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comfy-whumpee · 1 year

Text

Mistake

CN: BBU, head injury, hand injury, forced skimpy outfit, Tyler has certain repressed feelings about Roman.

BIrdhouse Taglist:@neuro-whump, @rosesareviolentlyread, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @whumpsday

“You useless fucking idiot!”

Roman didn’t have time to even look up from the misfiled receipt before he was being slapped hard enough to send him to the carpet, body thumping down and knocking all air from his lunge. He stared in shock at the fuzzy static swimming in front of his eyes, buzzing grey like when the old TV in the treehouse had lost its signal—

“Joel! What the shit?”

Where was he? He didn’t know. Something hard slammed into his ribs and the air exploded out of his mouth again and he whined, scared, hurt, not remembering how to put his feelings to words. The handler was speaking. That’s it, stop trying to talk back. He was sneering. You don’t get to ask for things anymore.

Oh no, he didn’t want that thought. He wanted to keep that thought locked away far from where he was, he wasn’t supposed to think those thoughts unless he was breaking training, and he couldn’t break training, Handler put thoughts there to punish him if—

Mr Harden kicked him again and Roman felt a low cry emerge from his mouth, the closest he could get to begging for it to stop, but it didn’t stop, never stopped.

Better. You don’t show pain, no matter what they do to you. Nobody will care.

Nobody had cared.

“Leave him alone, for Christ’s sake,” someone snapped, someone real. Someone in the office, his office, his home.

“Stupid piece of shit fucked one of our invoices,” Joel replied, and he was angry, so angry he hurt Roman again, thumping a fist down into his stomach as he crouched to collect the piece of paper. He brandished it to the others. “We have to refund the Elm account. They were overcharged.”

There was silence but for Roman’s breath, a thin and strained wheeze.

“Jesus, Roman,” someone said, and tears filled Roman’s eyes because he knew that meant it was okay to hurt him, that he’d deserved it.

“There goes our fucking weekend,” someone else muttered. “I’ll make the call.”

“No, don’t call yet. We need a timeframe. And an excuse.”

“Well, here’s a sorry one,” someone joked without humour, and he couldn’t place the voices while his head was ringing, and a different foot kicked the back of Roman’s head.

If they wanted brains, they would have hired a person. Why do you think they chose you? Everyone gets trained for pain, 993948. Why do you think that is?

On his side on the floor, blood dripping from somewhere on his body, Roman shifted on one elbow and managed to bring up the arm that had been trapped underneath him. He forced it up against an aching shoulder to grab onto his collar and hold it tight.

Trick question. You don’t think either. Stop that pathetic whine.

They chose him. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why they couldn’t have spent the money on someone trained, someone to hire, an intern, a secretary. He doesn’t know why they picked him from the catalogue.

But they chose him. They brought him here, showed him around, introduced themselves, and they gave him this collar. The leather was cracked in places but the buckle was secure. He had never touched the buckle, but he tugged the band sometimes, and he tugged it now to make sure.

Real. Firm. He belonged to them.

No matter how angry they got, no matter how badly he made mistakes, no matter if they hurt him, he belonged to them.

You can’t make mistakes. Help at Home pets don’t make mistakes. You have to be perfect, or don’t you want to be bought?

“P-Please,” Roman echoed, remembering what he had said back then. “Please, I’m s-sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to fucking cut it, dumbshit.” Feet walked away from him, and then came back again a moment later, stopping right beside his prone form.

“Joel…” someone said warningly. Mr Charlie? Maybe he was trying to help, trying to save Roman. He turned blurry eyes to the figure. Not being able to make him out clearly, he just closed his eyes.

“He deserves worse. That’s a few thousand out of the account because of his little fucking oopsie. I told you I didn’t want him near important shit, Charlie. You fucking ignored me.”

“Mistakes happen.”

You have to be perfect.

“You don’t give a pet rock control of the stock market and then say mistakes happen when it crashes.”

A hand fists in his hair, near the skull rather than down the length of it. If he was sent back, he’d be remade into nothing. He’d become a punching bag, a prototype, some kind of experiment. Or worse, he’d become nothing at all.

Mr Harden grabbed his hand by the wrist and yanked it up, and something clunked, and Roman’s mouth opened in an unvoiced scream as the staple embedded itself into the back of his hand.

Silence, but for the ringing in his ears, and the shuddered breaths he gasped until he heard himself, and stopped breathing altogether.

Someone sighed, disappointed or disgusted, he couldn’t tell. They walked away.

Wide, blue-and-brown eyes tracked blindly across the ceiling before Roman found a face pressing into his field of vision, huge and unsympathetic. Mr Harden’s lip was curled, his hand still tight around Roman’s wrist where the wound throbbed sharply in time with Roman’s frantic pulse.

Roman clutched his collar so hard it hurt his hand, and didn’t breathe. He knew he’d be too noisy if he did.

“Stay the fuck away from my paperwork, you piece of shit,” Mr Harden said, and he was still furious.

Roman nodded, then nodded faster, unable to breathe or think or talk.

With a scoff, Mr Harden threw his hand to the ground, and went back to his desk, slamming down on his chair.

The hand in Roman’s hair released too, and Roman slid to lie prone, doing nothing but covering his injury with a loosely-closed fist, as if he could hide from the thing embedded in it.

It hadn’t felt like this at first, making mistakes. Before, punishments would have been private and small, a curse or an insult thrown his way. Half the time he’d get a pat on the head and told to go make drinks while the real people got it sorted. But as the accounts grew, and the business developed, things got bigger and busier. Everyone was getting more serious. Mr Charlie didn’t step in anymore to stop them from hurting him too much. He was the one who did it most, and not even usually for things Roman did.

They were his only friends in the world, but if they were angry, he took the fall. He had to be perfect.

When he peeked through his hair to check where everyone was, he found himself lying alone in the middle of the carpet, as everyone sat down to work. Mr Dillon had earphones in. Mr Charlie was in his office, door closed. Phil was on the phone. Tyler was typing fast.

Mr Harden was hunched over his paperwork like a living storm cloud.

Roman held his breath so he wouldn’t sob. He didn’t want any of them to be disturbed, hear him, and remember that he was bad. He didn’t want any of them to remember they were angry.

He rose onto tiptoe and edged out of the room to hide in the kitchen and cry.

It was only when he had recovered, decided to clean, and put his hands in the soapy water for washing up that he realised the staple was still in his hand, a line of silver grating his skin.

His stomach oozed up his throat and he tried not to think about it. He was okay, he wasn’t hurt. He could feel the pain and, underneath that, stronger than that, he could feel the panic buzzing, but nothing was happening to him anymore. He just had to take the—

No, no, he couldn’t do this.

He just had to take the staple out of his hand—

No, no, no, no, he couldn’t, but he couldn’t wash up either, and he would need to go to the bathroom eventually, and someone might notice, and what if it went bad, and what if it dug deeper, and and and—

In the bullpen, Tyler lifted his head from its position inches from his screen. He could hear Roman hyperventilating in the kitchen, little high-pitched wheezes that were pretty much the only sound he ever made.

Poor fucker. It wasn’t his fault he was dumber than the dumbest sexy secretary. Pissing off Joel was a death sentence.

Returning his gaze to his screen, Tyler finished his sentence. Every ten seconds or so, he caught the hiss of another breath. His desk was closest to the kitchen, and – he glanced over his shoulder – Dillon had earphones in, so he was no help. Phil was tied up on a call. Charlie’s door was shut and Joel was the cause of the whole fucking shebang.

He pushed his chair back from his desk, picked up his mug as an excuse, and headed through.

Ah, shit. It was worse than he’d imagined. Roman was in a pile of limbs on the floor by the sink, holding his injured hand away from his body with his eyes squeezed shut. He was as white as his shirt and shivering like a leaf. When Tyler put the mug down on the side, his eyes flew open, and fixed with teary need on the potential saviour.

Tyler scratched the back of his head. He crouched down, feeling like he was trying to befriend his sister’s skittish cat. He lowered his voice to what he hoped was a soothing volume. “Hey, Ro. Your hand hurt?”

Roman nodded immediately, begging with his miserable stare. He was so goddamn cute like this, and the thought made Tyler feel vaguely slimy.

“I’ll help you out. But you gotta do something for me after, yeah?”

Nod, nod. Anything.

“Yeah. Alright.” Tyler took Roman’s hand, feeling his stomach flip. He told himself it was at the sight of the staple. His fingers pressed along the edge of the metal, feeling where its teeth were sank into Roman’s hand.

Roman stopped breathing, looking away, tense as a board.

“Joel really is a savage sometimes,” Tyler muttered. He fit a nail under the edge of the staple and, figuring it was better to get this over with, flicked it out. He felt it catch before it came free, and Roman gulped down air like he was about to choke, but then the staple pinged against a cupboard door and landed.

“There you go,” Tyler said gently, feeling like a douche. “You did good, Ro. You’re a good boy.”

This, if anything, made the pet cry harder. He probably felt like shit after screwing up so badly, but hey. Everyone screwed up sometimes, even designer pets, right?

It was pretty embarrassing seeing a guy his age crying like a baby, but whatever. Nobody else was here watching Tyler coddle him, but he didn’t want to linger. He’d never live it down. It was time to put this whole thing behind them. The sooner they moved on, the sooner Ro would feel better. They’d all cheer up then, and Joel would stop being such a fucking monster.

“Okay, you gotta do something for me now,” Tyler said, reasserting control. “You ready?”

Roman nodded, keeping his eyes on Tyler, and not on the bleeding hand still kept safe by Tyler’s grip.

“Good boy,” Tyler said, just to see the stars in Roman’s eyes as he heard it again. So cute. Better already. “You’re gonna cheer up the others, yeah? Remember that bunny outfit you got last Halloween?”

Something cracked in Roman’s eager little smile, but Tyler told himself he didn’t notice. He’d be fine.

“I want you to come out in that. It’s still in the coat cupboard. We need some eye candy. You’ll lift everyone’s spirits, yeah?”

It wasn’t for the others, really. Joel would find it annoying and Charlie would probably act high and mighty about it. But Tyler thought the pink leotard and tutu were…compelling. He’d never seen Roman show so much skin before last Halloween.

And anyway, it was just a joke. Something dumb to remind everyone he was just a pet, and they didn’t need to get so worked up about him. They didn’t need to hurt him.

Roman got up willingly enough, swaying slightly. He wasn’t really bleeding, but for some reason even the slightest pinprick of his own blood knocked him flat. He wasn’t looking at his hand.

Tyler got up with a strained smile and left him to get changed. Returning to the floor, he was motioned over by Dillon. “How’s our favourite blond?” he asked with a grin.

Dillon was weird with Roman. Tyler didn’t want to know what went on when Roman went home with him.

“Yeah, he’s all better,” he said casually. “And he’s gonna show how bad he feels by cheering us all up.”

Dillon’s eyes glimmered with the light of interest. Tyler thought a lion probably got eyes like that when it spotted a gazelle with an injured leg. “Yeah?”

Mustering a grin, Tyler waltzed back to his desk, throwing over his shoulder, “You’ll see.”

Dillon did, two minutes later, when Roman stepped out of the coat cupboard wearing the ridiculous fucking bunny costume. He was still pale white and swollen around the eyes, but there were two adorable ears rising from his head, so nobody seemed to mind.

Phil wolf-whistled. He’d finished his call. “Trick or treat!”

Tyler glanced over to see Dillon looking flustered, almost disapproving. Like he wanted to tell Roman to cover up. He turned his eyes back to his computer screen and pretended not to feel smug.

Working for Charlie’s company was brilliant in a lot of ways, but spending five days a week with the Hawaiian-shirted, goateed jackass from your Brand Building and Awareness class was not one of them.

Dillon cooed only once before Roman was kneeling at his feet, getting his hair petted right between the bunny ears. Dillon had a way with Roman, despite being a creep, or maybe because of it. He could always bring a smile to the pet’s face.

Tyler looked back again at the screen. He needed to put something out on the website. He’d forgotten what it was.

“We all know you’ve got no brains, Blondie. It’s in your nature to fuck things up. But we got you.”

Dillon’s fingers combed through Roman’s pale blond locks, and Tyler clenched his teeth.

“Even if you get kicked out, I’ll take you home,” Dillon continued, quietly enough that he must think Tyler couldn’t hear. “You like it best at home, don’t you?”

Tyler couldn’t tell if Roman nodded himself, or if Dillon’s hand on the back of his neck was making him. But it didn’t really matter in the end.

"Yeah. Just relax. Punishment’s over. Good boy." Dillon’s fingers curved through Roman’s hair over and over. "Good boy, Blondie. Good boy."

It had been a stupid fucking idea. The outfit. What was he thinking? It had seemed funny at Halloween, or maybe he’d been drunk. Had Dillon always talked to him like that? Why was he so worked up about it? Joel had put a goddamn staple in his hand and he was more upset about Dillon saying something Tyler had told him literal minutes ago.

He huffed, and looked back to his screens. The copy he’d written seemed fake and shallow. He wanted to start over.

He opened Reddit instead.

#sequel tomorrow!#bbu #whump #pet whump #box boy universe #punishment #hand injury #concussion #roman #tyler #dillon #joel #charlie #and i guess phil is here too #phil #haven't figured out what phil gets up to yet #i'll get you eventually phil #the birdhouse #my fic

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