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deiaiko · 2 months

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#21.3 Thoughts

"What's on your mind?" Isu asked, already lying down on his futon which was placed right next to his. Laure was already fast asleep on Isu's other side.

Hatz crouched down and pulled on his blanket. His thoughts kept going back to whatever happened just a moment ago as he stared at the ceiling. "How high do you think I can climb the tower?"

Isu hummed, the answer came easy. "Definitely higher than me."

Hatz looked at him, frowning. "I will take you along."

Shibisu's smile didn't reach his eyes, and he was not looking at Hatz.

"I just…" Hatz started again to fill the silence, "I realized how weak and helpless I am, in the face of true power."

Shibisu only hummed, and Hatz came to a realization. He knew very well that Isu wasn't gifted with power, yet he always did his best to keep up with their team that consisted of mostly gifted individuals. Though Hatz wouldn't call himself one, since he came from a more humble background.

"I think I understand you better now." Hatz said, with a newfound fondness of his friend. "It's frustrating, isn't it?"

"You're being sentimental." Isu chuckled, but he didn't deny it.

Hatz also didn't deny the claim. He might be just missing the life he left behind, where everything was simple, where he was praised for some achievements. But he also wouldn't exchange it for what he had today. His team, his family. It was just the thought that everything that he had could be taken away in just an instant, while he was powerless to stop it.

"You're rarely like this." Isu asked, now with a little concern. "What happened?"

Hatz debated on how to tell him. "We met a ranker, along with Agni and Grace, earlier."

"Oh?" Isu shifted to lie sideways, smirking at him with intrigue. "You met Grace? How did it go?"

It seemed that Isu was still under the assumption that Hatz had a crush on Grace, which he definitely did not. Not when Grace asked him to teach him how to wield a sword, and not when Grace picked his side when he debated with Earrings about swordsmanship's principles. Grace had wanted to know him better, and it was natural that Hatz had grown to like him more than the others. It was all just a mutual feeling, nothing extending to romance. Though he had to admit that he wanted to impress Grace and earn his attention, because no one else bothered to actually see the art of swordsmanship he was so proud of and trained hard with. Still, he had no intention to take him away from Agni. It was against his principle of loyalty. Even if, admittedly, he was a little bitter about it when he found out that Agni looked and acted a lot like Khun.

"You're frowning~" Isu taunted. "Could it be…jealousy~?"

"It's not like that." Hatz cleared his throat, as well as whatever he was feeling. "What I saw earlier made me realize that they're living in a different world than ours."

"Are you referring to their power? Since you're talking about it earlier." Isu's expression turned serious once again. "I mean…Agni is surely strong. We have all seen that first hand."

"He does, but– what I experienced earlier, was something I could get out of by luck."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know how to tell you exactly, but it felt like I had witnessed a fight between high rankers."

"On this floor?? In the regular area??"

"There was a shinsu barrier, so the fight was unseen from outside. I didn't notice anything amiss until I accidentally went through the barrier, and Agni caught me as soon as I entered."

"A barrier that could contain a high rankers' fight, yet easy for regulars to get through…" Isu mumbled. "Are they perhaps…sparring?"

"I think you might be right." Because Hatz was said to be unconscious for only a few minutes, and everything seemed to be over by then. "Rak clarified that Grace had partaken in that fight."

"Huh. Grace did?"

"He was beaten up and unconscious. Where else would he get those injuries?"

"Is he okay?"

"Agni had tended to him, and I can say that Agni is a capable healer. Grace should be fine, he was sleeping when we were forced to leave."

"...Forced?"

"There was a high ranker, I think. His presence was so strong that even Rak was quiet. Though he seemed to be fond of Grace and Agni. But it looked like Agni was a little afraid of him, so he sent us back."

"If that's true, then there is a good chance that the guy is related to FUG." Shibisu groaned and rolled back, covering his face. "Shit, what did we get ourselves into…"

"Uh…Sorry?"

"No, no. It's not your fault." Isu flailed his hands to try and make his point, before sighing and laying his hands back down. "Just…I'm glad you made it back, Hatz."

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we-were-so-beautiful · 9 months

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3. taxi

oh man, this one FOUGHT me y'all. so much cutting and pasting. I am not even kidding when I say that everything that happens in this chapter was supposed to be part of the last one, and I gave up and cut that one off early because I was sick of trying to finish this part. and now this is my longest chapter yet. you know, out of all three of them. at 1.3k. lol. I am not, how do you say, fast. but I was hoping I'd be able to get a chapter written over christmas, and I'm really proud of myself for finishing it!

Content warnings for this chapter: box boy universe, pet whump, dehumanization, cage mention, rampant classism. As always, please tell me if there's anything else I need to tag.

[masterlist] [chapter two] [chapter four]

“Okay I know they’re supposed to be expensive but what can you possibly be charging this much money for.”

“Adoption fees are to offset the cost of room, board and medical care while at the facility,” the employee parrots, without so much as the decency to look ashamed.

“He does not look like he has had literally any of those things while he’s been here. Or possibly in his entire life.”

“Ma’am, if you cannot afford the adoption fee, then you cannot adopt a Pet.”

“Oh, I can afford it,” Vanessa growls, handing over a very shiny credit card before her mouth can get her in enough trouble to stop the employee from taking it. She bites her lip until she tastes copper to keep from saying, I’d just rather put it towards something that isn’t blatantly and obviously going right back into Worldwide Rehabilitative Un-fucking-limited’s pockets despite the fact that this is supposed to be a goddamn government facility.

Harm reduction, she reminds herself. Paying extortionate fees to kill shelters is still harm reduction. It’s the unsavory truth, but it doesn’t make the blood in her mouth taste any sweeter.

“Sign here,” the woman says, handing her credit card back along with a digital pad and stylus, and Vanessa cracks her wrist before she takes them. It’s sore and snapping like a glowstick from the mountain of paperwork she’s already been made to sign since the employee unceremoniously hauled the man on the floor behind her down from his double-high-stacked wire crate. She can’t decide whether to consider it an obscenely large amount, or an obscenely little one for all that it represents.

She can’t think about it too hard. Can’t draw too much of her own attention to the fact that she’s really doing this, or she might just run screaming back out into the grey-tinted autumn afternoon, and then where would this guy be?

She scribbles her name on the touchpad, and just like that… it’s done.

—

“Don’t forget your leash and collar,” the employee reminds her.

“I won’t be using those,” Vanessa says, with all the imperious rich-lady self-assurance she can fake.

“You will if you don’t want to be liable for civil and/or criminal penalties up to and including the permanent forfeiture of your right to Pet ownership,” the woman drones like she’s rattling it off from a handbook, and nobody has the right to own a person but even Vanessa knows better than to argue the system with someone who literally works for it.

She grinds her teeth as she takes the lengths of bulky blue nylon from the woman. She crouches beside the man, who’s bent himself into an odd kneeling fetal position on the cold tile floor. “Sorry,” she whispers as she slides the coarse material around his throat, feeling his pulse beat harsh and rapid underneath. She hopes she’s being quiet enough that the employee won’t hear her talking to him like a person—because he is a person, goddamnit—but she knows better than to trust her own volume. Best if she can get the fuck out of here with him now, before she makes a mistake.

She really doesn’t want to lead this dude crawling down the street like an animal. Doesn’t want to imagine what people will think. But she asks him, “Can you stand?”, and he makes a sound like a choking dog, and so much for both their dignity, she fucking guesses.

“Ugh, fine, whatever, just… come on.”

—

Fuck standing, the guy can barely support himself on all fours. His joints threaten to buckle at every step as Vanessa urges him out onto the chilly sidewalk. Coat of dirt aside, he’s got nothing on him but a pair of boxers as filthy as he is and that godawful blue collar, and when his bare skin meets the frigid pavement his body clenches so hard she can practically hear his teeth slam shut.

She looks at the unwashed man before her, shivering hard enough to rattle his bones in the cold October air. Looks at her thick brown coat. Ugh, she likes this coat, the lining is stitched in in all the right places to keep the texture of the shell from making her want to climb out of her own skin and no amount of dry cleaning in the world is going to convince her to put it on again once it touches… whatever the fuck is all goddamn over this guy. She sighs and shrugs it off.

Fuck fuck fuck it’s cold. She’s shivering herself in just plain blue jeans and her second favorite Cure t-shirt. But a million “if you’re cold, they’re cold!” memes flash through her mind and she grumbles aggrievedly and drapes the wool coat over his massive, gaunt frame. This dude has like a foot on her standing, she remembers when the lapels will barely pull around his shoulders. She’s gonna have to shake Austin down for clothes.

God, it feels beyond fucked up to have a person on a leash, and it doesn’t help that the cheap blue nylon feels plasticky in her hand and she hates the texture. She can’t imagine how much worse it must feel around the throat of the shuddering man before her. She’s taking the damn thing off him as soon as she gets him home, she’ll get him a better one if Roselle can’t find her a loophole and she absolutely fucking has to, but when the fifth or sixth cab passes her by without even slowing down she starts to wonder how the hell she’s going to get him home at all.

—

“You want to go to the corner,” the employee says boredly, not so much as looking up from her newspaper when Vanessa shoulders her way back through the door.

“You what?” Vanessa echoes.

“The corner. Better if you go another block or two, even. Cabs don’t stop in front of the shelter.”

Of course they don’t, Vanessa thinks.

She hipchecks the door back open and returns to the stupid goddamn hitching post they so conveniently provide along the front wall of the shelter, where she’s awkwardly strung up the loop of the stupid blue leash. “Hey, uh, dude? I’m gonna go up the street a bit, okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

He barely acknowledges that he’s heard her, curled back up under her coat in that same odd position with his forearms tucked into his chest. “...not that you would,” she adds dubiously, before power-walking away to the next block.

Vanessa hisses through her teeth in the bleak grey air and rubs at her goosebump-riddled arms, but true to the employee’s disaffected word it’s only a matter of minutes this time before a cab driver catches her wave and pulls over. “Thanks,” she says as she tumbles in. “I’m going back to the Heights. Need to pick someone up first, though. Just on the next block.”

The driver looks skeptical, but he rolls down the quiet street all the same—until he clocks the shelter just as Vanessa tells him to stop. “No. Nuh uh. No way. I don’t let Pets in my cab.”

“I’ll double your fare. Up front.”

The driver shakes his head, staring revulsed in the direction of the hitching post. “Not worth all that crud on my seats.” Oh. Great. He’s seen him.

“What if I cover the seats. Newspaper.”

The driver sizes her up with a calculating gaze, one elbow propped on the back of his seat, and somewhere in the middle of wanting to punch him for looking at her she finds herself wishing for once that she’d dressed… richer. Finally, he grouses, “Triple fare. And the meter’s runnin’ while ya cover ‘em.”

“Fine,” Vanessa spits, and sprints out with the door wide open before he has time to change his mind.

She barges into the shelter one last time, hopefully the last fucking time in her life if she has any say in it. Leaning over the counter, with a grin that’s probably a little too smug for her to be proud of, she snatches the newspaper directly out of the apathetic employee’s complicit hands.

taglist: @maracujatangerine @pigeonwhumps @tragedyinblue @marchtothefuckingsea @octopus-reactivated @briars7

#whump #pet whump #rescue whump #recovery whump #bbu #box boy universe #vanessa + juniper #disaster caretaker #imperfectly consistent #tw dehumanization #tw classism #I feel like I'm writing more plot than whump here #like I could be leaning way more into descriptions of what dude's experiencing but I'm just trying to get through all these fucking scenes #the not leaning into whump part is unsurprising but the concerning bit is that I can't actually write plot. at all #so if that's what's supposed to be holding this together then well. uh.#we'll see how that goes I guess lol #oh I almost forgot!#points to whoever catches my wru mention #it's probably not subtle lmao #I just wanted to do something a lil different #ps idk what the fuck happened to my section dividers #but tumblr seems to have retconned it into my previous chapters as well #so it's probably not something I can fix lmao #btw if it wasn't obvious. I've never been to nyc in my life and I have no idea how anything works including taxis #just pretend they invented box boys instead of ride shares I fucking guess #@ my ass writing a novel in the tags instead of writing. you know.#the actual novel

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