Chapter 14
Asher ate the bowl of oiyer berries and then felt brave enough to try some purple guita root, some bites of enga, and then attempted a bite of alev.
The latter smelled too much like meat for Asher to stomach it though, and smelling it up close when Vrayl offered it killed the remains of Asher’s appetite.
But his shrunken stomach felt full enough, with all that he’d eaten.
It was a mild discomfort, but—simply a mild one.
Vrayl and Trenet tried suggesting other foods, but Asher shook his head. Not to be combative, but he really didn’t feel up to eating anymore.
“Could I… could I have my humshus?” Asher asked. When he was wearing it, obviously no one would try to feed him. If Asher didn’t want to eat, wearing the gag was the safest way to ensure that. “Please?”
“You’re finished?” Vrayl asked. He seemed disappointed, looking from the untouched alev in his hand back to Asher. “You’re… you’re sure?”
Asher tightened his lips and nodded.
“Alright, sweetling,” Vrayl said, handing the alev to Trenet and then picking something else up from the table. “If you’re done eating. We would never keep your humshus from you.”
The humshus Vrayl held up wasn’t the familiar ball gag that Asher had worn for so many days. Instead this one had a long, phallic attachment. Asher licked his lips. This was the humshus that yshain Lee had inflicted upon him. Asher immediately was hit with a sharp dislike of it.
But… but yshain Lee was the one who’d told Trenet and Vrayl about Asher’s translator not working.
He was the reason they could all understand each other now.
The reason Asher has been able to hear Trenet and Vrayl call him precious and valued and perfect.
And if Asher was supposed to belong to Trenet and Vrayl, maybe yshain Lee…
Did he belong to the other two Dresht that had been in that room? Asher had heard two other Dresht voices. Was yshain Lee… truly like Asher?
Just happy. Happy with his Dresht and his position.
Asher played through his memories of yesterday. What had yshain Lee said? I’m Human too, and I came here just like you. So I know how scary it is in the beginning. But I promise it’s going to be okay, Asher. I-I’m giving you this because I know it will help. It’ll make you feel better.
Was yshain Lee… actually not so bad?
Asher eyed the humshus with its long insertion.
It was designed for filling the mouth. Filling the throat.
Asher had felt it on every swallow. But getting to see the foreign object made it seem less oppressive somehow, though he couldn’t exactly explain why.
Maybe it was just because, for Asher, the unknown was always so much scarier.
Besides, with this particular humshus in his mouth, there was absolutely no way Asher could be fed something he didn’t want to be eating.
Plus the mouthpiece was nicer than the one on the ball gag.
He remembered that from having it in before.
Though the insert itself was thick enough to be felt as it filled the throat, the mouthpiece narrowed considerably.
Asher had been able to close his mouth almost completely around it, which had relieved all the tension he’d been carrying in his jaw.
And there’d still been something substantial between his teeth to bite down on.
Vrayl was just waiting, holding the gag. He wasn’t forcing it into Asher’s mouth. He was letting Asher take his time, to see this new humshus and accept it.
Asher opened his mouth.
“So lovely for us, Asher,” Vrayl crooned as he slid the insertion into Asher’s mouth, over his tongue and down his throat. “Such a pretty, perfect yshain.”
Yshain. Vessel. Subvocalization: beloved. Subvocalization: of highest rank.
Asher made a startled noise as he processed that. Vessel… made sense, he guessed. He’d have to be stupid to not put two and two together as part of what he was for here, but he’d expected it to mean something closer to “breeder” or… or “fucktoy” or something.
A vessel okay, but… highly ranked?
And… and beloved?
“You are perfect, little love,” Trenet said, clearly taking Asher’s noise as one of disbelief. “So sweet for us, always.”
Okay, that Asher was incredulous about. There was nothing about his behavior over the last several days that had been sweet. He shook his head as soon as Vrayl finished securing that band of his humshus.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Vrayl said, smoothing a hand over Asher’s twisted braid.
“You came from such hardship. But we’d never hold that against you, dear heart.
You’re ours. Our beautiful Asher. Our sweet, precious yshain.
You’re not meant for hardship. You’re meant to be held and filled and pleasured, always.
And it’s our great privilege to be the ones to take care of you. ”
For the second time, Asher felt his eyes grow wet. He swallowed quickly around the insertion in his mouth and found it grounding, to feel it filling his throat. Something solid. Something real.
Something to prove that this wasn’t all just some fever dream he was having on Journey-5, cold and hungry and so achingly lonely that it burned in his chest.
“Bath time, I think,” Trenet said, before rising from his seat, Asher in his arms.
Asher curled up in Trenet’s arms, tucking his face into the Dresht’s chest. Right now, right here, was real. Trenet and Vrayl were real. And…
And they seemed to truly mean—to truly believe—the words they spoke.
It was hard not to feel emotional about being called perfect, precious, beloved with every breath, when he’d spent so much of his life trying to hide in plain sight.
When he’d lived with the knowledge that everyone in his life, aside from his immediate family, would turn against him if they knew the truth. Teachers, classmates, close friends—
Asher would never have survived, had his secret gotten out.
When they got to the bathing area, Trenet continued to hold Asher in his arms while Vrayl disrobed. Once Vrayl was naked, Trenet handed Asher over, so that he could also undress. Asher was never left alone, never left cold or untouched.
Vrayl cradled Asher in his arms while Trenet reached for Asher’s shorts, undoing the drawstring and then maneuvering the silky garment over Asher’s thighs, down his legs, and off, baring him completely to the room.
“Perfect,” Trenet said, and Asher’s breathing went shaky as Trenet bent to press his lips to one of Asher’s thighs, then the other. “Our beautiful Asher, with his pretty green eyes and soft, smooth skin.”
“Lovely long, red hair,” Vrayl put him, pressing a kiss to the top of Asher’s head. “And the cute little spots that decorate his body.”
“And so small,” Trenet added in his deep growl. “To fit so well between us.”
“We are lucky Dresht indeed, my mate,” Vrayl said. “All those cycles we spent waiting, all those rejections…”
“Worth it, to have Asher with us today,” Trenet said, once again reaching out, this time to cup Asher’s ass with one large palm, making Asher gasp.
Trenet slid his fingers between Asher’s cheeks to grasp the base of the senchr. Asher heard himself make a caught sound as Trenet began to ease it free.
“I know, little love,” Trenet said. “I know you hate to go without. But it will only be for a few moments.”
“You’ve been so brave for so long,” Vrayl said, nuzzling the top of Asher’s head. “I can’t begin to imagine how hard it was, growing up the way you did, surviving on Journey-5 as you could. But you’ll never go without again, dear heart. You’ll never have to struggle again.”
The senchr finally slid free, and Trenet’s fingers returned to Asher’s hole, this time coated with that warming slick.
Asher whined around the gag as Trenet worked the slick into him, allowing himself, for the first time, to sink into how good it felt.
It was such an intimate place for another person to be touching, but Trenet’s fingers were big and gentle, rubbing and massaging Asher from the inside in a way that made pleasure trickle down his spine.
He made a disgruntled sound when Trenet pulled his fingers free, making both Dresht chuckle.
“I think our Asher expects something of you, my mate,” Vrayl said with a smile as they began to walk into the bathing pool.
Trenet answered with a smile of his own. “As is his right, and my duty to provide.” And he took a seat on the ledge.
Vrayl brought Asher forward, turning him and positioned him so he and Trenet were chest to chest and a familiar, blunt heat pressed right up against his hole. Another moment and Trenet’s cock pushed inside, sliding in with little resistance after the senchr, the slick, and Trenet’s clever fingers.
Asher’s eyes fluttered shut as he was pulled down onto Trenet’s lap and made to take his thick cock, moaning around the gag in his mouth as he was filled.
Fuck. He hadn’t realized how strange it had felt to be empty, after days and days of having Trenet or Vrayl inside of him.
He’d woken up with the senchr but Trenet was always so, so much. The senchr didn’t compare.
“Beautiful,” Vrayl murmured into his ear, making Asher shiver. “Look at you, taking your pleasure of our mate.”
Our mate. Like Asher was really, truly a—a part of them.
“Beautiful and sweet,” Trenet said, a rumble kicking up in his chest that Asher felt all the way through. “Our perfect yshain. Every moment with you is a blessing, little love.”
Asher whimpered at hearing such an endearment again, startling slightly when he felt a touch to his back. He realized a moment later that it was a cloth. Vrayl had started to bathe him.
Being able to understand them, being held secure in Trenet’s lap, being able to know that they truly were trying to care for him—Asher had all but forgotten about his fear of the water, even though he still was gagged by the humshus and his arms were still bound.
And oh but it was so easy to sink into the feeling of being cared for and luxuriate in the gentle way Vrayl washed every part of him, him and Trenet showering Asher with praise the whole while.
“Now your hair, dear heart,” Vrayl said, still speaking low. Moments later Asher felt fingers start to untwist his braid, then sink into his hair and begin to finger comb through it.
The moan that dropped out of Asher’s mouth was soft, possibly because he was half-asleep under the ministrations.
He hadn’t really been able to enjoy the baths he’d been given up until this point, too out of his mind with terror.
Now he dozed in the water, the thick cock inside him securing his place in Trenet’s lap, Trenet’s arms around him doing their part too.
As Vrayl began to wash his hair, Asher nuzzled his cheek against the smooth scales on Trenet’s broad chest, and let out a happy sigh. It felt good. All of it, it felt so blissfully good.
“Look how soft he is,” Trenet said quietly to Vrayl after a time. “So soft and sweet and happy.” A large hand rubbed pleasingly over Asher’s low back as his hair was rebraided, and Asher hummed contentedly, sucking on his humshus simply because it felt nice to do so.
“All this time…” Vrayl sounded upset. Why? “All this time, all his stress, and it was simply because he couldn’t understand.”
“I know,” Trenet said, deep voice still quiet. Solemn. “A hard lesson to learn, and one our poor Asher had to bear the brunt of. But at least… at least it won’t happen again. When there next is a yshain rescued, the testing facility will ensure an up-to-date translation implant.”
“I know, I know, I just—our poor sweetling.” Vrayl actually sounded near tears. “And—and why he won’t eat. I can’t—”
Asher roused himself from his pleasant drift and opened his eyes, angling his body as much as he was able to look up at Vrayl. Vrayl seemed taken aback to be suddenly blinking at Asher, and he was quick to cup Asher’s face. “I’m sorry dear heart, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Asher shook his head and then deliberately nuzzled into Vrayl’s hand, letting his eyes slide to half mast. Because…
because yes, Trenet and Vrayl could have checked that Asher could understand them, but Asher could have done more to try to communicate to them that he couldn’t.
The moment they’d discovered that he wasn’t able to understand what they were saying, they’d gotten it fixed.
Maybe Asher was too quick to forgive. His youngest-older sister always despaired of his inability to hold a grudge. After all, it was still true that Asher was sort of captive here. That the Dresht wanted him to be their vessel.
But he was also beloved here. Sweet and precious and perfect.
To Trenet and Vrayl he wasn’t a secret. He was someone to be proud of. He was little love and sweetling and dear heart.
Asher found, even amidst everything that had happened to him so far, everything that had been done, being seen as valued…
That meant a lot.