, for example in an adjoining supermarket aisle, but this would be an invasion of the people’s privacy and technically very difficult to adapt.

However, something must be done to improve the safety of the general public and it is for that reason that I, with the expertise of my years as CEO of Guard Dog Security Ltd, support these proposals.

No

Ade Olayinke, Mayor of Sheffield and founder of Help4Pets

In my role as Mayor of Sheffield, I have met many residents, some of whom own Guard Dogs. In this job, and while working on the ground for Help4Pets, I have rarely met any dangerous pets — owners, however, can be a different story. Research conducted by YouGov suggests that over 90% of Guard Dog-related incidents can be traced back to their owners or training. Surely then the legislations on pet owners and training should be tightened, instead of these frankly humiliating proposals for Guard Dogs themselves?

Because yes, they are humiliating. Some say that pets can't be humiliated, but if that's the case, why do many books on pet care suggest it as the first choice of punishment? Alongside pain, of course.

Why should a pet have to pay for another's mistakes? Although I don't necessarily agree I can see the argument with pets that truly are dangerous, but most aren't (if not all — remember, pets are trained to obey their owners in all things. If they're hurting members of the public, this suggests that either their owner wants them to, or their training has gone wrong in some way. In either case, why should the pet be the one to pay when they are not at fault?). In fact, another poll by YouGov from September last year showed that out of pet-related groups (including the pets themselves) the general public are by far most afraid of WRU recapture squads, and for good reason, given their powers to act with almost complete impunity. One thing I can commend in this country is at least they aren't allowed to be armed.

But one of the stated aims of this new legislation is to reassure the general public, and if WRU recapture squads are the biggest obstacle to that, surely they should be the ones who need to be identified at a distance? Unless you view it as too extreme a measure for people, in which case you should ask yourself why you think it's okay for those classed as pets. However you view them, they are still human.

It is legislation on owners and trainers (both WRU and others) that should be tightened. The solution is not to force pets, who are already under tight control with existing laws heavily biased against them, to wear such a humiliating and unnecessary device, but to help everyone, both pets and people, live peacefully together without causing unnecessary fear, humiliation or other types of harm. To anyone.

YOUR VIEW

What is your opinion of the proposed legislation? Let us know at [email protected], subject: GUARD DOGS

#so cool!!

[highwaywhump]

What was the first forbidden thing your boxie oc tried in freedom? Or, if they haven't yet, what would they try if they could?

For Joey?

- sara / @justplainwhump

Joey's pulse was racing the whole time and for several hours after, but it was driven by wonderful exhilaration, not crippling fear.

Aaron bid him goodbye in the kitchen in the morning, Joey was still dressed in his pajama pants and the hood of his soft, well-worn hoodie pulled halfway over his head. He nursed a fresh cup of coffee and nodded sleepily along as Aaron squuezed his shoulder and told him he'd be back home in time for dinner - Marla was coming too and she'd bring her special recipe marinated chicken (which she once had confided in Joey was mostly garlic and smoked paprika).

"See you then," Aaron said and picked up his briefcase by the shoulder strap.

"See ya," Joey yawned, and when he finished, the door was already closed behind his keeper.

He let the feigned sleepiness disappear immediately. His hands were shaking and it wasn't the caffeine.

He was so quick up the stairs that his long healed ankle smarted. He never minded as he pulled off his hoodie and pajamas, quickly finding the pair of jeans - new, never properly used, but still had all the right wrinkles and light spots - in his closet. By his door, new sneakers with dazzlingly white soles. Then, a fresh hoodie and as quickly as he had come up, he flew down the stairs again.

In the hallway, he stopped, breathed, clenched and unclenched his hands.

In a dish on a teak chest of drawers lay several sets of keys. Joey located the one he wanted with his eyes before he reached for it. A single nondescript metal key, solitarily placed on an empty ring. Not even a keyring to go along with it.

Gingerly, taking care to not let the metal make any sound, he pulled it out of the bunch. As if he wasn't home alone and would be continue to for the next eight hours.

Suddenly, he had separated it from the others. Cold metal in his hand, his to wield. He cupped it in both hands and held it close to his chest for a moment, before turning to the door in the kitchen that led to the garage.

--

Aaron was in an unreasonably good mood as he pulled in the long driveway up to his house. It looked silent and desolate, as usual, but he knew somewhere inside was his little ward, listening through his old records or on the phone with Marla (and probably mostly listening to her, too).

"Joey?" he called as he stepped inside, putting down a bag of groceries. "I got that brand of soda that you like, Fizz-something. They didn't have peach, so I got lemon - hi."

"Hi."

Aaron found Joey sitting by the kitchen island as he rounded the corner and entered the room. He seemed to be almost trembling with energy, his lips pressed tightly together. For a short, short moment, Aaron was worried. This manner was so new. Joey was normally pulled back, careful. But now he had a shining glint in his eyes.

Aaron's gaze moved away from his face and down to the counter in front of him. There was a paper bag with a familiar logo and a paper cut with a straw in.

"Did you order in?" Aaron asked as he set down his briefcase and tried to recall when he'd taught him how to do that. Maybe Marla had at some point.

"No," Joey shook his head and bit his lip, to stop what Aaron now could see was a smile trying to break free.

"Did you..." Aaron tried again, not sure what to say. The fast food place was relatively close, but still quite a walk.

"I drove," Joey finally beamed. He gets crow's feet when he smiles this wide, Aaron noticed in the back of his mind.

"You- drove-?" he stuttered, and raced through the possibilities in his mind. He had taken his own car to work, so he must have used the green vintage thing that had taken up space in his garage for three years.

"Please don't be mad," Joey said softly, and his eyes were big now, immediately worried at the lack of reassurance.

"I'm not! I'm not mad," Aaron hurried to put him at ease. He stepped forwards and offered his open arms, that wordless invitation that had become second nature a long time ago. Joey leaned towards him and let himself be enveloped.

"I'm not mad, I promise," Aaron muttered into his dark hair, and he could feel the tension bleed out of Joey's muscles. "I just- you can drive stick?"

Joey nodded against his shoulder. "I guess I do," he whispered gleefully.

Again he bit his lip so as not break the moment. Ten months ago, the mere thought of leaving the house without getting the explicit permission and order to do so, would have been unthinkable. And today he had sat in the driver's seat of a car, all alone, not even thinking about how to use a gear shift. Just falling back on past muscle memory that the memory wipe couldn't take from him.

Neither moved for a long moment, save Aaron's hand making large circles on his back.

"And she runs?" he eventually asked.

"Purred like a cat."

--

all the small things too of course, like using the furniture and saying (carefully, politely) no to things. but one day getting into a car, going down to the sleepy fast food place where the interstate meets main street, order something and then leave again - not telling anyone where he was going, not feeling like he has to tell anyone at all - that was the first 'illegal' thing. aaron didn't say it here but he would like to know if, when and where joey goes. at least as long as he still has that barcode tattoo.

--

@simplygrimly @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @briars7 @hackles-up @doveotions @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @kixngiggles @firewheeesky @maracujatangerine @nicolepascaline @whumpthisway @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @whumping-snail @pumpkin-spice-whump @pigeonwhumps @whumplr-reader @considerablecolors @dustypinetree @snakebites-and-ink @inkstainsonmyhands12 @taterswhump @hxakfhakbcbqkk i'm sorry if i forget anyone, shoot me a dm!

#this is such a nice comment i read it three times last night #aaron feels he is teetering the edge between caring and controlling #he wants joey to have as much freedeom as possible but in his mind he’d still like to know where he is #at this point in the story joey doesn’t really exist on paper #so traffic police would have had some questions if they’d stopped him #aaron worries #a lot #morning reblog

[highwaywhump]

What was the first forbidden thing your boxie oc tried in freedom? Or, if they haven't yet, what would they try if they could?

For Joey?

- sara / @justplainwhump

(way into the future)

Joey's pulse was racing the whole time and for several hours after, but it was driven by wonderful exhilaration, not crippling fear.

Aaron bid him goodbye in the kitchen in the morning, Joey was still dressed in his pajama pants and the hood of his soft, well-worn hoodie pulled halfway over his head. He nursed a fresh cup of coffee and nodded sleepily along as Aaron squuezed his shoulder and told him he'd be back home in time for dinner - Marla was coming too and she'd bring her special recipe marinated chicken (which she once had confided in Joey was mostly garlic and smoked paprika).

"See you then," Aaron said and picked up his briefcase by the shoulder strap.

"See ya," Joey yawned, and when he finished, the door was already closed behind his keeper.

He let the feigned sleepiness disappear immediately. His hands were shaking and it wasn't the caffeine.

He was so quick up the stairs that his long healed ankle smarted. He never minded as he pulled off his hoodie and pajamas, quickly finding the pair of jeans - new, never properly used, but still had all the right wrinkles and light spots - in his closet. By his door, new sneakers with dazzlingly white soles. Then, a fresh hoodie and as quickly as he had come up, he flew down the stairs again.

In the hallway, he stopped, breathed, clenched and unclenched his hands.

In a dish on a teak chest of drawers lay several sets of keys. Joey located the one he wanted with his eyes before he reached for it. A single nondescript metal key, solitarily placed on an empty ring. Not even a keyring to go along with it.

Gingerly, taking care to not let the metal make any sound, he pulled it out of the bunch. As if he wasn't home alone and would be continue to for the next eight hours.

Suddenly, he had separated it from the others. Cold metal in his hand, his to wield. He cupped it in both hands and held it close to his chest for a moment, before turning to the door in the kitchen that led to the garage.

--

Aaron was in an unreasonably good mood as he pulled in the long driveway up to his house. It looked silent and desolate, as usual, but he knew somewhere inside was his little ward, listening through his old records or on the phone with Marla (and probably mostly listening to her, too).

"Joey?" he called as he stepped inside, putting down a bag of groceries. "I got that brand of soda that you like, Fizz-something. They didn't have peach, so I got lemon - hi."

"Hi."

Aaron found Joey sitting by the kitchen island as he rounded the corner and entered the room. He seemed to be almost trembling with energy, his lips pressed tightly together. For a short, short moment, Aaron was worried. This manner was so new. Joey was normally pulled back, careful. But now he had a shining glint in his eyes.

Aaron's gaze moved away from his face and down to the counter in front of him. There was a paper bag with a familiar logo and a paper cut with a straw in.

"Did you order in?" Aaron asked as he set down his briefcase and tried to recall when he'd taught him how to do that. Maybe Marla had at some point.

"No," Joey shook his head and bit his lip, to stop what Aaron now could see was a smile trying to break free.

"Did you..." Aaron tried again, not sure what to say. The fast food place was relatively close, but still quite a walk.

"I drove," Joey finally beamed. He gets crow's feet when he smiles this wide, Aaron noticed in the back of his mind.

"You- drove-?" he stuttered, and raced through the possibilities in his mind. He had taken his own car to work, so he must have used the green vintage thing that had taken up space in his garage for three years.

"Please don't be mad," Joey said softly, and his eyes were big now, immediately worried at the lack of reassurance.

"I'm not! I'm not mad," Aaron hurried to put him at ease. He stepped forwards and offered his open arms, that wordless invitation that had become second nature a long time ago. Joey leaned towards him and let himself be enveloped.

"I'm not mad, I promise," Aaron muttered into his dark hair, and he could feel the tension bleed out of Joey's muscles. "I just- you can drive stick?"

Joey nodded against his shoulder. "I guess I do," he whispered gleefully.

Again he bit his lip so as not break the moment. Ten months ago, the mere thought of leaving the house without getting the explicit permission and order to do so, would have been unthinkable. And today he had sat in the driver's seat of a car, all alone, not even thinking about how to use a gear shift. Just falling back on past muscle memory that the memory wipe couldn't take from him.

Neither moved for a long moment, save Aaron's hand making large circles on his back.

"And she runs?" he eventually asked.

"Purred like a cat."

--

all the small things too of course, like using the furniture and saying (carefully, politely) no to things. but one day getting into a car, going down to the sleepy fast food place where the interstate meets main street, order something and then leave again - not telling anyone where he was going, not feeling like he has to tell anyone at all - that was the first 'illegal' thing. aaron didn't say it here but he would like to know if, when and where joey goes. at least as long as he still has that barcode tattoo.

--

@simplygrimly @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @briars7 @hackles-up @doveotions @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @kixngiggles @firewheeesky @maracujatangerine @nicolepascaline @whumpthisway @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @whumping-snail @pumpkin-spice-whump @pigeonwhumps @whumplr-reader @considerablecolors @dustypinetree @snakebites-and-ink @inkstainsonmyhands12 @taterswhump @hxakfhakbcbqkk i'm sorry if i forget anyone, shoot me a dm!

#i've read a lot of fanfic lately and i feel it has influenced my writing #not saying that fanfic is bad #my screentime is would attest to my love of fanfic actually #but there are a lot of run on sentences #cw past conditioning #sorry if this didn't make any sense

[highwaywhump]

raise your hand if you reread fic comments when you’re having a bad day

those kind words can make all the difference sometimes

#yes <3

[highwaywhump]

BBU Community Days 2024: Prompts

Thought I'd make an ask game for today's prompt. Feel free to reblog and use! @bbu-on-the-side

In WRU Custody

What was the hardest moment of their first 48 hours in WRU's hands?

What did they fight the hardest not to lose? Were they in any way successful?

Talk about a moment they were defiant.

Talk about a moment they obeyed.

Handlers

Who was their first trainee? How did their approach differ then vs now?

What does your handler oc like to do for fun outside of work?

Are there any workplace tensions they have to deal with? How do they approach them?

Do they want or own any pets of their own?

Owners

What made your owner oc decide to get a pet?

What are some of their requirements or expectations for their pet(s)?

Does your owner oc interact with a lot of people who also own pets? Or are they the odd one out in their social circle in this regard?

If they could change one thing about their pet, what would it be?

Escape/Rescue/Aftermath

What was the first forbidden thing your boxie oc tried in freedom? Or, if they haven't yet, what would they try if they could?

Do they miss their owner?

Did they do anything to change their appearance after they were free?

What's something that's hard for them in freedom?

#fun! #im open

[highwaywhump]

BBU community days, day 1!

(Re)Introduction - Introduce yourself and give a little overview about your BBU writing / creations, favorite tropes, and the like. If you want, this is the moment to advertise yourself!

sooo… gotta be honest, not much has happened on this blog since the last community days event (you’re great, sara!). my name is amie and i’m a twenty something uni student who likes to hurt blorbos on the side. around this time last year i was super busy with my bachelor and this semester has been 4x more work than normal (i’ll just say right now that most of what these community days entail i will probably put out late).

around 12 months ago i put my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese joey in the hospital and he’s been there ever since. but! when the worst of this thing they call education is over, i have many, many ideas that i can’t wait to develop and write. joey is my absolute favourite little man who i like to put in situations and make him cry. aaron is joey’s favourite big man and there’s also marla and an unnamed guard dog who dips in and out of this blog.

my favourite trope is pet whump and my favourite sub-trope is platonic co-sleeping (<3). nothing makes me happier than a sleepy lil guy who can’t sleep well on their own 😌

@bbu-on-the-side

#bbu community #bbu community day 1 #also wonderful people who have reblogged and commented on my stuff and sent asks about my stuff #i see you i love you i am gently putting you in a box for safe keeping until i have more spoons and less lectures

[highwaywhump]

BBU Community Days 2024! In April!

Thank you, BBU community, for existing! To celebrate this community and our shared universe, I'll host a second instance of the BBU Community Days.

The event is open to everyone who enjoys the BBU. You don't have to be a writer or a long time participant, or anything, it's enough to just be someone who is fascinated by the universe! There's also no need to fill in all the prompts; no completionist badge will be awarded. The only "rule" is: if you want to boost your own content, please always boost someone else's too.

This year's prompts are in parts similar to last year's, some even stayed the same due to their success and popularity. Looking forward to seeing your new takes to it.

All prompts and a transcript of the image can be found under the cut as well.

April 14 / Community Prompt: (Re)Introduction / (Re-) Introduce yourself and give a little overview about your BBU writing / creations, favorite tropes, and the like.

April 15 / Worldbuilding Prompt: Questions (and Polls!) / What's an open question you've always asked yourself about the BBU?

April 16 / Writing Prompt: "RULES" / Write a BBU story based on the one-word-prompt and share it!

April 17 / Showcasing Prompt: Boxies / Talk about your current favorite boxie OCs (one of your own, one or more by someone else) with commentary on what makes them special to you!

April 18 / Creation Prompt: Memes & Prompts / Create a BBU meme (that would work in-universe or as a meta commentary - your call!), or curate a little BBU prompt list to inspire fellow writers, artists or roleplayers!

April 19 / Community Prompt: Favorites New & Old / Talk about the writers, characters or stories that most inspired your BBU journey - and if possible include a "new" favorite that you discovered (or that has only been been written) after last year’s event!

April 20 / Worldbuilding Prompt: Inspiration / What's an idea about the BBU worldbuilding that particularly inspires you, be it to daydream or to write?

April 21 / Writing Prompt: "OUTSIDE" / Write a BBU story based on the one-word-prompt and share it!

April 22 / Showcasing Prompt: Handlers or Owners / Talk about your current favorite BBU whumper OCs (one of your own, one or more by someone else) with commentary on what makes them special to you!

April 23 / Creation Prompt: In-Universe Media / Create a piece of media that could exist within the BBU!

April 24 / Community Prompt: Fanwork / Create a piece of fanwork (fanart, fanfic, moodboard, playlist…) for someone else’s BBU story, character, setting, pairing, or whatever inspires you about them!

April 25 / Worldbuilding Prompt: Archetypes / What’s a standard element of BBU worldbuilding you love to come back to in your own writing, and that makes you happy to see in others’? What are potential spins to it?

April 26 / Writing Prompt: "MADE FOR IT" / Write a BBU story based on the prompt and share it!

April 27 / Showcasing Prompt: Caretaker / Talk about your current favorite BBU caretaker OCs - be it pet lib activists, kind (?) owners, a boxie's loved ones... - (one of your own, one or more by someone else) with commentary on what makes them special to you!

April 28 / Creation Prompt: Collaboration / Create a piece of BBU content together with another community member! 

#yay! #maybe i’ll manage to finish this year

[highwaywhump]

I Know You Remember Me

John recognizes a wealthy client’s stolen pet immediately, even filthy, with two black eyes. He moves quickly to buy him back from the box truck driver in possession of him, and then must think what to do about this. Meanwhile, he looks after the abused pet in a motel room.

CW: lay it on thick hurt/comfort, pet whump universe (not bbu), caretaker has some ulterior motives but is largely sympathetic, offscreen noncon with multiple whumpers, sti mention, underweight whumpee mention, whumpee offering sex, bruises, burns & cigarette burns, nonsexual nudity and bathing, platonic bed-sharing, medically inaccurate care I’m sure, one shot probably

-

“I know you remember me. I’m sure I remember you.”

The unfortunate creature— for he looked more a creature than a boy in the low light, in the filthy west Texas motel room John had rented for the night with cash— dared to steal a glance up at him.

His eyes were dark, and bright with fear. Bruises ringed both of them like an unlucky fighter, purple as the Easter cloth draped on all the crosses they’d driven past. John knew from the taut look of the eyelids they’d been swollen shut a day or so earlier. The boy pet had dried blood caked in his nostrils and on one side of his downturned mouth. His hair was a matted and filthy mop that fell over his forehead and ears in greasy, wavy sections crusted together with more old blood.

The boy looked at him cautiously. There was too much fear in his posture, in his eyes. It was impossible to tell if he recognized John, too.

John squatted down to be eye level. As he thought it might, this made the frightened pet drop his eyes and flatten his spine as best he could against the nicotine stained paint of the motel wall.

“Hey, now,” John murmured, as if to one of his racehorses. They were spirited, flighty things, nothing like the quarter horses he’d grown up with. He talked to them all the same, though, from the spring colts to the swaybacked veterans.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. I know you’ve seen a lot of people lately, huh? You probably don’t remember me. That’s okay. I remember you. You were at Jack Kinsington’s place before all this.”

The boy did not look back up at him, and his dirty hair gave away his trembling, but he was listening.

“I came by with a couple of horses. Bays, both of them. Soaked in sweat and prancing all around, you remember them? They’re high strung, they don’t like to ride in the trailer. Anyway, I told Jack he ought to let you stretch your legs. He did, but you were so numb you couldn’t stand for a while. You looked right at me.”

The boy turned his head an inch, so he could glance up at John’s face again.

“You remember that day. Sure you do. I thought you were in rough shape then, but I have to say, you look worse now.”

That lost him the eye contact. That was okay. The boy remembered. If not his face, then the incident.

“I thought it was awfully cruel to keep you in a space that small,” he went on. “I don’t know how some people do to a person what they wouldn’t do to an animal. They justify it, I guess. They project things onto these pets they buy and then they punish them for it. Gives them their kicks. Even Jack Kinsington, who I have to admit I respected up until that day.”

He stopped that train of thought.

“Why don’t we get you up off the floor there and let me take care of you, huh? No offense, you look kind of like roadkill.”

The boy made no sound, no indication that he’d even heard except for the way his chest expanded a little faster with his quickening breath. The poor thing's heart must be pounding. John had a knack for fixing things up, be it a business his brother had fucked up or a lame horse, a broken water heater or a vehicle. He spent less time fixing things now and more time delegating what other people needed to fix, but this boy was downright hurting his innermost, rarely expressed tenderness of heart, and he wanted to fix something for him.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said again. His knees were getting tired in this deep squat, and his boots had no give in the toes for it. “I’m gonna clean you up and look after you. You don’t have to do anything, just don’t fight me too much. Can you do that?”

He reached out and laid a hand over the boy’s. The abused pet flinched but didn’t jerk away. John encircled the boy’s wrist in his hand and pulled it slowly away from his body, towards him. “Can you stand?” he asked, pushing himself to standing and bringing the boy with him.

He made it to his feet, and was nearly as tall as John, but stumbled when he tried to take a step.

“Please,” he whispered reflexively as John moved closer, flinching to protect his battered face.

“Please what, baby?” John muttered, lifting the boy’s arm over the back of his shoulders and wrapping his arm around his slim waist to help him walk. “You’re okay, you’re right here. I’ve got you. Let’s get you in the tub.”

Slowly, they staggered to the motel bathroom a d John flicked on the staggeringly white lights that buzzed and hummed to life. He sat the boy on the lip of the low bathtub as gently as he could.

“I’m going to give you a bath,” he said matter-of-factly, turning the taps so warm water began to fill the tub. “Where did all this blood come from?”

The boy was watching him warily, dark eyes following his every move.

“You hear me? Where’s all this dried blood coming from, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

John nodded, pleased the boy had spoken. Some didn’t, or wouldn’t, he knew, not once they looked like this one did.

“Did they beat you? Is that what all this is from?”

He gave a small nod, blinking in discomfort at John’s bluntness.

“Did they hurt you in any other ways?”

He nodded again.

John felt a tug of adrenaline in the pit of his stomach. “How?”

Jack’s pet looked evasively at the rising bath water.

“If you tell me how you’re hurt, I can help you better.”

Nothing.

“What’s your name?”

“Paulo.”

He put the emphasis on the au, and there was a way he said his L that positioned the tongue differently than he did when saying other words.

“Paulo,” John said, putting the emphasis on the vowels of the first syllable too, but with no attempt at altering his very American L. I’m John. I bought you from that man, the one with the box truck. I take it Jack Kinsington sold you? Or were you stolen?”

Tears shimmered in the boy’s dark eyes, swollen and purple still like a raccoon mask. He bit the inside of his cheek to steel himself and keep from letting them fall.

John gentled his voice. “Paulo. I only ask because it’s important. If you legally belong to Jack, I gotta bring you back to him.”

Paulo’s head snapped up. He lost control of the tears, which spilled down his bruised cheeks. He grabbed hold of John’s sleeves, pulling himself closer as if his whole body was not bruised and sore. “No,” he begged urgently. “Please. I’ll do anything. Please. I-I’ll do anything you want, I can’t… please don’t….”

An idea dawned on him and he let go of his latest captor’s sleeve in order to lift his trembling fingers to his own tattered shirt. He pulled it over his head with a barely-suppressed whimper of pain. His torso was bruised like his face and arms, dark black and purple impact points on his warm toned skin like fists or boots, some that looked like electric burns left from a cattle prod and others more reminiscent of the yellow, oozing wounds cigarettes tended to leave. He was ribby, in a dehydrated, sudden sort of way that looked like he hadn’t eaten much of anything in the last few days.

He started on the button of his pants and John reached out to stop him. “Hey. No. What’s this?”

“Do- do you prefer girls? I can be just as good for you.” His glittering eyes were simultaneously like a starving animal and horribly blank. “They all say so.”

Ah. There was an answer to one of his questions. He pulled Paulo’s wrists away from the opening of his pants, held them in his own on the cool edge of the tub between them. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not interested.”

“I could take a bath,” he whispered hopefully.

“You will take a bath. But I’m still not interested. I need to know— were you given to someone by Jack Kinsington rightfully, or were you stolen?”

The fear was back. John didn’t know which was worse on this one, the dead eyes or the fear. “Don’t take me back to him.”

“He hurt you a lot, then? Jack?”

John already figured as much. Despite his admiration for the man’s business sense, he was a cruel and sadistic pet owner. Once he’d seen a boy shoved into a cage fit for a fox, he’d reconciled that much in his mind. It was like that often, when it came to human pets, and never quite who you’d expect.

The boy begged miserably. “Please, Sir. I’ll do anything.”

“You mentioned that. He didn’t sell you, did he?”

Paulo glanced down.

So he’d bought a stolen pet. That’s what he more or less suspected when he’d seen the boy at the rest stop, weeks after he’d seen him in the cage at Jack’s and much worse for wear.

Jack Kinsington would probably be even more open to buying more of John’s racehorses in the near future if he returned his favorite boy-pet to him. Don’t worry what it cost to get him back, Jack. Less than the yearling I’ve got for you to look at this spring, I can tell you that. Call it even.

John turned off the taps and tested the water with his fingers. He’d wondered if the boy would be willing to take those filthy clothes off in front of him, but seeing as he’d just offered himself, he thought it more likely now.

“Take those off,” he said of the boy’s remaining clothing. “You can borrow some of mine when you’re cleaned up.”

Despite his offer less than five minutes ago, Paulo was modest to the point of shyness once he was naked.

“It’s okay. I’m not even looking at you,” John assured him a little gruffly as he helped him into the water. “I just want to get you clean.”

Paulo flinched as he submerged, undoubtedly feeling every burn, cut, and bruise as he did. He was so dirty that tear tracks were now visible on his face from his crying. John wet a rough motel washcloth in the warm water and brought it to his face. He dabbed and nudged the dried blood from Paulo’s mouth and nose. The boy tried very hard not to flinch and shy away, and in return he tried to be very gentle. “Good,” he said quietly, wetting the cloth and returning it to the blood and swollen tissue. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

Paulo made brief eye contact with him at that, probably because it had become a foreign concept that someone would make an effort against hurting him. Just as quickly he slid his gaze away, back to an indeterminate point on the bathroom tile.

“You wanna do this next part?”

Paulo didn’t answer.

John moved as gently and quickly as was prudent over the rest of his body, knowing he was hurting him when he passed over the yellowed cigarette burns on his legs and hips.

“I know. You’re gonna be okay. Almost done. You’re doing really well.”

Paulo let John wash his hair, using some of the hotel shampoo that would likely sting some cuts but was desperately needed. He closed his eyes as John worked his fingers through the blood and dirt, the snarls coming apart slowly with gentle patience. As he rinsed the boy’s dark hair clean, John noticed he had stopped shaking.

He drained the now red-brown water and wrapped Paulo in a white hotel towel. He looked better clean, though there was nothing to do for the bruises but wait. He sat on the side of the motel bed as John went through his black duffel bag, pulling out sweatpants, a gray cotton T-shirt, and ibuprofen for him.

Paulo dressed in the bathroom and accepted two of the pills. He came out and sat on the end of the bed afterwards, staring at the pattern on the comforter.

“Does Jack know who had you?” John asked as he set up his phone charger. “The guy with the box truck out there?”

Paulo shook his head. “That man wasn’t the first.”

So he’d been bought and sold multiple times since being stolen—kidnapped— from Jack's property. It was possible Jack knew the original perpetrators, but had no idea where his pet was now. John sighed. His mind was working analytically, trying to understand every facet of the situation before he acted— trying to understand how he could manipulate it most in his favor. But that all felt shallow and cruel when he truly saw the boy in front of him, his damp hair and his bruised face, his narrow chest and the way he was nervously picking at a scab on the inside of his wrist.

“Don’t do that,” John said softly. “I don’t want you getting any infections.”

Paulo stopped immediately but looked intrigued by the care in that statement. Likely no one had said anything like it to him in a long while now.

“Are you hungry?”

Paulo shrugged. John raised his eyebrows and he went with a more committed shake of the head. “No, Sir.”

“…Are you scared?”

The boy swallowed, touched the scab on his wrist without picking it.

He’d said it before, but he knew he’d have to say it a hundred more times, and show it a thousand, before it sunk in. He likely would not end up doing that, but he’d say it as long as the pet was in his possession. “I promise I'm not gonna hurt you.”

“What, then?” Paulo asked, shrugging one shoulder to his ear in what felt like embarrassment at his own question.

“If I’m not going to hurt you? What then?”

He nodded.

“Nothing. I'm gonna take you back to Tennessee.”

“To Jack?”

“For the time being, to my place in Lewisburg. I have a farm.”

“What kind of farm?”

“Horses. You wanna come?”

He said he did. Not that he had much of a choice. John suspected they both knew that killing him on the side of a dirt road in west Texas would be better than what might happen if he took him back to Tennessee and failed to promptly return him to Jack. Jack would take it out on his lost little pet as much as he did John.

“I can’t believe you’re still even sitting up and talking. Come here.” John stood up and pulled the corner of the bedsheets down. “Lie down.”

Paulo did as he asked.

Before John would cover him up he asked, “Can you tell me if anyone kicked you in the back or abdomen, or if you feel any pain when you move or breathe?”

He thought about that. “I don’t know. I’m sore.”

“Any sharp pains, anything feel broken?”

“No?”

“Can I touch your stomach right here? It won’t be for long.”

A little apprehensive, Paulo agreed. John placed his hands on his abdomen and prodded his way along, trying to feel anything amiss or to get a sharp yell from Paulo. None came.

“Does this hurt anywhere more than soreness?”

“No,” his patient said in a small voice.

“Okay,” he said, and covered the boy to his chest with the blankets. “I’m done. Thank you. I was worried you might have internal bleeding, or broken ribs.”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’ll need to get you checked for other things too, soon. Make sure you didn’t contract anything.”

It took a moment for this to register, but when it did, Paulo blushed scarlet.

“It’s okay,” John assured him. His next gesture surprised him. Tenderly, he brushed the back of his knuckles to an unbruised spot on Paulo’s cheek. He was quickly becoming endeared to this unfortunate little pet. “You’re probably alright. And even in the event you did, it’s not your fault.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to?” Paulo asked, leaning his cheek almost imperceptibly into John’s knuckles.

John retracted his hand. “No. I didn’t want to because I am not interested in hurting you.”

“I said you could.”

“You and I both know it would still be hurting.”

Paulo laid his head back on the pillow. “I don’t understand what you want.”

“For starters, I want you to tell me what you want to eat.”

He didn’t eat much, but he did make an effort. John got the impression he was suspicious of every simple kindness, every time there were footsteps outside their door in the breezeway.

When he turned out the light and put a partition of pillows between them to sleep, he felt Paulo start awake every time a car pulled into the parking lot, or the AC beneath the window kicked on with a rattle.

“You’re okay,” he said drowsily from across the pillow divide, which made it feel more like bunking together and less like sharing a bed. “Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody knows where you are at all. That door is deadbolted. And I’m here between the rest of the world and you. You can sleep tonight. Nothing can hurt you.”

He doubted words would actually help, since the boy's nerves were probably completely shot, and who knows when was the last time he’d had a good nights sleep, and felt safe enough to do so? Still, he thought it should be nice to hear. It was the least he could do. He didn’t make any undue promises. Just tonight.

Paulo was quiet for a minute, and then John heard a wet sniff that was the unmistakable sound of crying. He didn’t think he should say ‘don’t cry’ to someone in his position, so he didn’t. He just listened from across the pillows until the little pet fell asleep.

#louder for the people in the back #PLATONIC BED SHARING

[highwaywhump]

Pre-Announcement: BBU Community Days 2024

There will be a second BBU Community Days coming up this year!

The event will run very similarly to last year's, I'm just starting to gather some new prompts and look over the old ones to see what to keep and what to change!

I'm open to ideas from the community as well, so if there's anything you'd like to see in the next community days, feel free to leave it in my ask box.

Timewise, it'll run for 15 days, Sunday to Sunday, from April 14th to April 28th!

Final announcement, prompts and reblogs of your replies will all be posted on this blog, so if you are or want to be a BBU writer (or if you just want to read and meet new whump writers!) give this blog a follow to stay updated!

Looking forward!

#!!!

[highwaywhump]

As much as I love Whumpee x Caretaker...

Rb if you think Caretaker can be a brother, a friend, or just some guy who found Whumpee at the right place, right time and stay that way

#best exemplified by platonic cosleeping #weak in my knees thinking about it

[highwaywhump]

Bluebeard's Pet - Part I

This is a whumpy retelling of the folk/fairytale figure of Bluebeard in three parts. It replaces Bluebeard's new wife with a male "pet" (slave/concubine). It takes place in an indeterminate year in a fictional medieval Europe.

cw: slavery, pet whump, slave auction, stocks, power imbalance, language barriers, gruesome elements like torture, execution, and draconian policies throughout, whipping, sexually explicit scenes, dubcon because of social status, light knifeplay, alcohol consumption, praise kink

Part One: The Hare Moon

Luca’s wrists and back ached stiffly from the stocks at the slave auction. The back of his neck was burned from the sun, and his throat hurt from the long day's thirst.

At least at night the air was cool and the stars were magnificent, a bowl of eternity tipped upside down over the Roman-built road they traveled endlessly south on, towards constellations that looked like a giant ladle, a crab, a many headed serpent. Under the silver light of a quarter-moon, Luca slept in patches, woken always by a shrill whinny of a horse or a bumpy patch of road washed out along a creek bed from the spring snowmelt. He had not slept soundly in many nights, not eaten a true meal, not stretched his arms over his head for the ropes that always bound his wrists. He had not combed his hair or dared say a single word for fear of being struck in the face again.

His newest captors, the people who raided the seaside village he’d belonged to since he could remember, spoke a language he could not even guess to name. It seemed full of consonants to him, with nowhere his mind could rest on a vowel or hear the distinction between words and sentences. For weeks he’d been going by a man’s tone with him, like a dog. He noticed he’d begun to behave like a dog, which made him feel embarrassed and sullen.

He was the only one in the wagon procession from his home country, the others all spoke in Nordic tongues to one another, eyeing him with appraising blue gazes but not trying to communicate. Luca knew his mother tongue should have been or may have once been Italian, but he knew only English now. He longed for even the gruff voice of the old guard at Thistledown, his grumbling would be like birdsong now. He had dark eyes that were sometimes soft, despite his rough voice and hands, and he had slipped Luca hot tea with honey on more than one cold night. What he wouldn’t give for a cup now, in the chipped old mug the man always gave him, with his hands free to hold it in front of him as he pleased.

At first he thought no one had wanted him at the auction. He stayed bent and aching in the stocks, unable to do anything but blink and twitch like a colt at the flies and gnats that buzzed around his face and hands. His gaze was on the ground, he could lift his neck only about an inch and even that sent a twinge of warning pain down his vertebrae. All morning as the sun rose from the April treetops towards its spring zenith he saw boots, boots of soldiers and of merchants, of paupers and some he deemed were likely the fine leather shoes of nobility. Once or twice someone stopped and spoke to the master, who would answer in an oily, flattering voice. Luca couldn’t understand his words, but noted the change in demeanor he had with his prospective customers compared with how he spoke to them— his captured slaves.

Once or twice the slaver pried his mouth open so someone could inspect his teeth, or pulled up and eyelid to see the color of his eyes— or tugged his matted, curly dark hair as if to test the thickness. He could taste their skin on his tongue for hours after they stuck their fingers in his mouth, but he was too thirsty to waste saliva spitting on the ground. He’d probably get a swift kick in the shin for it, anyway. Only the master slaver could spit without permission, which he did frequently— long brown squirts of chewing tobacco through his likewise brown teeth.

Then a large man— Luca could tell by the height of the very shadow on the packed earth in front of him, stood in front of him. He wore a pair of black leather boots, not in the style he’d seen the rest of the morning but flatter, with a tapered toe and filigree silver buckles at the ankles. Of his own volition, Luca dared lift his head that painful inch to raise his eyes to this new stranger. He was well over six feet, broad shouldered and black haired, with silver at the temples almost as if it had been brushed in at perfect intervals. He had dark eyes like Luca, which stood out to him after traveling with so many pale haired, blue eyed captives for so many weeks. Yet unlike Luca’s near black ones, this impassive man’s eyes were light brown, cognac flecked with citrine, like sunlight in a creekbed reflected through water. He wore no discernible expression, but his eyes met Luca and felt like a static shock from a wool blanket. He hurried to drop his gaze back to the dirt.

The slave in the next stock had just bitten someone, and was being beaten with a birch switch so ruthlessly she shrieked and fought her stocks so they rattled. Luca flushed in second hand embarrassment, not only for the slave girl who was being whipped like a donkey, but, strangely, for her bad behavior in front of this regal and composed man.

The man walked a circle around him. In the stocks, Luca could do nothing but stare ahead at the ground. From his peripheral he could see the man wore a curved and ornamented dagger on his hip. Over his wrists and forearms he wore leather bracers, wide and well worn, and on one finger was a gold ring with a flat black head, and in the black field was some jewel, green as deep forest moss, glinting in the sun as it passed his line of vision and was lost again before he could make it out.

The rest of the great man’s garb seemed to him something like the leather and cotton travel-wear his captors wore in these lands, yet over this practical clothing he wore a cloak that spoke to Luca of the unknown lands to the east, an outer kaftan of royal blue embroidered with canary yellow Ottoman tulips. It had fur like that of Timberwolves at the neck, making his great shoulders appear even larger.

The man exchanged words with his slaver in that slippery, impenetrable language, and Luca found his jaw being worked open for the half dozenth time. No finger was shoved inside his mouth, but the foreign man did look at both his top and bottom rows of teeth, the back of his throat. He asked a question and the slaver answered affirmatively, eagerly. Cool fingertips touched the sides of Luca’s throat, just beneath the jaw. He shivered as they worked down the side of his neck, looking for something under the skin he did not understand that none of the others had known to look for.

The slave beside them shrieked one last time and went limp, held up by her wrists and neck. The man glanced over at her, at her matted yellow hair and her bleeding legs and then back at Luca. He put his finger sidelong in front of his mouth.

“What about you?” he asked in English. His voice was measured and low, perfectly enunciated as if to make up for his slight accent. “Do you bite like these little northern barbarians?”

Such a relief it was to be spoken to in a familiar tongue, no matter the words or by whom, that Luca blinked tears away from his eyes, startled by them. He shook his head slowly, deliberately. No.

The man broke into a smile that went right to his eyes and crinkled the skin at the corners. Still it looked saddened, perhaps by the tears standing in Luca’s. “Neither will I, then,” he winked, as if they were sharing a private joke.

The slaver came close with the switch raised. Though Luca could not understand his words, he understood the question he spoke well enough. Shall I beat this one, too? Perhaps buyers liked to see how prospective slaves react to pain. Perhaps he thought Luca had displeased the man.  The foreign man made eye contact with him again, and that was the first of many understandings they would share. “No,” he said to the slaver, giving a casual frown and shake of the head. He said something further in the tongue he and the slaver shared that Luca did not. 

Luca heard an exchange of coins and felt numb with fear and relief both. But then the man left, without a word of reassurance or a claiming touch to his hair, his hand, anything.

He learned later that he was to be brought by wagon to his new Master’s castle, which sat like a great ancient dragon guarding the hills and woods of a remote countryside, as far south and east as Luca had ever been or imagined.

When he finally arrived he was sick from some travel-fever that had gone through the wagons like a curse, leaving them weak and dehydrated. A few died, and they stopped for just long enough to roll the corpses out and bury them along the roadside in shallow graves. Luca wondered if this was out of some universal respect for the dead, or if they simply didn’t want to be caught tossing corpses along the road and fined by local authorities that might take offense to such careless pollution. He had a feeling, watching the master spit tobacco at his feet impatiently as the slaves who were still well enough dug a hole for one of their own, that it was the latter.

The Baron did not greet him when he arrived, and for that he was grateful. He was filthy, repulsive, and sicker than he’d ever been. A pair of servant women helped him up flight after flight of stone steps, some broad and straight and others curving and narrow, past faded tapestries and beautiful chandeliers that reminded his half delirious mind of the stars he’d watched from the wagon, and finally into a huge beautiful room with a waiting warm bath. The women stripped him naked. He helped them as best he could, without a thought except that his clothes should be burned. They guided him into a wide wooden barrel lined with pounded copper that glowed amber in the hearth light.

He sunk into warm water and they scrubbed him with sure hands, as if they’d bathed a hundred new slaves in this very tub.

“Bad water,” one tsked to the other.

“You speak English?” he asked feverishly. He smiled at them in relief. They looked so different than the servants he was used to, dressed in white or gray with their hair covered for cleanliness and their faces plain. These girls wore dresses of brightly dyed linen, and something was reddening their lips like smeared blood. Their brown hair was long and loose about their shoulders, brushed out and shameless and clean. Maybe they weren’t servants, he wondered. But who else would wash a sick, filthy slave bought at auction?

He was sorry they had to deal with him, but grateful it wasn’t his new Master. The shame of his soiled clothes and wasted body would be too much. He might be disillusioned and disgusted. He might have a bout of buyers remorse and not even want him anymore. Perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps he was being cleaned and prepared for a slaughter. What did he know of these strange lands?

The women didn’t answer him, and spoke in another tongue to each other after that. They dressed him in silk pants and no shirt, led him barefoot to a great bed the size of one of the slavers’ wagons. There he dozed, looking into the dark, vaulted recesses of the ceiling, until light crept through thick burgundy curtains, and more servants brought him food on soft bare feet, and it was dark again.

One late evening, with a foreign, sweet-scented breeze floating in the open window, he felt the side of the bed depressing and opened his eyes. In buttery moonlight he saw the profile of his new master light a candle. His nose was long and straight, with a sharp bridge and eyebrows that made him look like a scowling heathen warlord in one of the illuminated manuscripts he had glimpsed in the church once, treasures passing through for his old master to selectively sift through and send the rest along to London.

His old master never sat on the side of the bed. Luca had only ever seen him a few times a month, and even that was more than he wanted to. He was a pale eyed, shrewd Lord, with skin that seemed translucent gray and a sour outlook on just about everything as far as Luca could tell. He did not inspire the curiosity tinged with fear that this man did, smelling of leather and woodsmoke and the outdoors at night.

“I was told you’ve been very sick,” said the Baron in his soft, perfect English.

“I am much better now, my lord,” Luca answered carefully, sitting up as best he could against thick downy pillows. He didn’t know if he looked better, but the women had washed his hair and fed him and given him clean water to drink, so he hoped he at least resembled whatever the man had liked in him at the auction. He didn’t know what sort of man he was, or why exactly he was here. “Those women were very kind. Especially to a slave.”

“Good,” his new master said, and touched only the very end of a lock of his hair so gently it tickled his scalp and gave him goosebumps up his left side. “You’re not a slave, though.”

Luca tilted his head.

“You’re a pet. My pet. If you’d like.”

Pet. He’d heard the word, but it was always in the context of antiquity. It was elevated from slave, though still a position of social bondage. It was a favored, exclusive position akin to a concubine. His heart thudded in his rib cage. Suddenly the size of the Baron was overwhelming instead of just alluring, and their proximity was alarming.

“Or you can remain a slave, if you prefer,” shrugged the Baron. His cloak tonight was embroidered crimson on a field of black. At first the red looked like fleur de lis, but when he looked closer he could see they were beautifully stitched Hydras, three watersnake heads on top of a dragon's body, with forked tongues lashing from their snoutish mouths.

“I… I don’t understand. I’m sorry.”

“Of course. You are not from here. I understand. As a slave you’ll work in the castle, or on the grounds, or in the village. Wherever you’re needed or you show some aptitude. You’ll answer to Sister Agathar. I don’t deal with slaves directly. Not unless one commits a capitol offense.”

“And as a pet?” he asked, his voice wavering.

“You’ll stay here, in the castle. These are my rooms, where you are welcome, but you’ll have your own. You’ll have access to the library, the baths, the gardens. The stables, if you like to ride.”

“What is a pets… purpose?”

“Only to be my companion. My wife died a few months ago giving birth to my son, Alec. May her soul be at peace. I will remarry, eventually, as I need more children to strengthen my house. But…my tastes can run toward dark-eyed boys I find in the stocks in Saxony, too. But only if you’ll have me. I have no interest in conquering.”

That was very well for him, Luca knew, because it would not be particularly difficult for this man if he did. “Tonight?”

His master laughed. He was so straightforward, so at ease that he made Luca’s fear feel childish and needless. “No. Absolutely, no. There is no rush. Though if I were to suggest a time constraint…” he nodded out the narrow window at the full moon rising over the dark and wild landscape, orange as a cantaloupe. “By the next full moon, I’d like to know your final decision. Remain a slave or become my pet. And ideally to consummate it, if you choose thusly.” 

The foreign Lord’s eyes were dark in the candlelight, his beard thicker and fuller than it had been at the auction, streaked in a few places in silver. The rest of it was so black it appeared blue. Despite his height and Zeuslike stature, he had a gentle and civilized air about him, a manner Luca had observed from afar in nobility ever since coming as a young slave to the foggy island village he would come to think of as home.

All his earlier memories were of a white stucco house and sun faded carpets, a lemon tree, and a bright blue sea crystalized and solidified so they were more like paintings in his mind than memories he could visit. They were stuck behind a midnight raid, a blow to the side of his head, his brothers screaming, a dog barking and barking until it yelped and fell silent.

This strange clime, the opulent and beautiful room he’d been recovering in, and the seemingly boundless civility of his new master was intoxicating. He was being offered a position of wealth and comfort and favor. His only other option was a job in a kitchen or field, sleeping on countless generations of lice in a bed of straw, no doubt eating thin leftover soup and stale bread rinds from the castle.

“You seem fair and wise,” he said cautiously, hoping flattery was something this aristocrat liked as much as most of them did. “I… I think I’d be honored to stay as your pet. Though, I am not trained in the customs of that position, and I do not know where I am.”

The Baron smiled, and it felt to Luca like sympathy without pity, like he was apologizing for the whole thing. “Forgive me. I am Baron Constantin Illés, and this is castle Illés in the region of Corralachia, just east of the great mountains. You came through the only traversable pass for twenty leagues in that wagon. What is your name, my would-be pet?”

“Luca.”

“Luca,” the Baron echoed reverently, and ghosted his fingertips over Luca’s cheek so that his breath caught and he felt himself turning red. “‘Bringer of light’. You are certainly the bringer of moonlight. May is the hare moon, and I’ve never seen it so bright as it is tonight. The wolves hunt the hares by the light of it, but still by summer they have multiplied tenfold. They are the bringer of new beginnings.”

“And the wolves must also eat,” Luca said, meaning that they could not feel bad for one animal just because it had a soft twitchy nose. The Baron laughed good naturedly. “True. The wolves must also eat. Sleep on your decision, and tell me for true on the next moon.”

—

In the following days, Luca threw off the remaining vestiges of his traveling sickness. He felt strong and whole again, and ate voraciously of the creamy soups and soft breads he was brought by servants he seldom saw, piling soft cheese on sweet dates and drinking dry burgundy until the skin over his ribs smoothed back out and his hips were not so sharp.

He wore silk and linen clothes, loose fitting and often embroidered beautifully as was the local custom for finery. He was given a delicate anklet of gold, which he knew was a sensual piece often worn in harems or on dancers, male and female, though there was certainly a feminine look it gave to his ankle, like hinting at a secret. It also reminded him of the fetters he’d worn as a slave, rough ropes that cut his skin for weeks. He still had some scarring on his wrists from it, and the Baron had given him a lavender-scented ointment to rub on the skin. He seemed sympathetic to the way Luca had gotten the rope burn discoloration there, rather than critical of a blemish, but they still made him self conscious. He was a captured slave turned pet-prince here, and he ought to look the part.

He was given a beautiful ring, much like the one the Baron wore on his right forefinger, but silver instead of gold. On a flat field of black was the Hydra, the Greek serpent of many heads destroyed by Hercules. The Hydra on both this and the Barons rings were made of emerald. The silver ring had been his great grandmothers, said the Baron, a gift from Marie of Anjou. It fit his left ring finger, and was too small for any other, too big for his pinkies. He knew the left ring finger was for wedding rings and blushed when the Baron smiled knowingly at the placement.

The Hydra, he said, was his family crest for the last eight generations. His ancestor, also a Constantin, had decapitated the lead collaborator of a group of nobility trying to usurp the King, a group which the king called the Hydra on account of its many deceitful and venomous heads. Having cut the head from the serpent and displayed it on the castle parapets, the King bestowed the castle and the crest of the Hydra on the house Illés. That was the very castle he was in today, the very crest he too now wore on his finger. 

The moon waned and began to wax again, this time reborn as the Rose moon. Early summer was full and lush in the woods and hills about the castle. The creeks and rivers rushed swollen down to the valleys below. The leaves were full and vivid virgin green as the emeralds of the snapping Hydra. The meadows were high, wildflowers of every hue swayed in gentle warm breezes. At night the warmth stayed in the air, keeping it moist and balmy until well after midnight, when the sky was often streaked with falling stars. Memories of the lean months of winters by the sea could not seem to touch him here. He forgot the face of his stern, cold master there, the watery-eyed and pious man who had once beat him with a leather belt for sleeping in a church pew.

Here he was unwatched, trusted, and lavished with the master’s chaste affection. He welcomed it, craved it, waited all day for it. Sometimes the Baron would only come to his chamber to sleep, late at night and exhausted from long hours of executive duties. Other times he was relaxed, engaged, asking questions. They seemed to have all the time in the world. 

The Baron wanted him to see the grounds, the castle, to sit with him sometimes at the council table where he saw the foreign dignitaries and the farmers and the tax collectors that came with their tributes. Luca noticed the way people behaved around the Baron, straight-backed and alert, polite and gracious as they hung on his every occasional word.

Mostly they spoke in their own tongue at these meetings and exchanges, but Luca still began to understand that the Baron was somewhat the warlord he had first imagined when he first saw him. The soldiers and generals had the best rapport with him, and seemed the closest with him. His near constant advisor was a scarred and pockmarked old knight that never so much as made eye contact with Luca, like he was invisible.

One visiting dignitary only shared English with the Baron, making Luca privy to that exchange. Some King Luca did not know wanted tribute, money and young boys for his army. The Baron politely refused. The man stood on the flagstones wearing a look somewhere between anger and shock. Luca dared a glance to his left at the Baron, who wore no expression at all.

“You invite open war,” the visitor accused.

“I do no such thing. I refuse an absurd ransom from a madman. Is there anything else you’d like to demand while you’re here?”

When the man left, the Baron and the old knight exchanged words Luca could not understand. Then the Baron leaned to Luca and said in a confidential hush. “It’s always the ones that speak English that behave like this. Sometimes I regret learning English at all. Except,” his tone grew fond, “it lets me speak with you.”

Luca grinned, feeling all the eyes in the room except for the old knight’s momentarily on him, and drawing pleasure from the fact they knew not what the Baron said to him, they would only see it made him smile.

~

Note: This is one of those things I got in my head and just had to write so it would leave me be. Charles Perrault's version of the tale of Barbebleue (1697), names Bluebeard Bertrand de Montragaux. I have changed that name since this is not a French tale. This particular little story is modeled not from Perrault but from Angela Carter's short story, The Bloody Chamber. I have borrowed from that and from other things, and filled it with my favorite whumpy tropes. The other two parts are complete and will be posted over the next two weekends. Thanks for reading! :))

#obsessed

[highwaywhump]

Files

Adrian plans to move against Jack.

In the timeline, this connects the pieces Gauze and Choices.

[Pet Safety]

Content: BBU, BBU recovery / pet lib setting, vaguely referenced past facility whump, vaguely implied past whump of minors.

Adrian stayed up long. It hurt the wounds in his neck to lay down anyway. As in the nights before, he’d sleep upright in the armchair in his living room. And if he was sitting already - well, he could read up on Jack Donnell.

He’d pulled the files of all Donnell’s pets before the inspection; he still had them saved on his work tablet. He knew the database queries by all WRU’s employees were recorded "for compliance reasons". He just hoped they weren’t paranoid enough to also regularly check their access of files on their own computers. If they did, he’d tell them it was about Bea.

Her case file was the first in the dossier, because she’d been Donnell’s latest acquisition. Adrian had only skimmed through it, back then. His job was to check the Guards, not the other designations; and he’d long learned that reading too many case files would make him angry and restless and lose the focus he needed.

Especially those about Romantics. 

Especially those about second hand Romantics.

He did take the time to read it now.

Romantic pet 400168. Taken in eight years ago, at age 18. His stomach revolted already. It was almost 50-50, he knew. The chances, of an 18 year old trainee being, in fact, 18. It was illegal to process minors. So everyone was always of age. 

She looked tired on the first photos. But stunningly beautiful already. And… almost happy. Relieved, to be at WRU. Adrian wondered, how long that had lasted. He didn’t want to know. So he scrolled on.

Specifications looked like a classic case, except for one line. 'English language training. Defamiliarization with native language (Spanish).'

Some training notes, that sounded smug and highly satisfied. 

Sale to a corporate lawyer, who paid extra for someone 'who looked like a virgin and fucked like a whore'.

Seven years with the guy.

Then refurb.

Hadn’t looked or felt like a virgin any longer, Adrian thought grimly; but then reassessed.

'Runaway. Rebellious behavior. Disloyal. Refurb and disciplinary measures necessary.'

'Intended sale to family friend.'

'Specification: Strict defamiliarization with Platonic/Domestic WRU Pet 278017. Strongly discouraging bonds with other pets. Fear response (new prospective’s wishes) ; to be enforced by training with Guard trainees.' 

Adrian stared at the closed door to his bedroom, behind which Bea was sleeping. Good for that first owner that his name was blacked out in the files, and that Adrian couldn’t access it without risking his own life, and hers. 

Bad for Jack Donnell, that Adrian knew his name.

The contract was simple; it included that there’d been some faults about her second wipe, issues with discipline and short term memory; and the buyer’s response that he knew her well enough and he’d still take her.

The photos on that contract were different. Still a perfectly pretty face, still barely any marks on her body. But the look in her eyes, this time was… haunted. Afraid.

Just as Jack had ordered. 

Teeth clenched, Adrian swiped to the next files.

The Guards’ documents he’d seen before, had had his suspicions about before as well. Before Bea had confirmed them. 'They all fight.' 

Background of experienced fighters, all of them. Former soldiers, mercenaries, martial arts fighters, gangsters. Some had been recruited directly into WRU from prison, instead of serving long sentences. The missing one, the one Bea had called Mac, was one of them. His former self’s list of crimes was impressive. Adrian was pretty sure it had only grown longer during Jack’s ownership. Including assault on Bea. At least in a better world, where hurting someone like her wouldn’t be a misdemeanor at best.

Whatever Mac had done to her though, whatever the others had done, in this life or their past - the one who controlled it all now was Jack.

Adrian’s hands were tied to come after Jack in his official capacity as Pet Safety Inspector. But there was always another option. Pet lib. If he could find out, where this arena was, where Mac was held, where the others fought sometimes as well, if Marta could send a team there, if they filmed and found and published evidence, even his boss would have no choice but to allow Adrian to act. 

Seizing all his pets. Revoking his pet owner’s license. Smile at him, while dictating all the fines he’d have to pay.

It was far less from what Adrian truly wanted to do to the man. But at least, it would be something.

*

"You know, Adri, you’d also save the pets." Marta said, after he explained his plan to her, a soft frown on her face. "Which is, what pet lib do, right?"

"Um." Adrian tilted his head. "Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course. That’s why I’m talking to you."

"No. You’re talking to me about revenge."

"Revenge would be for me to-" He stopped talking with a side glance to Bea and the runaway he’d helped during the raid, Noor, at the other end of the room. 

Marta and he spoke Spanish, so he was painfully aware that Bea wouldn’t want to listen in - but she could. And she shouldn’t hear these things from him. He was a better man than her owners had been. He swore, he’d keep her from violence. 

"Revenge would be more violent," he settled.

Marta scoffed, not convinced. "Sure. So. Anyway. If we do this, I don’t want you to confiscate them. I want to get them out for good. You find out where and what this place is, when they have their next fights. I find a safe space for a handful of recently freed, traumatized Fighters. It’ll take a while. So you take it slow, too, alright?"

He looked over at Bea, and she smiled back on instinct.

He would need her help to make out this place. She’d been there before, and it would hurt her to remember. Taking it slow was the best he could do. For her. After all, this was all for her.

And of course, to also save the other pets.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, alright. I will take it slow."

-

---

Pet Safety tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @gottawhump @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @highwaywhump @tauntedoctopuses @pigeonwhumps @whumppsychology @labgrowndemon @whumpinggrounds @somewhumpyguy @whumpzone @tragedyinblue

#i love you guard dog six

[highwaywhump]

Dog-catcher poles being used to manhandle Whumpee.

Wire choking off air when Whumpee fights or fails to move fast enough, easily cutting through the skin. Hands bound behind their back so that they can’t grab the pole being used to drag them along. Whumper(s) keeping their distance because watch it, this one bites—

#great stuff! #whump tropes #whumpeee resisting is one thing but what about whumpe not resisting at all #doing their best to be pliant and obedient but whumper brings the catch pole every time anyways #being treated like a wild and unpredictable animal #when whumpee really is tamed and trained already

[highwaywhump]

the intersection of the bbu pet trade and human rights - exploring how the world at large legally/politically deals with owning people while also maintaining liberty and civil rights for everyone else

What’s your favorite bit of lore you’ve created?

Mine is in my Nik story; Kel is his pet spirit who finds Nik’s magic comforting and familiar, so when the Sorcerer starts to steal Nik’s magic Kel gets very confused by the man. Smells like friend AND not like friend.

#poli sci is exhausting otherwise but it’s fun when i get to be fictional about it #very dry and uninteresting to everyone reading i’m sure but i like it

[highwaywhump]

The Scry

Chapter 10: Good Intentions, Tied Hands

Prev

CW: whumpee with powers, exploitation of powers, forced labor, power imbalance with caretaker, sleep deprivation, withholding of food, mention of suicide and self harm as an escape from torture

Carlo had been gone a week. 

Max found it difficult to focus on his work. In fact, it annoyed him greatly that he was supposed to drop their planned projects and work on his own again for an undetermined amount of time, because for an unspecified reason they’d decided to kidnap his precognitive.

Not his precognitive. The precognitive. Carlo. 

He got one contract rolling, a small one out of a Tuscaloosa based paper plant that he wouldn’t have wasted Carlo’s talents on. But it was something to have on the books for the week, anyway. 

He told Eddie and Simon what was happening, but they didn’t quite appreciate the gravity of the situation. How could they? They hadn’t been given a scared and abused precog to work with out of the blue one day, gotten attached, and then had him mysteriously “borrowed” for an undetermined amount of time.

God knows what they wanted from the poor kid now, where he was. He could be in the building still, or in California being subjected to more unethical experimentation. He thought of the surgery scar Carlo showed him often, whenever his mind wandered. He hadn’t told Ingrid about that. He didn’t know why, he just couldn’t. 

He did tell Alex Clair, though. 

Alex was the only one at Spartan who seemed to be on the same page with him about the precogs. He was the only one who was as dismayed and alarmed by Carlo’s sudden absence as he was, and he came by often now for updates or to share information.

“Zee said he knows about those research facilities,” he said one afternoon in Max’s office. Max exited his browser and laid his temples in his hands. He was exhausted.  

“I didn’t tell him about Carlo’s… personal experience,” Alex added quickly. “Just asked if he knew about things like that going on. He did.”

“I’m worried about him,” Max muttered. “I don't trust them not to hurt him."

“You two did the best of all of us in the first week. They’re  using him for some shady nefarious precog shit, either to make a bunch of money or rig an election somewhere, I promise.”

“That’s reassuring, thank you.” 

Alex’s cheek dimpled in an apologetic half-grimace. “I just mean he’s useful to them. They won’t hurt him too bad.” He was still wearing a Spartan hoodie over more formal slacks, his half-uniform of protest. “I was thinking of trying to get Blake real drunk Friday night and seeing what he spills,” he offered. 

Max was wearily amused. “You think Martin really tells him anything? Or he just walks around like he does?”

Alex sighed. He ran his hand through his hair so it stayed lifted in a slowly falling blond poof, like a muscle memory. “Yeah, I dunno. He’s a tryhard.”

“I think our hands are tied.”

Alex let his head fall back, tossing a ping pong ball he must’ve lifted from the break room at the ceiling and catching it when it bounced back at him. “I’m so sick of it. For real.”

“I talked to a lawyer,” Max confided. 

Alex sat back up. “Who? What’d they say?”

“A family friend. It was just as a favor. My mother’s an attorney, so I know a few. It’s not good. Basically we don’t have any leverage whatsoever. This is all currently legal with the precogs.”

Alex made a face. “That’s it?”

“She said to document everything. Maybe in a year, once this all runs amok and they’re looking for someone to blame…”

“Martin’s such a fucking snake.” Alex tossed the ping-pong ball again. “And I know he’s not the top of the food chain. It’s just, I see his sorry ass every day.”

Max was about to say something about documenting everything together, collaborating on a record of sorts, when a knock came at his office door. 

Alex widened his eyes questioningly. Expecting anyone?

Max stood from his desk, crossed the short expanse of the office to answer the knock. The door swung open to a hollow-eyed precog swaying on his feet, pale and glassy-eyed.  

“Carlo,” he said, and immediately took him from his escort, a guy in a suit he’d never seen before. The escort made no effort to stop him, not did he comment. He left him there,with Max and Alex, and was gone.

-

Carlo could barely stand. 

It had been bad before, but never quite this bad outside of the research hospital where they’d cut into him. He tried to say something, but a wave of nausea closed his mouth again before he got a word out. Max picked him up without a word. He wrapped his arms around his neck, trying to make himself easy to carry. Max carried him to his little cot in the corner of the office. It was still here. He hadn’t gotten rid of it.

He’d missed this cot so bitterly. He hadn’t slept in nearly 36 hours, and hadn’t eaten in longer. Martin found out that food and rest and water only dulled his precognitive powers, slowled them. Discomfort created an edge. Once he knew that, the niceties stopped, and the most grueling scrying of his life began. Max set him on the bed and laid him down. The bed was soft. So soft. Max was speaking, but not to him. To whom?

He saw Alex Clair come closer, looking as concerned as Max. “What did they do?”

“Who knows,” Max said, and gently slipped the CVS thermometer between Carlo’s lips. It beeped and Max shook his head at the number, showed it to Alex. Carlo knew it wasn’t his fault it was not a pleasing number, but he preferred it when he made his users happy. 

“You’re alright,” Max was saying, brushing his hair back from his hot, dry forehead. “You’re safe now, Carlo. You’re okay.”

He remembered Alex sitting on the side of the cot to hold his head up while Max got him to drink from a water bottle. He swallowed some the wrong way and choked, and Alex helped him up a few more inches to cough.

-

Max’s House. Saturday. He’d never been so grateful to wake up and realize it was Saturday in his life. The thought of getting dressed and going into Baltimore, riding the elevator up to Max’s office made him want to cry.

Max had been patient with him, feeding him broth and juice and medicine, letting him sleep for hours, wake up, and sleep more. His fever broke, and then steadily declined until his body temperature was normal again. He wondered how many times he’d recover. How sick could he get and still get better, every time, like the guy who got his liver eaten over and over by birds?

Max looked surprised when he came downstairs of his own volition at eleven, dressed and coherent. 

“How are you feeling?”

“So much better,” he said, though he still felt bruised under every inch of his skin, and his eyes ached in their sockets. He was grateful for the steady drizzle and heavy cloud cover outside. 

“I have news that may be a small comfort to you. It is to me.”

Carlo pulled himself onto one of the chairs that sat tucked under the kitchen island, which seemed to be the house’s gathering place even when Max and Ingrid weren’t using it to cook a meal. He raised his eyebrows in question.

“It’s a long weekend. No work Monday. No office, no nothin’.”

Carlo laughed. “That really is the best thing you could’ve said right now. Except maybe that Spartan sold me to you.”

Max’s smile faltered, then recovered. It didn’t escape Carlo’s notice. He made a note to be careful saying things like that. Did Max not like the idea of him, or was it an extension of the discomfort he felt at the whole situation? He shouldn’t be so needy. Max had done so much for him already, in their present situation. 

“Carlo,” he said with an air of his telephone-serious voice, and Carlo’s heart dropped. I’m sorry, he almost blurted. That was inappropriate. You don’t have to say it. I know. I know. 

“I think we should talk about what happened.”

No, he thought. We shouldn’t. He wrapped his arms tightly around his ribs and thought of Martin's steady voice in his ear as he sobbed, the sound of that terrible and pitiless patience.

“I know it might be uncomfortable ," Max said. "It’s why I waited until we were home, away from anywhere someone might be able to listen in. But it’s just you and me here, and… I think you need to tell me where you were.”

“I was with Martin Olsen,” he answered quickly. “He tricked me after you left for coffee that day. Tuesday. He said he needed me to work on a project with him. For him. If I didn’t, he said I’d be sent away to a research hospital again.”

Max nodded along. His usually clean face was in need of a shave. His hair was looking a little longer too, dark as the stubble that dotted his chin. “What was that project? Can you tell me about it?”

Carlo shook his head firmly. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Max took on a look of measured disappointment that felt to Carlo like a knife in his ribs. “Listen, I really think it’s best if you do. I’m keeping a record of events in case I ever get the opportunity to do something about all this. Legally.”

Carlo had to look away. He stared at a knot in the wood of the island. “I understand, and I still can’t help you.”

Max put a warm hand on his knee and he flinched without meaning to. He hadn’t expected it, was all. Max withdrew the hand and Carlo wished he’d put it back. This isn’t how he thought today would go.

“No one will know what you’ve told me for now, Carlo,” he said seriously. “It will stay between you and me until a time when it’s absolutely safe to use and I have the leverage to keep you safe from any consequences. I’m not going to do anything to get you hurt, sweetheart.”

Carlo closed his eyes. “Don’t call me that when you’re trying to manipulate me,” he whispered. He meant it as a plea, but it came out like an accusation.

“Manipulate you…” Max repeated sadly. “I’m trying my best to help you. I’m feeling very frustrated and helpless here. I can only imagine how you must feel.”

“But you can’t,” he said, and made himself look in Max’s eyes. “Mr Olsen made me sign things. Confidentiality things. Non disclosure.”

“Probably all illegal, in context.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But… it doesn’t matter what I signed because even if I didn’t, if he ever found out I told you or anyone what he made me work on, he’d make sure I got sent to the worst research project he could find, and I’d never leave again.” He lifted his shirt to remind Max of the scar, of their conversation. “Do you know what that would mean for me? A place like that? Do you know what they do to us?”

“I can guess.”

“I’ll die first. It would be so much better. There’s a million ways to do it. I’m not afraid to do it. Once they’ve got you in a place like that, you can’t. They make sure. You can’t find a syringe, a piece of glass. A good wire. Not even a thumbtack. And you can’t starve yourself to death, they’ll just stick a tube and an IV in you.”

He expected Max to chastise him for this kind of talk, or tell him to stop. He didn’t. “And you know Martin would do this if you told me what you worked on?”

“Yes. He told me.”

Max’s mouth tightened. “Of course he did.”

“Please don’t make me,” Carlo whispered. “Don’t make me tell you. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same.” 

“I'm not going to make you do anything. Can you tell me if it was relating to Spartan or not?” Max asked gently. “If it was to do with money, or politics, or something else? Was it business, or personal?”

Carlo felt tears prick the back of his sore eyes and let them come. He knew from experience that any charged display of emotion from him either made a user colder, almost angry, or they softened. Max softened. 

“Don’t cry,” he said tenderly. Carlo could tell he wanted to touch him again but was discouraged by the earlier reaction to the hand on his knee. 

“Don’t make me say,” Carlo whispered around the lump in his throat. He was going to have to beg. “Please, Sir.”

Max took a deep breath and was quiet for a few seconds. “Okay,” he surrendered.

Carlo knew he’d played his best hand with the Sir, reminding Max of his inherent authority over him. If he’d pushed any more, Carlo would’ve answered that last question. He felt a surge of relief that he hadn’t. He didn’t doubt Martin Olson’s threats for a single second. And he was glad Max relented. He didn't think he could take it if he pushed him, too, like everyone else.

“Okay,” Max said again, and put a tentative hand on Carlo’s shoulder. Carlo turned toward him and leaned as far as he could. Max caught him in an embrace, rubbing his shoulder blades with his broad hands. “It’s okay, Carlo. I’m sorry. I want to protect you, but I don’t know how.”

Carlo got the sense Max was not used to being powerless. He’d overheard him talking with his fiancée, running up against every wall in the corporate and legal structure and becoming frustrated there seemed to be nowhere he could apply pressure where anyone would care.

Carlo said nothing. He enjoyed the feeling of Max’s arms around him, the weight of them tethering him soundly to his chest.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? Without telling me anything about what you were working on?” Max asked.

“...Why?” He didn’t see what Max would want from that.

Max pulled back to hold the sides of Carlo’s head in his hands, looking at him with raised eyebrows like he might be a bit of an idiot. “Because I care about what happened to you. I thought you might want to talk about it with someone. With me.”

Oh.

Carlo thought about it. He could tell him of the way Martin watched him carefully, finding out what worked and what didn’t. He could tell him about the sleep deprivation, the cold basement office, the lack of food and water and constant bright lighting. The blackouts, the blinding migraines, the sickness, the mounting cost of pushing his scrying powers far past their limits.

What good would it do? If it was sympathy he wanted from Max, he already had it. He wished he could crawl in this man’s lap and make himself very small somehow. He wished he could be unimportant and left alone.

“Later, maybe? I just want to enjoy the day off.”

Max let him go, and his skin missed the places he was no longer being touched. “Okay. Yeah. Of course.”

#obsessed with everything you touch bee

[highwaywhump]

Bad pets

Follows seamlessly after this piece on Angel and Lourdes, narrowly escaping recapture... or did they, really??

Developed with and written for @wildfaewhump - I do hope Lourdes is captured (pun not intended) well in this, I love them so much.

Content / warnings : BBU, BBU recapture, creepy whumper, whumper pov, referenced noncon (romantic training), referenced facility whump. Just some nasty people enjoying their nasty job.

Piers Scott was the sort of man others easily considered a bully; which was probably confirmed by how little that reputation bothered him. He was tall, broad around the shoulders, and the sort of heavy that came from strength rather than from fat. Piers could throw most other people around with ease. And he liked doing just that.

To his own surprise and utmost delight, he'd found an employer who paid him well to do exactly what he loved, each day, on the clock. This year would mark his fifteenth anniversary as a WRU handler. He'd started in training Guards, done alright, aided by his ability to instill respect in the trainees; but quickly enough it turned out that he was best suited for the less... refined elements of Romantic training. Many of his colleagues excelled at building trainees up to match the high WRU standards and clients' even higher expectations. But to build them up anew, you first needed someone to tear down what was there.

Piers did that.

He worked in prep protocol, assisted with the delivery of effective punishment, fear-related conditioning, and often enough he got called out on the streets for acquisition or reacquisition jobs.

Usually, these were fun.

Today though, just as he was getting acquainted with their latest target, a tiny, sweet, beautifully fearful stray with huge wide eyes and soft brown skin, some blond bitch in a fancy blue coat had shown up and shushed him off, claiming to be their owner.

He didn't believe one word of it. Little Doe-Eyes had been perfectly designed to the taste of someone, and years of experience made him sure that this someone was not her.

"What a bitch," Fin mumbles next to him, as they step to their van, looking past the pet and her alleged owner. "There's something off about both of them, if you ask me."

The couple is kissing now, in the middle of the road, the pet on their tiptoes, the taller woman leaning in.

"I'd pay to watch them fuck," one of the junior handlers mumbles. "They're both hot."

Piers watches the woman, the way her posture shifts, the way she curves her back and tilts her head. The junior is right, he thinks. They are. And it's not a confidence.

He scoffs. "Because they've both had Romantic training," he mumbles. "The bitch is just a better liar than the little one."

"Fuck, you're right," Fin hisses, hand flicking to the shock baton at his belt, ready to lurch forward. It's too late. A taxi door slams shut behind them, as they speed off.

"She played us."

Piers pulls his phone from his pocket and with few clicks opens a map. "We can play them right back."

There's a blue dot on the map, where the team are standing in front of the coffee bar. And a red one, moving away from them steadily.

Chuckling, Fin shakes his head and pats Piers' shoulder. "Fucking genius. You put a tracker on them?"

"Little one is bound to stray off again sooner rather than later. I'll gladly be waiting there when they do."

"Well then. Let's see where they go. And put their descriptions in the database, see what comes out. I want to know who they are. Who's looking for them."

If someone's looking for them, Piers thinks. He's known Fin for plenty of re-ac jobs. They do bring in the pets with enough bounty on their heads, or those with desperate enough clients. They don't always bring in the others. Their job is to get strays off the streets and that they do. What happens after, well. There's a long established agreement between Fin and Piers not to talk about any of their favourites going missing.

"Dips on little Doe-Eyes," Piers says, catching his boss' gaze.

Fin smirks and nods, before he looks back on the red dot moving on the map. "Deal. Blondie is mine. And you -" he waves a hand at the juniors. "Just lean back and learn."

-

"What do we have?" A day later, Piers is leaning forward in the van, looking over the junior's shoulder on the laptop screen in front of them. They've been letting the junior's take the night shift, keep an eye on the bourgoise brownstone town house the tracker led them to and do their research.

The runaways had been surprisingly careful, letting their cab drive circles, stopping at a busy shopping centre where they presumably changed cars. But they'd been too stupid to notice the tracker Piers had slipped into Doe-Eyes' pocket. Nobody had ever intended to chase them. They just needed to wait.

Right now, the second junior is still staking out the street, while the others are gathered in the van.

"Little one is from Lourdes program," the junior said, pulling up the file. Piers studies their face on the photo. They are delicious. Vulnerable, eager, terrified. He's always been wanting to get his hands on a Lourdes. Seems it is his lucky day after all. "Reported stolen around a year ago. Owner seems to be over them, already ordered replacement number two."

"Lovely," Piers hums. "And the blond one?"

"More secretive. But you've been right, she's a Romantic as well. High security case, custom order, facility 002. Reported on the run since her owner died, but higher-ups weren't interested in making the search public, probably not to draw attention on that pretty face."

Fin has stepped in behind them as well. "Fine with me. Our attention will suffice for both of them." He glances at the house, then back at the screen. "Whose house is this? Doesn't look like a classic pet lib hide out."

"Freckles'." The junior points at the screen. "Made up a fake identity, married the owner, conveniently inherited when he passed just months later. Doe-Eyes moved in after. Nobody else lives there."

"Freckles, huh?" Fin clicks his tongue, reaching out to trace the pet's lips on the screen. "What a naughty, naughty girl. And she's got so much to lose now."

"How do we get in?," Piers asks. "Freckled bitch won't just open the door, and this is the neighbourhood to just pick a lock. Back door could be -"

The side door of the van slides open, and before Piers can even jump up and grab his baton, someone is thrown on the metal floor between them.

Brown skin, barely covered by a strappy black top and a mini skirt. Beautiful black hair. And huge eyes, wide with fear at their sight.

Doe-Eyes. Curling up in respect position even unprompted. "Please," they whimper. "Please, please, please."

Piers sucks in a breath. Fuck. They're even more enticing today than they were yesterday.

"Look what I found." The junior handler jumps in behind the pet, tosses a small black purse to Fin. "Lost little puppy, wandering the street, all alone."

"Well then," Fin laughs, in utmost delight, as he reaches into the purse and pulls out a single key. "Problem solved. I guess we'll walk right in." He kicks the pet in the side, and they since beautifully, as he flips them over on their back, staring up at the handlers. Fin firmly plants a foot on their chest, as he smiles down on them. "Hello again, Doe-Eyes. Remember us?"

They nod, desperate tears glinting in their lashes. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir, I was a bad pet, I was wrong, I should have been good."

"You can still be good." Fin smiles, the fake winning smile every handler learns to master. "Your friend, though. She's a naughty one, isn't she? She's lied to us. Stolen from us. Pretended to be a person."

The pet shivers, and Fin keeps smiling. "You know what happens to bad pets, don't you? What has to happen?"

Doe-Eyes is trembling under Fin's boot, but they nod nonetheless, even manage to call up a shaking, sweet, apologetic smile in return. They're breathtaking. "Yes, Sir," they whisper and cast their eyes down. "Bad pets get punished."

Yeah, Piers thinks, drowning in their sight. Bad pets get punished.

He knows it's going to be glorious.

#forever obsessed with world building from the villains’ perspective