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writereleaserepeat · 29 days

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This last month I've been enamored by @sowhumpshaped's interactive whump story, "Stray." It came to a beautiful end just a few days ago, and I was inspired to come out of the woodwork long enough to write a little fanfic. Make sure to go read their story before continuing here! It's a lovely work of art and I had so much fun seeing where it went. I miss the daily updates already!

This story is set twenty years after the main storyline of "Stray," and ten years after total pet liberation. It takes place in I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Disneyworld, and it features our MC (you!) meeting a ghost from their past.

CW: mentions of pet whump, second person POV, swearing

WC: ~2250

You run your tongue along the mountain of sweet vanilla cream, savoring its delicate flavor as it slowly melts in your mouth. With how much this ice cream cost, you were determined to enjoy every moment of its blissful respite from the summer heat. The mouse might know how to mark up its sweets, but it wouldn't steal away your enjoyment of this day, not even with an ice cream cone that cost an arm and a leg.

You're pulled from your thoughts by the sight of the ride coming to a halt beyond the fence. The harnesses begin to release and the children start pouring towards the exit, all smiles and laughters as they rush to find their parents on the other side. Your daughter is easy to spot, a tall girl - god, when did she get so tall? - with a glowing, gap-toothed smile.

Much to your surprise, she comes to greet you with another girl in tow, a child whose face reminds you of someone you can't place, their eyes sparkling with a hint of familiarity. A celebrity, maybe?

You don't have any more time to ponder before your daughter begins talking. She holds the other girl’s hand, a child who couldn’t have been a year older than her, and all but pulls her up to greet you.

"This is Delaney, we were on the ride together! She's so nice," Libby speaks in that same pleading tone you're never able to resist. "Please, please, please can we go to the next ride together?"

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” you say as sympathetically as you can, putting a palm on Libby's head. “We need to ask Delaney’s grown-up first.”

“My dad will say it’s okay,” Delaney says with a vigorous nod, “he’s right over there!”

She points towards a man striding in your direction, his hair long, but his gait familiar. As he brushes the hair from in front of his eyes, you freeze. You know those eyes. You’ll never forget those eyes, even if they’re set deeper in wrinkles now.

The world stops. For one painful moment, you don’t even feel your heart beat. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of your lungs.

But it wasn’t. You draw a breath, a deep breath that pushes hard against your ribs. You’re free. All the pets are free now, and they have been free for ten years. It had been another ten years before that since you’d last seen Rayan.

He recognizes you too, you can tell in the way his jaw slackens, dumbfounded. That glitter of recognition continues as he finally stumbles into earshot and his tongue begins to work.

“Thirt-"

“Not in front of my daughter,” you hiss, leaning in towards his ear as you do so. “Not in front of my fucking daughter.” You keep a smile on your face, only just, so your child doesn’t have to see you fall apart before her eyes.

He seems startled, startled enough to shut up for one moment. But silence had never been his strong suit, you could remember that much, the way he'd ramble on and on after his volunteer shifts. You'd always let him talk - not today. The dynamic had shifted. Today, you look him in the eyes as an equal.

“I’m sorry, I-“

“Papa!” Delaney interjects, cutting Rayan off a second time. “I met this girl on the ride, her name’s Libby, she’s super fun, and super nice, and we want to go on another ride together.” She tugs on Rayan’s arm, but he doesn’t look down.

“Actually,” you say, pulling your daughter close to you, “I think we need to go catch up with Libby’s little brother and my partner.”

“Please?” Libby pleads again, staring at you with those doe eyes that always melt your heart. “Just one ride. It can be this one, we can do it again, we don’t even have to walk anywhere.”

Fuck.

What was almost twenty years of therapy worth if you couldn’t stand next to Rayan for another five minutes? You’d imagined talking to him a thousand times over, you’d thought painstakingly about what you’d say to him if you ever could, you'd prayed to his memory as much as you'd cursed it. But now, all you want is to walk away and never look at him again.

No more running. You'd promised yourself that almost two decades ago, and hell if you couldn't carry through with that promise today, especially with a family that needed you.

“Okay,” you concede, forcing a smile at Libby. She would never see you falter, not now, not ever. “You can ride this same ride one more time, just once, and only if you use your QuickCard to skip the line. We don’t want to get too far behind the rest of the family.”

“Sure,” Rayan says, voice measured. He smiles down at Delaney as well, but you can tell it's forced. “You can go too. Don’t forget, you only have three more taps on your QuickCard.”

“That’s okay!” Delaney chirps, already pulling Libby towards the line. “We’re going to have so much fun!”

And as the girls run in a tangle of limbs and laughter back into the ride's entrance, you’re left alone next to Rayan. The silence weighs heavily on your shoulders, and you feel the ice cream beginning to melt between your fingers. Then it's just you and Rayan, alone.

Not literally alone. You two are the furthest from alone you ever could be, stood next to a swinging steel pirate ship, amidst a park milling with tens of thousands of other people. But you can hardly hear the screams, the voices, the mechanical groans of the rides. Rayan’s presence next to you is suffocating.

You say nothing yet. What is there to say? You’ve said it all a million times before. To the shower walls, to your therapist, to the darkened skies in the early dawn. But none of it had ever compared to what you feel right now.

Something like hope begins to itch in your chest. Maybe this would give you closure, real closure, not the metaphorical closing of a book at the end of a therapy session. You've craved closure for so long. Could Rayan finally be this holy grail?

“I’m sorry,” Rayan says. If you didn’t know better, his voice sounded on the verge of breaking. “I’m sorry for everything.”

His swallow is louder than even the most cacophonous thunderstorm. He continues, tripping over his words, falling over himself with every syllable.

“Look, I was just doing my best. I mean, you were a kid, and I was basically still a kid too, and I was doing what I thought was best, just trying to help, you know? It’s been twenty years and I’ve never forgotten your face. And I mean, look at you now, here with your kids, this is what all the freed pets wanted, isn’t it? The chance to live like this?”

In that moment you know what you need from Rayan. It's what you've needed from him all along, even if you couldn't name it before now.

“Say it,” you mumble, struggling to find your voice. That hope for closure, god, you can feel it, you need it, and-

“What?”

“Say it,” you growl, more firmly this time. “You know what I need you to say.”

“Look, thir- whatever name you chose, I don’t know what you want from me.”

You finally look him in the eyes again.

“Say that I’m a person. Tell me that I’m a person.”

“Of course you are,” Rayan begins, and you watch him hold up his hands as he fights against his tongue's knots. “That’s what the Decree says. All pets had their legal status changed to reflect their unequivocal personhood.”

“That’s not what I asked. I know my pet lib history - likely better than you do. I want you to tell me that I, me, the living being standing in front of you, is a person.”

That nervous look in Rayan’s eyes tells you everything you need to know. The pregnant pause that follows is just painful confirmation. There would be no closure here for you today.

“Pathetic.” It takes all of your strength not to slap him in the face. “Twenty years and you haven’t learned a damn thing. The rest of the world has moved on from that nonsense and you can’t take five seconds to pull your head out of your ass.”

“Look," another swallow as Rayan wrings his hands. “Yeah, it’s been ten years, and still, there’s these studies, right? I'm sure they taught you to read in the, uh, the rehabilitation classes. There's studies that shows the pets that were liberated, they just aren't adapting to society as people do, you know? They don't excel at their jobs, they don't succeed in forming traditional family units, they engage in crime and anti-social behavior at much higher rates..."

You scoff and roll your eyes. All you can feel is the bile thick in your throat. Those studies, those lies, that propaganda, it would never stop. And people like Rayan would never stop feeding on it. You knew this, hell, you taught about it, at your community college's pet lib program. There would always be someone with an interest in the tyranny over 'pets,' be it emotional or financial, and it would succeed as long as people like Rayan were stupid enough to buy it.

"Look," Rayan says, putting his hands on the nearby railing as he looks away from you, "all I'm saying is, if you're a good- as good a soul as I think you are, you'd want what's best for your daughter, right? And, and maybe, well, maybe what's best for your family is how things used to be. You don't know for sure that things are better now. What if you're denying your family the chance to be taken care of, to truly thrive? What if they're not meant to be taken care of by, ah, by something like you?"

For a moment you think about striking him. You think about taking him to the ground, right there in the middle of the theme park, and pummeling him senseless. You want to beat that nonsense right out of his skull.

But that would prove his point, wouldn't it?

No. You know you can't do that. You can't wait for your daughter to come back and see your knuckles bloodied, this stranger choking on his own teeeth, your face contorted into an unfamiliar visage of rage. You weren't going to be a monster.

"You disgust me." The words are stickier than honey on your tongue. "Your vapid platitudes mean nothing. Your saviour complex has kept you stuck in the past while the rest of society is growing and learning from our sins. I'll always be grateful that you dragged me out of the trash that one day, and I'll always be grateful that you kept a roof over my head long enough for me to find my liberation. But I owe you nothing, not now, not ever again. I have my personhood - I always have. It's a shame you aren't using yours for something more meaningful."

You see a flash of pink out of the corner of your eye. Libby was coming back, running hand-in-hand with Delaney, that same joyful smile on her face. The smile of a child who had never seen the tyranny of the system you'd oncee been subdued by. The smile of a child who would learn just how important their personhood was, and always would be.

"Libby, darling, we need to go," you say as she comes within earshot. Your tongue is dry and sticky in your throat, and you need a drink of water. Your partner has water, wherever they are in the park now. You want to go to them now, seek the affirmation of everything you'd built in the time since you'd left Rayan behind all those years ago. You want to feel their comforting touch, something to ground you, to remind you of who you are. Who you've always been.

A good person.

Libby seems to wilt a bit, dejectedly dropping Delaney's hand from her own.

"Aw, but-"

"No buts. It's time to see what your brother is up to, and we have a lot of rides to catch before the day is over."

She pauses for a moment, and you can see her thinking it over. After another second she nods, seemingly convinced.

"Okay, as long as you promise to come on the next roller coaster with me."

"I promise," you say, reaching out a pinkie towards her. She hooks her pinkie in yours, and you take the opportunity to pull her close to you, away from Rayan, and away from the child he will undoubtedly raise to think just like him.

"Bye, Delaney! We're friends forever, okay?" Libby shouts over her shoulder as you begin to walk away.

"Bye Libby! Forever!" Delaney replies, giggling as she waves.

Your eyes meet Rayan's one last time. They're clouded with emotion, his lips pressed in a thin line. In spite of yourself, you smile at him once, and turn away.

"Alright, sweetheart," you speak to your daughter as the door to your past slams shut behind you. "Let's go have some more fun. We've got the whole day ahead of us."

#if you can't tell I wanted to grab rayan through the screen each and every installment #SUCH a good kind of 'caretaker' in these stories #really interesting to see his reactions to stuff like idk biting him #ANYWAY thanks for the cool story love you whump community keep being awesome #whump fanfic #whump #whump community #pet whump #also nobody ask me where the ice cream went #it was all MC was focusing on at the beginning then they ignored it #you still have the ice cream but it's melted all over your fingers it's sticky you're miserable #also if you see an error in tense - no you don't

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writereleaserepeat · 29 days

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putting my OCs in Situations

#hello I am looking respectfully

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writereleaserepeat · 29 days

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I Know You Remember Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stopped that train of thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t know.”

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

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

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

“Did they hurt you in any other ways?”

He nodded again.

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

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

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

Nothing.

“What’s your name?”

“Paulo.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He hurt you a lot, then? Jack?”

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

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

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

Paulo glanced down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You wanna do this next part?”

Paulo didn’t answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you hungry?”

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

“…Are you scared?”

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

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

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

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

He nodded.

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

“To Jack?”

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

“What kind of farm?”

“Horses. You wanna come?”

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

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

Paulo did as he asked.

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

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

“Any sharp pains, anything feel broken?”

“No?”

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

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

“Does this hurt anywhere more than soreness?”

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

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

“I don’t think so.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I said you could.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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writereleaserepeat · 29 days

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Companion, pt. 2

A (slightly delayed) follow up to this chapter. Jaime & Sebastian add another member to their little makeshift household.

WARNINGS: The usual BBU stuff, animal shelter setting, collars, mentions of past foster care, anxiety, but mostly good things happening here.

The animal shelter they chose is in the heart of the city. Their website mentioned that they often deal with overpopulation, since it’s the biggest one in the area, so Sebastian thought they might have the most positive impact by adopting from them. They have a list of available animals with photos that they update daily, but Jaime turned down Sebastian’s offer to look through them.

He doesn’t tell him that swiping through a catalog of strays, deciding their fate behind the comfort of a computer screen, feels too much like how a prospective Keeper might shop for their Companion. How someone once shopped for him.

They make a plan to go on Saturday morning, and Jaime spends the rest of the week quietly stewing in an unnamed anxiety. He doesn’t bring it up—not when Sebastian talks excitedly about pet toys he found online over dinner, not when his nerves cut into his ability to fall asleep at night, and certainly not when he is buckled into the passenger seat, watching the big, yellow bridge that leads into downtown come into view.

The building itself is large but sparse, all cement-gray walls and scuffed floors and signs of age that reflect a probable lack of funding. As they walk through the main hallway, flanked by rows of doors and cages, Jaime thinks that it reminds him a little of the training facility. He keeps that to himself, too.

There is a volunteer—a young woman with her hair in a bun and a stain on her shirt—showing Jaime and Sebastian around.

“The dogs are back this way,” she says. “Green tags on the doors are puppies under six months. Yellow tags mean they can be a little jumpy around people, red equals not good matches for homes with young children. Blue tags mean they’re seniors. Those are usually the ones that have been with us the longest.”

Jaime tries hard not to think about what happens to the senior dogs that overstay their welcome.

“Cats are on this side,” she continues, pointing to her left. “We just ask that you wash your hands if you enter one of the playrooms, and avoid direct contact with any red tags. Any questions?”

Sebastian looks at Jaime, who tenses slightly at the attention but shakes his head.

“I think we’re all good.” Sebastian says.

She smiles. “Just let us know if you have any questions.”

With a nod, they set off down the hall on their own, Jaime sticking close to Sebastian’s heels.

“So,” Sebastian says, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. “Anywhere in particular you want to start? Young? Old? Big? Small?”

Jaime looks around at all the cages, suddenly overwhelmed—by the decision, by the sharp whines and barks for attention, by the closeness of the other prospective adopters, by the sad, watchful eyes of the animals as people pass them by. By the collars fastened around their necks, reminding Jaime of the weight of his own, the visibility of it peeking up through the dip in the sweatshirt neckline. Absently, he touches the warm metal with his fingertips.

Sebastian seems to sense his discomfort, because he eases back. “You know what? Maybe we just take a lap or two and see what happens,” he says. “Maybe there will be an instant connection.”

They start with a black lab with a green tag on his cage door, who instantly jumps up and tries to paw at them when Sebastian sinks into a crouch.

“Well, aren’t you full of energy?” Sebastian’s voice lifts into a high sing-song tone when he speaks to the dogs, and the surprise of it is so endearing that it momentarily pulls Jaime from his inward spiral. “Only five months old,” he says to Jaime.

Against his wishes, memories of a long lost life in foster care rise to the surface. Jaime had been old enough when he entered to know that his chances of finding a family to adopt him were low, and only getting lower with each passing birthday.

“I’m sure she’ll be very popular,” Jaime says.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees, sticking his finger through one of the holes in the grate so that the puppy can sniff him. “You’ll find a home in no time, sweet girl.”

They move past a few more cages, Sebastian seemingly thrilled with the prospect of bringing any one of them home, but Jaime’s anxiety only grows. It’s when they come upon a cage with a golden labrador puppy—one that looks a little too similar to the fading image he has of a puppy from his childhood—that he reaches a breaking point.

He takes a few steps away—not so far as to wander away from Sebastian’s watch, but a couple of doors down the row. Jaime takes slow, deep breaths as he looks down at the sleeping dog in the kennel in front of him, trying to imagine her laying on Sebastian’s living room rug. Trying not to imagine what it might look like to feed her every day, to brush her, to walk her, to love her, and then to leave her behind in six months when Jaime is called back to the facility.

Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind Jaime’s straying, so he allows himself the space, moving slowly along the row of animals. He makes it all the way to the end of the hall when a flash of movement catches his eye. At the corner, secluded away from the glass-walled play rooms, is a singular cage with a black cat inside. The flash of movement he saw, it seems, was the cat’s abrupt recoil from a pair of reaching hands.

“Don’t put your fingers in the cage!” A young mother scolds, grabbing her child’s wrist and pulling him back from the cage. “You’re going to get bit.”

The kid gies a grumble of complaint but moves onto the next door quickly, not sparing a look back at the cage. Jaime watches as the black cat shrinks even further behind a wadded up blanket, pressing herself to the back corner of the cage, where no one can reach. Her bright, green eyes scan the area, back and forth, watching for invaders. She doesn’t look aggressive, Jaime thinks. She looks scared.

Without realizing it, Jaime has taken a step toward the cage. He sees both a blue and a yellow tag on the door and tries to remember what the codes mean. On a small slip of paper at the top of the cage, the name “Bella” is written out in sharpie.

“Hi Bella,” he whispers, barely audible. “You’re okay.”

Slowly, broadcasting the movement as much as he can, he lifts a hand and places the tip of his finger just at the edge of the cage; not enough to intrude the walls of her space, but hopefully enough to be a show of invitation. Bella looks at his finger for a long few seconds, then up at his eyes. Stupidly, Jaime smiles, like it might soften her to him.

“Pretty eyes, right?”

The sudden voice startles him, even more for the fact that it isn’t Sebastian’s. He pulls his hand away like it was burned and turns to find another young woman with a volunteer shirt on.

“Sorry,” he says automatically.

“No need,” she says, then nods her head toward the cage. “I think you’ve got her attention.”

Jaime looks back at the cage and finds that the cat has taken a few steps out from her hiding spot, a curious nose pointed where Jaime’s finger had been. Carefully, darting a quick look at the woman for approval, Jaime lifts his hand again. This time, the cat only stares at it for a few seconds before she bumps her nose against his skin. A breath of a laugh startles out of him.

“That’s the most contact she’s had with anyone on her own terms,” the girl says. “She must like you.”

“Can I ask…?” Jaime starts then hesitates. The woman's gaze dips, almost unwittingly, to Jaime’s throat. He watches something flash across her expression before she schools it with a neutral look.

“You can ask me,” she tells him.

“Why is she in a cage by herself? Away from the other cats?”

“She’s FIV+.”

Jaime glances back at the cat. “She’s sick?”

The woman nods. “It’s an immunodeficiency virus. There’s no cure for it, but it’s entirely possible for cats to live full, happy lives with it. But it’s best that she goes to a home with no other cats.”

“I think he… My…” Jaime clears his throat. “I think he is looking for a dog.”

She presses her lips into a thin line. “I see.”

As if summoned, Sebastian appears at his shoulder. “Oh, look at this cutie!”

Jaime tries to conceal his startled jump. “Her name is Bella,” he says quietly.

“Look at her,” Sebastian croons, crouching beside the cage but not attempting to make contact. “She’s a love bug.”

“She’s actually quite shy,” the woman says, taking the smallest nudge of a step in front of Jaime to stand between them. “I was just telling him how he must be special to win her over so quickly.”

Sebastian’s first instinct is to shoot Jaime a smile. He stands slowly, knees cracking, and says, “I can’t say I’m surprised.” Then, to Jaime, he adds, “I didn’t know you were a cat person.”

“I’ve never had one,” he says honestly.

“Hmm.” Sebastian turns back toward the cat, studying her for a few long seconds before he says, “Do you like her?”

Jaime blinks, letting his hand slowly drop to his side. In his periphery, he sees Bella raise a paw to tap impatiently against the cage wall.

“I…” He looks to the cat, to the volunteer, and back at Sebastian. “Yes.”

Sebastian nods, once, decisively, then turns to the volunteer. “We’ll take her.”

There’s a moment’s pause. They both turn to him, surprised. “I… I thought you wanted a dog,” Jaime says.

He shrugs. “I think Bella has made the decision for us, really.” He nods toward where she is still perched at the edge of the cage, nuzzling against the bars to reach Jaime. “I mean, look at her. It’s out of our hands.”

He is fawning over the cat—who has decided to regard him with a look of skeptical displeasure—but Jaime only has eyes for Sebastian. He blinks up at him, trying to tame the spread of warmth in his chest. “Really?” he asks.

Sebastian gives an uncertain smile, one that Jaime is becoming more and more familiar with. “Is that okay with you?”

Jaime swallows tightly, lowering his voice. “You’ll keep her?” he asks, trying to ignore the inquisitive glance from the volunteer. “Even when I’m gone?”

It looks like there’s a lot more that Sebastian wants to say, but in their present company, he only meets Jaime’s eyes and says, “Yes. Of course”

Jaime breathes out and gives a single, decisive nod.

“Alright then,” the woman breaks the silence after a few tense moments. “Let’s get the paperwork started.”

***

On the way home, Sebastian drives carefully enough that his knuckles go white around the steering wheel, trying to avoid every bump and crack in the road. Jaime is in the backseat, which is an arrangement Sebastian normally wouldn’t prefer, but it’s only because he wants to be able to sit next to Bella’s carrier.

He casts a glance in the rearview mirror to see Jaime gently running the back of his finger against the mesh wall, ducking his head so he can peek inside.

“What should we name her?” Sebastian asks, almost regretting breaking the moment of reverence.

Jaime sits up, meeting his eyes in the mirror. A dip of confusion forms between his brows. “You don’t like the name Bella?”

“Oh.” Sebastian blinks. “I—no, it’s cute. I like it. Just… I think most of the time the names they’re given in the shelter are temporary things? People usually change them to whatever they want when they bring them home.”

Jaime is quiet long enough to make Seabstian think maybe he’s stepped in something he didn’t mean to. Then, he asks, “Do you think she had a name before the shelter?”

Sebastian shrugs. “They didn’t know much about her history. If she was a stray her whole life, I guess she probably didn’t.”

He looks back down at the carrier, continuing the slow, soothing motion of his finger. “I’m okay with whatever name you decide for her,” he says, and Seabstian can’t help but hear a bit of dejection slip through.

The pieces connect, and Sebastian considers the kind of weight a name might carry for someone who has had his stolen.

Sebastian tightens his grip on the steering wheel, keeping his voice as even as he can. “No, I think you’re right,” he says. “Bella suits her just fine.”

****

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