Happy Easter Monday
Mar. 24th, 2008 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffeOK, so I'm kind of a holiday whore. I blame my upbringing. At least I could pin the solstice story on the fact that everyone was posting Christmas fics, but I haven't seen much of an Easter/Passover/Ostara upsurge in fics. But I was thinking about this in the airport (dangerous places, airports) and this story just... kind of happened.
This one takes place three months after the solstice fic, during Bran's first full year with Holden.
Bran woke slowly, with a sense of boundless wellbeing and happiness suffusing him long before he was conscious enough to realize its source; that he was wrapped in his master's arms, pressed close against his chest, breathing in the warm scent of his neck, his master's hair brushing against Bran's cheek. Days didn't start out much better than this.
He hadn't gone to bed with his master last night, though, he was sure of it, and he didn't seem to have any of the aftereffects of having been fucked. Possibly this was a dream, though if so, it was a peculiarly-- wonderfully-- vivid one. Bran tried not to move in case he accidentally woke.
But it wasn't easy to stay still when you were as happy as this. Bran couldn't resist snuggling a little closer, and his master's arms unexpectedly tightened around him in response.
"You're awake?" His master's voice, rough with recent sleep, made it sound like a question.
"Yes, master," said Bran, deciding, with sleep-addled logic, that if he was dreaming then dream-Holden meant awake in the dream, not in reality, so his answer was true either way. He wanted to ask why his master was there, or if he required any service from Bran, but he didn't say anything. His master would tell him-- or take-- what was required, when he wanted to. If he felt like just lying here and clasping Bran close for a while, Bran certainly wasn't going to raise any objections.
But Holden pulled back, laying Bran down on his back and looking down at him with the meltingly sweet expression in his dark eyes that made Bran feel even safer and more cherished, if possible, than being cuddled close. Holden ran a hand through Bran's curls, then traced a finger down his cheek.
"Do you know what day today is?" he asked.
The question took Bran by surprise-- not because he didn't know what day it was, but because he wouldn't have thought Holden would have registered the day. He hadn't remembered the winter solstice until Bran had brought it to his attention, after all.
"Yes, master," he said curiously. "It's the vernal equinox."
"Did your parents observe it?" Holden asked.
Bran rather wondered why his master was asking about his parents all of a sudden, but he answered obediently, "Yes, master."
"What did they do?" Holden asked. "Do you mind me asking?"
"No, master," said Bran automatically, although he wasn't entirely sure he didn't. He'd never talked to an owner about his parents-- had never talked about them to anyone, really, since he'd been sold-- and the four festivals were still a bit of a tender spot in his memories. But it was no more than a minor discomfort, really, and he would have-- indeed already had-- gone through far more to please Holden. "They just-- you know, what everyone did. Fasted until midnight, and we covered the mirrors and stopped the clocks, and tied black cloth to our sleeves. And we told the story-- and then at midnight we had eggs, and sang while we uncovered everything and-- started again."
"Did they make you fast, too?" Holden asked, and Bran smiled a little.
"I wanted to," he said, "once I was old enough to understand what was going on, but they wouldn't let me, because they said it wasn't healthy for a child. I argued and argued-- I said, if everyone was fasting for Baldr's return, then if I ate, wouldn't that make him not return? I thought-- you know, master, I was just a kid. I didn't want it to be all my fault if the god didn't rise again. I mean, imagine the headlines. 'No spring this year. Baldr's resurrection single-handedly thwarted by farmer's greedy kid.'"
Holden laughed-- the laugh Bran adored. Too often his master's laughter was tinged with irony or bitterness, but at times-- now, for example-- it pealed out in pure, infectious delight, a young laugh. Being the one who'd made Holden laugh like that thrilled Bran, almost made up for the times when he knew the worried furrow between Holden's eyebrows was on account of him.
A small, guilty part of Bran even liked that, though. Liked being worried over by Holden. Really, Holden could have pretty much any expression he wanted as long as it wasn't anger with Bran.
"Typical," Holden said, sobering slightly. "Never knew a kid with such a knack for taking the weight of the world on his shoulders. But they made you eat?"
Bran smiled again, remembering. "My dad said that if it worked like that there'd never be a spring, because there were always people who didn't fast. He said they fasted in consciousness of how hungry everyone would get if the god in his mercy didn't return, and in thankfulness, not because our actions could change the gods'. And my mom said even if it did work like that, the god wouldn't want me to stunt my growth just so he could return from the dead."
Holden laughed again, still with that young, delighted note.
"I wish I could have known your parents," he said. "They sound-- really great."
"They were," said Bran, his voice cracking unexpectedly, and realized to his horror that he was about to ruin this perfectly lovely morning by bursting into stupid tears. Talk about typical.
Holden looked at him closely, then reached out a hand and put it on Bran's back, between his shoulder blades, rubbing softly.
"It's okay to cry, Bran," he said, so gently that Bran couldn't have stopped himself then if he'd wanted to. His tears spilled over and he swallowed convulsively, like a child again, and rolled over onto his face. Holden sat up, moved to his knees, and kept rubbing Bran's back, two-handed now, kneading and probing at his shoulders and along his spine.
"It's okay," he said again, while Bran cried, silently, harder, as if the tension being released from his back by Holden's gentle hands were coming out his eyes in liquid form. "I'm sorry, Bran. Why people like them get sick and die, and fuckers like my old man hang on and on-- well, there's no point trying to make sense of-- anything, I guess."
He kept rubbing as Bran's crying subsided and his silent sobs stopped shaking him, then rolled him over onto his back and scooped him up into a sitting position, supporting his back with one arm and using the other to dry Bran's tears with the edge of the sheet.
"I'm sorry I made you cry, sweetheart," he said as he brushed the lingering teardrops very, very carefully from Bran's eyelashes. "I was just curious-- after what you said at the solstice."
"Did your parents-- not-- observe--?" Bran managed, and Holden laughed again, but not the happy laugh.
"And pass up an opportunity to not bother to feed us? Oh, they were very religious. Especially the part where my dad would take whatever money he'd saved on food, get good and drunk, and come home and beat my mom up till she got over her cute ideas about waiting until midnight for intercourse."
"That's terrible," said Bran thickly.
"I thought so, too," said Holden, "which got me beaten up myself rather frequently. Good preparation for slavery, really. Too bad Pavel had to go and spoil me in between."
Bran hated the bitterness in his master's voice; he wished he could think of something helpful or comforting to say, but he didn't really have time to think of anything before Holden resumed briskly, "Well, I hope you don't think you're going to fast today. Your mother was right; if there were a god I'm sure he'd rather you were healthy."
Bran was on the verge of protesting that of course he wouldn't attempt any religious observances against his master's will-- he wasn't even religious, not any more, not since his parents were gone-- but his master was still talking.
"You can stay up until midnight for eggs, though, if you like. I can cook eggs-- one of my few culinary achievements."
Bran sat very still. After a moment, Holden leaned down and pressed a kiss to his tear-flushed lips.
"My beautiful boy," he said softly. "Bran--"
"Master?" Bran whispered.
"These holidays," said Holden, haltingly, and Bran, despite the sickening return of his fear that this was just a dream, smiled at the sudden hesitation in his self-assured-- not to say arrogant-- master. "I don't-- I've never celebrated them. I mean, none of us have. But they mean something to you. Something good. And you haven't had enough good things in your life, kiddo. I want you to-- have these days. I'll try to remember, and I'll try to make it-- good. Come summer, we can find a bonfire, or look for fern flowers, or-- well, if you ever-- want anything, anything in particular, or if you want me to do something with you, to celebrate? Will you promise to let me know? I'd like to do that-- for you."
Bran looked up into his master's face, into the tender, almost tentative expression, the warmth in Holden's dark eyes, and then he dropped his head against his master's shoulder.
"I love you, master," he said, slightly muffled. "I love you so much."
Holden hugged him close.
"Is that a yes?" he asked, and then, "Bran? You know, don't you, how glad-- how extremely glad I am that I kept you?"
"No, master," said Bran, still muffled, but with sudden fierce joy kindling in his heart-- in a dream, his master would have said "I love you too," but this was better, this was real. "How glad?"
"Extremely," Holden repeated, and Bran could hear the smile in his voice as he rocked Bran very gently to and fro. "Comprehensively."
"Definitively," Bran suggested pertly.
"Definitively," Holden agreed, "decisively, and deliriously."
"Deliriously?" Bran queried, lifting his face with a smile, and Holden leaned down and kissed him again, greedily and for a long time. When he pulled back, they were both pink and panting.
"You may not fast from eating today," Holden said with a wicked gleam in his eye, "but in light of the fact that it's a holiday, perhaps you'd like to refrain from intercourse. You know, as a token of your piety and--"
Bran reached up and yanked Holden's head back down to his, kissing him back harder than he'd kissed Bran, with a hand planted at the nape of his master's neck. Holden's hand slid into Bran's hair, made a fist, and yanked Bran back; Bran squeaked faintly in protest, then again in the opposite of protest as Holden's other hand found his cock.
"Your wanton lusts are a scandal and a byword, young man," said Holden appreciatively over Bran's choked moan as he began to stroke, "and you may consider your owner's generous offer of a moment ago withdrawn."
"Oh," Bran breathed, "damn."
"Profanity, now," said Holden, his fist tightening in Bran's hair and making him whimper, "not to mention sass. And on the vernal equinox, too."
"Sorry, master!" Bran gasped, trying to thrust forward into his master's hand.
"Don't be," said Holden, smiling into Bran's eyes just before he leaned in for another deep, thirsty kiss.
This one takes place three months after the solstice fic, during Bran's first full year with Holden.
Bran woke slowly, with a sense of boundless wellbeing and happiness suffusing him long before he was conscious enough to realize its source; that he was wrapped in his master's arms, pressed close against his chest, breathing in the warm scent of his neck, his master's hair brushing against Bran's cheek. Days didn't start out much better than this.
He hadn't gone to bed with his master last night, though, he was sure of it, and he didn't seem to have any of the aftereffects of having been fucked. Possibly this was a dream, though if so, it was a peculiarly-- wonderfully-- vivid one. Bran tried not to move in case he accidentally woke.
But it wasn't easy to stay still when you were as happy as this. Bran couldn't resist snuggling a little closer, and his master's arms unexpectedly tightened around him in response.
"You're awake?" His master's voice, rough with recent sleep, made it sound like a question.
"Yes, master," said Bran, deciding, with sleep-addled logic, that if he was dreaming then dream-Holden meant awake in the dream, not in reality, so his answer was true either way. He wanted to ask why his master was there, or if he required any service from Bran, but he didn't say anything. His master would tell him-- or take-- what was required, when he wanted to. If he felt like just lying here and clasping Bran close for a while, Bran certainly wasn't going to raise any objections.
But Holden pulled back, laying Bran down on his back and looking down at him with the meltingly sweet expression in his dark eyes that made Bran feel even safer and more cherished, if possible, than being cuddled close. Holden ran a hand through Bran's curls, then traced a finger down his cheek.
"Do you know what day today is?" he asked.
The question took Bran by surprise-- not because he didn't know what day it was, but because he wouldn't have thought Holden would have registered the day. He hadn't remembered the winter solstice until Bran had brought it to his attention, after all.
"Yes, master," he said curiously. "It's the vernal equinox."
"Did your parents observe it?" Holden asked.
Bran rather wondered why his master was asking about his parents all of a sudden, but he answered obediently, "Yes, master."
"What did they do?" Holden asked. "Do you mind me asking?"
"No, master," said Bran automatically, although he wasn't entirely sure he didn't. He'd never talked to an owner about his parents-- had never talked about them to anyone, really, since he'd been sold-- and the four festivals were still a bit of a tender spot in his memories. But it was no more than a minor discomfort, really, and he would have-- indeed already had-- gone through far more to please Holden. "They just-- you know, what everyone did. Fasted until midnight, and we covered the mirrors and stopped the clocks, and tied black cloth to our sleeves. And we told the story-- and then at midnight we had eggs, and sang while we uncovered everything and-- started again."
"Did they make you fast, too?" Holden asked, and Bran smiled a little.
"I wanted to," he said, "once I was old enough to understand what was going on, but they wouldn't let me, because they said it wasn't healthy for a child. I argued and argued-- I said, if everyone was fasting for Baldr's return, then if I ate, wouldn't that make him not return? I thought-- you know, master, I was just a kid. I didn't want it to be all my fault if the god didn't rise again. I mean, imagine the headlines. 'No spring this year. Baldr's resurrection single-handedly thwarted by farmer's greedy kid.'"
Holden laughed-- the laugh Bran adored. Too often his master's laughter was tinged with irony or bitterness, but at times-- now, for example-- it pealed out in pure, infectious delight, a young laugh. Being the one who'd made Holden laugh like that thrilled Bran, almost made up for the times when he knew the worried furrow between Holden's eyebrows was on account of him.
A small, guilty part of Bran even liked that, though. Liked being worried over by Holden. Really, Holden could have pretty much any expression he wanted as long as it wasn't anger with Bran.
"Typical," Holden said, sobering slightly. "Never knew a kid with such a knack for taking the weight of the world on his shoulders. But they made you eat?"
Bran smiled again, remembering. "My dad said that if it worked like that there'd never be a spring, because there were always people who didn't fast. He said they fasted in consciousness of how hungry everyone would get if the god in his mercy didn't return, and in thankfulness, not because our actions could change the gods'. And my mom said even if it did work like that, the god wouldn't want me to stunt my growth just so he could return from the dead."
Holden laughed again, still with that young, delighted note.
"I wish I could have known your parents," he said. "They sound-- really great."
"They were," said Bran, his voice cracking unexpectedly, and realized to his horror that he was about to ruin this perfectly lovely morning by bursting into stupid tears. Talk about typical.
Holden looked at him closely, then reached out a hand and put it on Bran's back, between his shoulder blades, rubbing softly.
"It's okay to cry, Bran," he said, so gently that Bran couldn't have stopped himself then if he'd wanted to. His tears spilled over and he swallowed convulsively, like a child again, and rolled over onto his face. Holden sat up, moved to his knees, and kept rubbing Bran's back, two-handed now, kneading and probing at his shoulders and along his spine.
"It's okay," he said again, while Bran cried, silently, harder, as if the tension being released from his back by Holden's gentle hands were coming out his eyes in liquid form. "I'm sorry, Bran. Why people like them get sick and die, and fuckers like my old man hang on and on-- well, there's no point trying to make sense of-- anything, I guess."
He kept rubbing as Bran's crying subsided and his silent sobs stopped shaking him, then rolled him over onto his back and scooped him up into a sitting position, supporting his back with one arm and using the other to dry Bran's tears with the edge of the sheet.
"I'm sorry I made you cry, sweetheart," he said as he brushed the lingering teardrops very, very carefully from Bran's eyelashes. "I was just curious-- after what you said at the solstice."
"Did your parents-- not-- observe--?" Bran managed, and Holden laughed again, but not the happy laugh.
"And pass up an opportunity to not bother to feed us? Oh, they were very religious. Especially the part where my dad would take whatever money he'd saved on food, get good and drunk, and come home and beat my mom up till she got over her cute ideas about waiting until midnight for intercourse."
"That's terrible," said Bran thickly.
"I thought so, too," said Holden, "which got me beaten up myself rather frequently. Good preparation for slavery, really. Too bad Pavel had to go and spoil me in between."
Bran hated the bitterness in his master's voice; he wished he could think of something helpful or comforting to say, but he didn't really have time to think of anything before Holden resumed briskly, "Well, I hope you don't think you're going to fast today. Your mother was right; if there were a god I'm sure he'd rather you were healthy."
Bran was on the verge of protesting that of course he wouldn't attempt any religious observances against his master's will-- he wasn't even religious, not any more, not since his parents were gone-- but his master was still talking.
"You can stay up until midnight for eggs, though, if you like. I can cook eggs-- one of my few culinary achievements."
Bran sat very still. After a moment, Holden leaned down and pressed a kiss to his tear-flushed lips.
"My beautiful boy," he said softly. "Bran--"
"Master?" Bran whispered.
"These holidays," said Holden, haltingly, and Bran, despite the sickening return of his fear that this was just a dream, smiled at the sudden hesitation in his self-assured-- not to say arrogant-- master. "I don't-- I've never celebrated them. I mean, none of us have. But they mean something to you. Something good. And you haven't had enough good things in your life, kiddo. I want you to-- have these days. I'll try to remember, and I'll try to make it-- good. Come summer, we can find a bonfire, or look for fern flowers, or-- well, if you ever-- want anything, anything in particular, or if you want me to do something with you, to celebrate? Will you promise to let me know? I'd like to do that-- for you."
Bran looked up into his master's face, into the tender, almost tentative expression, the warmth in Holden's dark eyes, and then he dropped his head against his master's shoulder.
"I love you, master," he said, slightly muffled. "I love you so much."
Holden hugged him close.
"Is that a yes?" he asked, and then, "Bran? You know, don't you, how glad-- how extremely glad I am that I kept you?"
"No, master," said Bran, still muffled, but with sudden fierce joy kindling in his heart-- in a dream, his master would have said "I love you too," but this was better, this was real. "How glad?"
"Extremely," Holden repeated, and Bran could hear the smile in his voice as he rocked Bran very gently to and fro. "Comprehensively."
"Definitively," Bran suggested pertly.
"Definitively," Holden agreed, "decisively, and deliriously."
"Deliriously?" Bran queried, lifting his face with a smile, and Holden leaned down and kissed him again, greedily and for a long time. When he pulled back, they were both pink and panting.
"You may not fast from eating today," Holden said with a wicked gleam in his eye, "but in light of the fact that it's a holiday, perhaps you'd like to refrain from intercourse. You know, as a token of your piety and--"
Bran reached up and yanked Holden's head back down to his, kissing him back harder than he'd kissed Bran, with a hand planted at the nape of his master's neck. Holden's hand slid into Bran's hair, made a fist, and yanked Bran back; Bran squeaked faintly in protest, then again in the opposite of protest as Holden's other hand found his cock.
"Your wanton lusts are a scandal and a byword, young man," said Holden appreciatively over Bran's choked moan as he began to stroke, "and you may consider your owner's generous offer of a moment ago withdrawn."
"Oh," Bran breathed, "damn."
"Profanity, now," said Holden, his fist tightening in Bran's hair and making him whimper, "not to mention sass. And on the vernal equinox, too."
"Sorry, master!" Bran gasped, trying to thrust forward into his master's hand.
"Don't be," said Holden, smiling into Bran's eyes just before he leaned in for another deep, thirsty kiss.
