Archive of Our Own

”Master! You’re home!”

Adrian smiled. He always returned home from his boring office work, Monday to Friday, at five thirty pm, and the boy still managed to sound as happy to see him, every time. He leaned over and gave the boy a quick peck on the cheek, the only thing he managed to hit, the young slave being all in a flurry, removing his coat, taking his briefcase and putting away his shoes.

His smile widened. ”You seem to be in unusually high spirits tonight, Jake, what’s going on?”

”Oh, nothing, Master, I’m just happy you’re home. How was your day, Master?”

Adrian sighed. How were all his days? They were boring and stressful, that’s what they were. There was work, work, work, an ever-unsatisfied boss, troublesome clients, obnoxious colleagues… No, his days were most certainly not as relaxing and peaceful as the days of his pet. Jake only had this relatively small apartment to keep clean and tidy, some basic cooking to do, and, of course, had to serve his master’s personal needs, which was really an awfully lazy and leisurely life for a slave. However, he was a pet, that’s what Adrian had bought him for, and he didn’t resent the boy for his non-stressful and carefree existence.

A very delightful pet he was, too, Adrian thought, taking the boy by the arm to still him enough for a real kiss on the mouth instead of replying, which Jake readily melted into. Yes, quite delightful indeed.

Adrian had saved up for a long time, to buy a first class, well-trained, young, pretty male with a pleasing and obedient disposition, fresh out of a big name breeding facility, just like the ones those filthy rich clan members liked to keep, and… Well, Jake wasn’t quite that, but a second hand slave without any official training who Adrian had bought about a year ago from a client at work. He’d paid a considerably cheaper price than an upscale slave market would have asked, so, yes, not quite clan material, this boy. Even so, Jake was young and pretty, learned quickly, was eager to please, and had eventually become quite the minx in bed, too.

Yes, Adrian was quite, quite pleased with such a good find, and not least about the amount still left in his savings account.

The slave skipped into the apartment like a small kid in spite of his nineteen years, eager to serve his master the waiting dinner. Adrian smiled benevolently. The boy was not bad in the kitchen, per se, at least not when it came to the basic stuff, but an actual cook he was not. It didn’t matter, the meals were edible, and when he wanted something nicer, he’d eat out, or order in, no big deal. It made Jake happy when he hummed some sort of approval around the fork, though it wouldn’t do to praise the slave for something like that, of course.

He spoiled his pretty pet much too much as it was, really. Adrian sighed at himself and shook his head, following Jake to the kitchen.

After dinner, Adrian usually relaxed in front of the TV for a few hours. Tonight, he’d watched some sports, followed by a debate show, and after the late news, he’d go to bed, fully intending to bring the boy currently curled up beside him on the couch with his head in his lap, for a real good fuck before sleep. He’d been too tired for sex the last few nights, but tonight… Yes, he very much itched to fuck the boy tonight.

He hadn’t yet informed the boy of these plans, but, of course, he really didn’t need to. Jake was always prepared… these days.

In fact, old as he was, Jake had been a virgin when Adrian had bought him, which had completely astonished him. Apparently, Jake’s former owner had had no sexual interest in males, and, sure, most men had no interest in males, but it was still unconscionable to shelter a good-looking slave in such a way. Someone would fuck even a moderately good-looking slave, regardless of gender, sooner or later, and it was rather mean to let them stay unprepared for it. No, a slave like Jake, you should teach such things early on.

Well, Adrian had taught him later then, gently but firmly, and yes, there had been tears and pleading and exaggerated claims of pain, which were obviously not true because Adrian knew what he was doing, thank you very much, but in the end, he’d made a proper bed slave of the boy. Once Jake had understood serving in this way was inevitable, he’d stopped crying and done his best to obey and please his master sexually, albeit with an overall sullen demeanor and a badly concealed pout.

Adrian had rewarded the willingness to please with being even gentler, and had refrained from scolding or punishing the lack of eagerness, which had turned out to be the right thing to do. You had to be firm, yes, always firm, but a little bit of patience could also do wonders.

Jake had finally got it that bed service was good for a slave, and just look at his horny little pet these days, smiling at his master, whenever he was ordered into the bedroom, eager to have his master’s cock inside him, and hoping he’d be allowed to come.

Well, even so, Jake didn’t look very horny at the moment, half asleep in his lap, as usual. Whatever was on TV went straight over the boy’s head and it was usually all Jake could do not to constantly yawn at it. Adrian grinned and shook his head. As quickly as his slave learned, he wasn’t intelligent in a way a free person could be, of course, and only a fool would buy a slave to have actual conversations with them. He didn’t mind his pet using the time in front the TV to be extra lazy and half snooze while Adrian stroke his hair.

Adrian still couldn’t refrain from commenting things on the screen at times, even though he didn’t expect an informed opinion in return. “Oh, that’s horrible,” he therefore exclaimed at the news footage that was currently showing.

A big fire had broken out during the night, in a small factory building down in the South End, and the images showed a virtual inferno of tall flames and billowing black smoke. The fire department, the newscaster informed, had the fire under control in a way it was no longer at risk of spreading to the closest buildings, but there was no saving the factory. All they could do now was to keep an eye on it as it burned down to the ground. They advised the inhabitants of the immediate surrounding area to keep indoors and close all windows against the smoke. No free citizens had been harmed in the fire, but approximately thirty or forty slaves, working in the factory, had been in the building when the fire broke out. There was no report on how many of them had survived, the cause of the fire was, as of yet, unknown.

Jake turned in his master’s lap when Adrian expressed his dismay at these images and looked over at the screen. The news camera zoomed in on the factory’s large sign, as it broke off from the fire-consumed roof and then dramatically crashed to the ground in a huge cloud of sparks and smoke.

The boy gasped and froze at his side.

Adrian patted him on the shoulder in comfort. He bet the boy was happy and grateful he was a kind man’s pet, and didn’t have to work and live in a place like that.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when he turned off the TV, and told Jake to join him in the bedroom that Adrian noticed something was still off with the boy.

Pale as a sheet, the slave looked up at him with wide pleading eyes at the order. “P- please, Master, please, may- may I be excused, just for tonight. Please?”

Adrian frowned. It wasn’t like Jake to react like this at the prospect of sex. Not anymore.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I- I… I’m just not feeling well, Master,” Jake said.

Adrian eyed the slave suspiciously. Early on, he’d given Jake permission to ask to be let off from sexual service if he wasn’t feeling well. Of course, if the boy was actually ill, he wouldn’t have sex with him in any case, but he did acknowledge that if you weren’t outright sick, but only a bit under the weather, sex wasn’t a very pleasant experience even if you technically could still endure it. As long as the slave didn’t try to take advantage of his generosity, Adrian usually didn’t question Jake, the very few times he asked for this, and did let the boy off the hook. Tonight, though, he found himself not quite believing his usually so eager pet.

“What is this, slave? You’ve been just fine all day. I hardly believe you could have turned ill so quickly and out of the blue. Now, go to the bedroom, right this instance! Well?”

Jake still tried the same pleading look, his lower lip wobbling, but as he met only strictness in his master’s eyes, he obviously decided to see sense and refrain from further pleading. The slave got to his feet and took a few morose steps toward his bedroom… only to throw a hand over his mouth and bolt out of the room toward the toilet in the hallway instead.

Stunned, Adrian didn’t immediately follow, but when he did and opened the toilet door, Jake was on his knees on the floor, puking into the toilet bowl. He felt bad at his strictness then. Apparently, the boy was ill, after all.

“Goodness, boy, are you all right? Do you have a fever? I hope you haven’t caught a stomach bug, I don’t want to catch it, too, it’s just the worst. It can’t be food poisoning, we ate the same food, and I feel just fine, and… Ah, damn it, if it gets worse, I might have to take you to the doctor’s office and I just know Sanderson will bitch about giving me a day off. How bad is it, boy, answer your master!”

Jake reached for the toilet paper roll with shaking hands, ripping off a long piece, wiping at his face, and then, to Adrian’s increasing worry, he started to sob into the folded tissue. “I- I… Please don’t take me to the doctor’s, Master. I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- to… I… I’m sorry, Master, I’m not sick… It’s just- just…” The boy’s sobbing increased in tenfold.

“My- my- my brother was in that factory.”

The factory lot looked like a veritable war zone.

Most of the fire had died down, but there were still some smoke, several smoldering piles of ex-building, and soot flakes filling the air like some dismal kind of post-apocalyptic snow. There was debris everywhere, and surprisingly many puddles of water all over the grounds. Adrian tried to watch where he put his feet. What the hell had he been thinking this morning, taking his nice shoes here?

In fact, Adrian had no fucking idea what he was doing here, overall. He only knew his pet was inconsolable, completely beside himself and had cried all night.

The boy had kept him up, too, and in the morning he’d finally called work and lied about his mother falling unexpectedly ill and that he had to take her to the hospital. Instead, he’d gone down to the South End.

Damn it, he should have just told Jake to cry it out quietly on his own mattress in the utility room behind the kitchen and let his master have his well needed sleep, but the boy had been so distraught he just hadn’t had the heart to turn him away.

In his despair, Jake had told him several things that Adrian had been unaware of, such as that he had in fact grown up together with his older brother.

Adrian cursed the boy’s former master. What kind of irresponsible slave owner does not only neglect to give a good-looking slave some basic sexual training, but also lets him form such attachments? It was not what was usually done, and for good reason.

Well, all right, Adrian knew that some clans bred entire slave families in several generations on their big country estates, but that was an entirely different culture, which couldn’t be upheld in any kind of feasible manner among ordinary people. Out here, in the real world, you would sever all family connections between slaves as soon as possible so they wouldn’t remember, or had time to form an attachment they were as good as guaranteed not to be allowed to keep. It was simply cruel, that’s what it was. If Jake’s former owner had been a responsible man, he would have separated those brothers a long time ago and his pet wouldn’t have wailed and wept all night, and he would have had a nice fuck and a nice sleep before he had to go back to his soul-crushing work.

Damn it!

Of course, he had told the boy he must be mistaken. If his former master had sold the older brother more than a year before the younger, then how could his pet be so sure the brother had been sold to this place. Surely, the man had not discussed his private affairs with his slave, a mere child at the time to boot, and would most likely not have told the boy where he could find a brother in any case.

Jake had admitted his former owner hadn’t told him anything, before or after, and had even locked him in a closet so he wouldn’t witness or protest his brother being sold. However, Jake had peeped through the keyhole, and had managed to see one thing – the company logo on the shirt back of the man who had taken his brother away.

Last night, Jake had seen that very same logo – an image he claimed he would never forget – on a large roof sign, crashing into the inferno below, on a TV screen. His pet was convinced, beyond all attempts to persuade him away from this thought, that that’s where his brother was, and he had begged his master to try to find out if the brother was alive or dead.

Ridiculous, really. Adrian had, of course, much more important things to do than to try to locate a slave that wasn’t even his, or to run errands for his own damn pet, and yet… Here he was, ruining his best shoes, trespassing at a disaster area, a crime, which was soon discovered by someone else, as well.

A few men in orange vests with reflective stripes, hard hats, and sensible shoes, were rummaging about in the rubble a few yards away and one of them now stomped up to him.

“Sir? Excuse me, Sir! This lot is closed off to the public, it’s not safe to poke about here; you have to leave, Sir!”

Yes, he most certainly agreed, he really did have to leave, but… Somehow, Adrian put a hand into the inner pocket of his suit jacket instead and produced one of his business cards, which he pressed in orange-vest-guy’s hand.

The man turned it over and read it. “’Sanderson & Son Insurance…’ Oh, right, okay! Just try to not get too close to the building, some parts of it might still come down.” He pointed behind him with his thumb without looking.

Adrian couldn’t help the smirk. Working for an insurance company came in handy it seemed, even if the owner of this place had never been an actual client of theirs. “I’ll be careful, naturally. Oh, while I have you here, could you tell me if…”

He was interrupted by a loud and sharp bang that made him jump a foot in the air, and wildly look about, and only a few seconds later, there was another, equally as unnerving.

The shock must have been apparent on his face.

“No cause for concern, Sir,” orange-vest assured him. “No gas or anything in there to explode. That’s just the people from the slave center. They’ve been at it all morning. Awful, really, but… Those poor bastards that survived the fire were just too far gone, no saving them. Most of them were too badly injured to even transport to the slave center, so, they’ve been, you know, taking care of it, here, on the spot.”

Adrian did not feel better at this explanation. “Those were gun shots?”

“I’m afraid so. Maybe only inspect the front of the building today, eh. Wouldn’t recommend going round the back this morning. Kind of a gruesome sight, but what can you do. Too far gone those poor bastards, kindest thing to do, really. Well, they will have cleaned it all up by tomorrow, so, I’d come back then, if I was you, Sir.”

Again, the man gestured vaguely behind him without looking, and Adrian’s eyes followed. He saw them now. A few men, so dirty they seemed to have magically appeared out of the sooty debris itself, huddled together at the side of the ruined building, near a fence.

Slaves, injured in the fire, waiting to be shot, and they were… They were quiet. How could they be so quiet, they had to be in pain? It suddenly struck Adrian just how horrible all this was and he remained in the same spot, only because he couldn’t decide if he wanted to turn away and throw up, or simply walk off.

However, he had promised Jake he would at least ask, and not that you had to keep promises to a slave, but the boy looked at him as if Adrian was the center of his entire world, and… Ah, damn it! He’d ask those few slaves remaining if any of them was the brother, and then he’d leave. It wouldn’t be nice to have to tell his pet his brother was indeed dead, but if the brother hadn’t already been put out of his miseries, he would be before long, so he would at least not be lying to Jake.

“Ah, yes, of course,” he answered orange-vest-guy. “I’ll come back tomorrow, I’ll… I won’t go around the back. I will definitely not go around the back, I’ll just…” he gestured toward the huddling slaves, “…ask them some, uh… questions, and then I’ll be off. Thanks for your help.”

Orange-vest-guy readily accepted this obvious dismissal, shrugged his shoulders and went back to work with yet another ‘be careful, Sir’.

Adrian swallowed hard, and resolutely walked over to the still surviving slaves, which were no more than six, he realized. Coming closer, he also noticed one reason they managed to stay so quiet could be that most of them seemed not to be severely injured, which might be why the people from the slave center hadn’t shot them… yet. They’d naturally taken care of the worst injured first.

He wiped his upper lip, sweating in distress at the thought. Slave handling wasn’t always pretty, he worked at an insurance company, so he was well aware. However, he worked at a desk, he wasn’t called out to sites like this, and knowing things was a hell of a lot different from actually witnessing them. How did those people at the slave center manage such a fucking awful job?

“Uuuum…” he started; trying to ignore how the six slaves stared at him in terror and huddled closer together. “Is one of you, by any chance, called… Jesse?”

For a few seconds there were no reactions to his question other than some of the terror in their eyes turning to befuddlement, but then a few of them turned to look at the one farthest back, who finally seemed able to snap out of it enough to raise a shaking hand. “I- I am, Sir,” he said, his voice painfully gravelly.

“Really?” Adrian blurted out with a big grin.

Who would have thought? How lucky was that, and… No… No, no, no, this wasn’t lucky at all, this was awful. If the brother was alive and not terribly injured, then what the hell was he supposed to do next?

Adrian’s grin turned into a frown. “Damn it!” he swore. “So, you don’t happen to have a brother, do you, Jesse?” he asked further, hoping against hope this was simply another Jesse. It was a common name, after all, cute, not uncommon to give it to slave children, there had probably been about five Jesses in that factory, and…

The slave pushed himself past his huddled fellow slaves at these words, scrambling to his knees before Adrian with a stifled cry of pain that distorted his whole face, but with hopeful desperation in his eyes. “J- Jake! Jake is my brother, Sir. Please, Sir, do you know him? Is- is he all right, Sir? Please?”

Oh, damn, and damn it again. It was the right Jesse, and what kind of unnatural level of willpower had made this boy stay quiet before was beyond Adrian’s understanding, because now that the slave was kneeling at his feet he could clearly see he was not as unharmed as the other five. Jesse’s right upper arm was badly burned, as was that side of his neck, the injury even reaching up onto his cheek. Adrian winced; he couldn’t even imagine how much that would hurt. The boy was probably up next, for a bullet…

Damn it, a million times over.

He tried to gather himself, to answer the boy at least, to let him know his brother was alive and well, and safe in his possession, before the slave center people came back, but he was interrupted by an angry shout behind him that made Jesse dive back into the pile of now even closer huddling slaves.

Adrian turned with a wince.

“Hey! You there!” A middle-aged man in an ill-fitting suit came toward him with angry strides holding up something very much resembling a business card in a likewise angrily waving hand. His business card that bad-suit-man had obviously taken off orange-vest-guy. So, this was the owner of the factory then. Bloody great!

“I’m not your client!” the man yelled. “You damn ambulance chasers don’t waste any time, do you? Get off my lot!”

Ambulance chasers? Really! The company he worked for might be a dead end job, but it was a serious business, thank you very much.

“Uh,” he said, trying to get his wits about him. “I’m not here as a representative of Sanderson & Son, I’m, uh, here for… private reasons.”

“Private rea… I beg your pardon! You gave that guy your card and told him you were here on insurance businesses.”

“I did no such thing,” Adrian argued. “He asked who I was, I gave him my card, and he assumed I was here on business, but, in fact, I just came to… Well, to…” Don’t say it, Adrian thought, don’t say it! Are you mad? Are you actually mad? Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t… “Well, I wanted to buy one of your slaves.”

Damn it!

Anger obviously gave way to complete confusion. “Say what?”

“I want to buy…”

“Yes, I heard that, but what on earth for?”

There was no answer to that, which wouldn’t make him sound like the idiot he was calling himself in his head. Adrian ignored the question, and pointed at Jesse. “This one for example, what do you want for him?”

“Uuuuh… For a slave like that, I’d say… Well, at least 5000 Taler.”

“What?” Adrian couldn’t believe the cheek. “You are having these poor creatures shot, obviously they are worthless to you, and so don’t you think 5000 is a bit steep?”

The factory owner scowled, but Adrian went on before the man had a chance to argue the validity of the price.

“Look, I have a 1000 Taler on me, in cash, and that’s all I have at the moment. It’s a fair price, yes, for something that is pretty much a walking corpse anyway, right?”

The man still looked both bewildered and reluctant to agree, but then he leaned back on his heels and grinned. “Oh, I get it now. You insurance guys are doing all these tests and what not. You just want a cheap crash test dummy, right? All right, sure, okay, we can shake on that. This last night has been a fucking nightmare, I’ll tell you, and I’m more than ready to cut my losses here. I do have insurance, of course, but I’ll need every penny I can get now, and those damn people from the slave center, harping on about the humane thing to do. Yeah, right, easy for them to say. It’s not as if they give you any sort of compensation, so, yeah, sure, I’ll take the thousand, better than nothing. Your company doesn’t need a few more test objects, does it? You can have all six of them, for a thousand each, no problems. It’s not as if I’ll need these now. I won’t be able to start up the business again in months, probably, and I’ll tell you…”

Adrian interrupted the speech by simply fumbling through his wallet and pressing two 500 Taler bills in the man’s hand. “I just need the one, thank you. Here you go, a 1000 Taler! You still have my business card. Great! Could you send his papers to my name, and not the company, I’m… uh, doing these… tests on my own, you see, and… Ah, great! Well, thanks, I’ll just be going then. Come on, boy, get up, there you go, come with me, it’ll be all right, you’ll see, won’t hurt you…”

He just barely remembered to pull the boy to his feet by his uninjured arm, in his haste to drag the slave along with him over the ruined lot. By now, Adrian just wanted to leave this horrible place, find a spot to clean his shoes, and get out of earshot of those fucking guns.

Only terror at being dragged away for destruction might have held the boy back before, but that was obviously no longer the case.

The slave at the passenger side of his car looked awful, crying and moaning in pain now, sweating and shaking as if his body was about to go into shock, deathly pale and breathing in shallow gasps. It stressed Adrian to no end.

“Do try to keep it together, boy,” he tried. “I’ll get you help, okay? Just hold it together for a few more minutes.”

“J- Jake…?” the boy managed, a rattling cough cutting him off.

“He’s fine, don’t worry about him. Spoiled, like you wouldn’t believe. Now, save your breath and keep quiet, we’re soon there.”

…at the hospital, he didn’t add, because that would be a lie. It was, undoubtedly, where the slave needed to go, but Adrian just didn’t have that kind of money.

This was not some measly sunburn; this was a bad fucking burn. Sure, it wasn’t covering a big part of his body, or anything, but it looked deep enough. Adrian might not know much about medical stuff, but he did understand these burns were not just a question of patching the boy up and give him a painkiller and he’d be fine. No, this would most likely be a few months worth of treatment, maybe skin grafts and shit, and… Well, there was just no way in hell Adrian could afford that.

Well, there might still be a chance, a last chance, for this slave, and if that didn’t work out, he guessed he had to cut his losses and take the boy to a slave center. It would not be fun to tell his pet that sure, he’d found the brother, but… sorry, he’d done his best. At least he wouldn’t be lying to the boy; he was doing his best here, and a hell of a lot more than anyone could demand of him, too.

Damn it!

Well, that ruined factory back there might not have been a client of Sanderson & Son, but Adrian happened to know of another business in the South End that was, a slave market, specializing, apparently, in rehabilitating and selling otherwise unsellable slaves. If he could persuade them to take the boy off his hands…

Adrian stepped on the brakes outside of Mrs. Jones’ slave market only a few minutes later, dashed inside and told the staff of the situation in as few words as he could, urging them to hurry out to his car. To their credit, they did just that. They rushed out to his car, without asking him a bunch of stupid questions, and carefully brought the wailing and crying slave inside.

He remained, slumping down on a bench in the entrance area, while a blessed silence fell over him as the slave was taken into the bowels of the large building. Adrian wasn’t quite sure what they would do to the slave, and if he should wait around or maybe leave. He wanted to leave, that’s for sure, but he ended up staying, if for no other reason than to allow himself a breather after all these fucking horrors. It wasn’t good to drive with shaking hands.

God dammit!

Adrian looked up at the sounds of steps across the old entrance flagstones and rose to take the hand of a woman who presented herself as the Mrs. Jones he knew owned this place. Oh, imposing sort of woman that, Adrian thought, instinctively straightening up at her strict gaze.

“Right, Mr. Brown, if you would please fill me in on what the situation is here.”

“Uh, right, the situation…” Adrian told her everything, even though he would have preferred to leave out the fact he was apparently so damn weak for a simple little slave pet that he would do this at all, which was just embarrassing, really. However, Mrs. Jones had the very distinct air of a woman for which you did not leave out things, and… Damn, this was just waiting outside the principal’s office all over again, wasn’t it?

Mrs. Jones sure as hell looked like she wanted to give him detention, or make him write ‘I will never again impulse-buy half-dead slaves’ a hundred times on the blackboard.

“I see,” she said. “Well, I’m not sure what you expect us to do here, Mr. Brown?”

“Uh, I was hoping you’d give him the treatment he needs, and, well, sell him, I guess. I realize he’s somewhat of a loss, so I won’t ask anything for him. I’m donating him to you. Yes, I suppose you could put it that way, and…”

Mrs. Jones didn’t give up on the disapproving scowls. “Why are you not seeing to it yourself he gets this treatment?”

“Uh, well, because, I can’t afford it, I’m afraid.”

“So, to be clear here, you bought a severely injured slave on impulse, knowing full well you couldn’t give him treatment, prolonging his suffering, instead of just letting the people from the slave center take care of it?”

Well, when she put it that way, it was of course tru… No, nope! Adrian forcefully stopped himself from cringing before her, and decided to get angry instead. “Well, you weren’t there, were you?” he pressed out. “It was fucking awful! I heard the gunshots, damn it, and Jake kept me up all night, crying over his brother, and they could have taken him to be shot at any second, I couldn’t fucking think, okay? Aren’t you some sort of rescue center anyway? You’re just gonna let that poor thing die now?”

“That is quite enough, Mr. Brown,” Mrs. Jones said. “You have no idea what horrors I have seen, and you also have no idea what kind of awful choices I’m constantly forced to make here and just how hard that is. It doesn’t get easier when a bunch of other people throw hard choice cases in my lap, as well.”

Adrian swallowed his ire in a guilty gulp. “I- I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones, I didn’t mean…”

“I was not quite finished, Mr. Brown,” she informed him.

Adrian just nodded and slumped back down on the bench for the rest of his scolding.

“You are lucky only in so far that we happened to have a nurse on staff today, and she has given the slave first aid, and all the painkillers it was safe to give him, but as I’m sure you are already well aware of, that is not nearly enough. He needs to go to a hospital as soon as possible or be put down, Mr. Brown, there are no other choices to make here. I’m sure you’d rather I make it, but that boy is still your property, not ours.”

He might have looked just that pathetically out of his depths here, or Mrs. Jones’ heart was in fact not made of granite, because she seemed to soften a tiny bit at this, and continued with a more understanding look on her face.

“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Brown, but to be able to help anyone at all, I’m sadly forced to run some sort of business here, and this slave will need months of costly treatment before we could even consider putting him up for sale. We can’t give him that treatment here, obviously, and there is no room in our budget to pay for such a long hospital stay.”

“Yeah, I… Yeah, I get that,” Adrian said, putting his head in his hands. “Damn it! Once you’ve already seen them, tried something, it’s hard to just… and I have to tell my boy, too. He’s a good pet, you know, really sweet. He’ll never stop crying now. Damn it!”

Mrs. Jones sighed deeply above him. “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you? You are really going to force me to humiliate myself enough here to last me the rest of the year, aren’t you?”

He looked up from his hands. “Uh…?”

She raised a hand in a gesture clearly asking him to wait a second, while she fished out her phone from a pocket, pushed a few buttons and held it to her ear, obviously waiting for someone to pick up their phone, which this someone did in only a few seconds.

“Lord Wren? Ah, yes, this is Mrs. Jones. I’m truly sorry to bother you, but if I could be so rude as to ask for your help…”

Adrian looked at the sleeping slave in the hospital bed, tucked in and patched up in a manner pretty much only half of his face was still visible. He looked considerably more peaceful than he’d done in his car a few days ago, obviously, probably because he was pumped full of morphine or something. He wasn’t quite sure what they might have pumped into the slave, as he wasn’t the one who kept in contact with the docs and nurses around here. Someone from Mrs. Jones’ staff took care of all that, apparently.

Technically, he was still the boy’s owner, but only because it had taken a while before that factory owner had sent him the papers, and so he hadn’t had a chance to finish the paperwork with Lord Wren yet, who would pay for the treatment and take over the ownership of Jesse.

…and damn, wasn’t that something?

Adrian had nearly fallen off the bench in pure astonishment when he’d understood that Mrs. Jones was calling a clan lord to ask to help them with the slave, and it had completely blown his mind that it had actually worked, that a fucking clan lord had agreed to it.

He’d even met the lord. Apparently, he’d been in the city anyway, and had come to the hospital to look at the slave himself. The way the lord had turned positively green around the gills, seeing the slave’s injuries, Adrian had been sure the man would turn on the threshold, and they’d never see neither hide nor hair of him ever again, but… He’d both stayed and kept true to his promise.

Adrian hadn’t been able to stop himself from discreetly checking out the young lord as he discussed the matter with Mrs. Jones. Damn, the aristocrat was crazy good-looking, wasn’t he? Pretty, even, in an almost delicate way. Looks like that would have been worth a pretty penny in a slave pet, that’s for sure.

Well, he wasn’t a pretty pet, he was a clan lord, and apparently, one of the richest in the country, and from one of the oldest and fanciest clans, too, which didn’t exactly make Adrian less stunned that he’d agreed to this. Adrian was of course very happy for his sweet, pretty, little pet, but he did recognize Jake wouldn’t be good enough for a lord, and yet, a lord would buy… this!

Inconceivable, really.

He stepped closer to the injured slave in the bed. He could see the resemblance with Jake, he really could. The lithe frame, the high cheekbones, the pale skin and the pitch-black hair, the blue eyes (that he remembered from before) framed by long dark lashes… Yeah, they actually looked surprisingly alike these two boys, apart from that all these traits had coalesced into something actually pretty in his pet, whereas they unfortunately hadn’t in this boy. Jesse wasn’t outright ugly, per se, but good-looking, he was not.

Well, pretty or not, having still some use in him, or not, he would be fine in the future, thanks to some nutty lord with unclear motives. Adrian had done what he could for his little pet, saving his brother, so he could have just walked away from the whole thing now, only…

He had asked if it was safe to wake the slave so he could talk to him, and had gotten permission from a stern nurse to do so ‘if he absolutely must’, so he very carefully shook Jesse by his uninjured shoulder until the slave finally opened weary and confused eyes, which soon cleared up as he recognized him.

“Master,” he managed weakly.

“Well, yes, for a few more days, I suppose. Mrs. Jones did explain things to you, didn’t she?”

The boy nodded. “Yes, Master, a- a… a lord is gonna buy me. Is that really true, Master?”

“It’s true all right, boy. He has a big mansion and all. I guess he’ll put you to work somewhere on the grounds, once you’re on your feet again. Don’t gather you’ll see much of him. Just as well, as, between you and me, he has to be some kind of nut, right. Damn good-looking, but still, a bit of a screw loose there. Mark my words! Well, don’t worry about it, is what I’m saying. You’ll be better off there than in any factory, without a doubt.”

“Jake?” the slave carefully asked, again.

“Right, Jake… Listen, boy, Jake told me you are brothers, but, you’re not, are you?”

The slave’s eyes widened.

“I just got your papers in the mail yesterday, slave, and I’ve looked at them closely and compared them to Jake’s. You come from completely different facilities that never had any exchanges when it comes to breeding programs. There is simply no way you both could be biologically related. So, was it you who put these silly ideas in Jake’s head?”

The slave’s mouth opened but nothing came out.

“Answer me slave,” Adrian demanded.

“I- I didn’t really… I didn’t mean to… Our master… our former master, bought us both as small kids. Jake was the smallest, so small; so scared. I didn’t tell him we were brothers, Master, I swear, but our master always said we were like brothers, looked like brothers, he said. A- a nice looking pair, he said. He chose us because of our similar colors, meant to resell us like that. Jake just believed we were brothers then, he didn’t know, didn’t understand, he was too young. I couldn’t… couldn’t tell him the truth.”

Jesse raised his uninjured arm to wipe at his eyes, trying to stop tears from falling. “He was so scared when he was little, it- it made him feel safer to have a big brother. As if I could really ever have protected him. Please, Master, are- are you kind to him?”

“Of course I’m kind to him.” Adrian scowled, mostly to press down that unpleasant feeling in his chest. This was why you didn’t let slaves have family, fucking cruel it was, and Adrian would make sure his sweet pet would eventually forget his fake brother. He would not let Jesse upset him further.

Jesse might have guessed at his thoughts. “You- you won’t let me see him, Master?”

“Look, Jesse, it’s simply for the best, for both of you, if you don’t see each other, okay? I’ve told Jake you will be fine, and I’m telling you now that Jake is a cherished pet and will be fine, too, so try to forget about him! You’re slaves, you have no legal claim to each other, and not a moral one either, seeing as you are not actual brothers, so… Just forget about him, okay? I went through quite some trouble, and lost a 1000 Taler, only to save you, and you will have to be grateful for that and promise me never to try to contact Jake, do you understand? If you ever do, I will make sure that lord reconsiders this nutty purchase, am I making myself clear?”

The wide blue eyes stared at him in wordless pain, but he nodded. “I- I understand, Master,” he said.

“Do you? I’m doing this for Jake’s sake, boy, you understand. A slave’s life is too unsure to form attachments of this kind. He’s only going to be hurt again, better to just forget, see?”

Jesse nodded again. “Yes, Master, I… I know.”

“Good boy!” Adrian said, giving the boy in the hospital bed a final encouraging shake of his shoulder, before turning on his heels and hurrying out of the room. He heard the slave sob behind him, but he refused to look back.

He’d done his best, damn it!

Adrian loved weekends, mostly because he could stay in bed in the morning and cuddle with his pretty, sweet pet, and maybe slowly and lazily fuck him a little later, when he had woken up properly.

Jake was already fully awake and was busy pulling at his bangs, going all cross-eyed trying to look at his own hair without a mirror. Adrian chuckled at him, wondering, as so many times before, what was really going on in that vacuous but sweet little head of his.

The boy turned his head at the sound. “Shouldn’t I cut my hair, soon, Master?”

Adrian thought about it. He usually preferred shorter hairstyles, but Jake would look less like Jesse with longer hair. “Hmm, maybe we should let it grow,” he suggested. “See how it looks.”

“Okay, Master,” Jake readily agreed with a smile, cuddling closer as Adrian opened his arms to him. Sweet little thing, he needed only a good master, not a brother.

They stayed like that for some time, relaxing, until the boy spoke up again. “Master? Do you think Jesse will be out of the hospital soon?”

Adrian froze at his side. “I… I don’t know, sweetheart. He will be fine, eventually, but it was a pretty serious injury, and it might take some time still.” Jesse had in fact left the hospital two weeks ago, Adrian knew.

“Couldn’t I go see him, just a little?”

“Now, now, pet, we’ve been through this. I’ve told you, the limited visiting hours at the hospital aren’t for slaves, and he will need plenty of peace and quiet to heal well.”

“But, I’ll be very quiet, Master,”

“I know, Jake, but it’s simply not an option. Now, you don’t annoy your master with nagging, do you?”

“No, Master,” the slave agreed, looking chastised.

“That’s a good boy,” Adrian said, pulling him closer and starting to nuzzle at the boy’s neck, pushing away images in his head of a neck covered in burnt and blistered skin with some force.

Jake didn’t resist, but seemed still to be elsewhere in his pretty little head. “But later, when he’s out of the hospital… Could we… Could we visit the lord’s house, and see him then?”

“Um… Maybe, we’ll see,” Adrian lied.

The perceived half-promise still seemed enough to turn the boy’s attention back to him fully.

“Oh, Master, you are so kind to me,” he exclaimed and pressed his lithe body to his in the most arousing way.

Adrian took full advantage of the boy’s gratitude and squeezed his delicious round and pert little pale ass cheeks, kissing him wetly and deeply.

One day… One day, he really had to tell the boy the truth, but, not yet.

Not quite yet…