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whump-tr0pes · 3 years

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Jake/Isaac comf part 2/3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Isaac Moore works in the pet lib movement, rescuing pets from the BBU. After an op goes sideways, he ends up on the doorstep of Jake Stanton’s safehouse for rescued pets, bleeding, and needing a safe place to lie low. Jake helps treat Isaac’s wounds and sets him up on the couch to sleep until Isaac’s medic can get into town.

Jake, Chris, Antoni, and Ash’s BBU story belong to @ashintheairlikesnow and are used here with permission. You can find Isaac’s story here.

Content warning: implied human trafficking, past child abuse, discussion about intimate partner violence (that isn’t actually happening), scars, pet whump, past torture, touch starvation

Jake couldn’t sleep. Not with the stranger in the house. Even if Nat knew him (and she did, he’d called her as soon as he’d helped Isaac to the bathroom and closed the door) and even if he was pet lib (he was, Nat had confirmed that, too – extraction teams, she called them, and Jake had to laugh at the sick parallel to the acquisition teams that made people like Isaac necessary), he couldn’t stop thinking about the risk Isaac brought. He’d insisted on Isaac getting some sleep before he left again.

“I mean… can you go to the hospital to get fixed up?” he’d asked.

“No,” Isaac had said with a huff. “No way. I have a friend who works in the hospital, but I can’t… set foot there. Not without putting her at risk. We have a medic, but… they were delayed. Fuck, they’re… probably at least eight hours away, with how far they still have left to drive.”

“Will you die before they get here?” Jake had said, trying to keep his voice even, the way he usually did with the rescues. Even with this man, who was probably older than he was and not in need of his protection, he slid so easily into that role.

“No,” Isaac said, with a strange twist in his voice. “It looks worse than it is.”

Jake hadn’t believed him, but he had insisted Isaac stay for at least eight hours, get the sleep he was so desperately needing. Reluctantly, Isaac had agreed, on the condition that as soon as his medic got into town, he’d leave.

“I’m not worth the risk to you,” he’d said. “Believe me.”

Jake had rolled his eyes when Isaac wasn’t watching, and given him fresh clothes and a set of sheets and a blanket to make up the couch.

Now Jake lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Chris was fast asleep in his own bed. He hadn’t left his room at all since Jake snapped at him, near as he could tell. Jake still burned with shame at raising his voice at the young rescue.

He was just starting to trust me, too.

Jake rolled onto his side, wrapping his arms around his pillow and hugging it tight against his chest. He was miles away from sleep. Eons. He sighed and slipped out of bed.

His bare feet padded on the wood floor as he walked across the hall and descended the stairs. Just as he reached the bottom stair, he heard a sound that froze his heart in his chest.

A whimper.

Fuck.

If they found him... Jesus Christ, if he led them here and they found him... Jake swallowed hard, his hands shaking as he walked around the corner into the living room, ready to scream if he needed to – ready to warn Chris and Antoni to run, without having to tell them to.

He let out a breath of relief as he realized the living room was empty, except for the man lying on the couch. The room was lit by moonlight streaming in from the windows.

“N-no,” Isaac whimpered where he lay on the couch, twisting in the sheets. Jake’s heart went cold and he went to Isaac’s side without hesitation.

“Isaac,” he whispered, reaching out to shake his shoulder.

“No, no,” Isaac sobbed, his eyes closed, his hands held down by his sides – no, hands held behind him, as if…

As if tied there.

Jake sucked in a breath and shook Isaac harder. “Isaac,” he urged.

Isaac heaved a ragged sob, shying away from Jake’s hand. “P-please,” he whispered. “I… please, no, I… n-no, Gavin, no!”

Jake grasped Isaac’s shoulders and shook him so hard his teeth clacked together. Isaac gasped and threw his hands up over his head, his eyes darting around the room until they finally landed on Jake’s dark, hulking form over him.

“Shit,” Isaac spat, shoving himself away from Jake. “Fuck, shit—” He pulled back his fist and punched Jake squarely in the jaw.

Jake reeled back, his own hands flying up to protect his head – but it wasn’t the first punch he’d ever taken. Not even close. He stayed on his feet, heart thundering in his chest. His hand shot out, fumbling for the light switch along the wall. He snapped it on, his hands tightening into fists – ready to end Isaac, if he made a single move towards the upstairs.

Isaac froze as his eyes focused on Jake. Sweat glistened on his skin, darkened the neckline of the shirt he was wearing – Jake’s shirt. His gaze flicked to the bruise blooming on Jake’s cheek from where Isaac hit him. Isaac’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. “Jake, I… I’m s-sorry. Fuck. I need to go. I…” He looked around, dazed. “Shit. Where are my clothes?”

“In the dryer,” Jake said, rubbing his jaw, fighting back the tears – the rage – that burned him. He jerked his head to the side to clear the rush of memory – fists, eyes wild with fury, a thundering voice that made something inside Jake tremble and quail. His knuckles ached as his hands squeezed tighter into fists.

“Wh-who is Gavin?” Jake said darkly.

Isaac froze, the blood seeming to drain from his face. “M-my partner,” he rasped. “Why—”

Jake made a soft sound in his throat as he looked at Isaac, a different kind of rage bubbling in his chest. “Your… partner?”

“How do you know about Gavin?” Isaac whispered. His hand drifted to his waistband, an unconscious-looking movement.

“You were screaming his name in your sleep,” Jake said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “You…” He swallowed against the sudden rush of tears. “Begging him to stop… hurting you, I think. Isaac, does he…” Jake took a step closer, his hands relaxing at his sides. “…does he hurt you?”

Isaac slumped forward with a sigh of… relief. “Oh,” he said softly. “Oh. I… no, Jake. He… doesn’t hurt me.”

Jake clenched his jaw shut against the words that came in an onslaught. You think I don’t know what that looks like?

Jake shook his head. “…okay,” he said, knowing not to pry. “Then—”

“If I was begging him not to hurt me,” Isaac said, “It’s because he… he did, in the… in the past.”

Jake’s jaw started to ache. “I—”

“No,” Isaac said, his eyes sliding shut. “Not like… not like that. Um…” Uncertainly, Isaac’s hand went to the hem of his shirt. Slowly, painfully, he pulled the shirt up, revealing his stomach and chest.

Jake’s eyes went wide as his gaze moved over the scars that covered Isaac’s chest and abdomen, lines crossing in every direction in some sort of pattern. The scars disappeared beneath the shirt, and Jake saw for the first time the scars at Isaac’s wrists, too. Jake shivered as he raised his gaze again to Isaac’s eyes. Isaac dropped his shirt.

“He didn’t want to,” Isaac said heavily.

Jake’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I…”

“Gavin’s parents…” Isaac swallowed tightly. “Th-they… they bought me. For him.”

Jake’s eyes went wide. “You… you were a—”

“A pet, yeah,” Isaac said through his teeth. He rubbed at the scars encircling one wrist. “I was. One of the… y-young ones. They… the Stormbecks…” Jake went pale at the name of the richest family in the city. “…they bought me. When I was twelve, my dad died in a car crash. Mom started drinking. I ended up on the street at fourteen, and…” Isaac’s mouth twisted. “…and one of them must have seen me. The fucking… acquisition teams. I… I don’t know… what made them choose me, but…” He shuddered. “Th-they made me… I…” It looked like it was physically painful to keep talking, like Isaac hadn’t told anyone this in a long time. “I w-was a Domestic. Officially. But…” He blew out a slow breath. “They… the Stormbecks… They made Gavin hurt me. They wanted him to be like… like them.”

Jake shook his head. “Like—”

“Sadists,” Isaac growled. “Torturers. Murderers.” His hand tightened around his own wrist. “Gavin… saved me. Ran away with me. But not before… before…” He gestured to his body. “…this.”

“Oh,” Jake breathed. “I… shit.”

Isaac shrugged painfully. “It’s ancient history,” he mumbled. “It’s nothing. It’s…” A slow smile spread across his face, the first true smile Jake had seen from him. “I have Gavin now. I have my family. It… i-it brought me to Gavin. And I…”

Jake flushed at the shy smile that tugged at Isaac’s lips. Jake didn’t have anyone like that, no one who looked like that when they thought of him.

He shoved down the blue eyes that smiled at him in his mind.

“Well… I’m still…” Jake spread his hands. “I didn’t know. Sorry for… for assuming.”

“I don’t blame you, with what you’ve been through,” Isaac said, looking at Jake steadily.

Jake’s hands shook. “Wh-what I’ve… been… through?”

Isaac huffed a bitter laugh. “You think I ended up on the streets for no reason? Kids can deal with a lot more than just a parent who’s drunk a lot.”

Jake bit down on his tongue and said nothing. Rage tickled his chest, bubbling up his throat, burning his mouth. Still, something about the way Isaac said it... without pity, judgement, or awkwardness. It was a statement of fact. He knows my dad was a piece of shit. He doesn’t know the details, but he doesn’t have to. Pain is pain. Abuse is...

Abuse is abuse.

Jake shivered and forced his shoulders to relax. He rolled his neck and blew out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he said heavily. “Yeah.”

Isaac shrugged. “Miss him, though,” he said softly. “Gavin, I mean. I’ve been on the road for… fuck, for weeks, prepping for this op. And I…” He shrugged again, his shoulders tight. “Fuck, sometimes it’s nice to be with… someone who knows.”

“Yeah,” Jake rasped, his eyes suddenly burning with tears. “It… it is.” He wet his lips, trying desperately to blink the tears away. “Can I… can I sit?”

Isaac’s face softened, settled. “Yeah,” he said softly. He pushed himself to the side and pulled the blanket around him. Jake let out a shaking breath as he walked to the couch and sat beside Isaac. He didn’t say a word – only leaned into the touch – when Isaac wound his arm around his shoulder and drew the blanket around them both.

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whump-tr0pes · 3 years

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Jake/Isaac comf Part 1/3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

This post inspired me to write a few crossover drabbles of what would happen if Jake “I’m there for everyone but me” Stanton met Isaac “I’ll die before I show any weakness” Moore and... I love them. I love my boys.

Jake, Chris, Antoni, and Ash’s BBU story belong to @ashintheairlikesnow and are used here with permission. You can find Isaac’s story here.

Content warning: BBU, implied pet whump, blood, self-hatred

Jake wasn’t used to housing people who weren’t ex-pets. He wasn’t used to having people show up to his doorstep, bleeding and out of breath and barely on their feet. The man’s sandy-blond hair was caked with blood from a gash that stretched over his right eye and disappeared into his hairline. Deep blue-black circles looking almost like bruises were carved into the skin below his light-brown eyes. Jake stared at him for a moment before the stranger swayed and fell to one knee.

Jake lunged forward and caught the man before he toppled over. He dug his fingers into the man’s arm and did his best to drag him upright.

Jake swallowed. “Wh-who-”

“Nat,” the man gasped. “Nat said...” He moaned softly as Jake heaved him over the threshold and closed the door behind him with one more glance around the street.

Jake easily had two inches of height and thirty pounds of muscle on the man, but he grunted as he half-dragged him into the living room. He nearly collided with Chris, whose wide green eyes went wider as he looked the man up and down.

“Who, who, who is—”

“I don’t know,” Jake growled. “Go get some towels from the linen closet. Bring them to the living room, Chris.”

Chris didn’t hesitate before turning to dash to the closet in the hall, stacked to the ceiling with blankets, sheets and towels.

The man staggered beside Jake as he helped him into the living room. Jake adjusted his grip around the man’s waist as he stood, waiting for Chris to come back with the towels. The man’s legs shook under him and sweat broke out on his forehead as he sagged against Jake. Chris appeared with an armload of towels.

“Lay them out on the couch Chris,” Jake said quickly, holding the man tighter around the waist. Chris bounced forward as he laid one towel out over the cushions, then another, then another. He chewed his lip as he looked up at Jake, his curtain of copper-colored hair falling over one eye.

Jake gently eased the man down onto the couch, grimacing as he sucked in a breath through his teeth. The man slumped back against the cushions, pressing a hand to his side, where a bloom of red was soaking through his shirt. When Jake pulled his hand away, he realized it was coated with blood.

“Chris, go upstairs,” Jake said through his teeth. “Now. Get Antoni and stay in your room.”

Chris looked up at Jake with wide eyes. “B-but-”

“Now,” Jake snapped, without meaning to. Chris’s eyes went wide with fear and he scampered up the stairs without a look back.

Jake cursed himself and turned back to face the stranger lying slumped on the couch. He was staring up at him with pain-glazed eyes, his skin a shade paler than it had been a minute ago.

Jake ground his teeth together. “Are you putting my rescues in danger?” he said softly, only too aware of the threat in his words.

“I d-don’t think so,” the man breathed. “Please. I… I don’t need to stay for, for very long. Just long enough to… stop the bleeding. I’m sorry, I… Nat said if things went sideways I could, could come here and—”

“What went sideways?” Jake rasped, his hands curling into fists.

The man heaved out a bitter laugh. “What’s left of our op,” he said heavily. “T-trying to free a shipment of new—” He swallowed hard, darkness passing over his face. “—rescues. Or, they would be if I…” The man squeezed his eyes shut. “If I hadn’t fucked it up…”

“Wait.” Jake stared at the man. “Are you… pet lib?”

Another bitter laugh. “If you could call it that. I didn’t liberate shit this time.” The man’s face crumpled, and for a moment his eyes shone with tears.

Jake’s throat bobbed. “Did… What happened?” He shook himself, as if remembering what he was doing. “What can I do?”

The man groaned. “I need… I mean, I’m guessing you don’t have any suture kits?” Jake shook his head. “Shit.” The man chewed his lip. “Butterfly closures?”

Jake nodded slowly. “Probably?” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “Do you need… water, or something?”

The man breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Water would be, would be good. And isopropyl. Maybe some bandages. I don’t think I can take a shower before I get these stitched up, but—” He moved to get up.

“No,” Jake said in a rush, moving quickly towards the kitchen. “Just… sit tight.” He went to the kitchen and took down a cup to fill with water. He winced as Jake’s hand smeared the man’s blood on the glass. He washed his hand in the sink before he grabbed the glass and filled it to the brim with water.

When he went back into the living room, the man was leaned forward, breathing hard, whimpering with each exhale. When the man heard Jake enter the room he sat up slightly, clenching his jaw until he didn’t make a sound. Jake’s hand shook as he handed the glass to the man. He drained it immediately.

“Let me help you to the bathroom,” Jake said, reaching down to help the man up from the couch. The man moaned softly as he staggered to his feet, pressing his hand to his side. He limped along beside Jake, and Jake had no doubt the man was hiding the worst of his pain.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Jake said, glancing at the man sidelong. The man’s face was twisted with pain, his skin slick with sweat.

“Isaac,” the man gasped, sighing with relief as Jake walked him into the bathroom and helped him lean on the sink. “Isaac Moore.”

#Athena whumps Ash #honor bound #jake the shelter guy #Chris the strawberry blonde romantic #whump #worried caretaker #Ash/Athena crossover #BBU #implied pet whump tw #blood tw #self hatred tw #Isaac's self-loathing #as Ash said #it's not Isaac without some self-hatred #I love these two boys #it was fun to see them play off each other #Isaac of course would be involved with pet lib #and you'll see why in the next drabble

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whump-tr0pes · 3 years

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Jake/Isaac comf part 3/3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Jake, Chris, Antoni, and Ash’s BBU story belong to @ashintheairlikesnow and are used here with permission. You can find Isaac’s story here.

Content warning: touch starved Jake, accidentally flirty behavior, scars, past torture, past pet whump, implied conditioning, implied past noncon, implied death

Jake shivered as Isaac’s arm settled around his shoulders, a warm, welcome pressure. Isaac’s hand gently rested on Jake’s bicep, roughened and calloused. In spite of himself, Jake’s eyes fluttered shut, and he drew in a deep breath.

“Sorry I punched you,” Isaac said softly, and Jake’s shoulders tensed. “I… I wouldn’t have, ah, done that if I—”

“I should have turned on the light,” Jake said, his voice settling in the smooth, even tone he used with frightened rescues. “I mean… Jesus, you showed up on my porch, bleeding, and I… I don’t know. It’s just… it’s alright,” Jake said, turning his head. Without planning on it, without meaning to… he nosed against Isaac’s shoulder, and pressed his lips to the shirt stretched over what Jake was sure was more scars.

Isaac went still. “I…”

“I’m sorry,” Jake said in a rush. He pulled away from Isaac, his face burning. “I… I’m not trying to, I mean, I’m sorry, you literally just said…” He trailed off in a tight, miserable silence. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, looking down at the pattern of the blanket pulled around him. “It’s just… nice to be touched.”

Isaac relaxed, pulled Jake closer. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I… get that.”

“It’s just been a while. Since… anything.” I will never, never touch the rescues that way, and I don’t exactly have time for any other… anything…

Jake relaxed as he rested his head on Isaac’s shoulder, feeling just a little strange at being the one being held, this time. He was so used to being the one doing the holding. “You’re the world’s best big spoon,” a girlfriend had told him once, settling comfortably in his embrace. He breathed a sigh as Isaac leaned back against the arm of the couch until Jake was lying in his arms, with Isaac’s legs slung across Jake’s like he was sitting in his lap. Holding and being held.

Jake found himself tracing one of the scars around Isaac’s wrist. He froze and dropped his hand.

“It’s okay,” Isaac said softly. “I’m… used to them, now.”

“What…” Jake’s mouth was dry. “Wh-what… happened?”

“There?” Isaac said softly, glancing at his wrist. Jake said nothing. After a moment, Isaac shrugged and tightened his arm around Jake’s shoulders. “Those were just from… fighting the cuffs. Over and over. After a while it leaves marks.”

Jake shivered as he thought of the marks below Kauri’s collarbones – and the lack of other marks, evidence of soft leather cuffs and silk rope and whispered promises that were never kept. His throat tightened as he imagined the entirely different kind of torture than the kind he was so used to dealing with, where shame and conditioning were more effective than any physical restraint.

I don’t think the ones like Isaac live to find us, he thought with an ache in his chest.

“And… and your stomach?” Jake said softly.

Isaac shifted, but not uncomfortably – just adjusting where he sat on the couch. “Chest and stomach was a knife,” he murmured.

“Oh.” Jake’s voice shook. “And… wh-what else?”

When Isaac spoke, his voice was gentle, even, calm. As if he was speaking about someone else, something else, entirely. “Knife on the arms – cuts and burns. Back was the whip. And he… sometimes they’d just make him beat me, choke me. That usually didn’t leave marks. But I…” He rotated his left arm in its socket as if warding off an old ache. “When he got me out, he uh… kinda blew the place up.”

“What?” Jake gasped, sitting up slightly.

Isaac laughed softly. “Yeah. Gas. He turned on the gas for the burners in the kitchen and started a fire. When it finally blew…” Isaac’s eyes went distant. “A door exploded as we went through it. Tore up my shoulder. Gavin tells me I, um…” Isaac cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I nearly died.”

“Jesus,” Jake breathed.

They both fell into a slightly tense silence.

Still, with Isaac’s arms so tightly around him, with Isaac’s weight pressing down comfortably in Jake’s lap, a warmth moved slowly through him – a pleasant buzzing starting in his skin that made him feel sleepy and safe.

It made him feel safe.

Jake wet his lips and pressed his forehead against Isaac’s neck. Isaac’s arm tightened gently around Jake’s shoulders.

“It’s… not your fault, you know,” Jake said softly.

Isaac shrugged and said nothing, just stroked his other hand up and down Jake’s arm.

Jake breathed slowly. “The… the rescues, I mean.”

Isaac went rigid against Jake. “Jake, I—”

“This is my life,” Jake said softly, heart sinking as Isaac’s skin seemed to cool against his. “Believe me, I… I know.” Slowly, he reached out and took Isaac’s hand. “It’s… not your fault.”

Isaac’s head tipped back, and Jake was certain he was trying to conceal tears. “Th-thanks, Jake,” he rasped.

Jake opened his mouth to push the issue, and found himself out of words to say. He knew nothing would ever soothe the pain if he lost a rescue, and Isaac had lost many. He laid his head back on Isaac’s shoulder and squeezed Isaac’s hand. Isaac sniffed, his head still tilted back.

“I remember every single one,” Isaac said softly, and his voice broke.

Jake bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah?” he croaked.

Isaac nodded, and his stubble brushed against Jake’s cheek. “Every single rescue I lose. I remember them all.” His shoulders shook in a dry sob.

Jake lay still, his skin still warmed by Isaac’s touch, his torso shaking with Isaac’s sobs. He held his breath for a moment, lips trembling. “Do you remember the ones you save?” he said softly.

Isaac froze. He trembled in Jake’s arms, scarcely breathing. “Wh-what?”

Jake pulled away and met Isaac’s gaze. Tears swam in his eyes, and he looked up at Jake as if he had just thrown him a lifeline. Jake swallowed hard. “I remember the ones I save,” he whispered. “Every single one. Every name, every face. Some aren’t here for very long, some are here for years, but… I remember them. I remember them all.”

Isaac’s eyes darted between Jake’s. “Y-yeah?” he breathed.

“Yeah,” Jake said as he settled in Isaac’s embrace again. Isaac’s arm was still tight around him, his hand still clasped in his, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. Jake settled even more as his muscles slowly relaxed, his breaths slowing, matching Isaac’s. Jake’s eyelids drooped shut as Isaac’s head fell back against the arm of the couch, drifted as Isaac started to snore.

In the morning, Jake woke slowly, confused, sore. He blinked and looked around at the living room, lit by the soft grey of the coming dawn. He rubbed his eyes and sat up quickly as he suddenly remembered why he had fallen asleep on the couch.

He was alone. The blankets were cold, his neck stiff from how it had twisted while he slept. He cast his gaze around the room, looking for Isaac. Hoping he’d stayed.

Jake’s throat tightened as he saw the clothes he’d given Isaac, neatly folded in a stack on the coffee table. There was a single post-it note on top that Jake recognized from the stack in the kitchen, a single line of scrawl in black ink:

Thank you.

Jake raised his head to the sounds of feet on the floor above him. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. I should tell them they can come downstairs. They’re probably hungry and I...

Shit.

He groaned as he stood and made his way up the stairs. He saw a flash of copper hair as Chris peeked around the doorframe of his room and disappeared around it again. Antoni stood just inside the door, fixing Jake steadily with his almost-black, feline eyes.

“Who was that, Jake?” Antoni asked softly.

Chris bounced on his toes, tapping nervously at his stomach. “Wh-who, who, who was it? Was-was, was, was it…?” He chewed his lip as he focused his eyes just to the side of Jake’s face.

Jake tried to ignore the twist in his heart, the ache in his chest, the burn in his eyes. His lips trembled and he pressed them together.

“A friend,” he said softly. “He was… a friend.”

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whump-tr0pes · 4 years

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Omg plzzzz have them feed from Sam, the poor boi is so scared and wants contact and Sam whump is just so gOOd

@ashintheairlikesnow should we give them what they want???

#ash whumps athena #athena whumps ash

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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I NEED RYAN TO RESCUE SAM ASH PLEASE I BEG OF YOU

Ryan has no idea they're even down there! He avoids his mom's basement, not really his style. I don't know how he would ever find out they were being held... Although he IS furious at his parents for the position they've put Ellis and Finn in - and that's before he found out about the, uh, actual positions his father put Finn in...

#honor bound au #ash whumps athena #athena whumps ash #this is like the world's angstiest ping pong game

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Whumptober 19: Survivor’s Guilt

TIMELINE: Takes place in the Iris Michaelson, Teen Badass AU of the Fillis Angst Parade AU - look, @whump-tr0pes and I make our own fun, and by “fun”, I mean we make “Isaac and Finn suffer”.

Basic Plot: Fourteen years ago, Finn Dunham and Ellis Price were taken captive. The team has never been able to rescue them, and knows only that Finn lives life as Patrick Michaelson’s plaything and Ellis teaches at a Syndicate dayschool and tutors the Michaelson’s adopted teenage daughter. When Iris Michaelson sends a message to the famous rebel Isaac Moore, he can’t help but answer it.

CW: Referenced noncon/dubcon, referenced torture

“If this is a trap, I’m going to owe Gavin fifty bucks.” Vera checked and rechecked her handgun, as though it would suddenly be less loaded than it was just a few minutes before. Her jaw was set in a grim line, eyes flashing a kind of damped-down fire, embers ready to spark. Her thick black hair, showing growing hints of gray, was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a pair of black pants and a tucked-in t-shirt, ready for the fight she was definitely expecting. “I don’t want to owe Gavin money, Isaac.”

“It’s not a trap,” Isaac replied, making his own nervous check and recheck of the table and chairs. “I don’t think it is, anyway. My instincts are saying it isn’t.”

“Your instincts-”

“My instincts have been spot-on for a decade, Vera. Just trust me on this. She let us pick the day, the time, the location… she let us give her the location with less than four hours’ notice, even. If this is a trap, she’s piss-poor at setting it.”

“Hm.” Vera snorted, and checked the second gun, the rifle they had leaning up, hidden on the other side of a doorframe, where Vera could pick it up and keep shooting if she had to.

If they needed the second gun, it would be because she was buying time for an exit, not because they had a shot in hell of getting a win.

“She wouldn’t have let me pick the spot with such short notice if she was planning on killing us,” Isaac said, but he felt less certain than his voice sounded.

“She’s a teenager, isn’t she? Who the fuck knows why teenagers do anything?”

It was Isaac’s turn to snort, then.

Their scheduled meeting space was a busted-out house an hour outside of the Michaelson Syndicate's largest stronghold city, a hidden place they had used, in the past, to run dissidents out of the city north, always north. A few years ago it’d been compromised, the house was half-burned down in the attack, but there was a room at the back that was still standing… more or less.

The girl had agreed readily to meet here - which Vera didn’t like, such a quick agreement made her think the youngest Michaelson child had some kind of plan, but it was a cleared space and Isaac had put his people all around. If the girl was bringing weapons, well, so were they.

Isaac had sentries watching for miles around, covering every road. It paid to have his reputation, and have so many people willing to sign on to help him out with this. It didn’t hurt that his reputation meant he’d managed to scrape together enough money to pay them.

Not in money, no - Isaac had traded pallets of flour with boxes' worth of packets of yeast, a couple of beat-up cars that could at least be broken down for scrap, and cough syrup from their carefully hoarded medical supplies. But it had been enough to draw in some people willing to take the risk.

Sentries had reported by radio - one car, following the directions Isaac had given it. No escort cars, no one caught sneaking through the scrubby woods around the house. Just one, single, shining black Michaelson Syndicate vehicle, clearly marked, making no effort to hide.

She was following every rule she’d been given, right down to the tiniest detail.

Still, his nerves were on edge. What the youngest Michaelson child could possibly want with them - what had made her reach out to schedule a face-to-face - had had him up at night ever since the first message had come in, sent via dissidents who didn’t even understand what they were carrying in the envelope that no one dared open until it got to him.

My name is Iris Michaelson and I need your help. I know Finn Dunham and Ellis Price. Please call me. Then a number, everything written in a childish looping cursive, and the sight of Finn and Ellis’s names had meant Isaac could never have stopped himself from calling.

“I wonder-”

“If she wants a way out, I’m not doing it,” Vera snapped, interrupting Isaac’s thoughts, her fraying nerves given away by the edge in her voice. “We can’t handle that kind of heat, Isaac.”

“I can find her someone to go to for that,” Isaac said, not quite in agreement. “We’re not in the business of hiding Syndicate kids.”

“Oh, are we not?” Vera’s dry humor edged on sarcasm. “Because I’m wondering what exactly you think we did with Gavin, then-”

“Anymore. We’re not in the business of hiding Syndicate kids anymore. That was fifteen years ago, are you-”

“Ever going to let it go? Nope. I’m too old to escort a spoiled rotten rich kid into the real world again, and you’re sure as fuck too old to fall in love with another one.”

Isaac felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth, and shook his head. “Calm, Vera.”

“Isaac, so far you’ve turned Gavin into your goddamn life partner and tried to give Danny fucking Michaelson a place-”

“All I did was give him my name to help him get as far as he and Nate could get, when he was ready.” Isaac ignored the twist of bitterness inside him. “And he never was, was he? He’s still there.”

Some part of Isaac would always wonder why - when given the chance to get out - Danny had chosen to stay.

He sighed, and kept talking. “In any case, that’s not going to happen here. I’m not going to give her safe harbor with us. I’ve already spoken to some other communities, just laying groundwork. If she needs a place to run, she can have it - but she’ll have to give up a tremendous amount of intel to earn her sanctuary.”

“What kind of intel does a fucking fourteen-year-old girl have?”

“Don’t know, but she might have enough. She didn’t drop Danny’s name to meet with me, did you notice? She dropped Finn’s and Ellis’s names instead.” He shifted the chair on the other side, the one she’d sit in, this way and that until he had it just right. His own weapons - he carried two, one under his left arm and one on his right hip, plus another hidden taped under the table on his side - were fully loaded, too. All this to take on a single teenage girl.

Granted, it wasn’t just a teenage girl. Iris Michaelson happened to be the daughter of Patrick and Corrine Michaelson. Danny’s parents, and she was the beloved youngest child of the fucking assholes that had stolen his family, and kept them. The last Isaac had directly seen of Finn and Ellis was them being surrounded by Patrick’s men fourteen years ago as the car with him inside spit gravel and sped away.

Isaac swallowed, tightly, wondering if it was a good sign or a bad one that he rarely teared up when he remembered the moment, now. He’d cried too much for them already, and Iris Michaelson would be here soon.

“Would you have met her if she’d namechecked Danny?”

Isaac shook his head, jaw set firmly. “No.”

“But you will if-”

“Listen, maybe it’s about Finn, or Ellis,” Isaac said, softly. He barely dared hope. “Maybe she’s willing to trade intel on them. We know they’re still alive. We know Finn is-... that Finn has-”

“Yeah,” Vera said heavily. “Maybe. Hell, maybe the daughter has a heart. Anything’s fuckin’ possible, right?”

“Right.” Isaac took a deep breath. He heard the sound of car tires on gravel and raised his head, jaw setting into a determined line. “Here they are.”

“Showtime,” Vera said, voice low. She shifted back until she was mostly hidden in a doorway, covered enough in shadow that she wouldn’t be immediately visible unless she wanted to be. “I’ve got you covered, Isaac, but if it looks like it’s going south-”

“I’ll drop so you can start shooting and cover me until I can fire, too.”

“Right. Again, just for the record-”

“You won’t owe Gavin money. I promise.” Isaac took a seat on his side of the table. He knew his own people littered the woods around the clearing, weapons at the ready. He’d brought a full fucking team to meet with a teenage girl. But as far as Isaac was concerned, Iris Michaelson might as well be more dangerous than just about anyone else he might meet with.

Isaac knew enough, from his short time with the Michaelson family going on fifteen years ago, to know that their Syndicate wasn’t entirely human.

Crunch of footsteps - Isaac counted. The girl’s steps - lighter, but firm. Projecting a false confidence, Isaac thought. She was trying to sound stronger than she felt. He knew the feeling. A large… man, he guessed, from the time between heavy footsteps. Bodyguard, probably as armed to the teeth as Vera was. He waited to count more but… heard no one.

Isaac’s eyebrows furrowed, frowning. “Vera-” He turned to look back over his shoulder.

“I heard,” Vera whispered. “Eyes straight ahead, Isaac. I heard it. She’s only bringing one inside with her. Gavin might just owe me money.” Vera’s smile flashed white in the darkness. “Now that idea I like.”

She melted back into the shadows, and when Iris Michaelson entered the room, Isaac would seem entirely alone.

Iris moved into the room with the unconscious certainty of power that every Syndicate son or daughter carried, although her steps were a little hesitant and her breathing tightly nervous, but that wasn’t what caught Isaac’s eyes. Her head was slightly down, auburn hair catching the dim light, a thick braid down her back with two smaller braids that ran on either side along her head to join the larger on. She also had a small, almost delicate-looking handgun on a small holster on her hip.

He froze watching the lanky, gawky, all-elbows-and-knees girl in her soft black off-the-shoulder sweater, jeans, and combat boots that cost more than the gun on Isaac’s hip enter the room. He hadn’t seen hair quite that color since…

“Iris Michaelson.” His voice somehow came out even, but he heard himself speak as if from some far away place. His heart had started to race. “You requested a meeting with me?”

She raised her head to meet his eyes, and Isaac’s world broke apart.

The shape of her face was unmistakable, as was the color of her hair. Her eyes were wide and a strangely startlingly clear hazel leaning towards brown, but…

Isaac heard Vera’s soft gasp behind him and knew she saw it, too.

Iris Michaelson was the perfect spitting image of Ellis Price - except for the fact that she had Finn Dunham’s hair and eyes.

Iris came to a stop, warily, the hulking bodyguard - a brute of a man who seemed to carry himself with an absurd gentleness, with cropped dark hair and dark eyes in a pale face - that followed close on her heels putting his hand to his gun. Isaac automatically raised both his hands, empty and open-palmed, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

My God, I know who you fucking are, now.

Finn and Ellis had been captured during their flight from the Michaelson stronghold nearly fifteen years ago. They had disappeared into the depths of the Michaelson’s mansion, and every attempt the team made to understand what might have happened had dead-ended into the common knowledge that anyone who went into the Michaelson mansion never came back out of it alive. Isaac had refused to believe they were dead at first, and when no one hunted them down - no one found the safehouses Ellis and Finn knew about, no attacks were made on places the two of them might have given up under torture… he had refused to believe they were broken, either.

The team had never been able to go back for them, it had been too dangerous a risk even though Isaac had tried and failed and tried and failed again. They’d been… gone.

Not dead - there’d have been some closure then.

Just… disappeared.

The Michaelsons had adopted a baby girl - philanthropic move, adopting the orphaned child of their employees, a couple killed in an attack by rebels. They'd named her Iris, and she'd been raised as just as much a part of the family as Ryan or Danny.

Then, shortly after the public announcement of Iris joining the Michaelson family, Finn popped back up. They were kept at Patrick Michaelson’s side, his willing, branded plaything, photographed sitting in his lap at parties, glass of champagne tipped to their lips, eyes dead and empty above a gorgeous smile, head tilted to the side as Patrick's lips pressed into the brand on the left side of their neck.

Isaac had been shown photos of Finn - with Patrick’s mouth on theirs or their neck or his hand between their legs, Finn with their back pressed up against Patrick’s car like Finn was just an object, even right out in public, even in plain sight. Finn wearing perfectly tailored suits, Finn half-wearing those suits, Finn wearing nothing but a harness of knotted navy blue rope with their legs wrapped around Patrick Michaelson’s waist, smiling and begging for more, harder, deeper…

Broken and leaning into Patrick’s touch, over and over with that same dead-eyed smile. Standing with Patrick’s arm around their waist, leaning into him, a carefully crafted expression of adoration there. Isaac had shed bitter tears over being too late to save them. Whatever had broken Finn was something Isaac could never have brought them back from.

Ellis… Ellis had been gone for more than four years. The team had eventually assumed Ellis was dead - Isaac had grieved their fucking death. He’d thought losing them must have been what broke Finn, made them give up and resign themself to life in Patrick Michaelson’s bed.

Then… an envelope, and a set of photos Isaac had never expected to see. Ellis, nearly five years after Isaac had last seen them, teaching children at a Syndicate school, heavily guarded but still clearly themself. Smiling for children but expression set in a furious grim line the second no one was looking. Photos snuck out of the city by secret dissidents, Isaac had spent so much of what little money he had on every bit of information he could get about the two of them.

They were miserable, captives held behind enemy lines for more than a decade. But they never tried to run, never tried to contact anyone. Never took the chance. Isaac had managed to leverage people who owed him favors, new and old contacts, but every attempt to get Finn alone at a party had ended in their soft refusal - an insistence that I'm happy living this way, thank you or I love Patrick Michaelson, who could want to escape from living like this? or please, I can’t talk about it, I have to love him - and they’d move back to Patrick’s side - and Ellis was never fucking alone at all.

They weren’t trying to be alone, though, and Isaac just didn’t understand it.

Isaac hadn’t been able to grasp why Ellis could look so unbowed and so… utterly Ellis, and still be there. Still go day by day to the school, teaching children their ABCs, spending their nights and weekends tutoring the Michaelsons’ youngest child like it was nothing. Like it was a life they wanted, evenings and weekends helping raise a fucking Syndicate daughter, a pampered little princess.

It should have been something Ellis would rather die than do.

Isaac had wondered, again and again, what could possibly keep Ellis from trying to escape. Now, staring as Iris Michaelson crossed the room and settled herself in a chair across from him, Isaac understood.

He understood, and he would have made exactly the same choices they had made, for this.

Ellis had been tutoring their own daughter, grasping for time with her. Doing anything it took not to lose her. And so, in their own way, had Finn. Ellis wouldn’t try to escape because they wouldn’t leave their daughter - Finn was at Patrick’s side to stay as close to Iris as they could get. The two of them had spent fourteen years like this.

Corrine Michaelson hadn’t taken Iris from a dead employee to raise as her own.

She’d taken Iris from Ellis.

The two of them had managed to leverage their captivity to stay close to her, no matter what they had to give up, no matter how much of themselves they had had to give away. Isaac had to blink away tears that blurred his vision, wanting to stare at Iris for as long as he could.

Was this why Danny had stopped contacting Isaac about possibly leaving himself? Had he gone radio silent and stayed here because he didn’t want to leave Iris, either?

She looked up at him uncomfortably, rubbing at one arm with her other hand. It was… strange, to see the child’s roundness in Ellis’s face with Finn’s brown eyes, the hint of nervous shyness that he’d never seen in his friend, his family. But… he couldn’t look away. “What? What are you staring at? I’m adopted.”

Isaac just blinked, until Vera cleared her throat behind him and Isaac jumped a little, startled out of his thoughts. The world felt like it had just tipped sideways, all of it made sense now, all at once. Puzzle pieces falling to the floor and magically into place. “I-I’m sorry, I just-... I know. I’ve met your brothers-”

“I know.” Iris’s voice was low, but held a sharp edge. “They told me.”

“They did?” Isaac almost asked her what exactly Danny and Ryan had had to say about him, but he could feel Vera’s eyes on his back, and he cleared his throat again. “My apologies. You wanted to meet with m-me?”

His voice was trembling. If he wasn’t careful, he’d cry right here in front of her. How are they? How broken? Is anything left? How much did they lose just to keep you?

“Yes. I, um. I thank you for-... meeting with me today. For agreeing to meet.” Iris’s voice was carefully even, but it shook, too, giving away that Syndicate daughter or not, she was nervous. Probably scared - she didn’t have any good reason to believe Isaac wouldn't just kill her or take her hostage. She’d shown a lot of trust, having just the one bodyguard and probably a driver come with her. She’d shown a lot of courage.

That’s Finn and Ellis for you, Isaac thought, and his throat nearly closed again.

“I-I’m not here for my own sake,” Iris said, quietly, looking slightly down, as if reciting something from memory. Her face was red, and Isaac decided this might be as close to seeing Ellis blush as he was ever going to get. “I don’t-... I don’t. Um. I’m sorry, this is just. Wait, I was supposed to start with-... shit.”

Isaac’s lips quirked in the slightest smile - he heard Vera huff a laugh from her hiding spot. There’s Ellis’s daughter, through and through.

Iris’s bodyguard leaned over, putting a hand on her shoulder, whispering in her ear. He looked up at Isaac, then, without the instinctive loathing or derision that Isaac usually expected from the Syndicate guards he’d gotten into fights with in the past.

“Right. Right, thanks, David.” Iris put a hand up over the bodyguard’s, looking back at Isaac, sitting up straight again. Her black sweater fell just lightly off one bony shoulder. Loyal to her, Isaac thought, watching the bodyguard. Not Patrick and Corrine. We can use that. He’s not a Syndicate bodyguard - he’s Iris Michaelson’s bodyguard. There’s something there, if I can just figure it out.

Jesus, what had Ryan and Danny said years ago? Not everyone in the Syndicate was human. Was this David human? Or something else?

His heart was pounding. He had to make it through this meeting and then he was going to let himself be crushed under the weight of what he could see only in hindsight, only with Iris sitting here in front of him. Now that he understood that his attempts to save them had been fruitless because they didn’t want to be saved - not if… not if it would take them from their daughter.

He understood, now. He got it, all at once. Finn wouldn’t leave Ellis. Ellis wouldn’t leave Finn. And they wouldn’t leave Iris.

God, he could feel fourteen years crushing him, all at once. Freedom he’d had and they hadn’t, could never get back. And they’d only been caught because Isaac had been running from being turned into Danny’s unwilling plaything, against both his and Danny’s will.

If he hadn’t let himself be rescued, he could have stayed with Danny and Nate. Danny would have… would have tried to make it feel as close to normal as he could.

Stop it. You couldn’t have known. You could never have known. This isn’t your fault. This isn’t-... this isn’t your fault.

Felt like it, though. If he’d just… belonged to the Michaelsons - spent his days with Danny - then Finn never would have, would they? They’d be a rebel medic still, probably, not a plaything who spent their time being felt up or worse by the Michaelson patriarch-

Stop it. She’s fucking talking, listen to her, Isaac.

“Ellis,” Iris was saying softly, “is my real mother. And they told me to tell you, um, something that proves-... that proves that I’m here for them. They said… it’s been a while, motherfucker. Is-.. is bitchboy behaving?”

Isaac closed his eyes, briefly, wanting to laugh and cry and do both at once. Vera huffed a laugh from her position behind him and Iris jumped, glancing back at David, who had a gun up, out, and pointed right at Isaac in less time than it took for Iris to flinch back when she realized Vera was there.

“Hands where I can see them,” David said, voice deep, low, and flat.

Vera stepped out into plain view, holding her gun pointed upwards with the safety on and her finger off the trigger. “Here I am,” She said, carefully. “I’m going to lay this down on that side table. No shooting. Yeah?”

David held steady. “No shooting. I don’t put this down until yours is down.”

Isaac’s hands slipped down, as if lying in his lap, the get a grip on the gun under the table, ready to pull it free and aim. “She’s with me. I promise we’re not planning on hurting anyone today, if you’re not.”

“So have her put her gun down,” Iris said, lifting her chin.

Isaac felt a stab of surreal pride that this near-stranger made her voice so strong, that she seemed so brave. It fit, that Ellis’s daughter would be good at hiding her fears.

“Vera,” Isaac said softly.

“I’m doing it.” Vera laid her handgun down on the side table and then backed slowly away, hands still up, until she was leaning against the wall. When David’s gun lowered, so did her hands. He reholstered his weapon and everyone let out a breath they hadn’t realized they were holding simultaneously. There was a round of nervous laughter from them all.

Isaac tried to remind himself to just keep breathing. "So... they're still Ellis, definitely. Angry?”

Iris smiled, and you couldn’t mistake that smile for anything but someone who was talking about her mother. “Angry all the time. They’re good with the dayschool, though. I go see them every day, mostly.”

“And… and Finn?"

There was a pause, and Iris’s eyes dropped. She picked at a loose thread on her sweater. "They're, um." Iris paused, and Isaac heard her shift in her chair. "They're… very sad. All the time. With my father-”

Isaac winced. “He’s not your-”

“I know. But he is my father, too. Please don’t-... please let me talk.” Her voice did tremble, then, and Isaac went quiet. “With my father, and around everyone who works with us, they seem mostly happy, I guess. I know my fathers love each other-”

“Bullshit,” Vera said, her voice flat. “They don’t love him.”

Iris didn’t look up. “They do,” She insisted. “They do love each other, but… but when I’m alone with Finn, they’re… they’re very sad. And they don’t love him any longer. Did you… do you know them? They told me stories, but they didn't-... there were always other people around, so-"

"So they didn't tell you everything."

"No. But… but I-... I want to get them - Ellis and Finn - away from my, um. My family."

Isaac wasn't thinking about self-protection. If Iris had wanted to, she could have had her bodyguard kill him, in that moment, his eyes closed and his guard down. He leaned slowly forward and put his head in his hands, the silence drawing out. No one drew a weapon. No one fired.

Isaac felt the punch of pain, anyway, the tears running down his face.

That's not your family, Iris. We are. Or we were supposed to be.

“Do they know-”

“Ellis knows. I mean, my mother knows.” Iris laughed, airily, and Isaac looked up through his hands to see the piercing sadness in her features, the blend of her mother and father so deeply written in every single gesture, each expressed emotions. “I’m not allowed to call them that, so, so I hope you don’t mind if I just do it all the time, for right now? My mother knows. But-”

“Finn doesn’t know?”

Iris swallowed, and glanced back at David, who looked impassively down at her, but he kept his hand on her shoulder. “No, Daddy doesn’t know.”

Isaac’s breath hitched. Daddy-

“I can-... I’m sometimes allowed to call them that. I call, um, my father is just… Father. Or Da, sometimes, he likes Da. But Finn isn’t-... Finn doesn’t know that we’re meeting today. They know I want to, and they know I’m doing something, but we can’t tell them what or when or any details.”

“Why not?” That was Vera - but there was a set to her jaw, and a tension to her words, that suggested she knew the answer before Iris ever spoke it out loud.

“Because… if Father asks them, they’ll tell him anything. Everything. Anything they know.”

Isaac breathed out. Slowly, slowly, trying to control the despair threatening to well up inside of him. “They’re tortured?”

“Um. Not… not exactly. They just… will. Father will ask, and he’ll… kiss them, or something-” Iris’s nose wrinkled in something like disgust. “Which, watching your fathers kiss is pretty weird, for the record-”

“No doubt,” Vera murmured, “When one of them doesn’t want to.”

“Um. Sort of.” Iris’s expression shifted - something Isaac couldn’t read there - and she shrugged. “In any case. He’ll ask, and they’ll tell, sooner or later. So Ellis - my mother, God, it’s so nice to say that out loud just like that - says they can’t know, it has to be a surprise for them. So we, um, we kind of have to abduct Finn, but-... but they’ll go, we just-... have to make it a surprise abduction.”

“As opposed to the usual kind, where you send a note they can RSVP to,” David rumbled behind Iris, and she shot him a brilliant smile over one shoulder, bumping her shoulder into his side.

“Anyway… my uncles Nate and Danny know. Nate and Ellis trade books a lot, they’ve been hiding messages in them.”

“Nate Vandrum,” Vera said. “Loyal to Danny Michaelson, not his last name. Which means…”

“Which means Danny wants in on this, wants to get them out.” Isaac ignored the odd little thrill of nostalgia. One week, fourteen years ago, and it had ended in disaster. And still part of him leapt at the idea of seeing Daniel Michaelson again. “Why now?”

“Because…” Iris took a breath, closed her eyes. Opened them again, and Isaac was caught all over again by how thoroughly Finn those eyes were, but full of all the sparkling life and light that was missing from Finn’s in every photograph taken since their disappearance, since they’d been turned into a plaything, but something worse and more than that.

Playthings are discarded. They die or get paid off to disappear.

But Finn… Finn had been at Patrick Michaelson’s side for fourteen years. They were far more than a plaything. Patrick introduced them, Isaac had been told, as his consort. Like a fucking monarchy.

What were Syndicates, really, but petty fucking kings and queens with little kingdoms where their word was law? Why wouldn’t Patrick style himself king, and style Finn something like consort, or concubine, or-

Or royal fucking whore-

His hands had closed into fists, palms aching where his nails were digging in. Isaac forced himself to slowly, carefully relax them.

“Because what, Iris?” Vera had moved closer up behind Isaac, and he felt her hand settle warmly onto his right shoulder. A comfort - and Vera could reach down and take a gun from Isaac’s underarm holster in less time than it took to catch a breath.

“Because, um.” Iris picked at her manicured fingernails, then looked up from under her lashes at them both. “Because I want to go with them, with you. I want-...” She swallowed, again and again. “Because I don’t want them to hurt anymore. Because Daddy’s so fucking sad, for me, and-”

“It’s not your fault,” Isaac said, his voice strangled, caught in his throat.

It’s mine, for taking the opportunity to run and never seeing that my freedom would be paid for with theirs.

“They’re ready because I’m ready. I want to be with my family, just the three of us. I want-... I want them to be my family. And Ellis said Isaac Moore was the only person they could think of who could ever get all three of us out alive.”

“No pressure, though,” Vera said softly.

“None at all,” Isaac said. He was floating. He was a thousand miles away. He was barely tethered to earth. “Well… fuck.”

“Fuck indeed.” Vera’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “We’re doing this, right?”

“Of course we are.” Isaac watched Iris from across the table, and then did his best to smile for her. “Okay, Iris Michaelson-”

“Iris Dunham-Price,” She countered, and Isaac nearly choked on a mix of pride and grief. “I mean. I hope to be. Once we’re out.”

“Iris Dunham-Price, then. You have yourself a deal. You want to help your family escape, and escape with them. I’ve-... I’ve been waiting to bring my family home for fourteen fucking years. So let’s both get what we want, okay?”

“Okay.”

Isaac held out his hand, and Iris held out hers. Her fingers were thin, but she shook his hand with a firm grip.

“Deal,” Iris said, nodding once.

“Ellis teach you to shake hands that way? Thought you’d crush all my bones for a second.”

Iris laughed, really laughed, for the first time she’d entered.

Her laughter sounded exactly like Finn’s.

---

@astrobly @slaintetowhump @finder-of-rings @orchidscript @burtlederp @whumpiary @sableflynn @moose-teeth

#whumptober2020 #no. 19 #survivor's guilt #honor bound au #fillis angst parade #iris michaelson: a 14 year old who will fuck you up #ash whumps athena #referenced noncon #referenced dubcon #referenced torture #captivity #long-term captivity #whump

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Whumptober Day 11: Defiance

CW: Creepy/intimate whumper, captivity, references to pregnancy, conditioning, restraints

(See the Fillis Angst Parade AU that I wrote with @whump-tr0pes for context on why Daniel Michaelson’s father is doing all these mean spicy things to Finn Dunham. As always, I am immensely grateful for Athena letting me be mean to her OCs!)

This takes place before Finn agrees to be Patrick’s plaything and during Ellis’s pregnancy.

Finn knows when the man of the house is home, because someone will hear the sound of the car in the driveway, engine rumbling like some terrifyingly large contented cat, and everyone suddenly tenses up. Finn watches from their place polishing pristine antique silver with narrowed eyes as the household staff around them suddenly goes backs straight, chin up, working hard.

Finn might, too, if they were a paid servant and not a fucking prisoner. They don't bother to change a damn thing about how they stand. If anything, they let their shoulders hunch even more, slouching with obvious purposeful anger. They let their teeth grind together against the feeling of the cool metal shackle welded onto one ankle, the scrape of the heavy chain that connects it to a hook in the wall.

There are hooks in all the walls in every room here. Not that Finn’s seen much more than kitchen, formal dining room, casual dining room, and one of their living rooms. One. Of five. Finn has provided medical services to families with children who had to live in fucking clapboard shacks but oh, the Michaelson group has five separate living rooms in one single house. And they have multiple houses.

There’s a beach house, they’ve been told, where they could be sent if they need to be even more alone. They know what that means… it means further from Ellis, who they haven’t seen since they were captured. It means further from any chance of… of anything.

There’s this house, and a beach house. There’s a third house in a neutral territory they use for business negotiations. There’s a fourth - a fourth goddamn house - somewhere deep in the northern woods. Deep in anti-Syndicate territory.

Corrine Michaelson had laughed when she showed them where it was on a map, her fingers curved over their shoulders like claws. Like a bear trap, she’d murmured, as Finn’s stomach dropped. We close on your kind from both sides, when we want to.

Why are you showing me this? They had known the answer. Weren’t even sure why they’d asked.

Sure enough, Corrine’s sharp red fingernails had dug into the nape of Finn’s neck as she answered, because you’re never getting out of here alive to tell anyone.

So, four houses. And of course, there’s the ‘small’ summer estate where Daniel Michaelson lives, separate from his family, but close enough to be controlled.

All this space, and Finn has seen so little of it. They saw more of Danny’s house in three days than they’ve seen of the Michaelson’s mansion in… they don’t even know how long they’ve been here.

They hate the Syndicates more every single time they have to dust the same damn side table, make careful note of all the hooks in the walls, the ceiling, the subtle ones that you could bring up out of the floor.

They lost count after eighty-seven hooks and they haven't even been allowed in a third of the immensity of this house. And they're not counting the basement, with entirely different hooks that aren’t just made for connecting chains and restraining… prisoners? Playthings? What even do the Michaelsons do with all those hooks?

They know what Corrinne does with the hooks in the basement, at least. They’ve had to try and save people after she uses them, sewing up injuries and feeding IVs with the woman breathing down their neck and counting the seconds, killing anyone they can’t save before the arbitrary time limit is up.

Finn is becoming better at emergency triage every day, and feels all the lives they couldn’t stabilize fast enough weighing on their back, staring back at them through the silver they polish during the day.

They’re trapped in a mansion built by monsters, and they have absolutely no idea how they will ever get out.

The ankle cuff seems ridiculous. Finn’s not going anywhere - not while Ellis is here, somewhere upstairs where they can’t get to them. But the Michaelson family sure as fuck doesn’t take any chances. Finn hasn’t even seen Danny - not in the entire time they’ve been held here, not since they’d escaped, before they’d stumbled into a Michaelson trap and…

“Oh, here’s an interesting scent.” Fingernails scraped over Ellis’s stomach, like claws that didn’t quite break the skin, as Ellis thrashed and kicked and spat curses right back in Corrine Michaelson’s face.

Only Ellis and Finn had been flat-out captured - bad fucking luck, but Ellis had been sick for days and Finn had taken their eyes off the road at just the wrong second. They’d swerved, lost control on the gravel that ran along the shoulder of the road, went into a ditch. There’d barely been time to get Sam and Isaac piled into the other car with the others, and Finn and Ellis had ended up surrounded while the team got clean away.

They’d been certain they’d just be tortured for information, Finn forced to their knees on the ground with cold metal pressed against the back of their head and Ellis held by Michaelson syndicate scum like a ragdoll until Corrine’s chin had raised. Finn had been so sure the next thing they’d see was a Syndicate holding block, and the last thing they’d see would be their own blood on the floor.

It was only later, in retrospect, that Finn realized the Michaelson matriarch, rather than taking the time to think over how to kill them, was scenting the air like a fucking wolf smelling prey.

“Patrick, love, come over here and tell me if this is what I think this is.” Corrine’s hand had pressed flat to Ellis’s stomach.

Ellis, pale in the darkness, had spat in her face. Corrine’s lips pressed together into a thin line, sparking disgust as she wiped the spittle from her cheek.

“What is it, darling?” Patrick had circled around behind, and Finn had struggled and kicked and fought and cursed but it hadn’t done them any good. They’d had to watch as Ellis was held still so Patrick could lay his hand just below his wife’s, touching Ellis like they weren’t a person at all.

Patrick’s teeth had flashed bright white in the dim evening light. “Oh, Corrine, congratulations are in order,” He’d said, with pure gentleness and joy. “This little rebel is with child.” His eyes had been dancing, sparkling even, as he turned to look down at Finn. “Yours, I presume?”

“Go to hell,” Finn had snarled, heart pounding. “Get your fucking hands off of them!”

“So yes, then.” Patrick looked at Finn, lingering a little over the lines of their face, in a way that made Finn’s skin crawl. “Lucky you. And lucky them, to get to bed you.”

“Fuck off.” Finn’s stomach had dropped to somewhere near their knees at the interest, the fascination, thick in Patrick Michaelson’s voice.

Corrine ignored the exchange, smiling back at her husband. She would have looked beatific and saintly if it weren’t for the bloodlust raging in her eyes. “How wonderful, Patrick. You know what this means…”

Patrick sighed happily. “I do, darling, and it’s wonderful. We’re going to have a baby.”

Finn hadn’t quite understood, at first. Not until they saw the blood drain from Ellis’s face. “Over m-my dead body,” they whispered, and Corrine Michaelson laughed.

“Yes, silly mother, that would be the plan.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at Ellis, turning to look at the guards who had circled around them. Too many guards, too many guns, no escape.

“Put that one with my things,” Corrine said smoothly. Her eyes scanned over Finn, then. “What about this one, love? Kill it? I don’t need it.”

Someone handed Corrine Michaelson a handgun - they couldn’t see who - and she pressed the cool barrel against the center of Finn’s forehead. Finn had felt the first real panic, then. Their life meant so fucking little to her. They would die without ever meeting their child, wouldn’t be there for Ellis, who would go through… whatever Corrine Michaelson had planned… alone.

Patrick looked over just in time for Finn to whisper, “P-please, no,” just in time to see the tears in their eyes.

Patrick’s breath caught, and then he had flashed that brilliant, charming smile again. “No, I don’t think so, darling. I’d hate to waste that body on an early grave, wouldn’t you?”

Corrine’s head tilted, scenting Finn, staring down at them with cold eyes. Between the chill of Corrine’s appraisal and the heat in Patrick’s gaze, Finn cringed back. Patrick’s eyes only burned brighter. “Look at you, you pretty thing… No, I’d like to get a closer look...”

Corrine pulled back the gun and Finn let out an involuntary sob of relief.

“I love you,” Ellis said, intensity in their dark eyes as Finn looked up. “No matter what happens, Finn, I love you, okay?”

“I love you, too.” Finn had struggled to their feet only to feel a blow against the back of their head that sent them sprawling, insensible, back to the ground.

Finn’s eyes had closed to the sound of Ellis screaming their name.

Their eyes had opened to a basement prison cell, and Ellis nowhere to be seen.

Now, they clean silverware on the ground floor of a sprawling mansion knowing Ellis is somewhere so close - just upstairs, just up the stairs and down the hall - and yet impossibly distant, thanks to the chain on their ankle, the locked door.

Does Ellis still scream for them, wherever they are? And Finn just can’t hear it? Are the bedrooms soundproofed?

Finn lives a life of constant neverending adrenaline and tension. They are woken before dawn to help prepare breakfast, kept on their feet through the day without breaks, either taken downstairs to administer medical aid to prisoners or up here cleaning and cleaning and fucking cleaning. The exhaustion - mental and physical - makes them sleep dreamlessly like a corpse, every single night when they’re locked into their tiny room. They are the only ‘servant’, so far as they can tell, who isn’t a paid employee.

The only slave, if they’re honest. Or hostage. But you can’t be a hostage if there’s no one to make demands, to, right? No one is here to save Finn, or to bargain for them. No one but Patrick Michaelson, whose eyes follow Finn through every room like slime running down their back, like a hand between their legs.

For the first couple of months, Finn had wondered if they’d be brought to the basement one day only to see their team - Isaac and the rest - held in the cells, for Finn to fix and fix and fix until they can’t be fixed anymore. But there’s no one.

Every day, the balance between relief that the team hasn’t been captured and a horrified understanding that no one is coming to save them gets a little more one-sided.

The other servants are all paid, and come and go between work and home, and Finn… Finn isn’t like the rest of them at all. When Patrick and Corrine Michaelson are not at home, the staff is relaxed, casual, joking and chatting with each other as the day’s work gets done. They don’t talk to Finn - they’ve all been told not so, although no one will admit it.

Finn is sure it’s purposeful - an isolation tactic with some larger purpose meant to wear them down.

Joke’s on you, assholes, Finn thinks, working the special cloth deep into the grooves of the silver until even the barest hint of tarnish is gone. I don’t want to talk to any Syndicate trash in this house anyway.

They’re just fine being alone with their thoughts. Alone, it’s easier to stay clear and hold themself together. Alone, they can try to keep planning for some nebulous future escape, one that comes alongside the partner they know is here, somewhere, but aren’t allowed to see. No, Finn wakes up alone each morning in a back room behind the kitchens on a narrow cot with a single lumpy pillow and a thin blanket.

They eat what they’re given, when they are led out into the kitchens to start their workday - usually some kind of oatmeal porridge, every once in a while an egg or something - and the day is full of chore after chore after chore. At first they fought, and spent whole days in that single dark little room on the cot.

Five steps to one wall, four to the other, just a cot, a toilet, a sink, and dull brick walls. They lasted two weeks, maybe, that way.

Maybe less. Hard to tell.

That had lasted until the screaming from the basement, and Corrine coming to Finn’s room to flatly state they could help her provide medical care to the rebels down below, or allow them to die, and it would be on Finn’s head if they did.

They gave up the fight, then. Now, they take the chores, because at least it lets them see something other than bare walls and the stupid fucking kids’ TV show pillowcase they have on their stupid fucking captivity pillow. They are taken down to the basement at least once a week to give first aid to tortured prisoners who will probably never see the outside of that basement again, but at least the prisoners talk to them.

They’d never forgive themselves if they let them simply die, if there’s even a chance some of them might be rescued. They never recognize anyone - the Michaelson territory has its own anti-Syndicate groups fighting for a better world. Finn is starting to doubt that a better world is even remotely possible, but that might just be the constant captivity and isolation talking.

Ellis is upstairs, and their stomach must be starting to round out by now. Has it been four months? Less? Maybe more and they’re five or even six months along? Finn’s heart twists at the knowledge that they’re missing the changes, that Ellis must live through them all alone, wherever they’re held. Ellis feels the baby’s kicks all alone, will go through each checkup with the doctor the Michaelsons keep on-call alone, will give birth alone, alone alone alone.

Finn, meanwhile, will continue to work, and eat, and sleep, and scream... alone.

They’re not even sure if Ellis knows they’re still alive.

One of the servants gave Finn copies of some of the sonogram photos from the last checkup - Finn sometimes sees the doctor having the machine brought into the house, and it hurts not to know what they’re saying to Ellis, not to be able to sit there and hold their hand.

They’d had these stupid… ideas, about how this might work. About sitting next to Ellis in an office, holding their hand, the two of them meeting eyes and smiling and saying to each other, the baby looks like you, or maybe just the baby looks like a smashed grape with fingerprints, or…

No. Whatever those appointments look like, they happen somewhere upstairs, and Ellis stares down the Michaelsons and the doctor perfectly fucking alone.

Patrick and Corrine never tell Finn a fucking thing.

But… but at least someone here has a fucking heart. One old servant, been with the family for years, she says, who brings Finn sonogram photos printed in secret. They’ve hidden those photos under the cot’s thin sheets, slipped between them and the plasticky mattress. A suggestion of light and shadow, barely human in shape but still Finn had known the moment they saw exactly what they were looking at.

The baby - their baby - looked more like some strange child’s drawing of a frog or a teddy bear than it did a developing human. But the servant had known how to show it all to them, had pointed to each shadow one by one and explained what it meant.

“And this,” she’d said, taking Finn’s hand and folding their fingers so only the index finger remained, pressing Finn’s own touch to a series of small light spots that seemed to sort of line up, “is the spine. Just how it should be. Straight as an arrow.”

She’d moved on to the next photo, the next. Naming them all. Heart. Kidneys. Fingers. Toes. Given Finn an impish smile when she noted that the baby was a girl.

“You can see the little nose, if you look just right at this one…”

It was the nose that broke Finn.

The baby, the one that grows inside the love of their life and the one that will be raised to believe her kidnappers are her family, has Ellis’s nose. The profile was unmistakable. Finn had had to send the servant away then.

They had cried, curled up on their cot clutching the photos of the tiny life that they had helped to create and might never know, for hours. Until the pillow was damp, until they felt emptied and wrung out, until they had no tears left. And then, because hell doesn’t give a shit if you need a good cry, they had gotten up the next day right on time to be put to work again.

Now Finn stands, watching the servants scatter to their places as the head of the household servants calls out that Patrick is home.

Finn holds a single spoon up - the silver shines so well they can nearly see their own face reflected in it like a funhouse mirror. Stretched out around the edges, blurred, just a smudge of skin tone and shadowy eyes. They might need a haircut.

Funny how it doesn't matter one solitary bit if they get one. No one they care about is ever going to see them to notice.

The team must be far away, by now - if it’s been months with no rescue, they must have understood there wasn’t any way to get Finn or Ellis out of this. Not this time. Maybe they’ll link up with another team, come back with stronger numbers. Maybe not.

Somehow, Finn doesn’t think they’ll stop trying. They’ve just started to doubt whether or not it’s possible.

Finn's hint of a smile is bitter and bleak as they listen to the sound of the front door opening and closing, the booming, lilting Irish brogue of Patrick Michaelson ringing through the entryway, echoing down the hall, straight to the formal dining room where Finn has been chained for polishing duty.

"Dinner menu, Mrs. Verona?" Patrick asks, not yet visible to Finn but his voice seems close. Just on the other side of the wall. It’s strange and something Finn can’t quite understand, but there’s an odd warmth that curls inside them whenever they hear his voice. They get the feeling that they understand what it means to be a moth and see a light shining through a window. "Corrine will be taking hers in the basement tonight."

Finn's lips thin. They’ll be dragged down with a first aid kit later, then. Lovely. High Queen Bitchison McBitch the First will be dining in the torture chamber, how fucking classy.

"Tonight is smoked oyster for the first course…"

Finn tunes it out after that. It doesn't matter what comes after the oysters, what the second or third course is. It doesn't matter.

Finn is going to be fed what they are always given for dinner. They’ll be handed a bowl full of whatever is scraped off of the fucking bastard's plate - or his monster wife's, all mixed up together. If they finish every bite Finn won't eat at all. Dregs of wine served from half-empty glasses, and Finn’s given no water until they drink Patrick’s leftover wine or whiskey.

One night they were fed a nearly-full glass of both and ended up drunk and morose alone in their little room, and it had to be on purpose, it had to be.

Is it degrading? It might be, if Finn even gave a shit any longer. All they really care about is somewhere else in this house, locked up. Finn wonders, idly, if Ellis has broken anyone’s nose yet. Their smile relaxes, just a little, when it occurs to them that the answer is almost certainly yes.

“I wasn’t aware my little captive finds polishing my silver so entertaining,” Patrick says from the doorway, and the smile drains from Finn’s face, immediately. They hadn’t even heard him move. “You know there are other things of mine I could have you polish.”

Finn swallows back the disgusted curse that they have ready on their tongue, too aware of the armed guards that are always just a few steps behind Patrick Michaelson, entirely too aware of how much it hurts when those guards are given the order to beat them.

“N-no thank you.” If their voice trembles, it’s from holding back their hatred. But Patrick smiles, anyway, as he moves into the room with perfect self-confidence, a man whose presence takes up every inch of the room right to the walls, leaving Finn feeling almost breathless. Like Patrick sucks out all the air until he’s the only thing left to breathe.

Patrick isn’t exceptionally tall, or broad, but still everything about him seems outsized. He fills Finn’s mind with distinct clarified hatred. It was Patrick they’d seen first, when they woke up after their capture. Patrick was the first to come down into the basement to look at Finn chained and gagged in one of their little torture cells, beaten and bloody. It was Patrick who had dragged a finger slowly up Finn’s stomach and chest as they struggled, watching them with delighted amusement. Patrick had shoved a hand down their pants just to watch the blood drain from their face in a sudden terror of what they thought might come next.

Then he’d simply turned and ordered the guards to make absolutely sure Finn did not die. They have more than pretty hair I’d like to see a little more of, don’t they?

Patrick was the one who had had Finn moved to the kitchens and kept in the tiny room.

Corrine looked at Finn and saw nothing but a pair of hands she could use to provide first aid to dying victims until she discarded them, but it was the way Patrick looked at them that really, really made Finn want to sink into the floor and disappear.

“Fair enough, love.” Patrick doesn’t move to leave, though, only leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms in front of himself, watching Finn with perfect focus.

“I’m not your love.” After a pause, Finn looks up, swallowing. They keep their eyes narrowed, cover up the nervous flutters of real fear with anger, defensiveness. Remind themself that Ellis is somewhere in this house… at least, they hope so. “Can I… help you?” Their eyes flick to the two armed guards standing on the other side of the door behind Patrick.

Neither of them so much as blinks.

In a better world, Finn thinks, those men might have fought against the Syndicates, and won. Instead they’re all trapped in this world, and the two men have flat eyes that stare right through Finn and hands that never leave the guns they wear on their hips.

“Actually, I think you can.” Patrick smiles at him, all warmth and light, and Finn shudders, just a little, at the way there’s a strange need in them to step closer to that smile. “Sit for dinner with me tonight. I have an important subject I would like to discuss with you.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Finn wishes that their voice sounded stronger, but the words come out almost weak. A token protest.

“Can’t say I’ve ever had to,” Patrick answered with gentle good humor. “And that wasn’t a request. You will join me for dinner, and I will speak to you about Ellis.”

Finn, lip curled back from their teeth and ready with a new insult, froze. “What about Ellis?”

“Ah, see, there’s the prickle of interest I was looking for. The mother of my child-”

“They’re the mother of their own fucking child, and mine,” Finn snapped. Patrick only smiled wider in response, and Finn inwardly groaned. Damn it, that’s what he wanted, was to rile me up. Why do I always let him do it?

“The mother,” Patrick repeats, continuing as if Finn hadn’t spoken, “is having a few concerning health troubles, lately. If you want to know more-”

“Health troubles?” Blood rushes in Finn’s ears. They are aware, very suddenly, of every possible pregnancy complication they’ve ever read about or even heard mentioned in passing, the way that stress can cause serious problems, and is anyone on earth more stressed than a pregnant person held fucking hostage by fucking Syndicate monsters who want to steal their baby? “I-I’m a… I have some medical knowledge…”

“I know, Finn. Just think of what help you could be to the mother, if you had the option, hm?” The smugness that wove into his voice, the way it deepens Patrick’s lilting Irish brogue, has Finn nearly ready to try and break the chain off their ankle so they could choke Patrick to death with it.

Not that they were entirely sure he could die.

“What…” Finn swallows, aware with a sickening flip of their stomach of the weight of Patrick’s eyes as he watches their throat move. “What do I have to do to… see Ellis?”

“Oh, we’re negotiating, now, are we.” Patrick speaks in a voice like a purr, low and rumbling. Finn felt it on their skin like a film of something thick and suffocating, standing perfectly still as Patrick moved away from his position in the doorway and walked towards them. He paused, just to their side, and Finn’s eyes lowered without their consent to stare down at the cloth in one hand, the silver spoon in the other.

For a moment - just a second - they are sure they’ll feel Patrick’s lips move against their ear.

Then the Michaelson patriarch moved slowly around them in a half-circle. His guards stepped into the room as well, watching Finn with a cold gleam. They’re watching Patrick play with his food, Finn thinks, lifting their chin again, willing it not to tremble. They’re enjoying this.

“I’ve been-”

Patrick’s hand settles on their lower back and Finn goes quiet, feels their spine suddenly stiffen in response. He’s too warm, too much, and Finn would rather die than let him do what they think comes next but they’d rather live than leave Ellis here, trapped alone.

So their fingers go white-knuckled on the spoon and the polishing cloth, their chin lifts even higher, and they try to remember that dignity and pride aren’t what keep you alive when the Syndicates have their eyes on you.

“I’ve been good,” Finn whispers, blood rushing to their face, tears pricking hot at their eyes. For Ellis. Just to see Ellis. Please let me see Ellis. “I can help treat the pregnancy.”

“Do you think you can?” Patrick’s hand presses harder into Finn’s back, forcing their hips to bump forward into the table. Finn’s eyes widen in panic, heart beating fast in their chest like it wants to run from this as much as they do.

The watching guards smile, nearly as one.

Patrick is going to bend them forward onto the table and fuck them right here, isn’t he? And Finn could fight but all their body does is feel suddenly horrifyingly cold.

“Yes,” They whisper, to answer his question. When his other warm lands, just as warm, just as heavy, on Finn’s shoulder, they have to bite back a sob.

For Ellis. For Ellis for Ellis for Ellis-

“That’s good to hear, little Finn.” Patrick’s teeth graze at their ear, and a shudder runs through Finn’s body, shivering want from their scalp through their toes. They don’t want anything like this, they hate this man more than they’ve ever hated anything on earth, but the soft hot breath of his whisper against their ear is horribly, unbearably good. “Tell me you’ll be a well-behaved, polite, pliant little medic for me.”

Finn closes their eyes, takes a deep, shaking breath in. They can’t throw up all over the table no matter how badly they want to right now. They can do whatever it takes. They can do whatever they have to do, for Ellis. “I can be good-... a g-good medic, for you.”

“Say you’ll take good care of my baby, little Finn.”

“I’ll-” Rage burns away the odd constriction they feel weaving around them, slowly but surely, like Patrick is spinning ribbons to wrap them up that they can never unwind on their own. Finn has a strange image of a maypole with children dancing around it from some movie they saw years ago. “I’ll… take good care of my baby-”

“That’s not what I told you to say.” Patrick’s lips move to graze their jaw, and the silver spoon in Finn’s hand drops with a clatter onto the table top. They stare at the guards, who only grin back, guns on their hips. “Tell me it’s my baby, Finn, and have dinner with me. Then you can see Ellis tonight.”

She’s not your fucking baby, you fucking monster, you piece of fucking shit on a shoe, you-

“Fuck you,” Finn whispers with vicious intensity. Suddenly, Patrick pulls away, and the air is full of his scent and a sense of something verdant and green just over the horizon. There is a half-second, with revulsion in their blood and fear in their pulse, that they would still follow him to the end of the horizon to see it.

Then the moment is gone, and they wonder with a whole new level of panic where the fuck that thought came from.

“Fair enough. I have an heir and have raised many children to adulthood,” Patrick says amicably, waving one hand in a dismissal. “We’ll simply monitor the mother and see what happens, I suppose. Here I thought you might actually want to see them, but I see I misjudged you.”

No matter what happens, Finn, I love you, okay?

I love you, too-

“Wait!”

Patrick stops just before the doorway, looking over his shoulder. There’s a smattering of gray in his close-cropped black hair, a hint of it in the rakish stubble that never quite leaves his jaw and chin. Crows-feet and wrinkles, here and there, only seem to make him seem ruggedly handsome. The deep brown of his skin has what feels like an impossible sense of warmth, like bright sun is always shining on it even on cloudy days.

He’s a monster, he and his wife both. They hunt down people like Finn and Finn’s team and kill them or use them up and then dispose of the bodies when they’re done. Ellis and Finn are just the newest toys in the toybox, and they have no idea how long after the baby is born the two of them might be allowed to live.

“Yes, Finn? Did you have another insult to fling my way?” Patrick’s eyes sparkle with amusement. The bastard knows exactly what Finn is going to say.

“It’s-” The words stick in their throat, tar that coats their vocal chords and fills their lungs as they fight to breathe around the humiliation, the anger, the pain. “It’s… it’s your baby, Patrick. Not-... the baby is yours.”

“Say it again.” Patrick turns to face them, but doesn’t move closer this time.

“It’s your baby.” Finn’s lips feel numb. It’s a lie but what if it isn’t now? Is she still going to be their baby if they’re dead before she can form a memory of them? Is she still their baby if Corrine and Patrick teach her to hate the rebels, to hate the very people who made her?

Is she a Michaelson or a Dunham or-

“Again.”

Finn closes their eyes, tears trickling down their cheeks. “It’s not my baby,” They whisper. “But yours.”

My daughter. My baby. Ellis and I made her together, she’s supposed to be a symbol of hope, you fucking bastard, how dare you make me lie about her before she’s even born, how dare you-

“Good. Not my will but thine be done. Not that I’m Catholic, but the sentiment fits. That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” Patrick snapped his fingers, and his two guards moved on Finn at once. They flinched, but one guard grabbed their hands by the wrists to pull behind their back, and they fought every instinct that told them to fight back, kick or something, and let the handcuffs be closed around their wrists. They let the chain be unlocked from their ankle.

They let the guards lead them to stand before Patrick, who takes their chin in his rough warm fingers, and lifts it so they looked him in the eyes. For a second they expect him to say, get on your knees. What comes out instead is, “Do you like smoked oysters, little Finn?”

“I-I… does it matter?” They sound almost as thrown off as they feel.

“Mmmn. I guess not. You’ll eat them anyway or I’ll choke you on them. Let’s talk about the issues we’re having with the mother over dinner. I’ll have your kit brought up from the basement and let my wife know she’ll have to send for our personal doctor if she wants care provided to the rebels tonight.”

His hand slides around behind Finn’s head, grips into their hair to force their head back as he leans in and takes a deep breath. His smell, cologne and the green hills, floats around Finn, soaks into their skin and settles deep within their lungs. They find themself leaning in to Patrick’s scent - and then recoiling back as the disgust hits them all at once.

Why would they lean into it? And why can’t they stop thinking he looks so fucking handsome?

Patrick hums, looking them over. “I want something pretty to look at tonight. And you’re definitely a pretty one, aren’t you? I could stare at you all night.” He chuckles, tightening the grip on their hair until their knees buckle at the flash of pain and something infinitely more shameful, and then he pulls away and walks back out the door. The guards shove Finn to get them moving right behind him, and they stare at Patrick’s broad back in his perfectly tailored suit as they scramble to get their balance and walk fast enough to keep up.

They are redressed in a suit and tie themself, dressed up like a doll, placed in a chair with their hands cuffed down to watch Patrick eat. They are forced to say that Ellis is carrying Patrick and Corrine Michaelson’s baby again and again, until the words are nearly numb to them. The words are hollow and they are damnation.

They are a test of what Finn will give up to have Ellis, however briefly, just for a second, for any moment at all.

The answer, of course, is that they’ll give up everything. They’ll give anything.

Later, when they are brought handcuffed and forced to their knees - when they can see Ellis but not touch them, lay their head to their rounded stomach but not put their hands there to feel their own baby kicking, they wonder - briefly - if it’s going to be worth the cost.

Then Ellis runs their fingers through Finn’s hair and it is, it is worth it, it will always, always be worth whatever they must give to have Ellis, the baby, to grasp on to the threads of what’s left of their family and world.

The next night, they serve Patrick, Corrine, and Ellis their dinner in perfect silence - they will only be allowed to see Ellis if they don’t speak a word. Except for four.

They are forced to say it’s not my baby, to Patrick’s glowing, proud smile, before they are given permission to kneel next to Ellis’s chair. Close enough for Ellis to brush their leg against Finn’s shoulder. Nothing more than that.

Long before they offer themself to Patrick to get some small shards of mercy, he is already breaking them. Before he brands them, before they are tied to his bed and cry out his name and beg him, screaming, to stop and for more, they were already a toy, a plaything. It’s only the way they are played with that will change when they give up the very last bits of themself they have left.

For Ellis, and for their baby, Finn Dunham can and will give up anything.

Patrick Michaelson knows it.

---

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @slaintetowhump @moose-teeth @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @orchidscript @burtlederp @raigash @sableflynn

#whumpober2020 #no. 11 #defiance #captivity #restrained #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #honor bound au #ash whumps athena #defiant whumpee #angry whumpee #forced to betray #pregnancy tw #captured #whumptober 2020 #daniel michaelson's au #fillis angst parade

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Note

Apodyopis (The act of mentally undressing someone) --please?

(takes place in the Fillis Angst AU and features @whump-tr0pes‘s Finn, used with permission/approval!)

CW: Noncon touching and kissing, implied/referenced future noncon, branded whumpee, derogatory/possessive language, creepy and intimate whumper

Patrick's arm snakes tight around his plaything's waist, keeping Finn against his side - not that they seem inclined to go far, surrounded as they are by Syndicate sharks who smell blood in the water. Instead, Finn trembles - hardly noticeable if you’re not touching them.

Patrick never stops.

"This is my plaything," he says with a smile, using just a finger and thumb to take Finn's chin and turn their head to the side towards him.

Finn locks eyes with him and their gaze pleads for this moment to end. Those eyes are lovely - they make Patrick think of his own childhood home, a world and several hundred years away.

Patrick presses a gentle, loving kiss to their lips as he shows off the brand burned deep into the skin of their neck with his own family crest.

It's in the kiss that he can feel Finn is frightened, shivering lips, the way they shift closer to him. Perhaps even... trusting him to protect them from the others in the room, who perhaps might as well have his wife’s fangs as far as the little anti-Syndicate rebel is concerned.

The fear - that need for Patrick to protect them - stirs something in him, and he deepens the kiss, slides his tongue against Finn's, knows his plaything won't resist. Not with these hyenas they might be thrown to instead.

When he breaks the kiss he leaves one more - soft and sweet, the barest brush of lips - on the tip of Finn's nose.

He turns Finn back to face the others, a neighboring Syndicate head and his own three sons, and feels Finn's breathing pick up, sees the red flush of their pale skin, as Finn catches their eyes roam down their body and back up again.

Finn is wearing a lovely deep navy suit that sets off their hair just the way Patrick’s favorite set of ropes to tie them up with does, but to the rival Syndicate head and his sons, men used to taking what they want when they want it, Finn might as well be standing stark naked with only Patrick and their brand to protect them.

Introductions made - names are unneeded, after all, Finn only needs to have a name for those who will order them by it - they greet them in low tones. Polite, respectful. But still pressed carefully to Patrick’s side.

The man and his sons make their way onward to greet the next person at the party. It’s a room full of power and influence, and Patrick feels the desires and needs of those in the room slip and slide against each other. He knows who will take who to bed tonight. He knows who will be jilted and angry.

He knows what he’ll be doing, soon enough, with Finn on their back or their stomach or straddling him, begging him for more, faster, harder, deeper. All of which he will be perfectly pleased to provide - once Finn asks nicely enough.

For now, he’s content with the slightest little tremble of the body next to him.

Patrick whispers in their ear, "Every one of those men would give his right knee to fuck you," just to feel Finn shudder in disgust.

His beautiful angry Finn. Temper pushed down but never gone, not completely. It will burn bright in bed tonight, if he lets it.

Tonight, he will allow the anger. Tonight, he wants the fire.

"Only y-you, though?" Finn whispers back. "You promised-"

"Don't worry, little Finn," Patrick says gently. Kisses his brand, flicking his tongue against the scarred skin. Listens to the hitched intake of breath, feels the sudden surge of desire, unwanted and unbidden, that lances through Finn’s body. “I am a jealous man. I will be the only one who has you now. But I wanted all of them to see you and know that I am the only one who knows what you look like under that pretty tailored suit. I want you to take it off for me, piece by piece, tonight. Slowly. Understood?"

Finn's jaw tightens - oh the temper there Patrick can unleash at will - and then they nod, closing their eyes as he kisses their brand again.

His, all his, his deeper than scars. His to their marrow. His as deep as their heart.

"Mine," Patrick murmurs. “You’re mine, little Finn. For the rest of your life.”

The tension in Finn is pulled tight enough to snap as they reply, "Yes,” with tears in their eyes.

“Yes what, plaything?”

Finn turns their head to meet his gaze. There is a dark, fathomless despair in them that Patrick would drink like good whiskey if he could.

“Yours, Patrick,” Finn whispers. “For the rest of my life.”

#whump #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #nonhuman whumper #fae #fillis angst parade #ash whumps athena #finn dunham #patrick michaelson #daniel michaelson's au #noncon touching #noncon kissing tw #implied/referenced noncon #branding #branded whumpee #magical whumper

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Danny and Nate, please? 😊 mamihlapinatapei (yagán, n.) - the wordless, meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to do so

So I’m not going to do Danny and Nate for this one, but I AM going to post for you an Au-to-the-AU of the Fillis Angst Parade with @whump-tr0pes! We had a conversation once about what would happen if Finn and Ellis were never freed from the Michaelsons and Iris grew up as a Syndicate daughter, and then I got this idea for this scene in my head and... I’ll just share the whole thing with you guys!

CW: Noncon touching (nonsexual), veiled threats, implied noncon, captivity (all of this applies to Finn, not Iris)

Iris Michaelson had just turned fourteen, and that seemed as good an age as any to save someone. First, though, she wanted to visit her mother.

Her real mother.

But she had to go see her fathers, first.

Both of them.

Grant and David flanked her on either side, the hulking bodyguards comically large and muscular compared to the lithe, short teenager they were sworn to serve and protect. Grant was human - David wasn’t, not that all that many people knew about it. Iris, did, though. Iris knew a lot of things that no one ever outright told her.

She knew, for one, that Patrick and Corrinne Michaelson were her parents by force and not by birth, by theft and not through love. She knew that they loved her in their way, that they had given her everything - and she knew that there were two other people who had given everything and still lost her. Who had given even more of themselves in a desperate attempt to see her at all.

If she could pull this off, she could save them, help them go home, wherever their home might be. They shouldn’t have to be stuck here as prisoners any longer, and Iris Michaelson had a secret:

She had found a way to get in touch with the Isaac Moore, the famous insurgent who had escaped three separate Syndicate families and done unspeakable amounts of damage in Syndicate territories just about everywhere anyone had heard of.

If anyone could save her parents, it had to be Isaac Moore.

She made her way down the hallway, the walls hung with framed photos of the Michaelsons through history, long before the takeover, back when Michaelson Group was a logging company, not a Syndicate at all. Ancestors stretched back to black and white and then to painted portraits. Here and there, a framed photo of Iris herself.

Riding a tricycle, standing in front of her first painting she’d done. The day she’d been given her own signet ring. All the photos made her cringe, now - the auburn hair and freckled skin didn’t feel right, except for the photos where she’s next to Danny.

Not that there are very many of those…

She knocked, her special knock - three fast knocks and two slow - only to hear her father’s deep voice calling her in. She turned the cold brass knob, ornately carved, and stepped inside with a smile already on her face, to find her fathers deep in conversation at Patrick’s mahogany desk.

Patrick Michaelson looked no different now than he did in the photos on the walls of her brother Danny as a baby, maybe just a hint more silver at the temples. He was smiling, leaning to the side with his fingers and thumb holding the chin of Iris’s real father, Finn.

All of Iris’s friends thought her fathers were devastatingly handsome, the both of them, and Iris thought they were probably right. They turned to look at her, Patrick with sparkling good humor in his eyes, and Finn with some fathomless love hidden deep inside themself.

“Hello, Iris.” Finn spoke first, and gave her a perfect practiced smile.

That smile - empty and false, a painted facade on a movie set - was why Iris had decided she would have to be the one to save them. No one else would - anyone she asked for help would tell Patrick immediately, or just want Finn for themselves. Finn was famous in the Syndicates, because Patrick had always lost interest in playthings, discarded them, set them aside. Finn, though, had been his for fourteen years now. Unheard of.

The whole devastatingly-handsome thing helped, too, and also that when people asked for Patrick to share them at parties, Patrick always, always refused.

“Good morning, Finn,” Iris said, setting a bright smile on their face. Deep within, she let herself think, Good morning, Daddy.

“Good morning, lovely,” Patrick rumbled, hand dropping from Finn’s chin to rest high up on their thigh. Iris ignored the movement of his thumb, rubbing back and forth, and the flip of unease it caused her to see it. “What can we do for you?”

“I want permission to go to the dayschool,” Iris said. She kept her eyes on Patrick’s and pointedly did not look at Finn.

Her real father didn’t flinch - they didn’t change their expression at all. If anything, they relaxed back into their chair, laying a hand over Patrick’s, looking a little dreamy. Lost in their thoughts.

“To see Ellis?” Patrick asked, sounding idly interested. “Why is that, Iris, darling?”

“Uncle Nate has a book for them to borrow,” Iris said, giving a shrug of her thin shoulders. Finn’s eyes might have flared, just slightly. Might not. They shifted a little closer to Patrick. “That’s all. I won’t be gone for very long. I’ll take Grant and David and be back for dinner.”

“I don’t see any issue with that, so long as you’re here for dinner.” Patrick paused, and then a wicked, teasing grin found its way onto his face and he turned back to Finn. “Do you have any message you’d like to send, little Finn? You were… close with Ellis once, weren't you?”

"Once." If the smile on her father's face wavered, Iris couldn't tell. Finn paused - only a second - and then shook their head. “No, I don’t think I have anything to say to them any longer, Patrick. Thank you for offering to allow me to send a message, though.”

“Mmmn. Hard to deny you just about anything, I think,” Patrick laughed, and Iris’s hands - folded politely behind her back - tightened on each other until her knuckles were white.

“It’s true, Patrick.” Finn’s smile was gorgeous and awful, all at once. Empty beauty layered over miserable mind. “You’ve only ever denied me the one thing.”

Patrick kissed them - and Iris's eyes flickered away, to the wall, focusing on a painting that hung there still, of green Irish hillsides. That painting had hung in Patrick's office long before Iris was born.

"You beg so well, it was hard to deny you even that," Patrick whispered.

Iris pretended, for her real father's sake, that she didn't hear.

"Hard as it was," Finn replied, easy as can be, "You still managed to take them from me."

"Took you from them. And gave you so much more."

Finn took a breath. "That's debatable. I would have chosen them." Their voice had stayed low and soft, affectionate and friendly, but Patrick's expression chilled.

"And that alone is why you don't have anyone but me."

Patrick's voice matched his eyes, and she thought Finn was probably going to be punished as soon as she was gone. He turned to look at her, and smiled. His eyes were dark. "You have my permission, sweetheart. Take your bodyguards and be back for dinner. Don't spend too much time with Ellis, love. They're a bad influence."

Iris nodded to her fathers and turned to go, but not before she caught a hint of sincerity in Finn's empty smile, a nearly silent good mouthed by their lips.

Iris didn't know what exactly she would, or even could, do.

But she knew how to get in touch with Isaac Moore, now. She had to hope Ellis would know what to do after that.

Time to see her real mother, before her other mother came back upstairs from the basement for dinner.

#whump #captivity whump #secret defiance #long term captivity #ash whumps athena #iris michaelson: a 14 year old who will fuck you up #ellis's child all the way #just wait until I can figure out how I want to do the scene of her meeting Isaac #and Isaac realizing who Iris is #that she's finn and ellis's stolen baby

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