maculategiraffe

Slave Breakers, post-"Bran" pre-"Jesse," ~1300 words.

"Why is Bran avoiding me?" Holden asked Yves, who looked up, raising his eyebrows.

"I thought you didn't ask me questions like that, master," he said.

"So you know something."

"Yes," said Yves. "Why don't you ask him?"

"Because he's avoiding me," Holden pointed out reasonably. "Every time I come into a room, he leaves it."

"So call him back. You're the master."

"I've tried," said Holden, "but he pretends not to hear."

"Use your sharp voice," Yves advised. "He'll freeze."

Holden frowned. "I don't want to scare him."

"He's already scared," said Yves.

Disturbed, Holden went looking for Bran, and eventually knocked on his closed bedroom door. When there was no answer, Holden would ordinarily have left him alone, but concern overrode courtesy in this case; he turned the knob and went in. Bran, who had been lying on his side on the bed, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, looking like a cornered rabbit.

"Bran," Holden said, not quite sharply, but definitely firmly, "don't go anywhere. We need to talk."

Bran did, as Yves had predicted, stay still at the direct command, but he looked so scared and unhappy that Holden felt like a monster. Still, all the more reason to figure out what was at the back of that fear, so it could go away. He sat down on the bed next to Bran.

"Kneel down," he instructed, thinking the position might settle Bran down a little. "At my feet. Good boy," he added as Bran obeyed, but when Bran tried to hide his face in Holden's lap, Holden reached down with both hands and turned it back upwards. The skin of Bran's face and neck was strangely hot, maybe from agitation; the boy was was pale except for a hectic flush on his cheeks, his eyes unnaturally bright. Had he been crying? Or--

As he looked, Bran's lips pressed together hard, and his body quaked with a repressed, choking cough.

"You're sick," Holden said, rather obviously.

Bran swallowed, his eyes going glassier. "I-- I don't know how it happened--"

"Probably when you were playing with those kids of Livia's," said Holden. "How long have you been feeling ill? And why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry, master," said Bran, lowering his eyes, since he couldn't lower his whole head; two tears spilled over and onto Holden's fingers. Holden looked at him intently, then took his hands off the boy's face, letting him duck down against his master's knee; he stroked the boy's quivering back tenderly.

"Sweetheart," he said, "it's okay. It's not your fault you're sick. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine, for letting you play with those little germ factories. I'll call in Dr. Carey and she can tell us what to do. You'll be right as rain in no time."

"But--" Bran shook again with the effort not to cough, and choked out, "Isn't that-- expensive?"

"What, calling the doctor?" Holden blinked. "What do you think I should do, lock you in the basement until you get better?"

"No, master, I know you wouldn't do that," said Bran into Holden's leg, with a slight emphasis on you. Holden added another item to his growing list of reasons to one day stab Dunaev to death with an ice pick. "I just-- I don't want to be any trouble."

"Oh, Bran." Holden's heart wrenched painfully. "Come here, kiddo. It's okay, I've got an immune system of steel. Come sit in my lap. Put your head down on my shoulder. There you go. This is not trouble, Bran. This is part of owning somebody-- taking care of him when he's sick."

"But I didn't want--" Bran coughed, muffled; his body was trembling feverishly against Holden's. "I just want to be-- good. For you."

"Being sick doesn't mean you're not good, sweetheart," said Holden. "It means you're not well. Here, take my handkerchief, and stop trying not to cough. I think it's good for you to cough. Take off your tunic and I'll tuck you up in bed-- I'll get a blanket, too; you've got the shivers. Do you want something hot to drink?"

Bran laughed shakily as he obediently pulled off his tunic, one hand still tightly clutching the handkerchief Holden had just offered him, and lay down. "Master, you shouldn't--"

"Shouldn't take care of my boy when he's sick?" Holden asked, pulling the sheet up over Bran's naked body, and valiantly resisting the desires it aroused when it was all hot and quivery like this. "I'll be right back."

He returned in a few moments with two extra pillows, which he arranged carefully to prop the boy's head and shoulders up a bit, and a blanket, which he spread over Bran and tucked in at the sides.

"That looks more comfortable," he said briskly, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "Now. Standing orders for when anyone I own is sick-- yes, I have them, did you think you were the first one impertinent enough to get sick under my care? Drink as much as you can-- hot tea, juices, whatever you want. Rest as much as you can, too. Do whatever the doctor tells you, including any and all medicines she might prescribe. No household chores, no helping Fox in the kitchen-- I just added that in, actually, just for you, that's never been an issue with Yves-- and no sex stuff until you're better."

"Master--" Bran sat up quickly in protest, and started a coughing fit, which he muffled as best he could in the crumpled handkerchief. Holden reached out and stroked the spasming back until the fit subsided, and then gently pushed Bran back down onto his pillows, smoothing the stray curls from his damp, hot forehead.

"Settle down," he said. "I can't imagine that you're really feeling all that enthusiastic about sex right now, but even if you are, I don't want you getting anyone else sick, so yes, you are off-limits to everyone in the household until you're not sick any more. I'm sorry that upsets you, but the more rest you get, the quicker you'll be well again, and able to resume normal activities."

"But," said Bran, and cleared his throat. "I'm supposed to--"

"Bran," said Holden in his gentlest voice, "you're supposed to obey your master."

Bran looked up at him, searchingly, for a long time, before he murmured, "Yes, master."

"That's my good boy," said Holden, smiling at him. Bran smiled back, his eyes still glass-bright, but smiling, Bran's sweet smile.

"I love you, master," he said softly.

Holden hoped the flicker of pain on his face was mistakable for something else, though he knew by now that Bran really didn't expect any response to those words, maybe didn't even feel hurt when Holden didn't echo them.

Like hell he didn't.

It couldn't hurt him more than it did Holden, though, and sometimes Holden was really tempted to just order the kid to stop saying it. Bran would have obeyed, would have stopped saying I love you when he meant thank you or how kind or hey, you aren't Dunaev.

And it was hard to hear. Especially when-- Holden admitted to himself by now-- he would have given an awful lot to hear those words out of Bran, if he could have believed they meant anything except that Holden had just demonstrated the most elementary human decency.

But the kid thought he meant it, and Holden guessed he got something out of saying it, or he wouldn't keep on saying it all the time. Holden wouldn't forbid something Bran needed, so Bran would keep saying it, at least until the day he finally grasped the difference between love and gratitude. And moved on from his training, and left his teacher behind.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to Bran's forehead, tasting the boy's febrile sweat; he wanted to lick, suck, swallow, but he just kissed, and pulled back.

"Don't worry, Bran," he said. "We'll fix you up. You'll be fine."

(author's note: for those of you following along at home, the husband is out of the hospital and all is well with him, but now I am sick. I totally blame the emergency room. So this is what you get when I'm sick: stories about poor, undeserving, cuddle-worthy sick people. *piteous, blanket-swathed hacking cough*)

(additional author's note: hey, do I owe y'all an autumnal equinox story or WHAT?) (say WHAT!)