Missing scene

[maculategiraffe]

This scene takes place fairly early on in the missing period between the end of the first 15-part story and the beginning of "Jesse." I present it for a few reasons: skylerbird requested a side scene with just the three boys, and this one establishes a certain dynamic between them that pretty much still holds; I feel like Jer's gotten slightly short shrift so far in the story, so he gets to talk a bit more here; it clarifies a few things Bran now knows about Jer, Holden and Alix's shared background, which inform the way he deals with all of them in the present; and I'm buying time while I beat chapter twelve into submission.

Bran wandered the house aimlessly, wishing the library weren't so boring or that Fox were here to put him to work. Holden was out meeting with a client, and Alix and Greta had gone off somewhere, expressing no interest in company. He wandered upstairs and along the hall, hoping Yves and Jer weren't similarly sequestered. After a moment he could hear Yves' voice coming from his room, to which the door stood ajar, and it didn't sound like he and Jer were mid-coital. He quickened his stride, interested in what they might be talking about.

"So if you sum up the new set," Yves was saying, "as the set containing the previous set of all possible integers added to each possible integer, in addition to the previous set itself-- is the new set defined as the previous set squared or just the previous set times two?"

"It's defined as a fucking stress headache," said Jer.

Yves laughed. "Well, you asked what I was doing."

"This is what you do when you're bored? Won't he spring for a deck of cards? Oh hey, it's the kid. Hi, kid."

"Hi, Bran," said Yves, looking up with a smile. "Come on in. I'm boring Jer. Do you play cards?"

"No," said Bran, coming in obediently. Jer was sitting on Yves' bed, while Yves sat at his desk with the chair pulled around to face Jer. Jer tapped the bed beside himself, and Bran sat down carefully, leaving a few inches of space between himself and Jer, who didn't look at him.

"I could teach you to play hearts," said Jer to Yves. "Holden-- I mean, the master used to wipe up at hearts."

Yves smiled. "He and I play chess sometimes. Never had enough slaves to get a card game going before. How many did you have at Argounov's?"

"Six at a time, in his heyday," said Jer.

Yves shook his head. "Six! How on earth did he look after all of you?"

"We looked after each other," said Jer. "We were all ranked, in order of who sucked up hardest to the master, and if someone outranked you she might as well be the master for how badly she was allowed to fuck you up. But then, next week, if you put your back into it, you might outrank her, so she'd be sorry she fucked you up, wouldn't she? It all evened out. We stayed in line, and we were all pretty decent to each other."

"How often did the ranks change?" Yves asked curiously.

"Whenever the master got the whim. It was pretty stable for most of us-- I was always second or third from the bottom, fine but not, you know, spectacular or anything. Holden, though, he was all over the place. One week he's the best boy in the world, sleeping in the master's bed, getting hugged and kissed, and the next he gets whipped raw and dumped back at the bottom of the heap."

"For heaven's sake," said Yves, as Bran listened intently, the thought of Holden being whipped giving him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "He never mentioned Argounov treating him that badly."

Jer shrugged.

"Argounov wasn't so bad," he said. "Just didn't know how to deal with Holden. Don't blame him for that. Holden was a real piece of work back then, you know. He'd be screaming at the master, whip me, you fucking asshole, I'd rather you whip me than kiss me, I hate you, I hate when you fucking touch me. Fucking suicidal shit like that half the time, and then the other half it's do you love me, am I your good boy, please hold me, please let me be good for you. And nightmares every night, he'd wake up screaming, and I'd hold him and he'd just shake. I think he'd have gotten himself killed eventually if the master hadn't bought Alix."

"What happened then?" Yves asked, the appalled fascination in his voice matching Bran's feelings exactly.

"Well, you've got to understand, we always hazed the hell out of the new slaves," said Jer, glancing quickly and almost apologetically at Bran. "He encouraged it. Argounov, I mean. Called it a transitional period. We could beat them, fuck them, keep them up all night, whatever we wanted. And we were responsible for feeding them, out of whatever food we got for ourselves-- which was plenty, so it wasn't like it was any hardship to feed the new kids the scraps, but if they pissed us off they got nothing."

Yves shuddered. "Gods. How long was the-- transitional period?"

"Until he decided they'd graduated. That's when they got clothes, too, and to sit at the table with the rest of us. It was usually just a couple of weeks, maybe a month if he thought they needed a real attitude adjustment. He said it helped us all form bonds or some damn thing. Anyway, it was just Alix's bad luck that when she arrived, Holden had pissed the master off again and was ranked lowest, so not only was he in a shitty mood, but she was the only one he had to take it out on."

"What happened?" Yves asked again, as Bran put his head on one side, interested. "He... hurt her?"

"To put it mildly," Jer said with a mirthless smile. "Like I said, we all made a sport out of torturing the new kids, but even we thought he went too far with her. He thought it was a waste of a day if he didn't make her cry at least once."

Yves examined Jer intently as if wondering whether to believe him or not. Bran was remembering a conversation he had once had with Alix. I was about eighteen. But he was only twenty himself. Oh, Bran, who knows what throws people together...

"Anyway," Jer continued, "two weeks later the master gives her a tunic and makes the announcement, you know, transition period's over, oh and by the way, there are a couple of changes in rank. Alix now outranks Holden and Jer.

"It didn't have anything to do with Alix, the master wasn't in love with her yet, he was just trying to get to Holden. He did that a lot, played these little games, trying to figure out how to-- break him, I guess. So, Holden, you know the little girl whose life you've been making a living hell for the past two weeks, well, let's see how bad a little girl can fuck you up when you're not allowed to hit back. And guess what, Jer can't help you either. Holden and I always looked out for each other, see, whoever happened to outrank whom just then."

"So Lord Argounov did pay attention," said Yves. "I mean, he knew enough of what was going on to..."

"To fuck with us?" Jer shrugged again. "Sure, he paid attention. He wasn't a bad master, like I said. Not if you knew how to act.

"Anyway, as soon as he'd made his little announcement and gone, Alix makes straight for Holden and just grabs his hand and drags him down the hall to the dorm where we all slept-- and I run after them even though there's not a damn thing I can do, but she looks up at me at the door, cool as a cucumber, and says, 'Come back in half an hour, Jer.'"

"I can picture that," Yves said, smiling a little.

"So I'm going fucking crazy for half an hour-- and none of the others really care, I mean, they just figure he had it coming-- which he did, don't get me wrong, he'd half killed the poor kid, but I fucking loved the crazy bastard, and girls are fucking mean, you know. And he was so-- fucked up. I was scared she'd push him too hard and he'd snap and-- I was just fucking scared.

"So half an hour's up and I get in there and they're-- she's sitting on the floor, right, and he's lying there face down on the floor with his head in her lap, crying, I'd never seen him cry, not even after a nightmare, and she's fucking petting him, saying 'Shhh, it's okay, it's okay.' And she looks up at me and she says, 'There you are. Holden, Jer's here.' Just like that. Like he was a little kid who'd gotten lost, and she was some friendly stranger who'd let him cry in her lap, and now I was here to take him home."

"What happened?" Yves asked yet again, as Bran pictured the scene-- a twenty-years-younger Jer, breathless with worry, stopped dead in the doorway, the dark head buried against Argounov's white livery, shoulders shaking, the calm girl's face lifted, pleased, Jer's here. "I mean, in the half-hour?"

Jer shrugged again. "He wouldn't tell me. All he'd say was that she told him it was okay. But he sounded like it meant more than just 'it's okay, I'm not going to punish you.'

"But whatever happened, things got better for him after that. There wasn't any more yelling shit at the master, because she saw it coming and she'd get up in front of him-- this skinny little girl, still all bruised and welted up from the transition-- and say, 'Holden, if you need to get hurt, I'll hurt you.' Not like a threat, like an offer. And he'd look at her and just... breathe out. Sometimes he took her up on it, and sometimes not, but just that she saw him and understood what he needed-- which I sure fucking didn't, still don't get why anyone needs to get hurt if they don't have to-- he could breathe easier.

"And he didn't go to the master any more begging to be loved and held and told he was a good boy, either, he went and sat by Alix and talked without looking at her and she'd put a hand on his back and talk back, a little. Mostly she just listened. But it was around then that he stopped having nightmares every fucking night."

"Didn't Lord Argounov get annoyed that she'd-- taken possession?" Yves asked, smiling a little.

"By the time the master realized what was going on, Alix had him wrapped around her little finger, too, and he pretty much stepped back and let her have Holden. I mean, way before he actually gave her Holden. I never understood why she picked Holden out like that, after the shit he'd pulled, but he was damn lucky she did. And damn lucky she took him with her when she walked free."

Jer was quiet for a moment, then added ruefully, "I never thought then that he'd be my master one day. He's fucking good at it, though, isn't he? I mean, I always knew he was good to you, Yves, but he really takes care of me, paranoid old ass that I am. And all these kids. And Bran here pretty much worships him, don't you, Bran?"

Bran nodded without hesitation. Jer's eyes, which had flicked casually to his face, lingered there thoughtfully as a smile curved the older man's lips. "Kid, I swear sometimes you're the most fuckable thing I've ever seen. Those big dreamy eyes and that serious mouth. What are you looking at me like that for? You like me or something?"

"Yes," said Bran with a shy sidelong smile.

"Now you're doing it on purpose," said Jer, grabbing Bran and yanking him into his lap. Bran's laugh turned into a soft, pleased gasp as Jer pulled his head back by the hair and bit lightly at his throat. "You like me because I took care of him when we were both punk kids like you, huh?"

Bran smiled, his head still yanked back as Jer kissed his way up his throat. "Yes."

Jer laughed, releasing Bran's hair. "How do you make 'yes' sound like it's got 'sir and how may I use my sweet young body to pleasure your beautiful self' rolled up in it? That's a trick I could have stood to learn twenty years ago."

"He's got a good voice," Yves agreed, smiling, as Bran, his head dangling from Jer's arm, blinked at him upside down and a little cross-eyed. "You've heard him say 'master.'"

"Sure have," said Jer, and kissed Bran under the chin. "Got to get him to teach me that one. It's still weird for me, calling Holden 'master.'"

"Would he let you call him by his name?" Yves asked.

Jer shook his head. "Only when we're alone. Bad example, he said. For the kids. Little Bran might start taking liberties." He poked Bran in the ribs and Bran squirmed, laughing.

"Bran?" Yves grinned. "He'd make 'hey you' sound like 'adored sovereign lord.' His first week here, once I got him to stop calling me 'sir,' he still managed to make 'Yves' sound like 'please don't hit me I'll be good I swear.' It was fucking depressing. Can you still do that voice, Bran?"

Bran lifted his head, trying to sober himself, opened his mouth, and dissolved in a fit of giggles.

Yves laughed back at him. "Well, I guess you're not scared of me any more."

"That's the funny part," said Jer, and kissed Bran on the lips, his mouth rough and demanding. Bran kissed back enthusiastically until Jer pulled away, grinning. "It's not an act, any of it. Is it, kid?"

Bran shook his head. Jer laughed and kissed him again.

"Better than a deck of cards," he said, and looked up at Yves, lifting Bran towards him. "Your turn."