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generic-whumperz · 25 days

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The Aid: Chapter 8–Reflections

This chapter is dedicated to all my haunted bitches <3

(Happy 4-20!)

In an effort to cut down my novel-length CWs, I’m only listing chapter specific warnings from here on out, the full list of general content warnings for this series is on the Masterlist. Proceed with caution :)

CWs & TWs: Whumpee having his second revenge killing fantasy of the day, creepy/intimate whumper making pervy dick jokes and being a bully, Whumper getting dragged (deserved), partial nudity (non-sexual), briefest implication of past non-con (blink and you’ll miss it), bug and rodent mention, paranormal encounter, descriptions of a corpse-like creature (light gore and body horror), death mention (of previous Whumper)

Whumpee has some abilities, in this chapter you’ll see: THIS TEXT = EMPATHIC READING

Word count: 3,652

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“Hold still, Mutt. I don’t wanna cut ya,” Wyatt warned, sounding more cautious than usual, as he made a clean scrape of the razor to The Aid’s tilted-up cheek.

‘Since when do you pass up the opportunity to make me bleed?’ The Aid thought. This was worse; this was so much fucking worse than his feared toenail-clipping or lotion-lathering scenario. He’d rather have his damn nails ripped out with pliers than be stuck sitting pretty and bare-chested as his Master glided a shaver over his face.

A disgusting noise ripped through the air only a few seconds later and immediately assaulted his ears. Something sounding like a choked growl emerged from the older man—was Wyatt having a seizure? A heart attack? Only in his wildest dreams did he think he’d get to witness the rat bastard drop dead at his feet. The Aid’s eyes widened in alarm and suppressed excitement as he willed himself with every ounce of self-control not to move a muscle.

Once his Master fell to the floor, he’d pounce. Wrap his good hand around his neck. Squeeze, squeeze so fucking hard until his fingers tore through skin. Stare the asshole straight in the eye until the last flicker of light sizzled out.

Wyatt turned to the sink, his face bright pink and nose scrunched, still making that god-awful noise that bounced off the bathroom walls.

The Aid waited at the edge of his seat—any marvelous second now.

The ruckus cut off when Wyatt leaned over the counter and hocked a large, murk-yellow loogie in the sink. He rinsed the razor still clenched in his fist under the running faucet and cleared the remaining phlegm from his throat with a few more nasty hacks before making another pass on The Aid’s stunned face.

‘…How disappointing.’ The Aid’s thought came delayed, his usual stream of internal monologue halted by his unfortunate misreading of the situation. Sure, he was annoyed by his Master’s comment, frustrated for losing himself in the second murder fantasy of the day, but he was even more peeved by the bastard’s gross abuse of his sink—his beautiful sink carved out of imported gold-veined Carrara marble.

He was only half a stroke of the razor in before Wyatt stormed into the bathroom—without warning or so much as a courtesy knock on the doorframe—and informed him he was taking too goddamn long and needed to wrap up the dog and pony show. Some words were exchanged, somehow leading to the brute snatching the razor from his hand and taking it upon himself to finish what The Aid started but was deemed incapable of finishing—because, as a 24-year-old man, he apparently couldn’t handle basic grooming.

“Ya were in that shower for an awfully long time,” Wyatt began, tossing The Aid a sly glance as if he knew a secret daren’t need repeating, but he would air out in the open anyway—classic Wyatt fuckery. “Bet ya enjoyed that alone time, huh? Must’ve gone to town on ya’self with uncloggin’ the pipes, eh?”

Wyatt rinsed the clump of white foam and whiskers off the razor as The Aid’s eyebrows pinched together and his mouth flattened into a thin frown, his stomach mercilessly twisting in on itself.

He didn’t even have a moment to respond, not like he wanted to, before Wyatt continued, “Ah, it’s all the meds, huh? Yeah, sometimes when I’m on antibiotics, I can’t rub one out right either. Or if I drink too much, but you know that.” The asshole had the ribald audacity to sprinkle some extra spice on the last words for added creepiness and then wink at him, much to his gut-churning dismay. Just throw it on the long, open tab of egregious offenses.

The Aid forced a painfully tight breath through his lungs and made a succession of slow blinks. Still wide-eyed and unsure how he ended up in this conversation he refused to partake.

Wyatt ogled The Aid up and down in a dramatic show of indifference. “What ya actin’ shy for, huh? We’re both guys—well, more or less,” he teased, dropping an octave to drive the message home that The Aid was just about as other as one could possibly get.

“But I suppose even the likes of you enjoy playing with ya’self. Got a dick, might as well use it, amirite?” Wyatt snickered, primarily to himself, as he made short strokes over The Aid’s chin.

Nope. That’s it. The Aid had enough—time to take the old dog out back.

“I was crying. A lot…Sir,” The Aid tersely responded, needing to end the topic above all else. Knowing the insight would likely invite ridicule, but preferring that over exchanging lewd locker room talk with his abuser.

Wyatt tsked, shaking his head. “Crying—yeah, that sounds more on brand for ya.” He almost sounded disappointed.

He paused a moment to rinse the razor before his lip curled as he scoffed out, “Big fucking crybaby. Ya’r eyes leak more than ya’r pecker.”

The Aid ignored the vulgar comment like he ignored much of everything else, letting it roll over him like cool water in a stream— besides, ‘You can’t make sense out of things where there isn’t any.’

Wyatt knuckled the underside of The Aid’s jaw to hold his face still as he started scrapping off his mustache in short glides. He sucked in his top lip in hopes of avoiding a nick, studying his Master’s face scrunch and furrow in concentration—the way Wyatt leaned in, the guiding, almost-tender support below his chin, the careful strokes of the razor against his skin, the delicate, purposeful closeness between them. It was familiar, almost felt okay, natural even.

He was the frog in a pot of boiling water, now simmering alive. He knew it and hated himself for it.

Wyatt continued working; the only sound heard for the next few minutes consisted of water spurting from the faucet and swirling down the drain with the occasional interrupting whooshes of the razor rinsed and taped against the lip of the sink to dispose of the billows of stubble-speckled foam.

He guided The Aid’s chin up so he faced the ceiling, making multi-directional glides on the underside of his jaw and neck. The Aid’s eyes slid to the side, fixed on the clearing in the middle of the mirror, the only section free of condensation from his long-overdue shower. His combed-through hair was still dripping wet, and his skin was still dewy from the lingering humidity.

A towel draped loosely around his waist, the only thing separating him and Wyatt. He tried not to think about how self-conscious he felt, how disgustingly intimate this invasion of privacy was. He tried to ignore Wyatt’s wondering gaze, working him over from head to toe. Rather, he placed his focus on observing the older man’s reflected movements work with an unfamiliar level of consideration for his welfare that he thought Wyatt was incapable of providing.

There—in the corner of his eye, he could’ve sworn he saw something dart out past the mirror's edge.

A bug? No, too big to be a bug. So, a rodent?

He knew damn well Wyatt wasn’t keeping up with the household chores during the past few months while he was out of commission, so varmints taking up residence was possible—likely even. His Master’s love affair with takeout was well-known and unmatched, and he seemed unfazed by being surrounded by rotting food and trash. He imagined just how filthy the living room, family room, front room, upstairs loft—and if he was fortunate, even the garage and pool house—must’ve gotten without his daily intervention. At that level, they’d probably need to call in an exterminator.

His eyes nervously flicked to the other side of him, where his large, porcelain soaker tub sat—nothing. If there were something, it would have been there plain as day.

He loosened a breath, trying to expel the wave of sweltering anxiety that flushed over him—

Mice. Rats. Cockroaches. Ants. Everywhere. An infestation of them.

Images of biting, creeping, diseased dregs of the animal kingdom invaded his mind. His skin ruddied from the prospect of waking up to a giant rat staring at him with those little creepy beady eyes he hated so much. A ripple of nerves detonated from the pit of his stomach, giving him the sensation like he ate fire for breakfast as shivers prickled under his skin. He unconsciously balled his left hand into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm.

“What?” Wyatt spat, taking notice of the tension feather in his jaw.

“Eyes playing tricks on me, Sir. Happens sometimes without my glasses on,” The Aid explained, glancing at the counterspace where he left his glasses before getting in the shower.

“Jumpy little fucker,” Wyatt murmured, gliding the razor over his Adam’s apple.

There—again. In the misty reflection, The Aid thought he saw three spindly, mossy green fingers with long, blackened nails curling over the side of the tub.

Well, that sure as shit wasn’t a rat.

He blinked frantically in the mirror, paralyzed as every hair on his body bristled. Only one other thing besides the man in front of him elicited this level of primal terror. And it wasn’t rodents.

“Fuckin’ hell, Shortcake, what’s ya’r damage today? Did I deprive ya’r freak-of-nature brain of too much oxygen, and now ya’r short circuitin’ on me?” Wyatt grumbled, not concealing the twist of bitter amusement cutting through his scathing glare. He must’ve noticed the sprouting goosebumps.

“Sorry, Sir, I’m just…cold,” The Aid lied, allowing himself to tremble, hoping it would pass as shivering.

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Cold? Ya don’t feel cold to me. Ya basically turned this place into a fuckin’ sauna. Best knock this funny shit off. And ya wonder why ya get the shit knocked outta ya, can’t ever act right. God damn idiot.”

CONTEMPT

Wyatt’s projected emotion shouted at him without even a tap of mind-prodding. The contempt he could deal with; he’d gotten used to it like some dimwitted friend he only tolerated in small doses when no one else was around to talk to. But he’d welcome contempt with open arms and freshly baked cookies if it meant evading the prowling malefic forces.

He kept quiet as his Master lined up his sideburns, eyes glued on watching him work in the mirror—he needed a degree of separation. The Aid couldn’t stand staring at the brute’s ugly mug head-on.

Wyatt’s eyes scared him the most, they always had, ever since the first day they met over six years ago at his Master’s 50th Birthday Bash Madame Eleanor threw for him.

His eyes were a chilling shade of icy blue, dead blue—the blue of frostbite and cracks in a frozen lake that would splinter, break beneath your feet and swallow you whole within seconds. His downturned, frosted eyes sunk deep and high under his protruding brow. He had that naturally off-putting I-rant-in-my-truck-and-post-hate-videos-online look, complete with a permanent scowl etched on his thin-lipped mouth with naturally arched, bushy eyebrows. He kept his ashy brown, silver-stripped hair short and combed to the side in an effort to hide his cow lick. A grown-out chevron mustache hid his top lip while he kept the rest of his face clean-shaven. But, despite his efforts, his broad chin and neck always displayed the dreaded permanent 4 o’clock shadow commonly plaguing many middle-aged men.

On the rare occasions when Wyatt smiled at him or during the more frequent scenarios when his Master flashed his teeth in a rabid bear sort of way, The Aid couldn’t help but notice the worsening entangled mess in Wyatt’s mouth. Wyatt’s big teeth, yellowed and crooked, peaked through irritated and swollen-looking gums. At this point, The Aid was more than sure Wyatt caught a preventable case of gingivitis. The culprits? A straight-up lack of routine teeth brushing commingling with a nasty nicotine addiction he couldn’t kick. The daily consumed carton of cigs and the cuds of chewing tobacco nestled in the pocket of his bottom lip did no favors as far as oral health was concerned.

As if a torn-up grill wasn’t bad enough, Wyatt’s age and substance abuse showed clearly on his face: frown lines, forehead lines, crow’s feet, blush-burned and puffy cheeks from constant flushing, and a hawkish but equally reddened nose. His skin looked weathered and dehydrated; living in a desert certainly didn’t help his case. The Aid thought his Master appeared as if he were in the trenches of fighting off a perpetual allergic reaction. If the older man took better care of himself and used a nightly retinol cream and sunblock in place of drowning his sorrows in IPA 12-packs, lines of coke, and slot machines, maybe he wouldn’t look so haggard.

The rest of Wyatt Sullivan only highlighted his villainous features. He was massive, pro-wrestler huge—broad-shouldered, burley, and too damn tall. The Aid thought of him as the Brawny paper towel guy’s evil older brother, but with a beer gut and a drug problem.

After intake, Handler Bryce categorized The Aid as “happy and temperate.” Later, he even went so far as to market his personality as “eager to please”—and that he was, despite how much he disliked the term. He performed all his domestic duties with a bright smile and a peppy “at once, Madame” or an “as you wish, Sir.” He kept a praiseworthy, straight-backed posture and spoke correctly in a measured, even tone—just like how he was taught. He was the whole Mystic Grand Servant package and then some. Yet, he’d instead focus on the half-man, half-Uruk-hai orc in front of him that broke down every carefully built pillar of poise and A1 caregiving and turned him from a regal investment to a cowering dog in a matter of months than acknowledge the phantom digits lurking in the reflection.

There.

Again.

In the tub.

A fuzzy mass of black and green moved.

‘No. No. No. Go away. Not here, not now. Not with him,’ The Aid pleaded, hoping this thing could somehow pick up his mental cry for a truce.

In the corner of his eye, he made out the blurred yet unmistakable shapes of skeletal, bony-knuckled fingers too long to be human drum on the tub’s edge slink down the side with each successive thrum in demand of his attention. Truce denied.

It could try all it wanted, but he utterly refused to give that thing even a quarter of a full-fledged glance. That’s how it got power—by him acknowledging it. It always started with something small—an audible finger tap, a ghostly whisper, glowing frost-colored eyes in the dark—to draw him in like a fish to a lure.

Oh, this thing wasn’t out to kill him—no, he didn’t think that was even possible. But it wanted something he considered worse: to feed on him. Slurp up the raw energy droning and pulsating inside him—the special spark that manifested as his abilities—like he was a fucking Baskin-Robbins cookies n’ cream milkshake until it got its fill. It’d only make its rounds again once he was restored to full power, and it craved another Aid-sized snack. By its too-frequent pitstops, he assumed that meant he was a tasty delicacy and one of its favorite hole-in-the-walls.

If it got its way, it would breathe him in, suck the life force out of him until his eyes rolled to the back of his skull and he lost consciousness. It would plunge him into a deep, restless sleep from which he woke with nothing short of a splitting migraine and depleted energy source lasting for days on end. It took him weeks, sometimes even months, to fully recover from a psychic attack.

With each menacing tap, his chest started to heave, each breath quicker than the last. His heart raced, the deep-rooted fear dissolving all gathered composure with each thud. If the oxy hadn’t kicked in already, he suspected he’d be zapped with the splintering pain of his cracked rib lancing into his side with each lungful.

‘Don’t look, don’t you fucking look!’ he internally screamed. ‘Why couldn’t this just be a fucking mouse?’

“No need to get all huffy, Runt, almost done,” Wyatt scorned through the tense silence. For one of the only times in his life, Wyatt’s voice brought him a strange comfort and grounded him.

‘Don’t give it attention, and it’ll go away.’ He took a deep, calming breath, thinking happy thoughts of green pastures and rainbows ending in beautiful waterfalls and—

His daydreaming was cut short by a slow, inhuman wheeze—Haaaaayyyyy

The spectral pitch of the other-worldly voice permeated every corner of his mind like a plume of dark smoke that he couldn’t shut out—it was just there, all around him, seeping into him—buzzing on his skin, ringing in his ears.

He panicked.

His steeled gaze melted faster than a cartoon character popsicle in summer. His eyes darted straight to the growing dark mass in the mirror.

His heart stopped, his breath stilled, and his body froze—petrified and goggle-eyed.

This living nightmare made those dreaded anthrophaghes look like child’s play.

A gangly arm hung over the front-facing side of the tub, exposing the thing’s equally revolting and terror-inducing body inch by inch. Its skin—painted a lifeless grey-green with blotches of gangrenous rot like a decaying corpse—was simultaneously loose and stretched too tight like half-melted, sloppily applied saran wrap pulled over a fake, anatomically incorrect skeleton with half-assed patchwork over the areas where it ripped.

At one end of its lanky arm, unfurled spider leg-like fingers with sharp, grime-crusted nails scrabbling the floor towards him. The other end led up to a too-bony shoulder, and then…he stared long and hard at the twisted, bloated face of Madame Eleanor.

His heart dropped into his stomach. His lungs refused to allow him a breath, filling him with stale air.

It couldn’t be her, not the real her. She was long dead. He knew that.

But he also knew he wasn’t the only one with a penchant for mind tricks. It must have tried to recreate Eleanor Sullivan’s likeness based on memories it poached from his mind during an encounter before—only his last memories of her were of her lying dead in an open casket.

Its face—no, Eleanor Sullivan’s poorly copied/pasted face was ghastly. Nearly unrecognizable.

In place of Madame Eleanor’s Botoxed face with bright, almond-shaped blue-green eyes, the reflection unveiled far-apart, lidless, ivory-colored eyes with no pupils locking onto him. Her button nose was gone, gnawed off, exposing the black gorge of its nasal cavity. Its mouth, a long, lip-less strip of decaying flesh, pulled out to its rawboned cheeks, revealing slivers of its pitch-black abyss-of-a-mouth. What sat on its head was nothing but a few clumps of long, feathery white strands of hair loosely tacked onto its molted skull—a far cry from his Madame’s signature dyed sandy-blonde locks. The gauzy wisps swished over its warped features as its head followed behind its arm’s descent onto the floor.

That thing began crawling out of the tub like it was Samara crawling out of a goddamn tube TV.

‘Oh hell no.’

He jerked back, face contorting with stone-cold horror, as a frightened shriek he couldn’t contain ripped free from his raw vocal cords.

“God damn it!” Wyatt bellowed, pulling away from The Aid’s face. He was too stunned to speak, too shaken up from the surge of adrenaline coursing through his body to notice the fresh slice on his chin.

“Did you see it?” He sputtered frantically, head whipping in the direction of the tub, blood streaking down his chin. “It—it—” he pointed at where the thing was supposed to be.

Nothing.

Wyatt all but shook his head, examining the empty tub. “Fuck, ya couldn’t just sit still? Now look at ya, bleedin’. Jesus Christ, ya’ve fucking lost it. Don’t tell me ya’r kook ass thought ya saw a ghost,” The man idly mocked, recalling the last time he noticed The Aid stare off into an empty corner with his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

The Aid shook, his lip quivered as he tried to belt out, “No! Not a ghost, worse than a ghost. It—” he turned to Wyatt to see a half-fed up, half-scornful glare shooting back. He stopped, realizing just how nuts he looked and sounded. He sank into himself.

“I’m sorry, Sir. These meds…they make me feel weird,” he sighed, swapping his fervent panic with a practiced flavor of clear defeat he knew convincingly shadowed his face and wilted his voice. He did indeed feel like a kook, not because he doubted what he saw, but because he remembered just who he was talking to—King Deflection.

“Don’t think that’s gonna get ya outta taking them. Best learn how to deal 'cause ya still got a long way to go.” Wyatt grabbed the washcloth sitting on the sink, ran it under the water, and blotted the slice on The Aid’s chin.

“Hold that there,” the older man directed. The Aid obliged. Wyatt halted any further disparaging remarks and even refrained from shooting him the usual hate-crazed glower.

“Lucky it ain’t nothin’ but a little cut. I think that means we’re done here.” His Master nonchalantly wiped the last few strips of shaving cream off his face with the corners of the rag, then cleaned up the shaving supplies.

The Aid fell into a long silence. His fingers smoothed out the bunched-up ripples of terrycloth; his eyes anxiously darted back and forth between Wyatt and the tub. Tried as he might, he couldn’t calm the tornado still whirling in his gut or mollify his nerves, still heightened and simmering.

Gone. It was completely gone without a fucking trace.

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Taglist: @sacredwrath @the-name-is-reaper @little-rat-dragon @pirefyrelight @whumpyourdamnpears @3-2-whump @potterhead5ever

If ya wanna be added or removed from the tag list, just let me know! Leave a comment or message me! :)

I know what you’re wondering—yes, The Aid is haunted by a sleep paralysis demon, The Night Hag! It’s a subtle element here, not a major plot point so if you don’t like paranormal shit, don’t worry it isn’t going to overtake the story (I just wanted to give it its own intro chapter).

Which goes without saying, chapter vibes:

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