Current mood:	drained
Entry tags:	fanfic, kept, rps

Fic: A Kept Boy 56/?
Fandom: CWRPS
Pairing: Jeff/Jensen, Jared/Jensen
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Slavefic AU. Sexual, mental and physical abuse of adults and minors. Dark themes, adult concepts and language.
Disclaimer: This is in no way a true story.
Word Count: 2,342
AN: Master list of previous chapters found here. Cast of characters can be found here. Banner by the lovely and generous bloodquartz. And don't forget the other really awesome stories to be found at whatwekeep.

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Mary-Louise's room is more a suite, than a single room; Jensen finds her asleep in one of the loungers in the tiny living room, curled around the waxing moon of her belly. She's too old for this, Jensen thinks dispassionately, looking down at her. For all the ripeness of her pregnant stomach, the rest of her still looks too thin, almost spindly, an exoskeleton for the child she carries.

He only gets to stand there a moment before her eyes slit, even though he'd bet she was solidly asleep the moment before. It's sensible; Jensen knows how sensitive he is, to the presence of someone standing over him…why wouldn't it be the same for Mary-Louise, also a body-slave?

"You keep taking my slave," she drawls, sleep making her voice thick and lazy. She lifts her arms and extends her legs to stretch and then winces, when her belly doesn't move exactly with her.

"Joe isn't yours." Jensen isn't at his best; he knows that and it's probably a stupid time to try and have this talk with Mary-Louise, but Jeff is busy with Kane, leaving Jensen free to have this talk without him. Jensen doesn't know when he'll have this opportunity again, especially with Madame Morgan in residence. He needs to forge through, even through the dull, tired ache of his head and body.

This isn't like anything he's done for his other masters; Jensen's not sure that he's even going about this in the right way and the fear of wrongness makes his stomach sour and tight, makes his headache pulse heavier through his temples, his eyes. Worse, he's not sure that Mary-Louise won't just rat him out to Jeff, either for fun or for favor. He doesn't think she will, thinks her own self-interest will keep her mouth shut, but he doesn't trust it. Doesn't trust her.

"We need to talk."

Mary-Louise's lips curve in her same ironic, smirking smile, but her eyes get darker, colder, more watchful. "You've got Jeff," she says, sounding more awake, more aware. She pushes herself up on the lounger carefully, big enough to be ungainly. "Just like I said you would, while I’m sidelined with The Incredible Expanding Stomach. What else is there to talk about?"

Even as she says it, mocking, Mary-Louise curves one arm around her belly, unconscious reassurance: Mama didn’t mean it. Jensen’s stomach churns hard around whatever’s left of his lunch.

"Javier." Jensen stumbles slightly over the name, stranger on his tongue compared to Master Bardem. But the stumble is more mental than actual and he gets the desired effect when Mary-Louise's gaze flickers and sweeps aside.

Jensen still doesn't know what Mary-Louise was doing on the second floor. Only that, when Madame Morgan had sent him upstairs to get a tie and jacket for Jeff, she'd been there, with Master Bardem, too close for casual. Master Bardem's fingers had dug into Mary-Louise's spindle-thin arms and she'd been lifted up, onto her tiptoes. At six-feet, there weren't that many people who could do that to Jensen anymore, but he remembered what it felt like, to be small, teetering up as high as you could to try and ease the vise-like bite of those fingers and, at the same time, craning your head and neck back to try and put some distance between the two of you.

Any other time, Jensen would have been angry with himself for tripping on the stairs, but the momentary struggle to keep from falling on his face dragged his eyes away from the clinched couple and the sound alerted them to his presence, meaning that, when Jensen could look up, there was space between them again. Mary-Louise couldn't hide the shocky whiteness of her skin or the shine across her eyes, but she was struggling mightily to look disinterested, in control. In contrast, Master Bardem was as blank as Mary-Louise would've liked to have been.

It's not that Jensen's never seen that look—or really, lack of look—on an owner's face before, but it wasn't one any of them generally bother to waste on a slave. Masters don't have to hide their emotions from slaves, so when they do, whatever they're covering, it's usually bad. Bad enough that Jensen felt the skin and short hairs rise up in prickling creep.

Jensen hadn't known what to do. Mary-Louise wasn't Master Bardem's, to use or abuse, she's Jeff's. At the same time, Master Bardem is Jeff's brother and an owner, beyond Jensen's reproach.

Into Jensen's agonized hesitation, Master Bardem said quietly, "Your master is downstairs, Mary-Louise. You should seek him there." The words themselves were completely innocuous and Jensen couldn't tell if it was tone, perception or just Master Bardem's accent that seemed to put an edge on them.

Mary-Louise moved stiffly, even rounded and bowed out by her belly, walking a thin and invisible line exactly between Jensen and Master Bardem, as if she didn't want either of them near her, touching her. Her hair cascaded down over her face, keeping Jensen from seeing any expression on her face at all, but he thought she would've run, if her body would have allowed it.

Master Bardem was watching her go and, after a second's longer hesitation, Jensen started up the last few stairs again. It felt like a mistake; the movement brought Master Bardem's gaze to him like a spotlight, burning and heavy. Jensen had held his breath, something he hadn't done since he was a little kid hiding from the bogeyman, but Master Bardem hadn't said or done anything. A moment later, Jensen had had the knob of Jeff's door solid and grounding under his fingertips and the sound of Master Bardem trotting down the stairs like a second pulse beating in his ears.

"Why would we need to talk about Master Bardem?" Mary-Louise's tone is sweet and guileless and so is her expression, but her eyes don't match up.

Jensen tries and discards a half-dozen half formed responses before he simply blurts, "Is he the father of your baby?"

"Is that any of your business?" Mary-Louise counters.

"It's Jeff's."

"And you're not him."

Jensen's out of his depth and he knows it. It might've been different if Mary-Louise were a more obedient slave, or even if Jensen was acting at Jeff's behest. Or if he’d ever bothered involving himself in the politics and schemes of his fellow slaves before. A lot of ways it might have been different, but as it is, Jensen has nothing. Nothing but suspicion and anxiety and an inability to speak Mary-Louise’s language. "Jeff could protect you, if you would trust him."

Mary-Louise's mouth tightens, the lines—around her eyes, her mouth—that are normally too fine to be seen drawing taut and cruel as she looks away. Dully, she says, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Look at Jared," Jensen insists, wondering why he's even bothering, why he gives a crap. He should just tell Jeff his suspicions and let his master handle it, handle Mary-Louise. He's never kept a slave's secrets from his master, never.

Though that isn't quite true, he thinks a moment later. Mimi. He'd kept Mimi's secrets. And look where it had gotten him. On the other hand, he's conscious of a desire to draw a ghostly line from Mimi to Mary-Louise—who have nothing in common other than mutually brunette hair—if only to explain to himself what he's doing here, sticking his neck out, snooping in things that are clearly none of his business.

"Jared's no kin to him at all; how do you think he'd take care of his nephew? He could find a way for your baby to be free. You know he'd do it."

"Just when I think there’s something actually in there, that you might have a thought in that exquisitely pretty head of yours, you prove you’re too stupid to live, Jensen.”

“Did I give you the mistaken impression that your opinion of me matters?” Jensen’s spent the majority of his life being spit on and looked down on by other slaves; comparatively, this is rank amateurism. "Like you said, I've already got Jeff. On the other hand, you're alienating one of the few people who might actually be willing to help you. Stunning use of your intellect, that."

If anything, Mary-Louise's eyes get colder, wilder. "You have no reason to help me."

"No," Jensen agrees, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't."

He doesn't intend to give her any more than that and the tactic works when she swings her feet to the floor, cradling her belly in her arm like a baby already born. "Why would you help me?"

"I don't know." Jensen would like to have a pretty lie, an illusion as carefully constructed as his beauty, but he hasn't hide time for that and, at the end of the day, he's not that good of a liar. Not good enough to fool Mary-Louise.

Mary-Louise snorts and then lets out a sharp, barking giggle, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Jesus," she laughs. "Jesus, how did I get myself into this?"

"You fucked your master's brother." Jensen doesn't really understand what he's doing here or why, but his feelings about that are rock-solid and unequivocal, etched in blood. Faithless. Faithless whore. "Does he know?"

"There's nothing to know." Mary-Louise shakes her hair back, eyes glittering. It's the kind of move that makes owners and auctioneers think feisty, or fiery, or, if Mary-Louise were fifteen years younger, maybe even spunky, none of which are words they ever use for men. Men are obedient. Well-trained.

"And I don't need your help."

Jensen is obedient and well-trained. He's never been in a fight, never been violent with anyone.

He's never wanted to wring anyone's neck quite as much as he wants to wring Mary-Louise.

"You want your child to be born a slave?"

Mary-Louise rocks forward like she wants to jump up, maybe lunge, but she can't overcome the inertia of her ungainly body and she plops down hard again, leaning back on her hands like it was her intention all the time and glaring up at him. "You don't know anything about me, you sanctimonious love-sick asshole. You think you know me? You think you know me? You don't fucking know me, okay? You don't know a goddamn thing about me. Or my baby."

All at once, she winces, doubling over her stomach. Jensen has no experience with pregnant women; adrenaline spits through his system, rapid-fire, like buckshot, but Mary-Louise straightens up a moment later. "Little fucker," she mutters, even as she rubs circles into her stomach, rocking a little in place. "Kicks like a horse."

Jeff will be looking for him soon and Jensen doubts he's going to get any further with Mary-Louise, not that he's sure why he bothered trying in the first place. He can’t quite make himself walk away, though, even knowing he should, knowing he’s made an idiot of himself for no good reason.

“Go away, Jensen,” she says tiredly, finally, when the silence has stretched out like sticky taffy. Still curled over her baby, she looks up at him from under her lashes and the trailing fall of her hair. At this angle, her expression is almost impossible to interpret. “Don’t… This is not the right thing for you to start sticking your neck out, okay?”

“What are you going to do?” Jensen doesn’t want to ask the question—and he probably shouldn’t know the answer—but it slips out of him anyway.

Mary-Louise tangles her fingers in the hair above her ear, raking it all around to her opposite shoulder and clutching it in a tight fist. “Same thing I always do. Take care of myself.”

"How?"

Her smile comes out again, knife-sharp and curling. "That's for me to worry about, isn't it?" She nods toward the door again. "You should go, Jensen. People might start to think you actually like me."

"I don't think anyone who's met you could make that kind of mistake." Jensen answers calmly, but it's the last push he needs to turn and leave. Jeff is probably already looking for him.

But it isn't Jeff who finds him first. The hallway is gloomy and he slams into Master Bardem before he even realizes another person is there. The impact rocks Jensen back a step and a half; shock and embarrassed contrition sends him to his knees. "Sir, I'm sorry!"

"Stand up, Jensen." Master Bardem sounds amused and his fingers scratch at Jensen's shoulder lightly. "No harm done."

"I'm sorry," Jensen says again, getting slowly to his feet. Now that the first jolt is past, his wariness returns and Master Bardem is way too close to him. "It's no excuse, but I didn't see you."

"I am quiet on my feet when I want to be, no?"

"Yes, you are," Jensen agrees, sidling a little sideways. "But, if you'll excuse me…"

Master Bardem's hand shoots out and he grips Jensen's chin between his fingers, angling Jensen's face to what light there is. Stillness spreads through Jensen like a chill. "I don't really like boys," Master Bardem comments conversationally. "Not like Jeff." Master Bardem's thumb sweeps across Jensen's bottom lip. His fingers are smoother, softer, better cared for than Jeff's but they're no less strong, the same sense of power barely leashed. With Jeff, it feels comforting. With Master Bardem, it reminds him more of Lord Cruise—strength that could so easily turn to wrath. "For a boy as pretty as you, I would think of making an exception, hmm?"

Cold slithers down Jensen's spine, thick and slow as sap. He doesn't know what to say, though, and so he remains silent, waiting.

Whatever Master Bardem sees on Jensen's face, it makes him laugh and he releases Jensen, stepping back. "It's a compliment, Jensen. Nothing more." He slaps Jensen once, lightly, on the ass. "Go find your master, precioso. I'm sure he needs his chin or his ass wiped by now."