Lee chapter 24

[maculategiraffe]

Holden laughed as Jer emptied the paper sack into the bowl on the table, which overflowed, spilling apples, oranges, pears, peaches, and plums across the table. He caught an orange as it rolled over the edge.

"The kid asked for a peach," he said, spinning the orange across the table at a slightly sheepish-looking Jer, "not an entire fruit stand of his very own."

"Okay," said Jer, sitting down and slitting the orange's thick skin with a blunt thumbnail, "so maybe I got a little carried away."

Holden sat down too, as the tangy scent of the orange cut the air. "You like Lee, don't you?"

"What's not to like?" Jer was peeling the orange, carefully. "He's a sweet kid. And I doubt he's used to getting much but a thrashing for the asking."

"I know," said Holden, watching Jer's hands as the peel came away in one meticulous, unbroken spiral. "Bran told us when he first arrived that Dunaev gave him one pound of food, twice a day. Who knows what kind of food. At least we ate well at Argounov's."

"That we did," said Jer. "Though requests were not encouraged."

"Except for Alix," said Holden.

"Alix got anything she wanted," Jer agreed. "Even--" His voice and the long spiral of peel broke off at the same moment.

Holden raised his eyebrows. "Even me, you mean?"

"Heh. Yeah. But I was going to say--" With rare reticence, Jer hesitated, then lightly touched his own broad chest.

"Oh." Holden nodded. "The scar. Yeah."

"That was fucked up," said Jer, picking up the peeling again. "Though I guess if he hadn't cut his name on her like a kid on a park bench, he might have just sold her instead of setting her free when Laura pitched her temper fit, and then where would we all be?"

"I don't think he would have," said Holden thoughtfully. "He really loved her. In his own sick way, but he really did. I can't see him selling her, not after everything he'd promised. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he was hoping that after he freed her and set her up with a house in town and everything, she'd keep fucking him, out of gratitude and for old times' sake and all that."

Jer snorted as he split the denuded orange in half. "Oh, you think?"

"Why?" Holden asked, distracted. "What do you know?"

"I know Candys and I tended to get pretty bruised up when he came back from a visit here," said Jer. "And I know what happened after she married you. Hey," he added, smiling, as the two boys came into the room hand in hand, Lee half hidden behind Bran. "Got you something, kid."

Lee smiled shyly back at Jer as Holden picked up a peach from the over-laden bowl and held it out. Lee came closer and knelt on the floor before reaching up his hand to take it, wonderingly, in his hand. He stared at it as if Holden had just handed him the moon.

"It's yours," said Holden gently. "Eat it."

Lee looked at the peach for another moment, then touched it, oddly, to his cheek before he raised it to his lips and carefully licked it. He smiled, then opened his mouth and let his teeth sink in, his lips hard against the soft, yielding skin of the fruit, his tongue sliding around the edges of the bite he'd just taken to lap up every drop of the escaping juice. His eyes half closed as he chewed blissfully and swallowed, then licked at the exposed flesh beneath the thin fuzz of skin, puckering up and then sucking on his own lips and running his tongue around his mouth, swallowing and swallowing the juices.

"Dear gods," said Holden, while Lee continued to slurp. "I hope Mona knows what she's getting herself into."

Lee's eyes flicked up, startled. Bran laughed and Jer snorted again as Holden said, grinning, "Sorry. Carry on."

Lee looked self-conscious for only a few moments before abandoning himself to the pleasure of finishing the peach. When he had nothing left but the pit, licked and sucked to impossible cleanliness, he bowed his head low.

"Thank you, master," he said, his voice shaky.

"You're welcome, kid," said Holden. "And there's plenty more where that came from. Just do me a favor and don't tell Jer you always wanted a pony."

Lee looked puzzled, and Jer rolled his eyes at Holden.

"You're a laugh a minute, master," he said, and peeled off another section of his orange. "C'mere, kid."

Lee glanced up at Holden before he crawled around the table to kneel at Jer's feet, looking up at him expectantly. Jer leaned down and offered him the section of orange, and after another quick glance over at Holden, Lee leaned forward and accepted it with his lips, taking it whole into his mouth. Holden saw the quick flex of his jaw as he bit down; then his eyes half closed again as he chewed and swallowed.

"What did Dunaev give you to eat, anyway?" Jer asked, addressing Bran, who had been watching from the doorway.

"Rice and a few vegetables, mostly," said Bran as Jer peeled off another section of orange to offer to Lee, who opened his mouth like a baby bird to accept it. "If I was good I might get scraps from his plate. But I wasn't that good very often."

Holden liked the faint tinge of irony in Bran's voice when he said "good." Lee looked as though he liked it, too; his eyes had darted to Bran's face, his expression alert and thoughtful, before Jer put a gentle hand on the dark hair, turning Lee's attention back to himself and offering him another piece of orange.

"Do you want anything?" Holden asked Bran, nodding at the fruit-covered table, and Bran shook his head.

"No, thank you, master," he said. "But may Lee take something back upstairs? I wanted to ask him about the visit just now."

"Of course," said Holden, and Lee got hesitantly to his feet. Jer took his hand and put the rest of the orange in it, then pressed another peach into the other hand.

"Thank you," Lee managed to whisper, and then, "Thank you, master," before he nearly ran for the door and Bran. Bran flashed them both a quick smile over his shoulder, and the boys were gone.

Jer was spinning an apple on the table in front of him like a top. Holden sighed, a little restlessly, and glanced absently around the kitchen. He didn't sit in here often; it brought back less-than-fond memories of the days after Alix had bought Greta and Kai and before she'd set Holden free to marry him. Days when Argounov had made it a habit to come sneaking around, without his wife, under the pretense of discussing Alix's finances. Though Holden was sure Alix hadn't slept with him since the day he'd freed her, the fact that she spent time with him alone galled her ill-behaved slave boy only slightly less than the fact that she did so by packing all the slaves off to the kitchen in a misguided attempt to force them to bond. Holden certainly hadn't had the slightest bit of interest in seeing Argounov, but he'd hated being separated from Alix, and he'd hated the twins even more. It made him cringe slightly to remember how much he'd hated them for what, after all, wasn't even remotely their fault-- and they hadn't been much more than children. Holden had been old enough to know better.

And the gods knew he'd been a miserable enough slave himself to know better than to act the way he did, once Alix had married him and he became, officially, Greta's master. He hadn't abused his power as badly as he could have, maybe, but he'd done badly enough. In a way, he had fathered her baby; he'd been the one who'd made her miserable enough to fall into the arms of the man who offered her only kindness and sympathy, and endless talk about the mistress she adored.

And if Alix hadn't married Holden, more or less putting paid to all Argounov's hopes that she'd ever become his mistress, Holden seriously doubted Argounov would have been stupid enough with anger and jealousy to seduce Greta.

Valor had been a godsend, he thought now, despite all appearances at the time. Not only for her own sake, infuriating and indispensable girl that she was-- but from the moment Greta confessed who the father of her child was, Holden's former master had shrunk from the dimensions of a temperamental giant with an occasional habit of turning Holden's life upside down and shaking it hard, to the confused and fucked-up mortal he was. Greta had undergone a similar transformation, from an evil siren with Holden's goddess inexplicably under her spell, to a terrified child fainting dead away in this same kitchen when Holden confronted her about her delicate condition. He'd caught her as she fell, and he hadn't been able to believe how light she was; there was almost nothing to her at all. Even Alix, crying and wringing her hands and more at a loss than Holden had ever seen her, had become a little less his shining savior and a little more his deeply beloved, but deeply human, wife.

With Alix temporarily incapacitated with misery and remorse, Holden had taken over-- and he'd discovered he was actually pretty good at taking over. At picking up the pieces. Argounov had agreed to terms. Money enough to get Holden and Alix out of the red financially, after Alix's punishingly expensive impulse purchase of the twins, and an investment of money, time and social connections in their business. An agreement to act as the child's godfather ("Won't that be easier to explain to your wife than acting as the child's actual father?" Holden had pointed out calmly when Argounov protested) and pay for her education, and for the debut that Valor had decided at the last minute was stupid and pointless. Sensible girl. She'd taken the news of her real parentage, on attaining her majority, surprisingly well, too.

"You were so young," had been the first thing she'd said to her mother, who'd nodded, biting her lip and looking, momentarily, not much older. "That bastard. What was he, forty?"

"Almost," said Alix.

Valor nodded and put her head down in her hands for a moment in an oddly adult gesture, then lifted it and said gently, "Mom, don't look like that. It doesn't matter. I just thought-- I dunno, I always thought it was-- your childhood sweetheart from town, or something."

"Kai was my only childhood sweetheart," said Greta, trying to smile. "And when he was gone--"

"Everyone made bad decisions," said Alix sadly.

"Some worse than others," said Valor, and got up to approach Holden, who watched her slightly warily until she sat down, quite unselfconsciously, in his lap and put her arms around his neck. "Dad?"

Holden's heart pounded. "Yes, love."

"Thanks," Valor said. "For-- you know. Well-- because I don't really care. Who got Mom pregnant. Because I already know-- who my real dad is. Thank you for that."



"What are you looking so pleased about?" Jer asked now, and Holden looked up, startled, still smiling.

"Nothing," he said. "Just woolgathering."

Jer nodded, and spun the apple again. "Holden?"

"Yes."

"It's a good thing you're doing." Jer's eyes stayed on the apple. "With the interviews and all. Trying to make things-- better."

"It's not just me doing it," Holden pointed out, watching the apple spin. "You're doing it too. The interviews. And putting up with Robin."

"I know," said Jer, and looked up at Holden with a sudden grin, stopping the apple short. "It's a good thing I'm doing, too."

Holden laughed. "As long as you know that."

"Sure I do." Jer rolled the apple from one hand to the other. "It's nice. Being able to--"

"Do a good thing?" said Holden quietly. "Instead of just-- being good."

"Yes," said Jer, and put the apple back in the bowl, balancing it carefully atop the pile of fruit. "I-- yes. That."