Play Pretend [Kurtis & Josh drabble]

CW: Yandere whumper, aggressive whumper, carewhumper, kidnapped/captivity, beatings, torture (whipping, not shown only aftermath), implied noncon, emotional and physical abuse, restraints, gags, whump/torture aftercare, wound cleaning, blood mention, adult language (I beg! Let me know if I have missed any!)

----

God forbid, what the poor lad looks like now.

Kurtis paled at the thought of what may have become of Josh. When he first met him, back when he was first taken, there was fire beneath the fear. A determination that defied his pain. But now, Kurtis debated what could be waiting for him on the other side of the door. Whether the boy would be skin and bones…or ashes and dust. It wasn’t an impossibility, was it? Given Felix’s less than shiny track record.

With a four-pack of beer dangling from one hand and a stack of frozen pizza boxes precariously balanced and teetering on the other, Kurtis kicked the door open. Inside, Felix sat alone in shadowed silence, hunched over on the sofa, his head buried in his hands.

“Oi oi,” Kurtis chirped, his voice echoing through the empty room. “Where’s your better half hidin’?”

Felix didn’t bother to look back. 

“Basement.”

His tone was venomous. There was a dangerous stillness to him, a simmering rage bubbling just beneath the surface. Kurtis hesitated, knowing better than to poke the bear. As he edged closer, he noticed a series of deep scratches raking down Felix’s cheek - raw, red and angry.

“I could have fucking killed him, Kurt,” Felix spat, “Look what he fucking did to me.” His finger jabbed towards the inflamed wounds shredding through his face.

Play Pretend - Devil's Night

Masterlist

A lil Halloween drabble for Felix & Josh because why the hell not?! 🦇🎃👻

CW: yandere whumper, creepy/intimate whumper, submissive/compliant whumpee, forced feminisation (clothes), noncon touch, noncon kiss, future noncon/fade to black noncon, restraints, kidnapped, captivity, forced relationship, adult language (let me know if I have missed any! <3)

Josh stares into the grimy bathroom mirror, and the mirror stares back. He looks right through himself, past the unholy phantom posing as his own reflection. Hollow eyes flicker to meet hollow eyes, and Josh feels nothing. A defeated stranger glares back at him, with their ashen and gaunt cheeks, swollen red eyes and split lips drawn into a thin line. A lifeless shell of what used to be a man.

What he truly sees is a toy; a living blow-up doll. His hair, for once, looks glossy and synthetic. His eyes are big, blue and empty. He’s sure that’s what Felix sees in him too - a plaything to bend and break to his every perverted will. A puppet enslaved by its strings, nothing without its master’s control. 

“Taking your precious time, aren’t you, baby?” Felix’s voice calls from the other side of the door. Shivers ripple down Josh's spine, his stomach twists and turns with cold dread. Josh will always try to steal every minute of privacy and savour every second of solitude. He makes no apologies for that.

“Come on now. Chop-chop. Come out and let me see your costume, my darling.”

Josh’s legs give out, and just in time, he catches himself with his sweaty palms gripping the sink. He wouldn’t be caught dead dressed like this. Scarlet shame colours his cheeks. It’s not quite what he had in mind when Felix picked out a Halloween costume for him, but then again, all the more fool him to not expect it. 

Dr. Collins Interlude

A rare third-party POV, this time from the perspective of Grayson's therapist. Consider this the preface to the joint-therapy arc, in the works now.

WARNINGS: Talk of captivity, talk of abuse/noncon, PTSD, referenced suicide attempt

Dr. Collins was twenty-six years old when he began practicing. In the private practice he operated alongside three of his colleagues, he had been the youngest by almost twenty years. For his first few years, he took on the heaviest cases that came through their doors; victims of child abuse and domestic violence. People with PTSD so severe that it impacted their daily functioning.

His older colleagues warned him against fatigue and burnout if he continued to shoulder such an intense workload, but he never once considered backing down. 

Their warnings weren’t baseless. The first few years were hard, and all the more difficult for the fact that he was in a new town, in a new state, without any kind of support system around him. There were a lot of long, lonely nights, and more than one unhealthy coping mechanism he used to shake off the weight of his dark days. 

Things got better, gradually. He made changes. He met the love of his life and married him just after his thirtieth birthday. They bought a home together and filled it with color and life. He learned the meaning of a work-life-balance and watched as his work became more rewarding than it was exhausting. Things got easier. 

He was no longer a young man when Grayson Dawning came into his life, but he was the first client in a very long time that stirred up those long buried fears of inadequacy. 

Dr. Collins knew about him before he met him as a client. It felt like everyone in the country knew. Definitely everyone in the state, and most especially in several-town radius of the church that had launched the disastrous mission. 

After two months of radio silence following the disappearance of the two young missionaries, most everyone began to assume that they would never come home. Dr. Collins had come to believe it, too, as much as he ever allowed himself the space to think about the missing young men.

And then, beyond all hope, word of their rescue reached their town. 

And soon after, Dr. Collins received a call from the pastor of the church, wanting to arrange a long term treatment plan for one of the rescued men. Boys, really. They were so young, still. Dr. Collins had not hesitated to take him on.

He hadn’t known many details, then, about the trauma Grayson and his counterpart had endured in their time away from home. After several months of intensive sessions, he regretted to say that he still didn’t know nearly as much of the story as he should. It seemed that the more he leaned on Grayson to open up, the more he closed in around himself. 

Guilt was the primary emotion Grayson exhibited in their months of sessions. It weighed on him, as if he had been the sole survivor. In some way, he thought Grayson might actually see it in those terms. Their captivity was framed, in his perspective, as something that had happened to Elijah, and something Grayson bore witness to. It was Elijah who was taken. It was Elijah who was tortured. It was Elijah who was raped.  

(There were private doubts Dr. Collins held but didn’t push too hard. There were too many blanks in the story. Certain territories Grayson refused to touch).

It was for this reason that he couldn’t be entirely surprised the night he got the call that Grayson was in the hospital after an attempt. It didn’t mean he felt the impact any less.

Seeing Elijah for the first time in the hospital that day—the trembling young man holding a bouquet of flowers in Grayson’s hospital room doorway—had driven home the idea he had considered pitching to his patient for weeks. 

He could admit that he didn’t know how it would go, putting them together in a session like this for the first time. He had even been a little surprised when both of them agreed to see it through. He wanted to do everything in his power to be worthy of that trust. 

TBC...

****

TAG LIST: @mylifeisonthebookshelf @hold-him-down @distinctlywhumpthing @diyalogues @finder-of-rings 

@dont-touch-my-soup @wicked-whump @scp-1296 @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @melancholy-in-the-morning 

@whumpcereal @reflected-pain  @pigeonwhumps @canislycaon24 @flowersarefreetherapy

@there-will-always-be-blood @whatwhumpcomments @starsick1979 @roblingoblin285 @defire

@3-2-whump 

behavior modification, future snippet #5

Masterlist here. FLUFF. THERE IS FLUFF. And also angst. But please enjoy this flash into the future with Jack, Joe, and their sassafras baby girl, Hallie.

content warnings for memories of abuse, vague descriptions of a bbu-style system, adult language, and tooth-rotting sweetness.

years later, with their child: lucky

Joe knows something is wrong the instant he buckles an overall-clad Hallie into her booster seat; he should have picked up on it earlier, but he was juggling macaroni art and a lunchbox and her naptime blanket. But now he sees. Hallie’s cheeks, still blessedly round with baby fat, are red and streaked with tears. At first, he wonders if she’s been hurt, but then he sees the set of her jaw. These are patented Hallie Prescott-Kenyon Angry Tears. 

“Pumpkin, you’ve got your angry eyes on.”  

Hallie sighs and stares out the window as Joe straightens her harness. Her little chin trembles ever so slightly. “Kaitlyn said something mean.” 

Ah, yes. Kaitlyn. Hallie’s Kindergarten nemesis, and, much to Joe’s chagrin, the child of a pair of WRU higher-ups. Joe knows it’s wrong to punish a child for the sins of the father, but if he’s referred to Kaitlyn Halstrom as “Pol Pot in pigtails,” he’s not going to start feeling badly about it now. Especially not when Hallie’s so clearly upset.

Play Pretend #11 - Dead Ends

Masterlist / Previous

CW: kidnapped whumpee, missing whumpee, search for whumpee, implied panic attack, grief/despair, mention of yandere whumper, sensory deprivation, restraints, gagged/muzzled, conditioning of whumpee, psychological manipulation, adult language (I'm definitely missing some, let me know if any catch you! 💖)

I'd like you all to meet Alec! Josh's best friend since highschool! and love interest 🤫 This one's a little look into what's going on on the outside, and we see how Josh is hanging on too... 😌😘

-

“I’m sorry, the person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later, or leave a message after the tone-”

Voicemail. Again. Alec fights back the surge of nausea as he listens to that cold and robotic voice drone on for the millionth time. It mocks him with empty apologies and faux concern. He can’t bear it anymore. Each and every unanswered call chips away at his already fragile hope. Two weeks, it's been. A whole fortnight and nothing. Nada. Josh has seemingly fallen off the face of the earth, vanished without a trace.

The tone that follows isn’t the usual dull hum, the jarring sound that Alec has grown sickeningly familiar with; so much so that it haunts his sleep. This time, it’s a shrill and insistent whine that echoes the growing pang of panic in his chest. He cradles the phone against his cheek for a beat too long. The following silence is deafening but Alec doesn’t break it. Instead, he hangs up. Dozens of messages already clog Josh’s voicemail box, each one more frantic than the last. What good will one more do? 

The trouble is, Alec can't for the life of him decide at what point his worry is warranted. It's not like this is unusual for Josh. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, radio silence is the norm - it's the ring of the phone that's the anomaly. Days stretching to countless weeks could pass by without so much as a peep. But Josh isn’t one to ever disappear without a heads-up first, and he always resurfaces…eventually.

Not this time. Something is different, something is wrong. Alec can feel it in his gut. It's a nagging - no -  a gnawing feeling that's eating him alive from the inside out. He paces his apartment, the walls closing in on him with each step. His nails are bitten down to the quick. His heart sits heavy in his chest. Images of Josh, hurt or lost, flash through his mind. Is he okay? Fuck. What if something’s happened?! A cold sweat prickles across his skin. Just for the sake of it, he desperately dials Josh's number for one final time.

when a character is referred to as someone else's dog. you agree

Thinking of the “forced to hurt” trope and wondering which OC would be the most disturbed by it if they had to hurt another OC they love (for some inescapable reason)

Joe. Jack would never want to hurt Joe either, but Jack is more guarded whereas Joe’s very tender hearted. He loves deeply, and he knows how badly Jack has been hurt by other people, so the notion that Joe might add to that when he’s promised to protect him—well. Crisis.

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT!

I’ve waited years to be able to finally say this to you—you, specifically, this wonderful group of people who have supported my writing for so long:

My debut novel, A SERIES OF ROOMS, will be available later this year.

On the night of his twenty-first birthday, a domino effect of unfortunate events leads Liam Cassidy to a chance encounter with a stranger: shared refuge in a bar bathroom. For a brief moment in time they hide away in the comfort of commiseration, each with their own reasons for avoiding the party outside the door. When they part ways, Liam expects that to be the end of their story.

He definitely doesn’t expect to find the same stranger waiting in his hotel room that night.

The young man is revealed to be a sex worker, hired without Liam’s consent—a thoughtless joke of a birthday gift from his friends. But it doesn’t take long to realize something nefarious lies behind the boy’s circumstances. Hungry, guarded, and jumping at shadows, it’s clear he is in need of a break, and Liam finds himself in the unique position to grant him one.

Drawn together by their mutual need for escape, the two of them fall into an arrangement of weekly meetings inside the cheapest hotel rooms Chicago has to offer. The encounters are not sexual in nature, but an unexpected intimacy blossoms between them over time.

For one of them, it’s a night of guaranteed safety. For the other, it’s the first real friendship he has ever known.

But soon, the realities that exist outside their secluded series of rooms begin closing in around them, reminding them that they can’t live in a bubble forever.

Shattered #10 - Happy Birthday, August! Part III

Previous / Masterlist

CW: kidnapped whumpee, captivity (kinda/kinda not), defiant whumpee, whumpee thinks caretaker is a whumper, forced to kidnap references, vampire caretaker, threat of violence/death, weapons, adult language (pls let me know if I've forgotten any!)

AND FINALLY! THE LAST PART FOR AUGUST AND LUCAS' BACKSTORY! 🎉 Thank you so much for your guys' patience, with this one - it means everything <3 We resume with our usually scheduled Declan next chapter! 😍 And a mahoosive thank you to @darkthingshappen for her beta and help!

---

August feels like a stranger in his own home. A prisoner in his own home; his sanctuary now nothing more than a gilded cage. He is forever and always a captive of his own compassion and a victim of his cowardice. 

But August curses himself for daring to think like that. It’s unjust to think like that, especially on a night like tonight. The frantic hammering of a human heartbeat upstairs is his bleak reminder that he’s not alone anymore, and yet somehow… he’s never felt more alone in his life. The quiet has never screamed so loud, and the walls stretch to endless empty space around him.

Whumper is a therapist, and uses the therapy sessions to weed out potential whumpees they can kidnap, train/condition, and sell to other whumpers.

The conditioning starts during the therapy sessions, helping that angry whumpee channel through violence so they can become a living weapon.

The patient who feels like they’re not enough starts being told to have hookups and buy sexier clothes so they can become someone’s bedroom partner.

That patient who’s chronically stressed and burnt out is the easiest to condition, and gets sold as a pet fairly quickly.

Does anyone notice how all these missing people have the same therapist?

Do the whumpees ask to go back to their therapist? Do they continue to see their patients after they’re sold to help keep them conditioned?

How much is Whumper charging their patients? How much to they charge the other whumpers?

@demetercabingreen-thumb