Play Pretend #11 - Dead Ends
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... 😌😘
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“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.