Lee chapter one
Oct. 28th, 2007 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffe(I don't think the first teaser-bit actually changed appreciably, so you can skip on down if you prefer.)
"Bran, dear," said Alix, "do me a favor and put your arms around your master's neck."
Bran, raising his eyebrows slightly, wound his arms obediently around Holden's neck and buried his face against his shoulder. The warm confiding weight of him still made Holden's heart skip a beat after five years; he held his boy close against him, wondering for the thousandth time how a man got this lucky.
His eyes flicked to Yves, who was still absorbed in some new incomprehensible mathematical treatise, and then to Jer, who was watching him, and gave him a small smile. Holden smiled back at him, and Jer leaned back, returning his attention to the novel he was reading. Learning to keep three slaves all feeling loved and safe was a little like learning to drive a car, Holden had decided: the overwhelming number of things you had to pay attention to, in order to avoid killing yourself or someone else, gradually, with sufficient practice, became a set of reflexes. You still had to pay attention, and you could still get blindsided, but your eyes learned good habits. Mirror, signal, blind spot. Bran, Yves, Jer.
"Yves, Jer, Bran," Yves had corrected him, when he shared this analogy in bed one night.
"You know you come first, love," Holden had said, surprised; Yves had never shown signs of competitiveness with Jer or Bran.
"No," said Yves, laughing. "I mean-- mirror, signal, blind spot. Bran's definitely your blind spot."
"What?" Holden asked his wife now over Bran's shoulder, eyeing the letter she held in her hand and had read with pursed lips just before making her odd request of Bran.
"Just a precaution," said Alix. "You won't jump up and start breaking things with Bran wrapped around you."
Holden smiled a little, still cradling Bran close. "That sounds ominous. Go on, tell me. I can take it. Did Valor get arrested again?"
"Probably," said Alix dryly, "but she hasn't written to tell us so."
"Ignorance is bliss," said Holden, winking at Greta, whose attempt at a disapproving look was belied by her dimples. "Who's the letter from, then?"
"Dunaev," said Alix.
Holden felt every muscle in his body tense. He hadn't encountered Dunaev once since the day of Bran's purchase, which was lucky, since Yves was dead right about blind spot-- Holden's usually well-maintained pretense at professional detachment went all to hell where Bran was concerned. He probably would have ended up stabbing Dunaev in the gut with some poor host's good steak knife, which would have been a considerably more embarrassing arrest than his daughter's civil disobedience charges. The fact that he wouldn't be caught dead socializing in the home of anyone who'd also socialize with Dunaev accounted for the safety of the bastard's rotten entrails so far, and also meant that the letter probably didn't just contain a polite inquiry into everybody's health.
"Business?" he asked, and Alix held out the letter. Bran hadn't moved at the name of his former master, but as Holden took the letter, the young man sat up slightly, and Holden held the letter so that they could both read.
The prose style alone-- a thin scum of oily flattery overlaying a series of crude personal insinuations-- was enough to infuriate Holden, bringing back the man's ugly, honeyed voice as he and Alix haggled over the lovely boy who lay trussed and gagged on the floor, blinking slowly at nothing. But the content--
"Master," said Bran softly, and Holden realized his arm had grown tight enough around his youngest slave to be painful. He relaxed his grip immediately. "Sorry, sweetheart. Fucking hell. Fucking hell, I--" He wanted to stand up, pace, shout, knock things over, but Bran was still curled against him, and the tension in his frame reminded Holden that Bran would be just as disturbed by the letter as he was. "You okay?"
"I've never heard 'irreparable' before," said Bran quietly.
"It could just mean– scarred," Holden said, trying to keep his voice even. "It doesn't matter, Bran. Whatever it is, we'll buy this--" he glanced back at the letter-- "Lee, and he'll be fine."
"You don't know that, master," said Bran in the same quiet, matter-of-fact voice. "I almost wasn't fine. You said yourself. If you hadn't–" He trailed off, swallowing.
Holden's arm tightened around Bran again. The boy was right, of course, and there was really no positive spin to be put on some aspects of his current condition may be irreparable. "How soon can we–?"
"I'll call him first thing in the morning," Alix said firmly.
Holden looked back at Bran, whose eyes, always so full of shifting light and shadow, were oddly luminous now in a set face. He lifted them to his master's as Holden studied him, trying to read his expression.
"When you go to get him, master," he said, "could I come with you?"
"Well," said Dunaev, his florid face twisting unpleasantly as he looked down at Bran, who was curled appropriately on the floor at Holden's feet, his cheek resting against Holden's knee. Narrowing his eyes back at the prick, Holden warred with equal and conflicting desires to pull Bran up into his lap or grab him and hustle him out of here altogether. He was still far from sure it had been a good idea to bring the boy. Bran had been completely silent in the car on the way over, and though he'd come with them before to pick up new delinquents, Holden couldn't imagine how he had to be feeling at the sight of the man who'd reduced him to the state of half-delirious terror he'd been in when Holden had first lifted his underfed, convulsively shivering body up from this same floor nearly five years before. The gods knew Holden was having enough trouble managing his own memories, even without any sign of the kid they'd actually come to collect. Where the hell did Dunaev have him stashed? Surely he didn't want to prolong this any more than Holden and Alix did. Maybe he actually had some shame, not wanting whatever he'd done to the kid at front and center in his drawing room.
"It's been a long time since we saw each other, hasn't it, Bran?" Dunaev continued, and Holden waited for Bran to tense against him. But he didn't.
"Yes, my lord, it has," said Bran, and though his words and pose were perfectly decorous, his tone was so insolent-- no, better than insolent, contemptuous-- that he could have been the young master sprawled lazily on the floor, raising an eyebrow at a servant who'd dared address him without invitation. Holden wanted to burst out laughing, grab Bran and pull him up and look at his face and kiss him for the expression that had to be on it. He managed to restrain himself, but knew Dunaev, who had looked up at him as if expecting him to reprimand Bran for his tone, would see the gloating triumph in his eyes. How's that for sullen and unresponsive, you twisted fuck? Anything else to say to my boy?
Obviously disconcerted, Dunaev swallowed and shifted gears, looking at Alix. "The boy in question--"
"Lee, isn't it?" said Alix calmly; Alix was always calm when calm was called for, which was partly why she always insisted on doing the talking to things that had apparently crawled out from under rocks for the sole purpose of torturing innocent kids. Holden had to admit it was probably for the best. "May we see him?"
"I don't allow him the freedom I allowed Bran," said Dunaev, "since Bran... took advantage of my good nature.” His gaze flicked to Bran’s face again, and whatever he saw there unnerved him enough to send it skating back to Alix’s, not that Alix was exactly beaming. “And his current condition requires that he be confined to his room at all times. I'm sure you understand."
"I understand," said Alix coolly. "May we see his room, then?"
"His room" was down unfinished, warped wooden stairs and through a door covered with peeling paint. The tiny, windowless room reeked of urine. Holden saw with a lurch of nausea that the boy on the concrete floor-- seventeen years old, five foot seven, naked, dark-haired and starvation-thin-- lay in a pool of it, seemingly without noticing. Nor, though his eyes were open, did he appear to notice that his master and three strangers had just entered the room. His hands, gratuitously, were manacled together over his head, the manacles attached to a chain that hooked to a ring in the ceiling.
No. No shame.
Bran had already started to move forward; Holden caught at his arm and yanked him back. He wasn't taking a chance on Bran getting bitten, as he himself had been by a kid like this, immobile, blank-eyed, unresponsive.
"He won't eat," said Dunaev disdainfully, and for a moment, Holden seriously weighed the relative costs and satisfactions of kicking the man in the kneecap and then holding his face down in the boy's reeking piss until he drowned. But if Holden got arrested and executed for murder-- which he would, since what Dunaev had done to the kid, despite all Valor's friends' best efforts so far, was still perfectly legal-- no, not worth it. Just. "He'll barely drink enough to stay alive. He won't move, he won't speak. I've tried everything."
"Everything," Alix repeated, her tone so cold and even that Holden knew even she was badly shaken.
Dunaev stepped forward, put a foot on the boy's shoulder and flipped him over onto his stomach so that his back showed: a swollen mass of welts and lash marks, some dark with crusted blood. Lee lay still and silent.
"Everything," said Dunaev.
"Catatonic, incontinent, malnourished, and probably scarred as well. Quite an asset you've got there, Lord Dunaev." Alix's let's-talk-business tone, minus a few thousand degrees. "I suppose he bites as well."
"No, he's not dangerous at all. Never been violent. Not like Bran."
Bile burned Holden's throat, and he pressed his lips together tightly, swallowing. It wasn't the state the kid was in. Holden had seen kids worse off than this-- not much, and not many, but he had. It wasn't the closeness of the room, either, or the smell, though those weren't helping. It was having Bran here, it was knowing that Bran had belonged to this piece of shit, it was hearing Bran's name on his leering lips, the memory of Bran on the floor in almost the same pose as this poor kid. Holden had been arrogant enough to worry only about Bran's reaction, Bran's flashbacks, but Bran was fine, pale but calm. It was Holden who was staving off a panic attack, adrenaline pumping through him so hard that his grip on Bran's arm was keeping him steady.
Thank the gods for Alix, who was writing a check before Holden could have composed himself enough to ask another question, who was kneeling gingerly beside the boy as Dunaev unlocked the manacles, her skirt gathered neatly out of the way, saying in a firm but gentle voice, "Lee, can you hear me?"
No response.
"I'm your mistress now, Lee. You're coming with me. Can you sit up?"
Still no response.
"Then your new master is going to pick you up and carry you. He’ll try not to hurt you."
Taking his cue, Holden pried his fingers from Bran's arm-- there'd probably be bruises-- and knelt down beside the boy as he had knelt beside Bran five years before, but where Bran had searched his face with instantly visible if terrified interest above his gag, this boy didn't even seem to see him. As he touched the dark head, looking for some spark of lucidity, he felt Bran himself kneel down beside him and look down at Lee.
"May I carry him?" Bran asked.
Taken aback, Holden blinked at Bran, then looked at Alix, who looked just as surprised.
"I don't see why not," she said finally. "You'll be careful."
Bran leaned down and touched Lee's hollow-cheeked face with infinite care, a feather-light caress. Lee turned his head to look at Bran, which was more awareness and animation than he'd shown so far, though Holden wasn't sure what, if anything, he was seeing, or what thoughts were whirling behind the immobile face.
"Lee," said Bran. "I belong to your new master and mistress. And I'm going to carry you out of here, and to their car."
Once again, the words were simple and unimpeachable; it was the tone, bright, ferocious, defiant, half military commander outlining a plan of attack, half child describing a particularly outrageous prank, that made Holden's heart beat faster as Bran reached down and gathered the other boy into his arms, one arm carefully under the hurt back, one under the piss-damp legs, and stood up, lifting Lee like a comrade fallen in battle, looking up at Holden with a hot light in his eyes.
"Let's get out of here, master," he said calmly. "This place stinks."
In the car, Bran didn't try to put Lee down; he sat down on the back seat with Lee still in his arms, adjusting the other boy– smaller and considerably skinnier than himself– in his lap, and carefully supporting the head that lolled on the slack neck. Lee lay unresisting against him, his face still blank.
"So," said Alix. "Straight to the hospital?"
Holden nodded. Carey couldn't deal with chronic dehydration and malnutrition on a house call. The injuries could probably stand to be dealt with in a sterile environment, too. And who knew what else was wrong with the kid that they couldn't see, and wouldn't know about if he wouldn't talk.
"Master," said Bran, "did you bring water?"
Holden nodded again, not particularly trusting his voice yet, and reached around back for the case with the bottles of water. He handed one to Bran without speaking.
"Careful, Bran," said Alix, as Bran opened it and held the neck to Lee's cracked lips. "Don't choke him." Bran nodded without taking his eyes off Lee, whose lips had parted. As Bran poured the water slowly into the boy's mouth, Lee swallowed. And swallowed again, before he turned his head aside, coughed, and spoke, in a voice rusty and thick from disuse.
"Bran?"
"Yes, Lee," said Bran gently. "My name's Bran."
"Gods." Lee swallowed again, hard. "You're... beautiful."
Bran smiled, surprised. "Thank you."
Lee moved, clutched suddenly and hungrily at Bran's arms. "Don't let go of me."
"I won't," said Bran firmly. "It's okay, Lee. Everything's okay. I've got you."
"I'm cold," said Lee, his voice shaking, and Bran held him closer. "You're really Bran?"
"Yes, I'm Bran. Why?"
"He told me-- about you," said Lee, and his head moved, nestling closer against Bran's chest.
Bran looked puzzled. "Lord Dunaev, you mean? What did he say about me?"
"Said you were-- incorrigible. Fought him. Tried to run. Scratched and kicked. Did you-- really?"
Bran smiled again. "I tried to run, yeah. And I got in a few good gouges when they caught me. How about you?"
The expression that flickered across Lee's pale, exhausted face could almost have been an answering smile. "I-- no. I'm not-- brave. Not like you."
Bran shook his head, as Holden watched both of them, fascinated. So Dunaev had held Bran up as a warning-- and Lee had taken him as a hero: the kid who fought. And now the hero had walked out of legend and into flesh, lifted Lee up and was holding him close. Was it poetic justice, or just a fantastic stroke of luck, that thanks to Dunaev's horror stories, the catatonic, "irreparable" kid was talking already, awareness steady in his dark eyes as he gazed up at Bran and listened to his soothing voice?
"You're safe now," Bran was saying. "Don't worry. There's nothing to be scared of. We'll take good care of you."
"Bran." Lee's grip on Bran's arms tightened. "I'm not-- much good-- right now."
"Yes you are," said Bran, so fiercely that Lee blinked, staring.
"I'm hurt," he managed finally, weakly. "And I think I'm-- sick."
"I know, Lee," said Bran.
He looked up at Holden then, and though watching Bran was one of Holden's favorite pastimes, though he tended to gaze at the kid (twenty-three now, hardly a kid any more, though Holden didn't expect ever to stop thinking of him as the kid) till he could have modeled his face in clay blindfolded, something about his look in that moment made Holden stop breathing, stunned. Maybe it was the contrast with the memories that were crowding back in on him, images of the eighteen-year-old Bran's white, scared face peering up at him, tear-bright gray eyes searching his face. He'd wished even then that he knew what the hell the kid saw, and now--
"I know," Bran repeated, his eyes steady on Holden's. "But everything's going to be all right."
"Bran, dear," said Alix, "do me a favor and put your arms around your master's neck."
Bran, raising his eyebrows slightly, wound his arms obediently around Holden's neck and buried his face against his shoulder. The warm confiding weight of him still made Holden's heart skip a beat after five years; he held his boy close against him, wondering for the thousandth time how a man got this lucky.
His eyes flicked to Yves, who was still absorbed in some new incomprehensible mathematical treatise, and then to Jer, who was watching him, and gave him a small smile. Holden smiled back at him, and Jer leaned back, returning his attention to the novel he was reading. Learning to keep three slaves all feeling loved and safe was a little like learning to drive a car, Holden had decided: the overwhelming number of things you had to pay attention to, in order to avoid killing yourself or someone else, gradually, with sufficient practice, became a set of reflexes. You still had to pay attention, and you could still get blindsided, but your eyes learned good habits. Mirror, signal, blind spot. Bran, Yves, Jer.
"Yves, Jer, Bran," Yves had corrected him, when he shared this analogy in bed one night.
"You know you come first, love," Holden had said, surprised; Yves had never shown signs of competitiveness with Jer or Bran.
"No," said Yves, laughing. "I mean-- mirror, signal, blind spot. Bran's definitely your blind spot."
"What?" Holden asked his wife now over Bran's shoulder, eyeing the letter she held in her hand and had read with pursed lips just before making her odd request of Bran.
"Just a precaution," said Alix. "You won't jump up and start breaking things with Bran wrapped around you."
Holden smiled a little, still cradling Bran close. "That sounds ominous. Go on, tell me. I can take it. Did Valor get arrested again?"
"Probably," said Alix dryly, "but she hasn't written to tell us so."
"Ignorance is bliss," said Holden, winking at Greta, whose attempt at a disapproving look was belied by her dimples. "Who's the letter from, then?"
"Dunaev," said Alix.
Holden felt every muscle in his body tense. He hadn't encountered Dunaev once since the day of Bran's purchase, which was lucky, since Yves was dead right about blind spot-- Holden's usually well-maintained pretense at professional detachment went all to hell where Bran was concerned. He probably would have ended up stabbing Dunaev in the gut with some poor host's good steak knife, which would have been a considerably more embarrassing arrest than his daughter's civil disobedience charges. The fact that he wouldn't be caught dead socializing in the home of anyone who'd also socialize with Dunaev accounted for the safety of the bastard's rotten entrails so far, and also meant that the letter probably didn't just contain a polite inquiry into everybody's health.
"Business?" he asked, and Alix held out the letter. Bran hadn't moved at the name of his former master, but as Holden took the letter, the young man sat up slightly, and Holden held the letter so that they could both read.
The prose style alone-- a thin scum of oily flattery overlaying a series of crude personal insinuations-- was enough to infuriate Holden, bringing back the man's ugly, honeyed voice as he and Alix haggled over the lovely boy who lay trussed and gagged on the floor, blinking slowly at nothing. But the content--
"Master," said Bran softly, and Holden realized his arm had grown tight enough around his youngest slave to be painful. He relaxed his grip immediately. "Sorry, sweetheart. Fucking hell. Fucking hell, I--" He wanted to stand up, pace, shout, knock things over, but Bran was still curled against him, and the tension in his frame reminded Holden that Bran would be just as disturbed by the letter as he was. "You okay?"
"I've never heard 'irreparable' before," said Bran quietly.
"It could just mean– scarred," Holden said, trying to keep his voice even. "It doesn't matter, Bran. Whatever it is, we'll buy this--" he glanced back at the letter-- "Lee, and he'll be fine."
"You don't know that, master," said Bran in the same quiet, matter-of-fact voice. "I almost wasn't fine. You said yourself. If you hadn't–" He trailed off, swallowing.
Holden's arm tightened around Bran again. The boy was right, of course, and there was really no positive spin to be put on some aspects of his current condition may be irreparable. "How soon can we–?"
"I'll call him first thing in the morning," Alix said firmly.
Holden looked back at Bran, whose eyes, always so full of shifting light and shadow, were oddly luminous now in a set face. He lifted them to his master's as Holden studied him, trying to read his expression.
"When you go to get him, master," he said, "could I come with you?"
"Well," said Dunaev, his florid face twisting unpleasantly as he looked down at Bran, who was curled appropriately on the floor at Holden's feet, his cheek resting against Holden's knee. Narrowing his eyes back at the prick, Holden warred with equal and conflicting desires to pull Bran up into his lap or grab him and hustle him out of here altogether. He was still far from sure it had been a good idea to bring the boy. Bran had been completely silent in the car on the way over, and though he'd come with them before to pick up new delinquents, Holden couldn't imagine how he had to be feeling at the sight of the man who'd reduced him to the state of half-delirious terror he'd been in when Holden had first lifted his underfed, convulsively shivering body up from this same floor nearly five years before. The gods knew Holden was having enough trouble managing his own memories, even without any sign of the kid they'd actually come to collect. Where the hell did Dunaev have him stashed? Surely he didn't want to prolong this any more than Holden and Alix did. Maybe he actually had some shame, not wanting whatever he'd done to the kid at front and center in his drawing room.
"It's been a long time since we saw each other, hasn't it, Bran?" Dunaev continued, and Holden waited for Bran to tense against him. But he didn't.
"Yes, my lord, it has," said Bran, and though his words and pose were perfectly decorous, his tone was so insolent-- no, better than insolent, contemptuous-- that he could have been the young master sprawled lazily on the floor, raising an eyebrow at a servant who'd dared address him without invitation. Holden wanted to burst out laughing, grab Bran and pull him up and look at his face and kiss him for the expression that had to be on it. He managed to restrain himself, but knew Dunaev, who had looked up at him as if expecting him to reprimand Bran for his tone, would see the gloating triumph in his eyes. How's that for sullen and unresponsive, you twisted fuck? Anything else to say to my boy?
Obviously disconcerted, Dunaev swallowed and shifted gears, looking at Alix. "The boy in question--"
"Lee, isn't it?" said Alix calmly; Alix was always calm when calm was called for, which was partly why she always insisted on doing the talking to things that had apparently crawled out from under rocks for the sole purpose of torturing innocent kids. Holden had to admit it was probably for the best. "May we see him?"
"I don't allow him the freedom I allowed Bran," said Dunaev, "since Bran... took advantage of my good nature.” His gaze flicked to Bran’s face again, and whatever he saw there unnerved him enough to send it skating back to Alix’s, not that Alix was exactly beaming. “And his current condition requires that he be confined to his room at all times. I'm sure you understand."
"I understand," said Alix coolly. "May we see his room, then?"
"His room" was down unfinished, warped wooden stairs and through a door covered with peeling paint. The tiny, windowless room reeked of urine. Holden saw with a lurch of nausea that the boy on the concrete floor-- seventeen years old, five foot seven, naked, dark-haired and starvation-thin-- lay in a pool of it, seemingly without noticing. Nor, though his eyes were open, did he appear to notice that his master and three strangers had just entered the room. His hands, gratuitously, were manacled together over his head, the manacles attached to a chain that hooked to a ring in the ceiling.
No. No shame.
Bran had already started to move forward; Holden caught at his arm and yanked him back. He wasn't taking a chance on Bran getting bitten, as he himself had been by a kid like this, immobile, blank-eyed, unresponsive.
"He won't eat," said Dunaev disdainfully, and for a moment, Holden seriously weighed the relative costs and satisfactions of kicking the man in the kneecap and then holding his face down in the boy's reeking piss until he drowned. But if Holden got arrested and executed for murder-- which he would, since what Dunaev had done to the kid, despite all Valor's friends' best efforts so far, was still perfectly legal-- no, not worth it. Just. "He'll barely drink enough to stay alive. He won't move, he won't speak. I've tried everything."
"Everything," Alix repeated, her tone so cold and even that Holden knew even she was badly shaken.
Dunaev stepped forward, put a foot on the boy's shoulder and flipped him over onto his stomach so that his back showed: a swollen mass of welts and lash marks, some dark with crusted blood. Lee lay still and silent.
"Everything," said Dunaev.
"Catatonic, incontinent, malnourished, and probably scarred as well. Quite an asset you've got there, Lord Dunaev." Alix's let's-talk-business tone, minus a few thousand degrees. "I suppose he bites as well."
"No, he's not dangerous at all. Never been violent. Not like Bran."
Bile burned Holden's throat, and he pressed his lips together tightly, swallowing. It wasn't the state the kid was in. Holden had seen kids worse off than this-- not much, and not many, but he had. It wasn't the closeness of the room, either, or the smell, though those weren't helping. It was having Bran here, it was knowing that Bran had belonged to this piece of shit, it was hearing Bran's name on his leering lips, the memory of Bran on the floor in almost the same pose as this poor kid. Holden had been arrogant enough to worry only about Bran's reaction, Bran's flashbacks, but Bran was fine, pale but calm. It was Holden who was staving off a panic attack, adrenaline pumping through him so hard that his grip on Bran's arm was keeping him steady.
Thank the gods for Alix, who was writing a check before Holden could have composed himself enough to ask another question, who was kneeling gingerly beside the boy as Dunaev unlocked the manacles, her skirt gathered neatly out of the way, saying in a firm but gentle voice, "Lee, can you hear me?"
No response.
"I'm your mistress now, Lee. You're coming with me. Can you sit up?"
Still no response.
"Then your new master is going to pick you up and carry you. He’ll try not to hurt you."
Taking his cue, Holden pried his fingers from Bran's arm-- there'd probably be bruises-- and knelt down beside the boy as he had knelt beside Bran five years before, but where Bran had searched his face with instantly visible if terrified interest above his gag, this boy didn't even seem to see him. As he touched the dark head, looking for some spark of lucidity, he felt Bran himself kneel down beside him and look down at Lee.
"May I carry him?" Bran asked.
Taken aback, Holden blinked at Bran, then looked at Alix, who looked just as surprised.
"I don't see why not," she said finally. "You'll be careful."
Bran leaned down and touched Lee's hollow-cheeked face with infinite care, a feather-light caress. Lee turned his head to look at Bran, which was more awareness and animation than he'd shown so far, though Holden wasn't sure what, if anything, he was seeing, or what thoughts were whirling behind the immobile face.
"Lee," said Bran. "I belong to your new master and mistress. And I'm going to carry you out of here, and to their car."
Once again, the words were simple and unimpeachable; it was the tone, bright, ferocious, defiant, half military commander outlining a plan of attack, half child describing a particularly outrageous prank, that made Holden's heart beat faster as Bran reached down and gathered the other boy into his arms, one arm carefully under the hurt back, one under the piss-damp legs, and stood up, lifting Lee like a comrade fallen in battle, looking up at Holden with a hot light in his eyes.
"Let's get out of here, master," he said calmly. "This place stinks."
In the car, Bran didn't try to put Lee down; he sat down on the back seat with Lee still in his arms, adjusting the other boy– smaller and considerably skinnier than himself– in his lap, and carefully supporting the head that lolled on the slack neck. Lee lay unresisting against him, his face still blank.
"So," said Alix. "Straight to the hospital?"
Holden nodded. Carey couldn't deal with chronic dehydration and malnutrition on a house call. The injuries could probably stand to be dealt with in a sterile environment, too. And who knew what else was wrong with the kid that they couldn't see, and wouldn't know about if he wouldn't talk.
"Master," said Bran, "did you bring water?"
Holden nodded again, not particularly trusting his voice yet, and reached around back for the case with the bottles of water. He handed one to Bran without speaking.
"Careful, Bran," said Alix, as Bran opened it and held the neck to Lee's cracked lips. "Don't choke him." Bran nodded without taking his eyes off Lee, whose lips had parted. As Bran poured the water slowly into the boy's mouth, Lee swallowed. And swallowed again, before he turned his head aside, coughed, and spoke, in a voice rusty and thick from disuse.
"Bran?"
"Yes, Lee," said Bran gently. "My name's Bran."
"Gods." Lee swallowed again, hard. "You're... beautiful."
Bran smiled, surprised. "Thank you."
Lee moved, clutched suddenly and hungrily at Bran's arms. "Don't let go of me."
"I won't," said Bran firmly. "It's okay, Lee. Everything's okay. I've got you."
"I'm cold," said Lee, his voice shaking, and Bran held him closer. "You're really Bran?"
"Yes, I'm Bran. Why?"
"He told me-- about you," said Lee, and his head moved, nestling closer against Bran's chest.
Bran looked puzzled. "Lord Dunaev, you mean? What did he say about me?"
"Said you were-- incorrigible. Fought him. Tried to run. Scratched and kicked. Did you-- really?"
Bran smiled again. "I tried to run, yeah. And I got in a few good gouges when they caught me. How about you?"
The expression that flickered across Lee's pale, exhausted face could almost have been an answering smile. "I-- no. I'm not-- brave. Not like you."
Bran shook his head, as Holden watched both of them, fascinated. So Dunaev had held Bran up as a warning-- and Lee had taken him as a hero: the kid who fought. And now the hero had walked out of legend and into flesh, lifted Lee up and was holding him close. Was it poetic justice, or just a fantastic stroke of luck, that thanks to Dunaev's horror stories, the catatonic, "irreparable" kid was talking already, awareness steady in his dark eyes as he gazed up at Bran and listened to his soothing voice?
"You're safe now," Bran was saying. "Don't worry. There's nothing to be scared of. We'll take good care of you."
"Bran." Lee's grip on Bran's arms tightened. "I'm not-- much good-- right now."
"Yes you are," said Bran, so fiercely that Lee blinked, staring.
"I'm hurt," he managed finally, weakly. "And I think I'm-- sick."
"I know, Lee," said Bran.
He looked up at Holden then, and though watching Bran was one of Holden's favorite pastimes, though he tended to gaze at the kid (twenty-three now, hardly a kid any more, though Holden didn't expect ever to stop thinking of him as the kid) till he could have modeled his face in clay blindfolded, something about his look in that moment made Holden stop breathing, stunned. Maybe it was the contrast with the memories that were crowding back in on him, images of the eighteen-year-old Bran's white, scared face peering up at him, tear-bright gray eyes searching his face. He'd wished even then that he knew what the hell the kid saw, and now--
"I know," Bran repeated, his eyes steady on Holden's. "But everything's going to be all right."
