tw addiction whump, alcohol, past trauma, pet whump, rocky recovery, flashbacks, emeto, paranoia, self-blame, self-deprecation, dehumanisation
Once Whumpee had gotten out and was allowed to make their own decisions again, they decided it would be prudent to make as many bad ones in as short a time frame as humanly possible. Their first trip out of the hospital had brought them straight to the liquor store, and they bought as much alcohol as their court settlement could pay for. They wanted nothing but to forget. Forget the trial, forget their captivity, forget…
Sit pretty for me. There you go, good boy. Aren’t you a good little pet?
They swallowed and threw the money on the counter, then grabbed their beverages and left without a word. They didn’t give the cashier enough time to recognise them from the news.
The bottles kept clinking together quite obnoxiously as Whumpee struggled to bring all of them up the stairs to their apartment. They clinked even more as they tried to put them down one by one without breaking any so they could fish their key out of their pocket. They groaned when they realised they would have to repeat the whole thing again; pick up the bottles one by one, bring them inside, push the door closed with their hip, put them down one by one, lock the door.
They stared at the collection of all the different beverages they had laid out in front of them. Vodka, gin, whiskey, whatever they could find on the shelves, they’d bought. They had no idea what they liked. They doubted they liked any of it.
Whumpee glanced towards the window, shame immediately rising in their chest. What if someone saw them? Would the people judge them? Would the knowledge of their trauma make it worse in their mind or better? Would they accept them as just another failure of society, someone who had been too weak to handle the hand life had dealt them? Or would they scream and shout about the unfairness, the fact that someone as useless as them had been given such a large sum of money, only so they could blow it on substances?
They stepped up to the window and hastily closed the blinds. Nobody would see them like this. Not now, not ever.
-
Whumpee’s resolution to avoid others whenever they were wasted had crumbled in the first few days, because they’d thought it appropriate to go out and try to make friends. They had been so desperately lonely.
They’d woken up one day on a public bench, being watched over by a stranger. They had excused themself and rushed home, drowning out the memory with more alcohol right after having thrown up the last of the previous day’s shots.
But it seemed like their drunk mind wanted nothing but the tentative familiarity of that chance meeting to be repeated over and over again, because they found themself back on the bench every other day. Caretaker — as the stranger had introduced themself — was always kind to them, and always made sure no one else bothered them on their leisurely strolls. They were… different, odd, but a safe kind of odd, the kind of odd Whumpee felt comfortable inviting into their depressing little apartment after just a week of knowing them.
One week? Two weeks? Whumpee couldn’t remember. It hadn’t been a long time, probably, because their first supply of alcohol was still going strong.
“I don’t think I should,” Caretaker said awkwardly. “I mean… Are you sure you want me there?”
“Yeah… yeah, I… I don’t have anyone else, really…” they slurred, blissfully unaware of how much of a target they were putting on their back. It was nothing but luck that Caretaker didn’t jump on the opportunity to burgle the victim of one of the most famous legal cases, who, as everyone seemed to be aware of, was sitting on a pile of cash.
“Don’t say that,” they said quietly, and Whumpee instinctively assumed it was out of pity.
“Why? It’s true. Everyone knows, ‘cuz I walk around here every single fucking day, and I’m always fucking alone.” They gave Caretaker a lazy grin. “Not right now, I guess, but it’s not like you’re constantly with me, huh? And eeeeveryone hates me for it, they want me fucking gone, they want me off the public property, and away from their children, and they look at me like I’m no different than the pile of fucking trash they leave out every Tuesday!”
“Alright, alright, but don’t fucking tell everyone that you’re constantly alone. At least lie about it.”
That made Whumpee stop in their tracks, their dumb smile faltering a little. “Huh?”
“There are bad people in this world, Whumpee. You should know that better than anyone. Just lie and say you’re going to a friend’s place, or going back home to your family. No need to make it known that you’re easy pickings.”
Whumpee stared at them blankly, trying to process the words. “Huh…?” Was Caretaker… not saying it as a means to comfort them?
“I’ll explain one more time once we get to your place, if you still wanna bring me back.”
Of course they did. They wanted it more now than ever.
-
“Pet me?” Whumpee asked abruptly.
“What? Like a dog?”
Whumpee tensed. Even in their drunken haze, the comparison sent them back to the place they’d so painstakingly escaped. “I… guess so.”
Caretaker seemed to notice the change in atmosphere too, and they put two and two together. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just surprised—”
“It doesn’t matter.” They pushed their head against Caretaker’s thigh. Admittedly, the alcohol made it easier to forget, even if not to forgive. “Pet me?”
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“I’m asking you.”
Caretaker hesitantly lifted a hand and placed it on top of Whumpee’s head. They carefully carded their fingers through the soft hair, gently scratching their scalp as they went. Whumpee had the feeling Caretaker was being overly cautious, so they nuzzled against their hand as a way of encouragement.
“It’s okay if you think of me as a dog,” Whumpee said before they could stop themself. It wasn’t okay, but they didn’t want Caretaker to hold back on the headpats just because they thought it might trigger something in them. Even if it might.
“It’s not,” they said anyway. “I’d never think of you as a dog.”
Whumpee huffed. “Maybe it’d make everything easier, honestly. You wouldn’t fault a dog for being useless. You’d just coo at it endlessly, everyone would. ‘Aww, look at that adorable, useless dog. Who cares what it can do for me? All it has to do is lie there and be adorable.’”
“Do you think of yourself as a dog?” Caretaker asked softly.
“I sank lower than a dog ages ago, I think. I’d have to work really hard to get back up there. I’m more like… a roly poly.”
Caretaker petted them mutely for a while, repeating the pleasant motions and slowly lulling Whumpee to sleep. “I like roly polies,” they murmured before Whumpee could’ve fully drifted off. “And I like dogs too. But…” Their petting stopped, and they let out a heavy sigh. “I like you so much more and so differently than any animal.”
-
“You’re gonna die of alcohol poisoning one day, you know.”
“I’m gonna die of withdrawal…” Whumpee made a half-hearted attempt to get the bottle from Caretaker, but they held it up and out of their reach. “You know you can’t keep it from me if you want me alive…”
“Oh, I can. We’re gonna work on it, bit by bit. And right now, you’re not getting any.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Nope.”
“You’re gonna kill me.”
Caretaker rolled their eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”
Whumpee rolled over onto their back, trying to ignore the nausea. The ceiling was swirling and morphing, and they had no desire to ever see it come to a stop again. “I’d rather get alcohol poisoning than die of withdrawal, I think. I don’t know how either of them are, but I know I don’t want to be sober.”
“Hopefully, you won’t ever know how either of them are.”
Whumpee scoffed. “I didn’t want to know what being a human pet was like, and here we are. Not only do I know, but thanks to the fucking trials, everyone else knows too.”
“That doesn’t mean everything you don’t want happening to you will suddenly happen. You don’t have to run head first into a wall just because you feel like it’s coming at you and you want to strike first. Walls don’t usually move. Not when you’re sober.”
“Huh?”
Caretaker sat down on the sofa next to them, gently rubbing their arm. “I think you deserve a better life, Whumpee. Even if you don’t want any.”
“I don’t—” The nausea suddenly became unbearable, and they pushed themself off the couch to stumble into the bathroom. They didn’t reach the toilet.
They had no idea what they’d meant to say before the accident. No one would ever know.
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wip snip 5.1
i've been tagged a bunch of times over the past few weeks to post wip snips and only had the last few chapters of star splitter to post, so i bailed. i finally have something new to preview!! have a bit of the gilmore girls fic, still in progress. 🥰
Just about 8 years ago, the bell over the doorframe jingled violently as Draco Malfoy threw the door open and swept in, already talking. “Bloody hell, that snow is abominable,” he was saying. He hefted a bundled, starfish-shaped form that would turn out to be a toddler by his hip, a pram scooting behind them and leaving a wet trail on Harry’s floor. With a flick of his wrist, the pram had folded up and nestled in the corner of the dining area, dripping there ignored, as Draco descended upon the counter much the same as he did almost every day.
“You, there—please tell me this place has something warm to—” And then Draco froze, because back then he had not done this every day; this was the first time, and more specifically the first time he had seen Harry Potter in the flesh since their eighth year of Hogwarts.
“Malfoy,” Harry had said, eyeing the puffy bundle warily. He didn’t know it was a toddler then; every bit of Scorpius was covered up and radiating Warming Charms. In hindsight, he was probably sweating, but Harry was to later learn that Scorpius had been a quite agreeable child until he learned to read—an apparent mistake that Draco despairs of having made a few times a week—and he made no complaints even dropped onto a stool as he was, propped up against his father.
“What are you doing here?” Draco, then Malfoy, had demanded. He looked utterly thrown and somehow offended, as if Harry’s existence in his own place of business was a grave insult to him.
“This is my place,” Harry said, and then as an instinctive response to Draco’s disbelieving scoff, he added, “I own it.” He’d hoped Draco would pick up on the implied threat—don’t be an arse or I’ll kick you out.
...
“This place is called Al’s,” Draco said accusingly. “You’re not Al.”
“Nope, I’m not. I’m Harry.” When Draco stared at him, Harry clarified, “Harry Potter.”
“I know you’re—who is Al, then?” Draco went pale beneath his winter flush. “Wait. Did you name this place after—Dumbledore?” He whispered the name as if ashamed, and Harry supposed that was about right, though it garnered him little sympathy.
Harry let that dread sit on Draco’s face for a few moments before he said, “No, it was already called Al’s when I bought it. Didn’t feel like changing the name.” He had changed everything else about it, though, spending one exhausting summer converting it from a pub no one really liked to go to anymore to a greasy spoon that people liked much more.
...
Harry had not opened this place and kept it open so he could be insulted and bullied; he was long past the time in his life when he would accept that, especially from the likes of Draco Malfoy. And so he opened his mouth once again to tell Draco to get out—ignoring all the questions he had for him, like what he was doing in this town, out in the snowstorm, carrying some sort of doll, maybe?
Before he could say so, and even before Draco could interrupt, the doll made a noise that made Harry startle and drop the rag he’d been wiping down the counter with. The doll made another noise, reached out, and grabbed the rag.
“Mine!” the doll said, lifting its head until a nose poked out of its bundling. That was when Harry realized that what Draco had set down on the stool was a toddler.
“Not yours,” Draco said as Harry tried to process this. “Let it go, Scorpius, it’s disgusting!”
“Oh,” said Scorpius, in a very wobbly sort of voice. His head tipped up so much that Harry could now see wide eyes, which were a complex hazel shade that made him really start to wonder what Draco was doing with a toddler. Said eyes were glistening slightly, and to accompany the look, Scorpius said, “Okay,” in the saddest little voice Harry had ever heard. He dropped the rag back on the counter; he could barely move his arm in his heavy, puffy coat.
“He can have it,” Harry said quickly; he grabbed up the rag and tried to hand it back, unable to deal with that stricken face.
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