#I want a tag for 'discovering the whumpee's secret' but i don't think there is one

[ashintheairlikesnow]

“ It’s Dylan who finally figures out it wasn’t a cult” can we get this as a Drabble? If not it’s fine but 🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️

CW: Referenced ableist language, referenced past head banging (brief), shitty language about the pet industry in a box boy setting

“Your stance on the human pet industry is pretty clear, obviously-”

“Obviously.” Nicole Berras’s voice is deep and slightly husky as she pats the thigh of the smiling, slightly blank-faced man who sits next to her on the plush red couch. 

Dylan has had a lot of nights he’s thought about the way it would feel to have the movie star’s voice against his ear like that. I mean, he feels pretty fucking ridiculous afterward, but once he’d seen her in that Marvel movie that was fucking it for him, slam-dunk, celebrity crush slot taken by one Nicole Berras, she of the wide, slightly almond eyes and soft lips worn over a black leather catsuit.

Even if the one time he’d tried to show Chris the movie (one more thing Chris hadn’t known about, and how do you not know about the biggest fucking franchise in movie fucking history, that cult must have been boring as shit), Chris had done nothing but bitch about how there’s no way Nicole Berras could do actual backflips like her character does in heels like that.

Of course not, weirdo, she has a stunt double for that. He’d thrown popcorn at Chris, who had caught it and grinned before popping it in his mouth.

Yeah, well. They, they, they-they-they still should have put her in-... in some, like, regular shoes or, or, or or or something. Chris had wiggled his toes under the blanket they were sharing. Or barefoot even would have, um, would-would... would be more realistic.

Nobody’s going to be barefoot in a leather catsuit, Chris.

Then why make, make her wear the the the-the catsuit?

... Chris, I swear to God-

That catsuit factors pretty fucking heavily into Dylan’s thoughts, too. In the interview, though, she’s just wearing like a regular white shirt and pants and even that looks amazing on her. Everything looks fucking amazing on Nikki Berras. 

Dylan checks his phone - an hour before Chris comes back so they can head to the dining hall together, which means an hour to daydream and watch Nikki’s mouth move.

“There’s a lot of Oscar buzz already surrounding your upcoming film, with celebrities as well-known as Vincent Shield speaking out and saying it ‘romanticizes a dangerous, damaging industry’. Do you have any comment or response to him on that?”

Nikki gives a brief, sweet smile. Dylan’s eyes, though, keep glancing over to the man sitting next to her, her pet. His name’s Yen or something, celebrities always give their pets ridiculous stupid names. Dylan wasn’t paying attention - the whole pet thing is kind of uneasy to think too much about, so he mostly doesn’t. Yen-or-Whatever is just... smiling away.

He looks fucking brainless.

“Vince and I have been in this industry a long time together,” Nikki says with a laugh. “And he’s always been kind of down on the industry, as long as I’ve known him. He’s of course welcome to speak his feelings, but I felt like there’s a lot of negative press out there about the system, and that really erases people like Yen-”

Oh, his name really is Yen. Yikes.

“-who are happy with the choice they made, well cared for, and just... you know, Yen and I talk about this a lot.”

“We do,” Yen says, and gives her a slight sidelong glance with a smile. 

“And we just... wanted to provide a little more of a balanced perspective. You mostly hear about the liberation movement now-”

“Yes, Shield produced a documentary two years ago that was very pro-liberation that received a lot of critical acclaim, as I recall. Is there a reason you chose a fictional feature film as opposed to an answering documentary?”

“Well, I am an actress.” Nikki flashes her impish little grin, but Dylan misses it. He’s stuck watching Yen, who is watching Nikki with perfect focus, sitting incredibly still. Like a statue next to her, with his head slightly tilted, chin down, looking up at her through his eyelashes even though he’s taller than she is.

Who has he seen look like that before?

Weird fucking deja vu has the hairs on Dylan’s arms standing up on end. 

“Feature films are really my wheelhouse, and I felt more comfortable working with a story that gave me a little more room to work multiple narratives into a single film. And Yen was so helpful, he really enjoyed getting to work with me on setting up the plot beats.”

“Right. So in the story, your character goes through the process of training after some serious life hardships, and things really kick off during that process. Can you tell us anything else about the story?”

“I can’t give too much away, Anderson,” Nikki says, laughing, leaning slightly forward. Dylan is still staring at Yen, whose eyes follow Nikki, whose empty little smile never so much as twitches, never fades. “But I can say... Yen helped me a lot with information on the training process! He was originally a demo pet with WRU so he had tons of inside information. The love interest-”

“Ah, right, played by... let’s see, played by Camden Oaks-”

“Right, Camden plays my love interest in the story - and Cam’s a big old sweetie, isn’t he, Yen?”

“Yes, he is,” Yen says automatically, almost before she’s even finished the sentence. 

“My love interest is actually a handler at WRU, so they meet early on but it’s not until much later that you see how that initial meeting really impacts my character’s story. Honestly, I’m really honored that WRU agreed to give me so much access to their methods! It was really great of them, and Yen came with me on every visit.”

Yen’s smile freezes, just slightly, but Dylan’s still looking right at him and catches the first flicker of a very different emotion on the man’s face. Even that seems familiar, the way that Yen’s hands twitch, just a little, and then he is very, very still. 

“Yen coached me quite a bit.” Nikki’s smile is all perfect straight white teeth. “Especially on dialogue, and how to get the expression just right. And all the work they do! Apparently Yen came with a pretty bad stutter, and one thing that they do is really give the pets individualized therapy that hits on their unique concerns to help them before they end up with an owner. So, like, Yen came with a bad stutter! So they really worked on that with him.”

Yen nods, slowly. “Silence is better than stammering.” His voice is perfect and even, doesn’t tremble in the slightest, has a hint of rote memorization that flattens the syllables and bleeds out all emotion.

Dylan jerks forward and rewinds a few seconds, then plays it again.

Yen, head cocked slightly to the side, giving a nervous, eager-to-please little smile. “Silence is better than stammering.”

Dylan’s breath catches somewhere in his throat, eyes widening.

Again.

“Silence is better than stammering.”

Again.

“Silence is better than-”

The barcode is visible on Yen’s left wrist, when Nikki pats his arm and he shifts a little, but if someone took that barcode off it’d leave a scar in the exact size and shape of the scarring Chris has.

The empty look in his eyes, like Chris gets sometimes if you yell at him or get into his personal space too fast. The hint of a slight smile, one that screams that he needs someone to tell him if he’s doing it right.

Silence is better than stammering. Chris had said that, when he was in the stairwell, rocking, hitting his head on the wall with tears running down his face, hiding behind his hands. Those exact. fucking. words.

Silence is better than stammering, stillness is better than what I do, silence is better than stammering-

“Holy fuck,” Dylan whispers out loud. “It wasn’t a cult. Oh shit. Oh fuck, shit, oh holy fuck he wasn’t in a cult.”

He’s going to be sick. He’s going to be so sick all over his fucking blankets.

“Chris was a fucking pet.”

His phone buzzes and he glances at it, feeling a wash of ice-cold fear straight down his spine when he sees the message. Chris’s class let out early and he’s on his way back, does Dylan want dinner early?

Chris isn’t even a fucking person. But he is, he’s definitely a person, he’s one hundred percent a person. But he’s not. But he is, but he’s a runaway, his name probably isn’t Chris, oh... oh fuck.

He really, really wishes it had been a cult.

Dylan swallows, hard.

What the fuck does he do now?

#whump #dylan means well okay #discovered whumpee #I want a tag for 'discovering the whumpee's secret' but i don't think there is one? #box boy #box boy multiverse #box boy universe #referenced ableist language #internalized ableism tw #escaped whumpee #recovering whumpee #caretaker #chris the strawberry blond romantic