Healing Ties (Ties, Book 2) | ✓

Chapter 5

Fanner had laid very still and considered running away for a very long time after Yore had left. The laying still part had continued and the running away part had never materialised.

He was almost certain Yore had gone to report his runaway attempt or something along those lines, but he was literally incapable of running just then. He could barely walk. He just had to hope that Yore was genuinely as nice as he seemed.

That was unlikely, though. Fanner had thought Whelan was nice, too, and had fallen in love with him in less than a day. Whelan hadn't cared if Fanner was fidgety or distractable. He had told him not to bother calling him sir. He had been the first person Fanner had ever met who had been largely indifferent to his behavioural flaws.

And then Whelan had strapped Fanner to a table and Whelan had cut him, because Whelan had never been a nice person. He just hadn't been someone whose job it was to care about Fanner's manners.

Whelan was dead now. Fanner had killed him and perhaps the fact that he hadn't meant to only made it worse. He hadn't loved Whelan anymore, but he hadn't wanted him to die. That was a hard thing to want of, essentially, the only person in his life. And he just... he just didn't want to be a killer.

But he had killed someone, so he was one.

Fanner tensed up as he heard Yore return, but he didn't move. He felt like a young child hiding under the blankets from a monster. Being quiet and still would do nothing to help him avoid the notice of someone who had specifically returned to him.

"How are you doing?" Yore asked. He had a deep, gravelly voice.

Fanner stayed quiet, stayed still. He was still waiting for Yore to get angry at him for ignoring his questions.

"Hm," Yore said. "I got a couple of bedrolls if you'd like to not be laying on the ground."

A bedroll sounded nice. Fanner slowly, gingerly sat up. Yore really did have bedrolls. He had an entire bag full of stuff. Had he actually gone to get supplies? Who from? Fanner was well aware that nobody else lived around here. They'd chosen the cottage specifically because they could get along with their business without fear of disruption by neighbours.

"I got clean bandages, too," Yore said, holding up a roll of cloth. "Are you ready to let me touch you, or do you want to do this yourself?"

Fanner held his hand out for the bandages.

"Fair enough," Yore said.

"Thank you, sir," Fanner said as the bandages changed hands. As soon as the words had left his mouth he realised what he'd done. Fanner let out a long sigh as his eyes fell shut.

"Ah, so you do talk," Yore said. "It's okay. I thought that was probably the case. Are you ready to tell me your name yet?"

Fanner bit down on the inside of his cheek and stayed silent.

"Yeah, I figured. Well, let's not get worked up about it. There are bandages that need to be changed."

Right. Fanner could do that. He took off his cloak and then his shirt, and then carefully started unwrapping the bandage. His face squeezed in pain as he pulled it away from where it had become stuck to the wound with dried blood and it began bleeding anew.

Yore drew a breath in through his teeth. "That looks nasty."

It did. Not as bad as it had when it had first happened, but it was still a deep, open wound.

Yore held a rag dampened with water out to him. "Here."

"Thank you, sir," Fanner murmured, the words coming out of him involuntarily again. He dabbed blood away from the area surrounding the wound.

"That should really be stitched, but I didn't think to ask for a needle and thread," Yore said as he searched through the bag. "I didn't realise it was that bad."

Fanner shrugged. That was a rude way to respond, but probably less rude than not responding at all.

He had never been hurt this badly before, but it would probably be fine. If he could grow back a finger there was no reason his body couldn't recover from this. It would just take time. Fanner finished cleaning the area and wrapped the fresh bandage over the wound.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Yore asked.

Fanner kept his eyes down, didn't respond. He rolled the used bandage up into a tight little bundle.

"Yeah, figured." Yore rolled one of the bedrolls across the ground towards Fanner. "Well, I know animal bites, and that isn't one, so I'm guessing someone did that to you. But why? You're an expensive Companion, right?"

Not anymore. He'd been an expensive Companion, and then he'd been a healer, and now he was just a runaway. He'd been a failure at all of those things.

As a Companion he'd had near perfect looks, but he'd never been able to focus well enough to keep his behaviour in check. As a healer... well, he'd just killed someone, which was the opposite of what a healer ought to do. And now, as a runaway, he'd almost immediately been caught. He could only imagine what he would become, and subsequently fail at, next.

Yore stood up slowly and made a face as he stretched out his back. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties or so, but he moved like someone who was past middle age whose joints were starting to fail them. Maybe it was because he was extremely tall. Fanner had heard that tall people were more likely to experience back pain, and Yore was the tallest person Fanner had ever seen.

He was also the most interesting looking in general. He had striking amber eyes that were unlike anything Fanner had ever seen before and black, wavy hair that hung nearly to his chin. There was a smattering of small scars down both sides of his neck. Was that why his voice sounded so rough? Had he sustained some injury that had damaged his vocal cords?

"I'm going to get a fire going," Yore said. "There's food and drink in the bag if you want anything."

Fanner eyed the bag like it was a trap. It may as well have been. He was a slave, a Companion. How could he just decide for himself what he would take?

Yet, as a Companion, he had also been trained to follow instructions, even if they contradicted other aspects of his training. They were trained to be polite and docile and submissive, but if their masters wanted something else from them they weren't to turn them down.

But, of course, Yore was not his master. Fanner still didn't know what was going on, but that part he was quite sure of. Yore was not his master and had not been given charge of Fanner by his master. He was to be polite, yes, but not necessarily unwaveringly obedient.

"You seem not to be eating," Yore said as he dumped the pile of sticks he'd gathered onto the ground in front of Fanner. He pulled a bundle out of the bag and unwrapped it. "There's smoked venison here. You want some of this?"

Fanner nodded.

Yore picked a piece up and held it out towards Fanner. Fanner leant forward, his mouth opening.

"Okay," Yore said as Fanner took the meat with his teeth, his eyebrows rising. He passed Fanner the rest of the bundle of meat. "I think you can manage to feed yourself."

Fanner nodded, his eyes dropping. A miscalculation, definitely. This man was not his master. He was not supposed to be seducing him.

Of course, he also wasn't supposed to be killing people or cutting the chip out of his back or running away. Why was he still so worried about what he was supposed to be doing? All that mattered now was survival. Whether that meant endearing himself to this man, seducing him, or running away from him.

But for now it meant eating this venison, because he couldn't do much at all with his body in this condition. Certainly not run away, and he suspected he was more attractive without a huge, weeping gash in his side.

Fanner laid out his bedroll, snuggled down in it, and ate the smoked venison while Yore started a fire. He did his best to forget about the monsters who probably lived out here and the less literal monsters who would be after him. For this moment, he did his best to imagine he and Yore were just two friends travelling together and that everything was fine.