Souvenirs From Dead Worlds

After Kias had asked Sam to go away Sam, had gone downstairs. Seba had been down there reading, though, and the curious glances he’d kept sending Sam had only stirred Sam up more until finally Sam had left to get his and Kias’ new clothes.

That had been the plan for the afternoon anyway, so Sam had figured he may as well just do it. Perhaps Kias would forgive him if he came offering new pants. He'd had two new pairs made for Kias, and from the looks of them Sam was pretty sure they'd fit Kias well. He suspected that in doing so they likely wouldn't make Kias' ass look quite so spectacular, unfortunately. Oh well. Lately he'd been seeing an awful lot of Kias' ass sans pants, and that was a hell of a lot better.

Sam lingered outside the door to their room for a few moments, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He'd only been gone for about twenty minutes. Was that long enough for Kias to have settled down and be ready for his company again?

Sam tapped quietly on the door. "Kias?"

"Yes?" a voice responded from within the room. Sam's brow wrinkled in confusion. It wasn't Kias' voice, but the word had been in Kias' language. Sam opened the door.

On the bed Kias and Seba sat side by side. Kias looked angry and Seba looked like he was trying not to look angry. Seba had one hand around Kias' arm, squeezing reassuringly.

"He was scared," Seba said flatly, speaking again in Kias' language, and Sam wanted to tell him to stop it because it was creepy. Sam had taught him all those words, yes, but hearing him put them together in working sentences was somewhat unsettling. He'd only taught Seba to humour him and earn his support.

"I know," Sam said, speaking in a language more familiar to Seba. Sam switched back to address Kias. "Are you feeling better now?"

The look Kias gave him was of pure resentment. "Where did you go?"

Sam got the feeling he was about to get chewed out no matter what his answer was. He held up the paper wrapped package of clothing. "To pick up our clothes."

"You left me alone!" Kias shouted, his hands fisting in the blanket he sat on. Seba was glancing back and forth between them as the conversation progressed, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to follow what was being said. Sam ignored him.

"To be fair, you did tell me to," Sam said, though he was beginning to realise just how badly he'd messed up.

Kias stretched over the bed, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at Sam's head. "I didn't know where you were!"

Sam let the cushion hit him in the shoulder without blocking it. Seba looked outright alarmed. He was stroking Kias' shoulder, trying to get him to calm down, failing to realise it was Kias' wrath that was more dangerous than however Sam might choose to respond to it.

"I wasn't thinking," Sam said, keeping his voice calm. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Kias folded his arms and made a sound of annoyance, but he looked less like he wanted to do Sam physical harm. Sam stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind him. Sam peripherally noticed Seba's body tense ever so slightly. Sam ignored it. It was only to be expected that the boy would assume a master would mistreat his servant, and the best way to cure him of that assumption was to fail to do so.

"What's he doing up here?" Sam asked Kias, flicking a glance at Seba. He placed package of clothing on the table in the corner.

Kias shrugged. "He was downstairs when I went to look for you. He... Well, he's nice. He made sure I was okay."

Sam looked Seba over contemplatively. Seba looked back, a new distrust in his eyes. Whatever Seba thought had happened, Sam was fairly sure he was wrong. "You took care of Kias when he was upset?" Sam asked, switching to a language Seba understood.

Seba continued to watch him distrustfully for several long, silent moments. "Yes."

"Then I thank you for that," Sam said. He walked around to the opposite side of the bed, lifted the mattress and retrieved the pouch of coins he'd hidden there. It was the worst hiding place and he'd need to figure out a new one now that Seba had seen it.

Sam tilted the pouch so that several coins spilt into his palm, then sorted out four silver ones and put the rest back. He walked over to where Seba and Kias sat and handed the four silver coins to Seba. "Thank you," Sam repeated.

Seba immediately sent a questioning glance to Kias, and it wasn't until Kias gave him a small smile and a nod that Seba closed his hand around the coins. It earned Seba a lot of respect from Sam that he wouldn't accept payment for his kindness without Kias' approval.

"Thank you," Seba said, this time in Sam's language.

Sam nodded. "For your retirement."

It was kind of sad, seeing Seba try to bite back his smile as he examined the coins. What Sam had given Seba was almost as much as what Kalem had promised to give Seba when they parted ways when Seba turned sixteen. Sam would have given him more if it wouldn't have struck Seba as spectacularly strange and risked drawing unwanted attention to themselves.

After Seba had left, again receiving a reassuring nod from Kias before complying, Kias smiled at Sam. "That was kind."

"No it wasn't," Sam said, sitting on the bed next to Kias but leaving a safe distance between the two of them. Giving Kias space. "It was self indulgent. He probably won't live to spend it."

"No," Kias agreed, edging closer to where Sam sat. "But now he feels hope when before he had none. Even if he dies tomorrow, he will have spent tonight as a happier person."

"I suppose," Sam said. He nuzzled at Kias' shoulder when Kias moved within reach.

Kias pressed his lips together as though considering whether he should still be angry, but after another nuzzle from Sam a reluctant smile crept onto his face and he reached out a hand to comb fingers through Sam’s hair. "We all die eventually, Sam. If you met a sick and dying child on your world, do you think it would be a pointless waste to put any time or money into making sure that child was comfortable and happy until he died?"

Sam frowned, his face resting against Kias' shoulder. He sighed and kissed Kias' ear. "I need you."

Kias chuckled and turned his head to leer at Sam. "Oh do you now?"

"No. I mean it, Kias. Thank you."

Kias hummed his acknowledgement as he continued to pet Sam’s hair.

"And I'm sorry for leaving you alone and not telling you where I was going, and for scaring you before that. Both times I wasn't thinking and both times I should have known better. I'm sorry."

Kias let out a long sigh and fisted his hand in Sam’s hair. "I'm not mad at you for what happened. Even I didn't know I would respond like that. But leaving without telling me where you were going..."

"I won't do it again," Sam said quickly.

Kias used his grip on Sam’s hair to give his head a gentle shake. "You'd better not." Kias let go of Sam’s hair and smoothed it down again. "Now, let's take a look at what clothes you bought me."

#

Sam hadn't had any specific plans for that afternoon besides picking up their clothes, which he'd already done, so after he and Kias had changed into some of their new clothes they went to find Seba and Sam asked him for ideas as to what they should do. Seba had suggested they visit the library, which Sam suspected had far more to do with how close Seba was to finishing the book he'd been reading than it did serving any of Sam's needs. But, as Kias had shown him, sometimes it was nice just to do nice things for people, even if they were going to die soon, so Sam agreed and they headed for the library.

Though it hadn't been part of his original intentions when he'd agreed to go with Seba to the library, once they arrived Sam realised that the trip could actually be a productive one. Sam's visit to Kias' world had been a rather short and largely unsuccessful one, and he'd come out of it without very much at all to show for his time spent there. Well, aside from Kias himself. But Kias couldn't read or write and so, just like that, all knowledge of written forms of Kias' language had been erased.

Although nobody was likely to be personally harmed by such a future oversight, Sam was still determined not to allow it to happen again. There were, after all, people who researched the different languages they discovered for a living, and those people would appreciate whatever knowledge Sam was able to bring back. And so, while Seba browsed the shelves of the modestly sized library for new reading material, Sam opened up books and covertly took pictures of a selection of their pages with his ring. He considered stealing one, but it seemed somehow wrong when Seba was the one who had brought them there. Kias sat on the floor, drawing patterns in the dust on the floor and shelves.

"So," Sam said as he recorded images from the dozenth book he'd picked up. "You read in languages other than your native language?"

"Yes," Seba said distractedly. After a few moments he realised more was expected of him, and he glanced at Sam. "The city I grew up in saw a lot of trade from many different places. My family was poor, so I could not afford to be fussy about which languages the books I could get hold of had been written in."

"You're clearly very smart," Sam said, but within the character he'd established it fell as more of a flat statement than a compliment. "Where you're from. Is it far away?"

"Yes," Seba said, his eyes not leaving where they were occupied with scanning the contents of a book. "It took sixteen days by ship to get from where I grew up to this country. We arrived further north, though, and travelled through many cities before coming here, so I suppose it is further still than that."

Sam was doing his best to remember as many details of what Seba was telling him as he could. Later, he would write it all down. At times, personal accounts could give greater insight into a culture than literature or architecture ever could. "How did you end up with Kalem?"

Suddenly, Seba was no longer looking at the book, he was just holding it and directing his eyes at it. Sam couldn't have explained the difference he saw, but it was there.

"My father and older brother caught fish, and me, my mother, my sisters, and my younger brother sold them in the markets," Seba said. "As a son, I was supposed to become a fisherman too, but, well... I was better at talking to people, at selling things. Better than my sisters." Seba gave up on the pretence of looking at the book and turned around to lean back against the bookshelf. "I had three sisters. There were too many girls already in my family, but... I wasn't the right kind of man to be a fisherman."

Sam nodded his head when Seba glanced at him, encouraging him to continue.

"That wasn't an insult as it is in many places, but it was an inconvenience with us already being so imbalanced." Seba shifted against the bookshelf. "Then a man — Kalem — came through town, and he took an interest in me and my younger brother. He wished to take one of us as an indentured servant and was offering a good price. It was too good to turn down. I didn't want him to take my younger brother, though. My brother was nine, too young for what Kalem was after regardless of what Kalem thought, and would likely grow to be useful as a fisherman. Of the two of us, I could be far more easily spared."

"Your parents sold you," Sam said flatly, and it may have come out more judgmentally than he'd intended.

Seba's mouth quirked up at the side, but it seemed more self conscious than happy or humorous. "It wasn't quite like that. As you've said, I am quite smart, and by going with Kalem I was offered a future that I would not be able to have with my family. They indentured me to Kalem because of this, and because I agreed to be, not simply because they were offered money. It's not slavery as they have in the south."

Seba turned his head to look at Sam curiously. "You have Kias, and yet you seem, at best, ignorant of the establishment of indentured servants. At worst, repelled by the concept."

"Well—" Sam started, then stopped. Reconsidered. Fuck it. "He's not actually my servant."

Seba's eyebrows rose, but he otherwise kept his curiosity carefully hidden. "Oh?"

"Yes. It just ended up being easier to pretend. It's complicated." Sam rubbed some stray dust out of his eye and then added, "Don't tell anyone."

Seba quickly nodded his assent. "So you're... what?"

"Just friends," Sam said, and then corrected himself. "Well, no, not just friends. We're equals, I should say, in our relationship. Neither one of us is master over the other."

"But you're far more wealthy," Seba said. He was no longer on edge as he leant against the bookcase, watching Sam with open curiosity. "That's a kind of power."

"I have a lot of things that would give me potential power over him," Sam agreed. "I have more money, I'm bigger and older than him, and I generally hold greater authority. He does not speak the language here, giving me additional power. But you've seen us together privately when he's upset with me. Having power does not mean he submits to me."

Seba averted his eyes and was silent for several long moments. "But you could make him."

Sam's first instinct was to laugh at the idea that anyone could make Kias submit to them, but then he remembered how Kias had been when they first met. Fearful and, yes, submissive. Anyone could be broken. "I suspect it's a matter of what actions are likely and expected. Perhaps I could kill you right now, but it's not likely and you don't expect me to, so it doesn't factor into things." Sam was dismayed to see Seba tense at Sam's example as though it were a threat, but he continued anyway. "What someone could do doesn't matter if it's not something they would do."

Seba mulled that over, staring down at the book he held as he ran his fingers up and down the spine. "I suppose I really must give up on the idea of you buying me from Kalem, then."

"I'm sorry," Sam said, and he meant it. His hand reached out and patted Seba's shoulder in the briefest of comforting touches before he turned away. "Don't take too long choosing your books. I'd prefer to eat dinner early and avoid Kalem's lovely, drunken company."

Seba muttered something under his breath, but when Sam turned to give him a questioning look Seba just nodded, face blank.

They did manage to avoid encountering Kalem while they ate, for which Sam was very grateful. He was in no mood for feigning respect towards the man. Sam wasn't in the mood for a whole lot, honestly.

While Sam sat at the table in the corner and recorded the days events in his notebook, Kias sat on the floor and rubbed Sam’s feet. After a while, Kias pressed a kiss against Sam's knee. "Are you okay?"

Sam made a grumbling sound in response, then let out a huff. "Yeah. Just... stuff. This is almost the best job there is. We get to travel to new worlds and do all these things... And then it isn't, because the last part, the way it ends, is awful. Every time."

"I know," Kias murmured against his knee.

Sam ran his fingers through Kias' hair and gave him a sad smile. Kias smiled back and shuffled over to kneel between Sam's knees, leaning his forehead against Sam's thigh to allowed Sam better hair petting access. When Sam smiled again, this time down at the top of Kias' head, it was somewhat closer to genuine. Kias was softly nuzzling against Sam's hip. It was like petting a puppy.

Sam didn't notice Kias' hand sneaking up until it was stroking along the inside of Sam's thigh, the delicate brush of his fingers almost tickling where they touched. Sam felt Kias' lips stretch into a grin against his thigh when Sam's breath hitched.

Kias bit down on Sam's thigh hard enough to make him flinch, then glanced up at Sam. "I could make you feel better, you know," Kias said as his fingers started working open the simple fabric belt that kept Sam's pants up.

"You could," Sam agreed. He was too busy trying to choose between watching Kias' face or his hands to take part in witty dialogue.

Kias's fingers slipped into Sam's pants, and for a moment Sam couldn't watch either because his eyes squeezed shut of their own accord. When he opened them again Kias' hands and Kias' face were rather close together, and Sam could feel Kias' breath on his newly bared flesh.

Kias hummed in consideration, then leant his head forward and nuzzled against Sam's hard, naked skin. The hand Sam still had in Kias’ hair clenched reflexively as Sam inhaled sharply.

Kias immediately drew back, slapping Sam's hand away from his head. "If you push my head down, I make no promises about teeth."

Sam nodded, wide eyed. "Sorry." He lay his arms on the armrests of the chair, well out of the way. "Are you sure you want to..."

"Yes," Kias said to Sam's cock, his voice confident. "Just remember that I'm running things down here, and I don't need you to take over."

"Gotcha," Sam said, and gripped down on the armrests as Kias lowered his head.

Kias really, really knew what he was doing, and Sam did his best not to think about how he'd attained that knowledge. It wasn't difficult; sustaining any kind of coherent thought while Kias was doing that with his tongue was nearly impossible. Besides, Kias hardly seemed upset about it. It wasn't hard to see that Kias knew what he could do and wasn't ashamed of it. There was no submission in Kias' gaze as he stared up at Sam through his lashes.

It wasn't long before resisting the urge to thrust up started to become a challenge for Sam, and while Kias hadn't specifically forbidden it Sam was pretty sure it wasn't within the rules they were playing under. Kias watched him, and Sam kept his hips firmly pressed down. His fingernails dug tiny trenches into the wood of the chair.

When Kias pulled away, Sam thought he was just teasing and made an incoherent noise of protest, but a moment later he heard it too. Raised voices. Sam's first instinct was not to give a shit, and his second instinct backed him up on that, but when he recognised one of the voices as Seba's a tiny part of him began caring just a little bit more about carefully listening to what was happening than it did about blowjobs.

There was a crash and Kias looked at Sam, concerned. He tipped his head to the side, frowning, but he didn't speak. Kias wasn't going to tell Sam what to do.

At the sound of a loud thump of something hitting the wall a few rooms away from theirs, Sam stood. He tucked himself away, did up his belt, and headed for the door.

He'd assumed Kalem and Seba had sex, of course, though he really preferred not to think about it. They'd made that easier for him by always doing it very quietly. That was exactly why the sounds of a struggle was especially concerning now. If Seba didn't generally resist sex, what could Kalem have done that was bad enough to have him fighting back?

"No!" Sam heard Seba shout as they made their way down the hall, and then, "It's mine!"

He sounded close to tears, but there was far more anger in his voice than sadness or fear. Another loud thump. When Sam reached their room, he didn't bother knocking. Luckily, the door was unlocked.

Seba was on the floor against the wall, looking ready to push himself up, with Kalem standing over him. They both froze and looked over at the sound of the door opening. There was blood on Kalem's lip, Sam was pleased to see. Not a one sided fight.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, his voice loud and firm as he stood in the doorway. He was vaguely aware of Kias behind him. Sam's eyes were on Kalem, but when he wasn't forthcoming with a response they swept to Seba.

"He took my money," Seba said, and he sounded so lost. "The money you gave me. He took it."

Kalem shot Seba a look that promised further punishment. "While you are working under me, any money you earn is mine."

"It was a gift." Sam's hands had been clenching into fists, and he made himself loosen them. "A gift to him. Not a payment."

"Oh, and I suppose you give gifts of such amounts to every boy you come across in the streets? Strangers, for no reason? Gifts are earned, whether they're a direct payment or not. All his time, all his energy, belong to me. All that he is and all that he has is mine."

Sam wasn't generally violent — not these days — but he was a long way from being incapable of it. He felt his arms rising of their own accord and made himself cross them over his chest. "If I wanted you to have it, I'd have given it to you."

"You may as well have." Kalem walked over to Seba and yanked him up by the arm. "He is mine and if you want use of him, perhaps you ought to show me some respect." He grabbed hold of a fistful of Seba's hair and yanked, causing the boy to cry out. "He told me you may buy him, but I'm starting to greatly doubt that. If you had any intention of doing so, you would have put the money you gave him towards his purchase."

Seba's eyes watered against the pain and he squeezed them shut. He struggled against Kalem's hold and then whimpered and stilled when Kalem gave his hair another firm tug.

"You're right," Sam said, his voice cool and calm as his blood boiled beneath the surface. "So keep that money, and..." Sam tugged the pouch off his belt and poured coins into his shaking hand, picking out five silver ones. He returned the pouch to his belt, grabbed the hand Kalem wasn't using to restrain Seba, and thrust the coins into it. "More than you paid for him, I'm sure, and you'll no longer have a debt to pay him when his time is up."

Kalem stared down at the coins in his hand. Seba dropped to the floor as he was released from Kalem's grasp.

"Seba, get your things. Kias will help you," Sam instructed. Seba nodded quickly and headed for the drawers. Sam turned to Kias who was standing behind him, staring at him with wide eyes. "Help Seba get his things."

Sam turned back to Kalem. "You will allow them to get Seba's belongings and you will not so much as look at them while they do so. If you lay one hand on either of those boys, now or ever, I swear to you I will cut it off."

Kalem, coins clasped tight in his hand, stared at Sam with eyes just as wide as Kias' had been. Kalem nodded quickly and firmly, and Sam felt confident he'd been believed. Sam left the room and headed back to their own.

#

Seba's belongings consisted mostly of clothes and a few books, and between them Kias and Seba had managed to gather them quickly. Kalem had sat down on the bed while they worked and stared at the coins in his hand. At one point he'd looked up at Seba and he'd just looked sad, but Kias had stepped between them and stared Kalem down, and Kalem had averted his gaze. He'd gotten the money he'd wanted, but he just looked broken.

When Kias tentatively pushed the door to their room open he found Sam lying on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Sam gave Kias a quick glance as Kias entered with Seba in tow, then went back to staring at the ceiling.

"Sam?" Kias said hesitantly, taking a step towards the bed after dropping Seba's belongings near the door.

"Don't," Sam said firmly, and there was just as much anger in his voice as there had been when he'd been speaking to Kalem.

Kias nodded even though Sam wasn't looking at him and then led Seba over to the table in the corner. Ideally he would have liked to have Seba in a different room to Sam just then — Sam's anger was palpable — but there was nowhere else they could go that would be private. Seba, head slumped and shoulders hunched, was in need of privacy.

"Are you hurt?" Kias asked, glad that that had been one of the first phrases Sam had taught Seba after the very basics.

Seba made a small sound, but it was neither a yes nor a no and there was no understanding in it. It was just an acknowledgement that Kias had spoken.

Kias rapped the table with his knuckles, quietly enough not to bother Sam but loudly enough to draw Seba's attention. "Are you hurt?" Kias repeated slowly once he had Seba's gaze.

After several long moments of incomprehension, understanding passed over Seba's face. He lifted his shirt and stared down at his stomach, appearing as unsure as Kias was as to the answer to that question.

There were red fingertip shaped marks across Seba's stomach and chest which would likely bruise, and Kias suspected they weren't the only places on Seba that were going to be an interesting shade of purple by morning. From what Kias had heard, Kalem had tossed him around a bit.

A few small objects hit Seba in the back of his shoulder, causing him to flinch and squeak as they bounced off and skittered across the floor. One of them rolled under Kias' chair and Kias leaned down to pick it up. A silver coin. By the time Kias' glanced over, Sam's back was to them.

Kias quietly gathered the coins and placed them on the table in front of Seba. Four of them, all silver, the same amount Sam had given Seba and later allowed Kalem to keep as a condition of Seba's purchase. Seba stared down at the coins silently.

Eventually the collective silence grew too oppressive for Kias and he stood, taking hold of Seba's arm and pulling Seba up with him. "I'm taking Seba to wash up."

Sam didn't move or make a sound as Kias selected some clean clothes for Seba, but he finally spoke just before Kias opened the door to leave.

"Okay." Sam didn't sound angry anymore, just miserable.

"We'll be back soon," Kias said, then took Seba's hand and led him out of the room, shutting the door behind them.

#

Sam rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, growling into it. He'd just made things so much more complicated for himself and for Kias. Leaving Seba to die had been a depressing enough thought before, but now Sam had acted like some kind of hero, like he was rescuing Seba, and it was so fucked up.

Sam didn't even know what they were going to do with Seba. Would it be easiest to just keep him with them until it was time to leave, and then bail on him? Sam was tempted to just hand Seba some money and tell him he was free, but the kid was fourteen. Could fourteen year old boys fend for themselves? Sam was pretty sure the answer was generally no. He couldn't have when he was fourteen.

They could be there for months yet, though, and Sam wasn't sure he could put up with living in close quarters with Seba for that long. Mostly it was just depressing, getting to know someone and building an attachment before inevitably letting them die a horrible death. It would also more or less obliterate Sam's new found sex life, but in the scheme of things that was probably a lesser concern.

Sam couldn't help but wonder how Kias felt about everything that had happened. Kias hadn't really displayed any kind of approval or disapproval towards Sam's actions that Sam had seen. He hoped that when the time came, Kias wouldn't put up any resistance to leaving Seba behind. Kias had a lot more in common with Seba than Sam did, but he also had a reduced ability to communicate with him and, Sam suspected, Kias was far more emotionally resilient than Sam was.