Seget Continued

 

Chapter Twelve – Law. Chapter Thirteen – Resolve Chapter Fourteen – Home Chapter Fifteen – Twisted. Chapter Sixteen – The Smell of It Chapter Seventeen – Visit.

 

Chapter Twelve – Law.

 

 

Liam stared at the wooden ceiling as dawn slipped tendrils of lightening sky through the small high windows. He was awake, had been for a while, numb and sore eyed, tiredness sneaking fog into his brain. Spike was asleep, heavily asleep, dreaming deeply of whatever it was he dreamt about.

Liam’s dreams had woken him up. He’d dreamt of the soldiers again, although they were faceless now, shadows and blurs. He couldn’t remember their faces, but he could still remember their hands like they were his own. His mind echoed the dream, cold fingers in his mouth and between his thighs, soundless and empty as he fidgeted with the cuffs on his wrists.

 

He’d been awake for a long time, dumbly conscious, not really aware of anything, maybe even still half asleep. It seemed like seconds from when he’d woken, heart thumping in the blackness, till now when everything was lit with dull morning grey. He knew it had been at least an hour. The sun took its time getting ready to rise.

 

Sitting up, he yawned widely and stretched his arms wide, untethered and free as he could be while still under the thumb of a smug pale creature with blue eyes and a score of men at his beck and call.

He leaned over and searched the still dark space under Spike’s bed for the bag he’d been given.

Spike had put odds and ends of food away for him, because, apparently, he got hungry at strange times. He yanked the bag out of the shadow and rested it in his lap, peering inside with squinted eyes, trying to make out the contents in the half-light.

He tossed aside some half eaten brisket, and considered the box filled with hard boiled sweets that Spike had bought him at the last markets, a couple of days ago between Delph and wherever they were now. He eventually put them aside, deciding it was a bit too early for candies.

His hand brushed up against a cheesecloth-covered loaf of chive bread and he yanked it out, his stomach applauding his choice as he set the food bag down on the floor next to his bed. He broke the bread and chewed on a hunk of it, absently watching the day wake as he gnawed at the hard edge of the loaf.

 

He was getting into a routine. It was seeming familiar, all of this. Spike would get him breakfast and then start their travel for the day and Spike and he would stay in the carriage, reading or nibbling at food. The progression would stop for lunch and Spike would load up a plate for him and take him out for a piss and then load up the carriage again and move off. They’d read or eat and then the carriages would stop for dinner. A campfire would be lit, the smell of burning wood and cooking food would make Liam’s mouth water, Spike and he would go for a walk around the camp sometimes and sit in the darkness silently for a time before they’d eat and piss and go to sleep.

It was monotonous. It was easy to succumb to. Knowing what would happen next. It gave him a sense of security, even if it was false.

He thought about that, chewing slowly on the strongly herbed bread in his mouth. It was safe wasn’t it? Maybe not completely safe, not like his old life… but… almost. Spike would barely even take him near other soldiers, and he didn’t really mix with them either, except for a few.

 

Over the past few days the breaks in monotony had mainly come from other soldiers, knocking on the door that no one had knocked on since they’d left Seget, coming in with presents of food and chocolates and wine. All congratulating Spike about something.

Liam didn’t know what it was, and Spike wouldn’t tell him, even when he’d asked him one time, clearly and firmly. He’d just smiled distantly and not answered; comfortable in the knowledge Liam had no power to make him respond. It was frustrating. For some reason it made Liam’s skin itch, not knowing something that everyone else knew. Something important had happened and he didn’t know. And Spike… as much as he hated to think it, Spike was in his life. Completely in, at least for the moment. He was the fence and the grass and the steel locks in Liam’s paddock and to not know this significant thing was making his mind twitch. He was bored most of the time and his curiosity was becoming stronger and stronger, revolving around this secret obsessively, with nothing to alleviate the sting.

 

It had something to do with the beautiful box Spike had brought back into the carriage. He was sure. Pretty sure, at least. He knew Spike hadn’t wanted him to see that, could tell by the stiff way he had held his shoulders when he’d entered the carriage and the way he’d quickly tucked the golden box away from Liam’s eyes. And he knew Spike didn’t want him to know what was happening… otherwise he would have answered when Liam asked him. There was no way he was going to tell Liam. Or let him look at the box while they sat together and counted down the quiet hours of the day.

He really wanted to know what was in it, if he could just take a quick peek without Spike know-

 

He blinked.

 

His eyes slowly travelled to the very asleep pale creature lying in a mess of limbs in the bed covers. His face was pressed into the thick pillows and his shoulders were loose and rubbery. He was definitely, completely, asleep.

And it wasn’t as if Liam were chained up anymore…

 

A thought that felt very wrong slipped into Liam’s heart, pumping out through his body until the idea was in his muscles and his bones and he was consumed with it.

 

Just while he was asleep, Liam could take a quick look. Spike would never have a reason to know, not if Liam was quiet enough.

 

He cast another glance at Spike, his stomach spitting and hissing at the thought of doing this. He was nervous, nervous about going against Spike’s will, even if he’d never said anything, never told him to stay away from the box, Liam knew Spike didn’t want him anywhere near the pretty thing and that was enough for the ill-ease to rise up in his gut.

He thought about it, feeling the tightness in his shoulders and scoffed at himself, wondering when he’d become so weak willed. It niggled at the back of his mind and he stood defiantly, the blankets slipping from his body. Casting another glance at Spike’s sleeping form he crept over to the chest near the door without a sound. He was a shadow for an instant, a floorboard didn’t creak, he didn’t breath, his clothes didn’t even make a whisper in the quiet early dawn. He looked back at Spike, seeing him still sleeping placidly and feeling his heart flooding his body with a soothing burst of hot blood at the sight.

 

He knelt down in front of the chest almost reverently, breath catching in his throat in a bubble, head dizzy with the little voice inside him that was telling him to go back to his bed and just wait for something else to amuse him. But he ignored it and skated his hands along the side of the trunk, clicking it open with a quiet sound and holding the heavy lid with one arm as the other pawed around in the clothes and bags and boxes, looking for the very distinctly brilliant gold one that he’d seen the other day. He set aside a wax topped jar filled with sweet peanuts, giving them a second glance as he moved them away.

He was burning with excitement now, sifting through the chest with one hand, his other arm wobbling a little from holding up the lid.

 

He looked back at Spike and saw the silent figure sitting up in the bed, watching him with shadows over his eyes. Liam’s shock bubbled out of him in an unmanly yelp as the lid slammed down with a deafening clang, the sound bouncing of the wall in tremors. Spike and Liam’s gazes locked and Liam thought he might throw up at the sight of the dark blue eyes watching him with keen alertness.

 

He wondered if he’d been awake the whole time, let Liam dig himself deep before sitting up soundlessly like a ghost and waiting for him to look back. Toyed with him.

 

“What are you doing?” Spike asked coolly, sitting inscrutably in his large bed, bare from the waist up and looking as imposing as the large stone statue gods that sat in front of the worshipping platforms at Vara Town’s temple.

 

“Nothing,” Liam said hurriedly, frozen, eyes wide as his heart squeezed painfully in his ribcage, as he fell back so easily into his childhood ways. He was blushing hotly.

 

A whistle of wind rocked against the carriage, making it creak on its wheels.

 

Spike flipped the covers back with a flick of his wrist, swinging his bare feet out to the floor and standing up, never taking his shadowed eyes from Liam’s, unflinching as he loped towards him, black pants slung low on his rolling hips.

He paused, tilting his head like a sleek white hawk before he pounced, snapping his hand out and grabbing Liam’s wrist in a flurry of movement.

 

“Don’t,” he said, breathing mint flavoured breath against Liam’s cheek, “sneak around.”

 

Liam tugged his hand away petulantly. “What is it?”

 

“It’s not for herders,” Spike purred coolly.

 

“What is it?” Liam asked again.

 

Spike’s hand snapped forward and grabbed his wrist again, eyes flashing beneath the smug cool exterior. “Not. For herders,” he said firmly, tugging Liam away from the chest.

 

Liam stumbled a few steps along with him before tugging his wrist free, his cuff scraping along the soft flesh below his palm with a pinch. He rubbed it sourly as he blinked at Spike, hurt.

 

“Why don’t you want me to see?” Liam asked, his voice in more of a pout than he’d intended. He squared his shoulders, a little embarrassed, trying to cover it up by levelling Spike’s gaze. “What are you afraid of?”

 

“Not you, little herder.”

 

Liam smiled tightly, “You’re littler than me,” he snapped, watching Spike’s jaw tense.

 

His pale face cracked another smirk. “Why do you want to know so badly?” Spike asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest, “It’s making you all itchy for some reason.”

 

“Why don’t you want me to know?” Liam batted back, like they were two dogs playing with a toy.

 

Spike raised his eyebrows, lips curled into a sneer. “Cause it’s none of your concern.”

 

“You keep me here, in this room, and in your life for … however long it’s been… and then you tell me it’s none of my concern?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Well,” Liam huffed, “I want to know.”

 

“I know you do. But why?”

 

This was getting irritating. “I just told you why!”

 

“No,” he said, watching him with his contemplative blue gaze, closing the distance between them with a few steps and looking up at him cockily, “you told me why you think you deserve to know, not actually why you want to know.”

 

Now Liam’s head was starting to muddle.

 

“And what makes you think you can poke through my things?” Spike asked coolly. “Might have to punish you for that.”

 

Liam’s brows knitted together. “I wasn’t poking.”

 

Spike gazed at him, eyes unreadable as ever. “Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it?” he said in a low voice.

 

Liam sighed wearily and turned away. “Are you going to kill me then? Fine, I don’t care, I don’t even want to know what’s in the silly box anyhow.” He was still embarrassed from being caught… well… poking through Spike’s things, and he didn’t like feeling embarrassed in front of Spike. He felt weak when it happened, because Spike never got embarrassed. “I’m sorry I ever tried to see it,” he said, frustrated and all wound up.

 

“I forgive you, pet,” Spike said cheerily.

 

Liam spun around. Spike was watching him happily. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

Spike was grinning now. His tongue curled up over his front teeth for a second, a little pink wriggle before it slipped back into his mouth. “How did you mean it then, herder beast?”

 

“Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice raising as his lips tensed, “I have a name.”

 

Spike snorted and Liam glared.

 

“Come on,” Spike said, so obviously amused by him as he slipped a dark, long sleeved shirt on over his head. It clung to his lean frame like a black skin.

 

Pale fingers grabbed Liam’s thick coat from a chest on the side and tossed it roughly to him, the bundle of thick fabric hitting him in the chest. “Let’s go for a walk.”

 

“No,” Liam said, slipping his arms into the coat anyway and wrapping his hands around his waist. “It’ll be freezing out. It’s freezing in here.”

 

“I want to walk.”

 

Liam coughed a disbelieving laugh. “Well I want to see the box!”

 

Spike laughed and grabbed the chain from the chest next to his sprawling bed. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter what you want. Now, walk without chain… or walk with chain?”

 

Liam sighed, shoulders slumping a fraction. “Without.”

 

“Going to be good?”

 

Liam bit at his lower lip futilely, blood at a simmer. “Yes,” he said eventually.

 

“Good pet. Now get your boots on.”

 

Liam grumbled a few words under his breath but he did as he was told, not wanting the chain on if he didn’t have to have it. And if he kicked up dust about the walk, Spike would just drag him out anyhow, except his arms wouldn’t be free. He really hated being chained up.

He followed Spike out of the carriage after Spike had flicked his own leather coat on, stepping in his tracks as he opened the door.

 

His sharp intake of breath at the cold was loud as it sucked in between his teeth, and he heard Spike sniff sharply with the temperature. Liam wrapped the coat tighter around himself, his knees and thighs and neck cold and his exposed face catching the brunt of the biting breeze. The sun was taking its time rising, the day was still stuck in between early darkness and morning light. It was grey, cast bluey purple from the clouds and it turned both he and Spike to dream figures. Spike looked at him and smiled, his light eyes brilliant in the strangely filtered sun.

 

They walked in the new cold air; their feet flattening crunchy grass as Liam kept his arms wrapped tightly around himself. It wasn’t so cold that he was shivering under his coat, his chest was actually quite warm in the thick wool, but his unprotected skin was cool. When Spike turned back he had cold pink colour high on his cheeks and on the tip of his nose, light blush on snow. He grinned like a schoolboy and led him further away from the camp, past the rows and rows of coarse tents that housed hundreds of soldiers, all breathing and snoring in background noise that had become effortless to ignore.

 

The camp had been made in an oval shaped clearing, a slight rise from where they’d arrived, sloping down towards the main flat grassy area. A few trees dotted the space and rows of brown and black and grey horses were hitched to the trunks, colourful against the beige of the tents. The horses were sleeping too, standing peacefully still as the branches above swayed with the light sharp wind.

 

Spike walked to the edge of the clearing, leading him towards the trees and into long grass that brushed and stuck seeds to their knees as they worked their way through it. Liam could smell damp rock and dirt as soon as they slipped into the light wood. Liam followed under the boughs of the trees; boots crunching sticks and dead leaves, until the silvery head in front of him stopped and turned around.

Liam looked past him with light interest to see why they’d stopped.

A big flat rock sat on top of a small steep hill, in the middle of some sparse trees and bushes. A large delicate spider web hung high above the rock between two trees, lit into shiny brilliance as the sun started to edge its way into the cold sky. Liam could hear a trickle of water and he hiked up the hill, awkward in his thick boots and coat, until he could see the small creek that trickled busily below. A few early birds were sipping at the water, huddled up and puffy feathered as they pecked at the drink.

 

He turned and saw Spike already settling onto the rock, spreading his thighs lazily, cigarette in between his lips as he tugged a small flint with the sharp smelling powder in it from a box in his pocket. Liam roosted down next to him, pulling one foot flat onto the rock so he could rest his chin on his bent knee. He watched Spike as he drew in a breath, tilting his head back passionately as the smoke rolled in his chest, a pale stretch of tender throat exposed to the cold before the smoke came steaming out his nostrils like a dragon’s breath. He sighed in satisfaction and noticed Liam watching him.

 

He held the cigarette out for Liam, who shook his head, chin still on his knee.

 

“It’ll warm you up,” Spike prodded, nudging Liam’s leg with his knuckles. He could smell the burnt tobacco from the little paper stick.

 

Caving without the will or the alertness to argue, he took it, feeling it weak and frail between his fingers, and hesitantly brought it to his lips.

 

“Just breathe it in.”

 

Liam sucked on the cigarette and for a moment felt nothing but dull warmth in his mouth.

Abruptly, the warmth he felt turned into a monstrous burning itch that suddenly enveloped his throat and the top of his chest. His lungs filled with nettles. He sputtered, spittle flying from his mouth as his breath was sucked out in one chest-clamping squeeze. He gasped in between the coughs and air ripsawed back into his chest. His chest was squeezing with his shuddering coughs. His eyes were watering and his hands clawed futilely at his neck as his body set itself single mindedly to expelling every last vapour of smoke that he’d inhaled.

 

Spike’s hand clapped against his back, thudding between his shoulder blades helped his breathing get into an almost normal pattern. When he finally got his chest back into breathing in and out without the shuddering blistering coughing, he could hear Spike chuckling beside him.

 

He looked at him with red watering eyes, panting like he’d run a mile, stomach flipping with sour smoke. Spike watched him with a soft expression in his eyes, smiling at him.

 

“Why…” Liam rasped, “the fuck… would you choose to breathe that?”

 

He snickered. “You get used to it.”

 

Liam scrunched his face up at Spike, hearing the trickle of the creek again in his ears now that they weren’t pounding. “Why would you do it the second time?”

 

“It’s a thing,” Spike said, the stick back between his index and middle finger where it belonged. He must have saved it from Liam’s grasp. “In Alla City, a lot of people do it.”

 

“Why?” Liam asked, completely confused as to how anyone could breathe that in.

 

“Because,” he shrugged, still smiling like a kitten with cream. “It calms you down.”

 

Liam looked at him doubtfully. He felt drained from the coughing fit so early in the morning. The back of his throat was raw from sucking in the cold air after the smoke. That was so silly, why did he do that? He knew enough not to breathe in smoke.

 

A firm hand rubbed along the top of his spine and he realised Spike hadn’t taken his hand away after thumping him on the back. The hand crept up warmly, splaying out across the back of his neck above his collar, under his hair, and curling around, fingertips behind one ear, thumb brushing below the other. Liam’s heart gave a heavy thud and he side-eyed the pale predator beside him tensely.

 

The fingers tightened and instantly, before he could stop it, his face was guided effortlessly towards Spike, like he had no control over his limp body, a puppy picked up by the scruff of its neck. Spike’s body felt warmer than Liam’s, especially compared to the cooled air, and a hand was on his thigh instantly, stroking under the warmth of his coat as Liam’s eyes flicked shut. Warm lips pressed against his own, dry and rough they rasped him as Spike kissed him, possessive hand firmly holding the back of his neck as a hot smoky tongue slipped against his own as the creek trickled obliviously on before them.

 

Flat of tongue slipped along his own and he breathed in sharply through his nose, cold air rushing down past his hot mouth. Eyes snapping open, he tugged away, caught by Spike’s firm grip on the back of his neck, which became firmer when he started to moved away. Liam frown and jerked his head away again, feeling the grip release instantly, and the hot smoky mouth on his own slip away.

 

Spike turned his head, his profile to Liam, raising the cigarette up to wet lips and taking a long intake of breath like nothing had happened, like Liam wasn’t sitting next to him trying to understand what had just happened to him. Liam’s tongue slipped out instinctively, swiping along his cooling lips quickly before his teeth bit started to anxiously nibble on his lower lip.

 

Spike smoked carelessly.

 

Liam didn’t say anything; all twisted up inside, his tongue dumb and stroked from kisses. He watched the birds drink and fluff their feathers with little body shakes and listened to Spike breathing beside him. His body was buzzing inside from the contact and that, that feeling of warmth, was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t want that with Spike. It turned him back to front in his head.

 

But now, with Spike ignoring him like he didn’t exist, he felt lonelier than he had in a long while. He felt almost abandoned. He hated this feeling most of all. Spike was the only touch he ever got with another person, but he couldn’t let it get mushed together in his head. Just because it was touch, it didn’t mean it was warmth. Those two things weren’t the same anymore. The Union had made that very clear to him. And Spike was the Union, wasn’t he?

 

Liam wanted to curl up with all the conflicting emotions tearing his body ragged. His lips tensed.

 

“I just wish you’d stop doing that,” Liam said suddenly, brows tense and hands in fists. It was true. He’d have everything almost settled, his ideas on everything and where he fit in this new world, all balanced like stacks of dishes on a tray in his unsure hands. And then Spike would touch him like that, or he’d be too nice, and his pale gentle claws would come smashing down on his tray and smash it all on the ground again with effortless graceful ease.

 

Spike puffed on his cigarette. “I’ll do what I want,” he said, his own lips tensed, the fullness gone as he petulantly mumbled his words.

 

The sun was rising, at the tops of the trees now and taking the edge of the cold. It was morning sun, blazingly bright and turning Spike’s hair iridescent when Liam stole glances at him.

 

Liam held his tongue for a few moments as Spike glared out into the trees that surrounded their sanctuary “I don’t know why you think you’re going to get a different reaction out of me,” he snapped, emotions blurring around inside like a whirlwind. Anger and pain and fear … mainly confusion. About the buzz in his stomach.

 

“I don’t care what reaction you have,” Spike snapped back, turning and baring his teeth as he talked, “you’re mine. If I want to kiss you, I will.”

 

Liam met his glare. His eyes were clouded in his steel calm face. He brought the cigarette to his lips and breathed in slowly, holding Liam’s gaze.

 

Liam huffed a cold laugh. “You can think it all you want, but you’ll never own me,” he said, his voice dangerous and quiet, “Ever. But, by all means, keep up your delusions if they make you happy.”

 

He could see Spike wasn’t actually at all happy with this cold backchat and it made his stomach wobble for a second, afraid of what might come.

 

A plume of smoke slipped from between his lips and slipped through their caught gazes. “Maybe a few more weeks in chains will help you see what level you’re on, farmer, cause you aren’t on mine.” Spike’s hand coiled around his wrist and cuff and held tight, even when Liam tried to pull it away. “How about blindfolded too? And gagged?”

 

Liam didn’t like the sound of that.

 

“In fact, why don’t I give you over to those soldiers who found you wandering around the camp,” Spike hissed at him, his voice sounding like an angry rattlesnake, “maybe they could show you your place.”

 

Liam’s eyes widened in fear and his heart leapt into his mouth as his entire body gave a frigid tense. He saw Spike’s eyes flicker with something close to regret before his wrist was released and blue eyes turned back to the trees.

 

Liam stayed silent, watching Spike without blinking, waiting for some sort of reassurance that Spike wouldn’t do that. He knew he wouldn’t, deep down, but being confronted with his nightmares left him gulping like a fish out of water.

Spike dropped the tiny butt of the cigarette to the damp dirt beside his foot and ground his boot into it, breaking it apart into little dry fragments. “That’s what I’ll do if you keep playing up,” he said without any real conviction, making Liam breathe a little easier.

 

Spike flicked a wide-eyed glance towards Liam, before his eyes jumped away when Spike realised he was being watched closely. Spike’s jaw worked for a second, like he was chewing on his tongue.

 

He looked towards Liam and sneered, but it was fake and transparent. “But if you behave, then I’ll have no need,” he continued, as if he was trying to smooth over his remark.

 

The little voice in his head that had told him not to look for the box, was now begging him to tell Spike that he’d behave, be good like Spike wanted, anything, not to be thrown to those… monsters. Liam knew it wouldn’t happen, if Spike could so easily turn him over to be eaten alive then he would have done it already, but the weak part of him, the tiny sliver of him that feared what was unreal in his nightmares, was badly shaken. He felt like his tiny platform of security was crumbling at the edges and he wanted to do something to get it back. He wanted to feel safe all over, even the easily scared parts of himself that had been leading his body recently.

 

He kept watching him and Spike’s jaw ticked at the scrutiny. He turned to Liam quickly. “What?”

 

“If you can do something like that,” Liam’s mouth said, not connected to his brain, “then you’re worse than I thought.”

 

Spike swallowed, bump in his throat jumping, but his face was set in stone. He didn’t answer.

 

“Are you?” Liam prodded.

 

“Am I what?” he snapped.

 

“Are you worse than I thought?”

 

Spike looked at him, mildly interested as he scrutinised Liam’s face, head tilted to the side. “Pet,” He said, smooth as ever, “you have no idea how bad I am.”

 

Liam watched him for a moment, before slowly raising an eyebrow, revealing all his doubts in that statement in one tiny facial tic. “Really,” he said blandly. “You know, you’ve very conflicted.”

 

Spike’s brows drew together. “Whaddya mean?”

 

“Sometimes you tell me that you’ll keep me safe, that I can trust you, and other times you tell me you’re bad as any other Unioner and that you’ll throw me to the wolves if I displease you.”

 

Spike erred for a second. A cloud of confusion crinkled his features before he stood up, indicating with his fingers for Liam to stand and follow. They followed their steps and walked back along damp dirt and crumpled leaves, heading out into long wet tipped grass again, trudging back towards the awakening camp. Smoke was starting to rise from the middle of the camp, the cooking fire, clouds of it puffing into the air in a plume. No food smells yet, no baking bread or sizzling sausage mince, but the smell of burning twigs and leaves was strong.

 

Some soldiers had risen, shiny bugs beetling around outside tents and carriages. They were all wearing more armour now, except for Spike, they all walked around in chest plates and with steel strapped to their arms.

 

When Spike spoke again, it took Liam a moment to understand what he was saying. “Not so conflicted. I’ll look after you when you obey me,” he said haughtily as he weaved his way through the flow of soldiers that had started to thicken in between the resting carriages.

 

Liam frowned, insanely baffled for a moment, before the sentence clicked in his brain and made sense. Spike was referring to what they’d talked about before. “Have you been thinking about that the whole time we were walking?” Liam asked as he stepped up close behind Spike.

 

Liam was suddenly clipped on the shoulder by a man’s hard steel arm, so hard he whirled, hand slapping against his upper arm where they’d connected. He instinctively looked up in surprise. Light brown eyes in a round face and a healed break in the nose creating a massive lopsided bulge in the bridge. He looked so familiar. The soldier narrowed hazel eyes for a second before sniffing and turning away, heading back into the throng and disappearing.

His mind was jerkily running through faces, trying to locate it as he turned and realised Spike was quite a few paces ahead of him. He sped up, suddenly much harder to navigate through the busy paths, getting jolted carelessly a few times. His mind was furiously trying to pin down the soldier’s face as Spike turned down a walkway ahead of him. Liam ducked between the carriages, stepping over the empty struts that the horses would be tied to, over the huge blocks that held the carts up and slipped back out into the flow to pop out in front of Spike.

Spike blinked at him in surprise and then turned around as if he expected to see another Liam standing obediently behind him. His blond head turned back and gave Liam a quick black look, lips tight as he shook his head. He covered the short distance between them quickly and took Liam’s wrist in hand with an exasperated sigh.

 

“How can I protect you,” he growled quietly, roughly tugging Liam along, “if you bloody insist on running off?!”

 

“I didn’t run off!” Liam said indignantly, “A Unioner walked into me and-“

 

He stopped. It suddenly pinged in his brain. Simple as that. The soldier.

 

It was the one that killed Del.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Spike hissed, stopping and turning around, “It would take two seconds for someone to see you wandering by yourself. Not everybody knows your mine yet, and those that do … they could easily pretend they didn’t know who you were and slip away with you.”

 

Liam couldn’t move for a second. The smoke of the camp became the smoke of Seget burning. The end of his battle played out in his mind in perfect clarity. He turned; he saw the soldier’s sword deep in Del’s gut. He could hear the cat cries of strangled pain amidst the clatter and clang of the fight, could see the soldier laughing, laughing with victory. He saw Del limply fall to the ground.

 

Spike was talking at him, and he could almost see the hackles rising underneath his skin. “You know what they do to slaves who wander off.”

 

Liam nodded dumbly, not even listening. Couldn’t listen, not to anything else but the roar of the battle. The thump Del’s body must have made as his big frame fell to the ground… it was lost in the noise. One in many.

 

“Are you even listening to me?”

 

Liam’s face grew hot and he turned away, lip wobbling for a second before he pushed it all down, down his throat like he could swallow the pain. A tiny tear slid down from his eye and he wiped it away, feeling a cold streak of wet under his lashes.

 

“What’s wrong?” Spike asked, his tone changed, still holding tight to his wrist.

 

He shook his head violently, thinning his lips. His eyes fluttered closed and he concentrated on making the swamping feeling pass.

Spike jerked his wrist insistently and he turned around, glaring at Spike for forcing him to reveal his reddening face. He sniffed so his nose wouldn’t run.

 

Spike pursed his lips in thought for a moment. He reached out quickly and wiped the wet track from Liam’s face with his thumb, doing it fast so Liam didn’t have time to object. Liam sighed.

 

“What happened?” Spike said, matter-of-factly.

 

“Nothing,” Liam said, sniffing again, feeling wet creeping in his nostrils, “I’m hungry. Why aren’t we eating?” He suddenly turned brattish and pouty and regretted it instantly. It was so hard to act normal; to keep his feelings in check when there were so many conflicting ones. And ones he didn’t want Spike seeing. He mourned softly for Del, a quick moment of remembrance.

 

There was silence for a moment, before Spike’s hand dutifully tugged him towards the campfire. “You’re always hungry,” he said, not unkindly, just a throwaway comment that was nice at its core, using it to pretend he hadn’t seen Liam’s weakness.

 

Liam was intensely grateful for that instant, and he followed Spike’s silvery head without objection.

 

 

*

 

 

Spike made an effort to take Liam out of the carriage every day for a walk. Liam was like a huge puppy that continually needed exercise, and attention too, otherwise he’d get antsy and grouchy and start getting in trouble. He was so simple in some ways. If Spike didn’t talk to him for a day or so, if he was too busy with his own amusements and too used to being alone, Liam would start toying with things, start snooping, start being a pain, just so Spike would speak up and tell him to stop, so he could have a little tantrum and they could argue.

 

Spike finally understood that. He’d wondered for a while, why Liam would poke at things and then be surprised when Spike called him on it. He’d thought he’d had some sort of mental problem for a few days when Liam had first started to settle in. But he just needed something. He was bored, Spike guessed. Maybe he just wasn’t used to being set aside when Spike wasn’t playing with him.

 

Spike had never kept a slave in his carriage. Not for this long. A few nights, a week at most. Never months. It was hard, but interesting.

Most slaves were falling over themselves to please him, especially after he showed them a little kindness, but Liam just took every present and nice word as a given, like it was the least that could be expected. He was so hard to break. Maybe if he’d treated him more roughly at first, or left him in those cages for a couple of days, not moved everything so fast…

 

But it was still working. Maybe not to the extent Spike would have liked, but it was still moving along. That morning, just a few mornings ago. Spike remembered it vividly, when he’d led Liam out into the woods, when he’d given him a smoke and he’d sputtered like a twelve year old and he’d looked at Spike like he’d been tricked into tasting something vile. That morning when he’d stolen some touches, and Liam had let him curl his hand around the back of his proud neck. He could still feel the heat of his skin, and the way it burned in comparison to the cold air, the bubble of excitement in his own stomach as, for a small moment, Liam had been his completely. Let Spike pull him close, let Spike kiss him. He’d even parted his lips for Spike’s tongue, and Spike had tasted him inside as he held him tightly, hands possessive on his neck and long thigh. Gods, how sweet he’d been, how much Spike’s bones had rattled to finally push him down and take him quickly, make him his own completely.

 

And when Liam had pulled away Spike had been satisfied with their progress, if a little disappointed that his pet refused to play, tasting Liam in his mouth along with his cigarette and feeling phantom warmth in his hands.

 

Liam poked his thigh and Spike blinked back to the present, cock humming from the past. He looked up to see Liam watching him from across their small campfire, away from the noise and eyes of the others. He was lit gold by the flames in the dark night enticingly and Spike marvelled at how satisfied he felt looking at him. Sharp dark lines could practically fill his stomach. He’d never need food again.

 

Liam raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t blinked for a very long time.”

 

Spike cleared his tight throat and bit into the roasted leg of lamb in his hand. “Just thinking,” he garbled through the meat. He grabbed a hot, herb dusted roll and tore a hunk off it with his teeth, cheeks full of food.

He looked to Liam, saw him sitting with a plate full of shredded meant and small bite sized hunks of bread. He grinned to himself at Liam’s eating habits. Never failed.

 

Liam gazed out into the trees, eyes flickering with flames as he sat on the firm log next to Spike and ate from his long fingers. He was dinner theatre for Spike. His hair was wet from the quick wash he’d had, and it was combed back, almost neatly, and tied with thread.

Spike shifted as he watched, accidentally knocking his sword from the log and onto the crumbled leaves below. Liam looked over at the sound and frowned. “Why are you bringing that everywhere?” he asked, indicating the sword as a puff of white bread slipped between his lips.

 

“This part of the flats,” Spike said, settling his sword against his knee, “they’re unmanned.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Means there’s thieves in the woods,” Spike said, grabbing his beer from the ground and chugging back a gulp.

 

Liam raised his eyebrows. “Is that why all your soldiers are wearing their armour again?”

 

Spike nodded.

 

“Are there lots of thieves?” he asked, eyes on Spike as he picked up a slice of meat and tore it into even smaller shreds before biting them from his fingers.

 

Spike’s gaze rested on Liam’s wet lips. “A few,” his gaze ticked up to night-black eyes amusedly. “Are you scared, herder beast?”

 

Liam frowned, “no. Just wondering. Why do they only live here?”

 

“Because it’s unmanned,” Spike repeated, like Liam wasn’t listening.

 

“So they can’t live in manned areas?”

 

“Course not, they’d be killed.”

 

“So if you don’t want them here, why don’t you make it a manned area?” Liam said logically.

 

“Not enough men.”

 

“Not enough men for a manned area?” Liam parroted.

 

“No.”

 

Liam nodded and, apparently satisfied, turned back to his dinner. Spike shook his head a little.

 

They finished their food in silence, Spike done long before Liam’s slow eating, already poking twigs into the small warming fire to entertain himself by the time Liam had put his plate aside. Liam licked his lips, content and practically purring, and cast an unsubtle eye at Spike, obviously looking for dessert.

 

Spike smiled and reached into his coat pocket pulling out a small flat card box containing the two special treats he’d been keeping for a little while. He opened it and pulled out the two patterned inner boxes, handing one to Liam. Liam took it eagerly, opening it up. He stared at it for a moment, before poking it with his finger and drawing back a chocolate and mint covered digit and slipping it into his mouth, innocently sensuous. Spike watched that happily before he opened his own, picking up the mini chocolate cake, his fingers slipping on the slick chocolate and mint sauce that the treat was drenched in, and bit into the moist pastry.

 

Liam was buzzing happily beside him. Spike wondered what would happen when they got back to Alla and Liam saw the cakes you could get there. Some were masterpieces.

He’d probably explode.

 

When Liam had finished, and was scraping the inside of the carton with his finger, catching all the sauce that he could possibly get, Spike stood and gathered their things. The camp had quietened; it was well past midnight. They’d stopped late, trying to make better time, aiming for a quick travel through the unmanned lands. They’d started cooking late at night; hungry men lined up in long chains for food, and now they were all off to rest for the early start in the morning.

 

“Come on,” Spike said to him, noting a tiny chocolate smear on the corner of his mouth.

 

He doused the fire and left them in blackness, and they picked their way through the trees and the clinging branches of the surrounding wood until they reach the haphazard, rock spotted camp. Small little bugs zipped around in the air annoyingly and Spike swatted them away from his face quickly as they walked, feeling them ping off his cheeks and forehead every so often. They were there for the scraps of food he guessed, or maybe they were there for the horses. Bloody annoying whatever they were.

 

They walked back through the mostly empty camp, a few soldiers were still packing things away before they headed off, and went to Spike’s carriage. As soon as he was inside, Liam kicked his boots off and collapsed into his bed, sleepy full from the huge meal as he lazily pulled the covers up to his chin. He lay still, his breathing settling as Spike slowly unlaced his boots. He slipped his feet from them in the dark, listening to the meditating sound of Liam’s breath and shucked his clothes off, bare-assed for a moment, balls freezing as he searched for some sleep pants in the chest beside his bed. The floor was freezing; he could feel the wood sucking the heat from his feet as he crouched.

He yanked out a pair of black pants and pulled them on. They were a little loose, as everything seemed to be at the moment and Spike absently wondered if he’d lost weight as he climbed onto his bed, tasting echoes of chocolate and mint on his tongue.

 

He listened as Liam’s breathing deepened, long pulls of innate breath that soothed Spike as he listened to it. He’d fallen asleep quickly. He heard a few more light thumps from outside as the soldiers loaded up a cart and then nothing. No footsteps. No voices. Only his pet sleeping peacefully.

 

He closed his eyes and tried to bring sleep but he was wide-awake. He stared at the dark roof for a while, listened to the wind for a time. Tried to count sheep. He couldn’t get comfortable. Something was niggling painlessly at the back of his neck. A pressure, but nothing physical. Same in his lower belly. Nothing he could pin point but…

He sat up. He probably just needed to pee.

 

Sighing, he slipped his feet out of bed and back into his boots, throwing a loose long sleeve shirt on he left Liam slumbering in the corner and closed the door carefully behind him, not wanting to wake his pretty creature if he didn’t have to. He trotted across the ghostly empty camp, pausing for a moment when he realised he’d forgotten his sword, but continuing along anyhow. He snorted, plumes of smoke puffing from his nostrils. He didn’t really think bandits would try to rob a regiment like this. They’d have to be suicidal.

 

He slipped to the edge of the woods, his nose itching for a sneeze as he smelt piss dampening the trees and the ground. He slid along the trees a little to get away from the well used spot, lazily following the line of the woods, stepping over a few laying rocks and dead logs. Further away from the camp now, he paused, looking back at it and then into the darkness in front of him. The trees were thick here, close together like they were supporting each other. The sky was only just visible through the tangled leaves above.

He shrugged and stepped into the wood, hooking a thumb around his waistband and tugging it down, pulling himself out and gazing up into the patches of starry sky visible as the pressure inside built and released.

 

He sighed and closed his eyes.

 

A second passed and his eyes opened again slowly, his chin tilting up fractionally for the thin cold point of steel that was suddenly resting dangerously against his throat. His heart started pounding in his chest. His eyes slid to the side and he saw a girl, wild eyed and skeletal looking, dark hair madly down around her face.

For a moment Spike crazily thought she was a banished wood spirit. She hadn’t made a sound, not a step or a breath she was the wind and Spike hadn’t heard her.

 

She was tall, as tall as Spike himself, and she held the sword up firmly, lips set so tightly together it looked as if she had none at all.

 

“Hello pet,” Spike said smoothly, ignoring the thump-thump of his heart in his throat, “what’s your name?”

 

“Take me to the camp!” she hissed crazily in a strong accent. A mountain girl, not a slave, no collar or cuffs. Straight and sharp. She wore dirty country clothes, a long beige tunic with stains all over it, under a coat that was way too large for her and men’s boots that were pooling around her thin calves.

 

“Sorry luv,” Spike said calmly, “can’t stop once I’ve started, you know?” he said, indicating down as he continued to piss against the tree.

 

The girl’s black eyes flicked down to his cock in his hand and the sharply back up, erring for a second, her plan disrupted and making her flounder for a moment. She was scared out of her mind. “Hurry!” she said, her voice a hiss through dry cracked lips.

 

He finished with the sword jabbing uncomfortably into his neck, the girl’s arms starting to jitter from holding it up for so long, and tucked himself away slowly, turning with a benevolent smile. “Now, what’s the problem, ducks? What’s got you all fired up?”

 

She narrowed her eyes angrily and jabbed him lightly in the neck, slicing the skin. He felt blood run down his neck but he didn’t show the sting on his face, continued to smile benignly. Her lips were pulled back like a wild thing, her teeth square and horsy looking.

 

“Take me to the camp, you fuck!”

 

Spike shrugged, “Anything you want, luv.”

 

She swallowed. An owl hooted overhead and the girl’s hyper attention was snagged, gasping and almost jumping out of her skin. Spike struck instantly, reaching out and slamming the side of the girl’s frail head against a tree trunk. The sword fell from her fingers and she slumped, would have fallen if not for Spike’s arms winding around her thin body and easily hoisting her up.

 

“Sorry luv,” he said, bending to grab the sword. She moaned lightly, a pitiful mewling thing in his arms as he carried her back to camp.

 

He brought her to his cabin, clumsily opening the door through the stick limbs in his arms and putting her on the floor. He lit the swinging oil lamp and grabbed the medical case from under his bed, hauling out a mirror and looking at the slice on his neck. “Damn rebels,” he grumbled, dabbing the cut with a cleaning solution. It stung and he winced.

 

Liam mumbled something as he woke up, and Spike looked at him in the reflection of the mirror. He was staring at the limp girl on the floor dumbly, still half asleep. “What?” he said.

 

“Rebel,” Spike said, turning and looking over his shoulder, “Go back to sleep.”

 

Spike stood up and the girl moaned lightly, half-dazed and not alert. Spike started as Liam suddenly let out a high pitched yelp and darted forward, tumbling out of his bed and tripping on the covers, landing on his knees painfully and not even noticing, scurrying frantically towards the girl.

 

“What are you doing?” Spike asked, baffled.

 

He scooped the girl up into his arms, kneeling, pulling her onto his lap like a baby and cradling her head. His cuffs were bright silver pressed against the dark hair in a matted mess down the thin back. “Areyoualrightcat?” he whispered wildly, clutching her to him so tightly Spike thought the frail thing might snap in his thick arms. “Cat-speaktome.”

 

Spike took a hesitant step forward. “Liam?”

 

Liam looked up, eyes red and wet under the light the oil lamp was covering him with. The limp girl was held tightly in his arms, her long dark hair falling down as her face rested against Liam’s shoulder. “Whahappened?”

 

Spike blinked, not understanding. “She … attacked me?”

 

Liam buried his face in the girl’s neck, arms tensing around her. “Stupid,” he muttered, sniffing wetly, “Stupid stupid stupid! Never obey a damn thing!”

 

Spike knew with abrupt clarity that he was looking at two siblings. The girl was Liam’s sister and she’d attacked him, tried to get him to take her to Liam. She must have followed them. All the way from Seget?

 

He shook his head dumbly.

 

How did she survive? How did she not get caught all this time? She’d waited… she’d waited for that long, biding her time, and sprung him when he was alone and vulnerable. She did it to save Liam.

Spike was stupefied.

 

“She’s followed us all the way?” he asked slowly.

 

Liam didn’t answer, he was muttering in Kat’s ear.

 

The absolute conviction that was in her little body. Intensity and belief bordering on madness. He was astounded and floored and a little awed by her all at once. How had she done it? If she had actually followed hundreds of trained soldiers across the bloody country, how did none of them notice she was there? Watching them? He hadn’t heard her come up on him. She was a ghost. She could have killed him if it weren’t for the owl chancing overhead; some tiny mountain girl just looking for her brother could have killed him with a stolen sword.

 

He couldn’t think properly.

 

“What’s going to happen?” Liam sniffed, holding her, hunching his body around her possessively.

 

Spike blinked stupidly. “She’s a prisoner,” he said blearily, like he was drunk and not thinking straight. “I’ll take her to Commander tonight.”

 

“No!” Liam screeched.

 

“Settle!” Spike said, taken aback.

 

Liam stepped up, wild eyed and looking so much like his sister in the woods that Spike wondered how he could have missed the similarities. He knew Liam’s pretty face better than his own at this point, it was all he ever saw any more.

 

“You can’t give her in,” he said frantically, breathing like his heart was stopping, “they’ll make her a slave!”

 

Spike blinked. “Well… yeah,” he said, not following.

 

Liam shook his head, so worried and vulnerable he was shaking a little. “She can’t be a slave. Never.”

 

“It’s law,” Spike said, the words garbling out of his mouth as he cast a glance at the girl’s body and wondering where all the strength inside her lay.

 

Liam grabbed his shoulders roughly, glaring down at him, slamming Spike back into real time. “No… you’re not doing it.”

 

Spike knocked his hands away angrily. “You don’t give orders here,” he hissed. “She attacked me, if it were any other soldier? She’d be bloody dead, Liam. Be happy she’s still breathing.”

 

“I don’t care,” he cried, voice sliding up high pitched, “you have to help her!”

 

“I don’t have to do anything for her! Except give her over for collaring.”

 

Liam looked at his sister and then back to Spike. “Please,” he said, voice cracking brokenly as he closed his eyes. “Just let her go.”

 

“It’s not up to me,” Spike said, grabbing Liam’s collar and yanking him forward, forcing him to look him in the eye, “There is no choice here. She is a prisoner now. Tell her not to act up and she’ll be fine.”

 

“She won’t be fine!” he cried, coiling his hand around Spike’s and trying to pull him away weakly, his lips trembling as everything rattled through him. “It won’t be fine!”

 

His hand pressed against his face like he was trying to force himself to calm down.

Spike swallowed, his throat sore. He let go of Liam’s collar and watched him practically tremble on his feet.

 

Liam was watching their feet. “Please,” he said, eyes flicking up quickly before flitting away. He swayed forward and kissed Spike chastely on the mouth, a tiny peck with sad lips. Spike’s stomach flipped but he felt empty when Liam drew away a moment later, like he’d sucked Liam’s sadness into his body this time, instead of only his heat.

 

“Please,” Liam said again, eyelashes wet and silvery as he watched the ground. “I’ll never ask anything else from you.”

 

Spike watched him, blood hot in his heart. He glanced at the girl, dark haired, such a massive part of Liam, laying limply on the floor and then back to his herder, looking at him with red rimmed eyes, achingly beautiful at the height of his sad passion, emotions splitting him apart. So alive with unhidden emotion that Spike felt dead on his feet in the face of it.

 

Sympathiser his mind hissed. He could remember what he’d done to sympathisers in the past. He remembered very well.

 

Liam watched him pleadingly, his entire life held out for Spike’s hands. The minutes ticked by so quickly, Spike could almost feel time rushing past him. He was confused by his actions. He couldn’t do anything to help her, there wasn’t any leeway, she had to be collared, she was an opposer. That was true. There was no denying it, she’d held a bloody sword to his neck, could’ve killed him.

 

So why hadn’t he taken her to Commander yet?

 

Do it now, the knowing voice inside said do it now before it’s too late!

 

He nodded; looking up and catching Liam’s intense gaze, feeling it burn through him like a fire through dead forest. He slowly nodded again.

 

He had to do what he had to do.

 

---

 

Chapter Thirteen – Resolve

 

 

 

She felt so light in his arms. She was made of sticks and cloth and it scared him, but seeing her just made a heavy burn of heat rip through him, made his eyes sting with tears and made him unable to swallow past the lump in his throat.

He looked up at Spike furtively, stealing a glance through cold wet eyelashes and saw him standing there, as statue still as he had been for the past hour-minutes that had whipped past them. He looked as skeletal as Kat in the oil lamplight; gaunt and hollowed out as he stared at Liam like a starving icy beast, eyes sharp with thought, stinging Liam’s skin as they bored into him.

 

Kat moaned blearily and Liam’s attention was snagged, and he looked at the limp girl in his arms and brushed her thin ratty hair back. “Shh,” he whispered past the lump in his throat, “It’ll be alright.”

 

Her eyes slitted open, dark lines of familiar black brown and he hugged her with a keening sob, his brain being washed clean of thought with old memories, of their life, his old life unlocking from its quashed down place in his heart with Kat in his arms. He remembered strolling the paddocks with her as the sun set, slowly walking their sheep to safer fields as the wind blew their hair. He remembered taking her to Vara Town’s markets. He remembered finding her kissing Celis behind the inn, their young faces pressed together with fervent clumsiness and the way he’d embarrassed her by pulling them apart and how she refused to speak to him for a week after. He remembered the freedom he’d had then. The choice. Kat was all of that in the life she represented. It was a swamp of memories, sticky mud that caught him and wouldn’t let him move away.

His collar pressed against her neck and into his own from the position. Her face was dirty and when her eyes opened more she looked dazed, completely confused. She mumbled something that sounded like his name and as he hugged her tightly again, he fearfully looked up at Spike, his only master for this moment, his only choice, the only thing, more important than breathing for these seconds as he held Liam’s soul in his thin fingered hands, watching his charges with the intense overseeing eye of a god.

 

He turned away and Liam sucked in a breath, smelling the sweaty scent of Kat’s hair, cradling her in his arms as she made no move to try to leave the embrace. Her fingers tightened weakly on him and she whispered his name in his ear.

 

Please help. Please be good, he prayed fervently, focusing his energy on the back of Spike’s silvery head.

 

Spike paced back and forward for a moment, a pacing lion, his lean body moving with angry quick jerks and the uncertainty was ripping Liam apart.

 

“Liam,” Kat cried suddenly, shuddering a little and wrapping her insect arms tightly around his neck, tapered girl fingers curling around his collar.

 

“Shush…” he whispered, petting her beautiful knotted hair, trying to untangle it gently.

 

Spike was a bundle of intensity. The air around him crackled and rolled like thunder. He hadn’t said a word for years. His face was tense and vacant, coldly closed up like an empty abandoned home.

 

“Spike?” Liam barked, his voice cracked and raspy with his nervousness.

 

Spike turned slowly, his eyes raising from the floor to meet Liam’s own, and Liam had to look away from the power in the glare, his heart thudding a rapid beat against Kat’s chest.

 

“Get her up,” Spike said with forced calm.

 

Liam paused before swallowing and standing, bringing the shadow of his sister with him, all clinging arms and grasping fingers.

Spike took a step towards them and Kat suddenly lashed out, swiping her hand at Spike’s face and dragging her tiny ragged claws down his cheek as Liam stood, dumbstruck and horrified. Spike whirled away and Kat yelled and Liam grabbed her arms in terror.

 

Blue eyes snapped back to them, glaring at his sister over the top of a scratched cheek, blossoms of blood bubbling along the dug in tracks cut into the stone statue.

Liam looked away from the cuts, trying not to acknowledge them, and wrapped his arms around her body tightly, gritting his teeth together until they ached as he waited for Spike to pass judgement.

 

Spike sighed harshly, pressing his fingertips against the tracks on his cheek.

 

“Fucking donkey’s ass!” Kat hissed from Liam’s arms, never one to let sleeping lions lie.

 

Liam’s insides clenched a little.

 

Spike closed his eyes tightly and pressed his fingers to his cheek again. “Hold her, would you?” he said through tense lips.

 

Liam nodded quickly.

 

Spike turned and wrenched open the trunk near the door, pulling out paper and a small lacquered box of something. He muttered as he knelt down on the floor hurriedly, writing on the papers and then pulling a wax stick from the box and stepping up onto the bed. He raised his arm to melt the wax end in the oil lamp and sealed the papers closed with a golden press stamp, making a signature in thick red wax.

 

“Liam!” Kat hissed, trying to turn her head to look at him as he held onto her firmly.

 

Spike stood, shoving the papers into a small leather bag, his face was closed off, his jaw jutted forward. He reached under the bed and pulled out a leather travelling cloak with a union symbol on the front breast.

He turned to them; his face lined with tension, making him look ten years older than he was.

 

“Let her go.”

 

Liam’s arms obeyed him before his mind even really heard the order, so willing he was to comply. Kat whirled around and looked at him, the confusion in her eyes breaking his heart.

 

Spike shoved the cloak at her, and she turned in a whirlpool of dark hair, pushing his hand away. “You followed us this far, do you have a horse?”

 

Liam stepped up beside them both, his body weak with the hope that Spike might help her. Kat glared at him with a twisted sneer.

 

“Answer him Kat,” Liam said softly.

 

Kat paused. “Yes.”

 

“Good. Take this,” he said, offering the Union coat again

 

“What?” she squawked, her face crunching up, “I don’t want anything fr-“

 

“Fucking mountain folk,” Spike cried exasperatedly, shoving it into her dirty hands, “Just take the bloody coat, for the fucking gods’ sakes!”

 

She took it after the explosion of loud harsh words, holding it gingerly in her fingers, glancing at Liam with worried eyes.

 

“Wear it. Never take it off,” Spike said, grabbing the leather satchel from the bed. “Clean yourself up, and brush your hair. Were you heading somewhere?”

 

She looked confused, about the coat, about the question, everything, her body still jumbled up and back to front from the shock. Her eyebrows drew together and Spike sighed impatiently.

 

“Before you followed him,” he said slowly, eyes widening like he was talking to a child as he indicated Liam, “you were going somewhere? A safe place. You weren’t in the battle, you’d already left … through some back way… with the other young ones.”

 

“Yes,” she spat, “I was going somewhere. But I’ll never tell you where. Never.”

 

“I don’t care. I want you to head there, wear the coat, take the bag. If you were headed south, follow the roads and towns as long as you can, if you were going west, follow the rivers. If anyone questions you, tell them you’re in employment of High General Spike, that you’ve been entrusted to deliver an important letter. Show them the scrolls with my seal, and tell them I gave you this.” He held out his hand and handed her a small gold clothes pin. “It’s a symbol of who I am, and what I mean. You’d have to be close to a general to know what that means to others. Don’t lose it.”

 

Kat looked at the pin resting benignly on her smudged palm. She looked up again, uncertainly, and flicked her gaze to Liam. Liam watched her, legs weak, only half realising what Spike was saying. Help. He would help her…

Was he dreaming?

 

Kat looked back to Spike with hard eyes. “I came for Liam,” she whispered, closing her hand tightly around the pin, knowing what it meant now, “I’m not leaving here without him.”

 

Liam cast a furtive glance at Spike but the blue eyes weren’t fixed on him for once. His intimidating eyes were set fiercely on Kat’s face but she was so buzzed by the moment that she didn’t back down from it.

 

“Liam belongs to me now,” he said, as Liam’s eyes fell like stones to the ground, “I’m not helping you because I believe in the plight of the abused mountain people, I’m helping you because now Liam will understand what it means to belong to me.”

 

Liam looked up at his name and saw Spike watching him. A deal had been struck. He knew Spike was helping Kat in exchange for … his will. He was choosing to stay now, by asking Spike to help Kat. He locked eyes with Spike and nodded once, eyes fluttering closed after the gesture. He felt like a piece of himself was suddenly adrift.

 

“No,” Kat said.

 

Liam grabbed her arm and took the bag from Spike, hooking it over her shoulder.

 

“No!” Kat said again, as Liam took hold of her shoulder with his other hand, steering her towards the door. “I’m not leaving without you!”

 

“Yes you are, I’m fine here.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’ll take you back to your horse,” Spike said.

 

“Fuck you,” Kat said to him, voice rising into shrill.

 

“Put on the coat Kat,” Liam said firmly.

 

Her face screwed up like she was about to start bawling and Liam scooped her up in his arms, hugging her tight. “Just for now, kitten,” he whispered lowly, his eyes locked with Spike’s cool blue gaze. “I’ll come for you.”

 

He felt her chin press against his shoulder in a slight nod. She’d heard him.

She believed him.

 

She pulled away from him and he could see Spike watching him over her shoulder. She nodded barely, and turned, flipping the coat on without looking at the Union man. Casting one last glance back to him, she let Spike ushered her swiftly out the door, closing it behind him.

 

Liam breathed out slowly for a second, heart still racing as he stared at the closed door to his keep. His facade exhausted and he sunk down on wobbling knees, falling to Spike’s plush down bed. He slumped onto it, the feathers in the mattress offering comfort as they swallowed his inert body.

 

He stared at the roof, at the oil lamp that still swayed slightly from Spike and Kat leaving the carriage. Light bounded over the walls and Liam’s eyes blurring over, his nose wetting as he closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his cheeks. The water ran tracks down to his ears and he didn’t bother wiping them, silently letting them spill as his lips twisted down.

 

He couldn’t even think. Kat. His Kat. He’d lost her again and it hurt just as much this time, maybe even more. He’d never see her again. A hug and a few whispered words and she was gone.

 

He heard the door open and it seemed like only seconds had passed since Spike had left with his sister. He raised his steel filled head and looked at him with sore wet eyes, seeing his white head bowed as closed the door behind him.

 

Spike looked at him and Liam closed his eyes again, letting his head fall back to the soft mattress, unable to look at him.

 

“She had a horse?” Liam asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did it have a white nose?” he asked quietly, wondering abstractly if she’d been with Milly all this time.

 

“Yes,” Spike said, the bed dipping as he sat down.

 

It was Milly. It made another tear leak down his cheek, sadly grateful that Milly was with her. She’d ride Milly to freedom in Southbrook, because of Spike. He should have asked Kat what had happened. If Cordy was alright, if they’d made it. Had Kat sneaked from them in the middle of the night? Tracked down the Union procession? Or had they all been killed by a Union cleaning party or another regiment, and Kat had been the only survivor? How could she go on alone?

 

“Will she be alright?” he bleated into the dark, opening his eyes to stare at the roof some more as he waited for lifeless comfort.

 

The bed dipped again, sharply, as Spike stood up on the covers, looming in his sight. His arm reached out to poke a thin white cigarette into the flames of the oil lamp. He thudded back onto the bed and the sharp smell of burning filled Liam’s nostrils.

 

“She’ll be okay,” Spike said softly, dragging deeply on the cigarette.

 

They stayed on the bed in silence for a moment. “Thank you,” Liam said, a broken sob slipping out with his words, causing a few tears to streak down his face. “For –“

 

“Not now,” Spike said tersely, not in Liam’s tunnel vision at the moment, his voice floating with the smoky smell.

 

Liam stifled another sob, closing his eyes tightly and rolling to the side, unable to bear Spike chancing a look at him in his state. He mourned for his loss, his old life, his only family, teased in front of him long enough to open all his closed up wounds and then taken away again. His stung, all over, and the emotion of it all was leaking down his cheeks.

He curled himself up on the feather bed, face to the wall, not strong enough to go to his own bed on the floor, feeling completely drained and empty and alone, apart from the strong scent of burning tobacco that was slowly filling the carriage, strong enough to fill his lungs as well as Spike’s.

 

He’d never smelled that in his old life. His free life. When he could choose to go for a walk by himself if he was sad, out into the paddocks with his sheep maybe, or over to the lake. He’d taken it for granted. Now he had to try to force away his sobs or let Spike’s power take hold of him a little more in his unprotected state.

 

“She must have been good at tracking,” Spike said quietly, his voice almost lost under the thudding beat of Liam’s heart booming in his hot ears.

 

Liam’s lips felt puffed up and numb from crying. He nodded, not even knowing if Spike was looking at him, unable to put his voice behind the words.

 

“I can’t believe what I just did,” Spike said to himself, a whisper that teased across Liam’s skin with its uncertainty. Spike was always so sure about everything. He was unfaltering, it’s what made him so commanding. Liam rolled his head to look at him, seeing his white head bowed as he sat slumped on the side of the bed.

 

The sliver of weakness was gone in an instant and Spike turned to him, assessing him over again, gazing at his sticky face until Liam shied away. He owed Spike.

He shuddered at the thought.

This thing, this man he was supposed to hate had given him what he’d asked for, let Kat go at expense to himself. He couldn’t hate him. Kat was his hope. How could he hate him after that?

He felt twisted up inside, like he was filled with balled cloth.

 

He’d bobbed like a cork on water for so long, half between freedom and slavery, saying he’d never give in, so he’d be able to retain at least some of himself from before Seget died. Who was he now?

 

“If anyone saw me do that…” Spike said strangely, turning to him again with unreadable blue, his face still drawn and skeletal looking, “They’ll kill me, and hang me in the street as warning.”

 

Liam blinked with cold puffy eyelids. “Why?”

 

“Because now I’m a sympathiser,” he said looking down. “I helped the enemy. And now I… am the enemy.”

 

“What?”

 

Spike didn’t answer. The oil was running low in the lamp, the flame dying a little.

 

“Who would tell?”

 

Spike glanced up distantly, like his thoughts were different from their talking. “Anybody. If they saw. It’s our duty.”

 

“She wasn’t a prisoner,” Liam said with a small sniff, sitting up, “She’s never fought against the Union. No one will know she opposes you. She doesn’t have a collar or cuffs.”

 

“Any extraneous townspeople who agree to Union rule,” he said blandly, reciting something from somewhere, “must be turned in for cataloguing. She won’t have the Mark on her wrist if anyone asks to see it. They’ll know she’s a farmer from her voice. And she’s wearing my things and she has my identifiers. If they figure it out, they’ll know I helped her.”

 

Liam let that sink in. He paused before he spoke. “I’ll never tell anyone,” he said hesitantly, offering slight solace, a tiny bit of protection. Something bound them together now. Spike had gone against the Union and Liam could see he was still troubled by it. Maybe he hadn’t properly thought it out.

 

Spike turned his pale head and looked at him under the dimming light. He seemed to take the words in stride, hardly reacting to them at all. His hair turned gold for an instant, a glow as the light died and flickered out without a sound. There was no moon, he couldn’t see him anymore, but he could hear his breathing, and smell it, still smoky and hot from the cigarette.

 

He felt braver now, now there were no hot and cold eyes watching him so closely.

 

“You didn’t have to help me,” he said to the dark shadow that was vaguely Spike. Liam nibbled on his tongue for a moment, nervously; his cheeks still streaked with cold wet.

 

“No,” Spike said. “But now you’re mine.”

 

Liam paused before he spoke, steeling his nerve. “I couldn’t have left you either way,” he pointed out.

 

“Might be a trick,” the dark said slinkily, “might have given her over as soon as we stepped outside. Might have killed her.”

 

“You didn’t,” Liam said back, almost tired from all the emotion rattling through him, leaving him unable to close his mouth and stop talking, numbly afraid he might say something he couldn’t take back, not guarded the way he should be around this man, his enemy of enemies. “Why do you always want me to think you’re a bad person?”

 

“You think I’m good then, pet?” In the darkness, a hand rose up to his wet face, startling him as it stroked a thumb across his cheek, wiping the cool tears away. Lips gently pressed against his mouth and he closed his eyes. Hands slid around his waist warmly. His body was screaming for it, to be touched, comforted, trying to get his heart to warm up the icy hollow Kat had left in his chest all over again. He’d never needed solace so badly in his life and now he only had Spike to give it to him, in his harsh smug way, a strange thing he didn’t understand with his cold casual cruelty and his sometimes soft touches. Another tear slid down his cheek and a small sob huffed into Spike’s mouth. Liam’s meekly grateful hand crept to Spike’s knee, a flood of wrong and right spinning confusingly in his brain, a wave of tears sliding down his cheeks and between their lips until their tongues were salty as they slid along each other.

 

Teeth bit down on his lower lip and Spike pulled away. “Not good, not bad. And I don’t care what you think,” he said from the cover of black. “Go to bed.”

 

Liam sat still for a moment, heart in his throat, before sliding off the bed and heading to his own. His mouth was hot with smokey tongue and it soothed him in a strange way. He curled up in his nest and pulled the sheets up to his chin, weak from the night, half-hoping he was still just dreaming.

 

 

*

 

 

“Don’t even try, Jac,” Spike sneered, leaning down close to the terrified man’s sweaty face as he sat bound up in the chair, “we all saw you.”

 

The burning torches lit up the large empty room brightly, heating the air and making it heavy. It made the group of soldiers sticky under their armour as they all stood in a half circle in front of the lone chair.

 

“No,” Jac said through his bloodied mouth, shaking his head, hands pulling at the ropes binding him to the chair arms, “it was someone else, Spike, I swear it!”

 

Spike turned with a smile, facing the other soldiers, all standing gleaming and uncontrollable in their armour and orange bands. “Matt,” he said, smelling the heavy ale on his own breath as he addressed a soldier who was prodding his sword into the ruined floorboards, “were you mistaken?”

 

“About what?” Matt drawled slowly, pretending he hadn’t been following the conversation as he looked up with his watery eyes.

 

“Well, Jac here says he wasn’t the one helping the villagers get onto that raft when we were sacking Mino Village…”

 

Matt raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Really… well if it wasn’t him… it must’ve been someone that looked an awful lot like him. And sounded like him…”

 

“What about you, Thi?” he said to a brown haired junior lieutenant at the other end of the line of soldiers, “Do you think we have the wrong person?”

 

“No, Spike,” he said, tight lipped and stern, not finding the fun the other soldiers had in taunting a anguished snake. His light brown eyes burned with hate. “I don’t think we do.”

 

Spike turned back to Jac, making a show of fixing his orange armband, his status as a junior lieutenant. “I don’t think we do, either,” Spike said, face cold and hard.

 

He backhanded Jac across the mouth suddenly; hitting him so hard the chair toppled backwards, his skull hitting the choppy dirty floorboards with a crack. He moaned sickly.

 

Spike strode over to him, grabbing his thin blond hair and yanking his head up from the ground in an awkward angle. “You’re filth,” he hissed, “You help the people who plan to overthrow the Union and everything we stand for, who would kill our children and our brothers to let their chaos spread across the country like a disease.”

 

He stood with a flourish, yanking his sword out of the floorboards, splintering the wood some more in his haste.

 

“Stick him Spike,” Thi whispered from behind him, “hurt the Sympathiser.”

 

Muscles buzzing with adrenaline, Spike’s hand tensed around the familiar hilt of his sword.

 

“He is one of Them now…” Matt said clearly, “I want him to bleed, for all the Union lives he’s taken.”

 

Spike rammed the sword into Jac’s thigh, feeling it slide through the muscle as he screamed, sweat beaded all over his shiny red face. The men behind him broke into cruel hollers, whooping as Jac’s chest rose and fell with such quick short breaths it looked like it was vibrating. Spike looked apathetically at his face, appraising it, the light blue eyes and the pale eyebrows, so blond and blanched they were almost invisible.

 

The men crowded around him at the sight of the blood that poured from Jac’s thigh. Spike slid the sword out and stabbed it experimentally into Jac’s belly. He squealed, high and in his nose, eyes bulging like a drowning man. The blood that slipped out around the silver blade was dark and almost black. The smell of it sizzled in the hot air.

 

“Let me do one,” Thi said, raising his sword.

 

 

*

 

 

 

Spike woke up in a hot sweat, the heat of the room all those years ago was high in his cheeks and forehead, and he could smell that soldier’s blood in his nostrils. His feet kicked the blankets from his body quickly, impatiently and he swallowed past the rising bile in his throat.

 

He wiped the sweat from his chin and lip, body shivering with hot and cold. He was going to vomit. He sat up abruptly, swallowing, belly shaking and weak. He leant his head back against the wall and let his mouth fall open like a dog’s, letting the cold air in.

 

He mouthed the word, not giving voice to it. Sympathiser. That’s what Jac had been. That’s what he was now.

 

No! No not really. He wasn’t like Jac, what had happened to Jac would not happen to him because they weren’t the same. Spike believed in the Union. He did. The Union was his life, he’d devoted himself to it, had his entire faith in its’ discipline.

 

But the things they’d done to him.

The group of them, all young, Spike the youngest at seventeen. Some higher lieutenants who had authorised the Retribution had come in and taken a turn while Jac was still breathing. And afterwards they’d all hung his sagging body on one of the justice poles in the main street of Alla City in between two dead slaves, letting him swing outside the Governor’s home. He’d been naked apart from the orange band bound around his ankles, to show everyone that he’d been stripped completely of his dignity for being a betrayer.

 

Spike could hear the small hurruphs of Liam’s breathing and his mouth tasted sour.

 

Jac had woken him up a few times in his life since that night. He didn’t wish he hadn’t killed him, Sympathisers were worse than the opposers themselves because of their sly actions and lies. A Sympathiser could rise through the ranks and attack from within, which is why they were so hated.

But he wished for something. He regretted it, and it haunted him. Especially the blood. Blood had never smelled so bitter.

 

His stomach gave a violent little shudder, leaving him with a weak feeling seeping all the way through his limbs. He slowly rubbed at his eye with two fingers, feeling the skin move around saggily, sweat stinging into his eye. He stood up, pulling his boots over his feet, throwing his coat on and leaving the seemingly too hot room for the cool outside.

The wind was so icy it had pinprick fangs, and he wrapped his coat around himself tightly, the leather valiantly trying to keep the sharp wind off his bare arms as he walked.

 

His face was stung instantly, and he slowly picked his way silently through the camp under the moonless sky, heading nowhere, circling aimlessly. He was still numb about what he’d done. Helped that girl, Liam’s sister. Kat. Kat. She’d attacked him. She’d disrespected him and tried to steal his property.

He shook his head, heading into a patch of longish grass, hitting the rising grass seed flowers with the palms of his outstretched hands.

 

As he walked he could taste Liam, still ghosting in his mouth, the sweet taste of his tongue. The salt of his tears as he’d cried with Spike against him. From being touched by him.

 

Spike ripped a grass flower off its long stalk, crumpling it to dust in his palm.

 

Liam could almost dampen a man’s ego by doing things like that.

 

He kicked at the grass with his boot.

 

His body was tight, all over. He could really use a shag right now, a long slow hard one. Something to take the edge off. Or maybe a wet mouth on his cock, an eager slippery licking tongue and hot saliva drooling down onto his balls.

Of course, his mind immediately imagined a straight lipped mouth around him, dark lustful eyes watching him and big hands resting on his thighs. His cock stirred and his stomach wiggled pleasantly, forgetting his revulsion at Jac’s blood in favour for his fantasy pet that actually enjoyed touching him. Serving him. On his knees.

He felt hungry for it, for Liam again, like he was food. He wanted to devour him, from his toes up, fill his belly finally, lick and suck and nibble his entire body to try to quench himself.

 

He grumpily settled for an impotent cigarette to ease the rigidness in his bones, sitting down in the long grass and puffing away at the stick.

The bad dream of Jac was just that now, a bad dream. Something that could be wiped away. He tried not to think about Kat, because it made the dream start to be vividly clear again, and instead thought about the grass, and the ants and bugs that were probably crawling all over his back now, as he sat in meadow that covered him completely.

 

When his cigarette was puffed down and stabbed out in the dirt he felt better, more himself. He stood and left the grass enclosure, heading back to the carriage, opening the door and listening, calmed when he heard Liam’s breath. In and out.

Spike paused. It was irregular.

He knew that sound. He was awake, trying to pretend he was asleep.

 

“Liam,” he said quietly, closing the door.

 

No answer.

 

He thought for a second, before moving over in his heavy boots and throwing the coat from his arms onto the bed. He knelt down next to his pet’s blanketed bed, reaching forward blindly, his hand coming in contact with a forearm, sliding up to a point of elbow, up to a thick shoulder and scooping down to a long neck. His fingers branched up in the black, like a climbing weed, his mind forgetting everything as the pads of his fingertips dotted along sharp jaw, a dipping cheek and then gently onto soft lips. He leant down with his fingers still in place, laying a kiss against the lips, smiling smugly when Liam dropped his act of sleeping and pulled away.

Spike caught his arm quickly, holding him in place and talking to where he thought his face would be.

 

“How long have you been awake?”

 

“Not long,” Liam answered, bed-warm arm tensing and relaxing under Spike’s cold fingers.

 

Spike knee-walked closer, coming up against Liam’s covered leg and letting his hand drop to his blanketed thigh, squeezing once, feeling him through the thick sheets. Liam didn’t move and Spike faltered, pausing for a moment to wonder if Liam was grimacing as he hid in the black dark, only just putting up with Spike’s touches. After a moment of non-responsiveness he pulled his hand away.

 

“Can’t sleep?” he said, sitting back on his ass. He’d wait. He wanted to be able to see Liam’s face. He didn’t know why.

 

“Same to you?” Liam non-answered.

 

Spike shrugged uneasily. “An owl woke me up,” he said. He didn’t want to elaborate on his dream. He wanted to touch him again, steal some of his warmth after the cold of the dark outside. Liam was now his own personal fire; ready to warm his hands wherever Spike wanted.

He smiled a little and reached out into the dark again, sliding along bed covers and finding Liam’s hand, stroking his fingers over his knuckles for a second before rolling his hand over and curling his fingers to press them against the heated palm.

Liam’s fingers twitched a little around him, like a reflex. Little by little, Liam was crumbling, he was sure of it. After tonight…

 

His stomach whirred with anxiety for a second and he frowned, his mind running away with Kat on her horse for a moment, circling back to his dream and making him smell the blood.

No one saw, he said to himself. Gods, you worry about nothing! You and Jac are not the same. You know yourself you aren’t a sympathiser. You didn’t help her because you wanted to, you just pushed one little girl away to win a little warmth from a stubborn beast.

 

His hand relaxed and he stroked Liam’s forearm in the darkness, like he was petting him, and it calmed Spike. It felt good. Liam let him. Maybe he even enjoyed it. He wouldn’t know until the sun came up and lit his face for Spike’s eyes.

The sun would bring another day. Would take away this night and his actions and all the uncertainty, and scrub them both clean and ready to move along. His heart thudded with hope.

He had a sudden insane urge to slip into the sheets with Liam and steal his warmth until the sun rose again, just lay there and pull Liam over him like a blanket and warm himself with the herder’s body.

 

He stood up, kicked his boots off and slipped into his own cold bed without a word. He closed his eyes and prayed for sleep.

 

 

*

 

 

When Liam opened his eyes again, the sun was streaming through the windows, lighting up the carriage with brightness that burnt his eyes. It was orange sun. Smoke sun. He sat up and smelled distant burning, not just from the cooking fire.

He turned to Spike and wasn’t even startled when he saw the pale face turned to him, eyes open and awake as they watched him without chagrin.

 

“Morning,” Liam mumbled weakly, stretching his arms above him, reaching for the ceiling with splayed fingers, feeling the twang of his muscles waking.

 

Spike didn’t answer for a moment, just watched him like he was looking at a drawing, eyes sliding to a different part of his blanket covered form to scrutinise him. It was like he was trying to burn a hole through Liam’s skin to try to look underneath his flesh, see down to the bone inside. It was breaching and intense and something Spike did a lot. Liam imagined it would be sort of rude if Spike thought Liam were actually allowed to be offended by it. Spike was confusing.

But Liam was used to it now, couldn’t really object, he looked at Spike when he had nothing to do, he figured he was just something moving and alive to watch for entertainment in a small boring carriage.

Liam closed his eyes and let him stare, imagining he could feel the gaze like fingers on his skin.

 

“Morning,” Spike said finally, his voice dull.

 

Liam side eyed him at the dead tone. He’d lost the hollowed ghost look he’d had during the turmoil of the night but now his face was distant, his eyes faraway even as they watched him from a few feet. He was laying on his back, a pale hand palm up and fingers curled limply like a dead spiders legs resting next to his chest. He looked colourless, his lips were white as his skin in the orange light, and it made him look weaker than it should, his body a soft orchid flower resting in the covers.

 

Liam sat up and Spike lifted his fingers, rubbing them along his cheekbone. “Smells like fire,” he said, sitting up, the leanly muscled wings of his shoulders bare and slumped.

His dark pants were low, pulled awry from sleep and they scooped low underneath the small of his back. Spike coughed a dry crackly cough and stood up, scratching his belly as he wandered to the chest of clothes and set about wearily rummaging around inside.

 

He seemed so worn out. Maybe he hadn’t had a good sleep… Liam had slept surprisingly well, apart from being woken when Spike had crept out of the carriage in the early morning.

Then he realised that last night Kat had also broken up his sleep with her surprise visit. It seemed a lot longer ago than just last night. He was startled at the thought that all that had only happened a few hours ago.

Maybe that’s why Spike looked so worn down; they’d lived weeks in just a few hours.

 

His heart jumped in worry at the thought of his limp skeletal sister, on her own, but he squashed it down, deep down into his belly. If he let himself worry, it would consume him. She would be safe, he told himself, closing his eyes tightly as he sat wrapped up in the comfort of warm blankets. She will be safe.

 

He remembered the whispers he’d soothed her with before she left.

I’ll come for you.

His last words to her were a lie. He regretted that, but the fake hope would keep her safe. She wouldn’t come looking for him again.

 

She knew he wouldn’t lie to her about something like that.

 

He didn’t have the energy to get out of bed anymore.

 

He slipped back down into the covers, a slumping collapse into the comfortable bed, wishing at that moment that he might stay there forever, never eat or move again, just waste away in his lonely cosy bed.

 

And as if Spike had heard his thoughts, as if he could see into his head and pick apart his emotions, a familiar hard tipped boot dug into his back, prodding him like he was a lump of washing to be toed aside.

He groaned inside, heart in his throat. He didn’t want to talk, or be with anyone or do anything. He just wanted to lie there.

 

“What?” he grumbled.

 

“Walk time.”

 

“No,” he said weakly, looking up at the black clothed figure towering over him, watching him from beneath dark brows. A walk was the last thing he wanted. “Please, just a minute…” he mumbled, closing his eyes, sinking back into his wallowing sadness.

 

The toe dug in again. “Up. Don’t make me tell you a third time.”

 

He paused for a second, before obeying, sighing as he sat up. Fingers snapped out and caught his chin and yanked up, tilting his head up stiffly.

 

“No sighing,” Spike said in a voice that brooked no compromise. His eyes were cold and stormy. “Understand?”

 

Liam nodded as best he could with Spike’s hand holding his chin in place. Spike let him go and Liam stood in his sleeping clothes, grabbing some thick pants from their neat folded place against the wall. He cast a tiny glance at Spike over his shoulder to see if he was watching. He wasn’t, his hands were digging around in the chest by the door.

Liam hurried into his clothes, the long slinky pants felt cool against him as he tied them in place, the material starting to warm as he moved around, sliding a thin white shirt on over his head. He grabbed his coat and boots and yanked them on, averting his eyes as he turned to see Spike watching him again. Liam wasn’t happy about going out.

 

He followed Spike out the door and grudgingly allowed Spike to chain his wrists together before they set off through the campsite. He trotted behind Spike, noting the largish leather bag he wore slung on his shoulder that was packed full with something. There was smoke in the sky, thick dirty clouds on the horizon and a few soldiers were scattered around watching the clouds billow above the trees.

 

Liam wanted to ask Spike what he thought it was, curious, but he knew better than to talk to Spike like he was a normal person. At least not in the middle of a hundred silver bodies. So he followed him silently, keeping close to him with a bowed head like a good little slave, cursing and congratulating himself at the same time for being able to keep up the façade so easily.

Spike’s hand curled around the thin strong chains connecting his cuffs and led him through the crowds, herding him towards the rough beaten road that they’d be travelling on when they finished breakfast. When they were free of the soldiers, he was pulled forward and they walked side by side to a small clutter of old dead logs by the roadside, sitting down on them and facing away from the camp.

 

“What do you think the fire is?” Liam asked as he sat down, the log cracking a little with the strain on his weight.

 

Spike looked absently towards the blooming clouds in the sky. He shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said shortly, sliding the bag from his shoulder and rummaging through it, bringing out a wrapped loaf of cheese bread, baked with soft onion and crunchy pieces of bacon inside the softness. He handed it to Liam’s greedy hands and gestured for him to eat, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with flint.

 

“Cigarette for breakfast?” Liam said as he pulled off a neat tuft of soft bread and bit into it, strong cheese melting on his tongue.

 

Spike pulled out some glass bottles of water and uncorked one for Liam, not saying a word with his cigarette clamped between his lips. He set the bottle between Liam’s booted feet, hand trailing up his shin, tickling the side of his calf for a moment with the touch before flitting away to pull the cigarette from his mouth in an exhale of smoke.

 

Liam ate with his hands lashed together, feeling Spike’s gaze dance over him every now and then.

 

A sharp sighing breath puffed out next to him. “We’ll be in Alla soon,” he said, frowning a little, face closed off as he stared forward.

 

Liam blinked, turning, lips parted. “We will?” he asked, trying for calm and not quite making it.

 

Spike nodded, peering out into the thick trees. “We’re almost out of the flats.”

 

Liam chewed slowly on the bread in his mouth. “Oh,” he said, voice high, heart picking up speed. He felt nervous. Sweaty. Alla City. He didn’t…

 

He breathed. Smoke filled his lungs and itched his throat and he coughed it back out. Spike flicked a glance at him, grey fumes pluming from his nostrils, eyes narrowed and head tilted back carelessly, pale skin taut over the hollows of his cheeks and down his arched neck.

Liam blinked and looked down at his wrists, seeing the deeply engraved ‘Spike’ on each of his cuffs. A thought filled his mind with clarity. Spike had the power to take him where he wanted, to actually guide where he went, and how he would live – not just the little things like food and walks and pissing, big things too.

 

“Almost home,” Spike said after a moment, not unkindly.

 

Liam side eyed him, gaze caught for a second in sharp blue that was trying to peer inside him again. Spike puffed on his cigarette for a little longer, before bending down and stabbing it out in the dirt. He gulped some water and put the bottle back in his bag.

 

“Come on,” Spike said, standing up as Liam sat, head bowed and played with the bread he’d been given.

 

Liam looked up at him. “Just a bit longer?” he asked, glancing away, gazing out into the brown clouds that were rising in the distance.

 

Spike toed at a few rocks as he stood for a minute tossing the decision in his head, before he sat down again, log creaking and splintering a little more under him. He nodded slightly, gazing into the trees again, profile to Liam, strong and white and Union.

Revelling in the small power he’d exerted, the way he’d managed to claim something back for himself, even if it was a tiny thing like delaying their return, Liam watched him. He could see a smattering of brown hair, a dark betraying line close to Spike’s scalp and it fascinated him. For some reason, he’d thought Spike wouldn’t have hair that colour, even if his brows were dark. He hadn’t thought the white blond was his real hair- he’d heard of hair colouring – but he was surprised to see it anyway. Spike must have kept colouring his hair with something as they travelled.

Liam had never seen him do it.

 

Spike looked at him and raised his brows. “What?”

 

Liam shook his head and looked away, rubbing the tip of his cold nose. “Nothing.”

 

---

 

Chapter Fourteen – Home

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

The carriage wheeled on through the days and sometimes the nights. It became a limbo existence, always travelling, over so much ground Liam thought it would never end, that the earth was simply limitless, the horizon forever in front of them with so much space, there was that much ground they covered.

Always clearings and campfires, soldiers lazing around after a long day’s marching. Meat and bread. Eggs for breakfast after they stopped at a village. Sausage mince. Bathing in the small spurts of rivers and tiny ponds. Cleaning sheets and bedclothes over and over. Ever going, always rolling, never stopping. Marching on.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam listened to the hushed whispering sound of Spike turning the pages of the small leather bound book he was reading. Spike lay on his back high up on his bed and amused himself with the book, not even noticing Liam was there as he flipped and paused and flipped and paused.

 

The sounds outside the carriage had changed in the past couple of days. No longer long stretches of marching feet sound amongst the quiet coolness of the earth. Now there was chatter and movement, the sound of villages, close together villages, as soon as they rolled out of one it seemed they were rolling into another.

Liam hadn’t mentioned this to Spike. He knew they were getting closer to it, to Alla City, like it was some lumbering huge beast they were sneaking up upon. That’s how he saw it anyway. Alla City.

When he was young it had always seemed so far away, unreachable, something heard about but never ever seen. Now it had changed, it was Seget that was unreachable. No matter how hard he stretched he couldn’t reach it, couldn’t get close to it, even in his own mind, like his brain was trying to numb it out, delay the hurt of remembering. He’d been torn from it and it left him ragged around the edges.

 

It was evening now; Liam could smell it in the air. Heavy dusk after the setting sun, the night bringing its snapping freshness along with bright eyed animals of the dark. The smell of the heat leaving the ground and being soothed after sunburn.

 

Liam turned back to his own book lazily, reading a few more lines of the confusing story about a man trying to change something about his status in society, to win a girl’s affections. It was funny in places but the whole concept of society status rushed over his head. It was like reading a story about an entirely different species, a pack of dogs or horses; the behaviour was just so foreign to Liam. It was a Union thing.

 

The carriage suddenly made a different noise, a very different noise; something that made Liam bolt upright in his bed sheets, wild eyed as he looked at Spike to see if he’d heard it. The wheels echoed as they rolled over a wooden bridge, horses hooves thumping and rattling the boards as they crossed. It repeated over and over, more horses and carriages rolling onto the bridge when they had rolled off with a slight jerk.

 

Spike’s blue eyes raised unsurprised from the pages of his book, gaze resting on the door for a moment. “We’re here,” he said easily, settling back into his book as the carriage turned sharply to the left.

 

“Here?” Liam asked from the bed, feeling tiny and small as the carriage rocked a little over the craggy pavers beneath it.

 

A sound, another new sound, a massive sound that made Liam flinch. Wood scraping on rocks, but huge wood… gates, they were gates being swung open, a lot of grunting men pulling them apart. Liam stood up in the rolling carriage, kneeling up on the chest under the small windows so he could be high enough to see out. He peered out anxiously, hands wrapped around the sill tightly, nails digging crescents into the hard wood. He could see a long stone wall, very high, with turrets along the top. He could see the curve of the large river they’d crossed, even if he couldn’t see the bridge they’d rattled over. But the wall… like Palso, he knew the city was inside, housed in protective arms, but it was so much bigger than anything he could imagine. The walls were so huge, so long; he couldn’t see the other end of it… it simply stretched out forever. Decay and alterations to the structure were plain; it had been extended many times, growing bigger as the city grew fatter inside. It dwarfed him, made him feel small and insignificant.

 

“Spike…” he whispered.

 

The gates suddenly clanged into place, completely open against the huge walls and the soldiers let out a deafening cheer, chanting in loud joyous voices as whips cracked and the carriages lurched forward. Liam stayed pinned to the window; heart rattling in his chest as the walls slowly passed them as they moved into the belly of Alla City, between the gate-lips.

 

The carriage rolled and he could glimpse the long wide street they were in, could see the pavers on the ground and the buildings that were so high, some higher than Liam could see through the small window. The noise of the soldiers was deafening; it rattled off the brick and stone city and made every sound unbearable. Lampposts glowed in the evening light. Music played under the roar of the soldiers. And … people. Standing and cheering for them as they rolled along, blonde and fluffed and white. Beautiful twisted paintings of strange people in shiny-leafed vests and dresses, lace and silks, painted lips and pale hair. They looked delicate as he stared out the window, delicate in their soft clothes with their small hands and slim shoulders, like they could tear open easily. But they had so much power in their weak frames, hidden under all the finery. They were Alla City.

 

The carriages veered again, heading down another wide street. Glass everywhere, glass windows, glass on the very lamp lights in the streets, keeping the flickering flames from blowing out. Flowers in windowsills, bright spots in the brown and grey and iron. They rolled onwards and he felt Spike’s hand wrap around his waist slowly, gently drawing him away from the breathtaking sight.

Spike turned him, balancing like a cat as the carriage rolled and jolted, and sat him on the bed. Liam’s head was spinning as he sat slumped in the feather mattress. He could smell fires and soiled clothes and horses. The smell of dirt and cooked meat filled his nose.

Spike scooped Liam’s hair into his palm, drawing the heat off his back as he tied it neatly with some thread. He slinkily came back around in front of him and looked him over, eyes narrowed, like he was an artist scrutinising a finished drawing. He turned Liam’s face to the side and then back again.

 

“Put your coat on,” he said as the carriage turned once more.

 

The noise suddenly echoed around them, like they were entering a huge barn. Spike’s face lit up from within, eyes glowing as he looked towards the door, bubbling, a child’s anticipation in his energy.

 

The carriage slowed, the rocking gradually easing as the thick wheels came to a stop.

 

Liam’s heart sped, and he felt like he was going to pass out, like he’d drunk too much, his belly twisted and ready to empty itself in one foul heap.

 

Another loud whooping whirled up from the assembled soldiers swarming outside, echoing around whatever kind of enclosure they were in.

Someone thumped loudly on the door, making it rattle before the body jumped off the steps and made the carriage rock again.

Liam sat primly on the bed, hands clasped in a sweaty fingered bundle between his knees, too anxious to move as he watched Spike stride easily around the carriage, shoving some things into a bag and opening the door. Liam peered out like a wary animal, only seeing the usual procession of soldiers and carriages slumbering side by side.

 

“Up,” Spike said, taking his wrist as he slowly rose to his feet, like he wasn’t really there, having a hard time swallowing through his tight throat.

 

They stepped out into the huge barn, Liam’s mouth dropping at the size of it, the expansive hugeness of it, a high roof stretching over their heads like sky. His throat mumbled a sound and he distantly felt chains being attached to his wrists, binding him to Spike, but he didn’t really notice.

A gleaming river of silver men flowed towards the exits. Horses were being untied and led away, journey finished.

Men were standing on boxes handing out papers to people as they passed, some were stamping upraised branch hands, some were handing out food. A mess of noise and motion and the chain was comfortable on him, tying him to the pale sweeping creature in front as the crowds parted slightly for them as they sailed through the silver rapids. He followed the pale head, keeping his eyes trained to the back of his neck, jolted back and forth but keeping up with him. Noise clanged around them as Spike led him surely through the masses.

They burst out into the streets in a wave of soldiers, Liam’s arms and thighs bruised slightly from being knocked and shoved against steel in the rabble. Spike’s shoulders were slapped and men were smiling at him, mouthing words through white teeth at him, nodding their heads and laughing as Spike joked with them, in good humour for once.

 

Liam stared around wide-eyed. Streets upon streets upon streets, building jumbled and squeezed together, in every possible space, and some towering over him like big brick trees. Smell of people, of hot food and covered waste, and a strong scent of salt clamoured for attention in his nostrils as he abstractedly noted Spike talking to a few men, a small bubble of stillness in the ever-moving flow of people around them.

 

“I’ll take him, Spike,” one of the men said as the talking people broke away into the oppressive stream, “Commander will probably want to see you anyway.”

 

Spike glanced at him and Liam looked back, blinking, trying to take everything in. Spike nodded, and Liam’s heart tried to seize as the man took his chains from Spike’s familiar pale hands and settled the clinking steel in his own.

 

It was only then Liam noticed the dark haired girl standing slightly behind the soldiers bulk, watching him with hooded eyes, her collar thinly chained to the man’s hand. Liam looked wildly at Spike as the blond started to lope away from them. He was horrified at the thought of being in this soldier’s care, frightened by him in the newness of the city.

 

“Bring him back at seven?” Spike said, glancing back at him, giving him a hidden reassurance. “And make sure they’re careful with him. Don’t want him marked up.”

 

“Sure thing,” the soldier said, leading both Liam and the unnamed girl away.

 

Liam looked back at Spike’s form, seeing blue eyes watching him through the stream of people. He turned and walked in the opposite direction and Liam felt bared open, from chin to belly, like a fish cut open for boning. His wrists were jerked roughly and he turned reluctantly and followed the soldier’s quick step, different from Spike’s cocky lingering gait. He glanced at the dark small girl beside him. She didn’t look at him, kept her eyes on the soldier’s heels in front, seemed unperturbed by the massive newness around them.

 

Liam gazed around and he knew how Alla City had won. It seemed so simple now that he stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by cruel glass, by buildings that could reach up high into the sky. How vain they’d been, how foolish Seget had been, to think they could match this power. Their love for their home couldn’t match glass and silk and powdered faces and living spaces all pushed up against one another. They hadn’t really known what the Union was. They were ignorant of this. They couldn't have known this existed.

 

The soldier led them down a street and Liam accidentally bumped into the thin girl beside him as he narrowly avoided the metal stem of a streetlamp. The girl didn’t even notice or if she did, she didn't care.

Liam was burning with the need to question where they were going but he didn’t dare. He didn’t want to upset anything, just wanted to keep his mouth shut and give this new soldier no reason to look at him at all.

 

They headed into another large building, this one stinking of unwashed flesh, so strong in smelt like it was in the brick of the walls. They entered a white hallway; the walls made of paper screens, their feet echoing on the polished hardwood floors. There was a woman sitting behind a desk and she smiled at the soldier and pointed down the hall. The soldier slipped aside a screen and moved them through it.

 

It was a strange building, the screened door leading them to a high roofed barn area again, like the one they’d stepped into after they’d left the carriage, although this one was as big or as crowded. Most of the walls partitioned off with showers, some being used, people being washed as more lined up before the few men sitting at the tables in the middle of the area. There were a few doors lining one wall. Torches lit the air. It smelled burnt inside, like cooked meat.

The people lined up were mainly slaves, thick collars glinting in the torchlight, slowly shuffling up to the tables and the men behind. They would speak for a few seconds and then be given a scrap of paper, and then be lead off into the back rooms.

 

The girl beside him looked scared as they joined the short line. Liam tossed a small glance at one of the slaves being washed against the wall, seeing his bony hands holding onto a wooden bar on the side of the small open enclosure as his body was scrubbed quickly by a big sandy haired soldier. The slave stared vacantly out at the line as he was washed, eyes vacant as the rough scrubbing made his body rock back and forth against the wooden bar.

 

“Next,” one of the men at the tables said, calling out boredly.

 

Spike’s soldier took both he and the girl up to the table, distracted as he pushed them forward, until their thighs were pressed against the wood. “Birth names,” the man behind the table barked.

 

Liam stared at him dumbly.

 

The soldier flicked the girl’s ear and she answered quietly. “Monnie.”

 

The seated man scribbled this down onto a sheet. “Full name.”

 

“Monnie Sincou,” she whispered, frightened.

 

“From?”

 

“Rollet.”

 

“Age?”

 

The girl looked fearfully at the soldier and he rolled his eyes, nodding his head. “Seven on ten,” she said.

 

“Want to change the name of this one?” the man asked the soldier.

 

He nodded, “Sillip.”

 

“And what’s your title, Sir?” the man asked, writing the girl’s new name down.

 

“General Skips, Fourth regiment from Alla.”

 

“Thank you sir.”

 

He scribbled this onto the paper quickly.

 

“You,” the man barked at Liam as he finished filling out his papers and tucked them aside, into a square box. “Birth name?”

 

He paused before answering. “Liam.”

 

“Full name.”

 

Liam shook his head. “Just Lia-“

 

“From?” the man rattled out, talking over him.

 

“…Seget.”

 

“Age?”

 

“Six on twenty.”

 

“Want to change the name?”

 

“Not mine, so leave it. He’s being registered to High General Spike, second regiment, from Alla City. Although he’s out in Totten now.”

 

The man nodded, writing it down. “Alright… take these,” he handed some scribbled papers to General Skips and then indicated the back doors. “Take them through there.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

They moved as one towards the door, apprehension building up again as the large space echoed with their footsteps. When they were swallowed into the backrooms, Liam smelled cigarette smoke first, his nose trained to smell it, the strong scent of it almost calming the roiling juicy pit of his stomach with its familiarity.

Fires burned in wide burrows and the room was long. A group of thick burly men were smoking cigarettes, sweat slipping down their broad bare chests and shoulders as they puffed away at the tiny sticks. They turned to look at General Skips and nodded, setting their cigarettes aside and coming over. One took the girl, Monnie, and led her away. Liam watched her go, her thin body limp and complying.

Two men took his arms and led him to a bench, pushing him down and pulling his coat and shirt off easily. One man wrapped thick arms around his waist and another held Liam’s wrist out, unlocking the cuff from his left wrist and wrenching his hand around so the soft underside of his wrist was bared to him, lit by the raging pit-fires.

Liam started to sweat from the heat.

Stubby iron fingers pried his jaws apart and poured in a foul watery liquid that numbed his tongue instantly, before shoving a greasy rag into his mouth, threads of it in his throat making him want to gag and vomit into the cloth. His mouth was closed tight with some thick sticky cloth that adhered his lips together over the cloth inside. He started to breath quicker, heart rate making him dizzy, wanting this to stop, not knowing what was happening, so desperately wishing Spike was here with his cooled defiant stance to watch over him so he’d know he’d be alright after whatever they were doing was over.

 

A heavy set man wrenched a wooden stool along the floor with a screech, pulling it up and sitting in front of him. “Papers?” he said, coughing as he talked, a flick of burning saliva landing on Liam’s forcibly outstretched hand. Liam wasn’t even listening to what was happening; his heart beat thudding out all the noise in the room, even the sound of his cloying breathing into the hot greasy rag coiled up in his mouth.

 

General Skips handed over the papers and the man looked at them, scratching through the thick bristles on his face. “High General Spike… heard of him. He’s a nasty one, isn’t he?”

 

“Oh General Spike’s not so bad once you get to know him,” General Skips said breezily, “Got a good sense of humour. Definitely doesn’t like people being disrespectful though.”

 

“Mmm… I heard.”

 

General Skips snuffed a laugh. “He said be careful with this one,” he said, gesturing to the gagged and held Liam, “doesn’t want him too marked.”

 

The man nodded, raising his eyebrows. He smiled at Liam like he was a little waggy puppy, “Best do what the General says then, shouldn’t we?”

 

He pulled out a thin knife and Liam’s heart tried to occupy his already rag filled mouth. He cut into Liam’s upturned wrist and Liam couldn’t scream with the pain of it, his agony bubbling in his throat in impotent little gargles as he tried not to swallow the cloth. Sweat shined him, his outstretched hand was a pain filled fist and he couldn’t pull away from the strong hands holding him.

A tear slipped down his cheek, over the cloth stuck across his mouth. The man cutting his wrist finished, setting the knife down in a tray and grabbing a small dark pot.

 

The man reached out not unkindly, raising his eyebrows. “What’s this for?” he said, wiping the tear off his cheek with a thick hot finger. “It’ll be over soon.”

 

The men holding him snorted with laughter. “I swear Fren, if I didn’t know you, I’d swear you were a Sympathiser,” one said from above him.

 

Fren sniffed, tipping the black liquid contents of the pot onto Liam’s ruined wrist, making Liam jerk with the stinging bite of ink in torn flesh. “Well,” Fren said, “who says you can’t reassure them? It’s painful, getting cut up.”

 

“So?” the man holding his wrist said nastily.

 

Fren looked up at him darkly.

 

“Don’t worry about Fren,” the man holding him said, chuckling against Liam’s bare sweated back, “he used to be an animal healer before the Great War. Can’t stand to see big dumb beasts in pain.”

 

“An animal healer?” General Skips said as Liam sweated thick drops of salt water, believing his wrist might just burn off and let his hand drop like deadwood to the floor, “That’s interesting. My grandfather was an animal healer.”

 

“It’s good work,” Fren said shortly before he wiped away most of the black smears from Liam’s wrist. “Turn him round,” he said shortly to the men holding him.

 

Liam was jostled, wrist fizzing with heat and blood dripping tiny streams down his forearm. One of them, Liam couldn’t even figure out who was who in the pain, started wrapping his wrist up tightly.

 

“Hold him down tight, don’t want to blur it,” Fren’s voice said as Liam was pushed firmly to the bench, thick hands all over him unpleasantly, tears strangling his raw throat as someone pushed down on his neck uncomfortably.

 

He felt something icy cold press against his shoulder for a split second. A dull heat throbbed from his upper back as a sizzling sound hissed into the room and everything slowed for a moment before his mind figured the sensations out.

His body shuddered as much as it could in its tight hand cage and suddenly a burning ripped through him, making him gargle a scream through his nose as he tried to arch his back, pushing his bare chest into the hard wood as he tried in vain to get away from the hot steel sliding into his flesh in a big boiling patch. He shook his head insanely against the bench as his fingers fluttered against the hard wood but the thing sizzled on until the men finally removed it from him and let him go, leaving him slumped over the seat like a dead thing, an empty skin. He couldn’t move. He was awash with hurting. Tears of pain flowed down his cheeks as he was lifted, a limp body, nothing but a body, his mind had floated away at some point.

 

“Done General, take him through there, put him in one of the water troughs.”

 

He was being moved as he moaned loosely into the rag, his head was a rag doll’s, his body was made of raw meat in a hanging skin-bag. The cloth was ripped off his mouth as he stared blearily, not focusing on anything, and the rag inside was pulled out. Cold water suddenly encased him, his frail head held out from the wet by a handful of hair, so he could still breathe as the heat was sucked from his skin, especially from the burn on his back. It cooled slightly, still stinging tears of pain into Liam’s eyes.

 

The water drained out around him, leaving him shuddering on the cold impersonal porcelain of the slick tub, his breath echoing around him like he was enclosed in it, his closed eyes made it a coffin, before another tub load of cold water slowly filled it up again. His eyes could open into little puffy slits but nothing more, and his mind couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. He felt drunk from the blurry shapes.

 

He was hauled up and carried out, his body dumped face down on a bed in a room somewhere. He didn’t know. He heard pained quiet moans and laboured breathing all around him. They were so close to each other, when he managed to work up the energy to move minutely, his hand brushed someone else’s cold limp fingers. He couldn’t open his eyes to make out a face, he let whoever it was remain just a hand in his mind, without a mouth or eyes or identity.

 

 

*

 

 

“I got him sent to your room,” Skips said when they ran into each other in the inn’s dining area. “He’s pretty out of it.”

 

Spike nodded, “thanks for that.”

 

“Commander needed you?”

 

“Just a few quick words,” Spike brushed it off, “about the regiment.”

 

About his upcoming position more like. Heading into the Southlands next year sometime with the Union backing him, flags raised high. It would have been very inspirational, if Spike were the type of man to be inspired by something like that. As it was, Spike hadn’t even really listened. Too drunk on the idea that he was home. No more carriage with its’ boring sameness. Home. He was actually home after so long. Alla even smelled like home. It wrapped crowded busy arms around him and made him feel safe.

Spike turned and ordered two beers as the rowdy noise around them grew. He passed one to Skips and they sat down at a small table shoved to the wall, the surface of the table wet and sticky with spilled wine.

 

Skips wrapped his hand around his glass, making little circular stamps in the wet table top with the base of it. “What do you think about those rebels, the one that burnt that Union town?”

 

Spike raised his eyebrows at the question. “Don’t think much of it.”

 

Skips nodded. “Bit strange though, don’t you think? I mean, the whole place is occupied, how’d they get so far?”

 

“It was probably one of their home towns or something. Revenge. They’re all dead now anyway.”

 

“But some Union families died too.”

 

Spike shrugged. “It’s not gonna happen again. We know now, we’ll be more careful.”

 

They sipped silently. Spike wasn’t surprised when he’d learnt of the fire. They were in a war after all. There would be death.

 

“Did you sign off?” Skips asked.

 

Spike nodded, “before I spoke to Commander,” he said, pausing before he continued, the question hanging on the tip of his tongue. “How was he?”

 

“Uh… your slave?” Skips asked in surprise, eyebrows raising. “Good, no trouble. Why?”

 

“No reason. Just wondering.”

 

“Told them not to mark him up too much like you said. And he was good enough to get those… oh what are they called? The numbing drugs they give them before the Marking. Make it hurt less.”

 

Spike smiled, nodding distantly. “Good.”

 

“He’s quite attractive, for a mountainer. You planning on selling him?”

 

He shook his head. “Need another slave,” he lied easily, sipping at his beer. “You know how it is.”

 

Skips nodded. “Yep, I decided to take one myself. Gonna send her out to the children, be a carer for them. Got a nice enough disposition, and she’s small.”

 

“Is your partner out with them?”

 

“Hannah? Yeah she’s out there, but she probably doesn’t want to run around after little ones all day.” He shrugged.

 

Spike nodded thoughtfully, not really remembering the name Hannah. “You’re going home aren’t you Skips?”

 

Skips nodded, sipping the beer and looking out across the floor with his pale eyes. “Yep. Gonna spend some time with Hannah’s father, helping him patch up a boat… or build a boat… or some such shit, I dunno.”

 

“Your interest is peaked, I can tell,” Spike said dryly.

 

Skips shrugged, downing half the beer in a chug, sighing out in satisfaction as the beer filled his gut. “Just doing it to keep her happy.”

 

“Have I met Hannah?” Spike said thoughtfully.

 

“I don’t know, you might’ve. You definitely met Fol, she was my first wife.”

 

“Yeah… I remember Fol.” He remembered Fol had died of something… he couldn’t remember what though. He supposed it wasn’t terribly important.

 

Skips looked at his timepiece. “I should go,” he said, dunking the last of the beer down his gullet as he stood. Spike stood with him. “You’ll come round for a dinner?” Skips said.

 

Spike nodded, even managing a smile.

 

“Great, I’ll send a messenger as soon as I’ve settled. Hannah might even come back for it.”

 

“Sounds… good.”

 

“Good!” Skips said cheerily as he hugged Spike with one firm arm before sliding away. “See you soon!”

 

Spike grabbed his beer as Skips retreated, gulping it down and setting it aside. One more night. Just one. And then… home. He grinned to himself, and a drunken soldier cheered at him as he walked towards the inn’s steps.

 

He quickly ascended, slipping into the dimly lit room, hearing Liam’s breathing puffing from the shadows. A lazily flickering fire cast undulating dark shapes around the room’s walls and floor, making it seem like a living breathing thing. Something scented sweetly hovered heavily in the air, almost spicy, turning the ownerless room into a welcoming place. The brighter light from the hallway threw a square of light on two bare limp feet on the red sheeted bed. Spike stood hesitantly in the doorway for a moment, picking at the fraying wood with blunt fingernails before he stepped inside and shut the light out.

 

“Spike?” a creaking drugged voice mumbled fearfully.

 

“Shh, just me.”

 

Silence for a second as Spike negotiated his way past the shadow chairs and decorative tables the room was cluttered with. He sat slowly on the bed, reaching out, fingers coming in contact with a long hot flank.

 

Liam sniffed wetly. “Hurts,” he rasped.

 

“Not as bad as it could be,” he said, sweeping his hand up Liam’s bare sweated back, up to the nape of his neck, “heard you were good, that they gave you something to ease the pain.”

 

“It hurts…” Liam bleated.

 

Spike carded his fingers through his sweaty heated hair and stood up reaching out to the side table, flicking the gauge in the oil lamp to light up the sweet smelling room more. Liam’s face was glittery wet; his eyes closed and mouth druggedly open. He was sprawled belly down on the bed, shirtless, his dark loose pants sticking to his thighs wetly with perspiration. He had a thick bandage around his wrist over the numbers tattooed into his skin, and he had one white bandage wing on his back, covering the big scarred cross that was burnt into the back of every opposer.

 

“Had to happen,” Spike said softly, trailing his fingers down Liam’s arm, “the pain’ll be gone in a few days.”

 

Liam moaned unintelligibly, eyes leaking wetly onto the pillows. Spike pulled out a satchel from under the bed, glancing over his shoulder at the door worriedly as he pulled the forbidden contents out.

 

It was meant to hurt them, the Marking, it was a ritual. The good ones were slightly numbed by the syrup at the start but they were meant to feel it. Spike had thought Liam would kick up a fuss about it, wouldn’t get the syrup, so he’d packed a little something he’d found in an herbal shop in the villages outside of Alla. It had been expensive; it had cleaned out all the money he’d been carrying, but he’d bought it anyway.

 

He unwrapped the brown papered parcel and pulled out a pot of cream. He knelt up over Liam’s body and carefully untacked the bandage, clearly seeing the weeping wet cross burnt into his back, even though his glossy body was only illuminated by the burning oil lamp. The blistered x of an opposer, burnt from his side to his spine, branding him forever.

Liam shuddered and cried when Spike first wiped the cream onto him, moaning, fisting his hands into the damp red covers. But the strong numbing effect of it soon took over the pain. Spike smiled when Liam issued a small sigh of relief, shaking a little as the pain subsided slowly.

 

“What…?” he asked, voice garbled.

 

“Numbs the skin,” Spike said quietly, as he tacked the bandage back down across his taut back, “It’s used for surgery.”

 

Liam still shuddered a little, sniffing. Spike scooted around and carefully unwrapped his wrist, wiping away the bloody ink and coating the ragged cut flesh with the thick cream. He quickly wiped his hands clean, feeling his fingers paralysed from the quick acting cream.

 

“Feel’s good,” Liam mumbled quickly, sobbing a little, keening throaty sobs, “Thank you thank you…”

 

“S’alright,” Spike whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.”

 

Liam shook his head dopily. “No... won’t,” his words were low, breathy and weak. They made something rise up inside Spike, a throb, hot and deep inside. He reached out with his awake fingertips and traced the sharp rise of Liam’s cheekbone, watching the slight flicker in the lids of Liam’s closed eyes.

 

“Good boy,” Spike said, leaning down, close to his face, feeling the pained heat bake from him. The heavy throb in his lower belly forced him closer, and he kissed the corner of Liam’s mouth softly, tasting his sweat and tears with the tip of his tongue as Liam lay limply beneath him.

 

When he pulled away with salt in his mouth he could see Liam’s eyes were open, dark shiny slits that watched him without guard. The room seemed steamy around them, the sweetened heated air coaxing him into a vulnerable state, and he was caught by dark exotic eyes that sleepily watched him from the bed.

 

He leant down again, slower, his hand splayed out on the covers, brushing against Liam’s elbow, keeping his eyes on the dark burn of a gaze as he pressed another tiny kiss against his mouth. He felt Liam move slightly, turning his head so Spike could have better access to his mouth and Spike attacked him with his lips feverishly, his nose pressing up beside Liam’s, his hand curling around Liam’s jaw to hold him still for his kisses. His mouth was hot, and his lips felt plumped already with Spike’s attention. Spike’s tongue slipped along Liam’s, and he eagerly swallowed the moan that vibrated into his mouth.

Spike let his hand greedily trail down his smooth almost slippery back, fingertips playing with the rise of Liam’s pelvis, broad slats of bone flanking the stream of his spine.

Spike’s eyes fluttered closed and his heart skipped a pump, making him lightheaded as he trailed his fingers so easily over his pet’s body. Owning. He was so stunning to touch, his skin, his fingers… Spike’s hand slid down to the soft rise of his ass, palming a cheek and squeezing it firmly through the soft pants. A bolt of pleasure ripped through Spike’s belly, up in his chest, thrumming through him and making him break the kiss, his lips brushing against Liam’s in the hot room as his body moaned lowly, cock filling swiftly.

His hand slipped up, grazing the corner of the bandage, making Liam inhale sharply, waiting for the pain to explode. It didn’t hurt though, because of the cream, and Spike watched Liam’s drug bleary eyes widen in surprise.

 

Liam shakily tried to rise from the bed but Spike caught him, easing him back down with a hushed whisper. “Doesn’t hurt now,” Spike said, “but let it heal.”

 

“I don’t feelmyself,” Liam mumbled as Spike pushed his hair back, baring his neck and lowering his lips to the flesh.

 

“S’the drugs, pet.”

 

Spike’s cock throbbed thickly against the seam of his pants but he ignored it, gently mapping out Liam’s throat and face with his stroking fingertips.

 

Liam sighed lightly, his breath rolling over Spike’s knuckles. “They cut me…” Liam whispered sleepily.

 

“The Mark,” Spike said, laying down face to face with the wounded beautiful beast on the bed, watching as the fire licked over his bare flesh like a tongue, “every one gets one if they’re not from Alla.”

 

Liam breathed out a word but it was too light to hear.

 

“What was that?”

 

“Heartless,” he repeated, eyes closed softly.

 

Spike’s palm rested on his shoulder for a moment, almost an embrace but not quite. Liam’s hand slid froward, travelling across the ridges and bumps of the wrinkled red covers between them and sliding flat against his chest, closing the gap.

Dark eyes opened into slits, watching him, the stare black in the shadows.

 

Spike was pinned as usual, stripped apart and squeezed inert in the solemn scorching gaze. Liam closed his eyes again, letting Spike’s lungs release and breathe the heated air.

Liam’s lax hand felt hot on his chest.

Spike shifted closer, Liam’s slack hand sliding up to his collarbone. He lay next to Liam, opposing him, still dressed in his thick boots and rough clothes adverse to Liam’s bare smooth skin and soft fabric that draped over his arse and thighs invitingly. The firelight flickered over them both, turning Liam’s skin to brushed gold.

His pet exhaled across his lips and made him lean closer, nearer to the breathing heat, pressing his mouth down against Liam’s and slipping himself inside again. His eyes almost rolled back in his head with pleasure, wanting to press up against the body, rub himself against the long thigh until he released, all the while keeping hold of his sweet mouth, keeping it his, controlling it, never letting it go. The fire popped loudly and Spike wrenched away, frowning, his cock like stone as he breathed, watching Liam’s placid face.

 

“The things you do to me…” Spike whispered, overwhelmed by the power Liam had inside him. He could make Spike feel weak.

 

Liam didn’t answer, only let out a low wordless mumble. Spike closed his eyes and listened to the fire crackle softly behind Liam’s back.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam slept the entire day, waking only slightly when the inn’s luggage movers carried him to the large cab Spike had hired to take them both home. Spike had slipped him some strong sleeping medication when he’d woken, double dosed, and let him rest as the cab swayed behind its horses.

Spike watched the countryside roll, from the blackness of early morning to the pink of the dawn to now, the thick grey dusk of the sun setting. The horses were tired, Spike was tired. And Liam slept peacefully, innocently unaware, a soft blanket wrapped around his form as he lay on the opposite seat, providing a constant source of entertainment for his owner as the hours passed by the cab slowly.

 

Spike’s arse was numb by the time they reached Totten. The smaller town was a solid day and a half’s journey from Alla City, but Spike forced the cab drivers to make good time, to work the horses and wrench good money’s worth from their sweat. They made it after dusk, the cold air whipping around them, around the large cab as it pulled up to a familiar long cobbled driveway. Home.

He could weep. He hadn’t been home for more than half a year. Long months, long months out with a hundred stinking unwashed soldiers, cheap food and the smell of burning flesh and wood and days of marching and rolling on at a time.

 

He leapt from the cab when it stopped, leaving the cabbies to unpack all his things and bring them inside, looking up the drive to his large home. It was just how he’d left it. Two stories of brick, vines creeping up from the courtyard wall, much thicker now, almost up to the roof. The glass windows glimmered in the dusk light, burning red and yellow from the stoked warm fires within. Dark huge paddocks surrounding the building, a stable wall just visible from where he was standing. Two wide wood doors that opened, a well-known tall dark figure slipping out from behind the doors and onto the front stoop.

 

“General,” Gunn’s voice boomed, his teeth white and huge in the dusk as he smiled, “welcome home.”

 

Spike grinned back, gazing warmly at his home as Gunn’s long dark arm slipped around his shoulders in a rough short squeeze. He was dressed in long thick baggy pants, cinched at the waist, and a long sleeved red shirt, tight across his wide chest and over his collar. His cuffs were clean but scratched up from work, sitting snugly over his wrists.

 

“Kept it well tended to,” Spike said approvingly, casting an appraising eye across the clean clear windows and porch as he walked towards the doors in awe.

 

“Of course,” Gunn smiled, talking in his strange unchartered accent, “it was good. I was in charge,” he said with an air of grandness, “So… when’s your next campaign?”

 

“I just got home, and you want me to leave?” Spike called back over his shoulder, slipping from the cold into the buffeting warm heart of his home, hearing the fires heating the air, smelling the roast cooking in the kitchen.

 

He threw his coat across the couch, stepping down from the front door and sighing, letting his head fall back as he raised his arms high. “Home!” he yelled, hearing his voice slam back at him, echoed off the high ceilings and wide walls.

 

Gunn laughed behind him. “You hungry?”

 

“Starving. Feed me.”

 

Gunn wandered towards the kitchen, straightening a thick gilt framed painting on the wall as he passed, “How did you eat when I wasn’t around to serve you?” he asked blithely.

 

“I had to make do,” Spike said, staring around in wonder, smiling at his writing desk in front of the open bay windows, at the bookshelves lining his walls. “But you’re here now. Where’s Wesley?”

 

“Hiding from you, I’d expect, you and all your noise.”

 

“Wesley!” he shouted, summoning the man with good humour as he made his way across the thick fur rugs lining the wooden floors, “Now!”

 

He slumped down at his dining room table and pressed his cheek against the lacquered wood, hugging the polish. He felt a slim presence in the room and turned, seeing Wesley half hiding behind the thick wood doorframe, blue eyes flicking up at him through his glasses. He wore the loose tunic and pants of an old man, nothing to show the frame of his body, or even hint at what he looked like under the layers.

 

“Master,” he said, bowing his head respectfully.

 

“What have you been doing while I’ve been gone,” Spike asked, elbows on the table, grinning at him as he teased conversation from him.

 

“I’ve been looking after the finances,” he said, eyes flicking up and then away, “and… and-“

 

“And what, Percy?”

 

“And daily chores,” he said quietly, fidgeting with his cuffs. The cabbies were clunking his trunks and crates down into the foyer.

 

“Like?”

 

“Cleaning… and –“

 

Gunn pushed through the doors and set the plate before Spike. Thick slices of roast beef, potatoes and peas and honey baked carrots. Gravy over everything. “That was quick,” Spike said, mouth watering.

 

“Wes and me have already eaten,” Gunn said, yanking out a chair and sitting down on it as Spike tucked into it. He pulled out a chair for Wesley, patting the seat for him but the man didn’t move from his place at the doorway, respectfully waiting for another order.

 

Gunn turned away from Wesley and looked at Spike. “Heard news of your tour,” he said, trying to snag a carrot off Spike’s plate with his brown fingers, yanking away when Spike rapped his knuckles smartly with the silver fork. “Heard it went well. But they always say that, even if you’re losing.”

 

“It went well,” Spike said shortly, thinking of the blood red band that lay in a small gold box.

 

Gunn nodded, face void of emotion. “Good for you then.”

 

“How have things been here?”

 

Gunn smiled, looking at Wesley who immediately averted his gaze. “Things have been real good,” Gunn smiled. “She dropped by a few times,” he continued, scratching thick blunt fingers across the top of his bald skull. “Stayed a few nights then left.”

 

“Did she?” Spike said, shoving a slice of roast into his mouth.

 

“Yeah, don’t know why.”

 

Spike shrugged, he didn’t really care what she was doing. It wasn’t any of his business anyway. “Bored probably.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“General?” one of the cabbies called unsurely through the hallowed house.

 

Spike stood up swiftly, remembering himself, leaving his dinner and quickly sliding out of the room. He turned, eyeing Gunn and Wesley and closing them inside the dining room, not wanting them to hear what he was sure the cabbie was going to ask him.

 

“Where do you want him?” the cabbie asked, wiping his running nose with the back of his gloved hand.

 

“Upstairs,” Spike said quickly.

 

He headed outside with the cab drivers and watched over them as they carefully pulled his prized possession from the seat inside, still wrapped up in his blanket. Dark eyes cracked open into slits as he was carried, hands around his knees and under his arms.

 

“Spike?” he whispered blearily as the men struggled to carry his dead weight to the house.

 

“Be careful,” Spike hissed at them, worried about them tearing Liam’s burn as they shuffled him clumsily in their arms.

 

When they got to the foyer, Spike ushered them up the stairs. He cast a quick glance to the dining room, seeing the doors open a crack, a slice of Gunn visible in the break. He glared at the dark eye watching the procession and gestured for him to shut the doors. After a moment, the doors slid closed and Spike followed the men up the stairs.

 

“Left,” he directed tersely, guiding them all into a small white guestroom across the hall from his own disused bed. “Put him on his belly.”

 

The men grunted, heaving as they put Liam onto the bed as carefully as possible. Spike pulled out some coin and handed it to them both. “Leave now.”

 

The men slipped out of the room readily, Spike already forgetting them. He cautiously sat down next to Liam, arranging him so he didn’t have his face pressed into the pillows with no room to breathe. Liam was deep asleep again, drugged out of his mind. His fingers were curled lightly against the white covers.

Spike left him in the small room, standing up and walking out, heading back down the stairs with a slow steadying breath of air, stomach fizzing with worry.

 

The dining room doors were open again and Spike frowned at the disobedience. Wesley was absent but as Spike loped across the rugs on the floors, Gunn was watching him with a critical hazel eye.

 

“Who was that?” he asked.

 

“New slave,” Spike said blithely as he passed, heading back to his dinner.

 

He felt Gunn’s big eyes boring into him, thoughtful. “Why did you get a new one?” he asked, puzzled.

 

Spike looked up at him, pouting exaggeratedly. “Jealous? There’s no need to be, you know you’ll always be my favourite slave.”

 

Gunn raised his eyebrow. “What’s his name?” he said looking out across the rooms towards the staircase, as if he expected to see Spike’s new toy wandering down them.

 

Spike forked some of the gravy-covered peas into his mouth. “Liam,” he said through the food.

 

“Where’d you get him?”

 

“One of the towns,” Spike said casually, eyes on the hot dinner before him.

 

Gunn sat down slowly resting his big hands on the table. “You hate the mountainers. Always on about how they’re just stupid farmers. Why would you bring one back?”

 

“He’s a herder. Can look after the horses.”

 

There was a slight pause. “Less work for me,” Gunn said.

 

“That’s right.”

 

Gunn tapped his fingers against the table as Spike’s cutlery made muted scratching sounds on the china. “So…” Gunn continued, “Why’d you put him upstairs?”

 

“He just got the Mark,” Spike said tersely, becoming irritated by all the probing questions.

 

Gunn scoffed. “When I got the Mark you never gave me a bed in the house!”

 

Spike looked at the hazel eyes, almost golden looking in the dining room’s firelight. “I don’t want him mixing with you.”

 

“Why not?” Gunn said indignantly.

 

“Because,” Spike said, “you’ll fill his big empty head with all your Unchartered bollocks.”

 

“I wanna talk to him.”

 

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “He’s out for the night.”

 

Gunn peered at him suspiciously. He shrugged slowly, full lips curving up a little. “Guess I’ll go to bed then.”

 

“’Night,” Spike said clearly, watching Gunn rise. He cleared his throat. “Don’t go near him,” Spike warned, “I’ll tie you to the floor if you try.”

 

Gunn raised his eyebrow. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Welcome back.” He grinned and left the room, leaving Spike alone.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam’s eyes were open but he was sure he wasn’t awake. He couldn’t move himself, he was lying flat on a white bed and he couldn’t shift an inch either way. He was numb. He was scared. Didn’t know where he was and couldn’t get up to protect himself, had to stay sprawled and useless on the strange white bed. Anyone could find him like this, could hurt him some more, burn him again, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

 

Soft fingers in his hair, stroking along his skull pleasantly, made his bleary eyes close. “We’re home now,” Spike’s voice said from somewhere. Distant and echoey, like speaking into a hollowed tree trunk.

 

Home. His eyes watered beneath paper-thin closed lids. A tear trickled out but he lost it, not feeling it against his skin although he was sure it had tracked down his cheek. A fingertip brushed across his lower lip. “Out of that carriage…”

 

His voice was comforting. Sharp and Union but gentle for the moment. Known in the unknown. A touchstone, a marker to centre himself around in the strange whiteness. A hand closed over his own, squeezing around his fingertips. “Cold,” Spike’s voice said.

 

He rose from the soft bed; bouncing Liam a little, walking around the end of it and squeezing Liam’s exhausted calf as he passed. A few empty moments Liam heard a flint, and then smelled smoke. He opened his eyes but the images were too blurry to understand. Light, and a white headed creature bowed before it. He closed his watering eyes again and moaned at the heavy sleepy confusion.

 

“You’re alright,” the familiar voice said, getting closer, “It’ll be warmer now.”

 

The bed dipped again and Liam looked up, barely making out a pale thin moon of a face, dark shadows for eyes, pink lines for a mouth. Half formed and dream like, softer than usual and Liam managed to reach out, brushing against Spike’s hand, begging with silent fingertips for Spike to take the confusion away. He hated this feeling, completely without power. He couldn’t make himself move, he wasn’t in control of himself, or even his thoughts really. They were sluggish and difficult and danced away from him when his mind tried to clumsily pin them down.

Lips pressed warmly against his temple and his body relaxed. Another kiss, on his nose then one on his cheek.

 

“Stay…” he mumbled through inactive lips.

 

“Okay,” Spike answered, voice clean and sure. “The drugs are making you dopey, pet. You won’t feel like this forever.”

 

Liam nodded. He felt scared, of himself, of his body that wouldn’t work, of not really knowing if he was awake or not. But he was safe, here. Spike… Spike would watch him, he knew that.

 

He nodded, “Protect…” he said, his voice slurred and not his own. He was trapped inside a dead body.

 

His loose mouth was captured by strong firm lips. “Don’t fret,” Spike’s voice said as a hand slid down his body, resting low on his hip, “I’m here, nothing can hurt you while I’m here.”

 

He nodded. He knew that.

 

---

 

Chapter Fifteen – Twisted.

 

 

 

Spike had slowly settled back into his routine. He kept Liam away from Gunn’s prying eyes for the moment, kept him in the white bed, his body filling the room with a life it had never had before. He could fill a characterless guestroom with emotion, made it seem like something used and not something just for show. Spike never had guests normally.

 

Wesley avoided him as usual, Gunn bellowed at him through the house and Liam slept. The cross on his back blistered and started to heal, slowly, as Liam slept in the snow-white sheets. Spike kept him sleeping and tranquillised, religiously changing his bandages and coating his back thickly with healing cream. The x was going shiny as it knitted deeply, pinkening, raising up from his flesh a little.

The Mark healed first; his wrist had been cut but only shallowly, inked to stay.

 

91365.

 

It was Liam’s number. His name to the Union, in blue-black on his wrist. His skin was still red around the digits. 91 was the area which Liam had come from, the Grey Mountains, and Spike didn’t understand the rest. It didn’t really matter he supposed. It was just for clerical use anyway.

 

It was warmish as the sun rose for once, so he hadn’t lit the fire by Liam’s bed. Liam was asleep on his belly like a cat, dark head pushed into the pillows, hands flat on the mattress tucked under the cushions. Spike carefully wiped cream over the last slash of the cross and stuck a fresh gauze to Liam’s warm skin. He wiped it thin this morning, almost non-existent, not noticeable. He given Liam some sleeping drugs the previous day like usual, and they would still be in his system this morning. He wouldn’t give him another dose to keep the numbness going like he had been doing. He didn’t want Liam falling asleep where they were going.

Sunlight streamed through the wide glass windows and splayed out across Liam’s bare back, smooth lines of skin lit up. His wrist was only tied with a thin bandage now, practically healed, only scratches now really.

 

Spike left Liam alone for a moment, slipping down the stairs and out into the grounds, heading towards the stables. He could smell horses, it was a thick familiar smell, of horsehair and sweat and dirt and an undertone of grain and shit. Cab was in the first stall, his grey snout hovering over the door. Spike petted him as he passed, hearing a sweeping broom further in the stables. He followed the noise and wasn’t surprised to see Gunn mucking out one of the stalls, dressed in thick grey pants and a shirt, the material looking brilliantly white against his dark sweat shiny skin.

 

Spike leant on the short door of the stall next to Gunn and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it with a high burst of flame from his chemical flint and puffing on it as Gunn worked.

 

“Morning,” Gunn said, wiping his arm across his forehead, “hand me that rake?”

 

Spike turned and hefted up the rake, handing it over with a smile. Gunn shook his head. “You could help me if you’re bored.”

 

“Nah.”

 

“What else are you going to do today?” Gunn asked, grinning, leaning on the rake, “’Cause you’re not gonna hang around and watch me work.”

 

His dark fingers crept up as he watched Spike, his knuckles rubbing impulsively at the ruined bit of skin between his nostrils, tagged and raggy, healed over and over, from when he’d continually pulled the leading ring out of his flesh. Spike still remembered that, the blood that poured from his nose plumping Gunn’s victorious lips. Pain didn’t mean much to Gunn.

 

Spike gazed across the stables, at nothing in particular. “Got a message.”

 

“From?”

 

“My father.”

 

“Oh,” Gunn said, narrowing his eyes contemplatively, “Let me guess. The old bastards coming out to see you?”

 

Spike narrowed his eyes and flicked the ash from his cigarette to the ground.

 

“Hey,” Gunn said irritably, attacking the ash flakes with his broom, “I just cleaned that.”

 

“He wants me to go see him.”

 

“Are you?” Gunn asked, still frowning slightly from the ash on his floor.

 

“Am I what?”

 

“Are you going to see him?”

 

Spike shrugged, drawing deeply on the cigarette. “Yeah. I think so.”

 

“Well go then, if you go now you can be back by tomorrow morning.”

 

“Nah, I’m not gonna go right now.” He had other things he needed to do today, preferring them to sitting listening to his father ramble on.

 

Gunn turned back into the stall, shaking his head as he disappeared again. “If you don’t go now, he’s gonna come here, and then he wont leave for the next few months and I’ll be very pissed at you cause I don’t like him.”

 

“Well it’s my house,” Spike said smoothly.

 

“Yes,” Gunn said, his face popping out from the stall, no-nonsense expression clear, “and I have to live here, and I’m not putting up with that old fool again.”

 

Spike didn’t answer. He pulled the cigarette away and pursed his lips in thought, watching the stable’s roof, seeing tiny cracks of daylight through the boards.

 

“How’s Liam?” Gunn asked after a moment, his voice casual.

 

“None of your business,” Spike snapped.

 

Gunn’s face appeared again, that same thoughtful expression on his face, brows slightly crinkled between his eyes. “What’s the background on this one, Spike?”

 

Spike tossed a glare in Gunn’s direction. “None. Of your business.”

 

Gunn set his rake against the side of the stall and stepped out, towering over Spike, reaching out with a big hand and pulling the case of cigarettes from Spike’s coat pocket. He lit one up and breathed it in.

 

“Did you know him before he was slaved?” Gunn asked carefully, breathing out a plume of smoke from his full dry lips.

 

Spike frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

 

“I’m trying to figure it out. There’s something different. I can feel it.”

 

“There’s nothing different,” Spike said, turning and leaving him without another word. He didn’t like those sort of questions. Who was Gunn to question him, anyway?

 

As he walked out of the stable he heard the rasping whoosh of the broom again as Gunn got back to work.

 

He wandered out towards the paddocks, drawn by a glossy coated stallion trotting proudly alongside the fences. He was by himself, and Spike had the flickering temptation to go ask Gunn why, but decided he couldn’t be bothered. Instead he climbed up on the fence and set his booted heels on the lower slat of wood and sat, watching the dark horse move sleekly over the grass as he smoked his cigarette. Cigarette turned to cigarettes, and the wind chilled the tip of his nose.

The horse noticed him, but coolly ignored his audience, continuing to amuse himself by wandering around, the sun shining brilliantly off his back. The sky was blue, but dark clouds were creeping steadily from the horizon, angry with rain. Maybe even storm.

 

Spike dropped the third smoked cigarette down onto the grass under his heels and slid off the fence, wide-awake as he started on the fourth, breathing the heat as he heard the stallion whinny behind him.

He walked across the soft grass, heading back into his home again, shivering in the cool rush of wind as it rolled down from the slight rising mountains behind him. It easily cut through his clothes and froze his skin, despite his futile attempts at wrapping his arms tight around himself. It was icy when the winds came, the sun hardly warming when it covered him, its heat sucked out under the harsher oncoming cold months.

He slid back inside the house and closed the door, immediately warmer out of the wind.

 

“Wesley!” he called, puffing the last of his cigarette and stubbing it out in an ashtray near the door.

 

Like a slinking shadow, Wesley appeared at the doorway to the kitchen, long face bowed and blue eyes on the floor. “Master?”

 

“Tea,” Spike grunted, cricking his neck from the cold, “Two cups. And sugar.”

 

“Yes, Master.”

 

He disappeared without a sound and Spike wandered into the sunken living area, his boots in the thick red rug sprawled richly across the main area of the room. Soft black leather faced the empty fireplace and he sat down, resting one foot up on the low coffee table.

 

Like magic, two cups of tea appeared next to his boot, Wesley shrinking away as soon as he’d delivered them, going back to the doorway before he uttered the inevitable question.

 

“Will there be anything else, Master?”

 

“Nope,” Spike barked, not looking at him, irritable. He realised Gunn had rubbed him the wrong way with his questions. His… implications.

 

He didn’t hear him leave but he knew Wesley was gone, hiding from him somewhere deep in the house, not so far away that he couldn’t hear him call if he were needed.

Wesley… knew how to serve. He was an opposer; he’d refused Union rule, but because he’d lived so close to Alla City, barely a day north of its walls, he’d been treated almost as a betrayer. His back was a lace pattern of pink and white scars from beatings, from when he’d been put in Union care after his village had been taken under Nest’s control. The camps didn’t look too kindly on betrayers. His owner before Spike had enjoyed hurting him, for the Union ideal, for his own ideals, whatever reason – and Wesley hadn’t fared too well.

 

Spike looked down at the wide cups of yellowy tea, seeing a few stray black leaves crumpled like ash at the bottoms of the cups, little tags of texture, sneaked through the filter. He picked up the cups and steadily walked upstairs, the narrow staircase creaking as he rose up to the higher rooms. He walked to the guestroom and slipped inside, cups in hand.

Liam was awake, still laying lazily on his belly and staring dolefully into the unlit fireplace, lost in thought, an unconscious mirror of Spike’s actions downstairs.

 

“Here,” Spike said, placing the tea on the empty bedside table.

 

Liam swallowed and Spike could see him steeling himself for the arduous task of sitting upright in the bed. He carefully inched himself up, leaning forward gingerly, afraid to let anything brush his bandage for fear of the pain. He was still a little drugged from yesterday and his movements were clumsy echoes of his usual easy grace. He side-eyed the cup and slowly moved his hand towards it, but Spike grabbed it from the table and set it on his blanketed thigh for him, unable to wait and watch the slow procession.

 

Liam’s dark eyes fluttered up to his own, heavy circles underneath his gaze before he looked out the window. The bright light made him narrow his eyes as he shied away from the sharpness of it, eyelashes shudder feebly as he shifted. He cleared his throat sickly, and carefully brought the cup to his cracked lips, sipping the tea. His chest was bare above the stark white covers, nipples dark and soft as he weakly held up the cup to his lips.

 

Liam had practically finished his tea before Spike started on his own, both men sitting and sipping in silence.

 

“I’m going to stop drugging you today,” Spike said, setting his tea aside and taking Liam’s empty cup from him before he dropped it.

 

Liam looked up at him blankly. He was sallow. His skin had lost its sunned colour and he looked sick. “I’ve been drugged?” he said, confused.

 

“Yes,” Spike said patiently, “I have told you before now, you just keep forgetting. Because of the drugs.”

 

“Oh.” Liam looked around with unfocused eyes, a lost figure in a sea of thick cloying white. “Where am I?”

 

“You’re home,” Spike said firmly. “I want to take you out today, do you think you’re well enough?”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you want to go outside?”

 

Liam slowly looked towards the window again. He nodded. Blinked dopily although he seemed to be coming to.

Spike stood up and flipped the covers back, taking Liam’s forearm and helping him out of the bed. Liam leaned on him heavily as he shuffled out of the covers and when he stood on unsteady feet, his hands tightened around Spike’s arm.

Leading him out of the room they headed downstairs, walking away from the kitchen and foyer and down a short side hallway into the large bathhouse.

It was a circular bath, steam rising from the water and dewing the large exotic white lilies that surrounded the water. The stone floor was shiny black, and the pump that ran the bath trickled down from a rock ledge like a tiny waterfall, making the water choppy, a river, frothing bubbles underneath the surface of the pool.

Spike kicked his boots off, peeling his socks off quickly and discarding them for the moment.

He sat Liam on the side of the bath, pulling the long soft pants down his hips, down his thighs, over his knees. Liam leant against him unsteadily, naked and sickly, cuff on one wrist and bandage on the other, flat belly that led down to a thick thatch of tight curls. With a grunt Spike shifted him into the water, his hands skating across the soft light hair on his thighs as he moved him forward, trying not to disrupt the bandage. The water sploshed around Liam as he sat between Spike’s calves, held in place with Spike’s knees so he wouldn’t wet his back too much. Liam managed to keep his wrist out of the water until Spike moved his arm, resting it along the side of the bath, shifting his thigh over the top of it to keep it in place.

 

Spike handed him the sponge to his free hand and Liam took it sleepily, washing himself quickly, with drunken swipes of watery bubbles. He smelt sick, sour from the cream Spike was using on him.

After he was done Spike urged him out of the bath, helping him as he swayed uneasily, still clumsy from the chemical sleep Spike had given him.

Spike yanked his boots back on first, before turning his focus to Liam again. He towelled him down and helped dress him in clean clothes, and led him back out into the main areas of the house leaving the rushing fountain of water behind them as he closed the door.

 

He shouted for Wesley, waiting in the foyer for the man to appear, seating Liam down on a plush chair against the wall. Liam blinked, a flutter of eyelashes as he tried to focus. He couldn’t really, but it wasn’t that noticeable. He didn’t look like he’d been drugged. At least not to anyone who’d never seen him before.

 

Wesley shadowed up, appearing with ease, out of thin air.

 

“Master?” he said, his blue eyes flicking to his handsome creature sitting on the chair against the wall, frowning dark brows as he peered at the picture on the wall across from him, trying to focus on it. Wesley hadn’t seen Liam before now, and Spike watched his reaction carefully.

 

Wesley glanced at Liam, stealing another look a few seconds later, taking in his image and storing it away. Spike felt protective hackles rise at the look, sniffing sharply to draw Wesley’s attention away.

 

“Get the carriage,” Spike said.

 

Wesley looked up at him with a shot of confusion. He blinked, thinking he’d misunderstood, trying to figure out how to phrase the question without being disrespectful. “Do you want me to get Gunn to take you somewhere, Master?” he asked.

 

Liam noticed Wesley suddenly, turning his darkly pretty head and staring at him.

 

“No, I want you to. Don’t bring Gunn back here,” Spike said sharply. He didn’t want Gunn looking at Liam, not up close, not just yet.

 

“Yes Master.”

 

He hurried off in his taut aristocratic way, jerky and stiff as he headed towards the stables.

Liam watched him go with distant interest, and Spike watched Liam’s eyes track Wesley out of the house with a vague irritation. Liam looked back at him blankly and blinked again, sleepily.

He’d only been dressed in pants and a thin cotton vest. His feet were bare, his arms were bare. He’d need to get him a coat. He didn’t know where Liam’s coat was, somewhere in the packed up trunks Spike hadn’t taken note of. Maybe Wesley had cleaned it, although he hadn’t seen it in the wash room.

Spike sat down next to him, running a finger gently down his bath-warm arm before settling a palm over his stomach, his actions almost longing, sneaking a touch of him here and there.

Liam’s eyes slid towards him, night black pupils trained on his face with some effort, under heavy lids. Spike looked back at him, feeling a tingling in his lower belly, in the base of his spine. He leaned forward and kissed him softly, giddily, raising his hand to cup Liam’s sharp jaw, pulling away and watching his reaction. Liam simply sat there.

 

“Last step,” Spike said softly, before standing up, grabbing Gunn’s oilskin overcoat from the cupboard and sliding it around Liam’s broad shoulders.

 

Wesley cleared his throat gently as Spike was settling the coat around Liam and Spike hauled him up, feeling his pet still leaning heavily on him as he lead him out to the waiting small carriage that sat on the drive. Cab and another horse lashed were lashed to the wooden struts with bits in their mouths, patiently waiting for them both. The clouds edged closer, darkening the brightness of the morning.

 

Wesley held the door open for him and Spike noted his eyes were again on Liam as he stepped inside, almost tripping up the stairs on clumsy feet before he was caught by Spike’s sure hands. The door closed with a click once they were both inside and Wesley scrambled up behind the horses, flicking them onward as Spike called out the destination from within.

Liam sat next to Spike inside, on the soft red seat; his head wobbling brokenly with the rocking of the carriage as the horses dragged them along. His shoulder was against Spike’s, and when Spike looked at him, he could see Liam’s eyes were open in inquisitive sleepy slits, trying to see where they were going.

 

They travelled to the centre of Totten, stopping outside the large judicial house that sat lazily in the Town Square. Governor Nest’s bronze figure loomed over them as they got out of the cab, Wesley already gone, pulling the horses into a station to lash them until Spike returned.

 

“Don’t look too sleepy,” Spike said to him as they walked up the steps.

 

Liam looked at him curiously. “I feel like I am asleep.”

 

“I know. Just look alert.”

 

Spike and Liam stepped into the wide stone hall of the law office, and he held Liam’s wrist possessively as they walked towards the counter. Liam’s version of looking awake was apparently to blink rapidly, like he had a nervous twitch. It would do. He should be nervous in the familial house of Governor Nest anyway. No one would pick up on it.

 

They stepped up to the counter and Spike smiled beatifically at the woman behind it. “Like to change his collar.”

 

She smiled back, lips reddened and shiny, her white blonde hair pulled back tight in a jewelled band. “Sure, General,” she said cheerily, pulling out a form.

 

It was a usual request. Most owners, if they had enough money, changed their slave’s collars. Some even changed them yearly, getting popular bands for their pets to wear and swapping them when a new trend came in. Liam still wore the original steel he’d been collared with, but it wasn’t nice, wasn’t good quality. It looked wrong on him.

Spike tugged out the steel collar he’d had made in the first few days of arriving in Totten, giving it to the woman and taking the form she held in her fingers. He filled it out quickly and gave it back to her, before being given a proof of allowance and the collar back, and being directed down the hall.

 

He entered the small room off the left side of the corridor, a giant-armed blacksmith waiting by the white-hot flames of a pit fire, two government officials, three guards and a soldier to oversee the change. They all signed the form and Spike sat Liam on the bench as each man in the room, bar the slave, examined the new collar. It was all perfunctory, but it was a good show. You couldn’t change a slave’s collar without documenting it step by step. The collar wasn’t meant to be taken off, ever, so a production must be made for the vanity people had in their possessions.

 

They slipped the coat off Liam’s arms, turning him and sitting him down forcibly in the middle of the room. The blacksmith pushed Liam’s head forward, forcing his chin down to his chest, his dark hair sweeping over his face in the angle.

 

Liam’s collar was snipped off carefully; the blacksmiths muscled arms bulging as he bore down on the steel ring. Liam’s eyes were frightened but Spike stood to the side and managed to look bored. The new collar was set carefully around Liam’s neck; its cut edges glowing white from the fire. The blacksmith squeezed the edges together to seal it in place and soldered it on further. Liam was doused in cold water, a thick cloth was wrapped around the soldering point, and he was freed back into Spike’s care. Easy.

 

Spike walked him out of the room and tried not to look too pleased with the new finish, sneaking glances at it, brushed and polished steel, even and simple, sitting easier around Liam’s neck than the other, resting a fraction higher too. It was elegant; it was perfect for Liam. The thinnest collar that could be lawfully allowed for Liam’s height and weight, a finger’s width of steel. But the best part was still his name, engraved deep, centred and easily visible on the coil, right under Liam’s throat.

 

They walked back out of the building, under Nest and down to the street. Liam’s eyes were gazing around the bustling inner heart of Totten. It wasn’t a small town. It wasn’t encased in walls, but it wasn’t small by any definition. Not as crowded as Alla City, either, but not small enough for everyone to know everyone else’s business. Maybe a few familiar faces at the markets but that’s about it, and that was the way Spike preferred it. Wesley pulled up in front of them, jumping down off the carriage to open the door for them.

 

“Hello,” Liam said to the man standing with his eyes to the ground, speaking in his open awkwardly naïve way.

 

Spike blinked, not expecting any speech from Liam. Wesley’s eyes flicked up in confusion, obviously not expecting it either.

 

“Don’t say anything,” Spike warned Wesley in a harsh voice, pleased when his gaze fell dead to the floor, his face pointed down. He didn’t acknowledge Liam had spoken.

 

Spike ushered his prize pet into the carriage, closing the door quickly behind them. He looked at Liam and cocked an eyebrow. Liam looked grumpy.

 

“You don’t talk to anyone unless I say you can.”

 

“He had a collar,” Liam said, closing his eyes like he had a headache. “I thought he was a slave.”

 

“He is a slave.”

 

Liam’s eyes cracked open and he frowned, confused. “I can’t talk to other slaves?”

 

“No,” he said to Liam, before raising his voice to direct Wesley. “Home!”

 

The carriage rolled forward.

 

“Why not?” Liam asked.

 

Spike looked at him. “Do you like your new collar?”

 

Liam looked away, gazing tiredly out the window. “It’s lighter than the old one,” he said grudgingly.

 

“Looks better,” Spike said, shuffling closer, his thigh against Liam’s.

 

He raised his hand and brushed his fingers along the silver band, startling his pet, seeing him jump a little as his eyes flicked up to meet Spike’s gaze. The pad of Spike’s finger teased along the engraved name, his balls clenching nicely as the pleasure skittered through him. His name. Owner’s name. He curled one finger around the collar absently, tugging lightly. Liam turned his face fully towards him; eyes on Spike’s mouth as it drew close to him. The tips of their noses brushed as the countryside rolled past to the sound of drumming horse hooves. Liam’s breath was hot on his lips.

 

“You weren’t meant to drug me, were you?” he said suddenly.

 

Spike blinked, looking up from Liam’s lips. “What?”

 

“You drugged me. And you used that cream. Took all the pain away.” He shook his head slightly; “You weren’t meant to do that were you?”

 

Spike swallowed dryly. “No,” he said, before he’d even thought about his answer. Had he just given something away? Some power? By letting Liam know he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to?

 

Liam frowned at him like he’d given the wrong answer, and looked away, eyes scouring the wall opposite them. “Why?” he said, almost irritated.

 

“Did you want to be in pain, did you?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then what’s your problem?”

 

Liam shrugged, his hand running up the sleeve of Gunn’s coat and playing with the lone silver band around his wrist. The new collar was brilliant in its shininess. It drew Spike’s eyes to the hollow of Liam’s neck, a soft place on which Spike’s eyes happily lingered.

 

“How’s your back?”

 

“It fucking hurts,” Liam said, lips pressing together after the obscenity spilled from them.

 

“I hardly put any cream on it today.”

 

Liam turned to him again, pausing, lips parted as if to say something, before turning back again. Spike noticed he was hunching forward a little, his back in a curve as he leant away from the seat. His pets eyes closed wearily and he let his dark head droop.

 

 

*

 

 

It was raining when Liam woke up. Nighttime deluge behind glass. He was upstairs in the white bed and the rain sounded strange. It fell and spattered to the ground beneath him, he was above it, and it felt strange.

Raindrops spattered into the warming fire that broiled away in the fireplace, sneaking down the chimney and sacrificing themselves on the flames in a dying hiss.

 

It was late. He could feel it, smell it, under the earthy water. The night was black from the clouds and the fire cast the room yellow. It popped excitedly; a firework of sparks tumbling harmlessly against the glass protector that wrapped around the hearth.

He gingerly raised up from his belly, his gut growling for food.

 

When they’d returned from the collaring, Spike had left him by himself in the room, closing the door with a firm snap, telling him to stay, like a puppy confined. Liam had been tired anyway; not really doing anything except sitting in the soft chair usually reserved for Spike’s vigils.

A time later, in the middle of the day there had been a knock on the door. Liam had hesitated a little while before opening it, knowing it wasn’t Spike, not with a knock, making him feel almost apprehensive as to who it could be. When he had gathered himself and answered the door, there had been no one there but a square dish filled with long rolls of sticky rice sitting quietly on a red napkin. He’d eaten them, carefully pulling the clumps of sticky rice away from the sweet basted chicken, and cleaned up every stray sesame seed on the plate in boredom before he’d grown sleepy again and retired to bed.

 

He looked around the dark suite, eyes alighting on a plate of steamed green leaves in dark sauce and a side dish of roast pork and flat noodles, thick rice ones that had been his mother’s favourite, the ones that looked like white underwater lake fronds. He pulled the cold dish of noodles into his lap and picked at it, the jelly of the noodles slipping from his fingers constantly as he scooped them into his mouth. They were flavoured with a sweet and salty basting sauce, and they filled his stomach nicely, if coldly.

There was a kettle of tea on the side table and Liam shuffled himself up, setting his dinner aside for the moment and pushing the tin pot in the fire quickly to heat up. The cold air wrapped around him like a snake when he stepped out from his blankets, slithering over him and making his skin tighten and bump. After he’d set the tea to heat he retreated under the heated pocket of the blankets again, finishing off his cold dinner.

As he ate, absently watching the kettle, he wondered if Spike had left it for him, if he’d crept into the room while Liam slept and set his dinner beside his bed. Maybe it had been the other man, Wesley. He’d been pale, light eyed, slender like Spike. He looked Union. He’d even spoken with a Union accent but he’d had a collar around his neck and cuffs on his wrists. He was a slave. Spike’s slave, he guessed.

 

Liam jolted from his thoughts as the kettle let out a hiss of steam, scrambling out of bed and using the fire tongs to pull the hot metal from the coals. He knelt in front of the flames, feeling them fend off the chill that fogged around his skin, and carefully poured himself some tea, bringing the small cup to his lips and sipping at the burning liquid inside.

 

The rain sluiced down the glass window, little rivers of wet. He watched it, kneeling on the floor, soothed by the fire. He sipped.

 

He could think a little clearer now. The past few days… weeks? They’d been nothing but sleep and blurry ideas. Spike, and some food and bathing and white covers and soft pillows. He didn’t remember much else. He remembered the pain though. He shivered, his back throbbing as he thought of it.

He tried to forget about it, concentrating on his surroundings.

 

He scrutinised the room he’d been confined to. It was white, he knew that much. White with dark wood to break up the snow. It felt strange, empty and disused. There was the soft bed with a wood frame. A wooden side table. Another small table under the window. A white chair and the fireplace, dark brown bricks embedded in the white wall. Even the window frame was dark polished wood. There was no feeling to it, just white. His clothes were folded on the table under the window.

Liam stood up, warm tea in hand, and crept to the window, moving away from the heated bubble around the fire. He couldn’t see much through the dark and the rain. It was flat around him, flat paddocks like back in Seget, and he could see a roof below the window, the lower floor of the house. Spike’s house.

He sipped his tea thoughtfully. He wondered what time it was.

Poking through his clothes that were sitting in a neat folded pile on the bench, he pulled out a long sleeved tie up jacket and cinched the grey wool closed around himself.

 

He realised he was a little thirsty, and the tea wasn’t quenching it. He needed some water.

 

He looked around, vaguely remembering a bottle of water in Spike’s hands, helping him drink from it as the world remained blurred and bleached with sleep. He bent carefully, not wanting to shift his back too much, and looked under the bed.

Nothing.

 

The room was fairly empty, there wasn’t that many places it could be hiding.

 

He shivered and went back to sit in front of the fire to think, sipping at his tea as he knelt back down on the floor.

 

He looked around for a moment aimlessly before his eyes alighted on the thin cloth bandage that was wrapped around his wrist, poking out from beneath his jacket sleeve. He blinked at it, setting the cup down and rolling the sleeve back. He ran his fingers over the bandage. It didn’t hurt. He hesitantly untacked the cloth, the air feeling even colder on the flesh that had been wrapped up, pulling the material away almost apprehensive at revealing the result of the pain he’d gone through.

At first it didn’t make sense, scratches with black in them. And then he figured it out.

 

It was a number.

Liam frowned.

 

91365.

 

He ran his fingertip over the scratched in digits, cleanly cut into the soft flesh of his wrist. He sighed through his nose. A number. He knew it was his own number, his slave number. Just another thing to make him feel less human.

 

His heart hardened, thumping stonily against his ribs.

 

How dare they.

 

He coughed a little, not knowing what to think.

 

Liam felt for every sheep, for every cow, or horse he’d seen tagged for selling at Vara Town’s markets. He felt like an animal. He felt less than human. He wondered if it were a special number assigned to Spike. He snorted, standing up restlessly, pacing a few steps as the rain beat down.

 

He needed to move. He felt… caged. He felt like nothing. The room suddenly felt stiflingly hot.

 

Without really thinking what he was doing, Liam moved towards the door, turning the handle and walking through it of his own free will.

He entered the hallway, his body cold now that he’d left the bubble of heat, squinting in the black, trying to see shapes. He could hardly see anything; the night was so dark. He moved slowly along the rug on the floor, feeling his toes being attacked by icy drafts that slipped up the stairs. Edging forward, his foot felt the floor drop away to the stairs and he slipped down them, finding himself on the bottom floor of the house. It was huge. His entire home in Seget could probably fit in the foyer of this place. There was so much space. The rain sounded heavier down here, as it beat down and rolled across the high roof.

 

It smelled like ash down where he stood, in the shadows, skulking along the walls. He could barely see black shapes of chairs and tables, a glint of silver or glass in places. He edged along the wall, skirting past the dead fire in the fireplace and continuing on, a giddy little thrill of defiance in his heart. Freedom. Freedom from the meaning of the number. He felt more human, if only slightly.

 

He reached out with his hands when he came to a deep black corner, his fingers stubbing into a shelf, feeling flowers in a rough pot, feeling shapes of unknown things resting on the slats of wood. He kept creeping, coming to an entire glass part of the wall, pressing his hands up against the cold nothing and watching the rain pour down outside. It made mud puddles in the grass. He could see fences, barely, he could see trees, slashed and beaten by the downpour, their limbs swaying with the weight of it.

A sudden flash of lightning lit the land up like looking into the sun, coating it white for an instant, and Liam could see sweeping fields and mountains in the distance, lining the valley they must be in. Thunder rolled menacingly, so loud it rattled the house, made it thrum and vibrate for a moment like it was an alive thing.

His hands moved and he could see he’d left fingerprints on the surface of it, and two plumes of foggy breath that distorted the image of the outside world.

He ran his finger through the fog slowly, stepping closer as he cleaned it off, his thigh coming in contact with a doorhandle as he did. He realised the glass panel was a door.

 

A door.

 

He blinked, thoughts forming in his mind as the rain poured down.

 

His hand strayed to the knob, and his unblinking eyes stayed pinned to the outside as his fingers closed around it slowly. He turned it and the door clicked open easily, slowly swinging out, letting a sweep of freezing air curl around Liam’s body, cutting through his thin pants and shirt, making him feel naked as it chilled his thighs and stomach. The falling rain sounded so much louder, deafening, so much more wet and real with the door open. He could hear it spattering on the mud outside, could hear the rattling brushing leaves of the battered trees.

 

He could run. Right now.

 

His fingers twitched with the idea, insane bravery flaring up behind his eyes and making him lightheaded. There was nothing to stop him. A real life, out there. Human, free life. Not an animal, or a nameless thing with numbers to mark it…

 

He shifted his weight restlessly.

The number burned frighteningly in his wrist and his hand clamped over it. He could just go.

 

Lightning flashed into his eyes again, burning inside his head, thunder following quickly and his delirium at his insane thoughts started to fade with the after images from the too bright light.

Where would he go? He didn’t even know where he was.

He couldn’t leave without food in the middle of the night; he couldn’t run off into the freezing storming rain. His shoulders slumped a little, the burgeoning hope fleeing quickly from his cowardly body.

He was a prisoner. He couldn’t leave. He wasn’t free.

 

He felt hollowed out, he felt like his empty bones wouldn’t be able to support his weight.

A gust of wet wind rolled around him cruelly, chilling him even further. His eyes watered a little. He should shut the door. He couldn’t bring himself to, like it would mean something to shut it after believing, even if it was just for a moment, that he could be free again. Like he’d –

 

His collar was suddenly jerked roughly from behind, the unyielding steel choking him, bruising his throat as he was yanked back, off balance as he fell, landing hard on his ass with his legs sprawled across the slatted wood. He spluttered and coughed, throat convulsing under his gasping hands.

Pale skin loomed above him, moving in front of him gracefully, white hair and a shadowed face. Bare chest breathing deeply in the dark. A slap slammed across his cheek, burning the cold flesh.

Spike whirled in fluid anger, slamming the door closed before turning on him again, kicking his bare foot sharply into Liam’s shin with restrained fury and Liam curled up, feeling guilty, feeling guilty about feeling guilty, awash in his emotions as usual and at the end of his rope because of it.

 

Spike didn’t speak for a moment. It made things worse.

Liam couldn’t look at him. He could hear the harshness of his breath, an angry predator being tricked by prey. He wanted Spike to yell, not for the words, for the anger. Wanted to be yelled at because he didn’t try to escape when he had the chance.

A cold empty deserving feeling started to chip away at his insides. He could faintly smell the scent of wood charcoal, the scent of Spike.

 

Spike grabbed his chin in cold iron fingers and jerked his face up. “What are you doing?” Spike hissed through clenched teeth, standing over him as he sat on the floor.

 

“I wasn’t trying to run,” he said, truthfully, his words a bit raspy through his sore throat. He didn’t add that he’d been thinking about it, didn’t say that, as the tight feeling in his chest made his eyes fog up with water.

 

The fingers tightened, and Liam’s fingers crept up to his wrist entreatingly, only to be shaken sharply off. “Then what are you doing?”

 

“I was just –“ his voice cracked.

 

“Just what?” Spike barked viciously.

 

“I was just looking.”

 

Lightning flashed and Liam jerked away from the rabid fury suddenly lit up in Spike’s eyes, getting that uneasy feeling again, that he was in the presence of a true predator. His mouth was dry. His back ached. His chest ached. The empty feeling inside him ached. He didn’t feel human for a second, he didn’t feel like Liam and it wasn’t because of Spike. It was him. He’d stood there at the open door and he’d done nothing. Who was he? He’d always thought he was brave.

His lips trembled; his eyes burning with tears he was trying not to let fall.

 

Spike’s hand curled tightly around the back of his neck, his face drawing close. “If you run,” he said softly, “I will hunt you down, and drag you back. I won’t stop until I find you. You. Are. Mine.”

 

“I wasn’t trying to run!” Liam said almost hysterically, feeling hot, feeling Spike’s breath on his lips, feeling a tear track down his cheek. A sob cracked from his chest and shame added to the flurry of emotions in his throat. “I have nowhere to run to. I have nowhere to go! No one will help me! Im here and I can’t go anywhere!”

 

He pressed his hands against his mouth madly, forcing himself not to sob, biting into his palms as he tried to swallow the anguish. His breath hitched in his throat and he could feel water streaming from his eyes, running hot obscene rivers down his face that froze in an instant in the cold. He felt twisted, misshapen. He was torn apart, from gut to throat, ripped open and left like a sodden rug on Spike’s floor. He cried hot tears, his breath hitching.

 

Spike knelt down between his sprawled knees, his fingers firmly pulling Liam’s hands away from his face, holding them by his wrists, in the air. Thunder rumbled around them, fainter than before.

 

Spike’s lips pressed against his wet cheek and Liam bit back the sob bubbling in his throat, his captured hands twitching into fists. He wanted Spike to keep growling at him, wanted to growl at himself. Wanted lighting to strike him.

Spike’s lips pressed against his cheek again, kissing away the river of tears, then pressed against his mouth. Liam’s eyes closed, a thrum of heat fracturing the empty angry feeling inside. His eyes were scratchy, and his tense shoulders slumped as Spike’s tongue slipped soothingly between his lips.

 

“It’s alright,” Spike said softly, words half in Liam’s open mouth as he returned from his snarling animal state and became gentle again. “Shh…”

 

His wrists were released, hovering dumbly in the air as one of Spike’s hands confidently found its way into his hair, the other resting on the tie of his jacket. He covered Liam’s lips with his own again, kissing away sobs.

The rain grew heavier, a wave of intense rattling drops on the roof echoing around them. He could feel Spike’s knees pressing against the insides of his thighs.

 

Spike’s kisses were hot, they were needy. They flared something human inside himself, made him feel human in response, and tears tracked down his cheek and tickled his jaw.

 

“No running,” Spike whispered against his wet lips.

 

Liam couldn’t think. He felt grateful for the touch, for the actual hands on him taking away the inhuman feeling.

Spike’s hands weren’t touching him like he was a number.

Weren’t touching him like he was a coward.

He felt bad about himself; it was a new feeling. He needed the comfort Spike was providing. Confusion was reigning, but Spike’s fingers felt good as they slipped under his jacket, against the bare skin of his stomach. Icy fingertips made his muscles clench, made him breathe deeply through his nose as his guilty mouth was teased with Spike’s tongue again. Spike’s hand rubbed back and forth across the flat flesh of his belly and it felt wonderful. Warm and human. Touch. Touching. He remembered it. He was greedy for it right now. A fat puppy fed on soft touch.

He remembered the men who’d burnt him, poked and shifted him like he was a doll, not alive, like he couldn’t feel. Cut a number into his arm and sent him off. He wasn’t worthy of human feelings in their eyes and that idea was starting to sneak into his head, muddle with his thoughts. His wrist burned phantom-like at the notion.

He opened his eyes and couldn’t see Spike’s face in the dark. He could see the blur outside of rain falling, heavy drops past the windows, falling down around them.

 

Spike’s hand slipped down and in the dark, blind and reduced to feeling and the sound of heavy hot breathing, it felt wonderful. His body stirred as Spike’s hand rubbed softly against the thin material over his crotch. He could feel his cock gratefully swelling to cold tipped fingers and he pressed his mouth firmly against Spike’s as the pleasure washed through him. His eyes were sleepy with it and his heart fluttered like it was filled with feathers.

Spike broke from his mouth, panting as he kissed around his lips, kissed his chin, his cheeks, whatever his lips landed on in the dark and Liam moaned softly, almost lost beneath the beating of the rain.

 

“I’ve been wanting to touch you,” Spike whispered hotly against his ear, one hand supporting the back of Liam’s head as the other massaged him deliciously through his pants.

 

His mouth was devoured again; the confession lost to the heat of them as Spike kissed him fiercely.

 

Strong firm fingers slid up and Liam’s blood was hot as he felt his hardening cock tenting the material of his pants. He sucked in a breath as Spike plucked his mouth with kisses, hand sliding up to the waistband of his pants and easily pulling them down, bringing his hardness out into the freezing air and wrapping it in hot fist. Liam’s hands curled around Spike’s neck and he pulled himself close, burying his face in his bare firm shoulder as the hand started to squeeze and pull at him in a familiar easy movement. Slow and certain and Liam’s mouth fell open at the feel of it, his brows drawing together as he buried his face away from what was happening, ignoring it so he could enjoy it in the dark, smelling the tantalising smell of Spike’s skin, smelling like sweet wood charcoal, familiar scent, hot scent, charcoal scent on his skin and burnt tobacco clinging to his white hair. With a touch he was human. Not a slave, not a number, not now. He couldn’t be. It couldn’t be like this, it couldn’t steal his breath from his lungs and make his body unfurl to Spike’s touches if it were an owner and a number.

 

His hips started to rise gently from the floor, meeting Spike’s hand as a strong tang started to flavour the air. Pleasure shuddered through him irregularly, making him grip tighter around Spike’s neck and bite gently at the firm flat skin beneath his teeth to keep himself from squealing. Spike’s hand disappeared from the back of his neck, and after a small shuffling moment, a quick sticky jerking sound added to the similar sound already between them. Spike groaned, a fluttery pleasure filled sound that shot another twitch of stirring through Liam, stoking him like a fire, his knees trying to close around Spike’s body between them, the feeling almost too much.

He mouthed words against Spike’s skin, ‘yes’ and ‘please’, his lips sliding along his collarbone in half kisses, hands splaying out along his back to pull him closer. Spike’s fingers were quick on him, sliding back and forth on his slippery shaft, and Liam sucked in air to fill his collapsing lungs every time a pad of slim finger swept across his leaking slit.

The feeling built, his balls tight and hard, his cock hot and wet in Spike’s quick firm fingers. He could hear Spike’s hands on both of them, in quick time and his body felt too hot for the cold ground. His feet were flat on the floorboards, helping his hips arch up needily to Spike’s tightening touch. Spike squeezed him sharply, a tight tunnel of fingers and Liam moaned a reckless yell against Spike’s skin as the tension popped in his veins.

The pressure released, he felt the tension suddenly gush away, sucked out of him as he held on to Spike, teeth bared against his shoulder, he could taste his skin as he came, pouring himself out into Spike’s hand, leaving nothing behind, slumping against him heavily, his fingers twitching as they slid down his sweat spotted spine and rested on the curve of his tensed cheeks.

 

He could distantly hear Spike releasing, his hand squeezing around Liam’s cock as he came.

 

A warm feeling had spread in Liam’s chest, furry and filling him so much he felt puffed and swollen with it, like he was glowing in the darkness, alive and very human for that moment, still clinging tight to Spike.

 

Spike panted, his body moving as he sucked in gulps of air. His fingers twitched around Liam’s slackening cock and his face dropped to Liam’s shoulder, wearily pressing a kiss to the side of his neck as his hot breath furled out from his lungs. Liam’s nostrils were filled with the spicy salty scent of them.

 

The rain poured down and Liam stared dumbly out through the glass, watching it as he tried to gather his flattened thoughts. As he tried to lace himself together, Spike’s lips attacked his mouth possessively, he could feel the ownership in the fiery kisses and he pulled away. Confusion sneaked back into his skull as he stood up, tucking himself away, retying the jacket tightly around himself. His ass was numb from sitting on the cold floor. He turned, facing the black, eyes wide as the impact of what he’d done slowly settled in him. What … what was that?

 

Spike’s arm slid around his waist, sleepy lips pressed a weak kiss against his jacket-covered shoulder blade. It was such a tender gesture, and it made Liam’s head spin.

 

This was all wrong. It was. He was sure of it. It had seemed so right when he’d been wrapped around him and now it seemed so wrong.

 

“Don’t…” he said, his voice gravelly from his climax.

 

“Don’t what?” Spike asked sleepily, slipping his hair to the side and kissing the back of his neck.

 

Liam wriggled away from him. “I didn’t want that,” he said, turning to face the shadow outline of Spike.

 

There was silence for a moment, water dripping off the roof outside, waterfalls. “I’ve got a handful of your spunk, and you didn’t want that,” he said doubtfully.

 

Liam hurried away from the outline, stumbling back to the stairs and climbing them two at a time on his frozen feet. He fled to the room he knew, finding the fire still joyfully licking the logs and twigs in the hearth and grabbed the thick blanket from the bed, wrapping it around himself up to his chin and sitting hunched down in front of the flames, his back to the door. He stared at the flames, brows drawn in wild eyed confusion, mixing up with the fluffy plump satisfied feeling in his belly, his balls still thrumming nicely from their release.

He heard footsteps, and he huddled further into his blanket, closing his eyes, not caring how foolish he must look, like a little child afraid of monsters under the bed. The door creaked open and Liam sucked in a quiet breath, holding it until the door squeaked closed again a second later. Footsteps retreated and another door opened and closed in the hallway.

Silence.

 

Liam let his breath out slowly through his shaky lips.

 

---

 

Chapter Sixteen – The Smell of It

 

 

 

 

Spike’s dream was a messy construct of fantasy and reality. He was a little boy, maybe not so little, he can’t really remember, and he was sneaking along the streets of Alla City, cold salty air held in his lungs. He found his way along the mostly empty streets, skirting in the shadows until he could see the Governor’s House looming in it’s high walled fortress in the middle of Alla’s heart. It stunk here, smelled like rotting flesh and piss.

His feet were bare for some reason, he can’t really remember why, maybe they weren’t really bare and this is just something his mind had added in for whatever reason. He can hear his breath in his head as he comes up to the street he’d been heading to, slowing his pace, lingering at the junction of the roads before persevering.

There are meat sacks hanging outside the Governor’s home. Betrayers. They’ve been stripped down to underclothes, two are frail women, their bare arms laced with burns as they hang, lifeless, eyes staring glassily forward. Their hands look like feathers; their hands are pale birds. Their lips are too red to be human.

 

These lot were working underground, helping the opposers, doing the wrong thing. They were killed. He was there when they were. His father took him, standing in his armour and clenching clawed fingers into Spike’s shoulder as he made sure he was watching as they kicked the stands out from under pointed toes and let them swing. Cheering loudly with the crowd.

 

The people’s legs are wet; their bowels had released after they’d stopped jerking. Or maybe before. It stunk. Blood and burnt skin. The smell of it.

 

 

*

 

 

Spike woke up with a start, his nose running and his eyelashes wet with tears from the dream. It was a mish mash, he could hear Jac screaming in his head, could smell the violent stench of bodies as they burst on the flames, guts running the ground red and pulpy in a hundred different towns, mixing together with the piss of the Betrayers strung up like skinned rabbits in the streets, the smell overtaking him all at once.

He sat up in a full body convulse and retched dryly, sweat between his brows, hand scrabbling at his throat as the smell tried to choke him.

The feeling passed quickly, the stink fading from his nostrils, but he still felt shaken and emptied.

 

It was early morning outside the panels of glass in the walls. Grey and dull from the rain, like the weather couldn’t be arsed to get up after the night before. Clouds hung heavy and low, full with dark rain but not giving over. The sun was starting to light from somewhere behind them.

 

Spike didn’t want to be in bed anymore. His entire body felt greasy, he needed to wash the dream from him, wash it out of his mind, wash the stink off.

He slipped his bare feet onto the frozen floor, flipping the dark red covers back, holding on to one of the thick posts of the bed to steady himself, letting his head fall back, staring up at the silken canopy above him. He was weakened by it. He didnt dream well.

He slipped out of the bed and his soft sleeping pants were clinging to his thighs and ass with dried tacky sweat. Moving out over the over-plush rugs on the floors, out into the hall, he cast a lingering glance at the closed door to Liam. A smile tickled the edge of his lips. His Liam. His Liam now. From collar to come.

 

His cock jerked and he couldn’t even remember his dreams at the moment.

 

Ignoring his need to bathe for the moment, he padded to the closed door, opened it, gazing inside softly at the bundled mass of white covers on the bed, Liam curled up. He could hear soft snores and the room smelled like dead fire. He couldn’t see a trace of him under the rolled up covers but he could hear him and it soothed him. He quietly closed the door and moved on. It was too early to prod Liam awake anyhow.

 

The house was cold, even colder than it had been when he’d woken in the middle of the night. He’d somehow felt something was off. He’d sneaked down the stairs then, too, and his heart had almost combust when he’d seen Liam at the open door, untethered and free to go.

And then after… it had been nothing he’d expected.

 

He shivered nicely, skirting the staircase and heading towards the trickle of the bath. The clench of his wide hands around the back of Spike’s neck, clinging to him, his face against his shoulder, needy and begging Spike to take the hurt away as his hips slid up against Spike’s firm fist. The pleas were burnt into his chest with searing hot breath, burning fiercely in his skin and his heartbeat was throbbing against the words. He felt almost lightheaded – remembering the way Liam had held on to Spike like he was the only thing to stop him from sliding away. He’d wanted to wrap his arms around Liam so tightly he’d have probably broken his bones. Lucky his hands were busy at the time.

 

The bathhouse was steamy as always, lush and hot and Spike shed his pants and slipped into the warm water quickly, ducking under the surface and hearing the underwater clanking of the pump. He slid through the water’s skin with a gasp, hair lying wet against his skull, trying to curl, down on his forehead and neck. Liam moaned in his head. He had a grin on his face that he couldn’t erase and his cock was stiff in the coaxing warmness of the bath. Water rolled down his shoulders and chest in little rivers and he could feel the hot burn of Liam’s lips pressed against his neck, an echo of the feeling.

 

His erect cock gave a needy little jump and he took himself in hand, slowly rubbing, teasing himself with a brush of fingertips under the water, running through the curls surrounding his throbbing prick before surrounding his hardness again. He closed his eyes, smile still cracking his face.

He lay his head back against the floor, let his feet drift up in the current of the water, his toes peeking up through the surface.

Liam’s hands slipped around his neck again, subserviently, the same little whimpers that he’d made last night in the storm playing over in Spike’s ears like music. Liam knelt over him in the running bathwater, his long smooth tanned body hovering over him for a second before he leaned close for a kiss, whispers of light stubble scratching at Spike’s cheeks and chin. His eyes were closed, his hand was around Spike’s cock, his other playing with his balls under the water. Serving him. All thoughts on Spike’s body, how to please him, because he wanted to please him, because he knew Spike would take care of him if he did. Spike could smell him, the fantasy was so real, he could feel his hot wet skin, he could smell wet hair, could feel him heavy on his legs as he sat, naked and ready and whimpering for him so sweetly, sighing and grunting and rolling his body, never still, fidgeting as Spike looked after him, hands on him, lips on him. Yes… please, Spike… faster…

His thighs squeezed together as he came, arching his back, chest and belly sliding up through the water, his come landing in wet spatters over his ribs in sudden explosions, stomach shaking, mouth wide open and eyes scrunched together.

 

His body went lax with a sigh, seaweed floating bonelessly.

 

He clumsily grabbed a washer from the side of the bath and rubbed the globs of white from his skin, tossing the material to the side of the room and sinking back into the hot welcoming wet. His wet wank-Liam was gone, disappeared in a puff of smoke and Spike felt like a tit for a moment, shooting over the idea of him so easily.

 

He cleaned himself up again and slipped out of the bath, hearing the first timid tweetings of birds after the storm, anxiously calling out in the storm soaked trees. Spike wrapped a towel around himself and walked back along the hallway, dripping on the rugs as he re-entered the house. A few drops had come through the ceiling during the night, and Spike frowned at them, stubbing a wet puddle with his cold toe as he passed, heading past the kitchen and into the clothes room.

 

Dry heat from the ever-burning furnace buffeted over him as he entered the room, and he unclipped some of his clothes that Wesley had washed for him and hung up in the hot air to dry. They were soft, warm, they smelled like the pleasant honeysuckle scented soap Wesley used to wash with. He breathed deep and pulled on the thick pants.

It was good to be home.

He pulled on a tight long sleeved shirt, already perspiring a little with the heat of the room, and returned to the cool house, sneezing a few times as his body adjusted to the rapid temperature change. Rubbing at his nose with his fingers, he slipped into the kitchen and ratted around for a little while, grumbling at Wesley for changing things around without telling him, finally locating some cheese and some bread tucked away in a cupboard. His stomach was still thrumming nicely as he started up the kitchen fire. He hummed an old lullaby as he slathered the rolls with a pat of butter he found, slicing thick hard cheese over the bread pieces and melting them in the flames quickly before pulling them back out. He boiled some green tea and a small pot of berry tea and haphazardly shoved everything onto a tray, picking it up and taking it upstairs.

 

Setting the tray down to open the door, Spike saw Liam’s blanket mound shift as he jerked awake. Spike picked the tray up again and moved coolly inside, glancing at the dark sleepy eyes peering at him over the mass of white covers.

 

“Morning,” Spike said.

 

Dark eyes blinked fearfully. Scared deer eyes, big and bright.

 

Spike placed the tray on the table next to him and took a plate of hot bread and sliding back to the chair that sat fireside. Liam sat up with his long dark hair in wild ropes, eyes on Spike for a moment before he glanced at the food. Making sure the sheets were pulled up over his stomach even though he was wearing a jacket, shielding Spike’s eyes from his skin, he carefully slid a plate onto his lap. He sat huddled, frowning, and poked the bread with one finger, the other shyly curling his hair behind his ear like a wallflower at a social. His hand covered most of his pretty face, and Spike felt irritated, knowing that Liam was trying to cover himself up.

 

“S’just cheese and bread,” Spike said, setting his plate down on the side of the hearth and standing up, approaching the bed.

 

Liam’s eyes went saucer-wide, a pleading flicker of anxiety easily showing up in the dark. Spike frowned at him and grabbed a cup from the tray he’d left, pouring himself some green tea and retreating back to his chair. Liam unclenched. His eyelashes fluttered as he steeled himself with a breath and Spike’s frown deepened.

 

“You ever say thank you?” Spike grouched, spine filled with ants.

 

Dark eyes leapt to his face, pinning him even as they clouded with old confusion. He looked down at the untouched food on his lap. “Thank you…” he mumbled, before clearing his throat.

 

“Eat it,” Spike said, biting a hunk from his breakfast, dismembering the soft brown bread inside the rolls with vicious teeth.

 

Liam hesitated, eyes resting on the tea beside him before he obeyed, tearing a tiny sliver of cheese melted bread off the plate and setting his teeth to work, slowly chewing at it like a cow in a paddock. His gaze was bound to the sheets. His body was curled into itself, stealing away the pleasure Spike took in just looking at his pet. He couldn’t see the straight pink lines of his lips, or the way his cheekbones created a shadow in his cheeks, or the way his skin swept in a lazy curl, tight and smooth from his neck to his shoulders before stretching tightly over the muscle in his chest. He could see none of it. After feeling the warm body all over in the dark last night he felt almost robbed.

 

He stood up again, restlessly, ignoring the fretful flick of eyes that his sudden movement created. He moved to the desk sitting in the morning sunlight floating through the glass window and pawed through Liam’s clothing, searching for what he wanted.

Finding the small scrap, he held it triumphantly aloft as he crossed the room and knelt next to Liam’s tense body.

 

Liam was wonderfully, strangely, excitingly obedient as Spike finger combed his long hair away from his face, tying it up with the scrap of material he’d been using for Liam’s wild hair. He tied the knot tightly and sat back to admire his herder’s face, bared and beautiful. Dips and rises, lips, eyelashes, straight brows.

His mouth salivated as he cupped Liam’s cool jaw in his palm, entranced by the brown eyes watching him. He had a tiny mole next to his eye, near the edge of his eyelid. The morning lit his dark eyes, and for a moment Spike could see the filaments in the brown, soft ridges in the colour as the chocolate swept around the black mesmerising circle, his pupil contracting from being held in the sunlight. He could see into him, all the way inside, for a heartbeat.

 

Liam looked away, breaking Spike’s hold, making him feel lightheaded.

 

He stepped away from the bed, hearing Liam start to chew on the bread. Spike tried to gather his thoughts. He sat down in the chair again with a frown, disinterested in the food now, caught up in the spider-web feelings that were slowly binding around him, sticking his arms to his chest, wrapping him up in a motionless cocoon.

 

“Are you feeling better?” Spike asked absurdly.

 

Liam looked up at him. He looked away again before he shrugged tightly.

 

“I want to look at your back later,” Spike continued.

 

“Fine,” Liam said tersely.

 

He could feel the tension heavy in the air. It was …uncomfortable at best. Spike was confused by it. He’d thought…

He’d thought things may have been easier after last night. Like his herder-beast had progressed, and was ready to open up, find his place in his collar. But now he was just all… fidgety.

 

Spike felt the blooming aftermath of his bathing start to slip away, leaving him cold again. He felt his face grow taut, shrink into a scowl at Liam’s dark pretty face turned away from him, doe eyes refusing to look at him in that shirking embarrassed way.

 

“The stables,” Spike barked suddenly.

 

The sudden gruff sound drew Liam’s attention, eyes blinking at him with innocent bewilderment. “What?”

 

“Is your back still hurting?”

 

A flutter of confused eyelashes made Spike’s fingers beg to be allowed to slide along the hot flat belly hiding under mounds of sheets and clothes, wanting to tickle down into the harsh curled springs of hair from last night.

 

“Not really…” Liam mumbled, head bowed.

 

“Good,” Spike said sharply, standing up. He sniffed harshly. It was time Liam started living like what he was.

 

He left the room without another word, locking it behind him with a vicious snap of his fingers.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam had tried the door but Spike had locked him inside. He’d returned to his warm covers and picked some more at the breakfast, pouring himself some tea that was sweetly flavoured with something. It had a reddish hue to the liquid, instead of weak yellow, and once he poured it into the small ceramic mug, the air smelled syrupy with it. He sipped at it slowly, trying to soothe his tense stomach with the hot steamy liquid as he watched the sky through the glass.

Locked up.

He really was a pet.

 

There was a sharp knock on the door of the cage and it immediately snapped Liam’s attention away from his circling thoughts. Liam paused, thinking furiously for a moment but before he could draw himself to action there was a click, and then the white door slowly opened inward.

 

The thin pale eyed man stood in the doorway, face unreadable, his long bony fingers resting on the doorknob. He was dressed in simple clothes, blue shaded cotton tunic loosely tied around his waist over long dark pants. His collar was thin, and it sat on the outside of his clothes, his cuffs half bared by his sleeves.

 

“Liam,” he said in a stiff voice.

 

Liam blinked for a moment, his brain not working. He wanted to ask the man’s name even though he half remembered it, but it seemed he’d forgotten how to speak, months of only talking to Spike had played havoc on his communication skills. He felt almost nervous under the new man’s gaze, desperate to speak but not wanting to open his mouth and say the wrong thing.

 

“Your name is Wesley… right?” he said timidly, remembering Spike’s voice calling him, feeling very vulnerable sitting in the strange plush bed.

 

Wesley nodded once.

 

“Hi,” he said, trying for a smile.

 

Wesley was unmoved. “Up.”

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Up,” Wesley repeated in the same brusque tone. He had a long face, thin and stoic and his eyes seemed almost the same colour as Spike’s. More grey. His hair was dark, not like Liam’s but brownish, and the short strands were neatly combed back from his forehead. Little creases ran along his brows and under his eyes, and lines sectioned off his stern mouth.

 

Liam stood up, feeling ill at ease in his clothes, suddenly acutely aware that he hadn’t bathed after… last night. His throat gave a pang of ache as he stood.

 

“Come with me,” Wesley said, turning and leaving the room, obviously expecting Liam to follow.

 

Liam hurried, retying his wool jacket around himself, feeling the weave of it softly scratch at the skin of his ribs and across his nipples. Liam’s bare feet followed quickly, whispering on the thick rugs, the strands plush between his toes. The hallway walls were white, and the floor was dark wood and shiny under the thick rich red rugs everywhere.

They went down the narrow stairs, over more red carpets, and Liam could hear them squeaking with strain under both their weight.

 

“Normally the Master won’t allow you upstairs,” Wesley said as they reached the ground landing.

 

Liam looked around, drinking the sight of Spike’s home in big gulping glances. Bigger in the daylight. It was huge. Big enough to house five families. Big rooms spanning in every direction, polished wood and thick plush chairs everywhere. Tables and decorations and books. Books on everything. In shelves, on tables, sitting discarded on chairs.

The stairs led out into a short hallway, to the left Liam already knew there was a special beautiful bathhouse with an actual tiny waterfall in it. To the right, the way Wesley was leading him, was a sunken room and across that the glass door that Liam had stood at the previous night.

Wesley led him down the steps into the massive room and Liam glanced around furtively, trying to figure out where he and Spike had been, where they’d crumpled to the floor against each other. He felt heat rising in his cheeks.

 

“This is the Master’s living room,” Wesley said over his shoulder as they walked through it, “he’s often here so don’t cut through. When moving about this house you will use the servant’s walkways which I will show you.”

 

Liam followed the emotionless man, feeling somewhat disappointed at his indifferent speech. He’d hoped… he didn’t know what he’d hoped. For someone more human maybe. Someone warm.

 

They walked into a long kitchen and Liam wasn’t engaged enough to be in awe at the huge space, the different heavy pots and pans hanging over the wooden island bench, dangling down like sparkling new year’s decorations.

Liam reached out behind Wesley’s turned back and brushed a finger along the cut cold marble bench top. It gleamed in the dimmed sunlight that danced mutely through the window.

 

“This is Master’s kitchen. Can you cook?”

 

Liam pulled his hand away and looked up. “Uh… some things.”

 

“You will probably assist me in cooking duties,” Wesley said, “Follow.”

 

They walked through the kitchen and into a small cold uncarpeted hallway that seemed to run along one side of the house. “This is one of the servant’s corridors, use these at all times. Do not wander through the house.”

 

Liam followed him glumly. They walked along the hallway, bypassing some doors and finally exiting, in a steamy hot room with a furnace in the corner, a grate over the flames, making the fire a mouth with gapped teeth.

 

“This is the laundry room. We hang and steam clothes in here. Did you have a laundry where you came from?”

 

“Seget,” Liam said, eyeing a small folded pile of black short sleeved shirts on a low bench.

 

“What?”

 

“Seget,” Liam said, turning to him. He was actually taller than Liam… he hadn’t noticed. Wesley didn’t seem like he was taller; he carried himself in a way that seemed hunched in, trying to make his body smaller and unnoticed. “It’s my home.”

 

Wesley watched him inscrutably. “Was your home,” he said after a moment.

 

Liam looked down at the hard stone floor. “It burnt,” Liam said, “Burnt to the ground. But it’s still where I’m from.”

 

Wesley watched him with cold blue eyes. He blinked.

 

“Where are you from?” Liam asked.

 

Wesley paused. He seemed to grit his teeth before he spoke and when he did, his voice was soft. “Alla City.”

 

“You were Union?” Liam asked quizzically.

 

Wesley looked up at him. He shook his head. “No. I wasn’t.”

 

“I thought all of Alla City was Union.”

 

“No,” he said in a soft hard voice, “Rarely does everyone agree.”

 

Liam thought on that for a second, sweat starting to bead on his upper lip in the hot room. The furnace hissed like a snake. He looked back up at Wesley. “They collared you? But you were one of them…”

 

Wesley stared at him, eyes pinning to him in a weak imitation of that that strangely, stomach squeezingly intense way that Spike had, where he didn’t know if he’d be slapped or laughed at or kissed.

 

“I was never one of them,” he said, and Liam couldn’t tell if he was hearing regret or angry bitterness.

 

“This room can get very hot,” Wesley said, continuing on like nothing else had been spoken between them, “so bring water or don’t stay in here for too long. I don’t want to find you passed out on the floor. Follow me.”

 

They walked out of the hot room, sweat on his back under the wool jacket. The cold of the house was almost needling after the moistening heat. They entered a tiny room with a desk and chair inside. Parchment covered the table top in neatly stacked piles, hills and valleys of paper.

 

“This is where I look after the Master’s finances. Can you do math?”

 

“Not really.”

 

Wesley nodded and led him from the room. “I take it you know where the Master’s bathhouse is?”

 

“Yes,” he said, pausing before making another conversational gambit, “it’s very pretty.”

 

Wesley looked over his shoulder at Liam, grey-blue eyes narrowed. “Yes. It is. It must be fully stocked at all times. The Master doesn’t have a set time for bathing. Soaps and towels and anything else of that nature can be found in the closet across from the bathhouse.”

 

He led him into a medium sized garden – not the paddocks and open spaces of the lands – but a small square room, surrounded by four walls with a flat roof of glass. Grey clouds hovered over them and there were tiny drops of water suspended on the planes. It was beautiful; Liam had never seen an inside garden before. It smelled like outside… like water and damp dirt. It was nice. There were seats and a table in the middle, and green dotted dark rocks and exotic fronds of fern and bright spots of flowers filling the rest. Wesley took him further in, almost to the tables. Liam could see a tiny pond by the side of the seating area, the water coveting flickers of gold fish.

 

“This is the atrium,” Wesley said, his voice drawing Liam’s attention away from the small fish, “the Master entertains people here mostly. When the Master has guests, you must treat them like you would the Master.”

 

Liam’s eyes strayed back to the fish, embarrassed. A sudden flash of him, clinging to Spike, burying his face in the soft skin of his neck as strong thin fingers pulled at his swollen heavy cock. He could hear himself gasping for air, breathing in Spike’s skin and hair, sweating beneath his fingers, Spike’s body kneeling over him, steadying him, a rock as the power of his orgasm washed over Liam and left him stranded limply on Spike’s form.

 

“Come outside,” Wesley said, holding one of the doors open for Liam to walk through. They left the atrium, walked through a room devoted entirely to books, and through another door, weaving into the servant’s corridor and then into the kitchen again. Wesley led him out another glass door next to the huge kitchen hearth and they stepped outside.

 

It was cold. Liam’s feet were freezing on the hard damp ground outside the house’s walls and he wished he’d put his shoes on. There were tiny lakes in the grass, the flat paddocks were a swampland and everything was fused with a tinge of grey. Wesley walked on without looking back so Liam followed, tightly crossing his arms over his wool-jacketed chest to keep the warmth in as the cold air tried to steal his body heat. His toes got so cold they felt hot, like they were burning, his skin frozen to the point it was too numb to receive the right messages.

 

They approached a large barn and the smell of horses was unmistakable. Lots of horses. He knew what horses smelt like, Miko and Sar had raised them on their land and he’d been in their stables. He knew Spike’ stables would be a hundred times bigger and better though, that they’d make Miko and Sar’s seem like a tiny rabbit hutch in comparison.

 

Wesley strode over, sliding open the large door smoothly. “Wait here,” he tossed back at Liam.

 

Liam paused and stood still, gazing out across the paddocks with their fences and green thick grass and felt a cold clench of homesickness. He felt tired just looking at it. He remembered looking out over grey wet paddocks and smelling the smell of wet beast in his nose and toying with the idea of going back inside to warm by the fire for a while before he continued with his jobs.

 

“Alright,” Wesley said from the door, “Follow.”

 

Liam glanced again at the free paddocks and turned his head, following Wesley’s tall thin form into the stables. He heard horses breathing, could smell hay and waste and horse sweat.

 

“This is the stables,” Wesley said, leading him along, “To my understanding, this is where you’ll be working most of the time.”

 

Liam looked up at the high roof, seeing cracks in the wide wooden slats. A few large drops of water dripped down onto the clean hard packed earth, dampening everything and exaggerating the scent of animal. Tack gleamed on the walls, shiny and silver. Bridles and saddles. Brushes and combs. He heard a horse whinny, his nose stuffed with the scent of them. Not a bad smell, exactly, just one that was purely horse. Mostly wet horse.

 

Wesley was talking but Liam tuned him out, not wanting to hear anything right now, too much in his brain already. He wandered to the first horse from the door, a grey one, it’s long snout poking over the top of it’s home, eyes on him inquisitively. He stepped closer to it, reaching out, the flat of his palm snuffled by thick whiskery lips that searched for a treat.

 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, smiling faintly, stealing his hand away from the tickling snuffles and patting the broad nose, “I haven’t got anything for you.”

 

“Did you raise horses?”

 

Liam looked back to Wesley, who was watching him, arms crossed over his thin chest sternly. Liam’s petting hands dropped away guiltily. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

 

“Boy’s a natural!” A voice boomed from behind him.

 

He saw Wesley’s eyes flicker and widen into something akin to fear before Liam span around to face the new voice. He saw a dark man, tall, taller even than Wesley, his arms and chest muscled, his bald head shiny.

 

“You must be Liam,” he smiled. His teeth were white and big and his smile was infectiously human.

 

“I am,” Liam said, forgetting Wesley for the moment. “What’re you called?”

 

“Gunn,” he said, and stuck his hand out to shake Liam’s. Liam’s fingers practically dived into the familiar gesture of introduction, shaking Gunn’s wide warm papery feeling hand. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he said, his words clipped with an Unchartered tone. Liam had only met a few Unchartered… they were on the opposite ends of the world to Seget, completely South of the Barrier Mountains.

 

Gunn’s big lips twisted into a small kind smile as his eyes skated down to Liam’s dead toes and then back up to his face. “I get it. I can see why he brought you back,” he said, smiling as if he’d figured out a particularly difficult puzzle. “Where are you from?”

 

“Seget.”

 

“Never heard of it,” he said good-naturedly, “Where is it?”

 

“Barrier Mountains.”

 

“Oh, really? My dad travelled up there once…” Gunn said leadingly, obviously readying himself to start a thorough conversation. His eyes were eager, like Liam was a brand new book to peruse from cover to cover.

 

“Gunn,” Wesley hissed frantically, intruding into their introductions, “You’re not meant to-“

 

“Oh Wesley don’t be boring,” he said with a grin, “you’ll take all the fun out of life.”

 

“Master said-“

 

“Spike says a lot of things. So Liam,” he said, “tell me about yourself.”

 

“Gunn,” Wesley said, his fingers wrapping around Liam’s arm suddenly and pulling him away from his conversation. He stumbled back, not expecting the tug. “Please!” Wesley was frantic, his stoically stiff demeanour shattered as he squawked at Gunn like an irate chicken.

 

“I wanna talk to him, we’re gonna be living together, want to make him feel welcome,” Gunn said soothingly in his booming Unchartered voice, wrapping his large arm around Wesley’s shoulders.

 

Wesley looked like he was about to cry. “Master said he’d whip me if I let you talk to Liam,” Wesley pleaded in a whisper, big eyes on Gunn’s face beseechingly.

 

Gunn rolled his eyes, the whites of them brighter against his dark skin, making the action so much more obvious. “Wes, when was the last time Spike whipped you?”

 

Wesley’s brows were knitted together.

 

“’Sides, Liam wont tell,” Gunn looked at Liam, “Will ya?”

 

Liam shook his head.

 

“Good, we’re all settled then! I’ll show you the sleeping quarters,” Gunn said, letting go of Wesley’s shoulder and ushering Liam along the rows of horses, leading him out the other doors.

 

“So,” Gunn said as they walked back outside, Wesley hopping along behind them burbling little protests, “what did you used to do in Seget?”

 

“I was a herder,” Liam said, stepping around a large sludgy puddle, his toes sticking with cold mud, “I raised sheep.”

 

“Sheep?” Gunn grinned, flashing his white teeth as he led Liam to a small freestanding building, “and Spike brought you here to tend to horses?” he snorted and opened the rickety door, “I wonder if the boy realises the animals are two different creatures.”

 

Liam smiled, his face aching from the unfamiliar action as they all stepped inside. “I said something along those lines…”

 

“You mustn’t talk of Master this way,” Wesley bleated.

 

“Wes,” Gunn said tersely, still keeping his open air of affection, like Wesley’s pleading was something Gunn was well used to, “Shut up. He’s not gonna kill you.”

 

“You don’t know them like I know them,” Wesley hissed, “He’s not a General for nothing…”

 

“And this!” Gunn yelled over the top of Wesley’s protests, “This is our domain!”

 

Liam took in his surroundings for the first time. It wasn’t anywhere near as grand as Spike’s home, tiny compared to it even if it was three times the size of Liam’s old home. They were standing in a small square wood room with a long comfortable looking chair in the middle of it. There was a food cupboard and some cupboards and a stove up the back of the room with a tiny slatted window to the side. Someone had thrown a blue rug over the beige chair and it was flattened in the middle, tucked into the cushions from use. There was a rich thick blue rug on the floor. Gunn led him across the room and through a door.

There was a small bathhouse to the side, a visible weary pump working every so often to push the water along. A rake leant against the beaten steel box of the pump. A few bath towels lay in a neatly folded pile on top of a small, handle-less, freestanding cupboard on the plain tiled floor. Some fat pots of yellow flowers sat in the corners of the room.

 

“Bathhouse,” announced Gunn, “the pump’s a little temperamental so you gotta hit it with something every now and then. That’s what the rake’s for. A few good hits and you’ll hear it start up again. Soaps are in the cupboard there.”

 

Gunn led him back out, moving past Wesley who was now quietly wringing his hands together.

 

“I guess you get the other room,” Gunn said, leading him back into the main area. They walked up towards the kitchen and out the door into another small hallway. He threw open the first door. A small room sat behind the door, a low feather mattress on the floor with messy dark covers piled on top haphazardly. A window was above the bed, and the slats were opened fractionally, letting a surprising amount of light in. The wizened greyness from outside lit the room. Some tools sat in the corner on a chipped chair, a saddle sat in another corner and there was a large painting of a naked woman on the wall, her long black hair sweeping around her like she was underwater as she posed in limbo, her lips luridly thick and red.

 

“This is my room,” Gunn said proudly, before moving along.

 

Another door was flung open and behind it sat an almost identical room. Plush bed sitting on the wooden slats, but made up neatly with sheets of varying blue. Small slatted window in the wall. Pages from an almanac were pinned to the walls in orderly lines, and a closed travelling trunk was pushed into the corner. An oil lamp sat on a shelf, next to an altar of the Owl.

 

“This is Wesley’s room,” Gunn said, following the line of the hallway as Wesley shut the door behind them. “And I think this’ll be yours.”

 

He opened it. A bare bed sat inside, pushed up against the wall underneath the closed window. A simple shelf adorned one wall and that was it. Liam glanced at Gunn and then stepped quietly inside the small space, looking around himself, trying to adjust to the new room.

He breathed slowly through his nose and went to the window, opening the slats slightly to let some weak light in. He stood back, shivering a little, and took in the effect.

 

“We’ll get some sheets for you,” Gunn said. Liam turned around to find him watching him from the doorway, his tall body leaning against the doorframe, one hand up against the wood wall, tapping a little.

 

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, not meaning for the homesickness to come out in his voice. He sounded sad.

 

Gunn smiled and stepped into the room. He nodded once and peered out the window, buying time, his thoughts obviously heavy in his head. He turned to Liam. “It’s not so bad here,” Gunn said, almost-black eyes flicking up to his face. He smiled kindly. “Spike’s not so bad, for one of them. There are worse.”

 

Liam’s eyes suddenly discovered the loose flap of scar tissue drooping a little from between Gunn’s nostrils. Gunn’s fingers came up to brush along it and interrupted his view. Liam looked up into his eyes again. “Bad start,” he said grinning. “Me and Spike understand each other now.”

 

“Spike did that to you?” he said, disbelievingly.

 

Gunn laughed. He nodded. “Well… I did it. But it was because Spike was trying to use a leading chain on me.”

 

Liam frowned a little. “In your nose?”

 

“Like a bull. It was a fashionable thing to do a couple years back… but it’s died out. Too many escaped by forfeiting their noses.”

 

“You tried?”

 

Gunn laughed heartily. “Oh man did I try. Spike’s good though, he’s got a sixth sense or something, always found me just as I’d broken free.”

 

Liam had a sudden clawing urge, ripping its way up from his gut, to ask Gunn why he’d given up. He almost clapped his hand over his lips to stop the words from tumbling out, and stood there, staring at Gunn like a fool as a tiny war waged inside. He didn’t ask. He really had no right to ask.

 

“What?” Gunn said.

 

Liam shook his head. The circlet of steel on his neck felt like it was choking him. He looked up at Gunn’s ruined nose once more, a flick of a glance.

 

“So,” Gunn said jovially, moving on, “how old are you Liam?”

 

“Six on twenty.”

 

Gunn started walking back towards the main area. Liam followed him out of the tiny hallway, standing awkwardly in the doorway as he watched Gunn clank around in the small unfinished cupboards in the kitchen. He pulled out some water and a kettle and fired up the blackened stove.

 

“Tea?” he asked.

 

Liam nodded, feeling the chill from his feet sneaking up to his thighs and all the way along his icy forearms. He inched further into the kitchen.

 

Gunn thunked the kettle onto the stove and turned, leaning against the cupboard and crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re the youngest,” he said with a smile. “I’m seven on twenty. Wes is five on thirty. What were you born under?”

 

“Jackal.”

 

Gunn laughed, leaning back and looking towards the ceiling. “Don’t two Jackals tear each other apart? Isn’t that how it goes?” he asked, turning to Wesley who had followed them from the hallway.

 

Wesley said nothing, just watched them with an unhappy pinched look that made him seem even thinner and longer than he already was.

 

“Wes is an Owl.”

 

Liam nodded. “I saw the altar. What were you born under?”

 

“I was born in Sooths,” Gunn said, turning and shaking the heating kettle a little, “We don’t believe in all that animal shit.”

 

“What’s Sooths?”

 

“Name of my… village,” he said, pursing his lips like that wasn’t a very good explanation. “Sort of. A group of villages in the Unchartered.”

 

Liam was interested. “Did the Union try to take your Sooths?”

 

“Did,” he said, his smile fading for a moment, “Burnt Sooths and everyone in it. I’m not sure how far in they got. Didn’t take it all though.”

 

“Was Spike there?”

 

Gunn nodded slowly. “Yep. I didn’t see him in the battle though.”

 

“Spike stabbed me,” Liam offered.

 

Gunn’s eyebrows twitched up. “Really?”

 

“In the shoulder.”

 

A smile curved his full lips again, a spark in his dark hazel eyes. “Bet that hurt.”

 

Liam nodded.

 

“Didn’t kill you though.”

 

Liam looked at him, confused by the tone in his voice. The kettle whistled though, breaking him from his pondering. Gunn snagged three cups from the cupboard and lined them up, using a rag to hold the cracked tin kettle and pour the hot liquid. He set the kettle aside and handed a cup to Liam and then pushed one into Wesley’s hands and took the last for himself, cupping his brown fingers around the ceramic, warming himself and sniffing the steam.

 

“How’s your back feeling?” Gunn asked.

 

Liam sipped and nodded. “It’s alright. Hurts a bit when I move my arm.”

 

“It will for a while,” Gunn said, “and don’t let it get in the sun for too long. It’ll burn.”

 

Liam smiled faintly, gesturing towards the window and the greyness beyond it. “Not much sun anyhow, is there?”

 

Gunn grinned back, “you’re right about that…”

 

A thready sigh of irritation filtered into Liam’s ears.

 

“Calm Wes,” Gunn said neatly, sipping from his cup and moving to the long chair. He lazed on it and Liam followed after a moment, sitting down on the opposite end.

 

“So,” Gunn drawled, “tell me things.”

 

Liam was about to ask what sort of things Gunn wanted to hear when his cup was removed from his fingers and set down with a clatter. Wesley was glaring at Gunn with harsh eyes.

 

The dark man sighed. “Oh alright, later.”

 

“You should be in the village before Spike finds you,” Wesley said tersely.

 

“Wes,” Gunn said patiently, leaning forward perching his elbows on his knees, “I’ll just tell him I got back.”

 

“He’ll know you didn’t get anything!”

 

“He only sent me there to stop me from seeing him,” he said, gesturing at Liam, “He didn’t actually want anything.”

 

Wesley turned away from Gunn like he hadn’t said anything, and his tension rolled over Liam in palpable waves. Liam stood, not wanting to leave Gunn’s human conversation, but also knowing he was the reason Wesley looked like he was about to vomit with worry.

Light eyes watched him carefully as he stood there trying to look agreeable.

 

Wesley swallowed, the bump in his throat bobbing jerkily. He nodded swiftly. “I will show you where the cleaning supplies are kept.”

 

Wesley strode to the door stiffly, swinging it open and walking through it.

 

“Bye Liam,” Gunn said, sipping at his tea lazily, “and welcome.”

 

“Thank you,” Liam said.

 

“Liam!” Wesley called.

 

“Don’t mind Wesley,” Gunn said, keeping him a moment longer, “He’s a little uptight. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

 

Liam nodded, “I guessed.”

 

Gunn favoured him with a white grin and Liam followed Wesley out the door.

 

 

*

 

Liam scrubbed the cloth along the edge of the expansive dining table, stepping back, nose twitching with the smell of polish, and admired his work. It had taken him a while, he worked slow, not wanting to interrupting the apparent sleep the pain in his shoulder was having. He’d polished all the side tables and shelves in the room, then the twelve black wood chairs and then the table. He felt tired, expending energy after months of doing nothing but lazing around in bed and eating delicious foods.

 

Wesley sneaked up behind him, startling when he spoke. “Are you finished?”

 

Liam nodded as he folded up the cloth neatly, quickly eyeing the work he’d done for any missed spots.

 

Wesley’s face was set, unimpressed. “Good, go find the Master. It’s after lunch, and normally he wants some sort of drink now. Ask him if he wants a tea. He’ll probably be in his library.”

 

Stretching his arms out he tossed the folded cloth lightly on the table next to the pot of polish. “What’s a library?” Liam asked.

 

Wesley blinked. “It’s a room filled with books.”

 

“Oh,” he nodded, “I know where that is.”

 

He moved away, slipping out into the servant’s corridor. He was pretty sure the book room was along here somewhere, from what Wesley had shown him in the morning. He opened a door, finding himself in the kitchen. The sunlight was white, burning strongly behind a thin layer of cloud and it hurt Liam’s eyes as it sharply pinged off the steel stove. He closed the door and travelled back the other way, the corridor turning sharply and continuing deeper into the house. His feet were still cold even though he’d washed off the mud and dried them. It was in his toes mostly. A hard stiff chill.

He wriggled his toes as he walked, opening a door wide, seeing books lining shelves and feeling the heat of a fire surround him like swimming in wetless hotsprings.

 

Spike sat at the small table, his white head bowed over the many open spines of the books, concentrating fiercely on the pages. He looked up when Liam entered, the sunlight gleaming through the window and bleaching half his face, white as snow on the side exposed to the light, white all the way up to the top of his head, only broken by a nostril and a dark eyebrow and blue. The sharp light was doing something to Spike’s eyes; they were radiant even as he squinted slightly against the brightness. Liam stared at him, at the blue luminescence, his mouth open for a second before he remembered why he’d come.

 

“Do you want tea? Wesley told me to ask.”

 

Spike’s black eyelashes swooped down to cover the brilliant blue as he looked at the pages of the books he was reading. “Yes.”

 

Liam turned.

 

“Wait.”

 

Liam looked over his shoulder, his hand already resting on the door, ready to go through it and close it behind him and close in the pale thing sitting quietly behind the desk.

Spike was watching him; face white and seraphic and Liam looked away from the eyes before they burned right through him, before they seared another mark in his flesh. The charcoal scent from last night played teasingly at his nostrils. The phantom smell did strange things to him. He didn’t like it. It reminded him of the night before, of that scent making his breath flutter as Spike knelt between his thighs and made him sigh and pant and groan. It held power over him that he didn’t agree to; held the power to make him feel weaker inside and that wasn’t where he wanted to be.

 

“Get Wesley to bring it,” he said from behind Liam.

 

Liam nodded mutely, frowning at nothing. He stepped forward, back into the cold servant’s corridor.

 

“Liam,” Spike called.

 

Liam paused, toes already refreezing on the cold corridor floor, and turned, facing Spike completely, steeling himself to raise his eyes. Spike was watching him, unwaveringly.

 

“You’ll eat with me tonight.”

 

“No, thank you,” Liam said gruffly, holding Spike’s rapturous gaze sullenly, refusing to be moved by it.

 

“I wasn’t asking,” he said after a moment.

 

Wheeling powerlessness in his stomach. He looked towards the window, squinting at the rain-washed brightness and sighed heavily. “Fine.”

 

He turned and left before Spike could call him back again.

 

 

*

 

 

Sliding open the door to the dining room, Spike swallowed dryly. The fire was hot, almost hotter than comfortable, closed off and baked for hours before his meal was ready.

Liam was already sitting in the room, waiting with his long fingers tapping on the table, his dark hair pulled back loosely into a tie, eyes watching the fire absently. His eyes flicked in Spike’s direction when he entered, not making eye contact even though his face turned slightly. A loud crackle in the fire snapped away his dark attentions.

 

Spike slid inside, closing the door behind him to shut off the cold draught sweeping through the long house. Liam’s teeth started to nibble at his lower lip and Spike watched the shiny bone as he slid into a chair at the head of the table, a few seats away from his guest. Liam was wearing a thick wool jacket that looked soft, grey colour making his skin look tanner than it was.

 

There was a large pot of thick pumpkin soup on the table, swirls of white cream in the centre. Thick rolls sat in a papered basket beside them. Spike ladled it out for he and Liam quickly, without a word, already passing a hot roll of bread to Liam before he realised what he was doing. He was just used to getting food for Liam, he guessed, awkwardly sitting back down in an abrupt slump.

 

“Thanks,” Liam said, first word of the evening, picking up his spoon in his fist and sipping the soup from it.

 

Spike’s lips twisted at Liam’s use of cutlery and he looked away. The sky was black already, even though it wasn’t that late, it had just given up under the thick clouds and tucked itself away. It was raining, sprinkling really, the smell of wet earth and grass snaking in under the smell of burning wood and pumpkin soup.

 

“How’s your back?” he asked as Liam put his spoon down and started tearing the bread into shreds, dipping them into the soup and carefully biting the dripping tufts.

 

Liam nodded, mouth full. He glanced at Spike’s face, eyes searching quickly before demurely looking away. He picked up his spoon and sipped soup again, his sleeve falling down revealing his silver cuff. Spike wanted to touch it. Touch him, while he was eating like that, while his fingers were pulling the bread apart in his strange little ritual. Press his fingers gently to his warm throat and feel him swallow. Spike felt a bit dizzy and he slid off his coat, overheated by the fire.

 

Liam watched him and followed his actions, sliding off his own, obviously hot as he fanned his face with a lazy swipe of his hand. His arms were bare and he was wearing a soft thin vest, white cotton stretched over him wonderfully. Point of elbow on the table, he sipped at the soup, licking his lips teasingly as Spike couldn’t find the momentum to pick up his own spoon.

 

The way Liam stared resolutely at the fire let Spike know he was aware he was being watched. He allowed it, didn’t ask him to stop, just sipped and watched the fire, his usual proud grace back after being clumsy with drugs for so long, and Spike felt the same throbbing heat in his belly that he’d felt as he’d crawled over Liam’s body and taken his smooth slick erection in hand. He closed his eyes against the wheeling emotions. That elegance, that was Liam, a refined thing from a dirty farming village, the way he carried himself, even back in Seget, when he was a whirlwind on the battlefield, when he was a dancer with a sword, when he crouched and hissed in Spike’s chains, there had always been something in his eyes. It was a spark. It was knowledge of something Spike wasn’t privy to, a power he didn’t have and would never have, and Spike could see it right then in his eyes as he watched the fire calmly, maddeningly, beautifully, tauntingly.

Spike had never wanted to own something so much, to have it, to have a part of that special beguilement as he wanted to own Liam then as he sipped pumpkin soup and lazily watched the fire. Detached for a moment, nothing in his mind by Liam and fire and pumpkin soup, he wondered what that meant. Wanting to own something so beautiful and stubborn and assured, wanting to have it, all to himself, like a child not wanting to share candy. What did that mean? That he wanted… no, he needed to have Liam. Needed to own him. He needed to own him. He needed his power and grace and allure under his thumb, wanted to twist the body that contained Liam’s charms, twist it to his will, make it beg for him, open up like a bathhouse flower, let him inside.

A soft part in his chest that hadn’t actuated since he was very young suddenly squeezed nervously but he shut it out, shut everything out and down and away, closing the shutters on his thoughts before they could get too far and pushed aside the soup, grabbing the wine and opening the dark bottle, sipping the strong alcohol down quickly.

 

Liam calmly watched the crackling living fire almost dreamily, his eyes getting sleepy from the warmth around him and the heat of the soup in his stomach. His lips were flushed from the hot liquid, reddened like they were roughed and plumped up deliciously. Spike drank madly, upending the bottle and pouring the searing wine down into his gullet. His cock was hardening obliviously, tumescent as his fingers itched to pet across the smooth bare broad shoulder. He wanted to fuck him. Gently lie him down or maybe rip him apart, maybe smell thick blood, maybe dig his fingers into the burn of the opposer on his back and make him squeal like he should, make his face contort into something ugly with pain, ruin him and snap him open, maybe set him on the bath step and kneel between his knees and fuck him softly as the warm water lapped around their thighs and covered their feet, play with him gently as his long blunt fingers dug into the floor of his bathhouse and kiss across his shoulders in supplicating gratitude at being allowed into someone who had that look of special power in his eyes, even when he was wearing a collar. His cock was so stiff in his pants and his breath was laboured from all the thoughts and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to sort himself out. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t divide the bad things from the good, from fantasies of giving Liam pleasure and giving him pain, of making him bleed or making him come in thick shots. It was all back to front, but worse this time. The confusion was swallowing him whole. He could smell the blood and shit of the betrayers hanging outside in the streets, he could hear Liam last night softly moaning Spike’s name into his shoulder, hot breath, cheers of the crowd as the stands were kicked out from underneath them, the whirl of Liam on the battlefield - his hair madly, beautifully around his face like a wild spirit, the smell of Jac when they’d cut him open while he was still breathing and his guts had slopped out onto their feet, Aia trapped by mortals who’d wanted to own her and the devastation she’d brought so wonderfully, a moan, he could smell Liam’s bare heated skin, his fathers fingers in his shoulder as they’d watched the women swing and jerk and piss themselves and the horrible stinking smell of them...

 

His cheek was hit with such a force he toppled sideways in his chair, falling brokenly to the ground as the warm air of the room encircled him again. He blinked.

 

He could see wary eyes and a mouth that was tight lipped, but he couldn’t really figure out what else he was seeing, his brain stupid and slow. A jawbone, a cheekbone… two… a straight nose. Things kept flickering back and forth for a second, the blooming pain in his cheek rearing up and breaking apart, sending shudders of red throbs around his face. He moaned, sitting up, feeling big hands on his shoulders, curling around lightly, gripping him.

 

“Stop it,” came Liam’s wavering voice, higher than usual, scared, “Just stop it, alright?”

 

He blinked and Liam slammed into focus, kneeling between his spread knees as he sat slumped like a boneless toy, holding his shoulders, his face filling Spike’s vision. Taut and pale, eyes sparking with worry. It was a twisted encore of the previous night, Liam in his place and he in Liam’s, and laughter was bubbling inside Spike at the idea. He didn’t laugh though. He felt like he’d been beaten. His skin felt bruised all over. He panted slightly.

 

“Are you alright?” Liam’s smooth lyrical herder voice asked softly.

 

He nodded distantly, wrapping his hand around the table edge to help him stand up. “What happened?”

 

“I don’t know,” Liam said uneasily, standing with him, staying close, “You just kept saying it. … It was like you were… broken.”

 

Spike turned, unable to shift his features into any sort of expression, unable to change the flat dull tone of his voice. He shivered. Liam’s hand was still on his shoulder, radiating heat in the already warm air. He felt cold anyway. “What was I saying?” he asked blandly, his voice weak.

 

Liam frowned, eyeing him like he was a fire about to erupt and burn the house down. “The smell of it,” he said.

 

---

 

Chapter Seventeen – Visit.

 

 

 

 

 

Liam sat on a tautly bound bale of hay and ran the polish-oily rag across the steel in his hands. Over and over he scrubbed the rag against the bridle bit, his thumb greasy from being rubbed against the fibre in the cloth. It was mind-numbingly repetitive as he huddled into his thick wool coat; the collar hiked up against his cheeks to protect his face from the wind that was howling through the hollowed barn. It seemed to catch on his collar and freeze the metal into ice around his neck.

 

Satisfied with his progress at making the steel shine again, he set the bit aside and picked up the next one, cleaning away the bulk of the dirt and grit from the ends of it. His shoulders hurt from being hunched and the burn on his back was a mild ache under the coat and jacket he was wearing.

 

“How you going?” Gunn asked, his bald head poking through the open doorway to the hay stall Liam was sitting in.

 

He nodded. “Slowly.”

 

“Come on, break time. We’ll have some tea.”

 

Liam stood, cracking the creaks out of his neck and shoulders that had slowly weaved into his body after a morning of sitting huddled over in the cold, a symphony of cricks and snaps popping all up his spine.

He followed the tall man out into the main body of the stables, his left foot half asleep in his boot, tingling as he stepped on the hard packed earth floor.

A deep brown shirt was strapped tightly over Gunn’s body, short on the arms and unforgivingly taut over his chest – like the ones Spike wore. Gunn’s muscled arms stretched out in smooth curves from the sleeves.

He followed Gunn passed some horse stalls and watched him enter the master room, raising one brown hand to tap fingers against the top of the doorframe boyishly as he passed through.

There was a small boiler in the corner; not doing much to heat up the room as it sat wheezing on its clawed feet. Gunn stuck a kettle on the grate slatted over the red and golden coals, rubbing his fingers together in the small wafts of warmth that it managed to exude before turning back to Liam, watching him peruse the room.

 

It wasn’t much. More horse tack in the corner, a table shoved up against one wall under a long high window, the surface piled with leather cleaner and polish bottles. There were floorboards as opposed to the dirt floor of the main stables, but the wood was marked and scratched, splintering up viciously in some places, tiny wooden ferns blooming from the cracks.

 

“Want some sweets?” Gunn asked.

 

Liam’s head turned quickly, forgetting the perusal of the room. “What kind?” he asked, stomach already grumbling. He hadn’t eaten since the hard thick bread Gunn had set out for him that morning in the strange new building.

 

The first night in the slave rooms had been strange. Cold, at least until the many brown and blue blankets on his bed had heated up. The mattress was soft, and either Gunn or Wesley had set his folded clothes on the small table. It was bare and lifeless, but it was good enough. Liam had woken in the grey early morning, opened the slatted windows and watched the sun rise as he huddled in his sheets, his cheeks and nose cold as the light swept over the sprawling paddocks.

 

Gunn fumbled around in a small squeaking cupboard nailed to the wall and brought out a yellow patterned tin. He opened it, offering him the small powdered cakes inside. Liam took one with a thank you, breaking it apart with his fingers and biting in, tasting sugared fruit inside the rice dough.

 

Gunn took a small one, shoving it into his mouth and chewing, cheeks full. He nodded happily, “Wes makes ‘em,” he said, holding a fist over his full mouth to shield Liam’s eyes from the munched food inside, “They’re good.”

 

“They are,” Liam said, tearing off another piece and chewing on it as his hungry stomach growled. He looked at Gunn appraisingly as he ate. “So.. Wesley stays inside and you… are outside?”

 

“Pretty much.”

 

Liam nodded, peering into the bit of cake in his sugared fingers, looking at the dried sweet fruit in the dough. His gaze flicked up and he saw Gunn looking at him. He had a bit of powdered sugar on the corner of his lips.

Their eyes singed each other and they both looked away, embarrassed.

 

“What?” Liam said.

 

Gunn busied himself in the food cupboard again, his face away from Liam, “nothing, have another sweet.”

 

Liam chewed slowly and reached out, snaking another powdered cake from the yellow tin. The kettle sang and Gunn turned from the cupboard and started fiddling with cups and dried leaves, pushing polish bottles off the table as he set the teapot down. “What happened?” Gunn asked, his head still bowed away from Liam, facing the window.

 

“What?”

 

Gunn turned his head a little, so Liam could see his cheek and some of his chin. “With Spike.”

 

“When?” Liam stalled; pretty sure he already knew what Gunn was talking about.

 

Gunn resigned himself to turning, cups of tea in his hands as he stepped towards Liam. He handed one over and Liam sipped the scalding liquid, tasting the tea and cake blooming on his tongue. “When he had dinner with you.”

 

Liam felt an itch on the back of his neck but his hands were filled. He shrugged and sipped and felt uncomfortable in his thick coat. “He got… strange,” he said, frowning a little, looking up at Gunn.

 

Gunn nodded slowly, tapping one long tapered finger against the thick rim of the cup in thought. “What did he say?”

 

“Just…” Liam shook his head, “He just kept saying ….’the smell’, just kept saying it. Like he was… broken.”

 

Same nod. Same finger tapping on the cup. Gunn’s hazel eyes watched him stoically. “He does that. I’ve seen it – once.”

 

“What is it?” Liam asked hurriedly, still frowning, trying to shake the image of Spike wide blank blue eyes from his head. It was disturbing. He hadn’t looked alive, he’d been so far away, somewhere way deep inside and he’d looked so…

 

“Memories,” Gunn said, almost sighing, “Bad ones.”

 

Liam’s eyes fell to the ground. He knew what that felt like.

His gaze edged up Gunn’s body, hovering around his waist, gazing at a few wrinkles in the deep brown cloth. He sposed this man knew what that felt like too. He didn’t know if it was better or worse to have someone understand what he was feeling.

 

“How are you?”

 

Liam couldn’t lift his eyes any higher. It felt like he was holding a tremendous weight with his gaze. He nodded. “Alright.”

 

“But not really.”

 

Liam sipped his tea but it just tasted like hot water now.

 

“It’s hard,” Gunn said kindly, his smooth Unchartered voice flowing like music, “but it gets better. You go on. You find the good things; it’s just what happens, no matter how much you want to hate it all. You don’t have to be a slave… but you are a prisoner.”

 

Liam paused. He shook his head. “No. I don’t accept it.” He looked up into wise brown eyes, watching him with a weary spark.

 

“You fought. I’m sure you fought well. But you didn’t win. They did.” A hand raised and squeezed Liam’s good shoulder. “Better than death.”

 

Liam shrugged stubbornly, still not committing to that ideal somehow. Gunn’s hand on his shoulder felt like family though, and he was sadly grateful for it. Another quick squeeze and it dropped away.

 

Liam licked his powdered fingers, trying to distract himself in the taste.

 

The air seemed strained for a moment before Gunn spoke, and when he did his words hovered in the air like rain heavy black thunder clouds, ominous and telling and wildly readying.

 

“The Union was beat back from the lower towns again.”

 

Liam’s eyes flicked up instantaneously, forgetting the tea in his hands, forgetting everything as he frantically starting searching the dark face. “What?”

 

Gunn licked his full lips, pausing before he divulged, hesitant to say anything. But he did, and it came out in a smooth rush, like water flowing out of a bucket. “There was another campaign – while Spike was out on duty,” he said in a hushed voice, “They were beat back, they suffered a good loss.”

 

Liam stepped closer, into Gunn’s space, not caring, looking up into his face for any scratch of untruth. “How do you know?”

 

“There’s a system,” he said calmly, “we hear things. Don’t tell Wesley. I love the brother,” he said, “but he’s too scared.”

 

“How do you hear them?” he asked earnestly, ignoring the comments about Wesley. He didn’t care about that now.

 

“The slave bathhouses in town, or the ones in Alla City. I pass information, it gets passed to me.” His face was stern, like he was daring Liam to say something, to challenge him, to threaten him.

 

Liam’s mouth was gaping open. He thought for a moment, his eyes dropping to the floor, running across the stray bits of hay furiously, like they would lock together and spell out everything for him. Pass information? He looked back up, staring at him for a moment, watching him breathe slowly in and out. For some reason, the idea of a … web, spiders weaving words and messages to one another in secret filled him with irrational hope. It wasn’t a dead end. There was a rebellion in it, resting and readying.

 

“You can’t tell anyone,” Gunn said, his face harshly set. He grabbed Liam’s arm and yanked him close, fingers winding tightly around his bicep, “You hear me? No one. Not Wesley, not Spike - no matter what’s between you two.”

 

Liam’s face scrunched in confusion. “What?”

 

“No. One.”

 

Liam paused. “How can you find out things if you don’t talk about it?”

 

“There are secret phrases.”

 

Liam slowly pulled his arm from Gunn’s fingers. “What are they?” he asked in a hushed voice.

 

Gunn shook his head, a smile curling his lips. “Not yet. I don’t know you yet.”

 

Liam took that in, pondering on it. He nodded. “I can understand that,” he said, smiling, feeling warmth in him expanding towards Gunn for giving him his tiny hope. “Maybe later.”

 

“Maybe. Probably. But I’ll keep you … in the know. Even if you talk you can only incriminate me.”

 

“Never.”

 

Gunn’s face suddenly dropped its smile. “Shhh,” he whispered, watching the doorway.

 

Liam fell quiet. He heard footsteps enter the cavernous barn and approach them down the spine of the stables. Liam turned and watched the doorway apprehensively, deflating a little when Wesley’s thin, baggily clothed frame appeared around the doorframe. Light eyes took in the cups of tea and sweets open on the table. His face stiffened and he crossed his arms as he entered the room, ridiculously stern.

 

“He’s supposed to be working,” he admonished Gunn, “the Master said.”

 

Gunn laughed. “He was. I had him cleaning.”

 

Wesley looked at Liam doubtfully. His lips tightened. “Come with me then.”

 

“Awww Wes, were you checking up on me?” Gunn grinned, taking Liam’s empty cup from him and closing up the sweet cake tin, setting it back into the squeaky food cupboard.

 

“He should be working!”

 

“Wes, don’t be so hard on him…” Gunn shook his bald head softly.

 

“Don’t be so easy on him!” Wesley shot back, “we stepped the exact same path and no one gave us tea and cake and we’re fine.”

 

“No – I’m fine,” Gunn smiled, picking up his own tea cup again and sipping, “you’re messed up.”

 

Wesley easily ignored Gunn, turning his gaze on Liam. “Follow me.”

 

Liam followed him out the door without a word, happy to be away from Gunn and able to think on what he’d been told. A whole cluster of them. He wondered how many there were, who they were, how they got their knowledge. It was powerful; knowing there was a living breathing thing underneath a façade of slavery. It made it seem like a mask instead of a destiny. Liam’s face cracked into an exuberant smile and he swept it away quickly, following slim shoulders towards the glass eyed house.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam’s stomach grumbled. The rice and chicken rolls Wesley had given him for lunch hadn’t been enough.

 

He grabbed the sheets and sloshed them into the wide shallow stone well that sat in a small wood-roofed enclosure out the side of the laundry room. He had the heat of the furnaced room on his back and the cold of the sudsy washing water on his knees and up to his elbows. He’d removed his coat after the first five minutes of scrubbing clothes down the rungs of the metal scrubbing block that stuck out from the well, and he’d rolled his long sleeved shirt back to his elbows to stop it from getting saturated with dirty water.

It was a tiny room, basically only enough space to cover the shallow well and a few washing baskets on each side. A pump refreshing the soapy water worked constantly, lazy swallows of cleaner water being pushed past his hands every minute or so, freezing cold from the outside, accompanied by a winding gurgle of irritating sound from the mechanical pump. The room smelled of honeysuckle soap.

His knees were pressed up against the flat stone side of the well and his shoulders were aching badly from having to lean over the scrub to work the clothes up and down to clean them. His upper arms felt hot and loose and his toes were frozen in his boots. His back felt blistered from the heat of the laundry room.

 

He sighed and wiped the perspiration from his upper lip, before dunking the sheets into the soapy water and roughly scraping them back up the metal scrubbing plane.

 

His stomach gurgled again. He sighed again, louder. It was still cloudy out through the small windows that were up too high to give Liam any chance of distracting himself from his monotonous job. He had no idea what time it was, it still looked early morning to him, had all day. It had rained for a while after he’d eaten his lunch, he’d heard it, pattering down outside, creating mud and mess as the water fed the grass and the plants. He felt the hunger bubbles niggling under his skin and he paused for a second, breathing deeply before wrenching the sopping sheets from the water and squeezing rivers from them. He tossed them into a basket of already wet clothes with a slap of dripping cloth on cloth.

 

He twisted on his stool, taking a few pairs of pants and leaning over the well to thrust them into the cold soapy water before dragging them up and down the metal scrubber over and over, the sound becoming too irritating for him, setting his teeth on edge, making him wince. The thud of the pump. The slap of the water. The shriek of the clothes on the scrubber. Too tedious.

He tossed the wet pants into the basket and stood up, groaning pitifully as he uncurled his stiff back, turning his face to the roof and stretching his arms wide and splaying his fingers, practically filling the room with the action, like his fingers could touch the walls. He relaxed, blood thumping into his skull, and bent to pick up the basket.

 

The corner of his eyes caught a pale skinned figure in the doorway and he jumped, startled.

 

“Spike!” he groused, frowning, heart in his throat. “I didn’t hear you.”

 

Spike watched him silently; leaning on the frame easily, his hair slicked back easily from his forehead. It looked whiter, the dark roots were gone and it made him seem even paler. “Washing?” he asked.

 

Liam bent down again, picking the washing basket up and hoisting it onto his flat hip. “Yes.”

 

He walked towards the room behind Spike, forcing him to take a step back so he could get through. Heat swamped him as he set the basket onto the table in the middle of the brightly-coloured clothes-strung room.

 

“How long have you been here?” he asked, frowning as he focused on his task, grabbing some pegs and pushing them between his lips before he peeled some wet shirts away from the bulk in the basket.

 

He stepped across the stone floor and hung the clothes up on a free line in the corner.

 

“Are you going to do the washing?” Spike asked. His voice seemed strange somehow, but Liam couldn’t quite figure out how.

 

Liam looked at him. “I am doing the washing.”

 

“I meant from now on.”

 

Liam grabbed a sheet from the basket, shrugging as he turned back and scoured the room for a free line long enough for a sheet. He found one near the furnace and pinned it up, arms hot and fingers still cold.

 

He turned and pulled some dry clothes off some lines, thumping them down into free baskets ready for sorting. He turned and grabbed another sheet, flinging it over a line. He looked over his shoulder as he held it in place. Spike was leaning against the table now, dressed in black on black, still watching him.

 

“Pass me some pegs?” Liam asked.

 

Spike blinked and turned slowly, his whitened head turning and locating the peg basket and bringing it over to him. Liam nodded his thanks and pegged up the sheet.

 

“You coloured your hair again,” Liam grunted as he hefted another sheet over a free line near the window. He peered out through the steamy fogged glass, seeing grey clouds threatening to release again. The window faced the side of the property, and he could just see the corner of the building where he and Gunn and Wesley slept. There was a huge puddle in front of it.

 

“I did,” Spike said after a while.

 

Liam turned and grabbed some more pegs from the basket Spike was still holding up for him. He pegged up some familiar looking black shirts and turned to grab some towels.

 

“Why do you do that?” Liam asked, unable to bite his tongue after sitting alone in the washing room for so long.

And also… also after last night… he hadn’t seemed alright last night. Liam shook away the recurring image of Spike’s staring, lifeless, wide blue eyes. He’d looked like something out of a nightmare. A skin shell. An empty one.

 

After he’d hit him last night, Spike hadn’t returned, not really. He was shaky and his false confidence had been as transparent as glass. His lips were colourless and his eyes had still been distant and unfocused. He’d left the room in a hurry and Liam had sat in the warmth for a while and finished his soup, lost in thought in the empty room.

 

Spike was silent. Liam glanced at his face, and his blue eyes were watching the window, deep in thought, that fierce concentration taking hold of him and illuminating him from the inside. He seemed to breathe power for a moment of intensity, his entire being focused on the window until Liam found himself looking at the glass to see what could be so enrapturing. When he turned back from the futile task, the bright blue was focused on him again and his blood sizzled as the stormy attention burnt his face red. It had caught him off guard. Spike had a tendency to do that.

 

He frowned and turned back to his washing. He could feel the gaze on the back on his neck, his skin jumping.

 

“What happened last night?” he blurted under the scrutiny and he felt, he actually felt the fierce possessive gaze drop away.

 

“Had too much to drink,” Spike said calmly.

 

Liam turned to him, towels in hand. He raised an eyebrow at the pale potent thing grasping his peg basket in his long hands. “I don’t think that was it,” Liam said, scraping some pegs out of Spike’s hold.

 

The pegs suddenly dropped and scattered across the floor as Spike snapped his hand out and grabbed Liam’s good wrist, pushing him back against the wall. His sore shoulder bounced lightly against the brick and Liam arched in pain, howling.

Spike’s narrowed eyes glared at him as he pushed Liam against the wall again, moving him so his uninjured shoulder took the brunt of his weight.

 

“What?” Liam barked as Spike’s iron fingers tensed around his cuff.

 

Spike said nothing. He breathed snorts of air like a bull and Liam felt uncertainty tremor in his stomach.

He was let go after a motionless hot moment.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Liam asked, hurt.

 

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you!” Spike yelled, his voice raising and bouncing from the walls.

 

“…nothing,” Liam said, confused, refusing to cower down under the thunder in his voice.

 

Spike seemed lost for words. He floundered for a second before stepping close to Liam, lips working like he was about to say something, eyes wild and very, very blue under raised dark brows. He turned with a snort and prowled out of the room without another word.

 

Liam stared at the open door for a moment, baffled.

 

“…Alright,” he breathed, eyebrows raised. He turned back to the washing and pegged up another towel.

 

He heard quick footsteps and turned his head, his neck still aching from being curled forward for so many hours. Spike stomped back through the door.

 

“Who are you, to question me,” he growled, his finger jabbing at the air insanely, his jaw jutted out, “You’re my slave! I own you.”

 

Liam stared at him; lips parted in slight shock at seeing Spike so flustered, his hands frozen in the middle of pulling out a pair of wet pants from the basket. “What?” he said dumbly.

 

For an instant, Liam was sure he was looking at something not quite human. Spike’s eyes glowed in the hot room as he stepped forward and the world seemed to slow down a few beats as his fingers slid around the back of Liam’s neck and pulled him forward. Lips pressed together and Spike lashed the inside of his mouth with his tongue for slow muggy moments, his fingers gently cradling Liam’s head. Liam had never been so confused in his life, but before he could figure anything out, the lips were gone and Spike was storming out of the room.

 

He blinked.

 

He could taste sweet meat.

 

 

*

 

 

“No, no, no!” Spike growled, “you have to flick it! Don’t you know that? How long have you been doing this?”

 

Gunn’s shoulders tensed for a second but he didn’t say a word. He stuck the pitchfork into the hay in the stable and gave a weak flick, the hay scattering in messy piles across the floor.

 

“No!” Spike sighed, leaning on the stable door across from him and breathing his smoke up to the roof. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth. “Flick!”

 

“That’s it!” Gunn said in a strangled voice. He stormed out of the half mucked out stable and flung the pitchfork down. It bounced a few times across the floor before landing in a mound of hay. “You wanna do it, fine! Do it!”

 

“I don’t wanna do it,” Spike said with a frown. “I’m just helping.”

 

Gunn’s eyes went so wide his eyelids practically disappeared. He marched up to Spike, panting and trying to control himself. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said in a calm voice, “You are not helping. Alright? You got that? Not helping.”

 

He turned and strode away.

 

“Oi!” Spike called after him in a plume of smoke; “You’re not leaving my stables like this!”

 

Gunn paused a few stalls away and turned back. “You’ve been nipping at me, Spike, for hours! I would’ve had this damn stable cleaned ages ago if you’d left me to it! It can wait till morning!”

 

“No it can’t, come back here and do it!” Spike said, hefting himself off the stable door and eyeing Gunn challengingly.

 

“Isn’t your dinner ready?” Gunn said patronisingly, “Maybe you should eat and go to bed. I think you need a rest.”

 

Spike raised his eyebrows. “Not hungry,” he smiled tightly.

 

“Oh really? Or is it just cause our boy Liam won’t be giving you company tonight.”

 

Spike had been readying for a fight, almost happy Gunn had snapped at him, but now he felt cold at that comment.

 

“Oh yeah,” Gunn said, grinning widely, stepping closer cockily. He leant down and whispered sweetly in Spike’s ear: “I figured it out.”

 

Spike pushed him away grumpily and turned. Gunn hooted with laughter after him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve got an itch for him!”

 

Spike flung himself around, glaring, his body crackling at the suggestion. “I don’t think so.”

 

“I think so.”

 

“Listen, Slave,” Spike said, delighted at the slight hardening of Gunn’s features; “I don’t need you to think. I need you to clean this stable. And that’s what you’re gonna do.”

 

Gunn’s face broke into another grin. “You’re a real shit, lately,” he said cheerily, heading away from Spike.

 

“Gunn, stable.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just gonna go get something…” he said, not looking back as he headed out the doors.

 

Spike glared after him and found he didn’t have the strength to put it right. Later. He turned and left the snorting horses, heading hunched over through the light cold rain and back into the house. The evening was almost black because of the clouds, the sun setting quickly behind them. The house was warm and it smelled thickly of chicken and sage. He kicked his muddy boots off and left them by the door, padding across the thick carpets towards the dining room.

 

He swung the double doors open grandly, striding through. The table was half set already, square bone plates out on the shiny wood. The fire roared invitingly. He could hear clanging in the kitchen and soft voices, so he slid down into the couch that was lazing in front of the fire and warmed himself.

 

A slight bubble of unease abruptly popped inside him, remembering last night, in this room… with Liam… seeing. He sighed through his nose, setting his jaw. Very unbefitting. His lips tensed, so tight he thought he could almost split them open. He could only imagine what he looked like to Liam last night - a mad beast. Nostrils flared. Gibbering.

 

A faint aroma of burning flesh filled his nostrils and he stood up restlessly, shaking it away. No.

 

His head felt foggy.

 

The smell of burning flesh crept up on him again as he paced away from the fire. He sniffed, trying to clear his nostrils but it remained, stinking and putrid. Something must have fallen in the flames…

 

Spike gagged, his face filling with blood, his mouth filling with saliva. He shakily rested his hand against the wall to steady himself, his fingers twitching like worms. He turned towards the fire slowly, a cold pit in his stomach swallowing him from the inside.

 

The logs shifted in a show of yellow sparks and Spike gasped. An arm. A charred arm … burning in his fireplace. He shook his head, stumbling towards it. His eyes widened and he fell to his knees. It was a woman’s arm… no … it was a man’s arm. It rolled from the fire and fell at his knees, blackened, skin peeled back and taut from charring, fleshy red underneath, patches pinkening as it cooked with that smell that blistered his nostrils. Spike’s heart picked up speed… the arm had a cuff. A cuff that said Spike.

 

The door opened behind him and he sprung up, grabbing the poker from the hearth as he whirled around.

 

A very two-armed Liam stood with a wide dish piled with chicken, a startled look on his face. “Are you alright?” Liam asked.

 

Spike turned back to the arm but it was gone.

 

This was insane.

 

He grabbed the fire bucket and doused the flames hastily, throwing the metal into the charred logs with a definite clunk.

He threw the poker into the dead fireplace too for good measure, angry that it had tricked him like that. His heart was thumping madly. Everything was mad.

 

He frowned and glared at Liam.

 

Liam raised his eyebrows.

 

“Sit down,” Spike hissed, his voice surprisingly sibilant. A snake’s hiss.

 

Liam slid into a seat and watched Spike with his warm doe eyes. Spike stared at him for a second. Spike didn’t want to eat here. “Stand up.”

 

Liam hesitated and stood up.

 

Spike strode towards the massive table. It sprawled out royally before him. It was his, and the food was his and most importantly, Liam was his. He wasn’t going to leave just because his mind was tired. He frowned. “No, sit.”

 

A surprised laugh crackled from Liam’s lungs. “Is this a game?”

 

Spike rubbed at the headache beginning between his eyes. He grabbed his plate and grabbed some chicken parcels and spinach-sauced rice, piling it heavy onto the plate. He kicked open the doors and headed through them.

He heard no light footsteps behind him.

 

“Liam,” he called back as he stepped through the fire-lit house.

 

Footsteps stepped after him. He led his herder to the cosy library, weakly lighting the fire and throwing two thick red cushions down in front of it as the rain started to grow heavier outside and run rivers down the window panes. Liam entered, looking around at the walls of books, his wild dark hair half over his face before he tucked it back behind one ear.

He was wearing brothel-boy pants, soft grey ones, and a tight white shirt that stretched across his chest. He had no shoes on, his bare toes sinking into the red carpet, and he was wearing the grey wool jacket he tended to favour over his broad shoulders.

 

Spike set the plate on the floor. “Sit.”

 

Liam stepped up to the pillow and hesitated. “Will I have to stand up again? Cause I’m pretty tired.”

 

“Just sit.”

 

Liam sat down, and Spike could see his body unwinding into the soft cushion. He was eyeing the food with an unwavering eye and Spike pushed the plate towards him. He wasn’t hungry. Liam’s dark eyes raised and glittered in the growing fire light for a second, making sure it was alright, before he attacked the food, taking a chicken parcel in his hands and ripping it apart, hungrily biting into the soft white meat, his lips wet, his fingers slick with butter.

Spike wanted to lick him.

He turned to the fire, smelling the scent of sage and garlic as Liam ate, hearing him chew and swallow in gulps. He was ravenous.

He looked like an animal eating like that. He was lovely to watch.

 

He licked his lips and tossed Spike a small smile. “It’s good, it has cheese… inside, ” he said with a swallow, “you’re not hungry?”

 

Spike shook his head soundlessly. His stomach was still buzzing with the scent of burning flesh; his head was filled with worms. He stood, keeping his eyes on Liam’s arms, and grabbed a small waxy pinch of dream smoke; tossing it into the flames and letting it puff. Not enough to lose himself in bright visions, Spike didn’t need it for that tonight, but enough to calm him down. He felt wound up tight inside.

 

“What’s that?” Liam asked.

 

“Dream smoke.”

 

He licked the remnants of buttery garlic from his fingers and watched the fire lazily. “I haven’t heard of that. It smells… sweet.”

 

“Mmmm,” Spike said. It wasn’t very strong.

 

Liam brought the plate up to his mouth and scooped the rice to his lips, licking his fingers every now and then indulgently, letting Spike watch him.

 

He finished enough food for two people and sat the plate down on the hearth, lazing back like a cat and sleepily watching the fire flicker. Spike could feel his calm approaching, making his fingers heavy, making his knees weak, and he smiled.

 

They both lounged with their feet out towards the fire. Spike rolled onto his shoulder, propping his head up with one arm so he could watch Liam. He looked sweet and pretty, splayed out. His white shirt clung to his frame, showing his belly was a little distended from all the food he’d eaten, puffing out slightly.

 

“You’ve got a lot of books,” Liam said slowly, like his tongue was gooey and Spike knew his calm had come on too. “A lot.”

 

“Yeah…” Spike said, watching him.

 

“What are they about?”

 

“A lot are Union issue.”

 

“What are they about?”

 

Spike’s eyes lazily scanned the shelves. The night was black outside, the water pattering nicely against the glass. “Just … rules. What the Union stands for… definitions… everyone has them. You have to read em in school.”

 

Liam laughed contentedly, closing his eyes for a long moment. “Sounds boring,” he said through a placid smile.

 

His smile was passed to Spike and he grinned at Liam. “Others are stories.”

 

Liam’s dark eyes opened, staring at the ceiling. “Can I read them?” he asked.

 

“Slaves aren’t allowed to read. Not unless they’ve been cleared for class 2.”

 

“Am I class 2 then?”

 

“No.”

 

“But you gave me books to read before...”

 

Spike watched the fire lick over Liam’s bare toes. “Yeah…” he thought on that for a moment but it slipped away. It wasn’t important. “I have some sweet cake in here, do you want some?”

 

Liam’s hand lazily swept down his chest and patted along his full stomach. “A little?”

 

Spike hauled himself up, the dizziness almost knocking him back down but he knew how to fight it. It wasn’t as strong as it usually was anyway. He stood still and slowly made his way to the drawers, pulling out a lacquered box and bringing it back to his herder idling in front of the fire. He slumped down next to his cushion and brought a small frosted chocolate square out, tearing it in half and bringing a piece of crumbing dark cake up to Liam’s lips. Liam’s pupils were wide and he parted his content lips, closing them over the cake and the tips of Spike’s fingers, sending his head into a frenzied spin. Liam wriggled up to chew and swallow, frowning as the dizzying bees of dream smoke clouded his head. He finished and slumped back down.

 

“Stay down,” Spike said, sweeping his thick hair back from his neck, “You’re dizzy.”

 

Liam watched him with a small smile, which Spike returned as he swooped down for a kiss, head bubbling and lips sparking as they brushed against Liam’s. He wriggled onto the wide cushion beside Liam, smelling him, smelling honeysuckle soap and butter and chocolate on his breath as they brushed noses. Liam’s black smiling eyes swallowed him whole as they pressed together in another kiss. Liam’s leg lifted and curled over his own, the flat of his bare long foot against the back of Spike’s calves. Spike couldn’t keep his hands off Liam, now that they were there, his fingers tracked over his face and neck and through his unruly hair, traced his eyebrows and along his shoulders, down to his nipples, rubbing them with a firm nail through the fabric and feeling them tighten and peak. He was warm and the sweet smell from the fire was all smoked out. He was sleepy as he kissed along Liam’s jaw, twined around him, under him and over him. Liam’s eyes were closed although a faint smile on his lips showed he was still awake.

 

As his hand petted along Liam’s firm thigh his herder spoke with a soft voice: “It seems very silly now, doesn’t it?” His eyelids cracked open, warmth behind them radiating out. “You’re very beautiful. You don’t look human sometimes.”

 

Spike grinned and cupped his hands around the curve of Liam’s jaw, bringing him closer, kissing him and licking his tongue and teeth, nibbling at his lips.

 

Spike’s hand was petting over the small of Liam’s back when he started to snore against Spike’s shoulder. Spike didn’t even realise when he fell asleep himself, he faded seamlessly into a dream in which he did nothing but listen to Liam snore as he petted him like a cat.

 

 

*

 

 

Liam dreamt of Del. Not really of Del. Of waiting for Del. Standing out in the night-time fields in the warmer months, shedding his clothes under the moonlight and letting it bathe him as he stood and waited, body thrumming and hard with anticipation. The grass bowed under the warm winds and the bugs chirped in the trees. The moonlight washed his bare skin blue and he held his arms up to the sky, standing in the spreading paddocks and grasslands and watching the stars dot the black sky as far as he could see.

 

 

*

 

 

When Liam woke with a start he felt nothing for a moment, wide-awake but nothing. Then he felt tears on his cheek; cold wet tracks, and realised with a growing sadness that he must have been crying during his sleep. The second thing he noticed was that his cheek was pillowed on something warm and flat and hard, and when he reared back to look at it, he realised he’d been asleep on Spike’s chest.

 

Spike was stretched out on the cushion asleep, mouth hanging open and black shirt twisted around his ribs. His arms were up; splaying out and his heels were on the hearth of the dead morning fire. His hair was messy, curling slightly over his ears.

 

Liam blinked. He clearly remembered Spike feeding him cake and then kissing him and then curling up next to him but he had no idea in the world why that had happened. He felt completely dumbfounded. He stared down at him and could do nothing but blink.

 

He shook his head numbly and managed to wipe the dried tears from his cheeks. He stood, feeling the ground sway unsteadily beneath his feet and when he flung his arms out to steady himself his shoulders ached from being bunched up on the cushion all night.

 

A knock on the door made him jump.

 

“Master?” Wesley’s timid voice asked from behind the wood. “Master are you in there?”

 

Silence as Liam froze, unsure what to do and not quite able to get his brain working. He’d thought Wesley had gone for a minute but then suddenly, knocking on the door again.

 

“Master?”

 

Liam heard a groan and turned to look at Spike, who was groggily rolling out of the plush cushion, his hands on the floor to stop him from landing on his face as he got up onto his knees and stretched. “I’m up!” he growled.

 

Liam watched him lazily unfurl, heard his bones popping into place as he raised himself to his feet and stretched like a dancer before a performance.

 

“Master…” Wesley’s voice came again; “your father is waiting for you in the lounge.”

 

Spike’s head shot up quicker than Liam thought possible.

 

“What?!” he hissed, storming to the door and opening it up wide.

 

Wesley stepped away and almost cowered against the opposite wall of the servant’s hall under Spike’s wrath. Spike slammed the door and started hurriedly combing his hair back with his fingers, sniffing his hands and smelling his breath. He had his eyes closed tightly, little wrinkles forming at the corners. He paused, his hands balled into fists, before he practically fled the room, leaving Liam in his wake.

 

Liam hovered for an instant, before dumbly heading to the servant’s hall and slipping along it. He was accosted by Wesley as soon as he closed the door. “Have you been with Master all night?”

 

Liam did not want to answer that. He paused, his face reddening.

 

“You should leave before he wakes,” Wesley sniffed disapprovingly. “Go wash yourself, quickly. You’ll help me serve Master and Master’s Father.”

 

Liam blinked, still foggy, still half in his dream. He could remember kissing Spike last night, and he felt ashamed. He left Wesley without a word, hurrying outside into the rain and heading to the side house, his hair in wet ropes over his face by the time he got there. When he entered Gunn was in the kitchen making tea. He turned at the sound of the door opening.

 

He smiled lightly. “Long night?”

 

Liam flushed, tears suddenly in his throat, their path eased by his dream, he hurried to the bath house, shedding his used clothes and diving under the water smoothly, hearing the chug-chug of the pump echoing in the bath. His toes were already frozen from the quick run across the frozen land. He gathered himself together, feeling like he was clothing that was unthreading at the seams, and swam through the water, sitting on the bath step and holding onto it as he breathed.

 

He heard footsteps behind him but he didn’t turn.

 

“Hey,” Gunn’s voice said softly from behind his hunched back, “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I mean… we all do what we have to do. I don’t… I don’t think you’re bad for doing it.”

 

Liam sighed, bandage prickling from being under water. “I didn’t lay down for him.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Liam didn’t mention that he’d kissed him. He’d rather Gunn didn’t know. There was a strained silence.

 

“Sorry,” Gunn said.

 

“Don’t be.”

 

“Here,” Gunn said, coming closer, “Your bandage is all wet.”

 

Liam didn’t tense as Gunn’s fingers touched his back. He didn’t feel any threat coming from him. Gentle fingers untacked the soggy bandage and he felt cool air rush along his scar and tickle him. “How’s it look?”

 

Fingers touched around the burn. “Looks good, actually. Don’t need any more bandages.”

 

Liam nodded. The pump chugged in the background. “Gunn, do you prefer men?”

 

“Nah, I like women,” there was a pause, “so you’re safe with me.”

 

Liam chuckled and he heard Gunn laugh behind him. “Naw…” Gunn continued, “You don’t have to worry, not about that, not here. We got it pretty good.”

 

Liam nodded, turning and looking up into the friendly face. He smiled weakly.

 

“Do you like men?” Gunn asked.

 

Liam nodded again.

 

“I’m not gonna lie,” Gunn said, “I think Spike would lay you down if he had the chance. But I think I know him well enough to say… he won’t force himself on you. He’s just…he’s just not that Union.”

 

Liam felt bound up inside. “I think I have to,” Liam confided in a small voice, thinking of Kat, thinking of what he’d said to get Spike to free her, “I owe him.”

 

Gunn was silent. “Why would you owe him?”

 

Liam stood; water falling from him and raining into the bath as Gunn handed him a towel. He couldn’t take his eyes from the ground, his heart felt heavy. “He helped me.”

 

When he looked up Gunn was giving him a strange look.

 

Liam sighed, “My sister, came to take me back. Spike found her, and instead of turning her over, he let her go, gave her… things, his own things, to help her get past the Union.”

 

“He what?” Gunn screeched.

 

Liam was taken aback by the sudden noise from Gunn, used to him being friendly and docile.

Gunn’s eyes scoured his face with serious thought. “I have to talk to him,” he said distantly, turning and heading towards the door.

 

“I think he’s with his father.”

 

Gunn turned around again and blinked at him. “His what?” he screeched.

 

Liam winced as the sound bounced around the room.

 

“How …?” Gunn trailed off before ending his thought with a definitive: “Shit.”

 

“What?” Liam asked, following Gunn’s stiff movements back into the rooms.

 

 

*

 

 

“Aahh!” his father said drunkenly as he entered the lounge room.

 

Spike smiled tightly and went to him, stiffly allowing himself to be wrapped up in a huge clumsy hug. His father’s whiskery face smelled of ale at nine in the morning. A sour smell, deep in his blood, leaking through his skin, the alcohol was in his wide black pores, seeping out in a stink. Spike pulled away quickly.

 

“Spike my boy, my boy, you didn’t come and visit me when you got home!” his father bellowed at him though they were standing less than three feet apart.

 

“I’ve been busy,” Spike said shortly. “Tea?”

 

“Busy, busy, yes, I heard! I heard! Boy!”

 

He was drunk of his old arse. Spike sighed tensely, feeling his muscles begin to fuse together as his father took a stumbling step and knocked the coffee table with his knee.

 

“Where’s the jig of yours? I don’t want him touching my food.”

 

Spike’s chest tightened. His father’s eyes were roaming over the room glassily, the blue cloudier than ever. His sallow face was whiskered heavily.

 

“He doesn’t prepare your food,” Spike said between clenched teeth.

 

“Where’s the boy?” his father roared, slapping his knees ridiculously like he was calling a puppy.

 

“He’s at school, Father,” Spike sighed, “Why would he be here?”

 

“Eh? Oh right, right. So! So so! He doing well?”

 

Spike was hesitant to sit down, in case the man sat close to him. He stunk. He couldn’t stand that sour stink. It stayed in his nose for days afterwards. His stomach roiled. “Yes, they send me his reports. Wesley!”

 

Wesley appeared in the doorway.

 

“Tea. Now,” he growled.

 

“How’s the Union treating you?” his father asked, finally taking a seat.

 

Once his father was sitting, Spike gingerly sat down across from him, tension turning his fingers to claws. “Good… good.”

 

“Good? Eh? Only good?” his father leaned forward, his short greased hair picking up the cloudy grey light coming through the window.

 

Fuck. He’s heard.

 

“I got promoted,” Spike said resignedly.

 

“Ah ha!” his father yelled, his booming voice entering Spike’s head immediately and rattling around. “Commander? Eh? Commander? Got some swing now, don’t ya? Got some pull!”

 

“Well,” Spike said, happy to rain on his parade, “not till next year.”

 

“Eh?”

 

“Doesn’t start, the pull… or the extra money… till next year.”

 

“Oh, really? That’s a shame.”

 

“Well I’m enjoying my break,” Spike said, cruelly happy. His father got a percentage of his money as well as his own pension, because he’d been part of the union and he’d signed Spike up. Good Union blood, they’d said. Good Union blood’s rewarded.

 

“Oh, good, good. No extra pay till next year then?”

 

“Nah. But it’s good pay now.”

 

His sagging face looked displeased. “Yeah… yeah.”

 

Wesley came in with the teapot and cakes, and Spike almost thumped him one when he saw Liam following him with the cups. Spike watched his herder with tension splintering the bones in his neck as he set Spike’s cup down and then set his father’s down as well. The tea splashed a few drops over the rim of the cup.

Spike closed his eyes.

 

“What’s this?!” his father bellowed drunkenly.

 

Spike’s eyes flicked open at the encompassing sound, noting Wesley was nowhere to be seen, and seeing Liam standing between him and his no-doubt red faced father.

 

“Did you do that on purpose?”

 

“No,” Liam said, a little defiantly, obviously not appreciating being yelled at over something so stupid.

 

Liam stepped back and went to leave, unwittingly stoking Spike’s father’s awesome temper. “Oi!” he yelled.

 

Liam paused and turned around, raising his eyebrows. Spike’s mouth was dry.

 

“Come here,” his father roared. Liam slowly returned, prickly, eyeing his drunken father with distaste.

 

“What’s your name, Slave?”

 

“Liam.”

 

Spike looked up to the ceiling. His father chuckled. “No, your name is Slave.”

 

Liam, thank the gods, stayed quiet.

 

“Let me look at you,” his father grumbled, hefting himself out of the chair, wheezing and coughing wetly as he did.

 

Spike looked at them, seeing his father standing sweaty and red faced, his stomach bulging out over his pants and only just encased by his shirt, his jowels and jaws whiskery as he stared up into Liam’s impassively cool face.

 

His father winced. “You were a mountain farmer, I can tell. You look like an ape.”

 

Spike could see Liam could care less how attractive his father found him. He stifled a small smile.

 

“You’ve got those really dark ugly eyes. Looks like you’ve got dirt crusted over them. Ugly, ugly. Son, when are you going to get some attractive slaves? Don’t you feel sorry for poor creatures like this one when you see him skulking around your house?”

 

“Mmmm,” Spike said, non-committed, lips tensing as he sipped tea from his mug.

 

“You really should put him out of his misery.”

 

That caught his attention. He saw his father pulling a long dangerous looking knife from his pants, wielding it at Liam who went completely still. His usually warm dark eyes went cold with anger and he looked ready to snatch the knife from his father’s hands.

 

“Father,” Spike said, standing up warily, impotently wincing as the knife made stabbing motions towards the long soft flesh of Liam’s neck, “I just got him,” he said weakly.

 

His father slid the knife away and sat back down with a snort. “You’re really too soft Spike, like a woman. Sometimes you just have to kill them. That one has something wrong with it, you should just kill him and get a good slave. He probably can’t see properly anyway. Why would you want something so ugly?”

 

Liam had left the room. Spike’s stomach was in knots and he threw a frosty glare at the stinking pile of fat and booze and whiskers.

 

“So…” Spike said in a strained voice, “how long do you think you’ll be staying?”

 

(continued - Seget3 )