Jesse part ten

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Part Nine

Jesse didn't see Bran again for about an hour. At a loose end, he wandered the house, getting odd looks from the other members of the household. They seemed friendly enough, but Jesse wasn't interested in making any more friends, not if all went well-- when he'd be out of here in a matter of weeks-- and not if it didn't, when these people really weren't his friends.

Finally he went to "his" room and shut the door, lying down on the bed with his eyes open. Irresistibly bits and pieces of the conversation in the car came back to him. You are an extraordinary person. You were gone, and that was not bearable. How fucking beautiful you are. I've got you.

He'll say all that, Jesse thought, but he won't say "I love you"? Won't even admit Bran loves him? Doesn't make any fucking sense.

Jesse had told Bran he'd thought slaves in love with their owners were mythical, but of course he'd known slaves whose masters and mistresses had 'fallen in love' with them. Easy to fall in love with someone you could control utterly; easy, and very safe. Much easier and much safer than falling in love with someone who controlled you utterly. He thought of Holden saying in that intense voice, "You're the bravest kid I've ever seen" and gave an irritable twitch of the shoulders, an involuntary, directionless shrug.

People who think they're in love with you when you're not in love with them are irritating, Jesse thought firmly. Everyone knows that. Unless you're an emotional sadist like Presniakov, of course, and then no slave in his right mind falls in love with you anyway. For anyone halfway decent it's a drag, being loved by someone you don't love back; it's a demand. Even if they're basically nice people and you feel sorry for them, you still wish they'd quit that. Move on, like Larssen said. That's why slaves don't fall in love with their masters unless they're masochists. Slaves can't afford to be irritating. And even if your master decided to keep hold of you for whatever reason, because he's got it in his head that you'll go crazy or something if he doesn't-- he wouldn't sound like that about it. He'd try to sound kind, maybe, but he wouldn't sound like he was about to break in half from trying so hard to explain how-- You don't sound like that unless you love a person.

So Holden loves Bran. Why the fuck won't he say it?

Maybe his wife won't let him. Maybe she's jealous. He's got three boys and she's just got the one girl. Maybe she's fed up. Maybe she's just like, Look, you, I don't care what you fuck but no more true love forever, you're cutting into my slice here. Maybe he's afraid she'll do like what's her name did, that lady who owned them both, who made her husband get rid of all his slaves. I wish I'd gotten a look at the marriage contract.

Jesse stared at the ceiling.

Maybe it's a power trip, like I said to Bran before. As long as Bran thinks his master doesn't love him he stays desperate to please because maybe he can convince him, maybe he can make him love him. But that doesn't make sense; he wants Bran to feel safe, that's obvious, that's what that whole thing in the car was about, you're not getting lost again. He doesn't like Bran to be scared, you can tell that. He doesn't want fear, he doesn't want love. What the hell does he want from the kid? I don't believe that shit about being glad if Bran was ready to leave him for a second. He'd be heartbroken if Bran 'moved on,' he fucking loves him. Why's he pushing him away so hard?

Why do I care?

Jesse knew the answer: because he was good at this. Quen used to be fairly impressed by Jesse's quick, vicious analyses of Presniakov's social circle. Ugly old bag in pink lace and makeup an inch thick, wants to be a little girl again so she fucks little boys, we're a little too old but she'll make do, bet you she'll want us to call her Yelena in bed, no, Lenochka, Lenchik. Soft, nervous guy, son of a rich merchant who bought his title; beating slaves bloody makes him feel a little less nouveau, but I'm pretty sure he sticks to girls who look like his wife. Super-refined old-family gold-digging bitch trying to get her claws into the master; fucking hates that he has boy slaves but she'll follow his lead on how to treat us, at least until after the wedding.

Holden and Alix had made perfect sense when they first showed up at Presniakov's. If Jesse had had the mental energy he'd have whispered as much to an imaginary Quen. Rich and successful but still not quite there, trying a little too hard to impress the aristos, the wife more than the husband, he lets her have that boy as an outlet, she wants me but he wears the boots, and so on as the afternoon progressed, their performance flawless, the gathering drunken rage, the direction of Bran's frightened cower. If he hadn't been past caring about anything he probably would have been able to gauge the exact minute at which he needed to duck Holden's fist, and even as he lay on the floor bleeding he wasn't really surprised, not on any deep level. They fit the patterns he understood.

The real shock and disorientation had begun in the car, when the patterns started unraveling, when it became obvious that not only did Alix and Holden and Bran not fit the pattern, they had deliberately faked it. An eye as keen as Jesse's for social cliches that no one would question-- Alix's, Holden's, one of the slaves'?-- had planned it out in perfect, finely shaded detail. He imagined them in the car beforehand, and it was Holden's quiet voice he heard: You know the scenario. We're both trying a little too hard to impress, but you care more than I do. Bran, you're afraid of me but you're also afraid to be too obviously clinging to Alix. We'll set it up early on that Alix thinks this Jesse kid is pretty and I don't like that, so later, when I'm drunk--

If anything, they'd overestimated Presniakov; for all his refinements of torture, he didn't have the eye for these things that Jesse did. He wouldn't ever have figured Jesse out if Quen, sweet trusting Quen, hadn't come onto the scene, curled up in Jesse's arms, seduced him into betraying weakness. Not that it was Quen's fault. The weakness was Jesse's, and the surrender to it; he loved Quen, would have given up far more than that sense of safety and impenetrability for his sake. Love made you weak, but Jesse, unlike Presniakov, knew it was worth it.

(Maybe that was Holden's problem. The way he felt about Bran made him weak, and he couldn't handle it. The blood frightened him, and my tears. The fear and the shame made him angry. But that would make Holden close himself off to Bran, or lash out, not pour out his heart but just refuse to say those three fucking words, I love you--)

Jesse was used to understanding the people who had power over him and Quen. Now these new people itched at his mind, almost forming recognizable patterns, but not quite, never quite, falling into place.

Holden made sense. Mostly. A little under his wife's thumb, grateful to her for freeing him; sentimental over Yves, since Holden was to Yves sort of as what's his name, Pavel, had been to Holden. Sentimental over Jer, since they'd belonged to Argounov together. Liked playing with pretty teenagers, but not much trouble letting them go, since there'd always be more. And then this one kid, sweet and beautiful and shy and adoring, and he'd fallen, hard. Jesse didn't have any trouble understanding why anyone would fall in love with Bran.

Holden's explanation of Bran made sense, too. You were drowning, and I was there. It's sweet that you think it's love, sweet like you're sweet, and young and innocent and idealistic.

What didn't make sense was why Holden said that, saw that, if he was fucking in love with Bran. Nobody was capable of that much disinterested clarity. If you were madly in love with someone and they insisted over more than a year that they were madly in love with you back, you caved at some point. If you were as emotional as Holden was in the car, choking with tenderness over the shivering kid next to you, every tone in your voice screaming I love you, the words came out, unless there was a damn good reason for them not to. Jesse's inability to figure out any reason good enough was like a ferocious itch suddenly flaring on your leg when your hands were cuffed to the ceiling and your master was concentrating on your back and ass. It really shouldn't matter, but fuck it was irritating.

Maybe Holden was doing this just to get under Jesse's skin. Jesse smiled briefly, mirthlessly, at the ceiling.

He was still trying to figure it out when Bran came in, tear-stained and quiet-faced, and sat down on the bed next to him. Jesse sat up quickly.

"Hey," he said. "You okay?"

"Fine," said Bran. "Sorry about all that. Must have been an interesting show."

"Yeah," said Jesse. "Did he punish you already?"

"No," said Bran with a wan smile. "He isn't going to. He said he thought I'd had enough of a beating on the way home."

"Gods, he's weird," said Jesse. "Can I say he's weird, or does that piss you off?"

"No," said Bran. "He's weird."

Jesse smiled, then said tentatively, "Do you-- uh, do you think he might be right? About you?"

"That I'd lose it if he sold me? Yeah, probably," said Bran.

"No, that you only think you're in love with him because--"

Bran shrugged. "He's said that before. Maybe. Who knows. What did you think of Kai and Sophie?"

"I liked Sophie," said Jesse, with a curious look at Bran. "She seemed to have her head on straight. Kai's fucked up."

"Aren't we all?" said Bran. "I feel sorry for Kai. He just can't make himself move on. Like me."

"Oh, come on, Bran," said Jesse irritably. "He's had twenty years to move on. That's longer than you've been alive."

Bran grinned. "Point. He's a sweet guy essentially, though. Really likes me, even though you'd think I'd drive him crazy, as devoted as I am to the guy who ruined his sister's life. My master says he just concentrates all his hate and aggression and bitterness on that one thing, so he's totally serene and friendly otherwise."

"He said that?" Jesse asked, amused. "Does he talk like that to you a lot?"

Bran smiled. "Sometimes. He likes to figure people out. Well, it's his job. But it's his hobby, too. Thinks he's got me all figured out, for sure. Wish I had him figured out."

"Me too," said Jesse fervently, wondering whether Holden thought he had Jesse figured out. I'd like to see him try, he thought derisively, and then wondered if he really would like it, thinking of Bran's racking sobs in the car, Holden's relentless voice, I saw, you looked, I knew then, you were so. What would it be like to have someone turn such an unblinking stare on you, devote such energy to decoding and untangling what went on in your head? Terrifying. Infuriating. Unbearable.

"Are you okay?" he asked again, suddenly.

Bran looked at him thoughtfully.

"I'm fine," he said. "I told you before, I always cry when people are nice to me."

Part Ten and a Bit