#natalie yoder: here to help the rescues

[boxboysandotherwhump]

Sam and Dee arrive at Nat‘s house

Nat and Jake belong to the wonderful @ashintheairlikesnow and this Drabble takes place right after the sweet gift she wrote me.

Taglist: @ashintheairlikesnow @vickytokio @thefancydoughnut @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @redwingedwhump @finder-of-rings @malcolmisthebrightestboy

CW: negative body image regarding scars,

The night air chilled Dee‘s flushed cheeks as he stepped out onto the parking lot of the doctors office. He felt the asphalt through the thin soles of his sneakers, hard and coarse, ready to skin a knee, scrape open hands.

He’d prefer a bleeding knee over the burning emberassment of having his scars inspected, touched and prodded for knots, the emptiness of his eyesocked explored like some disgusting cave inbetween the ridges and valleys of his face. But his implant was firmly back in place now, professionally cleaned by Doktor Masood and he and Sam had been right, it did feel better. The world was sharp again, the cars headlights cutting through the darkness in stark blinding contrast. Blinking, Dee folded himself into the backseat of Nats car, one hand gripping Sam‘s.

���So,“ Sam started, squeezing Dee‘s fingers while the engine clicked on „We get some cozy cot at your place and then, what?“

Nats patient smile reflected in the rearview mirror, as she took a left turn. „You get a place to rest and the help you need to build a new life. Or find yourselves again. However long that may take.“

Sam‘s nose scrunched up, lips pulling back halfway between and a grin and a sneer. Tapping his thumb against Dee‘s palm he whispered: „Gotcha. First one found. Task half down.“

Dee couldn’t help but smile back, swallowing the tiny chuckle tickling up his throat back down.

„It‘s not a task.“ Nats gentle correction was cut off by a mighty yawn. Her nose wrinkled and she blinked a few times, eyes fixed on the road. Her lips parted, ready to clarify whatever she wanted them to understand.

„Yeah, yeah.“ Sam brushed her off, scowling out the window, muttering. „Task or trade, whatever. We‘ll see what it’s gonna cost.“

Rubbing Sam‘s small warm fingers, Dee leaned over, eyes fixing Nat and that Jake fella through the mirror as he whispered. „I think, they mean it.“

Big green eyes snapped up to him, glowing under furrowed brows. Sam hissed back: „What‘s got you so dewy-eyed all of a sudden?“

„I-,“ Dee sputtered, taken aback by Sam‘s anger suddenly thrown his way. His mouth snapped shut again, his eyes down to their intertwined hands.

„Hey.“ Sam didn‘t let the silence linger, twisting in his seatbelt until his shoulder nudged Dee‘s arm. „Sorry. I- I just don‘t get how your so damn calm, with these strangers sticking their noses into our business like some starving dogs-“, wincing Sam cut himself off but Dee just smiled. A bit bashful he confessed: „M not sure. Just, uhm, gut feeling, I guess.“

„Gut feeling?“ Sam echoed in a half incredulous whisper, searching Dee‘s eyes. Finding nothing but calm faith, he dropped back into his seat with a huff. „Fine, have it your way. Accessing danger is your expertise.“

The handlers had beaten that into him thoroughly enough.

Jake‘s eyes met Dee‘s, crinkling around a smile. Dee returned it, watching Jake‘s hands lay loose in his lap. It were big hands, colluesed, tiny scars intersected the thin skin over prominent knuckles. It were workers hands, fighters hands. Dee wouldn‘t let them out of his sight.

The car pulled up next to an old house, it lay nearly as silent as all the other houses in the neighborhood, with a small but well loved porch and all it’s windows dark but for the upper right one. A shock of red hair ducked out of view and the window went dark.

Next to Dee, Jake sight, warm bemused eyes looking up. „How‘s he not dead asleep after yesterday?“

„What was yesterday?“ Sam fixed Jake with a stare, distilling all the questions ping-ponging around his and Dee‘s head into one.

Why would he be? What happened? What did you do? What do you do with pets, behind closed doors? What will you do to us?

„We were out in the park and went absolutely ham on the new sports Parcour there. Just, moving for hours on end. I‘d collapse after ten minutes.“ Jake dug out a pair of keys from his jacket pocket, a hint of mirth seeping into his voice. „Or fall right off those monkey bars.“

Dee doubted that, judging by the hint of biceps visible even under Jakes jacket. Sam rolling his eyes behind Jakes back and flexing his own skinny arm, told him he thought the same.

Dee and Sam still lingered a little in front of the door, a door without bars, made of wood weak enough to break through if you barreled into it, when Nat gestured them to come inside.

„Welcome to my house.“

[ashintheairlikesnow]

🫂 Comforting hugs

i‘d sell my firstborn for this trope

"Chris? Chris, honey, where'd you go?" Nat tells herself not to worry. The newest of her household of runaways never goes far, but he isn't in the yard and he's not in his room and he isn't answering her voice. She swallows, hard, checking the linen closet, where he sometimes hides - nothing. She tries the bathroom - door is open, nobody's inside.

She sighs, worrying her long brown braid between her hands. His lunch is downstairs getting cold, and no one has seen him in at least two hours. Jake's at class, or he'd be tearing the house apart the way he does when Chris might be in danger.

Jake has never shaken off the way it felt to leave Chris behind during the raid, hope he'd still be there. She's not sure he really will - her first raid shook her up, too, and some part of her is always braced for the next one.

She finally decides to head back up to her bedroom in the attic, where she can grab her cell phone and just... give up and ask Jake to come back.

Chris always answers Jake, even if he's deep inside himself.

She climbs the attic ladder and comes to a stop just before her bed.

Chris is already sitting there, in the only place she hadn't thought to look. He rocks back and forth, shaking his head in a way that isn't in response to anything, just chasing the stimuli of his soft hair against his cheek, the way the air moves over his skin. His fingers twist and turn at a plastic pendant they've bought him to chew on. Now, he just pulls it on way and then the other, turns it upside down, runs his fingers over it.

"Chris?"

He doesn't react to her, but his cheeks are red and she can see light moving off wet tracks from eye to jaw.

"Chris... you okay, honey?"

His mouth moves. Maybe he's trying to answer her, but nothing comes out except wordless sounds, a sort of 'ah ah ah'. Nat presses her lips together, trying to think, and then steps slowly forward.

"Hey... hey, honey. It's okay. Can I-... can I touch?" He doesn't react, but she decides to give it a try regardless. If he pulls back, she'll step away, sit over at her computer and just... be with him. If he flinches, she won't touch until he's ready.

He doesn't answer. Maybe he can't. But after a moment, he flings himself forwards and throws his arms around her, holding so tightly to her waist that it hurts. Nat's hands fly up in surprise, but then she drops her hands to rub his back, leaning over him. His head presses against her stomach, and she can feel the low vibration of his continued 'ah ah ah' somewhere deep inside herself.

"It's okay," She whispers, running fingers through his hair, again and again. His trembling starts to settle, after a second. She closes her eyes and listens to the way his breathing slowly starts to settle. "I'm not sure what's wrong, but it's okay, Chris. I've got you. I've got you, honey."

He can't tell her what's in his head, not right now. But he came up the ladder looking for her, she's sure of it. He needed someone to keep their arms around him and pull him back to earth.

She manages to finagle her way into sitting beside him, although he won't let go of her. She rests her chin on top of his copper-red hair, and breathes slowly.

All she can do is hold him, and hope it's enough.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"Hey! Spit that out!"

"Hey! Hey, what do you have-... don't you run away from me, what do you fucking have-"

An orange and white blur goes flying through the room and Nat looks up, slightly wide-eyed, as Jameson comes right after. He only needs one crutch today to chase Trash Cat down - that's a good sign, he must be feeling good - and she watches him move with fluid speed and ease, hiding her smile.

He must catch her, because Nat hears his rasping voice scolding but never harsh enough to seem sincere. "I said show me what you fucking have-... That's not even food, damn it, hey! Don't you-... Hey! Spit that out!"

A thump and then quick patter of paws tells Nat the wily former stray has twisted out of her owner's arms and taken off again. "What's she got?" Nat calls, lifting her coffee to her lips, hiding her smile.

There's a pause.

"One of your goddamn bracelets!"

Nat's smile disappears.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Nat keeps her voice low and calm, refusing to be baited into the anger he wants to see. Jameson sits across the table from her, glaring daggers down at the scratched, scuffed, solid old wood.

"Then what did you fucking mean, then?" He asks, and under the hostility, she can hear the hint of something far more vulnerable he's afraid to show. "Huh? What did you fucking mean?"

"I meant," Nat says gently, "That Jake was thinking of the others in the house and of himself, but not necessarily extending that to thinking of you. He wasn't trying to say you're dangerous, Jameson-"

"But I am. Right? I am dangerous, that's why I can't go back, can't be-... I wasn't really part of the house anyway, but-"

"Yes, you were, honey, I swear-"

"I fucking wasn't." He snorts and pushes himself to his feet. Nat catches herself before she jerks forwards when one of his knees threatens to give out, nearly refuses to hold him, but he catches himself first. And he'll hate her if she acts like he can't catch himself. "I get it. I'm not part of any-fucking-thing."

"You're part of my house," Nat says quietly, but firmly. She stays in her seat. She isn't a threat to him, she keeps her hands visible on top of the table. "Do you hear me, Jameson? You're part of my house."

"It sucks," He snaps back, not even hearing her, pulling into himself. His shoulders hunch as he stalks away from her, headed for the stairs. "You know? I didn't want to be this way, and i get punished because-... because I didn't die when he did, that's all. Over and over and over again, I'm the asshole who gets all the bullshit because I didn't just lay down and fucking die."

He stomps up the stairs and she watches him go, then slowly lowers her head into her hands.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"Hello, Ms. Yoder. This is Christopher Wickham, you don't know me but I, I, I heard of through some mutual.....some mutual friends. I um, I run a, a, a non-profit medical, medical organization and I was wondering if you could….um….if you could use some donations? I have some mobility aids, um, wheelchairs and canes and, and crutches I could donate if anyone ne-eds them. I know how expensive those can be. Please let me know. Or if there's, there's another way I can, can help or….something e-e-else you need. Thank you. Bye."

*gasp* @for-the-love-of-angst Wickham love of my life

for @amonthofwhump's 12 Days of Whump Day Ten: Christmas Lights

-

Jameson comes down the stairs one foot at a time, and Nat sits on the couch with her coffee cup steaming, peppermint and chocolate scent filling the air. She's cross-legged, wearing loose soft pajama pants and a sweater, hair already braided down her back.

She listens to his careful movements - one step, pause, second step, pause. She can close her eyes and picture his hand on the railing, keeping himself balanced.

"I made coffee," She announces when he's close enough, and he answers her with little more than a grunt of acknowledgement. She turns her head and catches a glimpse of his back, a little hunched, as he half-shuffles into the kitchen. He's only wearing his sleeping pants, and the scars layered over each other on his back would be painful to look at if she hadn't seen them on other runaways a dozen other times.

She sees the limp, the way one of his legs refuses to fully straighten out, and exhales, slowly, then turns to look at the Christmas tree. The lights sparkle and glow, reflecting against the corner window she always puts the tree right up against. The ornaments are a chaotic mishmash of things she's picked up and stuff the rescues themselves have made and added.

Chris's angel sits on top of the tree, peacefully smiling. Just below it, the cardinal ornament he insists always goes right by the angel. They're the same, the said once, and she didn't question.

She never questions.

Not even when Kauri stole an ornament from the tree of a man he went home with only to discover he was married with kids, and Kauri had shown up on Nat's doorstep with a painted horse ornament she learned late cost more than seventy dollars that the guy's wife had given Kauri when she came home early and found them together.

She said she doesn't need it any longer, Kauri had said with a shrug. Four days later there had been an announcement in the paper of a music producer whose life was falling apart and Kauri had pointed to a photo of the man ducking, trying to hide his face. That's him.

She's got that ornament hung right there in the window on the backside of the tree, where it's visible to the neighborhood.

There's the soft thumping of paws, and Nat listens with a secret smile entirely for herself as Jameson's odd and utterly devoted little cat follows him. The shaking sound of food in the little measuring cup, the muffled clink as it pours into Trash Cat's little bowl. It's white and ceramic and has a paw print in it.

She'd taken Jameson to the pet store herself and told him to pick out anything he wanted.

Trash Cat has her own stocking, here, ordered online from a woman in England when Jameson came to stay. It has her name on it and a pattern of Trash Cat's own face. It's stuffed full to bursting with all the cat toys and treats Jameson had been able to fit in his arms.

He has a stocking, too. So does Nat.

She's got them for Chris, Kauri, Krista, Antoni, and Jake, too. For all her people who were running from the life they knew to start a new one, and found her along the way. For all of them who decided to keep her.

Trash Cat's snuffling eating is audible even in here and Nat closes her eyes, sipping coffee hot and sweet and milky, the mug warm against her palms but not quite hot enough to be painful.

She hears Jameson's shuffling steps again, his soft limp, and looks up as he enters the doorway and freezes. He stares, openly, at what he sees. "Wh-what's-... what's that shit?"

"They're yours," Nat says, gently, encouraging. "If you want them."

Resting at an angle against the wall next to the three is a set of forearm crutches, painted titanium with a dark blue sheen that glitters with the reflection of the Christmas lights, black plastic braces for the forearms and a black grip for his hands. She's wrapped them in Christmas lights, too, a strand for each one.

Wrapping paper had seemed maybe overdoing it a little.

"Okay, but-... but what the fuck are they?"

"Crutches, for walking. We had someone donate mobility aids, and I thought these looked like you. There's a wheelchair coming, too. Well, about eleven wheelchairs, but one of them I've got earmarked for you."

Jameson leans against the doorway, taking the weight off one leg unconsciously, and she watches it bend at the knee. He doesn't even know it happens, and he won't know until he tries to put his weight on it again in a second. If he remembers in time, he'll put it down carefully. If he doesn't, he'll trip and fall and they'll both pretend he didn't, because he'd rather hurt than ask for help.

"A wheelchair?" His tone is a little doubtful, uncertain. Almost vulnerable... almost.

Nat spent years tangling with Kauri's terror of needing help - Jameson's is nothing new. "A wheelchair," she confirms. Then adds, "It's green, if that helps."

He swallows. "It, uh... might. Actually. These are... mine? These crutches?"

"They are. I thought you could try them out, get some practice, and maybe take your friend out somewhere once you get the hang of them."

His head whips around to meet her eyes, and Nat only smiles at him.

"I think Allyn might like that, don't you?"

His eyes search her face, looking for mockery and finding none. Finally, he relaxes, slowly unbends one knee, and makes his limping way across the room, picking up one crutch and beginning to slowly unwind the string of lights. "Yeah," He says, hoarse voice gruff. "They fuckin' would. But it's not like I could fucking take them anywhere-"

"You sure can."

He frowns at her, but she points at his stocking. J A ME S O N, it reads, with a bottle of the namesake liquor embroidered on the front. He can't quite pretend he's not smiling at the sight of it, but he hides it with a cough into one fist. "I don't know why you're pointing that shit out to me, Nat."

"Because that damn things is stuffed absolutely full of gift cards. I get them donated by the truckload, ten dollars here, fifteen there. Bunch of local businesses want to show support without it being traceable, they give me gift cards. And you'll find you can pick just about any place in town that's safe for us, and there's a card in there. And if it won't cover the cost... I'll make up the rest."

He looks away, glaring out the window, past the reflection of the lights into the dark, as he starts unwinding lights from the other crutch. "Why?"

"Because you want to take them somewhere." Nat shrugs, casual as can be, drinking her coffee as he takes the crutches away from the wall and fits them around his forearms, testing out the weight, moving across the room.

"Yeah, but you don't-... you don't have to-... I tried to fucking kill the big guy, and you're giving me gift cards and crutches and telling me to go on a fucking date?"

"Yeah. I am." Nat leans back. Trash Cat saunters into the room, over to Jameson, and winds around his legs with a happy chirp before eyeballing the tree. "Don't you dare," Nat warns her, and she flicks her tail Nat's direction and trots over to the cat perch they bought at the pet store and leaps up to the top, settling herself into a happy loaf. "Yeah, that's what I thought. No climbing my tree."

Another twitch of the tail is the only reply she gets.

"But-" Jameson starts.

She holds up a hand. "No buts, no fighting, no arguments." Her voice is prim. "Merry Christmas, kiddo."

"I'm not your fucking kid."

"Aren't you?" Nat raises her eyebrows. Jameson stares at her, but then his scowl is supremely half-hearted, and he has to look at the floor to avoid smiling too wide. She watches the way his mouth shifts, half-cocked, the scar pulling it further to one side than the other.

"Yeah, whatever." He uses the crutches gingerly, moving to the cat perch, leaning over. Trash Cat cranes her neck out, and their noses, briefly, brush. "Um. Thanks, I guess."

It's the best she'll get.

She'll take it.

Nat smiles, covering a yawn up with one hand. "Yeah. Just try not to do any more attempted murder after this, okay? Promise? Or at least try to attempt to murder someone I don't like so damn much?"

He laughs, at that - and it's a sound she's never heard from him, this sort of laughter, open and free. He's not guarded, for just a second, and it makes him look years younger than he is.

"Yeah, yeah, Scout's fuckin' honor. I'll only murder people who deserve it next time. There's your Christmas present from me."

"I'll take it."

She turns on the morning news, and he whispers something to Trash Cat, and they settle into their early morning routine.

But she catches him using one of the crutches when he goes into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee, taking the weight off the knee that's been hurting him worse.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @raigash @whump-tr0pes @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @thefancydoughnut @outofangband @justabitofwhump @downriver914 @newandfiguringitout @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @oops-its-whump @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @burtlederp @hackles-up @mylifeisonthebookshelf @thecyrulik @wingedwhump @writingbackwards @butwhatifyouwrite @wildfaewhump @endless-whump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I'm sending ing you a happy prompt to hopefully spend the vibe.

It was the first time Nats ever seen Vince truly smile wide.

It's the first time she's ever even seen the movie star who's been writing her checks smile in a way that didn't seem like just another performance.

"My parents grew up in the Midwest, actually," Vince says, eyeballing the steak she's put on a plate in front of him. "I was born there, before we moved out here for acting after I got that commercial. But I was never this Midwestern. What is this, well-done? That's a crime, Ms. Yoder."

"Just Nat, please, and no, I made yours... medium? Medium-well? I don't know. Look, if it's too dry, you can use steak sauce, I always have steak sauce."

Vince laughs, and the way he laughs in front of her is totally different than how he laughs in every movie he's ever made. She leans her cheek on one hand, wondering just how much of him is artifice, and how much of the person beneath is still around. If he's more like the runaways she cares for than he thinks he is.

"Nat. If you need steak sauce, it's already too dry."

[ashintheairlikesnow]

📚 with an early chris and nat?

Nat flinches back as Chris lets out a scream of frustration and throws the book across the room. It smacks into the wall and drops to the ground, open to a random page, the oversized letters easily readable even from this far away.

Easily readable for her, anyway.

"I, I don't want to do this anymore!" He snaps, shaking his head, rocking almost violently forward and back, forward and back. Nat takes a breath, trying to decide what to do - hug him? Wait it out? Sometimes a hug helps, sometimes it makes things worse. Waiting might just mean Chris cycling down into his self-hatred again, or it might give him time to calm and get through it on his own.

She settles for getting to her feet, with a slight groan as her knees protest, and walking over to pick the book up. "Chris-"

"It, it, it it it hurts! It hurts and it's, I'm too, I'm never gonna read again and I shouldn't even try, I, I I I'm too fucking stupid to read!"

He smacks his hands into the floor, and Nat holds the book, running her own hands back and forth over the slightly shiny cover of the book. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she should have known better - in retrospect, it was a hard day for Chris right from the start. Waking from a nightmare, struggling with leaving his room, getting overwhelmed when the roadwork guys had gone down the road - and then something about lunch had been wrong, but he hadn't been able to say what...

"Chris, it's okay," She says, softly, and takes a seat on the couch. "It's okay. We can stop for now, all right? We can try again later."

He looks up at her, eyes red-rimmed with tears, wiping almost viciously at them with the back of one hand. "I'm too-... they they they made me too stupid to read," He says, and the awful misery of his voice cracks her heart in two. "They hurt me and I can't-... I can't do it and I want to get better, but-... but but but I can't, I can't get better-"

"You can. You can, Chris, and you will. But there's no deadline, you don't have to hurry." Nat sighs, and then looks down at the book, thinking. "Would you like me to read to you for a while?"

He goes quiet, sitting in sullen silence for a few seconds, and then gets to his feet, moving across the room and flopping dramatically onto the couch next to her. "Yes," He says, in a low voice, his hair hanging over his eyes. "Please."

"No problem. Let's just take some deep breaths." She opens the book and starts to read from the spot they'd left off, keeping her voice low, a soft soothing near-monotone.

At first, Chris sits with his knees pulled up, forehead resting against them, humming soft and rocking. The humming comes to a stop, until Nat's voice is the only thing in the room, and then finally the rocking stops, too.

When he leans slowly over until his head rests against her, Nat never misses a beat. She keeps reading, even as she slides an arm around his shoulder and holds him.

"I'm, I'm I'm-I'm sorry," he says, in a voice so small she can barely hear him.

Nat places her finger on the last word she had read to mark her place, and turns, resting her cheek against the top of his head. "It's okay. Hard days are a part of living, Chris. I understand. It's okay."

"Are you-... are are are you mad at me, for throwing the, um, the book?"

"No, honey. But can we try again tomorrow?"

He nods, closing his eyes.

Nat starts reading again, and feels the tension in his body very slowly relaxing.

Maybe tomorrow will be better all around.

Chris has so many good days, it's not such a big deal to roll with the bad ones.

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

[ashintheairlikesnow]

jake and nat having to work as a team to hold him still and get ear drops in, and attempt to calm him down at the same time...

CW: Medical whump/ear infection, trauma response

"Come on, little man, let's just move this hand-" Jake frowns. For as skinny as he is, the newest little rescue is surprisingly strong, too, and his hand stays clamped palm-down against his ear as he shakes his head almost violently, kicking out and catching Jake in the hip, sending him staggering back with a grunt of pain.

"No," Chris whimpers, shaking his head again, shoving himself back into the corner of the living room as far from them as he can get, wedged between the sofa and the wall. "I don't, don't, don't want it!"

"Shit," Nat mutters, raking a hand back through her hair before she remembers it's in its usual braid, catching and accidentally pulling out some of the silvering brown strands that fall to frame her face. "He's really not going to go for this, is he?"

"He didn't act like this about the fucking tylenol-"

"Liquid tylenol he swallowed, not an ear drop into his ear," Nat says, sounding as exhausted as she looks. "He has to take the drops, Dr. Masood was very insistent."

Chris starts to hum, softly, soothing himself with the low tuneless sound, rocking back and forth.

"It could get better on its own, right?" Jake feels a stab of guilt at being willing to just let Chris hurt, but if he won't take the damn meds...

"Normally, yes. But his immune system is a wreck from WRU and wherever he lived after, he's got nothing to fight it off with. He's had that pain for... what, weeks now? And it keeps getting worse. He needs the drops."

"So what do we do? Count to five and grab him? Just... push him down on the couch and get the drops in?" His stomach twists in disgust and revulsion at the thought.

Nat stares at the top of Chris's head just peeking up above the arm of the sofa. "That'll undermine the trust we've built, Jake. Trust is immensely important. He needs to feel safe here. We... God. You've got to go to class. So go on. I'll stay here with him." She holds out her hand. "I'll talk to him and see if I can talk him into it."

Jake hesitates, then hands the little bottle over to her. "What if you can't?"

"Then we count to five and grab him. But I think I can. He's a good kid, he's just scared. Honestly, who knows what they put in them at WRU, I was never-... informed about anything that detailed. Go on." She waves a hand in dismissal.

Jake takes a breath, then nods and walks away, closing his eyes. He hates to leave Chris, hurting and sick. But he can't just stand here staring at him all day while he refuses the one thing that will help.

Nat settles onto the floor, groaning as her knees crack and remind her she isn't young enough to do this all the time any longer. "Okay, Chris, it's time to get you feeling better," She says, gently, but pitching her voice loud enough to carry over his humming.

Chris shakes his head again, but he's listening, because he says, "H-hurts, hurts going in, cold, it hurts."

"I know. But it'll help, honey, I promise."

He keeps shaking his head and presses his face into the side of the couch.

Nat glances up to see Jake walking down the sidewalk to catch the bus. She sighs. "Well. I guess we both have all day."

[ashintheairlikesnow]

“The knife slipped cutting carrots.”

Five word sentence prompt

Vampire Chris AU

"He was cutting carrots and the knife slipped." Jake keeps his voice low. He and Nat stand in the doorway, looking into the small dark room.

Chris is curled around a blood pack in the corner, all but gnawing the corner open to get at the liquid inside. The whole room smelled a little bloody now, and it made Jake's stomach flip.

"If I hadn't been close enough to grab him, he'd've been on Ant like a zombie in a Romero movie."

"So, slowly and inefficiently?"

"What?"

Nat shakes her head with a slight smile. "Never mind. We'll have to keep an even closer eye on him. Maybe keep him in his room as much as possible."

Jake exhales, slowly raking fingers back through his hair. "If we lock him up, are we any better than whoever had him before?"

"Well, we're not using him as a walking quaalude, so..." Nat trails off. "Still. No, yeah, you've got a point. I'm not sure we can give Chris his freedom and still keep everyone else safe."

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know. But I don't know if we can keep him here."

Through it all, Chris sucks on the end of the blood pack, eyes on the evening sky outside his window, never even showing a second's awareness of their conversation.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Nat and the House: Jameson

CW: Pet whump survivor, collar mentions, references to past pet whump, referenced ptsd flashbacks

Jake Gets Stabbed: First Second Third Fourth

“Okay, well. Here we are.” Nat opens the door for him, swinging back the heavy wood and stepping inside. The sun is warm on his back, but it drops away into a chill as he steps inside. His eyes shift back and forth, trying to bury his curiosity under a tight jaw and narrowed eyes.

The house is big, although not as big as Jake Stanton’s. It’s old, and creaky, and feels alive in a way that newer houses don’t. It’s a place that has seen so many lives move through its halls, felt so many hands on doorknobs and walls, that it’s taken in some of each person who has slept here. They’ve left something behind, and it’s the breath inside the house.

It’s the whisper of air against the back of his neck, slightly chilled, that tells him that a hundred voices have bounced off these walls, with their own pain and fear, long before his added to the chorus. 

Jameson swallows, lingering in the doorway and staring ahead at a carpeted staircase that winds up and disappears around a 90-degree turn, at the coat closet just beside it. There’s a built-in shelf on the landing he can see the bottom half of, lined with photographs in small cheap dollar-store frames. 

Off to one side of the entryway, there’s a big double-door-sized opening into a gigantic living room - to the other side, a dining room with a large table covered in boxes, paperwork, books, and some flannels hung from an empty china cabinet, looking still damp, drying. Beyond that, a small kitchen, he can just see the corner of the oven.

This is a house with breath. This is a house with a voice.

The house tastes like a crackling fire, the mix of heated air and chilled, melted marshmallows inside s’mores, the crunch of graham cracker and chocolate bar underneath. 

This is a good house.

“Sorry,” Natalie Yoder says over one shoulder, moving ahead of him to flick a light switch. Jameson flinches, just a little, when a warm yellow bulb inside a false chandelier lights above his head. Her braid thumps against her back, a deep chocolate brown with strips of silvery white running through it. “I haven’t had anyone here in a long time, so the house is a mess. Just me these days.”

He nods, even though she can’t see him. Natalie Yoder has a good voice, too, it’s full and warm, it tastes like hot chocolate, the kind that goes light on the sugar and is just a little bitter and spiced with cinnamon. Her voice feels smooth on his tongue. He can trust people who taste like this, he thinks, and he takes another step inside.

“H-How… how long?” His voice croaks a little, it rasps. Long-term damage to his vocal chords, they said, from screaming so often for so long. 

She stops and looks back at him, and there’s a gentleness in her tempered by the steel he’s already seen. She gives him a slight smile. “Long enough to speak to Dr. Berger, get you on your meds, and give them time to settle in your system. Could be a month or two to figure out exactly what’s going to work for you. Then see what happens with a couple of controlled interactions.”

He nods again. She speaks like an expert - she is the expert, he guesses, because she’s seen a hundred people like him in her life and Jameson has only ever known himself. 

Not that he’s even sure he knows himself that well, most days.

He has his collar on, buckled tightly around his neck, a comfortable constriction. A reminder that he isn’t in control, someone else is, and what happens from here isn’t his fault. It’s not his responsibility, because a pet can’t be responsible for anything.

He left Jake Stanton lying on a couch’s pull-out bed because he can’t go up the stairs, pale and unconscious, and he left Allyn crying in their shared room, curled up in the closet, running their fingers over the names that Jameson carved into the wall there.

He lost control, for just a minute, of where he was and who was with him, and now…

He’s safer with the collar on.

He’s safer, controlled.

They were right - he can’t do this on his own, and he never could. 

“You can choose whichever room you like, except that I keep Chris’s room for when he stays over just the same, so not that one. But there’s another three bedrooms you can use.” Nat smiles at him, moving to the stairs and gesturing for him to follow.

They creak under his feet, and the house is speaking to him, whispering here, you’re here, you’re here now in bursts of smoke on his tongue and sweet just after. He licks at his lips, looking down at ancient brown carpeting there, almost long enough to be shag.

For just a second, he sees a flicker of a bright red shag carpet in a large shared loft bedroom, a face very like his own but older, laughing as they threw balled up pieces of paper at each other. Sparkling brown eyes-

Gone-

Jameson shivers and the moment is lost, and he lets it go happily. Whatever happened to him, he has too many other problems right now to dwell on something he’s already chosen to leave behind. 

“I’ll take, uh, whichever-... whichever room is closest to the bathroom,” He says, seeing an open door with the telltale tile floor and pale painted walls. She nods, gesturing to a closed door on her left. He pushes open the bathroom door and just stares, for a few long beats. “You have-... dinosaur shower curtains?”

“Oh, Chris loved that,” Nat says, looking over his shoulder briefly. She’s as short as he is, more or less, and somehow her leaning over behind him doesn’t feel quite as unsettling as when Jake Stanton does it, or anyone else.

Shit, maybe they’re all right. Maybe he’ll be safe here… and everyone else will be safe from him.

“I just kept them after he moved out. We can get new ones if they bother you, it’s not a big deal.”

“Uh, no, they’re… they’re fine. I’m going to-... put my stuff down now.” Jameson backs up and she moves away to give him space. The floor creaks softly underfoot as he moves along the hardwood in the hallway, to the closed door of the room he’s chosen sight-unseen.

When he opens it, it’s plain. Just pale walls and two twin beds on opposite sides of the room, side tables with lamps, blankets and pillows. A single framed portrait of a bird on one wall. 

He looks out the window to the branches of a tree outside.

“I’m going to go downstairs and make some coffee. Want me to call for you when it’s ready?” She speaks from the doorway, calm and quiet. He loves her hot chocolate voice.

“Sure. I could… I could use some fucking coffee,” He whispers, without looking back.

“No doubt. We’ll figure this out, Jameson, I promise.” 

Before she can close the door, he asks, all at once in a rush, “What if I do it again?”

She’s quiet, for a minute. Quiet for long enough his heart starts to pound, he starts to wonder if she’ll lock him in the room, or even kick him back out and tell him to start walking and figure it out on his own. He can’t go back - the last time he was on the streets, he got picked up by Robert, the time before that by Brute. His pulse beats against his collar, and he’s safe with the collar, but only if he’s kept by someone who takes care of him, who won’t hurt him worse. “To Jake?”

“Or… or Allyn. Or you, or-... fuck, anybody. What if they-... made me so I’ll do it again?”

More quiet. He hates the quiet. He wants her hot chocolate voice back. He turns, finally, to see her looking him over with a calm that goes so far beyond his own anxiety and fear, a steady surety that makes her seem more like she’s part of the house than someone who simply lives here.

She’s seen a hundred hands, too, learning not to hurt or be hurt. She’s heard a hundred voices learning to speak up, remembering how to do something other than beg for it to stop. Maybe she is the safehouse, and the building is just… an extension.

He can kind of see why the big guy likes her so fucking much.

“We’re going to do everything in our power to give you the tools you need to keep yourself and everyone around you safe.” She smiles at him, a little, lifting the corner of her mouth just the slightest bit on one side. “It won’t be easy. And it won’t be simple, or immediate. But you aren’t irredeemable, Jameson. Even if you fucked up. Does it help if I tell you I’ve had others hit me, or grab at me, when they’re in a panic and forget where they are?”

He breathes, shallow but slow. “R-Really?”

“Yeah. A half-dozen or so. I caught Chris lost in a nightmare once and he cracked me across the face with his forehead so hard I had a bruise for a week. I’ve been kicked, I’ve been hit.” She exhales, not quite a sigh, and steps inside the bedroom, moving over to one of the beds and sitting down, crossing her legs at the ankles and leaning back, resting her weight on her hands. “I ended up in the ER with a concussion once, early on. One of the ones I lost.” She looks away from him, and he sees the wrinkles in her face suddenly settle deeper, as if the weight of that old grief ages her even now. “He didn’t mean to, the poor guy. He was so scared, but I couldn’t-... I couldn’t keep him. He was so scared of himself he went back to his captor. Never saw him again.”

Jameson takes one step towards her, and then another. It’s unconscious, and he tells himself not to, but he can’t help it. “I’m-... I’m sorry for him.”

“Yeah, me too. I hope he’s doing all right, but… I suspect not. It’s… it’s hard, Jameson, to do this, and sometimes the hard feels like it’s never going to end. Sometimes, they think there’s no choice, no other way.” She looks up at him, and he sees the faintest glimmer of tears that don’t show in her voice, don’t fall down her face. “You’re thinking that, too. That maybe you were better off kept.”

The echo of his own thoughts in her low husky voice sends him reeling, and he can’t find his voice to speak at first. Finally, he manages, “Y-yeah.”

“It’s a lie. I understand why it feels like-... it’s inevitable. But I want you to know... I’ve seen this before. And you’re still better off healing than being sent back to shatter. We’re going to help you, and Kauri-... Kauri’s right, I think. You’ll be safer here for a while, and then you’ll go back and be safe there, too.”

“What if I’m not? Safer there?”

Nat Yoder’s smile softens, and she holds out her hands. She must expect him to sit next to her, because she jumps in surprise when he drops to his knees instead, and lays his head on her thighs, across her lap, feeling the rough denim of her blue jeans against his cheek.

Her hands hover, and then slowly she lowers one, and rests it, gently, over his hair. 

“Then you’ll be safe here,” She says, and her voice pours over him, honeyed, deep, the hint of cinnamon and the texture of the thick liquid of his grandmother’s hot chocolate, made always with whole milk and a touch of cream.

Jameson doesn’t question the knowledge of how his grandmother made hot chocolate, and he doesn’t push it away. He just lets it exist, there and then gone a moment later. 

 “For how long?” Her fingers press just slightly against his temple. Her fingertips are slightly roughened, calloused from hard work. “How l-long am I safe here?”

“The same amount of time I give everyone, Jameson,” She says. “As long as you need.”

“But you said-... you don’t take in anyone anymore-”

“I’m making an exception, and I don’t do anything halfway.” She leans over, and he feels her shadow fall over him. He turns his face to press against her leg, feeling the tears start to well, clenching his eyes shut only to have them fall without his consent, to dampen her jeans.

He shudders. “I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt him-... I thought he was Brute, coming b-back, I didn’t know-”

“I know. I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

“I know I sh-shouldn’t fucking cry-... I’m the ass-asshole who stabbed him, I shouldn’t c-cry about it, I shouldn’t-” He hitches back a sob, feels his collar catch on his Adam’s apple. It’s not enough to keep him safe. It was never enough to keep him safe. 

Her voice washes warm over him, and she runs her hand through his short hair, over the filled-in bald spots shorter than the rest. “You should, if you need to. Go ahead.”

Somehow, once she says he can, he can’t stop himself at all. 

Jameson kneels on the floor in a house that has seen a hundred or more people exactly like him, his body wracked with guilt and horror at what he did, what they made him, and his terror that he can’t ever take it back, that he can’t become anything other than what he was made to be.

And through the tears, she keeps one hand on his head, and when he starts to talk to her, she listens. 

Outside a bird sings, a mourning dove, calling hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump @burtlederp

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"What do you think of the song?" For Nat

A long time ago, when Nat's life was very different...

"So?" Stephen turns to look at her, expectant. Behind him, the end of the commercial - still rough, editing isn't quite done yet - is frozen in time, a woman smiling and leaning against a doorway as she watches a Domestic happily helping her young children with a homemade-volcano project.

Renfro had really thrown himself into the role, and Nat found herself wondering if he’s naturally a bit of an actor, whoever he'd been before. He'd had to take his collar off for it - the focus groups were unsettled by the collars, and they were leaving them out of commercials to see if that would help the reception - and he'd been terrified at first, had required a lot of reassurance.

But once he'd settled and trusted her that he wasn't in trouble and they would take good care of him... he'd just nailed every single line.

"Nat? Miss Yoder?"

Startled out of her thoughts, Nat looks away from the image of Renfro's smiling face and back to Stephen's nervous hopefulness. "Oh, sorry. What, Steve?"

"Stephen," He corrects gently. Nat winces, but Stephen powers on without waiting for the apology. "What do you think of the song? Is it too cloying, maybe?"

Nat considers, and then slowly shakes her head. "No, I think it's perfect. You designed this commercial to really aim for Middle America, and look. I grew up in the Heartland. This'll play well there."

"Perfect." Stephen smiles brightly. "We're really looking to nail down those wealthy suburban markets, get them to see the investment. You know, you'd spend more paying a nanny for less devoted care, that sort of thing."

"Yeah, I think this is perfect for that."

"Good, good." Stephen clicks on the video, and it moves again, the final notes of the little jingle dying out as Renfro, acting as 'Mike' the Domestic caregiver pet, turns to look directly at the camera.

His smile is bright and brilliant.

"This is exactly what I wanted," He says, as the image fades out to a soft feminine voiceover about the investment in early childhood development and financing options.

Nat feels a trickle of unease down her spine, and carefully, pointedly ignores it.

Renfro doesn't know what life he wanted. He can't remember any longer.

"I'm going to go take my lunch," Nat says, glancing over at the clock on the wall. "I know it's early, but I want to pick up a treat for Renfro. He really went above and beyond on this shoot."

"Yeah, I definitely don't know if it'd work without him, he's just so good at this. Hey, here." Stephen digs into his khakis and pulls out a five-dollar bill, folded until it's nearly the width of a pencil. It's clearly been through the wash once or twice. He presses it into Nat's hand. "Pick him up something from me, too."

"Will do." Nat gives Stephen a cheery little wave and walks away, her sensible heels not quite clomping. She's never gotten the hang of heels.

Just below-ground, in the first floor where the demo pets live, Renfro will be in his room, probably reading one of the approved books and hanging out on his little bed. Still... he'll probably love a Snickers bar, or something that isn't the regulation uber-healthy meals they all get fed, just plain meat and vegetables and a piece of fruit here and there, along with multivitamins to swallow.

Nat wonders, idly, what kind of food he liked when he was someone else.

That bit of uncertainty settles inside her again, the prickle against her back, and she steps into the elevator and presses B1, telling herself she's just being silly thinking about any of the pets' former lives.

After all, it's not like they can think about them anymore.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

nat seeing short hair forehead scar only-just-talking-again chris for the first time and wrapping him in a big comforting motherly hug🥺🥺🥺

CW: Post-meltdown, nonverbal, referenced self-injury as a result of meltdown, ptsd/trauma, vaguely referenced parental death

Takes place post-I’m Here

---

He doesn’t speak when she comes in, or look at her. He’s curled up on the bed in his room at Jake’s house, back to the wall. There’s a pillow behind him, and Nat knows Jake placed it there just behind the back of his head, and why. 

Just in case he needs to, the option is there, a way to do it without hurting until he can be redirected to stop.

His pretty blue hair is gone - only the copper roots remain, nearly shaved, a shimmer of color with blue at some of the ends, like a penny slowly going green with time and neglect. 

“Hey, sweetie,” Nat says gently, and he blinks, but he keeps staring towards the window. Jake’s pulled open the curtains, opened it up, let the air from outside, smelling like flowers, drift in. She can hear a plane flying low overhead, making its descent towards the airport a few miles away. 

He has a feather in his mouth, just holding it there, the silicone plastic pressing against his lips, but he’s not chewing on it. His hands hold another one, a different color, rubbing his thumb up and down, up and down. 

He looks his age, with such short hair, and it’s so startling that Nat nearly trips on the rug before she make it to the chair at his desk, in front of his laptop, to sit slowly down to face him. He looks like he’s twenty-four, going on twenty-five, in a way he almost never does. The angles of his face are drawn sharply, this way. There’s a darkness in his green eyes that she has only rarely seen.

“Jake says you had a breakthrough,” Nat says, keeping her voice low. She doesn’t expect a response, and she doesn’t get one. He’s listening - his thumb pauses on the feather’s vanes before it starts to rub again. Eyes flicker, not quite to hers, then go back to the window. “That you-... know yourself more, now.”

He might nod, a little. His teeth press down around the feather in his mouth. There’s a bandage over one side of his forehead, and Nat winces at the thought of how that must have hurt, another on his other cheek, some more on his bare arms he clearly did to himself. 

It’s been so long since she’s seen Chris without his compression shirt (his armor, she’s always thought privately) that it’s unsettling, now, to see so much skin. Just a t-shirt and pajama shorts, like when he’d first come to stay with them. Only he’s older, now, a grown man - a grown man struggling to reconcile a boy’s life that was stolen from him.

“Is it okay that I’m here, Chris?”

Now, he looks at her, blinking in surprise, and then he nods, once. He moves, carefully and slowly, shifting along the bed. She realizes only after he moves the pillow behind his head, too, that he’s making room for her to sit beside him. 

She moves in a heartbeat. His mattress gives under her weight, a slight creak of old box springs as she sits beside him. He slowly leans over until his shoulder touches her arm, until his head rests on her shoulder. She turns to kiss the top of his head and mourns how the newly-short hair brushes like the tips of feathers, rather than the waterfall of blue he loved so much, he’d been so proud of.

Nat digs her phone out of her pocket, opens up the Notes app, and holds it out to him. “Can you talk this way, for now?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “L-Later,” He manages, with obvious difficulty. His voice is little more than a rasping whisper.

Nat sets the phone down beside her. “That’s all right, Chris. If you change your mind, we’ll try again, but no pressure. I want to be here with you for a while, and we can just sit together, too. Jake says you got yourself back, today. He told me your name was Tristan Higgs.”

Chris doesn’t nod, but he hitches in a breath, and Nat can hear the answer in it. 

“I heard something else, too,” Nat murmurs, and when his arms move to slide around her waist, she turns to make it easier for him, slips a hand up to the back of his head. “I heard that you were very, very loved by your friends, and your parents. I’m so sorry about them, Chris. But I was so glad to learn how much everyone loved you. So I guess that’s one thing that Chris and Tristan have in common, hm? You’re so loved, no matter what name you have. We love you so, so much.”

He turns his head into the side of her neck, and she lets his tears dampen the tendrils of hair that have come loose from her braid. They listen to the birds singing outside, smell the flowers in the air, and sit together.

He’ll talk when he’s ready, when he can.

Right now, he’ll have someone to see him through the silence.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @whumpiary @downriver914 @vickytokio

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Not a Baby: Nat and Chris (And Ronnie)

CW: The first part is pure fluff with a couple underage drinking references/jokes. Second part references the events of Chris getting appendicitis (One, Two, Three, Four) and takes place while he is healing from surgery. Includes surgery references, whumpee rejecting medication, medical trauma references

Sometimes, you just want bittersweet fluff lined with angst.

-

“You gotta help me out,” Tristan sings along with the radio as they wait at a red light, Ronnie furtively checking her phone. “It’s all a blur last ni-eee-eye-ee-ight…”

One message from Paul, just now out of bed after a longer-than-usual workday had fully wiped him out, thanking her for leaving some food in the fridge. She smiles, faintly, at the sight of the little heart emojis he leaves after every single text. 

He’s not much for showing emotion in his face, not like Tristan wears his own feelings on his sleeve, but he knows how to make sure Ronnie feels loved. He always has.

The light turns green, and she taps on the gas, then lets her foot slowly press down. Next to her, Tristan dances in his seat, totally unselfconscious, rocking back and forth. 

“We need a taxi, ‘cause you’re hungover and I’m broke…”

Ronnie starts laughing, one hand over her mouth, the other still on the wheel.

He blinks, turning to look at her. They just clipped his hair short last week, getting him ready for the next competition coming up. She never expected to be a Gymnastics Mom, not once, but here she is, chaperoning her teenage son to the gym on a Saturday afternoon, where he more or less lives these days. “What?”

“I just. It’s something else to listen to your teenage son sing about being hungover, Tris. That’s all. You’re way too young for this song. And probably just for Katy Perry in general, not that anyone should listen to-”

“Mom.” Tristan rolls his eyes, leaning over and pointedly turning the volume up on the radio. “I like Katy Perry. And I, I, I know what hungover is. I’m not, not, not, not-... not-not four years old. I’m fifteen.”

“Fair enough, but I don’t think my fifteen-year-old should know about being hungover, either.” She takes a turn, the radio cheerfully blaring that’s what you get for waking up in Vegas and she wonders why she keeps letting Tris pick the radio station, exactly, when they could be listening to some perfectly fine soft rock right about now. “What do you get up to at Aki’s, huh? Maybe I need to speak to Aimi. Ask if you’re having wild parties as soon as I leave.”

“Oh my god, Mom.” Tristan turns bright red, and she tries not to enjoy how much he’s his father’s son - always but especially when he blushes, the red seeming to make the scattering of pale freckles stand out even more, not less, when he does. “You are, are not going to-... we don’t drink, Mom. We just, just watch shows and… hang out.”

“I know, baby,” Ronnie says, laughter still edging her voice. “I’m teasing you, that’s all.”

He glares out the windshield where he sits next to her, running his fingers up and down the smooth seatbelt, along its edge. Back and forth, enjoying the mix of silk and rough in the texture, she thinks. 

“I’m not a, a, a, a baby,” He mumbles, all teenage resentment and irritation. 

“Oh, honey. That’s the downside of having parents,” Ronnie says, gentling her voice down to affection, taking another turn. She can see the gym now, down at the end of the street. Aimi will probably already be here with Aki, she figures, and maybe they can make a coffee run while the boys practice. “It doesn’t matter how old you get. You could be fifty and I could be sixty-seven and I’d still see you wrapped in that hospital blanket looking up at me with big eyes. Even when we’re both old, you’ll still be my baby.”

He rolls his eyes again, but this time she catches the hint of a smile he’s trying to hide pulling at one side of his mouth. Tristan leans forward and switches the radio station over to Ronnie’s favorite, then falls back into his seat, focusing on the seatbelt again.

Sometimes, like his father, he doesn’t know how to say he loves her, but he always knows how to show it.

-

Two and a half years later

Nat came down for a glass of water, only to find Chris wide awake on the couch at 3 am, top teeth biting down so hard on his bottom lip she was afraid he’d draw blood, making his slow, careful, shuffling way towards the stairs.

She’d managed to convince him to go back to the couch, or really more or less command him, but the trade-off was promising she’d stay downstairs with him for a while.

Now, instead of water she has a mug of hot tea steaming gently on the side table, instead of her warm bed she has Chris’s head resting on a pillow in her lap while she runs fingers slowly through his hair - dark red in the night, lit with a hint of silver by the reflected light coming off the television - and instead of dreams, she has reruns of Frasier.

“You palmed your pain medication earlier, didn’t you?” She asks the question as gently as she can, without judgement.

He doesn’t answer, green eyes locked on the television, where the main character’s younger brother is preparing for a date and managing to set an ironing board on fire in the process. It’s probably one of the best scenes in television history, but Nat can’t even begin to pay attention to it. Worry has her all twisted up, heart beating a little too fast, as she picks up her mug and takes a sip, honey and lemon and yes, a little bit of whiskey in her tea all settling over her tongue. 

“Chris,” She says, softly. “I asked you a question.”

“Mmmhmm,” is all he says, and he doesn’t move. His head is a soft weight against her leg, and his hair runs like silk through her fingers. He’s pale not just from the darkness and the late-night TV, but from the pain he must be in, must be holding back.

Of course, there’s no one who has come through her house who hasn’t been pretty good at hiding pain, after a while. Once you’re drowned in it, once it’s your everyday truth, you learn not so much to actually hide it as simply to go on living with it. 

No one Chris’s age should already be so good at this.

“You have to take those, or you’re going to hurt like this all the time for a while,” Nat says, trying to keep from lecturing him. His freckles stand out more, lit by the cool blue-tinged light of TV. She watches him smile, just a little, at the slapstick comedy going on. “It’ll take longer for your incision to heal if you-”

“Don’t, don’t like pills,” Chris whispers, and she watches one of his hands, palm flat, running up and down the heavy weighted blanket she’s laid over him. It’s soft as rabbit fur, and he starts to hum, nearly a whisper, as he touches it. “Jake’s gone. Out. Didn’t… didn’t want them.”

Nat takes a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly. “Chris, you can’t only take pills when Jake is here to give them to you. He can’t always be here, he has things he does outside of this house-”

“I know. But… I didn’t want them. I, I, I don’t mind hurting a little.”

The funny thing is, it’s not bluster. He really doesn’t. Chris would really rather lay here, awake in the middle of the night, in terrible pain than simply put two pills into his mouth and wash them down with water. There’s been too much done to him with drugs, and he’s not the only one she’s had to help recover the idea of medicine as something other than torture.

He’ll get there.

She hopes.

“Okay, well… where did you put them?”

There’s silence, again, but this time he shifts a little, a flash of his hurt and discomfort across his expression. “In, in the couch cushions.”

“Do you have any of your other doses in there?”

“... mmhmm.”

“Chris…” She sighs, putting her hand up to her forehead, rubbing her fingers just above the bridge of her nose as the tension starts to build behind her eyes. Oh, her head’s going to hurt soon. She can’t just be up at night like she used to without paying for it the next day. “How many have you skipped? Huh?”

“... four.”

“Four. Four times-... okay.” She exhales, slowly - he’s tense under her hand, now, and she can feel the worry in him. Knows he’s trying to figure out if he’ll be in trouble, get punished. Disciplined for the ways he’s learned to live with what happened to him.

A different kind of test than what he’s tried on Jake, but it’s still a test.

“Chris. I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to have to sit here and watch you and see you swallow them. I know that it’s hard for you, I do, and I’m so sorry that we have to do this, but I have to take care of you. I want to take care of you. And part of that is making sure you know how to care for yourself. When you’re recovering from serious surgery-”

“The, the, the, the cut’s not even that big,” He mutters, a hint of irritation. 

Nat feels a surge of affection for him that, if she were standing, would nearly knock her off her feet. Chris interrupting her, Chris being pouty and sulky and every inch a seventeen-year-old boy, is a new thing. She doesn’t take it for granted.

It’s just… a little inconvenient right now.

“It doesn’t matter how big it is. It went all the way inside your stomach, and it was a pretty serious surgery. You need these pills or you are going to hurt like hell for so much longer than if you take them and get better. You got it?”

He sighs, but relaxes against her again, and she starts running fingers through his hair again, simple and maternal. “Yeah. I, I do.”

“Okay. Let’s watch the show and see if maybe you’re up for taking your dose and heading back to sleep in a bit, huh?”

“Will you, you, you stay? Even if I-... even if I do, and fall asleep?” He twists a little to look up her and winces as it pulls the still-tender muscles in his abdomen. “Will you stay?”

Nat thinks about how badly her back’s going to hurt in the morning. The headache already trying to sneak its way in around the edges. How she’s going to end up napping half the day away and not getting a damn thing done she had planned.

Then she just smiles down at him, at his wide green eyes in his narrow face and the heavy blanket hiding every other inch of him in softness and warmth. “Yeah, okay. I’ll stay right here with you, ‘til Ant’s up in the morning. How’s that sound?”

“Good. See if you can get comfortable for a bit.”

The two of them fall back into an easy silence, broken only by the low-volume of the TV show, and get through two more episodes of Frasier before Nat’s tea is gone and she and Chris are both half-asleep on the couch, her hand simply resting on his hair, now, light but ever-present. 

Eyes closed, the television’s cool blue still dancing against the inside of her eyelids, she hears Chris mumble, “Night, Nat,” in a sleep-slurred voice. It’s got to be four in the morning, there’s not much night left.

“Night, baby,” Nat murmurs.

“Not a, a baby, Mom,” Chris whispers, but both of them are too close to sleep to notice.

-

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @whumpiary @orchidscript @moose-teeth @nonsensical-whump @outofangband

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"she wasn't expecting this"

@panicked-goose let’s call this your mother’s day nat comf 

She wasn’t expecting this.

“What-”

“It’s a, a, a cake.” Chris bounces on his toes in front of her, leaning over to nudge the serving tray closer, cool blue ceramic scraping against the warm wood of the table. His hair flops copper over his eyes, and she tries to remind herself to give him a haircut, but she’s too distracted by everything else.

“I know it’s a cake, Chris, hon, but why did you make it?”

He grins, stepping back, gripping his fingers around the back of the kitchen chair on that side, swaying a little, perfectly pleased with himself. “Be, um, because you, you didn’t tell me your birthday. So, so I made one up.”

“Chris, I don’t need birthday celebrations, at my age it’s just another day.”

“No, no it’s not.” Chris leans over, expression going serious, eyes enormous in his narrow face. “It’s, it’s not. Not to me. It’s important to me.” 

“Okay, fair enough. If I eat some, will you at least promise to have a slice with me?” 

“Yes! Yes, yes I will.” Chris moves in a flurry to get plates and a butter knife, carefully cutting to squares from the cake to serve each of them. For all his happy energy, Nat can see the improvement since he started taking medication, too. Less jittery, better able to focus on and finish a task. 

After all, he baked a cake. And Antoni is out for therapy, so he definitely didn’t get help. Or at least not help from anyone who actually already knew how to bake...

She takes a bite, then hums at the flavor. “Oh, it’s lemon. Did Jake tell you I like lemon pound cake?”

“No, but, but, but when you go to Starbucks, you, um, you always get theirs so I thought...” He shrugs. “I had Jake do measurements and, and then, um, and then, read the recipe to me but but but I did the actual... everything.”

“Well, it’s amazing. And so are you.”

He smiles, beaming sunlight as bright as what comes in through the window over the sink, and Nat wonders, not for the first time, at how quickly Chris has felt less like a runaway she’s caring for until he moves on and more like a cousin or a little brother or a son here to stay.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Christmas Specials: Angel

CW: Implied past parental death, referenced past torture/noncon, memory loss and grief

"It, it should be an, um, a, a-a an angel," Chris says, gazing up at the star on top of the tree. It gleams a warm yellow to match the special lights that wind through the branches, the soft smell of pine and wood. The ornaments weigh it down, a multitude of old childhood things Nat brought with her twenty years ago, plus new ornaments added over time by every rescue who has lived here through Christmas and even a few who didn’t. 

Chris picked his out at Hallmark with Nat last week. He chose a little cardinal on a snowy tree branch with a scarf and earmuffs on. He doesn’t know why. But he runs one finger over the top of its little head in thought. 

Nat, crouching down by the bright red, gigantic rubbermaid with Christmas Ornaments + whatever else written on the lid in big black sharpie letters, looks up. “What?”

Chris keeps petting the little porcelain cardinal with one finger, staring up at the star. “Why isn't it, um, an, an angel, Nat?”

"Not sure exactly. I've always done a star," Nat replies, carefully choosing a small ornament shaped like a horse in mid-gallop, covered in elaborately carved and painted Western tack. She slips the little hook into the small metal ring on the horse’s back and hangs it in an empty spot on the tree, smiling.

She looks over to see an expression of something like upset on Chris's face, his eyebrows furrowed, bouncing uncertainly on his toes. "It, it should be an angel," He repeats, insistent. “It, it should be. Um, an… an angel. A star isn’t-... isn’t, isn’t right. It should be, be, be-be-be… should be-, an, an angel.”

His voice drops a little, and he picks at the hem of his oversized t-shirt with one hand, rocking a little until Nat puts a hand to his shoulder and he stops. 

"Chris, is this bothering you? That it’s a star?” Nat and Jake meet eyes where he's hanging garland along the mantle, knowing later Nat will go all-in on her Midwestern roots and pull out the Christmas-themed baskets to decorate it.

“It’s not right,” Chris says, even more firmly this time. He shakes his head, rocking again, forward and back. “It’s, it’s always supposed to be, to be angels.” He makes a soft sound of frustration, hands moving up to his hair, twisting into the copper, yanking hard. “Supposed, supposed to be-”

Nat takes his hands in hers and gently lowers them again, pressing his palms into his stomach. “Tap, Chris. Don’t pull your hair out, please. Let’s do the ones that don’t hurt, okay?”

He doesn’t answer her, but he starts up the familiar movements of his fingers, finger-twist-tap-tap-tap, and he doesn’t go for his hair again. “Angels,” He mumbles. “Should be a, um, angel on the, the, the tree. Didn’t have a tree the, the last time, we were-... gonna go, go get the tree after Thanksgiving, it, um, it was-...” 

The room is perfectly still as he falls silent, rocking harder. 

 "Did you-...” Nat is quiet for a moment, deciding where to take this line of questioning, what is the safest way to ask. “Are you… used to angels, Chris? Did you have an angel tree-topper as a kid?”

He’s still a kid.

He’s still so young. 

Chris isn’t looking at her, still rocking a little, looking up at the star, gnawing on a chapped spot of skin on his lower lip that he’s already managed to make bleed this week. He pinches his finger and thumb around a few pine needles, releasing their scent even more strongly into the air. "She, she always did angels,” He whispers.

Then he winces, cries out in pain, and the moment's gone, along with the memory. They hold him through the headache until it passes, through his tears, but he’s never able to explain.

Within a half an hour he’s forgotten he ever mentioned angels at all, forgotten anything but the awful spike of pain the headache brings on the heels of any thought or memory they aren’t allowed to have.

She refuses to be frustrated - this is a common part of memory recovery in rescues, how things seem to come and go, slipslide through their minds. It’ll come back, sooner or later. She has to believe that - and that even if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, they still deserve the new memories to be their own.

Every time he walks past the tree, though - as Nat’s presents for her rescues start to build up, and she takes each of them out to find gifts to give Jake and their fellow rescues, too - his eyes don’t linger on the somewhat haphazardly wrapped boxes. 

They go to the star.

She gives Jake a few twenties from her wallet and tells him to go shopping. He sheepishly pulls out the small red box he’d already bought, five steps ahead of her when it comes to Chris as usual.

They wrap the box together. 

On Christmas Eve, Nat insists on cooking, while Antoni hovers nervously around her and offers, time and time again, to do whatever he can to help. She refuses, but lets him set the table before having Jake take him outside to sit down with a drink and watch the Christmas lights. It seems to calm the part of Antoni that needs always to be serving, the part they are trying so hard to get him to drop. 

Chris wanders through the dining room on his way, getting himself some lemonade in the kitchen and giving her a hug. Krista is moving into her own place in the next month or so and she heads out onto the porch, too, making the most of her last few days in the house. Even Leila, quiet watchful thoughtful Leila, finds her way out there, too.

Which leaves Nat in the kitchen putting together everything she remembers from her own childhood. 

It’s a feast.

Beef tips out of the oven with gravy and thick, chewy noodles, little sausages in a crockpot with grape jelly and barbecue sauce, corn casserole more like savory pudding than anything else, scalloped potatoes that have as much cheese as they do actual potatoes, a salad to pretend anyone’s getting nutritional value out of this, queso dip that comes cheap out of a glass jar with tortilla chips, chopped fruit tossed with sugar… this one day each year, Nat lets herself indulge in what she grew up with, what she misses about home. 

Once it’s all ready, she calls them back in. She watches Chris’s eyes widen as he enters first, seeing how she’s pulled out the extra eaves to extend the table, the sheer weight of the food that has taken her three full days of work to put together, the seasonal plastic tablecloth and placemats under every single plate. 

“Chris, you’ll sit right here,” She says warmly, putting her hand against the back of one of the chairs. 

He moves immediately - then hesitates, going still, glancing over his shoulder back at Jake, who smiles back, reassuring. When his eyes go back to his seat, Nat watches him tapping on himself, soothing his sudden jangling nerves. Not grabbing at his hair or scratching himself. Good sign. “Nat, what’s-... what’s, what’s that?”

She moves away to give him space. “What’s what, honey?”

“The, um, the… the the, the box. On my plate. What, what is it for?” He’s trusting, her youngest rescue, like all of them and yet even more than most. He wasn’t meant to have thoughts or skills outside the horrors that he was held for, didn’t develop himself enough to run, he hadn’t gotten a sense that his world wasn’t right enough to develop his own sense of self. That started here, in this house, under Nat’s protection. 

She doesn’t take this responsibility, to help him mold himself into someone he will want to be, lightly. 

He’s trusting, but in this moment, he’s unsure. She wonders how many times he has been given gifts that hurt, that were designed to hurt.

“One last thing for the tree. Open up and find out.”

“But, but Christmas is, is um, is, is tomorrow.”

“Oh, honey.” He loves when she calls him that, every endearment - except sweetheart and darling, and those she has gathered were weapons, once, used against him - and he flushes, looking down and smiling a little, red hair drifting over his eyes. “I never take my tree down before New Year’s. One year I got it late and we kept that sucker up until Valentine’s Day. Go ahead and open the box.”

His fingers are so long and delicate, as he carefully works up the tape that keeps one end of the box closed. Slipping it open comes easily enough, working the styrofoam packing on the inside out is a little more difficult. The squeak of styrofoam against cardboard makes him grit his teeth and Nat herself winces.

But then it’s out, and he lays the square of crumbling white styrofoam down on the paper, carefully lifting the top half away to reveal what it was protecting inside. 

His eyes widen, and he reaches out, touching a rough-edged tinsel halo wrapped around a wire, running one finger down from the top of a porcelain forehead to the tip of a gently wrought nose, the cupid’s-bow lips, rounded hair. He looks up at Nat as his fingers find the stiff, scratchy fabric of the figurine’s cream-and-gold robes. “An, angel? Nat?”

“For the tree, Chris. You said you wanted an angel.” Nat moves back to lay a hand in the center of his back, and he leans to the side, his head tucking into the crook of her neck like always. “Jake and I figured opening one present on Christmas Eve wouldn’t be so bad. D’you want to put it up?”

“Yes,” He says, in a low soft voice. “She, um, she, she… she she… she always had angels, on the, um, the tree.”

“Chris, can I ask?” She rests her chin atop his head, his fine soft hair tickling her skin. “Who is she? Who are you talking about?”

He shakes his head a little, like shaking water out of his ears. “I, I don’t know.” It’s a confession, admission of guilt, more than an answer. “I don’t, don’t, don’t know who. But… but I know she had, had an angel, she said she bought it when, um, when when I was a, a, a a a a baby…”

Mother, then, most likely. She and Jake make eye contact, and he nods, stepping out of the room to go write it down. Every single memory, no matter how slight, could help them put enough together to find whoever might be looking for him out there. And it gives Dr. Berger a place to start delicately working out what is hidden under all the scar tissue in their minds. 

“She threw it, it, it away,” Chris mutters, eyes closed. “With, with everything else.”

“Your mom did?”

“No. Some... someone else.”

“Well, let’s get the angel up there, then,” Nat says gently, as Chris slides his arms around her waist. His voice is going ragged, and she needs to pull him back from the edge before he tips over into the light. “Then all you hungry people can eat.”

“Aren’t you, you hungry? You’ve been cooking all, all, all, all all day.”

“All days. But no, I’ve tasted a little of everything already. Come on, then-”

The door blows open in a bluster of wind and Kauri steps in, cheeks red from the hint of chill in the air, blue eyes warm and sparkling. He looks better today than he did last week - Nat wonders, briefly, if he’s been staying with someone, instead of trying to sleep in park bathrooms or the cold. “Am I late for dinner?”

“Not at all, Kauri. Will Keira be joining us?”

Keira does not consume, comes a muffled voice from inside Kauri’s backpack. He grins and drops it in the entryway, unzipping to take the Roomba out and set it on the coffee table where visual sensors can take in the tree. 

He glances back at the rest of them, and asks brightly, “What’s for dinner? Smells… huh.” He pauses, looks at the table. A strange look passes over his face, like a man seeing someone he knows but can’t quite place. “It smells really good in here.”

“I should hope so. Can you help Chris switch the star on the tree out for this? It’s brand new.” She picks the angel up out of the styrofoam and Chris grabs it from her, moving into the living room with it held in his hands like something infinitely precious and breakable.

Something so easily lost.

“Cool, an angel.” Kauri cocks his head to the side. “Why’d you get that?”

“Because,” Chris says, with earnest sincerity, and a little sadness. “It’s always, um, supposed to, to, to be an angel. It was always a, an angel before.”

Kauri - and Jake, who reappears shortly after to give his many inches of height to assist them - helps Chris get the angel light up on the tree, warm glow emanating from its robes, and Chris declares it better, now. 

He murmurs to himself, “She’d, she’d like it better with an angel.”

No one asks him what he said, or to elaborate.

By the time he’s on his second helping of dinner, he’s forgotten that the thought ever passed his mind.

But Nat hasn’t.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly  @newandfiguringitout  , @doveotions  , @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @moose-teeth  , @cubeswhump  , @cupcakes-and-pain  @whump-tr0pes  @whumpiary  @orchidscript, @itallcomesdowntopain

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Family, Found: Theo Commission

I commissioned @boxboysandotherwhump​ to do two family portraits for Chris! Two sweet adorable loving painful family portraits because aaaahhhhhh

First, Tristan Higgs with Ronnie and Paul:

And then Christopher Stanton with Nat and Jake:

Join me in weeping over what he lost and gained all at once in the course of just two years. 

Thanks, Theo!

Tagging Chris’s list because yes:   @burtlederp​ , @finder-of-rings​ , @endless-whump​ , @whumpfigure​ , @astrobly​ @newandfiguringitout​ , @doveotions​ , @pretty-face-breaker​ , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow​ @boxboysandotherwhump​  , @oops-its-whump​  @cubeswhump​ ,  @whump-tr0pes​  @downriver914​ @vickytokio​ @whumpiary​ @orchidscript​ @moose-teeth​ @nonsensical-whump​ @outofangband​