Cailan lost track of things after that. He saw to his needs, though only just, and he never remembered doing it, just that his bladder ended up empty without him wetting himself and he always had enough water left in his body to make more tears. If he ate at all, it wasn't much.
Eventually awareness drifted away entirely, and if Cailan had been capable of any kind of self reflection he would have expected death to follow. He felt a muted sense of surprise when consciousness ebbed back in.
It started slowly, just a soft realisation that he was awake. That he was warm, that his bladder had demands, that his throat felt dry and his belly empty. His body pressed forward without him consciously commanding it, and that's when he felt arms shift around him, hot breath against his forehead.
"Liam," he croaked out, because it could be nobody else. Nobody's arms had ever felt this way around him but Liam's, and nobody's ever could.
Liam leant back to look down at Cailan and let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, Cailan. You'll be fine. I'm so sorry, baby. I just, I had to. We can both leave now."
"Leave?"
Liam's lips curved into a fragile smile. "I got my first fortnight of military pay. New recruits can't keep slaves, but there's lodging near enough that I could visit you every day. Now that I have money to pay for it, I can take you with me."
Cailan pressed his face against Liam's collarbone and let out a sob that wracked his whole body. Liam held him close and petted him as he cried, his hand on Cailan's back and his fingers raking Cailan's hair.
"Come on," Liam whispered against Cailan's ear eventually. "We can't stay here long. I need to get you ready for travel."
Cailan's body felt weak and floppy, and it was all he could do to lean on Liam and let him take care of his needs. If he'd had more presence of mind he might have felt embarrassed clinging to Liam as he emptied his bladder, but Liam just averted his eyes and kept him upright.
Liam stuck his head out of the door and called for Aubree to bring him clean clothing, then helped Cailan gulp down a glass of water. Aubree returned with a fresh robe as Cailan was chewing on a biscuit.
"He's okay?" Aubree asked as she hovered in the doorway, a small frown curving her lips as she watched Cailan eat. It was odd seeing her expression so open. Normally she kept her feelings tightly closed off from him.
"He will be," Liam grumbled. "I thought you would look out for him."
Aubree glanced away, down the hallway, as her face closed off. "Your father—" She shook her head. "Not all of us get to leave now. The rest of us can't risk stepping out of line."
Liam helped Cailan tug his robe off over his head and let out a tiny dismayed sound. "He's half starved. He's just a kid, Aubree. My father would have let him starve himself."
Aubree turned back to look at him, her lips pressed together in a tight line. "That surprises you? A dog or a cat would be closer to a real person to your father than a slave is."
Liam lifted the back of his hand to rub at his eye, and Cailan realised he was crying. "He could have just—" Liam shook his head. "I thought he cared about me, at least. Just a bit. I thought—" He shook his head again, an angry jerk. "But that's why I'm leaving, isn't it?"
Aubree took a step further into the room, hesitating just inside. "I've overheard him griping about the dangers of war since you left. Worrying himself. It's more than just a fear of losing what he's invested in his only heir. He does care."
Liam ignored the tears trailing down his cheeks as he helped Cailan into the clean robe. "But he knows I care about Cailan, he knows how upset I'd be if something happened to him. If he cared, wouldn't he have taken care of him?"
Aubree gave a shake of her head. "You know it's not his way."
"Too well."
"Liam—"
"Go and pack Cailan's clothes, would you? I don't think we should linger here any longer than we have to."
Aubree hesitated for a moment longer before giving a sharp nod and leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.
Cailan wanted to offer Liam comfort, to settle his quiet sniffling, but his brain felt too scrambled for words so all he could do was cling as Liam alternated between packing a bag and encouraging Cailan to eat more food. Liam was sixteen, a man under the law, but in many ways he had far from reached maturity.
"Not everyone is awful," Liam told Cailan as he folded clothes into his suitcase with excessive care. "Some people in this world are kind."
"I know," Cailan murmured, because his master was one of those people. Of course he knew.
“I’ve been trying to feel a certain way about owning you because I thought— I thought that was the only way to feel about it. But now I’ve made other friends from different backgrounds and I’ve mentioned you to them and their feelings aren’t the same.”
"Mmh," Cailan said as he pressed in closer against Liam's side.
“They’re not like my school friends who think I needn’t worry about how young you are. And… they’re better men than me, I think. They see how bad things can be for slaves and so, of course, they wouldn’t want to own one. But Cailan, I do want you. Always. There’s nothing more precious to me in this world and I don’t ever want to let you go.”
Cailan made a fussy sound and squirmed against Liam's side. He didn't want to be without Liam, not ever.
"Many are worse than my father, of course," Liam continued. "Vicious and unfeeling wretches. I am not the worst of men, but Cailan, it's quite clear I'm not the best either. I'm not sure I even aspire to be."
Cailan wanted to tell him that he was perfect, that he shone brighter than the sun and that any change could only be for the worse, but the only way he could express himself was through even more insistent clinging.
Liam let out a chuckle and then sniffled quietly. "I like that you are mine, that you belong to me, and I'm only just beginning to realise how much I shouldn't."
There was a knock on the door, and then it swung open a crack and Aubree stuck her head in. Her expression pinched tight at the sight of Liam's red, watery eyes, and she pulled the door open wider and dragged a small wheeled suitcase inside. "That's all his clothes."
Liam glanced quickly around and tossed another shirt into his own suitcase before zipping it up. He picked it up by the handle with one hand and took hold of Cailan's hand with the other, then let out a long sigh. "Guess it's time to leave."
"You don't have to," Aubree reminded him.
Liam's lips curved into a tired smile. "No, for once in my life I'm forging my own path." He hissed in a breath through his teeth and swung Cailan's hand in his. "Okay, I'm ready."
Cailan dragged the suitcase packed with his clothes to the end of the hall just fine, but when it came to get down the long set of carpeted stairs they had to do a bit of shuffling. Cailan barely had the strength to keep himself upright and couldn't carry the suitcase’s weight, but he just about started crying when Liam tried to get him to surrender his hand so that he could carry it downstairs for him.
In the end they managed to come to a compromise, Liam holding Cailan's lighter suitcase perched on his shoulder so that Cailan could still cling against his side, hand bunched in Liam's shirt and knuckles grazing the warm skin of Liam's stomach. By the time they made it downstairs and the suitcase was handed off to Cailan again, Liam's father was standing at the foot of the stairs with his arms folded firmly across his chest.
"You can forget about your inheritance, you know," Liam's father said when Liam moved to walk past him with barely a glance in his direction.
Liam paused and tugged Cailan fractionally closer to him. "I'm making my own money now."
Liam's father scoffed. "You'll never have the kind of life you had here on a military salary."
"I don't want the kind of life I've had here," Liam said as he corralled Cailan behind him. "Not ever again."
Liam's father didn't speak again as they made their way past him, just watched them with a deep frown that matched the lines etched into his aging skin.
Outside, Liam hailed a carriage and Cailan settled in warm against his side in the back seat. The military base was almost an hour away, and with the gentle rock of the carriage and Liam's fingers raking gently through his hair, Cailan found his consciousness ebbing away again. He was still so very tired.
Cailan awoke when Liam lifted him out of the carriage, strong arms moving his smaller body with ease. He cracked his eyes open to take in the two story inn as they approached, but his body remained loose and passive in Liam's hold.
The coachman had helped carry the bags, but Liam had to set Cailan on his feet, one arm holding him up, while he fished out a key for one of the first floor rooms and unlocked the door. He picked Cailan back up, carried him a few steps into the room and placed him on the bed, and then returned to pay the coachmen and take their bags.
The instant Cailan was out of physical contact with Liam, he panicked. He dragged his body, still exhausted and malnourished, off the edge of the bed, uncaring that he couldn't get his feet under him and ended up squirming on the floor. He heard the door shut, and then Liam's arms were around him again, lifting him back onto the bed.
"I'm here," Liam murmured, his hand rubbing against Cailan's cheek as he sat down next to him on the bed. "You're fine. Settle down."
Cailan pressed his face against Liam's thigh and murmured out a, "Sorry."
Liam leant down and pressed a kiss just above Cailan's ear. "Not your fault."
"I didn't think you were going to come back for me," Cailan whispered in a voice that wavered with every word.
Liam's hand squeezed firm over Cailan's shoulder. "I was always coming back for you. I will always come back for you. You're mine, understand? My boy, my responsibility."
"Yours," Cailan agreed.
"Do you hate me for it? For owning you?"
Cailan twisted his head to look up at Liam with wide peridot eyes. "I love you more than anyone."
For a moment Liam just stared down at him, a furrow in his brow and his lips slightly parted, but then a smile overtook his face. He stroked a hand around Cailan's jaw. How could Cailan ever have doubted Liam would return for him when Liam looked at him with such complete adoration?
Liam's head jerked around at the sound of a knock on the door. He patted a hand against Cailan's cheek and told him firmly to stay before getting up to answer it.
Cailan squirmed around on the bed, his skin itching with the need for Liam's touch, but he was still on the bed when Liam returned with a tray of food less than a minute later. He let himself be moved around until he was pressed back against Liam's chest, then accepted the thin slice of rabbit Liam offered him from the prongs of a fork.
Liam alternated between feeding himself and feeding Cailan from the plate of roasted rabbit, potatoes, and vegetables, until Cailan turned his face into Liam's shoulder and shook his head. He was full, and he'd learned long ago that Liam would much prefer he say no than accept something he didn't want.
Liam offered him bits of everything left on the plate, but when Cailan continued shaking his head Liam finished the food on his own without pushing further. He felt around Cailan's chest with his free hand as he ate, counting ribs prominent even through the fabric of the robe Cailan was wearing.
After they set the empty tray aside and washed up in the small bathroom, Liam stripped down to his underwear and helped Cailan into his thinner night robe. They went to bed, curled up in one another's arms. Cailan wanted to stroke his fingers over the sparse hair on Liam's chest, feel the muscles that bulged his arms, map out every line of his body with the brush of sensitive fingertips. He knew better, though. He knew that kind of touch crossed a line into something he wasn't allowed. Not yet. Not until he was a man.
Sleep settled close to Cailan's mind almost immediately, but behind him Liam shifted and sighed, still alert to the world.
"You're fine," Cailan murmured, repeating words Liam had used to soothe him countless times. "And I'm fine. We're fine."
"Yeah baby, we are."
#
Though it must have been dreadfully boring for him, Liam stayed all the next day and the day after, his entire weekend off, leaving Cailan's side only to order food or use the bathroom. Separation had gotten easier after an entire night spent curled up together, and each time left Cailan feeling slightly less squirmy and fretful inside. By the time Monday morning came and Liam had to leave, had to go back to the military camp, Cailan was able to tell him he'd be fine with a smile on his face that didn't waver.
As soon as the door shut behind Liam, Cailan flopped back down on the bed, buried his face in the pillow, and shook. His body was no longer starved for affection. It was knowing what had happened last time Liam had left him alone, how close he'd come to some precipice he wasn't sure he could have returned from, that drove panic through him now. He could have begged Liam to stay, and maybe he would have found some way to, to delay returning to work just one more day, but that wasn't any kind of solution. All that left him shaking and sobbing and biting at his knuckles now was fear, and the only way to get over it was to face it.
By the time Liam returned Cailan wore a carefully practised mask of calm on his face, but it shattered at their first touch. Cailan clung to Liam as they stood there in the doorway, squirming against him in a quest to get closer than possible. He didn't cry, though. He didn't sob or beg Liam not to leave him again. He knew what Liam needed, and he was determined to be a good boy.
Liam was exhausted, but he still took the time to encourage Cailan to eat until he flatly refused any more food as he had every meal time since they'd been reunited. There was no lingering wakefulness that night. Almost the instant they were curled up in bed together, Liam was snoring quietly by Cailan's side.
Each day alone was hard, but also easier than the one before it. On the weekend they went into the nearby town and Liam bought Cailan second hand books and puzzles, cheaper versions of the gifts he'd always bestowed on Cailan with generosity to keep him entertained during his long periods of solitude.
Cailan was still shut away in a room most of the time, still kept out of most of his master's life, but he saw the glow this new life brought out in Liam, saw a fresh spark in his eyes and the way his smiles came more easily. Things hadn't changed much for Cailan, but knowing his master was happy now made everything better.
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