Fanner woke up the next morning, and on balance he wished he hadn’t. He was still weak and in pain and in the middle of the woods with a stranger. But at least the stranger was offering him cheese. Fanner accepted it.
Yore instructed him to change his bandage again, so he did so. His wound hadn’t healed nearly as much as he’d expected, but maybe that was a good thing. All mages healed faster and more completely than humans and were at a far lower risk of things like infection, but Fanner’s body took that to a whole other level. Though it seemed that it struggled far more right after he’d lost half his blood.
“Do you think you can walk?” Yore asked.
“Yes, sir,” Fanner murmured. He had decided he would respond verbally where he could. Yore hadn’t actually seemed the least bit offended by his silence, but it felt rude to ignore him or to respond by nodding or shaking his head.
“We’ll give it a shot then, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself more. You shouldn’t be moving around at all for at least a few days, but we don’t have that luxury.”
They finished eating and Fanner carefully got to his feet. Somehow his side actually seemed to hurt more than it had last night. His body was doing its best to heal itself despite the trying circumstances, and it did not appreciate the disruption.
After just a few steps, Yore stopped and just watched him. “Yeah, this clearly isn’t going to work. I’m going to have to carry you.”
Fanner hugged himself. He remembered grabbing Whelan’s arm and ripping the energy from his body without ever even deciding to do it. He’d killed a man so quickly and so, so easily. What if something in him decided he was struggling too much and he needed more energy?
Fanner didn’t yet know what kind of person Yore was or what his intentions were, but he didn’t want to kill him. He didn’t want to kill anyone.
“Can I pick you up?” Yore asked.
Fanner hugged himself tighter and stared intently at the ground. What was he supposed to say? No?
Yore sighed. “Look, I get that you don’t like to be touched, but it seems like that’s our only option. If there’s a really good reason for it, you’re going to have to tell me so we can figure this out, but if you’re just scared because you’ve been hurt, you might just have to be brave and deal with it.”
Fanner hesitated. “Can I… can I touch your hand, sir?”
“Why?” Yore asked, but he held his hand out to Fanner without waiting for an answer.
Fanner reached his finger out and tapped it against the back of Yore’s hand, ready to pull back if anything in him tried to force him to do more. Nothing happened. He brushed the back of Yore’s hand with his fingertips. Nothing.
“Is this an energy thing?” Yore asked.
Fanner looked up at him, wide eyed and startled. How did he…?
“I know a mage who can feel energy,” Yore explained. “There are some people he doesn’t like to touch because their energy feels bad or too intense for him. Is that what’s going on with you? Is that why you’re reluctant to touch me?”
“Feel energy…?” Fanner asked. “No, sir. I’m a Companion. We can’t do that.”
“Ah, right. Being different is a flaw, and you’re not allowed to have flaws, right?”
“Well, some types of differences are allowed, though disapproved of, but differences like that — differences in our magic — could actually be dangerous. That can’t be tolerated.”
“Ah,” Yore said. “If you had a difference in your magic it couldn’t be tolerated, so you definitely don’t and that’s not why you’re being weird.”
“I don’t,” Fanner murmured, but he was fairly sure Yore no longer believed that.
“Of course not,” Yore said. “So, did I pass your touch test that definitely has nothing to do with magic at all because you can’t feel energy?”
Fanner nodded meekly. If Yore wanted to believe he could feel energy, that was fine. He couldn’t, at least not in the sense that Yore seemed to be describing, but being able to feel it sounded harmless enough. At least in comparison to being able to kill people by tearing it from their bodies.
Yore knelt on one knee and put the bag he’d been carrying down on the ground. “Come on. I’ll carry you.”
Fanner moved behind Yore and carefully climbed onto his back.
“Sorry,” Yore said as he started to stand and Fanner took a sharp breath in. “Let me know if I’m hurting you.”
“I’m fine, sir,” Fanner assured him. “Will you be okay with carrying me? You seem…”
“I have bad joints,” Yore explained as he slung the bag over his shoulder. “Everything hurts all the time, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, but it’s an old injury. I just ignore it and get on with things.”
Fanner could feel it, this close to him. Scar tissue, but in a way he’d never felt before. It was everywhere, like fat marbled through a good steak. He had no idea what could cause something like that. “What happened, sir?”
“What happened to you?” Yore countered.
“I—I’m sorry, sir,” Fanner said. “I didn’t realise it was a sensitive topic. I won’t ask about it again.”
Yore let out a huff of laughter. “Ah, there it is. No, it’s not a sensitive topic. Not really, anyway. But listen, I think we both realise we’re in a situation where there are things you’re not telling me and there are things I’m not telling you. I have good reasons for that and I’m going to trust that you do, too.”
“Can I ask where you’re taking me, sir?”
“You can ask whatever you like, but I might not answer,” Yore said. “That… I can’t answer. Not yet. If I could, I would have told you already.”
“You’re not taking me back, though.”
“No, you’re right about that.”
“Can you tell me what you want from me, sir?” Fanner asked. “If you tell me what you want, I can do it. Maybe. I just, I don’t really know…”
“You’re already doing everything I need you to. No need to worry.”
Not worrying. That was an impossibility.
Each time they would stop to rest, Yore would stretch out his arms and his back, obviously experiencing some level of discomfort, but then he would pick Fanner back up and he’d walk in stoic silence for another hour or more without complaint.
The state of Fanner’s injuries was… disconcerting. Over the last year or so he had gotten used to pain and being hurt, but there was a whole new sense of horror that came with such a nasty, lingering injury.
At the end of the day, when they finally stopped for the night, Fanner felt incredibly guilty for how tired and sore he felt. Yore had done all the work. All Fanner had done was be carried. He tried to help Yore collect sticks for the fire, but Yore insisted he sit down and eat instead.
Yore was a nice man, or at least he seemed like one. But, of course, Fanner ought to know that what you seemed like didn’t mean much at all. For most of his life, Fanner had seemed like nothing more than a Companion who was struggling to find a buyer because he couldn’t stand still for two minutes. He’d hidden anything that would have marked him as anything else out of fear.
And then one of the younger boys had been kicked in the head by a horse and Fanner had been forced to make a choice. It had been an easy one. He hadn’t seen any kind of future for himself, but the boy would at least have a chance of finding some kind of happiness.
They had been alone. Nobody had seen the horse kick the boy or Fanner heal him afterwards. Fanner had begged him not to tell and the boy had agreed, but he had anyway. He was well trained. Fanner hadn’t been surprised, but it had still hurt. He had been right not to trust anybody.
After that, after he had saved someone’s life, he had been shut in a storage closet while Mr Burrows was contacted, and then Mr Burrows had come and taken Fanner with him and Fanner had found out that his quirks were no accident.
Well, the quirks of his magic, anyway. His lack of focus and other behavioural issues had not happened by design.
That was also when he had found out that Danya was his half brother, over a year after they had received word of his death. They shared a mother.
It shouldn’t have mattered, shouldn’t have made any difference to anything, but it really, really had. Milaine House had a limited number of breeding stock, so they all knew that some of them were likely related in some way, but those details were kept from them. They weren’t allowed to have family.
Danya had always been like an older brother to him. Finding out that they actually had been brothers had been monumental.
And then he’d been sent to live with Whelan, buried deep in the countryside where nobody would question what was going on, and that was what had ultimately led him here.
Yore had started up a fire by now, but it was a cold night and the temperature had dropped faster than the fire could compensate for. Normally Fanner, like most mages, wouldn’t have been affected by the cold, but his body wasn’t about to burn through energy just to keep him warm when there was an open wound in his side.
Fanner cuddled deep in his bedroll to try to get warm, but most of his body heat had already escaped and he wasn’t warming up any time soon.
“Are you cold?” Yore asked. He didn’t look cold at all. He was sitting by the fire in his thin shirt and pants, poking it with a stick.
“Yes, sir. I don’t normally get cold, but…”
“You’re low on energy.”
Fanner nodded.
“I can help you warm up if you want.”
Fanner immediately knew where this was going. Yore was an extremely large man and that scared him, but if he wanted something from Fanner he would get it either way and it would likely be more pleasant if Fanner put himself in a position to negotiate. Resisting would turn the situation into something antagonistic.
Besides, if he played this right, this could be the best outcome. He didn’t want Yore to sell him or try to return him or… or… he didn’t even know what else might become of him. People weren’t always what they seemed, but that was all Fanner had to go on and Yore hadn’t been cruel to him so far.
Fanner nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Okay, here.” Yore opened his bedroll up and laid it out flat on the ground. “I don’t fit in the bedrolls even on my own, so we can lay on mine and you can open yours up so we can use it as a blanket.”
Fanner complied, shedding his cloak before climbing into the bed they’d made next to the fire with Yore. He snuggled in close against Yore’s body and Yore’s hands came up to rub warmth into Fanner’s arms.
“You’re freezing,” Yore commented.
“You’re warm,” Fanner whispered back.
“Mm. My body runs hot. Cold doesn’t bother me.”
Fanner could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, caught between a mix of fear and something else. Yore could hurt him so badly, but he wasn’t. He was all warmth and firm muscles and gentle touch. Part of Fanner waited for his hands to start to wander, but they didn’t.
So Fanner’s did instead. Down Yore’s hip and around, towards the front…
Yore’s hand pressed down over Fanner’s, stilling its motion before he could take things any further. “No.”
Fanner froze. When Yore lifted his hand, Fanner withdrew his and held it well away from Yore’s body. They were both still. Yore had stopped rubbing Fanner’s arms to warm him up.
“It’s nothing personal, but that’s not what this is about,” Yore said carefully after a few long, tense moments of silence. “We’re not going to go there, okay?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Fanner whispered.
“I’m not angry at you. You’re a Companion. I realised this might happen. I should have been clearer with you about what I did and didn’t want before I invited you to do this with me.”
Fanner didn’t respond. He couldn’t speak without crying.
If Yore didn’t want him in that way, then he didn’t want him at all. As far as Yore knew, that was all the value Fanner had to offer.
Or at least that was what Fanner had assumed…
But what if Yore knew more than he was letting on? How likely was it really that just hours after Fanner had escaped, someone had stumbled upon him in the middle of the woods across the border? People rarely came out here. It wasn’t safe.
And then Yore had disappeared for a while and he’d returned with supplies he had been given by some mysterious friends of his, but nobody lived out here. Fanner knew that. Yore hadn’t been gone long enough to get to the next town or even a farmhouse. Not on foot.
If he really knew nothing at all about Fanner, he wouldn’t have turned him down. Not unless he intended to return him to his master, but he’d shown no indication he was trying to do that. At least not in the usual sense.
Fanner was nineteen years old. Nobody would have guessed that he was a virgin. If Yore intended to sell him or anything along those lines, he wouldn’t have held back.
Maybe he just wasn’t attracted to men, but Fanner knew how he looked. Soft and pretty. Androgynous enough that most men wouldn’t say no, at least as long as nobody was looking.
The only thing that made sense was that he was working with Mr Burrows. That Mr Burrows had sent Yore to find Fanner, that he had given him those supplies, and that he had ordered Yore not to have sex with Fanner.
Whelan had also not been allowed to touch Fanner in that way. There had been no intention of selling Fanner as a Companion after his healing magic was discovered, but he had still been bred as one. Breeding high quality Companions was the line of business Mr Burrows was in, and despite their circumstances, he wouldn’t allow one of his own to be treated like a common whore.
But where was Yore taking him? Not back to the cottage, that was for sure.
What if Mr Burrows had concluded that healers really were too dangerous? What if he was taking Fanner somewhere he could be dealt with safely? He had wanted to experiment with implanting one of Fanner’s organs into someone else. What if he had abandoned the idea of using Fanner as a healer and intended to fully invest in that idea instead? What if he was going to chain Fanner up and keep him alive while he cut parts out of him, over and over again?
Fanner couldn’t be sure that was the plan, but he was now certain that Yore worked for Mr Burrows and that whatever awaited him at the end of this journey would be unpleasant.
He had to get away.
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