stilljustandrew | [ainmhianverse] same as it ever was

Good. He can see Andrew's breathing evening out. It's working. He keeps it going.

"Why don't we get you back in your room?" Max suggests. Before he asks for any more explanations, maybe it would make Andrew feel better to be somewhere less open?

"I don't really understand? What wrong with it?"

He nods, and tries (without much strength) to pull out of the embrace and stand up.

"I have to -- I have to take care of myself."

Max will stubbornly keep hands on him, and help him back into the room. He'll wait until the door is closed behind them to say anything more.

Now that it is, "Why? Will you really be punished for accepting help from strangers?"

"Not -- not anymore." Andrew's gaze is resolutely on the floor, his shoulders slightly hunched. "It's not that."

He takes a breath, as though to say something else, and lets it all out silently.

Max waits. But nothing else comes.

"Andrew..." He can't really ask the man to trust him without any good reason. He needs to show some trust to earn some.

"I noticed the skin on your wrists. I can make some guesses based off that. They aren't...good ones." No, if they are what he fears, they aren't good at all.

"Can I show you something?"

At the mention of the marks on his wrists, Andrew flinches and pulls his arms in close to his chest, folded tight with his wrists jammed under his armpits.

The question makes him look up warily; it's not what he expected.

Max takes that as a good enough invitation to do what he plans. He bends forward and pulls his shirt down away from his neck.

"Look here."

At the nape, just below the hairline, is a round brand the size of a half-dollar burned into Max's skin. It bears a coat of arms. The faded outlines of a sword and shield and a griffin are visible.

"This is my master's mark."

He stares at the brand -- and draws in an audible breath, sharp and shaky, at the last words.

The look on his face is a tangle of conflicting, uncertain emotions: something like dismay, something like fear, something like hope, something like sick understanding.

Slowly, his arms relax out of the tight fold, drop to his sides.

Max lets go of his shirt and raises his head so he can look Andrew in the eyes. He watches the kaleidoscope of emotions swirl over his face and waits with held breath for the moment of shock to settle into something like understanding.

"You can confide in me," Max says slowly, "Because I know what it is to be... a slave."

Andrew nods slowly, and blinks hard.

"Do you know ..." He swallows. "What it's like to be --"

The word doesn't want to come out. He struggles, shuts his eyes, and finally forces it through.

"A s-slave who doesn't have a master anymore."

"If you count being here? Then yes."

Max has been without his master now for close to a year. The patrons don't get involved enough to count. He knows when he goes home again it will go back to how it was, but until then...

"When I first got here, I told everyone I was so happy because I was finally free. But, the truth is: I was terrified. I had no idea what to do. I started falling back into old patters because they were familiar."

He doesn't open his eyes, but nods shakily.

Barely audible: "Does it still ... do you still feel like that?"

"Some days," he concedes. "But, I've made some really good friends. I think I'm actually happy now."

His mouth trembles, then presses tight, and his throat works again. "Good," he whispers. "That, that's good."

He takes an unsteady breath, and rubs the back of one hand across his eyes again before looking up.

"If you could choose, though. Whatever you wanted. Would you rather go back to him, or stay free, or ... or have a better master?"

Max wishes he had some kind of handkerchief to give the poor man. But, he is happy to see the tears seem to be slowing.

"I'd stay free," Max says this firmly. "I respect my master. But I don't love being a slave. If I have the choice, I won't go back to him. Or anyone."

He nods again, and turns his face away. Not before Max can see the expression on it: deep bitterness, and shame.

"That's the difference," he says, very low. "I don't ... I don't want to go back to my old master. I don't. But I don't want to stay free either."

He wraps his arms around himself again, as though against some terrible cold.

"But I have to."

Oh, Max knows that look. And he doesn't have long to wander why. Andrew... doesn't want to be free?

It's troubling. But, considering Max spent his first months in this place almost actively seeking a new vampire to fill the void of his own master, he can't say he doesn't relate at least a little to that.

"It can be really hard to be out on your own. I can't speak to your experiences, but I do know sometimes it was just easier to let my master make the choices for me. Sometimes I do still miss that."

Max wraps his arms around him too. He will be a shield against the pain if he can be.

"You don't have to do this alone."

Again that rigid stillness, resisting the embrace, trembling with the effort.

"I do, though." An agonized whisper. "I do, I have to be alone, that's the whole --"

His voice twists upward and chokes off, and for a moment there's nothing but silent struggle.

"I know you want to help, and I, I want to let you, but I know what happens, it always happens because I'm like this, I wish I weren't but I am and I can't."

Max feels the stiffness, but he doesn't let go. He will if Andrew really tries to push him off, but not before.

"What happens? Are you afraid I'm going to get hurt? I'm not afraid of that. I don't care if I do."

Andrew shakes his head, shutting his eyes again. "It's not that. Not since ... it isn't that."

He isn't trying to push Max off. He very much wants to, and he also very much wants to sink into the embrace and bury his face in Max's shoulder, and this quivering stillness is a fragile equilibrium between those two.

"It's that," he starts, without opening his eyes, and makes a tiny choked sound that might have once known some distant kinship to laughter. "You know what happens if you feed a stray dog?"

What happens to a stray dog? The question baffles Max at first. Then, a small seed of worry starts to sprout.

"If you feed it often enough, it might become dependent?"

Another headshake, small and jerky. "That's wolves. Or bears. Something wild. But a stray dog ... if you feed it once, it thinks it belongs to you now. Because --" His face twists again, as though against some terrible pain. "Because it wants so badly to belong to someone, anyone --"

"You mean... if I help you even once you'll..." Now Max goes stiff too. He doesn't pull back but he's gone so still he's almost like the undead.

How can he not help? It's so cruel. But if he does...will he accidentally do more damage? Can he take responsibility for this man? A part of him yearns to.

"We all want to belong..." Max says carefully. "Deep down."

"I'll want to." Small and miserable. "I don't even know you, and -- and even if I did it wouldn't matter, I'm bad at telling whether someone's good or evil, I couldn't tell and I wouldn't care, that's why --"

He makes a tiny leaning movement, as though to pull away from Max's arms, but there's no strength in it.

"If it were just me," he whispers, "if it were just me it wouldn't matter. But I, I'd do things, I'd do what I was told, and I could hurt people again. I could ..."

The full horror of what Andrew is saying feels like a crushing weight against Max's chest. He WILL imprint on someone. Anyone? The conviction with which the man says it leaves no room for doubt in Max's mind.

No. Oh god. There are other people here who wouldn't believe it. Or, if they did, they wouldn't understand. Or worse. Not everyone here has good intentions. Some might seen Andrew as a tool. They might use him in exactly the way he fears. It almost feels inevitable.

"Fuck..."

He lets go at that small amount of resistance. He needs to think.

He can't let that happen. He can't let someone use Andrew. He can't let the man be turned back into a slave. But the alternative... can Max do that? Can he knowingly, intentionally, make Andrew his?

"You won't be able to hide from the whole world here. You won't be able to avoid everyone..." his heart is beating in his throat.

What is the right answer?

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