#tw: pet death mention

[hannahssimblr]

In the early evening once the dishes have been cleared away, I wait in Michelle’s room. Downstairs, she speaks to Jen and Hazel for a while, their voices soft and solemn, until eventually Hazel goes home, alone. 

“They couldn’t find him?” I ask her when she sweeps into the room, though I already know the answer.

“No,” she rolls her tights down her legs to start changing into the sweatpants she prefers to spend the evenings in while I fidget my hands in my lap. She’s trying very hard not to look at me, her shoulders have that tense line about them that I know so well. With anxiety slowly unfurling inside me I decide I would much rather get this over with than prolong the inevitable horrors.

“I didn’t let him escape on purpose. You realise that, right?”

She can’t hold back the tremble in her voice, “I just can’t believe you left the door open.” 

“It was an accident, I didn’t mean for it to happen.” 

“Accidents don’t just happen, Jude,” She says, her tone rising with each word, “You were supposed to be watching him, Hazel said that he could escape if we weren’t careful.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

My guilt and remorse only irritates her more, “You were just standing there like some kind of fecking eejit with the door wide open, how could you not notice?”

“Because you were picking on me over the wine, I was distracted.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?”

“Oh God, please.” 

“What?”

I hold my head in my hands and exhale a frustrated laugh, “Nothing.”

“Do you have something to say?”

“Let’s focus on Goose, okay? I’m going to do everything I can to find him. I’ll search all over Clontarf, I’ll knock on doors, I’ll put up posters...”

She scoffs, “Goose is probably under the wheels of a train by now.”

The violent imagery of that is enough to make me rear back in shock, “How could you say that?” 

“Because that’s probably what happened. Nobody wants to say it to Hazel, but we’re all thinking it. The tracks are right there, and it’s probably the first place he went.”

“I wasn’t thinking it, God, Shell, what a horrible thought to have.”

“Well,” she shrugs, “that’s reality. This is what you’ve done, so, I hope you know.” 

I watch her, speechless as she casually steps into her grey jersey sweatpants, casually picking bits of lint off her thighs. “Why are you being like this?” I manage. 

She pulls off her sweatshirt to switch it for a vest, “like what?”

“It’s like you’re trying to punish me, I already know it was bad, but it was a mistake-”

“Yeah you don’t have to keep saying that. We all know it was a mistake, but it was the kind of mistake that only you would make.” 

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means.” 

“Why don’t you just say-”

She whirls around and flings her jumper at me, “Because you’re an idiot!” She explodes, “You’re a fucking idiot and this is the kind of shit you do!”

This is the kind of shit she does. She starts screaming out of nowhere, and then inevitably gets louder and louder and shouts over me until the room shakes and I have to shout back to be heard. I usually skip the foreplay these days and escalate it immediately. “Oh,” my voice scrapes my throat, “you think that’s helpful? Just throwing shit?” 

“Please, shut up!” she’s digging through her chest of drawers for something else to wear, and her movements are tense, jerky with anger, “and stop looking at me!” 

“Why? I’m talking to you.”

“Because you don’t get to look at me in my underwear when I’m mad at you.”

“My God, what? You think I haven’t seen it all before? Do you really think I’ve got that on my mind right now?”

“Yeah, because that’s about all you think about isn’t it? That’s all you want me for.” She wiggles into a vest and crosses her arms, “Sex, sex, sex, when am I getting it? Where are we doing it? You’re an animal.” 

“Oh please, you think about it all the time too.”

It’s almost inconceivable to think of now, that first time we ever did it right here in this room, on this bed, and the shadowy shape of her beneath me as she revealed to me how often she’d secretly imagined this, how long she’d wanted me. Sometimes I don’t recognise those people at all. It’s like I’ve stolen from someone else’s memories.

“Yeah, and then sometimes I can’t think of anything worse.”

“And you think I’m gagging for you at this moment? That I lose my fucking mind when I see you standing around in a bra? When you act this way?”

“This way? What is this way?” 

“Fucking annoying. Annoying and irrational.”

She puffs her chest out like a boxer, like she’s rounding on me, and if I wasn’t so furious with her I might laugh, the sheer confidence of my girlfriend, squaring up to a man a full foot taller than her. Sometimes, on smoother days, her moxy is what I love most about her.

“Oh really? That’s what I am?” She says. 

“Uh huh. Yeah. You’re actually the most annoying, irrational person I’ve-” A notebook comes spinning right at me, whipped right from her desk and I duck quickly, head to knees as it wallops against the wall behind me, sending a burst of loose papers flying over the carpet.

“Jesus!” I cry, “What are you doing?” 

“That’s how much you piss me off sometimes!” 

I hold my hands up in surrender before she can reach for something else, crashing back into myself as my anger dissipates, overtaken once again by the rational part of my brain, “Look, let’s stop this, okay? I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“We are in a relationship,” she explains, as if spelling it out to an infant, “that’s what happens. We hurt each other. It’s impossible not to.”

“Can’t we avoid doing it on purpose?”

“I’ll stop it when you stop being such an arsehole.”

“God, Michelle,” I grit out, “why do you make everything so hard?”

“Hard?” She repeats witheringly, “Being with me? Well imagine what it’s like being with you. The most self-involved, shallow, selfish person I have ever met.”

“Selfish?” I echo as my spine stiffens, “Selfish?”

“Uh huh! Yeah!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I feel like I have had a glass of ice water tossed at me, and though I have stopped shouting, Michelle keeps it up.

“I know well enough! It’s all about you all the time, you go on and on about how hard your life is, how sad you are. Meanwhile your dad bought you a fucking car for your birthday and you weren’t even grateful for it. Look at you! Strutting around with your little Ralph Lauren T-shirts and your ten thousand euro teeth! Who do you think you are?”

For some reason, her dragging my composite bonding into this feels like the biggest betrayal of all. A low blow. My teeth were weirdly short for my mouth until dad fixed them. It felt like the easiest, most obvious solution for a cosmetic issue without doing drastic work, yet revealing it to Michelle late one night as we murmured our secrets to one another in the dark felt so incredibly intimate that I’m momentarily lost for words at her treachery. 

“My teeth have literally nothing to do with any of this.”

“They prove that you’re spoiled.”

“It’s so obvious that you’re jealous of me.” I say. I’m not usually the kind of person to choose their words solely for the damage they can inflict, but something horrible within me feels a twinge of satisfaction when I see the stricken look on her face. 

“Jealous?” She splutters, faltering, “What the hell is there to be jealous of?”

I just look at her, because it’s all I need to do. I know, and she knows, and I feel disgustingly satisfied and contemptuous in my knowledge of it. I already know how she can’t bear to hear about my achievements, to see me hanging out with other friends. It is agony for her to hear about my grades or to look at my artwork, knowing I’ve worked harder than she has. She won’t come to parties with me anymore, because people laugh at all my jokes, and them crowding around to talk to me is hard on her self-esteem. Even cats like me better. I sense it in her every molecule, the atoms around her vibrate with envy. 

Fresh rage shimmers in her eyes as she stares at me, fists clenched as though she’s wrestling the urge to wrap her hands around my windpipe and squeeze. “You can get out if you’re going to be like this,” she seethes. 

“Oh, I’d love to leave.”

“Then do!” she stalks towards the door and yanks it open with such ferocity that I fear it will escape its hinges. “Get out!” Her voice echoes through the whole house, bouncing off the ceiling, reaching a frequency I am surprised doesn't rattle the glass free from the windows, and I have brief concerns about what everyone else in the house must think before remembering they’ve heard it all before. In fact they’ve lived this for years. 

So I do, I get up and walk out, turning toward her at the last moment, facing her stinging hot face to say, “you know what? I think it’s a good idea if we talk about taking a-”

“No! Fuck you!” she spits, and slams the door in my face. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

[kylos-starlight]

WELP RANDOMLY STARTED TO CRY!

My one cat Mango she was walking very close to the edge of the desk and I was like "You're gonna fall... move over Mango..." and she kept going and going and finally SLIP she lands fine but then she starts to walk down the little hall into the kitchen and she let out the biggest pissed off meow I have ever heard from her.. I go "Mango~?" and she gave the cutest little trill.

and then I bawled my eyes out because it was literally what my other cat Roxas used to do. He'd fuck up and then meow all pissed off like till I went "Roxaaasss~" and he'd trill and meow and run over to me like nothing was wrong...

I miss my buddy... </3 man... he was my best friend (furbaby) in the entire world- I wish he was still here with me...

[moralpuppet]

@escapedartgeek prayed: how do you feel about your family? who are people that you consider close to you?

The   way   Orel   can   smile   through   an   intense,   complicated   and   difficult   feeling   should   truly   be   commended.   Behind   his   grin   there's   so   much   going   on.

❝   I   love   my   family.  ❞    It   was   true   that   he   did.   ❝   They   aren't   always   who   I   thought   they   were   though.   Well   my   little   brother   and   ...sort   of  other   younger   brother   are   exactly   who   I   though   they   were.   But...   my   Dad   is   very   unhappy   and   ...,   gosh,   so   is   my   Mom.   Oh   and   then   there   was   Grandpa.   Grandpa   loved   me   so   much   and   I   loved   him   too.   I'm   sad   he's   not   here   anymore   but   I   figure   even   though   he   and   Dad   seemed   to   have   had   a   fight   sometime   ago;...  well   maybe   Grandpa   can   still   get  into   heaven   so   I   can   see   him   again   one   day.  And my dog Bartholomew too. ❞

He   seems   to   brighten   more   so.   ❝    Well   I'm   close   with   our   Lord   but   other   than   that..  my   best   friend   Doughy  !  Yeah  !   And   Stephanie,   she's   really   warm,   you   know  ?   And   a   girl   I   met   not   too   long   ago   called   Christina  !    I   have   friends   here  !   ❞

[kadextra]

It was really nice to see acau log in to qsmp again <3 if you’re not aware, his motivation went down bc his irl cat chunsik passed away. seeing him play and have yd join him to hang out for a bit was nice, I hope he’ll pop in more often in the future

[beranibear]

Bindi, my sweet potato of nearly 13 years passed away a few weeks ago. She was my assistance dog of 8 years and my world.

So here is my tribute to her always happy attitude. She would get happy and wag her tail even if you just looked at her. I wanted to make sure even if she isn’t here physically, that I’d always be able to see her smiling face.

- Tattoo done at Carrot Tattoo Studio in Melbourne

Took about 4 hours to complete. I’ll cherish it forever.

[so-very-small]

do you ever think about how small a grave for a tiny would be? how quick the grass would grow back over the tiny plot, almost like it was never there at all. how with each visit, it gets harder and harder for the giant to find the exact spot. there’s a grave marker, but it was built by giant hands, so the grave marker is so big, while that tiny specific few inches of earth is so, so small.

[grumpytrans]

hi girlies -

so i started using Tumblr less and less earlier this year, but when my best friend forever kitty cat of 16 yrs passed away, i lost all of my motivation for almost everything, including this app.

[battiegutz]

YAYAYAYAY GOT MY LPS BASES !!!!! already started on one, not gonna start on any others until i finish her jus in case i make mistakes lol.. anyway heres th bases, the wip, and the design i drew today that i didnt intend to be an lps custom but oh well lol

[m00kieblaylock]

Hey 👋🏻

I have not been on here in I think 18 months-ish. Truthfully, 2023 was the most difficult year of my life. It’s completely surreal to be honest that it all happened, I couldn’t have written it if I tried. I think I’m still in a form of shock. I was in too much pain to write anything or even mindlessly scroll on this app, that has for so long been a comfort for me and where I got support from friends who I met or through joy I got from content etc.

Thing is, I lost my beautiful dog in the April who was my heart and shadow, who was my warmth and safe space. A week later I moved to a rural town which completely changed everything about my daily life. In itself it’s been a massive adjustment and identity and community and comfort is something I’m still figuring out. Then a couple months later my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. He passed less than three months after. It fucking sucked because I adored him and never got a proper goodbye. It all just happened so quickly.

A few weeks before he died. My other dog, a sweet and beautiful girl who was my boys soulmate went to sleep and joined him. She was a very special girl and I still fucking miss them both. 2023 was basically me getting my heart torn to shreds too many times so close together that it was too much to even believe.

I was the closest to leaving this planet than I’ve ever been before. While it was definitely understandable to struggle with life at that point, it was worse than that. I find it hard to explain but my depression and anxiety were completely untenable for me to even slightly function. I had the darkest times and while I’m proud that I’m still here it’s been a lot. It’s kind of a miracle to think about how bad things got.

I put a lot of hard work into multiple avenues of mental health treatments. I even had an initial round of TMS treatments - something I would definitely consider discussing with anyone who is interested. It’s been completely exhausting. I am taking far longer than I would have ever anticipated to be myself again after the past couple of years and I do get frustrated, but the road is still ahead of me. Recovery isn’t linear or black and white. So here we are.

I am slowly but surely trying to include more positivity in my days, so I really want to come back on here. I deserve that joy again. I need it, in fact.

So, I’m not sure who is still around, who’s read this far or what has changed, but anyone who wants to catch me up on your life or touch base etc - I’m here to enjoy this little space again 💕✨

Molly 🫶🏻

[magicalshopping]

i am coping

[hannahssimblr]

I spend three hours wandering around the estate looking for Goose. I've checked every front garden, every hedge and flower bed and under every car, looked inside bins and up trees by the time I'm forced to contend with the fact that I haven't confronted the railroad tracks yet. I don't. I never pluck up the courage.

I can’t fathom it, being the one to find him there, sweet Goose with his little kitten paws and soft pewter fur. This thought that I hadn’t even considered until Michelle spat it at me is tormenting me now as I forlornly wander the evening streets, calling out the name that I’m not even sure he knows to answer to yet. 

I stumble upon Jen in a little park we used to drink in when we were fourteen. She’s been out looking too, evidently, but has had enough and is sitting on the ground gazing out over the last russet streaks of sunset over Dublin Bay. 

“Have you given up?” I ask her. Her eyes are clouded with sadness 

“I have a feeling he’s gone, Jude,” she says. I feel a lump forming in my throat. “He mightn’t be. He might come back, you know, cats are known to show up after being away for days, weeks, months even,” this is the sort of bargaining a person who refuses to accept the obvious truth gets too involved with, and the kind I’ve been doing with myself the whole afternoon, thinking that maybe if I imagine Goose’s return with enough conviction I will magic him home again, but Jen, for once does not match my idealism.

“He probably doesn’t know where his home is yet, he’s too new.”

“Yeah,” I shift some loose gravel with the toe of my shoe. “Jen, I feel so awful.”

“I know,” she says, and holds her arms out to me to pull me to the ground and wrap them around me, “It isn’t your fault, it could have happened to any of us.”

“I ruined the entire day with my stupidity.”

“Shh, stop,” gently fingers stroke my hair at the nape of my neck, “you just made a mistake, it’s human.”

“Did I ruin your date?”

She pauses, “It’s okay, I don’t think she realised it was a date, and it's probably for the best.” 

The wind rustles through the trees around the park, and I feel chilled with the knowledge that change is coming. The school year is ending soon and now the future lies unavoidably ahead of me, a path completely untrodden. 

“You’ll find someone else to take to the debs,” I tell Jen, peering at the side of her face as her short crop of chestnut hair is backlit by the sunset. “You should have been the first person to get a date anyway.”

She gives me a half smile, unconvinced, “there are like, four lesbians in our year including me.”

“Out lesbians,” I point out, “You never know.”

“When I go to college it will be better,” she says firmly, “school is just destined to be shit, romantically, I mean.”

“In all ways, I think.”

She just laughs. 

“This stuff is bullshit anyway.”

“What is? Love?”

I rub my arms where goosebumps are rising with the cold. I should have worn a jumper. “Yeah, you’re not missing out on much.”

A silence follows, one that feels deliberate, but I venture into it anyway, “Michelle and I had a bad fight earlier.”

“I heard.”

“Us shouting?”

“Mm.”

“Sorry.” I wipe my nose which is running from the cold with the back of my arm. “It was terrible, we both said awful things.”

She just circles her hand on my knee in a vague gesture of comfort.  

“Sometimes it feels like she’s trying to hurt me, you know what I mean? It’s like she has all of this bad stuff stored up that she wants to, like, unleash. It’s so vicious. It seems like she really wants to dig her nails in and leave a mark on me, and then I get so defensive, like, because talking it out doesn’t work, I have to shout, and I have to be horrible too so that she’ll even react to me.”

“We all say things we regret when we’re upset.”

“Yeah, but it’s so destructive. I come away from it all feeling like shit. Like, this isn't who I am, I’m not a person who fights. At least I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be up there saying these things to her, but I can’t stand there and let her say them to me either.”

“Yeah.”

“And I worry a lot about what things are going to look like after this year is over, like, with college and stuff,” even mentioning it makes my stomach feel tight, “like, um, how she wants us to live together and all.”

“And you’re nervous about that?”

I sigh, “Well, I don’t know, it makes sense to do it, right? She thought we could get a little place near NCAD, and we’ve been looking at houses online, and… I don’t know. The idea of being around her all of the time, like, twenty-four-seven, sharing a bed, eating every meal together, walking to college, it makes me feel claustrophobic, and then I worry that if I feel that way now, how am I going to feel when I’m actually doing it? Surely it’s not supposed to feel so terrible, right?” I prompt her when she doesn’t respond, “Jen? What do you think?”

She pauses for a long moment, toying with the aglets on the end of her boot laces. “I think that you’re asking me for an opinion I’m not prepared to give you.”

“...right.”

“We agreed, I agreed with you both that I’d never talk to one about the other. It’s not fair on me and I don’t want to feel stuck in the middle of it.”

“But-”

“You’re both nice people and I love you both so much, but when you are together you are absolutely horrible. That’s all I want to say.”

I don't know how to respond to that, so I don't, I just sit in bad feelings and wish for the millionth time that my brain was normal enough to make good choices on its own and not beg them from other people.

I sniff again, though this time I’m not sure if it’s just because of the cold. “So, um, the acceptance deadline for those other colleges is coming up.” 

“The foreign ones?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you still going to turn them down?”

“I promised Michelle that I would.” 

Jen’s shoulders slump, all of her does, like someone has let the air out of her, but she just says, “Alright.”

I feel the teeth of my genuine desperation for her opinion, her approval gnawing at me. I just want the sage words of advice she’s withholding from me, “Is it a mistake? Like, if I reject their offers? Would that be the stupidest thing I ever did?”

“I don’t know.”

“I worked hard, you know? I really put everything I had into those applications, I gave them the best that I had and they loved it, they said really nice things about me in the letters, and sometimes, like, I think I’ll die, or something, if I don’t leave Dublin. But then there’s Michelle,” I fist the front of my hair in my hand, “and the things at home, and I don’t know what the right thing is, whether it’s hurting myself or hurting everyone else…”

“Jude,” Jen suddenly grabs hold of my face and forces me to look into her eyes, “you have to do what feels right, okay? I’m not going to tell you what to do. Like, just… you need to fucking search within or whatever.”

“Uh huh. What does that entail?” 

“I dunno!” She lets me go and stands up, brushing dirt from the back of her jeans, “C’mon, it’s cold, we should go home.”

“Uh, I was kind of hoping you’d be able to solve me, actually.”

“No, this time you can solve yourself. C’mon, up!” She presents her hand to me and I let her haul me onto my feet. 

“Ugh, Jen,” I say, feeling myself sinking back into a melancholy hole again, but she links my arms and brusquely walks me toward the playground gates with all the pep of a middle aged Sunday morning power walker. “You know what? I think we could both do with something nice to make us feel better.”

“What do you mean ‘something nice’?

“Like, I dunno, an ice cream or something.”

“What time is it? It must be after nine.”

“Yeah, so? I was thinking of that place with all the weird flavours, do you remember that?”

“Yeah, but it’s all the way in town. Effort.”

“You can drive, can’t you?”

“You want me to drive? Jen I hate driving.”

“I think you’ll do it for me.”

“Why’d you think that?”

She eyes me sideways, “After what you put me through today, hm?”

“That's manipulation.”

“No, it's payback.”

“Fine. I’ll go get the car.”

“Really?”

“Yes! Come on, before I change my mind.”

Beginning // Prev // Next

[kylos-starlight]

.... in short, I'm stealing Ri.ck lmao she treated him like garbage just from like a friend stand point too. The only time she was ever really nice to him is if she had something to gain, like she got a gun from him to give to her guide and she was all sunshine and rainbows. When she broke down for a SECOND time and he consoled her she was nice then SWITCH back to her cold self.

I dunno maybe it's just how I am and how I think but she irritates me with how she interacts with people- Like she has trauma as shown from flashbacks and she copes differently than others but still...you can be nice and still keep your distance- >_>;

I do only feel bad for her in one instance and its sadly when her adorable dog passed away :c he ate something poisonous that was bait for dingos I cried at that part T_T

[seyvia]

Life update...

I've been going through a tough time after losing a beloved family pet. It was an extremely painful situation, I don't want to talk about it, and I haven't been myself lately. I hope you understand why I've been a bit distant. I don't want to upset anyone, but I felt the need to share what's been going on with me. I'll be okay, but I just need some time to myself.

Spare a moment and spend some time on your fur babies for me🩷

[3-2-whump]

The Auction Floor: Thomas Costa’s POV

Hi all,

In exchange for a chapter on the current timeline (a chapter I am still working on/fixing up before it is posted), I am posting a prequel chapter. Any and all prequel chapters will be found under 'Eternal, part 0.' They won't have nav arrows, but they will have an explanation to when in the story they take place, and a link to the masterlist to read more. Hope this system works for everyone!

This chapter happens slightly before, concurrently, and a little after The Auction Floor

TW/CW: death of a minor character (briefly mentioned), institutionalized slavery, pet whump, dehumanization, nonconsensual nudity (nonsexual), minor whump (at time of story), creepy/intimate whumper(s) (sort of a multiple whimpers situation), manhandling (nonsexual) (towards the end)

Mob boss Luciano Antonio Costa – Boss Tony - had died, leaving mafia to his grandson, Thomas, to control. The newly-appointed heir didn’t look much like a typical Italian mob boss. With his blonde hair, steely blue eyes, and freckled fair skin, he hardly even looked Italian. However, the old boss never had any legitimate male heirs to pass the helm of leadership to, having only one daughter before his wife died. Although he begrudgingly accepted his daughter’s marriage to Tom’s father, an inconsequential gangster from the Irish mob, he had always intended to pass the family business onto his surviving grandson.

“I’m so sorry for your loss” began to lose its meaning after the fourth well-meaning chump, and unfortunately, Grandpa Tony’s funeral had a good turnout. “That was a beautiful eulogy,” one of many nameless faces sniffled. “You two must have been very close,” they’d said to him. Were we ever close, though? Thomas wanted to ask, remembering only the time they last fought. It may as well have been a lifetime ago when he was a teenager who turned his back on the family to try and live a straight life, but the guilt hung over him like a curse no matter how hard he had tried to run away from his fate as the next boss of the Costas. It was always about what he wanted me to be, not what I wanted. Never once was it ever about what I wanted to do with my life, he bitterly remembered. Even now, it was all about Grandpa Tony’s wants, as he accepted his role in leading the Costas. He cast a baleful glance at the casket as it slowly disappeared beneath the earth.You won, old man.

His underboss and a few of the capos, men that he had grown up with and who now supported him in running the large criminal organization, caught on to their new boss’ sour mood. Admittedly, it wasn’t hard to notice how intensely he scowled at the freshly filled-in grave. They suggested celebrating Thomas’ ascension to head of the family with drinks and a night out, but their idea of a night out was attending a black-market auction and maxing out the organization’s funds on frivolous shit. Powerful drugs, illicit weapons, plundered antiques, and –dear god, did Jaime just buy an arowana?! Thomas looked over the side of his whiskey glass disapprovingly.

He glanced over at a corner of the auction house that seemed to gather a large crowd. He shrugged and decided to join them to see the display. The crowd surrounded an entire floor-to-ceiling wall of glass, behind which stood people from all around the world, each divided into their own little compartments within the glass wall, each of them completely naked. The way they were displayed in those little glass tanks was oddly reminiscent of how fish were displayed at a pet store.

Get a pet, people had said to him. It’ll be good for you, they said, help lift your spirits, they said, if you’re responsible for keeping one little thing alive, maybe you’ll be more motivated to take care of yourself, they said. Surely those people had meant a cat or a dog or a python, and probably not an actual human being. Although, Thomas remembered the people giving him that advice were part of the major crime families of the city, too. Perhaps this was what they meant all along?

Regardless of what those people meant, it was a whole different thing to actually commit to owning a person. He’d never seriously considered it before, but now he found himself thoughtfully observing the merchandise behind the glass. Though there were a few people who were obviously adults, most of them were teens, and most them were girls, though there were a couple boys, too.

Whichever one he’d pick, they would have to be relatively attractive, if he was going to have to bear looking at them at the end of every day. He eyed a glass cell with a stunning blonde girl futilely trying to cover herself with her hands and ignore the gazes directed within her cell. Thomas pushed past the crowd and moved on; pretty girls like that would be swiped up immediately, so it wouldn’t even be worth the trouble to place a bid. The next cell held a freckled boy who leaned into the glass, fogging it up with his breath and writing ‘HELP ME’ over and over again with his finger. Thomas passed on that one, too. One by one he would find something wrong with the human assets behind the glass cases. Too shy, too desperate, not my type, that one just stares ahead and doesn’t even move…

He finally stopped around the last few cells, where a crowd had dissipated from in front of a glass cell with discontented murmurs. Inside that one crouched a small boy, knobby knees drawn to bony chest, thin, tan arms wrapped around his shins, and a head of messy dark hair resting on top his knees. The boy dared to look up from his hiding place. Loose, unruly waves of hair and thick, dark eyelashes nearly covered his expressive dark brown eyes. Those eyes hid nothing as they shone with fear. Thomas gripped the whiskey in his hand a little tighter. The child cut a striking image inside the glass prison, reminding him of a time and a place and an incidence he never liked to think about for long-

To his misfortune, his subordinates caught him staring. “Got your eye on the little slave, Tommy-Boy?” Luca asked as he sauntered up to him.

“Don’t call him that.” Even if that was technically what he would be, the whole concept still took a while for him to get used to. “I just think he’s cute is all,” he mumbled into his glass, draining it of the rest of the whiskey while he tried to convince himself the pink in his cheeks was only from the drink.

“Why don’t you place a bid?” Thomas whipped around to see Jaime lurking behind him. When did he get here? His eyes traveled down to the large picnic cooler on wheels, supposedly where Jaime’s new fish was. “Boss Tony, God rest his soul, left you quite the inheritance, I’m sure you can afford him,” Jamie snickered. He pointed to the sign above the glass cell, where the serial number and QR code were displayed prominently. “142225,” he read.

“Doesn’t he kind of remind you of-”

“You shut up. Right now,” Thomas warned.

“We’ll shut up once you place a bid, now come on! At least look up the little slave!”

Thomas sighed and whipped out his phone; the sooner he scanned the QR Code with the app the black market had made him download, the sooner his underlings would shut the hell up. A profile popped up on his phone screen, the men crowding comically around him to read over his shoulder. 142225 had been collected in Pakistan, was 5’1”, and weighed barely 90 lbs. at the last weigh-in.

“They like to starve the kids here,” Luca explained nonchalantly. “Makes it easier to control them.” Thomas glanced briefly at the thin boy inside the glass, frowning a little as he let that unsettling fact sink in. He quickly scrolled past the blood type, known allergies, and other information he deemed irrelevant to hover his thumb over the ‘PLACE A BID’ button.

“Well, go on, you know you want to!”

“He looks easy enough to take care of, and easy on the eyes, too!”

“We saw how enviously you stared at Matteo’s pet at the last New Year’s party, won’t it be nice to finally have one of your own?”

 Eventually, their peer-pressure resulted in the new mob boss placing a bid, becoming $30k poorer, filling out some ridiculous form about any last-minute body mods he may want, and waiting until the end of the night to collect his new slave and go home. His companions had left hours ago, and every other buyer had gotten their slave already, so it was just him waiting alone in an emptying warehouse, trying to make small talk with one of the event coordinators.

“So, does he have a name?”

She didn’t even look up from her tablet. “He’s named whatever you want to name him.”

“Where is he from? Besides the collection point, where’s he actually from?”

“We don’t know.”

“How old is he?”

“We don’t know.”

Thomas barely suppressed a groan. “Is there anything you do know?” he ground out impatiently.

“Yeah. He looks even cuter when he cries.” The woman smirked over her tablet, looking over Thomas’ right shoulder. “He’s here.”

Thomas turned around to see the boy, now clothed in a white T-shirt and bluish gray sweatpants. He kept his eyes downcast and his hands folded in front of him. “What’s your name, kid?”

The boy looked up briefly before dropping his gaze back to his bare feet. “Khaled,” he replied, voice timid and heavily accented, “but you may call me whatever you want, sir.”

Khaled. He silently rolled the name around on his tongue as if savoring an exotic sweet. Khaled. Thomas cast what he hoped was a reassuring smile, not that Khaled saw it with his gaze fixed to the floor. “Luckily for you, I like your name.” He strode decisively toward the exit, gently placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder to direct him. “Come with me, Khaled.”

In the nearly three-hour car ride back to Thomas’ home, the mob boss learned three things about his new purchase. Firstly, Khaled was shy, only speaking when spoken to and even then, using as few words as possible. Also, Khaled probably didn’t speak much English; how much of this was because he was shy, and how much of this was because he literally couldn’t understand him? And –finally, -Khaled could run. Since the moment the car parked, Khaled dashed out and sprinted into the street. He nearly got hit by a truck before Thomas could chase after him, pull him back, and drag him inside the apartment building. The scene of a grown man dragging a distressed kid who was screaming bloody murder probably shocked some residents, but fortunately the doorman was part of the Costas and did not bat an eye.

“It is too damn early for this!” Thomas complained to himself as he practically threw Khaled into the awaiting elevator. “Do you want to be leashed up like a dog, you little shit?! Cause that’s what’s going to happen if you keep trying to run away!”

“Let go of me, please!” the boy cried, his voice brittle and panicked like a scared, caged animal as he tried to twist out of the punishing grip on his arm.

“Like hell I’m letting you go, not after maxing out my personal credit card on you and pulling an all-nighter for the first time since Kandahar!” He violently jammed the buttons that would take them to the top floor of the high rise.

Soon the elevator dinged, doors swooshing open as they reached the floor of his penthouse. “Come on!” Thomas continued to drag the boy through the hallway, ignoring him begging in that endearing accent of his. Khaled’s complaints all but ceased as soon as he opened the door to his penthouse and let the boy step inside. His eyes widened, sparkling in awe, and his jaw dropped as he let out a reverent “whoa” that transcended any language barrier.

The living room to the penthouse itself was light and spacious, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of natural light, and minimalist décor to accent the living room. A large L-shaped couch dominated the living room and looked over the expansive rooftop and the cityscape beyond it. The rest of the room terminated sharply into a dining area with a large oak table and a wood-floored kitchen with two large granite countertops. An imposingly large door –the door to Thomas’ bedroom, -stood closed to the left of the living room. A hallway to the right branched off into an office on one side, and a guest bathroom opposite. A small staircase right outside the laundry room led to a storage loft spanning above the entrance. Thomas toed off his shoes at the door. Khaled, who wasn’t wearing any shoes, hesitantly walked in. Tom frowned when he noticed the dirty footprints left behind on his beige rug.“Would you like a bath, Khaled?” he suggested. The fact that Khaled didn’t reply made him again wonder how much English he truly understood. We can work on that. He sighed in exasperation as he gripped the boy’s arm and dragged him off to the guest bathroom. Once inside, Thomas deposited him at the entrance and turned on the lights and the fan. He got the shower head running next. Khaled stood silently watching him by the door as he tested the water’s temperature with his hand a few times. He nodded in satisfaction as the water finally reached an agreeable temperature. “Come on in,” he beckoned. Khaled inched closer to the bath tub. “Can I take off your clothes?” he asked. The boy blinked, then shook his head as he quickly took off the shirt himself. The drab sweatpants soon followed, and he quickly stepped into the shower. Thomas drew the curtain to prevent water from spilling and to give him a shred of privacy. As the boy showered, he soon realized Khaled had nothing to wear but that depressing little t-shirt and sweatpants. He took them to the laundry room and chucked them in the hamper, making a mental note to buy some clothes for Khaled as soon as possible. Cute as the small naked boy was, he was still a minor, and Tom didn’t need any extra distractions while he was adjusting to his new role as Boss of the Costa Family.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump

[entamewitchlulu]

I wasn't initially going to say anything, but i. honestly, i really just, could use some emotional support, i guess.

there's an awful lot going on in my life right now that's making me pretty miserable. to top it off, I recently got news from my dad that our dog, Indiana's health has gotten a pretty bad prognosis. the long story short is, he could possibly have cancer, and while there's surgery that could help, he's 15 years old, and even the prep exam for the surgery could be fatal for him. so it's unlikely that we'll end up going through with it, and a really hard decision has to be made about whether to let him go now while things are still mostly okay, or wait until things deteriorate.

I moved away from home for the first time just six months ago, and one of the things I was most upset about was leaving my dog behind, knowing he was getting old. I live an hour and a half away from home now, and I have been able to go home to visit just once in that time. I've seen him only once in the last six months.

Indiana is everything to me. I know he can't be with us forever, but the pain of not being able to be there during the last months of his life is destroying me. I have no idea what things are going to look like, if we'll have another year or two with him being in the world, or if I'm looking at a world where he isn't there anymore as soon as the next few weeks. I'm working 40 hours a week and I have a cat to think about now, so I can't just drop everything and go home to be near him for a while as much as I want to.

I'm not asking for anything in this post like surgery money or anything. Just......support, I guess. Living alone means there's no one to give me a hug most days, and I'm coping badly with it all. It's just another piece of bad news that's breaking me, and all I want is to feel a little less alone in facing it.

I just want people to know how much I love him. He is the sweetest, kindest, most loving dog I've ever known. He was found in a junkyard living in a truck and when we adopted him he didn't even have a name, just a number which was the date he was taken in by the shelter. He has a tiny little tail that wiggles like crazy when he's happy. He loves sitting in the car, not even to go anywhere, just to hang out. He's a huge fan of cheese and memorized the sound of a cheese stick opening so that he could get a small bite of mine whenever I had one. He's so good at "shake" that when you have a treat for him, he will paw the air wildly with one paw and then the other to show you just how good he is at doing it and how much he deserves his treat. Sometimes he gets the zoomies so insanely that he has to bolt all around the yard, in and out the door so fast that you'd think he was a cheetah in another life. He can turn on a dime. He's scared of fireworks and loud sounds because we made the mistake of taking him with us to a historical reenactment once and all the muskets and cannons scared him. He learned how to pull a cart once but we never kept up with it. He knows the word "rabbit" and loves to chase them around but never catches them. When he's happy to see you he'll press his whole head into your knees and lean so much that he almost knocks you over. He likes to press his whole body against you. When he lays down he sometimes splays his paws out to either side like a seal. His favorite toy is his stuffed rabbit and he cuddles with it all by himself.

I love him, so, so, so, so much. I can't be with him right now and it's killing me. I'm grieving him before he's even gone because I can't comprehend a world where he isn't in it and I don't know how else to prepare myself.

I don't know how to end this. He's still with us right now, but I don't know for how much longer. Please hug your pets for me tonight. Hold them close and remind them how much you love them. We don't get to have them in our lives forever as unfair as it is. I only wish it could be a little longer.

[cutebatart]

Part 1 of Cat!Ford AU

It wasn't supposed to be an AU but discord buds made me think otherwise jshfjdjd looks like Ford is now my late cat (babygirl I love you 🥺 I'll leave you some water tonight)

The AU got many paths, so it's like. No set timeline or canon for it. But there are some hard things set.

It's similar to A Better World, except in this one, Ford goes through his suicide plan. Detonate the portal and him along with it, thus, cutting all contact from Bill. But since Bill is still a threat, Ford reincarnates into a cat and runs into Stan, who's grieving Ford. So he ends up as a therapy pet for him while they both struggle being homeless. (Strays, if you will 🧐)

Also, because I'm mean :3 Ford is very limited in cognition as a cat, due to having a different brain. Some things are still there, but the concepts are nebulous to him. Vague gut feelings, you know. Also, I want him to grow up a bit before running into Stan.

Maybe Stan considers suicide after months of grieving, but hours beforehand, he runs into Ford, half-starved and begging for his attention and food (who instinctively recognizes Stan as safe). Stan takes him in and then suddenly, he has a pet. So now he can't commit suicide, not while he's so attached to this lil kitty (that also, conveniently, has six little paw pads).

Not sure what Stan would name the kitty. I don't think he'll name him Ford, since it's too soon and he's trying to not get attached (good luck with that, bucko). Meh, I'll figure it out :P