Fic: A Kept Boy 29/?
Yay! I'm posting from mona1347's apartment! Blessings be upon her house!

Fandom: CWRPS
Pairing: Jeff/Jensen, Jared/Jensen
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Slavefic AU. Language. Dark themes.
Disclaimer: This is in no way a true story.
Word Count: 2,505
AN: Previous parts found here. Banner by the lovely and generous bloodquartz.

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"You get used to them staring after a while."

Jensen glances around the crowded dining room again, briefly, not directly meeting any of the eyes around the room watching them. Rationally, Jensen knows that all the quiet conversations going on in the room are not about them—two slaves having dinner together, unsupervised—but the skin on the back of his neck seems to feel differently, tight and stippled with goose bumps.

"If you say so," Jensen answers, cutting another paper thin slice from his steak. He would've rather had something less heavy, but Kane had ordered for both of them like this was a date. We're not doing anything wrong, Jensen reminds himself, fighting the urge to look around again. For all they know, we're negotiating business for our masters.

It's the awareness that they're not on any business of Jeff's that makes him so prickly. They're on no business but their own, though Jensen expects that Jeff knows about their outing while he's off having his own dinner with Cate.

He wonders if they're talking about him.

It feels presumptuous to think that, to think he's interesting or important enough to be a topic of conversation among his betters. On the other hand, Jeff's been almost visibly chafing to hear what Cate has to say about him and Cate has been enjoying deflecting him way too much. Jensen's just grateful that, after that first inquiry, Jeff's left him out of it.

He does wish he had some way of hearing what Cate says, though.

"We could've just eaten at the house," Jensen observes, calculating calories in his head. He really should've overruled Chris and ordered the fish. "Sam was making pie."

Jensen's lived in homes with wonderful, enormously talented chefs and bakers, ones that would be world-famous if they were free. Not a single one of them would've sullied their hands with anything so common as a pie.

Jensen's had any number of tortes, tarts, ganaches, brulees and pastries and has come to the conclusion that all those other bakers don't know what they're missing. He doesn't even mind the extra exercise to work it off, afterward.

"I told her to put some aside for me," Kane answers through a mouthful of meat. He swallows and then smirks crookedly. "Guess you're just shit out of luck, though, huh?"

Jensen sets his silverware down on either side of his plate, exactly parallel. Of all the slaves, Kane is probably Jeff's closest confidante and the greatest threat to Jensen's position, simply by virtue of the trust Jeff places in Kane's words. Antagonizing him is the height of stupidity but Jensen can't help the observation, "You don't like me very much."

Kane stops with another mouthful of bloody steak halfway to his lips. "Aw, you're all right." He shrugs, putting the laden fork down. "Just...took too much of that brainwashing to heart. Gives me the heebies."

It's not the first time Jensen's heard the sentiment. Given the crowd Jeff runs with, he's amazed it's taken this long for someone to say the words to him. "I'm thirty years old, alive, with all my parts and the body-slave of some of the most powerful people in the Empire." Jensen doesn't infuse the words with any of the dancing heat of his ire, keeping them only flat and factual. "I think I do all right."

"Whoa, there, little dog." Kane looks more amused by Jensen's outburst than anything. "No need to go yapping. We're on the same side, here."

"Nobody's on my side." The statement comes out balder than Jensen means it to, a naked and ugly edge to his tone. He amends, "I don't have a side."

Kane's smirk goes full-fledged, turning into a close-lipped smile. "We all have sides."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"What, you don't like it?" Kane looks around wide-eyed like he's shocked or insulted that Jensen might find fault. "It's my favorite restaurant."

"I thought you looked more like the IHOP type."

"Well, I definitely don't have your refined taste." Kane dips his head in mocking acknowledgement. "But I still like the taste of a good steak." He picks up his fork and bites off the tidbit of meat with surprising daintiness. "Didn't get too many of these before Jeff took me in."

And suddenly, the opening that Jensen's been waiting for all this time.

"How long has that been?" Jensen asks casually, looking down and stabbing at the broccolini he doesn't really want.

He doesn't really expect Kane to answer—especially after their last few exchanges, but Kane just looks thoughtful for a moment before he allows, "Coming on fifteen years now. Huh." Kane takes a huge swallow of his wine—which is not that great, but still deserves better—before he grumbles, "Shit, I'm getting old."

Kane's only a few years older than Jensen but Jensen knows what Kane means. They are old for slaves, body-slaves in particular. "It's a long time," Jensen says. He abandons his uneaten broccolini and takes a small sip of the wine, rolling it across his tongue as he tries to unravel how best to find out what he wants to know.

It would help if he knew what he wanted to know, other than the obvious: How do I make Jeff want me? "Is that normal?" Jensen asks instead. "It seems like everyone but me has known Jeff forever. I didn't expect that."

"Yeah, Jeff never gets rid of anybody. Even the people he probably should."

"Like me."

"I was thinking more about Mary-Louise, actually, but yeah. Could be you, too."

"Because I'm brainwashed." The words are bitter on Jensen's tongue, but he knows how to say all manner of things that taste bad in his mouth.

Kane tugs at the cuff of his sleeve and then sits back in his chair, regarding Jensen flatly from behind his glasses. "Because you're a distraction."

Jensen drops his gaze to the table, pinching the wineglass stem between his fingers. "I don't want to be. If he would just..."

"Just what?" Kane's eyebrows arch over the bar of his glasses. "Fuck you? Preaching to the choir here, son. But I don't know if anything's going to break through that block of his to let him touch you." For a moment, Kane looks and sounds as frustrated as Jensen feels.

"I told him he should sell me."

Kane hehs like Jensen's actually surprised him. "Did you, now? How did that go over?"

Jensen shrugs. "Like you'd think. He says he doesn't want to sell me."

"He won't, you know. That's not just owner bullshit. As long as I've been with him, he'snever sold a slave that didn't want to be sold." Kane lifts his fingers from the chair's arms and lets them fall again. "Do you want to be sold?"

"I don't know how to answer that."

"Sure you do." Kane gestures to the waiter who nods in understanding without a word being exchanged. Guess he was telling the truth about it being his favorite restaurant. "Do. You. Want. To. Be. Sold?"

"You just said that Jeff won't sell me."

"Unless you want to be sold," Kane corrects and then shrugs. "You say the word and I'll talk to Jeff about it."

"Why would you do that?" A thought occurs to Jensen. "You were his body-slave before...do you want him? Still?" Even saying the words, Jensen has a hard time believing its true. Kane is possessive of Jeff, but it's more in the wolf-pack sort of way than the jealous ugliness Jensen would expect if Kane was still in love with Jeff. The body language, the way they talk to each other...it's all wrong.

Jensen's borne out in the way Kane chokes his way into a chuckle, sweeping his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"That was out of line," Jensen says dully. The waiter comes to the table with a small snifter of brandy for Kane and starts clearing the table. Jensen folds his hands in his lap. "I shouldn't have said that." He waits until the waiter—collared but still a stranger—moves away from the table before he lowers his voice to add, "It's just that on the backstairs...there's no information about Jeff. Just to ask you."

Jensen doesn't expect the heaviness of Kane's sigh. "Shoulda talked about this a while ago," he says, swirling the brandy around. Jensen thinks it's just a copying gesture, because Kane's swishing it way too fast and too hard and not looking at the brandy's lights at all. It was Master Hutton—then Lord—who'd taught Jensen about the finer points of alcohol consumption...not that Master Hutton had cared much what he drank by the end. "With the way Jeff's burning up for you, I just didn't think you'd be around long enough for it to matter." Kane's gaze pins Jensen, the wolf behind his aw, shucks demeanor. "Thought he'd either fuck you and send you to one of the other houses or just send you on, period, eaten up with his goddamn guilt."

"Is that what happened with Mary-Louise?"

"Ha. No. No, Mary-Louise got everything she wanted out of Jeff, and then some. You..." Kane cants his head. "I still can't figure out what the hell you want, headcase."

Jensen digs his thumbnail into the pinky finger of the opposite hand. "I just want to be good at my job."

Kane doesn't say anything for a long moment, just staring Jensen down. Finally, he takes an impatient mouthful of the brandy, mouth twisting. "Me and Jeff, we've got a history. Hell, it's the reason he bought me in the first place, when he found out that Lady Roberts had me. He'd been looking for me for four years."

"I don't understand."

"Quit yapping at me and I'll tell you the fucking story."

Jensen can't tell if Kane's angry with him or just in general but either way, he shuts up.

"You've had some real pieces of work as your owners...any of them ever share you around?"

"Yeah." That had been Lord Tarantino, making up what he lacked in good looks and good taste with his extravagance and wild parties. Jensen had been glad when Tarantino had traded him for two slave girls, Rose and Uma, and he skips over the memories in his mind as much as possible.

Kane makes a there you go gesture with his hands.

"Jeff loaned you out?" Jensen has a hard time reconciling that with the same man who lets his body-slave cut him with a razor without reprisal.

"Nah." Kane shakes his head. "Lord—well, then Lord—Zane was my owner. It was his party. Jeff was just a guest." Kane sighs again, skimming his hair back from his face. "I dunno, man. They doped me up, tied me down... I was the party favor. You know how it goes."

Yeah. Jensen does know.

Kane rolls his eyes and shoulders. "I don't know," he says again. "It was this big pivotal moment for Jeff. Fucked up his whole understanding. Like I said, he spent the next four years looking for me. Spent a fortune. Only slave he's spent more on would be you." Kane's smile is thin-lipped and ironic.

"And that's why. Why he won't fuck me."

"It's a reason. Once Jeff started beating himself up he couldn't stop. Honestly don’t know if he'll ever stop. But yeah. He won't fuck you. He doesn't trust himself with you."

"I'm not made out of glass." Jensen knows that Jeff's an eccentric guy, but what Kane's telling him...it's just crazy. "I'm not... I can take it."

"Not a question of taking it. Not with Jeff." The ball of Kane's thumb idly caresses the bell of the snifter.

"Then what is a question of?"

Kane looks thoughtful, smoothing the earpiece of his glasses across his lips. "Dunno, really. I don't pretend to get all of Jeff's freaky moral stances. Half the reason I think he wants slavery abolished is so that he doesn't have to worry about the burdens of owning people. On the other hand, if that's what it took to light a fire under his ass, I'm not gonna get too bent out of shape about some fuckery that was going to happen anyway, whether it'd been Jeff or someone else." Kane's voice is smooth, so smooth—a slave's voice—but the pinch of his crow's feet show Kane's not as unconcerned as he sounds. Jensen intimately understands that too. "He bought my contract, took me in and gave me as much freedom as a man like me can have in this world. He'd do the same for you, if you'd let him."

"I don't want to pretend I'm free." Jensen flexes his shoulders subtly, feeling the collar shift across his clavicles. "I wouldn't know how to be free. I'd be shitty at it. I'm a damn good slave."

"That you are," Kane agrees, colorlessly enough that Jensen doesn't know if Kane's insulting him or not. It doesn't really matter. "The question still stands, though...do you want to be sold?"

Jensen considers the question. Other than Master Kilmer—who'd had pretensions to being called 'Lord', but never quite made it—Jensen's never been sold in less than a year, and with Kilmer, it was still something of a standing record that Jensen had lasted as long as he had. Slaves who are traded too often get a certain reputation.

Jensen can hear it now: "Paid far too much for him and then found out he wasn't worth it, after all, like a feagued up pony. A rumor like that might cause Jeff a little embarrassment, but for Jensen it held much more dire consequences. Jensen reckons he's still too valuable to end up in one of the slave killer jobs but there's still a more torturous jobs between body-slave and toxic-waste or medical test subject.

Jeff probably wouldn't sell Jensen into one of those jobs; he'd try to find Jensen a nice, suitably liberal owner. But after that? Then what? Most of Jeff's coterie of slaves, the ones he regards as his friends, are all Jensen's age or older. And Kane says Jeff wants him.

He doesn't dare think of Jeff's estate as home yet, or safety but maybe he can think of it as...breathing room. Yes. Breathing room. Until he can figure out how to get Jeff to fuck him, need him, love him.

As a slave.

"No." Jensen shakes his head. "I don't want to be sold. I want to stay."

"All right." Kane smirks again, but it's marginally warmer than previous. "Then you're stuck with us. And I guess we're stuck with you."