Episode 8
Rei
Rei woke but his eyes stayed shut, like always, while he waited for his other senses to reveal either what had woken him, or what was happening around him.
There was warmth in the bed beside him, but the shape and sound was not Sevastyan.
It felt like Lisa. There were voices, two of them filtering in from another room: Sevastyan and Ellisandre.
He was in the Bolthole. And just like that, everything from the previous day came back.
He fluttered his eyes open. Lisa was right beside him, still slumbering, his fist just under his chin, hand tight even in rest.
Rei reached out, wincing as his ribs complained, and put his hand over Lisa’s.
The other slave did not wake, but his hand slowly unclenched.
Perhaps going back to sleep would be a good idea.
But Rei’s body was having none of that. He needed the toilet and he needed it now.
Pushing up slowly, he grimaced against the pain in his ribs.
With his ankle aching, it was hard to back out of the covers and over the side of the bed.
Maybe there were more pain meds he could have.
Everything had not hurt quite this much the day before. Third days were almost always worse.
He drew the door open slowly. It was Sevastyan and Ellisandre speaking in the living room. They both turned towards him as he hopped towards the toilet, keeping weight off his injured ankle. Sevastyan stood and came forward, holding out his hand. “We’ll have crutches here later today.”
Rei bowed his head in acknowledgement. Sevastyan wrapped his arm around Rei’s waist and Rei melted towards him. “Toilet?”
“Yes, Master.”
Sevastyan maneuvered both of them inside the tight space of the bathroom. After all the years together, the months of recovery from the burns, and the sessions of healing from scenes, Sevastyan’s hands were light and practiced. They reached the toilet and Sevastyan started to lean down.
“Master, the gun shot,” Rei whispered. He tried to raise his eyes but he couldn’t. Too many people around, too few minutes away from sleep to find a way to shake off his training and relax enough to look up without being given instruction.
“It’s fine, as long as I move slow.” Sevastyan helped Rei sit and kept a hand on his shoulder. “Your back, how much does it hurt?”
Rei winced. He was trying not to think about his back. Nor was he sure he wanted to know what it looked like now. Being thrown into the desk and then slammed a few other times had done damage. His shoulder blades were particularly sore.
He leaned against Sevastyan’s hip and closed his eyes, letting his body do what it needed to do.
“Let’s get you showered,” Sevastyan said.
“Let me.” Ellisandre spoke from the doorway. It wasn’t closed. Rei flushed and dropped his eyes, but he didn’t hide.
Hiding from shame was not permitted.
“You shouldn’t get your bandages wet. We just replaced them,” Ellisandre said to Sevastyan. “I can help Rei in the shower.”
It was nothing. It should be nothing. And yet, it was something, for all that he didn’t want it to be. But he wouldn’t give it a name, he wouldn’t look at it closely. All he had to do was continue to breathe and move and not name whatever Ellisandre’s choice was doing to him.
Sevastyan wavered, then nodded. “I’ll stay here and watch. Let me get the waterproof covers.”
Rei kept his head down, fiercely thankful Sevastyan was staying, even if it felt like a production for something as small as a shower.
And it was good to get clean. He couldn’t help but remember, as Ellisandre’s hand steadied him under the water, how those same hands had pinned his master’s hips to the bed the night before,
and that mouth—further up than Rei dared bring his eyes at the moment—had swallowed down his master’s cock and made him come, groaning and cursing, his stomach tight and pulsing.
And now those hands were touching him. Rei waited to feel something, anything, jealousy, fear . . . something.
Within minutes, what he felt most was tired.
It was that stage of recovery. Everything turned inward.
Beyond a sense of shame and fragility, all he wanted to do was be left to his rules and his silence and to stay small and unobserved until his bones no longer hurt, the muscles around his lungs were no longer tender, and his ankle was steady.
Before the shower was over, the weariness was so large that it felt like illness. All his energy seemed to run down the drain with the soap and the water.
A towel enveloped him and he swayed, off balance. A strong, slender arm wrapped around his waist and moved him towards the bathroom door. “Couch,” Ellisandre said.
Rei tripped over the door jam. Ellisandre kept him upright, then swept his legs up, carrying him like a child out of the hallway and into the living room.
Head swimming, eyes closed, he was just there for the ride.
They laid him down, his head on a pile of pillows.
Looking for comfort, he drew the large towel in around himself and pulled up his knees.
Sevastyan limped over. Today his bruises appeared worse than yesterday. Like Rei, the injuries were catching up with him, the adrenaline entirely gone.
“Sit, finish eating,” Ellisandre said. “I’ll check on the fox.”
“His name is Lisa,” Sevastyan grunted, lowering himself down to the floor beside Rei.
“I thought that was a moniker,” Ellisandre countered. “Just Russian for fox.”
“Moniker and the only name he has,” Sevastyan said. “So call him by his name.”
Ellisandre and Sevastyan’s eyes met and locked for a second. Ellisandre dipped their head. “Lisa, then.” They went into the bedroom.
The presence of his master, just quietly there, was all Rei needed. He closed his eyes and fell asleep wrapped in the towel.