bakerstreet | The Slave Auction Meme

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The Slave Auction Meme

* Leave a comment with the character's name, fandom, and whether your character will be playing the part of 'slave' or 'master', plus preferences for scenarios if you have any.
* Respond to others with one of the scenarios below or feel free to make up your own.
* Please remember to be respectful of others while you play

Warning: Be aware that this meme deals with dark subjects like slavery and may also contain non-consensual/dubiously consensual sex, violence, and kink.

SLAVES

1. The Newbie - This is your very first auction and you don't quite know what to expect. Hopefully you remember your training and don't disgrace yourself in front of your new master. Hopefully someone thinks you're worth buying at all.

2. The Oldtimer - You've been bought and sold and bought again so many times. You've seen it all before and don't think this time is going to be much different. In fact, the only real anxiety you've got is whether or not someone's going to pay for a more than slightly used slave.

3. The Pet - You're a pleasure slave. A bed warmer. A decorative piece of artwork. You're meant to look pretty and be pleasing and not much else.

4. The Guard - Your master hired you because of your ability to swing a sword or shoot a gun, not your looks.

5. The Escape Artist - Somehow you always manage to squirm out of your master's chains. Too bad you seem to get caught after a while. Maybe your next daring escape will be permanent. Then again, maybe your next master has special ways of keeping you locked up.

6. The Undercover - You aren't a slave at all, you're just pretending to be one. Why? Well that's up to you. Either way, your cover is blown if you don't act the part.

7. The Specialist - You have a skill that no one else has. Something rare and valuable. Something your master needs more than anything else.

MASTERS

1. The Customer - You've owned slaves before and this trip to the market is nothing new to you. Still, you're hoping to find something worth your while.

2. The Gift - Someone bought a pet for you, isn't that nice of them? Or maybe it isn't so nice. Did you even want a slave in the first place? Well you're stuck with one now.

3. The Giver - You're selecting a slave for someone else, and they need to be perfect. Perhaps you'd better test them out first to make sure you're getting your money's worth.

4. The Trainer - You specialize in taming unruly slaves and making them over into perfect, obedient, well-trained pets.

5. The Rebel - You hate the idea of slavery, but the system isn't going to go away any time soon, so the next best thing is to buy up any slave you can get your hands on and free them, right?

6. The Companion - You want someone to be with you always, someone you can talk to and depend on, someone who will never leave your side. It's a good thing that money can buy that these days.

7. The Undercover - You're not actually a Master. You're at the auction for an entirely different reason. Maybe it's special policework, maybe you're trying to hunt down a certain someone. Either way, your cover is blown unless you act the part.

As always, feel free to use a combination of scenarios or make up your own if you have other ideas.

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( He scoffs, but doesn't bother lifting his head up from his hand, where his fingers are pressing circles into his eyelids. )

Dog was always yours. If either of us thought otherwise, we were kidding ourselves.

( Don't get him wrong, he likes the dog. Likes having him around. He's just not in a fit state to take care of himself, let alone another creature that isn't capable of meeting its own basic needs. Clint's got a better handle on it than Frank could manage any time soon. )

Plus, he likes you more than me anyhow. Wonder why.

( That last bit's dry, sarcastic, self-deprecating. He knows he's an unlikable, unhinged asshole. He knows. Never claimed to be otherwise. )

Cuz I lived with him for a while. You really get to know a guy on a deep level when you're made to drink out of his water bowl.

[It's maybe not the kind of funny that most people would appreciate, but it's funny enough to him to twist it that way.]

Look...sir, I get this is some of the worst time you're having in your whole life. If all you plan on doing is getting rid of everything you got and pushing every person you could ever have in your life away, then I don't know why you don't just put a fresh bullet in your skull right now. I could make a pretty penny fencing your gear.

But you saved your guitar. Cuz it does mean something to you. And you're still willing to get me to Canada, cuz you don't make promises you don't intend to keep. And you like the dog, and if you put more time and effort into working with him, he'd like you just as much as me. You still got that cd someone thought was important enough for you to get in your house and hide it somewhere just for you. I think all of that means something, and you've got reasons not to just eat a gun that maybe you haven't realized yet or don't even really feel inclined to think about.

( Made to drink out of his water bowl, good Christ in heaven. Kazi deserved everything Clint gave to him and then some. The slavery part's already bad enough, but the incessant need of shitty men to stack humiliation on top of it to make themselves feel — what, powerful? Dignified? Better than? He'll never understand it, not truly. Stepping on somebody doesn't prop you up any higher, it just pushes both of you down lower until you're knee-deep in mud and filth.

After a while, he peels his face from his hand and studies Clint again, more tired than he'd been a minute ago. More present, too. Here, in the moment, not locked away behind walls and rivers and oceans of compartmentalization.

He makes some good points. Frank's not entirely sure why he hasn't swallowed a bullet yet. Would've been easier, more comprehensive, than tracking these assholes down — but even if he felt compelled to do that first, he could've take himself out at Schoonover's afterward, or at any point along the way before they got to here. Why hasn't he?

Maybe it's because he feels like there's still more that needs doing. Maybe he feels like — if he keeps putting these motherfuckers down, there'll be one less guy like him out there in the world, one less man missing his family, a few less dead kids. That's worth living for, if nothing else is. If he can do it like nobody else can, and it needs done, he's got an obligation to.

Or maybe it's something else. Old Catholicism sticking around after all, or Maria's disappointment, or the steadfast refusal to take the coward's way out when he could just wait for somebody to do the job the right way instead. He doesn't know. )

Sometimes I don't understand you, Barton. You know that? If I lived the life you lived, I'd wanna ruin every asshole that held my leash with my own two hands, not give 'em life advice... or talk them into suicide, I'm not entirely sure which direction you're leanin' more toward, but still.

Some of 'em are dead. Two of 'em because of me, even. One did me a lot of good in the end. One scares the absolute piss out of me. One's a third rail. You could fuck with him, but it's not gonna turn out well for anyone involved.

And the only time you've held my leash, you were doing it literally.

[And it wasn't a bad night until it got bad.

Clint gets up and comes on over, closing the distance. He doesn't touch Frank, but he perches himself on the end of the air mattress beside him.]

You didn't make it feel like you were holding my leash. [That feels like important clarification.] We're not going to Canada tomorrow. Not unless you also wanna cross over and start a new life. Get the feeling that's not in the cards, not right now.

( The look in his eyes as Clint crosses the distance isn't wariness, exactly — it lacks the discomfort wariness implies. Weariness, maybe, or some sad kicked-dog uncertainty that's ironic given the power dynamic that's supposed to be at play here. He doesn't get approached often in ways that don't revolve around violence. Since he took a bullet to the head, so far Clint's one of a grand total of only two. He's starting to forget what it feels like to be companionable with people — does the night in the club count? Curling a hand around the back of Clint's neck, easy and consoling? Probably doesn't, if it wasn't real.

But he doesn't shift away, or make any moves to demand Clint move either. Maybe this passive tolerance is unexpected, maybe it isn't, but that's what he's getting out of the Big Bad Punisher. That, and a different kind of studiousness after we're not going to Canada tomorrow.

He thinks about protesting — but that defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Of personal choice, autonomy, whatever? If it's a decision Clint's making and Frank overrides it, what the fuck's the point?

He chews on his tongue. Thinking. )

You decide to change your mind before it's too late, keep me posted.

( It's a standing offer. Maybe that's the best thing he can do, is just make that clear. Whenever he doesn't wanna be here anymore, he doesn't have to be. That's near as close to freedom as he's likely to get in the States any time soon. )

I appreciate it, sir.

[And he does. He appreciates that the offer's there, that it's still there whenever he wants to take it. Appreciates being allowed to be in Frank's space even in this emotionally fraught time. Appreciates not getting chewed out overmuch about his reaction, and not getting the shit kicked out of him for threatening to break the damn guitar like a rock star at the end of a set. He wraps his arms around his knees and tries to relax his shoulders.]

And I'm sorry. About earlier. I went off on you. Shouldn't have. [Frank grabbed him enough to hurt just enough, but made himself let go when he realized it. Maybe it was just an automatic reaction to someone coming at him. Maybe it was instinct kicking in. Doesn't make Clint less wary for what might happen in the future, but, now he's getting a better picture of Frank's trigger points. That he'll keep his word, and still try to even when his emotions are an out of control rollercoaster.]

( He hesitates, for just a second or two. Debating back and forth whether or not he should follow through with an impulse — he'd grabbed Clint's forearm earlier, and it clearly threw him enough to go sit in the back, but there's a case to be made for counter-balancing it with the opposite kind of touch, and hell if he knows which one is right. Ultimately, he follows through with a gentle hand raised to lightly squeeze at the tense shoulder nearest him — just for a second, just lightly, like he's made of glass, before it falls away again.

He used to be hands-on with Russo, with Maria, with the kids. It was physical touch as a love language, one of those kinds of deals. Maybe not all the time, but a lot of it. Always reeling them in, ruffling hair, tucking it behind ears, embracing. He's better with that than with words, half the time. But then, he never made them afraid of him. Never had a reason to hold back.

It's awkward, stilted now, uncertain, but worth the effort to try — without overstaying its welcome. )

Nah, it's okay. I get it.

( He doesn't know the finer details of Clint's history, but after the explanation... yeah, he can see how it might've made something in him flair up almost as high and as hot as the fire. )

I didn't mean to- you know. Freak you out, or- any of that stuff. I'm not uh- yeah, I'm not exactly in the best state, up here.

( There's a kind of absent, faintly wry gesture toward his own head. Toward the bullet wound in particular, somewhere hidden in his hairline. )

I try to keep it together but it's- I don't know. Some days, I don't even know how I'm up walking and talking. Think you might be hitching your wagon to the wrong guy.

[It's brief, it's awkward, it's light. But it's nice. It's an attempt, and it's also appreciated.]

Yeah, probably. [The wrong guy, but the guy he's got now, so.] But maybe you kinda need someone to help ground you. Y'know? Help keep you going. Instead of going off the deep end.

[It's entirely possible some of the upset was being upset on Frank's behalf. He can't imagine wanting to light your whole life up on fire and not even want any of it. No matter how painful. It seems like a waste. It seems like a regret, or something he'll come to regret.

Can't imagine just letting home go up in so much smoke. But. Sure. It's not home anymore.]

It hurts like nothing else in the world. But you're still here despite that. That's not nothing. You took out a whole bunch of people who would've gone on to hurt a lot of others who don't deserve it. It's not nothing. You let me, a guy you just met, get a moment with my last jackass owner and let me say my piece and take him out. Not nothing. Maybe you decide you're done, right, and that's the day you take me up to the border. But until then...seems like I could help keep things be [with a lean, far enough over to bump his shoulder against Frank's arm] not nothing.

( That gentle bump to the arm — that means something. He doesn't smile, not exactly, but there's a softening to his eyes like a wild animal gone reluctantly tame. It's a conversation in and of itself, and it says a few things that would take too many sentences to communicate. He appreciates it, and he appreciates all the words that spill out around it. )

That's... not nothing.

( The concession comes eventually, a little dry, maybe a hair facetious — but also, somehow, equally genuine. )

Tell you what, next time I plan on burning something down, I'll run it past you first.

[Note to self: Frank's less a talky words guy. Do more touch.]

And make me complicit in arson instead of an innocent bystander? Gotta think about that one, sir.

[It's not really his choice, and Frank's house is Frank's house--but even the joke that he could be included in a discussion is...

Ha. Well. It's sure as hell not nothing.]

We both probably got plenty to sit down and talk about. But. You've, uh. Had kind of a long day. Should all probably get some sleep if we can.

( Yeah, let's draw the line at arson, but all the murder's fine. He can't help but snort gently, reeling back in on himself, shifting away from Clint an inch or two like he's detaching. )

Yeah, sounds good.

( He's more ready for it now than he'd been twenty minutes ago; he feels cored out, hollowed, scraped clean. He feels line an excised wound. It's only a matter of time before some of this catharsis fades, but in the meantime... in the meantime, maybe the exhaustion means he'll actually get some real god damn sleep for once.

As Clint slips away for his own bed, Frank murmurs a low: )

Goodnight, Barton.

( And what he means is: I'm sorry. What he means is: thank you. What he means is: I'm glad you're sticking around.

He settles himself on his back again, and this time staring at the ceiling only lasts minutes before he's drifting off. When the nightmare hits a couple hours later, he even has the courtesy to wake up near-silently, with only gasps to show for it. )

[Clint for his part doesn't even strip down or change, just shucks the jacket, kicks off the shoes, curls up with his(!) dog and lets the emotional exhaustion do its thing. God, he'd missed having a bed. And a dog. And a person. Dog smells a little of what he imagines Karen must smell like, but also he supposes this Foggy guy and his family. It's a heavy thing to drift off to, the thought of family, and home, and house, and what those words all mean, but he sleeps deep and dreamless and uninterrupted.

Morning involves taking care of the dog and then a longer shower than he normally allows himself, after days of staking out and tailing and feeling like something creepy was sniffing him out. And breakfast.

He's content enough to stay quiet over the currently-just-breakfast table when they both sit down for it. Like anything about any of this has ever passed for normal. Doesn't have to be normal, just them-normal. Content to just be a Roomba and not say or do anything to set anything off right this moment.]

( The tension isn't so high in the morning; most of it all came tumbling out last night, between the house fire and the argument. Frank's back to his normally-controlled and strategically-minded self, impulses and temper in check, posture as relaxed as it ever gets. Is the extra bacon a subtle apology? That's for Clint to decide.

He'd been right about a few things last night, but one in particular: they still have that disc. Just because Schoonover's the one that ordered the hit doesn't necessarily mean that it's the end of the trail. There could be more, there could be something deeper hiding beneath the surface. It all circles back to one thing, on repeat: Kandahar.

When they've both eaten, Frank pulls out his laptop onto the breakfast-and-electronics-desk-table and, with a nod, indicates for Clint to put the CD in.

What begins to play drains the color and the expression from his face.

A group of marines stand around a man strung up and thoroughly restricted. The footage is shaky, a little grainy, a little wobbly — as though taken discreetly by a cellphone.

The ringleader speaks to the captive in Pashto, stalking back and forth in front of him like a restless lion. When the captive, already bloodied, fails to respond, the leader backhands him sharply across the face. The captive flinches, hisses in pain, lets out a sob, and answers back in Pashto. Words are exchanged — until the captive abruptly changes langues to English.

"Please, I'm not a terrorist! I have a family, children-" He begs, only to have the leader punch him hard in the kidney. He heaves, and pleads aain, "I'm a good man-"

The leader deliberately switches back to Pashto. The marines around him exchange wary, uncomfortable looks from behind their masks.

"If you don't know anything..." The leader says, and then shoots a pointed look toward one marine in particular. Toward Frank. "Do it."

"Please, please- I'm not a terrorist, I have a family, I have a family-"

Frank in the video puts a bullet through his head at the same time as Frank in reality slams the laptop lid closed. )

[Clint angles his chair so he can also watch. Because apparently he's stupid enough to have decided they're in this together, whatever the hell this ends up being, and Frank's stupid enough to not just hogtie him and throw him over the border.

The video is...perhaps a little disturbing, to see the man tied up so, begging in English, while the others have masks donned to look like 'terrorists' themselves. So. It's not a sanctioned thing, whatever it is. And it distresses Frank.

Like he needs any more of that.

Clint purses his lips, mulls it over. Scoots his chair back to deliberately make a sharp sound, something that might break Frank out of a reverie, or at least is a not-subtle indication of movement. Where's that jacket gone to...ah. Ha. He's just making an assumption here that it's all Kandahar.

And wouldn't you know it. There's a related file he was meant to take back to Frank days ago that was never going to happen days ago.

He drops the folded page atop the laptop.]

Miss Karen's been doing her own independent research, sir. I don't know if any of this helps. [The questions jotted in the margins, the redactions, whatever's around the redactions. The fact that she even managed to get her hands on this in the first place.] But she thought you should see.

( It works — that sharp sound startles him out of wherever he'd been in his mind — back there, most likely. Back in that filthy room, feeling every speck of dirt sticking to his skin, even the invisible kind. Even the kind you can't wash off.

His eyes flicker from Clint to the file and then back again. A few moments pass before he actually reaches for it, sliding it off the laptop and into his hands proper.

Takes him a few minutes to understand what he's looking at, but when he does: )

According to this, nobody was stationed at Kandahar.

( It's a low, disconcerted mumble — because obviously that's patently untrue. They have it on video. A whole team, sent in there for one man — and left to die trying to get out, like rats in a jar. Like Clint said, somebody didn't want them making it back out at all. They were willing to exterminate this guy at the cost of the lives of a dozen US Marines, all while keeping it off the books.

Why?

He flips the folder decisively closed, tosses it onto the breakfast-laptop-confidential-documents-table and leans back in his chair, thinking. )

I don't know where we go from here. If it wasn't sanctioned, I got no way of knowing who made the order. No idea why. Nobody to chase, nobody with the kinda access we need to figure it out... End's just as dead as it was twenty minutes ago.

Someone sent you this video deliberately. Was it information, or was it a threat? Do you know who this Micro is? [He stands at the table, rubbing at his chin.] And who even managed to shoot that video in the first place? Would've been from a phone, so someone in the room knew something was going down, wanted to record evidence. Maybe this Micro's the same guy trying to get your attention. Timing's kinda shit, but if Schoonover was after anyone else who made it out who wasn't supposed to same as you, then maybe they went into hiding, kept his head down a while...

[A glance over at Frank. Maybe it's a dead end. Maybe this doesn't help. Maybe he needs to put it down and walk away and take up some new crusade.] You know what the interrogation was about, sir? I don't speak any, uh...Arabic. [He doesn't know, it's Middle East, they speak that over there right-]

( Initially, as Clint goes on, all Frank has to offer him is the slow shaking of his head. He doesn't know if it was information or a threat, he doesn't know who Micro is. He does have a pretty good idea who shot the video, based on who was standing where at the time — Gunner Henderson, good guy, kind of a bible thumper, but a good Marine all the same — but he's not entirely sure what he's meant to do with that information.

When the head-shaking stops, it's so he can absently, mildly correct: )

Pashto. I picked up a few words here and there, but not enough to know what he was sayin'. Supposed to be some kind of intel about criminal activity in Kandahar, but...

( But even though Ahmad Zubair spoke fluent English, the interrogator only spoke to him in Pashto the whole time. It was almost surprisingly solid English for what was supposed to be some random terrorist in the middle of Afghanistan, minimal accent. He'd thought it was strange at the time, but it wasn't his place to question — the folks in charge made that abundantly clear after the shouting match Frank got into with the guy in charge of the operation. )

If this Micro guy tracked this footage down, figured out who the people were, found my house... but he didn't leave any kind of note, phone number, any goddamn way to contact him, he must not wanna be found. Which means this is a one-sided conversation, and that usually translates to threat.

( At least it does in Frank's paranoid mind. )

Best we can do is stay low, keep moving, see if we can find a way to track him down before he tracks us down first.

[Threat is just as likely, and so Clint has no reason to think Frank's assessment is wrong. Stay low, keep moving. Right...they were going to move, before--]

Two things about that, sir. First, make sure there's nothing else on that disc. [Cuz he shut it with some very particular finality while the video was playing. There might be something else. There might be more. Or there's fuck-all and it's still a threat.] Second, you're still a little wanted for the whole office shoot-up. Staying put for a bit longer might still be the play. I can go out and get whatever we need meantime.

Edited 2025-03-05 12:59 (UTC)

( Yeah, okay, that's a good point — Frank's not technologically illiterate, but he's not tech savvy either. That tends to happen when you spend most of the last eight years on fifteen month rotations in the Middle East and related territories, slightly disconnected from the quick leaps popular tech is making. He doesn't do a lot of social media, he doesn't do a lot with apps, he's not a tablet guy, he's barely gotten an understanding of the cloud, and he doesn't know what a zune is — which is more a reflection on zune than it is on him and also those haven't been relevant in way longer than eight years, but the point still stands. He's not the guy in the chair by any stretch of the imagination.

Somewhat begrudgingly, he opens the laptop up and begins to click around again, heaving a sigh. )

You're not wrong, it would just be nice to have a place with a few more walls. I feel like I'm the morning reveille anymore. ( And then in the same breath- ) I think the video's all there was. I'm not seein'anything else.

[So...he has to sit and think on that and context clues, because he's not entirely sure what reveille means, and he doesn't want to sound stupid and ask. So. Morning alarm. Rooster crow. Army bugle. Probably. Some kind of worry about waking Clint up too early, so he wants more walls to stifle the night terror sounds.

He puts a hand on Frank's shoulder. Frank's more of a touch guy. Fewer words and an action to mean all he needs to mean.]

Who's gonna get you out of your dreams when you get stuck in them? I'll get the dog to start sleeping with you.

( The unexpected hand on his shoulder almost-- almost startles him. He doesn't show it, doesn't flinch or anything, but it does have him casting a quick glance over to the hand and then up to Clint's face again. Apparently, in addition to being a full language on its own, it also happens to be a shortcut to getting his full attention.

Who's gonna get you out of your dreams when you get stuck in them?

It's a hell of a gesture — one that draws him up short and leaves him speechless for a second. His eyes duck back down to the computer, more so he can have somewhere safe to put them for a second while he avoids Clint's eye. )

Hey- look, you don't have to do that. I was handlin' 'em fine before you two came around, you know.

( It's a quiet, somewhat sheepish murmur. Also, a total lie. He wasn't handling it fine, he was getting even less sleep than he does now. )

[A light scoff.] Is that what you call fine? [And he's always been sassy and snarky, even when he couldn't get away with it, but now that he can...now that he knows he can do that, and he can say no, and he can refuse orders, and he doesn't have to call Frank 'sir' but still does because it feels more normal that way, it might start coming out even more.]

Kuba can wake you if you need. Maybe lay on your chest and make you go back to sleep. Or beg you for food. Anyway, you don't have to handle it alone, sir.

( And isn't that a novelty? Because he's been on his own since it happened, months and months of it. He's used to being a loner in combat, slipping off on his own to handle shit so his men don't have to, but outside of that? He'd been a man with a best friend like a brother, and a man with a team of people, and a man with a wife and kids that he utterly adored. Every minute not fighting was a minute spent with family, and then suddenly that family was gone, and he's been spending damn near every waking moment alone ever since.

Until Clint, until the dog. Until now. There's a soft snort at the Kuba commentary, but no quippy response gets fired back.

He drags a hand across his mouth, and when he shuts the laptop again, it's more slowly this time. )

...Alright, we'll stay put a little longer. But I got a few other leads I wanna chase, people who were involved with the Cartel, couple people with the Irish. Tracksuits are basically gone, but those other two had a few cowards turn tail and scatter after the massacre. Until this Micro thing gives us something solid to go by, we might as well focus on jobs we can actually do.

( An idle Frank is a dangerous Frank, but mostly to himself — and now, by extension, Clint, who has signed up to suffer from the consequences of Frank's actions for reasons practically beyond his comprehension. )

[Job's good. Job's focus. Job is something that he can do without much question. And he gets what Frank feels like he has to do, to a certain point. Maybe not so much burn the motherfucking house down, but the need for revenge. And that he's doing good. Like Clint said. People who won't be getting any further chances to hurt anyone.

His hand moves to the back of Frank's neck, though. Gentle. Attention. Directing, maybe, though he wouldn't be foolish enough to think anyone could direct Frank to do anything, much less that a collar could direct anyone else.]

You got the guy, though. You got several of the guys and you got the guy, sir. Maybe that's good enough?

( That touch does wonders to keep him grounded, keep him calm, keep him from getting instinctively defensive. It's like a tether that emits a constant stream of I'm not judging you, I'm only saying this because it could be good for you. Any impulse he might've had to get agitated is immediately swept away, and he shakes his head slowly, pushing the laptop a few inches further away. )

It's not good enough. To tell you the truth, man, I'm not sure if anything ever will be, but-

( There's a thoughtful pause, teeth that worry the inside of his cheek. A touch quieter comes the reluctant admission: )

What I feel... it isn't going anywhere. Without this, without a job, it's just gonna keep- piling up and piling up, and it's gonna make burning my own goddamn house down look like nothing. Nothing else makes that- that voice, that feeling go quiet for a while, nothing except putting these sons of bitches down before they can do to someone else what they did to me. I need to do this.

( Because he doesn't know what the alternative might look like, but he knows it'd be... bad. There is no comparable outlet. )

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