InsaneJournal

Section 6 (Instalment 4, Done)
Word count: 2 171

It had been a bad day, the one when Max learned how to extract himself from temptation (with a bang, obligatory, that is), and it ended even worse. Maybe it was a case of 'no good thing lasts forever', or, more likely, 'there ain't no such thing as a free lunch'. Or something that just happened and there wasn't a lesson for him to look for and learn, but he wasn't the person who'd operate on that assumption. There was something to learn from everything. The nice things, the good things, the bad, and the ugly. All things. He didn't even limit himself to 'the more it hurts, the more important the lesson'. Just learend, ot tried to.

His mentor was away for a few days - on one of his work assignments, the kind that he returned from grim and tight-lipped and after which he kept any topic that might get Max close to learning how one of the Laws could be broken well away from the learning agenda or discussion areas. So Max had his day for him, and he'd spent it out on the streets - only to learn that one of his friends had been killed. One of the band of homeless, aimless kids that Helena had plucked him out from the midst of had been offed since she had remained on the streets, fending for herself, trying to not be tied up with anybody - and had been seen as somebody to be taken off the streets... by whatever means.

He'd miss her, the tough cookie. To start with.

Death... had always been a real danger, and they all knew it. But it hadn't really happened before. It hadn't been supposed to happen, not to his band. They were smarter, faster. Harmless.

He felt like he should've protected her. Should have been there. Should find whoever'd done it and punish them, and that was just plain weird, for him. Untypical.

He was sitting in the common room - well, bar, if you looked at it like that - of Helena's arrangement. Drinking. He knew they'd stop serving him before he'd had too much, so he took it slow, making the sting on his tongue focus his thoughts which seemed to be scatted all over, anchor him to the present. Not necessarily working too well, but it was something anyway. Mulling over the information he had, trying to figure out who had done it, possibly. Trying to figure out what he could do to them. Trying to figure out ways to persuade himself that he shouldn't do anything like that at all. Trying to figure out what he could have done differently that might have ended in her not getting killed in the first place.

He felt that he'd let her down. Here he was, safe in a place that he loved, which was kind to him, and she... she'd never be able to find anything to love again. Or anything to yell about. Or anything to spark scathing criticisms about.

He hated that feeling.

So when Far-ahaq approached him and sat beside him, in the other chair of the usual two-seat table arrangement things at this bar - Max simply wasn't in the mood for anything. He wasn't in the mood for talking, he wasn't in the mood for intimacy, he wasn't in the mood for being taken and ridden, nor for being the one doing the taking and riding. He wanted to be left alone.

He shot the older man a glance, then said, "I'd rather be on my own tonight."

It was simple enough statement. But as soon as it came out, he realized it was off. It wasn't like he hadn't had a choice, for a while, whether to take guests or not. He'd grown, filled out. Some of the clientèle who weren't exactly looking for something quite that fresh were paying attention to him; and those who'd seen him once tended to return for more. Until instead of it being a rarity that he was chosen, it was more a case of his choosing whom to see - if anyone. And he'd been doing that almost by instinct, partly a promise, partly a whim, so he'd never had any problems - not so little as a complaint about it.

But saying this, directly like this? He knew he'd probably made a mistake. No, he knew he had made a mistake when the older man shifted closer. "Ah, but I'd rather I were with you tonight. I'd much rather." His dark hand slid up Max's thigh and the white teeth flashed in the muted lights of the bar in a smile. "I'd much rather."

The youth took a deep breath and tried to ease back into the usual behavior. When he could handle that. When he wasn't thinking of short light brown head of hair with highlights and how it might have been stained with blood or mud--

"Fa..." Maybe another mistake, judging by the slight, pleased widening of his eyes at the use of the close name, instead of his full one. Instead of wincing at his own missteps, Max smiled and leaned closer. "Wouldn't you rather wait until tomorrow? I could set up something really nice too, and be available all the night, no other engagements." He made his voice warm up grow lower, deeper. Not that it was as deep as an adult man's, but the effect was still much better than a couple of years back.

"No. I'm not going to be here tomorrow. I'm going away, and I want you tonight. I insist."

That made Max blink. Nobody had ever done that around him, and definitely not Far-ahaq. "I don't... I can't." The bit of honesty slipped out of his lips before he could check it, and he knew that was a mistake, too.

"But you must. I will have you." The hand slipped up, groping in a way that was generally wonderful. But not tonight.

Max reached down to try to carefully push away the touch. "No. Don't do that..."

"You must. If I have to go talk with her and make you, I will. But I will have you. Now."

"What?" Her. Helena. Make him... Max straightened up. "You know what? I think I'm going to go talk to her right now myself." He rose, then glared, and that wasn't persuasive, so he quickly leaned - he was already taller than the dark-haired man - and kissed him. It wasn't a full-in kiss, not like he meant it, but he made up for that with what he had learned. "Alone."

Far-ahaq sank back in his seat, smiling, and Max headed upstairs. He actually did think to ask if she was with somebody, if barely. He might have barged in anyway even if she was, but maybe it was better as things were.

"What is that about you making me see somebody?"

She looked up from the book, her exquisite fingers contrasting with the pale paper of the page. "Good evening, Max." Through his anger, through his upset, that look and that voice made him pause in his tracks, and swallow, his body reacting almost despite himself.

"Hello, Helena." He took a deep breath, then shook his head to clear it. "I want to know. Far-ahaq--"

"Is that the Arabic-flavored handsome man who tends to pay attention to you?" Leisurely voice, but his eyes narrowed a little at the interruption. And he plunged on, as though she hadn't spoken.

"--said that if he wanted me, you would make me see him. How come?"

Her eyes glittered briefly, then she straightened up a bit on the covers - and the motion sent another wave of desire through him. He breathed in, and tried to ignore it. "You belong to me, Max. If I say that you give yourself to somebody, then you give yourself to him. Or her."

"My services, what I do, belongs to you."

"No. You belong to me. Mine. My pay, my home, my training, my wishes." She licked her lips slowly and, well, smouldered at him. His eyes watered with the effort not to just go to her, fall in his knees before the generous bed, and beg her to order him anything. "You have no choice. If I say you do something, you do it."

That sentence... the one that he'd first heard in a time so long ago it was almost forgotten, worked like a cold shower. He straightened slowly, and his voice was, well, still low and heated with his body's reaction, but his mind was free from that bond now. "Or else?"

"Do you really mean to ask that, Max, my fast Max?"

"Yes. I do what you say, or else?"

"Or else you end back on the streets. Alone. Homeless. No coming back, either. This place only runs the way it does because what I say is done. You do not want to leave... do you?" The twist to her voice, the timbre. They still made him dizzy.

But he couldn't give in. "Please say now that you didn't mean that. I belong to myself."

"No. All of you is mine. All, or none." She beckoned for him, the motions making the soft light reflect form her glossy curls. "Come. You do want to see Far-ahaq. You have seen him so many times, haven't you? He was your first one?"

"I thought you weren't sure who he is."

"I thought if you lost momentum, you wouldn't need to hear some things you don't like to have heard now. Come here and tell me what the matter is."

"It doesn't matter." Max shook his head. It didn't, anymore. "I just do not want to, and I won't." And that sounded petulant even to himself, but it was true.

In one fluid motion, she had risen out of the bed, and she slid the few steps until she was before him, facing him, looking up at him, as beautiful as he remembered her from the first time he laid eyes on her, and he could just appreciate that even more now. But it... didn't matter so much. And then her voice was soft, pleading. "You want to. I do not want to cross him, this whole place depends on... something that he is representative to." He knew the inflection to that 'something'. One of the power organizations of the city. Of course. An establishment such as this couldn't exist independently, could it. "He's ever asked for so little. You."

That gave Max pause. "What?"

"He's the one who found you, out there. And had me go pick you up. I would not have known about your existence otherwise." Softly, her fingers tracing the back of his arm. "You owe him."

He was shaking. Still upset, still angry, and now this... floundering between reaction and horror, at being owned like that. His voice was not steady either, but the determination? Unwavering. "No. I've given him, and you, enough." He stepped back, and turned to go, throwing over his shoulder. "I'm going away. I don't belong to you. Just to myself."

"We'll get you ba--"

That was the wrong thing to start telling him, especially after that 'you cannot come back' bit. he turned, muttering a short phrase in mock-Latin, and a gust of wind pushed roughly at a lamp by the bedside. He was angry enough, and without a focus, imprecise enough that it swept the lamp off and snapped the bedpost behind it. He didn't care. He glared at her, noting for just a moment her widened eyes. "Do not follow me. Or have me followed."

He didn't go back to his room to pick anything - money, items. He had some books, but he could buy them again later, probably. His notes, thankfully, were at the Sensei's place; he couldn't dare keep them over there anyway.

He made his way out down the back stairs, not going through the bar. And he left, through the night, bolting away from those who thought he was property again. They thought he didn't have a choice, did they? He always did, even though it was one that they wouldn't take.

He sold his services, his skill, his affection, his passion.

But he didn't sell himself. He wouldn't. What he gave, had to be willingly. Or not at all.

By the time his mentor returned from his Wardening business, Max had found some job, didn't matter what. At a gas station. Something to get means to rent a hole, well, a flat to sleep in. To be out of the streets.

His choices. For him. Despite temptation, despite fear, despite the possible want to cave in. Take the choice where he had more control, even if marginally. Try to make things work, his way. Because it was his life that he was living, and nobody else had a right to order it for him.

His life. His choices. His loyalties.

Always.

<< Previous || Next >>.