#Seb Dex Peter

[ashintheairlikesnow]

BBU Community Days

@bbu-on-the-side {Day 13} Safety

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CW: Pet whump, BBU, referenced violence, scars, memory loss

Safety is as easy and as simple as the collar around his neck. Every night, Peter Renford goes to sleep with a soft cloth one that he can't even really feel, and pulls the blankets up to nearly cover his own head until he is bathed in the dark.

It never takes long for him to fall asleep. When he dreams, he doesn't remember most of them beyond the memory of a soccer ball, pounding cleats, sitting at a kitchen table with a box of fried chicken from the KFC down the road and fighting with his brother over who gets the last of the mashed potatoes and gravy. The chemical-salt taste lingers somewhere under the headache already pounding behind his temples when he comes awake, groaning and shifting along the air mattress he sleeps on, on the floor of a tiny room that was a half-bath before his Madam made it his bedroom.

He stretches, and the scars layered over his back from neck to ass protest. They don't move like regular skin, and he winces. New welts throb, waking up right with him.

For a second, behind the headache and the pain in his back and knees, Peter knows that something is terribly, horribly wrong about this.

He knows, even though he doesn't want to know, that his name isn't Peter Renford.

But he can't remember what it was.

Then he fumbles clumsy sleep-slowed fingers to his neck, slipping the cloth collar away from skin that doesn't remember how to be bared. His heart beats too quickly - to have a collar removed is to be in danger, at risk. It is what happens when Madam really hurts him. Keeping it on is a promise between pet and owner that each will keep the other safe.

Outside, just beyond the door, he hears footsteps. A muttered grumble tells him it's Sebastian, heading downstairs to make breakfast and coffee. Dex, silent as a grave, must be right behind him, but you never hear Dex.

Seen and not heard, perfectly made, Madam always says. I do not make mistakes.

Except for Peter.

But Madam didn't train him. She just got the failure that no one else wanted to buy.

Peter swallows, nervous at the way he can feel air on skin, and scrambles to the box of collars laid out by collar next to the bed. He finds a good one, simple navy leather with a silver buckle, and pulls it on.

As soon as he feels it, the welcome familiar constriction and cool leather warming to his skin, his fear falls away.

Safe.

He's safe.

It's quick work to pull on a sweater and pants, run fingers through his hair, and try a few more stretches. Madam isn't home this week, she's at a conference, and so the house can stay soft and he and Seb can laugh about anything they want while Dex watches with little crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

Just him and his brothers, for a few more days.

The last dregs of his dream whisper, They aren't your brothers. You aren't supposed to be here.

But those thoughts aren't safe.

So he locks them away, and by the time he gets downstairs, Peter Renford has forgotten the dream entirely.

Except for the feeling, still lingering, that something is terribly wrong here.

#bbu community days #bbucommunity #bbu #pet whump #box boy universe #box boy #whump #peter renford #peter: courage #collars #captivity

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"It was perfect domesticity; a domesticity that was twisted and a little fucked up, but it was theirs."

If I am allowed to submit for 5 sentence fics 🫶

For my usual suspects 🥹

CW: Pet whump, BBU, deeply conditioned/brainwashed whumpee POV, sickfic... kinda...

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"Every time she leaves, he gets sick." Sebastian leans against the door frame, frowning into the darkness of the bedroom. It's Micheal's room, but sometime during his first year in the house Peter had started sleeping in there, and Madam never stopped it.

Micheal looks up from where he sits on the bed, and shrugs. "Safer," He whispers, after a pause to think.

The collar he wears is heavy and thick, with a small box on the back and electrodes that press into his skin. He can only speak for so long in a day, and each word uses up precious seconds he doesn't want to lose. So you have to hear what he doesn't say as much as you hear what he does.

Safer to be sick now than to be sick when Madam is here.

And it's true.

For all of them, it's true, but especially for Peter. His back and thighs and arms all show the scars of the beatings he's taken at Madam's hands, beatings the rest of them no longer have to face.

Micheal leans over, gently brushing dark curls away from Peter's forehead, stuck there with sweat. Peter only mumbles something, curling up a little more tightly under the blankets, coughing a harsh, raspy cough that makes Seb worry he'll have to call the WRU clinic later on.

"Right. Well... Dex is at the library, he'll be back in a couple hours. I'll make Peter some soup, you try and get him sitting up, okay?"

Micheal looks over at him and smiles, hand under his chin in an easy sign for thank you. It saves words, saves time. And he's getting the hang of the sign the others dip into and out of regularly in their own speech.

"Yeah, no problem. Soup, bath, we'll NyQuil him back up and then back to sleep. We have a week before she gets back."

Seb turns to walk back down the stairs, sighing. The house is more relaxed when she isn't here - the pets all careful and more or less content, without the nervousness and tension. He doesn't mind this, days like this, at all. Honestly, it's probably a better life. All he has to do is cook and keep the kitchen clean.

It's a perfect Domestic life - a little twisted and fucked up, sure, but it's the life he wanted, the life he signed up for. It's his life.

He cooks, he cleans... and he hides from Madam's anger, or hope it turns in Peter like it usually does, and tries not to feel guilty for every scar Peter wears and Seb doesn't.

Well.

He can't change anything about this.

But he can, at least, make some soup.

#whump #bbu #pet whump #box boy universe #box boy #sebastian: serenity #writing #card games and pain's ocs #Micheal #peter: courage

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Why? WHY? Look at what she’s done to poor Peter who just wants to please her!! Look what she’s done to Marco, and Micheal, and Dex and Seb and and and!!

I’m a sucker for it though

I was looking in Peter’s tag and you mentioned an upcoming chapter where Peter starts thinking of Karen Renford like Logan Marks thought about his mother. Did that ever get posted? I SO want that pain 😈

I never did finish it! It... It made me too sad. But the WIP is lurking in my Google docs...

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Karen Renford: 2 13 & 14

Their emotional/moral weak spots

Karen's main emotions are smug arrogance and rage. Her rage would be her weakness, because she can be goaded into losing control of it. Although mostly this ends up being bad for Dex, Seb, and Peter, who can end up absolutely wrecked by it.

Her sense of morality resembles no one else's, but she IS immensely bound by it. She will not turn on someone she considers a friend/useful employee - see how she actively defends Luke Petrus from the consequences of his own actions more than once because he is (or she believes him to be) utterly loyal to her. And she will eventually be set up more or less to take the fall for the Speak Out Arc, as her signature is on Chris's intake papers and she's in the video with him clearly drugged, terrified, and being violently abused.

What gets them flustered

Loss of control, or when her pets act in ways she didn't expect or predict. And when events do not go according to plan in general, like when she turns on the TV to see Kauri and Chris exposing that both were abducted on global television.

Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Karen is quite a creature of habit! She wakes at the same time every day - 5 AM. She drinks her coffee in the same mug every morning, then pours a second cup into a travel mug for her trip to work. She checks emails first, then voicemails when she gets to WRU. Her first meeting or appointment is at 9 AM sharp and no earlier or later. She lines her shoes up just so. Everything is an ingrained habit with Karen Renford... everything.

#karen renford

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Ash, did you ever actually posted or mentioned a face claim for Dex and Peter?

Sort of! Here is an old moodboard of the boys!

#peter asks #seb asks #dex asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

More Karen Renford differences now vs before? I am lowkey kind of fascinated by it. Same with Peter? And do you have any headcanons about where Dex and Seb went? I loved their story so much

She stops dyeing her hair red and it's a pale, faded blond with a hint of coppery highlights to it. It starts to go a little silver at the roots.

Her wardrobe goes from strict, severe business suits to soft sweaters and loose linen pants, in soft shades of dusk, blush, sky blue. She forces Micheal to scrub the bloodstains out of the expensive fabrics.

For the first time, the boys see her barefoot. She regularly simply sits out in the garden reading under the shade of a large tree.

She will, on occasion, ask Micheal, Peter, or Marco their opinion. (She often immediately discounts Marco's opinion by replying with, "That's how I imagine a slut would feel about it.")

She is actually incredibly depressed by the loss of everything she worked so hard to achieve. Her life was filled with the possessions she surrounded herself with, and nearly all of it is now gone. Her idleness is in part a sadness she has no way to express because she has never felt it before.

Micheal is explicitly a gift for Peter to make him happy to live with her again. Although she doesn't actually tell Micheal that.

She attempts to force Peter and Micheal into an intimate relationship despite Micheal's lack of interest in men because Luke informs her of Peter's hopeless crush and she decides to fix that problem, which will of course make Peter even happier. Right?

-

Dex and Seb are both in different adjustment houses for a while. Each of them moves out of those houses and cuts contact entirely with Peter and Micheal within two years of freedom.

Karen can't find them.

They purposefully made a decision to stop talking to Peter because they knew he would turn them in if Karen ever came for him, would give up their information.

Sebastian is in Canada working as a personal chef to a wealthy elderly couple, living in guest house on the property and dating a nice woman around his own age.

Dex is elsewhere.

They keep in contact with each other.

@card-games-and-pain

#karen renford #dex asks #seb asks #derogatory language

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The sense of loss was bearable, it was the loneliness that made it hard to stand - For five sentence fics!

Losing her, Peter could take. It was having to live here - by himself - and have no one he could hear breathing at night that he couldn't stand.

Sure, he could call Micheal any time he wanted - and sometimes he really pushed that, called him in the middle of the night and woke him up just to hear his voice - but it wasn't the same.

He had to graduate the program. They said he couldn't learn to be a person all on his own after so long, that Micheal didn't know how to teach him. So he sits in classes and learns until his head hurts all the things he was made to forget, and more that he never knew in the first place.

Seb stops returning his calls.

Dex stops texting him shortly after that.

Their phone numbers stop working.

Peter lays awake at night and thinks that if Micheal stops talking to him, too, he'll find the nearest WRU recruitment office and turn himself right back in and beg them to take him back.

#peter: courage #recovering whumpee #grief tw #depression tw

[ashintheairlikesnow]

What has dex been up too!! Him being “elsewhere” is driving me nuts!

Dex is... somewhere, hidden as deeply as he can possibly be. He is relearning how to speak out loud, after twenty years. His voice is rough and sometimes speaking feels like sandpaper in his throat, but he's trying.

He has a windowsill where he lives now covered with tiny little potted plants he takes careful care of. He's in pain, and often can't walk very far. The cost of twenty years of Karen's company is left in the way his fingers ache on rainy days, how his knee gives out sometimes. The way his back will throb for days if he pushes too hard.

He smiles, though. His room is his own.

He sleeps a lot.

He knows she took Peter back by now, he's sure of it. He knows. But he knew if he kept in contact with Peter, they would all be lost. Instead, they had to allow Peter to be taken for he and Seb to remain safe themselves.

There's guilt, there.

But also... freedom.

#dex asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

What if… Karen was a kinder owner but still the same with her brutal punishments and how she thinks of her pets? How would the hot and cold affect her boys? And would it stay the same when she gets them back?

Peter would be even more attached to her. Getting actual praise? And affection? He would think of nothing but the next chance to please her. Dex would probably be more emotionally attached to her, too.

Seb would be unsettled. And avoid her.

#karen renford

[ashintheairlikesnow]

18 and 19 for Peter, Dex and Seb

What’s the best way to cheer you up?

The three look at each other, then back at you. Dex signs, "I enjoy a good book, and an afternoon off."

Sebastian sits back. "When Madam has a late meeting and I can make whatever I want for our evening meal, that always cheers me up."

Peter gives you a slight, soft smile. "Micheal cheers me up."

What makes you sad?

Dex frowns. "I don't want to say."

Sebastian sighs. "When she's angry, and all I can do is keep cooking and hope the storm passes."

Peter shrugs. "Not much. When my brothers are sad, I guess."

(Micheal belongs to @card-games-and-pain)

#peter asks #dex asks #sebastian asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Just curious but will you write about Dex ever again or is his story over? Just because I would love to see more about what happens to him!

Oh, oof. Yeah, what happened with the other writer (which is its own thing I’d rather not go into) kind of killed my motivation for him, because his story felt so set and then was sort of left adrift. I haven’t written him in a long time, but to be honest I have thought about him on and off. The current theory on what happens to him is that when Karen loses them, he and Seb are much better at going into hiding than Peter is and Dex more or less vanishes from Karen’s ability to find him entirely.

As to what happens to him at that point... that I don’t know. 

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Hey if you miss Dex 👀 maybe he gets Seb to help and save Peter and Micheal from Karen 👀👀

He just had such a poetic fucking brain, you know? Writing him was always so oddly lyrical and beautiful even when it was his life falling apart around him.

#dex asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Dear Diary for Peter -Avie

@card-games-and-pain

Dear Diary,

I don't like the adjustment house. I don't like the others here and they don't like me, not since they found out who I belong to. Dex and Seb won't contact me anymore, and I hate it here. I hate it.

Micheal says to just keep working to get better, that it'll get easier. They won't even let me stay with him until I finish the readjustment program. They tried to take off my barcode but I wouldn't let them. They say it has to come off before I can graduate.

I want Madam back.

I want to go home.

#peter asks #dear diary oc asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Oooohhh! Does Peter see Karen as a sort of maternal figure? Since he was one of the ones who was taken in his teens, right?

Peter was taken at 16, yeah. And Karen actually finds his "fixation" on creating a family structure out of the shambles of a life he lives amusing and annoying on equal measures. He clearly sees some sort of maternal figure in her and refers to Dex and Seb (and eventually Micheal and Marco) as his 'brothers'.

#peter asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

What’s everyone’s favorite music genres?

Oooh, I feel like I’ve answered this and if my answers now conflict, well, um... nature of writing I guess.

Danny: My Chemical Romance is a whole genre, right

Nate: Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Nate to listen to smooth jazz on a Saturday night. Probably a singer-songwriter guy overall. Instrumentals, too.

Ryan: Ryan has a close personal relationship with Lizzo’s music. 

---

Nat: Nat listens to 90′s rock and alternative bands. She unironically wears an old Nirvana shirt. Definitely known to clean house to Pearl Jam. Probably delightfully surprised Kauri by singing Nine Inch Nails one day. “GOD MONEY he’ll do anything for you...”

Kauri: Pop-rock, or pop. Dance music would be his favorite. Something you’ll hear in dance clubs. I feel like he has probably gone wild over a Lady Gaga song here or there.

Chris: Also Lady Gaga. But he’s... oh, Chris. He’s a musicals boy through and through. He is always listening to musical soundtracks. He also loves bubbly pop music, hence his... devotion... to Katy Perry.

Jake: Rock, metal is preferable, alt rock is good, too.

Antoni: Death metal, full stop. But he has a weakness for folk music and Russian lullabies.

Krista: She likes singer-songwriters with guitars and not a lot of added instrumentation.

Leila: Pop, hip-hop, pretty much usually whatever is on the radio. 

---

Jameson: Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Rise Against are all faves. Not that he knows that...

Allyn: Smooth instrumentals, soft. Allyn loves those videos where it’s “song but it’s raining outside and you’re by a window” or “song but you’re in the next room.”

Sarita: Oooh, coming up blank. I guess she’s not ready for me to know this much yet.

Nova: Lewis Capaldi-style - lots of piano, big voices, angsty lyrics, songs about yearning.

Eli: He listens, in private, on occasion, to the music that reminds him of his mother’s home - Indian pop music, mostly. It gives him migraine headaches but he does it anyway. Other times, he allows himself to listen to the 2012-ish pop chart toppers that Nine used to play on the radio while cleaning the house they were held in.

Nine, because let’s throw him in: He listens to the exact same music, because it makes him remember when they were together, and thought that was all that mattered. Mostly he likes rock music otherwise now.

---

Peter: Happy pop music. He just wants music that won’t make things sadder than they already are. 

Sebastian: Instrumentals. Seb definitely listens to smooth jazz.

Dex: Imogen Heap, Vienna Teng, kind of electro-pop, or acoustic or piano-driven singer-songwriters, too. 

#oc asks #peter asks #kauri asks #jake asks #chris asks #nat asks #anon asks for danny #nate asks #ryan asks #antoni asks #jameson asks #allyn asks #nova asks #sarita asks #eli asks #nine asks #sebastian asks #dex asks #krista asks #leila asks

[ashintheairlikesnow]

how many pets does karen renford have now because I remember you saying she got one more and now if she also has Marco that's like five pets which is kind of a lot karen...

Ha, she ends up with just three in the end. She begins with Dex, Seb, and Peter.

While visiting Senator Leon, she decides - to punish Lee for dumping risotto on her head and Robbins for being rude to her - to have Marco trained as a Romantic by her most loyal handler, Luke Petrus, to be sold off to a friend of hers if Robbins doesn't cooperate. Everyone treats Marco as Karen's property during this time, much to Robbins' fury and Marco's horror (and later, acceptance).

She picks up @card-games-and-pain's Micheal after catching him doing nice things for Peter (how dare he!) and declares him hers, bringing him home. So four.

Micheal stays with them as Karen's "personal assistant" for a year.

Then, she loses all of them when she is arrested and they are liberated. The original three are sent to 'readjustment houses'. Peter stays in contact with Micheal, but Dex and Seb more or less vanish after about three years, as they become nervous about Karen finding them.

Karen retrieves Peter and Micheal and takes them to her quaint new cottage home in the countryside. That's two.

Then, Leon picks his wayward songbird back up and sends Marco to Karen.

So she's back to three!

#karen renford