The Slave Breakers, 14/15
Jul. 25th, 2007 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffePrevious chapter
“I hate those things,” said Tara, looking with distaste at the manacles that clasped Bran’s wrists together behind his back and the shackles that connected his bare feet, which Karl had stripped quite gently of Holden’s shoes.
“He asked for them,” said Karl, who had produced them rather reluctantly from behind a great deal of other dusty junk in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers on top of which Bran’s knife lay, mocking him.
“I still think they’re barbaric,” said Tara, “and besides, I was going to ask him to help with dinner.”
“I wouldn’t let him near anything sharp or hot right now,” said Karl, as Bran glared at him.
“He could shell the peas," said Tara. "Though with the way he’s shaking they’d go all over the floor.”
Karl put a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “He is shaking. Cheer up, lad. It’s going to be all right.”
"You keep saying that," said Bran, his voice trembling despite himself. "This is my fourth escape attempt. Do you know what happens to slaves who can’t be... retrained?"
"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact," said Karl, and Bran could have sworn he detected amusement in the older man’s voice.
"Then why?" Bran shouted, goaded past endurance. "Why? Why are you doing this to me? You’re some kind of– what, bounty hunters, or something? Tricking people into thinking you’re going to help them and then calling their owners on them? You’re fucking sick!”
"It’s not a trick, Bran," said Karl quietly, sitting down opposite Bran, “and we’re not bounty hunters. We do what we said. We take in runaways and help them get out of the country. But we've known Holden and Alix for a long time, and we help each other out."
"You help each other out?" Bran yelled. "A runaway shelter and a slave training operation? How does that work?"
"When they have a slave who really can't be trained, or retrained," said Tara, and Bran swung around to look at her, "for whatever reason-- too damaged, physically or emotionally, or too pregnant, or completely temperamentally unsuited to slavery, which some are– I think they would have found Lena was, for that, if they’d ever tried her– anyway, they give her to us to get out of the country and settled somewhere else. It helps keep up their reputation for exacting standards. In return for our trouble, they keep us up financially. There's no profit in this kind of enterprise, of course, and travel and so on add up. They pay our expenses."
Bran sat stunned, staring from Tara to Karl and back again. Karl nodded.
“They always let us know when they’re getting a new kid in," he said, "so we know to look out for them. A lot of fifteen-year-olds try to run away their first week, and one or two have even made it this far. We weren’t expecting you, though, not at this point.”
"I didn't-- know," Bran managed.
“Well, it's not exactly something they advertise," said Tara dryly. "Naturally everyone assumes that the ones who vanish have gone where problem slaves usually go, or went, before Holden and Alix set up shop. Even their little girl doesn’t know about us. Alix says they’re waiting until she proves she can keep any sort of a secret."
Karl patted Bran's shoulder. "It's true, lad, so don't look so white-faced. I expect– since you’ve got that history of escape attempts– they’ll be wanting us to get you on out of the country. Incorrigible, and all. But he’ll want to have a bit of a talk with you first, to see what went wrong. They like to know that.”
Bran, huddled as close in on himself as he could in his shackled state, tried to take all this in.
“Is that– did he tell you that?” he asked finally. “That that’s what he wants?”
“No,” said Karl, giving Bran a curious glance. “He didn’t say. I guess he may want to take you back with him. Give you another go, see if he can’t hammer out the kinks.”
“And you couldn’t have asked which?” Bran almost laughed, then found himself blinking away tears.
“It will probably depend on that talk when he gets here,” said Tara, and got up abruptly. “I’m going to go start dinner.”
“Sorry I can’t help,” said Bran, rattling his chains perversely.
“So am I,” said Tara with another displeased look, and disappeared into the kitchen.
With a long, thoughtful glance at Bran, Karl went back to his workbench and continued the carving work he had been doing when Bran came in. Bran was breathing deeply, trying not to cry; he knew from experience that crying while manacled was an almost unbearably humiliating and sticky experience. A few tears escaped nevertheless. An owl hooted outside. Bran looked at the window and saw only the reflection of his own pale, scared face.
“Don’t look like that, lad,” said Karl pityingly. “Most likely he’ll just want to talk to you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Bran dully.
Lost in thought some unmeasured length of time later, Bran nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a key in the door.
“That’ll be him,” said Karl, giving Bran a worried glance. “Easy, lad. Don’t faint on me.”
Bran sat stock-still as his master came in and, without stopping to greet Karl, came to stand beside Bran’s chair. Bran kept his eyes on his feet.
"Look at me," said Holden, and Bran obeyed.
Holden reached down and brushed Bran's hair back from his forehead, then touched his cheeks with gentle fingers, smoothing away the residue of tears and catching a fresh one with the pad of his thumb as it threatened to spill over. His eyes, unreadable in an immobile face, rested on Bran's.
"All right then," said Karl, after Holden had stood there silently looking down at Bran for several long moments. "I'll leave you to it. Let me know what you decide."
"Thanks for calling me, Karl," said Holden without taking his eyes off Bran, as Karl shut the door to the kitchen behind him, leaving Holden and Bran alone in the room, and in a silence that lasted until Bran rather wished Holden would hit him.
Instead Holden turned away, then turned back with his jaw clenched, then turned away again as if trying to get himself under control, and when he spoke again, he sounded calm and matter-of-fact.
"I assume Karl and Tara told you what they do for us," he said. Bran nodded numbly. "Is that what you want? You want me to just leave you, go back, write you off, let them do their thing? I can do that. But first you have to tell me what the hell you were thinking, Bran. I can afford the money loss. But I can’t afford to have been completely and utterly wrong about you."
"You weren't," said Bran pleadingly. "I can-- I can explain."
"Please do," said Holden courteously.
"I was scared," Bran began, rather lamely. "Of being sold."
“Okay,” said Holden, after a pause, and under his master’s measured tone Bran heard the barely controlled anger. “Sure. I know that. Because you think you’re in love with me, and you don’t want to leave me. And I know being scared makes you stupid. But this wasn’t mindless panic, Bran. You planned this. You had time to think. And you’re not stupid when you give yourself time to think. So I must be the one who’s stupid, because I’ve been turning this over ever since we realized you were missing this morning, and I still have no idea how you decided the logical solution to the problem of not wanting to leave me was to run away.”
“Because I couldn’t stand the thought of belonging to anyone else,” said Bran, and as the tears threatened he dropped his head again and pulled miserably at the manacles, wanting desperately to hide his face in his hands. “I just couldn’t. I– I thought about the money you'd lose, and I'm sorry about that, but I thought it would be worse for your business if you sold someone who couldn’t– couldn’t behave himself, couldn't give himself– and I couldn’t, not with anyone but you, not remembering you. I really would be– sullen, and, and, unresponsive. I thought it would be better if, you know, I was just an incorrigible runaway, instead of you selling me to someone in all good faith with your reputation on the line and then I–“ He swallowed. “I didn’t know what to do, and you don’t believe me and you wouldn't want it even if you did and you only ever wanted to get me back on the market, but I love you, I’m sorry, I can't help it, and I didn’t want to fuck up your business reputation."
The silence grew. Bran didn’t dare look up.
“If I understand you correctly,” said Holden finally, “you are claiming to have stolen my clothes and shoes and run away for my own good.”
“You were going to sell me for my own good,” Bran shot back, stung. “Why shouldn’t I run away for yours?”
“I’ll leave that little paradox to your obviously superior powers of philosophizing,” said Holden, “though I suppose the layman’s answer would be that I own your sorry delinquent ass.”
“I know that,” said Bran, lifting his tear-stained face defiantly; the faint trace of amusement that underscored Holden’s control now was harder to bear than the anger. “But– master, please listen. I did think about this, I really did. You know, Jer keeps saying, I don’t know if you’ve heard him, but he says he used to be like me. Not just young and pretty, but– I don’t know– sweet, and not– not all– And I look at him and I see what I could become. If I tried to go on living, serving someone without– without love, or hope or– for years and years, for a lifetime, growing old like that. If you wouldn’t keep me, if you were really going to force me to leave you, to go somewhere where I could only live by pretending none of the things I feel for you are– are important, or real, or– those are the best things about me, master, they’re all for you. Trying to kill them would– it would break me. I couldn’t– I had to run. If I got caught and killed, okay. I’d rather–“ He swallowed. “I’d rather die than belong to anyone but you.”
Holden said nothing.
“Anyway,” said Bran, suddenly almost too tired to hold his head up. “I tried. And I fucked it up, and now I've wasted even more of your time. I'm sorry you had to come out here, master. I'm sorry for-- for all your trouble."
“The funny part," said Holden finally, and he didn't really sound as if he thought anything was funny, "is that you've probably been the least troublesome delinquent in the history of the business, until now. And now-- Jer needs a fuckton of attention to keep him from collapsing on me every hour about how useless he is, Yves needs a not inconsiderable pile of reassuring that Jer isn’t replacing him, I’ve got a business to run while Alix is busy with Kit, my daughter’s coming home for her summer holidays in a week with yet another The One-- and you pick this moment to climb a pillar and martyr yourself for calf love. You've got piss-poor timing, Bran.”
“I didn't exactly pick the moment," said Bran, closing his eyes wearily.
A hard palm cracked across his face. His eyes snapped back open as he jerked to attention, stunned.
"Don’t do that,” Holden said tightly. “Don’t go all slack like that, you’re so pale you look– and anyway, since you have decided to cause me all this trouble you could have the decency to stay awake while I try to figure out what the fuck to do with you. Leaving you here would be such a criminal waste that I think I’d have to retire early from the shame of it, but apparently selling you is going to destroy your soul, while hanging on and trying to babysit you through your first crush is just– not a good idea. So help me think, Bran.”
Bran sat listening, his cheek burning with pain from the slap. Holden had never hit him in anger before. It was both frightening and strangely exhilarating; Bran’s pulse was racing, and he no longer felt sleepy.
“Why isn’t keeping me without selling me a good idea, master?” he asked clearly. “I mean– if it is calf love, if I’m just a stupid kid with a stupid crush, then I’ll just... get over it, eventually, right? And then you can sell me. Then. I won’t fuss, I’m not spoiled, but I just– maybe I just need time. Like Kai and Greta needed time to get over each other, remember?”
“Kai got over Greta so he wouldn’t have to live with me, and Greta went into a sulking fit and got herself knocked up,” said Holden grimly. “It’s not a chapter in history I’m anxious to repeat.”
“I promise I won’t get pregnant, master,” said Bran, and Holden, surprised, almost smiled. “So what have you got to lose? If you give up on me now you get nothing– so what have you got to lose?”
“Something, I think,” said Holden, staring at Bran, then shook his head slightly. “How many times do I have to say it? It wouldn’t be fair to you. I don’t have the time right now to give you what you need.”
“Master, I won’t be any trouble, none. I swear by the World Ash, I’ll be so good, you won’t even know I’m around. And Yves and Jer, I’ll do anything they say, I’ll serve them too, I’ll be happy to. You can do whatever you want with me, whenever you want, or just ignore me, I won’t mind, I won’t ask anything of you–”
“Bran, stop it.” Holden had begun to pace restlessly. “Don’t you see it wouldn’t work? It wouldn’t--“
“Be fair to me?” Bran interrupted fiercely. “How is it fair not even to give me a chance? You just assume I couldn’t handle it?”
“I don’t know if you could handle it or not. I was going to say, it wouldn’t matter whether you were asking anything of me or not. Just the fact that you were there would be– you make me too–“
Bran’s mind immediately suggested half a dozen adjectives– worried, protective, nervous, horny, tired. He sat with his tongue between his teeth, waiting for Holden to finish his sentence.
“Happy,” said Holden finally.
The word hit Bran harder than Holden’s palm had, knocking the wind out of him. He sat staring at Holden, breathless.
“Oh, yes, you make me ridiculously happy,” said Holden, sounding more angry than happy at the moment. “I can’t ignore you, don’t you understand, I’d be wanting to be with you all the time, you’re so– and the sound of your voice and the way you look at me, like right now, you look like a damn sunrise, all hope and dawn and light and– fuck, Bran--” He laughed, suddenly, shortly, a queer bark of laughter. “I can’t think straight, not with you looking at me like that. I don’t– I honestly don’t know what’s the right thing to do.”
“What do you want, master?” Bran demanded suddenly. “Forget the right thing. Do you want to keep me?”
“Forget the right thing?” Holden repeated incredulously. “Bran, haven’t you learned anything in all these weeks of collecting all our depressing stories? You know what happens when masters let themselves– What do I want? You’re asking me what I want? I want to fucking kill you, you little shit, you put me through absolute hell today, I’ve been picturing you dead, raped, scared, alone– when Karl called I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I spent the drive over here trying to figure out whether I wanted to beat you senseless or take you in my arms and promise you everything you wanted from me. And it would be so fucking easy, just to make your gorgeous eyes light up. But I don’t have the luxury of just doing what I want with you, Bran. I have responsibilities. To my family, to Jer and Yves, to the business– and to you, not to make you any promises I can’t keep.”
“I’m not asking for promises,” said Bran, trying his best to keep his voice under control. “I don’t need you to write me sonnets or cut your name into my skin. I don’t need to be as important to you as your family or Yves or Jer or your business. I don’t even need you to– to tell me you love me. Just– please, master. You just said I make you happy. That’s all I need. I swear. Please– just take me home.”
Their eyes locked, measuring each other’s resolve. Holden looked away first.
“If you ever fucking run away again,” he said between gritted teeth, “I am not coming after you.”
Bran laughed, dizzy with adrenaline and the beginnings of a wild, white-hot joy. “Sure that’s a promise you can keep?”
Holden stared at him for several moments before seizing Bran by the arm and yanking him roughly upright amid a merry rattle of chains. Bran braced himself for another well-deserved slap, but Holden’s mouth was on his, as violently as a blow, and Bran whimpered as his head was yanked back by the hair and fingers dug into his upper arm hard enough to bruise. Then Holden pulled away, glancing at the door to the kitchen, then back at a panting Bran.
“You insufferable brat,” he said, and his voice nearly made Bran buckle at the knees. “Just you wait until I get you home.”
Next chapter
“I hate those things,” said Tara, looking with distaste at the manacles that clasped Bran’s wrists together behind his back and the shackles that connected his bare feet, which Karl had stripped quite gently of Holden’s shoes.
“He asked for them,” said Karl, who had produced them rather reluctantly from behind a great deal of other dusty junk in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers on top of which Bran’s knife lay, mocking him.
“I still think they’re barbaric,” said Tara, “and besides, I was going to ask him to help with dinner.”
“I wouldn’t let him near anything sharp or hot right now,” said Karl, as Bran glared at him.
“He could shell the peas," said Tara. "Though with the way he’s shaking they’d go all over the floor.”
Karl put a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “He is shaking. Cheer up, lad. It’s going to be all right.”
"You keep saying that," said Bran, his voice trembling despite himself. "This is my fourth escape attempt. Do you know what happens to slaves who can’t be... retrained?"
"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact," said Karl, and Bran could have sworn he detected amusement in the older man’s voice.
"Then why?" Bran shouted, goaded past endurance. "Why? Why are you doing this to me? You’re some kind of– what, bounty hunters, or something? Tricking people into thinking you’re going to help them and then calling their owners on them? You’re fucking sick!”
"It’s not a trick, Bran," said Karl quietly, sitting down opposite Bran, “and we’re not bounty hunters. We do what we said. We take in runaways and help them get out of the country. But we've known Holden and Alix for a long time, and we help each other out."
"You help each other out?" Bran yelled. "A runaway shelter and a slave training operation? How does that work?"
"When they have a slave who really can't be trained, or retrained," said Tara, and Bran swung around to look at her, "for whatever reason-- too damaged, physically or emotionally, or too pregnant, or completely temperamentally unsuited to slavery, which some are– I think they would have found Lena was, for that, if they’d ever tried her– anyway, they give her to us to get out of the country and settled somewhere else. It helps keep up their reputation for exacting standards. In return for our trouble, they keep us up financially. There's no profit in this kind of enterprise, of course, and travel and so on add up. They pay our expenses."
Bran sat stunned, staring from Tara to Karl and back again. Karl nodded.
“They always let us know when they’re getting a new kid in," he said, "so we know to look out for them. A lot of fifteen-year-olds try to run away their first week, and one or two have even made it this far. We weren’t expecting you, though, not at this point.”
"I didn't-- know," Bran managed.
“Well, it's not exactly something they advertise," said Tara dryly. "Naturally everyone assumes that the ones who vanish have gone where problem slaves usually go, or went, before Holden and Alix set up shop. Even their little girl doesn’t know about us. Alix says they’re waiting until she proves she can keep any sort of a secret."
Karl patted Bran's shoulder. "It's true, lad, so don't look so white-faced. I expect– since you’ve got that history of escape attempts– they’ll be wanting us to get you on out of the country. Incorrigible, and all. But he’ll want to have a bit of a talk with you first, to see what went wrong. They like to know that.”
Bran, huddled as close in on himself as he could in his shackled state, tried to take all this in.
“Is that– did he tell you that?” he asked finally. “That that’s what he wants?”
“No,” said Karl, giving Bran a curious glance. “He didn’t say. I guess he may want to take you back with him. Give you another go, see if he can’t hammer out the kinks.”
“And you couldn’t have asked which?” Bran almost laughed, then found himself blinking away tears.
“It will probably depend on that talk when he gets here,” said Tara, and got up abruptly. “I’m going to go start dinner.”
“Sorry I can’t help,” said Bran, rattling his chains perversely.
“So am I,” said Tara with another displeased look, and disappeared into the kitchen.
With a long, thoughtful glance at Bran, Karl went back to his workbench and continued the carving work he had been doing when Bran came in. Bran was breathing deeply, trying not to cry; he knew from experience that crying while manacled was an almost unbearably humiliating and sticky experience. A few tears escaped nevertheless. An owl hooted outside. Bran looked at the window and saw only the reflection of his own pale, scared face.
“Don’t look like that, lad,” said Karl pityingly. “Most likely he’ll just want to talk to you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Bran dully.
Lost in thought some unmeasured length of time later, Bran nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a key in the door.
“That’ll be him,” said Karl, giving Bran a worried glance. “Easy, lad. Don’t faint on me.”
Bran sat stock-still as his master came in and, without stopping to greet Karl, came to stand beside Bran’s chair. Bran kept his eyes on his feet.
"Look at me," said Holden, and Bran obeyed.
Holden reached down and brushed Bran's hair back from his forehead, then touched his cheeks with gentle fingers, smoothing away the residue of tears and catching a fresh one with the pad of his thumb as it threatened to spill over. His eyes, unreadable in an immobile face, rested on Bran's.
"All right then," said Karl, after Holden had stood there silently looking down at Bran for several long moments. "I'll leave you to it. Let me know what you decide."
"Thanks for calling me, Karl," said Holden without taking his eyes off Bran, as Karl shut the door to the kitchen behind him, leaving Holden and Bran alone in the room, and in a silence that lasted until Bran rather wished Holden would hit him.
Instead Holden turned away, then turned back with his jaw clenched, then turned away again as if trying to get himself under control, and when he spoke again, he sounded calm and matter-of-fact.
"I assume Karl and Tara told you what they do for us," he said. Bran nodded numbly. "Is that what you want? You want me to just leave you, go back, write you off, let them do their thing? I can do that. But first you have to tell me what the hell you were thinking, Bran. I can afford the money loss. But I can’t afford to have been completely and utterly wrong about you."
"You weren't," said Bran pleadingly. "I can-- I can explain."
"Please do," said Holden courteously.
"I was scared," Bran began, rather lamely. "Of being sold."
“Okay,” said Holden, after a pause, and under his master’s measured tone Bran heard the barely controlled anger. “Sure. I know that. Because you think you’re in love with me, and you don’t want to leave me. And I know being scared makes you stupid. But this wasn’t mindless panic, Bran. You planned this. You had time to think. And you’re not stupid when you give yourself time to think. So I must be the one who’s stupid, because I’ve been turning this over ever since we realized you were missing this morning, and I still have no idea how you decided the logical solution to the problem of not wanting to leave me was to run away.”
“Because I couldn’t stand the thought of belonging to anyone else,” said Bran, and as the tears threatened he dropped his head again and pulled miserably at the manacles, wanting desperately to hide his face in his hands. “I just couldn’t. I– I thought about the money you'd lose, and I'm sorry about that, but I thought it would be worse for your business if you sold someone who couldn’t– couldn’t behave himself, couldn't give himself– and I couldn’t, not with anyone but you, not remembering you. I really would be– sullen, and, and, unresponsive. I thought it would be better if, you know, I was just an incorrigible runaway, instead of you selling me to someone in all good faith with your reputation on the line and then I–“ He swallowed. “I didn’t know what to do, and you don’t believe me and you wouldn't want it even if you did and you only ever wanted to get me back on the market, but I love you, I’m sorry, I can't help it, and I didn’t want to fuck up your business reputation."
The silence grew. Bran didn’t dare look up.
“If I understand you correctly,” said Holden finally, “you are claiming to have stolen my clothes and shoes and run away for my own good.”
“You were going to sell me for my own good,” Bran shot back, stung. “Why shouldn’t I run away for yours?”
“I’ll leave that little paradox to your obviously superior powers of philosophizing,” said Holden, “though I suppose the layman’s answer would be that I own your sorry delinquent ass.”
“I know that,” said Bran, lifting his tear-stained face defiantly; the faint trace of amusement that underscored Holden’s control now was harder to bear than the anger. “But– master, please listen. I did think about this, I really did. You know, Jer keeps saying, I don’t know if you’ve heard him, but he says he used to be like me. Not just young and pretty, but– I don’t know– sweet, and not– not all– And I look at him and I see what I could become. If I tried to go on living, serving someone without– without love, or hope or– for years and years, for a lifetime, growing old like that. If you wouldn’t keep me, if you were really going to force me to leave you, to go somewhere where I could only live by pretending none of the things I feel for you are– are important, or real, or– those are the best things about me, master, they’re all for you. Trying to kill them would– it would break me. I couldn’t– I had to run. If I got caught and killed, okay. I’d rather–“ He swallowed. “I’d rather die than belong to anyone but you.”
Holden said nothing.
“Anyway,” said Bran, suddenly almost too tired to hold his head up. “I tried. And I fucked it up, and now I've wasted even more of your time. I'm sorry you had to come out here, master. I'm sorry for-- for all your trouble."
“The funny part," said Holden finally, and he didn't really sound as if he thought anything was funny, "is that you've probably been the least troublesome delinquent in the history of the business, until now. And now-- Jer needs a fuckton of attention to keep him from collapsing on me every hour about how useless he is, Yves needs a not inconsiderable pile of reassuring that Jer isn’t replacing him, I’ve got a business to run while Alix is busy with Kit, my daughter’s coming home for her summer holidays in a week with yet another The One-- and you pick this moment to climb a pillar and martyr yourself for calf love. You've got piss-poor timing, Bran.”
“I didn't exactly pick the moment," said Bran, closing his eyes wearily.
A hard palm cracked across his face. His eyes snapped back open as he jerked to attention, stunned.
"Don’t do that,” Holden said tightly. “Don’t go all slack like that, you’re so pale you look– and anyway, since you have decided to cause me all this trouble you could have the decency to stay awake while I try to figure out what the fuck to do with you. Leaving you here would be such a criminal waste that I think I’d have to retire early from the shame of it, but apparently selling you is going to destroy your soul, while hanging on and trying to babysit you through your first crush is just– not a good idea. So help me think, Bran.”
Bran sat listening, his cheek burning with pain from the slap. Holden had never hit him in anger before. It was both frightening and strangely exhilarating; Bran’s pulse was racing, and he no longer felt sleepy.
“Why isn’t keeping me without selling me a good idea, master?” he asked clearly. “I mean– if it is calf love, if I’m just a stupid kid with a stupid crush, then I’ll just... get over it, eventually, right? And then you can sell me. Then. I won’t fuss, I’m not spoiled, but I just– maybe I just need time. Like Kai and Greta needed time to get over each other, remember?”
“Kai got over Greta so he wouldn’t have to live with me, and Greta went into a sulking fit and got herself knocked up,” said Holden grimly. “It’s not a chapter in history I’m anxious to repeat.”
“I promise I won’t get pregnant, master,” said Bran, and Holden, surprised, almost smiled. “So what have you got to lose? If you give up on me now you get nothing– so what have you got to lose?”
“Something, I think,” said Holden, staring at Bran, then shook his head slightly. “How many times do I have to say it? It wouldn’t be fair to you. I don’t have the time right now to give you what you need.”
“Master, I won’t be any trouble, none. I swear by the World Ash, I’ll be so good, you won’t even know I’m around. And Yves and Jer, I’ll do anything they say, I’ll serve them too, I’ll be happy to. You can do whatever you want with me, whenever you want, or just ignore me, I won’t mind, I won’t ask anything of you–”
“Bran, stop it.” Holden had begun to pace restlessly. “Don’t you see it wouldn’t work? It wouldn’t--“
“Be fair to me?” Bran interrupted fiercely. “How is it fair not even to give me a chance? You just assume I couldn’t handle it?”
“I don’t know if you could handle it or not. I was going to say, it wouldn’t matter whether you were asking anything of me or not. Just the fact that you were there would be– you make me too–“
Bran’s mind immediately suggested half a dozen adjectives– worried, protective, nervous, horny, tired. He sat with his tongue between his teeth, waiting for Holden to finish his sentence.
“Happy,” said Holden finally.
The word hit Bran harder than Holden’s palm had, knocking the wind out of him. He sat staring at Holden, breathless.
“Oh, yes, you make me ridiculously happy,” said Holden, sounding more angry than happy at the moment. “I can’t ignore you, don’t you understand, I’d be wanting to be with you all the time, you’re so– and the sound of your voice and the way you look at me, like right now, you look like a damn sunrise, all hope and dawn and light and– fuck, Bran--” He laughed, suddenly, shortly, a queer bark of laughter. “I can’t think straight, not with you looking at me like that. I don’t– I honestly don’t know what’s the right thing to do.”
“What do you want, master?” Bran demanded suddenly. “Forget the right thing. Do you want to keep me?”
“Forget the right thing?” Holden repeated incredulously. “Bran, haven’t you learned anything in all these weeks of collecting all our depressing stories? You know what happens when masters let themselves– What do I want? You’re asking me what I want? I want to fucking kill you, you little shit, you put me through absolute hell today, I’ve been picturing you dead, raped, scared, alone– when Karl called I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I spent the drive over here trying to figure out whether I wanted to beat you senseless or take you in my arms and promise you everything you wanted from me. And it would be so fucking easy, just to make your gorgeous eyes light up. But I don’t have the luxury of just doing what I want with you, Bran. I have responsibilities. To my family, to Jer and Yves, to the business– and to you, not to make you any promises I can’t keep.”
“I’m not asking for promises,” said Bran, trying his best to keep his voice under control. “I don’t need you to write me sonnets or cut your name into my skin. I don’t need to be as important to you as your family or Yves or Jer or your business. I don’t even need you to– to tell me you love me. Just– please, master. You just said I make you happy. That’s all I need. I swear. Please– just take me home.”
Their eyes locked, measuring each other’s resolve. Holden looked away first.
“If you ever fucking run away again,” he said between gritted teeth, “I am not coming after you.”
Bran laughed, dizzy with adrenaline and the beginnings of a wild, white-hot joy. “Sure that’s a promise you can keep?”
Holden stared at him for several moments before seizing Bran by the arm and yanking him roughly upright amid a merry rattle of chains. Bran braced himself for another well-deserved slap, but Holden’s mouth was on his, as violently as a blow, and Bran whimpered as his head was yanked back by the hair and fingers dug into his upper arm hard enough to bruise. Then Holden pulled away, glancing at the door to the kitchen, then back at a panting Bran.
“You insufferable brat,” he said, and his voice nearly made Bran buckle at the knees. “Just you wait until I get you home.”
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