maculategiraffe

Laptop update: The guy at the shop said it was fried past hope, and also that he wouldn't charge me for labor if he could keep it for spare parts, so I gave it to him. Then I stopped by to see my wonderful, fantabulous dad, and now I have Hermia in hand. SHE IS SO CUTE AND TINY. And actually kind of a steal at $350. :D

Unfortunately, the guy couldn't transfer my hard drive, but I didn't lose much-- just about a thousand words of the next Yves story (when he comes home from university for the first time), which shouldn't be too crazy hard to rewrite.

Now, about this story. I just recently went and reread "Bran" for the first time in a while, and I'm thinking now that Lee's over and I'm almost done with the necessary fill-in scenes, now might be a time to work more on revising Bran a bit. Not hugely (don't worry, lovers of "Bran" as it stands)-- I'm mainly talking about mechanical revisions, like fixing places where I've used the same adverb three times in three paragraphs, and maybe rearranging a few things so that the chapters flow better, and filling in a couple of scenes I didn't flesh out properly the first time because I got spooked and was afraid I'd never finish it. (I had this follow-up scene with Tonia Raskolnikova planned, and then I was freaking out all "it's getting too long, it's getting too rambly, I'll never get to the point at this rate" and now the original scene with Tonia is just kind of hanging there-- I need to poke at that and see if the follow-up scene actually might add to the story.)

After doing that, I guess the next step would be to look at "Jesse" again, and see what about the story I didn't tell there inspires me. I'd really like to tell more of Jesse's story, but I haven't gotten it together to do that yet and I'm starting to feel intimidated by it, so perhaps sidling up on it slowly will work better with my psyche.

Anyway, as far as a rewrite of "Bran" goes, I've long held an intention to fill in more of the details of Bran's "retraining" by Holden. I skipped pretty much all of it the first time around, mostly because I was afraid I'd get bogged down in the training process and, again, never actually finish the story. But that fear being in the past now, I do think the story would benefit from a few looks at what Holden actually does with Bran for retraining. I don't want to spell out every hour of the process or anything, but the training is important-- Bran and Holden getting to know each other, as well as the reader getting to know both of them-- and I think it would improve the story to give the reader at least a couple of scenes where Holden's training process-- and Bran's response to it-- is actually onscreen.

I've already written a couple of ancillary scenes along these lines-- one, here, is already linked under miscellaneous ficlets on the index page, and another (friendslocked, but just ask if you want to read) can be found here.

So then, while I was computerless, this happened in my notebook. It's... longer than I expected, and may need some editing down before I try to incorporate it into a rewritten Bran, but for now I'm just going to post it as-is, in hopes that you guys enjoy. :)

Bran woke up in a bed with a hand on his back, and froze immediately, his stomach twisting itself into a knot of fear, hoping against hope that his master was still in whatever indulgent mood had allowed Bran to fall asleep in his bed, instead of on the floor or in the basement room; maybe he'd be gentle, maybe there wouldn't be much pain, maybe his master wouldn't be angry...

...and in the next moment, registered that he was thinking of the wrong master and the wrong bed, that he belonged to the slave breakers now, that he'd been put to sleep in a bed by himself last night as an apparent matter of course, that it was almost certainly his new master-- Holden-- who had a hand on his back, and that he still didn't know what to do.

Should he turn over and get things going (whatever "things" might be; he wasn't going to get fucked, if his master had been telling the truth about waiting for him to heal, but there were other options), or should he wait passively for his master to use him as he saw fit? Whichever option he chose might get him in trouble-- the first for presumption, the second for lack of initiative-- depending on what his master had actually had in mind, which was very hard to guess just from a hand on your back, although Bran had always thought maybe if he had time to think, maybe he could...

"I could tell when you woke up," said Holden, so softly that Bran barely flinched, "because you went completely rigid. Turn over on your back, Bran, and look at me."

Bran obeyed, searching for signs of anger or irritation, but Holden's expression was as soft as his voice.

"Good morning, beautiful boy," he said. "How did you sleep?"

"Very well, thank you, master," Bran lied. The "training" he'd undergone yesterday-- consisting of a lot of instructions, a bewildering amount of praise, and no pain or punishment whatsoever-- had been tiring, but not tiring enough to let Bran sleep peacefully, especially after his long, tranquilized sleep the night before. He'd woken in a cold sweat from a series of nightmares set in the training room with an altogether less indulgent version of this new master than he'd actually seen yet, and had lain awake for long stretches, trying to decide whether the dreams were likely to be prophetic.

But the fact that he'd been allowed to sleep in a bed would seem to indicate that his new master wanted him to have slept well, so he lied, just as he'd lied to his previous master if he'd somehow managed to sleep dreamlessly through what was supposed to have been a night spent contemplating his crimes.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said his master, confusing and worrying Bran-- was he supposed to have stayed awake all night, had he missed or misremembered an order, were his nightmares about to become reality? "Has anyone ever told you that you're a terrible liar?"

Bran cringed, biting his lip, but Holden still didn't look or sound angry at all.

"It's good news for me," he added, actually smiling at Bran. "Means you hadn't lied to me until now, and I'll know if you lie to me again. Just bear it in mind. So. Restless night?"

"Yes, master," said Bran, who was already running through the thousand ways in which not being able to successfully lie to his master would be a very, very bad thing.

"Sleeping is one of those things," said his master thoughtfully, "that convinces me nature doesn't actually want us to accomplish anything in our lives. It's like-- every sixteen hours, the gods have to grab us by the shoulders and spin us around violently while causing us to hallucinate, or else we might actually get somewhere. When you first woke up just now, what did you think was going on? The very first second."

"I thought you were-- my last master," Bran answered. "I thought-- I must have done something good last night, to have been allowed to sleep in his bed."

"Ah," said Holden. "So you woke up feeling relaxed and confident?"

Bran swallowed. "N-no, master."

"No. You weren't sure what to do," said Holden. "Right? You were afraid you'd do something wrong and ruin everything. Because it's hard to tell, just from a hand on your back, what exactly it is you're supposed to do."

"Yes, master."

"Sure," said Holden. "But there are clues you can learn to pick up. Turn back over on your stomach."

So this was already more training. Bran obeyed, and Holden's hand replaced itself on his back, stroking.

"Take your time," he said, "and when you're ready, tell me how I'm touching your back."

"How--?" Bran echoed uncertainly.

"You know. Gently, lustfully, lazily, irritably-- actually, I'm not sure how you pet someone irritably-- but you get the idea."

"Yes, master," said Bran, whose breaking wasn't going at all as expected, so far.

His master's palm was flat against Bran's back-- the fingers weren't curved, and the nails weren't in play. It didn't feel seductive or demanding. It was gentle, but maybe his master would want him to elaborate more. Or maybe he'd like him to answer promptly. But he'd said--

"Take your time," said Holden again, and Bran took a deep breath, trying to relax. "Don't rush. Think about it as long as you need to."

"Gently, master," said Bran, eventually, hoping his master wouldn't be annoyed that he'd taken so long to come up with such a short and simple answer.

"Okay, good," said Holden, still stroking. "And if you wake up, and your master is doing this to you, what do you think he wants you to do?"

Bran spent entirely too long groping for an answer before he remembered that his master had told him yesterday that it was always all right to say--

"I don't know, master."

"Okay," said Holden, without any impatience that Bran could hear. "How about this?"

His fingers bent, he rippled his nails lightly and teasingly over Bran's skin, tickling at the nape of his neck, and then sliding his fingers down Bran's spine, to his hip, to his bottom. Bran held his breath, until he realized this was just another example.

"Lustfully," he said, after a moment.

"Right. And what does someone who's stroking you this way want?"

"Sex," said Bran.

"Or something along those lines. Right. He's horny. And he wants you to wake up horny, too-- otherwise he wouldn't bother stroking you, he'd just shake you awake and tell you to spread your legs. Anybody who strokes you like this is trying to arouse you-- so if you want to please him, you do what?"

"Respond," said Bran.

"Exactly," said Holden. "Now, whether that means that you start breathing a little faster and push your ass into his hand, or that you climb on top of him and start humping-- that depends on your master and what you know about his preferences. But it's always better to start slower-- you can escalate things as far as you want, if you go slowly, but it's hard to recover gracefully if you jump in too fast."

"Yes, master," said Bran, and pushed back a little into the stroking hand.

"Good boy," said Holden. "Okay, how about this?"

He moved until his body was pressed up against Bran's, and cupped Bran's shoulder in one palm, squeezing slightly, pressing his cheek against Bran's shoulder blade.

"Clingy," said Bran, without thinking.

Holden laughed.

"I was going to say 'affectionate,' but okay, sure," he said, and Bran blushed. "Clingy, cuddly-- so what am I looking for you to do?"

"Be cuddly, too," said Bran.

"Show me."

Bran sighed softly and pushed his body back against Holden's, leaning his head down to rest his cheek against the fingers on his shoulder.

"Master," he whispered.

"Perfect," said Holden. "Absolutely perfect. You're a natural. Now-- let's try this one again."

He moved away slightly, to Bran's disappointment, and started again with the flat-palmed stroking that Bran had called "gentle."

Bran lay there for a while under the caresses, and then took a deep breath. "Master, I'm sorry-- I still don't know what it means."

Holden moved closer, and kissed Bran, very softly, on the nape of his neck.

Bran still wasn't sure what to make of the way Holden kissed him. Lord Dunaev's kisses had been strictly confined to Bran's mouth, and had been preferable to everything else Lord Dunaev liked to do to Bran's body chiefly in that they didn't actually hurt. They did turn Bran's stomach, although that could have just been the sick dread he always felt whenever Lord Dunaev was kissing him, about what was sure to be coming next.

Holden's kisses were different.

"How about now?" he asked, and Bran tensed a little, worried; it really wasn't a good idea to make your master ask the same question more than once, even if he had given you permission to answer with "I don't know." Obviously Bran was supposed to be able to figure out the answer, and even given extra clues he was still failing at that, which meant...

"You're tensing up again," said Holden. "It's okay, Bran. You don't ever need to be afraid of not knowing the answer to a question. All that means is that my work isn't done yet, which I have to say doesn't come as a big shock, considering that this is the morning of your second day here. Okay?"

"Yes, master," Bran murmured, as Holden leaned closer to his ear.

"Plus," he continued, warm and low and husky, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of Bran's ear, "when I ambush you in your sleep and barrage you with questions on an empty stomach, I'm especially impressed with good answers. And your answers have been very good."

Bran was trembling again, but not exactly with fear, as Holden rolled him over onto his back.

"And since you're doing so well," he continued, "are you up for another challenge before I take you downstairs and get some food in you?"

"Yes, master," said Bran, of course.

Holden nodded. "I'd like you to practice being quiet."

That hadn't been what Bran was expecting at all.

"You look surprised," said Holden, startling Bran; he hadn't ever realized how transparent his face was, but either it really, really was, or Holden had some kind of black magic mindreading power. Not that Bran was fully prepared to rule out the latter possibility just yet. "Why?"

"It's just..." Bran began, and then fell silent again.

"Yes?" Holden encouraged.

"Well," said Bran slowly, "you-- you like to look at my face, master-- don't you?"

"Only an idiot wouldn't like to look at you," said Holden. "Are you calling me an idiot?"

"No, master!" Bran cried, his hands flying up to shield his face. "Please-- please, I didn't--"

"Shit," said Holden, and his hands were gentle on Bran's, drawing them away from his face. "Bran, sweetheart, I was just teasing. I'm sorry-- I didn't mean to scare you. You've got such a great smile, I keep wanting to make you laugh. But I should have realized it was too soon for that kind of teasing."

Bran didn't quite manage a smile, though his relief was profound, as Holden went on, "But yes-- I like to see your face. It's a lovely face. What does that have to do with being quiet?"

"It's just-- my last master-- didn't," said Bran hesitantly, still not convinced he wasn't about to be backhanded. There was obviously no love lost between his current master and his previous one, but that didn't mean Bran would get away with even indirectly calling a nobleman an idiot, or with contradicting his master's definition of an idiot, either. "Didn't like to see my face."

"Yeah, I already knew he was an idiot," Holden put in.

Bran breathed a little easier.

"And he didn't like me to talk," he went on, "unless I was answering a question-- or saying what he wanted to hear in bed-- I guess I just-- I guess I thought since you like to see my face, master, you might like to-- hear me, too."

"I love to hear you," Holden answered. "You've got a beautiful voice, and you use it very well-- though I might be able to teach you a few tricks there, too. When I say we need to practice being quiet, I don't mean I don't like to hear you. I had you practice oral sex yesterday-- so do you think that means I want you doing it non-stop?"

Bran did smile a little at that. "No, master. I guess not."

"They're both skills," Holden said, and kissed the tip of Bran's nose. "And with any skill, a lot of it has to do with judicious timing. Knowing when to be quiet is part of what I'm talking about."

"Yes, master," said Bran, eyes on his master's face; Holden looked, he thought, hungry, pleasantly hungry, like a man who had put in a hard day's work and was now sitting down to the good, plentiful dinner he'd earned; he had that kind of contented avidity in his eyes.

Bran guessed that made him both the day's work and the meal.

"I'm going to do some things to you," said Holden. "Don't worry-- I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy them. But I want you to respond without making any noise."

"Yes, master," said Bran, feeling the blood drain from his face. He'd been given orders like this before, and he knew the object of the game was for his master-- or whoever was currently playing with him-- to torture him past the limits of his endurance, and then punish him for his failure to keep quiet. Bran had had enough practice by now that he could prolong the initial torture for a very long time before he broke and cried out, but he couldn't last forever, and the slave breaker must have far more sophisticated methods for pushing limites than Dunaev and his friends had. So the painless, praise-filled part of his retraining had come to an end. He wondered how many of his nightmares from the night before were about to come true.

Holden's warm fingers brushed gently against his cheek.

"You're scared," he said softly. "You've done this before, yes?"

"Yes, master," said Bran miserably.

"It will be a little different, this time," said Holden, still stroking Bran's cheek. "I am going to try to push you past your limits, because that's the only way I'll know where your limits are. But if I do manage to make you cry out-- and I probably will-- I'm not going to punish you. That would hardly be fair, when that was my goal in the first place. And I don't think you need threats to motivate you to do your best. Do you?"

Bewildered but hopeful, Bran managed a small, "No, master."

"And I do want you to enjoy yourself," Holden added, combing his fingers now through Bran's curls. "Enjoying yourself and controlling yourself shouldn't be mutually exclusive. So although I'm going to try to make you cry out, it's not going to be with pain."

"Yes, master," Bran whispered.

"Do you believe me when I say I won't punish you?"

Bran hesitated.

"I don't blame you," said his master. "Listen, Bran-- this is important. These are your orders. If you do make a sound, after I've ordered you not to-- if I succeed in making you-- you are to put your arms around me, right away. I'll put my arms around you, too, and hold you for a bit while you settle down and realize there's really not going to be any punishment. Do you understand?"

Bran nodded.

"Good," said Holden, "but remember, when you're acknowleging an order, you don't just nod, you say--"

"Yes, master," Bran said hurriedly, inwardly cursing his own stupidity. If he couldn't manage to stay on top of the simplest standing rules... "I'm sorry, master."

"That's okay. You've been good about that-- you were probably anticipating the 'be quiet' order. Now-- silence. Not a sound until I give you permission."

Bran held perfectly still as his master's hand slid down to his chest and began playing with the tender bud of his nipple, pinching and rolling it between finger and thumb, tugging and tweaking at it, sending little shocks through the nerves.

"You're too stiff, kiddo," Holden said, his fingers moving from Bran's nipple to stroke-- lustfully, that was definite-- at his belly, teasing around the rim of his navel. "I want you to respond, just without making any noise. Like you were doing earlier. Pushing back against me, all that."

Mechanically, Bran shifted, pushing his pelvis at his master's hand.

"Bran, every muscle in your body is tensed," said Holden softly. "Aside from anything else, that's very tiring for you, and it's going to hurt eventually. And it keeps you scared, too, being so rigid."

Bran was pretty sure it was the other way around.

"Maybe you think keeping yourself as scared as possible will help you to obey," Holden said. "Maybe you believe fear will motivate you better than anything else. Dunaev seems to have thought that, so it's not surprising that you came to believe it, too. But actually, Bran, it makes it harder for you to do well when you're this scared. Because fear not only makes you stupid and clumsy, it makes you tired, and you can't keep it up."

Bran lay still, listening, his heart pounding with painful intensity. His master's stroking had shifted from a sensuous, sexual teasing to the gentle, undemanding caresses whose purpose Bran hadn't been able to identify before.

"I've read that when people are drowning," Holden went on, still running his palm over Bran's belly and chest, "and someone tries to swim out and save them, they tend to thrash so hard out of panic that they can end up taking their rescuer down with them. That's a little bit like what's happening with your body right now-- not kicking and thrashing-- but trying too hard, trying so hard and so desperately that you're going to wear yourself out. If you calm down, if you relax, if you make all that energy work for you, then you'll perform better, and you won't end up going blind and crazy with panic. See if you can take that energy out of clenching up, and put it towards doing what you need to do."

Bran breathed in, and then out, trying to obey. It wasn't easy, especially since Bran's nipple was suddenly between his master's fingers again, and Bran's nipples were really sensitive, and if Holden gave just one hard yank or twist and Bran was relaxed and unprepared, Bran would cry out, and then...

...well, and then, apparently, he'd have to put his arms around his master.

And anyway, did relaxed have to mean unprepared? He could be aware of the possibility that his nipple was about to be wrung into agony, without holding himself so stiffly. He could keep his mouth shut without shutting down altogether. Couldn't he? Could he?

"Such a good boy," Holden whispered. "You're doing so well, Bran. Show me how strong you are. Show me how well you can do this. Don't be afraid. Breathe."

And Bran breathed, as his master's hand wrapped around his cock again, as his master's teeth nibbled gently at his nipple, as his master moved and disappeared and a tongue touched the head of Bran's cock, as his master's mouth took the shaft softly inside and started sucking, which was absolutely and totally not fair, but Bran didn't make a sound, not for the next eternal minutes stretching into what seemed like hours; as the slender fingers kneaded expertly at his testicles and the hot slick lips and tongue and sweet edges of teeth brought him to the shuddering brink of orgasm and then pulled away, he still stayed quiet, his arousal a hot and heavy pain between his legs, as his master pressed close to his side again and kissed and licked his chest and his neck, hot, wet, greedy, hungry.

Then the hand was around Bran's cock again, Bran's pulsing cock, agonized with need, and his master pulled, long and firm and rippling, then pulled again, and Bran still didn't make a sound, until teeth shocked his nipple again and as he lost control, he heard his own strangled, helpless cry.

Pleasure and panic rolled over him in equally overwhelming waves, and he wanted, as his climax emptied him out, to cry or beg for mercy or run-- he'd failed, and on the heels of failure always came suffering of every kind, came pain and thirst and hunger and the taste of blood and bile, with no end in sight-- but he had a slim thread of hope, an order still to obey, and with the last of his strength he rolled against his master and draped one shaking arm over him. His master's arms came around him, warm and firm and reassuring, and clasped him close; his master's voice said, over the roaring in Bran's ears, "Good boy. That's right. My good boy. Relax, Bran. It's okay. You're okay."

For a while there was definitely no telling his spasming, shaking muscles anything, but fortunately Bran and the panicking drowner both seemed to have been hauled up into some sort of lifeboat. He lay, teeth pressed together to keep them from chattering, eyes closed and pressed against his master's shoulder; his master held him close, rubbing his back with one hand.

When, after what was probably only a few minutes, his trembling had mostly spent itself, Holden laid him down on his back and looked into his face for a long moment, before he smiled.

"That was impressive," he said, and added, "No, I'm not being sarcastic. Considering that was the second time in your life you've ever had your cock sucked, you held out for an amazingly long time... Yes, your face is that easy to read. Sorry."

Bran was too flushed and shaky already to muster much in the way of a blush as Holden continued, "Well done, Bran. I'm not sure I have much to teach you about willpower-- though we've got some work to do when it comes to not getting in your own way. But for now, let's take a break. I don't know about you, but I've worked up an appetite for breakfast-- and we should probably get cleaned up, first. You look a bit of a mess."

Bran blinked up at him.

"You may speak now," Holden added. "Sorry, I should have said that right away."

"To relax me," said Bran hoarsely.

"Pardon?"

"The first way you were touching me," said Bran. "You asked-- if you're touching me-- gently-- what do you want from me. Is that it, master? For me to relax. For me to-- not to be scared."

"And it's the hardest thing, for you," said Holden, nodding. "Yes. That's what I want to teach you. Come here, sweetheart. Are you still shaking? I'll carry you to the bath."