#institutionalization mention -
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re: last reblog
CW suicide and mental health and mental breakdown and all of that
idk about all the nature stuff but that it, that's exactly it, that's the precise sentiment I've been grappling with for months now, trying to figure out how to explain to my therapist. That my ability to cope with adversity has become so mechanized and so automated that I've lost a core rudiment of my humanity. I feel it in the way I say "I am physically incapable of killing myself" in the sense of being incapacitated, in the sense of being viscerally unable to perform a critical action, and I get told "good! :)" as if being stuck in an endless internal scream with no outlet is somehow better than being a person with agency and free will and rational decision-making functions. Not even because I want to be dead or because I believe I should kill myself, because there are things I love and enjoy about the experience of being alive, but the fact that I don't have the choice, I don't have the option to exercise my suicidality anymore because that extension of my autonomy has been tortured out of me. The suicidality exists internally, screaming for a release that I can't give it. My shift lead marveled about how cool and calm my poker face is, and how she never would have known how deeply upset I was unless I had said something. It was like she was praising my control and discipline when really I'm trapped in a goddamn cage and there are no options, there is literally nothing I can do to let off the pressure that builds and builds and builds. It hurts, it physically hurts and conceptually I know there are remedies for that but I can and I do persevere and I shouldn't have to. I should be debilitated, I should be screaming in agony, but it's been beaten out of me. Those aren't skills I have anymore. My body is a cage, my body is a fucking mech suit that continues to move no matter how fucking much I want it to stop. I can put names to my emotions and my experiences, I can say I'm irritated or overwhelmed, I can say I am experiencing physical pain, but naming it doesn't do anything except make other people clap for how "well" I'm doing. It's like other people's understanding of suffering stops and ends with feel-good pop psych that's used by the worried well but I'm not worried and I am unwell, those are the problems. I can name that I am experiencing distress but I can't feel it, I'm not allowed to feel it, the entire structure of the world around me discourages me from feeling it and praises its repression, but the scream needs release. It's un-fucking-sustainable to be an unperson. It's fucked up that this is rewarded, it's fucked up that people are happy that I am missing such a vital part of the human experience. "I am incapable of killing myself" isn't fucking praise-worthy, it's a horror story. It's a goddamn cry for help, I am trying to articulate that I have been so deeply violated by psychiatric institutionalization that I am no longer a person, I no longer have the choice to live, I am required to. It's not even that I intend to act on suicidality, it's that there is no other option that my body can perform. I was robbed of the option to get to choose to live. I need someone to understand Everything around me and inside of me is screaming and that's supposed to be a good thing. I'm supposed to be thankful. It's supposed to be a mark of my value that I "did this to myself." I went through something so deeply traumatic and dehumanizing that a core piece of my humanity has been severed from my Self and no one gives a crap. And it's supposed to be a good thing. No matter what I do, I keep moving forward and maybe I don't want to. Conceptually I know I'm having a fucking "panic attack" but it won't fucking escape my goddamn flesh cage. I can't make my pain leak into places where it can be seen. I can't relieve the pressure of all the things that are festering inside my bones because there's no hole, there's no outlet. I'm rotting and my physical body is eating itself and there is no emotional space that I'm allowed (capable) of having where that can be expressed in a way that's meaningful, that acknowledges my agency.
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tired of everyone on here reducing icepick joe down to haha funny stabby man
like i DO like the jokes and memes, don't get me wrong, but like
there's SO MUCH to his character and he really does tie into goncharov's main themes
like. we're told early on the he was put into a mental institution as a young man due to his breakdown and inconsolable grief at losing his older brother giorno (who was his only living family and basically a father figure to him!)
wherein he was mistreated and was HEAVILY IMPLIED to be scheduled for a lobotomy before he escaped. (in fact, some interpretations say he actually received and survived the lobotomy, citing his manner of speaking and his lack of impulse control. but that's a whole separate discussion because i can honestly see both sides)
and then he turns to a life of crime because that's basically the only option he had left, after being deprived of so many opportunities in his youth (and the fear of being caught and involuntarily institutionalized again)
and him eventually leaning into the role of "violent madman" that the world thrust onto him for showing signs of mental illness in a way that was nonviolent, but was loud and inconvenient and impossible for those around him to simply push away.
and him taking his rage out at the same world that not only killed his brother but forced him to undergo years of psychiatric abuse and basically dehumanization
(like seriously, how do SO MANY people miss the connection between him using an icepick as a weapon and the concept of an ICEPICK lobotomy)
which. yknow. ties heavily into the film's theme of people being pushed to society's margins and forced into a life of crime, instead of given the help they desperately needed
and then like.
his fucking death scene. he tries to put a stop to the cycle of senseless violence, taking the fall for andrey, telling michailov that *he* was the one who killed luciana
him kneeling down and allowing michailov to bash him through the skull with his very own icepick. it's more lobotomy symbolism; dying from the very thing he spent his whole life running from. further driving home the film's themes of repeating cycles and futility
and then, to drive it all home, that sacrifice didn't even end up stopping the cycle of violence! because andrey viewed joe as basically an older brother (mirroring joe and giorno) and tried to get revenge on michailov for killing joe.
like. come on.
#eliot posts#goncharov#ice pick joe#valery michailov#andrey daddano#goncharov meta#psychiatric abuse mention#unreality#death mention#violence mention#ableism mention#involuntary institutionalization tw#lobotomy
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Welcome to Belleview - Chapter 1
Notes: ~11 years after the beginning of The Fighter, this is not a Luke/Leo story but is in-universe.
TW: Institutionalized slavery, nonsexual nudity, starvation mention, human euthanasia mention, degrading language, all the things.
✥ ✥ ✥
From the outside, it is a beautiful campus. Elegant in its simplicity, with three brick buildings forming a crescent at the mouth of a long, rose-bush lined drive that intersects wrought iron gates.
Today, police swarm it, more for the optics than anything else. They’re not here to enact change, or to start building moral credit, but they are here, and so he smiles, shakes hands, introduces himself.
He opens the double-paned glass door, which sits just in front of a set of reinforced steel bars, and he’s immediately met with the silence of a reception area from which all of its workforce has been escorted out.
Almost all.
“Lincoln Prescott?” says a singular man, in his mid-twenties on his best day, peeking around the corner. He’s nervous, skittish even. Fidgeting palms run down his sweater and he smiles, but it’s not the smile of someone who’s happy, welcoming, comfortable, warm.
Lincoln returns the gesture and nods. He doesn’t extend his hand. Instead, he turns over the key he’s just been handed, and he reads the man’s name-tag.
Jared Fisher, Handler. Level Two.
Jared smiles sheepishly and takes off the name-badge. “I wasn’t sure if I should wear it. I guess… I guess it’s not really needed anymore.” He holds it out to Lincoln, who stares at it for several seconds, before he sets it on the counter behind him.
“Uh,” Jared says, cutting through the silence of the massive waiting area. “I’m sorry. I know, I’m sure, that you’re not– I get it, I mean. I know I’m the enemy here.”
Lincoln narrows his eyes, shaking his head once.
“They said if I– Uhh, they said they’ll take it into c– consideration, I guess. When the trials start. When… whatever is going to happen, happens.” He swallows, and Lincoln feels something that is related to sympathy, but not quite it. He lets that feeling fizzle quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Jared says quietly.
There’s silence again. Lincoln lets it settle over him, watching the ex-handler’s fidgeting intensify, before he says, “Oh. You’re waiting for me to speak.”
Jared shrinks.
When the final nail in the coffin of support for the trade and consumption of government-sanctioned slavery had been hammered in, there wasn’t the type of frenzy that anyone expected. That morning, people, by and large, woke up, had their coffee, showered. They caught their trains to work, they read their news and they watched, closely, but there wasn’t an uproar. They stole glances at their phones and monitors for updates, for news, for what happens next.
Truth be told, it had been heading this way for a while. Within the last ten years, Individual states had begun passing legislation that, in hindsight, paved the path for widespread challenges to the system, led by a few congresspeople who finally woke the fuck up. Things turned violent early, with protests, rallies, boycotts, demonstrations… everything imaginable.
Videos of workers being tortured, followed by videos of workers recounting their own stories, began making national headlines. Consumers of workers’ labor fought hard to sway public opinion back to the positive outcomes the system had brought the country, but with each passing week, with each new video of a worker strapped to a table being violated in unimaginable ways, it was a losing battle.
As local legislation was passed, certain states became a kind of safe-haven for runaways. And eventually, things started going federal.
The most significant bill, the one that fully outlawed the use of worker labor and reinstated the ‘freedom’ of current workers, was going to be codified that morning. It wasn’t unexpected, at that point, but still, the infrastructure, the plan, was… well, it had holes, to say the least.
The workers who were deemed functional, by some arbitrary metric, would be relocated to massive government-owned housing units. They would share rooms by the half dozen, be fed, given medical attention, and slowly be reintegrated into society. No one knew exactly how that would work, but it had been successful in the states that had already outlawed worker labor (with some notable exceptions), so the plan, half-assed as it was, was set into motion.
Former safehouses were repurposed as halfway houses for those who were less “independent.”
Individual volunteers were gathered who would open their homes to those who were unable to care for themselves but didn't pose any significant safety or medical risk.
In the days leading up to the vote for reinstatement of worker rights, when it was clear how things were going to go, people did go into a frenzy. Hospitals scrambled to hire, doctor’s offices scrambled to modify policy, the call for volunteers to offer shelter, food, medical assistance, jobs… it was madness.
But that morning, the morning the final nail landed, it was quiet.
Jared leads Lincoln down a narrow hallway, spouting off information as he does. The linoleum tiled floor is clean, but peels around the edges. The walls are white, chipped along the corners and where the doorframes meet the drywall. The ceiling is white, but there’s a yellow cast. The fluorescent lights that line the halls give it a sort of eerie post-apocalyptic vibe, and it’s fitting.
The building, Belleview, is eerily quiet. There’s no obvious screaming coming from within, so it’s already better than he expected.
Jared slaps his keycard against a box outside a set of double doors, and Lincoln takes a breath. The volunteers are gathering outside by now. His group of nurses, doctors, caretakers. They could be with him, but he wanted this run-through alone. To give him time to make sure the plan that he spent the last week finessing would work.
Jared stops at the first door, and pushes a button outside of it, bringing to life a screen. There’s a name on the top, and Lincoln glances through the information he’s shown. Jared presses another button, and the door unlocks audibly, the light above it turning from red to green.
Inside is a man, with nothing else. Brown hair, blue eyes. He doesn’t look at them.
“This one can get aggressive.” Jared’s voice is matter of fact, as he points out the information on the tablet. “They come here to… you know, to be of whatever use they can be until they…” he whispers, and Lincoln offers him the briefest of glances. He regrets it immediately. “Expire.”
Lincoln turns his attention back to the screen, and so Jared continues. “We have 21, uh… residents, right now. I think that’s what we’re supposed to call them now. They were… well, you know. They were workers, but the rejects, I guess. They’re in… they’re in various states of um…”
Lincoln clears his throat tersely, throwing a warning glance to the ex-handler.
“Well, okay. I’m sure you’ve been briefed, and if not, I’m sure you will be.” He begins walking again, letting the last door close without another glance, as he approaches the next. “We tried to take as good of care of them as we could. They’re fed and watered and we tried to... whenever we could, some of us tried to offer them some comfort.”
He stops at the door. “Obviously, they’re here for a reason, so they don’t tend to be super… uh, super cooperative or trainable or anything. They’re usually just… they’re here for a short time, and then–” He stops himself this time, without the warning glance.
“We call this guy Tank, but I think his real name is Tyler, if that means anything to you.”
Lincoln nods. “Does it say here? Anywhere on here? What his name is?”
Jared fiddles with the screen for several seconds before it comes to a demographic page. It lists 20 inhabitants, and presumably, their room numbers.
“Look at that,” Jared says then, interrupting Lincoln’s review. “Looks like I was right, it is Tyler. That was a guess.”
Lincoln takes a breath, because there’s no benefit to causing a scene here. If Jared was offered leniency, then he was a handler who, at least on the surface, wasn’t as bad as he could have been.
“Anyway, this one used to be aggressive, too." The door opens and Jared gestures to the man who lays on his stomach, bandages across his back. "But now? Nothing going on in there.” He points to his own temples, and lets the door swing shut. He switches to the video feed, where Tyler stares into the camera.
Jared continues along to the next room, and Lincoln follows behind him, his thoughts racing.
Lincoln Prescott was already in his car on his way to the site he’d been assigned to oversee before they even finalized things in the White House. It’s a temporary solution to a very serious problem, they said. It would take ten to fifteen days to get those who were in no shape to get to a halfway house the medical attention they needed and find suitable placements for them.
In the meantime, they were safest where they were. He was needed to help organize the volunteers and medical personnel, and to act as a sort of director of the temporary housing facility.
So he drove. He knew it would be bad, maybe the worst of the worst. He had been briefed. He was given a stack of files of the inhabitants that he would be overseeing. He looked it over that night, and every night since then. He spent the last six days memorizing every face, every backstory.
It was a site to house those that the government had deemed unable to be placed, for one reason or another. Too violent, too unpredictable, too difficult to be trained. From what Lincoln could gather, these workers served any and all purposes. Their primary reason for existence was, it seemed, to trial training techniques, to trial drugs, to motivate the workers who were difficult, to show that there were worse fates.
They ranged in ages from 19-26. None survived longer.
“Doctor Prescott?” Jared asks, from somewhere far away. Lincoln looks up from the tablet, and Jared is already down the hall at the next door. Lincoln takes a breath, biding his time. They’ve gone through eighteen of the men, with Jared's special commentary on each of them. Twice, Jared had promised that he wasn't a bad person, and that the culture had been one thing, but now it was another, and he was ready to pivot.
Only once had Lincoln felt himself snap, and had to excuse himself before serious harm was done.
Some of the men were given the accommodation of a bed, some of them were given clothing, some had rotten food in their cells, some had broken bones, open wounds. Some slept fitfully, and some slept so completely still that Lincoln thought that they might not be alive at all. Jared had assured him, in those moments, that they probably were.
Jared opens the door to the twentieth room, with a small, “We call this one ‘Felix.’ I think you’ll like him,” as he does. The man, short blonde hair and dark brown eyes and at least forty pounds less than his frame should support, blinks himself awake. He sits in the corner of the tiny room and stares at Lincoln. He tries to smile, but the tremors that rock his body make it hard to buy. He doesn't wear any clothes, and has one of the DLS-issued shock collars affixed to his neck. His ribs shake when he breathes too deep, but again, he tries to smile, even as he backs further into the corner.
Jared is speaking to him, but Lincoln doesn’t clock exactly what’s being said. The man looks so afraid, but still, he lifts his fingers in a sort of wave, shaking as he does. Lincoln waves back, offering him a small smile in return.
“We’re not allowed to euthanize them,” Jared is saying.
“What?”
“When they hit the end, I mean. We have to give them enough food, give them enough water. If they choose to stop eating or drinking or… whatever, that’s on them. We can’t assist them. Once they’re too far gone, sometimes we’ll just stop trying to get them to eat, and let them go.”
He thought, by now, that he’d heard it all. His eyes widen. “Is that where we’re at with him?”
Jared shrugs. “He’s sick. The director said he’s gonna go any day now, but it’s better if we don’t directly cause that.”
Lincoln doesn’t attempt to keep the hatred out of his eyes.
“He knows,” Jared says. “They all do. Once we stop pulling them for testing, it’s only a matter of time. He wants you to pull him, though,” he continues. “He wants to know it’s not his time yet. He wants to show you he can still be of use. He doesn’t really speak anymore, but he tries to be sweet, so we will keep him in rotation.”
“Stop talking,” Lincoln says then, his fist in a tight ball but, remarkably, not around the man’s throat. Jared’s mouth snaps shut.
“Show me the last one, and then you’re finished here.”
As they retreat away from the man’s cell, the door closes behind them, and Lincoln watches the hope leave his eyes.
They make quick work of the last door, and the weasley man leads Lincoln back through the main wing, mumbling about how there were several wings they didn’t tour, but he at least got to see all the residents, and how if he has questions, he is more than happy to take a call, day or night, and how…
✥ ✥ ✥
The volunteers stand in a haphazard group, each with a color coded name-badge to at least give Lincoln a starting point as to their role. He begins by directing the doctors and nurses to rooms, providing instructions on how to access the rooms, providing instructions on how to access the medical files, providing whatever information he can.
They’re working on finding placements for each of these boys, he tells them. But they all require intensive, specific treatment. As they find placements, they��ll be housed, and once they’ve placed the last boy, the volunteers will be reassigned.
As the last of the volunteers heads inside to get their own bearings, Lincoln takes a step back, regarding the innocuous building.
“I guess that’s that,” Jared says from behind him, taking a step forward and extending his hand out once more. Lincoln looks down at it, shoving his hands into his pockets, as Jared mumbles, “Welcome to Belleview.”
UNTITLED SYSTEM COLLAPSE STORY TAGLIST: @pigeonwhumps @peachy-panic @whump-cravings
#belleview#institutionalized slavery#this is going somewhere#its going places#maybe not to the pulitzer prize people#but places#nonsexual nudity#torture mention#government stuff#it's a set up ok#they'll be sweet soft guys eventually
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I really think people underestimate how hard it is to get help for being suicidal. The "healthcare" system is so hostile towards disabled people and therapists aren't an exception.
What sort of safe environment can therapists foster for discussions about being suicidal when therapists are taught to threaten their patients that they'll be taken away to psych wards if they're "too mentally ill"? How can you discuss being suicidal when with some doctors, for some patients, the very mention is enough to get them institutionalized [which can involve the police]?
How can you "get help" when you're disabled or otherwise marginalized in some way that makes doctors think you don't deserve it?
How can you discuss wanting to die when the system put in place to "help you" only seems to encourage it?
#actually suicidal#suicide mention#disability#ableism#sanism#institutionalization#punkstyle#actually mentally ill#mad punk#ok to reblog as always#sorry to get heavy but#its a heavy topic#especially for someone like me ngl
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Choices
Maia
CW/Tw: pet whump, institutional slavery, BBU/WRU, death/euthanasia mention
It takes forever for the rich kid to decide who he’s taking home, like it always does, but she’s not surprised when he chooses the little dark-haired Romantic.
When the shelter gets a Romantic, they usually get snapped up quickly. Usually, they’re eager to go, trying out all their practiced charms to win over a new owner.
Not that one. He’d been an owner surrender. He was being replaced by a cat, apparently, from the pet shelter a few blocks down. His skin was heavily marked by hard use, with signs of past owners. Any potential new owner would only take him to destroy him, not to cherish.
She hopes that won’t happen to him with the rich kid.
He shrunk into himself in the shelter kennel, refusing to interact with staff or possible adopters. Eventually refusing to eat, which slated him for the end-of-life section.
She hopes he’ll be okay, in his new home.
Now there are only two in the EOL section. The Guard Dog, due to be put down for inappropriate aggressiveness, and the Domestic, because they need more space.
Their adoption fees are heavily discounted, but even at the employee rate, she thinks she can only afford one.
She has to choose.
Old Friends taglist: @painful-pooch @justplainwhump @redwingedwhump @maracujatangerine @honeycollectswhump @tragedyinblue
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JUDIT MINOT — You open the door of the shack to find a very startled patrol officer standing on your doorstep, hand raised as if to knock.
PERCEPTION (Sight) — No, wait. She’s not here as a patrol officer. She isn’t in uniform, or even plainclothes bearing the RCM insignia. Just a simple white shirt and slacks.
COMPOSURE — She’s frozen, at a total loss for what to say now that she’s face to face with you.
HALF LIGHT — She’s bracing herself for an onslaught of anger.
EMPATHY — She feels that she deserves it.
Say nothing. Just walk calmly past her.
Slam the door right in her face.
“What are *you* doing here? Come to see if I kicked the bucket yet?”
“Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You came back for me! I *knew* you would! You guys would never just abandon me!”
Stare back, equally lost.
“…Hi.”
JUDIT MINOT — “Hi…”
She swallows hard, eyes flitting from your cold-stung cheeks to your shadowed eyes, and then down to the sleeve of your blazer, where Isobel has done her best to repair the damage from you ripping off the halogen watermark. Her gaze lingers there for a moment, then returns to your eyes.
COMPOSURE — Strangely, she looks just a little more at ease.
JUDIT MINOT — “Harry, I…” Her voice trails off. She closes her eyes and takes a quiet breath.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“You mean back to the precinct?”
“You mean back to my place in Jamrock?”
JUDIT MINOT — She nods. “You weren’t there when I went to check on you, so I figured you must still be stuck here…”
DRAMA — She knew exactly where you would be, sire. It just made her feel less guilty to hope that you had made it back home on your own.
EMPATHY — She came back to try to make things right.
“Go to hell, Judit. I don’t need you or anybody else.”
“Don’t worry about me. Unlike back at the precinct, the people here actually *care* about me.”
“No. I want to stay here. I never want to go back to where I was before.”
“Yes, please, take me home. I don’t want to be lost anymore. I want to go home…”
“I know I have to go back eventually, but… I’m not ready yet.”
JUDIT MINOT — She nods slowly, her gaze falling to the creaking planks under her feet.
“Is there… anything you want me to bring you, then? Something from home? Or… anything?”
EMPATHY — She wants to do *something* for you. Whether for your sake or to assuage her guilt, who can say?
“I don’t need anything from you.”
“No, please, don’t bring me anything from home. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to remember…”
“I wouldn’t even know what to ask for. I can’t remember anything about home at all.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay, Jude.”
VOLITION — As you say the words, you’re surprised to find that you really mean them. You’re content and cared for here in Martinaise. You get the feeling that it’s been a long time since you felt this way.
+1 MORALE
JUDIT MINOT — “…Okay,” she says quietly. “I’m glad, Harry.”
EMPATHY — She means it, too.
JUDIT MINOT — With a pursed smile and a nod, she turns on her heel to leave.
REACTION SPEED — If you leave it at this, she’s not going to come back to bother you again.
Let her go.
“Hey, I was just about to go fishing. Do you want to come with me?”
JUDIT MINOT — She falters to a stop. “Fishing…?”
YOU — “Fishing. For tonight’s dinner. You could stay and eat with us, if you want.”
JUDIT MINOT — For a moment, she hesitates. Her expression is strange as she looks at you, both of you standing upon some kind of threshold.
EMPATHY — She’s afraid of something, but even she doesn’t know what. Some line she’s toeing, unsure of whether she can bring herself to cross it.
JUDIT MINOT — And then the moment passes. Judit nods briskly. “Sure. There are some… some things I’d like to talk with you about.”
“I’d rather not. Fishing is more of a contemplate-life-in-silence kind of pastime.”
“Sure. We can talk.”
JUDIT MINOT — She just nods again, her expression difficult to parse.
And then you are walking toward the shore together, side by side, in a way you’re certain you must have done before, but never quite like this.
Snow crunches softly under the worn work boots a dock worker passed down to you. You adjust the collar of your polar anorak, a precious secret between you and Martinaise. And Judit follows in silence, her eyes dark beneath her furrowed brow.
EMPATHY — She doesn’t know what to make of your unfamiliar shape.
VOLITION — That’s good. That means you’re changing.
JUDIT MINOT — “I resigned.”
The words come out sudden and ungraceful. She grimaces at herself, pulling her coat more tightly around her shoulders.
AUTHORITY — Resigned?! My god, man, what have you done? Not only have you ruined *your* career, but your subordinates’ careers, too!
VOLITION — Don’t be so self-absorbed. Let her tell her own story.
“…From the task force?”
“…From the RCM?”
JUDIT MINOT — She shakes her head slowly.
“I quit, Harry. I’m not with the RCM anymore.”
“Oh, god. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Good. Fuck the police.”
“Hell yeah. Unemployment buddies.” [Hold your hand out for an Ace’s High.]
“Are you gonna be okay? What about your kids?”
“I don’t know what to say…”
JUDIT MINOT — “You don’t have to say anything. I’m… I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”
She looks down at her feet as she walks. She’s still wearing the same shoes she wore to work every day. “I’m sorry for leaving you here.”
PAIN THRESHOLD — A hard lump rises in your throat. It’s hard to breathe around it. It hurts just to think about that day— watching your world turn its back on you.
VOLITION — But then a new world opened its arms to you. You survived it.
EMPATHY — She was afraid that you *wouldn’t* survive. That she would open that shack door and find your corpse.
“Thank you for apologizing. It means a lot.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care anymore.”
“It’s okay. It actually kind of ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Keep your apologies. I don’t need them.”
“You’re not the one who should have to take responsibility…”
JUDIT MINOT — “No! No, that’s not why I— I mean, it *is,* but not like— Oh, hell…” The former patrol officer pinches the bridge of her nose, letting out a crystalline sigh. “It’s not just about that, Harry…”
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — *No one* was going to take responsibility for what was done to you. No one was *expected* to. She doesn’t have the heart to explain this.
JUDIT MINOT — “I didn’t do it to take a fall for you or Jean, or… anything like that. I just…”
Her eyes are glassy and sunken as she stares out at the sea.
HALF LIGHT — Like those of a corpse.
JUDIT MINOT — “I think I hate myself,” she says flatly. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Looking away as Joseph Mills made yet another “joke” about the women in their custody. Looking away from hands making exchanges under the table. Looking away with little more than weary sighs and toothless protests. Turning her children’s eyes shamefully away from herself and her peers.
Looking away from Lieutenant Kitsuragi’s anger in the hospital. Looking away from you, bleeding in the cold.
JUDIT MINOT — “I took responsibility for myself, and only myself. That’s all.”
“That’s all anyone can do.”
“It’s too late for that. For either of us.”
“Still, I’m sorry. I know I really made a mess of things…”
JUDIT MINOT — “It’s okay, Harry.” She smiles awkwardly and reaches out to pat your arm. “I know you didn’t mean for things to turn out like this.”
AUTHORITY — Is that… *condescension,* I hear?
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — You can’t be blamed, she thinks. Not entirely, anyway. You’re not well. You need help.
“Thanks, Judit.”
“No. I *did* mean for this to happen.”
JUDIT MINOT — Her mouth parts in surprise. “Excuse me…?”
“This was all part of the plan. You can’t even *comprehend* the plan. I’m fifty steps ahead of you and everybody else. Everything is *totally* under control.”
“I’m a jackass who wanted to blow my life to smithereens and get anyone dumb enough to be close to me caught in the crossfire. I may not remember, but I can put two and two together.”
“I *wanted* to be left behind to die. That’s why I pushed you guys out of Martinaise in the first place, isn’t it? I wanted to feel miserable and alone enough to finally just kill myself.”
JUDIT MINOT — Her face twists with grief and discomfort for just a moment. “Harry…”
YOU — “Don’t treat me like a child, Jude. The choices I’ve made are mine, and I can take responsibility for them, too. Or even be okay with them.”
JUDIT MINOT — Her mouth flattens into a thin line. Her eyes fall back to her boots. Snow dusts her hair and the shocks of white make her look older.
EMPATHY — It’s less of a struggle for her when she thinks of you as hapless. Easier to *forgive* you. But harder, perhaps, to see you as a peer. She has never realized this before.
She does not like herself any better from this perspective, looking in from a newly discovered outside. But she swallows her pride.
JUDIT MINOT — “…You’re right,” she says quietly. “Sorry.”
YOU — “…It’s okay.”
FISHING VILLAGE — A more comfortable silence falls over the two of you as you trudge onward toward the shore. Shafts of pale sunlight occasionally pierce through the clouds, glinting off the snow and dazzling your eyes.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Sunrise, Parabellum.
CONCEPTUALIZATION — Your great big lives start today.
#disco elysium#harry du bois#judit minot#suicide mention#thinking abt judit’s paternalistic and condescending moments#and how institutionalization is incarceration#and cops and ableism. etc#i do think judit could potentially quit like she does here#but. then what. u know? she’s got a lot of work ahead of her#EDIT I FUCKED UP THE FORMATTING. this is why u don’t post things at 1 am. bye.#edit 2 i actually ducked up the formatting in multiple places. fuck this gay earth
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Unintentional 28
Previous — Masterlist — Next
CW: BBU-adjacent, institutionalized slavery, dehumanization. Ongoing raid, fear of recapture, clinical/hospital setting, side-effects/consequences of medwhump (cerebrovascular). Beta-read by @alittlewhump <3 Second ask is from this list
Leo told him to stay still and pretend to sleep, no matter what. One of so few direct orders, Aiden could count them on his hand. The very same Leo had just been holding, fingers warming his, giving him one last reassuring squeeze before he’d let go.
He couldn’t fail Leo.
Aiden pressed his hands into the bedspread to hide their shaking, to make them still. Starched-not-soft fabric in an orderly, woven grid under his fingertips. Hundreds of washes keeping it uniform for every new patient. Knuckles wrapped in the soft fabric of Leo’s sweatshirt. Left hand throbbing, forearms aching. Betadine and antiseptic sharp in his nose. The sounds in the hallway—the agents in the hallway. He knew those boots, those footfalls. He’d been here before.
He was there.
Beside the pool, clothes still damp from diving in, from sweating through what had to be hours of CPR. Dragged to his knees, slapped around, put in a van. The End.
He wouldn’t be able to give them his number this time, even if he wanted to. Except instead of taking a stand, he was simply too damaged. The idea of being beaten in front of Leo made his stomach twist and his throat tighten.
He couldn’t shake his head, squeeze his fist, find something, anything, to anchor him to where he was, who he was. The simplest task impossible. He used to be more than a passenger, an observer, recognizing less and less with each visit. Especially when it was like this, when he fell beneath the surface, into things that were muddy and murky and meant to stay that way.
He wanted to look, to confirm what he kept telling himself was true, but he had to keep his eyes closed.
Leo wouldn’t leave him. Leo had promised.
But the very foundation of the conditioning was doubt.
With Archer it pushed him toward an impossible perfection. Empty responsiveness that only left him aching to do more, to be better.
It nagged him constantly with Harrison but there was little to be done. Harrison took what he wanted, didn’t care what kind of vessel it came from. All of his memories returned were not enough to erase the conditioning, relieve the doubt. The ache to be deserving.
He was certain it was worse to have both: what once was housed in the ruins of what he was now.
Leo had no idea what he was taking on. Had no idea Aiden was falling to pieces in his own head when all he had to do was stay still and be quiet.
He wasn’t meant to open his eyes but Harrison was peeling them open for him. Shining his penlight into one and then the other.
“I know you’re awake.” His tone was terse. Frustrated? There was a complication? A delay? It was hard to follow, his mind slow to process. He tried to turn his head but he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t, he was strapped down like always.
Leo had told him not to move.
Harrison snapped his fingers in front of his face. “I asked you a fucking question.”
He blinked a fraction of a second after he thought of it. He couldn’t remember hearing a question. There weren’t any quips surfacing and he wasn’t sure he had the energy to speak anyway.
He hadn’t felt this drugged before.
He wasn’t.
Leo—was Leo still there?
“For fuck’s sake.” Harrison demanded all of his attention by undoing the straps. “You’re lucky we need to do this or you’d be kissing a taste of freedom goodbye thanks to your attitude.”
Too slow to snipe back again.
He cried out when his arms fell to his sides, so heavy now that he had to hold them, fingers tingling as the blood rushed down to his fingers.
He had to stay still.
“I don't have patience for your bullshit today. Do not test me.”
He swallowed the next whimper, the reprimand curdling in his empty stomach. Unaware that Harrison had released all of the other restraints until he folded forward. Harrison caught him unceremoniously, wrapping his arms around him in a parody of an embrace that still made his heart race and his cheeks flush as if it were earned attention, a reward. Sometimes, he’d wriggle closer, moan in Harrison’s ear or whisper a few lurid suggestions. (Anything was better than being a lab rat.) Once even licked his neck but after that, Harrison had kept him unconscious for so long.
As much as he had nothing to lose, would push every button he could find in a fruitless attempt to force Harrison’s hand, his nerve was riddled with holes. Whenever Harrison was gone too long, he’d wonder if he’d ever come back. Doubt warping fearful anticipation into longing. He’d miss Harrison. Miss the attention, even of his scalpel, when there was a question of it never returning. He was nothing if not what they’d conditioned him to be.
“Alright, up you go.” Harrison’s voice still had an edge. They were in the other room across the hall but he didn’t remember getting there. Harrison pulled him to his feet, placed both of his hands on the rail bordering the room. “Let’s go, I don’t have all day.”
He gasped when Harrison let go, overwhelmed by all of his muscles working together for a purpose. But there was something else too, something beneath whatever drugs Harrison always gave him before these bouts of “exercise” to make sure he wasn’t too much trouble.
“I don’t feel right…” It came out slurred.
Harrison was busy on his phone and waved him on with his free hand. “You remember. One foot in front of the other.” He used the hard toe of his sneaker to prod against his bare heel until he moved.
Left foot forward. One step at a time.
His head hurt, ears ringing, vision wavering. Harrison would be furious if he passed out.
Right foot forward. His leg almost buckled and he gripped the bar tighter. The room spun.
“Something’s wrong.” The syllables were marbles in his mouth.
Left foot forward.
The fingers of his right hand slipped from the bar.
He couldn’t raise them again, like his whole arm had been numbed. His heart sprinted and stuttered, drilling fear deep into his chest. “Harrison, what did you give me?” The panic in his voice was clearer than the words.
“Whatever game you’re playing, I am really not—”
Right foot forward. The room tipped.
Harrison caught him and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m fucking serious. Stand up and finish the lap.” He tried to shove him onto his feet again but he couldn’t balance.
He was crying now, tears sliding down his cheek. The ones on the other side lost in the fabric of Harrison’s lab coat. “I—I—can’t—I can’t—” No words came out at all this time, only sounds. “Harrison!” His vision spotted. Harrison lowered him to the floor, let him slump against the wall, listing sideways.
His expression was out of focus but his voice was stern. “This is your last chance. Stop—what—what are you doing?”
Harrison caught him again but he couldn’t feel where, only the other hand opening his left eye for the light. He didn’t feel his fingers on the right before his vision flared.
“Fuck.” Harrison held two fingers to his neck, checking his watch. “Look at me, talk to me.”
“I—I—I’m scared,” he cried. It was nothing, it was moans and slurs. “Harrison, help me, please!”
“No, no, no.” Harrison laid him down. “Squeeze my hand.”
His hand was empty, he couldn’t—
Harrison raised their hands into his line of sight. His right hand limp in Harrison’s grip. “Please, come on, Nothing. It’s nothing, you’re fine. You’re fine.”
He couldn’t feel his hand. “What did you do to me?” Again nothing came out. He whimpered when Harrison rolled him onto his side.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He must have been high out of his mind to hear those words.
“Talk to me, stay with me.”
How many times he’d wanted to say that himself but now he was the one leaving.
“Beau, come on. Hold my hand.” Harrison wrapped both hands around his left one. He didn’t think he’d ever done that without gloves on. It felt so warm. “Here, see? Stay with me, Beau.”
But Beau didn’t belong here.
He had died when she had, when he’d failed her.
“No, no, no.” Harrison was holding his face now. “Hey, ‘359. Come on, keep your eyes open. Trainee ‘359. That is a direct—” His voice broke. “Fuck. Please—”
‘359 was out of place too.
Fragments and pieces, hollow on the inside, incomplete before he’d been given Beau’s purpose.
A clean slate would always be empty, ‘359 couldn’t exist here.
“Please.” Harrison held him more carefully than he’d ever imagined him capable of. Like he was far from nothing, precious even. “Brandon. Forgive me.”
But he wasn’t Brandon.
Or ‘359.
Or Beau.
He only wanted to be Aiden.
And even though he could still feel Harrison’s fingers entwined with his, he was Aiden. Aiden being careful not to make a sound as memories drowned him. Aiden not moving a muscle or opening his eyes, pulse sprinting in his chest as they waited. He couldn’t feel anything under his fingertips anymore, was growing more and more desperate to check that he was in fact lying in a bed and not waking up on the ground beside Harrison or worse already back on his table. He—
The door opening brought everything in his head screeching to a halt.
It wasn’t Harrison’s warmth still lingering on his hand.
It was Leo’s.
Leo who had found him, sheltered him, been so patient and kind with him. Had risked everything by bringing him here.
He could keep still and quiet, bury his fear of what it would mean to go back, in hopes of selling this lie. To say nothing of what consequences Leo and his sister might face. He could never be the reason someone else was unmade. He owed Leo this, at the very least, as disappointing as he may have been in the rest of their short time together.
Or did he have a different kind of obligation now? Not just to please and obey but one of higher grounds. To earn everything Leo had given him so freely. To repay selflessness with a sacrifice of his own.
One of the agents cleared their throat and Aiden knew this was it. If he went easily, quietly, they might leave Leo alone. As long as he surrendered before Leo had a chance to try and improvise.
And he wouldn’t look at Leo at all. To make sure to implicate him as little as possible.
There were voices in the hallway but he couldn’t catch the words over the way his heart beat so loudly in fear, thudding through his whole body.
He promised himself he would tear the stitches in the van later.
Being manhandled into cuffs might start the job anyway.
He would—Aiden would do this to save Leo.
He sat up and opened his eyes—
In time to see the backs of the agents as the nurse ushered them out, hissing something about “immunocompromised” and “goddamn idiots, don’t they teach you to read?”
And Leo, staring at him in disbelief.
Previous — Masterlist — Next
@octopus-reactivated @maracujatangerine @nicolepascaline @mazeish @whumpy-writings @cracked-porcelain-princess @meetmeinhellcroutons @briars7 @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @jo-doe-seeking-inspo @neuro-whump @painsandconfusion @wolfeyedwitch @skyhawkwolf @haro-whumps @onlybadendings @peachy-panic @fillthedarkvoid @rabass @crystalquartzwhump @dont-touch-my-soup @mylifeisonthebookshelf @hold-him-down @guachipongo @creetchure @leyswhumpdump @aseasonwithclarasblog @catawhumpus @magziemakeswhatever @espresso-depresso-system @pigeonwhumps @batfacedliar-yetagain @whumpinthepot @dustypinetree @whump-in-progress @lavbug
#bbu#bbu-adjacent#box boy whump#box boy rescue#bbu whump#sympathetic whumper#carewhumper#pet whump#is it? idk#institutionalized slavery tw#hospital setting tw#CVA tw#stitches mention tw#medical whump#clinical whump#hospital whump#whump#whump writing
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A Wicked Work of Art - Chapter 13
Masterlist
A little short but Important Things Happen
CW: medical whump, trans whumpee, test subject whumpee, experiment whumpee, fantasy racism, dehumanization, fantasy whump, suicidal whumpee, mentioned/discussed noncon, institutionalized slavery, angels and demons, allusion to domestic violence, transformation whump, emeto mention
===
There was a shatterproof mirror in the lab cell’s bathroom. Akakios had checked the “shatterproof” part. No, there were no means to an end in the bathroom. Everything was set up to make suicide impossible. Whether that was because subjects frequently committed suicide or because of Akakios himself, he didn’t know.
However, one thing had become obvious one fateful day after Akakios had taken his doctor-prescribed showers. As he was brushing his hair like Vasiliki had ordered him to, he’d found nubs.
It had taken Akakios a moment to understand what they were. They were boney and sharp. It even hurt a bit to touch the base.
They were the start of horns.
Asimi’s words came back to Akakios. If I stay with you for too long, my love, you’ll become like me. Once you start, you can’t stop.
Akakios immediately did his hair in a way that would hide them. Fear pounded in his chest. God, if Vasiliki found out-
His mind raced with all the awful scenarios. It would mean more pain, more torture, more experimentation. Maybe, just maybe, Vasiliki would finally use him.
After all, Akakios had been trained for little more than sex. Constantine had used it to break him.
It would follow that Vasiliki would do the same now that Akakios was becoming a devil.
—
“Akakios, I know you probably want to sleep.”
Akakios had curled up in a ball on the table after Vasiliki had released his restraints. Seeing Akakios like that made Vasiliki feel guilty. He was going to have to make it so much worse for Akakios. He didn’t want to.
But there was something he needed to do before he hurt Akakios.
“I noticed the horns. They’re peeking out of your hair now. You’re transforming, aren’t you?”
Akakios was quiet, tears rolling down his face. The tears soon turned into uncontrolled sobbing. Vasiliki moved from his chair to sit on the floor next to Akakios. It was a delicate situation - one perhaps too delicate for Vasiliki. He didn’t know how to handle it.
However, looking at Akakios, he felt his pain. It was an odd feeling - he thought that the part of him that wasn’t human had taken his ability to feel connections with other people away.
Maybe the reason he felt that mystical connection that had been missing his entire life with Akakios was because Akakios wasn’t really human anymore.
But that made it even more confusing. Akakios was turning into a devil, not an angel. If he could only feel connections with nonhumans, wouldn’t it make sense that he could only feel them with angels? Vasiliki didn’t know.
What he did know was that he felt a distinctive pain in his chest. One that made him want to reach out and hug Akakios. One that made what he had to do impossible.
“You should’ve told me.” Vasiliki did his best to avoid a scolding tone, even if that was what it was. “I…” Vasiliki didn’t know what to say.
And he didn’t get time to think over what he wanted to say. Akakios was the one to speak.
“Please don’t use me.” Akakios sobbed some more. Vasiliki decided to allow him to speak his mind. “I- I know it’s all I’m good for, but please, I don’t want it. I don’t want you to.”
Vasiliki paused. “What do you mean that it’s all you’re good for?”
“I was rated at low value because I’m defective. They trained me for sex because sex slaves always sell. I’m worthless outside of sex and I know it’s only a matter of time before you realize that. Now that I’m becoming a devil, you’re going to use it to break me like my handler did.”
Akakios lost control of his breathing again and began to sob.
Vasiliki sat in cold silence. What the Facility did never bothered him before now. Sitting there and listening to Akakios relay everything that had been told to him, all the lies he’d been told, made it real in a way that it wasn’t before. Vasiliki found himself disgusted with himself. He’d contributed to this. He’d enabled it. He’d been a part of it, even.
Just that thought, watching Akakios sob, made him want to vomit. Vasiliki couldn’t be so self-centered though. Akakios needed him. Akakios was the victim, not him.
No.
Vasiliki was the villain here.
The image of Stergios popped into his head.
Was this the moment Stergios had been waiting for him to have? To be so disgusted with himself that he wanted to bathe in kerosene and light a cigarette?
Oh, to have Stergios by his side to guide him through these crushing emotions. To comfort Akakios better than he ever could.
But Stergios wasn’t there.
It was just him.
“Akakios, can you look at me?”
That marred, burned face looked up at him, eyes red and puffy.
“I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I-” He took a breath. “It was only once for me, but I was raped too. It doesn’t even remotely compare to what you’ve been through, but I would never do that to you.”
Vasiliki found tears in his eyes. He couldn’t tell Akakios that he would have to punish him. He couldn’t punish Akakios. He was going to get Akakios out of here.
“I need you to obey everything I say, but after that, you’ll be safe.”
Akakios looked at him in shock.
“I’m getting you out of here, Akakios. We’re going somewhere safe. Somewhere you can get help for your transformation. This isn’t right. And I refuse to be a part of it any longer.”
…
Akakios looked at Vasiliki in shock. This had to be some sort of joke. However, as Vasiliki picked him up and strapped him to a wheelchair, Akakios thought it might’ve been to drag him to his execution.
However, the halls turned unfamiliar. Faintly, Akakios could smell freshly cut grass and must. It was a smell that hadn’t reached his nose for at least a year.
Maybe, just maybe…
Vasiliki waved his card at the door and it opened without a beep. Outside. He was outside. In a nearly-abandoned parking lot, but he was outside!
This was happening.
This was actually happening.
Akakios thought for a moment that he had to be dreaming. However, the feeling of the leather of Vasiliki’s car was certainly real. It burned his exposed legs a little. Against the freezing cold of the night, it was a shock.
“Just stay quiet and if anyone pulls us over, I’m taking you home to fuck you.”
Akakios’ heart sank. Was that what was happening?
Vasiliki took off at lightning speed.
Even if Vasiliki was taking him home for use, Akakios found himself not caring.
At least he was out of the Facility, even if only for a little.
===
Taglist: @i-can-even-burn-salad, @whumpsday, @pigeonwhumps, @oddsconvert, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @writereleaserepeat, @just-a-silly-little-whumper, @sparrowsage, @inscrutable-shadow, @whumplr-reader, @whumpycries, @demondamage, @whumpshaped, @itsleelove, @whump-blog-reblogs, @whumpterful-beeeeee
#medical whump#trans whumpee#test subject whumpee#experiment whumpee#fantasy racism#dehumanization#fantasy whump#suicidal whumpee#mentioned/discussed noncon#institutionalized slavery#angels and demons#allusion to domestic violence#transformation whump#whump#whump writing#whumpblr#whump fic#whump community#conditioned whumpee#emeto#a wicked work of art
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@flameswallower tagged me to post the "last line you wrote"! I don't post from wips generally, so here's a snippet from a story of mine, "Mad Studies," recently published in the latest issue of khōréō.
you can also find it in their latest issue ($6, or $20/year for a full subscription). i highly rec subcribing, they're a great mag for im/migrant & diaspora writers, a paying market, and offer audio versions of published works!
tagging to post a recent line that they wrote: @girl-chunks @noncompliantcyborg @ghostzvne @oddmerit @boykeats @sawasawako @tamagotchiplanet @thepixiediaries @materialisnt @aldieb @grimesapologist @passerea + anyone who wants to!!
#mine#institutionalization implied#forced med implied#ask 2 tag#sorry i always forget who beyond the writer ppl who i already knew before we were mutuals here has a wip going or stuff published#so i just guessed. anyone can do the tag and mention me!
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Sunless Lives Part 25: I Will Wait
~1580 words
CW: drugging, noncon undressing, nonsexual nudity, noncon touch, medical whump, forced institutionalization, ED mention, negative self-talk
First, Previous, Next, Masterlist
~~~
DR MANDAL: I’d like to know how you like the staff and faculty here so far.
M BECK: Oh, they’re great. Everyone’s been wonderful.
DR MANDAL: No trouble at all?
M BECK: None.
DR MANDAL: That’s good to hear. What about the other patients, do you like your roommates?
M BECK: Sure, they’re alright.
DR MANDAL: No issues?
M BECK: We all wake up with nightmares, so it’s not like it’s fair to complain about that.
DR MANDAL: So no issues, but do you like them?
M BECK: I think so. I think everyone here hates themselves so much, it’s hard to connect with other people.
DR MANDAL: That’s very observant. Would you include yourself in that?
[0:26]
M BECK: Yeah.
~~~
The intake process was terrifying. Whatever drugs he’d been given had worn off enough for Simon to be awake, but not enough for him to resist as he was manhandled by orderlies out of the car and into a hulking rock of a building - the title of Fort wasn’t just for show. He didn’t have much time to look before he was inside, lifted onto a gurney and wheeled through a dizzying maze of hallways and into a cold room. Broad-shouldered orderlies leaned over him, and started taking off his clothes. One unzipped his coat, while another sat him up. The coat was jerked over his shoulders and off, and dropped unceremoniously on the floor. Then his turtleneck was peeled off, his arms gripped and guided by strong hands. He whimpered and flinched when they touched his skin directly for the first time, and he distantly registered a laugh. His upper half was dropped back onto the gurney and they set to work on his lower half. Someone pulled off his boots and socks while someone else started unbuttoning his jeans. This sent a shock of panic through Simon, he wanted to tell them to stop, but he couldn’t form the words. He couldn’t form coherent thoughts either, instead his head was overtaken by wordless waves of fear and shame and embarrassment as they pulled his pants and underwear down. A hand briefly grabbed his ass but Simon couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not. Tears slipped out and ran down his temple and into his ear. He couldn’t even move to brush them away, much less stop anything that was happening. Someone whistled when his thighs were revealed.
“Bloodbag.”
“Yup.”
“Fuckin’ idiot.”
A vague figure ran a hand over his ribs.
“ED watch?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll be deciding that.”
The orderlies backed off, and a gray-haired man in a doctor’s coat took over, briskly taking Simon’s vitals and shining lights in his eyes, ears, and mouth. He manually pulled at Simon’s eyelids and jaw himself, and didn’t address Simon as he worked. Then, Simon could only lie there and watch as the worst happened: the doctor received a camera from an orderly and started taking pictures. His face. His scars. The bites. The flash of the camera left Simon blinded and dazed. The doctor barked at the orderlies to flip him over and Simon heard the camera click as he captured his backside as well. Then he was dropped onto his back again, a sheet was thrown over his lower half, and the room was suddenly quiet and empty.
His head flopped to the side on the thin padding of the gurney, mouth agape. Tears and drool slowly leaked out, out of his control. He felt disgusting. Violated. Scared. This had to be some sort of mistake. There was no way Chris would send him to someplace like this. Your boss and your friends were so very worried, Kelly had said - Gina, Amber, and Devon had had a hand in this as well. He needed to talk to Chris. This all had to be some horrible misunderstanding. It had to be.
He wanted Matthew.
He wanted to go home.
Maybe you made a mistake.
Simon drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, but was finally brought back by his stomach growling loudly. He’d lost a lot of his appetite over the last month, but even he could only go so long without eating. He found he could move his arms, and legs, and even slowly sit up. He discovered some thin, scratchy clothes folded at his feet: a long sleeved t-shirt and elastic-waisted pants, both a sickly shade of green, and started the laborious process of putting them on. He felt sick, dizzy, cold, and hungry, and his limbs moved half a second slower than he wanted them to. He had just pulled up the pants and was standing unsteadily against the gurney when the door opened. He flinched back, grabbing the gurney for support. The large redheaded orderly that entered looked him up and down.
“McKenna?”
“Yes?” Simon breathed.
“With me.” He stepped aside and held the door open. Simon tentatively scooted through under his gaze.
“Where-?”
“Left,” the man ordered.
Simon started walking to the left down the hall, but his legs wobbled under him and he staggered into the wall. The large man caught his upper arm, gripping it hard enough to bruise, and dragged him along.
“That hurts, you’re hurting me,” Simon pleaded. No response. “Where are we going?” Nothing. They passed by more doors and under more fluorescent lights, as well as beady-eyed cameras mounted in high corners. The surveillance reminded Simon of Lara’s house, and his heart pounded. He stumbled to keep up. “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday, can -”
The orderly abruptly stopped and slammed Simon into the wall, pinning him there with an arm across his chest that knocked all the air out of Simon’s lungs.
“Don’t ask me for shit,” he growled, “Don’t ask anyone for shit, just do what you’re told, and shut the fuck up.”
Simon nodded, gasping for air. The orderly held him there for a long, threatening moment, clearly enjoying the power trip. Then it was back to being dragged.
After a few more confusing turns, they passed through a heavy security door and into an open room with round tables and scattered chairs, occupied by a handful of other people in the same green outfits as Simon. Orderlies were dotted around the room, observing as patients drew in coloring books and played checkers. It reeked of mildew and sick. Cameras stared from every corner.
“Don’t make any friends,” the redhead whispered in his ear, and released his arm. Simon staggered a couple steps forward, clutching at his aching bicep. Some of the other patients turned in their seats to watch him with languid curiosity.
Simon hugged himself tightly, breathing fast. He didn’t know what the orderly’s warning meant. He didn’t know what to do. He looked around the room in desperation and his heart leapt when he saw the back of someone in pink scrubs - a nurse, not a patient or orderly. The pink reminded him of Tammy at the clinic, and how kind she’d been. He wove through the tables to where she was talking to another patient.
“Excuse me,” Simon tapped her on the shoulder, “I just got here, I don’t know what’s going on, can you help me?”
She turned around slowly, her thin eyebrows high.
“Okay, number one, do not touch the faculty or staff,” she lectured.
“Oh, sorry, I -”
She snapped her hand closed in front of his face.
“Ah-ah! I don’t want to hear it. Who did your intake?”
“I didn’t - I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Do you know your room number?”
“N-no.”
She huffed.
“Fine, I’ll look everything up for you. What’s your name, do you at least know that?”
“Simon. McKenna.”
“Thank you.” She strode away, ponytail bouncing, and exited through a security door that she opened with a keycard. Simon watched her go, pressing his knuckles to his mouth.
“That’s Linda,” said the patient she had been talking with - a very tall, very skinny man hunched over a hand of cards. Two others sat opposite him, an older man with a significant tremor and a boy younger than Simon, barely an adult.
“You don’t want to mess with her. I’m Chett, you wanna play cards with us?” the skinny man twanged, and grinned black and yellow teeth in an eerily familiar way that made Simon shrink back.
“S-sorry, no thank you,” he stammered.
“C’mon, sweet little thing like you needs friends!” Chett cajoled, but Simon was already backing away. He found a mercifully empty table and slouched down in the slippery plastic chair to wait for Linda. His heart thrummed and his eyes darted around the room at the other patients still giving him sidelong glances. None of them looked particularly friendly. The orderlies, on the other hand, looked downright hostile. They were all large men, some even larger than Matthew, and they glowered down over the patients like a bank of storm clouds.
Matthew. Simon felt tears spring to his eyes again. Hopefully wherever Matthew was sent was better than this. He put his head down on the table, sheltering under his arms. His mind replayed his last moments with Matthew. Their last kiss.
I’ll come get you.
Only a little while.
It’ll be okay.
You fucking idiot.
Regret started to bubble up in his stomach.
Shouldn’t have gone to the clinic.
He winced at the thought. Matthew, the real Matthew, was back and alive, and he was regretting that?
Worthless.
You deserve to be here.
~~~
First, Previous, Next, Masterlist
Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy, @pigeonwhumps, @sunshiline-writes, @seasaltandcopper
#whump#whump fic#whump writing#sunless lives#sunless lives arc 3#cw drugging#cw noncon undressing#cw nonsexual nudity#cw noncon touch#medical whump#cw forced institutionalization#cw ED mention#cw negative self-talk#my writing
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I hate it when ppl who have never been institutionalized (including mentally ill people who have never been institutionalized) turn being sent to a psych ward into smth fun and silly and not something genuinely terrifying
Like getting your “grippy socks” isn’t like a teehee I’m unstable moment its genuinely distressing when you’re stripped of your clothing, put in a hospital gown, and givin ill fitting socks
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WIP - I was gonna write an AU psych ward fanfic but then i just started writing my psych ward trauma. Antipsych. This happened a while ago, I'm okay now (and I'm not grateful it happened).
tw - suicidal ideation, descriptions of suicide rehearsal, psychiatric abuse, trauma
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“Why are you here?”
I look at the psychiatrist’s tie blankly. He’s dressed in a suit, a clipboard and pen in hand. I haven’t even gotten my clothes back, I have to wear a hospital gown and pants four sizes too large, and am not allowed footwear other than grippy socks. The only thing I have left that's mine is my chipped glittery nail polish. I've picked it halfway off over the past day despite desperately trying not to. But this guy is walking around in shiny Oxfords and a suit.
I don’t look at his face. I know he’s looking at me, expecting an answer. Something I’m learning here is that they wait for you to speak. Even if you take a long time. They don’t try to speak for you. Sometimes I wish they would. It would be easier to say what they wanted to hear if they did. Instead I have to guess. I suppose I’m used to doing that, but it’s a lot scarier. “Don’t you know?” I say.
“Yes. But I want to hear it from you.”
Great. I have to tell him in my own words. It’s like a school assignment, but the grade is how long I’m going to be locked up.
I had been in the ER for 13 hours before I came in, and then I stayed up 2 more hours getting here. I wasn’t allowed my phone until I’d been there for 6 hours. No calling my friends. No telling anyone where I was. No one to talk to. Just me and the book I brought, the book I couldn’t focus on because I’d just gone to the counselor’s office because I was having a hard time and now I was at the ER for a psych eval. The counselor who sent me to the ER had said he thought I would just get connected to resources in the community. He said he didn’t think I would be sent to a psych ward.
I’d done a lot of staring at the ceiling to just get through to the eval part, 4 hours in. 2 hours after, when I finally learned I was recommended inpatient, the social worker told me even if I hate it now, I will be grateful later. Once I feel better, I will approve of the decision to involuntarily commit me. My current wishes tossed aside for a theoretical future me who is glad I never a choice. If they’re right, I should kill myself now so I never become such a monster. All alone, with a life shattering brick dropped on my head, I finally cried.
After the eval, I’d begged the nurse for my phone so I could tell my friends where I was. So I could tell my roommate why I still hadn’t come back at 9pm when we usually saw each other by five. My phone was nearly dead when I got it. I called my friends. I called my parents. My friends stayed with me the rest of the 7 hours I was there. They hugged me and cried with me until I got taken away in an ambulance at 3am. I wondered how much a 45 minute ambulance ride cost. I wondered if it mattered.
What a fuck-up I must have seemed. I’d heard of some college kids going to psych wards before. I knew someone who had called a suicide hotline at 4am and got the cops called to take them in. I hadn’t thought it would happen to me.
It’s nice, in a way. To know how bad I’m doing. I’m bad enough that I need to be locked up. For my own safety. I’m so crazy that I can’t be trusted to make my own decisions. I hadn’t known I was that bad until now. I still don’t believe it. It’s a mistake. But it’s nice they think I’m struggling.
He’s looking at me again. I don’t remember what he asked. “Can you repeat the question?” I ask.
“Sure. Why are you here?” he says again.
Right, that was what it was. I smile. I smile when I’m nervous. “Well, I… I…” Why is he making me say this. He knows what I did. I didn’t even try to kill myself. It’s not that bad. “Well, I was… I was… Sometimes I get into these moods. A lot of times I’m normal and fine. But sometimes I just… sometimes I just want to die. I used to try not to think about how I could do that or anything.” I sigh. I had tried so hard to not think about methods. I must have known I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from doing shit like this eventually. “Because I know this sort of thing would happen. But this time… this time I did. I looked up bridges I could theoretically jump from. But that seems like it would suck.”
I laugh. It’s a nervous laugh. It’s a ‘isn’t it funny that jumping from a bridge to kill yourself would suck?’ joke. One of the classics. He’s not laughing.
“Anyway, I was just feeling… I don’t know. I felt useless. I just keep thinking about dying and killing myself. It’s stupid. And I—I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I don’t know if people think I was trying to kill myself and that’s why I’m here. But I wanted to do something. To—I don’t know. To see what’s even possible. So I—so I—so I—”
This is the part I always get stuck on describing. I don’t know how to put what I was feeling into words. I don’t know how to describe what I was doing. I don’t know why I was doing it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But then again, it had seemed like a good idea to go to the counselor’s office at the time.
“I took—I took a belt. Right? And I hooked the metal buckle part over the door knob—it’s one of those long ones. And I kind of—I kind of—I don’t know. I kind of wrapped it around my neck once and held it with my other hand. So that if I passed out I would be fine. And then I sort of… pulled down. To see if that would… do anything. I did that a few times, and then I was scared that I did it. And I told the counselor the next day.”
It hadn’t been empty blackness like I’d hoped for. It had been a pulsing pressure in my head. I did it a couple times, to see if I could get the empty blackness. Then I stopped. Because it had seemed like such a good fucking idea before I did it, but then I realized I’d done something very worrying and should probably be in therapy. Even if the voice that had started the whole thing was telling me to do it again. It wasn’t real before I’d done it, but once I’d done it, it was too real to ignore.
He’s writing on the clipboard. I have a sinking feeling I’m not getting a good grade. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I repeat.
“I know,” he says. He’s still writing. I wish I knew what it was.
It’s just me and him in my room. He woke me up when he came in. I went to sleep after breakfast. When I was admitted at 5am last night, one of the techs told me I should try to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Go to groups. Talk to people. It would help me get out sooner. But I’d already been up for 20 hours and it was 5am. So I was going to sleep and they were just going to have to live with that. Apparently you can’t skip the psychiatrist appointments, though.
“What’s got you so suicidal?” he asks.
The world. Everything. And yet, nothing. My life is great. “What do you mean?” I say.
“What do you think about that makes you want to kill yourself?” he elaborates.
“I… I don’t know,” I say. “The… the environment, I guess. Global warming. Kinda sucks to feel like the future is ruined. And the species and the ice sheets. Rising fascism.” I remember a tumblr post where a therapist talked about her patients talking more about those sorts of things making them depressed. That made it seem like an okay enough reason to give to a psychiatrist. And it’s not like that isn’t a big fucking bummer making me not want to be alive.
He makes more notes. “Anything else?” We both seem know that’s not enough on its own to make me constantly thinking about suicide.
I shrug. I’m just so stupid and worthless doesn’t feel like a cogent enough explanation. And I can’t phrase it like that. That would be stupid. “Feelings of… worthlessness, and um.” I search for something in my head. It’s fuzzy. There’s nothing there. I always remember everything so well when I’m crying in bed thinking about how much I want to kill myself. I could write essays on the subject in those moments. Instead I just rehash them to myself, over and over. But I can’t remember any of it now. “I dunno. I can’t remember unless I’m spiraling. A lot of anxiety. Around… people. Social anxiety.” I nod.
Sometimes I get attacked by my social anxiety, memories from years ago—three years, five years, a decade—sending jolts through me as I remember them. I remember what I should never do again. What I’ve learned. Lessons I can never forget, even when I can’t remember what taught them. I usually throw myself onto my bed and writhe in the agony of memories, clinging to ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I want to die’ like I'm falling in an abyss and they're the only rope up. I can never remember what the memories are until they’ve started their assault. I don’t know how to describe that, though.
I’m not being as amicable to him as I usually would be. I haven’t been amicable since they recommended me for inpatient at the ER. Something broke in me then. I’d felt it snap, a crack of terror, and then—nothing. I’m more stone-faced now. Quiet.
I can be friendly when I need to be. I can be talkative and responsive and say all the right words and have the appropriate “mmhmm”s and “oh no”s and “yeah”s. I can laugh in the right places, when it’s polite to laugh at a joke I don’t think is funny. I can make eye contact and break eye contact at what I assume are appropriate moments. I never know if I’m doing it right, though. I poured over a book about body language in high school, trying to learn how the fuck to do it. It said that the exact percentage varied, but around 40% eye contact 60% not eye contact. I tried to get the proportions right for years. Every conversation. Look at their eyes a few seconds, look away a few more seconds. Look eyes, look away. I used to look between their eyebrows, because the eyes were too much. But I read somewhere that some people can tell and they think it’s weird. So eyes it was.
I’m dead now, though. I’m already in a psych ward. They know I’m crazy. What’s the point in trying to appear like I can converse like a human. I don’t want to have to do it. So I don’t. I stare soullessly past people when they talk to me. I examine their clothes. I look at their hair. I don’t smile when they talk to me. I don’t laugh at their jokes. They ask me how I am and I don’t ask them back.
He seems to conclude I’ve finished explaining. “Well—okay, are you voluntary?” He leafs through his papers. “Yes, voluntary. Let’s see…” He leafs through them again.
Voluntary patient. What a laugh. When I came in, I was involuntary. During intake, they gave me some forms and said if I sign them I’d be a voluntary patient. I asked if anything would change. No, they said, it was a distinction with no difference. A voluntary patient still can’t leave until the psychiatrist says they can. But I would be seen as complying with the recommended treatment. It would be beneficial to be seen as complying with the recommended treatment. So I signed. But I never mistook that little black-and-white print Voluntary for consent, even if everyone else did.
#antipsychiatry#anti psych#creative nonfiction#personal narrative#psychiatric hospital#psychiatric abuse#suicidal ideation#suicide tw#trauma#complex ptsd#work in progress#dissociation#depression#anxiety#climate change mention#psych survivor#psych wards#institutionalization
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🚑 Rushed to the hospital
✥ The Hospital Arc - Part 1 ✥
Notes: ~ 18 months in, just a little introduction to a long awaited mini-arc.
Trigger Warnings: Med Whump, Panic Attacks, Hyperventilation, Medical Restraints, Needle Mention, Institutionalized Slavery
✥ ✥ ✥
It was supposed to be a simple enough task. Go to the grocery store. Get the things on the list. Go home and get back to his books and cook dinner and watch the sun set and, if it’s a very good day, once Luke gets home they can watch a movie in Luke’s bed and maybe Luke will hold him, even if just for a little bit.
But it’s not a simple task. Anxiety builds in Leo’s peripheries as he weaves through the aisles, hyper-aware of every person he encounters. It’s busier here than he’s comfortable with, and the noises and the lights and the narrow walkways put him on edge. He urges himself, not for the first time that day, to pull himself together.
Still, he selects items almost carelessly, checking off his mental list as quickly as he can.
It’s because he’s moving too quickly, and he’s too jumpy, and everything is too much, that he makes the mistake. He rounds the corner to the cashier, and his cart nearly collides with someone else’s. He dodges it, issuing an anxious, “I’m sorry,” and tries to keep his head down.
He knows the moment that he sees the scrub bottoms, though, that he’s in trouble. Handler, his mind screams at him. He tries to quiet that voice.
He closes his eyes, taking a breath. Another. Another. The sounds of the store grow distorted, far away and warbly and almost silent against the ringing in his ears.
It’s just a doctor or a nurse. The hospital is nearby. It is not a handler. It’s just a doctor. Maybe it’s Rob. Maybe it’s Luke. It is not a handler. Rationally, Leo knows that the nearest site is over an hour away, and no handler would still be in their scrubs after their shift. Leo’s not thinking rationally, though.
He struggles to pull in air as he forces his eyes open.
The man is staring at him. Does he look angry? He’s speaking to him, he thinks, but he can’t make out the words.
I’m sorry, he tries to say again, but isn’t sure if the words come out.
He takes a step back, raising his hands in apology, and tries to draw in another breath. He’s hyperventilating. His fingers shake as he reaches toward his pocket. If he can call… if he can call Luke, Luke can explain. If he can get home, he has medicine in the pantry he can take, and he can… he can hide somewhere until Luke gets home and helps him. He can… he needs to get home, he tries to say.
The man takes a step toward him, his hands up, mirroring Leo’s. Leo’s eyes dart around the store, but he processes none of what he sees.
He can hear voices behind him, telling the man to back off, he thinks.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I–” He wants to tell them he’s allowed to be here. That he’s under contract, and that Luke told him to come here. He wants to tell them not to touch him, that if they touch him right now, it’ll be so much worse. He wants to tell them he’s going to be sick. He wants to tell them he can’t breathe.
But all that comes out is another apology, choked off with a sob.
He’s going to black out. He reaches for his wallet, for his phone, for anything. He grasps at whatever memories of Luke’s voice he can find, clutching onto the sound and the words with every piece of rational thought that he has left.
From behind him, he feels hands on his shoulders, and almost instantly, he’s back in training. The handlers are shouting at him, the handlers are holding him down. He’s crying, he’s begging them to let him go. He’ll do better, he cries. He’s so, so, sorry.
✥ ✥ ✥
There are hands on him when things come into focus. There are fingers pressing into his neck, there’s a mask over his mouth and nose. Breaths don’t come easily, but they come, chased by a burning pain.
He feels a jolt, and forces his eyes open; he’s in an ambulance, he thinks. He reaches up to take off the mask, to tell the man who’s holding him that he’s okay, to beg him to call Luke and to tell him that Luke will help him. His hands won’t work, though.
“It’s alright,” the man says. “Take it easy.”
Do they know he’s a worker? Do they kn… do they know he’s under contract? He tries to ask them if they’re taking him back to a DLS site, but he can’t. He feels tears pooling in his eyes; he tries to lift his hands again, but canvas straps dig into his wrists at the movement.
He sobs, while a desperate plea that probably isn’t understandable to the man works its way out of his chest. The mask muffles the sound, and the man looks concerned, so Leo lets himself hope that maybe… maybe he’ll listen.
Focusing is difficult. Producing words is even harder.
“Let him talk,” another EMT says, nodding.
The first, the man at his head, says, “Stay calm and breathe, okay? You’re gonna be alright.”
The man is obvious with his movements as his hand closes in on Leo’s face, and Leo shrinks into himself. The moment he’s free from the mask, Leo immediately whispers, “I’m s-sorry,” broken by a kind of panicky gasping.
“It’s okay,” the man responds. Leo’s not unaware of how closely he’s watching him, “You’re not in any trouble. They’ll get everything sorted out at the hospital, you’ll be out of there in no time.”
“C-Can you call Luke?” He swallows, forcing as much air into his lungs as he can. It’s not enough. “B-Bennett,” he whispers. “He’s my… he holds my c-c-c-” His whole body is shaking, and the man puts the mask back over his mouth.
“Your contract,” the other EMT says. She squeezes his hand, eying the strap holding it in place. “They’ll call him as soon as you get checked out,” she continues. “There’s… protocol, we need to follow, with people in the system.”
Luke will come, he tries to tell them. More importantly, he tries to make himself believe it. The world is spotting, though. The handlers’ voices are back in his head. Every time his eyes close, images of restraints, of hands on him, of laughter, of his collar, of tubes and white coats and bright lights and scrubs and pain, force their way to the front.
He can’t quite parse out what’s real and what’s in his head, so he sucks in breath after breath, tears streaming in waves down his cheeks as two hands turn into four hands turn into so many hands, and he's too scared to open his eyes and he's too scared to speak and all he can think of, over and over, is that Luke will come for him. He just needs to be good, and Luke will come for him.
FIGHTER TAG LIST: @whump-cravings , @afabulousmrtake @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @pumpkin-spice-whump @distinctlywhumpthing @thecyrulik @highwaywhump @batfacedliar-yetagain @finder-of-rings @dont-touch-my-soup @skyhawkwolf @suspicious-whumping-egg @also-finder-of-rings @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @prodigal-zoe, @peachy-panic @melancholy-in-the-morning @urban-dark @nicolepascaline @quietly-by-myself @pigeonwhumps @whump-blog @seasaltandcopper @angstyaches @i-msonotcreative @mylifeisonthebookshelf @anonintrovert @whump-world @squishablesunbeam @considerablecolors @whumpcereal @whumperfully @pirefyrelight @whumpsday @whumplr-reader @lonesome--hunter @darkthingshappen
#didn't do either of the poll asks#because#reasons#the fighter#institutionalized slavery#Med Whump#Panic Attacks#Hyperventilation#Medical Restraints#Needle Mention#Institutionalized Slavery#i will not allow myself to post a different thing until i post part 2 of this thing#so be on the lookout for that like... tomorrow or monday or something#i think it'll be 4 parts total
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Wednesday (Quadruple) Drabble: The Lost and Found
She had been lost before.
Moving as a child from the Illyrian side of the city to the non-Illyrian side, hope for increased safety as consolation for leaving a part of her identity behind.
He had been lost before.
Refusals overridden, his would-be captors gaining control of his computer to falsify assent for a descent into fantasy, life in unreality as corrosive as the battery acid that powered his radiation-damaged heart.
Starbase records made clear Spock’s betrayal and, once Una reached Talos IV, it didn’t take long to locate Chris— his illusion screaming in pain from fire-borne punishment, his true form immobilized in his support chair.
The rage she needed to defeat Talosian mind control came easy.
In the shuttle she’d… procured… Chris declined her algorithm to match his speaking voice, choosing instead to use a computer default, no intonation of anguish or joy, no movement in his scarred face or change to his mechanized, steady respiration as he answered her questions.
“My best guess is Spock exploited that you’d be away from Starbase Eleven for a few weeks. He knew he was disobeying my orders and committing mutiny. He did it anyway.”
“If the Illyrian doctor is willing to try, I understand the risks.”
“Leave Vina behind. She made her alliances clear.”
So it’s at an Illyrian colony far from Federation arrogance or authority that his DNA unfurls and re-forms. Genetic engineering is usually performed before birth, but this is his rebirth, no longer the Christopher Pike who upheld Starfleet ideals but a Christopher Pike who is wary of a Starfleet that would tolerate a sham court martial rather than search for a greater truth.
Is Una reborn, too? Her belief in something greater than herself, in a Starfleet that could, in fact, become what she had hoped it to be in her idealistic younger years, that belief is withered, gone, replaced by allegiance to people, not an organization.
His skin is pockmarked, his voice reedy, gait unsteady. Genetic engineering isn’t a miracle cure.
Her sense of purpose has telescoped from appreciation for differences to appreciation for those who share her values.
Are they still lost?
Isn’t everyone?
But to be lost together… a shuttle course laid in toward a curious-looking cluster of stars, his hand a comfort on her shoulder, her soft hum the music of his naturally-beating heart… to be lost together… is something like being found.
•
Christopher Pike drabbles: 3, 2, 1/?
#wednesday drabble#can’t tag wednesday100 with a quad though#christopher pike#una chin riley#pikeuna#pikeone#pikeuna fanfic#pikeone fanfic#star trek strange new worlds#star trek the original series#cw upcoming rant in tags#if anyone wants to debate spock with me please first do me the favor of revisiting the menagerie with current standards of consent in mind#chris’ no no no no no no no breaks my heart#not to mention chris’ vote to have spock found guilty of mutiny for what spock was trying to do#but whoops the whole court martial was a sham#and increasing talosian control over computer systems lends doubt to chris’ last effort to communicate using his chair#to cast someone out of reality is among the cruelest things i can imagine#though it certainly tracks with 1960s views on institutionism
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Strays
Carlisle
CW/TW: BBU/WRU, homelessness, institutionalized slavery, pet whump, food insecurity/starvation/hunger.
“No, Carlisle. We don’t take home strays.”
“But, Mom!” He turns his head up at her, trying his best wide-eyed wanting. “Please!”
He’s been feeding the Pet in the alley for the last two weeks, bringing him sandwiches, cookies, and juice whenever he can. At first, the Pet hid from him and only took the food after Carlisle left. Now he takes the food from his hands, his own often shaking, and thanks him with grateful downcast eyes.
Pets need homes. The boy knows this. He’s seen commercials by WRU, and read stories about the travails of lost Pets eventually reunited with their families. The Pets in his own home have told him how happy they are there, how frightened they’d be without a home to shelter them and owners to guide them.
This one is scared and hungry and hurt, and the boy wants to help.
“Please, Mom?”
She sighs. The Pet cringes and tries to make himself look smaller. “Show me your wrists.”
The stray Pet obeys, turning his wrists upward, showing the barcode. His mother takes out her phone and snaps a picture of it. “I’m sorry, Carlisle. We don’t need another Platonic.”
Her tone doesn’t allow further argument, or he would point out how many things they have that they don’t need, but they want.
Dejected, he goes home with his mother.
The next time he visits the alley, the Pet is gone.
“My son wants to adopt a Pet,” she says a few weeks later, at the shelter. “Domestic or Platonic, and a healthy one.”
Carlisle peeks through the doors separating the Guard Dogs and the Romantics, fascinated. They have more visible scars than the others, and he wonders how they got them.
But he turns back to look at the selection the shelter attendant led them to. All of them kneel, and smile, and their eyes flick from him to his mother and back again. They’re afraid, too. Of the shelter? It frightens him too, with its concrete floors and fenced kennels. Or of him and his mother?
Don’t they know he just wants to give them a safe home?
He wants to take them all home, but he can only choose one.
He chooses the thinnest, the most frightened, with a scar cut across his face. His mother frowns, but allows it.
When they are home, and alone, he asks the new Pet, “What’s your name?”
It’s years later, and his parents have died, leaving him the only heir to the Black fortune. He asks the cook to pack him a basket of lunch things.
He goes back to the alley.
He takes out a sandwich and a bottle of water. He sits down on the ground, not caring about the dirt and grease getting on his tailored clothes. He holds out the food and drink, waiting.
There’s a new stray in the alley, a girl with tangled hair and not enough clothes. Romantic, he suspects. She hasn’t come close enough yet for him to see her barcode. Maybe today she will.
She peers out at him from behind a garbage can. She will run if he approaches her, so he just sits, holding still, holding out the food. Come on, he thinks, it’s for you.
He will leave it for her if she doesn’t come out.
It’s a lot like catching a stray cat, he knows. You have to earn their trust, in small, steady ways. But it’s harder, too.
She finally comes out and approaches him. She reaches for the food, then stops herself. She drops to her knees, in the graceful sensual way of the Romantics, and holds out her own hands. Now they are on an equal level, and he puts the food and water into her hands.
Softly, he says, “My name is Carlisle. What’s yours?”
Tagging @painful-pooch @justplainwhump @redwingedwhump @maracujatangerine
#pet whump#bbu/wru#lady whump mentioned#Carlisle black#old friends#homelessness#hunger#institutionalized slavery
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In League — A Lucky Blunder
Masterlist
Summary: The boys finally caught their rival gang's spy but something about him has their leader intervening in his punishment. Beta read by @alittlewhump!
CW: Late-19th century, explicit language, kidnapping/abduction, nudity (non-sexual), restraints, bruising from implied beating, whipping, scars, torture/interrogation, taunting of prisoner, multiple whumpers, dubious caretaker.
A high-pitched keening wound its way through the house.
Wyatt paused, pencil hovering over his place in the row of numbers. It was early evening. Sunlight entered the window at a low angle to cast long shadows through yellow-orange light. The boys would be winding down from the day which meant they were winding up for the night.
“Tommy?” He called for Frankie’s lad, the portrait of his ruddy-haired father in miniature. A child of about ten years who was always close at hand, ever-keen to make a farthing running errands. Especially if he could smugly tell younger boys later that he wasn’t at liberty to divulge the particulars. As though he was the rare child-confidant of the entire gang. He did have a fair pulse on what was going on, if a little slanted by the perspective of his youth.
Another cry, twisting all the way upstairs, most likely from the cellar two floors down. In the house—their house—not a thing could transpire unnoticed, such was the size and layout. Wyatt liked that. All was within reach and what one could hold in the palm of his hand, one could command.
Although, his appreciation and pride were diminishing by the second as the cries continued and grew more insistent. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh and almost ran his fingers through his hair before he remembered they were smudged with graphite from doing the books.
“Tommy!”
Finally, a clatter and then short, snappy strides as the child scrambled across the kitchen and up the stairs. “Yessir?”
“What is that fucking noise?”
Tommy swallowed, trying to catch his breath. “They found that man. The one ‘tipped off Keats.”
“Is that so?”
About a month ago, a beggar had shown up on their streets. He’d seen the man in question himself—more of a boy really, no more than twenty—huddled outside the door of the pub and shuffling around the streets covered in a ratty blanket.
Around the same time, a number of plans had been mislaid. At first, it had seemed only as though they’d mismatched their timing. Until one night, when they’d had a raid planned on a warehouse, expecting just a few guards and found its owner—one of their biggest rivals—Keats, had two dozen waiting instead.
It had nearly cost two boys their lives and one still had a bullet in his shoulder. They had pulled the usual threads, made sure to reassess the loyalties of certain parties. The beggar, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. No one thought twice about an urchin disappearing. But then, a handful of days later, Jack’s sister had seen the very same accompanying none other than Keats himself.
A short ten days later, here he was, apparently paying for his trickery in the cellar, having finally been apprehended.
No one noticed Wyatt coming down the stairs. All backs were turned, including the one getting belted. Their captive was stark naked and covered in grime with patches of bruises darkening along his ribs. His wrists were tied together and hooked over his head so that he was forced onto the balls of his feet. From the looks of it, he’d managed to bear his due reward silently for a not-insignificant length of time. Raised welts crisscrossed from the back of his neck down to his calves. It was plain by the scars on his back that this was not his first beating. Not much of a distinguishing feature around these parts.
Alfred was winding up for what would no doubt be the first lash that drew blood. The rest of the group surveyed from a loose half-circle, some sitting on overturned crates and others leaning against the soot-blackened walls. Wyatt hadn’t been down here in ages, couldn’t say what was in half of the cobwebbed crates stacked in the corners. The air in the cramped space was beginning to smell pungent, cigarette smoke clinging to the ceiling in spite of the open street-level windows.
Wyatt put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs. He waited until Alfred was about to strike. “What’d you find, lads?”
At least one of the men jumped, a few others sat up just a fraction straighter. Alfred let the swing fall short. Only the tail end of the belt met its target, who hissed as another welt rose on his pale flesh.
Wyatt wasn’t the oldest nor was he the longest-standing member. The group operated mostly by consensus but he was indisputably its leader. After all, he had been the one to rescue this house of cards from collapse before they had completely lost control. He’d recast the senior members into roles that didn’t require temperance and recruited younger men to fill the ranks instead. The younger the better, hungry to prove themselves and yet to develop the arrogance and pride that had prevented their predecessors from changing with the times.
They had swiftly replaced brute force and standoffs in broad daylight in favour of subtler methods, refocusing on activities with higher turnovers that required a fraction of the effort and didn’t put them atop wanted lists. Half the city was still under the impression the gang had in fact collapsed and retreated back to the slums.
Alfred turned, face as red as the skin he’d just been beating raw. Either from the strength he was putting behind his arm or from feeling caught. He wasn’t the type to come up with the first idea himself but was always the first to volunteer to carry another’s. “It’s Keats’ spy.”
“We finally caught up with him,” someone else chimed in, making a few others chuckle.
Frankie sauntered over to clap the accused-spy on the shoulder, making him tense. “Just having some fun.”
That earned a few laughs from the audience and the boy ducked his head as if to hide.
Wyatt cleared his throat. “Come on, let us have a look.”
As Frankie made the captive turn on his toes, Wyatt was struck by two things.
The first was the curious wound on the soft side of his hip, looking as though someone had inexplicably carved a piece of meat off him not long ago.
Secondly, and more notably, Wyatt was struck by the fact that this was altogether a different boy.
Part II
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