November

November 11: Friday

Jesse got up early. Outside, the November wind was just beginning to make the mornings cool, and he liked to open his window and savor the smell of the hoarfrost coming in from the forest. At seven, there was a chaperone at his door with a private message from Michael instructing Jesse to meet him for lunch. A car was already scheduled to pick him up from the grounds. It wasn't an invitation. Jesse turned this over in his mind all the way through breakfast. Michael had postponed his punishment the night before, opting simply to send him to his room for the night with the assignment to write Ortega an apology note before breakfast. Michael had first assigned an apology to James as well, but Jesse had made it clear that it was a blow he was unable to handle, and Michael had dropped the idea for the time being.

Jesse pushed the note to Ortega around with his index finger as he chewed his barley and milk. Six vitamins lined up neatly next to his bowl. One of them, he suspected, was actually one of the Centre's surprise feel-better pills. He wasn't sure, but Sloane had just looked at him sourly when he'd asked and wouldn't tell. He ate alone, Vichy having left early in the morning for a long weekend with his fiancé. Suleiman, Ortega, and Sai were still sleeping. Jesse wondered about his mother. He thought about Soria, imagined her standing on the roof in her old gray and red blanket, her hair wild and messy from sleep, taking in the November wind. He imagined himself there with her, standing by her side. He imagined home.

~:~

Havar slept in late on his first morning at the Centre. For once, nothing bothered him. The blare of morning sirens didn't jolt him from sleep, no aches or pains or too-real nightmares woke him in the middle of the night, and he didn't have to remember to get up an hour before everyone else and sneak down to the showers alone. He had his own shower here, in the temporary room they'd set up for him last night. His own shower, and a safe bed, and a mirror that he could look at himself in without feeling sick or afraid. He tried to think back on the night before, but his mind didn't seem interested in the mission. He gave up and rolled over onto his stomach, curling two arms tightly around a pillow.

Fifteen minutes after he'd awoken, there was a knock on the door. He decided to pretend to be asleep. The knock repeated itself, there was a pause, and then the sound of a door opening and quiet footsteps were in the hall. Havar buried his face in the pillows, did his best impression of sleeping like the dead.
"Havar."
Lightning couldn't have shaken him faster. Yavisk was standing by the edge of his bed, one hand resting casually on the white thick comforter, eyes shining blue and a half-smile playing across his face. Havar didn't know what to do - he wanted to run or shout for help or do something, but he seemed rooted to the spot, sitting up in bed, staring down the distance at the man who'd made his nightmares real.

Yavisk smiled to see Havar awake. Havar immediately sensed his own vulnerability - did anyone know that Yavisk was here? Wasn't there someone he could call? Who could help get him out of here? He wasn't even dressed, still in bed. A sitting duck. Havar felt his breath start to come in heaves. He'd thought he was safe here. Yavisk took a step towards him and breathing got harder suddenly. The older man's face went a bit white, his smile faded.
"Havar, are you alright?"
He didn't answer because no, he wasn't, because the world was going funny colors and there was black at the edges of his vision and Yavisk was standing in his bedroom with something unreadable in his eyes. Havar put his hands around his throat, tried to open it, tried to squeeze, to make breathing easier. It didn't work. He began to panic.
"Havar, stop panicking. You're making yourself hysterical. Calm down, and breathe."
Havar looked up. He didn't know what was happening, where he was, where they'd take him, where he was meant to go or who he was supposed to be. But this, he knew. This man he knew. Yavisk, as his commander, he knew. Yavisk had both hands on the bed now, was leaning over to look Havar sternly in the eyes.
"Breathe evenly. One in, one out, and look at me."
Commands were a thing he could follow. Commands were a thing he knew. One in, one out. Those were his orders. He did his best to complete them.
"That's better. Keep it up. Twice more now."
Yavisk began to move towards him slowly, his voice still soothing.
When Havar's breathing was even again, ten minutes had passed and Yavisk was sitting on his bed.
"How are you feeling today, Havar?"
Havar stared at him.
"Have you been sick?"
Hav shook his head. Yavisk grunted.
"Have you eaten?"
He shook his head again.
"They haven't fed you?"
A negative answer.
Yavisk narrowed his eyes.
"I will bring you a meal."
"I'm not hungry." Havar said quickly.
"You'll eat."
Havar swallowed down the knot in his throat and kept his eyes carefully on the comforter, the only barrier between them. Silently, he began to pray. Please don't leave me with him, please don't let him stay, please don't touch me...everything got melded together, mixed up into one incomprehensible plea. Yavisk was still talking. Havar didn't hear a thing he said. Then he was getting up, going into the hallway, and Havar could hear him making a phone call. In a moment, he returned just as Havar was reaching behind himself to switch his pillows because this one had gotten too hot from his body, and when he turned back, Yavisk's eyes were dark like they were before and Havar froze mid-pillow movement to just watch him make a decision. Yav idly twirled his uniform hat in his hands.
"I've got to get back to the base."
Havar refused to feel relieved until he was gone.
"I'll be back after dinner to check on you."
Havar maintained his reserve.
"Is there anything you'd like to say to your friends?"
This startled him, broke his concentration, caught him off-guard. His friends. The men he'd served with, worked with, grown up with, now suddenly all like strangers at a distance to him. He choked a little on his words.
"Tell them -"
Yavisk's eyes flashed a warning.
"Tell them I said hi. Tell them I'm fine."
Yavisk nodded.
"They'll be very glad to hear that, I'm sure."

~:~

Jesse spent the morning in a corner of the resource center, flipping through books on poetry and film, both things considered acceptable for carriers and still permitted.

Back in his room, he counted the hours until Michael would come, wound his music box, and let it play to the silence.

At noon, the car came and Jesse signed out by the west gate and got inside. Michael was inside, already waiting. He motioned to the driver and they headed off. Jesse could feel his heart pounding. Michael looked troubled. They drove for long minutes; they passed out of the Centre, then out of town, off into the woods, the mountains, past trees, onto dirt roads, into nowhere. They stopped outside of Rowe House.

Jesse's pulse was a hundred and twenty beats a minute. He didn't know for sure that it was Rowe House (no pictures were allowed), but Michael's silence and the heavy tension were enough to tell him where he was. He looked quickly at Michael.
"Look at it, Jesse."
Reluctantly, Jesse turned his head back to the window. Unexpectedly, a piercing scream rent the air outside, came loud through the windows and the fog. The scream of a living death. Jesse leapt backwards, pressed himself into the seat, as far as he could get from the reality outdoors. Michael looked unperturbed. He stared himself at the unassuming brick building before turning suddenly to Jesse, his expression changed now into one of rage.
"This is where they wanted to send you, Jesse. This is what they wanted me to do to you. Do you have any idea what they wanted me to do to you?"
Jesse shook his head.
"That's right, you don't. And I pray every day, Jesse, that you never do."
Michael turned back to the window, was silent for a minute more.
"I worked here once, Jesse, did you know that?"
Another scream, this one more tortured than the last. Michael went on talking.
"I worked here once, when I was new and disobedient and sure I had all the answers to getting things done my way. They assigned me to be a guard."
Michael faced him again.
"I've seen things you can't imagine in your worst nightmares, Jesse. I've seen things that would make even the observer pray for death and count the minutes until it came."
Jesse's heart beat triple pace.
"Please don't make me do those things to you, Jesse."
Michael was near to him suddenly, in the car, one hand on Jesse's face.
"I care a lot about you, Jesse, do you understand that? I can't stand to see you hurt."
Jesse nodded.
"But I can't keep covering for you, Jesse. I can only protect you so far. At some point, someone's going to stop listening to me. And they're going to take you away from me. And they're going to bring you here."
Distantly, there was the grinding sound of a machine being activated.
"And if that ever happens, Jesse, you'll be responsible for killing us both."
Michael stared hard at him, little lines of worry creasing around his eyes and mouth. After a minute, he released Jesse and sat back, deflated, in the car, his gaze again out the window.
"I can't let that happen. So what I'm going to have to do next, Jesse, is going to hurt you."
Jesse started to shiver, very faintly, in his seat.
"But it's going to hurt me a lot more."

At the Centre, Michael whipped him. Ten strikes, all across his back, and Jesse cried like a child when he was done. Michael said he was sorry and held, very tightly, onto him, put his forehead to Jesse's face and had misery written all across his eyes. Back at the Centre, at home in Jesse's room, Michael made him show his marks to Kosin, who smirked his approval, complimented Michael, and left. This part really made Jesse cry, and he wondered why it seemed suddenly so hard for him to get a hold of who he used to be. He was a soldier, for God's sake. When Kosin was gone, Michael kissed him and said he was sorry, and Jesse kissed him back harder and after a few minutes, they found it hard to stop, and so Jesse pushed him away and got up to put a chair under the door. Michael watched him, steadily, raised up on one elbow, as he came from the door over to the bed, and made a face as Jesse asked him, anxiously, if he wanted to use any condoms. Michael told him no, and he saw Jesse swallow, but didn't care if it made him nervous or afraid; Michael wanted him, all of him, wanted to be inside of him and with him completely, without barriers or keeping anything apart.

He offered to let Jesse be on top, but Jess turned it down and laid unceremoniously on his back instead. Michael stared at him for a moment, then went to work kissing him and working his clothes off. Jesse flinched when Michael started to unbutton his pants, and squeezed his forearm a little bit, but then bit his lip and seemed OK to go on. It occurred to Michael that Jesse had probably never been with anyone this way before, and so he worked quick to undress them both, and when they were naked, took his time to show Jesse all the places where he liked to be touched. Jess was hesitant, his grasp awkward and reluctant, the facade of wit and irreverence gone. Michael tried to warm him, calm him in turn, with kisses and little nips and soothing words and promises. When it seemed that Jesse was ready, Michael slipped inside of him. He took his time and tried to make it easy, although in the end, a little pain was unavoidable. Jesse accepted this with valiance, and Michael greeted his acquiescence with praise and sweet little words that misted away in the November cool. Being inside Jesse, he whispered, his breath taut against Jesse's ear, was better than anything he'd ever had in his life. Jesse nodded, the nearest response he could offer to a smile, and quietly stored the compliment away for later. Afterwards, when Michael had left and work had been put away for the evening, the first rain fell.